WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.080 Music. 00:00:08.075 --> 00:00:17.285 I'm Pastor Luke. I'm Pastor Cameron. And this is the Uncut Podcast where we talk about church, life, ministry, all the things 00:00:17.285 --> 00:00:21.407 in between and in an uncut and honest manner. 00:00:22.082 --> 00:00:28.325 So today, the day that we're recording this podcast is Holy Week. 00:00:28.325 --> 00:00:33.209 It's Maundy Thursday. Maundy Thursday, however you want to say that. 00:00:33.884 --> 00:00:39.285 That's a hard... Monday, Thursday, however you want to say that. That's a hard couple of words to say together. 00:00:39.285 --> 00:00:43.714 Not Monday, Thursday. Not Monday, Thursday. Mondy. Mondy. Thursday. 00:00:43.850 --> 00:00:45.740 M-A-U-N-D-Y. 00:00:45.983 --> 00:00:47.081 Yes. Thursday. 00:00:47.324 --> 00:00:49.205 What is Mondy Thursday, Pastor Luke? 00:00:50.079 --> 00:00:55.845 Well, it's, I don't know, actually know what the word Monday means. Do you off top your head? 00:00:55.845 --> 00:01:00.245 Well, I do, but do you know what it means? No, I don't. I know what it signifies. 00:01:00.245 --> 00:01:01.525 I'm not going to tell you if you don't. 00:01:01.809 --> 00:01:05.205 Oh. Actually, I don't know either. That's what I'm not gonna say. 00:01:06.965 --> 00:01:09.685 Well, it's... I know someone who does know, though. Oh, okay. 00:01:09.767 --> 00:01:10.805 Dr. Google will tell us. 00:01:10.805 --> 00:01:16.245 Dr. Google will tell us, but I will tell us what the night at least commemorates. I don't know what 00:01:16.245 --> 00:01:23.125 the specific origin of the name is, but it does commemorate the last supper that Jesus had with 00:01:23.125 --> 00:01:29.765 his disciples before he is later arrested that night and then put on trial and executed the 00:01:29.765 --> 00:01:37.971 next day on Good Friday. So it's part of the sequence in days of events leading up to his 00:01:38.245 --> 00:01:42.445 crucifixion and resurrection. So what does Google say? 00:01:42.565 --> 00:01:46.485 Oh, this is interesting. I didn't, I would not have guessed this. I would have guessed 00:01:46.485 --> 00:01:52.005 that it would have had something to do with like the Passover meal or something. But Maundy, 00:01:52.645 --> 00:01:55.605 actually is a word for foot washing. 00:01:56.930 --> 00:02:06.040 Oh, interesting. Yeah. So it's a mandi or washing of the saints feet. 00:02:06.220 --> 00:02:08.624 Okay. Or washing of the feet or, 00:02:11.285 --> 00:02:16.485 pedlavium. Which is a... And foot, okay, yeah. Yeah. 00:02:19.845 --> 00:02:29.365 Yeah, lavium or I'm assuming is like leve or lavar which is to wash and in other romance languages, 00:02:29.365 --> 00:02:34.199 is a religious right observed various Christian denominations. 00:02:36.144 --> 00:02:49.034 So are we having a foot washing service tonight? I do not plan to have a foot washing service tonight. But yeah, honestly, like John. 00:02:51.817 --> 00:02:58.714 I think one of the more significant accounts of Maundy Thursday or the foot washing is in John 00:02:58.714 --> 00:03:05.194 John chapter 13, which is one of, I don't want to say it is, but it's, it ranks up there 00:03:05.194 --> 00:03:14.594 for me at least as like one of my favorite passages in the gospel, in the gospels. 00:03:14.594 --> 00:03:19.274 Just because I think it's really rich with theological stuff. 00:03:19.274 --> 00:03:28.234 Like there's, you know, there's a high Christology there where in the first part of John chapter 00:03:28.234 --> 00:03:33.234 to 13, John is recording the sovereignty and supremacy, 00:03:35.994 --> 00:03:40.654 and authority of Jesus, but then it's just like the whole thing flips, and he was like, 00:03:40.699 --> 00:03:49.656 because Jesus, everything was under Jesus's feet, and because he was, he had all authority, 00:03:50.620 --> 00:03:57.814 he got up from the table, took off his outer clothes, got down on his feet, or got down on his knees 00:03:57.814 --> 00:03:59.314 and washed his disciples' feet. 00:04:00.314 --> 00:04:08.894 And there was one, I think there's one phrase in there that John uses is that he was now going to show them 00:04:09.234 --> 00:04:10.722 the extent of his love. 00:04:13.954 --> 00:04:19.967 I think some people are like, I know that some people have tried to make that 00:04:20.074 --> 00:04:25.034 to mean that it was a precursor to the crucifixion, 00:04:25.034 --> 00:04:30.154 like that the crucifixion was gonna show the full extent of his love, which is not wrong, obviously. 00:04:30.154 --> 00:04:32.903 Right, that's a true statement. Yeah. 00:04:33.020 --> 00:04:42.514 But the context there is that, no, it was like in Jesus's serving in a really demonstrable way. 00:04:42.514 --> 00:04:48.554 That was the demonstration of his love for them. 00:04:48.554 --> 00:04:54.394 And then all the other themes involved, like the fact that he washed Judas's feet, 00:04:54.394 --> 00:04:58.191 of the fact that he told his disciples, 00:04:58.554 --> 00:05:03.781 the things that you have seen me done now, go and do likewise. 00:05:04.234 --> 00:05:10.514 And so, what kind of commission does that lead for us as Christians in general, 00:05:10.514 --> 00:05:15.514 but as Christian leaders specifically in... 00:05:16.564 --> 00:05:22.954 You know, taking on not just a posture and attitude of humility, but an actual practice 00:05:22.954 --> 00:05:27.700 of humility and service to those that we are serving. 00:05:28.663 --> 00:05:33.533 But anyway, I mean, John chapter 13. Yeah. 00:05:33.660 --> 00:05:41.154 Well, that starting there and then all the way up, like you have, that's just like, John, 00:05:41.154 --> 00:05:50.754 all the gospels probably slows down the most when it comes to that night before Christ's arrest. 00:05:51.493 --> 00:05:57.954 Yeah. Right? And it slows down even during Holy Week. I think the majority of John's gospel, I think, 00:05:58.650 --> 00:06:05.874 covers most of the... I don't think this is wrong. I think most of the text of John is the Holy Week 00:06:05.874 --> 00:06:12.648 in crucifixion. It spends a whole lot of time or percentage or portion of its time on that. 00:06:13.242 --> 00:06:18.914 And then it goes up to the high priestly prayer and all of that text. And it's just a very dense 00:06:18.914 --> 00:06:27.634 section right there. Yeah. I think it'd be like, you know, almost, almost 50% of John's gospel is 00:06:27.634 --> 00:06:37.114 is pretty close to 50% of John's gospel is that last few days of Jesus' life. 00:06:37.114 --> 00:06:44.138 Whereas you take like Matthew, most of it is his teaching and his miracles in Matthew. 00:06:46.155 --> 00:06:52.483 So really interesting to talk about and to think about why the different gospel writers. 00:06:54.392 --> 00:06:57.696 Why they approached the story of Jesus differently. 00:06:58.902 --> 00:07:03.286 What their purpose and roles were and everything. They're gonna be teaching a class on the Gospels 00:07:03.493 --> 00:07:05.852 here in a couple months. 00:07:06.365 --> 00:07:13.174 Yeah, maybe not quite two months, two months. And be talking a lot about that. 00:07:13.174 --> 00:07:17.789 Like, well, what are the significant or not so significant, I guess? 00:07:18.154 --> 00:07:26.394 Why do we have four Gospels? What's the difference? Why do we even need them or whatever? 00:07:27.274 --> 00:07:30.354 But I'm excited for that class. We were just talking about that before the cameras were rolling. 00:07:30.354 --> 00:07:36.973 But so yeah, today's Maundy Thursday. Tomorrow is Good Friday. 00:07:38.062 --> 00:07:50.089 Yep. So, you know, and I've been thinking about this and I think sometimes, you know, You know in our. 00:07:51.466 --> 00:07:59.156 Church tradition, like of being kind of non-denom, broadly evangelical, like Easter does kind of get 00:07:59.280 --> 00:08:08.436 truncated a little bit. Like, I think, like, I remember when I was younger. Again, this is my 00:08:08.436 --> 00:08:12.676 experience. I don't know if this is everybody's experience or not. But there was in my experience, 00:08:12.676 --> 00:08:20.516 I remember celebrating Easter. I never remember celebrating Good Friday. And it wasn't until I was 00:08:20.516 --> 00:08:29.396 in high school, I think, and it kind of became a bit of a trendy thing to have a Good Friday service. 