[00:00:00] Welcome to Episode 343. Did you know that most Christians only have 10 or less spiritual conversations a year? Maybe it's a healthy sensitivity for others, or maybe we just don't teach them how to share Jesus through authentic relationships. Helping people share their faith. That's today, The Reclaimed Leader.
[00:00:41] Hey everyone, welcome to Episode 343 of The Reclaimed Leader. We're two pastors slogging it out in our churches.
[00:00:49] We're in the trenches working for revitalization and change. We're all about just trying to create as healthy of a church as we possibly can, and we hope that these conversations we have help you to do the same.
[00:01:01] I'm Jason Tucker, back again with Jesse Skiffington. How's it going, Jesse?
[00:01:05] Well, Jason, really enjoying this series of conversations we've been having. We're talking about discipleship and spiritual formation in the congregation, but then in our own lives as pastors and talking with J. Warner Wallace about how do we understand the story and some of the apologetics aspects of things.
[00:01:23] I think we were kind of landing last time thinking about what do apologetics look like in our times today? What does it mean to give a well-reasoned defense of your faith or the reasons for your belief?
[00:01:36] And I think the ground has shifted a lot in an information age and in a post-modern context. We're in territory where we've never been before. And as Jim Singleton remember when he was saying, we've never been this way before. Yeah, that was great.
[00:01:52] How do we share the gospel? How do we defend our faith or in maybe a different lane? How do we tell the story of our faith in a way that is compelling and can help people push past some of the barriers to belief to come toward Jesus?
[00:02:07] And I think apologetics at its core, its heart is evangelism. It's not just to have a well-reasoned defense of your faith. It is that you want to know why you believe what you believe.
[00:02:18] But at its core shouldn't it be to help people overcome the obstacles to their following Jesus too? So how do we do it now in these times?
[00:02:28] So we're going to be talking a little bit about it's kind of a hybrid apologetics evangelism conversation. It's going to kind of range all over the place.
[00:02:35] So apologize for the mess in advance, but we wanted to drill down a little bit more and build off of where we were going last week with Jay Warren Wallace.
[00:02:43] Yeah, and I think this is such an important topic because most of the folks in our churches, I mean to talk about defending the faith.
[00:02:53] I think the ones that do come off very much like, do you remember years back? It was like a late night infomercial and it had, I think it was like the way of the master or something like that.
[00:03:05] It was with the Kirk Cameron and this Australian dude. And he used to like surprise people with a microphone on the street and he'd be like, he get them to admit that they sometimes lie and cheat and everything else.
[00:03:17] And he'd spin it back in this great accident and be like, so what you're saying is you're a lying, cheating, scamming sinner. And he would sort of get them to admit that and then sort of bring them to a decision point of Jesus Christ.
[00:03:35] And I'm like, I feel like maybe that had its day. I don't know. Maybe it's working somewhere in the world. It ain't working in my world. Well, it probably worked in a Christendom world where people needed to be called back to faith.
[00:03:47] Right? Where maybe someone had grown up in the church, knew the story, knew that we are created for good and that we are damaged by sin and evil and we need to come back to the Lord and Jesus came and we've drifted from that.
[00:03:58] So being sort of this call back to this life with Jesus or something.
[00:04:04] And I think a lot of the revival movements and renewal movements were in that context where people were being called back to what they had already experienced or known to be true and to see that revival or that renewal of their faith.
[00:04:17] For some it was brand new, but today we're in a different landscape where if you come up and said to somebody's face, do you feel bad that you're a liar?
[00:04:25] And they'd be like, no, I'm a pretty good person. Yeah, everybody lies sometimes. Does that mean I should go to hell?
[00:04:31] And then the other part of it is there are people who are all around us, at least here in the Northwest where 10% of the population is in a place of worship on a weekend.
[00:04:40] Everybody else is just living life and they're not even concerned that they're missing out on anything or and they're not concerned about understanding why Christians believe what they do and why.
[00:04:50] So I think we're in a different time where our apologetics and our evangelism kind of dovetail in a different kind of way.
[00:04:58] So let's just talk a little bit about how can we set our people up for success to give them the tools they need to give an answer for why they believe as Peter calls us to. Can I give a well reasoned defense for my faith?
