Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / One Bad Apple? Or Root & Branch Reform || SLP356

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One Bad Apple? Or Root & Branch Reform || SLP356 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, hello and welcome to the Speak Life Podcast.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Paul Faser.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's great to have you with us, and it's great to find me back in the saddle for the first time since 2020 and the three months of furlough that I've been going through.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: But this week's podcast is from 2021's first live cast, in which Glenn and I think more about what our wing of the conservative evangelical world can learn from recent revelations and scandals revolving around Ravi Zacharias and Jonathan Fletcher.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: Are they examples of just the one bad apple, or do we need root and branch reform?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Before that though, if you enjoy the Speak Life podcast, you can really help us out by sharing it with others and giving us a subscribe on whichever podcatcher you use.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: And if you feel able to give us a five-star review, all of those things really help the podcast get seen by a wider audience, and we'd be very grateful for that.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: But without further ado, here is Glenn and myself with this week's podcast.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everybody and welcome to the Speak Life LiveCast.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Glenn Scrivener.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And my name is Paul Feasy.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul Feezy is back.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Guess who's back?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Back again.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's been a while.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's been like since before Christmas.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Before Christmas.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: So yesterday was my first day back in Eastbourne in the office since yeah, 2020.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: What's it like being around people who are not feees?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's quite nice, actually.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's quite nice to have some different faces.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Beka's not watching.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can be you can be real.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's good.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's good to be back.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, just be back in the in the seat again.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, it's fantastic to have you.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um we've uh we've been dealing with some very uh serious issues um in the last couple of months.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we wanted to um call today's uh One Bad Apple or Root and Branch Reform.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um Paul, why are we giving it that title?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I mean many of you, if you've been following um stuff going on on the Speed Life channel, you'll have seen stuff about this, or if you're following kind of things just generally in the kind of Christian uh news world, I suppose you'll have heard about the Ravi Zacharias kind of scandal that's um kind of really come out, particularly in the last uh few months, with um the review being published by Martin and Miller uh back in February, which revealed kind of the horrific abuse that had gone on from Ravi Zacharias himself and kind of failures of the ministry um in all kinds of areas, really.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then also in the kind of conservative evangelical world, um we've discussed before um the kind of allegations made against uh Jonathan Fletcher.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: And recently we've had the release of the 31.8 report, um, and that's kind of again spoken of some of the cultural issues um in the conservative evangelical wing of the church here in the UK.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: So um yeah, we've been thinking about that a little bit.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we'll be chatting about.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and Lee uh Fernie, who was uh one of the 27 victims who uh contributed to the 31.8 review, um, I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago, and he said, you know, there's a great temptation to think that there's just one bad apple, there's just one Jonathan Fletcher.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And um, once we identify that problem, we can move on and uh not consider the wider cultural issues.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: But you said, well, bad apples grow on bad trees, and we do need that root and branch reform.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've got uh Andrew Livesey in the top chat, and he says, uh here on YouTube, uh we need root and branch reform.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So many churches are falling into error.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Gospel-centered churches need to stand out from the crowd.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, very much that sense of being radical, being a radical Christian means going back to the root and uh figuring out the sources of uh where we might have gone wrong and going back to the the the true source, who is Jesus.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: So um so yeah, we've been thinking about this this issue of um cultural change that is necessary.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've been sort of thinking about it since um early February, where I did a a talk on um Ravi Zacharias's Amnon from the story of 2 Samuel 13.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: If Ravi Zacharias is Amnon, um it didn't just take one man Amnon to rape Tamar in that story.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's um such a confronting story back in the Old Testament, where there is a rapist called Amnon, but he is facilitated by Jonadab, who is this wicked advisor to him.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's Absalom, who is um uh Tamar's cowardly brother, and then there is David, who is this impotent king who doesn't do anything about it, and then there are a whole bunch of unnamed servants who do the bidding of these wicked men, and it takes an entire dysfunctional family, a dysfunctional kingdom to perpetrate and then cover up the abuse.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's been a real burden of mine to think in terms of not just the individual sins of one bad apple, but in terms of the systemic failures that we can fall into.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's not it's not often a category we're comfortable thinking about, is it?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I think in our sort of circles, when we were starting to think about Black Lives Matter and that sort of thing, this this time last year, um, for many Christians, that was sort of the first time we were sort of even beginning to think about systemic racism or systemic failures and that that sort of thing.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um and some people kind of have an allergic reaction to thinking in cultural systemic terms.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think that might be?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think probably because when when this has been brought up kind of in on social media in the last year or so, um the the temptation has been just to label, let's say everybody, everybody is racist, is kind of is almost the feeling some people might take away from it when we say like there's a systemic thing.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, and I think you know, I I've certainly felt that kind of come out of it a bit, and you think, well, I don't think I'm racist.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I think interestingly, like as I've thought about the the Jonathan Fletcher thing, and I've seen some of the pushback on it within the conservative evangelical wing, there was very much a kind of you know, uh hashtag not all conservative evangelicals type thing going on.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I found that really I think for me that was a bit of a a turning point because um I don't think everyone is a Jonathan Fletcher, obviously.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I would say personally myself, I could as I listened to the interview with Lee Fernie who obviously uh kind of experienced things with Fletcher firsthand, there were certainly things where I went, oh man, I've I've seen this, like or I've I've felt echoes of this just in the my own interactions with this wing of the church, as I you know, I kind of came into it kind of about 12 years ago.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so that doesn't mean that every and and it got me thinking, yes, I think uh it is right for us to start thinking about how it's not that everyone is a Jonathan Fletcher, like and it's not that everybody is a racist, but there may well be things that through the you know, people like Fletcher have crept into the culture that we haven't even quite realized are as maybe sinister or unhelpful or whatever as we thought.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: And we just need to examine ourselves.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: So part of me has just been sitting there going, you know, are there things that I've I'm doing or have done which you know have come from this culture?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: Because a lot of people I know when when I came to the you know, where I the Southeast and came into this conservative evangelical circle, I didn't know anything about it, I didn't know these names, I didn't know these people.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but a lot of kind of my formulation in terms of theology and training happened within it, and I can kind of see how there's things that I took for granted as, well, this is the way you do ministry and this is what it looks like.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: I now look at and go, oh, but that's that has kind of come from that's passed down the line some way, but it's come from those UN kind of background camp things.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's got me going, Oh, is is some of this unhelpful in me?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I think it it isn't everybody.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, but in a sense, we all need to look at ourselves and go, might there be things that have crept in?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think some of the 2 Samuel um 13 stuff is helpful in in which you're saying, like, not everybody is Amnon, but is there a bit of a John Adab to me?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a bit of an Amsalom?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a bit of a David?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a bit of an unnamed servant to me?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: So when we when we talk about systemic um failures, when we're not just saying that everybody plays the same role in this dysfunctional system.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's quite important that there are these interlocking neuroses, there are these interlocking problems.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you couldn't, you couldn't have a whole church full of Jonathan Fletcher's.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like you can only have one, to be fair.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like that kind of character um um would not accommodate many other characters like that.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it would take people who would just be deferential to that kind of domineering spirit.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And and so it it means that when people talk about cultural failure, they're not saying that everybody is a Jonathan Fletcher at all, actually.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: But it it calls on us all to yeah have a bit of an examination of ourselves.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's perfectly right and perfectly appropriate for many people to look at themselves and to think, you know what, I I didn't see anything amiss, and I wasn't privy to any of these conversations, and I didn't know.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't that I turned a blind eye, and it wasn't that I looked the other way.