T-Bone of Norwich

[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. [00:00:17] Speaker B: And I'm Evan Earwicker. And we're here for one more week of the podcast in Ephesians. It sounds like something horrible is going to happen. No, no, no. Of this section of the podcast. [00:00:30] Speaker A: It's even better because we were discussing a few kind of apocalyptic things before we started recording. So we're here for one more week, and then what? [00:00:39] Speaker B: Maybe the listeners will find this interesting. What we're talking about was, I found out from a clip on social Media yesterday that AI, they have a language for AI that's very efficient, that if two AIs are talking to each other in audio, so it's an audio language, and they realize that they're talking to AI. They say, do you want to switch over into. I forget the name of the language. This AI language. [00:01:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:03] Speaker B: And then they switch into this garbled computer sounds. And it. It terrifies me. [00:01:11] Speaker A: Why do they need to communicate like that? I mean, aren't they all? [00:01:15] Speaker B: The example I saw was if. If you have an AI assistant calling over the phone, calling something like, you. [00:01:22] Speaker A: Know, that was receiving it in AI. [00:01:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Calling for a reservation or something, and it's an AI that answers the phone, they're like, oh, you're an AI, too. Great. It's that weird and scary. [00:01:36] Speaker A: See, I like that you put it in dinner reservations, though. That sounds great to me. My immediate response goes into something really scary and deep and dark. But if they're booking dinner reservations in their own language, that's fantastic. Good for them. [00:01:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it's amazing the amount of energy and computing power that's probably getting burned. So that people, instead of just, like, booking it through an app, have AI call a restaurant and take up their time to make a reservation. It's absurd. This is all. It's a weird world we live in. [00:02:05] Speaker A: It wasn't that long ago when the app was the thing that was the cool new way. It felt like such a relief, especially for our generation. Right. Which is it Millennials that hate talking on the phone? Yeah, right. I mean, I hate talking on the phone. [00:02:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:19] Speaker A: But then I feel like the generation after us. I was talking to Christina, our Kids director. She FaceTimes her friends all the time. [00:02:25] Speaker B: Really? [00:02:26] Speaker A: FaceTimes. They'll just, like, set the phone down in the room for about an hour. I've never felt more claustrophobic in my life than when Christina's describing this to me, it sounds horrific. Millennials created text messaging for a reason. That is the pinnacle of human communication. [00:02:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, we have a Gen Z er in the room. Gwen, you're switching for us. I want you and Lindsey to switch for a second. We need to hear next. [00:02:51] Speaker A: All right. [00:02:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:51] Speaker A: Come on, Gwen. [00:02:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we're switching. [00:02:54] Speaker A: Y the best on the fly. Okay, you're gonna be back in the seat, though. Lindsay. [00:02:58] Speaker B: Don't. [00:02:58] Speaker A: Don't run away. Don't feel like you got away. [00:03:01] Speaker B: The Gen Z panic is setting in right now. We'll be nice. Okay, but we want to quiz you here as a Gen Zer. What's your take on phone. Like, phone calls? [00:03:12] Speaker C: I was gonna say I do the same thing as Christina with my friends. [00:03:15] Speaker A: Why? [00:03:15] Speaker C: You just put on. I don't know, it's like they're there, kind of not actually. Okay, that sounded bad. It's not like they're actually there, but it's nice to be able to, like, see your friend's face or just, like, know that, like, oh, like, maybe I'm making dinner and my friend is also making dinner, and we can just, like, chat. And it's okay that you can't, like, see their face because, honestly, it's like. Like what Christina said. You just kind of put your phone there, and maybe you see the person, maybe you don't, but it's just kind of like. I don't know, it's like. [00:03:44] Speaker B: It's like you're together. [00:03:45] Speaker C: It's like a fancy phone call. Fancy. [00:03:49] Speaker A: She's trying to speak millennial right now. [00:03:52] Speaker B: See that? You know, for you all guys think of, like, the fanciest phone call you've ever. Okay, I'm tracking that. [00:03:59] Speaker A: Like, a zoom you don't hate. Yeah, that is amazing to me. And you don't feel obligated to keep the conversation flowing in a certain way. How long are the quiet gaps when you're doing that? [00:04:11] Speaker C: And I think it depends on. Cause, like, I only do this with people I'm, like, really close to. I wouldn't do this with, like, just, like, someone I'm, I don't know, kind of know or whatever. This is just with, like, my best friends or whatever. But the silence could be, like, I don't know, a couple minutes or something. If it's like, oh, I have to go stir my pasta or something, I don't know. I'll be back in a couple minutes. And it's like, okay, I'll just stay here and do whatever I'm doing. So it's Just, it's just fun. I don't know, it's very casual. [00:04:40] Speaker B: Okay, so what's your take on FaceTime drop ins where it's an unexpected FaceTime call for me? Not. I'm not. Oh man. Don't. Don't FaceTime me out of the blue. Like, what is going on? [00:04:52] Speaker A: You better have a darn good reason. [00:04:54] Speaker B: How about you go ahead. [00:04:56] Speaker C: I think. And I can only. I really have like, I could maybe say two or three people that if they FaceTimed me, I would actually pick up. [00:05:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:03] Speaker C: And I think it just depends on how comfortable you are with the person. Cause it's like, oh, it's my mom. Like, my mom knows everything I'm doing. Like, she's not gonna be like, I don't know, caught off guard if I'm like, just got out of bed or something. So I don't know if it. I would say there's a very small percentage of people that I would be actually, I would actually pick up the call. I let phone calls go like all the time. I don't always pick up, so. [00:05:25] Speaker B: Okay. Another etiquette piece. Couple days ago got a 7am call that I missed from someone that we used to work together here at the church. Yeah, no follow up text, no voicemail. But 7am on a like a Sunday morning phone call, do you call back? I didn't do anything. Because I'm like, no, you don't leave a message, you don't get a call back. But what's the etiquette? Do you text back and say, hey, everything okay? Or you leave it