Don’t Try To Build The House While It’s Burning - with Justin Thomas
*The GoodLion PodcastNovember 02, 2021
7
01:23:1757.21 MB

Don’t Try To Build The House While It’s Burning - with Justin Thomas

🎙️ Aaron Salvato🎙️ Aaron SalvatoHost
🎙️ Brian Higgins🎙️ Brian HigginsCo-Host
The last 18 months seemed to tear everything apart. The normal structures of our lives, our work, and our relationships seems to have fallen completely apart.

For many of us, this has created a sense of loss. The things we trusted in let us down and now we don’t fully know where to turn. We’re not sure what we can or should trust in anymore.

For others, this has led to a strong desire to rebuild. Rather than wallow in the sadness of loss, we want to simply put our heads down and remake the world we feel we’ve lost.

In this episode, Justin Thomas, Pastor at Calvary: The Hill, lays out a different option. Rather than just trying to rebuild what we had, we need to let the chaos of the last 18 months teach us important lessons. Were we approaching church and faith and discipleship the way we should have? Are we sure our old structures were the right structures? What if God is giving us an opportunity to rebuild so we can do better this time?

Aaron and Brian talk with Justin about all this and much more as they try to think through what a church would need to look like to be 2020-proof, able to withstand the division and hostility our cultural moment thrives on.

We’re so glad you could join us for this conversation.

You're listening to the GoodLion Podcast!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodlionpod.substack.com


00:00:02 --> 00:00:02 Hey, everybody.

00:00:02 --> 00:00:04 Welcome to The Good Line Podcast.

00:00:04 --> 00:00:04 I'm Aaron Salvato.

00:00:05 --> 00:00:05 And I'm Brian Higgins.

00:00:06 --> 00:00:07 And we're here with Justin Thomas.

00:00:08 --> 00:00:09 Justin, how are you, man?

00:00:09 --> 00:00:10 I'm good.

00:00:10 --> 00:00:10 Great.

00:00:10 --> 00:00:11 Thanks for having me.

00:00:11 --> 00:00:12 It's so good to have you.

00:00:12 --> 00:00:14 Justin is a good man.

00:00:14 --> 00:00:14 He's a good guy.

00:00:15 --> 00:00:18 He is the pastor at Calvary the Hill in Seattle,

00:00:18 --> 00:00:21 which is a great church that I visited once when my wife and I

00:00:21 --> 00:00:22 went to Seattle for

00:00:22 --> 00:00:22 a wedding.

00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 Met Justin there and heard him preach.

00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 And then just through my relationship with CGN, Justin's become a friend.

00:00:28 --> 00:00:31 Justin, if I can just say something I appreciate about you...

00:00:31 --> 00:00:35 is you you're a thinker which is something I try to be but

00:00:35 --> 00:00:36 you're you're on a whole

00:00:36 --> 00:00:39 nother level at least in my assessment and you're somebody who

00:00:39 --> 00:00:40 has always taken the

00:00:40 --> 00:00:44 time to talk to me and let me bounce things off of you and I've

00:00:44 --> 00:00:44 always appreciated

00:00:44 --> 00:00:47 that because so many senior pastors are so busy and I know

00:00:47 --> 00:00:48 you're very busy but

00:00:48 --> 00:00:52 you've taken the time to to entertain my my ideas and even push

00:00:52 --> 00:00:53 back on them and

00:00:53 --> 00:00:56 critique them in a way that is loving and kind of in a big

00:00:56 --> 00:00:58 brother way so I'm just

00:00:58 --> 00:00:59 really excited to have you on the show

00:00:59 --> 00:01:00 Yeah, I'm happy to be here.

00:01:00 --> 00:01:02 And I think I think we all need that.

00:01:03 --> 00:01:05 I think actually we all need a lot more of that.

00:01:05 --> 00:01:09 There's a strong sense of independence in thought right now,

00:01:09 --> 00:01:11 which is which is blind.

00:01:11 --> 00:01:15 We got to have the dialogue and and the input and something

00:01:15 --> 00:01:16 that I'm always looking for.

00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 And it's part of the reason I went back to school is somebody

00:01:19 --> 00:01:20 to tell me like I

00:01:20 --> 00:01:21 often tell other people,

00:01:21 --> 00:01:22 you know what you should read.

00:01:22 --> 00:01:23 Right.

00:01:24 --> 00:01:25 We all need our librarians.

00:01:26 --> 00:01:26 Yeah,

00:01:26 --> 00:01:30 you've thrown a lot of really good books at me and I wish I've

00:01:30 --> 00:01:30 been able to dive

00:01:30 --> 00:01:31 into all of them,

00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 but I've dove into some and they've been very helpful.

00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 And yeah, I just think that's important.

00:01:36 --> 00:01:36 I think you're right.

00:01:37 --> 00:01:40 I think that we should process our theology as a community and

00:01:40 --> 00:01:41 not just kind of off

00:01:41 --> 00:01:43 on our own independent,

00:01:43 --> 00:01:45 which is kind of what a lot of pastors and leaders tend to do

00:01:45 --> 00:01:46 is just go and

00:01:46 --> 00:01:48 formulate their own theology.

00:01:48 --> 00:01:48 But for me,

00:01:49 --> 00:01:51 the theology that I have that's been formed in community with

00:01:51 --> 00:01:52 other people is

00:01:52 --> 00:01:54 helping me along the way is some of the,

00:01:55 --> 00:01:56 some of the theology I hold the most dear.

00:01:56 --> 00:01:58 So yeah, thank you for that, man.

00:02:10 --> 00:02:12 This was an episode where Brian and I,

00:02:12 --> 00:02:14 we knew that we wanted to get Justin on the show.

00:02:14 --> 00:02:18 We weren't exactly sure what we wanted to talk to him about, though.

00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 And so we asked Justin, what do you want to talk about?

00:02:21 --> 00:02:24 And he texted back, don't build the house.

00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 Don't try to build the house while it's still burning.

00:02:27 --> 00:02:28 And we were just like,

00:02:28 --> 00:02:28 whoa,

00:02:29 --> 00:02:31 what a great episode title right off the bat.

00:02:32 --> 00:02:35 It sounds like it would be a really good post-hardcore album.

00:02:35 --> 00:02:36 Yeah.

00:02:36 --> 00:02:40 I could totally see As Cities Burn coming up with that album title,

00:02:40 --> 00:02:41 and I was in right away.

00:02:41 --> 00:02:42 It's such a great phrase.

00:02:44 --> 00:02:45 Absolutely.

00:02:45 --> 00:02:45 Yeah,

00:02:45 --> 00:02:47 we started picking your brain and thinking through,

00:02:48 --> 00:02:49 what does he mean by that?

00:02:49 --> 00:02:50 And where we kind of went,

00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 where Brian and I went in our mind was sort of,

00:02:52 --> 00:02:52 You know,

00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 the events of the last two years have been devastating on so

00:02:55 --> 00:02:55 many levels.

00:02:56 --> 00:02:59 We've got over 650 people that have died in the U.S.

00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 alone from disease, over 4.6 million worldwide.

00:03:03 --> 00:03:08 We got financial situations that have been overturned with job losses and

00:03:08 --> 00:03:11 unexpected expenses and things like government lockdowns that

00:03:11 --> 00:03:12 have affected

00:03:12 --> 00:03:13 people's income and livelihood.

00:03:13 --> 00:03:14 You know,

00:03:14 --> 00:03:16 important milestone events like weddings and funerals and

00:03:16 --> 00:03:17 graduations have looked

00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 entirely different than they normally do.

00:03:20 --> 00:03:23 And relationships have been strained through physical distance

00:03:23 --> 00:03:25 and ideological divides.

00:03:25 --> 00:03:28 And so, yeah, that's kind of where our brain went.

00:03:28 --> 00:03:32 But we want to step back and kind of let you explain what do you mean?

00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 Like if you were going to give a TED talk right now on don't

00:03:35 --> 00:03:36 don't try to build the

00:03:36 --> 00:03:37 house while it's still on fire,

00:03:37 --> 00:03:38 while it's still burning.

00:03:38 --> 00:03:39 What would you say?

00:03:39 --> 00:03:40 Yeah, you're right.

00:03:41 --> 00:03:47 It's rooted in the past year and a half we've had, especially.

00:03:47 --> 00:03:52 But also there's this kind of broader cultural shift that has

00:03:52 --> 00:03:53 made this year feel,

00:03:53 --> 00:03:54 on top of difficult,

00:03:55 --> 00:03:56 urgent.

00:03:56 --> 00:04:01 Like it's the last chapter, you know, like it's somehow apocalyptic.

00:04:02 --> 00:04:02 And...

00:04:03 --> 00:04:04 And because of that,

00:04:04 --> 00:04:05 you know,

00:04:05 --> 00:04:08 it doesn't matter if we're talking about the church's view and

00:04:08 --> 00:04:10 place in culture or

00:04:10 --> 00:04:14 if we're talking about the upcoming fate of America or if we're

00:04:14 --> 00:04:15 talking about what

00:04:15 --> 00:04:19 work looks like in the next decade or there's just it's just.

00:04:20 --> 00:04:21 An incredible season of change.

00:04:22 --> 00:04:25 And then there's this whole reality of what Ed sets are called

00:04:25 --> 00:04:26 the great sort.

00:04:26 --> 00:04:26 Right.

00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 That all these people are shifting their alliances and

00:04:30 --> 00:04:31 allegiances and location.

00:04:32 --> 00:04:33 And at the same time.

00:04:34 --> 00:04:38 There's this real sense of the season coming to an end, right?

00:04:39 --> 00:04:40 Where we're light at the end of the tunnel.

00:04:41 --> 00:04:43 And so there's a desire to rebuild,

00:04:43 --> 00:04:44 a desire to look forward,

00:04:44 --> 00:04:47 a desire to get back to normal and all these things.

00:04:47 --> 00:04:52 And so what's happening in my own heart and in my own church is

00:04:52 --> 00:04:54 I'm watching people who are.

00:04:55 --> 00:04:58 antsy to set things right, or even worse, to make up for lost time.

00:04:59 --> 00:05:00 And really what it is,

00:05:01 --> 00:05:06 is it's an attempt to escape the present sense of pain and loss

00:05:06 --> 00:05:07 that they have.

00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 They want to close the book on this year and move on.

00:05:11 --> 00:05:16 And it's short-sighted in the way that that image I suggested points to.

00:05:17 --> 00:05:20 And so the second thing is beyond thinking about this year,

00:05:21 --> 00:05:22 thinking in that image,

00:05:22 --> 00:05:23 this is the picture that I have.

00:05:24 --> 00:05:28 That we right now as as Christians in our churches,

00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 in our own individual lives and in our nation,

00:05:31 --> 00:05:33 it's like we're standing in the street,

00:05:33 --> 00:05:34 you know,

00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 wrapped in blankets with the red blue lights of the ambulance

00:05:37 --> 00:05:38 next to us and

00:05:38 --> 00:05:41 watching everything that we've known and loved and built.

00:05:42 --> 00:05:43 And it's it's still burning.

00:05:44 --> 00:05:48 And there's all the questions of what do we do now?

00:05:48 --> 00:05:49 Where are we going to live?

00:05:49 --> 00:05:50 How much have we lost?

00:05:51 --> 00:05:52 Where do we even begin?

00:05:52 --> 00:05:53 But the fire is not over.

00:05:54 --> 00:05:57 And that's more than just COVID and Delta variant.

00:05:57 --> 00:06:01 I think the things that have toppled over the last year and a

00:06:01 --> 00:06:02 half or are still

00:06:02 --> 00:06:06 toppling are even more significant than we yet realize.

00:06:06 --> 00:06:11 And so it's not a time to try and rush and build the sandcastle

00:06:12 --> 00:06:12 all over again

00:06:13 --> 00:06:17 forgetting that there's another wave coming and it's not a time

00:06:17 --> 00:06:20 to to be quick with

00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 a hurting people you know who are in triage it's not time to

00:06:23 --> 00:06:24 walk into the medical

00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 tent and say all right now we're going to storm the beaches you

00:06:27 --> 00:06:28 know it's it's a

00:06:28 --> 00:06:34 time for repair and introspection for reflection and patience

00:06:34 --> 00:06:34 and even where we

00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 experiment and do new things

00:06:37 --> 00:06:40 That experimenting needs to be laboratory size.

00:06:40 --> 00:06:41 It needs to be small,

00:06:42 --> 00:06:42 you know,

00:06:42 --> 00:06:48 instead of instead of taking 2019 and comparing it to 2020 and

00:06:48 --> 00:06:50 then trying to add

00:06:50 --> 00:06:54 everything to get back to 2019.

00:06:54 --> 00:06:57 We need to start at zero and build.

00:06:57 --> 00:06:57 Yeah,

00:06:57 --> 00:07:01 it's interesting to me you're bringing up this idea of the goal

00:07:01 --> 00:07:03 can't be let's just

00:07:03 --> 00:07:05 go back to 2019.

00:07:05 --> 00:07:08 Because I'm pretty sure that if we actually go back to that time,

00:07:08 --> 00:07:12 we'll realize that culturally we weren't super happy then either.

00:07:13 --> 00:07:14 We had different problems,

00:07:14 --> 00:07:19 but I don't remember us in 2018 and 2019 as a culture being like,

00:07:19 --> 00:07:20 this is utopia.

00:07:20 --> 00:07:21 We found it.

00:07:21 --> 00:07:22 We finally...

00:07:22 --> 00:07:27 figured it all out i guess when i think about all of this i do

00:07:27 --> 00:07:29 find myself though

00:07:29 --> 00:07:32 saying if only we could go back like if only we could get back

00:07:32 --> 00:07:34 to february 2020 why

00:07:34 --> 00:07:38 do you think it is that we idealize these past moments and just

00:07:38 --> 00:07:40 completely forget

00:07:40 --> 00:07:44 how they weren't the paradise that we remember them to be i i

00:07:45 --> 00:07:46 think it's all rooted

00:07:46 --> 00:07:46 in pain

00:07:47 --> 00:07:51 An if only statement is always contrasted with the present.

00:07:51 --> 00:07:51 Right.

00:07:52 --> 00:07:54 And so it really says more about the present than it ever said

00:07:54 --> 00:07:55 about the past.

00:07:55 --> 00:07:56 And all we're really trying to say is,

00:07:57 --> 00:07:59 I wish I wasn't here or I wish I wasn't now.

00:08:00 --> 00:08:03 But but I actually think the issue is deeper than just our.

00:08:04 --> 00:08:06 idealizing of the past.

00:08:06 --> 00:08:12 We need to remember that in 2019, we were not inoculated against 2020.

00:08:12 --> 00:08:14 We were not prepared.

00:08:14 --> 00:08:16 And to go back would leave us in the same condition,

00:08:16 --> 00:08:18 whether those things were showing or not.

00:08:18 --> 00:08:22 The division that showed up in our churches last year already existed.

00:08:23 --> 00:08:28 We were not a church that could, with unity, navigate the year like 2020.

00:08:28 --> 00:08:29 And the truth is,

00:08:29 --> 00:08:31 even though there's a sense where we will put the last year

00:08:31 --> 00:08:32 behind us,

00:08:32 --> 00:08:34 There's another sense where it's here to stay,

00:08:34 --> 00:08:35 you know,

00:08:36 --> 00:08:40 and I think this imagery is too pessimistic and probably too

00:08:40 --> 00:08:41 theologically loaded.

00:08:41 --> 00:08:42 But just to paint a picture,

00:08:43 --> 00:08:47 we just ate the apple and we're now out of the garden and

00:08:47 --> 00:08:48 there's no way back to

00:08:48 --> 00:08:48 the garden,

00:08:49 --> 00:08:52 even if there's a redemptive path that takes us beyond the garden.

00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 The weight of the past is barred.

00:08:55 --> 00:08:57 And so that's,

00:08:57 --> 00:08:58 again,

00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 one of the things that I think we need to do is if the house is on fire,

00:09:03 --> 00:09:08 we need to do an investigative thought on why it burned so brightly.

00:09:08 --> 00:09:11 And maybe 2020 set the fire,

00:09:11 --> 00:09:15 but what accelerated and made the damage so deep was not 2020.

00:09:15 --> 00:09:16 That was just a circumstance.

00:09:16 --> 00:09:18 That was entirely external.

00:09:18 --> 00:09:22 But the internal reality of the church, if we just try and

00:09:23 --> 00:09:25 And rebuild based on 2019,

00:09:25 --> 00:09:28 then all we'll have is a hollow surface again.

00:09:28 --> 00:09:32 It doesn't have the survivability or the tenacity for the world

00:09:32 --> 00:09:33 we live in.

00:09:33 --> 00:09:34 Yeah, that's really good.

00:09:34 --> 00:09:36 I resonate with that a lot.

00:09:37 --> 00:09:40 I would consider myself a highly sensitive person.

00:09:40 --> 00:09:41 I think I get it from my mom.

00:09:41 --> 00:09:44 You know, she's similar.

