Let Kingdom Expansion Encourage You

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Trevin Wax
Good afternoon, everyone excited to have you all here as we talk about Kingdom expansion in a hard to reach culture. I’m gonna kick things off today. My name is Trevin wax. I’m the Vice President for Research and resource development at the North American Mission Board, I’m going to kick things off with a talk, we’re going to be looking at some aspects of our current cultural context. And then we’re going to be talking with Gina and Sarah and Christine Hoover, have a little bit of a panel discussion. And then Vance Pittman, and some of the other leaders for sin network are going to be speaking after that. So thank you for coming to this micro event. What it is that I want us to do as we kick things off here is to take a look at the mission field of the United States of America just to give a lay of the land, where we are called to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ as we are seeking first His kingdom. So, you know, Jesus, after he has this conversation was with the Samaritan woman at the well. One of the things he asked his disciples, John for verse 35, as he says, Don’t you say there are still four more months, and then comes the harvest, listen to what I’m telling you. Open your eyes, and look at the fields because they are ready for harvest, open your eyes, and look at the fields. Look at the fields, Jesus says, looking at the field, is what any good missionary does, you know, this is one of the things that we expect when we train someone cross culturally, we send them from one country to another or from one culture to another cultural context, what we do, what we expect to be part of that training is that they would know something about the fields in which they are going something about the cultural context of the people that they are, are called to reach. We expect people to look at the feet, we expect missionaries to look at the fields and the same should be true of us in the 21st century in the North American context. So what I want to do now and just the short time that I’ve got is to, to lay out very quickly, very broadly three aspects that are true of the fields in which we are called to labor three aspects of our cultural context that we’re called to labor in. And just so I can say this, to get all of my sort of academic caveats aside, just bear with me for a minute, I’m being very general here. The fields are going to look different depending on where you are, even in North America, right, like the, if you’re planting a church in a rural area of the Deep South, that’s going to look very different than if you’re in Southern California with a community of predominantly second third generation immigrants from Korea. Right? So everything that I’m saying here, depending on whether you’re in the north, south, east, west, wherever you might be, there are going to be all kinds of complexities to the cultural context that we may be called to reach. But still, there are some general overarching things that are true about the cultural context in North America that I think it’s important for us to take a look at, even if in every specific case, and not might be it might not be exactly accurate. So with those caveats aside, let’s look at the fields. The number one thing I want to mention. That I think is the one of the most important things for us to recognize is true of the fields in which we’re called to labor is the Be true to yourself mindset. The number one most important thing I could leave with you today is that we live in a world generally speaking in the United States where we swim in the waters of expressive individualism, expressive individualism is the fancy philosophical term for Ubu. Be true to yourself, follow your heart, chase your dreams, that the purpose of life is to look inside yourself and find yourself and then express yourself to the world. Some of you guys may remember the the book that came out it’s been gosh, I think has been 20 years ago. Now. Do you remember Christian Smith wrote a book called soul searching about the religious lives of American teenagers, Christian Smith as the sociologist who gave us the the term moralistic therapeutic deism, I’m assuming everyone in this room has heard of that. But that’s that idea. What they said was dominant for American teenagers 20 years ago, was this idea that the purpose of life and religion the dominant worldview, is that there is some sort of a God, most people are not atheists, there is some sort of a god, but he’s relatively distant unless you need him to help you with your life. So it’s like deism with a little bit of a therapeutic twist. He’s there to make you happy. And the purpose of religion is for you to be a happy, good and moral person that will go to heaven when you die. So there’s the therapeutic and the moralism all kind of put together. So moralistic therapeutic deism for short, that came out 20 years ago, after there had been studies done on teenagers in the late 90s and early 2000s. That’s basically everybody now, that’s grown up like that’s, that’s not just teenagers anymore. That’s basically our society, is that and that’s one aspect of this Express of individualism that that we, that we talked about, it’s dominant, regardless of your church or your background, or your social setting, whatever it might be, in my book, rethink yourself, I call it the look and approach to life. It’s the look in approach to life, meaning in terms of priority, when it comes to discovering the purpose for your life, you look in first, to define yourself, by your deepest desires, then you look around to other people, for affirmation of the self that you have found and expressed. And then if you want to you look up to God, or to some higher power to some transcendent thing was something to give your life a sense of purpose and meaning and transcendence. And so, notice religion can fit into that. But in terms of priority, it comes third, the priority is that you look and first, I don’t want you to miss the important elements of this way of thinking of this way of seeing the world, you as the individual are supreme. And you stand apart from any social obligations, any relationships, and you yourself, decide how to best express the uniqueness of your essence. Right? Like that’s the way that people think about life, purpose, meaning significance, it all comes from within yourself, rather than being something that comes to you from the outside. So we got to look at the fields. That is the context in which we are called to share the gospel. And that can be some challenging soil. Because the Be true to yourself mindset is a challenge because the gospel challenges any way of life that says me first. The Gospel confronts any view of life that makes the human person the end all and be all of existence. And what we believe as Christians as followers of Jesus is that we are most truly ourselves now when we seize the throne, and we decide for ourselves who we want to be. But when we live according to the design of who God created us to be and then when we lean into his redemptive work in our lives, in who he is remaking us to be. And that puts us at odds with many people in our society, especially, here’s where it comes in. Here’s where you really see the distinctions, especially when questions of sin and repentance come into view. Okay, so here’s what happens in the sort of be true to yourself world with sin and repentance. So, in biblical terms, we know this sin is the transgression of God’s word. It’s the breaking of His commandments. It’s personal resistance to God, that that comes from a rebellious heart. It’s the breaking of our relationship with God, we recognize if that’s what sin is, than the responses solution to sin is repentance. It’s to turn away from sin, and turn our hearts a change of heart change of direction toward God. But what happens to send in a Be true to yourself society? Well, if the first commandment and greatest commandment is to be yourself, well, then the unforgivable sin is to not be yourself, or to be false in some way, or to not or to conform to someone else’s view of what you should be, or how you should live, some external standard that other people like the church could foist upon you, right? And so the solution is sin has given us sin and to be true to yourself world sin is the failure to be true to yourself. And so the solution to sin isn’t repentance, it’s reassertion. It’s the it’s the decision to reestablish your claim to ultimate sovereignty over your life, and courageously resist the outside forces that would call you to some kind of conformity that’s not true to who you want to be. So we can put it this way for a society of expressive individualists. The greatest commandment is to be yourself. And the second is like it to affirm and applaud whatever self your neighbor chooses to be. The greatest sins then are to deny yourself or to question or judge someone else’s self expression. Now, you say Trump, and why does this matter? Here’s why this matters. Because when you look at the fields, we just got to know what we’re dealing with. When you look at the fields, you need to realize that in our society, those of us who preach a message of self denial, even if the Self Denial is and is in service to the joy of a greater self fulfillment through Jesus, when we preach a death to our old way of life, if we preach a new identity and being conformed to Jesus Christ, in that kind of society, we are seen as the greatest centers. The church isn’t where do you go to find salvation and God the church is where you escape from in order to find salvation in yourself.

