Latest / I Don't Know You / How An Empty Room Shaped Noah Fiegener's Definition of Success

Transcript

How An Empty Room Shaped Noah Fiegener's Definition of Success · I Don't Know You

0:04
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm Matt.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm a Jesus follower,
0:07
SPEAKER_00: husband,
0:08
SPEAKER_00: father,
0:08
SPEAKER_00: son,
0:09
and friend who is deeply curious about people's creativity and
0:13
how we unleash our
0:14
SPEAKER_00: unique talents onto a world that needs them.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: This week, I'm joined by my friend Noah.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: He's a pastor, husband, father, and an amazing friend.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: We talk about how so much of deep thinking comes from the past,
0:26
SPEAKER_00: fatherhood,
0:26
SPEAKER_00: lessons we've learned through challenges,
0:28
SPEAKER_00: and how bad things that happen can be used for good.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: I love spending time with this guy, and you will too.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: Enjoy.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: What will you do with the first two hours of your day?
0:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so something else.
0:45
So when I first wake up,
0:47
what I'm doing is I'm going to make coffee with my wife.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I try to make coffee for me and Aaliyah.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: I'm like an espresso guy, so I'll make espresso in the morning.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: Are you guys having a machine?
1:02
SPEAKER_00: What's that?
1:02
SPEAKER_00: This is like the flimziest table of all time.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: It totally is.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a machine?
1:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: Revel was like a basic one.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: Still nice.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: Frenchy.
1:13
SPEAKER_01: Better than like the, you know, the average coffee machine.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: So I'll do that.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: And then I just try to be present with like the first hour of my morning.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
1:22
And not,
1:22
I know there's like a temptation to be like,
1:25
okay,
1:25
I need,
1:26
especially...
1:28
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, sometimes as a Christian, I get my Bible study, my Devo.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: And that's, I think that's fair.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: My wife usually wakes up earlier even than me.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: She wakes up like 5.30 and we'll go and read.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, Aaliyah wakes up every morning early.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Nice.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: And so I have made it a rule where I'm like,
1:45
SPEAKER_01: in 20 years to 40 years from now,
1:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to regret this.
1:49
I'm not gonna regret waking up in the first hour of my morning
1:51
and just being
1:52
present with my daughter and I wake up with her she wakes up
1:58
around the same time
1:59
she wakes you up yeah she wakes up like an hour earlier than
2:02
Aaliyah does and so
2:03
but I'm not gonna regret that I'm not gonna regret that time I
2:09
will regret the time
2:10
SPEAKER_01: that I missed with her and I know that as I look into the future
2:14
I think the story I hear over and over again is people say I
2:18
wish I spent more time
2:20
with yeah you know or it's never like I wish I got a bigger
2:23
like yeah I mean like
2:25
or I worked harder in the morning so I could yeah no yeah no
2:30
that's good yeah what
2:31
do you guys do together it's just slow morning like just
2:34
spending time I'll play
2:35
with Isley you know she's a year and a half so it's like she
2:39
just wants to play she
2:40
SPEAKER_01: just wants to run around she just wants to eat food and
2:42
SPEAKER_01: and I'm like, cool.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: How early does she eat?
2:46
Oh,
2:46
she wakes up and she goes like straight into the kitchen and
2:49
she's in the fruit phase.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: Oh, so like bananas, strawberries, grapes, blueberries, anything.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: Zee will just wake up and she'll be like,
2:58
SPEAKER_00: she'll come downstairs when she's ready for the day and say,
3:00
SPEAKER_00: banana.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: So like, good morning to you too.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: And that's all she wants.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:07
She's like,
3:07
you can't,
3:08
there's nothing you can do that will satiate my hunger for
3:11
banana.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:13
It is the funniest thing just seeing a little baby like holding
3:17
onto a fruit and
3:18
SPEAKER_01: just eating it.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they just like go at it with such gumption.
3:25
So anyways that's like my mornings and then quick enough I'm
3:29
off to work and
3:30
SPEAKER_01: starting the day and rotating.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: I know I'm trying to figure that out with this new season of like
3:36
whatever this consulting thing becomes is like there's no
3:40
office now so it's like
3:41
oh do I get a co-working space yeah do I like go to the library
3:46
do I I mean I love
3:49
like going to coffee shops it's just there is something about
3:51
the routine of like I
3:53
know where I'm going there's a place for me there that like
3:58
sounds nice about like
4:00
I don't know I've just been going to either my parents because
4:03
they have like
4:04
a desk downstairs that i can use or whatever but then it's like
4:07
oh the couch is
4:08
right there and it's really comfortable and there's no social
4:11
pressure around yeah
4:13
so it's like finding the mix of like what's the a right amount
4:18
of rigidity and like
4:21
almost social pressure like going to a coffee shop like i can't
4:24
be like looking on
4:25
youtube the whole time like someone behind me is gonna yeah
4:29
that is i was gonna
4:30
actually that was gonna be my next question actually follow up
4:33
where i was gonna
4:34
ask you does social pressure motivate you thousand percent yeah
4:37
me too i feel
4:40
SPEAKER_01: that's why i i i loved coffee shops still love coffee shops
4:44
SPEAKER_01: That's where we're doing a podcast now.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: But honestly, the library is the most underrated place.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: No, and it's free.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: It's free.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: And at least in our area,
4:56
SPEAKER_01: I can't speak for wherever someone is,
4:58
SPEAKER_01: but like we have public libraries and they're incredible.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: I like the Dana Point Library.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm there like multiple times a week for hours and hours.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, let me know.
5:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:09
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I will.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: The social pressure of
5:12
you working there would be helpful I feel like we'd end up
5:15
talking probably more
5:16
than we should be but that's the truth of it but it's a library
5:20
so you can't talk
5:22
but you know this is what it is and this is at least for me I
5:24
can't speak for
5:25
everyone is I grew up where libraries were boring it's like as
5:31
a child or even as a
5:32
teenager why would I go to the library I studied when I was in
5:35
college I went there
5:36
SPEAKER_01: it was a quiet place to study and so I became an adult come home
5:40
and I go you know what why do I want to go to a library you
5:43
know I love studying
5:45
yeah but I think it stopped me from like actually enjoying this
5:48
really awesome
5:49
place yeah yeah that's interesting because I feel like when I
5:53
was growing up we
5:54
would do like reading competitions at the library and if you
6:00
read a certain amount
6:01
then you would get like an in and out gift card or something
6:04
and so like that's my
6:07
tie to the library where it was like oh there's a place where I
6:09
got in and out gift
6:10
cards but only after a lot of hard work of reading yeah or like
6:14
erasers for pencils
6:17
and like schools like that was their version of a prize was
6:20
like school supplies
6:22
giving you erasers yeah that was so classic yeah but it depends
6:25
on the eraser there
6:26
were like the normal pink ones but then there were like all the
6:30
fun colorful little
6:33
memorabilia erasers too and stuff too and they're always too
6:36
heavy like the really
6:38
nice ones they were like these like flowers you put on the end
6:42
of your whole pencil
6:42
like you have to write well you know it's we're talking about
6:45
an age that's truly
6:46
dead like yeah I know yeah that's like who writes I was talking
6:50
to someone the
6:51
other day about cursive and like he writes in like almost
6:56
chicken scratch it's like
6:57
SPEAKER_00: half cursive half like penmanship
7:01
SPEAKER_00: or penmanship isn't a type of writing.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: Just like normal block lettering or whatever it is.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, is that going to ever be a thing?
7:10
SPEAKER_00: Are kids going to learn cursive?
7:13
SPEAKER_01: No, I think cursive is dying.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: It's just dead?
7:15
SPEAKER_01: I think it's dead.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's going to be something...
7:17
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of sad.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: It's such a beautiful... Yeah.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean, was cursive created...
