What happens when your questions about faith lead you into the world of YouTube? Join us for an eye-opening conversation with Reverend Matt Patrick—Oklahoma pastor, theologian, and creator of the Connexionalist YouTube channel—as we explore how digital spaces are reshaping spiritual discovery. Matt shares his journey from campus ministry to online community-building, revealing how deep theological conversations and honest dialogue on platforms like YouTube are becoming vital spaces for seekers, doubters, and lifelong Christians alike.
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Episode Notes:
Rev. Matt Patrick is a United Methodist pastor serving at University United Methodist Church on the campus of the University of Tulsa. He is also the creator of the Connexionalist YouTube channel, a growing digital community dedicated to honest, accessible conversations on faith, doubt, and theology from a Wesleyan/Methodist perspective. Matt blends pastoral wisdom, a love for church tradition, and a uniquely relatable approach—making deep questions about God and spirituality inviting for all.Related episodes
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This episode posted on July 23, 2025
Episode Transcript:
Ryan Dunn [00:00:00]:
What happens when your faith questions lead you down a YouTube rabbit hole? On this episode of Compass Finding Spirituality in the Everyday, we sit down with Reverend Matt Patrick, an Oklahoma pastor, theologian and creator of the Connectionalist YouTube channel, and we dig into how digital spaces are shaping our spiritual journeys. We're going to hear how Matt's passion for deep theological conversations, honest exploration of doubt and Methodist pers come to life online and what it really means to connect faith to everyday living in a hyper connected world. This episode scratches a couple inches for me as of course I love exploring the ways in which faith is an always on presence in our lives, but I also love learning about some of the innovative ways that the church moves into the world. Now, for a lot of people, talking about faith on YouTube probably doesn't sound that innovative anymore, but as Matt is going to point out, it's not a widely utilized pursuit in my slice of the faith o spear, so to speak. Cool. So stick with us. Discover how YouTube communities and thoughtful dialogue and a spirit of curiosity are helping people encounter faith in church in fresh ways. And of course, if you find conversations like this valuable, well then like subscribe, leave a comment or a review on your podcast listening platform of choice.
Matt Patrick [00:01:28]:
Thanks.
Ryan Dunn [00:01:29]:
Let's meet Reverend Matt Patric. Now we're gonna get talking outreach and theology, all in the course of talking about YouTube. As you've been growing your channel on YouTube, I'm wondering if there are other rabbit holes or channels that you seem to get sidetracked by. Like what are some of your favorite things to just research out on YouTube these days?
Matt Patrick [00:01:51]:
Oh, YouTube is an infinite source of folly and wisdom at the same time. I, I honestly, my main passion is actually not the theology, which is probably going to be surprising. American history has always been one of my deepest research passions. I went to school for theology for seven years. So obviously I, I do like it. I, I have a YouTube channel about it, but I would never start a YouTube channel about American history because I, I'm not credentialed, you know, in the same way to talk about, I don't speak with any kind of like, I don't think authority. Not that that matters on YouTube apparently, right. To a lot of people.
Matt Patrick [00:02:28]:
But American history vlogging through a lot. Chris, Chris Mai at Vlogging through History. He does a lot of reaction content. He's a historian. He does a lot of his original content. He's kind of an expert in the American Civil War, which is one of my main areas of study is, is in, in American history is that period. So I love theology, but then I'm also a nerd. So video games, card games, that kind of stuff.
Matt Patrick [00:02:53]:
That's. That's what I'm on YouTube a lot for. Yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:02:56]:
Do you go down the rabbit hole of watching live stream on video games?
Matt Patrick [00:03:00]:
You know, it's funny. Yes. At a certain point in my life, yes, I was very into like Twitch and live streams and stuff like that. And I would watch a lot of streaming stuff. Now that I'm not single, I find that we watch a lot of. My fiance and I watch a lot of content together. Right. And Twitch is something I watched when I was single and it was like in the background a lot.
Matt Patrick [00:03:24]:
And I'm usually not like, you know what I'm saying? So now I've had like a dynamic shift in my life, so I don't watch.
Ryan Dunn [00:03:29]:
Now you have a companion.
Matt Patrick [00:03:30]:
It was a companion and now I have a companion. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way. That's a good way to put it. So, yeah, I, I watch. I still watch live streams from time to time. And speed, I like speed running. I don't know if you know what that is.
Matt Patrick [00:03:42]:
Video games, people playing video games as fast as possible. It's like a fun, very nerdy niche of the Internet. That's, that's pretty fascinating actually, the deeper you dive into it. So.
Ryan Dunn [00:03:53]:
Well, your channel is the connectionalist. What inspired your channel?
Matt Patrick [00:03:57]:
Well, you know, there's some pretty specific instances about that. I, I started following theology YouTube just a few months ago, actually. I didn't really engage that side of the Internet. You know, it was my job. Right. So I'm not on YouTube to follow stuff for my work. And so I, I started watching some content. There was some really good stuff out there.
