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Tricia Lyons on Why Churches Should Be More Exclusive · Future Christian

• 0:07
  >> Paul: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast, your
• 0:10
  source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church in
• 0:12
  the 21st century. At the Future Christian
• 0:16
  Podcast, we talk to pastors, authors
• 0:19
  and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical
• 0:21
  wisdom to help you and your community of faith
• 0:24
  walk boldly into the future. Whether
• 0:27
  you're a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member
• 0:30
  of your faith community, this podcast is
• 0:33
  designed to challenge, inspire, and equip
• 0:36
  you with the tools you need for impactful ministry.
• 0:39
  And now for a little bit about the guest for this episode.
• 0:43
  >> Martha Tatarnic: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today,
• 0:46
  Loren Richmond Jr. Welcomes Dr. Tricia
• 0:49
  Lyons to the program. Dr. Lyons
• 0:52
  currently teaches evangelism, works with the
• 0:55
  Lifelong Learning Team, and serves as the
• 0:57
  Senior Advisor to the Dean for Evangelism
• 1:00
  Initiatives at uh, Virginia Theological
• 1:03
  Seminary. She also directs the
• 1:05
  Evangelism formation Lab at
• 1:07
  VTS, a digital portal on
• 1:10
  YouTube and Facebook offering original content
• 1:13
  from the seminary as well as thoughtful curation of
• 1:16
  resources in evangelism and formation
• 1:19
  for the wider church. Dr. Lyons was
• 1:21
  a lay chaplain and teacher of religion in
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  episcopal schools for 20 years before being
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  ordained a priest and then serving parishes in
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  Washington, D.C. eventually serving as
• 1:32
  Canon for Evangelism in the Episcopal
• 1:35
  Diocese of Washington. Currently,
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  Tricia serves as a non stipendary priest
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  at the Church of St. Clement in
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  Alexandria, Virginia.
• 1:45
  Tricia is a member of the Presiding
• 1:48
  Bishop's Strategic Cabinet on Evangelism
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  and one of the original writers of the Way
• 1:54
  of Love. Tricia is an honors
• 1:57
  graduate from Harvard College, the Harvard Divinity
• 2:00
  School, and received her doctorate from the Virginia
• 2:03
  Theological Seminary. She is the author of
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  four books on faith formation, the Soul of
• 2:08
  Adolescence, Teaching Faith with Harry
• 2:11
  Potter, what Is Evangelism?
• 2:14
  And her most recent, the Evangelist's
• 2:17
  Breviary. A, uh,
• 2:20
  reminder, before we start today's conversation, please take
• 2:23
  a moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a
• 2:25
  review and share Future Christmas with a
• 2:28
  friend. Connect with Loren, Martha
• 2:30
  and Future Christian on Instagram.
• 2:33
  Shoot us an email at uh, laurensonatemediapro
• 2:36
  uh.com
• 2:38
  with comments, questions or ideas for
• 2:41
  future episodes. We appreciate your
• 2:44
  voice in how we faithfully discern the future
• 2:47
  of the church.
• 2:57
  >> Loren: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. This is Loren Richmond
• 3:00
  Jr. And I'm pleased to be joined today by Reverend
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  Dr. Tricia Lyons. Hello and welcome to the show.
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  >> Tricia Lyons: Good morning. Good to see you.
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  >> Loren: Yeah, thank you so much for being here. Anything, uh, else
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  you want to say about yourself?
• 3:13
  >> Tricia Lyons: Oh, uh, let's see. Beyond the bio.
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  Um, well, my
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  spouse And I, about two years ago bought a
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  farm, about 150 acres.
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  Uh, in northern New Jersey. I grew up in
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  New York, and let's just say I didn't grow up hearing great
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  things about New Jersey. So that was very much a God thing
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  that, uh, we'd always dreamed of. Um, we both
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  teach at Virginia Theological Seminary. So we both had always
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  dreamed about after that maybe living in
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  some kind of intentional, uh, community, something a little
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  more in nature. Um, and this family
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  farm opened up in New, uh, Jersey. So now we sort of live in
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  both places, um, uh, hoping
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  to finally settle here. So that's a long way
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  of saying I'm sort of a farmer,
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  which I never saw coming, uh, growing up just outside
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  New York City. Um, but it's
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  mostly. It's like the Hogwarts grounds,
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  if you read those stories. It's mostly deep woods
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  with trails. Um, but we do have some fields.
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  And just this last year we did a lot of donating of our food to
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  local food pantries. And we have rescue
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  dog organizations that train here and
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  hunters that donate their meat, uh, um, to
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  people, uh, who need it. Uh, so we've sort of stepped into
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  this whole agrarian ministry. So that's the kind of
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  thing I don't know how to put on a form. I don't want to call myself a
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  farmer. But, uh, so for those who are listening, who have,
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  um, no people like that, or who are people
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  like that who are thinking about the church kind of outside,
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  um, the walls, uh, and being
• 4:45
  church to a community and sort of
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  opening up the. That you have for other people that
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  have skills, but they don't have land. Um, so
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  that's this interesting last, most recent
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  chapter I've stepped into. So I'm sure that's not listed,
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  um, on the bio, but just add farmer to
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  it.
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  >> Loren: This is obviously an audio podcast, but for me,
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  and anyone who sees clips of this might see
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  your background looks like a little bit of a Hallmark movie
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  behind. Uh. So that's a nice image from.
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  >> Tricia Lyons: I'm at the farm right now. So, um, uh,
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  I've got my stockings up and I've got my tree
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  up and, uh, yeah, over the mantle. I'm sure who are
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  listening, but I'm up for putting that stuff up
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  early and, uh, leaving it up to the feast of Candle
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  mass, which is February 2nd. So
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  we stretch out the season for as much of the
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  winter as possible here. So, yes,
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  lights are blinking and everything right behind me.
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  >> Tricia Lyons: Yes, indeed.
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  >> Loren: Yeah.
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  Share, if you would, kind of about your faith journey, what that's looked
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  like, uh, in the past and what that looks like today.
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  >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah, um, like many
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  Episcopalians, um, the majority of
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  Episcopalians, actually I'm a former Roman Catholic.
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  Um, I was raised in, uh, the Catholic
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  Church, uh, an Irish Catholic in New York, which is sort
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  of its own denomination of Catholicism in some
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  ways. Um, I, uh, live right across the
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  street from a Catholic church. Uh, so it was sort of an
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  extension of our home. Um, and
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  I just loved the Catholic Church. Uh, I really wasn't aware of
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  many other kinds of churches. Um, but
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  I loved it. I went to Mass,
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  uh, every day when I was, uh, in high school. I went to a
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  public school, but I would sneak over to Mass at 6:45 and then
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  go down the street to my public school. I just couldn't believe
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  that, um, you could do church on Sunday. But then I found out you
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  can actually do church every day. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world.
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  Um, but also when I was a child, I was 8 years old
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  and, uh, my older sister, um, was killed in
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  a car accident. She, um, she was 12 years
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  older than me. So she, um, had a real
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  hard time in high school kind of finding herself. And I watched that
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  as a child, kind of at the top of the stairs, all the,
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  um, my brother and I. So this poor teenager
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  had these two young, um,
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  siblings. Uh, so she really struggled and eventually it
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  was, um, a drunk driver.
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  Um, but I just throw that out because that, um, I
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  would say at 8, 9, 10. Um,
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  that's where I really began asking what I would now call sort of theological
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  questions. Um, this God I'd already fallen in love
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  with at 5 years old. I thought going to church was the best thing in
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  the whole world. Um, so my parents, it took them
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  a few years to kind of even recover language for God. I
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  mean, your first child of course was a nightmare for
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  them. She graduated from high school and she was ready to start her
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  life. Um, so that was sort of my theological
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  curiosity. Um, and I think I came back to the church
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  in some ways before they did. We'd, uh, just go across the street
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  and just sit in the church. Um, so I loved my
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  Catholicism very strong. Went off
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  to, um, Harvard College, which was not
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  exactly a very religious place,
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  but it had always been my dream to go there. Um, and when I got
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  there I actually bumped into some evangelicals. And like
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  most environments, you know, the more sort of agnostic or atheist, the
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  major culture is kind of the more on fire, the
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  sort of parrot. So that the Jews who were there were
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  just, you know, a lot of them are just incredibly observant, joyful Jews.
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  And it went across the board. So I spent about four years
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  very involved with something called Campus Crusade.
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  >> Tricia Lyons: Uh.
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  >> Tricia Lyons: Hm. And boy did I learn the Bible. Oh my gosh, I had
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  no idea. I mean they all thought that I grew up with superstition and
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  accept Christ as my Lord and Savior, which I did my freshman year.
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  Wanted to cover all my bases.
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  >> Loren: Hm.
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  >> Tricia Lyons: Um, but I learned a lot about ministry and
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  now looking back, I learned a lot about what you'd call lay
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  ministry.
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  >> Loren: Mhm.
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  >> Tricia Lyons: Um, because as you know, so many of these groups, Navigators, intervarsity,
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  Campus Crusade, all those groups, yes
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  they have staff, but the whole notion of ordination, which
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  had been kind of the obsession of my Catholicism and
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  frankly on bad days can really be uh, a real hang up
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  in the Episcopal Church where I am now. I had a couple of
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  years where we were believers, we were disciples.
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  Um, there was definitely a hierarchy of teaching
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  in some sense who the teachers were. But I'll never
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  forget those four years of kind of
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  the pressure of being in such an agnostic.
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  An agnostic, uh, I mean an atheist, um,
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  learning and teaching environment to just bonding with these
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  other folks, knowing that um, being baptized was all you
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  needed. Um, and then after that,
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  uh, by the end of my twenties, I started um,
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  back in the Catholic Church and was um, now a mix
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  of all things like many American Christians are.
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  And uh, then actually realized that I was a gay person.
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  Which was a um, bit of an inconvenience at
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  the time.
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  >> Loren: Yeah.
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  >> Tricia Lyons: Um, as a Roman Catholic. And so I researched
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  and I um, was really drawn to the Episcopal Church which is
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  very similar in the sacramental life of the Catholic
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  Church. It was very hard then and frankly it's kind of hard now.
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  I'm sort of a theologically conservative person,
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  um, on scripture and tradition and authority.
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  Um, so uh, it was hard. It was
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  hard. I said I've never stopped loving the Catholic
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  Church. But um, the feeling wasn't
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  mutual. So it's very hard to be in a church where I
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  wasn't allowed to. I'd done graduate work and everything else and I was
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  already teaching Catholicism, um, and
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  moral theology was my main interest. So it's very hard when
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  you can't receive communion in your own church without lying. So
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  that was unsustainable. So then I um, came down to
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  Virginia, um, ah, from the Boston area
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  and started attending Virginia uh,
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  seminary to kind of get a new education for this ah,
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  new church. And that was 20 years ago and
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  I became ordained. Uh, so now I'm an Episcopal priest
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  and I still teach at Virginia Seminary.
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  But again, the Episcopal Church is well over 50% of it
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  is former Roman Catholic. So um, I sort of
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  left the Catholic Church and joined
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  the uh, Catholic, um, section in the pews,
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  you would say, of the Episcopal Church. So it's been a journey
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  of different faiths. But um, honestly that's my
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  experience of a lot of Christians now. Um, the whole notion of being
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  born into one church and if you do marry, marrying someone
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  of the same denomination, I just really don't meet
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  anyone like that anymore. And we all kind of have this
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  quilt that gets knit together.
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  >> Loren: Yeah. I suppose that the
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  Episcopals are great at keeping
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  data. So is there data on that that
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  50% of episcopals are ex
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  Catholics?
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  >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah. Ah, it's probably over 60% now.
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  >> Loren: Wow, that's. Wow.
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  Okay. Interesting.
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  >> Tricia Lyons: Honestly, I would love to
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  believe one of the things I teach at seminary is evangelism.
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  Um, and I'd like to think that this was kind of an achievement
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  of evangelism, but it's not.
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  I mean the Episcopal Church, um, our desire is that people are
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  growing and having encounters with Christ. So I really don't know many
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  Episcopalians that would want someone who was encountering
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  Christ in the Baptist Church or the Catholic Church to pull them away from
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  that. That's not what I mean. The problem in the
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  Catholic Church is they are losing for
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  every baptism. I think they're losing about nine people
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  and not to death. Um, so they have the largest
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  kind of bleed out rate of any form of
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  Christianity in this country. I mean when I
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  grew up there were 90 million Catholics in
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  America. Um, they have a fraction of that
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  now. So what's happening is, and it's really over one
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  or two teachings, you know, that you can't use birth
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  control for any reason.
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  Abortion is um, wrong in
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  every setting.
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  Um, so with no exceptions. And that you can't receive communion
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  once you've been divorced.
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  >> Loren: Yeah.
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  >> Tricia Lyons: And I remember my mother was actually an orphan who was
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  raised by Catholic nuns. I mean I couldn't love the Catholic Church
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  more than I do. It really was a matter of, you know,
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  who I was, couldn't serve communion. But
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  I, um, have a great love for that church. But there's no question that
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  those um, kind of moral teachings,
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  um, is creating this exodus of people
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  leaving the Catholic Church, when you think about it, for
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  moral reasons, which is very different than church decline,
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  you know, they're leaving because of their love of someone
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  who's impacted by those teachings or their love
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  of themselves who's impacted by those teachings. So it's a very
• 13:05
  Interesting group of people who are leaving the church because they
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  want more intimacy with God. They have a
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  stronger view of more maybe inclusive view,
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  you might say, of the moral life. So it's a wonderful place to
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  be in the Episcopal church because these 50 or
• 13:19
  60% of our congregations, I mean, it changes
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  regionally, right?