[00:05:15] I think in today's world, in the postmodern world where story and my truth is such a high value, we can actually empower our people to do that by telling their own story in the context of God's story
[00:05:30] and then thinking about where does that intersect with the story of the people that we're engaging with. So we're doing through story rather than my five points of why God exists and Jesus is the Son of God and why we can trust the Gospels.
[00:05:43] And that is an important thing. We should know some of those things, but maybe where we need to start is helping people know the story. Do we know the story and do we know how our story fits into God's story?
[00:05:55] I think that's spot on, Jesse. And I feel like it's right in the same lane as how J. Warner Wall has framed it last week when he said that it used to be an apologetics that people were asking, you know, is it true?
[00:06:06] And now they're asking, is it good? Yeah, is it good? That's more of a story-based approach. Is God judging me or is it a positive form? What's going on here that's going to be for my good, ultimately?
[00:06:19] And people are searching. We know that people are really spiritually open right now. We'll talk about that in a minute. But people are looking for a foundation to build their lives on.
[00:06:27] That's going to bring them life. That's going to be for their good and for the good of the world around them. We see parts of God's kingdom at work and people that don't even know Jesus who want to do good things in our world and show kindness.
[00:06:37] So how do we help them see that that's God's story and help them engage with it?
[00:06:42] So the first thing I think it's kind of a question, do we know God's story or do our people know God's story sufficiently to be able to understand their story in the context of God's story
[00:06:52] and then even think about the intersection of that person's story with God's story. So there's a really useful book and there's probably a handful of these out there, but I'll mention this one by James Chung. It's called True Story, A Christianity Worth Believing In.
[00:07:09] I was like, whoa, that's pretty intense. So I don't know if the title might be a little bit too far for some of us, but it really tells the story in a way that's kind of a picture format
[00:07:21] that really helps us to think about creation, fall, and redemption. How do we capture that for people who are wondering and trying to make sense of the experience of their lives?
[00:07:30] And as Jay Warner Wallace said that as you open and read the pages of scripture, you find resonance with the real experience of our real lives every day and you go, here's the true story. How then does it apply to my story and to our story?
[00:07:42] So what Chung does is he helps us think about kind of four phases of the story that if we can kind of get our heads and hearts around, we will be able to share that story with others and understand our story in it.
[00:07:55] And you just kind of watch it this way that we were designed for good, that we were designed to experience the goodness of relationship with God and each other, but that was disrupted by sin and evil. So we're designed for good.
[00:08:07] The second part of the story is we were damaged by evil. Something happened that broke that goodness, interrupted the goodness of our relationship with God and each other. And ever since then, humanity has been searching for a way to get that experience of God's goodness back
[00:08:20] and to heal and be at peace in our relationships with each other and to know all that. So we're designed for good, we're damaged by evil, and we're restored in Christ. We're restored for better. We're not just reset back to the garden. I like that.
[00:08:34] We're brought into this new life that is even greater and better in this new kingdom that Jesus came to bring and in this participation in the life of God through the Holy Spirit and what Christ has done for us. And so we're restored for better.
[00:08:49] And that's an amazing thing. You're invited to be a part of this restoration and your life can be restored to. And it doesn't end there. And I think a lot of our gospel presentations in the past kind of said creation fall redemption in the sense of
[00:09:03] we were good then sin and we can't overcome the gap on our own. You remember the picture of the Roman 623? That's right. All that, right? The wages of sin is death and we can't get there without Jesus. And that is true.
[00:09:14] But what I love about the last part of the story that Chung tells is that we are sent out together to heal. So we're designed for good, damaged by evil, restored for better.
[00:09:24] But now we get to go participate in God's healing restoration plan in the lives of those around us. There's a mission purpose. There's an ongoing participation in God's work.
[00:09:36] That's just one version of helping people know and tell the story and think about that story in their own lives. And are we doing a good job of helping people know the big story of the gospel, creation fall redemption restoration and participation in the mission of God?
[00:09:54] So I think that's step one. Do they know the story well enough to be able to share it in some way? And there are lots of resources and how you can help people get to that.
[00:10:03] But that would be my first one is if we're not going to give, you know, there's 5500 manuscripts of the New Testament and here's where they came from and how old they are. That's awesome apologetics. But if we can help people see that God is for them
[00:10:18] and that in Jesus, He has sent them to restore them to His goodness. That story is really the apologetic I think we need. Yeah, and I think people are craving to know their purpose and where they fit in the big story.