Matt Patrick [00:04:20]:
But what really spurred it on is conversations I was having with students. I'm a pastor at University United Methodist Church. It's on the campus of the University of Tulsa, which is a Division 1 college. It's the only church on campus. And so a lot of people are like, oh, you're a campus minister? I'm like, no, no. I'm a pastor of a church. It's a full church. We have a campus.
Matt Patrick [00:04:42]:
We have a Wesley foundation across the street from us. But historically the church has just been there since, in some ways before the university. And so the church has been there a really, really long time. And I just, I interact with a lot of students. And what I was really finding is they were getting their theological formation on YouTube, almost all of them that I was Talking to were getting theologically formed by YouTubers primarily, or people that had a YouTube presence. And the more I went down the rabbit hole, I realized there's not a ton of methodist presence on YouTube. There's a ton of Catholic presence. Presbyterians.
Matt Patrick [00:05:22]:
I had a commenter the other day say that's because those two traditions emphasize academics and learning more than Methodism maybe does. And I thought that was an interesting. That was an interesting thing. I'm not sure if I completely agree with, but I think he may be on to something with that also. There's just a lot of Catholics. There's like, there's over a billion of them. Right. So that's just that.
Matt Patrick [00:05:44]:
But. But Presbyterians seem to be in some ways disproportionately represented on YouTube versus how many Presbyterians there are. And so I was like, well, there's not a lot of Methodist present, so I'm gonna. I'm gonna start this and see where it goes. So.
Ryan Dunn [00:05:58]:
Yeah. All right. So when you were designing the channel, did you have an audience of your students in mind?
Matt Patrick [00:06:06]:
Yeah, that was kind of the audience I started with in mind was, you know, it's really funny. I didn't, like, sit down and do, like, a plan and be like, oh, man, I'm gonna target this demographic now. I will tell you my. Analy tell you. Over 90% of my viewers are men. And. And almost 90 plus percent of them are under the age of 40.
Ryan Dunn [00:06:29]:
Okay.
Matt Patrick [00:06:30]:
Which is a pretty standard.
Ryan Dunn [00:06:31]:
Fascinating, isn't it? Because if you go through most churches, those are not the demographics that you see.
Matt Patrick [00:06:36]:
Yeah, yeah. Churches these days are mostly older folks and mostly majority women, for sure. I think. I think the church has long understood that without the women, the church actually wouldn't operate because the women do the majority of the work. The congregations I've ever served. And so it is very interesting to see that. And I'm sure that's a. That's almost an episode in and of itself of why that's happening.
Matt Patrick [00:07:02]:
Yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:07:04]:
Was there a specific kind of spiritual hunger or a need that you were trying to address? Like, when you were laying out the channel, did you have it in mind to say, like, I definitely need to talk about this topic and this topic.
Matt Patrick [00:07:17]:
Yeah. What I have noticed, Ryan, and this is a larger trend that's starting to bear out in the data. And so I'm starting to say it more and more confidently. I firmly believe that the pendulum is shifting in American religion back towards traditional expressions of Christianity. That has been, I think, the case for a while. I think it's been the case since the pandemic, and I think it's mostly being driven by young people. And the reason I say that is because when I started at University, Methodist, of course, it was under the pandemic. But even the year one students were coming back, we had a hard time getting students involved.
Matt Patrick [00:07:55]:
We would do all sorts of outreach stuff, and we just couldn't get students involved. But then this year, all of a sudden, there's just 20 students just coming every Sunday. I haven't even talked to them. They just show up. That's not normal. That's not the norm. That those of us who are millennials and older, the church we've been living in for the last 20 years, that's not a normative experience. And nothing had really changed.
Matt Patrick [00:08:20]:
There wasn't a lot. There wasn't a ton of change that had happened. And when I got to start talking to some of the students, what I found out is most of them were interested in traditional expressions of Christianity, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox. They found my church, which is very high church, Methodism. Of course, Methodism is a broad spectrum. Right. In terms of worship, but mine's very high church, very traditional, and that's what they were resonating with. And so when I set out to do the channel, I set out to kind of address some of the things that have been coming up in conversation, which is just like theological matters.
Matt Patrick [00:08:54]:
Right. I do believe this, Ryan. This is a critique on Methodism that I think is completely fair, and that is we have focused so much on doing Christianity and Methodism that we have forgotten how to articulate the faith, and we don't articulate the faith as well as we could. And we are in an era where I actually think that's more important than ever because there are so many articulations accessible. And so articulating Wesleyan Arminianism. Right. Articulating that viewpoint is important, and what we say about God matters. And so what I set out on the channel, it was.
Matt Patrick [00:09:28]:
I'm going to talk about that hard. The hard theology stuff that isn't being addressed by our churches a lot.