7:26
with purpose it was created so you could write faster isn't
7:28
that the idea I think
7:29
so yeah yeah but I always have a hard time like Shelby and I
7:33
were in Laguna the
7:34
other day having a date and we looked at this like old um like
7:41
ledger for the
7:42
Laguna Beach hotel and every everything's in cursive and it's
7:46
like I can't read
7:47
SPEAKER_00: that yeah it's like
7:48
do we just have different reading comprehension back then where
7:52
we could like read
7:53
other people's cursive because I'm so used to reading like text
7:57
on a screen that's
7:58
SPEAKER_00: super legible and really they made it like easy mode I don't know it's an
8:03
SPEAKER_00: interesting thing to work through yeah and I'm like
8:08
I don't I don't know if it's bad or good you know yeah it sort
8:12
of seems like what's
8:15
the right term it's not yeah what's what's the neutral neutral
8:20
there we go yeah
8:20
because I'm like I don't know I'm if I can communicate with
8:26
whatever the the form
8:27
SPEAKER_01: texting or digitally and it's clear great if the thing is
8:33
I do think that there's something romanticized still to
8:38
handwriting and I think
8:40
even like as a study like you know the studies have come out
8:43
that handwriting is
8:44
far better than from memory yeah it's like better on every kind
8:49
of success metric I
8:50
think because it slows down your brain and yeah yeah and when I
8:56
when I for we just
8:57
had Mother's Day yesterday so I wrote a handwritten letter to
9:00
my wife I didn't type
9:02
SPEAKER_01: it out
9:03
And the reason why is because I recognize that there's
9:06
something human,
9:08
something personal.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: Even if my hand... Hey, I didn't write your letter for you?
9:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:13
But even like,
9:13
I don't know,
9:14
there's something to my chicken scratch handwriting to my wife.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: And knowing that, and so... Like she knows you by your handwriting.
9:23
Yeah,
9:23
she could probably look at a piece of paper and know whether or
9:25
not it was my handwriting.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
9:30
like I know that's Noah but I have no idea what he was trying
9:32
to say here it was
9:33
like a get help card or something so that falls beautifully
9:40
into my kind of the
9:43
framing of the questions that I want to ask you today first of
9:46
all thank you for
9:46
having the space and availability to make some time to have
9:52
this conversation
9:54
SPEAKER_00: because
9:55
I love you and I love doing life alongside of you and I want to
9:59
canonize this
10:00
conversation in a little piece of the internet yeah so we can
10:05
have it forever oh
10:06
dude why it's such an honor it's the first podcast I've ever
10:09
been on so well geez
10:13
SPEAKER_00: that makes me feel amazing and I'm sure it won't be the last maybe
10:20
but I wanted to frame our conversation with a long quote
10:24
because I know you love
10:26
long quotes and it's really it's from this old French I was
10:33
looking into him a
10:33
little bit this morning because I love the quote but then I
10:37
didn't really know much
10:38
about him but he was like a philosopher Jesuit priest and
10:42
paleontologist wow and I
10:44
was like this guy sounds really interesting I want to learn
10:47
more about him
10:49
but basically he wrote this thing on basically kind of what
10:55
we're talking about a
10:56
little bit around just like slowing down and it's a long quote
11:02
so I'll read it
11:03
really quick and then ask my questions but it's from this guy
11:08
named Pierre
11:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to mess this up,
11:11
SPEAKER_00: which I shouldn't because I took French,
11:12
SPEAKER_00: but I think it's Teilhard de Charin.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: I might be saying that wrong.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: I probably am.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, he writes, above all, trust in the slow work of God.
11:25
we are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end
11:29
without delay we
11:31
should like to skip the intermediate stages we are impatient of
11:35
being on the way to
11:37
something unknown something new and yet it is the law of all
11:41
progress that is made
11:43
by passing through some stages of instability and that it may
11:47
take a very long time
11:49
and so I think it is with you your ideas mature gradually let
11:54
them grow let them
11:55
shape themselves without undue haste don't try to force them on
11:59
as though you could
12:00
SPEAKER_00: be today as though you could be today what time that is to say grace and
12:07
circumstances acting on your own goodwill will make of you
12:11
tomorrow only God could
12:14
SPEAKER_00: say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be
12:18
give your lord the benefit of believing that his hand is
12:22
leading you and accept the
12:24
anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete yeah
12:29
that's profound I feel
12:31
like you can just sit in that for like a long time I feel like
12:34
I need a journal
12:35
SPEAKER_01: about that
12:36
yeah I can send you a picture of it yeah I would love that
12:39
we're done interesting I
12:42
find that a lot of Jesuits are these kinds of meditational slow
12:47
going patient
12:50
incredible writers yeah and then they're always multifaceted
12:53
yeah they're like real
12:55
practical yeah it's really interesting because like I think the
12:59
Jesuit order oh
13:00
it's going to get loud oh it's about to get real loud these
13:03
guys are about to
13:04
SPEAKER_01: remove all these yeah
13:06
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the Lord's work at hand right there.
13:10
Someone's going to fast forward through this video and they're
13:13
all going to be
13:14
SPEAKER_00: gone,
13:14
SPEAKER_00: you know,
13:15
SPEAKER_00: one by one.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: Just time lapsing.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
13:19
SPEAKER_00: the Jesuit order,
13:20
SPEAKER_00: at least from my limited understanding,
13:23
is like built on the practicality of like living your faith out
13:27
in like some
13:29
SPEAKER_00: version of really good craftsmanship.
13:34
and it's like one of the oldest orders of kind of like theology
13:38
and thought and
13:39
stuff in general where it's like this is just everything they
13:43
do and they write and
13:44
they produce it's just like oh wow I gotta like sit and ponder
13:48
this forever I think
13:51
that but sorry I'm like I don't even move on because I actually
13:53
think this is so
13:54
SPEAKER_01: interesting yes
13:55
is it is the lifestyle that they've chosen for themselves that
14:00
create these types of people.
14:02
I think there's something at least noteworthy to say that the
14:04
type of lifestyle
14:05
SPEAKER_01: that you create in yourself in the pace of your life
14:10
helps with contemplation or removes contemplation thousand
14:13
percent and Jesuits you
14:16
know are very much their monster monastery by nature yeah
14:20
they're living out in you
14:22
know communities they have rituals of life there's something
14:26
about them that in
14:28
their intention creates very thoughtful yeah well they're like
14:34
I feel like um
14:36
SPEAKER_00: I've known about Wendell Berry for a long time,
14:39
SPEAKER_00: but I've just barely started to start reading him.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: My brother is like the biggest Wendell Berry fan of all time.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: He's probably frustrated that I haven't started reading him earlier,
14:55
SPEAKER_00: but I feel like he was like a
14:57
I mean he's not modern day anymore but like a modern day Jesuit
15:01
kind of vibe where
15:02
he was just like I think he just he had like a very successful
15:05
life in a big city
15:06
or whatever and then like moved to some rural area I don't know
15:09
a ton about his
15:10
life yeah and then like I think became a farmer so that he
15:14
could just like practice
15:15
this idea basically where it was just like let me think deeply
15:19
and write and make
15:20
SPEAKER_00: beautifully like worded prose and poetry and then
15:27
from that basically have this huge wealth of knowledge that
15:32
he's passed on to us
15:35
but really coming from a place of like practice and yeah we
15:40
become the people
15:41
somehow I think it'll be fine on this we become the people that
15:46
we like practice
15:47
SPEAKER_00: being and so it's like
15:50
this guy I was reading a tiny bit about him like the practical
15:55
work of his life was
15:56
paleontology and he actually like at least from my limited
16:00
understanding of him
16:01
made advances to kind of like a lot of people were like well
16:05
evolutionary biology
16:07
SPEAKER_00: or like
16:08
history or however we think of that can't like be reconciled
16:12
with like theology and
16:14
an understanding of God and he was like actually they can be
16:17
and here's how like
16:18
because I am a scientist yeah and so he was like I think on the
16:24
forefront of that
16:26
thought and kind of working through that in like the late 1800s
16:29
or something yeah
16:30
many that again there's so many like little I know drag points
16:35
that I want to like
16:36
climb let's do it with but there is something interesting there
16:40
too where it's like
16:41
I don't know where the modern notion of science and faith being
16:46
divided came from.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: I feel that comes from the early 2000s.
16:50
SPEAKER_01: I think, yeah, just the postmodern mindset.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: Maybe even farther back.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it was the Industrial Revolution.
16:57
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere, maybe it's Nietzsche.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's, I don't know.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: Maybe Darwin?
17:05
SPEAKER_01: He's a big part of it, I think.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: But I don't think that the Christians of the past thought that way.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: No.
17:15
They were the scientists that gave us a lot of the discoveries
17:19
that we started working from.