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just didn't know.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and there'll be many people who who will absolutely be able to say, um, not me, um, but I'll I'll be vigilant in the future.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: But we do need to like start the conversation at least, because in the 31-8 review, um at uh at significant points, it it spoke about um the sins of Jonathan Fletcher being hidden in plain sight, things that were said in prayer meetings, things that were said in staff meetings, things that were even done in public worship that we now look back on and we're like, oh, that's that's dreadful domineering bullying going on.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And unless we all as a culture sort of say, uh, we maybe we together have dropped the ball on this, it doesn't mean we have to self-flagellate, it doesn't mean we all have to admit to being an abuser.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it just does does mean saying it takes more than one individual in order to create a a dysfunctional culture.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we thought that we could uh have a look at um some of the things that we are grateful for um as those who have been formed, as you say, in in this kind of culture and um some of the some of the real distinctives of conservative evangelical um, especially Anglican Christianity here in the UK.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think we want to we want to say these things to establish that we have been formed in these circles, we love these circles, we minister within these circles, and we can identify what is good.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we want to say that there are shadow sides to all of these six things.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: So let's have a look at the at the six um uh cultural distinctives that we kind of identified as we went back and forth today thinking about um uh these circles.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'll I'll just rattle them off.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're listening on the podcast, um we've got a slide up on the screen and it says um Bible, cross, mission, discipleship, contextualization, and community.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we've we put first Bible, and and that that might well be the first thing that people think of when they think of this this kind of constituency.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um what is it that can be celebrated about um our focus on the Bible in in our circles?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the real positives of the conservative evangelical wing and our uh you know, this wing that we're in, and something I've certainly benefited from over the years is very much the sense of the primacy of opening up the word and the primacy of God's word, you know, believing that God speaks to us through the word, the word is living and active, the word is powerful, um, you know, uh I think a rightful kind of uh fear of building anything around something that isn't scriptural.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: So wanting to make sure that we have this foundation of the word, um, you know, I I think that has always been uh a really positive thing within conservative evangelical world.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I the i I can think how many times people say, look, let's just get the Bible open with people.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if you're thinking about you know, mission, evangelism, whatever it is, get the Bible open, you know, and point people to the scriptures.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think that's always been uh uh just a great thing, and I've certainly benefited from it.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: I love that as an evangelist.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm if I'm doing mission in a in a in a church in these circles, they will expect me to to speak from a passage.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And um, if it's if it's not a setting in which you know there are Bibles to hands, well, let's let's print it off and let's put it as on the on the menu because we're having a curry together and we'll put you know a passage from Luke's gospel or whatever, and I'll speak from that.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and I noticed that when I'm speaking to evangelists from different traditions, um, they're often quite struck by our insistence on opening up the scriptures.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I think that's a really good challenge to evangelists in other traditions, um, to get God's word into people's hands and and and to prioritize Bible reading personally, and you know, it's it's part of our formation, it's part of our 24-7, you know, life of discipleship.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, Bible, Bible is very big.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and then the second uh issue we've identified is the cross.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in particular, I'm I'm partly mirroring um Bebington's fourfold um description of evangelicalism.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: He he kind of talked about Biblicism, crucicentrism, which is cross-cross-centeredness, uh, conversionism and activism.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's often said to be what lies at the heart of evangelical uh theology and practice.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that that cross-centeredness, um, you really get that, I think, in in our circles in uh a real desire to get to the heart of the gospel.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the heart of the gospel is sort of sin and grace, you know.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we you know, we are sinners in desperate need of God's grace, and God's grace meets us in the person of Christ who died for our sins in a penal substitutionary atonement, and wanting to bring all things back to the cross in that sense.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's true whether you're preaching from Ecclesiastes or you're preaching from 2 Peter, or um whether you are teaching the the five-year-olds in Sunday school or whether you're teaching the seniors lunch, um, that that real sense of getting back to the basics of the gospel, getting back to the cross, I think I I see that as a uh as a as a real um distinctive.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think in terms of you know the mission thing, I think very much at the center of of uh the wing has been kind of this, you know, that the reality that people are people need to be saved.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: And that, you know, evangelism has a real uh primacy.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I think you know that comes out in you know the focus on partly a focus on preaching, but also on you know, things like the camps and the I guess you know conservative evangelicals will also always generally be quite big on the the Christian union type things on the campuses and stuff like that.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think and that that is a big thing.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's very easy for church to become a kind of nice social club for Christians.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I think you know, as conservative evangelicals, we've always had a a good uh a way of keeping mission uh at the top of the pile or near the top of the pile of priorities, yes, um, whatever that might look like in different ways, but um, it's always been there, this need for people to be saved.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then um fourthly, we've put discipleship and um and some of the distinctiveness of discipleship, I think, in our circles has been uh one-to-one discipleship is is very um valued, and mentoring and those sorts of relationships and and sitting down and getting the Bible open with somebody else, reading through Mark's gospel together.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and certainly and and keeping evangelism and discipleship together is a real distinctive and a strength.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that the call to Christ is the call to come and follow Jesus and to be a disciple and to follow after Christ in that sort of way.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we we might get into some of the some of the shadow side in in a second, but um there's there's a helpful sense of um your commanding officer summons you come and die, you know.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um will you follow after Jesus?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh you know, and and uh an emphasis on your personal devotional life, your quiet times.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Here here is here are the steps that you can take in order to follow after Jesus in the rest of your life, not just show up to church on a Sunday, but Monday morning, get you know, crack the Bible open, hear your Bible reading notes, here's what you can be praying for.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, discipleship is a is a is a real distinctive.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: And then kind of contextualization.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: So um I think you know, again, coming from that that primacy of focus on mission and having uh good news for people, I mean, I think generally we've been good at thinking, you know, we have a mission to like this group of people, you know.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: So there are obviously that within the wing, it could be different groups depending on where your church is and the people around you, but um saying, you know, the gospel message is the same for everyone, but yeah, our ministry is in this area with people like this, and therefore we are able to I don't know, package sounds like a bit sounds a bit like a branding exercise, but that's not what I mean.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we're able to speak the message of the gospel in a way to people's lives that is relevant, um, and seeing the need for that, you know, to the Jew, I became a Jew and that kind of thing, rather than you know, some kind of just blanket.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I will use this in all contexts and it works.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think that has been a positive of the kind of movement generally.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so a question about Sunday morning worship is is often, you know, could I invent could I invite my neighbor to this and will they understand it?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And is it explicable?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, not wanting to use jargon, not wanting to use um Christians, yeah, all that.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I mean it it is interesting, and we'll get we'll get onto the shadow side, but the contextualization thing is interesting because there's also a resistance to the idea of contextualization, even as our tribe do it and do it quite well, depending on what the context is.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: But we'll get to that.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then community.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm speaking personally, in the last 20 years, I've been in um these kinds of churches and have found them to be to be family, um, genuinely, to be family when, you know, I've got I've got family on, you know, physical family I've got on three different continents.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, Emma's family are across the water.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, right now, um, my kids are with members of our church.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they are very happily playing grand grandparents to people who are not flesh and blood relatives.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And church family is not just a phrase that we use, it is a phrase that we use constantly.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, certainly in our church, and I I think in the in the broader constituency, we we talk about church family.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And certainly I have sensed that to be a a reality that makes a massive difference.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And in my evangelism, nothing has been more fruitful for me than to say to people, this is what I love about my church.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: My, you know, my church are they looking after my kids right now.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're kind of they cooked dinner for us last week, they helped us move the other day.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: They, you know, um church is really and genuinely family.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's that's a beautiful thing.
