Record Live Podcast

 Hi there everyone. I'm Jared. And I'm Zanita. We are your hosts of Record Live, a podcast where we talk about church faith and living well. We believe as followers of Jesus faith is more than just a set of beliefs. It's a way of life, something we'd put into practice. Let's go live.

Hello everyone. I hope you're having a wonderful day wherever you are. I'm running the show solo today, but I have a very special guest all the way from Victoria. Pastor Toby Claire. Welcome Toby to the show.

Thanks Zanita. Thanks for having me on, uh,

a little fun fact for everyone listening in toby actually gave me bible studies when I came back to church as a young 20 something year old, and then we were part of a church plant together in Tweed Heads, and we also traveled around the Middle East in Europe together for a little while on a Bible learn trip. So we've had some pretty good times together. Hey Toby.

We sure have. Yeah, and I can remember back to that day, first met you in a Bible study at Kingscliff Church and yeah. We definitely have had some cool adventures over the years. Definitely.

It's been good. Well for anyone who doesn't know you, do you just wanna give us a little bit of an insight into what your life looks like at the moment?

Okay, so life for me at the moment is the life of a Seventh Day Adventist pastor. I am currently working for the South New South Wales conference, and I look after the two churches that are located in Wodonga, and it's a little bit of a quirk because of the fact that. Located, actually physically in Victoria.

We are part of the South New South Wales conference due to a little quirk there. The boundary line. Yeah. And so I've been working at these churches since the beginning of 2020. I don't really count the two years of 2020 and 2021 because down here they were very, very challenging and didn't really get to do much in the way of ministry in, on this side of the border, at least, during those years.

So, but yeah, that's, I guess it's a little bit about what I'm currently doing. And thoroughly enjoying it.

Yeah. 'cause your church is literally smack on the border, or Albury is, isn't it? Hey,

yeah. Yeah. So we've got two towns here. It's a bit like our old stomping ground of Tweed, Coolangatta.

We've got Aubrey and Wodonga and functionally they exist as one town, even though they're technically two towns. And yeah, we've. There's three churches here on the border plus a K to 12 school. And, yeah, it's, it's been a privilege of mine to sort of work amongst all of those different entities here on the border and it's, it's been really cool.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, people might not know this about U Toby, and you're probably too humble to say this about yourself, but you are a bit of a jack of all trades. I would say like you are I tell people often that you are like the most human version of an encyclopedia that I know, but you've also previously worked as a mechanic and you've done a bit of social work, and you could have jumped into any kind of field, really, but why is it that you chose to become a pastor?

Um, that's a, that's an interesting question 'cause yeah, you're right. I have done, there's been quite a number of different things throughout the course of my life that have, have taken up my time. And I, like, in reflection, I can see that God was always leading me towards pastoral ministry. And I was very reluctant, I would say I was a Jonah in relation to that 'cause I think probably the first time that I ever had somebody suggest to me that perhaps I should go and, you know, study to become a minister. My initial internal thought was that would be the worst job in the world. And it took, it took quite a lot of time and quite a number of years for God to actually bring me around to, the idea that, yes, this is actually what I want for you.

So yeah, but I, all those different things, I, I can see that Gods have been able to use them while perhaps that my journey may not have. Been quite God's perfect will for my life. I can see that he's actually been able to use it, to his glory and to bring me into a position in ministry where I think I've probably got a fairly well-rounded approach and I've got some life experience to be able to, help pe help to relate to people with.

What do you mean by that well-rounded approach? Do you think your previous occupations have helped you in ministry?

Yeah, I do actually. I know working as a mechanic, really, I helped me with patience, something that God knows I need help with. Um, and I knew probably when I was in my mid twenties that God wanted me to work with people. But I just haven't figured out in what capacity yet. And so. My time of working with people was preparing me, I guess, for, you know, the, what I consider to be the ultimate, of working with people IE helping them with, with their spiritual journeys. So yeah, I think all those little bits and pieces together have helped, helped me to become the pastor that I am now.