17:22
And not to say that there aren't tensions between science and
17:26
faith,
17:26
but I think there
17:28
It seems to be that men of faith,
17:31
women of faith in the past weren't as put off by discovery.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: No, they were excited by it.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Well,
17:37
SPEAKER_00: at the same time,
17:38
SPEAKER_01: full recognition,
17:40
SPEAKER_01: there were parts of the Christian faith that were very put off and very,
17:44
SPEAKER_01: very fearful of it.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
17:46
I don't know if that's like healthily living into relationship
17:50
with Jesus.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: It's complicated and nuanced for sure.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:57
yeah I mean there's so much to unpack yes yes yes there's so
18:01
many rivals which I
18:02
love that's why that's why we got to read more of the Jesuits
18:06
yeah but I'm curious
18:09
about like kind of reading that quote and thinking through it
18:14
like what's a lesson
18:16
SPEAKER_00: you've had to learn kind of the hard way
18:19
through like this slow work process of like kind of coming to
18:23
it every day and
18:24
maybe we were talking about it a little bit at the beginning of
18:27
just like your
18:27
mornings and stuff but is there anything else I'm sure there's
18:30
many things that
18:32
like that speak to that kind of like slow work that you maybe
18:36
have tried to like
18:36
speed up that you're like actually I have to slow this down I
18:42
think that and again
18:43
SPEAKER_01: I think you're
18:45
SPEAKER_01: You have to contextualize me to the line of work that I do,
18:51
which is I'm faster so it kind of works towards the way I
18:56
answer this question.
18:58
I think the slowest thing that's taken a lot of work that I
19:01
thought would be faster
19:03
SPEAKER_01: is my character.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: I think that if you had
19:11
asked me at different stages of my life from my teenage years
19:15
to my young adult
19:15
years to my mid-twenties and now going into my thirties is I
19:22
think I would have
19:23
liked to think that I was farther along than I really was and
19:28
that I was more
19:29
mature than I really thought I was and I underestimated the
19:35
amount of work in
19:36
SPEAKER_01: discipline and honestly partnership with the Spirit of God
19:41
to move me into a person replicating the kingdom of God and so
19:48
I think that that to
19:49
me is what like I think of is I think that a lot of people just
19:54
think that they're
19:54
really good and that they're like yeah no I'm a good like I've
19:58
worked out my ethics
19:59
SPEAKER_01: really well but I feel that at least in application that's not like
20:06
SPEAKER_01: I feel like as I've gotten older,
20:07
SPEAKER_01: I look back on my life and I go,
20:09
SPEAKER_01: man,
20:09
SPEAKER_01: I was not nearly as patient as that talks about.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: I was not nearly as loving, not nearly as kind.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: I was quite selfish.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and that's taken time.
20:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: And it's only with time that I realized that.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: I feel like, yeah, that is, I don't know.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: That's the challenge of this to me is like, it's a lifelong thing.
20:36
yeah no that's literally yeah and there's a maturing that
20:39
happens as you I don't
20:40
know I want to figure out those lessons earlier in life so that
20:44
like I have more
20:45
time to bask in like what you were talking about even in like
20:48
having slow mornings
20:49
where it's like yeah you know most of the answers that I get
20:52
from people is like
20:54
i get the americanized kind of cannibalized like i'm good and
20:58
it's like oh are you
20:59
like what i usually asked after is like cool now that we got
21:02
like the dumb answers
21:03
out of the way how are you actually yeah like and then they
21:06
pause and like reflect
21:08
and slow down a little bit but like most of the time it's like
21:11
oh busy and busy is
21:12
like the metric for like yeah like you have a busy life you
21:16
live in orange county
21:17
SPEAKER_00: oh you must be doing well like and it's this
21:20
I don't know it's this backwards kind of what I don't know I
21:24
look at like anybody
21:25
that thinks about success even today is like what is success
21:30
well actually success
21:31
is like not doing anything it's like chilling and having so
21:35
much money that you can
21:36
SPEAKER_00: just do whatever you want it's like
21:39
that's also wrong but it seems like there's some sort of
21:42
tension between like the
21:43
busyness of your life now and how you're always running around
21:46
you're doing
21:47
everything possible and then it's also like well but your ideal
21:50
is like doing
21:50
nothing yeah it's like well somewhere in between that is like
21:56
the real answer maybe
21:57
yeah no I think so it reminds me of uh at least in you know the
22:05
genesis creation
22:06
SPEAKER_01: story
22:07
SPEAKER_01: God creates Adam and Eve with the intention of tending the garden.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: He gives them work.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of the misconception... Wow.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: It's getting loud.
22:21
But a lot of the misconception going around the idea of work is
22:25
that work is this
22:27
SPEAKER_01: necessary evil.
22:28
So you're like,
22:29
okay,
22:30
I'm going to...
22:30
You know,
22:32
it's interesting,
22:33
I guess.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm like...
22:35
SPEAKER_01: tangled by nuance all the time.
22:38
guessing saying one extreme is that work is evil and I just
22:42
work so I can make
22:43
money to do the things that I really love and even you know I'm
22:46
just gonna get past
22:47
this work 40-hour work week or whatever yeah God has put in my
22:50
life and then the
22:51
other is is that work is my identity and it is my everything
22:55
yeah and so you I
22:57
think I've met both types of people totally I think older
23:00
generations were like
23:01
yeah I work so I can provide in which I think that there is
23:04
some some rightness
23:05
SPEAKER_01: there
23:07
And then there's the extreme of,
23:08
I would say,
23:09
modern today,
23:09
which is hustle culture.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: That is, I will work and it will be my identity.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: And it will be my everything.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: And then after I work my youth away, make enough money.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: And then in my old age, somehow my character is going to change.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: On a dime.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, on a dime.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to retire.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: And then it's all going to be enough.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: But the reality is, you look at these multi-billionaires,
23:36
they have more money than they could ever imagine you know they
23:39
have more power
23:41
than anyone could ever want and they're not retiring and I'm
23:44
sure that there's a
23:45
minority group that are at least non-public facing wealthy
23:50
individuals who do do
23:52
this who do retire but there are many examples where it seems
23:56
to be that it's never
23:57
enough yeah and I think there's something to be said that
24:01
there's an illusion there
24:02
SPEAKER_01: of success there's an illusion of satisfaction yeah
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, and even, oh man, that sentence, like, work my youth away,
24:12
like really caught me like work in the wrong sense of working
24:15
where it's just like
24:16
I'm gonna hustle forever and I'm not gonna have like slow
24:19
mornings with my daughter
24:21
that's like gonna grow up and she's not gonna like be around
24:24
for those slow
24:25
mornings like this is a very specific point in time I was just
24:30
at a spiritual
24:31
retreat last weekend and I was talking to the guy that was
24:36
doing the sessions
24:39
and we were just talking about fatherhood for a couple minutes
24:42
and he was just like
24:44
hey like do whatever you gotta like work hard but like try and
24:49
figure out something
24:50
so that you like you can spend as much time as possible with
24:54
like these young kids
24:55
SPEAKER_00: that you're growing because like
24:57
that's such a short short time like he's coming out of being
25:00
like the parent phase
25:02
and now he's like the empty nester phase basically and he was
25:05
just but he's just
25:07
like right on the cusp of that and he was like I wish I had
25:10
more time with my kids
25:11
like and this is a guy who's just getting out of that phase
25:14
where it's like the old
25:15
people that I talked to also echo the same thing but it's just
25:19
like oh man how do
25:20
SPEAKER_00: you
25:21
how do you do what you have to do in order to provide but then
25:24
like not get so
25:25
greedy for lack of a better way of saying that but it's like I
25:28
gotta work so much
25:29
that I can build this big mountain that we can live on it's
25:32
like well what's enough
25:34
yeah and it's in the parent and any parent will know this is
25:39
like and this is the
25:41
saying that goes around all the time is that the days are long
25:45
the years are short
25:45
SPEAKER_01: yeah yeah and
25:48
I really like that quote where he talks a lot about patience
25:50
and I think parenting
25:52
is a tension of patience and it's in multiple ways it's the
25:58
patience of like being
25:59
with your child as they're throwing a tantrum while also being
26:02
patient and knowing
26:03
that you're present with a child while having to do a hundred
26:06
other things and it's
26:07
like there is just the reality of being an adult and having to
26:12
live your life and
26:12
SPEAKER_01: being in that and I think
26:17
