Theology in the Raw - 785: #785 - Rethinking Church: A Conversation with Dr. John Whittaker

Episode Date: March 30, 2020

Preston sits down with his good friend and fellow Boise resident John Whittaker to talk about all things related to the church. Church structure, the role of the Sunday gathering, how preaching needs to change, the heightened need for discipleship, and why the LDS church might be on to something when it comes to Ecclesiology. John Whittaker is a preacher, teacher and pastor. He holds theology and ministry degrees from Boise Bible College, Cincinnati Bible Seminary, and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. John has been serving in ministry for 30 years. He has served as a Professor of Preaching and New Testament at Boise Bible College for 19 years. He has also helped plant a church in Kuna, Idaho, where he preached for 11 years, served for 4 years as one of the teaching and campus pastors at The Pursuit, taught classes for Eternity Bible College and preached in various places around the country and the world. He’s the founder of Bible in Life online discipleship ministry at johnwhittaker.net When he’s not preaching or teaching, you can find him at a local coffee shop meeting with and encouraging other local ministers, hanging out at home with wife and partner in ministry, Louise, his closest friend for 30 years, or throwing the ball for his dogs. He loves Mexican food, a quiet day in the woods, his family … but most of all John loves to help people see how God’s word speaks to their life and his greatest thrill in life is to see people come alive to the joy of walking with God honestly, humbly, and transformationally. Connect with John Whittaker: Website: JohnWhittaker.net Five Priorities of a Disciple Making Church johnwhittaker.net/five-priorities Instagram https://www.instagram.com/john.whittaker1969/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/johnwhittaker1969/ 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 back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. If you would like to support this show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. That's patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. This is a listener supported podcast. You can join the over 200 members of the Patreon community and get access to premium content in return for your support, monthly podcasts, monthly blogs, and access to the Patreon community where we get to engage in all kinds of fun conversations. So that's patreon.com forward slash theology in a row. Would really appreciate your support and a massive shout out to all of you who are Patreon supporters who have been supporting the show. I've got people who have been such faithful supporters. They've been supporting the show for like over three years.

So, um, you know who you are. So just want to thank you so much for your support of this show. I have on the show today, a good friend of mine, a local friend. I rarely have, I rarely have local guests. Um, I don't know why that is. Anyway. Anyway, I do have a good friend of mine, John Whitaker, Dr. John Whitaker on the show today. He was on the show, I think about a year ago. We sat in my basement together sharing a microphone, because I only have one microphone here. And we talked about all things related to church, ministry, discipleship, Bible teaching, and so on. John Whitaker is one of my favorite Bible teachers. He is so good. He's so knowledgeable. He's so well-rounded. He's gracious. He has conviction. He's incredibly clear. He's intelligent. He knows God's word

so well, and yet he's able to communicate it in really clear ways. And he's been, I mean, John's been a pastor for a number of years, a church planner, youth pastor, a teacher at a Bible college for almost 20 years. I mean, he just has so much experience. And in the last couple of years, he basically has been doing all kinds of different kinds, all different kinds of Bible teaching through, through the internet, the internet. I mean, he, he's got like courses on different Bible, on books of the Bible. He's got a podcast called The Bible in Real Life. You can go to johnwhittaker.net, J-O-H-N, then whittaker.net. And you can see some of the stuff that he's putting out. One of the things that he's putting out, it'll be out fairly soon if it's not out already,

is an audio commentary on the Bible. So where you can listen to a commentary on, say, the book of Philippians or Galatians. And by commentary, I'm not saying like a string of sermons. I'm saying somebody who was basically audibly doing what you would read in a commentary, I'm not saying like a string of sermons. I'm saying somebody who was basically like audibly doing what you would read in a commentary, like going into great detail and explaining the meaning of the text. I don't think that something like this exists. I've never seen anything just like what John is producing. Eight hours of commentary on the book of Galatians.

So he's going deep, four hours on Philippians, and I think he just finished James, and he's going to be rolling out the entire New Testament over a period of time. So I invite you to check that out. We talk about that on the podcast in just a second. So anyway, without further ado, please welcome to the show for the second time, the one and only Dr. John Whitaker. All right, I'm here with my good friend, John Whitaker. John, thanks for being on the podcast for the second time. Hey, yeah.

Thanks for having me back. And yeah, look forward to just having a good conversation with you. Last time we were here in my basement sharing a microphone, but I am sick right now. Hopefully without, hopefully I don't have coronavirus. Hopefully it's just a cold. We'll see. By the time this releases, I'll either, yeah, I should know. But I don't. You'll be tested positive or something, right? I won't be alive.

I don't know. I have all the symptoms of just a common cold. You should be good. I should be good. Yeah, we'll see. But crazy times, man. So we were talking just offline about the impact of the coronavirus on – I mean on just the ripple effects on everybody,

but the economic effects on church, people in ministry, people that, you know, are dependent on large gatherings for their income, just to put it in real practical terms. So are you feeling like, are you seeing other people being really affected by it? I think we're on the early stages of it. And so it's, I don't think we know exactly the full impact yet. You know, I mean, churches who, okay, you know, maybe they get a percentage of their income from online giving. That probably won't change. But what about those that give, you know, old school way, putting in the offering bucket on the way by on Sundays? Well,

that could affect the, you know, the impact on financial and churches. And then that could impact ministry or, you know, people that like what you and I do, where we travel and speak. Yeah. I mean, you know, gatherings aren't being allowed, you know, how does that go? Or I just heard of a wedding that got cancelled because the venue says nope too big of a gathering in view of everything I didn't even think about weddings you have the emotional impact of cancelling a wedding you have the

we're talking economic impact the poor pastor who was going to do that the honorarium for that it's hard to quantify just so our audience, our audience knows, we're recording this on March 17th. And I, I mean, this, I don't know when this, this might be released in two weeks later.

So you that are listening, this might be late March or whatever. And, you know, if you keep up on it, it's day to day. Things are radically changing. Yeah. So even, even by the time people are listening to this we might be oh we could be in lockdown who knows i mean i just saw that been just keeping up on it like spain um between like sunday and monday the amount of confirmed cases like doubled or more than doubled in spain and they became the fourth most impacted country by coronavirus in just one night because that is just a number of confirmed cases and all that. And it's like, so it just seems like once

it gets going, it just begins to kind of snowball so fast. Which I do think, you know, there's, you know, it's kind of debated on whether America is overreacting, you know, or overreacting or underreacting or somewhere in between. And I don't know. I think they're taking pretty drastic measures in most states to prevent an Italy from happening or a Spain or obviously China. China's leveled out, right? Are we seeing whatever they're doing is –

I actually just saw an interview this morning with an american living in wuhan ground zero of this whole thing and he's like we're still under quarantine but you can begin to get the sense that it's settling back to normal we seem to be on the other side of things and over the next few weeks things should settle down is what he seemed to be saying that the number of confirmed cases they only had one confirmed case in wuhan apparently yesterday he said wow and so he feels like okay thanks for beginning to he can just feel the the the you know the whole tone and demeanor of things beginning to shift back towards okay we're

going to get back to normal here before and that's because they're saying because they had a strict lockdown for several weeks and it just let it run its course in the people and rather than just keep spreading around yeah they actually said on the news this morning that uh there was a hospital which is dedicated to coronavirus there in china and they they shuttered it up closed it up because they didn't have enough uh coronavirus cases for that hospital well that's hopeful right i mean to be on the other side of it, you know. That's super hopeful. I mean, this is, yeah, ground zero where the explosion happened. And so it's actually, that seems pretty quick.

