Latest / The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast / Rediscovering the True Essence of Christmas with AJ Sherrill

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Rediscovering the True Essence of Christmas with AJ Sherrill · The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Plans, parties, and presents.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Man, these days always go by in a blur.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: But what is Avent really all about?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Avent is your invitation to take a step back.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: For eight years, I've gathered and invited you here to slow down and to tune into something a little bit deeper.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: This season is about waiting and reconnecting.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: For you, the multi-passionate woman who is seeking purpose.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Avent offers a chance for you to refocus on God, on yourself, and the people who matter most to you.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: So this year, I'd love for you to pause with me.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: I am creating space for intentionality and to make more room for Christ to meet you and me right where we find ourselves.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, welcome to the eighth annual Advent Podcast Series, where we will learn a little, laugh a lot, and focus on celebrating with our whole selves.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, anytime that I can blend spiritual direction and formation with Enneagram, I am so here for it.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you tell me I can talk about both of those while also orienting our hearts around the Advent season, well, you better believe I am so excited to have that kind of conversation, not only for myself, but also with you.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: So when I saw that AJ Sherrill, who is a well-known teacher and author in the Enneagram and spiritual direction space, authored an Advent book.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many rich details.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that you take time to savor and listen and absorb all the insights that we're going to be sharing today.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: I know there's several gold nuggets here for you, because I know there was for me.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: So while you add his new book, Rediscovering Christmas, to your wish list or your Amazon cart, join me in diving into this conversation with AJ Sherrill.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm curious.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: You've written on a lot of different things, mostly centered around spiritual practices, which is why I I just love your work and have gleaned so much from them and love to share about it.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: But why Christmas?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Why this rediscovering Christmas element?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: So a few years ago, I was doing a teaching series.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a pastor.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I spend a lot of my time on throughout the week vocationally.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I was pastoring a church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and started to sort of unearth some of the deeper contextual things of the ancient sort of way of Jesus that uh particularly through the Near East, even some of these places in Greece and Italy, et cetera, et cetera, but but mostly in the ancient Near East and Israel and um and around that land.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I've just started noticing as you teach those things, these aren't things that many American Christians are aware of.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm very interested in fusing ancient context in the present world.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that the world today has more in common with the culture of the ancient world than it does the Renaissance.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And yet a lot of our theology, a lot of our practice, a lot of our thinking comes out of like post-Enlightenment or enlightenment sort of period, which I think is all well and good.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I've learned so much from that time period.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I find that the culture of the Greco-Roman sort of ancient Jewish culture really resonates in the soul of those who are moving to follow Jesus today in the Western world.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's kind of a return to that fascination.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a link between what we would call a tell T-E-L.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: There are tells are imagine civilizations are built on civilizations are built on civilizations.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: So when you look at all archaeological digs, we're digging down the layers of history to find how they lived and operated and how they organized life.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Christmas has become like that.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: We have so many layers of just stuff over the past decades and centuries that it's sometimes hard to get to the bottom of what really matters most.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I wanted this book to do.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I had done in this series so long ago.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And every year was just sort of unearthing new truths in these characters that surround the nativity story.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And people were coming to me like, oh my goodness, I've never heard this, or I've never thought about how that relates to my life today.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually it was like, I should start putting some thoughts down about this in a coherent manner for a book.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I've done with this one.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: So it really started as a sermon series over the years that you thought could have a broader reach.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if only it was like as easy to just package a sermon series and sell it.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially, you rewrite the whole thing and it's the same journey.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you talk to authors in your podcasts, and it's not any easier taking a sermon series, making it to a book than anything else.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, all the content was there and the beta testing to see.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is interesting and helpful for people, especially around the holidays where things can become so busy and so complicated when they're not meant to be.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're definitely going to unpack that a little bit more, but let the hearer understand that speaking is so much different than writing.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so preparing a sermon series does not just automatically translate to here's a very readable, enjoyable book to read through your advent season.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So and I'm such a visual teacher that it's so hard to convert visual teaching to expressing ideas in ways that the reader follows along and is interested and can see what you see.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a whole craft and of itself that I'm still growing a lot in.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that you can grow into it, whether you know, writing is your first gift or speaking is, they do go hand in hand really well.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we're better human beings if we learn to exercise and grow this other craft that we're maybe a little not as great in.