Pastors In The World

Chris My job is not to try to say, okay, when you’re done with all that stuff, come over here and let me teach you how to do the important things, like parsing Greek verbs and stuff. My job is to teach them how, in everything you do, from your eating and your drinking to everything else — like I tell our youth frequently, how you brush your teeth in the morning is an act of worship. And it must be, or we’re doing it wrong.

Philip All right, welcome to All Are Yours. If you’re not on video, this sounds normal to you; you usually hear my voice somewhere at the beginning. If you are on video, this looks abnormal, because you should be seeing three faces instead of two.

Sean Trifecta.

Philip That’s right. So we have our first guest, who has graced us with his presence. We are really thankful. The man you see here, who also has a beard — so he clearly belongs on this podcast.

Chris Although I see we are arranged in order of glory here, so —

Philip That’s right. There you go.

Sean I don’t know — if I am seeing what the video is going to look like in the end, where I am a big person up at the top, I don’t know what I feel about that.

Chris I have it left to right. And it goes: the real beard, the impressive beard, and then “you tried.”

Philip There you go. Well, I have the editing magic at the end, so I’ll get to decide what order we’re represented in.

Sean Good.

Chris Fantastic. But it is a privilege to be here, whiskers and all.

Philip There you go. So the gentleman that you see, or hear, is the one and only Mr. Chris Martin.

Chris is the eldest son, the eldest child, of Jim Martin, one of the pastors at TEC. So — Sean, have you known Chris since he was like a baby? Is that right?

Sean No, not since a baby.

Chris Since I was very immature.

Sean We have known each other since 2001, at least. You were at the snow retreat when I came that January of 2001, and then I accepted the call to Marysville.

Chris And showcased your singing talents.

Sean Were you a senior at that point?

Chris I think so. I might have been.

Philip Okay. So that was twenty-five, almost, years ago then.

Sean Yep. And then Chris was also — well, because I was the youth pastor at the previous church, and Chris then became my very first ever intern that I had. Did you intern three summers, four summers?

Chris It was multiple summers. It was multiple summers.

Sean I want to say it was at least three.

Chris It was at least four years’ worth of formation.

Sean Okay.

Philip I’d want to say thank you to Chris, because I’ve thought about this before: that if I would have met Sean back then, that might have not lasted very long. And then we would have parted ways and not have gotten a chance to work together. So you were one of the people who kind of —

Sean Took the brunt.

Philip Took the brunt, that’s right.

Sean Exactly.

Chris That’s not how I recall it. But — no, extremely grateful for the impact that Sean has had on me. He’s also had a huge impact as a pastor on my wife, in her spiritual formation. There are Sean Higgins fingerprints on our souls and on my family. So, thank you.

Philip Yeah, Sean’s putting his fingerprints all over the place. His thumb width —

Sean — around their necks.

Chris When necessary, right?

Philip That’s right.

But now Chris is pastoring, shepherding, in — Veradale? Is that the city?

Chris That’s what the cool people call it, yeah. Part of the larger Spokane Valley environs here.

Philip Okay. I wasn’t aware that it actually wasn’t in Spokane; I just assumed it was Spokane. But it’s kind of like, you know, Everett is a part of — so yeah, I understand.

Chris Absolutely.

Philip And you’ve been there since 2010.

Chris Correct.

Philip Yep. And so Chris has been working with middle school and high school students, kind of with the youth there, and has stepped into the primary teaching role at the church as of now as well. And he’s a native of Western Washington, born and raised in Marysville.

Chris You bet. Lake Stevens for five years, and then the rest in Marysville.

Philip There you go. And you grew up in the house that your parents still live in — is that right?

Chris Yes, and it has the scars to prove it.

Philip There you go. All right. Graduate of The Master’s College and Seminary. And with his wife, together they have four children. What are the ages of your kids?

Chris We’ve got fifteen down to one who’s just about to turn twelve tomorrow — well, actually not tomorrow, in two days.

Philip Fifteen to twelve. You have four kids between fifteen and twelve. Okay, there you go.

Chris Yeah, we cheated a little bit. Some of them are biologically impossible, because of adoption.

Philip Oh, that’s how we like it. There you go. Just group them all together.

Chris Absolutely.

Philip Good. Well, so we did want to talk with Chris a little bit about pastoring, shepherding, in different contexts.

I do think that there is some crossover — a lot of crossover — again, apart from even our loyalties being with Marysville. I know, Chris, that your heart is still with us.

Chris I love Marysville. I’m excited to see that there are more and more people who do as well.

Philip That’s right. But so again, that sort of — maybe the roots. They’re not my roots, but they are your roots, and they are my kids’ roots. So I think my love for the place is connected in that way. I moved to Marysville as a destination. I wanted to be here.

Sean So you had no choice.

Philip I chose to be.

Sean Well, Chris actually grew up during a time when there was at least — this is my perspective, Chris, you can obviously then give your perspective — but my perspective was that you would have grown up in a time where the implicit message was that if you were anybody and could do anything, you would get out of Marysville. And only people who couldn’t leave then stayed in Marysville, and therefore it was a launching point for anybody who could get out.

Philip So Chris heard that, and he made use of it.

Sean Or at least that was implicit in a message, in kind of the culture that we were part of.

Chris Well, and that was too often true. Yeah.

Philip And maybe the other part of that growing-up message as well, I think — and we’ve talked about this here before — is that if you really cared about your faith, you would be some sort of Bible teacher, some sort of pastor. Leading a Bible study is kind of the low-bar prerequisite of being serious about your faith.

So, maybe even in that context of coming out of a group where we shouldn’t really have our heart in the local community — let’s go find it somewhere else, and when we’re finding it somewhere else, let’s make sure we are being Bible teachers and pastors, because nothing else really matters.

