Resilience in Witnessing: Strategies for Today’s Church with Rev. Chad Lakies
Rev. Dr. Chad Lakies, the Vice President of Ministry Engagement for Lutheran Hour Ministries, joins us to elucidate the imperative of outreach within contemporary church contexts. His extensive experience as a former non-believer enriches his insights, fostering a unique understanding of how to effectively engage individuals who are distanced from faith. In our discourse, we delve into his forthcoming publication, "How the Light Shines Through: Resilient Witness in Dark Times," which serves as a comprehensive guide for churches striving to cultivate genuine connections and articulate their faith amidst societal challenges. We explore the necessity of relational trust-building as a fundamental component of effective evangelism, countering the prevalent confrontational approaches that often alienate rather than invite. Ultimately, our conversation underscores the profound potential for churches to navigate the complexities of a secular age by embodying a winsome and authentic Christian witness.
In this episode, Dr. Lakies shares his transformative journey from a nominally Christian upbringing to becoming a leader in the church, highlighting the pivotal moments that shaped his faith. He recounts how his involvement in music led him to connect with a Lutheran church community, which ultimately played a significant role in his conversion. This narrative serves as a poignant reminder of the profound impact of community and belonging on the faith journey. Furthermore, Dr. Lakies discusses his new book, "How the Light Shines Through: Resilient Witness in Dark Times," where he addresses the challenges faced by the church in a secular age and offers practical strategies for resilient witnessing amid societal changes.
Takeaways:
- Rev. Dr. Chad Lakies emphasizes the importance of outreach in ministry, with a particular focus on forming personal connections with non-believers.
- His transition from a non-believer to a church leader provides a unique perspective on engaging with those outside the faith.
- The book 'How the Light Shines Through Resilient Witness in Dark Times' addresses the challenges of contemporary culture for the church.
- Lakis advocates for building relationships of trust over confrontational evangelism methods, suggesting a more relational approach to outreach.
- He identifies the current secular age as a time of implausibility, emphasizing the need for authentic Christian living to attract others.
- The podcast underscores that resilience in witnessing involves finding ways to connect with people, even in a polarized society.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Lutheran Hour Ministries
- Concordia Publishing House
- Concordia University
- University of Michigan
Transcript
My guest today is Reverend Dr.
Speaker A:Chad Lakis.
Speaker A:He is the Vice President of Ministry Engagement with the United States for Lutheran Hour Ministries.
Speaker A:His work centers around helping churches become more outreach focused by empowering it to share the gospel with non church individuals at more personal levels.
Speaker A:His former life as a non believer provides exceedingly relevant experience for thinking about how to engage with our friends and neighbors outside the kingdom of God.
Speaker A: y Concordia Publishing House,: Speaker A:It's a guide to helping the church engage in winsome witness while facing the challenges of contemporary culture.
Speaker A:Chad previously served as a department chair and Associate professor, Religion at Concordia University in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker A:He holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy and psychology.
Speaker A:Psychology from University of Michigan.
Speaker A:We welcome Chad to the podcast.
Speaker A:Well, Chad, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker A:How you doing today, my friend?
Speaker B:I'm doing great, Keith.
Speaker B:Thanks for having me.
Speaker B:I really appreciate it.
Speaker A:Oh, it's good to have you on talking about one of my favorite topics, outreach.
Speaker A:I can't argue with that.
Speaker A:So we'll have a fun conversation.
Speaker B:I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:The same.
Speaker B:Same for me.
Speaker A:Otherwise, what's the point of being a pastor, right?
Speaker B:Indeed.
Speaker A:So I love to ask my guest this question.
Speaker A:What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, that is a.
Speaker B:It's a really good question.
Speaker B:I think two have stuck out to me.
Speaker B:Kind of knowing that question's coming.
Speaker B:One of them comes really from my dad in a sense that, you know, all of us put on our pants the same way.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Figuratively speaking.
Speaker B:And so it's been really meaningful to me.
Speaker B:It's just I'm nobody special.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Keeps me humble.
Speaker B:And it aligns with, with the way Paul talks in Philippians chapter two, just before he kind of goes on to talk about the humility of Jesus.
Speaker B:And then the second one, when I converted to.
