Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / The Health of the Church || Reeling From the Abuse Scandals || With Sam Allberry || SLP381

Transcript

The Health of the Church || Reeling From the Abuse Scandals || With Sam Allberry || SLP381 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Today I speak to Sam Albury about the health of the church.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: We speak in the light of the last 12 months where revelations have come to light about Ravi Zacharias and Jonathan Fletcher and John Smythe, and unfortunately that just scratches the surface of abuse scandals within the church.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Sam and I do not consider ourselves to be uh experts in this matter at all.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: The last time Sam was on the channel, uh he spoke about his time at uh the Zacharias Trust and working closely with the people from Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: And he spoke um uh very candidly there about uh the mistakes that he had made, and and certainly um neither Sam nor I are any kinds of experts on these issues.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: If you want expertise, um please check out Diane Langberg and Lorianne Thompson, both of which uh have appeared on this channel, or Becca Legg in this country, who has also appeared on this channel.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: We speak uh much more about the culture, about theology, about worship, about grace, and how so many of those things are lacking in the church circles that we see.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: We're not into naming names or getting into details.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is a 30,000 feet view of the health of the church.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I begin my conversation with Sam by asking him uh given his uh stay in the US as well as in the UK, what is his assessment of the health of the church?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's a big that's a big question.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um and any answer had has to have some inevitable qualifications of of who I see and where I you know, there's there's so much that I'm probably oblivious to.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_05: But certainly as I've as I've been back here the last few months, I've I've just been very conscious that we're I think we're in quite a mess.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_05: Um we're we're weak.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_05: Um we're still reeling from the various scandals and revelations that have been breaking on this side of the Atlantic um and coming to terms with that.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_05: And there are some ways in which we're coming to terms with that healthily, some ways we're probably coming to terms with that unhealthily.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um and not a few parallels between what we're seeing here and what I was seeing back in the US.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um I think there's a lot of similarities both in terms of some aspects of the abuse that was carried out, but then also just in terms of what we as within the wider movement are doing or not doing in response to that.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: There was the Miller and Martin review into Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and uh the the abuse there.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we chatted through that, and I was very aware that as that was happening, we were being promised a review into Jonathan Fletcher over here and Emmanuel Church Wimbledon, and for those who who don't know, he was the vicar of Emmanuel Church Wimbledon from the early 80s until 2012, and um many, many people uh came forward to um uh to speak of all kinds of um abuse and bullying behavior that Jonathan Fletcher kind of perpetrated there as uh vicar of Emmanuel College, Emmanuel Church rather, in Wimbledon.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um as that review broke, I guess we're talking about that was that was March as well, I believe.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Were there were there similarities that you were seeing there between what was being reported as going on in this very English context and what you'd been seeing in the US?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I mean the in one sense they look very different cases, culturally very different sort of personalities involved, but with with a a lot of very similar parallels.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, in both cases you've got things like um, you know, spars and massages and and all that kind of stuff featuring as as part of the context for the abuse taking place.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um in both cases you've got men who were revered as statesmen um within a whole kind of movement.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_05: Um and in both cases you have what we we now know was was abuse not just taking place you know within a a short period of time, but actually this it'd been something that'd been going on in both cases for for decades.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um all this time.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um and so yeah, there's there's so much that that warrants reflection about and and thinking and and so on.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_05: So th in both cases I think it's been pretty devastating.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um because it doesn't just say something about who those individuals were, it says something about who we are within those wider movements that had had so revered these particular men.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: I was looking back at the 31.8 review into um Jonathan Fletcher and Emmanuel Church, and the number of times it talked about the wider culture and the wider constituency, whatever, you know, that that's a phrase that comes up uh again and again, and the culture of fear kept on coming up, and the reassurances that had to be given to survivors in order to testify to this, that this is going no further, this is thoroughly anonymous, but people were people were terrified to to even speak.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and the and it was also said in the review that people were told, going into the review, to say as little as possible, you know, and and and so the feeling of pressure not to I guess not to lift the lid on a shameful business.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's all over now, and let's you know let's move on and let's let's not let's not shine too much of a spotlight onto that.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Why, why must we shine a spotlight onto that?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'm I'm still um, as we all are, trying to learn as as much as I can about how abuse works and how we can be more kind of vigilant in in in future times.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_05: Um but everything I've learnt so far has has all said the same thing, which is that abuse always takes place within an ecosystem.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_05: Within an ecosystem that in somehow somehow enables, whether wittingly or knowingly or otherwise, such abuse to happen.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_05: And therefore it's not just the abuser that needs to be thought about and dealt with and responded to, but the ecosystem itself needs to be thoroughly re-examined because somehow this ecosystem this was able to take present uh take place within the heart of it, and yeah it it's one thing to remove the abuser, but that does not mean the issue is is finished and resolved and we can all move on.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_05: There's there's a culture that that this abuse created um in both cases, which which needs to be reviewed and thought about.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think I mean the cultures are different.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I was online seeing a a picture of Ravi Zacharias in 2016 in Atlanta in some massive arena speaking at the Passion Conference and just just like banks of sort of lights all around him and must have been 10,000 plus people, you know.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_05: 60,000, I think, on that particular occasion.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: 10,000 plus.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: 60,000.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's I mean, that's unheard of in a UK setting.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so what look what comes across as carnal in the US is well, it's obvious.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's glitz, it's glamour, it's on a stage, you've got a smoke machine, there are 60,000 people.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: You never get that in the UK, but that doesn't mean that we can't be carnal.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean that we're not operating according to the flesh.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: So what does the flesh look like in a UK setting so that we can be kind of have our spidey senses up for it?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I it's um it's exactly the right question to ask because I think we we can spot the sort of fleshliness of other people's subcultures and feel as though, well, we're not we're not making those mistakes.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_05: We we don't we over here don't go in for the swagger, for the the the kind of massive salaries to celebrity pastors.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_05: We don't do all of that, therefore we're not carnal and fleshly.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_05: The fact is we are carnal and fleshly, we're just carnal and fleshly within a different cultural framework.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we we just have our own cultural ways of of being carnal that can look quite different to how other places might do it, but it can still be just as fleshly.