the united methodist church with Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris, part 1 (ep 3, 09).

⚠️ Content Warning: This episode contains the tragedy of gun violence and suicide. Listener discretion is advised.

First United Methodist Church Bentonville has stood on the same corner since 1832 before Arkansas was a state, before the Civil War, and through nearly two centuries of transformation. In part one of this two-part conversation, lead pastor Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris shares her personal journey from outside the church to the pulpit, including a call to ministry born from a campus shooting at the University of Arkansas that killed her professor. The conversation moves through the Methodist connectional system, where a bishop tells you where to live and who to love, into what it means to lead a church with nearly two hundred years of complicated history, including its time as a Methodist Episcopal Church South. Morris doesn't hide from that inheritance. She reminds her congregation of it. Because you can't build a genuine welcome on top of a history you refuse to name.

The episode explores the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, why Methodists sound wishy-washy when they're actually principled, and what it means to find God in Highway to Hell by AC/DC. It is a story about a tradition that has split over moral questions again and again and a church that keeps choosing to stay.

https://www.theunderview.com/the-first-united-methodist-church-with-rev-dr-michelle-morris-part-1

About the underview:

The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.

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Host: @mikerusch

Transcript

mike rusch.: 0:01

Before we begin, a word of caution. This episode contains the tragedy of gun violence and suicide. The interview is committed to honest storytelling about our place, and sometimes that means that those that we interview share the unthinkable stories of tragedy that they have endured. I would ask that you please take care of yourself as you listen

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 0:25

It's been a tough few years. It's hard to be a faith leader in this time period. I don't care what denomination you're serving. It's hard, very hard to be a faith leader. But there is something so centering about being able to stand in a sanctuary that stands on lands that's had sanctuaries. We've had a presence here since the 1830s. To stand in that space and think of all the things humanity has been through that we have stood through and we are a blip. This feels really hard right now and I don't make light of it at all, but at the same time I'm like, but this, in the end, it will still go on. Because our faith will continue because that witness to Jesus Christ is so powerful and loving and for me, true. It will continue. The great truths continue and whether we have a building that stands here or not, we're still standing on that faith.

mike rusch.: 2:15

You're listening to The Underview, an exploration in the shaping of our place. My name is Mike Rusch, and today we are continuing season three, The Faith of Northwest Arkansas. This season, we are asking questions that I think matter more than most people realize. How does faith, theology, religion, and ideology shape our community? We wanna understand how faith leaders view their role in the shaping and forming of Northwest Arkansas, And how what is taught on Sunday becomes a part of our public life on Monday. We are tracing four movements this season: what was planted here, what holds power, what is breaking apart, and what is emerging. And we are learning that some of the most interesting stories live in institutions that are old enough to have been a part of all four. Today, I'm sitting with Reverend Dr. Michelle Morris, the lead pastor at First United Methodist Church in downtown Bentonville. I wanna give you a little bit of the history before we get in because it matters for what you're about to hear. The first Methodist circuit riders entered Arkansas around 1815. They were preachers on horseback carrying saddlebags and Bibles, covering hundreds of miles of wilderness trail to reach new settlements that had no churches and no pastors. The Fayetteville circuit alone covered more than 100 square miles. A circuit rider would preach at noon in a cabin, sleep on the ground, and ride to the next settlement the next day. By the time Bentonville was being settled in the early 1830s, the Methodists were already here. First United Methodist Church was organized in 1832, four years before Arkansas became a state. It's one of the oldest institutions of any kind in Benton County, and it has been on the same corner in downtown Bentonville for nearly 200 years. The story of the Methodist Church in America is complicated. It is split over the question of slavery, over exclusion and inclusion over and over. In 1844, the domination fractured into North and South, and here in Bentonville, the church that had been on this corner since before Arkansas was even a state chose the southern side. The two branches would not reconcile until 1939, a century later. And then in 2022 and 2023, the United Methodist Church went through yet another fracture, this time over the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people, and over 100 churches in Arkansas left the denomination. First United Methodist Church, Bentonville, they stayed. So their tradition continues today with lessons learned. That is a nearly 200-year arc from accommodation to resistance, from one side of the moral question to the other, and it raises something I want you to hold while you listen. Can an institution change? Not just survive, but actually become something different than what it was? And if it can, what does that require? What does it cost? And what does that tell the rest of us about whether the institutions we are building right now are capable of the same thing? We also wanna hear what you're thinking and what you're wrestling with as you listen to this season. There's a send us a voice message button on theunderview.com. We'd love to hear what you have to say about your own faith community, what you're hearing from others, or maybe the absence of what you're not hearing. All right, we have so much to work through today that we've had to split this conversation into two parts. Unfortunately, Monica was not able to join me during this interview with Reverend Morris. However, she was foundational in the preparation for this episode, and she has listened to it, and she will join us in our talkback portion in part two. Okay, let's get into it I have a privilege today of sharing a table with the Reverend Dr. Michelle Morris, who's the lead pastor here at First United Methodist Church, right here in downtown Bentonville. Mm-hmm. Which is my home, and your home as well. Reverend Morris, thank you for yeah, this opportunity to sit down and hear your story, hear the story of your faith community. I'm really looking forward to it. Welcome to these conversations.

