Theology in the Raw - #730 - A Conversation with Mike Erre

Episode Date: March 18, 2019

On episode #730 of Theology in the Raw Preston has a conversation with Mike Erre. Mike founded VOX Community, a church in Orange County, CA birthed out of The VOX Podcast and committed to radical hospitality and countercultural friendship. Follow Mike on Twitter. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends, and welcome to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I am on the road, so I'm away from my good microphone. So you might hear some barking dogs, some people talking and some more static-y stuff going on in Theology in the Raw because I am speaking this introduction into my phone. However, the podcast that we recorded that you're going to listen to is recorded with a much better audio. I did a joint podcast with my good friend Mike Erie. Mike Erie is amazing. First of all, he's one of the best Bible teachers that I've ever heard. And I really mean that. And I don't say that about many people. He is absolutely unbelievable. He's been a pastor of several mega churches in Southern California for a number of

years. And in the midst of all that, he started a podcast called The Vox Podcast, which honestly is, if there's another podcast that is similar to Theology in the Raw, I think my number two go-to, or maybe he would say it's the number one go-to in Theology in the Raw is number two. But anyway, our podcasts are very similar. So we decided, hey, let's do a joint podcast, The Vox and Theology in the Raw. And that's where you're going to listen to a joint podcast with Mike Erie and myself talking about faith, sexuality, and gender. Enjoy the show. uh we're doing um vox in the raw today vox in the raw dude let's do that so Preston you have wandered consistently throughout your career into very non-controversial areas right so we started with non-violence and um and then we

went to hell yeah then we went to or was hell first I don't remember. Hell came first. Hell was first and then non-violence perfectly. Yeah and then now you are the head of the center for faith, sexuality, and gender. You know what's funny is even when I was doing scholarly stuff, are you familiar with the new perspective of Paul? So that was my, so I just realized, I just said the day I thought you know i was actually doing controversy before the race in hell and in the scholarly circles because i was wrestling with new perspective stuff and i was going back and forth on where i was at on that and and took kind of a nuanced middle of the road perspective nice see to me to me there are

six there are six gospel writers the four in the Bible, Dallas Willard and N.T. Wright. So I don't even question him anymore. I just accept whatever he says. He's so good. He's so good. And so what do you do? I mean, so you're the director of this institute. What do you do as a director of an institute? So the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender started started in 2017 our mission statement is to help pastors leaders and churches engage questions about faith sexuality and gender with theological faithfulness and courageous love so basically i help you threw me that softball man you knew i was gonna swing at it that's so good i exist we exist as an organization to help christian leaders not just pastors and actually the non-pastor thinker leader whatever is makes up obviously maybe 40 of the people we're reaching

but um we do have a slight focus on people who are doing kind of church ministry to help them think through both the theology of sexuality and gender but also also all the practical stuff too. We call it like a pastoral theology of LGBTQ plus plus plus related questions. So, yeah. And that's, and that's, that's been an empty space as, as we've all tried to, I mean, it pre, I don't know if it is still, but it's been an empty space in church world as churches are looking at each other going, what the heck do we do with this? Right. With these, with these wonderful people and this issue. Right. There, there,

there's people doing bridge building ministries between the church and the non-churched LGBTQ community. There's org, there's a great organization called lead them home, which has been training church leaders on LGBT inclusion, the pastoral side. There's also affirming organizations like the Reformation Project. Q Christian would be, that's a little bit of a broader space, but they do kind of theological training on an affirming side. As far as I know, I don't know anybody that does a blend of theological pastoral training that does dig into all the complexities of the theology, but doesn't stay there that actually does do a lot. I mean, 50% of what we do is the pastoral stuff on the other

end. So yeah, there's not a whole lot that I know that's doing exactly what we do. No, I really don't think so. And to what degree, so the book you wrote, People To Be Loved, we talked about it on the podcast, we meaning Andy and I. And so that had to be an interesting venture into this space.

What was the, I don't know, what was the reception like from both sides? I would imagine both sides aren't super satisfied with where you're at. Yeah. So both sides is really broad. Yeah, true. With the polarizing extreme ends of both of those sides, for lack of better terms terms the far left thinks I'm a Nazi and that I hate gay people the far right think I'm affirming of same-sex marriage and believe I'm going down you know I'm damn to hell. Sorry that's my wife.

Sorry. I love that you hung up on her. I did. It's post and sprinkle. Come on, man. So yeah, the polarizing voices pretty much mirror each other. It's funny, isn't it? Almost verbatim. Almost verbatim. They don't try to understand what I'm actually saying. I mean, just today I was looking at my Facebook page and I had a ton of people saying I'm not only damned to hell, but leading people to hell.

had a ton of people saying I'm not only damned to hell, but leading people to hell because I am. And they're responding to a post that I advertise about a leadership training I'm doing with a link to my statement on sexuality and faith and everything that's crystal clear that I hold to the traditional view. So they couldn't even click on, they didn't even have an interest in clicking on the link just because I was talking about faith, sexuality, and gender. They were putting all these gifts of people jumping into the fires of hell and all this stuff. So, but then, but then responding to them were the people on the far left. They were equally hating me for the exact opposite reason. The only difference in, the only difference in language was that the liberals were swearing and the Christians were the quote unquote Christians were not. But even then I was like, I think they,

they made the conservatives so angry because they realized that they're both saying the same thing. I think they even got some of the fundamentalists to start swearing and cussing and stuff. Oh, you know, that's when you know, you've, you've nailed it right there. That's what you thought. And so your, your view and the view, kind of people to be loved. The thing that's so interesting is I, so if people are coming into the LGBTQ conversation, I recommend Matthew Vines as kind of the best popular level, you know what I mean by that, sort of entrance into the affirming position.

And then I recommend your book as a very kind entrance into the non-affirming position. Right. Yeah. And so part of, you know, so part of why you're getting crap, right, is because you're not totally affirming, but you're not non-affirming in the way that you should be. Right? That's right. Yeah.

Yeah, that I would passionately articulate and maintain and if i need to defend a traditional view of marriage i do i'm not allowed to say this but i think it's among the clearer teachings in scripture but i will turn around in the very next one wow no i mean that's a huge statement these days right oh it's oh yeah and even uh you know in a world where everything is just your interpretation, people don't like to say it's clear. And it is a subjective statement. Sometimes I say it's clear to kind of provoke people to react.

It's a lot of work. But I would turn right around in the very next breath and challenge the conservative church to not just try to love lgbt people but delight in and laugh with and dine with and have them over to watch your kids and to you know share bread over the table and to learn from um like you can actually get a conversation with a married gay couple and actually learn relational wisdom from that couple um i mean, maybe I'm not saying just because you're gay means you nailed it relationally, but, but just, just to extend that grace leash much farther than the church has ever thought

they could extend it. And so people don't, yeah, people see me as schizophrenic sometimes. I don't know what to do with it, but I just, I truly, and I know this is, I don't, I'm not throwing, you know, the J card down as a, you know, I I mean when you look at the life of Jesus I just I just see that I mean he upholds a very high standard of obedience like the Sermon on the Mount you know try reading the Sermon on the Mount and then going outside and doing that you know it's like oh my gosh like he cared deeply about obedience but then he radically loved those who

fell short of that standard of obedience and and so i do think that jesus i think he nailed it imagine that shocking but but i think his approach to what i call social let's just say those who have been seen as socially unacceptable sinners by the religious elite of his day it almost that almost perfectly maps upon how the church has gone about the LGBT conversation. So I just look at the life of Jesus and say, how did he treat those who are similar to how we have historically treated LGBT people?

