Laura:
Let's face it. Cities are complex. In cities, you find more skeptics, more religions, more suffering. You also find more diversity in background, worldview and ideology. Cities are centers of much of the world's wealth, power, art, and innovation, all of which eventually shapes and informs non-urban lifestyles. It could be said that the future of the world is forged in cities. This is To Be Continued with and without Tim Keller. And on this podcast, I'll be joined by dynamic City to City leaders. These city leaders have been shaped by the work of the late Dr. Tim Keller and have much to share about how the gospel can bring shalom and hope to our cities, our work and our relationships. So wherever it is in the world that you find yourself, we invite you to listen in on our conversation, one that we hope will spark new ideas, curiosities, and questions. Because the best conversations don't end, they continue.
Tim Keller:
Frankly, a lot of social movements are generated by its main emotion as anger, let's face it. And maybe sometimes it's rightful because some movements that are seeking to rectify injustices. Yeah, I can imagine the anger is justified. Nevertheless, the gospel movement is not a movement that is mainly motivated by the emotion of anger, but the emotion of joy and gratitude, grateful joy. And movements work better, and the movement dynamics are stronger when a lot of the things you're trying to spread are fairly reproducible and not too complicated, too complex. You, you've got to be able to put the gospel in nutshells. You've got to be in spite of the fact that it's of infinite depth. You've got to find ways of discipling people in the gospel that can be reproduced.
Laura:
That clip from Tim Keller gives us a brief introduction to today's conversation on gospel movements. A surprising fact about gospel movements is how essential, deeply rooted friendships are to their success. Today's leaders and guests are great friends who share a deep longing to see gospel movements transpire where they live and work, and those places are quite different. Please welcome Dennae Pierre in Phoenix, Arizona, and Ardi her colleague who's based in Southeast Asia. Specifics around Adi's identity and work have intentionally been withheld. Looking forward to this conversation on gospel movements, and we are reuniting two colleagues, Adi and Dennae. I'm so glad to see you.
Adi:
And thanks for having us, Laura.
Dennae:
It's always fun to get to see Adi across so many different time zones.
Laura:
I'd love to know how did you meet and what were takeaways from your first meeting or working together?
Dennae:
Yeah, one of the things I instantly noticed about Adi and deeply love is he's a mystic at heart and has this deep love of Christ and longing for more of it in ways that are contagious. And so he does seem to be one of the best in getting projects done and curriculum development and study and intellectual gifts that are way beyond mine. And often those types of leaders are a little, at least here in my world, are a little disconnected from the mystery of the union with Christ. And it just oozes out of Adi and I think cultivates a desire for that in people around him as well.
Adi:
Thanks Dennae. I am going to somehow make that my alarm clock in the morning. It's just going to try to listen to that every morning. My heart is so happy. It has just been a joy, we were in Phoenix together and I thought it was just like the city in the middle of the desert. And when I got there, I was just like, this is an astoundingly beautiful city with amazingly beautiful people. I think that's what I really enjoyed with Dennae and her community is just the friendship that's been at the core of all of this.
Laura:
I wanted to jump right in and ask you what you think are the hallmarks of a gospel movement. And I thought I might start with Dennae.
Dennae:
Yeah. One of the most important hallmarks that we talk a lot about here in Phoenix and in the work we're doing in North America is that movements of the gospel are encased by God's people being a unified witness of Christ and the ways in which they love and demonstrate a love of neighbor and love to one another as one of the primary hallmarks of a gospel movement that God's people being able to work across lines of difference and engage in demonstrating the gospel through peacemaking and active participation in God's love for the flourishing of a city.
Laura:
Oh, that's a good answer. Thank you, Adi. I wondered if you had anything to add to that.
Adi:
I was just thinking about a recent event that we had where a lot of these movement leaders who were, they're elders, they're city fathers, they're city mothers, they've been leading movements for so long, and we were in a prayer setting. We were just thinking about artists in our city, and one of these elders, kind of a movement leader gets up, he's about 70 years old, he's kind of a denominational leader, and he gets up in this prayer meeting and he just basically calls every one of his pastors to repentance for how they've exploited artists in their own church and how they've treated artists. And I'm just standing there going like, man, this guy just basically called a whole room to repentance, and they got up and did it. They just repented. There was a genuine repentance. And so much of the arts movement I've seen in different parts of South Asia was kind of born out of that sense of repentance. I think that just animates a gospel movement like nothing else.
Laura:
Dennae, do you have any examples that come to mind of past or current gospel movements?
