[00:00:00] Paul Hemminger: Jesus didn't negate power.
[00:00:01] He had power, but he used power to serve. So it's trying to look at the city as we're serving the city and having an inverse of like, what does everyone need to flourish? Where is everyone suffering? And who are the actors that are already engaged and involved, and how do we help them come together so that they can do it sustainably? everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I am joined today by Paul Heminger. Paul is a part of Unified Dayton, and I'm very interested in understanding kind of, what does it take to transform a city? And I think, you know, we're a part of a larger kingdom and there are efforts to really reestablish what, to me feels like kind of a more city expression of the church, like all these efforts.
[00:01:23] Jeremy Pryor: Paul, welcome to the podcast. Yeah. I'd love to maybe you just introduce yourself, kinda what you're about and then we can drill into kinda what you guys are doing there in Dayton.
[00:01:30] Paul Hemminger: Cool. Um, Paul Heminger, I started Story Connect, which is a secular facing. Kinda systems change, not-for-profit, but the brand that was most applicable here is Kingdom Connect.
[00:01:43] You go to Kingdom Connect, do love. And then most applicable to this conversation is kingdom come in blank wherever you live as it is in heaven. So if you're, you know, in Jeremy's neck of the woods, kingdom come in Cincinnati as it is in heaven. If you look at a geographical boundary of wherever you live and you wanna be a steward of kingdom, come, what does that mean?
[00:02:03] What's, how, how does that work? And I think one of the tenets, scriptures, foundational scriptures is, you know, so Jesus's longest recorded prayer the night before he was tortured. you know, he said that, the world will know that I have come and that I love them when they love each other. So how do we help transform a city, with that being the tenant of kind of knitting together the body so that the body can become the body.
[00:02:29] And who else out there is doing that?
[00:02:30] Jeremy Pryor: Yeah, so I think that, like how did you get involved in this? so often what happens is Christianity, we get very siloed into our various denominations and church ministry, whereas it seems like you and a lot of those who are more geographically oriented.
[00:02:46] So I'm curious, your own personal story, like how did this sort of move happen for you? And then, yeah, we'd love to get into what's going on there in Dayton.
[00:02:53] Paul Hemminger: I can do a brief history. so I didn't grow up Christian and so when I started following Christ and I read through the book, I was like, dang, let's go.
[00:03:04] It was so much different. Interoperability and action and coordination. I thought I was joining a gang, and thought that there was so much kind of like deep level commitment, friendship seeker, handshakes, you know, all those kinds of things, then, you know, come to embody this, this like bifurcation empire building, which is in contrast to kingdom building.
[00:03:25] And felt that kind of, that deep level frustration, that I, I'm guessing a fair amount of Christ followers feel. Then realize that every, that social problem could be solved via the interconnected interoperating body of Christ.
[00:03:40] If you were to look at all the people who care about kids in foster care or care would care about foster parents, and you were to map all of those people and connect the dots, like in any given location, the foster care crisis would be solved.
[00:03:54] And so if the body of Christ is to care for widows and orphans, that's kind of like, here you go. and then I saw the same kind of cyclical problem, in all social sectors. And then, was like, well, who is trying to knit together the body? So that in intelligence information activity, you know, all these things can just go flow so much faster through the dense body, rather than like a weekly connected, siloed body.
[00:04:24] And so then I ended up, finding those folks, in a variety of different forms and circles and fashions and then ask God, how do I fit? And that was the creation of a secular pacing entity. That's kind of in the middle and in between all of the different actors trying to knit 'em together.
[00:04:41] Together.
[00:04:42] Jeremy Pryor: Yeah, man. Well, you started there by saying you thought you were joining a gang. I like that. A
[00:04:48] good a a good gang. Yeah. Like I think this is one of the things that does really tend to surprise me is that when I'm reading the New Testament, it feels like Jesus came to start a movement.
[00:04:58] Paul Hemminger: Yeah, that was gonna take over the world. you kind of mentioned that it seems like what's happened instead is like empire building versus kingdom building maybe. I love that framing. Tell get, go one more layer deeper in what you're describing there. one of the only books that I've found that tries to smash, silos and build bridges is rooting for rivals by Peter Greer.
[00:05:20] And it has a framework of kingdom abundance and scarcity clan. It's like a two by two matrix. if you're clan building with a mind of scarcity, then you're disconnected from the body. But if you are helping to co build the kingdom with an abundance mindset, which is a high level of trust in God and a trusting relationship with others, then you see all the actors and how they could work together and are curious about how God is moving in and through them.
[00:05:45] So to me, I think that one of the tactics of our enemy, of our adversary is to say that there's a scarce number of resources. there's only a certain size of the pie, fight over the pie and work really hard to do what I'm asking you to do, disconnected from all the other people who care about the same thing to your left and to your right.
[00:06:07] And so I think that that's just a huge veil that feels like it's over. The bride of Christ. And so like peeking under the veil to see the reality of kingdom abundance and to trying to live in it means just a high, much higher level of partnership and collaboration and stuff. and I think that unless you embody those gatherings and collective conversations, it can be really hard to even think that they're happening.
