John Mark Comer - Liberty University Convocation

I see can we just thank Patrick and hope for leading us so thankful for them good morning alright so we get so many questions they came in yesterday and even this morning and I I wanted to say the you just one quick thing if you're watching and a lot of our students huddle up in their dorms and watch before we even get going we are going to answer every question and so we might not get to your question on stage but we take every one of those questions as a prompting of the Spirit and as an act of courage that you would step out to ask it and so someone from our Shepherd Department will be in touch with you you're not in trouble the opposite all right so we the opposite of that they're gonna get in touch with you and say hey let's grab coffee let's sit down you know let's let's see how we can get further into this because at the end of the day in a few hours gel Mart is gonna get on a plane and go back but these local pastors will be here all right with you and for you and so I know they might not be as cool all right some of them alright some of them I actually are but but but the other day and then my nabhi is like trendy as a communicator for the moment but you need to always allow your local pastors to be the main influencers in your life so that they can be in the long burn all right around you all right and so I say that to say we'll get to all the questions maybe not on stage today first of all thanks for being here you know that's the first thing what an honor yeah and waking up it's the south man it's growing on me waking up sitting outside temperature was perfect it'll be horrible the rest of the day but it was perfect temperature this morning tree it was just beautiful what's the biggest difference like before unit what is the single biggest difference you notice by the way what do you say South this is not a good indication of the south we have 94 nations here we're like Epcot Center all right so like this in Florida but then you go from worlds like that's Liberty all right no one at Liberty is really from Liberty it's like alright so they're probably more people from Portland last night at campus community then that's the size of your local church all right so just know that as you get in what's the biggest noticeable difference right off the bat that you notice when you come to the South versus when you're there but the South in general yeah or Liberty the South in general oh man I don't know that I've spent enough time to give you a clear answer on that one you know Liberty what's that about Liberty Liberty I mean for sure like the main takeaway from spending a day or two with you guys is the culture of Honor and hospitality but I've been around hospitality before and been learning about that and moving into that but the culture of Honor is so I come from such a culture of contempt and disrespect and dishonor and pretentiousness you know and so like the like the simple things the number of people that have said yes sir to me I'm like it's my dad here what is going on you know and it's so honoring that the way that you guys have treated me it was such kindness and even the way people listen to a teaching like leaning for an hour slow to even laughs you know maybe that's just some really not funny but I think there's like you know I mean like I'm come from a culture where it's like yeah I don't know mm-hmm yeah sure maybe you're lame you know and so it's it's I do you need it job openings here or anything I'm sure they'd love for you to take my job all right I'll take that why you're clapping so loudly but that's the main thing that I'm taking away and even taking back home is a conviction I'm inspired by you and I'm convicted by you and the way that you guys model a culture of Honor well God's got you there man so you don't need to be here but while we got you on the hook yeah just promise to come back often and just become family all right we do not love to see jail marked investing in to us whenever he's on the East Coast would be a joy before we start I do just want to add I thought how you said earlier was masterful but back home artifice is a Portland anti-authority thing or a healthy Jesus thing I think it's a little bit of both but we don't call these questions and answers we call them questions and responses or QA are just because I don't have all of the answers and I'm sure many of my answers will be off or a half-truth or missing key ingredients and you're on the fly and you have jet lag and all that stuff and so I'm happy to offer a response you know just from my perspective and that's all it is so take it or leave it but yeah yeah man my mentor told me the best thing I can say to most questions is I don't know you know I've got a guess but you need to go to the Scriptures all right question number one yeah I've been sober for over a year one year and my family won't let me forget the things that I said and did when I was living in this darkness got another student that was in the same world said when he was 16 he had a DUI and so then he's found victory over that God saved them it's not a struggle even in his life but in his hometown it continues to be a joking matter so whenever someone sees like a bottle they're like is it vodka in there you know and he said they don't they don't mean harm they're just joking around but I can't break the curse because even though it's something in my past people keep bringing it up and so another question was in the same vein students said you know every time I do one thing wrong my conversation with my father is all the 50 things I've done I've run wrong so that he completely brings it back up so how do I get over something when every little thing becomes about everything I've ever done and I'm guilty of those it's in my past but it continues to show back up in my front and so some thoughts on that when someone's really not wanting to allow you to put distance and healing between sins you've committed yeah yeah I immediately have