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  >> Loren: It depends.
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  >> Tricia Lyons: The average is well over 50%. Um,
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  and it's really, frankly, it's American
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  Catholics who just don't want the divided conscience
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  anymore. They love the music, they love the sacraments,
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  but you have all that in the Episcopal Church. What you don't have is this kind of
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  secret you keep, uh, in the pews, that
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  there's a few things. So my great prayer
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  for the Catholic Church is that they listen to people's
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  experience of that and realize that they're not losing people
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  because the country is becoming more atheistic.
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  >> Loren: Yeah.
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  >> Tricia Lyons: They're losing people because their daughter is divorced
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  and she left a marriage that was abusive, and she now is
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  in a marriage that isn't. And she's coming fully
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  alive. Uh, and that family of all
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  generations is just looking for a version of Christianity
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  with the Eucharist and baptism that
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  loves her as much as they do. So that's my prayer.
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  My prayer is that they did it. But until then, I mean, if you go
• 14:14
  into an Episcopal Church, I mean, you're gonna. If you look around, you're
• 14:17
  gonna see a lot of people whose name is O'Malley
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  and Rivera, um, ah,
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  And Kozwalski. And basically, they're just all these
• 14:25
  ethnic Catholics who found their way to a church that
• 14:28
  affirms their moral, um, epic
• 14:30
  struggles and doesn't sort of make decisions at the beginning.
• 14:34
  >> Loren: Yeah, that's such an interesting thing you share. I don't want to spend too much
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  time on this, but I'm remembering how I'd heard
• 14:40
  this from an evangelical source, that there's a lot
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  of Catholics coming to evangelical churches.
• 14:45
  Obviously, they're going to have similar views on abortion,
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  but they're going to be far more open on, you know,
• 14:52
  communion and divorce. Obviously. I, uh,
• 14:55
  mean evangelicals far more, I suppose,
• 14:57
  ambiguous. Right. On birth control. Some
• 15:00
  communities are more accepting than others, I guess. Right.
• 15:03
  But interesting nonetheless.
• 15:05
  Um, well, that's.
• 15:07
  >> Tricia Lyons: Let me say one thing about that. With the. These
• 15:09
  statistics, I'm, um, one of the largest megachurches,
• 15:12
  um, Willow Creek, right out of Chicago.
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  Um, years ago, um, I think
• 15:18
  one of the times Bill Hybels came back after his first
• 15:20
  retirement, they. They decided to do a
• 15:23
  large study of the congregation, um,
• 15:26
  because what they were Finding is, although they kept getting new
• 15:28
  members, they, they finally were admitting that they were losing
• 15:31
  about a third every few years out the door. They're
• 15:34
  just so good at bringing in people.
• 15:36
  >> Loren: Right.
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  >> Tricia Lyons: Um, but. And they did a huge study. A
• 15:39
  couple of books have been written about it, and they published
• 15:42
  their findings. And the risen people were leaving. You're ready for
• 15:45
  this, Willow Creek, right? One of the, like, you know,
• 15:48
  platonic forms of the megachurch. People
• 15:51
  said they wanted to read more scripture, they
• 15:53
  wanted to learn to pray, and
• 15:57
  they wanted more time in silence. Uh,
• 16:00
  yeah. Now Willow Creek, I mean, this was a,
• 16:03
  ah, earth shattering finding for Willow Creek.
• 16:06
  Um, they wanted a closer relationship with
• 16:09
  Jesus, they wanted to learn to pray and read the scripture and
• 16:12
  things like that. And what they realized is they'd become such a
• 16:14
  presentation ministry, um, and
• 16:17
  hadn't put as much, these are their words, not mine,
• 16:20
  hadn't put as much ministry, um,
• 16:23
  into forming people
• 16:25
  who can form other Christians.
• 16:29
  Which, uh, is very different than, uh, having people
• 16:32
  accept Christ and then teaching them to have other people accept
• 16:35
  Christ as their Lord and Savior. That's not a small thing.
• 16:38
  Um, but that's different than forming
• 16:41
  the whole life of the believer. Practices
• 16:43
  of prayer, practices of repentance, practices of
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  fasting, practices of silence, and
• 16:49
  forming them to help other people with words or
• 16:52
  with, not without words, form other
• 16:55
  people into people of practice and
• 16:58
  hope. And they realize this sort of.
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  >> Tricia Lyons: They had all the money in the.
• 17:01
  >> Tricia Lyons: World to have the professional everything, musicians, lighting,
• 17:04
  set design. But that doesn't form
• 17:07
  people, first of all, that when they leave the, you know, and
• 17:10
  you can send them as many newsletters as you want, as many texts. And they've been very good
• 17:13
  at that. They've been attracting the technology from the beginning. But they realize
• 17:16
  that's really not the same as doing this ancient, what we used to
• 17:19
  call the catechumenate in the church, which is coming
• 17:22
  alongside people over the entire liturgical
• 17:24
  year and rising up mentors around them and
• 17:27
  having the chief goal that the
• 17:30
  person literally live into every
• 17:32
  dimension of their life to be lost in
• 17:35
  Christ in all things. So that's what they weren't doing. But there's a
• 17:38
  lesson there for all of us, um, which is that, you know,
• 17:41
  when we take people into our communities,
• 17:44
  um, it's America, right? We're so good at the
• 17:47
  show. Um, and I'd rather great music than bad
• 17:50
  music, right? So these are not bad things. I'd
• 17:52
  rather feel welcome and see hospitality than not
• 17:55
  see hospitality. But these things are not virtues.
• 17:59
  Um, and the practice of hospitality is just that
• 18:01
  it's practicing good manners, not
• 18:04
  being rude, not being. Being a stumbling block to someone coming
• 18:07
  back. Honestly, that's not forming a
• 18:10
  Christian. Jews are hospitable. Muslims are hospitable.
• 18:13
  And like most Christians, some of the most hospitable people I know
• 18:16
  are atheists or agnostics precisely because
• 18:19
  they're spiritual seekers who believe anything could be God
• 18:21
  or something like it, or any piece of nature should be
• 18:24
  respected as other people. So, um, hospitality is
• 18:27
  not a spiritual virtue in that sense,
• 18:30
  and it doesn't form Christians any more than the Boy.
• 18:33
  >> Tricia Lyons: Scouts that's, you know, forms Christians.
• 18:35
  >> Tricia Lyons: But we'll get to that, I'm sure.
• 18:36
  >> Loren: Yes. This is a great lead in to the
• 18:39
  purpose of our conversation. What I want to explore
• 18:42
  today with you, Tricia.
• 18:44
  So I came across Tricia and
• 18:47
  her, her enthusiasm for what we might
• 18:49
  call exclusivity. And stay with
• 18:52
  us listeners here. Uh, via.
• 18:55
  >> Tricia Lyons: It sounds like I'm pro root canals, but that's okay, keep
• 18:58
  going.
• 18:58
  >> Loren: I'm with you via. Uh, what even is the
• 19:01
  podcast? The, uh, Try Tank podcast, A podcast I
• 19:04
  produce for, uh, Lorenzo Labrija
• 19:07
  and the Tri Tank. What are they calling
• 19:10
  themselves? Laboratory Think Tank. I don't even know anymore.
• 19:12
  >> Tricia Lyons: The Innovation Laboratory.
• 19:13
  >> Loren: Innovation Laboratory. They're a great resource. Lorenzo is doing
• 19:16
  great work. Uh, I'll try to remember to leave a link to
• 19:19
  this episode that I'm referencing in the
• 19:22
  show notes. Um,
• 19:25
  but anyway, as I was listening, I was like, holy
• 19:27
  smokes. Tricia is talking about something that I feel like I
• 19:30
  don't hear enough in
• 19:33
  Mainline Circle.
• 19:34
  So two things here that I want to kind of introduce the topic.
• 19:37
  You said, talking about Willow Creek. You didn't use the
• 19:40
  words, but certainly Willow Creek really trumpeted
• 19:43
  what we'd call the seeker sensitive model. Like you said,
• 19:46
  the lowering of the barriers, the easy
• 19:49
  entry. I'm also thinking how
• 19:51
  this. You said something to the effect of
• 19:54
  hospitality not being formative.
• 19:57
  Now it's, to me at least, mainliners
• 20:00
  have taken the seeker sensitive model in a different
• 20:03
  approach of becoming. We're going to be super
• 20:06
  hospitable, welcoming to all people, you know, all are
• 20:09
  welcome, everyone is welcome sort of thing.
• 20:12
  And it seems like it's not
• 20:14
  tracking. I mean, uh, we'd, uh, say, broadly speaking,
• 20:17
  like the data is showing, like it's not tracking, like we're
• 20:19
  losing people hand over fist.
• 20:22
  So let's talk about this kind
• 20:25
  of, I don't know,
• 20:27
  approach to be everything to
• 20:30
  everyone and why that's not. Why that doesn't
• 20:33
  work.
• 20:35
  >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah, it doesn't um, let's
• 20:38
  just begin with that. It doesn't. It's not working. It hasn't
• 20:41
  worked. There are very few examples in Christian history
• 20:44
  going back to Jesus that this view has ever
• 20:46
  worked. Um, I'm just shocked at the
• 20:49
  track record of failure of the low bar for
• 20:52
  Christianity because it's a complete perversion of what
• 20:54
  Christianity is. So I'm glad it hasn't
• 20:57
  worked. I'm not cheering for it to
• 21:00
  work, um, because it's not giving people, um,
• 21:02
  abundant life. Um, it's like
• 21:05
  a cruise that leaves, that has a cruise director who's the pastor
• 21:08
  or the minister or the priest or whatever. And that's who you send
• 21:11
  the emails to. If the food isn't hot enough, um,
• 21:15
  you participate. But it's not what we call being
• 21:17
  the body of Christ, being an actual, like a
• 21:20
  corporal member. Um, a member.
• 21:23
  Like I have members of fingers, they're
• 21:26
  members of my hand. Um, and I
• 21:29
  understand where it comes from. It's centuries of
• 21:32
  Christians being in charge of the empires, um,
• 21:35
  and the countries and the governments. Um,
• 21:38
  and what comes with that is the kind of assumption
• 21:40
  that your citizenship in France or your
• 21:43
  citizenship in Ireland is what makes you a Christian. Yes,
• 21:46
  baptism. But it's really cultural expressions. The
• 21:49
  Orthodox Church has this too. If you're born in Moscow, you're a
• 21:51
  Muscovite Christian. Um, uh, so
• 21:54
  you have your own patriarch. And the problem when you become the
• 21:57
  emperor, become the empire, is, uh,
• 22:00
  joining the faith, um,
• 22:02
  becomes a matter of sort of government and politics and things
• 22:05
  like that. And as a result, then you sort of take on the cultural
• 22:08
  matters of whatever the Catholic state is again.
• 22:11
  France, Germany, what have you. So this is the got served as well, uh,
• 22:14
  in the 1500 years after
• 22:16
  Constantine turns this movement
• 22:19
  of the first three centuries of the Church
• 22:21
  into, um, a political identity. And he puts the
• 22:24
  cross on the shield and he claims that the bit of his
• 22:27
  horse was, you know, um, uh, the
• 22:30
  nail that went into Jesus on the cross. And all of a sudden we get all
• 22:33
  this mixed. Um. So I'm not for
• 22:36
  some kind of ahistorical pre Constantinian Christianity,
• 22:39
  but what I am saying is that we've reached a point now. We don't want to offend
• 22:42
  people. That's important. That's kindness. But M.
• 22:45
  Again, girl scouts, boy scouts, the united Way. You know,
• 22:48
  there's plenty of organizations that you could join that could teach you to be kind
• 22:51
  to people and not hurt people's feelings. Um, I think
• 22:53
  of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's autobiography, you know, the Cost
• 22:56
  of Discipleship you open it up, first
• 22:59
  quotation on the first page. The call to
• 23:02
  follow Christ is the call to come and die.
• 23:06
  Now, don't be wrong. I probably wouldn't lead with that, with a
• 23:08
  seeker. Um, but, gosh, there's
• 23:11
  something that's just. I find when you share that with
• 23:14
  even teenagers and you talk to them about
• 23:17
  it, um, there can be this kind of longing
• 23:20
  in them. Why the Lord of the Rings, Narnia,
• 23:23
  Harry Potter, Black Panther, if you add up all those
• 23:26
  epics, you know, because Star wars, you know, goes back to, I
• 23:29
  think, 78, May 26, 1978 was
• 23:32
  when the first Star wars, you know.
• 23:33
  >> Loren: Better than I do.
• 23:34
  >> Tricia Lyons: Um, sounds right.
• 23:35
  >> Tricia Lyons: That was, I think.
• 23:36
  >> Tricia Lyons: I think it was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater. So I thought
• 23:39
  that was a movie. And then I saw another one after it and I was really,
• 23:41
  like, down that. They all don't work like Star Wars.
• 23:44
  Um, but we're talking about
• 23:47
  3 billion billion
• 23:50
  people, um, who have engaged those narratives
• 23:52
  either through film or through books or both.