I mean, if you take January through, we're, you know, two and a half, well, two and a half months and we're already seeing it level out. Yeah. So hopefully if we get out in front of this, it'll be pretty quick here too. I think the virus will be quick. I think the economic impact is going to be. Well, that's it. I don't other than the owners of toilet paper companies or Costco or, you know, I actually read it, read something about, you know, the 10 best stocks to invest in right now.

I think Costco is one of them. But, yeah, as I think about the ripple effects, I mean, even like sports being shut down or the MLB being delayed for two or three months and all the people that make their living off of that. And obviously everybody who's, you know, art, music artists who depend on large gatherings, pastors, and even people that are giving it online as people's incomes become drained or even significantly, you know, just fragile and unpredictable. I mean, even me, like, and I'm not one that freaks out over finances. I grew up poor. I don't, we can survive on, on little. Um,

but even now I'm like thinking ahead, like, okay, I can survive for a few months based on reserves and stuff and really shore stuff up. But my livelihood is dependent upon large gatherings. So even now, like, am I going to be as generous with my money and giving to online whatever? I'm being a little nervous about that. Like I might need this to survive come, you know, August or whatever.

So I just wonder is even online giving people might be like, well, I need to. No, and I think, think yeah i think in a month or so we might begin to see the impact of that you know yeah yeah it's gonna be it'll be interesting to see what happens with all this you know yeah and the stock but are you a stock i don't follow the stock market i've got really man i left i i got my my retirement fund with edward jones i let i let my edward j Jones guy worry about all that. But still, it is crazy just to watch just the sheer steep drop off in the last week or two. Yeah.

Pretty nuts. Wow. Golly. So tell us. So last time we talked, I think it was about a year ago on the podcast. I mean, you were doing a lot of just kind of grassroots Bible training. You've got a podcast. You've been coaching churches on stuff.

You've been producing. You know what? Why don't we, the one thing that you've been focusing on that isn't quite released yet are these audio commentaries. Why don't, can you unpack what you're doing with that and when we can expect those to be released? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, my heart is just straight up Bible teaching in a way that connects with where people live, right? And I mean, I think we just live in a culture increasingly where people want to know the Bible, but they don't know the Bible. And frankly, sermons are necessary, but they're not sufficient to help people know the Bible, you know? I mean, like, and that's even when you got a really good preacher, you know, I mean, and that, you know, so I just want to help people understand the text in a way that, man, like, here's what the text really says. Here's what it means. Here's some implications for our life. So, and since so many people listen online, I mean, like digital audio is the fastest growing medium online, right? So why not seize that for the sake of Jesus and the gospel? So I'm creating a listener's commentary to the New Testament. It's not released yet, but hopefully in the next couple of weeks, I'll release the

first few volumes at listenerscommentary.com. And it's just going to basically be an audio commentary on the New Testament. So I've got Philippians recorded. I just it's in post-production. I've got Galatians recorded. Same thing, post-production, trying to figure out at least a real basic platform to get started and how to release that to people. But just walking through the text of Philippians chunk by chunk. And just like you would if you're going to read a commentary, you know, pick up a commentary in a theological library and read it. Well,

done that audio, but in a way, hopefully that's, you know, detailed enough to feel like, man, I learned a lot, but not so detailed that it feels like I'm reading a boring commentary, you know, something like that. What's the website again? I taught 21 of the 27 New Testament books over the years at Boise Bible College. So it's like, I've got a lot of material and just how can I make that available in a way that'll help the average person really understand the text of scripture, bring it to life. So it's a little more three-dimensional. What's the website again? Listenerscommentary.com. Listenerscommentary.com.

Not live yet, but over the next few weeks, going to hopefully get that live and at least get Philippians and Galatians up. James is really close to being ready. And just then I'll release a volume as I get it done. I'll just teach to my microphone, put it online, and hopefully help people understand the Bible. It might be. By the time this releases, it might be up. So maybe people are listening. I don't know.

Check it out. See if it's up yet. Listeners commentary.com. Um, and how many out, so you, we talked offline, but like, so your, your audio commentary on Philippians, how, how long is that? How, how many hours? Yeah. Philippians one is about four, four and a half hours of audio content broken into chunks, just, you know, versus one through 11 and walking down through that and versus 12 through whatever and walking, you know, so just kind of chunk chunk by chunk walking down through the chunks of the text just like you would in a normal commentary but but it's philippians is about four and a half hours galatians is about eight eight and a half hours so a lot of material in there that you can process

while driving around working out or whatever else as you kind of work through the text and do you like read that so if somebody is yeah say they're working out they don else as you kind of work through the text. And do you like read that? So if somebody is, yeah, say they're working out, they don't have the text in front of them. You, you read a chunk and then just break it down and read a chunk and break it down and kind of go through that. And I'm hoping that we'll see, you know, I may have to kind of do an initial version of the platform and then kind of build it up from there. But I would love to actually have it set up where kind of like in the show notes on a podcast,

it probably won't be in a podcast format, but in a show notes on the podcast, you'd have text down below. I could at least have the paragraph of scripture I'm commenting on. So if someone wants to, they could scroll down real quick while they're listening and just kind of follow along or whatever,

you know, so they can at least see the text right there and see the version I'm working off of. So we're all working off the same kind of. Are you, do you have written notes for this? Like if you wanted to turn this into a written commentary, would it be easier? Or are you going off of kind of bullet point ideas or, um, no, I've got written notes. Um, and since I taught so many of these new Testament books at the college over the years, my written notes, the formatting the formatting them got much better you know yeah so like like philippians um i taught that beginning in 1995 all the way up until

2014 you know and so my notes are a little there i can follow them but the average person might not be able to okay but galatians it's a full sentence paragraph outline, you know? So it's like key ideas. So, I mean, it's really easy to fall out. So I could turn that, you know, into something really easy. It's the same sort of way. It's really thorough. Cause I, you know, I, I got better at how I organize my notes over the, as the years went on. And for some of them, I'm going to have to, I'm going back and kind of rewrite stuff anyhow, you know,

I'd get them cleaned up. But there's, there's not a huge demand for yet another written commentary right your uniqueness is the audio there is no such thing as an is there i mean have you seen any sort of audio commentary not a full-on one that tries to do like the whole new testament i um rob bell has a an audio commentary on the book of leviticus. Does he? Yeah. Is it just his sermons or is it actually an audio commentary? I think it's based on stuff. You know, because when he started Grand Rapids way back in the day when he was still fairly evangelical, he started his church by preaching through Leviticus.