Kind of with that context, I do think that that still is a message. Even if our hearts and minds have been renewed and transformed into something else, it still is a message that we hear a lot of, and have to kind of shepherd and pastor through as well.

And maybe some of the categories we can discuss are: how should pastors be living and working and shepherding in that context of the world? Should they be bunkering down? Should they be isolating themselves, their families, their flock? Or should they be conquering? Should they be advancing? And even that definition of conquering, advancing, I think could take on different forms. If they should be conquering and advancing, what does that mean? What does that look like? Is it evangelism? Is it other spheres included in that?

So maybe, Chris, if you don’t mind — as you’ve been pastoring and shepherding over the last fifteen years or so, and have planted your feet kind of in one place to love that community, that group of people there — what are some of your thoughts revolving around that?

Chris Sure. And obviously, coming into this as a project that I’m still being taught and instructed in — I don’t think I’ve got it nailed down yet.

There are a number of different frameworks to approach how to think personally, how to think as a church, about your connection to the culture. There’s the Christ in culture, Christ against culture, Christ over culture, some of those kinds of paradigms. I think I’m becoming increasingly skeptical of phrasing it that way, because it keeps being phrased in reference to what’s happening out there. And I’m more fond of just saying we need to have a Christian culture. We just need to be thoroughgoing, faithful Christians — and to do that not in fear of, nor even in particular aggression against, what’s out there. But if we’re faithful to what God has called us to do, there’s going to be a fair bit of conquering, and there’s going to be a whole lot of faithfulness going on.

One of the things I think we needed — and I saw this in the notes — we were sending some emails back and forth, and there was some concern about whether I’m still dispensational. And the answer is: yes. Yes, I am.

Sean Oh, yeah. Even at TEC kind of things, and like, you’re a person who cares to study the Bible, so.

Chris I do. And my perspective and convictions about that have not changed.

But I do think one of the things, as dispensationalists, that we need to be careful of is — there are a lot of places within the dispensational world where the Great Commission has eclipsed the creation mandate. And I don’t think those are meant to be in competition with one another. So I think that’s part of what it means to be faithful: to connect the two. That we are living in New Testament realities, and with the calling of Christ for the church to be engaged in the Great Commission — but the material way we’re doing that day in and day out is through the context of faithfulness to the creation mandate as well.

That makes the role of a pastor somewhat unique. And this is where, maybe getting back to what you were talking about, Philip, some of the errors sneak in, perhaps even unwittingly: it’s really easy to feel like the world that I live in is the normal world that I’m trying to call people into. But it’s not.

My job as a servant in the church, for the people, is to equip them and to try to prepare them for faithfulness across a whole spectrum of things that I will likely never do. I’m not going to be a plumber. I’m probably not going to be a baker. I’m probably not going to be a carpenter, these sorts of things.

But my job is not to try to say, okay, when you’re done with all that stuff, come over here and let me teach you how to do the important things, like parsing Greek verbs and stuff. My job is to teach them how, in everything you do, from your eating and your drinking to everything else — like I tell our youth frequently, how you brush your teeth in the morning is an act of worship. And it must be, or we’re doing it wrong.

So I think that’s something I’ve been increasingly convinced of: that the job of the pastor is to equip the saints. Not just for work in the church, but for a life of faithfulness, both to the Great Commission and to the creation mandate — and to make sure that they see the goodness of all of that.

I appreciate those who have a really strong sense of strategy and tactics, and they’re trying to really go after the culture in particular ways. I think that that’s important. I also think there’s a lot of value to just saying, go out and be Christian in everything, because Satan doesn’t really have a good way to deal with that. Does that make sense?

Philip Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chris Instead of saying, “I’m going to go conquer you” — just go out and be faithfully Christian right next to them, and let God’s power have its effect.

Philip Right.

Sean So, you’re not going to give a sermon on plumbing. You’re not going to give a sermon on building buildings or pouring concrete or whatever. You’re going to give sermons to the flock from the word, while knowing that you’re trying to equip them to go take that and do their things with it.

So when they are getting instruction from the word, from you as a pastor — how much of the word are you wanting them to get? Or would you say it a different way, like, well, I’m wanting them to see this angle from the word as they then head back out?

So how much Greek parsing do they need, if any? How much dispensationalism do they need to understand, if any, to go be — do you need to even care at all about dispensationalism to be a good plumber? To be blessed, leading your household?

Chris Oh, Sean, you’re teasing us again.

Sean Well, I have ideas. But that’s actually a question. What’s your take on that?

Chris Yeah. I don’t think that if you try to connect what God’s word has to say to the smallest of details in our life — what that will turn into is biblical minimalism.

And I think sometimes there’s that fear that, especially for those from a Bible church movement — the DNA for our church is at least downstream from that. We don’t like creeds, we don’t like confessions, just give us the word, give it to us thick, as many Bible studies as we can handle.

And the thought is, well, once we start talking about the kind of businesses that we’re going to run, and once we start talking about not just what family worship looks like but then how does our relationship with our neighbors look when we’re inviting them over to hang out — what we’re going to end up with is just a reductionism that is “go out and be nice people and try to have a positive impact on society.”

And I think it’s the exact opposite. We want to be as maximal in our understanding of truth as we can, because that’s how we enable faithfulness. That’s Paul’s instruction to Timothy in the Pastorals: Timothy, dive deep, and then preach it. And you need to be growing in your own doctrine, you need to be growing in your own holiness, and then you need to be standing firm on that, even though that’s probably going to be costly in your context.

So I don’t want to give the impression that we want to stop worrying about all the minutiae. The Greek is important, the Hebrew is important, the Aramaic’s important — making sure we understand it rightly.

Where I think we want to be careful is that we want to be conscious of what are the issues of our age. If you look throughout the church, there’s always going to be an emphasis on some of the particular challenges a church is facing in its age. Luther had particular things he was focused on. Machen had particular things he was focused on. There are different individuals who have recognized, this is a singular threat that needs to be addressed with some emphasis.