You've obviously been a part of a number of different kinds of churches, like we've mentioned that you were a part of a church plant here in Tweed Heads. You, are a pastor of two different churches at the moment, which I would say are quite different in style approach. And then you've obviously been a part of others and pastor a lot of others as well. Taking that all into consideration, what do you kind of believe that the church exists to be or to do?

So ultimately the church exists to serve and to serve it, the community that it's located in, and to I guess there's many different ways to do that. And I suppose that's something that we'll, we'll get into as we chat

but, the church's purpose ultimately is to spread the good news. I mean, Jesus left behind very clear instructions. He said, go make disciples, uh, baptize and teach them. And that is the responsibility of the church. There's no one else is going to do it. And you know, like it or not, there's all sorts of other different rabbit holes that we can jump down if we so choose. But as church, it's our responsibility, to take the good news to the world .

As you've been a part of different churches, have different churches approached that in like a different way?

Yeah. I think the vast majority of churches are different from each other.

You, you probably don't find any, cookie cutter. Churches. I wouldn't think I, I would think that the vast majority of them do things. Every church has got its own style and every church has got its own strengths and weaknesses. And that's a good thing. Like that's, that's a God given thing. I think, you know, that, all churches are different.

Hmm. Are there any things that you've seen, this is maybe like a two prong question, but, as you've been a part of different churches, are there things that you've seen consistently that I most churches are doing pretty well. And then on the other hand, are the things that you kind of see consistently that you're like, why are so many churches doing this?

Because I think churches are probably a bit like humans in the sense that sometimes, we get into habits that are not really serving us well, but we just keep doing them .

Mm. Yeah. That's a really good question. And yeah, I think it's, like you say, it's probably a bit of a multi-pronged question.

Mm-hmm. As, as far as things that we're, that we're doing well, I think generally speaking, we teach the word fairly well. In terms of the fact at least that we are willing to share the knowledge that we have.

I think one challenge that I've seen in a few churches that I've been a part of is an. I would say that this is unconsciously done. I don't think it's, I don't think it's deliberate, but, I think that there can be a tendency to, put up barriers that actually hinder people from getting a clear glimpse of Jesus. And like we read about in the gospels when the Greek people to see Jesus.

And they couldn't actually get to him 'cause he was in the temple and there was this actual physical barrier called the sore that, that was preventing them coming into see Jesus. And I think that sometimes we can put up of metaphorical or invisible barriers that can actually hinder people from seeing Jesus.

And we probably don't realize that we're doing it. And I know I've been guilty of that in the past. I'm sure and. When we read in Paul's writings where he talks about Jesus came to tear, that soak down, that I think to me is a sort of a clear instruction from scripture that we've gotta try and remove whatever obstacles that may be there.

And it's hard if we don't actually recognize them if that's probably another challenge, I think, is actually recognizing that maybe those obstacles do exist. And because unless you know that they're there. Well, how can you. Helped pull them down.

Yeah. Well, how can churches kind of become a bit more aware of the barriers that they have?

I think one of the things to help us see, because I mean you, you would probably be aware of the Joharri window, um, yes. And, um,

I love the Joharri window. It's so helpful.

Well, you'll have to help me explain it because I can't remember four quadrants 'cause there's, there's one where things are known to us and known to others.

That's the open part. Is that correct?

Yeah. And then there's another where it's known to others, but not to us.

Then there's another section that's like the private side where it's like known to us but not known to others. And then there's the part of the window where it's not known to anybody and it's yet to be discovered. So, I think sometimes we can have, we can be in that situation where there's things that we dunno about ourselves, but other people can see it. And so that's why I know up in North New South Wales and they have done it down here in South New South Wales as well. They've had the mystery worshiper initiative. Yeah. And I think that's perhaps one way that churches can actually help to see, perhaps if there are some barriers that they might be putting up that they're completely unaware of, the mystery worshiper can actually, that's one way that I suppose you could help see things that might be there.

That you don't recognize.

Mm-hmm. Can you give us an example of what one of those, modern day barriers might be for a church or one that you've seen?

Perhaps, a difficulty in growing community. Community is one of those things that's, it's very hard to fake it. If, if a church has a really good community and there's a really open and, welcoming atmosphere there when people are actually not just coming together on the weekend only, but they're actually doing things together during the week as well.

