The Speak Clife podcast, sharing Jesus in everyday life. So I am with the president of the Theopolis Institute, Peter Lightheart. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Glenn. Great to be here. So yesterday somebody asked me who is Peter Lightheart? And I was first of all shocked that somebody didn't know who Peter Lightheart was, but but then I started to reach around for descriptions of you. And I wonder if I could uh if I could run this past you as a as an overarching kind of uh uh passion for you. It it seems to me that you see patterns and structures and structures that are really there, structures that uh grip you, and then you grip others by helping us to notice those structures. So with the Bible uh you help us to see deep exegesis, uh, the name of a brilliant book of yours. Uh so when it comes to the Bible, you see these patterns. When it comes to creation, there are patterns that you're picking up, so you know, traces of the Trinity, another great book of yours, seeing that there are there are deep structures to reality. And then in the Christian life, there are structures. So the baptized body, for instance, as an example of your love of sacraments, uh, your love of liturgy, your love of seeing there are deep patterns to the Christian life too. Have you ever have I got the pattern of the patterns right there? Is that something that sort of drives you at all?
SPEAKER_01Uh I think that's right. That I'd I'd start out by saying the surprise comes to me if people do know who I am, not when they do. Um this is uh uh I attribute most of that uh passion, interest, and whatever ability I have to uh my long association with James Jordan, who is uh a biblical theologian, um an American biblical theologian that I've been associated with for 25 some years. Yes. And uh I uh was really renewed in my reading of the Bible and my interest in reading the Bible and and the other kinds of things you're talking about by encountering Jim's work and by my long association with him.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um but I think that that's a good way to describe the the overall agenda, my my uh uh the the way that several different interests link together. Uh I think the searching for discerning uh patterns of God's work in scripture, in history, yeah in creation is uh is an overarching interest.
SPEAKER_00And a quick way into James Jordan would would seeing through new eyes, is is that is that a good introduction for people to James Jordan's? It is.
SPEAKER_01That's that's the his kind of that's his biblical theology summary and overview, and I think it's the best book on the Bible that I've ever read.
SPEAKER_00And uh I'd highly recommend it. Yes, it's gripping, isn't it? You sort of open up to you know an early chapter on rocks, and all of a sudden he'll give you a biblical theology of rocks that teaches you the gospel in ways you'd never imagined. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I think that uh a lot of people have the experience of encountering Jim's work and initially finding it very strange and an odd way of reading scripture, an odd way of looking at the world. And uh I know my Theopolis uh associate Alistair Roberts has said this when he was a teenager. He picked it up and read a couple of chapters and said, This is very strange. I'm gonna put this aside. But then later comes back, came back and looked at it. Um my experience with Jim's work over the years has been to uh even when he says things that I think are may not be right and I think they're outlandish, um, it usually is just a matter of me catching up. It it takes him about two seconds to make can make connections that take me several years to make, and then a few years later I recognize, oh yeah, that's what he was talking about. I I see that now. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Well, he must be he must be capturing something about the Bible because surely that is our reaction to the Bible too. When we open up the book, the Karl Bart called it the strange new world of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01Yes, Jim likes to call it the deep weird, the deep weird. The deep weird. Yeah, yeah. That's what really uh he's focused a lot on passages and parts of the Bible that are strange and off-putting, and uh trying, in some ways, trying to make the Bible less familiar to us because uh we get used to hearing the Bible, at least certain parts of the Bible that become very familiar, and uh we we forget how odd it is and how strangely it's put together, and the kinds of things that God seems to be interested in that um that just seem like odd obsessions. So uh, you know, rocks. Why why are there references to rocks in Eden and uh why are the all these rules about different sorts of unclean animals or uh you know rituals for sacrifice and detailed rules like uh genealogies, uh all kinds of things that don't don't really fit our way of looking at the world, but these are very prominent topics and and uh genres in the Bible. And uh that's one of the things that I think Jim has contributed is just uh taking the Bible as it is. This is the way God has chosen to reveal Himself, and this is what we have to grapple with. And if that means we need to start looking as as his title says, start looking at the world and the Bible through new eyes, then that's what the Bible is for, to give us those new eyes.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. And so at the Theopolis Institute, people come and immerse themselves in that kind of stuff. What is the philosophy behind the Theopolis Institute?