• 19:54
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• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we we feel like these are um some distinctives.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Others can think of um different distinctives, um, but uh this this to us seems like some of the great stuff that is in our tradition, but is in other traditions uh around the world in the body of Christ.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: But we also want to talk about um some of the shadow sides to these cultural issues, and so um we'll just take them kind of one at a time.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And um whereas on the one hand, um the Bible is front and center, um there is a shadow side to that.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And what I've what I've put on the screen is um word and spirit question mark.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Why have we why have we put the question mark there, Paul?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I mean I think that there's there's a danger of um so we're within the kind of conservative evangelicals, we would kind of say, wouldn't we, that sc all scripture is God breathed, you know, God's God's spirit spoke to uh you know, taught the disciples what to write, and the spirit speaks to us through the word now.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um and there's a sense there is a danger, I think, and it is a real danger that we we end up with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Bible, that the work of the Spirit is simply reduced to just the Bible and and nothing uh nothing else.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think uh uh with within that kind of side of things as well, like um With that primacy on opening the word, I think certainly I would say things I've seen would be um there is a way to handle the Bible.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um and if you don't if you don't handle the Bible this way, then you are not part you're not really sound.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: And your I you know, I suppose your your value is based on how well you handle the Bible.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: So the valuable people are the preachers, you know, right, right.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: Those who have who I I can't I've probably lost track of the number of times it's like so-and-so is a has got a gift for preaching, therefore Christian ministry.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: And it was all around that.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I think yeah, I think there's been some unhelpfulness on that side of things.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: If you and if you yeah, if you don't jump the if you don't, if you don't entirely get on board with the way things are even even to suggest sometimes.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: Can I ask a question about this interpretation?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's been a real sense of even asking the question puts you makes you a bit suspect.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um I have to tell the story about when I when I when I first went to Oak Hill Theological College, um, which is where I trained for ministry, um, I was looking at a number of different colleges, and and at the time I was quite up for going to Whitcliffe Hall, which is uh at Oxford, largely because I wanted to have another crack at playing for the university, playing cricket for the university, and then you get to play at Lords and all that kind of all that kind of nonsense.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I was very much leaning towards Wycliffe, probably for all the wrong reasons, but as I was being taken around Oak Hill, the senior student there um said, Are you looking anywhere else?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I'm quite interested in Wycliffe.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Oh, you don't want to go there.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: At Wycliffe, they get to the end of a lecture and they say, It could be this, it could be this, or it could be that.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: He said, You don't want that.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: You want the answer.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Oh, uh, what if at Oak Hill you happen to disagree with the answer that's that's given by the lecturer?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Oh, they'd shoot you down.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Really, they'd shoot you down.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Oh, in love.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: But they're very thought through.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, sure, sure, they're very thought through.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but what if you've done a little bit of thinking about it and you're just coming at something from a slightly different angle?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: How do they react?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: And at this point, he was really alarmed.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: He was like, Well, what do you want to disagree about?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I don't know yet.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to know, is there the ability to disagree?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, they're they're very thought through.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why you would want that.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then he's he started to grill me on what what it was that I wanted to cause trouble with.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's I think that sense through through this idea that the Bible has such a primacy in your interpretation of it in scripture.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I think what I've seen certainly is is there's a culture of um feeding back on people's preaching, um, which of course you know is valuable.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's good to have that.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: But I I think I've often seen people torn apart in front of others, like, and there's very much a kind of it that and when I've I have raised it once or twice for people, and they said uh it's just kind of the way we do things, you know.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, but I I mean I I particularly remember being on camp once, and this guy gave a brilliant talk on the cross.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: And like I mean, he and he was he clearly wasn't quite from our circle.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um and he was very because he he's he was quite emotive in his speaking, you know, so it sounded like he meant it.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um and um the next day in the meeting, I mean they'd he just got absolutely obliterated, but in a kind of polite manner, right?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, in a kind of this isn't the way we do things.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: I remember talking to him afterwards, and I just said, I thought he did a really good job.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: But it's just there was this fear of you you you're potentially about to be humiliated in front of people, but hey, we're it's for the gospel, we're building you up, you know, we're showing everyone else by tearing you down, kind of but I wonder whether that comes from a kind of particular culture that people uh were raised in.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if yeah, soldier, be a be a good soldier, maybe, and it's the drill sergeant thing.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, my final my final sermon in Oak Hill Chapel was um was on David and Goliath.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, I I sort of laid out the story, and here is David, he is the little guy taking on the giants, and he's anointed with the spirits, and so you know, he is the Christ winning your battle for you, and you are David's brother, and like you've been deriding David, and you've been saying you should, you know, shove off home, David.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing here?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: You've been terrified by Goliath, you cannot take on Goliath at all, you know, for for a single second, but David does it for you, and now in his name, go and plunder the Philistines.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's and and therefore, what is preaching?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Preaching is being uh a herald of victory on the front lines and saying to David's brothers, your you know, your brother is your champion and he's done it for you.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's what chan that's what preaching should be.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: But what you know, and I I got quite emotional um in the in the chat.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: But interestingly, you know, people who were there still talk to me about that sermon.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was the best sermon I've ever preached.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was only it was only seven minutes long.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: And and just probably a kind of lesson.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: There we go.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: The shorter the better.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: If it was three minutes, it would have been amazing.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: In seven minutes, I just and I just said, but so many of the sermons I hear from this pulpit are drill sergeants telling the soldiers how they can how they can defeat Goliath, you know, and the Bible is therefore used as tips and techniques for your own discipleship, for your own battles in the Christian life, and just do it like David.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do it like David.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Bible is used, and the Bible is at the center of your preaching, but the whole model of how the Bible is used is not as this heralding of good news, but as the tip and the technique and the and the the adrenaline shot of the the the drill sergeant that is given to people.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't help going back to John 5, where Jesus says in verse 39 to people who are great Bible students, he he says, You diligently study the scriptures because you think that by them you inherit eternal life.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: These are the scriptures that testify about me, and yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um so the Bible is front and center, but here's some shadow side.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: In what sense is it central?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how is it how is is it is it central as a witness to Christ, as a spirit's testimony to the sun, or is it central as what the drill sergeant tells the private that's one issue.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: I th I think you know, when I think back, you know, I'm not so not so fussed by things now, but particularly in my earlier days of ministry, I I think I handling the Bible felt like a bit of a fearful thing, not in the sense of, you know, I'm handling the word of God, you know, fearfully.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: I don't mean it in that way, though.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully it was.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: But there was this fear of someone is gonna tear me apart at some point because you're there, I think it's just there was this sense of your value is based on what you do with this text now, and you will be in or you will be out based on what you say on this.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think that's just a really and and it's so hard because the people who were doing those kind of things could always kind of give a scriptural backup to the things they were saying, which I think you know, some people would probably say today was almost a bit manipulative and almost bully-esque.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: Bully-esque.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: Bullyish.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: It might be it might be bullying, but yeah, all out on that.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, yeah.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's so hard.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, back in back in Australia, I I I was on the wrong side of the Paul Blackham versus Graham Goldsworthy debates, which 20 was 20 years ago now.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there were there was this this very big thing about you know, was Christ consciously known and trusted in the Old Testament or was he not?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul Blackham said yes.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I lined up with him, and uh, and that was the minor the minority report in in these circles, and it made it's it's made life difficult for the last 20 years, to be honest.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when I went to Australia, I was I was going to be working for a certain church, and um and the the the rector of that church um was giving a talk at a conference, and he he said at the conference, look, um he made it made a big point of saying nobody could possibly have understood um Christ in the Old Testament, and nobody could possibly have understood that he would both suffer and be glorified in the New Testament.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if anyone thinks that you know I'm wrong, they need to come up and talk to me.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so a friend was next to me and he and he nudged me.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: He said, James Coates, this is your all your all your fault.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he and he said, Go go and um go and talk to him because you're about to work for him.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'd gone through the application process and I'd been approved already.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't yet met the guy.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, Well, I guess I need to introduce myself.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I went and said, Hello, I'm Glenn Screwd.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna start working with you guys in the next couple of months.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we had a lovely conversation, and then James Coates, go on, Glenn, go on.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so I take a deep breath and I said, Well, you you did say, you know, for people to come and challenge you if if they thought you were wrong on this.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: But you said that no one in the Old Testament could have known that the this the Christ would suffer and be glorified.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, What do you make of 1 Peter 1?