this is so interesting so many good rabbit holes here that I
26:19
just like want to go
26:21
down because I think you're a lot of people have I don't know
26:30
they have children
26:31
and then they go like oh yeah like they're in it I'm not going
26:33
to stop my life for
26:34
this you know and I think that's a very popular thing that I
26:39
hear is I'm just going
26:42
SPEAKER_01: to bring my kids along for everything yeah and I think that
26:47
yeah it makes sense but in some regards you also have to center
26:51
your children and
26:52
like you have to you do have to be intentional to them like
26:57
they aren't just
26:58
something that you drag around it's it's much more like a
27:01
garden that's stationary
27:03
and that you have to foster yeah that's an interesting analogy
27:06
with the garden is
27:07
like I don't know you can't really grow a garden in in like a
27:11
suitcase yeah not
27:14
SPEAKER_00: well no
27:15
yeah and how often do we think about like I don't know even
27:18
families that are and
27:20
again there's so much nuance and complexity to like oh we had
27:23
to move over here
27:23
because it was cheaper or because your dad was in the military
27:26
or whatever it is
27:27
SPEAKER_00: and there's obviously you do what you got to do right
27:31
um it is like what's the ideal um and it is like oh well
27:35
somewhere they can put
27:36
down roots somewhere that you can grow a garden um somewhere
27:39
you can like slow down
27:41
and water your plants yeah and I and again this is like you
27:45
can't you and I think
27:47
you preface it well you got to do what you got to do but
27:50
something that I've heard
27:51
SPEAKER_01: often
27:53
are people who move around through their childhood it's never
27:56
poised me in the
27:57
positive yeah it's usually like yeah I moved from here to here
28:00
to here I didn't
28:01
have good deep friendships my roots weren't ever deep you know
28:05
and then it's
28:06
usually followed by some types of like problems that moved them
28:08
yeah and so I think
28:11
there is something to be said at least about like deep rooted
28:15
long-term stability
28:17
SPEAKER_00: for children that's why you can never move away from being a point yeah
28:21
I don't want to I don't want to it is so beautiful yeah yeah
28:27
it's hard to hard to
28:30
like I don't know get outside the the OC bubble and be like oh
28:34
man it is yeah there
28:35
are lots of problems here but it is so great I remember so I
28:39
grew up in San
28:40
Clemente and I remember going and I was walking with my
28:45
brothers we ended up like
28:46
SPEAKER_01: walking alongside this guy as we're talking to him
28:51
we last one we made it oh is it the last one second last one
28:59
but we were talking to
29:02
him and he was telling us how in his business he ended up
29:05
flying everywhere around
29:06
the world he'd been all around the world and he said I said you
29:10
know okay you've
29:10
SPEAKER_01: been around the world where would you want to live like now that you
29:15
flown around and he said San Clemente or you know Dana Point
29:19
neighboring city yeah
29:20
and I'm and I'm like yeah I think that was the deciding moment
29:24
where I was like I
29:25
never want to move away I want to travel I want to be out I
29:27
want to go but I think
29:29
this is a good nest yeah yeah and it's crazy to think that like
29:33
we were just born
29:34
SPEAKER_00: here you know yeah oh my goodness immense immense uh
29:40
what's the word i'm looking for blessing blessing yeah yeah
29:44
probably a better word
29:45
i feel like you've got slipping a lot of ten dollar words in
29:48
that brandy orange i
29:49
don't know i don't know about that but yeah um there's a word
29:55
i'm really looking
29:56
for anyways move faster um if you if you think of it blurt it
30:00
out yeah i'll blur um
30:02
I'm curious about like what you were talking about with your
30:05
character and kind of
30:06
like the maturing of that and the more like the slowing of that
30:09
so that you can see
30:10
SPEAKER_00: the maturing of that.
30:12
Do you have like an inkling of like the spirit that God is the
30:18
character spirit
30:19
SPEAKER_00: that God is like curating or creating in you in this season?
30:24
Like,
30:24
do you do you feel like he's kind of calling a specific piece
30:27
of that character?
30:29
SPEAKER_00: out and like that to work through?
30:33
SPEAKER_01: That's a good question.
30:46
It's funny that you mentioned the patience because I think I
30:49
came out of a season
30:50
SPEAKER_01: of deep patience.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: This is the last one.
30:59
There's a book called The Patient Ferment of the Early Church
31:05
and in it it talks a
31:06
lot about patience and it felt like I came out of a season of
31:09
patience and I've
31:11
just entered into this season of being stretched but it's not a
31:17
character thing.
31:18
I think I'm having to humble myself in this season and learn
31:24
humility well
31:26
and listen to those who have gone before me and to trust that
31:31
they may actually
31:32
have gone somewhere that I haven't gone yet and I think there's
31:36
something in me
31:37
that doesn't always want to listen to somebody older than me
31:42
and that's pride and
31:45
SPEAKER_01: the process of just saying like listening and sitting back and
31:51
SPEAKER_01: Not being passive,
31:53
SPEAKER_01: always pouring back in,
31:54
SPEAKER_01: always engaging,
31:56
but also having the humility to stop and consider and to take
32:00
the reality of an
32:01
SPEAKER_01: older man in my life,
32:02
SPEAKER_01: an older woman in my life,
32:04
SPEAKER_01: correcting me or guiding me or saying,
32:07
SPEAKER_01: hey,
32:08
SPEAKER_01: I've been here a little bit longer than you.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: Press the brakes in your early career.
32:16
to grow and I think that's where I'm growing is in my humility
32:21
there yeah yeah I
32:23
resonate with that yeah yeah so much of what I feel like I've
32:26
been learning about
32:27
just in my own walk is like Jesus was just someone who was
32:33
gentle and humble yeah
32:34
and then like of course like ultimate power ultimate authority
32:39
ultimate like
32:40
uh mercy and grace and justice and all the all of those things
32:44
but also just like
32:45
humble and gentle and it's like yeah man those things only come
32:50
when you like die
32:51
to yourself fully yeah and you can be humble enough to feel
32:55
like yeah like I don't
32:56
know all the answers and someone else is gonna have a different
32:59
perspective um that
33:01
might be better than mine or whatever but I feel like I
33:04
resonate with that on a
33:05
SPEAKER_00: deep level where it's like how how
33:09
I don't want to learn the lesson through the hard experience of
33:13
falling a bunch.
33:14
I would rather just look at all of the history of people that
33:20
have fallen and be
33:22
SPEAKER_00: like,
33:22
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
33:23
SPEAKER_00: I think I should probably be humble and gentle.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: Or even just to feel like, I have experience.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: I know what I'm doing.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to do this.
33:30
And maybe even the thing that I know right now has worked in
33:33
the past for my life.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: And now the circumstances I'm in right now
33:38
I'm just gonna plug and play you know but the reality is the
33:41
things that I know may
33:43
not actually fit the circumstances of the moment and I think
33:46
that that can be an
33:48
arrogance and even as we're talking about it like we were
33:50
talking about children
33:51
earlier like there's a humility in children like yeah I think
33:55
that's why Jesus says
33:57
SPEAKER_01: that we must become like children
33:59
SPEAKER_01: And it's this feeling of like,
34:01
SPEAKER_01: you know,
34:01
SPEAKER_01: and I think in our culture when we think of children,
34:03
SPEAKER_01: we think of purity,
34:03
SPEAKER_01: we think of like,
34:04
SPEAKER_01: oh man,
34:04
SPEAKER_01: you know,
34:05
SPEAKER_01: we've elevated children.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that was what the thought was in the days of Jesus.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: It was much more of a, you actually have nothing to offer.
34:12
SPEAKER_01: It was a down look.
34:14
SPEAKER_01: People look down on children because they couldn't offer society.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: They weren't honored.
34:19
But there's something that Jesus says that we have to come to
34:22
him like children.
34:23
and the idea I think there's a humility there there's an
34:26
there's an openness to say
34:27
that we have nothing to offer we actually are wholly dependent
34:31
yeah and so anyways
34:33
I just think of my daughter and where she like will stop and
34:37
she'll look at
34:37
something and she's like amused by it and she's enjoying it and
34:40
she'll like so
34:41
SPEAKER_01: present so present and I'm like oh like
34:46
I could very walk like oh grow up you know come on honey yeah
34:50
let's move on let's
34:50
move past this thing yeah like oh you know so adolescent of you
34:54
you know yeah but
34:55
like there's a humility to stop with her and just to sit in the
34:57
grass and like yeah
34:58
this is good um but yeah anyways yeah that's so good yeah I'm
35:04
curious about your
35:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm
35:07
this sort of changing conversation a little bit like your
35:09
background is in in youth
35:11
ministry and you've been doing that for a long time and and
35:15
went to Bible college
35:17
did theology and and formation and all of the things that
35:22
surround kind of pastoral
35:23
SPEAKER_00: care and and youth ministry like
35:27
SPEAKER_00: was your life for a long time.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm curious about,
35:32
because I feel like there's a lot of times when patience gets
35:38
outrun by the desire
35:39
SPEAKER_00: to get to a certain place or do a certain thing.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: Patience allows you to be like,
35:49
SPEAKER_00: okay,
35:50
SPEAKER_00: we're going to get through this or whatever,
35:51
SPEAKER_00: but let's slow down.