[00:06:31] I just want to help people through story and through lived experience, get closer and more proximate. To what kingdom come can feel like.
[00:06:41] Jeremy Pryor: Yeah, it sounds like you were mentioning it starts with identifying with your city, like the kingdom come to Cincinnati. I think part of the way I see this is we're being encouraged to identify with a particular silo.
[00:06:55] And for us to say that's your primary understanding of how the kingdom is expressed and don't leave the silo live inside the silo. and if we started having a more geographic kind of, perspective on, okay, I'm called to Cincinnati. I have an unusual, calling to this geography versus other geographies.
[00:07:15] And so if I'm seeking the kingdom here, I'm very interested in what's happening across the city and that. I need to be constantly understanding, especially with maybe an element of the restoration of the kingdom that I'm particularly a part of. Like, who else is doing that? And, you know, coordinating it's like, it sounds like somewhere in the foundation of the belief is identifying with the city and also a deep faith that cooperating, with each other is going to lead to.
[00:07:46] a much better outcome. and also theologically like what Jesus actually was trying to create.
[00:07:53] Paul Hemminger: Yeah, yeah. Like understanding is one layer of like, you can look at a map and see a bunch of pin drops and see a bunch of lists of actors, but it's relationally understanding like the kingdom of a certain geography where the identification is woven into the trust building relationships where you're like, look at how many congregations there are.
[00:08:14] Or I like to even say in any space, what's the estimated number of Christ followers? And then how do you knit those people together? Hmm. And when you think about maybe in the one cage world discipleship, like where are people being spiritually formed? I think the real question is where are. We asked to not be spiritually formed.
[00:08:34] Yeah. We're supposed to be spiritually formed in every, like every square inch of our world and, and of our time. Mm-hmm. So if you're like, where, what are the big buckets? It's where you live. Like kingdom come in my home, who's helping me with my parenting and my, in my marriage? if you're married with kids, work, who's helping me live out my faith at work?
[00:08:54] In that lane. What are the national associations and local networks and local groups that are helping me activate, play? We enter the kingdom as, as children, so we need levity. How can we be missionally, playful with others, and express that,
[00:09:08] where we worship is our congregation. If we, if you go to one or a fellowship. Are they distributing and scattering you into those places to spiritually form in those spaces, ideally. for whom does your heartbreak? Is it for someone that has a similar story to you? Do you deeply care about human trafficking, refugees, et cetera?
[00:09:26] what committed seasonal role and rhythm and other people who also care about those people? Are you being spiritually formed to care for the vulnerable, depressed, the widow, the orphan, et cetera? So when I look at like. Bifurcating the city into those pockets, those that level of affinity.
[00:09:44] That's where I get really excited about kingdom come. So then it means kingdom come in healthcare as it is in heaven. Kingdom come in education as it is in heaven. Kingdom come for, single moms as it is in heaven. Which means that you have to also knit together the body in those ways too,
[00:10:00] Jeremy Pryor: man. Yes, I love this vision.
[00:10:03] Okay. Now you were describing a little bit to me earlier. There's kind of likea grandfather,like there, there's some ideas. Yeah. Like walk me through a little bit of the books, like who has influenced kind of more of a kingdom vision for cities versus what we have with often the silo vision?
[00:10:19] Paul Hemminger: Well, this is fun 'cause I just, a lot of cities have their own network playbook and ours is like 60 pages and we just kind of went through them and part of that is going through the history of city network transformation.
[00:10:30] Jeremy Pryor: Okay.
[00:10:30] Paul Hemminger: if we look at. 500 BC and Nehemiah, like, that was the first city network transformation.
[00:10:35] It was binding people together to rebuild the wall. and then it was Jesus sending people out two by two. And then it was Paul wrote a letter to the Church of Cincinnati. And that letter was meant to be passed from leader to leader in a space of love, cooperation, and trust. right, so those Church of Ethicists or Corinth.
[00:10:55] And so to me that's the history. That's the kind of the foundation. And then everything since then are other actors that are trying to do that in our own cities. And so one of the prominent actors is Eric Swanson, who wrote the book to transform a city and has been kind of, he's an expansionist of connections and just goes and tries to find any kind of movement of kingdom collaboration.
[00:11:16] Has been inviting, you know, many of these city leaders for decades to this spot in Colorado where they, we get to hang out together. Um, and that has formalized now into the city leaders collective, which is kind of a newer association of city leaders. I think it's between 84 and 87 city networks in about 450 City network leaders are a part of that collective.
[00:11:38] Jeremy Pryor: Hmm.
[00:11:38] Paul Hemminger: and that's led primarily by. By Rob Kelly, who is the leader of, for Charlotte and, Daria and some others. Okay. And so that's kind of like this, this, this larger umbrella that we fit under. There's other folks that are also doing city network transformation. There's Movement Day and others,
[00:11:54] And then if you Zoom, that's kind of the national international layer. And then zooming down in our city of Dayton, which is an hour north of you, is unified Dayton. Unified Dayton is the name of that. We coin our study network.