I remember that. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? So he's loved Leviticus for years. Yeah, so he's loved Leviticus for years, and so he, I think based on all his research, he put together what is somewhat of an audio commentary on the book of Leviticus. But I know beyond like one-off things like that, or there's nothing that's just set up, you know, really is to be a commentary.

There's podcasts that kind of work through text of scripture and all that, but to be, this is intentionally set up to be a commentary walking you through it chunk by chunk with here's this paragraph, here's the main point. Let's walk down to the details. Here's a couple of implications, you know, and it's so unique. And you're just crowd, you're going to try and crowd fund it or. Yeah. It's not going to be behind a paywall. Yeah. I, you know, for people that say, man, I believe in the vision of this.

I think this is really useful to people. I want to help people understand the text of scripture. I'll chip in a little bit to help you create this commentary. You know, I just want to see if I can do it that way to make it as available to as wide of an audience as possible. I mean, the reality is, even though my online ministry is a lot smaller than yours, because I'm several years behind you in a lot of this, you mean, obviously most of my listeners to my podcast are United States, but Canada is number two most of the time. Singapore is number three. No way.

I don't know of anybody in Singapore personally, but they consistently listen to my podcast in Singapore. I have listeners all over the world, and some, you know, South Africa, Ghana, India, and some of those places, they're not going to pay to get Bible teaching or training, right? Right, yeah. I have, I'm in some ways connected with 30 small little rural churches in the Philippines through a guy that I made contact with. through a guy that I made contact with. And so they use actually some of my online courses for training some of their leaders in these little churches in the Philippines because I sent them my courses on hard drives.

But man, they have people who've never had any form of Bible training that thought of those guys listening to me teach through Philippians or Galatians and them being able to preach to their congregation based on some good Bible training. So I don't want to prohibit them from being able to have access to that because of a cost. And so the thought of trying to crowdfund it so people like that could have access to that, man, I, yeah, that, that, I like that. So the podcast is by Bible in life, right? Is that still a Bible in life podcast? What you do, you kind of do an audio commentary for that, right? Like you just work through books?

Yeah, I mean, I work through texts or, you know, sometimes I interact with questions from listeners or, you know, like, so I taught through, I started the podcast just working through the entire sermon on the mount. The difference I would say is with the podcast, I'm probably like 60-40 on sort of the application and reflection side. 60-40 on sort of the application and reflection side whereas on the commentary i'll probably be 60-40 or 70-30 more on the teaching side a little less on the reflection and application side but so the listeners commentary will be more let's emphasize what does the text actually say with a little bit on implications and reflection whereas the podcast is a little heavier on the reflection implication side application side okay. Okay. That makes sense. And just, I mean, you won't say this, I'll say it for you, but like, you don't have a full-time job as a pastor teacher and then do this on the side.

Like this is, this is how you survive. So, so I appreciate you wanting, really appreciate you wanting to get stuff out there for free, but it's, it's kind of like, you know, a mechanic that loves to fix cars. It's kind of nice to get paid for fixing cars since that's how you survive. So, so, uh, yeah. So I appreciate your, um, your desire to crowdfund it, not, not put it behind the paywall for people that can't afford it, but just for our listeners, if they do wander over to your site and they're challenged or blessed by it, this is how John makes a living. And it's not easy. I mean, it's because there is a lot of stuff out there. It is.

It's challenging. You kind of know how that goes too. Especially with viruses and stuff. Yeah. I think I had seven speaking engagements and things of that sort. I think I had seven canceled so far. Yeah. Which my kids were like, yes.

I'm like, yes, I get to stay home with you but that's income rice and beans it is kids yeah totally yeah yeah i had my wife go and raid the stores um she was so you know all the all the everything was emptied with toilet paper and i've got dude i've got four kids three girls okay and so yeah toilet paper it And I've got, dude, I've got four kids, three girls, okay? And so it goes fast, yeah. And she went to one store, they were stocking the shelves and people were grabbing it out of the stocker, the guy stocking them.

And he was like, one per family, one per family. So my wife actually got one package of toilet paper. And there were people super mad like filling up their carts and he's like we are you're not gonna check out with that it's one for and they were really upset which i don't i get so angry i mean this is just confession time i guess the thought of people just hoarding stuff yeah without any kind of concern about other people and they really don't care like no i'm gonna take care of myself and i'm going to have enough toilet paper till december and i don't care if any like just that idea of just people hoarding it is just yeah ah it makes me so i heard here recently my

mom was telling me she was at trader joe's and the the cashier she was with said they almost ended up into a fist fight between a cashier and a customer earlier that morning because he wanted to buy an entire flatbed full of toilet paper. It's like, dude, you can't buy that much. There's other people that need toilet paper besides you. And I don't get what it is with the toilet paper. I mean, it's like, it just doesn't make any sense, man. Or the funniest thing is people buying water. My wife had enough foresight that about three or four weeks ago, she said, I can see where this is going. We're going to start buying extra for the next few weeks.

And so she started actually buying extra about three weeks ago. Not just a toilet paper, but a big bag of rice, extra dog food because the dog food stores are out of dog food. Oh, yeah. And my wife was like, we need to just start stocking up because i can see where this is going she she could read the handwriting of all like three or four weeks ago so we uh we we were kind of a little well prepared and that's stocking up one thing so like buying even if you bought like not even tons of extra just enough you know yeah well but yeah buy stuff that's gonna last for a few weeks more than you would like i get that i would

do that but like it's the it's the buying out the whole flat of stuff. It's like, just, ah, like, yeah. But that is such an American thing. It's at the end of the day, when, when fear strikes, people get hyper selfish and they can care less about the fellow person, you know, which I, I guess it goes back to Genesis three. So it's just, it's all theology, man. It's all, everything's theology. Let's talk about the church. So, I mean, you've been a pastor, you've been a teacher, you've been a church planter. You've kind of done everything. You've been an associate pastor.

I don't know, you've been involved in youth ministry early on. I mean, you've been in almost every space I could think of in terms of the greater kind of church world. What's your view on the church? Do you think churches need to make some changes in terms of how they operate? You know, I mean, as you step back and look at the way we're doing church, what are some big questions that you think pastors need to be asking themselves as they think forward in the year 2020 and beyond? Yeah, it's a good question, and it's a big question, really, and I even think this whole crisis with the coronavirus

reveals some of our struggles, you know, like all of a sudden we can't meet in large groups, and churches are scratching their head and scrambling to figure out what the heck to do, you know, and I get that, or I actually posted on social media the other day, you know, that just because your church event is canceled doesn't mean church is canceled, that church goes beyond a Sunday morning event, and probably that's my biggest, if my biggest critique. I'm not sure if that's the right word. My biggest concern, my biggest whatever with church of late is how it seems like in the last 20 plus years, it's always been like Sunday morning has, you know, always been a big deal to church. But it seems like we've just now, it's becoming such a bigger deal.