three or four things come to mind on that one one is just some of that is just the reality of the human condition and the messiness of relationships Jesus himself had that experience and said a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown that was Jesus experience of his hometown his extended family his neighborhood all of that so some of that just is and I stand in solidarity the other thing I would say is you know the old adage of just outlast your critics and all of us do stupid things when we're young some of us don't stop doing those two things as we age and it takes time often to grow a new reputation a reputation is easily lost and very slowly won and in my experience even through my own autobiography it often takes many many many many years to come into a new reputation I think it's a paul saying timothy as a young man like set an example in faith and love and speech and impurity but in our instant gratification culture we expect people like i know i got a DUI last year but i've been killing it for the last year and I'm at liberty and I'm following Jesus and it's beautiful why can't you all see me now and I'm and I totally understand it's exactly how I would feel too but I do think you know maybe multiply your expectation for how long it will take to earn a new reputation by at least a margin of 10 so you think it'll take a year it will likely take a decade you know and just and but it will give a time just slowly patiently follow Jesus I had a very similar experience even with some of my family of origin and an extended family where there's some some real things in my kind of high school and college years I was just incredibly type-a incredibly intense incredibly perfectionistic had yet to go into a number of the things I've moved into around spiritual formation and Sabbath and soul care and different metrics for what life is all about and slowing down is a very different person than I am now and so for a decade they would make fun of me for being like super intense or too opinionated or whatever when I was by far like for a number of years I was the most relaxed person in my family my family's pretty intense I'm like you should be making fun of my sister or you should be chiding you know my dad or whatever but I was kind of the punching bag and you know that's maybe too melodramatic I have a wonderful family and it was hard for me and I hurt my feelings cuz I'm like man I've changed I've done so much work and I'm not that person anymore and way more relaxed and you aren't you know but it took years and now it's totally gone you know but it took a very long time third thing I would say is you know don't hesitate to just have a kind but and gracious conversation and just say you know mom would you please stop making fun of me for that thing or a friend would you please not I have been sober for a year and that's really important to me and would you honor that year you know just just ask and they're gonna do with that what they will and then the final thing I would say that maybe is the most helpful for a big for me is you know it's that's such a good reminder when people treat you that way now any kind of close relationship that we're in we play a key role where our job is a brother sister son parent community member is to bless people into their future but what our flesh wants to do is show contempt toward people based on their past and so like all of us our flesh is always gonna want to mock somebody tease somebody we see all of the good our mind will more likely gravitate toward the negative and somebody than the positive once we get to know them you know it's the whole is all the neuroscience behind that and how like we gravitate toward negative over positive and so if you're gonna see the good in people you have to intentionally cultivate a mental thought life to see people through that perspective it will not just happen you have to actually go counter the kind of wiring of your brain in your body so all that to say I think it's a really good reminder when people treat you that way we all do the same to other people friends and other and it just leaks out in sarcasm or a chiding joke or making fun of people or or just venting frustration over the 50 things that happen not just the one behavior that we're addressing and it's a good reminder like the power of blessing when you have people from your past or a parent or a mentor a pastor who models that and sadly there's not a lot of them but people that model the power of blessing which is when you speak somebody's destiny into being you call out who they're becoming not who they've been and we all have felt that power and I think when we experience in the language of the Bible cursing rather than blessing it should sober us on our like we can't control what other people do to us but man how do we grow into people of blessing you know yeah just on a practical local level here you're not alone in this and even if you don't get proper treatment elsewhere make sure you're a part of healthy community where you do get so that it's not the only that's not the only thing coming into your ears be a part of healthy places that that don't Shamy you as well so that you have a broader base of people that you're hearing from always remember that cursed people curse people shamed people shame people and so you should see them through the lens of the very dignity that they're not affording you and so just see that person the people that tend to have a really hard time letting me forget my past are the people that have a really hard time letting go of their own and so if you see them to the lens of compassion and dignity and potential Jesus long love your enemy right do the opposite of what you expect because they're often hating you because they've been hate light so you you actually can can see that as an opportunity to say wow they're showing that they have some generational sin and they're coping with it by like ridiculing me for mine but what that tells me is I get an MRI into