And they're actually a tight knit community that is something that, it's hard to create, but once you have created, that's a real strength. And when people sort of, I guess, come in through, the metaphorical doors or all the literal doors of the church, they'll sense that straight away. They'll sense whether or not that community actually.

Hmm. And if it doesn't exist, I think that can be a real barrier towards, people feeling like they're a part of what's happening there in the church. And perhaps another barrier is, um, something even simple like the language that we use. Um, yeah. It can be a lot of jargon for somebody who's from outside. Have you had any experience in that aspect of the language, side of things?

I think because I was raised in a Christian home, it hasn't been as obvious to me. It's probably been more obvious working with signs of the times and having to really refine all the articles and the language and.

Yeah, Jared's not here, but I think him pointing out things where it's like, oh, people won't understand this has kind of, um, made me go to church and see things through that different perspective.

Yeah.

I think it's something that if you're someone in the church who is at the front end who has always been in church, I think it's harder for you to see that, like you said, it's one of those blind spots.

You don't realize that people won't understand that. 'cause this is just such a normal part of your of your language.

Yeah, that's right. And, and so for me as a pastor, when I'm preaching, , and particularly when I know that there's people there who are quite new to Christianity and particularly new to Seventh Day Adventist Christianity.

I try to be very conscious of the language that I am using because I don't want that to be, like, I don't want people to be going, oh, what on Earth does, what on earth are you talking about? I, I don't understand that terminology or I don't understand, the language that he's using.

Whereas everybody, and if they look around and see, oh yeah, everyone else. Understands what he's talking about. That can be like a bit of a barrier to, towards people not only understanding what I'm talking about, but actually feeling like they belong to the community. Hmm. Um, so that's, that's just one thing.

And I mean, even the way we talk about. Church itself. I think most of the time we forget about the fact that we're not referring to a building, we're referring to a group of people. And yeah, that is the definition of church. It is the group of people. It's not the building. I've personally been trying to make sure with, with my, churches here that I refer to when I'm talking about our building, I refer to our facility.

If I'm sending a message out to people and say, Hey, we're gonna meet. At our building or at our facility. Just little things like that I think that can try and help us to shift our approach a little bit to try and bring some of those barriers down for people.

Hmm. Yep. That's awesome. I think another thing, Toby, and this might help us lean into what we're talking about today, is often people present themselves at church in a very, uh, perfect and put together way.

Mm-hmm. And, you know, we say this. This thing all the time that, like church is not for perfect people. But then we also show up in our best clothes and in our best attitude, our best behavior. And we don't really talk about the things that we did wrong through the week or the things we're struggling with.

We just kind of gloss over it all. Yet we want it to be a place where people can just come however they are, but we don't really present that. And it, I guess it leans into what we're talking about today, which is messy church. And I don't know if that's part of the motto that they have at Messy Church as well.

When I hear about Messy Church, it makes me think about that idea of how we show up to church and what what it's for.

Yeah.

But for anyone who is wondering, messy church is not a metaphor for the way we shop at church or do church. It's actually also an organization and something that your church does. So maybe just unpack a bit more about what Messy Church actually is in the context of your church practice.

So messy church is a, it is about a way of doing church. And so I guess you'd say that it falls into the category of practice. We have been using messy church as an outreach, here on the border for about five years. And it's recently sort of come to the end of its current phase. But we will continue in some form in the future.

it, It's a way to approach church. That is completely different to the paradigm that we've inherited from our forebears. And I mean, when you look at the way we do church, typically, we inherited it from the people that you know, that the Seventh Adventist came from. They inherited it from their forebears. And if you go back far enough effectively, we inherited it from the medieval church. And so messy church is a way to have a church meeting, I guess you'd say. But quite different and it's, it very much focuses on the experiential and sensory, side of things. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. So messy church is sort of like an it's a worldwide organization, I believe. It's an organization that provides resources and tools in ways of doing church. I read their website and I think they said, every month, thousands of people of all ages come together to discover Jesus in over 30 countries around the world, we eat, play, and worship together.

