Theology in the Raw - Do Ancient Christian Rituals Matter Today? Dr. Isaac Serrano

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

Register for the Exiles in Babylon conference! April 30-May 2, 2026. https://www.theologyintheraw.com/exiles26Baptism, Communion, Corporate Worship and Singing.... do these ancient rituals matter today? Do I need to physically go to church for this stuff, or can I just go pray at a park? What's the point of these rituals if we're saved by faith and not by works? Dr. Isaac Serrano serves as Lead Pastor of South Valley Community Church in CA. He also is an adjunct professor at Western Seminary and on the leadership team for the Regeneration Project. He’s also the author of the recently released book published by InterVarsity Press, called: “When Life Feels Empty: 7 Ancient Practices to Cultivate Meaning” (InterVarsity)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I want to restore the value of rights and rituals in the Christian faith because it's the rights, rituals, and practices that then buttress. They reinforce that initial act of faith. You don't have to create an emotional experience. God works through baptism. He works through communion. He works through corporate worship. He gave us these things and said, I'm going to use this stuff. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology and around my guest today is Dr. Isaac Serrano, who serves as lead pastor of South Valley Community Church, California. He is also an adjunct professor at Western Seminary in Oregon and on the leadership team for the Regeneration Project.

He's also the author of the recently released book When Life Feels Empty, Seven Practices to Cultivate Meaning, put out by InterVarsity Press, which forms the backdrop for our conversation, though we do, as always, chase a few shiny objects, which have to do with singing and church and yeah, you'll just have to see how that goes. Please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only, Dr. Isaac Serrano.

Isaac Serrano, so good to have you on the podcast, man. It's been several years since I was on yours, so it took me a few years to invite you on my show, man. Yeah, that actually took place in the before time, before COVID, before things shut down. And what's interesting, just a quick story was, you just double check to hit record to make sure this was

recording and we had just started then Jay Kim and I who you know the Regeneration Project podcast and we're like just barely into it. It's like 2018 and we invited you on and you agreed and it was like dude Preston Sprinkle's going to come on. It's kind of like

a big deal and we got our little board and we're just trying to get things going in about 20 minutes into the conversation maybe 30 and it was going well. I'm like going dude our podcast is going to be cool dude like this is actually a good conversation Jay Kim looks over at me

he's like dude we didn't hit record we didn't hit record he's a tech guy Jay Kim I mean he was he was analog before before that's right he was like both of us are going like

oh dude we got who's going to tell him and you were just what I remember was you were so kind and gracious you redid like that we redid the first 20 minutes and the questions and you answered them, and you were very kind and gracious to us, even though we were very

unprofessional for sure. I totally remember that. Well, as we're talking offline, I reminded you that my, one of my first experiences with you was, maybe it was in response to that podcast. I thought it was before, maybe it was after. Somewhere along the lines, before we even met in person, you gifted me with what I would consider as a hot sauce expert. So my authoritative perspective is the the Gilroy pepper plant garlic sauce is hands down the best garlic sauce hot sauce I've ever tasted ever in my entire life.

You guys sent me, because you live in Grocer. Yeah. Yeah. Right next to the plant, you sent me a gallon of that stuff. And I swear I sucked it down on like 10 days or something. It probably wasn't good for my heart, but man, it was great for myself. Yeah. I remember. remember a message in you like five days after and you were either done or nearly done. But it's so people know it's an actual gallon. It comes in a gallon. No, it's a gallon. Here's like 12, 12 bounce bottle. Like it's no, it's a gallon. A gallon bottle. I think I drank it. I think I poured like a cup of it every morning. It is, it is. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. If you live in like central or even Southern California, most breakfast places have it. It's pretty

popular out there. But yeah, it comes from Gilwright. I grew up in Fresno. So whatever we drove to the Bay Area would always go through Gilroy. And right when you're going through Gilroy, it's like the garlic capital of America, at least. Yeah. I mean, you smell the garlic. I mean, it's, which it doesn't smell great when it's like growing, I guess, but obviously cooking, it's heavenly. Yeah, and when you live there, you're just, you're completely unaware. You're just used to it. And then when you leave, you go out of town, you go on vacation, then you come back, and you're like, oh, we just always smell like this. And we didn't know. Oh, the pepper plant. You're making, I could literally taste them. I haven't had it in years. And I could, I could taste right here in the back of my throat. It could just taste the, it's unbelievable. It's worth going online, pepper plant. I wish they should pay me money for saying this. I mean, go online, pepper plant. You got to get a pepper plant sponsor for it. I should. Chris, you're the producers listening, man. We should, we should. We're on it. We're working on it. Yeah. Dude, I would advertise that stuff like crazy. Yeah. Seriously, man. Oh, dude. How long have you now been a pastor?

I've been in the role that I'm in now, give or take 10 years, started young, like early, maybe 30, 31, early 40s now. So about 10 years. But before that, I was just, I was the youth pastor. I was just like a classic youth group kid. I got really plugged in, had a great youth pastor who, you know, really believed in me, gave me responsibility, gave me things to do. It was just a youth group kid, then became like a youth group leader, then was the youth pastor, and then eventually stepped into that lead rule. Yeah. And you're in an area that, how would you put it? I mean, it's, ministry is not easy in the area you're in, very either never been churched or de-churched or antagonistic to the gospel. Would that be fair to say? Yeah. And again, it's sort of like

the garlic. You're not aware of it because you live in it so much. So it's just how we are. But a long time ago, I was in a band, and we were playing a show, I forget where, somewhere in the Bible Belt. And there's a kid kind of looks rough and stuff. He's got some questions, and he's going on about, like, how could we know that the Christianity is true? There's one true God in the midst of all of these other religions. And I'm immediately going, okay, this is what I'm used to. He's probably dabbled in some Buddhism and just, et cetera, you know, going through. And then I, like about 20 minutes into the conversation, I realized,

he's not even talking about different world religions. He was talking about, like, how do we know the truth between Methodism, Presbyterianism? We got not. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is a different world. And I was just shocked that that's, I was like, dude, you're good. Just find a good local church plug in and flip a coin big one. I remember when we first had lunch, it was with J. Kim and was,

Who else was there? Kimball might have been there. I'm not sure. I think Kimball was there too. Yeah, it was all your kind of Bay Area, sub-bay area, South Bay kind of... Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just remember being so blown away. Here's a bunch of pastors.