Speaker B:To be a follower of Jesus, I read a book by one of the spiritual writers named Watchman Knee.
Speaker B:And I don't know if you've ever heard of him.
Speaker B:He Japanese or Chinese?
Speaker B:He was imprisoned for a while.
Speaker B:I don't know his full story very well, but I read a book by him called Spiritual Authority.
Speaker B:And I under.
Speaker B:I came to understand that the best way to understand authority in the church is it's always something that's given, not something you should aim for.
Speaker B:And so those two things really, for me, align.
Speaker B:And yeah, whatever.
Speaker B:Whatever authority I've been given doesn't make me Any special.
Speaker B:Over and above anybody else, regardless of title, position, haven't written a book, whatever.
Speaker B:You know, it's.
Speaker B:I'm just another part of the body, and that's.
Speaker B:It's a good place to be.
Speaker B:I'm just happy that God uses me.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's an amazing.
Speaker A:I love both of those quotes, and it's an amazing perspective to keep in mind, especially as a pastor, when I always joke my congregation, you always try and keep putting me on this pedestal, and I keep trying to get off of it because I know the fall is not as nearly as much fun as getting up there.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker A:So I'm curious, though.
Speaker A:You know, a lot of pastors born, raised, baptized into the faith.
Speaker A:Tell us about your journey from being someone who wasn't born into this to becoming a leader in the church.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think I'm a sociological anomaly according to all the data.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:It's been the sort of thing that's inspired some of my research and wondering and questioning.
Speaker B:But I grew up in a nominally Christian household.
Speaker B:We were Roman Catholic, but it was very much a name, only we didn't go to church regularly.
Speaker B:We didn't do any sort of regular faith practices, you know, nurturing your faith in the household.
Speaker B:And it would be really arbitrary when.
Speaker B:When my parents would decide to go to church.
Speaker B:And so for me, I wanted to kind of get out from that obligation first ticket that I could.
Speaker B:The one thing that really, really did stick was, you know, faith formation was something that was outsourced.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Kind of like confirmation these days in the Lutheran ch.
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker B:It was ccd, you know, catechism classes on Wednesday nights after school at the.
Speaker B:The local Catholic private school, real close connected to the parish that was in town.
Speaker B:And there are some interesting things that I learned and so on, but nothing really stuck.
Speaker B:I never walked away understanding what the significance of Jesus was.
Speaker B:And I don't know if that's my fault because I didn't pay good attention or, you know, I don't want to blame the teachers because I just don't remember clearly enough, but that.
Speaker B:That was the extent of it.
Speaker B:So, you know, when I got to the end of that period, you know, and you kind of go through confirmation and now faith is your own.
Speaker B:You're there, you.
Speaker B:You're supposed to live this out.
Speaker B:I at least kind of picked that up for me.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:I looked for the first way out that I could possibly find.
Speaker B:And freshman year of high school, biology class, theory of evolution.
Speaker B:Gee, this made an awful lot of Sense.
Speaker B:And So as a 13 year old, somewhat rebellious teenager, that was my justification to my parents for kind of walking away.
Speaker B:But there were some real questions, you know, scientific, philosophical, you know, to the ability that, that my young teenage self could really start to formulate any of those.
Speaker B:And by the time I got to the end of high school, I was, I had been involved in music ever since I was a little kid.
Speaker B:Super great formative experiences, especially in high school.
Speaker B:I was involved in just about anything I could do playing drums and percussion.
Speaker B:And so the end of high school, a bunch of us got a garage band together.
Speaker B:We did a Blues Brothers cover group, played like 10 songs, wore matching outfits, choreographed dance, you know, horns and acting.
Speaker B:And it was really fun because all of us kind of came from the same formative environment.
Speaker B:They really invested a lot in the arts as much as athletics, where I grew up out.
Speaker B:And we rehearsed in the garage of one of the singers, his mom happened to be the local Lutheran church's praise band leader.
Speaker B:They didn't have a drummer in their, their band.
Speaker B:They invited me to play and we had to negotiate that because I was not a believer.
Speaker B:And I said, you know I'm an atheist, right?
Speaker B:And they said, yeah, we know.
Speaker B:And I, I considered it and they said, well, you know, we'd really like you to, to come.
Speaker B:I said, I'll do it if you pay me.
