Challenges Facing the Protestant Church (Part 2)

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Brett McCracken
Well. Thank you, each of you for those. Yeah, really helpful, convicting, sobering talks, but hopeful talks. Thank you, Jared. I’m going to start with you. I have a couple questions for each of you. The phrase that stuck with me from your talk is, is gospel wallpaper, like you’re making the point about Carson’s famous thing about the first generation, you know, cherish, cherishes the gospel, the second generation assumes it. And you’re claiming, making the claim that you think in the Gospel centrality movement, we are at the point of, kind of the generation of assumption, maybe where the gospel is kind of this wallpaper, but we couldn’t really define it if pressed. I think you’re right. As someone who works for the gospel coalition, who tracks with all this very closely, I do think you’re right about that. My question is, what do you suggest we do about that, practically like if we are at a place where we need to kind of reteach the gospel, re center on the gospel, to help this generation of assumption really get it and really cherish it. What do we do? What are some, like, practical ideas

Jared Wilson
in the whole premise of not the whole premise, the premise of gospel centrality is, is partly based on the concept that we have a forgetfulness, even that, you know, First Corinthians 15, you know, Paul begins. Now, I would remind you brothers of this gospel that I preached to you, which you received the So the premise is that we don’t wake up with with an orientation around the finished work of Christ. So we need a constant resetting on the finished work of Christ, and there is no, I don’t think innovative outside the box antidote to that. It’s at the point of pulpit preaching, personal discipleship, and then just in my own fellowship of Christ, but helping each other, being able to reset each other to, you know, to speak the good news to each other in in life together. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, we meet each other as Bringers of the gospel, like this is the point of the Community of Christ. We meet each other as heralds of the good news. And he says something that it sounds like it doesn’t make sense, but it makes sense spiritually. He says, The Gospel in me is stronger than the gospel in my brother, and the gospel in my brother is stronger than the gospel in me, which, you know, is paradoxical, but it. Because then it’s news. It’s meant to be shared. So I mean practically it. I mean it looks as basic as rehearsing, for me, those three principles with my students, with my ministry, residents with my congregation, as often as I can, so that, you know, which doesn’t prevent those things themselves from becoming rote, right? This is a spiritual enterprise that we’re in, but at least is giving them a substance to this thing, that it’s not just the adjective on the website, it’s not just the wallpaper. This is sort of the working, you know, the working framework of our of our church?

Brett McCracken
Yeah, I think one of the ways, maybe practical thing is just kind of re teaching the history and the kind of to move to you Gavin, just like the the assumption of the gospel sometimes goes hand in hand with an assumption of confessionalism and just the basics of our faith that we don’t we never learned and and maybe kind of re teaching that history a bit and how these, these like tenants of faith, the doctrines of grace, etc, were formulated. Gavin, I want to go back to the 22 year old, ecclesial, angsty, anxious young man, because I know people like that. I think a lot of us know people like that. I think you’re right that there’s a hunger for depth. You’re absolutely right that we sometimes pander to this generation thinking they don’t want that, but they do. But in my experience, when when they’re looking for depth, it usually is because they’re not finding it in Protestantism, but they do think that, like Roman, Catholicism has deeper history, deeper philosophy, the philosophical tradition, the esthetic tradition. I care a lot about arts, and what I’ve seen, I’ve seen people literally leave evangelical Protestantism because it’s just not what they don’t care about beauty. There’s no tradition of art. Catholicism cares about that. Eastern Orthodoxy cares about it. So if they’re longing for depth, like, how do you respond in terms of, like, we have depth in Protestantism? What would you say?