And yet you guys were like so theological and intellectual. Like you guys weren't talking about ministry stuff necessarily. You were just wrestling with all this theological stuff. And is that kind of a prerequisite to be an effective pastor in a highly intellectual region like you're in, especially one that is not super receptive to the gospel? Yeah, I'm not completely sure. Part of a lot of the reasons why I got so deep into theology was just my own wrestlings and struggles. It was like, dude, this doesn't make sense.

oh my gosh like existential crisis my faith is my faith holding up because of xyz so part of that is just driven out of my own kind of wrestlings and i and i suspect that for so many other people but that might be due to your point um the reality that there's there's so much external uh intellectual kind of pressure is being put on that in order to maintain faith you kind of have to know your stuff um i don't know if that's wide how widespread that is among the past pasturates in the bay area but definitely there's there's some heavyweights in there and we've already mentioned some names people have been working on theological issues for a long time but i mean here's an example of that um we do a school of theology at my church where we just it's on a monday night it's a two-hour lecture

and it's it's sort of like seminary level lectures on theological issues and there's been a growing attendance of young people and the questions that young people are coming up with are nothing like they were 15 years ago. They're not, like I had a young woman ask me about me, aphysitism, about, you know, the Coptic or the Coptic understanding of the incarnation of Christ. I'm like, where are you getting this? Another young man asked, you know, why did you land on being a non-denominational pastor? I'm like 18 years old and he's going, I'm really wrestling with apostolic succession, da-da-da-da-da-da.

I'm going, where are you guys coming from, man? And, you know, they're listening to people online. They're on YouTube. They're wrestling through stuff. So if that's, if it's not the case, it's going to be the case that pastors are going to need a lot more theological training slash education just to keep up because the young ones, they're watching, you know, they're watching an hour Gavin Ortland video on Protestantism type of thing. And they're coming with great questions because of that. but ministers weren't necessarily trained in the past to be able to articulate the fine differences between Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism.

So you give it every Monday a two-hour, what, lecture, Q&A discussion, or what does that look like? Yeah, so it's probably offered four or five times a year, and we have like a track that people go through where there's like a biblical interpretation track. And I'm not the only one who teaches, it's funny that you mentioned kind of the intellectual intellectual pursuit. The other pastor who teaches a couple other pastors, but the other one's working on a PhD. The other one completed a master's degree. So they're all kind of going down that road. But we do like a biblical interpretation class. Then we do like a systematic theology 101. We do some kind of core classes. And then every so often do like a fun one, like a spiritual

warfare type of thing. Keep kind of throwing a spicy one to keep the energy going. But people come out. People are coming out. And we keep telling ourselves, like, we have. offered the hermeneutics, the biblical interpretation now, like five times, and we keep telling her. So this is the last time people are going to come out for this, and they keep coming, especially the young ones. It's different, man. It's, as you know, it's like something's, something's different. That's amazing. I've often said, man, youth pastors, college pastors, or some of them was vital people in the church. If I could snap my fingers, and if I was a pastor, I guess, or in charge of the budget, I would allocate. Do my best to try to find funds to

provide education, education opportunities for youth pastors, get them a master's degree. Yeah. I mean, they don't need a Ph.D., but why not? I mean, 18-year-olds are asking PhD-level questions as you fail. Totally. I mean, it's not. And young people, I've raised four 4 Gen Z kids, the questions they ask, I mean, are half of them, I can't even, I'm like, I don't, I don't know. Let me do some research and try to get a somewhat decent answer for this, or let's journey together in this. But they are asking really, really thoughtful questions, and they could sniff out the BS. If I could say that, when you're just cooking up an answer to the spot, they see right through it. And, you know, and they need.

a thoughtful, humble, wise response. Even a response that says, I don't know, I'm not sure, or that's a really good question or something like that. So, man, hats off to our youth leaders around the world. Yeah, if I didn't have, like, my youth pastor, you know, hit me at a critical, was there for me at a critical time. And it's like, dude, I don't know where I'd be without that guy. You know, because he was just, even, it's not even, I know that, you know, we can just say, it's not about the programs. It wasn't about the programs, but it was like, the programs were opportunities for the relationship to be established. And because of some of that stuff, man,

he's just a dude who believed in me. You know, when many, many didn't. Like, I wasn't, I was joking. He probably shouldn't have, like, on paper. It wasn't a wise, why. It didn't look like a wise investment type of thing. But without him, man, I have no idea where it'd be. So you just came out with a book.

When Life Feels Empty, Seven Ancient Practices to cultivate meaning. This is your first book, right? It is, yeah. Okay. Have you always wanted to write? Or is this just something that was on your heart?

Or where did this come from? You know, just to be brutally honest and kind of negative towards myself, there is a sort of a track that I've talked about with other leaders where, you know, the bad motivations can sneak in where it's like, okay, you've got a degree, you're growing a shirt, da-da-da-da.

well now you need to write and it's just like you know type of thing and so at first in my in my younger days it was very much the case I think so um but then I so I do think I sort of just died to that okay um and then others others kept pushing me hey you got some ideas you need to you need to really get out there and so I I think hopefully like my motivations are like 90 10 like 90 pure 10 still um you know ego type type of thing that's driving it but um you know some good people who have pushed me in that direction. I don't like the, I don't know about, like, if you do, do you like the practice of writing or do you like communicating ideas? I'm an ideas person. I actually don't like sitting down in writing. Writing is to me the thing that energizes me the

most. Yeah, even pouring over every sentence. In fact, which I've just finished literally yesterday. the final, final, final, final, final, final, final draft of a book. I've been working on the final draft since, like, May. Congrats. That's the Genesis to Junio. Yeah, yeah, good. Yeah, yeah. That's been brewing for a long time, man.

