Sunday School in Scotland

[00:00:02] Speaker A: From Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. This is behind the message. In this podcast. We take you behind what we teach here at Westside. I'm Ben Fleming. That's Lindsay Parnell. And there's Evan Earwicker. Long lost soul returned to us from vacation. [00:00:24] Speaker B: Yeah, it's vacation season. I know. Lindsay, you were back home in Albuquerque. [00:00:29] Speaker C: Yep. I was there for a bit. Took my dad fly fishing. I'm really proud of myself for that. [00:00:34] Speaker A: Took your dad fly fishing? [00:00:35] Speaker C: I did. It was mine and my sister's. Yes. [00:00:38] Speaker A: Nice. [00:00:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:39] Speaker C: I don't know what. [00:00:39] Speaker A: I mean. I'm a fly fisherman. You? [00:00:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:41] Speaker A: You might be. I don't know. [00:00:42] Speaker C: No, no, no. But we got him a guided fishing trip for his birthday, and Jane and I, my sister, we were a part of it. Like, we'll go too. And it was so much fun, and he was so happy, and I would do it again. 10 out of 10. Yeah. [00:00:57] Speaker A: How are your casting skills? [00:00:59] Speaker C: It's really hard, you guys. And my forearm was so sore the next day just from that movement. By the end of the day, I was, like, trying to do it with my other. So bad. But I don't know. I think I did all right. I caught a couple fish. I did. [00:01:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:13] Speaker C: It was good. Good little vacation. [00:01:16] Speaker B: And I think some of the best fly fishing in the world is here in the Metolius river, right? [00:01:22] Speaker C: Oh, I don't know about that. But some of the best fly fishing in the world is where we went, which was the San Juan river in New Mexico, maybe. [00:01:29] Speaker B: Everyone says it's the best in the world. [00:01:31] Speaker C: Maybe. Yeah. Wherever you live. [00:01:32] Speaker B: But I do know people fly in from all over the world, too. It's great here to fly fish. The Metolius. [00:01:36] Speaker C: Yeah, it is great. [00:01:37] Speaker A: I feel like I'm rarely on a flight from Seattle, San Francisco, back to Bend that doesn't have somebody getting their rod out of the carry on space or something like that, you know, It's a big deal. The Metolius Fall river is a huge. I've been out to Fall river and just observed. I think I was out there at one of the busiest times, and it was like. It was like going into a beautiful church. There were lots of people, some on bridges and some on the shores and whatever. Nobody was saying a word at all. There was probably 40 people in a pretty small space, all fishing, clear water. You could see the fish, and they're kind of casting in specific spots. It was just. It was amazing to watch. I'm not a fly fisherman. Not much of a fisherman. Period. But that was really cool. [00:02:22] Speaker C: Are you supposed to be quiet? [00:02:24] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:02:25] Speaker C: Because we were not. We were very loud. I wonder if we were scaring the fishermen. [00:02:30] Speaker A: Were there other people around? [00:02:31] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Far out there. Like everyone was giving each other good space. [00:02:36] Speaker B: Sure. [00:02:36] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:02:37] Speaker A: These people were fairly close. I don't know. I wonder if it was just an overall respect thing. Not necessarily for the fish, but for each other. Didn't want to talk a whole lot. [00:02:45] Speaker B: Kind of a library. Like, I don't think we're supposed to talk. [00:02:48] Speaker A: Talk. [00:02:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:02:49] Speaker A: You don't talk a Fall river, don't come out and talk. That's cool. I would not have expected that to be part of your Albuquerque. [00:02:56] Speaker C: People are surprised when I say that, but it was fun. [00:02:59] Speaker A: Does that bother you? Does that affect. No. [00:03:00] Speaker C: I don't give fly fishermen. I know it. I'm okay with it. I'm secure. [00:03:06] Speaker B: Was this a big birthday for your dad? [00:03:07] Speaker C: He was. He turned 70. Yeah, it was a biggie. So we went all out. Yeah. [00:03:12] Speaker B: Big milestones. [00:03:13] Speaker C: I know. Well, you did Hawaii. [00:03:15] Speaker B: We did. [00:03:15] Speaker C: Not for a big milestone, but just vacation. [00:03:17] Speaker B: Yeah. We were noticing our son is eight now. And this is such a difference between like a five year old taking them somewhere with naps and general grumpiness to now I have an 8 and a 14 year old and it's like, oh, they can hang the whole time, you know, I need the naps now. But it was great. Yeah, it was great. [00:03:38] Speaker A: That was how Fourth of July felt for me. We hit like 8:45 and I was like, oh no, when does it get dark again? This is like a 10 o' clock fireworks show, right? Kids are having a blast. They can make it to 10 very easily now. No grumpiness, just riding the high. And I'm like, oh no, you gotta socialize for how much longer before we get to the fireworks? [00:03:56] Speaker B: I took an allergy pill midday on 4th of July. Huge mistake. Yeah. [00:04:02] Speaker C: What were you doing? [00:04:02] Speaker B: So I had family over at the house and in conversation I just. Just fell asleep right there. I very rude by the way. My sister in law is like telling stories from their travels and I'm just fall asleep. Sorry. Virginia, I'm sure it was a very interesting story, but it was the Zyrtec. It was the Zyrtec. [00:04:23] Speaker A: After a certain time, I need a certain kind of hang. I don't mind hanging out with people, but this was