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 5:52

Thanks so much. I'm really looking forward to this as well.

mike rusch.: 5:54

You and I have had a chance to have some really incredible conversations and I'm so thankful for the work that you do here within this city and how it just tangibly plays out in the world. And so I'm excited to have you share that with those that are following along and listening. And, I think one of the things that First United Methodist Church here is really interesting to me. You've, this church, this institution of this church has been here since 1832 before Arkansas was the state. And so this long view of the story of northwest Arkansas and the history of Arkansas is something I'm hoping we're gonna get into. But I'm really excited about how you view this and how you view your role here and the role of this faith community in our city. Tell me your story.

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 6:36

Okay. The usual surprising thing that people learn about me is that I did not grow up in the church. I was baptized when I was 25 years old at a new church start in Lowell, Arkansas, a new United Methodist Church in lower Arkansas. That actually does not exist anymore. It was only around for five years. It was what was called a parachute drop church, which means that they dropped a pastor in and he had to go around and find the people and just various, influences at the time. It ended up that we were only around for five years. But. Tremendous work done. I obviously, I got my call to ministry outta that church. And then a number of churches in northwest Arkansas were strengthened by the discipleship that happened there. But yes, did not grow up in the church. Grew up very suspicious of organized religion. My parents did not have very positive experiences in organized religion. And and I was the, I always call myself the heathen project of my friends. It wasn't that I was out there, causing trouble or, getting arrested or anything like that. I just didn't go to church in the Bible belt. And so I was everybody's invitation when they had to invite a friend to church. So I saw a lot of different religious traditions and I was most intrigued by Methodism in part because of open communion. I had experienced that. And that was the first church that told me I was okay to come to the table, even though I wasn't baptized. And and that really stuck with me. But it would be, like I said, years later, before I would finally make my way into church. And I did so honestly 'cause I married a Methodist and then we needed, he was an engineer and I was an English major. We needed something in common. So we decided to try church. And we struggled to find a church in the area where we connected. But this new church start was actually being founded by my next door neighbor from growing up. Her husband was the pastor appointed up here. So that's what got us connected. And then I, my call to ministry story what was interesting about joining that church was I was one of the few people, Methodists are not very well known for knowing our Bible very well. We're known for, commitments to social justice and to faith. But if you ask us to rattle off biblical passages, we're not so good at that. We know stories. We don't necessarily have vacation Bible schools that make us memorize whole chunks of the Bible. But I had read the entire Bible cover to cover and I'd done so out of defense because I had been going to so many churches that were telling me all kinds of things. And I finally wanted to know for myself what the Bible said. So I had read it from age 13 to 16, I made my way through the King James Bible, believe it or not. That's also why I'm really good at reading Shakespeare. But anyways, and I, at the end of that. Whole journey. I loved God. I loved the Bible. I was not sure about the church. But anyway, so we became members of this church and I was, like I said, one of the few people that had read the Bible. So I, within three months of joining was leading a Sunday school class. And then, because we were the fifth family to join, we were automatically on church leadership. And so I like to say that God let me poke around for a long time about my call to ministry. And then once I made it just the tiny bit of step forward, God said, all right, here we go. I was baptized at 25, called a ministry at 27, and my called of ministry is actually a Northwest Arkansas story. Because I was, I worked for the University of Arkansas and I was working on a master degree in comparative literature, and I was, it was the first day of classes in 2000 at the U of a, I was waiting for John Locke to come teach my class. He was the advisor for comparative literature and it was the flagship class for comparative literature. And as I was waiting for him to come teach a freshman, ran into our classroom and said, the police told me to get outta the building or get in a classroom. And everyone started speculating and most people were saying that it was probably a bomb threat. But I had been in Kimple Hall for three bomb threats. People call 'em in 'cause they don't wanna take classes. So I'd been in for three bomb threats and I knew they always evacuated the building. I knew you didn't have a choice. So as soon as he said to get in a classroom or get outta the building, I knew we had a shooter in the building, which we did. And it was a young man who was also in the comparative literature program who had gotten dismissed from the PhD program. And he had a list of the people who were on the committee that had dismissed him. And he had 90, 90 something rounds of ammunition. And he started in Dr. Locke's office and shot him and killed him. And the people in the rooms on either side called the police immediately and the wonderful bike cops that we had all made fun of for the longest time at the U of A actually got a cut across campus so fast that they caught the young man in Dr. Lock's office before he actually got out of there and had him barricaded in there, and he eventually turned the gun on himself. In the meantime though, I was upstairs watching the building get surrounded by the. Yellow, do not cross tape. And I was on the side of the do not cross tape you're not supposed to be on the side of. And eventually we got escorted outta the building and I found out it was my professor. And I of course thought had he been, James Kelly was the young man's name, had he been 15 minutes later he would come to our classroom, but I didn't deal with that, a lot of that. I just pushed it down. We weren't so good about talking about PTSD back in the it was the year 2000 and it wasn't until months later when I had a student come in my office and threatened me and he had to be escorted from the building. That all of that rushed back. And I went home that day from work and told my husband that I was not going to ever leave the house again. I was so afraid. But I decided I was okay to go to church while I was at church all of the fear and rage just unpacked. And I was in the choir area. I was in front of everybody and I went, I threw, I always described it as throwing the gauntlet down with God. I threw the gauntlet down and told God that God had to get down here and to me why these things happened. Now, I wasn't saying it out loud. I was praying it, I was weeping. The whole church knew something was wrong. No one, I don't even think the pastor knew what he was preaching by the time things were done 'cause it was so distracting having me up there, coming apart. Everyone just surrounded me when church was over. And then that night I went to a disciple bible study and everyone just, they gave me the space and I told them about all my fear and my I had. Cousins that went to Columbine. It just, it was the early days of school shootings, but it, they were very, it was like, it felt like concentric circles wrapping around me, like eventually there was gonna be a target on me. And anyway, I just unpacked all that fear and my pastor said first he said, you need to go see counseling. This is PTSD. He recognized it. And then they just prayed for me. And I remember leaving that space, feeling empty is the best way to put it. Like I was just shell of skin and bones. And I turned onto 71 B in Lowell. I could point to you on the road, turned onto 71 B and was overwhelmed by the presence of God. I've never been able to explain what it felt like except to just say it was all the things that were good. Peace, joy. I was crying now, but it was tears of joy and safety, love, everything good. It was so wonderful that I almost, when I got home, called my husband to tell him I was gonna sleep in the car.'cause God is out here. But he, I was pretty sure he was very close to having me committed. So I decided I better go inside and I slept better than I ever slept in months and the next morning I got up and I was ready to go to work and I head into work and I am I took a way to work that I'd never taken before. I don't remember taking the different turn. I took a different way and about nine blocks from the office got a flat tire. And then all the fear rushed back in. I had felt that same presence of God on the way in to work, but now it was gone and, but there was a church right next to me, so I thought, I'll pull in and change my tire here. But I was so mad at God for abandoning me again and while I was trying to figure out how to change a tire, 'cause I've never changed a tire in my life. A an SUV pulled in and I again wasn't necessarily thinking super clearly, so I was just sure that this person was coming to kill me and I saw a man get out. And come around to my car and it was my first crush from junior high school. And I said, Hey, Doug. He said, Hey Michelle. He said, do you have a flat tire? I said, I do. He said, do you need some help? I said, I do. So he starts changing my tire and telling me all about his life and all these, things going on. And then I said, did you see me? And he said, what do you mean? I said, did you see me? Is that why you pulled into this church parking lot? He said, no, I work at this church. And I thought, man, Doug is about the farthest away from anybody I'd ever thought was working at church. And that's when I heard a voice say, no, you are, but you asked me why these terrible things happen. And I will tell you that there's no good reason. There's no reason that's gonna take away your pain and your fear and your hurt and your anger, but you know what my peace feels come and work for me and bring that peace to the rest of the world. And so that, that's when I knew I was called a ministry. And I've served churches in West Memphis and in, I had two churches in Fort Smith, and I had, I worked for the conference offices. I served at, served the church in Conway, first United Methodist in Conway. I call myself the ghost pastor of Conway because I was only there from July of 2020 to June of 2021. So most people, because it was the pandemic, only saw an apparition of me on the screen. And then I got appointed here to Bentonville in 2021. So it's a little bit like coming home to be back in northwest Arkansas.

