0:01

The I. Have. Leadership Network. Someone

0:03

had you said I can't wait for

0:05

your church to rethink your sexual ethics.

0:08

And I was like. Hey with all due

0:11

respect you think haven't thought this through? You

0:13

think upset he toil my farms You

0:15

think when you drop something that you

0:17

saw on youtube video. About.

0:21

The. What? Homosexual Not being in the Bible A

0:23

like the I've Never oh my gosh, I've

0:25

never heard that. I've. Never heard

0:27

that. So again, I think, isn't this an

0:30

assumption of your ignorant? They're not saying that

0:32

because they're ignorant. This saying it because they've

0:34

just learned it and it's exciting for them.

0:36

And I wanna test that they're saying that

0:38

because. They. Care about people

0:40

And they're worried that people who are

0:42

not thoughtful are holding on to positions

0:45

that are harmful for others. So you

0:47

know it. Some. It

0:49

in secularism. There

0:52

is no hi a good than human

0:54

flourishing. And.

0:57

So I think a lot of gin

0:59

the ways secularism shows up. Engine see

1:01

is it the ultimate good as human

1:03

flourishing? Mister Somebody say

1:05

like you're you're harming someone with that

1:07

idea. That's. Like the

1:09

ultimate trump card, your position

1:11

does harm and I'm. So

1:14

yeah, I'm in. This is you know you'd

1:16

Omonia. This is like. Fit.

1:18

Human flourishing is the highest good of life,

1:21

and self actualization is the point of existence.

1:24

And on crit that it's that's a lot

1:26

better than Hedonism, man. Minutes

1:28

Just not the kingdom of Jesus. The.

1:30

Thumbing above human flourishing which is the glory

1:33

of Jesus in the Kingdom of God. And

1:35

so I think I'd I don't think we've

1:37

done a good enough job teaching Jersey about

1:39

the Kingdom of God. If

1:41

they're meant that Also this if the

1:44

if they're meant to be seeking this

1:46

first. We. Owe

1:48

them to tell them what it is that they're

1:50

meant to be seeking and I do not feel

1:52

like we have done that. I.

1:54

Feel like we've shown them a shallow version of

1:57

modern church. Welcome

2:01

to carry new have Leadership Podcast

2:04

is Terry year and I hope

2:06

our time together today. Healthy, thrive

2:08

in life and leadership. Well we

2:10

are going to sit down with

2:12

John Tyson. I love talking to

2:14

John. The end We talk about

2:16

all things new as well. Where

2:19

we the software, we talk about

2:21

your filter. I y talk about

2:23

cultural identity. why is that the

2:25

big city says what's happening to

2:27

our identity wise shifting so much

2:29

T And while we also. Had

2:31

to on generations. Difference isn't happening

2:34

right now. Aging well in leadership.

2:36

Has to say I in the

2:38

sack of hit the whole lot

2:40

more I thought coming up on

2:42

this episode. today's episode Disaster by

2:44

the Curse Net or hey you

2:46

know they got a conference happening

2:48

in. This is inconsistent a my

2:50

night you can register today at

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the Church and network.com Twenty twenty

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button next to your mess into

3:00

small group guidance devotion. Social media

3:02

and more tech to get started. Use

3:04

the code carries the A R E

3:07

Y as. Well John

3:09

and I go all over the place

3:11

today. I think a lot of he

3:13

followed on the hands of for those

3:15

of you don't really get enjoy This

3:18

John is a pastor and author. New

3:20

York City originally from Adelaide, Australia. Shoutout

3:22

Adelaide A Love Adelaide. We never spent

3:24

enough time there than there are times

3:26

where the free time always and over

3:28

or John moved to the Us over

3:31

two decades ago. the passenger seat and

3:33

possibly renewal in the Western church he

3:35

the best selling author. including the books

3:37

beautiful Resistance, the insensible. Father and his

3:39

newest book, Fighting Shadows. He's the lead

3:41

pastor of Curse of the City in

3:44

New York City. Hey, I know this

3:46

is probably spring time as you listen

3:48

to this if you're listening live. I

3:50

got a new bike this here. I

3:52

am out on the roads and ah,

3:54

that's where I'm listening. listening to podcasts,

3:56

listening to, well, some of the podcast

3:58

that I'm sure some. You do as

4:00

well and really enjoy it. I don't know

4:03

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4:20

So thank you for doing that. An thanks

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Conference. That's the Church network.com/two Zero, Two

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when you go to church.tech. And. Now

5:46

my conversation with John

5:49

Tyson. John. To

5:51

thrilled to have you back! Welcome! Thank

5:53

you so much My always enjoyed talking

5:55

with you so. What?

5:58

Are some of the things. That

6:00

you are swimming in right

6:02

now. It's. A different

6:04

city New York City then it

6:06

was. say five years ago. Ah,

6:09

I think we'll all. We're all agreeing that we're

6:11

moving into some kind of a different era. Would.

6:13

He seeing. What Are you feeling? What Are you

6:16

experiencing? A. Tell ya

6:18

I I will have been is

6:20

a series of meetings this past

6:22

weekend. One of the things that

6:24

people talk about a lot better

6:26

I have felt and observed is

6:28

generational differences in the church. I'm

6:31

an act. I felt that I

6:33

it's almost like walking into a

6:36

wall in terms of the values

6:38

and preferences and understandings and you

6:40

know people talked about that. I've

6:42

talked about that before but like

6:44

watching it happened, giving Jens the

6:47

folks more space at the table,

6:49

not just to be they're about

6:51

to say to speak in giving

6:53

him confidence to sell with i

6:56

really think those sorts of things

6:58

it leads to some confrontations and

7:00

the misunderstanding. And ah, So.

7:03

I've I've noticed that that's been a huge

7:05

thing I think I'm seeing. The

7:08

increase of secularism not

7:10

as the academic ideology,

7:12

but as a functional

7:14

way that people navigate

7:16

reality and lives, creating.

7:19

Identities. And building their

7:21

world without even a thought of

7:23

God as a reference point. In

7:25

any event, that has normalized so

7:28

quickly and the has cemented in

7:30

ways that have been very, very

7:32

surprising to me. and I'd say

7:35

another big same would just be

7:37

suspicion of authority in general. Some.

7:40

But a high to suspicion of spiritual

7:43

authority. Aria. Since

7:45

the incessant on delete other the agenda for

7:47

an hour okay this is this is really

7:49

good. I'd like to pick up a number

7:51

two. because you lead in

7:53

the same city tim keller my the

7:56

in for decades and i mean i

7:58

talk about killer a lot I think

8:00

about him a lot. He's been a profound influence

8:02

on me. One of the things Keller

8:04

said, Tim said, in an interview I did with

8:07

him in 2020, was

8:09

that if he was starting over again in New York, he

8:12

would talk about identity because he

8:14

noticed even since 1989 when

8:17

he and Kathy first came to the city, he

8:19

said then it was kind of success and this isn't your

8:21

mother's church and then it went into, you know,

8:24

work is my identity or whatever or,

8:27

you know, some kind of apologetics. I'm not doing

8:29

him justice on this, but he said if I

8:31

was starting over again, identity

8:34

has become so huge, not just

8:36

sexual identity, but with

8:38

the demise of the church, people are

8:40

looking to attach their identity to

8:43

something else. What are you seeing? You

8:45

mentioned identity. Are you seeing something different?

8:47

Are you seeing an extrapolation? What are

8:50

you noticing about identity and the role

8:52

it's playing in secularism? Well,

8:54

what Tim said, and

8:56

these are all just paraphrases, no exact

8:58

quotes, was the

9:01

essence of sin and

9:03

how sin maps itself out in secularism

9:05

is not any particular moral

9:08

violation. It's not the

9:11

breaking of rules as such. It

9:14

is the construction of an identity without

9:16

any reference point towards God. So

9:18

in Romans chapter 1, when

9:21

Paul's going to map out to the great city of

9:23

Rome, I mean, you imagine writing a letter to Christians

9:25

in the city of Rome. You think

9:27

if you've ever been to Rome, you think about

9:29

the Palatine Hill, you think about all the temples,

9:31

you think about the military, you

9:33

think about the sports, you think about all

9:35

the nations, it's a huge, huge city. And

9:40

Paul starts by saying they did not

9:42

acknowledge him as God or give him

9:44

thanks. So all worship is rooted in

9:46

a sense of I recognize

9:49

I'm created and dependent and therefore

9:51

my response is gratitude and worship

9:54

compared to idolatry which says I

9:57

am self-defining and entitled.

10:00

I've made myself and I have

10:02

obligations to nobody beyond myself. That's

10:05

the essence of how modern people, I think,

10:07

in many ways that we're talking about, form

10:09

their identity. The sin is that

10:12

there's not a reference point towards God. So

10:14

the thought that there is a way

10:17

you should have to

10:19

live, that you cannot have

10:23

identity options as a blank slate

10:25

for self-expression, that just sounds like

10:27

cultural heresy. And

10:29

so I see a lot of people who

10:32

absolutely live their life by self-definition without reference

10:34

point to the Creator. So

10:36

for example, we're now playing the role of

10:38

the Creator. Jesus says in Matthew 19, have

10:41

you not read The Creator made the male or female? Now

10:44

in the modern world, we're saying I am the Creator,

10:46

I can make myself male or female. There's

10:49

no reference point to any sort of divine

10:51

design, blowing of distinctions

10:53

and boundaries. I think, yeah,

10:56

Philip Rief, who's obviously been mentioned on your

10:59

podcast before, he talks

11:01

about culture and anti-culture. And anti-culture

11:03

is the annihilation and hunting down

11:05

of any settled convictions. Culture

11:09

is organizing chaos for

11:11

flourishing. And anti-culture

11:13

is hunting down boundaries and

11:15

convictions and destroying them. And

11:18

I think that's what we're seeing with identity. There's

11:20

no ordering the raw relevance

11:22

of life under some divine vision.

11:25

It's just radical self-expression based on

11:28

whatever economic, sexual, political,

11:32

even theological categories that you want. So

11:36

that's, I mean, I think we all know that. How

11:38

that makes that hard is

11:40

to tell one of these people, I have

11:42

good news for you. There's a way you're supposed

11:44

to be and you have to change. And

11:47

for a lot of people that does not come across

11:49

as good news, that comes across as oppressive,

11:52

restrictive, harsh,

11:55

controlling, bigoted. And

11:58

so I think it was

12:00

like... who said postmodernism

12:03

is a suspicion of

12:05

metanarratives and I

12:07

think there is an acute

12:09

suspicion of anybody who

12:11

tells you how to live your life. So

12:14

yeah, I mean that is happening a lot. Yeah,

12:17

yes and no. Not disagreeing

12:20

with you but the idea

12:22

that okay we're all opposed to metanarratives but

12:25

I think you raise a really good point.

