Introduction to the Oasis Network

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Transitions is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations are tax deductible and help to keep the podcast alive and to sustain our Mormon Transitions Facebook support community. To support the podcast and to join the support community, become a monthly donor today@mormontransitions.org hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Transitions Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's likely that I'll be posting this also as a Mormon Stories podcast episode, but it's primarily a Mormon Transitions podcast episode because today we're going to be covering a topic that I think is super relevant and important for transitioning Mormons. So many of you know, and probably most of you won't, that probably starting around 2011, 2012, the idea of just say secular churches began to really emerge and sort of penetrate global consciousness, especially Amongst atheists, agnostics, etc. I would have first been even though I thought about I've been thinking about this idea for probably 8, 9, 10 years, influenced by Kaim Potok and his books the Chosen, the Promise, etc and Reformed Judaism. It wasn't until I heard about John Larsen's Living Community, the former Mormon podcaster John Larsen, and then Alain de Bouton, who came out with a really good TED talk called Atheism 2.0 and I think he followed that up with a book called Religion for Atheists, where people really started talking about the idea of having church like entities that even meet regularly on Sunday, have congregations, have inspirational talks, youth groups, other sorts of things, just like a Sunday service in a church, but that they would not have the religious doctrine or theology and hopefully they would include many sort of organizational best practices that maybe religions are slow to adopt, such as gender equality and racial equality and other types of things. And so and so since 2012 we've had a few of these sorts of organizations pop up. The first one that I think I remember hearing about was Sunday assembly, which is a group that I believe started in London around 2012ish with two comedians, I believe, who were named Sanderson and Pippa. And they started having these sort of Sunday meetings where they would sing and dance and have sermons and eat cake and drink tea. And this idea spread pretty quickly such that There are probably 40 or 50 or more Sunday assembly congregations across the world. Some good friends and I, Micah Nicolaison, Chris and Steve Holbrook, some others. We actually attended the Sunday assembly group in Atlanta. They had sort of an international conference and we learned about them there. We think they're doing great things that didn't feel like a good fit for post Mormons, which we can get into. But during that time, we also learned about another organization here in the United States called Oasis. And as I was reminded reading a little Time magazine article, I believe it was Mike Aus who's joining us today, who was the first sort of a creator of an Oasis congregation. Is that right, Mike?

Mike Aus [00:03:44] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:03:46] And so we're welcoming Mike to our podcast today. Welcome, Mike.

Mike Aus [00:03:50] Good to be here. Thanks for having us.

John Dehlin [00:03:51] And we'll get into your story in just a second.

Mike Aus [00:03:53] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:03:54] But it was also Helen Stringer who first reached out to me, and Helen is sort of at least one of the leaders of the Kansas City Oasis group, which is also very vibrant. So, Helen Stringer, welcome also to Mormon Transitions podcast.

Helen Stringer [00:04:13] Thanks for having me.

John Dehlin [00:04:15] And the purpose of today's sort of discussion is to learn all we can about the Oasis Network and just this general idea of secular sort of Sunday services, as I'm calling them. I'm happy to call them other things, too. And so what I've got planned in my little outline is to interview, have each of you kind of tell your stories or backgrounds that kind of led to your interest in this sort of thing. Then we'll dive right into the founding of your respective organizations, what you've done, what you're doing, what you've learned. And then I'll probably hit you with questions coming sort of from a progressive or post Mormon perspective to sort of get your take on a lot of the concerns or ideas that would come out of our culture, just so that we could all learn together and see the best way forward. And I'll begin this episode by just saying that I was blown away listening to a new podcast called Life After God. And in that podcast, I just released the first community of good sort of Sunday service, the audio from that, where at the end we just happened to sing Imagine by John Lennon as a group. And in that interview with, with Life After God, they actually joked about how singing Imagine is sort of a stereotypical thing that these sorts of communities do. So I didn't even know that was a thing. But anyway, so both of you, welcome to this podcast. And I think let's begin, Mike, with maybe you telling us a bit about your background, what led to you starting Oasis Houston, and then we'll have Helen do the same sort of thing.

Guests Introduce Their Backgrounds and Origins

Mike Aus [00:06:01] Sure, John. Well, I spent most of my adult life as a pastor. And in March of 2012, I just finally realized too many things didn't add up. I couldn't pastor of which Church. Most of my career was in the Lutheran Church.

John Dehlin [00:06:19] Did you grow up a Lutheran?

Mike Aus [00:06:21] Yeah, I was born and raised in the whole mainline Protestant in Houston. No, I grew up in Baltimore, actually.

John Dehlin [00:06:28] Okay.

Mike Aus [00:06:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:06:30] And then as a kid, you decided you wanted to be a minister. A Lutheran minister?

Mike Aus [00:06:33] Yeah, basically. And, yeah, my whole family was religious. It was just a part of our family life. Always an important part of my life that I enjoyed a lot. Always had great, great memories of church and great experiences there. But just over time.

John Dehlin [00:06:53] Wait, wait, real quickly. What were some of the things you loved most about being a Lutheran as a kid and adolescent?

Mike Aus [00:07:00] Well, for me, I think it was the same things that most people enjoy about church, which is the friendships that develop, the experiences you have, like going on retreats and service projects. And I just think the great sense of community support is huge. I think another factor for me was when I was a teenager, I had some issues with some pretty serious kidney disease, and the community was super, super supportive. It felt good to know that people were praying for you. They demonstrated their support in tangible ways. And I think that was another factor in me enjoying the whole church experience.

John Dehlin [00:07:41] I have to ask this because I'm Mormon or former Mormon. Did you grow up thinking the Lutheran Church was like the one true church?

Mike Aus [00:07:49] No. You didn't? No.

John Dehlin [00:07:52] And yet it was a vibrant experience for you because many Mormons sort of think that's the secret sauce to a church succeeding, that any church that doesn't make that claim is destined to be a weak and feeble and dying church. But you seem to have had a good experience without thinking that.

Mike Aus [00:08:08] Absolutely. I think I was, at a young age, taught to think that there were just different flavors of Christianity. So maybe Christianity as a whole was the one true thing, but there could be different flavors for different types of people.

John Dehlin [00:08:23] Got it. So what led to your. So were you a minister or a pastor when you first started thinking about the idea of a secular church?

Mike Aus [00:08:34] You know, not really. That came to me after I left religion.

John Dehlin [00:08:38] So what made you leave religion?

Mike Aus [00:08:41] Ultimately, it was just realizing that things didn't add up. Too many inconsistencies in the biblical texts. The biblical texts are clearly shaped by the psychological needs of the early Christian communities. These are not reliable documents. So for me, it was a combination of scripture and then also, at a practical level, realizing that things like prayer don't work. I mean, intercessory prayer manifestly doesn't make anybody better. You know, God does not heal amputees. I mean, so it was both kind of on the theological Side and the practical side. For me, I just saw too many things didn't add up and, you know, I just, you know, made the leap.

John Dehlin [00:09:27] So was it hard to stop being a Lutheran minister?

Mike Aus [00:09:30] Well, I had stopped being a Lutheran a couple years prior to that and had started a kind of a, you know, like an emerging church, progressive, non denominational congregation with maybe a more progressive theology. But, you know, when I left, I really felt it was kind of a sense of relief not having to get up and espouse things which I couldn't, you know, endorse anymore. So at a personal level, it felt like a weight was lifted from you not having to. Not having to pretend that I really believe that Jesus rose from the dead or, you know, all that stuff.

John Dehlin [00:10:09] Yeah. So having. Having grown up in Houston myself, I have to ask where your congregations were or are Just.

Mike Aus [00:10:18] Oh, yeah. I had been out in the Katy area for a while.

John Dehlin [00:10:20] That's where I grew up. I went to Katy High School.

Mike Aus [00:10:23] Oh, wow. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:10:24] Yeah.

Mike Aus [00:10:24] And I serve other congregations in Texas and Louisiana as well.

John Dehlin [00:10:28] And where is Houston Oasis located in Houston.

Mike Aus [00:10:31] We meet in the Westchase area right now near the Beltway in Westheimer.

John Dehlin [00:10:36] Okay.

Mike Aus [00:10:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:38] Nice, nice.

Mike Aus [00:10:39] We're meeting in a conference center at the moment.

John Dehlin [00:10:41] I remember Westheimer. People used to cruise Westheimer back in the day. Is that still.

Mike Aus [00:10:47] It's just a lot more cars doing it.

John Dehlin [00:10:50] Fun. Okay. All right, Mike, well, thank you for telling us a bit about your story. We'll pause for a second. Helen, let's bring you in. Tell us about your background and what led to your interest in Oasis Kansas City.

Helen Stringer [00:11:05] I noticed you asking, like, childhood wise. Everyone has this fascination, I guess, with like our childhood religious affiliation. But I grew up in a household where we went to church on like Easter and Christmas and. And then we were involved here and there, so it wasn't like a. A common thing. My parents never had a discussion with us about going to hell or anything like that. It wasn't a big deal. So in middle school, I started going to a youth group. And then by the time I was 15, I had a friend over instant messaging, AOL instant messaging, asked me if I had accepted Christ into my heart. I don't know. This is very evangelical behavior.

John Dehlin [00:11:44] Okay, wait, what church were you kind of semi raised in?

Helen Stringer [00:11:48] We went to Disciples of Christ in Presbyterian churches. And so the youth group I got involved in was Presbyterian. And over instant messaging, she walked me through the center's prayer. And I kind of still see that as when I had became a Christian kind of and then from there, I met my now husband, who was with the Assemblies of God, which is drastically different.

John Dehlin [00:12:11] Isn't that kind of Pentecostal?

Helen Stringer [00:12:13] Oh, yeah, very much so.

John Dehlin [00:12:14] Charismatic stuff.

Helen Stringer [00:12:16] Oh, yeah. So he kind of pulled me into that, and I ended up going to an Assemblies of God college because I got a really great scholarship. I was a music major at first.

John Dehlin [00:12:28] What's your instrument? A singer.

Helen Stringer [00:12:30] Singer? Not anymore. But I was a vocalist and wanted to be an opera singer originally. It's pretty random. But through college, I felt the pressure and the call to enter ministry. And so after two years and I changed my major to pastoral studies. Problem being that, though, by the time I left school, all of the ideology started to unravel. Really struggled with the problem of evil and a ton of other inconsistencies in the Bible and just within Christian theology and philosophy of thought. And fortunately, my husband and I made that journey together. So we married after I got out of college and kind of went down this journey of leaving Christianity together. But we still went to church. We knew full well that that is where you meet people, how you connect to your community at large. So when we moved back home, we had been living in Nashville. We first got married, came back to Kansas City, and came back so we could have kids and have that support network of family, and started going to church. We went to Vineyard Church here in Kansas City for a while and met a wonderful, great group of small groups, people, and those are actually some of our friends still today, fortunately. But when it came time to have kids, we decided we did not want our children raised in church. It actually, unlike a lot of people who run to church when they have kids, we wanted nothing to do with it. We didn't want our kids being told that they were broken or that they needed something that they had to make a decision on that most adults can't make decisions on, or something very serious. So we found that we missed community, so we kind of pulled away from church. We had already stopped going on Sunday because we found it pretty boring, even though it was a megachurch. So they're good at entertaining, but we missed that community. And then it just dawned on me, like, why can't we do something like this, but take out all the parts that I don't like that I'm assuming a lot of other people don't like? And that's when I reached out to Mike and Houston and realized that what they were doing was kind of what I had been envisioning.

John Dehlin [00:14:42] Beautiful. All right, thanks for sharing, Helen. All right, so Mike, So had you. What inspired you to consider this idea? Had you heard of Alain de Bhutan by that point?