• 23:55
  And they all have such common elements, and none of them have
• 23:58
  anything to do with hospitality. Yes,
• 24:01
  hobbits are hospitable, but if you get
• 24:03
  to the end of the Lord of the Rings series and think the lesson to be
• 24:06
  learned from hobbits, right, is be
• 24:09
  hospitable. I mean, it's like reading, you know,
• 24:12
  um, Moby Dickens, thinking the whole thing is about a fish.
• 24:15
  I mean, you've missed the point.
• 24:18
  Hobbits save the world because they
• 24:21
  are so committed to each other, to
• 24:23
  friendship. No going back. Burn the
• 24:26
  ships, vows to each other that they.
• 24:29
  And their desire to die for each other
• 24:32
  if need be, just sort of extends in
• 24:34
  concentric circles into other communities in which they
• 24:37
  wind up moving. They will die for
• 24:40
  others. And, you know, Star Wars, I mean,
• 24:43
  just go down the line and all these epics have,
• 24:46
  have older people, right? It's like the hero's journey. You know,
• 24:49
  Gandalf, there's a Dumbledore, there's Obi Wan
• 24:52
  Kenobi. And they all teach the person about a, uh, tool
• 24:55
  like a lightsaber or a wand or
• 24:57
  so I don't care what anybody says about. Nobody
• 25:00
  wants a high bar. People will. Won't join your church if
• 25:03
  you ask them for money. People won't join your church if you ask them
• 25:06
  for time. I don't know what movies and
• 25:09
  books these people are reading because
• 25:12
  3 billion people seem
• 25:15
  very moved. When Frodo says,
• 25:17
  I will take the ring, I will go. I
• 25:20
  will give my life, I will Serve. It's like
• 25:23
  marriage. As a minister, I
• 25:26
  marry people. Um, and some people
• 25:29
  use the phrase, others update it. Um,
• 25:32
  I will take you and forsake all
• 25:35
  others.
• 25:36
  >> Tricia Lyons: Now, someone could say, well, that's a.
• 25:38
  >> Tricia Lyons: Hard thing to say. Yes, it is. What the heck
• 25:41
  would marriage, even a contract of any kind, be
• 25:44
  if you.
• 25:44
  >> Loren: Said, sweetheart, until this gets
• 25:47
  inconvenient.
• 25:48
  >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah.
• 25:49
  >> Tricia Lyons: Let's keep the bar low. So I'm gonna ask you to be
• 25:52
  polite in this marriage. I'm gonna ask you to be forgiving. But
• 25:55
  if you're not, it's fine. I'm not gonna leave you. And as for
• 25:58
  forsaking all others, let's, like, try the monogamy thing.
• 26:01
  But. But that gets hard. That's also
• 26:03
  negotiable. Um, imagine if the college
• 26:06
  accepted you, but, like, two weeks into your freshman year, you
• 26:09
  didn't show up for a seminar, and they said, well, we accepted you,
• 26:12
  but, you know, now we're just gonna tell you to leave. Not because you failed,
• 26:15
  but, you know, we said you were one of us, but you're not. I
• 26:17
  mean, so all around people,
• 26:20
  culturally, um, organ
• 26:23
  donation. I mean, I could just go on and on. There are so
• 26:26
  many times when someone puts their name in ink.
• 26:28
  They take a vow. They have an
• 26:31
  understanding of trust.
• 26:33
  Um, and yet in the church, we are afraid
• 26:36
  to, um, say to people.
• 26:40
  >> Tricia Lyons: Here'S how the universe works.
• 26:42
  >> Tricia Lyons: There is a Creator. And in every world
• 26:45
  religion that we've been able to find and read its
• 26:48
  pictures, uh, and listen to its music and read its poetry,
• 26:51
  if possible. If it was written down, maybe it's just
• 26:53
  symbols we find in a cave. We notice that
• 26:57
  there is a sense that life comes from
• 27:00
  a creator and that life is about trying
• 27:02
  to be in relationship with that creator. And
• 27:05
  Christianity is. It's like the Sesame street song. One of these things
• 27:08
  is not like the other. Christianity is not
• 27:11
  that. That I just said it is not
• 27:14
  that. It is not to try to
• 27:17
  seek a relationship with the Creator. It is not
• 27:20
  Simon says, to live like the Creator or any
• 27:23
  emanation or incarnation of the Creator.
• 27:25
  >> Tricia Lyons: It is not that.
• 27:27
  >> Tricia Lyons: That's exhausting. We can't do
• 27:29
  it. Christianity
• 27:32
  says the Creator
• 27:34
  becomes.
• 27:37
  Becomes a creature.
• 27:41
  So the creatures don't seek a relationship with the Creator.
• 27:44
  The Creator incarnates the
• 27:47
  Creator into the creature and lives out
• 27:50
  the relationship between creator and
• 27:52
  creature as one.
• 27:55
  And through faith, a Christian is
• 27:58
  allowed to join the body of
• 28:00
  Christ that was
• 28:03
  incarnate of all of God, the
• 28:05
  triune God. And if we join that
• 28:08
  body of Christ through faith, through the sacraments
• 28:11
  and there's different ways you could define it. We
• 28:14
  then by putting our lives into the life
• 28:17
  and the body of Christ, then the triune
• 28:19
  God who incarnated into the actual body, the
• 28:22
  full human body of Christ, fills our life.
• 28:26
  That is unlike any other seeking
• 28:28
  religion that you, whether it's Greco Roman
• 28:31
  mythology, whatever it is, that this notion is that
• 28:34
  the creature is seeking a relationship
• 28:37
  with the Creator, like a friendship or an affair or a
• 28:40
  marriage that has nothing to do
• 28:43
  with. But again, this is a formation thing. And different
• 28:46
  branches of Christianity are better at some parts of it.
• 28:49
  They nurture, uh, a connection with the Bible
• 28:52
  itself and the Word and that's their intimacy. Other people, it's
• 28:55
  the sacrament. But I do believe we've kind of lost this
• 28:57
  idea that your whole
• 29:00
  life is what you offer to be
• 29:03
  grafted, as St. Paul says, grafted onto
• 29:06
  the body of Christ. That is a huge life change. It's
• 29:09
  not. Christianity is not an idea. It's
• 29:11
  just not an idea that God loves us, we love
• 29:14
  God. But no, I mean, it has the fruit of those
• 29:17
  things. But Christianity is a physical experience
• 29:20
  where your body is grafted onto
• 29:23
  the body of Christ. And therefore when Christ
• 29:26
  dies, when we die, Christ dies with
• 29:28
  us. But because Christ rises,
• 29:31
  our body has been grafted onto his,
• 29:34
  we rise. So everything that when Christ is
• 29:37
  transfigured, you know, in the Gospel of Matthew, um,
• 29:40
  that's our future. So all of a sudden, when you join the body
• 29:43
  of Christ, everything that happens to Christ, the suffering,
• 29:46
  the betrayal, the loneliness, the
• 29:48
  torture, the death on the cross, we will
• 29:51
  share that. But the truth is we were going to share that anyway, right?
• 29:54
  I mean, life has all that. But
• 29:57
  because he rises, we rise
• 30:00
  because nothing that happens to his body doesn't happen to
• 30:02
  any body that is part of his body.
• 30:05
  So that's a lot to say. On the other hand, because
• 30:08
  we're not saying that Christianity has become a
• 30:11
  membership organization like the Rotary, and like the
• 30:14
  rotary, only 10% of people go
• 30:17
  compared to 1980.
• 30:18
  >> Loren: Yeah.
• 30:19
  >> Tricia Lyons: So we're failing as, um, ah, a
• 30:22
  voluntary association because we were never meant
• 30:24
  to be that. It's meant to be this total experience
• 30:28
  of your life joining the body of Christ on earth, which means joining the
• 30:30
  church, which means our bar for membership at
• 30:33
  the very least has to include what I just said. So people really
• 30:36
  understand what they're being invited to. Because you know what,
• 30:39
  they may not want to suffer with Christ. You become a Christian.
• 30:42
  Dorothy Day, you know, um, great 20th century
• 30:45
  Catholic social, um, justice
• 30:47
  warrior, she talked about becoming a Christian, made her Sadder than
• 30:50
  she'd ever been, because as soon as she became
• 30:53
  part of the body of Christ, she could start to feel
• 30:57
  things that other people were experiencing. She had this
• 30:59
  solidarity with all of humanity that has joined the body of
• 31:02
  Christ and she could literally feel it. So she kind of said, don't become a
• 31:05
  Christian if you want to feel good. Because if
• 31:08
  you take on the body of Christ, you are going to
• 31:10
  mourn, you are going to, uh, grieve,
• 31:13
  you are going to cry out for injustice because you are
• 31:16
  going to feel it's not just your body. What's the verse?
• 31:19
  It is no longer I who live.
• 31:21
  >> Loren: Right, but Christ in me.
• 31:23
  >> Tricia Lyons: The life I live in, the body I live by faith in the
• 31:25
  Son of man who loved me and gave himself for me. So we should say
• 31:28
  to people, not we dare you to be Christians, because this isn't some
• 31:31
  kind of game, right? We have to present them with this
• 31:34
  invitation. Are you ready for your life
• 31:37
  to be brought into the life of Christ? Which means you are going to
• 31:40
  hurt, you are going to suffer with the whole world, but
• 31:43
  your tomb will be empty because his
• 31:46
  was.
• 31:47
  >> Loren: You said so much good stuff here. I want to reflect and kind
• 31:50
  of just highlight some of the key themes that I
• 31:53
  heard. One is, I'm thinking of an episode
• 31:56
  that just released. I'll make sure again
• 31:59
  to put the link in the show notes. My co host, uh,
• 32:01
  Martha Tatarnic, Canadian Anglican. I, uh,
• 32:04
  don't know if you know her. You should connect with her.
• 32:06
  Uh, she just released an interview with
• 32:09
  Mike Cosper and I imagine you're somewhat familiar with Mike
• 32:12
  Cosper from his Rise and Fall, the Mars Hill podcast.
• 32:14
  He just put out a book, um, recommend the book.
• 32:17
  >> Tricia Lyons: I used to listen to the Mars Hill. Yeah, they were audio
• 32:20
  tapes, right.
• 32:21
  >> Loren: What was so interesting about uh, the Mars
• 32:24
  Hill story that he talks about in this conversation with
• 32:27
  Martha is like it was a high bar
• 32:29
  to entry like Mark
• 32:31
  Driscoll for good or bad. And we can leave
• 32:34
  that. Obviously there was some bad, but there was a high bar
• 32:37
  of expectation. Um,
• 32:40
  a. So, you know, I'm hearing that from what you said too.
• 32:43
  I'm thinking of the. You said something to the effect of like
• 32:46
  Christianity is not that. And I think there's been this
• 32:49
  trend in
• 32:51
  certainly mainline liberal progressive
• 32:53
  circles. Like I remember doing this in seminary where
• 32:56
  we take the multi faith cultural. I don't
• 32:59
  remember what the class was. Where there's this kind of
• 33:02
  like, because we want to bring down
• 33:05
  this obviously not good
• 33:08
  prejudice and bias and violence in uh, the name
• 33:11
  of religion that we Kind of synchronize
• 33:14
  our faith and religion to the point that it's just, like,
• 33:17
  about hospitality and being nice to one
• 33:20
  another. You know, I'm thinking
• 33:23
  about the song we love to sing,
• 33:26
  at least in circles. I'm a part of Draw the Circle. Draw
• 33:29
  the circle wide. Like, we want to draw the circle. Uh,
• 33:32
  but also, like, uh, I'm reflected recently. Like,
• 33:35
  can we have, like, the circle. Can it be wide, but can we have lines
• 33:38
  on what the circle is and is not?
• 33:42
  And then finally, I think you're familiar with this.
• 33:45
  I think it's Priya Parker who wrote the book the Art of
• 33:47
  Gathering. And she wrote.
• 33:50
  She wrote about how
• 33:55
  for there to be
• 33:57
  cohesion or not cohesion is not the right word. But,
• 34:00
  um, really,
• 34:03
  like, stickiness. For a group to have bonds or
• 34:05
  stickiness, there has to be some high levels of
• 34:08
  expectation. So all of this
• 34:11
  sounds completely counterintuitive. It sounds
• 34:14
  like an anathema. It sounds just completely
• 34:17
  paradoxical to, whether
• 34:20
  implicitly or explicitly, how
• 34:22
  mainliners have been training pastors and church
• 34:25
  leaders to do it for at least as long as I've been a part of
• 34:28
  mainline Protestantism. Why is that?
• 34:31
  >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah, well, uh, you know, you say mainliners, I always call
• 34:34
  them manner liners. Um, because I find a lot of
• 34:36
  mainline Christianity is not Christianity. It doesn't make
• 34:39
  martyrs. Yeah, that's for.
• 34:41
  >> Loren: Yeah. Mannered liners. I love
• 34:44
  that.
• 34:44
  >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah. No, it's.
• 34:45
  >> Tricia Lyons: It's.
• 34:47
  >> Tricia Lyons: And again, manners help us
• 34:49
  communicate in certain cultural
• 34:51
  contexts and only in certain
• 34:54
  cultural contexts. And it's important to know your cultural
• 34:57
  context. So I'm not saying that there's anything noble
• 34:59
  about being rude.
• 35:01
  >> Loren: Right, Right. I mean, that's certainly. That's a thing right now in the
• 35:04
  right far right is, like, where it's gonna be rude to just be a
• 35:07
  jerk. So we're not saying that, right?