SPEAKER_01The Theopolis was uh started in 2013, and uh we exist as a think tank, a training center in order to teach people how to read the Bible more deeply. Uh, we also focus on Christian liturgy and uh teach uh people how to understand and practice the liturgy and uh try to try to show the connection between scripture and the liturgy, how the Bible gives us instructions about worship, and also how the Bible is uh comes kind of comes into its own as it's read, taught, preached within the context of the liturgical assembly. So those two things are uh we're interested not just in those as separate topics, but the connection between scripture and liturgy. Um and we have courses uh that uh where we teach different biblical books, different liturgical topics. And then also we have an interest in how uh the church uh can and should affect uh surrounding cultures. So the the cultural transformation is another area of interest. Our conviction is that the the sanctuary where God encounters his people in the liturgy, that's the place where cultural transformation begins. And if the church is going to be effective in changing the world, it has to start in the presence of God in the worship uh and in worship that's biblically grounded, worship that's saturated in scripture. That's the kind of worship that forms a people that can be culturally transformative.
SPEAKER_00So the cultist leads out to the culture. Correct. And that's the that's the sort of thing. Which is what I'd love to talk to you about, really, um, because uh Speak Life is uh an evangelistic ministry and and we seek to make the good news of Jesus known to those uh beyond the church. And uh I I guess uh when you look at different theologies of mission, um everybody is wanting to say that the church is missional. Um how they get there, th there are different ways of getting there. But everyone wants to say, okay, we are this sort of resurrected Israel, this multinational, multi-ethnic, global Israel, uh a priesthood, a royal priesthood to disciple the nations. Therefore, for the church to be the church, the church is missional. Um but then different people sort of put the emphasis on different parts of that sentence. And so some people will say, look, for the church to be the church, it has to be missional. And so, therefore, all your stuff about liturgy, Peter. I mean, come on, we've got to we've got a ditch that we've got to get out there, we've got to be into the culture and integrate, because for the church to be the church, we have to be missional. And then on the other side of that, people will say, well, simply for the church to be the church, we will be missional. You know, or almost a kind of if you build it, they will come sort of theology as well. Is is that a sort of a low resolution uh analysis of the of the spectrum that people line up on?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think there's uh that that uh fits my experience, and I think that that does describe different orientations or uh um passions that people have. I'd I've been helped by um a German-American philosopher named Eugen Rosenstock-Husey, uh, who tries to summarize everything in what he calls the cross of reality. Uh the cross of reality has a uh horizontal line, which is a timeline, and a vertical line, which is a space line. He says human life is lived out at the center of that cross, caught between uh the obligations to our heritage and our past and the equal obligations that we have to a call to a future, something new. Those don't easily line up, and we're constantly pulled apart by that. We're also, I think the what you're describing is really the spatial distinction. There's an inside and then there's an outside. And there are Christians who are interested in building the body life and uh ministry within the body, which is hugely important in the New Testament, of course. Uh, spirit has given gifts to everyone so that the body can be built up. And then there are others that are going to say, no, what we really need to do is get out of our four walls and go out into the world. Uh to have a really healthy church, you need all of that. You need the traditionalists, as it were, who are reminding us constantly of our heritage, uh the tradition of the church. Uh, you need our visionaries, our prophets who are pulling us into something new to address the new challenges of our time. You need the those missionaries who are pulling us out, and you need people who are interested in body life. But the church is lived out, living out its life at the center of that, pulled in all these different directions. You need all those different influences to have a healthy church.
SPEAKER_00So, what are the dangers of doing the the entirely missional thing? What are the what are what are the what are the dangers of saying uh let's get out of the four walls and be church? Let's not do church, let's be church. What are the dangers there that you see?