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because it just has the power to accelerate the message and create the broader reach and make it more accessible to the different learning styles and you know, the desirable learning processes that everyone has.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it's daunting because when you put something in print, it feels more real than when you just and it's not.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: I I get that, but it does feel like, oh, I need to fact check that a little bit more before I actually put it in print.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: So writer beware.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you're converting from public speaking to authoring, it is a different level of fact checking that you get.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely believe there's more accountability in that process because you know, someone can go back and reference it, or someone might, and heaven forbid, you're quoted and it's a misquote of some sort.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: So well, in this process, launching a book is and writing a book really is an old hat to you.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: You've done this in the midst of ministry and in midst of shepherding congregation and people, and as you mentioned before, leading trips and journeys through, you know, biblical tours, if you will.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd love to just hear your take or your insight because you know both Enneagram and book launching and familiar with all of that.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: How do you think your personality has influenced this process or maybe made it harder or maybe made it easier?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I identify as uh Inea Three Wing Four.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: So when I think about the writing process, I'm two polarities at once.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas I want to get myself out there, my ideas, my thoughts, my achievement, my performance.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, I'm deeply insecure.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to face critique, rejection.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think the worst would be if nobody read these things or listened, the embarrassment that I would feel.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as a three, you know, we're often presented as such confident people, probably in our worst forms arrogant.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: But underneath, we're also like super, at least for me, I can empower other people's voices and opinions probably a little too much.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes that actually talks me off of a really healthy sort of ledge that God's asking me to step into.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's a bit complicated.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Not that it would be simple for any type.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then I've got this like four-wing that is so this is hilarious.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like literally, the day Rediscovering Christmas came out, which was October 15th of this year, I looked it up on Amazon.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And would you know there is another book that published a month before mine called Rediscovering Christmas?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, you have got to be kidding me.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's not any other books out there called that.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that that would happen twice.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, like with my four wing, it steals what I feel like is originality and what I wanted to be a stamp.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, all this stuff kind of factors into, and I'm sure that's a great book.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably better than mine.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it all factors into like the complication of not just writing something, but putting it out there uh to be read because you want it to be cherished and beautiful and lovely and celebrated.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And yet there's also so much in it that is gonna hit people in the wrong way, or you said things with the wrong tone or used the wrong word usage.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: So there's just all this stuff that's freighted.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: So for the three-wing four, I get your pain, it's worth it, but it's very raw and vulnerable.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it is okay.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Two things there.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: One, we'll be sure and link the right rediscovering Christmas in the show notes so you don't accidentally right get the wrong one.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or buy both.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Buy that by that.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: There we go, compare it on that flip side because the work that you share is partly because it's the work that you've done and you do.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I love the phrase upstream practice.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm using it all the time in my coaching and as we're talking about this, because our starting point doesn't need to be our stuck point.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that is key with the tool of the Enneagram being a tool of transformation.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you move past some of those places where you could stay stuck in the this is unoriginal or this isn't going to be successful enough?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: And what a failure and those questions that you wrestle with, what is maybe a practical thing or spiritual thing you've done to keep moving forward instead of staying where your personality can maybe keep you tracked.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think getting clear as to whether the task is a calling and conviction or whether like a good idea.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And those are those are two radically different things.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's, you know, good idea, a lot of books start with a good idea and you fizzle out because we don't have the natural stamina to really power through a book.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do, it's it's probably not gonna be great.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're called to something or convicted, there's like a sense of this is like midwifing a life into the world.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a different come from because you're gonna lose that energy.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Stephen Pressfield talks a lot about it in his work on the war of art and do the work.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like the fact that you have to treat it like a call.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And whether it's going well or you're feeling up for it or not doesn't matter anymore.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, like I write on my days off.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: So Friday is a day off for me.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I give nine to one to the creative process when I'm contracted to write a book.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: My best of my day goes to that.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so there are Friday mornings where I just want to do something else.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like you have been called to do this, and you are called to finish it as well, not just to start it.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's been really big for me is hallowing out time and space where I'm not doing incremental work on it throughout the week.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: So now I'm anticipating Friday mornings where I get to do this.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: But then in mornings where I don't want to do this, I come back to the fact that I've been called to do this.