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Do you know the feeling of hearing a story that completely captivates you?
Our guest, lan Simkins, has a story worth hearing! From his childhood in Detroit to a remarkable spiritual awakening.
Learn how this 'denominational mutt' found his calling, embraced different perspectives, and became a leader for a struggling church.
In this ATC episode:
• A journey is about just about growing faith as we listen to understand.
• How recognizing the sacred dignity in others helps to bridge the divide.
• Our conversation weaves between the importance of critical thinking, the potent effects of listening, and the transformative power of love.
• We dive deep into the delicate intersection of faith, community and personal identity.
• Dopamine addiction, childlike surrender, and how the fear of God will challenge your thinking and maybe even inspire change.
Don’t miss one of the most enjoyable interviews we have ever had with lan Simkins.
Connect with Ian:
Instagram: @iansimkins
Website: www.iansimkins.com
Beliefs espoused by the guests of ATC are not necessarily the beliefs and convictions of ATC.
That said the intent of our podcast is to listen, remain curious and never fear failure In the discovery life giving truth. Many people we ardently disagree with have been our greatest teachers.
Hi, this is Grant Lockridge and Jared Taftin. On the Across the Counter podcast, where we create space for real people to have honest conversations. Today we have across the counter Ian Simkins and just tell me, ian, tell me a little bit about your personal journey and kind of how you got started.
Speaker 3:Boy, how I got started, like as a human or I'm not sure I should share those details. Yeah, I mean, first off, man, thank you for having me. I love what you guys are doing. I love your motto, I love your aim. I think it's really needed. My story is a weird one, just to kind of set the tone. I grew up outside Detroit, michigan, oldest of seven kids, recovering homeschool kid here, doing my best, and yeah, I was a punk drummer and had a kind of radical encounter at church one day that led me down just a vastly different path than I was anticipating and I ended up moving to Chicago to study student ministry. I love my experience at the university but had a rough experience, kind of getting a peek behind the curtain of churches and that kind of messed in my head a lot. I remember going home and telling my parents you know, I don't think I could do this church thing and I said I'll at least finish the degree and so the next day I got a call from a church offering me a job, which was very bizarre. Fast forward, I had an opportunity to spend a summer in India, which the church allowed me to do before coming and starting there, which was bizarre. And that summer I got kicked out of the house I was supposed to stay in and I ended up kind of wandering Northern India for two and a half months by myself, which was a whole. That's a whole other story. Came back to this little church outside Chicagoland and a year after they hired me the lead guy was removed for just a laundry list of moral failures and whole church kind of started to spiral out of control. They hired an interim guy real quick but that didn't work out and we discovered that we had six months to bankruptcy. So the elders called me in and kind of said, do you want to take a crack at it? I was like not really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Send you up for success. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3:Yeah right, exactly, I'm like in my young you know my early twenties single and I don't want to over spiritualize it, but it felt like God just did a 180 in my heart. So I stepped into that role and, by the grace of God, we saw people healed and marriages restored and you know, that was a really wild, beautiful 10 years. And then met my wife there, which that's a whole other story as well. That's a very weird. It's a weird first date attempt when it's someone that attends the church you were pastoring. Like there's no non creepy way to go about that. I like it. So, yeah, you'll have to ask her about that story. I give her all the credit in the world for even giving me a shot. And then we went to a church in Naperville, about 45 minutes south of there, and then, two and a half years ago, out of the blue, this really wonderful church south of Nashville reached out to me and I again I just said, no, thank you. I'm a Detroit boy, my wife from Chicago, we're Midwest people and we just kept saying, all right, well, let's see if there's something here, let's see if maybe God's up to something with this church that we'd never heard of and it just became abundantly clear this is where we're supposed to be. So two and a half years ago we moved down to the Bible Belt, which that's been a trip in and of itself, oh yeah. And we came on with our two little boys, and we have a third little boy now, owen Reb, Evan and Ezra, and we're loving it. Man, it's a great community. We're still like learning. I just learned that bless your heart is not actually a blessing. Things like that are. I'm a little late to the party so I'm still figuring that out, but we're having a blast, man.
Speaker 1:That's what the old church ladies say when they don't want to cuss.
Speaker 3:They just say bless your heart, and that's basically like a cuss word. I know that now. I didn't know that before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're from Greenville, south Carolina, so we're getting it.
Speaker 2:Okay, you get it from South Carolina, so that's the key, if you say, if you say bless her heart, after that you can say anything you want about bless their heart and then whatever other horrific opinion that you had you can say like that that gives you a pass for anything that follows.
Speaker 1:That sounds sweet it sounds like a sweet little old lady.
Speaker 3:That's right. That's how I interpreted it. That's what I thought.
Speaker 1:So what denomination is that church and what's kind of the background of that church?
Speaker 3:So the church now is non-denominational. They had been a part of the SBC and they left the SBC before they really started ending up in the headlines. But I'm personally a denominational mutt. I grew up in what's called the Christian Missionary Alliance Church and the thing that was always interesting to me then, especially growing up pre-YouTube and Facebook and all that like it was our little tiny church was funding, I think six or seven missionary families. So when they came back stateside on Furlough like we were their home church and they would walk us through photo albums of like what God was doing in these remote parts of the world, it was just so interesting, especially as a 10-year-old. But then, like, the school I went to was a different denomination and the internships I did were different denominations and my seminary was a different denomination. So some people like that, other people, I think, are a little confounded by it, because I don't necessarily have denominational allegiances. I understand the value of them for other people, but it's never been something that I've really. I'm like I died in the world. This I'm sort of a little bit of all of it, I think.
Speaker 2:I love that you said denominational mutt Maybe the only other person I've ever heard use that language, because that's the language I use? Yeah, nobody else has ever said that and so like I say that but I kind of maybe it's pride, but like you know how, like mutts are often considered some of the healthiest dogs, though they may be the ugliest or like weirdest shaped and awkward animals, but it's like, I think, a bunch of strains of dog in them, so they're fairly healthy. So that's literally in my mind. I'm like no, but it's okay, like I'll live the longest.
Speaker 3:I mean, I resonate with the ugly part for sure. That is, that's speaking to my heart. I, like Drilland, I've never even thought about that. I think it's interesting because when you're in a new environment you know, because they were without a lead pastor for two years too. So there was like for a long time people kind of waiting you know who are they going to hire, and I'm pretty different than the previous guy and that's to be expected. I remember a couple of months in it was after the services, it was like out of a sitcom that one guy came up to me and he said man, I just love that you are so obviously reformed for this reason, this reason, this reason, and he gave me a hug and walked away, literally. The next guy came up to me and goes brother, can I just tell you I'm so glad that you're not reformed for this reason. Give me a hug, these two guys should hang out. Yeah, no, that to me was like case in point. They both are convinced I'm, I'm this team or this tribe or this particular strand, and I'm probably little bits of all of it.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:So you're like it's like a three legged dog, and the fourth leg is Calvinism.