their world and so man I can maybe be a part of the solution in their life that make sense and so do you see that as an opportunity great great thoughts thank you so much so past that we had a student who said people won't how do I make sure that I don't go the other extreme talking about the knee jerk you know students said his father was an alcoholic he saw the abuse of it and so now he's completely passive you know young lady asked she said I just grew up in a home where no one ever discussed anything so now I just want to like discuss everything and so I'm exhausting to my friends you know and so and so how do you not need jerk in an effort to to correct what was in your past then you saw by then doing just as much damage but it looks very different yeah yeah I don't know other than to say the fact that whoever's asking this question is able to see that about yourself that's I think you're already significantly down the road so where people get in trouble is where they're reacting and the pendulums on the other side and they're blind to it and they just think this is the right way to do it or this is healthy or this is who I am or whatever and so I think you know self-awareness isn't the whole journey but it's like a huge chunk of it and this is where the you know the Christian tradition particular in the contemplative tradition of historic tradition what we would now call different language for this but we would kind of call self-awareness is such a core component of spiritual formation because if you're not aware of the ways that you've been hurt the ways that you operate the relational patterns that are in your body the way that you kind of default to interact with people then again it's gonna sabotage love and so the more aware you are of yourself it's not like a narcissistic thing like it's it's it's paying attention to the way that you're wired the way that you relate the trust issues the any wound you carry anything that's in you in order to let Jesus into that to transform you into a person of love over a lifetime so all that to say I think the fact that you see it you're already well down the path and what I would say I guess maybe this is just be my response is give yourself a lot of time you know change is not only possible but I think the level of change that we have the potential for in the way of Jesus is far greater than most of us realize the caveat to that is for most of us it takes a lot longer than we expect so I think people have too low of expectations on the level of transformation that Jesus has for them and way too high of expectations on how long it will take so we think a little change will happen fast when the reality is I think a lot of change will happen slowly but surely as we follow Jesus over a lifetime last night a sentence that you just a quote from last night here okay you said we can't follow Jesus alone yeah and I think at first glance that's just like Amen hallelujah like there it is but you know we have almost 300 M case your missionary kids alone here then we scholarship we have a lot our missionary kids who aren't on that M K scholarship who come from different contexts we have a brother and sister that are from Siberia for example and so they don't have Christian community and they don't have a youth group and so they the idea that they can't be alone I mean literally if you're in a in a if you're the medical leader in indigenous villages and there's literally no teenagers no one who has commonality with you in Christ or no one's letting you how does that apply that they can't be growing they can't follow Jesus alone but yet that option isn't even given to them you see the tension there yeah speaking of that yeah I mean a couple of things I think first when you talk about community you always have to say there's the ideal of community and then there's the messy reality of what's actually on the table and so when we teach particular like in a sermon format or whatever you lay out kind of the ideal with as much realism as you have time to get in but when you live you don't live in the ideal of community you live in like these are the people I know this is my personality and this is where I live and this is who I have access to is where Bonhoeffer in his book life together which is kind of one of the classic reads on community he wrote after his experience and basically a monastic cohousing community Finken walled under the Nazi Empire you know he has this great paragraph I could not quote it verbatim it's my favorite every time I read that book I just read it recently it's my favorite paragraph in the book where he just talks about how he who loves the ideal of community destroys the community meaning idealism is one of the first things that will just sabotage actual Jesus following community because in community you sin against each other that's part of the thing is for your sin to come out and so there's no community on the on the planet that is ideal every community every community is sub ideal so there's just that you know things of course the ideal is you have this amazing community and you all live together and you're following Jesus and his harmony and love mutual submission and honor and of course that's the ideal very few of us experienced that you know we just have life and this person and this is our reality second thing I'd say is with no disrespect you're not in that situation now like you clearly have Christians around you down you're at Liberty University there are thousands of followers of Jesus around you and so that may have been your past but it doesn't have to be your future third thing I would say is you know you weren't fully alone you had your parents there it sounds like and that sounds still really hard and so I stay I can only imagine what that would have been like for you and I'm sorry and that's part of that's part of your journey and I think part of your story and even watching my son who didn't grow up in Siberia but we're in this super secular City he's over here he