John Mark Comer Interview with Pete Scazzero

[Music] so happy to be here with you and Queens what a gift and the role you played in my life for the last few years I can't believe you put into words so you are the former pastor of New Life Fellowship Church planner here from several decades ago in 1987 and you have transitioned and now had out emotionally healthy spirituality which is I guess technically a non-profit right but still based out of this church and you do work around the world around discipleship and how does it tie into emotional health and slow down spirituality and we're in this series back home around unhurried to a rule of life and thinking a lot about hurry and busyness and speed and digital addiction and life in a city and how it does any of that or all of it kind of curtail and mitigate against the life that Jesus has for us and our spiritual formation in the image of Jesus and I have present for you I don't know if you are you a coffee guy at all some so this hard coffee it's roasted a few days ago from Portland I think it's the best coffee in the world or in the top three four in there it's phenomenal Ethiopia work of socorro mm-hmm it's your good staff appreciate it well it's great to be here with you and thank you so much for hosting us in your space and I think I said this earlier but we are teaching this fall around unhurried to rule of life and the idea of hurry and its effect on emotional health and spiritual life which you're a little bit of a guru on and a rule of life and how do we schedule and structure our life around abiding and some kind of awareness and connection to the Spirit of God so that's kind of on our docket for the fall and I happen to be in town doing some stuff in New York and I thought man if I could just sit down with you push record ask you some questions and mostly just get you to be you maybe for people that are following along that are new to you or just know little bits and pieces of your story let's start just with autobiography okay you are well known for many things the main one of which is emotionally healthy spirituality both the ministry and the concept but let's start way back like give us the gist so you're from kind of men an area from Jersey but you've been here you Church planted here in Queens how long ago 1987 1987 Wow let's think that's a long time yeah that was a leaf after 20 tricky to do your math the math in your mind and then a few years ago you kind of step down from leading the church and passed it on to rich she's an amazing kind of next step after you but you're still here still in the church and just lead an emotionally healthy spirituality but give us I like a little bit of your backstory - how did you come into what you now call emotionally healthy spirituality I'm sure you didn't like start with a label you just absolutely don't know what you call that or called it nothing you know this summer this summer I read the book educated by yeah about that Gotha group in Mormonism yeah yeah that's on my list I'm not ready but am I related to it I said you know it's like you know and because I came from a family italian-american family right my parents are from Brooklyn originally very italian-american family and but came to Christ in college at 19 mm-hmm and university it was a parachurch it was it was nothing then we became into varsity so early on got it you know I was a Roman Catholic kid who left the church at 12 so I was really an agnostic didn't know anything about Old Testament versus New Testament I was just a party an animal this was the you know late 70s and but it's kind of a very tail end of the Jesus Movement yeah and where is this in the area where did you Zhu Zi Texico Glassboro State is now Rowan University and it was my sophomore year and you know I went to a Christian concert with some long-haired people from California and probably was the right it was the right thing back when the only people have long hair were from and they just you know groovin and giving their testimonies and I walked in series I walked into church as an agnostic and I came out you know praising Jesus it was that kind of conversion and you know I'm actually convinced it was a deliverance as well because something came out of me and my family had a big history and psychics gypsies that whole thing which comes bad out of neat Italy and was all mixed in with Catholicism growing up and so it was it was a it was a deliverance it was a light darkness you know so I was you know before and after kind it was I walked out of that church you know singing on fire reading hours a day of Scripture and for within nine months I was president of our Christian Fellowship now understand I um you know I had some leadership gifts that were starting to emerge and I was leading a group of 5060 people I was a Christian nine months myself so I'm I'm now in a you know I'm listening to Christian radio and I'm teaching whatever I'm hearing you know I kind of a thing it's all brand-new and jarric my Jerry also came to Christ around the same time so it's about were you guys dating but really not just friends for friends of eight years before we fell in love and got married actually so but it was a little revival it when happened on our campus and what were you like like tell me before you go on like what were I mean I just know the 60 something you or however you old you like 363 and you know this is after decades of life with Jesus and spiritual formation and emotional health and slow down spirituality give me a picture of yourself at whatever you were in 1920 a picture of high school I was high every day and played high school basketball so I I can see there's a basketball player players I love basketball and play varsity and so that but I was high every day so let's when we took our test to go into high school and I went to the I went to the Catholic High School which basically was for rejects I was a good sports program and so my friend and I and we applied for the high school just Philip has to make sure we got an old dumb class that we just multiple choice we had they're both in the smart I end up in the smart class he end up in a dumb class the lowest I said they don't class the lowest class and there says he how God just had his hand on me just to even when I was I was such a mess my family I came out of a beautiful mom had mental illness so she really wasn't able to raise those before kids I'm the youngest and my father traveled a lot so he was not around just years older siblings kind of raised you or what was that like no because we were more just like we went we we we were to tile it together but it was it was a it was it was a very painful yeah italian-american families are very into being tight yeah inside there could be a total wreck so it's kind of like the Mafia think that the family so it's not like kind of maybe even more my background where you just break apart and ignore each other you stay together but it's and you're loyal to the death but it's dysfunctional absolutely toxic so my father and mother are married but he's traveling all week and he just believed in physical beatings every weekends that was the Italian Way my mother just was mentally ill I mean she was in and out of hospitals a whole life so kind of raised ourselves so it's a very it was kind of like we got to get out of this are they still alive no no they both dead and my actually my father came to Christ both my parents did you know after we did and so it's just doing you know he was very repentant for what he did after he came to Christ but he didn't you know so we were we had a good relationship last 20 years of his life 25 years but the damage was done in all the years so I think I came into adulthood when I went to college it was an escape yeah and so when I came to Christ it was like a new family of Jesus this is like wonderful is my first time interacting with deaf people of different races cultures Protestants not Italians it was like a shock and but I went headlong saying I don't want to think about the path that the bad theology worked well with me which is I'm a new creation the old is gone and so even for that kind of evangelical Jesus Movement don't think about the past just focus on Jesus to move forward it's perfectly you do not actually deal with all your stuff it's exactly right you know perfect you mean it enabled like this stronghold to stay in your soul absolutely so I was changing superficially I was changing in a very getting a lot of knowledge learning a lot of skills like about the world about missions about racism about Scripture studying hours a day and that was very like to say we were poster children evangelicals yeah but and this is what year this is like 70 80 ish yep well I go on as varsity staff I was like open-air evangelist traveling on campuses around New York News New Jersey and I really had a passion for sharing Christ because I this was the greatest news in the planet and I yes so I you know we used to genuine it's real like I would stand up on a university campus and just start preaching I you know I was and I just such a fire and it was authentic it wasn't like anybody forcing me hmm but then I got it I realized people need community so I end up going to seminary not so much though is that according I went to Princeton for a year and then go down again gordon-conwell today because Jerry also was on a divorce a staff we both were on staff at Rutgers University and when we first got married I did my first year at Princeton and two years ago and Conwell so I was very fortunate have a pretty broad you know seminary education and then actually actually I said took four courses at Harvard was at gordon-conwell I had Henri Nouwen while I was there here's Eddie made you go and bring that he was still alive oh my god he was teaching at the Divinity School you know it's really it was really some but so but all this learning was divorced of any kind of interior introspection oh yeah of the past my history and then when I got him did you see anything like when you're with now and I mean cuz he was he was doing some of this work he was ago you know what he a lot of people were doing talking about I believe we're not they were talking about 12-steps stuff and in her life but no one knew no one knew how to get at it yeah so it was talked about it was out there but there was no pathway no there which now ins writings are wonderful but they're a little kind of looks like newsfeed there was and there were scandals from the day I came to Christ I mean this is not a new thing of leaders falling and scandals this has been going on 40-plus years time in Christ so this is nothing new and I don't think it's gonna change and those of the unless there's a significant shift in how we do formation and leadership development yeah because it's an inevitable consequence of the pressure of leadership over time and so because there were lots of public scandals and Falls people would talk about it but I remember and I would do whatever was out there you know there was 12-step stuff which is all good but we didn't have a pathway to get at it that was so again it was still thin deep and there probably was worse in theological hanger and my experience like us like actually it begins way back before the pathway is toward spiritual formation and soul care in theology itself like there are some obstacles I think in evangelical theology to robust discipleship in general absolutely and soul formation yes and I would say that we were schooled in the heart of the best of evangelicals I'm not grateful for it I'm super grateful I wouldn't be here for not foolish they came to faith through it and I think about if I was in the you know the or and I you know I'm very ecumenical very committed to learning from the Orthodox Church as well as the Roman Catholic Church and and the new kind of fourth wing of churches flowing out of Africa and Latin America yes and there's a broad church out there and I think it's important we learn from though we need to be learning from the larger church but I am and it's easy to criticize our own tribe and just yeah cut it to shreds at the same time I'm very aware of that two things when God looked at the world he sees the church that he loves the world and he loves his church the whole church and our particular you know I know the the warts of evangelicalism cuz I mean for very very long time but I'm so grateful I would not be sitting here today if some long-haired guys from California yeah did not get out their head not ours okay so talk me into that because you know speaking in like broad strokes and criticisms never helpful in broad strokes but every generation you know has its strengths and weaknesses at a stereotypical level and I'm more aware of my own generations issues than yours but it feels like one of the things that's really rare for somebody your age in their sixties boomer generation came up through evangelicalism this kind of ecumenical wide view of the church you read historically you read catholic protestant african evangelical and you kind of bring all these beautiful streams together into kind of a whole ISM in your view of the soul your view of spirituality I love it that's a little bit more common for a millennial mindset because we grew up in the digital age and urbanization globalization we're used to having friends of other ethnic backgrounds philosophical backgrounds were used to you know spirituality and Christian faith being a minority position as you adopt a little bit more of a minority mentality kind of thing at a religious level but that seems really rare for your generation most of the guys I know who are your age are much more dogmatic you would never quote a Catholic or recommend you know an ancient church father or mother so what I would love to hear how you got from the narrowness of evangelicalism and take that as a good thing we're getting to the wide stream you've not like gone progressive in your theology and then you're very Orthodox but to the wide stream of the kind of ecumenical historic you of the church is that tied into the failure of evangelicalism to transform you at a soul level and your journey into EHS or I'd love to hear like more the autobiography how how did you kind of move into the wider stream and how did you come into what you now call emotionally healthy spirituality well I think the great question and it's a cop I don't think there's one answer for yeah I think it's a very slow nonlinear absolutely so it and I came to Christ and and it's so funny I remember first coming to Christ and a guy handing me a Hal Lindsey book and most people listen II probably have no idea whether there's a lot of nutty Christians around ya always have been you know you have any research history get perspective it's always been the case but I mean I I was in a church for a while where that book was practically Scripture yeah Pope's the Antichrist I guys kept changing yeah but I had the Catholic Church I mean I I was boring to me I got nothing out of it left at twelve thirteen you know and so drunk priest I was an altar boy you know and you know fifth grade and so I you know saw some of the nuttiness and with the Catholic school for 12 years