Dennae:
Yeah, I think a lot of times movement seems to birth and grow and build momentum in times of challenge and crisis. So in one sense, even here in North America, we have really been blessed to peek into, for example, work happening in Asia and different parts of the world where there is a growth of movement in the midst of having to maybe do things in ways that aren't as public, having to be careful and cautious around security issues and parts of the world where there's persecution. So that's one thing that even here we really talked a lot about in the United States, that our gospel movements need to sit at the feet of the global church and really learn how to understand and discern what it means to be a faithful witness in times of challenge. Here in the US the last three or four years, there's been such visible polarization in the news and Christians at a popular level, evangelicals being seen as being a big part of the cause of that divisive, aligning with political parties and elements of nationalism that a lot of times have gotten married into our public witness.
And there has been really from really before 2020, but I think visibly in 2020, a lot of the city networks that we work with had just had such longstanding relationship across ethnic and socioeconomic and political lines in the church that when the city began to have these moments of visible conflicts and protests and advocacies and not necessarily a way forward that would bring change in ways that would be aligned with the gospel. And I just think consistently, I think of New York, Chicago, Phoenix, the church wasn't just kind of joining in to all the different discussions, but really had its own distinct voice in some really powerful ways. And we saw many people come to faith who had been outside of the church for a long time, or repelled by the Christian witness really being surprised that Christians were engaged in such nuanced, yet important ways the church is really reshaping and really in a little bit of crisis. But I've seen networks really be at the forefront of being a leavening presence in the midst of the broader church as well as even certain parts of the cities.
Laura:
Thank you, Adi. I wondered if you had any thoughts on that. Any notable gospel movements past or current where you are or anywhere in the world?
Adi:
Yeah, I've been looking more into historical movements in India over the last a hundred years. And there's this one particular movement that's just been kind of inspiring me personally. And it kind of goes back a ways to about a hundred years ago in this city called Pune. And there's this amazing historical figure from Pune, a city mother named Pandita Ramabai, and she's this phenomenal woman. She learned Sanskrit by the time she's seven years old and she's brilliant, but her father and her husband die when she's really young, like almost 18 or 19 years old. And so she finds some sponsors who send her to the UK and that's where she comes to faith. And as part of her learning journey, she goes to the US after her time in the UK and she's learning from these incredible activists and women in the US and it seems like in Auburn, she meets Harriet Tubman and they have this great dialogue, and she's so inspired by Harriet Tubman that she decides to go back to Mumbai and start Mukti Mission, which is basically a sort of an institution, a mission to support child widows and women whose husbands died young or who abandoned them.
And long story short, and this woman's just remarkable and amazing, but long story short, really amazing things begins to happen around Mukti Mission. They begin to see all kinds of extraordinary events happen, and all kinds of beautiful things begin to happen. And it stirs this spirit revival and the spirit movement across India from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. So much so that even Azusa Street, the Pentecostal revivals in Azusa Street are writing to them and taking inspiration from what's happening in India. And I think there's just so much dynamics of movement there. And I think what really strikes me is just that cross-cultural learning. Even a hundred years ago, you see women like Pandita Ramabai learning from the American church and American movements and vice versa. And I think that's just a hallmark of movements, like what Dennae was saying earlier, is just learning from one another. And so I think for me, that is just a notable movement. It is just a beautiful thing that happened.
Laura:
Wow. Well, one thing I think we could do is establish the difference between a movement and a revival. Well, are they the same? Do they overlap? If anyone wants to take that.
Adi:
I can jump into that because I think that because that Pandita Ramabai by story lends itself to it because that does seem like a very extraordinary revival, right? There was this extraordinary period of time where you see a new rebirthing, a prayer, and a love for scripture. I think when I see revival and movement together, I think revival, I like to think, are these temporary times or these just extraordinary experiences of God, but renewal or just the constant process of renewal just happens in the everyday as churches and individuals and leaders and artists and business people just responding to the means of grace and humility, just the ordinary. So I think movements are a combination. It seems like there'd be a combination of renewal dynamics and these revival dynamics. So it's like you have this ongoing reality just submitting to God as one church, as one body.
And as you're going through these moments, it's punctuated by these seasons of extraordinary revival in order to either just kind of accelerate what is happening or to challenge an idolatry or challenge sinful tendencies that have been sort of manifesting. And I think the Pandita Ramabai story actually a good example of that, I was reading this book called by Roger Headland called Christianity Made in India, and he cites some of these spirit movements. And what he says about Pandita Ramabai is that she was able to channel these extraordinary moments of prayer, these extraordinary movements, moments of renewed love for the spirit into just ongoing social transformation work and specifically into famine relief work. And so I think that was a really cool thing is that okay, you have this extraordinary moment, and so by stewarding this extraordinary movement into just ongoing social transformation work, and I think that would be kind of the relationship between revival and movement.
