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Aaron Miller on The Gift of Being Weird: Faith in a Conforming World · Future Christian

• 0:00
  Loren Richmond Jr (00:05)
• 0:03
  This is the Future Christian Podcast, a conversation about church leadership, fresh ideas, and the future of the church.
• 0:06
  In today's episode, Martha talks with Aaron Miller, the Congregational Minister at University Hills United Church and the UCC Campus Minister at the University of British Columbia.
• 0:09
  He is the author of Witnesses of These Things, Faithfulness Here and Now, and Weird in the World, Living Toward the World God Wants. Aaron lives in Vancouver with his wife, Kate, and their teenage sons. A reminder before we start today's conversation, please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and share Future Christian with a friend. You can connect with Lauren, Martha, and Future Christian on Instagram. Send us an email at...
• 0:12
  lauren at resonate media pro com with comments questions or ideas for future episodes your support invoice mean a lot to us in making this podcast possible
• 0:15
  Martha Tatarnic (01:13)
• 0:18
  Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. I am your host for today's episode, Martha Tatarnic and I'm so happy today to be joined by the Reverend Aaron Miller. Welcome, Aaron.
• 0:21
  Aaron (01:26)
• 0:24
  Thanks, it's great to be here.
• 0:27
  Martha Tatarnic (01:28)
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  Yeah, we're kind of recording from coast to coast this morning. You're out on the West Coast, is that correct?
• 0:33
  Aaron (01:35)
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  Yeah, I'm sitting on the beautiful campus of the University of British Columbia where I'm ⁓ a chaplain and ⁓ where my church that I pastor is located as well. So, yeah.
• 0:39
  Martha Tatarnic (01:47)
• 0:42
  Excellent. So we're in
• 0:45
  different time zones, but through the miracles of technology, we're able to be together for this conversation. So why don't ⁓ you start us off and start our listeners off with just a little bit about your faith journey, what that looked like in the past, what it looks like now.
• 0:48
  Aaron (02:08)
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  Yeah, I I grew up ⁓ in the church. I'm a PK multiple times over, which is not something anybody should... ⁓ yeah. We should have a special support group for people who have multiple clergy as parents. But yeah, so I mean, that meant that our lives kind of revolved around church, around the rhythms of church.
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  Martha Tatarnic (02:14)
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  I should connect you with my kids. They probably need a support system. I do feel like that should be a thing. Anyway, sorry, go ahead.
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  Aaron (02:38)
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  we just did church every week and then often different things through the week. One of the earliest pictures I have of myself, I have it stuck to my board there. I'm standing in the pulpit at about, I don't know, four years old maybe at my dad's church in little town Eastern Ontario. So it's always kind of been there. I got around a little bit to different kinds of churches, different kinds of youth groups. ⁓
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  Martha Tatarnic (02:54)
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  Okay.
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  Maybe you could just
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  ⁓ tell our listeners what denomination that you grew up in a little bit what that's like. Yeah.
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  Aaron (03:12)
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  yeah, sorry, I'm...
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  Yeah, sure. I'm born and raised in the United Church of Canada. ⁓ For those who don't know, the United Church is sort of the biggest of the mainline churches. ⁓ For any American listeners, it's kind of closest to probably the United Church of Christ with a little bit of Methodism kicked in. ⁓ And it's a very diverse denomination in terms of its
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  Martha Tatarnic (03:33)
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  Right.
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  Aaron (03:42)
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  theological commitments, its worship styles, ⁓ commitments to justice and all the rest of it. ⁓ it's an interesting denomination to grow up in, not least because it has always allowed for a fair bit of flexibility and questioning and exploration. So I grew up with a lot of different church influences, even within my own denomination, ⁓ kind of on both sides of
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  Martha Tatarnic (04:01)
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Aaron (04:11)
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  any theological spectrum you want to come up with. ⁓ And then, yeah, I I think a lot of my most formative things were things I did with my, you know, my teenage friends. We, a group of us spent some time in a charismatic church. was part of an evangelical youth group. I was, you know, was confirmed in the United Church with a, by
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  Martha Tatarnic (04:31)
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  Okay.
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  Aaron (04:39)
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  Today's standards, quite a sizable confirmation class. ⁓ I went to camp every summer, which I think was, I mean, those sorts of experiences I think are really important for young people to see other adults living out their faith in particular ways. It's one thing to know that your parents believe or that they do this church thing, but we need other examples. ⁓
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  Martha Tatarnic (05:01)
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Aaron (05:07)
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  our lives. So I was really blessed to have that. I was always kind of connected to the church. I sometimes say I had a fairly unsuccessful rebellion in my early 20s, as many of us do. I was an English major and the liberal arts programs are not always the most hospitable to organized religion.
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  Martha Tatarnic (05:19)
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  Many of us do, yeah.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Aaron (05:36)
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  And interestingly, I was drawn to lot of the kind of critiques, but also whenever we were in a seminar or something and someone started disparaging the church or Christians in general, or because it's almost always Christians that get disparaged, but at least then it was. I would get defensive. even when I wasn't
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  Martha Tatarnic (05:55)
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  Right.
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  Aaron (06:04)
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  particularly connected to the church. I would still go somewhat regularly in no small part because my dad was still paying a lot of my bills. ⁓ So, you know, ⁓ wanting to stay on side with my parents, but also it was, you know, there always was something kind of homey about it for me. It was a kind of home base. then ⁓ shortly after I got engaged to the woman who's now my wife, Kate,
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  My dad invited us to go to an Alpha program at his church. And ⁓ we went because there was free food and we were poor. And again, kind of just to stay on side, was like, you know, whatever. And it turned out that I really loved the ⁓ conversation parts of it. I mean, I...
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  Martha Tatarnic (06:46)
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  There you go, honest. Yeah.
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  Aaron (07:01)
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  I valued the teaching parts of it, but it was kind of when we got into a circle ⁓ and began to talk through some of these concepts, some of these ideas, why it mattered to the people who were leading it, ⁓ and the ways in which I could still feel that it mattered to me. so Kate and I would, you know, the conversation would continue in the car on way home. And ⁓ then one evening she asked me if
• 2:57
  I ever thought about ministry, which was a question I got a lot ⁓ as the oldest child of multiple clergy. ⁓ And I thought was kind of a nice kid. ⁓ My grandmother was convinced I was going to be a minister and I was desperately convinced that I was not going to be a minister. ⁓ so, you know, ladies in the church would ask me if I was going to be a minister or, and ⁓ you know, it just sounded different coming out of the mouth of
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  Martha Tatarnic (07:38)
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  Right.
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  Okay.
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  Aaron (08:01)
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  my fiance. And so I said no, which was my stock answer to that question. I higher aspirations for myself. But then I had kind of a sort of a Moses sort of week where I had all kinds of excuses about why this was a terrible idea. And I was very clear with God that this was not a good idea.
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  Martha Tatarnic (08:02)
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  Truly, yeah.
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  Aaron (08:29)
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  I couldn't get an essay done on time with three months notice. How was I going to write a sermon every week? You can't ask people to come back on Tuesday just because you didn't get finished. So, no, I suppose you have not because you asked not. Maybe they would come back, knows? ⁓ But, ⁓ and I had this kind of moment, one of
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  Martha Tatarnic (08:37)
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  Right.
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  I haven't tried that anyway.
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  Aaron (08:59)
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  maybe two or three moments where something like an audible voice happened. And it was just sort of a question, like, why don't you trust me? And I, well, I guess that's that, settled then. So I apologize to Kate because she didn't expect to marry a minister. ⁓ So they think I have to go to seminary and that was in.
• 3:42
  November, I think, and I started seminary in January. And that was in 2000, January 2006, I guess. So 20 years ago, golly. ⁓ And yeah, so I served a small church in Ontario ⁓ in a little village called Selkirk, which is kind of 45 minutes. You do, golly. ⁓ There's no particularly good reason.
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  Martha Tatarnic (09:31)
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  my gosh, wow.
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  I know, Selkirk.
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  But our listeners probably don't.
