Theology in the Raw - From Touring to Church Planter: Bringing Hope to the Margins with Josh White

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Josh White is a recording artist and lead pastor of Door of Hope, a thriving church community in the heart of Portland Oregon. Josh is an avid reader, as you’ll see, and is the author of the book Stumbling Toward Eternity: Losing & Finding Ourselves in the Cross of Jesus. This interview was recorded in person in Portland Oregon, so if you’re listening to this podcast, you might want to pop over to the YouTube version so he can see us hanging out in person. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey friends, the Exiles on Babylon conference is coming up, April 3rd and May 2nd. All the information is at Theology in the raw. If you plan on attending live on register ASAP, if you haven't done so already, you can also attend virtually. All the information is on our website, Theology and Raid.com. My guest today, I'm so excited about this. Josh White is a recording artist and lead pastor of Door of Hope Church, which is a thriving church in the heart of Portland, Oregon.

And Josh is an avid reader, as you'll see. And just a really thoughtful, engaging, interesting guy. Like, he's just like, it was such a fun conversation. And he has a really incredible testimony. I've known about Josh from a distance and always been a deep admirer of the kind of church he's created. Just not your kind of typical church. Let's just, yeah, you'll see as we have our conversation here. Josh is also the author of stumbling toward eternity, losing and finding ourselves in the cross of Christ.

And yeah, I've known of Josh for a while, but I've never hung out with him. So I honestly had no pre-planned direction for this conversation. Just wanted to meet him and hit record, which made it super fun. I could have talked to Josh for hours. Yeah, he was just so intelligent and so fun. So this interview was recorded in person, Portland, Oregon. So if you're listening to this podcast, you might want to pop over to the YouTube version so you can see us hanging out in person. Okay, please welcome to the show for the first time,

the one and only, Josh White. You guys got all the artists over there, don't you? It is a lot of artists. Yeah. People either come in and they're like, I love the worship here or like, this isn't like what I'm used to. Yeah, is it a, what is, yeah, what's the worship like? It's not, it's not a, I mean, we'll do like songs that are known, but, But, I mean, I would still say that we do, like, probably 80% original. Really? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we just have so many songwriters. I mean, I still write a lunch for the church.

Okay. And then, I mean, Callan, our new worship pastor, has already introduced probably three or four songs. His wife, Yaz is another big artist. Okay. Yeah, so, I mean, we've got probably, like, probably six, like, songwriters that contribute to the Dora Pope's worship. But it's, I mean, the music's very, I would say it sounds like California, like 70s Laurel Canyon. Nice. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That would probably be the accurate depiction.

Laurel cano, Charles Vanson, here. Yeah. Like, we're going to sound probably more like Neil Young and then we do a hill song. That's awesome. Now, are you, you're in Colorado, right? I'm in Boise, Idaho. Oh, you're in Boise, yeah, okay. Yeah, been there 11 years, 12 years, actually.

But from SoCal originally, Southern California. What area is? Ventura. Oh, Ventura, okay. Well, I was born in Thousand Oaks, lived in Simi Valley for several years, San Diego a couple years, Santa Clarita, four or five years. So, yeah, I kind of born in North County. Before I came up here, I almost took a job as a teaching pastor at Thousand Oaks.

Rob and I met, because I was a Calvary guy. Oh, you were? Okay. Yeah, but I never bought into the ecclesiology. Yeah, well, why have I have a hard time picture you at a Calvert Chapel? You know, when you're like a young 20-something-year-old musician in Seattle and you meet Jesus, the one thing you didn't want was people to try to make him cool. Right, right, right, right, yeah, yeah. So I went to, like, the most uncool church.

I mean, however, there was like all these tooth-and-nail kids and stuff at the church when I first came in, but, like, the music was crazy. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Calvary Chapel was. was like the one church that I had remembered. Okay. I had friends in the music scene that, like, I found out we're Christians, but just weren't telling anyone this week.

And there was a big Calvary Chapel. Like, so like all the early, like, like, do you remember that band, Poor Old Lou? Poor old Lou, no. They were like the, probably the first, that Christian alternative band. Aaron Sprinkle is the. Oh, I don't know, yeah, Sprinkle. He's like, I get a pastor. I'm related to him a lot.

Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Aaron and Jesse Sprinkle, yeah. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they before, like, DC Talk and kind of the 90s.

It was the same. Yeah. It was the same era, but, like, they were, like, the true, like, alternative. Like, that's what tooth and nail was. It was, like, the one Christian label that wasn't in Nashville. It was in Seattle. Okay. They had all, like, the hardcore, the hardcore.

So they're, like, the pearl jam of, like, 90s. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I was connected to that label. When I first got saved, I, Okay.

Signed with tooth nail. So early tooth and nail. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And they're huge now, right? The tooth and nail is. I mean, it was, I think their kind of peak was when I signed with them.

Oh, okay. Like, I signed with them in, like, 2001 and telecast formed in, like, 2002 and three. Okay. Like, so I toured for a year straight before. Okay. Before realizing I couldn't, like, let my wife raise our son without me there. Yeah. So I quit the band, like, at the peak.

of our success. Being a touring musician is a grind, right? Yeah. And I was like, I'd already been a secular musician for 10 years. Oh, you were. Okay. And then my band, you know, it's like, you know, I got signed to Mercury at 22. And so I get saved at 27 and then I signed at 29. And then I think my music career is over. I was just said, I basically, I just got asked by the record label. He's like, well, you make me a worship record that sounds like cold play? And I was like, okay. Like, I didn't, I didn't listen to Christian music. I was like, fine. And nobody was, doing anything like that. And so I did. And then we became like the Christian cold play. And so, which was that? Is that? Telecast. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. And I love Coldplay.

Yeah. And we were, so we took, and our record took off. And so I ended up on the road for, with a group of like 19, 20 year old, like little emo kids, that Calvary Chapel emo kids. Yeah. And that was my baptism into all things modern evangelicalism. Because there's like, you know, you're playing like i'm playing like john piper's church on a sunday night and you know it's like the most intense like baptism into reform theology i've ever it was like i think he was even teaching like some crazy passage out of romans and then the next night i'm in a i'm in georgia at like a pentecostal church where people are convulsing under sheets and then a week later i met some emergent church in houston with this guy chrissey i was like i don't even know what's happening right now

That's wild. Oh my God. Well, you're like, you only been a believer for two years. You're like, I don't know. I just want to love Jesus. This seems all very complicated to be. Wow. Wow.

Yeah, I've got friends that, yeah, toured and toured and toured. And, you know, just trying to make it. You don't make any money or, you know, you just, you're trying to as a family and it's just a grind. Yeah, touring is where the money's at. Like, for us, like, I never made any money as a secular artist. I mean, other than what the label gave me. And we were, like, one of the biggest bands in the Northwest.