[00:12:08] Jeremy Pryor: Okay. Very cool. Yeah, so people listening to this, and I love the fact that you, there, there's this, especially that, that sort of biblical framework or foundation for this whole emphasis like this, this was, this is this idea of like, we're gonna focus on what this city needs.
[00:12:25] Um, and I've always been really struck with how. In the New Testament, you have these letters to cities instead of nec. Like there's not many letters to specific congregations. They, they're really, and, and then, you know, culminating in Jesus' seven letters to, the churches.
[00:12:41] we have only one place really in the New Testament, where the resurrected Christ is acting like a king over his kingdom, and that is in Revelation one, two, and three. And this is how he functioned. He was like, I'm going to tell directly the entire city, however many congregations are represented there, you all, you know, this is what I have against you.
[00:12:59] This is what I mean. He was being extremely kingly. He was judging. Hmm. In those letters, he was correcting in those letters and he was threatening even in those letters. Like, Hey, if you don't do this, I'm gonna remove your lamps down. I mean, this is very kingly behavior. And so then when I started reading these letters over and over again and just kind of trying to imagine what, what is, what would I think like the structure would look like of a king who functions in this way over a city?
[00:13:24] I definitely start to think about it a lot more aligned with what you guys are doing. Like, this is why I really want to talk to you because, I start to imagine that, you know, if Jesus were to write a letter like that to Cincinnati, I think, you know, let's say he said, I have this against you.
[00:13:37] You guys tolerate this, you know, this heresy Most people today would read that letter and say, well, our church, we don't teach that heresy, and it doesn't matter. he wrote it to the city of Cincinnati, and you're in that city and you are tolerating that, but you're like, well, but our brand of church, we don't teach that heresy.
[00:13:53] you would be judged along with the rest of the city, because Jesus. Cares about his kingdom and his kingdom has a city expression and you're a part of that city and you are tolerating it like this heresy might be expanding and capturing people left and right and you're not participating, in trying to figure out what kind of movements.
[00:14:11] Might erupt in a city. So I just think theologically, what you're describing resonates so deeply with me structurally really seems to be the problem. Like our structures don't allow for what you're saying, and that's kind of what it sounds like you guys are burrowing into, okay, all right.
[00:14:25] That might be where things are, but like, what kind of a structure would we need to embrace if we were going to have a kingdom movement in a city? So, yeah. help me out understand that. what have you guys learned about that?
[00:14:38] Paul Hemminger: Yeah. Well that's what we're figuring out. You know, that's like the fidelity is like we're trying to follow, you know, those marching orders.
[00:14:46] And, just for anyone that's listening that if you haven't zoomed into those letters in Revelation, man, I hadn't until recently when one of the invitations when you get around other city network leaders is that you, you write, a letter to your city as if you were the angel of, and so you, yeah.
[00:15:05] And so. I embodied that experience writing a letter, to the angel that is the guardian over dating, and kind of Jesus saying to that angel, like, I see what you see except, and as I was reading it, I just started crying. and I think that the deep, wailing or the disfigurement of the bride that wants to be brought back together and cared for and unified is, this pursuit of trying to knit together.
[00:15:31] Body so that we can care for ourselves. The body cares for itself. our level of health isn't how we feel. You know, we can like drug up all day. a definition of health is our body's ability to heal. And if our body's ability to heal internally, as the body of Christ isn't very strong, then we're not very healthy.
[00:15:49] Jeremy Pryor: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:49] Paul Hemminger: And so the interconnected body needs to be able to do that. Then be able to offer healing, I would say the other world in that order.
[00:15:56] Jeremy Pryor: Hmm.
[00:15:56] Paul Hemminger: structurally that's what we're working on. unified Dayton is not an organization. We are a network of networks. it's not owned, the way that I describe it is that it's king Jesus.
[00:16:05] In the round table, we have a structure of a core team,
[00:16:09] Jeremy Pryor: and we
[00:16:09] Paul Hemminger: have kind of a working group. what we do is that we serve network leaders,
[00:16:13] Jeremy Pryor: We help
[00:16:13] Paul Hemminger: con convene, collaborate, and contribute. And these network leaders don't always fit neatly into these categories, but. Geographical network leaders cause and workplace.
[00:16:23] Okay. So if you were to take Cincinnati and break it apart into smaller conglomerates, then there would be kind of stewards of those geographies that's knitting together the actors there. Okay. And that's geographic cause is like foster care, you know, all the other spaces. And then work is these faith at work networks.
[00:16:40] Okay. Um, business, healthcare, education, first responders, et cetera. So those are, that's kind of what we do. And we believe that. If we serve the network leaders in those core teams, 'cause each one of those is kind of a king Jesus in the round table, helping them establish vision, mission, strategy, operations, and help them to be successful.