The church Sunday morning or the weekend church service, we put all our money, we put all our time, we hire all our staff to pull off a really awesome, super cool Sunday morning event. And I understand the heart behind it. A lot of that is, man, we want to make it, you know, attractive to people so that we can help invite people in so that they can come and they can meet Jesus. But the fact is, is if you just step back and think about it, it's like the amount of time, the amount of energy and the amount of money that goes into the Sunday morning event for church. for church what if we just shifted our priorities and shifted our focus a little bit and began to say all right let's let the sunday morning event be an overflow out of what we're really called to do which is make disciples you know and and uh not saying that sunday morning is important or that it can't contribute to the making of disciples it's just not the end all be all of that. And we've kind of made it that, you know, and that's probably my biggest concern, just the amount of staffing and money and lights and bands and, you know,

technology and yada, yada, yada to pull off a really super cool, awesome Sunday morning event. How was, I completely agree with that. And it's hard because I keep, I completely agree with that. And it's hard because I keep, I feel like I keep hearing more and more people say what you just said. And it's what I would say.

And yet, like you said, it seems like still churches are almost more focused on that than ever before. And each tradition maybe has its different, you know, certain denominations, maybe not as much or others more. But I don't know, like, what's or others more. But I don't know. Like, what's it going to take? I don't know. Well, how about this? I would love for you to, if you could plant a church, and maybe I'm going to ask you if you're planning on that.

Oh, man. But if you had it, let's just say in a perfect world, you can build a church structure from ground up. Okay. And let's just talk theoretically right now. Not even like, but like theoretically, what would that look like? What would the Monday through Sunday rhythm and what would the Sunday morning look like? What would discipleship look like? Where would money be spent and so on?

Yeah. All right. Well, just being honest, I don't think there's a perfect church structure. Sure. So if I'm planning a church, I'm probably not going to come up with a perfect church structure. So we just need to be honest about that. Sure. But some are better than others. Some are better than others. But I think we all need to be humble about this. Right.

There's no perfect church structure. I do think there are things that we should pour our energies into more so than others. And, you know, I mean, Jesus' marching orders to the church are very clear. Go and make disciples. We have no other mission. Comes as a shock to even pastors and elders that that's our mission. It really does. Churches have struggled with yours.

How do we do evangelism and do discipleship? Well, you're asking the wrong question. We don't do evangelism and discipleship. We do discipleship. One component of which is evangelism, and the other component of which is helping people obey all the things Jesus commanded. That's what Jesus says, right? So we have one mission, make disciples. Evangelism is a part of that. Teaching people to obey Jesus is a part of that.

So that's our mission. If we just would focus on that mission and say, okay, how do you do that? That would bring some clarity, right? So anyhow, back to the question. So if I were to have a structure from the ground up, I would at least say here's some things we should focus on. I actually have a little document called Five Priorities of a Disciple-Making Church. So these are some of the things in that document that I would say we should focus on. We should focus on culture creation over programs and events. Let's create a culture that helps people grow to maturity in Christ, that invites people who are unbelievers into that culture. That's what you see in the New Testament, right?

Like, you read the instructions to the church in the New Testament, there's almost zero program instructions. There's almost zero event instructions. There there's a few but almost it's very very little that almost all of it is culture instructions how what does it look like to live out the culture of god's kingdom right here right now in the place we live let's so you have all sorts of culture instructions about life together and consider one another more important than yourselves and bear one another's burdens. These are culture creation instructions, right? So if we're going to be a church that carries out Jesus' mission, we've got to focus on culture creation over events and programs, right? That's one thing I would say we should focus on. Another thing I think we should focus on when you hear that, you hear those instructions,

notice a lot of them are serve one another, love one another, encourage one another, bear one another's burdens. We got to focus on relationships, again, over Sunday morning events and worship services. Like, discipleship always happens through a life-on-life transfer. Mark chapter 3, Jesus called the disciples that they should be with him. It's that withness. That's the medium in which discipleship happens is withness, right? And when you go to a Sunday morning event and you go to a church service and you stare at the back of someone's head, you raise your hands,

you sing your songs, you say hi and bye, and you walk out the door, there's not a whole lot of withness there, right? How do you learn to serve one another when the bulk of your church experience is just at a weekend service, right? Like, so we got to focus on relationships over against just cool events. Relationships that help us learn to live, you know, the way Jesus calls us to live, right? So somehow we're gonna have to focus on that. So the Monday through Saturday, how do we actually create togetherness, particularly in a society like the American society or most Western civilizations today, you know, European societies and all that where we're so individualistic and we're so isolated from people. So how do we create withness?

How do we create one another ring? You know what I mean? And create a one another culture. In fact, I, I actually have said for the last handful of years that I much prefer the language of let's work on creating a one another culture rather than let's, let's create community. a one another culture rather than let's, let's create community. Let's have authentic relationships. And the reason that, not that those are bad phrases,

but it's that community or authentic relationships, anybody can stick whatever content they want into those phrases. What does community look like to you? What does community look like to me? What does an authentic relationship look like to you? Well, how about if we just create a one another culture and then we can go to the New Testament and say, okay, let's list off all the one another's of the New Testament. Let's work towards that. Love one another, serve one another, bear one another's burdens, encourage one another,

spur one another to love and good deeds, consider one another more important than yourself. Let's work together to create that. And if we can begin to figure out how to create that, wow, well, now we're going to help people move you know closer to becoming like jesus so yeah i think we should focus on you know relationships what does it look like to create an environment in which we can have a one another culture i mean i think that's huge you know and one thing i've seen i loved your thoughts on this um i know a lot of christians that are longing for true, intimate, deep fellowship. They're longing for community, but they don't like community groups. I might even put myself in

that category. Like I, there's, I've been parts of many different churches and groups and some have been, some have been good. Most have been okay. Some have been like, I get excited when it's canceled kind of thing. I'm like, why am I doing this? You know? And I'm like, and I was talking to a buddy of mine who has a really hard time at his church community group. And yet he has a network of about five or six different neighbors. None of them are Christians. One might be a Christian, but they get together all the time. They help each other out. They barbecue. If anybody has a need, somebody jumps in. And he says, it's kind of odd that my non-Christian community group is doing the one another's better than the Christian community. The Christian group is

kind of awkward. We kind of look at it. We don't know how to go deep. And he kind of said something and this, it kind of drew out what I've been thinking about having put language to that most Christian community groups are kind of forced it. They're still, they still have this kind of programmatic DNA community group is next Sunday. It starts at six. It ends at eight.