Oh, man, it's been a three and a after process. I'm looking forward to it for, for real. Oh, man, we will see how it goes. But, yeah, I have spent, I mean, sometimes five, 10, 20 minutes on single sentences, in almost every sentence in the... And I... It's a... Well, I have become a little obsessive over it

to where it's probably a little unhealthy. I get so obsessed with just trying to craft each sentence perfectly. And each time I read it, I'm like, no, this is garbage. I need to rewrite it. But all that to say, the answer to question. You actually... You actually like it. I actually do love it.

Yeah. But it's a weird feeling, I think that when you realize... Like a simple sentence, like you said, could like it technically could always be made better and you know it you're like yes and then you'll read a sentence by you know like a c s louis or something and you go i will never in my life compose a single sentence that's that good yeah you know it's like nowhere in this 200 page book is a single sentence yeah that is that good people don't realize the like how incredibly hard it is the difference between being a writer or even a decent writer, a clear writer, and a really good

writer, you know, a really good writer to where when you're reading a book, you feel like you're watching a movie, you're just, it's almost like the prose is carrying you along. Like, you're not really working. It's just pulling you in and you can't not keep reading. It's almost like you're falling forward as you're reading. And that, that, the difference between going from a decent writer to that is, it's like an athlete. It's like some athletes can just, are just off the chart. No matter how hard you train, about how strong you get, and about how much you work in your speed, you know, you're not going to be a Shohei Otani or a Buckey Betz or a Freddie Freeman or a Terry Freeman or a Teaska Hernandez or a Wilson. I'm just going to get down my list of

Dodgers. You know, like it's just, it's some people just have it and most people don't, you know. Yep. Yeah, I get frustrated sometimes I read really, really good writers because I'm like, oh, come on. I thought myself was decent. I read this and it's like, no, everything I've written is garbage.

And then it's like anything in life when you go back and read what you thought was good 10 years ago. You're embarrassed by it sometimes. Or you go back, I'll go back and listen to a sermon from 10 years ago and be like, dude, I can't even get through this. This is so bad.

It's so bad. But, you know, that's the, that's the, that's the journey is just you're always trying to get better and improve and grow in the craft. My favorite thing about writing is it really helps fine-tune and organize my thoughts on a particular issue. I guess to your point about being an ideas person, like until you really write it out, I feel like your ideas will always be kind of like 70, 80 percent. Writing helps you to just fine-tune it and hone it and and shave off the your edges of your idea.

Yeah, where it's like in a back and forth conversation, I could say something that sounds like a good rebuttal to something. And in the fly of the conversation, if you're not dealing with someone who's super sharp on the fly, it may pass and you actually think you have a good idea. But when you sit down with yourself and then you, you know, write down what you just said, you go, no, dude, there's actually holes in that.

That's not the way to go about this. So that's, I think, for me where it gets is, like you said, it forces you to say, is this actually true what I'm saying? Is it strong? Is it, can it, can it withhold you know? And can you explain it well? And writing helps you to do that. And like, as you know, as a teacher, as a preacher, I mean, until you can explain it in a way that somebody can understand it, maybe you don't quite understand it yourself. So I am a dog owner. I have a German short hair pointer. His name is Tank and I absolutely love my dog. My kids tease me for how much I love Dick.

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So also support the show by mentioning TITR at checkout. So they know that you heard about them through us. Terms and conditions apply. I want to thank Hora Frames for sponsoring the show. So what are the ancient seven ancient practices to cultivate? So, you know. I wish I had like some super hype. These are seven brand new ancient practices to rediscover.

They are just like the simple things that the church has always told you to do. It's like communion, baptism, sing, read your Bible, go to church. But what I'm trying to do is show that those things which we often think are just kind of basic, something like singing, is actually something incredibly powerful if we understand what's actually. going on when we do this. And then trying to emphasize those practices because sort of in the generation that I grew up with, the emphasis was, you know, all you need is a personal relationship with Jesus. And like, that's foundation. Very important. I'm not knocking that. I'm not trying to be the gut. Like, well, it's more like, yes, you need a, Jesus relationship good. But

we exist like within a world that has a different kind of meta story. like a dominant story. It's a story of predominantly materialism that the physical world is all that exist. And so even when you come to be a person of faith, you have to have like reinforcement of the true story at every level. And what those kind of rights, rituals,

and practices of the Christian faith do is they reinforce that initial act of faith. And I just kind of grew up and a lot of people did where it's just like, you know, just believe and you have a relationship with God now, and it's like, well, no, you're going to need a lot more than that. Say, for instance, singing. Like, let's go, like, okay, we go and sing at church, but we have to understand, like, how complex actually singing is.

Like, we are making our, you know, our bodies like the resonant chamber of, like, sacred, transcendent truth. And you know that, you know all this stuff, but it's like when you sing, oxytocin is released. There's a natural built-in thing that makes you kind of, it lifts your spirit. This is probably why people sing in the shower every morning. It's like a God-given mechanism to kind of get you going on rough days. And so when we come together and sing corporately with other people, like we have a biological response internally. We're bonding with the people around us. We're reorienting our entire being to the sacred truth communicated in these songs.

And that is completely different. than how people experience music in the modern world. For the first time in history, people experience modern, in the modern world's like you're isolated, you're alone, you're usually with headphones. It's pre-recorded. And so it takes some things like that

and just reflects on them or it's like the modern person is experiencing music primarily as a recorded act and alone on headphones or in your car. And what song can do in the church is is much, much more than that. So it just goes through little things with each of the sort of kind of basics

of the faith, but shows you that they're actually magical, like, if you understand them, like there's magic in these things and they have the power to change you. Do, I'm curious, do people, this is going to sound dumb, but let me maybe explain my question. During the say a worship service,

do people have to actually be singing to experience that? Because like in my context in Boise, like maybe apart from the charismatic churches, like most people aren't singing during worship. I would say if you look around maybe 20, 30 percent of the people are actually singing, the rest are just kind of standing there. Is that the same experience or do you need to be physically, like be individually singing as part of the group? Yeah, I think, I mean, obviously there's probably some, there's still benefit to go in a church.