but I I didn't have a chip on my shoulder about it I wasn't like you know this is it was more irrelevant maybe to you yeah it wasn't like I wasn't but II when I came first came to Christ and these you know then I'd meet these folks who grew up in a Protestant church just slam the Catholic Church and I'd be like you know that you just can't generalize everybody like that tonight and I knew some folks who had some real faith within the Catholic Church and I just I just wasn't a I just never bought it oh yeah but I didn't go into it and and I studied like every kind of dogmatic no I think arrogance had the traditions that somehow that never got into you I was a history major and an English major in college so I always studied history loved history and even I think I loved Russian you know literature for example so I knew a lot about those D s key and the Russian Orthodox Church just that's not Christian just from you know reading his works and and so when I came to Christ I was always reading I was a big reader and in diversity within evangelism I've considered a pretty broad movement yeah and really encourages thinking and reading so that was I was good gordon-conwell they spent most of their time I think slamming you know non evangelical doctrines and even very high reformed you know theology five-point Calvinism and and I always rubbed me wrong I'm a just did the the the the battles within the Protestant church within our minions in I just and and reformed folks just just left me dead and I just I just so so I'm reading that my roommate in seminary when I would graduate I felt called to just pastor and leadership thing he fund for her PhD at Princeton and his specialty was Syriac Christianity and so yeah we've been friends for 30 now probably 35 splaying a verses goddess inane serious Syriac syrup from syria the whole history of the church in Syria which is was his PhD work and he was a Missy ologist so just being friends with Molly yes I'm reading everything he's reading a book so his world as a PhD student and a professor and a church historian just was a great broadening experience really gave you access to a whole but it wasn't changing but I was you know I was still very much an evangelical but I was it kept you from some of the dogmatism or anteye there but it wasn't doing this wasn't doing wasn't changing my Lyle stuff but it was good it was like you know it was good and then what the real turning point was again I think once I and the guy I had some courses at Princeton was good to be exposed a lot of main lines you know that was very helpful I called a more liberal stream or passive stream which is good to be in that world a bit and but it was when I planted New Life Fellowship Church in 1987 and did everything I could that I knew of discipleship in formation and I and I really I think I was very well-versed in what was available at the time in yeah evangelical discipleship and in our complex situation here in Queens clearly fell short and it was the gap of effectiveness was so evident I could not deny and then of course in my own life so again a part of so you see it both in the church and in your own life so it's not just like I've been you know transformed at the soul level and everything's humming no but I just need to figure out how to get it into my church it's a both and I was one of the gifts that God brought into my life when I came to Christ in college we got exposed to diversity we were part of the New York New Jersey staff team which was a multiracial staff team so I understand my world was a white world until I came to Christ and all of a sudden I mean now this multiracial world and so it's understood that coming to Christ and bridging racial cultural economic and gender barriers is all one like they were it wasn't a theology which is like this is what it means to be a Christian so I remember like and this is you know decades before the kind of identity politics of today and and even that woke miss you know I mean I mean not decades before these ideas but before they hit mainstream culture and so I'm an I'm under black leadership they're speaking I'm listening they're talking about racism and structural racism and I'm reading Malcolm X and yeah I'm like you know so it's and women struggling with leadership and then men being against it and then their struggle and all that's the sex and dynamics and I was like but in context of 1980s yes here in Queens absolutely and so came on stat so in devar she was it was it was a beginning of really exposing me quickly to these issues which took me out I was not I was never a part of white suburban American Christianity it got it never so when I came to Christ I was in church there on our campus I was involved in African American church then a bilingual church in the inner city so I was always in these fringe churches but do you feel like most of the discipleship stuff in evangelicalism has come out of majority White's absolutely church context well they have the power they have the money it's where it's it's all about power and money so they dominate the publishing business and of large conferences and so yeah I mean it just is what it is and that wasn't your context it wasn't no no it so what happened when I started our church I'm trying to figure out how to do a church to know again I had so this is what year you plant 19 1987 so I had a clear sense of I would well I was graduate Seminary like I was not gonna go to a white suburban area so it wasn't a possibility for me that you know I wanted to plant a church among the working-class poor what to do multiracial and so I had a clear sense from God to come back to New York City quest I was finishing up at Boston at gordon-conwell area and so my wife and I spent a year in Central America learning Spanish yeah and then came back and planted here and we spent a year actually basically volunteering and all Spanish Church here in Queens of probably 300 people 95% illegal folks without papers so we really were immersed in this whole world of folks at that time coming out of a contra war they all Salvador Civil War horrific stories and again wasn't it political just these are people oh yeah and and we were living there important to realize you know I remember the first time coming here it gave me a whole new like vision of who you are what your story is like because my generation we think of urban church planting is like where the cool trick flinters go you know no man like you pick some cool city and I'm not against that I'm integrate city but you go to you know it's super expensive real is that is not your world this is 1987 it's a rough neighborhood you know and so even at the time when I was looking for like money like how do you start a church nobody was even planning a church in Queens but they were even then in the 80s and interested in planning a church in Manhattan right because you could see how you could finance it where it could go is not matter this was the other side of the track so now nobody was coming here and actually I tried to get my friends to move in with me when we started Jerry and I and nobody would come and that's when I realized oh oh I mean I was a big learning moment when pretty much most of my seminary friends and historic Christian friends were going to suburban churches with manses with salaries with some security and we just went a whole nother route but it wasn't what I didn't think was do anything heroic to me was just like I have like this is what God had for us I thought it wasn't gonna question or a choice about it yeah so we moved in here and Jerry comes from a beautiful town in New Jersey so you know it's quite a big shock and we were broke and it was a scratched church plant when we walk in the streets doing evangelism so I think the nature of this church plant what's what the there's been the greatest gift God could have ever given me because remember we serve them when you serve the poor there's their blessing you it's coming back like so our theology and our experience content contextualizing the gospel came out of this soil and the wrestling of oh I've got a Chinese person you know I got different skin colors of all that in America and African Americans here a couple of white people here and this isn't working like this isn't this community thing is not going to happen here there's so much tension and that's when it really hit me that evangelicalism as we presently do discipleship at that time doesn't change people deeply that they're actually gonna change their lives and live here like raise my kids here put my kids in school here oh I'll do it for a year and then I'm gonna move out to the suburbs and my and my tour 2011 you know your job and house and yeah it's a nice internship was a great summer experience but don't this is not my life I mean so that's I realized oh the Great Divide I realized it was a Great Divide of I'll call it white suburban American Christian and I realized it's such a small sliver of the larger Church in the world but it may have power and money but it did not represent what God's doing in the larger world yeah and so what was interesting is so I was buried here in Queens and I think the gift was I just stayed you know just so you're off the map totally if you're not Pete's Gazzara you're just nobody's that what I heard 1987 and through 2003 was in our first book commitment I'd not spoken anywhere I got traveled I'll not forget a the publishers I knew this guy it's on Ervin who knew our story so I'm gonna publish this book sites happy to work on his emotionally Church stuff and yeah whole story and he goes but I want you to know what PD says and he was very Franklin because he was a friend goes Peter you're a nobody they said you're nobody goes you're in Queens nobody knows you nobody knows your church and on it any major platform but we're gonna publish it because I think it's important but don't expect much and so when it first came out the originally featured Steve very honest then he said when we appear of it you know a triangle of a pyramid he goes you're on the bottom so you're not gonna get any money from us and any you know publicity is gonna go out to the bookstores and we'll see what happens this is we bookstores and I didn't speak any because I had no one knew who I was anyway and it sold to 300 copies a month I think you know the first six months and I recall the guy said what happens but to me it was a revelation it came out of a revelation we can go into the story later yeah and I said I don't anyone know why I don't buy it he goes again he said P remember you're just you're no I live in Queens you're not in Manhattan your Queens and then it just starts spreading by word of mouth but it's interesting how and I was okay I always I and I really do consider Queens and to have been one of God's greatest protective gifts for me and I I don't think emotionally healthy discipleship would have emerged it couldn't have emerged outside the soil of our content yeah because it was the crucible of of the gifts of the african-american church through hundreds of years United States which we benefit from the move of the Spirit of God and Latin America yeah you know we benefit from all this global movement of God that would just happen to be here in our context those are working things out I'm also not dealing with some of the battles that you're dealing with and other folks are dealing with near suburban church as folks are going to their vacation homes in the summer nobody's go over vacation home to this summer they don't have vacation homes so it was a gift because it just kept me grounded and rooted I and you weren't gonna you know you weren't gonna build a mega church because you're ham it's not possible it's no such thing and so that whole that whole Idol of you know being somebody of you know having a campus so whatever you know I never go to a conference at Willow Creek you know and whatever you and I'd be like this is just like I don't I know how to talk to here and so we just you know plugged away and got but God met us you know he met her some be here and you're saying not just God met you but actually that the soil the multiracial you know lower socioeconomic poor like that was actually what created it was like what gave birth this milieu was what gave birth to emotion of his spirituality absolutely I think it's interesting you know I had I would imagine you get this but your work around emotional spirituality has had dramatic effect not just on our church and our leadership team but I mean personally so we you know hack all of your stuff and quote you all the time and and steal from you all the time and advocate for so many of those things and as a general rule our church is just you know 110% and and so grateful for you for your work and your team but there's always that you know strong vocal minority that is actually a little bit hostile to the ideas of emotional health or at least several of them and there's like this inner kind of defense mechanism you know and I was in an interesting hostile but interesting chat with somebody recently and it was kind of that knee-jerk you know defensive because I think when you talk about emotionally healthy spirituality many people know it got level I'm not emotionally healthy you know I mean and I'm not living into a lot of this stuff and it would require a dramatic change at least at some level of my life my rule of law all of that kind of stuff my value my theology even and so this wonderful person that I love and respect but a little bit of that gut reaction and this person said well you know emotional heavy spirituality is only for people of privilege and this was a very privileged person that said it to me and I have Hots interesting emotionally healthy spirituality is only for people of privilege it was kind of like well people real day-to-day life like don't have time for all this kind of stuff and can't do this kind of stuff and then coming here it was so fascinating like nobody would ever use their word privilege about your neighborhood you know no I mean that as a pejorative at all but like this is not this is the antithesis of that and this is the soil that came out of not people going away to summer as a verb in the Hamptons and do their genogram on the beach and get a spiritual director for $100 an hour or way this is not that world yeah this is working-class immigrant community on the streets you know just trying to make it work in Queens New York and that's the soil so yeah I mean I would love to hear one what you think about that criticism this is for people of privilege and to like I want to hear just tell us that doesn't have to be the long version but the 1987 I planted to 2003 the book came out like that journey yeah I don't have anything to say to that person who said if you like I don't know I don't know it was like that's not true that yeah I mean it's just yeah I don't get that one yeah it seems so absurd anyway but for me very quickly a 1987 to 92 93 we're planting multiple choice at this point we have probably four or five churches going on the the Central Church I'm doing English and Spanish one church and two languages and the Spanish Church has a split about 200 people