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm I'm still trying to get my head around this, but I I think within our own kind of subculture within within the this particular movement that Jonathan Fletcher has been so influential in, we've not gone in for the sort of the vast arena type stuff, but we we do have our own our own metrics for for what makes someone successful and powerful.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_05: And sometimes it's it's a combination of social prowess, it could be their the background, the connections, the um the orthodoxy.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um I I wrote an article a few years ago about how domineering pastoral ministry in the states often looks very different to domineering pastoral ministry in the UK.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_05: And in the States it's often you're the big CEO, you're the one with the sort of you're you're financially indispensable to the to the ministry, and so you throw your weight around in that kind of way.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um I think in the UK we we tend to be a little bit more um less CEO, more army general.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_05: So you're the person with the battle plan, um, you're the one who knows where everyone needs to be deployed, what they need to be doing.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_05: They just need to do as they're told, and you are the one with the authority that should not be undermined and questioned because the whole success of the movement in that instance is based on you being in the authority.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it's Lord Melchit from Black Adder.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: More than more than the billionaire, more than a Bezos kind of figure.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and I And what's what seems to be so very um subtle, therefore, in a UK expression of fleshliness is that baked into it is a kind of a is there's a kind of a sacrifice.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a kind of uh not long till heaven now, just be godly, battle on, soldier on.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um we're all in the battle.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Forever is fine, but you know, now we now we soldier on.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it does strike to me, it does strike me as there's an unchallengeability to a kind of a UK church leadership.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and there's a there's a you know, um at my Bible Bible college there was a uh a motto, be right and persist, you know.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: So the goal is to be right and to keep on being right, and therefore it's very important that you're not wrong.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah right.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: What does that do to a culture of leaders that that can't be wrong because everything's about being right, you know?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and I I think that's true.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um I think we we're impressed by slightly different things on this side of the pond to our brethren on the other side of the pond.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um yeah, it um it makes it I mean this this this comes down to the whole issue of of what is what is it about Christian leadership that is distinctively Christian?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um are we just taking what works as leadership in the world generally and saying, well, as long as we're Christians doing that thing, therefore it's Christian leadership.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_05: And as long as our our kind of goals are ultimately gospel-focused goals, that makes it Christian leadership.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_05: Or is there something about the the very means of how we lead that is to be unmistakably Christian?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_05: And the trouble is with the I'm the person who's always right, that I mean, you know, in the army that I guess that has to be the case.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_05: You you you have to obey orders.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um you're not there to kind of workshop them and and feedback and and all the rest of it.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_05: You just have to do what you're told.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yep, yeah.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_05: So that the whole health and success of the military is is predicated on that.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_05: I've no idea how the army works, but I'm assuming that's the case.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_05: Whereas church leadership is I mean, there are things we can learn from all kinds of areas of of secular leadership around us, um things that we should learn.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_05: But at the end of the day, what what makes a Christian a Christian is is repentance.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_05: And therefore a Christian leader and whatever else the Christian leader is is called to do, we we have to be uh leading in in repentance and not just leading in knowledge or understanding or insight or strategic thinking.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_05: So if we're not the first to repent, I'm not sure to what extent we can legitimately say our leadership is Christian, however exceptional our gifting may happen to be.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's tricky because okay, we pride ourselves on being orthodox in certain areas.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and, you know, baked into that word is the word right.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's a there's there's there's a right praise of God, there's a right there are right things to think about God.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: And we ought to think the right things about God.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I I fear that that's that we therefore assume that by definition, because we are Orthodox Christians, and so by definition, nobody can outflank us, nobody can come and and challenge that because almost our brand is we're not the other guys.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Those guys are the wrong guys.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're the ones who have built our reputations on being, you know.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly growing up in a in a sort of a Sydney Anglican setting, it was it was very it was very clear growing up.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Things I'm sure have changed massively, but growing up it was very much a sense of we're not the liberals and we're not Hillsong.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we're not so we're not gonna be liberal with the Bible and we're not gonna go into charismatic extremes.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then the big question becomes, well, what what are you gonna do?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like like positively, what are you?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's the there's a sense I I I get here in the UK as well, that um we're we're not charismatic in in the in the circles that I run in, we're we're not so much charismatic and we're not liberal.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um and where we find ourselves is in in an area that becomes defined a lot more by ministry philosophy than it is by theology, by Jesus, you know.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: And at that stage we become very brittle because what holds us together is a way of doing church, which is, you know, might be incredibly well contextualized to 21st century Britain.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but it becomes incredibly brittle and uh it becomes incredibly difficult to break out of the mould because what we have is not the living Jesus at the center, but a way of doing Sunday and a way of doing growth groups in the mid in midweek and a way of doing you know discipleship that that fascinatingly down through history um probably wasn't available to the vast majority of Christians down through history.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: They couldn't do growth group the way we do growth group.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: They couldn't do individual quiet times the way we do individual quiet times, but they had Jesus.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I I wonder whether part of our brittleness is a lack of theology?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Is that I think so.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_05: And I I I think I'd add that we one of the things that has come to define us as I understand it, again, the circles that I've been in over here is we're we're the ones who've got the Bible right.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_05: And that's part of what makes us in our own self-conception different to the liberals, different to some of our some of our charismatic friends, is we would say we've learnt how to rightly handle the word of truth.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_05: And Paul uses that language because there is a right way of handling the word of truth and a wrong way of handling the word of truth, and these things do matter.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_05: But it's as if we've we've so kind of focused on that that we're presuming that therefore we're the people who are who've got the truth right.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_05: And if I've got the truth right, then where do you go?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_05: You you've cut off the very means of of how you could be corrected.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_05: Because that that's our collective identity, is we're the ones who've got the truth right.