alone? [00:05:54] Speaker A: No, I'm with you. If they call me and there's nothing there, there's no voicemail, no text, then this is all on you. Now you gotta follow up again. [00:06:02] Speaker B: Okay. Cause I assume likely a pocket dial, right? It's not. [00:06:06] Speaker A: Yes. [00:06:07] Speaker B: This is so important. He better call me back and he'll know. [00:06:10] Speaker A: That would be my assumption. Yeah. [00:06:11] Speaker B: Okay. What do you think? Gwen? [00:06:13] Speaker C: I agree 100%. [00:06:15] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:06:15] Speaker A: And by the way, if you call me, you owe me an explanation for calling me. [00:06:19] Speaker C: I feel the same way. [00:06:20] Speaker A: Good. [00:06:21] Speaker C: If you took the time to call me and you didn't leave a message and you didn't text me, it's on you. I'm sorry. [00:06:27] Speaker B: And that's, that's a good point. I feel like I should have got a text after that, even if it was a pocket dial. Hey, sorry, that was, you know, a pocket dial. [00:06:34] Speaker A: Didn't mean. [00:06:35] Speaker B: Or. Hey, we're just asking about this. No worries. But to do nothing. Then I'm just like, what's going on? [00:06:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:41] Speaker B: Was I. Was I the first on a list of emergency contacts that this person had? [00:06:45] Speaker A: Are you in their favorites? How does the pocket dial happen for an E in Evan in yearwicker? [00:06:50] Speaker B: I assume I'm in everyone's fave five. [00:06:52] Speaker A: Of course you are. Yeah, definitely. [00:06:55] Speaker B: Was it T Mobile that had the fave five where you could get unlimited minutes and text to your circle of five people? [00:07:01] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. I think that was birthed out of MySpace. That was kind of the idea. [00:07:05] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. How wild is that? So, Gwen, are you familiar with MySpace? [00:07:10] Speaker C: I, like. No, I've never used it. I've just really heard. [00:07:14] Speaker A: I don't know if you had an option. [00:07:15] Speaker B: I don't think you had an option to use it. It was, like, long gone by, like. Yeah, 2005. But you had to pick who your best friends were, and then you put them on your page so everyone could see your hierarchy of that. You like. [00:07:30] Speaker C: Yeah. That's a lot. [00:07:31] Speaker B: That's crazy. [00:07:32] Speaker A: It's crazy. You could do a top four, top eight, or a top 12. Yeah. Wasn't that it? And then people would put them in order. Like, 1 through 4 was supposed to mean something. The only time we're supposed to do this is at our wedding, guys, where we rank our friends. We get one time to rank them, and that's all. But MySpace, it was just plastered on there forever. [00:07:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. Any drama with the choosing of your wedding parties, Ben? Lindsey? [00:07:55] Speaker A: No. I felt the pressure of you either have to have these three. [00:08:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:01] Speaker A: Or then you're going to seven. Right. You guys know that tipping point, right? If I bring in this person as a fourth, that person is with these other three. I have to have all of them. [00:08:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:12] Speaker A: So it's three or seven. [00:08:13] Speaker B: You got to choose the circle. Is it your close, close friends, or do you go out? Do you have a big wedding party? Small wedding party, no wedding party. What did you guys do? [00:08:20] Speaker C: There was no actual wedding party, but it was such a small wedding. So me and Ben, my husband, got married, and there were, like, 20 people at our wedding, like, total. We just got married at an Airbnb. And so each of us had just, like, our best friends there. There probably, like, four friends total. But there was no, like. Like, when we got married, there was no one lined up next to us or anything. It was just like, us. [00:08:42] Speaker B: Yeah. That might be the better way. [00:08:44] Speaker C: It was. We loved it. [00:08:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. We had over 300 people at our wedding, and Then we selfishly, we were thinking, the more people at the wedding, the more generous the gifts are going to be. But that was not the case. I think it works opposite of that. They'd be like, oh, they're doing a huge wedding. I'm not getting anything. So we ended up. And our friends had just gotten married and they did like a cash dance where you dance and you go around and you ask. You ask for money, like in a shoe, you know, like, it was a thing. I guess this is early aughts, but so we do this and we're like. My friend had gotten like three grand or something from the cash dance. It was insane. So we're like, okay, this is how we're gonna pay for the honeymoon. This is gonna be it. And turns out, not a lot of fans of dancing in general at our wedding. And I think we walked away with like $84 or something. It was terrible. It was so, so sad. [00:09:44] Speaker A: Oh, not the era for dancing, at least in the group of people that we ran with. [00:09:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I think most of the reception was wondering if it was, like, scripturally allowed to dance at all, you know, so there's a lot of. [00:09:58] Speaker A: They're looking it up while they're doing some exegesis on your dancing. [00:10:03] Speaker B: I have some verses I want you to see before I donate to your cash dance. [00:10:06] Speaker A: Oh, we had about 300 people too. What a mistake. That was ridiculous. Why didn't we do that? [00:10:11] Speaker B: It must have been an era of big weddings. [00:10:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:13] Speaker B: Lindsay, I was at your and Eric's wedding at the Tower. [00:10:16] Speaker A: Should they switch? Is that what we're asking for? [00:10:18] Speaker B: You want to switch? [00:10:19] Speaker A: We'll let Gwen off the hook. [00:10:19] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, we'll let you off the hook. [00:10:20] Speaker A: Thank you. Great job. That was awesome. [00:10:23] Speaker B: I'm really proud of you in the room. [00:10:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:25] Speaker B: Okay, now we're back to all millennials. We made it through. [00:10:29] Speaker A: If you're not afraid of an hour long FaceTime call, I don't know what you would be afraid of, Gwen. I mean, there's nothing out there that can get to you. [00:10:36] Speaker B: You're talking to Gwen again. You want him to switch again? [00:10:37] Speaker A: Switch back. Hurry up. [00:10:39] Speaker D: I will say I did a terrible job switching. So I'm really sorry for everyone watching. I didn't know what button did what you. So whoopsies. [00:10:50] Speaker B: Yeah, you got married at our historic theater in town, which is a really cool venue. [00:10:55] Speaker D: It was super cool. But giant wedding, open invite, like, whoever wanted to come could come kind of a thing. [00:11:01] Speaker B: That's such a strange thing. Now like, no one does. [00:11:03] Speaker D: So weird. And I regret it. [00:11:05] Speaker B: Open invites. [00:11:05] Speaker D: Like, if I did it again, I would do destination. I would do Gwen style. 