Speaker 2:You gotta have that. Yeah, I have this impression of like you. You you've all seen the like. I think that's a golden retriever, but it's legs are eight inches long and it's got weird bald spots. But it's also adorable and they're like how do I get one of those? You're like honey. There is only one of those. Yeah, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that can't procreate, that's not it.
Speaker 2:If it does, whatever comes from, it won't be the same. That's right.
Speaker 3:It's the kaleidoscope.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, that's what strains coming from Chicago land, because Chicago land is a, is a, is a fairly Catholic city, so that's where I cut my teeth in ministry, it's where I learned to preach. So for me in in Protestant circles, quoting Catholic authors or theologians or activists was not strange. And that's probably one of the first pieces of like heated email I got down here was what are you doing? Quote in Catholics? And the question that I had was well, is the, is the quote true? And the person was like that's not really the point. I'm like that's 100% the point. And the comment was couldn't you have found a Protestant who said something similar? And I said why would I? Why would I do that? And we and we got to talk a little bit about, you know, common revelation versus special revelation, common great, you know. That kind of stuff was, I think, a helpful dialogue. But it was the first time in a while that I really felt like, oh, there's like a resistance to quoting people from certain tribes, regardless of whether or not, like deep down, they resonate or agree with the sentiment, is like, oh no, they're that team. I'm like boy, we got to, we got to work on that.
Speaker 1:And might as well throw a couple of thousand years, because everybody was Catholic for a second. So you just got to like, throw all that away. You know, like the founders of the faith. Basically you just got to throw all that in the trash because they don't know what they're talking about.
Speaker 3:It's fine, you know I mean you could even be more subtle. If you say something, especially online, that someone else recognizes as or in their mind deems oh that's a slogan for this party, or I've heard of someone else from that camp say something similar. Now this is how deep tribalism can go. Is because now I'm not even scrutinizing whether or not the statement's true. I mean, where have I heard something like that oh, it's a political party that I've already decided I hate. Therefore, that can't be true. I'm like that is not how critical thinking and reason works. I don't think.
Speaker 2:I found it interesting. There's a. There's an interesting thing that can happen now because we are so little researched as a culture that you can just say you know it has been said, yeah, and then just say whatever they quote and one. It's easier if you're lazy, like me, because I can't always remember the attribution.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And then two you're not going to look it up if I don't tell you it was from this Catholic priest or not. Just it has been said. Yeah, that's right, that is so.
Speaker 3:I remember during undergrad I had this this older pastor pull me aside once and he said hey, do you want to know my best preaching trick? And I was like I already hate this. And I was like sure.
Speaker 1:You got to trick your audience, yeah.
Speaker 3:This is my number one trick. You got to trick them. He said if there's, if there's ever something I want to say in a sermon, I'll just simply write it on a piece of paper and then I'll say from the pulpit you know, I read somewhere that I was like. That feels ethically gray at best.
Speaker 1:That sounds good. And then he's quoting Miley Cyrus yeah, right, right, and it's like man. That sounds super philosophical, Exactly.
Speaker 2:Miley.
Speaker 1:Cyrus.
Speaker 3:And I was like, please don't be offended if I don't employ that particular trick.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:Well, I want to get back to that tribalism thing, because that's something that I am pretty passionate about about like hearing other people out and like not just immediately, like weighing what they have to say and not like just attacking the person, because I think that that's a bunch of nonsense of like, oh, they're a Democrat or other Republican and I don't like Democrats, but the Democrats still can speak truth, republicans can speak truth, it's just so. What would be your best like tip on how to navigate that space as a pastor, because I'm sure you have so many different people from different walks of life? How do you get all those people in a room and get them to kind of get along a little bit?
Speaker 3:That's a great question, man. I think honestly, the answer is way more crock-pot than microwave. I think it's way deeper than one sermon or one course or one event. We've all been to those patronizing events. We're like, as long as we're all in the room together, we'll all leave singing Kumbaya. I'm like, yeah, one luncheon at a round table is not going to do it. I was telling our church a couple of weeks ago my brother's a lawyer in Detroit. One of the things he does every election is he hosts a dinner party at his house. But the only way you can get in is if you bring someone with you that voted differently than you. Yeah, that's entrance to the party. He's really honest about it. People don't usually leave one party having flipped their convictions, but they now have a name and a face with these opposing convictions or with someone who voted different. I think if I'm speaking ontologically or philosophically, it's probably why I instinctually preached so much about the Imago de, the image of God in others. If we miss that, then of course we're going to see them either as the sum of their convictions or the sum of their posts, or the sum of their tribe or whatever. That is the next logical category for me to try to make sense of you. If we don't see sacred dignity in every person, we'll never get to exactly what you guys are aiming to do. We'll never sit across the counter with people if my whole goal is to demolish them. I don't think the opposite of listening is talking. I think the opposite of listening is waiting to talk. Maybe we listen to respond now, not listen to understand. And we we have Comment battles and we think that's conversation. I'm like that's not. I'm not anti social media, I'm not one of those pastors that's anti technology. I think there's a lot of good that cannon has come from it, but we have. We have fooled ourselves if we think comments back and forth is the same as dialogue. It's. It's just not. And I think part of what we're seeing play out is when we miss the sacred Amago day in every person, especially the person that we disagree with or maybe, more intensely, who wronged us. It is not. It is our natural inclination to then demonize. If we don't humanize, we demonize Every time, and I think there's some people doing good work. Man, there's a group, what are they called? They're called more in common. Yeah, this is a particular political organization, but they, every few years, will do something called the perception gap and they pull Right and left, red and blue, and they ask them questions about the other person, the other side's convictions, and it shows how horrifically bad both sides are Guessing how deeply the other side cares about things. It's. It's almost equal on both sides, like boy. We are both bad at filling the gaps of how we think Republicans or Democrats actually feel about things in the world. And this is where I probably will get a little salty about social media. Who who stands to benefit the most From keeping us outraged it? It probably is the people that are pushing clickbait and running and you mean, like there's a value there, like, oh fuck, we keep them fighting, keep them Infuriated at each other, then that that will translate to activity, and I think we're. I just think we're seeing that played out now, yeah, at a global scale and unfortunately, in a lot of places I don't know that Christians are Looking that much better.
Speaker 2:What's interesting is like if you if you don't even think about it as like malicious, but you wanted to set up a profitable algorithm to keep people engaged, then the easiest way to do that would be human rage, dissension, hatred, kind of course Death and decay don't need any help, like they're naturally occurring as entropy and you know sin, like Are taking place. But taking that first step uphill toward relationship.
Speaker 3:Yes you.