leave to go down the street plan another Church it's an unhealthy thing you know we're doing everything is the anointing the power of God you know at this point I'm I'm open everything I'm yeah it's a charismatic expression absolutely absolutely and that time yet John Wimber was stole a lie floating around was finds and wonders prophetic stuff everywhere but I found myself in a my own crisis just you know emotionally as I was an emotional person like I was I was angry I was furious wanted to kill this guy and for splitting off and didn't know what to do with all this rage probably goes all the way back to your family of origin oh yeah as a in your body and you understand this is 1992 I haven't thought about my family of origin stuff yeah 20 ever ever so I mean I'm a new creation why would I think about that exactly yeah and then might and then I'm also exhausted and tired you know just going so hard and the joy of Jesus so much of that it dissipated I still love Jesus and faithful but it was hard yeah it was heavy and then Jerry was unhappy my wife the marriage my marriage for us is so essential because the marriage was very not we love each other but it was difficult it and it just about ended your ministry yeah oh absolutely I mean shows the story that like she quitted Church right I was worried Jerry was you know she would drop little bombs like hey it'd be easier to be single gonna be married to you because the least you'd have to take the kids on the weekends that kind of course I I never heard her very much it's funny I believe that you can believe things I believe in women leadership and all that but I I'm still macho yeah Italian and but I couldn't see it so she was dropping hints and then she so 1994 with his church split now I'm starting to crumble internally she's still complaining I start therapy which I start feeling which I chat down my feelings as a young kid very young kid in the midst of beatings because if you feel and you're being abused you'll die you sure you have to shut down the problem is I was now in my mid-30s and I'm still shut down so hmm I'm still living out of that and so now and the pain is so great I go to therapy I'm starting to feel I can't help it someone says you're allowed to feel and now I just explode because I think of you as as a feeler no in a healthy way like you're into no I was I was not at that I prided myself on being a solid guys that never got shaken like all you guys up and down like a weak man with prayer and the word you'd be steady all right yeah thought I bet anger came out a rage when it finally came out rage came out murder comes like I didn't know it was in yeah and but it was all they're going way back yeah and so that in 1994 I begin this kind of inward journey I call it interior life and again I'm always reading monastics I'm reading I listen I went back and saw some of my sermons I was preaching stuff I just wasn't I just it didn't connect yeah he just was heavy you know so I'm reading about Anthony of athenais shoes and Benedict's rule and all that but it wasn't so in me there was this longing for something outside but and I was lots of reading and study and I'm touching on it it's but nothing's in there was it sharp enough in your mind like would you have said it by then how you say it now like evangelical discipleship is not working no no no it wasn't doing something it wasn't that clear I'm thinking something's wrong with me I'm the problem I'm doing something wrong I figure out the right formula falling apart you know and but I go to I'm cursing it now I start cursing in 94 that was a new thing like cursing as a Christian I remember I have such a vivid memory this famous pastor I'm with and I start cursing in front of him and and he just like flipped out on me like wow oh my gosh you know and but I'm just I'm so I'm broken I'm yeah you're right I'm just like I'm like crying out for helping and he just says whoa man you're in trouble oh man how old are you now you're 30 35 36 37 and I'm good well I mean you're in trouble like this guy's like supposed to be like this pity me of wisdom and I'm like oh you're really discerning like I'm sure that's nothing for me yeah like I was like I and what shocked me was there was not help in my tradition that yeah like I was like oh god like now really it wasn't like I go here no there was no way I got that okay so I'm going I'm going on Christian counseling a first counselor I go to is a guy who was a pastor who quit the faith completely yeah and he's basically trying to get me to leave the faith and I'm like this is not hopefully so I don't want to leave the fate I have no desire to leave the faith but I realize he has another agenda so that was here's a guy helping me to learn to feel but who actually as he's trying to help me feel wants me also to quit pastoring yeah and I said God isn't there someone else you know yeah so make a long story short we did I I'm just kind of two-year journey I'm working on myself trying to put pieces together where I start learning about laments and family of are John reading this I'm reading books I'm reading Friedman I'm reading stuff books we're a big part of it they were absolutely and but in terms of Christians like I'm not like there's nobody I'm talking to I don't know who to talk to and I read like there was a book called healing of damaged emotions at the time by Siemens was it good SoDo his stuff out there and I read some have step stuff you know and I went to a couple 12-step mean I related to all the all the alcohol is I'm like I'm I'm an addict absolutely count me yeah who knows of what I'm active everything you know I wasn't doing any any theology of it I'm just so broken at this point yeah I'm just like oh god help me you know and I number four after it get quit your church no no she doesn't quit you 94-96 a month or journey I'm like but I'm not really like taking the church for I'm like I'm pastoring I'm being faithful but I'm like internally rustling what so would you say this is like the beginning of kind of the inner journey 94 it was two years before then Jerry 96 Jerry says benign it was January 2nd she says to me I quit I'm not going to church anymore and I'm going to them another church and she wasn't leaving me but she says you basically in so many words you don't have the courage to confront the people here that need to be confronted because you're afraid they'll leave the church and you're still recovering from the 200 people have left two years ago so I'm not gonna sit in the first row as if everything's fine I'm leaving I quit that was the bomb Wow and so that's what got us to go away for a week to you know you have these two folks and two PhD therapists and that's when it all came together to me that kind of two year previous that I was an emotional infant leading a church yeah and that my disciple she was so inadequate so in your language you are spiritually quote mature but emotionally it's an infant so there was so much stuff untouched by Jesus inside of him either and it was wreaking havoc in your church and leadership in my purse in my marriage in my parenting in I walk with Jesus everything Church lead I mean the chaos of the church was not the church it was me it was inside of me simply now reflected outside so you're saying as the leaders go so goes the church which is that original to you I mean you're the only person I've ever met mature from yeah I don't know so I'm guessing it comes out of a cat experience I saw the church reflected my family of origin and my unresolved stuff it was WOW and it was a it was embarrassing I was so embarrassed like we do conflict when my family did it we do relationships like my family did it we do marriages doing my family to do this and we're growing people coming to Christ people getting healed and straight stuff is happening and we're this multiracial Church and fragile but we're multiracial and it looks so great on the outside especially on Sundays have you show up on a Sunday oh my god what an anointing year yeah it's charismatic there's passion is you white folk coming from them you know how excited be like oh my gosh missiny this is amazing in the inner city of New York and but I knew it's hell after the service is over I know that it's all it looks good and and that then I also realized the whole judgments that people are making externally are just totally external and mean nothing yeah so when Jerry quits that's when I realize I called my second conversion and I realized that emotional health and spiritual maturity can't be separated but I don't have a theology for it I just know what experiencial yeah I also know about lead out of your marriage I don't know I just knew it mm-hmm and that we were married and that if it didn't work in our marriage that we can't go on like in other words I said to her at that point in January I said Jerry if at any point you feel like I'm putting this church first and your second you know Jesus and you know in our marriage yeah if you feel like it's not for us I will resign and I meant it I'll resign we'll go do something else but it's not the church's issue it's my issue yeah I don't have the ability to set proper boundaries and so leading out of our marriage became like paramount for us from day one but again understand we doll of a theology we just knew God had brought us into this experience so then at that point I start going back to my professors and at gordon-conwell or Princeton oh well Princeton tough and I've got a demon doctor ministry and marriage and family out of Eastern University and so I'm now doing Theo we'll work about how did I get here how did this happen theologically because yeah like yourself I'm a pastor theologically grounded I'm not into you know motion the idea of a motion sounded so twerpy psychologizing the gospel lose so much suspicion yes how bad it was like you know Pete went off the deep end and what happened to him and I mean even my younger than you by a couple decades and I grew up in a church culture where therapy for example was right up there with like Satanism and secular music I'm yeah you know I mean therapy and particularly for a pastor therapy was a sign of failure it was what you got after the affair or something like that there was zero and I understand like a suspicion of Freudian therapy or like your like therapy is toxic and dangerous when it's done either badly or not from the perspective of Jesus but it's fascinating there's just there's actually like a hostility toward absolutely interwork therapy soul care emotions so the beautiful thing is we were in this cocoon called The Life Fellowship Church in Queens where like people very open yeah and so that's interesting because we I'm shocked too how much we get away with back home like one of my driving passions is that psychology spirituality biblical theology you know prior to the Enlightenment were not separate disciplines and the priest you know was the the curate the cure of souls the care of souls he was the expert in the inner life of the soul and the Enlightenment you know those became separate sub disciplines and psychology was farmed out to a secular you know evolution Darwinian evolutionary Freudian perspective and we gave the soul over to people that don't have a view of spirituality and think you're an animal you know so it's like don't get whoever you give the soul to don't get the soul to that and I'm really grateful for some of the you know more scientific work done in that and the soft sciences but all that to say I wonder like we're up in Portland in Pacific Northwest you know we're like so far from mainstream Christian cultures so far from evangelicalism you know tiny fraction of our city is following Jesus I'm a reliable number but you know way more dogs than followers of Jesus in our city you know but in our authority in our in our defense there are dogs in Portland but I actually sometimes think that being so far off the map has been such a gift because I don't have to deal with all the anger and suspicion and hostility you know I mean from the Christian tradition I'm able to pursue I think a more broad holistic view that it's so Orthodox at a theological level but it's open to new ideas without getting all sorts of pushback I like so I wonder if you had a somewhat similar experience well we've only been out here a lot of folks come out of legalistic storefront churches yeah so I remember costal kind of yeah yeah so so I remember when Jerry and I what are our commitments we came back from our we took a few months to get ourselves together and came back to new life in 1996 from a little sabbatical our first sabbatical and we made a commitment we weren't gonna we weren't gonna lie anymore it's like we're gonna be that was a gigantic leap yeah we were gonna lie to each other cuz we lied to each other a lot or an honest but we're feeling and thinking you don't mean lie like you know not tell the truth about how many glasses of wine you had or whatever you mean lie about just life how are you sure you but how are you actually doing yeah my upset with you no I'm fine no you know when inside you're seething I'm falling apart I'm gonna say to people I'm not doing well yeah you know so that was and like so I began to lead out of my brokenness that was gigantic to do that and that was like I wasn't gonna lie by saying up from preaching on whatever the topic might be marriage I'm gonna well I'm gonna telling the whole church about our marriage falling apart and we began to run these one-day seminars for marriages in our church because we had discovered least talking to each other just what we call incarnation listening today we discovered a very simple like speaking clearly and honestly and respectfully to each other and listening entering each other's world and a basic little skill and we would go away for the day and tell our story so you know our story of our marriage and teach people one skill like three times right the same skill and I don't forget the first time we did it and we told the story of our marriage falling apart whatever and a woman rather the church just ran out and I and I said to her well what happened she was I've never seen a naked pastor before I guess I was so afraid yeah I think what happened was like we the emperor has no clothes like yeah yeah they don't have any and it just shouldn't Mirage ship to turn down it should and but I did go after the folks who I would consider who were self-righteous judgmental pompous you know like the religious I want they want to call him but folks we're not open to being vulnerable and broken mm-hmm and slowly began to confront that and that was because I was okay if you we were okay to everybody left the church we came back everything's on the table you're like lying and we were on a journey of this authentic and and loving well was it was a hype was super if you weren't a loving person we made the connection of loving God and loving others are inseparable and you did the relationships course yeah we began to work in media and how do we decide what people and loving because people are not most Christians are not very good at loving yeah because we don't do we don't disciple people in loving so that became like