In this edition:

👉For FREE subscribers:

• The August Vibe

• Apply for Northern Seminary!

• Breaking Pastoral Rules

👉For my Supporters:

• Discerning your call for the long haul

• The importance of friends who are not like you

• Office Hours: Need a leadership, academic, or vocational conversation partner? I’m here for you.

First up, a little bit of sad news (for you) with some good news (for me):

I’m off to family vacation this week, and I’m really trying to pull back from all the hustle. Which means I gotta take a break from writing an entire post for August’s Pastoral Vibe-ology.

Instead, I’m just going to declare the vibe and give you some sermon titles to work with. I trust you to handle them with care and intention 😌

Fittingly, this month’s VIBE is vacation.

Here’s what you’re gonna do: preach restfulness (and take some time to rest yourself).

Sermon titles might include:

• The Sabbath Is One of the Ten: Why Do You Keep Breaking It? (Shout-preach this one like an old school Pentecostal) 🗣️

• Runaway Jesus, Runaway Pastor: Getting Away From Needy Congregants like the Lord (Mark 6:46).

• The Night Is Far Gone (Romans 13:12), Which Is Why I’m TIRED 🥱

• Sleeping You-tichus (Acts 20:7-12): Take a Nap Before You Die

I’ll let you take it from here ✌️

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ICYMI—I’m going LIVE on Friday August 14th

I’m joining to chat with about here upcoming book, In Defense of Evangelicalism: A Response to Its Cultured Despisers.

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Northern Seminary

Another ICYMI: I’m directing a one-year Certificate in Pentecostal Ministry at Northern Seminary. The first cohort starts in January, so apply now before all the spots are taken.

If you’re wanting to advance your biblical or theological education as a lay person, pastor, or church leader, this program is for you.

It’s one year. 5 classes. And meets educational requirements for licensure in the Assemblies of God.

Got questions? Ask me.

Breaking Pastoral Rules

I broke a pastoral rule in July: I presided over the wedding of a couple I barely knew. Only marrying couples I really and truly know has always been a hard and fast rule for me (as it is for most ministers of the gospel). Christians take marriage seriously. We pastors don’t preside over the weddings of strangers because marriage isn’t just about the two people making the promise. It’s about the entire church committing to support the couple in their until-death-do-them-part vows (which is no small challenge).

Not all wedding liturgies are the same, but I always ask the attendees at weddings to promise that they’ll do everything within their power to uphold the couple in their vows. It might strike some as being too demanding of the congregation. Promises are serious things. But that’s why I must do my due diligence not to set either the couple or the congregation up to fail.

So why did I break my rule? Because a dear friend and pillar of the Christian community in Iowa City asked me to help the bride, who is like a daughter to him. (The pastor they had originally asked to preside had to unexpectedly cancel). I’ve known this man for many years, and because of that, I know he takes marriage as seriously as any Christian should. From there, I verified that their church would support them after their vows. Then, I met them for a cup of coffee, and walked through the seriousness of what we were doing together. Even in the short time leading up to the wedding, I could spiritually discern that this was a fitting thing for me to do. And I was honored to do so.

Not all rules are there to be broken. But some are. And that’s in part why I’m grateful for the Pentecostal Christianity I grew up in, which taught me how to discern both in community and in my own heart when to bend standards to do the right thing.

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Going paid on Substack was a decision full of trepidation for me. As I’m sure most of you know, I’d lost my job at Evangel and I was in a troubling place both professionally and financially. Making the transition to soliciting income from subscribers felt like a real risk.

I was afraid of rejection—or wo…

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We’ve gotten the reputation of being a church that cares about kids. Over the years, we’ve had church family dinner every Wednesday that’s open to the community. Kids come for a few months at a time, disappear for a few months more, and then will often reappear as their parents navigate U of Iowa-caused high rental prices, slum lords who know how to bend the law to their will, and personal failures to plan for next month’s rent. The kids know there’s always food, fun, and neighborly love waiting for them when they enter the doors.

This reputation seems to have brought a heartbreaking situation to our doorstep.

One day I found an open jar of peanut butter, grape jelly, and a sticky butter knife on a shelf in our kids ministry closet. The walk-in closet is where we keep the puppets, costumes, and decades of random craft supplies. It’s also where the circuit breaker is. The carpet is stained from decades of use. There are no windows, and it smells like 1982.

I was more than a little irritated to find the mess. Other small church pastors will understand that volunteers are sometimes few and far between, and when messes are left, pastors frequently play the part of janitor. Assuming the PB&J had grown mold, I chucked it all in a trash can.

It was around this time that our basement door latch had also broken. It is an old metal door hidden at the bottom of an outdoor flight of stairs that goes below street level. I kept asking various people in the church to help me fix it because we didn’t have money to hire a handy man. It was broken for weeks, but we weren’t worried about it because it looked like it was locked. Who would go down a dark flight of concrete stairs to check it anyway? And if they got in, what would they steal? Our sound system to this day has no re-sale value. The only thing worth stealing would be pantry items, and we give food liberally and without reproach to all who ask.

Around that time, one of our deacons approached Pastor Abby and said, “Ha! You really had me startled the other morning with the pile of clothes and the shoes in the closet. I thought there was someone laying there.”

Then we connected the dots: The peanut butter and jelly. The unlocked door. The pile of clothes and shoes.

We went into the kids ministry closet and observed right under the circuit breaker a bed made of carpet scraps from a recent renovation project, a small pair of ratty shoes, and food wrappers strewn about.

A child was sleeping in our church.

Pastor Abby, the deacon, and I had a hushed and whispered conversation. Who was the child? How could we help him or her? Why did they need to sleep here of all places? What should we do?

So we made a plan. First of all, we definitely weren’t going to fix the door. If someone needed a warm, safe place to sleep—especially a child—we weren’t going to stop them. We also decided to keep it a secret because it might have made people in the church uncomfortable—not to mention our insurance company. Pastor Abby, both since she had a reputation amongst the kids of the neighborhood for being a safe person, and because she is a woman, would check the building every night to try to introduce herself. She always knows what to do when kids are in crisis. It’s one of her spiritual gifts. Back in the day, she had also slept in the church when she was a homeless kid in Iowa City.

We checked night after night, but we never found the child. Pastor Abby spread word amongst the kids of the neighborhood that if anyone needed a place to sleep, to be sure to talk to her (but, of course, they already knew that). I still think about that little person every time I go into the closet. I take a moment to look at the circuit breaker with both gratitude and a broken heart.