[00:17:00] then they are densifying the body of Christ in, in their focus area. and then that helps kind of the, if there's cell tissue, organs, organ systems. Hmm. Kind of each network is like an organ. System or a sit or a network that's trying to help each one of them to be strong. I see. So, okay.
[00:17:23] So we kind of hold that up and that it's not, it's not easy work 'cause collaborative work isn't easy. Mm-hmm. but what we do find is that those who are kind of sold out for densifying relationships and leaders and having a, a way of helping people find each other and come together and, and bind together.
[00:17:40] Have stories be one of the ways the word of the testimony reinforce kind of getting closer to the network so that they can live it out, where they are, um, the more traction that they get, so, okay.
[00:17:53] Jeremy Pryor: Yeah. I'm trying to picture what are the things that would really.
[00:17:56] Stand in the way of the level of collaboration that you're describing. I think one of them is just, a philosophy of leadership. I would say most people assume that the way leadership happens is like a steep hierarchy where there's a lot of clarity. who's on top.
[00:18:10] they're highly accountable. and then you have. the different layers of the hierarchy where people, really have to be directly controlled and commanded by those who are above them in the command structure, like in the military. But you see that of course, in the Catholic church and almost any major denomination.
[00:18:24] But in the, even in the Protestant world, a lot of churches function with, you know, a steep hierarchy, whether, you know, somebody's in charge. and so, there's something that you're describing that to me feels like a different. Like a different philosophy of leadership. and I'm curious if there's a theology behind, 'cause part of what makes me Protestant is really this question.
[00:18:41] I've never gotten over some of the things Jesus said about leadership. You know, where he says directly to disciples, you know how the gentiles, they lorded over them, but this shall not be that way among you. Jesus says to Peter in that famous, Matthew 16 on this rock, I'll build my church and whatever you bin, whatever you bin on earth, we bound in heaven.
[00:18:59] Would it be loose on earth? Would be loose in heaven. Which is like the foundation for papal authority, right? But then in Matthew 18, just two chapters later, he turns around and says, if two or three are gathered in my name, then whatever you bind on earth, we bound in heaven. And I'm just like, wait a minute.
[00:19:13] Like. it sounds like there's a radical like flattening happening when it comes to the leadership structure Jesus is advocating for and we just. We wanna default very quickly to what we're far more familiar and comfortable with, which is a, you know, command control structure that's hy hyper hierarchical.
[00:19:34] and so like when I approach my city of Cincinnati, I think part of what, you know there. a lot of us fall between these two worlds. Like, okay, what, what am I a part of? Am I a part of a really clear hierarchy and I can find my place in that and, you know, get my orders from the, the visionary leader above me, and then try to faithfully carry that out.
[00:19:51] give me, some understanding of what is your theology of leadership, and how does that function in a city?
[00:19:55] Yeah. while you were talking, I just kind of had this picture of like a great reset of like, okay, let's just, if we could scrap all mental models Hmm. and then a magic going back, to, you know, when, when Christ, passed on and then. But we're still planted in this IRS world, where there's money and stuff.
[00:20:18] Paul Hemminger: Like what would we do? Who would rise to the surface? And so, I mean, there's one model of like looking at shared giftings of the AP pest. and helping people to self-identify and identifying others. Like how does Steward that AP to the,
[00:20:32] Jeremy Pryor: Ephesians for apostles, pastors, prophets, our Shepherds teachers evangelists.
[00:20:38] Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, and then having an equal distribution of leadership of those giftings and lenses, knowing that many people are hybrids. but then it's also looking at different economic models or, the way that we can gather and scatter, and build kind of. power through Jesus, Jesus didn't negate power.
[00:20:59] Paul Hemminger: He had power, but he used power to serve. So it's trying to look at the city as we're serving the city and having an inverse of like, what does everyone need to flourish? Where is everyone suffering? And who are the actors that are already engaged and involved, and how do we help them come together so that they can do it sustainably?
[00:21:17] Jeremy Pryor: Hmm.
[00:21:17] Paul Hemminger: I think that in the current structure. trying to help move this big ship. in some ways we wanna be somewhat of a change changer or a, or a, what is it when you're a gad ply, like a, you know, like a commentary. but the other part of it is to invite people and leaders who feel stuck, who are kind of awoken in the middle of the night to like, man, it's gotta be better than this.
[00:21:38] Like, I didn't. Mean to build this empire, or I'm convicted in a different way, that they start tithing their time and trusting God with it.
[00:21:45] Jeremy Pryor:
[00:21:45] Paul Hemminger: that their time will be multiplied when their yoke is light, because they're being deeply relational with other people. And, even if through periods and seasons of deep, tension and conflict and, storming, eventually you
[00:22:00] as a group of people who care about blank, do get to the point of norming and performing together. Where again, that if a rising tide lifts all boats in, I would say that one of the highest levels of spiritual maturity is collaborative maturity. That you have such high trust in God that you can trust God with your economic models to be collaborative.
