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Episode 3 - James Williams · Preacher Handshake

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  This week on Preacher Handshake, we talk with
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  James Williams, the pastor of the First Baptist
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  Church of Philadelphia, PA. That church has been
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  serving the city of brotherly love for more than
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  325 years. And prior to accepting his call at
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  that church, James attended Palmer Theological
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  Seminary, where he earned his MDiv, and he's
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  passionate about his work with marginalized groups
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  within society, particularly in Philadelphia
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  and their unhoused population and the LGBT plus
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  community. He's currently pursuing a PhD in theology
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  and homiletics at Eastern University, and in
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  his personal life, James loves reading and drumming
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  and spending time with his family, including
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  his wife Michelle, his dog Eleanor Rigby, and
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  many, many cats. We talked to James about preaching
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  in his context of place and people and time,
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  and we specifically looked at a sermon he delivered
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  at FBC Philly on January 26, 2025. This sermon
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  is based on Luke 4, 14 through 21, and you can
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  watch the whole thing at the link. our show notes.
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  Yeah, I really enjoyed getting to know James.
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  He just has a fantastic personality and was really
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  engaging to listen to and preaching. One of the
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  things that really caught my attention about
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  him is the language that he used. He's very poetic,
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  and it draws you in in a way that... I think
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  it's sometimes hard and difficult for a lot of
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  preachers, but he just did it so effortlessly
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  and it was really cool to talk to him about how
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  he got to that preaching process. And then I
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  loved the way that he talked so much about his
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  congregation. You can tell that he is deeply
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  invested in his community, that he knows his
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  people, and that is, I think, reflected so much
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  in his preaching and in his preaching philosophy.
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  Yeah, one of the reasons I wanted to talk with
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  James is because, you know, they talk about,
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  you'll know them by their fruit. And when I've
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  observed James, not even just as a preacher,
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  but as a pastor, I'm just kind of mesmerized
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  with the way that he cares and pastors so well,
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  the way he loves people and people that other
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  people might not notice. I've noticed James paying
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  special attention to people. and he's the kind
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  of person that just exudes joy. And in days when
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  joy can be difficult, I wanted to hear how James
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  was navigating that with his congregation, and
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  in a congregation that's incredibly diverse.
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  So, I hope you enjoy our conversation with James
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  Williams. James Williams, thank you for being
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  with us, for sharing with us. today, a pastor
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  of the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia and
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  a good friend and a great preacher. And we're
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  just so honored to have you today and to be able
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  to talk about your message, a message that is
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  linked in the show notes. And we encourage our
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  listeners to check that out in full, but we'll
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  be talking about it and hearing from it throughout
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  our conversation. We're so excited to have you
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  on. So, kind of one of the things we want to
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  get to know about you is what is your relationship
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  to preaching? Yeah. I gave my first sermon when
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  I was 18 and I felt connected to preaching even
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  then. I think I've always had a connection to
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  communication and this is like a secular calling
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  to communication. I like people, I love people
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  and I love communicating and I think I've always
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  had a talent for it. But it wasn't until I went
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  to seminary that I discovered, oh, Preaching
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  might just be something that I'm really called
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  to do. I'm not just effective at it. I love this.
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  I went to seminary with the idea that I was going
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  to be an academician. I just wanted to learn
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  more about the Bible that I loved and religion,
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  and I did not have a particular pastoral call.
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  I don't know that I saw myself as a senior pastor.
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  I saw myself in academic institutions. right
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  when seminary started, you know, you get paired
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  with theological field education and things like
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  this, and I started interacting more with congregations
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  on a professional level, and I found that the
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  pastoral ministry is indeed like, dare I say,
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  what I'm made for. It's like, and I should say,
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  I didn't think much of this, but I'm a fifth
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  -generation pastor, so maybe there's something
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  in the DNA or something that just like, you know,
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  there's something very special about the pastoral
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  calling, and the more I've leaned into it, the
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  more I've been blessed. So I've moved away from
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  an academic lean. I am a professor, an adjunct
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  professor. I teach Bible, but that is not my
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  passion. My passion has become preaching. And
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  I would say, I mean, it takes up a good chunk,
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  probably 20 to 30 hours a week of my time. And
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  I absolutely love it, truly. And I think it's
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  one of my stronger giftings in the ministry,
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  too. I did not know you were a fifth generation
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  pastor. I'm like doing the math in my head. That's
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  amazing. You know, it's, yeah, it's funny how
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  it works out that way, yeah. You know, I, you
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  know, when I went to seminary, I also was hoping
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  to be an academic. And the same thing, just fell
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  in love with pastoral work and preaching. And
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  yeah, it's just the same thing. I feel like that's
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  what I was made to do. So now you're serving
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  at the First Baptist Church in Philadelphia.
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  Tell us a little bit about your congregation.
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  Who are they? What are they like? Yeah, they're
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  very special. So I've been here for a little
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  bit over five years now, but the congregation
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  is in their 326 year of ministry. They've been
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  in Philadelphia since 1698. Historically diverse.
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  However, we are a multicultural church. That's
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  how it was built to me when I came to the congregation.
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  And I see that played out in our demographics.
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  It's pretty unique. So we're 52 % African -American,
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  39 % Caucasian, and then the rest is a smattering
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  of diversity. And I love that about it. And we're
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  in Center City, Philadelphia. and we are economically
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  diverse as well. On a Sunday, our Sunday average,
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  when I came, it was 17, our Sunday average is
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  43 now. So that 102 % increase, we're thrilled
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  about, you know. But if you come on a Sunday,
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  you'd see maybe six to 10 members of the homeless
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  community. And then you'd also be sitting next
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  to one to two millionaires, you know, like that
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  kind of thing. It's very diverse. It's a very
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  special community. We are very intentional about
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  being incarnational, if you guys are familiar
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  with this idea. So I live in the community. We
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  immerse ourselves in the community. And for us,
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  that means a lot of service to both the people
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  who live here, which is 78 % young urban professionals.
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  They tend to be male, making over $80 ,000 a
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  year. But then the homeless community is our
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  immediate need. we're pretty adamant about feeding
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  the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the
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  imprisoned, that kind of thing. And I think we
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  actually get into that in the sermon I gave too.
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  So it's a very special community and I'm glad
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  to be here. I was just admiring how, you know,
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  sometimes I think churches like to sell us on
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  like, we're diverse, we promise, but it sounds
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  like your church is really like trying to embody
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  that and that's really encouraging to hear. Yes,
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  and you know, I was grateful I came to the church
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  partially because I sense that intentionality.
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  They were keen on being direct about this in
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  the calling process, and indeed a concern too
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  was that I am very Caucasian, and there was concern
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  that that would limit the diversity, and that
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  was a concern for me too. We've been blessed
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  to not see a... a homogenizing of our congregation,
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  but actually the diversity continues to increase.
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  But part of that is through the intentionality
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  of the congregation. We now have a minister of
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  international ministry, started as minister of
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  Asian ministries. And these are through efforts
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  through the American Baptist churches. They helped
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  us with some grant funding to make this possible.
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  So I think the key there is just being really
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  intentional. intentional about this. And it is,
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  you know, we don't all, most of us probably live
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  in more homogenous communities, but Center City
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  Philadelphia is more diverse. So we try to match
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  the community that surrounds us, although we
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  don't match our immediate zip code for sure.
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  So you mentioned that you spend, you know, 20,
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  30 hours a week maybe working on a sermon. So
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  walk us through what is a typical week look like
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  for sermon prep? What are resources maybe, you
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  know, that you're running too often? What does
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  that look like for you to prepare? Yeah, so the
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  process for me usually starts on a Monday. Sometimes
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  it starts on a Sunday, but essentially what I'm
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  doing is I use electionary. I started using one
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  in 2020 and have really enjoyed it. And I was
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  hesitant about jumping to electionary. The congregation
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  here at First Baptist has never employed one.
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  And so we were hesitant too. It was a practical
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  thing during COVID when I was recording from
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  my home, you know, and I liked the idea of I
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  like the ironic nature of praying with other
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  churches and not picking my scriptures, but it's
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  actually been stunningly beautiful. So I have
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  all the lectionary scriptures laid out and we
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  keep a worship spreadsheet. And so actually our
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  whole year is done right now with the scripture.
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  So those who make the bulletins, they can get
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  going. But what I do is I... pick out for my
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  sermons where the focus is going to be and then
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  I wrestle with those scriptures and figure out
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  or try and discern where the spirit is is moving
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  me to focus. I see my task and this is just like
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  my little like mantra. I'm bringing the word
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  of God for the people for that day and that can
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  be daunting. It is a spirit -filled task. So
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  I have had to learn and continue to learn, to
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  lean into the movement of the spirit. And I say
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  that this is an ambiguous experience, one that
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  involves a lot of deliberation and such. And
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  so I'll start usually by outlining. And since
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  2021, I was impacted by my mentor, Tony Campolo.
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  We were talking about sermons and all this. And
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  he told me something that... We were talking
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  about his own homiletical model, and he told
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  me something that an Alfred Williams at Mount
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  Carmel Baptist, where he had attended for some
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  years, had told him. And he says, if you don't
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  know what to say, you're going to do three points,
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  three points in illustration. And we know that,
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  you know, that's like pretty typical in the homiletical
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  world, the three points in the illustration.
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  But here was the key. If you don't know what
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  your three points are, here's what they are.
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  0 .1. There is good news. Illustration, point
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  two. This news is tremendously paradigm shifting,
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  world changingly good news. Illustration, third
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  point. Now that you know this good news, what
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  are you going to do about it? Illustration, I
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  usually close with like an action, which was
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  a Tony thing too. So I, it sounds simple. But
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  when I started this model, I was scared, I think.
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  It wasn't my typical preaching model. I tended
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  to be really heady and academic, and the storytelling
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  was not part of my tradition. Maybe a story,
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  you know? This was a lot of story. Well, I'll
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  tell you, it has been like... I want to choose
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  my language carefully because all glory be to
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  God, but it has just been... life -changing in
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  the homiletical delivery and so now i consider
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  myself a storyteller too so i'm always looking
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  for stories and i guess i can i'll share with
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  you some of the resources i go to for stories
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  as well outside of my own life too but i spend
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  a great deal of time outlining you know, and
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  just little notes. Here's the story I want to
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  tell here. Here's the point I want to tell here.
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  And then usually by Thursday is when I'll start
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  to put this down into words. And I don't do it
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  all in one shot. I take, it's like a percolation
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  or a rumination. Thursday and Friday, I'm kind
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  of just at my computer, stepping away, coming
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  back at my computer, stepping away, coming back.