12:27

We're all creating our own metanarratives so if

12:29

my identity isn't in work it might be

12:31

in my sexuality, it might be in my

12:35

status, it might be in my

12:38

politics, it could be in this

12:41

label. It's funny we live in

12:43

a very anti-label culture

12:46

except we all want to label ourselves and we

12:48

want to say I am fill in the blank.

12:50

It's like this push pull this yin and yang.

12:53

What are you noticing in

12:56

the people that you're actually interacting with

12:58

in New York City which in many

13:01

ways is a cultural

13:03

harbinger for everything that is to

13:05

come in America down

13:07

the road and I know a lot of people in the

13:10

south would say no it's not. It's like well just look

13:12

at what was happening in New York 20 years ago, look

13:14

at what's happened in the nation now, you'll see some parallels.

13:18

Yeah, I mean there would

13:21

be some some universals that what happens in

13:23

New York does get distributed to other places.

13:25

I think in some sense shared

13:28

media consumption

13:30

has, New

13:34

York has lost its global

13:36

importance in

13:39

some areas because everybody's looking at the

13:41

same YouTube videos and whatever's going viral

13:43

so there's definitely a great flattening, locational

13:45

flattening that social

13:47

media has done for us which

13:50

has staggering implications but

13:52

there will always be a local reality to where you

13:54

live. I think one thing that you know maybe you

13:56

see on the news that

13:59

That I feel a. Hugely or the migrants

14:01

who here in New York City.

14:04

The. Hundred ninety thousand migrants have come

14:07

here in last eighteen months to

14:09

years you think about. I'm.

14:12

Not enough to still in Canada. But

14:14

I was like this: this There isn't

14:16

hundreds of cities over one hundred eighty

14:18

thousand people in Canada and.maybe even in

14:21

the Us is not. So they just

14:23

you to hundred and eighty thousand people

14:25

that the city is in many ways

14:27

paying for. Ah I'm. Trying

14:30

to integrate and Bill do lives

14:32

here and dumb that is causing

14:34

a lot of chaos. The systems

14:36

are not designed to support that

14:38

many people. There's a lot of

14:40

heartbreak, a lot of terrible stories,

14:43

lot of pain, lot of controversy.

14:45

That that is a real factor.

14:47

I'm. I mean

14:49

that that affected my life of

14:51

this morning at six am. Modality

14:53

Go That poses you disappear talking

14:55

to people, you're meeting people, seeing

14:57

people on the streets. You know,

14:59

on this whole family's asking for

15:01

money. Sitting. There begging be

15:04

an eye on this. Other folks who

15:06

are being horrifically discriminated against in the

15:08

workplace because every little agency to defend

15:10

themselves as a lot of exploitive labor

15:13

and work conditions, incredible economic challenges, and.

15:16

Curse you know what role does the trick

15:18

play in that many these folks don't speak

15:20

English and so you trying to offer support

15:23

and I'm in a way that to that's

15:25

something that I don't think when people think

15:27

New York City Manhattan the think in that

15:29

I think that's something that we would sink

15:31

and pray about a lot I think another

15:33

one people are the sort of thinking through

15:35

is a I. New

15:37

York is a creative industry. What

15:41

it's doing for content In terms of writing.

15:44

Even art. Automation

15:47

A lot of those things. I think

15:49

this. Think a lot

15:51

of New Yorkers are thinking about what

15:53

are the implications of that cost of

15:55

living I'm in. It's just stupidly prohibitive.

15:58

Amo. Them everywhere but especially. York the

16:00

I was. It's sort of at that point where flight.

16:03

Can you build a life here?

16:05

long term? Probably.

16:07

Not not for most people. You

16:09

gotta be really successful and often

16:11

that success is gonna put you

16:13

through a gauntlet of about a

16:15

decade. we have schedules choked out.

16:18

And ah so yeah I think I see

16:20

that as something but I think a lot

16:23

of he was has the best and worst

16:25

of times in New York. it's it's a

16:27

my issues amazing you know I was out

16:29

on the street on ninth avenue front for

16:32

a came up here. sun shining so beautiful

16:34

winter days, clear people walking around. lot of

16:36

joy. so. Yeah.

16:38

I think I think New York

16:40

is leaning into the the realities

16:42

of you know, technology and immigration

16:44

and the economy Economy not at

16:46

metal levels, but I'm very afraid

16:48

of us on profound level. So

16:50

these big news headlines we feel

16:53

those on a very very personal

16:55

level around us quite a bit.

16:57

So. How has that changed or altered

17:00

your approach to ministry over the

17:02

last few years? Well.

17:05

Honestly, It's a roof tension with us. We

17:09

don't own any facilities have been

17:12

hidden nineteen years. Back

17:14

Up! Tear down for services on a

17:16

Sunday. With three then uses

17:19

the church and no matter how you

17:21

game a fire or talk about Jesus

17:23

taken off his out a Roman washing

17:25

people's feet and having a servants hot.

17:28

Nineteen years of doing the same stuff

17:30

in a city like New York we

17:32

can you could park properly is frustrating.

17:34

Sites we we don't we don't control.

17:37

Are some most of our leases so we

17:39

can't serve the poll we can't bring like

17:42

our offices where I am right now I'm

17:44

in Hell's Kitchen. We. Camp

17:46

the security guards at the front desk. We

17:48

can't bring the poor in and care for

17:50

them in offer services. Such a lot of

17:52

our stuff as been through partnerships in I

17:54

think we've had a more external focus and

17:56

partnerships now. the we empower ah other churches

17:58

have it would give. Resources to other

18:00

churches with increase that giving to. People.

18:03

We think is of in the city well

18:05

I'm. I. Think

18:08

the i think that's it's an hour

18:10

would focus innocent in a frustration is

18:12

probably what I feel that hurts his

18:14

groin lot since cause it so we

18:16

feel gross strains with cuddled the system

18:19

strains that many was when an axe

18:21

six moments in a lot like whose

18:23

job is to do a lot good

18:25

growth problems but all of that put

18:28

together or does make for some some

18:30

sounds english if. He started

18:32

off with generational differences. So.

18:35

What are you noticing? and what kind

18:38

of tension is that creating around your

18:40

table or tables? I

18:43

think a big ones. That

18:46

number one I want to say I suit

18:49

on on both sides. I'm forty seven or

18:51

I'm an old Forty seven men, not a

18:53

young forty seven. Fss the photographic it would.

18:55

He was given a high guy that knows

18:57

I don't I I just got a lot

18:59

of mileage on this model for them. So.

19:03

I will be some examples. Somehow older

19:05

folks sort of can't believe the way

19:07

they talked to. To

19:09

this is this is no assumption of cultural

19:12

respect. The snow you think he deserves some

19:14

exists. you been breathing air a few years

19:16

longer than the nano would say that. But

19:18

in I'm in. An example

19:20

would be. When. I

19:22

get them preaching some of the things that people say

19:25

to me. It's. Just like a

19:27

you you didn't have you believe you

19:29

have a full right to say whatever

19:31

you want to any person in the

19:33

world without any filter and dumb. You

19:35

know I don't. Be.

19:37

And I take that to heart that often I want

19:40

to engage in, I want to give a warm welcome

19:42

and make people remember how non defensive an open I

19:44

was. but I think those in a personal things very

19:46

very real. Armed

19:48

the amount of technology jokes

19:50

people make about me, his

19:53

is staggering. Like Tom Hi

19:55

John. updike facebook

19:57

ads hey you on facebook this

19:59

morning I'm not on

20:01

TikTok and I think I'm cool on

20:03

Instagram. They're like, I'm just realizing, and

20:07

I think other folks are realizing, we

20:09

are not the edge. Now, here's

20:11

why that's hard. Our

20:13

church has never had more influence of momentum

20:16

than this moment. And

20:18

so you can build a world at

20:20

my age where you feel like you're the center of

20:23

it. But if only you

20:25

could realize the center of your world is on

20:27

the side of the stage of history. Do

20:29

you know what I mean? And so you've got

20:32

to lean into the future because the future is

20:34

here more than we already know. It's

20:36

the classic. You were one of the first people I heard point

20:38

this out. Everybody

20:41

was talking about reaching millennials and you're like, millennials

20:45

drive minivans and have kids. You got to go after

20:47

Gen Z. It's sort of

20:49

like that. The future is more present than we're

20:52

aware of, but we're still building for the past,

20:54

even by a few years. And

20:56

I think I definitely feel that around the table. Another

20:59

thing I feel around the table is lack

21:02

of biblical worldview, not

21:04

even biblical knowledge. A

21:07

lot of people listen to podcasts and

21:10

Bible apps. There's a lot of Bible input, but

21:12

there's not a lot of discernment. And

21:15

so there's a lot of younger folks who have

21:19

not been taught properly how to think in a

21:21

godly way about all of reality. And

21:24

I think there's a lot of secularism in their worldview. Yeah.

21:27

Yeah. Coming up with some

21:29

pretty dense sentences here packed with meaning, John.

21:32

So I'd like to drill down a little bit further.

21:35

First of all, just an observation about your forties. Thanks

21:37

for going there. A lot of people who are in

21:40

the senior pastor chair are in that space right now.

21:42

And I've got a decade on you. I'll be 50

21:44

while a decade in a bit. I'll be 59 by

21:47

the time this comes out. You look like you've got less mileage

21:49

on you than me, mate. So I can. I'm

21:52

with the sun here in my studio

21:54

that is in between lighting and renovation.

21:56

So again, tech jokes. But it's really

21:58

interesting. I think... I think

22:00

your 40s is a really awkward decade. I remember

22:02

being 42 and that was the last time. I

22:05

don't know why this stuck out. It just hit me

22:08

when I was 42. Nobody's calling me a young leader

22:10

anymore. Happened until I was 41 and

22:12

you're not being seen and you're not quite a sage

22:14

or an elder of the village as Bob Goff would

22:16

say or that kind of thing yet. You

22:19

know by the time you're almost out of your 50s

22:21

people look at you differently

22:23

and there's a little more grace

22:25

there perhaps but it's a very awkward

22:27

teenager phase of adult life. It is.

22:29

It's kind of a second adolescence. It

22:31

is like a second adolescence. I think

22:33

that's why you see marriages blow apart.

22:35

That's why you see people have affairs

22:37

because your youth is stealing

22:39

away but your wisdom

22:42

years are just getting started theoretically.

22:45

Oh mate we could do a whole podcast

22:47

on midlife. I've just done a huge, I've

22:50

got a course that I do

22:52

at pastors events called Ministry

22:54

in Midlife because there's almost no

22:56

theology of ministry for middle-aged people

22:59

and a lot of the crises happening

23:01

in ministry are being called spiritual warfare,

23:03

cultural change, lack of accountability and really

23:05

it's the leader's internal life not having

23:08

the tools needed to make it into

23:10

the second half of life. It's

23:12

a different issue but it's certainly

23:15

a very very prevalent one.