Laura:
If you know the musical Hamilton, it's near impossible to hear the word movement and not think about this song performed by Lin Manuel Miranda.
Scratch that this is not a moment, it's the movement. Where all the hungriest brothers with something to prove went? Foes oppose us, we take an honest stand. We roll like Moses, claimin' our promised land
Laura:
Tim said that institutions tend to come out of movements. And could you say or address why movements might need the structure of institutions?
Dennae:
Yeah. I tend to think that where we have these extraordinary moments where in mass, we can visibly see the fruit of that movement, but often when we do get to see that the truth is God has worked for decades or centuries before in the sowing of seeds, the tilling of soil, the watering, and in the midst of really intense cultural shifts is when we tend to see them happen, where there is a elevation of the impact of the powers and principalities stronghold on a particular place. When you have those kind of breakthrough moments where the kingdom of heaven is very near and visible because of repentance and reorganization or reformation of what it means to be Christian in the midst of that time and place, or in a new place that hasn't really had a strong gospel presence where you are figuring out how to articulate and live out a contextualized gospel that's honoring of that culture, and you have all this mass fruit that then does need to be harvested and organized and replanted for generations to come. And so that's where I think institutions, the institution of the church like God's church, even if it's 15 people in a living room that begin to have weekly meetings and church discipline and commitments and vows to one another, even something as organic as that takes on the structure that is different than the free flowing, expansive work of movement. So I think those things just are so necessary to hold together and as leaders in a city, the honoring and mutual submission of one to the other is really important as well.
Laura:
Tim mentioned in his talk on movements, a couple of different organizations that came out of early Redeemer. I wondered if in your different communities whether you want to name them or not or just describe them if you think of any specific examples of institutions that have come out of movements around you.
Dennae:
Yeah. I know one story here is we've had multiple movements of hundreds of churches coming together on particular issues. So one is a movement called School Connect. This woman, Tracy Beal has worked with hundreds of pastors and churches, but more importantly marketplace leaders and school districts to mobilize just incredible support for the public school system in ways that really are reflective of a gospel ethic. That's really encouraging. And then we've had probably going back 12, 13 years ago, a foster care crisis here in Arizona, and it really started with three pastors, three churches coming together and within a year we're able to organize hundreds of churches. And now 10 years later, it's been a recognizable movement where thousands of children have been fostered, adopted, but even more importantly, there was a shift in the whole perspective and paradigm of what it means to engage as Christians in the foster care system, primarily having a heart for the birth parents and the whole process of family reconciliation, not to separate the children from the parents in our attitude and sense of love, but really this holistic care for the whole family, which has been very dynamic in even just addressing some of the cultural challenges in our own local churches. Those are two examples. That's Arizona 1.27. It has just been this beautiful expression of something that you can't pinpoint to any one particular action, but this kind of moment in time and massive mobilization led to some pretty massive transformations in our city.
Laura:
Thank you. That's so great to know about those. Adi, what about you?
Adi:
When I think about what God is doing here in South Asia, we've been really talking in our movement about faith and work theology and really having what Tim points to like this really solid understanding of how work in the marketplace fits into God's movement, that business and businesses and entrepreneurs and their enterprises have a place in this movement. And I think what we've begun to see is as leaders have begun to challenge some of the sacred secular divide thinking as they began to really be open to the fact that our everyday work is also included in God's mission, we began to see entrepreneurs really take up this call to start businesses and to create businesses that are transformative of the community, that care for creation, that care for the marginalized and the vulnerable. And there's this real desire to see the gospel integrate into every aspect of their business. Something I'm really excited about is seeing these kinds of structures, these kinds of businesses, quote, unquote, institutions really emerge in the marketplace that really seek to be gospel integrated. And I think that's really been kind of a highlight of some of the movement dynamics I've seen over the last few years. It's just there's this real renewed passion to see God's transformation, God's love manifests in the marketplace.
Dennae:
Which is an area that we here in Phoenix have recently been pressing in with their leadership team and trying to learn from because in the states it's very important and wonderful faith and work conversations, but even that's different than the actual emergence of such intentional design and even movement thinking and work in the creation of businesses for these purposes. And even just thinking through philanthropy and long-term funding of work and leaders, there's some phenomenal movement happening that's just been so encouraging to peek into, and we're learning a lot from.
Laura:
Thank you. Dennae. Can you think of a movement, cultural, political, or social that might've had vision but just couldn't get off the ground?