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  And then usually by Saturday, I have something
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  done. I remember in seminary, I had a homoelectics
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  professor, Dr. who said that typically the rule
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  of thumb is for every minute you preach, you'll
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  do an hour of prep. And I found that to be largely
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  true. And so for me, my aim is to do 19 minutes.
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  My sermons are 23 to 24 minutes. So that's why
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  I keep that 19 minute aim. And I have to say,
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  I like where my length is at and all that. I
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  can get accomplished. I think this this task
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  of creating movement and action in people But
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  I don't know that I can hold them in our context
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  much longer than that I mean, I'm pulling out
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  all the stops and the The the stories and all
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  that by like by 19 minutes. I'm really trying
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  to hang on to them, you know and I find that
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  putting in the work is worth the effort as well
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  and I find that the spirit of God in the whole
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  process, or else I'll feel like I'm giving a
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  lecture and not interacting with people where
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  they are on that day, in that week, to hear what
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  God has to say for their life. What a great mentor
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  to have. And I'm just thinking about the different
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  models I've used and thought through and have
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  not used one quite like that, but beautiful.
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  So we want to shift and talk about a particular
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  sermon with you today. And this one is from January
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  26th of 2025. And so we're going to dive into
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  it, but want to orient ourselves a little bit
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  in the moment of time that we're in on January
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  26th, right? So we're coming right out of the
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  inauguration, like, Before I ask specific questions
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  about this message, kind of how are you feeling
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  entering into the preaching event, trying to
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  tell this good news, life -changing good news
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  in the midst of all the things that you're feeling,
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  but also that your community is engaging with
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  and feeling. Part of that is the context I'm
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  in, and we're all preaching in different contexts.
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  And so in Center City, Philadelphia, politics
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  are largely homogenous compared to what you'd
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  find in the suburbs. They're not homogenous,
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  but they're largely homogenous. And I'm speaking
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  to particular demographics and things like that.
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  And all that to say, a lot of us share similar
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  sentiments about... the inauguration and new
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  administrations and things that are going on.
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  But what I find is that if I'm honest, and I
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  frame things with a sense of humility, like so
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  you'll encounter, I'll say things like, I talk
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  about free will. I'll say like, I believe in
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  free will. I'm not saying that free will is a
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  necessity, just that I believe it. It's a way
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  I think of inviting people to join me in my story,
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  and then maybe I can invite them, I can invite
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  myself to join in their story, and maybe we'll
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  find middle ground in the midst of this. But
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  yes, so this was, this sermon was given right
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  after the inauguration. And I mentioned I use
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  electionary. I did not choose these texts, but
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  what I found was that this was essentially the...
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  So this is from... Luke 4 is one of the main
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  texts and it's considered an inaugural address
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  at least in Luke's gospel for Jesus and you know
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  he gets up and he quotes from Isaiah and then
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  he puts the scroll down and he says this is fulfilled
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  in your hearing and then he would begin to preach
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  which is in Luke so we actually don't know what
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  he preached by the way which is interesting we
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  just know the scripture that he was using that
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  day and then he sat down and then when you sit
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  down is when you give the sermon but anyway that
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  was um That was a beautiful moving of the Spirit,
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  because I did not pick the Scriptures, and yet
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  the inaugural dress still shows up in it. And
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  actually, I didn't make that connection, the
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  inaugural address connection, until like 48 hours
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  before Sunday. Like, I was reviewing the sermon,
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  putting the things, and I'm like, oh wait, this
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  is Jesus' inaugural address, and this is the
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  week of the inaugural address, and we have...
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  different thoughts about it. So let's hone in
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  on what Jesus says in Jesus's inaugural address.
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  And so that was, you know, one of those beautiful
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  spirit -filled experiences. And friends, I have
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  to say, they happen all the time. God is good.
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  God works in the homiletic process. And, you
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  know, I haven't been doing this for too long.
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  I mean, my fifth year now, and the more I lean
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  into the Spirit of God working through the development
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  of our sermons, the more rewarded I am. the spirit
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  moves, and it's beautiful. And the spirit will
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  move through our sermons. We just have to listen
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  and attune ourselves to the experience, I think.
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  I preached from a lecture that week too, and
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  was really grateful for that text. Same thing,
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  just powerful stuff. We're going to dive into
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  the sermon. You start with the poem based on
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  Galatians, and it's this powerful and poetic
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  way to begin. So we're going to look at that.
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  The book of Galatians says, it is for freedom
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  that Christ has set us free. That's an important
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  verse to me. I am free to be free. That's what
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  the gospel says to me. Chains are broken. I can
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  see grace has set my spirit free. No more guilt,
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  no more shame. Jesus called me by my name. In
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  God's love, I will remain through all life's
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  joy and through life's pain. I'm here to tell
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  you today that Jesus does set you free. You've
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  heard a lot this week about the inaugural address.
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  I'm sure you're tired of hearing about it. Me
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  too. But let me tell you something this morning
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  about another inaugural address. By the way,
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  We use electionary. I don't pick these scriptures.
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  These are the scriptures that the spirit had
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  picked for us. I'm going to tell you about Jesus's
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  inaugural address. What a way to begin, man.
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  I really love poetry. I love like. crafting these
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  really beautiful lengthy sentences and you do
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  this so well not just here but throughout where
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  it seems like you use alliteration and you use
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  lots of rhyming and things like that um in preaching
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  class you know we'd call your intro like your
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  hook you've got to like what is the thing that
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  draws them in and i heard this and i was like
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  okay i'm in like i'm ready this is this is what
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  i came here for So I'm curious, you know, do
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  you normally begin your sermons in this way?
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  And you know, is that kind of like typical for
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  your preaching? So the first few sentences of
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  my sermon are the hardest for me. So just introducing
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  them, getting them in is very hard for me. As
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  I'm hearing this, I think what I'm reflecting
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  on is an intro to a very famous sermon or set
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  of sermons by Tony Campolo. I think he started
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  off his Friday but Sunday's coming often with
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  this line. He's quoting Romans. He'd say, I am
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  not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. That's an
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  important verse to me. I am not ashamed of the
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  gospel of Christ because the gospel of Christ
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  meets every need of every human being on this
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  planet. And then he would go into his thing.
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  And so I think that's what I'm taking here. I
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  have recently, maybe in the past eight months,
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  started incorporating poetry and alliteration.
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  I kind of stumbled upon it. I'm impacted particularly
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  by my African -American preachers in Philadelphia,
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  and alliteration is a powerful tool, and one
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  that I had been drawn to. And so I've been slowly
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  putting it in, and I found that people really
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  respond to it. People will write me and say,
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  oh, can you send me, you know, this poem or this
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  poetry, or like... I think it was last week,
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  I did a whole poem naming each member and a gift
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  that they've done, and people really like that
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  stuff. It's worth the effort for me, I guess
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  is what I'm saying. It pulls you in and that
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  kind of thing. Yeah, so this would be my hook.
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  Jesus sets you free. And that's actually my first
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  point. So amidst all the talking, I don't know
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  if it's clear in this sermon what my points are,
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  and I don't know if that's a weakness or a strength.
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  But the very first point I'm trying to make is
• 21:20
  Jesus sets you free. And then the second fruit...
• 21:23
  point I'll make is, Jesus sets you free wherever
• 21:26
  you may be, wherever you are, Jesus can do it.
• 21:29
  And then the third point is usually for me more
• 21:31
  of an action, and so the action here is choose
• 21:34
  God or choose Jesus. Yeah, so that is my intro,
• 21:37
  that's how I'm trying to get them hooked, and
• 21:39
  then I'll use stories. Here I use, I paraphrase
• 21:44
  and quote in combination this thing from Luke
• 21:47
  4, and then the rest of the sermon, I'm using
• 21:51
  a lot of extra biblical stories, so stories that
• 21:54
  are not in the Bible, to illustrate this biblical
• 21:56
  truth. I love that you brought up your colleagues
• 21:59
  in Philadelphia, because as I was listening for
• 22:01
  the first time, and I wasn't making Tony connections,
• 22:04
  but this works too with Tony, but I was just
• 22:07
  hearing from Cadence and Style, so many influences
• 22:10
  from African -American preaching, and the African
• 22:13
  -American preaching movement and a movement to
• 22:18
  Calvary and influences deeply influenced me and
• 22:21
  my preaching as well. Can you tell us a little
• 22:25
  bit about, beyond Tony, some of the other influences
• 22:28
  you've had, how that's been formed, and how you've
• 22:31
  brought that into the pulpit, which in a context
• 22:34
  like yours that's so diverse, I mean, what a
• 22:37
  wonderful way to be able to use those gifts and
• 22:39
  pull on these different influences. But I'd love
• 22:41
  to hear about those influences that you have.
• 22:43
  Yeah, and you know, it's been shifting. You have
• 22:47
  a good year, Aquinas. Yeah, I don't know how
• 22:52
  intentional it is, but I'm very impacted by African
• 22:54
  -American preachers, particularly in my region.
• 22:58
  So I should explain I'm an American Baptist,
• 23:02
  and I'm part of the First Baptist, part of the
• 23:05
  Philadelphia Baptist Association, which is, I
• 23:07
  think, the oldest such... Association of its
• 23:12
  sorts for Baptist at least in North America.
• 23:17
  And we not historically, but in the past few
• 23:21
  decades, we have become predominantly African
• 23:24
  American to a very large degree that there really
• 23:27
  was. I mean, it's controversial, but essentially
• 23:30
  a lot of the white and suburban. left the PBA
• 23:33
  to join an alternative region and those that
• 23:36
  stayed within the Philadelphia Baptist Association
• 23:39
  tend to be African -American, with a few exceptions.
• 23:42
  I can't say that First Baptist is the exception
• 23:44
  because we're not Caucasian dominant, but...
• 23:47
  we are heavily Caucasian, and I am Caucasian,
• 23:50
  but so when we go to these gatherings or I'm
• 23:53
  invited to prayer services, I mean the Baptists,
• 23:55
  what I'm saying is the Baptists in Philadelphia
• 23:57
  tend to be Black, and they tend to be my colleagues,
• 24:00
  and I'm very impacted by what they have to say,
• 24:02
  and then my favorite preachers to listen to are
• 24:05
  like Howard John Wesley at Alfred Street Baptist.