doesn't have a doesn't know of a single Christian at his school like not one you know and so I mean imagine going into high school and you don't know a single other follower of Jesus in your entire school there's a loneliness there and he's not in Siberia he's in the middle of a city you know how do you follow Jesus when you know you are literally the only Christian you know at your school there's no Christian club there's no you know to me and so so there's a pain there and I watched that even with my son but I watched the way that he cultivates the community that he can find he doesn't have what I wish he had like two or three mates his age and they're just like we're gonna follow Jesus through our teenage years gonna be amazing but he's doing what he can with his parents with his family with his community you know so going back to the ideal you know idealistically I totally agree that you and I could never do community together you know you and I meaning if you're living in Portland and are living in Virginia absolutely there's stuff you know 2,000 miles between us we might have a friendship totally we might even have kinship and commonality and we might text each other brother a prophetic word for each other you need to be in life to do community we need to be and so I know what you mean idealistically when you say men like this idea of a digital community this idea of I do community online as a church with people I've never met with and it's just very one lane one screen opened up it is so fabricated but do you give firm foundation would you give breathable wall well another way to put it do you give allowance for someone who doesn't have another option gel mark meaning this person there is permanent walls and then there's scaffolding and this person in this season of their life only has the scaffolding of the only teenagers are knowing community are with my laptop open during FaceTime with my three Christian friends that I have and that's all I got so I'm gonna call it community for this season but I know in the trajectory of my life that can't be it yeah so do you give allowance for that for someone who doesn't have another Christian friend anywhere around them or speak into that what do you use of course yeah I mean and that sounds like such a perfect and extreme example if you're a missionary kid in Siberia it sounds like almost a fake scenario you know no mean Siberia then of course absolutely I just think you're talking about for less than 1% but what about what about a middle school kid in Portland who only has there's no Christian friends yeah and in his school he's trying to find and be an athletic community or musical community or be a debate team community speaking to that well there's no Christians at at school but that doesn't mean he doesn't have Christian friends and he's able to connect it might be a really small crew but he's able to connect fine people is able to correct multi-generationally on our church you know Portland some of that's just demographic our church is full of 20-somethings and so it's all these young guys that are kind enough to take him under his wing so I mean yeah my answer to you is yes absolutely I just think most people need to hear the opposite message get off of your phone and your phone and a podcast is not a church and a website it's not a church and move into flesh and blood community yes there are a small minority that absolutely need to get be given freedom permission that's where you're at right now and then I would also say like you know recognize the level of I don't know privileges to load of a word the level of empowerment or whatever that you have to change your situation some people are in a situation like that and they can't change it other people in a situation like that and you actually have the capacity to move or go somewhere else or go to a different scenario you know and so if that's your scenario then then change it you know and/or consider it you know it's really great sometimes I think we have someone come and they make a really great point to the general audience but yeah you want to that oh yeah absolutely I'm always kind of speaking to the general you know the main and I said I think as a general rule most millennial and post millennial people need to move away from digital connectivity right and toward face-to-face flesh and blood and body community the small group of imperfect messy maybe less cool people that they're actually around I think as a general rule that's true are there exceptions to that yes all over not exceptions to Scripture but maybe in in the in the middle of it you you hold fast to the law but you hold fast the spirit of the law you know by which it was expect you know you guys I'm sure look at the way you contextualize the same truth in your in your content in the world and realize that there's things that people are capable of speaking of community and allowing people that you do life with and I know you've done that with your neighborhood your people literally people around you how do you create safe boundaries in that kind of community if you're allowing people in who maybe don't share your Christian convictions whether it's on gender identity or whether it's on certain things you I've watched you with your son you you know a thousand little coaching moments yeah at every turn you know and it's just what a good dad does but at the same time there is a moment where you're putting them in an environment and community where people don't share those same values mm-hmm so give us some insight on allowing people access to your life or allowing those you love that are tender shoots bendable like kids or something yeah you know successes people in community that maybe it might even feel unequally yoked in that sense because they're leaning into something no I mean yeah you have the roots to be able to hang certain things on your life without a bending you as a mature believer yeah when someone's a tender shoot you know yeah they can get toppled over