And even if you're just standing there and you're not singing, but by participating in it, I think a greater experience is happening. It's not just, so it's not as if just this is an emotional experience that we're creating from the bottom up, like let's create some hype and some music and something, but rather that from the top down, God has constructed us at the bottom so that we're biologically wired so that when we sing something is occurring us. So it connects the below with the transcendent above. And so when you are singing it, I think it is doing something important. But that's not to say, like, you've been in a car by yourself listening to a song and all of a sudden it does something to you,

like it moves you and you weren't singing. But, you know, so my main thing is I know there's a lot of discussion and dialogue and debate about what's the best for music. Is the big megachurch praise band, the route to go? Is it hymnals and a piano? Is it we need to go back to hymnals and a cappella? I have my thoughts and opinions on all of that. But what my encouragement in the book is just a basic level is just get there and sing these. sacred truths again and again and again. And they will do something to you. Over time, they will do something to you. And that's why you've seen, like, you know, on YouTube, there's videos of, like, an old man. He doesn't have as much energy or anything like that,

but someone comes in and plays an old hymn that he used to sing and his body gets up and he starts, like, because, like, it's ingrained, like, deep in you at, like, at a basic fundamental level. And each of the practices of the church are doing something. So baptism, communion, giving thanks. And so just trying to push people into those areas rather than just sort of like an intellectual affirmation of the faith. Do you think, going back to singing, should Christians sing, even if they don't feel like it? And maybe it's a case, I don't know, maybe there's situations that might be different. But I just, in my own experience, and I don't know why it is, I don't know why it is.

There's certain contexts, I would say the majority of my worship context experiences, I have to like push. It's like, I have to like force myself. It's like so hard for me to sing. And I just feel like a terrible person. Like, I'm probably not even a Christian. But then there's other context, Matt, where it's like I can't help but not sing. It's like, I just can't not sing right now.

Yeah. Is that, am I a terrible person? Yeah, no, I'm wired the same way. I'm, you know, I'm introverted. I don't like, I'm not going to be the dude in the church service with hands up. I'm kind of reserved and shy and, you know, depending upon the church context where you're at, you may have, you know, I'm like naturally a hater on everything. So it's like most of the songs, I'm kind of already, I'm already going like, you know, if I'm visiting a church, I'm like, I'm just speaking out of church. I'm like, Lord, help my heart be right.

I'm not trying to hate on, it's the first song, and I'm already being negative about a lyric. Like, I don't want to be that person, but I'm, like, just temperamentally kind of a hater in that. And so... You're a terrible person, too, Isaac. I feel so seen. Yeah.

No, we'll just be in the back eating our hot sauce and hating on everything. But there, you know, there is something, too, the commands and scriptures that are like sing, shout, clap your hands. Yeah. And you need to find space. to do that in. And so one of the, honestly, one of the easiest ways for me to do that is with my family, I have young kids.

So it's easier for me to gather my young kids and sing together. We sing the doxology before we eat dinner together. And those are very powerful moving times. So, yeah, not everyone's going to be like in, you know, you're going to a church where there's contemporary worship music. It may not be your thing. And it's hard for you. like do your best to participate because I do believe in scripture there is a

sing to one another spiritual songs sing shout clap your hands there is a command to do this and you know it's not I'm not the first person to say this but it's like in any given relationship the good things that you're supposed to do you don't get to do them when you feel like doing them there is like no you do these because they're the right they're the true the good and the beautiful thing to do in the moment so there's a story I had that I share with the singing chapter where there was an old man who lost his wife. And it was one of those marriages where they'd been together for, you know, 50, 60 years. They're in their 80s or 90s.

I don't even remember all the details. But they had always sat next to each other in worship, same seat. They would worship together, lift their hands, and always participate. And long story short, the wife passes away. and then the old man comes to church that Sunday, that Sunday sits in his same seat and, like, with the hand that he used to have holding his wife, sticks his hands up and start singing the songs. And like, whatever hater stuff was going on in me or other people in the church, it's just like, Lord, Lord, by this man's strength and his ability to worship in anguish and sorrow, Lord, help my heart be right, help my heart be right. And it's not, you know, part of the other dilemmas with music is now we have things like personal tastes and genres, and so we can not like certain things where back in the day, you have a, Israel has a hymn book, and you sang those songs over and over again. And there wasn't multiple genres and playlist.

It wasn't about what you preferred. It was, this is our sacred, these are our sacred songs. and they tell the story of our people and our God, and we join in and participate in that story. And so that's what the Psalms do. It's not just a random song. This is the story of our people. Like as Christians, these are our stories, our people.

And this is, they tell the true story of the world and God and us. And so it's best to participate in those when you have the opportunity. That's good. That's good. You said, you mentioned that you do have opinions about praise band. versus hymns versus more liturgical, contemplative, versus energetic and powerful. What do you think worship should look like? Man, I'm here to talk about my book, man.