• 24:07
  He was Barack Obama's pastor when he was in DC,
• 24:10
  and he's a gifted preacher. I like Otis Moths
• 24:15
  III, Marvin McMickle, who's, I guess, technically
• 24:19
  more of an academic than a homiletician. He's
• 24:22
  been impactful for me as well, though. But locally,
• 24:25
  like, these are names that are familiar to those
• 24:27
  in Philadelphia, but probably not so far outside
• 24:30
  of it. Gus Roman, Wendell Mapsin, Eric Good,
• 24:34
  Alan Waller, Sean James, Danielle Brown. She's
• 24:37
  not in Philadelphia. She's in Delaware. Quentin
• 24:40
  Robertson. These are people that have impacted
• 24:42
  me. And then as I get invited to these events,
• 24:45
  I guess I noticed just my own style trying to
• 24:49
  match that of the other speakers, and this is
• 24:51
  what it's turned into. You can see the impact,
• 24:54
  though, also of African American preaching styles,
• 24:56
  even in how I dress. So when I first came to
• 24:59
  the church, I didn't robe or anything like that.
• 25:01
  Someone made a comment. They said, you know,
• 25:03
  in our churches, we like our pastors robed. And
• 25:06
  I said, OK, we'll try it for the first Sunday
• 25:07
  of the month. it's been very meaningful, particularly
• 25:11
  to the African -American members of the First
• 25:13
  Baptist community that I robe. And so I've continued
• 25:16
  to do that because I can see how it impacts their
• 25:20
  worship. For them, it's a bringing back to the
• 25:23
  church of their youth, a certain high church
• 25:26
  with kind of low homiletics. If I can say that,
• 25:31
  I don't know. You know, the homiletics are supposed
• 25:34
  to be, for me, really accessible because, again,
• 25:37
  it's a very diverse congregation. But there's
• 25:40
  something about our context, 326 years, the diversity
• 25:44
  within it that lends itself to the roving. But
• 25:49
  yeah, the African -American tradition, I'm glad
• 25:52
  to see, you can see some elements of it in my
• 25:56
  speaking. Part of that is the language I'm familiar
• 26:00
  with, I don't know if it's true, is called hooping,
• 26:02
  which is kind of these ramp ups. They're coming
• 26:07
  under criticism in the younger generations in
• 26:09
  Philadelphia, and we can see that in churches
• 26:12
  like Frost Locally Dare to Imagine and these
• 26:16
  churches that are predominantly African -American,
• 26:18
  but the young generations don't seem to respect
• 26:22
  the hooping. This is something that they vocalize,
• 26:26
  but rather they want to enter into a conversation.
• 26:29
  And so I'm trying to be intentional about this.
• 26:33
  I still find value in the hooping, the spirit
• 26:37
  cathartic -filled moment, you know, but that
• 26:41
  can't be all of what our sermon is. There has
• 26:44
  to be, I'm finding at least, there has to be
• 26:46
  some some meat in there for people to chew on,
• 26:49
  and particularly the younger folk in my context.
• 26:53
  We're diverse in age, so when I first came we
• 26:56
  were all very old, and we are we are now bringing
• 27:00
  in people from our immediate community and they
• 27:01
  tend to be in their late teens early 20s first
• 27:05
  career and so that's very different and indeed
• 27:07
  they are a different a different bunch as well
• 27:10
  um yeah so i think we're trying to find a middle
• 27:12
  ground between this old and new style but both
• 27:15
  informed by the african american traditions i'll
• 27:19
  just commend you on the your understanding and
• 27:23
  ability and sensitivity to kind of embody your
• 27:27
  community, and you mentioned being incarnational
• 27:29
  before, this idea of who is our community, what
• 27:32
  do they need, how can I serve them best and serve
• 27:35
  the people that we're reaching. And that requires
• 27:38
  adjustments on you and your style and all of
• 27:41
  your preparation. And oftentimes I think we want
• 27:44
  to make everybody else adjust to us, which doesn't
• 27:47
  work and is not. sensitive and realistic and
• 27:51
  I think being part of a historic church too,
• 27:53
  you know, you're standing in this long river
• 27:56
  of history and it kind of takes some of that
• 27:58
  ego away where we were submitting to serving
• 28:01
  these people in their midst and I just would
• 28:04
  applaud you for that. It's really beautiful to
• 28:06
  see and it's really reflected in this sermon.
• 28:10
  When I first came to First Baptist, I was very
• 28:13
  intimidated. There were other calls and I'm trying
• 28:16
  to discern where God is leading me to. And First
• 28:19
  Baptist was unique. It was the only one, it wasn't
• 28:21
  the only urban context, but it was the only one
• 28:23
  in a center city context with this historical
• 28:26
  thing. And the only one that wasn't predominantly
• 28:29
  white. And I took the call at First Baptist through
• 28:33
  moving to the spirit. And I remember coming,
• 28:36
  that's my way of saying it's a long story, but
• 28:38
  I remember coming down to the city a week before
• 28:40
  I started. out in front of what is now a Starbucks
• 28:45
  on Chestnut Street, a block away, and I remember
• 28:47
  looking at all the people walk by, and I didn't
• 28:49
  grow up in the city, I grew up in the suburbs.
• 28:52
  Upper Darby is where I'm from, a large suburb
• 28:54
  outside of Philadelphia, but I did not grow up
• 28:57
  in the city proper, and all these people are
• 28:58
  walking by, and I'm so intimidated. I've never
• 29:00
  seen all these people, you know, or never taken
• 29:03
  it all in, and I remember praying, God, how am
• 29:06
  I going to do this? Like, how am I going to do
• 29:08
  this? And I felt very strongly in my heart saying,
• 29:14
  well, James, you're not gonna do it. I'm gonna
• 29:16
  do it and you just need to be here, be obedient.
• 29:19
  And so I have and it's been hard at times, but
• 29:23
  tremendously rewarding. And so I love to talk
• 29:27
  about First Baptist and you all are being very
• 29:29
  nice and making me feel good about my ministry.
• 29:32
  But honestly, it's just been a partnering with
• 29:35
  the spirit and I think God brought me here and
• 29:40
  has been very patient with me in allowing me
• 29:43
  to interact with this very new community. And
• 29:47
  it's been tremendously rewarding. I really like
• 29:51
  the context. I like urban ministry. When I was
• 29:55
  in suburban ministry, it's just a little different.
• 29:57
  You have to be more intentional about hearing
• 30:00
  the needs. But here, they knock on the door.
• 30:06
  If you could hear it... probably my doorbells
• 30:08
  run like six times. So it's an entirely different
• 30:13
  thing. And it's frustrating because we want to
• 30:19
  help so much and we have limited capacity. And
• 30:22
  so how do we balance that as well? But these
• 30:27
  are all things that we get to hash out in a sermon.
• 30:29
  And I think it's a beautiful intersection of
• 30:32
  us meeting our congregants where they are in
• 30:35
  the moment. I love how in tune you are with your
• 30:38
  community and the needs of the people around
• 30:40
  you and also you seem very aware of you know
• 30:44
  the power and the privilege it comes with being
• 30:47
  in a place where we stand up and we preach to
• 30:51
  people who have real lives and experiences and
• 30:54
  in some ways are hurting or vulnerable and things
• 30:56
  like that and kind of this dichotomy too of like
• 31:00
  the Christian life right and you actually it
• 31:04
  leads really well into something that you preached
• 31:06
  in the middle of your sermon one of the concepts
• 31:08
  that you really focused on was this idea of like
• 31:11
  Jubilee this idea of You know things being made
• 31:16
  right and that's being repaid in this like glorious
• 31:19
  vision that I think On our best moments and on
• 31:22
  our best days Christians are like, yes, this
• 31:24
  is what we want But then you kind of did something
• 31:27
  that I thought was really interesting which was
• 31:29
  bringing in kind of like your own Discouragement
• 31:33
  critique maybe of this experience which I think
• 31:38
  is really indicative of your evaluation of the
• 31:41
  way that people process hope and life and what
• 31:44
  it really means to live like this. So let's listen
• 31:48
  to it. I had lunch with one of you on Tuesday
• 31:52
  and I said, you know, you've caught me in a unique
• 31:54
  position because today is the first day in my
• 31:57
  life where I've woken up and thought seriously,
• 32:01
  I want to live somewhere else. I'm glad some
• 32:07
  can relate. And if you don't, you know, that's
• 32:10
  okay too. I don't feel like a Jubilee is anywhere
• 32:16
  in the horizon. Not for me, not for us. I don't
• 32:19
  anticipate an evening of the playing fields,
• 32:22
  a resetting of the table, or a reshuffling of
• 32:25
  the decks. Not in my reality, in my temporal
• 32:28
  reality. I don't feel these things. But the good
• 32:32
  news of the Gospel is this. This good news of
• 32:36
  the gospel is that Jesus sets me free wherever
• 32:39
  I may be. You say, James, you're being naive.
• 32:44
  James, you're crazy. James, you're impractical.
• 32:47
  It's like Nietzsche says, Christianity is for
• 32:50
  the weak, the uncourageous, the uninspired, the
• 32:53
  complacent. God is dead. I disagree. Did you
• 33:00
  have any hesitation? with sharing kind of your
• 33:04
  own vulnerability, your own frustrations on one
• 33:07
  hand, and then also to share something so academic
• 33:11
  like Nietzsche. I mean both of those things I
• 33:15
  think were maybe could be categorized as risks.
• 33:18
  Did you have any hesitation to taking those on?
• 33:22
  Not in my context. I don't because I know my
• 33:25
  congregation You know, we've grown together for
• 33:28
  five years And that's not to say that everyone
• 33:30
  agrees with me. They certainly not everyone in
• 33:33
  my congregation agrees with me We're we're diverse
• 33:37
  in that way as well. We vote differently and
• 33:39
  things like that But but again, I want to say
• 33:42
  too that I have more license to do these kind
• 33:44
  of things because I am more in line with the
• 33:47
  majority of the political leanings of my congregation
• 33:51
  in Center City, urban Philadelphia, than someone
• 33:54
  like you, Evan, in a more diverse Baptist Church
• 34:00
  of Westchester. So yeah, I can do these things.