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is something that really has helped me throughout the week and throughout just months of writing.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Brilliant.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think our friends could take that philosophy to a lot of what they're doing in their work.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I coach a lot of coaches, and I feel like you've spoken into that of how to go ahead and keep moving forward.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: So well said.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's the the backstory of this book being in part something that you tested out, if you will, or experimented in the messaging to your congregation, to the people that you're shepherding.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Not only were you trying to pull back the layers of how culture has added on to the Christmas message or the Christmas pressures, what were some of the other themes that you wanted your people to explore and not just the history and the characters, but what did you want your people to get out of the messages and rediscovering Christmas?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we find like these 13 companions that surround the Nativity story, you know, some of them are beautiful, like uh Elizabeth and Mary.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them are super broken, like Herod, Caesar.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: What we find is that these characters all have a gift to offer us for how we're living into the season.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: So what I try to do, let's take Zechariah, for example, what is really happening in his story through the birth of not only his own son, John the Baptist, but also Jesus and the Messiah, that invites us into how we ourselves are supposed to walk with Zechariah toward the Christ child.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And like for Zechariah, it was the gift of contemplative silence that he is invited into.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't see it as a punishment.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: We historically have seen Zechariah's silencing as a punishment, but I want to suggest what if it was a gift to open capacity in him to receive really the profound gift that God wanted to give he and Elizabeth through through waiting all these decades and all of this time.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so every single one of these characters, you know, the innkeeper uh is a surprise in that the innkeeper actually doesn't exist.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: We've made him up.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: We have written him into our holiday pageants, and I try to biblically show you why that is the case.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: But the gift of the innkeeper, it's actually the opposite of what you think.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's the gift of hospitality.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not the gift of shutting a family out.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what does hospitality have to do with the Christmas season?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, everything, as it turns out.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so every single character has a dimension of contemporary life today where God is inviting us to more faithfully savor and live into the story of Christmas.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's not just a history lesson.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: That would be sort of a loss for me.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's how do we think about the ancient context, but how do they each bring us into our life today in a way that's going to be very intentional for not only us, but for the people around us as we live through Advent and into Christmas?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: You said something earlier on in our conversation.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just curious because as you are talking about looking at the characters around the birth of Christ and really taking it and I don't know, maybe showing us how it'd be relevant to us today or how we approach things differently.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: What did you mean?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you could unpack as it relates to the story this idea that our culture is maybe a little bit closer to the ancient culture or struggle or quest as opposed to the Renaissance.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Unpack that.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like that's a new thought.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't really explored that before.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Some of it has to do with postmodern sort of philosophy today, and that we live more in a story-centric environment than the sort of analytical enlightenment process environment, linear environment, if you will, that came out of enlightenment theory, where um the scientific worldview, not a problem, but that sort of takes over of hypothesizing and taking chronological steps to prove things.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think that ship has sailed.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, like when you look at the reform theology of Ordo Salutis, nothing wrong with that, but so much of the preoccupation of post-um Reformation theology was on the order of salvation.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, for example, I'll simplify it.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: We believe and then we become and then we belong, you know, where it's actually sort of a little bit different now, where we belong first to a people in a story, and through that, maybe we begin to believe things that we did not previously, and through that we become the kinds of people Jesus had in mind.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't always work that way, but I think what I'm getting at is that life is more narrative than it was in the last few hundred years.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: People imagine themselves as a part of a story versus part of necessarily like a chronological lineage or some sort of like, you know, three-step theory of how I become whatever, whatever.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in that sense, I think we have left kind of the enlightenment world.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: But the other part of that is I think the human heart connects to um a lot of the idols that we see in the Roman world that were just pervasive.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not that we didn't see them in the Renaissance, but they're just at such display when you begin to read about Roman history, whether it's the idol of greed or whether it's the idol of lust, these things become so obvious in the Roman world that I think they fascinate us.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, the second gladiator is coming out any day now.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And people are very excited about that.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's because we actually really connect, not that we agree, but we connect with something about the ancient world that just grips our hearts and makes us want to believe we're part of something so much bigger than just the last couple hundred years, but part of this grand narrative that God has been writing since the dawn of time.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just seeing a lot of connections being made between um that world and our world, much more so than I would see between like the, you know, the Middle Ages or the 1600s in life today.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's probably a whole nother conversation, but I'm thinking about generations.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking Gen X versus millennials and all of that.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we won't go there.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Carlos Whitaker and I did the other day.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it was like one of those things I'm like, okay, rein it in, pull that back in.