Speaker B:And it became a gig.
Speaker B:And, and that sort of at least established a boundary of, of me being professional with them, right?
Speaker B:I'm not gonna criticize what you do and all of that stuff, but I still have my objections and they kind of knew it, right?
Speaker B:I wanted God to show up in some extraordinary way, you know, speak in an audible voice, write it on the wall, prove to me that he existed.
Speaker B:None of those things happens.
Speaker B:But they, they knew of this area that I, I studied for a while, Christian apologetics that helped me once I converted, adjust.
Speaker B:But the conversion for me was really non intellectual.
Speaker B:It didn't deal with any of my questions.
Speaker B:It was very much in this group of people.
Speaker B:I experienced genuine Christian hospitality.
Speaker B:I loved music.
Speaker B:I always wanted to like go serious and play music.
Speaker B:And all the guys I would often get together with in high school, you know, prior to that Blues Brothers group, they just use it as a proxy to smoke pot and drink alcohol.
Speaker B:And it was always dissatisfying for me because none of those things interested me.
Speaker B:1 and 2.
Speaker B:I just wanted to play the music.
Speaker B:So getting into this band and knowing that they wanted me there, I started to feel this Genuine sense of belonging.
Speaker B:And I had to up my game, right?
Speaker B:There was nobody flapping their arms in front of us, keeping us together, right?
Speaker B:Playing live music is its own unique thing.
Speaker B:So I learned so much from them.
Speaker B:They were older, more mature musicians, so there was that element of it.
Speaker B:And then I would say my experience of playing drums was different when I did it in church than all the other venues I'd ever played before.
Speaker B:Marching band and pit orchestra for musicals, wind ensemble, percussion on sambles, anything you could imagine, I've done those.
Speaker B:And playing in church, I felt like I played better and I had more fun and I couldn't explain that.
Speaker B:And so both of those things together became a tipping point midway through my freshman year of college.
Speaker B:And I said, God, I still don't know if you're real.
Speaker B:You've not proved yourself to me in the way that I was hoping you would, but I'll give you a chance.
Speaker B:And in that moment, everything about my life changed.
Speaker B:Within six months I thought, I think I want to be a pastor.
Speaker B:I should go to the seminary.
Speaker B:And these people had gotten to know me for a year and they, they affirmed that.
Speaker B:And I've just had so much great support.
Speaker B:But it was really from there.
Speaker B:Then started out at seminary.
Speaker B:Eventually, you know, landed accidentally and planting a church in Midtown St.
Speaker B:Louis called Crave Christ in the City, if you've heard of that.
Speaker B:Never something I expected to do.
Speaker B:I wasn't a mission trip guy at that time, but I knew how to get a.
Speaker B:A group of musicians together.
Speaker B:I knew how to do the media to help conduct worship.
Speaker B:I was learning how to do all of these things at the seminary.
Speaker B:It became a long time kind of background, part time job for me.
Speaker B:And then when it came time to finish my M.
Speaker B:Div, I thought, I'm not sure that that traditional parish ministry is the right fit for me.
Speaker B:I think I want to teach.
Speaker B:And so I stayed, did graduate work and my first call was to Concordia University, Portland.
Speaker B:And So, you know, 15 years prior, I'm an unbeliever.
Speaker B:Fifteen years later I'm, I'm teaching religion to undergraduates in, in a cultural context where there's a whole bunch of people like me.
Speaker B:And that was just a deeply moving act of God.
Speaker B:I really loved being there and being able to just be real with them, tell them my story and invite them to consider this Jesus that we all know.
Speaker A:So being a pastor who was a non believer, I'm sure your approach to ministry is different than a lot of pastors.
Speaker A:So kind of talk about how your approach to ministry and outreach is maybe unique because of your experience.
Speaker B:Yeah, I can't, I can't leave that part of my past behind.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's always formative of how I approach everything I do.
Speaker B:So why I got into, you know, studying church and culture is just this question of how can we engage people who were like me in the same way that I was engaged.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:What I don't think is, is a hit right now, and I, I don't think it's really meeting a need, is a lot of the intellectual approaches that were popular 20 years ago, Christian apologetics and worldview studies and defending the faith.
Speaker B:I don't think, you know, D.