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  Aaron (09:56)
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  Yeah, there's no particularly good reason for anybody to know where Selkirk is. ⁓ It's about 45 minutes straight south of Hamilton on Lake Erie. ⁓ I was there for seven years or so. And then ⁓ as much of a surprise ⁓ as going into ministry was, was the call to come out to Vancouver. There was no particularly good reason for it. ⁓ In my household, our kind of default is that if it sounds crazy and you still have to do it, it's probably Jesus.
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  And so that was kind of the shape of this, ⁓ of that. And yeah, so I've been here for almost a decade. And yeah, just...
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  Martha Tatarnic (10:28)
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  That's a good rule of thumb, I think.
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  And you split your time between ⁓ church and the university, is that correct?
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  Aaron (10:42)
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  You do.
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  Yeah, that's right. So for the first six years or so, was full-time at the church and now I'm half-time at the church and half-time as the ⁓ chaplain for the denominational campus minister for UBC. We have a pretty robust campus ministry program on the West Coast, which I'm grateful for. ⁓ So there are many sites in BC and Alberta that have active campus ministries, which ⁓ is a little unusual.
• 4:24
  the country. ⁓ And ⁓ yeah, so I do both jobs mercifully, like my office is my office and I doesn't really feel like I'm being stretched in two different directions. I'm kind of doing things that might naturally come to a campus pastor. ⁓ But ⁓ but yeah, my paycheck technically comes from two different places. So so it is it's an integrated.
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  I don't feel totally bivocational most of the time, which is nice.
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  Martha Tatarnic (11:45)
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  That's good.
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  Okay, yeah, that's definitely a balancing
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  act to figure out. So that's good.
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  Aaron (11:56)
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  Yeah, yeah. And then you asked about spiritual practices. mean, for me, yeah.
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  Martha Tatarnic (11:59)
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah. So we just always ask
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  people if there's a spiritual practice that's particularly meaningful right now that they'd like to share with our listeners.
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  Aaron (12:11)
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  Yeah, for me, scripture and prayer are the primary two. I think that's the way that we are most faithfully formed ⁓ as Christians. ⁓ I don't think those two are optional. They can look different for lots of different people, I think we actually, Jesus seemed to need them. So, know.
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  Martha Tatarnic (12:24)
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  Hmm.
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  Right.
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  Aaron (12:40)
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  ⁓ And yeah, and then I mean, I do love, I like to create things. I'm a painter sometimes. ⁓ I like to write obviously. And I love going into the forest here at UBC. I have discovered that the forest is actually my kind of happy place in nature. So some people like the mountains, but I'm into the forest. Yeah.
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  Martha Tatarnic (12:50)
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  Okay.
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  You're forest person. Okay,
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  well, that sounds like a good spiritual mix. That's good. Thank you for ⁓ just outlining a bit of your journey there. ⁓ yeah, there's some very relatable parts there. The growing up in the mainline tradition kind of thoroughly formed in the mainline tradition and that no moment when somebody says to you, you ever thought about and then you realize that ⁓
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  Aaron (13:10)
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  Yeah.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  You
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  Martha Tatarnic (13:37)
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  You've got to actually wrestle with this.
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  Aaron (13:41)
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  Yeah, I mean, think that, you there's always a kind of hindsight thing. I mean, I do think it was kind of always brewing, I was not paying attention to it.
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  Martha Tatarnic (13:53)
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  Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, so ⁓ you have written a wonderful book. I think it has a very compelling title. It is called Weird in the World, Living Towards the World God Wants. ⁓ And we're going to spend some time talking about that and ⁓ delving into what you offer here in this book. ⁓ I have been chatting about your book with
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  a variety of people across my parish. ⁓ there's definitely a lot of ⁓ there's a lot of energy around that idea of weirdness and what it is we're doing as Christians. So I would say that your starting point ⁓ slash maybe thesis of the book is Christians are called to be weird enough in the world as it is that when God gets the world God wants will fit right in.
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  Aaron (14:32)
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  Mm.
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  Martha Tatarnic (14:50)
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  So it's a pretty great phrase. kind of say that you, most people who hang around you in ministry get to hear that sentiment in one form or another on a pretty regular basis.
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  Aaron (15:05)
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  If you hear me preach ⁓ for more than a few weeks, you're bound to hear that or something very similar to it.
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  Martha Tatarnic (15:12)
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  Yeah, yeah, that's great. So why don't we start with what you mean by weird? What? ⁓ What is that all about?
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  Aaron (15:19)
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  It's interesting. I'm glad to hear there's some energy around it for you. It's one of the things I've gotten a little bit of pushback on because people don't necessarily think of weird as positive. I've had a couple of people ask me, is there another word we could use? In my heart of hearts, think, I don't know, not really, I also just like the alliteration.
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  Martha Tatarnic (15:27)
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  Really?
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  Interesting. That's interesting.
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  Yeah.
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  Aaron (15:48)
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  I think, as I was preparing for this, I happened to be reading an article by Walter Brueggemann ⁓ where he's talking about duty and delight, something like that. He says this, he says, order to make this approach, he's talking about obedience. So in order to make this approach to obedience convincing, believers must come to see their baptism as entry into a new vision of reality.
• 6:54
  which carries with it all sorts of new possibilities that the world thinks impossible. This vision of reality is an oddity in the world, at odds with all the conventional orderings of society, political, economic, and social. And so that's kind of what I mean. We are doing something that is at odds with the world as it is. We're trying not to be conformed to the patterns of this world, but transformed by the renewal of our minds and subsequently our lives.
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  Martha Tatarnic (16:38)
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  Great.
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  Aaron (16:47)
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  sake of what God wants to do in this time, in this place. You know, we're doing it imperfectly and we are in our own ways sort of bound to the way things are. But I think the goal as Christians, the goal as church is to bear witness to a possibility that the world thinks is impossible. And yeah, so how do we do that?
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  Martha Tatarnic (17:12)
• 7:12
  Mm-hmm.
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  Aaron (17:17)
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  know, so that's what I mean. I think we're supposed to have some kind of, I say in my first book, think, it's in first Peter, I think, where he says, always be prepared to give an account of what gives you hope, but do so with gentleness and reverence. And I always kind of liked that as like, well, if somebody asks, I'll tell them. But I think that like behind that,
• 7:21
  Martha Tatarnic (17:43)
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  Yeah.
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  Aaron (17:47)
• 7:30
  instruction is the assumption that there would be something weird enough, hopeful enough about your life that someone might be inclined to ask. So think in the main line, we tend to wait around for people to maybe possibly ask if we happen to mention that we go to church. ⁓ And instead, I think we want to be learning not so much just to get people into church or anything, but we want to be learning to live in the world in a way that might catch some folks off guard. ⁓
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  Martha Tatarnic (17:59)
• 7:36
  Right. Yeah.
• 7:39
  Yeah, point to another
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  possibility. Like, this isn't all there is. isn't like business as usual isn't the final word,
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  Aaron (18:26)
• 7:48
  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the Sermon on the Mount is kind of indispensable for Christians. I think it is indispensable for Christians. Yeah. Thank you. That's funny. But I think one of the movement of that passage, a couple chapters in Matthew, is that Jesus goes up the mountain with his disciples
• 7:51
  Martha Tatarnic (18:36)
• 7:54
  Hot take there.
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  Aaron (18:54)
• 8:00
  separate from the crowds, but by the end of the sermon, the crowds seem to have crept closer because they are amazed at what he's saying. And so there is something kind of attractive about this alternative way that again has less to do with kind of getting bums and pews or building our brand or whatever as just bearing witness to another way of being in the world. So, yeah.
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  Martha Tatarnic (19:03)
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  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
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  Yeah, I
• 8:12
  love that. There were a few things ⁓ that kind of struck me in that word. ⁓ I don't know whether this is true, but I was told a long time ago that in Old English, the word weird was synonymous with holy. So I kind of like that. I mean, feel free to use that.
• 8:15
  Aaron (19:38)
• 8:18
  Hmm.
• 8:21
  Yeah. Wish I'd done that before I the book.
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  Martha Tatarnic (19:48)
• 8:27
  on speaking engagements and like maybe fact check it like I'm just.
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  Aaron (19:48)
• 8:33
  Yeah, thanks.