because they're just growing and so speak into that in community explore yeah yeah woman the first thing I would say I mean I'm talking about like community in the way of Jesus so the people that I let into that really tender place of the soul our brothers and sisters in the family so to speak you know not just some random neighbor or whatever but we are trying to create a community with porous boundaries based on hospitality and the gospel of Jesus in our neighborhood and in our city and you know as a parent there's you know as a parent big most grandparents so I'll make this really short but parent big picture you're trying to move a child from in biblical language your rule it's a self rule so you know when it when a kid is to you're literally telling them when they will bathe when they will eat what they will eat when they will go to bed what they will do you know domain like your cleaning up their poop like you you basically rule them and the goal is about time they come away to college they have self rule and like everything from they will brush their teeth in the morning to they will you know follow Jesus and living community and make the decision to live the way of Jesus and you know when kids are in that middle like my wonderful son is like it's this mix like you're it's the slow passing of the baton of like how do I keep giving them more freedom so that they learn self control self mastery self determination and then they abuse it you pull it back and they this is kind of like you know especially with a wonderful boy like mine who's like very type a very go for it and very independence like this is constant you know litigation every day it's exhausting and it's wonderful but that's the goal and so obviously we're parenting goes bad is where people don't tear that journey where parents either give too much freedom or not enough freedom and so you know a lot of parents and particularly on the more progressive permissive side you know the kid by 13 they're like great here's a TV in your room here's an iPhone I mean literally my son you know in sixth grade was the only kid on the bus without an iPhone with full access to everything you know dominus I think that should be illegal you know so no that's not a joke I think that should be illegal like he can't drink he can't like go kill people for the military why would we give him the Internet it's more powerful than any of that you know knowledge is power this is insane so anyway side rant but so neither is the permissive thing like hey just go figure it out and that just destroys kids because kids don't have the capacity to navigate life much less the modern world and digital age but the other one is much more common I think in more conservative cultures and Christian cultures where parents hang on too tight and then all sudden kids go away to college and they have no capacity to like steward this stuff and how do I live with a phone or how do i do my sexuality and how do I follow Jesus when nobody's telling me to you know so all that to say and you don't have kids you can't apply this to your children may be applied to younger siblings or friends you there's nowhere better for Jude to learn how to interact with the secular world than my home and you know so we have lots of neighbors into our home and they're wonderful but there's always the moments where you're like you know like you know the other day my son Moses said to one of our wonderful neighbors that we love do you believe in God and she said I don't believe in God I believe in science so you know there's that kind of little awkward moment there but afterwards it was a great follow-up question our God and science mutually have to talk about all that so are they mutually exclusive you know all that kind of stuff and you know other friends and they were wonderful that are some of our closest secular friends and you know they were talking to the dinner table about how they just bought a Costco bag of condoms for their fifteen-year-old son you know and we're like let's maybe not what we'll give our son for 15 you know his birthday or whatever a Costco bag to not like a you know not like a boutique organic here's three near Moscow yeah oh okay you know and that's a very different worldview you know and so we had a conversation around like what we love about this family and respect this is that really wonderful thing with respect about this family but man how we have a very different view of what sexuality should rather they you'd rather be around your children and let them ask those questions because you're nearby then you'll send them off to college and they have to figure it all out that's right and I just shielded them from it the whole thing so for those of you know our parents I think the way to apply that to yourself is just to really be humble and honest and self-aware about your level of spiritual formation and maturity and and mitigate your mitigate your exposure to people that don't follow Jesus or even other influences online to meet you where your maturity level is at and that's hard to do and that's why you have to do it in communities you see you understand like as the campus pastor here I will meet a student and they are like in biblical knowledge there's they're physically 18 yeah and in their biblical knowledge they're like 25 oh my goodness you sat under dense you know like spiritual maturity but then no but then they might even be a big gone on a lot of mission trips and Kingdom mindset and you just look and then when it comes to like boys you know they're like 11 you know and so they did so it's it's more layered out and so I think a lot of times we just think okay parenting is about policing yes like and then coaching and then releasing but we get students that have been like either over coached or under coached or neglected or babysat with their iPhone it's hard to do like I'm trying so hard to do a good job for my son it every day okay I messed it up you know it's hard so if a student has a real struggle with