No, so here's what I'll say. I'm okay with... There are definitely bad versions of the big performative... type of thing 100% you know I teach um integrating ministry and theology class in one of the the discussions that we always have is like what do you guys think about having non-christians in the praise band type of type of thing and I'm I'm like I'm firmly against it like cards on like firmly against it just I do not like it one bit but then we have you know I'm I'm not trying to force my view upon the students I'm trying to create the conversations they could get

to the root of not just what they believe, but why they believe, what's underneath that. And there's a version that's really designed from the ground up to create a performance that's there for show. And as you said, 80% of the people in the giant place aren't singing, they're not participating. And that's a problem. That's a big issue. There's certainly one of the other things with that it's like how is it that sometimes like everyone in the worship band is young and beautiful yeah like how does that work and what is that communicating is it it's saying something so we we had someone at our church ask our work tell our worship pastor i'd love playing in the worship team but i know i'm too old like what what so i don't have any problem with a contemporary

worship praise band but it needs to reflect the values and the people of the church and so it should obviously have people of different ages singing and it should be christians leading others to participate in that activity so that's a long way of saying i'm not against anything in and of itself but there sure is a lot of excess that's bad there's a lot wrong yeah and if i was it being my hate herself, I would say there's probably more wrong than good. My buddy, Derwin Gray, you probably know Derwin Gray over at Transformation Church. He said, our stage will always look like the kingdom of God. Age, color, male, female, beautiful, less than beautiful.

Actually, he didn't use that category. But I mean, and it is. Like, you look up and it's like, oh, this people on stage look like. If I look at the church and look at the stage, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, a seamless transition, you know. Yeah, so that's a good way of putting it. There are pastors, a very large church, very large churches that have the big band, but they've intentionally, theological, thought through, what are we trying to accomplish

with the worship here? Yeah. And I can roll with that. I can for sure roll with it. And then also on the other end, there's some people who are just reactionary, and all of a sudden, they're trying to be as trad as fast as they can. So it's like, well, over here, we just do hymns on a piano because we're, you know, you're just reacting to something. Why are you doing that? What are the theological reasons for that?

How does that fit your cultural context? So it's, that's, that's the heart of it. But we do have, we got some issues that we got to work, work through at large for sure. All right, leave it, leave it aside singing. What are some other ancient practices? You mentioned community, church, baptism, the Eucharist, I would imagine. Yeah, yeah. So again, just, Here's an example of trying to establish, like, the power of what's taking place. In baptism, if you come from my tradition and many kind of in the evangelical world, baptism is just a symbol. And what I'm trying to do is to say, okay, I'm not going to get in the debate of exactly what this is doing in the sacramental sense. Although, again, I'm a theology teacher.

I have my opinions. What I want to do is encourage people that even if it is just, a symbol. A symbol is doing something very, very powerful. Like we just don't, modern people don't understand the power of symbolism. And so it's like a wedding ring. A wedding ring is technically just a symbol. But if a man who's going on a business trip to Vegas takes off his wedding ring, the wife isn't going to say, well, it's just a symbol. It's no big deal. When there's people protesting, say, America, and they burn a flag. They're doing. They're doing. doing so because they know it's just a symbol, but it's doing something more. And then the people

who then try to stop said people from burning the flag aren't trying to stop them saying, well, it's just, just a symbol. And the same goes for communion. It's just a symbol. No, there's something more. There is something participatory in those acts. And so baptism is a way that we ground our story in Christ's story. Our story is then bound to his. We go down into death like him. We come up. As you know, the early church used to renounce Satan and his demons. So there's an active pledging of allegiance to Christ as king in the very act of baptism. So I want people to know this isn't just a symbol. This is your act of renouncing Satan, his pomp, the angels. I mean, there's different versions of how the early church do it, but then swearing allegiance to Christ

as the highest allegiance in that act. And so when you do, when you're doing baptism, it's like, it's a very big deal. A very big deal. And then similar to communion, it's where you, well, depending upon your church context, monthly or weekly or quarterly, we do it every week. Weekly, re-pledge your allegiance. It's like an anniversary service. You are recommitting yourself to have Christ at the top of your hierarchy so that all other values sit in that hierarchy, but underneath him. And so there's a lot of things like that where If we just rediscover the power of these things, I think it has the ability to reinforce our faith.

That's good. How do you guys practice? First of all, how big is your church? Like what size of service are we talking about? And then how do you guys do communion? Yeah, we're roughly like 16 to 1,700. Okay. On average Sunday morning attendance, adults, children, everybody.

which is so funny depending upon who you talk to. Like depending upon the state, that's a large church or a small church. We have people move from Texas and they're like... It's a house church. We're going like, yeah, we really wanted a smaller church to be at. I'm like, you know, this is like in our area is a big deal. So we do it every week. We do it at the end of the sermon so that every sermon that I preach has to then be grounded

in the victory of Jesus. Our kind of working definition of the gospel is the victory of Jesus. over Satan sin and death through his life, death, and resurrection. So it sounds simple, but you know the work there. So it's Satan's sin, death. So you have atonement. You have all the different atonement models in there built in. And it's through his life, death, and resurrection that he defeats Satan sin and death. And so it's not just centered on death. It's centered on his life, death, and resurrection. It's so funny how those are just simple words, but when you know all the theological background to it. It's doing a lot of work. So then that after every sermon,

we go to communion and it transitions so that the point of every teaching that is given at the church is then necessarily it ends with talking about what Jesus did, his victory over Satan's sin and death. And then we say, please stand as we take communion. So it's a high, we're trying to emphasize it with our, like have a bodily reaction to the fact that we're doing something incredibly sacred at this point. So we made that, we made that transition probably like seven, seven years ago now. We used to be a, the history of the church is non-denominational, evangelical, so it was like first of the month.

That was the sacred, you know, I'm not knocking it. That's just what it is, like the sacred first of the month, communion type of thing. So, and then really taking that as the high point of the service is that. that no matter how bad the sermon was, no matter how much your hate herself, didn't like the worship songs, you are going to taste this, experience this. And this means that Christ died, he rose, and he comes again.

And then also trying to emphasize that component of, when you take the bread in the cup together, you're proclaiming the death of Christ until he returns. So communion then is the act that you do in the present, remembering the past faithfulness of Christ, and in remembering the past, you are empowering the present to be faithful until Christ returns again. So there's like a past, present, future component every time you take communion, and you are re-pledge in your allegiance.

