Latest / Beyond the Sermon / Revelation, Transformation, Awakening: Conversation(ft. Meg Rambo)

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Revelation, Transformation, Awakening: Conversation(ft. Meg Rambo) · Beyond the Sermon

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You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast the First
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Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
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On our podcast, the goal is not just to share our sermons, but
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to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're learning and
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what God is doing in us and in our community.
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This fall, we're living in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke,
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and John and learning how to live from our model, Jesus.
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This conversation was inspired by our series The Gospels.
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You can find more information about our church at
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fumccollingswood.org. Thanks for joining us for this
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conversation. The best of the Rambo household
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in our presence. And if you can't tell already by
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the laugh, it is the one and only Meg Rambo.
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We might be a little still catching up on rest and the very
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intense time change and jet lag as all three of us just returned
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from the New Room conference in Montgomery, AL Roll Tide.
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I don't honestly know where to start.
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There was so much that happened in the course of three days at
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the conference. So I'll go a full Devmonchardo
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and say top three things from your trip.
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Definitely one of them was meeting some new friends.
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So there was a guy from Scott's cohort that he had met and had
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talked to and was in a relationship with, but I got to
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meet for the first time and his lovely wife.
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That new friendship was really good and really meaningful and
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was, I hope, a blessing to them as much as it was a blessing to
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us #2 I think I went to a session on like I was group of
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sessions on the spiritual gifts and it really took a lot of what
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I believed and thought about the spiritual gifts and flipped that
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and really got me thinking about it differently.
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So I can't unpack any more than that right now, but it was
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really good and really challenging and just help them
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understand scripture in a different way.
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And I'm looking forward to diving into that this winter and
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spring and doing some more study and research on it.
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And then I think there is just always the chance to get away
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from all of life and disconnect for those three days and worship
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and just be and worship in a way that I don't have to carry other
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people in the same way. And I don't mean that in a bad
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way. I love worshipping at our church
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and I love worshiping with people.
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But when I'm in our sanctuary, there are times that I think
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about other people and I start praying for them, or I think,
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oh, I need to go to catch them after church and check in with
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them and things like that. And so for three days of just me
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and Jesus is always just a great, wonderful experience.
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Those are my threes and I had someone else's turn.
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I think what Meg was saying there at the end was, was
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definitely one of mine too. New room talks about their
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conference being an unconference.
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It's not, you know, where you go to hear all the latest trends or
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the new ministry programs or here's how to grow your church
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from 200 to 500 and you know, 3 easy steps.
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They, they talk about it as being a meeting with God.
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And that has been true for me every time, every time I've
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gone. And just to be able to take a
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few days where I'm not leading anything and just sit and listen
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for what God's saying to me is a much needed reset here as we
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start back into the school year from like a session perspective.
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One of my most significant ones was on Tuesday or Thursday
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morning, the full day that we were there at the conference,
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and a pastor from Oklahoma was sharing about this idea that
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love goes 1st. And when it comes to
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reconciliation, when it comes to outreach, when it comes to, I
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think he'd say just about anything, we have to reflect and
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model the same realities that God showed us and in coming to
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us first. And we have to love 1st.
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And we have to be propelled or compelled by love to move
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towards people, even people who maybe are quite different from
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us or, you know, think differently, vote differently,
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all those kind of things. Because that is the only way
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they're going to be reached with the gospel is if love goes 1st.
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And so that I think session wise was one of the the ones that
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stuck out to me the most. And there's a book by the same
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title, Same kind of life if you're.
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In your forest there was a sweet prayer time one of the nights,
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Thursday night, I guess, and just beautiful to see the body
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of Christ being the body of Christ and people praying for
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one another. And even though you know, you
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knew they were going through stuff, they were still praying
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for you and vice versa. And just that recognition that
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we don't have to get it all figured out or all straightened
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up or worked out in order to reach out and be the body of
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Christ for one another. Even in our even in the midst of
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our own brokenness and pain, we can still be what Henry now and
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called wounded healers. What about you, Jeremy?
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I got great cardio on the last night.
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That is true when you almost missed your flight.