[00:10:33] And you know, the existential question of why am I here? You know, it answers that question. Yeah, people are so much convicted. Maybe the Holy Spirit will convict of sin, right?
[00:10:43] And call us to repentance that leads to life and turning in from evil and sin and its way in our world and towards Jesus. That's part of what happens in our conversion. But really, a lot of the people around us are friends and neighbors.
[00:10:57] They're not asking the question, am I going to go to hell because I'm so sinful? They're not even sure about heaven or hell or God or Jesus or any other. And so it's really a meaning question is the way in into these conversations.
[00:11:11] What is the meaning and purpose of my life? Why do I exist? Why am I here? These are fundamental questions that give an opening for the gospel. And so are we ready to tell the story?
[00:11:21] Do we have an ability to share it in a way that meets people where they are? So I would say true story, James John, that's kind of told from a college student perspective. So take that one as a useful one.
[00:11:34] I think the second thing is how can we do a better job equipping our people to have spiritual conversations? So yeah, know the story, share the story. But are people going to even do that? It's scary to talk about faith. And this goes back to the conversation.
[00:11:55] I think Jim Singleton was sharing this stat, but that 75% of Christians have less than 10 spiritual conversations in a year. That includes out in the community and in the church. So three quarters of Christians are having 10 or less spiritual conversations a year. Now here's the other year.
[00:12:15] A year, yeah, in a year. So I don't know, can you argue with that one maybe? But even out in the fellowship area or the narthex after church are people even engaging with how's your faith? How are you doing spiritually? Are those things taking place?
[00:12:29] Are we giving people in our congregations a vision for the importance of having spiritual conversations, not only with each other but with the people around us? And I think we looked at this, Jason, a couple years ago.
[00:12:42] When Barna came out with that report about spiritual hunger, there's a rise in spiritual hunger coming out of the pandemic. I think it was something like 77% of people across the generations said that they are more spiritually open now than they were before the pandemic.
[00:12:58] More open to talking about God than they were before the pandemic. Eager to grow spiritually, whether that's Christian faith or other things, there's a spiritual hunger and desire. So we have three quarters of Christians, not sure they want to have a spiritual conversation.
[00:13:12] And we have a little bit more than three quarters of the people around us who say that they're open to spiritual things in a way that maybe they weren't before.
[00:13:20] So I don't know if I really want to go here, but it's the thought that came into my head. So I'm going to walk cautiously. Careful.
[00:13:28] So in the campus protests that have happened recently, if you listen in real time, in the end of May 2024 and we saw the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the protests happening on college campuses that were pro-Palestinian. There was, I don't remember which campus it was.
[00:13:54] It might have been UCLA, but at one point dozens of the protesters supposedly converted to Islam on the lawn there and they were all sort of part of it and they all converted. I don't know exactly what that means.
[00:14:14] They sort of prayed a prayer or pledged an allegiance or whatever it was.
[00:14:18] And regardless of however I feel about that on a lot of different levels, what it said to me was in a vacuum of spiritual truth or in a vacuum of kind of not knowing what may or may not be true, there's an eagerness to find meaning. Spiritual meaning.
[00:14:44] Foundation to build my life on. Absolutely. And so I'm just like, man, how do we, first of all, what a wonderful thing that these students are open, but how do we make sure that we are bringing them the truth of the gospel? It really is.
[00:15:00] I think Barna grouped it another one. I haven't actually looked at this one yet. That is called the open generation of big study of younger people and just speaks to their openness to spiritual things and their hunger and desire to be a part of something bigger than themselves.
[00:15:15] And I think that's a really awesome thing in this younger generation, that they're coming up and going, it's not all about me. It can't be. That's not enough. I'm not enough. I'm not big enough or whatever.
[00:15:25] And our individuals or hyper individualism of the last 50, 60 or 80 years or whatever, I think has really been disruptive to people coming into contact with this idea, I need someone something bigger. And so the spiritual hunger makes sense.
[00:15:42] And I think we've lived with a version of St. Francis of a CC evangelism for a long time, haven't we? Yeah. You know how that one goes, right? Yep. Preach the gospel. These words only when necessary.