00:08:31.076 --> 00:08:37.765 Again, like if you're coming from a more high church background, you'd be like, 00:08:38.062 --> 00:08:42.516 huh? Because you would just be saying, like, we always do Good Friday, right? Like, 00:08:42.516 --> 00:08:47.956 the church calendar has always been very much honored. But at least in my background, very 00:08:47.956 --> 00:08:56.356 non-denom, very low liturgy and low, like, never even really mentioning the words church calendar. 00:08:56.916 --> 00:09:03.076 I remember there was a point at which I was like, oh, this is new, like Good Friday and, 00:09:03.636 --> 00:09:09.636 Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday and like all of these kind of, in thinking more about Holy Week 00:09:09.636 --> 00:09:15.956 more than just Easter, right, was a new experience for me. And I don't know if that's just, 00:09:17.105 --> 00:09:22.436 was unique to me or if that was a broader trend across non-denominational churches or not. 00:09:23.910 --> 00:09:32.516 Yeah, I don't know. I guess, so this is actually the first non-denominational church that I've ever, 00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:40.356 gone to or attended. Well, I mean, besides like where I went in college. Like I was. 00:09:42.554 --> 00:09:47.764 No one really counts the church they go to in college. You just don't, right? It's like, 00:09:47.764 --> 00:09:55.444 this isn't my real church, this is my church away from home. But I remember growing up and going to 00:09:55.444 --> 00:10:03.124 United Methodist Church and then being a Methodist pastor where we were rocking the bulletins. 00:10:03.604 --> 00:10:10.884 We had bulletins. And it was the same order of worship every week. So you knew the progression 00:10:10.884 --> 00:10:16.324 of the liturgy, meaning like there was a greeting, a pastoral greeting and prayer and a call and 00:10:16.619 --> 00:10:22.724 response and the Lord's Prayer and then the Gospel reading and then the hymn and then the Old 00:10:22.724 --> 00:10:28.804 Testament reading and then a hymn and then the sermon and you go through it. But at the top of 00:10:28.804 --> 00:10:36.724 the bulletin or the top of the order of worship every week, it was like, you know, fifth Sunday in 00:10:36.724 --> 00:10:40.709 in Lent or Advent or Pentecost or whatever the case may be. 00:10:48.924 --> 00:10:57.764 Ordinary time. And then, right. And then there was like a third Sunday or 56th day of ordinary time, 00:10:57.764 --> 00:11:05.321 which seems really strange for people who don't have maybe a more liturgical background. 00:11:05.924 --> 00:11:14.164 Not even liturgical background, but just like a church who has, maybe is a little bit more actively aware 00:11:14.244 --> 00:11:18.536 of the church calendar and uses it to guide worship. 00:11:18.764 --> 00:11:19.410 Yeah. 00:11:21.524 --> 00:11:25.444 But you talked a little bit about it in your sermon last week. 00:11:28.044 --> 00:11:42.764 And it, you know, like, I don't know what it is, is, you know, I don't know if it's that I'm getting older and if just all old 00:11:42.764 --> 00:11:44.310 people like liturgy? 00:11:46.110 --> 00:11:51.720 You know, or don't write me an email about that. All right, no texts about that. 00:11:51.720 --> 00:11:54.000 I'm not being pejorative. 00:11:55.080 --> 00:12:00.080 But like, I'm more and more, I'm developing, 00:12:02.560 --> 00:12:13.270 I always did have an appreciation for it, but developing more and more of like a, I miss that. I miss liturgy. 00:12:13.520 --> 00:12:18.520 I miss the more guided and. 00:12:23.520 --> 00:12:27.040 Yeah, more guided church calendar and celebration. 00:12:29.060 --> 00:12:34.280 I don't know if it comes from the standpoint of now, like essentially leading worship services 00:12:34.280 --> 00:12:38.882 for the last 19, almost 20 years now. 00:12:39.530 --> 00:12:49.440 And I'm maybe a little bit tired or worn out on trying to plan something. 00:12:49.440 --> 00:12:53.654 Where like the history of the Christian church has always been like. 00:12:54.080 --> 00:12:55.626 What's the lectionary say? Right. 00:12:56.400 --> 00:13:03.386 Like in a lot of ways, the church has already, the big C church throughout history has already, 00:13:03.920 --> 00:13:11.140 taken that task and like made it easy by developing orders of worship. Yeah. 00:13:11.614 --> 00:13:15.188 So that, you know, okay, pastor. 00:13:17.294 --> 00:13:26.792 Put your time and your effort into reading the Word and praying and being with your people, 00:13:26.981 --> 00:13:32.824 and then prepare, you know, whatever, prepare the message that the Lord has given to your heart, 00:13:33.516 --> 00:13:38.424 and then bring it on a Sunday, rather than like this element, that element, and then put this 00:13:38.424 --> 00:13:43.624 element in and take that element out or whatever. So yeah, and if you're not if you're totally 00:13:43.624 --> 00:13:48.184 confused and lost as to what we're talking about. There's different traditions of different books or 00:13:48.184 --> 00:13:53.464 lectionaries. There's broad similarities between them. 00:13:53.464 --> 00:13:59.614 Well, I think the lectionary itself is the same across denominationalism. So like, 00:14:00.264 --> 00:14:05.224 if you just type in lectionary, there's not like a Methodist or Presbyterian or Catholic lectionary. Yeah. 00:14:05.375 --> 00:14:11.965 The lectionary is ecumenical in that sense. And but then you've got different, 00:14:12.184 --> 00:14:16.024 they've got different hymns, worship books that kind of like, 00:14:16.024 --> 00:14:19.024 and there's, is it a four year cycle or three year cycle? 00:14:19.024 --> 00:14:23.344 Three year cycle. It's a three year cycle of like Old Testament, 00:14:23.344 --> 00:14:29.357 New Testament passages, Psalms, all kind of intermixed so that you cover essentially the whole Bible, 00:14:29.984 --> 00:14:31.544 in the course of like three years. 00:14:31.544 --> 00:14:34.264 Three years, for the most part, yeah. For the most part, you know, 00:14:34.264 --> 00:14:38.018 the lectionary is a tool that church leaders can use. 00:14:38.954 --> 00:14:49.264 To give over the course of three years a really comprehensive survey of both Christian New Testament 00:14:49.264 --> 00:14:52.061 and Hebrew Old Testament scriptures. 00:14:52.304 --> 00:14:55.833 And it's not like every single verse, 00:14:59.624 --> 00:15:04.744 every single chapter is covered, but I mean, you're hitting the prophets 00:15:04.744 --> 00:15:06.464 and the apocalyptic literature and the gospels 00:15:06.464 --> 00:15:10.664 and the epistles and the letters and the historical books and the wisdom literature 00:15:10.664 --> 00:15:11.584 and everything like that. 00:15:11.584 --> 00:15:17.160 And in fact, I think it can be a really valuable tool. In fact, one of my earliest, 00:15:18.464 --> 00:15:21.724 I don't know if I've mentioned this here before, I know I've mentioned it somewhere before, 00:15:22.282 --> 00:15:25.298 but one of my earliest mentors in ministry, 00:15:27.064 --> 00:15:30.704 told me when I first became a pastor, he was like, my recommendation for you 00:15:30.704 --> 00:15:35.784 is that for the first six years of your ministry, so essentially two rotations through the lectionary 00:15:35.784 --> 00:15:39.242 that you use and preach the lectionary. 00:15:39.624 --> 00:15:42.624 And I was a little confused about that. I was like, well, I don't wanna do that. 00:15:42.624 --> 00:15:45.076 I can do whatever, you know, like I'll just. I'm a pastor. 00:15:45.264 --> 00:15:57.864 Right, I'll just. And he was like, no, the reason is that it forces you as a pastor to deal with or wrestle with, 00:15:58.824 --> 00:16:01.091 or whatever, however you want, Um... 00:16:03.602 --> 00:16:11.758 Scripture references and scripture, different scriptures that you may choose to avoid because they're difficult. 00:16:13.046 --> 00:16:18.292 You know, maybe you don't fully understand the theological message or it's a applicability 00:16:18.292 --> 00:16:25.415 for your people or it's historical contextual relevance or whatever and so you skip over them. 00:16:26.452 --> 00:16:34.219 And we rob our people of the whole counsel of God by saying, no, I'm just gonna stay in the Gospels 00:16:34.309 --> 00:16:37.052 all the time because that's where Jesus is. 00:16:37.052 --> 00:16:42.024 And that's what, no one's saying don't preach in the Gospels, but what we're saying is that, 00:16:43.734 --> 00:16:50.252 the Lord does speak in the Old Testament. The Lord does speak in the letters and in the prophets. 