• 35:09
  >> Tricia Lyons: No. Right. There's no nobility, um, in,
• 35:12
  um, being iconoclastic.
• 35:14
  >> Loren: Yeah.
• 35:15
  >> Tricia Lyons: Which is to really take a very important word, icon. Uh,
• 35:18
  to be iconoclastic, um, is
• 35:21
  to really. To shatter norms. That
• 35:23
  also is not an end in itself.
• 35:26
  >> Loren: Yes.
• 35:26
  >> Tricia Lyons: You want to stand in a room.
• 35:27
  >> Tricia Lyons: Of broken glass at the end of.
• 35:29
  >> Loren: The day, which, again, I'm trying to cut you off. But, like,
• 35:31
  that's. There's these. These. These are. We're both
• 35:34
  passionate about the subject. These are, like, the two moves right now in, like,
• 35:37
  progressive Christianity. Either we're gonna be. We're gonna draw the circle
• 35:40
  so wide that there are no limp boundaries, or we're just gonna
• 35:43
  smash things. To smash things.
• 35:45
  >> Tricia Lyons: So when we think about something again like
• 35:48
  marriage. They, that this, this notion that, that, that
• 35:51
  Christians, mainliners, um, or manner liners
• 35:53
  basically as we were saying, um, have taken on that
• 35:56
  that the more you draw the circle out the
• 35:59
  more and here's the words that are used and these are not
• 36:02
  unvaluable. Like these are values to be,
• 36:05
  to, to present yourself to people as
• 36:07
  inclusive. Remember, um, for generations
• 36:10
  now we live in a society of deceit and
• 36:13
  divorce and division. So
• 36:16
  people have trauma from that. We have sort of a collective
• 36:18
  trauma about being just dropped
• 36:21
  um, by uh, people we care about. You know, so people
• 36:24
  don't want to take the risk. You know, we have cortisol and
• 36:27
  adrenaline. I mean there are chemicals on the side
• 36:30
  of not wanting to make yourself vulnerable to a
• 36:33
  community, um, especially if you study any
• 36:36
  kind of Christianity in the 20th century alone, um,
• 36:39
  with the abuse of leaders and of money and of
• 36:41
  cultural. And so to actually look at people and say why don't
• 36:44
  you want to join something? Is just
• 36:47
  not taking seriously how much damage. Any
• 36:50
  kind of religious community. It could be the Girl Scouts or the Boy
• 36:53
  Scouts, I mean just name it, um, the
• 36:55
  Amish, um, uh, uh, Boys
• 36:58
  and Girls Clubs. I mean no one has been free
• 37:01
  um, from the abuse, um, of vulnerable members
• 37:04
  of communities. So anyone whose community
• 37:07
  shy is not
• 37:09
  withdrawn, um, or over
• 37:11
  anxious. I mean that's just someone who's aware
• 37:14
  of the danger of any kind of community,
• 37:17
  any kind of marriage, any kind of friendship. Right? So we have
• 37:20
  to respect that. But what's our answer to that?
• 37:23
  Do we form the convictions of our community
• 37:27
  based on the fears of those who might join
• 37:29
  it? I don't think that's the answer. You know, I
• 37:32
  think the answer is that the community has to
• 37:35
  live up, up to a rustable
• 37:38
  organization. And that's hard. It's a lot
• 37:41
  easier to say we will take everyone and we won't
• 37:44
  trigger anyone's concern by
• 37:47
  having no ask, no high
• 37:50
  bar because we don't want to turn people
• 37:53
  away. The truth is then what we're offering,
• 37:56
  which is what the especially people under 50 that I
• 37:58
  know, I mean from age 5 to 50
• 38:01
  are saying, what is it about
• 38:04
  who you are that is an invitation not to another
• 38:07
  thing. The Internet will always have more things than
• 38:10
  we can offer our people. The United Way will always be
• 38:13
  better at social justice and the
• 38:16
  um, defamation leagues around us will always be better at fighting
• 38:19
  anti Semitism. So when mainline churches fall
• 38:22
  into social service or even social justice
• 38:24
  organizations, quite frankly our coffee
• 38:27
  isn't as good as Starbucks. Our community organizing
• 38:31
  you know, is rarely ah, as good as
• 38:34
  organizations that are aimed at uh, community. It's
• 38:37
  an insult to people who are getting doctorates or have spent 50
• 38:39
  years without any education at all. You know, migrant
• 38:42
  workers, farm workers. We're gonna, we're gonna do community
• 38:45
  organizing better than like them.
• 38:48
  No, there's a conceit to that. We have
• 38:51
  to say what does Christianity offer the world? And
• 38:54
  I go back to what I said before. It offers
• 38:57
  the individual person an
• 38:59
  opportunity to the extent
• 39:02
  that they can. I mean whenever someone has an understanding of
• 39:05
  ministry and it doesn't include a non verbal autistic teenager in
• 39:07
  your, in your faith community, your understanding and
• 39:10
  your invitation to the Christian faith is shallow.
• 39:14
  It, there has to be room for every created
• 39:17
  being, whatever, however
• 39:20
  they present, define, whatever their abilities
• 39:23
  are, whatever their charisms are. We have to have this
• 39:26
  view that Christianity is an invitation
• 39:28
  to take your life and to merge
• 39:31
  it not by coercion.
• 39:34
  This is why, you know, predestination, double
• 39:36
  predestination, um, are to me like disgusting
• 39:39
  ideas. Sorry. The Calvinists who are out there, um,
• 39:42
  those of you reformed theology. I don't know what was up with Calvin. I know at
• 39:45
  26 he wrote the institutes of the Christian religion. I wish
• 39:48
  Calvinism had, as Calvinism culturally had as much mystery
• 39:51
  and interesting um, and sacramentality as
• 39:54
  that original work. Thomas Aquinas actually really started on
• 39:57
  the Summa when he was 26. Um, so you know, young
• 40:00
  people can have great ideas, um, but this idea that the
• 40:03
  human person, um, according to Calvinism,
• 40:06
  is totally depraved, that we are
• 40:09
  somehow not able as people as we
• 40:12
  are right now. Whoever you are listening, not listening,
• 40:14
  um, uh, in a coma.
• 40:18
  The idea that we cannot as people as we
• 40:21
  are, enter into the life of
• 40:23
  Christ on earth through the body of Christ on earth.
• 40:26
  So how does the person who's bed bound, who's a non verbal
• 40:29
  autistic, let's uh, say in bed, how do they interact
• 40:32
  with the body of Christ? The people around them part of the
• 40:35
  body? Better darn well get over there
• 40:38
  and pray and sing or sit in
• 40:41
  silence and be a presence and give these
• 40:44
  opportunities for people to be grafted on
• 40:47
  to the body of Christ. And remember, God doesn't need any of us to
• 40:50
  go into that room. Whether it's a hospital room or an apartment
• 40:53
  or a jail. That's the colonialism, right,
• 40:56
  that we bring Christ to people. What happens is we have
• 40:59
  the opportunity to be part of Christ coming
• 41:02
  to a person. So we have to start saying to people, this
• 41:04
  is what Christianity is It costs you
• 41:07
  everything. It requires
• 41:10
  everything. It
• 41:12
  encompasses everything. CS Lewis
• 41:15
  said a phrase that people probably seen on
• 41:18
  mouse pads. Um, I do not believe in Christ.
• 41:21
  I believe in Christianity, as I believe the
• 41:24
  sun has risen, and that not only
• 41:27
  do I see it, but by it,
• 41:29
  I see everything else. So,
• 41:32
  again, it's not just an idea among many. Like, some of your
• 41:35
  head thinks about capitalism, some of your head thinks about,
• 41:38
  um, veganism, and then some of your head thinks about
• 41:41
  Christianity. If you're thinking of it like that, we've already lost.
• 41:44
  Um, and of course, if you think of it like that,
• 41:47
  then having a high bar is
• 41:49
  pull away and express your view somewhere else. But Christianity
• 41:52
  is not a moral enterprise. We fail it as a moral
• 41:55
  enterprise. That's why it hasn't worked to invite people to, I don't
• 41:58
  know, be better people. CS Lewis said, you know,
• 42:01
  Christianity makes you a new person, not a
• 42:04
  good person. We've, uh, had plenty, uh, of
• 42:06
  wicked Christians. So the offer is not to
• 42:09
  join a moral life. The author is to do this incredible
• 42:12
  thing, which is to go into the font and
• 42:15
  drown. The font is really just
• 42:18
  the tomb turned on its side. We're invited
• 42:20
  to die to the individual that we
• 42:23
  are, and the burden of all of creation that
• 42:26
  crushes us with choice and guilt,
• 42:29
  collective guilt. Um, and you watch
• 42:31
  a, um, story about the Holocaust, um,
• 42:34
  and you could be crushed just by your participation in
• 42:37
  humanity. What would you have done then? What are you doing now?
• 42:40
  So all that crushes the individual, let
• 42:43
  it crush it. Go into the tomb
• 42:46
  with the water baptism. We call it the font, and come
• 42:49
  out as a resurrected person, which means you can be beaten
• 42:52
  and abused, um, and martyred, uh,
• 42:55
  but Christ's destiny is your own. When you come out of the font, his destiny
• 42:58
  is yours. So I think it's a long way of saying
• 43:01
  what you and I clearly are agreeing on, which is
• 43:03
  that when we offer people a
• 43:06
  shallow cultural,
• 43:08
  um, polite Christianity,
• 43:11
  I don't even know why we're using the term. Uh, there are many things that
• 43:14
  are that, but it's not Christianity. And it also, if
• 43:17
  you look at people's longing for epic
• 43:20
  stories in every culture of
• 43:23
  sacrifice and of. Of friendship,
• 43:25
  um,
• 43:29
  it doesn't meet the longing. It just doesn't
• 43:31
  meet the longing. We long for a life
• 43:34
  in the creator, not chasing a
• 43:37
  creator, hoping to be, um, a kid who gets
• 43:39
  an A from God. Um, we want to know
• 43:42
  God in our breathing, as the Bible says,
• 43:45
  through whom we live and move and have our being. And what you got to say
• 43:48
  to people is this community is here to help you understand that
• 43:51
  and to help you shed some things.
• 43:54
  That's what fasting is about. Um, and
• 43:57
  not to reward yourself for getting a fasting badge
• 44:00
  like the Boy Scouts or something, but to realize, my
• 44:02
  gosh, my iPhone is
• 44:05
  tearing me apart of relationships
• 44:08
  with other people. So I need help. I need to be in a community that
• 44:11
  helps me. Not as an end in itself, because remember, the end is not to put your phone
• 44:14
  down.
• 44:15
  The end is to have a relationship with the
• 44:17
  triune God. That is to, like, hang out in
• 44:20
  the hammock of God. Um, and
• 44:23
  to do that in your daily life. And that's a
• 44:26
  high ask, because you're asking people to learn. You're asking
• 44:29
  people to care for others, to take the burden of
• 44:31
  solidarity, to help each other with their hope
• 44:34
  when their hope is weak. So there's a lot to
• 44:37
  ask of people. But I work on
• 44:40
  LILY grants, uh, and research here at Virginia
• 44:42
  Seminary. We're on our fifth Lilly grant now.
• 44:45
  Um, and there are three or four years and they're over a million dollars
• 44:48
  each.
• 44:48
  >> Tricia Lyons: And.
• 44:48
  >> Tricia Lyons: But the truth is, it's all just research. And I'll tell you, from
• 44:51
  Guam M to Cuba to
• 44:54
  Europe, which is the breath of the Episcopal Church,
• 44:57
  this is a data driven conviction I have. The
• 45:00
  higher the bar is, the deeper the focus
• 45:03
  on helping people understand the faith, helping
• 45:06
  them understand the scripture, helping them have encounters with God.
• 45:09
  The quote, harder versions of the faith.
• 45:12
  Those are the communities that are growing, whether growing from two
• 45:15
  people to four or 400 to
• 45:17
  800. This idea that the comfort
• 45:20
  Christianity is how you bring people in and keep them.
• 45:23
  The only problem with that is data.
• 45:26
  >> Loren: Yeah, you said so much good stuff there. I want to
• 45:29
  respond to or at least reflect on.
• 45:33
  Um, I'm thinking of the book. I'm trying
• 45:36
  to find it on my stack here.
• 45:39
  Sustaining While Disrupting by Weems and
• 45:42
  Doug Poe. I don't remember the first name of the Weems,
• 45:45
  but, um, I'm remembering Doug Poe. Shout out to Doug
• 45:47
  Poe, new incoming president of Phillips Seminary, my
• 45:50
  alma mater. Um, but they write in the book
• 45:53
  about the problem of the SO that I think is the
• 45:56
  terminology. Like the. So that people often say, like the.
• 45:59
  So that we want to be
• 46:01
  welcoming so that youth,
• 46:04
  even LGBT youth, will have a place to
• 46:07
  be. And they make the point like, that's not. That's
• 46:10
  not the ultimate so that you need. So that needs to be
• 46:12
  like, you know, you can have the welcoming so that
• 46:15
  LGBTQ youth will have a home. But then
• 46:18
  this, that we skipped like the last. So that is so
• 46:21
  that they'll know and become, uh, you
• 46:23
  know, followers of Christ kind of thing.
• 46:26
  >> Tricia Lyons: Exactly right.
