Theology in the Raw - Discipleship, Failed Leadership, and an Insider's Perspective on Mark Driscoll/Mars Hill: Dr. Gerry Breshears

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

Dr. Gerry Breshears (Ph.D. Fuller Seminary) is a professor of theology at Western Seminary, a pastor of pastors, elder at Grace Community Church (Gresham, OR), and a happy great-grandfather. To listen to the last part of our conversation about women in leadership, become a Theology in the Raw patron at patreon.com/theologyintheraw Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have the opportunity to talk to my good friend, Dr. Gary Brashears. He is an amazing individual. Many of you know and love Gary. He has a PhD from Fuller Theological Seminary. He's a professor of theology at Western Seminary in Oregon and a pastor of pastors, an elder at Grace Community Church in Gresham, Oregon, and a happy, great grandfather. This dude has been around discipling people like crazy. So I wanted to have Gary on to talk about discipleship. But man, this guy, he's just a, first of all, he's one of the funnest and most engaging people to talk to, but he also has a wealth of information. And so as you'll see, I chase a lot of shiny objects

here because Gary just will say all kinds of things and knows so many things and can say some provocative things. And we went in various directions, but it's all under the large umbrella of what does it take to be a good discipler of other people? We also get into a bit about his role in the whole Mars Hill, Mark Driscoll explosion breakup, whatever, you know, over a decade ago. And he shares some interesting thoughts there. So, we also include a discussion about women in ministry and leadership that will be available to our Patreon supporters. If you want access to the last part of this conversation, then you

need to become a Patreon supporter at patreon.com forward slash theology and Rob. Okay, let's dive into the one and only Dr. Gary Breshears. All right, hey Dr. Breshears good to have you back on theology. Come on, Preston, give me a break. I don't like Dr. Brashears. He's not a nice guy. How long have you been teaching at the college or seminary level? I started at Biola in January of 1979, teaching man's sin salvation, I am in my 46th year of teaching in accredited Christian education. God, Lee. So, just a couple years of the undergrad, or a few years, but mostly at the seminary

level, right? Yeah, year and a half at Biola. I was headed back to the Philippines to be a church planning Bible college missionary. Still think that had been a great plan. God interrupted my life again and drug me up to a Western conservative Baptist seminary, as I tell you. I said, no way in hell I'm going to that Fightin' Fundy place. Well, it was moving out of the Fightin' Fundy days, and of course, now Western seminary in a good evangelical seminary. But yeah, I came under deep protest. But I love what I do.

Oh yeah. Wait, so you came in as a controversial figure. I was from Fuller Seminary in a school that saw Fuller Seminary as the ethic of doom and the end of Christianity. Now, it was slander, but that was the belief up here. And my hiring was a step toward Western conservative Baptists, who were known in those days as emerging into the evangelical scene, which we did six, seven years later. And we've been a major evangelical seminary for that whole time.

Did you face internal hostility from other, early on at least? Yes, from some. Okay. Yeah. There were some key issues, women in leadership for example, where I began to question, just ask questions. I didn't really have a clear position at that point. Okay.

And just asking questions was not okay in a fundamentalist environment. Now those people soon were gone, and I survived. What, was there open dialogue? Or was it just behind the scenes you'd hear? It was behind the scenes. No, there was only one right answer. Women do not teach men, period. And I began, no, wait a minute, and biblically and such. Anyway, that's a long conversation. Is that what got you into? Because you've been, and we're going to, towards the end of this podcast, dig into this a little more. That's not

the purpose of having you on, but you've been studying women in ministry and leadership for a long time. Is this what kind of got you into it when you started to ask questions at Race? Mark When I came here, I made a commitment to investigate biblically and carefully key pastoral questions for the church. So, I got pretty quickly into spiritual warfare. I got pretty quickly into women in leadership. I got really quickly into what leadership structures the church should be. I got really quickly into models of sanctification, how in the world I deal

with the sin in my life. I got really quickly into how human is Jesus, because we were way too deistic or too divine a Jesus, and He wasn't really human. But these are all of pastoral significance, and I got drawn into all of them pretty quickly. And, and I have a position. I now have an opinion on everything and occasionally right. Well, yeah, yeah. You've, you've been around the block for a while. You've been doing this. I have, you have a right. You have more of a right to have a opinion. Maybe even a strong opinion than a 24-year-old second-year seminary student. Yes, I had many opinions in those days, but also knew there were a lot of things I didn't know, things like providence. I was holding a Calvinist view

of providence in those days, because that's the only thing I ever heard. But I knew good and well that the biblical passages for God ordains all things, it's just not there. But that was something I put on the back shelf for about five, six years, because I knew it was there. I just hadn't found them yet. And then they discovered, no, they're really not there. So now I'm a famous Galminian. God works in different ways, different people. Well, okay, so on Providence, I mean, I brought John to talk about discipleship. We'll get there. You opened up like 17 cans of worms, and I see shiny objects all over the place.

That's my model of discipleship, Preston. Okay. That's my model of discipleship is to open up questions and lay foundations carefully, biblically, what Bible says we have to follow it, which is very controversial these days. But where the Bible is silent, it leaves us freedom to be spirit-led and wise. And you can have an opinion, but you're not allowed to say as the Bible says. That's a key foundation of my discipleship model, is that very issue. Where the Bible speaks prescriptively, we have to follow it. And

that's very controversial because the Bible really says some hard things about wealth and power and sexuality and those kinds of things. Where the Bible is ambiguous or silent, you don't get to say, as the Bible says. You get to say, as my church tradition says, that's fine. That's a key factor in my discipleship model, is that very issue. Can we go back, just quickly, to providence? Because this is a question I get asked all the time, and I honestly, I feel like I wrestled with God's providence early on in my, I would say, seminary, a little bit post-seminary, but it hasn't become a topic that I've dove into at all. So, I think we come from similar, I know... Greg Boyd keeps telling me I should...