Speaker B:James Kennedy's approach of evangelism explosion, where you kind of, you just show up with a surprise question.
Speaker B:If you died tonight, what's gonna happen?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:There are moments when that probably works.
Speaker B:I don't think a confrontational approach where you're out on the street with a megaphone, you know, maybe you're gonna catch somebody in a real existential crisis.
Speaker B:But I honestly think it's, it's just winsome, relational, one on one, over the long term, building relationships of, of trust, where people get to see you living out your life as a Christian authentically, it, it generates a sense of plausibility.
Speaker B:They begin to wonder why my way and not his or hers.
Speaker B:And, and, and I think that's, that's really what I want to encourage.
Speaker B:And at lhm, you know, we, we entirely kind of premise our evangelism tool on the basis of building relationships of trust and walking with people through their journey of being, you know, very far away from God, unreceptive all the way to curious, seeking, wanting to know more, maybe considering, you know, jumping into that adult Bible class, joining the church, attending on a regular basis, and ultimately becoming a follower of Jesus by the power of the spiritual eating.
Speaker A:It's funny you mentioned Kennedy's process because my first call was to Detroit, Michigan and it was urban Detroit.
Speaker A:And I'm thinking to myself, I'm not sure this approach is the best, best approach in the hood.
Speaker A:When you walk up to a door or strangers door and say, what if you die tonight?
Speaker A:I just don't think that's why I wanted to start the conversation.
Speaker B:I don't think so either, not in that context.
Speaker B:I agree, I agree.
Speaker A:So I had to learn a different way to kind of engage people one on one, like you say, in a conversational way and kind of get to know them.
Speaker A:And then we got around to the big question of where you at in your walk with God?
Speaker B:Yeah, tell me more.
Speaker B:Like, what did you do?
Speaker B:Because, like, I always like to learn about ideas like this so I can give them away.
Speaker B:What did you.
Speaker B:How did you.
Speaker B:How did you work through what you had been trained to do versus what you ended up actually doing?
Speaker A:Well, I started going where people were.
Speaker A:This was before it was, you know, cool to go hang out at Starbucks.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:We had local restaurants there, and.
Speaker A:And I would go there, and I'd go to the same place often so I got a chance to meet people.
Speaker A:And so Starbucks became my place all around the country.
Speaker A:When I wouldn't move places, I'd go there every day, got to know the people.
Speaker A:I'd go into the place.
Speaker A:I would always go to the window and order stuff.
Speaker A:So I sat down, got a chance to know them, they got a chance to know me.
Speaker A:And sometimes I'd work there and have my computer out and people would come over, what are you working on?
Speaker A:And we're.
Speaker A:We talk about it, and it just opened up a door for conversation.
Speaker A:It was very natural.
Speaker A:Now I do it at my local butcher here in Fort Dodge, my butcher.
Speaker A:And I.
Speaker A:I know him.
Speaker A:He told me when his wife's husband.
Speaker A:His wife's mom died.
Speaker A:I asked him how that's still going.
Speaker A:I go just from going back and forth every day of asking those questions.
Speaker A:Well, how's your family doing?
Speaker A:I know his favorite football team, so I gave him a hard time when Boise State lost.
Speaker A:So just all those kind of things, you gotta know people so you can know things about them.
Speaker B:Yes, that's right.
Speaker B:Totally.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You've got to have those connections.
Speaker B:I think the big challenge of today is that, you know, we're afraid to make those connections.
Speaker B:It's easy to just be alone, be living in the.
Speaker B:The reality of the glass screens we've got in our pocket.
Speaker B:But, yeah, taking the time to get to know people, it gives you these insights, these ends, right?
Speaker B:And the Holy Spirit is always, you know, nudging you and prompting you, you know, see what happens.
Speaker A:And it's so powerful.
Speaker A:I tell my kids, the most important thing you can do is call someone by their name.
Speaker A:And so when I go in the store, I always use the name of the person in the store.
Speaker A:My son says, you know everybody.
Speaker A:I'm like, well, first of all, they have the name on their shirt.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But they're impressed.
Speaker A:Like, they forget they have the name on their shirts.
Speaker A:Like, how'd you know my name?
Speaker A:And so they start responding back with my name.
Speaker A:And so it's like.
Speaker A:It's amazing how simple the power of someone's name being heard is.