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_05: So we're the ones the wider church needs for us to show them how they can get the truth right and get the Bible right.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_05: And it it actually is gonna make us, ironically, um less open to correction, less open to repentance, because some of the places that some of that God-given correction, repentance could be brought to us through are people we've we'd already sort of decided we weren't gonna listen to because they haven't got the truth right in the way that we have.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_05: Whereas actually part of the fruit of having the truth right in in the Bible is that it it makes us it should make us tremble.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and I keep coming back to James 2 and and how haunting it is when James says you believe in one good God.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_05: Fantastic, well done, brilliant, nice one.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, by the way, so the so do the demons, but at least they shudder.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, wow.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_05: And at least you can tell that they believe in one God.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um So the doctrinal impeccability is not something we we don't care about.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_05: We we want to be true, we want to be right.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um but it on its own it's not sufficient because there's apparently there's very good doctrine in hell.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I don't I don't want to say, okay, if you look at an unhealthy church culture, let's assume they have the theology right, they're getting their practice wrong, let's have a look at the practice.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh I remember hearing about uh another Bible college, um uh and the reputation was um they they are good theologically, but they're not loving.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember as a very young Christian hearing about that reputation and just thinking, well, that can't be right.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: It literally cannot be like like I'd read the book of one John by that stage, and I I had seen that to know the love of God is to love others.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and so I don't I don't want to get into I don't want to I don't want to grant to an unhealthy church culture, you know.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: You probably you probably have your theology right.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's your practice that we now need to, you know, we now need to tweak.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I d I j I just wonder if we because I'm I'm thinking about my desire to be right, which is a temperamental thing that I've always had.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: I remember before I was a Christian, I had a girlfriend, we would get into fights, and one of the things she'd said to me at least twice in our relationship is we get we get into this argument, and she'd say, Oh Glenn, you're always so right.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: She'd sort of store my and I would sit there like a total jerk, thinking, Yeah, I know.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Which makes you wrong, you know, and and like so why why did this guy, why did this jerk find his way into these kind of church circles in which being right was kind of was your birthright, you know, and was unchallengeable.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I I don't know, I I still I still wonder w whether we're whether we're laboring under the because if you do have if you do have that assumption of rightness, then no one can outflank you with biblical truth and no one can come to you and and actually bring you anything you didn't already know.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: All anyone can ever do is tinker around the edges with your church culture and and and so you you know we admit we haven't we haven't got our practice of things right, but I'm sure our theology is golden.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Don't be so sure.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and it it you know it it's hard to have this conversation and not think that there's there's biblical precedent for for that exact scenario in the Pharisees.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_05: Because they were you know, in terms of their doctrinal understanding, sound as a pound, ticked all the right boxes, ass center to all the right statements of faith.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_05: And I mean there's so many things we can learn from the Pharisees, but one of those things is surely that sometimes our our commitment to to truth, to theological truth, uh is less a function of our commitment to the Lord Himself and more of a commitment we just like being the guys who are right.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_05: And so we can turn theological orthodoxy from being a means of glorying in Christ, of being brought to him, of finding our our rest in him, and turn it into an end of we're the people who've got the truth right.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_05: And we want to get the truth right.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_05: It's perilous not to get the truth right.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_05: It's perilous to only get the truth right if we've made the truth abstracted theological propositions that we we've sorted out better than other people have.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um I remember being at a at a church once where they would regularly each each midweek um meeting they would have a doctrinal talk and a discussion.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_05: And the the aim was to sort of provide some sort of training in theology and systematics and that kind of stuff.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_05: But the discussion was always if the talk was on the doctrine of the authority of scripture, the the discussion was always, almost always the first question for discussion was something like how do we correct this group who've got this wrong?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_05: And there's a there's a place for that.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um I've been working in in apologetics for the last several years, and and there's there's a Place for trying to say, Well, here's why that argument doesn't work, here's that why that belief doesn't work, here's here's a a better way.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_05: But it if that's the sort of our first instinct, um we can be doing what the Pharisees were doing.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um and John is it John 5, I think, where Jesus says to them, You diligently study the scriptures because you think that they possess eternal life.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm going, that would be great if we all diligently studied the scriptures and believed that by them we had eternal life.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_05: But Jesus then says, And yet you do not come to me.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_05: So it there's a way of being theologically attentive and studious and right, all the while not coming to Jesus.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: Precisely, because these are the things that testify of me, and you refuse to come to me to have life.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then he says, I will not accuse you.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Your accuser will be Moses on whom your hopes are set.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: If you believed him, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: So interestingly, there, like Jesus doesn't grant that they get Moses right, but they haven't quite got the Jesus thing.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they've got the cake, but not the icing.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's like, no, no, Moses was always like pointing to the personal Christ, and here I am.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, why are you not coming to me for life?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I I wonder because you know, Pharisee means one who keeps himself separate.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And they're a tribe and they're a label, and so there's and there's a lot of cachet in saying we're not like those guys.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Here we are.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a there's such a theminousness that really that really appeals to the flesh, doesn't it?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: To say, I and and part of the thing, when when you were talking about, you know, is theology a means to an end?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of the one of the things that shows you it's more of an end than a means is when the way you think about your theology is who are you with?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, are you with the tribe that reads this verse this way, or are you with the tribe that reads this verse that way?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, I see, you're you're with the minority reports.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, our guys are bigger than your guys, you know.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it becomes a point scoring kind of exercise.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_05: I remember, and I and by the way, all of this is in my own heart.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_05: I yeah, this is this is part of the sin I have to slay daily is is is that tendency.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_05: I remember speaking on a um kind of like Christian retreat type thing where I was going to be doing a a talk every evening for six days, something like that.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_05: People come from all kind of different parts of the Christian world to be on this thing.