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Our flight. Yeah, that was an ideal run.
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It's also Atlanta's just one of the worst designed airports and
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I've had that issue since I was like 12.
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They were with the flip numbers. It's the flip numbers that get
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me when you get to the terminal and like.
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One is all the way down. Yeah, 1 is at like the
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cul-de-sac end of the terminal. And so when I was mentally
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preparing to run for my life and I got there and I was like, oh,
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instead of having to run to gate 7 from 1, I had to run to 7 from
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22. Right it.
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Was horrible but memorable. I'm great when you talked about
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the culture of the conference and it not being like a bunch of
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people on stage. Our church is big.
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This is how you get your church to be big.
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I was quite surprised because this is our my third year going
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that they had the pastor from Saddlebrook.
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Saddleback. Excuse me, They changed it the
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pastor from Saddleback Church like zoom in for a section of
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it. And at first I was like, why is
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he here? Like I don't have anything
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against the guy, but like more known he took over Saddleback
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used to be Rick Warren's church, right?
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20 to 30,000 people every week. The Disneyland of churches.
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You go, you pick a stage with your preferred.
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Music. Worship style and stuff.
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And then if you're not in the main building, then the sermons
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projected into the screen of your.
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We think there's only two styles.
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They have 5 styles on Sunday mornings.
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And I was like, I don't think there's anything that we can
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really practically learn from them for our context.
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And it was really great to hear him speak about how the Spirit
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was leading them to just provide an open space and time for
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people to interact with Jesus. And it like have worship service
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aspects, but not as like worship order and limitations and
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whatever. It was more of wherever the
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Spirit wanted to lead. So that's really encouraged and
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inspired me. And they also talked about like
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the difficulty of taking on a church after a legacy like Rick
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Warren and the legacy of the church.
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And how do you make a bold step like that to change a culture
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that's already been well cemented?
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And the best that anyone expects is for you to just not let the
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church die by continuing what they've always done since the
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change in leadership of change. And so all that said, Scott and
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I are quitting and we need to trust.
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But, but I think, I think that the other, the key thing in what
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they were sharing was it it then led to a moment of repentance,
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corporate repentance for the ways that they had allowed the
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machine of the church to take over, offering people an
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encounter with Jesus. Yeah, yeah.
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So I'm excited to see what God does with that encouragement and
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and also what it does for that church.
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When you have that large of an influence and that important of
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a shift, it's exciting to see how God's going to use it and
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the way, oh, that was definitely a top one from the worship team,
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getting to see how they work together.
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We were to one of the sessions like almost an hour early and
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they were talking about like the songs they were going to do and
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everything and they had gotten out of there like was a
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consecration room or whatever. So like they're praying
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together, they're repenting, they're all that stuff before
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they even practice the music stuff.
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And the way they just like communicated their convictions,
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communicated the way the spirit was leading them, but then also
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like humbled and like, this is where I feel I'm feeling LED.
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But I will put myself under the authority of the rest of the
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team if you guys decide differently.
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And it felt humble and spirit LED and genuine.
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It didn't feel like they were just throwing out phrases that
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you should. Say using the language or using
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the language to get what you want.
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Yeah. So that that was really for any
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form of leadership and team working was really, really
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encouraging. And I don't know if that was the
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Ricardio worship leadership, The Hound for bacon and chicken
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sandwiches. It's true that bacon flight was
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pretty amazing, yeah. That whole restaurant was
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fantastic. That was great.
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That was great if. You're ever in Auburn, AL?
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Check out the Hound. Yeah, jumping into Sunday, this
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Sunday at church, one of the things connects, but we'll get
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to it later because you opened and then didn't give us the full
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story and it's killing all of us.
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And I know I speak for everyone listening.
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OK, Meg, when were you? What was the break up plan here
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before proposing the For those that may have not listened to
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the sermon and are just jumping into the conversation, go back.
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And listen to the sermon. Problem solved Meg all.
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Right. So when I was looking at what I
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was going to do for college, I felt like God was telling me to
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become a teacher so that I could do ministry in the summer,
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specifically missions work. And I loved Africa.