Well, Greg and I famously disagree. But so, how do you... So, you said God does not ordain everything. Can you unpack your understanding of God's providence? There are three base models of providence. Well, four if you count Greg's. Providence. Well, four if you count Greg's. God ordains everything for His greater glory and our ultimate good. That's the typical Calvinist view. The typical Arminian view is God allows all things for the sake of free loving relationship. So, He allows evil because He wants a genuine yes. Greg Boyd is God cannot know the outcome of free moral decisions, so his plan is developing in concert with our choices. And then my view is God is at war with evil,

using good as his primary weapon to overcome it. But sometimes he ordains down to the details, sometimes God is a Calvinist, and sometimes He allows things to happen, Job and Satan, and so sometimes God's an Arminian. But His base model is He is at war with evil, but He uses good as His primary weapon, overcome it, which is so dang inefficient, from my view. But it also means some people become followers of Jesus Christ. Now, your position doesn't seem necessarily at odds with those other views. I think Greg would probably agree with that God is at war against evil.

Well, the point we disagree on, I think God does know the outcome of free moral decisions, and he thinks he can't know those things. That's a key to his open theism model. I agree with much of what Greg says. And we've been buddies in the past. We've not had much overlap, but I've got several other... My favorite heretics are open theists. We'd laugh at each other, yeah. I... Last time I saw Greg Boyd was a couple of months ago at the, um, at the exiles conference. I didn't actually talk to him, but he, he, he, uh, he gave a breakout session and then

he also is a drummer in a hard rock band or a classic rock band. And I saw him, we went, it was an after party at the conference and we went and I saw him play drums and he's really really good He's a great great guy. Yeah No, he's I just on the theology and raw a couple years ago Joy Dodson if you will smoked him out to be a universalist, which he has to be by his position I think he's yeah, I'm not sure where he's at on that. I think he's open to he admitted on stage He's a universalist. He has to be

God cannot export violence in his view. All right, yeah. So everybody eventually has to come to be a Christian. And he said as much on the stage. Joey did a great job of interacting with him. Didn't he? Joey's sneaky, man. And he's got a photographic... Yes, yes. He's got a photographic memory. And so, I don't know, do you remember? I mean, he was, he didn't go out with any notes. No. But he was quoting verbatim paragraphs from other authors. And that's, he just memorizes it. It's insane. I don't know how he does that.

See, that's what I love is respectful dialogue between people who disagree on these things. Again, that's a key point of my discipleship model. If you're going to talk about another view, go to the very best proponent of the view and listen to them firsthand, personally, if you possibly can. Pete So, you've been integrating that in the people you're discipling, whether it's formally, informally, in a classroom, one on one, one on three. David Absolutely. Pete This is a foundational piece. David Absolutely.

Pete Has it always been that way for you? Has that always been a value? Yes. Yes. The respectful dialogue between… Now, within the evangelical guardrails, by that I mean the world evangelical lion statement type thing. So, I don't have respectful dialogues of people deny that Jesus is Emmanuel, God in the flesh. I may, but I'm not required to do it, because many times there are wolves in sheep clothing who pretend to be Christian, and they're not. This question came up in a dialogue I had recently. It might have been on the podcast, can't remember. But, because I'm with you, I'm a massive fan of steelmanning, listening, curiosity. But then when I read like 2 Peter 2 or Jude

or even Jesus and, you know, a couple of the seven churches, Paul on occasion, I mean, Jude doesn't have much space for respectful dialogue with what we consider false teachers. Well, within the evangelical guardrails, that's why I keep saying that. When somebody is questioning biblical perspectives, then I have to say, wait a minute, and many times they're deceptive in what they do. They're literally satanic in what they're doing. They're asking what seem to be honest questions or not. I call them out and hard if I can. I was going to say, Jude and Peter, they're not dealing with just new converts who are wrestling with hard questions. These are active false teachers leading people astray.

Yes. And boy, they're around today. There's a lot of them. And they're getting way too much friendly listening, and that's why there's so much deconstructing going on, is they're raising questions and they're saying, well, the church hurt you, therefore you can dump Jesus. Well, boy, talk about a leap of logic. Of course the church hurt you. It hurt everybody. Talk to any pastor. Of course the church hurt you. It shouldn't, and there is definitely intentional church hurt, which is evil. But the idea that church hurt you,

therefore you can dump Jesus. See, that's a false teacher. You've got to call him out. Pete Slauson Do you see that increasing these days? David R. Reilly Absolutely. Pete Slauson Really? Well, why is that? David R. Reilly Because the narrative is churches hurt people. It's an abusive organization, and that narrative gets a huge amount of press today, not only in the liberal, the anti-Christian stuff, but it's also in like newsletters for Christian leaders.

It's usually about some church who's got a pastor who's been abusing kids in his church or has a background in it, and nobody's telling redemption stories. They're telling abuse stories. See, that's the serpent at work. There are amazing redemption stories, they're telling abuse stories. See that's the serpent at work. There are amazing redemption stories, they do not make the news feeds. I talked to my buddy Patrick Miller about this all the time, he's a pastor, I think you know Patrick. And he says the same thing.

He says because so much of the abuses are publicized. He's experienced the last few years, such a profound distrust and leadership. And he's like, look, we're not perfect, whatever, but our whole pastoral team is like super humble. We're not abusing kids. You know, like we're not perfect by any stretch, but we don't match those headlines. And so what it's doing is creating this narrative

that most, when 50 to 80% of the headlines you read are of all these abuse allegations and legitimate cases. And realities, yeah. People think like, oh, 50 or 80% of pastors are like doing these things, when it might realistically be one to two to three percent, maybe five percent or whatever. Well, it's not that much. But see, again, part of my discipleship model is tell the redemption stories. Now, be sure they're really redemption stories.