the degree to which you love God love other people is a degree which you love God like that is that connected thing was huge and so I began to ask some people to get off the leadership mm-hmm if you're you know the state of your marriage became very important and at the same time now I'm going back to my professors about how do I got here and it's where the word emotional health came in which was yeah it came out of a professor that I had a was this Augustinians scholar professor at Princeton and at a whole course in him and remember him referring to Protestants as neoplatonist going back to Augustine and I went back that's it help me I say like what you meant by that and him did another professor at Eastern talked about what it means the made the image of God different aspects of us that image bearing and that there's a relational aspect or relational beings and were spiritual beings we have the ability to commune with God we're intellectual beings we have a mind think like God things were social beings and we're also ocean all beings and God feels we feel and so if you didn't do formation he said you've got to do formation of a whole person yeah not just the man physical or yeah we were heavy on the mind I'll be localism and so I said in 96 I'm gonna my lifework it's gonna be what does it mean in that sect and because there's not really parts there really aspect because in the Hebrew sense were whole people yeah but separated and many reasons over church history thousands of years and actually it goes back to Augustine and then the Reformation how we just avoided formation of that emotional aspect and so what I began to do in any Sikh was saying how do we get at that aspect what I'm going to keep to what we're doing you know everything else we're doing in terms of scripture and evangelism and serving the poor and all that yeah we're but we're gonna go after this and so that's what we gonna develop all that stuff but it was a theological journey even leading out of your mat wears marriage and sexuality fit into spirituality and I went for a doctorate marriage and family and and see this what took me out of our tradition because it really took me I was I'm saying well the Protestant tradition doesn't have a lot to say about this and but some Catholics over here are talking about this and then the whole thing broke open in 2003 when I took a contemplative sabbatical and spent four months visiting monasteries Jerry and I and this is what you call your third conversion conversion and just living so the first conversion is kind of toward emotional how first was coming to Christ if first is sorry the second is emotional how motional house yeah and that's what family of large and genogram all that stuff emotionally the relationship skills all kind of psychological side of some yeah I never you know it's funny I but yeah yes yes not that's not your language but yes but but yeah drawing a lot from the social science disciplines about but I was trying to work out how do you love how do you yes disciple people in loving and then and that for me was that's like when everything clicked from me with the emotional health stuff is it hit me because it's a lot of work ironically you know a lot and and it gets harder before it gets better you know and it's so worth it but what clicked for me was how emotional health isn't just about me feeling better it's not just me about me becoming less stressed out or a happier person or more chillax like the whole thing is about love you can't be emotionally unhealthy and loving to the degree that you want no to the degree that you are emotionally healthy with all that you mean by that is the degree to which you have the capacity to love in the way of joy that for me clicked every that's like the strongest apologetic I think there's more emotional health is if everybody agrees that Jesus said the whole thing's about love love God with all your heart soul mind and strength whole person right and love neighbor as self and you cannot do that if you are an emotional I think for me it clicked in 2003 it what made Jesus oh distinct from the religious leaders of his day was he made that connection with people that they just couldn't see it and whether they want say what's the great commandment they said where's the greatest command what they wanted one he refused to give them one he gave him to love God and love interesting you know he refused to give them just one they said what's the greatest commandment singular and he gave two he said they're both inseparable loving hug loving people and then remember the story of Matthew's house and he's criticizing him for eating with tax collection of sinners and he says you don't get it I desire mercy not sacrificing to me as Hosea because you're not getting it and then even in a Sermon on the Mount when he says you know leave your gift if your brother's angry at you leave y'all to go get reconciled rabbis that time taught know if your brother's anger you finish your worship then go get reconciled Jesus said no no no get reconcile then come back and worship so he he kept flipping things yes okay clear emphases they couldn't see it and so I really I saw it was like oh my gosh it's so obvious once you see oh yeah oh my gosh I said why is it that I've been a Christian out all these decades seminary best leadership conferences this was never the thrust of becoming a loving patty become a loving which takes you back to your family of origin takes you back to G you know genogram stuff and brokenness I mean there's a lot does a tremendous amount to learn just like want to learn about prayer and worship and fellowship and all its if we teach in our churches but if you look at the weight of what we teaching it's almost all loving God me and God me and God I know but you're still a jerk okay you're still defensive you're still in that plays to the hyper individualism of American culture thought about that and so we're done interesting I got ahold of this obscure kind of academic article it's a couple decades old now from Willard on the history of discipleship in evangelicalism and he goes all the way back to Luther so starts evangelicalism apparently you know Luther was the first one who used that language in German of course from which evangelicalism comes and it's much broader in it originally but then this was since traces it through and then specifically since World War two Billy Graham and just makes that you know make some some very fascinating and connect the dots about why there's never been robust discipleship in evangelicalism you know and Willard was a quasi evangelical so he's saying that from the inside you know yeah but he made the obvious statement that sense and a lot of it for Willard is connected to soteriology or your doctrine and salvation and what you think salvation is if you think salvation is a primarily legal guilt innocence go to heaven when you die thing that's a radically different view of salvation I think than what we find in the pages the New Testament but if that's your frame then you have a very different emphasis and Willard just pointed out that especially since world war two which is more how a lot of us you know think of evangelicalism kind of world war two up until you know its demise the last five years or whatever is the emphasis has all been on conversion like how do you get people in so the whole going equal to the navigators as the primary discipleship thing that came in behind you know the lis crammed and he's he's not a critic he like he I think he's a fan of that leaders of the navigators but at one point he says that their Christ like in spite of their structure not because their structure but he just said even that the point of discipleship was to get people ready for winning souls so the whole emphasis was on you know and look at your story you like you're out preaching on the streets the whole emphasis was you get people out preaching the gospel and again he's not saying that's bad but that created a world where the emphasis was not on how do I become even like Christ much less how do I become a loving person yeah toward God and toward others and everybody would have said yes of course love matters of course we want to become a loving person but that's not the thrust of like this whole thing is about how we become loving people and discipleship to choose us and so the I think the key and you've done this you know and your work at a church it's combining both the contemplative the riches for me it's not just spiritual disciplines and I think prior to my 2003 experience of actually entering to the experience of different minister monasteries Orthodox Roman Catholic and and Protestant and actually experiencing the silence and the solitude and the Sabbath and as I was just telling my daughter we were on vacation together our 24 year old about we actually considered joining a monastery after our sabbatical we actually wonder if God was calling us out of New York yeah we're looking for monastic order that took families yeah and we were that we have been that impacted by our over activity and what come alive in us in just a silence and stillness but it's the combination of the emotional health peace which as you know is its own universe it's so massive yeah with the riches of monastic spirituality and which is what makes it different than just Christian psychology or whatever like yeah it's leading you into this deep place with because Social Sciences are gonna come and go yes scripture doesn't revelation from God does not and so but the social sciences can offer us a gift along the way always understanding their tentativeness that new stuffs can emerge that was an attachment theory or whatever it's all helpful in amends it to see things but we don't it's not the same level as talking about a revelation from God of who he is in Jesus and his love of the world and but we can draw some we can draw some from that as lumens you know scripture the soul I mean psychologies from psyche the Greek word for soul so there's stuff we can steal from it yeah but there's a much more ancient tradition so it's the two things together to me that's that's the punch and that's the one up we and that's your third conversion so second conversion is emotional emotional health that you can't separate spiritual maturity from emotional maturity yeah third conversion is a number of years later which is your foray into the contemplative monastic slow down quiet stillness spirituality that opened up a whole nother world and that really took us into the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Church world I'm talking about now the again the Orthodox churches think of that from whether it's the Greek Orthodox Church the Syrian Orthodox Church the cop - Russian I mean you know the those who were from the north of Iraq and is that because you know Protestants obviously shut down all the monasteries and so we've never had a stick movement really inside Protestantism is that why yes because and and then you go back to the roots of why we shut it down and that not make sense yeah there were a lot of ranches yet reaction bad theology abuses of it yeah and so we threw the baby out Martin Luther and company god bless them through the baby out with the bathwater so understand I was always studying church history and reading but now I went to a hole at a level of of the of the splits and looking at the Protestant church which has lots of splits in realizing okay what what are some lessons here yeah and it was a hold of the world that opened up while remaining evangelical and I'm grateful for my tradition and it just opened up it's just a whole nother world and again it's still opening up I still like Jerry and I yeah growing we're learning we're we're on such a growth curve now in our lives and you know I as you get older you know it's you're getting to know yourself much more deeply that's why aging is such a gift and you're seeing things more clearly deeply in your in yourself so when I read that book educated and she talked about herself and and because she was at Oxford at the time and she felt like an imposter because she knew where she came from yeah and and no matter what the professor said to it she's like I still feel rotten on the inside yeah and I just read that I was reading a pleasure bling on the beach and I mean God just came to me Wow and I said that's a great expression for my own it's just illumined yes that's how I have felt about myself I was like I don't belong here for something a taxi as an adult going through a speaking engagement therefore again I feel like I'm gonna back at at acts like I'm being driven by somebody like I don't deserve to be driven by somebody yeah where does something like that come from but as you get older again it just ended it again it opens up the grace of God the love of God and I mean okay our understanding of who God is and how he sees the world yeah just continues to expand and deepen and I just can't imagine if God gives us you know twenty years thirty years of life like how much we got for us and so I think it just opened up the journey I think because I have so many questions I want to ask we're not gonna have enough time but before we kind of start to work through implications what's that do use one of those I love is even by the time your learning and your journey comes to like a clear you know synthesis that's a book or a podcast or a conversation we're the beneficiary of you know decades often or years of you reading and thinking and half the time I'm sure you just felt confused and trying to work it out you know as you know so it sounds far more clear and linear you know on the on hindsight but do you have any is there a fourth conversion that you're in or see on the horizon or like what do you think is next for you from your beautiful evangelical theological charismatic roots to emotional health to the contemplative or slow down spirituality what's next on the horizon I well I did have a fourth conversion which I called my leadership conversion in 2007 which was applying all this material to leading a large church got it and I wasn't I had not been doing that right come on you're greedy with the conversion so now I'm asking you about a fifth yeah yeah I don't know I don't know I just know we're on a growth curve journey and I feel like things are getting clearer and more fuzzy at the same time yeah I don't know I don't know where it's all going I I'm seeing I I don't know it seems to me probable something will probably happen again marriage is something obviously very central to us but I don't know you're writing about that now correct not yet almost we will be Susan but want to write about that so it's such a obviously people don't get discipled in marriages and your core discipleship issue if you are married is yeah the core after Jesus so now I don't know I don't know but there's probably pieces of it what it is out there already the global church in the historic church are surely in there yeah I'm just thinking a--probably not on a larger level now that I'm extricated from the day-to-day running of a church and the more having time to think and research and pray and be I just find God coming and