We're going to fellowship for 20 minutes. And then we're going to, you know, share our testimonies for the next four. You know, it's just, it's still, it's like, we can't gather as Christians without having a church service, whether it's a church service with 10 people or two people or what. And, but his, his, his other secular community group, it was just people living. He just, yeah, we just like each other. We kind of gotten to know each other. We get bugged each other. We fight and argue about politics, but we serve each other. It wasn't forced. It just happened naturally. So anyway, that's, that's a long kind of on-ramp to one. Do you,

do you sense that too? Have you experienced that? Kind of the force to nature and the forces might be too strong, but I'm using it deliberately kind of a little bit over the top but um versus the natural kind of when you get together friends you just get together you enjoy each other you don't you know it's not so structured if it's structured it's kind of weird it's not natural at the same time how would you create an environment where people are naturally because because the other fear is like well if you just let people do okay we're not gonna we not going to, we're a church, we're not going to have any community groups, just do it naturally. Probably won't do it. Like for most people, it's not going to happen. So I don't know what the

solution is. It just seems that there is kind of this awkwardness in a lot of Christian community groups. And it doesn't, they don't, just because it's a small group doesn't mean you're doing life on life. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. And I think, you know, again, full disclosure, I think I see I have more questions and see more problems than I have solutions to, you know what I mean? So I think we need to be honest about that, but, you know, creating a one another culture doesn't mean like no structure and it doesn't mean accidental it still has to be intentional right like a greenhouse isn't a certain culture a certain environment but it was intentionally

created right so i think we have to provide some there has to be some intentional direction there has to be some intentional guidance in order to create a one another culture um in order for it to happen so i I think that we have to be willing to accept there's got to be some intentionality to it. And I think that intentionality is made more necessary by something you mentioned way back at the beginning of your comment or question there that maybe your buddy didn't, you know, about your buddy that you didn't even realize you said is like, all those people happen naturally for him live in his neighborhood yeah yeah and this is something that i think is one of the problems that is a massive problem and because it's such a big problem i

don't have a great solution to and that is just a societal problem in a mobile society where people they go to churches that are 30 minutes away. They do life groups at a house that's, you know, our community groups at a house that are 20 minutes away. They don't see these people except for that hour, hour and a half when they're together for their small group or whatever it is, you know what I mean? Because they don't live in the same neck of the woods. So they don't see each other when they, when they go shopping at the grocery store, they don't see each other at, go shopping at the grocery store. They don't see each other at high school events because their kids don't go to school together. And so it's really hard to do life together when life together groups that actually feel like life

together groups. Cause we just don't. I want to explore something with you. I don't think I've ever gone here on the podcast and my, I've got a few LDS listeners that I, that I'm aware of. They're going to love this. I have been the last year, and so I've never been to a Mormon church. I have no plans of converting to the LDS faith for various reasons. However, I have been very impressed with the, with certain aspects of a Mormon ecclesiology that I just like, I think they might be nailing it. And let me,

let me unpack that a bit. Again, I'm speaking out of a lot of ignorance here, but I've had several LDS friends growing up. I grew up in a big LDS city. Fresno is a big LDS city out in California. Obviously I live in Boise, you know, Boise's what, 25% at least Mormon. Is that, is that right? Is it about 25%? It's something like that. It's big. Yeah. My neighbors, I would say the majority of my neighbors in my neighborhood are LDS, at least 50%. We have a church right down the street. A ward, is it called a ward? Yeah, a Mormon ward. So here, here's, so I'm speaking out of some ignorance, but from what I know, So here's, so I'm speaking out of some ignorance, but from what I know, a Mormon church service is not attract, it's not, you don't go to a Mormon church because it's like, wow, that was an amazing church service.

I would say, and I don't, you know, from my vantage point, a lot of theology is very questionable. It doesn't seem like that's like, wow, this, this is attracting me to Mormon faith. What attracts people to Mormon faith? The fellowship, the community, the tight knit, you know, you become part of a family. Also the parish kind of model, which, which is in Scotland and in the UK and other, some countries that have kind of more of a state church. I mean, it is, you don't choose your church, right? It's like, no, you're in this neighborhood. That's where you go. And this is where your community lives. I think that's brilliant. And I don't know why we don't, but we can never, I mean, Protestants are, it would never work. Right. And I've even seen churches, evangelical churches that tried that they break up the neighborhood. It just doesn't work because it's not in our DNA. But at the same time, all I know

is one of my neighbors, every Tuesday night, they have a massive volleyball game with all their Mormon friends that we've gotten invited. We've never gone. They're laughing, they're partying, they're hanging out. They are in the natural rhythm of life. They have kids babysitting other kids. I mean, I feel the spiritual family in my neighborhood. Like we often feel like, I feel like we're kind of missing out. And then we go hang out with our Protestant evangelical friends and it's like, yeah, this is kind of crickets or whatever. And, um, I'm like, man, I just, I just wonder if ecclesiologically they're onto something. have you thought through this do you have any thoughts on my heretic no i yeah i i on one hand yes i think i think ecclesia

i have that one more thing is yeah how much does it cost to put on the mormon church it not like no one's really paid right it's all like they don't invest a lot of money. It's almost all lay leadership, lay led. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, and then even their buildings have a stock blueprint and they just build to that. Which makes it a lot cheaper. Right. I mean, yeah. So no, I think, so I think ecclesiologically they're onto something because sociologically they're onto to something because sociologically they're on to something you know yeah yeah yeah right that that I mean if you're gonna

if you're gonna create a one another culture it works better when you actually can one another right you can do life together and and so i know i um i mean i i think it's i i see those benefits for it i also like you said i mean i this is evangelical christians they're just not going to do that man like you're not going to tell me which church i can go to you're just not i mean we just it would never happen it would never work i mean i know it would never work i um but i do see some advantages to that you know that back in the the mid 90s book came out by a guy called the connecting church don't know if you ever heard of that yeah i heard of it who was that uh i can see his face i just lost his name probably have the book

on the shelf behind me here but he was at pantantago Pantago Bible church in Texas or something like that at the time. And they were, they were trying to build a model where all their small groups were arranged around school districts. Okay. So if you weren't a certain school district, you went to a small group in that school district so that you would naturally overlap with people at school events. You would probably shop at similar stores and you would more likely bump into each other at, you know, just going through normal life. It was easier for you to, you know, do social things together because your kids were in the same schools together and

all of that. And so that was their attempt to try to create some sort of greater connection in their small groups. And then they had midsize groups that were collections of all those small groups from that school district. And so, and they would have those people get there. So you had a kind of a church within a bigger church field. It was a, you know, a hundred, 200 people of small groups that were all in the same school district and all that. And it's like, man, that seems like a really cool idea. I just, you know, just don't know how realistic it is. You know, like here's another thought though.

