Why Relational Wisdom Is Essential to Engaging the World with the Gospel

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Jim Davis
Well, welcome to As. In Heaven season three. My name is Jim Davis. I’m your host and pastor of Orlando Grace Church and I’m joined today but my co host and dear friend Michael Graham, Program Director for the Keller Center for Cultural apologetics, and the executive producer of our podcast and today we have the privilege of being joined by Sam Chan from way down under Sam received his PhD from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and is the lead mentor and trainer at the EV Q school of evangelism like IQ or EQ, we have EV Q, a ministry of city Bible forum. He’s based in Australia. He is the author of several books, including evangelism and a skeptical world and how to talk about Jesus without being that guy. And in these books, Sam breaks down very helpfully how to share Jesus in both vocational and ministry in everyday settings. Sam speaks at conferences around the world on storytelling apologetics and the practice of evangelism in a post Christian culture. Sam also blogs at espresso theology.com. So man, I just really appreciate you joining us today, especially given the time difference. It’s it’s about 215 here on the East Coast of the United States. What time is it there?

Sam Chan
Well, it’s 5am in Sydney, Australia, but more importantly, in the future, we’re coming to you one day in the future that just spins by head.

Jim Davis
That is crazy.

Sam Chan
Like time travel space fiction. All in one. I tell you what the stock market is going to do,

Jim Davis
man, well, that that would be an interesting investment strategy. Yeah, totally. Well, thank you for being here and waking up so early.

Sam Chan
No worries. It’s a pleasure. It’s an honor to be here.

Jim Davis
Thanks, man. Well, as many of the listeners know, by this point, this season of the podcast, we’ve been talking about living in a new context in the US that we call the great deed churching as 40 million people who used to regularly attend church don’t anymore, which is changing so much, not only about churches, but about the very fabric of our society. We learned in our study that 75% of the people who left didn’t leave necessarily with some extremely painful circumstance, but rather many just kind of trailed off. They, they didn’t intend to the church, but they did for far more casual reasons, which would include they moved, hit the ground running didn’t, just didn’t plug in and got busy doing other things. attendance was inconvenient, they had other priorities for the time and the money, maybe kids sports, of course, COVID contributed to all of that. But many people, they left for highly relational reasons they left we’ve talked about the sociological categories of belief belong and behave, and a lot of the departures and incidentally, reasons they would return really land in this belong category. So in our study, we saw people who left church because they didn’t fit within the congregation, they didn’t experience much love from the congregation. They disagreed with the politics of the congregation, which made them feel like they didn’t belong. They disagreed the politics of the of the clergy, they had their friends were no longer attending worship services, then of course, you have instances of racism and misogyny that would make them feel like they did not belong, things that they read or observed online and social media, negative experiences they had personally in that church. And what we found in our study, and what has really been reinforced through our own anecdotal pastoral experience, is that many people just simply need us really to relate with them with greater wisdom, understanding them understanding how we’re perceived, understanding their needs and their desires. In our book, The Great D churching. With the help of our friend and fellow pastor, Jonathan Purdum, we boil this relational wisdom down to six key awarenesses God awareness, self awareness, others awareness, awareness of how others experience you, emotional awareness, and then cultural awareness. So we’re going to use these six key awarenesses kind of to guide our conversation here today. Alright, so Sam, the opening paragraph of John Calvin’s Institute of Christian religion begins with this profound insight. He says nearly all the wisdom that we possess that is to say true and sound wisdom consists of two parts, the knowledge of God and of ourselves. So Sam, I was wondering if you could speak to what this famous opening has meant to you personally and how it is critical and how we think about our relational engagement, especially if the church persons

