Beeson Podcast, Episode #572 Reverend Dr. Jason McConnell Oct. 26, 2021 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I’m your host, Doug Sweeney, here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. This is Reformation Heritage Week at Beeson. A week in which we remember the protestant reformation and give thanks for those who worked to reform the Church in accordance with the gospel. Beeson is an evangelical protestant divinity school, representing 20 denominations among our faculty, staff, and students. Dr. Michael McClymond is here on campus this week to give our reformation lectures. If you’re unable to join us you can find these talks on our YouTube channel at www.YouTube.com/beesondivinity. Today’s podcast conversation concludes a three week series on Beeson’s CCMP (Cross Cultural Ministry Practica). The first two interviews in this series featured students who have recently returned from these experiences. Today we have a CCMP leader on the show. In fact, he’s one of our favorite leaders and my colleague Kristen Padilla is ready to introduce him. So, Kristen, would you please tell us about today’s guest? >>Kristen Padilla: Yes, Doug. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. We have with us today the Reverend Dr. Jason McConnell. Jason is pastor of Franklin United Church in Vermont. He is a DMin alumnus of Beeson Divinity School. And he is married to Jennifer, and they have four children. Welcome, Jason, to the Beeson Podcast. >>Jason McConnell: Thank you, Kristen. It’s great to be with you both. >>Kristen Padilla: You were on the show a few years ago with Dr. Timothy George as host. So, this is your first time on the show since Doug and I have taken over. We’re glad you’re with us. Before I ask you to introduce yourself, I need to just make a quick note that you and my husband go way back to Moody Bible Institute where I hear you played too much ping pong. Is that correct? >>Jason McConnell: Well, “too much” is an interesting way to put it. I do think we would spend many long nights playing heated ping pong matches against each other. I think both of us were avoiding Greek, if I remember correctly, which probably did more damage to Oswaldo than it did to me along the way. But those sure were fun days. >>Doug Sweeney: I hope Oswaldo’s better at Greek than you are, Jason. But who was better at ping pong? That’s the big question for today. >>Jason McConnell: Well, okay, since we’re gonna put it out there. Yeah, he’s definitely better at Greek than I am. But I think I still have a little edge on ping pong. >>Kristen Padilla: Well, thankfully we do not have a ping pong table at our house to distract him from teaching Greek. (laughs) Well, Jason, besides going to Moody Bible Institute and playing ping pong, introduce yourself to our listeners. Where are you from? Anything about your spiritual journey or background that would be helpful for us to get to know you better? >>Jason McConnell: Sure. I’ll try to condense a long story into some short comments. I grew up in a small town called Black Lick, Pennsylvania of 1,400 people. A little coal mining town outside of Pittsburgh. I didn’t grow up in a Christian home. As a matter of fact, I didn’t see the inside of a church until I was about 17 years old. We just didn’t go to church. I had a bit of a traumatic childhood. My mother committed suicide when I was four years old. She had a drug addiction and just a lot of problems. My dad was an alcoholic at the time and couldn’t raise children. So, I wound up being raised by my grandparents, my mother’s parents, along the way who sort of provided a good wholesome, classic, American childhood. But just no church. So, I grew up ... I guess I would say I believed in God, but I was angry with him for some of the suffering that I experienced in my life, in my family. And it wasn’t until I was 17 that a good friend of mine was involved in kind of a crazy drunken driving accident. I should have been with them that night but in God’s providence I wasn’t. And he was spared and started going to church as a result of that accident. Then he came to faith and started inviting me to come to church with him. After he wore me down for a while I said, “Fine, I’ll go one time. Just to get it over with. That will get you off my back and it will satisfy my curiosity.” Lo and behold I walked into this little country church, just a couple of miles down the road from where I grew up. I drove by it every day. Never knew anything happened there. And so I stumbled in one morning. He picked me up. I really had that intention of going once and that would be it. But when I walked in everything surprised me. It wasn’t anything like I had seen on television about the church. I was expecting a priest who was 90 years old that would be so boring I couldn’t understand anything. Lo and behold it was a little Wesleyan Church. I didn’t know what that was at the time but the pastor was in his late 20’s which just blew my mind. He preached a simple gospel message, straight from the bible. Even though I had no background I understood what he was talking about. As a matter of