And, like, and then to enter the Christian market, I was, like, churches all of a sudden, like, paying you crazy, you're playing mega churches in Texas. And they're paying you, like, five grand to play a youth to babysit their youth group for an hour. Like, what? So, yeah, all of it was very confusing. So moving from secular to Christian, it's not a step down in terms of finances, money. It's, it's, it might be a step down in front of artistic, like, creativity.

Just because everything is handled out of Nashville, like, so. Right. Like, you're, you are limited on, I mean, that's why we started our own label at Dorofope. Like, it's just, like, we just wanted to do what we want to do. Okay. Like, you know, I would turn in a record that we would record over here and then they'd have it mixed in Nashville and they'd come back and be like, well, that's not what I gave you. You know.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. That's similar to Christian publishing. yeah yeah so publishers they want to soften like blunt the teeth off of your oh yeah your rhetoric i thought him so hard on my manuscript like yeah who's you who's your publish me i'm with uh uh mold noma water brook yeah okay okay they try to they like they like from the artwork too yeah there were just like things that you know they would like i didn't

i don't like parentheses okay like i wanted m dashes around it right Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you can't do that. I'm like, Cormick McCarthy does it. And they're like, Cormick McCarthy sold a million books. They didn't,

they weren't prepared to have, they said, Paul Pastor told me I was the first person he ever signed as a, as a writer that turned in his manuscript fully edited with the fonts that I wanted. Oh, no way, that's funny.

I'm like, I need the text in Optima. Did they, did they work with you a bit? They did. They actually did let me choose the fonts, which was kind of crazy. But yeah, there was, but there were like, yeah, weird. And there were changes that they made that I didn't catch that were grammatically right, but actually it was like that was wrong, you know, like, yeah. Yeah.

Like, just silly things were like, really? Like that, you know, or just like my dad, you know, a lot of. you know, a lot of it's memoir, mine's like seven reflections on the seven words from the cross. Okay. But like combined with like literary memoir. And so, you know, it kind of tells the story of me trying to reconcile with my dad the last 10 years of his life as like a lifelong alcoholic. Wow. And I, you know, I just, I think the worst thing I had in there was my dad saying he was pissed at me.

And they're like, hmm, you can't, yeah, put that in. I'm like, really? Oh, all right. I'm like, my dad would never say, I'm mad at you. I don't, I, yeah, I sometimes I wonder Christian publishers, not all of them, but they really have a good handle on what works or what doesn't. Because the average reader, they want realness, they want rawness, they want authenticity. They don't need a domesticated book.

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take us back to the beginning. I mean, you have an interesting intersection to being a musician, a pastor, and, yeah, coming to Christ a little later in life after having musical success. So take us back to as far back as you want to go. You want to go womb? You want to go teenagers?

Or who is? Well, I would just, say, you know, I was a kid who grew up in a pretty broken home. My mom and dad, like, split up when I was the one. And I went through a pair of stepdad's, you know, in my adolescence. I, you know, I was like the total, not having any sort of male role model in my, like, grade school years. Like, the one thing that my mom gave me was, like, a love for music. And so she was, like, the total 70s AM radio, you know, Queen. So it's like, I think I was like

spoon fed bands like bread and the carpenters, you know, through my... And Barry Manelow. Like every, like, every crooner soft rock artists. But, you know, but I started singing when I was, when I was young. And my mom actually came to faith when I was in third grade. And so I had like,

like, I was involved in church, but I just never really grasped grace and just due to the fact that we were you know she got divorced and married her high school sweetheart who was my actual biological father's best friend in high school oh wow you know when i was in sixth grade which was pretty formative years uh you know i think there's just uh there was an inability for me to kind of connect with her faith and uh she was always really involved in church. But the one thing I did get involved in is I would do back in the days of doing like duets and took, you know, to background music on cassette tapes. And the first time I ever sang, actually, in front of an audience was at a funeral for a high school. Yeah, for a high school student who was like

the quarterback who got drunk and died in this car accident. And I'd never been, I was only like 11, so I'd never been around death and had no constant. and all I knew is that I had to sing Friends by Michael W. Smith with my mom. And I'll never forget we're like in the, we're standing up in the front. And there was this whole row of these beautiful high school cheerleader girls that look like they're pulled right out of a John Hughes film. And this is a terrible story. And, and, and, and, and there's a, and there's a 11-year-old kid. There's a casket behind me.

And we, and we, and we, but, yeah. But I'm not even really, it's just not even connecting with me, like, what's going on. And so all I knew is that I was terrified to sing, and these girls were beautiful, and I couldn't mess it up. And so the song started, and I remember I hit the chorus. And the moment I started singing the chorus, friends are friends for you. The girls just broke down sobbing. And I thought to myself, this is what I want to do with our life. This is how I'm going to get the ladies.

I'm like, not even really taking any consideration. They weren't crying because of me. They were crying because they're funny because they're fun. dead, but I felt like, I'm like, you know, whatever it takes, however the Lord Jesus plant seats. But yeah, my back, like, I loved, I was like the kid who liked dancing and sing, so pretty picked on kid to school. So by the time I, you know, got out of high school, you know, I had to completely abandon any, any thing to do with my faith. And I moved to Seattle and began to pursue, like, a music career. Okay. Like, I discovered my ability to write songs,

like, when I was, like, 19. Wow. Okay. And, you know, when you're a kid that's basically invisible your whole life, you know, I've discovered that a lot of times ambition is just the outcome of really bad brokenness that we probably need unaddressed. And so I just, you know, all of a sudden people noticed something. And I was really hardworking. The band was, I mean, we practiced probably six nights a week. And I got signed at 22 to Mercury Records. and a month later, I met my wife here in Portland opening a show for this band called The Dandy Warholz.

And I told Darcy she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. And she believed me. And she took me home, which is why neither her nor I ever do premarital, because we have no idea. They're like, how do you maintain purity before me? I wasn't a Christian. I don't know. It seems hard. So you want to cook.

I was like, good luck with that. Is that your pastor advice? When I went Tim Mackey worked for me, I'm like, I don't know, talk to Tim. He's always been good. So when did you come back to Christ, become a Christian? Yeah, right after, Darsen I fell in love and like the year I got signed, I meet this woman I fall madly in love with. We get engaged pretty quickly. And literally like three months after we got married, I got dropped from Mercury.

Oh, no. Like, the 90s was so weird because it was a time when labels would just sign up bands. Okay. And then they would throw a single out. And if it didn't take off at radio, within two weeks, you're done. Wow. And everybody was signing anything they could out of Seattle at the time, you know. Okay.