Sam Chan
Sure, yeah, I love that knowledge of God and knowledge of self. It are the two foundations of just being aware of God, ourselves and the world around us. Well, let’s break it down to in terms of knowledge of God. When I was a teenager and a college student in Sydney, Australia, I grew up using an evangelism track called Two ways to live. And it’s very popular in Australia, and they have promoted in the UK, the USA. And as an evangelism track, it’s great. But like all evangelism tracks, it ends up being very one dimensional. So the God in two ways to live is he’s king. He’s judge he’s ruler. And therefore the Christian life in two ways delivers one way we submit to the king, the judge the ruler, but there was no language in two ways live of God as Father, or Jesus says, brother, or Jesus as a friend, or God, and Jesus as a shepherd, and no language of the Spirit. So as a Christian, you end up knowing what it’s like to live under God’s rule as king, judge and ruler, but you didn’t know how to live under God’s love, or his peace. Or as we discovered more more in the Bible, the face language by God makes His face shine upon you, and you feel God’s pleasure. So that was the knowledge of God that I grew up with. And also knowledge of itself. I probably still am, but I am eternity magazine in Australia just wrote up the story of mine, so maybe I can send you a link later. But I was a classic firstborn Asian kid in a high achieving Asian family. And so I too, was insecure. I was anxious. I was a perfectionist, I had to be a high achiever. I had to be a doctor. So I got into medicine, and I had to go to the top university in Sydney, I became a marathon runner. And I burnt out, I burnt out twice, once as a medical doctor. And I burnt out a second time as a seminary professor. So I realize, hey, there’s something wrong with me the context changes, but I’m the problem. So I saw a counselor, that’s when I found out I was an angry person. And in the counseling Well, there’s a great saying that says, an angry person is actually a sad person, and are sad because I was insecure. I was proud I needed achievements to be someone but bae, Bae, Bae, Bae, God’s grace and mercy. I’m learning to be humble in really knowing who I am, and secure, secure because I can trust in Jesus achievements, not my own achievements. And so then the payload would be if I was to meet a D church person. First of all, what is their knowledge of God? What God are they d churching. From? Like, are they d churching. From a very one dimensional God, the God they grew up with, rather than a multi dimensional God of the Bible with a God who has a face that shines upon them, that God who wishes us shalom, love and peace. It’s fascinating, because we grew up with this metaphor, where we said, God is like that judge, you know, when when you have a speeding fine, and you rock up before this judge, and oh, wait, suddenly, the God is your Father, and he pulls out his wallet, and he pays for you. And we often use that metaphor. But now I push back and say that metaphor only works, because the judge is your father, like there had to be a relationship. This was no random judge you walk before. And so we’ve neglected that relational Shalom aspect of God. And I remember Graham Cole is in his book, God, the peacemaker. It says, you know, Shalom is the ultimate umbrella term in terms of salvation blessings. I think John Stott, in his book cross of Christ says something like union with God is foundational, justification is central. But the ultimate blessing of salvation is adoption, again, relational. So maybe they’re detaching from a very one dimensional God that God they grew up with in Sunday school, maybe that’s the first thing I could say. And also now as the less less high achieving less perfectionist, less anxious person, when someone D churches, I don’t feel threatened, I can be the calm, non anxious presence that they’re looking for. And rather than taking it personally, they d judging from the church I attend. I can just hear them properly without threatening being threatened or being judged and try to give them a proper hearing. Tell me more. Tell me more. So what is it that you’re you’re detaching from?

Mike Graham
I love that in our book, we talk about a posture of quiet, calm curiosity. And I think that that is I think that’s exactly just kind of what you’re talking about here. I also think about what Paul writes In Colossians, when he says, Walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of the time, let your speech always be gracious Season with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. What would you want to say about like that particular passage of scripture? And how it might encourage us to grow in, particularly in that awareness of others?

Sam Chan
I love how wisdom is the key word that pops up in that coffins passage. So again, for us, not just what’s true, not just what’s right, not just what’s good, but what’s the wise thing to say? So how can I be wisely aware of what this other person is going through. And again, it’s the church or the gospel tract we grew up with, if we grew up with two ways to live like we did in Sydney, Australia, or maybe we grew up with the bridge life or for spiritual laws, I get nothing wrong with them. But by just by being evangelism tracks, I end up being very one dimensional. And in these tracks, they show us as an individual, even as we are the individual. And there are no other people around us. There are no others in the in the picture. So we don’t know how to relate to other people on the same journey as us. And that’s where wisdom comes in. And I love how that Colossians passage says, how you ought to answer not what you ought to say, but how we ought to say it. So there’s a posture when we come wisely, again, calm, non anxious, with a what my counselor say, a genuine curiosity in the other person. And so I guess I like to follow the wisdom of Jesus. Jesus always answered with a question. I went to an evangelism conference a few years ago, amplify at Wheaton online, because a COVID. And almost every speaker was saying that in New Testament studies, they’re finding that Jesus was asked about 200 questions. He himself asked 300 questions, but he only directly answered the question eight times. So he usually answered the question with a question when they said, should we pay taxes? He said, I don’t know. Just show me a coin, whose head is in his coin? By what authority? Do you do these things? Jesus? I don’t know. But what authority does John the Baptist do his things? So I’ve learned to always calmly answer the question. Just suddenly, the other week when I was doing my part time work, as a doctor, as an assistant to a surgeon in the middle of the operation, the surgeon just making small talk says, So Sam, because it’s when we had the big Pride march in Sydney, Australia, said, So are you going into the Pride March this weekend? And my heart’s racing? And what do I say, you know, they’re nurses listening in isn’t a nice theologist. Listening, what to say? But then I thought, Well, how would Jesus answer this, Jesus would answer the question. So then I said to the surgeon, why, why do you ask, Are you thinking of going in the bride match, and then he was able to talk? And then I was able to have a genuine curiosity in why he asked another time, a young nurse asked me, so What books should I read and this nurse was from China. So I had the opportunity to be I could I could have made explained to her and said, Okay, these are the top 10 books of the canon of Western literature that you need to read. Instead, I thought, you know, what our answer with a question I asked, Why do you ask? And that’s when she said, all listen, I feel so young. I feel like I don’t know enough. I don’t fit in. So I was able to say, Well, would you like to talk to someone because I work for city Bible forum? We have. There’s a woman who actually lives near where you are. She’s a she’s a lawyer. You could talk with her, you get to have a walk with her. Would you like that? And she said, Yes. So it’s almost finding out the question behind the question. I remember when I too, was going through a crisis. Many years ago, I had to decide whether saying full time medicine as a full time doctor, or make a switch into full time Christian ministry, and I didn’t know what to do, which way to go. And so I lined up five wise, mature Christian leaders that I looked up to, and I and I had a meeting with each one of them individually, but and all the meetings, they monologue, they monologue for about an hour back at me, and I walked away profoundly disappointed. I thought, why am I disappointed? I asked for the advice. They gave me 60 minutes of advice. But then I realized that what they had never asked me anything about me. They actually didn’t know anything about me and mine situation. And really what I wanted to do was talk out loud. So all they do is ask me a question. And so I met another friend who was a trained counselor. And I said to him, You know what, I could stay in medicine, and I could go to all these conferences all around the world. And he simply responded with the question. You could, couldn’t you? And just without one question, I knew I, I didn’t want to, because another time a few years ago, I thought, You know what I should retry and retry As a surgeon, I’ve always wanted to be a surgeon, I’ve got a chance now to be a surgeon. I’ve got the network’s I passed all the exams. So I said to my neighbor, who’s not even a Christian, but he’s a trained counselor. I said, Hey, I think I want to be a surgeon. And he just answered with a question, and why? Why would you want to be a surgeon? And with that question, I knew I actually did not want to be a surgeon. So sometimes the best thing is to answer the question. And the other thing then is, I’ve deliberately tried to do people often make polite talk with us a simple question like, What are your plans for the weekend? Or what are your plans for the rest of the day? And then we simply go on our self absorbed hands up. And we tell them our plans for the weekend, the plans for the day? And that’s it. But I’ve learned No, no, no, no, no. And I always flip it back and say, What are your plans for the weekend? And why is that important for you?