How the Oasis Gatherings Are Structured

Mike Aus [00:14:56] No, not Sunday Assembly. Yeah, No, I hadn't heard about Sunday Assembly. Hadn't heard about Alain de Baton, although subsequently I've read his book, which is a very good book. But it was just a friend of mine who had been in one of my previous churches and I were having lunch on a weekly basis and we just started wondering, you know, heck, is there a way that we could. Because he had also, you know, left the theology and the dogmas behind. But we realized we were missing something in our lives. And we liked the sense of community and support and everything, you know, that side of religion. And so we just wondered if there would be a way that we could do this. And we started sharing the idea with a few friends. We formed a little planning team that started meeting on a weekly basis over brunch on a Sunday morning, just saying, hey, what would this look like? You know, how could we do. How could we hang on to the good things that we liked about church without the baggage, without the stuff we couldn't affirm?

John Dehlin [00:15:58] And about what month and year was this? I want to get a historical timeline here a little bit.

Mike Aus [00:16:03] That was in the summer of 2012.

John Dehlin [00:16:06] Okay, okay, keep going.

Mike Aus [00:16:09] And so we started, you know, our small group, just a handful of us, started meeting for brunch, and people started telling other people. And soon we had a planning team of a dozen people. And by the end of September in 2012, we were ready to hold our first Sunday gathering. So we took this from our, you know, completely from scratch. We hadn't heard of Sunday assembly, although we've definitely been connected with them. I was at that same conference in Atlanta and Sanderson had asked me to speak there, which was a great experience. Love what Sunday assembly is doing. And here in Houston, we felt one of the things we developed was just what would we stand for? What would we be about? So we developed what came to be five core values. Originally seven core values, but we wanted just kind of soundbite, elevator talk, short values that people could latch onto. We came up with our number one value is really the most important one that this would be a community where people are more important than beliefs, concrete human beings, and those relationships are more important than ideologies, dogmas and whatever. We did not design it to be a specifically atheist community. We wanted this to be a place where our common humanity is enough to hold us together. So we have self described agnostics, deists, we even have a Few progressive Christians who are part of Houston Oasis. So we want this to be a place where people feel accepted and supported and that we value people over beliefs. And so our first core value is people are more important than beliefs. Our second core value is reason is, I mean, sorry, reality is known through reason. And that is just to emphasize the secular basis of what we're doing. We're not going to make any claims about the supernatural. We're not going to get all woo. We're going to try to base this as much as we can on an empirical understanding of life. Our next core value was human hands solve human problems. So we're not going to look to God to make the world better. If humanity is going to make progress and if the world is going to be a better place, it's up to us. It's up to human hands. Our next core value is meaning comes from making a difference. And our last core value is be accepting and be accepted. So we want it to be an accepting community where, you know, we are a multi ethnic, multiracial community. Sexual identity is not an issue. Gender identity is not an issue. We're trying to be as inclusive and accepting community as we can be. So those are our five core values that we came up with that would define our life together. We started meeting the first Sunday. We had maybe 25 people and we were thrilled because we had no idea. We didn't do any advertising, it was just word of mouth. We had 25 people. We thought, hey, we can do this. This is going to happen. And so we started meeting and we designed this Sunday morning experience that we do not call it a service, we call it a gathering. We're trying to avoid religious terminology because we think that's a barrier for many of the nuns out there. Many of the more people have been alienated from church because church language carries so much baggage, especially depending upon the tradition you come out of. For example, we don't call ourselves a church, we call it an oasis. We deliberately chose that word oasis, perhaps in the same way that the word church originally started as the Greek word ekklesia, which was a just a regular secular word in the Greco Roman world that came to denote church but originally had no religious overtones. So for us, we didn't want a word that sounded churchy to describe our community. So we landed on oasis because we wanted to be an oasis of reason and an oasis of compassion. A place where people can experience refreshment and respite for the journey of life. So that's how we honed in on that term, Oasis. And then the Sunday morning experience really feels. To me, it feels a lot different from church. Maybe some people don't see it that way, but it's been described as a cross between a house concert and a TED Talk. We bring in live music each week. We have inspiring talks. We have a long coffee break where people mix and mingle. And then we have another element called a shorter talk towards the beginning of the meeting called a community moment, which is like a 10 minute thought for the day, maybe a secular meditation, if you will, that's presented by one of the members of the Oasis community. And the idea is to bring a diversity of voices to the table. So, like when I was in church, I used to do the sermon every week as the pastor. Well, we've dispensed with that model because it seems kind of arrogant to think that there's one voice that could be presenting the truth, you know, every week. So now we're bringing in a variety of speakers and we want a variety of voices to be heard to kind of lift up the collective wisdom of the group. So that's in a nutshell. That's kind of what we're doing.

John Dehlin [00:21:18] What do you call your Sunday experiences?

Mike Aus [00:21:20] We just call it the weekly gathering.

John Dehlin [00:21:26] Okay. And talk a bit about the logic behind maybe. Helen, you want to talk about this? As I understand it, a big differentiator between you guys and Sunday assembly was that they're thinking once a month, twice at the month most. And you guys believe weekly is super important.

Mike Aus [00:21:46] Absolutely.

Helen Stringer [00:21:47] It's foundationally important.

John Dehlin [00:21:49] Talk about that. Either one of you.

Helen Stringer [00:21:51] I don't. Well, and this is actually, this is something that I learned from Mike and has proven to be, I think, very true in our approach. And I think it's foundational to. To why the communities that we have started have been pretty effective. But you can't build community or relationships when it's not frequent. So if you have a once a month service, meeting or gathering, however you want to call it, and you miss a month, you don't see someone for up to 60 days. You can't build relationships and connections on that. So creating a weekly opportunity for people to see each other in, in a format that is engaging and interesting, I think is really important. And beyond that, we do more than just a Sunday gathering. So we also offer social events throughout the week. We try to have at least one to where people can extend the conversation past Sunday or just show up and hang out. So we'll have like midweek dinners, we'll have family focused events, things like that, and then also volunteer opportunities. So the opportunity to go somewhere and give back human hand, solve human problems. So there's multiple ways. Our sole goal is to build community. So we do that by trying to increase the amount of times people can interact with each other in ways that are meaningful.

John Dehlin [00:23:13] Beautiful. Okay. Just because this came up in my mind, at some point you must have learned about Sunday assembly and contemplated the value or lack of value in merging with them. Talk about your thought process along that decision point, if you ever had one, either of you.

Oasis vs. Sunday Assembly and Unitarian Universalism

Mike Aus [00:23:39] I don't think we've really seriously ever had that conversation about merging with Sunday assembly because the model is quite a bit different. And you know, I love the guys in Sunday assembly support what they're doing. But for us, the weekly thing was very important. The feeling of an oasis gathering and a Sunday assembly gathering, probably a little bit, is a different vibe.

John Dehlin [00:24:04] Will you describe the differences

Mike Aus [00:24:08] in a

John Dehlin [00:24:08] way where I'm going to just acknowledge we're very affirming?

Mike Aus [00:24:11] Oh, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:24:12] So it's only just to just describe the characteristics.

Mike Aus [00:24:17] Absolutely. I can't stress enough how much I admire what Sanderson and Pepa are doing and the whole Sunday assembly crowd. And I don't see why secular movements and communities can't work together in great ways. But for us, we don't have regularly scheduled congregational singing as a part of what we do now. We bring in a variety of.

John Dehlin [00:24:43] Oh, you guys don't sing as a group, you're saying?

Mike Aus [00:24:45] Well, it's not intentionally planned weekly congregational singing. And we can get back to that in a minute. Why that is if you'd like to hear more about that. But now we bring in different live musicians each week. We have a music director who's an award winning Texas singer songwriter, who has great connections to the Texas music community. So we bring in fantastic musicians every week. Now from time to time, those musicians are going to do a cover song that the community knows and they might join in on the refrain. If the performer for the day has an audience participation song in their repertoire, then we're happy to do that. But we don't have a regimented force with the lyrics up on the screen. And everybody's going to sing one thing at the same time that just for whatever reason our planning team felt like that didn't feel natural and comfortable for us. Making newcomers being forced to come into a new social situation and suddenly have to sing, which is a kind of intimidating experience anyway. And even within the Christian world. I mean, I remember for years in recent years, anyway, that people bemoaning the decline of congregational singing. Helen mentioned going to a megachurch. Well, a lot of megachurches today, you know, the congregational singing isn't necessarily the high point of the service. They bring in, like, supercharged professional musicians that really entertain the crowd. And the singing is almost kind of secondary. And if you don't sing, it doesn't matter because the music from the band is so loud. But like I said, we're not against it. We just don't plan it every week. If it's spontaneous and seems natural to the flow of the morning, we'll do it. So that's kind of the music side of it. Yeah. What else? I mean, so then. So aside from that, you know, I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:26:45] I can just tell you from my experience. Yeah, I watched Sanderson kind of bounce around in front of everybody and people kind of jumping around and dancing. I loved it. I had fun doing it. I really did like it. But as I thought about whether that that sort of jumping around dancing, whether that would float with post Mormons, I just felt like that culture wouldn't fly.

Mike Aus [00:27:09] Well, I was going to say, I think an oasis gathering is definitely a little more sedate than a. But I don't want to use the word sedate because it makes it sound boring. We're not sedate.

Helen Stringer [00:27:20] It's not boring.

Mike Aus [00:27:21] I think the experience. I think we develop a compelling experience. I mean, people clearly coming back and both. Now we have Houston, Kansas City, we have Boston, we have the San Antonio team. We have an excellent planning team on the ground in San Antonio, and we have other communities. So I think there is something compelling about the experience, but it doesn't have maybe this, you know, quite the same energy level. Maybe it's a different kind of energy.

John Dehlin [00:27:47] I say, Helen, talk to any other differences that you think are worth talking about.

Helen Stringer [00:27:55] It's hard to define differences because my only experience was at that conference. So I don't know across the board, so to speak, to like, well, how is it different? The biggest thing is probably our music format in the sense that we hope to be a musical destination. And I think I should say music not musical, but, like, same thing. We have a music director who brings in all different kinds of genres to types. We have full bands to individuals, to classical music, to rap. I mean, it can literally just vary drastically. And so it's really fun because you get to hear all different kinds of things. It's a different experience each week. And what's funny is that on Sunday we did the first ever sing along. So we did kind of a Sunday assembly. Ish. We didn't have a full band or anything like that, but our music director and one of the other classical singers in our group did some fun kind of sing alongs. So we're flexible in format. But I know coming from a charismatic background, that I felt slightly uncomfortable because it was really similar to what I was used to with words on a screen. And it was like secular charismatic kind of stuff. And I just wasn't comfortable. I thought it was great to see that people loved it. And I think that's what brings value to having multiple models and different things that people can go to. Because for some people, I think Sunday assembly fits perfect. For myself, in my experience, which is limited to just the conference, I was really uncomfortable. And maybe that's not okay. Maybe I need to think about why that is more. But I think what we're offering is just simply different. And I think some people will love the Sunday assembly format, want that, and then some of us are going to maybe choose to do something different.

Mike Aus [00:29:44] We actually do have a lot of ex Mormons at Houston Oasis or Post Mormons, and actually they make some of our best members because they know what it takes to build a community.

John Dehlin [00:29:53] We do.

Mike Aus [00:29:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:55] Yeah. Okay. While we're talking about differences, and I don't want to focus on this, but one of the most common questions I've received is why not Unitarian Universalists? So, Helen, respond to that. And then if you want to add anything, Mike, you can as well.

Helen Stringer [00:30:12] You use vary. So the ones here, in my experience, it's just a level of spiritualism that I don't feel comfortable dabbling in. And of course, that varies from UU church to UU church. And it feels very churchy. I don't know if that's a very good term to use, but there's something about it that just didn't feel organic. And you still have the same format of one person, generally speaking. Now, I'm not certain if that's how it always is, but I think it just didn't feel right. Didn't feel like we fit. Like we tried. We tried and it was not going to work out. Just.

Mike Aus [00:31:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:00] I mean, that's all you can say.