So the tables are turned like it’s a complete 180 And we got to know that when we look at the three because otherwise it’s gonna be just like we’re speaking a foreign language. You got to know how how people are hearing us. Now, thankfully, we have the gospel. That is the power of God unto salvation. The Gospel pushes us out of the center and puts God at the center of all things. We get displaced gloriously. So because that’s where our true joy is found, because we weren’t made to be the center, we weren’t made to have everyone revolving around us. The gospel offers a better way of dealing with feelings of inadequacy, guilt and shame, because the gospel doesn’t in or be true to yourself that self society. The problem is you feel guilt, you feel shame you need, you know, to resolve that with all kinds of practices and therapies and whatever it might help to get rid of your guilt and shame. The Gospel actually says, No, the biggest problem isn’t that you feel guilty, the problem is that you are guilty. But there’s a deeper solution that comes that actually can take away sin can actually take away we get to the root of the disease rather than just the symptoms of the problem. And there’s even more that we have to offer in an opportunity, more opportunity in fields like this. Expressive individualism at the end of the day is a very lonely way of life. Because it isolates the individual remember what I said earlier, the individualist supreme a set apart from other social obligations, relationships, that can be very lonely. I always like to talk about Elsa and frozen, she sings a song, let it go. It’s like the anthem of expressive individualism. And then where does she wind out in an ice palace prison of Her Own Making, all by herself. And we have a lot, we have an entire generation that sings a song, let it go. And it’s actually walking right into their ice palace prisons, all on their own. And the gospel actually has an answer to that too, because we aren’t just saved as individuals, we’re saved into the family of God, we have a community of people, that God is remaking in his image. Did you know that the United Kingdom has appointed a minister of loneliness? Did you know that right now in New York City, they’re actually I read a magazine article recently about how they’re experimenting with talking robots to help keep elderly people occupied. Like this is happening right now, because we’re in societies with advanced stages of expressive individualism, where everybody is bored and alone. And we think that this is the way that the way to happiness, the Gospel doesn’t isolate us. It turns us outward in love to God and love to neighbor. And we have the opportunity to cultivate meaningful community and to be true to yourself kind of world. So first aspect, as we look at the fields, second one, is the moral revolution. Okay, this one won’t come as a surprise to anyone in here. But we just have to recognize what we’re dealing with and the opportunity that we have the moral revolution, take everything I just said about the Be true to yourself mindset. And look inside, just define yourself by your desires, and then express yourself and expect affirmation and just apply that to sexuality. And that’s basically where we are with the moral revolution. Like one of the reasons the church doesn’t have a ton of credibility when we speak about issues related to sexuality is not just because of the hypocrisy and the moral rot that’s been in many of our church communities and leaders. It’s also because a lot of times our congregations are full of expressive individualists in every way, except when it comes to sexuality. And so one of the when you think of expressive individualism might providing the scaffolding for the for the sexual revolution. Here’s the challenge. We now live in a world that is infused with Christian sensibilities, but it’s turned against traditional Christian teaching. Let me say that again. We live in a world infused with Christian sensibilities that’s been building for 2000 years. And yet that those sensibilities are being turned against traditional Christian teachings, this is what’s happened we take in certain Christian values and aspects of things that we believe feelings, sentiments of from the Christian story. And those assumptions have now been weaponized against the doctrines and the morals of Christianity. And so we have a new moral code that’s displacing and replacing an old moral code up to give an example of this, Glenn Scrivener, Keller center, fellow UK evangelists friend of mine, he’s got a book called the air we breathe. It’s really a fascinating book that shows you how we as a society have come to believe in all sorts of different things that just we take for granted as common sense these days and he shows how they’re actually rooted in Christianity. Well, it was fascinating. He tells the story of in 2019, there was a British court that ruled against a doctor. This doctor had said that he opposed transgender ideology, okay. And he said the reason that he opposed it was rooted in Genesis 127 that says, God created mankind in his own image male and female. Okay. Get this, the judge said, the doctors belief in Genesis 127 was, and I quote, incompatible with human dignity. And I just want you to sit with that for a second. That is an astonishing claim. Because Genesis 127 that we are made in God’s image is the root of human dignity. That’s where we got the idea. That’s where he came from in society. So like, we’re basically we’re like, on a branch sawing off the branch we’re sitting on. So we find ourselves and this is why things feel really strange right now we find ourselves in a very peculiar predicament. We are in a post Christian society, in which the values of Christianity have been divorced from the story and then turned against the specifics of Christian teaching. It’s not exactly like the pre Christian Era. It’s really unlike any other era that we’ve we’ve been in one of the things that Tim Keller talked about is that, you know, we’ve never seen yet, we’ve never seen a post Christian society where a big great awakening or revival is taking place, yet, is what Keller said. We haven’t seen it yet. But this is one of the challenges that we face. So as we look at the fields, whether we like it or not, this is going to be this is going to be us for the next, you know, few decades, we’re going to be, we’re going to take our place in the long line of saints and prophets who have been a creative and prophetic minority, that have sometimes been marginalized, for what it is that we believe we are going to be faithful. And in right now, there are already signs that the promises of the sexual revolution are going unfulfilled and are crumbling around us, I could point you to multiple resources from secular writers who are not believers, feminist writers who are questioning the basics of the sexual revolution, liberal men who are wondering about the crisis of masculinity and male and female that are writing about this. Right now. A number of influential leaders are walking back their commitments to the sexual revolution or to gender ideology. And the reason why is, here’s the good news for us. Idols don’t deliver on their promises, human nature, physical reality, the unchanging tendencies of the human heart, they, they all strike back. Truth is ultimately irrepressible. So we have an opportunity here to point a society that it continues to just get into a mess out of that mess to point back to the roots where nourishment can be found for flowering and flourishing. And let me just say, it would be a disaster for those of us in the church right now, in the very moment that the world is waking up to all the confusion and disillusionment in the wake of the sexual revolution for us to jump on a bandwagon that is obviously heading off a cliff. So we need to look at the fields. But I do think the danger that some of us have as we look at the fields in an oppositional way, and we adopt this posture of defensiveness, and we’re not able to recognize, if you don’t look carefully at the fields, you’re gonna miss the Samaritan woman. And you’re going to miss the fact that we that there are, there are sex, there are sexual revolution refugees, who we will need to welcome into the church with all of the mess, who are going to be dealing with the fallout and disillusionment of the sexual revolution that are going to be looking for there will be a generation that will be looking to the church for a moral calling, that is higher than just obeying whatever impulse we may have. So just imagine this with me, it is very possible that in the next 50 years, Christian morality could be one of the most attractive elements of the faith, rather than the repellent that we think it is today. So let’s take the long view here.