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Where it says precisely that, that the spirit of Christ was in them, predicting the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Ah, that was this the uh the Danielic um uh persecution.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I've never heard that before.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, okay.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um great, I'll I'll look into that.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and what about Acts 26, where the Apostle Paul says, I'm saying nothing beyond what Moses and the prophets said would happen, that the Christ would suffer and as the first to rise from the dead, would preach light to his own people and to the Gentiles.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Look, you can quote scriptures and I can quote scriptures.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is getting us nowhere.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Good day.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: And off he went, and I got an email from his underling saying, uh, no thanks, we're not having you, and we suggest that you return to England where you're sort of tolerated.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: Wowzers.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Bully-esque?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: Bully-esque.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: That is that is that is quite incredible, isn't it?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: So the Bible's front and center, but like, yeah, if you don't if if you don't line up on the way that the Bible is is taught.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: So there are some shadow sides.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just saying.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just saying.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: Josh Brayley just said in the comments.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is true.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Duncan Hollands says, It seems to me that as proud biblicists, we have sought to find biblical and theological reasons for everything we do, especially for how we run our churches and which issues we discuss or don't.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be interested to hear your guys' thoughts on way our theology has hindered rather than helped.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: And Josh Bailey, in quotation marks, iron sharpens iron.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's that's a great scripture to use when you've just stabbed someone, isn't it?
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: I did not experience that as iron sharpening iron.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of experienced that as iron being thrust into my guts.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, and I I mean that's and we laugh, but I mean that's a great example of how you can how how you can be scriptural.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: You can back up, yes, you can almost back up anything.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: We know this by the and and you can you can you can force your way of things onto someone onto someone else by just look, this is what it says.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, and that can be quite damaging for people.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: Which is why everyone needs to read Diane Langberg's book, Redeeming Power.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't think we we really think about power very much in our circles.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that kind of um leads us onto the the second point.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um and as a distinctive, our circles um bring the cross front and center.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I wonder, do we have a theology of the cross?
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: And with that, I'm I'm really bringing in the conceptualization of of um Martin Luther in his Heidelberg disputation.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: He's he basically said, look, the medieval church had gotten through Aristotle and Aquinas a theology of glory where you ascend to God through your thoughts and through your self and through your works.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and the sign of a theology of glory would be a ladder.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: But a theology at the cross is that, my goodness, God had to descend all the way down to the depths of Golgotha to meet you where you are.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: And a theology at the cross is God had to humble himself and meet you where you are.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so you need to be humble.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: And God has humbled himself, and it's a real inversion of the normal ways that we think about power.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, 1 Corinthians 1, you know, Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom that we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the theology of the cross is kind of it's upside down to the way the world thinks about power.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I just wonder, we we sort of have we have the cross at the heart of our gospel presentations as the mechanism that saves you, but we don't really return to the cross to give us our our doctrine of God or our doctrine of the Christian life or or anything else.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: It it it it becomes quite a narrow thing.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously that you know that that's true about you know accounts of the atonement as well.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of it's penal substitutionary atonement, or it's nothing, really, isn't it?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: Which again gives a quite narrow view of the cross.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and and with all these things, it's not that I want less Bible, I want more Bible.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that I want less cross, I want more cross.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I wonder if we've got a quite stripped back, reduced uh account of of the cross in these things.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I I mean I think one of the things maybe it's related to that is that we we have chatted about is that the the it the cross and the gospel becomes quite reduced.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, some of the stuff before I before I knew you and you were um you were in the I think when I first came across your stuff, you're in the process of putting your three to one bits together, but it was before three to one came out, and there was the stuff in there about kind of union and I mean you effectively you raised issues with the two ways to live things, even if I'm not sure you put it in quite those words, not publicly.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we have now.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um but you know, we I I I think I was so ingrained in this this is what this is what the gospel is, it's two ways to live, you know.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I I'd always found it I didn't doubt that it was true, but I there was a there wasn't there wasn't quite a warmth in it.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then you were talking about things like um union with Christ and stuff, um, and being you know united to Christ and the the kind of marriage element and the oneness.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: And that it just made me kind of look at stuff and go, I think there's this seems like there's a greater depth of stuff here than perhaps you know, I've just reduced it to this one thing.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that's not to say, you know, we need something else apart from the cross, you know, but the cross goes out wider than just Jesus dies on the cross, there's this exchange, and yeah, that's it, you know.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: We need more like three, two, so so for those who don't know, so two ways to live is a is a kind of a gospel presentation that came out of Sydney, and it was it's got six boxes, and you've got creation, full, judgment, cross, resurrection, and your choice.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the choice that we all face are you going to go with Jesus or not?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: And three two one is my gospel outline that starts with the threeness of God and then goes on to the the two-ness of the world, Adam and Christ, and then your oneness.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: You are born one with Adam, be one with Jesus.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the ways of thinking about three two one is is that is not that the cross should be less important, but it it should be more important.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: So when you think about the cross, you should think about well, what vision of God does the cross give us?