I wonder, so I'm just imagining in my head, you know, planning a church where we go kind of traditional church model, except we tell people, you know, our community groups are location based, whatever you're. And this goes back to your original point. If you have a really attractive dynamite church service, you're going to attract people from all over the place. Yep. And this is where I don't think that I don't think they do it intentionally,

but like if the church service isn't attractive and I'm not, I'm just thinking out loud here. So everybody, I don't want to get, don't think they do it intentionally, but like if the church service isn't attractive and I'm not, I'm just thinking out loud here. So everybody, I don't want to get, don't, don't fire off that angry. Um, I don't know. Like, I just wonder if, if, if our pursuit of something that might be good, a good church service is working against a more geography based community. Cause if you have a dynamite teacher and he's the one on stage every week, you're going to get people driving an hour away. Yeah. And they're not gonna,

I don't know. But I can't quite advocate for, yeah, put a really crappy preacher, horrible word, but I don't know. Is there a way we can create a meaningful church or is there a way we can, where we can still have high quality,

meaningful church service services, and yet wean people off of making that their end all of their church experience? Is it impossible to do both? I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. I, I, I think it's a fair question. I've wrestled with the question. I'm convinced that somehow we have to try to put more of our energy, more of our effort, and more of our time into creating a one another culture. Rather than putting all our time and our best time, our best energy, and our best dollars into creating a great Sunday morning or weekend experience. I think if we could at least shift our money and our time towards the one

another inside, that might help. I don't know, but it might help. You know what I mean? What does it look like to shift your money towards that? Just the church kind of funding, just all kinds of gatherings and events, they bring people together or like what would. Yeah. Resources for that. Instead of hiring staff to make our Sunday morning super awesome. What if we hired staff to actually equip and coach and train small group leaders in neighborhoods so that, you know what I mean?

So that we were actually resourcing people who could really be like frontline pastors to groups of 15, 20 people in their neighborhoods, right? Instead of so that we have pastors who their primary job is not to have meetings, plan, evaluate, and pull off great weekend services. Their primary responsibility is to disciple and equip and train members of the church so that they're growing in faith so they can do that for others. What would that, you know what I mean? Yeah, what would that look like?

So that, again, we're shifting our priorities away from the end-all be-all, the Sunday morning experience, to the end-all be-all is the Sunday morning experience to the end-all be-all is we're living together in life in our neighborhoods and in our community for the for the name of Jesus and we're helping people move from unbeliever to new believer to growing believer to mature believer because that always happens in a one-on-one or a relational context a one another context of some sort there's always a life- life on life transfer when somebody is becoming like Jesus, you know, I mean, you even see that in the apostle Paul when he says imitate me as I imitate

Christ, right? Like people need a concrete model. What does it look like to follow Jesus? How, how does, how does a, a, somebody who's really following Jesus raise three teenage daughters, Preston, right? Like, you could tell us, you could tell us, but maybe if we watched you, we saw you, we realized, oh, there's the ups and downs, there's the frustrations, there's the questions, right? Like, and there's how we engage that. Having a book is one thing, watching a small group video where someone's teaching is one thing.

Doing life with somebody who's doing it, totally a different thing, right? So someone moves to maturity by the watch. When you're thinking of young people who are just having kids and they grew up in broken homes and they didn't have a good example of a dad or a mom or whatever, and now all of a sudden to watch somebody raise their kids for Jesus, that's powerful when they get to see it. It's like, imitate me as I imitate Christ. What does it look like as a banker or as a mechanic or whatever? What does it look like to live a with God life in that kind of context and that kind of job?

I'm a new believer. I need to know what that looks like. Well, I could tell you, but what if we spent time together, you know, and you ask questions? And so that one anothering is such a critical part of becoming like Jesus and growing in the faith. And so what if we shifted both our time, our staff time, our hiring time, our monetary focus, what if we shifted all of that so that we were helping people learn how to do

that well? And I think the fear is church services attract people and people bring money and money keeps the thing go around and around. And here we go again. It's just that vicious cycle. What's, what's fascinating though, going back to the lds um uh conversation they're growing right i mean it's it's great it's i mean the mormon church is here's the difference and here's something that's really important is it's mandated yeah which church you go to is mandated not even which church you go to what service you go to at that building is mandated you go to the three o'clock service you go to the one o'clock service so that's mandated and and then

how much you give is mandated so but you would report it you would think that that would be a turnoff for you would think that they would lose their members in 20 like it wouldn't even exist so why are people still attracted that? I think it's because the power of, and they're, I don't know, it's probably more complicated than I'm making out to be, but I think because that spiritual tight knit, and I've had, I've had friends that have converted to the Mormon faith because they're like, no, that tight knit family is a huge reason for it. So going back to my point, I just wonder if we, we think that it's the church service that is going to still attract people. I just wonder if we did take a little bit of a leap of faith and start to invest more time, energy, money, everything you're saying in building that real robust, authentic community.

You don't need an amazing church service. I think people would probably be really, really, really attracted to that. And you'd probably have a lot more growth than you realize, I think. Particularly in view of the epidemic of loneliness in American society. Yeah. And then not only that, add to it that if you really want a dynamic communicator and you want some really good teaching, you can find that online now. So that's where I wanted to go. You can listen to Craig Rochelle. So you can get that somewhere. And on that note, this is going to sound really bad. So take it for what it's worth. Theology in the raw, man.

So now we have churches subscribing to Right Now Media, which is all well and good. They've got some good stuff on there. But now they can listen to Francis Chan. They can listen to Craig Groeschel. They can listen to Andy Stanley in their small group. And that's what churches are doing. to Craig Groeschel, they can listen to Andy Stanley in their small group, and that's what churches are doing. So now they've just taken the Sunday morning experience, and they've dumped it into their small group experience, and it's like, as if that's the end-all be-all of everything is,

like you said, we got to reproduce the church service, even in our small groups. It's like, well, maybe we need to rethink, like, we need to rethink what we're doing. You know, I, again, I think it even comes to one of my, in this five priorities of what he's held making church. One of the priorities I mentioned is we need a kingdom gospel over against a forgiveness only gospel. I think we don't even fully understand the full gospel that, and, and, and as a result of that, we don't realize what we're,

we think we're trying to get people to get their sins forgiven so they can get their ticket to heaven so they can hang out on earth and go to heaven when they die. Rather than our whole job is that Jesus is king. And our job is to say, I believe he's king. So I want to learn how to live the king sort of way in the here and now. And that's attractive. Like, if we actually live Jesus kind of and now and that that's attractive like if we actually live jesus kind of life like that's attractive you know individually in our families um in our small groups if we actually began to okay well you know we're gonna our job is to live out the kingdom in

our time and place now that's how we're a city set on a hill i think that might be attractive you know what i mean like you don't you don't're a city set on a hill. I think that might be attractive to people. You know what I mean? Like you don't, you don't become a city set on a hill by having a great worship service. You become a city set on a hill by loving your, your enemies, praying for those who persecute you by, you know, not condemning and blaming by getting rid of anger and getting rid of lust and, and being people that genuinely love one another. Now you're a city set on a hill and people look at lust and, and being people that, that genuinely love one another.

Now you're a city set on a hill and people look at it and think, man, I want what they got. And I think that's far more attractive than just getting people to come to a cool, cool event. You know, I've often wondered like, what, what, what should preaching look like in 2020? You know, What should preaching look like in 2020, 10 years after things like podcasts have really taken off, live show, all the stuff you're talking about? The church that existed 30 years ago doesn't exist anymore in the sense that people can get access in their pocket to the best speakers worldwide. Should that reshape how we think about preaching in our local church context?