[00:15:55] Preach the gospel at all times and use words only when necessary or something else. But like we need some words. I get it. I understand the sentiment. I think it's valuable. Your actions better back up what you believe.
[00:16:06] One of our best apologetics is a life that is in alignment with what we claim to believe about Jesus or at least in the direction and admitting when we fall short and owning up.
[00:16:16] But I think sometimes we leave off the words part because we're like, well, I'm just going to show God's love through my actions. And you should. That's a great way to demonstrate God's love. But we can inadvertently leave off a really important part.
[00:16:31] How are they going to hear unless someone shares that news? And I think that's where helping our people learn how to have spiritual conversations is vitally important.
[00:16:42] So not only do we know why we believe what we believe or what the story is, but are we equipping our people to even engage in a spiritual conversation?
[00:16:51] And again, it can happen through our story, but it's really, I think happens best when we teach our people to be curious about other people's lives and ask good questions. You don't have to hammer them with the gospel like the 1990s version of that Australian guy, right?
[00:17:08] You can say you can ask some questions about their life and the meaning of their life and what they believe. So what do you believe about all this and where do you think we come from? I'm curious to hear your point of view on all that.
[00:17:19] You know, as someone who really wants to wrestle with these kinds of things too, I'm really, I try to be open to people's opinions and perspectives on spiritual things. I'm curious how you feel about that.
[00:17:30] And what are some of the ways in to those conversations that we haven't shown our people how to do?
[00:17:36] Well, here's the thing. Our people have to be confident that the gospel can stand up to whatever scrutiny or whatever doubt or debate that the gospel is going to hold.
[00:17:51] Yeah, because I think they're afraid that they may not know how to defend the gospel or the gospel won't hold up to the arguments of other religions. But to give them the confidence that it will is a big part of it.
[00:18:06] Here's the thing. And if it doesn't, don't you want to find out? Yeah. We should want to believe what is true and best and good. And so this is my daddy's style. We say this put Jesus into the marketplace of ideas.
[00:18:17] If he is the way, the truth in life, he's going to be the one standing at the end of the day. So wrestle and then come to a firm place of confidence in what you believe and why.
[00:18:26] And I think the other thing that we can help with people as they're thinking about, okay, this is starting to sound a little bit for like super Christians, but not for me.
[00:18:35] You know, this is like the cool people like Jason and pastors like you, Jesse, you guys do this kind of stuff, but us, I don't know. But is reminding them that everybody has taken a faith position about what they believe, whether they know that or not. Yeah.
[00:18:52] Everybody has said, if I don't believe in God or Jesus or whatever, I believe this instead. That is a faith proposition that they're building their life on.
[00:19:01] And I think part of a spiritual conversation is being curious about what it is they are building their life and identity on. Are they agnostic and indifferent to the whole thing? Or have they even thought about what their positive reasons for what they believe might be?
[00:19:16] Where are the gaps in their thinking? And so helping our people be curious about what is the construction of other people's belief systems? How did they get to where they got? And asking the same kinds of questions to them that maybe people would then ask of us.
[00:19:31] What are the reasons for your belief? Equipping our people to have spiritual conversations or encouraging them to do that, I think is important. It's not just reserved for us pastor types. This is part of that fourth phase of being sent together to heal.
[00:19:46] And what you had said about just having natural and just being inquisitive, I feel like if we could just train our folks to not be afraid to ask what people believe. And then the follow up question that usually leads to an interesting place is to say,
[00:20:01] is that the person says what they believe and then say, well, how's that working for you? Yeah, exactly. How's it working? You know, tell me about it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, being curious about it, asking how it's working for you and be like, yeah, that's pretty.
[00:20:14] Here's kind of how I think and believe. And yeah, it sounds like there's some things that we kind of agree on other parts where we don't. But it's like, I think you can really empower people to do this in a natural way.
[00:20:25] And one of the parts, I think that this is the third point we'll wrap up with this. So first, are we helping our people know the story? Creation, fall, redemption, you know, designed for good damage by evil restored for better sent out to healer.
[00:20:38] How do we help them know the broad picture and then how their story and our story fits into that? Are we equipping our people for spiritual conversations? That's part two.
[00:20:49] And the third one is, I think this is where Don Everett's book, I Once Was Lost really helps us. Because the work of coming to faith in Jesus is something God is doing in people's hearts.