00:09:44 --> 00:09:44 And,

00:09:45 --> 00:09:45 you know,

00:09:45 --> 00:09:50 I tend to empathize with people and feel the weight of people's

00:09:50 --> 00:09:53 distress and sorrow.

00:09:53 --> 00:09:58 And so I'm sensing so much grief and sorrow right now from people.

00:09:58 --> 00:09:58 I mean,

00:09:59 --> 00:10:04 and we've seen statistics of how many people have jumped out of ministry

00:10:04 --> 00:10:06 specifically because of this moment.

00:10:06 --> 00:10:08 There's so much division.

00:10:08 --> 00:10:11 Like I remember back in the day where at least, you

00:10:13 --> 00:10:18 where the main argument was about eschatology or Calvinism

00:10:18 --> 00:10:19 versus Arminianism.

00:10:19 --> 00:10:21 And even back then that bothered me,

00:10:21 --> 00:10:24 how aggressive people would get,

00:10:24 --> 00:10:26 how divided people would get over those things.

00:10:26 --> 00:10:30 So now I look back and it's like I almost long for that time

00:10:30 --> 00:10:31 period where it was

00:10:31 --> 00:10:33 like things seem so much more simple.

00:10:33 --> 00:10:37 And nowadays people are so divided over everything.

00:10:37 --> 00:10:42 political polarization, racial issues, COVID, health issues.

00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 It just seems like every time I get on social media,

00:10:45 --> 00:10:51 I can't escape that whirlpool pulling me down into more fighting,

00:10:51 --> 00:10:52 more division,

00:10:52 --> 00:10:53 more arguing,

00:10:54 --> 00:10:58 and more broad brush painting that paints anybody who disagrees

00:10:58 --> 00:10:59 as an idiot,

00:11:00 --> 00:11:05 some sort of political shill as some sort of you know apostate

00:11:06 --> 00:11:07 like there's so much

00:11:07 --> 00:11:10 of that going on right now that it's overwhelming and then when

00:11:10 --> 00:11:11 you bring it to the

00:11:11 --> 00:11:13 context of as a leader looking at the people you're called to

00:11:13 --> 00:11:14 shepherd and it's

00:11:14 --> 00:11:17 like man what are they going through how are they processing

00:11:17 --> 00:11:18 this and and how do I

00:11:18 --> 00:11:22 even deal with the the wide spectrum of differences in belief

00:11:23 --> 00:11:24 among my own people I

00:11:24 --> 00:11:25 think we've

00:11:26 --> 00:11:29 We've learned a lot of wrong ways to go about that over the last year.

00:11:29 --> 00:11:30 You know,

00:11:30 --> 00:11:33 there are the people who have whichever side of the issue they're on,

00:11:34 --> 00:11:38 taken the momentum of our times and and tried to use it to lead

00:11:39 --> 00:11:39 their churches

00:11:39 --> 00:11:40 through this.

00:11:40 --> 00:11:44 And it may be a long time till that starts to show its consequence,

00:11:45 --> 00:11:45 but it will.

00:11:46 --> 00:11:49 And then there's the ones who tried to not address these things

00:11:49 --> 00:11:50 and kind of

00:11:50 --> 00:11:54 compartmentalize Christianity and make it small enough that it

00:11:54 --> 00:11:55 had nothing to do

00:11:55 --> 00:11:55 with these things.

00:11:56 --> 00:11:57 And that didn't work either.

00:11:58 --> 00:12:02 And even the ways that I would paint as more faithful to Christianity,

00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 to try and get everybody to slow down and to think,

00:12:06 --> 00:12:06 you know,

00:12:06 --> 00:12:07 not just to avoid the issue.

00:12:08 --> 00:12:09 And at the same time,

00:12:09 --> 00:12:13 not to talk about it in a way that was pre-coded and you just

00:12:13 --> 00:12:14 had to choose an option.

00:12:14 --> 00:12:15 You know,

00:12:15 --> 00:12:17 the meals we're serving are A or B.

00:12:17 --> 00:12:18 And then Christians went,

00:12:18 --> 00:12:18 well,

00:12:18 --> 00:12:20 A is the faithful option or B is the faithful option.

00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 The slow road of going, wait, hold on, let's return to the scriptures.

00:12:24 --> 00:12:25 Let's think through these things.

00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 It's not popular.

00:12:28 --> 00:12:30 And one of the reasons it's not popular is because it doesn't

00:12:31 --> 00:12:32 resolve the pain.

00:12:32 --> 00:12:35 It doesn't give you anyone to blame in the short sighted way.

00:12:35 --> 00:12:38 And it doesn't it doesn't demonize.

00:12:38 --> 00:12:42 It requires way too much introspection to ask where you're

00:12:42 --> 00:12:43 breathing the same thing,

00:12:43 --> 00:12:43 you know,

00:12:43 --> 00:12:44 that you condemn.

00:12:45 --> 00:12:49 And then even walking that road didn't avoid all the division

00:12:50 --> 00:12:52 or the pain,

00:12:52 --> 00:12:52 you know.

00:12:52 --> 00:12:53 And so personally,

00:12:53 --> 00:12:56 there were many times this year where I kind of felt like,

00:12:56 --> 00:12:58 what's even the point of trying?

00:12:58 --> 00:13:00 And, you know, I'm in a better place now.

00:13:00 --> 00:13:03 Not trying to build a house that's burning is one thing.

00:13:04 --> 00:13:06 Letting it burn and walking away and just giving up.

00:13:06 --> 00:13:07 That...

00:13:07 --> 00:13:11 That I sensed and tasted and felt like everybody else this year

00:13:11 --> 00:13:12 and like probably

00:13:12 --> 00:13:13 everyone else on record.

00:13:14 --> 00:13:17 There is no year comparable to the last year I've ever had in ministry.

00:13:17 --> 00:13:21 I've never been so tired or so broken or so afraid,

00:13:22 --> 00:13:22 you know,

00:13:22 --> 00:13:23 or so close to quitting.

00:13:49 --> 00:13:53 I think that's exactly the question that I wanted to ask based

00:13:53 --> 00:13:53 on all of this.

00:13:53 --> 00:13:56 The reasons we're doing these things,

00:13:56 --> 00:13:57 like you're saying,

00:13:57 --> 00:13:58 it's a pain response.

00:13:58 --> 00:14:00 We don't want to have to deal with the pain.

00:14:01 --> 00:14:06 And Aaron opened this kind of segment on give us your TED Talk pitch.

00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 And this is a pretty sad TED talk,

00:14:09 --> 00:14:09 you know,

00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 like this is asking people lean into the pain,

00:14:12 --> 00:14:14 really embrace it and feel it.

00:14:14 --> 00:14:16 And I think in most churches,

00:14:17 --> 00:14:21 we have this general understanding that God has an ability to

00:14:21 --> 00:14:22 work through painful situations.

00:14:23 --> 00:14:26 That they're not just interruptions to God's work,

00:14:26 --> 00:14:31 but they are one of the things that he uses to work in different ways.

00:14:31 --> 00:14:36 What do we stand to gain if we don't go for the quick

00:14:36 --> 00:14:38 medication of division makes

00:14:38 --> 00:14:39 this simple,

00:14:39 --> 00:14:40 so I'll just be divisive?

00:14:40 --> 00:14:43 Like if we push back from all of that and we watch it burn and

00:14:43 --> 00:14:44 we really observe

00:14:45 --> 00:14:46 what we can about the fire,

00:14:47 --> 00:14:49 what do we actually stand to gain by doing that?

00:14:49 --> 00:14:52 Because like you're saying, it's an extremely difficult road.

00:14:52 --> 00:14:52 Right.

00:14:54 --> 00:14:59 So what I would suggest is outside the church,

00:15:00 --> 00:15:03 our culture is already starting to show the wear and weakness

00:15:04 --> 00:15:05 of all of these approaches.

00:15:06 --> 00:15:07 And for me,

00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 a major issue is the revolution we've had over the last decade

00:15:10 --> 00:15:11 and issues of

00:15:11 --> 00:15:13 sexuality and how to navigate those.

00:15:14 --> 00:15:15 But we need to understand that

00:15:16 --> 00:15:17 All of these approaches,

00:15:17 --> 00:15:21 and it doesn't matter if we're talking about Twitter hostility

00:15:21 --> 00:15:22 or a thousand other things,

00:15:23 --> 00:15:25 all of them don't build community.

00:15:26 --> 00:15:29 They don't move towards human flourishing in the collective

00:15:29 --> 00:15:30 communal sense that the

00:15:30 --> 00:15:31 Bible means it,

00:15:32 --> 00:15:36 which means that we've got a lot of people who have made,

00:15:36 --> 00:15:37 like Jeremiah condemned,

00:15:37 --> 00:15:39 broken cisterns that can hold no water,

00:15:40 --> 00:15:42 which means they're going to be growing and growing and growing

00:15:43 --> 00:15:43 in thirst.

00:15:44 --> 00:15:46 What I'm suggesting is as a church,

00:15:46 --> 00:15:50 we need to take the approach that goes and finds and digs the wells.

00:15:51 --> 00:15:52 And that takes time.

00:15:52 --> 00:15:53 It's not easy or simple.

00:15:54 --> 00:15:56 You know, we aren't just hucksters selling water bottles.

00:15:57 --> 00:15:58 We have to rediscover,

00:15:59 --> 00:15:59 you know,

00:15:59 --> 00:16:02 where the water is and be ready and available,

00:16:03 --> 00:16:03 you know.

00:16:03 --> 00:16:04 And so...

00:16:04 --> 00:16:07 This is different than just a monastic retreat that says,

00:16:07 --> 00:16:08 Rome is on fire,

00:16:08 --> 00:16:10 flee to the wilderness to preserve Christianity.

00:16:11 --> 00:16:13 Rod Dreyer's book that kind of suggests that approach,

00:16:13 --> 00:16:14 The Benedict Option,

00:16:15 --> 00:16:17 opens with this quote that I've not stopped thinking about.

00:16:18 --> 00:16:21 It says that tradition is not the worship of the ashes,

00:16:21 --> 00:16:23 but the preservation of fire.

00:16:24 --> 00:16:24 Right.

00:16:24 --> 00:16:28 And so it's not living in the past and holding on to it as some sort of

00:16:29 --> 00:16:32 self-contained hope because everything else has gone to pot.

00:16:33 --> 00:16:38 It is it is a protective and externally oriented for the sake

00:16:39 --> 00:16:40 of ourselves and the

00:16:40 --> 00:16:41 world at large.

00:16:41 --> 00:16:43 And and,

00:16:43 --> 00:16:43 you know,

00:16:44 --> 00:16:47 I think this year and this last decade has exposed that the

00:16:48 --> 00:16:49 church didn't know the

00:16:49 --> 00:16:50 things it thought it knew.

00:16:51 --> 00:16:56 And that we've been relying on views of sexuality or views of

00:16:56 --> 00:16:57 government or views

00:16:58 --> 00:17:02 of culture that had very little to do with with the realities

00:17:02 --> 00:17:02 of Scripture.

00:17:03 --> 00:17:05 And and so we have to.

00:17:06 --> 00:17:06 you know,

00:17:07 --> 00:17:12 follow the advice of the reformers and in Semper Reformanda and

00:17:12 --> 00:17:13 go back to the

00:17:13 --> 00:17:18 beginning and take new questions to the same longstanding truth

00:17:18 --> 00:17:19 that we've always had,

00:17:19 --> 00:17:24 but with the timescale that recognizes quick answers.

00:17:24 --> 00:17:24 You know,

00:17:25 --> 00:17:28 I guess what I'm suggesting is one of the ideas of not trying

00:17:28 --> 00:17:28 to build the house

00:17:28 --> 00:17:31 while it's burning is to stop thinking about what you can do

00:17:32 --> 00:17:33 now and start

00:17:33 --> 00:17:35 preparing for what you will be able to do later.

00:17:36 --> 00:17:37 Yeah, that's good.

00:17:37 --> 00:17:38 I like that.

00:17:38 --> 00:17:41 And something that you spoke on earlier was you were talking

00:17:41 --> 00:17:43 about people wanting

00:17:43 --> 00:17:47 those quick answers and not being willing to sit with the pain,

00:17:48 --> 00:17:49 with the complexity,

00:17:49 --> 00:17:51 with the nuances of our current moment.

00:17:52 --> 00:17:52 And,

00:17:52 --> 00:17:52 you know,

00:17:53 --> 00:17:58 one thing that I've observed is because so much of this pain is

00:17:58 --> 00:17:59 based around

00:17:59 --> 00:18:00 ideological differences,

00:18:01 --> 00:18:02 or at least that's a big part of it.

00:18:03 --> 00:18:08 I think what we see in this moment is we see people rushing to

00:18:08 --> 00:18:10 find ideological

00:18:10 --> 00:18:15 allies that provide them with neat packaged answers that fit

00:18:15 --> 00:18:16 their presuppositions

00:18:16 --> 00:18:17 and views.

00:18:17 --> 00:18:21 I've seen so many people on social media say things like,

00:18:21 --> 00:18:21 oh,

00:18:21 --> 00:18:22 yeah,

00:18:22 --> 00:18:24 your pastor said that time to find a new church.

00:18:24 --> 00:18:24 Like,

00:18:24 --> 00:18:24 oh,

00:18:25 --> 00:18:28 so your your pastor said this thing about racial justice time

00:18:28 --> 00:18:29 to find a new church.

00:18:29 --> 00:18:33 So your your pastor, you know, is anti vaccine time to find a new church.

00:18:33 --> 00:18:33 It's like,

00:18:33 --> 00:18:35 you know,

00:18:35 --> 00:18:36 and I just I just,

00:18:36 --> 00:18:37 you know,

00:18:37 --> 00:18:40 spoke of two examples that kind of fit stereotypes on different

00:18:40 --> 00:18:41 ideological sides.

00:18:42 --> 00:18:43 Unfortunately,

00:18:43 --> 00:18:43 you know,

00:18:44 --> 00:18:47 we've categorized things so narrowly now where it's like one

00:18:47 --> 00:18:48 slight thing said

00:18:48 --> 00:18:49 automatically puts you on this side.

00:18:49 --> 00:18:51 One thing puts you on that side, which I think is sad.

00:18:51 --> 00:18:56 But I think we see people so ready right now to ditch their community.

00:18:57 --> 00:18:58 to ditch their church family,

00:18:58 --> 00:19:00 to ditch a pastor that's poured into them for years.

00:19:01 --> 00:19:04 I know of one Calvary pastor who,

00:19:04 --> 00:19:04 for his privacy,

00:19:04 --> 00:19:05 I'm not going to name his name,

00:19:05 --> 00:19:07 but great guy,

00:19:07 --> 00:19:08 amazing guy.

00:19:08 --> 00:19:12 And during all of the racial injustice stuff that was going on recently,

00:19:12 --> 00:19:18 he did a sermon series on racism and basically half of his church left.

00:19:19 --> 00:19:20 I went back and listened to the whole series.

00:19:21 --> 00:19:24 It was not woke, progressive theology.

00:19:24 --> 00:19:25 He wasn't preaching CRT.

00:19:25 --> 00:19:28 He was literally just talking about racism as if it was a sin,

00:19:29 --> 00:19:30 like he would any other sin.

00:19:30 --> 00:19:35 And half of his church left him and smeared his name and then

00:19:35 --> 00:19:36 started accusing him

00:19:36 --> 00:19:37 of like,

00:19:37 --> 00:19:37 oh,

00:19:37 --> 00:19:39 so you probably think abortion's fine too,

00:19:39 --> 00:19:39 right?

00:19:39 --> 00:19:43 And he said he had to pull his people together and do a town

00:19:43 --> 00:19:44 hall meeting and basically say,

00:19:45 --> 00:19:48 No, like I, of course, I think abortion is wrong.

00:19:48 --> 00:19:52 Why does me literally bringing up the fact I believe racism is

00:19:52 --> 00:19:53 a sin automatically

00:19:53 --> 00:19:54 in your brain put me in this category?

00:19:55 --> 00:19:57 So can you speak to that division we're seeing?

00:19:57 --> 00:20:01 Well, obviously, the story you just shared is not unique or rare.

00:20:02 --> 00:20:03 Yeah, it's crazy.

00:20:03 --> 00:20:06 Every church has navigated that and faced that.

00:20:06 --> 00:20:08 And you touched on a lot of the things that I think are

00:20:08 --> 00:20:09 commonalities in that,

00:20:10 --> 00:20:11 that it's not about what you said,

00:20:11 --> 00:20:12 but what you might say next.

00:20:13 --> 00:20:15 That has been a common trait of these things.

00:20:16 --> 00:20:18 But what I think is most important here is the difference

00:20:18 --> 00:20:20 between theology and ideology.

00:20:20 --> 00:20:21 Theology,

00:20:21 --> 00:20:22 by its nature,

00:20:22 --> 00:20:23 at least from a Christian viewpoint,

00:20:23 --> 00:20:26 is about confrontation and transformation.

00:20:26 --> 00:20:26 Right.

00:20:27 --> 00:20:29 It assumes, you know, like G.K.