Jesus’s statement that his followers are the salt of the earth and the light of the world does not have an expiration date. Okay. No matter the obstacles we face, this is our identity. This is our task in some cases will slow down decay, other times will act as flavoring preservative in the world around us, we have the opportunity to shine a bright light, even even brighter when the darkness is closing in. So be true to yourself mindset, first aspect of the fields we should know the moral revolution is the second the third I would want to leave you with is just look all around you and see the explosion of pseudo religions. Look at the explosion of pseudo religions. And here’s what I mean by that. This is one of the aspects that I think deserves mentioned because when we talk about the churching when we talk about secularization, the world secularizing around us and a lot of places you might be tempted to think that that means that people are moving away from religious impulses altogether, or spiritual impulses altogether. That’s not What the data the research actually shows? It’s very possible that when you’re thinking about Christianity, if we think in institutional terms, we’ll compare Christianity, in contrast Christianity to other religious groups, you know, you might be like, well, you know, how fast is Mormonism growing, you know? Or what does immigration mean for the rise of Islam in Europe? Or what does the birth rate look like for Hindus, or for Orthodox Jews, or what’s what’s happening between Catholics and Protestants or whatnot. And it would be really easy for us to talk about what’s happening religiously, demographically, over North America and other parts of the world, only looking at those institutional markers. But if we only look at that, we’re missing a major piece of the puzzle of what’s actually happening right now. Charles Taylor describes this as the Nova effect, it’s this explosion of different options for belief and meaning in a secular age. So here’s, here’s the thing like there was a time when, if you were sharing the gospel in certain parts of the United States, you were basically saying, I want you to be this and not that. So if you were an Evangelical, it was made, you know, I want you to be a Protestant and not a Catholic, or if it was I, you’re, you’re in a more secular society, it was, I want you to be a a believer in Jesus Christ and not an agnostic or not an eight, it was basically a couple of options. You’re saying this, not that there are certain parts of the world today, if you go, and you’re, you know, and you’re predominantly a Muslim majority nation, it’s basically, I’m calling you to be a Christian, not a Muslim, right. Like, that’s how, traditionally, we thought, one of the disorienting things for pastors and church leaders here in the room today, in the West, in North America in particular, is that, that is not our situation, that’s not our field. It’s not this or that, it’s I’m calling you to this, and not that, and that, and that, and that. There are multiple options. And so you’re going to be witnessing, sharing the gospel with people all over the place as to what they might be. They might have a variety of beliefs and practices, that they are re mixing in some way, or that they’re bringing together and they’re like, like, piecing together from various religions. Tara Isabella Burton, their cultural observer, says it’s a shift from institutional religion to intuitional fates. So it’s more about intuitions than it is institutions. So let me just give you a bunch of examples. Because we talk about pseudo religions, the gospel of wellness, for example, all the communities united around working out, or the options available for people who need new lotions, or potions, or meditation apps, or whatever is necessary for self care, okay. And well, I’m not saying all of these things are bad. I’m just saying, like, just think if you really look at some of the literature on this, though, just think about the language of energy, and toxins, and positivity. You know, some of this stuff is more scientific than others. You know, but but people are adopting practices, and they’re purchasing products, and they’re joining communities. But this is what’s interesting to me about it. They’re joining communities that have been reinvented in some way. That gives them something that seems transcendent, that feels spiritual, it may not be as much about good and evil out in the world as it is what is good for you, versus avoiding what’s bad for you. Those are some examples. There’s, I mean, we could point to a bunch of other ones, you could point to the resurgence of New Age, thought you could, I mean, every time I go into Barnes and Noble, I’m just amazed at how big the Wiccan Spirituality Section is, you know, or the pseudo religion. There’s even like a pseudo religious element around the sexual revolution, sexual identity stuff. I mean, just think about the the testimony of coming out, you know, or the joining the family in the LGBT community or whatnot. Like there’s there’s out there’s religious elements in so many different aspects of of life today in the United States, even social justice and intersectionality. They can become pseudo religions, for some, and they all have, and politics can become a religion for some people. This is one of the reasons like with canceled culture. In some ways, in some sense, what you’re seeing happen on social media are heresy trials. The only reason it makes sense for there to be heresy trials is if there’s a religion there, right? So there’s people’s identities or are being based in something else. There’s some kind of pseudo religion that is, is there. So my point with all of this, is to say intuitional religion is on the rise, which means the competition for the gospel, so to speak, is not just other religions. It’s this explosion of personalized pseudo religions that mix and mingle with the INS Additional. And so if you’re a pastor, and you’re a church leader in this room today, this is the challenge that we’ve got. We’re not just answering the question of why Christianity, we’re also having to answer the question, why not whatever. And there’s a lot of whatever’s out there. Which means that there will have to be a variety and the people that we get to know and that we talk to that we are, you know, doing apologetics whether evangelizing or whatnot, we will have that bigger picture in mind. So this is another challenge that we face the rise of various pseudo religions. And the reason that they the reason that they’re there is because the religious impulse in the human heart is ultimately irrepressible, to where even the atheist often will hold their view with a religious fervency. It’s irrepressible. And so the reason is, because Agustin is right, our hearts are restless until they find their resting God. And the good news that we have it the opportunity we have is that these pseudo religions often have longings behind them. That can be answered by the gospel. Now, I mean, I know I’ve just spoken about them in very general terms. There’s something right about the longings, even if it leads people to believe lies. The desire for wellness for flourishing in the body. The the push for justice in society so that the marginalized and disadvantaged are lifted up the yearning for an enchanted world where not everything can be reduced to material forces. These are longings answered by the gospel. And what’s more, some of the assumptions underlying the push for wellness or an enchanted universe or more just and fair society, sometimes some of the people that are falling into these pseudo religions are actually falling for them, because they’ve already got a Christian infused vision of the world. Like it started with us. It came from the church. Damn strange, says that the gospel provides subversive fulfillment. Subversive fulfillment, that’s the that’s a term that came from 20th century missiologists. Basically, his point is, when you’re doing evangelism, when you’re doing apologetics, when you’re preaching the gospel, you are subverting the false belief that’s there in society, while simultaneously showing how Christianity fulfills the longing that gave rise to the misdirected belief in the first place. That’s what you’re doing. And if you do that, well, you avoid syncretism. Because I mean, there are some that have just want to affirm longings all day long and never point out lies. But you also avoid irrelevance, or just confrontational ism all the time that just points out lies, lies, lies, lies and never really gets to the root of why people want those lies to be true in the first place. The Gospel fulfills the basic longings and aspirations of all the people that are falling into these different pseudo religions are trying on these different identities, while also critiquing the false idols that people think you’re going to satisfy them. When we shine the light of the gospel on the myths of our world, which is our task, which is our calling, I just want to remind us that we’re not simply saying, only this is right, and this is wrong. We’re also saying this is better. Jesus is better than that.