somebody come away in so many wonderful ways you're gonna love it gosh so many things I want to ask talk to me about at what point let's begin our foray into this conversation slow down spirituality in your language whatever you want to call it a contemplative life or in my language kind of unhurried whatever when did that come into the picture and what exactly do you mean by that drill down at a kind of from concept to practice alright so the idea of slowing down I've had in my vocabulary since way before I got into emotionally healthy discipleship I would say the journey began when I started to integrate the emotional component into our discipleship because then I allowed myself to feel I paid attention and began to journal and stay with it yeah until you know I'm right gerald about my anger towards my you know mom for example for over two years and got out all my rage my mom without able have a conversation with me to get it out therapy was helpful but I needed a journal so just learning to feel then of course once you start feeling and doing relationships that slows all of life down it's time-consuming in my credibly time consumed additional stuff release none of this is quick so I went to I went to a five and a half day week in 96 just with the emotional integration of stuff doing stuff like genogram learning meaning because you work were working six days I was work space a week six and a half days a week I was just bringing the workaholism of my dad into spirituality yeah and then of course getting reinforced within the eventual whole culture which of course you know killed himself yeah that's give you a raise for doing that absolutely so that really slowed us down that was a in 96 so understand we were we had slowed down and cuz once you start putting if you're married you start putting your marriage first after Jesus that's gonna slow you down so it was very pragmatic you're saying it wasn't some like it was just as of 90 second half new numbers was no longer of concern for me quality was concerned you're driven more by internal metrics than external I wanted you know I one of the great gifts of the church is we are we really are a gift to the world and every person God has a purpose for you God's got a dream for your life it's a seed inside of you that's my be nurtured and water and and I think the communities meant to bring it to fruition so that you can offer that gift to the world so I'm very passionate about God loves the world and he has created people to be a gift to that world out of your story out of your history and so that is our you know that that to me is an overriding gift it's not just you having a good life and it's not just about you it's about God God loves you and me and he loves the world but you are meant to be a gift to the world this is not this is not about your yeah it is and so and love takes time it does so we slow down but then when we encountered silence and stillness and actually living life with monastics that was just you know entering this onion sabbatical you went to him we would say four or five days at a time where was this at well we started with the Trappists in Massachusetts we went to tasting in France I mean know that with the Northumbria and england Nekia medical community and Cape Cod for families some Orthodox community in upstate New York so we did a variety we had a whole layout and but most importantly we entered their rhythms so even we were not at the monasteries we had still had children we sometimes brought them we'd laugh about it they'd laugh about it to this day but we we said monastic fix our prayers in an 8 year olds idea of good time well they'd have been participate but they did that you know taizé was 10 minutes of silence three times a day at a state with four or five thousand other young people and they were there but we we were living officers you know fixed our prayer and large chunks of silence and we just Dobin to the Desert Fathers and and that's when I realized that evangelicalism has always emphasized spiritual disciplines and you'll see that when this Richard foster Dallas Willard and others the emphasis on integrate disciplines and I the revelation for me of the 2003 sabbatical was no that is not enough hmm it is the gift of monasticism and the Desert Fathers that goes back to John the Baptist Elijah Moses the desert that was picked up in monasticism in the early church of fleeth in a desert and drastically changing your whole lifestyle that I'm leaving the world for the sake of the world and my own the idols of my own heart can get cleansed and I can see the idols in the church and in the world clearly but it's a whole I'm leaving the world and I believe in the American church and I think that to me is what happened in 2003 and it was this that's why Jerry and I I think we made us nobody mean leaving the American Church you're still at a church in America yeah but in terms of the culture of yeah I go to church most people go to church because it's gonna make my life better yeah I'll be a better parent I'll be a better single person I'll be happier I've better relationships I'll feel good in worship and yet for the most part my goals and objectives are still the idols are unchallenged in American culture and you know it's almost like a unspoken contract and it's like no we began to invite people to create a desert space to leave the world and what they know as American church and go to Jesus it's a radical calling to Jesus and how is that different than integrating the spiritual disciplines into your life it's taking the riches from the monastic tradition and that to me is what we were doing here and that's why we started to do in our own life almost seeing ourselves as monks like our first calling is psalm 27:4 you know just one thing I ask of the Lord this is what I seek that I'm a yeah welcome house of Lord all the days of my life the gaze upon his beauty at the seek him in his temple I think for so for me at that point my first calling was not to be a pastor not to be a husband or father it was to be a contemplative like David defined as being with Jesus my life is to be with Jesus now and therefore the structure of my life is to be with Jesus so my identity took on a whole new healthy detachment I think from being a pastor from being whatever leader if it doesn't work okay that doesn't have I'm a different I go back to any difference I think of I was really okay like I was so I structured my rule of life began I developed a rule of life and I again out of history of monasticism people are living alone in the desert as Hermits in the second third and fourth centuries they began to form communities because people started doing crazy things at that point in 2003 I dove into people like cassia and been attacked in a church father and they formed communities because ironically so many people kept coming out after those that had left the world yeah dad to learn from them teach me how to pray help me with my soul community started growing up around he's poor Hermits we were just trying to get away from it all something happened in in that three to four month I was four months of a Nicole in 2003 because I don't even know what what it was we were a week of silence with the Trappists living so he's been a whole week in silence you had a monastery am getting a three MJ and I are not talking to the me I'm not talking and God just you know King III know what to say was like I mean they called it infuse infusion infuse the righteousness I don't know but it was like I really felt this call to a monastic life to a point where Jerry and I really did look into monasteries yeah we finished our suppose you have a wife and you have what you live in an urban context and leading the church and I said God you asking me to leave feel I got a heart I'm a monk you know and I really didn't want and we wondered God you asking us to leave New York and I remember you know going to the back to the elders and saying do they have at our church we came back because people don't know what happened like what happened to you that's like I don't know what to tell you but I I can't deny it happened and so I said I will not ruin the church I love our church I said but I'm in this discernment right here is am I supposed to bring this year I don't want to ruin the church now in our case when people thought of me now what did they notice like they just notice you are more detached more like or what was what talk about slowing down now I really slow down yeah I'm supposed to be Taipei community organizing I didn't make it happen if you activity doing and being my now these circles really did get aligned and I was a lot less but I'm still will be packed for the church and got a lot of people here so and a big Community Development Corporation going on it so the question am I gonna still lead this thing and and do I want to lead this thing and then it discernment process was very clear with time God said stay you know work it out here in Queens and Fellowship Church and I remember the head elder saying to me Pete you know just please go slow and you know don't wreck the church and I said I'll do the best I can i I'll go slow you know and I I did all for my resignation I said you know I'm open to resign because I don't want to hurt the church and so they had a discussion because it was that level of an overhaul for you I knew there was no going back and I knew that I was gonna have to bring this to our church and I knew because we were we're pretty large African American contingent here and when people think about monasticism they think of white European medicine which is not where it started I know at all but it was a mindset and I'm like what am I gonna do because monasticism is so tied to a view of white oppression that's where I am I'm not like I'm in a white upper middle class Church in you know Seattle or something where Bay people have studied you know the Renaissance and medieval history and you know African John said I'm at a tough environment here so the beautiful thing is it drove me that's what you behind to drive me to North Africa and Christianity and its Desert Fathers where I realized that were African and again doing some more integration for our context here of this is not a European thing yeah there's actually an African thing that's spread and it's surely you know not an American thing either and I think the radical emphasis on Jesus would you say that you could even argue monasticism started as a way of running away from the Roman Empire and kind of the early imperial power oh yeah not marketing that's the truth into the ethiopian desert and you know well the Desert Fathers came out when the Empire was becoming Christian yeah there was so many Christians in the church now that it was no longer martyrdom yeah one century at Christendom is the it's brand-new there was so much of the world in the chirps that the only way out was to say the church was to flee the desert and as you know a great revival broke out and yes massive and well all the leaders for the first 300 years mostly most than they were they were monastic the theologians were monastic they'd go out to the desert and then they would come back they were prayers they pray their theology was very different than we have today of academic discipline of studying theology so is that integration of praying or theology missional I was just like this is incredible yeah and it just opened up a world to me and then I realize okay there were some real limits into my evangelical protestant mmm-hmm development that really had hurt me and our church and so at that point I was like no we're gonna learn and so I've been on that journey ever since and it's been fantastic and studying history you know historiography how we understand history is so important because it's something that book by uneducated by which at Westover the current name is she talked about how her father taught them a view of history yeah and that's all you knew but it was wrong history yeah and I realized so many people in the church have a wrong no history or just an incredibly narrow view of the church and and it I think is part of our role as pastors and leaders to help them see you know there's a larger story here yeah there's a larger Church it's like when Isis was sweeping the Mideast I don't know how many Christians were actually concerned about like Christians being killed here right now you know in northern Iraq a lot of Christians in Iraq you know and in Syria there were it were and that we care about that yeah even though they're not evangelicals right and that they're real Christians you know syrian Chaldean Christians and you know do things differently than us and the Coptic Christians I got killed on the beach in Libya you know like like they may have funny hats and the patriarchy and all that and not be skinny jeans and smoke machines but like how many folks in our churches are gonna you know their head get cut off for Christ yeah and yet we're making judgments on them because they're not skinny jeans and yeah I mean make judgments based on these narrow views of the church and again how does God see the world how does he not see what's happening in the world so much wider than our lens and so I think we're hurting on the formation of our people by not exposing them to the interests a larger narrative and it's a church history for you is tied to spiritual formation absolutely is that just because it's tied to a more holistic broad soul level experience of discipleship Jesus I would say it's church history and the global church yeah it's both you need both it's and I would say it because it's our genogram journey sounds like you come from a family of origin back generations well we come from a part of a family that's been going on 2,000 years a family is very diverse and to think that you're just ignoring that the riches in the history but everything we believe does then it doesn't question the idols that's fine I mean of you our culture your ethnic experience of church your majority white Protestant that whatever the thing is you know one of the gifts again and one of the gifts of being here at in Queens with 75 plus nations and the church is you see the when you're together or not monocultural you see the every cultures got their idols that they're blind to yeah but when you're all together they become very obvious and so it really helped me see my own idols more clearly and I think it's it really helped the formation here because we had the prism of the global church yeah in a location that caused us cause at least cause me to say aunt Augusta see more clearly there is something called a new family of Jesus there is a theology and it's that new family of Jesus transcends culture race ethnicity class I just I find your eyes this experience so fascinating because you are the most multi-ethnic Church I've ever seen you know we hear a lot about that language but like you're living it you know you walk in the room is like oh there's a white person yeah you know yeah and it's beautiful but yet you are not like the stereotype of the kind of progressive woke whatever a thing is it's very different and very Queen's and very authentic and very