Mike Aus [00:31:02] Yeah. Just to pick up on that, you know, I think, you know, just to confirm what Helen was saying, that we have this thoroughly secular approach, we're not going to talk about, you know, the Unitarian universe tradition tends to, you know, they have a tagline on. I heard a tagline on their announcement, you know, they do like corporate sponsorship for like programs on npr, for example. And they talk about being open to spiritual wisdom from all traditions. Well, we've kind of moved beyond spiritual wisdom. I mean, I don't, you know, we're not open to woo, we're not open to the supernatural. And you know, someone else asked us, you know, we don't do like pseudo Christian ceremonies right now. People have asked us a lot about rituals and rites and that kind of thing. And my feeling is that anytime human beings get together, rituals develop. I don't care whether it's your family, whether it's the group of people that watch the same football team together. Human beings are naturally ritualistic people. So we're not going to sit down from the get go and design kind of synthetic, artificial rituals to replace the rituals of religion. We don't do candle lighting ceremonies and stuff like that. Because my feeling is if we exist long enough, rituals are going to develop. We have a ritual of a mid morning coffee break. Maybe that's our communion refilling the coffee and grabbing the biscotti and the donuts. I mean, heck, when you look at the Pope's High Mass in the Vatican, you have to remember that started out as a potluck lunch at somebody's little house in Corinth 2,000 years ago. And then the next week somebody brought better napkins and it just evolved over 2000 years. It's still a potluck lunch. So rituals are going to develop, but I didn't want us to create something that felt strange and artificial and that kind of thing.

Ritual, Community, and Life Transitions

John Dehlin [00:33:08] I was going to ask about that because in Mormonism ritual is really powerful. Not uniquely so, but whether it's your, the baby blessing or the baptism at age 8 or the rituals for youth, which would be comparable to, let's just say a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah, but they're not that intense. But still they're meaningful to the temple ceremonies. And you know, I've heard, you know, why in funerals, let's not forget the power of funerals, right? Why not, why not have a baby ritual where someone can present their baby to the congregation? Why not have sort of a formal age where a member might sort of choose whatever age, not even necessarily a specific age, but some sort of experience where someone might choose to affiliate or identify other coming of age sort of things. And of course, funerals, that can really be an important part of a community. I hear you saying you're not opposed to that, but let's Just let them happen naturally.

Mike Aus [00:34:10] Can I pick up on that? Because I completely agree with what you're saying, but I'd rather. See, we're in the very, very early days of the secular community movement, and I think it would be a mistake to have. Are we, though?

John Dehlin [00:34:21] Like, I hear that this stuff happened in the 50s and 60s and 70s.

Mike Aus [00:34:25] Now, this is different. This is totally different.

John Dehlin [00:34:27] Okay, so there wasn't like a humanist thing in the 60s that's already tried this kind of thing. I don't know the history here.

Mike Aus [00:34:34] I think we're at a kind of a tipping point. I think this is. This feels new and different.

John Dehlin [00:34:39] Okay. Sorry to interrupt.

Mike Aus [00:34:41] That's okay. It's your show. You can interrupt. Right. But, for example, we've said that with the death of somebody in the community, and we've had only ones of our. Thank goodness, but that we will celebrate that life in ways that are consistent with the person's wishes. And so we do want to help. We have several people in the community that are expecting mothers right now, so we've had a whole string of baby showers. When these children are born, I fully expect some kind of introduction to the community. But I don't want to sit down right now and write out some kind of cheesy liturgy for whatever. Let's just let things develop organically as they did with all other types of human groups. But I couldn't agree with you more. That's part of the power of community, is to celebrate and support each other through significant life passages.

John Dehlin [00:35:51] I just don't want to preclude the possibility of any technology that religions will use as a competitive advantage to our being able to be successful. That's all I'm saying. Absolutely. Helen, any quick thoughts on ritual in addition to what Mike's already said?

Helen Stringer [00:36:08] No, no, We've had. I mean, we still hope to be able to help with those life transitions. We had a member who lost a child pretty early on, and based on. I don't. So unlike Mike, I have no experience in doing memorials. I was trained in it in school, which means nothing, honestly, in application, but it was really incredible to be able to support them through that. And for a young community to be able to help this couple through that was really, really just one of the best moments, oddly, to see come to fruition. So I think that, like Mike said, we're in the same boat of that stuff is better to evolve organically and personalize too, you know, like some people don't want a big thing to do, you know? So I think it's per the individual, especially with funerals is a good example. Well, what did that, you know, how does the grieving family want to help mourn through that? And who was this person? So if they can make their wishes beforehand? So we're able to not be constrained by these religious rituals or these, you know, this is how. This is the ritual. This is how we do it. No, it can be by, you know, the unique. Each person gets to decide what this should or should it look like. Whatever transition it is.

Mike Aus [00:37:25] I'll pick up on that. Because actually the entire culture is moving away from the kind of standard church rituals when it comes to both weddings and funerals anyway. Regardless of whether you're secular or not. More and more people are designing kind of very personal wedding ceremonies that are happening less frequently at churches and more in all kinds of different venues. And the same thing with, you know, I attended a funeral a while back and the people happened to be, you know, religious, but they didn't have the funeral at the church. They had a gathering of friends at their house and they planted a tree in the backyard and put the ashes at the base of the tree, you know, so I think Helen's right. You know, the culture as a whole still wants to celebrate significant life passages, but do it in ways that are more meaningful rather than having a pre made liturgy that fits all sizes.

Helen Stringer [00:38:24] I think this leads also. So you're talking about the difference between Sunday assembly and all of that. And one of the things I fear is that since we're not all like, I don't know, there's this level of charisma that they had that supposedly were the boring ones or something. And I don't think that's the case at all. Or that we're secular like in the sense that we avoid topics related to emotions when we are incredibly emotional beings. And so we involve, you know, weave all of that stuff into all of our gatherings, into the things we do throughout the week. So in no shape or form, you know, are we avoid. Are we stoic. We're not reason based and you know, only scientific. You know, that stuff's really important. No can be wrong. But you, you know, also being true to who we are as human beings and emotional beings at that, you know, we, we talk about that stuff and we also have really great fun times together. We're, I would say we're just as lively as the others. We're just not in. The approach is different.

John Dehlin [00:39:21] So quick, while we're talking about just different, different approaches, one of the questions I just got from Facebook that you sort of already answered, but I just want to ask it directly. You know, a lot of people just say, oh, come on, I just left a church. I just got my Sundays. I really love my Sundays. I go nature church, where I go hike in nature or I stay home with the kids. My family feels this way. Honestly, the last thing I can convince them to do is to go spend an hour or two at a building with a bunch of other people. So someone asks, what is it about the church community structure that makes you think it meets human social needs? You know, why a church model at all? Why not just do something totally different?

Mike Aus [00:40:07] Oh, well, I think what we're doing. I don't know. I mean, the church model, I really resist the term church. I think we're building an oasis, not a church.

John Dehlin [00:40:17] Okay, I know, I know. Sorry. I just met a weekly Sunday experience. Why have a weekly Sunday experience?

Mike Aus [00:40:25] Because the frequency of gathering. Oh, I lost your sound.

John Dehlin [00:40:32] Can you hear me now?

Mike Aus [00:40:33] Yeah, I can hear you now. The frequency of gathering opportunities helps to build stronger communities. Now, not everybody needs that. Human beings are on a continuum with every human behavior and proclivity. So the person who wants to go out and worship nature, that's fine. That's their deal. We're not making anybody come to this. We're just. We're providing an opportunity for people who would like to connect to people and have, you know, there are strengths in the church model. Think of it as one of the few venues of life where you have people of all different generations coming together. We have infants and we have people in their 80s and everything in between. Although our median age skews much lower than a typical Christian community, we have a lot of young adults. Churches did discover some pretty important ways of being able to bring people together and build networks of supportive human communities. And a lot of us need something like that. So, I mean, we can. There have been. Churches did succeed for a long time. Even when I think about. When I talk to people in my family who are still religious, like my mom and I asked them how church was that day, they don't tend to talk about the sermon or the doctrine or the Bible readings. What do they talk about? They talk about the people they saw and the connections they made. Oh, I saw so and so. And this is happening to them. You know, I think for most people in church, that's, you know, it's the power of community that still keeps them there.

John Dehlin [00:42:14] Anything to add, Helen?

Helen Stringer [00:42:17] Yes, actually. So, yeah, the church model thing, no, we choose Sunday, we happen to fall on Sunday because we found that that is the best time to gather a multi generational group of people together. And in our culture, in our country right now, Sunday is the time to do it, especially for families. And that gap of time is there. So that's the only reason we meet on Sunday, because it's practical, it makes sense. And that multi generational aspect, you know, we are a place for kids and families, which was something that was completely absent in anything secular prior. We found that as a family with kids like you can't go to anything. It was all 30 and under activist related, more kind of harsher stuff, which is necessary. It's nice, but it wasn't my thing. And then all really old white men, you know, more of, you know, that kind of stuff. So we're able to meet a need of various ages, which there's so much that offers so much to human community to have those ages. And you don't see it anywhere else. You can meet people at your kid's soccer game, you can meet people, you know, just do a meetup. You all like a certain type of dog, so you hang out. It's not the same. You don't. You're not able to accomplish that. So if you want to call it a church model, sure, I call it a human community model. It's more like social science kind of stuff. Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [00:43:47] Yeah.

Mike Aus [00:43:49] For me, the most gratifying aspect of what we're doing is I've had many people tell me, and I think Helen would say the same thing. I had a guy tell me a few weeks ago, looking around the room and seeing all these connections that didn't even exist just two years ago. And I've had several people say, mike, I made more friends in the past two years than I have in my entire adult life. So creating this kind of community where people can connect in powerful ways. I've had people said, I've met friends here who are going to be my friends for the rest of my life. That feels really good when you hear people say that.

Helen Stringer [00:44:27] I had a spouse of one of my board members actually share that her husband's been happier than he's been in decades. And I had someone else share that too. They're like, I just feel so much happier after having found my. I found a group of people. I feel like I can be myself and I can belong and I can learn and life is fun again. It's pretty incredible. And we aren't forcing anyone to do this. No one has to Go. So when I hear what you said early on. Oh, the Sunday thing, well, then don't come. That's fine. Come to a social event, we don't mind. You don't have to come on Sunday or don't come at all and go to nature. You know, it's kind of, we all need to kind of find our niche with that stuff. But we're obviously meeting a need because the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Mike Aus [00:45:16] And I think it's easier to build human community without the baggage of dogma. When you take the dogma out of the equation, you take a lot of things that people could argue about out of the equation, right? I mean, we don't have to talk about, you know, what color candles do you use on the Advent wreath, or what kind of wine or not wine or grape juice you're going to use in communion or how you're going to baptize or anything, or are we going to have a digital organ or a pipe organ? I mean, these issues have split congregations and you take the dogma out of it, there's much less to fight about.

John Dehlin [00:45:53] So that kind of leads to my next question. And this is really a two part question. But when you talk about things like exclusive truth claims, doctrine, theology, an identity, kind of a religious identity, kind of a tribal thing, and then all these rituals, you know, you could argue that those are all the bad things that we got to get rid of. But you could also say those are the binding forces that really bring people together and make them feel unified. The converse of that that I and many others experience is when you sort of think about the personality type or the profile of the type of person that would be interested in something like this, they're usually politically liberal. They're usually kind of maybe even higher than average intelligence. They're kind of skeptical, they're used to questioning, they're used to sort of feeling free about dissenting or disagreeing. They're even probably anti authoritarian a little bit. And isn't, isn't it, aren't we sort of sacrificing many of the things that religions would argue are their secret sauce? And then aren't we then pulling together a group of people that are actually at face value, really hard to organize and manage?

Mike Aus [00:47:07] Okay, that's the whole herding cats line that people have always used about free thinkers. I think that's true to a certain we're not trying to hurt.

John Dehlin [00:47:18] It sounds so tired to you. To us, this is like, these are new questions for you. It's like, oh, I've heard that before.

Mike Aus [00:47:25] Well, no, because.

John Dehlin [00:47:26] Forgive our newness to this.