23:18

Interesting. What are some top insights

23:20

from that course about midlife? Well

23:23

if you have a proper midlife crisis

23:27

it should feel as awkward as your

23:29

teenage years. It

23:31

is a second adolescence. The

23:33

first half is really about accomplishment

23:37

and success. It's called heroic thinking. In

23:39

your 20s you're like why did the

23:41

generation before tolerate this, do this, I'll

23:43

show them and then when

23:45

you get a little older into your 30s, why

23:48

do my parents have such a bad marriage? Why

23:51

don't they just love each other and work it out?

23:54

And then towards your late 30s you're

23:56

like wow it's really hard to accept

23:58

another person as they are. not try and change

24:00

him. Wow, I actually think

24:02

I may be the one that needs to change.

24:04

So you shift from heroic thinking to

24:08

the second half of life, which is really defined

24:11

by meaning and wonder. So

24:14

I listen, similar

24:16

to you, there's very very

24:18

few worldly accomplishments I'm interested

24:20

in. You know, you speak

24:22

at enough staff, you're just kind of

24:24

like, hey look, there's not a conference on earth right

24:26

now if I got to speak out of it, would

24:28

probably move my heart. I tried to do it to

24:30

serve Jesus, but I'm not chasing those sorts

24:32

of things. I realize life

24:34

is hard, what I'm chasing is meaning. Who am

24:37

I really? Not who do I wish I was.

24:40

Find joy and accept that and then

24:42

wonder. Life beats the stuffing out

24:44

of you and it's very

24:46

easy to get cynical and lose vision and

24:49

joy. It's not a quest to re-enchant your

24:51

heart, but to do that

24:53

in midlife in a mature way is more

24:56

than hobbies and great

24:58

vacations. It is a real sense of

25:00

trying to find God in the world

25:02

in a new way. Anyway,

25:05

so yeah, there's a lot of tools for that

25:07

in ministry, under

25:09

the pressure of ministry. Yeah,

25:11

and bigger and better does lose its luster,

25:13

doesn't it? It really does, it

25:16

just starts to fade, you're just not as

25:19

motivated. I was thinking about that,

25:21

I was recalibrating my personal

25:23

schedule earlier this week. I've got an

25:26

episode with Cal Newport that'll be out

25:28

sometime this year where I

25:30

kind of had him consult with me live and

25:33

I've just done it the day before. I

25:36

want to spend the first two hours, and I'm

25:38

so early stages into this, this could all blow

25:40

up by the time I'm this

25:42

broadcast, but I thought

25:45

I want to live like our mutual friend John

25:47

Mark Homer, your good friend, want to live with

25:49

my devices off for the first few hours of

25:52

the day. The digital Bible was getting in the

25:54

way of that because I use you version like

25:56

half a billion other people do, you know, and

25:58

then but it was so tempting for me,

26:00

I'll just text so she'll I'll just see who

26:02

texted me. I'll just and so I literally grab

26:05

my analog Bible off the shelf, printed

26:07

out my prayer schedule printed out my

26:09

Bible, my one year Bible reading plan and

26:11

very small font so that I just now

26:13

look it up analog style and just start

26:15

going with that. And the first two hours

26:17

a day are devoted

26:20

to zero productivity, and

26:22

a lot of deep thinking and creating.

26:25

So I'm working on a project right now that

26:27

may or may not see daylight. But

26:29

a few days into it, it's just so

26:31

refreshing. And it's like, I

26:34

don't know, this will be a book. I don't know there

26:36

it'll be a documentary. I don't know

26:38

there any will be interested. I don't know whether I'm going

26:40

to go after a publishing deal or whether I'm going to

26:42

do it myself. I don't care. I just want to do

26:44

the work. And hopefully in

26:46

service of church leaders who are

26:48

listening one day, and if it takes me two years, it

26:50

takes me two years. That's fine. That

26:53

is so refreshingly liberating.

26:56

When a younger driven me would have

26:58

been like, God, a ship by Christmas.

27:00

It's like, hey, something will help. You

27:02

know, but I don't know. Do you

27:04

feel some of those changes happen? Well, you know, what's

27:07

so interesting? I think one of the

27:09

things you would said, maybe we'd touch

27:11

on is like, you know, like, what have you

27:13

done to cultivate resiliency? It's interesting you said two

27:15

hours, because I have found

27:18

for about 23

27:21

years of my life that

27:26

it takes me about two hours in the morning to be the

27:28

man I want to be in the day. And that

27:31

two hours is I've

27:33

got a little template. I listen, I'm a

27:35

I'm a organized guy, but I've got a

27:38

little template like here's my perfect day. Here's

27:40

my perfect day. Here's my perfect week broken

27:42

down into perfect morning, perfect afternoon, perfect evening.

27:45

And my perfect morning takes me two hours to get

27:47

through. And it's so different than what people think. It's

27:50

looking at photography. It's reading

27:52

poetry. It's reading a panic.

27:55

It's Smith Wiggles worth daily devotion or something

27:57

a little dose of Panacostal faith. reading

28:00

John Frame's small

28:02

theology so I'm getting you know I'm

28:04

really understanding who God is. It's

28:07

Lectio Divina. It's

28:09

slow thought. It's receiving the

28:11

Father's love. There's zero contending,

28:14

urgency, a sense of

28:16

duty and it's exactly like you're saying it's

28:19

often me standing there with

28:21

coffee sort of looking

28:24

off into the horizon lost in thought and

28:26

so people say where do you get

28:30

time to do it and I say I

28:32

can't not do it. It's

28:35

not even a necessity for me like I

28:37

can't live the life I'm called to live

28:40

and the demands that are on my

28:42

heart without having a well to draw

28:44

on a daily basis and it just

28:46

it just takes me about two

28:49

hours to sort

28:51

of run the script. That's just what just how long it

28:53

takes. So I don't

28:56

know if it's not pretty scriptive it's just an observation

28:58

but it's a maybe there's something

29:00

there. But you've got the craziness of like

29:03

19 years in rented

29:05

facilities, growth challenges, all

29:08

the usual stuff. You know last time you

29:10

were on you were talking about your wife

29:12

having long COVID, your whole family being sick.

29:14

Like you've got the normal stuff well an

29:16

abnormal stuff of everyone else and

29:18

it can be so tempting to hit the ground

29:20

at pick your hour five six seven a.m. and

29:23

just run into it. But

29:25

you know you're one of the I don't want to

29:27

say who it was but I was texting with a

29:29

guy who's becoming a friend he's about 15 years younger

29:31

than me leads a very large ministry and

29:34

we were at an event together and he just said you

29:36

know where are the Tim

29:38

Keller's and the John Piper's

29:40

of this generation and

29:43

it's a really great question

29:45

to ask and when I think about the future and I've

29:47

said this to you I've said this to John Mark Comer

29:49

I've said this to a handful of other people I think

29:53

doing that deep work the combination of looking

29:55

at Photography that you really

29:58

enjoy because you know you. Do

30:00

enjoy that and like the or

30:02

demeanor and prayer and leadership. Hours

30:05

a day and reading wide leave

30:07

already voted a couple of philosophers

30:09

nobody's. Listening. This is

30:11

probably heard of, including me

30:14

like that actually over time.

30:16

A Fifty Seven, you'll have a decade more

30:18

reps of that. At Sixty Seven, you'll have

30:21

even more. And seventy seven should be less.

30:23

A long. you'll have even more. And that's

30:25

a wisdom is cultivated. That's why you didn't

30:27

understand. Was. In I

30:29

was talking to somebody was think this is public as

30:31

John Maher Comber yeah he did. This was on my

30:34

podcast and he was saying. He. Know

30:36

he would see to in Eugene Peterson shortly

30:38

before he died a couple years and it

30:40

was clear that his decline was in process

30:42

and he didn't say a single word. That.

30:44

Hadn't been published elsewhere. But.

30:47

It was like being in the presence of Christ

30:49

and I was on that trip I was in.

30:51

your on that trip was a jealousy ever see

30:53

are slim to none know I'm in. Yeah I

30:55

mean he definitely had some cognitive decline. I'm.

31:01

I'm in. it's. I've been around a lot

31:03

a great leaders. He

31:05

was the genuinely. Most

31:08

say it's like in the truest

31:11

archetype, a sensor that when he

31:13

was a cough. why it's content

31:15

half in eternity, half in the

31:18

room. For

31:20

why it. Or. Sar it is

31:22

man. He

31:24

had is it is is it. He was

31:26

liberated from a single thing to prove and

31:28

I mean as if is a. It.

31:32

Was a really Emmy. We. We.

31:34

Took year we took time to debrief that we

31:36

we spend a day and off on an outcome

31:39

of allah was exactly and then we spent two

31:41

and a hostile deeper east. Because.

31:43

It was really kind of jarring experience.

31:46

Arm. Does. Not a lot of

31:48

men. That a like. My

31:51

yeah, I think we have an

31:54

obligation. I'm a nice.desert Desert Massive,

31:56

generational. Man. to transfer

31:58

through desk and ministry

32:00

failure happening right now. And some of

32:02

the guys getting it are not quite

32:04

ready for it. And I look around

32:06

New York, I mean, gosh,

32:09

man, there's not a... I

32:12

feel like a young father. Now

32:15

I've got adult children, you know, both my kids are

32:17

in their 20s. But I look

32:19

around and I'm like, at some point you've got to say,

32:21

Lord, I'm not quite ready. But

32:23

there's not... But I feel like I'm up a

32:25

little bit. Now, again, I

32:27

don't think the difference with someone like

32:29

Piper and Keller is

32:31

these men were raised pre-social media.

32:34

So whatever fame they had, both

32:37

of them had fame, Keller's fame

32:39

was a tape

32:41

circulation, subscriptions to Redeemer's

32:44

literal cassette tape ministry.

32:47

And so that will draw your attention

32:50

away, but only

32:52

incidentally. And there was not there

32:54

was not podcasts. There

32:56

was not a publishing mecca like today.

32:59

There's no social media. There's no blogging.

33:01

So these men were formed in

33:03

a kind of deep contextual

33:06

faithfulness that this

33:08

generation has not, will not, cannot be formed

33:10

in. So we

33:12

have a lot of catching

33:15

up to sort of imitate the

33:17

conditions of depth, stability, lack

33:20

of external awareness that those folks have. That's how

33:22

they remember talking

33:25

with Keller. And he said, and I just

33:27

published my first book. And

33:29

he was like, none of you have got anything to say until you

33:31

turn 50. And I remember just

33:33

going, Oh, I was gonna ask you

33:35

to endure. And

33:38

he's just like, and I think he published Reason

33:40

For God, like in his mid fifties. I think it was

33:42

57. That's that. I'm like, so shocking. Yeah. And I think

33:49

he left it too late, just personally. But

33:53

he was, but when he arrived,

33:56

he could, he could just hang it any level.