00:16:51.572 --> 00:16:57.732 So that there is wisdom there for our people. Or if you do only kind of like topical chunks, 00:16:57.732 --> 00:17:04.881 Like you set a theme or a question for a series, and then you kind of pick and pull from the Bible. 00:17:05.025 --> 00:17:07.050 You won't ever get a full... 00:17:08.332 --> 00:17:17.367 It doesn't force us as preachers to go through passages. It also just relies on even our own resources. 00:17:19.372 --> 00:17:23.572 And understanding of the Bible. We might omit passages simply because 00:17:23.572 --> 00:17:26.207 we're just unaware of them or something like that, 00:17:26.297 --> 00:17:27.452 in that type of survey. 00:17:27.452 --> 00:17:34.032 So I think that's a, which is part of the reason I think, at least one of the reasons why we tend to do chunks. 00:17:34.032 --> 00:17:41.032 Not every sermon series is a chunk of scripture. No. But we try and mix in a good mix. 00:17:41.032 --> 00:17:44.869 All those different types of preaching serve good purposes. 00:17:46.652 --> 00:17:50.172 It's funny, or go ahead. I was gonna ask, so how, I was gonna say, 00:17:50.172 --> 00:17:54.429 so how does a pastor who doesn't use the lectionary, how do they plan their preaching calendar? 00:17:54.932 --> 00:18:06.372 Excellent question, Cameron. Well, like with prayer, I think usually with prayer, and then we usually, we have some 00:18:06.372 --> 00:18:13.568 discussion over like what seems to be the state of our church. 00:18:14.012 --> 00:18:18.771 What are maybe the, are there any pastoral themes that seem to be coming up, maybe a 00:18:19.176 --> 00:18:24.192 lack of understanding in this, or maybe a refresher in this, or need to hear this type 00:18:24.192 --> 00:18:30.348 of comforting or this type of challenging message during this season, we kind of look 00:18:30.402 --> 00:18:32.672 backwards, see what have we been talking about. 00:18:32.672 --> 00:18:36.272 We've been doing a lot of Gospels, and we've been doing a lot of letters, and we've been 00:18:36.272 --> 00:18:40.032 doing a lot of Old Testament, and try and say, okay, well, we haven't done an Old Testament 00:18:40.032 --> 00:18:43.632 narrative, or we haven't done an Old Testament prophet in a while. 00:18:43.632 --> 00:18:47.803 Let's do that, right? last summer we did, 00:18:48.668 --> 00:18:51.958 the Minor Prophets, right? We did a survey of the Minor Prophets. 00:18:51.958 --> 00:18:53.158 Love it. It was amazing. 00:18:53.158 --> 00:19:01.238 It was a really good series. It was a really dense series to try and cover a single Minor 00:19:01.238 --> 00:19:07.638 Prophet in a Sunday sometimes, but it was a good challenge to talk about books of the Bible that 00:19:07.638 --> 00:19:11.638 often are just never talked about or never even read sometimes. 00:19:11.638 --> 00:19:11.878 Right. 00:19:13.784 --> 00:19:23.158 So that's one, that's at least how we've kind of done it. Right. Yeah, because there's kind of this, I don't know, I guess I don't know what most people think 00:19:23.158 --> 00:19:30.518 about how pastors prepare their preaching calendar. Like we, I will say for us here, we are. 00:19:32.278 --> 00:19:33.724 We try to plan a year out. Right. 00:19:34.876 --> 00:19:39.018 So in January, I know what I'm going to be preaching in the fall. Yes. 00:19:40.233 --> 00:19:45.478 One of the reasons that we do that is so that we can prepare and we can plan and we can make, 00:19:45.679 --> 00:19:51.864 we can make plans that aren't just associated with the text of the sermon that week, but like that 00:19:51.958 --> 00:19:57.958 we can do holistic church-wide planning around themes and... 00:19:57.958 --> 00:20:02.918 Yep. We've like made little study booklets and things like that ahead of time. And also like... 00:20:04.089 --> 00:20:08.758 It helps us think. Yeah. Well, like that's the thing is like, well, if you're, if we've got like a four-week, 00:20:09.418 --> 00:20:12.272 week, five week sermon series on whatever. 00:20:13.118 --> 00:20:18.366 And we're working each week to preach those sermons, and we don't know what the next sermon series is. 00:20:18.538 --> 00:20:22.818 We also need to be thinking on like, what's the next sermon series going to be? 00:20:22.818 --> 00:20:24.407 And like, do we need to be doing any... 00:20:24.618 --> 00:20:30.762 That doesn't provide any level of prayerfulness going into it or planning it. 00:20:31.378 --> 00:20:33.085 And so it's just like that. 00:20:34.507 --> 00:20:40.278 And it keeps us, especially if we're just going from sermon series to sermon series, 00:20:40.467 --> 00:20:47.157 I think the temptation would be to lean more into our natural inclinations rather than being... Yeah. 00:20:47.318 --> 00:20:51.637 Because it's the same thing, like, all right, you put on... You sit down at night to watch 00:20:51.765 --> 00:20:56.851 whatever show you're gonna watch on Netflix or whatever, and you're like, 00:20:57.247 --> 00:21:01.717 let's try and find something new hour and a half later. Let's just watch the film. 00:21:01.717 --> 00:21:07.717 Watch The Office. Watch the office, watch friends, right? Like just go back to what's comfortable. Like, 00:21:07.861 --> 00:21:10.997 oh, let's just watch this again, because I'm tired of trying to find something to watch. 00:21:13.001 --> 00:21:16.917 Similar thing, if we're having to run at a pace of like always planning what's next, 00:21:16.917 --> 00:21:22.037 we're going to default to things and not do a good job of that. So I guess all that to say that, 00:21:23.557 --> 00:21:30.837 devoid being a church that doesn't use the lectionary the way that many churches and 00:21:30.837 --> 00:21:33.797 and pastors have done, we do still try. 00:21:33.797 --> 00:21:39.717 We're not just throwing darts at a dartboard. Like my, there's a, there is a really healthy balance 00:21:39.717 --> 00:21:42.664 between prayer and practicality. 00:21:44.077 --> 00:21:51.801 Yeah. Like I think maybe some people would assume that like we pray and then God downloads specific, 00:21:52.764 --> 00:21:56.338 like series or texts into our spirit. 00:21:56.597 --> 00:22:01.917 Yeah. Like, and then we know, we just know that we know that we know and that it's fully from God. 00:22:01.917 --> 00:22:07.917 And like, okay, like are there times and are there series or are there texts 00:22:07.917 --> 00:22:14.637 that I know that the spirit of the Lord is like, we need to bring this this week 00:22:14.637 --> 00:22:15.990 or in this season or whatever? 00:22:16.206 --> 00:22:23.372 Absolutely, absolutely. But there's also like, I think, a lot to say about, 00:22:23.517 --> 00:22:26.892 like you spend time in prayer, you spend time listening to the Lord, 00:22:27.957 --> 00:22:34.357 you spend time knowing your people, incredibly important to know your church, to know your people. 00:22:35.637 --> 00:22:43.690 And then in a similar way to what you already said, like, okay, now how do we approach? 00:22:44.896 --> 00:22:50.766 But the task of preaching, the calling to preach in a way that is comprehensive and 00:22:50.766 --> 00:22:54.806 doesn't abandon certain parts of scripture. 00:22:54.806 --> 00:23:02.379 So like in my own planning, I try to do at least one series in the Gospels a year. 00:23:03.286 --> 00:23:12.386 I want to do at least one series in a letter or an epistle. So like for this, as for example this year, 00:23:12.386 --> 00:23:15.146 we're gonna be doing a series on the gospel of Mark. 00:23:15.146 --> 00:23:21.301 We're gonna be doing a series on the letter to the Romans. So those are two examples. 00:23:21.426 --> 00:23:26.546 Okay, now what topical things, what are things that are like topically speaking 00:23:26.546 --> 00:23:30.746 we wanna, I think we need to talk about this year, 00:23:30.746 --> 00:23:37.026 but there's not necessarily like a part of scripture that you go to to learn about this specific thing. 00:23:37.026 --> 00:23:42.026 So two of those topics this year for us are gonna be prayer, 00:23:42.026 --> 00:23:45.066 which is the next series after the Lenten series. 