Jim Davis
You know, it really makes me think of, you know, my dad used to coach me growing up and he’d say, make sure you ask more questions than then other people are. And my kids, I do that a lot with them now, to the point where they even realize, like, I will, I don’t know a better way to judge somebody. In my first interaction based on in a conversation if they ask no questions, I make assumptions about their awareness and their interest in the curiosity to the point where my kids will be in a conversation with somebody and they’ll say who I know. Now, and I guess it’s not my secret with them anymore. But but really, there’s something that relates to the 20th century here in our apologetic and evangelistic method. It was about what is true. And there is truth. I mean, I’m not denying truth, I’m not questioning truth. But but sometimes it’s just get the right information in them, we wash our hands of it, and then it’s up to God. And we miss so much of who the person is, we missed what’s good, what’s beautiful about the gospel and the people we’re sharing with, we’re engaging with. So I really appreciate the way that you said that. So going back to feeling insecure, I’m, you’re a doctor, a medical doctor, a, you’ve got your PhD, you’ve taught in a seminary, one of the things that a lot of people might not know about me is that it took me about a decade to finish my MDF. I went to RTS here in Orlando. And when I when I started, my M div, I was on staff with crew, I had one kid, I’d take a class here and there when I finished I was pastoring, a church, I had four kids, I was a full time student by the end. But having had such, let’s say longevity in the classroom, one of the things that I’ve seen that I’ve seen is the tendency not only for Christians in the pews, but also people who are about to be pastors and in some type of full time ministry, to have a deficiency in their awareness of how others experience them. Now, let me differentiate others awareness is when we are aware of other people and their stories and experiences. awareness of how other people are experiencing you is different. It’s your ability to accurately read, understand and comprehend how you are coming across to other people. That’s a very different kind of awareness. So I have this one super cringy story and preaching lab years ago, I there was a small group of us. And I remember that, well, there was a guy, oh, good people. But a guy stood up to give a sermon, and it was about 55 minutes. And he read the whole thing. There were no illustrations, and, and there was a Canadian dude in the class. And at the end, he raised his hand. And the first comment was, that was the most boring thing I’ve ever heard. And I’m just feeling the cringe. And then the person who had preached it so well, in my context, you know, to small church, we’re kind of used to it, and then the Canadians hand went up again. And he said, I think I can tell you why your church is small. And I was like, Oh, this is painful. This whole thing is painful. And here I am thinking Canadians are nice. But I got to see, you know, the lack of awareness. And these are our future leaders that were that we’re sending out so we can we can have these Michael Scott moments. Where does Michael Scott moment connect in Australia? You’re following me?

Sam Chan
Totally. Even my youngest boy has just binged on the office series with Michael Scott. And it says that painful lack of awareness. Yes. Again, it’s IQ. We have IQ. But do we have EQ?