33:58

And I think I

34:01

do agree we've got to ask God

34:03

for new spiritual fathers and mothers to

34:05

come up. We

34:09

are way more underformed and deformed

34:11

than they were by the cultural

34:14

mechanisms we have, particularly around pastoring.

34:17

It's several questions. It's

34:19

hit me, because I would

34:21

say, being my stage, born

34:23

in 1965, 10, 15

34:27

years ago, I would say, yeah, I have a pre-digital memory.

34:30

But that's when I was like 38, 40.

34:33

And now I'm saying it, and I'm realizing

34:35

there are 40-year-olds with no pre-digital memory. And

34:38

I'm wondering if we are going to become the

34:41

generation that dies off remembering

34:43

the depression, and nobody else

34:45

remembers the depression, right? Or

34:48

the war, or whatever it is.

34:50

It's interesting. It's a

34:53

very, very important question, but there's a

34:55

real tension there. There's a tension on

34:57

forgetting the past out of a desire

34:59

to be relevant. And you don't

35:01

want to be relevant. You don't want to... I

35:04

have negative desire to

35:06

try and be a young, cool pastor.

35:10

Negative, negative, I never...

35:14

If I tried to dress cool, my wife would

35:16

say, what are you doing? Why

35:18

are you dressing like that? I basically wear

35:20

a uniform, and it is a non-observable,

35:23

non-cool uniform. So

35:26

I don't want to be one of those older

35:28

guys trying to be cool and relevant and keep

35:30

up. But I also don't want to get stuck

35:32

in the past. I've got a very high appreciation

35:34

for jazz music. Nothing will

35:36

bring me more joy than

35:38

going to... Birdland is literally out

35:41

that window. And man, I would kill to just

35:43

sneak over and get a 5.30 pm set, get one

35:46

drink, sit at the

35:48

bar and take in a show. I

35:50

think that's cool, and the next generation

35:52

cares about that. And the vast majority,

35:54

it's like talking about Bob Dylan. They're

35:56

like, Bob who? I don't care care

36:00

about peace in the 60s, it's irrelevant

36:02

to me. It's very, very hard. So

36:05

I was thinking this morning, I was watching

36:07

in an elevator, an older

36:09

leader interacting with a younger leader, and this guy I

36:11

thought was doing it really well. And

36:14

he just sort of acknowledged that he

36:16

wasn't a main feature in that person's

36:18

audience. He

36:20

just sort of acknowledged, I got an older

36:23

generation, here's my demographic, I

36:25

may not be the man to reach you. So I'm

36:27

going to be really good at who I am. You

36:29

know who I think has done this really well? I've

36:31

got McDonald. Oh yeah. You

36:34

know, he's just kind of like, hey man, you

36:37

can try and get teenagers to care about

36:39

it. But I

36:42

just don't think they will. It's their loss.

36:45

But I think he's just kind of like, if you read

36:47

his books, he'll just sort of say the older you get,

36:49

the more you realise it's about relationships, you're living in the

36:51

past, your best days are not ahead.

36:54

What's coming up is sickness and frailty.

36:56

And yeah, heaven is I guess. But

36:58

it's tough to get that. So

37:01

I guess the answer I would say is this, I'm

37:03

trying to be timeless. I'm trying to be helpful. I'm

37:06

not trying to be cool. I'm trying to be wise. I'm

37:08

trying to be trusted. I'm trying to

37:10

be stable. And if that helps

37:12

younger folks and they feel like he feels like

37:14

my dad a bit, but he feels like a

37:16

young dad and I'm grateful for it. And older

37:18

folks feel like maybe he's

37:20

a young sage man, he's emerging into a

37:23

really thoughtful leader. I'm happy

37:25

with that. But what I don't want to do is

37:27

chase trends and try and be relevant and try

37:29

and have the kids think I'm

37:31

cool and give it to someone who

37:33

is cool and mentor them and

37:36

love them and help them with their character

37:38

and mature them. Anyway, here we are.

37:40

You do TikTok. I'm good. Exactly.

37:43

I'll start with MySpace. No,

37:46

I think this is, and I think one of the

37:48

reasons I'm thinking about pre-digital memory, it's not just, I

37:50

remember the 70s and 80s, the 90s. It's

37:54

not that. It's like literally for millennia.

37:57

We have lived without. digital

38:01

tools and culture keeps changing but

38:03

there's something I'm reading I just started so

38:05

I'm hesitant to recommend it but it's a

38:07

really interesting look

38:10

at history but Mustafa

38:12

Salimans the Come the Coming Wave do

38:14

you know that book somebody

38:16

recommended it to me and

38:18

it's fantastic he started Deep Mind

38:21

and he's just writing about all the changes

38:23

in history at last year I read Tom

38:25

Holland's Dominion another really interesting

38:28

retrospective and you see the patterns and

38:30

I think we're at a hinge in

38:32

history where those

38:34

of us who do have a pre-digital memory perhaps

38:37

have an interesting role

38:39

as interlopers or interpreters to

38:42

play in helping people make

38:44

sense out of what really matters because I

38:46

can't imagine getting my first

38:48

device at two you know as an

38:50

iPad babysitting me at a restaurant and

38:52

you know having a smartphone in middle

38:54

school where I had full command of

38:57

the internet and everything else that

39:00

really does shape your world differently so

39:03

I want to ask you okay I just I

39:05

want to think it's very interesting when people

39:07

say to me like

39:12

what do you love doing John like

39:15

my favorite thing is

39:17

between 20 to 50 people and

39:20

four days two days not enough three days

39:22

not enough four days that's when you

39:24

get to that final layer of defense and

39:28

just going deep with people a

39:30

I cannot take deep

39:32

human connection and

39:35

so look I'm not I'm not worried that I'm

39:37

gonna run out of content I'm not I'm

39:40

not the worst AI gets

39:42

the better it gets for in-person

39:44

discipleship now

39:46

I'm not anti online discipleship I

39:49

love it there's never been a

39:51

better opportunity leverage technology ever but

39:54

there's no threat so if you try if

39:57

your job is being an internet celebrity you're

39:59

gonna have a challenge for

40:01

a crowded market. But if your job is like discipling

40:04

people in person and loving them and doing

40:06

human community, these are the most beautiful

40:08

days the church has almost ever had. It

40:10

will only get better and better. So

40:13

the future will be a dual response,

40:15

but I'm very excited at my age

40:17

to meet with people a few years

40:19

either side of my life and just

40:21

process becoming like Jesus together. Just being

40:23

honest, going there, opening our hearts, getting

40:26

below the surface. And I'm

40:28

very excited about what that means to

40:30

the church. I think this is true for all

40:32

ages. It's a theme that's sort

40:34

of developing from conversation to conversation. Not everyone, but

40:36

a lot of them on the podcast, for those

40:38

of you who listen every episode, you'll

40:41

notice like when the culture goes shallow, the

40:44

church's move is to go deep. Yeah, go

40:46

there. And I'm for you. I mean, we

40:48

use AI, I use AI. We can talk

40:50

about that if you want. AI is here,

40:53

it's inevitable, it probably won't be contained. And

40:56

God is still sovereign. But I think

40:58

we are the alternative to what the

41:00

culture is missing. Is that

41:02

what you're thinking when it comes to personal? Yeah, 100%. Well,

41:06

I mean, it's

41:09

deep connections. Everyone's got sort of shallow

41:11

connections, but all that's doing is really

41:13

doing is producing, it's making

41:16

us knowledgeable, but

41:18

not wise, connected but

41:21

lonely. And I

41:24

think this is a beautiful moment to say, we're here,

41:26

we love you. And we got space at the table.

41:29

I think it's a beautiful moment. When

41:31

you walk away from, and you

41:33

said it took a few days to debrief

41:35

from a Eugene Peterson visit, and

41:39

you said he had one foot in eternity

41:41

and one foot in this world. I think

41:43

John Orpberg said this about Dallas Willard, who

41:46

he knew. I

41:48

think this is either John or

41:50

Dallas's wife who said, after

41:53

he died, he might not even

41:56

have known the difference because he was so heavily

41:58

minded like it might've taken. for a while to

42:00

go, oh wait a minute, I'm dead. And this

42:02

was an awful lot like my life, right? Like,

42:04

yeah, it's really cool. I want to know what

42:07

that did to you, because there's a lot of

42:09

us who would have loved to have been in

42:11

that room. There were a handful of

42:13

people. What legacy impact did

42:15

that leave? Well, I tell you the

42:17

most, can I tell you the most shocking thing from that

42:19

whole meeting? The most shocking thing from

42:21

that meeting. Say it was a good

42:24

group of young pastors who were there, many whom you

42:26

would know, and everyone's

42:29

like, thank you Eugene for just pastoring 300

42:31

people. Thank

42:33

you for keeping the church small. Thank

42:36

you for just having the vision of being a shepherd.

42:39

Thank you for not caring about science. And at

42:41

some point, all of these accolades sort of shook

42:43

him a little bit, and he said, very quiet,

42:45

Raspy voice, hang

42:48

on. Do you think

42:50

I kept the church at 300? I

42:54

couldn't grow it past 300. That

42:58

was my leadership limit.

43:01

That wasn't a philosophy of ministry.

43:04

That was the limit that God gave me. He said,

43:07

the lady who came in after me was a way

43:09

better leader in the church group at 600. And

43:13

it was interesting watching people who had

43:15

sort of moralized

43:18

a leadership limit or capacity

43:21

as some deep profound conviction.

43:25

And it was just like, oh, really,

43:27

really interesting. What

43:29

I loved, what I

43:31

think happened in my heart was

43:34

this sense, dear God, let

43:36

me finish well. Let

43:39

me finish well. It seems almost impossible to

43:41

finish well these days. I mean, if

43:44

you look at the Christian magazines,

43:47

now the one of my mentors, just a guy

43:49

that really impacted my philosophy of ministry is just

43:51

having a fair and been fired. And

43:57

I Just maybe wanna finish. Well, maybe wanna be

43:59

godly. Maybe want to

44:01

be kind and patient? It. Made

44:04

me want to invest in younger leaders. It made

44:06

me. Wanna. Be strangely present

44:08

my beyond talk about Jesus and poetry

44:10

you know, and toot toot to be

44:12

egg a grateful man. He.

44:14

Was really it's really hard

44:16

to explain. The.