But it turns out, I think God did a phenomenal job — surprisingly — in the inspiration of Scripture, in both breadth of content and proportionality. So I think if we’re preaching through Scripture faithfully, verse by verse, we’re going to end up covering the categories. We’re going to end up covering the concepts. We’re going to end up building the framework for faith and truth in appropriate emphases and proportions.

And so we don’t want to be guilty of finding ourselves in a generation where we say, wow, the church is under threat from the left, so let’s build all our walls on the left.

Philip Mm-hmm. Right.

Chris Or, the church is under threat from the right, so let’s build all our walls on the right. Because you’re just setting up your kids for slaughter when the enemy says, well, what if we go around the other side?

So we want to build the whole castle of truth. And again, I think Scripture, both in its proportionality and in the breadth of what it covers, is sufficient for that.

Philip Right.

Chris So we will talk about dispensationalism when it’s in the text. But not every Sunday sermon has to be about the one particular soapbox that you might think is most culturally urgent.

Philip Right. And I think there’s a certain approach that maybe even some pastors argue for, where you keep the context only in the Bible — meaning, the world has its topics that it wants to talk about, let them talk about it; when we’re at church, we’re not going to address any of those issues.

But the Bible does address those issues. It does talk about certain things. And so, like what you’re saying regarding knowing what time we’re living in and where the battlefront is today, that’s important for a pastor to not just consider but to apply the Scripture to that context for his people. His people, his flock, are going out into the world, doing their work, building, battling, blessing others in whatever context they have. And they are addressing, or having to deal with, these different questions.

So in some sense a pastor ends up having to be somewhat of a generalist, where he must be aware of a lot of that information so that he can help navigate, help apply. He’s not an expert in all these different topics. But the Bible does speak to them, and being a man who heralds the Bible, he must be able to speak to them as well.

Sean In your context, would you say that, in that more general way, you have more sheep who are struggling with materialism, making idols of the world — in the name of Jesus, maybe — or more on the side still of “Bible studies are the answer,” more of a dualistic, maybe even pietistic or separatist sort of thing? Do you have a good mix of problems? Do you have one that’s more of a problem that you are trying to address as you’re working through your teaching?

Chris Yeah, and I think it’s a changing equation. The valley here is changing demographically pretty rapidly. It’s moving from a pretty upper-middle-class demographic to — we’ve had a lot of Amazon warehouses come in, thousands of apartment units have gone in over the last five years. So demographics are shifting. And with some of that comes, I think, some changes in the particular pastoral issues we’re facing.

Historically, I think the biggest challenge has been just comfortable suburbia. I want to live up to the expectations of what being an upper-middle-class person is supposed to look like, and if I’m checking those boxes and I go to church on Sunday, then things are pretty good, right? We’re seeing some of the other side coming in more as well.

But I think sometimes maybe we think that people are functioning more ideologically than they really are. That’s one of the things I’ve discovered just pastorally — and different contexts may be different, but just getting to know my sheep. I love these people here that God has allowed me to serve. I think the main issue we’re dealing with is just momentum from whatever discipleship they’ve received. Not necessarily always a really thought-out philosophy for life. It’s just an imitation of what they’ve observed.

And part of the biggest challenge is just to say, we need to go back and start being intentional: what are the principles that you’re using to govern your life? For a lot of people it’s not that “oh, I really wanted this thing and now I realize I need to want that thing.” It’s, “well, I’m just doing what I saw growing up, and I’ve never really thought critically about it. I’ve just assumed that’s how you’re supposed to do it.”

So I almost see the battle, at least out here, often is prior to an explicit materialism, an explicit dualism, explicit things like that. It really is just snapping out of generational momentum and saying, okay, what are you going to live convictionally by yourself?

Philip Mm-hmm.

Chris Is that something — I don’t know if that’s what you guys are seeing as well.

Sean I know that I have a problem, because I don’t really want to get up out of bed in the morning unless I’ve got a good idea about what’s happening. Hopefully it’s a good kind of ideologically instead of idiotologically — trying to do it based off of ideas.

Even one of the classes that I’m teaching: we’re rereading through Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism, and his whole emphasis — lecture number one is Calvinism as a life system. Or as a life operating system; so we talk about it as a jealousable OS. What are the lines of code that you need to get mentally installed that are then going to produce the right kind of application at the end? And that, to me, involves some kind of knowledge, the truth code that goes in there, which means we’ve got to be thinking about it.

But I also get that that is more how I operate. I’ve taken the personality tests, and I’ve heard the feedback from my sermons of, okay, well, that sounded really cool — why don’t you try to get your plane a little bit lower than thirty thousand feet and show us some more on-the-ground kind of thing.

Chris There may be selection bias in the pastorate.

Sean Yeah. So I’m trying to at least be more compensating for what I like, what my preference is, how I engage with thought and ideas and how I’m going to get to my motivation.

That said, it still seems like convictions, affections, are actual things that matter. Not just, “oh my, look at what my hands were doing, how’d that happen?” There should be a thing that’s driving where my hands are going.

Chris And inevitably, we know there is, right? I’m a full subscriber to Jonathan Edwards’s observation that we always do what we want, based off of our affections. I think that is true.

I think for a lot of people their affections are running at a level that is very little analyzed, very little examined. And so to actually realize, “oh, I think that was a materialistic impulse,” or “oh, I think that was a dualistic instinct,” is sometimes secondary to a previous work of just saying: do you understand how the human heart works? That you’re not fundamentally a rational being?

We all tend to think that there’s a basic logic that we’re operating by. And no — the human being is not fundamentally rational. We’re fundamentally worshipful. We are driven by affections. And we’ll find a way to make that logical, whatever crazy thing we’re doing. We’ll make it make sense to justify it. But we’re driven by those loyalties.