SPEAKER_01Well, uh I think several things that I would caution against. I think uh in the in the world that I'm in, that's uh I think the the weakness of uh kind of reformed Protestantism has been historically been on the missional side. Um there's a strong emphasis on doctrine, there's a strong emphasis on building Christian community, uh, and uh not as strong an emphasis uh on the mission of the church and evangelism outside of the church. So I'm I think I'd probably have a somewhat different uh uh different experience of that. Um there are several things that I would see problematic about that. Um you could put it in terms of some of Jesus' parables, which are parables of invitation or mission. Uh Jesus tells parables of a king who's having a wedding feast who sends his uh servants out to invite people to the wedding feast. Uh that's a that's an evangelistic mission um image that we're uh out to invite people, but to what? Uh what are they gonna find when they come in? Is is there going to be a wedding feast for them to enter into? Right. Um and if if it if it's not, if you have, and I I'm I mean that quite directly, if you don't have um a festive center to the church, a Eucharistic center to the church, then I think your evangelism is going to uh in some ways be directionless. There's an invitation to join something, but is it an invitation to join the community of Christ, which is a festive community. So um in order to, in order to, I guess, to capture that whole parable, you need the messengers to go out. You need the people preparing the feast for them to come in. Uh the other thing I'd this is more of a of a contextual thing uh for our particular uh challenges in the modern world, maybe particularly in urban settings, um, that um what what are what are people respond what are they responsive to? What are they looking for? You have uh huge numbers of migrants coming to a city like uh like London. Uh all the great world cities are full of immigrants and migrants. Uh they're displaced from their home countries, uh, they may be separated from family. Uh and what they what they need and are looking for is fellowship, friendship, connections with people. Uh and if you have an evangelistic ministry that doesn't have a strong uh community behind it to invite people into, then again, you're you're not really ministering to the full uh to the needs. And that none of that is to say that the messengers don't need to go. The messengers need to go. Uh but there needs to be uh a f a festive center and a community for them to be invited into.
SPEAKER_00That's interesting. Because quite often the the polarity uh is between well, Old Testament was just which which is centripetal and which is centrifugal? I always get confused. Oh, we need to have the confusion. Yes. We can uh we can edit this in later. The centripetal, the centrifugal is uh whatever, the the the sucking into the center of temple life in the in the Old Testament. And then so the schema goes. The New Testament is the scattering and out we go. Whereas I I guess if you're saying that we need these these festal centers, in one sense there is a scattering, but it's a s it's a scattering of more miniature centers of festal life. So that it's it's not a it's not a total scattering. Right. Um and it and it's not a total centralizing either.
SPEAKER_01Um Yeah, and I think it's it's it's more of a rhythm of uh you know breathing out and breathing in. Um so then uh we were uh talking in terms of the parables, there's an invitation into that festive center, into that community life. Um but at the same time, if the if the uh worship of the church is biblically founded and shaped by scripture, then that there has to be an impetus to go out from there. Um the image we use at Theopolis a good bit is uh the images we find starting in Genesis 2 with the with Eden and the the rivers going out of Eden, that gets transformed over the course of the Old Testament into the tabernacle, into the temple, finally Ezekiel's temple. And in each case you have a water source, and especially when you get to Ezekiel's temple, the water source is not confined to the temple. The water source, the the water, the the river in Ezekiel 47 has its source in the temple, but then it flows out, and as it flows out, it refreshes the land and trees grow and fruit is produced, and then it goes out to the Dead Sea and refreshes the Dead Sea.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01So it's from that festive center that the the life of the church flows out. Uh so there's a there's a movement back and forth. People are invited in, uh they're filled with the spirit, they're caught up in the mission of the spirit, and so they're sent out again, so that they can invite more people in, and then that again impels them to go out. If the if the liturgy is functioning properly, then it's a festive center that is a uh that is a welcoming place. That is a there's a there's a kind of uh evangelistic uh uh goal or target there, but it's also an incorporation into the mission of Jesus. So you're you're being joined to the Christ who came and uh was sent to us, and so in the spirit and uh in union with Christ, we're sent out from the world.