44:19

Depth of his presence, Is

44:21

a return that charisma Christmas for think strength,

44:24

warmth, intelligence and energy and as as is

44:26

a world sort of defines that see get

44:28

some is strong with the warm The know

44:30

a lot like a good energy like well

44:33

that's cause metics. He was so charismatic. And

44:36

basically he's just warm and kind to

44:38

hold. I mean it was easier to

44:41

wait to him it really are described

44:43

as an annoying thing. He

44:45

had a sense of the presence of God.

44:47

Not like a Pentecostal. The he was pentecostal

44:49

is really. He was also a butcher, which

44:52

I loved. Smart he he. I'm. He.

44:54

Had any noise thing. he was under

44:56

the shadow the almighty. And.

44:58

If he got near me to feel it. It

45:00

was beautiful. Man mit on worked at that.

45:02

He has said it was like being in

45:04

the presence of Christ, which I think it's

45:06

one of the reasons I'm a little obsessed

45:08

with people who are finishing well. Yeah.

45:11

And from everything we know, Eugene finish well Tim

45:13

Keller said as well. And. Many

45:15

others many of whom names we don't know

45:17

that thrive remote Ottoman right? Yep, lot of

45:20

people doing it right. I want to meet

45:22

more and more of them. Gordon Mcdonalds someone

45:24

you know. He had a mistake along the

45:26

way but a lot anyone who knows him

45:28

would say it. out of character and he's

45:31

finishing extremely well for the gifted gave us

45:33

was how to recover and lot of these

45:35

folks do not seem like they're not recovering

45:37

well. Rebuilding. Iraq and

45:40

World? Yeah, I didn't pass Tic votes.

45:42

That gets forgotten. Yeah, I guess. Gorgeous.

45:44

Gordon's people Like you know, people who?

45:46

Who knows Gordon. They know the story,

45:48

but they don't know of the process

45:50

he went through. To. finish

45:52

well and live out his years yeah and

45:54

you know it's interesting you know when you

45:56

think about where the church is going in

45:58

the greats we've lost the women and men that

46:00

we've lost over the years. Gordon's been

46:02

on a few times. I've gotta reach out to him

46:05

again and just reconnect. We haven't talked in a bit.

46:07

But the

46:10

number of people who DM me or text me

46:12

after they hear one of his episodes, particularly

46:15

the first or the second one when he was

46:17

on the show, the View from 80 or whatever,

46:19

and he thought, oh, he talks

46:21

about the spiritual father. And good friends

46:23

who never cry call me

46:25

weeping and text me saying, I just broke

46:27

down and cried. We

46:30

need more of that. So an encouragement to

46:32

young leaders is if you can drink from

46:34

that stream. And the last thing I'll say too, if

46:36

you wanna capture a little bit, have

46:39

you seen the YouTube series that Fuller

46:41

put on with Bono and Eugene Peterson

46:43

up the lake? I

46:45

have seen that, yes. Yeah, is that like a similar

46:47

vibe to what you guys had? I

46:50

think I sat at that table, man. I mean, I'm not

46:52

gonna lie. Exactly, exactly. That's, it was

46:54

in his house. It was that house. No,

46:56

it was in his house. He's got the

46:58

white Mr. Coffee Coffee Maker, like no upscale

47:00

cappuccino machine, like, and

47:03

apparently, according to his biographer, because I've done those

47:05

interviews too with Eric, his son, and his biographer

47:07

on the show, most

47:09

of the money he made off of

47:11

the message, he just quietly gave away

47:13

to people to fund their seminary education

47:15

or their doctoral studies and

47:17

other causes that were close to his heart. And they lived

47:20

a very simple life. Well,

47:22

I think that his dad built that house and they just

47:24

sort of maintained and added over the years. I mean, you

47:26

go there and the thing you notice

47:28

about it is the beauty of

47:30

Montana, not the scale of the home. It's

47:33

like what you're caught up in is

47:36

Montana, which resonates, so it's

47:38

well-ordered. Yeah, so we'll link

47:40

to that in the show notes if anyone wants

47:42

to see the vibe, but it was a very

47:44

similar vibe. And then, you know, the iconic story

47:46

of Eugene is Bono

47:49

wanted to get a hold of him because he loved

47:51

the message. And so it's like Bono wants to invite

47:53

you to a U2 show and he goes, well, I

47:56

don't know whether I have the time. And they're like, are you

47:58

kidding? It's Bono. And he goes, Yeah, but

48:00

it's Ezekiel. He was in the middle of translating

48:02

the Old Testament at the time. You

48:05

don't understand Bono. This is Ezekiel. That

48:07

is a man in the second half of his life right

48:10

there. Exactly.

48:13

Oh man, that's such a great

48:16

conversation. Let's talk about Gen Z.

48:18

You said you're getting challenged as

48:21

a preacher now. There seems

48:23

to be a breakdown in, I don't know

48:26

whether you'd call it decorum, but

48:28

people just, I think because we're all used

48:30

to having a microphone now, are you

48:32

finding, you know, and a

48:34

phone where we can broadcast whatever whenever to

48:36

whomever, do you find, how

48:39

do you, what's happening there? What's the dynamic,

48:41

I guess is the question. Well, listen, I've

48:43

got no complaint about it. It's how a

48:45

generation grows up. So I'm

48:47

not upset or offended or how could

48:49

they, these are my kids' age, you

48:51

know. It'll just be things like,

48:55

you know, I'll spend, I'll read 15

48:58

books on a topic and

49:02

put a hundred hours of read, like really thoughtful

49:04

analysis on something and

49:07

then speak on something and someone should say, you

49:10

haven't thought this through. Like that's not even biblical.

49:12

That's not even biblical. And then they'll quote, have

49:14

you read that book? And I was like, oh

49:18

yeah, I did read that one. You

49:20

know, it's just sort of

49:22

like, it's an assumption that you know, nothing. It's

49:25

in a, you know, rather than like, wow,

49:28

I assume you've really thoughtfully prepared and carefully

49:30

worked through this. And, you know, so

49:33

it's a classic, you know, someone had

49:35

just said, I can't wait

49:37

for your church to rethink your sexual ethics.

49:40

And I was like, hey, with

49:43

all due respect, you think I haven't thought this through. You

49:46

think I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs. You

49:48

think when you drop something that you

49:50

saw on a YouTube video about the

49:54

word homosexual not being in the Bible, like

49:56

that I've never, oh my gosh, I've never

49:58

heard that. never heard that.

50:01

So again, I think there's an assumption of

50:03

your ignorance. They're not saying that because they're

50:05

ignorant, they're saying it because they've just learned

50:07

it and it's exciting for them and they

50:09

want to test that. They're saying that because

50:11

they care about people

50:13

and they're worried that people

50:16

who are not thoughtful are holding on to

50:18

positions that are harmful for others. So, you

50:20

know, in

50:22

secularism, there

50:25

is no higher good than human

50:27

flourishing. And

50:29

so I think a lot of the way

50:32

secularism shows up in Gen Z is

50:34

that the ultimate good is human flourishing. And

50:37

so somebody said like you're harming

50:39

someone with that idea. That's like

50:41

the ultimate trump card. Your position does

50:44

harm. And so yeah, I

50:47

mean, this is, you know, eudaimonia. This is

50:50

like human flourishing

50:52

is the highest good of life and self-actualization

50:54

is the point of existence. And

50:57

that's a lot better than hedonism

50:59

man. And it's just

51:01

not the kingdom of Jesus. There's

51:03

something above human flourishing, which is the glory

51:05

of Jesus and the kingdom of God. And

51:08

so I think I don't think we've done a

51:10

good enough job teaching Gen Z about the kingdom

51:12

of God. If they're meant to be

51:17

seeking this first, we

51:20

owe them to tell them what it is that

51:22

they're meant to be seeking. And I do not

51:25

feel like we have done that. I

51:27

feel like we've shown them a shallow version of modern

51:29

church. I think we've shown them soundbites.

51:32

I just don't think they've had a

51:34

beautiful theology. So part of

51:36

like the great project of my life would

51:39

be to talk about Jesus

51:41

and the kingdom of God as the

51:44

priority. Just Jesus and the kingdom of God. Well,

51:46

I was going to ask you, and this is a

51:48

micro and a meta question, but in the micro when

51:50

you're having that conversation, someone's like, hey, you

51:53

just need to rethink your sexual ethic. Like,

51:55

come on, man. What do

51:57

you say in the moment? And then... Second

52:00

part, what will your long-term play be,

52:02

which I think you just hinted at?

52:06

Well, I mean, in many ways,

52:10

I'll be very kind in the moment. I'll

52:13

be discerning in the moment. It depends on the situation,

52:15

you know. Is this person coming? Is

52:17

this a social media grab? I don't engage in

52:19

social media, man. Nothing good happens. Oh,

52:22

you mean if it happens online? Yeah, if it happens online,

52:24

there's no response. I mean, I say, hey, look, go back.

52:26

I've taught on this. I'm going to be doing an hour

52:28

and 20-minute talk on Jesus and the gay community. If you

52:30

listen to that, I'm happy to engage on any point on

52:32

it. But

52:35

if it's in person, I'll say, hey, yeah, tell me. The

52:38

number one thing I'm trying to do is not

52:41

my opinion versus your opinion. The number one thing

52:43

I'm trying to do is like, hey, how

52:45

do you read these texts? Because

52:48

my assumption is you want to follow Jesus because you're

52:50

talking about Jesus and this. So

52:52

how do you interpret these texts? Now, they may

52:54

have not been used appropriately, but to dismiss them

52:56

because people have been hurt by them is bad

52:59

theology. We

53:01

don't do that to any other issue. The Trinity's hurt people

53:03

in cults. Therefore, we

53:05

don't teach on the Trinity. These have

53:07

become... So again,

53:10

but you can't weaponize verses. So

53:13

I want to talk through the text. How

53:16

do you read Romans 1? What

53:19

do you think Jesus meant by Matthew 19? And

53:22

I'll be honest with you, I would way

53:24

rather engage with someone who disagrees with me

53:26

and has really thought it through than someone

53:29

who agrees with me and hasn't done like

53:31

deep work on this. I'm

53:34

not looking to rouse the fan base or

53:37

to rally the base. So

53:39

I want to be pastoral. I want to be thoughtful. And

53:43

I want to understand where they're coming from. Hey, is this an issue you've

53:45

rested with personally and you're trying to figure out if there's a place for

53:47

you in our church? Do you have a friend

53:50

you care about or family member? I'm

53:52

trying to discern where they're at. So

53:56

when it comes to the long play, I

53:58

think you're right. have instantly

54:00

formed opinions on almost everything. And sometimes,

54:03

you know, they're well thought through, sometimes

54:05

not so much. But what

54:07

is the long play that

54:10

you have for figuring out

54:12

how to pastor

54:15

a church and lead people through

54:17

a time where the culture wars are going on

54:20

and everybody has an opinion

54:22

on everything, literally? Well,

54:27

it would be, you know,

54:29

Gerald Sitzley wrote Water from a Deep Well,

54:31

and I think he wrote a Resilient Faith.

