When Centered Set Church Meets Real Life: Navigating Power, Belonging, and Boundaries - w/ Dr. Mark D. Baker

Voxology

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2022

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How do we live out a centered-set model of church when real people, power structures, and theological questions get messy? In this midweek bonus episode of the Unity Series, Mike Erre and Tim Stafford welcome theologian and author Mark Baker, whose book Centered Set Church has been the foundation of recent Voxology conversations. Together they unpack a wave of thoughtful listener questions that push the centered-set model beyond theory and into lived reality.

From gender-based leadership exclusion to navigating "soccer players" who claim Jesus but distort his ethic, Mark dives deep into the tensions between theory and practice. He emphasizes that the centered-set model isn't a quick fix—it's a posture, a community effort, and a call to define our center as the Jesus of the Gospels, rather than culturally constructed versions.

If you've loved the Unity Series and wrestled with the practical implications of centered-set thinking on church membership, theological boundaries, power dynamics, and finding belonging in spiritual community, this conversation will both challenge and encourage you.

Key Takeaways: • Defining the Center Together – Why a shared understanding of Jesus as the center is essential in a centered-set model. • Boundaries vs. Boundedness – How orthodoxy, membership, and even creeds can be practiced in a centered (versus exclusionary) way. • Loving Intervention – Why curious, compassionate engagement—not judgment—is the hallmark of centered pastoral leadership. • Church and Cultural Power – How practices like male-only leadership and racial homogeneity can reveal bounded dynamics, even in churches claiming to be centered. • Navigating Displacement – Encouragement for those who feel disconnected from church culture in their geographic context and are discerning how to find or help shape spiritual community. • Letting Legacy Go – Why perhaps the most faithful move is passing along a centered mindset, rather than preserving institutional structures.

Guest Highlights: Mark Baker – Professor of theology and author of Centered Set Church, Mark brings decades of scholarship, cross-cultural ministry, and practical insight into what it takes to nurture communities shaped by Jesus rather than rigid doctrine or loose inclusivity. His work calls for continuous re-centering on the person and way of Jesus.

Resources Mentioned: • Centered Set Church by Mark Baker – centeredsetchurch.com • Five-Video Discussion Guide for Churches and Small Groups – centeredsetchurch.com • The Lost Letters of Pergamum by Bruce Longenecker – https://amzn.to/3Rf7nK6 • Galatians 5 (on love fulfilling the law) – Bible Gateway link • Matthew 25 (The Sheep and the Goats) – Bible Gateway link

Join us in this deeper exploration of what it takes to embody the way of Jesus in your context. Share this episode, start a conversation in your community, and help foster churches that define belonging not by conformity, but by Christ at the center.

As always, we welcome your questions and dialogue as we pursue a more faithful expression of church. Write to us at hello@voxpodcast.com and join the Voxology community on Facebook and Instagram.

Check out VOXOLOGY TV on YouTube – @voxology Explore the Merch Store – Etsy Visit the website – voxologypodcast.com Subscribe on iTunes or Spotify Support the podcast on Patreon

Follow Mike on Twitter: @mikeerre Music by Timothy John Stafford – timothyjohnstafford.com | @GoneTimothy

As always, we encourage and would love discussion as we pursue. Feel free to email in questions to hello@voxpodcast.com, and to engage the conversation on Facebook and Instagram.

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Music in this episode by Timothy John Stafford

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody, welcome to a special midweek episode of the Voxology podcast. We have a very special guest today, live from California, Mark Baker, the author of Centered Set Church. For those of you that have been
0:23.2	listening to the podcast, we did a whole series on his book, just pillaging and stealing,
0:29.9	just without shame. And the content therein, it is a book we highly recommend, and we're thrilled to have Mark on to kind of
0:40.0	answer some questions that have remained and come in to us from the community. And so Mark,
0:46.7	welcome to the show. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's great
0:52.1	to be with you. And yeah, thanks for engaging this topic so thoroughly and with such passion.
1:01.4	Well, thank you. I appreciate that. It reminds me when I was in sixth grade and I went to a basketball camp.
1:08.0	And literally the only thing positive they could say about my basketball
1:11.6	skills was I was passionate. So I received that, hopefully in a different way.
1:18.6	Anyway, Mark, man, we have so enjoyed going through your book. Tell us when it came out.
1:25.6	So it just came out, yeah, December.
1:30.3	I mean, it came off the press and officially launched in January.
1:34.3	So December 21, yeah, got caught up in some supply chain delays.
1:40.3	It was supposed to come out in November but uh January 2020 fantastic and
1:45.9	what's the what's the response been um yeah positive I I mean I've both um yeah I've I've
1:54.4	both had the experience of some like former students who in a certain sense I thought
1:58.6	well they don't even need to read this book like I I'm still learning from them, who have been very appreciative.
2:04.0	And that was encouraging that feel like, oh, there's more to learn and they're learning it.
2:10.1	But then especially, yeah, as with, I mean, a neat thing by writing a book is, or for you doing a podcast, is you know, you come in contact with people that aren't in your circles.
2:22.5	And so to have, for instance, a PhD student in Missiology at Trinity, which is where Paul Hebert taught for many years, you know, get in touch with me and tell me how excited
2:35.0	he was about it.
2:36.0	Yeah, that's very good.
	...

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