In the 90s. So it's kind of the post-grunge scene. So I, about two years after we got married, I think just the lifestyle I'd been living, like the disappointment of, like, thinking that we were going to be, the next big thing to it not happening. And then watching my wife become increasingly disenchanted with, you know, dating a rock star was exciting when she thought I was going to be a rock star. Not so exciting when when you have no record deal and you're working at a record store for a minimum wage, you know.

So, yeah, I just started, she was on the verge of leaving me and I just, I remember I picked up a Bible. My mom got me when I was 21. and I never read it. I never had opened it. I was so mad when she gave it to me because I was so broke. I was like, man, I just need top ramen. I'm like Bible.

But I remember opening it up and she had written me a letter inside and just said, you know, I see all these gifts in you, but you're missing this. You're missing Jesus. And I just remember thinking like, man, I don't know what to believe in right now.

So I just started reading through the Gospels. And I just became increasingly weirdly mystified by Jesus. Like, I got stuck in the sermon on the Mount. And I remember I kept reading specifically that last verse in chapter five, where he's like, therefore be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. And that's like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever,

like what? Like, and I remember the first time I read it, I was like, God, this is why I'm not a Christian, you know? And then I realized it was like, I think it was just the Holy Spirit. It's like, no, that's why no one's a Christian without Christ.

Like this is the, I like, I saw the paradox in it. And I was like, I think there's something here. And so I sought out a little, I found a little Calvary Chapel in West Seattle. I was doing, excuse me in Wollingford and started going. My wife was so freaked out. Because I went from like being like the guy that stayed up until three in the morning, doing drugs, like, you know, just trying to be a start. All of a sudden I was getting up every day at like 5 a.m.

And like reading and I stopped drinking. I started doing all doing drugs, and I just read obsessively. Like everything I get my hands on, I would like read. And, and I was constantly trying to win her to Faye through, you know, I'd pick up some apologetics book and think I could argue her. And she'd just be like, no. Lee Strobel. Yeah, like, I remember, no, I think the first thing I read was a shattered visage by

rabbi Zacharias. Oh, okay. Yeah. Like atheism, a shattered visage. But then I read everything. by Lewis. I became obsessed with G.K. Chesterton. So like everything I can get my hands on. But that's not how my wife is hardwired. And she, and I also started, like, my songwriting, I've started, worship songs started kind of coming out of me. I started writing songs. The more I just read and

kind of became more compelled by this gospel. I, I'll never forget. I was like, been a believer for about a year. And Darcy, like, I had played a song that I had written. And she goes, she goes, used to write songs for me. And now you just write songs for Epping Jesus. She really hates them when they tell that story. But she came to faith two years after me. And I think she just saw, like, after about a year, she saw the kind of intellectual piece of it kind of settle into my heart and some real, like, serious changes.

I quit my band, which was a big deal. Like she's like, whoa, feel quit his band to do this. Because you were still trying to get back. I was still, yeah. I thought now that I have Jesus, he's for sure going to make me famous, you know. And so, yeah, so that was a really big deal. I, I, like, let go of my manager at the time and the band. And my manager now is she's Taylor Swift's manager, which is kind of that one hurts a little bit.

Seriously? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, her name was Tree Payne. Oh, my God. Yeah. She's like, she's like publicist. like, yeah, she's gotten, gotten huge.

But she was awesome, too. But I just knew that I was, this wasn't what I was supposed to be doing. Okay. And, yeah, Darcy had Henry. We got pregnant with Henry, and after we had her son, like, she just, about six months in, she had this kind of amazing, like, awakening. She was nursing in the middle of the night.

She just kept praying the words, Jesus, if you're real, drawn near to me and I'll draw near to you. She was praying James in reverse. And she's just like, I woke up in morning, and she, I came out and I was like, what happened? And we're not like, we don't really come from like charismatic backgrounds, you know. I mean, Calvary Chapel's, I guess, supposedly charismatic. That always the joke is we believe in the guess we just don't use them.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so she just had like this kind of supernatural, like awakening to it. She lost her brother, her only sibling to AIDS, like six months before I met her. So she's like, if there is a god, I don't want anything to do with them. So that was a really big deal. but literally within six months of her coming to faith, I got a call from a big Calvary Chapel in Spokane, and they had heard about me from going on these mission trips

where I was playing music and asked if I'd be interested in worship pastor position. So I'd been to believe it for two years and my wife six months, and all of a sudden we're working at a megachurch in Spokane, Washington, which lasted a year before my band took off. And then I ended up touring all of 2000. and three and four. And then settling in Southern California for two years as a pastor at another big Calvary. Okay. And then I came back to Portland in 2007 to work for John Mark Homer and his dad for two years before starting Door of Hope. So that's okay. So tell me about those years. So two years at

Bridgetown, or it wasn't called Bridgetown. It was a Jesus church. At the time, it was called Solid Rock. Oh, Solid Rock. Yeah. And then they changed the name to Jesus Jesus Church. And then they changed the name to yeah they kept I mean the names kept shifting dramatically

I still joke about it I'm like wait what's the name again I tell Phil that they should just bring just bring back solid rock just bring it back yeah

so you were the worship leader I was the worship pastor yeah okay yeah and then I was also part of the teaching team okay and then so the door of hope

kind of began during that time I worked for John Mark and Phil I got asked by this woman Jan Bacinia, her and her husband are like big in young life. And they asked if I would lead a Bible study on Wednesday mornings at 6 a.m.

to the book of Romans. And I was like, sure. And I started that with like eight people. But when I left to start Door of Hope, like we had about 300 people coming to the 6 a.m. Bible study. Oh, gosh. That's not a Bible study. Yeah, yeah, it was like a small church.

And there was a core of people that were coming that weren't even, that were kids that went to PSU and lived downtown and, like, weren't attending Solid Rock. So I had this core when I resigned and started Dora Pope. You know, we didn't, we thought it was going to be a house church, but it just kind of, I think my wife and I just come from such a bohemian background that, like, we, she lived in Portland all through her 20s. Like, we just understood the culture. And it was just the right time.

So, yeah, so the door of hope just kind of exploded with college age kids. Like, I think the average age, like we went zero to a thousand in the first two years, and the average age was like 18 to 24. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So it was a lot. Yeah. But it was, I mean, it was super exciting. I would imagine, so I've never actually been to your church.

I've known about it, known people that, you know, have been there. And it seems like a really unique kind of church, right? The types of people that you're attracting, I mean, the area alone is, Portland is unique. but Door of Hope seems like a kind of church that not, maybe not every even Junkle Christian would feel at home with? Yeah, well, I think that it's just because I've always had such as, I mean, it's funny that the joke,

I got mentored by Louise Plow, and so I've always worked with the Plows, so I still do a lot of Bible teaching and stuff for them. But Luis, you know, always joked him and his wife that I was the, you know, I looked like, when I toured full time, all these, like, emergent churches were trying to, like, hire me because I had tattoos. But for me, it's like, I got saved at 27. I'm like, none of this, you guys seem like a cult to me. I don't know. Like, I'm like, I'm like a, I'm like a 50s revivalist preacher in a modern package.