Here is what I’ve learned:

The kingdom of God is like a broken door latch. God breaks the latch so that all who want to enter may do so. There’s free food inside.

The kingdom of God is like a pile of clothes. It startles us.

The kingdom of God is like a bed under a circuit breaker. It’s a safe place to sleep.

The kingdom of God is like peanut butter and jelly. It’s a kid’s favorite.

Let them come to Jesus.

And may the church not fix her broken doors.

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It snuck up on us, as grief so often does.

Tyler Fulcher over at My Bible School invited me to do a pod with him diving deeper into lament. We talk about what Pentecostalism has to offer, and where it falls short.

I also fire a few friendly shots at the tradition that formed me (and that I still love so, so much).

Give it a listen, give it a share 🤲

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Paid subscribers get the full sermon below. Before you read (or sign up), I want to highlight just a few things that will help both the pastor in their preaching discipline, and the congregant understand the levels preachers are often working with to communicate to different levels of Christian maturity.

First, notice that I ask a hermeneutical question without using that particular word. “Hermeneutics” is the philosophical discipline of interpreting texts, focusing on what meaning one can expect to get from any particular text. With reference to the Bible, it’s always about asking, “what does this text mean?” Which, as I’m sure we’re all aware on some primordial level, is quite the difficult question to answer.

In this sermon, I ask a question that touches on a hermeneutical school called reader-response theory—the idea that we make meaning with the text by bringing our own experiences to it. You’ll notice how I negotiate that question when you see the word “elephant” 😋.

Second, I also intentionally preach four separate passages in one sermon. Genesis uses the Revised Common Lectionary, which has four passages that are connected thematically and theologically every Sunday. It’s a great resource.

Notice how I filter each passage through the main one, the Parable of the Sower. It’s not only a lesson in seeing how the Bible fits together, but also how to read the Old Testament and New Testament as a single Scripture (which is also no easy task!).

Finally, I want you to notice how I bring the whole sermon back to the Rule of Faith, which is the core doctrines of the church through which everything else gets interpreted (notice this is a hermeneutical matter again!). I bring the Parable of the Sower back to death and resurrection in Jesus Christ before connecting it up with the Lord’s Supper.

It’s (again!) no easy task to bring every sermon back to those things, but that is the precious discipline preachers are called to.

Give it a read, give it a share :)

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Last month’s vibe was HUSTLE, and it occasioned the announcement of my new side hustle: the Certificate of Pentecostal Ministry at Northern Seminary.

👉THAT’S RIGHT: a Baptist institution is teaming up with me, a born and bred Pentecostal. Who would’ve seen that coming (except probably God)? This remarkable turn of ecumenical events has caused July’s vibe to manifest itself—

it’s PENTECOSTAL.

This month, being Pentecostal isn’t just for free church, happy-clappy, tongues-speaking enthusiasts. It’s for all of God’s one, holy, catholic, apostolic, annnnnd PENTECOSTAL church.

This month you’re a 🔥 Southern Bapticostal,

You’re part of the 🔥 Presbycostal Church of America,

And you’re a 🔥 Roman Catholicostal:

Pentecostal Vibe Preaching

I know you might be tempted not to prep any sermons this month and just rely on the Spirit to inspire you as you enter the pulpit. You can give that shot, or you can have as much faith about the Spirit speaking to you before you even show up at church (that’s called Spirit-led preparation 🫡).

Either way, here’s a few sermon ideas to get the Spirit moving:

1. 🐍 Politics and the church 🐍: Rethinking which snakes we’re actually handling.

2. 🫰 SLAY GURRRRL SLAY 🫰: Slain in the Spirit // Slaying at life!

3. 🎁 Christmas in July 🎁: The spiritual gifts are the true meaning of summer

4. 👨‍🚒 WILDFIRE SEASON🧯: Setting your heart and your home on fire with the love of the Holy Spirit.

   If this post has made you chuckle 🤭, restack the joy or share it with a friend

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A Pentecostal 250 Celebration

Pentecostals love finding meaning in the absurdly small details of the Bible and life. Like numbers. It comes with the territory of loving the book of Revelation (because we all know Jesus is coming back soon).

This month, we’re leaning into the symbolic meaning of America’s 250, and we’re making it 🔥 PENTECOSTAL 🔥.

Here’s how the number works: the “pente-” in “pentecost” is for fifty, because the Holy Spirit came 50 days after Jesus’s resurrection.

250 divided by 50 is 5.

And 5 should remind us of the five-fold gospel=Jesus is savior, sanctifier, baptizer in the Holy Spirit, healer, and soon coming king.

Here’s how we’re gonna celebrate:

1. Hold a Jericho march around your favorite evil institution (Jesus is savior)

2. Preach a wholesome message through a bullhorn to confused passers-by (Jesus is sanctifier)

3. Smear every door of said institution with anointing oil—extra virgin ☝️, for obvious reasons (Jesus is baptizer in the Holy Spirit)

4. Lay hands on the institution to cast out the demons (Jesus is healer)

5. Last, but definitely not least, have 250 shofar blowers to announce Jesus’s ultimate victory. Be sure to use real rams horns. Those plastic knock-offs called “vuvuzelas” don’t work spiritually (Jesus is soon coming king)

Now, a word from our sponsor:

This month’s sponsor is The Nation-State of Israel

Who have offered kitsch Pentecostal vibes since Oral Roberts and Pat Robertson got TV shows

Israel doesn’t care about

-dispensationalism

-supercessionism

-your interpretation of Romans 11

-or that you call Jesus “Yeshua”

But they do appreciate your tourist dollars

and your political affections

#keepthemcoming

Finally…It’s Story Time

A while back, I got to meet Molly Worthen, author of the excellent book Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump.

When she found out I was Pentecostal she blurted out:

And THAT’S the question I have for YOU, my fellow Viber:

What is the craziest thing you’ve seen or heard about in Pentecostal circles that gives you a little chuckle? Share it in the comments or in a DM to me (with respect ☝️) so we can laugh and marvel at this joyful, one-of-a-kind, wonderful, and crazy movement called PENTECOSTALISM.

🔥 I’ll start:

The comments and DMs are open ⬇️

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In this edition:

For FREE subscribers:

• Let me be your doctor! 👨‍⚕️

• Northern Seminary Announcement

• Sneak peak for TCK EXPOSÉ 👀

For PAID subscribers

• The Challenge of Immigrant Churches

• How to talk about American citizenship after 250 years

• Office hours

First: three quick things for the FREE subscribers:

1. Let me be your doctor:

In June, I had TWELVE one-on-ones with pastors, missionaries, aspiring theology students, and budding scholars. That’s almost three per week.