honest I some of your language that times is a little bit jarring you're like I've heard you say before we don't do Italian or African or we do new family of Jesus yeah you know and you don't mean we actually do italian-american yeah you know I mean I wouldn't say I'm Rosa John says and we're not first about multiracial Church well first about Jesus we're about Jesus and we're passionate about the person of Jesus that to me is what but for you that's wrapped up in every tribe tongue and nation yes yes it's gonna look differently in different contexts right that is your neighborhood your neighborhood is crazy multi-ethnic I think whether you're living in Wyoming or Nebraska and maybe in a mono cultural environment maybe an all-black african-american environment right or all Chinese environment but you still need that lens of I'm part of a larger whole and you're saying that was a gift even though cuz it brought all this conflict to the surface exposed the idols of every italian-american culture majority white culture Korean culture whatever and gave you this global prism of like what each stream and even each ethnic stream of the church brings to the table I don't think I didn't realize it as clearly I said until we started actually bringing an emotionally discipleship to the larger church yeah and realizing well they're having a hard time with this like this is like and I realized oh this was not formed in a suburban context this was formed in a very different context and so this is gonna be hard for some folks to take but it is a route as you as you are so committed to it's a theological paradigm yes it's a theological lens through which it informs everything life and it's like a blob it just keeps spreading and yeah you know many folks will save API you don't realize initial you get into this that this is gonna impact every part of whatever you think I'll program I did the disciple I did this piece of my life I can evolve it's it's a whole life thing whole soul thing so what I still want to keep coming back you to slow down spirituality but what are dying to ask you this question what do you think aren't only in the spot but so it's fine if you don't have like I don't know it I don't know span what do you think are the theological obstacles for most people and even if not evangelicalism just the Western Protestant tradition what are the theological obstacles or hang-ups that keep people from emotional health contemplative live formation that is a big question like it seems we mentioned earlier you know Willard's answer to that was the soteriology the doctrine of said like what is salvation okay you know so if salvation is like I go from guilty to innocent and I go to heaven when I die if that's the view oka there's a truncated cynical way of saying it but if that's the view of people that obviously is an obstacle to deep inner healing soul work transformation to love you know I'll frame it differently that's a good one I'll frame I wouldn't frame it like that I would say with this win to become to be a Christian is to be a disciple a learner I'm in a school and so I am when I come to Christ for ominous journeyer I receive Christ I become a Christian but I'm a follower I'm a student so I'm learning how do I do life in this new family of Jesus and I'm leaving that destructive parts of my family of origin so you're not just trying to bring Jesus into your socio-economic ethnic this is how I want to live god bless the American Dream you're becoming a student in a whole new way of Jesus your son or daughter and a whole new family and you're coming to church as a student a learner at the whole word disciple is a school where it's a slow where it's not a revival word it's so to be a Christian is to be a disciple and and you're saved by grace absolutely but your follower and so that that's a whole I don't think I mean we'll it might give it a more academic name I would just say it's a misunderstanding of what it means to be a Christian exactly so I say that's that that's the starting point but that was not the case so much here in our context so like people there was a level of commitment that we had here in a place like New York because we were drawing on the riches at a global church we're passionate so there was still a narrowness to it yeah with me so sorry but number one is they were passionate about following Jesus absolutely but their vision of what that meant was was narrow narrow evangelical yeah so but I think wasn't the like consumer sit back like just put a little vanilla in my latte spirituality it was no we're passionate we're following Jesus but the rubric of what that meant was it was just wide enough yes so that is number one I'd say in the larger Holmen people understand now coming to church I'm a follower of Jesus oh that yeah what it means to be a Christian and and that and so that's number one but I think number two then is the second piece I would say is that knowing a second core part with that you've got to go back to go forward yeah that you've got to look at where you come from your family of origin and the negative legacies in particular that you're bringing to the table and where they need to be shifted what they need to be what needs to change here whether how you do relationships how you do anger how you do conflict how you do sexuality how you do money how you do what is success for you and everything falls at the cross everything you know you you die so you can live and so that's the hard work of discipleship and it's intense and and but you've got to be willing to do that kind of work so so you can go forward because out of that God did you got to know yourself you know that you know God it's not it's it's a it's who are you how is God uniquely a major which is purpose for your life so there's a lot of self-reflection in that and you've got it and slow down how do i how do I be with Jesus because the first call is to be with Jesus how do I be with this person called Jesus that I can't see how do I abide in him I don't I pray what is this thing called pray so I've got to get now apprenticed into this world so it's a whole life and I I think what's happened in much of American culture but not just American culture the globe we've exported it globally yeah people just show up to church for it for a a great meeting to get old you know pump which isn't I'm not against the pump in a great worship and all that it's just I've got to do the hard work of just you're not a revivalist and there's a place for that but your heart your deed the evangelism that's the negative of American evangelicals so everyone's praying for revival and I always say that what is that when you're praying for revival what does that mean to you how will you know what does that look like and I think from many people the revival looks like people are on fire for Jesus falling on the floor you know zealous but you could be a zealot you know like where's Jonathan Edwards revival or Charles Finney and they go back American history those revivals if the question is after the refine the question is after the spirit of got falls yeah what's the fruit of that that's that's what matters and I think IIIi don't think many people were praying for revival or thinking through the life change we're looking for which is behind closed doors yeah and are you saying you can be zealous and not be transformed to love totally I was I mean I know lots of people like that I mean it's like you can be reading the Bible day and night and sharing the gospel with everybody that moves and passionate about it and have interceding for revival early morning prayer meetings and be obnoxious defensive and critical not aware of how a father wound or something is giving shape to how you treat other people and don't do feelings mm-hmm relationally cold and so anger comes out and then I'm pretty not even doing that kind of discipleship and so it's like the Pharisees your Jesus said them you go over the seas and you make them twice the son of hell as you are yeah and I think that's what do we what are we after what are we going after and I think I got swept up in my early years at New Life Fellowship I think the traditional revival size conversions which I'm after you know once ya come to Christ because you're not saying it's a bad thing you're just saying what's next not the whole thing if you don't have a rubric yeah it's not the whole package and that's why what you're doing formation and drawing the rich is the best out there in terms of how can we help our people stay angry yes in the world we're living in today which is incredibly challenging just right that's one of the reasons I'm intrigued by monasticism and I think you know in this conversation we're making monasticism sound more positive than it was not read enough I like half of it was like people at deep need of therapy and absolutely introverts who just wanted to be uh you know lots of pop out with there's lots of pathology but this isn't beautiful stuff in it but I'm intrigued by like the Benedictine kind of model of revival obviously they would not have used that language but as the Roman Empire has had it seen it is now it's declined the barbarians come in sack Rome and the Roman Empire is falling apart agustín's writing at a similar time period and revival for them was less about like rah rah rah it was more about how do we create these monastic islands of stability rule of life practice prayer abiding peace as the world is falling into chaos and I wonder if the next revival different than you know a Wesleyan revival or Finney or the Second Great Awakening if it'll be more Benedictine and it would be more about like creating these communities that are kind of quasi monastic communities even in urban context these non-anxious presences in the middle of the world that's just freaking out you know perhaps in our context for sure you know I think you may be around something there they may look different in places like Africa where yes that's 600 plus million Christians south of the Sahara Guatemala's they say half evangelical right now I mean so again we're not the whole church right yes in western secular society of Europe and United States and which feels like it's in decline but that just shows like as I think about as we're in decline I'm thinking through the lens of the Western Church in America and England and you know to me church like that's not the whole church I think of that as the church that's not the church that's like not even the majority of the church it's a minority you know yeah since I say people I don't care where you go to church the question is all you are you nurturing and growing your relation with Jesus so if you show Roman Catholic you're a you know you know Coptic Christian it's fine the point is you're nurturing religion with Jesus you're part of a community or even if you wear skinny jeans it's still okay absolutely anywhere skiing whatever but the point is you're we're not that we are not the whole that's a very big moment yeah say yeah we're not the whole package here okay so coming back around to slow down spirituality in in your language or the connection between hurry busyness speed and deep soul formation what I'm hearing you say am i hearing you right here that the first kind of four way into that was just pragmatic you wanted to start doing work where you prioritize your marriage your family your inner growth loving dealing with your past and your family of origin and your issues with your mom and all of that and that just takes time you just can't do it quick there's no fast like 10 minutes a day kind of thing boom so some of that was just pragmatic and then the second shift was once you began to have this vision of a contemplative you know quasi monastic in a city with the spouse and a family vision where really life was as much about being as it was about doing in your language was built around abiding that was the center and the foundation for everything and there was another step in to slow down spirituality so what I'm hearing yeah absolutely and it's interesting that you noted that one of the first things that came out of that shift in the contemplative in the monastic for you was this different emotional relationship to the church that you were leading and then all the people hearing this our pastors by any stretch but I'd love to hear about that I've been thinking a lot about the Ignatian idea and they she's loyal a founder of Jesuits as you know his idea of indifference which is probably not a great English translation of the Spanish use the Spanish word 16th century indifference kind of makes it sound like I don't care what happens you know and in particular when we think about justice and injustice it's not a great translation but it's you know other people have translated as a detachment you know and his famous line of in his Spiritual Exercises I can't quote it for beta maybe you can but don't set your heart on sickness or health or a long life or short one or poverty or riches but just anything that leads everything what's the line everything has the potential of calling forth God's deeper life in me or something like that and just make your one heart desire and choice that God would bring about his deepening life in me again that's not a verbatim quote yeah you have any anything actually he's that's not his original I'm just going back to altar church again we look at your yes tree you find out oh my god and he's steeped in that or the mother yeah absolutely so this idea of indifference you know or detachment or whatever you want to call it where there's a your identity your self-worth your happiness is not nearly as tied to the circumstances of your life to how New Life Fellowship the church that you're leading goes or how the outcome of your career is or whatever I've been you know I'm nearing 40 now and I'm dealing with that kind of inner shaft and I think I have a paradigm now not from the tradition I grew up and which I'm still very grateful for but from the more historic tradition of the spiritual journey as being in part about a shift in motivation and being less and less motivated by kind of egoistic ambition and more and more motivated by love and not love as defined by a New York or a Portland which is basically desire / lust but love as defined by Jesus agape like - will the good of another ahead of your own out of a decision at the heart to delight you know and that's been a fascinating shift and when I say shift it's not like I am now motivated by love and all I do I just am now aware of that spiritual journey and feel like I'm moving but it's been really interesting I was chatting to a good friend of mine who just turned 40 as well or both pastors of churches in Peru got some secular cities we've both been on this journey of kind of inner shift and motivation and I don't want to get into my like turn you into my personal therapist now but it's been really interesting it's been actually a lot harder for us to motivate ourselves to work we actually feel more I feel more free than I ever have from like the need for our church to go a certain way or a book to sell a certain thing or people to think a certain thing about me I feel more free more