You know, it's like, so like Luis would always introduce me as he's like, he looks like a criminal, but he's a godly man. So I think my absolute unwavering commitment to the centrality of the cross and everything is always drawn from kind of, you know, from reform to charismatic. And it's just like I just kind of, that's been, we preach Christ crucified. That's like, I mean, I remember I met with Rick McKinley when I started Dorof Hope. was a great friend and really supportive. And he's like, he gave me Leslie Newbigans, the gospel and pluralistics. And his whole thing was like, you know,

how are you going to engage the city? And I went back and met with him after I read it and I was like, yeah, it's great book. I loved it. And he's like, so what do you think you're going to do? And I'm like, I go, I think I'm going to do open air preaching. And he goes, I don't think that's what Newbigan meant. But I think that was kind of door of Pope's thing.

It's like, I'm going to do everything that seems like, like the worst thing you could do in an urban, like an urban hip context. Like, we're going to have a church full of artists, but I'm never going to talk about art because it's dumb to talk about it because artists don't want to talk about what they are. And I'm like, art by its nature is...

You don't talk about it. Yeah, art by its nature is self-expression and Christ by his nature is self-denial. That's why Christian artists are the most conflicted human beings. I'm not going to help their conflict. I'm just going to continue to tell them they need to learn how to die. So it's not so it's so do your church attract a lot of artists or not necessarily?

It does, yeah. Okay, because, okay. I think because you're not trying to be. Because we're not trying to be art. You know, and I always felt like I get asked to go speak on like how to cultivate the arts in your church and stuff. And I just always, I hate that conversation. It's funny. I'm like, why would you, if you're a pastor in Texas, like, why would you actually come to this, to this lecture?

and you should probably learn more about football if you want to connect with your people. Like, to me, it's like the, you know, I love culture and the arts and film and music and all that. But I love literature. But for me, it all, it's all, how does it all serve this kind of central thing? And so for me, I just don't like anything that takes the, you know, church is built on four pillars, which is the cross, community, simplicity in the city. And so, and I just, those are, I'm interested in everything. That's my problem. So if I don't have tight parameters, I'll lose my mind.

I always say I'm like a lowbrow Renaissance man. What's your, in terms of pastoring, what's your main, like, what do you love most about pastoring? It sounds like you like to teach and preach. Yeah. In terms of engaging people as well or disciplining people. Yeah, I mean, I love seeing. You know, the misnomer about Portland is, and the gift of Door of Hope is because we were so committed to the urban core. Portland, you know, has historically been known as one of the most unchurched cities in the U.S., but like where we're at here in Beaverton, like, it's evangelical everywhere else around that.

The suburbs. Yeah, the suburbs versus the city are too. Yeah, the suburbs. And so the churches that were in the city, I mean, but there weren't many churches one door of hope. began that actually were reaching people in the city, you know. And I mean, I remember John Mark coming to me. It's like, how did you guys do it? How did you, how did you get where you have like a predominantly urban congregation? And I mean, the way we did it in the early years is I literally told people if they didn't live in the city to not come back. And so we would, I mean,

we would lost hundreds and hundreds of people in the, you know, in the early years. But I knew that If we're, I mean, that's the false illusion. You get churches that are big churches in an urban center. But in reality, they're just filled with commuters. They're coming from more evangelical areas. And so that reality for us was like, I want to reach people that, you know, my prayer when we started door pop was, Lord, bring me all the really crappy Christians, like the ones that are de-churched that have, you know, cities was Jacques-Loult.

So the city is always the type of Babylon is where people, people go to make a name for themselves apart from God. And so we're a part of this rescue mission in these urban centers that, but the fact is people often, they'll have gone to church when they were young, but when they go to the city, they're like, yeah, that's part of my history. But then they get here and it's way harder than they thought, and they have their, like me in my 20s, they have their existential crisis. And maybe there might have been something there.

And so I think Dorof Hope has always been the church that kind of grabs those folks. And it's those folks that have the completely unchurched friends. And so once we got, once God blessed me with hundreds of crappy Christians, it also blessed me with kids that had never been a church in their lives because Portland's truly post-Christian. Like both my kids grew up in public school here and they never had a single peer that was a believer. Wow. Really? And not, nope, not one. Wow.

Yeah. And then most, and they didn't grow up in youth group either because we didn't have any, they were like the only kids. We were like 1,000 people and there were only 12 kids in the whole church. Because they're all like 18, 20, 20 years. I think we did like 100. I did 100 weddings in the first five years. I mean, it was silly. Yeah.

So, yeah, so, I mean, my kids got a little bit. I took Henry once on a trip to speak at a, I was speaking at a church in Perth, Australia. Okay. And like, they had this huge youth group and he's like, I like this church so much better than ours there. I'm like, how come? He's like, because there's people my age. I'm like totally fair. That's crazy.

How do you pastor the demographic that you're pastoring? Like what does that look like? The D-Church, the people on the margins, or even the brand-new Christians coming out of a context where they don't know Jesus anything about Jesus or Christianity. Well, that's one of the things I think just, I was having a conversation with Chuck, who's my friend Chuck Palmer,

who just released this new book called Pivot. And one of his things, after working for Barna, you know, the research shows that like Christians are just increasingly, I think Kenaman uses the language of decoupled. And so it's like, you know, we use, everything's coming to us in such fragmented information that it's like you can be completely orthodox. Like Dorofope is a church, like we're unwavering to creedal Christianity,

you know, historical orthodoxy, for everything from sexuality, then everything in between, like what is the church stood for? Yeah. You know, and how are we maintaining? maintaining that continuity. But when you preach to the congregation, like, they're coming with these, they don't even have a grid for that.

And so they're interpreting everything you say through whatever their grid is. And so you can have people that's like at a conservative, theological conservative church. And as long as they feel loved, they, you know, it takes a while for them to like grass. And so I think the answer to it is to how do you deal? with these people coming in with these kind of fragmented grids or no basis. Right. Relief is that you have to just take them to the center. And that's why the cross has always been, I feel like if they, if they get the center

right, it will work its way out into the peripherals. I mean, everything from, I mean, we had this married couple, these two guys that were married coming to Dwar Philip. And the one guy was in ministry and walked away from his faith because, you know, God didn't deliver him from his same-sex attraction. And, but then he gets married, but he can't escape it. He still wants, he's still, he's God-haunted, you know. And his partner has no, his husband has never gone to church ever.