• 34:04
  And part of it is the rapport I think I have
• 34:06
  with the congregation as well. And I think there's
• 34:11
  something about the honesty that's appreciated
• 34:14
  as long as I... approach it with humility so
• 34:17
  like I don't go in and say I try not to at least
• 34:20
  lay down absolutes because that seems dangerous
• 34:24
  for a variety of ways but what I do say is I
• 34:29
  believe I think this is where I'm at that kind
• 34:33
  of thing and this is true this is where I'm at
• 34:35
  and the reason I shared it is because my the
• 34:39
  The pulse of my congregation that I'm feeling
• 34:41
  is that they are feeling a similar thing So I
• 34:44
  want to that's my way of saying it's okay to
• 34:45
  feel this way. It's okay to feel this way and
• 34:49
  There's good news in the midst of that Yeah,
• 34:52
  and so you mentioned the mention mentioning Nietzsche
• 34:56
  one of my early struggles is And I've been accused
• 35:01
  of this I Sometimes I speak more academic than
• 35:04
  I should and I think part of it is just, you
• 35:06
  know, we immerse ourselves in the schoolwork
• 35:08
  and I'm still coming out of seminary, you know,
• 35:10
  I'm in a PhD with Evan and the language kind
• 35:13
  of sticks around, you know. I read though in
• 35:18
  Dr. King's autobiography, maybe it was a biography.
• 35:24
  I don't remember. I read of Dr. King, though,
• 35:27
  that people questioned why he was so academic
• 35:30
  in his preaching. And there was a whole cultural
• 35:32
  answer that he gave, like, you know, in the African
• 35:38
  -American situation, we need to show that we're
• 35:40
  educated, and, you know, when the whole world
• 35:42
  is saying that we're dumb and can't, we need
• 35:43
  to show them that we walk with the best of them.
• 35:46
  And Dr. King was quite an academic. He would
• 35:49
  be... he was in the liberal school of theology
• 35:51
  at the time which is an uncomfortable place for
• 35:53
  evangelicals of 2025 you know probably not uh
• 35:58
  probably not known so well but like he was in
• 36:01
  um my understanding is like the historicity of
• 36:04
  the bible was not a concern for dr king as is
• 36:07
  uh the geist of the academic uh particularly
• 36:10
  academically liberal of the day but anyway um
• 36:15
  he makes mention that he doesn't have an inclination
• 36:18
  to dumb down his words. Rather, he expects that
• 36:21
  the congregation is smarter than he gives them
• 36:23
  credit for. And so I've leaned into that a little
• 36:27
  bit. That has given me a little license to say,
• 36:30
  you know what, I'm just going to say what I say.
• 36:31
  But part of my context, too, is people are really
• 36:35
  smart. I don't know that we always give them
• 36:37
  credit for it. I heard there's a priest, John
• 36:41
  Dominic Kasson. He's at DuPont University. in
• 36:44
  Chicago but he he was he's from Ireland and he
• 36:48
  was he's a great scholar he talks about how um
• 36:51
  you know he grew up in Ireland where people were
• 36:54
  illiterate in two languages but it would be a
• 36:57
  mistake to think that they are dumb because they're
• 36:59
  illiterate in two languages uh they're quite
• 37:01
  smart and I find that the people in the in the
• 37:05
  pews are smarter than we give them credit for
• 37:07
  they can take context clues they're interested
• 37:09
  in this and then another part of it is because
• 37:12
  of the diversity of our audience this stuff really
• 37:13
  clicks with the academics in our congregation
• 37:16
  and we do have quite a bit of academics that
• 37:21
  seems to be a particular not our sole magnet
• 37:26
  but we do have we are magnetic towards the local
• 37:30
  Ivy League students, you know, we have Penn right
• 37:33
  around the corner and so we get a lot of Penn
• 37:34
  students. For whatever reason, I don't know why
• 37:36
  we have so many Harvard grads here, which is
• 37:38
  very intimidating, by the way, and they seem
• 37:41
  to like it. You know, most of them have stuck
• 37:43
  around for four or five years. So I feel like
• 37:47
  I can do this. I feel like I can invite people
• 37:48
  in. I think they appreciate it. I think they're
• 37:50
  like, ah, I'm learning something so that even
• 37:52
  if I'm not a Christian and listening, I just
• 37:54
  learned something about Nietzsche's... Arguments
• 37:59
  against Christianity and by the way, I think
• 38:02
  I'm borrowing actually from dr. King and his
• 38:05
  own Reflections on Nietzsche and and notice this
• 38:09
  was on January 24th. It's like a week after Martin
• 38:12
  Luther King day here in the US and So I'm sure
• 38:16
  that that was in my mind as well. So all that's
• 38:18
  my way of saying this is an all -original I'm
• 38:20
  pulling from moments That are around me. Yeah,
• 38:24
  I love that you are able to say like let's give
• 38:27
  people a little bit more credit than that. I
• 38:31
  know that sometimes the temptation is to just
• 38:33
  dumb everything down but there's really such
• 38:37
  richness that can be drawn from and especially
• 38:40
  using sources that you know are maybe not in
• 38:42
  the academic purview of a lot of people and that's
• 38:46
  really interesting that you do that. One of the
• 38:49
  things though that I'm curious about is you also,
• 38:52
  it seems like you also don't assume uh that people
• 38:56
  are unfamiliar with a lot of biblical text um
• 39:00
  and I'm saying that as someone who like I used
• 39:03
  to work a lot with young adults and college students
• 39:05
  and I had you know students who would come in
• 39:08
  who truthfully like had not really had much of
• 39:11
  a background in church and didn't know a lot
• 39:13
  of biblical stories and uh I remember our pastor
• 39:16
  used to say that at one point in one of the services
• 39:19
  they just asked for a show of hands like who's
• 39:22
  heard of the story of David and Goliath, I think
• 39:25
  it was. There are so many people in the room
• 39:28
  who just didn't know it, and that has, I think,
• 39:30
  really shifted my preaching the way that I think
• 39:32
  about, especially as you're saying, you know,
• 39:35
  you have younger people who maybe aren't as biblically
• 39:38
  literate as could have been assumed, but you
• 39:41
  seem to assume that people are aware of things.
• 39:44
  This one section in your sermon in particular,
• 39:47
  you talk a lot about biblical stories, so I want
• 39:51
  to look at that and then ask follow -up question
• 39:54
  about it. Jesus frees us in our lives. Jesus
• 39:57
  frees us in our careers. Jesus frees us in our
• 39:59
  relationships. Jesus frees us in the concentration
• 40:03
  camps and the pandemics in the politics. Jesus
• 40:06
  frees us in the midst of life's hardest trials.
• 40:09
  Peter was in a fishing boat when he was set free.
• 40:12
  The prodigal son was in a pig pen. Paul was on
• 40:14
  the road to Damascus persecuting Christians.
• 40:17
  One woman found freedom when caught in adultery.
• 40:20
  Another was drawing water from a well. One thief
• 40:22
  found freedom while hanging on a cross. You have
• 40:26
  a saver. You have a messiah, a liberator, a king
• 40:30
  who sets you free wherever you may be. He is
• 40:33
  here to proclaim the year of Jubilee. Jesus sets
• 40:38
  you free wherever you may be. I really love that
• 40:43
  you kind of just weave this idea of Jubilee and
• 40:47
  you connect it through all these different points
• 40:49
  of scripture. It was really powerful and really
• 40:51
  moving. And also I can imagine if you have people
• 40:55
  there who are maybe not as familiar, you know
• 40:58
  what? what is that relationship like for them?
• 41:00
  So I'm curious, you know, as somebody who you
• 41:02
  seem to know a lot about your congregation that
• 41:05
  obviously you felt like this was appropriate
• 41:07
  for them. So how do you gauge, you know, not
• 41:10
  just whether they can handle Nietzsche, but whether
• 41:12
  they can handle some of these other biblical
• 41:14
  stories without going in depth and having to
• 41:18
  take the time to unpack every single thing you
• 41:20
  do? And that's a really good observation, Hannah,
• 41:23
  because what I'm finding and have continued to
• 41:26
  find, and particularly now teaching undergrads,
• 41:31
  is people in general are not familiar with their
• 41:34
  Bible the way that we pastors are. I discovered
• 41:39
  that in seminary. I went to seminary, and I knew
• 41:42
  I was going to seminary. A few months before,
• 41:44
  I went to seminary. And so I was like, you know
• 41:47
  what? I got it. I got to read this Bible, you
• 41:50
  know, like I've read parts of it, big parts of
• 41:52
  it, but like I got to read it straight through.
• 41:53
  And so I did one of those Bible 90 day plans
• 41:56
  and, you know, tore it up and got to seminary
• 41:59
  and found that while people were familiar with
• 42:02
  the Bible, they weren't as familiar as I thought
• 42:04
  that they were going to be. And so that's been
• 42:08
  a continuing experience for me. Just. Most people
• 42:12
  people have been in church their whole life they're
• 42:14
  really still not familiar with the bible stories
• 42:16
  at least in the way that i anticipated them to
• 42:20
  be not everyone is us is what i'm i guess i'm
• 42:22
  getting at and i find it to be particularly true
• 42:25
  in my congregation and there's different tension
• 42:28
  so some of the older members are probably familiar
• 42:31
  with these stories these are a little bit more
• 42:33
  general to a bit i wouldn't say that there. Jubilee
• 42:37
  is probably something that's pretty new for them,
• 42:39
  or they've heard the word, but they don't remember
• 42:41
  coming across it, you know. And a lot of the
• 42:44
  younger folks, which is the majority of our Sunday
• 42:50
  attenders, it's about half. I don't think that
• 42:55
  they're familiar with these stories. They might
• 42:57
  have a general understanding of like the prodigal
• 43:00
  son But I don't even know that they make the
• 43:01
  connections that we do, you know interesting
• 43:03
  the people who know this Tend to be the unhoused
• 43:07
  members of our worship. I mean, they really know
• 43:10
  it Oh my goodness on what we hold Bible studies
• 43:13
  here on Wednesday and we do it zoom in in person
• 43:15
  and to be frank with you Will have a few people
• 43:19
  here in person most people come online but those
• 43:22
  who come in person tend to be in the unhoused
• 43:24
  community and they know their Bibles very well.
• 43:29
  They have a different lens in which they approach
• 43:31
  the Bible than I, and so we get to these really
• 43:36
  great conversations. But yeah, they know their
• 43:38
  stories really well. I mentioned these stories,
• 43:41
  and you know, I do a lot of... And I don't know
• 43:44
  how healthy it is, but I do a lot of single verses
• 43:48
  throughout, you know? And I kind of pick that
• 43:50
  up, I think, from like William Willimon, who
• 43:53
  was at Duke, he used to do a similar kind of
• 43:56
  thing, you know? He finished a story and he'd
• 43:59
  say, I think this is what Paul means when he
• 44:02
  says, and then insert, you know, a fraction of
• 44:05
  a verse, that kind of thing. We do use electionary
• 44:09
  and so there's this idea that after three years
• 44:11
  time, they would be familiar with these stories,
• 44:14
  but I don't see that playing out so much. So
• 44:17
  I guess what I'm saying is I use these stories.