Jim Davis
Yes, well, that’s my effort, others awareness, making sure that the metaphor is connecting, but we have these Michael Scott moments where we just aren’t reading the room as to how people are experiencing us. So Sam, I would love to hear any similar stories you have to that end, and And on a more serious note, kind of unpack how deficiencies here can really undermine our efforts to love and serve other people.

Sam Chan
Office Sure, we all we all have experienced those moments for me. I I remember one I play the guitar in the worship band on my family service, you know, when it’s just all kids in front of you, and we play very exciting children’s songs, and I just got so excited. Apparently, I was just getting faster and faster and faster on my guitar. And a pianist afterwards said to me, Sam, you gained a whole bar by the song. And I guess I had no, in my mind, I thought it was the best decision ever. I was rocking the room, but everyone else is reading me as to this guy’s just getting faster and faster. But we say this all the time when I go to karaoke, like most of the times, the person up the front seat is very attitude. And I’m thinking, do they know the attitude? And they probably don’t in their mind they thinking they’re singing, like Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber, but No, you? I do a lot of skiing. And I say this all the time you see someone upfront, helping their friend or family ski, and they would say, watch what I do. And they demonstrate, but I can see that No, dude, you’re all wrong. You’re skiing or wrong. But obviously, in this person’s mind, if they think they’re skiing, like a ski instructor, and what can the other person just copy them? Well, they are. And that’s why they look as bad as I do. They are copy you, sir. Just the absolute lack of self perception that there is in almost every sector of life shows were just unaware of how other other people experience us. And amazing your story again, with a guy going for 50 minutes, what is about 15 minutes, I want to speak at a youth conference where the other preacher was given 20 minutes this is a youth conference is a worship band waiting for you. There’s all of these, there’s a tight schedule, this guy went for 50 minutes. And again, when I said to him out as dude, you know, you went for 50 minutes, he goes now I said, No, it’s on video. That’s the time you went for 50. There’s an objective marker there. So I think subjectively we’ve just experienced ourselves differently from how other people objectively experienced us. So maybe we have to get out of our own skin first before we can even get into the skin of the other person. And so maybe what we do need are these Canadian people who do stick up their hands and say, Do you like this? Because I was taught Sunday school many years ago, and for two years in a row, I reckon I was a great Sunday school, I was at rock star cool Sunday school teacher. But the third day, I did a different class different dynamics. I could not control the class. So for a whole year, it was miserable. It wasn’t fun. My sister wants to ask, What do you think the problem could be? You, it’s how they’re perceiving you. And up until then I thought the problem had been them the students, but actually, it was the way they were perceiving me. So I think we all need that neutral third party person. And maybe the best thing is just like you should record yourself singing, you should video yourself preaching, we do need to maybe video ourselves every now then and get a neutral third party to give us feedback.

Jim Davis
That’s really good. I mean, we’ve been in scenarios I, you know, I’ve pastored a couple churches, but so I want to be more general. But I’ve we’ve seen scenarios where I’ll give one more specific. As we got to know, certain African American men in our church and our context, they they were communicating consistently, that they did not feel safe and understood by the leaders of the church. And this, this caught the leaders off guard. And so it was just this moment of in kind of a sweet way that the leaders wanted to understand more. And there was this moment of realization that, that we’re disconnected at this moment. And so it really was a sweet story of growing and how we’re perceived and why people didn’t feel safe. I was just really thankful for that little moment with them. So many of these awarenesses they overlap. And in the next one, it overlaps with many of the other ones, but it’s emotional awareness. We spend a lot of time in my household talking about this. My My wife just finished her Master’s in Counseling also at RTS. And one of the things that we have talked about on our staff team, our elders session at church these past three years is how pretty much every one of us in some way, if we’re honest, to some degree, has been emotionally compromised during this COVID season and all of the turmoil that it has brought with it. And so if we’re if we aren’t aware of either our own emotional self regulation or aware of the emotional state of others, it can severely hinder our ability to minister especially when we’re dealing with people who might have actually really been hurt by the church. by Christians or by both, so something people might not know about you. Well, they say not that you’ve told us now, but they might not have before you said this is that you are a medical doctor who still actively practices medicine every week. So can you share with us both from your, your perspectives as a medical doctor and a ministry leader, how emotional awareness is critical in this conversation that we’re having?