So they go to the church that's like the, like up in, I think it's on, not Fremont, but on Broadway, there's this church that's like, it's like, it's emphasis as like, you know, for a gay community. Right, right, right. LGBTQ, focused church. And then they came to the door of hope. And the first time they came when I was preaching on marriage, which I'm like, why would you ever come back?

And I met with him afterwards. And he goes, he goes, two reasons. Because the church we were going to, it was like, all they ever talked about was how great it was to be gay. I'm like, that's not why we're going to church. We want to hear about God. You know? And they're like, there seems to be power here.

And we also felt loved. Wow. And I'm like, that's, I think. think, you know, for me, the message of radical grace that on your worst day, Jesus is crazy about you, combined with just the compelling reality of the cross that, you know, sin isn't the little things we do wrong, but it's our, in general, rebellion against God's rule over our lives. And so I'm just constantly challenged people like, who's in control, who's ruling in your life, you know? And it's like, and those convictions, and I found that with that couple, like, the thing

that became increasingly hard is that the partner had no church experience. It was the one that kept wanting to come back. No baggage. Yeah, yeah. It's like, and that's where I found is the most, for me to answer that question of like, what do I love the most? I love seeing people just come a lot. I mean, the endless times I've had the opportunity to pray with someone to receive

Christ in my office or, you know, just people that come for like months and then all a sudden something just clicks for them. Yeah. It's just very exciting. Like getting somebody with a blank slate where you're like undo all these kind of warp views of Jesus. It's just like, you can start from ground one and building the centrality of the cross and someone's like. Totally. And I think that that's, you know, I always have said like the, I am convinced to, you know, being friends with so many that are into like the whole practicing the way.

Yeah. And, you know, always asking me questions around what I think about spiritual disciplines and, you know, disciplines and, you know, what. what is discipleship look like and sanctification. You know, I always say that I'm convinced for me what drove my sanctification, and I don't mean sanctified by both. But it is, first of all, understand, the closer I get to Jesus,

the more I see how freaking terrible I am. So I always say that one of the litmus tests of your growing in your relationship with Christ is you realize you know less than you ever thought you knew. Right, right, right, right. And everything we do, even in the power of the spirit, is still mixture. And so, but I think that the thing that has driven kind of my love for pastoring in this city is just seeing people come to an understanding of what does it look like.

It's not about sinning less. It's about loving more. And that witness itself is probably the engine of sanctification. Like my own, like when I first got saved, I was working on this record with this producer. his name's Dylan. He goes by Dynamite D. He did stuff for like the Beastie Boys. But he was going through this, going through a breakup,

like the week we were working on my record. And he was engaged and she just left. She's aside she wasn't in love. And it was crushed him. And I was like, whatever I'm excited about, I'm going to tell people about it. So I'm like, you know, I just, I lost most of my friends because I wanted to talk to everyone about Jesus,

which I realize is Jesus is the one word you cannot say in public settings without drawing pretty interesting reactions. But he kept asking me questions and questions about my faith. And so I like told him by the end of the week, we were sitting after dinner. And he goes, he goes, all right, I believe it. Like, what do I need to do?

And I was like, oh, dang, I wasn't really prepared for that. And I said, I go, here's a deal. I'm only been a believer for a few months. And I'm not even totally sure I'm saying. saved. But when I was a kid, I was taught like to pray this prayer. I don't even think it's in the Bible, but it's like a sinner's prayer and you like pray that Jesus forgives you and that he sounds silly, but that you, his puts a spirit in you, comes and lives within you. And they'll not even flinching it. He's like, okay, cool. Like, let's do it. And I go, I just want to qualify

this. I pray this prayer every day because I'm still not convinced I'm saved. I was going to pray it anyway. Do you want to pray it with me? And he's like, yeah, and we prayed and I open my eyes and I'll never forget. It was the moment I saw something just happened to that guy in front of me. It was the first time I became convinced I was saved as well as seeing how powerful it is for my energy to not be focused on what's going on inside of me, which is my nervousness around an obsession with the spiritual disciplines. I'm like, if they don't serve something outside of us, if they're not, what's the goal? What's the, are they an end of themselves?

Interesting. Like, do I want to focus on prayer and Sabbath and all these things? Well, only if it serves toward what I think is the actual mission of the church, which is being witness to Jesus. And it's not about proselytizing. It's just about, like, what does it look like? Some kind of missional goals. Yeah.

Missional orientation. And it's like, is politics the way that we do this? It's like I'm still pretty convinced that a regeneration of the heart is probably the best way to transform a society. So, I mean, it's kind of worked for the last couple thousand years. So I'm just, to me, that that's like what excites me. And it's giving people a call towards something. Like, man, you are going to be happier when you begin to live for, I would say like, it's got to be God and neighbor. You can't have one without the other.

With your congregation, with the church, you know, that your pastor, It sounds like, I mean, you got people who are, you know, de-churched and, and have probably questions and skeptics and people that were, you know, pagan five seconds ago, you know, like, is there, is there, like, a resistance to, like, theological orthodoxy, or is there almost, like, an attraction to it, you know? I think, I think both. Okay. So the thing that's happened in Doropo, in the early days, I would say that there was an attract,

Do you read that, what was that girl's name? Tara Isabel Burton. She wrote that book called Strange Rights. No. It's like, she is a writer for the New York Times. She does like the religion writing. But she has this whole book on like the spirituality of like our nation right now. And what she talked about is just like a deep desire.

Like we can curate everything. Why can't we curate our faith? And this is that kind of goes back to that concept of decoupling, the challenge with that is that people can be like totally okay with the cross and okay with Jesus dying for your sins but they're like they literally I think we've gotten to a place in society where we actually are comfortable like just not thinking through things that don't make sense like like if this is true then this has to be true too and but I don't think that's how people take any information anymore I think that it's why you have such radicalization it's like without much information you

Yeah, yeah. It's like why, you know, you'll see grandmas on the street on Burnside on Sundays after church saying free Palestine and they've probably never been to the Middle East and no, don't even realize that Palestine's never been a nation. You know, so it's like it's just, it's just the nature of like all we get are these kind of emotional tidbits of information. And unfortunately, I think that that's the biggest thing we've got to continue to wrestle with with the congregation. But over one of the things that happened for us is that in the early days, it was all young people. But when they started getting saved and really being transformed by the gospel, their parents started coming. And so COVID kind of was like cut every church in the city in half. It was crazy.