Does the number twelve mean I’m walking in Jesus’s footsteps 😏? Maybe a little bit.

I gave life advice, resourced both academically and professionally, made network connections, and—above all else—got some new friends.

👉 I can help you with next steps professionally, educationally, ecclesiastically, and personally.

PAID subscribers get office hours, and that’s where I can help you. So become a paid subscriber 😇

For those who already are, the LINK for scheduling a time to talk is below paywall 🤓

2. Northern Seminary Announcement

I’ve officially entered into a partnership with Northern Seminary to oversee and teach a brand-new Certificate in Pentecostal Ministry.

More details are coming, but here’s what you need to know right now:

• It’ll be a one year program, and will give students advanced standing toward a master’s degree.

• It'll meet educational requirements for credentialing in the Assemblies of God.

• It’s gonna be hecka affordable 💸

STAY TUNED

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3. New Podcast dropping later this Summer on Slow Burn Christianity

Ever wonder what it’s like to grow up as a white missionary kid under a dictatorship in the global south and get guns pointed at you all the time only to see miracle after miracle? Boy, do I have something for you.

👉I’ve teamed up with for a limited-series podcast called TCK EXPOSÉ.

“TCK” stands for “Third Culture Kid,” which is another way of saying “missionary kid.”

Click the picture to subscribe, or go to slowburn.josephmlear.com

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It’s an ancient story, but one that bears striking resemblance to many families in the United States, both inside and outside the church, and one that touches the lives of almost all of my congregants.

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I recently preached on the story, and it hit me that preaching this passage puts into profound relief the pastoral task of preaching, and how one must wield all the theological tools at one’s disposal to unpack a story of hate and betrayal, promise and resurrection.

Watch the video below for more of about the pastoral and theological approach I take in the passage, but let me list them here in brief. Then you can read the sermon below 🤓

• At the bird’s eye view, there’s the challenge of interpreting an OT passage. The OT can be a doozy, but this one’s all the more packed with significance since Paul allegorizes it to be about the new covenant in Christ (Gal 4).

• As I preach—and as you’ll see below—I’m always trying to remind people (or introduce them to) the bigger story of the OT. The story of Hagar is jam-packed with foreshadowing and callbacks.

• I’m also always trying to put congregants in the shoes of the characters. How many men haven’t found themselves thinking with their crotch instead of their faith in God? How many women haven’t experienced jealousy of another woman? Probably not many.

• Finally, and most significant pastorally, is what I said at the beginning of this post. Hagar’s story, if nothing else, shows that broken families aren’t kicked out of God’s promises. And all God’s promises are “yes and amen” in Jesus Christ, the one whose body was broken precisely to fulfill the promise of God.

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Sermon: God Works All Things

Today I want to talk about how God works all things together for the good of those who love him. That’s in the Bible. It’s what Paul says when he’s reminding the early church about the love of God.

He says neither height nor depth, angels nor demons, nor anything in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Here me out:

You all know what I’m about to say, but it’s helpful for you to hear what you already know: people will do things to you in life that are evil. Things will happen to you in life that are evil. You will be wronged by others. You will get screwed over by circumstances.

The Holy Spirit wants to remind you today that none of the things that happen to you; none of the things that are out of your control can separate you from the love of God.

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Let me also remind you that you will make mistakes. You will do evil things. You will make decisions that you will regret. You will get yourself into really bad places in life and you will only have yourself to blame.

The Holy Spirit wants to remind you today that none of the things that you do; none of your own evil; none of the bad things that you do to yourself—all of those things that were in your control to prevent—none of those things can separate you from the love of God.

God will always love you, and he will use the bad things that happened to you and the bad things that you did to yourself to work something good for you.

Because he loves you. And he only wants you to love him back.

To show you how God works all things together for the good of those who love him, I want to take you to a story about a woman named Hagar in the OT. This is the continuing story of God calling Abraham to go, and that, if he did, God would make a great nation out of him.

Almost as soon as Abraham got the promise that God would give him and Sarah a son through whom he would make a great nation, they screw it up. This story is about how they’re already screwing up God’s promise. And yet God works it all out because he loves them.

Read Genesis 21:1-21

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That’s where my parents became missionaries in the early 90s. And it’s where I grew up running the streets, slingshotting lizards, and playing soccer until I dropped from dehydration.

This conversation with my father only scratches the surface, but gives a good intro to the lives we lived. That, and there’s a lot about what it means to be a missionary, what the gospel is all about, and why my parents did what they did.

Give it a listen. Give it a like.

Subscribe and SHARE, please 😁.

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Couldn’t you?

We haven’t changed the world, but we were sure passive-aggressive against the VICE of this present darkness.

🎊 Let’s celebrate (but not be loud about it because that wouldn’t be humble—and we’ve gotta keep MAXXING the virtue).

👉I’ve gotten a number of new subscribers in the last month, so if you’re new to Pastoral Vibe-ology, this is a seriously unserious sub-Substack, and I, Joseph Lear, am serious about being unserious about PASTORAL VIBES.

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For those of you who aren’t pastors: (as Jesus says) do not let your hearts be troubled! Vibes are still for you because I’m a Pentecostal and I believe in the pastor-hood of all believers.

I’m glad you’re here 🥹

June’s Vibe 💃

As many of you know, I lost my job at Evangel. Don’t be sad for me, though, because I’ve entered my HUSTLE era.

Which is why this month’s vibe is HUSTLE 💪

We’re gonna GRIND THE GEARS of HUSTLE to forge a new chapter. Just don’t be (semi-)Pelagian about it. Salvation is by grace alone 😤

HUSTLE YOUR SERMONS

No, I don’t mean finding an online pastor who says you’re free to plagiarize his sermon series as your own.

I mean: you’re actually going to read the Bible, meditate on it, and ask Jesus to speak to you by his Spirit.

🫵 now THAT’S hustle 🫵

Nevertheless, to get you started, I’m going to provide you with some sermon title options. You can use them, but give me a footnote in your preaching manuscript so that at least you know you’re not stealing 🫆

Or, you know, just share the vibe:

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This month we’re going character-driven in our preaching, focussing on the HUSTLERS of the Bible:

1. Noah, who built a boat. Pretty big achievement. Allegorize the boat as the ship of salvation and hustle to get your fam (blood or otherwise) onboard.