[00:21:00] And our job is just to get to meet people where they are in that journey. Trusting again that the gospel will hold and that we just, we don't have to kind of live under the pressure of proving it or having an agenda to do something to that person.
[00:21:16] We should trust that God is already at work in their heart, preparing their heart. And I love his stuff. I know you guys, did you guys do a sermon series on it? I Once Was Lost, I can't remember.
[00:21:25] No, I incorporated it into a sermon series that I did. Yeah, again, it's another book worth reading. Don Everett's I Once Was Lost and the subtitle is What Postmodern Skeptics Taught Us About Their Path to Jesus.
[00:21:37] So people in the younger generations in the postmodern era that made that journey to faith in Jesus and following him as disciples and living with him as Lord of their life. How did they get there? And he talks about some thresholds that they kind of crossed
[00:21:52] or that God kind of helped them cross on their journey to faith. And I love it at the beginning just says the first and best thing we can do as Christians is just be a trustworthy friend in their life with no agenda to do anything to them.
[00:22:06] Yeah, just be a reliable, credible friend. And then when they find out that you're a Christian, they'll go, Oh, you seem pretty reasonable. I'm shocked that a Christian could be like you and so kind and so thoughtful and non-judgemental.
[00:22:22] And I think sometimes when we think of the apologetics and evangelism, we kind of think of an overt agenda to convert or to convince. And I think Don Everett's book just kind of takes the pressure off of us
[00:22:34] and saying our job is to discern where people are in their journey with Jesus and meet them there. And so someone is not curious about Jesus at all, not seeking to start with, you know, Jesus loves you, cares about you, has a wonderful plan for your life.
[00:22:47] And if you died today, would you go to heaven or hell? That's probably not the right conversation to begin with, but it's the knock on the door and say, Hey, just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood. Here's a plate of cookies.
[00:22:57] We can ever do anything to help you guys or, you know, check on your house while you're away. We're just across the street. Nice to meet you. Be a credible presence in people's lives. Demonstrate God's love through your actions.
[00:23:09] And then when the right time comes along, you can use words. But I would encourage that as another resource as a way that I think knowing the story, knowing why we believe what we believe actually gives us an ability to be comfortable
[00:23:22] in our own skin to not have some weird defensive agenda with people to some prop up the insecurity of our faith, but to really meet people where they are with God's love.
[00:23:33] So those are a couple of resources and just a couple of thoughts for us to think about. Coming out of J. Warner Wallace's conversation, there are good reasons to believe what we believe.
[00:23:43] And there's a good way to meet people where they are with what we believe and why. I love it. And you know, another resource was that book Glad You're Here. Yep. Where with Walker Heads. Yeah, that's so good. It is faster, right? That's just another great example.
[00:23:57] I'll link in the show notes to those episodes. Yeah, yeah. Do that. Glad You're Here is a good one. And then also Alpha Course if you've never, I'm sure all of our listeners know about Alpha.
[00:24:06] But great way to train people into the kinds of questions others are asking, but also for those that are seeking to learn about what Christ is believing why. And a question based really agenda free, but hopeful that they'll find Jesus through it kind of way.
[00:24:21] Well, hey, thanks everyone for listening. I hope this is helpful to you. I think it's been a really interesting dive that we've done over the last couple of weeks. And again, if you go to reclaimleader.com forward slash show notes,
[00:24:33] you'll go and you'll find all the links that we're talking about and can download and follow up as you want to next week. I mean, this is kind of a shorty episode this week, but next week we go longer because we're talking about preaching.
[00:24:45] That's what preachers do preachers talking about preaching. It's going to be a long episode. Jason. Yeah. So, but we hope to join us. It's actually, I think a really important topic as far as engaging people coming in on Sunday mornings.
[00:24:59] And it's rethinking preaching for a visually engaged culture. So we'll be talking about that with some practical ideas next week. We'll hope you join us. If you're new with us, welcome. We're so glad you came and you found us.
[00:25:12] And just let us know if we can be of help. Jason or Jesse at reclaimleader.com. Anything else before we sign off for today? No, that's it. I talked enough in this episode. So, so thanks for. All right, everyone. Hey, as we always say, ministry is hard.
[00:25:25] It's so much better when we do it together.