But in typical churches today, we no longer have testimonies of redemption stuff. It's just not part of this typical evangelical liturgy. We've got to tell redemption stories. It's what Jesus is about. But we get caught off into fighting with somebody who has a different view of, say, Providence or women in leadership or something like that, and we publicly fight about those things. We publicly get into critiquing culture instead of telling the story of the beauty of the self-giving God.

See, and again, that's part of my discipleship model. Quit critiquing culture. I mean, do it. But your main thing is to tell the story, the beautiful story of the self-giving God, the self-sacrificing God who comes to us and calls us to be like Him as self-giving, self-sacrificing people who serve. Again, that's a key point of my discipleship model, is what are the stories you tell? It's very chic to critique the culture and relatively easy to do, but it's a waste of time. Now, there's a point to it, but the heart of what we do is tell the beauty of the self-giving, self-sacrificing God who comes and helps us do those same kinds of things.

How do we balance being honest with the negative stories, with the pastors that have been spiritually or physically or sexually abusive, the cover-ups? There is, you know, a decent amount of junk. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And in the past that hasn't been called out. So how do we balance like calling out the stuff that needs to be called out without

giving the perception that this is the overwhelming majority of pastors or churches? What you do is, I live in, my church is inam, East Montloma County, Gresham Community Church in Gresham, or Grace Community Church in Gresham. If I go to all the churches that are in a 10-mile radius of my own church, how many of those pastors and churches are godly, discipling, positive, helpful, community-involved people? Probably 95 percent. Okay, till 95 percent redemption stories, and then ruthlessly call out the five percent that are evil. But, you know, balance out what's actually going on in your community. And what we do, we're pain

magnified. To use this, Lewis, pain is is the magnifying glass of God, and we're pain-oriented. We forget good things quickly, remember painful things forever. And again, we've got to tell the redemption stories. And I love the picture of pastors who got off into bad stuff. We've got a guy in our church who was a pastor. He was accused in jail time for abusing kids in the past. He has a redemption story. Now we have careful limits on what he can do in our church as a registered sex offender. I

mean, very careful limits, which he fully agrees to, but I visited him in prison repeatedly because he abused a lot of kids. And he's out, that was way in the past, and he's a repentant, godly man. And now he's very careful in what he does because he never wants to cause offense. Let's tell the redemption stories. And we typically don't do it. Would you say, so wait, is he a pastor now? No. No. Oh, no, no. So you would, would you say that's forever off limits for him now?

Oh, he's off, he'll never be a pastor again in the sense of any official thing. He works in a, what I would call a Christian nonprofit. And he does not have, well, he's no longer a registered sex offender. That's expired now. But he still does not work with kids. He works with adults. And he's very careful in his context with kids. He's never, ever alone with a kid or even close to that. He's a very effective Christian nonprofit guy. And key leaders know his full story. And most of the people in the organization know his full story, because it's no secret. His victims from many years ago, would they, trying to formulate the question, like would they be okay with holding him up as kind of like a hero or like here's a positive story

of repentance and gosh, he's a good guy now, he's clean or you know. Yeah, I can't answer that question because I never talked to any of them. I have talked to people who have been abused by pastors because I do a lot of that kind of work too, a lot of it. And what they do is if somebody is open and honest with what they've done and completely accept responsibility for what they do, none of the victimizer, it's your fault kind of stuff that's so common, is they are actually glad for redemption stories, but they won't be friends with that person probably. The problem is when it's sort of whitewashed, downplayed, or within 18 months, they're back in the ministry and like people celebrate them while the victim's just left with

this pain and this pastor now is a hero again, because look how humble and repentant he is. Maybe that's what I was thinking of. So that's the guy needs to take it behind the barn and just beat the Dickens out of him. Let me show you what you made of the peeve. And I, I have very strong feelings about this, but I also know some genuine redemption stories and well, Paul, you know, this guy that likes kind of a significant impact in the early church, he sat next to people whose kids he had murdered a few years earlier. How would you like to be a mom or the son or the daughter of somebody Paul had killed or tortured?

We've got to learn how to rebuild. And I work with church abuse situations. I'm working with two major ones right now. Yeah. Don't ever ignore the abuse. Deal with it. And in many cases, if there really has been abuse by the pastor, that pastor needs to resign, expect full responsibility of what he did. Most don't. And I've got a whole thing on this. Number one is full confession, absolute full confession verified by many cases, a polygraph, because that's the only way to really get at those kinds of things.

And then step number two, once you get that full confession, no, I'm sorry, no, please forgive me, none of that kind of stuff, at all, zero, none, just full confession, I did, it was wrong, I've done it. Then the next thing is, are they willing to go in compassionately into the life of the person who will accept their and accept and live in their pain without going to quick fixes. I mean, it happens. It's rare, but I can point to somewhere that's happening. If you've ever wanted to dive deeper into the ancient languages that the Bible was originally written in, now is the perfect time to start. Whether you're seeking a deeper understanding of scripture or you're simply curious about

the roots of the text, learning biblical Greek and Hebrew can unlock insights you have never imagined. I cannot tell you how much the text was opened up to me when I started to learn the original languages. And look, I understand not everybody's able to do this, okay? But if you do have the time, then I would highly, highly recommend learning Greek and Hebrew. Kairos Classroom has designed an entirely new curriculum

that makes learning these ancient languages accessible and, yes, exciting for anyone, whether you're just getting started or you already have some background in biblical studies. I want you to hear from a Kairos Classroom student and fellow theologian or listener about her recent experience. Hey, my name is Joy and I a Kairos Classroom student and fellow theologian or listener about her recent experience. Hey, my name is Joy and I found Kairos Classroom when I heard about it from Preston at theology

in the raw. When I signed up for Kairos Classroom, I was looking for something affordable, flexible, and fun without sacrificing on quality. I'm six weeks into Greek 1 and it has absolutely ticked off all the boxes. If digging deeper into the original languages of the Bible is something that intrigues you, I'd really encourage you to visit the Kairos Classroom website and check out if any of their programs would be a good fit for you. It'll be time well spent. So I want to encourage you to take the first step

in your journey to gain a deeper understanding of scripture by booking a free trial lesson with Kairos. Just go to kairosclassroom.com, okay? Kairosclassroom.com. Click on the book a free trial lesson button and pick a 30-minute time slot that is convenient for you. It's 100% free, no excuses. And it's a great way to meet a teacher and gain a better understanding of how easy, convenient, and fun learning with Kairos will be.