one region of that one compartment of their life yeah and they're saying when I go to community that compartments just getting fed all the wrong things is it healthy sometimes then to even withdraw from a community that keeps tipping you over you mean a secular community or friendships with like we want our students not to just to be around a bunch of Liberty students where I go out and be a part of it other can but if but every time they go there it just feeds the beast that they're trying to starve I think there's a time for that so one of the things that one of the mistakes I think we make in the in the church particularly those of you that are around churches that have a value for things like mission or missional living or whatever is we forget that there it like just the end goal of discipleship is hospitality Kingdom work evangelism whatever you want to call it not the beginning goal so I think where personal experience opinion here feel free to disagree I think we throw people out too quick and in particular I came up kind of through the missional movement and that became my conviction we lost as many people as we gained and if you look at Jesus first he said come follow me and be with me and these guys would just follow him around and it was years we don't have an exact timeline and because it's the chronology is not clear in the Gospels but it was most likely several years into that apprenticeship to Jesus a full-time 24/7 with Jesus that he said that he sent them out to preach you know and sent them out two by two and the seventy and the towns you know the story it wasn't like day two like gray you came to a seminar we spent a week together and now go out two by two it was like most likely two years in or something like that a full time with Jesus apprenticeship and so I do think in the opinion here I think there is a season of life where you need to incubate in the way of Jesus and in community especially if you didn't grow up in a home that was doing a lot of this work with you when you were in middle school high school if you're if you're newer to this there is absolutely a time where you don't cut yourself off in the world but you incubate in Christian community and become the kind of person who can go out into the world and have you know but the other thing and remember is the digital age makes all of this so messy because there's nowhere to hide anymore you just can't hide and you know even when I travel through the South and you're not you're not the south I'm learning but you know I'm shocked at a generational divide and how you know what used to be the crazy secular progressive post Christian narrative you used to actually have to go to downtown Portland or San Francisco or go live in Manhattan or whatever to experience it now it is all on your front right pocket or in your purse via your phone and so we're just in and with it and now you can curate through alligator algorithms and you know News Agency is another perspective but still this the secular world to see the way that secularism is now encroached into the conservative movement at a political level it's just it's the air we breathe there's no really place to go hide at least if you have access to the Internet and so I think this is work that we have to do of resilience in our discipleship to Jesus one of the most helpful paradigms for me is filip briefs paradigm if you know em sociologists who did the paradigm of pre-christian culture Christian culture and post Christian culture and how the West has moved through all three most cultures moved through all three and he just makes the point and some other miss yalla just that if you're coming from a Christian culture to a pre-christian culture so say you're a missionary to sub-saharan Africa 150 years ago from London then the danger is called that you colonized the people which is what you see you go much of the developing world and you'll be an out being sub-saharan Africa where my daughter's from and you go to church and people are wearing a suit and tie on the freakin equator you know singing hymns in English written by dead white guys from London 150 years ago and you're like that like I love that they're following Jesus and they have enough but that's colonization you're not celebrating the African world and culture and then you go to an indigenous African church and it's like that's fire that's cool you know domain but it's a different thing but in a if you're coming from a Christian NIH's culture like let's say Liberty University to a post Christian culture so let's say you get done here and you move to Portland the danger is the exact opposite the danger is not that you will colonize Portland and everybody will start singing Chris Tomlin songs like that's not going to happen the danger is that you will be colonized it's reverse you know it's what an immigrant faces when they come I think of Zadie Smith's novel white teeth like when an immigrant comes into a host culture how do they possibly keep their family their religious background their ethnic background and not just get swallowed up by the majority culture that we are a minority not an ethnic minority if you're white or whatever but we are a religious moral spiritual minority in our culture so the challenge for all of us in particular as you graduate and move out is how do I create such a robust rule of life and discipleship to Jesus and community that I'm resilient that I can go to a Portland I can go to LA or San Francisco or Dallas or Fort Worth wherever you go and I can have an internet access and a phone and I can still have a resilience and not be colonized and assimilated by secular culture several students very honestly and this is again why it's important that we remind you that every one of these needs a conversation and we'll get one yeah several students were just honest enough to say that even here at Liberty they struggle with finding community because of a particular unique situation in their life so we had a student who says you know I