fact, he was preaching on sin. I elbowed my buddy who took me to church. I said, “You set me up. You told him that I was going to be here.” Because I thought the whole sermon was about me and my life. And he started laughing and said, “Well, no, this is the way it is every week.” And I experienced love in that church community. Only 45, maybe 50 people, on a good Sunday. I went that week and the week after that and the week after that until I just became a regular church attender. I was an alcoholic at the time. I’d get drunk on Saturday night but I’d always get up and go to church on Sunday morning until about six months into this the gospel became clear to me. And I had almost an Apostle Paul Damascus Road experience where one late night I just heard God’s voice saying, “Go home. Go home.” And I did. I laid in my bed and I prayed some type of broken sinner’s prayer and made a commitment to Christ. I woke up the next morning and I physiologically felt different. I felt light and peace and I quit drinking cold turkey on the spot. My life was truly transformed from that moment on. So, my life changed in that little country church. I think that’s one of the reasons why I have felt so passionate about rural ministry, is because I’m a product of that type of ministry. And so from there I finished high school and went on to Moody Bible Institute and Gordon-Conwell. Sort of my ... I don’t know, I guess my passion has been to receive the very best of theological education and then go give my life to a small rural congregation who unfortunately don’t often get pastors in their prime. They will often get seminary students right out in their first three years until they move up the corporate ladder and take something “bigger and better.” Or they sort of get someone at the end of their career that’s out to pasture. (laughs) I’ve sort of always balked at the way things are and said that sort of out of spite to the system if I could get educated and give my life to a place and a people that I think deserve it as much as anyone else. So, that’s how I sort of wound up where I am today. >>Doug Sweeney: Thanks, Pastor McConnell. That’s a wonderful story. I wanted to ask you about what’s so special about rural ministry? We’re already kind of into this, but we haven’t asked you yet about how it is that you felt like God guided you into this pastoral ministry to begin with. Did you have a time in your life where you felt like he was calling you into ministry? How did you process the set decisions that lots of our students are working on right now that have to do with God’s calling on their lives whether to be pastors? And then we’ll get into some of the unique features of what it’s like to be a pastor way up in Vermont, out in the country. >>Jason McConnell: Sure. That’s a great question. So, for me it’s real simple. In the little country church that I stumbled into their discipleship was the best that I’ve ever experienced anywhere in any church. Part of their discipleship program was everyone preaches. And so six months after my conversion the pastor came to me and said, “Well, Jason, you’ve been walking with Jesus for about six months now. It’s probably time for you to preach your first sermon.” I had nothing to compare it against. I just figured this is what everyone does. And so I said, “Well, okay, I guess, if that’s what you’re supposed to do. Sure. But I don’t know how to do it.” He said, “Oh, well, we’ll mentor you in that. We’ll get you ready. And then you’ll preach your first sermon.” So, that’s what I did. I think seven months after my conversion I preached in front of the whole congregation. And it was actually in that moment that I really felt God saying, “I think this is what you’re supposed to do for the rest of your life.” And lo and behold, I started to have other members of the congregation come to me, sort of unbeknown to each other, and ask, “Have you thought about being a pastor?” And I said, “No, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of. Why would anyone ever think about doing that?” My plan was ... and I know you’re a historian, Dr. Sweeney, my plan was to be a high school history teacher and a football coach, because that’s what all good history teachers do. (laughs) Football is what got me through high school and I thought if I could just teach some history so I could coach football, that was my plan. And so it was a big turn from there. And God sort of confirmed that calling over the next year into pastoral ministry. I’ve never looked back. Which back then I didn’t realize what a great blessing that was as a very young man, 17, 18 years old, to have such a clear vocational calling. And so I never had to wonder or second guess. It was just about receiving the education and experience to get to that point. So, for me it was quite easy. >>Kristen Padilla: Jason, I love hearing you talk about your love for the rural church, the small church. I, too, am I product of that. My dad was a pastor at a small church in rural east Texas. But I wonder for those listeners who have grown up in urban contexts and are not as familiar with rural churches