[00:22:23] Yeah. and. Then you're, you're tithing your time and having gotten multiply it because you're, you're witnessing kingdom come in front of you. We, I think that the, one of the things that people have to be really careful work with and kingdom collaborative work are power dynamics and having this sense of, beneficiary or servant service or like, you know.
[00:22:47] That more like paternalistic is that if someone in a collaborative space or relationship has more resources? Well, I mean that's like what the body does. Like the heart has more resources, it'll pump it to the toe so that it can run. and that's inherently allowing the body to become the body, but it's not gonna pump all the blood there, you know, it's gonna do only what's necessary and needed.
[00:23:11] Mm-hmm. it's a deeply transformative process to enter into lifting your head up, looking around, mapping the terrain, getting curious, and then, you know, even if it's starting with, you know, I'm just gonna have a conversation I thought I would never have once every other week, and then just committing to that.
[00:23:32] I think that for some people that's a really important step.
[00:23:34] Jeremy Pryor: Yes. So, well, there's a, one of the big emphasis that you're, you have kinda repeated is these. Connections need to be relational first. as opposed to structural. It sounds like you're like, Hey, let's connect, let's actually like get to know each other.
[00:23:52] I would love to hear Maybe practical stories from Dayton. what does this look like if a pastor's listening to this, like how does it impact them if it's, you know, somebody, just a disciple maker who's, working in the city, whose household they want to bear fruit in the city and maybe they feel very passionate about a particular, cause what does it look like to do this level of collaboration?
[00:24:12] What are any examples you have for how this has worked out?
[00:24:15] Paul Hemminger: I think that what I would like to do is zoom in on a particular, if we were to look at an umbrella network of discipleship, if we were to look at the landscape of.
[00:24:23] People who really deeply care about formation and discipleship, they tend to like group into different camps. There's like the small group people who love small groups and congregations and try to use that as their discipleship tool. There's like the men's ministry folk, the women's ministry folk, the campus missionaries and the young adult pastors and small group leaders.
[00:24:45] and then there's the kids and youth. Folks. And I think that when people lend themselves to caring for somebody else in this formation way, they fit into that one space. To me, I see it like all of those are interconnected. If you care for a man, you care for their family. If you care for a woman, you care for their family.
[00:25:01] if you were to just think of like a model is in, who is so ev, like I said, every network is kind of a king Jesus in the round table. But if you wanna use like a sports analogy. Christ is coach, and then everyone on the core team is assistant coaches and they're kind of the coaching staff.
[00:25:18] And what they're doing is that they are trying to map all the different players on the team and then helping them to put on the same jersey and then helping them come together and stay together. So within any city that you're at, if someone has a particular calling to that vertical of discipleship, empower them and equip them, figure out a way for sustainable funding, whatever that looks like.
[00:25:40] To gather all the men's ministry people from like church leaders to small group leaders, and then help them be relational, create monthly, quarterly rhythms, annual celebrations where, you know, they get their juices going and the same thing in all the other ones and help that be the layer below.
[00:26:01] like pastor leader where collaboration is actually happening, amongst 500 churches. But it doesn't, you don't know that or feel that it's just because of a level of affinity that people are connecting this is the body becoming the body. pastors are shepherds and they don't own their sheep, even though they're flock.
[00:26:21] So God, Jesus's kingdom means that autonomous beings get to connect based on affinity. Not just on, fellowship congregational groupings and loyalty. to me, that level of densification of a network is a really good way to be a value add and in service to a congregation because we're all equipping the saints.
[00:26:47] So if you say to like a pastor, like, Hey, we want to help your men's ministry person become even better at doing men's ministry. The way that we're gonna do that is help them interact with other men's ministry, you know, people so that they can share stories, insight, strategy, et cetera.
[00:27:02] Jeremy Pryor: This is, I think about every ministry you guys can think of right now, like you said, men's ministry, women's ministry, youth ministry. There could be city facing or non-city facing. This is one of the things I ran into when I was a youth pastor was I would like be working, you know, with.
[00:27:16] Well, like working with our 20 kids that, you know, whose parents happened to commute into this church and so they're from like, you know, my 20 kids might be from five different cities, but within like three miles from the church building, there's a high school with 1500 kids in it. Now I always felt this crazy tension, which is like, is my, is my job to disciple these, like 15 kids or to go reach those 1500 kids in that, you know, three miles from my, you know, from our church.
[00:27:46] Um, and, uh, you know, I would constantly try to figure this out, like, what, what is, what is really our realm of responsibility? I wanna make sure I do a good job, with these kids, but there's also this weirdness that's happening where, I wanna see us geographically expand and I think part of the way that I started to.
[00:28:04] Believe this at a deeper level is to understand that the kingdom of God has a geographical component. Like there's a way in which the kingdom of God is spatial. Like it expands in space. it can really inhabit a city. it can become more and more dense.
[00:28:16] it can hit, places, but also causes, and you can see transformation happen. and so part of what you're describing is if you believe this is true. Then one of the first things you would do is you would map the city with regards to what your calling is. And instead of limiting your calling into a silo, you would start to see naturally the advantage of cross collaboration and saying, okay, what could one plus one equal three?