We went from like a 1,600 person church to an 800 person church. And it's been this slow, I mean, probably smaller than that for a while. And a lot of it was, I wouldn't, I refused to get. into the conversations with, you know, it's like, it was like the push to like, you know, we're like, we need to start a racial reconciliation group at the church. I'm like with a bunch of white kids. Like, what are we talking about right now? I'm like, I just, I'm not sure that's helpful. Like, you know, and so I like, I like, during that time, though, like, I feel like during COVID, there was all these older people that started showing up that were like their kids went

there and like that churches that kind of started jumping into like these sort of fringe conversations that are important conversations. But all of a sudden the church was about political, you know, which are you left or right? You know, that was the worst years of past. How did you yeah? I hated it. With all those politically charged conversations. I was like, you and you're like, you have a parent come to you and you're like, my kid is Antifa. And then there and then the kid comes to you the week later, like, I think my parents are Nazi. I'm like, I swear that neither is true. We should not be throwing around those terms so loosely.

If you mean, your kid wears maybe more black than he should and your parents, and your parents conservative. I'm like, this is not what I signed up for. I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to do. This is brutal. Yeah, it was, I mean, that was really hard, but I think that you just have to toe the line. And I think that now we're seeing this new, now we have for the first time ever

a multi-generational community. And there's a whole new wave of young people coming. We're getting ready to open up our third location on the west side. So it's been really exciting. And I've really adopted with Chuck and his influence from Francis. I've never met Francis, but I really appreciated it.

I, you know, for a long time, one of the things that hurt Dorfope in the early days is we just didn't know how to deal with the quick growth. And the natural thing, you just keep adding services. And it's like, I remember when Tim Mackey and I was on staff with me, and we were doing five services on Sunday. And it's just like, yeah, by the fourth Sunday, by the fourth message, you don't really believe what you're saying.

By the fifth message, you hate people for a week. So we were so burned out. And so we ended up moving the church into like a large location that could handle everybody. But it actually backfired. It hurt us because everyone, our whole DNA was, let's restore these old historic churches and have vibrant gospel-centered communities in the various neighborhoods of Portland.

And people felt like we were betraying the mission. So like after two years of being in this big place called Revolution Hall, I was like, no, we got it. So we took over what was Mars Hill, Portland, is an old historic church in Southeast. And then we planted a door of Hope Northeast Northeast in our first building up in Fremont, kind of close to Bridgetown.

Instead of adding services now, you're trying to plant hard. That one, like, we're full right now, so we're going to launch. I'd rather, I'd rather the model just grow by staying small. Yeah. Wait, do you have one service? We have one service. Yeah.

And so if it's full, it's full? Yeah. See, I've been saying that for you. I'm not a pastor. Never have been a full-time pastor, but I, I've often said, you know, I think if I was a pastor and if church filled up, I think I would just say, that's, yeah, that's full. Yeah. Like, there's many other churches you can go to.

I just, I don't know. I'm not against multi-services. I just, I don't know. I don't think I would personally want to. I was renting from, when we started, we were renting from Hinson Baptist. And Hinson Baptist started Western Seminary, but they hired this guy, Michael Lawrence,

who is the right-hand guy of Mark Devere at 9 Marks. Oh, yeah. And they're like, those guys are like, I always tease them like, you guys are like, you're not even like reformed. You're like neo-puritans. Like, they're like so hardcore. And I kind of love it because they're like legit about what they do.

I could never. do it. Like, I, they're, I mean, but they have these marks. And one of a, but the one thing I was very compelled by was there, when your path, when you have more than one service, you are essentially pastoring two churches. And it's like, so like we're launching the west side. For a while, I'm going to pastor. I'd rather pass, I'd rather do a service at two different locations that reach different neighborhoods than do two services in the middle of a neighborhood that has no parking. We have no parking lot like our church isn't meant to have right yeah two thousand people come through it do people get upset like uh and that neighbors get furious yeah and then i mean the congregation i think

like a lot of this is just like it's about our vision and our mission and so and like you know helping people understand like yeah this this isn't our goal isn't to just grow this thing right endlessly like our goal is to reach lost people you know and so and we want to And Portland is a unique, I remember I met with Tim Keller early on, and he was telling me, it's like, he thought that Portland was a very interesting city and that it's a, it's a mid-sized city that functions like a major city in the sense that people really do live their lives in their neighborhoods. Yeah.

Yeah, which isn't like, that's not like L.A. No, yeah. No, geez. When I was talking with Tim Chattuck, when he was at Reality, L.A., he was like, he's like, everybody drives an hour here. So commuting is just part of existence. So reaching Hollywood is not really a thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that's one blessing of Portland of like Portland is like you really, you can. It is kind of a parish kind of model. Well, the church is, yeah, it's a neighborhood. It's a local church that serves local people and people are doing life together in the same neighborhood. And you think about like how much, like when you have a single service, like people know each, other and you let the service you let the building dictate the size yeah like if it's it can hold a thousand people fine but if it's if it only holds 400 people then that's probably how big it should be but it's like you're actually probably going to be more effective in reaching that neighborhood and

that community right if you actually have people living there yeah save there and you know and and the i found the bigger church gets the less involvement you get from people and the more staff you hire yeah which is yeah As a whole financial question and professionalism versus nonprofessional. I don't know. Yeah, we don't do lighting. Like, someone just texted me like, how are you guys a church of such influence, but you have the worst looking video I've ever seen?

And I'm like, we just don't care. Like, I mean, we care, but it's like, that's not where we're going to spend our money. Yeah, like, you know. Like, we don't have, we have stained glass windows. We're not going to black out the window. so that your video looks better. And we're not going to get LED lights. Do you have a terrible sound system with all these musicians in your church?

No, we're a good sound system. But it's like, but there's never been a show. Yeah, yeah. He's like, I get that, but there was a guy's head in front of the camera for the whole message. I'm like, I'm like, okay, that's kind of funny. So maybe authentic for us is a little sloppy, but they. So how do you, so you're a musician and a past. or are these two different worlds?

Do they merge? How do you do both? I mean, um, yeah, I mean, I, I,

it all has merged well until I added the layer of author as well. Like that was like, yeah, that was like, writing a book was like no. Like I love, like my two passions have been like music and, and literature.

So I like, I've always, I always wanted to write literary memory. I was going to bypass the Christian market can just write a memoir like just okay but i the publisher is like why would you do that when you have a platform so um but uh but yeah managing i think that the big thing is the question of like how do these things serve one another for me you know a lot of every pastor should have some kind of past i don't trust any pastor that has no no past time like it's like nothing like like really

all you do is read the bible and fray like you know i always say like if your pastor has no friends and no current stories, you should fire them immediately. It's like, because it's so easy to become increasingly isolated. Yeah. And you can feel it when all of a sudden you're like, you don't have any illustrations in your sermon. Yeah. Well, then becomes so irrelevant to the people living in the real world.

Yeah. You're just living in your study. I would say it's the great abuse of Acts chapter six of the, you know. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm like, why do you, I'm like, first of all, it's Acts. And it doesn't say that the spirit guided that decision. and it just said that the people thought it was good for them to not serve.