Speaker A:And breaking down walls and barriers.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, it's a way of just humanizing them.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Helping them to feel seen definitely in a deeper way than you're.
Speaker B:You know, you're.
Speaker B:You're just fulfilling a job of getting me my coffee or whatever thing I ordered.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's so cool.
Speaker A:So let's talk about your book.
Speaker A:What inspired you to write how the Light Shines Through Resilient Witness in Dark Times?
Speaker B:Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker B:Two things.
Speaker B: dia Portland for seven years,: Speaker B:The question of identity became a thing.
Speaker B:The question.
Speaker B:And then the issue of social polarization became really significant.
Speaker B:So I was trying to just work my way through some of those things with students and some of the challenges that just existed on campus or existed at least theoretically and sometimes practically between, you know, what was authentically a faithful Lutheran university in a very secular context, not in a hostile one, a secular context in the sense of live and let live.
Speaker B:You know, you do your religious thing, we do our religious thing.
Speaker B:Don't push your stuff on us.
Speaker B:And Concordia was never like that.
Speaker B:But when people would discover, you know, where we were coming from doctrinally, they might have some questions.
Speaker B:So how do you work through that?
Speaker B:That was part of what motivated it.
Speaker B:And then, you know, as I started to finally kind of talk and share what I'd been learning with other people, whether it's in the classroom or whether it was to professional church workers, you know, at a conference, I'd be invited to just get really good reception.
Speaker B:Like, I didn't think it was because I was, you know, Mr.
Speaker B:Charisma and super interesting, but actually, it was the questions and the content that were hitting a nerve.
Speaker B:And as that kept happening, I finally, you know, asked cph.
Speaker B:I'm like, would you get.
Speaker B:Would you all be interested in actually, you know, working on this together?
Speaker B:Me putting it together as a book to publish?
Speaker B:And they were all about it, you know, and it.
Speaker B:I take it to be the.
Speaker B:The sort of thing that they don't really have a lot of in.
Speaker B:In their library, you know, of what they publish?
Speaker B:It's a little bit outside of the norm, but they've been so great to work with.
Speaker B:Super appreciative.
Speaker B:You know, they've even said, hey, we think this could be for more than just Lutherans.
Speaker B:And so They've tried in subtle ways to, to put it out there to wider audiences even.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And now that it's been out a few months, it came out in September, every now and again, you know, once or.
Speaker B:Once or twice a month, I get somebody writing to me, saying how thankful they are, how helpful it's been.
Speaker B:Just last week, no, it was early this week.
Speaker B:One of our brothers in ministry who's Hispanic, you know, second language is English, he's read it and he was like, even though this isn't my native language, you are speaking to things that really affect me and my ministry.
Speaker B:And I was just so deeply moved that, you know, golly, God would use me to write a book that would connect with people that aren't even from here, you know, and, and that these issues are critical for them, too.
Speaker B:I just want it to be helpful, and I'm so thankful that people are telling me that it is.
Speaker A:So what's the main purpose you hope to achieve in people who pick up this book and read it?
Speaker B:Yeah, so a couple things.
Speaker B:I think everybody in the church in general feels like things have changed substantially in the last 30, 40 years.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:We've moved into this post Christian era.
Speaker B:Not a lot of people entirely know what that means.
Speaker B:I like to use Charles Taylor's language of we live in a secular age and then really try to explain what that means.
Speaker B:And in short, we live in an age of implausibility.
Speaker B:It's difficult to believe.
Speaker B:All belief is contestable, and we experience it as contested.
Speaker B:We experience a very pluralistic world.
Speaker B:There's a manyness of different kinds of beliefs around us that we're exposed to on a regular basis.
Speaker B:And I'd say that's a vast difference from just 40 years ago.
Speaker B:And it's hard to make your way through that.
Speaker B:And then, of course, there's all these challenging questions like identity and polarization that we're experiencing and, and how to engage with people who are not like us, right, in skin color or, or language or ethnicity or belief.
Speaker B:All the ways that we can kind of slice and dice our differences.
Speaker B:And, and the church, I think, has been often on our heels.
Speaker B:When some of these questions come up, we don't know how to respond.