In all of your research for the book, but in all these conversations you're having, you're going around the country, talking to churches and people. What is the single best argument for the affirming point of view yeah i'll give you i'll give you mine or no you give me yours and then if it's the same one i'll agree but there's one i have too that i haven't heard answered well okay so start you start oh oh sorry i was very unclear about how that was going to go so so i uh

i will give you three that in my journey i have uh found to be um wow i i it kind of took me by surprise like wow how would i respond to this in a way that isn't isn't just trying to refute the argument but truly is understanding the argument, the evidence used to support it, is it is like genuinely is the evidence valid or not? if it's valid then I need to keep you know looking into this. the first argument that challenged me was the fact that most male same-sex relationships in the larger biblical era in the Greco-Roman period were exploitative. They were between people of different power differentials, you know, a citizen and a non-citizen,

a master and a slave, older man, younger boy. We don't see a lot of evidence for adult consensual male same sex relationships so that when you read Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, and 1 Timothy 2, 1 Timothy 1, the three passages that prohibit same-sex relationships, you have to ask a question, does Paul have a certain kind of same-sex relationship in view that's exploitative and oppressive? Or is he ruling out same-sex relationships categorically? That would be the one and i could i could give a whole response to that if you want me to or i can give the other

i just want to hear the best ones okay yeah on the on that side right your other two uh the other second one that um that i encountered that was popular well it was popular back in the 90s and it's been resurrected by uh partly by james brownson Brownson and then Matthew Vines is the so-called excessive lust view, meaning that what Paul is critiquing is not male same-sex relationships per se, but that he is echoing a particular Greco-Roman view that same-sex relationships among men, at least, were a result of excessive lust. And the problem isn't the same sex aspect of it, but the fact that they are giving into uncontrollable lust and are exploring new kind of kinky territory with other guys. Right. In fact, so just to be honest, when I encountered the argument, I said, man, I think this might be the most compelling affirming argument. I need to spend a lot of time wrestling with it. So I actually wrote two peer-reviewed journal articles interacting with that view. I said, look, if I can't respond to this, then maybe it's right. Maybe I need to go with that. But then after looking into it, I was like, man, I think there's several logical and historical leaps they're making there. But the third one would be the whole idea of sexual orientation being unknown to

writers that biblical writers just thought that everybody was straight and you can kind of if you're acting on or you know and if you're going to be same-sex attracted you're kind of choosing it and now we know from the last you know 50 plus years or so that sexual orientation is something that is not chosen, that it is inborn maybe. And that if the biblical writers knew what we now know about sexual orientation, then they wouldn't have said the things that they did. So those would be the three most popular ones that we'd have to wrestle with. So can I refute them or should I just let the audience wrestle with that?

I'm fine. I mean, I've responded to it in many places. Yeah, no, let's let them sit. To me, I'd love your thoughts on this one because I'm with you on those, absolutely. But I was talking to Temeke from the Bible Project. We were talking about the Old Testament concept of accommodation and he makes a big deal, rightly so,

about how God is dealing with suboptimal conditions. The law is not God's ideal. The law is triage. Right. Yeah. And, um, and, and if you understand it that way and you take divorce, it's kind of the test case of even, you know, where Jesus is like, yeah, but you know, um i've had i've had some gay men agree with me uh that the ideal is in genesis one and two but they don't they don't fit that ideal why wouldn't god accommodate to same-sex attraction the same way he accommodated to polygamy right uh the same way he accommodated to attraction the same way he accommodated to polygamy right the same

way he accommodated to slavery the same way he accommodated to patriarchy yeah right so why so that's good yeah yeah yeah come on that's and I haven't read that that's a Mike Erie one and and I and I'm sure it's out there by much smarter people see about it you know years ago but but that would that's what I've really been wrestling it's like because what do you do like the biggest argument we had people at our church box that that were unbelievably in love with jesus and and here they're they're lesbians and they're married yeah so what what are my options there my options are well hey you should get divorced and be celibate yeah right and then you're living in god's will or you should be

excluded from the church community yeah right yeah i mean i mean there just isn't there there's no there's no room in there and yet these are dear friends and they're wonderful people and there's fruit yeah yeah probably more fruit than many yes yes the many people on your facebook page oh man yeah so there's several i mean there's uh several moving parts there that we can wrestle with and we might have to pull apart each part and examine it on its own love it i love it let let me say, let me say this in the, um, I edited a book called, uh, the Bible and homosexuality or two views on the Bible homosexuality in the

church. And there's two essays by traditionalists and two essays by affirming, uh, Christians. One of the essays by the traditionalists, uh, Stephen Holmes, he's a professor at St. Andrews, the theologian, he argues for traditional marriage but he makes the accommodation argument actually. At the end of his essay he kind of suggests maybe we should pastorally accommodate given the kind of situation we're in. So that argument has been made from a traditional perspective.

Here's my one big pushback. And this is my pushback to him is, yes, you do see, I'll call it a trajectory of accommodation. And I would put violence in the same area where violence is, and this is my whole argument in my book, Fight. I had three chapters on the Old Testament because what do you do with the Old Testament when you're arguing for nonviolence, you know? Right. And what we see is God meets Israel where they are at. And the law, as you suggested, is tolerating to some extent and regulating an imperfect ethical system that God found Israel in.

system that God found Israel in. Polygamy was just such a part of society that he didn't, God, you know, the law doesn't like promote it. It does regulate it though. It doesn't, but it doesn't end it. But what you see in these accommodating ethics with a patriarchal society, kind of misogyny in the old Testament, violence, a divorce. And what was it? You said another one. Oh, slavery. All of those though,

if you follow those throughout scripture into the new Testament, you see the ethical trajectory moving away from just simply accommodating towards it. The trajectory is moving toward the Genesis one and two ideal. So that divorce, Jesus tightens in the reins on that. You definitely see misogyny. I mean, Jesus elevates women like far above any other violence. You know, now it's not kill your enemy, it's love your enemy. And what was the other one? Slavery. Slavery, you know, that one can be complicated, but I still, Paul doesn't end the institution

of slavery, but he does kind of gut it from the inside out. I mean, some of the things he says about masters honoring your slaves, that would just be unheard of. And then if you follow that trajectory on in early church history, when Christianity did kind of take over, they did end slavery. So with those kinds of ethical trajectories that begin with some sort of accommodation in the Old Testament, you see them moving towards the Genesis 1 and 2 ideal. And I would say you just don't see any accommodation to um same-sex relationships or even things like adultery or and i hate using these aren't analogies okay but all well let me just say this you can go read the verses all the sexual things in leviticus 18

they're pretty straightforward across the old and new testament there is no accommodating and permitting and you could take other ethical questions like like adultery or even like caring for the poor like that is from genesis to revelation believers should care for the poor it's part of our almost like part of our identity so throughout scripture you see trajectories moving in all different directions sometimes towards from permission permission to prohibition sometimes from prohibition to permission sometimes it's just sometimes from prohibition to permission, sometimes it's just prohibition, prohibition, or permission, permission. So we can't just look at a trajectory like divorce

that moves a certain direction and map that on same-sex relationships. We have to consider each one on their own. Anyway, I'll stop. No, no, that's good. But that's where then your other three arguments come in to play more powerfully, particularly with the orientation. Yes. And that's where you'd go, well, the, you know, the gender dysphoria stuff. I mean, we're into conversations that the scripture just never envisioned. And just mapping, stamping a Bible verse on, on something

just doesn't appreciate all the nuance. So my response, again, if I were devil's advocate, I would be saying, hey, I think you're absolutely right about trajectories. But in this case, there's new information that biblical writers did not have. Well, I would push back on the orientation when I think think is let me just let me just be provocative i think it's both ethically and scientifically invalid whoa because we uh what do we know about orientation from a scientific perspective the more we study it the more we don't really understand where it comes from how immutable it is i mean there's we now know from the work of like lisa diamond that um same-sex desires among women is incredibly fluid and shifts and change

and even among men now since 2014 there's been several scientific studies coming out that are kind of like man these these airtight categories of very straight bisexual are just not airtight at all so if we take the the definition so all i have to say i think it's let me just be as um uh box in the raw dude it's yeah i'm trying to think if i was an atheist and hated the bible perfect i would still say it just doesn't really follow to rely upon this real wet sand, hard to understand thing called sexual orientation and use that as the foundation to form our ethical views from. Maybe in 5, 10, 15, 20 years, we'll have a much better understanding. But to say that some people

experience a desire for this, therefore it must be okay to act on, like that just doesn't work scientifically nor ethically so ethically so the definition of orientation is an enduring pattern of emotional romantic and or sexual attraction to somebody of the same sex would be same-sex orientation so if we went back to Paul and Jesus and said okay I know this behavior is immoral, but I know a person who has an enduring emotional, romantic and sexual desire to do that act. I think Paul and Jesus, that they didn't choose,

that they didn't choose. Right. Um, but I don't, I think Paul and Jesus, given the sexual ethic we've seen in the New Testament, kind of shrugged their shoulders and say, since when does internal inborn desire justify behavior?