And you're like, oh, it's the establishment of deacons. It doesn't say anything about deacons. It's like, and the two guys that they picked, go out and do everything that the apostles are doing and they serve the people, which seems to be what Jesus did as well as Paul. Stephen and Barnabas, right? Stephen and Stephen and Philip. Yeah, and it's like, and like, these guys weren't deacon. They were preaching.

They were doing science and wonders. And they served the people. But I feel like I kind of wonder sometimes if that's why Peter begins to fade out at that point. And Paul comes into the vision. But I've always taken that really seriously. Like I want to know my people. I want to be engaged. And as an evangelist, like, it's so, like when you can allow, if you have a curious mind like myself,

and you start feeling like you just waste so much energy taking in so much useless information. I'm convinced. I'm like, Lord, I trust that you know how to use. utilize my chaotic brain to draw people to yourself. And I just read the Quran for the first time. Did you really? Yeah, the whole thing. It was pretty crazy.

But then I was in a cab in an Uber with my wife and daughter. And we had this guy from, and the whole reason I read it is because I kept getting these guys from like Afghanistan as my Uber drivers to the airport. I'm like, I want to see if I could engage with them on it. So I was sitting in the front and we got out of the car and I was like, how did you do that? Like, he just totally engaged with that guy about the Koran. And he was like, he's like, do you believe in the holy book? I'm like, well, no.

But these are the things I think are interesting about it. It's like those, that's my thing is like, how do you make all of these things serve? And so music for me is a release from ministry. It's like a safe place I record and produce. But I also write a ton of the music for the church, even though I don't really. I used to lead, until I hired Callan, I was leading at least once a month. The first two years, I did all the worship and all the dishes. But I also looked like a white Jesus.

I had super long hair and long beard. And so people really thought we were a cult. And it was, so by the time I hired Tim Mackey, I had kind of cut back. So that was one of the reasons I hired him was so that he taught two times a month. And I taught two times a month. And then I would lead worship on the two weeks. I was some teaching. Is he still there, Tim Mackey?

He's not it. He's not at Dorofo. He tried to stay at Dorop. And I'm like, there's no way you're going to be able to stay because everyone's going to ask you every week while you're not teaching anymore. And it's going to get weird. And about six months after he came to me. He was like, remember what he said to him? I like, it got weird.

He's like, it got weird. Okay. Oh, because he didn't have time to teach anymore. Yeah, he, yeah, because he stepped down fully to do Bible Project in 2016. Okay. Yeah. I love that guy. He is.

He is. He is. He is. I mean, I don't know. him well. I've had him on the podcast a couple times and talked in person a couple of times. But yeah, I mean, for how incredibly gifted and talented and brilliant, he is, he's so helpful. Oh, yeah. This is a gentle, childlike wonder. Where did you meet Josh Gerels? Was it through the church or did you guys know?

Yeah, Josh just started coming the door of hope. And I, people had, like, gone to him and, like, asked if he had heard my music. Okay. Because, like, I didn't start doing solo stuff until I started door of hope. I was, when I was signed with tooth and nail, I did,

um, I did three records as a, under the artist named Telecast. Okay. Um, and then, which is how I met John Mark,

because he was like 20 when I met him. I just signed a tooth and nail. And he was actually a guitar player in a band on tooth and nail. Yeah. No way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, with Josh Garrell's like he was just one of the, he, him and his wife had moved to Portland. Okay.

From the Midwest. And he, I remember I was doing an early morning. I always have done like really crazy early morning things. And so we were doing, me and Tim were doing a, we decided to teach five days a week at 6 a.m. Monday through Friday through the entire New Testament in three months. Yeah. Yeah.

And that was the first thing I had Tim do after I heard him. Wait, so every morning people can come to the church. Yeah. We had like, we had probably like 250 to 300 people every morning for like three months straight. And then whatever the reading landed on in the weekend is what we would teach on Sunday. So, but Monday through Friday we would teach. That's a while. We would go back and forth.

They did that in their early church. People would go through hours of Bible study a week, new converts and stuff for years. I just did it. I just taught the entire book of Hebrews and had everyone in 20, I did it in 25 days. And I had, and I did it seven days a week. So every morning at 6 a.m. And so. People show up to that.

Yeah, like we have like a hundred people show up to that, like every single morning. And people get, and they like, I found that the turnout is far higher if you challenge them with something extreme. Like, they're more likely to come if you, you're like, we're going to fast for 40 days and memorize all of the upper room discourse. And people like, yes. And everybody you're like, we want you to pray once a week at 6 a.m. and like nobody comes. Wow. That's wild. I'm, dude, that is so, I mean, how'd you have time?

That, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that, that, I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I, I, I, I, I think, you know, my, my, my, my theory on teaching is that, like, like, you get to a point where, I just feel like the, the Bible should be so familiar. that you could be asked to teach anything and be able to do it in a couple minutes. Now, it doesn't mean that I don't take extra time to prepare for something, but on like the thing I just did with Hebrews, I've taught Hebrews three times. And so it's like, I just know it.

And so, and I'm treating it more like a devotional for that kind of early morning. You know, I'm not trying to make it like the lecture. Okay. You can cover every detail. You're like, you're just trying to, I'm trying to help people develop a habit. you know of like what does it mean to seek god before you seek anything else but but yeah but i

always feel like i feel like that i always tell young pastors like they'll it's like they give all their attention to studying for a single book or whatever and like just be in the habit of this like it's the whole be ready in and out of season like you know just like when i first got saved i mean i remember when i was on tour i would read i was there was a season where i was reading the new testament like once a week um because i was like in the road for six hours a day i was like like what else you're going to do? It was like, you know, and so I just was so hungry to understand it and know it. And, uh, you know, and I was always challenged by, I'd read, hear about the guys like,

G. Campbell Morgan who like supposedly had like the entire New Testament memorized. And, you know, like, I'm like, I want to, I want to do that. Did you ever go to, like, Bible College of seminary or just all just, no, saturating yourself from the Bible and books? Just, yeah, you're just reading. I always said excelled in the library. and not in the classroom. I had some students like that.

I taught at a small Bible college, and I had, like, ex-cons and homeschool kids. Like, it was just a wide array of people. And there were some people that they just couldn't write a paper, you know. Right. They were brilliant. They were just super smart. So we figured out a way, how can we assess, you know,

do you know the material, you know, it's a class on Romans? Like, do you know Romans, like, whether that's through, we even allowed them to, you know, maybe write a song, your musician or whatever. You know, like show me and some with your diverse humanity, you know, that you have engaged attacks. You've digested it and you're trying to live it out, you know. And it doesn't need to be a paper.