• 44:21
  I hope that this is an invitation to discover
• 44:23
  more, but I don't expect that most people know
• 44:26
  what I'm talking about when I make big biblical
• 44:29
  references. If it's that important, then that
• 44:32
  becomes a point in my sermon, and I explain it.
• 44:35
  So for instance, the one I chose to unravel in
• 44:38
  this sermon was this Luke 4 thing with Jesus
• 44:41
  proclaiming this Isaiah year of the Jubilee thing.
• 44:45
  So that was their Bible lesson for the day. And
• 44:48
  then the rest of my sermons, recently at least,
• 44:51
  I use stories. And Jesus gives me license. He
• 44:55
  talks in parables and, you know, parables are
• 44:57
  fictitious. And so it seems to be okay. And stories
• 45:01
  are a beautiful tool for navigating nuances and
• 45:04
  ambiguities and inviting people into experience.
• 45:08
  So, yeah, it's been beautiful. That's just great
• 45:11
  insight. In my own experience in the last few
• 45:14
  years here in Westchester, we have a significant
• 45:17
  unhoused population and we have folks coming
• 45:20
  from a subsidized senior living community. And
• 45:23
  man, do they know, like I've been in Bible studies
• 45:26
  where someone would be like, well, isn't that,
• 45:28
  isn't that person's grandson so -and -so from
• 45:30
  like second kings? And I'm like, I don't, I don't
• 45:33
  know, but probably. And sure enough, right. It
• 45:36
  just, it's, it brings so much humility and also
• 45:40
  just appreciation to the to the breadth and the
• 45:44
  beauty and the depth of God's people. And it's
• 45:48
  so easy for us to look down on or think less
• 45:55
  of or underestimate all kinds of people, whoever
• 45:59
  they are in our context. And so I just love that.
• 46:04
  I also, in the sermon, you bring up some big
• 46:06
  theological concepts, and one of them is free
• 46:09
  will. And you talk about free will and human
• 46:13
  choice, and you acknowledge that you believe
• 46:16
  in free will, but not everyone does. I think
• 46:19
  that was a beautiful way to bring up a theological
• 46:22
  concept. But I did want to ask about how you
• 46:25
  introduce the concepts, especially where there's
• 46:28
  a lot of diversity in both your congregation
• 46:31
  and just like the Christian history. I've often
• 46:35
  heard it said that we should preach from the
• 46:37
  center of our theology, right? Because maybe
• 46:39
  what's on the very edges of what I'm thinking
• 46:41
  is probably not ready to go out into a sermon.
• 46:44
  How do you determine when to bring along a theological
• 46:49
  insight or perspective or opinion, knowing that
• 46:52
  it's not potentially the majority or settled
• 46:57
  among your congregation? Yeah, I think what's
• 47:01
  occurring there is when I think, and hopefully
• 47:04
  by I think I mean I hope that the spirit is nudging
• 47:07
  me in some way in the preparation process to
• 47:09
  say this might be valuable, this might be a gem
• 47:11
  for some people. And so I'll do that fairly often.
• 47:16
  I like to sneak in kind of these seminary theological
• 47:21
  concepts because they've been valuable to me.
• 47:23
  So like one... I like to, you know, make them
• 47:27
  say, like, Provenient Grace, and then be like,
• 47:29
  you guys are scholars now, you know? And then
• 47:31
  they feel something of that, and then we talk
• 47:32
  about Provenient Grace. So here we're talking
• 47:35
  about free will. I think I probably would have,
• 47:39
  back in the day, before I had this method, I
• 47:42
  would have talked about, like, Jacob Arminius
• 47:45
  or something, and given a little history lesson,
• 47:47
  which just doesn't make great homiletics, you
• 47:48
  know? And so I think how I do this is I... I
• 47:52
  think is valuable for them. And so I'm honest.
• 47:54
  I say, I'm a big believer in free will. Not everyone
• 47:57
  is a big believer in free will. And that's, you
• 48:01
  know, that's the case I think in a lot of our
• 48:03
  theological pursuits is we can have leanings,
• 48:05
  but I really don't know the answer. I found valuable
• 48:11
  this idea that's articulated well in a book title
• 48:17
  of Dr. Pete Enzes, which is the sin of certainty.
• 48:20
  There is a certain idolization or putting of
• 48:24
  God in a box when we say, this is how God is.
• 48:29
  I think this is what Jesus is pushing against
• 48:31
  when he tells these parables. He's saying, well,
• 48:36
  maybe God is a little bit more than this. Well,
• 48:40
  God says to love my neighbor. And who is your
• 48:43
  neighbor? Well, let me tell you a story about
• 48:46
  this. And by the way, this is a good time for
• 48:49
  this. I think it's a, if we get theological about
• 48:52
  it, the Catholics talk about, what is it? The
• 48:57
  order of love or odor amoris or something like
• 49:00
  that. And that came up recently in some political
• 49:03
  discussions. Like first one of our politicians
• 49:06
  here, and I'll say, I believe it was JD Vance
• 49:08
  said, you know, he thinks it's very Christian
• 49:10
  for us to first love our Our family and then
• 49:15
  our friends and then our community and then there's
• 49:19
  these concentric levels of love that he was arguing
• 49:23
  for but You know people rightly push back against
• 49:28
  that and I think we see that in Jesus's stories
• 49:30
  Jesus didn't go ahead and Try to didactically
• 49:35
  explain You know the ordering of this love rather
• 49:40
  he invites in a story. Well, who is really loving
• 49:42
  their neighbor here? So I hope that that's what
• 49:45
  I'm doing when I make these big theological claims
• 49:47
  as I'm inviting people into possibilities not
• 49:53
  necessarily actualities, but something that I
• 49:55
  think could be a gem for them in this season
• 49:58
  of their life. And again, my hope is that this
• 50:01
  is all informed by a movement of the spirit that
• 50:04
  I have discerned in some way, which is just as
• 50:09
  murky or messy as it may even sound, frankly.
• 50:13
  I really appreciate that, and I wanted to ask
• 50:16
  that question. And even as I ask it, pushing
• 50:18
  back kind of in my own mind on some of that,
• 50:21
  well, stay here. How do we create space for that
• 50:26
  question and mystery? And I think you do that
• 50:29
  so well with that. And I'm just really grateful.
• 50:33
  Your sermon takes a prophetic turn, I would say,
• 50:37
  as you talk more about Jubilee and what that
• 50:40
  means for us. And so I want to listen to that
• 50:42
  clip now. Jesus has declared the year of the
• 50:47
  Lord's favor. Jesus had declared a jubilee, and
• 50:51
  this is good news for each of us. But here's
• 50:54
  the thing about the jubilee. Remember, we said
• 50:56
  this is a biblical mandate. There is no evidence,
• 51:00
  however, that the jubilee was ever practiced.
• 51:04
  The jubilee made its way into law, it's made
• 51:06
  its way into scripture, but it never made its
• 51:09
  way into society. And you and I both know why.
• 51:13
  Society is not great at freedom. We are not great
• 51:16
  at giving others freedom. We extort for gain.
• 51:20
  We limit societal safety nets. We price gouge
• 51:23
  the sick. We dismantle programs promoting diversity,
• 51:26
  equity, and inclusion. We make perpetual tenants
• 51:29
  of the poor freedom. In a world that rejects
• 51:35
  Jubilee, we need to proclaim the year of the
• 51:38
  Lord's favor. We need to go to the world and
• 51:41
  declare that there is good news for the poor,
• 51:43
  release for the captives, cite for the blind.
• 51:46
  We go to the world and let them know that the
• 51:48
  oppressed shall be free. We go to the world and
• 51:53
  we share the news the world so desperately needs
• 51:56
  to hear. You know, I like to say that Jesus tells
• 52:02
  us that when we die these will be the questions.
• 52:06
  I was naked. Did you clothe me? Hungry, did you
• 52:11
  feed me? Thirsty, did you give me drink? I was
• 52:16
  imprisoned, did you visit me? I was sick, did
• 52:20
  you care for me? I was a stranger and a foreigner,
• 52:24
  did you welcome me? But sadly, Jesus may say
• 52:28
  to some, I was hungry, and you formed a humanities
• 52:33
  club and discussed my hunger. I was imprisoned,
• 52:37
  and you crept off quietly to your chapel in the
• 52:40
  cellar to pray for my release. I was naked and
• 52:44
  in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance
• 52:47
  and my smell. I was sick and you knelt and thanked
• 52:51
  God for your own health. I was homeless and you
• 52:54
  preached to me the spiritual shelter of God.
• 52:58
  I was lonely and you left me alone to pray for
• 53:01
  me. I was a foreigner and you locked me outside
• 53:03
  your gates. You threw me into internment camps.
• 53:06
  You seem so holy Jesus might say but I'm still
• 53:10
  so hungry so lonely so sick so cold Wow, um,
• 53:16
  that was probably my favorite part of this whole
• 53:19
  thing I love the way that you did that It was
• 53:23
  funny when you that first kind of at the beginning
• 53:26
  of the clip when it first started I got really
• 53:29
  excited because I'm hearing, you know, you're
• 53:31
  saying we do have kind of this idea of going
• 53:35
  and proclaiming like, this is not the way that
• 53:38
  it should be, that there is freedom. And in my
• 53:41
  mind, I'm like, yes, this is great. And then
• 53:43
  I kind of have this voice going off where I'm
• 53:45
  like, wait, James, like, wait, what are, what
• 53:48
  about like the action? What about that part that's
• 53:50
  missing there? Because, you know, I think kind
• 53:53
  of the conviction sometimes is I think we're
• 53:56
  really guilty of preaching good news and not
• 53:58
  actually doing anything. And then you make this
• 54:01
  really beautiful turn where you're just like,
• 54:04
  here's actually what this looks like, here's
• 54:07
  the questions that Jesus is going to ask us.
• 54:11
  Jubilee is not just this physical act, it's a
• 54:14
  spiritual one that we get to work. So I love
• 54:17
  that piece. Why did you think that that was an
• 54:20
  important message that your congregation needed
• 54:22
  to hear. Well, I'll say that this has been one
• 54:31
  of those themes that has been on my heart, particularly
• 54:34
  for the last, I want to say six months, but I
• 54:37
  really don't know. But in particular, this section
• 54:40
  from Matthew 25, and part of it might be, I mean,
• 54:45
  this was a big This is a big emphasis for a pastor
• 54:49
  in my local area, Alan Waller at Enon Tabernacle.