like people from the neighborhood. It's a lot of like friends of friends. It's 8:30 and I'm like, this is not the crew think I want to spend time with. As it's getting darker, you know, you're an up to 8 o' clock kind of person. It wasn't like good friends. [00:04:41] Speaker B: It's really hard to small talk after [00:04:43] Speaker A: 8pm I think that's the thing when [00:04:45] Speaker B: you've been together for hours. [00:04:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:46] Speaker A: The small talk goes away. You've already run all the courses of all those things, all the weather patterns. It's all done. You need to talk about deep stuff now or not talk at all. [00:04:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:57] Speaker A: Have a good fourth, though. [00:04:58] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:59] Speaker A: How are the fourth rank for holidays? It's pretty low on my list. [00:05:04] Speaker C: Same. [00:05:05] Speaker B: Yeah. It's up there with like Memorial Day, Labor Day, where it's like, yeah, you. You get together with people and you eat, but just. [00:05:13] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. [00:05:14] Speaker B: I don't know. The fireworks, I don't know. Are they magical for anybody? [00:05:19] Speaker C: They're pretty beautiful. I like them. But this year on Sunday, I asked my keyboard player, I was like, were the fireworks extra loud this year or am I just getting old? Like, they were so loud, our whole house was shaking. So I don't know. They're. They're fun. The girls love them. [00:05:37] Speaker A: But, yeah, I need to see it more like my wife. Halfway through the fireworks show, Rebecca's going, I think these are extra special fireworks. [00:05:45] Speaker C: Oh, that's great. [00:05:46] Speaker A: Look at how beautiful. They're so amazing. And I was like, honey, I think. I don't think there's been any changes in this game outside of Drones, you know, since we were in junior high, you know, or whatever. This looks like the same show I saw in Glendale when I was a kid. [00:05:59] Speaker B: Ben hasn't called anything extra special for 30 years. [00:06:06] Speaker A: She was loving. I was sitting there being like, I should do better with this. I should probably look at this differently. I was a better person. Yeah. Fourth of July, not that high for me. [00:06:15] Speaker B: It's. [00:06:16] Speaker A: The food is all hot dogs and hamburgers. Just fine. [00:06:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Itself. Just fine. [00:06:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it's fine. It's hot and it's fine. Yeah. [00:06:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:26] Speaker A: The Pet Parade, though, is pretty great. I'm not gonna lie. I love me some. [00:06:29] Speaker B: I've never been to the pepper. What? [00:06:31] Speaker C: It's overrated. It's overrated. There's too many people now. Maybe, maybe 15 years ago, it was cool because it wasn't like droves and droves or maybe even more than 15 years. But I don't think you're missing out. [00:06:44] Speaker A: We did go to the front of the parade this year. I had never been down There I had always waited downtown or on the other side. I mean, it starts at Harmon Park. [00:06:51] Speaker C: Oh. [00:06:51] Speaker A: And we got right where it starts. And I was like, we're shaving off an hour of. [00:06:57] Speaker B: You're not waiting for them here. [00:06:59] Speaker A: And it was perfect. I just appreciate it because it's everything I want on a parade. I don't need noises and sounds and fire trucks and all this stuff. Give me some cute dogs and let me go home. [00:07:08] Speaker B: This is it. No, that's a good point. Because my pet peeve with parade is like, dude, you're in the parade, but you're just like, you're a window washing company. And you didn't even decorate your truck. You're just driving through the parade in your truck, put a little work in. You know, like, I came out to see you. Yeah, Come on. Yeah. [00:07:27] Speaker A: Nobody does the giant floats anymore. Maybe that was a spectacle. Maybe that was cool. [00:07:31] Speaker B: I think some still do. [00:07:33] Speaker C: Raider Nation. [00:07:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it's always Raider Nation. Shout out to Raider Nation. Good job. [00:07:38] Speaker B: That's amazing. Yeah. So, Ben, you preached the last two messages in our Old Testament series, Sunday school. And I was gone for both of those on vacation, but listened to both. And yeah, Samson and then Adam and Eve, which can be pretty inaccessible stories. You know, Samson, you have kind of that mythological strength figure. Almost feels like a Greek, you know, story. And then Adam and Eve is. I think we come with so much knowledge of that story already. So how did you kind of approach both those stories in a way that hopefully made it more accessible or fresh to people? [00:08:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I was trying to. I mean, I kind of started with the basic idea of, I don't want to spend all my time talking about what this is not, which is really tempting to do. And we've talked about this a lot of these stories. Really tempting to walk in and be like, okay, I'm going to spend 15 minutes being like, it's not this, it's not this, it's not this, it's not this. And so once I decided, like, all right, I'm not, maybe I will do a little head nod to a couple of those things. Very quickly. I want to get to the big takeaway. And if it was. If these were Shakespearean plays, what's the big moral or idea, or for us, in this context specifically, what is this telling about the nature of us? And what is it telling us about the nature of God? And that created some clarity, which was nice, because both these stories, you