00:20:29 --> 00:20:32 Chesterton said that where we need religion is not where where

00:20:32 --> 00:20:33 we are right,

00:20:33 --> 00:20:34 but where we are wrong.

00:20:35 --> 00:20:35 Right.

00:20:35 --> 00:20:36 It's about change.

00:20:37 --> 00:20:41 But ideology is about confirming and upholding the status quo.

00:20:41 --> 00:20:44 It's about continuing with the worldview as you have it and

00:20:44 --> 00:20:45 supporting it and

00:20:45 --> 00:20:47 distancing yourself from those who disagree.

00:20:48 --> 00:20:51 Those are diametrically opposed.

00:20:51 --> 00:20:51 Right.

00:20:52 --> 00:20:58 And and so being able to recognize the difference between that

00:20:59 --> 00:21:00 is important.

00:21:00 --> 00:21:04 And another part of it is ideology focuses on the enemy without

00:21:04 --> 00:21:04 but theology

00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 focuses on the enemy within,

00:21:06 --> 00:21:07 you know,

00:21:07 --> 00:21:07 and.

00:21:08 --> 00:21:10 And that difference as well.

00:21:10 --> 00:21:16 We've got to we've got to teach our people to search their own

00:21:16 --> 00:21:17 hearts and the

00:21:17 --> 00:21:22 scriptures as well for for the way that they need to change

00:21:23 --> 00:21:24 instead of this

00:21:25 --> 00:21:26 protectivist

00:21:27 --> 00:21:27 you know,

00:21:27 --> 00:21:32 view of the other that may change you in ways that make you

00:21:32 --> 00:21:34 unfaithful or these

00:21:34 --> 00:21:34 types of things,

00:21:35 --> 00:21:36 which is a real part.

00:21:36 --> 00:21:36 You know,

00:21:36 --> 00:21:39 the New Testament spends a lot of time warning us that all

00:21:39 --> 00:21:40 ideas lead somewhere.

00:21:41 --> 00:21:44 And that means that false teaching is significant and dangerous.

00:21:45 --> 00:21:48 But we have a culture right now that is being...

00:21:49 --> 00:21:55 perpetually shaped and conformed by all of these sources.

00:21:55 --> 00:21:59 And I think it's overwhelmed the formative practices of the church.

00:22:00 --> 00:22:02 And again, that's not an easy fix.

00:22:02 --> 00:22:07 You can't just tell people to kill their TVs and expect this to go away.

00:22:08 --> 00:22:11 The inoculation that I mentioned earlier that may have

00:22:11 --> 00:22:12 preserved us from what

00:22:12 --> 00:22:16 happened in the church in 2020 requires something stronger and

00:22:16 --> 00:22:17 more robust than

00:22:17 --> 00:22:19 what's coming at it.

00:22:19 --> 00:22:22 It requires a defense that can withstand the onslaught of our times.

00:22:23 --> 00:22:25 And onslaught is the right word.

00:22:25 --> 00:22:28 Information fatigue is one of the ways we just talk about the

00:22:28 --> 00:22:29 world we live in.

00:22:29 --> 00:22:31 It is the sheer amount of

00:22:32 --> 00:22:38 of interaction or data or opinions or emotions or news that we

00:22:38 --> 00:22:40 face that makes our

00:22:40 --> 00:22:41 times unique.

00:23:01 --> 00:23:05 I love your defining of the difference between theology and ideology.

00:23:06 --> 00:23:11 I think one of the things that we've seen break down or one of

00:23:11 --> 00:23:12 the breakdowns

00:23:12 --> 00:23:17 perhaps that has become apparent is for many Christians,

00:23:17 --> 00:23:22 what should have been theology was acting as an ideology.

00:23:23 --> 00:23:27 But I don't know if it almost sounds like I'm accusing other

00:23:27 --> 00:23:28 people of doing this.

00:23:28 --> 00:23:31 I'm genuinely trying to ask this in like an introspective way.

00:23:31 --> 00:23:36 I'm not sure where my theology has begun to act like an ideology.

00:23:36 --> 00:23:40 I'm not sure where I've just used Christianity to confirm the

00:23:40 --> 00:23:41 viewpoints that I

00:23:42 --> 00:23:44 have of the world and to try to press those viewpoints onto others.

00:23:44 --> 00:23:45 Yeah.

00:23:45 --> 00:23:49 How can we begin the process of parsing that out?

00:23:49 --> 00:23:52 I know it's a giant question and you're already saying it's a

00:23:52 --> 00:23:53 long answer.

00:23:53 --> 00:23:56 So I know that we won't have just like a five minute soundbite

00:23:56 --> 00:23:57 that ends with sweet.

00:23:57 --> 00:23:57 We did it.

00:23:58 --> 00:23:59 But where would you begin?

00:24:00 --> 00:24:04 So I'm not I don't know if I'm allowed to say this on your guys

00:24:04 --> 00:24:05 is wonderful podcast,

00:24:05 --> 00:24:07 but I'm not much of a podcast person.

00:24:08 --> 00:24:09 How dare you, sir?

00:24:09 --> 00:24:11 One of the few exceptions,

00:24:11 --> 00:24:11 though,

00:24:12 --> 00:24:17 is the Tobolowsky files where B-list actor Stephen Tobolowsky

00:24:17 --> 00:24:18 tells stories about

00:24:18 --> 00:24:19 his life.

00:24:19 --> 00:24:21 And he's an incredible storyteller.

00:24:21 --> 00:24:24 But I remember listening to him once and he was talking about

00:24:24 --> 00:24:25 about being lost.

00:24:26 --> 00:24:29 And he was talking about how he and his son and their Boy Scout

00:24:29 --> 00:24:30 troop went to see

00:24:30 --> 00:24:31 the bridge to nowhere,

00:24:31 --> 00:24:33 which is exactly what it sounds like.

00:24:33 --> 00:24:36 It's a New Deal bridge that was built and roads aren't there.

00:24:36 --> 00:24:39 And so it's just a bridge in the middle of the wilderness that

00:24:39 --> 00:24:40 has no access.

00:24:40 --> 00:24:43 And so they were out traveling and he got in a discussion with his son.

00:24:43 --> 00:24:46 They lost track of the troop and then realized that they were lost.

00:24:46 --> 00:24:48 And he said, and I think this is genius.

00:24:48 --> 00:24:49 He said,

00:24:49 --> 00:24:52 the thing about being lost is not that you don't know where you are,

00:24:52 --> 00:24:53 but that you don't know when you are.

00:24:54 --> 00:24:56 Because if you could just go back to when you took the wrong turn,

00:24:57 --> 00:24:58 you wouldn't be lost anymore.

00:24:59 --> 00:25:01 And then he uses that as a framework to ask the question,

00:25:02 --> 00:25:04 where did my last marriage go wrong?

00:25:04 --> 00:25:08 Where did we get off on the wrong road instead of now it's lost?

00:25:09 --> 00:25:14 And we live in a culture that tends to condemn the past so

00:25:14 --> 00:25:16 holistically that we see

00:25:16 --> 00:25:20 our answers and our time as the first solution to a problem

00:25:20 --> 00:25:21 without asking,

00:25:21 --> 00:25:22 where did the problem start?

00:25:23 --> 00:25:24 Without going backwards.

00:25:25 --> 00:25:28 And I would suggest to you one of the reasons why at least the

00:25:28 --> 00:25:29 American church has

00:25:29 --> 00:25:32 wrestled with 2020 so much is because we are no longer rooted.

00:25:32 --> 00:25:33 Right.

00:25:34 --> 00:25:35 We can no longer.

00:25:35 --> 00:25:37 And for us within Calvary, doubly so.

00:25:38 --> 00:25:38 Right.

00:25:38 --> 00:25:41 We we trace our roots back to the 1970s.

00:25:41 --> 00:25:41 That's it.

00:25:42 --> 00:25:43 Before that, there was no past.

00:25:44 --> 00:25:47 yeah before that there was nothing it was just bc before

00:25:47 --> 00:25:50 calvary right and that

00:25:50 --> 00:25:57 lack of rootedness means that we end up co-opting our times

00:25:57 --> 00:25:59 more because because

00:25:59 --> 00:26:03 our our culture it's the it's the imminent reality that we live

00:26:03 --> 00:26:04 in that shapes us

00:26:04 --> 00:26:07 and not a history you know and this is what's even on the

00:26:07 --> 00:26:08 personal level what's so

00:26:08 --> 00:26:09 significant about ephesians 1

00:26:10 --> 00:26:11 It gives us an origin story, right?

00:26:12 --> 00:26:14 It goes all the way back in time and says,

00:26:14 --> 00:26:15 if you want to understand who you are,

00:26:15 --> 00:26:16 it begins with a loving God.

00:26:17 --> 00:26:20 But at the corporate or at the cultural side, it's the same.

00:26:21 --> 00:26:23 It's the same type of issue.

00:26:23 --> 00:26:29 And so I guess what I would suggest is if we find strange fruit

00:26:30 --> 00:26:31 in the tree we call

00:26:31 --> 00:26:32 the American church,

00:26:33 --> 00:26:37 it's because there's other plants growing up along in it that

00:26:37 --> 00:26:38 we've mistaken for

00:26:38 --> 00:26:38 the tree and

00:26:39 --> 00:26:42 And so, again, this is a long and slow road.

00:26:42 --> 00:26:48 Rootedness is something that takes time and effort and and is seasonal.

00:26:48 --> 00:26:48 Right.

00:26:48 --> 00:26:52 And so we may be in a planting season and not a reaping season.

00:26:52 --> 00:26:53 And unfortunately,

00:26:53 --> 00:26:54 as Americans,

00:26:54 --> 00:26:57 we we have a hard time rejoicing in that.

00:26:57 --> 00:26:59 We want the fruitfulness now.

00:27:00 --> 00:27:01 And in Calvary,

00:27:01 --> 00:27:02 even more so,

00:27:02 --> 00:27:06 I heard Brian Broderson say one time that Calvary needs to

00:27:06 --> 00:27:07 redevelop its philosophy

00:27:07 --> 00:27:11 of ministry for how we function in a time that isn't revival.

00:27:11 --> 00:27:15 And what he recognized was a lot of the way we went about

00:27:15 --> 00:27:16 things was built on the

00:27:16 --> 00:27:18 back of a move of God.

00:27:18 --> 00:27:21 And we long for and should continue to pray for such a move.

00:27:21 --> 00:27:23 But what does it look like in the fallow years?

00:27:23 --> 00:27:24 Right.

00:27:24 --> 00:27:26 What does it look like in the winter of history to be a

00:27:26 --> 00:27:27 faithful Christian?

00:27:27 --> 00:27:30 What does it look like to have the ministry of Jeremiah where

00:27:30 --> 00:27:31 God tells you up front?

00:27:31 --> 00:27:31 Hey,

00:27:31 --> 00:27:31 look,

00:27:31 --> 00:27:33 you're not going to see a lot of fruit from this,

00:27:33 --> 00:27:37 but that is all preparation for exile.

00:27:37 --> 00:27:40 And there is no seek the peace of the city.

00:27:41 --> 00:27:41 Right.

00:27:41 --> 00:27:45 Without the strain and toil and defeat of Jeremiah generation prior.

00:27:46 --> 00:27:46 Hmm.

00:27:47 --> 00:27:48 Yeah, it's good.

00:27:48 --> 00:27:48 Man,

00:27:48 --> 00:27:51 everything that you're saying just has me thinking about the

00:27:51 --> 00:27:53 term chronological snobbery.

00:27:53 --> 00:27:55 Would that apply to what you're saying?

00:27:55 --> 00:27:56 Yeah, absolutely.

00:27:58 --> 00:28:01 And I think the danger is that we tend to accuse non-Christians

00:28:01 --> 00:28:02 of that and think

00:28:02 --> 00:28:03 that we escape it as Christians.

00:28:04 --> 00:28:04 Yeah.

00:28:05 --> 00:28:05 But,

00:28:06 --> 00:28:06 you know,

00:28:06 --> 00:28:11 David Foster Wallace presented this idea one time of that we're

00:28:11 --> 00:28:12 all living in the

00:28:12 --> 00:28:13 world we are.

00:28:13 --> 00:28:14 We're just fish in water.

00:28:14 --> 00:28:17 And if you ask a fish about water, he says, what's water, right?

00:28:17 --> 00:28:18 Because it's where he's swimming.

00:28:18 --> 00:28:18 Right.

00:28:19 --> 00:28:22 And we too quickly distance ourselves from the culture around

00:28:23 --> 00:28:24 us and don't

00:28:24 --> 00:28:28 recognize that this is what we live and breathe and have our being in,

00:28:28 --> 00:28:28 you know.

00:28:28 --> 00:28:29 Mm-hmm.

00:28:30 --> 00:28:32 And that doesn't mean that there isn't significant

00:28:32 --> 00:28:34 transformation or counterculture

00:28:34 --> 00:28:34 in the church.

00:28:34 --> 00:28:38 But the danger of culture is that it's unseen and assumed.

00:28:39 --> 00:28:40 Right.

00:28:40 --> 00:28:42 And so it's easy for us to look at Christians at other time and go,

00:28:43 --> 00:28:46 how could you possibly believe this or do that or the other?

00:28:46 --> 00:28:48 And yet we don't have the humility to go.

00:28:48 --> 00:28:50 Where is that the truth for us today?

00:28:50 --> 00:28:50 Right.

00:28:51 --> 00:28:51 Yeah, I know.

00:28:51 --> 00:28:52 I think that's exactly right.

00:28:52 --> 00:28:56 And the chronological snobbery aspect of it,

00:28:56 --> 00:29:01 which is believing that you know better because as time has gone on,

00:29:01 --> 00:29:03 things have progressed to this point where it's like,

00:29:03 --> 00:29:04 okay,

00:29:04 --> 00:29:05 now we understand.

00:29:05 --> 00:29:06 And in the past, they didn't know what they were talking about.

00:29:07 --> 00:29:09 So for Brian and I,

00:29:09 --> 00:29:10 and I'm assuming you,

00:29:10 --> 00:29:11 growing up in,

00:29:11 --> 00:29:13 and it's a context we're grateful for,

00:29:14 --> 00:29:17 but growing up in the theological conservative context,

00:29:17 --> 00:29:20 and that's a context that we still firmly find ourselves planting in,

00:29:21 --> 00:29:21 You know,

00:29:21 --> 00:29:24 it's easy to look at secularists,

00:29:24 --> 00:29:25 progressives,

00:29:25 --> 00:29:27 and to see their chronological snobbery,

00:29:27 --> 00:29:27 right,

00:29:28 --> 00:29:28 that says,

00:29:28 --> 00:29:29 you know,

00:29:29 --> 00:29:29 things like,

00:29:29 --> 00:29:30 okay,

00:29:30 --> 00:29:33 our idea of sexual ethics has evolved and progressed,

00:29:33 --> 00:29:35 and the Bible really didn't know what it was talking about,

00:29:36 --> 00:29:39 and we understand the way things are supposed to be now.

00:29:39 --> 00:29:40 That's one way that we see it manifest.

00:29:40 --> 00:29:41 Yeah.

00:29:41 --> 00:29:42 But I think it's exactly right.

00:29:42 --> 00:29:46 We need to be aware how it manifests on our own side.

00:29:46 --> 00:29:46 And so,

00:29:46 --> 00:29:47 you know,

00:29:47 --> 00:29:48 just thinking of what I've seen,

00:29:48 --> 00:29:49 especially on social media,

00:29:50 --> 00:29:52 in sort of the theological conservative sphere,

00:29:52 --> 00:29:56 there's been this hostility and anger and animosity and almost

00:29:57 --> 00:29:58 hatred towards

00:29:58 --> 00:30:02 progressives and towards secularists.

00:30:02 --> 00:30:04 And then you try to bring up things like,

00:30:04 --> 00:30:04 okay,

00:30:04 --> 00:30:04 well,

00:30:04 --> 00:30:05 what does Jesus say?

00:30:05 --> 00:30:06 Love your enemies.

00:30:06 --> 00:30:08 Pray for those who persecute you.

00:30:08 --> 00:30:10 Paul says these people aren't our enemies.

00:30:10 --> 00:30:12 They're victims of the true enemy.

00:30:12 --> 00:30:15 We don't fight battles against flesh and blood, right?

00:30:15 --> 00:30:17 These people are prisoners of sin.

00:30:18 --> 00:30:20 Our job is to go in and not do war with them,

00:30:21 --> 00:30:24 but to do war with the enemy to try to free them from those chains.

00:30:24 --> 00:30:26 And then people will look at you and just say,

00:30:26 --> 00:30:26 well,

00:30:27 --> 00:30:28 that's not how things work anymore.

00:30:28 --> 00:30:29 Like, love your enemies.

00:30:30 --> 00:30:30 Like,

00:30:30 --> 00:30:34 they're looking at the pundits,

00:30:34 --> 00:30:39 the people that represent their worldview outside of the church,

00:30:39 --> 00:30:40 and they're getting their cues from them.

00:30:41 --> 00:30:44 And it's like these people talk in these very angry tones and

00:30:44 --> 00:30:45 these very aggressive tones.