But in order for that, to be powerful, we have to believe and live that way that people have got to see in our lives a better life than what they have. So the gospel Yes, exposes the lies, we believe in promoting society. But once you adjust your eyes to the brightness of the gospel, you also discover how the gospel answers those deeper longings in ways that will surprise us. So evangelism is not less than convincing people The Gospel is true. But in our day, it’s also going to require us to show people that it is better, the gospel is better. So we’ve got to open our eyes. We’ve got to look at the fields. Jesus says the harvest is ready. I hope I’ve mixed in enough opportunity with the challenges here so that you don’t feel demoralized or deflated or like the fields are really hard. Some of you are plowing in some really hard fields. Some of you are in situations, it’s it is tough going you’re planting seeds, not seeing a lot of fruit. You’re continuing to plow fields that can be discouraging. I just want to remind you of this. true conversion isn’t just hard. It’s impossible without supernatural intervention. Can we just remember that for a second? I I don’t want you to walk away from from this part of our micro event thinking that if we just get the perfect method If we just get the right strategy, then suddenly, that’s going to make all the difference. Listen, oh, we must not forget that in the end, the primary reason anyone believes the implausible testimony that Jesus Christ walked out of the grave on Easter morning is because the spirit has opened the eyes in response to his people’s prayers. That’s where it comes from. I was on a phone call with or a zoom call with some Keller center fellows just last week with someone who’s recently become a believer of intellectual woman just became a believer. And at the very end of the call, it was just wonderful at the very end of the call. It’s a very implausible and probable story. At the very end of the call, she made the comment, she said, You know, sometimes when I think about it, like I know the truth, and I know what I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins. But she said, when you really think about it, it’s crazy. She’s like, it’s crazy, that I believe that Jesus who lived 2000 years ago, that his death has something to do with my sin. It’s crazy. You guys. That’s what she said. And I just love the response. Because to me, I was like, Yes, it is crazy. Like let’s not forget the fact that it yet here we are. 2000 years later, with billions of people across the globe, all believing confessing Jesus Christ, crucified and raised. How crazy is that? So the thing I just want from an encouragement standpoint, if the fields are really tough, that you’re you’re plowing in right now, trust Him, pray to Him, open your eyes, look at the fields, trust Him for the harvest. Let’s be the kind of people who are faithful with the power God has placed us, looking at the fields doing whatever we can to really understand the, the place that God has called us to serve, but trusting that he is the one who will bring the increase. He is the one who will bring the harvest. So right now I’m going to invite Dean and Sarah, pastor of City Church in Tallahassee and Christine Hoover, who has a lot I could go through both of their bios for a long time, but I think they’re they’re all on the website anyway. But both of these are friends, and are influential within the sun network. Christine has the ministry wives podcast, Dean is one of our Seven Network leaders partners. And so I just like to talk with them just a little bit about this, and just some some areas of application as we shift into this part of the service. So thank you guys for being part of this. Thanks for having us. Yeah,