if you could give us a window into that type of ministry? What are the blessings? What are the challenges? And maybe in particular what does it look like for you in Vermont? >>Jason McConnell: Well, every time we have students from Beeson come up to Vermont we always talk a lot about culture and rural culture. And interestingly enough, from a sociological perspective rural and urban actually have a lot of similarities. It is suburban which is the outlier. And so rural and urban are built around neighborhoods or smaller communities where everyone knows everyone. There’s often extended families that have been there for a long period of time. Sort of intergenerationally connected. And so in suburbia you don’t have that. Most people are transplants from somewhere else who came for schooling or a job. And so it’s actually an interesting comparison to do urban and rural. But, yeah, one of the features of rural culture in particular is that you can go to almost any town in rural America and you will have families who still can trace their roots back to the founders of that town. And so also with natural resource development, our area here in northern Vermont happens to be dairy farming country. So, farms have been passed down from one generation to the next for a couple of hundred years. That land stays in the family. Ironically, where I grew up outside of Pittsburgh, coal mining is very much the same thing. I’m a coal miner. My daddy was a coal miner. My grandpa was a coal miner. And that sort of livelihood gets into the bloodstream so to say. And so we still find that here. A lot of dairy farms in the family for generations. So, what that means is extended families. So, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, and great grandparents tend to live in the same community. Well, on the upside if you can break into the family culture you’re really in. And it’s deep. On the downside, it’s really difficult to break into that, because what I find in ministry is that in the suburbs creating community is one of the felt needs. So, ministry’s like small groups are essential for ministry in those contexts. Students are often shocked to find out that we don’t do any small group ministry here in rural America. Why? Because we’re already a small group and it’s not a felt need in the community. So, there are other ways to do discipleship, but most of them who are coming from more suburban contexts have a really difficult time understanding, “What do you mean ‘no small groups?’ How do you ...” And so anyway, it’s kind of interesting just to see, understand culture and then how to contextualize ministry to that particular culture, rather than trying to put a round peg into a square hole, which unfortunately is the way it gets done a lot of times. So, that’s a little taste of what it is. Just learning about the history and culture of a place. And then trying to figure out how to just do gospel ministry in that context. >>Doug Sweeney: I’ve not yet had the blessing of sitting under your preaching ministry, Pastor McConnell. Hopefully one day. But I am told that you are a fan or proponent of first person narrative preaching and especially in rural contexts. I bet it would help our listeners just to hear a little bit from you about that. First of all, for those who aren’t sort of inside seminary people, what is first person narrative preaching? And then why do you like to use it where you are? >>Jason McConnell: Yeah, sure. So, first person narrative preaching is a homiletic form where the preacher takes on the persona or character of someone in the biblical text. And so it would sort of be like preaching a sermon from the perspective of Moses, telling my own story in almost a testimony form. I was introduced to first person narrative preaching when I was a student at Moody Bible Institute. For those who are part of the Beeson community, everyone knows Dr. Smith, of course. One of his good friends, E K Bailey, a great preacher from Texas, came to Founder’s Week at Moody and preached a first person narrative sermon on the whole book of Hosea. And it rocked my world. I had never heard anything like it. I still remember the opening line in his deep, deep, powerful voice. I remember him saying, “Hosea is my name, and preaching is my game.” And I thought, “What in the world he is talking about?” And went on to preach the whole book from Hosea’s perspective. So, anyway, I was so enthralled with that that I wound up taking a few courses along the way on first person narrative preaching. Then lo and behold when I was doing my doctoral research on rural ministry, I knew this instinctively from growing up in a rural culture, but then to study it academically to realize that most rural cultures are oral cultures. And what I mean by that is that typically people are less educated, not any less smart but just less educated. And so they think and communicate in stories rather than propositions. And so what I like to say is that most rural folks – and this is a broad generalization, but it’s generally true – is that people think and communicate in parables and proverbs rather than propositions. But most seminaries, especially evangelicals are taught to preach propositionally. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Certainly, the Apostle Paul gives us a lot of that in his epistles, and Jesus in his parables. So, first person narrative preaching is just another way of getting at that. I’ve found it is especially a good way to preach very familiar texts that everyone has heard sermons on many times. So, for instance, the Prodigal Son. We’ve all heard that story. We’ve heard it preached many times. But to tell that story from the perspective of the prodigal son. What was it like to take my inheritance and squander it and then have to come back and humble myself before my father? Or to take the perspective of the older son. The one who ripped mad that his brother wasted everything and came back and then his father forgave him. Or to take the perspective of the father himself. How interesting would that be to understand a son who broke your heart by running away? And so what I find is that typically works really well with people in oral cultures. So, I found ... I think I’ve preached more first person narratives than anyone I’ve ever heard of. (laughs) Now, you can’t do it every week. You have to space it out. I try to do it a handful of times a year, maybe four or five. And then you try to trick the congregation so that they don’t know that you’re preaching a first person narrative sermon. Real quick, one example. One time everyone showed up at church and I was going through the Gospel of Luke. It’s the story of basically an exorcism passage. Jesus heals someone with a demon. And then he heals Peter’s mother-in-law that same day in the afternoon. And so the sermon title listed in the bulletin was, “An Exorcism And My Mother-in-law.” Well, you can only imagine how that piqued the interest of parishioners that day. Any my mother-in-law happened to be a member of my congregation, which made it all the better. And so I started off that sermon and I was already in character, preaching from Peter’s perspective, but they didn’t know that until about 15 minutes in. And then all of a sudden the light bulb goes on, “Oh, this is Peter’s story, not Jason’s story.” So, anyway, I found it to be a really interesting ... And not only for the congregation, but even for the preacher. What a great way to think through the biblical text in different ways than I normally would. So, it’s no less exegetically sound, but I think it’s more creative than just sort of your typical three point sermon. >>Kristen Padilla: That’s great, Dr. McConnell. You also have a new book coming out on pastoring in the public square. What do you believe about the pastor’s role in the community at large? And what has that looked like for you in Franklin? >>Jason McConnell: Yeah, so this comes out of ... I also teach part time at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. I co-direct a program called, “Ockenga Fellows.” Which really focuses on where faith and the public square meet. And so it’s a two year leadership development program. My colleague, David Horn, and I have co-written this book that really explores the same theme. So, it’s where faith intersects with science and technology, the arts, healthcare, politics, education – some of the great large public spheres so to say. Anyway, this has been a hallmark of my own ministry. One of the great joys of being in a small town is that you actually do get to know almost everybody there. I’m good friends with all of our legislators. I’m good friends with all of ... I was on the school board for many years. Hired two principals and a superintendant as the chair of the board, the pastor in the community. So, it’s sort of a throwback to the old parish days here in America back in Puritan times where the pastor was really the most educated and influential person in the community. Well, those days have long gone here in America and I think it’s a waste of time to try to hope for those to come back, but I do think pastors in particular can model for their congregations ministry, not just in the church – Sunday school and bible study and small groups, those are all perfectly fine things – but to actually get out in the community and be on school boards and on hospital advisory boards and to serve in various ways. Just to have Christians in the public square and have that voice there, maybe perhaps a prophetic voice but at least to serve. This is one of the things I’ve been doing for years. I’ve been a ski instructor for our local elementary school for 18 years now. The principal, she and I are very close friends. The school actually uses the church for a number of their events. And we use the school for a number of ministries. Rather than building our own gymnasium, we just sort of like to use the one that we already have in the community, that the school has. So, we find a lot of these areas to bridge. The title of the book is, “Return to the Parish, the Pastor, the Public Square.” I’m the general editor, it’s a collaborative book. It really explores how we can do ministry in a lot of these areas with a special