Speaker 2:You almost couldn't Like if you were just to imagine a place where the whole world was Engaging in in what was easiest like you would find the internet, which is just what that looks like. So I love that you say grants laughing. In our, in our show notes, we we often say like, listen to understand, not to respond. Mom and I even that. For me that was from like a Stephen R Covey seven habits of highly effective people it just talks about like we're so often we're so selfish, we're just listening and we can't hear what the other person's saying because we are listening so much to our own thoughts, like we're not actually even listening to understand, I don't know. Just with you mentioning that, something came to mind which is like if, if the outcome of communicating is to maintain and grow deeper in relationship, then Then the purpose is to know one another. If the outcome of communicating is to be right, then you can, you will either become a tyrant or or, or, at the most base minimum, isolated. There's like nobody is gonna believe exactly as you do right, so like you, can either maintain the outcome of I want to stay in relationship. So you can be in relationship, or you can be right, but you can't be, you can't be both, or I maybe said better you can be in real, you can be in good relationship, or you can be perfectly right. Hmm but find me one human that's consistently perfectly right and doesn't change like right right. Yeah, that feels we're silly in that.
Speaker 3:This, this is why there's a paul till it quote that I keep coming back to me says the first duty of love is to listen. And I think, I think that is an art that I don't know that we've lost, but we're losing. You know, david Osberger says that, like being listened to and being loved are so close that for the average person they're almost indistinguishable. Like, I think I, I maybe this is going out on a limb. I Think it's impossible to love well and listen poorly. So, whether you're a Jesus person or not, like, the goal isn't just to Be loving, it's to Become love, it's to become Good news people, not just to spout data about good news. And I think that If the goal, if it's to, if it's the noun that we're to become, not just the verb that we're to do, then that will require of us exactly what you're saying like a I don't know, maybe this is some of what dying to self looks like and we talk about. This is some of that like church jargon that we toss around but like no one articulates. What does that actually look like Monday at my cubicle? Part of that, I think, is, yeah, it's learning to actually Listen with the aim of actually, you know, we don't give people dignity. We, we affirm it like you, you have dignity. Whether I recognize it or not, whether I flip you off in traffic or not, whether I speak to you with respect or not, we don't give it, we affirm it like we're saying you or you are, you have deeply sacred significance and value. Just because Of you, just because of who you are, you bear the image and likeness of a God that loves you and sees you and knows you and all that stuff. And I think I Think we chip away at that a little bit when we refuse to actually, like you're saying, sit in meaningful conversation. You know, dallas Willard said One of the hardest things in the world is to be right and not hurt people with it. Because it's, because the other flip of this is it's not soft on justice, like at some point you know it can't be like, oh, if we just break bread together, you know, like at some point, racism is still racism and exploitation is still exploitation. But I think of the. What was his name? Darrell Davis. He was a black man that sat with broke bread with X number of like Ku Klux Klan leaders, like Grand Wizards and stuff right, and he has a collection of like robes now that they have relinquished to him Because through conversation they were able to see, like, just how vile and broken their belief system was. But that started with a man being willing to sit across the counter with them and I think that has become so. I keep hearing people ask questions like, yeah, does that really work? Like, does that like our obsession with the utilitarian? Yeah, that might be true and that might be what Jesus talked about, but does that actually? Does that actually work? Like we're saying the quiet part out loud. When we're saying like, yeah, I believe Jesus said that, but what's the ROI? I'm like, oh man, try it that to me, I think it's showing a bigger problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think like one note on that is you can't sit across the counter from somebody and pursue helping them understand how you're right. Like it's not just the metric, like it's the idea even of an ROI, Like what's the return? Like how, who's gonna come to my side? How am I gonna help them see? Like there's something about like mercy. We had one interview with Logan Rice and there's a song that he likes and it's one line in there said like maybe we'll get to heaven and find out we're both wrong. And like I think humility and meekness are the things that die at the table of like personal rightness. And so to accept that like if you consider the idea of growth and learning as like continual failure of your perception to be perfectly right, then you could go into every room and say I think I'm maybe the least informed person in this room. Like if you believed that to some degree, but not that everybody else is more informed, just that we're all like the least of these in some measure and we're there to discover, like the Amago Day, the reflections of God and all these different, like unique as a fingerprint people. But the idea of like sitting across the counter because you're genuinely interested in that person. To me that's like the first step. Like you can't say, oh, I'm gonna try that, Like I'm gonna sit across the table for some I disagree with and then I'm just gonna listen, but I'm gonna hate them while I listen. Like that's not gonna take you anywhere other than maybe like needing too many drinks to get through that conversation. Right, that was great. I got drunk. I still hate that person, but you know.
Speaker 3:I was gonna take a conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure had a good time. Yeah, and, like you know, there's a lot of bars where the world's problems are solved in the evenings. But yeah, to me, like I don't think you can fake. I don't think you can fake like genuine, like interest in relationship, which then begs the question well, where does that mercy for another come from? Like why would you actually be genuinely interested in someone you actually believe is not, is not right? Like what would lead you to tell me? Tell me, what would lead a person to actually care, jesus, preacher, tell me preacher.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm glad you said that because I'm about to give a very Sunday school answer. But you're totally right, like all of this is just pragmatics If we don't actually get to the core of why don't we care? Because, like, I just did a whole training with our staff on curiosity. My premise was I'm like real tired of every leadership book I've read holding up like confidence and competence as the premier values and nothing about curiosity and humility. And I think a lot of what you're getting at is that genuine curiosity of another person. And the thing that kind of keeps me up at night, if I'm honest, is that when you look at like the fruit of the spirit from Galatians I used to read that list in you know, there's like Sunday school songs about love, patience, peace, kind of all that stuff I used to think that those were commands Like go be more loving, go be more paid, go be more, and they're not. Actually the only command in that whole section is walk and step with the spirit, walking and step with the spirit, the byproduct of which are these things. But I, for most of my young adult life, would beat myself up Like I'm not being very loving. I'm not being very patient, and the thing that has been like a light bulb to me, even in the last couple of years, is that I can do loving things for a minute. Most of us can fake it for a day or an interview or a mission. You know, I'm like most of us have the social awareness like I could do loving things while the camera's on or while I'm on a podcast. But to become a loving person, to become a person of love, I think that actually requires something outside of myself and that is very humbling because I'm like a pragmatist, like give me the steps, how do I actually make that happen? And let's build a plan and let's all kind of go there. If the command in Galatians is not grit your teeth and just try really hard, but, like the invitation of John 15 to abide on the vine, if abiding in Jesus is the thing and I try to say this every Sunday I can whatever thing we're talking about, the goal is not to be a better prayer or to be more generous or even to be more humble. The goal, I think, is intimacy with God, the byproduct of which are these fruits of the spirit, and when we've invert that, we just end up with moralism where it's like try really hard and you'll feel really good when you are succeeding and you'll feel like garbage when you're not, because it all rests on you and your capacity to like I should be more kind to my neighbor and I should have more meals with people that I disagree with and like, yeah, that's probably all true, but if you're doing it as some sort of checklist or to earn either the approval of God or others, that tank runs out really, really quickly. And I'm saying that from experience. Like that is probably. I have this inner Pharisee that is always just like beneath the surface, that is looking through very legalistic eyes and it's hard to relinquish some of that, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's something that I wanna hit on is. So there's also that opposite thing. So there's the I'm a sinner, this, this and this, and then there's almost this pride in there of saying like, hey, I know that I'm a sinner, and I know that you're a sinner too, and I'm humble, so you're better than me. And then it's like kind of backwards, and then you're like, by the way, I'm pretty frigging great because I know all this and I'm humble and you're not, and then it's like wait a second because that's happening to me. It's like you're talking to somebody and you're like coming at them with love, and then you're like there's this thing in the back of your head of like I'm treating them better than they're treating me, so I'm better than them. And it's like, yeah, come on, and I just have to constantly. I have to constantly like go back to the father and be. It's a scary prayer to ask for like humility or to ask for something like that Cause. Then usually, at least in my life, that involves taking me down a peg and learning me like or teaching me something that I wouldn't have known any other way than just getting absolutely bopped down a peg.