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's another series.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I love just at least kind of giving a nod to that and hearing more.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and something I'm gonna think about because I agree, there has been not a reformation, if you will, but you are hearing more of this invitation to story work and not necessarily directive from a specific generation, but I think at large that invitation is starting to resonate and be a little bit more broader, uh spoken about, maybe even outside of Christian circles or a religious conversation.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I love that because you've absolutely used Story to help us rediscover Christmas and process that.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious because of your Enneagram expertise and all the work that you've done and you're constantly shepherding all nine types, it's not like you get a congregation where you get to pick and choose.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Generally speaking, what would you think are some of the struggles that we have unique to us?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you don't have to give the rundown of all nine types, but maybe something consistent that you've seen as it comes to maybe our orientation to time or emotional struggle or some things like that.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, and I would say 27 types according to Beatrice Chestnut.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's even grander.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: I I think that we should be thinking about energy centers this time of year more than anything else.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the eight nine one, that instinctual body sort of center versus the two, three, four of the emotive sort of heart centricity.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have the five, six, seven when it comes to the cerebral or head types.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I think it would be really helpful to be thinking about how to find a kind of balance, a kind of equilibrium in this season, because you know, we tend to lead out of the energy center that we sort of prefer most rather than integrating all of them.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I think as you identify your type, your listener, to be aware of ways in which our energy centers in this time of year, the dopamine, the requirements, it just gets off-kilter.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I would, as an any of three, want to pay attention to emotional sort of um redlining and ways in which I'm leading only from my heart and I'm not slowing down enough to let my mind catch up.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not actually living a well-ordered, scheduled, you know, life.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Things can just get sort of out of control.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think the second layer to that that I would say is to pay attention to stress and security.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as any type three, I go to nine.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm starting to pay attention in really high seasons like Advent and Christmas when things get busy.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, am I beginning to numb out, which is what an unhealthy nine does?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when I go to my shadow side as a three.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'll binge watch, I'll hide, I will evade, I will become really sort of quiet.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so those are indicators to me that, hey, I might not be like living out of my true self in this season.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I need to be aware of that because of what I've committed to or not committed to, or things I avoid, or things of that nature.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing I think that's most impactful that I would encourage, and you know, the gift of what Henri Nowen gave us was this three prong understanding of how we give ourselves in this life.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's through the grid of solitude, community, and ministry.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: That all of those things, as unique image bearers of God, we all have different.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Different ratios of what we need for solitude, what we need for community, what we need for ministry.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we're wired differently.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I have to take into account before the Advent season starts, what is what is a life with God in solitude going to look like this season?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: What is a life with others in community?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: How much time should I give to that this season?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: What should I say yes to?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: What should I say no to?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that might be the greatest spiritual practice of this season for someone is to learn to say no.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because by saying no to some things, you're opening yourself up to say yes to what is better.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last thing is, how do I live for the sake of others, for the sake of the world?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: How do I live in mission and ministry?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's understanding yourself and to say, like, okay, I want to have a vision, a plan for my season of Advent, to know what is the right ratio for me.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, do I have a life with God in that special secret place?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Am I taking walks with Him, et cetera, et cetera?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: What is life in community?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: What does life in ministry look like?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I would say has been most helpful for me, which has a lot to do with setting a rule of life for the season rather than life just happening at you.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, it is so powerful.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: I've been inviting my community to monthly mini retreats.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the one that we just did here in November was really around that very thing of setting intention for the coming weeks and getting really clear because I think that as our life expands, as our community expands, maybe you know, their kids and opportunities, it's wonderful that we live a favor and blessed life full of options.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's wonderful.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that we might be invited in this season to say no to great things in order to say yes to the best thing, which is this being with and savoring and offering gentleness and mercy to ourselves and to others and making sure that we're giving out of the overflow.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it is so hard to follow through with that when our culture is pummeling us with opportunities and options for more.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the upstream that we're talking about.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like if formation was easy, everyone would do it.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it is the like no one accidentally becomes like Jesus.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is always a radical intent.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Our hearts don't tend toward the kingdom of God, right?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Our hearts tend toward individualism and I'm my own Lord and all of that stuff.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what does it mean to have a vision for a radical intention in this season to become who God has called you to be?