Gavin Ortlund
Okay, so starting with two things that are sort of in tension with each other. First, I don’t want to assume that this person understands the gospel. I do have a lot of these conversations, and I’ve just found that across the board, even in baptism interviews, I have found that I need to begin with just an open heart to just ask, Where are you coming from, you know? And so I don’t want to assume that. And I do think that at play is probably a gospel need, where, ultimately it is the work of Jesus himself that’s going to touch what’s going on. And then the second side of that, though, is I don’t want to be rote or formulaic, and I want to take their specific concerns really seriously, and all the normal rules about not you know, it’s better if your friend has a doubt or a question, it’s better to say, I don’t know than to give a bad answer. Okay, this happens so much. You know, if someone is teaching Sunday school and a question comes up that the teacher does not know the answer to, and the great thing you can just do is say, I am not sure that is such a good question. Let me look into it. And in fact, let’s study it together. But sometimes you might feel embarrassed by not knowing the answer. And so actually, one of the things that happens is you can actually sort of clamp down on the person asking the question, and this really damages people. So all of those rules are in play here. We want to really honor the questions and look into them, and if we don’t know the answer, that’s okay. One of the reasons I put out videos is to try to serve pastors. If there’s something really technical and specific about church history or whatever, that could be a resource to people. But ultimately, what I want to take someone to is to try to help them experience and not just tell them this, but experience the depth that is within Protestantism. And Jared mentioned the phrase always reforming at the very beginning of our night. Many contemporary Protestant churches need further reform in this area. I believe it can look different in different churches. But I think the beauty that you just mentioned that it’s not actually a historic characteristic of Protestantism that we lack beauty, that’s a more recent phenomenon. And so that’s an area that we can consider, where does our worship practice need to reform? And I the great encouragement I love to give to people is to see how much richness there is in the different Protestant traditions. And so for so many people, it becomes a battle of the Church Fathers versus my anecdotal church experience in this particular Evangelical Church. And that’s the battle. And what I think we want to do is encourage. People to look into the depths of Protestantism. It is tremendously beautiful. It is second to none in these comparisons. And so that’s what a lot of my ministry on YouTube is trying to do.

Brett McCracken
Good Brad early in your book, which you describe your book as a cultural apologetic for the institutional church, which I think is a really great descriptor of the book. And you say this, Christians are relatively well equipped for a post Christian world, post Christian world. We’re well equipped for that that objects to the existence of God, but we are wholly unequipped for a post institutional world that rejects any need for church. And I think that’s true. So what would you do? Similar like hypothetical 20 something comes up and gives you the line, like, I love Jesus, but I don’t love the church. I don’t want to have anything to do with the church. What’s your first kind of response, aside from read my book, which is maybe the second thing. But how do you begin that response?

Brad Edwards
Well, since it only released yesterday, I haven’t had an opportunity to say it yet, so we’ll see. But no, I think, and I was kind of alluding to this in the talk, but I think especially if they claim Christ already, and they want to know Jesus and to be and have a deeper communion with Him, part of what I try to explain is the bride and groom metaphor. And I’ll say something along the lines of, like, you know, hey, just want to let you know that, like, Hey, if you want to grab a coffee or a beer with me, and if you gave me a call and you’re like, Hey, Brad, can we hang out? I’d love to, like, just like, get to know you better and what have you. But can you let me know when your wife, Hannah, isn’t around? Because she’s just, she’s just really, I think she’s probably harmful, and it’s just really triggering for me. You know, Jesus is a much better man than I am. And just in case you were concerned, but, and I might like still grab a beer with you, but if you’re not willing to hang out with my family and the ones that I love, we’re probably gonna spend a whole lot less time with each other at best. And I don’t know that you can understand. And I would actually be, I would be gently with all of the the nuance that Gavin, very pastorally, just described, but I would be asking them encouraging like, Do you Do you actually know how loving Jesus is, if you can’t even see his bride through his eyes? Do you know the love of Christ, if you can’t even find yourself among his broken and beloved, that for a Christian is normally very helpful, I think, and it starts prompting all kinds of other questions. Of like, Yeah, but what about this? It’s like, okay, well, let’s keep talking about that. But at least it really helps kind of get through, get past that first hurdle.