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So I really, as a high school senior, that's where I thought
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God was saying. So I went to become a teacher to
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do missions and then I went on a few trips.
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But then when I was in Papua New Guinea this summer, between my
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junior year in college and my senior year, I So that was.
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Earlier in the summer than we were working at Delanco.
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Yes, this is the pre story. So while I was there I had an
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awesome opportunity to share, to share a sermon and to pray with
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some people. And while I was at the altar
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praying with other people, God just kind of broke in and said
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like I want to talk to you now. I was like, oh, OK, so I kind of
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moved away from everyone else and kneeled at the altar and
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said, all right, God, what is it that you need to tell me?
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And he just said, do you trust me?
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And I was like, I'm literally on the other side of the world
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right now. Like yes, I trust you.
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And he's like, do you trust me enough to go to full time
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ministry? And my answer was kind of AI
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mean yes, God, but Scott's not called to that.
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And then that, but was like, well, then you don't trust me.
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And it's like what? And at this point, this is where
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like that's kind of where God's direct speaking to me stopped.
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But it was very much of A are you going to pick Scott or are
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you going to pick God is how I left that prayer time.
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And it was like a all right, well, God, I can't choose Scott
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over you. Like that would be that would be
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Jonah. That would be disobedience.
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That would be leading going away from your will.
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I was like, oh man. So I came back on the trip
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feeling like I didn't really know what to do.
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I knew that I loved Scott. I knew that he was a godly man
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who would be an awesome husband. I knew that he was part of my
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life and. I verified the second.
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But the second part, I was like, but I need to do what you're
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asking of me. And so Scott, I talked a little
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bit about missions and stuff. And at that point, my
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understanding was that he felt called to ministry in general,
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but not full time ministry, not anything like that.
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He's shaking his head. You'll get to hear his side in a
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moment. But from my perspective, we, so
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we were working on summer staff and I just kind of hit a point
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where I was reminded of it of like Meg, you can't keep dating
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Scott if you're not going to marry him.
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That's not fair to him. It's not fair to your heart.
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Like if this isn't going the same direction, you need to end
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this. But when you work on summer
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stamp staff together at camp, you don't break up in the middle
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of the summer. That's bad.
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That's bad policy for everybody on camp staff.
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So it's like, OK, so in my mind, we were going to break up right
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near the end of the summer when I was going back to college.
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We would deal with the college breakup stuff at college, not at
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camp staff. So that's where I was at
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mentally the night that Scott proposed.
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How far into camp was the proposal?
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Like in the summer. Two weeks left Second.
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Week of August. Yeah.
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OK. So you are gearing up like it's
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getting to the end of camp and OK.
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And there was part of me that wondered if he'd proposed at the
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beginning of summer or near the middle of the summer, like, And
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so by the end of the summer, it was like a, all right, well, he
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didn't propose and I'm going to break up with him.
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So I guess this is where we're at now.
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It's your turn. So my version of the rest of the
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story, no. So I, I was at Asbury studying
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media communication, thought I was going to go into sports
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broadcasting and went on a mission trip to Uganda the
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summer between my, you know, sophomore and junior year and
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started to think, oh, this is, this is nice, this is nice.
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I maybe I could use my media skills to help missionaries, you
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know, on the side in my part time, you know, free time, that
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kind of stuff. And so I, I set up an internship
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the next summer because I had to do an internship within the
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media field, you know, to do to complete my degree.
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And so found an internship with another mission organization in
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their media department. And so that ended up being that
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summer between our junior and senior year before we started at
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camp, did six weeks at their headquarters out in Indiana.
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And while I was there, very clearly was sitting at a video
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editing console one day working on stuff and just felt like I
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was like, this is good. It's like, yeah, this is good.
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I'm happy, God's happy, I'm doing what I want to do, We're
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good, this is great. And they said, I want you to go.
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I said, really, I think he got the wrong guy here.
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Like. And so I had to wrestle through
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that. But in wrestling through that
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over the rest of that time in Indiana, start start to feel
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more strongly that that was the case.
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And with it was the sense of those back to Uganda, back to
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work with the pastors that I had met there.