• 8:36
  no, this is fact now. It's on the internet. ⁓
• 8:39
  Martha Tatarnic (19:56)
• 8:42
  Yeah, now that it's been
• 8:45
  put into the universe, it's definitely real. ⁓ And I remember the first time I ever read anything by Rachel Held Evans, she wrote, I don't want the church to be more hip. want the church to be more weird. ⁓ like, just, I do, I think the reason why people I've been chatting to resonate with it so much is that there is this sense of like, being out of step in a way that feels like
• 8:48
  Aaron (20:03)
• 8:51
  Ha ha.
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  Martha Tatarnic (20:25)
• 8:57
  kind of life-giving and honest and hopeful, as you say, like hopeful.
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  Aaron (20:33)
• 9:03
  Yeah, and I mean, we're caught up, or we claim to be caught up with the guy who can do more than we can ask or imagine. Like, and that's gonna look surprising somehow, I think.
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  Martha Tatarnic (20:42)
• 9:09
  Yeah, yeah. And I think that
• 9:12
  we need to continue to be surprised by that, right? Like, I think that's where the witness part comes in. Like, we can all get pretty complacent. We can all get pretty comfortable. And so we do need to be caught off guard sometimes by the weirdness of what it is that could actually be possible.
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  Aaron (21:05)
• 9:18
  Yeah, I do think Anglicans have a little bit, have an advantage in that you tend to do all the weird things. You do Ascension Sunday, or Ascension Thursday rather, Ascension Thursday. Maitreya says a lot of that, but I think there is a kind of rhythm to Anglican worshiping life that allows for you to.
• 9:21
  Martha Tatarnic (21:13)
• 9:24
  Yeah.
• 9:27
  We do Ascension Sunday. We have like ashes on Ash Wednesday.
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  Aaron (21:33)
• 9:33
  Yeah, I kind of lean into the weird stuff.
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  Martha Tatarnic (21:35)
• 9:39
  I agree.
• 9:42
  Yep. I agree. And I mean, the United Church, as you said earlier, like has that element as well, but there are lots of flavors of United Church. yeah.
• 9:45
  Aaron (21:48)
• 9:48
  Yeah. I remember talking
• 9:51
  to, I used to mentor kind of a series of license lay worship leader groups. That's just lay folks who want to learn a little bit about how to serve their church through developing worship and preaching and all that. And when we get to Ascension, the vast majority had never heard, like had no idea what it was. I'm like, this is like,
• 9:54
  Martha Tatarnic (22:12)
• 9:57
  god.
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  Aaron (22:15)
• 10:03
  I know, I think it's the most important doctrine we actively ignore. ⁓ you know, so how do we, anyways, I don't need to go down my ascension ⁓ rabbit hole, but I do think like the weird stuff, the weird claims of our faith are some of the ways in which we can start to lean into that and choose an alternative narrative for how things are.
• 10:06
  Martha Tatarnic (22:37)
• 10:09
  Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I think that that is very connected to the other piece that you lay out right at the beginning, which I found enormously helpful around imagination. And I mean, I'm paraphrasing here, but I think you basically say that ⁓ like the number one thing that churches are lacking in terms of being able to respond to the challenges of
• 10:12
  being the church today and the challenges of the world around us ⁓ is not so much like lack of resources or whatever, it's lack of imagination. And I wonder if you just want to say a word about the importance of imagination.
• 10:15
  Aaron (23:25)
• 10:18
  Yeah, I I think it's a really, I think it's one of God's greatest gifts, ⁓ this capacity to see something that isn't yet ⁓ to have a vision for ⁓ things that are not, but could be. ⁓ Karen Swallow Pryor talks about how we can't bring to life what we can't imagine. ⁓
• 10:21
  Martha Tatarnic (23:30)
• 10:24
  Yeah.
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  Aaron (23:53)
• 10:30
  And I often use Malcolm Gait, who borrows from Shakespeare to say that imagination is that faculty that ⁓ apprehends more than cool reason can ever comprehend. So it's this kind of capacity to ⁓ reach out to something, to know something before we know it, ⁓ to trust something before we understand it. But also I think, you know, we...
• 10:33
  Martha Tatarnic (24:06)
• 10:36
  I love that. That's beautiful.
• 10:39
  Mm.
• 10:42
  Mm-hmm.
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  Aaron (24:22)
• 10:48
  especially for mainline churches, established congregations. ⁓ I don't think novelty for novelty sake is not a Christian virtue. ⁓ But doing things the way we've always done them certainly isn't either. That seems to be basic to Jesus ministry. Like, you're fisherman, let's go do something else. ⁓
• 10:51
  Martha Tatarnic (24:40)
• 10:54
  Yeah.
• 10:57
  Alright.
• 11:00
  Aaron (24:52)
• 11:03
  So, know, I think imagination, working through, yeah, just kind getting ourselves out of our own little ruts, our own preferred things. You know, one of my challenges is that the service I run every week is more or less like the service that I grew up with. And like, there's part of me that wants to say like, it's good enough for me, why isn't it good enough for everybody else, you know? ⁓ And I know that that's foolish and I know that there are gifts and
• 11:06
  our liturgies and in the way we do things. They didn't come out of nowhere. But also, what does it look like to imagine doing church in a different kind of way? ⁓ And that's a big leap for a lot of us, maybe especially those of us who are professionals. Because we know how to do church a certain way. I can do this. I know how to do Sunday morning, just fine. Thank you. I don't need to.
• 11:09
  Martha Tatarnic (25:40)
• 11:12
  Yeah, yeah.
• 11:15
  Yeah,
• 11:18
  yeah, truly.
• 11:21
  Aaron (25:52)
• 11:24
  There'd
• 11:27
  be a lot of work to think about doing church another way. ⁓ And again, I'm not suggesting we should just throw out all of our traditions or anything, but you know, what do we, I'm reading a ⁓ really great book by Kara Root. ⁓ People might be more familiar with her husband, Andy, who wrote a whole secular age series.
• 11:30
  Martha Tatarnic (26:12)
• 11:33
  Yeah, ⁓ he's
• 11:36
  been a regular on this podcast.
• 11:39
  Aaron (26:19)
• 11:42
  Actually, maybe that's why I believe I've listened to one of those episodes. But yeah, so Andy's wife, Kara, ⁓ is a beautiful writer and a pastor of a church, a Presbyterian church, ⁓ just outside of Minnesota. And ⁓ she talks about a time when she and her little congregation that were kind of on their last legs by all worldly metrics.
• 11:45
  Martha Tatarnic (26:23)
• 11:48
  Okay.
• 11:51
  Aaron (26:48)
• 11:54
  the leadership went on a retreat and they named their challenges. ⁓ They came up with kind of four core challenges that would be no surprise to any small church anywhere. know, money, resources, people, whatever. ⁓ And then they decided just to like, what's the opposite of those things? Like, what's the... ⁓
• 11:57
  Martha Tatarnic (26:58)
• 12:00
  Yeah.
• 12:03
  Aaron (27:17)
• 12:06
  She talks about how they changed, for instance, just, you know, we don't have enough resources to, we have everything we need to do what God is calling us to right now. Like that's a completely change, you know, and there's part of me that says like, if we don't believe that we might as well just shut the doors. Like, you know, if God's calling us to something completely impossible then like, let's stop wasting each other's time. But our conviction is that God does equip us for.
• 12:09
  Martha Tatarnic (27:27)
• 12:12
  Yeah.
• 12:15
  Yeah, yeah.
• 12:18
  Aaron (27:46)
• 12:21
  exactly what God is calling us to do. And so she goes on to say that in their fellowship area where they had all of their meetings and all of their coffee hours and whatever, they had this long wall of confirmation class photos that went from, I don't know, let's say the 50s with three rows deep of teenagers. then by the end it was the minister. And by the time the last confirmation class happened, it was the minister and three.
• 12:24
  three girls. ⁓ And that was what they saw every time they met together. That was shaping the narrative. And so they took that down. And instead, what they have now is ⁓ crosses from around the world. So anytime someone goes on a vacation, or a trip of some sort, they bring back a cross to go on the wall. And then they're inverted fears, these four ⁓ guiding
• 12:27
  Martha Tatarnic (28:22)
• 12:30
  Right.