2. Samson, who HUSTLED a lot of girlfriends. Weird take, I know. But allegorize the girlfriends as virtues, and connect it with last month’s vibe.

3. Paul, who made tents. Pretty lame job, but not nothin’. (Do you think he put a Bible verse on the care labels of his tents?) Anyway, allegorize tent-making as church-making to say everyone should be building up the church ⛪️

4. Finally (and obviously), Jesus, who convinced a bunch of people that he deserved their benevolence even though he clearly didn’t give a rat’s behind about the protestant work ethic. He was a leach, but give him cred for the HUSTLE.

   📢 And now a special word from our sponsor:

Hustling the Hustle by sharing Hustle Advice

Listen, I’m no expert. I’m figuring this whole thing out as I go. But, in an effort to show you that I have some insights into hustling (so that you'll support my hustle by subscribing), I’m going to give you my best hustling advice:

1. Marry a nurse👩‍⚕️. Nurses have job security like no other job except pastors. The difference is that nurses are always paid for their secure jobs (unlike pastors 😬).

2. 💰 Spend a lot of money you don’t have on a humanities PhD. It makes you love things other than money so you can be okay with your lot in life.

3. Be a person of integrity 😇. It will mean you lose your marketplace job for refusing to compromise your standards for the Almighty Dollar. But that is precisely how you become a HUSTLER.

4. Just die (in Christ) 😵. Don’t unalive yourself ☝️ because I love you and Jesus loves you even more. But if death comes knocking, attaining the resurrection of the dead by any means possible (cf. Philippians 3) is the ULTIMATE HUSTLE.

   

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Finally…The Poetics of HUSTLE

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This is my first-ever paid post!

👉 In May 2026: My concern for church planters’ unbridled enthusiasm, the administration of Pentecost, and bringing it all back to baptism (again!).

Church Planting Pep Rallies

Church plants are extremely difficult. That’s what I tell every person who asks me about discerning the possibility (which seems to be happening with greater and greater frequency). They take a long time, a lot of resources, and require incredible fortitude for the inevitable season(s) of what Eugene Peterson called “the doldrums”—times when there’s no wind in the sails of ministry, and no sign of the wind returning any time soon.

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The attention that posts like this one got are in part what convinces me that my subscribers find what I do on this platform valuable and worthy of their resources.

But before you read the original post…

Here’s a reminder of what you’ll get with a $ paid subscription $:

• All Paid Posts:

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• Monthly “Office Hours” Thread where subscribers can ask me anything:

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  • Think of it like the opportunity to have a brief conversation after church after you’ve already heard me preach 😁

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(I’m keeping the numbers biblical 😉).

Tradition and the Spirit, or Let’s Go Looting

Five or so years ago a retired reformed pastor knocked on the door of Resurrection Assembly. He told me he felt the Spirit had directed him to stop. He’d been praying for the church as often as he drove past it, and finally felt like it was time to confess. We set up a time to meet for coffee, and we’ve kept drinking coffee regularly ever since.

Stan has been an absolute gift. He’s never once lorded it over me that he has decades of pastoral experience and spiritual disciplines on me. Quite the opposite—he routinely insists that I pray for him at the end of our coffee dates. He might not know it but I’ve always paid attention to everything he’s said and done, because I’ve seen—and so anticipate—that there’s layers of wisdom in his most casual utterances.

One of the layers that I’ve picked up on is that Stan himself didn’t make it all up as he went along through his life and pastorate. The well I sneak sips of water from when I hang out with him is a well that runs deeper than him and has existed long before he was born.

I contrast this with my experience of the elder pastors in my own movement whose wells aren’t—and can’t be—quite as deep. I’m not criticizing them. The reality is that the Assemblies of God is a young, conversionist movement. With it being only about 125 years old, few pastors are second or third-generation church leaders. Most retirement-age pastors I’ve met didn’t grow up in the movement. If they grew up in church at all, they had a distaste for it until the Spirit led them to knock on the door of an Assemblies of God congregation.

That has led to a movement of pastors and church leaders who’ve had to make it up as they went along. Again, if they grew up in a church, it was a liberal protestant or Catholic tradition that had failed them. So drawing on the wells of those traditions would at best feel like raiding Egypt as the Israelites did before embarking on the exodus. Turning around to look would be tantamount to looking back on Sodom and so to become a pillar of salt. It’s a dramatic way of putting it, but it’s how many actually feel.

The Assemblies of God is a renewal movement and part of the on-going Pentecostal takeover of world Christianity. This has all sorts of benefits to it. But we also need to admit its limitations. We simply don’t have the generations-long roots of spiritual maturity.

My earliest memories of spiritual discipline—prayer, Bible reading, and cultivating the fruit of the Spirit accordingly—are from when I was 7 years old. I’d sit on the screened-in porch in Dédougou, Burkina Faso, with my mother at 6am, just when the sun had come up. She’d have our dog, Annie, on her lap, and eyeballing us from the corner was my pet chameleon (brilliantly named “Chamellia”). We’d sit in the silence of the morning with our Bibles open and pray together. (It was only as silent as it could be with the roosters crowing and the infant goats braying for their morning milk in the distance). I could hear my father praying in tongues in his office, which was just a converted concrete storage closet with a metal door, a few feet away.

I’m 39 years old now. That means that for 32 years I’ve had daily spiritual discipline. I began ministering in the church when I was about the same age—going to pagan villages for outreaches with my father, and aiding my mother’s kids and youth ministry by being her personal puppeteer and clown. There simply has not been a single season in my life where I haven’t been involved in some ministry in the local church. There are innumerable pastors who are twice my age in the Assemblies of God that don’t have that many years of daily spiritual maturation and ministerial experience.

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Again, I’m not criticizing pastors who are twice my age with less time on the spiritual clock. Nor is time everything. But it is something. The simple reality is that it’s been difficult to find elders in my own movement who have a spiritual authority I can submit to. Yet, submission to an elder Christian faith and walk is precisely what I’ve craved.

That lack of spiritual authority on an individual level is reflected corporately. The Assemblies of God finds its roots in the 1906 Azusa Street Revival. Virtually every historian agrees that it was an astounding, marvelous, church-changing, and world-changing event. But I’m also not the first to say that my movement has regrettably functioned as if church history began with Azusa Street even if we’ve formally said otherwise. There’s a deep well of church life, spirituality, and wisdom that Pentecostals are invited to drink from. We’re robbing ourselves and shortchanging the next generation when we don’t.