20 people, four or five of my closest friends on a lake or ocean somewhere. And like. Yeah, but it was definitely what you did back then. Like, the bigger the wedding, the better. And so, yeah, I feel like, why open invite? [00:11:24] Speaker A: Do you remember how you were wrestling with that just to make it easy? [00:11:29] Speaker D: Yes. And it was one of those things, you invite three or you invite seven kind of a thing. Like in the party, bridal party. Like what you were saying. We were both on staff here. I was in youth ministry. I had, you know, 12 small group girls. [00:11:43] Speaker A: They. [00:11:43] Speaker D: I knew their families, you know, Eric knew a bunch of people. And so I felt like we either have to do tiny tiny or if you want to come, you could come. And the tower accommodated. Like, it's a big ish theater. [00:11:56] Speaker A: So great place to get married. That's a genius idea. [00:11:59] Speaker D: That is one thing I love about our wedding. Yeah. [00:12:02] Speaker A: So I almost understand the open invite because of the ease of it. Like you were saying, for us to send out invitations expecting 300 people would come is insane. Why did we do that? We didn't save ourselves trouble or anything like that. We specifically invited them and then they all came and then we had to accommodate that. Just a bad idea. [00:12:24] Speaker B: I'm also impressed by the randos that showed up when they get invited. And maybe this is a feature of the time as well, but I remember had a friend that we had seen on a trip once to Pennsylvania and it was more of like a courtesy, like, hey, we're acquaintances. Look, we're getting married. It wasn't like, you should come fly to my wedding. He gets a plane ticket and he showed up and then he goes like, do you have a place for me to crash? I'm like, bro, I can't. I'm getting married. I can't host you as well. So Adam, one of my groomsmen, was gracious enough to open his couch. And this poor man, like, I don't know what he was hoping for, but I'm sure he was let down when he got got to my wedding, you know, I'm like, hey, good to see you. Thanks for spending all the money and flying this way anyway. Good. But destination wise, I suppose everyone has to do that. [00:13:19] Speaker A: We were offered that by their mother in law. [00:13:21] Speaker B: Those are close friends that usually fly anyway. Yeah, yeah. [00:13:25] Speaker A: Well, yeah, then you invite 20 people and if they can come, they can come. And if not, then that's Fine. But it. The. The honeymoon's built into that then, right? You're at a destination wedding, you're getting married on a beach in Hawaii, and then you're already at your honeymoon destination. That's another huge positive. My mother in law offered us this, and I said yes, and my wife said no. Still a big regret of hers and a point of bitterness for me. We should have done it instead. We had 300 people in Jacksonville, Oregon, and then we went to the Oregon coast for our honeymoon, which was fine, but missed opportunity. [00:13:58] Speaker D: We were all so young. [00:14:00] Speaker A: We got married young. [00:14:01] Speaker D: Yeah. I think all three of us were very young, which was also like a cultural thing back then. You just got married young. And we didn't. Like Eric and I didn't know. We didn't know. Like, oh, you're supposed to reserve a block of a hotel for people that fly. Like, we didn't know. So, yeah, your options are limited because you're young and broke and dumb. [00:14:19] Speaker A: Yeah. I was 22, feeling like I was getting married late ish myself. [00:14:25] Speaker B: You're so old at 22. [00:14:27] Speaker A: Right? My sister got married at 19 and my brother got married at 21. [00:14:32] Speaker B: Wow. [00:14:33] Speaker A: Yeah. So I was right. And I'm a bit younger than them, but I was watching that and those numbers kind of stuck in my mind like, oh, yeah, I guess, right when you get out of high school, you go get married. Oh, man. And I was too late. I was too late at 22. What a long time. What a painfully long time. Yeah. [00:14:50] Speaker B: On our honeymoon, when we were flying through Amsterdam again, it was like the. The further away we could go, the cooler we felt. [00:14:58] Speaker A: Same. [00:14:58] Speaker B: Couldn't afford it. [00:14:59] Speaker A: Same coast, guys. Yeah. [00:15:02] Speaker B: My parents helped with a timeshare, and then we scrapped together enough to get plane tickets. And we were in Spain on an island which felt surprisingly like Mexico. And we're like, why aren't we in Mexico? It would have been easier on the way back. We're in Amsterdam, get the wrong ticket on a train. Get caught by the ticket enforcement officer on the way into town. We haven't even been to downtown Amsterdam yet. He asked what money I have. What is that about? I open my wallet, he sees all my money. He's like, that'll do. [00:15:32] Speaker A: Oh, nice. [00:15:33] Speaker B: Takes like the €80 I had or whatever. Oh, my gosh. And like, we don't have credit cards. This is 2006. Like, it's all cash on this trip. Get down there. Don't have any money, so can't even, like, in Amsterdam with no money. Get A sparkling water. So just feel so defeated. Sneak back on the train to get back to the hotel. And then we sleep through our flight in the morning. [00:15:54] Speaker D: Oh, my gosh. [00:15:55] Speaker B: And they have no mercy. No mercy. So full, you know, ticket change fee. So we were out like $600, plus the €80 we lost on the train. And then we're going back to Seattle. We were supposed to stay overnight, miss our hotel there. They won't refund it. So by the time we get home, we're just defeated. Like, we just think our life. We're terrible at life, and it's never gonna get better. And, yeah, it was a rough way to start. [00:16:24] Speaker A: Yeah, we had a rough way home, too. I mean, the long story short is I thought we could go a little bit farther with the money that we did have. And basically, I'm looking for cash inside the car on the way home for gas. [00:16:41] Speaker B: Those are the days. Another quarter. Yes. [00:16:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And my wife was sensing what was going on. There were two times on that drive we'd taken Highway 58 back to Klamath Falls, where we're having massive arguments and fights on Highway 58. One of them was that situation. We just got married and you have nothing. We have nothing. And when do we get paid next? Do you get paid next? And then the other one was a drive back from Seattle late at night where she had fallen asleep. And I was banking on the gas