00:30:45 --> 00:30:47 They go after and attack people.

00:30:47 --> 00:30:47 Yeah.

00:30:47 --> 00:30:48 Yeah.

00:30:48 --> 00:30:50 That's how we should be acting.

00:30:50 --> 00:30:52 It's Joshua, right?

00:30:52 --> 00:30:55 Who's standing out looking over Jericho and here comes a man in

00:30:55 --> 00:30:56 full armor and he says,

00:30:56 --> 00:30:58 are you for us or against us?

00:30:58 --> 00:31:01 And the angel of the Lord says, no, you've got it backwards.

00:31:02 --> 00:31:03 I am the general.

00:31:03 --> 00:31:04 I am the army.

00:31:04 --> 00:31:05 I'm calling the shots.

00:31:05 --> 00:31:08 It's not, am I on your side, but are you on my side?

00:31:08 --> 00:31:09 And so, yeah, I mean,

00:31:13 --> 00:31:14 What we've just touched on is pride.

00:31:14 --> 00:31:19 And Christians have always known and always succumbed to the

00:31:19 --> 00:31:21 reality of arrogance

00:31:21 --> 00:31:22 of being God's people,

00:31:22 --> 00:31:23 you know,

00:31:23 --> 00:31:24 just like Israel did,

00:31:24 --> 00:31:27 which always befuddles our ability to repent.

00:31:28 --> 00:31:31 And so, yeah, I think those are real issues.

00:31:31 --> 00:31:31 And,

00:31:32 --> 00:31:32 you know,

00:31:32 --> 00:31:36 the way I see it with the conservatives and the progressives is

00:31:37 --> 00:31:38 that progressives

00:31:38 --> 00:31:40 are more open to the questions of our time.

00:31:41 --> 00:31:41 Right.

00:31:41 --> 00:31:44 Conservatives tend to shut down the questions and go that

00:31:44 --> 00:31:45 doesn't need to be asked

00:31:45 --> 00:31:48 or that's already been answered or they they give,

00:31:49 --> 00:31:49 you know,

00:31:49 --> 00:31:52 pat answers from from old questions or these types of things.

00:31:53 --> 00:31:54 Progressives are more open to the questions,

00:31:54 --> 00:31:56 but they look everywhere but the scriptures for answers.

00:31:57 --> 00:31:57 True.

00:31:57 --> 00:32:01 Which means they usually find the same answers of our times,

00:32:01 --> 00:32:02 whatever time that is.

00:32:02 --> 00:32:02 Right.

00:32:02 --> 00:32:03 Right.

00:32:03 --> 00:32:06 But the process for Christians,

00:32:06 --> 00:32:10 that Semper Reformata idea that I mentioned earlier from the Reformation,

00:32:10 --> 00:32:11 always reforming,

00:32:11 --> 00:32:14 means that we take new questions to the same source of truth.

00:32:15 --> 00:32:18 And I think we're all in danger of not completing the circle,

00:32:19 --> 00:32:19 you know,

00:32:19 --> 00:32:23 the hermeneutical circle of returning back to,

00:32:23 --> 00:32:24 you know,

00:32:24 --> 00:32:26 it's as if scripture is an anvil.

00:32:26 --> 00:32:27 right?

00:32:27 --> 00:32:29 And it can wield truth,

00:32:29 --> 00:32:30 the blade of truth,

00:32:31 --> 00:32:35 and it doesn't bend based on the hammers of our time or of our question.

00:32:35 --> 00:32:39 But you take that anvil away and you bang the sword and it just

00:32:39 --> 00:32:40 takes on the shape

00:32:40 --> 00:32:40 of the hammer,

00:32:41 --> 00:32:41 right?

00:32:41 --> 00:32:43 You have to have both elements.

00:32:44 --> 00:32:45 And that,

00:32:45 --> 00:32:46 I think,

00:32:46 --> 00:32:47 goes back to your question earlier about,

00:32:48 --> 00:32:48 you know,

00:32:48 --> 00:32:50 when theology becomes ideology,

00:32:50 --> 00:32:51 it's right there.

00:32:51 --> 00:32:54 It's when ideology becomes stasis that's

00:32:54 --> 00:32:59 unwilling to grow or reconsider or arrogant.

00:33:17 --> 00:33:18 I'm trying to think through.

00:33:18 --> 00:33:20 I really like the phrase you use.

00:33:21 --> 00:33:22 It's not just where did you get lost,

00:33:22 --> 00:33:25 but when did you get lost and when did you go wrong?

00:33:25 --> 00:33:25 Right.

00:33:26 --> 00:33:28 And one of the thoughts that I have on that is,

00:33:29 --> 00:33:36 do we need to reexamine the way that we approach and preach the gospel?

00:33:36 --> 00:33:36 Right.

00:33:36 --> 00:33:43 Because when I think about the time of the church in America

00:33:43 --> 00:33:44 that I grew up in,

00:33:44 --> 00:33:47 the gospel was very much you're a broken person,

00:33:47 --> 00:33:49 you're going to hell and Jesus can save you.

00:33:50 --> 00:33:53 If you pray this prayer and keep coming to this building,

00:33:54 --> 00:33:56 one day you will go to heaven when you die.

00:33:57 --> 00:34:03 And all the kind of change and formation and the things we're

00:34:03 --> 00:34:03 talking about that

00:34:03 --> 00:34:07 have led to some of the breakdown of what we're seeing today of

00:34:07 --> 00:34:08 people are being

00:34:08 --> 00:34:11 more formed by media and culture and by our current times as

00:34:11 --> 00:34:12 opposed to being

00:34:12 --> 00:34:13 formed by Jesus.

00:34:14 --> 00:34:17 All of that was kind of like the extra credit assignment or so

00:34:17 --> 00:34:18 it felt like like,

00:34:18 --> 00:34:18 yeah,

00:34:18 --> 00:34:20 if you can get some of this done,

00:34:20 --> 00:34:20 like that'd be really cool,

00:34:21 --> 00:34:21 too.

00:34:22 --> 00:34:24 But even if you don't, no big deal.

00:34:24 --> 00:34:26 The future is still secure.

00:34:26 --> 00:34:29 So you can just kind of hang out until then.

00:34:29 --> 00:34:29 Yeah.

00:34:30 --> 00:34:33 Do you think that that needs to be rethought or at the very

00:34:33 --> 00:34:35 least emphasized in different ways?

00:34:35 --> 00:34:39 And maybe it's maybe when we're going wrong is from that very

00:34:39 --> 00:34:40 beginning of how

00:34:40 --> 00:34:41 we're actually preaching the gospel.

00:34:41 --> 00:34:41 Right.

00:34:42 --> 00:34:43 Yeah, I think.

00:34:45 --> 00:34:47 I think that's definitely a part of it.

00:34:48 --> 00:34:49 And it's been much talked about.

00:34:49 --> 00:34:51 These are big issues for guys like N.T.

00:34:52 --> 00:34:52 Wright and the like,

00:34:52 --> 00:34:54 who have basically said,

00:34:54 --> 00:34:55 we've soft-pedaled salvation.

00:34:56 --> 00:34:58 And I think that's true.

00:34:59 --> 00:35:04 But I also think that the forms or the manifestations that that

00:35:04 --> 00:35:05 philosophy takes,

00:35:05 --> 00:35:06 which is more than just

00:35:06 --> 00:35:08 preaching a fuller gospel,

00:35:09 --> 00:35:12 they're more robust than we currently practice.

00:35:12 --> 00:35:16 And so, I mean, there's so many things that I could bring up on this.

00:35:16 --> 00:35:19 There's our anti-institutional bent,

00:35:19 --> 00:35:20 which is not just cultural,

00:35:20 --> 00:35:21 but is within the church.

00:35:22 --> 00:35:26 There's the individualistic philosophy that thinks not just of

00:35:26 --> 00:35:27 salvation is about individuals,

00:35:27 --> 00:35:30 but all of life in individual concerns.

00:35:31 --> 00:35:33 There's so many things that we could trace.

00:35:34 --> 00:35:35 that are all part of that.

00:35:36 --> 00:35:37 But ultimately,

00:35:37 --> 00:35:42 it comes back to this idea of not just discipleship,

00:35:42 --> 00:35:46 not just your life is to follow in Christ's footsteps and grow,

00:35:47 --> 00:35:50 but a philosophy of the church that says you're now part of

00:35:50 --> 00:35:51 this new community.

00:35:52 --> 00:35:57 And that can't just be a resource to be consumed,

00:35:57 --> 00:35:59 an event to be attended,

00:35:59 --> 00:36:05 or a list of service opportunities to qualify you for something.

00:36:05 --> 00:36:07 It has to be a new humanity.

00:36:08 --> 00:36:12 And I actually think all Christians taste this all the time.

00:36:12 --> 00:36:15 I think the hard part is that we're reluctant to lean into it.

00:36:15 --> 00:36:19 And a lot of the struggle of our times right now is because of

00:36:19 --> 00:36:20 a poor ownership of

00:36:20 --> 00:36:21 human limitation.

00:36:22 --> 00:36:23 And the church has bought into that.

00:36:23 --> 00:36:26 And so now we think of ministry in ways that would have been

00:36:26 --> 00:36:28 impossible in the 15th

00:36:28 --> 00:36:33 century because of modern technology and because of convenience

00:36:33 --> 00:36:34 and because of

00:36:35 --> 00:36:37 image and ambition and these types of things that

00:36:38 --> 00:36:40 You know, and so, for example, I'll give you a perfect example.

00:36:41 --> 00:36:43 When the Young Restless and Reform Movement got going,

00:36:44 --> 00:36:46 one of the big books that everybody loved to talk about was

00:36:46 --> 00:36:47 Richard Baxter's

00:36:48 --> 00:36:49 Reformed Pastor.

00:36:49 --> 00:36:52 And I mean, it was right in the title, Reformed Pastor.

00:36:52 --> 00:36:52 Right.

00:36:52 --> 00:36:54 But when I talked with people about the book,

00:36:54 --> 00:36:58 it seemed like everybody was rightly obsessed with a single sentence,

00:36:58 --> 00:37:00 which I still love enough that I've memorized it.

00:37:01 --> 00:37:02 Baxter said about his own ministry,

00:37:02 --> 00:37:06 I preached as though to never preach again as a dying man among

00:37:06 --> 00:37:07 dying men.

00:37:08 --> 00:37:08 Right.

00:37:08 --> 00:37:11 Beautiful emphasis of the importance and the significance.

00:37:12 --> 00:37:15 But the main point of the book was if you're not doing

00:37:15 --> 00:37:16 visitation and in the homes

00:37:16 --> 00:37:17 of your people,

00:37:17 --> 00:37:18 you're not a pastor.

00:37:18 --> 00:37:19 That's his main message.

00:37:20 --> 00:37:21 And that fell on deaf ears.

00:37:22 --> 00:37:27 Because because the mobile models and the campus models and the

00:37:27 --> 00:37:29 over the airwave models,

00:37:29 --> 00:37:31 all these things were driving so strongly,

00:37:31 --> 00:37:32 we couldn't hear that.

00:37:33 --> 00:37:34 And so I would suggest,

00:37:34 --> 00:37:35 again,

00:37:35 --> 00:37:38 going back to the idea of when we went wrong.

00:37:39 --> 00:37:42 Sometimes it's good to look back at when the church didn't have

00:37:42 --> 00:37:43 certain problems

00:37:43 --> 00:37:45 and ask what was different,

00:37:45 --> 00:37:45 you know,

00:37:46 --> 00:37:50 and I've always believed read dead people is good advice.

00:37:50 --> 00:37:53 And that's another thing that's hard in our in our constant

00:37:53 --> 00:37:54 publishing time.

00:37:54 --> 00:37:56 The book list of 2020 is too long to read,

00:37:57 --> 00:38:00 but it's also really not worth reading because it's full of

00:38:01 --> 00:38:02 redundancy repetition.

00:38:02 --> 00:38:04 It all shares the same blind spots.

00:38:04 --> 00:38:06 and the same solutions.

00:38:06 --> 00:38:10 And so when we read broadly across the generations of history,

00:38:10 --> 00:38:12 we start to not just think,

00:38:12 --> 00:38:13 I can't believe they believed that,

00:38:13 --> 00:38:15 which is that cultural snobbery part,

00:38:15 --> 00:38:16 but also,

00:38:16 --> 00:38:17 now why did they do that differently?

00:38:18 --> 00:38:19 Or why don't we do things this way?

00:38:19 --> 00:38:21 Or why do we no longer do that?

00:38:21 --> 00:38:23 Which are all just as important of questions.

00:38:23 --> 00:38:27 And it also presents what I think is the greatest challenge of

00:38:27 --> 00:38:28 ministry in our time,

00:38:29 --> 00:38:33 which is trying to do right things in a wrong time

00:38:34 --> 00:38:37 It's the wrong time to do right things in terms of hope.

00:38:38 --> 00:38:38 You know,

00:38:38 --> 00:38:42 there's a story I always think about where a man is backpacking

00:38:43 --> 00:38:44 through Ireland and

00:38:44 --> 00:38:46 he walks into a tavern in Cork and he asked the bartender,

00:38:47 --> 00:38:47 he says,

00:38:47 --> 00:38:48 can you tell me how to get to Dublin?

00:38:49 --> 00:38:50 And the bartender shakes his head and he said,

00:38:50 --> 00:38:50 man,

00:38:50 --> 00:38:51 if I were going to Dublin,

00:38:51 --> 00:38:52 I wouldn't start from here.

00:38:53 --> 00:38:53 Right.

00:38:54 --> 00:38:55 That is the time that we live in.

00:38:56 --> 00:39:00 being able to paint what a church should look like would be so

00:39:00 --> 00:39:01 much easier if we

00:39:01 --> 00:39:04 didn't live in a place where it was so needed you know in a

00:39:04 --> 00:39:06 time where we are so

00:39:06 --> 00:39:11 incapable of human relationships and where where society has

00:39:11 --> 00:39:12 broken down so much

00:39:12 --> 00:39:15 and where we're so so shaped by this culture we're trying to

00:39:16 --> 00:39:17 push against you know

00:39:18 --> 00:39:21 and that means we fall in two ditches on the one side

00:39:21 --> 00:39:24 We start as close to people where they are to make it

00:39:24 --> 00:39:26 accessible and available,

00:39:26 --> 00:39:27 and that leads to less change.

00:39:28 --> 00:39:28 Or on the other side,

00:39:28 --> 00:39:30 we have very high standards,

00:39:30 --> 00:39:33 but we're too far away from where people begin.

00:39:34 --> 00:39:37 And so nobody joins in and things don't happen.

00:39:37 --> 00:39:38 And to be honest,

00:39:38 --> 00:39:41 those are the questions I wrestle with all the time of trying

00:39:41 --> 00:39:42 to put myself on the

00:39:42 --> 00:39:46 graded scale of that and try to figure out how to keep people moving.

00:39:46 --> 00:39:47 And again, how to create...

00:39:48 --> 00:39:49 That's really good.

00:40:23 --> 00:40:25 You mentioned briefly technology,

00:40:26 --> 00:40:29 and I'd love to jump into that for a minute because I want to

00:40:29 --> 00:40:31 ask you first up the question,

00:40:32 --> 00:40:35 how do you see technology contributing to this moment?

00:40:35 --> 00:40:40 Do you feel like technology is throwing gasoline on the fire of

00:40:40 --> 00:40:41 the house burning?

00:40:41 --> 00:40:43 Is it helping put out the fire in any ways?

00:40:44 --> 00:40:46 When we were texting back and forth this week,

00:40:46 --> 00:40:48 we were just getting into technology,

00:40:48 --> 00:40:51 getting into a little bit of a back and forth on the contrast

00:40:52 --> 00:40:53 between that more

00:40:53 --> 00:40:56 monastic approach of we just need to go and disconnect from

00:40:56 --> 00:40:57 technology and just...

00:40:58 --> 00:41:00 live in our tiny little church communities and not engage with

00:41:00 --> 00:41:02 the broader world or

00:41:02 --> 00:41:02 alternatives to that.

00:41:03 --> 00:41:07 And you said in your text that we may have reached a topic

00:41:07 --> 00:41:07 where you and I,

00:41:08 --> 00:41:08 Justin,

00:41:08 --> 00:41:10 might be diametrically opposed.

00:41:10 --> 00:41:12 And I wasn't actually sure what you meant by that.

00:41:12 --> 00:41:15 So I wanted to find out what did you actually mean by that so I

00:41:15 --> 00:41:16 could get into

00:41:17 --> 00:41:19 where our differences might be or might not be.

00:41:19 --> 00:41:24 So Jesus pointed out that the culture of his time both condemned him for

00:41:26 --> 00:41:26 For,

00:41:26 --> 00:41:27 you know,

00:41:27 --> 00:41:30 attending the parties with tax collectors and condemned

00:41:30 --> 00:41:32 condemned John the Baptist

00:41:32 --> 00:41:33 for being so aesthetic.

00:41:33 --> 00:41:33 Right.