[00:28:42] What would happen if we all got together? Could we, could we be greater than the sum of our parts if we're collaborating? Um. Not to mention the fact that this just does seem to be the sign of the kingdom of God. Like that's what you said about in John 17, Jesus is like, that's how the, that's how they actually recognize that I'm the Messiah is because you guys.
[00:29:01] You guys have this relational connection. you don't, empire build, you collaborate and, and you unify, and then you solve problems in, in a relational state of unity and love that that says something that itself like reveals the truth of the gospel, the truth of Jesus' kingship to the city itself. And so part of what we're trying to figure out is how do we, how do we preach the gospel to the city?
[00:29:24] Well, this is. Like this, this level of relational collaboration seems like it's totally key to what Jesus is, commanding us to do.
[00:29:32] Paul Hemminger: Yeah. I I just like, I wish I could see the, oh my gosh, how did they do that? Like, and if someone who's a secular leader said, man, our city is different five years from now, why is that?
[00:29:47] the outcomes are different. The data's different, the statistics are different. Like who's the main actor here? Yes. and there's this book that it's a friend of the movement, John Seale. Dr. John Seale wrote Network Power, where the thesis is that the main actor on the stage of lasting cultural change is the dense network.
[00:30:03] So how do you densify the network? I love the example that you used for youth, and I'm gonna use this example because you use it for fatherhood, for gathering their fathers in one KH.
[00:30:13] Jeremy Pryor:
[00:30:13] Paul Hemminger: so in Dayton, where we live, we have a fatherhood initiative. We have the Montgomery County Fatherhood Office, with that director.
[00:30:21] And so there's all these fatherhood activities going on,
[00:30:24] Jeremy Pryor: like
[00:30:25] Paul Hemminger: all over the city. People that are caring for men. Every year they have a summit, this fatherhood summit. And to me it's the cross pollination of people that care about men and care about men's ministry coming together and where they say, all of us actually care about men and fathers, and we're rubbing shoulders with each other and we're figuring out the different models and people who are covertly deployed here or there or in these spaces.
[00:30:49] And if someone says, yeah, I have a church in West Dayton and I have a men's ministry for those men. Then also on Thursday night, we have like a secular facing Christ-centered group for single dads. Like is that not also the mission of Kingdom comfort for fathers as it is in heaven? And so mapping the network, if you zoom into our network visualization map, the way that we look at it is that there are entities, actors that are Christ-centered.
[00:31:20] In Christian facing. So that can be congregations, faith-based, not-for-profits, groups, et cetera. And then there's, secular facing, Christ-centered, those that are kind of acting in the world and rubbing shoulders and having shared language. And then there's those who are just like, maybe the entity is secular or the initiative is secular, but they have a high level of affinity of mission.
[00:31:41] and we have those color coded. So when you zoom into any given network, that's how we map them. So that we know the actors and figure out how do we work together For the flourishing of the city and the people in it. Mm-hmm. I think that even the Christian body can silo itself.
[00:31:56] Where Jesus's, you know, invitation to risk was going out two by two to a place where there were no followers. And then integrating with the mission of that town was that, that town to be well. the good news is that, you know, the gospel and the life of, of the King and the Holy Spirit is what makes your town well for city transformation.
[00:32:15] so then here we are, being with other people. And identifying as someone who has a king and saying, kingdom come. And then witnessing that in our relationships. And then people get more proximate and then they get to feel that love in conversation with other people.
[00:32:31] Jeremy Pryor: Yeah. there is a real profound.
[00:32:34] Hesitation. We have to partner in any way with, secular movements, institutions that are trying to affect the same outcome. one of the things I've noticed about that is our family went to do kind of a soup kitchen style thing with a group that were clearly not Christ followers.
[00:32:55] I had such a huge epiphany being there with my kids, serving alongside these non-believers all trying to serve, you know, this kind of, These people in our city. And 1, 1, 1 of the things I realized and, and was that I had meaningful conversations with multiple of these non-believers.
[00:33:10] they were all. Kingdom seekers like that, that's what my epiphany was. I'm like, these guys are obsessed with the kingdom. they have no hope that Jesus is the king like that that hasn't yet entered or pierced their consciousness.
[00:33:22] But man, did they ever want the kingdom? and they were willing to sacrifice and do more things to try to bring it about than a lot of believers. And then I realized a lot of the greatest movements in the history of Christianity, the most recent example of this is the Jesus movement. You really had people that were, at the time, very secular.
[00:33:37] they were kingdom obsessed. They thought they could, build these, you know, kind of hippie utopia. And they got very disillusioned in the early seventies. But when they came to faith, there was a different quality of Jesus following that came outta that early group of the Jesus movement.
[00:33:52] I think that it's because they had already decided that they were gonna seek the kingdom before they even came to Jesus. I realized that one of the easiest ways to find kingdom seekers in a city is to. Serve, to do exactly what you're describing. like what do you feel passionate about?