Speaker 3:So, but how do you-? None of that happens in a vacuum.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a fact. But how do you like combat, which walking in the spirit is that's such a wise thing to say which it is in the Bible, so you can't really go wrong there. But just that idea that like it's abiding in the father, and not also you could say the same thing about what Jesus said, poor in spirit and here at the kingdom of God, sermon on the Mount, that list, you know what I'm talking about. Like you could be like, okay, well, I need to be more like this and I need to be more like that, and it kind of puts the puzzle pieces together of that. Really, all you need to be doing is abiding in the father and then that gives you the strength, the desire, the like you said, more gas in the tank to be able to do all those things that he calls you to do, cause, if not something that I say a lot is like the worst thing in the world is to do God's work without him. Yes, that is, in my own life, so painful. Like, hey, I'm gonna go to this breakfast or I'm gonna go, you know, minister, to these high school kids, or I'm gonna go do this or that, and you're just it's Grant doing it and it's like I go in there and I'm like, okay, I gotta do this because I've, you know, committed to this thing. But if you're not abiding in the father, that is just draining, that is soul draining.
Speaker 3:So it's a different level of exhaustion to this. I mean, that's the rebuke in Revelation too, that's this recognition of this whole church that was doing a lot of good things. And you know, it begins with these commendations like, hey, I see what you're doing, your good work, your good deeds, you're like calling out false teachers. But I do hold this one thing against you You've left your first love. And then the word that, at least in some translations, the word that follows is repent. So like apparently God takes really seriously doing things for him without doing them with him. And I've had to come to terms, especially, you know, I've been a minister my whole adult life. Activities are terrible to trade off for intimacy and I just have spent so much of my life not only doing good things, man, but, like Grant, what you were saying, doing things that got me accolades, like there's a dopamine addiction levels, like that is happening when like, all right, well, people are, people are rallying around me doing these good things, that feels good. I like a neurochemical level. So I guess I'll keep doing the thing that makes me feel good, recognizing deep down like boy I was doing a lot of things for God without doing with God, and that can feel kind of nebulous, but to me it always comes back down to identity. You know, like I had spent so much of my life thinking that my identity was wrapped up in like what I could achieve, what I could accomplish, which of course the inverse is I'm a piece of garbage when I'm not achieving, when I'm not accomplishing Some of that's Enneagram three stuff. You know, the achieving thing I also have, you know, crippling imposter syndrome. If people ever figured out how dumb I actually am, then all of this goes away. And so that you have to kind of keep, like you were saying, you gotta always come with answers and you gotta at least appear like you're confident and smartest person in the room that stuff is, that's a spiral man that'll like eat your soul but it will lead to, at least on the surface, a lot of activity that, if you don't know better, you know looks like he's crushing it, looks like he's doing good stuff. And that's not to say that there aren't times that you do the thing, even if you don't feel the butterflies in your stomach. You know, like with working out, I pretty much never wanna go for a run, pretty much never. I'm never like man. I can't wait to feel the pain in my knees an hour from now. But I do it and you know there's usually following the run. You're like man. I'm really glad I did that. So there's a part of like disciplines that I think it's not feeling, because if we're led just by, like I feel like I should or shouldn't, then I think that's gonna lead us into some dangerous places. But it's recognizing, and this is the difficult thing. This is why I think community is so important. It's like we need people in our life that will tell us the truth about ourselves. They'll let us know we have spinach in our teeth. They'll let us know like hey, man, it seems like you're putting in a lot of 18 hour days right now. Like is your soul okay? Like are you? Is there something else kind of behind this, or is it just a difficult season? I think we need people to call out those blind spots, because sometimes we're blind to our own blindness and that's a really dangerous place to be.
Speaker 2:All right, so there's like four questions in my head that I'm gonna try to make one, Four frog questions. All right, I've done two frogs in a minute four, I'm gonna try to have like very few caveats. I have a friend that says, just don't give me the caveats, just ask me the question, like, but I can't do that. To me, the idea of like healthy community is about a group of people pointed toward the same goal right. But what you're describing as like a cultural Christian issue is it's rare that our goal is intimacy with Jesus, and you could even wrap in the different denominations like their own unique goals. So that's why oftentimes you become a spiritual. There's many spiritual mutts, is like I don't fully like yeah, I value that, but that thing you also hate. Like I value that too, and so there's like you can't find a place sometimes, and so my the question would be like how do you like especially the non-denominational pastor like a lot of our actual like more rays of society come from consistency of tradition, like, but now you're kind of like carving out your own community. It feels oftentimes to me like let's go out into the spiritual desert quote and just like establish. This is how it is for us to be. This is who we are. We're not going to get accolades from the church. We're not going to get praise from the world, like have you dealt with that? And then, how do you contend with? In many ways, that does leave you like isolated in your own choices of how you define that community, because you're not tied to this thousand-year-old tradition or this 20-year-old tradition or this like it. To me, that feels like we're just going to go out here and survive with what? we feel accoled to and I don't always feel like the goal is survival, Like if the goal is thriving, but there's just that wrestling match in the spirit. So are you relating to that at all?