• 12:33
  Aaron (28:46)
• 12:36
  imagination evoking principles. I found that really just kind of helpful. I don't think it's wildly revolutionary, but what would it look like to say, yeah, we're smaller than we used to be, but we think God's up to something still. If God's up to something, we might need to think that through in a way that feels uncomfortable ⁓ or feels
• 12:39
  Martha Tatarnic (29:04)
• 12:42
  Yeah, yeah.
• 12:45
  Aaron (29:17)
• 12:48
  contrary to what the world tells us is important. So, yeah, imagination, I think, is both a significant gift of God and also a thing that we often neglect to our peril.
• 12:51
  Martha Tatarnic (29:34)
• 12:54
  Mm hmm.
• 12:57
  Yeah, I find that that story really helpful in terms of framing what that actually looks like. ⁓
• 13:00
  Aaron (29:43)
• 13:03
  The book
• 13:06
  is called The Deepest Belonging. should say that. Yeah, really good.
• 13:09
  Martha Tatarnic (29:45)
• 13:12
  deepest belonging. Yeah. I can't remember whether Kara's been
• 13:15
  on the podcast or not, but ⁓ I think she maybe has been. Yeah. Yeah. I think Lauren has talked with her. ⁓ Okay. So the framework for the book, and we'll just kind of do a little bit of an overview here. And then there's some follow-up questions I want to get into, but you...
• 13:18
  Aaron (29:51)
• 13:21
  Mm, she'd be worth it. Yeah, she's great.
• 13:24
  Martha Tatarnic (30:10)
• 13:27
  You break down six sign posts and then four lenses that can be applied to each of the sign posts. So let's just quickly run through the sign posts. There's worship, prayer, incarnation, discipline, lament, and freedom. Do you want to just kind of run us through what briefly like what each of these mean and where you think they are rooted?
• 13:30
  Aaron (30:37)
• 13:33
  Sure. Just for interest sake, the book is based on Psalm 34, which is the Psalm that David sang when he feigned madness in the presence of King Abimelek. I'm playing with that image of, I don't think we're supposed to pretend to be weird, it is a song. I call it song for the stranger.
• 13:36
  Martha Tatarnic (30:45)
• 13:39
  Right.
• 13:42
  Aaron (31:06)
• 13:45
  ⁓ And so the signposts literally just come from kind chunking up the psalm. Because the psalm itself is an acrostic in Hebrew, based on the Hebrew alphabet, but we lose that entirely in English. So it can feel quite disjointed. ⁓ And so it's actually fairly easy to chunk up because one stanza doesn't seem to quite fit with the other. But each stanza does have its own kind of integrity. ⁓ And so that's where the
• 13:48
  Martha Tatarnic (31:21)
• 13:51
  Of yeah.
• 13:54
  Aaron (31:36)
• 13:57
  the ⁓ headings for the signposts come from is just kind of reflecting on what the psalmist is doing in that particular moment of the psalm. And I think, you know, these are not the only things that can be formative for Christians, but I think they are typically and traditionally ⁓ important, have been important for generations ever since we started doing this Jesus thing.
• 14:00
  I think worship is, I ⁓ just don't think we can do without it. It can look a lot of different ways, but worship is at very least that time that we set aside to be intentionally attentive to the one who's always attentive to us ⁓ and to respond to God in a way that is faithful and
• 14:03
  and ascribes the worthiness of God to be responded to. ⁓ Prayer, think, is a lot of different kinds of prayer, but essentially it is our way of responding to God's first word. ⁓ God speaks and we are created, which means that our lives are fit to respond. So yeah, mean, whether that's
• 14:06
  Martha Tatarnic (32:38)
• 14:09
  Hmm.
• 14:12
  It's beautiful.
• 14:15
  Aaron (33:05)
• 14:18
  I mean, that can be silence. The famous Mother Teresa interview where she was asked what she says when she prays and she mostly just listens. And what does God say? Well, he mostly just listens. ⁓ So it can look like that. Some people need to move. Some people need to pray in tongues. Some people need to walk a labyrinth. Some people, you know.
• 14:21
  Martha Tatarnic (33:18)
• 14:24
  Hahaha
• 14:27
  Aaron (33:32)
• 14:30
  but it is that kind of intentional and intimate attention to God. Incarnation ⁓ is just what it sounds like embodying our faith. ⁓ The one thing we really stake our claim on in Christianity is that the Word becomes flesh and moves in among us. so that's ⁓
• 14:33
  becomes by extension as disciples, as apprentices of Jesus, we are also an incarnate word of God. Discipline, think, that's, I mean, it's a sort of, maybe it's a more Pauline kind of thing. Physical training is of some benefit, but spiritual training is of infinite benefit. So that kind of, like intentional attention to our spiritual lives, to...
• 14:36
  God's action and movement and call ⁓ is, if we want to be formed in the way of Jesus, we got to pay attention to Jesus. ⁓ Lament is, I think really profoundly important. ⁓ I think we, yeah. And it's certainly a part of, as you know, ⁓ a part of our scriptural heritage. ⁓ The Psalms are full of lament.
• 14:39
  Martha Tatarnic (34:47)
• 14:42
  Yeah, yeah, I was so glad it was in the list.
• 14:45
  Aaron (35:02)
• 14:48
  whole book of lament. And yet we don't really know how to do it all that well, I think in our culture. We resist that. We know we should be kind of heartbroken about the state of things, but we don't necessarily know what to do with that energy. And it's kind of easier just to move on. One of the most important quotes for me or ideas
• 14:51
  I used in that book came from Norman Wearsbaugh who says that the opposite of joy isn't sadness, it's numbness. Lament allows us to take that energy and both acknowledge it, like do something with it, yell and scream at God if we have to. ⁓ There's ⁓ one passage in Isaiah that I just love. It's like, you turned away and so we sin. ⁓
• 14:54
  Martha Tatarnic (35:37)
• 14:57
  Yeah, yeah.
• 15:00
  Aaron (35:59)
• 15:03
  I read that as Isaiah just saying, you just remember who's God here. You owe us something. I don't know. As Christians, we tend not to get up on our hind legs the way that the prophets did and even the way the psalmists do and just sort of name the pain that we're… So, today we're all kind of in shock about Tumbler Ridge and the pain that's going to be in that community for generations. ⁓
• 15:06
  Martha Tatarnic (36:04)
• 15:09
  Right.
• 15:12
  Yeah.
• 15:15
  Yeah.
• 15:18
  Yeah, for
• 15:21
  our American listeners who might not know, it's ⁓ a mass shooting that took place in British Columbia just two days ago. guess it was. ⁓
• 15:24
  Aaron (36:35)
• 15:27
  It made the New York Times.
• 15:30
  So it's like people know about it. Yeah, it was tragic. was 10 of 24, 2,600 people. Yeah. Yeah. Nine people died. So, you know, like what do we do with that? I mean, on the one hand, it's easy enough because we're kind of used to this sort of thing. The news bombards us with this information all the time. It's a little more unusual in Canada and it's
• 15:33
  Martha Tatarnic (36:41)
• 15:36
  Yeah, it's one of the worst mass shootings in Canada.
• 15:39
  Aaron (37:06)
• 15:42
  the small town nature of it is particularly striking for those of us who have lived in small towns. ⁓ But still, something is wrong. ⁓ There's just something off. And what do do with that? How do we give voice to that? And I also think if we never allow for those more perhaps negative emotions, if I can use that adjective, ⁓
• 15:45
  We create the assumption that you have to be okay to be in church. ⁓ And that's dangerous and unfaithful.
• 15:48
  Martha Tatarnic (37:40)
• 15:51
  Yeah, yeah, that's a really important point.
• 15:54
  It's dangerous
• 15:57
  and impossible and all the things. I mean, I do hear that whole piece around lament really connected to the imagination piece as well. You do have to be able to imagine that it's okay to name that things are not all right because there's also a glimpse of what could be.
• 16:00
  Aaron (37:50)
• 16:03
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:09
  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that is the other, the other side of lament, right? Even when you say like, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's still my God. You know, there's still a sort of weird ironic claim in that. And of course, as we know, Psalm 22, like most of the lament song does make a turn at the end. Like, so when we bring all of our mess and garbage and brokenness and sadness and anger,
• 16:12
  Martha Tatarnic (38:25)
• 16:15
  Yeah.