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that takes a kind of courage and bravery.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not always like often, it doesn't always come through through willfulness, like I'm gonna design my schedule.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the the reality of life is it actually gets invaded.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the demand of what it means to, in some ways, follow the cross at one level to another, is to willingly submit to whatever it is that invades my day in a way that I'm actually resourced, that I can face that and have resource to be in that with whomever needs me in that moment.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't want to present a kind of sanitized sort of vision for formation where you're in control and you get to sit in the corner and pray, and then you get to choose your smile, and then you get to choose like that's just not how life works.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: But we do have some control and agency over our life.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so to not waste that, for me to not waste that on binge watching a show, not to say there's something wrong with watching a show, but saying to myself first, like, have I cared for my soul, have I cared for my body, have I cared for my mind and my heart in such a way that when the invasions of life happen, and they will, that I am prepared to become like Jesus in the midst of those situations.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so that I think is where the transformation even becomes so much more beautiful.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that I think is the art of spiritual formation.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: I believe it's the invitation to learn how to respond, how the Lord is leading in the moment.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And again, with a lot of my coaches and in my community and my clients, the conversation around responsibility has been an overarching theme of we take on this mantle of responsibility when God is the responsible one.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: We are just invited to respond to what He is inviting us into and asking us to do.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it takes intention, it takes pausing, it takes slowing to be able to assess the invasions or the interruptions, if you will, throughout the season that are going to inevitably come at us, regardless of our best laid plans, things will happen.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so, how do we respond in that moment?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we can only respond well and with Christ-likeness if we've first gotten centered um on the case.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: I agree.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that Jesus is constantly sneaking away.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's I think I think one of the I joke around about this, that I think the most common question that the disciples probably had amongst themselves is where is Jesus?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: He's snuck away again.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know where he is, right?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's this motif where John the Baptist is beheaded and they tell him that his cousin is beheaded and he weeps and he comes down the mountain from being with God.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it says, and he saw the crowds and had compassion on them.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, here he is in a state of mourning and grieving, and yet in that despair was also so filled with what he'd come from that there was resource, that these crowds were making demands of him in his grief.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he saw them and didn't sort of like disdain them like I would.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: He had compassion on them.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm so moved by that of a messiah who's so filled with the love of God that even in our worst moments, um, there's something there to offer.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it only comes from being with the Father.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so, anyways, that would be the hope in my best moments.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I would hope that's true, right?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, to be remarkable like Christ in those moments, right?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Where we aspire to.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Next week, we're gonna unpack a little bit more about the theme of waiting around advent, but that certainly is a central theme.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can't escape it.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so, in that, as you not only unpacked this for yourself, unpacked this with your community, what have you learned from waiting from the perspective as a three, your very future focus?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Waiting is not in your nature, right?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Automatically a natural instinct for you.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, what have you learned about that and maybe what's been uncomfortable, frustrating, and how can you help the rest of us who struggle with that?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, that it is a struggle.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Everything in our society cultivates a life of immediacy.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, again, upward, upstream, it's not gonna be easy.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna take effort.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a couple of brands of waiting that I think need classification.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's a passive waiting where you're kind of like, okay, this is gonna happen.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, I'm gonna get back to business as usual and do my thing.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when it comes, great.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the kind of brand of waiting we imagine that's it's okay, great.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: That I believe that will happen.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let me busy myself with what I want to do, and I'll be ready when that comes.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's a kind of active waiting where it's an actual leaning into something intentional that hasn't yet arrived, and yet I'm focused on it.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm not losing focus because it haven't, I'm not busying myself with other things and that when it comes around, I'll get to it.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's a sense of like putting your focus on that which isn't there in such a sense that when the time comes, it will be.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a practical example.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just take surfing.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: In surfing, you are actively moving toward the probability of a wave coming at every given moment.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: To actively wait, to passively wait on the beach or somewhere where you know that the waves do not break makes no sense at all.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of like that with a lot of American Christians, where, you know, the goal is to go to heaven or something like that.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so I busy myself with my life and what I'm doing and the things I want.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you're not actually like actively waiting for the Messiah to come, which he actually taught about that.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: The 10 Virgins at the end, he did a whole motif of like three parables in a row.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's toward the end of Matthew, of what it means to actively wait versus passively wait.