Speaker 3:Absolutely, man. Yeah, there's a couple of things I would say. So we have a class every month for people that are, you know, they're checking out the bridge and trying to determine if this is the right church for them, which I'm really sympathetic towards, like I've never had to do that. So you're trying to figure out. I liked the bam, but the preacher was a little wacky, but the kid's thing was good, but maybe too big or too small or whatever. So we'll talk about tiers first tier, second tier, third tier issues and we just spell it out and we talk about, like here are the first tier issues and we talk about, you know, apostles Creed, nicene Creed, stuff, man, and we're like, hey, we, there's only a few things that we hold on what I would call like the closed hand. There's a bunch that's in the open hand. So, like some of the examples that I'll give, and you can usually tell, like what issue is the thing that someone is really holding onto? You know, I'm like, hey, in the closed hand, god made the world For me. That's in the open hand, though, was it six days, thousands of years, you can hold both those positions and still call the church your home, but like that's okay. You know what I mean. Like there's a homeschool, public school, all that's all the stuff that we get heated about. We just call it out like here's, here's first tier stuff and then second and third tier, and we kind of walk out like here's how we would dialogue about that, here's how we would talk about that, and we tried to obviously anchor what we do not just in like oh, ian's ideas or someone came up with a clever acronym. So that's that should be how we do community I. There's a quote I keep coming back to you that I love. So a woman named Heather Cop. She wrote a book called sober mercies, how love caught up with a Christian drunk. This listen to the I. I hope this resonates with you as much as it has with me. She said when folks gather around a system of shared beliefs, the price of acceptance in the group is usually agreement, which means the greatest value, stated or not, is being right. Unfortunately, this often creates an atmosphere of fear and performance, which in turn invites conformity. But when people gather around a shared need for healing, the price of acceptance in the group is usually vulnerability, which means the greatest value, stated or not, is being real. This tends to foster an atmosphere of safety and participation, which in turn invites community, and I I hold that up for our church a lot. Obviously, we need to have some doctrinal guardrails right. We've all been in that small group where someone's like I think Jesus was voodoo and you're like, oh, all right, we got a, we got a time out for that for a second. But if the whole aim and goal is to simply get people to be able to recite and articulate doctrinal truths, I mean I think there's a reason that Jesus reserves its harshest criticisms for the people that knew the most. That that is. That is so easy for us to. It's so easy to see, as those talks about chronological snobbery oh, yeah, how easy it is for us to be like oh, these stupid Pharisees, these idiot scribes. I'm like realizing more and more like. I'm more like the Pharisee than the other person in this story and Jesus is, he's regularly rebuking them. He's like man, you have all this, you have all this doctrinal alignment, but you're not actually willing to lift a finger here. That's a big problem in the kingdom, and so the whole goal of our community or groups or light, whatever life together looks like, is like okay, we need to have every T cross and every I dotted. That is, that is a legalism adjacent at best, about a recognition. Like me, we all have varying degrees of brokenness that we bring to this moment, and if the aim is to recognize, I mean, I can't heal myself and neither can you, and the really good news is that it's offered freely, it's a gift of grace. Then I don't know, all of the different secondary interchary stuff loses some of its teeth. You're like Okay, well, now we're not debating whether or not the aliens are actually here or not. You know we're talking about like man, how do we, like you're saying, how do we all kind of aim our compass back towards Jesus and run towards him together? That? That to me. I'm way more interested in that than you know. Does this align with Methodist or Baptists or or whatever? And I think they all bring good methodologies and concepts to the table, but that's just not my, it's not my highest priority.
Speaker 1:What book is that, by the way? Because I got to read that sucker.
Speaker 3:The Heather Cop one. Yeah, it's called sober mercies. How love caught up with a Christian drunk.
Speaker 1:I love that quote. So that that was, that was huge for me. So hopefully at least one of our listeners will like that one. That was that was huge. I like that, you.
Speaker 2:I like the direction you took that and like I think that God has given it, like in Mago day, like God is very pragmatic, like there's there's extreme purpose and tensionality, consistency, like reasoning and logic behind our Heavenly Father, and like I'm at the beach right now I'm recording this in a closet, but I was, I was, I was sitting by the ocean. Actually, I went out in the water yesterday. And I was just contemplating the like, the way that I was sitting by the ocean and I was just contemplating the way that I think of God, like as just because he's used the term, like Heavenly Father, like the finite way that I, I like process what and who he is in my mind, and like his intentions and his ideas and the way that he functions, versus like the vastness of a being that is timing every wave on the ocean, every drop of water, every waterfall, while playing this symphonic harmony of every word and soul. And like, like you've seen those like fast forward videos of like nature growing together at the same time and it's like all of that at the same moment, all the time, with all the brokenness, working together for his glory in goodness. Like, and I'm like, yeah, he's just, he's just my dad and and like that's not a wrong, like he is the value of me being an adopted son or being a son of God, like that's what I'm fighting when I'm trying to earn, like going to my dad and being like have I worked hard enough for your love today? And it's like what, what, what part of this relationship are we not comprehending? But then to isolate him, quote, to put him in a box, right, like, oh, he is. I relate to him in this very simplistic way, versus, I love that, I just like go for it. I would love for you to go deeper on, like the heart of curiosity, because, like the idea that, instead of a, instead of a declaration of how, that, how we can be right when we come into relationship with God, he's given this invitation of discovering goodness in him that will take eternity to unravel, and, to me, like the reason that we don't feel that we can be curious is because we're afraid of condemnation. Like because the opposite of being right would be being wrong. You know, and there's security. If I'm right, then I have security, I have strength, I have control, but if I'm wrong, then I might be damned. And that would be a problem. So what are your thoughts, like your deeper thoughts on the power of the humility, curiosity, like, would that be a healthy motivator that that, that consistently, that consistently produces intimacy with Jesus?
Speaker 3:Man, I love that question, I think. I think first, we have to come to terms with the fact that many of us, if not most of us, have not taken Jesus's words about children seriously, Like he when he says the kingdom of God is closer to these kids than you realize. They understand something about the kingdom that you are missing. You don't get it. We pass over that so easily. We just talk about oh, we should have awe and wonder which? Yes, obviously that is a massive seismic shift. Even how we talk about gospel right, and you know, in some circles, when we talk about the gospel, all we really are talking about is death and resurrection, open tomb, which is obviously like the crux. That is massive. But Jesus spent a lot of time talking about good news before he was crucified. What? was he talking about then? Like, what did that mean? He's talking about the kingdom of God, heaven to earth. He's talking about these things that are so easy for us to miss if our whole aim is like disembodied, of evacuation, you know, like pray a prayer and then hunker down for 90 years and then I get stuck out of here when I die Disembodied evacuation. That's what it feels like. That's like that's the.
Speaker 1:That's the quote of the day for me.
Speaker 2:That will be the title Christianity.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean though.
Speaker 2:Disembodied, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:If that is the thing that is anchoring your faith, then you can very easily predict the kind of life that you will live on planet earth. But these first Christians, before they were ever called Christians, were called what they were, called followers of the way, like there was a way, a heart and life posture. I mean, even if you were talking about the sermon on the Mount stuff Jesus ends the sermon not with like a poem or an acronym, he ends it with a warning. He says the wise person is the person who hears my words and puts them into practice. And then gives us analogy of these two homes that, as best we can tell, on the surface look the same. Externally these houses are like yep, two identical houses, but they were grounded on two very different substances. And I think part of what and there's been some light bulbs for me since becoming a dad is like seeing and working to observe how they see the world has been transformative for me, like I go at a pace most the time that is just not sustainable, and my children are ready to remind me of that. There's a Japanese theologian who wrote this brilliant book called Three Mile An Hour, god, and his whole premise is that the average walking speed is three miles an hour and Jesus walked everywhere he goes, and Jesus is the embodiment of love. That means love has a speed and the kind of thesis is is it possible that we're missing some of what it means to live in the kingdom simply because we're going too fast, and that to me that question feels like a ton of bricks. Does my pace of life look like that of someone who actually wants to hear from God? When I watch my five-year-old, he could watch a line of ants in the dirt for an hour and a half and I lose interest about 12 seconds.