Brett McCracken
Gavin, on the on the local church side of the Catholic Protestant thing, I hear a lot of Protestants tempted by Catholicism. They’ll say something like, Protestant church is just a mess, like they’re just dividing constantly. There’s a million denominations. There’s no unity. It’s totally incoherent. If they’re hungry for a robust institution, if they’re going against the grain of what you’re saying, if they actually want that, if they want a robust church institution, they say the Roman Catholic Church offers that, the Eastern Orthodox Church offers that. What’s your typical response to that kind of comparison of just the church chaos that people perceive in Protestantism.

Gavin Ortlund
Often on this concern, I find it helpful, first of all, to receive the concern and see you know what, as Protestant Christians, can we learn from this? And then second, to encourage a realism about what your actual experience is like in your local parish or congregation, depending upon where you end up. Sometimes we we look with rose colored glasses at what is really a kind of maybe structural unity that is not always lived out at the street level. I also think just but maybe the point to emphasize here actually is the first of those two things I just mentioned, that it is true that many of us fracture too easily at a personal level, at a ecclesial level, I think there’s, I don’t think it’s good to rush past that. And so I want to sort of honor the concern, in a sense, even while I don’t see that as a criticism that is inherent to Protestantism, I think that’s something worth thinking about. Why does that happen? How might the insights that you’re sharing with us about the importance of the church the way you. Just shared about the way Jesus loves the church. If that is in our hearts, we’re going to maybe how to say. We’re not going to maybe leave a church as quickly. We’re not going to have the same spirit of contentiousness that sometimes is present in our local churches when we have a disagreement. It will flavor everything we do. If we love the church like that, that will play out, and it will play out in unity. And I just it’s kind of simple, but to put this simple point out, that when Jesus prayed in John 17, what was on his heart, on his last night in this world, was for unity, and the purpose of that is so that the world will believe that you have sent me. And this is not a brilliant insight or something super complicated, but just to think about this, that the actually how people see the gospel is affected by how we relate to other Christians, not just how we treat non Christians, though that is important too, but how we love each other in the body of Christ and so in relation to this important question, I think that’s something that’s really worth working through, and not just deflecting it at an intellectual level, but saying, how do we do this? What does this look like?

Brett McCracken
Jared and Brad both have chapters in their books on victimhood, which I thought was interesting, as I was reading all three of your books, there was that commonality you both had your chapter Jared is called less than conquerors, which is a great title for a chapter on victimhood, and yours is called virtuous victimhood. So maybe each of you speak to like where you see that in the church, in the local church, how does that show up? Why is it a problem? Why is it a challenge? Not?