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I remember someone coming up to me before the first talk and saying, So I need to know where you are on eschatology.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, yeah, yeah.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_05: And me thinking, but not saying, I think I can spell that, but I'm not entirely sure.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_05: And I said, Well, what specifically do you mean by that?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_05: And he said, Well, I need to know where you are on the the stuff in Daniel with the all the sevens and seventy-sevens and whatever that what that part says.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_05: And I was thinking, well, first I don't have a clue what I think about that.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I've read that part of Daniel and scratched my head.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_05: I've not sort of studied around it and come to a confident position on it.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_05: But I was thinking, and the talks I was about to give were all going to be expositions from the Gospel of Mark, so it's not as if my reading of this part of Daniel was gonna be you know determinative for that.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_05: So I ended up partly as a cop-out because I didn't know what the answer was anyway, but also but then I sensed I needed to respond on this particular way.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_05: I said to him, I'm not gonna tell you.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_05: You're just gonna have to hear what I say about Jesus from Mark's gospel and decide on the basis of that whether you think I'm someone you should be listening to.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and again, partly that was a cop-out because I I was embarrassed to say I don't really understand that bit of Daniel, but I also wanted to show him actually, you may have got for all I know, he may have got his eschatology right.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but he's got his sense of proportion and balance and what matters the most wrong.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_05: And it it's it's dangerously possible, I see it in my own heart, for us to kind of latch onto some of the the parts of our theological correctness, and and that's actually becomes the center of what we're about, rather than Jesus being the centre of what we're about.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um so we we I just need to keep so you know, because I I I I'm not an academic, but I love reading and thinking about theology.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um I I love learning new things.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um but if it's not driving me deeper into Jesus, if he's not becoming bigger and more beautiful, right?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not doing it right.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I I I wonder whether this is another sign of unhealth.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's not a word, is it?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, um bad health, ill health in in our church circles.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was in a church in our kind of constituency to use the the vernacular the other day, and it was it was somebody was giving the prayers and something really weird happened.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was really strange, Sam.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was odd, it was freaking me out.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: That during a church service, and it's the kind of churches that you and I go to, you know, in during a church service, someone was actually worshipping God from the front as they were praying.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it turns out they're from a uh a Baptist background and full of beings, full of life, full of Jesus, and they were let loose on the prayers.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: If they were given if they were let loose on the pulpit, I'm I'm going there next Sunday, you know.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like I will I will drive there through the night to to to to hear someone actually worshipping Jesus.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think certainly in the churches that that I run with, we're good at explaining God.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: And we're just it's uh the the concept of worshiping God, praising God, is pretty absent, actually.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_05: Or it's it's funneled down into explaining God.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_05: So that that's how you worship God, you explain him to others, and therefore if Jesus is true and right, then evangelize.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_05: And again, it's not wholly wrong because we you know, goodness me, if Jesus is as glorious as he says he is, everyone needs to know that.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um but the first port of call is I need to be flat on my face before Jesus.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um I heard somebody say recently, I don't know whether this is apocryphal or not, but I love the the principle is true.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_05: They they were saying that apparently in the days of shipbuilding, being a sort of big industry around these areas, they used to say, if you want to teach someone how to build a ship, don't talk to them about riveting and welding and all that kind of stuff.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_05: Give them a love of the ocean.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_05: If they have a love of the ocean, they will figure out how to build a ship.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_05: And again, I think we've sometimes mistaken some of the tools of ministry for what should be at the heart of everything, which is Jesus.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_05: And so we will evangelize better if we are captivated by Jesus.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_05: And so if I need to to help a church grow in its evangelism, if I need to help myself grow in evangelism, yeah, I can read books on how to have this kind of conversation, how to turn a conversation from you know, Britain's got talent to say Jesus, Jesus has talent, and now now I've got you to the gospel.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_05: Just made that one up on the spot for you.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_05: That's that's for free folks.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_05: Um But the the thing that you know the the best way to get me to do evangelism, the best way to get our churches to do evangelism is just keep giving people Jesus.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_05: And we won't help ourselves.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um it the more we are enthralled by him, captivated by him, the more we're looking at him and gazing upon him, the more like him we become.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_05: Those who look to the Lord are radiant, the Psalms tell us.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_05: And that's the key.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: Arise, shine, arise, shine.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen on you.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do we shine?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like we shine as we look to the glory of the Lord who's risen upon us.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then Isaiah 60 goes on to say, and the nations will stream to you.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if if we look to the radiant Lord.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much for downloading and listening to this episode of the Speak Life podcast.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're about halfway through the conversation.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know me, my name's Thomas Thoroughgood.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: I work as an assistant media producer at Speak Life.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I just thought I would briefly draw your attention to the operations director role at Speak Life.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: We are currently looking for an operations director.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you are a mature Christian with giftings in strategy and operations, if you are passionate about speaking life into the world, into the church, we would love to hear from you.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you can go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash jobs to find out more and to apply.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Back to Glenn and Sam Auberry.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_05: So it's not that there's no place anywhere for techniques and advice and tips and that kind of stuff.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_05: But if we if we kind of make technique the kind of engine of how to get the church to do the things we think the church should be doing, we've we've missed the point.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_05: Um because the the key to everything is is is giving people more of Christ.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I my job as an evangelist, and I'm I'm very much a church-facing evangelist, because I believe in Ephesians 4, and the evangelists as well as the apostles and prophets and um pastor teachers have been given to build up God's people for their works of service.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: So my job is not so much see you later, church, I'm off to the pagans to to preach the gospel, but to turn towards the church and equip the church to be the evangelistic body that Christ has made it to be.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so churches will invite me in, and how do we how do we evangelize?