[00:34:08] If you had to choose between serving with other believers or spending time with non-believers and serving right alongside them, you're gonna get double the results because not only are you gonna. help heal the city, in that area. But you're also gonna find other kingdom seekers who need to hear the good news of Jesus, while you do that.
[00:34:26] So yeah, I love this move and I feel like I've hardly ever heard of people making it, but it makes complete sense to me.
[00:34:33] Paul Hemminger: Yeah. I think it's both Ann, we need to have places where we can have deep resonance of the language and alignment of the king.
[00:34:42] Where someone does not recognize, the king, and then being able to, in one's embodied life or in language, say, oh yeah, I have a king that I submit my life to and I serve. actually he loves me and washes my feet and invites me to a light yolk and into freedom and, into community Steep exchange and you know, just eternity. Like all these things. in the beginning we talked about, or you said the word structure to me, a network, which is a thing, that has some kind of a boundary that is made up of nodes and lines that connect people is something to be stewarded.
[00:35:20] And so like leadership. Within a network is to be stewarded. So that people even know the options of being deployed to this one place or that one place, regardless if it is like has a Christian flagger or not.
[00:35:35] Jeremy Pryor: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:35] Paul Hemminger: and then the other thing is I think that we are so many Christians are meant and invited, to be deployed into secular spaces to bring forth the kingdom.
[00:35:47] They're already there. and so how do we equip them? And I think so much of the equipping is in the connecting so that two by two people are equipping each other, you know, continuously through stories and taking risk. We would even say, there's some people that would say, so there's this awesome city network in the LA area that helps to bring together Orange County, all these different city networks and the name of their city network is called Trellis
[00:36:14] Is that it like holds things up and it allows good things to grow. Yeah. and so they would say that a trellis is movemental infrastructure. It it's infrastructure that allows the movement, the kingdom of God to come. So in a. What is the movemental infrastructure that's needed to move things forward? I would say that it's, relational density amongst those with a kingdom mindset and constant, a discerning community that submits to the will of How does, how does God's dream work through teamwork?
[00:36:48] how does the kingdom come through? God's will be done like it is us tapping into God's will individually. Then collectively discerning God's will when we make a collaborative movement towards something by drawing together the actors and helping them to build bonds of trust. And allow for free flowing intel and information for coordinated action.
[00:37:13] So that kind of, the kingdom is wherever it's happening, but it's all connected.
[00:37:20] Jeremy Pryor: Wow. Well, what's an initial step into that? So, 'cause, when you talk about the density of relationships, if somebody's listening to this and they feel very called to, bringing fathers together and really getting disciple making going, through fathers, through households, but they're doing it, with just their tiny little network of friends.
[00:37:39] Right. Is there kind of an initial move. what does it mean to build that network steward, that network properly, what have you seen work in the initial steps of this process?
[00:37:48] Paul Hemminger: Yeah, so there's layers in the scope of kind of doing kingdom collaboration. There's like the city network space to being like a city network leader to be on a core team. So if your city has one, like finding who those people are. Whoever's being called and invited, the city leaders collective has a monthly call that like anyone can kind of jump in and explore and then ask, does anyone know if there's anyone in my city that's stewarding this?
[00:38:15] Um, and then you can go a layer down if you feel like you are, you know, wanting to be a part of leading a network. Right now there's not a national entity that kind of exposes kingdom networks. You can go on like. My website, kingdom Connect, love and explore networks and different kind
[00:38:32] And I have like a catalog that exposes some of these actors, but there's not like someone to necessarily point you to. but then it's discerning and mapping who, what you care about, where you live. and I would just, I would say that this is a, this is a long. Approximate, journey.
[00:38:54] It's like, if you wanna go far, go alone. If you wanna go or wait, if you wanna go fast, fast, go alone. If you wanna go far, go together. Mm-hmm. And so I think if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, I think God's been, God has wired me this way. I have the capacity, capability, and interest. Than I have found that that's fewer people than, than, than we hoped for.
[00:39:18] And so email you and CC me and we'll see what the right connections are, where they can fit. there's people out there that are, stewarding, collective work.
[00:39:28] Jeremy Pryor: Yeah. And for those of you guys listening to this, like on the 1000 houses, you know, part of what I think is important to understand about, you know, our approach is that the more, like this household expression, one of the reasons why I am such a fan of creating household expressions of ministry in the church is because it frees up a lot of bandwidth for citywide or city collaboration.
[00:39:53] So what Paul's doing, you know, is happening in Dayton. To me feels like such a great, Collaboration. Like it works with what we're trying to figure out. Because if you have households, one of the things that households need is you need to be connected to the city church.
[00:40:08] You need to be connected to something larger. You need to be aware of what God's doing in the city. You need to be leading your household to obey what the king is doing in the city. a lot of times when you got little kids and you're just trying to manage your own family and then, go beyond that and start making disciples through your household.