And you, I mean, you have a doctorate in preaching, like you are, this is your primary area. So I would love, yeah, what do you think that churches should rethink just the very category of preaching? You know, cause really we're doing the same thing we did 30 years ago. I mean, 40 years ago, 50, it's like,

and it worked before this thing called the internet was invented. Yeah. That's people went to church to hear preaching and, and, you know but now it's, I don't know. I know I was talking to a good friend of mine, super committed. He actually has done some ministry and mission work out of college. So it's not like he's a lazy Christian. I would probably say at least half the Sundays out of the year, he watches church from home online because it's a better church service than

he can get anywhere else anyhow. And he likes the preaching and the teaching and he travels for business all week anyhow, and he's tired. And so it's like, I would rather be home with my wife on the weekend than just go to, you know, so it's like, well, that's, you know, it's like, that's, that's the tension we live in where there's so many resources available. So should we rethink the category of preaching? Well, I don't know. I don't know I don't know

I think there's here's some I'll just talk off the top of my head alright we'll see what happens I've been doing the whole yeah

that's what we've been doing anyhow so I I I loathe the fact of how ignorant Christians are of the Bible. Yeah. There is a desperate need for good teaching, not just teaching, good teaching. Yeah. teaching, good teaching. Again, one of the priorities in my Disciple-Making Church

document is, like, we need to aim for wisdom when we teach, not just information, right? But wisdom has to be based on good information. And so there has to be good teaching that's going to help God's people become wise, right? Because we all know that, you know, the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord and that wisdom is the true treasure in the book of Proverbs, right? And so in Jesus, the treasure chest of wisdom and knowledge, according to Colossians, right? So we want to help make people wise. So where's that going to happen? That can happen online. That can happen through podcasts. That can happen in those contexts. And, yes, they can get some good teaching online. I want them to get my teaching online. That's why I'm providing it. You want them to get your

teaching. That's why we're on a podcast, right? We want them to get that. They can get that online. So on one hand, they can get that. On the other hand, there's, again, a relational component to people being gathered together and being shepherded by a group of wise pastors who can speak very specifically into their circumstances and their situation and give them God's word for that situation, right? So if we could do preaching like that, I think there's a place for it. Where it's not generic. It's not, you know, we're just cut and pasting a series. We saw Andy Stanley or Craig Groeschel do or Francis Chan do. Wow, because he did a great job.

We're going to, I'm just going to kind of replicate that in my church. Could we just find a way to help make our people wise and use, you know, we know our people. We know their circumstances as pastors, right? Like that's the difference, I think, with pastor. Good pastoral preaching is we can speak to the needs of those people because we're with, if we're actually with them. We're not just a, you know, ivory tower preacher who sits in our study for 40 hours a week and we're not with the people, right?

If we actually know our people and we know what they're going through, we can speak into their situation in a way that you just can't when you're doing what we're doing, where we're talking to a microphone and we don't know exactly who's going to listen. We don't know the questions they're wrestling with. Or as a pastor, when you speak, it provokes things and now they have a relationship with you because you're with them. And now they feel comfortable to pull you alongside after service or to reach out to you and have a question and you can actually answer.

That relational component, I think, is just huge. So maybe the preaching needs to be, and just to be, we haven't said this yet, but there's probably churches, maybe a lot of churches that are doing this well. I don't know. But make it much more locally focused. Like what are the specific needs of our people?

What are the questions they have? What are they wrestling with? Maybe there's a certain geographical component, you know? Yeah. I'll never forget. And even, even just, I mean, like this morning I, I actually put it in my Instagram story. I got a direct message through Instagram from a college student who goes to college at a neighboring town over in Caldwell, Idaho. And hey, Dr. Whitaker, it's funny she calls me that because she's never been a student of mine. She knows my name is John.

She has permission to call me that, but she always calls me Dr. Whitaker. Hey, Dr. Whitaker, I've been reading through the book of Acts and I came upon an interesting verse, and I got a question, and she asked me a question about Acts 18, 18. Why? Well, because I used to preach at the Pursuit, and her family went to the Pursuit, and her mom and her dad went to a small group with me, so she felt a relational connection. And so for two years since she's been in college, I will get, about every couple months, I'll get a Bible question from Haley. Because there's a relational connection. And she feels free to ask that. And it's helping her. Some of it has been even dealing with some of her skeptical professors in college who don't believe who have challenged her faith and she needs someone to help guide her. challenged her faith and she needs someone to help guide her. I'm that someone. Why? Because she heard me preach. She developed a sense that he's trustworthy. I talked with her and acknowledged her personhood and had real conversations with her. And now she feels free that I can help guide her when she needs help. That relational component to the pastoral

preaching office, I think is really, really important and really, really huge. So even though I'm still, I'm technically not her pastor anymore because I was, and because I was relational enough with her, she feels safe and comfortable letting me still pastor her through Instagram. There is that, that relational collateral through everything you said that, that, that makes your advice, your thoughts more valuable than even if she heard maybe Craig Rochelle or somebody. I've literally never heard Craig Rochelle speak. So I'm assuming he's a good communicator. Some people really like him. Some people don't really, really depend. So, I mean, he's obviously dynamic leader with what he's got going on with Life.Church.

Yeah, exactly. I yeah, I've heard I've only listened to maybe a few minutes of Andy Stanley. I just I don't I don't listen to preachers too much. I personally, I would much rather listen to a podcast with somebody who has not just a polished kind of way of saying things to me. And this is just me. I just like, whatever. That's great. I could tweet that. It sounds good. But I want somebody who's got really, really good, thoughtful ideas and collateral. And a reason why I should listen to them speak about this. And I, you know, I like just really good, engaging conversation. So, I mean, I've said this many times on the podcast. I think I mean, I've, I've said this many times on the podcast. I think I

have, um, that I just think for most churches and I know some churches maybe aren't set up for this, but I just think having some kind of space for Q and a some space for people to ask questions or even, I mean, this gets really maybe technical, but we, you know, we use through the, through the, the things we put on, um, through my ministry, you know, we use through the, through the, the things we put on, um, through my ministry, you know, we use a platform called Slido. It's a Q and a platform where people can text in a question, but they vote on questions, which ones they want to see addressed first. So the ones that are most voted on get pushed to the top. I just think if I, if I ever was a pastor, I think I would have Slido for a half hour at the end of each. I might give a,

actually, I think I would probably teach for 30, 45 minutes and then have another half hour of Q and a, and if people, if they're not into sitting there for, you know, an hour and a half, then there's so many other churches they can go, you know, like I would probably make it a really, um, kind of like some, you know, black churches, you know, where it's like a three hour service. I think I would probably have that just because I don't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want it to be like comfortable. Like I'd want it to be uncomfortable. You know, maybe we'd have chairs, probably not just come bring your own. I don't know. Like I, it would be like, I would only want people there. They are really like wanting to engage on a, on a, on a relational level, on an intellectual level. Anyway, I just,

for me, I'm like, I just can't imagine ever speaking again without getting some kind of response. What questions do you have? What was on earth, you know, and even in that platform, you can be anonymous. So somebody could say, you know what, I've been sexually abused. How would I navigate this issue based on what you said? Like, where in church do we have, because that, how much more crucial are those kind of questions? My marriage sucks. And it's anonymous. You can ask that and hear it. Like, what would you say about this?