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm pretty sure they're expecting me to give them the silver bullets in their conversations that they can fire off, or to teach them, you know, how to tell their testimony in 90 seconds or what or whatever.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and the group work I get them to do unfailingly is turn to your neighbor and complete this sentence.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I love about Jesus.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Dot dot dot.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: Go.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I break them up.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: And usually there is the most joy-filled hubbub in the room as people just talk about their love for Christ.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: But occasionally I had this one time when these two women had come expecting evangelism training, and now they're now they had to like put words to their faith in Jesus.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: How icky, you know, how indiscreet.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: And they they literally just like stared forwards um durant during the next 10 minutes, and then afterwards they they told me how this was not what they were expecting from evangelism training.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: And and they they expected to be made made an evangelist in a different kind of way.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: And like I I mean I didn't say this to them, but I I really hope they don't evangelize, because I really I really hope they don't multiply their kind of Christianity out in the world.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, so I'm always saying to people, you know, who needs the gospel?
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: And and what do they say?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they they go the world does, my neighbor does, my friend does, who needs the gospel?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: No, you need the gospel, you know.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: What do you need to do with the gospel?
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: And everyone everyone's kind of primed to say, share it.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: What do you need to do with the gospel?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: Believe it, you know.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then I say, Does the world need more evangelists?
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: And people are like, Yeah, absolutely.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then I really scare them because I say, No, it depends.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we turn to Matthew 23, verse 15.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: Woe to you, Pharisees and teachers of the law.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you do, you make them twice the son of hell that you are.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: Does the world need more evangelists?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, not if they're Pharisees, actually.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: It depends on the evangel they're sharing.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it is very possible to multiply Satan's kingdom and not Christ's.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, how important is it to cross land and sea and be biblical?
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because these guys were teachers of the law.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: How important is it to be that?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, not very, if if you don't have the gospel yourself, if you don't know and love Jesus yourself.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: What are you sharing?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_05: And here's here's the other thing with that.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_05: If if we do boil it down to technique and all the rest of it, then part of it, part of the fleshly appeal to that is technique can be mastered.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_05: And so for again, for those those of us in ministry, this is a big temptation because it can give us a sense of superiority, a sense of position, um, a sense of qualification.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I'm the one who's mastered how to handle the Bible, how to do evangelism.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_05: Um and it it can become a form of self-importance, a form of self-justification.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_05: But we we can be blind to it because it's not the the kind of form of of self-justification and self-importance that we see in other parts of the church.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_05: And we think, well, as long as I'm avoiding their sins, their idols, then I must be doing okay.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_05: But we haven't noticed that we have our own native way of doing the very same things.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_05: We just have a a different a different metric for it.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we won't be sensitive to that because it's our way of doing things.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so the only way we'll learn that the way we do things might be off is if we actually will listen to those from beyond our tribe.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: But will we?
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_05: And that's the challenge.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_05: I mean that's and to be honest, it it's it's it's easier for us than it has been for any previous generation.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um I I've one of the the wonderful privileges we have, and it's a danger too, and we're very well aware of the the many dangers of this, is that we can learn from different forms of ministry through the internet.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_05: So I'm I'm not simply beholden to the model of ministry within which I've grown up.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and you know, I'm guessing traditionally that was more or less how things happened.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_05: You you learned by by seeing how your pastor ministered to you, and that's how you then learn to minister to other people.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um and theological college gives you a little bit more of a way of of kind of seeing how a few other people do it.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_05: But with with the sort of plentiful abundance of of ministry online, both good and bad and different and and of all shapes and sizes, actually, we can sort of think, oh, okay, well, I've that's a way of preaching Christ I hadn't seen in my I remember hearing I think the first time I heard Tim Keller was in the year around the year 2000.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_05: He was speaking at a conference in London and he was doing that that thing that's sort of become almost a meme now of Jesus is the true and greater Abraham and Moses and that sort of thing.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_05: And I remember talking to someone I knew from from the same kind of circle I was I was in, and said, and I I was just sort of blown away by it.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_05: I was I was really taken with it and said, What do you think?
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_05: And and she said, Well, I don't like it because I've I've never heard it explained like that before, so that doesn't feel right.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_05: And I remember thinking, I wonder if that's part of our our problem.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_05: And sometimes, you know, it's good to think, well, I've never heard something quite put that way before.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_05: That can be a legitimate reason to think I'll give it a think.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_05: But there was a sort of assumption that we don't do it that way, we do things the right way, yeah.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_05: Virgo, that way probably isn't the right way, because otherwise I would have heard one of our guys doing that.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_05: And it was just a bit different.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_05: I think it's easier for us now because most of us are are able to see a few very different models of ministry online, um, people ministering in different contexts, and and we we realise that okay, there's there's more than maybe just one very particular way of um of approaching ministry and and whatever it may be.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_05: And there's things we can learn from from all of these different movements and tribes and and networks, and it's we've got more opportunity to to have our blind spots exposed.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_05: We don't have to get on a plane now to see different models of ministry.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, um, we can we can travel outside our culture quickly.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_05: And again, dangers of that means that we don't actually give ourselves to a local church and and the place of being embodied and and physically present somewhere.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um but it can help us, I think.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_05: And I I think when it comes to the cultural issues surrounding the kind of abuse we began the conversation discussing, I'm noticing, and this is a big generalization, but I'm noticing how the the generation younger than me has a different set of questions to the generation older than me.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_05: And I wonder if that's part of the reason is that the generation coming up behind me has already learnt from a plurality of ministry models and therefore might have a sort of a broader category of what church culture can be like.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_05: Whereas perhaps the the generation older than me hadn't had that exposure, that that privilege of culturally traveling to different parts of, you know, seeing how different church cultures can can healthily sort of work.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_05: And I I think it it means that the younger folks tend to be more ready to ask those questions of what do we need to learn culturally from all this stuff?