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh well, here is the son of the father who would plumb our depths so that by the Spirit he could offer himself to the Father.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it it you know, and that the cross divorced from a Trinitarian doctrine just just becomes like a horrible heresy.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it becomes this horrible, you know, God over here zaps Jesus over there, even though he was just innocently minding his own business, you know.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: But no, God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: So like we bring the cross right into how we understand who God is.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: We bring the cross right into how we understand like the way, the way of the world is, you know, we we were looking at 1 Corinthians 15 yesterday, you know, nothing comes to life unless it first dies, says 1 Corinthians 15.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and the whole way of cross and resurrection is is just woven into the world, and it's woven into your life, like your life, you've you've been baptized into Christ's death, and you've been given the deposit of the spirit that you might look towards that resurrection.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, you've you take up your you're crucified with Christ, you no longer live.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the the cross is actually a far more profound, you know, all pervasive doctrine than just the mechanism by which sinners are saved.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I, you know, and slightly going back to that thing before about the way we handle the Bible and are you in or are you out, depending on what you think.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like I remember when you put that stuff, and and I was kind of you know engaging with it myself, and I was kind of wrote a few blog things back in the day, and uh when I was kind of thinking I'm challenged by these things, and I remember my line manager coming to me and saying that um it was where and because I kind of said you know, there are some issues, I see some issues now with two ways to live and things like that.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: I you know, there's some it's not wrong, but there was it's anemic perhaps in many ways.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um and he said to me, one of the other members of staff said, I don't think Paul understands the gospel.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like off the back of that, you know, and that's kind of like Wow Like Wow, that's like a dagger, isn't it?
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like to throw at someone.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um because two ways to live, you didn't understand two ways to live, was like well, I think because I because I said, you know, I've particularly in some of the two ways to live stuff, I was struck by, you know, it's the idea of who's wearing the crown, take the crown off and get the crown back.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, some of the stuff I found really helpful in your your writing was to do with you know, we're we're we're not the ones with the crowns, you know, we're the thirsty, and you know, we're the ones who are uh tied up and freeing and all these things, you know.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, all these images where you're like, it doesn't appear like we're the agent, the ones with the agency here, we're ruled by, isn't it Luther who says we're yeah beasts ridden by either the devil or by Christ.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, so I mean, like I mean that makes you that makes your working environment a little bit tense.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like when it's like uh this person definitely doesn't think I'm sound because yeah, because I've asked a question about this, or been a I've tried to think about it.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like and it's it's what's disappointing is that you're you're trying to outflank him in in in kind of in in like a reformed theology.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is I'm gonna outreform you.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, because at that point you're you're saying, well, I'm I'm just not sure that the choice we all face is is a properly like reformed way of framing the gospel.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's you know, yeah, that's and yeah, what I don't get is the the unearned sense of theological superiority.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like at least will you will you just at least entertain a different view as though it might come from a from a place of greater biblical integrity?
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: It might it might do.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: Unless your theology is unimpeachable and unimprovable.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, there are so many good comments in the top chat.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't know what to what to draw attention to.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um obviously I should draw attention to Josh Bailey, who says new Christians love 321.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, Josh Bailey, thank you.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: So did year seven students.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: I showed the intro video too as an in uh as an explanation of the Trinity.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um that was in um response to Ben Harvey, who says, uh, I think Two Ways to Live was meant to be a discipleship aid rather than evangelistic tract.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: At least I've heard um Philip Jensen say that.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: Not sure what difference it makes to the discussion.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um that is that is true at the very outset of how Two Ways to Live was um taught.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was basically a summary of Graeme Goldsworthy's um biblical theology.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, right.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um in a class it was it was used like that, but then very, very Quickly, it was used as events.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm not sure it says you know, it says not sure what difference makes the discussion.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure whether that's in reference to why you talk about two ways to live at all in relation to this.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean if that is what you mean.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think my response would be for me, two ways to live was an example of if you ask questions about this, you know, you're suddenly beyond the pale and outside, we've thrown you outside the camp.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you're not sound.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's really hard when you're in when when you know to have someone turn around and say, I don't think this person, I don't think you understand the gospel.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: Especially because you're not you're not questioning the apostles' creed.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're you're you're questioning something produced by Matthias Media.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, someone else said to me on the on the back of that, said um on the blog, because I, you know, again, I'd written on this blog and just said, yeah, I there are a number of things here which I can see that might be an issue or not quite right and stuff.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: And someone, and again, it was this the same person said to me, like, I think what you said is almost slander.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think is it what's his name, Jensen?
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: So he he he said he almost he said something like, I think you'd have grounds to just you know come at you or something.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, what are you talking about?
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like it was almost this, you go, how dare you question?
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, it's not like I didn't I didn't even know, I don't even know what the guy's name is.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like, there we go.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not slat, I didn't slander a person at all.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: I just said I don't not sure this is yeah, the exact thing.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I mean you'll be on the pale to do that.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, yeah.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's power plays, and and you know, so returning to the point about a theology, the cross, um, we need to learn again um how to be crucified with Christ and humble um in the way we use our power.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, I did not come to be so, but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: The cross should infect the way we use our authority and not to smack people down, um, but actually to to pour out and to and to lift up.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: So Bibles are distinctive, cross is a distinctive, and then uh a third distinctive we we spoke about is is mission.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I do love how evangelistic um our kinds of churches are, but then we've said the the shadow side is um do we have a doctrine of all of life?
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: Or is the only reason you're on planet Earth between now and when you die to save souls?
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: Do we do we have a doctrine of of all of life?
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: What do you reckon?
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh no, not so much, I wouldn't have said.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're probably probably weaker on that than there's I mean, and again, it comes like we say the the the great emphasis from the mission thing is yes, people need to be saved, you know, that everybody is in danger, and you know, if people aren't saved in this life, then you know there is no salvation apart from the name of Jesus.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_02: If people haven't turned to Jesus, then people are lost, and that's a great that is a great thing for us to keep at the front of what we're doing.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um but is that is that to be all and end all in terms of what we're doing?
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I I do think it's easy in our churches to get the sense that um the only valuable thing that you can do between Monday and Saturday is to have an evangelistic conversation by the water cooler, you know.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, and if you know, you you couldn't possibly be uh a lighthouse keeper because you couldn't have an evangelistic conversation with somebody else in the lighthouse because you're just a lonely lighthouse keeper.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's and so there are certain jobs that are off limits.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: And really the the reason why you work in that accountancy firm um is in order to have one-to-one Bible studies in your lunch hour with with so and so and and and just this you know, is there a sense of all of life?
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a sense of the creation mandate as well as um the Red Commission?
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: And that just seems in stark contrast if I if if you've people have not heard the interview Glenn did with Stephen McAlpine and Sam Chan, I mean one of the phrases that stood out to me there was um thick community.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_02: They were all about doing thick community, and that's where they were seeing fruit.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: It was it wasn't necessarily in you know inviting people to an event or whatever, it was just living their lives with people, you know, and so that they were the people that you know when your non-Christian friend had a disaster, who do they come to?