I mean, or let's broaden it out. Here's where I took people to use the orientation argument. I said, okay, here's my one plea. If you're going to use that, if you're going to say that in an unchosen desire, that's really strong and maybe you might have the desire from birth to death. If, if your ethical argument is that if that's true of somebody, then they should be allowed to act on that desire.

At least be consistent with anybody who has a desire they didn't choose. It's really strong. Doesn't seem to be going away. Then at least say, at least be fair to everybody and say that I'm going to use, I'm going to be consistent in my ethic and say, if that's you, then you're allowed to act on that desire.

But I'm not even going to use, I'm not going to go with the analogies. I'll let my audience. Don't, yeah. But wouldn't, wouldn't then the counter be yeah but but the way that we regulate between the desires that we permit the desires that we outlaw are whether or not they hurt another i don't i mean that that is a really popular secular secular ethic in the west the kind of as long as it doesn't harm people it's okay but that's not um i don't i mean i don't think that's the only criteria of christian ethics or even just um are you familiar with the work of jonathan height oh yes so he in his book the righteous

mind he talks about this from a secular perspective and um he he lays out that the sort of don't harm other people is a very, very Western, modern, almost white ethic. And it was him that when he, after he traveled to India and saw that, oh man, there's all kinds of other ethical impulse, moral impulses that people have like purity or shame or honor, you know, and, you know, I could, if I took a dump and wiped my butt with the American flag I'm not harming anybody but a lot of people kind of say like I just that just doesn't feel right or Jonathan Haidt uses the example of if you run over your dog you actually kill your dog it's sad you have a little funeral and then you take him into the kitchen butcher him up and eat the meat

of your dog you eat your dog you're not harming anybody you're actually making a good use of of of you know meat that's just going to go to waste but most people would say for some reason that just doesn't i don't know like so and again these are right maybe somewhat creepy whatever but i mean he he actually uses those illustrations to show that there are other moral impulses that go beyond just harming another human obviously we don't want to harm another human but we can't reduce ethics to as long as it doesn't harm anybody as long as it's a byproduct of your desire whatever then it's okay and this is coming from a secular perspective i mean jonathan heights and yeah an atheistic jew and he says man uh and and his well i can keep going but um yeah, real quick. His reason for doing this is

because he was on the far left ideologically and politically, and he kept getting frustrated at why the conservatives keep winning. And then when he looked into this, he was like, look, the left only uses the harm argument they keep writing the harm argument when there's five or six other moral impulses that humans have and conservatives keep drawing on those and that's why in his mind conservatives kept winning is because they are appealing to all these other moral impulses like authority respect for authority you know it's the conservative that's going to be upset if somebody mops the floor with an american flag the liberal is not going to care too much you know but but you know the conservatives are tapping into all these other moral impulses but you know and when i was reading

his work i'm like well a lot of those other moral impulses are found right in scripture i think he would even agree with that he's pretty well versed in text so um anyway i'll stop i've been talking too much and this is a joint podcast. No, dude. I love it. One of the reasons why you are awesome is you get wound up. You have a great personality. Lots of insights. Love it, man. So of course, I'm going to try to throw something out controversial.

And you're going to run with it, baby. Because that's what I love. No, I love it. And I wanted to do that because it's so rare to have people speaking directly on this like church clarity. I mean we did a whole show on just that and it was like- Really? Well yeah. What did you think about that? I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Well first of all the impulse behind it, I think, is very fair and just, right? Explain to our audience what it is first. on a scale, and I don't remember the exact wording, but pretty much from, are they clearly unaffirming? Are they clearly affirming? Are they murky? Are they sort of leaning unaffirming? Are they leaning affirming? Or are they murky?

And there's kind of a don't ask, don't tell. Right. And as people would come to a church, they could enter the church and then research kind of where the church was and then not be betrayed later. Because what I hear from gay friends is just the bait and switch. Hey, we welcome everybody, but you can't serve here, here, here, here and here we don't let you do children's ministry we won't let you lead you know blah blah blah but sometimes they said they tell that to them two years down the road right like you plugged into community they have

all these relationships and all of a sudden like i'm getting married can you marry me oh yeah we don't believe in that like you let me sit in your pews for two years before you actually told me where you're at yeah yeah yeah so if I'm so it is so so the I think the desire behind it is is magnificent the issues come in for a community so so and kind of a community like ours where we wanted to escape the affirming non affirming binary yeah um and and so we don't want it clear now now that doesn't mean um we don't think we don't have opinions or we don't have convictions about or whatever it just means that uh the way we described our church was we want a place where affirming and

non-affirming people can love and serve each other because however you however you whatever theological position you take our churches are full of this right and it's not going away and so and so where would you put us on that scale right we we uh we just didn't fit and and not only that but um we had people who would come to our community and say hey i'm I'm glad you're not affirming. And they were gay. We've been to affirming churches and at least in their experience, the churches spent more time talking about how great they were to be not affirming or to be affirming, excuse me. And not, you know,

the bigger stuff. So, so it's an interesting attempt and i i'm in favor of if i were if i were a gay christian i would want something like this i would not want to be betrayed by the slippery language of christian ministries but but it didn't i don't think it maps exactly how churches are trying to process through this issue yeah and um and what i think it does is elevates um and i understand why but i just don't agree that that is the most important issue right um no i i if i if i were gay i would i would think differently but uh on any issue um i don't think there's one litmus test that describes the whole community I just don't think that's how Jesus works right and I don't think his body should work that way either

I think you should there should be places where affirming and non-affirming people interact and and it's not the new humanity when just the people who all think the same way and act the same way are together. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I, I, yeah,

I had several problems with the church clarity and I talked to, um, had a long conversation with one of the, the guy who founded him. I'm blanking on his name now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Did you have him on or somebody on or no? You guys just talked about it. We just talked about it, but we use their website language. Okay. So I, I didn't, um, cause their big thing is just, it needs to be on the website. So here I 100% agree that the bait and switch thing that absolutely we should not do,

that churches should be clear about where they're at. Even if they're not sure where they're at, be clear about that. If they're really strong on one side or the other be clear about that i just don't like that the one criteria criterion for clarity was if it's on the website or not because from my vantage point these are conversations that belong uh over the table over bread um and in face-to-face embodied relationships and and one of the problems is that for traditional churches the traditional view of marriage has been so stigmatized as being anti-gay uh you think all gay people are going to hell or if they get saved they have become straight so if i have a statement that's for lack of better

terms is a non-affirming statement people are going to say oh okay so that church is anti-gay they hate gay people and think they're creepy and and all this kind of you know like yeah stuff that we we created for ourselves from the moral majority in the 1980s and 90s like we we provided people with that kind of impression of the traditional view so what i don't want people to do is to read a statement is one of the problems with big problems i have in the national statement absolutely read the statement and then read into that all this baggage that that's right created over the years and that you know that they're going to assume that i am a certain kind of person you know i mean yeah and even like i i think uh we have well people have blurred this. They have blurred sexual ethics with loving people. So that.