• 16:18
  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 16:21
  Aaron (38:42)
• 16:24
  into the presence of the one who can actually do something about it. It can be transformative and even generative ⁓ in a way that I think would surprise us if we let it. ⁓ And looks kind of weird in a world that is ⁓ deeply committed to happiness and self ⁓ pleasure. ⁓
• 16:27
  Martha Tatarnic (38:49)
• 16:30
  Yeah.
• 16:33
  Yeah, yeah.
• 16:36
  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 16:39
  Yeah,
• 16:42
  Yeah, entertainment. Numbness. mean, distraction. Yeah.
• 16:45
  Aaron (39:15)
• 16:48
  know, distraction. It's
• 16:51
  entirely easier to be to change the channel than to lament. ⁓ So, and then the last signpost is freedom. And, ⁓ you know, I mean, I think that's a basic Christian commitment, know, whom the sun sets free is free indeed. ⁓ But how we understand freedom as Christians is, is peculiar. It's freedom for, it's, ⁓ you know,
• 16:54
  Martha Tatarnic (39:22)
• 16:57
  Yeah, for sure. For sure. OK.
• 17:00
  Hmm.
• 17:03
  Aaron (39:49)
• 17:06
  trying to remember. Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove has a book called Free to Be Bound. That is, I think, always liked that phrase. So it's freedom from some stuff, but it's freedom for other stuff. think one of the, you know, when Paul says, you know, whatever you do in word and deed, do it in the name of Jesus and the glory of God, or something like that. He seems to think we could do it. Right? Like this is the
• 17:09
  Martha Tatarnic (39:55)
• 17:12
  Hmm.
• 17:15
  Right.
• 17:18
  Yeah.
• 17:21
  Aaron (40:19)
• 17:24
  He doesn't sort of fumble over those words. This seems to be a reasonable goal, ⁓ which means we have to be freed from a lot of other stuff, honestly. If we're going to do everything in the name of Jesus and to the glory of God, some of the expectations that we, even the ones we hold dear, might have to be subverted and done away with. there is an immense freedom in that.
• 17:27
  but it's not just freedom to kind of do whatever we want. ⁓ It's freedom to live our fullest selves as beloved of God and lovers of the things God loves.
• 17:30
  Martha Tatarnic (40:50)
• 17:33
  Yeah, yeah.
• 17:36
  Yeah, yeah, beautifully said. Okay, ⁓ so those are the six signposts and you break each one of those down into four different lenses that each one is weird, each one is political, each one is an act of presence, and each one is a way of life. ⁓ Do you want to just say anything about those components? Like what
• 17:39
  what's important about those.
• 17:42
  Aaron (41:29)
• 17:45
  Sure.
• 17:48
  Yeah, I mean, think, you know, from some of the things we've already said together, you know, we can see how sort of weird these things are. You know, setting aside time when we can do anything else in the world to worship is kind of weird. I do sometimes, I think one of the miracles of the mainline church is that anybody shows up at all. You know, there's no social capital attached to it. There's no expectation attached to it. There's no...
• 17:51
  Martha Tatarnic (41:50)
• 17:54
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:57
  Aaron (42:03)
• 18:00
  ⁓ And yet, week over week, congregations across the country, across the globe get together. They look different, they're doing this worship thing. ⁓ Give away to things that may not personally benefit them. They give their time, they give their energy, they hang out. I am among those who think that a...
• 18:03
  Martha Tatarnic (42:15)
• 18:06
  Yeah, they give away some of their money.
• 18:09
  Yeah, yeah.
• 18:12
  Aaron (42:29)
• 18:15
  a sign of a healthy congregation is to look out and not be entirely sure what these people are doing here together. It's got to be the spirit. so I think they are, yeah, just kind of weird. My friend Ross says, you want to seat on the bus, just get on the bus and say that you talk to God and God talks to you. People will leave you alone.
• 18:18
  Martha Tatarnic (42:38)
• 18:21
  Yeah.
• 18:24
  Aaron (42:59)
• 18:27
  Yeah, we'll back slowly away. So it is weird. I think, again, we got to kind of deal with that and delight in it. And sometimes the most we can do is say, like, come and see. I don't really, I think that's when we're at our best. know, as Jesus guy, I don't really know all that much about, but what I do know is I was blind and now I can see, right? Like that's, so, and that allows us to be a little weird.
• 18:30
  Martha Tatarnic (43:21)
• 18:33
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 18:36
  Aaron (43:28)
• 18:39
  Like I know it's kind of weird, but it's doing something and I can't live without it. ⁓ It's political because it's formative. It's how we choose to live together. The question is never, should Christians be political? ⁓ How will we be political? ⁓ As Shane Claybourne puts it. I think, ⁓ yeah, that's just like politics is really truly just about how we form.
• 18:42
  Martha Tatarnic (43:32)
• 18:45
  Mmm.
• 18:48
  you
• 18:51
  Aaron (43:58)
• 18:54
  life together. ⁓
• 18:57
  Martha Tatarnic (44:00)
• 19:00
  Yeah, how
• 19:03
  we allocate resources, how we look after each other or don't look after each other. Like, yeah, it's hard to see how our faith is not political.
• 19:06
  Aaron (44:12)
• 19:09
  Yeah, and you know, certainly Jesus teaches a very peculiar kind of way of organizing ourselves. It often doesn't make a lot of sense ⁓ if we're measuring it by the standards we're accustomed to. And then active presence. mean, that is sort of, all of these things are meant to be lived in our whole lives. ⁓ There's no...
• 19:12
  I often try to say something along the lines of, there's nothing we do on Sunday morning that isn't supposed to take shape out there. In our daily work, in our daily lives, it matters on the playground and the checkout line and in the boardroom and the office and the classroom, these things, everything we pray and read and sing and hear, it all can take shape out there. ⁓
• 19:15
  Martha Tatarnic (44:45)
• 19:18
  Yeah, yeah.
• 19:21
  Aaron (45:08)
• 19:24
  ⁓ well, guess that's maybe sort of that's more of a way of life. And so the active presence, I think, like, we can't kind of do this alone. We have to be present to one another, right? ⁓ We have to and maybe just that little slip up is indicative of the fact that these things, I think, bleed into one another. It was just a helpful way for me to kind of organize each chapter and try to say something coherent about them. ⁓
• 19:27
  Martha Tatarnic (45:16)
• 19:30
  Okay, yeah.
• 19:33
  Of course, yeah.
• 19:36
  Aaron (45:37)
• 19:39
  But yeah, mean, think they, together they lead us in a way that is ⁓ faithful if we try to, yeah, try to enact them in our whole lives.
• 19:42
  Martha Tatarnic (45:51)
• 19:45
  Mm hmm.
• 19:48
  Yeah, I mean, I appreciate your noting that they aren't just strict compartments because of course, like being weird and political can go together and the way of life can be weird and like kind of all of those, all of those components do are very inter, interwoven with each other. Okay, so you, I think are in such a great position to
• 19:51
  Aaron (46:07)
• 19:54
  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 19:57
  Martha Tatarnic (46:22)
• 20:00
  Well, you wrote the book, so obviously you're in a great position to delve into this a little bit further. But I'm interested in the two different contexts where you serve in a parish and at a university. ⁓ Like where are you seeing in those two different contexts these kinds of things, this weirdness being embraced and lived out most fully? Like give us some examples of where you see this in.
• 20:03
  in the flesh.
• 20:06
  Aaron (46:54)
• 20:09
  Yeah, I mean, some of the easiest sort of most basic examples and maybe that's a good way to say like, I don't think these things are necessarily gonna all be fireworks every time we do them, right? Like some of it's just pretty mundane, normal ways of being in the world. But yeah, like, again, the miracle of a worshiping community is I think,
• 20:12
  Martha Tatarnic (47:09)
• 20:15
  Yeah.
• 20:18
  Aaron (47:24)
• 20:21
  a wonderful thing. I think especially for those of us who are pastoring smaller churches, it can be discouraging ⁓ when people don't show up. But I think if our default is like today the Holy Spirit has gathered this group of people here for something to attend to God and expect God to show up, ⁓ I think that's kind of marvelous. ⁓
• 20:24
  I see all over the place the ways in which people are incarnating their faith. I mean, I think one of the gifts of pastoring is that we get to be surprised by just how much people are sometimes subconsciously or unconsciously shaping their lives around their Christian faith. And maybe that's the goal is to not have to think too much about it.