00:41:34 --> 00:41:35 And yet both of them,

00:41:35 --> 00:41:36 in fact,

00:41:36 --> 00:41:39 he holds he upholds John as being like the one true honorary

00:41:39 --> 00:41:40 member of the kingdom

00:41:40 --> 00:41:42 of God before its inauguration.

00:41:42 --> 00:41:42 Right.

00:41:42 --> 00:41:43 He holds him in very high regard.

00:41:44 --> 00:41:45 But the approach is very different.

00:41:45 --> 00:41:46 Yeah.

00:41:46 --> 00:41:49 And I would suggest that there's room for both of those

00:41:49 --> 00:41:51 responses on this issue,

00:41:51 --> 00:41:56 that there is room to thoughtfully pursue faithful engagement

00:41:56 --> 00:41:57 with all possible

00:41:57 --> 00:42:02 ways of communicating to recognize that our time has given us

00:42:02 --> 00:42:03 new ways to do things

00:42:03 --> 00:42:05 that can be leveraged for the kingdom.

00:42:06 --> 00:42:06 However,

00:42:07 --> 00:42:10 I also feel there is an underrepresented,

00:42:10 --> 00:42:14 maybe even a voice crying in the wilderness reality that says,

00:42:14 --> 00:42:16 but can this do what we say it does?

00:42:16 --> 00:42:19 Or does it just push us further down the line?

00:42:20 --> 00:42:23 Like you said, the gasoline on a fire issue.

00:42:23 --> 00:42:24 And so, for example...

00:42:25 --> 00:42:30 The difference between social media and basically every other

00:42:30 --> 00:42:31 form of communication

00:42:31 --> 00:42:32 in throughout history,

00:42:33 --> 00:42:33 I think,

00:42:33 --> 00:42:38 is often lost on us because because public debate and dialogue

00:42:38 --> 00:42:39 has always been a

00:42:39 --> 00:42:39 part of life.

00:42:40 --> 00:42:41 But if you did that in Greece,

00:42:41 --> 00:42:45 you debated one other person with an audience and we pretend

00:42:45 --> 00:42:46 that social media is

00:42:46 --> 00:42:46 the same.

00:42:46 --> 00:42:47 It's not.

00:42:47 --> 00:42:48 It's a debate with the mob.

00:42:49 --> 00:42:49 Right.

00:42:50 --> 00:42:53 It has no rules of engagement that allow for long form

00:42:53 --> 00:42:54 discussion for points to be

00:42:54 --> 00:43:00 made or seated because the audience is so participatory in the same way.

00:43:00 --> 00:43:04 The format itself is so shorthand.

00:43:05 --> 00:43:10 That it makes us move towards banner statements,

00:43:10 --> 00:43:11 summary statements,

00:43:11 --> 00:43:12 like you said,

00:43:12 --> 00:43:13 all in a single tweet.

00:43:13 --> 00:43:14 Here is the solution.

00:43:14 --> 00:43:19 Here is the truth, which is just a misunderstanding of life, honestly.

00:43:19 --> 00:43:19 You know,

00:43:19 --> 00:43:22 when when the world changes because of an idea,

00:43:23 --> 00:43:23 it changes in reality.

00:43:24 --> 00:43:29 In the amount of 1500 pages, not in the amount of 144 characters.

00:43:30 --> 00:43:33 And and then there's the and this is what I was talking about

00:43:33 --> 00:43:34 with limits earlier.

00:43:34 --> 00:43:38 There's the fact that you were talking disembodied with people

00:43:39 --> 00:43:40 in different times,

00:43:40 --> 00:43:40 places,

00:43:40 --> 00:43:41 settings,

00:43:41 --> 00:43:41 scenarios,

00:43:42 --> 00:43:44 and you don't have any of that context information,

00:43:44 --> 00:43:45 let alone share it.

00:43:45 --> 00:43:46 And all of that is new.

00:43:47 --> 00:43:52 And so there may be new advantages, but we are very poor.

00:43:53 --> 00:43:54 And this is this is a human reality.

00:43:54 --> 00:43:57 We are very poor at spotting the disadvantages of new things.

00:43:58 --> 00:44:01 And so what we do is we build the best system we can.

00:44:01 --> 00:44:04 And then the negative consequences are shown later.

00:44:05 --> 00:44:09 But what I'm suggesting is there's a need right now for the church,

00:44:10 --> 00:44:11 at least in some quarters,

00:44:11 --> 00:44:16 to take a more John the Baptist approach and still pursue their neighbors,

00:44:17 --> 00:44:20 but focus on the neighbors they actually interact with.

00:44:20 --> 00:44:21 Because this is another thing.

00:44:21 --> 00:44:25 We fool ourselves and we say that we're doing the work of Jesus

00:44:25 --> 00:44:25 by communicating

00:44:26 --> 00:44:26 with the world,

00:44:27 --> 00:44:29 but it doesn't change our impact with our closest neighbors at all.

00:44:30 --> 00:44:34 And let's move away from technology in the electronic sense and

00:44:34 --> 00:44:34 talk about a

00:44:34 --> 00:44:35 different technology.

00:44:36 --> 00:44:38 Think about the megachurch.

00:44:39 --> 00:44:39 OK,

00:44:39 --> 00:44:41 not that they haven't happened throughout history,

00:44:41 --> 00:44:43 but there's a reason why they haven't been common,

00:44:43 --> 00:44:48 because they involve a certain amount of resources and a certain amount.

00:44:48 --> 00:44:51 You know, building a thousand person sanctuary is a big deal.

00:44:52 --> 00:44:53 But one of the things,

00:44:53 --> 00:44:55 at least in an urban setting like I am,

00:44:55 --> 00:44:59 that megachurches do without wanting to is alienating their

00:44:59 --> 00:45:01 closest physical neighbors.

00:45:01 --> 00:45:05 Because if you were a megachurch, you are a commuter church, period.

00:45:05 --> 00:45:08 You are drawing people from way further into a single neighborhood.

00:45:09 --> 00:45:13 And then those cars park and clog the streets of the closest

00:45:13 --> 00:45:14 neighbors to the building.

00:45:14 --> 00:45:14 Again,

00:45:15 --> 00:45:18 all I'm suggesting to you is that this is new and it goes unnoticed.

00:45:19 --> 00:45:19 Right.

00:45:20 --> 00:45:25 And so I am drawn towards hyper local church ministry realities

00:45:25 --> 00:45:27 that are inherently relational,

00:45:28 --> 00:45:30 not because I don't think we can do good things with those other things,

00:45:30 --> 00:45:32 but because these good things are left undone.

00:45:33 --> 00:45:35 And I'm curious what we could do with them.

00:45:36 --> 00:45:38 And so you want to talk about my ideal.

00:45:38 --> 00:45:41 My ideal is that my whole church would live within the sound of

00:45:41 --> 00:45:42 a church bell,

00:45:42 --> 00:45:45 which I know is a really old idealistic way to put it.

00:45:46 --> 00:45:47 But I've tasted it.

00:45:48 --> 00:45:49 I've tasted the potential here.

00:45:50 --> 00:45:54 My neighborhood is 60 people in a square and a half mile.

00:45:55 --> 00:45:59 And what happens is that means that I run into the people who live in my

00:45:59 --> 00:46:00 neighborhood all the time,

00:46:01 --> 00:46:03 even though I don't know all 60 of them.

00:46:03 --> 00:46:05 The ones I do know live in such a small Petri dish that we see

00:46:06 --> 00:46:06 each other all the

00:46:06 --> 00:46:09 time when that involves my church members.

00:46:10 --> 00:46:14 It means that I meet their neighbors and they say, this is my pastor.

00:46:14 --> 00:46:18 And I point across the park and say, there is our church building, right?

00:46:18 --> 00:46:19 Their neighbors are my neighbors,

00:46:19 --> 00:46:21 are the church building's neighbors,

00:46:21 --> 00:46:21 right?

00:46:21 --> 00:46:25 When those things start to come together as they were just

00:46:25 --> 00:46:26 naturally in a more

00:46:26 --> 00:46:29 limited time before technology got involved,

00:46:30 --> 00:46:33 there is an exponential value that the church is deeply lacking

00:46:33 --> 00:46:34 and constantly

00:46:34 --> 00:46:35 struggling to make up for.

00:46:36 --> 00:46:38 It's the same problem with megachurches.

00:46:38 --> 00:46:41 They're fighting so hard to make community because their size

00:46:42 --> 00:46:42 prohibits it.

00:46:44 --> 00:46:45 But that's a problem they made.

00:46:46 --> 00:46:47 That's a problem they chose.

00:46:49 --> 00:46:49 Right.

00:46:49 --> 00:46:50 And for mega churches.

00:46:50 --> 00:46:54 So I see I see a similarity between mega churches and then

00:46:54 --> 00:46:56 let's call them mega

00:46:56 --> 00:46:58 Christian influencers on social media.

00:46:58 --> 00:46:59 Yeah.

00:46:59 --> 00:47:04 Where you build this machine and it needs money to work.

00:47:05 --> 00:47:06 It needs funding to work.

00:47:07 --> 00:47:10 And there can be a subtle shift in the mind where it goes.

00:47:10 --> 00:47:11 I have all these people.

00:47:11 --> 00:47:12 I need to keep them happy.

00:47:12 --> 00:47:13 Right.

00:47:13 --> 00:47:14 I can't challenge them too much.

00:47:15 --> 00:47:16 I can't convict them too much.

00:47:17 --> 00:47:20 I need to just keep giving them what they want and not

00:47:20 --> 00:47:22 challenge them because if I do,

00:47:23 --> 00:47:25 I'm going to lose my funding and then I got to fire people on

00:47:25 --> 00:47:26 my staff and I can't

00:47:26 --> 00:47:27 do the initiatives I want to do.

00:47:27 --> 00:47:29 So I know that's a cynical way of looking at it,

00:47:29 --> 00:47:32 but I've seen that play out on the social media side.

00:47:32 --> 00:47:35 I don't think I would be in disagreement with so much of what

00:47:35 --> 00:47:35 you're saying.

00:47:35 --> 00:47:35 The

00:47:37 --> 00:47:42 Living within earshot of the church bell, I think, is a beautiful ideal.

00:47:42 --> 00:47:43 On social media,

00:47:43 --> 00:47:46 what I've seen with Christians that form these massive

00:47:46 --> 00:47:48 influencer followings is I

00:47:48 --> 00:47:52 hardly ever see them challenge their own followers.

00:47:52 --> 00:47:52 Very often,

00:47:53 --> 00:47:54 it's critiquing the other,

00:47:54 --> 00:47:55 it's demonizing the other,

00:47:56 --> 00:47:59 and it's really just feeding people the outrage that they already want.

00:48:00 --> 00:48:03 And I think that can be that can be a dangerous thing.

00:48:04 --> 00:48:04 I think that,

00:48:04 --> 00:48:05 you know,

00:48:05 --> 00:48:05 for me personally,

00:48:06 --> 00:48:08 the way that this is kind of played out is,

00:48:08 --> 00:48:09 you know,

00:48:09 --> 00:48:12 I'm in a season where I'm not pastoring at a local church,

00:48:12 --> 00:48:15 but I very deeply have a desire for discipleship.

00:48:15 --> 00:48:18 And so Brian and I have been doing that through this podcast

00:48:18 --> 00:48:19 and we don't have like

00:48:19 --> 00:48:20 a massive audience.

00:48:20 --> 00:48:21 But there's an aspect of,

00:48:22 --> 00:48:22 you know,

00:48:22 --> 00:48:26 there's no community in just getting on these mics and putting

00:48:26 --> 00:48:27 a message in a

00:48:27 --> 00:48:29 bottle and throwing it out for whoever to listen to.

00:48:29 --> 00:48:29 So for me,

00:48:30 --> 00:48:30 I was like,

00:48:30 --> 00:48:33 I need some sort of community based around the ministry I'm doing.

00:48:33 --> 00:48:38 So I started a little Bible study that was an invitation to the

00:48:38 --> 00:48:39 listeners of this show,

00:48:39 --> 00:48:39 where it was like,

00:48:39 --> 00:48:40 hey,

00:48:40 --> 00:48:41 if you're a young,

00:48:41 --> 00:48:43 college-age person who feels like you don't have a lot of

00:48:43 --> 00:48:44 Christian community right now,

00:48:45 --> 00:48:46 and you're in the process of,

00:48:46 --> 00:48:46 you know,

00:48:46 --> 00:48:48 in this crazy COVID season,

00:48:48 --> 00:48:49 trying to find more local community—

00:48:50 --> 00:48:51 in the in-between time,

00:48:51 --> 00:48:54 let's get together on Zoom and let's just talk and let's get to

00:48:54 --> 00:48:55 know one another.

00:48:55 --> 00:48:57 And it's turned into this beautiful thing where there's now

00:48:57 --> 00:48:58 listeners of this show

00:48:59 --> 00:49:01 who are messaging me throughout the week and saying,

00:49:01 --> 00:49:01 hey,

00:49:01 --> 00:49:03 can I pick your brain about this?

00:49:03 --> 00:49:04 Or hey, can you pray for me about this?

00:49:04 --> 00:49:08 And I've seen that to be a really good thing in the meantime,

00:49:08 --> 00:49:12 as I'm waiting for myself a season where more local ministry is

00:49:13 --> 00:49:14 possible and doable.

00:49:14 --> 00:49:16 So I think there's a lot of value of what you had to say.

00:49:16 --> 00:49:19 Yeah, well, and I would suggest, too, you know, a lot of...

00:49:21 --> 00:49:24 A lot of the things that you even mentioned right there,

00:49:24 --> 00:49:27 I would put in the category of supplemental.

00:49:27 --> 00:49:28 Yes.

00:49:28 --> 00:49:32 And the need for supplements in our time are really significant.

00:49:32 --> 00:49:33 You know,

00:49:33 --> 00:49:36 I've made a habit the last few years of attending the Revoice Conference,

00:49:37 --> 00:49:41 which is a conference that deals with issues of sexuality in a

00:49:41 --> 00:49:43 way that makes room

00:49:43 --> 00:49:48 for what we call side B Christians who neither affirm or

00:49:50 --> 00:49:53 Nor do they take the ex-gay group approach.

00:49:54 --> 00:49:57 They see themselves as being same-sex attracted,

00:49:57 --> 00:50:00 as the Bible's teaching on these things,

00:50:00 --> 00:50:04 providing either lifelong celibacy or differing orientation

00:50:04 --> 00:50:05 marriage as the only options.

00:50:06 --> 00:50:09 But they're not seeking transformation of these things or

00:50:09 --> 00:50:11 heterosexuality as a mark

00:50:11 --> 00:50:12 of faithfulness or these types of things.

00:50:13 --> 00:50:15 And one of the things that's really interesting about that

00:50:15 --> 00:50:16 group is there's such a

00:50:16 --> 00:50:19 minority position that for a lot of people,

00:50:19 --> 00:50:23 that one meeting that is national is a lifeline for them and

00:50:23 --> 00:50:24 their communities that

00:50:24 --> 00:50:29 they maintain of support because they are not vocal about these

00:50:29 --> 00:50:29 things in their own

00:50:29 --> 00:50:32 churches and families are entirely online,

00:50:33 --> 00:50:33 you know.

00:50:34 --> 00:50:35 If you look at Japan's shut-in problem,

00:50:35 --> 00:50:38 Japan is a nation full of people who never leave their

00:50:38 --> 00:50:40 apartments and only exist online.

00:50:40 --> 00:50:44 How are you going to meet and save those people as Christians?

00:50:45 --> 00:50:46 You're going to have to meet them where they are,

00:50:46 --> 00:50:48 even if it's the Church of World of Warcraft,

00:50:48 --> 00:50:48 right?

00:50:48 --> 00:50:50 Those are always necessary.

00:50:50 --> 00:50:51 And in the same way...

00:50:53 --> 00:50:57 Finding a place to talk about issues or an online community for discussion,

00:50:57 --> 00:50:59 those are never going to be losses,

00:50:59 --> 00:51:02 except when they keep us from closer wins.

00:51:02 --> 00:51:03 And again,

00:51:03 --> 00:51:05 if we want to talk about podcast preaching,

00:51:05 --> 00:51:07 I think we get a good illustration.

00:51:07 --> 00:51:10 There's plenty of great preaching and we should make ourselves

00:51:10 --> 00:51:11 available to it.

00:51:11 --> 00:51:16 But if it leaves somebody justified and not attending a local church or

00:51:16 --> 00:51:19 disqualifies the local churches because the preaching is not as good,

00:51:19 --> 00:51:21 then it is a loss and not a win.

00:51:22 --> 00:51:23 Fully agree with that.

00:51:24 --> 00:51:28 And so I guess what I'm trying to say is my tendency more is to

00:51:28 --> 00:51:30 try and avoid those

00:51:30 --> 00:51:31 losses entirely.

00:51:32 --> 00:51:32 And again,

00:51:32 --> 00:51:34 not because the supplements aren't needed,

00:51:34 --> 00:51:38 but because the robust alternative,

00:51:38 --> 00:51:40 the unplugged churches,

00:51:40 --> 00:51:42 the new monasticism,

00:51:42 --> 00:51:44 which I mean in a very specific way and not the way it's

00:51:45 --> 00:51:45 traditionally meant.