54:33

He basically said the key

54:35

to the church's current moment is the

54:37

second-century Christians in the Roman Empire. And

54:41

it's basically generative

54:44

suffering love. That's

54:47

sort of the approach, man. Create

54:49

the world you want to see. You

54:51

will be persecuted for doing this. Do

54:54

not get bitter. Suffer and love

54:56

well. I think that's really my approach. I think

54:58

my approach is really, I

55:01

don't get to, I'm trying to inherit, I'm

55:03

trying to be faithful to the deposit I've

55:06

received. I

55:08

want to steward that well. I want

55:11

to make it about Jesus and not Jesus

55:13

in politics or Jesus and purely

55:15

unethical vision or Jesus and human fight. I

55:17

want to talk about Jesus first. And

55:20

then I want to build a beautiful community of people

55:22

who model the way of Jesus in such a way

55:24

that you ask, is this space at

55:26

the table for me? You know, I've

55:28

been thinking, I've been thinking so

55:30

much about this one scene in the life of

55:32

Jesus that is just so, it is so

55:36

beautiful. I am fixated on

55:38

it. Jesus is

55:40

having a meal with a Pharisee

55:44

and a sinful woman

55:46

goes to the Pharisee's house, brings

55:49

a bottle of perfume, anoints

55:51

Jesus' feet and

55:53

then washes his feet with her perfume in

55:57

her. And the Pharisee says,

56:00

If this man was a prophet, he would know who's touching

56:02

him. And I just thought for a moment, who

56:05

is Jesus? That

56:07

the most sexually shamed,

56:11

outcasted person in a religious

56:13

society is willing

56:15

to endure the shame of

56:17

going into the house of the Pharisee to

56:20

be in the presence of a holy man who will

56:22

show her grace. How did

56:24

Jesus do that? That is what I

56:26

want to do for the future. I

56:28

want to offend Pharisees, welcome sinners, and

56:30

still be a holy person that does

56:32

not change my theology. And

56:35

I think ... How

56:38

did Jesus do that, man?

56:40

That is it. The emotional

56:43

field he created, the compassion,

56:45

the kindness, the dignity. So

56:47

to me, I've spent a lot of time like, how

56:49

do we create a church where that happens? How

56:52

to create a church where we don't lower our standards? How to

56:54

create a church where people know what we believe? Our

56:57

love is so strong, it's stronger

56:59

than the love of the tax collector who will love you

57:02

because you'll like them. We will love you in your difference.

57:05

That church has not been good at that. I

57:07

don't know if I'm good at that, but I

57:09

am resolved that the church should be like that.

57:12

Yeah. I will see to ...

57:15

And feel free to disagree or have a

57:18

totally different take. But what I'm sensing, seeing,

57:21

is that some churches are finding

57:23

growth, or at least stability, by

57:26

saying, here's a very narrow line. This is what

57:28

we believe on sexuality. This is

57:30

what we believe on racial justice. This is what

57:32

we believe on economics, et

57:34

cetera. This is what we believe about

57:37

the second coming. Everybody here agree? Good.

57:40

We're fine. There's another type of church

57:42

that I see as growing and healthy

57:45

that isn't necessarily far left

57:47

or far right, but biblically

57:49

centered, biblically anchored, faithful teaching,

57:52

where the teaching is

57:55

orthodox, but because it's

57:57

such a curious mix of people in the

57:59

church. There's a diversity of

58:01

opinions on some of the key

58:04

issues of the day. You will have people who

58:06

vote left and people who vote right. You will

58:08

have people who maybe

58:10

don't have a biblical worldview on what

58:13

they believe sexuality should be, etc., etc. And

58:16

so you've got a diversity of belief. Not

58:18

necessarily about Jesus. I mean, there are people

58:20

who are still exploring and checking

58:22

that out, but just who don't

58:24

all fit this uniform

58:27

grid and yet, you

58:29

know, somehow they're coexisting.

58:32

What do you see in that? I

58:35

mean, I have two immediate thoughts on it.

58:38

Number one,

58:40

that feels like a

58:43

very challenging long-term

58:45

solution. It

58:48

probably works fine in the short term. You've

58:51

got to have clarity on key issues. I

58:53

think you just do it. That's how humans cohere. But

58:56

then here is Jesus with a zealot and

58:59

a tax collector, and they're both His disciples.

59:02

And so Jesus somehow had a

59:05

way to offend everybody's vision, elevate

59:07

everybody's vision, surprise them with

59:09

what it looks like to live in that vision. And

59:12

then the real risk was when He ascended in

59:14

Pentecost. They're in the room and He's physically gone.

59:17

And so the Holy Spirit comes and then they're baptized

59:20

and Christ is in them and that same spirit is

59:22

internal. So I like

59:24

that idea. It

59:28

all depends on what you consider, again, what

59:30

are primary and secondary issues. I

59:32

think you can have disagreement on cultural issues.

59:35

I don't know if people in the modern world think

59:37

you can have disagreement on cultural issues. You

59:40

know, I just say it through in

59:42

secularism, there are no secondary issues. There's

59:45

only primary issues and

59:47

the issues that we draw our morality and identity

59:49

and our sense of worth from. So

59:51

that makes it very, very challenging. It

59:53

is a messy time, man. It's a messy

59:56

time because there's so much ideology and so much

59:58

failure of the church and often the... ideologies

1:00:02

addressing the failures of the church, but they're not the biblical

1:00:04

solution to what the church would do. And

1:00:07

so, you know, you've lost the moral authority

1:00:09

to sort of rage against the ideology because

1:00:11

the people who don't believe what you think

1:00:13

they should believe are sort of living the

1:00:15

thing you should do better than you are.

1:00:17

And that's a challenging environment. So again, the future

1:00:19

is the side. Wow.

1:00:23

Okay. Yeah. I mean,

1:00:25

there's so much and, you know, I think there's a stat.

1:00:28

I think Ryan Burge might have had this one. It could have

1:00:30

been Barna. I don't know which. But people,

1:00:32

if you're a parent of, you

1:00:35

know, a 20 something child, you

1:00:38

would rather have the more people are comfortable

1:00:40

with them marrying a non-Christian than someone who

1:00:42

votes differently than they do. That sounds, that

1:00:44

sounds, oh, right. Yeah,

1:00:47

that sounds about right. But

1:00:49

again, I mean, that is, that's because

1:00:52

we no

1:00:56

longer have a sacred sense of

1:00:58

identity formation. It's only cultural identity

1:01:00

formation. And so

1:01:02

that sounds right. Now, I just saw

1:01:04

an interesting study

1:01:07

that was done this morning. It was on shopping and

1:01:09

it said, I had to tell which generation you're in

1:01:11

based on this one question of your shopping preferences. You're

1:01:14

at the checkout. Do you want to talk to a

1:01:16

human to scan your goods? Would you want self checkout?

1:01:19

And everybody above Gen Z wanted a

1:01:21

human and Gen Z said, if they

1:01:23

took away self scanning,

1:01:27

I would stop shopping there. And

1:01:30

the response was, I don't like this human interaction.

1:01:33

Isn't that fascinating? What

1:01:35

do you read into that? I

1:01:37

just read that there's a

1:01:40

generational difference. That's what I

1:01:42

read. Anything else on the generations? You're

1:01:46

giving them a seat at your table. You are. Oh,

1:01:49

yeah, man. I got a young staff, man. I

1:01:53

pastor a young church. I

1:01:56

am 47 my wife 45. We

1:01:59

are. regularly the oldest people in the

1:02:01

room by decade plus regularly. And you

1:02:04

know, I've got to say, I

1:02:06

love it. I love

1:02:08

it. I wouldn't trade

1:02:10

it for the world. I'm grateful. I do want to

1:02:12

just call forth in prayer, mothers and fathers to come

1:02:15

help us. But I

1:02:17

do love it. I don't think I'm

1:02:19

seeing anything a lot more

1:02:21

than we've talked about. One thing I've

1:02:23

noted, you know, I'm always studying revival

1:02:25

history. I read something about revival every

1:02:27

day. Most

1:02:31

revivals, even if they had an

1:02:33

older leader, saw breakthrough

1:02:35

by handing it over to the

1:02:37

next generation. And

1:02:39

so, I mean, Evan Roberts is in

1:02:41

his mid-20s leading the Welsh revival. But

1:02:45

the Welsh revival broke open because a teenage girl

1:02:47

stood up and testified in a

1:02:49

meeting. And I said there's a

1:02:51

cloud over the nation of Wales. And

1:02:53

when she testified, the rain

1:02:55

started to fall. Even

1:02:58

in the Hebrides revival, Duncan Campbell, there

1:03:01

was praying Donald, who was a teenage

1:03:03

boy, and Duncan Campbell in meetings would

1:03:06

look at him and say, I can't get

1:03:08

a breakthrough in prayer. And that's definitely something

1:03:11

I'm noticing is

1:03:14

you've got to give Gen Z

1:03:16

serious spiritual responsibility. And

1:03:19

it's look at Jesus trusting. He's the

1:03:22

king of all of the teenage fishermen.

1:03:25

That's like you've got to give it

1:03:27

over. My one observation

1:03:29

I have is about

1:03:32

retiring earlier. Now, look,

1:03:34

I have no plans to retire soon. I

1:03:36

mean, I've got a lot of energy. But

1:03:39

it's about giving away the

1:03:42

emphasis and the influence more quickly.

1:03:46

One pattern my best mate,

1:03:48

Darren Whitehead, and I talk about he was high

1:03:50

was number two knows a

1:03:52

ton of sort of people from that world. It's

1:03:54

a lot of these guys that have spectacular failures. If

1:03:57

they just let it go five years earlier, all they

1:03:59

would be remembered. for was once in a

1:04:01

generation leaders. Something about

1:04:03

grasping in those final years or

1:04:06

scandals catching up to them. I

1:04:09

want to let it go earlier. I want to give

1:04:11

it away and I want to be

1:04:13

there to support. I don't want to bail. I want to

1:04:15

be there to support from behind and off a wise counsel.