Ryan Dunn [00:09:38]:
Yeah. How much of that, in terms of lose. Kind of losing the language to express the faith or being.
Matt Patrick [00:09:45]:
Yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:09:46]:
Unable to articulate. How much do you attribute that to. To kind of being a complexity of. Of faith? Because I can remember, like, wanting to sit down for ordination interviews, for example, and just wishing that I could just kind of say, like, well, in. In Second Corinthians, it says this, and then everybody would just kind of be like, yeah, that's what it says. All right, next question. Yeah, yeah, but there's more to it than that. So as part of what you're trying to accomplish, like providing a lens for people to begin to identify how they might articulate some of these deeper topics or.
Matt Patrick [00:10:24]:
Yes, I specifically think the Wesleyan Armenian and when. I mean, Armenian for viewers who may not know the, the kind of free will approach to the way God works in our salvation. Right. That perspective is somewhat unique in Christianity in terms of. There's a lot of more. The predestination side, the Calvinism side, even Catholicism is a form of predestination. But that Wesleyan Arminianism, I think is such an important witness in the modern world. And Methodism is such a.
Matt Patrick [00:10:57]:
I always call it a thinking person's tradition. And I think Catholicism and Presbyterianism are thinking persons traditions as well, where we really emphasize the, the proper articulation of God or actually the rigorous academic trying to understand God and study who God is and understand that. And yeah, there is a complexity to it that I think, I think sometimes we don't want to take on because it is like you said, you know, I wish we could, I wish we could just say, well, we're just all going to love Jesus and do stuff, but it's just not that simple. Right. Like what we say about God matters. And I think in this modern day, with Gen Z and below, they're like, well, why is your articulation of God better? Or why is your articulate, why should I believe your articulation of who God is versus what the Catholics are saying or the Eastern Orthodox Church is saying? And if we don't engage that discussion, it's really easy to lose it. I think a good example of this is communion. I think I handled this on our channel.
Matt Patrick [00:12:04]:
I think Methodism got very close in the late 20th century, in the early 21st century, to almost losing the central place of communion in worship to the point where I was serving in churches, where it almost felt like communion was a chore. It was like, oh yeah, it's this thing we got to do once a month. It takes a really long time. But the proper place of communion is actually the center of our worship. Not preaching, not music. It's supposed to be the centerpiece. And we almost lost that in our tradition. And so I see a lot of younger ministers trying to like reclaim that piece.
Matt Patrick [00:12:35]:
And so because it is so complex, I think sometimes we just would rather throw up our hands and be like, let's just, let's Just serve God and love God. And I think that's great. But I also think about what we say about God matters, and we should engage that part of the faith as well.
Ryan Dunn [00:12:51]:
Yeah, I love that idea of kind of reclaiming communion as the. The centerpiece, not just of, like, the worship service, but as the centerpiece of kind of our. Our rhythmic community, our existence.
Matt Patrick [00:13:02]:
Yeah, yeah. It's. It's. It really should be the centerpiece of our existence, like, as Christians. Right. Like, it is the one thing that we have done from the very beginning that is basically untouched and unaltered. I mean, it's been altered, obviously, in the way that we do the liturgy, but for the most part, the rhythm of it is pretty much the same. And it is.
Matt Patrick [00:13:28]:
We are spiritual presence people. And what I mean by that is we believe that the presence of the resurrected Christ is present in the communion elements, that it's not a symbol. Right. And a lot of American evangelicalism treats communion as symbolic. Right. And so if we're truly going to be spiritual presence people, we should be having communion weekly in our churches at the minimum. And so that's kind of where I'm at on that. And I think it's a really good example of when theology gets watered down so much because it's complex and we start to water it down to people too much, we end up losing key pieces of it.
Matt Patrick [00:14:03]:
And so it's kind of a balancing act. Yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:14:08]:
So do you ever feel like you have to. What? Within the context of YouTube, do you feel like you have to water down some of what you're talking about in order to be relatable to a particular audience or maybe more. More poignantly, to even, like, engage with an audience. To find an audience.
Matt Patrick [00:14:28]:
Yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:14:28]:
Because it is an open space. You're certainly not going to academics. You're trying to create something that is accessible to anybody.
Matt Patrick [00:14:34]:
Right? Yeah, That's a really good question. You know, it makes me think of Adam Hamilton. I think Adam Hamilton's greatest. One of his greatest gifts, among many that he has, is his ability to articulate complex theological ideas in a way that can be broadly understood by the general public. That is not easy to do and to do it without making errors consistently, it's very difficult to do that. And so in the. I. I don't feel like on my channel, I have to water down too much.
Matt Patrick [00:15:04]:
I more just try to take. I either do my own original content, or I take content and react and give commentary to it. And what I try to do is basically explain whatever the person is talking about or add to it in a way that I feel like anyone with an 8th grade education can probably understand. And I don't think that that's watering it down because the essentials of the faith are like, complex, like the Trinity. Right. Trinity is a very complex idea, but it's simple in the sense that it's best understood as a mystery. Right. That's a very simple thing.