• 46:28
  >> Tricia Lyons: Because again, even feeling
• 46:31
  included in a human
• 46:34
  community, to me that's just not
• 46:37
  the depth of longing that I meet in other people. Just like you
• 46:40
  can meet someone who's happily married, even,
• 46:42
  um, who themself is still searching or
• 46:45
  seeking or the number one sign to
• 46:48
  me that people have not been, I'll use this formal word
• 46:51
  catechized, you know, into the Christian
• 46:53
  faith. Um, the depth of it, the invitation to the
• 46:56
  depth of it is that quite often the Christians I know are
• 46:59
  just as afraid of death as anyone in the world. Now, I
• 47:02
  think any of the ancient. I mean, we're talking about the first
• 47:05
  century. These are people who are still, you know, food for lions in the
• 47:08
  coliseum, were just professing
• 47:10
  Christianity. And, um, of course, there are places like that across
• 47:13
  the world. I mean, I remember during the war, um,
• 47:16
  in Iraq, you know, um, the Episcopal Church had an Anglican
• 47:19
  priest in Baghdad. You know, he would baptize people
• 47:22
  and those children and their parents
• 47:25
  would be beheaded in public the next week. Um,
• 47:28
  so you don't have to go back to the ancient world to find where being
• 47:31
  a Christian could cost you your life. Um,
• 47:33
  but that kind of seriousness to me
• 47:36
  does meet the longing of people.
• 47:39
  So again, if someone came up to me and said, you know, I just think you're being too
• 47:42
  exclusive. And not as even that isn't in itself,
• 47:45
  but what they're saying is, you know, you're asking too much. People don't have
• 47:48
  a lot of time. Their kids are on travel, soccer
• 47:51
  teams. Um, you have people taking care of their parents,
• 47:54
  and because of the economy, they have their young adults living
• 47:57
  with them. So I get all of this, um,
• 47:59
  very true testimonies of the
• 48:02
  complexity of modern life. Student
• 48:05
  loans, private, um, uh, the debt
• 48:07
  that comes from credit cards, which is always the way we make the difference
• 48:10
  between how much we make and the cost of actual
• 48:13
  living. So I don't even shame credit card debt that literally
• 48:16
  want to measure the space between the cost of living and
• 48:19
  wages. That's what your credit card bills are.
• 48:22
  Um, so all that being true, that's what I want to say to
• 48:25
  people. That's why there is no
• 48:27
  yoga group, pilates,
• 48:30
  um, ah, CrossFit. Those are
• 48:33
  all communities. And we learned in Covid not to shame those communities.
• 48:36
  I know some CrossFit groups that stayed more connected during
• 48:39
  COVID and smaller churches and faith communities
• 48:42
  that collapsed under Covid. It. So we're not saying that
• 48:45
  you're not going to get a casserole when your mother dies from your CrossFit
• 48:47
  group, you are. But I believe the deep
• 48:50
  longing of people is so much
• 48:53
  deeper than that. Saint, um, Irenaeus, right,
• 48:56
  um, 120 AD, you know, first, second century
• 48:59
  has this beautiful phrase. This is 200 years before we even have
• 49:02
  a Bible. This is 200 years before
• 49:05
  Chalcedon and Nicaea and these other, before we even actually
• 49:08
  figure out the Trinity. What is this dude
• 49:10
  saying? Ah, the glory of
• 49:13
  God is the human person
• 49:16
  fully alive. Think
• 49:19
  about it. He could have said, the glory of God is the person who follows Christ, or the glory
• 49:22
  of God is Christ. He could have said stuff. I mean, this is like, you know, 80
• 49:25
  years after the death of Christ. The
• 49:28
  glory of God is the human person
• 49:32
  fully alive.
• 49:34
  So when someone comes to me and says, you know, I want a church where I feel
• 49:37
  welcome, where, you know, it's easy to join and, and I
• 49:40
  feel comfortable, I, I, you don't shame that. Especially
• 49:43
  if people don't have any other. They only know about the
• 49:46
  Rotary or the bridge club or the, you know, the
• 49:49
  after school group. Um, so they just want it to be as kind or maybe
• 49:52
  even kinder than that. But we need to
• 49:55
  answer and say, no, no, no. Deep in you. This is why
• 49:57
  I love being Episcopalian. This is why I'm not a
• 50:00
  Calvinist. I do not believe that deep in the person is a
• 50:03
  depraved creation. No. God said in
• 50:05
  Genesis, it is good. Creation is good.
• 50:08
  Creepy crawly animals are good. Crazy winged birds in the sky
• 50:11
  are good. And what does he say on day six when humans are created.
• 50:14
  Very good. That's who we are. No
• 50:17
  sin, no decision, no orientation.
• 50:19
  Nothing can separate us from being in the
• 50:22
  image of God. So what we say to a person is, your
• 50:25
  longing is planted in you. It
• 50:28
  is planted. I don't have to put it there. That was the
• 50:30
  colonialism that, that has killed half the world.
• 50:33
  That I had to go to Beijing or Boston or Bangor
• 50:36
  and actually put Christ into people's lives. That
• 50:39
  conceit is murderous and has been a war crime from the
• 50:42
  beginning because, and it also put a lot of stress,
• 50:45
  frankly, on the conquistador or the missionary
• 50:47
  who actually thought they could do that. So just like
• 50:50
  racism hurts people of all races, colonialism
• 50:53
  hurt everybody because the burden is enough to crush you. The white
• 50:56
  man's burden, as they used to call it. But, but this
• 50:59
  idea that when you go up to another person,
• 51:02
  you are encountering the image of God you are
• 51:05
  encountering. Now you might say, oh, wait a Minute, is this person on the
• 51:07
  podcast a universalist? Is she saying it doesn't matter what
• 51:10
  religion? Of course I'm not saying that.
• 51:14
  Our call is to be fully alive and what we
• 51:16
  believe Christ has done, which is by coming into the
• 51:19
  human being from, from God
• 51:22
  and make, remaking us on the inside
• 51:25
  that we, then it's through Christ we are fully
• 51:27
  alive. You can be alive. Everyone is
• 51:30
  right. Um, who's walking around so you can be
• 51:33
  alive. But our conviction as Christians is that it is
• 51:36
  through Christ that we are fully alive. Uh,
• 51:39
  that, that is the full. Now someone would say that's pretty
• 51:41
  controversial. Now I sit on a lot of panels as someone who
• 51:44
  teaches at a seminary with people who are Muslim and Jewish and things like
• 51:47
  that. And you know what's always funny to watch is how the
• 51:50
  Muslim often or Jewish imam or
• 51:53
  rabbi or layperson in either faith
• 51:55
  unapologetically explains that Muslims believe or
• 51:58
  Jews believe, uh, and everybody
• 52:01
  nods politely.
• 52:02
  >> Loren: And when Christians say something like the
• 52:04
  horror.
• 52:05
  >> Tricia Lyons: And they just get the hell out of here. Um, so meanwhile the Muslim
• 52:08
  says, well, Muslim doctrine,
• 52:11
  um, and the Quran is a beautiful collection of poetry. If anyone hasn't read
• 52:14
  it, you should. In fact, it has great stuff about Mary. If you're a Mary
• 52:17
  freak. There's like more on Mary in the Quran than there is in the
• 52:20
  New Testament. It's beautiful.
• 52:21
  Um, but we tend to just nod when the,
• 52:24
  when the Muslim says the whole universe is
• 52:27
  Muslim, right? Which you know to be Muslim
• 52:30
  is to Islam means to be submitted to God. And um,
• 52:33
  then some people connect as Muslims and some don't. But
• 52:36
  basically the person stands up and declares the whole universe Muslim
• 52:39
  and everyone just nods. And then the Christian
• 52:42
  says, in accepting the life of Christ
• 52:45
  into your life, you are connected with the
• 52:48
  Creator for eternity. Your eternal life doesn't begin when
• 52:50
  you die, get hit by a bus or something. Your eternal life
• 52:53
  begins when you enter into the triune life of God through the waters of
• 52:56
  baptism.
• 52:56
  >> Tricia Lyons: That's when you went into the tomb.
• 52:57
  >> Tricia Lyons: And you came out of it. And the idea for Christians is we
• 53:00
  quickly figure out, well, you can't say that
• 53:04
  now. Here's the thing. I don't want to say that, um, oh, that's
• 53:07
  all political correctness. And I think Christians should just say what they want to
• 53:10
  say. We have got to take, especially with
• 53:13
  Jews, we've got to take responsibility for the fact
• 53:15
  that speaking and acting as a Christian empire
• 53:19
  has almost removed Jews from the earth.
• 53:22
  So it is true that we have to think
• 53:25
  about how we talk about,
• 53:28
  um, this idea that Christian ideas
• 53:31
  that are exclusive ideas. And I've always taught
• 53:33
  this. Someone says, how can you be an evangelist? I have some good
• 53:36
  friends who are rabbis who, you know. I say to them, what's it like when you tell
• 53:39
  your friends that you've got a good friend who's a. Not just a Christian,
• 53:42
  not just someone who teaches at seminary, but someone who's, you know, who's
• 53:45
  written books about evangelism? I have a book called what Is
• 53:47
  Evangelism? So I say to my Jewish friends, what are you doing hanging around with
• 53:50
  me? Um, are you not sort of nervous or
• 53:53
  embarrassed? Um, but it's because I've
• 53:55
  communicated them this phrase. And if your listeners
• 53:58
  have a pen, I hope they could write it down.
• 54:01
  Um, the former archbishop of Canterbury,
• 54:04
  a guy named Rowan Williams. Um,
• 54:07
  he is not the current archbishop, but he was the former one.
• 54:10
  And it just means you're the kind of symbol. He's not like a pope, but he's the
• 54:13
  symbolic head of all Anglicans in the world, which is
• 54:16
  about 80 million. There's only 2 million
• 54:18
  Episcopalians, and, uh, there's 78 million of our
• 54:21
  siblings. So we're the small minority of the Anglican
• 54:23
  Church. But this is what he said. Someone asked him,
• 54:26
  um, he was in Washington, D.C. a couple years ago, what's the purpose
• 54:29
  of the church? Now, Ron Williams is a scholar. He's got
• 54:32
  over 50 books. And by the way, he's not one of these guys that writes
• 54:35
  the same book five times. Like, these are, like, literally 50 different
• 54:38
  books. He writes about poetry and semiology and stuff. He.
• 54:41
  No one even understands. He's a genius. And you look at the
• 54:44
  person when they said, what's the purpose of the church? This guy,
• 54:47
  kind of off the street, you know, off a bus stop, that came to a lecture and just
• 54:50
  said, what's the purpose of the church? And Ron Williams, without a beat, looks at him
• 54:53
  and says, the purpose of the church is to
• 54:56
  form people into
• 54:59
  the kinds of people
• 55:02
  who can receive the gifts that God
• 55:04
  wants to give. Now, that's
• 55:08
  wordy, right? Because he didn't have an editor. It was just a verbal.
• 55:10
  But that idea for me is an
• 55:12
  Episcopalian, um, because I substitute all
• 55:15
  kinds of words. When someone says, what's the purpose of evangelism? I quote
• 55:18
  Ron Williams. I say, the purpose of evangelism, I just switch out
• 55:21
  of it. Church is to form
• 55:24
  people or to, say, support people. However you teach
• 55:27
  people, support people into the kinds of
• 55:30
  people not who are Christian,
• 55:33
  because all I can form someone in is my
• 55:35
  Christianity. Or I could have Some theoretical
• 55:38
  view of some orthodox Christianity that I never practiced. That's pretty
• 55:41
  shallow. But even if I tried to convince someone of that, that's
• 55:44
  still just not really real. That's just what I think it is. And I
• 55:47
  probably am wrong. Half the time, I don't even know what I want for lunch.
• 55:50
  Right. So how am I going to say that my version of
• 55:52
  Christianity. But Rowan says, don't do that. Don't form
• 55:55
  people into that. Was colonialism into the kind
• 55:58
  of Christian you are? Form people into
• 56:01
  the kinds of people who can receive
• 56:04
  all that God wants to give them. Um, faith in
• 56:07
  Christ, generosity, healing for their
• 56:10
  cancer. I don't know.
• 56:11
  >> Loren: Uh-huh.
• 56:12
  >> Tricia Lyons: That's not my job. And now I realize that's not even my
• 56:15
  responsibility. The reason I love going into
• 56:17
  completely pluralistic environments, which just means all kinds
• 56:20
  of religion are none. And I absolutely
• 56:23
  have no shame at all telling people about my relationship with
• 56:26
  God is because ultimately I'm not trying to get them to accept
• 56:29
  my relationship with God. Because, you
• 56:32
  know, on any given Tuesday, it's not even a good story. I mean, I'm
• 56:35
  trying.
• 56:36
  >> Loren: Yeah.
• 56:37
  >> Tricia Lyons: But imagine if my goal instead is
• 56:39
  that people whose hands, uh, are in
• 56:42
  fists. It's something I
• 56:45
  do, something I sing, something I pray, silence
• 56:48
  I share with them. Them grieving, I admit with
• 56:50
  them, even though we're different races or
• 56:53
  classes, if they can just
• 56:56
  open their hands or hearts or minds
• 56:59
  just a little bit more. I want what God
• 57:02
  wants to give them, not what I want to give them. That's not
• 57:05
  just colonialism, you know, I mean, I eat too
• 57:08
  much chocolate. So what do I think?