indifferent more than - more joyful more peace more calm in my own body than I ever have but it's interesting I don't I have less and less is still there but I have less and less of that egoistic kind of ambition Drive and I realize so much of my life and work was really rooted in that drive like ego ambition external metrics for success I want people to think well of me I think I'm smart or cool or successful I want the church to grow or go well and I would never would have said that and half of it was subconscious you know not all of it though but now as I really have this paradigm for now I want my life just be abiding in Jesus and what I offer is much less but I offer it in love and how do my honest personhood it's been harder for me actually to motivate myself I'm hearing a little bit and that you come back and before you like I'm planning to church I'll give up every thing now you're like I'll quit if you want me to do you want me to stay I got a profound inner shift you know so what is I guess the question in there is that was that your experience and you guys that journey like and you know what does motivation look like decide you let's use the word surrender mm-hmm surrendered and that is language I grew up with you know I surrendered my will to his well one of the reasons silence and stillness is so critical for me is I'm surrendering in silence is stillness of my will to his will which is a slow slow process but when I think of you know as a years progress the deeper unconvinced the more you are with Jesus the more you're able to let go and float down a river so if you as you struggle with ego and my being every more you are with Jesus the more you are able to eat I've done more easily let go and but your stewarding then you're doing things out of a stewardship really out of love the will the good of another isn't yeah I'm just would say but you're doing it for a whole different reason cuz you you listen you're doing this podcast and you know you've got a set of gifts and God's given you a certain platform and hopefully you know your stewarding this to be a blessing and a gift to the church in the world now you say but it's all confused where it's me and God and all that but I would say that where it's confusing I wouldn't I would relax I'm going to get uptight about it yes you're still you're young and but it's an invitation you want to just can it's an invitation to Preston I think more deeply of being with Jesus and over time God will sort that out for you I think he will just sort it out a little it'll God will you can trust God he's gonna bring enough pain and in your life and over time that he'll drive that out of you in time I I you know when in your 30s 30s you know your 20s and 30s and 40s there's definitely you're trying to make a mark you're certain age and yeah it's sometimes folks go through a tremendous amount of pain they can see things more quickly than others in some ways not of suffering you've had enables you to see things more clear yeah so I don't know your full story of suffering and we've got some but I would relax about a Y feeling I want it I want to get rid of all that selfish ambition I want to have a pure heart and all that of course I don't know how but I want to see God the pure heart will see God but I would see it more it's a prompting of the Holy Spirit to say you know be with me but don't get extreme right teenagers get extremely I'm gonna separate my parents I'll move on the other side of the country I mean still you're still emotion yeah yeah so as you get into this the power everything this stuff is very powerful you don't want to send you off on a on an extreme you want to stay anchor here so no you're still your your God's not called you or costs not called me to be her or Carthusian monk alright which are the they're like the SWAT SWAT teams of of monastic so they're living in silence and they only see each other once a week all right yeah and so but now you're called to an active life you're called to why pet Ignatian you're in the world but living some of these monastic riches and rhythms you're at which Thomas Aquinas would say is the most difficult hauling yeah he says right you could be an active person purely active in Temple it if those are easier than being an active a contemplatively so it's easier just to be a busy pastor career lawyer mom dad whatever or a monk out in the desert yes fire Souls then to attempt to live a life around abiding in the middle of a city with a job career church kids all that I was really hard absolutely I was doing meister eckhart 12th century Germany yeah and he's talking to these nuns women who are living in monasteries in Germany at that time and he's telling them that basically you got to get active to follow Jesus you are to contemplative like basically still not retreat behind was and I was it's so interesting so that's the other extreme okay and so I think to walk this out in a midst of Western culture right now what a challenge and that's why because we most of us need to move toward home and I say almost 99% about yeah or two more slow down contemplative life and problems we're not living together we're all living separately and so how do we how do we create in communities where that's actually supported and anchored enough that's why I've always dreamed of like an evangelical monasticism yes I think we need something too I think the early you're not alone we're thinking about that P Greg from 24/7 prayer is actually doing some of this like I think that's the next cut for the church in the West is some kind of domestic monastic order in urban and metropolitan context with local churches and yeah you want that one of the best models to me in the world is the Egyptian Church and if you study them you'll see they've got their local churches and then you've got this desert monasticism going on and they draw from each other yep they feed each other and the monastic will come out from the city to the monastics and the monastics come back in for theology leadership it's tremendous you know I there's something there I feel with something there I feel like I've had a vision for it since 2003 since my experience with Trappists and I think we need it I need something that radical that grounding for the future is a place to start maybe around like rule of life and talk to us about that for people that are new to that language what is a rule of life and is that like a way for a community not living under the same roof but in the same neighborhood or part of the city too to begin to move toward this at a very practical level yeah I think again there's applications of the rule of life so yeah let's go back to the original history of it and in the 2nd and 3rd centuries 4th century as they were going out to the desert there was an ephah and the formed communities and so this first fellows name was Paco miyazono if you know the name poco meais and he developed the first rule of life and there's mala by Basel with and where is this I don't know Egypt Egyptian does yes ok I did a horrible life yep of how do we structure you know coming together for you know the Lord's Supper for worship and this is because originally the monastics went out to be alone we were all Hermits but then they ended up kind of forming little communities and they had to figure out how to do it together the problem was people if you read some of the stories of when they were out going out alone some of them went off the deep end yeah it takes tremendous maturity to be a Herman fact we go to monasteries you cannot be they will not let you go alone to be a hermit unless you're very very mature because without some community around it you can easily become imbalanced yeah and so people would do things like jump into wells God's gonna capture me you know then end up dying and yeah the Lord told me to jump into the well you know under feet mental illness at some point so yeah patco meais was the first one developed was called a rule of life and a rule not like we think of do's and don'ts or not rules for life rule singular yeah and as it was a structure was meant to give you a sense of protection covering that you would agree upon and in a sense every monastic order Franciscans Dominicans Ignatian they have a rules a rule of life August in Ian's and actually a local church in some ways a membership if you have something like that it's almost like a we join a local church so they have a way of following Jesus I say right that way and I want to be a part of that and so I saw the Pat when I was experiencing different rules of life in different communities I was like wow okay this this is like a local church in a sense and but I said I saw the value of being clear and conscious about it we are unclear we don't talk about it for me fuzzy come to church tithe go to a small group serve somewhere going a mission trip once every couple of years yeah and that's kind of the rule of life read your Bible in the morning yeah read the Bible morning most don't even do that or read a Christian book every now and that if it's recommended for the pulpit but I said no there's a need for especially in culture we're living much more serious much more intentional and so you know we've experimented a variety of things over the years I moved our membership to a vague kind of a rule of life we're working on this back home right yeah and then but then individuals need a rule of life in the end I saw a ministry called practice in New York they develop a rule of law yeah or redemptive or eight letters so I did a language that was catching on around and people are experimenting with different ways to take some of the riches of that monastic insight and say how can we apply it to today to helping us in our following of Jesus and what are some very practical you know where would you kind of begin you have a couple daughters that are 20 and 30-somethings living in Brooklyn in a city like similar to have Portland kind of contacts whether you live in that context or not what are some very practical kind of categories for a rule of life so I I think you would recommend I took mine out of at a Benedick school mm-hmm many many books have been written out of Benedict's rule which is which is the primary rule of lab used in western monasticism and so there's generally four categories in that rule prayer relationships work and the other one prayer relationships work and grass community and community community okay this way there's a community oh my gosh my mind just went blank boy oh boy do you remember anyway so it's four categories and so I took those four categories and developed a more robust one for leaders that's been my most concern is for pastors and leaders because we don't get it straight on that level the church has lost so we got to develop some kind of modules for that and so I began in 2003 developed a rule of life for myself and which I basically watched every every year a couple times a year Jerry and I would you know redo it yeah and what adjustments we do make probably the biggest help was the boxes were limited and therefore if I was gonna I'm gonna write a book in my work box oh my gosh that I was gonna hit back the other three boxes and what are your fallenness I'm sorry it's prayer rest that's a relationships yeah and work I'm sorry those are the four prayer rest relationships where it goes your four kind of comments come to the bed categories and you could put different ones in different categories depending on how you're built that's not the important thing a poor thing is balance and rhythm the center of that rule is receiving and giving a love of God that's that's a little circle in the middle everything flows out of that how can I create a life where my life is receiving a love of God and giving love God both to God and to others yeah of course I'm receiving it and I'm giving it now to the world then how do I create a schedule a set of practices a structure to make receiving and giving the love of God the access point of my whole life and it's got to be uniquely developed because of your temperament personality your calling in life so first stage of life little kid soon but what are some things that give us some categories at least like I would love to hear practically that you think are true for that the young mom or dad to the single 25 year old to the career lawyer to the unemployed like what what are some basic categories that you think some iteration of you need to find their way into anybody's life in a kind of Western context ok so so let's take the prayer category somewhere in there is honey Scripture mm-hmm how often well I would say I can't I can't legislate it yeah but I would I would say preferably daily in some way that connects with you yeah that you're able to digest this I you know the early church fathers so scripture a sacramental they actually this is unlike any other book this is a they came to experience God visible the invisible this is this is God's coming through this and there's a sacredness to it so it's not the quantity let me redo the Bible in a year which I'm fine if you do that I haven't done it in many many years because I get stopped by it too quickly yeah and but it's where you're meeting God in Scripture so I don't sadhana I'm not meeting goddess tricker I read I get bored okay well I mean yeah that's part of your discipleship now how can i what are some ways I can encounter God in Scripture and that's part of your that's part of your rule of life yeah I'm gonna learn that this year so cyber silence silence silence of stillness I'd make a category yeah I'm not sure just sitting in the quiet learning for God or God and not necessarily reading and learning a podcast saying and listening he was talking about being still before the Lord which is one of the most challenging spiritual disciplines so that's I got to learn that because when we're being stood for the Lord were receiving his love were surrendering our will to his will then I mean to learning to let go yeah I'm abiding I'm being with them just in communion without talking so you don't mean intercessory prayer you're sitting there with a list of 20 people you're praying for and you're reading through the Bible in the air and those are all great things but you just mean literally I'm talking about sitting there and letting God love you yes and loving him back without words just your your being still before the Lord it is one of those Invitational commands in Scripture and it's the move from an immature relationship to God to a more mature one if you're in a relation with someone that's all one way all they do is talk to you I mean it's a very immature relation yeah so if all you do is read the Bible get information or get and if all you ever do is talk it's not a very intimate very immature relationship and I would say most people a very immature relationship with God and so this moved to degrade sound system is a gigantic one very difficult one but once you make it you will never go back oh yeah but it's a difficult that's why for us yeah when we're bringing eh disciple disciple of course the daily office silence is the most challenging piece and so I've been trying to work on how to move people into