Those who know me know that I am not reticent to criticize Christian traditions that have gone lifeless with age. There’s generations of wisdom in the historic church, but those churches have often long lost the baptism of fire that fell on the day of Pentecost. Yet it’s also worth saying the inverse: you can’t keep a fire going with green wood.

The good news is that none of us—Pentecostal or otherwise—need to choose between the depths of Christian maturity that stretch back millennia and the Holy Spirit. We can have both.

I want both. Don’t you?

If you’re compelled that tradition can be baptized in the Spirit, consider sharing

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As I’ve reckoned with my contract non-renewal at Evangel, I’ve been doing my best to open my ears to hear and my eyes to see what the Spirit of God is doing.

One thing is very clear: I’m staying in Iowa City for the foreseeable future, and I feel at peace about that.

My wife has a dream job at the University of Iowa teaching the next gen of nurses, and I’m still zealous for the ministry of where I’ve been pastoring for the last decade. I’ll continue preaching and ministering there part time as long as we’re in Iowa City.

Staying local means my options are limited in terms of finding full-time employment.

It’s time for me to enter my hustle era 😎.

Beyond part-time ministry at Resurrection, I have some exciting, targeted gigs coming down the pipeline. Nothing is set in stone yet, so I still have to wait to announce anything. But stay tuned.

I’m Going Paid on Substack

With all of this in view, I've decided begin paid subscriptions on this Substack platform that I’ve come to enjoy so, so much.

I’ve had more success with subscribers and interest in what I’m doing, researching, and thinking about than I ever anticipated.

I feel the love 🥰, and moving to paid subscriptions will allow me to take the relationship deeper.

Slow Burn Christianity will remain a free publication, and there will continue to be regular, public posts on Pastoral Theology. The relational, visionary pieces will be for my supporters.

Here’s what you’ll get with a paid subscription to Pastoral Theology with Joseph Lear

• All Paid Posts:

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(I’m keeping the numbers biblical 😉).

I’m a pastor, theologian, and professor bringing theology into the local church and the local church into theology because they belong together.

In today’s episode I host Matthew Erickson, author of The Pastor as Gardener. Matt is pastor at Eastbrook Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

His book is all about how the pastoral life needs to be reframed as gardening. Pastors should believe that we plant, we water, we hope, but God causes the growth. Matt provides a vision not only for the pastor, but also the church. He touches on theology, culture, philosophy, and above all else, the biblical basis for his vision.

Give it a listen, give it a share.

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👉 Here is the FULL review I wrote a couple weeks ago 👇

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And here's the discount code:

🚨 Exclusive to Pastoral Theology with Joseph Lear: Readers get a limited time 40% discount on Erickson’s book at the Eerdman’s website. Discount code is valid through May 31, 2026.

Discount code is GARDENER40

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My book, Resurrection Worship: A Pentecostal Liturgy for Slow Burn Revival continues to make a splash, and is selling better than expected.

If you’re still curious about it, check out the line-up of endorsements it has here.

Last week, I crossposted Chris EW Green’s response to my work from the Society for Pentecostal Studies.

This week, we’re hearing from my dear friend, Pastor Samuel Scalf. He’s writing on Substack himself, so be sure to follow and subscribe.

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My name is Samuel Scalf.

First, a little about me: I have been in pastoral ministry as an Assemblies of God pastor for over twenty years, live in Longmont, Colorado, and have been married for twenty-five years. Melodie and I have four wonderful daughters. I graduate May this month with an MA from Luther Seminary.

I had the opportunity to participate in a book panel for Dr. Joseph Lear’s recent book, Resurrecting Worship, at the Society of Pentecostal Studies Conference in Waco, Texas, in March of this year.

Here is the response I presented:

Like many Pentecostals raised in the 90s, I have a deep and visceral reaction to the r-word… Revival.

Revival was always just around the corner, but never quite here. We worked hard to manufacture what looked like a move of God through endless altar calls, conferences, and emotional crescendos in our services. I was there as a genuine seeker, serving on prayer teams at Awake America events and responding to every invitation that came my way. But I was also pushed down by overzealous evangelists and told, as someone more intellectual by temperament, that I simply needed to “get the joy of the Lord.”

So I came to Joseph Lear’s Resurrecting Worship carrying all of that baggage, and I want to say at the outset that his is a vision of revival I can finally embrace.

I fully agree with Dr. Lear that what our churches need is more than a marketing strategy. More than mailers. More than Facebook ads. More than whatever the latest church growth consultant sells this year. As Lear puts it, renewal “is not going to come with marketing campaigns and managerial ingenuity. It’s going to come when small congregations get back to the basics of worshipping in Spirit and truth.”^[1] These methods may fill seats for a moment, but they cannot resurrect worship or form disciples.

Lear tells the story of Resurrection Assembly, a small, multicultural, lower-income Assemblies of God congregation that was nearly dead. No pragmatic techniques saved it. Instead, renewal came as the church reshaped its worship around Word, Table, prayer, creed, and the expectation of the Spirit’s work, what Lear calls “slow burn revival.” As Lear describes it in the final chapter, this is revival that “burns like the charcoal Jesus used to cook bread and fish for his disciples”‚ not the consuming fire of Elijah’s altar, but the kind that “stays lit over the long haul.”^[2]

This is not revival as spectacle or strategy. It is God’s steady, long-term work, unfolding as the church gathers faithfully week by week. This picture is directly connected to my story.

After years of laboring to develop sermon series and create plans for spiritual formation as a lead pastor trying to create a spiritually vibrant church community, I needed a new way forward. In 2019, a handful of my pastor friends and I began preaching through the lectionary together. We met weekly on Zoom to wrestle with the texts and kept a group chat going to share insights and questions. The rhythm of the church calendar, along with the steady cadence of the assigned Scripture readings, proved unexpectedly powerful and generative.

Somewhere along the way, our church began to celebrate Communion weekly. Coming from a Pentecostal background, I shared the reservations Lear describes. One of his own leaders voiced it plainly: the Lord’s Supper might “actually become less special if we celebrated it all the time.”^[3] Would this become rote? Would it dampen the Spirit? However, as we continued to share the table each Sunday, it became the gravitational center of our gathering. Weekly Eucharist became a way to re-member, to be put back together into the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. It did more for our spiritual lives than the most passionate altar call ever could.