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And that if that was true, if I was going to go and work with
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pastors, if I was going to go and be part of training them, I
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needed more education than just my New Testament one O 1 class,
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my Old Testament one O 1 class that I had to take it as Barry.
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But it's going into my senior year and so I wasn't about to
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change my major. So start looking at seminaries,
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all that kind of stuff. Was reminded of a long time
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family friend. It's president of a seminary.
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Started looking all this kind of stuff in my memory.
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Had all these conversations with Meg along the way after she got
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back from Papua New Guinea. You know, when she got back from
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Papua New Guinea, she stopped and saw me before she, you know,
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came back to the northeast. And I thought we were having all
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these conversations along the way over the course of that
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early part of the summer at Delanco that we were kind of on
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the same page. Clearly having heard her story.
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You know, that's, that's not true.
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This is that's the tension that I was talking about on on Sunday
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in the story. But then, you know, got to the
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point in the summer where kind of felt like I had figured out
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all those other pieces and could now propose.
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That's why it took me so long into the summer to do the
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proposal because I had I didn't feel like I could propose and
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say marry me, but I'm not really sure what's happening next.
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So with the marriage proposal was I want to marry you, I want
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you to marry me and we're going to go.
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That's implied. Well, I'm.
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But I want you to marry me, and we're going to go to Africa, but
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we're making a pit stop in Mississippi first.
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And that really was all part of the proposal, like all of that
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is all in the same asking. Yeah, if you're saying yes to
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me, this is what you're signing up for, because this is where
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I'm feeling God calling. Yeah.
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And hopefully you clarified a little more than a pit stop in
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Mississippi. Well, yeah, I was like as long
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as we fly out of a Mississippi airport to Africa, No, this is a
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multi year, but. Because we had been having the
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conversations about maybe seminary all summer long, you
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know? Or you thought you were having
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those conversations. Yeah, but.
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I do remember going to Indiana and hearing him talk about the
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this is good, but I want the best for you.
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Kind of like, I do remember that.
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And then I don't remember having nearly as much conversation
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about seminaries as Scott remembers, But.
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Maybe I just talked to everybody else.
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I. Mean I do the same thing he
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does. Process a lot in his head,
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especially at that point in. Time.
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So I think that he thought we had talked about it more than we
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actually did. And I just didn't know that it
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was really like how serious he was about it or if it was just
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kind of a, these are some things I'm thinking about.
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Yeah. I wasn't looking to say yes to
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someone who was just thinking about it.
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I wanted to say yes to someone who was going to move forward
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with me and what God's asking so.
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So that's. And I did say yes, I had two
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different people ask, did you say yes?
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And I said yes clearly. And they said, you don't know
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that. There's a lot of people who say
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no the first time and then God works on people's hearts and
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they come back together later. So for the record, I did say yes
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that. Day true to marrying Scott and
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Scott marrying you, yes. OK, OK, not one way, but not.
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And going to Mississippi for seminary and moving to Africa.
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Yes. Ma'am.
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But she didn't sign up for this. Being stuck in Collins would be.
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Jerky. That was not on the sales.
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Pitch. I also did not sign up to be a
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pastor, but here we are. Oh.
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That's great. Well, thank you so much for
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sharing that part of your story. And I have only two more
20:38
questions in a statement, I guess because you were talking
20:41
about the transfiguration and the word transform and
20:47
preferring that and connecting it with other places in
20:51
Scripture where that same Greek word is used and it's normally
20:55
transform. And you were kind of jumping
20:59
focusing on NLT, but then also jumping back to NIV.
21:02
So the new Living Translation and the new International
21:06
version. I was wondering if you could
21:09
kind of explain the differences and the usefulness of, I would
21:15
say, probably the three most familiar translations for people
21:19
and our pews. So I have NLTNIV and King James
21:23
Version differences and usefulness of the differences.
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Yeah, well, that was a question for Meg, but.
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Sorry, sorry, sorry. You want to take this one, Meg?
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Let me start by swapping out one of your translations.
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Swapping out KJV with ESV, yeah. Nope.
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And let me tell you why. Let me tell you why.