Mike Aus [00:47:29] I'm probably just as new as you are. This whole thing anyway. No, but I'm convinced that, okay, there is no purpose in trying to herd cats because cats don't want to be herded. So, I mean, they're not going to show up to the table anyway. I'm convinced that there is a large segment of the American population that are still attending church. They're sitting in the pews right now, and they don't buy any of the dogma. I know this because I've talked to people who have said this. They don't believe the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed or the whatever creed or set of beliefs, but they go because of the community, they go because of the network. They go because of the tradition. I think we have a lot of people out there that really value this. And if they had an option, they would go to that new option. So, you know, we're not. And we're not authoritarian. I mean, well, and we have discovered ways to, you know, allow people to, you know, our speakers, when they get up each week, they're not presenting the quote, unquote truth, they're presenting ideas to be discussed. Discussion is another huge part of what we do. We always, always, always have Q and A with the audience after the main talk is over, which you can't do in a church. You can't have Q and A about the sermon, you know, and so I don't know, but you're right about developing. I mean, we are tribal and we do need tribal markers, you know, and whether it's our political bumper stickers or whatever. I mean, we got a logo. See, it's on my shirt right there. Logo. And the logo is great. And so, you know, we have logos, we do have bumper stickers.

John Dehlin [00:49:06] That's the mark of the beast, by the way.

Mike Aus [00:49:08] Oh, okay.

Helen Stringer [00:49:09] Oh, that would be flattering. If we get marked as that.

Mike Aus [00:49:14] We found that the core values, because they're short and memorable, people use them a lot. I mean, people will post pictures and they'll have meaning comes from making a difference. Hashtag people are more important than belief. So I think those are, you know. Yeah, those things are important.

John Dehlin [00:49:32] Anything to add, Helen?

Helen Stringer [00:49:34] No.

Governance, Funding, and Organizational Structure

John Dehlin [00:49:34] Okay, so talk. Helen, we'll have you talk about this. Talk about your corporate governance. Like, when I looked at Sunday assemblies, like, and I'm anticipating, there isn't much because there's really just a couple of you. But when I saw Sunday assembly put together this big spreadsheet of all the requirements and criteria. And I don't mean to mischaracterize them, but one of the things that we deal with is this trauma of coming from a very corporate, very hierarchical organization where it's down to like, what type of bread do you use for the sacrament? What color shirt are you supposed to wear? Like, we just don't want to be told what to do. So when, when Sanderson or whoever is like, give us money and here's all the rules to be to become a franchise, I'm just like, I just don't want to recommit to some other corporate structure. Again, not to mischaracterize them, but talk to us first about your governance or corporate structure or how one might become an oasis, if you have any. I mean, a community without boundaries isn't really community either. So you've got to have some rules or identity to. To sort of make it meaningful. But talk about the corporate structure. And then let's get into how your individual congregations are structured from leadership to how your services are to what the most common activities are. And Helen, because we've had Mike talk in a bit, let's have you sort of start with this question and then Mike, you can jump in. Okay.

Helen Stringer [00:51:10] And Mike, you might want to jump in too. So I get to explain the really fun stuff corporate wise. So I don't like that word. We're an affiliation. No, well, no. Yes. Sorry. You'll see we like the terminology stuff. Well, because what we hope to be is an affiliation, a literally support network of communities. So what we're offering is a working model. We obviously do have the oasis identity and it is all protected, it's copyrighted, and we have trade works. So we have all of that foundational kind of legal stuff. We do have that all set in place. But what we hope to be is we expect these communities as they grow and start to be grassroot led. And I think each city is going to have its own kind of flair and flavor and that's really important to community building. So we have. I don't want to call it like a loose affiliation, but we want communities to be able to develop and grow to look like. I think Kansas City and Houston have a lot of similarities, but there are probably some slightly different feels to it. And the same thing within leadership structure. We are not charismatic driven. It's not the Helen Show. I have a team of people. The way this happens is that I have literally multiple teams and tons of people at the table who make this all happen, which helps Build community.

John Dehlin [00:52:37] But you're a 501C3 at the top, right?

Helen Stringer [00:52:39] Yes, yes.

John Dehlin [00:52:40] Who's on your board of directors for the network? Yeah, the Uber umbrella organization.

Helen Stringer [00:52:47] Uber. It's comprised basically of some people from Houston and Kansas City. So we have three people plus Mike from Houston, Oasis. Do you want names I can give you?

John Dehlin [00:52:59] No, no, no. Just generally.

Helen Stringer [00:53:01] And then I have myself and then two people from Kansas City right now that are serving on the board. And we plan on probably having some advisory committees. I mean, all of this, Mike and I will say, has kind of been this social experiment of sorts. So we're learning and we're developing and we're flexible as we grow and as we go. And we want to be as flexible as is reasonable with that because I think that that's the best way to approach this. And we're trying not to be rigid. You don't have to. Your model on Sunday doesn't have to look like what we're doing right now. It's working for us. So I tend to think that's probably great. But then again, smaller cities may have a different way that they bring in musicians or they have a standard musician. I think it's going to vary greatly and I think that flexibility has to be present. So. So we don't really care what people are doing on Sunday. What we care about is that they live up to the 5. Values are really important as to who we are. We are out to denigrate religious people. Being an anti theist, it's not a good fit. I will say that's a pretty big deal for me. I want to know that those other cities understand that we are forward focused, positive communities because we have enough negativity to deal with in our lives. We don't want to be a part of a community that's just negative or down. We want to think about how we can live the best life we can possibly. I think those are the main two pieces. And weekly, I think the weekly thing is important. But other than that, I think local identities need to develop and be who they are based on their city locale and who they're made up of.

Mike Aus [00:54:35] That strengthens the whole movement. Because just for example, all the different ways, I mean, Houston Oasis has been immensely enriched by being in partnership with Kansas City Oasis. We had like, for example, this past Sunday, our music director provided the music at Boston Oasis this coming Sunday. The speaker for our.

John Dehlin [00:55:01] Oh, like through Skype or what?

Mike Aus [00:55:03] No, they went up there.

John Dehlin [00:55:05] Oh, wow.

Mike Aus [00:55:06] Yeah, yeah. And this coming Sunday, the speaker that is going to speak in Houston on transgender right issues is a speaker who lives in Kansas City. Now she's not a member of Kansas City Oasis, but I got the lead from Helen and next month we have the entire planning team from San Antonio. Oasis is coming over to spend an evening with the leadership team of Houston Oasis. So we found that the, you know, we envision just to build on what Helen said. I mean she said it very well, but that we're an association of autonomous communities bound together by the same core values. So if a community went rogue, it would entail not doing one of the core values. Like if they started getting theistic all of a sudden or like Ellen said, if they became an anti theist organization. We have an ethos that says it's okay to, it's okay to critique religion but not belittle believers. We feel that very, very strongly. So does that kind of help? So we have our own local board.

John Dehlin [00:56:11] So I'm hearing you say support the values, meet weekly and you bring on the name. Is that the process to apply for a congregation?

Mike Aus [00:56:24] We have. Helen and I have put together something called a startup kit. And so people who are interested in becoming an organizer of a local community will have to kind of work through the startup kit. But like I said, Helen said it's not a bunch of rules and regulations about what to do and what not to do. Obviously we need basic. There's some guidelines there, for example, with like having basic background checks for childcare people and other standard policies and procedures, but nothing too onerous. But really it's a matter of. And then we also like to encourage potential Oasis communities to visit the pre existing OASIS community just to experience the Sunday vibe because we find that actually experiencing it firsthand, it's different than reading about it or watching it online.

Helen Stringer [00:57:18] And it's different than your typical church framework. So experiencing it, you know, explaining it in theory, I mean sincerely, it's hard to explain something that you're going to connect to your church background or whatever framework you come from, because that's not what we're doing. And you notice that once you experience it. We hear people say that all the time. It's not just coming from us. We do. Go ahead.

John Dehlin [00:57:42] Do you? Oh no, I didn't mean to cut you off. Did you have a final trailing thought?

Helen Stringer [00:57:45] Okay, we have a process. So I mean there is kind of a process, but I would say there's lot of flexibility in it. But basically Mike and I will meet someone who's interested. Usually we'll talk over the Phone, answer their questions. And if they're really interested, Mike and I will both make sure we meet them Skype or a phone conference. And really where. The crux of our thing is that we ask people who are interested in organizing an Oasis to put together a launch team. So they need at least five people initially for this team. If you can put together a team of people, it's highly likely that you'll be able to actually organize a community and then from there visit an Oasis, and then it's a matter of all the fun kind of form your nonprofit in your state. And we do have. We have a chapter agreement that kind of says that you're going to hold to the values and the things we just talked about. But really, it's teams. Really the biggest barrier at the gate to get through the gate is can you organize a launch team? And really, that's just for practical reasons, you know, and then it's not about one person.

Mike Aus [00:58:49] It's not about one personality. All of our communities are based on lots of teams working together.

John Dehlin [00:58:56] Do you have roles for those five people? Like typical roles that are successful, like a Sunday meeting person, a facilities person, a service person, you know, is there. Is there anything like that?

Mike Aus [00:59:10] That kind of stuff tends to shake out. I think what we've been telling people is when you're building your launch team, don't necessarily look for particular skill sets to begin with. Look for people who look for their passion and commitment, and the other stuff will shake out. We've never had any problem finding people to do whatever, whether it's building a website or securing a facility or finding music or whatever. For the core initial membership of the launch team, you need people who are really committed to the. Who get the concept, who really want to see it happen, and then they'll bring other people to the table, and the division of labor will happen naturally.

John Dehlin [00:59:53] Okay, what about tithing? Do you guys collect funds from the congregations and centralize it at headquarters? I know there's no headquarters, but.

Mike Aus [01:00:02] Right.

Speaker D [01:00:05] We each.

Mike Aus [01:00:07] Right now, each community is, you know, run. You know, obviously runs their own finances. So, you know, we pass the hat. We have recurring credit card donations, all the standard stuff. So each community is. And right now we're at the very early stages of figuring out how to fund the work of the network. And right now it's coming out of, you know, donations from local OASIS members who are going to be funding, you know, and the local communities. We'll fund the work of the network as needed, but we don't have any. It's not like you must send X number of dollars to the work of the network or anything like that at all. It's much more on a voluntary basis right now.

John Dehlin [01:00:44] Okay, well, while we're talking about that, are you guys, is financial transparency an important value for you guys?

Mike Aus [01:00:50] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:00:51] Okay, so do you talk about like, is there a recommended donation amount that seems to make this work? Are you guys comfortable talking about what the average revenue is per group? And you don't have to answer anything you're not comfortable talking about.

Mike Aus [01:01:07] Well, in Houston, Oasis right now we're taking in about $5,000 a month. And we held, last year we held an evening. We're also looking for our own place. So we held a successful fund drive for a building fund. So we started, in addition to our regular finances, we have a building fund going too. We might lease someplace, but we really reached a point where we need a larger facility and we need our own seven day a week thing rather than renting just on Sunday. And we're still figuring this out. We're only three years into this, which I still consider early in the game. And it is walking a fine line between we don't want to appear, we don't ever want to guilt people into giving, we don't ever want to apply any kind of ham handed tactics. On the other hand, it does take money to make this happen. We got to, you know, we pay our musicians and we believe strongly in paying our musicians because we want to see ourselves as, you know, in a sense, advocates for local, you know, gifted local artists who deserve, you know, and we don't pay them exorbitantly, but we pay them, you know, something. And you got to pay for the coffee and pay for the building and all that other kind of stuff and maybe pizza for the kids program or whatever. So it's just a matter of helping. Our finance team is meeting tomorrow night actually to plan some kind of a, some kind of a giving awareness campaign that's going to kick off in January. So we're still trying to figure this out too. What's the best approach without, you know, how do we generate money to do stuff without, you know, we don't want people to feel bad or anything like that.

John Dehlin [01:03:00] Helen, how about, how about Kansas City? What are you able to talk about there financially?

Helen Stringer [01:03:05] We bring in, I think around 3,500 at this point. We have people who donate on a monthly basis. So we have the opportunity for like a monthly subscription, you know, to automatically

John Dehlin [01:03:15] kind of like PayPal. What do you use?