Speaker B:And so I've tried to just take a handful of these things, address those questions, show a way through that they could then apply in their context, help them understand what, how this connects to living in a secular age, and then also to point them to the fact that we can lean back on the wisdom of the early church.
Speaker B:You know, the first 300 years we lived in a pluralistic society.
Speaker B:We were a minority reporter.
Speaker B:What did they do that exploded the reputation of the.
Speaker B:The early church in a positive way such that it, it grew like it did, you know, to, to kind of become the dominant influence in shaping the west as we know it.
Speaker B:How can we get back to that sort of thing, you know, a positive reputation, build the trust again, and so on and so forth.
Speaker A:I love that this term that you have in your book, the resilience, has become a really big buzzword, especially since COVID But, but how do you define resilient witnessing in the context of our contemporary culture?
Speaker B:I try to.
Speaker B:I really try to help people see our culture is not as hostile as we want to say that it is, and also own the fact that if we experience hostility, it might very well be our fault.
Speaker B:Because often the church is known more for what it's against than what it's for.
Speaker B:And so it shouldn't be any surprise that people push back on that.
Speaker B:Resilience, I think, is going in this direction of trying to relearn the habit of talking about what we're fighting for and also doing it fearlessly.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:If this really is the truth that we're proclaiming, if we can do it in a winsome way through relationships built on trust.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:If we can just hang in there, we can start to see the season of life that we live in, this opportunity that God gives us on a regular basis throughout our life to be witnesses.
Speaker B:We can see the world around us as a world of opportunity, not so much a world of threat where we've kind of got to avoid it, we've got to retreat.
Speaker B:So I'm pushing back against that without saying I'm pushing back against that.
Speaker B:I'm just trying to give a positive way of saying, here's how we can go, here's how we can be and, and sit back and let the Holy Spirit work after that.
Speaker A:Whenever I write a book, especially one for cph, I'm always wrestling with terms and the theological context of whatever you're writing about.
Speaker A:How did you address the theological context or even theological pushback of this idea of resilient witness?
Speaker A:Because sometimes we over theologic, theologize Christian witness to the point where we almost say we shouldn't witness because now we're kind of playing God.
Speaker A:So how do you, how do you work through those issues and say here is witnessing in our theological context.
Speaker A:That is, that is healthy, but also the way we should approach it?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, I start with Where Lutheran Hour starts on this and where our own Lutheran tradition has started, you know, for, for so long.
Speaker B:We're the priesthood of all believers right there.
Speaker B:There's a special role that, that called ordained rostered servants are supposed to play in service to unique congregations.
Speaker B:But the, the vocation, the calling of sharing the gospel is something that God gives to all of us.
Speaker B:And so then the question is, how do you do that?
Speaker B:And, you know, so then writing for cph, what I knew was I, I had to write in a way that was going to resonate with reviewers.
Speaker B:That's an audience of one, presumably.
Speaker B:But then, you know, it's, it's going to get out into the wider church and people are going to have their opinions.
Speaker B:So far I've experienced nothing negative.
Speaker B:Getting through doctrine review was not a problem.
Speaker B:There was even some really good helpful ideas from the reviewer.
Speaker B:Then I'm like, oh gosh, if, if he's hearing it this way, I don't want to risk other people hearing it that way.
Speaker B:So I even made a few adjustments.
Speaker B:So, you know, the review process, I think was really good and fruitful for me.
Speaker B:And, and look, I don't assume that I, I'm always going to speak perfectly from within our Lutheran faith.
Speaker B:I want to, but the motive is there.
Speaker B:But there are times when, you know, I, I might be misunderstood or even I myself might misunderstand and then misconstrue something.
Speaker B:So the, the corrective is always good to kind of have that background, to have that check in there.
Speaker B:And, and so I tried to navigate it in such a way that whatever I was going to do, I wanted it to be accessible to the interested layperson that could be anything from a seminarian to a church elder to, you know, trained pastors, deaconesses, DCEs, family and life ministers, so on.
Speaker B:I wanted to be accessible, but I also wanted to challenge them and kind of, kind of kick it up a notch.
Speaker B:There are some things that I, I called into question, attitudes, movements that have been kind of typical responses to the way culture is that I think actually tend to undercut what our ultimate effort is.
Speaker B:And that's, you know, bringing the gospel to the world.