Matt Patrick [00:15:40]:
But if you really try to dive into the Trinity, it's a very complex thing. And so I try to. I try to both be communicative in a way that most people can understand, but also to respect my audience enough that they can understand difficult things as well. That's a really good question. I'd have to think probably more on. Yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:16:02]:
But when bringing theology into public open spaces, I find that there are two kinds of topics that tend to garner the most response. That there are. There are those topics which touch people off in the negative aspect. Yeah. The argumentative side of things.
Matt Patrick [00:16:24]:
I did one of those yesterday.
Ryan Dunn [00:16:25]:
So that's why. Hey, let's talk about that in a little bit.
Matt Patrick [00:16:29]:
Yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:16:29]:
Table it for now, though. But then there are. There's the. There are the topics that touch people off because they find them valuable. And I'm wondering if you've been at it long enough on YouTube to. To notice, are there specific topics that people are responding to because they find this theological viewpoint valuable?
Matt Patrick [00:16:48]:
Yeah. You know, it's really interesting. I think the YouTube algorithm likes controversy, for sure. Of course it does, because humans like controversy. Right. People say, oh, the algorithm does this or the algorithm does that. No, no, no. Humans do that.
Matt Patrick [00:17:02]:
Right. And the algorithm feeds what humans want. Right. That's the fact that controversy does well on YouTube is not an algorithmic problem. It's a human problem. Right.
Ryan Dunn [00:17:10]:
So the algorithm is just responding to what we keep asking.
Matt Patrick [00:17:13]:
The algorithm's amoral. Yeah, the algorithm's amoral. It doesn't have morals. Humans. Yeah. It's just feeding us what we want, which is controversy. I think what I've noticed and I've been surprised at what does a lot of views and what people engage with is apologetics, like, straight up. And I have been quoted before by people to say apologetics is mostly a waste of time.
Matt Patrick [00:17:36]:
I have said that in my ministerial role because I've always felt that faith is to be experienced, not argued into. Right. And this comes to the point of Jesus, right. Jesus saying, come and see. Right. Jesus doesn't spend a bunch of time making a, like, argument for God or for himself. He Says, why don't you come and see what it is that I'm doing, right? It's this invitational experiential thing. But then I come to kind of understand that apologetics is a way that some people come to faith.
Matt Patrick [00:18:07]:
That's the way that they are able to get there. And so apologetics specifically between Protestants and Catholics, the differences between Protestants and Catholics, those videos do wild numbers and that for some reason, I can do a. I can do a commentary over the book of Exodus, and it's going to do 10% what, a video about critiquing a Catholic thing that I've seen or discussing the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism. That does a lot of. That does a lot of numbers, because I think that young people are searching for, who am I? Am I Catholic? Am I going to be a Protestant? And they're researching that for themselves. And so what I'm trying to provide is this is what a Methodist is, right? This is what we believe, at least what I believe and my interpretation of the tradition. And I feel like that's the most helpful thing I can do for our. For our tradition.
Matt Patrick [00:18:58]:
So.
Ryan Dunn [00:19:00]:
All right, so did. How would you describe, then, apologetics for the. Maybe the uninitiated or.
Matt Patrick [00:19:09]:
Yeah, that's a. Yeah. Apologetics is basically just arguments for God, right? Arguing for the existence of God or arguing why Christianity identity is correct versus other faith traditions. Right. And I think that there's a lot of value in that in the modern day. And I've actually seen a lot of people, I've had comments on my videos where people are like, hey, I've been researching. I'm going to go to a Methodist church on Sunday because I found this channel. And this, this is.
Matt Patrick [00:19:34]:
This is who I. What I was looking for. This is how I felt about faith. But I couldn't find a home. And now I found it, right? Or I've had people say that they found the channel and they're thinking about converting to Christianity. Right. And so it's like, I have my parish ministry here, right. But the world is my parish, right? And, and I'll tell you, going back to that earlier question, I.
Matt Patrick [00:19:57]:
Somebody asked me, why did you want to do a YouTube channel? When I first started, and I meant to tell this story, Ryan, is that I didn't actually. I have always felt that YouTube, it always felt watered down. It always felt like even though I was a consumer of it, it was not a space I wanted to enter. It was almost like an undignified space, Right? The dignified space is Academic papers or the pulpit or the church. And the YouTube was kind of this open air preaching, new style of the world being the parish. And then I thought of the story from John Wesley's life where he finally relents and decides to preach outside when he doesn't want to be more of a. He's commits to be more vile. And that's essentially why I started the channel.
Matt Patrick [00:20:43]:
It was like, I have to. I feel like I have to do this because that's where the fruit is.