Helen Stringer [01:03:17] Yep, we use PayPal.

Mike Aus [01:03:18] Okay.

Helen Stringer [01:03:18] Right now we use PayPal. So that's all set up, you know, and then we do, you know, like Mike said, we do, we pass a box every Sunday. And I think it's a matter of communicating the need and making sure everyone knows where you're headed or where they, I should say, where they all want to go with this. You know, as a community, do you want to just meet on Sunday? Do you want a full time space? And there tends to be, at least in Kansas City and Houston has had the same thing where they want to have this full time dedicated space, which would give us a whole lot of flexibility in what we can offer and what we can do. But then how do you get there? And so then it's very, I guess it's just helping cast the vision to your community at large to help them understand, well, if that's where we want to go, well then how do we get there? And that all takes resources. So who do we have on board? The money thing was really intimidating to me at first. I had multiple people telling me to get over it. So I got over it. It's been really incredible. I am always absolutely shocked. I tend to let people know that. But when I have people just drop large amounts of money out of nowhere because they are so excited about what we were doing, it's really quite incredible. So it's not about guilting people. It's about helping people get excited about what they're doing. And people who are directly involved with what you're doing and believe in it, they'll help support it with their time and resources.

Mike Aus [01:04:47] I have a good story. A few weeks ago, like two weeks ago, we had several service projects going on around the holiday time. One of them was, we adopted two families through a group called Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse AVDA here in Houston. So we were going to buy presents for the kids in both families. And there were some other items they needed, clothing. And the last week of the campaign, we, the team, kind of our social service team, said we've got to make an announcement because we're short on the money to buy a few gifts for a couple of the kids. So I said, go ahead and make an announcement. Before the coffee break, they made an announcement. And then after the coffee break, one of them comes up and whispers my ear. We got to make an announcement. I go, what? Because we raised $800 cash during the coffee break. I mean, just during the coffee break, $800 cash in addition to what they had already gotten. So in addition to Presents for the kids. They were able to get a gift card to a local supermarket for $300 for both families and shows that freethinkers can be every bit as spontaneous and generous and giving as religious people can be.

John Dehlin [01:06:05] And then you guys would, at the end of the year, give some sort of financial reporting of how much you earned and how much you spent, right?

Helen Stringer [01:06:12] Yeah, absolutely.

Mike Aus [01:06:13] And people can request that anytime from the treasurer. They can see a financial report anytime they want to.

John Dehlin [01:06:20] Excellent. Okay, we haven't even talked about this yet. Talk about the services or activities components of a local group. So we've talked a little bit about. Let's talk about your average Sunday gathering, and then let's talk about what other activities you found to be really useful as groups. So, Helen, we'll start with you and then we'll do Mike.

A Typical Sunday Gathering Experience

Helen Stringer [01:06:52] Actually, Mike can start. Mike explains the Sunday gatherings really well, so. And you look the same. You do, actually. I like.

Mike Aus [01:07:00] What else do you want to know about the Sunday gathering other than what.

John Dehlin [01:07:02] So there's no prayer, right? There's no prayer.

Mike Aus [01:07:04] Oh, you want to hear. We're going to look slow. Yeah, yeah. So we. Yeah, people are mixing and mingling as you get to the room.

John Dehlin [01:07:13] Start in the morning. Is it morning or afternoon?

Mike Aus [01:07:16] We meet at 10:30 on a Sunday morning.

John Dehlin [01:07:18] Okay.

Helen Stringer [01:07:18] We meet at 11, but we don't

Mike Aus [01:07:20] really get going until 10:36. Usually it's a much more relaxed feeling than going to church. And we just kind of start when we start and people keep filtering in. And sometimes it might feel a little bit empty at 10:36, but by 11:00 clock, it'll be packed because it is a more relaxed feeling than what you experience at church. It's not kind of a definite start time, but once we seem to have a critical mass, we have an emcee for the day. A lot of times it's me, but we have other people. Helen has the same thing. The MC will welcome the crowd, explain a little bit of what we're about, welcome the visitors, but never make the visitors stand up, because that's embarrassing. But, you know, some words of welcome. A couple weeks ago, after the massacre in Paris, there was a strong feeling that we wanted to begin with a moment of silence for that. So we're going to be, you know, paying attention to what's in the news for that kind of thing. We had a moment of silence for Paris, and then we'll turn it over to our musicians and, you know, introduce them, talk a little bit about what they're about. Those particular musicians, they'll typically do two songs. And then we have what's called our community moment, which is our brief kind of thought for the day from a member of the Oasis community. Sometimes it's the story of their journey to free thought. Sometimes it's a compelling life experience they had. It plays the role of kind of like a secular meditation, if you will. But it's done how many minutes? 10 minutes, you say about 10 minutes.

John Dehlin [01:08:58] And they're assigned like the week before kind of thing.

Mike Aus [01:09:01] We have them scheduled weeks or sometimes months in advance. Actually. We have. People never have any problem with getting people to sign up for Community Moments. They have a lot of great ideas and sometimes on really surprising topics, it just shows you. It's a way to show how much talent and incredible experience is there within the community and lift that up. Community Moment goes on for about 10 minutes or so. Might go into 11 or 12 minutes. And then we have a round of announcements after the community moment. This is kind of the time where we do our upcoming events. Talk about the sign up sheets in the back of the room. That's kind of your community news time right there. And then we take our mid morning coffee break. Everyone stretches their legs, refills their coffee or their tea or their water. We usually have snacks, lots of snacks of some sort. It's a great time for people to mix and mingle and. And then the other thing, we always play ambient music behind all this too, so it's not dead silence. We have our sound team that's playing ambient music during that time as well.

John Dehlin [01:10:06] What kind of snacks? What are kind of the most stereotypical snacks?

Mike Aus [01:10:10] We have one guy in our group that makes biscotti and he makes incredible biscotti and he brings a ton of biscotti every week. But then we have a physician who likes to bring health food. So he'll bring like, you know, seriously, he'll bring fresh fruit, you know, and stuff like that. So, you know, whatever. And we don't, we don't ever plan snacks. They just show up magically so and it's always happened. And then we bring people together and then people want to smoke, go out and smoke. And then during the coffee break and then we get everyone back together again and we have a little more music that leads into our main talk for the day. And that music is a really important part of the transition because just like you see on talk shows or whatever, the role of the band in a talk show, we find that when people hear music prior to hearing a talk, they're more attentive and more receptive. Our music director found some good neurological research to back this up, so I believe it makes sense. The music brings people together after the coffee break, which is basically an extended fellowship time. And then we have the main talk for the day, which goes on. It can be on any. I mean, this week it's on transgender issues. We've had everything. We had an attorney in our group that works with commercial space travel talk about the commercial space business. It can be about anything. But we have a main talk for the day. Last week it was a member of our group who's from Pakistan and he's on our board, and his topic was how to talk about Islam and terrorism from the perspective of an ex Muslim. It was powerful. In fact, I hope you get a chance to listen to it on our own podcast because it's really good. So we'll have our main talk, which usually runs about 25 minutes. And then we always follow that main talk with Q and A time and we pass the mic around the room. We'll have someone designated kind of talk show style to identify people who are going to ask. That interaction with the speaker is really, really important. So it's not just presenting the message, the truth for the day, but there's a chance for the community to respond and ask questions and maybe provide a different perspective. And then after that, we go into the kind of explaining how we need to support this. And we usually, one of our board members will do what we call the money talk, explaining, you know, asking for people support. And while we pass the hat for that support, our musician is doing maybe one or two closing songs. And then we'll have a final announcement. And that's the general flow of the morning. That takes about an hour and a half to get through all that.

John Dehlin [01:12:56] Once you start formally.

Mike Aus [01:12:59] Yeah, hour, 20 minutes maybe.

John Dehlin [01:13:01] Okay. All right. Okay. Excellent. What, Helen, anything to add from Kansas City from that?

Helen Stringer [01:13:10] No. We're pretty similar in approach. I tend to start on time, just my personality, but I try to make sure it always ends at 12:30 because I don't want people to be like, held captive by something. And we are really careful about Q and A too, because we make sure, at least in Kansas City, we've made it very clear you ask a question so that it doesn't become hear someone talk about something random. But you asked about what else is happening during the week. Is that what you asked to follow that?

Social Activities, Volunteering, and Community Life

John Dehlin [01:13:41] Yeah. What other activities?

Mike Aus [01:13:43] Oh, don't forget to mention lunch.

Helen Stringer [01:13:45] Yeah. So one of the things that, and this is something that Houston, that we adopted from Houston, is to encourage people to go out for lunch afterwards and to pick a location, a landing spot to where people can extend the conversation, you know, share a meal. You know, eating with other people is big thing of how you get to know someone. And that's been really quite, quite effective, I think. I mean, this week we had like 55 people at lunch. And it's Christmas. I mean, it's December, you know, people are busy in December. And we had this massive, you know, train of tables at this food court that we always go to at one of our local shopping, our downtown shopping areas. And I think that that's a really awesome thing. And people get to know each other there, then extends the conversation too. Well, hey, I, I did not agree with the speaker. Let's talk about it. And they have really great generative discourse and people agree to disagree and they get along. It's amazing. It's very counter cultural, I think to some extent these days. Then during the week, like I mentioned earlier, we're offering, we promote midweek dinners, we promote happy hours. We promote what we call family friendly happy hours, which is for anyone to come as long as you are okay with little people running around in some chaos. We usually do that. People's homes, those are. And then other things. Our goal in social events is to offer things that help people have a conversation. So sometimes things like museums and things like that, where you can't really chat with someone, it's not as effective. And then the volunteer stuff that we offer I think is helpful. We do blood drives every quarter on site at our gatherings. And like right now we have one this Sunday. We don't have any appointments. We have filled all 40 slots. So at this point there isn't any. There's no walk in capability. There's people. Secularists like to give blood, I guess. And I think that those are the extra pieces that kind of help meld, you know, what we're doing. Does that make that right?

John Dehlin [01:15:48] That's great. How are, how are local oases? What's the plural? How are local groups? How are local groups managed? Like, is there a president, a vice president? Is there a board? One of the people asked, how do you make group decisions without it becoming really inefficient?

Helen Stringer [01:16:12] How do we make group?

Mike Aus [01:16:13] What do you govern?

John Dehlin [01:16:15] How do you govern without sort of having a bishop who's in charge or a priest who's in charge? How do you have group? How do you manage by group without it becoming really Inefficient.

Helen Stringer [01:16:27] Go ahead, Mike.

Mike Aus [01:16:28] Well, you know, I think having a team based model helps a lot. We have a board of directors that provides kind of the oversight, but they don't micromanage. I think that's really important that, you know, they're not going to tell the children's program team how to do the children's program. Just make sure you have something and then leave it up to the, you know, they're not going to tell the sound team how to run their business. We have a lot of people with significant business experience. One of our board members is a project manager for a major petrochemical company. We have actually another person who's a project manager. So they have experience from the business world and how to do this. Yeah, so we don't. It's less of a democracy and more of a duocracy, if that makes any sense. We don't sit around and vote on everything. It's up to the teams to decide. So we have our service team that decides. Okay, this week, this month, we're going to work at the food bank or we're going to work at books between kids, just like in Kansas City. We have a ton of local service projects we're constantly involved in, but the community as a whole doesn't vote on what service project we're going to do this month. The team that plans those events does.

John Dehlin [01:17:42] Got it.

Mike Aus [01:17:43] If someone has a good idea. One of the challenges sometimes in community life is the specter of the armchair quarterbacks that have all kinds of great ideas about what we should be doing. And if anyone comes to me with an idea about what we should be doing, my general response is, great idea, you're it. If you have an idea for doing something, that's great, but be prepared to implement it. Don't come up with ideas for other people to do.

Helen Stringer [01:18:14] Yeah, every time anyone comes up with an idea, they're like, I know you're going to tell me that. Can you do it? Because it's become like the knowledge that if you bring an idea to Helen, she's going to be like, well, how can you help us achieve that? But I think it's really important because then it puts the responsibility on the community at large. So it works for sure.