00:51:46 --> 00:51:48 That is an undertapped resource right now.

00:51:49 --> 00:51:52 And I think the things the church is trying to find right now

00:51:52 --> 00:51:53 are all going to be

00:51:53 --> 00:51:55 cultivated in those laboratories.

00:51:56 --> 00:51:57 That's good.

00:51:57 --> 00:51:59 I think everything you're saying is so much wisdom.

00:51:59 --> 00:52:00 That's why,

00:52:00 --> 00:52:00 you know,

00:52:00 --> 00:52:03 when I did start my midweek Bible study,

00:52:03 --> 00:52:04 which morphed into...

00:52:05 --> 00:52:05 sort of by,

00:52:05 --> 00:52:06 you know,

00:52:06 --> 00:52:10 our twice a month theology class that's sort of a midweek thing.

00:52:10 --> 00:52:10 I told people,

00:52:10 --> 00:52:11 hey,

00:52:11 --> 00:52:14 I don't want you coming to this if it's going to replace church.

00:52:15 --> 00:52:17 Like you should still be going to a local church.

00:52:18 --> 00:52:19 This is more of a supplemental,

00:52:20 --> 00:52:24 if you're having a hard time finding extra community with other Christians,

00:52:24 --> 00:52:24 talking,

00:52:24 --> 00:52:25 discussing,

00:52:26 --> 00:52:28 learning with other Christians in some local context,

00:52:28 --> 00:52:30 this is a way to do that online.

00:52:30 --> 00:52:31 But

00:52:31 --> 00:52:35 I want to touch on one other thing that I think might play into

00:52:35 --> 00:52:36 our idea of maybe

00:52:36 --> 00:52:39 us having opposing opinions or different opinions.

00:52:39 --> 00:52:42 And I want to touch back on what you said about Jesus and John

00:52:42 --> 00:52:42 the Baptist,

00:52:43 --> 00:52:44 because I don't know if this is what you were saying,

00:52:44 --> 00:52:46 but this is where my mind went.

00:52:46 --> 00:52:47 So I want to get clarity.

00:53:02 --> 00:53:04 So when it comes to approaches on social media,

00:53:04 --> 00:53:06 I think I do see two different approaches at times.

00:53:07 --> 00:53:08 I see the Jesus approach,

00:53:09 --> 00:53:13 which is what I would describe as spending time with sinners,

00:53:13 --> 00:53:15 being gentle with sinners,

00:53:16 --> 00:53:18 with people who don't know the Lord or people who are doubting

00:53:18 --> 00:53:20 or struggling or backsliding,

00:53:20 --> 00:53:24 having a tone of gentleness where you're willing to wrestle

00:53:24 --> 00:53:25 through the deep issues

00:53:25 --> 00:53:25 with them,

00:53:26 --> 00:53:28 where you're willing to not just leave a comment where it's like,

00:53:28 --> 00:53:28 you're wrong.

00:53:29 --> 00:53:30 Here's this verse that says that you're wrong,

00:53:31 --> 00:53:34 but instead to point them to the fact that they're wrong,

00:53:34 --> 00:53:35 but in a much more gentle,

00:53:35 --> 00:53:36 shepherding way,

00:53:37 --> 00:53:39 Jesus spending time with tax collectors and prostitutes,

00:53:39 --> 00:53:40 that's the mentality.

00:53:40 --> 00:53:42 So I see people operating in that way.

00:53:42 --> 00:53:44 That's the stance I tend to take.

00:53:44 --> 00:53:46 That's actually the class that I taught at the CGN conference

00:53:46 --> 00:53:47 of basically how to

00:53:47 --> 00:53:51 be on social media as a pastor and have a shepherding heart and

00:53:51 --> 00:53:52 not be a jerk.

00:53:53 --> 00:53:56 But I do see people taking more of a John the Baptist stance

00:53:56 --> 00:53:57 where it's like...

00:53:58 --> 00:54:02 I'm going to boldly proclaim that it is wrong for King Herod to

00:54:02 --> 00:54:03 be doing what he's doing.

00:54:04 --> 00:54:08 And I don't care if I get thrown in social media jail for it or

00:54:08 --> 00:54:08 real jail,

00:54:08 --> 00:54:09 you know.

00:54:09 --> 00:54:12 And I see a lot more people attracted to that way.

00:54:13 --> 00:54:17 You get a lot more likes taking those bold stances.

00:54:18 --> 00:54:20 But are you saying that there's place for both?

00:54:20 --> 00:54:23 And that maybe people who are wired like me should have a

00:54:23 --> 00:54:24 little bit more grace for

00:54:24 --> 00:54:26 people who are wired more like John the Baptist and realize

00:54:26 --> 00:54:27 that maybe we need both?

00:54:29 --> 00:54:30 Not necessarily.

00:54:30 --> 00:54:33 At least that's not where I was headed.

00:54:33 --> 00:54:37 What I was trying to contrast was not so much the disposition

00:54:37 --> 00:54:38 or the approach of

00:54:38 --> 00:54:40 Jesus and John the Baptist,

00:54:40 --> 00:54:43 but the participation versus non-participation.

00:54:45 --> 00:54:46 John was in the wilderness,

00:54:47 --> 00:54:50 not engaging with the culture of his time,

00:54:50 --> 00:54:53 whereas Jesus was in the midst.

00:54:53 --> 00:54:54 And so,

00:54:54 --> 00:54:55 you know,

00:54:55 --> 00:54:57 if we could follow John and Jesus on Twitter,

00:54:57 --> 00:54:59 would their personalities come through?

00:54:59 --> 00:55:00 Absolutely.

00:55:01 --> 00:55:02 But more,

00:55:03 --> 00:55:06 my point is that there's a value in non-participation as long

00:55:07 --> 00:55:09 as it's not just abstinence.

00:55:10 --> 00:55:13 It has to be a no for a greater yes, right?

00:55:13 --> 00:55:16 And for me, that means that it's a no.

00:55:16 --> 00:55:18 It means I'm not on social media.

00:55:19 --> 00:55:21 It means that I toy with ideas of getting rid of our church

00:55:21 --> 00:55:23 website and telling our congregation,

00:55:23 --> 00:55:27 the first place our church is going to be met by our neighbors

00:55:27 --> 00:55:28 is face-to-face with you.

00:55:28 --> 00:55:32 So if they don't know you, they won't know our church, right?

00:55:32 --> 00:55:36 And then the locality, you know, again, it's...

00:55:38 --> 00:55:41 It's those types of places where it's not that I don't believe

00:55:41 --> 00:55:42 good can be done in

00:55:42 --> 00:55:42 those places,

00:55:42 --> 00:55:46 but I wonder if more good can be done by by the places that

00:55:46 --> 00:55:47 we're either distracted

00:55:47 --> 00:55:50 or limited from because because of those things,

00:55:50 --> 00:55:51 you know,

00:55:51 --> 00:55:52 and again,

00:55:52 --> 00:55:55 it stems from I'm trying to think of how.

00:55:56 --> 00:55:58 It stems from the zeitgeist of our times.

00:55:58 --> 00:55:58 Right.

00:55:58 --> 00:56:01 It stems from the fact that whatever you want Twitter to be,

00:56:01 --> 00:56:02 that's not what it is.

00:56:02 --> 00:56:06 Twitter has its own thing and it moves like a rushing river at

00:56:06 --> 00:56:07 a certain course.

00:56:07 --> 00:56:10 And so even trying to do things that are against the grain of that,

00:56:11 --> 00:56:13 get pulled in the direction of it and become part of it.

00:56:13 --> 00:56:14 You know, it's that.

00:56:15 --> 00:56:19 It's the classic Black Mirror episode where the guy works his

00:56:19 --> 00:56:20 way to get on

00:56:20 --> 00:56:22 television and condemn the whole system.

00:56:23 --> 00:56:27 And it's so received that they hire him and he becomes a pundit

00:56:27 --> 00:56:28 who condemns the

00:56:28 --> 00:56:29 whole system every right.

00:56:29 --> 00:56:31 And he just becomes a part of the thing that he supposedly hates.

00:56:32 --> 00:56:36 That is a particular problem with technology.

00:56:37 --> 00:56:41 that technology because it's so powerful and so useful conforms

00:56:41 --> 00:56:43 the user and so

00:56:43 --> 00:56:47 again that's not technology is bad and it's not denying the

00:56:47 --> 00:56:49 supplemental but but i

00:56:49 --> 00:56:52 think there is i'm just surprised it hasn't happened yet i'm

00:56:52 --> 00:56:53 surprised there hasn't

00:56:53 --> 00:56:55 been an unplugged church movement i'm surprised there haven't

00:56:55 --> 00:56:56 been churches that

00:56:56 --> 00:57:00 have not demanded that people gotten rid of their iphones but

00:57:00 --> 00:57:01 collectively moved

00:57:01 --> 00:57:02 away from that you know

00:57:03 --> 00:57:06 Because I think it's a missing component of our time.

00:57:06 --> 00:57:08 And there are things that will be learned there,

00:57:09 --> 00:57:10 laboratory,

00:57:10 --> 00:57:11 experimentally there,

00:57:12 --> 00:57:13 that will benefit the whole church.

00:57:13 --> 00:57:15 But they cannot be learned without that.

00:57:16 --> 00:57:19 We're trying to go, what does it look like to be a local church again?

00:57:19 --> 00:57:21 We've been asking that question for a decade.

00:57:21 --> 00:57:24 We cannot answer that question until we stop being a global church.

00:57:24 --> 00:57:25 We can't.

00:57:26 --> 00:57:28 it's really good first of all i'd like to say that that was the smoothest

00:57:28 --> 00:57:31 transition i've ever seen from john the baptist to black mirror

00:57:31 --> 00:57:34 so very well done i

00:57:34 --> 00:57:37 really appreciate everything you're bringing up i i find myself

00:57:37 --> 00:57:38 personally very

00:57:38 --> 00:57:42 drawn to that kind of direction of how local can a church

00:57:42 --> 00:57:44 possibly be right can you

00:57:44 --> 00:57:47 have a thriving community that is a church that all lives

00:57:47 --> 00:57:48 within one mile of each

00:57:48 --> 00:57:49 other like

00:57:49 --> 00:57:53 I find all of those ideas really exciting and really invigorating.

00:57:54 --> 00:57:59 I kind of contrast them with when the pandemic first hit and

00:57:59 --> 00:58:00 when everything was

00:58:00 --> 00:58:05 shutting down and churches were just putting services online.

00:58:06 --> 00:58:09 One of the things that I think we all kind of bristled at was

00:58:09 --> 00:58:10 the idea of...

00:58:11 --> 00:58:14 The idea that you put a few songs and worship online does not

00:58:14 --> 00:58:15 mean that you've done church.

00:58:15 --> 00:58:19 It started to become clear that church is so much more than did

00:58:19 --> 00:58:21 this product go out?

00:58:21 --> 00:58:25 Did people sit down and hear music played to them and hear

00:58:25 --> 00:58:27 teaching come to them?

00:58:27 --> 00:58:31 To kind of go all the way back to the burning house analogy,

00:58:31 --> 00:58:34 do you think this kind of hyper-relational,

00:58:34 --> 00:58:40 hyper-local pulling away from some of the mainstream influences

00:58:40 --> 00:58:40 of culture,

00:58:41 --> 00:58:46 do you think part of it is not even the house is burning and we

00:58:46 --> 00:58:47 can rebuild it

00:58:47 --> 00:58:50 differently as much as it's maybe we were living in the wrong

00:58:50 --> 00:58:51 house all along the

00:58:51 --> 00:58:55 right house is actually way behind us we don't need to get this

00:58:55 --> 00:58:56 one put back

00:58:56 --> 00:58:59 together we need to actually go find what the right one was

00:58:59 --> 00:59:00 Yeah,

00:59:00 --> 00:59:02 and I would suggest even more than that,

00:59:02 --> 00:59:07 that sometimes the only way we can discover that is that,

00:59:07 --> 00:59:07 you know,

00:59:07 --> 00:59:09 God has to faithfully demolish the old house.

00:59:10 --> 00:59:11 He has to take it from us.

00:59:11 --> 00:59:11 And,

00:59:12 --> 00:59:12 you know,

00:59:12 --> 00:59:15 all the things that you just mentioned about the consumerism of

00:59:15 --> 00:59:16 Christianity and

00:59:16 --> 00:59:17 these types of things,

00:59:17 --> 00:59:19 we've been talking about those for 20,

00:59:19 --> 00:59:19 30 years.

00:59:21 --> 00:59:25 But we've been unable to make any changes because we're reluctant.

00:59:25 --> 00:59:29 We're like the restaurant owners in an episode of Kitchen

00:59:29 --> 00:59:30 Nightmares with Gordon

00:59:30 --> 00:59:34 Ramsay who have three old biddies who love the old menu and are

00:59:34 --> 00:59:35 dying but are

00:59:35 --> 00:59:38 afraid to change the menu and lose the customers they have,

00:59:38 --> 00:59:39 right?

00:59:39 --> 00:59:39 Mm-hmm.

00:59:39 --> 00:59:44 And and so, you know, so I think there are some realities there.

00:59:44 --> 00:59:48 And that's exactly definitely what I mean by this image is we

00:59:48 --> 00:59:49 should be slow to

00:59:49 --> 00:59:54 rebuild because it's a time to ask and assess the building and say,

00:59:55 --> 00:59:56 should we build it the same way?

00:59:57 --> 00:59:59 You know, it's a time to imagine.

00:59:59 --> 01:00:02 And I think a lot of a lot of churches have recognized this

01:00:02 --> 01:00:04 year that things that

01:00:04 --> 01:00:05 were not really working,

01:00:06 --> 01:00:08 are no longer assumed to be normative.

01:00:09 --> 01:00:10 And so they don't have to come back.

01:00:11 --> 01:00:14 You have a place to start new things and not have to do the

01:00:14 --> 01:00:16 hard work of convincing

01:00:16 --> 01:00:17 people that this is no good,

01:00:18 --> 01:00:18 you know,

01:00:18 --> 01:00:20 because it's gone and we can we can start fresh.

01:00:21 --> 01:00:22 But the question is,

01:00:22 --> 01:00:26 are we only going to do that in the context of our view of

01:00:26 --> 01:00:27 church again?

01:00:27 --> 01:00:30 Meaning this ministry doesn't fulfill our needs.

01:00:30 --> 01:00:33 That ministry, you know, needs this adjustment.

01:00:33 --> 01:00:36 Or are we going to do the big back to the drawing board thing

01:00:36 --> 01:00:37 that is uniquely

01:00:37 --> 01:00:40 available to times where nothing exists,

01:00:41 --> 01:00:42 to frontier work,

01:00:42 --> 01:00:43 to innovation,

01:00:43 --> 01:00:44 to seasons of planting?

01:00:44 --> 01:00:45 Hmm.

01:00:45 --> 01:00:46 It's good.

01:00:46 --> 01:00:47 It's really good.

01:00:48 --> 01:00:50 This whole conversation has been really good.

01:00:50 --> 01:00:56 I think I think that nothing bad can come from trying to call

01:00:56 --> 01:00:57 people back to

01:00:57 --> 01:01:01 simplicity and back to just I think I think all of us in our

01:01:01 --> 01:01:02 lives need to

01:01:03 --> 01:01:06 constantly be reevaluating and asking ourselves,

01:01:06 --> 01:01:08 what does the gospel actually mean?

01:01:09 --> 01:01:11 Do I actually understand the gospel?

01:01:11 --> 01:01:12 I know for me growing up,

01:01:13 --> 01:01:16 one of the most massive paradigm shifts that happened in my own

01:01:16 --> 01:01:18 faith was moving

01:01:19 --> 01:01:21 out of this headspace that said,

01:01:21 --> 01:01:23 God died for my sins.

01:01:24 --> 01:01:25 And if I believe in him, I'll go to heaven.

01:01:25 --> 01:01:29 And life here on earth now is really just about being good,

01:01:29 --> 01:01:31 following the rules, not messing up.

01:01:31 --> 01:01:32 And that's it.

01:01:33 --> 01:01:35 You know, read your Bible and pray every day to keep God happy with you.

01:01:36 --> 01:01:38 And like, no one really taught me that.

01:01:39 --> 01:01:40 My parents didn't teach me that.

01:01:40 --> 01:01:41 They didn't hand that down to me,

01:01:41 --> 01:01:41 but it,

01:01:42 --> 01:01:42 it just,

01:01:42 --> 01:01:42 I,

01:01:42 --> 01:01:45 it was just sort of assimilated from the culture.

01:01:45 --> 01:01:46 It's not what was said.

01:01:46 --> 01:01:47 It was what was left unsaid.

01:01:48 --> 01:01:51 And so one of the biggest paradigm shifts for me was realizing

01:01:51 --> 01:01:52 like Christianity is

01:01:52 --> 01:01:53 about a kingdom.