35:53
Was there a time that you felt like you were really putting a
35:56
ton into youth
35:58
SPEAKER_00: ministry that you were like,
36:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm expecting something to come out of this,
36:03
SPEAKER_00: but nothing was really happening?
36:07
SPEAKER_00: You were being patient in that?
36:08
So I remember,
36:10
I've been a middle school pastor,
36:12
I've been a high school pastor,
36:15
As of recent I was a high school pastor and really when I
36:18
became a high school
36:18
SPEAKER_01: pastor I came into this ministry where I took it over and it was really a
36:22
SPEAKER_01: rebuilding of a ministry and
36:25
SPEAKER_01: Everyone was off campus.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: It was just after COVID.
36:28
SPEAKER_01: Things were weird.
36:30
SPEAKER_01: And something that I believe in firmly is the incarnate body of Christ.
36:35
Meaning that there's something beneficial to meeting in person
36:39
and not just being
36:41
SPEAKER_01: online because there's something that you see and you meet.
36:44
SPEAKER_01: So anyways, I'm bringing people online or back in person.
36:47
SPEAKER_01: Leaders are coming back and we're having, we start doing events.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: We're just doing all the things that seem to be right.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: and I remember sitting in my youth office and this is about six,
36:56
SPEAKER_01: seven,
36:57
SPEAKER_01: maybe eight months in and as we're there,
37:02
SPEAKER_01: we're talking,
37:02
SPEAKER_01: our youth team,
37:03
SPEAKER_01: and I remember talking to the coordinator and she said,
37:06
SPEAKER_01: no,
37:06
SPEAKER_01: we're doing everything right and it just seems to not be working.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: And that same week,
37:15
maybe the week after I walked in and the youth ministry was
37:18
like the smallest it
37:19
SPEAKER_01: had ever been.
37:21
And I remember just thinking to myself,
37:22
like,
37:22
Lord,
37:23
we're doing everything right.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: And what is going on?
37:30
SPEAKER_01: And I was so corrected.
37:34
SPEAKER_01: And that night,
37:36
SPEAKER_01: it's a small night,
37:38
SPEAKER_01: people were worshiping,
37:39
SPEAKER_01: and this girl in the back and her dad come late.
37:43
and then they get encountered by the Lord and she's weeping in
37:47
the back and I walk
37:49
SPEAKER_01: back she's weeping her dad's crying like what's going on and the Lord had
37:53
encountered them in this small room of this small group of high
37:57
schoolers and she
37:58
said I've been praying for a friend and I just encountered a
38:01
friend in this room
38:02
and it was specifically towards this one person and they came
38:06
up to me and they
38:06
SPEAKER_01: started this friendship and I think what I learned there
38:12
SPEAKER_01: was that you can,
38:14
SPEAKER_01: and by the way,
38:15
eventually all those right things would accumulate to people
38:19
coming to know Jesus
38:21
and youth coming to the ministry and the ministry growing and
38:24
all the right things.
38:27
But in that process,
38:30
if I was only focused on the end,
38:32
I would have missed that.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: I would have missed the beauty of this high school girl who was lonely,
38:38
SPEAKER_01: being encountered by the living God,
38:40
and then gaining a friend and her dad being there and me being
38:44
able to wreck you
38:45
know not reconcile but just walk with her dad through this and
38:49
and so yeah I think
38:51
that was one of the classic times of my minutes of my life
38:55
where we were doing all
38:57
the right things and eventually it would get there but that
39:03
that end story of you
39:04
SPEAKER_01: know 170 kids in our youth ministry
39:09
SPEAKER_01: came through two years of hardship, of just grinding.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: Gardening.
39:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, gardening, legit.
39:17
Removing weeds,
39:18
planting,
39:19
creating an environment,
39:20
watering,
39:21
and God does all the growth.
39:22
SPEAKER_01: But it was that season.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: So I think that was really moving to me.
39:29
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, that was a season where I felt like
39:33
it took time nothing was happening in the moment yeah but
39:36
obviously stuff was yeah
39:37
and I that is the truth of it is I think a lot of the time the
39:43
moments of the quiet
39:44
seem like nothing's happening yeah yeah the reason I ask is
39:48
because I'm like in a
39:49
season of that now where it's like I feel like I'm working
39:53
really hard towards like
39:55
an idea that I have clarity about with like this new job idea
40:01
but then it feels
40:02
SPEAKER_00: like oh
40:03
like where is the proof of fruit you know and it's like oh but
40:08
why are you like
40:09
stressing out you you just started working like five four
40:14
months ago like it's
40:16
gonna take longer for fruit to like produce yeah so like do the
40:21
the things
40:21
SPEAKER_00: consistently that you know will grow the tree into a flourishing
40:28
but I think like it's so helpful and encouraging to me to hear
40:31
like oh yeah like
40:32
that happened to me yeah and I was dealing with like a very
40:35
different set of
40:36
problems but the outcome was the same yes yeah I'm curious as
40:42
someone who is in
40:43
SPEAKER_00: youth ministry and a high school leader
40:46
SPEAKER_00: for my church.
40:48
What do you feel like,
40:49
because I have my own answer to this,
40:51
but I'm curious to hear yours.
40:54
What do you feel like being involved in youth ministry has
40:58
revealed about spiritual
40:59
SPEAKER_00: formation for you that you can't really learn any other way?
41:06
SPEAKER_01: That is a deep question that I don't know.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: It makes me feel like I need to take a step back and think about it.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: I think
41:17
SPEAKER_01: I've learned in spiritual formation that we do not grow alone.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: There's no such thing as growing alone.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: In youth ministry,
41:28
one thing you realize as a youth pastor is that you need
41:31
incredible leaders and you
41:33
need people who are willing to take time out of their own lives
41:36
to pour into the
41:37
SPEAKER_01: lives of the younger generation.
41:39
SPEAKER_01: As a youth pastor, you're limited.
41:44
and so what you do is you get these leaders hopefully multiple
41:47
leaders who step
41:48
into these youth's lives and then you minister to the leader
41:53
and the student but
41:54
then the leader is really walking with the student and walking
41:57
with them in their
41:58
own lives and encouraging them in the word and encouraging them
42:00
in their walk in
42:01
formation and so I think one of the things that I've learned is
42:05
that you can do
42:06
nothing alone and there's the old proverb or old African
42:11
proverb that is if you
42:12
SPEAKER_01: want to go
42:15
Fast or if you want to if you want to go fast go alone if you
42:18
want to go far go
42:19
together and I think that that's true and I almost find that no
42:26
there's no such
42:26
SPEAKER_01: thing as like a self-made man
42:29
yeah I think that's all another illusion is somewhere along the
42:34
way you were helped
42:34
by somebody and whether that is someone did a job that you did
42:38
not want to do and
42:39
that's a it's a minor thing to clean the bathrooms of your
42:41
restaurant or or it was
42:44
a business partner who was investing alongside you both of them
42:47
had equal benefit
42:49
to you and and to see them as both valuable so I guess saying
42:55
that to the youth
42:56
SPEAKER_01: yeah that's I think what I've learned is
42:59
SPEAKER_01: formation is done together.
43:01
And of course it's with the Lord,
43:03
but yeah,
43:04
you need people and that's what the church is.
43:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: Who was someone that like helped form you into who you are today?
43:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:17
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people, a lot of people.
43:19
I have a lot of gratitude to many men in my life who walked
43:25
with me through either
43:27
SPEAKER_01: as a short season or long.
43:29
season first my high school pastor his name was Rod Mayer
43:33
incredible man legendary
43:36
legendary youth pastor was in ministry for 40 years as a youth
43:39
pastor and he was a
43:43
father to me in the season where I felt like I didn't have a
43:45
father and he walked
43:46
SPEAKER_01: with me he was patient with me and he walked with me into my early 20s
43:52
SPEAKER_01: So I have an incredible gratitude.
43:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't think I would be a pastor without him.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: I was going to ask.
43:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
43:58
SPEAKER_01: I think he was one of the greatest examples of the grace,
44:02
mercy and forgiveness of Jesus in my life and showed me what
44:09
that looked like while
44:10
SPEAKER_01: also showing me the practical,
44:12
SPEAKER_01: the orthopraxy of my faith,
44:14
SPEAKER_01: which is to love the poor,
44:16
SPEAKER_01: the orphan and the widow.