I also deeply appreciate Lear’s emphasis on reading substantial portions of Scripture aloud in worship. His practice is deliberate: “We started reading it out loud, sometimes in large portions, as an act of worship,” ^[4] with a minimum of three passages read publicly every Sunday, grounded in the New Testament’s charge to “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Tim 4:13).^[5] I have preached through entire biblical books so that over the course of a series, our people hear whole books of Scripture read publicly. However, engaging the lectionary provides more than exposing congregations to large portions of scripture. One of the great gifts of the lectionary is that it keeps us from simply returning to our favorite hobbyhorses and instead draws us into the breadth of God’s word.

For that reason, I am convinced that pastors need to reflect deeply on the liturgy of their churches, whether they use that term or not, and intentionally craft what Lear calls “formational worship‚ the kind of worship that forms Christian disciples over the long haul”^[6]‚ rather than merely funneling people toward the offering box and altar call.

Lear’s book does not merely inspire. It also exposes several gaps that our movement still needs to address.

First, there is what I will call the Trinitarian gap: Lear himself models what he envisions: “From the very first moments of our gathering to the very last, we confess and worship God as Trinity.”^[7] However, the book largely assumes that readers already share this conviction. My experience is that many Pentecostals are woefully uninformed and uninterested in Trinitarian theology. It often feels impractical, as it offers no immediate payoff. However, when I began coursework at Luther Seminary, I came to realize just how foundational a Trinitarian worldview is for worship, prayer, mission, and pastoral life. We need much more intentional teaching on the Trinity in Pentecostal circles to address this issue.

Second, I think this book points toward the need for a Trinitarian pastoral care plan and, frankly, a Pentecostal catechism shaped by a slow-burn revival. Lear himself hints at this: “This book could be rewritten as a catechism‚ a paradigm of discipleship for new Christians.”^[8] He sees the need. However, he leaves the catechism unwritten. Perhaps this work will spark a follow up. “Resurrecting Formation: A Pentecostal Catechism for a Slow Burn Revival” has a nice ring to it. I could see a series that would help Pentecostals address the need for more intentional Trinitarian formation. If our liturgies become more sacramental but our counseling, visitation, and formation do not follow suit, we will still be running on half an engine.

Third, I see the lectionary as a natural ally of Lear’s vision. Lear mentions it only in passing; ‘he notes that Resurrection Assembly “at times” sources passages from a lectionary following the liturgical calendar, ’ but treats it as an option rather than a framework. The lectionary’s global rhythm of Scripture seems to me to be a perfect complement to everything else he argues for. It roots a local Pentecostal congregation in the wider church and reminds us that slow-burn revival is not merely about my church’s moment. It is participation in God’s long story with people across time and space.

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As someone who has both chased revival and been bruised in the chase, I am grateful for Resurrecting Worship. It offers a quieter, slower, more sacramental, more Trinitarian, and frankly more sustainable vision of renewal.

My hope is that this book will shape not only our Sunday worship, but also our teaching, pastoral care, and catechesis, perhaps even our use of the lectionary, for the slow-burn revival our congregations so desperately need.

^[1] Joseph Lear, Resurrecting Worship: A Pentecostal Liturgy for Slow Burn Revival (Cascade Books, 2025), 2.

^[2] Lear, Resurrecting Worship, 72.

^[3] Lear, Resurrecting Worship, 32.

^[4] Lear, Resurrecting Worship, 51.

^[5] Lear, Resurrecting Worship, 51.

^[6] Lear, Resurrecting Worship, 5.

^[7] Lear, Resurrecting Worship, 13.

^[8] Lear, Resurrecting Worship, 75.

Welcome to the latest edition of Pastoral Vibe-ology, an imprint of Pastoral Theology with Joseph Lear.

In this seriously unserious sub-Substack, I’m your atmospheric Viber of vibes.

May’s Vibe

You’ve heard of dudes Looks-maxxing and the ladies Glam-maxxing. But we’re NOT giving into the narcissist-influencer vice-maxx culture. Which is why we’re

☦️ VITRUE-MAXXING ☦️

🤩 We’re Making Modesty in our attire and our finances Great Again (MAafGA)!

🤯 We’re counting others more important than ourselves in our social media postings (and if you’re feeling bold, in real life too).

💥 We’re selling all we have and giving to the needy in order to be poor in spirit (okay, not everything, just some things because Jesus couldn’t have been serious about that).

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Sermon Series

As always, I’m here to help formulate your next sermon series. I mean, who needs the lEciTionArY when you have the vibes?!

This month we’re MAXXING the three theological virtues: Faith, Hope, and Love

1. Faith-Maxxing: We’re not just praying for the sick 🤒, we’re praying for the healthy too!

   👉 Make sure to preach about how we’re all gonna die anyway (#resurrection).

2. Hope-Maxxing: Forsake the vice of wishing and gamble on God.

   👉 Be sure to mention that sports gambling is still worse than playing the stock market.

3. Love-Maxxing: Invite your enemies to church this month!

   👉 This is not an invitation to greet one another with a holy kiss ‘cause #churchtoo 😬

Men’s and Women’s Ministry 🤝 Swap

In order to truly virtue-MAXX, men are adopting feminine virtue, and women are adopting masculine virtue. Like Jesus.

Masculine Feminine-Maxxing

• Men are gonna dress more conservatively than any pastor has ever advised women to. Cover those knees and ankles, shoulders and elbows. #Proverbs31husband

• Men are gonna say sorry for things they don’t need to apologize for.

• Submit(!!!) to your wife and lady-boss. Like Barack to Deborah, ya know?

  Thanks for reading Pastoral Theology! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Feminine Masculine-Maxxing

• Women are gonna be wild at heart.

• Women are going to fight a lion in a pit on a snowy day.

• Women are only reading from the Men’s Devotional Bible (the one with the army camo and the cross made out of weapons of mass destruction).

And now, a 📣 shout out 📣to this month’s very supportive sponsor.

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To keep the VIBE, let’s remember some important talking points about the competition

🙂‍↔️ Utilitarianism is for capitalists, dictators, and red coats.

🤓 The categorical imperative is for antitheistic chumps.

🤲 Epicureanism and Stoicism are BOR-ING

🫵 Divine Command Theory is for the fatalists and predestinarians.

I know these are fighting words. But that’s the whole point of virtue-MAXXING.

Oh, and if you don’t know what any of this means, DO NOT use AI to look it up. Be virtuous and read a book.