Jared Wilson
It maybe a harder question, some ways to or to ponder where we don’t see it right, because the you could camp out, as some do, on the fixation in this, in the so called Social Justice conversation, on the oppressed, oppressor paradigm, right to see everything through that lens or the critical theory, you camp out there. I think we see it there where victimhood becomes my identity, and I just see everything through that lens. I’m an oppressed class, and everyone else is either either an ally or they’re an oppressor. You could see it, I think, in this the same or similar vocabulary on the other side of the conversation. Hey, we’re really the ones that are actually on the wrong end of this. They’re coming after you. I’m just in the way, you know, that whole across the spectrum, there is this temptation to adopt because it’s powerful. It’s powerful. And I think across the spectrum politically culturally, we understand that I can, I can either galvanize sympathy or I can galvanize momentum. I can identify, I can get other people to see their victimhood, and then we can coalesce, and we can use our victimhood to know, right? I think the to me, that’s not interesting, like none of that’s really interesting. I mean, it’s, it’s one of the easiest points to make. I think the interesting thing about it, I think, is that it’s not about denying the reality of victimization. This is what I try to do in my in my chapter. This is not to say, oh, no, one’s ever been oppressed in the history. You know what I mean, like just, just get over it. Is not to say that they’re not coming after Christians, that there’s not a cult, you know, a bias in the West against Christians, that we’re being marginalized and increasingly, you know, harmed in cultural ways, and, you know, etc, you know, that’s a to deny. That is to deny what we see right in front of our face, the in the interesting thing about it is not that we should, you know, deny the reality of injustice or what have you. It’s the question of like, what I’m going to orient my life around? What’s going to define my identity? And the Bible is replete with depictions of injustice and victimization and oppression and persecution. I mean it, it. It tells us the truth about what it is like to live in this broken world. But it says His grace is sufficient for you. It says even though we are like sheep being led to the slaughter. Now we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. So it doesn’t deny our victimhood or victimization, what it denies or forbids us is from using victimization as our identity. And I think we’re, you know, Brad can speak to this better than I can, but the institutional pieces like the. Church hurt conversation. I read an article a couple of weeks ago about sort of the the turmoil in a really high profile mega church, American mega church, and sort of the leadership transition, and there’s just a big crater that happened there, and one guy who kind of was the successor himself, has left, because there was all kinds of, like, toxic stuff going on behind the scenes. And he said something that just jumped out at me as I read this article. In his interview with him, he said, The church didn’t hurt me. Five people hurt me. And I went so, I mean, what he could do is say, I mean, the church is just a place that, you know what I mean. And I bet if we went around the room, we could have eight, you know, 700 stories in here, about a time that you just felt really hurt in church. And what, what I think the scriptures, you know, forbid us from doing, is expanding that into a sense of identity, projecting that onto the institutional picture of the church. But I can, so I can say, Okay, I’ve got church hurt, but all right, it was these, like, I’ve been hurt by these four people, and I’m not going to let that define my relationship with Christ. Bride, yeah, yeah.

Brad Edwards
I want to maybe even tie a little bit of that into the things that we’ve been talking about, right? That when institutions abuse power become corrupt, more often than not, is because an individual is wielding power and not the institution, right? And part of the you know, the virtuous victimhood stuff that I describe in my chapter, and I’ve been able to read most of your chapter on this as we are coming from the same place, for sure, is that because of our abandoning of institutions, we are abandoning the means of stewarding power in a way that flourishes individuals. And I am not the first to say that. And you can talk look at Andy Crouch’s book playing God as well as Yuval Levin’s any of his books or articles he’s written. This is, is out there, right? But the result of all of this is that right compassion has is the last remaining source of moral authority we have in a post Christian and post institutional culture, and it’s the only way to get people to act in your interest, to get people to see your plight, to help you, to help you heal. And so we’re kind of using, you know, it’s kind of like the, you know, the if you’re a hammer, if all you have is a hammer, everything seen as a nail, it’s the same dynamic. Then what that does is, it reduces compassion not to a glorious implication of the gospel. It repurposes it as a means of gaining cultural power and social status. And the hard part, especially for pastors, is it is so hard to tell when that is happening, versus no you we actually need to extend compassion. And so to make it easier, pastors and leaders we often like are like, well, all compassion is bad, or all compassion is unequivocally good. It’s like, no, no. We actually have to have an awareness of what’s going on in this ecosystem, because if we don’t, then actual victims will be obscured by this whole dynamic, and we won’t actually have the opportunity to to help victims heal, and not just heal, but also recover their agency. Because part of the problem with this dynamic and the social incentives we have now is victims, actual, genuine victims are incentivized to stay in that place and not recover their agency, to actually heal, because to do so what has to give up power, and they already feel hurt and abused that is untenable and completely unchrist like to put them in that situation. So part of, I think, what’s important is to understand like, wow, how are we being shaped by the this culture that we’re living in that has primarily like resorting to this because we’ve abandoned the institutions that have historically stewarded that very well.