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: They come to you.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: And in and you know, that is a completely different way of looking at your Christian mission of living your life, you know.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think you quoted in it, you know, do such good amongst the you know, live such good lives uh amongst the uh pagans that you know they see your good deeds and glorify God.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, that is such a world apart from well, you've got to get people into a one-to-one Bible study kind of thing.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um if yeah, I mean it's radically, yeah, radically different, transformative, really, in the way you approach things.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like yeah, how do you shine in whatever circumstance you're in?
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to shine, with the complexities of your Monday to Saturday existence, um, you're gonna need a much richer theology than just a little narrow bridge diagram or just a little narrow, you know, the cross is the mechanism that saves you.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you deal with a bullying boss?
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: How do you deal with family breakdowns?
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: How do you deal with the need to forgive?
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: How do you, you know, how do you how do you deal with the complexity of um you've got contracts with people that you simply cannot fulfill and you're gonna have to cancel those and other people are gonna have to, you know, how do you make redundancies?
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: How do you like there are there are all sorts of um really complicated issues that people need to think through?
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that Stephen McAlpine said is that too many preachers um prepare their congregations for the kind of Monday morning the preacher is gonna have, not for the kind of Monday morning that the congregation is gonna have.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and part of that is because we think that really what the congregation should do is train for ministry.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like either send money to the ministers or become a minister.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure there's another option, you know.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like so there's a there's a there's a narrow.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I really I've I've always really disliked the phrase people going into full-time ministry.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_02: Is that you say, well, maybe I think I started using the phrase paid ministry, you know.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like because we we should all we're all in full-time ministry, you know, that or we should have that bad approach to it, shouldn't we?
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_02: But is ministry simply, you know, like are you an accountant simply with the thing of I'm in this accounting firm, can I get David who I sit with on the table over there to do a Bible study?
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well Glenn Scrivener will be speaking, yeah.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_02: Or you know, but or is part of my mission in my accounting work itself?
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, do a good job.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, or how does the lighthouse keeper, you know, yeah, is the lighthouse keeper is somehow living out his his mission even when he's just by himself in the lighthouse, being a lighthouse keeper.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: Luther's got a great thing about you know, to be a Christian cobbler is not to put a cross on every pair of shoes that you make.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's just to be a good cobbler.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do a good job.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: Make a comfortable pair of shoes.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's you don't have to put a cross on everything.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, cobblers.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, make it the fourth distinctive moving on.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: The fourth distinctive we've got is uh discipleship.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, there is a good model of okay, Monday to Saturday, there is a life of discipleship, and have your quiet time and get into the word and be prayerful and follow Jesus.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I've just put you know, the shadow side is what about worship?
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think in our circles we kind of have an allergic reaction to the idea of Sunday worship.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because instantly, what do we say?
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: Or worship isn't just singing on a Sunday, right?
• 52:07
  unknown: Exactly.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's the right wrong answer.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean I'm sound.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: But it's just the lane worship's 24-7, man.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's 24-7, you know.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's Romans 12.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: You just go instantly to, you know, all of life is is to you know, to offer my life up to Jesus 24-7.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing special about gathering on Mount Zion with the elect of the Lord singing with the worship of the angels.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing special about that, man.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're just we're just edifying one another, aren't we?
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like I I've even said this.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: I like, you know, I've I've I heard it and then passed it on that, you know, in Ephesians we sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to one another.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I've I've passed that on.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've like, you know, singing edifies one another.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, you you want to take that one verse and you want to put it against the whole book of Psalms?
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: Do you sing to the saints?
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, sing to the Lord, sing to the Lord, sing to the Lord, sing to the Lord.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we don't really have a category for that.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_02: No, not so much.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and do we have a category for contemplation?
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do we have a category for, you know, goodness me, mystical union with Christ, or you know, enjoying Jesus?
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do we have a category for for character formation?
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got we've got discipleship, and that very readily boils down to a couple of character traits, but mainly a bunch of activities.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, are we really are we really focused on loving the Lord Jesus with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and expressing that love and doing it together?
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_02: And and and this might be this might be controversial.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_02: I I haven't given it loads and loads of thought to say it's being formed.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I wonder whether so so much of discipleship within our circle has been based on the how is your quiet time, you know, like during the week, are you making time each day to open your Bible and thing?
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember I gave a talk maybe maybe some point in the last couple of years, where basically the main thrust was stop making time for God.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, so immediately people know what you talk about.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it was this idea that you know, whilst there is value in that kind of I have my quiet time and pray, it's really easy to be like um I have my quiet time and I pray, and then I put my Bible down, and then I just go about my day, like and it's just another part of my day.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_02: But what does it actually mean to to love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love my neighbour?
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's easy just to compartmentalize that off and say, that's my spiritual stuff for the day.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've done that bit there, yeah, done the Bible bit, done the prayer bit, right, go to work.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_02: What does it mean to like walk in the spirit and you know, all those things, you know?
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_02: Is it more than just I had my quiet time today and prayed?
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it must be.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm I I just don't think we have an emphasis on and no, I don't think any conservatives would disagree.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_02: I think we just don't have an emphasis on that, you know, so much in our discipleship.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, I totally agree.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and we we had a good um uh comment by Ben Harvey.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says uh he recently read a telling question does the quiet time serve the public gathering or the other way around?
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a sense that somehow the the the private quiet time, which you which which was just technologically inconceivable um just a few centuries ago, um that that has displaced public worship in so many ways as the the epicenter of your spiritual life.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and you even get such individualistic kind of um comments like Robert Murray McShane, you know, what a man is on his knees before God that he is and no more.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think even the word alone is in that is in that quote, you know, what a man is alone on his knees before God, you know.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the paradigm.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then I I guess like Sunday worship is a whole bunch of people doing it in the same room together.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas surely it's it's like you can't even pray the Lord's Prayer without saying, our father.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like like I I think the the normal spiritual life is the corporate one.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can figure out ways of taking that into your week and doing it personally, great, good.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_00: You'll need to, you'll need to encourage yourself in the Lord.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um but the the paradigm in the epicenter is is the corporate thing.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I I don't think we've got I don't think we've got a great um view of worship, and I think that cuts, it really cuts the root of um our motivation in the Christian life, because I I think so often if you ask people in our circles what is what is your motivation for the Christian life, they'll say gratitude.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like gratitude for Jesus getting me out of hell and getting me into heaven.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude for getting the the heavenly verdict of just, of righteous.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I think you're not going to be that grateful for what God's verdict is on your life if you don't spend any time loving God and therefore caring about what he thinks.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't I don't think we're very good at worship or contemplation or that vertical dimension, really.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_02: And just a comment here from H says some of uh love your work in steps, by the way.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um some of what you highlight I recognize as correctives to previous issues, e.g., worship is a whole of life as corrective to worship defined by songs with a bass and drums in the 80s.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I'm old.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think that's true, and we might touch on that a little bit when we come to community.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think you know, why is the worship thing a little bit anemic?
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's because of a reaction to those guys over there doing it in this style that we don't want.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I think we'll get to that in terms of the the them and us, um, which is is kind of rife in our circles.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: We've already got H says I really can't say it.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we know we've heard the songs, we've heard steps.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: Proof positive.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, there is an emphasis on discipleship.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_00: Is there an emphasis on worship?