• 54:52
  But Tony Campolo used to lean into this as well.
• 54:57
  And so I think I'm doing a similar thing there
• 55:00
  because it had a similar impact for me. So we're
• 55:04
  talking about the parable of the sheep and the
• 55:06
  goats, and the sheep and the goats will be separated,
• 55:08
  the sheep on the right and the goats on the left,
• 55:10
  and the goats are like, what have we done? Jesus
• 55:13
  is like, well, whatever you did for the least
• 55:14
  of these, you did for me. I think I'm reacting
• 55:17
  a little to how I perceive shifts in the US and
• 55:23
  our concern for those that we in the Christian
• 55:26
  tradition have identified as the least of these.
• 55:29
  I've been consistent, I think, in, at least while
• 55:35
  at First Baptist, in kind of an emphasis towards
• 55:40
  praxis. But what, and looking at these words
• 55:44
  of Jesus, you know, Jesus has a lot to say about
• 55:46
  like being rich, like don't be rich. You know,
• 55:50
  it's harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom
• 55:56
  of heaven than for a camel to go through an eye
• 55:59
  of the needle. And we don't turn to that medieval
• 56:00
  creation of like a gate on the side, you know,
• 56:03
  it seems like Jesus meant that literally. That's
• 56:06
  quite a challenge. But what I'm finding now is
• 56:10
  Which is new for me. I'm relatively young 36
• 56:12
  and you know, we're seeing shifts in in social
• 56:16
  ethics and we have been for some time and these
• 56:19
  words which did not seem so radical now seem
• 56:23
  tremendously radical and You know, it's a lot
• 56:27
  has changed in a year and that's concerning It's
• 56:32
  concerning because I we grew up We are not a
• 56:36
  prosecuted people. I don't feel like sorry persecuted
• 56:39
  people in the US not compared to first century
• 56:41
  Christians That would be bogus, you know, we
• 56:43
  can We I can say practically whatever I want
• 56:47
  without repercussion from the law in into my
• 56:50
  church However, I'm finding that now by quoting
• 56:54
  Jesus people are starting to label me as a radical
• 56:57
  One exercise I do with some some students is
• 57:01
  I'll make them read just the red letters of Christ
• 57:04
  come to our conclusions, you know, so just the
• 57:06
  red letters. And they say these things like,
• 57:10
  they'll say things like, wow, Jesus was really
• 57:12
  radical. Jesus was really hardcore. Jesus was
• 57:15
  a kind of a communist or Jesus was kind of a
• 57:17
  socialist. You know, they stick them into these
• 57:21
  categories that fit our 2025, you know, our system.
• 57:28
  But Jesus's words haven't changed. These translations
• 57:31
  haven't really changed, you know? It's just how
• 57:35
  we perceive them in light of our own context.
• 57:38
  And I think what I'm trying to say here is these
• 57:41
  words of Jesus did not seem too radical when
• 57:44
  I was beginning my Christian journey. They were
• 57:46
  like the standard. But right now, it's like an
• 57:49
  attack on social classes. When Jesus said these
• 57:53
  words, they were radical. There's a reason he
• 57:55
  tells parables, and probably not just because
• 57:57
  of the ambiguity. acuities and nuance, but it
• 58:00
  allows those who wouldn't normally get to hear
• 58:02
  these kind of messages to hear them, and yet
• 58:04
  there are those who will not hear these messages,
• 58:07
  and there, you know, there is no persecution
• 58:09
  coming from Jesus immediately because of that.
• 58:13
  It's just kind of interesting, Hannah, that you
• 58:14
  mentioned that, because these things are not
• 58:16
  as radical, or they seem very radical, but they
• 58:19
  haven't changed, you know? These are the same
• 58:21
  words we've been preaching for 2 ,000 years.
• 58:23
  Your insight is right on, and, you know, something
• 58:26
  I'm feeling, and we're seeing And I think the
• 58:29
  temptation as a preacher, you know, and in my
• 58:33
  context is not probably as politically homogenous
• 58:39
  as yours, but it still is, you know, because
• 58:42
  we're part of AWAB and, you know, when you make
• 58:44
  steps like that to be in the Association of Walkman
• 58:46
  and Framing Baptists, people decide whether,
• 58:49
  you know, they want to be a part of your fellowship
• 58:51
  or not. And I think the temptation in this moment
• 58:57
  for people like us is to see these things and
• 59:02
  either despair or rage at them, name them and
• 59:05
  rage at them. But what you do here with this
• 59:09
  subversive prophetic voice is not only elevate
• 59:12
  the issue and reorient ourselves to the radical
• 59:15
  nature of Jesus, but then also give us a practical
• 59:18
  thing to do about it, which I think the temptation
• 59:22
  is to not. The temptation is to say, I'm so mad
• 59:24
  and aren't you mad and let's post about it and
• 59:27
  feel good about ourselves for correctly being
• 59:29
  mad. And instead we're convicted by your words
• 59:35
  and the radical words of Jesus and then invited
• 59:37
  to these action steps. So you give two prompts
• 59:40
  and questions for people in their bulletins to
• 59:43
  wrestle with and to think about and to apply
• 59:46
  going forward. You mentioned maybe that came
• 59:49
  from Tony. I'd love to hear about your relationship
• 59:52
  with asking these action steps, how you put them
• 59:55
  together, how you think through them. Yeah, so
• 59:58
  actually the action steps start in a kind of
• 1:00:00
  unique way, and that's that we use bulletins.
• 1:00:04
  I'm not a huge fan of the bulletins. I feel like
• 1:00:06
  I spend a lot of resource to get a bulletin out
• 1:00:09
  each week, and they're kind of a pain for me.
• 1:00:11
  But it's the context I'm in, our members like
• 1:00:13
  it. So we do these bulletins, and in the back
• 1:00:15
  of the bulletin, I do something that I call an
• 1:00:18
  action sheet. and in it is like a verse. I usually
• 1:00:23
  put in two or three prompts, things for them
• 1:00:25
  to consider, and then I always put a word search
• 1:00:28
  in there, and it's kind of cool to see people
• 1:00:30
  doing the word search, giving them something
• 1:00:32
  to fiddle with. I'm told that this kind of thing
• 1:00:35
  can help with your engagement and focus as well,
• 1:00:39
  so I'm, you know, glad to do it. But so my action
• 1:00:43
  items often come out of these premeditated questions
• 1:00:47
  that I ask in this bulletin. And the idea is,
• 1:00:51
  and again, this was the conviction for being
• 1:00:56
  very intentional about having action items came
• 1:01:00
  again from Tony Campolo. You can tell he is a
• 1:01:03
  big figure in my life. And maybe it's helpful
• 1:01:06
  to know my PhD research is on Tony. And so I've
• 1:01:10
  been interviewing him for a while and he's been
• 1:01:12
  really He had been very instrumental in my career
• 1:01:15
  and things like that. But he's very big on always
• 1:01:19
  giving you an action item. And so for him, for
• 1:01:21
  years, it was something like, you know, in the
• 1:01:26
  back of the church are these envelopes with children
• 1:01:29
  that need to be sponsored. And so for his case,
• 1:01:31
  you know, this would be Compassion International
• 1:01:32
  or something. I want you to go, I want you to
• 1:01:34
  look at those envelopes or something like that.
• 1:01:36
  I don't have the luxury of doing quite... That
• 1:01:40
  but there is always something that we can be
• 1:01:42
  doing and so I want to make sure that there is
• 1:01:47
  some sort of action that the that the listener
• 1:01:51
  Can focus on for the week and i struggle with
• 1:01:55
  this though too cuz sometimes i like i don't
• 1:01:56
  want people to come to church and be like oh
• 1:01:58
  he just gonna give us another thing to focus
• 1:02:00
  on you know and i he just making stuff up because
• 1:02:04
  he has to every week he has to give us a new
• 1:02:07
  action to do and i try to be cognizant of that
• 1:02:09
  so i keep them pretty broad. Sometimes, and they
• 1:02:13
  take different shapes. Sometimes I teach people
• 1:02:16
  how to different meditative practices, like a
• 1:02:18
  centering prayer has been a useful thing to teach
• 1:02:20
  people how to do and invite them into that space.
• 1:02:24
  I try to keep these action items really simple
• 1:02:26
  so that you can retain them. And I really do
• 1:02:28
  try to keep them so they're not gimmicky. But
• 1:02:31
  I do want people to have some sort of action
• 1:02:34
  they can take throughout the week. I think in
• 1:02:37
  this season, I've been particularly Impacted
• 1:02:41
  by this idea that we are the hands and feet of
• 1:02:43
  Christ and that's more a James thing. I would
• 1:02:46
  say than other things, but it seems like we are
• 1:02:50
  imperative towards towards this song this redemption
• 1:02:55
  of the world. I heard I heard on a podcast. I
• 1:02:59
  don't know, last week or something. It was a
• 1:03:01
  Pete Enns Bible for Normal People podcast, another
• 1:03:03
  great podcast. Your colleagues, my friends. And
• 1:03:06
  the speaker on there, I don't remember who it
• 1:03:08
  was, they said, you know, people think that we're
• 1:03:10
  on the Titanic. We're not on the Titanic. We're
• 1:03:14
  the iceberg. And that stuck with me, I think.
• 1:03:20
  Yeah. Teresa of Avila. reflects on this a lot.
• 1:03:26
  There are no hands but yours, there are no bodies
• 1:03:28
  but yours, that kind of thing. And, you know,
• 1:03:32
  this has been a big leaning for me. I don't want
• 1:03:34
  us to be complacent Christians, because I don't
• 1:03:38
  think that we can afford to be complacent Christians.
• 1:03:41
  I don't think that's being a Christian. This
• 1:03:43
  is the radical life of Jesus, and Jesus was quite
• 1:03:47
  radical. I've been a follower of Christ most
• 1:03:50
  of my life, and I'm challenged every day to be
• 1:03:53
  more and more like this very radical Christ.