Brett McCracken
In each of your talks, there’s challenges you bring up that are stark and sobering, but you also kind of had hope for revival, and talked about that a bit. There’s been discussion that the last six months about a vibe shift. I’m sure you guys have read articles and heard things about this. There’s evidence that has mustered, you know, the nones, the rise of the nones has leveled off in the US. In the UK, there’s been recent statistics that are quite encouraging. With the returning to Church of younger generations, Gen Z men in the states are coming back to church at high rates. Where do you guys see that vibe shift? Do you think it’s overplayed? The discourse about that? Is it real? Where have you observed it? Maybe in specific ways. If you can think of any,

Jared Wilson
we’re seeing it in our church. I mean, just anecdotally, over the last, say, two or three years, maybe. Be a little bit longer, but in the last two or three years, we’ve had an influx of teenagers and young adults. We’re in a big church, so I’m not talking like hundreds are showing up, but significant for our, you know, for the size of our context, showing up with out of unchurched homes, typically invited by, a church member who works with them or goes to school with them. But we have seen teenagers from unchurched homes coming. I was sharing with somebody earlier this morning. In the last, I don’t know, say, four months or so, we’ve had a noticeable this is to me, it’s an exciting thing in ministry, we’re seeing young adults bringing their lost parents to church, right? I mean, it’s the normalist thing in the world for parents to drag their kids to church, but kids to be right? So we’re seeing teenagers and college students showing up at our church with these questions. We have a church member who works at one of the fast food places, I think, Chipotle and like, I mean, once he invited, you know, everyone on his shift, and you know, there’s like six of his co workers were with him. And, you know, came numerous weeks, and they bring burritos too. They did not bring burritos, no. So it’s just things like that. And then seeing, you know, that change for our for our context, that’s a significant thing.

Brett McCracken
So, yeah, that’s cool. Gavin or Brad. Do you see it?

Gavin Ortlund
I do see it. I’ve kind of talked about this a little bit, but just especially some of the people that I try to serve, especially younger men that i My heart is drawn toward, to try to be a friend to them. And I do sense a spiritual openness. I do sense it feels as though 10 and 20 years ago, there was more reaction against Christianity, and now there’s just more ignorance of what the gospel message is, and a lot more people have just grown up without ever hearing the gospel, and so they’re not reacting against it, and therefore they are not as cynical. And there’s a refreshing openness that it’s just so fun to talk to these young people, and they’re curious, and it’s just it really feels like a time for evangelism, as you see that openness. So I think the thing that’s interesting about it is it does seem, from what I understand, that it’s not just Christianity that is seeing an uptick of interest. It’s kind of religion across the board, and also forms of spirituality that are not really even religious at all. So that tells you something. And I wonder if part of what we’re seeing is just a loss of confidence in secularism and just the well running dry people you know, you get into life and you realize a secular framework is not delivering, and people are searching and people are hungry, and so I Don’t think that, in and of itself, necessarily translates into gospel fruitfulness, but it’s tremendous opportunity for gospel fruitful that’s why I keep saying, you know, it’s a time to be bold. It’s a time to speak out the name of Jesus. It’s a time to look around us and see where are the needs and lean into this moment. And if we can all, if we would just get really busy with evangelism right now. I just feel that this is, this is a good thing to focus on right now.

Brad Edwards
Yeah, I’d say we might be seeing some inklings of it, but

Brad Edwards
like our place. So I live in outside of Boulder, Colorado, which, if you know anything about that place, it is gorgeous. It is a really beautiful place to live. People come there to take, you know, to consume recreation and a lifestyle. And I told our people like, hey, if somebody you know first moving to the area and they’re Christian, they show up at church, that’s great. But also expect them to disappear for about three years and then come back, because it takes about that long to go partake of all of those options and to feast upon the buffet of the secular, individualistic lifestyle that boulder offers. And so I think where we have seen that is like, it’s funny, like, our people know that me preaching about the evils of social media is like the free space on the bingo card. There it may as well be and and our church is healthier than we’ve ever been, because I’m seeing our people and our neighbors be so disgusted by that very it’s a counterfeit institution that that there’s I’m starting to see a return in health, even before. I’m seeing a return of like it’s a depth of growth over a breadth of growth right now, and so I think we’ll see it. Because I don’t doubt that this is the case, because I talked to other pastors across. The country who are seeing this, and I think it’s going to ripple through different areas in ways that are unique to that those circumstances.