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So the King James Version is beautiful and has, you know, a
21:58
long history translated in 1611. Not the first English
22:03
translation as some people would want you to think.
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Guy named Wickliffe had translated the Bible much
22:11
earlier, and Tyndale as well, and they both got burned at the
22:14
stake for it. But the the King James Version,
22:17
as beautiful as it is, was done over 400 years ago.
22:22
And we have we I mean, I'm the world has discovered far more
22:30
and earlier manuscripts of the New Testament in that 400 years
22:38
that that show that some of the the manuscripts that King James
22:43
was based on weren't actually the best.
22:47
They're copying errors and and different kinds of things.
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And so I think when we're talking about Bible
22:55
translations, there's a place for the King James.
22:59
But. Reading the psalms and making
23:01
them sound pretty. Yeah, the Lord is my shepherd.
23:03
Oh, wait, that's how a lot of them start.
23:07
But you know, it's, it's not really one.
23:10
It's, it's not helpful to have to do the hard work of
23:14
translating stuff in our heads like thee and thou just to make
23:18
it make sense when there are more modern and when there are
23:22
better translations that have been done in the meantime.
23:25
So I would say New Living Translation, NIV and ESV.
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English Standard. English standard version.
23:34
So translation work exists on a spectrum.
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On the one side you have what they call a formal equivalence.
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That's like what we would think of as like a word for word, or
23:46
as close to a word for word translation as you can get.
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ESV would fall pretty far on that side, which means sometimes
23:55
the sentence structure is more closely resembling the Greek
23:59
than what we would do in the English translation, and it can
24:04
make it a little wooden, sometimes harder to read a
24:07
little. And some of them are like.
24:09
Trickier. Dead on.
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Don't change any grammar. Yeah, and it's really hard to
24:15
track, right? Yes, he is a great.
24:18
So that's formal equivalent and and the King James falls that
24:23
way too. The ESV kind of continues the
24:28
the lineage of the King James version.
24:31
So they're related. That's why I feel like we can
24:33
put them together. Then on the other side, you have
24:37
what is called a dynamic dynamic equivalence model, which says
24:44
we're going to take each sentence, each thought, and
24:50
translate the thought for the thought rather than the word for
24:53
the word. Yeah, that's how I view it is
24:55
word for word versus thought for thought, yeah.
24:58
And they approach it that way, recognizing that when you're
25:01
translating between languages, it's not enough to just
25:05
translate the words. Yeah, right.
25:07
Because you know, when you're going from Hebrew into English,
25:12
you have to make some of those choices because there's so much
25:15
space. You know, when we read that God
25:18
is slow to anger in the English, what it actually says in the
25:23
Hebrew is that God has a long nose, right?
25:27
Because in, in the Hebrew mindset, when you got angry, the
25:32
tip of your nose gets red. And so it it, it took a long
25:36
time for the tip of God's nose to get rid.
25:39
So he had a long nose. He's slow to anger.
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There's a lot that's lost if you just translate the words without
25:47
conveying the meaning of those. Words.
25:50
Because then you think God's Pinocchio, right?
25:53
And that's just ridiculous. He doesn't even have a nose.
25:56
So you've got these, these two ends of the spectrum, formal
26:00
equivalent word thought, word for word, dynamic equivalent
26:04
thought for thought. And then every translation is
26:09
going to fall somewhere on this spectrum depending on which way
26:13
they lean. So the new living translation is
26:16
much more of a dynamic translation.
26:19
It's it's thought for thought. It's trying to convey in modern
26:24
language what the Greek said. NIV is still considered a
26:31
thought for thought, but it's going to be closer to the
26:34
middle. Way closer to the middle, yeah.
26:36
And then beyond the dynamic equivalence, you also get like
26:41
paraphrases of Scripture, like the message where you're getting
26:46
just as much of someone like. Concept for concept, yeah.
26:51
And you're getting as much of someone's interpretation as
26:56
you're getting their translation.
26:58
Yeah. Like, they're, they're putting a
27:00
lot of their their flavor into how they read the Hebrew and
27:05
Greek. Yeah.