Ryan Dunn [00:20:48]:
Okay. All right. So as you're expounding, expanding, talking about apologies, whatever it is. Yeah. You know the word that I'm going for there, Are you to get a sense that you're. You're trying to ease people of doubt or, I don't know, explain away doubt? Or do you feel like doubt has a place within the faith journey?
Matt Patrick [00:21:12]:
Doubt definitely has a place. I mean, if doubt is driving you to a deeper place in your faith and it's healthy, if you're not dealing with your doubts. Now this, this sounds more like a pastoral counseling session. Now, if you're not dealing with your doubts or you let your doubts tear you down, then it's not healthy. Right. Doubt in and of itself is not a sin. It's how you respond to it. It's much like anger.
Matt Patrick [00:21:35]:
Right. Anger in and of itself is not a sin. What you do with anger is, is where it can be sinful. And so I don't try and explain away doubt. I try to explain how I understand the faith and how I've gotten there. Right. Like, one of, you know, we always talk about, like, the historical arguments for Jesus. Right.
Matt Patrick [00:21:54]:
Like, there's more historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ than almost any event at that time, more than any event of that time period. And we accept all those other events as historical facts. Right. And so, but there's way more outside, like just having so many manuscripts of the New Testament from very, very close to the purported event itself. And we have events from Roman history that we treat as fact. And the closest manuscript we have to the event is like 800 years after the event. And we treat that as a thing that actually happened. Right.
Matt Patrick [00:22:28]:
So we have a very broad set of historical documents of people who knew people who were there. Right. And I feel like that's a very compelling case to a lot of people. And so there's always going to be doubt. Right. Because we can't prove it. But I think it helps people to say, okay, if I'm an intellectual and I'm coming at this from an intellectual angle, this may be how I can first open my heart and open my mind to the possibility of faith is through those more historical arguments.
Ryan Dunn [00:23:04]:
So has this process of trying to first uncover the questions that other people might be asking and then offering a perspective on them, has that journey impacted your own faith in any way?
Matt Patrick [00:23:17]:
I would say that's actually the biggest impact it's had. I feel like my faith has been pretty static probably over the last five to six years. I've been very knee deep in ministry, doing stuff, you know, getting fixed, doing part again. And what I really discovered in and of myself is a renewed faith that I found in the tradition. The more I've studied in order to provide content, the more I've unlocked this rich, specifically Western Christian tradition that we come out of in Methodism, out of the Protestant Reformation, right. Is that the Protestant Reformation was never meant to. To start a new church. That wasn't the point.
Matt Patrick [00:24:03]:
It was meant to reform the Roman Catholic Church. And then they got kicked out. And so they were like, well, I guess we're kicked out, so we have to start. So Luther, you know, he didn't try and start his own church. That wasn't really the point. And so this, this Protestant tradition is really. To be a Protestant is to say this is what the church is kind of supposed to be. Right.
Matt Patrick [00:24:22]:
Without all of the extra stuff that we don't feel is essential as Protestants. And so my. But my hope is, is that the church can come back together, of course, in the future and reunify. But it has really informed my faith. Some of the Latin pieces of the faith from the, you know, something I listen to quite a bit is Anima Christi, which is a Latin chant from the 11th century. That's something I found in the course of my study. So it really has enlivened my faith and allowed me to reach back in time to the tradition itself and find where my place is in it as a Methodist. What our place is in it.
Ryan Dunn [00:25:00]:
All right. Does it also help you articulate or formulate stances on some of the hot button topics you already alluded to? Like the video that you just released. That's, you know, probably a hot button topic.
Matt Patrick [00:25:18]:
Sure, yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:25:19]:
Even afraid to say. Why am I afraid to say it? Are we talking about the abortion?
Matt Patrick [00:25:23]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. My. I did a video on abortion and I, I feel like I've never been afraid. In fact, I actually, before I posted the video, I asked myself, you know, I'm 32, almost 33 now. I'm not 22 anymore. And there's a big difference. You start to really think things through more at once your frontal lobe is fully developed. You start to really think things through because you've had some experience of things blowing up in your face, right? And so you're like, I don't want to say you become more risk averse, but you start to ask yourself more reflective questions before you do things.
Matt Patrick [00:25:55]:
And I asked myself, is this going to be helpful to people? And did I do it correctly for something that's so difficult to talk about? And I had some hesitations, but I decided to post it anyway because I feel like we have to change the way we talk about things, right? We have to be willing to be a little bit more empathetic and gracious and compassionate in our disagreements with each other. And I felt that's what the video did. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to go ahead and post it. But yeah, it. Reaching back in the tradition has helped me articulate some of my more progressive, I think some people would call it some of my more progressive or modern viewpoints. It's helped me get better arguments for them. I've been better at articulating them because I'm having to defend them. Right.
Matt Patrick [00:26:39]:
And so I've really found myself actually changing the way I think on certain issues. Not changing my position, but changing how I get there. And that's been probably one of the most valuable things for me personally in this journey. And.