Dennae:
I mean, in the US I think there's a lot of faux movement organized around really a charismatic leader. So I think you can get breadth and quick expansion and growth of something through celebrity culture, a leader with a lot of charisma, vision casting, articulation. What we've seen a lot of times is you are moving people from one seat to the other as opposed to adding more. So you might be able to grow massively. And God does use these things. God uses all these things, and yet the depth that's needed for true communal and systemic transformation requires a lot more than a leader with a lot of vision. And actually, one of the things I've been most impressed with what drew me to City to City and endeared me deeply to Tim is that if anyone could have built everything around himself, it's Tim and the intentionality and work and decisions made and ways money has been spent and ways metrics were or were not set up, all of it came down to continue to say, you guys are on the ground, you know what's best? And so I do think what often looks to be movemental and gets a lot of attention, maybe even funding resources has the breadth, but not the depth and movement has to have substantial depth in order for it to be lasting.
Adi:
That's really well said. I a hundred percent agree, and I think one way that depth manifests or you can tell that it manifests through the desire for collaboration and through the desire for nothing can stifle. You can have great vision, but if you're not willing to work with other people, that could just kill something that's just trying to get off the ground. I remember just having this conversation with a group of artists in one of our cities, and they've been burned by the church, and I don't blame them. They were really burned by the church. They're like, we want to do something. We want to create these amazing artistic products, these amazing artistic events, but we just don't have the patience and we don't have the energy to work with the church and try to convince the church why they should work with artists. I do really empathize with that, but at some point, if you really want to see gospel movements, see arts integrated into the gospel movement, you're going to start having to work with the church. And they had this incredible vision, all these documents that they've written down, they had all these great artists that were on board, but it just never really could catch flight. It could never really take off because they were just kind of resistant to working with this one essential piece of a gospel movement, which is the local church. So I think you can have great vision, but if you're not willing to work with different people that are going to contribute to that, nothing can kill a movement faster.
Laura:
Do you see ways in which City to City has excelled or struggled with different movements?
Adi:
I see a real desire for friendship in the movement, especially amongst different sort of affiliates from different regions. I think after Tim passed away, there could have been this real temptation to kind of go into your own kind of bubbles, right? Okay, let Africa focus on Africa, that South America focus on South America or Latin America rather focus on Latin America. And I think what we seen is a real desire to kind of learn and to love together and to kind of join and journey together. I think where it's struggled is also that it's like, okay, but what does that mean practically? Because Europe might have its own way of doing things, and Asia Pacific has its own way of doing things, and these are totally different contexts, so how do you actually sync up your different ways of approach your different methodologies, your different concerns, your different needs, and actually begin to collaborate and create resources together as part of this one global movement? How do you actually do something like that is I think it's a challenge and it is a struggle, and it's a good struggle, I would say, because it's really kind of forcing you to think outside the box.
Laura:
Thank you. That segues so beautifully into my next question, which is how can lay people participating in movements be praying for movements?
Dennae:
One of the things that I most love about movement is every single Christian is a part of it. And I think that one prayer I would definitely be for the resources needed to propel the gospel message forward. In our cities especially, there's just different parts of the world that have more unique sociopolitical challenges to telling all the stories. I think we need to pray for the resources and the laborers to be at the forefront of some of the work that's needed.
Adi:
I would just say praying for empathy and praying that God would show us how he perceives the other person and what he might be saying about the other person. It doesn't, obviously, it doesn't mean excusing bad behavior, excusing problematic behavior at all, but it does mean we're willing to open our eyes to kind of be empathic and see more fully the other person in light of the gospel.
Laura:
Well, thank you both so much for this wonderful conversation. I've so enjoyed spending this time with you and feel much richer for it.
Adi:
Thanks, Laura. This was fun. Any reason to get to hang out with Dennae. We never get time, so I definitely enjoy, am enjoying this moment.
Dennae:
Same here. Thanks, Laura.
Laura:
This is to be continued with Tim Keller. I'm your host, Laura Sauriat. Thank you so much for listening. We hope today's episode inspires you to continue the conversation, which you can do by sharing this podcast within your own circles. City to City is a nonprofit whose vision is to see the gospel of Jesus Christ, transform lives and impact cities. To learn more, visit Redeemercityto city.com. Follow us on social media at Redeemer CTC. All of the above can be found in our show notes To Be Continued is produced in partnership with Redeemer City To City. Our producers are Stephanie Cunningham and Rebakah Sebastian. Audio Engineering by Jon Seale.
Stand clear of the closing doors please.