27:06
So I like with that one, an example is like if you just read
27:10
like through the Beatitudes and the message, you kind of get the
27:13
idea of how much it's, yeah, jumbled up in there and not very
27:17
consistent. So, so that's, that's how I
27:21
would explain the difference between different translations.
27:25
And the reason this year, if, if anyone has noticed, we've been
27:29
using the new living translation since January is not because
27:33
we're, we're trying to switch the whole church over to the new
27:37
living translation. But I've found that when we read
27:42
in the same translation over and over again, no matter which one
27:46
it is, the, the text just becomes familiar sometimes and,
27:50
and we miss some of the nuance of what scripture is saying.
27:55
And, and just reading in a different translation, same
27:57
language, but a different translation can sometimes just
28:00
open our eyes to seeing the text, hearing the message in a
28:03
different way. And so in January of this year,
28:07
we'll, we'll probably go back to the NIV, but I'm not making that
28:10
promise back and forth. Yeah.
28:12
Yeah, hop through. I like that.
28:14
And then I'll just do what I want when I preach.
28:16
Right. Which we do anyway.
28:18
Exactly. Here's a question.
28:20
It is for Meg. OK.
28:23
And for Scott, because it seemed to be a consistent theme from
28:28
our conference to the sermon. And I'm sure that's of no
28:32
coincidence because of Scott's influences and the sermons he
28:37
copies off of, but a lot of talks of revival and awakening.
28:43
And I'm curious, Meg, what you think that could entail if it
28:49
were to be happening in our area or in our church context, and
28:54
what you think we should do to prepare for something like that?
28:59
Well, I think like I'm seeing seeds of it around and I'm
29:03
seeing seeds of it with the younger, like the high school
29:06
age kids who I don't know, it just looks different.
29:10
Like when I was a kid and I wanted to like share Jesus with
29:14
people. I don't know.
29:15
It just looks different. But some of our youth are just
29:18
amazing and they just invite their friends to stuff that when
29:22
I was their age, I was terrified to do.
29:24
I didn't invite people to church.
29:25
Are you kidding me? I got made fun of being for
29:27
being Christian, just existing. I'm not going to like advertise
29:30
it. So the boldness that our youth
29:32
have to share and they're, I don't know just how comfortable
29:35
they are being in their own skin.
29:37
They don't even just invite their friends.
29:40
We have a couple of youth that every week between Sunday school
29:44
and service do a walk around the block and invite anyone they
29:47
walk past to church. Yeah, like stuff like that.
29:50
Like that's where I see God moving in a way that is
29:54
different and definitely different than the way I don't
29:57
know, I was taught to evangelize and the way I was taught to help
30:00
people come to know Jesus, which was hand out Flyers about VBS,
30:04
which is great and is good. But I don't know, somehow these
30:09
youth are doing an awesome job of being Jesus to the people
30:12
they have around them. But also the interestingness
30:15
that as I work with not necessarily youth in our church,
30:18
but youth in general as like I tutor and things like that, the
30:23
lack of understanding of what Christianity is with the average
30:28
youth person. And it isn't so much of A, Oh
30:31
yeah, I know Jesus died on the cross, but I don't believe it.
30:34
It's, I don't even know that Jesus was a person.
30:37
It's just a bad word. I don't know what Christianity
30:40
means. I don't the different
30:43
understandings of what different religions in the world are.
30:45
Instead of getting into that, they just say, oh, I'm spiritual
30:48
and I can be whatever I like. So anyway, the like kind of post
30:52
Christian, I guess is kind of how people talk about it, but
30:54
has been really interesting to see, which then creates an A
30:57
different opening than it was when people thought they knew
31:01
what Christianity was before. So and then getting ready for it
31:05
here. I think we need to just be ready
31:08
for whoever walks in those doors.
31:10
And we need to be more like what the youth are doing of inviting
31:14
people and being real and living life with and being honest about
31:19
what is happening in our life and where God fits in.
31:23
Yeah. But I think that being ready to
31:25
welcome whoever walks in and. And investing in them.
31:29
Yeah, like not just saying hi when they walk in the doors, but
31:32
like, really, what do we have in common and how can we do some
31:36
life together? Because yeah, I don't want to
31:39
just be welcoming. Or whatever that book.