Dean Inserra
this this is like Christmas for me, gospel coalition, the sun network together together, which I think are the two Grace institutions in North American evangelicalism. How’s that awesome to have this partnership, which is great. So I just wanted to say that because I’m excited. I was just saying

Trevin Wax
to someone earlier, I was like, I feel like my worlds are colliding. I’ve got like my this in network world and my GGC world. It’s all coming together. It’s beautiful. Okay. All right, Dean. So as a church planter, as a pastor, you’ve had to look at the fields that God has called you to serve in. And I’m intrigued by and I want to start off because I think there’ll be some people in here who are in fields similar to this. You’ve talked a lot about nominal Christianity, you’ve talked about I mean, your first book was called the unsaved. Christian, right? As part of your context, so I didn’t really hit on this in this talk. But I’ve just been curious, what are some of the particular challenges that you that people in this room face if maybe there’s somewhere that D churching is taking place? But there’s still like a residue of like Christian culture and church going that that is going on there? Yeah,

Dean Inserra
well, maybe back to the future. You know, one of those movies where if it’s on TV, when you’re flipping channels, it’s like that and Shawshank you stop and watch it for a minute, you know, you’ve seen it 100 times, I really wish I could get in Doc Brown’s time machine and go back in time, it wouldn’t be that long ago, and find the person who first said don’t have to go to church in order to be a Christian, and kidnap them and put them on a deserted island somewhere. Because the damage that has done is just incredible. So to hear about think about D churching. Oftentimes, it’s simply because the church did this. And the church did that. So Church’s fault, and we own we own of course, I don’t want to be defensive about that. But the main reason why we usually see people D church is they just get out of the habit. And because leisure has increased, because expendable income has increased or credit card limits have gone up, maybe that’s what it is. And because of children’s activities becoming supreme, and like the priority in life, we’re seeing a de churching happen. And people don’t think anything of it. Because you don’t have to be a Christian, or you have to go to church in order to be a Christian. And I’m 42 years old, and I really see it in my generation. And if I trace it back, I know it’s more there’s more to it than this, but it’s for the sake of this conversation. I trace it back to we think about 1990s youth ministry and Christianity. There’s a lot of awesome things that happen. A lot of us got saved during that time. People usually talk about CCM and that Talking about true love waits. There’s another missing component we’re missing about what Heriot Watt that we’re neglecting about what happened during that era that I think is fueling things now. And that is always seem to ever hear about with a personal relationship with Jesus. Like every single sermon was about that about you and God, you personal relationship, you and the Lord, you and Jesus time, this guy wants to have a personal relationship with with him. Of course he does that that’s a biblical principle. It’s a biblical reality. But what happened is, rather than seeing that as our relationship, the Lord in terms of being adopted into his family, you know, about to be a part of the Big C church Express locally. Now we see people 20 years, 30 years later, they’re saying, Well, you don’t have to, I have my own personal relation with God. You don’t gotta go to church to be a Christian. You know, me and God have our own thing. I can have church in the deer stand, I can have church on the golf course I can have church during brunch, I can have church at a Colts game on Sunday morning. And we’re seeing this deep searching take place that people thinking they’re fine, because they had their own relationship with God. But the former the further they get away from the local church and actual discipleship was God intended, we’re gonna see the God they have a personal relationship with, it’s not the God of the scriptures. It’s a God, they’ve kind of created invented for themselves. And then after that, the tragedy that happens is that you see a generation after them of their children who are nowhere to be found, when it comes to the faith in the local church, but still claim to be Christian simply because they’re not atheists are not Jewish or not Muslim. So as a result, they see themselves as Christians, really, they’re just generic theists at best. So even though they’re de churched, and claim the name Christianity, we still have to see them in my opinion, oftentimes is that unreached people group in our community, and not thank just because they would check Christian on a form, that actually means they’re saved, because they have a relationship with God that again, I’m not the judge who’s a Christian and who’s not where I want to be. But they have a relationship with God that oftentimes will be unrecognizable in the scriptures as what, who God actually is like, is it actually Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that they have a relationship with, or just some kind of own little version of a God that kind of accommodates us and makes us feel good about ourselves? So I think what’s happened is we’re creating an environment of people are de churched. But they think they’re fine, because they still claim theism. Even they wouldn’t use that word, they still claim belief in God. So that just makes things really complicated. Because it’s hard to reach people who think they’re fine. Yeah. And so the church has nowhere on their mindset at all, then the next generation is coming up, and they’re going church, we don’t go to church. I mean, maybe every now and then on Mother’s Day with Nana, so it makes her happy. But, you know, we’re Christians, we say a prayer before dinner, you know, that kind of idea. And it’s, it’s quite the conflict. Right. So