01:01:53 --> 01:01:57 Jesus is King to be a Christian is to look at Jesus as Lord and

01:01:58 --> 01:01:58 You know,

01:01:58 --> 01:02:00 the Sermon on the Mount isn't just a bunch of,

01:02:01 --> 01:02:01 you know,

01:02:01 --> 01:02:05 religious sayings of Jesus to help you live a better life and

01:02:05 --> 01:02:06 be a better you.

01:02:06 --> 01:02:09 It's literally his kingdom manifesto teaching you how to be a

01:02:10 --> 01:02:11 part of the new humanity.

01:02:11 --> 01:02:15 And we're a part of this great grand metanarrative of scripture,

01:02:15 --> 01:02:17 which is about God saving the world.

01:02:18 --> 01:02:19 And he's called us to be a part of it.

01:02:19 --> 01:02:22 He wants us to participate in the things that he's doing.

01:02:22 --> 01:02:22 So, you know,

01:02:23 --> 01:02:26 It's like for most Christians growing up that that stuff takes

01:02:26 --> 01:02:27 time for people to

01:02:27 --> 01:02:28 fully realize.

01:02:28 --> 01:02:30 And maybe it's like we're not doing a better job preaching.

01:02:31 --> 01:02:31 I don't know.

01:02:31 --> 01:02:32 But for me,

01:02:32 --> 01:02:36 I know even as a pastor son with great parents and great teachers,

01:02:36 --> 01:02:39 it took me time to fully wrap my head around it.

01:02:39 --> 01:02:41 And now I feel like I'm still wrapping my head around it.

01:02:41 --> 01:02:42 So yeah.

01:02:43 --> 01:02:45 Yeah, and there's a sense where that should be expected, right?

01:02:45 --> 01:02:47 Because that's what discipleship is.

01:02:48 --> 01:02:50 It's a lifelong reality of learning.

01:02:50 --> 01:02:52 You know, it's not about arrival.

01:03:10 --> 01:03:12 You touched on something really significant,

01:03:12 --> 01:03:15 which is hard for us as Calvary Chapel folk to recognize,

01:03:15 --> 01:03:19 which is that it's not it's not about what's said.

01:03:19 --> 01:03:22 And I would suggest I would even push back a little bit and say

01:03:22 --> 01:03:22 it's not about the

01:03:22 --> 01:03:24 things that were left unsaid.

01:03:25 --> 01:03:27 It's about the the habitus.

01:03:28 --> 01:03:31 It's about the way we go about living that adds to the things

01:03:31 --> 01:03:31 that are said,

01:03:32 --> 01:03:36 emphasis and deemphasizes other things and in models.

01:03:38 --> 01:03:38 models a truth.

01:03:38 --> 01:03:39 You know,

01:03:39 --> 01:03:42 when Ephesians says that we are to speak the truth in love to

01:03:42 --> 01:03:42 one another,

01:03:42 --> 01:03:45 the word for speak isn't there.

01:03:45 --> 01:03:49 He turns truth into a verb and he says, rather, truthing in love.

01:03:50 --> 01:03:53 And many commentators believe that Paul is trying to emphasize

01:03:53 --> 01:03:54 that the truth is

01:03:54 --> 01:03:55 not just something to be stated,

01:03:55 --> 01:03:56 but to be lived.

01:03:57 --> 01:03:59 And that's what makes the body grow.

01:03:59 --> 01:04:01 And so the way that we live,

01:04:01 --> 01:04:01 you know,

01:04:02 --> 01:04:06 impacts the community that we make and the community that we

01:04:06 --> 01:04:08 make informs the

01:04:08 --> 01:04:10 meaning of the words we share,

01:04:10 --> 01:04:13 whether they become symbolic or metaphorical,

01:04:13 --> 01:04:14 whether they become hypocritical,

01:04:15 --> 01:04:18 whether they become defining and determined and imbalanced.

01:04:18 --> 01:04:21 All of that is not shaped by the words that are said,

01:04:21 --> 01:04:24 but by the plausibility structure created by the culture that

01:04:25 --> 01:04:26 holds those truths,

01:04:26 --> 01:04:26 you know.

01:04:27 --> 01:04:28 I mean, just take that idea.

01:04:28 --> 01:04:30 We hold these truths to be self-evident, right?

01:04:31 --> 01:04:32 That means it's not about the words.

01:04:33 --> 01:04:35 The words are only an expression of something bigger,

01:04:35 --> 01:04:38 something so self-evident it doesn't need to be said.

01:04:38 --> 01:04:38 It's cultural.

01:04:39 --> 01:04:42 There's always that interplay between truth and incarnation.

01:04:43 --> 01:04:47 There's always that interplay between culture and ideas.

01:04:48 --> 01:04:48 You know,

01:04:48 --> 01:04:50 and and again,

01:04:50 --> 01:04:52 I would suggest that all the things that you're talking about,

01:04:52 --> 01:04:52 you know,

01:04:52 --> 01:04:56 we didn't just need new authors to remind us of those things.

01:04:56 --> 01:04:59 Almost every one of those are built on old authors that we had

01:04:59 --> 01:05:01 forgotten or neglected.

01:05:01 --> 01:05:01 You know,

01:05:01 --> 01:05:02 I mean,

01:05:02 --> 01:05:06 Kuyper's stuff right now is blowing up because of its value of

01:05:06 --> 01:05:07 engaging with culture.

01:05:07 --> 01:05:10 But that was written almost 200 years ago now, you know.

01:05:11 --> 01:05:13 Yeah, I fully agree.

01:05:13 --> 01:05:16 I think that one place I'd want to go,

01:05:17 --> 01:05:19 just as we're sort of wrapping up this interview,

01:05:19 --> 01:05:23 I think a direction I'd want to go is addressing the question of,

01:05:23 --> 01:05:23 you know,

01:05:23 --> 01:05:24 we've got this burning house.

01:05:24 --> 01:05:28 What are ways that we can work on putting out the fire?

01:05:29 --> 01:05:30 And even should we,

01:05:30 --> 01:05:32 because you talked about just letting the fire burn,

01:05:32 --> 01:05:36 but are there elements of it that we as pastors and leaders

01:05:36 --> 01:05:38 should be trying to extinguish?

01:05:38 --> 01:05:42 Like, this is a quote that I'll read from a guy named Jay Adams.

01:05:42 --> 01:05:43 This is from 1972, a Christian living in the home.

01:05:43 --> 01:05:44 He says,

01:05:58 --> 01:05:58 He says,

01:06:22 --> 01:06:24 There is no excuse for this sad condition,

01:06:24 --> 01:06:26 for the Bible does not allow for loose ends.

01:06:26 --> 01:06:28 God wants no loose ends.

01:06:28 --> 01:06:30 Would you agree with him there, or do you have any thoughts on that?

01:06:30 --> 01:06:30 Well,

01:06:30 --> 01:06:31 first,

01:06:31 --> 01:06:35 I think it's a little bit ironic because Jay Adams is known for

01:06:35 --> 01:06:37 being a dogmatic

01:06:37 --> 01:06:37 pit bull,

01:06:37 --> 01:06:39 especially on the issues of biblical counseling.

01:06:39 --> 01:06:41 I know nothing about him.

01:06:41 --> 01:06:44 I just found this quote and was like, that's a good quote.

01:06:44 --> 01:06:45 That's the danger of quotes.

01:06:45 --> 01:06:46 I know nothing about this man.

01:06:47 --> 01:06:50 He famously told a bunch of Christian psychologists that I'd

01:06:50 --> 01:06:52 love to call you all heretics,

01:06:52 --> 01:06:53 but the creeds don't talk about counseling,

01:06:53 --> 01:06:54 so I can't.

01:06:55 --> 01:06:56 But but nonetheless,

01:06:56 --> 01:07:00 I think I think there's a true and a false part to what what

01:07:00 --> 01:07:01 Jay Adams is saying here.

01:07:01 --> 01:07:03 The true side is that,

01:07:03 --> 01:07:03 you know,

01:07:03 --> 01:07:06 we've been talking this whole time about a deeper discipleship.

01:07:07 --> 01:07:08 And that's what he's talking about.

01:07:08 --> 01:07:11 He's talking about resources deep enough to actually live out.

01:07:12 --> 01:07:13 live out the truth.

01:07:13 --> 01:07:16 The false side is sometimes,

01:07:16 --> 01:07:17 and Adams,

01:07:17 --> 01:07:17 I think,

01:07:17 --> 01:07:18 was culpable for this,

01:07:19 --> 01:07:23 sometimes that reduces down to an idealism that assumes a rival again,

01:07:24 --> 01:07:27 that thinks all loose ends can be tied up and so identifies

01:07:27 --> 01:07:28 them as being tied up

01:07:29 --> 01:07:32 when really that's just an excuse not to engage in the darker

01:07:32 --> 01:07:33 or more difficult areas.

01:07:34 --> 01:07:34 You know,

01:07:35 --> 01:07:38 they they take the ambiguities that don't fit in their clear

01:07:38 --> 01:07:39 categories and they

01:07:39 --> 01:07:42 disparage them or write them off for these types of things.

01:07:42 --> 01:07:44 They don't include them because they're interested in having no

01:07:44 --> 01:07:45 loose ends.

01:07:45 --> 01:07:46 So I think that is a danger.

01:07:47 --> 01:07:50 One of the things that I've tried to do this year and tried is

01:07:50 --> 01:07:51 a good word because

01:07:51 --> 01:07:53 I don't know what fruit this will bear.

01:07:53 --> 01:07:56 And some of these things sometimes seem to work and other times didn't.

01:07:56 --> 01:07:59 But I've really focused the last few years on.

01:08:00 --> 01:08:04 biblical teaching that is foundational and is more light than heat.

01:08:05 --> 01:08:07 And so I did seven weeks on sexuality,

01:08:08 --> 01:08:12 and we did not talk about the do's and don'ts of sexuality,

01:08:12 --> 01:08:12 but the why.

01:08:13 --> 01:08:18 I did seven weeks on politics, and I just said, what is government?

01:08:19 --> 01:08:21 And how does it fit into God's plans?

01:08:21 --> 01:08:22 Right.

01:08:22 --> 01:08:23 Those were the questions I asked.

01:08:23 --> 01:08:26 I didn't tell people who to vote for or even talk about

01:08:26 --> 01:08:27 particular issues.

01:08:27 --> 01:08:28 I talked about two things.

01:08:29 --> 01:08:31 What is politics, according to the Bible?

01:08:31 --> 01:08:34 And three principles for engaging in politics,

01:08:34 --> 01:08:35 which was basically justice,

01:08:35 --> 01:08:36 wisdom and love.

01:08:36 --> 01:08:39 Can I give some pushback on that?

01:08:39 --> 01:08:43 Not necessarily from me, but I'm sort of playing devil's advocate.

01:08:43 --> 01:08:47 So I think what I'm hearing is you saying,

01:08:47 --> 01:08:49 instead of being this bulldog,

01:08:49 --> 01:08:50 you know,

01:08:50 --> 01:08:52 having a bully pulpit and just railing on,

01:08:52 --> 01:08:53 you know,

01:08:53 --> 01:08:55 whatever the other side is,

01:08:55 --> 01:08:57 apart from your ideological thoughts and theology,

01:08:58 --> 01:09:02 just teach what is true and trust that the Holy Spirit is going

01:09:02 --> 01:09:03 to actually shape

01:09:03 --> 01:09:04 people through it.

01:09:04 --> 01:09:04 And I think...

01:09:06 --> 01:09:08 I mean something different than that,

01:09:08 --> 01:09:13 because because I think we need to exemplify and specify our

01:09:13 --> 01:09:15 application or we're failing.

01:09:16 --> 01:09:19 I'm not like John who believes that application is the spirit's job.

01:09:20 --> 01:09:20 What I do believe,

01:09:21 --> 01:09:21 though,

01:09:21 --> 01:09:25 is that we cannot make application until the foundation is in place.

01:09:26 --> 01:09:26 In other words,

01:09:27 --> 01:09:30 before we can run the software of what Christianity expects,

01:09:31 --> 01:09:34 we need to create the hardware of a Christian worldview.

01:09:34 --> 01:09:38 And that means that means starting in a different place and in

01:09:38 --> 01:09:39 one that we cannot rush.

01:09:39 --> 01:09:40 And so so,

01:09:41 --> 01:09:41 again,

01:09:41 --> 01:09:44 I talk about issues of sexuality every time they come up in scriptures,

01:09:44 --> 01:09:45 you know,

01:09:45 --> 01:09:46 and you just teach the New Testament.

01:09:47 --> 01:09:50 You got Romans, you got first Corinthians, you got Ephesians.

01:09:50 --> 01:09:51 You never escape these things.

01:09:51 --> 01:09:52 They're just very present.

01:09:53 --> 01:09:54 But the need to go,

01:09:54 --> 01:09:59 how does this fit into a Christian framework is tremendously important.

01:09:59 --> 01:10:02 And what the reason it's important is because everybody has a framework.

01:10:03 --> 01:10:05 But right now, the framework is the framework of this time.

01:10:05 --> 01:10:08 And it doesn't matter if it's progressive or conservative.

01:10:08 --> 01:10:09 It has nothing to do with the scriptures.

01:10:09 --> 01:10:10 Right.

01:10:10 --> 01:10:15 And so we impose we bring Christian software to run on pagan

01:10:16 --> 01:10:17 hardware and it doesn't work.

01:10:18 --> 01:10:19 It gets,

01:10:19 --> 01:10:19 you know,

01:10:19 --> 01:10:23 it catches an innate hardware driven virus and it changes the

01:10:23 --> 01:10:24 software itself.

01:10:24 --> 01:10:27 And so so it's not it's not no heat.

01:10:27 --> 01:10:29 And I'll give you just one illustration.

01:10:29 --> 01:10:30 After January six,

01:10:30 --> 01:10:32 I did a four week service,

01:10:32 --> 01:10:36 four week series that I called strange and poisonous fruit out

01:10:36 --> 01:10:37 of Deuteronomy.

01:10:37 --> 01:10:38 And I said,

01:10:38 --> 01:10:41 let's just own the places where the things that led to January

01:10:41 --> 01:10:43 six exist in our

01:10:43 --> 01:10:45 camp in evangelical Christianity.

01:10:46 --> 01:10:48 And I dealt with the fight for freedom.

01:10:48 --> 01:10:51 I dealt with the embracing of hatred and these types of things.

01:10:51 --> 01:10:53 So I'm all about hitting these things.

01:10:54 --> 01:10:57 But we also need to do the other,

01:10:57 --> 01:10:58 which is slower,

01:10:59 --> 01:10:59 which,

01:10:59 --> 01:11:00 you know,

01:11:00 --> 01:11:02 and when I do those series that are big and theological,

01:11:02 --> 01:11:06 I always do a Q&A and I don't get asked questions about the framework.

01:11:06 --> 01:11:08 I get asked practical and I use those to illustrate.

01:11:08 --> 01:11:09 That's part of it for sure.

01:11:10 --> 01:11:10 Right.

01:11:10 --> 01:11:10 I mean,

01:11:11 --> 01:11:12 what you're talking about,

01:11:12 --> 01:11:15 it's really the heart of what Brian and I try to do on this show,

01:11:15 --> 01:11:17 which is we mentioned this in the last episode we did with Scott Sauls.

01:11:17 --> 01:11:17 But,

01:11:18 --> 01:11:18 you know,

01:11:18 --> 01:11:20 we did we had the question,

01:11:20 --> 01:11:22 should Christians watch sex scenes?

01:11:22 --> 01:11:23 And instead of doing a five minute episode,

01:11:23 --> 01:11:24 just saying,

01:11:24 --> 01:11:24 no,

01:11:24 --> 01:11:25 here's three verses.

01:11:25 --> 01:11:29 We broke it into two hours and just talked about the why and

01:11:29 --> 01:11:30 the nuance and the theology of it.

01:11:31 --> 01:11:33 So your approach is one I agree with.

01:11:33 --> 01:11:35 But what do you say to critics who would say,

01:11:36 --> 01:11:36 Justin,

01:11:36 --> 01:11:38 you need to tell them who to vote for,

01:11:38 --> 01:11:42 because if you don't or if they vote for the wrong person and then this,

01:11:42 --> 01:11:43 this and this thing happens in our society,

01:11:43 --> 01:11:45 it's on your hands or Justin,

01:11:45 --> 01:11:49 you need to specifically mention this sexuality,

01:11:49 --> 01:11:50 this sexuality issue constantly,

01:11:50 --> 01:11:53 because if you don't and they go off and they become that it's

01:11:53 --> 01:11:54 on it's on you as

01:11:54 --> 01:11:54 their pastor.

01:11:55 --> 01:11:55 Yeah,

01:11:55 --> 01:11:55 well,

01:11:56 --> 01:11:56 you know,

01:11:56 --> 01:11:59 there's always 1 Corinthians and who are you to judge another

01:11:59 --> 01:12:00 man's servant?

01:12:00 --> 01:12:02 You know, I don't even judge myself.