• 20:27
  Martha Tatarnic (48:15)
• 20:30
  Yeah.
• 20:33
  Aaron (48:21)
• 20:36
  Right? we shouldn't have to ideally, ultimately, as we mature in faith and discipleship, we probably shouldn't have to like stop at every turn and say like, how am going to do this in a Jesus kind of way? So
• 20:39
  Martha Tatarnic (48:36)
• 20:42
  Yeah, yeah. Look at
• 20:45
  the bracelet. WWJD.
• 20:48
  Aaron (48:40)
• 20:51
  Yeah, that's right.
• 20:54
  Yeah, look at my bumper sticker. Obviously, I'm a Christian. ⁓ You know, and I mean, there are some bigger examples, obviously, in Vancouver, we're sort of deeply conscious of the downtown East Side, which is this, it sounds like mythically huge, it's about two blocks of Vancouver, but where it was sort of the epicenter of the opioid crisis.
• 20:57
  Martha Tatarnic (49:09)
• 21:00
  Mm.
• 21:03
  Aaron (49:10)
• 21:06
  And so people who work at the places down there, ⁓ like First United or Union Gospel Mission, ⁓ Jacobs Well, all these places where people are... ⁓
• 21:09
  incarnating the love of Jesus, but also open to experiencing the love of Jesus in that kind of broken place. ⁓ Open to experiencing the reality that God is in fact with us not only when we're okay, ⁓ but even in those who might be doubled over from their latest hit. ⁓
• 21:12
  Martha Tatarnic (49:37)
• 21:15
  Yeah, yeah.
• 21:18
  Maybe
• 21:21
  even especially, right?
• 21:24
  Aaron (49:55)
• 21:27
  Maybe then especially, mean, and I think that's, know, I'm, my congregation is small, but relatively affluent. ⁓ And so like, think keeping those spaces of our community really, and it's not that far away from where we worship every week ⁓ in focus helps us to be a little bit more incarnational perhaps. ⁓ One of the reasons I love working with
• 21:30
  20-somethings, which is primarily the student body that I work with. Is the capacity for an imagination for something else? ⁓ I think there's a reason that Jesus seemed to call a lot of teenagers, ⁓ young folks. Will Willem, the discipleship's a young man's game. ⁓
• 21:33
  Martha Tatarnic (50:35)
• 21:36
  Yeah.
• 21:39
  Aaron (50:51)
• 21:42
  because we do get kind of stuck in our ways. And so I love that at that stage, and I'm not so far past it that I can't remember like how crucial everything felt, how we wanted to live from our ideals. ⁓ And so I think that like some of the ways that I'm encouraged towards kind of weirdness is simply by proximity to people who are wrestling with the way things are. ⁓ are actually, I mean, this should be...
• 21:45
  Martha Tatarnic (51:01)
• 21:48
  Yeah, yeah.
• 21:51
  Aaron (51:23)
• 21:54
  I think there's a hunger for the church to be weird. God bless Rachel, Held Evans What a loss.
• 21:57
  Martha Tatarnic (51:27)
• 22:00
  Mmm.
• 22:03
  Aaron (51:31)
• 22:06
  think there's a desire for the church to be the church in a real kind of embodied and passionate way. ⁓
• 22:09
  Martha Tatarnic (51:35)
• 22:12
  Yeah.
• 22:15
  Do feel like in your work with students that there is, like there are particular aspects that are particularly intriguing or compelling that do seem to have more energy around them with young people?
• 22:18
  Aaron (52:00)
• 22:21
  I think the kind social justice aspect of Christianity ⁓ is particularly compelling. Every once in a while I'll be talking with a student about Acts 2, where this ragtag bunch of relative nobodies just creates a different economy and starts to live in this wild way. They're like, I didn't know that sort of thing was in the Bible.
• 22:24
  Yeah, and you wouldn't because most of our churches don't look anything like that. ⁓ And I'm not exactly sure how to get there and don't, heaven help us if all we want to be is the early church. ⁓ But I think that kind of, yeah, like that Jesus subverts the dominant system pretty regularly, lives within what's best of it. mean, he's unquestionably
• 22:27
  Martha Tatarnic (52:34)
• 22:30
  Mm.
• 22:33
  Mm-hmm
• 22:36
  Aaron (52:57)
• 22:39
  Jewish, he was in question with living within the tradition of his people, in the customs of his place. But also he's, you you've heard it said, but I say, and, you know, tables when necessary and loving the wrong people and hanging out with the wrong folks. I think that tends to be, you know, and maybe that's just sort of youthful idealism. But I think that tends to
• 22:42
  Martha Tatarnic (53:08)
• 22:45
  Yeah, yeah.
• 22:48
  Aaron (53:27)
• 22:51
  you know, when I think about it, it gets exciting for me. So it can't be, it can't be just that. So yeah, I think, I think that in particular, but I also, I think, you know, I was reflecting recently when Jesus talks about like where money, our treasure is, that's where our heart is. Like, I wonder if in our time and place, you might say also like where your time is, that's where your heart is.
• 22:54
  Martha Tatarnic (53:55)
• 22:57
  Yeah.
• 23:00
  Aaron (53:56)
• 23:03
  Because
• 23:06
  most of us are not strapped for cash, but we are strapped for time. ⁓ In his context, he would have been talking to people for whom money was scarce, if not more or less non-existent. And so for us, money is not generally scarce, it is, but yeah, like we just, like how are we spending our time? And I think people are beginning to ask real questions about that.
• 23:09
  Martha Tatarnic (54:10)
• 23:12
  Hmm.
• 23:15
  Aaron (54:27)
• 23:18
  whether it's the amount of time we spend distracted or solitary, even when we're around people. I was standing in the coffee shop the other day and I'm chief of sinners here, but every single person waiting in line is on our phone. Nobody's even looking around. then, yeah, mean, church in and of itself,
• 23:21
  Martha Tatarnic (54:35)
• 23:24
  Yeah.
• 23:27
  Yeah, I know. I know.
• 23:30
  Aaron (54:57)
• 23:33
  a lot of people, it's the thing we do if we have enough time left in a week. If we get all our chores done on Saturday, maybe we'll get to church. I don't want to be too cynical. I'm deeply sympathetic to young families for whom Sunday is the only day they have together and then we bring them to church and separate them. I think there's all sorts of reasons why church attendance has plummeted, but largely it's the
• 23:36
  Martha Tatarnic (55:05)
• 23:39
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:42
  Yeah, yeah.
• 23:45
  Aaron (55:26)
• 23:48
  the opportunities to do anything else have been presented. ⁓ so I think students in particular are deeply aware of just how time and energy strapped we can be. And so I ⁓ think one of the weird things we can do as church is provide that, like name the rebellion that's happening when we
• 23:51
  Martha Tatarnic (55:44)
• 23:54
  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 23:57
  Aaron (55:56)
• 24:00
  sit in silence for a few seconds when we set aside this time for something that is not inherently or obviously productive. And I think that kind of thing can really, if we can learn to articulate it and learn to appreciate it ourselves, I think it's a draw. I think we have the capacity to say, you want to do something weird, come here.
• 24:03
  Martha Tatarnic (55:56)
• 24:06
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:09
  Yeah, I think that was-
• 24:12
  Aaron (56:26)
• 24:15
  You know.
• 24:18
  Martha Tatarnic (56:27)
• 24:21
  Yeah, I think that resonates
• 24:24
  with, you know, where I see my kids and they're like in their mid to late teens. ⁓ Yeah, I mean, they don't seem that interested in like me explaining to them the doctrine of the Trinity, for example, but like they are pretty concerned with ⁓ with how people get treated and like what our faith has to say about that. They they're
• 24:27
  deeply invested in relationships. yeah, I think they, along with all of us, can feel like we're in a frenzy of distraction and ⁓ productivity and stress and anxiety and inviting people to step outside of that, I think, is a big deal.
• 24:30
  Aaron (57:20)
• 24:33
  Yeah, I see students like, I think they just die ballically overwork.
• 24:36
  Martha Tatarnic (57:25)
• 24:39
  Hmm.