, mike rusch.: 16:46

I first say just thank you for sharing that story. Just sitting across table and watching you tell it feels like I can watch you go back to those Yeah. To those moments. I'm curious this call to ministry and it's change in your life.

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 17:02

Yeah.

mike rusch.: 17:02

As you look back on that from where you are today, what do you draw from that?

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 17:07

So many things. I, it. It significantly shifted my identity. We talk a lot when we about ordination. We're in a tradition that we consider ourselves still in the apostolic line of succession. Some people don't consider Methodist in that line. That's a whole other church argument. But that, basically, that line means goes from Jesus laying hands on Peter all the way down to each person that's ordained and we consider ourselves within that line. And there's a, that's tremendous to be we have a traceable family tree in that sort of sense, right? And. And so we move into that identity of the people that are, that ordination is talked about as a set apart state. So the people who are set apart to serve God and I often say it changes your skin. It makes you into this person. I talk, like I tell people it doesn't matter when I retire. I'm still an elder, I'm still ordained, which means that if I came across someone who really wanted to have communion, I could do it on the street and or if they wanted to be baptized, I don't, I they, one of the things they say to you when you get ordained is take th authority. And so I have that authority. And I know one of the things that we, that's important to talk about in, especially in relation to my story is how do you find yourself at home? So United Methodists serve at the whim of the bishop. The bishop tells you where you're serving, which means the bishop also tells you where you're living, at least what community you're living in. And and so how do you understand home in that space? How do you understand community? How do you understand identity all tied into that? And obviously my identity is in Christ, but my identity is also in this call. And one of the most powerful things for me about the Methodist Church is that we are what's called a connectional system. So Methodist churches don't see ourselves as an island unto ourselves. We. See ourselves really connected with other United Methodist churches and that exhibits in a lot of ways. But one of the more significant ways is that we may share pastors. I'm, I've served all of those churches and so I have even, especially in churches that have parsonages, I've lived in the same homes. I have so many of my colleagues. And even though we didn't live in the same home at the same time. It's like the family home that you pass down to each other. And even if we don't, aren't serving a place of the parsonage, you're passing down that community to each other. And so there's this, it creates a sense of care beyond our city. It's a care for, since I will serve, I could serve any United Methodist Church in Arkansas. It creates a sense of care of this whole state and those churches because because they very well may be my home and how I take care of them, how I take the care of the town that I'm in now impacts the person who follows me. And it also impacts how I honor the person that I followed. So it makes home in a. In not a geographical sense. Yes, in the sense of being confined to Arkansas, but in, in a much more I don't know, there's like this invisible thread that connects all of us and creates this very extended family everywhere we go.

mike rusch.: 20:25

I'm curious from your faith traditions or your faith perspective, what does it mean to belong to them, to a community?