• 57:11
  I'm going to get someone to believe in Jesus like me? Who knows? They might wind up with the
• 57:14
  chocolate thing, too. And then they're going to have no teeth in their. Your mouth is going to
• 57:17
  look like an Irish Catholic Stonehenge, like a lot of people I know who were
• 57:20
  raised eating this much sugar. So we don't want any of
• 57:23
  that. What we want.
• 57:24
  And I just wish we could centralize this, uh, and take
• 57:26
  the manner liners out there and
• 57:29
  say, I know you're shy about evangelism
• 57:32
  because the evangelism you're worried about was a disaster.
• 57:36
  Of course you don't want to go to Thanksgiving and try to get your Uncle Buck
• 57:39
  to become a Christian, because you know what? We weren't called
• 57:42
  to do that. What we're called to do is go to
• 57:44
  Thanksgiving, sit next to him, despite the how he drinks and how
• 57:47
  he smells. And you pray and find out what
• 57:50
  God is asking. You to do to make Buck with his
• 57:53
  free will more open to what God wants to
• 57:56
  give him. That's evangelism. And the truth is
• 57:59
  that God could give him salvation.
• 58:02
  God could give him, you know, some kind of purgation. I don't
• 58:05
  know, better ideas. Um,
• 58:08
  how dare we guess? So this is why I'm not a
• 58:10
  universalist, for two reasons.
• 58:12
  >> Tricia Lyons: Reasons.
• 58:12
  >> Tricia Lyons: One, I believe we have to participate. God has allowed us,
• 58:15
  right? So it's not all Seth in the beginning. And the other
• 58:18
  reason is I don't believe that everyone is going to be forced to
• 58:20
  go. And every time someone says to me, I'm a universalist, I believe we're all
• 58:23
  going the same place, I want to say to them, so there's
• 58:26
  no consent to use a common word in our culture right
• 58:29
  now I'm like, what kind of God is going to
• 58:32
  stick you somewhere where you don't want to be worshiping God
• 58:35
  forever? That's ridiculous. So, of course, I'm not a
• 58:38
  universalist. I believe the invitation is to. To is
• 58:41
  to the person if they want to be with God.
• 58:44
  Which is kind of crazy, right? That God gives you a choice.
• 58:46
  But universalism says it doesn't matter how you live your life. We're all going to
• 58:49
  wind up at the same dinner party. And I just take human
• 58:52
  choice more seriously than that. I don't know that everyone wants
• 58:55
  that. It may be the case that everyone
• 58:57
  who's given the option at death or during life,
• 59:00
  um, chooses it. And hell is the place
• 59:03
  where C.S. lewis said, it's possible that hell is
• 59:06
  empty. That Calvin might be right
• 59:09
  about one thing. He's a jerk about a lot of things,
• 59:12
  but he might be right in this thing called
• 59:15
  irresistible grace. That as the Bible says
• 59:18
  in Corinthians that now we see through a glass dimly, but
• 59:21
  then we would see face to face. Now we know in part, then
• 59:24
  we will know fully as we are fully known. It is
• 59:26
  possible that upon the vision
• 59:29
  of who God truly is and who we truly are,
• 59:32
  hell might be empty. But anyone that doesn't
• 59:35
  believe in some way
• 59:38
  that the human can express that they do or
• 59:41
  don't want to gaze at God forever. I mean, when I call that hell,
• 59:44
  I mean, don't do the medieval art. It's a big, you know,
• 59:46
  hibachi. And we're like, toasting people on
• 59:49
  sticks forever. Um, that's art. That's not theology.
• 59:52
  The theology is, I. I do hold that God is loving
• 59:55
  enough, which is crazy, right? But God is loving enough
• 59:58
  stuff that our consent, however it's
• 1:00:01
  given Even if it's a developmentally delayed person who we don't,
• 1:00:04
  we don't understand the communication that they do. I
• 1:00:06
  believe that, that God will communicate and does communicate
• 1:00:09
  and that no one will be forced to be somewhere forever doing
• 1:00:12
  something like worshiping God in community that they don't want to do.
• 1:00:15
  So two reasons why we're not universalists. One, humans
• 1:00:18
  participate in one another's salvation.
• 1:00:20
  >> Loren: Mhm.
• 1:00:20
  >> Tricia Lyons: Clearly. I don't know why. I think that's a crazy hire for
• 1:00:23
  God to do, to give us work to do like that, but we get it. And
• 1:00:26
  the second is, um, God's relationship in the
• 1:00:29
  Trinity is of consent. Jesus has given an out in the
• 1:00:32
  garden of Gethsemane and he doesn't take it. He consents once
• 1:00:35
  again, um, that I and the Father are one. So I
• 1:00:38
  believe that that consent will be granted.
• 1:00:39
  >> Loren: Well, this is so good. You've gone through so much
• 1:00:42
  stuff here. Before we take a break, I want to do
• 1:00:45
  this. I want to talk about kind of practical things
• 1:00:48
  because like, I'm thinking about, you know, some
• 1:00:51
  of the things you said about, you know,
• 1:00:54
  people are too busy because they got kids, soccer and book
• 1:00:57
  club and whatever. And there's this assumption that like, oh,
• 1:01:00
  well, a. Like uh, we want to
• 1:01:03
  make space for people's busy lives. Two,
• 1:01:06
  there's this kind of fear that, oh, we'll lose people if we ask
• 1:01:09
  too much. Um, so I want you
• 1:01:12
  to just name off like some of the things you see
• 1:01:14
  that like, churches need to stop doing
• 1:01:17
  and then some things you think you should start
• 1:01:20
  doing.
• 1:01:21
  >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah,
• 1:01:24
  okay. Churches need to stop trying to
• 1:01:26
  figure out how to get between people and their
• 1:01:29
  activities, you
• 1:01:32
  know, to talk them out of a couple of book groups and
• 1:01:35
  a couple of, um. And truth is, most of the
• 1:01:38
  work that is stressing people out that I know is actually not book groups and
• 1:01:40
  it's actually not driving their kids to essay
• 1:01:43
  prep classes. Um, my experience is that
• 1:01:46
  the average American, um, who has so much
• 1:01:49
  personal credit card and student debt
• 1:01:51
  is they are working and they are picking
• 1:01:54
  up the fact that we don't live as in some
• 1:01:57
  European societies in I'm m not saying we should or shouldn't, but
• 1:02:00
  it's a fact that we do not live, that there's a social
• 1:02:03
  safety net that will protect people who have
• 1:02:06
  children but have to work anyway, um, who have aging
• 1:02:09
  parents. Um, so to be
• 1:02:11
  honest, I think people insult people
• 1:02:14
  when they say the reason that you're not coming to church.
• 1:02:17
  Um, and that also lets them off the hook as a
• 1:02:20
  church. When we say the reason you're not coming is
• 1:02:23
  sum total of book groups,
• 1:02:26
  um, Uber driving and taking care of
• 1:02:29
  kids or your parents. That's an insult. That's not why
• 1:02:32
  people aren't coming to church. That puts the problem
• 1:02:35
  as a misapprehension of people of how important, important we.
• 1:02:37
  >> Loren: Are as a church.
• 1:02:40
  >> Tricia Lyons: In my experience, people make time. See, if
• 1:02:43
  everyone was so busy, they.
• 1:02:44
  >> Loren: Wouldn'T be in like people make time for what they care
• 1:02:47
  about, what matters to them.
• 1:02:49
  >> Tricia Lyons: Exactly, exactly. So the reason people are
• 1:02:52
  quote, so busy is, is they've either found or
• 1:02:55
  they're searching.
• 1:02:56
  >> Loren: Searching.
• 1:02:56
  >> Tricia Lyons: Which is what? Searching, searching. So we've decided,
• 1:02:59
  oh shoot, how do we have them search with us instead
• 1:03:02
  of Pilates? And again, these are all class based things.
• 1:03:05
  I'm saying, um, the average person, uh, in this
• 1:03:08
  country now who makes less than $50,000 a year and is raising
• 1:03:11
  both children and parents at home,
• 1:03:14
  um, whose wages haven't kept up with inflation for
• 1:03:16
  the last 70 years, um, uh, they
• 1:03:19
  are not, not near church because they're, uh, in a year, big
• 1:03:22
  group.
• 1:03:23
  >> Loren: I mean, Ryan Burge has not age,
• 1:03:25
  right?
• 1:03:26
  >> Tricia Lyons: Mhm.
• 1:03:27
  >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah.
• 1:03:27
  >> Tricia Lyons: So this is crazy. I mean, the
• 1:03:30
  average American has more than one job now, according to the labor
• 1:03:33
  department. And a lot of people will say, well, how does that possible? And it's
• 1:03:36
  just 40 hours a week. I mean, you can't live on 40 hours a week.
• 1:03:39
  Um, so unless you're part of the top 5%.
• 1:03:42
  Um, so what we've got to start saying
• 1:03:45
  is there's one thing
• 1:03:47
  that the church, which is the body of Christ offers
• 1:03:50
  and it is life in Christ again,
• 1:03:53
  Starbucks coffee is better. And especially if you go buy the
• 1:03:56
  Starbucks and bring it over to your church, well then it's just, you know, not as
• 1:03:59
  hot as it was at Starbucks. So don't even tell me that. Oh, we do serve Starbucks.
• 1:04:02
  I've been out to churches on the Pacific, you know, Northwest, and they have people that
• 1:04:05
  make their own coffee. Better than peace than Starbucks.
• 1:04:08
  Why are we competing like that?
• 1:04:10
  Um, let the people, you know, let
• 1:04:13
  people, you know, bring their own Starbucks.
• 1:04:16
  That's not. Christ died and
• 1:04:19
  rose again. And to, to quote a
• 1:04:22
  philosopher probably has come up on your podcast,
• 1:04:24
  Canadian Charles Taylor.
• 1:04:28
  Um, but we don't want to be like all npr, you
• 1:04:30
  know, snooty here and say like, go ready?
• 1:04:32
  >> Loren: Read his second read, Nandra Rood. He's my favorite
• 1:04:35
  interpreter of Charles Taylor.
• 1:04:37
  >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah, yeah, but you know, I'm from, you know, a family who
• 1:04:40
  didn't have.
• 1:04:40
  >> Tricia Lyons: A lot of formal education in that.
• 1:04:42
  >> Tricia Lyons: Historically, uh, so, you know, I, I hate when people
• 1:04:45
  just think Emmanuel Kant just explains it all. Just go, go
• 1:04:48
  read it. Um, that's not what I'm saying. But this
• 1:04:51
  particular Canadian dude, um, who was a
• 1:04:53
  philosopher, um, did point out something that I think is very
• 1:04:56
  true. And he's talking about what he calls the disenchantment
• 1:04:59
  of culture, that we don't really
• 1:05:02
  believe in stories anymore because
• 1:05:05
  of, um, the. The market has failed the country more than
• 1:05:08
  once. Free market capitalism has failed most of the
• 1:05:10
  country. Um, we still have the American dream. But remember, the
• 1:05:13
  American dream just means that I somehow want to escape what is actually my
• 1:05:16
  reality, which is the American daily life. So people
• 1:05:19
  continue to believe in the American dream, but it, you know, and I see
• 1:05:22
  myself as someone. I mean, you know, my mother got married when she was 18. My
• 1:05:25
  dad got back from the Korean War and he got married. He
• 1:05:28
  was kind of a kid too. And rather than start their lives with college
• 1:05:31
  or something like that, they started with a family. Um, and I
• 1:05:34
  just decided I was going to go to Harvard as a young kid, um,
• 1:05:37
  because I thought I saw it on the Cosby show, to be honest. That's how I knew what
• 1:05:40
  Harvard was. And the guy in the Cosby show that went to Harvard seemed to
• 1:05:43
  be happy and have money to pay his bills. So I decided
• 1:05:46
  and then I went. So I'm an example, um, in
• 1:05:49
  many ways of the American dream. And yet I realized so much of that.
• 1:05:52
  I was Christian, I was white, I spoke English, I was a citizen,
• 1:05:55
  I.
• 1:05:55
  >> Tricia Lyons: Had two parents at home.
• 1:05:56
  >> Tricia Lyons: You know, so there's a hundred reasons why I succeeded, um, at
• 1:05:59
  the lottery or the roulette, actually. That is the American
• 1:06:02
  dreams. So when you have people who are that stressed,
• 1:06:05
  we've got to take a step back and say, we are not
• 1:06:08
  primarily a social organization. We're not a
• 1:06:11
  morality cult. Um, we're not as kind
• 1:06:14
  of a cultural. You know, a lot of the evangelicals.
• 1:06:16
  >> Tricia Lyons: I knew in the 80s, like, I.
• 1:06:17
  >> Tricia Lyons: Felt like if you were a guy and you didn't have on like, khaki pants and a
• 1:06:20
  denim, um, oxford button down with a
• 1:06:23
  leather belt and leather shoes, like you weren't a preacher. You
• 1:06:26
  know, we get these, like, cultural norms, um, that
• 1:06:29
  we mistake as the face. And yet they're just cultural norms in
• 1:06:32
  certain parts of the country. Um, but when
• 1:06:34
  we stick to our distinctive, to use business school
• 1:06:37
  language, which is that we are telling people,
• 1:06:40
  don't stop going to the things you go
• 1:06:43
  to, and we wish we could help you, but you may not ever
• 1:06:46
  get out of Being the only child who could take care of your parents.