What is it? Is there something about the pastoral position that, I guess, let me ask the first question. Do you think it, this is, again, whether it's emotional, spiritual, physical, sexual abuse, is it more prevalent among leaders in a church than leaders in other organizations? I actually don't think so, but they're violating a sacred oath when they do it. If a corporate leader does it, they're not violating a sacred oath. A pastor is violating a sacred oath. So there's a deeper level of hurt and there's a much higher level of responsibility.

And the power that comes with a pastoral position is often not recognized by pastors. They do it like I started the show, hey, I'm just Gary, come on. Well, actually not. I'm not just Gary. I'm a longtime professor of theology. I'm a longtime elder in the church. I'm a pastor of pastors, I'm not just Gary. I carry enormous power.

No matter how much you don't position yourself that way, you just simply are going to carry that. I have to recognize the power that I have for who I am and the positions I hold, and I have to be very careful because I can dominate people in a heartbeat. I'm an indigram aid, high D, put in whatever you want, type A, I'm all those things. But I've got to do it compassionately with a serving heart. Do you think there's something about the pastoral position that lends itself? Yes. Yes. Yes. Abusers gravitate to pastoral positions. People of the lie. Great book.

People go there because there's little accountability. If you look nice, it's almost unlimited what you can do behind the curtain. How many people actually really check up on their pastors other than ask them questions, which is good. And the fact is, most pastors can do all kinds of stuff with no accountability whatsoever. Yeah. Well, if somebody has a more narcissistic personality, some, maybe many of our churches, their measure of success is like a recipe to attract a narcissist. Because a narcissist can grow a great church. Oh, they can get people on their side.

They can motivate people. Which is a dangerous thing for a pastor. I didn't read that book. Who's that guy when narcissism comes to church? Chuck DeGroat? Yeah, I haven't read that book yet. Chuck DeGroat. Yeah, he's done a lot of work around narcissistic pastor and such.

I think a lot of people read his material and look at a powerful personality who doesn't always do things my way and just label them narcissistic, which is, it's as great a sin as being a narcissist. A guy don't like, oh, you're a narcissist kind of stuff. And it's a cheap labeling and dismissing type stuff. And I don't mean to downplay what Chuck does. I know him only casually. And he's done some excellent research on narcissism in the church. Do you think the label narcissism is thrown around a little bit too broadly then? Oh, all the time. Oh, okay. All the time.

There's a clinical definition of narcissism as a personality disorder. It's absolutely real. I've run some out of the ministry. But narcissistic tendencies, most powerful leaders have narcissistic tendencies, which is high drive, ability to inspire loyalty, those kinds of things. Narcissists do that in a pathological way. Strong leaders do those in a good way. Hmm.

Hmm. Well, that's good. That's a good difference. So, you've, do you know how many, let's say, pastors and, professors that you have discipled on some level, maybe not from a, not from a distance, like they read your book or something, but like you have had a personal relationship with them. You know, their first and last name, whether it's in a classroom or maybe even maybe it's from a distance. I mean, I was by myself in this category. I've never taken a classroom you, but I would consider you one of my mentors. So using like me as a baseline example, all the way up to like people you've really invested in

personally, do you know what that number is? I don't care about numbers. I'm just trying to get my mind around like how many people you have had a real personal influence on? I don't have any idea what the number would be. If you go down to the level, the influence that you and I have as longtime friends and conversation partners and such, you'd probably be up in the two or three thousand level. Yeah. Because I hack into people's lives for fun and profit. I've yet to find the profit, but I've had a lot of fun, as well as some painful stuff. I came here in 1980. I still have people in my first classes.

Judy Glanz, for example, was Judy Murray back in the day. We've had a long, deep relationship this entire time. She's one of my adjunct profs now, great friend. Her daughter is somebody I've done the same thing to who's just finished her PhD in Scotland. Just a lot of people. Now, when I talk about people who have had deep personal inflects where it's been on a personal level, that would probably be in the, I don't know, couple hundred. That would be people like, well, I mean, some of the big names. The funny thing is Tim Mackey, when the Bible Project started, nobody knew who Tim Mackey was, and I was a key influence. I mean, deep discipleship. I mean, Tim and I have a very close relationship, and he and Jessica and their kids, when this whole thing started out, they had me involved in Bible Project,

but at least somebody's heard of Gary now. You know Tim Mackie? Wow! I love it! It's perfect! Yeah. Well, I mean, I first heard about your name because you co-wrote some books with Mark Driscoll. Yes Yes. Yeah, and I remember like who's this Gary guy and I call he's a professor. Oh, he was you know, Mark's professor whatever Other name. I mean John Mark Comers is there Evan Wickham and and yeah All those four have been people have had deep personal relationship with But the only reason why again and you and I don't care about numbers and some people might say it's kind of icky even mention, it's just wherever I go, it's, I mean, 25

to 50% of the people I meet, I feel like have, have you've had some influence, if not like a really direct influence on them. I've had the huge privilege. Well, Guy Gray, who's one of those people I've had deep personal influence with, he's retired now. He came over and planted River West here in Lake Oswego. We had gone out to lunch, did a lot of stuff together, and he dropped me off here at Western. And as he's coming off, he's got this prophetic personality type thing.