31:40
Yeah, love, love goes first. Try to top that, Scott.
31:46
I think that's a great answer. I would just shift some of the
31:50
nuances a little bit from how I see things because I think what
31:56
Meg was describing as a post Christian context is actually,
32:02
if we're thinking in the framework of cultures, go from
32:06
pre Christian to Christian to post Christian.
32:09
And that's kind of been the trajectory we've seen in the
32:13
West in different cultures and those kind of things and even
32:17
other places. But I would argue that we've
32:20
actually moved back to a pre Christian place on that
32:26
continuum where people don't know about this because in the
32:30
post Christian culture, the post Christian girl, it's a reaction
32:34
against the Christianity. So there's enough of cultural
32:38
memory about Christianity that people are reacting against it.
32:42
They want some of the good things that come out of it, like
32:45
justice and integrity and those kind of things.
32:49
But they, they don't want the expectations of it, you know, So
32:54
it's, it's the famous, it's the king, it's the Kingdom without
32:56
the king. We want justice without a judge,
32:59
all those kind of things. And I think that's the post
33:02
Christian culture, which in that culture, it was hard to go out
33:07
and just evangelize people or to, to share with your friends
33:11
or that kind of things because there was so much reaction
33:13
against it. But now in a pre Christian
33:15
culture, there's there is that spiritual openness and people
33:19
are asking questions, They're interested in having the
33:22
conversations. So I think that that little bit
33:26
of a shift just kind of changes the way we think about it.
33:30
And I think if, if we as a church or we as followers of
33:39
Jesus really want to be ready for whatever God wants to do in
33:46
our day, we have to be willing to let go of what God has done
33:52
in the past. Which sounds really heretical
33:57
when you hear all throughout the Old Testament God telling people
34:00
to remember what I've done, remember what I've done.
34:03
And I don't think we need to forget what God has done, but we
34:05
need to let go of it in the idea that if this is how God acted in
34:10
the past, this is how he's going to act in the future.
34:14
It's going to look the same as it did in the 40s, fifties, 60s.
34:19
Scott is the new Billy. Graham Yeah, no.
34:24
What? That's how you cross off your
34:25
baseball stadium list. I mean, it's not quite the same,
34:29
but sure. But, but I think when we embrace
34:34
the realities of where we are and, and that it's going to look
34:37
different, it frees us to speak to our culture in a different
34:43
way. In a, in a culture where a
34:49
Christian memory is fading or has faded, we have to reach out
34:55
to our the people around us in a different way that there are
34:58
different felt needs that people experience than they did
35:04
20304050 years ago. You know, the was it inter
35:10
varsity or campus crusade had, you know, the four spiritual
35:13
laws and you know, God has a purpose for your life.
35:17
And do you know what that purpose is?
35:18
And if you died today, you know, Are you sure you'd wake up in
35:22
heaven? Those aren't the felt needs of
35:26
our culture right now. People, especially people
35:30
growing up in our current culture, they're dealing with
35:33
anxiety and depression and fear. And I think what the gospel
35:40
speaks into those areas looks different than it spoke to
35:45
previous generations, even though the gospel doesn't
35:48
change, right? And so I think letting go of
35:54
some of those expectations that are built from the past and
35:57
being open to what God wants to do today.
36:01
And then the last thing I'd say is I think we just have to get a
36:04
whole lot more serious about the reality that people all around
36:11
us don't know Jesus. And that should weigh on us.
36:15
That shouldn't be something we think about lightly.
36:19
If we really believe that this is the good news, the greatest
36:25
news ever, then we should be talking about it.
36:30
We should be living it out. We should be inviting people
36:33
into it and, and it should be radically re prioritizing our
36:40
lives around the things that that Jesus calls us to.
36:46
Well, that's our conversation for today, but that doesn't mean
36:49
the conversation is over. We'd love to hear your thoughts
36:52
on these topics as well. To ask a question about anything
36:55
we've discussed in this episode or to join the conversation, you
36:58
can head over to fumccollingswood.org/podcast.
37:03
Thanks for being part of this conversation.