Sam Chan
Sure. So, when I was a junior full time, Doctor, I definitely had zero emotional awareness. And you know, as doctors, we might have high IQ. We know information. We know facts, we know data, but we have very low EQ. And I think as Christian pastors, we do the same. We’d been a seminary we know information. We know facts, we know data. We know exegesis, we know what the verse means. We’ve been to church history, but we might not have emotional awareness in the same way I did not as a doctor, I’ll give you doctor examples. I remember when I was a junior doctor, again, full time working in surgery, I was young, I was single, no family. And this would happen all the time, a young man in his 40s married with kids would have a brain bleed or brain tumor, their life would never be the same again. And you know, just simply tell a family, you know, he’s had a brain tumor, he will never be the same again and you would just walk out you just wouldn’t realize the emotional carnage you’ve just left in that room and you wouldn’t even see it is your job to be aware. I remember another time a young driver 18 had an accident. So we simply said Are your legs permanently damaged, we have to cut it off. We just put him to sleep and amputate his leg. And that was it. Like we just never saw him again. Again, no emotional awareness. You might have done the right thing you might have done the only thing but no emotional awareness. And as ministers we do the same. We preach on divorce and remarriage. We preach on the embryo, abortion, contraception fertility. We preach on sex and gender we preach on the environment. We preach on government, but do we have emotional awareness. I remember one time I preached on sex and marriage to the morning congregation and they’re all families married with kids. And I preached the same sermon at night to college students completely different response you didn’t because they’re coming from context of power, imbalance, abuse, violence, and the same sermon was received in a completely different way. Again, because of my lack of emotional awareness. And I think for that we need an emotional awareness of ourselves, we get to know the others we have to know the same of ourselves. And again, the the classic counseling saying an angry person is actually a sad person on the inside. But that’s because we ourselves don’t know, we only know two emotions happy and sad. And maybe anger is a third one, but none of the shades of grey in between. So I remember reading a book by by an Australian called Steven bid off. He’s a child psychologist. So he said the job of a parent is actually to not just spend time with your children, but to teach them emotional literacy can have a way and can I list all the different emotions that we have this sorry, you know, they’re surprised they’re thankful. They’re sad, as well as happy. And so one of the things I’ve done as a father is I’ve introduced a concept of dice prayer to my family whenever we check in with each other. And to give a bigger context as most of us will have grew up praying we learned the acronym AC t S x, A is acclamation, you know, praise. See is confession. T is Thanksgiving. S is supplication, where we ask for something in my PhD sort of as I visor grain coal, he said can you see how they left out? l lament, which is a major category of the Psalms, and even anger like all those imprecatory Psalms. So we’ve grown up with one dimensional prayers again, we’ve lacked all the food and mentions of a motion that they’re in the Bible. So I’ve told my boys now we roll the dice and depending on the number that’s the motion and you get to pray if you roll a one you get to pray a happy praise prayer to God. You roll a to your roll and ask pray. Three is a sorry, prayer four is a thank you pray. Five is an angry pet prayer and six is that sad prayer. And the joke was for a while my boys would roll the dice and then one was Diego, we’re happy mom and dad are gonna buy us a Sony PlayStation two. We asked you that mom and dad buy us a Sony PlayStation three. We’re sorry they still haven’t bought us. For we thank you that they will five we’re adding Don’t worry, they still haven’t. And six West sad, we still don’t have a Sony PlayStation. But I remember telling you this is someone I said, that is a brilliant prayer because again, you don’t want to typecast. But typically the pattern has emerged because the way we’ve been socialized maybe that, again, women don’t know how to be angry. So if you give them the permission to pray an angry prayer, that’s, that’s them being emotionally illiterate before God, and men don’t know how to be sorry. So that gives us permission to say, uh, sorry, pray not just to God, but in front of our family, as well. So having the full emotional literacy. And that’s why an angry person is a sad person, because I don’t know the shades of grey in between. And maybe what we need are just more more of the Psalms because I’m doing the Bible in week, one year program right now and exposes me the full range of passages in the Bible that we just don’t know what to do with, so that you get the raw wild passages in the Bible that you can’t attain. And also you get those raw, wild psalms that you can’t tame.

Jim Davis
You know, it’s interesting, you’re saying this now, over the past year, we’ve introduced more songs of lament into our service. And, and it’s really taking quite a bit of of teaching and shepherding because we’ve seen some resistance, that from people not wanting to feel sad, they don’t want to, they don’t want to sing a sad song. And so just teaching like, why this is good that we’re in touch with a lament, you know, we can’t. Christianity is not just happy, clappy. I mean, we need to feel these emotions and be honest about these emotions. And certainly, the Bible is honest about those emotions. You know, you’re talking about emotional awareness. I actually don’t know who this pastor is. He was a friend of a friend, but a buddy of mine, told me about this older pastor who was administering communion. And there was a younger woman, and she was crying, and she, she declined communion. And I felt like in a moment of great emotional awareness, he leaned into her and he said, Sweetie, it’s for Senators take it. And he just he was very attuned to her emotions. I presume he knew her well enough to know what was going on. But it was just a sweet, emotionally aware gospel moment. I just appreciate that.