He looked at me across, as I was getting out of the passenger side of the car, and said, Gary, quit your job and become a church theologian. And I said, Guy, I'm not going to quit my job at Western. But what happened is, I recognized that he did absolutely have a prophetic voice, and a very conscious received what he was actually saying. Gary, you must put more time in being pastor of pastors. Up to that point, I've been an equipping, equipper of up and coming pastors.

And I'm using pastor on a non-technical sense. And I realized the thing I need to do, and I've been doing it for 25 years now, is to be pastor of pastors, which is deep influence in the lives of people who are already pastoring, including some senior guys who've been men and women. Oh, Judy would be an example, and I've gotten a number of others like that, men and women who are in official pastoral positions, that

I get to have a shaping influence in their life and when they are in a tight spot or a difficult decision, hey Gary, can we talk? I love it. And that's, you know, that's that pastoral mentoring, discipling role that by God's grace I have in a lot of people's lives. How do you, because saying yes to one person means you're saying no to somebody else, right? There's only so much time. How do you balance that? How do you determine this? I'm going to say yes to this, yes to this, but I have to say no to this person.

Here's a great need that just came my way, but I just, I don't have the bandwidth to invest in this. Part of it I have to keep, I really love graduate. John Mark Colmer, you just seen him a little bit. When I first met John Mark, I had deep influence in his life. That was 2010. These days, John Mark has graduated, if I can say that. We don't talk very often. He's really busy, but he's graduated. Now, if we get together, it'll go deep and fast with Tammy as well. But I'm no longer a major influence in John Mark's life. He's graduated. So, I have to let people I really love and really care about graduate and no longer have a significant influence in their life because there's new people coming

behind. So, there's a guy here in town, Andrew Nemazio, who is an up and coming young pastor, Rose Church, and I'm now having that kind of deep influence in his life because John Mark has graduated. But I can only have those deep relationships with a few people. So I have a big rock philosophy. I've got a jar here, a jar of life. I need to put in the big rocks first. And one of the big rocks is family. I need to have time to go hang with my daughter on Mother's Day. So Shari and I went down there. Shari, of course, is a big one. And some of those. But once the big rocks are in, there's a lot of room for little rocks, if you will, which would be a coffee conversation that lasts 90 minutes in somebody's life two or three times a year. I can have a lot of influence because I immediately get to the hard stuff. I

don't waste my time talking about sports or later movies. I don't watch movies. I spend no time watching movies. Really? Yeah. I mean, it's a waste of time. I could be investing in people. It's not that I don't like movies. I love movies. I'd just rather spend life in my time with Andrew. I'm using him because I'll be at his church tomorrow night and his dad just died. Frank DiMazio, major pastor here in the Portland area, and I'm having a lot of influence in Andrew's life. I love it. He's one of my newbies. How do you, like really practically, just on the ground, what does it look like when

you get together with coffee for somebody for 90 minutes, maybe you know them a little bit, but you're seeing this as, for lack of a better term, as a discipleship opportunity? Like what does disciple Gary look like in those moments? Question number three is, we already have a point on the agenda, because I know almost know where their pain is, and I say, okay, what are you doing about? And I'd go in really deep to foundational issues really quickly. I get very personal really fast in a very positive, compassionate, supportive, directive way.

I waste no time talking about sports and movies when I do these things. I mean, there's a certain level of chit chat, but not much. I'm there to be a pastor in your life. Let's get on with it." So I spent very little time. So within five minutes, we're into really significant stuff. So you want to find out where that pain, like where's the struggle, where's the pain? What's the pain? What's the hope? What's the thing that's bending your soul right now? And then another thing I do is, it's a discipline, but I'm fully present with you when I'm with

you. And for a lot of people, they're never, they're always mentally checking their phone or something like that. I'm fully present with the person for the time that we have. And that's a personality thing, but it's also something I really honed is how to be fully present with somebody in the moment and keenly interested in them. I just rebuked a guy yesterday. Well, Brenna Blaine, she's been on your thing several times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know Brenna. Saturday, she was a speaker at Regeneration Conference here in Portland. I asked to be her guide because she's a speaker. Well, I was also a speaker, but not at the same time. So I asked to be her guide because we've got a deep personal relationship. And so, 15 minutes before she went on for her session, I went by appointment.

I found her because she's a very popular person. We went off by ourselves and I spent about eight minutes going where I knew her issues were. I actually rebuked a hostile voice in her spirit. It wasn't demonic, it was something else. I rebuked it in the name of Jesus, full-on spiritual presence with her. She received it. I prayed Holy Spirit encouragement for her, and she did an awesome job. And then I connected with her again after the speech, and we've done a little bit of texting. That's the sort of thing I do routinely because I know her, I know what she's wrestling with, and I want to be a pastoral presence at a key point in her life.

And so, that's just happened, and she's an awesome young lady who's wrestling with some really hard stuff as she's talked about on Theology in the Raw. Yeah, she's got an incredible voice and has been through godly. You talk about somebody whose strength and resilience has been forged in the fires of trials. Oh, huge. And, I mean, yeah. Yeah. Everybody needs to get her book. Can I ask that? Yeah, so good.

It's very personal, but how hard questions get to the real God. Her power is in her honesty, I feel like. Yeah. It's extremely honest without... I mean, you're talking earlier about just kind of an unhealthy victim, church hurt, you know, that that could... This could be an unhealthy perspective on that, but she has a very honest but healthy perspective, I believe. And she mentioned my name too often.