• 1:03:58
  And I think that's part of the journey, this,
• 1:04:00
  you know, looking more and more cruciform. And
• 1:04:02
  so my hope is that with each sermon, we can give
• 1:04:05
  some tools for helping us look a little bit more
• 1:04:12
  like Jesus throughout the week. It's so helpful,
• 1:04:18
  and I'm really convinced in the last several
• 1:04:22
  years of ministry, you know, we talked about
• 1:04:24
  maybe less biblical literacy than maybe we would
• 1:04:26
  have anticipated. I think, too, in how our times
• 1:04:30
  and cultures have changed, there's less, like,
• 1:04:33
  spiritual formation happening in people's own
• 1:04:35
  personal lives, and so how we can integrate that
• 1:04:40
  formational piece into something we're actually
• 1:04:42
  doing, even in the Sunday morning experience,
• 1:04:45
  even in the sermon experience and then something
• 1:04:47
  to take with us, is really vital and really helpful.
• 1:04:51
  And I'm trying to figure out ways to integrate
• 1:04:53
  that as well into my action steps or whatever
• 1:04:56
  my next steps or practices that we even do together.
• 1:05:00
  So I'm just really encouraged by how you do that.
• 1:05:02
  And I think it's such a great way to help people.
• 1:05:07
  not let the sermon be disconnected from their
• 1:05:09
  real lives, not let their head be disconnected
• 1:05:11
  from their bodies. And I think in our time and
• 1:05:15
  in our culture, that's an easy thing, as easy
• 1:05:17
  for me to do is for my head to be disconnected
• 1:05:19
  from my body. So I'm grateful for it. When I
• 1:05:23
  first started being a lead pastor, one thing
• 1:05:28
  I heard a few times was, I don't think it was
• 1:05:32
  reflection on my sermons per se, but I remember
• 1:05:35
  hearing things like, people will come to me and
• 1:05:38
  they're like, oh, I left that church because
• 1:05:40
  the pastor always challenged me. Or I didn't
• 1:05:47
  come to, I come to church to feel better. I don't
• 1:05:52
  come to, I don't take this hour out of my life
• 1:05:54
  to feel worse about myself. And I have to be
• 1:05:57
  sensitive to that, but I'm also reactionary to
• 1:06:00
  it too. Like I see our goal as twofold here.
• 1:06:05
  I'm sure you could increase or decrease, but
• 1:06:07
  what I'm seeing is, yes, I want to encourage
• 1:06:10
  people in my sermons. I want them to sense the
• 1:06:13
  movement of God in a world that can be hard to
• 1:06:16
  see or hold to God's movement, but I also want
• 1:06:20
  to challenge people. So it's not all feel good,
• 1:06:22
  but we need to challenge ourselves to make things
• 1:06:25
  on earth as they are on heaven. I think that's
• 1:06:28
  the call of the disciple. Jesus calls us to make
• 1:06:31
  disciples, and of course that means that we also
• 1:06:33
  have to be disciples. I think. And so, yes, be
• 1:06:37
  encouraged, but also we need to grow. There's
• 1:06:40
  work to be done. The world isn't too desperate
• 1:06:44
  of a place for us not to do something. Prayers
• 1:06:47
  go up to heaven to God, and I'm convinced that
• 1:06:50
  God says, oh yeah, here's the answer to the prayer.
• 1:06:53
  He's right there. It's Evan. It's Hannah. It's
• 1:06:56
  those people sitting in those pews. I think that
• 1:07:00
  we are We are blessed to be invited on this journey
• 1:07:06
  of redeeming the world. Like, God doesn't need
• 1:07:08
  us, but God chooses to invite us in the redemption
• 1:07:11
  of the world. But we need to take that quite
• 1:07:13
  seriously, I think. Yeah. Well, when you talk
• 1:07:16
  about, I want to be encouraged. I don't come
• 1:07:19
  to be discouraged or whatever, to despair. I
• 1:07:23
  think your model of this is good news. No, it's
• 1:07:25
  really, really good news. What are we going to
• 1:07:27
  do about it? It still engages with the reality
• 1:07:31
  of the situation. but puts it in this way of
• 1:07:34
  bringing forward that good news all the time
• 1:07:37
  that I think helps there, where you're not running
• 1:07:40
  away from the bad news, but you're also never
• 1:07:44
  forgetting to put that good news front and center
• 1:07:46
  of Jesus, and I think that's a helpful tool.
• 1:07:49
  Well said, Evan. Well said. So, you are three
• 1:07:54
  weeks out from preaching this sermon. I'm sure
• 1:07:57
  a lot of life has happened. I'm curious about
• 1:08:02
  You know, how is this sitting with you? What
• 1:08:04
  are the things in this message that you're most
• 1:08:07
  proud of that you really love? What are the memorable
• 1:08:11
  moments for you from preaching this? Yeah. Oh,
• 1:08:15
  that's a sweet question. I think as like as I
• 1:08:20
  would have given you a different response, I'm
• 1:08:22
  sure, if you had asked me the day after I gave
• 1:08:24
  the sermon. But it's kind of cool how you get
• 1:08:27
  to see how the spirit works through your sermon
• 1:08:30
  throughout the week. And so regardless of how
• 1:08:34
  I felt about it, I can say people come and say,
• 1:08:38
  oh, that really helped me this week. And so that's
• 1:08:41
  a way of saying, oh, you were faithful to your
• 1:08:43
  job, whatever that looks like. And I think what
• 1:08:47
  I'm reacting to, Hannah, is i always have feelings
• 1:08:50
  about my sermons i'll think oh that was great
• 1:08:53
  or oh that was bad but i find that my feelings
• 1:08:56
  don't have much um to do with the reality of
• 1:08:59
  how they're perceived the sermons that i think
• 1:09:01
  are bad people may very much like, and it shocks
• 1:09:04
  me. The sermons I think are good, other people
• 1:09:07
  won't always connect to. And sometimes I'm amazed
• 1:09:10
  how I can give a sermon and hate it, and then
• 1:09:12
  a few years can go by, I'll be in a different
• 1:09:14
  context, I'll give almost the same sermon, and
• 1:09:15
  I'll love it! I'm like, what happened? It's almost
• 1:09:18
  the same words, you know? But the context is
• 1:09:21
  different, the moving of the spirit is different,
• 1:09:23
  I'm sure lived experience is different, things
• 1:09:25
  like that. And one thing I can say about the
• 1:09:32
  sermon process for me is I do take it very seriously,
• 1:09:36
  just like each of you, like most pastors I know.
• 1:09:39
  And so I'm proud, I'm proud, if I can say that,
• 1:09:44
  of most of my sermons in that I believe I was
• 1:09:46
  faithful in doing the work, being prayerful,
• 1:09:51
  and I... I work very hard on them. I spend a
• 1:09:54
  lot of time on them. And I can't do any better
• 1:09:57
  than my best. So if this is my best, then that's
• 1:09:59
  what it's going to be. And God seems to work
• 1:10:02
  through that, you know? The only time I'm not
• 1:10:04
  proud of a sermon is if I feel like I didn't
• 1:10:06
  give it enough time throughout the week. But
• 1:10:08
  usually, if that happens, if life happens and
• 1:10:10
  I don't have enough time, usually the prayer
• 1:10:13
  on Sunday is, oh my gosh, God, you are so good.
• 1:10:16
  I can't believe you made that happen, you know?
• 1:10:23
  Yeah, I can be proud of these sermons because,
• 1:10:28
  you know, they're not mine. It's all God. You
• 1:10:31
  can sense the pneumatological undertones in what
• 1:10:34
  I'm saying, and I really believe that. This is
• 1:10:36
  the spirit of God, and I'm just trying to open
• 1:10:38
  myself up to it. I'm working on a program now
• 1:10:43
  and starting a conference. I can't say... I'm
• 1:10:46
  helping with the conference, but I can't say
• 1:10:47
  too much. But one thing we're exploring is this
• 1:10:48
  idea that anyone can preach. And I like this
• 1:10:52
  idea. This really hit with some people. Now,
• 1:10:54
  I don't know that anyone should preach. I don't
• 1:10:56
  know that anyone is prepared to preach or understands
• 1:11:00
  what it takes. You know, a lot of people, I'm
• 1:11:02
  sure, come up to you and like, I want to preach.
• 1:11:04
  And you're like, well, you're getting into a
• 1:11:05
  lot more than you think. But OK. But I think
• 1:11:11
  anyone can preach. so long as they're attuned
• 1:11:15
  to God. I mean, the Spirit will use anyone. The
• 1:11:19
  Spirit will use Zacchaeus, you know. The Spirit
• 1:11:21
  will use tax collector Matthew. The Spirit will
• 1:11:23
  use a thief dying on the cross. The Spirit will
• 1:11:26
  use James Williams. And, you know, that's beautiful.
• 1:11:30
  So I'm proud of most of my sermons in that I
• 1:11:34
  feel like I did the work, and I did my best.
• 1:11:38
  And that's all I can do. There are certain moments,
• 1:11:41
  as I'm rewatching this, I'm like, all right,
• 1:11:42
  James, all right, like, that's cool. I really
• 1:11:46
  like to use alliteration. And when I find moments
• 1:11:51
  where it's done well, you know, that's where
• 1:11:52
  I'm like, ah, James, that was cool, because that
• 1:11:54
  required a lot of work beforehand, you know.
• 1:11:57
  But those aren't the moments that I think really
• 1:11:58
  hit with people. It's like that Matthew 25 moment,
• 1:12:01
  just paraphrasing what Jesus said. The unique
• 1:12:04
  thing about this podcast is it's also an opportunity
• 1:12:07
  to look at something that you've preached, and
• 1:12:10
  for many of us, we may or may not review our
• 1:12:14
  messages after we've preached them. So as you've
• 1:12:17
  done that for this one, is there anything you
• 1:12:19
  would do differently? Is there any adjustments
• 1:12:22
  you would make looking back at it? Yeah. Usually
• 1:12:28
  when I review a sermon, The adjustments I see
• 1:12:32
  that I would like to make are technical, and
• 1:12:34
  I try not to beat myself up about them. You know,
• 1:12:36
  it's a losing battle there. I'll always find
• 1:12:38
  I have a problem. As you're probably hearing
• 1:12:41
  on this podcast, my friends, with speaking too
• 1:12:42
  quickly, I have to be intentional about pacing.
• 1:12:47
  I tend to move too quickly. In this particular
• 1:12:52
  sermon delivery, I'm reading from an iPad on
• 1:12:56
  a lectern. Sometimes I use a teleprompter. That
• 1:12:59
  has not been my luxury in a few months because
• 1:13:02
  my teleprompter broke. Just like a cheap iPad
• 1:13:05
  program, you know? And I think that has an impact
• 1:13:07
  on where my eye movements go, you know? Usually
• 1:13:11
  it has to do with pace. The volume seemed okay,
• 1:13:14
  like inflection points. I used to mark those.