Ryan Dunn [00:26:57]:
I've heard you articulate a, a sense of importance about the church or the community of faith as you're putting your videos together. Do you ever have the idea of this being a vehicle directly for people to kind of come in contact with the community of faith? Like, do you hope that somebody watches your video and is like, well, I think I want to go to church.
Matt Patrick [00:27:20]:
Yeah, you know, I, I've been thinking about that a lot is how do I, how do I help people encounter the church? I did a short on this, a YouTube short on this a couple of weeks ago that got a lot of nasty comments. And the, the YouTube short was, you can't be a solo Christian. And I spent 15 seconds basically saying, if you are singing worship songs in the car and, and listening to a sermon in the car and never going to church, that's not Christianity. You are out of communion actually with the church. And a lot of people did not like that. They did not like that. But I was like, but that's, that's the historic position of the church is that you have to be in communion with the body. And it is, it is super important that we say that, I think, and not in a mean way, but just to say, if you are in that place, that's great and I'm glad you're doing that.
Matt Patrick [00:28:11]:
But you'll only grow if you have a community of faith that can grow around you. Right. And that's basically what I said. I wasn't mean about it or anything like that, but I, I, it's been learning to find my voice in that and to be willing to say some of those tougher pastoral things that I maybe need to say. But there were a lot of people who are like, no, you can do that. I'm like, But I, I feel like sometimes as pastors in the, in the endeavor to be pastoral, we don't say the thing that needs to be said. And I think that's a huge mistake for pastors sometimes is that a lot of times in the endeavor, in the journey of trying to be pastoral, we don't say the thing that is true. And I have found in my ministry that when I choose to say the hard thing that is true, it always ends up better than avoiding it.
Matt Patrick [00:29:04]:
Right. To say the thing that needs to be said always ends up better. It's hard, it's super hard in that five minutes where you're having to have a tough conversation. But it, it is always better than the harder conversation that comes if you ignore those things. And so, yeah, I've been trying to, I've been trying to steer people towards the church in that. And that's something I'm probably going to be doing more as I, as I do. Content is like, hey, here's a tutorial on how to find a church for you. Right? Like, that's a great video I might do at some point.
Matt Patrick [00:29:35]:
Like, you got to decide what kind of worship you know you want if you can't go to church on Sundays. There are churches that do church. Not on Sunday. Right. And so helping people make that first leap into walking into a church. Yeah, it's important.
Ryan Dunn [00:29:49]:
Oh, well, since you are kind of out in the, in the agora, in the public place meeting people who are maybe faith curious but don't have that faith background. For somebody who is curious about Jesus or curious about Christianity but really unsure where to start, do you have some recommendations for where they might go? Should they be scrolling YouTube and go to church?
Matt Patrick [00:30:14]:
You know, it would be ecclesiologically wrong for me to say start anywhere other than the church. The church. The church is the body of Christ in the world. And I understand if you're watching this, you may be like, but, man, I had a really bad experience with church. Or this happened. Or this happened. I totally get that. 100 empathize with that.
Matt Patrick [00:30:38]:
But there is no way ever that God, that your encounter with God is going to generally be more likely to be better at YouTube than it is inside the body of Christ. I, I just feel like you can have a bad experience. It's safer. YouTube's safer. Right. You can, you can watch it from the comfort of your home. There's less risk to you, but there's also less possibility of reward, in my opinion, of the real relationships that you can find. And here's what I would say.
Matt Patrick [00:31:06]:
If you're a young person and you're like, man, you know, I don't know where to go to church, or I'm looking for a church for the first time. I'm, like, kind of Christian or I'm exploring Christianity. One of the best things you can do. I'm not kidding about this. Find a little church in your town that has got like 30 people on Sunday morning and show up and they're gonna love you. I, like, I, I, most of the time they're gonna be like, like, you're going to be in charge of that church in like, six months. Because they're going to be like, this is awesome. We got this new young.
Matt Patrick [00:31:34]:
If you want to, like, have a big impact in a church and a community of faith, you can go to a mega church. Yeah. And like, you can go to all that and you can do that. But if you go to a small mainline Protestant church in your town and you plug in, you could basically, you can have a much larger impact doing that because those churches are looking for those people. That's, that's who they want. And yes, you're going to have conflict. Yes. Things are maybe not all always going to go your way in that, but that's the church.
Matt Patrick [00:32:03]:
Right. And it's so much more rewarding to accomplish something in faith with the body than it is on your own, because that's how Christ intended for us to do it.
Ryan Dunn [00:32:13]:
So that's funny. And if you're in those shoes, if that, if you fit the bill and you're in Nashville, Tennessee, reach out. I know just the church for you.