Speaker 2:About as long as a TikTok video. Yeah, exactly, and we could go down that rabbit trail.
Speaker 3:That is a. Those are formation devices. I'll regularly tell our church discipleship is not a Christian thing, it's a human thing. The question is, do you know what's actually discipling you? You know, like we're reaching for our phone first thing in the morning is the last thing we look at at night. That's a formation device. So when it comes to like curiosity this, by the way, in a lot of senses is a killer of curiosity. Like we this is what I was saying to my staff on Monday like most of us no longer even have the sensation of not knowing anything. We don't even. It's instant. I could hey Siri, hey Google, hey Alexa, whatever it is there's. It is that instant gratification of data, without any of the neuroplasticity that comes from genuine curiosity or not knowing, or pondering, or sitting in the tension or any of these things that are like so deeply intertwined in the scriptures that we've just sort of created this I don't know microwave obsessed picture of what growth looks like. But if you've watched a child grow, it's way slower and things like take time. And I think in this sort of like I think with good motive if I'm reading charitably, you know a lot of these like church growth strategies and blah, blah blah and like get your church from a hundred to a thousand and 48 hours, I'm like I don't think that's, I don't think that's healthy.
Speaker 2:You can do it.
Speaker 1:I think it's probably up to pay people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right.
Speaker 3:It was part of what I told the bridge before I came down. I was like I'm not interested in like growing for the sake of growing. I said lots of things grow, including tumors.
Speaker 2:Like just because, and they grow the best.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the fastest, exactly.
Speaker 3:Exactly, but that's what I think. That's what I think If we want to get back to genuine curiosity or maybe not even back to, maybe for some of us it's like for the first time I think it has to start with taking seriously the words of Jesus. Did he mean something specific? And I think he did by linking how children see the world to the kingdom. Do we actually care about that? You know, brennan Manning was one of my favorites growing up and he said I think I have it right here. Yeah, he said childlike surrender and trust, I believe, is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship. Discipleship ends up getting in this category of, like, purely cerebral or it's only for the serious Christians. You know like this is the ropes course level Christians discipleship that's how you know you're really in, and Brennan had this idea. Like I think childlike surrender and trust is the starting point, though, because if you skip over that, then it's just intellectual transfer, and information is not the same thing as transformation. In the West, in a Western post-enlightenment culture, we have conflated the two. As long as I have more data, I'm growing. I'm like boy. I know a lot of really smart, spiritually immature people. If Jesus spent all this time rebuking the people that had all the data but didn't know how to abide on the vine, didn't know how to be transformed by it. Is it possible that, like a posture of childlike wonder and surrender, is the thing that we so easily jump over in the pursuit of Christlikeness? I think that's a big error that many of us have perhaps been unaware of, or we did at one point and we've lost it. You know it's that. Maybe it's that Revelation 2 stuff. It's the yeah, you were there but you've left your first love and now you're doing things just to do it, and that's not what the Kingdom is about.
Speaker 1:I do have a question that we were talking about at one of the breakfast tables we're at. We do six am breakfast with a bunch of different dudes, and so we were talking about the fear of God and that whole, that whole bit. And this is completely off topic, but it's something that I wanted to. Just, you do sound like a super smart guy, at least to me. So you're doing that great. You're doing that great. I'm figuring it out Imposters syndrome pretty well right now for me.
Speaker 2:I'll give it a try.
Speaker 1:But so fear of God. So we had a discussion because I heard one of the guys at the table. He said that you know, the fear of God is Old Testament and nothing changes in the New Testament. You're still supposed to, you know, fear God in the same type of way. I'm kind of on a different path than that. But just what's kind of your thoughts on, just like, what is fear of God mean? Is it different in the Old and New Testament? That's just something I wanted to ask. That's a great question, man.
Speaker 3:To me when someone Jesus said if you've seen me, you've seen the Father right. I don't feel like we have enough mission statements and slogans that anchor on that. By the way, like he essentially is saying I think if you want to know what God is like, look at me. And that is very, very hard to reconcile with a lot of what we read in the Old Testament. We I mean we could go down that rabbit trail that is. That's maybe a whole different podcast, but I think that there is a. If Jesus is the sum and substance of all of God's promises, then what does that reveal to us about the nature of God and how we are to posture ourselves towards Him? I actually think it's a little bit of what you were saying, jared, about. Like when I look at the ocean and you're recognizing the expansiveness of the globe and I'm anchoring in intimacy. That is a moment in time and that's a thing that resonates with you specifically. That wouldn't resonate with someone else and I think that's okay. But I thought this is maybe a rabbit trail, but when I was in Chicago at our last church we had, we would regularly have like international residents who would come and do like six to twelve months with us and we had a collaborative teaching team model and I remember we were kicking around a particular line for a future sermon and we were debating whether or not to say it this way. We were talking about God's power. I forgot what the actual phrase was. We were like, ah, is that weird? Should we talk about it this way or should we not? And this guy that was with us, he was from, he's from Nairobi and he says it's so funny to me that you guys would even be debating this. He says in Africa, we are always talking about God's power because we feel so powerless. And he said in America, you are always talking about God's presence because you feel so alone. And I was like, ah, you never heard. But he made this cultural observation and I looked back at my notes and I'm like I talk about God's presence a lot and I did some soul searching. I think that there is there's a hunger for deep intimacy but also a fear of it and it has led me to many seasons of my life and I don't think I'm unique in this to functional isolation. So like the presence piece, the intimacy piece that you were talking about, like God as dad, like that resonates with me and I became a father and there was that like deepened it for me and I often feel like I I don't instinctually run to some of the power language I think I'm not really wrongly, because I kind of feel relatively in control most of the time. You know, like that is the, that's how that plays out. Like I have a pretty good sense of what my week looks like on my 401ks doing like what the all you know what I mean. Like it's. So I think it's connected. I think fear of God. I think it's more than just awe, if I'm being honest. I think that's part of it, but I think it's. I think it's more than that, because I can be, I can be odd at the night sky but not have any sense that I need to be in submission to it or that I need to die to myself for it. You know what I mean Like. So I do think fear of God is different than just wonder and awe. And yet I need to also reconcile that Jesus seems to draw some pretty distinct lines between himself and the father, and if to to our earlier discussion, I think it's really fascinating that the passage doesn't juxtapose love and hate. It juxtaposes love and fear. It's this perfect. Love casts out fear. Remember I was thinking like why does he say fear and not hate? I always felt like hate was the antithesis to love, and the more I think about it, the more I am just fascinated by that choice, cause I can't. I I'm not loving the people that I'm afraid of. I know that. I think it's honestly. That's probably one of the things that extinguishes true curiosity. I can't be curious about you if I'm afraid of you, if I think that you're some kind of threat, either ideologically or physically. So I guess that's not really an answer. I think it. I think.