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the majority of the church is passively waiting for a Messiah to come one day, and we're just busy with all this other stuff.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I would suggest that there is a kind of space, at least somewhere in your day, where you light a candle, you find a space, and you meditate on the things that are not, someday will be, and you begin to cultivate a sense of longing, a sense of almost like a holy ache, where you're beginning to cultivate your hunger and your thirst for the things of God, and you're not so much satisfying yourself on things that are immediate, but aren't actually that fulfilling.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Something that I say in Lent a lot because these themes overlap, are that our addiction to immediacy um tempts us to settle for accessible substitutes instead of waiting for what we really long for.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a sense of learning to wait for what you long for and to feel that absence and to be courageous enough to recognize it's not fully here.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: So don't busy yourself with the with Netflix, feel that agony.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think that's what Advent's designed to do for us.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, um, but we have to do that.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: It is not easy and it's not what our culture is selling.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not the warm, fuzzy feelings that we want to surround ourselves with necessarily during this time.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I believe the celebration of Christmas itself will be all the more richer and meaningful and bigger and brighter if we give ourselves to some of those sorrows and those spaces that were, you know, it's the not here, not yet.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't have a guarantee when it will be.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: We do this service um on a Wednesday night every year.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a reverse candle lighting where people come in and the candle gets lit during a song, and then the liturgy moves us to actually blow them out and to watch that light extinguish in the shape of smoke that goes up to the sky.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and to hold your sorrow and your pain in the form of a candle and to blow out that light and to to watch the darkness and to be present with it in a way of saying, you know, this is not yet as it will be.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to fast track Christmas and holding this candle way up in the air with, you know, some sort of candlelight service, which is beautiful on Christmas.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: But but to confront the darkness first and to allow that darkness to speak into your agonies and your longings.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a spiritual practice there for us that we don't know a lot about yet.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've shared with uh my friends that this time of year has often been a huge struggle for me.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: And as a seven, uh, it's the antithesis of what I anticipate or aim for.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: And for a long time felt like something was just broken and there must be something wrong with me, or I must be doing something wrong that I feel this way, or I haven't done enough inner healing, or you know, I would try to rationalize.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, it took well into my late 30s to embrace and accept that no, the advent season is the both and.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: It is the pain and the sorrow.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: And just because it's the holidays, that the pain is not um absent.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: And in that process, in that journey, I have found the breakthrough and then the permission to embrace every year that there is sorrow that comes with this time of year.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: And there's no denying or escaping it or pushing it out.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually better cared for and better felt, and then therefore the joy can accompany that on the other side.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just so hard when I guess sometimes some people can live their life pushing it out and ignoring it.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I finally think the Lord invited me, gave me the privilege of like, no, I'm gonna make sure you deal with this.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: So he can gain something from and gain more of his presence, really.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in that that gap between, you know, expectation and fulfillment, you know, it there's a lot of disappointment in there, in that gap.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: What I think that space of longing and agony and aching is doing is it's teaching us to really pray.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're not praying these shallow prayers of like, God bless my life, and that's fine.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: But the real prayer, when you read the psalmist, you get this sense that like real prayer begins when we begin to take our pain seriously.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that there may not be like a quick fix to this.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: And God's not the author of our pain, but he certainly is the editor of it.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and that takes time.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, God seems to be at peace with time existing so that not everything has to happen at once.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't tell you how many people I pastor who are in relational discord with a very close family member, and it's just not going to be fixed today.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's probably not going to be fixed tomorrow.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: But you can sit in the midst of that agony of that and pray and watch what God does in your own heart to contribute down the road to that reconciliation.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's that kind of thing that we're really called to in Advent that really teaches us to pray.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think it can offer us the true sensation and meaning of hope, where our hope is outside of the circumstances changing or the relationship getting better or again the warm fuzzies, right?
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, it's really our hope in Christ and the hope of eternity.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, good word.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we've talked around your book, we've talked about the book.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: What else would you love us to know about rediscovering Christmas?