experience of silence everything in our world spiritually forms us against silence because silence can't be minaton eyes yes Google Facebook Apple there are folks with PhDs working they can't make money off us sitting in silence and letting God love us but they actually lose a lot of the more content and at peace that we become the less money there is to be me and it's not to read it all in capitalism but a lot of its most of its our own stuff but but man I just thought everything spiritually forms us and mitigates against our capacity to just sit in the quiet of God but I'd the more I'm out of the more I'm like that's the tip of the spear yes like that and life and community are like the two like most potent moments from them school of life transformation so what happens if you build some again it may be that you're a mom with two small kids at home or dad with two small kids at home and you're gonna find silence in the back okay and it's not gonna be two hours now it may be minutes but you but you're you're doing it and you're and it over time will spill over to where you're reading a book and like I was reading a book last night I mean a book about this couple and the woman young woman gets cancer and but I mean I just know God spoke to me it was like just touch me about the fragile nosov life in a moment in nanosecond your whole life can change and I just I just had to be still and respond because you know God God comes disguise there's life yeah and I took we just came in that moment to me and I just put the book down and take a few moments oh I said silence just kind of integrating into all of life which is the glass so I would say that's a scripture silence and stillness is a that is pivotal yeah then of course community got a few close friends that you can be honest with ya and surely and then I would say in terms of rest Sabbath I would consider a pillar yeah 24-hour period I feel the same but it's so weird cuz most people don't view it that way they view it as like an optional I really want to enjoy an afternoon no that's a bad that's a that's a weak theology no Sabbath is it that we're talking about something's been around 3,500 years I mean yeah Orthodox Jews I'm understood of richness and power over we evangelicals are just dancing around a bit and I mean you got it it's like anything else you got to dive into it to get the depth I mean yeah and I would say Sabbath is a 24-hour period where you stop you're paid and unpaid work actually rests and the keyboard is too light you experience a delight of gifts of God in the world and people relation whoever it gives you joy and get replenish and and you're sitting you're contemplating or seeing the invisible God in the visible world around you but that that spiritual practice I would consider that's that's a life and death one yeah that's not I mean it's like can you grow as a Christian without okay are you saved by prayer no you say by Bible study no you say by Sabbath no you say by Jesus alone but if you're not praying or reading Scripture probably not but he's not been saving you through the yeah but that's a bad thing the Heartless Sabbath is it such a high I mean I adore it but it's such a high working with people such a high bar of entry like silence is really hard but you can do two minutes of it even a minute you know and you know like that was really hard now got my phone and go about my day and head out the subway or whatever Sabbath is by definition I mean you start where you're at but it is by definition or 24 hour time period actually part of the discipline of what it does to you but I'm not hard if they if you've got someone just kind of coaching you through it with mentoring you through it because we have built in we have so much built in already so I'll say this time let's take an average person probably your church must say they're single all right and you know late 20s or a young couple with small children but you say okay so I'm Saturday and it may be that one of them has a job that's high in high intensity they gotta prepare for it Sunday nights okay listen you're going to church anywhere in Sunday so it's ready but that's built in ok you got so safe sad do Saturday night 6 o'clock so Sunday night six o'clock gives you an hour to work on preparing your Monday but you just say ok that's gonna be a Sabbath to the Lord our God and now if you my brief teaching about say how can we build into life you got two small kids a tyke birds be change who's crying yeah and I get that question all the time the problem and so yeah you're you know you're we're not living in the ideal romantic world we're living in we're not models and again it's the act of contemplative we're trying to figure out how to do it here yes really and again Orthodox Jews we work on this for centuries so it's not new questions but you're gonna go to the soccer game maybe and you got you're not gonna be screaming on the sidelines ain't gonna be relaxed the only kids gonna play in one league not thirty you know or not three traveling to other states I like the kid I talked to the other day what sports do you play and you just said all of that problem how does that work for your family but it's all of they take trial and error over a period of yeah but I think that's again you need models I mean I think people need to talk about it they need it yeah you process it work it out in community and and get some get some nice biblical guide lines again theology becomes very important again yeah not get legalistic and not get this is irrelevant but capture the gold of it which is what Jesus was after in the in the Gospels which is the light is a gift by God for you and again if I can give people a taste of it they will go the taste the good taste will pull them it's like you're a bad person by not 70 but you're missing out of the ghetto we're made for once you start you can't stop you know I mean there's that j-curve thing it gets harder before it's easier but once you get the Sabbath into you and you get into the Sabbath I mean it's like trying to convince people to eat ice cream and a lot of discs and emerge as you're in it and you need someone to talk to about that yeah so I'm hearing Scripture some form of silent stillness community and Sabbath are you're kind of anchor they're pretty anchored from the rule of life this is how I follow Jesus with tons of space for I got three little kids and a one-bedroom apartment or I'm a single person or I'm an empty nester I'm an extrovert and introvert or I'm new to Jesus or I've been at it for 50 years tons of space freedom it's not legalistic it's not prescriptive but these are some basic parameters so I make time for scripture here true I make time for just sitting in the quiet before God receiving his love I make time to live in community in close relationships and I Sabbath I give a day each week to just delight and be delighted in by God and I'm always there's enough space for me to monitor my heart yeah and so for example I'm at a time with Jesus in the morning and I'm in Scripture and I'm had my 20 minutes of silence and then I go out I'm a jerk to my wife you know he isn't that better I realize oh I just missed the point of spiritual practices is like to become a more loving person yeah become more more human not less it's not to hide and so yeah it's easy to get away from it all religion yeah and that's that's such an easy tendency and that's why I'm always monitoring that and and I would say I think you're getting into Ignatian spirituality the whole discerning of consolation and desolations and what is God saying to me how's he coming has he come Addie my emotion melissa airs moly my whole life is one of listening and being before him and seeking to follow his you know his voice and his will not my will yeah and I think that's gonna guide you as you fill out your rule of life dogs am i developing my relationship my children I have two grandchildren now as part of our rule of life and you know Jerry's extended family her mom's dine you for still alive so there are things like vacations I call them longer sabbaticals but probably of sabbatical rhythms at every seven eight years I did take a sabbatical still have another one next year yeah because I got I think photos of us to work occasionally doing this you need some longer chunks to just be so God can replenish the soil to not get paid for following Jesus yeah yeah yeah I wonder in closing as we in this conversation you know you mentioned the role of Sabbath and Simmons and stillness and Ignatian consolation desolation hearing God you know it's funny God doesn't it's in my experience maybe I'm just missing it he doesn't make himself super-easy to hear all of the time I don't get like a bullet point text message or email from him this morning like cool here's your three things go kill it there's a lot of like wrestling and you know what in my heart is the Spirit of God and what is me yeah and what's pain and what suffering is demonic or what's from Jesus or how is Jesus in it wherever it comes from and yes there's a lot of discernment service that goes on and it takes a lot of time yes takes a lot of quiet and it takes a lot of relationships to process like how is God coming to me I wonder if that is at the end of the day part of the slowdown thing you know I mean like God doesn't want to just shout at us I wonder sometimes over the noise of our life like with directions like a coach for a you know soccer team or whatever God our God come on can't go there but there's that intimacy that quiet that soul I mean it has that been your experience a connection to this slow down thing sadly belaying it just learning to hear God that this part of following the crucified Jesus unconvinced is not knowing where you're going Wow and if you look at the story of Jesus and that syrophoenician woman if you know the passage in Matthew what's in it's in mark as well but when she comes Jesus and says you kill my daughter and he goes no you know if I was sent to the wall ship of Israel and so he's kind understanding at that point of you know Father's will is just you know I'm doing Israel then it will feed over to the Gentiles and he basically you know she says no you know he mentioned to hold the dogs you know and the Gentiles referred to his dog yeah fasting says but even the dogs eat the crumbs from the table she says and Jesus realized I mean he's discerning the father's welcomes to him and so he's I mean he's the god man much like the god of garden Gethsemane it's unfolding for him Wow of oh he always wore his daughter because when he does our revival is gonna break up break out him on the Gentiles yes in this area of Tyre and Sudan and so but he he goes through the slowness of a discernment process and most of the Garnica seventy father bill I will let this cup pass from me yeah but he's discerning working through his emotions and feelings but he's in this slow process and discerning the Father's will because he's the god man he's he's showing us what it means to life in the spirit and it's not all you know why is he praying all morning and just know what to do yeah you know waiting on God and he says no but got a leak Capernaum we're leaving the revival and going somewhere else so another City but where'd that come from and I think we're gonna say where it's the same for us it's slow and and I I'm ok Alaba you I'm okay with it I think it's I don't know I I it's normal you're right this whole idea of why didn't just tell me right now but you look at you journal i journaled big I don't journal every day but I journal when God speaks to me something really significant I want to have good and I want to catch trends in my yeah you know time with God and so I look back a few times a year well it's been the last you know six nine months twelve months house cop incoming I then his will gets really clear I'm like amazed it's so obvious now what was not obvious not know you just felt confused and tired and what is this and yeah and like you I'm in the middle of a number of things like I don't know but we'll see right where God takes it but you're just looking for the clarity of like what has got up to and how do I say yesterday I don't need surprises happen does this mean yeah how are you processing that before God absolutely any fan things I thought were true five years ago I don't think it's really worry I thought I knew so much about this and I don't know much about this at all well Pete let me pay the ultimate compliment you inspire me to do less and slow down and waste time with Jesus so to speak it's not that but I'm really grateful we just want to honor you and honor the way that you said yes to Jesus and you could have gone a whole other number of trajectories who knows where you'd be who knows if you would still have a marriage or a family or a character but you know you're in your sixties you've been at this for a very long time in leadership something like as long as I've been alive and you have a good reputation you have a good name I know people who know you who are behind the scenes with Pete's Gazzara who know all the dirt there is to know and they respect you and they love you and they come to you for advice and wisdom and mentorship and that speaks volumes about your character and you're the exact same person when there's a record button on or not on stage often we just honor you and thank you for how God has done this work in you and you said yes and milla I would imagine millions I don't know I just can speak for our church back home and for my wife and I on our community and my friends elite other similar churches and other cities like the role that you have played and invaluable and you gave us something that was not passed down to us from the the church tradition that we came up in and many other things were wonderful things scripture Bible study gospel doctrine beautiful things but what you have passed down to us we will carry for the rest of my life and so thank you for your time I'm honored to be honored thank you for being here and enjoy the coffee thank you can you tell and you just keep pressing on as you contextualize for your generation you ran you're breaking new ground yeah you're gonna pass it on to the folks that follow you as well that's a beautiful thing and I look forward to seeing how God is coming in new ways to you others as you seek to follow Christ and the mr. the challenges facing us yeah so blessings like that's learning a lot from you clean oh my goodness Sal oh thanks feet

Channel: Brian Bull

Views: 9,524

Rating: 4.8248177 out of 5

Keywords: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Peter Scazzero, bridgetown church, bridgetown, john mark comer, interview, Solid Rock, Solid Rock A Jesus Church, Bridgetown, Bridgetown Church, Gospel, John Mark Comer, Portland, dominic done, Oregon, Sermon, Church, Pastor, Calling, identity, jesus, transformation, sermon, bible, kingdom of god, kingdom, god has a name, author, Bridgetown Daily, Emotionally Healthy Church, pete scazzero, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, the ruthless elimination of hurry

Id: yNAqhlcFZfE

Length: 118min 19sec (7099 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 12 2020