Speaker 2:I'll go ahead. Well, no, I think. I think it is. I think you're touching on, like the answer about or in relation to this whole. I don't even know what question we're talking about anymore, but the idea of like fear of God, curiosity, security, like they're. I can be in awe of the night sky and of the ocean and then not be in a in a child oriented relationship to it. I could be in awe of things, but you're right, like I've got three kids, I'm part of the way onto a fourth. And like I had a father that was a military man and like there I don't know how to explain this because it sounds that to many it would sound like to some degree abusive, but from their perspective, because of maybe having like soft authority figures, but like my dad was fairly strict but he was compassionate and is compassionate, and so like he he could hold a hard edge and not waiver, but if I broke he could, he could hold me together. And like there was a there was a legitimate fear of disappointing him or of or of going against his way. And Like I don't have a fear of things that I'm not, like I wouldn't be in fear of, like the ocean and the things that I'm in all of, until the moment that I'm in relationship with the one that's manifesting everything, hmm, and says you are my son. Yeah and this is how it is for us to act, like, because now the relationship is also dictating, like, the way it is. A friend of mine says like this is how it is for our family to be in existence, like, and so now, like there is a fear, like the fear of disappointment, fear of like not being enough, fear of and all of those things like fear, if you think about fear, is the as the lack of Like, abundance or peace. If fear is your soul tensing up because you don't feel secure or you don't feel that you have a trustworthy source that won't change in your provision, yeah, then perfect love. Like eliminates those things. And and so, to me, like you can't have a childlike curiosity if you're afraid of what you're gonna find out.
Speaker 3:Hmm, wow, wow. That's a really good word. You know, I cut my teeth in student ministry and I felt that was a regular conversation With parents oh no, my kid is reading a book by so-and-so, or oh no, my friend, you know, and I think it would. I think it would really frustrate them because I, I and again I didn't have kids. So I was like just trying my best to give, you know, comfort and instruction to parents. But I would tell them, like man, if you're genuinely seeking after truth, capital T truth, like I believe that you will find it. If you're looking for a reason just to you know, distance yourself from the tradition that you're raised in, whatever. If there's an all-terrier motive to, like you know, knock someone else down a peg by that, that's different. But there is a, I don't know, there's a. It's like how I used to really be kind of Stifled by that. I had this picture in my mind. I called him the plan a, plan B. God, of course, like you know, senior year, high school, in my mind, if I go to the wrong college, that means I'm gonna get the wrong degree, I'm gonna marry the wrong girl, have the wrong kids, my whole life is ruined, like that. Really, that idea kept me up at night. It's a different kind of fear, but it was like, okay, god, just give me the you know. I think it was a gust and said some version of like Love the Lord and live your life. You know like it is. That's a summary, by the way, but there's this Expansiveness like man, if you, if your heart, if you regularly dine yourself, you're abiding in the vine, you're, you're listening to this, you're walking a step of the spirit, are you gonna make mistakes? Obviously, are you gonna fall off path? Of course, like that's this side of eternity word, that's all of us, but you don't have to live with this crippling. Oh, I was supposed to buy this house, not this house, which means now I have the wrong neighbors and like all the souls that I was supposed to be saving are over on the other side of town and now Everything's screwed. I'm like I don't think, I don't think the kingdom is that flat and I just. This is why. This is why I keep coming back to curiosity, child, like wondering, cuz I feel like the more I know, the less I know, that's what it feels like to be honest, it's. I take some comfort in Even the Apostle Paul. He uses the word mystery all the time, like you know, these letters that we hold up as as Instructive as well we should, and yet he regularly seems to come to these conclusions where he just goes. I don't know mystery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I heard somebody say. I heard somebody say the Apostles don't really seem impressed upon, as it's important to draw a line on in between Free will, providence, sovereignty of God, of like, where the line is that they seem to not care at all, and like one very frustrating Like one moment is like the Armenian Paul, and then the next the free will body, just like what is happening. And so now, like we started this with like being butts, like, I think, frustrated people as, like I've said, I'm a nine-point Calvinist with Armenian leanings like no man like what pick a day, like it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, right.
Speaker 2:Today I need the providence and the sovereignty of God because of the weakness that I feel. Hill, but it just it was not that flat. I love that. You said that. Like it yeah.
Speaker 1:There's something. I gotta point out this is important, not really, but you quoted a Catholic and you said somebody said one time yeah, nice.
Speaker 3:So that's the opposite, right there. So on you, man, this is you. We're doing that whole thing.
Speaker 1:Just bring it full circle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was not a joke. Somebody once said I Stopped attributing my sources.
Speaker 1:To give you a work cited.
Speaker 2:It was laziness to in school.
Speaker 3:Never liked the work cited with the bibliography in the show there was.
Speaker 2:Just since you brought that up. Actually looked this up earlier, people can look later. But Two of my favorite like forefathers of the faith were Like. One is John Wesley. Like I love his pragmatism. He's the guy that basically said, like I want to die with two pennies in my pocket.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I just think that's incredible. And then another was Charles Simeon, and John Wesley was, like, commonly known to be an Armenian. And then Charles Simeon was. He says sir, this is Charles Simeon, when the first time that he meets John Wesley. And it says sir, I understand that you were called an Armenian and I've sometimes been called a Calvinist. Therefore, I suppose we are to draw daggers and so, like, this is the first time they meet. And then I'm not going to read the whole quote because it's long, but he just goes through and says, like you know, he asked him questions about what he believes about God, what he believes about. He says but before I begin, before I consent to begin the combat, do I have permission to ask you a few questions? And he says pray, sir, do you feel yourself the depraved creature, depraved that you would never have thought of turning to God if God not first put it into your heart? And he said, yes, I do need so. John Wesley goes through and answers all his questions and at the end he says then, sir, with your leave, I will put up my dagger again, for this is all my Calvinism, this is my election, my justification, my faith, my final perseverance. It is, in substance, all that I hold and as I hold it, and therefore, if you please, instead of searching out terms and phrases to be a ground of contention between us, we will cordially unite in those things where we agree. That's so good, it's just, it's such a good quote. And like, I think that we, because of our insecurity, we raise up our like elite soldiers of representation of our insecurity, because so often people are like stop labeling me as this thing, because I don't want to be your, I don't want to be your paragon of Baptist faith or of this or of and I don't know. Like, I don't know exactly other than fear, like fear of man instead of fear of God. If I'm in, if the beginning of wisdom is fear of God and there's no condemnation, then we can just discover right. But if I need to be like in a certain tribe, there's got to be a tribal leader. Uh, and I wonder if, like, it brings us full circle again. Like, does that mean that? Does that mean that we're out in the cold, you know, alone in a culture of tribalism?