So feeding that, I think, is priority number one: anchoring it on truth and pointing it at God. And then a lot of the other things begin to sort themselves out downstream from that.

But I definitely grew up, as you mentioned, in a world where there was a lot around me that reinforced a dualistic way of thinking. Materialism was regularly identified and tarred and feathered. But the notion that if you had two people who graduated from your Christian high school, and one went to become a missionary in some frontier field and the other went to work for the auto mechanic — the notion that those both had the same equal God-glorifying potential, that was a pretty foreign thought.

Philip Mm-hmm. Right. Well, and — Sean, I think I heard this from you —

Sean You mean that’s not obviously the missionary’s better? Sorry, Phil, go ahead.

Chris No, Sean. It’s not true.

Philip I think I heard this from you: that there’s a difference between leading different groups of people to the same place, versus leading the same group of people further in — further up and further in.

So I think a pastor’s heart may be different than just a teacher’s heart, where a teacher who teaches the same class has students go through the class, and then the next group of students, and the next group. He’s teaching different groups of people the same truth. He’s bringing them to the same point. Versus a pastor, or maybe even like a father, who is leading, guiding the same group down the road further.

And for a pastor to not approach his job like a mercenary, or like a hired hand, where Jesus talks about that as well —

Chris That’s bad.

Philip Right. “I’m just here to train these five years of material I have, and then I’m done.” Versus: I’m thinking about this generationally. And I’m thinking, how do I equip these people’s grandkids to live out faithfully, to conquer in Jesus’s name faithfully?

And I think when we’re approaching the flock with that kind of mindset, there’s a certain amount of — maybe not tolerance, but acceptability, where the adults that I’m speaking to right now might not fully jump on board with everything that we’re trying to mold and grasp and teach, because of those preconceived affections or desires or wirings that they already have. So we have that as well.

But then we’re trying to set a certain course that the next generation could start from a further position. They could start with certain assumptions that we did not start with. And so that’s part of the goal: to equip our kids, our youth and forward, to already not have to remake the wheel, not have to refigure out the stuff, but to be able to grab the baton and run it down the race further.

And so even this approach of how should Christians live in the world, how should they apply the Great Commission, balancing it with the cultural mandate, all of that — even if we are having to rehash and wrestle through and figure that out with the current generation, I think that work is worth doing, because the kids are paying attention. The kids are listening, and they’re going to be driving it further.

Chris Yeah, absolutely. And even that older generation may recognize — even if that transformation isn’t fully formed in them, they may recognize, I think what’s happening with this next generation is a good thing, and be enthusiastic about it even if they don’t fully get it themselves.

And I want to put myself in that own category. I fully anticipate, by God’s grace, my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren are going to realize some of the practical implications of my theology that I missed because of my own momentum and inertia.

I love how Psalm 78 has five generations in view as it thinks about declaring truth from one generation to another — who will declare it to another, to another. That is the horizon, I think, that as pastors we need to be thinking on.

And this helps avoid a number of the common disasters that pastors encounter. It reminds you that your children are your legacy, and that that’s your greatest work that God has given you. If you are faithful to this generation of believers that you’re preaching to and you sacrifice your family — that becomes so absurd when you see your role as being generational, and that what you’re investing in your family is meant to be an imitable pattern, for not just your generation but for other generations to look to it and follow.

It helps to keep you from becoming just a soapbox, because you’re not just trying to deal with this one issue that was really important to you in college, right, and you’ve never stopped talking about it. But you’re trying to think, okay, how do I create well-rounded spiritual health that will endure?

It drives you to affections, because that’s what transfers. Increasingly I’m just convinced of that. If you want to ask what is it that’s going to be transferred from one generation to another, it’s going to be genuine affections. That’s what gets passed on, in general. You can have all the rules and good teaching and family worship sessions you want — if everybody hated it, no one’s going to carry that forward.

Philip Right.

Sean Why do you think so many — because I think it’s true that a lot of pastors miss that. Why do you think so many pastors seem to miss that?

Chris Pride and fear.

Oh, you’re talking about me?

Sean I’m talking about your perspective on what that is.

Chris I respect — I’m not alone in this.

I think one is that there’s a tremendous temptation to pride, because of the comparison game that is so prevalent in our culture. You had mentioned — I think it might have been, I was listening to your last podcast — about, you know, we want to strive to be ten-talent people, that kind of a thing. Not everybody has ten talents.

My fellow housemate, roommate in seminary, is now the president of the college and seminary, and just way smarter than me. And there’s a degree to which you have to acknowledge some of those things.

Sean I’m reading a book by him currently, on hermeneutics.

Chris I actually have that just behind me on my desk over there.

Sean Yeah.

Chris And he was such a nice guy, it made it hard to be too jealous or cranky toward him. But just that recognition that there are people who have been given greater giftedness — and there can be then that sense of, I have to prove that I’ve got something to contribute. I’ve got to prove that I can hack it. And just good old-fashioned pride.

There’s also, I think, a lot of fear in pastoral ministry. It’s not a nine-to-five job. It’s trying to care for people. And there can be a lot of expectations that sometimes are explicit and other times are just felt: that I need to fix this, I need to solve that, I need to do this, I need to accomplish that.

And the more, I think, that you lean into the desire to see generational faithfulness, you become aware of just how much work needs to be done for God’s people to build out a full, thoroughgoing approach to life in all areas. And it’s just crushing.

So I think there are a lot of pastors who are either driven by pride, in trying to prove that they’re a good pastor, or they’re driven by fear, that sense that I’m just never doing enough. And both of those have to be satisfied by humility before God, before I think a pastor can then start to think more clearly about: when do I need to say I’ve done what a good and faithful steward ought to do in this situation, and now I need to go and be a good steward over there? And this could have been better, this could have been more, this could have been different — but it won’t be. And that’s part of God’s providence. And so I’m going to rely on God’s power to get done what he wants to get done.