Matt Patrick [00:32:22]:
Absolutely. I'm sure. I was about to say Ryan's probably got a church for you to go to, because there's so many that are like that that all it would take is a couple young families to transform that church. And you would actually. It's like I don't think sometimes people realize it's like you should never do things for selfish, like ambition. Right. Like you don't want to be selfish in it. But it's like I always tell people like, you know, it's so funny, like if you're just like a young family, you could probably end up going to some church and if you really engage there and the church kind of comes up like they're probably going to name the church after you.
Matt Patrick [00:32:55]:
Right. Like, like because, because they're, they're going to be so that you came and did that and that's never going to happen in more of the kind of corporate megachurch environment which is, which is really geared towards seeker sensitive kind of stuff. And so if you're really looking to dig your claws in and really make an impact, one of the best things you can do. Yeah. Is is show up to a small to medium sized church and just dig your teeth in and really try and get involved. Yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:33:21]:
Well, I may be kind of asking for a friend on this mat. Wink, wink, that's okay. But no doubt whenever you put yourself out there and express opinions, even with the, with a heart of humility, people are going to come at you at least in you know like a YouTube space or any kind of social media space. So when that happens, how do you kind of rebuff yourself or you know, keep it from taking you to a negative space?
Matt Patrick [00:33:51]:
Yeah. Any of the people who say that it doesn't affect them are lying. It does. You see that comment? It's really nasty. It's. I've had a couple people make comments where I'm like, that's actually a really good point. And I don't think if I was debating live with them that I could deal with that actually in the moment. That's actually a really good point.
Matt Patrick [00:34:10]:
It makes me rethink things sometimes, which is actually a good thing. There's fruit in that actually. But yeah, sometimes there's just mean comments, nasty comments. People call you all sorts of things. You're not a Christian, you're a heretic or whatever it is. I think for me, my co pastor Matt will tell you probably more than most people, I like a good fight. It's not a great trait, but I like a good. I'm part of that human condition that feeds that algorithm.
Matt Patrick [00:34:40]:
Right. The controversy doesn't bother me as probably as much as most, but it does. There are sometimes you get a nasty comment. So what I typically do is I'll type a response comment and then delete it.
Ryan Dunn [00:34:53]:
Yeah, okay.
Matt Patrick [00:34:54]:
And never send it. I feel like my job as a pastor, since I am a presbyter, I'm an elder, my job is not to argue so much as it is my first job is to be a pastor, and my second is to argue my theological points. And so if I'm ever not being pastoral in an argument, which I've done on the Internet, and I probably will do it again, that's probably not what God wants me to do. God wants me to approach it first as a pastor to the people who are, who are engaging with my content. But from time to time on a nasty comment, I will respond because it's also the pastoral thing to do, to reply to stuff that is particularly egregious, to make a point that that's not okay or that that's not going to be acceptable in the community I'm trying to cultivate on the Internet. It. And so it's kind of a balance. What I try to do is discern the Spirit in that moment.
Matt Patrick [00:35:49]:
And I try and trust my first inclination on that as not my inclination, but as something God, if my first inclination is or not first inclination. But if my first discernment of the Spirit is. You should delete this comment. I usually delete it because I can feel God telling me, you know, the Spirit. I can feel the Spirit convicting me. That's not going to be helpful. But there are times where I feel completely convicted. No, I need to say something about this.
Matt Patrick [00:36:12]:
But, yeah, I've learned to accept that when you put your ideas in public, you are opening yourself to criticism. And there are some videos I'm sure you've seen where I have been pretty critiquing of the video. Right. That I'm watching or reacting to that I. I've kind of felt maybe bad about later. But then I realized, no, when ideas are in the public space, they are open to public critique. That is the nature of, of the beast. Now, you never critique people's character unless it is necessary.
Matt Patrick [00:36:43]:
But you, you stay on the argument, not their character. But really vicious critiques on somebody's content can sometimes feel like you're critiquing their character. And so I've had to deal with that some too.
Ryan Dunn [00:36:55]:
Yeah, it's kind of that idea of play the ball, not the player.
Matt Patrick [00:36:59]:
Play the ball, not the player. But sometimes you play the ball so hard that it feels like you're playing the player. Right. I'm critiquing this person's argument. I'm torching it so much that it feels like I'm torching them and their intellect. And like, you got to be at that point that you feel like you got to start to draw back a little bit and, and take a breath and, and re center yourself. So it's, it's. I'm still learning.
Matt Patrick [00:37:23]:
I'm still very new.
Ryan Dunn [00:37:24]:
So has there been a video that's come out for you yet where you thought, I don't know if this one's gonna hit, and then surprisingly, it kind of takes off in a mini viral way?
Matt Patrick [00:37:37]:
You know, they're. I'm trying to think, you know, some of my best ones. It's so funny. Many people know who Redeem Zoomer is huge. The theology YouTuber. He's like 22 years old. Most of the stuff I react to him does really well because he's just so popular. I, I've been surprised at the Catholic Protestant stuff when I, when I do, when I, when I feel like I rightly critique the Catholic Church on something those videos do.