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because, like you said, this is not something you could just throw together.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: This was a call.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: This was something you were midwifing.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: I love the phrase there.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, more applicable than maybe birthing um as a male author, right?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that's right.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: We finally get our taste.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I birthed kidney stones too, but I wouldn't recommend less rewarding, although it is very satisfying when that's done.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yes.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give I'll give two very quick thoughts that I love about this.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: So there's 13 characters in this thing.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them are pre-birth, which I call Advent.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is before Christ, and then some of them are post-birth, like Herod and the Magi coming to visit the Christ, the shepherds coming to visit the Christ child.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: These are our Christmas tide narratives.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um Mary is the greatest mystery, I think, of us all.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't grow up Catholic.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm learning to appreciate Mary in new ways.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: What I want to suggest is that Mary is the new Ark of the New Covenant.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: She literally is.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, imagine that old Ark of the Old Covenant.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: You have that box that carried the Word of God, the Torah, it carried the Word of God in stone.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: What's happening in Mary's womb is she is that new box to use it crassly.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: She is the carrying, she is the new ark of the new covenant.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: She is carrying the word of God, not in stone, but in flesh.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens in Acts is that we're told that the Holy Spirit will also come upon us, the people of Jesus, and we will carry the word of God in spirit.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: So what we see is that God's word from stone to flesh to spirit has been on this massive long story of coming into every human heart.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the gift of presence.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I can think of no better story in the world.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one of the mysteries that I tease out and I show scriptures and I connect the dots, all that stuff.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: But to say, like God is writing these books that come across languages and time and space, they're all connected.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like God is writing one gigantic love story.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's insane just how integrated and thoughtful and creative God is.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing I'll say is that Christmas, if I were to define it in a word, it's bread.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the opening of the book where, you know, most people wouldn't say, if I were to ask you, what's Christmas in a word?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: You'd probably say Jesus or fruitcake or whatever, right?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say it's bread.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: What happens is that Jesus, who called himself the bread of life, was born in Bethlehem, Bethlehem, which is a compound word meaning house of bread, and then was placed immediately in a manger that's actually a feeding trough for animals.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: So let's connect the dots here.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: The bread of life was born in the house of bread and placed in a feeding trough that would nourish the longings of every human heart.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's no reason that in at least liturgical services once a week, if not services once a quarter, whatever, when we take communion, we we eat bread.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so this theme of bread is really the theme of redemption.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so showing that in the Christmas story, people just think it's a random town called Bethlehem.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, it's it's part of this creative mystery, this long story that God has been writing to put the world back together again.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so going back to the origins of the first century, I think is really important for us to recapture that to kindle new hope in the season of Advent and Christmas.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: That opening really captured my attention and drew me in right away.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that your foreself part can celebrate that you have adequately done something really unique and given a fresh perspective and a new way to explore the story.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just excited to go through it, savor it, parse it out here over Advent and Christmas tide and just rediscover because I have um grown up and heard the church, you know, stories and again and again.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so I so, so value just the opportunity to sit and see what is new um there for me and a new facet yet to be explored.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for this work.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's well done and beautiful and appreciate you doing the hard work to share with the rest of us.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's a joy.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, truth be told, God's done all the work.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing to be part of his story.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I know you knew that full well.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: I do, I do.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: To God be the glory.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, AJ, this was an honor.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: This was a treat.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well done.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being a part of the conversation this happened season and contributing to our knowledge and our insight here.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Amy, Grace, and peace to you.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I had a strong feeling when I reached out to AJ that this would be a wonderful conversation.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, this didn't disappoint.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you take some time to consider or have been considering some of the points that stuck out to you.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe there is an insight or a redirect or a story that he alluded to that has provoked your heart to better ready yourself for more peace, wonder, and joy this holiday season.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, you can find more rich insights just like these in his book, Rediscovering Christmas: Surprising Insights into the story you thought you knew.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: Also, I hope you take a minute and share the insight that stuck out to you and this podcast episode with a friend who needs some encouragement this holiday season.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: I want to invite everyone into a wholehearted advent.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's possible.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's not easy, but it is simple, especially when we set the intention to pause a little bit longer during these coming weeks.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: Next week, I'm so excited to continue the advent conversations with a friend and pastor, Jason Jackson.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: He is the campus pastor of New Life Downtown in Colorado Springs.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I really respect he and his wife and the ministry that they're doing there on a local level and with a beautiful congregation there that includes some of my family members.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: So as I continue to orient my heart and invite you along with me, we're gonna dive into some of the church history surrounding admin and other conversations about waiting and holding anticipation and expectancy.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's really deep and I can't wait for you to listen in.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: So until next time, remember, friend, we are all broken, we are all blowing it.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's the brave one who does something about it.