44:18
SPEAKER_01: And he was somebody who
44:20
all the missions trips we did was focused on the poor and
44:23
loving the poor and and
44:25
empowering the poor of every place and so yeah really moving
44:31
guy and then I had you
44:36
know then I think so that's the pastor but then there's a guy
44:39
named Cam Marts and
44:40
he was incredible like he was a youth leader and he was he was
44:44
a friend to me and
44:45
SPEAKER_01: he
44:46
was real with me and so it's again I could just continue going
44:49
down that but yeah
44:50
um yeah there's so many so many men who just said yes yeah and
44:55
we're available yeah
44:58
that's really good yeah I mean I think about all the to your
45:01
point like life is
45:02
done in community and you kind of are who you hang out with as
45:08
as like crass as
45:09
that saying is I think it doesn't do justice to the nuance of
45:12
like living into life
45:13
SPEAKER_00: but um
45:16
yeah it's it's cool to know that like the people that are
45:19
around us uh and and
45:21
maybe scary depending on the people that are around you yeah um
45:25
but yeah um you
45:28
just said a really big word orthopraxis or yeah orthopraxy um
45:33
and that's because
45:34
you're big nerd and you love theology and philosophy and uh i'm
45:39
curious like what
45:41
SPEAKER_00: is one of your favorite um
45:44
books that kind of shaped you in those things in orthopraxy and
45:48
like my practice or
45:50
just theology yeah in like your way of thinking about the Bible
45:54
or thinking about
45:55
philosophy something that was influential or like something
45:59
that you just really
46:00
enjoyed that you kind of go back to yeah I think in my early
46:04
years and I think
46:05
every Christian many Christians many Christians will say this
46:08
is CS Lewis's books
46:10
SPEAKER_01: all of CS Lewis's literature is really excellent to begin
46:14
at least like just growing you past maybe like the basics of
46:17
just like reading your
46:18
bible just like mere christianity your christianity i listen to
46:21
mere christianity
46:22
SPEAKER_01: on audiobook like five times
46:25
SPEAKER_01: and then I read it and then you know The Great Divorce by C.S.
46:28
Lewis is excellent and not that it yeah he has his own thing
46:33
and then yeah The
46:34
Screwtape Letters and so on such excellent books I think one of
46:38
the crazy things to
46:39
me is like he didn't become a Christian until like later in his
46:42
life yeah yeah
46:43
isn't that just wild to think about oh my goodness it's almost
46:47
like the I think of
46:48
SPEAKER_00: that when I think of like Mozart
46:51
where it's like oh he only lived till he was like it was like a
46:54
crazy age wasn't it
46:55
like 32 or something it's like imagine if he lived to like 65
46:59
where it was like
47:01
imagine the type of music we would have it's like obviously
47:04
that world doesn't
47:05
exist but it's just weird to think about of course the things
47:08
that led up to C.S.
47:10
Lewis becoming a Christian wouldn't have happened like he
47:13
wouldn't have become a
47:13
SPEAKER_00: Christian if he didn't live his life first or whatever but it's just like
47:17
man why why didn't he become a Christian sooner so that we
47:20
could have that writing
47:21
but then you wouldn't have that writing unless he lived his
47:23
whole life before it's
47:25
kind of this weird whatever happened happened for a reason
47:29
obviously but it's just
47:30
SPEAKER_00: like oh I would have loved more C.S.
47:32
Lewis yeah honestly he is no he he's just a juggernaut really
47:37
is and that's where
47:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm like if I hear him quoted in a sermon I'm like just warm as my heart
47:46
SPEAKER_01: just because I'm so fond of him.
47:49
SPEAKER_01: That's a writer.
47:51
SPEAKER_01: A.W.
47:52
SPEAKER_01: Tozer, huge writer for me.
47:55
I think I would say that a lot of the early church fathers
48:06
really meant a lot to me.
48:07
So reading like old Christian authors from the early church
48:12
really moved me.
48:13
SPEAKER_01: Is there a particular one?
48:15
um yeah I'd say Justin the Martyr moved me okay so he's an
48:20
early church father have
48:22
you read he's not he's not an early church father but have you
48:25
read any Jacques
48:26
Philippe no okay I'm just getting into a book on the Holy
48:30
Spirit from from him um
48:33
I'd be curious to get your thoughts on it but you know Justin
48:36
the Martyr why why
48:37
SPEAKER_00: him
48:38
one and just since we're talking about the early church I think
48:40
there's a good book
48:41
called water from a deep well okay and that's a really really
48:45
excellent book that
48:45
talks about the early church I'll add it to the ever-growing
48:49
list yeah I know it's
48:51
literally that's what I feel is like there's so many brilliant
48:54
authors and we're
48:55
SPEAKER_01: talking about like
48:56
this is like the early church but like there are 20th century
49:00
writers who are just
49:01
brilliant and modern day writers that are so excellent I was
49:05
going to say Tim
49:06
SPEAKER_01: Mackey is one of them for me today you know N.T.
49:09
Wright Michael Bird Tim Mackey's Bible Project yeah and just
49:13
the way that they read
49:15
SPEAKER_01: the Bible is something that has moved me so yeah but I could
49:21
hermeneutics is a big one that's that's a big thing that I am
49:25
into for someone that
49:26
does not know what that word means what is hermeneutics yeah so
49:30
we all come into we
49:33
all have a reading that we approach to the text and so all of
49:37
us have a way that we
49:39
read the bible and we're bringing whether it's like culturally
49:42
or familially or
49:44
consciously subconscious whatever filters we apply to it so the
49:46
way that I've
49:47
SPEAKER_01: always you could think of hermeneutics is
49:50
when you put on sunglasses there's a shade that you see through
49:53
and so what
49:54
hermeneutics is is what how what glasses are you putting on
49:57
what lenses are you
49:58
putting on as you read the scriptures and so you know for some
50:02
people you when they
50:02
read the Bible they take one verse and then they just read that
50:06
one verse and they
50:07
apply it that way yeah and it's kind and other people then you
50:11
know they'll bring
50:12
SPEAKER_01: to it a very
50:14
SPEAKER_01: scholarly skeptical view of reading the Bible.
50:16
SPEAKER_01: So, hey, there's no miracles in this.
50:18
SPEAKER_01: So this is just examples.
50:19
SPEAKER_01: Come on, Thomas Jefferson.
50:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like assumptions to the text.
50:24
And so there's a really great book recently that was released
50:28
by a guy named Kevin
50:29
SPEAKER_01: Van Hooser called Near Christian Hermeneutics.
50:33
SPEAKER_01: And it is... What's his background?