Sam Chan
I’ll just share one thing, and maybe this is why you can edit out. But I remember as a kid in Sunday school, someone, a guest speaker got up the front, and said, When you pray, you clasp your hands and say you have five fingers and a five fingers remind you who you can pray for. So the thumb is number one, so pray to God, praise God. Thank him. That a pointy finger. So that’s your teachers. So I pray for you, teachers at school, pray for your pastors or Sunday school teachers at church, the third finger, the middle finger, while that’s the strong fingers, I pray for authority kings, presidents, prime ministers, the fourth finger, the ring finger, well, that’s the weak one. Whether you play piano, that’s when when those strengths, so pray for weak people, the weak, the poor, the marginalized, the disadvantage, and five the little finger. Well, that’s you pray for yourself last, and that was helpful. But now that I’m doing Bible in one year, I think we’ve missed a category he just the other day I was in Psalm 35. Boy, Psalm 35 is an angry Psalm like, God, I’m surrounded by enemies, who are they? How dare they, God, punish them, you know, give them back what they’re giving to me. So it’s a purely angry, Sam. So now I’m teaching thumb that’s, that’s God. pointing finger that’s teachers and your pastors at church. The third middle finger, well, that’s a middle finger prayer to God, that’s the angry prayer, God, you know, give back to these people, these enemies that surround me, which is like 1/3 of the sounds by a day that and four Well, that’s you’re weak, you’re poor, you marginalize the disadvantage your fourth finger and your fifth final finger where you pray for yourself. So I’m teaching my boys now that the middle finger prayers.

Mike Graham
We need the emotional vocabulary, though, in all seriousness, though, you know, because I think when we are, you know, we’re whole creatures were made in God’s image, you know, it’s clear that, you know, we serve a God who has a large emotional vocabulary. And all of those things intersect in him in ways that are both reflected in us and knowable and incomprehensible. And I say all that with you know, all the doctrinal things of the impassibility and you know, whatnot, but we do serve a you know, a God who, you know, who does have a significant emotional vocabulary and who knows what it’s also like to be incarnated and live live among us and learn and experience all the complexities of you know, living in a fallen broken world and all the things that are down about that, and that are hard about that in not yet, you know, you know, having a redemptive arc, and then the things that are also beautiful and exciting and the already, and so I think that already not yet reality creates tension. And we have to live honestly, in light of the tension that we have. And so I think emotional awareness is, is is about, you know, you can’t have that quiet, calm curiosity. If you don’t grow in your ability to sit intention, we have an elder here at our church who’s amazing, known him for a long time. And one of the things he always reminds us on our elder board is a sign of emotional and spiritual maturity, is the ability to handle dissonance. In other words, the ability to sit in tension is a sign of relational and spiritual maturity. And I think there’s just a lot, you know, a lot to that, and we need these things, if we’re going to live in increasingly challenging times. And in complex times, whether that’s, you know, culturally, you know, on the macro scale, you know, or, you know, headlines and these kinds of things, or all the way down to just individual interpersonal relationships, and the challenges and wins and losses that come from those things. So, last but not least, though, among the six awarenesses that we’re talking about here.

Sam Chan
I remember when I was seeing a counselor, and just incidentally, a young boy, a gorgeous boy, 14 on our street died a sudden, unexpected death. And the counselor asked me all these questions like, Have you visited the family yet? What is your wife Steph done? I said staffs been amazing. She’s been over there place she’s brought me the counselor said to me, Well, what have you down, I said, I have not gone. And then I’ve said the other day, Steph pulled out photos of the boy, we looked at them, but I couldn’t look at them. And the counselor said, why couldn’t you look at the photos. And then after a while, she said, you actually don’t know how to be sad. You’ve grown up in a culture where you’re not allowed to be sad, you know, the ancient culture is very private emotion culture. The Australian culture found the United Kingdom is very private emotion culture. The Christian culture is one where you’re always meant to be happy. She said, you actually don’t know how to be sad. So your homework this week is to go meet the family. And be sad, Don’t change the topic, give them the permission to stay in the sad space and be sad. And so I did that. And then the counselor a week later said, Well, how did that feel? And I said, for the first time, I felt human, like fully human. So it’s almost like we can fully image God, when we fully image all the emotions, especially sadness, as as well. And I remember another church leader once saying that when someone says they’re leaving the church, or they have a problem with the church, because you don’t have enough him, they say the problem is not that you don’t have enough hymns. Or they say, you’re not Baptist enough. The problem is you’re not Baptist. That’s not the problem. Or they say, you know, we do too much of this. The leader said, that’s actually not the problem, whatever they say is a problem usually is not the problem. And so I remember someone in my small group is complaining, we’re not doing enough Bible studies, these sort of thing we are we are, how are we not doing enough Bible studies, or you can show them the data, look, look on his table, kind of any Bible studies we’re doing. But then I realized, that’s actually not the problem. One of their stated problem is not the problem usually is because they’re angry, they’re hurt, hurt, they’re bitter, they’re sad. And then you have to give them permission to explore where that’s coming from. So one of the best ways is here to understand so we’re here, obviously, say their words back at them, but try to understand, like, what is the feeling behind the feeling? So just last night, someone texted me, ah, you know, my husband’s just had a stroke. And in the past, I would have just put on my doctor hat on Ah, this is what they’re going to give him and this is how long they’d give me in hospital. And then these are the tests they’re going to do. But all I did ago was, Oh, that’s horrible. You must be going through an emotional roller coaster right now. Things are happening too fast, but they’re having to slow at the same time. And she went, That’s just it. So it’s not just identifying their words by identifying the situation in the motion they’re going through and speaking up back to them. So giving them also the emotional literacy.