00:23:46.006 --> 00:23:54.385 And then we're gonna do a series in the late summer, early fall on money. 00:23:54.566 --> 00:24:01.386 So giving, tithing, generosity, sacrifice, money, resources, all that. 00:24:01.386 --> 00:24:10.976 And so there, and then we try to do an Old Testament, in the Old Testament, like at least one, like. 00:24:12.200 --> 00:24:17.050 Series or survey or topical thing out of the Old Testament. 00:24:19.210 --> 00:24:27.000 I had a friend of mine, who's a pastor down in Erie, actually their church just did a series that I'm like, 00:24:27.090 --> 00:24:31.770 oh, I am stealing that series for sure. 00:24:31.770 --> 00:24:37.434 Maybe next year. And they preached a series through the five covenants. 00:24:39.210 --> 00:24:45.450 So like the- covenant theologian. Yes, like the covenant with Noah and covenant with Abraham 00:24:45.450 --> 00:24:47.678 and covenant with Moses, right? 00:24:47.810 --> 00:24:55.096 And like, so I think, you know, that like, I mean, that's a great, great, great idea because then we have, 00:24:55.141 --> 00:24:58.877 we come into the New Testament and we have, we are a covenant people. Right. 00:25:00.030 --> 00:25:04.610 Christians are a covenant people. The covenant that we have is the covenant 00:25:04.610 --> 00:25:06.637 of the blood of Jesus, right? 00:25:06.770 --> 00:25:09.650 And this is the new covenant. This is the new covenant, right? 00:25:09.650 --> 00:25:14.090 And so, yeah, so it's stuff like that. 00:25:14.090 --> 00:25:20.970 Like, oh my gosh, that is just rich in theological depth and speaks to the heart of God 00:25:20.970 --> 00:25:24.190 and answers a lot of questions that people have. 00:25:24.461 --> 00:25:28.730 Like, okay, is the God of the Old Testament the same as the God of the New Testament? 00:25:28.730 --> 00:25:30.210 It's like, what is the relation there? 00:25:30.421 --> 00:25:36.489 It's like, was God always trying to do the same thing from the moment that Adam and Eve sinned 00:25:36.533 --> 00:25:41.810 to the completion of it in Jesus Christ? was like he always moving his people towards redemption. 00:25:41.810 --> 00:25:43.519 And how was he doing that through covenant? 00:25:43.610 --> 00:25:45.851 And how was he doing that through law giving? 00:25:46.290 --> 00:25:51.410 And how was he doing that through calling people back to repentance through the prophets? 00:25:52.602 --> 00:25:58.810 And then it's fulfillment in Jesus is like you, it's just, I think it's a really rich sermon, 00:25:58.810 --> 00:26:00.470 so, or a certain series. 00:26:01.250 --> 00:26:02.496 Anyway, um... 00:26:04.468 --> 00:26:09.998 So yeah, it is intentional, even though it might not be based off of a three-year cycle, 00:26:09.998 --> 00:26:14.496 right, like we have an electionary. Yeah. I find it really funny that you were saying. 00:26:15.297 --> 00:26:20.318 That, like, as you're getting older, and like old people, like the liturgy and stuff like that, 00:26:20.318 --> 00:26:25.605 my experience and exposure to it, and again, like, my experience, not everybody's experience, but, 00:26:26.379 --> 00:26:33.167 the Bible college I went to being broadly evangelical and non-denominational, it was like 00:26:33.278 --> 00:26:40.398 the hip and trendy thing for like, to do liturgy. Yeah. Like the Baptist kid and the non-denom kid 00:26:40.398 --> 00:26:43.678 all became Anglican, like, and you could spot them too on campus. 00:26:43.678 --> 00:26:44.537 The emerging church. 00:26:44.582 --> 00:26:49.518 Yeah. You could like, it's like, oh, I know what church you go to because of the way you're 00:26:49.518 --> 00:26:54.878 dressing. Like, that was an interesting, like, you could kind of pick them out and like people who, 00:26:55.042 --> 00:26:59.998 which professors they were drinking the juice from and like, were really jiving with. And that was 00:26:59.998 --> 00:27:05.758 even a little bit of my experiences. Just like I grew up not at all in a liturgical church, 00:27:05.758 --> 00:27:11.598 and I'm like, Oh my gosh, there's so much richness and deepness. And now I have a significant 00:27:11.598 --> 00:27:19.358 appreciation for liturgy. And I've used the lectionary in my own daily devotionals during 00:27:19.358 --> 00:27:24.718 different seasons of my life using doing the quote unquote, daily office, which is just the old 00:27:24.718 --> 00:27:31.278 version of quiet times and daily devotionals kind of divided up over amongst different, 00:27:31.918 --> 00:27:35.998 times of the day and different scriptures set out for each day of the week. 00:27:38.145 --> 00:27:43.678 So, yeah. I think there's a significant portion of that. We use the term deconstruction a lot. 00:27:44.398 --> 00:27:49.278 People who deconstruct their faith, like they were maybe brought up in a certain stream of faith. 00:27:49.278 --> 00:27:55.518 They get into a position in their lives where they're beginning to question all the things 00:27:55.518 --> 00:27:59.998 that they believed some of the assumptions some of the assumptions that were presuppositions that 00:27:59.998 --> 00:28:06.158 were usually I think it's foisted they would describe as being foisted upon them right, 00:28:06.970 --> 00:28:11.918 and now they're kind of deconstructing the religious or spiritual narrative that they 00:28:11.918 --> 00:28:17.918 had been living under and like kind of sorting out what is true for them or what is important 00:28:17.918 --> 00:28:20.177 or what is unimportant or whatever. 00:28:20.358 --> 00:28:25.218 I think that there is a healthy way, there is a healthy version of deconstruction. 00:28:26.638 --> 00:28:31.007 And in some ways I think those moody students, 00:28:33.398 --> 00:28:38.478 or whoever, we had them at Roberts too, and they exist still now, 00:28:38.478 --> 00:28:45.680 and maybe it's a little bit of even what I'm experiencing now in my own spiritual life is kind of deconstructing 00:28:45.878 --> 00:28:50.878 deconstructing the non-denominational. 00:28:54.538 --> 00:29:01.461 Like church culture that reacts against traditionalism or denominationalism, yeah, 00:29:02.948 --> 00:29:08.933 deconstructing that the spirit of that and falling back into like I know there is actually a, 00:29:10.598 --> 00:29:15.188 Richness to the liturgy. Mm-hmm. Yeah liturgy does not have to be, 00:29:17.108 --> 00:29:25.088 The way the high high church and liturgy was always the belief I inherited was that if you're doing something. 00:29:26.568 --> 00:29:30.052 Because the lectionary tells you to do it, you're doing it out of dead works. 00:29:31.428 --> 00:29:36.228 You're just, you're doing a ritual that's religion, that's not a relationship, 00:29:36.228 --> 00:29:42.818 you're just kind of like going through the motions. Whereas if you're more spontaneous, right? 00:29:42.948 --> 00:29:50.108 That that's somehow more in line with God's spirit and the way God would have us worship Him. 00:29:50.108 --> 00:29:55.988 Funny enough is that even churches who say that they operate on a completely Holy Spirit 00:29:56.087 --> 00:30:02.100 spontaneous type of like just do whatever, usually like you know what to... 00:30:02.348 --> 00:30:06.588 You know when to stand up and when to sit down still, you maybe don't have kneelers. 00:30:06.588 --> 00:30:09.077 You know what time it's gonna start, you know what time it's gonna end. 00:30:09.308 --> 00:30:15.172 You know what elements are coming when, you know, it's not actually spontaneous, 00:30:15.217 --> 00:30:17.314 it's just like a new form of liturgy. 00:30:17.628 --> 00:30:22.548 Like everyone would say, well, I love conduit because there's no like structure or function 00:30:22.548 --> 00:30:24.668 or like there's no liturgy. 00:30:24.894 --> 00:30:28.468 I'm like, well, we do this pretty much the same thing. We just don't have it written down. 00:30:28.468 --> 00:30:30.458 Yeah, you don't have a bulletin that you're following. 00:30:31.601 --> 00:30:36.331 I can tell you exactly kind of like the flow. It's very simple. 00:30:37.451 --> 00:30:42.091 And if you were going to go to any other church in our kind of stream of church practice, 00:30:42.863 --> 00:30:44.331 it would look almost exactly the same. 00:30:44.331 --> 00:30:55.691 Right. So I think that there's a difference between like, letting the liturgy be the thing that's worshipped. 