Dude, that's the big one. That's the big one. So here, I mean, I'm constantly trying to push people to, in a sense, separate those two. How could you love somebody, Preston, if you disagree with who they are? See, that's the. Right? That's how it comes across. So here's what I try to say.

And I'm not saying this irons it out, but my view is that, as succinctly as I can say it, I, as a Christian, I believe in the historically Christian view that sex difference is part of what marriage is and that all sexual relationships are intended to be expressed

within that covenant bond, period, the end. We include everybody. What is inclusion? Inclusion is including people by the grace and forgiveness and love of Jesus into a community seeking sanctification, holiness, and repentance. And it's sexual ethic is one aspect of what we're including people into. So all people are welcome and all does mean all, but to my radically affirming friends, you know, all means all we include everybody. We don't point the finger at anybody. I'm like, okay, great. That's awesome. So I got my buddies and he's in the KKK. He wants to come to church with his white hood on. Is that cool? Well, yeah, but he's got to take that hat off and he, I'm like, I agree, man.

Um, but don't, don don't don't make it about including versus including that the only the primary none yeah the only disagreement is sexual ethics and any genuine Christian is going to draw the line somewhere on sexual ethics you know and so I may draw it differently than you but don't make it about you're inclusive and I'm not we just have a different sexual ethic that we are including all people into. Now I'm speaking for myself and I would definitely say many evangelical churches are excluding gay people. So that's part of the problem. But people talk about, man, why don't you want to include LGBTQ people in your church? I said, I would be so honored to submit to a gay pastor, a transgender identified pastor, a queer pastor.

Like, it's not even about that, those identities for me. And this gets me in trouble with those on the right. For me, it's about, is the person living faithfully Jesus according to the sexual ethic that I do believe is the biblical historical ethic that we are living by. But if you use that test, Preston, then almost all of our straight pastors would disappear. Because you're not allowed to be tempted by sexual sexual temptations like really right I just I mean I have a friend who has struggled with pornography um his whole life and has been seeing huge victory in that and these are I mean here Christian this is so Christianese, right? Struggle with and victory.

But he's seen a great degree of progress. He works for a pretty well-known Christian institution, and he stumbled. Again, Christian word. He looked at porn for maybe 15 minutes. And it had been the first time in like six months. I mean, he was just, just doing great. And then he got randomly or not, an email that we know is a scam, but it was like, Hey dude, we've, we've,

we got footage of you on, on your webcam doing this. We're going to send it to everyone in your contact list, unless you X, Y, and Z. Now I would hear that. I'd go, well, that's stupid. That's a scam. My very conscience stricken friend heard that and went to his boss. Oh, wow.

And said, Hey, I got this email. Now, now my friend didn't know that the email had been sent to the whole, you know, the whole organization as just a scam. But he went and he confessed, hey, I had this 15-minute episode where I looked at porn. It was the first time in a very, very long time. And two hours later, they fired him. No explanation.

Oh, my word. Yeah. I mean, just boom. 60% of its leaders are looking at porn from exactly that's it so my my question my question is so when i when i whenever i say hey i think the creational ideals in genesis one and two technically i don't even live up to that if you take the words of the sermon on the on the Mount seriously about lust. Right. Right? And so again, I probably push it. I'm with you in pushing it because I'm sitting here thinking, if that's the test, if how well I hold to my sexual ethic is the test,

well, I don't even consistently hold to my sexual ethic. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. I mean it's this kind of posture that is going to reopen up many conversations and avenues for the LGBT community to sort of reconsider the church because one of the biggest complaints is the hypocrisy. oh my goodness. there's so much stuff that we turn a blind eye to or are allowed to struggle with and they're just like why can't i struggle out loud you know the biggest divide the biggest difference for me is there's a difference

between struggling with sin versus calling sin righteousness so to me and i'm a huge grace guy i mean i probably to a fault you know i'm like that was true that was a good book oh thanks man yeah um and i yeah i tried to push it as far as I could. And, and so for me, it's not the struggle. I just want to create large open spaces for people to struggle out loud with anything. And because of the nature I'm in ministry, I might get all kinds of stuff with people with unwanted desires for really, I mean, all kinds of sexual fetishes. And, and I mean, I can go on and on and on. This't just an lgbtq versus straight i mean

this is like there's so many things that people are struggling with desires that they don't want that they didn't choose um the biggest difference for me though is yeah are we kind of pursuing the genesis one and two ideal imperfectly with space for failure and forgiveness versus celebrating, you know, and pursuing not that, you know? So. Yep. And that's where the pastoral issue gets so tricky. Yeah. Because, you know, if you're, if you're a conservative on this, wouldn't you want people to be brought in, even if they're loud and proud, wouldn't you want people to be brought into the orbit of

word and spirit and community? That was our thing at the church and we did it imperfectly and we hurt some people for sure. We would allow people to share their stories and we didn't know how to handle stories where one of the punchlines was why i just embraced being gay and i got married to you know my dream and this person rescued me and we were so we were super i was i shouldn't say we were i was still working it out but but to create space you had to i mean there are people who are loud and proud about their lust issue or their greed issue or their pride issue. Right?

I mean, so where do you even draw that line between, yeah, we don't want to baptize unrighteousness. But I also don't want to order someone's discipleship either. Yeah. Like if somebody comes in and they just have a huge ego and everyone is like, dude, this dude is a jerk. I'm not, I don't lead with that, right? I sit and I go, well, bringing into the orbit of Word, Spirit, Eucharist, and community, maybe God opens that up. And there are, you know, with somebody like that, huge egos or people that are kind of type A++ personalities where they're just steamrolling over people without realizing it and are insensitive and whatever, like, um, we would give them a, you know, a generous leash or, you know, a generous timeframe for what it's going to take to work this out. I mean, some people go to the

grave, which just, just, just stanky stubbornness, you know, and just bullheadedness and all these things that are violated all kinds of. So I think, yeah, I think, um, giving people space that discipleship is a really sometimes torturous, long, messy process. And, uh, we, we allow it for some people, but not for others. Or as one of my friends said, you know, we're, we're most likely to vilify the sins that we're least likely to admit totally um yeah yeah how did you because i mean you're i would imagine your church context had um and for my audience i mean your audience knows but my audience yeah just i want to revisit this actually but so if you don't know mike erie i'm gonna you know we're like a half hour into the conversation

or you know i'll add i'll add a i'll add a separate intro to this and I'll tell them who you are. But yeah. So you, I mean you, uh, for the last several years up until you moved to Ohio, you had this church community that grew out of your podcast. Did you have a wide spectrum of conservatives? Oh yeah. Oh, it was. So what did, how did that work? I mean, how was Preston? It was the coolest thing ever. Uh, so we like, I mean just, these are just snapshots.

So here's the white guy and a mullet, I kid you not, with a Trump t-shirt, taking communion behind an illegal immigrant. Are you serious? Unbelievable. married same-sex couples taking communion with people that think that married same-sex couples are going to burn in hell. I mean, it was, it was. And they knew that? Huh? And they, so how did they, so with both those examples,

are they like looking at the other person and like, I can't believe they're here. I can't, I'm not going to be able to stay here. Or are they actively trying to like, oh, how can they're here. I can't, I'm not going to be able to stay here. Are they actively trying to like, how can I both love this person? Both. Yeah. I mean, we, on, on both sides of the issue, we had, we had gay folks that would come and, and cause we, we wanted to build the church on the idea that the church should be the safest place to talk about anything.