It could be something else. Yeah, I think there's a lot of ways of, like, you know, I think to, I remember when I first got saved, I, you know, I was so fearful that I had done damage to my brain, you know, like, I'm like, I did so many drugs. I was like, and I remember coming. across James, like early on, they can even lacks wisdom, let him ask you God who gives liberally a reproach, but let him ask him faith. And I just, I think one thing, you know, there's, it's listed as like a gift of the spirit as the gift of faith. And it's like,

I've been blessed with just a kind of unwavering conviction in the reality of Jesus's presence. And so just that, like, Lord, I just, I trust that you're going to give me that spiritual illumination is not dependent upon intellectual capacity, you know, and so how do I, how do I surrender? And it was, he gave me a real hunger for, and I, like, I feel I love theology. Like, Gary Bershears gave me his, um, his original Bart church dogmatic set, which was like, actually owned by the founder of Fuller. And so, like, he, like, he even, like, studied under him and, like, he has all his handwritten notes in the book. But, I mean, I took 10 years and read, Did you read through the dogmatics?

I read all the dogmatics. Come on. It took me 10 years. It was a long time. Yeah. I mean, I would say that I understand like, I mean, I've read probably reconciliation like probably three times. But I mean, what do you, how much do you comprehend? Really, even reading it once almost is like, should I say I read it?

Like, I mean, I did read it. But still, that's unbelievable. But I mean, I love like, I'll set like a little challenge. When I, like, when I first hired Tim, I, I was. I was like, I was so fried from reading so much theology that I, that's when I got really into literature. Okay. And so me and two of my friends, we basically set out to read the entire modern library, the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century list. And I kept getting approached by publishers to write because the church was, because we were a young, exciting church.

And I'm like, I'm like, why are you guys asking? You don't even know if I can write. I'm like, I'm like, you shouldn't. I go, this is my advice for you. I'm like, you shouldn't offer any pastor of book deal that hasn't read Moby Dick. They don't deserve to be. That would cancel me out, man. It's not a slug of a book to get through.

No, it's so fun. It's such great. Really? I never heard of me saying Moby Dick was full. Oh, I love Moby Dick. Really? Yeah, I think it's. It's not easy, right?

No. I made my staff read Infinite Chest. Yeah, I did. It's been in the back of my mind. Like, I feel like, is this something I do? just need to do. I read Brothers Karamazov a few years ago because I just had people just say this is just an incredible book.

And it took a while, but it was worth it. Here's the thing with that book. Dostoevsky is a great, a great observer of human nature. He is. But his prose sucks. Oh, it's a little boring. It's just like, you know, that's 80. I describe all of his writing as like reading him, he almost gives you no description of the

landscape. It's like a black. room with like two chairs and two people talking too loud in each other's faces for like a thousand pages and the dialogue the philosophical stuff is incredible it's incredible yeah but i'm like like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i feel like i lost my faith in that chapter not not the uh inquisit inquisitor the grand inquisitor the one before that oh i was like between ivan and yes iven just kept going after going after going after i by that chapter i'm By the end of that chapter, I'm like, I don't know if I'm a Christian anymore.

So I woke up early the next morning to read The Grand Inquisitor. Yeah. And it didn't actually, I was like, oh, I thought this was supposed to, like, fix everything. It is still, like, you have all these questions. You know, the whole focus of that thing is Dostoevsky was super influenced by this Russian orthodox mystic writer named Solve. Okay. And Solve wrote this book called, he wrote this little parable. It's like a it's like a dialogue around

I mean basically what was going on in Russia around the time like kind of movements toward communism and but he wrote this little this little parable called the Antichrist and the Antichrist in his in his parable is like he's a Christian for all practical purposes who loves Jesus but he loves himself more

and Dosteusco is hugely influenced by this but Solve a wrote the Antichrist based on Tolstoy. He thought Tolstoy was the prototype of the Antichrist because he believed in the gospel, but always wanted to eradicate all of the miraculous. Like, if we should, the sermon on the Mount is the perfect utopian ethics for life,

but we need to just do it, and we need to not worry if Jesus was actually the son of God. And so he's like, that is the prototype of the antichrist. It's Christianity without Christ, you know. And so, so Dostoevsky's like, he's playing, that's essentially like the Grand Inquisitor is like all, he's like, you after people spiritual bread, we'll give them real bread. And therefore, we have to kill you because you're not like, we've actually, we're ridding the world of these actual problems and you're just trying

to fix the heart. Wow. Wow. Tell us about the book you wrote. I wrote a book in 22 called Stumbling Toward Eternity. Okay. And it's essentially like a, it's a combination of literary memoir and theological reflection on the seven words from the cross. And what I argue is that Jesus essentially exegetes the gospel from the cross, like while he's dying, every statement he makes actually gives you insight into what I refer to as the good death. It's like he's bringing a death blow to one arena of self-existence to free us from the shadow self. you know like and so yeah and so you know just forgiveness i mean just the kind of the beauty of like how radical the grace is in it but a lot of the arc of the book um follows and it was very difficult

to try to merge because when you when you preach you know we often use stories in our lives but they're to illustrate but you can't do that in writing without it being heavy-handed and sentimental like you do not want to tell the reader what they should get out of your story like that just ruins the story. And so trying to figure out how to let the memoir pieces sit without much explanation. But it took time. It was actually way harder than I expected. But I'm really proud of the book. I think that it honors the gospel. And I think it gives fresh insight, especially around coming up in a broken child. Because one of the questions I pose is, how does the cross actually bring healing, help us make sense of our past as well as the present

and give us hope for the future. Like, what is, how does this thing? And so I followed the trajectory of my dad, who was like a lifelong alcoholic and drug addict, who came to faith and, like, while I was writing the book. So I was writing the book in real time. And I was, I had writer's block. I couldn't finish it.

I was like a year late on the manuscript. I just could not get, I couldn't figure out what to do with the last statement from the cross, bother into your hands. I commit my spirit. And I got a call in February of, 22 that my dad was in the ICU and wasn't going to make it. And so I got it jumped on a plane and flew there and got to him at seven in the morning. I got to call it six at night and I was there

in Kenai, Alaska at seven in the morning and got to his side before he died. And he woke up like literally the he woke up the last two minutes of his life, which was hard because he was terrified because he was dying, but I was able to hold his hand and, you know, stare into his eyes and let him know it's going to be okay. But he accepted Christ in the hospital like a year before that. Wow. Yeah, it was crazy. The hospital chaplain had let him to the Lord.

No way. Wow. Yeah. And so the book ended up being, like, my last chapter was being with my dad dying. And seeing him like the power of a man who abandoned me and my brother and my mom when I was one. But in the end, I was by his side and how real forgiveness is and to be a conduit by which my dad is ushered into greater life. You know, so it's a beautiful thing. Yeah. Dude. Thanks for being on Theology around, man. I've been looking forward to this.

It's good to see you in person again and finally have a conversation, man. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you so much, Preston.