station just off of I5 when you get on 58. And it was closed, and I kept going. And we made it. We made it to Chemalt, I think it was. [00:17:23] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. [00:17:24] Speaker A: And. But she wakes up about 40 miles to Shimalt, and I'm doing the thing where I'm leaning down to see if the needle really isn't as far over. E is. I think it is. [00:17:33] Speaker B: Angle your head until it's like, no, I got some gas tax. [00:17:36] Speaker A: And she's like, what are you doing? Nothing. I am stretching my back. [00:17:43] Speaker B: Trying to manifest more fuel in the tank. [00:17:46] Speaker A: Rolled into the gas station. She hit me so hard. Put it in park, wham. Never do it again. I'm so sorry. [00:17:55] Speaker B: Honeymoons are hard, but it was a 24 hour. That's so good, all this nostalgia. I got nostalgic yesterday in the message about breaking CDs in our early 2000s, late 90s Christian subculture. Right? [00:18:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:12] Speaker B: I got so much immediate feedback, like, between services from millennials who lived through that season of Christian, American evangelical Christian world, where you were breaking all your non Christian CDs and living in this Hyper Christian y subculture, which is. I think it resonates with so many. There's a lot of baggage there. Right? [00:18:35] Speaker A: So much. Yeah. We're like, ew, Gwen, you like to FaceTime. Gwen's like, you guys were breaking CDs at youth group, so just relax. Yeah. You had breaking CDs at youth group. You also told a story about a pocket knife with your son and compared that to being responsible, irresponsible to scripture, which was great. And then you also had. You threw out Fear of Harry Potter and all that kind of stuff. You were just making me feel nice and cozy in my sweet little pocket knives. [00:19:08] Speaker B: Potter and Nora Jones CDs. [00:19:10] Speaker A: I was so happy with your sermon. [00:19:12] Speaker B: It's hilarious. [00:19:13] Speaker A: All the stories. Yeah. And what a. Of course, this is through the lens of Ephesians 6. Coming to the end of our Ephesians series, talking about spiritual warfare. And what does that look like? And one of my big takeaways in the prep and then listening to your teaching was that spiritual warfare is a thing. Right. The spiritual world and us interacting with it, feeling opposition in it, is a thing. And it's not a solution to get distracted by things that don't matter. Right. It's not the Norah Jones CD that you reference, which is a perfect joke. And reference fighting against Dumbledore is not what Paul's referencing. It's something else. Right. [00:19:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And there's such a wide variety of background when it comes to spiritual things in our church. I know this because we have folks that are like, brand new to faith and we don't talk about the devil all the time. You could go month and months sitting through our Sundays without a strong theology around the devil, demonology. And that's by design. We're not talking about demon hunting every week. So you have those folks that have never heard much about this idea of the spiritual being something that's present. And then on the other side, you have, you know, longtime Pentecostals who are like, ready to go when we talk about spiritual warfare. And so I think some of the challenge yesterday was to bring everybody into a conversation of how do we approach a spiritual world that is real and not get distracted and sidelined by these silly petty non issues becoming the main issue. [00:20:56] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, and I think we've seen, you know, that feeling. It's easy for all of us to live in what you described as ultra logical, pragmatic, scientific, which, by the way, we believe in all those things, scientific method, germ theory, you know, all the way down the list. We're in on some of these real classics especially. But you do know that feeling. And you know, we can reference Nazi Germany all the time, but there's been many cases after that you see some of these extreme situations of genocide and hate and othering and you know that it's like it's about power and control, but it goes beyond that. You feel it, right? It's evil, it's wickedness. It's something that goes beyond a politic or even a war. Right. There's an escalation that happens in the middle of that. And those are the moments where I go, well, yeah, there is something happening in this world that is beyond just our own human condition and human behavior and our wants and desires at our base needs. There is something informing all of these decisions which I think pays tribute to. This is not a battle against flesh and blood. You can even see in those people that are, that are channeling this evil. I just find it hard to believe that that exists purely inside someone that that doesn't come from something outside of them and then is being used through them in order to create this real. It's wickedness. It's scary. But we know that feeling I think, internally. [00:22:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And it pushes against the concept that, well, there's two sides to everything. Paul would tell us actually there's evil in the world and the devil is a liar and real and the goodness of God stands opposed in this space. And so that's kind of the starting point, right, for how we approach the spiritual struggle we're in is just acknowledging that, yeah, evil is real. We talk a lot about the Holy Spirit, we talk a lot about God's love and mercy. And if I can say it this way, it's not one sided. It is overwhelming and all powerful and it will win and it is winning. And all that is true. And yet to discount that there are evil forces at play in the world we live in, I think is it doesn't actually line up with our lived experience because we know, like you're saying there's something about, you know, the mass slaughter of entire ethnic groups. There's something about mass shootings in our schools that are so senseless and cruel and awful. You can't look at that be like, well, logically this is what happened and logically this is a solution. It goes deeper than that. And when we frame it through the lens that Paul gives us, I think it's helpful to understand there's more going on than just me and you and whoever is opposed to us. That we can see and talk to. There's spiritual things at play and important to talk about these things and good. [00:23:56] Speaker A: Things that lift us up. Right. In the preparation for this, we talked about maybe some of our problem is that we just don't see the spiritual things in general, not just the evil things, but we just don't see in general how they're taking place in us. In Christian world. A lot of times we use this word revival. And I know that there's a specific kind of definition of the word. I see it in so many different ways. There was the Asbury