SPEAKER_00You become the sent one, in the sent one by the spirit, and out you go, and the the liturgy has just told you go in peace to love and serve the Lord. Right. And in the name of Christ, out we go. And uh I'm often uh telling people about uh Vishal Mangalwadi makes this point uh in in his book about the Bible, the book that built your world. He said that uh the reformed churches in Holland, um, one of the things that marked them off uh as as being very different is that uh the priest would lock the doors on Sunday night so that on Monday morning people would come to light a votive candle or something and and and the priest would shoe them away and say, Well, no, you you meet Christ as a cobbler, you meet Christ as a milkmaid, you know, off you go, go in peace, to love, and serve the Lord. Do you do you think in in the rhythm that you're talking about, um our churches could be better at doing that, you know, far more the festal center on a Sunday and then lock the door and send send them out the Monday morning? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um that sounds extreme, locking the door. Um because I I I have uh I have some uh uh appreciation for an a daily office, um having a having daily liturgical life in in the church. Uh so I wouldn't want to lock the door, but I think that I understand the the uh impulse there, and I think that's correct, that the uh uh the uh the the church is gathered and then dispersed, and we're dispersed into settings where you know we we we do uh we have opportunities for uh verbal evangelism of various sorts, but we're also dispersed into vocations where we're uh carrying out the mission of God in another sense. There's a kind of culture-building mission that's part of God's purpose for humanity, and Christians are incorporated into the last atom so that we can have dominion over the core over the creation. So that that would be part of the um I think the the uh the thought is right, I'd I wouldn't lock the church.
SPEAKER_00Maybe after the daily office. That's right. After sending them off. Okay. Let's let's think about, therefore, as as you scatter, and perhaps we'll we'll circle back around to to what you would do and and what kind of uh lenses you would look through evangelistically to look at the Sunday service. But uh let's think about the the the church scattered, and you know, you've uh painted a a great picture, Christ's picture, of inviting people to to the wedding feast. Um often evangelism, the evangelism that I am invited uh to do is to put on maybe events that will would take place outside of a church environment. Um and I've always got in the back of my head something that I heard James Jordan say years ago, which relates to that parable. He said, you know, um the king doesn't invite people to a lecture series. The king invites people to to a feast and a meal. Um and so I've got that going on in one side of my brain, and on the other side of my brain, I'm thinking, ah yes, but what is the place of the word? What is the place of the proclaimed gospel in in this sort of Monday to Saturday life of scattering with the gospel? How do how do you bring those two things together in terms of the the scattered church proclaiming the gospel? What would what would a an event um look like if you were Pope and if you were in charge of evangelism, what would what would what would uh an evangelistic event look like?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well I think that um the the kinds of the the comment you you uh cited from uh Jim Jordan um that's the kind of thought I was trying to express with the reference to the parable. I don't think he's saying that that's um that means that the uh uh church doesn't do other sorts of there doesn't mean that there aren't places for for the church to lecture or to debate or to argue. Um clearly clearly we have New Testament precedent for that. Paul out in the markets in uh Greco-Roman cities, Paul in the temple, Jesus in the temple. Reasoning in the synagogue. Exactly, yeah, and in the synagogues, exactly right. So there are um, I think there that that's um that has to be part of the church's mission. I think the uh in saying that the church has a festal center, the one of the one of the distortions of that is that uh the church only has the liturgical gathering for the Eucharist on the Lord's Day, and that's as long as we keep that going, then we're fulfilling the mission. Uh that would be a distortion, I think, of the biblical picture. And it's not what I'm what I'm what what I would advocate. I think there's all kinds of venues, uh both live venues, the kinds of things you're talking about that you you're involved in. Um I mean there's all kinds of media opportunities, obviously, today we can put out uh various forms of evangelism or apologetics uh into the marketplace. Um so uh all of those are crucial to the church fulfilling its mission. Um and the you know, without that, the invitation is not going out. Uh you have some people have to be out in places where uh there are unbelievers to hear uh ready to say something and uh proclaim the gospel to them. So I I wouldn't want to play those off against each other. I think historically that's um I I I attribute some of this to the just the fragmented nature of the Christian church today, that you have the evangelistic types tend to cluster around evangelistically oriented churches and the liturgical types who want to stay in their four walls and enjoy their historic liturgies tend to cluster in churches that have historic liturgies. And if we had a a unified church, we would those people would be fighting with each other because some would be saying, No, we've got to evangelize, some would be saying, no, we gotta work on the liturgy. And they'd both be right. Yes, but they would be in the same church working out their uh different orientations, and I think the church would be more balanced if it were for if everyone was forced together. But there are very few churches that have that kind of balance today.