50:37
background um I don't I don't know his background actually but
50:41
the guy's a
50:42
juggernaut in modern theology too um I like the use of the word
50:46
juggernaut he is he
50:48
is he's very very smart um but also that book is not an easy
50:53
read so like anyone's
50:54
who's gonna go buy that book yeah it's like a Willard type like
50:59
every page is like
51:00
SPEAKER_00: a big massive meal
51:03
yeah no it really is so anyways all that to say those are like
51:08
I would say that I'm
51:09
influenced by every time of reader and I try to read broadly
51:17
and my love for Jesus
51:19
has made me curious towards his church and to the time through
51:25
thousands of years
51:26
of the church and what I have found is that there's very rarely
51:30
something new under
51:31
SPEAKER_01: the sun that I'm thinking about
51:33
and that and that I'm not novel and that's that's a hard thing
51:38
and that when I read
51:41
other people I critique them and they critique me and they're
51:46
dead yeah and that's
51:47
I think one of the hardest thing and one of the most lovely
51:49
things one of those
51:50
SPEAKER_00: hard that's a really interesting idea yeah like
51:53
they critique you internally yeah yeah I feel like I it's so
51:58
funny that you're
51:59
talking about this because I feel like I've been personally
52:02
like I resonate with a
52:03
lot of this because I've personally been like man we have just
52:07
gone away from like
52:10
we're always trying to innovate and do new things and then like
52:14
if we're actually
52:15
paying attention we realize like most of the stuff that we're
52:17
doing is not
52:18
SPEAKER_00: innovation it's like some monk like
52:22
1500 years ago wrote about it and you're like oh I guess I need
52:28
to like humble
52:28
myself and be like this guy like wrote this in his own context
52:37
so long ago and I
52:38
SPEAKER_00: have like
52:39
so much more I'm like so much more enlightened than he is and
52:44
it's like no yeah
52:47
like God speaks through us and spoke through him way more than
52:51
he did like I'm too
52:52
distracted over here by like the new shiny stuff yes and it's
52:55
like oh gotta get
52:57
just back to the basics like I just have this revelation that
53:00
this guy like
53:02
1500 years ago wrote about and was like yeah i think this is
53:05
like what the chief
53:05
end of man is or whatever it is it's like oh whoa like yeah
53:10
yeah it's it's again
53:13
and this goes back to the humility conversation it's like you
53:15
read people and you
53:16
grow humble yeah you realize that you are not the smartest
53:21
person yeah that's ever
53:22
SPEAKER_01: existed and i think something
53:26
that I find a lot is like we as Americans specifically we think
53:31
maybe Westerners we
53:32
think we're so progressive yeah we're pushing the timeline
53:36
forward this idea that's
53:37
even the language of progressive moving in a direction but you
53:40
read people and you
53:41
go oh man like one there's things that they did do wrong and
53:45
have done wrong and
53:47
there are things that we are doing wrong currently and things
53:50
that they were
53:50
actually more enlightened in than we are today and yeah and we
53:55
can go on different
53:56
topics about that so true everything there's a rabbit trail for
54:01
everything yeah
54:02
we're in deep water so it's like you can really take any stream
54:06
here which is the
54:07
conversations that I love where it's like oh they could just go
54:10
on all day yeah I'm
54:12
SPEAKER_00: curious what's like a question that you're sitting with right now
54:17
maybe it's not even like a question you want to share and
54:20
that's totally fine but I
54:23
don't know at least for me there's always like some bigger
54:25
question that's like
54:27
kind of sitting under a lot of life where it's maybe not like
54:31
super urgent but it's
54:32
SPEAKER_00: like super important to how you're thinking about stuff yeah
54:39
I think my mind is always moving in the theological landscape
54:45
the thing I've been
54:46
like walking through recently have been through atonement
54:50
theories and yeah so
54:53
that's kind of a question of like what does Jesus when Jesus
54:56
died on the cross what
54:56
happens there that's been something I've been thinking a lot in
54:59
my own life and
55:03
actually when you dive into that so beautiful it is incredibly
55:07
rich so yeah there's
55:10
that I would say like that's up there so when you're talking
55:14
about atonement theory
55:15
SPEAKER_00: and you're talking about like Jesus dying on the cross like
55:18
what specific question are you asking with them that like how
55:22
how is it possible
55:23
that he could take on our sin I'm asking yeah yeah kind in some
55:29
way so I guess what
55:30
I'm asking there is what happened or when Jesus died on the
55:33
cross what was
55:34
SPEAKER_01: happening there what was he doing and so
55:39
SPEAKER_01: There's multiple atonement theories throughout church history.
55:43
You have Christus Victor,
55:44
meaning that he destroyed sin,
55:48
death,
55:48
and the powers.
55:49
SPEAKER_01: You have ransom theory, that's a very early church as well,
55:54
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is paying off death to release you.
55:58
You have penal substitutionary atonement which has gone under a
56:01
lot of fire recently.
56:03
The idea that Jesus steps into the place of the cross so that
56:07
the due justice and
56:09
wrath of God is poured out onto Christ and then He relinquishes
56:15
that and takes on
56:16
SPEAKER_01: our sin.
56:17
SPEAKER_01: And there's more.
56:18
SPEAKER_01: There's more.
56:21
the more that I think about it what I realize is man like what
56:25
Jesus did on the
56:25
cross was bigger than the individual and small and not smaller
56:32
but like personal
56:33
enough for each and every one of us so it's really radical but
56:35
that's what I've
56:36
been thinking about in like there and then I don't know I kind
56:41
of want to step away
56:42
from that and just get personal with my own life yeah but
56:45
personally I think I've
56:46
SPEAKER_01: been thinking just like
56:50
kind of existential like man where is the world going and
56:54
that's that's honestly
56:55
just a little easy question to ask yourself and it's not it's
57:00
totally not but it is
57:01
it's a question that gives me anxiety and it's a it's a as a
57:06
dad like it's a
57:07
question that I think about I think I've thought more about as
57:09
a dad than I've ever
57:11
SPEAKER_01: thought about in my entire life and so
57:14
yeah that's a question that it's kind of burning in the
57:17
background all the time
57:18
have you like come to any sort of revelations or clarity with
57:23
that or is it mostly
57:24
just like yeah that's there and I'm like I'm thinking about it
57:30
but I haven't like
57:32
thought through I don't know yeah I I think that I run to Jesus
57:39
for my future and
57:42
I have to do that over and over again and that often is
57:47
multiple times a week and
57:49
sometimes that's in the anxiety of laying in bed and so I don't
57:54
have a answer to
57:56
the future but the one answer I do have is that Jesus will
57:59
return and Jesus will be
58:01
victorious and all the things that I'm worrying about right now
58:06
there will be a
58:06
SPEAKER_01: coming age of the kingdom of God and
58:10
so that's all I can do because I mean I'm an individual like
58:13
how much control do I
58:14
have over big tech or governments or wars or my own life or my
58:18
own life yeah I like
58:20
to think I have control but like really yeah like how much yeah
58:23
so yeah I think
58:24
about that yeah yeah what question do you have a question like
58:27
that um that I'm
58:29
wrestling with currently um I think the problem that I have
58:34
which I appreciate that
58:36
SPEAKER_00: you're not living into is like
58:38
in the absence of clarity oftentimes I will become indifferent
58:46
where where it's
58:46
like oh man there are a lot of big problems like for instance
58:50
let's talk about that
58:52
question of like where's the world going how can I possibly
58:56
answer that for my own
58:58
SPEAKER_00: like I don't know in a way other than like
59:03
the other answer I mean I love your answer of just like yeah
59:06
rely on Jesus minute
59:08
by minute basically but how can I like the world's problems and
59:15
where the world is
59:15
going is so much bigger than like anything that I could
59:19
potentially do anything
59:22
SPEAKER_00: with which I think is a lie actually I think like
59:27
all you yeah anyway I think it's a lie on a lot of levels and
59:31
there's probably a
59:32
lot to unpack there but where like my answer to that is just
59:37
like yeah I can't
59:38
think about that because I like I need to figure out how to
59:40
like make money this
59:42
SPEAKER_00: month so that I can like
59:44
put food on the table so that like my eight and a half month
59:47
pregnant wife can like
59:50
have some food for our baby that's coming or whatever but I
59:54
think it's all like
59:55
related to the same like where is the world going oh it is
1:00:00
going in the direction
1:00:01
like of the decisions that I make today about my family yes and
1:00:05
I think like when I
1:00:07
SPEAKER_00: pull the scope out more I realize like that it's more
1:00:13
about the daily decisions that i'm like i don't know if i want
1:00:17
to see the change in
1:00:17
the world that i want to see like it starts with like well how
1:00:21
am i being the
1:00:23
example of that change because we learn by like the habits of
1:00:27
the people around us
1:00:28
so it's like if we want our kids to be the way that we are and
1:00:32
again there's so
1:00:33
much work that the holy spirit does and and like we're not in
1:00:37
control of so much of
1:00:38
SPEAKER_00: it but
1:00:39
yeah that's really good I do think that you're well that's so
1:00:42
good what you're
1:00:43
saying is and maybe correct me if I'm wrong is that like you do
1:00:47
have an ability to
1:00:48
make change through your individual life yeah and I do think
1:00:51
that you're as I look
1:00:52
at the powers of like social media as I look at like the world
1:00:57
around me I think
1:00:58
there is a desire for us to become apathetic where it's like I
1:01:02
can't change so why
1:01:03
SPEAKER_01: even try yeah but it's
1:01:05
I think there is something deeply Christian to the idea of
1:01:08
saying,
1:01:09
hey,
1:01:10
no,
1:01:10
you know what?