can get so caught up in so many little details. You know, one of them was the. The jawbone that Samson killed all these philistines with, you know, And I went back and watched. I referenced it. I couldn't remember the name of it when I preached it, but it's called the greatest adventure cartoons. You guys ever watch that? [00:09:19] Speaker B: Sure. [00:09:19] Speaker A: Hanna Barbera. They're from Hanna Barbera. [00:09:21] Speaker B: The people that did Scooby Doo and all that. [00:09:24] Speaker A: So they're actually really well. Really well produced for the time. I went back and watched the Samson episode, and I was like, this is just so weird. [00:09:30] Speaker B: Like, you can't. [00:09:32] Speaker A: Because you can tell, like, a cartoon from the 90s. They're trying to, like, create this feeling of this great moral connection for these kids that, like, time travel into the story and all that kind of stuff. I'm like, man, it just. It's so hard to do that. But when you're. When you're not trying to make it specifically, you're not trying to moralize it in a very particular way, and you're not trying to whitewash it in order to make it fit our childhood narratives. The story actually, in its honest existence is really, really wonderful and beautiful. And that might be the overall takeaway that I'm hoping people get from the church, is when you're just really honest about these stories, that's when they're the best. [00:10:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:10] Speaker A: And not when you try to make it fit some kind of other narrative. So. [00:10:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And the heroics of Samson get the limelight in the telling, and then you like it. But he's also complicated. And I loved how you kind of skipped over that. [00:10:24] Speaker A: All that. Yeah. [00:10:25] Speaker B: And just talked about how this is someone that had all the strength and all the. I don't know how you said it, but the talent and was a completely slave to his appetites and that. I think people just. That clicks when you realize, like, you can. You can hold up all the stuff that. That makes you seemingly great and be completely empty on the inside. And I think that speaks to such a deep need that people have to be more grounded in their faith and more grounded in who they are in Christ. And. Yeah, you did a great job. [00:10:59] Speaker C: Thanks. [00:10:59] Speaker A: Yeah. And again, looking at that story honestly, I think if you brought the authority of the story into the room with you, I think that would be what they wanted you to get. I. I think they would hope that you wouldn't walk away being like, and how crazy is it that that jawbone held together with all those slayings? You know, I don't think that's what they want. I think they want you know, hopefully something like the takeaway that I offered to everybody that day, which is, yeah, we can be all kinds of things. And even referencing that at the end of the message, like, even at our church, we've got some of the most beautiful people and the wealthiest people and the influential people and a lot of people that can look at their lives and say, through my own sheer willpower, I can do what I want and accomplish what I want and pull the world in my direction. And that's not the way of Jesus. And that's where the story gets good, you know, And I. I didn't even read through the story for the reason that you're talking about, number one, Samson's three chapters long. Like, that's a long story. But I didn't want to even give all of us the opportunity to try to bed down on one of heroic feats. Like, I wanted to cut to the chase a little bit more. And that helped because I'm used to being like, oh, we're going to be in John chapter 2 and verses 1 through 15. I'm going to read it all and then we'll go back. Didn't even want to do that. Had to make some choices that I hope didn't feel like over editing to some people. There was intention behind it. [00:12:22] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. And then this, the following week, you went to Adam and Eve and talked about how shame makes the thing that is true that went wrong the only truth about who you are and how God comes to clothe us in something that breaks us out of those cycles of shame. Again, if you talk about in the Samson story how character has to be present always become the shell of a person. And then the second we talk about shame and its corrosive effect, our ability to connect with each other and with God. I mean, these are those felt needs that never come up on, like, a topical series where, hey, we're going to talk about marriage today, or whatever. But they're so core, I think, to what we wrestle with and the insecurities we have in our faith because of shame and these voids. Do you feel that when you're speaking? Can you feel the crowd being like, oh, yeah, I feel that. I feel what shame does to me. [00:13:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:21] Speaker A: I think if you're getting into the art of speaking to the crowd, it's those moments of lean in when you know that you've done your job to connect this really ancient story to the current lives of people. [00:13:34] Speaker B: You do, you. [00:13:34] Speaker A: You open it up and you begin to describe the insecurity that's in the air when God shows up to a place that he's been going to with Adam and Eve for a long time now. And Adam immediately points the finger at someone else. And then Eve takes that blame and then pushes it down on the serpent. And all of a sudden you can locate yourself in the story and you do feel it in the room when something that just feels so distant because it is right. It's like this ancient text, whatever, all of a sudden shows up in the hearts of people and