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_05: Or do we, you know, let's not just assume the way we've been doing things is the right way to be doing things or the healthy way to be doing things.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_05: Clearly, something's not been right if in the midst of our so-called healthy churches profound evil has been has made its home long term.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_05: Those are those are painful questions to ask, and again, they're they're perhaps easier to ask in it in a younger stage of life than an older stage of life, because in an older stage of life you've you've had a more of a part to play in that culture.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_05: Um you've you've got more to kind of a little bit more pride to swallow, perhaps.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um if there's something is seriously wrong with a culture and it's the thing you've been part of for decades, that's that's a bigger thing to swallow than if you're in your twenties and and still relatively new to these things.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: Take us through that kind of personally for for you, because it's it's something it's a journey that you've had to go through being a part of Zacharias Trust, and and then the revelations hit, and to begin with, you know, Steve Boffman, the friendly banjo atheist, is writing a book, and then people say, you know, don't worry with that book, because it's it's just a disgruntled atheist trying to, you know, and then recognizing months and years later, oh, we should have listened to Steve Boffman.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um what I had learned and what I had assumed turns out to be wrong.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: What journey do you have to go through kind of emotionally and spiritually to be someone who can own what was wrong and and and and process that and move move past it by facing it and owning it and apologizing for it?
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: What's what's that journey been like personally?
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_05: It's been um I mean it I'm I'm grateful.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_05: I mean it's been hard, for sure.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_05: I mean it it's um it's it's humiliating in some respects, but but I think it's it's it's necessary because when there's a cultural issue I don't need to have been running an organization to have been part of its culture.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_05: And so when something is revealed that indicates there's something wrong with the culture or there's there's been a massive blind spot or indeed a an actual grievous sin within the culture, I still need to say I'm part of that.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_05: I can't separate myself at that point and go, well, because I wasn't Ravi or part of the leadership, therefore I'm innocent.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um there was stuff I bought into by being part of that culture.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um this may or may not be a a good parallel, but when I when I pray in church, and there's a few times I've prayed in church where I felt I've wanted to pray about the issue of abortion and I'm praying for for culture to change in our in our nation, I pray using the language of we because I I've not directly been involved in the sin of abortion, I'm not above it.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_05: Um but I can't at the same time I can't say well I've got nothing to do with that because I'm still part of a culture that has reveled in it and gloried in it.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_05: Um and I'm therefore I've I've indirectly I'm enmeshed in it.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um and it's the same when it comes to church culture, it's the same when it comes to organizational culture.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_05: Um I don't have to have personally abused someone to realize.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_05: That I'm still nevertheless tainted by being part of the culture in which that abuse was able to take place.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: It seems an an area of real cultural battle at the moment, though, whether sins are corporate or individual.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, you pay your money, you take your choice, on one or either side of the line.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, and the the sins are corporate people, tend to be on the more progressive side of the political aisle, and the people who say sin is just individual, ironically, can often be the people who most will sign up to total depravity and original sin and being born in Adam and the bondage of the will.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they're very biblical, but they don't have a category for corporate sin and corporate repentance.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because that sounds too Marxist or whatever whatever it is.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: It strikes me that you're you're not you're not in that camp of saying I mean there is an individual sense of my individual responsibility before God, for which, you know, I confess and repent.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: But what you were just talking about involves a sense of we um in in confessing to sin.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um where where is that where is that conviction coming from?
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_05: Well, it's coming theologically from that awareness that we we're not um splendidly isolated from one another, and that if we corporately have got some things wrong, then I have to share I have to use that language.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_05: Um I can't excuse myself from that.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um so I you know I I I I believe in total depravity.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_05: It's for me, it's one of the easier doctrines to believe because it's just another way of saying there's there's no part of our reality that we don't need Jesus for.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_05: Um there's no part of my life I don't need Jesus for.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_05: Sin has has tainted every area area of life, but part of our that that's true of our collective life as well as our individual life.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_05: And we I think we see that at various points in the Bible.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_05: Um you know, Paul can say to the Corinthians, your your meetings do more harm than good.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_05: There's something about their corporate culture that is desperately unhealthy, and the levels of culpability will will vary, I'm sure, from Christian to Christian in Corinth.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_05: Some will have been more active in in that, creating that sort of um harmful way of things, but but no one is untouched by it.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_05: So we we all have to say we can't just say, well, that's it's obviously only the fault of the the pastors in Corinth.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_05: No, it's yeah, you, the church, the body.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_05: We are our ecclesiology ecclesiology tells us this.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_05: If if the church is a body, then the various parts do not live in independence from one another.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_05: What happens to one part affects the other part.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_05: It's a it's an ecosystem.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, taking that theology into the into the personal realm.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: I remember we were in a Twitter thread, um, it was a around the the time that we did our interview back in March, and somebody asked the question, I don't even know what they asked about, but I I think they asked about your involvement with R Z I M.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: And um and I, you know, I think I was looking at my watch thinking, uh, you know, in the States he's probably asleep.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I I sort of gave a little response to Sam and sort of said, you know, I think Sam probably covered that around the eight-minute mark of the video, if you want to go back and have a look.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um And then you came in on the conversation and you owned wrongdoing.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't even know what what it was that was being said of you, but in a really remarkable way to me, I I I thought you'd been wronged a bit in, you know, how how you were being heard.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the non-defensiveness that you came out with, you know, online on a platform that's not known for non-defensiveness, um, was was kind of remarkable to me.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um what what kind of how does that feel to to be vulnerable and humble and contrite before a person whose motives you don't know?
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, may maybe she's gonna troll you, maybe this is maybe this is gonna be a very unpleasant, you know, next hour for you.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you laid yourself bare, you are humble, you were contrite in that and wanted to own whatever wrongdoing you'd done.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: How are you able to do that?
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I think that the main reason, and I don't always do that consistently, um I'm I'm sure part of it is even if if someone is saying something that is only partially true of you, um the bit that they've got right barely scratches the surface of what I'm really like.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_05: I mean that's that's the honest truth, isn't it?