Yeah. And I think that's a cool way of putting it because. Play is often left out of Yeah, I guess the vocab, especially for adults, you know, it's something that the kids do, but yes, it's not really something that we invite adults into. And eat often is also, you know, every now and then we'll do potlucks, but it's not like a Yeah.

Foundational thing. Um, so I thought that's really cool that they put that in there.

Yeah, it's, yeah, I, I do too. And look, what I will say is that I'm sure that the way we do it is different to the way, a number of other people and a number of other churches have done it.

So generally speaking, the way we would do it is we've used it as a major outreach to our school families, at our local, Adventist school. And the way we would do it is. That a theme or a story for the day would be picked. And a lot of the time it's been you know, a particular, narrative from scripture.

Sometime, occasionally we've done it on perhaps a more topical approach, but most of the time it's probably been narrative. And, so you'd pick a scriptural story and, introduce the story in some way with. Perhaps songs, maybe a skit or something like that, just so that everybody there understands the basics of what the story is from scripture.

And then the entire group of people are broken up into about six groups usually. And then there's a round robin of different activities and each activity is at a different station. And each station is designed to help families enter because we, that's one thing we've always insisted that families have to do together.

You can't drop your kids and run. This was a, a, an event for families

it's a full family affair.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And for the teenagers to the little ones. And we, we sort of hope that everyone gets something from the different activities and they, there is quite a variety.

There'll be games, there'll be crafts. There might be object lessons. We've even had our science teacher from the school who's quite an enthusiastic supporter of messy church do come up with a number of really cool science experiments that actually illustrate, different aspects of the the story that we're, that we are trying to illustrate.

And, uh, yeah. And then at the end, we sort of come together for a final little, wrap up. And then we eat together and that's it.

It's very simple.

Simple fun. Yeah. How do you find, compared to the traditional way of church where it's like Bible study and then you sit and listen to a sermon and you sing some songs, how do you find that in contrast ?

I think that it's accessible to a lot more because, my experience has probably been that most of the time younger kids probably don't listen to the sermon. Now I'm sure that there to, to that rule. But in this particular aspect, you've got, even the youngest kids can actually partake in learning more about the Bible story of the day through the different aspects of the activities that they're doing.

And from that perspective, I think what it does is it just kind of broadens, it broadens the, the level of engagement, for a typical church service. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing that I think is really good about it is that. You know, you're combining a number of those aspects that, those characteristics of the early church that we read about in Acts chapter two.

And, you know, you, you've got people that are studying the word together or they're learning together. You've got people that are eating together. You've got people developing closer connections that. And you've also got people, praying and eating together. So those, those four main characteristics of church are happening in one, one space, one time sort of thing.

So that I think is really cool.

Mm. It's probably also awesome because, you know, like you said, you are going back to the, the stories, and. I think sometimes when you go to churches, and this is, this is not a bad thing necessarily, but sometimes, the pastor will focus on like a series or sometimes the pastor will be very philosophical, although we focusing on I don't know, a, like a, a deeper part of the story instead of just like the basic story. But going back to that basic story is, is often what people need, especially if they're new to the church.

Definitely, definitely. And look, what, what we've seen is that, so the, the majority of the new families that we've got attending at Wodonga is that they messy church has been a, a common denominator for many of our new families.

I think of, of one family in particular that are, you know, now quite an integral part of what we're doing at Wodonga. Their previous church, which I think was I think it might've been a, a uniting church up in Sydney and they did messy church up there.

And when they moved down here to the Aubrey Wodonga area, one of their key things was they had needed to find somewhere that did messy church, that was part of their, you know, their regular practice. And so they looked up the website and what they found was us. And so, yeah, that was our initial connection point.

And there's been multiple connection points. And that, that's probably another little, little aside that I'll add there is what we are finding is that there's not just one. Magic, pill for, you know, building community. It requires multiple connection points. You might have messy church over here, but over there you've got, some other type of community building activity.

I know that, with the younger families in our church, cycling now, cycling down, here's a. Quite a big thing, whether it be just leisure cycling, whether it be mountain biking, it's a pretty big area for that sort of thing. And so a group that came together regularly, to have family bike rides and that sort of stuff, that was another connection point.