interest in how the pastor himself or herself can actually model life in the community and perhaps even leadership along the way. And so we found it to be – I think for my own ministry – just very life-giving, I’ve learned a lot along the way. And it has given me access to people that I would never have access to otherwise. >>Doug Sweeney: That sounds fantastic. Pastor McConnell, of course, one of the things we like best about you is that you also play a role in shepherding our students who are engaged in cross cultural ministry practice with you there in Vermont. And it’s interesting, you just made reference to the ways in which people used to conceive of the role of the pastor in the community. I was just teaching about another aspect of this, this morning with a group of people. We were talking about how in the 18th century some pastors played a really important role in shepherding the up and coming generation of pastors, a lot of young people would move into the homes, the communities, of more senior pastors and learn how to be a pastor under the tutelage of the veterans. Obviously, that’s a role you’re playing with our students these days. Is this something you think about in an important way? Do you think this is a significant part of your role as a minister of the Word of God? How do you conceive of the significance of your role as a shepherd for the up and coming pastors? >>Jason McConnell: Sure. I wish I could say for your benefit that I learned this from reading Jonathan Edwards mentoring of David Brainerd, but it didn’t start there for me. That came later on along the way. (laughs) I’m basically just doing what was done with me. So, as a young man stumbling into a country church on a Sunday morning, the pastor and some of the leaders in that church really just took me under their wing and loved me and nurtured me in my faith, but then also just in life skills and I’ve just always had a heart for developing pastors because my pastor had a heart for developing me. And that really has been one of the hallmarks of my own personal ministry and certainly our church. I think I was mentioning to you earlier before the broadcast started that I spent my morning hiking with missionaries in Prague, Czech Republic. And one was a girl who came to faith in our church a number of years ago and was discipled and now she’s off serving the Lord in the Czech Republic. We’ve had a lot of students over the years who came to faith in our church community who are actually serving in full time ministry in all parts of the world now. From a little country church in Vermont. So, demographically, we don’t have the capacity to be a large church. We’re a town of 1,400 people. And so if my goal was to become a big church, good luck with that (laughs), it’s just never going to happen. But what I do think we can do is invest deeply. And so we do that with our students here and then, boy, is it wonderful to have students from Beeson to come who are already in the midst of their theological training, and so I don’t have to do any translation or development with terminology. They just come like open books and sponges and want to learn and grow. It is just a wonderful, wonderful blessing for us to participate in that type of ministry. I think we’ve been doing this now for five years. And I still keep in touch with a number of the students that we had in that very first cohort. What a blessing that is to have that continued presence in their life. >>Kristen Padilla: That leads into my next question, Dr. McConnell. As it relates just to our Beeson students, we have had a few years ago Court and Abby Gatliff on the show who talked about their CCMP with you. Most recently we’ve had Emily and Dallas Knight on the show who also did their CCMP in Vermont with you. What do you like most about our Beeson students? What have you learned from them? What has been a blessing to you? What have you hoped to pass along to them as they come back to this place? >>Jason McConnell: Yeah, well, just their passion to serve the Lord is just wonderful. And so, again, in a small rural community on the Canadian border – if it wasn’t for our partnership with Beeson we wouldn’t have a lot of seminary students coming through our church. And to see young people who have a passion to preach the gospel it invigorates me, personally, and it does the same thing for our whole congregation. I think even for our young people in our church. Here are students in their 20’s who have given their lives to ministry. And they’re being educated and developed in this. So, I think just that encouragement. And to see that they come from different denominational backgrounds – so, Baptists, Methodists, and Anglicans – it doesn’t really matter. We love having that diversity with us. Men and women – we love that diversity with us. The fact that they can step into our pulpit and preach – and they’ve all preached good sermons. So, we know the type of training that they’re getting at Beeson. For some of them it’s their first time preaching outside of class is in our pulpit here in Vermont. And that’s great. It’s just wonderful to