You're in the act proclaiming Christ crucified. And trying to emphasize that for the people. Every week, this is, we're giving our allegiance to the king. I don't, I, that's super awesome. And I love everything you said. And I don't, I appreciate that you said, you don't want to maybe judge people who don't do it every week. But I, my opinion, I guess, I don't understand the rationale for not doing it every week. Do you?

I don't, the only thing I heard, I used to hear growing up, like, well, if you do something too much, it'll become routine. I'm like, you preach a sermon every Sunday. You read your Bible every day. Totally. Like, I don't know. So, yeah. So that's part of. That's, that's, that's, that's, that can't be the rationale people.

only do it once a week. One of the things underneath the motivation for the book is reacting to all of that, reacting to like, oh, it's just you're doing it every week, it's just a ritual, it's just something you're doing over again. So I want to restore the value of rights and rituals in the Christian faith because it's the rights, rituals, and practices that then buttress. They reinforce that initial act of faith. And so, sure, repeating something every week can turn into something.

So can telling your wife, I love you when you go to work. that doesn't mean you don't do it. And so really, really trying to push people back to these sacred practices because they're the practices that God gave us. So I'll put it like this. One of probably my critiques of big church, and I'm in a big church, so take it out of it. But there's often an attempt to manufacture the experience.

Manufacture. We're going to get God to come down. and do something. But we're actually bypassing the God-given means and mechanisms by which he said, I work through these things. You don't have to create an emotional experience. God works through baptism. He works through communion.

He works through corporate worship. He works through the corporate reading and teaching of Scripture. Like, he said that. He gave us these things and said, I'm going to use this stuff. And then we're over here trying to manufacture it at the cost of the basic practices. that he gave us. So it is an attempt to restore practices, rights, and rituals that I think have kept the church on track for 2,000 years. Across the world, countless Christians face persecution just for practicing their faith. Many are threatened, imprisoned, or separated from

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timeline.com forward slash theology gummies to get started. That's timeline.com forward slash theology gummies. Your sales will thank you. another ancient practice you said is church like um you have two different ones you said community and then church are you saying those are two different no no i probably just misspoke um okay so that's one yeah part of it is is built into and church can take place in many different contexts like i'm i think house church small church big church i'm i'm okay with with all of them. So is, you know, we're doing our best to talk about all, you know, the things that we've mentioned. But I grew up again in a generation where any type of individual spiritual

experience you had was equated with church type of thing. So, you know, you went on a hike and you you stretch out your arms when you meet the top of the mountain and you say, you know, this is my church. And I'm like, nah, that's maybe a spiritual experience. That's good that may be connecting you with God, but it's not church. That's not the gathering of the saints. The trees don't give you the sacraments, you know, the squirrels don't come around and share the bread with you or anything like that. So it's not to say that it's not good or not important, but it is not fundamentally church, the gathering of God's people. And so in a super individualistic culture, as you know, it's people are going to, they try to curate their own church experiences in the mountains on a

trail on a computer screen. I don't think online church services can serve a purpose, but they can't replace going to church in my mind. There's something got where we are embodied creatures. We need to go and be there. So sort of a reaction to that. What if, and I've had, I've talked to lots of people in the podcast about this. So I'll, I'll raise a question to you. Is it sufficient? Okay, maybe not ideal, maybe not best, but is it sufficient to cultivate a weekly rhythm of a, and I'll put it like this, you probably could understand the tone of attending a church service and a building every week. What if you're, you're, not really challenged by the message. What if you're one of the 85% that aren't really

participating in singing? You might have a superficial conversation or two, but there's really no New Testament community, you know, like is that, is that like, well, that's better or nothing you should do that? Or hey, that's great. You should keep doing that. Or no, you need to find a place where there's actual meaning happening. That's honestly just an ongoing question. that I wrestle with, and a lot of people say to me, you know, it's just I, I spend an hour and a half, two hours every Sunday at church, and I'm empty. I'm not challenged. I'm not really growing in my faith by being there. I'm not really intimate community. Well, you need to get plugged into a small group, and I don't know. I've got a whole other thoughts on that.

But yeah. Totally. Like, I don't know when the exact date was, but there's a certain point in church history, year of our Lord, 19 something, where we decided small groups are the secret to everything. And, you know, we're not a church. I'm not trying to, I'm, I'm, that's a hater. I was going to say the slogan. You know, the slogan is, we're not a church with small groups. We're a church of small groups. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's just, okay, I get it. There's, I get it. I get it. But what we typically do is I try to, when we do like a, you know, your normal first time visitor lunch or your new people lunch and you get to know, church type of thing. I end that every time and saying, hey, if you're not growing here,

come talk to us and we will help you find another church. My goal isn't to get more people to come to our church. Like, you know, some people are going to grow in this environment. We may not be that thing. You might, it might not be clicking. So don't let it be awkward. Don't let it be weird. We'll, I'll introduce you. I'll make a connect with other pastors in the area. because not every church is going to work for every individual. But then, too, what I would say is many of the – maybe you can share your experience on this. When I talk to people who usually say, you know, I'm going to church, I've done this, I've done this, and nothing's happening. A lot of the times, a lot of the times, it's like they're not doing much, they're going once a month.

they're they're not truly going all in uh it's like someone who says you know you know i go to the gym and i don't see results and you really get down to and it's like dude i don't know if you're really going to the gym that they're walking around watching youtube and talk to people and they do like 10 pushups and ride the bike for 10 minutes and like i'm still gaining weight yeah yeah but so so then there's the person though that let's say they are they're dude they're going all in they're they're doing their best they're they're trying at every level and something just isn't isn't clicking, then I think they just have a conversation. And hopefully you're in a healthy enough church where you can bring that to the pastor of the leadership. And they're

not going to take an offense to us. Like, dude, what plan can we get you on? We do think there's value in you coming on Sunday mornings. But what do you feel like? Let's work. Let's try to get you out of this rut. And then lastly, I'll say is there is a very important, needed, retrieval of biblical endurance in that um everything especially in the you know the publishing world it's about how can we fix xyz and part of the christian faith is also no dude sometimes life just sucks endure faithfully keep going christ is worth it endure faithfully boredom is not the biggest problem to have um and so that that takes wisdom you know you can really hurt someone who's wounded and you're just saying, endure, toughen up.