• 24:42
  Aaron (57:26)
• 24:45
  When I talk about formation.
• 24:48
  which I think is coming up in our questions. I think what is university forming people for?
• 24:51
  Martha Tatarnic (57:33)
• 24:54
  Yeah, let's... yeah.
• 24:57
  Well, let's talk a little bit about that formation piece because, yeah, you it's a really important part of the book. And as you name, you know, we're being formed, whether we notice it or not, whether we're intentional about it or not. So, yeah, maybe you want to say a piece about university formation and maybe a piece about like what parish leaders need to be considering about how we're forming.
• 25:00
  Aaron (58:10)
• 25:03
  Yeah, I mean, like as I said, think, ⁓ well, I say in the book that whenever I get a chance, I often ask university types, whether the professors or administrators or whatever, what an undergraduate degree is for, because for a lot of people, it is basically preparation to do another degree.
• 25:06
  that costs an awful lot and you may or may not get a job in your field. You know, I sometimes joke that I'm one of the few people I know is actively using my English degree. Not in the way I expected to but you know, reading and writing all the time. And, ⁓ and yeah, they almost to a person, they say something like formation. They don't usually say formation of itself, but they say like adulting learning to learn to be themselves asking questions all the rest of it.
• 25:09
  Martha Tatarnic (58:51)
• 25:12
  Right.
• 25:15
  Aaron (59:09)
• 25:18
  And then I just don't think there's like a, and this may be just by virtue of the diversity of ⁓ a university, but like, there doesn't seem to be a lot of intentionality around that formation. Like it's like, you're coming here to be formed, but you still have to form yourself. You still have to make your own choices. You still have to, and not that I'm advocating kind of, you know.
• 25:21
  Martha Tatarnic (59:29)
• 25:24
  Right.
• 25:27
  Aaron (59:38)
• 25:30
  being overly strict with how students form themselves. I do think that we just kind of assume that we know how to do that. ⁓ And I think we don't, not really. We might grow into a pretty reasonable version of ourselves. ⁓ And some of it's going to be trial and error, of course. ⁓ But I think that's the gift of discipleship. I mean, I've been really encouraged by
• 25:33
  an organization called Practicing the Way that's sort led by John Mark Comer with whom I don't agree with everything, but I certainly agree with a lot of the most important things. And it's been a real encouragement to me. yeah, that's where I was first sort of made explicitly aware of the fact that we're all, you we're always being formed. ⁓
• 25:36
  Martha Tatarnic (1:00:36)
• 25:39
  Mm-hmm
• 25:42
  Aaron (1:00:38)
• 25:45
  And, you know, they talk about discipleship as apprenticeship, ⁓ like actually watching a master do something, learning how to do it, and then doing it. And like that the language of apprenticeship is, know, I do you watch, I do you help, you do I help, you do I watch. And that that's what Jesus calls us into. And so how do we
• 25:48
  Martha Tatarnic (1:00:59)
• 25:51
  Mm-hmm. Yeah.
• 25:54
  Aaron (1:01:06)
• 25:57
  ⁓ That's the kind of formation that we sort of need, not here is everything, choose, which is kind of what's happening. And mostly people don't really choose, like honestly, they don't actually have the bandwidth with courses.
• 26:00
  Martha Tatarnic (1:01:12)
• 26:03
  Yeah.
• 26:06
  Aaron (1:01:24)
• 26:09
  and work and all the things that students are dealing with, not to mention the ⁓ cultural kind of loneliness and isolation that so many people feel. Like they're not really being formed in community often, not always. mean, and lots of people come out of university, you know, as better rounded people than they went in. ⁓
• 26:12
  But it just, I mean, it is kind of, it's a matter of intention. Like what are we, what is, what are we forming? And so I think, I think just recognizing that, yeah. Recognizing that I think is the first kind of step for pastoral leaders and recognizing our own formation. I mean, you kind of, in this, really don't think you can teach what you're not doing.
• 26:15
  Martha Tatarnic (1:02:01)
• 26:18
  Yeah, intention rather than default, I think. Yeah.
• 26:21
  Aaron (1:02:25)
• 26:24
  And so, yeah, growing in that intention around how we're being formed, what is forming us, how we're spending our time, how we're spending our money, who we're hanging out with, what we're, you know, getting the basics of our commitments as straight as we can. And then bearing witness to that, I think is one of the most helpful things, but also finding ways
• 26:27
  it's easier if you have a congregation that is sort of local. Or maybe I say easier, but I think the possibilities are greater if you have a congregation that's kind of local, mine is largely a commuter congregation, ⁓ which is kind of weird. ⁓ so we like Sunday is our primary thing that we do. Sometimes like we do zoom studies and whatever. ⁓ Because people are so spread out. But Sunday, so like what how are we working that reality of
• 26:30
  Martha Tatarnic (1:03:06)
• 26:33
  Right.
• 26:36
  Aaron (1:03:25)
• 26:39
  like Jesus called to come and be formed. How are we teaching through our preaching? I think one of our primary ⁓ obligations as preachers is learning, is sort of teaching by example how one might read scripture. ⁓
• 26:42
  Martha Tatarnic (1:03:46)
• 26:45
  Right, yeah.
• 26:48
  Aaron (1:03:50)
• 26:51
  How do we pray? What are the resources that we have? I think we too often tell people, yeah, you should pray. And that's kind of all the... And we all kind of know that, because that's what religious people are supposed to do. But where do we start? What do we do? do we... Most people in the main line don't know their hugely rich tradition of prayer that the church has access to. ⁓
• 26:54
  Martha Tatarnic (1:04:01)
• 26:57
  Hmm.
• 27:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 27:03
  Hmm.
• 27:06
  Aaron (1:04:20)
• 27:09
  And so I think, I guess that, if anybody has a bullet for this, you should write a book. ⁓ I don't know exactly what the answer is. I do think maybe just to commit to my own framework, there's an incarnational aspect to this. ⁓ What it looks like for people to be formed in St. Catharines is different than what it looks like for people to be formed in Vancouver. ⁓
• 27:12
  Martha Tatarnic (1:04:31)
• 27:15
  Yeah, probably.
• 27:18
  Yeah.
• 27:21
  Aaron (1:04:50)
• 27:24
  it's different depending on the socioeconomic makeup of the congregation. It's different depending on the ethnic makeup of the congregation. ⁓ And so I think we need to be really attentive to where we are and who we're with. ⁓ And also like this kind of basic commitment that Jesus calls each of us to an apprenticeship. ⁓ That Jesus, it might be in practice in a way, but somebody else has said, know, like to
• 27:27
  Martha Tatarnic (1:04:55)
• 27:30
  Yeah.
• 27:33
  Aaron (1:05:18)
• 27:36
  be a disciple is to learn to live your life as Jesus would live as he is you. So like, how do we, I think it takes kind of attentiveness to our place and our people, which I'm still learning how to do and our own form, you know, like we really do need to be, Eugene Peterson talks about how ministry is one of the easiest.
• 27:39
  Martha Tatarnic (1:05:23)
• 27:42
  Yeah, yeah.
• 27:45
  Aaron (1:05:47)
• 27:48
  jobs to fake. Because you show up at the right places and you say the right things and everybody thinks you're doing a good job. When you I mean, when you might well be being formed by something entirely else, like it's easy, you know, we can have all the hard skills in the world. But it's the soft ones that I think make the biggest difference in our in our lives and then our, our vocations. So yeah, getting kind of clear.
• 27:51
  Martha Tatarnic (1:05:55)
• 27:54
  Right.
• 27:57
  Mm-hmm.
• 28:00
  Yeah.
• 28:03
  Aaron (1:06:17)
• 28:06
  getting our own house in order before we start tidying other people's houses is probably a good idea.
• 28:09
  Martha Tatarnic (1:06:23)
• 28:12
  Yeah, I think
• 28:15
  Jesus had some words to say about that. Casting the first stone and stuff. ⁓ Yeah, no, I appreciate like naming the communal aspect of that, the way that we can bear witness to one another about what this actually looks like and, ⁓ and yeah, all of those, those pieces along the way. Okay, so let's just have one more quick question before, before we get to our closing questions.