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 20:32

It. That's a, to a specific community, it's it's an interesting thing to serve as a pastor appointed to the community because we are supposed to disconnect, break off the relationships of the PE with the people when we move that we are handing that people off to the person who is following us, and that's become much more complicated in our current day because we don't actually unfriend people on Facebook.

mike rusch.: 20:59

That's encouraging.

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 21:00

But we do have this and different pastors respect these boundaries a little bit better than others, but we have this understanding that at most that first year that you're gone, you'll just do a thumbs up on people's posts and you won't post a whole lot of you won't get up in their business. Because you have handed that community off to someone else. And I'll say that is one of the, it's a, the, when you, the first time you do it, the first time you move from one community to the next it's almost traumatic because you literally go from one day, like I literally went from one day loving the people of West Memphis and being so deeply ingrained in their life. I showed up when their babies were born. I buried their grandmothers, I walked through them through family crises. We laughed together and cried together and fought with each other and just like family does, right? And then the next day I have to turn around and do that for the people in Fort Smith immediately and let completely go of the people in West Memphis But at the same time, that's so tremendously powerful. And I think today in a day where we divide up over so much to have that call and that assignment and that expectation that you will walk in the door and love this people. And there's no exception to that, right? That is what you're called to do and that's what you will do. And that is such a powerful sign of God's love. And I'm not saying we do it perfectly. It's very awkward. It's awkward for us and it's awkward for prisoners, but the sign that it sends that we, this is what we do. We are now alongside each other in life. It instantly builds community. There's an expectation that the role comes with community, right? I really don't do this in isolation. I don't sit in a room and pastor no one, I we are called to be present in people's lives. My first week here, someone was in the hospital dying and I sat with her and heard all of her anxieties and her fears and everything, and I sat there for four hours. It turns out it was a screw up on medication, and she is alive and kicking in one of my church leaders right now, but I have been here less than a week and I'm into this intimate, holy place with her. It's such a powerful thing for us to remember. We divide over so much and it leaves us feeling really isolated and lonely and afraid, and there's no one there for us. And to be able to be a representation of God's love and say that's not how it has to be. If. And to expect that there will be community is, I think, an important thing. Maybe one of the more powerful things that those of us that are called into this space too, these days,

mike rusch.: 24:06

That's such a different understanding of how community should be formed, can be formed. Maybe like

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 24:15

Yeah.

mike rusch.: 24:16

Culturally as I think about it from maybe my perspective and what I've been told, how community's supposed to work. What does it say about a congregation and a faith tradition for you to have the freedom to, to move into those kinds of spaces? And for, frankly, what does it say about a congregation that

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 24:33

Yeah.

mike rusch.: 24:34

Understands community in, in a way that, that is just the way it's going to be.

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 24:40

Yeah. No it requires tremendous trust on the part of the congregation too. And so sometimes you're walking into very messy space or, this is one of the, we, the Methodist Church, the United Methodist Church is a quite a bit to try and reduce the kind of abuses that can happen. We have to go through pretty extensive psychological testing and interviews and we have background checks. Extensive background checks, checking our credit, all these things to try as much as possible to make sure that people who are put in the pulpit are as healthy as can be. But, life happens. And so some, and some colleagues make it past all of those and are, they're just slick, and I have certainly served churches that have been taken advantage of by some real snakes, in all honesty. And it's always amazing to me churches that have been through something traumatic, like a pastor's had multiple affairs, or one who's embezzled from them or something like that. Both of those, I've, I have served churches where that's happened that they will still trust a pastor. That's a very powerful statement too. It is. It's I think we get so focused these days on our own perspective, and I don't think that, I think it's shaped by our world. Netflix tells me what I'm gonna and shapes down to it. The algorithm, the all powerful algorithm. Is narrowing my field of vision so much that it's feeding my own perspective and not as much exposing me. I have to be so deliberate to go out and find other sources that don't feed my usual understanding. That the world is really teaching us to focus down on our own comfort, our own ideas, our own reflections, our own perspectives. And this whole system that I serve in pushes against that so hard. When a church is getting a new pastor, they fill out a, it's, by the way, it's as we affectionately called it, it's March Madness in Methodism right now. This is the season when people are finding out whether they're being moved or not, and. And it in our conference, it goes from about the beginning of March to the end of May. So it's a, it's an uneasy season for pastors. But so they, the churches fill out a profile, but they can't always get exactly what, and nor is it necessarily the wise thing for you to give a church exactly what they want. Right. And yet we all agree to this. We agree to, to try it at least and see if it works. And sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it doesn't, but at least we're still trying. And that involves some level of letting go of what your preferences are.

mike rusch.: 27:18

As you approach this faith community, you're here in downtown Bentonville. I think one of the really interesting things about this community is that you've been here for almost 200 years. And that puts you in some times of history that we've talked about in previous seasons. Before Arkansas was a state but in a place and at a time of of enslavement of Yep. Indigenous removal. Yep. This is part of the context of where some of this faith community began. Faith community split over the Civil War. I'm, if we were to fast forward today I see it on the banner outside that all are welcome here. Those are very different positions from where one starts and maybe where one is today. How do you reconcile, how do you reckon all that? What does that speak to you about the nature of a faith community?