• 1:13:17
  I don't anymore. I just practice them and see
• 1:13:20
  what comes out at the time, you know? I don't
• 1:13:24
  know that I would do anything differently. Sometimes
• 1:13:27
  I look at sermons and I say I should have reordered
• 1:13:29
  things, but this one was okay. And I'm usually
• 1:13:33
  okay with the ordering because I keep the outline
• 1:13:35
  simple. Again, it's a point and a story. There
• 1:13:40
  might be superfluous stuff in there, but it's
• 1:13:43
  done with discretion. Usually the transitions
• 1:13:46
  are... point that I use either rhyme or alliteration
• 1:13:51
  for and that's all very new to me by the way
• 1:13:53
  that's like maybe the past six months to a year
• 1:13:56
  I've been employing more alliteration and poetry
• 1:13:59
  but it's because my models the model that I've
• 1:14:03
  been using has simplified. So I can spend more
• 1:14:06
  time working on that as I focus on stories. So
• 1:14:08
  one thing that never comes across in these clips,
• 1:14:12
  because I'll clip up my sermons for social media
• 1:14:14
  and stuff, is the stories. But if you were to
• 1:14:17
  listen to this straight through so you listeners
• 1:14:19
  know that this is really just story, story, stories.
• 1:14:24
  Again, Tony Campolo, his homiletical professor,
• 1:14:29
  at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary at the
• 1:14:32
  time. This would have been in I think the 60s,
• 1:14:35
  but it might've been the 50s even. He described,
• 1:14:38
  Tony's teacher described his sermons as the empire
• 1:14:41
  state building, stories stacked on stories, stacked
• 1:14:44
  on stories. And that stuck with Tony and that
• 1:14:47
  stuck with me. Yeah, I use a lot of stories.
• 1:14:49
  And Hannah, you had asked about resources. So
• 1:14:51
  if we have pastors listening, indeed, I use a
• 1:14:54
  bunch of illustration books. So that's a big
• 1:14:57
  part of my research too, actually, is finding
• 1:15:00
  stories. If I have one in my head, particularly
• 1:15:03
  from lived experience, great. That's really what
• 1:15:05
  I wanna use. It's closer to me. But oftentimes
• 1:15:07
  I don't, or I'm looking for an inspiration that
• 1:15:10
  will remind me of a story in my life. And so
• 1:15:12
  I use a ton of illustration books. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:18
  I pour through preaching illustration books,
• 1:15:20
  and there's just too many to name, honestly.
• 1:15:23
  I have them stacked around my office. Well, if
• 1:15:26
  you think of more specific ones. Send those an
• 1:15:30
  email with some of your favorite ones. I would
• 1:15:32
  be interested in knowing those. I will. And I
• 1:15:35
  can tell you my two favorite because I have them
• 1:15:36
  right here. Whenever I encounter a new preacher
• 1:15:41
  or if we license someone, I tend to give them
• 1:15:45
  two books. These are both by Tony Campolo. When
• 1:15:48
  I started talking with Tony, when we talked about
• 1:15:50
  this new model, he said, you're going to buy
• 1:15:51
  these books and just go through them. There's
• 1:15:54
  some great stories in there. Indeed, these are
• 1:15:56
  hatched out stories. So one is, Let Me Tell You
• 1:15:58
  a Story. This is Tony's first storybook. This
• 1:16:02
  one's not well -indexed, so you just have to
• 1:16:05
  know the stories, but they're great. And no one
• 1:16:08
  tells stories quite like a Tony Campolo. These
• 1:16:11
  are good to go. And then Stories That Feed Your
• 1:16:15
  Soul. This one is much better indexed, but it
• 1:16:18
  doesn't have all the hits, if you would say.
• 1:16:20
  So these are two go -tos. I've used so many Tony
• 1:16:25
  stories, I don't get to use them as often, but
• 1:16:27
  you guys get to. And one thing Tony said, told
• 1:16:30
  me was, you know, never be afraid to use these
• 1:16:32
  stories. Just give people credit. And so you'll
• 1:16:35
  see when I tell a story, I'll say like, Tony
• 1:16:38
  Campolo says this or Hannah Brown tells this
• 1:16:41
  time where she or Evan Duncan does this thing.
• 1:16:43
  Now what is frustrating is people will come to
• 1:16:45
  me and be like, now did that really happen to
• 1:16:47
  you? And I'm like, no, I never said that happened
• 1:16:50
  to me. I said, Evan Duncan said this story, and
• 1:16:54
  Tony had mentioned that he had similar things.
• 1:16:57
  Tony Campolo's most famous sermon is, it's Friday
• 1:17:01
  but Sunday's coming. But as you'll hear at the
• 1:17:04
  beginning of every presentation of this sermon,
• 1:17:06
  it is not his sermon. He was present, and this
• 1:17:09
  was a sermon of a pastor in front of him. who
• 1:17:12
  showed up all the other pastors with this great
• 1:17:15
  sermon and nothing preaches like it's Friday,
• 1:17:18
  but Sunday's coming. And so Tony says all that,
• 1:17:21
  but everyone forgets that it was another preacher's
• 1:17:24
  sermon. It becomes Tony's and that's kind of
• 1:17:27
  the risk. But yeah, if you give people credit,
• 1:17:29
  I think it's okay to do that. So one of the things
• 1:17:34
  that we are deeply curious about as preachers,
• 1:17:38
  and as people who are deeply committed to the
• 1:17:41
  Church and to preaching, why do you think that
• 1:17:45
  preaching matters today? Well, preaching does
• 1:17:48
  matter today. Again, this goes back to we are
• 1:17:53
  tasked with bringing the Word of God for the
• 1:17:55
  people of God for that day, that time, that hour.
• 1:18:01
  Each of our weeks has so much stuff, you know,
• 1:18:04
  and I guess that's just as Broad as I can be
• 1:18:07
  who knows what's in a week but in our context
• 1:18:10
  people set aside an hour two hours sometimes
• 1:18:14
  three hours to go and interact in community and
• 1:18:17
  encounter God in community. While in this community
• 1:18:23
  we need to lean into this idea that they can
• 1:18:26
  encounter God and that God is speaking and as
• 1:18:29
  pastors we get to invite people into that into
• 1:18:32
  that presence I think if there weren't pastors
• 1:18:34
  people would. would say, yeah, I think this is
• 1:18:36
  true. But now they have pastors who are joining
• 1:18:40
  them in this journey of saying, yes, God is speaking.
• 1:18:44
  God is not the God of the dead, but the God of
• 1:18:47
  the living. And guess what? We who live on this
• 1:18:49
  earth, God has things to say for each of us.
• 1:18:53
  Now let's discern it together and let's discern
• 1:18:55
  how we're going to move together. I think this
• 1:18:57
  is also part of the beauty of community. I've
• 1:19:00
  been really impacted in the past decade or so
• 1:19:04
  on the value of community. I didn't grow up in
• 1:19:07
  a particularly community -driven theology. I
• 1:19:12
  think in around 2010, I read a systematic theology
• 1:19:16
  book. This was before I went to seminary, though,
• 1:19:18
  by Stanley Grenz, who had just passed, I think,
• 1:19:21
  in 2005, a Baptist theologian. He wrote Theology
• 1:19:25
  for the Community of God, and in it, he posits
• 1:19:27
  that outside of community, God ceases to exist,
• 1:19:31
  because God always exists in the triune community,
• 1:19:34
  if you will. And that stuck with me. It seems
• 1:19:37
  like, yeah, we're made for community. We're made
• 1:19:41
  for each other. My twin brother works on reality
• 1:19:44
  TV shows, and one of the shows he did involved
• 1:19:46
  people going out into the wilderness for months
• 1:19:48
  at a time by themselves. And these are survival
• 1:19:54
  experts who've done this their whole life. and
• 1:19:56
  they're wholly convinced that they can go and
• 1:19:58
  live in the wilderness no problem for a year.
• 1:20:00
  And indeed, they have the skills to do so, but
• 1:20:03
  what I find and what I hear from my brother is
• 1:20:05
  indeed also true, is that in isolation, humans
• 1:20:08
  go crazy. We are not made to live alone. And
• 1:20:12
  I'm talking, I'm not talking like six months
• 1:20:13
  down the line. I'm saying like 10 days in, people
• 1:20:16
  start to go whack without other forms of communication.
• 1:20:20
  And we see that in like solitary confinement.
• 1:20:23
  And you know, there's a reason that it's considered
• 1:20:26
  uh, egregious punishment. We're made for community.
• 1:20:30
  And so, uh, preaching not only brings this word
• 1:20:32
  of God for the people of God for that day, but
• 1:20:34
  he brings it in a community, in a way to say,
• 1:20:37
  we are all in this together. Um, you are not
• 1:20:40
  alone. Rather, we are all discerning this, and
• 1:20:43
  we can co -discern together, too, by the way.
• 1:20:47
  Um... you know, us pastors do not, at least in
• 1:20:49
  my tradition, us pastors do not have the say,
• 1:20:52
  we don't have that special VIP access to God,
• 1:20:56
  and I think of us, you know, as just professional
• 1:20:58
  laity who are blessed to be able to do this,
• 1:21:01
  but it's not something that has been true of
• 1:21:06
  every Christian in every age, you know, and I
• 1:21:09
  imagine that many churches are struggling with
• 1:21:11
  having to have full -time pastors, and that's
• 1:21:14
  okay. God will always raise up those to serve
• 1:21:18
  God's people. And I believe that we'll always
• 1:21:20
  have these communities. But the community is
• 1:21:24
  the key point, not the pastor. God will work
• 1:21:27
  through the community, I think. Well, James,
• 1:21:29
  this has been fantastic. Thank you for giving
• 1:21:32
  of your time and being willing to work through
• 1:21:36
  a sermon together. we've been just blessed and
• 1:21:40
  impacted by your preaching and your time, and
• 1:21:43
  I just want to thank you again for your ministry,
• 1:21:46
  for the things that you're doing in inner city
• 1:21:48
  Philadelphia, and the great, great work of community
• 1:21:52
  that you're surrounded with and part of. So thank
• 1:21:56
  you, James. Thank you both. This was so much
• 1:21:59
  fun. I am blessed. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks
• 1:22:06
  for listening to Preacher Handshake. Please share
• 1:22:09
  and like and subscribe to this podcast. And if
• 1:22:13
  you have questions or maybe a preacher you think
• 1:22:15
  we need to talk to, send us an email at preacherhandshake
• 1:22:18
  at gmail .com.