• 1:06:49
  Parents. Or your special needs child. I mean, get to know someone like
• 1:06:52
  that in your congregation who's trying to get everywhere in the world that
• 1:06:55
  you are. But they've got one kid with a wheelchair, if not more kids with them
• 1:06:58
  as well. Um, and what about all the, you know,
• 1:07:01
  yeah, sure, you're on Medicaid or you've got insurance, but I don't know.
• 1:07:04
  I have Crohn's disease, for example. Um, and I
• 1:07:07
  can't tell you how much I pay for out of pocket. And I have, like,
• 1:07:10
  fancy Episcopal Church insurance.
• 1:07:13
  But you know what? It never covers what it costs to be
• 1:07:15
  disabled in the world. Um, so we look at
• 1:07:18
  all these people, and we shouldn't offer them anything that
• 1:07:21
  Christ didn't offer us.
• 1:07:24
  Christ never offered comfort, never
• 1:07:26
  offered a group that meets once a week.
• 1:07:29
  He said, come and see. Taste and
• 1:07:32
  see. Follow me. Zacchaeus in the tree, the woman
• 1:07:35
  at the well, the woman bleeding in the crowd. He just
• 1:07:38
  walked around and said to people, come, follow me.
• 1:07:41
  You're living your life. I want you to come and live. Live
• 1:07:43
  not near me, but in me.
• 1:07:46
  Right?
• 1:07:47
  >> Tricia Lyons: So that.
• 1:07:47
  >> Tricia Lyons: That's his last words. This is my body given
• 1:07:50
  for you when you eat it,
• 1:07:53
  like, literally. That's why, you know, Episcopalians and Catholics.
• 1:07:55
  >> Tricia Lyons: Take this so literally. Is.
• 1:07:57
  >> Tricia Lyons: Again, he's not saying, keep the idea of
• 1:08:00
  me because I have ideas about Pilates and
• 1:08:03
  everything else. He's saying, don't you
• 1:08:05
  understand? When you take my
• 1:08:08
  life into your life,
• 1:08:11
  I will bring my resurrection into your
• 1:08:14
  life. So I want everything. I
• 1:08:17
  want it. Uh, was Augustine that said, you know, anything not
• 1:08:19
  included is not redeemed. There's different translations,
• 1:08:22
  but what he means is the more of your life that you give
• 1:08:25
  to be bonded with Christ, then Christ's destiny
• 1:08:28
  affects more of your life. So if you only want your hands to
• 1:08:31
  be redeemed, then just do Christian.
• 1:08:33
  >> Tricia Lyons: Things with your hands, you know, to help people.
• 1:08:35
  >> Tricia Lyons: Bind some. But do you want your heart redeemed? Well, then give your heart
• 1:08:38
  to Christ. Share his heart. And now your heart's redeemed. So anything
• 1:08:41
  not included is not redeemed. Is a pretty powerful teaching.
• 1:08:44
  But then what you say to the person is so that now go to yoga.
• 1:08:47
  >> Tricia Lyons: Different.
• 1:08:48
  >> Tricia Lyons: Go to yoga and know death is off the
• 1:08:51
  table. Off the table.
• 1:08:54
  The thing that makes you anxious in yoga, that makes you want to go
• 1:08:57
  to Pilates, the reason you guys are paying for things like
• 1:09:00
  water and silence, which is crazy,
• 1:09:03
  is because it's not working. What I mean by it's not working, no offense to
• 1:09:06
  your yoga class. It's because what's in you is a fear
• 1:09:09
  of death. And, and being able to roll around
• 1:09:12
  on a mat may or may it
• 1:09:15
  may kind of distract you from the. This is what Sigmund Freud, he
• 1:09:18
  called it the painful riddle of death.
• 1:09:20
  That it's part of everything we do. We don't want our friendships
• 1:09:23
  to die, we don't want this summer to die. Some of you don't want the winter
• 1:09:26
  to die. You know, we don't want our health to die. And yet it will. My
• 1:09:29
  gosh, I was a big shot putter in college. Like,
• 1:09:32
  you know, big division one athletic stuff.
• 1:09:35
  Um, because when I get up and walk across the room now it sounds like a
• 1:09:38
  chorus of like joint cracking and I'm
• 1:09:41
  not that old, so it's coming and I,
• 1:09:44
  but you know what I'm afraid of
• 1:09:46
  dying. I'll be honest. Like I've seen enough in ministry, people
• 1:09:49
  dying and it's so horrible. But pain, the
• 1:09:52
  isolation, the failure of medicine, I
• 1:09:55
  have, have fear of the, of uh, dying, but
• 1:09:58
  I do not have a fear of death.
• 1:10:01
  And when I meet Christians who, who that, that's
• 1:10:04
  probably where I lead with people. If they said I don't have time for church, I would sit
• 1:10:07
  down and say, what do you got two kids over there? You know, one's five, one, seven. I'll
• 1:10:10
  suddenly, you know what, I'm not trying to scare you, but at some point at 18, they're
• 1:10:13
  either going to go into the military, they're going to go into independent life, or they're going to go to
• 1:10:15
  college. They're going to be sitting on their bed at the end of the week, they're going to have a
• 1:10:18
  roommate or a friend who's tried to kill themselves. They're going to have addicts around
• 1:10:21
  them. They might be one themselves.
• 1:10:24
  Where are they going to find peace? You're not going to be
• 1:10:27
  there and you're a wonderful parent. I don't shame helicopter
• 1:10:30
  parents. I mean, look at the way I treat my
• 1:10:33
  dog, my beagle, my God. Of course, if I were a
• 1:10:35
  parent, I can't even imagine, um, I would be a helicopter
• 1:10:38
  parent, um, in this culture because of all the things
• 1:10:41
  I'd be afraid of. But there's this part of me that says
• 1:10:44
  we should say to people, we don't have better coffee, we don't have
• 1:10:47
  better exercise classes. We do get together for a
• 1:10:50
  pretty good march and we all get T shirts. I mean, sometimes we all fly to
• 1:10:53
  Washington D.C. and represent justice issues. Yeah,
• 1:10:56
  yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what? The
• 1:10:59
  thing that besets human creativity,
• 1:11:01
  healing, forgiveness,
• 1:11:04
  um, innovation, uh,
• 1:11:07
  uh, the ability to breathe, um,
• 1:11:10
  is when death loses its sting,
• 1:11:13
  even for someone who then five minutes later dies in the bed. I
• 1:11:15
  have been there in the sacrament of the
• 1:11:18
  sick, as we call it in my tradition. And a
• 1:11:21
  person releases their fear of death in
• 1:11:24
  life. And even if they only
• 1:11:27
  live four more minutes, I'm telling you, I have seen
• 1:11:30
  it change their life. That now is only four
• 1:11:33
  minutes long and change the people around
• 1:11:35
  them. It wasn't the cancer, it wasn't the
• 1:11:38
  cystic fibrosis of the 8 year old who I've also seen die on the
• 1:11:41
  table for the people
• 1:11:44
  around them, uh, it was death itself.
• 1:11:47
  And to have one person standing there and say, I and the
• 1:11:49
  resurrection. This is what say at the funeral,
• 1:11:52
  I am the resurrection and the life. And you
• 1:11:55
  just recite the words of Jesus and you realize the key to
• 1:11:58
  the story of Lazarus. Because think about it, if
• 1:12:01
  I were Lazarus, I feel like I got screwed. Not because I
• 1:12:04
  was risen from the dead, but because that poor son of
• 1:12:07
  God has to die again.
• 1:12:09
  But what doesn't get preached often enough in the church
• 1:12:12
  is, so why does Jesus do this? Remember, he does it
• 1:12:15
  Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday.
• 1:12:18
  So in the Catholic and the Anakin church, actually we call it Lazarus
• 1:12:21
  Saturday, the Saturday before. And what we believe is, it's,
• 1:12:24
  it's not just a foreshadowing of how the next week is going to
• 1:12:26
  end. It's to remind us,
• 1:12:29
  and I hope Lazarus, you know, when I meet
• 1:12:32
  him, you know, uh, for eternity, I want
• 1:12:35
  to just thank him for allowing his body to be a lesson because it meant
• 1:12:38
  he had to go back and form like a yo yo. But what
• 1:12:41
  we learn in Lazarus is you can be resurrected.
• 1:12:44
  Here's the power in
• 1:12:46
  this life.
• 1:12:50
  Lazarus is not meant to be a pre Christ kind
• 1:12:53
  of the week before because Christ is going to do it all the next week.
• 1:12:56
  So Christ doesn't need a human to be
• 1:12:58
  resurrected. It kind of undermines his own story.
• 1:13:01
  That's not what that's about. What that's about is
• 1:13:04
  what he's saying is, this thing I'm going to do for you next week,
• 1:13:07
  it can happen in this
• 1:13:09
  life.
• 1:13:11
  Lazarus come forward. And what does Jesus say? He then tells
• 1:13:14
  his friends, um, he doesn't take all the rivets off. He
• 1:13:17
  tells the friends to do it. And he's showing us that each one of
• 1:13:20
  us can go into the grave.
• 1:13:22
  Our fears can literally kill
• 1:13:25
  us. But
• 1:13:28
  if, when Jesus says, lazarus, come
• 1:13:30
  out when Christ calls us, because everyone
• 1:13:33
  around us, remember, has formed us into the kind of people who
• 1:13:36
  can receive the gifts God wants to give. We know how to answer the
• 1:13:39
  shepherd's voice. Lazarus comes out to show us.
• 1:13:42
  Wait a minute. I mean, next week, Jesus is going to show
• 1:13:45
  us, when you die, you can be resurrected. Lazarus is going to say, I can be
• 1:13:48
  resurrected into my life. All of a sudden, we're
• 1:13:51
  not competing with yoga. And
• 1:13:54
  by the way, it sounds like I'm very anti yoga. I'm not anti yoga
• 1:13:57
  stuff. I'm just not a particularly. Every time I go to
• 1:14:00
  yoga, I kind of roll around the mat. I told you, as a shot
• 1:14:02
  putter, everyone you can imagine, I'm not exactly a distance
• 1:14:05
  runner. And I feel like one of those beached whales where all the Girl Scouts
• 1:14:08
  have to come and push them back into the water. So that's how I move
• 1:14:11
  around a yoga mat. So, um, I do have thoughts about yoga. But my
• 1:14:14
  point is, when the Christian church says what we are, we
• 1:14:17
  believe life is almost killing you. The pace you're keeping is
• 1:14:20
  killing you. You are just about Lazarus with a foot into the grave.
• 1:14:23
  >> Tricia Lyons: Grave.
• 1:14:23
  >> Tricia Lyons: You're sleep deprived, you're dehydrated. The number of people
• 1:14:26
  we have medicated for, um, and not people
• 1:14:29
  who have classically always been medicated for psychological, um,
• 1:14:32
  distress, but the number of people, look at the commercials on TV
• 1:14:35
  just for general anxiety disorder. These are people who have a foot in the
• 1:14:38
  grave. And we got to say, you know what Jesus says,
• 1:14:41
  Come, come to me, all you who labor.
• 1:14:44
  You know, my yoke is easy. My burden is like,
• 1:14:47
  even, you know, that
• 1:14:49
  invitation, I feel like people would give
• 1:14:52
  anything for it. They might skip a yoga class or
• 1:14:55
  better. They find a way to have this encounter with Christ that
• 1:14:58
  actually lets them be a better home health care worker with
• 1:15:01
  their mom. That actually gives them the energy with their
• 1:15:04
  autistic child, because you're not
• 1:15:07
  giving them activities. You're giving them, let me just
• 1:15:10
  say it, eternal life. Charles Taylor is
• 1:15:13
  right. I think our culture has become disenchanted. But you
• 1:15:16
  know what I'm worried about? No offense to Charles Taylor, the
• 1:15:18
  church is disenchanted.
• 1:15:20
  >> Loren: It is.
• 1:15:21
  >> Tricia Lyons: You talk about miracles and people think you hit your
• 1:15:23
  head. You talk about believing in the
• 1:15:26
  resurrection of the body. Any of you who are no Catholics, you know, they cross
• 1:15:29
  themselves. And Episcopalians, when we say the creed, we say the forgiveness
• 1:15:32
  of sins, the resurrection of the body, and you'll see them actually
• 1:15:35
  cross themselves. You know, what we do that is to Actually
• 1:15:37
  punctuate that line in the creed, and you
• 1:15:40
  touch your own body. So you're saying, I don't just believe
• 1:15:42
  theoretically that somebody's body would be resurrected. You
• 1:15:45
  say, um, this one. And then they go, you know, up, down,
• 1:15:48
  right, left. This body will be
• 1:15:51
  resurrected. And people are like, well, how is that even possible? What if a
• 1:15:54
  shark bites off your leg? So when you get resurrected, you've only got
• 1:15:57
  one leg. You want to try to remind people the God that made all
• 1:16:00
  things can actually bring your body together, whether or not part of it is
• 1:16:03
  in a shark halfway across the Atlantic.
• 1:16:06
  >> Loren: Yeah.
• 1:16:07
  >> Tricia Lyons: You know, so we. But I don't need to tell you
• 1:16:09
  that if when you go to a funeral and someone stands up there and
• 1:16:12
  says, this person now rests in peace.
