AJ Thomas, lead and founding pastor of Deep Water Church in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, desires not just sharing a Christian message with those who have been through the criminal justice system, but sharing community with them. And Deep Water is known to do just that. In this interview with Joy and me, pastor AJ shares some of his motivations, views, and why he believes in the power of “Radical hospitality.”
M: Pastor AJ, as the senior pastor of one of the largest churches in Halifax, and quite probably Nova Scotia, we know you are busy with all kinds of good things, like being the hands and feet of Jesus. So thank you for taking some time to talk to us. Maybe to start us off, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your church, Deep Water?
AJ: Well, I led the team that started Deep Water about fourteen years ago. My wife and I have three kids, a dog and a cat. I grew up in New Brunswick, but have lived most of my adult life in Halifax. I like woodworking. What else can I tell you?
M: The name Deep Water is quite a recognized name throughout the province. And I think one of the reasons that makes your church really cool, and gives you a lot of street cred, is because you are known to be quite open and welcoming of ex-offenders into your church. And that is not a simple thing. It probably should be more normal, but it’s not. At least I don’t hear of it too often. So, maybe tell us what type of ex-offenders you welcome into Deep Water, and what misconceptions that people, wrongly, hold about “these” kinds of people.
AJ: Yeah, we have ex-offenders of all kinds, but if we had one “specialty,” that would be sex offenders. And, of course, they would typically have the hardest time blending in anywhere. I mean, if you had a charge of shoplifting back in 1994 or something, no one really cares if you are showing up in church. But if you have been convicted of committing a violent crime, and particularly of the sexual variety, well, in our society, those are the kinds of people we are still allowed to hate. So through our partnership with the Halifax Chaplaincy Society and CoSA, (Circles of Support and Accountability), we have been able to build connections and relationships with, and welcome into our church, a lot of registered sex offenders.
You know, we have this guy who serves on our tech team here; he’s a police officer. And I remember him telling me one day that he prays for most of the “the guys”— which is what we refer to the ex-offenders as—on a pretty regular basis. I asked him, “Oh, why is that? Because you have time when you are driving around in your squad car?” “Oh no,” he says, “it’s because I see their pictures up on the walls at the station every day.”
M & J: [Laughter]
AJ: Yeah, but these guys, you know, he is friends with them and has relationships with them. It’s so beautiful. We have folks at church who have all manner of charges: drugs, and everything else. It’s the ones who are charged with sex offenses that makes for a bigger challenge for people to wrap their heads around, though. And probably about 80 percent of the ex-offenders that we have at church would have sex offenses listed on their charge sheets.
As far as what kind of misunderstandings we as church members might have? This might sound a little smug, but we didn’t come into this blindly. Probably it’s truer to say that we came into it paranoid. We know what their rap sheets say. But we are also believers in human depravity, and the fact that your depravity is expressed in a different way than mine doesn’t make you worth any less than me. That’s the optimistic theological view. But then we had to be careful too, because 90 percent of the time, sex offenders don’t seem like sex offenders; that’s just the reality. Theologically it’s not a big deal: I’m terrible, you’re terrible, we’re all terrible. We all need Jesus.
But if there was anything that we didn’t expect to happen in our church when we began inviting these guys in was the positive impact that welcoming ex-offenders would have more broadly. I’ll just say first though that inviting ex-offenders in is where the rubber meets the road, right? Like, people can say, “Oh yeah, we are a church for anyone.” And what that usually means is, being open to teachers and lawyers, you know, all the nice middle-class people. But that’s not hard. It gets a little more complex when you mean the very rich or very poor or being intentionally a multi-ethnic church. Those are slightly larger stretches. But when you mean, are you open to people who have done really horrible things? Sexual things? Yeah, that’s harder.
If we really want to live out the talk though; if we really want to find out if God’s grace is sufficient; if we really want to live out that opportunity, well, then, we are tested, aren’t we? But for our church, inviting these kinds of folks in has crystalized and clarified what radical welcoming can do, and what a deep faith in the transforming power of Jesus can do. And, frankly, we didn’t expect the kind of benefits that inviting these people into our church would have.