But there's also some people that need to say, you know what, toughen up, endure. He's worth it. He's worth it. I guess the hard thing for me is, and I don't, yeah, I'm just really wrestling with. And this, from what I know about you, I, this is probably not, I doubt I would experience this at your church. Maybe I would. I don't know. but like the whole like try harder thing

why is it that there's so many other social environments where I don't have to try at all I mean I can go to a neighborhood bar down the street and I'm gonna fight not to be in conversations with people you know like there's good I'm gonna get them no four or five people they're gonna I mean it's let's assume they're not all drunk and you know whatever like yeah or go to like a cigar shop or a Dodger game or something.

There's so many other social environments where I don't have to try at all. I'm an introvert like you. And so sometimes I don't actually want to talk to people, but I'm like, I can't not, like I all of a sudden find myself in conversations with people. Why don't have to try so hard to have like a meaningful conversation? Not just me, but I mean, I hear this from lots of people. It's like, like Sunday gatherings are the place where it's just so hard to find like a meaningful conversation, you know, or it's, I don't know.

it just seems, or even sometimes small groups. I've been in some, I've been in some amazing small groups, okay? Yeah. I've also put in some that's like, I'm so excited when it's canceled because, you know, the reason is like, oh, good, oh my gosh. But it's like, why I don't, I thrive on meaningful relationships or environments. I love thinking, thinking about things. I love asking questions, engaging people and being engaged by people.

Like, I don't, I'm not some fringe, you know, hyper-ex, introvert that just like can't me around, you know, so I just, I don't know, I can, I'm just still having a hard time putting my finger on, why are some church experiences so difficult? I have another follow up to that, another challenge, but would love, I mean, and I don't, I don't even know if it's an answer. I'm just thinking out loud, but, you know, I would say that that's, that's definitely true of some churches, but maybe I have just as equal bad experience in other situations where I've been to get-togethers or whatever. And I'm doing like, dude, this is, this is awkward, man.

Thanksgiving. So, yeah, so to me, it's more just reflective of, like, the human condition in general. But that's maybe just because the percentage has been equally dispersed among church, gathering, this type of gathering, this type of gathering. But at least for me, I've been in plenty of situations, church world, unchurch world, where I'm going, dude, this is awkward. I want to get out of here as fast as I possibly can. You know, you've been there where it's like, oh my goodness. And sometimes, as you said,

the best one is just, there's some small groups where that are just the dynamics are so bad. So, so bad. And there's people who don't, we do a damage to people when we say small groups is how you grow. And then there's some dudes,

especially dudes, it's both men and women, but there's a lot of guys who just temperamentally, small group is never. never going to be their thing. Right, yeah. Never. It's not, it's like, no, let me go fishing with someone.

Let me go, let's go backpacking. Let's do a five-day backpacking trip. And it doesn't even have to be a church event. And all of a sudden, I'm connected with dudes. We're talking, one brought a Bible. We're talking theology. And I think just temperamentally, some people are wired differently. But it's harmful then to say small groups is the thing.

And then you go because then the person says, what's wrong with me? So whenever we say, do this. and it doesn't work, then we unintentionally are putting it upon someone like, well, what's wrong with me? It's like, no, God just didn't make you to sit in a group of five people. It's just not how you work.

I mean, a small group that's led well can be so life-giving. A small group that has, like, I don't want to say elector. Everybody's like an electric personality or whatever. Like, that's not what I'm saying, but like, there has to be a vibe.

an atmosphere that's drawing people out that people are being honest and vulnerable and meaningful in their conversations, which comes back to being led well. Some of the worst places you can ever be is a small group where it's not led well. Whoever's leading or the leaders are creating like an awkward atmosphere where nobody wants to share and then you sit around just having nothing that superficial conversations. You open the Bible and it's like whatever it means, what does this mean to you? You are great. You pool our ignorance together. And it's like, I just don't have I have so many other places where I can go to the bar and have a great conversation on Jesus so somebody doesn't know it or I, you know, I only have limited time.

So it's like sometimes if I'm in church environments where it's just like, this is just not, I could, there's so many other things I can be doing with my time right now. So I'm not, yeah, I don't know. It's like I have to justify myself. Why am I here? The hardest one for me is when church environment. aren't just neutrally lacking meaning, but are almost like actively pushing people away from Jesus. You work with youth. I've raised four youth, you know, Gen Z kids. And I tell you what,

man, I've been so challenged when I've seen people be more turned off from Jesus by certain church environments. That's what I'm like, I don't, then don't go to church. I mean, Jesus is more important than attending a church service. And I don't want to put those two against each other. But I've, I've seen it firsthand, man. And it's, it's disturbing. And I'm, you know, yeah, I don't know. I don't. Yeah, I guess the ones are. Yeah. Yeah. And there's, there's a very difficult balance to find because there's a lot of people who have been experienced, like, genuine hurt from the church world. There's also, if you've been in ministry for a while, you know, there's some people who are just, like, take up an offense because the church and you're like, over that, you left the church over that.

And it's just pure individualistic consumerism. And it's like, you went to 10 churches and all of them were bad. It actually might be you. That's the problem. Not every last Christian in church in town. That being said, you know, there have been people who have moved away and they're like, Pastor, I'm doing my best. I'm in a community.

There's three churches. I'm doing my best pastor. I really want to plug in. But da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And so what I would tell people is, well, again, do your best to find a gathering of the saints. And the sacraments are there. The Thanksgiving is there. The prayers are there.