Speaker B:So I, I warned people about that and then I immediately set out to, well, here's how to do it entirely different.
Speaker B:And I tried to be as practical as I could along the way with just giving people a sense of, you know, here's what the background that I'm thinking about that you should maybe think about, have it in mind as you approach this in a new practical way, some of it is a, it's a paradigm shift.
Speaker B:You got to try it out and you got to keep reviewing it in order to start thinking this way.
Speaker A:What do you think is the, probably the biggest paradigm shift that you kind of address in your book that you think is most helpful for the church?
Speaker B:Yeah, I, to be honest, it's, I think that the church in our time, we pay a lot of attention to statistics.
Speaker B:A lot of these social surveys that come out that talk about the fact that Christianity is dying in the United States, that religious participation is on the decline, that alternative religious ways of being are on the rise, and there's all kinds of punditry around that.
Speaker B:Every time a new survey is released from, you know, Crossway or Barna or Pew or Public Religion Research Institute or Gallup, all kinds of punditry that just sort of freaks out.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:We're doing a lot of hand wringing about this.
Speaker B:It's a problem.
Speaker B:And it hits us in two ways as ministers of the gospel.
Speaker B:One, it hits me in the spiritual urgency sense, right?
Speaker B:I want to share Jesus with people.
Speaker B:I want their eternal destiny to be what my eternal destiny is.
Speaker B:And that's hugely important.
Speaker B:But then there's also the, the, the practical side, right.
Speaker B:If I'm going to be a minister of the gospel, I need to make a livelihood somehow.
Speaker B:And having people in my church is, you know, paying those bills, keeping the lights on, allowing for programs to happen, allowing for expansiveness of the mission in a variety of ways.
Speaker B:So there's the, the spiritual side, the practical side.
Speaker B:When all of this punditry happens, it's, it's hitting us in those two places, right?
Speaker B:It's causing a little bit of a mental and spiritual crisis for us in both those places.
Speaker B:And so it's no surprise that we kind of get wrapped up in it.
Speaker B:And we think this is the primary problem that I'm gonna have to be dealing with for my whole ministry.
Speaker B:And I, what I try to do in my, my argument is, is say, actually, Charles Taylor is so helpful in thinking through this.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:When we use the term secular, we are talking about church decline and the rise of alternative ways of believing.
Speaker B:You know, the so called nuns or the unaffiliated, just for example.
Speaker B:Yes, we, we see the fact that faith is meant to be private, right.
Speaker B:This is how our imagination is formed.
Speaker B:And so we see the decline of religious influence in the public sphere.
Speaker B:All of those things are true when we talk about what it means to live in a secular age.
Speaker B:There are people empirically observable but he pushes us past that to say, what if all of these things are.
Speaker B:Are just something like a weather report, Right?
Speaker B:They're what's happening right now.
Speaker B:And we feel like we've got to respond to them right now in the immediate.
Speaker B:But we're not getting at the real issue.
Speaker B:What are the conditions?
Speaker B:What's the climate that makes the weather, as we're experiencing it, possible?
Speaker B:And this is where Taylor's helpful.
Speaker B:He offers a third definition of secular.
Speaker B:He says we live in an age of implausibility, this age where belief is difficult, belief is fragile.
Speaker B:We ask that question, why my way and not his or hers, in a manner that, you know, mere apologetics can't address.
Speaker B:It isn't just an intellectual set of questions.
Speaker B:And then even more, I think, when he argues that belief is contestable and therefore contested.
Speaker B:If.
Speaker B:If this is a challenge of implausibility, then what we can work for is plausibility.
Speaker B:And how do I do that?
Speaker B:I think the best apologetic, if there is one, is when the church actually lives out its life faithfully, winsomely, that people see us really and truly following Jesus.
Speaker B:And that life becomes contagious, becomes attractive, becomes the.
Speaker B:The sort of thing that the Holy Spirit can use to make people sit up and pay attention.
Speaker B:Well, who is this Jesus?
Speaker B:What is this thing called church?
Speaker B:Who are these people?
Speaker B:And when I look back at the early church, that's what I see, Peter.
Speaker B:Encouraging that person, group of people to.
Speaker B:To do right, to live your life in such a way that it becomes a question, right?
Speaker B:Whether it's attractive, whether it's like, whoa, that's weird.