J: I love how you articulated that: that radical welcoming and that living out the acceptance and warmth. I think it speaks to your leadership ability. Because there are a lot of very compassionate, warm-hearted people who might not be able to get their church on board with that type of thing. I happen to know that you are known and respected in the community, but could you speak to some of the things that motivate you? What things are near to your heart? And also, maybe, what kind of strategies have you had to intentionally incorporate into the church?
AJ: There is this personality assessment tool that used to be called StrengthsFinder; now it’s called CliftonStrengths. But they have this idea that each person has these top five strengths out of thirty-six. My number one strength is strategy. Number two is to maximize. So strategic people think strategically, and that is very much me. But then, the maximizers are motivated by unrealized potential. That is me too. But then, even more deeply, there is the theological underpinning, believing we are all mandated to do this kind of work, right? It is who we are supposed to be. And if we aren’t going to do it, we need to just shut up and go home.
I remember when I was first approached by Rob Elford, who was the head chaplain for the Halifax Chaplaincy Society at the time. He knew this fellow who had been recently released from incarceration and was looking for a church family to connect with. Now, again, this was a registered sex offender whose victims of choice had been children. So, you know, this is kind of a nightmare scenario for a church. I was definitely interested, but I figured that I should at least loop my board in before we rolled out the welcome mat. I should say too that we already have a number of protective policies in place—background checks and all that—so it’s not like we were unprepared for a different kind of ex-offender. Plus, this guy looking for community was openly declaring what he was; he wasn’t sneaking in. I can respect that. But I still had to think pretty carefully, as you can imagine.
I remember talking to a member of the church who had three daughters and was also a police officer. He said, “AJ, we’ve always had sex offenders in the church. The difference is that we are just going to know who these ones are.”
M: Oh, wow.
AJ: Yeah, kind of an eye-opening thought, right? And he would know. So pre-Covid, a typical Sunday service was like 600 people, and we have the better part of a thousand who call Deep Water their home church. So, statistically speaking, there are going to be sex offenders there. That’s the reality at any church.
Anyway, I sat down with the board to talk about this. But when I presented it, I said “Hey, here’s the deal: we can say no to this, but if we say no we need to seriously consider closing the church because this is the Gospel. And if the gospel doesn’t work for these guys, how do we know it works for anybody? If Jesus can’t redeem these guys, then how do we know he can redeem anybody?” It was really a “put your money where your mouth is” moment. It’s easy to say that the Gospel can help a middle-class, clean-cut person to be a more spiritual version of themselves, which is just more of a clean-cut person. But I won’t give my life to that kind of spirituality. It’s dumb. I’ll do something else. On the other hand, if the Gospel has the power to extend grace, to redeem, and proves effective in transforming the lives of drug dealers, sex traffickers, rapists, and child molesters, that’s awesome. Because if it works for them, well, then it probably can work for the rest of us. Yeah, so I am motivated by that. It’s a no-brainer to me. If we believe in the Gospel, we have to live it. So, for me, it’s not like I needed a lot of courage, or had to find some deep well of compassion. To me it’s just the logical outflow of my theology, and my understanding of who Jesus is.
Now, that said, temperamentally I am whatever the opposite of risk-averse is. So if parallel universes exist, there is a good chance that the AJ Thomas, there, is a problem gambler. Because I really do enjoy taking risks.
M & J: [Laughter]
AJ: What we do, along being beautiful in and of itself is also a kind of prophetic statement. And I have a prophetic side. So, yeah. It’s not that I don’t have a compassionate side; it’s just that it isn’t, necessarily, my first motivation when it comes to making the church a welcoming place for people with this particular problem. Again, I believe that Jesus has a depth of grace that can reach anyone. I mean, sure, the temporal ramifications of their sin may be greater than some of mine, in terms of the extent of damage and lives destroyed. But they are sinners in need of grace. I’m a sinner in need of grace. We say that God’s grace is greater than all sin and that he can forgive anything. Well, if we really believe that, we had better be about it.