That’s been a slow lesson for me. Learning it still. But looking back, I know that there have been a lot of opportunities I have missed because my focus there has been off.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean Philip has totally nailed down knowing exactly how much to do on what thing, and then feeling good about it. For sure.

Philip I’m so content. I have the perfect equilibrium and balance, and —

Chris Yeah. Once you learn how to use Obsidian, then the rest will go from there, right?

Philip That’s right. That’s the solution. Pride, fear — Obsidian is what you need.

Chris But it is silly. It’s that kind of thing that we will look to, to try to solve what is often a heart problem. I just need a better system. I need a better organization. I need a new diet, a new whatever — instead of, sometimes we just need to have a renewed heart.

Philip Right. Yeah, like what you’re saying: pride and fear. And a lot of times that manifests through only trying to control the externalities, or trying to manipulate, handle — handle the externalities. Whether that’s with our families, with our kids. When they’re little, they’re maybe not easier to handle, but you could fix the externality in public. As they get older, that becomes more and more difficult.

Same thing with our church, or some kind of online presence, or whatever that is. And so it comes to a certain kind of pretense. We’re trying to just present ourselves, as opposed to actually having substance, actually having the real thing there.

And so that substance comes from actually wrestling with God and his expectations of a pastor, of you as a pastor, as a man, as a father — where you’re walking, you’re living that out just between you and God, as opposed to just trying to show that you’re living this out, or walking this out.

So you come before God as a father bearing that responsibility, come before God as a pastor bearing that burden, and pleading with him for grace in that humility, pleading with him for help in what it is that you’re endeavoring to do. God does look upon the humble, the contrite — as opposed to the proud being an abomination.

Chris Which includes —

Sean No, you first — you’re the guest.

Chris I was just going to say that it can be surprising to find that kind of humility and contrition, because when you find those people, they tend to not look like what you’re thinking of when you think “humility and contrition.” They tend to be the courageous people and the joyful people. And that has been something that I’ve been on a discovery process about as well.

Lord, when you help me to get myself out of the way — those conversations that I’ve been avoiding having because it’s not going to go well in my mind, I’m willing to have them. The things that I’ve been worried about, that load is off my mind, because I know the Lord’s going to handle it. And there’s still the striving to exhaustion and all of that. But it is such a different experience. Yeah — courage and joy are begotten by humility and contrition of heart.

Philip Yeah. The humble laugh more. There’s more that they’re playful with. I think that’s a word that we’ve talked about as well.

Chris In many seasons, yeah.

Philip Right.

Chris I want to make sure I don’t — and I’m sure you’ve experienced it, Philip — when you’re doing ministry, you do spend a lot of time around people who are truly suffering and in real grief. And I want to make sure that there’s not a sense that if you were actually being godly in your grief, you’d just be giggling over there in the corner. There is a season for weeping.

But outside of that grief, there is a whole lot of laughter we miss out on when we’ve got too big a view of ourselves.

Sean Yeah. Some of that is, I think, included in not a big enough vision of what could be. So it’s a different way of describing the pride and the fear part — which is pastors who want to be controlling. They want to do that because they fear things are going to get out of control, or they fear that they’re going to be exposed as not being great, or not being sufficient.

And so they actually, even intentionally, or sometimes just implicitly, establish some ceilings — try to make the walls super narrow to keep people inside those walls. Which I think is included in part of why pastors are responsible for dualism. Because, well then, I have a book that tells me how to control and be the boss of you when it comes to — you can’t do Greek. I can do Greek. Bible study is the way you know if you’re mature. And so I am going to be at the top of the pile, because you haven’t had that training or that exposure to it yet.

As opposed to: you’re going to go out and do a bunch of things as a Christian that are not up to me to hold your hand to do, or to really even define in all the ways, whether you’ve done that correctly or not, according to the cultural mandate responsibilities.

So, that need to control, the need to be needed — as opposed to genuinely having a bigger vision of, actually, I’d like them to go farther than me. But as soon as they actually start making steps that are further than you, then you really find out if that’s what you wanted.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Chris And I’d like to hear you speak maybe a little bit further on this, Sean, because I’m discovering, as I come into a season where I’ve got teenagers, there are a lot of parallels to parenting there. I think it’s a challenge for fathers to want to launch their sons and their daughters beyond their scope of competency. So how have you learned that as a dad, in a way that helps transfer into how you shepherd?

Sean Yeah. Well — I’m not saying “yeah, thank you for that softball.” That’s not why I’m saying yeah. I am saying yeah in terms of: it’s completely related.

Because even earlier you were talking about pastors who sacrifice families trying to get other big ministry things done, not realizing that their legacy is going to be their kids. It is almost like that’s the first requirement for elders, at least in 1 Timothy chapter 3.

Chris Almost.

Sean Almost like how they are shepherding their own people in their house translates to how they’re going to shepherd other people.

I have thought for a long time — because a lot of the teaching, the more formal training part that I got about pastoral ministry, was like: make sure you protect your wife from a bunch of this information that you are going to have to know. And I do totally agree. My wife — I don’t see her as an elderess. I don’t see her as a pastoress. She’s not responsible to shepherd the people, and I’m not asking her to help me carry that burden, per se.

And at the same time, if I can’t help my wife think through the issue, then how do I think I’m going to help other people think through it? Because I’ve got history and access to her that I don’t have living with other people. So if we can’t figure out how to talk about it through the drive-through at Burger King, then how do I think other people are going to be — and, are we allowed to eat at Burger King? I don’t know. Are Christians boycotting that these days? I haven’t been to Burger King for a while.