Trevin Wax
beyond preaching, though, with an ITIN, some of those people may be in the room on special occasions, like you talked about, because not I invited them and said, they’re coming to church. What do you do to equip people in your congregation to reach some of those people?

Dean Inserra
Yeah, why don’t they need to convince your own folks, the local church really is God’s plan for his people. And to be unapologetically a load of local church advocate. Like, we can’t be ashamed of that. Because when you get excited about your church, it’s easier for folks to go, oh, well, there’s, it’s the big C capital C church. And, you know, we don’t want to think we’re the only church like, No, we’re not saying that. We’re saying, by simply being a part of this, we get to practice God’s design for his people. When I do a wedding, often, I’ll actually remind the bride and groom in front of everyone else, like by being here today, we’re actually participate in God’s design for creation, a man and a woman becoming husband and wife, what a neat thing to be a witness to God’s design, the local church, even by there’s more to being a Christian, I always see them going to church on Sunday morning. But by simply walking in the door, whether you realize it or not, you’re participating in God’s design for his people for flourish, and for discipleship and for the great commission. So I think, gotta convince around people, and then help them see that the local church and local church engagement is part of the mission of God, to make known, you know, to the world. And then to see that simply because someone claims to be a Christian doesn’t mean they are. And that’s critical. And we’re talking a little high a little bit later. But that’s critical right now is that we have to realize that simply claiming God claiming that you know, Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem, you know, those kind of basic facts, does not mean someone also believes that they need Christ for salvation. And so it’s easy right now to believe in Jesus, believe in God, know a few facts, but be totally closed about the Gospel story. So we are focusing to see that they don’t have to have a passport to go on a mission trip, you know, we really want them to get passports and really go on mission trips. They just need to look around their own in their own neighborhood and their own workplace.

Trevin Wax
Yeah. So speaking about looking around Christine. Calvin Miller used to talk about evangelism begins with the he called it The Art of Looking around, which I’ve always loved that that the Art of Looking around really seeing people like seeing people and like thinking about spiritual need. And you and I’ve talked before we on your podcast, actually, we talked about opening your eyes like to the to the you talked about, even like, when you were in a particular environment, looking at the what are the bumper sticker stickers? Yeah. And so help us understand what how, how did you do that? How do you equip other people to, to really start seeing what God sees?