• 28:18
  Aaron (1:06:26)
• 28:21
  Indeed.
• 28:24
  Martha Tatarnic (1:06:53)
• 28:27
  If there were just like one thing that you could get a congregation to consider doing differently, to stretch the imagination, to embrace the weirdness, what would it be?
• 28:30
  Aaron (1:07:08)
• 28:33
  I think I'd go back to the basics. How do we help people learn to pray and engage Scripture in a way that… If you read it like an instruction manual, it's not that helpful. But if you read it as the testimony of God's people trying to figure out what God's doing, then it ⁓ invites us to imagine that God is still doing things. ⁓ So I think…
• 28:36
  Martha Tatarnic (1:07:28)
• 28:39
  Yeah.
• 28:42
  Aaron (1:07:38)
• 28:45
  And again, I'm talking from a mainline context.
• 28:48
  where sometimes people are biblically literate, but it's not an expectation often. Sometimes people have deep prayer lives, but it's not, you you can't assume that people are sort of setting aside the first hour of their day to pray. And, you know, so I think I would go back to the basics and then I would take seriously.
• 28:51
  Martha Tatarnic (1:07:51)
• 28:54
  Right.
• 28:57
  Aaron (1:08:10)
• 29:00
  Like make sure that while we're doing that, we're doing it not abstracted from where we are. Like as we read scripture, as we pray, what does that mean for here? What does that, if we're going to say this is the word of God in some way, which I'm happy to say, then we trust the spirit to do some translating for this time and place and then do it.
• 29:03
  Martha Tatarnic (1:08:23)
• 29:06
  Yeah, yeah.
• 29:09
  Yeah, then do it.
• 29:12
  Aaron (1:08:40)
• 29:15
  that's Dallas
• 29:18
  Willard. Christians should pay attention to what Jesus says and then get together and try to do that. ⁓ So I think that would make a world of difference.
• 29:21
  Martha Tatarnic (1:08:52)
• 29:24
  Okay, well that sounds, I think you say this elsewhere in the book, it's easy to say and sometimes challenging to do, ⁓ but I think that that's a ⁓ articulation of just some basic next steps. So, okay, let's take a quick break and we'll come back for our closing questions.
• 29:27
  Welcome back to the Future Christian Podcast. I am with Aaron Miller, who has written this excellent book, Weird in the World, Living Towards the World God Wants. And we're going to wrap up with some closing questions. We always tell our guests that you can take these as seriously as you want. ⁓ So yeah, it's up to you. They don't have to be that serious. But if you were Pope for a day, Aaron,
• 29:30
  How would you be spending that those 24 hours?
• 29:33
  Aaron (1:09:54)
• 29:36
  When I read this question, I assume it was what would I try to like, get people to do? And I think I would get people to memorize at least if not word for word, the sort of arc and content of the Sermon on the Mount. I think if we could really get that into our bones and really begin to tease it apart and
• 29:39
  figure out what it means to live these things, where we are, ⁓ allowing for all the sort of contextual interpretations we need to make. You know, like what would that, I think that would be transformative if we, if we memorize the, not just memorize it, but like, like, let's, let's try to live from this instead of whatever else is being said.
• 29:42
  Martha Tatarnic (1:10:39)
• 29:45
  Go.
• 29:48
  Yeah,
• 29:51
  really engage with them. Okay, that's a great answer. If there was a theologian or historical Christian figure that you would want to meet, bring back to life, have dinner with, who would that be?
• 29:54
  Aaron (1:11:03)
• 29:57
  I mean, one of my great regrets in life is that I never did get to meet Eugene Peterson. ⁓ I wrote him a letter and he wrote back once, but I never got to actually meet him and kind of meet him in his prime. I think that would have been really, that'd be really something for me. ⁓ He's always been kind of my guy. ⁓ Many of the other people I'd like to sit down with are
• 30:00
  Martha Tatarnic (1:11:08)
• 30:03
  Hmm.
• 30:06
  wow.
• 30:09
  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 30:12
  Aaron (1:11:32)
• 30:15
  alive, so there's still a possibility. you know, I I was thinking about, we'd go, it depends how far we want go back, you know. I think it'd be really interesting to sit with Dietrich Bonhoeffer for a few minutes. I bet, I bet. Well, for this time and place, like how, what his faithfulness looked like right now is not entirely different than what faithfulness looked like for him.
• 30:18
  Martha Tatarnic (1:11:34)
• 30:21
  Okay.
• 30:24
  He gets named a lot by people. Yeah.
• 30:27
  I don't know.
• 30:30
  Yeah, maybe that's why we get that answer a lot.
• 30:33
  Aaron (1:12:02)
• 30:36
  And yeah, I mean,
• 30:39
  there are, I'd love to talk to a martyr. You know, I just, I mean, I really do think one of the wild things, one of the things that in my moments of doubt or whatever, like I do sometimes just think about the fact that this has been a thing that people have been willing to die for. ⁓
• 30:42
  And that can't be nothing in my mind. mean, we could all be deluded, I suppose, but I don't think so. ⁓
• 30:45
  Martha Tatarnic (1:12:35)
• 30:48
  Yeah, yeah.
• 30:51
  Yeah, no, that's
• 30:54
  pretty compelling. What do you think history will remember from this time and place?
• 30:57
  Aaron (1:12:49)
• 31:00
  ⁓ I think I can think of like a positive and a negative. think sort of on the negative side, I think there will be this kind of wondering about like
• 31:03
  how we got to be so institutionalized, how we got to be so, how you could claim the name of Jesus without being formed in the way of Jesus. ⁓ I think that would be a curiosity in the future. ⁓ And I also think that it's been a wonderful time, our capacity to question and to wonder and to engage in different practices. ⁓ You know, I think, ⁓
• 31:06
  our ecumenical possibilities are really rich. And yeah, I think that ⁓ the diversity of the church is coming to the forefront. And I think that's a gift.
• 31:09
  Martha Tatarnic (1:13:44)
• 31:12
  Yeah, well that may be connected to the final question. What is your hope for the future of Christianity?
• 31:15
  Aaron (1:13:52)
• 31:18
  ⁓ Yeah, I mean, my hope for the future of Christianity, and I think it's a live option now because the only people showing up are people who want to be there, ⁓ is that we would really do this thing. Like, let's, you know, I think I'm as hungry for a thick Christian community as anybody. ⁓ And I think we can't do this alone, but I think there's ⁓ kind of disruption in the world, enough.
• 31:21
  Martha Tatarnic (1:14:11)
• 31:24
  Hmm.
• 31:27
  Aaron (1:14:22)
• 31:30
  tiredness of the way things are that people are hungry for something else and that we can actually do this.
• 31:33
  Martha Tatarnic (1:14:30)
• 31:36
  We can do this. Love that. Where can people find out more about you, Aaron?
• 31:39
  Aaron (1:14:36)
• 31:42
  Well, I'm on Instagram and Facebook. I keep threatening to make a website, but I haven't done that yet. So that's the best way. My email address is on the church website, uhill.net, U-H-I-L-L dot net. And people are, I love hearing from people.
• 31:45
  Martha Tatarnic (1:15:01)
• 31:48
  And how can people get their hands on this wonderful book?
• 31:51
  Aaron (1:15:06)
• 31:54
  ⁓ Well, the easiest way is Amazon. ⁓ If you're not using Amazon these days, as some people aren't, you can go straight to Wiffenstock. They will provide it. You can ask your local bookstore to bring it in. ⁓ If you're in Vancouver, you can get it at the Regent College bookstore, or I happen to have a box of them.
• 31:57
  Martha Tatarnic (1:15:29)
• 32:00
  Okay.
• 32:03
  All right. So a variety of options there. Well, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for all of your insight and ⁓ just really thoughtful consideration of these challenges and questions and ⁓ that lived experience of what it looks like to do this. So thank you.
• 32:06
  Aaron (1:15:57)
• 32:09
  Thanks for having me
• 32:12
  and thanks for your work. This is important.
• 32:15
  Martha Tatarnic (1:15:59)
• 32:18
  We'll thank you.
• 32:21
  Yeah. Well, we always wrap up with a word of peace. So may God's peace be with you, Aaron.
• 32:24
  Aaron (1:16:07)
• 32:27
  and also with you.