Philip That was last year.

Sean Yeah.

Chris That was last year. Okay. So I missed that one.

Sean But the same with my kids. I should be able to know what they’re thinking, and then be able to help them think through the issues. And if I can’t actually do that with them — if I can’t transfer vision to them, if I can’t transfer affections to them, who I’m supposedly spending a bunch of time with, riding in cars with, having dinner with, waking them up or tucking them in at night — these are the prime people that are going to show whether I can transfer anything or not.

And I only have one son. But absolutely crucial in my mind that he learn that he’s got to have his own desires to do things. I should be an example of having desires and sacrificing for those, but not then make him have a narrow set of what he’s allowed to do, what he is excited to do.

I want him to be more excited about things, yes. And sometimes that’s really annoying. Sometimes that takes a lot of extra of my time, to be excited about what he’s excited about when it doesn’t naturally fall within my wheelhouse. But, well, am I going to support that or not? I said I wanted that.

I got the illustration in seminary even: it’s a lot easier to tame a wild horse than to raise one from the dead. So I’d much rather — but you have to decide that you’re going to deal with the crap in the barn from the oxen. Proverbs 14:4.

Chris Fantastic.

Sean That is actually messy. That is actually stinky. That is actually extra time-consuming. And so that’s where you’re really deciding: oh, is that what I wanted? Did I really want this mess?

And I do have to confront myself at times. Well, this is what you said you wanted. This is what it looks like. I keep being surprised that it doesn’t look as Precious Moments as I wanted it to look, I suppose.

But by God’s grace, I do think I can see a little bit further. Okay, well, that’s going to turn into — if God keeps being gracious — that’s going to turn into a good kind of strength. And it looks wild, maybe, right now at this moment.

Chris If you think about what it’s like for God — just the incredible, almost insanity, of handing over stewardship of anything to creatures like us. And he, as a heavenly Father, the way that he goes about providing us with the latitude to grow into stewardship, with all the mistakes and messes that, as you’re describing, that entails — that has to be something that we’re looking for as a sign that we’re doing it right in our homes, as a sign that we’re doing it right in our churches. That’s where that “all patience” injunction that you see throughout the New Testament comes in. Let God do his work, and it’s going to take a while, and it’s going to be a bit messy.

I’ve encountered — and you may have seen this out there as well — I’ve encountered far too many, particularly young men, who both from the church and the culture have been so browbeaten into not taking any steps without permission that they are just dead in the water.

Sean Especially by their moms. Who potentially are trying to — who have a genuinely sincere desire to see their kid be safe and healthy. And that’s appropriate. Somebody should actually be caring that the kid is not, you know —

Philip Not dead.

Sean Yeah. Not dead is good. That is actually good. True.

And also, there is a kind of letting go that is scary, that requires faith on the parents’ part. We had heard this, I don’t know, a decade or more ago — somebody had said, the only thing worse than a son who leaves is a son who doesn’t. And that requires readiness to do some letting go. And that’s scary.

Chris Yeah. And even more than letting go — launching, right? There are way too many that dribble out of the nest and go plop. And we don’t want that either.

And I don’t want to throw just moms under the bus here, because I think, at least from what I see, we have a culture where shame has just relocated. And there are just a lot of guys where any demonstration of — I’ll even just be that broad — any demonstration of proactivity provokes an “I’m not sure that’s a good idea” response from all sides.

Sean Yeah, from all sides.

Chris And that’s become one of my mantras with our young men in particular, and our college students: if you’re waiting for permission to just go — to say, I think I want to live for Jesus in every area of my life, but there are going to be people who might not be excited about that — well, here’s your permission. Just go. Because you have to have objects in motion in order to be able to accomplish work.

And that’s something I’m excited about with this upcoming generation. As a millennial, I will own the whateverism that was prevalent in my generation. It was just a very jaded generation. We really didn’t think that the way our parents were doing it had a whole lot to offer — as a generation; speaking as an individual, that was not true, but as a generation. And we didn’t have any really great ideas for what to do next. So we just kind of shrugged our shoulders and threw crazy ideas out there.

But these next generations that are coming up are playing for keeps. And that’s been fun to watch as a youth pastor. It can be terrifying, because if you tell them chopping off your body parts will make you happy, they will do it. They will do it. So it can be terrifying when they’re fed lies.

But there’s something going on in this generation that I’m excited about. When I see statistics like, right now the number one demographic in the country that’s interested in spiritual matters and in church attendance is young men — you have to go, as far as I can remember, you have to go pre–World War II before you see that even be a strong contender, let alone out in front of all of the women.

So there’s a proactivity that’s emerging in this generation. And that’s exciting to think, in terms of a generational project, that if we will be faithful, God is raising up a group of people who are not content to just shrug their shoulders. They’re saying, okay, we’re willing to get to work. Just tell me what good work looks like.

Philip So what do you do as a pastor, shepherding your flock, with a certain kind of father’s heart — a father’s heart who is there to give hope? What do you do to leverage that energy for Christ, to see that opportunity of, in this case, young men having interest in religion, interest in more eternal questions, interest in winning, conquering? How does a pastor take hold of that and use it to launch those men forward?

Chris Yeah, I think there are a lot of ways to do that. And I think we’re probably not as far along in exploring all the ways to do that as you guys are out there, so I’ll be curious to see some more of the approaches that you’re taking.

But for me, where I often find I’m focused is a pretty relentless focus on affections. I ask a lot of our young people: can you tell me why in the world Jesus really is more desirable than anything else? Don’t tell me why he’s the right answer. Don’t tell me why he’s more good than anything else. Tell me why he’s more desirable than anything else.

And that stumps a lot of people, because they’ve been fed the right answers, but they don’t know why they should want it. And as that sinks home — when you have a young person who says, this is objectively and experientially the greatest good in my life, then they’re off to the races. So that’s the first thing.