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 28:10

Oh, first of all, that they, what does it that Martin Luther King said that was a, it was a summary of someone else that the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice. That a lot of times it takes a long time for us to get it. Together, but oh, it's so powerful to be in this building. And the building itself, the oldest part of the building is from 1954 and that's the sanctuary. The sanctuary is from 1954, but that's the fourth sanctuary on this corner. The first one burned in the Civil War. And there are all kinds of stories that float around. Some say that the South burned it so the North couldn't get it. Some say that the north burned it when they got here. It's probably that the south burned it before the north got here. If you really wanna get intricate on details of this church, you need to talk to Johnny Haney. He knows all the details. But what I do know and can definitely say is that we were an a Methodist Episcopal church south, and there was a Methodist Episcopal church North. In this town, the Methodist Episcopal church south. That was the split that happened. And it happened over slavery, and we chose the slavery side. So every once in a while, I remind this church I'm routinely reminding us what it means to be a church that are all our welcome, the fullness of that. But every once in a while when I feel like we're getting on maybe a little big for our britches, I remind them we were a south. Methodist Episcopal Church South. We know we were on the wrong side of history. We know we were thankfully the denomination came back together in 1929 to form the Methodist church. And and we reconciled. And that for me is a powerful statement of God's grace. That we are, none of us are gonna do this perfectly. And yet God's grace is still at work within it, but also a powerful statement of redemption and restitution of, we can own that we were at, we were wrong, and we can still be here. It's been a tough few years. It's hard to be a faith leader period in this time period. I don't care what denomination you're serving. It's hard, very hard to be a faith leader. It's hard to be a leader, period. But there is something so centering about being able to stand in a sanctuary that stands on lands, that's had sanctuaries that I think the first sanctuary is actually built in the 1850s. But we've had a presence here since the 1830s, as you mentioned. To stand in that space and think of all the things humanity has been through that we have stood through and that, and we are a blip. I went to Boston for a conference and stood in churches that have been there since the 15, 16 hundreds. And obviously I've been to Europe and stood on places where, faith goes even deeper than that. I've been to Israel and you walk on the land that Jesus touched with his own feet though all of those are centering experiences that help you go there is this feels really hard right now and I don't make light of it at all, but at the same time I'm like, but this, in the end, it will still go on. We'll still be because our faith will continue because that witness to Jesus Christ is so powerful and. And loving and for me, true it will continue. The great truths continue and whether we have a building that stands here or not, we're still standing on that faith. It's just really nice that the building's still here.

mike rusch.: 32:08

With this long history and I love your perspective that you bring just that we're going to be here. And I think it, it makes me wonder this question of this process of culture shaping and forming where the faith and culture over this long history are. Are undoubtedly influencing the direction and growth of a faith congregation. How do you view this role of culture and the church's involvement in it? Yeah. Complicit or accommodating or resisting. How do you view these two things that happened in our world,

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 32:42

yeah. So a really good example, if you come in, especially if you come to our nine or 10, 10 worship service, you are going to hear all kinds of music. You will actually hear less overtly Christian music than anything else. You'll hear folk music and pop and rock that I caused quite a stir. The day that we ended service with Highway to Hell by AC/DC. We were talking about Satan.

mike rusch.: 33:11

Is that a real story?

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 33:12

That is a real story.

mike rusch.: 33:13

Okay.

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 33:14

That is a real story. C

mike rusch.: 33:15

continue

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 33:16

because I tell. Just I tell my musicians, people are going to walk outta this place and maybe they'll remember something from the sermon, maybe, but they will remember the music. The music will stick with them. It's either music they already know, or the tune and the words will automatically start imprinting on 'em. Like we're creatures built for music, and so I'm always like, here is, here's what I'm doing with the sermon. Now. Find me songs that say the same thing so that they actually walk out carrying the gospel with them. And I tell people when people do every once in a while, the AC/DC week, we got a lot of questions.

mike rusch.: 33:53

I, I have some questions too, but keep going.

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 33:56

Again, we were talking about Satan and and so anyway, but we, I say, we either believe God is in all things or we don't. And if we believe in God is in all things, then God is in all things God's, in all the music, god's, in all the art god's in all of that. Now are some things not of God. Yes. But when you're talking about like widespread genre sort of things, God, I believe God's imbued God's self into all of creation, right? So God's in all of creation, hip hop and country and classical, it's all there. And so I, I don't think that I would say accommodation. I certainly wouldn't say resistance, but the reason that I wouldn't say accommodation is because accommodation implies that, at least to me, it implies that we're letting the culture drive the message. And that's not what we're doing. What we're doing is starting with the gospel message and finding that message within culture, right? So that is really our approach. I am helping my people see God in more things than what happens in this building. If we can find God to this building, or if we can find God to one radio station, then our. Oh, we have. So that just doesn't, that's so to me, that makes us decide who God is, right? And that's idolatry. As soon as you do that, you've made God into your image instead of the reverse. And so for me I want my people to walk outta this building. I want, of course, for them to have count, encounter God here in this space, but I want them to walk out and encounter God everywhere they go. And so what I'm trying to do is help them see it. I see it in as many ways as possible.

mike rusch.: 35:46

I love hearing that because I feel and this is my own story and I'm wanna apply this to anybody else, but I feel like I've grown up in a place where i've been told that to be cautious, to be careful of culture. And that its influence can be this thing that maybe in some ways has always been per portrayed as having more power maybe than this story of Jesus. And how do you reconcile that? Yeah. Or maybe you, that's the wrong question because you have reconciled that help. Help maybe. Yeah. Help me reconcile that understanding of this idea of going into a world with that kind of view. That God is there and I'm going to find

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 36:25

right.

mike rusch.: 36:25

That presence.