you feel you. You even get. And it's not a way to measure how well you're preaching, but sometimes you get that oh kind of sound where people aren't talking back to you. They're not going, wow, that's great. They're going, oh, yeah, ouch. Don't do that one. [00:14:21] Speaker C: That hu. [00:14:22] Speaker A: Hurts a little bit. Yeah, that's the stuff. I think that's our job as preachers, to go behind the message. Interesting enough, both stories. And you and I talked about this a little bit, Lindsay. Both stories could be preached to have a female villain, which is so interesting. And I think Clara or somebody talked about this too. Like, I learned that the women in the Old Testament kind of ruin everything. There's a reading of that. And it wasn't until I was really about to preach Adam and Eve where I was like, oh my gosh, this is a tough. So I almost didn't give it oxygen in Samson, Delilah was not really talked about by me that much. It was kind of part of the list of the ways that Samson decided to self sabotage himself as opposed to. And then this woman showed up, which [00:15:09] Speaker C: was very refreshing because it's often taught that Delilah is the villain in the story. And it wasn't Samson's shortcomings that really did them in, you know. And so even though you didn't give it much time or oxygen, as you say it was, I thought the way you navigated it said volumes about it, actually. Yeah. [00:15:30] Speaker A: I did talk about the radio personality Delilah, I guess, which I also appreciated. Yeah. There was a very specific age group, [00:15:35] Speaker B: I think, that identified it. [00:15:39] Speaker C: Great show. [00:15:40] Speaker B: That's awesome. Yeah. Then what was your line on the Adam and Eve week? You said, Adam's talking to guys. Like there's three of us here and two are the problem. Right. [00:15:49] Speaker A: And two of us need to really reevaluate how we're going about this life here. There was a little bit of physical comedy that week too. I did both of them both weeks. But the idea of Adam pointing up and to the side at the same time, like, no, no, no, no, you guys. And you do you feel it in that telling. And maybe it's the specific English translation like this really quick covering the tracks. This woman that you gave me is so on the nose. And it's hilarious and obvious. I mean, that's how we function. Something goes wrong and how quickly can we justify our behavior by pointing at something else or making up an excuse? You see it when I coach kids 9, 10, 11, 12 years old through baseball or softball or whatever, you see it. It's just built in to how we function. You never get a kid that had a hardening pitching coming off the mound and going, well, darn it, I could have done better. You get a kid coming off, going my shortstop and the umpire and then the kids and then the mound and I was slipping and. And we just do this. You know, it is the human nature that does tell the story of us really well. [00:17:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I don't know anything about any of that, but sounds. [00:17:04] Speaker A: Yeah, related sounds applicable to fly fishing, Lindsay. [00:17:09] Speaker C: I'm an expert now. [00:17:10] Speaker A: Stupid fish wouldn't bite. [00:17:11] Speaker B: You know when your forearm just aches and aches because you use it for the first time? [00:17:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:17:19] Speaker A: It's fun though. The church really responds to this series two years in a row now. And I, I mean, I imagine we could run it back again a third time. I feel like we're going to run out of kind of mainstream stories every year. [00:17:30] Speaker B: The characters get more and more obscure. [00:17:33] Speaker A: I know that's the danger. I mean, even Naaman, we did Naaman this year was a great story that's a little off the beaten path in comparison to Noah and Jonah, David and Goliath. So yeah, we could head in that [00:17:47] Speaker B: direction, but we talked about dipping into New Testament Sunday school stories, but it's a lot of epistles. So as far as characters outside of the apostles and Jesus and the Gospels, there's just less, less volume of stories to draw from as far as character based stuff. And I like how we go back to the Old Testament to kind of re examine it in a time where we're really New Testament people as we should be as Christians. So what do we do with these stories? What do we do with the complexities of how these ancient peoples and how ancient Israel viewed God and what do we do with that in light of Jesus? And I think it's hopefully helpful in how we read all of scripture. [00:18:33] Speaker A: If you're honest about it. It's so wonderful if you, if you don't try to make it something that's not. Which. That's a massive statement for me to say and then just drop on here. Because everyone can decide that in theory for themselves, right? But that was the thing for me. I hit a point where I just didn't want to talk about the Old Testament. Too weird, too manipulated. I didn't understand it well enough. And, you know, as a young speaker, there was just this feeling of like, I'm just not even going to acknowledge that it exists anymore. Like, we'll work through some of the stickiness of Paul, but that seems easy enough and straightforward, and we'll stick with the Gospels. Some exhausted. Like, the Old Testament's exhausting if you're not careful. And then I think when I hit that low point in my relationship with it and was just allowing it to be really on, it got. It came alive. Like, how wonderful to read into a text of people that are really trying to understand themselves and understand God. And even the week of I told you guys, because we decided to flip Adam and Eve and Samson, it was going to be Adam and Eve, then