College revival that happened that was very like church worship, prayer centric, all those things, which is great. I can't help but look at the civil rights movement and watch what was happening with Martin Luther King Jr. And all the people marching on Washington and not feel that lift of revival. The idea that justice is being done, that human, human beings are being thought of as how God intended. This is revival. And I think sometimes we do ourselves a disservice by maybe even highlighting all the spiritual evils and saying. And then there without saying that there is something that is joining them or coming against them in the form of these things, that maybe we. We are witnessing revival in places that we don't give it credit to. Because I'm not sure revival in central Oregon is going to come through a really great long extended service at Westside Church. I think there's lots of different vehicles in which you could come. [00:25:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And it points out when some of these non traditional formats where they aren't just like specifically church services that go long that we call revival. Now, I would say civil rights movement was deeply tied to the church and what was rooted in spiritual practice. And the church came together across the south, the black church, and. And marched for justice. Like that's all in there 100%. But it's oftentimes, I think, where the principalities and powers that Paul is talking about In Ephesians chapter 6, they rear their head is in isms. Right. Whether with the civil rights movement, it was facing down racism, but there's all sorts of isms. These ways the wisdom of the world that oftentimes the spirit of God is opposed to. And so I think if we could frame it that way, that revival oftentimes is when there's a pushback against the isms of the enemy that they're out to destroy and cause people to not only lose sight of faith, but actually be destroyed. You know, like when you think about the evils of racism and Slavery in our country and globally, going back, like there's no end. It's this bottomless evil that pits people, groups against others, and the superiority of this group against that and what is wrought out of that is devastation, generation after generation after generation. And the spirit of God comes to stand up against that and push back against that. Right. And that's. I think you're right. That's revival. That's the spirit of God at move or moving at work among us. [00:26:59] Speaker A: Yeah. I think this is where just so much of that, so much of what I would term a superstition that we grew up in, about burning CDs and being really afraid that your kid might end up in a Dungeons and Dragons group or something like that. I think some of the fear comes because we feel like we're in this overwhelming swell of evil sometimes and we have nothing to combat it with, but we have to remember and see things for what they really are. That a wonderful teacher acting beautifully in his or her classroom and raising kids to be kind and generous and educated. This is an act against evil to me. And these kinds of things are happening all around us in schools and in churches and on basketball courts and in stores. Like, the beauty is there. And so we can feel like we're losing the battle if we refuse to acknowledge the beautiful things that God is doing among us. I think sometimes it's just a matter of opening our eyes to the things that are all around us and they feel a little bit more regular in every day. But those everyday things come back. The evil in the spiritual world. [00:28:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think there's a comfort that you see in the New Testament with both the everyday way that Jesus was at work through his body, through the church, as these communities are starting. It's not all signs and wonders. It's not everyday. You know, miracle bread is coming down from heaven, and that's not the setting that we find in the Book of Acts. But neither is it only mundane. There's also moments where, you know, Paul is walking through a city and a girl is possessed by a demon. And he calls it out and sends that demon away, and the girl is restored and healed. And there's a comfort, I think, in the apostles in those early days to be okay with both. You know, they were very fluidly moving between what we would call supernatural and the natural everyday life of what Jesus was up to. And I think where we can get it wrong is when we go one way or the other all the time. And we refuse to believe that the spiritual and the Natural are both here, and it's not one or the other only. And I think the weirdest Christians, you know, are going to be the ones that make everything a spiritual battle, even when it's not. And I think the most lifeless form of faith is one that believes that actually nothing is spiritual and it's all just logical. And A, B plus C equals E. I don't know, A. It's hard to add letters unless you went through algebra and then you learned. [00:29:44] Speaker A: Oh, no. You make a really good point, though. And maybe that's one of the great hidden themes of Ephesians is Paul's invitation, which I believe is the Holy Spirit's invitation for us to have discernment in so many different ways, that Paul and Jesus are leading us to these spaces where it's not prescriptive that then we need to weigh out the things. We need to consider the way of Jesus and the nature of Jesus and then help and care and make decisions based on those things. And that's sometimes a long and difficult process. Sometimes it's very specific and contextual to a certain situation. But you're right, the disciples build a church that casts out demons and places a huge priority on discovering systems in which they can make sure the widows are taken care of. And both are beautiful spiritual things. [00:30:33] Speaker B: Right. And it gets me comfort, as someone who sits in a lot of meetings with all of you. [00:30:39] Speaker A: What gives you comfort for that? [00:30:42] Speaker B: But, yeah, in the early accounts in the Book of Acts, yes, there's all this miracle stuff going on that's stunning and amazing. And then also they're deciding, like, how are we going to distribute bread, guys, this is a problem. And so then they're creating systems and structures, and out of that, we get institutionalized religion, for better or worse. But there is a sense of, hey, you have to live in the real world. I don't think Jesus lets us off the hook to be fully mystical all the time. And maybe some are called to, like, the mystic life, right? Like the monks, the desert fathers and mothers of old that did live that life where they were fully immersed in the mystical and the mysterious all the time. I don't know if that's necessarily offered to all of us or that it would be helpful. [00:31:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Can we wade into that water for a second? On the surface, you could make the argument