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 36:26

That's it. You gotta come in with the perspective in place. If you go into culture wandering I'm just here in culture. I'm just being influenced. I'm just receiving. I'm not thinking about it. Then you're letting the culture shape your worldview, right? If you go into culture with that lens on where is God in this, then when you encounter something, you're coming at it with a critical eye of, and I don't mean like you're going to be judgemental, I mean that you're going to be reflective. Is there anything of God in this space? For me, when I listen to music, I always ask myself three things. When I hear a new song, could I sing this song to Jesus? And I know that sounds a little bit cheesy, like if you're a fan of South Park, they were like, oh, you can turn any song into a Christian song. You just replace baby with Jesus. But could I sing this song to Jesus? Could Jesus sing this song to me? Which that is incredibly powerful. Some songs that come to mind like She will Be Loved by Maroon five that is a powerful Jesus singing to me song. Oh man, I'm getting a little choked up thinking about it. And then the third question I ask is, would this fit somewhere in the soundtrack of the Bible? So like the example of AC/DC.

mike rusch.: 37:45

Okay, that's not where I thought you were going, but keep going.

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 37:48

But like the example of AC/DC, we were doing a series, we were doing a series on heroes and villains, and we were taking a. A Disney villain or hero and pairing it with a biblical hero or villain. And we did the Lots of Love Bear with Satan. Lots of love from Bear, from Toy Story and Satan were paired together. He's, by the way, very much a Satanic figure. They get thrown into the fire pit and all of that. Anyway,

mike rusch.: 38:12

Oh, I'm following you. I'm a huge Toy story fan. So keep yeah, keep going.

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 38:15

That's right. So we were comparing those two and that song, highway to hell talks about the choices that you make, determine the direction that you're headed, right? So we had framed up this whole thing about Satan and what Satan does and how Satan tries to draw you into that space of temptation, right? And how lots of love Bear did that too, right? Set up this kind of whole image of what it could be. And it turns out it was a whole false story, right? And that ac DC song actually fits really well to that, to raising that question. So I did have a parent catch me later that week, and he was upset. He was like, my daughter walked out singing that song and she said. I'm on a highway to, and then she stopped and looked at me and said, can I say that word? And he said let's talk about why you're singing this. And he tells me about this story that they had. And he had to on the fly come up with why that song would be in church, even though it really disturbed him. And so he tells me this whole thing, and I was like, what a, what an amazing conversation you had with your daughter. And he goes, yeah. And I said, don't you think that's what I meant to happen? He goes, oh, and so I always am looking for those things that can tell the story in a different way. And so for me, it's not about going into culture unprepared, right? And it's not about handing over the reins to culture. It's about I am going into culture expecting to find God and expecting that sometimes I won't. But if I don't go with that. Intention then I'm easily captured

mike rusch.: 39:56

to maybe take it a step farther. As you go into culture with that perspective, how does that change your view of people and neighbor and the people we run into day to day?

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 40:07

That's our spiritual struggle right now. Because so much of the noise of culture is telling us to divide and so much of the noise of culture is telling us to make assumptions about each other. And so much of it is trying to make one issue such a hard line that you cut everybody out that doesn't agree with you on that hard line. And I think actually we come by it honestly. I just wrote a book called Profits to the Generations. And in that book, I talk about, I pair each one of the major generations with one of the major profits. And I paired Gen Z with Daniel. The book of Daniel is one of two apocalyptic books in the Bible, Daniel and Revelation. Those are, they're apocalyptic moments in others. Jesus at times says apocalyptic things, right? But as far as full books, Daniel and Revelation are it, so I paired Gen Z with Daniel because Gen Z has only ever known a world coming apart. They've never seen a world that wasn't. I, my, I took my son out for his birthday. He's 23, and I don't know what made me say it, but I said, did you know we used to have a balanced budget? And he said, what? As a nation? I said, yeah. And I said, do you know we did it because both sides came together and made compromises. Okay. And he said now I know you're lying because that's not possible. And when people are in apocalyptic states, which we've been in really since about Y 2K on some level or another, we've been in an apocalypse. When you're in an apocalyptic state, you become very defensive. You become very protective. And so it's a time when you do draw hard lines, right? So the world is creating that environment for us. But as people of faith, we can't give ourselves over to that reality. And so I want to push back to my call when I was sent here to Bentonville. I don't know what this congregation's made up of. I don't know who they are. I know I'm sent to love them. This congregation is made up of a lot of different people. We are we lean progressive, but we are not 100% progressive. We have people that are conservative and I frequently tell them, I'm so glad that they're here because they keep us from being monolithic. We have people who absolutely object to, that L-G-B-T-Q-I-A, they would call it a lifestyle. And then we have lesbian couples, right? And I love them all because my love cannot be contingent upon a political alliance. It can't be contingent on what year you were born. It can't be contingent on whether you're rich or poor, because God's love not contingent on that. We truly believe in the United Methodist Church that God loves all people. There is no exception to that. And so if I am, I'm not called to be God in any way, shape, or form, but I'm called to represent that reality and as a representation of that reality, as much as I can, I have to live that reality. So when I go out into culture and encounter other people, I have to try. I don't always do it perfectly. Some days I'm not even remotely close to perfect. But I have to try to lead from love instead of, leading from a place of being guarded. Or leading from a place of assumptions even. I'm gonna make them, I'm human. I'm gonna, I'm gonna get I have this. I sometimes go to Bella Vista rec centers, and too many conversations in the hot tub that make me crazy. But they're also good for me because they remind me it doesn't matter. I still am called to love these people. I do not have to love their ideals. I do not have to love when they hate, and I can set down moral guides, especially as a faith leader. But when it comes to how I treat other people, it has to drive from love first, and then the other things work themselves out from there.