00:30:56.078 --> 00:31:03.019 Yes. Letting the like the order be the thing that's worshipped versus letting it guide us into a spirit of worship of you know. 00:31:04.495 --> 00:31:09.991 Worshiping God I think that's where the danger becomes where we become so, 00:31:10.869 --> 00:31:12.471 attached to the. 00:31:14.866 --> 00:31:22.251 Program or style or flow of worship that we miss the person or the object of our worship 00:31:22.251 --> 00:31:27.631 And you could say that for Anglican churches or Catholic churches or Methodist churches 00:31:27.631 --> 00:31:31.565 or non-denominational churches or whatever, all those things in between, whether they 00:31:31.671 --> 00:31:38.091 have strict liturgy that you can define every week or they don't. 00:31:38.091 --> 00:31:49.311 That is a universal human sin problem of worshiping things not the Creator rather than it being 00:31:49.311 --> 00:31:53.062 a particular denominational versus non-denominational problem. 00:31:53.233 --> 00:32:00.471 Yeah. Well, once we get out of a black and white space of, like, this one bad, this one 00:32:00.471 --> 00:32:07.231 good, right? And we begin to say, okay, well, what are the benefits of the different styles 00:32:07.231 --> 00:32:17.702 of worship and what do they have? So my reflection is that our stream of worship, right? Like, 00:32:18.431 --> 00:32:21.473 Welcome to the three songs. 00:32:22.338 --> 00:32:29.468 A host of announcements, sermon, closing amount of songs, maybe communion kind of put in there at 00:32:29.837 --> 00:32:35.247 the end, right? That type of service, right, has some real great benefits, right? There's plenty 00:32:35.548 --> 00:32:44.096 of space for personal reflection, kind of lingering in worship, a little bit musical worship, and 00:32:44.222 --> 00:32:50.348 for a bit and kind of letting some of that, it really highlights and gives lots of space and 00:32:50.348 --> 00:32:56.588 room for the word of God preached to kind of do work, kind of works on that kind of, 00:32:56.690 --> 00:33:00.188 you can kind of think of it kind of as a crescendo to that and kind of out of that. 00:33:02.362 --> 00:33:09.948 But that order of service is, but if you go to a more liturgical order of service, 00:33:09.948 --> 00:33:16.828 there's more room for prayer, right? Different types of prayers. There's more room for, 00:33:17.639 --> 00:33:19.948 communal response, communal responses, right? 00:33:19.948 --> 00:33:25.628 Back and forth call and response type prayers. There's usually, if you're going to a church like 00:33:26.065 --> 00:33:32.186 that, communion is offered at a higher frequency. Communion is more central and rather than the. 00:33:34.023 --> 00:33:37.868 It's not the period at the end of the sentence, it's kind of like it's the central proclamation 00:33:37.868 --> 00:33:42.748 of the gospel in the middle of the service. Right. Every service is always building to communion. 00:33:43.025 --> 00:33:47.481 And so there's other benefits there, right? 00:33:48.088 --> 00:33:52.768 And so each of those have, there's reasons why people do those 00:33:52.768 --> 00:33:54.968 and those have different services and stuff 00:33:54.968 --> 00:33:58.968 if we kind of break out of a black and white kind of space. 00:34:00.608 --> 00:34:10.878 Agreed. Yeah, we talked about this conduit this past week on Palm Sunday when we were, 00:34:11.008 --> 00:34:12.808 We served communion on Palm Sunday. 00:34:12.808 --> 00:34:17.808 And it had become, or is become. 00:34:20.835 --> 00:34:24.525 I had a sense, I don't know if you had ever had this sense, I guess we didn't really talk about it, 00:34:25.085 --> 00:34:33.005 beforehand, but I had this sense that our practice of sacrament of communion was 00:34:33.005 --> 00:34:50.263 was maybe not as clear or as precise or as central as it both could be and probably should be. 00:34:51.334 --> 00:35:07.605 And a lot of that I think was revolved around the way in which I personally led through it. 00:35:07.605 --> 00:35:15.845 And so my desire was to develop or to not even develop because I can't even say it's 00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:23.445 It's particular, anything that I did was particularly novel to us, but to utilize or reintroduce 00:35:23.445 --> 00:35:30.719 in our practice of communion some aspects of liturgy that would help to make the sacrament, 00:35:31.325 --> 00:35:41.605 a more central proclamation of the gospel and actual practice of the community of faith 00:35:41.605 --> 00:35:44.079 rather than something I did to them. 00:35:44.700 --> 00:35:54.245 And so Conduit being a fairly non-high liturgical church. 00:35:55.592 --> 00:36:03.922 And knowing that it is a feature that some people really like and have come here for. 00:36:05.282 --> 00:36:11.762 Thought it may be from a pastoral leadership standpoint was wise that we kind of slowly 00:36:11.762 --> 00:36:18.881 walk into that more liturgical space. And so introduced some aspects of liturgy this past week 00:36:18.944 --> 00:36:30.082 back into the communion service. On Good Friday tomorrow, I do have a full communion liturgy 00:36:30.082 --> 00:36:39.682 planned. Still, I'm still honestly unsure if I'll use the whole thing or not. But it's there. 00:36:39.682 --> 00:36:44.682 And then just moving forward into that. 00:36:55.602 --> 00:37:02.299 It's interesting because after this past Sunday, when we introduced a very abbreviated form of liturgy 00:37:02.442 --> 00:37:17.682 for communion, I got two people talk to me after service service. And then one person called me later in the week and was like, that is what we were missing. 00:37:19.935 --> 00:37:26.002 Like in terms of it's like the practice of the sacraments in at conduit, at least it's like, 00:37:26.750 --> 00:37:31.842 that is, that's it right there. Like he was like, I don't know. 00:37:31.842 --> 00:37:36.322 No, it's not something that he had ever talked to me about before. 00:37:36.322 --> 00:37:39.362 It's not something that like, I didn't check in with him to see if, 00:37:39.362 --> 00:37:45.114 hey, is that what you wanted type of thing? Like, no, it was like, he independently was like, 00:37:45.202 --> 00:37:49.183 that felt so, for lack of a better term. 00:37:52.082 --> 00:38:00.274 Correct in regards to what this community needs needs in the moment. 00:38:01.057 --> 00:38:07.082 I was encouraged by that and I'm excited about that moving forward. 00:38:07.683 --> 00:38:08.922 Although I think it does represent. 00:38:10.761 --> 00:38:18.512 An opportunity for us to do some teaching around liturgy and the church calendar and all that? 00:38:18.945 --> 00:38:25.811 Well, you know, I think like, let's kind of get into it a little bit of like, all right, Cameron, 00:38:25.811 --> 00:38:36.211 why? What's the benefit? Why? Why? Like, what I'm gonna play devil's advocate interlocutor a little 00:38:36.211 --> 00:38:46.051 bit. Why is it better to have a written out sort of formulaic way of doing things rather than just 00:38:46.051 --> 00:38:56.371 being spirit led and spontaneous? Yeah. So a few things I would say in response to that. One, 00:38:57.571 --> 00:39:05.477 is that I think that we actually do a disservice to the work of the Holy Spirit when we assume 00:39:05.585 --> 00:39:11.331 that the Holy Spirit only works in extemporaneous, spontaneous fashion. 00:39:12.094 --> 00:39:15.411 Yeah. Where like the Holy Spirit doesn't want me to prepare anything. 00:39:16.802 --> 00:39:23.091 I think is a pastorally irresponsible method. 00:39:23.091 --> 00:39:28.361 Like it's just a false belief. I think for some reason we have bought into wholesale. 00:39:28.505 --> 00:39:34.931 Right. Right. Like, okay, so the Holy Spirit can't work in the midst of my preparation. 00:39:34.931 --> 00:39:38.211 Did you just say God couldn't do something, Cameron? Right. Yeah. 00:39:38.211 --> 00:39:41.491 Like it just is a, it's just a really false premise. Yeah. 00:39:42.306 --> 00:39:53.811 So in fact, what I find is that the more... There are moments in ministry, of course, 00:39:54.371 --> 00:40:02.131 where maybe I do something that is not necessarily planned or that I hadn't prepared to say, 00:40:02.131 --> 00:40:06.468 but that obviously the Holy Spirit works in the moment 00:40:06.831 --> 00:40:10.050 to do something with it. 00:40:10.573 --> 00:40:13.311 I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that that doesn't happen. 