Speaker B:But I want to check it out.
Speaker B:You know, there's something beautiful about it.
Speaker B:That's the paradigm shift that I'm trying to push people toward.
Speaker B:It isn't about fixing this with an intellectual game.
Speaker B:It isn't about fixing this by just trying to get more people in and stave off the bleeding and stop the loss.
Speaker B:It's actually about thinking about the long game.
Speaker B:What is our lifelong witness?
Speaker B:What is our reputation?
Speaker B:How can we come back from this trust deficit that we're in?
Speaker B:It's by people seeing how we live.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And when we live like Jesus, it makes a difference.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:So if people pick up this book, how would you suggest they use it in their congregation?
Speaker B:Yeah, I guess for that paradigm shift thing.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:That I started out in the sense of.
Speaker B:I just try to evoke my audience.
Speaker B:I assume a lot of people are feeling afraid or feeling like we've lost something with the decline of especially Christian influence in our time.
Speaker B:And I, I just try to validate that, but I don't leave them there.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Kind of wallowing in how, how bad we've been feeling for so long.
Speaker B:I try to very quickly turn it, to make a way out.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:How do we understand our times?
Speaker B:And then here are these really challenging questions that I'm going to try to help you work your way through, understand how they've become really significant challenges or questions in our time.
Speaker B:And then what to do about it.
Speaker B:What does scripture have to say?
Speaker B:What does the early church have to say?
Speaker B:What does the person and work of Jesus have to say?
Speaker B:And so there's just a lot of gospel in there for, for both us.
Speaker B:And then if that gospel has worked to change us, it has also empowered us.
Speaker B:How can we go out and live as that gospel reveals we can and ought to?
Speaker A:I love it.
Speaker A:So I love to ask my guest this question.
Speaker A:What do you want your legacy to be?
Speaker B:That is a good question, but it's really simple.
Speaker B:I hope people say he was helpful.
Speaker B:He was helpful for us in the church in our time.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker A:I love it.
Speaker A:I love it.
Speaker A:Where can people find your book?
Speaker A:How to how the Light Shines Through Resilient Witness in Dark Times and connect with you on social media?
Speaker B:Yeah, well, CPH is my publisher, so you can find it on their sites and then it's pretty much everywhere else that you might love buying books.
Speaker B:Amazon Bookshop, I think you could find on the Barnes and Noble store, Christian book.
Speaker B:So any of those places.
Speaker B:And then I.
Speaker B:I'm most prominently, I guess use a user of Facebook.
Speaker B:I occasionally will put some things on Twitter.
Speaker B:Both of my pages, or X as they call it these days.
Speaker B:Both of my pages are.
Speaker B:Are freely accessible.
Speaker B:Just search me, friend request me, follow me, whatever.
Speaker B:I don't post a lot.
Speaker B:It's just my.
Speaker B:My own internal.
Speaker B:I don't know, my own inner critic of.
Speaker B:Of wanting to avoid trying to make myself and my work a platform for amplifying myself.
Speaker B:I just try to share things with other people that I sometimes come across.
Speaker B:I think they're helpful and they might benefit from too.
Speaker B:I've done some work promoting my book.
Speaker B:I'll of course share this podcast when it's live, but that.
Speaker B:That's always a bit of a challenge for me to.
Speaker B:To promote things that I'm a part of because I just don't think it's about me.
Speaker B:I'm just thankful God's caught me up in this work.
Speaker A:Yeah, I get that it is hard, you know, to balance.
Speaker A:How do you, you want to share, you think it's good content, but not about you.
Speaker A:It's about help giving information to people.
Speaker A:So I appreciate the work that you do.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker B:I appreciate you spending some time with me, Keith.
Speaker A:Well, Chad, thanks so much and blessings on your book and I pray people pick it up because there's some good stuff there and I pray that you look it up and find ways to connect with this generation.
Speaker A:There is so much to be hopeful for, so much to be thankful for.
Speaker A:I see it as an opportunity, not a, not a problem.
Speaker A:But we got to look at that as how can God use us in this time to share Christ with those who don't know.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Let's go, man.
Speaker B:I appreciate it.
Speaker B:Thanks so much for having me, Keith.
Speaker A:Thanks, Chad.