mike rusch.: 44:30

I hear you. But

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 44:32

everybody's got one of those these days.

mike rusch.: 44:34

I guess my assumption and I don't think I'm alone. There's probably a lot of people in this world who to love that way is going to cost 'em something or it's going to hurt. How do you approach, or why do you approach what that looks like in other people knowing that there's likely a cost?

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 44:51

I just am okay with the cost. I, and I'm not saying that is great, there's many a days I think I could just move to Ecuador, quit this job, you know, but again, I go back to, it's my skin. It's, where am I running? You know, Jonah tried to run from God really didn't work out for you. Where am I gonna go? Look, let me do say this though. There is a thing called healthy boundaries, right? And I am human. I am not Christ, right? Christ can take on the whole of that reality of love. I can't, I'm not Jesus. I don't remotely think I'm close, but and so I can set healthy boundaries and and make decisions around that, in that sort of case. So if if I thought my physical safety was threatened, that sort of thing I could set those kinds of boundaries. I can't always set psychological boundaries. I'm in that I have one foot in the academic world, one foot in the church because of my PhD and the work that I do for the academy. And so I'd go to this conference most years, the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion. And I go to a lot of the teach sessions on teaching, because I also teach, I teach at a denominational level, and then I, of course teach congregation, right? And they were having debates about, it was a session on Bible and film, and they were having debates about the, whether they, they should put trigger warnings in when they were requiring students to watch certain films and, or should they put in an alternate film that the student could watch if they had certain trauma and I spoke up and said, if you are teaching in an undergraduate university, or if you're teaching in a, in a, like a literature program or something like that, I can certainly understand doing something like that if you're teaching pastors do not, because it's not like I get to choose who comes in my office in whatever crisis that they're in and maybe sharing a story that's going to set my own trauma off, and yet I still have to be present with that. Now, the healthy boundary that I set in those cases, I have my own therapist, right? I go to my therapist and let that stuff loose. But but yeah, so as humans you can set healthy boundaries and when, we did the session on how to love your Christian nationalist neighbor, right? And it says in that book, and I thought that was a great thing to point out, that there, there are different contexts in which you can allow certain things to happen, right? So they said you might be visiting uncle Jim, and he, and it's just you and Uncle Jim and he's spouting some pretty hateful stuff. And you can be kind and, object, but still stay present with him. Versus if you're there with Uncle Jim and your child is with you and you don't want your child exposed to that hateful rhetoric, you may say, uncle Jim, either we're not gonna talk about this right now, or we're gonna leave. You can set those things. And as a moral leader, I can make statements, moral statements, right? This is wrong. It helps to have a denomination backing me up. It helps to have the social principles of the United Methodist Church.'cause then I can say this is wrong. And we to address this in our social principles, right? So it's not just Michelle up here saying whatever it's Michelle and an entire denomination. And so you can do those kinds of things. But regardless, you still have to love the person. Like the reason that you heard me recount the story of this shooting and say the young man, his name was James Kelly and I didn't say that awful shooter. And I was glad he was dead. I was glad he killed himself, is because I'm not glad he is dead. And I'm not glad he killed himself. And I'm so sorry that he got into a place that he thought gun was the only answer. And I love him. If I don't, none of this matters.

, mike rusch.: 48:48

I think as I, as I listen to you, I, this maybe it's me, this boundary between the humanity that you're describing and the way that a faith tradition shows up in the world. I think in our cultural context, our American cultural context, especially in a place like Bentonville, Arkansas and saw it's not often we're faced with this type of maybe duality. We want to make it easier and or simple and be able to put it into a bucket that is always like this or always like that. And I think as I listen to you, what you're saying doesn't fit into one of those,

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 49:25

it does not

mike rusch.: 49:25

buckets. So I find myself trying to understand even where to place that. And I, I find myself trying to understand how do we apply that in a, that beautiful principle? How do we apply that into the world around us as we go about our day and we shop at our store and we walk through beauty and tragedy for those that may have those same questions that I do.

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 49:50

Yeah. Yeah.

mike rusch.: 49:51

From your perspective, how do you, what is, what is required of us who

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 49:56

decides to do justice, love, mercy, and walk on blue with our God.

mike rusch.: 49:59

Okay. That, that feels like I can put that better into a bucket. So

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 50:03

I

mike rusch.: 50:03

think you're gonna bring me back, but uhhuh, like what is how, from the, from this United Methodist tradition What is it asking us to be in the world?