watch them take those skills that they’re learning and then put them into practice – and bless our people along the way. So, those are some of the things that just put a smile on my face to watch that actually happen right before my very eyes. A couple of my great hopes for students as they go back home ... Vermont and the south are very different places. And rural and large city suburban areas are very different. But I want them to go home with a sense that we need to pay attention to culture, community, and to context. We learn those things and then apply ministry methods in ways that make sense to those. A number of students have gone home and said, “Gosh, after two weeks of CCMP I know your community better than I know my own community.” And I said, “Well, fair enough, ours is small, it’s relatively easy to get to know. Go home and do likewise.” Or wherever home will be when you finish at Beeson and whether you stay in Birmingham or go somewhere else. One student a few years ago, Sean Richardson has taken a church in rural Kansas. He and I talk on the phone quarterly. He always wants to share the quirky things that he’s running into in rural Kansas. But we continue just to talk about ministry and what it’s like in that context. And he says – and this is the highest compliment I think I’ve ever received – “There’s not a day that goes by in my life in Kansas that I don’t think about something that I learned when I was in Vermont.” I thought, “That’s worth the whole thing right there.” Because he really understands that his community and culture in Kansas is different than mine, different than Birmingham, but he’s learning it and he’s applying what he’s learned to that particular context and I think experiencing a lot of fruit from this. >>Doug Sweeney: That is wonderful, Jason. Thank you. Thank you very much for the ongoing work you engage in with our students. We’re grateful and I think we’ll be reaping rewards of this sort of ministry through eternity because of the ministries of the students who go on to become pastors in their own right, ministers of the gospel in their own right. Well, our time is drawing nigh. Kristen and I always end these interviews with people by asking them what God’s been teaching them recently. Jason, we want to ask you that. Has the Lord been doing anything new or special in your life or your church or your community? Or even in your mind as you’ve been reading the scriptures devotionally that we might end with that might be helpful for our listeners to hear about? >>Jason McConnell: Sure. That’s a good question. My answer to this is going to take us on completely different direction from where we’ve been. (laughs) In addition to the book that we’ve been working on, on the pastor and the public square, I’ve been working on another book which is actually with Wipf and Stock Publishing right now. It should be out early in 2022. The title is, “Beholding Beauty: Worshipping God Through the Arts.” It’s really ironic that a country pastor like me is writing a book on the arts. I can’t sing. I don’t play an instrument. I don’t dance. I have very few artistic abilities. But the theology of aesthetic and art has been an area that I have been thinking about and reading about and praying through. Right before the pandemic hit we had planned a yearlong discipleship initiative on the theology of the arts. We had two events planned for every month of the year. And it was going to be fantastic. And then just got shut down. So, I continued to muse on these types of issues. So, yeah, I’m constantly thinking about God as our creative God who is an artist in his own right, creating everything that we see around us, so much beauty. Here in Vermont I get to see that all the time. Right now, when I look out my windows, it’s like a post card of orange and red and yellow trees exploding against the deep blue sky. And then how we can integrate what God has created and use the creative gifts that he’s given us through painting and sculpture and music, and food, and winemaking, and the number of artistic talents – and use those as we grow in our knowledge of the Lord and Jesus Christ. So, we’ve been trying to implement more and more arts into our worship here, into my own life personally as well. So, I find myself devotionally walking through sculpture parks and art galleries in ways that I’ve never done before. And so I would commend anyone to explore that sort of area. It’s rich and compelling and not only does it deepen my spiritual life, but it just makes life more fun. >>Doug Sweeney: Amen. That is wonderful. And may your tribe increase. You have been listening to the Reverend Dr. Jason McConnell, Pastor of Franklin United Church in northern Vermont. The DMin alum, we are proud to say, of Beeson Divinity School. And a faithful pastor and partner with us in raising up the next generation of pastors in both urban, suburban, and rural contexts. Thank you, Jason, for being with us. Thank you, dear listeners, for tuning in. We’re praying for you. We ask you to pray for us and we say “goodbye” for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.