John Dehlin [01:18:34] Mike, do you have a full time job in addition to this?

Mike Aus [01:18:37] I am completely focused on this right now.

John Dehlin [01:18:39] And so the community financially sustains you?

Mike Aus [01:18:45] Not entirely. I got a small stipend, but I have other things I work on.

John Dehlin [01:18:50] So you have sort of part time, little moneymaker things for you that help sustain what you enjoy most, which is doing this full time, basically.

Mike Aus [01:19:00] I can get by doing this right now, so.

John Dehlin [01:19:03] Nice. Wow, that's awesome.

Mike Aus [01:19:05] I feel like I have to. I mean, right now it is. I mean, Helen, I mean, Helen has a lot more energy than I do, so she works full time and does this. But I think she'd agree this takes a lot of time if you want to do it right, so.

John Dehlin [01:19:16] So Helen, you have a full time job?

Helen Stringer [01:19:18] I do, but I work for myself. So I have. It allows me some flexibility to be like talking to you right now kind of stuff. But yeah, so I have a. Yeah, I have. I put in a lot of hours on both sides.

John Dehlin [01:19:30] Okay, perfect.

Helen Stringer [01:19:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:19:32] Okay. So are there like, what are the main committees? You've already mentioned some of them, but are there committees that you have?

Helen Stringer [01:19:39] Sure. We have a finance team now. Some of these develop later on though. So, you know, Mike and I have communities. I mean, we're averaging around, geez, you know, 150 to 200 plus every week. So we have, in my opinion, pretty large communities that have a pretty strong foundation. So with that those numbers, these committees evolve out of it. So to think from the get go, you have to have a finance team and you have to have your communications team. I think that's like you're going to totally overwhelm yourself and it's unnecessary. But right now, yes, we have a finance team which is kind of like in charge, like in charge of coming up with ideas for fundraising, budget proposals, things like that, anything finance related. And then also a communications team is our marketing team, internal and external communications. So helping people find out about us. So the marketing side, and then also making sure we're communicating accurately internally as Oasis Kansas City. And then we have our children's. You know, they're not really, I guess they are a team for sure. It's a huge team. The children's program has been one of the biggest pieces with Oasis. One of our biggest challenges, because it's just been. The response has been overwhelming for our kids program. And then there's a teen program that just started along with that as well. And then we have obviously our board of directors. I have a music director, and then he has like a sound team and set up with that as well. So. So what? I mean, what else?

John Dehlin [01:21:17] What about an activities committee to plan activities?

Helen Stringer [01:21:20] Huh? Oh yeah. So we have social events coordinators. I have two coordinators on that. I have a volunteer events coordinator who does all of that. So

John Dehlin [01:21:30] what's the difference between Those two

Helen Stringer [01:21:32] social events have to do with like happy hours, midweek dinners, the family friendly happy hours, and then the volunteer events have to do with like going and volunteering at a shelter or any of, you know, like the community service kind of stuff. It's hard to know what to call these things. Once again, we try to be careful the terminology we use. So. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:21:56] Anything not on that, Mike? Committees.

Mike Aus [01:21:58] No, it's really pretty similar.

Helen Stringer [01:22:01] Yeah.

Mike Aus [01:22:01] And I would just say our goal is not to create a bureaucracy but an adhocracy. Let's develop teams that respond to the essential components of our community life and where they need support. But we're pretty similar makeup in terms of the teams.

John Dehlin [01:22:18] So one of the questions I have from Facebook is instead of having a monthly Sunday experience, and again, what's the word you use?

Helen Stringer [01:22:29] Gathering. Sunday gathering.

John Dehlin [01:22:30] Instead of having a Sunday gathering, why not have two Sunday gatherings per month and then the other two would be like a picnic or a hike, A Sunday hike or Sunday picnic as a group. So you're still meeting weekly as a group, but. But not always in sort of the sit down meeting sort of format. What would your response to that?

Mike Aus [01:22:48] We do that. We always, I mean we always have. We'll do that. And the Sunday thing, I guess they're

John Dehlin [01:22:55] saying, why ascended gathering?

Mike Aus [01:22:57] I tell you why. Because you start. Because someone's going to show up that won't be able to find you. You start establishing a presence in that space in that time slot. People come to rely on that. And every single week I want if there's some kind of free thinker or wavering religionist or whoever that feels a real need for community that week and a. And I'm not exaggerating saying this could be even a matter of life and death. Sometimes you want to have. I want people to know that when they wake up on Sunday Morning that at 10:30 if I go to Houston Oasis, there's going to be a bunch of warm, friendly people and hot coffee and good donuts. And I can count on that. Once you start doing the weekly model, one of the worst things you can do is cancel. I mean, it doesn't matter. Even if only this day is going to be like a really down Sunday. It's like in between Christmas and New Year. And you think it's not worth doing. It is absolutely worth doing because somebody's going to show up. I think that regularity is so important. That doesn't negate. Yeah, do the hiking, do the picnics, but you can do both. We can walk and chew Gum at the same time. But that regularity, people come to count on that, and that's where it all happens. Everything flows out of the energy that you develop in that weekly gathering, no matter who's at the table.

Helen Stringer [01:24:24] Early on, we made the mistake. So I'm of the type Mike will kind of give his advice on things, and I'll be like, I'm going to try this on my own anyways. And so we canceled one of our Sundays because a lot of people were going to be at a conference locally. I mean, it was literally falling about the same time. I was like, gosh, you know, our core group, they're all going to be there, so we cancel it. You would be shocked, the confusion that it caused by canceling one Sunday. And then from there it was like, I would every Sunday somebody be like, oh, I thought this Sunday was canceled. I thought. And then it would like, we got chased by it for like eight weeks of people being like, well, I thought it was this Sunday. And then people were frustrated, you know, so that can sit. Like he said, communication with this stuff is so challenging, especially nowadays when you have social media and you have website, you have emails, you have to be on every medium possible. So clearly communicating what something's going to happen is really difficult. Plus, people scan read, so they don't read everything either. Every Sunday. Like you said, I know that this is an option you have to stick with. I think some people familiarity, maybe it's the ritual of our program and what we do, it's not rigid. Sometimes we'll do something a little different. But I think that expectation and that familiarity is also really good as well. That shared Sunday experience gives you something to talk about later. One, a shared experience, which, you know, human nature wise, you know, gives us a starting point for possibly establishing, you know, a relationship or connection with someone. And so I think that that also kind of plays into that.

Mike Aus [01:25:56] But I would also add that, you know, theoretically, we're not tied to Sunday. It's the weekly experience that's important. It's entirely conceivable that a. A new community could arise where the circumstances of their area dictate that maybe another evening, maybe a Saturday evening might work well. So it's not nothing magical about Sunday, but the weekly thing is magical.

John Dehlin [01:26:20] Amanda wants to know what some examples of some service or humanitarian efforts that you guys have been involved in. You've talked a little bit about that. Just fire off three or five per group.

Mike Aus [01:26:30] Yeah, we regularly volunteer at the Houston Food Bank. Just like in Kansas City, we have Regular blood drives here as well. We adopted families for Christmas. We're currently collecting soft structure baby carriers for Syrian refugees. We participate in a local place called Project Cure, which is a giant operation that sends medical supplies to developing countries. We help them sort and pack medical supplies for shipment all over the world. Those are just. We've done. We've done like a home. Home renovation project called Rebuilding Together Houston, where we adopted a house and basically rebuilt it over one week or two weekends. So that's just an example.

John Dehlin [01:27:19] That's awesome.

Helen Stringer [01:27:20] Same kind of thing with domestic violence shelters, serving a meal there on a regular basis. We also partnered with a Christian organization called Micah Ministries and they feed and close the working poor and homeless in Kansas city. Up to 500 people every Monday night. And so we volunteer once a month regularly with them. We do blood drives. We've worked with like pet rescues. We've done clothing drives for a place called Uzazi House, which helps the low income families in our city. So it varies Habitat, restore. I mean, and they know what we are. So we haven't had any issues. I mean. Okay, that's not true. Like, we've put it out there, clearly, you know, as to who we are as an organization. And we haven't had any issues. People, you know, generally being welcoming to having us partner with them.

John Dehlin [01:28:14] How do your. That's beautiful. How do your members identify? I'm a Jew, I'm a Muslim. What do they say if they're a member of your congregation or your group? Sorry.

Helen Stringer [01:28:24] It's okay. I'm an oasis. I don't know. We've tried to figure this out, but some of it sounds so cheap. Like we've heard people use the term oasian. I mean, that's fine. You know, it's their community, They're a

Mike Aus [01:28:38] part of the community. People still say I'm, you know, agnostic or skeptic or deist or whatever. I mean, people still use those terms. But increasingly, as these communities become defined better and stronger and grow larger, that people are identifying with their part of Oasis. That was fun. One of our Houston guys was in Kansas City a while back visiting a friend. He wasn't visiting Kansas City Oasis. He was visiting a friend of his in Kansas City and he happened to be wearing his Houston Oasis T shirt. And he said he got approached downtown by eight different people that asked him if he was with Kansas City Oasis. And he got to say, no, I'm with Houston Oasis. And they didn't. So, you know, we are, I think, developing an identity which is now spreading to Boston and San Antonio and elsewhere. So it's fun.

Healing, Mindfulness, and Emotional Wellbeing

John Dehlin [01:29:33] So Dane asks, have you focused on any kind of spiritual. And then he says, I. E. Emotional, psychological, healing, empowerment for the individual. So how do you handle spirituality as it is perceived?

Helen Stringer [01:29:48] Speaker? I mean, one of the things we can do with topics. Well, two things. So, you know, bring in speakers to talk about different elements of that is really great to start the conversation there. Obviously, you know, we're going to base a lot of what we do on, you know, the scientific method, you know, on empirical evidence and things when it comes to that stuff. But the emotional side, one of the really interesting things that we've had in Kansas City is that community moment that we have. So we have part of our community come up and talk. Early on, I had one of our members do a community moment on how she sucks at committing suicide. I remember she submitted to me. This was early on, too, when I was a little more. I screened our community moments a lot closer. I don't as much now, but she sent it to me, and I was a little nervous, but then I was like, you know, this is very real. And she got up and delivered, and it was amazing. And what it did was raise awareness for one, mental health. Once you had this girl, this woman who was comfortable with admitting that she had one, tried to commit suicide, that she struggles with mental health, and it generated this discourse of mental health issues, and everyone felt safe, like they could be real, which we have such a stigma in our culture around it. Through that community moment, then we had a chain effect of other ones like that too, where people were like, well, I struggle with this too. I have an eating disorder. It wasn't one after another, But I think it built up a culture where it's safe to discuss these things as well. And I think we're all very well aware of how mental health challenges impact all of our lives in different ways, whether we're the caregivers or there were people struggling with it, or if just eventually it happens to us during different transitions in life. So that's kind of at the moment, I would say how we deal with it. And then if people need support, we have a private Facebook forum where sometimes people will reach out for support on things, or it's just seeing each other on a weekly basis or running into each other at a weekly dinner where you can be like, oh, my gosh, I'm really struggling with this, and meeting that human need right there, right then. Because you have that connection.

Mike Aus [01:31:59] Yeah. Pretty similar approach here. We have a Guy giving a community moment next month, and he's going to talk about secular Alcoholics Anonymous. And he's a part of it and he wants people to know about it and what that recovery was like for him. As a non believer, we had Dr. Darryl Ray from Kansas City, the author of Sex and God gave a talk in Houston on male shame. And after he left, we realized that it had struck such a chord that we needed to do a follow up. So the next time he came back, we did a brown bag lunch discussion for people who wanted to process his talk on male shame. So we really do try to be responsive to helping people. The whole task of human development and life supporting people and different life issues and. Yeah, kind of just pretty much what Helen said on that one.