Christine Hoover
Yeah, well, he’s referring to my husband and I moved to Charlottesville, Virginia 15 years ago now to plant a church. And when we got there, I realized everywhere we went, people had tons of bumper stickers on their car, almost everyone and they also had Personalized license plates. And so I almost got an accidents just trying to read people try to understand like, what does that license plate say. But what I started noticing is that there were themes to these bumper stickers. And those themes were politics, and they leaned one way, leisure, like the beach or the mountains, because we lived in the mountains, and dogs, dogs, so, but I started realizing that these these bumper stickers are helping me understand what what the people in the context I’m living with they value. And they really did value those things. In fact, I’ve told you, they value dogs more than they value children. And so there wouldn’t be dogs at restaurants, but you wouldn’t see children at restaurants. And so once I began to kind of recognize these things, I realized that this is a key to me understanding and being able to relate to people that I my neighbors are the people that were engaging. And this is what they’re talking about, this is what they value. And so I would say just the art of looking around is to notice on the macro level, what are people talking about? Where did they gather, they’re expressing themselves in some way, by the use of their time, or bumper stickers or those sorts of things. And so you can begin to ask those questions, what are people expressing to me that they value in the context in which I live. And one thing also in line with that, as I began to notice what was lacking in what people were sharing or expressing, so when school started, I remember I drove out of the neighborhood, and I realized there are teenagers on every corner waiting for the bus stop, but I don’t see them any other time. Where are they? Where are they gathering where. And so to me, that was something that was lacking, that the teenagers were isolated, there wasn’t a place for them to come together? Or if kids aren’t valued, how can we this is an opportunity for us as a church, to provide opportunities for teenagers to be together and for kids to be valued and to bring moms together. And those were things that we did to try to reach but we were looking at the macro level and asking those questions. But I think you can also take it to a micro level of just when we’re engaging with people that we I love that God is it is a question asking God, we see that in Jesus, when he interacts with people. He’s always asking questions, and he already knows the answers. So he’s really asking these questions to reveal the heart of his listener. And I think of Hagar where he goes out in the in the desert, and God says, Hagar, where? Where have you come from? And where are you going? Well, he already knows the answer to that. But it’s, she needs to answer that question for herself. And so I think sometimes as being able to ask good questions of people, and just to say, Where have you come from? Tell me your story. What brought you here, help me helping you to know where you’re going, what were your hopes or your desires, it really reveals the heart not only to them, but to us to be able to speak into that some of what you were talking about with the longings that people have there. They’re going to express that when we when we can get to that micro level of, of just observing. Now I live in Austin, and now they’re No, but I don’t look at bumper stickers, I look at tattoos. And I say what does that tattoo me? And we’re what does that because everybody has a story about their tattoo, and everybody has a tattoo. So getting to ask this question of just where have you come from? Where are you going? Those kinds of things?

Trevin Wax
Yeah, well, I love that that emphasis on the the macro and the micro. I mean, we’ve talked a lot about helicopter view, macro level, look at the fields in North America. But at the end of the day, I mean, I hope the takeaway from this is look at your field, and look really carefully at your field don’t live only up here, we got to apply that down here, Dean, in talking about some of the challenges that we just looked at that be true to your mind, be true to yourself and the moral revolution and the pseudo religions, it would be really easy, I think, for some people in here to think, Okay, I got to protect my church from the fields out there, rather than realize that the fields are in the church to in the sense of like, the Be true to your mindset is to be true to yourself is not a it’s not something that’s just out there. Like if you don’t recognize that that’s in us in our congregation like this is this is happening with us. So instead of sort of this, this sense of we on the inside need to protect ourselves from those on the outside, how do you as a leader, help people understand not only the ways that people outside the church may think, but how they may actually think a lot like the people outside the church to need the Bible to be confronting and challenging. Oh, the

Dean Inserra
influence is undeniable, right? I mean, I have do a lot of kind of late level marriage counseling. I’m not a licensed counselor, but just kind of the initial Hey, what’s going on? We’re having issues. Can we talk to the pastor, and almost every single time it goes back to what you just talked was a few minutes ago, about that kind of self actualization of that identity, being like this is if I don’t get to do this, if I don’t feel this way. I just really think we have a crisis of personal meaning right now. And culture. If I can’t do this, and life’s not worth living, then some people obviously are like, I don’t mean like necessary in a suicidal sense, but just in I can’t be fulfilled kind of sets. So that means maybe I need a new husband, I need a new wife because God wants me to be happy. So what happens is that we are taking kind of biblical and inspirational language and sprinkling it on to the values of this world while thinking we’re maintaining the Christian posture, because we have a Bible verse out of context to go with it. Or I heard an Instagram preacher with a lot of followers telling me that God has a god sized dream for my life and wants me to go achieve it. It really is, it’s kind of grass is greener on the other side, sort of sort of mindset. But again, I feel okay about it, because there’s enough Christian language attached to it. And it’s really honestly, wolf in sheep’s clothing is what’s happening and how we’re going to look at x right now is the church and you know, Paul, in Acts 20, we just got out of x 20, yesterday, is begging the elders to protect the church from wolves. So in their context, they’re having a lot of theological issues, right, they’re having people saying that you have to be circumcised in order to be saved, you know, there’s having people tell them, they have to obey Jewish law in order to be saved. So he used to know it’s by grace, you’re saved through faith, he’s, he’s having to combat those kinds of things. So it’s easy to go, oh, we really won’t have that today. And we’re well enough of hair of hair, the kind of false teachers that our church is okay, from that we’re not really people that are vulnerable towards those kinds of wolves, when there’s somebody sitting in your congregation that’s telling someone to leave their spouse because God just wants them to be happy. Or they’re telling someone that, Oh, you don’t have to go to church in order to be a Christian. And instead, just, you know, kind of you go do you and have your own relationship with God. And it’s happening all over the place. So I think we actually have a discipleship crisis that isn’t necessarily that they need to read these five books, but rather, they seem to get over themselves. And that, that I think, we need to rediscover what it means for us to decrease and for Christ to increase, but all the messaging coming at them all the time is rewarding that sin you get your favorite Instagram preacher who’s gonna go on stage and say, you basically preach a self actualization message. And the context of this is what God wants for you. And that message only makes sense. And in a fluent American culture, like our brothers and sisters in North Korea, right now in prison would punch us in the face. You know, if, you know, if you came and said, God has a huge vision for your life. And it’s for you to do this and be that and so I just think that I’m not trying to be like, harsh, but I just really have an urgency about this, because I’m seeing marriages destroyed. I’m seeing people D church, I’m seeing people be miserable. I’m seeing kids have unrealistic expectations put on them. Because mom and dad want to live their lives through them, they find their self actualization in the success of their children, if it’s the right college, if it’s sports, if it’s you know, as popularity at school, I see parents, it’s so important for their kids to be in a certain group and being a, you know, have a certain kind of popularity. And it all goes back to this idea that, you know, this idea that God wants this for us. And I have to have this in order to have meaning and purpose and fulfillment. And we have to preach what you were just talking about, and warn against it and point people towards it, and go long game with it. Because one of the challenges of discipleship is this true with me? When I hear a message? I’m like, That’s right. Amen. Hope somebody’s listening. You’d rather than going, Oh, wait, I got some books on my own heart. And so I think we have to keep the long game in mind. Because the first instinct is that somebody else not me, until they start to see things in their life. Do I think God wants us to have an abundant life? Absolutely. Jesus said that. But what does that mean? Jesus is the abundant life, you know, it’s found in him, you know, not the things this world. And if I’m believing the Gospel, and a discipleship understanding of something that wouldn’t work in the third world or closed country, then I’m probably missing the boat a little bit. So it’s easy for me to say I’m an American Pastor, I flew here on a plane, you know, got some really nice shoes on right here. You know, I think that not really, but I just wanted to give a little shout out to my shoes. But But yeah, it was easy for me to say that because things come, you know, I sit down and Saturday, I watch college football for eight hours, easy to go, hey, you know, we don’t want to do this comfortable Christian life. It’s easy. It’s easy for me to say that. That’s not what I’m talking. I’m not talking about a comfortable Christian life or non comfortable Christian life. But I’m talking about is a gospel. That only makes sense. If things are going really well. And I’m doing things the world would say you’re successful. Yeah. Rather than Jesus being the answer to all those things. He is the greener grass. He is the pastor, right? Like he is the one and we have to just continue over and over again, to drive that home to people I