She what? Oh. She mentions my name too often. She's done it on your show. Because I do have this influence. Now, I'm not the number one influence in her life by quite a bit. There are two or three others that have a primary influence in her life. I have a secondary influence, but I want to maximize that for the discipleship model I do because I want her to do extremely well.

And if my name never gets mentioned, I'm totally happy. If it does, I'm kind of okay with it. So for how many people whose lives you're involved in, how many people you've influenced, would you consider yourself like an extrovert? Do you enjoy people or do you love people because it's the right thing to do? On the typical introvert, extrovert, I come out right in the middle. I have to have my private time. I guard that really highly for reflection, for prayer, for listening to God, those kinds of things. But I also really, really, really enjoy the impact I can have in people's lives to help them do better. And that's not just pastors, that's people who are, I mean, I'm working with some

people. Later today, I'll be working with a couple who they're at the bottom end of hurt. I mean, they're in big trouble. I'm amazed that they're even alive. They're so bad off. So I'm investing in really at the bottom people as well as at the top people. So you're not, okay, so you're not just, right now you're not just focused on being a pastor to the pastors you're still working with, you know? I'm working with some of the worst hurts ever. Really? I don't talk about those openly unless they're in the past, except in the vaguest of ways. So, I have an appointment

this evening with a couple and they are in terrible trouble. A pastor friend of mine referred them to me, and so I'm investing time there too. I doubt that they'll ever be high-level, pastoral-level influences in a church, but I just don't know. Right now I know that I want them to get free from horrific difficulty. I'll just leave it at that. This episode is brought to you by Seminary Now. Seminary Now is a subscription-based streaming video platform that delivers exclusive biblical, theological, and practical ministry training from a diverse group of leading educators and thought leaders. It's become one of the go-to resources for pastors, church leaders,

and lay Christians who are serious about ongoing learning in our increasingly complex world. Seminary Now's 80 plus streaming courses and 10 plus live online classes allow learners to have access to world-class scholarship and cutting edge ministry training anywhere, anytime. These courses are taught by leading professors and authors like Dennis Edwards, Michael Byrd, David Fitch, Nijay Gupta, this is like a Theologian Raw All-Star team, Carmen Imes, Sandy Richter, Dermot Gray,

Isa Makoli, Lynn Cohen, Craig Keener, John Walton, and many, many others. Topics range from Bible, theology, ministry, and contemporary issues. Classes are, they're broken up into short videos so you can learn at your own pace. And there's new courses being released every month. The courses are available either on your smartphone or on Apple TV.

You get unlimited access to all the courses for just 15 bucks a month, which is billed annually. So I would, man, there's just so much here. I would highly encourage you to at least go check it out. Seminarynow.com, okay, to find out more. That's seminarinow.com. And for a limited time, you can use the discount code TITR and save 30%, okay, save 30%.

The discount code is TITR to save 30%. Go check it out So over the last 45 years have you seen changes in the kinds of challenges or maybe the depth of challenges that people are wrestling with like yes Is it due to the internet and porn or all these new things that you know didn't exist, you know 40 years ago Is that more than that things in our culture? the the the evil of social media. We just had one of the presenters at Together PDX, Tatiana, I've forgotten her. I did not catch her name. I've got to go back and get it. But she works with Young Life and just amazing leader. And she named it so well.

In our culture today, and I'm talking about the Gen Z type culture, so called. In our culture today, you cannot make a mistake. You cannot make a mistake. And as soon as you do, you're mocked, ridiculed, you may be cancelled, but it's worse for the other stuff that happens. You cannot make a mistake in today's culture. So the terror is, I'm not enough. And that's the question in our culture is, are you enough?

And the answer is no. So you gloss everything and make it look like you're this confident thing and it's just absolutely toxic culture today and that's out of a social media culture that didn't exist in 2005 barely exists in 2010 But it's front and center on everything right now. If somebody is not on social media Do they still experience that? Or is it just those...

Absolutely. Oh, really? Absolutely. So social media, it doesn't just exist on social media, it's just simply exacerbated because of social media. Yeah. And people are not personally on social media will be mocked on social media. Right.

Yeah. It's a... Now, there's great good that comes out of social media for sure, but the dark side of social media is horrible. And that's fairly new. And so young leaders have to face the reality that you have to have a social media presence, almost, I mean, you just can't be a leader today without a social media presence, but it's a toxic and extremely dangerous environment.

You've got to learn how to navigate it well. I'm an old man. I will never navigate social media. To me, social media is a place for grandkids and Mongolia trips and things like that. Are you, are you on social media? Yes. I'm active on Facebook and Instagram. But you don't, it's more just personal family kind of stuff.

You're not like debating theology. I don't enter into any of the theological debates. I get drugged into them occasionally by my friends like Evan Wickham, who tags me on his stuff. But no, Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and such are not a place for me to do theological discussion because I just can't do what I do on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok. Because that's for you. Do you think, would your advice be objectively universal to people?