Sampson. We did the opposite so we could. So that I could talk a little bit about masculinity on Father's Day and all that. And halfway through the week with Samson, I was like, this actually sucks. [00:19:48] Speaker B: I don't know if I not just [00:19:51] Speaker A: want to do it this Sunday. I don't know that I want to do it just two hard and too weird. But again, that was kind of a refresher of the process of, okay, how honest can I be with this and get to the core of it? And I hope that's what the church gets is a little bit of this passive how to read your Bible. Stop manipulating things and squeezing it into whatever. What if you just take the story for what it is and allow God to speak to us from that? And then it gets better, and then the Old Testament gets. We were talking about this James series that we're going to go into and today, and I was like, oh, I kind of missed the narrative stories of the Old Testament already. And we're not even there yet. You know, it's. It's funny. [00:20:34] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll be in James for a few weeks here. And we try to, you know, we do some gospels, we do Old Testament, some topical stuff. James is one of those that I feel like every, like, small group I've ever been in has done James at some point, because it's really, like, it's just practical, you know, it's practical faith. So what we'll try to do over the next few weeks is show how, how this really hands on, like go out and do something, let your faith do something. How that intersects with what is already preached a lot about, which is like how Christ shows up in all these places. And it's not about our earning, it's not about our, how hard we can work to deserve the grace of God. But then you have James and he just kind of flies in the face of some of that sentiment with this, like, hey, if you're not doing something with your faith, it's dead and it's worthless. Like, ah, how do we deal with that? And so I think it'll be fun to talk through that of, of what is actually living faith look like, it always looks like action if it's alive, you know, and that's what we're, what we're trusting that the transformative work of, of the grace of God does in our lives is it brings us to life and living people do stuff. And yeah, I think I preached on this once and I, I had, I won't do it again because it was stupid. But I had everybody, great, move their feet sitting and I was like, move your feet. Yeah, stomp a little bit. Okay. If you, if you're, if your feet aren't moving you somewhere, your faith isn't alive. You know, it's this idea of like we, it has to take us somewhere, right? Otherwise we become, I think we talked about this last time, this introspective obsessed with formation, but only formation that is inward looking and we never go beyond that. I think that's a problem in faith. [00:22:21] Speaker C: Yeah, I would question that that's formation at all actually. I think that's being deformed into thinking it's just one dimensional. Like I don't see a Christianity in scripture that is someone only working on themselves. Like, I just don't see it anywhere. It's all action, it's all other focused, it's all very pastoral. And that is the work of the church. We talk about the work of pastors like on a Sunday morning, but when you zoom out, the work of the church is to be pastoral to the community, to see the real needs, the felt needs and to meet them. And I just don't think you can have a vibrant faith without that. [00:23:00] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It reminds me of, I think it was maybe early church, early medieval, and these, the monks, the ascetics, right? They would give away all that they owned and they would only have the horsehair shirt on their back or whatever and then they Aesthetics, aesthetics, aesthetics. They were so aesthetic, very fashionable. But they would literally go up on these towers. Have you heard these stories? They would build these towers or they would have, they'd go up on these towers and then people would, would shuffle like just the bare bones necessities like dry crusts of bread and some water. And they would survive up on these towers all by themselves to live out their devotion. And it was, it was this picture of like this idea of faith that actually doesn't help anything when it all becomes about how, how much can I prove my faith and devotion between me and God alone. And I think James would look at that monk on a tower, be like, no, you missed it. Yeah, you missed it. That's not a living faith, that's something else. [00:24:04] Speaker A: But you see how that starts. And maybe that's a great example of how we all love to push this extreme all the time. Maybe God is calling us sometimes these more extreme versions of living outs of faith. But you, I do know where that comes from. This radical devotion and oneness with God that requires a kind of focus and isolation and sacrifice. Like I know where that comes from. And then the other side is, you know, I'm going to get rid of everything that I have and I'm going to go live among a certain people, right? In order to, we have these wild swings, I guess, you know, there's the wealthy person that says through, by, by continuing to amass this incredible wealth, I will then control my own life and find my own safety and then distribute some of what I have from on high, you know. And then there's the, I should, nobody should ever have money or anything and go. And we love these swings. I think we all find comfort in extreme versions of whatever we're doing. And that is, you know, like we talked about last time, the spiritual formation thing can be this ultra incredible. I'm going to twist myself inside out and work on me in this self help way that is actually the antithesis of the gospel. But