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we we said about contextualization in our circles.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting about the contextualization is quite often, even from the pulpits, people say, ah, we don't like contextualization.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_00: That that sounds like you know, wishy-washy syncretism with the culture.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_00: And yet very often those people who say that contextualization is syncretism with the culture are just brilliantly contextualized to the context that they're in.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_00: But they're so contextualized they don't even notice they're they're contextualized.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: So they might be brilliant at reaching, you know, city bankers in London, or they might be brilliant at preaching to 13-year-old boys from Harrow or Eton, right?
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: And those those ministries are brilliantly contextualized.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_00: Actually.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it's when you don't notice that ministry in that context doesn't work somewhere else.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_00: When you're uh addressing people in the council estate, when you're going into the prisons, when you're talking to an asylum seeker.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: And that's, you know, as I said to you before, how struck I've been when we've done university missions and you have the international dinners, um, and there's often a different speaker.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and just how they're they're preaching a clear gospel message, but so often um, you know, the the framework in which they're preaching it is just so different.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_02: I and I think to myself, you know what, I couldn't get up and preach to this room of people because this guy who's preaching really understands the context these people have come from.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he's he's talking to a you know a room full of East Asians here, and he and he's lived in East Asia and he knows the culture, he knows the the things, the way they think in a way I don't.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_02: So if I got up, I would just completely make a disaster out of it.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_02: Even though I could still preach the gospel, yeah, it would it just wouldn't work, you know.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and but but yet there's this thing where you feel that you're just preaching the pure, you know.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm just preaching the pure gospel, surely I'm just doing the Bible thing.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um but we're all of us have got that contextual element.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_02: We sometimes just can't we can't see it.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're just blind to the way we've contextualized.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_00: Hence we need people from outside the system to come and say, You're really weird, you know.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're really like like the guy who showed up at the sort of the flagship conference for our our constituency.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he came from a very um charismatic tradition.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_00: And like he he sat through a session, I saw him, he was two rows down, and and after this preaching session finished, I tapped him on the shoulder and said, What are you doing here?
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Oh, it's just great to see, you know, we're all in it together for the gospel.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'd never heard of you guys before, but it's just brilliant to know that we're all on the same side.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, No, how what do you really mean?
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_00: How did you really find it?
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: Did you really and he looked over both shoulders and he pointed down to the lectan and he said, Did that guy believe a word what he just said?
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it just took him from being outside the system to see it.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and as soon as he said it, I was like, Yeah, I know.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: We need and that and that brings us on to the the final um issue.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, love the community, love the sense of church family.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there is a shadow side to that.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_00: And in a sense, this is this is like this is probably my strongest critique, I think, of our circles.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's them and there's us.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's us and there's them.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: Fear them.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_00: Trust us.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_02: We've got the we've got the right the right theology.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_02: Again, it's that Bible, it kind of ties in with that Bible thing.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_02: Those who are sound, yeah.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_02: The way they handle the Bible.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um and the worst thing, the worst thing anyone could say was he's gone a bit he's gone a bit liberal.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_02: And and and that and that could be on just slight deviation from something or question, you know.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I mean I I again because when I came so when I came into this, uh, so I didn't grow up in um uh in the in the southeast or in the conservative evangelical church.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so I didn't know any of these, I didn't know any of the people, didn't know any of the culture or anything like that.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so, you know, I I'd gone through things like Soul Survivor and Bits and Bobs, but like the way I'd hear people talk about stuff like that, you know, it was just like these guys, they're not really Bible teachers and things, you know, and not they're not doing it properly like us, you know.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um it and and at the beg at the beginning, there's this just a real sense of just like I just feel really uneasy with the whole thing.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_02: Because it was very much like, well, we're the ones, you know, like you say, we're the trust us, we know what we're talking about.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_02: Those guys, you know, maybe they're not quite really Christians.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's I mean, that was the strongest form of it, wasn't it?
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_02: Then they might not even be saved.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, yeah, yeah, big, big tribalism.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I I've just been so interested, especially in the last couple of months, when the report into Jonathan Fletcher comes out, and we start talking about the there are inner rings in our societies, you know, and and obviously there are inner rings everywhere.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the reason the reason why C.S.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis's I think I think it was a lecture, wasn't it?
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was to some students who are graduating.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_00: He talked about the inner ring, and he said, you know, in every walk of life you will encounter the inner ring and you'll sell your soul to get on the inside of the inner ring.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then in all sorts of ways, when you're in the inner ring, you will you know close ranks against those you know poor unfortunates on the outside.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it it is in every walk of life.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_00: But what's fascinated me in the last couple of months is I've kind of started to ask questions about who's who's in on the inner ring in our circles.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll talk to one person and they'll say, Well, of course, Glenn, I'm completely on the outer in in these things.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll be like, all right, well, so who who is on the inside?
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_00: And they'll say, Well, that person.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'll talk to that person and they'll say, Well, you know, Glenn, I'm completely on the outside of these things.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was never allowed in.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, Oh, okay, so who who is?
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then they'll point to somebody else, who'll point to somebody else, who'll point to somebody else.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, who is on the inside of these?
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_00: And there are these like concentric circles of soundness.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we we were tallying up points this morning in the office of on the soundometer.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Oak Hill, I think, scored about 80 points.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, we we we have a former member of Kick You, that's the Cambridge Intercollegiate Christian Union, which is worth at least 55 points, 60.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so definitely something like that.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_00: We've got you know, former UCCS staff workers here in this room right now.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, pretty, pretty astonishing.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's what's what's that worth?
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_02: And and and I mean this one might sound a little bit, you know, kind of haha, you know, there's all this thing.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_02: But so I would say coming from outside of it, like I didn't, you know, when I I I didn't know any of these, I didn't, you know, I didn't have any of these backgrounds, I didn't know any of these people, and they're all these leaders that suddenly people were kind of saying you must look up to these people, including people like Jonathan Fletcher.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and kind of coming into it, I was like, I don't know who these people are anyway.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I think probably I rubbed people up the wrong way because I was just like, well, why?
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, well, just bec just because you should, because they are the guys.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's their diet.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_02: These are the guys.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_02: Do you not know who these guys are?
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: Are like I have no idea who these guys are.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, no, I really don't.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_02: I really don't know who these guys are.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and I probably didn't do myself any favours and because I just didn't I didn't tow the line on it.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I just like do you know who that is?
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, not really does he do anything?
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what he does?
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_00: But that don't impress them.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_02: So he's got a car.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um but you know, um Brad Pitt, more like Arm Pitt.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_02: No, um throw me off my topic now.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_02: So but I I think inadvertently what happens then is when when there are those things like hey, these are the guys who've done this, they're from this sector and they've been to these camps or done that, whether it probably inadvertently what happens is is that there is a I've certainly had uh times when I've been with someone else and you've met someone new and someone has said, Oh, you know, who you you know, where you come from, what what university and whatever.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_02: And you can tell at some point you gave the wrong answer.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_02: And the person next to you you came with actually had some of those points racked up somewhere.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_02: And immediately you realized you were on the outside.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_02: Now that was may not have been purposeful by those people, but this is what I was talking about at the beginning, is that we may inadvertently think, oh look, these are the guys, this is the kind of sound people here, the guys we want, because they've all come from the right place.