No, no, no, no, no. Do you think there is a place to debate? I mean, look at you, Preston, for crying out loud. You're having enormous positive influence through social media in various ways. Now, I don't know if you're a super professional, but I look at some of the guys who are… Well, I'll just name some of the big influence, Tim Mackey. He personally is not on social media, but he's having huge, huge impact through all the social media platforms out of Bible Project. And it's incredible what he's doing, but he personally

has zero social media. I mean, I see, I'm not really active like on Twitter every now and then, but I don't, I just, all in a while I break, my rule has been don't engage with people. I break that from time to time and then I repent and then go back to just, you know, not engaging. I'm never, I'm rarely on Facebook. I don't get into any of the Facebook, Instagram, TikTok discussions. Zero, none. And if somebody tries to get it onto one of my feeds, I delete them. I don't want, I don't want those. If people look at my page on, and I'm active on fish, we're in Facebook and Instagram. If somebody brings one of their fights onto my space, I'll delete them immediately. You don't get

to do that on my page. Do it on your own. Yeah, that's good. I just, I don't, um, I see very lit. Well, it, you know, one of my truisms is don't give a thin answer to a thick question. You know, if there's a complicated issue, your 240 characters on Twitter is not going to do it. I mean, Facebook allows for a little more, but I mean, I would say 90% of any kind of debate is not made in good faith. People are just trying to win. They're not reasonable. You don't know. You don't have to tell me, you know, you're talking with, they could have their wife could have left them. Their kids might've hate them. That could be on pills and meds. And I don't know what they're going through. Like they could be lashing out

and taking it out on to me. And I just, you just don't know the context. If it's somebody, you actually do personally know, and you know,'re a good faith dialogue partner, and then you engage on a good faith conversation on Facebook, I think maybe that might be the 10% where it's profitable. But I just see it as most times both parties walk away not better people and clarity is typically not given. It's usually just a lot of vitriol. Yeah. And that one of the very, very public people right now is Mark Driscoll. And I did have a major influence in his life. Very, very personal. I spent a lot of time in his home, him and Grace, and other kids from about 2004 to about 2010. And we never had a falling out. We just went

separate ways. Unfortunately, he went in a not good way and the dark side of his character came out front and of course blew up Mars Hill in 2014 and all that. But that's a space where people very openly and positively said, I know what's going on in Mark Driscoll's life. They had never met the man. And there are people who have made, and I'll be the very, very, I won't name names, but there are people making a lot of money off the Mark Driscoll image, which then they morph into their own. This is particularly true while he was front page news back in the 2010, 2014 era. There were bloggers who were

making seriously a lot of money off of trashing Mark Driscoll. Yeah. I think I know some of the ones you're talking about. And there is a dark side to Mark. I mean, I've said this to his face, but I'm hoping, and I just don't know, that the current Mark Driscoll is actually a redemption story. I don't know because I don't have that personal relationship Mark Driscoll is actually a redemption story. I don't know because I don't have that personal relationship with anymore. I'm hoping he is a genuine redemption story. I just don't know. I don't have that backside. I see the public side, but I don't see the backside. And I see the Driscoll haters who are still doing their thing by telling things

that I know for a fact are not true, but it sells well. Interesting. So you don't have any contact, you haven't talked to him since 2014? Oh, no. We've had, after he went to Scottsdale, Mark and I had a three-hour off-the-record, very, very personal conversation. And I know a lot, and I was around for a good part of that, what was happening on Mars Hill, and I was raising concerns. Hello! And I was officially part of his accountability team. And if I text him, I'll get a quick response. I haven't sat down with him personally for probably three years. But I don't know what's going on behind the scene at Trinity Church. I see the public side. It's multi-generational, multi-ethnic, and a lot of people come to Christ. It's a political view that I'm not in favor of. You know, I've said all these

things publicly, but they're not critical. They're just dialogue type stuff. I hope it's a redemption story, but I can't say at this point. I can point to some other people are genuine redemption stories because I know them. Wouldn't genuine redemption have to go back and repair a lot of the damage? It's hard to do. It takes two to tango. That was one of my things back after 2014. By 2016, I was mediating some conversations off the record, behind the curtain, with people who are hurt had gone back and forth. And that's a role that I do. And there are a number of people who have a decent relationship with Driscoll, or they've

been hurt going both directions. But it takes a lot of work to do. So it wasn't just one-sided? It wasn't just Mark being up on- Oh, no, absolutely not. No, that's the thing. It's an extremely complicated story. And people come in and do simple, you know, this is what happened, as if they were in

the room when that whole thing blew up. I could name specifics, I won't. But there were absolutely some in the room blowups that if you weren't in the room, you cannot know what happened. But, oh, I can tell you what happened. And they tell motivations and such, which they just can't know. Those people need to shut up. They do not know what happened. They know a social media side of it. They do not know the real side of it. Did you listen to Mike Cosper's The Rise and Fall? So what did you think about that? I'll be very straight up.

The first three or four sessions were outstanding. They showed both the power and the problem side by side, but then it quickly became a this is an evil thing, and it got away from the nuanced story and became a simple, it became a narrative of church abuse. It was no longer a careful, thoughtful interaction with the Mark Driscoll story and became a story of church abuse that told many people's stories. So it was a true story, but it was no longer a nuanced story of what happened. That's the thing that I've been curious. I've never met Mike Cosper, so I can't

say much, but he was on staff there in Louisville at Journey Church with one, it was a guy who was bad and abused, there was Mark Driscoll, who was fired by the church and I was actually a consultant in some of the stuff that happened around that. Mike was on staff. He could have told the story of Journey Church and how an abusive pastor became lead, but he had involved him in all kinds of personal relationships, it seems to me. And he'd get 25 views about Journey Church. He got, well, I don't know how many thousands talking about Mars Hill because it's a much more public organization. And Mark Driscoll, he knows how to manipulate the internet.

But see, to tell that inner story where he really knew what was going on is extremely complex. And I don't mean to be critical of what Mike did, but I just wonder what he would have done of Journey Church in Daniel Montgomery. Clearly, he could have told a very nuanced insight, but very difficult story of all the difficult relationships that were there. I think he did reach out to Mark, didn't he? Oh, Mark, see, the thing is, he didn't reach out to me, but had he done that, I would have said,

you know, Mike, I really appreciate what you're doing, but that story is so complicated. You cannot tell what happened there in a 15-minute or five-minute glimpse. You just can't tell the story. It's too complicated. Now, the early thing, I mean, one of my favorites was Tim Smith was leading one of the first open baptism things, and it was going so well, their song set was gone. And he's best for trying to think, what are we going to sing next? And somebody yelling, Tim, Tim, Tim!