Then, trying to make sure that I say yes whenever possible. “Hey, what if we did this?” And not having that “well, I don’t know if that fits into our forty-year ministry program plan.” But, hey, I think it’s really cool, as a group of people, that we’re working on this, or tackling this project, or trying to go after this — as much as possible, just saying, that sounds cool. Probably make a big mess, but that’s okay. Go for it. Just try it. See how it goes.

Just encouraging that kind of sanctified risk-taking, and creatively trying to approach what they’re seeing around them. So, pushing that as much as we can.

And then trying to get people out of the rut of selfishness, where “I need to take care of my mental health and find my happiness and find my place.” The world is so tailored to creating this very customized universe for you to live in. And just saying, no, you don’t have to live that way. That way’s miserable. It’s just so miserable.

Philip Uh —

Chris Get your eyeballs out of your head and go serve somebody. Those are some of the things that I see.

Philip Mm-hmm. Yeah. I have this sort of conversation even in the business context — where a lot of business leadership, business management gurus, the education that’s out there, especially even in Christian contexts, but probably more so even in the pagan world — how to approach your employees is to have a certain kind of even therapeutic version of management or leadership, where it’s revolved around their introspection or their feelings, making sure that they feel good, that they are encouraged or helped or whatnot. So it’s very inward-focused on the employee themselves.

Where, for the business, the whole point of the business is to serve the customer. It’s to be outward-focused. And so you’re inviting employees to help you in that endeavor, in that vision, in that mission.

And I think that kind of approach, where you give people meaning in their work — as opposed to that meaning being their own self-seeking needs or desires, where you are made to be productive and bring value to somebody else — I have found to be much more inspiring, much more encouraging, even for those people.

And even in a Christian context, I think with young men, there are three things that I have thought about, am thinking about, how can we do more of?

The first is to have an explicit, clear vision and mission of what is happening, what we are to do. I think young men are drawn toward where the action is, where things are happening, things are being built, where the battle is fought. It’s exciting there. Or it should be, right.

Chris It should be. They’re often way too content with an internet connection in mama’s basement.

Philip Right. But at least those young men who are looking, who are eager, who are hungry to do something, are trying to see where something is being done. And so, offering that kind of vision and mission: here’s something to do, here’s work to be done, here’s a need. Come join us on this need.

So even like Nehemiah’s approach to building the wall: this is what we need to do. He’s rallying the troops, so to speak, to get that thing done.

The second thing I’ve thought about is making sure that there are — all men in general in the community, but specifically even on the pastoral staff — that these men are worth following, are examples in that endeavor as they’re approaching that vision and mission. That these are not just pretentious people, kind of outside-facing, but actually substantive men who are worth emulating, who are generals in that vision and mission, who young men can look up to and want to be like, or want to emulate — how can I get this done?

And so I think that requires, again, the pastors to actually be real men. Not just smell like books, so to speak, but actually — so yeah, they see something to do, and then they see someone doing it.

And then the third part of it is to offer those men encouragement: to give them hope that you can do it too. You are able to do it. We can help equip you. God has created you for this. This is your calling, your thing.

So: there’s something to do, there’s someone doing it, and I could do it too. I’m excited to be a part of that. And so I think offering more of that to young men is encouraging, is inspiring, in that way.

Chris I like how you packaged that up, too. That’s very memorable and practical. I might steal it.

Philip It’s a note to have in Obsidian.

Chris There you go. Very good. Excellent.

Sean Philip is an outliner.

Chris That’s good. I’m excited — as you described that pattern, men will gravitate toward an example that they can follow.

And the internet is full of interesting examples to choose from. It seems like what I’m seeing is, there were sort of three ways that this emergent, energetic young male population could go.

One was championed by people like Andrew Tate, where it was a form of machismo and bravado that was combining pride with masculine strength. And that was, for many men, much to be preferred over what they had been fed — which tells you how bad the diet was.

And then there was another road that was sort of like the Jordan Peterson route, where it was moral-sounding, intellectual. It was a promise of being a good man, but according to your own intelligence and in your own power. And that was particularly enticing, unfortunately, to a lot of Christian young men, because he’ll use a lot of words that they could find in their Bibles, and they would think, well then that must be what being a good person as a Christian looks like. But it ultimately is just as empty, because it’s devoid of God’s power.

And I’ve been really thankful to see more the example of people like Charlie Kirk emerging as what seems to actually have captivated the heart of a lot of young men. Just watching the impact that his death had on so many in our circle over here. And why?

Because I was really concerned, when that initially happened, that this is going to just be all about “this is why we all need to be Republicans,” or something like that. But in just case after case of talking to people, what I kept hearing was: he is so inspirational to me — because, and it’s what goes in that blank that’s all-important in this, and the “because” is — he was so faithful in the little things. And the way that he connected the way he loved Jesus into just what he did every day. I want to have that kind of a life, where I believe what he believed and then I just do things faithfully every day.

And how do you even quantify the potential impact of that as a movement in the culture? I just don’t even see much discussion in these circles over here, at least, of those other two guys anymore. They just kind of got brushed off the table. It was as though guys were saying, I need something else. Maybe this, maybe that. And then they saw at least a fairly good example of the genuine article. And they said, that’s what our hearts have been longing for. How do I do that?

And so capitalizing on that right now, I think, is of high importance. That will carry into the next generation, right? You capture a generation of young men right now that say, I want to know and love Jesus and I want to figure out how to live that out every day — boom. We’re talking revival.

And then you have to entrench that. I just came back from a conference that was for a Christian biblical counseling group, and it was on how the Puritans counseled. You’re probably familiar with the name Joel Beeke; he’s one of my favorite nerds. One of the messages he gave in a breakout session — he was discussing Puritan casuistry, how they just took everyday events of life and applied biblical principles to it.