Brett McCracken
Yeah, there’s a lot more we could say about that topic. It’s a we could have a whole breakout session analyzing the vibe shift, but I want to get to some of the questions that have come in from your text questions. So here’s one for Gavin. Gavin, you talked about ecclesial anxiety and the need for assurance. How can we, how should we as gospel center believers, go about addressing that desperate need for assurance? What resources would you recommend? And another person asked a related question, who are some of your favorite Puritans who have offered gospel assurance in their work.

Gavin Ortlund
Okay, thanks for the great question. A great Puritan resource that I love to recommend is Richard Sibbes the bruised reed. Some of you have read this book. You know the Puritans take this they’ll go to one little verse, and they’ll just wring it dry of all the hope you can get out of it and just apply it to every possible need in the heart and so forth. And it’s a tremendous resource. So and just the Puritans in general, have a lot to teach us about how the gospel touches the heart and something like anxiety. I think our stereotype is that in the past, people didn’t think about what we call mental health, and the reality is, they were very good physicians of the soul. They thought a lot about those issues, and they have a lot to teach us. So that’s a great resource there. And just on the in the I think the question was kind of asking about assurance, and I guess I don’t want to give a shortcut to that, because the truth is, there’s certain things in my life that I feel I’ve sort of arrived upon assurance, and it’s taken a long time of study. You know, I don’t really believe that easy answers are the solution. Here. I think of some of the great Christians throughout church history, where it’s been years of struggle, and then they have a breakthrough. And so I want to acknowledge that this is messy. There is not a silver bullet to get to assurance. The reality of the testimony of the Holy Spirit, Romans, 816, that I mentioned, is an existential reality. It’s one, one issue on this topic. It’s not the only thing that we need. So I believe in the value of study. You know, I talked about depth as a foil to rootlessness, because I think that’s one, one of the things we need to help our people with, is calling them in, out of the milk and into the solid food to use the Hebrews five distinction there. And I think that’s a part of how we grow in assurance. But the Puritans are a great resource on all this.

Brett McCracken
Okay, here’s a question that came in for Jared. What? What about pastors who are having a dark night of the soul? How would you how do you stay gospel centered through spiritual dryness?