Matt Patrick [00:38:08]:
I never think those videos are going to do well. And they always do well. And I, I really think it's because there's a lot of people right now, there's a lot of Gen Z people who are thinking about becoming Catholic and who are growing up Protestant. I think that's a real thing that's happening because of the traditional aspects of it, because it's rooted in tradition in a generation and in a world that feels so chaotic, that feels the news cycle every day is so wild. I think it's a generation that's looking at millennials and they're looking at Gen X and they're saying secularism, since the year 2000 has failed to produce fruit in this society because there was this kind of secular turn at the turn of the century, and they're looking at the fruit of it, and they're saying, I'm not impressed with secularism's fruit. And they're looking at the most ancient traditions because they're like, man, these have lasted for they the rise and fall of nations, the rise and fall of empires. Nothing has been able to stop these traditions. And so they're interested in them, so they're researching them.
Matt Patrick [00:39:09]:
And so when I'm doing videos where I'm critiquing something that's in the Catholic Church or I'm talking about the differences, I think there's just a big appetite for that right now because there's a lot of young people identity searching their faith. So it's been really fascinating. I had one that got, like, to 2,000 views in a couple days, and I was like, I didn't think that video was good, but I guess people like that. So that's how sermons are too. I think a sermon's bad, and then everybody's like, oh, that one really touched me. And then I'm like, I. I'll. Night before, I'll be like, oh, this is a.
Matt Patrick [00:39:39]:
This is a banger sermon I've got going here. And nobody says anything to me. Nobody ever says it's bad, but nobody says it's good either. So it's like, you know, you just kind of learn to. To understand that the Holy Spirit's doing a lot more than you think in that interaction. 100% cool. Yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:39:56]:
Thanks for sharing that. I feel validated in that perspective as well. Every time I think, whoo. Probably one of the best ever. And people are like, that was nice.
Matt Patrick [00:40:06]:
That was nice. Thank you, Ryan.
Ryan Dunn [00:40:07]:
Thanks.
Matt Patrick [00:40:07]:
Good job today.
Ryan Dunn [00:40:10]:
Now there are times when you're like, oh, I feel like I just kind of verbally vomited for 20 minutes. People are like, I just needed to hear that so much this week.
Matt Patrick [00:40:17]:
Or, you know, my other favorite.
Ryan Dunn [00:40:18]:
Would you mind telling me what you heard?
Matt Patrick [00:40:20]:
Yeah, yeah. My other personal favorite. You know, my son needs to hear that sermon or my. My daughter needs to hear that. I'm like, but you do too. You know, like, we all need to hear it, including the person preaching it. So. Yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:40:33]:
Well, Matt, thanks so much for spending this time with us. Where are people going to find you on YouTube?
Matt Patrick [00:40:38]:
The Connectionalist. So it's kind of spelled weird. It's like Wesley, you think of connectionalism as Methodist. Right. So it's like C, O, N, N E X, I O, N, A L, L, I, S, T. Yeah, the connectionalist. If, if. If you search anything close to that on YouTube, I.
Matt Patrick [00:40:58]:
I've got enough videos up now. It generally comes up now. So that's the best place. Make sure you like and subscribe. That's what I always tell people. That's the best way. If you want to. If you want to support methodism on YouTube, which you should, because that's where Gen Z is getting introduced to denominations and their faith.
Matt Patrick [00:41:15]:
That's where it's happening. If you want to support that as a Methodist, make sure you come, like, and subscribe. That's my plug and I'd love to have you. Anybody on the channel who wants to come and comment and be a part of the community. So stuff. Yeah. For sure.
Ryan Dunn [00:41:25]:
Yeah. For our Methodist friends listening. Like we, we would really love to kind of overturn the algorithm there. So.
Matt Patrick [00:41:31]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:41:32]:
Support the good stuff.
Matt Patrick [00:41:33]:
That's right. That's right.
Ryan Dunn [00:41:35]:
That brings us to the end of this episode. If you'd like to learn more or take a deeper dive into any of the topics that we've talked about, be sure to Visit our website, umc.org compass there you'll find episode notes and of course along with lot more episodes to explore, so don't miss out. In fact, a couple cool follow ups for this episode would be number 149, humor, theology and Deep Questions with Aaron Hicks Moon. Or episode number 141, community comedy and Church Renovation, which explores several more stories of the church creatively meeting the world. We want to give a big thank you to the team at United Methodist Communications for making the Compass podcast possible. And if you haven't already again, please take a moment to subscribe, rate and review the podcast wherever you're listening or watching. It really helps other folks find us and it lets us know what you're enjoying or what you'd like to hear more of in the future on Compass. Thanks so much for joining us today.
Ryan Dunn [00:42:39]:
We hope you'll tune in next time time as we keep finding spirituality in the everyday peace.