And cause we believe in sin and we believe in grace and we believe in redemption, right? So what's going to surprise us and what's going to cause us to lose hope? Nothing. And we began, I mean, the biggest thing we did was built the church on the Eucharist. And I come from a very non-sacramental background, but I was having conversation with Rob Bell after a lot of controversy. And I had asked him a pretty cheesy question, but I asked him, hey, if you were going to start a church now, knowing what you know, what would you do differently? And he said, I would build it on the Eucharist. I would build it on the weekly celebration of the Eucharist. And that so resonated with some stuff because I'd been studying communion.

And this idea of a closed table, I just don't see it. I mean, you talk about controversy. I just don't see it in the Bible. Can we get into that real quick? Yeah. So let me, I'll try to keep this really short because I don't want it in the bible can we get into that real quick because i i'm so let me i'll try to keep this really short because i don't want to break it as i see the early communion in first corinthians 11 if you study the kind of background there you got this house church of maybe 20 to

maybe 50 max people the communion is at the very least part of a meal an actual meal if not the meal itself yeah that when what would it look like for you to bring your non-believer to that meeting your non-believing friend yeah and to say hey i know i brought you to this meeting that's that's the focus of this gathering is a big meal we're going to celebrate together you're not allowed to eat dinner time right just sit over there we're gonna eat we're gonna eat this luscious meal we have good wine here good homemade bread and and yeah um after we're done then we're gonna do some teaching and you can be a part of that but you can't be part of this this meal that it's just odd right but then right my intention is just by practically

i'm like of course non-believers were that's of course they were like that's that's what they were there for is to dine with them but then what about aren't there statements that do imply that partake into the meal you are part of the body of christ or what are the verses that yeah yeah now this this is what i would study and this is so good bro yeah oh so good so so i came from a church community that practiced communion four times a year after foot washing. All right. It was the biggest, most sacred deal, candles, no fluorescent lights. I mean, it was a huge deal. And I've always just, I inherited the traditional view, right? That, that you have to examine yourself and you have to confess your sin

before you can come to the table. And there were times when I was dating and I was physically involved with somebody, I would not take communion because I'm like, I don't want to bring judgment on myself. I don't want to die. I don't want to sleep, whatever that means. And so I was doing a series on first Corinthians and I got to 11 and I read the chapter in context, shockingly, and discovered that it wasn't non-Christians being warned away. It was rich Christians being critiqued for shaming the poor Christians. Right. And people push back instantly. They're like, yeah, but they got to examine themselves and recognize the body.

Okay, when you go into 1 Corinthians 12, and again, there's no chapter division there, what's the body? The body isn't the body of Jesus. It's the body of Christ, correct? So what they were doing is tearing the body of Christ to center in the way they were shaming the Christian poor. We know from 1 Corinthians 14, there were non-believers in these gatherings, right? Because Paul says, if you're going to speak in a tongue, you have to interpret it. People are going to think you're nuts. But not once in his whole discussion does he warn them not to take the Lord's Supper. The only warning was given to

the Christians, and not just any Christian, but to the rich Christians that were eating ahead of the poor. Because the whole thing, he sums up the last, I think it's the last verse in chapter 30 or chapter 11, verse 30. I think he simply says, so then come together when you eat. And then he moves on. And that had nothing to do with examining yourself. I mean, I literally sat in a church where the pastor said hey you got to get cleaned up you're gonna go out to eat you get cleaned up if you come to the lord's table

you got to get cleaned up and that is the biggest bunch of bs you can say it no why i don't know theology in the raw uh and and and raw. And it was so shocking. And so many people were offended because I left E.B. Free Fullerton. Our first podcast is Why Gay Marriage is Good for the Church. And it was non-controversial stuff. It was like, it forces us to admit our hypocrisy. It forces us to talk about sexuality besides no.

Like, duh. And then we open a church where women can lead and open communion is practiced and i'm a heretic or something and i'm sitting there going but guys read the freaking bible it never warns non-christians and in fact if the if the first communion meal was based on passover passover had stipulations for the alien and in its practice. Well, the statement to wait for one another, here's what I read about the background. And Moyer Hubbard is great.

You know him? I do, I do. He's got this, you know, he was saying that like in that world, you know, rich people didn't have to work if at all, very much. So they would be free by 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Then they'd go to the bathhouses for a couple hours.

Then they would go to the community, the gathering. This is the church now. You have rich Christians and poor Christians, which is crystal clear throughout Corinthians. This is one of the biggest problems is the rich versus poor thing. So you have the rich Christians showing up early. The poor Christians are having to work all day. They're getting there at six, seven, eight at night. And so when he says, wait for one another,

he's telling the rich Christians to don't eat ahead of time. Don't you have houses to eat in? Here you are, you're already drunk by the time the poor people show up. You're not considering the body, meaning the poor believers in the body, wait for one another. In other words, rich Christians, wait until the poor Christians get off off or if you're hungry then go get you can eat or whatever but when you come together for the meal you need to all come together together so separate place they would eat a separate time and some would argue they were eating separate food yeah oh the higher

quality they would eat all the good stuff yes yes so they were shaming i mean they took what was meant to be a unifying act yes and they used it to shame the poor christian and because of that paul says some of you have fallen asleep and that's the night that's an ananias and sapphira thing i think wow because how rich and poor interacted was super, super important in the early church. So Ananias and Sapphira wasn't about whether or not they gave all the money. It was the fact that they were shaming the church by keeping some for themselves while claiming they were giving it all. So to me, this ties in to God's – why do we have those random incidents where God's striking people down in the New Testament? we have those random incidents where God's striking people down in the New Testament.

Well, to me, it is a rich and poor issue where the church had to be shown in the ugliest way possible that the honor-shame and the patron-client relationships that dominated interaction simply did not apply in the church. And they could not apply for the church to be the church. So I don't know how we go from there to you have to confess your sin before you take the bread and the cup, to then, unbelievers, you have to be a disciple of Jesus. We would have international students who would come to our community. We had a woman in our community who loved international students. So we'd have eight or nine people coming from Korea or other places in Asia,

some of whom were Christian, many of whom were not. And every week we made the table the center. And that would always give us the opportunity, of course, to explain the gospel. And that was beautiful. But we would invite invite and they would come so here's some Buddhists right you don't know what they're doing so you're telling me Jesus of Nazareth is gonna strike them down or or we had an we had a believing wife and an atheistic husband one of our first weekends show

up and the and the atheist had never taken communion with his wife. He just thought the whole thing was nonsense. For whatever reason, for the first time in their 40 years of marriage, he walks down with her and takes the bread and the cup. And you're going to tell me that Jesus of Nazareth is pissed. Come on. What about the Rod to Emmaus?

I'm trying to, I don't have my Bible. Well, I do have a Bible, but I don't feel like opening it. So Luke 24 road to Emmaus. I think they say at least two times that it was through the breaking of bread that their eyes were open.

Is that, I mean, I don't want to get too hung up on the order, but I just wonder. That's right. That's right. The breaking of the bread is the means through which God might open eyes, not make sure your eyes are open and then you're allowed to take the bread.

Right. Isn't that. Yes. It's like, it's like baptism. Do you have to get cleaned up before you get baptized? No. Baptism is the indication that you were opening yourself up for the cleaning, correct? Well, what about, so baptism though does come after, you know, repent to be baptized. Like you are wanting to go down this journey, right?