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 50:12

Yeah. That's a really good question. We, I was asked the other day, somebody said, that Methodists get accused of being wishy-washy of not standing for anything. And I said yes. The reason that we do get accused of that is because we stand in the hard middle. When you read the social principles, the United Methodist Social Principles, you will find, I find them to be hilarious because they are so contrary. They're beautifully hilarious.

mike rusch.: 50:40

Are they meant to be hilarious? Okay.

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 50:41

They're beautifully hilarious. They're meant to be very serious.

mike rusch.: 50:43

Yeah, I was gonna say.

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 50:44

But they're so contrary to the way we operate in our world today, in that you do try to push into these buckets, right? You push all the way to one side, or all the way to the other side. And we stand right here in the middle. One of, one of my favorite examples to use is our stance on gambling in which we say, gambling is bad. You should not gamble. You should absolutely not gamble. It takes advantage of the most vulnerable among us. It continues to to take wealth from those that are poor. It creates dependencies and addictions should never gamble. Also, though. We recognize that Native American tribes are pulling themselves outta poverty because they have casinos. So basically we say if you're gonna gamble, gamble at a Native American casino, so

mike rusch.: 51:25

it's not wishy-washy, it feels dualistic, but but I see where you're going and I think I can get behind that. Okay.

rev. dr. michelle morris.: 51:31

And that's where we stand almost every stance that we take, not all of them. There are some that we're really hard line on but almost all of the stances that we take, there's an exception to every rule because we just recognize that the complexity of life is such that you cannot account in a five paragraph statement. You can't account for every reality of humanity and every variable that's in there. And the most important thing is to try to walk with grace alongside one another. And so we do give a lot of these exceptions to make space for that to happen. So I just owned when somebody said, you sound very wishy-washy. I said, yes, we do sound that way, but we're actually incredibly principled. Yeah. In that space. And right now the middle is prophetic. Because everyone's trying to push to either side, and we're trying to stand in this middle and say. No, there's room for all of us here that the idea that any one of us can proclaim a hundred percent. We know exactly what the will of God is the height of arrogance. And again, it's idolatry. So we're gonna just stand here in the middle and hold this middle ground and take the slings and arrows of being accused of being wishy-washy and of accused of being not convicted in our faith. We get that a lot. Methodists don't believe anything, and we are what's called a non doctrinal faith, which. It does not help that label. But the reason that we are non doctrinal is that we do not require that you sign a statement of faith that says, we, you will adhere to these things. We do have things that we ask you when you're baptized, when you join our church. They are pretty generic affirmations of Christianity. And and that's, and that really drives from our founder John Wesley, believed that we were fighting about a lot of things that really, in the grand scheme of things didn't matter and that we should extend charity to one another and recognize that the differences that we have are okay. That, that's the window dressing. And that can be switched out. We did talk a little bit before this. I wrote this book called Gospel Discipleship and I wrote it because I was assigned to be by, I used this when I worked in the RAD offices and I was supposed to develop an, a discipleship pathway for every CH United Methodist Church in Arkansas. And I explained to the bishop that he had brought me here from a two point charge in Fort Smith. For those of you that don't know what that means I serve two churches at the same time. I had a two point charge and I said that two point charge was those two churches were 2.5 miles apart from each other, formed within one year of each other, made up of the same demographic of people. And I could not successfully do the same thing at either church. And that made me think there's not just a, you couldn't make a checklist and run that down. And so I was working with 20 different churches on their discipleship pathway and we were studying the last words Jesus speaks in each of his gospels. And notice that they were all different last words. Which is interesting because you think people would really pay attention to the last words. Like last words are very important things when you're getting ready to leave on a trip, you say, I love you. Don't forget to feed the dog. Those are the things we want you to remember. And and here were these four gospels shaping where Christianity was gonna go and they don't agree. And what I realized was that you could look through the lens of the last words and see four distinct understandings of discipleship. And then once I understood that, not only could I help people understand what their discipleship was, but I also came to realize that denominations have distinct understandings of discipleship. And that allowed me to respond with a lot more charity to the other denominations around me who see things very differently than I do. And who. Who structure their churches differently, have different theological assertions. All of those things, they're all being faithful to the gospels. It's just leaning into one gospel over the other. So the gospels themselves invite us into a place with a lot of diversity. We just, we tend to try to make 'em all say one thing and they say four distinct things. What we should focus on are where they actually agree. And those things that they all agree on are pretty core to the Christian faith and a. We can hold to those and have some diversity of expression collectively on that. And Methodist happen to be the part of the Christian witness that holds to the middle. It's who we are. So I don't know how to be anything otherwise.

mike rusch.: 56:14

All right, well, that's where we're gonna pause for part one of this conversation. We heard Reverend Morris share her story, her call to ministry that came through the worst kind of tragedy, and the story of her tradition that has been splitting and reconciling over moral questions for nearly two centuries. She walked us through what it means to belong as a Methodist pastor, what it means to be handed a community and told to love them, and what it means to lead a church that chose the wrong side of history and refuses to pretend otherwise. Part two is next, and we get into what the church is doing right now, the housing crisis and why the lead pastor of one of the oldest churches in Bentonville lives in an RV. Their work towards the Faithful Foundations program, and what it would mean to put affordable housing on church-owned land. We talk about Christian nationalism, the Jesus of the gospel versus the Jesus of culture, and what Reverend Morris calls the prophetic middle and what it costs to hold that ground. That's next time. Thank you for listening, and thank you for being the most important part of what our community is becoming. This is The Underview, an exploration in the shaping of our place.