Mike Graham
I think that’s fabulous. You know, going back to What you said earlier about just Jesus’s posture in, in his relationship? You know, he always went for the heart, you know, of the conversation. And he often got to the question beneath the question, you know, so many times, I think in our interactions, we take people’s questions at face value, and even assume that they have, you know, the vocabulary that they need to actually voice their, you know, their heart level questions. And sometimes they don’t either. And so sometimes, you know, we have to ask clarifying, or, you know, questions, you know, that help get more at the heart, you know, of those things. One kind of pro tip from my limited, you know, pastoral experiences, you know, a lot of times when, when you get when you’re in, you know, whether it’s an evangelistic conversation, or even in the counseling, you know, in the counseling chair, and in, you have the responsibility of just kind of leading that conversation, instinctively. Now, anytime I hear the answer, I don’t know. I just answer with the following response. Well, if you didn’t know, what would you say? And that little, little, like, kind of instinctive response is often unlocked a lot more additional conversation. And there’s a lot that’s going on kind of neurobiologically that’s, you know, with that question, because you ended up actually accessing a different part of that person’s brain. When when you put the if you did no, you know, what would you say? But I think the, you know, getting getting to the question beneath the question, you know, is often important, I think, to just another thread. And I think that’s noteworthy, that was thinking of when you were talking earlier, it was just, you know, when people are voicing their objections, and let’s say, in this instance, you know, for the, for the purpose of this conversation, it’s a discharged person, and they have strong feelings about something. Well, you know, you might feel differently or think differently than them ideologically, about the thing that’s been difficult or frustrating, or sad, or painful, or even traumatic. But we sometimes I think it’s important in our conversations, we can know the difference between an affirming and an ideology, or a theological position, or these different kinds of things. And knowing when we can provide emotional validation for how somebody experienced something difficult. And so I think that’s something to, you know, in our conversations, particularly with teachers, persons, that, you know, a lot of times people’s emotions can be validated, even when there’s chasms between kind of where they’re standing on something, and where you’re standing on something, positionally, even on important things. And so I was just thinking about that, as you were talking about that earlier. Though, moving into just kind of an I think this is also related, you know, to, you know, that emotional awareness. I think this next one, this last one goes hand in hand, and that’s cultural awareness. And so I’ve been looking forward to, you know, asking this question, you know, obviously, we kind of talked about a little bit, you know, you growing up and in Hong Kong, and then moving to Australia at a young age. I’m just fascinated to tell you more like just to hear more from you about how important cultural awareness is, particularly as it pertains to people who are leaving the church.