John Dehlin [01:32:53] At least in our community, you'll find people who will say, I'm spiritual but not religious. And for them, spiritual might not even have anything to do with the divine being. But maybe they like meditation or mindfulness. Maybe they just want to talk about something higher than themselves. And maybe it's just emotion with just different words that really mean emotional experiences. But you get people who will say, I don't just want to be around a bunch of eggheads talking about intellectual things. I want to have what they'll call spiritual experiences.

Mike Aus [01:33:29] But I guess I don't see how the topics that Helen and I just mentioned are egghead topics. We're talking about addiction, we're talking about attempted suicide, talking about culture of male shame. None of those. We try to hit the emotive side of life every single week. So to think that we're purely an intellectual group. Group is. That's. That's not true at all.

John Dehlin [01:33:51] People will cry. People will cry as a part of your Sunday service.

Mike Aus [01:33:54] Absolutely. Sharing something many times. Yeah. We had a community moment from a woman who was terminally ill who asked specifically to do her community moment so she could talk. And she literally had weeks left. We didn't know it at the time. And she talked about facing death as a non believer was one of the most powerful. So it absolutely is a place where people can explore kind of the really. The deep emotive parts of life utterly.

John Dehlin [01:34:23] That's. That's.

Mike Aus [01:34:24] We laugh a lot, too.

John Dehlin [01:34:25] Sure, sure, sure. Comedy. Yeah, yeah. Do you guys clap at the end of people's little moments?

Mike Aus [01:34:30] Yes, of course. I love that people clap for everything.

Helen Stringer [01:34:33] Yeah, you clap for whatever.

John Dehlin [01:34:35] You don't clap in Mormonism, so. In Mormonism, you don't clap. So. So we've enjoyed clapping as a part of A world.

Mike Aus [01:34:42] Yeah. There's a lot. A lot of clapping.

Helen Stringer [01:34:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:45] Okay, so yoga, mindfulness stuff, has that been that?

Mike Aus [01:34:50] Could be. If someone wanted to do that, there would be no problem. You can talk about mindfulness from a secular perspective.

Helen Stringer [01:34:56] We had someone talk about interpersonal neurobiology, which is kind of, you know, some level of mindfulness with the social side of that. Now the title sounds very, you know, dry, but really. And we did this interplay activity. We did a workshop afterwards where we did some like movement stuff, like play socially all together. It was really, really awesome. And I was surprised to see how many secular people were willing to venture that direction because, you know, you have. There's a stigma that we're all just boring, uptight, rigid people, which is totally not the case at all. Like there. Yeah, there are a handful few. They exist, but for the most part, you know, we're all. We're all in the same boat. So.

John Dehlin [01:35:37] Got it. Okay. Have you ever. So following this trail, do you ever have this tension where somebody is too anti religious on the one hand or too woo woo spiritual religious on the other? And how would you handle that as a congregation? If someone was getting up in front and speaking and meandering too much in one direction or the other, how do you handle it? Or have you ever had to deal with that?

Helen Stringer [01:36:08] I think. Well, I haven't yet. We have a speaker guidelines that we try to communicate. When it comes to the side of anti theist stuff, I really stress, and I will outright say to make sure that doesn't happen, I think to some degree, because we're established to some extent, it'd be maybe community regulated in a way. I don't know, Mike.

Mike Aus [01:36:34] I mean, I think there is a lot of community regulation that happens with that. I found like the topics. I've been surprised at the topics that set our people off. Like apparently just don't even talk about GMOs in any free thought group.

Helen Stringer [01:36:52] Don't talk about food, don't tell them what to eat.

Mike Aus [01:36:55] Don't talk about what kind of food you should or shouldn't eat. You can talk about sex all you want, but don't talk about GMOs.

John Dehlin [01:37:03] What about politics? I hear a lot of people turned off by the Unitarian Church because there's too much talk about the environment, too much talk about democratic politics and people just. There's a group of people that don't want to have politics and their Sunday experience, sort of their community experience mixed together.

Helen Stringer [01:37:23] Well, I mean, we had the director of the ACLU of Kansas come talk about the history of the civil rights movement. And Grant it was incredible too. So obviously there's a liberal leaning of sorts. We can't endorse a candidate. Obviously we wouldn't. Maybe it's. So with the uu, with that structure, there might be and instill in our culture this idea that when we bring someone up to the front, you should believe what they're saying and that you should be sold or pushed or pressured on that. And I try really hard to make sure that we're communicating that we're just starting the dialogue and conversation. We're presenting this as an opportunity to think about it and then if you want to spit it out, spit it out. You know, like don't, you know.

Mike Aus [01:38:08] But people are not afraid to push back during the Q and A time at all. So if someone gets too woo, they're going to do it. But generally they do it in a nice way. But yeah, okay.

John Dehlin [01:38:20] Someone asks, Richie asks, what's your moral code? Religious bodies trace their standards to a holy text. What text does a secular body use? I'm less interested in the last part of that question, more interested in if you've thought about the former. Any type of moral code at all other than your values that you've already laid out?

Mike Aus [01:38:42] I think the values are huge. Yeah, that's supposed to be a starting point for secular values for sure. And those are huge values.

John Dehlin [01:38:51] Oh yeah.

Mike Aus [01:38:53] So we're pretty, we're pretty proud of them because they seem to work and they seem to create at least a framework for community of compassion. So yeah, I mean another that, I mean we're not unlike religion. We're not going to tell people generally how to structure their intimate relationships. So there are some differences with religion in that respect. And I think it's an ongoing conversation as well. We have had numerous, and I'm sure you have in Kansas City too, Helmut. We've had numerous presentations about secular morality. I mean people talk about it all the time. And our main talks end in our community moments. They've talked about that topic. How do we derive our world? Well, of course we know a lot of it has to do with evolution. So it's an ongoing topic of conversation for sure.

Navigating Sensitive Topics and Community Boundaries

John Dehlin [01:39:45] Okay, well, one of the one issue that many of the post Mormon communities have faced is the issue of non monogamy or polyamory or, you know, even swinging. And in some instances these sorts of things have actually been experienced by some to be deleterious to the overall health and well being of the community. So without Any of us taking a moral judgment on any of that? Have you guys. Is that just a post Mormon thing? Have you guys had to confront that at all? Has it ever been threatening to the community? I'm just curious whether that's just a post Mormon thing or it's experienced elsewhere by you guys.

Mike Aus [01:40:33] I'll go first. I'll let Helen chime in. Because our experiences are different in Houston. That really hasn't been a part of our community life to this point. However, clearly we're completely comfortable if it's not an issue if a couple is living together and they're not married. And of course we have LBGT couples, we have the whole gamut. But it's not. We haven't really ever addressed the issue of things like polyamory. And it's not if it's out there, not something that we really address in our community.

Helen Stringer [01:41:12] We have a fair share of out poly people. I would say, like kind of. I have a feeling that it's probably more common than people are probably aware of because what's been. I find it interesting with it because we feel like being secular is taboo in our culture. But I feel like being non monogamous is in those structures that you mentioned, like the poly, the swinging thing is even more controversial. You found something even more like taboo. And in Kansas city we have Dr. Darrel Ray and so we kind of have this. He has written some books on polyamory and sex and God, kind of dispelling the myths of sexuality and how religion has helped shape that. And so I think when people leave religion, you are then opened up to this. Well, you know, you start to be like, well, what about this? You know, why, why am I making this decision? A lot of us are not necessarily decidedly monogamous. And so when you start to realize, you know, or try to repiece together those elements of, you know, how you want to live, people venture into things like. Or they felt like they were constrained. So it's like, well, wait a minute, you know, and they go experimenting on different things, which I think is fine. I'm all for consenting adults doing, you know, being consenting and smart and safe adults. So here in Kansas City we have Darryl Ray. There was already an existing poly community. This has nothing to do directly with Oasis because he has written this really well known book. He had started these poly family friends, I forget what the families of Kansas City or something. And these individuals are so discriminated against. I mean, in public I know that they've experienced direct discrimination if they show affection or people notice, like, wait a minute, that's your. However their relationship structure is. So they have found that Oasis has been a safe place to be themselves, that they have these very highly planned relationships. Their communication is probably better than most monogamous people. Actually, that's what I'm really impressed with. As a past marriage and family therapist major, their communication is impeccable. We have our fair share of poly people. And what's been interesting and you say, has it been detrimental? Absolutely not. I think twofold. I've tried to make sure that we. Because I was shocked at first when I learned about polyamory in the Christian world. You hear of swinging, but I didn't know people could be, you know, have relationships where everyone is aware of what their role is or what the parameters are. You know, like these. These very well thought out and communicated structures. And it took me a while to be like, okay, maybe this is all right, you know, because as a Christian, I always, you know, it's. It's marriage and it's. I've always been pretty good with homosexuality. Anything like that, no big deal. But multiple people in a relationship and then you start to realize, well, yeah, maybe my perceptions prior were not quite right. So all that to say, I think it's made our community stronger. So what we have is a culture of acceptance and of safety. So you can be who you truly are. You can be your authentic self. If that means that you love multiple people and these are great, consisting adults and these people that I know are amazing, incredible individuals, then that should be perfectly fine. So we've done like two talks to kind of help. We did a panel to kind of help humanize, like, well, let's hear from these people. Why? And they all had kind of different structures. And then we had like a. Basically like, what is polyamory? To kind of help educate the community so that as living up to our values. How do we accept, be accepting and be accepted? How do we better understand these other people who are part of our community? And they're very out. I would say we have the people in our community who are out already tend to be the very vocal out people as it is. So it tends to kind of sometimes stand out to some extent. But I think it's encouraging because if we have people who feel otherwise, like they have to live in the closet and can't be themselves, then we are doing something right. And if that means it has to do with poly people or whatever you do, that, I guess by our culture standards is not okay. But in essence, is okay by our values, then they should be able to land there and be a part of it. Not everyone is poly. I don't know. I've noticed some other things. I can't remember where else I saw with ex Mormon stuff where it was destructive to the community, but maybe because our community is pretty large as well, and we're diverse, so we're not all, like. We have every background under the sun from ex Mormon, ex Christian, never of religion, you know, so that also helps, too, is that most. A lot of us are decidedly, you know, monogamous. So, you know, we are. We're not on that same. Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [01:46:20] That's great. How do you handle bad actors in the community? People who won't conform to the norms, people who violate the values. Let's say there's someone who's making unwanted sexual advances to community members, somebody who just communicates in a way that isn't consistent with the values. Have either of you had to deal with bad actors in the community?

Mike Aus [01:46:43] Mm. You have to do that with any kind of community. And sometimes it takes a board decision to decide that someone really can't be around, and it's a hard decision to make. It doesn't happen very often, but it has happened.

John Dehlin [01:46:57] And so how do you keep someone from coming?

Mike Aus [01:47:01] You let them know they can't come. This is not, you know, we rent the. I mean, it's just like any other human community, really. It's not any different than if you had a bad actor in any other community. And those have been very, very rare cases. But you do have to protect the safety of the. Of the community. So occasionally it happens.

Helen Stringer [01:47:26] Yeah, we have policies in place, so we try to communicate the standards by which, you know, we hope our community to live and to interact with the world. So, you know, that's also backing up, like, okay, well, this doesn't, you know, or if you have a. Sexual harassment policies, you know, this is not acceptable. So, you know, those kind of. That's. Those foundational structures, which, although boring can be in theory, you know, are very effective in helping to be like, well, this. This is who we are and what we're working with. This does. What you're doing is not okay. We're, you know, therefore, you know, we ask that you either change this behavior. You. You can't, you know, be a part of a, B or C. Just, you know,

John Dehlin [01:48:05] my. My buddy in Sugar Land, Jason, wants to know what the youth program is like in Houston. So do you guys have. Do you have. Tell us about youth programs if you have them, and children's programs if you have them and what they entail.

Programs for Youth and Families

Mike Aus [01:48:20] I wish we were further along than we are, but we are just getting going. But we have about monthly events right now for teens, some kind of monthly social event for teens separate from the other events that we have going on for the rest of the community. We have our younger children's program right now. The children meet separately from the adults. They have younger kids and they always have some kind of a project for the day, kind of an arts or science or some kind of learning project. So they're not just being babysat in the childcare room, but they have something they're working on. Each summer we do a little science, arts and humanities day camp for our younger kids called Camp Oasis which entails lot of great fun projects. So our goal is eventually have a full scale teen program both for the junior high teens and the senior high teens. And we're working towards that right now. So.