1:04:18

But I do think we tend to leave it five

1:04:20

years. If you build a

1:04:22

big church in the senior pastors' final

1:04:24

years of legacy, here's my legacy. Those

1:04:27

five years are often the very thing that

1:04:29

the Gen Z leaders will have to spend

1:04:31

breaking down before they can get back to

1:04:34

zero, before they can do what God's doing

1:04:36

now. Not always,

1:04:38

but there's something in that that we should consider the

1:04:40

older we get. It

1:04:42

is interesting as someone who passed the

1:04:44

baton at 50, which

1:04:47

almost everybody said was way too young. Now I

1:04:49

did keep a teaching role for another five years,

1:04:51

but gave that a few years ago. I

1:04:56

highly recommend it. I'm not saying everybody should go

1:04:58

at 50. Mark Batterson told me we went out

1:05:00

for dinner shortly after. He's like, well, you know,

1:05:02

the Levitical priests, they would retire at

1:05:04

50. Now, 53,000, 4,000 years ago might be different than 50

1:05:06

today. But

1:05:10

you know, there was a study done a number

1:05:12

of years ago. I know I linked to it

1:05:14

on my blog that said one

1:05:16

of the predictors of a moral

1:05:19

failure is you stay in a position. This

1:05:21

was corporate six months

1:05:23

or longer than you should. No,

1:05:25

that's interesting. Six months. That's interesting.

1:05:27

But what happens, you get

1:05:30

bored, you get restless, the

1:05:32

energy isn't there. You

1:05:34

get frustrated because maybe you're not growing like you

1:05:36

used to grow. And

1:05:38

then you get distracted. And

1:05:41

when, you know, there's that haunting passage of David's

1:05:43

life at the time that kings normally go to

1:05:45

war. David was always at war. He wasn't at

1:05:47

war. Yeah, he takes a nap. He's on the

1:05:49

palace roof. And we know what happens next. And

1:05:52

it was one of those things where I'm like, oh,

1:05:54

there's a lot of wisdom to that.

1:05:57

And I think it was I'll just underscore that. I

1:06:00

think this was him. Maybe

1:06:02

it was Hybels. I can't remember. But

1:06:05

they said there's three reasons why people stay too

1:06:07

long. They haven't saved enough for

1:06:09

retirement. They need to keep working. They

1:06:11

don't have a sense of identity beyond the task that

1:06:13

many of these founding pastors have done for so long.

1:06:16

And they don't have a ministry to go to next that

1:06:18

feels meaningful. And so you've

1:06:21

got to start building like the financial resources and

1:06:23

the sort of the third act

1:06:25

career that you're going to have and

1:06:27

then figuring out what it's like to be

1:06:29

God's man at that age of your life or God's woman at that

1:06:32

age of your life. And I think we

1:06:34

should think a little bit more about that the older we get to. No,

1:06:37

I agree. And I mean, I didn't have the financial

1:06:39

security to step out of the role. So it was

1:06:41

a bit of a, well, all right, here we go.

1:06:43

And it's worked out just fine. But

1:06:46

I think there's an element of faith too, because

1:06:48

if you wait until all the conditions are perfect,

1:06:50

you probably waited too long. Yeah, totally.

1:06:52

That's a good word. It's like two seasons too

1:06:54

long. What else are you

1:06:57

seeing on the church landscape that is really

1:06:59

catching your attention or your heart, good or

1:07:01

bad? What

1:07:04

I see as good is

1:07:08

the openness of Gen Z. I

1:07:10

see that as a very hopeful

1:07:12

thing. You know, I was

1:07:14

at Asbury. I mean, it was just

1:07:18

absolutely beautiful. I mean, gosh.

1:07:22

That gave me a lot of hope. A lot of spiritual hunger.

1:07:25

You know, the good news about secularism is

1:07:27

that it's a failing story.

1:07:31

Jesus and the kingdom of God

1:07:33

have never looked better for an

1:07:35

anxious, overwhelmed and burdened generation. To

1:07:38

have Jesus say, come to me, all you who are

1:07:40

weary, heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Learn

1:07:43

from me. That's good news. So

1:07:47

I think I'm excited about that. I'm interested

1:07:49

in what technology does for discipleship. I obviously

1:07:51

think there's a ton of downsides, but

1:07:54

it is a glorious moment

1:07:57

for technology in the church, for discipleship in

1:07:59

the church. to learn and

1:08:02

have our deep questions answered and all

1:08:04

that sort of stuff. Very excited about

1:08:06

that. Very excited about digital evangelism. You

1:08:09

remember that study,

1:08:11

I think it was called The Great Opportunity by the

1:08:13

Pintels Foundation. They had a phrase in

1:08:16

there that I've used, you know, I'm looking

1:08:18

for a hundred digital Billy Grahams. You

1:08:20

know, one kid on TikTok can

1:08:23

get more than Billy Graham did

1:08:25

his entire life preaching ministry. We

1:08:28

need to leverage that. I was

1:08:30

telling our team the other day, we

1:08:32

need a budget where we literally have ten

1:08:35

creatives in a room doing digital evangelism all

1:08:37

day, every day in the room next to

1:08:40

us. Like that is a massive

1:08:42

mission field. My vision

1:08:44

is that teenagers are on

1:08:46

the train going to school in

1:08:49

New York City, having encounters with

1:08:51

the Holy Spirit where Jesus comes through

1:08:53

a TikTok video and they're arrested by

1:08:55

the presence of God. I

1:08:57

believe in that in the deep est part of

1:09:00

my heart. You know,

1:09:02

Luther, Luther, a

1:09:06

failed monk, marries

1:09:09

a nun, took

1:09:11

on the might of the Catholic

1:09:13

Church with a printing press

1:09:16

and he did all right. So

1:09:18

again, I want to leverage that. I'm so

1:09:20

excited about that. I don't want to do

1:09:23

it. It's not me. It's not like, hey

1:09:25

team, put me on TikTok. It's like, let's

1:09:29

help you figure out how

1:09:31

to reach your generation. Very excited about that. That

1:09:33

being said, I've two concerns at the

1:09:36

same time. One is a lack of discernment.

1:09:38

So much content, so little wisdom. Ignorance

1:09:42

of history and heresy. And

1:09:44

so you get a lot of people, you know, I'm in a lot of prayer

1:09:47

meetings where I just want to put my hand up and say, excuse

1:09:49

me, that's 100% heretical. I

1:09:52

don't mean even false teaching. I

1:09:54

mean, that was condemned by the

1:09:56

Church Fathers in the first hit. That's like

1:09:59

not biblical. And then

1:10:01

the whole room is like, can you give me an example of that? People

1:10:04

who don't believe in the Trinity but don't know it.

1:10:08

You know, people who don't believe in the

1:10:10

Trinity. Assumed

1:10:13

Universalism. Do you

1:10:15

know what I mean? Assumed Universalism.

1:10:18

An aversion to the wrath of God. You can

1:10:21

say to someone, if someone says, oh Lord, please

1:10:23

have mercy on them. The run

1:10:25

of your judgement immediately a love corrector is going

1:10:27

to come in. The next prayer, thank you Lord

1:10:29

for your great love. It's

1:10:32

like no one can just handle the fact that

1:10:34

we rage against injustice but we just cannot comprehend

1:10:36

that God who is the source of all justice would

1:10:38

do the same thing. So

1:10:41

like a discernment is a concern. And

1:10:44

here's an interesting one though I'm very

1:10:46

sympathetic to it. It's

1:10:48

an over emphasis on Sabbath. Really?

1:10:53

Yeah, I've written about Sabbath.

1:10:56

The most popular talks I've ever given is called

1:10:58

Rest Must Resist Exhaustion. But

1:11:00

Sabbath is

1:11:02

in the context of a six day work week. I

1:11:07

always tell people like, you know, you're committed to the

1:11:09

biblical view of Sabbath. I'm like, you two work six

1:11:11

days. I say, well no, you've got an American view

1:11:13

of work. Like enjoy the five day weekend but it's

1:11:16

not biblical. Go to Israel. No,

1:11:18

no, no, go to Israel and they're working

1:11:20

six days a week because that's what the

1:11:22

Bible says. I'm not advocating

1:11:24

working six days a week. My simple point is I

1:11:28

think the job market has changed so much and

1:11:31

there's been so much confusion in

1:11:34

our culture and so much exhaustion and so much

1:11:36

legitimate trauma in our culture. People

1:11:39

have lost their capacity to

1:11:41

work hard and long or

1:11:43

the church has not provided them a theology of work.

1:11:46

So it's sort of a typical person is saying it

1:11:48

like this. They wouldn't say

1:11:51

these words but the emphasis is like this. Oh,

1:11:54

what a workaholic secular evil world we

1:11:56

live in. We have to

1:11:58

endure it all week. And

1:12:00

then we have this wonderful gift of

1:12:02

Sabbath. That's not biblical. Biblical

1:12:05

is, thank you God that you made

1:12:07

me in your image, that you have

1:12:09

given me gifts to build culture, repair

1:12:11

the world, and cultivate beautiful things

1:12:13

for your glory and the good of others. Please

1:12:16

help me do this work for your joy.

1:12:19

And then thank you that I get to

1:12:21

reflect at the end of the week and

1:12:24

rest with gratitude for what has happened. So

1:12:27

Sabbath is not an escape from the curse of

1:12:29

the work. It's a mechanism to enable you to

1:12:31

do it for the glory of God and do

1:12:33

it for the long term. And

1:12:35

I get

1:12:39

sad because I don't want Gen Z

1:12:41

to miss out on the beauty of

1:12:43

finding a sense of call and

1:12:46

doing it well and

1:12:48

having a place in the world

1:12:51

and blessing others because you're

1:12:53

good at what you do and you share

1:12:55

it with others. So I think we need to recover a

1:12:57

little bit of a theology of work. You

1:13:00

know that's really helpful because you're right.

1:13:03

The theology of Sabbath can easily become

1:13:06

an obsession with leisure, sort of

1:13:08

this thing for a lifestyle, right?

1:13:10

Where you do have five-day weekends

1:13:12

and four-day weekends. And I

1:13:14

saw somebody posting recently, it was like,

1:13:18

you know, if you really want extra time off, here

1:13:20

are all the days to take off because they fall

1:13:22

on long weekends. You only have to take four to

1:13:24

get five days off. And I'm like, whoa,

1:13:27

that's like really gaming the system. Like

1:13:29

work is actually a gift of God,

1:13:32

right? And without it, you

1:13:34

listen to Arthur Brooks and other people like that, without

1:13:37

work or a higher purpose, you

1:13:39

know, you're kind of lost. It's 100%.