01:12:02 --> 01:12:05 I think that needs to be kept in mind that there's enough room

01:12:05 --> 01:12:06 in faithfulness to

01:12:06 --> 01:12:11 God where we stand and fall before him in our context and will

01:12:11 --> 01:12:12 not have to compare

01:12:12 --> 01:12:12 to another.

01:12:12 --> 01:12:13 You know,

01:12:13 --> 01:12:17 he's not handling out medals and we're all pushing for the gold.

01:12:17 --> 01:12:20 It is a specific calling that he's given us.

01:12:21 --> 01:12:22 So I think that needs to be kept in mind.

01:12:23 --> 01:12:26 But the second thing is I would question their premise,

01:12:26 --> 01:12:29 and I would suggest that that shows that they're working from

01:12:29 --> 01:12:30 the wrong framework.

01:12:31 --> 01:12:35 If the way that we accomplish Christian faithfulness is to win

01:12:35 --> 01:12:36 the world through

01:12:36 --> 01:12:37 political power,

01:12:37 --> 01:12:39 they're reading a different Bible than I am.

01:12:39 --> 01:12:40 you know,

01:12:40 --> 01:12:44 and they're incapable of seeing it because of the power of the

01:12:44 --> 01:12:45 religious right and

01:12:45 --> 01:12:48 the religious left that have formed and shaped these issues.

01:12:49 --> 01:12:50 So that again,

01:12:50 --> 01:12:54 faithfulness becomes ticking a box of a cultural standard

01:12:55 --> 01:12:56 instead of understanding,

01:12:56 --> 01:12:56 you know,

01:12:57 --> 01:13:00 and answering the questions that the Bible is answering.

01:13:24 --> 01:13:28 So I want to begin to wrap up on this kind of closing question.

01:13:29 --> 01:13:34 Everything that we've been talking about is setting a new path

01:13:34 --> 01:13:35 forward or perhaps

01:13:35 --> 01:13:39 returning to the old chart of how we move forward.

01:13:39 --> 01:13:44 And it's been more than if we just do these three quick habits,

01:13:44 --> 01:13:46 then we'll see complete transformation.

01:13:48 --> 01:13:52 I guess to try to close on something of an optimistic note,

01:13:52 --> 01:13:56 or maybe just to set what realistic should be for us,

01:13:57 --> 01:14:01 do you find that you're seeing a hunger for this kind of thinking?

01:14:01 --> 01:14:05 Do you find that people really buy into it?

01:14:06 --> 01:14:08 You're proposing something that they actually are craving,

01:14:08 --> 01:14:10 and so they want to buy into it.

01:14:10 --> 01:14:12 What do you think is kind of a realistic...

01:14:13 --> 01:14:16 I know we won't in five years have an entirely different church,

01:14:16 --> 01:14:20 but what do you think are some of the indicators that we're

01:14:20 --> 01:14:21 walking this correctly

01:14:21 --> 01:14:25 that we can kind of draw some hope and inspiration from going forward?

01:14:25 --> 01:14:25 Yeah.

01:14:26 --> 01:14:30 So I would say the first thing is is a hope wrapped up in a despair,

01:14:31 --> 01:14:36 which is we live in a time where everybody is frustrated with the church.

01:14:37 --> 01:14:37 Right.

01:14:38 --> 01:14:41 There is just a and actually it's broader than the church.

01:14:41 --> 01:14:44 Our entire world right now is just hands in the air,

01:14:44 --> 01:14:45 frustrated,

01:14:45 --> 01:14:47 and they may put the blame in different places.

01:14:48 --> 01:14:50 But what that does is,

01:14:50 --> 01:14:50 again,

01:14:50 --> 01:14:56 it it creates the possibility of taking new steps and people

01:14:56 --> 01:14:57 being intrigued by

01:14:57 --> 01:14:59 them specifically because they're not the old,

01:15:00 --> 01:15:04 which which is good and and is something that it's it's

01:15:05 --> 01:15:08 It's got grief bound up in it and it's it's prone to

01:15:09 --> 01:15:10 overreactions like like

01:15:10 --> 01:15:12 despair and giving up entirely.

01:15:12 --> 01:15:13 All of those are part of it.

01:15:14 --> 01:15:17 But at its heart, there's a broad recognition for the need for change.

01:15:17 --> 01:15:18 And that's great.

01:15:19 --> 01:15:19 Second,

01:15:20 --> 01:15:22 there is absolutely a hunger,

01:15:22 --> 01:15:23 even in my little church,

01:15:23 --> 01:15:25 for some of these things.

01:15:25 --> 01:15:30 So, for example, I spoke with a young single guy recently in our church.

01:15:30 --> 01:15:35 And he he is just struggling to go about life right now.

01:15:35 --> 01:15:38 And the primary problem he sees it is because he's alone.

01:15:38 --> 01:15:41 And not in the romantic sense, that didn't really come up.

01:15:42 --> 01:15:47 But he was saying, you know, could we have an everyday prayer meeting?

01:15:48 --> 01:15:51 Because I feel like I just need that daily touch point with

01:15:51 --> 01:15:52 this community,

01:15:53 --> 01:15:53 you know.

01:15:53 --> 01:15:58 And I could point to maybe a half dozen other stories that take

01:15:58 --> 01:15:59 a different shape,

01:15:59 --> 01:16:03 but point in the same direction of a recognition that people's

01:16:03 --> 01:16:05 Christian walks were...

01:16:06 --> 01:16:11 incapable of providing the full abundant life that Jesus talks

01:16:11 --> 01:16:12 about and need a

01:16:12 --> 01:16:12 tune up,

01:16:13 --> 01:16:13 you know.

01:16:13 --> 01:16:14 However,

01:16:16 --> 01:16:19 I also want to reiterate again that the way we need to think

01:16:19 --> 01:16:21 about this now needs

01:16:21 --> 01:16:22 to be long format enough

01:16:23 --> 01:16:30 to not take those hungers as golden and just try and go too big

01:16:30 --> 01:16:31 too quickly.

01:16:31 --> 01:16:34 Going back to that idea again of the house that's on fire,

01:16:34 --> 01:16:35 if we're not going to rebuild the same house,

01:16:36 --> 01:16:37 then we got to draw up new plans.

01:16:38 --> 01:16:39 And that has to be a season,

01:16:39 --> 01:16:45 a defined season of time of thinking and praying and dialoguing.

01:16:45 --> 01:16:50 And I think when we bring existing churches into these realities,

01:16:50 --> 01:16:52 we have to bring them with us on the process.

01:16:52 --> 01:16:54 You can't just expose it to them.

01:16:54 --> 01:16:57 You can't just cast vision at the end of this two-year journey

01:16:57 --> 01:16:58 and try and shift

01:16:58 --> 01:16:59 the entire process.

01:16:59 --> 01:17:01 the entire operation in another direction.

01:17:01 --> 01:17:05 You have to bring them into the process of thinking about these things.

01:17:05 --> 01:17:09 You have to cultivate the soil theologically and imaginatively

01:17:10 --> 01:17:11 of what could be.

01:17:11 --> 01:17:16 And then you have to look for small proof of concept versions of this.

01:17:16 --> 01:17:16 And

01:17:18 --> 01:17:21 We could probably fill a whole other podcast with my current what-ifs,

01:17:21 --> 01:17:22 plans,

01:17:22 --> 01:17:25 and possibilities or the personal steps that I'm weighing,

01:17:25 --> 01:17:26 taking right now.

01:17:27 --> 01:17:27 But I think they,

01:17:28 --> 01:17:28 by nature,

01:17:29 --> 01:17:31 can't just be harvested from another church,

01:17:31 --> 01:17:32 you know,

01:17:32 --> 01:17:33 that we can find examples,

01:17:33 --> 01:17:38 but we can't just make copies because not only is our context different,

01:17:38 --> 01:17:39 but our people are in different places.

01:17:40 --> 01:17:44 And so, yeah, I think if anyone looks around right now and they have –

01:17:45 --> 01:17:49 even a degree of optimism or in the christian word hope they're

01:17:49 --> 01:17:49 going to see that

01:17:49 --> 01:17:53 there's a lot of possibility for new things right now and and

01:17:53 --> 01:17:53 we're already seeing

01:17:53 --> 01:17:57 people leverage that for things that make me wring my hands and

01:17:57 --> 01:17:57 are very concerning

01:17:58 --> 01:18:03 because they're extreme and and they they present themselves as

01:18:03 --> 01:18:04 as a new solution

01:18:04 --> 01:18:08 but are actually just the old problem you know but but i think

01:18:08 --> 01:18:09 the underlying need

01:18:09 --> 01:18:10 is there and clear

01:18:13 --> 01:18:17 I think if I were going to try to wrap a bow on my thought

01:18:17 --> 01:18:18 process through this

01:18:18 --> 01:18:19 whole conversation,

01:18:19 --> 01:18:23 I think one of the biggest takeaways I've gotten from this is

01:18:24 --> 01:18:25 we as pastors and

01:18:25 --> 01:18:31 leaders have a tendency to look at the burning house and focus

01:18:31 --> 01:18:32 on the house instead

01:18:32 --> 01:18:35 of the people who are affected by the fire.

01:18:35 --> 01:18:36 And so for me,

01:18:36 --> 01:18:40 the takeaway I'm getting is the strategy needs to be look at

01:18:40 --> 01:18:41 the people.

01:18:41 --> 01:18:43 Like focus on the people who are hurting,

01:18:43 --> 01:18:45 focus on the people affected by the flames,

01:18:45 --> 01:18:48 the ones who've inhaled the smoke and now they've got lung

01:18:48 --> 01:18:49 disease from that.

01:18:50 --> 01:18:51 We need to tend to them.

01:18:51 --> 01:18:52 We need to focus more,

01:18:53 --> 01:18:56 less on our big visions and goals and plans and dreams for our

01:18:56 --> 01:18:57 churches and more on

01:18:57 --> 01:19:03 just very strategically and locally working with our people and

01:19:03 --> 01:19:04 loving our people,

01:19:04 --> 01:19:05 tending to our people.

01:19:05 --> 01:19:06 There's wounds that need to be tended to.

01:19:07 --> 01:19:08 Taking a much more

01:19:09 --> 01:19:15 discipleship approach and a shepherding approach to help people

01:19:15 --> 01:19:15 walk through this

01:19:15 --> 01:19:16 time in this season.

01:19:17 --> 01:19:18 And I think a part of it,

01:19:19 --> 01:19:23 it comes with faith and a death of ego because ego says the

01:19:23 --> 01:19:24 world is burning.

01:19:25 --> 01:19:26 Maybe my church can save it.

01:19:27 --> 01:19:30 Maybe if I just have the right sermon series,

01:19:30 --> 01:19:31 maybe if I just have the right program,

01:19:31 --> 01:19:32 maybe if I just write the right book,

01:19:32 --> 01:19:34 maybe if I just invite the right guest speaker,

01:19:35 --> 01:19:37 then we'll solve all the problems.

01:19:38 --> 01:19:41 But instead having the faith that maybe God wants to not impact

01:19:41 --> 01:19:42 the world on such a

01:19:42 --> 01:19:46 big scale through us individually as pastors and leaders.

01:19:46 --> 01:19:48 Maybe he wants to change the world through the sheep.

01:19:48 --> 01:19:50 And maybe our role is to shepherd those sheep.

01:19:51 --> 01:19:52 And then collectively,

01:19:53 --> 01:19:54 big picture,

01:19:54 --> 01:19:57 if we have a ton of churches approaching the problem this way,

01:19:57 --> 01:19:58 10 years from now,

01:19:58 --> 01:20:03 we're going to have people who are not still suffering from the

01:20:03 --> 01:20:04 wounds of the 2020s.

01:20:05 --> 01:20:08 but instead they're stronger and they're able to impact their

01:20:08 --> 01:20:11 world on a much better scale.

01:20:11 --> 01:20:12 I don't know.

01:20:13 --> 01:20:13 Yeah,

01:20:14 --> 01:20:14 you know,

01:20:14 --> 01:20:17 I think there's things there that really resonate with me,

01:20:17 --> 01:20:22 taking seriously the pain of our people and recognizing the

01:20:22 --> 01:20:24 blindness or or

01:20:24 --> 01:20:26 inability to look that in the eye that many of our church

01:20:26 --> 01:20:28 members have and teaching

01:20:28 --> 01:20:29 them how to own it,

01:20:29 --> 01:20:29 how to sit in it,

01:20:30 --> 01:20:33 as well as how to do the long process of seeking healing,

01:20:33 --> 01:20:33 you know,

01:20:33 --> 01:20:35 not Band-Aid solutions,

01:20:35 --> 01:20:38 but but the deep healing that comes only from the Lord and and

01:20:38 --> 01:20:39 through time.

01:20:40 --> 01:20:43 And in the same way, I think there is a need for shift in perspective.

01:20:43 --> 01:20:47 But for me, it's more than just lessening our ambitions.

01:20:49 --> 01:20:53 It's about changing what we think the goal is,

01:20:53 --> 01:20:54 you know,

01:20:54 --> 01:20:57 and even the language of to change the world.

01:20:58 --> 01:21:02 To borrow from Joshua David Hunter,

01:21:02 --> 01:21:04 are we sure that's what we're supposed to be doing as Christians?

01:21:05 --> 01:21:10 Because a lot of that is a very popular and common thought for our times,

01:21:10 --> 01:21:12 but it's not really what we see today.

01:21:14 --> 01:21:17 And the truth is the world is going to be set right when Jesus returns.

01:21:17 --> 01:21:21 And what I would suggest is we're not working towards that, but from it.

01:21:21 --> 01:21:22 In other words,

01:21:22 --> 01:21:25 we're just supposed to reflect the coming reality so that

01:21:25 --> 01:21:26 people can see and

01:21:26 --> 01:21:30 believe in the hope of Jesus Christ.

01:21:30 --> 01:21:32 And so that that's going to bear fruit.

01:21:32 --> 01:21:36 But but what Hunter says at the end of his book is he says,

01:21:36 --> 01:21:39 I'm thoroughly convinced that when Christians change the world most,

01:21:40 --> 01:21:41 it's when they recognize that that's not their goal.

01:21:43 --> 01:21:47 And and I think there is still a tendency for us to wean

01:21:48 --> 01:21:49 ourself off of this

01:21:50 --> 01:21:56 platform reality that sees either Christianity in America or

01:21:56 --> 01:21:57 Western Christianity

01:21:57 --> 01:22:00 or evangelical Christianity as the savior of the world and

01:22:00 --> 01:22:01 recognize the world

01:22:01 --> 01:22:02 already has one of those.

01:22:02 --> 01:22:04 And we're just supposed to be saved.

01:22:05 --> 01:22:06 That's that's all we're supposed to do, you know.

01:22:06 --> 01:22:08 And so going back to that idea of politics,

01:22:09 --> 01:22:12 what if politics isn't about the kingdom at all?

01:22:12 --> 01:22:12 Because it's not.

01:22:13 --> 01:22:15 What if it's simply about loving our neighbor?

01:22:15 --> 01:22:18 And so we can't bring the kingdom through politics.

01:22:19 --> 01:22:20 We can absolutely love our neighbor,

01:22:20 --> 01:22:22 but we do that not to bring the kingdom,

01:22:22 --> 01:22:23 but because we are the kingdom.

01:22:24 --> 01:22:26 That distinction is the one that we need to recover.

01:22:26 --> 01:22:27 Hmm.

01:22:28 --> 01:22:28 Well,

01:22:28 --> 01:22:28 that,

01:22:29 --> 01:22:34 that would be a great followup episode to bring you on for,

01:22:34 --> 01:22:37 because I feel like we could talk for two more hours about just

01:22:37 --> 01:22:38 that last concept

01:22:38 --> 01:22:39 that you threw out there.

01:22:39 --> 01:22:41 But this has been a great conversation, man.

01:22:41 --> 01:22:43 Brian and I are enjoying this so much.

01:22:43 --> 01:22:43 And,

01:22:44 --> 01:22:44 you know,

01:22:44 --> 01:22:46 as both of us are about to,

01:22:46 --> 01:22:46 you know,

01:22:46 --> 01:22:47 at the time of this recording,

01:22:47 --> 01:22:50 we're about to have our first kids in a few months.

01:22:50 --> 01:22:50 Um,

01:22:51 --> 01:22:51 You know,

01:22:52 --> 01:22:56 we're really just wanting to sit back and learn and listen from

01:22:56 --> 01:22:58 as many wise older

01:22:58 --> 01:22:59 brothers and sisters in the faith.

01:23:00 --> 01:23:01 And so this conversation has been really good, man.

01:23:02 --> 01:23:03 It's given me a lot to think about.

01:23:03 --> 01:23:04 It's given me a lot to process.

01:23:04 --> 01:23:06 This is one of those ones I'm going to definitely go back and

01:23:06 --> 01:23:07 listen to again,

01:23:07 --> 01:23:11 where I can just listen and not have to be thinking about what

01:23:11 --> 01:23:11 I'm going to say next.

01:23:11 --> 01:23:12 I've loved this, man.

01:23:12 --> 01:23:13 So thank you for your time.

01:23:13 --> 01:23:14 Really appreciate it.