Absolutely. But how morally pure do you have to be? No, not at all. Not at all. Not at all. Correct? Yeah. Yeah. And yes, it's introductory rite that's different than communion which is right right totally totally acknowledge and get that. If someone were a Buddhist and did not want to affirm Jesus as Lord I would not baptize them. So what's the biggest push back then? What's the people listening like something I may get more emails than you do although our

audiences are pretty our audiences are kind of a saying they're going to, even if they don't totally agree with what we're saying, they're going to love the conversation. They give grace. Yes. What would be the biggest pushback to everything that you're saying? Cause I'm, I'm,

I'm thinking out loud here. You're probably further ahead in this. And I just, I've always thought it odd that if it's an early meal, right. Be either part of a meal or, or the meal itself. What would it look like for unbelievers to be

excluded from that so that's my biggest hang-up but what would it be if you can play devil's advocate to everything you're saying what would one hang up well the the other argument i use for this is jesus's table fellowship with sinners okay jesus would have table fellowship with people before they repented now is that directly related to later communion? Well, that's the objection. The objection is, and it's a good one, table fellowship isn't communion. And then my question is, okay, in what ways is it different? And in what ways then does it become more exclusive?

Tell me that. Is it only, right? Because, and I understand the objection being made for sure. My counter is simply, we've turned communion into some sort of magic, right? It was a meal. It was a reenactment. I think there, I think Christ is present in some way. I mean, I don't think it's just bread and wine. I think there's, Paul seems to indicate with this parallel about demons, right? He's like, you're participating with demons when you eat that idol meat.

So somehow we're participating in some mystery bigger than us. But I see, A, no warning against unbelievers. B, the only warning is against believers. And it was specifically, and if he didn't name the specific circumstance, then I would say, absolutely. We got to be really careful with this. But he named the circumstance. He gives a prescription for how to do it differently. And then he moves on.

And then later, three chapters later, he's talking about what to do when unbelievers are there. He says nothing about the Lord's table. He just simply says, interpret your freaking tongues. So the best argument. That's a box translation there. Interpret your freaking tongues. So the best argument. That's a box translation there. Interpret your freaking tongues. The best translation or the best argument against it is the, is the, is the idea that, Hey, people were falling asleep.

We don't know if that's the only circumstance where people were falling asleep. And do you really want to push it like if this is this is i mean this is for disciples right it's a celebration of the risen right as often as you celebrate it you're not only remembering but you're anticipating so how can you divorce how can you have somebody participate in a right divorced from its meaning in uh so i do have my bible open now so in 11 27 whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the blood and body and blood of the lord so that unworthy manner is specifically in this context keep reading keep reading okay

uh let a person examine himself yeah then and so eat the bread and drink a cup for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body come on that's rich christians not considering the the rest of the body namely the poor christian right eat drinks judgment on itself that is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died this translation says but if we judge ourselves truly we would not be judged so when we are so then my brothers when you come together wait for to eat wait for one another not that to me that is crystal clear it is rich believers waiting for

poor believers to get off work so they can come join you now no i would then add this from that specific instance i think paul does broaden it to uh perce the body, right? I mean, he says that examine yourselves. And I take that to mean that if you were participating in communion in a way that invalidates its central message, you are eating and drinking judgment upon yourself. Okay, so there is a broader application. Absolutely. I think there is. I think there is a broader application. Absolutely. I think that I think there is, I think there is. And so, so I, I,

nothing specific comes to mind other than, you know, if you, like, if you were, um, if you, if you restricted communion to those who tithe,

um, uh, you know, I, you would be eating and drinking judgment upon yourself. Um, I just think they're like, I think it's an honor shame thing more than

it is a sexual purity thing okay yeah this is where and this is where you know the big mistake we've made is we've reduced holiness to sexual purity right and and in the in the american church and so and that's why we only disqualify people you know for sex but we're now starting bro we're now starting to disqualify people for greed and ego and hallelujah for all of that hey by the way dude if you were going to start a church we've seen bill hybels who yeah man i you know i i was a fan um have you yeah what do you what do you think's going on you've got the sexual abuse scandals for the SBC. Dude, isn't it crazy right now? Well, I think I don't have much to add to that except what I think you would say and what other people are saying.

Just we've structured church that sort of elevates and isolates this kind of senior leader. leader and um yeah i mean in all those situations the the the word on the street is you know these leaders that fall they did have a bunch of kind of yes men around them but no genuine like openness and accountability or even space where the leader could say hey i watched 15 minutes of porn last night and people would come up and say hey we'd love to be an accountability or whatever like help you out rather than you're fired on the spot and there's no place for redemption um so yeah i mean could bill hybels were structures in place where he could have came up on the sunday morning and said you know what i was inappropriate with a woman last week you know nothing we didn't go all the way or whatever but there's an emotional thing going on here and i i inappropriate hugging she called me on it.

I'm really sorry. And I really want to do better. Like, I don't, that wouldn't have been a category. There's no possibility for leaders to be as, as fragile as they really are. And,

but those are structures that we've built to put in place to where we elevate these kinds of leaders. They're not allowed to kind of struggle with stuff or have genuine accountability where somebody could say at an elder meeting, Bill, man, you're out of line here. And he would say, you're right. Rather than don't you dare. And I don't know, but, but no, I've heard stories where it's like, no, not with Bill in particular, but with these kinds of, you know,

high profile powerful leaders that build big churches and big movements typically are the kind, this is going to be an overstatement, are a kind of personality that naturally doesn't do well when they are confronted or called out. Right? I mean, isn't that, I mean. Yeah. The narcissists have run amok. And I only know because I'm a recovering one.

So. Well, yeah. So, so yeah, you are a senior leader at at least three different mega churches. Come on, baby. What's your, like, how come you didn't fall? Or did you? Or is what I'm saying about the structure, is that, have you experienced that? Absolutely.

So it's a double-edged sword you you either have um structures in place that are too oppressive or you have structures in place that are just theoretical and and because because the argument is well you can't really hold someone accountable right um and sometimes uh accountability is just a ruse for control and manipulation whatever so. So, so I, at one of the churches I came in, we were doing prayer requests in the elder meeting and, and the prayer requests were fine. They were about, you know, my son or my friend or my whatever. And I just was like, no, I really want to establish what, who they're dealing with here.

So I said, listen guys, would you pray for me on Mondays? Because if I'm going to look at porn and overeat, it's going to be on Monday, right after preaching on Sunday. And like a pin, it was like, oh, I can only imagine what was going through their heads. But what I found is, I don't know of many wise older people who are willing to coach, walk through, mentor somebody who would make a statement like that. Right. It's just, it's just easier to, you know, well, Hey, he'll confess, or to trust a structure or to just say, well, okay, you're fired. It's much, much harder to say. It's not just that I looked at porn and I struggled years ago, but like two nights ago, I was watching this, right?

And that's a whole different thing. So for me, the good-hearted structures are fine, but they're not the important thing that are there people old enough and wise enough to discern in a case-by-case basis what actually disqualifies someone and what's part of just the regular working out of faith yeah yeah because now it's now it's like the sins are so egregious when they, when, and you're like, Oh my goodness, how'd they let this go this far? Or they're so freaking trivial. Like my friend. Yeah. Man, if that's, if that would disqualify me, I should,

I should be disqualified a zillion times over. Yeah. Right. And so to me, you can have all the structures in the world. It doesn't matter to have a humble enough pastor which is you know asking a lot um because i'm very prideful and and know that pride well but then also having people who are gracious who can look at you and say you know man yeah you're freaking horn dog and you need to stop this but that doesn't mean you can't preach on sunday yeah oh, man. You started asking me if I was going to start a church, what would it be, and then it spilled over into this. What were you going to ask, though?