that the desert fathers and mothers that just departed right, from normal society, conventional society, you could make the argument that that pushes back against what you were referencing in your message yesterday, too. If we're going to put on Armor, Right. The armor of God and be equipped in this way. It's still walking to a world in which we'll find opposition that will be uncomfortable, that won't necessarily subscribe to all of our ways in thinking. How do we kind of put together some of these monkish kind of lives and societies and things with what I believe to be the way of Jesus, which is, you know, and I'm not saying all these things can't come together. You're going to give me a brilliant answer here in a second. God leaving heaven and coming to earth and living among us is that expression of comfort and safety is not the pinnacle of all things. [00:32:27] Speaker B: Right. [00:32:27] Speaker A: It's messy down here, right? [00:32:29] Speaker B: Yeah. That was kind of where I ended the sermon was incarnation is what we're called to as we follow Jesus. It's not to separate out from the evils of society. It's actually to immerse ourselves among hurting people carrying the light of the world, which is Christ in us. That does push against this. The model of, like the desert fathers, mothers fleeing a corrupt Holy Roman Empire that had become at the time, very corrupt. You know, where you had the post Constantine, the church merges with the state and it becomes this really ugly thing. And so in response to that, there is a separation from these ancient mystics where they flee and they go in the desert and then people come to them. So there is a separation. I don't know that I would ever encourage anyone to take. Not that anyone's going to flee to Egypt and actually live out in the desert and have disciples that come see them, but I don't know that I would even encourage that as a response for the majority of people. And I think it's a little bit like when Paul is saying, you know, it's better not to be married. But listen, for all of you that are married, here's the best way to do it. I feel a little bit like, yeah, some are going to be monks and some are going to be holed up studying, but for the rest of us, here's how we follow Jesus. I don't know. What do you think, Lindsay? [00:33:58] Speaker D: Yeah, I totally agree. I think. I think it's a calling very similar to, you know, not everyone's going to be a pastor of a church or work at a church for that matter. It ties into how we were wired, how God created us to operate here. I think a lot of the desert mothers and fathers, their writings have fed a lot of people in the church and really instructed a lot of people on how to Live incarnationally and sacramentally. As we were chatting, I'm reminded of Richard Foster's book, what is it called? Streams in the Desert. I think where he talks about different streams of Christianity and incarnational, sacramental is one of them. And it's operating in the way where you see the spiritual and the mundane. And I think the desert mothers and fathers really influenced that movement because to read them, I don't know many people who read, you know, I guess Brother Lawrence was a. Wasn't a desert father. Give me one. Was it Ignatius? Yeah. Who read Ignatius? And they're like, that's it, I'm leaving. All I know, I'm gonna move away. And I think we do a good job. A lot of people do a good job of taking that. I mean, like, how do I incorporate this into my administrative 9 to 5. I think that's the goal. That's the meta of the idea. [00:35:30] Speaker B: I think that is the brilliant answer. It's a calling. And for what Jesus was doing with his disciples, also John the Baptist was doing something completely different. And the model of John the Baptist ministry out in the desert, people coming to him, he's baptizing, he's calling to repentance. That is a very specific calling that John walked in, whereas Jesus is leading his disciples and he's not saying, and now you go out just like John did. There's not one way. Right. And the discipleship that Jesus called his disciples to looked like self sacrifice and even walk into their deaths. And it reminded me of Julian of Norwich. I just read write up on kind of her story and her very famous line, all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well. She's writing that in the middle of the black plague and in Norwich they lost 7,000 out of the 12,000 people that lived in Norwich. And she's writing these things along with her. I think she had a very famous set of writings that have such a positive love focused theme. And she's writing this when 7 out of 12 of every single person in her city has died of this black plague that they don't know how to fix. And in the middle of that, and I think about this, when I think about incarnation is like in the middle of likely the worst time to be alive maybe in human history is Europe during the Black Plague for sure, right? And in the middle of this she's writing all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well. Like that's an incarnational expression of something that you've received as a gift of grace. Right. And maybe better than Ignatius, Julian of Norwich is the one we would look at and say, that's incarnation. Right. That's not separation, that's incarnation. To be in the middle of this and be so convinced of the love of God. [00:37:27] Speaker A: Yeah. It's such a difficult balance, which again, maybe is one of those invitations that we're receiving from Paul in this moment and to pursue wisdom on is what isn't separation, but it is formation and taking on kind of like a diet. Right. How am I eating the things that I should, consuming the things that I should so that I might receive and experience growth in my life while also not removing myself by being incarnation in the place. That is a tough balance. And it's really easy to make the big sweeping statements about, well, yeah, we go start a commune somewhere. Okay, all right, let's take some of these things off the table. But then in the nitty gritty like you referenced yesterday, what does it mean for those of us putting our kids through school? Right. We're caring for our kids while we're also, we're not over sheltering them, but caring for them. You know, you could even take it out of quote unquote religious language. You know, there's this idea of free range kids and are we helicopter parenting? What does that do to their mental health? And. And it's a similar kind of discussion when it comes to faith is we don't want to remove ourselves by any means and we want to be open and formed in the way of Jesus. And that's a hard balance to find. [00:38:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And I felt that tension even preaching it yesterday because I know there's a lot of parents in the room that are trying to do their best to figure out how not to screw up their kids. And the answer is not like, oh yeah, just give them a phone