go to when I walk into communities I I sell well in the front end I look like a guy you want to have in your community group but I know to be quiet because if I let the cat out of the bag they realize I'm autistic and then they don't in Christian environments tell me to leave they just don't invite me here to the cookout later you know and one student has tourette and he and he was very honest and saying even in this environment I find it really hard people don't believe me that like some of the things that are happening are out of my control and so speak in to the uniqueness and the opportunities for someone who has Down syndrome someone who has Tourette's to peek into that because I think again I'm not talking to about the person who's there but we're all gonna walk into places where people will have a particular you know issue in their life that they're they're just born with or they're dealing with and they will come with parents so it's not just how do I figure this out with someone who has Down syndrome it's how do I figure this out with the whole family who's exhausted yeah because they're just always having to they never get a break they never get someone to babysit and so you're really ministering to a bigger tribe yeah so speak into that because I think a big part of our opportunity as people as the people of God is to become that resting place for people yeah and sometimes we don't do a good job of that yeah you know we ought to be different but we're not speaking of that yeah I frankly I would rather have you speak to that than me I mean I would just say one I'm so sorry and I can only imagine what that would be like I don't want to sugarcoat that and give you some like here's three ways to fix that problem like that sounds really hard and I'm sorry and are there several autistic people in my extended family and I'm in that dynamic and I could only imagine what that would be like to walk in as a stranger not with like the stability of family around you but just to walk into a room or to be a student at liberty or can only imagine you know I hear that and my mind just goes straight to my responsibility as a follower of Jesus to practice hospitality and create a loving space for people that have some of those issues and are wired different you know some on my mind just goes straight to wow what a good reminder for me when I'm around people that maybe are not normative in that sense man how do I reach out how do I practice law how do I just go do the research of you know like alright how do i how do I love somebody well with Tourette's or whatever it is please put your bridge down pass her head on oh yeah I come to you and I'm you're my pastor and I'm like hey man I've been co-hosting a community group you guys know it's been amazing we've been crushing it it's been awesome yeah yes last night a guy invited his friend his coworker to our community group dude has tourette he hijacked the whole conversation he was all over the place I think we're gonna lose some of these people that have been visiting a couple of times what do i do pastor so walk us through that from a pastoral site how would you coach someone who's seeing that dynamic well I think I mean gosh she would speak better to this than me I would just say well let's go learn about this let's find me let's begin with just education because we don't understand I don't understand that enough yet and so I don't know like I'm not educated on how do you interact in a healthy way it was somebody like that and what is going on in their brain and how do we cultivate empathy so I think step one for me would be let's Google let's call an expert let's find somebody in our church that is in relationship and knows how to do this well and a christ-like and let's get some help because you know hopefully I would be able to give that but I can't on that one so let's go get some help and then let's have an honest conversation and I did anything I know just some relationships in general you have to talk about all the things that you don't want to talk about and everything they hope just goes away it doesn't go away most of the time and so you have to talk about as a community you have to talk about it with this person and and you just have to have those conversations so that's like the hardest part of community and it's how community works and how community lasts but I'd love to hear you speak to that because I think you have more experience in that and experience have brought a range than I do just the nature of Liberty first of all bro I think he said something that's very very key here when you come to your pastor and he doesn't like put his big Authority hat on and he says let's find out more this the the posture of humility for a pastor to go men what a great thing that you're the first I'm so glad that they decided to come the very first conversation that we're having about how to get better at having people belong in our community with let's say Tourette is with you as a leader and it's with me as a pastor because we're both going to commit to sit under the teaching of those who don't deal with this emotionally yeah or uneducated let's go let's go figure this out because you want to actually figure it out yeah because the other solution is not is not an option and so if it's counterintuitive and whereas I've not dealt with that scenario but other similar so I some of it is it's not like what I would imagine right as far as how you interact in a loving way so I think as God gives you new opportunities that are unique you got to go let's figure this out not we're not gonna figure this out how you normally figure it out as you budget for it you staff for it you figure it out then second is another word you use empathy in the meanwhile while we're figuring it out you know if you're a community group leader you have six sidebar conversations with other people that were there hey I know you meant you were very uncomfortable your neck got warm I saw it you know we're sitting there and that