You know, there's no space in most churches to. No, and a lot of people are thinking those things and those kinds of things are really, really good. I, you know, we went, you know, we're just kind of laid out in a basic discipleship pathway in the church one time from pre-faith, new faith, young faith, growing faith, mature faith. That is the basic process that we want to take people through, right? They want to go from unbeliever to mature believer. So after service was over, we put that up on this service. I kind of explained it, gave indicators of here's key characteristics of, generally speaking, of people in those various stages, right? So I put that up on the screen, and that was the teaching for the day. After service was over, this guy, waiting around in the lobby,

kind of waiting around in the lobby until the lobby clears out, because he doesn't want people to overhear the conversation. Then once it's pretty empty, he comes up to me and says, hey, John, can I talk to you? I said, sure. What's up? And he's like, do you know that thing you put up on the screen? He said, I would say I've been a Christian for like over 10 years, and I would still put myself in the new or young faith stage.

Because no one ever told me where I needed to go and how to get there. So since I'm still down there, what do you think I need to do in order to move to the next stage? There's probably another hundred people in the room that were wondering the exact same kind of thing. Isn't that crazy? If you had the freedom to ask that question and I could answer it for the benefit of everybody, that would be so helpful to people. could answer it for the benefit of everybody that'd be so helpful to people you know and have people realize that yeah it's that unfortunately oftentimes our church environments leave you in that young or new faith stage where it's like you know you're supposed to go to church

you know you're supposed to give your money and you know you're supposed to serve at least as a greeter in kids ministry and there you go now you're a christian and it's like well no the goal is for you to become like jesus from the inside out so you can love everybody the way jesus loved you and how do you get to that point? And how do you – and all that baggage of your past, how does that go away? And how does Jesus work with you? And you work with Jesus to be transformed to be a good tree that bears good fruit. That doesn't happen on accident.

So I come to church. I sit in service. I sing songs. But I still think I'm a young or new Christian, you know. And how do I change now? So the question and answer format would be really powerful. I, I, I mean, people, they, they light up when it comes to Q and a people will get on the edge of their seats because they've got questions and they're hoping I answer their question.

And if I don't, they come up, they line up afterwards. You and I have both taught at the college level. We're used to getting questions in class and we're, and we're quick on our feet. So we're comfortable with that. So you said the average pastor might not be comfortable. I'm pretty confident the average pastor might be a little, or they might, they, they might need more time to think it through. And so now they're giving really stupid answers. That not a criticism it's just they're not quick on their

feet they haven't thought some of the implications through yeah and so they might give a bad answer and that's not going to be helpful you know what that's yeah and i mean both you and i you know we've got a lot of higher education and not not the average average pastor might not. So certainly it would require the classroom with students firing questions at you. You learn how to, you learn to get comfortable with that. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's like anything else, the more you do it, the more comfortable you are. I saw you on Instagram posted a picture of you swinging at some balls in a batting cage the other day. Right. Right. Well, um, your swing still look pretty good. Why? You've played a lot of baseball, dude. I appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, I saw Eric mentioned that you looked like you were

a little out over your front foot. I played with him in college. He's a pastor on California. That's so funny. Yeah, I know. But yeah, so I mean, things that you've done a lot, you're comfortable with. We've answered a lot of questions in the spur of the moment. Some people are comfortable with that. Some aren't. So I don't know that it would be for everybody. Well, I don't know. I would say, yes, it would probably raise the bar on what it takes to be a pastor, too.

You know, maybe, well, I don't want to say something offensive, but, you know, maybe a real hip, energetic, charismatic 23 year old with, you know, um, a year of Bible college might not be the best person to field, you know, um, questions from a 53 year old woman with four kids and a whole history of sexual abuse that she's never talked anybody about. Um, that might be more destructive if you try to respond to that, you know, but, but to me, I'm like,

great. Yeah. Let's, let's raise that bar. Well, there'll be fewer pastors. There'll be fewer churches. Let's,

let's raise the bar on who is, who is being, who is keeping watch over the souls of humans. Like, I don't, I don't know. I, I,

you know, we, if we went to a brain surgeon we expect them to have we want a high we want the we're glad the medical field has a high bar so when we go to soul surgery i don't want to put a stark dichotomy between my body and mind or whatever but you know it's like i don't know like yeah i i want to be shepherded by somebody that knows what they're talking about you know and this comes back to where we started, kind of almost full circle is, we have put so much emphasis on running a great organization,

being a great leader, and pulling off awesome events, that we have forgotten that the primary thing the church is supposed to be about is forming great humans. So good. to be about is forming great humans. So good. And if we would say we need leaders who are shepherds of people and who can model real deep human living and they can form great humans, that's what we got to be about. Jesus came to rescue the human world from all the crap that is part of this fallen life and help us become the kind of humans God designed us to be. And the church is supposed to be a greenhouse for growing great humans.

So what would it look like to say, all right, there's got to be some organizational elements. We've got to lead the organization. But in the service of becoming a greenhouse to grow great humans, rather than just being a really awesome religious organization that gets people involved in lots of religious activity but doesn't help them become the kind of people God created that's what we should focus on John it's been great uh talking with you and and you kind of hinted at it early on but you part of your ministry that you're creating that you have created is coaching churches in this. And, um,

can you tell just before we part ways here, um, how would people get ahold of you if there's a pastor leader listening and like, man, I would love to have this guy come in and, you know, I don't know how, how kind of help us think through maybe how we're doing things. Is that, is that what you do? You, you would go and. Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm creating a, well, I've created a discipleship coaching process for churches. Like, I want to help churches go further faster in thinking through their discipleship pathway process so they can cultivate a discipleship culture in their church. And so, yeah, if they want to know more about that, just shoot me an email at john at johnwhittaker.net. John at johnwhittaker.net.

And just say, hey, I'm interested in hearing more about your discipleship coaching program. And let's schedule time to talk. Let's figure it out. So well, and I yeah, check out my website. I got some information on there as well. johnwhitaker.net. Check that out. And yeah, and I would just yeah, I want to publicly endorse everything you do and say, because I mean, you do have I just love the combination of, you know, you are an academically minded person, you know, you have a doctorate in preaching and yet you've been a pastor, church planner. So you have the full kind of gamut of, you've thought through things on a deep intellectual level for many years, yet you have all this various experiences in the church.

So it's not, you're not just, you're not speaking just from theory or whatever, like you have, you know, walked in the lives of people and in the lives of churches for many, many years and, and, uh, would yeah, highly recommend, um, any church, church tapping into your, your wisdom and experience. So thanks for what you do, man. Appreciate it. Thank you. Well, thanks for being on Theology in a Raw. We'll have to do this again this time next year. I think it's going to be a yearly thing, checking in with John. All right, man. Hope you get to feeling better. Thanks, thanks for being on Theology in a Row. We'll have to do this again this time next year. I think it's going to be a yearly thing. Checking in with John. All right, man. Hope you get to feeling better. Thanks, man. Take care. Thank you.