• 1:16:16
  And our phrase, though, in the church is, rest in peace, rise in
• 1:16:19
  glory, those are not at the same time
• 1:16:22
  we rest in peace. There's no moment in death that we are
• 1:16:24
  not held in God. Like I always say, the hammock. That is
• 1:16:27
  God trying on life. But there will
• 1:16:30
  be a time where we will be resurrected
• 1:16:33
  in that body. And people look at me like I'm crazy, and then I look at them and
• 1:16:36
  say, so then death really does win.
• 1:16:39
  If death has torn your soul from your body permanently, then why are
• 1:16:42
  you walking around saying, death has lost its thing, it wins,
• 1:16:45
  and we believe it doesn't. I mean, Christ didn't, you know, just
• 1:16:48
  have this ethereal spirit that just kind of wandered around
• 1:16:51
  that body with the. So you and I and my
• 1:16:54
  Crohn's disease and anything you've struggled, these are not for
• 1:16:56
  nothing. We are going to be redeemed and
• 1:16:59
  resurrected in the strength, uh, that we fought
• 1:17:02
  in this body and this body, this crazy body we have right
• 1:17:05
  now. Very few people look in the mirror, get excited about
• 1:17:07
  it. Um, many people look in the mirror and think too much about
• 1:17:10
  it. Um, whether it's idolatry or shame, either
• 1:17:13
  one of those things, just know that there will be a time when our
• 1:17:16
  body is redeemed and is
• 1:17:18
  reunited with the soul that God gave us.
• 1:17:21
  And I wish Charles Taylor, um, gave us
• 1:17:24
  more help in the church, but his goal
• 1:17:27
  was to say that the whole culture has been. But
• 1:17:30
  you and I and your wonderful podcast, um,
• 1:17:32
  are, um, I think, attempts to re.
• 1:17:35
  Enchant the search. Um, we are not that
• 1:17:38
  interesting as a social organization, and we're not even that skilled as
• 1:17:41
  a community organizing, but we are the people meant to
• 1:17:44
  say the things that, uh, St. Paul said would make us sound like
• 1:17:47
  fools.
• 1:17:50
  >> Loren: And I hate to bring it back because I feel like
• 1:17:53
  this is kind of undergirding this entire conversation. Many of the
• 1:17:56
  conversations that I have on this podcast, this kind of
• 1:17:59
  idea that I was certainly
• 1:18:01
  introduced to through Nandra Root, but Charles Taylor,
• 1:18:04
  but this is like the undergirding that we're talking
• 1:18:07
  about. Is this the idea that church really
• 1:18:10
  doesn't matter? It doesn't really have any
• 1:18:13
  implications beyond this life.
• 1:18:16
  And I hate to cut this off because we're running out of
• 1:18:19
  time and we could go on to that for another 15,
• 1:18:22
  20 minutes. But
• 1:18:25
  share with people, uh, we'll have to end this
• 1:18:28
  year because I got a heart cut off here. But share with people
• 1:18:30
  how they can connect with you, get more in touch with what you're doing.
• 1:18:34
  Learn about this so much more refreshing
• 1:18:37
  idea of, uh, evangelism and
• 1:18:40
  um, having some passion for your
• 1:18:42
  faith.
• 1:18:43
  >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah. Um, well, two things. One, I did write
• 1:18:46
  a book called, um, what, ah, is Evangelism?
• 1:18:50
  Um, and there's a whole chapter on
• 1:18:53
  wizards, um, uh, Jedi and hobbits.
• 1:18:56
  Um, so it's. I, uh, was asked by the Episcopal
• 1:18:59
  Church to write this book because so many of the books about
• 1:19:01
  evangelism are very technical. To use
• 1:19:04
  the Ron Heifetz language. Like
• 1:19:07
  there's a technical problem. Like if your sink is, you know,
• 1:19:10
  leaking, fixing it is a technical, um. But as
• 1:19:13
  it's leaking, if you looked at it and said, what if we
• 1:19:16
  don't use sinks indoors anymore? That's
• 1:19:19
  an adaptive response. Um, so,
• 1:19:22
  um, I don't do much of the technical, uh, talking. And what is
• 1:19:24
  evangelism? I talk more about the things you and I have talked about on this,
• 1:19:27
  on this podcast, which is if you
• 1:19:30
  have, um, a life giving understanding of the whole
• 1:19:33
  universe, that God has put a black box in
• 1:19:35
  every being that we call the image of God. And it is
• 1:19:38
  just sounding, um, uh, to be,
• 1:19:41
  um, for the person to hear
• 1:19:44
  and then be able to follow like we do with the black box. That's how you know how
• 1:19:47
  to get to it, is the closer you get to it, the louder the sound is and the
• 1:19:50
  closer. So we've just got to help people. What does it mean
• 1:19:53
  to form people into the kinds of people who can receive the gift?
• 1:19:55
  Think of it as we help people listen to the black box
• 1:19:58
  that's beeping within them and if we can help them take
• 1:20:01
  out other sounds, um, take out other parts of their life and
• 1:20:04
  burdens that literally, like if you're in public and a woman has three children,
• 1:20:07
  one is crying, say, can I hold your bag for you? I mean, there are
• 1:20:10
  literal ways you can help people be
• 1:20:13
  able to receive more. So, um, so
• 1:20:16
  that book, I think is a good read for people because it
• 1:20:18
  relieves people of the burden of thinking that we have to
• 1:20:21
  plant black boxes in people, we have to make Christians,
• 1:20:24
  we have to introduce people to God. Um,
• 1:20:27
  that ping at the bottom of the ocean of that black
• 1:20:30
  box that's buried. Um, the sound it makes is
• 1:20:33
  the breath of God from the beginning of creation as God hovered over
• 1:20:36
  the waters. Um, so,
• 1:20:39
  you know, we just have to go out in the world and do everything we can do to help people
• 1:20:42
  hear it. Um, the other thing is, um, I did write
• 1:20:45
  a 30 day, um, devotional.
• 1:20:48
  Um, there are so many devotionals out there. Um,
• 1:20:51
  but I'm, you know, I love church fathers and mothers,
• 1:20:54
  so I love writers from the first three centuries. Um, I'm
• 1:20:57
  also a big, obviously epic, um, fan of
• 1:21:00
  Black Panther and other things. So, um, it's called
• 1:21:03
  30 days, um, is the name of the
• 1:21:05
  devotional. And I hope it
• 1:21:08
  kind of introduces a kind of epic narrative,
• 1:21:11
  uh, Christianity. Um, so every day,
• 1:21:14
  um, there's quotations from movies, um, like Star
• 1:21:17
  wars or Narnia or Lord of the Rings, and there's also
• 1:21:20
  quotes from saints, you know, Joan of Arc or things like
• 1:21:22
  that. Um, and there's some reflection questions. And I'm hoping that it's like
• 1:21:25
  a 30 day, like refresher into this larger
• 1:21:28
  view, um, that Christians aren't called to be
• 1:21:31
  saviors. Um, Christians are called to
• 1:21:34
  look at yourself and admit the need and the
• 1:21:37
  excitement, um, of there
• 1:21:40
  being a savior. Um, and once you realize
• 1:21:43
  that job is already filled, um, my gosh, what can
• 1:21:46
  you do with your energy? Especially when death,
• 1:21:49
  um, I mean, I even say the word death now and part of
• 1:21:52
  me just smiles because, uh, I know
• 1:21:55
  I'll end with this. We have, uh, wooden
• 1:21:58
  altars in some churches and we have stone altars in others
• 1:22:01
  churches. And there's a wonderful history of both that the wood altar is
• 1:22:04
  really assigned to help believers believe that this
• 1:22:06
  altar that we have, this remembrance meal
• 1:22:09
  is actually like your altar at home. So that image
• 1:22:12
  helps people, like, think of their whole Christian life as
• 1:22:15
  holy, not just the church. So that's the benefit of the wood
• 1:22:18
  altar. The stone altars have a different history. They are
• 1:22:21
  older from the ancient world. And what it is is Christians
• 1:22:24
  used to have their Eucharist when Jesus says, do this in
• 1:22:27
  remembrance of me. So don't think you have to be Catholic. I just mean this is what
• 1:22:30
  the church did for a couple hundred years. And they would Go into
• 1:22:32
  graveyards. And they would have. I love this. They.
• 1:22:35
  I hate Screwtape M. Screwtape letters. So
• 1:22:38
  when you say Satan, it makes people nervous, and it should. Um, But
• 1:22:41
  I say screw tape because, you know, that does a little better with online Christians. I
• 1:22:44
  don't think I'm so crazy, but I'm talking about the same person. So
• 1:22:47
  Screwtape hates this. And so I get excited. And whenever you're
• 1:22:50
  pissing off Screwtape, you know, you're on the right practice. They would
• 1:22:53
  go into graveyards and
• 1:22:56
  celebrate the Last
• 1:22:58
  Supper on top of.
• 1:23:01
  >> Loren: Oh, wow, I did not know that.
• 1:23:03
  >> Tricia Lyons: So that's where we get the long stone altar from. It's. It's a
• 1:23:06
  tomb. And it's meant at the time to m.
• 1:23:09
  Mock death. This idea
• 1:23:12
  that the bones of the body is sort of in the ground and was had been,
• 1:23:15
  like, reclaimed by, quote, reality. You know, there's
• 1:23:18
  none of this pie in the sky. You're food for worms.
• 1:23:21
  And they would go to these places because they didn't have churches,
• 1:23:24
  because they were, you know, um, a faith that was on the
• 1:23:27
  run. And they would celebrate as if to.
• 1:23:30
  And then that's why they would lift up. You ever seen a priest lift up the
• 1:23:33
  bread and the wine is. They literally had this
• 1:23:36
  hand motion where you would lift up
• 1:23:39
  above, uh, as if to say, this tomb will
• 1:23:42
  not hold this body
• 1:23:44
  forever. So stone
• 1:23:47
  Eucharist were held at, uh, the Holy
• 1:23:49
  Communion to literally go in. I love
• 1:23:52
  it. Into the graveyard, mock
• 1:23:55
  death, spit it in the faith, and
• 1:23:58
  actually have the Feast of the Resurrection on
• 1:24:01
  top of a grave. I love that.
• 1:24:04
  So that's the.
• 1:24:05
  Again. Say to someone, you know, I know you're busy. You
• 1:24:08
  don't have a lot of time. Um, we've got to find ways to meet
• 1:24:11
  people off Sunday morning. According to the Labor Department now,
• 1:24:14
  close to 62% of Americans
• 1:24:17
  work on Sunday. Not all day, but have work
• 1:24:20
  on Sunday. So if your church only does something on Sunday, even
• 1:24:23
  Sunday night, you're writing off 62% of the whole
• 1:24:26
  country. We were not given the authority to do
• 1:24:29
  that. Go ye there for Judea Samaria
• 1:24:32
  and go out into all and preach. So you've got to
• 1:24:34
  find a different way. It's not always about money to find
• 1:24:37
  people where they are during the week, because you can't do Christianity
• 1:24:40
  alone. God was right in Genesis when he saw says, it's not good for you to be
• 1:24:43
  alone. You can't do it alone because you're joining a body of other
• 1:24:46
  people. And that's the first step, which is to get
• 1:24:49
  people involved with other people who are then teaching
• 1:24:52
  the faith as we've been talking about it now, and teaching
• 1:24:54
  them that we can't keep you from being hurt,
• 1:24:58
  we can't keep you from mental illness, from eating
• 1:25:00
  disorders. Christianity, again, is not that
• 1:25:03
  kind of band aid. But
• 1:25:06
  we can give you as a community, because
• 1:25:09
  that's who we are. We can invite you to graft
• 1:25:11
  yourself onto the body of Christ. And then anything
• 1:25:14
  you face, the eating disorder, you know, you
• 1:25:17
  have a teenager who's a cutter. You know, whatever it is,
• 1:25:20
  um, you have in you, it is no
• 1:25:23
  longer they who live, um, but Christ who lives in
• 1:25:26
  them, which means even if they
• 1:25:29
  die, they will share the
• 1:25:32
  destiny of Christ.
• 1:25:33
  >> Tricia Lyons: And you know what?
• 1:25:34
  >> Tricia Lyons: I don't know anyone at yoga that's telling you.
• 1:25:36
  >> Loren: Well, that's a great way to end it. So, Tricia, uh, I really
• 1:25:38
  appreciate this conversation. Really appreciate your passion
• 1:25:41
  for the faith and for the church. And folks,
• 1:25:44
  please, you know, this is not just
• 1:25:47
  kooky Loren here saying this. This is someone with real
• 1:25:50
  cred, credential experience. Like, listen to
• 1:25:53
  Tricia, please. So, uh, Tricia,
• 1:25:56
  I really hope, uh, more pastors and church leaders get
• 1:25:59
  this message. So, uh, but I always leave folks with a word of
• 1:26:01
  peace. Uh, so may God's peace be with you.
• 1:26:05
  >> Tricia Lyons: And also with you, my brother. What I love
• 1:26:08
  is CS Lewis says there's no such thing as saying goodbye.
• 1:26:11
  There's only see you later.
• 1:26:20
  >> Loren Richmond: Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian Podcast.
• 1:26:23
  The Future Christian Podcast is produced by Resonate
• 1:26:26
  Media. We love to hear from our listeners with
• 1:26:28
  questions, comments and ideas for future
• 1:26:31
  episodes. Visit our
• 1:26:33
  website@future-christian.com and
• 1:26:35
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• 1:26:38
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• 1:26:41
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• 1:26:47
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