00:40:13.311 --> 00:40:17.031 That happens all the time. Every week, I would say. Every week. 00:40:17.946 --> 00:40:24.562 But what I'm also saying is that there are significant times where in my lack of preparation, 00:40:25.911 --> 00:40:30.261 I am unable to be sufficiently clear 00:40:30.441 --> 00:40:35.431 and precise. 00:40:39.146 --> 00:40:45.856 Because I'm caught up in the moment, and so now I'm acting out of emotion, 00:40:45.856 --> 00:40:53.612 or I'm acting out of like distraction, or I'm acting out of like who's in the room, 00:40:53.716 --> 00:40:56.484 how are they responding, what are they thinking, 00:40:56.876 --> 00:41:03.936 rather than, for instance, with the communion liturgy being like, there's not like, 00:41:04.100 --> 00:41:07.836 that this is the proclamation of the gospel. 00:41:09.456 --> 00:41:15.896 Communal injury is the proclamation of the gospel. Yes, in physical form, in practice, 00:41:15.896 --> 00:41:20.936 tangible elements right before us, the body of Christ and the blood of Jesus Christ 00:41:20.936 --> 00:41:23.032 for the forgiveness of our sins, 00:41:23.256 --> 00:41:25.776 expressed to us on the cross. 00:41:25.776 --> 00:41:29.333 Like that is, you don't get any more central to gospel. 00:41:29.536 --> 00:41:34.536 And it's not like in the moments where clear communication. 00:41:38.816 --> 00:41:43.458 Of the gospel is at stake, it's not time to get cute. 00:41:45.896 --> 00:41:53.333 Yeah. Like get over yourself, Cameron. You are not going to describe it extemporaneously 00:41:53.456 --> 00:41:58.114 or in a like spontaneously in a more significant 00:41:58.376 --> 00:42:05.937 or precise or rich manner than millions of Christians have done throughout the course of human history. 00:42:07.976 --> 00:42:09.402 You are not special, Cameron. 00:42:11.656 --> 00:42:19.611 Proclaim it simply and clearly and allow the spirit of God to work through the proclamation and through the practice, 00:42:20.616 --> 00:42:24.626 in order to bring people to faith, repentance, and new life in Jesus. 00:42:24.896 --> 00:42:37.364 So I believe that the message that the communion service seeks to proclaim is too important. 00:42:38.876 --> 00:42:45.126 To leave up to just, hey, whatever I feel like saying in the moments that I'm... Right before 00:42:45.126 --> 00:42:51.126 service closes, I'll just say it, I'll just kind of feel how it's going. It's too important for 00:42:51.126 --> 00:42:56.486 that. Well, there's so many... There's a convergence of so much theology, not just... 00:42:56.486 --> 00:43:01.526 Like there's the convergence of the gospel and its narrative and its story and its implications 00:43:01.526 --> 00:43:06.612 for salvation. There's the convergence of the underlying theology of what we feel like and 00:43:06.886 --> 00:43:12.886 think is happening at the table. There's the theology of who is the table for? 00:43:13.526 --> 00:43:19.766 There's the theology and just even the practicality of I need to sanitize my hands. I 00:43:19.766 --> 00:43:24.886 need to break the bread, hold the cup. I need to tell people to come down the line, rip and dip, 00:43:24.886 --> 00:43:32.406 like all of the logistics of it. That there's just, there's so many things to talk about, 00:43:32.406 --> 00:43:38.166 and you just might skip one of them, right? And then someone's confused or uncertain. 00:43:40.038 --> 00:43:48.013 And there's so many things that are kind of wrapped up into it. And there's this weight 00:43:48.230 --> 00:43:55.206 in doing communion that I feel that I'm just like, huh, I get more nervous doing communion 00:43:55.206 --> 00:43:59.926 than just about anything else. Right? Because I'm just like, am I going to say the right thing? 00:43:59.926 --> 00:44:04.926 And it's, it's, I don't know, it's important. 00:44:05.091 --> 00:44:08.260 And I, I remember we were. 00:44:09.340 --> 00:44:14.630 We were I was kind of tangentially involved with this church and we were attending there for a while. 00:44:17.037 --> 00:44:22.780 Part of like a church plant and something but it wasn't like a Describing the relationship with this church was complicated 00:44:23.095 --> 00:44:31.666 but anyways attending this church service and the way that they Did communion is they did it in such a way as to kind of communicate that? 00:44:31.910 --> 00:44:39.660 That the way they introduced it, everyone felt a pressure to participate. 00:44:40.090 --> 00:44:44.647 And the way that it just functionally happened, every single person in the room had to participate. 00:44:45.170 --> 00:44:48.750 And I was there one Sunday morning, and I was talking with this person who came in the church, 00:44:48.750 --> 00:44:54.900 and he was just like, I've never been to church. I grew up in an atheist family. 00:44:55.330 --> 00:45:00.365 I don't know what I think about God. I don't really believe in Jesus. 00:45:00.490 --> 00:45:05.280 I'm like, just here because I feel like maybe I should check this out. 00:45:06.090 --> 00:45:15.910 And he did not get up to participate in communion. And afterwards he was like, he came up and talked to me 00:45:15.910 --> 00:45:19.330 because we'd kind of established rapport prior to service. 00:45:19.330 --> 00:45:23.010 And he's like, did I do the right thing by not getting up and taking communion? 00:45:23.010 --> 00:45:27.957 I didn't want to disrespect you guys and like take communion because I don't believe in it. 00:45:28.530 --> 00:45:32.490 And I was like, no, no, no, no, like you did the right thing 00:45:32.490 --> 00:45:35.690 because you don't believe in what's happening. 00:45:35.690 --> 00:45:39.309 You're not a follower of Jesus. You don't believe in God. 00:45:39.810 --> 00:45:43.970 Like you should not feel guilty for having not taken communion. 00:45:44.242 --> 00:45:52.866 Like that's a failing somehow on how it was presented today that made you feel uncertain as to where you kind of sat. 00:45:53.721 --> 00:45:53.379 Sure. 00:45:55.250 --> 00:46:01.450 And so like there's all of like, There that guy did we did end up baptizing him and praise the Lord 00:46:01.890 --> 00:46:05.010 So that was a it's a really fun story That's great. 00:46:05.379 --> 00:46:07.010 But... 00:46:08.260 --> 00:46:13.950 Yeah, there's all of that complexity. And to think that we're gonna come up 00:46:13.950 --> 00:46:18.310 and just say it off the top of her head is. 00:46:18.310 --> 00:46:25.364 I'm too much of an idiot. I'm serious. I'm too much of an idiot to get it right on my own. 00:46:30.030 --> 00:46:34.590 Like, and I don't like, and I can hear the responses. 00:46:34.590 --> 00:46:37.150 Well, you just let the Holy Spirit lead you. Yes, I get that. 00:46:37.150 --> 00:46:42.027 And do I think that I'm gonna get up to heaven and Jesus is gonna be like, 00:46:43.414 --> 00:46:46.060 you didn't do the communion liturgy right. 00:46:46.170 --> 00:46:49.823 You didn't do the communion liturgy right. No, I don't think that. 00:46:49.904 --> 00:46:56.152 I don't think that communion is functional for our salvation. 00:46:57.340 --> 00:47:00.450 Like I don't think that if I don't do communion, if I don't take communion, 00:47:00.450 --> 00:47:05.433 then I'm gonna miss out on salvation somehow. the same way I think about baptism. 00:47:06.170 --> 00:47:11.312 Right. We have to have a theology that fits the thief on the cross. Right. But. 00:47:12.725 --> 00:47:18.557 And so, but that doesn't mean that I have a low view of communion or a low view of baptism. 00:47:18.557 --> 00:47:26.317 I have a very high view of both of them, but they need to be put into context of their 00:47:26.317 --> 00:47:28.337 salvific importance. Yes. 00:47:30.237 --> 00:47:44.797 And so I just know that I want to... to, and why wouldn't, I guess I don't know why every person coming to a church or calling 00:47:44.797 --> 00:47:53.317 me their pastor would want something other than me thinking through super clearly and 00:47:53.317 --> 00:48:02.570 super intentionally something as important as communion so that I am measuring every. 