Finally, behold virtue-MINNING.

Do you think it’s chocolate inside? Because some people are about to eat it 🥴

DON’T FORGET TO SHARE AND SUBSCRIBE PLEEEEEAAAAASE

We’ve gotta keep the vibe MAXXED together 🤝

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👉 In April: LOUD conferences, an inspiring book, and some GOOD news on the personal front.

Iowa Ministry NETWORK COUNCIL

Every year, Assemblies of God pastors in Iowa gather for two days in Des Moines for worship, prayer, voting on leadership and policies, and—most importantly—to ordain the next generation of pastors.

It’s a loud event.

There’s a lot of lights, booming worship music, enthusiastic preaching, and sporadic hoops, hollers, and cheers for those getting their ministerial credentials.

I’m not into the loudness. Like, I’m not being critical of it. I could just do without it and I think the event would be equally glorious.

I say this because the best part for me is the relationships that I’ve formed over the last decade here in Iowa. At the event, I found myself routinely skipping the songs (and sometimes more) to hang out in the lobby of the church to catch up with friends old and new.

Again: I don’t want to poo-poo anything else happening at the event (especially not the laying on of hands), but I’ve come to realize that the lobby time of Network Council is probably the most important part of the event. It’s the place where we pastors build each other up and hear one another tell of the goodness of God over the last year. We share secrets of God’s kingdom work that will never be told from the stage of the megachurch we’re meeting in—nor should they be.

It’s also the place where we talk about everything we perceive to be going in the wrong direction in the Assemblies of God. Don’t tell anyone, but that’s really important too. I promise it’s not complaining. It’s patriotism.

(I hope I don’t get in trouble for saying it’s okay to play hooky from service 😬)

Book Update (the first of the HAPPY news)

I sent my next book to the editors, and I already have it back with some minor adjustments. I’ve morphed the working title a bit to Tongue on Fire: Recovering the Spirit and Power of Pentecostal Proclamation.

Two things:

1. I really think Pentecostal preaching is not what it used to be. And that’s why I felt like I needed to write this book.

2. The book isn’t about preaching as such, but more broadly about the task of proclamation. Which means this book isn’t just for pastors, it’s for everyone who cares about witnessing to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

My editor told me he was entirely inspired and teared up reading the manuscript. That’s about the highest compliment a writer can receive, so I’m all the more excited to get it to the printing press.

The publisher says they’re going to get it translated into SPANISH for simultaneous release in both languages 🤓.

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Finally, more HAPPY NEWS

As many of you know from the last edition of this sub-Substack, I unexpectedly lost my job at Evangel, and they let me know so late in the academic year that deadlines for job applications in academia had already passed.

I’m still applying for jobs that I’m qualified for, but I’m increasingly feeling like God is calling me to a season of hustling. As it stands right now, it looks like I have FOUR part-time gigs lined up for the rest of the year. Some of those things are not set in stone yet, but I’m super excited about the prospects because they’re all about using my particular skill set of pastor and theologian together. That’s what I want my life to be about (which is why that’s what this Substack is about).

I’ll keep you posted on the deets.

For now, the HAPPY NEWS is that I’ve been entirely humbled by the outpouring of kind words, expressions of solidarity, and belief in my calling that I’ve received from so many directions in the last month.

Since announcing that I lost my job, I’ve really felt the meaning and reality of the body of Christ.

I cannot express my gratitude.

Don’t Forget to subscribe to me Slow Burn Christianity if you haven’t already:

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That’s not a hostile question from a skeptic on the outside. That’s the argument my friend, Tyler Bream, makes from inside the tradition — carefully, historically, and, dare I say, convincingly. He wrote about this at Regent University tracing how evangelical hermeneutics developed, and his conclusion is a little uncomfortable: that in borrowing the tools of the Enlightenment to defeat the Enlightenment, evangelicals accidentally absorbed its assumptions too. And those assumptions have been quietly distorting the way we interpret Scripture ever since.

It’s a historical argument, but it’s not just an academic one. Because if he’s right, it has real implications for how the church reads Scripture today — and what a healthier path forward might actually look like.

I think you’re really going to enjoy this one.

Note: please forgive the bad video quality. Substack studio gave no indication there were network issues, so I’m not sure what happened.

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These biblical passages, and so many more, are what lay the foundation for the renewed vision for ministry that Matthew Erickson offers in his new, compelling, and wonderful book entitled The Pastor as Gardener: A Renewed Vision for Ministry.

Pastors, ministry leaders, and congregants of goodwill across the denominational spectrum need to read this book. Leaders will be encouraged, and congregants will discover a biblical, realistic, and hope-driven vision for what they should expect of their pastors (and themselves).

👉 Eerdmans has generously offered a limited-time 40% discount code that you will find at the bottom of this Substack review.

Why Pastor as Gardener?

There are existential reasons Erickson believes gardening is the needed metaphor for pastoral ministry in our cultural moment. Living in a post-Covid world, where religious observance and church attendance is in decline, with troubling numbers of a pastoral mental health crisis (including rising suicide numbers), touches on the depths of the challenge.

Erickson also rightly highlights that the Evangelical church has, up until this point, been captive to the church growth movement—a mile-wide and inch-deep approach to ministry, aiming to get as many bodies in as many seats as possible as quickly as possible. The existence of a handful of highly “successful” megachurches seems to vindicate the model. The argument goes: every church is a potential megachurch if one can simultaneously harness market trends and the favor of God.

Unfortunately, there’s a trail of beat-up, lonely, and self-loathing pastors who’ve never seen these capitalist-style promises manifested and feel like they only have themselves to blame. Pastor as gardener is the necessary antidote to the toxic ideology of church growth models.

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Erickson admits that the biblical metaphor for ministry that generally first comes to mind is the image of shepherd. Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd and his followers sheep. Psalm 23 is an enduring favorite to memorize amongst the faithful. But Erickson asks (in so many words), “how many people in the West can really connect with the idea and meaning of a shepherd?” Few have the lived experience of tending sheep. There’s of course no reason to throw out the emphatically biblical image of ministry-as-shepherding, but Erickson wants to suggest that we lean into the equally-biblical image of gardening. Doing so is a step in the direction of listening to the whole witness of Scripture, and—we should add—it’s an image that even those who live in the concrete jungles of American metropolises with their parks, lawns, and flowerpots hanging from wrought iron railings can resonate with.