Trevin Wax
can sense the pastoral burden and what you’re and what you’re saying. And I’m when I’m tasked to preach a passage, one of the things I’m recommending people do is you don’t have to preach on these subjects all the time. You preach the text, but you can always ask the question, okay, I preached a couple of sermons at Cedarville University last year on Lord’s prayer, I went through every line of the Lord’s Prayer and I was not only explicitly in the text, I was also asking the question, how does this line of the Lord’s Prayer push against expressive individualism? And because it’s a little bit of its exposition with an edge, so little edge, just like how can I can I can it can it be countercultural? So as we’re talking about countercultural community and we were short on time, so just really quickly, when we think about the the, we think about deep relationship In the context of the church, that is countercultural today, because we don’t see a lot of deep relationships really quickly, you Krissy and the dean, you can you can close this, how do we cultivate places of connection and relationship, I

Christine Hoover
do think that that is one of the keys. And it’s, it’s the opportunity in front of us, as you were talking, I was just thinking, there’s so much opportunity in this. And one of the opportunities is to model and to demonstrate relationship, deep relationship. And I know in ministry, sometimes it can become so much about task and about what’s the next thing I have to plan and prepare for a sermon to preach that you’re preparing and, and it can become that, that we lose sight of the need to, you know, I think about x two, they were they were gathering together around fellowship doctrine. And they were breaking bread together the deep relationship. And I think the opportunity especially I was listening to a talk the other day about Gen Z, the Gen Z generation, and he said, the Gen Z is first language is digital. It’s not, it’s not relational at all. And so we have the opportunity to model through deep relationships with one another, and making that a priority that that I’m going to set aside some times my agenda or my tasks, and I’m going to be with people and I’m going to invite people in, I’m going to go toward people and bring them in for deep relationship. I think that’s the opportunity ahead of us. And I think we absolutely, we have to make that a priority and a necessity for the future of our church.

Trevin Wax
That’s great dane, would

Dean Inserra
you, Christine said and I only thing I would add to it is that I think with the help the next generation, like our children, see the importance and the need of a in person life. So they need to see mom and dad having people over going and actually doing things, every single if you ask anybody, no matter how their skill, or their schedule is like, no matter how old they are, even like retired people, it’s like so how are you? Oh, just so busy. That’s everybody’s reply nowadays. Let’s stop saying that, you know, let’s just stop saying that and try to find ways to say, hey, part of our busy is gonna be relationships, we’re open our homes, we’re gonna go to coffee and go dinner. But I really want our kids to see that see us having friends? Yes, and having fun and laughing, I want the kids to really see that. And that’s just really important are gonna see Mom, Dad on their phones, we’re not going to get less Digital’s a world, there’s not gonna be a swing the other way. I mean, because society is going right, it’s, so we have to get more relational, As the world continues to be more digital, while still leveraging and using these resources, and that that’s the world we’re not removing ourselves in the world. Digital is the world, we’re gonna be in that. But we have to make sure that we are relational people in that world. And I really, really, really want all of our kids to see us doing that. We’re gonna

Trevin Wax
have to do some education on how to build good relationships in general, because we’re gonna get generations from being able to do that. Well.

Dean Inserra
Yeah, we used to make fun of, you know, it used to be kind of common in our tribe to like, make fun of churches that we’d call them seeker sensitive that do sermons on like, friendship. Maybe they were onto

Trevin Wax
something. So this determines our friendship.

Dean Inserra
We might have to do that. We’ll just call it gospel centered friendship and feel better.

Trevin Wax
All right, well, you guys show your appreciation to Christina and Dean.