Well, I wanted – the thing that – because I was saying, hey, we only disqualify people from sex. And then it got into, oh, but that's changing, thankfully. Now pride and now greed. But one of the questions i'd written down to just ask you is you know you've seen a lot of the church yeah yeah francis has been on such an interesting journey with the church um and you've traveled a bunch and and i was just like i'm curious like if you were going to start one what would it be like what would it be like for you

well i did a couple years ago a couple years ago you're oh really i didn't know that it be like for you? Well, I did a couple of years ago. A couple of years ago? Oh, really? I didn't know that. It was basically a distant affiliation with Francis's We Are Church out in San Francisco. So it was that model. It was there's no income. Everything's kind of volunteer. We didn't have seats to begin with. I wanted to make it so uncomfortable that as few people could come as possible.

So we didn't even provide chairs. It's like, hey, if you want to sit down, you can, I don't know, go find a chair. Sure enough, the next week, some guy pitched in and bought a bunch of chairs from Costco. I was like, dang it, you know? So, I mean, from my, yeah, I am very, I guess, well, where do I start? yeah I am very I guess well where do I start I have grown less critical of the church over the last couple years I would say I went through a grow a slow growing period of being kind of critical then I grew into cynicism and to the

part of the the worst point was just I was just kind of fed up of this church you know like this just seems so distant from the New Testament what are you even doing and for me the big one too is I mean just how much money is how much how expensive it is to break bread and pray no I'm serious it's so expensive it's, I don't know what the, you know, I know church planners that they need to raise a quarter million dollars before they can even break bread and pray. And I'm using that, you know, I'm being kind of facetious a little bit, but I mean, we've, I think, Oh,

so overly complicated and expensified. There's gotta be a better word than that. The gather, the existence of a community of people that practically a lot of ministries moving forward in 2019 and beyond are not going to be able to function because we don't know how to do ministry that's right simply anymore and that's that's just a fact i mean the whole boom of the 1980s yeah those people are dying off i mean talk to any church plan i know church planners have like 800 people in their church and they're all like millennials and gen z so that which they don't give anybody and they don't make any money anyway and so right you know it's like

yeah I can you know they have like one part-time paid staff you know 800 people so um you're not gonna be able to afford the the all the bells and whistles so So for me, my big passions are genuine, genuine discipleship and relationships. Let's cut the Christian BS. If you show up to church and somebody says, how are you doing? Say, you know, I'm doing good, except I was on porn all night last night. You're like, oh, man, me too. Let's pray together. Let's go take bread together. together and like i want it to be just just create an environment where you can't belong to this

community unless you are completely pursuing an authentic broken imperfect walk with jesus so so authentic relationships is a huge priority for me um simplicity is a huge priority for me i don't i backed off the no paid pastor thing because that's what what we tried to do. And I don't, I think it can work in some context and it did. It is working in chance. I mean, they were leaders being trained. People are getting saved right and left discipleships happening.

And they now have what? 16, 20 different house churches all network together. And not a single penny has gone into the sustenance, sustaining the ministry. No pastor has ever taken a dime. So it's working for them. Now they're, they have a unique cultural geographical context. into sustaining the ministry. No pastor has ever taken a dime. So it's working for them.

Now, they have a unique cultural geographical context. They have a unique, I mean, Francis Chan's unique. So, I mean, I used to think this is the way to do it. And now I'd say it's one way. But even, I'm all for releasing people for ministry and even paying them well. Like I don't, I pay my Christian dentist well, why can't I pay my Christian pastor extremely well, you know? Um, so I, I,

I want to see a simple church where everything is intentionally surrounding, you know, the mission of the church, reaching the community and discipling people. If, if money is not being directly isn't directly related to that so i'm pretty i don't know yeah maybe we can buy chairs maybe not i mean we if if you would go to a green bay packers game in 20 degree below and stand for four hours then i just i don't you don't a bill you can have a building if not if it's 10 degrees out and you come to church and you want to stand under an overpass and worship God that way.

And then I'm like, I kind of shrug my shoulders and say, yeah, let's do that. You know, well, we wouldn't have anybody come. Then I'm like, well, maybe they're not committed. Maybe they, but if our, and I, and even that, I just get a no. And soon it's not centering on the service. And even that, I just get a no. And now I'm centering it on the service. And so I do think the gathering of believers is always central.

But the modern-day church service, I think, has – I don't know. And here's where I don't want to come down too harsh because I do see more value in that than maybe I used to. I don't want to downplay that. I get it. I just, instead of church services and so much time, energy and focus and personnel and staff and going into pulling off a church service, which is largely directed at keeping or drawing people.

And no one would say that explicitly or a few people, actually a lot of people would, but I mean, I just, yeah, I want time, money, resources being directed at the gathering of believers in as much as that furthers the mission and discipleship of the church. I'd want the same thing that I would want from World Vision or from Compassion International. The most amount of my money going to the mission and the least amount of

money going to overhead. Yeah totally. Yeah exactly. And that's where podcasting is so interesting because take the last church, the last big church I was a part of. It's a 10 million dollar budget. 8,000 people over the course of a month. I mean last big church I was a part of. It's $10 million budget, you know, 8,000 people, you know, over the course of a month. I mean, they wouldn't all show up at once. 120 staff, 20 acres. And then, and now you can, and, and, and the sermon was seen as, you know, kind of central to the whole deal. Now.

For most people, for most of those thousands of people coming and listening to the sermon is a big part of what they're paying for. That's right. Right. But now, right, we put out a podcast and it gets downloaded how many tens of thousands of times, you know, and it's free. So if all the service is an information system, you know, it's going to go the way of the dinosaur, right? Because there are just so many cheaper ways to do it.

So what was interesting about what we were trying to do was to say, okay, well let's take the sermon out of it. Like we had a teaching, but we opened the service with it and it was designed to lead to the Eucharist. Right. So, so yeah, we had a teaching, but we had a podcast too. And I mean there, no one needs, I mean, the vast majority of people in churches don't need more information. Right. Yeah. So, so anyway, I mean, I'm, I'm totally with you on it. And I do think we go through a church cynicism phase. Yeah.

You think that's good? I think it's necessary. I don't know that it's good. I just think that there's no way to love the church for who she is without being first terribly disillusioned with her oh that's good and um it's kind of like forgiveness there's no way to forgive somebody unless you acutely feel every bit of the hurt they did to you yeah that's good and so so know, that, and that's why I haven't given up. Right. It's, it's, yeah, I think there are things you can do to minimize damage and, and minimize

the potential for damage and abuse. But at the end of the day, um, I, I'm saved into a people, right. And I, I need to be reminded of that. Yeah. And that's, and that's the downside of podcasting is, you know, I mean, i mean we're just you know we're just isolated white male straight voices and the world needs more the world needs more that's what the world needs more of that you know i thought about the podcast thing and like you can do a podcast and draw a pretty big crowd if you're having

interesting conversations if my podcast your podcast was me preaching a traditional sermon i don't think I'd have nearly as many people. So this is what I do. I would love to maybe encourage pastor or you, you asked me about me. So if, if I was going to start a church again, I would explore multiple ways to have rich, thoughtful, honest conversation about God and faith and politics. If there's a racial shooting, you know,

a shooting racially motivated on Tuesday or Saturday, we would be talking about that on Sunday. We wouldn't be doing a, you know, John chapter six or whatever. Like it would be like, I want, and it would be, I'm a big fan of dialogical teaching. We live in an age, there's this thing called the internet and it's, teaching. We live in an age, there's this thing called the internet and it's completely changed the way culture absorbs information. It now absorbs information in a much more dialogical manner. Even news articles on CNN, you can respond, you can ask questions, whatever.