I know how that starts, right? And I know how it starts to give everything of yourself away and never ever be formed on the inside with some of these spiritual practices. Both are so tempting. It's just so tempting to live extreme. To me, yeah. [00:25:31] Speaker B: St. Francis, I think is the great historical example of that because he, he grows up a wealthy merchant son and it's that excess that drives him to say, I'm going to get rid of all of this. And he becomes, you know, takes a vow of poverty. But by the end of his life he and his order. They've become so extreme in their desire to get rid of anything that has any level of comfort. And there's a story about St. Francis where I think he tastes some broth and it's too flavorful. [00:26:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:09] Speaker B: So he asked to have it be made more bitter because it was. He was deriving too much pleasure from this broth. And I'm not here to bash on St. Francis, my goodness. But at the same point, it's like at some point those extremes are just the same. The flip side of the same coin of their excess in want and excess in having. And at some point Jesus is just saying, just follow me. Don't get so caught up in how little can I own or how much can I own. Yeah, just surrender everything to me and come follow. And I think that's where I think our heart has to be as, as followers of Jesus. Right? [00:26:50] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:26:50] Speaker A: And that is kind of where the, the masculinity conversations I talked about in Samson. There's an example of it as well. Right. The. The cultural uprising of. We're going to talk about toxic masculinity, which especially in the more extreme circles was like anything that starts with some kind of natural inclination that a man might have in his head. This is where everything that has gone wrong in the world happens. And so then that narrative picks up speed. And then of course, people are so shocked. Now you have this pretty extreme swing to the other side that's like, no, no, no. Everything that you want, you go get it. And here's how to do it. Go unchecked. This is what being a man really is. And any of us in the middle of it look at both sides and like, whoa, why did we talk about either one of these? This seems crazy. Anybody of reason, but it takes a certain amount of like, sobriety to see that both of those things are wild. And the actual following after Jesus especially. But even just, you know, well reasoned living can't exist in either one of those camps. And we're always trying to find that because, yeah, one day we had. That's such a great story. One day we might wake up and be like, wow, this broth is just too flavorful. And now I feel guilt and shame. [00:28:00] Speaker B: Yeah. What is that? [00:28:04] Speaker A: Make it less flavorful. [00:28:06] Speaker B: That's a power move in itself is having somebody to make your broth taste worse. [00:28:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:28:12] Speaker A: Do you feel like James was mad or frustrated with like Paul at the time? [00:28:18] Speaker B: Because I. [00:28:19] Speaker A: We talked about this a little bit in the meeting this morning. I read James and I. I feel like he's almost just, like, frustrated, not mad, and he's not raging. He's like, you guys, you got to stop it with this, like, crazy wild grace thing vibes, you know, like somebody put their shoes on and go take out the garbage, you know, is the feeling I get from James. Do you guys get any of that? [00:28:42] Speaker C: I think I do now. After you said that. Yeah. I'm kind of like, oh, maybe it does make me wonder. You guys might know more than me about this, but what the state of the early church was at that point to make James Wright such a blunt. [00:28:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:56] Speaker C: Letter. You know, like, were they just. Were they so hyper focused on themselves and their own spiritual formation that they weren't actually doing anything? I don't. I don't know. [00:29:07] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. I believe this is early days. So this is written before the Gospels. James is effectively pastoring, leading the Jerusalem church. We know there's contention and stressing between Gentiles and the Jews and now persecution is kicking up. So he's writing to dispersed Jewish believers that are now coming under persecution, but they don't have a lot to go on. They don't have all of Paul's writings. They don't have the Gospels to reference. So you do kind of get this raw sense of like, a little bit of housekeeping, I think. [00:29:49] Speaker A: Housekeeping. Yeah. [00:29:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:50] Speaker A: That's a good way to put it. It seems like he's got some very specific business to take care of while Paul does that. But it almost feels like he saves it for very specific sections where it's this relational and then it's this massive kind of umbrella of theology. And James is like, look, I got a list to check off here, and I've only got so much ink for this pen, so let's get some stuff done. [00:30:12] Speaker B: Yeah. If Paul is the apostles apostle, Right. Who's. Who's launching churches and a missionary, so he's moving around and speaking to issues as they crop up. You do get this sense that James is like, frontline. Like, he's the one getting the call in the middle of the night to go deal with this thing. That's not Paul. Paul's having to deal with pastors and their issues. James is, like, on the ground doing the stuff. And so. Yeah. And maybe, who knows, some of this might just be traditional that's been passed down, but you kind of feel that, you know. [00:30:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:47] Speaker B: Like, James is going to have the staff meeting and where he's going to have to call some people out. Paul's like, whoa, there's incest going on in Corinth. That's. This is a huge problem. Both are massive issues. But James is like a little bit more day to day. It feels like maybe that's a good way to put it. [00:31:03] Speaker A: James has been doing maybe different work than the Paul's of the world and maybe he's a little bit more embedded in his particular section of geography or something like that. It's. We took the. I'm coaching Joel's all star baseball team for Little League and we took them to Bethlehem Inn to serve for as like a team bonding kind of activity. [00:31:23] Speaker C: Whatever. [00:31:23] Speaker A: And you do, you show up and you get the guy who's higher up the org chart who shows up and is like, you kids, what an incredible thing that you're here and what a blessing. And kind of shares this bigger thing. And then we get in and we meet with the person that's running the kitchen and the conversation is very different. You wash your hands over here. Here's where the plastic gloves are. You shut up. Okay. You're going over here. And this is how you do the peas. And then this is how people doing the same work. Very different temperament and demeanor and probably even even understanding of how the work gets done. [00:31:58] Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting but. And then talk to us a little bit, Ben, because you're next month going to be heading to Scotland for this kind of Celtic pilgrimage that you've taken before. But you've taken a group from the church. Yeah. And we're also going to do a class. Right on. On Celtic spirituality. [00:32:18] Speaker A: Is it three weeks on Celtic spirituality? Is that what he's doing? Which is really exciting to me. So from my personal perspective, I went and did this one walk. I was interested in Scotland and I was interested in a walk that I could do in five days was kind of how I came to St. Cuthbert's Way and then learned a ton along the way. But then since Brandt has we started talking about Celtic spirituality, what we're going to learn through even you referenced some of the medieval understandings of God and traditions. Boy, there's a big wide world out there for me to understand now. So it's the same path but by virtue of having people with me as well as what we're going to learn along the way is very different trip. That's really exciting. That's going to make a lot of sense for the group. And so what was kind of this, this isolation, solitary practice for me that really was life changing. I'm really curious as to what that dynamic feels like as we Talk through our own experiences as a group and then have the interjecting of real historical, educational knowledge from both Brandt and from one of his friends that we're meeting over there that's going to like teach us in a pub the night before we go out and start the walk, which is. Can't think of too many things far more romantic than that when it comes to church. This is the best church trip I've ever been on already. [00:33:40] Speaker B: I mean, yes, the setting, the scenery, the history, but also you're signing up basically for a week long small group session. Right. So, yeah, I hope the chemistry is [00:33:51] Speaker A: good with the group. [00:33:51] Speaker B: Yeah, you gotta walk 80 miles with them, Right? [00:33:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And how, how do we feel not just the first day, but then when we're tired? [00:33:59] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:34:01] Speaker A: Our political ideology seems fine, maybe the first two days, but then after five days, what does it sound and look like after that? That's part of it though, right? Is we are trying to. This is a very like clean, fun way to think about the songs of ascent, you know, and the pilgrimages that people have always taken, which of course you would. You go with a vision and a hope for how things are going to be. And then of course you get on the trail and many of those things come true while you have the aches and pains and the potential frustrations of living and being and talking together over extended periods of time. So there's a lot that's going to happen in this dynamic, which, I mean, that was part of my journey too, of the wonder of solitude. So great for like three days. And then I'm like, oh man, I miss my kids and they're really far away and I miss my wife and I miss, you know, all this stuff. And we'll have a version of that. The feelings, I'm sure will evolve as we go along. And that's part of the thing. So, yeah, my greatest hope is that we can have like a seven day version of what the Christian walk looks like with getting a little lost on the trail, getting to the highest places, getting to the lowest places, being together, that's. That's the ideal. So we'll see if it happens. [00:35:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And the power of the perspective gained when you travel these pilgrimages, do it together with intention. You know, America, 250th this past week, and that's such a short amount of time, so small in comparison to when you are going to walk this trail and see these spaces and moments that thousands, you go back thousands of years to historic Christianity and the perspective that Gives us, I think, is really healthy and really helpful, hopefully for folks and for us. [00:36:01] Speaker A: I hope, as a church, we're just, we're not creating these experiences because they're fun trips, which is great and tempting. But we have been trying to think through as a team, especially the three of us in the broader leadership team, like, how can we continue to cultivate people's discipleship? That doesn't look like a really well done Sunday service