Speaker 3:Hmm, gosh, I think that question is what's giving me A lot of understanding for tribalism in the last couple of years, where I think I've historically you know I I was raised playing punk drums, so like things that there's like a I know I'm like old and boring now, but you know there's this punk rock that's still kind of beneath the surface, that one old and boring your.
Speaker 2:Your name on here is admiral soggy bottom.
Speaker 3:So I was hoping you wouldn't bring that up.
Speaker 2:Even though we never You've been so not boring.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that. That's kind, but I think that, yeah, we we are, every person is a storytelling creature. We all tell stories to make sense of the world, and Tribes are a way For us to understand our place in this world, to understand ourselves and the trajectory we're on. So I have I have not only a lot of sympathy but, I think, a lot of Understanding for the safety that can come from that saying okay, maybe I don't agree with every tenant, but I at least know I am this and everyone else around me is also this that we crave, that it's why family matters so much and like I think that that's, I think that even in some ways it's a very helpful Instinct. Like I I went to, I went to a blink when I showed the blink 1a2 concert a couple weeks ago and I like looked around the room it's a huge arena and I was like for some people this is like a religious experience. Like I'm watching dudes in particular. I was like I bet you you haven't cried like this in 15 years. But there's something that's happening when you're like we're all In this together for the set. You know what I mean. Now I think that that's ontologically, you know. The writer of ecclesiastes says that God has planted eternity in the hearts of everybody. I think, whether we articulate or not, we know Somewhere deep down, like this Can't be it. I know that there's something more and however we choose to like, articulate, that Organize that, you know, is as diverse as people are. But I think part of what, what I am trying to help point our people towards is that by it's kind of like what heather cop says, that that Bond, that understanding of who we are and our place in the world, does not have to be found in some sort of doctrinal piece of paper that someone decided hundreds of years ago, like it can't actually be jesus, it can't actually be the church, and that doesn't mean that we throw a humanism out the window. Like we still do the work of building bridges with other churches in our community because we're not in competition, we're on the same team. You know, if someone leaves and says, hey, I think I'm actually going to go to this church down there, I'm like, oh, you're going to love that, let me text mark right now. Like I could really see your family, like getting involved there. It like Immediately you can see the blood pressure lower, because it's not about oh you, now this church is growing and that church isn't, and like no, where it's kingdom stuff, man, and how people choose to place themselves in that I Think it is a paradox. It's back to some of that Armenian Calvinism language. The same bible that we read that says be still and know that I am god Also says take up your cross and follow me. Those feel like opposing invitation and they're both in there. And I think that paradox of yeah, I could see why they, you would go over there. But I also disagree with this piece. Yeah, but then I, you know, as a preacher I don't know if this is irreverent to say sometimes I disagree with the stuff I'm saying. I gotta rethink that I don't. It might not be fully baked thought yet.
Speaker 2:Until it comes out of your mouth. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:That's why I say that, because I, because I know that in my own heart, like shoot man, if we're, if we're deciding a tribe based on Ian's theological accuracy, they were all in trouble and that's why I'm just not. I'm interested in going deeper than simply Making sure that we all Check the same boxes all the time that's good.
Speaker 2:I this. I would love to hear your feedback and we can. We can come to a close because I have a. I have a rephrasing of keeping in step with the spirit. That may be sacrilegious, but I.
Speaker 1:I think, about Right after, by the way that after he said that he's a part of the heresy of ecumenism. So it's a problem, yeah.
Speaker 2:Let's go. That's awesome, all right, the I'm really really like that, that scripture that says, uh, taste and see that he is good. And like I'm a cook or I work in kitchens for a while, but I like I relate to God a lot In in a relationship with God through food. But, like food is one of those things that translates across almost all barriers, um, and especially good food and like preference is acceptable in regards to food. So Like in its from different nationalities, different, diverse you could call them different denominations of food. But one thing that most of the culture agrees on is you, you shouldn't eat bad food. And like to me in some way, like keeping step with the spirit, feels, feels like saying to a community like, just eat what is good. Like, like taste and see that he is good, and and part of the way that the spirit does that is like Helping you discern that just because this food is spicy doesn't mean it's bad food. It just means you don't have a palate for spicy food. And if every sunday they're serving up the hottest curry in the world and you don't like it, it's okay. Like yeah, but don't say it's it's bad and like but. But your food would be a lot better If you had a little bit of spice. It wouldn't be that bland, like a gruel that you and your family are eating every week and then nobody wants. And like yes so I don't, I don't know. Like, to some degree you come what. What that comes back to is like the ability to have taste, because some of us Become so warped that we do grow a taste for things that are killing us. Like you can come to a place where you think that like debbie cakes and microwaved ramen, like are your favorite foods in the world and anything that's actually like quality cuisine taste disgusting to you and like that, that warping to me, like that's what the scriptures for, is what communities for, it's what prayers for like. Like taste and see it's almost like like taste and see that he's good. Like learn again what good things taste. Like um. So I don't know, like what do you feel like? That's a Because to me that that comes full circle to. My community is a community of people that taste and see that he is good. Um, does that correlate for you in terms of how to build community?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I mean, again, I don't think it's a mistake that Jesus uses like table banquet motifs a lot, um, and I think this is this may be a little salty, but I think the phrase Jesus is lord has little meaning if we can't also say Jesus is smart. Think a lot of people like yeah, that was a nice idea, but I don't think that's very practical, or I don't. I think that was an accidental word picture and I was like no, no, no, if he's lord, he's also smart and Shows these words carefully. So if there's this table banquet motif that keeps showing up Again, I'm thinking of my kids. You know, like just last night, uh, neither of them wanted to eat their dinner and then, for the first time in a minute, a snow cone truck came through the neighborhood and I was like I can't, I couldn't. I like k, I was like, ah, let's go get, let's go get. You know I didn't have to coerce them. They're like Running and screaming and you know there's like kids have this, this, um, yeah, what's good to them. Like you were saying, we'll probably change, it should change. Paul talks about milk and meat, right, like there is, I think, uh, a progression. That canon should happen and to keep with the kind of food motif too, I also know like, as a teacher, um, sometimes I have to feed my people broccoli. You know like sometimes they're probably not asking for it, they're probably not Banging down the door like can we please get some asparagus, but sometimes, like we got to talk about our possessions or we got, we got it. You know what I mean Like there's like I know this has iron, but this is Not what I was in the mood for. Or so there is part of that we can't, we can't, but that is your point. That is still good food, right, even sometimes when we feel like I don't know that I have a palette for that right now. Right, and that is, uh, I think, a really beautiful invitation, because Food is not just about taste, it's about sustenance. You know the Growing up in churches that it always cracked me up when people would like Sit down to a big mac and say, lord, bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies. Like, what nourishment do you think is happening here? Like, can you change this, change this into vegetables on the way down, lord?
Speaker 2:bless this food that it not malnourished my body.
Speaker 3:Just yeah, zero sum. Game of the worship.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the across the counter podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate us five stars, wherever you got this podcast. Thanks, y'all.