John Dehlin [01:49:26] And some of the types of youth activities you've had include what?

Mike Aus [01:49:30] Oh gosh, you're asking the wrong person.

John Dehlin [01:49:32] Okay,

Mike Aus [01:49:35] what's the laser tag stuff? They've gone to movies. They all went and saw the Martian together.

Helen Stringer [01:49:44] It's all the fun stuff. So I don't know what. Okay, so coming out of evangelical world, we did like ski trips. We haven't done that yet, but we will. But you know, like the fun stuff, you go to movies, you hang out, you do life together. It's, it's the fun, it's not the sitting around talking about the Bible that the youth are like, yay, sign me up. No, they're like, let's hang out and do really fun stuff sometimes stupid stuff, scavenger hunts, it's the same stuff.

John Dehlin [01:50:10] I will say yes, go water skiing, whatever.

Helen Stringer [01:50:13] Yeah, hang out and have fun. Whatever those kids interests are, is following those. We just kicked off our youth program in Kansas City and the same kind of thing where we're trying to offer social events, just fun stuff for them to hang out. And then ours, we're testing it right now, but they've already started doing some Sunday stuff. So we've separated out the 9 and older. So we're doing like really early preteen and then the teens with some different activities or games. Like we had just pizza this Sunday. All the teens are cooking, are doing, baking cookies and stuff for the little, we call it for the littles for the younger ones because we have access to a kitchen at our community center. So you know, it's just Kind of things like that. In our children's program, we have. It's. We have an activity plan. There's a flow and a structure. So it's not all just haphazard. It's not just a child watch. You know, they come in and they have, you know, this for the first 10 minutes and this the next thing and snacks and things like that. The kids love it. The kids who come from households where parents are divorced. And so one weekend they're going to church and then the other weekend they're going to Oasis. It's really kind of fun because they're always like, I couldn't wait to come back to Oasis, you know, and we don't do that much different. We just do activities, you know, and the kids can free play when we're pretty relaxed with that sense. So it's been a pretty good hit. And we do background checks. I would say that's the most important thing. We're very careful of making sure that our kids are in good hands. And we have policies and procedures set up with all of that stuff too.

John Dehlin [01:51:51] What have you guys learned about facilities? Like, if there's a group that wants to start but they have no idea where they'd meet, what recommendations or guidance can you give there?

Mike Aus [01:52:04] The conference centers are good. Public schools can work. Kansas City is in a community center. They have a great facility right now. We were in a community center, but now we're back in a conference center because they changed their rental procedures on Sundays. Boston is meeting in a room in a ymca, which. And they got. Actually got a really good rate on that. So, you know, we're always looking for good places to meet. And I wouldn't mind hearing if people have other ideas, especially if there's anybody in Houston listening to the podcast. If you have ideas, let us know because we need a new spot. We've outgrown our spot and we're currently looking for something else.

John Dehlin [01:52:46] We actually started out at a Unitarian church, but we filled it with our first meeting. And so we outgrew the local UU church by our second meeting.

Helen Stringer [01:52:57] That's been the biggest challenge, I think, for us is finding a space that can accommodate our needs, at least for Houston and Kansas City, with an extra space for kids because we want it to be a separate area. We started out of a co working event space. So I don't know if you have co working in your cities, but these co working facilities have, you know, separate event spaces. So it was perfect when we launched. It was wonderful. But we outgrew it, you know, pretty quickly because it didn't accommodate more than 100 people. So that's comedy. Houses were another one that we thought of that might be possible because they tend to be empty on Sunday mornings. But you need that separate space for kids, which can sometimes not be a possibility.

Challenges to Growth and Starting New Chapters

John Dehlin [01:53:38] Okay, what's. So you guys have been in existence now for a few years. Why aren't there 20 or 50 oases instead of just 2 to 4? Another way to ask that is what are some of the challenges? But I'm more curious about why this hasn't taken off more.

Helen Stringer [01:53:59] Because we want organic growth first and foremost. So we're not out there like marketing, like, come join, you know, start an oasis.

Mike Aus [01:54:05] We didn't plaster the world with publicity about doing this. We won't. And number one, we've only been around. When I say we've been around three years, it's like, you know, Helen hasn't been around three years, they've only been around two almost. We did not do a worldwide publicity blitzkrieg like Sunday assembly did. This was a grassroots. I mean, it started out of two guys having a cup of coffee, and we're in this. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We'd rather see fewer, stronger communities. We have two extremely healthy communities, several new ones on the way. We like to be able to nurture and help them and be in conversation with them. And like Ellen said, we want to see it grow organically. We're not trying to take over the world, but we're trying to respond to people's. You know, if people are interested, we want to help them do it. And also, it's. There's a different energy, commitment involved in putting together a weekly event. And, you know, so if someone's interested in doing it, we are ready to help them. We have resources from our startup kit to constant phone calls, and we're ready to help anyone get one going. We've heard, we hear from people all the time that want one, but we don't hear from many people that, you know, actually have actually want to put it together. Does that make sense? Well, we'll get. We'll average one new inquiry every single week from somebody else saying, oh, I'd like one of these in my area, and that's great, go for it. There's a lot of people would like something, but the weekly model can be

Helen Stringer [01:55:45] daunting to some people. And that's why we've tried to create some structure and some support. And this is why having the network at large, I think is so important. This is what has helped us in Kansas City, I think, be where we are today is having Houston Oasis and Mike support just in theory and approach and thought, because little different things come up that you're like, oh, I didn't think about that. Someone give me some advice or insight. We've done all the work of them. We have the marketing structure, all the nitty, gritty, boring stuff like logos and stuff like that we have for you. We have it set so that you can put your team together. We have certain things outlined. So if you want that, you don't have to follow the outline, but it might help. We have all that. So it's a little bit easier to get the weekly thing going, because once you get the weekly thing going, the momentum will grow. But getting it off the ground, I think can be really daunting. But it works. The weekly thing is pivotal. It will work if you're able to generate the interest and reach people with the right content.

Mike Aus [01:56:55] Getting back to what I was saying that it's not. I think when Sunday assembly started, they started right from the get go saying, oh, let's plaster the world with these things. And we honestly, like I said, it started out of the personal need of two people having lunch together and sharing an idea with friends. So we just want to see it grow naturally, organically. However it happens is good. But we're happy with what we have. We're happy with the communities that are there, and we're doing a lot of great stuff.

John Dehlin [01:57:23] Is there a formal decision making structure in your local groups where you vote on, you know, the board of directors or whatever they're called, votes on a big decision or. How do you handle decision making at the local level?

Mike Aus [01:57:36] Well, you know, we have the standard, you know, nonprofit. I mean, you have to have a board of directors of your nonprofit corporation. I will say that every one of our board's decisions, I mean, so you do. I mean, there are things, there are business items that a board must take action on. Right. Certain things they do have to vote on. But we have really emphasized a consensus model. And so we operate. Our board happens to operate on consensus. And if we don't have a consensus, we wait until we generate consensus on an issue rather than divide up into factions and have hurt feelings. We have a very strong commitment to working through things until we reach consensus.

Helen Stringer [01:58:25] Yep, likewise.

Why Oasis May Appeal to Post-Mormons

John Dehlin [01:58:26] Okay. All right, well, we're about to hit two hours and I hope that you guys will actually share this with other people because I think, yeah, I was part of. I'm doing this for my people, but for other people too. So any other, I mean there are probably things I could have asked. We could talk forever, but I think I've got most of my questions asked. Any other final thoughts or action items or calls to action that you guys want to make to our listenership?

Mike Aus [01:58:55] If there's someone listening out there that would like to do this, please get in touch with us. Go to USOasis.org or the Kansas City Oasis or Houston Oasis website. We have more of these are in the works. And I think as we've just found that it's really fun when new communities come to the table because we enrich each other. And just as we're committed to community at a local level and a personal level, we find that communities being in community is such an enriching thing and we do far more together than we can out there as isolated communities.

Helen Stringer [01:59:31] I completely agree with Mike and I think, especially for people leaving Mormonism, that what we've been able to accomplish with Oasis is to create a place for families. And I think that family element is huge. It's one of our main focus and our goals is to create a great multi generational community. And we've really set up a model that helps to achieve that. And I think that's really, I know that's important to, you know, Mormon individuals as well as according to I created Oasis in Kansas City because I selfishly wanted a place for my kids to meet, you know, other like minded families and kids and to have that experience. It's huge to reach that next generation. And so I think that, you know, I just want to stress that I think it's been as a parent, I'm so glad that I have this, you know, for my, for my kids and for my family as a whole.

John Dehlin [02:00:26] So. All right, well, I want to thank, you know, Mike Aus of Houston Oasis and Helen Stringer of Kansas City Oasis for coming on Mormon transition slash Mormon Stories podcasts. And I'm going to be coming out, apparently, Helen, the week of January 22, ish, I'm going to be coming out. I'm going to visit the Kansas City Oasis and see all the awesome things you're doing, if any, if I have any listeners, sort of the Kansas City and surrounding areas, I'm happy to hold sort of a cottage meeting or whatever where we bring Helen and bring a bunch of you guys together and have a fun little evening together. But we'll also hopefully flood your Kansas City service that Sunday and we'll get a lot of transitioning and post Mormons there to learn about what you're doing and decide maybe if a bunch want to join what you're doing. And right now this idea is starting to really permeate Utah, Idaho, Arizona, kind of post Mormon communities. And so we're just really excited to know about you guys and whether or not post Mormons end up embracing Oasis as a model. I want to just really become best buddies with you guys because I believe every day, every night, I wake up thinking that we need something like this and we need to work with others who are doing it to share ideas, to inspire each other, to motivate each other, to help each other. Because I believe in what you're doing and I believe we need it really badly in my people. And I think this is a human need, not just a Mormon or evangelical or Christian need.

Helen Stringer [02:02:14] So yeah, yes, absolutely.

Mike Aus [02:02:16] Absolutely. Well said, John. Thanks for having us on.

Speaker D [02:02:19] All right.

John Dehlin [02:02:21] All right, so send me the links and I'll share the links to your to your various groups on this post. But thanks so much, Mike and Helen and let's good luck with all you're doing and let's keep the conversation rolling.

Helen Stringer [02:02:34] Will do.

John Dehlin [02:02:34] Thank you. Thanks guys. Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Transitions Podcast. To support the podcast and and to join the Mormon Transitions support community on Facebook, become a monthly donor today@mormontransitions.org to comment on this episode, please visit the blog post for this episode@mormontransitions.org and thanks for listening.

Closing Song and Sign-Off

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [02:02:57] Pay attention to the priest may he would read the holy word and consecrate the holy bread and everyone would kneel and bow today the only difference is everything is holy now Everything, everything, everything is holy now. When I was in Sunday school school we would learn about the time Moses split the sea in two Jesus made the water wine and I remember feeling sad Miracles don't happen still now I can't keep track Cause everything's a miracle Everything, everything everything's a miracle. Wine from water is not so small but an even better magic trick said anything is here at home so the challenging thing becomes not to look for miracles to finding where there isn't one. When holy water wasn't rare at best it barely wet my fingertips but now I have to hold my breath Like

Video Clip 1 [02:04:51] I'm swimming in a sea of air

Video Clip 1 [02:04:55] it used to be a world half there Heaven sucking rain hand me down but I walk it with the Reverend air Cuz everything is holding now. Sa. Face say it's not a testament that'd be very hard to say See another new morning come say it's not a sacrament I tell you that it can't be done. This morning outside I stood I saw a little red wing bird Shining like a burning bush and singing like a scripture verse it made me want to bow my head I remember when church let out how things have changed since then Everything is holy now it used to be a world half there Heaven second rate hand me down But I walk it with a reverend hair Cause everything is holy

Video Clip 1 [02:06:58] Sa.

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