00:48:03.318 --> 00:48:07.189 Word as best as I'm able. 00:48:07.317 --> 00:48:07.927 Do your best. 00:48:08.317 --> 00:48:11.317 Do my best. Right, why would you not do your best? Why would I not do my best? 00:48:11.317 --> 00:48:15.037 And why would anyone want me to not do my best? 00:48:15.037 --> 00:48:18.797 And just like off the cuff do it. I don't know. 00:48:18.797 --> 00:48:23.917 I think that there's a really, not necessarily in the same stream of thought here, but there's 00:48:23.917 --> 00:48:28.290 a really interesting conversation that I think that we can have. 00:48:28.362 --> 00:48:37.077 I don't know, maybe we expand this conversation because we were kind of talking about sacraments 00:48:37.077 --> 00:48:43.423 today, but we're also kind of just talking about the church in general. 00:48:44.157 --> 00:48:51.677 There's a question I have about the other main sacrament that we practice here at Conduit, which is baptism. 00:48:52.317 --> 00:48:58.157 And maybe we can just put a pin in this question and come back to it when we have more time 00:48:58.157 --> 00:49:00.671 to talk about baptism in particular. 00:49:00.897 --> 00:49:06.676 But the question about baptism or that sacrament would be, is baptism the mark of justifying, 00:49:07.153 --> 00:49:09.440 faith or sanctifying faith? 00:49:10.466 --> 00:49:17.116 Meaning at what point in someone's relationship with Jesus do we baptize them? Yeah. 00:49:17.587 --> 00:49:21.116 You know? That's... Can we put a pin in that? Yeah, we can put a pin in that. 00:49:21.116 --> 00:49:23.116 Put a pin in that one? Put a pin in it. 00:49:23.116 --> 00:49:26.276 But I do think that there's an underlying presupposition that you're holding that I 00:49:26.276 --> 00:49:31.468 think is super important that I don't wanna leave on the cutting room table for this conversation. 00:49:31.676 --> 00:49:37.596 So this is, again, I'm speaking out of my experience and what I've observed from the 00:49:37.596 --> 00:49:45.196 churches that I've attended and believers I've known. In churches that are low liturgy, low 00:49:45.196 --> 00:49:53.516 church, have maybe kind of, or when you start talking about Christ being present in the communion, 00:49:55.495 --> 00:49:58.956 if you get a little bit uncomfortable, churches where that's like, where we're just like, 00:49:59.756 --> 00:50:07.516 there's maybe this overemphasis on, this is just a sign, this is just a symbol, right? This is 00:50:07.516 --> 00:50:13.292 just a thing that it's a metaphor, right? That kind of language when we're talking about 00:50:13.463 --> 00:50:25.196 communion and baptism, this is a metaphor, this is a symbol. And kind of a less extreme fear that 00:50:25.196 --> 00:50:32.017 there would be a confusion over communion and baptism being a thing that saves you, right? 00:50:32.556 --> 00:50:38.716 Which we just clearly said is not. Correct. Right. So if you're in that stream of churches where. 00:50:40.263 --> 00:50:43.276 That's where you're kind of coming away from, and you're coming into the space of like, 00:50:43.276 --> 00:50:47.356 these are symbols, they don't save me, but they're a thing we're supposed to do. 00:50:48.482 --> 00:50:56.156 What I have noticed is that with communion and with baptism, both of them, is that there becomes 00:50:56.156 --> 00:51:01.676 a, because we kind of leave behind some of the meaning and the theology of the other high 00:51:01.676 --> 00:51:08.236 churches, we end up bringing a meaning and an importance and a significance to communion and 00:51:08.236 --> 00:51:15.596 baptism that rests upon what we do. So you might, if you're listening, you might be like, 00:51:15.596 --> 00:51:20.156 what in the world is Luke talking about? I'm talking about if you've ever been in a church 00:51:20.156 --> 00:51:26.796 service and you do communion, and a significant portion of the communion is like, get yourself 00:51:26.796 --> 00:51:32.476 right with the Lord right now before you come up here to take communion. You need to... This is a 00:51:32.476 --> 00:51:37.276 time of repentance for your sin. This is like, you need to get yourself right. Don't take the 00:51:37.392 --> 00:51:42.396 communion if you don't feel like you're worthy to do it this week, or if you've got an argument 00:51:42.396 --> 00:51:51.356 unleft, huge emphasis on that portion. Or I've talked with people who go to church every week, 00:51:51.462 --> 00:51:57.036 take communion, love the Lord, and then they're not baptized. And I ask them, 00:51:57.036 --> 00:51:58.871 and why are you not baptized?" well. 00:51:59.618 --> 00:52:04.830 I'm not ready to be that kind of Christian. I'm not ready to be that level of disciple. 00:52:05.011 --> 00:52:06.508 All my sin is not done away with. 00:52:06.508 --> 00:52:13.228 All my sin is not done away... If I get baptized, that means I'm serious. And the thing is. 00:52:14.058 --> 00:52:18.163 There's a whole bunch of stuff there, but the primary thing that I think is wrong 00:52:18.559 --> 00:52:24.988 in all of those situations is that it's an emphasis on what we do, and not an emphasis 00:52:24.988 --> 00:52:32.348 on what Christ has done for us. Communion is primarily about what Christ does for us. 00:52:33.071 --> 00:52:38.328 Baptism is primarily about what Christ does for us. Whether or not it's salvific, 00:52:38.588 --> 00:52:43.948 or not salvific, but it's part of justification or sanctification, both of those things still, 00:52:44.720 --> 00:52:49.628 rest upon it being about what Christ is doing, not about what we're doing. 00:52:50.319 --> 00:53:06.828 Right. Have you kind of seen that in... Yes, 100%. And even the moment of baptism becomes about, this is a proclamation that I am making. 00:53:06.828 --> 00:53:07.423 Yes, yeah. 00:53:11.438 --> 00:53:18.268 And that's a little bit... I think it's kind of an anachronistic look at church history and the way 00:53:18.268 --> 00:53:23.788 that baptism has kind of morphed in church history, throughout the history of the church. 00:53:23.788 --> 00:53:33.368 But I kind of think that the biblical witness of baptism is what the Holy Spirit does on us. 00:53:34.808 --> 00:53:46.115 Right. Right. It becomes the mark, the deposit. The question, the main question that I had really was like, you kind of alluded to it, 00:53:46.508 --> 00:53:50.616 was basically like, well, do we baptize people, 00:53:51.651 --> 00:53:55.054 Do we baptize people who are in active sin? 00:53:57.395 --> 00:54:02.005 Because they're not, you know, like they're obviously not, they have not fully come, 00:54:03.688 --> 00:54:05.885 Take her right to Christ, right? 00:54:05.885 --> 00:54:12.725 So like where we baptizing people that we know are in active sin. Are we withholding? 00:54:16.765 --> 00:54:18.765 We're touching a whole bunch of theology, 00:54:21.476 --> 00:54:27.840 Right where where does, is the church, the guardian of the sacraments. 00:54:31.525 --> 00:54:38.472 So that we can withhold the sacraments from people whom we deem are not in spiritual condition to receive them. 00:54:41.765 --> 00:54:49.325 Way super dangerous, I believe, if we believe that the main force moving through 00:54:49.325 --> 00:54:51.913 the sacraments is the Holy Spirit of God. 00:54:53.596 --> 00:54:52.921 Yeah. 00:54:56.485 --> 00:55:07.360 But, you know, like does our withholding of the sacraments until a person is ready to receive them? 00:55:08.018 --> 00:55:10.430 What does it say about our theology of the sacraments? 00:55:12.735 --> 00:55:15.949 Our own ecclesiastical structures? Yeah. 00:55:16.285 --> 00:55:21.685 Because the question that brought this whole thing to my mind, and I wanna talk more about baptism next time 00:55:21.685 --> 00:55:29.758 because I think that there's, I got a lot of thoughts on it, is do we say. 00:55:31.805 --> 00:55:37.645 Either actually physically, practically say, or is it just an assumed behavior, 00:55:37.645 --> 00:55:44.165 an assumed theology that we have that only those who have already expressed faith 00:55:44.165 --> 00:55:46.151 in Jesus Christ can come up to receive communion? 00:55:48.024 --> 00:55:55.925 Well, I mean, that goes back into the theology of who's a Christian. 00:55:57.548 --> 00:56:04.078 Right? Like... I think that's part of the question. I think that's part of the conversation, certainly. 00:56:04.078 --> 00:56:05.632 What does it mean to be Christian? 00:56:06.136 --> 00:56:11.691 Right. Does that mean that like... Is it to be a follower of Christ, does that mean that you need to be perfect? 00:56:13.278 --> 00:56:23.628 Yeah. But I think that even that leading with that question is, again, it's a little bit anthropocentric. 