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um they are never really gonna have a criticism of me that is worse than how I truly am in my heart.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_05: Now they may have some of the particulars wrong.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_05: I I haven't beaten up any old ladies today.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_05: So if I'm accused of that, I know I'm wrong.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_05: I mean I know I'm I'm I you know I can defend myself on that front.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_05: But the the the view of my sinfulness that they have is never gonna be I mean, I'm I'm always a I know my own heart, not fully, mercifully.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_05: I think if I knew my own heart completely fully, it would it would overwhelm me.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_05: But I know my heart enough to think however badly you might think of me based on the very incomplete image you have of me from social media, actually, even if you're being very uncharitable, I'm still worse than you think I am.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_05: And I I think of Paul in in 1 Timothy when he says, you know, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_05: And I kind of think, you know, I don't think Paul had surveyed the entire Christian known church at that point to find out who had done all the biggest sins, and whoops, turns out it was him.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um I think Paul is simply saying, when you when you know your own heart, it is very hard to believe there's someone else out there who's worse than you are, who's more messed up than you are.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um so I'm sure that's part of it.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: And and I'm sure Paul needed to believe that first half of the verse very strongly.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um you need a very robust and buoyant sense of Christ the Saviour for a sinner.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and I guess if someone uncovers dirt on me, then they they qualify me for the for for the bath.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um and if someone digs out sin, they qualify me for the saviour.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_05: So you need to have you have the freedom to say of whom I am the worst when you realize that actually your sin can't compete with Jesus' grace.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_05: If you know, and I I have to preach this to myself every single day, but um uh one of the the kindest things, well, one of the most significant things anyone ever said to me was about four or five years ago I was wrestling with various kinds of guilt about something, and I felt as though yeah, I can see how the gospel works on everybody else, but I'm just too too far gone for this for this actually to really work with me.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I must have, you know.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_05: And he just looked at me and smiled and said, Sam, you're not that special.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_05: Actually, was one of the most profound things I I've heard in that context.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_05: And it and it's true, it's a form of weirdly, counterintuitively, it's a form of pride.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_05: Because it's still saying I'm too big a deal for Jesus.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_05: You can say that in a self-aggrandizing way, you can say that in a self-loathing way and be guilty of the same thing.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um, there's more grace in Jesus than sin in me.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_05: There's more cleanliness in Jesus than dirt in me.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_05: When I know that, right, it actually gives me the freedom to say, hey, I'm way worse than you think I am.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_05: Um I I can begin to be honest.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and it doesn't, and I don't do this perfectly or consistently, but it doesn't have to be an existential threat to be honest and vulnerable if I know if it's if it's safe for me to bring the very worst things about myself into the light before God, it makes it easier actually to bring them into the light before everybody else.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: And is this is this also a lack in our kind of circles?
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: Because I, you know, so one lack that we have identified is a lack of actual worship, worshipping the Lord.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, another lack is a lack of theology as a means to knowing Jesus.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_01: But the grace, the the the good news that is precisely for sinners, such that at the end of a service you can you can genuinely say to people, go in peace, yeah, to love and serve the Lord.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: See you next week.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: Love ya, you know.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and that sense of I I think our circles are very good at challenging our people.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we put them under the word, and they love being under the word, and we we we train and we teach, and we are teaching churches, we're not learning churches, we're teaching churches.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and people can be very burdened.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um have you have you noticed that that there's a there's a there's a lack of liberation to some of our preaching.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, very much so, and I've I've you know it it can sometimes feel feel like church is is the spiritual gymnasium.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_05: You know, you've kind of I'm not really in the mood for it, but I know I need it, and I feel a bit better for having been there.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_05: And if I come out feeling sore, that's because I've had a good workout and that's how I'm meant to feel.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um whereas it's assuming I'm going there to be, you know, you one, not me, much.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_05: You go to the gym to to work out.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_05: The the process of working out is hurting your muscles to make them stronger.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_05: So the the danger is if we I think I'm yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've read about gyms, I think.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_05: I've seen a picture of one somewhere.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um if one of the dangers of our we've got to kind of challenge the flock and we've got to challenge ourselves and challenge.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_05: One of the dangers of that is the assumption is we're we're being challenged in order to be stronger.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_05: That the foot that the challenge is actually meant to sort of produce a greater steel within us.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um whereas that the message of the gospel is Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_05: It's be still and know that I am the Lord.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_05: And it's so counterintuitive, but it's it's entering into the rest of Jesus.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's so church should feel like a relief.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_05: You can come here, this is the place where you can ex exhale.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um you you don't have this is should be the one environment where you don't have to feel as though you're performing.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_05: And I've I've felt this myself, and I've I've certainly seen it in pastoral ministry where you'll realize someone hasn't been at church for a while, so you'll kind of check in on them and discover they've been going through some some crisis.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_05: And this happened to me a few times when I was in pastoral ministry at a local church, and I would realize the person didn't feel they could come to church whilst they were in this crisis, they didn't feel ready yet.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, they needed to be sort of out of the crisis enough to feel as though I can come back to church now that things are a bit more ship-shaped and I'm a you know, life is less completely falling apart than it had been.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_05: And I remember thinking, I don't know how we've got to that, but we have got to get away from that.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um, because we're we're we're actually then whatever we think we're preaching in terms of grace, we're unpreaching if if the takeaway is I don't feel like I'm strong enough to be at church this week.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: To to shoulder that extra burden of going to church among all the others.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I listened to a a sermon years ago.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was meant to be, you know, and it was.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_01: It was officially a sermon about Romans 8.1.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: And yet the opening, the opening, um so there is therefore now c no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_01: The opening illustration was about Sisyphus and the myth of Sisyphus.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you can tell it's our our constituency because already we've got a Greek myth going on.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the the Greek myth of Sisyphus is that the punishment of Sisyphus is to push a boulder up a hill.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: And the tragedy of it is that as soon as it gets up the hill, it falls down, and he needs to push it up, and he needs to push it up eternally.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: No rest.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: And this preacher said, um, you know, it can feel a lot like Sisyphus in life, can't it?