with a well fashioned teaching and these things do it. And it's, it's tough because it's going to be a lot of days. And it's eight people that we're taking for the size of our church, eight's not that many people. But this is part of our goal, is how can we even slowly continue to churn this earth of discipleship and do it in all kinds of different ways, whether it's through teaching through Dietrich Bonhoeffer or a trip through Scotland or a trip through Turkey. All these things matter and have a real depth to them if we're willing to take the time to do them and have to remember that as awesome as this is going to be, you, I'm doing that thing where you get two months away from actually doing the thing that you talked about nine months ago. And I'm like, this sounds hard and tiring. Are we sure we have all the details done and all the, all the travel? [00:37:07] Speaker B: Sounds great until you get to it. [00:37:09] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. We were looking through. I was like, well, here's this flight. It takes 22 hours to get. I was like, oh, no, I don't want to do this. It was terrible. But it's going to be totally worth it. And, and good for us. I'm glad that we're, we're taking the time to think about discipleship in this way so that it doesn't not just get stale, but so that we can continue to cultivate people in different stages of life that need discipleship too. [00:37:34] Speaker C: Yeah. I had a professor who told me you do discipleship or spiritual formation by finding something you're really passionate about and you just invite a few people to do it with you. Just come along, let's do this together for a little while. And you just do that over and over and over again. And this is that, you know, it doesn't need to be a trip of 35. This is, you know, your life was changed on this trip and now you're inviting eight others to come into this with you and let's do this together, because this is important. And yeah, I think. I think that's the thing. That's the point. [00:38:07] Speaker A: How much that did you experience in your recent schooling? [00:38:11] Speaker C: Experience. [00:38:11] Speaker A: Right, because you've been through internships, you've been working at church and all that. Like how much of it was just hearing some things that you've heard before. I'm sure you heard some things you hadn't heard before too, but hearing a lot of things that you've heard before in a different room with different people at a different time like that, that's a big deal, right? It can be transformative. [00:38:30] Speaker C: Yeah. I grew up in the church, so I had heard a lot of it before. But you're right, it's either said in a different way or it's the season I'm at in my life or where it just hits the different. And it hits new and fresh and I learn from it where maybe I didn't before. So, yeah, that's. It's very big. I bet your life will be changed once again on this. On this trip. [00:38:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:53] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. And I just don't want to make light of those things. Taking people to Mexico for a mission has one thing and can touch someone in a very particular way of life and, you know, not. But not even just these. These. The ways that we travel just. And we've reverenced it. Barb talked to me about this. Shout out to Barb, who listens to this so faithfully. She was like, yeah, you said you guys are kind of talking about the same thing every week and you have to do the work of putting it through a different filter or seeing it from a different angle. And I kind of understand that now that I listen to you guys speak. And this is kind of another version of that, you know, we're not going to go to Scotland and have, I don't know, some kind of different method in which we access the Holy Spirit [00:39:32] Speaker B: or something like that. [00:39:33] Speaker A: You know, some kind of a seance in Scotland 1. [00:39:38] Speaker B: But no one said you were going to do that. Where did that come from? [00:39:42] Speaker A: You know, again, different filters. [00:39:44] Speaker B: We're not going to stand in the stone circle. [00:39:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:39:47] Speaker B: No, no one thought you were, man. [00:39:48] Speaker A: Brant's got this really great custom Ouija board that we're going to bring. [00:39:52] Speaker B: Could you imagine, Brandt? [00:39:53] Speaker C: No, no, I cannot. [00:39:56] Speaker B: Turns out you got some very unorthodox. [00:39:59] Speaker A: It turns out now that I've got you practices globe. [00:40:03] Speaker B: No, it's good. Well, that will be a full, full few months here. Sounds like you might be heading to Turkey and Spain and in addition to Scotland. So, yeah, just doing that thing, all the locations. But I'm sure we'll get lots of stories out of it. [00:40:19] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Well, that's the thing. As people that talk from a platform all the time, we're just hunting stories, right, Mike? [00:40:25] Speaker B: Aren't we? [00:40:26] Speaker A: You think that people worry about what they say around us now because they'll [00:40:30] Speaker B: end up in our stories. [00:40:31] Speaker C: As an example, maybe. It's happened to Eric and I a few times. This one. [00:40:36] Speaker A: Oh yeah. Eric's been like, whoa, dinner. [00:40:39] Speaker B: I think that. No, the worst was our. Our friend Stephen Webb when I sold [00:40:43] Speaker C: him out the other day. [00:40:44] Speaker B: Actually, I sold him out for some timeshare scheme that he was running in Mexico from the stage. Was it fraud? I don't know, but I told the whole church about it. [00:40:54] Speaker A: Find out next time I'm behind the message. Was it fraud.