00:56:24.318 --> 00:56:28.075 And I think the thing needs, we need to start with the, 00:56:29.118 --> 00:56:30.596 with like, what is the sacrament? 00:56:32.027 --> 00:56:39.715 What is communion? Right. You know. It's not something, it's more what Christ does 00:56:39.878 --> 00:56:41.178 than it is what we do. 00:56:41.178 --> 00:56:47.097 Right. So if we start from a place of like, can a non-Christian person take communion, 00:56:47.318 --> 00:56:54.460 where I think we need to start with the question, what do we believe is the theological central belief. 00:56:58.278 --> 00:57:06.238 About what the sacrament is, about what the bread and the cup is, 00:57:06.238 --> 00:57:09.458 about what is happening in the moment, right? 00:57:10.398 --> 00:57:15.391 If we were to say that like the bread and the cup are representative of, 00:57:15.678 --> 00:57:19.858 or are the actual presence of Christ offered to us, 00:57:21.278 --> 00:57:25.950 then I would lean towards the side of being like, 00:57:27.998 --> 00:57:35.529 well, while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me. So while I was still in my sin, 00:57:38.098 --> 00:57:42.838 the thing that we're celebrating, the death of Christ, the breaking of his body, the shedding of his blood 00:57:42.838 --> 00:57:45.422 of the forgiveness of sins, right? 00:57:46.078 --> 00:57:47.232 I'm still in my sin. 00:57:48.758 --> 00:57:53.614 The gift of God through Jesus Christ is offered to me. Right? 00:57:53.918 --> 00:58:00.879 How many times, I don't know, did the grace of God, was the grace of God moving in my heart, 00:58:01.518 --> 00:58:08.998 before I surrendered to it and said, yes, Lord, I do desire to follow Jesus. 00:58:08.998 --> 00:58:11.448 I trust in him for my salvation, right? 00:58:11.678 --> 00:58:12.726 There was certainly. 00:58:15.058 --> 00:58:23.348 Pre-conversion extensions of God's grace through Jesus Christ to me that I rebuffed for whatever reason. 00:58:26.668 --> 00:58:33.810 But that does not, that didn't negate those, the extension of God's grace through his spirit to me. 00:58:33.948 --> 00:58:41.288 So if we're saying in the elements that it is the proclamation of the invitation to, 00:58:41.288 --> 00:58:45.270 invitation to the extension of from God to sinful humanity. 00:58:48.888 --> 00:58:54.317 To receive by faith Jesus, the breaking of his body, the shedding of his blood. 00:58:56.168 --> 00:59:04.088 Then I think it like, I have a real question about like, I almost think that the sacraments in some ways 00:59:04.088 --> 00:59:12.861 are just as appropriate for those who are pre-Christ and they're used as a manner of gospel proclamation. 00:59:14.988 --> 00:59:20.198 To draw them into Christ. Just as much as they are a celebration, 00:59:21.028 --> 00:59:28.597 a remembrance, a act of worship for you and I to come before the table and receive once again. 00:59:29.714 --> 00:59:32.948 The gift of God through Jesus Christ and forgiveness. 00:59:32.948 --> 00:59:46.388 Yeah, well certainly if the sacrament of communion is that inexorably tied to the gospel, almost 00:59:46.388 --> 00:59:53.147 so as to be not the same but parallel, then yeah. 00:59:54.191 --> 00:59:59.788 I'll be honest, that's different. I noticed that when I came on staff here. 00:59:59.788 --> 01:00:06.188 That is a different theology of communion in practice than I've had in any prior church 01:00:06.188 --> 01:00:09.477 that I've participated or belonged to. 01:00:09.988 --> 01:00:17.828 And I think it's a really beautiful theological understanding of communion, just one that 01:00:17.828 --> 01:00:19.316 is a newer aspect to me. 01:00:19.828 --> 01:00:23.388 One of the things that I'm really disappointed with in the church, the Christian church in 01:00:23.388 --> 01:00:29.174 general, is the overemphasis on the Corinthians passage of taking of the Lord's prayer in 01:00:29.453 --> 01:00:32.414 or the Lord's supper in a wrongful manner. 01:00:32.948 --> 01:00:38.988 Right. Yeah. Right, like, and it's always used, it's always used to communicate 01:00:38.988 --> 01:00:45.018 that if you're not a Christian, taking communion is proclaiming judgment upon you. 01:00:45.188 --> 01:00:45.450 Yeah. 01:00:46.440 --> 01:00:53.561 Right. And I'm just like, how did a whole, how did a whole generation of the church, 01:00:54.173 --> 01:00:57.009 just refuse to read the context of Corinthians? 01:01:01.924 --> 01:01:08.949 Paul's not addressing non-Christians at all. He's actually saying that it's, it's those who 01:01:08.949 --> 01:01:13.629 have already expressed faith in Jesus Christ that eat it in an unworthy manner. 01:01:14.809 --> 01:01:22.689 When they hustle to the altar and consume all the elements, literally consume all the elements. 01:01:25.132 --> 01:01:39.069 At the, at the behest of those who are essentially especially behind them in the line, that they rob the rest of the community of the opportunity, 01:01:39.069 --> 01:01:49.897 especially the poor, of the ability to or the opportunity to take the elements. 01:01:50.069 --> 01:01:57.869 If you just approach that passage in Corinthians from a, like just reading it for what it is, 01:01:57.869 --> 01:02:05.741 it in context, it becomes perfectly clear that Paul is not making this grand, throughout 01:02:06.069 --> 01:02:11.638 the course of historical timeline, proclamation that anyone who receives the Lord's Supper 01:02:11.755 --> 01:02:17.309 who is not a Christian is taking it in an unworthy manner and is therefore proclaiming 01:02:17.309 --> 01:02:18.829 judgment upon their head. 01:02:18.829 --> 01:02:33.849 It's like I don't have any idea where in the heck pastors have gotten off or gotten away 01:02:33.849 --> 01:02:43.514 with that without someone saying like, that is not what Paul was saying at all. 01:02:45.069 --> 01:02:49.789 And if we take the Gospels seriously, and the way in which... 01:02:51.536 --> 01:02:57.567 Jesus, like in that moment, John chapter 13, come back to John chapter 13, 01:02:57.746 --> 01:03:02.986 practiced the last supper, broke up the bread and gave it to his, it's inexorably tied 01:03:02.986 --> 01:03:06.740 to the offer of himself in salvation. 01:03:08.433 --> 01:03:12.546 So. I have, man, I'm like, we're like a little bit over time. 01:03:12.546 --> 01:03:15.866 We'll do a part two on this. We'll do a part two on this. Cause I'm ready to rip right now. 01:03:15.866 --> 01:03:18.866 I like. Let's go. Cause like I have, like, I want to mention, 01:03:18.866 --> 01:03:20.298 I wanna talk about like the Didache. 01:03:21.626 --> 01:03:25.510 Have you ever read like their communion practice in the Didache? 01:03:26.546 --> 01:03:31.586 I don't know that I have. Like, maybe we'll talk about that next time. 01:03:31.586 --> 01:03:36.346 Let's make sure you post that somewhere, put a notion around, like send it to me 01:03:36.346 --> 01:03:38.194 so we can read it, but. 01:03:38.426 --> 01:03:42.386 Yeah, because I would be interested to hear your response to that. 01:03:42.386 --> 01:03:44.253 And I don't wanna misquote it, so. 01:03:44.706 --> 01:03:47.866 If anyone's listening and you're like, what in the world did Luke say, the didache? 01:03:49.626 --> 01:03:57.946 D-I-D-A-C-H-E. Google it. Yeah. It's old. It's like the first manual of how to do church. 01:03:57.946 --> 01:04:01.386 Yes. Kind of. That's the best way I can kind of describe it. It's a really old document. 01:04:02.221 --> 01:04:08.622 So, but anyways, but yeah, we'll pick this up as a part two, I think, kind of. Yeah, 01:04:09.396 --> 01:04:13.177 we're getting into it. And I think there's definitely more stuff to talk about here. Yeah. Lots more. 01:04:14.014 --> 01:04:21.270 If you have questions, always mailbag. We have a mailbag. We'd love to be able to answer questions here. 01:04:22.746 --> 01:04:30.498 716-201-0507 is the number. Text your questions or your comments in. 01:04:30.614 --> 01:04:34.683 Of course, you can always comment wherever you're watching, YouTube, Apple, or Spotify. 01:04:35.845 --> 01:04:39.193 We would appreciate it if you are watching or wherever you're watching to give us a like, 01:04:40.049 --> 01:04:40.742 a thumbs up, a share, a rate, whatever you can do. 01:04:41.040 --> 01:04:48.880 Music. 01:04:50.770 --> 01:04:51.112 Appreciate it. Yep, we'll see you next.