Jared Wilson
Well, I don’t know that I would equate the dark night of the soul with spiritual dryness, because very often, I mean, was it st John, St John of the Cross who came up with that term, dark night of the soul? I think that’s more about feeling like God is silent or the quietness, and I can only speak from my experience in those times, they have been few, which is a blessed thing, but they’ve also been The preface to a sweetness after a preface to something that has trained me now to to not despair. And I mean, I gotta tell you, brother, the, I mean, the Gospel centered thing for me, like I came to that before I even knew that phrase. Like, there wasn’t a day where, like, I think I’m centered on the gospel. You know, it wasn’t like that, and it wasn’t because somebody invited me to a conference or handed me a book or gave me a podcast. It began with one day, my wife coming to me and saying, I don’t want to be married to you anymore. I don’t know who you are. You’re not who I thought you were, and the rotten fruit of my sin and the brokenness of my marriage plunged me into the deepest depression for a long period of time, and I prayed like I’ve never prayed before. And anyone who’s been through a darkness like that, even if you’re not hearing the voice back, whatever that means for you. You’re not feeling it. I wasn’t feeling it. And in fact, every day I was begging God to give me a reason not to take my own life. And that went on for the better part of a year, and I’m living in the guest bedroom of our home, and one. Night, I wasn’t doing anything different than I had done any any previous night, just crying out to God, you got to fix it. You got to do something. I don’t I don’t know what to do. I have no idea, like, I can’t do anything. And I don’t know how to describe it. Except it was like the, you know, in that pig sty where the prodigal son came to himself or came to his senses, that the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart, not a new message, an old message, the message of the gospel. And it was as so it wasn’t the first time I heard it, but it was as if the first time I’d ever heard it, and suddenly this is the feast for me, there’s a joy. My circumstances aren’t fixed, my situation’s not fixed, but I had a joy that I hadn’t had before, an energy, you know, by God’s grace, He, you know, restored my marriage down the road. But that wasn’t an immediate thing, you know, there was this empowered repentance for me. And then later, I’m sitting in a friend’s living room, and I’m still in the middle of this, you know, you know, seeker, mega church thing, and I’m sitting looking at his Christianity Today magazine on the coffee table, and I pick it up, and it’s got, you know, young, restless, reformed. And I’m like, Oh, I’m reformed, you know, I start reading it, and I was like, I think this is talking about me. Talking about me. I think, I think I’m a part of these, this group, you know. So, like, I didn’t know anything about a movement. It was a bottoming out of my life. You know, First Thessalonians, chapter one, I think, well, it’s in chapter one, you received, You became imitators of us and of the Lord, because you receive the word in the midst of much affliction and with the joy of the Holy Spirit, there’s something about the intersection of much affliction and hearing the word of the gospel. And so I would say to whoever asked that question, and I pray it’s theoretical, but in case that it’s not, do not give up, depending on the Lord whether you feel it or not, because those times are shaping for you just as much as the times where you are feeling it, and if not more so, if not more so. And I think we come to an appreciation of gospel, centrality of the gospel. We come to appreciation of grace precisely by going through times like that, and discovering the sweetness of God on the other side,

Brett McCracken
following off of that Jared in your talk, you kind of made the point that gospel centrality can’t just be cerebral. It can’t just be doctrinal. It has to be your heart. Has to be in it. You have to be loving Jesus. You have to be growing in your personal devotion. And someone asks about that and ask for each member of the panel, what does that look like for you in your life? What is personal kind of devotional time where you are kind of in that quietness, where it’s about you and Jesus. What does that look like for you?

Jared Wilson
I get up and put on my prayer tunic, and no, I mean, it probably looks like, I mean, externally, like anyone else does, devotional time. One thing I try to do is not have the distractions, constantly, the noise, and so I get outside a lot. I’m not an outdoorsy person at all. I’m not, but I go outside every day. I’d have to do that probably four or five times a week. There’s a three mile walk I take around the lake by my house. I don’t do air pods, ear buds. I don’t I’m not even listening to, like, sermons or preaching or anything, but certainly not music, because I don’t want just the noise, I want to have that time to be able to talk to the Lord. And there’s just something about the walk that that does that, but it’s it’s reading my Bible every day and looking for Christ. It’s in my prayer, speaking to him as if he is my brother and my friend. He is my God, He is my Lord, He is my master, amen, but he’s also my friend. He is my advocate, and so that just that shift in perspective, but externally, there’s nothing I think, significantly different, I think, than most people’s devotions.

Gavin Ortlund
Gavin, what about you? Yeah, I love this question. Yeah. My My answer as well, is not, you know, really all that interesting. I guess, in a way, it’s just some pretty simple practices that I just found I go to again and again that helped me so much. Sometimes for me, when we talk about gospel centeredness, or the gospel I love, what Jared has been helping us thinking about about just intimacy with Jesus and so just this is going to sound maybe even cheesy, but just the simple truth to come back to that Jesus loves me, and that’s not a that’s not an abstraction, that’s not a formula, but you just live in that. And for some reason, I think it’s a season of life I’m in being. Outside and not overdoing it in terms of the cognitive aspect of that, you know, a lengthy study of Scripture, or something like that. I do read the Bible devotionally every day, but this sustained time of just reflection and just receiving and just resting in the love of Christ, thinking a lot about heaven, when I’m thinking, when I’m getting anxious or discouraged, just stepping away from screens and just resting in the truth of who Jesus is and relationship with him, and just I think the context to that is coming out of a season of extreme busyness and productivity and just finding the utter joy of not needing to do, but just to be and just to be with Jesus.