In addition to being biblical, gardening also provides a realistic and hopeful vision for ministry. Let me I highlight these three features with just enough to whet your appetite for more.

Gardening is Biblical

I’ve already noted the obvious and far-reaching biblical grounds for thinking of the pastor as gardener. But I’ll add my own bit about why it provides a much-needed answer to the pitfalls of the church growth model that has ravaged the Evangelical church in America. Those who recognize the toxicity of the more-is-always-better movement feel powerless to critique it because the response from the pastor-as-CEO is always, “well, don’t you want the church to grow?” No one would say “no.” Jesus himself spoke of crops yielding 30- 60- or 100-fold.

Gardening provides a way of affirming the desire for growth and abundant harvest while also acknowledging that other factors affect the possibility of growth. Climate, soil quality, birds of the air, and the salting practices of one’s pillaging enemies offer just a handful of possible factors.

Gardening is Realistic

The realism that Erickson offers follows from the gardening’s biblical basis. Erickson uses the real-life example of African agriculturalists finding ways of growing food even in the harsh climates of places like South Sudan. Equally, churches and pastors need to recognize the climate and environment that they find themselves in, discovering creative ways to use the raw material of circumstance to persist in planting and watering. Irrigation might be in order. Or aquaponics. Or a greenhouse. Sometimes seedlings need to be sprouted in a home basement with full spectrum lamps because of the harshness of a lingering winter.

Erickson uses philosopher Charles Taylor’s compelling account of secularism to talk about the West’s particular gardening climate. “Secularism,” he notes, is not merely the lack of belief, but a different way of believing. There’s too much to say about our secular environment in the West as Taylor describes it to detail it here (and some, like Lori Branch, are now speaking of post-secularism). But Erickson helpfully engages thinkers like Andrew Root and others to tease out the implications of the terroir and climate of secularism. You should read it for yourself.

Suffice it to say: the pastor as gardener is neither idealistic nor given to the despair of environmental fatalism. It’s a realistic approach to the actual experience of pastors serving on the front lines of the church, which makes it all the more compelling. It names reality, but doesn’t make the church victim to it.

Finally, Gardening is Hopeful

That’s how Erickson ends his magnificent book: hope. He points out that pastors, like gardeners, find that vocational fruitfulness often “remains beyond tangible perception.” Seeds sprout where the eye cannot see. And, after sprouting, the plant grows only when no one’s watching. I will add that, most importantly, the process is one of mystery. We don’t know how a mustard seed turns into a tree for birds to nest in, but it happens—and it’s God who makes it happen.

Again: one plants, another waters, but God causes the growth. The pastor as gardener is an image of hope because it puts the final responsibility on God. Or, put better, God is the master gardener, and we are his field workers, weed pullers, and fruit pickers. We don’t know how the End comes when we will once again stand beneath the tree of life, just like we don’t understand how the deceased body of our loved one will one day rise incorruptible. We don’t understand, but we hope. And if there’s anything the church needs in the West, it needs to experience afresh the theological virtue of hope.

Where Next?

I don’t have anything substantively critical to say of Erickson’s work. There are a few places where the reader’s attention will require some extra effort, like when Erickson introduces Taylor’s concept of secularism, but that extra effort is itself a fertilizer to the ideas Erickson is teasing out. It will surely bear fruit.

After engaging The Pastor as Gardener I began to wonder what other ways of speaking about the pastoral life and the life of the church might also connect biblically and realistically with our living hope. Might pastor as chef help us consider the work and hospitality of eucharistic observance? Eugene Peterson once remarked that the place he first learned his priestly craft was in his father’s butcher shop, which connects with matters of food, sacrifice, gratitude, hospitality, and the giving of the self to the world (which is always a bloody affair).

What about pastor as ship captain (like Paul)?

Pastor as nurse or doctor (like Luke)?

Pastor as contractor who builds with living stones (1 Peter 2:4-6)?

My point is: Erickson’s work has set my imagination down a path of rethinking all the ways we’ve come to speak so glibly about the pastoral life and the church’s ministry to the world. New images that inevitably turn out to be ancient images seem to be the only way forward. And that’s the inspiration Erickson’s book gives.

🫵 Go read it 🫵

Exclusive 40% Discount from Eerdmans

🚨 Exclusive to Pastoral Theology with Joseph Lear: Readers get a limited time 40% discount on Erickson’s book at the Eerdman’s website. Discount code is valid through May 31, 2026.

Discount code is GARDENER40. Go get your copy, and be sure to share this post so other can get a discounted copy too 🤲.

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In this jokey and unserious sub-Substack,

I’m your personal viber of VIBES.

The Vibe

Bad news everyone: The vibe is 🚫 OFF 🚫 this month.

I’m a little late on this post, and I’m now realizing that the reason I’ve been struggling to declare April’s vibe is because the vibe is, in fact, totally OFF.

Here are the top three reasons why the vibe is OFF:

1. I Didn’t Get the Herky Job

After unceremoniously losing my job at Evangel University, I was standing on the promise that those who wait on the Lord will rise up on

🪽WINGS LIKE HAWKEYES 🪽(from the Iowa Revised Version of the Bible).

I waited, but Herky’s wings weren’t for me. I will now take 40 days of fasting in a corn field 🌽 where the devil will no doubt tempt me to ride the wings of a State cyclone 🌪️ 🤮

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2. The President is joking (?) about being Jesus.

And it’s, like, really killing the vibe this Easter season.

Doesn’t that pic really just tick you OFF? And didn’t the LORD say that those who make themselves like God will be cut OFF from the people?

Well, that’s why the vibe is OFF.

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3. Jesus Hasn’t Come Back Yet

And that’s a real bummer. I know it’s only been like a couple of days since Easter (that is, a couple thousand years in God-days).

But I’m about to scream in a desert, kill a camel, and make some honey-grasshopper popsicles to hurry him up.

This song is on repeat:

We Gotta Bring the VIBE Back

Here’s how we do it:

• Baptize Herky and all college football mascots. Make them all Christian. That’ll teach ‘em.

• Start a No Jesus But Jesus protest in every major city in America. Young men only. In togas. Who flee the rally naked.

• Make Flannelgraphs Great Again as an ecclesial rejection of the AI pig slop of prodigals.

• Pray “Your kingdom come,” like, a lot.

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Finally, here’s some sermon ideas despite the vibe being OFF

• Jesus is Lord

• No one else is Lord

• You’re not Lord

• I’m not Lord

• Only the Lord is Lord

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