1:13:42

When people are unemployed, they feel

1:13:44

shame. When they're

1:13:46

underemployed, they

1:13:54

experience frustration. When

1:13:57

they're employed, they feel

1:13:59

dignity. Like I'm earning a living here. When

1:14:02

they have a career, they have a

1:14:04

sense of accomplishment, but

1:14:06

when you have a vocation, you get

1:14:08

a sense of divine favor. And

1:14:11

that's what we need people to have. Like,

1:14:13

God, what have you made me to do in the

1:14:15

world? We need a theology of creation and vocation to

1:14:17

come back again. And with

1:14:20

Gen Z being so creative, I'm

1:14:23

like, I wanna help

1:14:25

them map that onto God's will for their lives

1:14:28

and not make them think that they have

1:14:30

to escape it. You

1:14:33

know, what I love about this conversation, if

1:14:36

you rewound half an hour ago, it

1:14:38

sounds like we're kind of pre-digital memory and all

1:14:41

this stuff. And yet it's like, wouldn't it be

1:14:43

great to have 10 Gen Z TikTok-ing in a

1:14:46

room and we're funding them and they're

1:14:49

being watched on the subway system as kids

1:14:51

go to school, et cetera, rather

1:14:53

than the 52-year-old senior pastor going, put me

1:14:55

on TikTok, right? Which I'm not saying you

1:14:57

shouldn't be on TikTok, but I

1:15:00

love like, it's a both and

1:15:02

conversation, not an either or conversation,

1:15:04

which is so helpful. Hey,

1:15:07

there's so much we didn't get to. And I want

1:15:09

you to mention your new book called Fighting Shadows. I

1:15:12

love that you continue to write. Thank

1:15:14

you for that. What

1:15:16

else is on your mind? What else is on your radar

1:15:18

right now? You know, I basically try and, someone

1:15:20

else is doing a great job. Like, if there's, you

1:15:22

know, I just try and champion this thing. I'm not

1:15:24

trying, I'm trying to sort of like solve

1:15:27

problems and fill gaps a little bit. One

1:15:29

of the things I've really sort of fallen into,

1:15:32

it feels like a divine assignment, is

1:15:34

fatherhood and men's ministry. And

1:15:38

it just, it was not something I was looking

1:15:40

for. I did this writer passage journey with my

1:15:42

son. It was like one

1:15:44

of the most beautiful, life-changing experiences of my

1:15:46

life. I wasn't really gonna

1:15:48

do anything with it. I had dinner with Pete Gregg.

1:15:51

I just came back from walking the Camino 500

1:15:53

miles across Spain with my son. He

1:15:55

said, hey man, that wasn't for you. You gotta get

1:15:58

that off your laptop. That was for a generation. It's

1:16:00

like you need to put that out there. So

1:16:03

I did that and that's probably had

1:16:06

more favor than anything I've ever done and that

1:16:08

was a divine accident. And then

1:16:10

I had so many dads reaching out saying, my dad

1:16:12

never did this for me. Do you have

1:16:14

anything for men? So yeah,

1:16:16

I've got to think of the primal path.

1:16:19

It's like a five-year-old writer passage journey, proper

1:16:21

deep discipleship to form adolescent boys into godly

1:16:23

men. But then I've

1:16:26

started this thing called forming men with

1:16:28

Jeff Zimbethky and this has another

1:16:30

level of favor on it like anything I've

1:16:32

seen. And it's a combination of like psychology,

1:16:35

theology, spiritual

1:16:38

formation and like

1:16:41

brotherhood and fatherhood. That's

1:16:44

in a very rare combination. I tell

1:16:47

people I'm not an alpha male, I'm a beta

1:16:49

male. I don't think

1:16:51

I've ever shot and killed an animal. I

1:16:53

don't like killing stuff. I don't have a

1:16:55

truck. I have a Honda. You know

1:16:58

what I mean? Like I'm not a... I

1:17:01

used to be a butcher and I'm from a working class

1:17:03

background so I get those dynamics but I'm

1:17:06

a thoughtful intellectual urbanite.

1:17:11

And yet this is

1:17:13

just getting like a resonance and it's on

1:17:15

male formation. I've got a conviction that

1:17:18

gender matters. It's not just a social

1:17:21

construct. It's a spiritual reality. It's

1:17:23

a part of the grain of the universe. And

1:17:26

that men need spaces. Women need them too but

1:17:28

I think women have done better than men in

1:17:30

the last 20 years. Men

1:17:32

need spaces to be vulnerable, honest and

1:17:34

open, deal with their shame and

1:17:36

failures and then give an vision

1:17:38

of how to move forward. And I

1:17:42

am seeing such accelerated transformation in the

1:17:44

lives of these men. I

1:17:46

feel like I've got... I'm almost struggling to know what

1:17:48

to do with it. So we've got a

1:17:51

non-profit. We've got a bunch of

1:17:53

curriculum coming out for men. And

1:17:55

it's not like... There's a lot of good curriculum

1:17:57

but a lot of it's 20 years old. And

1:18:00

the changes in gender and culture and

1:18:02

faith, it's almost like speaking

1:18:04

a different language. So there's definitely

1:18:06

core themes, but for whatever

1:18:08

reason, our language is like hitting a sciatic

1:18:11

nerve in men's souls right now. So

1:18:13

we wrote a book based on

1:18:16

the seven core issues we see men wrestling with in

1:18:18

the world today and we just try and address

1:18:20

it. So that's what the book's

1:18:22

about. It's called Fighting Shadows, right? Yeah, it's called Fighting Shadows.

1:18:24

And I'll give you the big idea of the book, okay?

1:18:26

I'll give it to you in two minutes. Satan

1:18:30

is always overplaying his hand. And

1:18:32

there's a scene in when Jesus

1:18:35

and Peter are talking where

1:18:37

Jesus says, Simon, Simon, Satan

1:18:40

has asked us if you like wheat, but I've prayed for

1:18:42

you. So your faith may not fail.

1:18:45

And when you've returned strength in your brothers, that

1:18:47

would fail in Greeks, a cleft, but it's where we get

1:18:49

the word eclipse from. And

1:18:51

here's Satan's strategy. He wants

1:18:53

to eclipse God. He wants to put something

1:18:55

between you and God so it looks like

1:18:57

God has disappeared and all you are left

1:19:00

with is the problem. And

1:19:02

so Jesus says, I've prayed for you that that will

1:19:04

not happen when the eclipse produces strength

1:19:07

in your brothers. And I think

1:19:09

Satan basically tries to shut, you can stand and

1:19:11

position your hand in such a way the sun

1:19:14

disappears. The sun's not gone, but it looks like

1:19:16

it. And Satan's strategy is to

1:19:18

put things in front of the eyes of men where

1:19:20

it seems like God disappears and all they have is

1:19:22

their problems. So it's a book on the

1:19:25

seven core issues we see men wrestling with in the modern

1:19:27

world and then how to respond to them.

1:19:30

What are just, you don't name all seven, a couple of

1:19:32

the top issues you see men struggling with? Apathy

1:19:35

is one of them. Like men, a lot of men

1:19:37

just can't get traction in their souls. On

1:19:41

the other side, ungodly ambition, the ones

1:19:43

who do can't get a governor on

1:19:45

it. Obviously

1:19:48

lost, loneliness is a huge one.

1:19:50

Male loneliness is that ep-, loneliness

1:19:53

is at epidemic proportions. Male

1:19:56

loneliness, many Christian men

1:19:58

feel like they do not have have a group

1:20:01

of men they can share their struggles with. They're

1:20:04

fully isolated. And so

1:20:06

just yeah, helping men become friends again. It's

1:20:11

a beautiful opportunity. I'm getting a lot of joy working in

1:20:13

that space. John,

1:20:16

I got to tell you, these conversations

1:20:18

are always fascinating. Thank you for just

1:20:21

showing up your whole self-open

1:20:23

book. Really appreciate it. And

1:20:25

one of the goals I have for

1:20:27

this show is if

1:20:29

we were at dinner, what would the conversation be

1:20:32

like? And I feel like mission accomplished. I have

1:20:34

to talk to you offline and it's this. This

1:20:37

is it. It is. You're very good

1:20:39

at that. You're very good at that. And I appreciate

1:20:41

you having me on the podcast. I

1:20:43

really like it because everyone read the talking points and they've

1:20:46

read the books and that kind of stuff. But like to

1:20:48

have the real wrestling match of what do you see and

1:20:50

what else do you see? And sometimes it's

1:20:52

not a hundred percent consistent and yet it's

1:20:55

real and this is what we're all feeling.

1:20:57

And you bring that in spades. Thanks

1:20:59

for doing the hard work. Thanks for spending

1:21:02

two or three hours in the morning to get

1:21:04

yourself together because we're

1:21:07

all benefiting from it in one way or

1:21:09

another. John, really appreciate you, my friend. Thanks,

1:21:12

Jasmine. I find John so interesting

1:21:14

and fascinating and I hope you did as

1:21:16

well. Again, if you appreciated this episode, would

1:21:18

you share and leave a rating and review?

1:21:21

I'm really, really grateful when you do that.

1:21:23

It makes a big difference in getting the

1:21:25

word out. And also want

1:21:27

to thank those of you who are

1:21:29

doing that. For example, Carrie Garcia said,

1:21:32

love the long form interviews so you

1:21:34

can really hear the people sharing. That's

1:21:36

a five star review. Five star review.

1:21:38

We got another one. I want to

1:21:40

reach it out. Incredibly beneficial. I rarely

1:21:42

leave reviews. However, I am consistently amazed

1:21:44

at how helpful this podcast is to apply

1:21:46

to my life and leadership. Not

1:21:49

only the guests have relevant gold nuggets that

1:21:51

I'm able to apply immediately, but the resources

1:21:53

that Carrie mentions are truly game changing. Thank

1:21:55

you so much for all you do. No

1:21:58

name there. Just so. Incredibly helpful is

1:22:00

how you signed it. Thank you so much

1:22:02

for that. I'm really grateful And yeah, we

1:22:05

do break a few book budgets around here,

1:22:07

but is that such a bad thing? I

1:22:09

don't think so anyway Hey,

1:22:11

we got show notes for you as well. We're

1:22:13

changing the way we do show notes, too So

1:22:15

you may want to check that out in the

1:22:17

meantime you can go to Kerry new huff comm

1:22:19

slash episode six four five and We

1:22:22

got transcripts there as well. That's free.

1:22:24

Thanks to our generous sponsors Make sure

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a whole lot more go to church

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tech use the code Kerry a Check

1:22:52

out coming up next time Scott Galloway

1:22:55

prof G is on the pod. I'm

1:22:57

very excited about that We've

1:22:59

also got least robl terra lee cobble

1:23:02

Gavin Adams rich birch Matt Chandler

1:23:04

is coming on for the first

1:23:06

time We've got Ken Blanchard will

1:23:08

gedara coming back and a whole

1:23:11

lot more and because you listen to the

1:23:13

end I got something for you. It's the

1:23:15

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go to preaching cheat calm you can

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get started today. Absolutely freak link is

1:23:35

also available in the show notes Well,

1:23:38

thank you so much everybody for listening. Enjoy

1:23:40

that ride. Enjoy that Time

1:23:42

in the gym. Enjoy that outdoor walk. Enjoy

1:23:44

cooking dinner. Whatever you happen to be doing

1:23:47

Thank you so much for listening and I

1:23:49

hope our time together today has helped you

1:23:51

identify and break a growth barrier you're facing

1:24:00

you