And he said we tend to think of the Puritans as like a people group, like it was an ethnicity or something. But he said the Puritans are better described, really, as a revival. Because it was a bunch of people that all got excited about the same truth. And most revivals last five to seven years. And this one lasted 150.

How did that happen? And he said it was because they were so relentless in knowing truth deeply, and so persistent in discipling it into every area of life.

We tend to think of them as people that just wrote these lofty theological tomes. But it challenged me to go back and look — a tremendous amount of the Puritan writing was actually just dealing with very practical issues of the heart and life.

And so that’s where, as pastors, we need to be thinking: okay, if God’s bringing a generation of guys that are waking up — give them Jesus, give them an affection for Jesus, teach them to love him. But we need to be writing, thinking, preparing, encouraging, living in such a way that we’re ready to pack a full discipleship apparatus around that generationally, and teach them how to keep going and doing that. And then the sky’s the limit. Even as a dispensationalist, it’s exciting to think what God may be doing, graciously, in this country.

Sean So this also means that Bombadil’s Porch is coming back. Because if it needs to be relentlessly part of the work, then you’ve got to turn that microphone back on even more.

Chris Some of the principals for Bombadil’s Porch have gone on to other adventures. But we’d love to see that. The goal is to restart that here in the new year, with a slightly different configuration.

Sean I suppose we should say Bombadil’s Porch is the name of a podcast that is already out there. How many episodes had you guys done?

Chris A few. I don’t know.

Sean Okay. So it is out there, and it may come back. People can find you if they search “Bombadil’s Porch” in their podcast app of choice.

Philip Yes. No, it’s good. And if you don’t know who Bombadil is — even more so, you should listen to —

Chris — Bombadil’s.

Sean Okay. So can we actually — did you come up with the name, Chris?

Philip Give us a little snippet of what that’s about.

Sean Or be an apologist on behalf of Bombadil. Because let’s say that not everybody appreciates that character in the midst of the overall —

Philip In the movie.

Chris Well, he doesn’t belong. And that was by design. Even Tolkien said he was not of that world; he just wandered into it.

But I remember as a child listening to my grandmother reading us Lord of the Rings, and the way that she would just read his character, and the fascination she had with the fact that he was just unaffected by the powerful evil in his world. That had an impression on me. That already gave me a loyalty to this character, just because my grandma liked him.

And then, as I’ve been learning more about what it means to have dominion and to take responsibility, and going back and rereading that character — I just love how it’s this contained thing. Where it’s not at the scale of how to save the world and that sort of a thing. It’s: what does it look like to just have somebody who’s particularly faithful to his little area?

His connection to what is ancient — I love old books, and I love the Ancient of Days. And so, the idea that his songs are older, and that is why he is not easily moved by things; and the fact that he’s pretty immune to the schemes that are running in his world, because his loyalties and his affections are already set.

So that drove us — or at least drove me — to a fascination with that character, and then the other guys were willing to jump on board with that.

And then the idea of a porch being that place of hospitality, where people can come and converse. In that podcast — and I feel like I’m already making it sound a lot more impressive than it was — but the intent really was to say that, as a group of Christian dads who are trying to learn: how do we try to have that kind of responsibility? How do we try to have those kinds of loyalties and those affections? How can we just get together and speak with one another, and learn how to develop a fatherly voice, to learn some of those old songs and share them with each other? So that’s where that came from.

Philip Yeah. That’s great.

Chris C. R. Wiley went on to write a whole book on the subject. Have you read it?

Sean Is it good?

Chris I have now, and it was encouraging. I was like, oh, now I feel like we owe him some copyright or something.

Sean He gave a lecture on it before, I think, it was actually officially published. He gave a session on it at a fiction festival when he was with us.

Chris Nice.

Sean It wasn’t quite yet to be packaged up and sent out.

Philip There you go. So you can find Chris in the podcast world: Bombadil’s Porch.

Chris But it’s okay if you don’t.

Philip Yeah. But you should.

Sean Is there any other place — are you producing and putting out any other —

Philip Yeah, I was going to ask, what else can people — are you vlogging, or —

Sean You don’t really tweet?

Philip Do you have a Twitter/X account?

Chris I think so.

Philip Is it like a —

Chris It’s dormant, yeah.

I have been focused on trying to learn how to be faithful with where God has put me. And I don’t mean to have that sound hoity-toity, like, “well, I only eat organic.” I think that’s probably an area of growth that I may need to learn — how to be more strategic in speaking truth in the larger public square. But that is not something that I have developed skill in at this point.

So, yep: if you want to get to know me, you kind of have to come out to the valley and we’ll hang out.

Philip I see what you’re doing there.

All right. So, Bombadil’s Porch — I guess just stick with that, then. Other than that, visit Chris in Veradale.

Chris Yes.

Philip Yeah. The main city center of the Spokane area.

Chris When we grow up, we’re going to be like you guys out there on the west side.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean That’s one way to put it. That is definitely one way.

Chris That’s the one I chose.

Sean You could say.

Philip All right. Well, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you for being willing to join us, be our first guest. It’s been our pleasure to have you on.

Sean Yeah — were you the beauty and we were the beast in “Be Our Guest”?

Chris Oh. As a pastor, I reserve the right to say I reject the paradigm and framing of your false dichotomy there.

But likewise, it has been a joy to speak with you men. Again, just thankful for the impact that Sean has had on me, for the ongoing impact that he’s having. Excited to see what God’s doing through you as well, Philip — I get to hear more about it indirectly than directly. But thankful that God’s doing his work, hither and thither and even yon from time to time. And that’s exciting to be a part of.

Philip There you go. All right. Well, we hope to have you on again.

Chris That would be a pleasure.

Philip Yeah. All right. Thank you. Out.