Well, think about how news is presented. It's not an anchor anymore. It's a big conversation. Holy, for us to, as a church, to still just have monologues, close in prayer and give no space for people to process even out loud or respond that, that just, I mean, it will change. It's just, it needs, I mean, we need to kind of understand that the era of the kind of oration, the monologue, it worked well for, you know, from the Reformation up until the internet. We now live in a different cultural environment where

dialogue conversation is the primary form of how people learn. Why is Joe Rogan the most popular podcast when he'll have people on for three hours and just talk? Also the intellectual depth and honesty needs to be way elevated in the church. People are hungry, super hungry for honest reflection and intellectual conversations. Because they do it, I mean, Monday through Saturday, they're asking really hard questions. They're thinking through complexities about race and immigration and faith and culture and sexuality and gender and all these things. And we get to Sunday and sometimes we, again, are doing a, you know, a youth group sermon on steroids. And it's just, people are, and I think people just

kind of go with it and they'll often, you know, hear people, oh, that was such a good sermon. And then, you know, ask them, what was, what'd you get out of it? You know, like, why? I don't know, man. I can't really remember, but man, I just, my heart was moved, you know ask him what was what'd you get out of you know like why i don't know man i can't really remember but man i just my heart was moved you know and god works through that you know but i just yeah again going back to why are deeply intellectual podcasts so incredibly popper why is jordan peterson come on a quasi christian-ish not really whatever how does he fill a room i know thousands of people and he's talking about the bible and using in-depth union psychological garb and half the room are non-believers and they're coming to hear him talk about knowing the flood for three hours right you know and he you know i think pastors would be like i can never do that and they're coming to hear him talk about knowing the flood for three hours. Right. You know, and he, you know, I think pastors would be like,

I can never do that. And they wouldn't, you know, if you preach a sermon for three hours, but if you did something intellectually, incredibly off the chart and compelling and honest, and he's not even, I don't even think Jordan Peterson is all that clear. Really. I mean, every other word I'm like, ah, I'm trying to follow his thinking and right. But people are interested in the, in deep things about life, culture, faith, the Bible.

And you made a statement, and I'll pass the ball back to you. No, no, Preston, I love it. If I get one of the most common things I hear, this is going back to the sexuality conversation, from gay or lesbian couples that are going to traditional churches that don't go to the many affirming churches that they can go to. And I have a quote, actually a mega church leader in Denver, 12,000 people. He says, man, we have so many lesbian couples showing up and ask them, why there's actually many affirming churches in Denver. Why are you coming here? They say,

there's actually many affirming churches in denver why are you coming here they say because we you teach the bible in depth if we're gonna wake up on a sunday and actually go to church uh we're not just to go and be yet again affirm that nothing's wrong with us you're not doing anything wrong there's no no no sin no repentance no brokenness everything's great and they're like we know that's not true like we're we want to hear some thoughtful depth and we want to be challenged. We want our to be stirred up, you know? So I think that's just a hunger in the heart of so many people. They want to engage in thoughtful conversations about faith politics. In the context of meaningful authenticity.

Absolutely. So we're all, we're all, we're all journeying together. You know, it's not a expert and I got it. Yeah. No, dude, that's so good. That's so good. And that, and that, I think that's why people tune in, you know, to podcasts. I mean, I'm, I'm continually surprised.

I don't know if you ever think of this, but I'm continually surprised that people listen. No, totally. I am shocked every time I get an email saying, hey, I listened to you on the podcast. I'm like, whoa, people actually listen to this? Right, right. I'm just shocked. And so anyway, but dude, that's so good.

I need to get my kid off the bus in about 15 minutes. Oh, you got to go. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Hold on. Hold on. No, we're not doing that. But we actually want to talk about this event.

And this is particularly for Ohio listeners. Oh, yeah. We have a bunch of those. You're coming to Cleveland to do one of the Institute events. Yeah. For face sexuality and gender events. So tell us about that. Because I want people to know about that.

Yeah. They either grab their churches or their staffs or whatever and go up to go to cleveland i'm in columbus which is about two hour drive yeah um what day is it so i uh i don't have it in front of me is it april 23rd i think yeah i have all the information i was you're so you're trying to throw me a softball and i i watched it go down the middle and strike one yeah apr. April 23rd. It's a Tuesday from 830 to 330. All the information is on our website, centerforfaith.com. If you go to either our events link or specifically our leaders forum link, you'll see the event

for Cleveland, April 23rd. So what it is, it's called a leaders forum on face, sexuality, and gender. We spend all day talking about face sexuality and gender so about a third of what we do is just talk about relationships try to humanize this conversation i tell lots of stories about lgbt people in the church and their experience so we always have a panel of lgbt christians that share their story which is always a highlight of the day we spend a third digging into theology we look at what does the Bible say about marriage, same-sex relationships? What are some pushbacks? Kind of like what we did earlier, you know, address. And I try to do that in, I want to, I don't want to stir up the crowd that

is looking for ammunition to win an argument, but I do want to spread, I do want to say that the traditional view of marriage has credibility to it. It's not just some tradition we've assumed. And then a third of what we do is we look at questions like membership and service and leadership. And what does this look like on the ground? Again, some of the stuff we're talking about, you know, if I get a nickel for every pastor, the email is me saying, dude, I preached the gospel last Sunday and a lesbian couple came forward hand in hand. They're so excited to follow Jesus. They have two kids. Now what do I do? Right. And so we wrestle with some of those questions and there's no real, you know, black and white, easy answer to those. But, uh, yeah, it's, uh, we typically

get anywhere from, I mean, all the way from like a hundred to 300, typically two to 300, uh, pastors and leaders. It's open to anybody. It's called the leaders forum, but we get a lot of parents with LGBT kids. Uh, we get, um, people that are leading Christian ministries or people who are just interested in learning more. So it really is open to all. So, yeah, we'd love to see any of you out there in Ohio coming to. Yeah, come on, O.H. Yeah, I think that. So for me, I get a lot of questions for people who are entering into this conversation. Yeah. They'll say, Hey, what, if I'm looking for the best non-affirming book, that's the affirming book. Where do I start? Right. And so you don't, you don't have to agree

with the traditional view to get something out of this. No, we all, I would say about, I mean, an overwhelming majority would be on the non-affirming or traditional side, but we, in fact, one, I did a, I did one in San Diego, and there was a whole table of like pretty high profile affirming Christian leaders, you know, and, and, uh, you know, obviously they disagree to some things and, and, you know, let me know about that. But, uh, they were like, man, this is, you know, as one guy said, yeah, I don't want to repeat it, but yeah, it was kind of like of this, you know, toxic theology.

Yours is the best presentation of it. Yeah. And I, but the, one of the first words out of my mouth when we start is if you're here and you are affirming or LGBTQ and whatever, I'm so glad you're here. I want this to be a safe place for you. If it doesn't feel like that, you come tell me and I'm going to, I will make sure that you are not being sort of judged, critiqued. We want this to be a safe place for people to think out loud. Along with those on the far right, they're saying, I want to kick every gay person out of my church. What do you think about that? I'm like, thank you for saying, thank you for

being honest. Let's talk about that. So one quick thing, you do have to register for the event. I should tell people that some people show up the day of and, and it, um, they do sell out oftentimes. So definitely register. Does it cost anything? It does. Yeah. It's 95 for a single person, 85 for a group of four or more.

Or if you're a seminary student, it's, it's half off 50%. That's what I'm talking about. You do get, I mean, it's free lunch. You get free resource or free resources you get resources that um are part of that package so i i am yeah i have had some people say man why do you charge why do you charge so much i've never had anybody we haven't had a single person i don't think leave that i've heard about after they go through it saying man that really wasn't worth my money. The response has been really, really good. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Why do you charge for it? Oh, I don't know because there's work involved and there's value given.

Well, I spent, you know, $130,000 on, uh, you know, 10 years of education. That's right. That's right. No, that's so good, man. man Preston it's so good to see your face your voice yeah dude I appreciate the conversation thank you and and uh I we you know um are big fans of Theology in the Raw love what you're doing love the candid fun uh I love that you do Q&A too I don't think we do enough of that and so anyway man well done thanks for your time today you too we got to do this again this was fun alright my man you