person said something thank you thank you for the pause and the maturity showed to not correct what was being said I want to thank you for that let's grab coffee we're both excited aren't we that this person is coming so it might be a lot of sidebar conversations it takes more energy but it's worth it because we want to be the kind of places where people I also love your heart that you would apologize on behalf of others who didn't handle it well that's the first thing you said you know I said man what would you do and you go I'm sorry you felt that way and I think a lot of times people don't want to own something that they didn't do and I want to tell you as your campus pastor if you don't feel like you belong that's on me I've got to do better at equipping the Saints to do the work of ministry and I'm sorry that someone didn't believe you I'm sorry that someone was deaf tone to an eating disorder or someone was deaf tone to a particular thing you're struggling with we got to get better I think we've come a long way but we got a long way to go and these things wake us up that it's still in there still like in the mix you know the sand in the ointment and we got to get better and so we're gonna commit to that last week i sat with several of our students who've dealt with mental health issues yeah and I listen to stories where we did it right as a campus we did it right as individuals and I'm being honest with you I listened the stories where we completely botched it and I listened to stories that felt like that's not fair and I listened to other things but I said oh my goodness we literally out of that meeting met with had other meetings yeah so one student was not treated fairly by their professors when they were going through trauma and we mishandled it so I said an appointment we sat with our provost she told her story and he said this is gonna affect the way that we deal with this moving forward with every student so she's becoming a changer because she was courageous enough to speak and he even said I'm gonna refund you and she said I don't want a refund I wanna I'm looking out for all the ones that are gonna come after me and she wasn't bitter and angry she didn't she didn't like put us in a circle and call us the enemy because we mishandled it and our provost was so shepherding and he has said a lot of the things I saw empathy I saw I'm gonna learn more I'm gonna find out from schools that do it better than us yeah you know and so that posture well I think allow what the enemy means for evil to be turned into good how many of you want to be the place where someone struggling with Tourette belongs I don't want them next semester somewhere else I want them here and so we want to be that then we've got to own that and go what do we do what do we do to get better honestly I want that because I want people to put up with all my junk and all my shortcomings and all my weird peculiarities and so I got tics man you know they might not be as visible right off the bat but I got stuff and I need you to extend a lot of patience with me and so why is it that it's okay for me to extend that no expect that from others but then I'm not willing to be that way towards a you know others myself right man you've been amazing last question yeah all right how can we pray for you and the coma family what is the way we can put you on our list by the way last night you guys gave over $11,000 for bridge towns [Applause] how can we pray for you man I mean honestly I mean it's I mean just pray for a family would be amazing that would be a gift my wife has a chronic illness and she is so wonderful but there's that that we're all processing but I think the main prayer would just be that we're not colonized that we're not assimilated you know by our cultural context but that we stay true and faithful to the way of Jesus and grow more faithful over the years and the decades not less and are more and more transformed into the image of Jesus not deformed into the image of Portland and I want to offer our city an alternative story and so I want my kids to grow up and follow Jesus and a robust thriving Orthodox rooted way in an incredibly hostile secular post-christian culture and I want to model that too so I think honestly the main prayer is that we would not abandon the faith but that God would increase our trust and and root us in fidelity to M Henry I know we're putting you on the spot will you come on up here and pray for John Mark Henry and his family before they came on staff here as one of our best leaders in the world of athletics lived in that area of the world and jean-marc was actually their pastor you know and so when he worked with Nike I think this was who you call pastor it's just great that you get to be here and you know them and know their context we just pray specifically over that for our brother let's put our hands towards him and let's just pray God thanks for the opportunity to be here thanks for the opportunity at Liberty where we can walk in our faith freely I want to pray for the coma family just for that you would encourage them and to build them you just to be a power in Portland and worldwide and I want to pray for Portland specifically my friends and family there that she would continue to surround them with people who are lights and I pray that you would give us the the courage to do that thank you specifically for for John Mark and just the encouragement he was to us today and to to share just realness and authenticity so we just pray your blessings on him and his family their travels and uh just everything that you have for much pray that you continue to lift them up in Jesus name Amen hey we love you thank you so much phenomenal questions you're dismissed see you tomorrow [Applause]

Channel: Liberty University

Views: 7,461

Rating: 4.8297873 out of 5

Keywords: Liberty University, LibertyU, Liberty, Jerry Falwell, John Mark Comer

Id: CZnqdDHBBbE

Length: 46min 37sec (2797 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 16 2019