And then you might have, something happening with moms, moms and bubs. So all these different little connection points, is really what builds, community.

Yeah, I like that. So what you're saying is for a church, for example, not just to have messy church, but also to have Yeah. Other groups that just help connect people and bring them into that community.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

It makes sense especially because people have so many different, such different lives. So what's gonna be good for one person isn't gonna work for another, so it just helps.

Absolutely. You, you, you can't sort of cookie cutter at all.

Yeah. And yeah, another thing that I think really helps is to eat together on a regular basis. And I'm convinced from that, from scripture. That it was not an accident that that was one of the characteristics of the early church that was, that they ate together. At Wodonga Church, that's something we do every single week.

When we meet together, we eat together and the way we've set up, even the way we've physically sort of set up our, our building is that we put all the food out in the foyer of the church,

right.

And it's, you have to walk past it in order to get outta the building.

Yeah.

And it's, and it's hard to when you're walking past, 'cause that's one thing Wodonga Church does really, really well.

We've got an excellent, catering team.

Um,

and when you have to walk past that in order to exit the building, it's kind, it's a fairly good, motivated this. And spend some time together.

It's a trap. You can't sneak out

past food.

Oh, I love that. Yeah. I remember the church plant that we used to be a part of, someone always saying, well, we've gotta eat anyway, so we may as well just eat together.

And that was right. Really a thing we did quite regularly was just eat together because well, we got us so we may as well, join. And like you said, it's, Jesus did it also all the time, so

Yeah. Yeah. I guess reflecting on our time at the Vine, the church plant up at Tweed Heads, the, the other thing that I really liked was that.

People would regularly communicate with each other during the week and let each know, let each other know if something was happening, you know? They'd be like, Hey, I might be, I'm gonna go down here and I'm gonna have a surf and have breakfast afterwards or whatever, any, if anyone wants to, and people did.

So there was that, there was that interaction during the week as well, not just, on the weekend. And I think that that's another important thing, another important aspect of church too, is that it happens, consistently across the week as well as just on the weekend.

Yeah. Yeah. It's those connection points.

Again, it's not just having one interaction per week, but

yeah.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, we're coming to the end of our time, but, and I've, for anyone who's interested in messy church and wants to know more about that, I've put the link to that in the comments where you can read more about it and get resources and so on.

But Toby, just to end, we like to end things on a practical note on record live. And I know not everyone might be in the position to start a messy church. At their own church or something like that. But what's something that I guess you've taken away from that, that people could kind of take into their own, into their own communities?

Hmm. So one of the things that I'd really encourage people is to look for some, to look for a need or a gap within your community. That I think is really, really something that I think is very important. And it was, you know, it was instrumental for us when we were starting the messy church ministry.

But yeah, there's, there's no point in us trying to. Meet a need that doesn't exist in our community, or it might be an area where we think, oh, we could do this well, but there is somebody else in the community doing it really well also. Perhaps we're better off to look somewhere else in, in that case.

But yeah, I think finding one need within your community and meeting that need well is a really good place to start, serving your community in such a way that, that they know, oh, these people are Seventh Day Adventists. They're Seventh Day Adventist Christians. And, they're not here. Uh, you know, they're not trying to do something underhanded or anything like that.

They are just here to share the good news about Jesus and to meet a need, to meet a need that exists in the community. I think that that's really important. Yeah, just finding the need and, doing what you can to meet it.

Something that I once heard, which I found helpful was if your church was to close, would your community, would the community around you actually realize?

Would they know that you've shut the doors? And would they feel that impact? Yeah,

absolutely.

Yeah. Sort of what you're saying there.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

So great. Well thank you so much Toby, for coming on. It's really cool to hear about how your church is running Messy church, and I've heard such great stories, from people down there about it. If anyone else is interested in Messy Church and potentially running that, at their own church, you can go to messy church.brf.org.uk or just google Message Church and I'm sure it will come up. But thank you again, Toby. It's been great to have you on, and we will talk to you again soon.

Thank you very much, Zanita. I really appreciate it.