Brad Edwards
So I’m a church planter, which means that I’m a glutton for punishment, and one I think this is a danger for any church plant or for any pastor, but especially also for church planters, because you’re trying to start something that does not exist, and you don’t have elders, you don’t really, necessarily have a team, or if you do, it’s very thin. And it was about, I think it was about a year ago now, I asked three guys in our church to like, Hey, would you can we meet every other week and get together for prayer? Because I think I had gotten to a place where I forgot that I needed the church that I was planting as much as anyone else I was planting it for. And I realized just how true that was when one of those guys about a few months in called me. Was just like, frustrating. He’s like, Hey, man, I’m just trying to figure out, like, what it is that you’re wanting me to get from this I’m like, What are you talking about? And he’s just like, well, like, what, you know, like, what? How am I? How should I be engaging in our conversation? And I’m like, What do you mean? He said, Well, you asked us into this group so that we would like learn how to lead one of these, right? No, friend, I asked you because I actually need to take the pastor hat off and remember that I am one of Christ, just like you. And I had said that to him, and I had demonstrated something different up to that point, so I asked him and invited him and said, Man, I need, I actually need you to tell me to shut up and take the pastor head off when I’m doing that. You’re not here because I’m trying to get you to learn something or I want you to do something else. I’m actually saying, like I’m lonely and I need, I need your help to help me see Jesus as a son and not only as a servant. So I it was helpful to write a book called The reason for church while I was doing that.

Brett McCracken
I love it. I think we’ll end there, because I think that’s a beautiful just bringing it down to the ground right? Like all of us can talk all we want about the gospel and apologetics, but ultimately, we’re individuals who need the gospel as desperately as anyone we’re preaching it to, and we need the love of God as urgently, on a daily, you know, hourly basis, as anyone else. So thank you guys, each of you, for your contributions today, let’s give them a hand.

Brett McCracken
I one of my favorite parts of jared’s book is near the end, he has this observation about the necessity of prayer, which is fitting for kind of where we’re landing tonight. He says prayer represents the fundamental posture of the gospel. We are sinners with nothing but need. I love that nothing but need. And I think that you’re right. Jared, in your book, to observe this, you say the gospel centered tribe, and this is like convicting, right? Because we are the gospel center tribe has been a preaching, writing and thinking tribe, but not much of a praying tribe, but no tribe that drifts into prayerlessness can expect to stay anchored to the gospel centrality for long. So on that note, Jared, why don’t you end our time with prayer? Take it to the Lord. He is the only one that can make any of this turn into revival.

Jared Wilson
Heavenly Father, we thank you first of all for this privilege, this stewardship that we that we all have to help each other remember grace, to remember the good news of your Son, Christ, Jesus. Help us to remember that he went to the cross for us, that He rose from the grave for us, that he has ascended to your right hand and intercedes always for us. We, thank you for that gift. We, thank you for the privilege of helping each other remember that gift, Father, when it comes to all of these issues and crises and challenges. And obstacles. There are things we throw at them from the gifts you’ve given us, from these Dear brothers, from church history and other great thinkers, but at the end of the day, we have nothing if you do not give it. And so we ask that you would grant us the repentance that we need, the awe of your holiness, the conviction of sin, the staggering under the weight of your precious law. Would you give us that? And then also the freedom, the joy, the exhilaration the rest of your sons accomplishing all that the law demands for us, dying in our place. Would you give us that? Please Lord, as we look at these things, they are too big for us, keep us from getting into things that are too wonderful for us. We don’t know what to do, but we fix our eyes on you. We thank you for Christ, Jesus. We pray these things in his name, the name above all names, amen.

Brett McCracken
Amen.