And that could be a house church, a small church, or a mega-church. but yeah a lot of times it's no coincidence that a hyper individualistic consumeristic culture can't find the church for them type of thing um so that's that be sensitive to people who have experienced really messed up stuff and we just shouldn't put up with it like pastor like when pastors should just be removed like you do if you do that type of hurt like you shouldn't be in the pastor type type of thing um there's another balance like Like, we want to be able to, like Rich Mullen said way back in the day, I will be my brother's keeper. I won't despise him for his weakness.

We want to be able to come alongside each other and help each other and make up for each other's weaknesses. But there is a line at a certain point where it's like, no, this is whack. This can't be allowed anymore because it's hurting people. That's so good. And I want to add this because I've been kind of, hey, it could sound like I've hated on the church. And if you're our first time listener, please do listen to my thousand other episodes where my thoughts here maybe are a little more balanced.

But I just, so I just, I do want to say this, man. I have been in some amazing church environments and been around some of the most amazing, humble, wise, godly, meaningful pastors day and day out. doing so much for their people that often goes unseen, that thousands of hours in prayer, the hospital visits that aren't advertised, the agonizing over hurting people, the stress, as you know, a desperate church. I mean, just, so, and yeah, so, yeah, even though I've had some experiences that are just kind of like, eh, I've, honestly, I've, I've, I've never been, I've never been part of a truly, I would say, toxic church where there's like an abusive

pastor who's like wielding his power or domineering, you know, I, I've had a pretty mild to positive church experience and have been in churches where leaders are really, really fantastic. So I just, I don't know, I, I, I, I. But you've heard. the stories, especially with what you do, you hear the things. And I'm not just talking about just the abuse, the sexual, physical, emotional, spiritual abuse. Those are definitely there. And I've got, I haven't experienced that firsthand, but I know lots of people who have. For me, it's, it's more just the lack of meaning and challenge, the kind of routine of just kind of basic sermon after sermon after sermon, when, you know, we've got Christians being slaughtered in Nigeria,

a master civil war in South Sudan, a U.S. and evangelical back genocide in Gaza. You know, so it's just like, I just, sometimes it's hard just to sit in the service and hear a, you know, youth group level sermon yet again on something that, you know, even I'll look to, sometimes like, we've been in churches where I'll look to my kids who are like, teenagers and they're like, this is so basic. You know, like, you're 17. This should be like profound. Like, this is just like, I've got questions about the problem of evil and how come we pray for healing and we celebrate when that is healed? And then this person dies of cancer and nobody talks about that. And like, how come? And I'm like, yeah, let's, can we mix it up? Can we talk about

like the things that most Christians are thinking about Monday through Saturday? And can we actually address some of this on? Yeah, I think, I mean, that should just be played again to pastors in that that's what the people want, that's what the people need. That's where they're on YouTube. They're listening to hours of video online, getting this deeper stuff, the stuff of substance and meaning. A big part of evangelical sort of normie culture was that was the method. Here's four tips on how not to get angry. And we're going to be doing a four-week series on that. And again, I'm sure there's great series like that that have helped people with their anger, but people want substance and pastors should be encouraged. And so my encouragement would be

if you feel that way, go and talk to your pastor and say, hey, look, it's not just me. Don't do it in like with a negative attitude. Say, we love you, but we want, we're ready to go deeper. We want to go deeper. Our people are hungry for this. And we've done, we've done that and seen it. Like with our school of theology, with our sermons, we kind of just go, we go through. books of the Bible verse by verse kind of it's exegetical

but it's pretty it's deep and people want that and the young people want it there's the 15 year old who's taking notes

and so we need to be people of substance we need to be people of meaning and if not here's the thing if not if not

how do I say this if pastors aren't going there your people are getting discipleed somewhere else. And hopefully by God's grace, it's a good, you know, like I mentioned Gavin Ortland earlier, Gavin's great. Like, that'd be great if you're watching Gavin,

but it could be a lot of other bad dudes. And we've seen, you know, you see that where it's like, actually, no, you don't go to this church. You go to that person's online church and you just don't know it yet. Because it's not marketed as a church service, but that's where you're being disciples is through X, Y, Z. And then you know the drill. Then there is in an algorithmic loop where everything's reinforcing that specific tribe type of thing.

Yeah, it's like Gavin I'm worried about. Gavin's great. It's all the other videos that YouTube's going to feed you to try to get you to keep going down the route. Gavin's great. If you ever hear this weird, Gavin, great. But it's, you know, the young people are listening to him talk about some controversy in 1,200 AD. Meanwhile, and then they go to church and they might hear, you know, some, some, real quick pop level stuff. And so not to be negative, the positive way to frame it would be pastors,

now is the time to go deep. You don't need to be fluffy and cute. They're listening to Rogan for four hours. Right. Your sermon is not too long. It's just too dry or boring. It's not, it's not the certain, like there's some people who give great 20 minute sermons or some people do great 45 minutes. Find your sweet spot. Know what you're good at and gifted at. But don't think for a moment, it's people are going to leave your church if you go deep. That's not going to be the case. It's not going to be the case right now. That is, I'm going to frame that last 30 seconds that you just said. It's so good. And yeah, your sermon should be dictated by your gifting and abilities, not a prescribed, we do 38 minutes on Sunday. You know, like, yeah,

some pastor, you know, MacArthur used to go, I think, an hour and 15, hour and 20 minutes. John Tyson gave an hour and a 40-minute sermon on the transgender conversation. It's one of those downloaded. It's the most downloaded sermon. He's ever preached. And he prepared, you know, six months for it, you know, and fasted for 40 days and read like 20 books. You know, like there's not every Sunday is going to look the same. And, and yeah. Anyway, man, I, I so appreciate your thoughtfulness. I just love that you do these lectures on Monday nights. And I love even more that people keep. coming to learn hermeneutics and work through hard stuff. So, yeah, man, thank you for your ministry. Again, your book, When Life Feels Empty, Seven Ancient Practices to Cultivate, and he would invite people to check it out to put up by IVP. Thanks again, Isaac.

Thank you for me, Nesson, the Al-Jaroff. And...