• 1:07:24
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_02: He's a bit of an outsider we don't really know, plus he's not he's not willing to toe the line and look up to these people because I know who the hell they are.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um and um, yeah, and that's why I've amounted to nothing, it's just disrespectful.
• 1:07:42
  unknown: That's the thing.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Josh Bailey has made the good point.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's the pillars thing from Galatians 2, isn't it?
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when when Paul says, you know, Peter and that, that lot, though they were considered pillars.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_00: What they were means nothing to me.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, whatever.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, and there's there's a deference to be paid to and and look, that doesn't mean there's no such thing as authority.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean there's no such thing as hierarchy or leadership um or respect for leaders.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it it's it's what do the leaders do in order to serve those who don't have the same authority and well I mean for me, I uh when I I've preached before and I've talked about um when I was a youth worker, I mean I'm just bringing it down to this level of who's in and who's out, you know, within groups and stuff.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_02: When I was a youth worker, like with within any group of teenagers, you get what I affectionately refer to as the kind of the freaks and geeks.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I call them that because I would have happily sat in that group as a teenager anyway.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um and they are the ones who maybe are naturally a little bit outside of the norm or you know, maybe a just a bit odd sometimes.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_02: But there was always this thing in my head that said, like, you what whatever whatever that is, you you've got to make sure they feel like they're able to come in.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and there there's always gonna be like there is always an inner ring in whatever setting you're in, you know, in a group of friends or families or workplace or whatever.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_02: But there's a the the difference is being able to say, I recognize there's a ring here.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and but I want to try and make sure that I don't cut people for any particular reason.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you know, and trying to have an awareness that it's there at least.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_02: And someone might come to you and say, I mean, you know, if if someone comes to uh saying came to me and said Paul, I felt you always excluded me because of X, Y, and Z, I mean I'd be devastated that they felt that because it was certainly not an intentional thing.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_02: But it would be a wake-up call for me to say, maybe inadvertently I've done that.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's sometimes what happens in our circles, where people inadvertently don't realize that they're being very exclusionary to certain people who don't toe the line.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it and it gets so weapon scripture gets weaponized with the them and us thing, such that differences that are quite often cultural become like laden with theological weight.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_00: As as though because they have a different ministry philosophy to us, they're probably of a different tribe.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let's not just say tribe, they're probably outside the camp, right?
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and suddenly and so we throw our theology around and and the them and us divide then becomes like this massive, like reprobate elect divide, which which is is really heinous.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I want to to to put a try and a bit of a positive spin on some of this, um, I mean, one thing that's come out of this whole the the Fletcher thing in particular for me on a personal level, and I can only speak for myself, is that you know, as it's all unraveled, and I thought I can see how so much of what I've been taught over time has trickled down from that kind of way of thinking.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_02: But in a sense, it's it's helped give me a bit of a new lease of life from the point of view that like there are there are there are things that uh how's the best way to say this?
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um there are so many things that you know that that group would say, no, not in, not part of it.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_02: You can't think like this, you're not allowed to think like that.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, I mean, I just people would be really disparaging about like even praying for like healing and stuff like that, you know, and all kinds of things, you know.
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_02: Stuff that I grew up with and has felt like you can't do that anymore.
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like we don't do those things here.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I kind of look at it now and I go, these guys, so much of what I have was taught about what ministry should be, actually it's just fallen apart off the back of this fletched thing.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like I realize so much of it is just cultural snobbery, snobbery on a lot of it.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And worse, yeah.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't need to be constrained by it because I can open up the Bible and say, actually, look, I think there's there's a load of stuff here, which all those other you know, all those other groups who you were saying aren't really Christians?
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think they might be.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um they certainly acted quite a lot more Christians than I think they might be Christians, and I think they might be onto something and saying, you know, of course all of us have got.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and people someone will say, I'm sure someone will say at some point, this is in every tribe.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_02: Of course it is.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's why it's important we recognize it in our own tribe.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And to and to own the positives about it as well as looking at the shadow side, to know that yeah, there are there are shadows everywhere, the grass is not always greener, and that you know, if we've been given distinctives that are of benefit, it is for the blessing of other tribes.
• 1:12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it really strikes me that God quite likes tribes.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like tribalism has like a really horrible ring to it quite naturally, but God does like tribes.
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_00: He had 12 of them in the Old Testament, and there'll be like thousands in the new creation.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And every tribe, nation, people, and time, God quite likes tribes, and and you know, and God quite liked in the Old Testament saying, you know, the Danites, they're a bit like this, you know, and the Levites they're a bit like that, and the Judahites are like this, and and and we bring distinctives to one another and we can bless one another.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_00: So let's own the fact that, okay, like as an evangelist formed in this tribe, the Bible is front and center for me.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really grateful that I've been formed in that way.
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Much really.
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but now let me not anathematize every other evangelist who doesn't, you know, exactly do everything, you know, precisely the way that I do it.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_00: But let me bless others with that.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And they can bless me with you know their perspective and their and their distinctives.
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe we should lose some of the arrogance and the swagger and the sense of rightness.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And in in this humiliation for our tribe, um let us go back to the Lord and let us go back to other Christians and say, sorry, we we thought we were definitionally right and that your differences um put you beyond the pale.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, we need your differences, we need your rebuke, we need your perspective.
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And sorry, can we learn again?
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_00: I hope so anyway.
• 1:14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that'll do us.
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_00: We've gone way over time, but um probably we should we could have predicted that, couldn't we?
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Probably, having not done this for three months, you know, not only we're out of practice, but we've also got a lot to say.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Got a lot to say.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, guys, we've got 52 people watching right now.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you have all uh hit that subscribe button and uh click on the bell.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Smash that like smash that like button.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Paul, what are some other ways that people can keep in touch with us?
• 1:14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um well, I mean, obviously um most social medias, so find us at Speak Life UK um on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, and as of today on TikTok.
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_02: We've got nothing on there, we've got no content, we've got no idea what we're doing.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_02: We don't within a week, within a week, I think we'll have some TikToks.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_02: I've never I've never felt so old signing into TikTok.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what this is.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'll ask Jeeves about it.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you can keep up with all of the uh material resources that come out each week.
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, if you sign up to our uh email newsletter, so if you go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash sign up, you can register your email there and we'll keep you uh abreast of what's going on.
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_02: Brilliant.
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's so great to have you back, Paul.
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's good to be back.
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's great to have some uh conversation in the top chat.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Please do keep that conversation going down below in the comments.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, we will see you again next week.
• 1:15:25
  SPEAKER_00: God bless and goodbye.
• 1:15:26
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:15:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's all for us.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_02: We hope you enjoyed this week's podcast.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_02: We'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback and comments on the things that we talk about on the show.
• 1:15:35
  SPEAKER_02: So please do feel free to get in touch with us.
• 1:15:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you can do that by emailing info at speaklife.org.uk to let us know what you think, or do join us over on our Facebook page, facebook.com forward slash speaklifeuk, where there's always lively discussion.
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_02: We hope to see you again next week, but until then, keep speaking life.