Sam Chan
Ah, yes, culture. I have chapters on this is sorry to mention my books explicitly. But I have one chapter, please do please do evangelism in a skeptical world. I have one chapter on this. And it’s so important. That chapter became two chapters in my most reasonable called topical preaching in a complex well, because culture is everywhere. And the thing is, we all know the Bible has a culture. And that’s why whenever we speak in the Bible, we have the interpret the Bible’s culture, into today’s culture. So we say things like our back then a Pharisee, was this sort of person, back then a tax collector was this sort of person, back then a shepherd was this sort of person. So the Bible has a culture that we have to interpret the own our own audience. So the person that we’re talking to, or maybe even the de churching person we’re talking to, they have their own culture. But what we forget is we ourselves have our own culture. And so just as we can be emotionally unaware of ourselves, we can be unaware of our own culture. So the joke I often tell people is, if you’re an Australian, and you’re going to America, the Americans will say, Oh, I love your accent. But the next thing they say to us, do I have an accent, or are the Americans like a fish in water? They, they can’t hear their own accent. And when I was in the Midwest, everyone in the Midwest says, Oh, we didn’t Have the neutral accent. That’s why they get their newsreaders to come from blank. Fill in Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois. That’s why newsreaders come from Illinois because there’s no accent. And I once met a guy from California say the reason they make movies out a Hollywood because the Californian accent is the neutral English accent. A whole world cannot hear an accent. I thought, oh my goodness, this person thinks that the Californian accent is normal and normative. And you know, yes, there’s an English accent. Yes, there’s an Irish accent. Yes, there’s a Malaysian accent. But there’s no Californian accent. It is just pure English. But we do the same. So that’s why we have books that are called Asian theology. We have books that are called African theology. But when Wayne Grudem has a book on theology, just called glutens theology, that’s not that American theology as if it just theology that drops out of the sky. We do that in preaching, we talk about the Asian homiletic, the African homiletic. But you know, I’ve had an Robinson O’Brien Chapel has a book on preaching. It’s called preaching, North American preaching, but preaching. And so culture is everywhere. So it affects how we interpret things, how we apply things, and how people perceive us. So I like to Well, I go to Chinese Church and the Chinese speaking congregations. They’re very traditional, I go to the English speaking, traditional, much more Western, and I can see the differences everywhere. In the Chinese congregation, if I was to preach, I have to wear a shirt and tie and a suit, because that shows respect for the audience. But if I wore shirt and tie in the English service, that shows a disrespect to the audience, I’m coming across as proud stackup self righteous, if I wore a t shirt to preach the English well, I don’t come across as one of the people, you know, humble, but I wore a t shirt in a Chinese audience. I’m disrespectful to them. And and God, if we go to a job interview, do we wear the white shirt or the colored shirt, you know, we’re Western we wear the color shirt shows on I’m a free thinker, I’m creative. But in the Chinese context, you wear a white plain shirt because it shows your team player, if you’re a colored patterned shirt, it shows you know you’re you’re an upstart, you’re You think you’re better than everyone else. And the whole public private emotion thing is fascinating. You know, if your private and emotion, it shows you don’t need to be emotional, you have the truth. If you’re emotional, it shows you’re manipulative, and you’re insecure in what you believe. But you know, public emotion culture, so if you are sincere, you’d be out there about it. And I think 90% of the worship wars that we had in churches were really a public versus private emotion, debate. And so it affects the way we practice theology. But I remember reading David Clarke, no until the mountain and knowing knowing God, I think it’s called it’s a prolegomena on theology. And he talks about how when we see Jesus meet the woman at the world, in John chapter four, and Jesus says to her, you’ve had five husbands, and the one you’re living with now isn’t even your husband. You know, to Western ears, we hear our you’ve been, you’ve left your husbands five times, and now you’re cohabiting. So you’re a law breaker, you’re a sinner. But David Clarke points out in some Middle Eastern cultures, African cultures, they would hear, Oh, you’ve had five men are banned and new leave you and the man you’re with now won’t even honor you by marrying you. So there, she’s the broken one, rather than the law breaker she’s a sinned against rather than a sinner. And there’s nothing in the text to tell us which way it should go. But culture as often determines which way we do go. Culture determines how we buy things. Like, I joke that when I was in Siberia, every preacher applied every passage as you must stop drinking alcohol. But then when you go to North America, every preacher every passage, but the application is you need to do more quiet times and give more money to missions. But then in Sydney, Australia, every preach every passage was the application was unit to give up medicine and go into full time ministry. So coding gives us these blind spots, then going to a tiny search. I see it everywhere. So I have this saying that what we think a theological disagreements and non theological they’re usually 90% of time, cultural disagreements. And if we can only be aware, we’re all aware of the other person’s culture, but are we aware of our own culture? And its history. My parents used to run these marriage enrichment things and most of a lot of the marriage enrichment retreats where each partner had to learn the culture, they were brought up with the parents that they had because they brought that into the marriage and without knowing that they’re like a fish in water they don’t know is the water Are there like dog owners who don’t notice a smell of their own dogs, we all have our culture that we’re unaware of, we’re aware of the other person’s culture, but not our own culture.

Jim Davis
I love that I’ve heard the fish and water analogy, never the owner of the dog, there doesn’t recognize the smell in the house. That’s a really good analogy. You know, I just can’t thank you enough. I mean that the goal of this episode, of course, we could do a whole season on developing these awarenesses. But the goal in this episode here is to create an awareness of these awarenesses. So to repeat, we have God awareness, self awareness, others awareness, awareness of how others perceive you, emotional awareness, and cultural awareness. And it is our deep belief that growing, especially at church leadership levels, in these awarenesses is going to help us minister to people, it’s going to help us close the back doors of the church. And it’s actually going to help open the front doors of the church with the people that we’re doing ministry to. So I just think you’ve nailed it and been so helpful for me, and I’m sure for everyone listening. And Sam, just thank you so much.

Sam Chan
Thanks, Jim. And thanks, Mike. Thanks so much for having me.

Jim Davis
Well, our audience stay tuned. Next week, we are going to be jumping into the data about the most difficult seasons to will begin jumping into over the next couple of weeks, really, the most difficult seasons to maintain your faith as we look at the transition of children into college and young, professional or vocation. And, and we’re going to start in the home. And we’re going to we’re going to be here with David Robbins, who is the president and CEO of family life and his wife, Meg, dear friends of mine, and we’re going to look at what it looks like to parents in a way that helps to encourage your kids to develop a love for the gospel and for Jesus’s church.