His daughter was getting baptized back behind him, and he didn't know it! Now, there was some stuff that happened in that open baptism that was not good, let's just put it that way. But see, he was telling a complicated story that was nuanced and showed both the power and the problem together, but it quickly got back into stuff that was just, it just, it was, the nuance got lost for the story of an abusive church. And again, I'm not being critical, but the show went off into a different direction than just here's what happened at Mars Hill and talked about the nature of abusive churches.

And I think on the whole, he did a good job of showing the danger of abusive churches, but it was no longer a picture of the complex, difficult story of Mars Hill. My view. That's it. But again, I've never talked to Mike, so I can't. I mean, your view matters more than most people in my opinion, because you have such deep, deep insight to history, which most people- If I was there, I was in the room for some of the things that were described. And I know for a fact they were just wrong. Oh, wow.

They talked to certain people who had their perspective, but they weren't in the room. They knew Mark and they knew the dark side of Mark, but they didn't know. Anyway, I'll just leave it at that. You've got to know the whole nuanced story, and that's difficult. It means personal involvement with key people, but it means a huge investment. And you cannot, you cannot, you cannot tell the whole story for people who really understand what happened in the room. it's just too complicated. My only, I mean, I know a few other people who you would know, I'm not going to name them publicly, but who were deeply invested in the church, you know, either a leadership

or a mentor figure to Mark. And the pain that happened, the pain that happened as the dark side of Mark's character came out, there were desperate hurting people's lives. People who knew really well are no longer practicing Christians. And a big piece was the betrayal that they felt from what happened in Mars Hill. And Mark was a sinner, that he was the only one. My only exposure to Mark since then is every now and then I'll see some of his tweets on Twitter and I would say, I think they're pretty terrible. I don't follow Twitter so I can't speak to those.

They're pretty bad. The political stuff is really clear. He's very, very, has integrated a right-wing political views with Christian theology, which I would consider, I would say it's flat-out idolatrous and his tone is very arrogant and snarky. But again, you raise a great point. That's the public facing- Arrogant and snarky, you're putting a spin on a Driscoll personality, called arrogant and snarky, you're putting a spin on a Driscoll personality, which certainly is a danger there. Now, whether he's actually arrogant and snarky or not, I can't say because I'm not there

personally, but that's putting a spin on a strong personality. And I'm very careful to do those, and careful to try to not to do those things if I don't have a personal relationship. That's a good point. So I'm kind of re-duking you, Preston. Well, I'll receive that. Yeah. I'm not sure I totally.

Well, of course. I would say, OK, here's what I would say is, I would maybe if I see somebody tweeting several things that feel condescending or portraying. That feels snarky to me. Yeah. Okay. That's good. Okay. Here's the base.

I would, the base level I would go as I say, that was probably unwise to say that in that way on social media, whether it's a totally accurate representation, reputation of your heart. I can't really say I don't know you, but that was you probably should not say that on social media, which I've done too. So I, and people have told me that I'm like, yeah, you know what, you're right.

And so what I would do is before I say that publicly, I want to go talk to him privately. Yeah. I don't, yeah, I don't have access to that, but. You could. I could, I could talk to Mark Driscoll. Absolutely. Really? Yeah. You want to do it all I'll mediate it. Seriously.

That's another conversation. Well, I immediately thought on the podcast, there's so much history here and stuff that I'm not familiar with. So I don't know if I want to publicly do something like that. See, that's the issue right there. If you don't know the story, you can't tell the story. And I wish other people be limited. I can't tell the story if I don't know the story. And I wish other people be limited. I can't tell the

story if I don't know the story. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But private, I'd talk to anybody privately. That'd be a blast. Hey, I've got a question from a patron here that's tuning in. It's kind of related to what we're talking. It goes back to what we were talking about way earlier, but it actually is related to Driscoll. So he says this. He says, one thing I would argue against is the idea that we are over-advertising the failures of the church leaders regarding the percentages, like maybe it's a tiny percentage, whatever.

But what about those that have enormous reach, more than just the average faithful church leader? And he uses the example of Mark Driscoll, Ravi Zacharias, and others that their abuse of power and authority has massive ripple effects. So like that, even though those two examples, and so Driscoll, Zacharias, that's only two people. I could find two faithful pastors in Kansas with 80 people in their church that had been faithful for 40 years. No, let's go to the parallel. You want to mark Driscoll? Okay. Let's talk about a Tim Keller.

to Mark Driscoll. Okay, let's talk about a Tim Keller. Tim Keller has had enormous, enormous impact for good. We spend more time, too much time it seems to me, with the Mark Driscoll, Ravi Zacharias, Robert Morris. And I tell the story, absolutely. But what we don't do nearly enough is tell the beauty of the story of a Tim Keller, a Rick Warren, JD Greer, I could name, and these are, again, enormous influence pastors. Let's laud what they're doing long and faithful, and we typically don't do that. Wow. Max Lucado, Max Lucado. Max Lucado, yeah. We know him by his books, but he's been a faithful pastor for like 50 years or something.

Yeah. And so let's tell, let's balance the stories, and I'll just, I'll stand by my thing. There's a whole lot more said about the Rev. Zacharias, Mark Driscoll, Robert Morris? Robert Morris is a more recent story. Enormous impact, but the deceptive stuff in his background, then he rightfully has been scrubbed. We need to tell those stories. Absolutely.

The abusive pastor has to be called out and ruthlessly. But let's also tell the beautiful stories of pastors, men and women who are leaders, who are sacrificing their own personal privileges for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let's tell those stories. Those are amazing, beautiful stories. I get to be involved in them. If you'd like to listen to the rest of our conversation about women and ministry and in them. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.