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I wonder what Sisyphus needed.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think Sisyphus probably needed a friend.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_01: And wouldn't it be nice to have a friend in the Christian life who can help you as you push that boulder up the hill?
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that's who the Holy Spirit is, people.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit is this power that comes alongside you to befriend you and help you as you go through hell of just like pushing the boulder up the hill.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it just it just struck me that I'm just not sure if such a person is converted, if they honestly think that the that the Christian life is is just this unrelenting struggle.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: But you've got a you've got a help, you've got a power with you.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: And forever it's fine, but right now it's hell on earth, and and up we go.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it just and if that's if that's our gospel, then no wonder people want to stay away from us when they're going through the hard times, as opposed to we should be the first place they come to.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and the danger is, and I've I've been there as a pastor, and you look out on a congregation, you think, you know, okay, we're weak in that area, we need to be doing more of this, we need to be doing more of that.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_05: I've got 25 minutes to get them doing the things I think they need to be doing.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um we're we're not doing enough evangelism, how can I get them to do more?
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_05: We're not doing enough looking out for each other and accountability, how can I get them to do more of that?
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_05: But we've realized where the we've we've forgotten where the the kind of spiritual agency is.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_05: And the spiritual agency is in the completion of all that Christ has done for us.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_05: Not that he started and we now pick up the baton from him and continue, but that he's finished something and we revel and glory in its finished nurse.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_05: That's the catalyst.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: And is okay, is there an opportunity then?
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_01: Should we finish on some positive notes?
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_01: Is there is there an opportunity now?
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because everybody is exhausted right now.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's utterly, you know.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm on my third cold in ten days.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, you know.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, we are all absolutely spent.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, we just we can't burden ourselves anymore because people have got nothing more to give.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: Might we learn, might, might we learn that at this point that that actually when we've got nothing else to give, that actually Jesus shows up and just shows us it's all about his gift, not ours?
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_05: I hope so.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_05: And I I'm sure part of the the reason we're all so weary in God's purposes is because he maybe he's getting us to the point where we're more ready to receive.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um we we are actually coming with empty hands and w without the resources.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it's not that I don't have much to offer.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_05: I don't have anything to offer.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_05: And that actually is a great place.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_05: Paul says, I I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um so it's not just that Paul is okay, he's begrudgingly admitting he has weaknesses, he's now boasting gladly in them because he's thinking, hey, the emptier I am, the more grace I can I can receive from the Lord.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then yeah, and then to to know an overflowing, abundant, full God, I'm the empty one.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not it's not my strength that I offer to others, it's actually it's his strength in my weakness.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so it's rather than I need to look good so that he looks good, which is so exhausting, yeah.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_05: It's I need to be weak so that he can be sufficient.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um and it means that I I don't need to worry that I'm gonna wear Jesus out today.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_05: Uh if I'm coming to him with need, you know, he says in John 4, This is this is my food to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um when I'm coming to Jesus with with yet another day's worth of need and mess and all the rest of it, he's not thinking, Oh man, I've got enough on my plate, now you're giving me more.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_05: He's saying this is this is my food to do the will of him who sent me to accomplish his work.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_05: He he apparently loves being my saviour.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_05: And so I'm not giving him more work to do.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_05: Um for the joy set before him, he endured the cross.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_05: He loves to save his people.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um I'm not wearing him out.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_05: I think I'm making his day when I come to him and saying, I can't do it.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'm way out of my depth here.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_05: Um, there's more here than I can handle.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_05: Please take it.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_01: Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um final question.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: What's uh what what are your hopes?
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: What do you find yourself praying for um for the church?
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: Where where can we where can we move from here?
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'm I'm there's a lot to be dismayed about um as we look around us, um, both sides of the Atlantic, and as I look inside me, much to be dismayed about.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_05: But Jesus has said he will build his church.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_05: Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_05: So as dismal as things may look culturally within the church, geopolitically, and on on sort of every front, I said think, well, maybe maybe this is the prelude to God doing what only God can do.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um because ultimately he's gonna bend all of this around to the glory of Jesus and to the increase of his government.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_05: So I don't know how he's gonna do that with the particulars, but I know that he's gonna do that.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_05: So the worst things look, the there's a bit of me that wants to just get a big load of popcorn and think, okay, let's let's see what happens now.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um because God is showing us what we can't do.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_05: Um I hope so that he can show us what only he can do.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, Sam, I think a great way of people following up on these things would be uh to listen in on your podcast with Ray Ortland.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_01: Can you just describe what you and Ray have been up to?
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we have a pop a podcast called You're Not Crazy, uh Gospel Sanity for Young Pastors.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_05: It it's a podcast that the Gospel Coalition asked us to do specifically for young pastors, but actually what we're talking about is is really for anyone who is concerned with the health of the church.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_05: So we're talking about these very issues of church culture.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_05: How do we have health in our church culture?
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_05: How can the intangibles of our church life reflect the gospel?
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_05: How can we see the gospel creating relational beauty and safety and honesty and all of those things so that actually in in every single aspect of our our gathered life, that the tone, the vibe, the words, everything, we are reflecting and embodying the grace and the rest of of Jesus.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it's fed me, so thank you very much for doing it.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's been a it's been a joy.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_05: The the thrill for me is just is just getting Ray to speak into a microphone and share his gems.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, but you you as well, Sam.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're you're giving you're giving you're truly building the church, not in the the bodybuilder gym sense um of inflicting pain on us so that we might do better next time, but but actually feeding us with the word of Christ and and and and yeah, speaking grace into our sins so that you encourage us to be honest and then let's see what Jesus does in the midst of it.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's a beautiful thing.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_01: I highly recommend it.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, brilliant.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Sam Albury, thanks so much for joining us.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_05: Thanks for having me.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the end of the show.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to get in touch uh with Speak Life about anything discussed, if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, feel free to email info at speaklife.org.uk.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_00: And just a reminder that you can go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash jobs to find out about the operations director role.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you next time.