[00:40:23] there are seasons where you might be more focused on building that initial node, but man, you need to plug into this larger city, movement that's happening. and you need to ask. The king, like, what are, does our families, this household have assignments beyond just our house?
[00:40:39] And I know that for everyone, the king's gonna give you assignments and is gonna connect you, to these larger movements. And I think that you can have that kind of deep belonging that happens at the house level, but you can't really solve these giant systemic issues.
[00:40:53] That are at the city level without this kind of collaboration. to me it's always been both there are things we need to do that are connected at the city level whatever you're doing at the house level, there's almost like a time bomb that goes off if you spend a number of years just insularly focused on what's happening in your own household.
[00:41:10] You know, building relationships, building a community, even building a house, church, and you don't connect to a larger city church, that time bomb goes off. That's what I've seen over and over again. you need that connection for multiple things. And if you try to replicate all of that at the house level,
[00:41:24] you'll burn out and if you try to separate yourself from what's going on in the kingdom in your city, then your flame will go out. there is no substitute to this and that's why I'm so grateful for what you guys are doing In Dayton. We got our city partners there, Zach and Renee Shaer, who are like very like.
[00:41:41] Encouraged Paul about what you guys are doing. So, I'd love for you to share, for anybody listening to this from Dayton or maybe other cities that are looking to do this, where could they get connected to these kinds of movements?
[00:41:51] Paul Hemminger: Well, yeah, let me even reinforce that a little bit. Because the, the symbiotic relationship between one KH and the methodology and what Zach and Renee are stewarding and unified Dayton are symbi, like their success is our success.
[00:42:06] Our success in helping to pan their blame is their success. Like if, if our city was healthier, people were more formed spiritually and maturely in their faith through the expression of one K each. And there was actually 1000 households in Dayton, that were interconnected and interconnecting.
[00:42:23] And that was a network of itself, of discipleship within that. And, but it's, but again, it's not in solar, even that level of connectivity. Those people that, let's say there were 1000 households in Dayton, those human beings still, work somewhere, build businesses somewhere, care about certain things, and then are integrated in all the other networks as a collaborative space for them to play with other relationships.
[00:42:50] Yes. So it's like, you know, we have a kingdom business network. Zach is, you know, always invited to, as we host Faith-driven Entrepreneurship in helping him build his business through referrals, et cetera. and we have hopefully a birth, like a, a, a marriage, you know, citywide marriage, ministry of Marriage, people that bleed from marriage champions.
[00:43:09] and we know that Renee really cares about Soul Pair and we have A conference coming up in May, for mental health, soul care and recovery practitioners to densify that network of deep well healers that we want Renee, to be. So to me, all of this is integrated and stacked and you don't know it until you start building the relational infrastructure and seeing the connectivity.
[00:43:33] otherwise you're just only like. If you look at a literal silo and you're trying to build inside of that silo, that's pretty cramped. Like we need to start lowering those and building bridges. if people are in their own cities, interested in city network, city movement stuff, I would encourage city leaders collective.org and, contacting in the contact, is there anything in my city?
[00:43:57] Maybe in the show notes, I'll throw in the link to the catalog and there's a bunch of assets there nationally. people can plug into. They can control f find what they care about. It's bifurcated by geography,
[00:44:09] Jeremy Pryor: work
[00:44:09] Paul Hemminger: It's about 17 pages long, so, okay.
[00:44:11] Lots of lots to try to zoom in on.
[00:44:15] Jeremy Pryor: So, city leader network.org. City leaders collective. Leaders collective C City leaders, city leaders collective.org. And send me anything you wanna put in the notes and I would love if anybody listening to this wants to see what's going on in their city, that's what we're, we want to figure out.
[00:44:33] Paul, thank you so much for this, obviously you guys being so close to Cincinnati, I'm just. and collaborating with the Shamers. I'm so excited for what you guys are doing and, continue to, like, I wanna find ways for us to be collaborating. So thanks so much for, jumping on here today.
[00:44:47] Paul Hemminger: Do you mind if I pray for the listener?
[00:44:48] Jeremy Pryor: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:44:49] Paul Hemminger: hey friend, God, kingdom come in your heart. we know that the Holy Spirit is inside of you. the Holy Spirit's home and the Holy Spirit loves being in the home of your heart, and we're just so grateful that that Holy Spirit is there.
[00:45:03] It's your best friend. we get to see what the Holy Spirit is speaking to you and who God wants to connect you with. and so ga, we thank you for that. The person who's listening and, forever, they share it with, so that they can maybe link together and bind together in a kingdom of abundance, trusting way and love their neighborhood, their city for whom their hearts break, that they can be activated in the workplace, to share the love that comes from you.
[00:45:30] we're thankful for Jeremy, for. All of those connected to one K age and family teams and all the other tentacles out there. God, you are the king and we are just those who get to look to you and come together, to love the world and to show the world your love. We love you so much.
[00:45:47] Jeremy Pryor: Amen. Awesome.
[00:45:49] Thanks so much Paul. Appreciate you jumping on here today. Alright, thanks Jamie.
[00:45:52]