The other thing is that, frankly, I like these guys. I know their background and there is no pretense; there is no pretending or any of that foolishness. So I really connect with them, maybe even sometimes more easily than I do with the nice, clean-cut people that maybe your stereotypical pastor would be more excited to see come through the door. Yeah, I have no time for pretension or shallowness. What my first conversation looks like with one of these guys is that he says, “So, I just got out of prison because I am a sex offender.” There. Right there. And now I don’t have to talk about the weather.
M & J: [Laughter]
AJ: It keeps it real. We talk about their parole officer, or their release date, or their halfway house. It might even be “Are you allowed to be out of the halfway-house right now?” It’s just real. And then I can be real too.
M: I am asking you a leading question here, but when I did an interview with Mark Labberton, I asked him, “What is the question that you wish you’d get asked more?” His response was, “What is the center of my passion?” I thought it was a pretty smart answer because it gets to the heart of things. So, I’ll ask you the same: what is the center of your passion?
AJ: Transformation. I want to see things happen that cannot be explained outside of the power of the grace of God. So again, helping nice people be nice is fine, but I want to see sinners saved and lives transformed. I want to see Jesus do Jesus stuff. One of the lines I use here a lot when I’m talking to the teams I lead is, “We’re going to do everything we can do, and then we’re going to stand back and watch God do what only God can do.” That particularly comes to working with sex offenders because the potential for only God being able to do something in that situation is so evident. And, again, if God can transform them, he can transform anybody.
Also, if I am being brutally honest, yeah, on my good days I totally have a healthy sense of God-honoring identity. But maybe on my worst days it’s just straight-up pride. Like, I enjoy being pastor of the church that welcomes these kinds of people into our sanctuary; I really dig that we have people from the halfway houses. I like that recently released sex offenders who come to Deep Water will invite other sex offenders to come with them. And I especially like that they know they are welcome here, and that we love them. The church is a place of healing and hope and transformation. I really dig that. It feels Jesus-y. Plus, it’s not like Halifax is known for being super Christian! It’s mostly post-Christian, man. And you know, I have dual citizenship. I could have had a much easier time going and starting a church in North Carolina, where everybody would love me because I am pastor, just as a matter of course. But I didn’t want to plant a church in the suburbs with nice, middle-class families. That doesn’t motivate me. I want to be on the ragged edge. I want to be where the challenges are. If it is a really stupid place to go, then yeah, I want to go there.
M & J: [Laughter]
AJ: My wife and I have a saying we often use: we say, “It’s been too long since we have done something stupid.” You know, like adopt a kid, or plant a church, that kind of thing. But that’s part of our ethos, I guess. I don’t know, maybe it’s some sort of sanctified adrenaline junky thing. One of our values here at the church is adventurous faith. Like, I think following Jesus should be an adventure. So grab your Bible and some clean underwear and let’s follow Jesus.
When we launched Deep Water in downtown Halifax, a lot of people told us it was a dumb thing to do. Halifax was known as the church planting graveyard. We had a great time there. And then we thought, where else is hard? Oh, downtown Dartmouth. So we launched a site there, and it’s moving right along. But back to the original question: what motivates me is transformation. It’s redemption. I am also a contrarian, so I enjoy working with people who have been rejected by society. The sanctified arrogance in me loves the fact that everyone thinks they are too hard to work with. The sucker for all things redemptive in me loves the opportunity to find beauty in brokenness. And the prophet in me loves to call the Church what it is called to be. All of those things coalesce beautifully when it comes to working with ex-offenders.
M: I bet you have a load of stories. And I would assume, too, that everything isn’t all flowers. In the Bible somewhere it says something like, if you have a spotless barn, there isn’t any life in it. In other words, if you want life in your barn, you’re going to have to put up with some poop. Not that the Church is a barn, though we are supposed to be sheep! Anyway, can you tell us a few stories?
AJ: Yeah, well, a favorite story. Okay, so this one Sunday I was preaching about how Jesus welcomes everyone; how the only prerequisites that Jesus gives us aren’t about the need for being clean or for perfection, but for repentance; how he came for the sick. Then I talked about the Pharisees who thought they were so good, and how we won’t go to the Great Healer if we are Pharisees. You know, all that. So anyway, we have this cop on staff at the church who was there listening to the message. I know all this because this police officer sent me a letter explaining what happened. So this police officer knows who in the church has done what, and he knows which people have rap sheets. But he is feeling a little convicted about not loving people enough. While he is feeling this way, he sees this guy he knows come walking into church, and he knows what this guy did. So he starts praying for the guy, as well as for himself, that God would give him a heart to love everyone. And he said that by the end of the second service he was thanking God for the guy, and giving thanks to God for changing his own heart.