at 10 complex, completely unfiltered, and just say, you know, just expose yourself to everything that's out there because it's going to happen sooner. Like that. What a terrible Christian. Or not. What a terrible way to parent. [00:39:04] Speaker A: And you shared a great story about a parent being like, yeah, well, all the other kids can go to the dance, because I do think that's the right way of Jesus, but my kid's not going to be put on that altar, just mine. The rest of them can go. And that's like a blunt way to say it, but that's the mentality. [00:39:18] Speaker B: And it's not like I don't understand that impulse to say, fine, your Kid can be light in darkness. My kid is going to be light in a safe place. [00:39:27] Speaker A: Yes, the philosophy makes sense, but not when it comes to me and my kid. [00:39:31] Speaker B: The problem is Jesus calls us to something different and he doesn't call us to an easy thing. And I think for all the best intentions, what we experienced growing up in the 90s was the easier thing. Let's just make this clear cut. Like, anything that's not explicitly Christian is bad and awful and evil and needs to be cut off. And we can very clearly know, like, what's the record? Tooth and nail records. Okay, so it's edgy, but it's also Christian. So you can listen to all of it. You know, like, it gave us nice boxes to live in. And I don't fault our parents for going along with this, but what is the result of that? Is it vibrant faith in a whole generation of millennials? I would argue not. No, I would argue not. And so if we really believe Jesus and we want to follow Him, I think what it requires of us is to trust him with our kids in a way that says, ah, I'm really risk adverse with my kid because I love them so much, but I know that my impulses maybe are not always the best. And so we look to Scripture, we look to the way of Jesus to say, what does it look like to say, yeah, I'm going to follow you to be light and darkness. And that's going to extend to how I raise my kids. Again, not taking the governors off and just saying, go crazy, kids. And also not to come down and say all Christian school is bad because we want our kids in public. I think whether your kids are in public or private, whether they have a phone or they don't, all these things can be submitted to the way of Jesus in an incarnational light. And we can see our kids raised to carry this kind of faith that isn't afraid of the culture, but also doesn't just give up their values to it at every turn. [00:41:14] Speaker A: Yeah. And you're going to find the need to trust Jesus in any of those scenarios that you just listed. I grew up, went through eighth grade in a private Christian school. Very, very, very controlled environment. I got all the receipts that say the vast majority of those kids are not following Jesus today. Have very little interest in it. Right. Public school, there's no guarantee of xyz. It comes down to your relationship with that kid, of course. And then, yeah, trusting Jesus in what can be a very, very long process. But we do have enough data, I think to know that the ultra control. We're not wearing labels on our shirts and we're burning CDs at youth group. That thing, that methodology just didn't turn out disciples or a lot of interest in Jesus. And I'm with you. I don't blame my parents. It was just a part of the experience, I think, in the 90s and early 2000s of Christianity. But it's not their fault. But we do certainly know enough, I think, from the fruit of where we're at now that we got to be after something greater than behavior modification and wearing the right branding and making sure you're listening to the right substitute for your favorite secular band. [00:42:23] Speaker B: Yeah. What an unimaginative world to live in if the best we can do is Christian knockoffs of actually good music and art and culture. Like, what, you want Christian restaurants now? Because, you know, like, please. I remember we had a friend and he was convinced he wanted to find energy bars that didn't support non Christian companies and causes. So he went to a nutrition lab and he was going to create the first Christian energy bar. And this is the extreme of where you have to go. If you really believe that everything has to be fully labeled as Christian, you're going to be crazy. Christian power bars, like, no one is asking for this. [00:43:13] Speaker A: No one. [00:43:14] Speaker B: But that's where it's going to lead you. If you think anything that's secular is evil, I would push back and say, actually the goodness of God is everywhere in God's good creation. It's all around us. And it's in music and art and pop culture and. And there's also forces of evil at work. And so discernment to know this song actually is carrying a weight of evil or it's creating a sympathetic strain towards suicide. I think that there are things in pop culture, music, movies that are damaging, that do carry spiritual weight. But just because it's not labeled Christian doesn't put it in that category. You know what I'm saying? [00:43:56] Speaker A: And there are some things that, I mean, you can call poetry, if you want, that come out of the form of music that are not specifically Christian, but they're an expression of the human heart in the middle of a breakup or in the middle of devastation that are very beautiful and expressive of the way of Jesus in a way. Right. You can find it in those things, too. Again, it just comes down to distractions. And I think one of my main heart goals for our church is that we are just not distracted by the things that simply do not matter. And it Takes discernment to discover what does and doesn't matter. I understand. But to waste our time fighting culture wars on things that have no weight in the spiritual or in the physical realm, that is a wasted church, a wasted time. And it's just so nice and tidy to latch onto some of these issues because you can hold the them in your hands and you can listen to them on your radios. But what a tragic waste of a church and all of the people in it. That's just not what we want to do. It's a lot like I've been a coach, baseball, and there's so much gear now. There's like elbow guards and shin guards and all these things that just didn't exist when I was a kid. And part of me is like, I understand gear is cool, and when you're 10, it's extra cool. And we cannot waste time. By the way, if the goal is to be a good ballplayer, I need you to understand that these things need to exist over here in this little corner and we can play with them at a time. If you want to be a good ballplayer, this is what it's going to take. It's going to take reps, it's going to take time, like getting good at anything. These are distractions if you allow them to be. And you'll think that you're playing baseball, but really you're interested in YouTube and you're interested in shopping through these things at Dick's Sporting Goods. That's not baseball. I understand