1:01:11
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to just wait for God's kingdom to come one day.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_01: But the kingdom of heaven is now.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_01: And so I should take action.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_01: I should be moving as a father,
1:01:20
SPEAKER_01: as a brother,
1:01:22
SPEAKER_01: as a sister,
1:01:22
as somebody in this world who needs to bring righteousness and
1:01:26
justice into the
1:01:26
SPEAKER_01: world.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_01: And I think sometimes I have a friend who
1:01:31
he you know whether I agree with him or not he participates in
1:01:35
protests and I'm
1:01:36
like at first I was like oh like why are you even doing that
1:01:39
yeah but then I
1:01:40
stopped and I took a step back I was like that's somebody who's
1:01:42
active in community
1:01:43
yeah and trying to make a change in the world I'm like I
1:01:45
actually really appreciate
1:01:46
that yeah there's something to be learned from that I think
1:01:49
yeah yeah I don't know
1:01:51
I think it's something that I've been wrestling with where it's
1:01:54
like even if
1:01:57
whatever mouthpiece I am to my sphere of influence around like
1:02:01
the type of life
1:02:02
that I want to live and cultivate in others and be an example
1:02:04
of like I've been
1:02:06
thinking a lot about like even these writers where it was like
1:02:10
I was just learning
1:02:12
about what's her name Julian of Norwich and she's like a I
1:02:19
don't exactly remember
1:02:20
where she was but she basically like had this crazy encounter
1:02:23
with God and like
1:02:26
was given a bunch of visions and then like lived in a church
1:02:28
like her whole life
1:02:29
basically and would just like participate in church and then
1:02:32
like pray basically
1:02:34
and write and she could have never known that like some 21st
1:02:40
century like kid I'm
1:02:44
almost 30 so I guess I'm not a kid anymore but I still feel
1:02:47
like a kid would like
1:02:51
SPEAKER_00: read her prayers and
1:02:54
it would affect his life and I think it's just like a very
1:02:58
weird that's such an odd
1:03:01
concept to me like she would have no context for the fact that
1:03:05
like I had heard
1:03:06
about her through like a podcast like and what sort of I don't
1:03:12
know what sort of
1:03:13
SPEAKER_00: things can God do with us yes in spite of ourselves yeah yeah
1:03:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_01: I think of like Dietrich Bonhoeffer who,
1:03:22
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:03:22
SPEAKER_01: who lived during World War II and during the Nazi regime and he chose,
1:03:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:03:30
SPEAKER_01: rebellion.
1:03:31
He chose to say,
1:03:32
you know,
1:03:32
like,
1:03:32
I'm going to live against the regime that's killing people.
1:03:37
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to protect Jewish people.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to move in that direction.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_00: And would we have him if we didn't have like the Nazis?
1:03:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:03:48
his books that's a really interesting question of course we all
1:03:55
want a world where
1:03:56
like genocide doesn't happen and where evil people are stopped
1:04:00
before they do wrong
1:04:02
things but like I don't know I think it's a part of the
1:04:06
tapestry of history is like
1:04:08
in spite of ourselves in spite of the evil that we can do like
1:04:13
I think it's a
1:04:14
SPEAKER_00: testament to like the goodness of God that like he
1:04:18
SPEAKER_00: created this guy that used his story to propel the Christian faith
1:04:26
more yeah and even like I don't know something to the suffering
1:04:31
that can produce
1:04:31
great beauty and you know I think sometimes you feel like man
1:04:35
the suffering in my
1:04:35
life is pointless but I have found and history tells that
1:04:41
sometimes suffering
1:04:42
produces a great thing and it and the benefit on the other end
1:04:45
of it is beautiful
1:04:46
and not to say by the way the genocide no no is this is a good
1:04:50
suffering like no
1:04:51
SPEAKER_01: evil wrong right like
1:04:54
but yeah in the midst of a great tragedy something can be made
1:04:58
totally well I think
1:05:00
yeah I think about a decent amount I think about when we like
1:05:04
long long time ago
1:05:05
this is back when you were doing junior high and like right
1:05:09
right as we like when
1:05:13
you started working for the church and we were doing ministry
1:05:17
together and I think
1:05:18
SPEAKER_00: we went on spiritual retreat and
1:05:20
you had got us like a book to read together on abiding and I
1:05:28
think about that often
1:05:28
where it's like part of abiding in Jesus is like oh but like
1:05:32
he's gonna prune and
1:05:33
he's gonna curate like our lives in a way and like that will be
1:05:40
challenging and
1:05:42
hard but like the fruit that it produces like pruning is a way
1:05:46
to produce more
1:05:47
SPEAKER_00: fruit and like a way to
1:05:51
in spite of the challenge like because actually because of the
1:05:54
challenge you end up
1:05:55
like growing more yeah and like a tree or a plant that doesn't
1:06:02
have any sort of
1:06:03
SPEAKER_00: barriers to
1:06:05
thrive like often won't be as thriving as a plant that like has
1:06:10
gone through
1:06:11
hardship or whatever again I'm not a gardener so I don't don't
1:06:14
quote me on that no
1:06:14
I get what you're saying the idea of like the the challenges
1:06:18
often make us uh they
1:06:20
develop us more than the the successes um yeah anyway I feel
1:06:26
like we've kind of
1:06:27
SPEAKER_00: strayed off topic from all that such as
1:06:30
I don't know yeah I could keep going but yeah no it's good it's
1:06:32
really good it's uh
1:06:34
it's deep places yeah yeah um I mean yeah I feel like there's
1:06:41
you'll need to come
1:06:42
back and we'll need to have another conversation because we're
1:06:45
because we're uh I
1:06:47
think just the way that our minds work we can just talk forever
1:06:50
about yeah all this
1:06:51
stuff um and they're meaning this is the meaningful stuff I
1:06:54
think I think totally I
1:06:55
SPEAKER_01: think a lot of the stuff we're talking about is like I don't know
1:07:01
relationship with God yeah suffering in life purpose like holy
1:07:06
I think every person
1:07:07
is as probably could go here for a while you know because what
1:07:11
I'm trying to say
1:07:12
yeah yeah well and I think I don't know some some a big piece
1:07:17
of me is starting to
1:07:17
realize like oh this is the the sweet stuff of like sitting
1:07:21
with a coffee talking
1:07:22
SPEAKER_00: with an old friend who we've done lots of life together yeah and
1:07:28
Sharing and in the big questions of yeah,
1:07:30
I don't really have an answer for that.
1:07:31
I'm still working through it Kind of wrestling through that is
1:07:36
how do we how do we
1:07:37
SPEAKER_00: continue to do that in a way that?
1:07:40
SPEAKER_00: in the busyness of life making time and space for This yeah,
1:07:45
because I feel like it's so necessary to me and to my
1:07:48
development as a human being
1:07:51
SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
1:07:51
SPEAKER_00: as we kind of wrap up I So every guest that's on
1:07:57
they basically get asked from the previous guest a question and
1:08:01
so the last guest
1:08:02
that I had on asked this question what's like a and we were
1:08:07
just kind of talking
1:08:08
about this like oftentimes learning through failure more than
1:08:12
through success but
1:08:14
they ask like what's a top of the world moment that taught you
1:08:18
something and then
1:08:20
conversely what's what's a like dark night of the soul moment
1:08:24
that like taught you
1:08:25
SPEAKER_00: something
1:08:28
that shaped you in some way top of the world moment that taught
1:08:34
me something and
1:08:35
SPEAKER_01: then valley moment yeah top of the world moment would be my wedding day
1:08:49
and I think about what that moment taught me was to enjoy the
1:08:55
moment enjoy every
1:08:57
moment of it because I would hear all the time it's fleeting
1:09:00
and I sometimes just
1:09:03
go back and look at pictures and try to remember what it felt
1:09:05
like because now I've
1:09:07
been married for a while you know and so I think about that a
1:09:10
lot so enjoy the
1:09:11
SPEAKER_01: sweetness of the moment um valley um
1:09:22
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
1:09:23
SPEAKER_01: I can't think of a specific one.
1:09:24
SPEAKER_01: I had a lot of valley moments in my life, but I think... Don't we all?
1:09:30
SPEAKER_01: I think the thing I would walk away with is it will pass.
1:09:33
SPEAKER_01: It will pass.
1:09:34
SPEAKER_01: You just have to walk through it.
1:09:36
SPEAKER_01: And probably will be painful, but it will pass.
1:09:41
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
1:09:43
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a question for our next guest?
1:09:45
SPEAKER_01: Oh.
1:09:46
SPEAKER_01: Question for the next guest.
1:09:50
SPEAKER_01: Um...
1:09:54
SPEAKER_01: What has been the greatest spiritual moment of your life?
1:10:02
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
1:10:03
SPEAKER_00: No one's asked that one.
1:10:04
SPEAKER_01: Well, here I am.
1:10:06
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
1:10:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm very excited to see how people answer that.
1:10:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you, my friend.
1:10:11
SPEAKER_00: Matt, thank you, dude.
1:10:12
SPEAKER_00: I love hanging out with you.
1:10:14
SPEAKER_00: Right back at you.
1:10:15
SPEAKER_00: I love hanging out with me, too.