Now that is an awesome story because it shows that God is doing something in a person’s life. It also is meaningful because this guy is a cop. Now, I am not anti-cop, but I also don’t believe that they are bastions of unimpeachable character, either. And I know that when you work with the worst of the worst, people-wise, it can create a deep level of cynicism. So this guy’s story shows not only grace to the offender but what the power of the Gospel can do in the heart of the law enforcer too. And that’s powerful.
Another story. One of the sex offenders helps run the soundboard. His crimes were so bad that he will, for the rest of his life, be watched by the government. Like, in a way, he is on parole for life. But there that guy is, working at the soundboard, working alongside a cop. Here is the really cool part: they are not just serving together but are actually friends. Real friends. They text each other, the ex-offender asks for advice and, in general, checks in with his cop friend at the end of a long day. Man, it’s beautiful to see.
J: Truly, that is beautiful.
AJ: I mean, it’s not like we feel the need to announce on a regular basis, “Hey, Deep Water congregation, there are multiple sex offenders here.” It’s totally not a secret either. It’s not something we hide. And we have all the safety precautions in place. But, yeah, everybody knows. Also, in the same way, I don’t advertise that, “Hey, we have several adulterers here, so keep an eye on your spouse.” The point is that we let everybody know that no matter what your background is, God’s power is transformative. We believe that.
I will say though that the culture that you build in the church will determine whether or not you can do this kind of work. If you wanted to build this kind of thing, and didn’t have the right culture, it wouldn’t work. I’ll tell you that, right off. But, but, that culture can be built. Step one isn’t to announce that there is (sic) a lot of sex offenders here; step one is to talk about the Gospel, and grace, and the power of what Jesus can do. And to accept those that society rejects. What it really comes down to is facilitating a culture of radical welcome and adventurous faith.
J: I find so interesting your theology mixed alongside this massive expectancy of and reliance on hope.
AJ: I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but the fact is that I happen to know that the Halifax Chaplaincy has approached many other churches in the city and asked if they would provide a community to ex-offenders. The answer was no. They just weren’t even interested. And I think some of that is a theological deficiency. Of course, some is a knee-jerk reaction to just the thought of having ex-offenders in your church. There is an old saying that says, “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” meaning that you can have as many programs as you want, but if you don’t have the culture to sustain it, it’s not going to happen. But if you do, you are going to see the world, and the people who want to be included in your mission, in a certain way. And the extent to which that is actually incarnated in how we act and think together as a body is what actually counts. Talk is cheap. Any church that won’t do what we do, could. It’s not that they can’t. This issue is that they don’t have the culture to do it with. Because you know what the truth is? Seriously here: the actual work is astoundingly easy. It’s not complicated. What these guys need is what everybody else needs: love and the Gospel.
M: Hey, you can make a claim like that, because you and your church are actually living it! Final question, and one of our favorites: If you were to have all the pastors in the western world inside a room, and they had to listen to you with a smile on their faces, since smiling facilitates being in a more receptive mood, what would you want to share with them? What would you ask them to think about?
AJ: I’d tell them to bet everything on the Gospel being true. Like, the whole church, the whole ministry, their whole way of thinking and leading their church. Bet everything that Jesus is who he says he is, and that he can do what he says he can do. Yeah. And maybe also, that we, as pastors, need to get over ourselves, because it’s not about us; it’s about Jesus.
We, as pastors, are not doing this in our own strength. We are doing it in Christ’s strength. So, for sure, we have to be wise and cautious, but we shouldn’t be risk-averse. We shouldn’t be conducting the life of our churches as if the unimaginable power of God isn’t at work. We are to presume that God is in the business of intervention. So, just bet everything on the reality that what we say we believe, what we say we preach, and what Scripture says, is absolutely true. We need to make our day-to-day decisions from that place of trust.