how you've made the connection, but it's not one and the same thing. That can't be the church where we get obsessed with something that is maybe a piece of the gear somewhere along the way. We've got to get back to the center of it. [00:45:53] Speaker B: Yeah. I enjoy shopping for gear more than any sports. [00:45:56] Speaker A: Me too. Me too. Well, I enjoy sports. I'm gonna shame these 10 year olds right now. And what a classic old man thing to say. We didn't have this when I was a kid and back when I just played, we swung sticks and pine cones. [00:46:11] Speaker B: We played in the forest. Yeah. What does that even mean? [00:46:14] Speaker A: Our parents didn't even like us. All right. Geez, you got parents cheering for you at these games. Get out of here. [00:46:20] Speaker B: That's awesome. [00:46:21] Speaker A: What was your favorite knockoff? Christian shirt, phrase or brand? Like, my favorite is instead of life is short, play hard. Life is short, prey hard. Yeah, yeah, the Reebok knockoff. Do you guys have a. A favorite? [00:46:41] Speaker B: I do. Mine. It's A play off of the Ford logo and it's. [00:46:47] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:46:47] Speaker B: Have you driven the Lord lately? [00:46:49] Speaker A: Oh, boy. [00:46:51] Speaker B: Driven the Lord? [00:46:52] Speaker A: What does that even mean? [00:46:55] Speaker B: I just remember the Ford logo, but it said Lord, and that is the Ford slogan, right? Have you driven a Ford lady? [00:47:04] Speaker A: Have you driven a Ford lady? Yeah, that was the thing. You're wrong. [00:47:07] Speaker D: Gosh, I didn't wear nerdy Christian T shirts like you guys. [00:47:12] Speaker A: I had the Bray hard one. That was the only one I had. [00:47:14] Speaker D: But I was a sucker for the Jesus is my homeboy movement. [00:47:19] Speaker C: Do you remember that? [00:47:21] Speaker B: I remember it in concept. [00:47:23] Speaker D: Dude, get me into that Hot Topic and let me buy that shirt. That was my thing. [00:47:31] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I was in the camp of more self serious, you know, bumper stickers like my. My boss is a Jewish carpenter. [00:47:37] Speaker A: Oh, that one cracks me up every time, man. As blue and white. Well, there was like a Reese's one. There were so many. [00:47:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Of the parody. Levi's. [00:47:49] Speaker A: I think there was a Levi's one I did. [00:47:51] Speaker B: I created my own. Maybe I mentioned this yesterday, but instead of a Volkswagen, I had a. I designed this myself, this shirt because I made shirts for a while, and it was a VW bus from the front and the emblem instead of a VW on the circle emblem, it said jc. And instead of driver's wanted, it said Jesus wanted. [00:48:12] Speaker A: Oh, okay. That's my favorite one. [00:48:15] Speaker B: I wore that a lot of days my freshman year at Mountain View High School, which. Yeah, I don't know why I wasn't more popular. My homemade T shirt. [00:48:28] Speaker A: You really needed to play some sports, Ev. [00:48:30] Speaker B: Ah, I did all right, I guess. You know, but not in sports. I did not do all right in sports. [00:48:37] Speaker A: Jc that's really amazing. You came up with that one. [00:48:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:44] Speaker A: All on your own. [00:48:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:45] Speaker A: Good job. I bet somebody took that from you. There was a band that came through and played at our church that was called the Upside. And their slogan was just Jesus is the Upside. I don't know if the downside was ever discussed, but that was a shirt I hung onto for a long time. [00:49:05] Speaker B: Something we didn't even get to was Christian concerts. And when Christian bands were not sufficiently Christian enough because they either rumors of them smoking after concerts or people dancing or moshing at their concerts. This was a whole thing, too. I remember a group of us very, very religious kids deciding whether or not to come picket at Westside here because MCPX, MXPX came here and we thought that was not sufficiently Christian to be happening in a church. [00:49:39] Speaker A: Amazing. [00:49:40] Speaker B: And so I refused to go I'm proud to say, but some of our group came over here to this building and picketed and got kicked out of the MXPX concert for picketing with a Bible, a King James Bible in hand. One of my friends got kicked out of the MXP excert here. [00:49:57] Speaker A: Oh, he felt so cool about it too, huh? [00:49:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, righteous. Righteous indignation coming out. [00:50:03] Speaker A: Yeah. I remember T Bone the rapper. There was a suspicion that he had snuck the F word into one of his songs. He was one of those early Tooth and Nail records guys. T Bone. You guys listen to T Bone and then the Moshing. I remember at early Skillet concerts. [00:50:19] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. [00:50:20] Speaker A: Skillet. The first album they had that had a cast iron skillet as the COVID That was the. It was just. [00:50:26] Speaker B: I was big Skillet fan. Yeah. And then you had when Christian artists, ccm, Christian artists would cross over and they would have to get pulled from the Christian bookstore because now Michael W. Smith has a hit on secular radio. So he's out. Amy Grant has an affair. But then she sings Baby, Baby in her song. She's out. Sandy Patty, she's out. All these people. [00:50:49] Speaker A: Yeah. The point of. Great. [00:50:50] Speaker B: We were canceling people decades before it was popular. [00:50:53] Speaker A: Yeah. So when this happened, I literally had this conversation with Taylor Swift going out of country and into pop music. I was like, this is. You guys. This is so familiar to me. She's across the shaming that happens when people change genres. There's so many people, like, I can't believe they're so hard on her. I'm like, I can. I've hung out with these. These groups long enough. You can't change your genre. [00:51:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. Man, I feel like we could talk about 90s and early 2000s culture for hours. [00:51:21] Speaker A: It's kind of our favorite thing to do. [00:51:23] Speaker B: I think it is. But we got work. We got work to do. No, you know. [00:51:26] Speaker A: No, this is the work. [00:51:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. [00:51:29] Speaker A: I love it. [00:51:30] Speaker B: I love it. [00:51:30] Speaker A: It's so my job on this tab to make sure that we stay in that spirit. [00:51:34] Speaker B: We're going to be off for a few weeks here and then we're going to come back, I think, mid summer with talking about some big questions that people ask about faith. And so that'll be good. But thanks for hanging with us through these weeks of Ephesians. It's been great. Were [email protected] in video and audio. Check it out.