SPEAKER_00Speaking of lectures out in the marketplace, I'm just sort of reminded of Jordan Peterson and uh, you know, a man who's found an audience for very long winded lectures on Genesis, two hours at a time, millions view, he sells out theaters. What do you think that says about the Bible? What do you think that says about our culture?
SPEAKER_01Uh My first thought, I I I do think it does says something about the the Bible and the culture, but I think my my first thought is what does that say about the church and then the various um substitutes that the church has made to Bible teaching? Right. Um we think uh many many evangelicals think if I'm going to speak to people today, I need to um uh uh tell anecdotes and I need to uh uh you know kind of uh accommodate what I'm what I'm talking about, accommodate the Bible to their uh capacity. Sugarcoat the bit of a and then Jordan Peterson comes along. Yeah, uh not sure if he even believes the Bible in the way I would think it should be believed, but then he shows that there's profound depths to the Bible that exposes things about human life that really resonate with people because they're you know there really are about human life. And so my first my first reaction to his ministry is to say, or his ministry, his work is to say, um, this should be a rebuke to the church because if we were teaching the Bible in the depth that it deserves, um then uh the church should be recognizing and proclaiming these things. Yes. I do I think you're right, it does show uh some profound. I mean, Peterson's entire uh uh rise to international stardom uh points up a number of things that are there's a profound hunger for. I mean, the his appeal to young men is quite dramatic, as you know. And then the the appeal that the Bible has in the way that he approaches it, because he's approaching it as a serious text about human life.
SPEAKER_00About humans, especially written for humans, not just for Christians to fine-tune their discipleship. Exactly. Right.
SPEAKER_01So I think it it does uh it does indicate a kind of longing for uh some exposure to to deeper reality. I hope, and I hope Christians are paying attention to that and will recognize it. Uh I uh back up, and I think this would be a this would fit with some of the other things we've been talking about. Um I'll cite Jim Jordan again. He's my you know I don't I don't know anything except what I learned from Jim. Um I mean he's he's emphasized the fact that there need to be a variety of different sorts of events that churches are doing with a variety of different tonalities and levels of levels of engagement. Um churches today tend to have be a Sunday morning gathering and then uh maybe have some other Bible studies during the week, but we don't have the kind of variety of different kinds of events that speak to different sorts of people. But uh a church could have a liturgy where there's Bible teaching that's kind of in-house Bible teaching for the for the gathered people of God, but then also have events and don't in different venues and with different emphases that would be also Bible teaching, but in a different kind of different kind of mode, a different kind of key that wouldn't be aimed so much at building up uh the already existing body as trying to uh would be a part of an evangelistic or an apologetic work. So having a a variety of different sorts of events uh and a different a variety of different sorts of uh um uh rhetorics, I guess, um would be a that's what you'd want for a full full orbed uh mission.
SPEAKER_00And I guess Jordan Peterson has shown us that people will show up to discuss ideas and to think deeply about the Bible, and we don't need to sugarcoat the the Bible as though it's a bitter pill that must be swallowed, but actually, yeah, there there is an audience for this. A hunger and a thirst, and uh yeah, yeah, he he is a rebuke to us. He definitely is a rebuke to us. Um what what do you make of uh the place of apologetics? What what's what's your sort of uh theology of uh of apologetics, the place of the mind, the place of reason in sort of the the conversion of people?
SPEAKER_01Where do you fall on that as a good yeah there's a lot of uh a lot of questions that are tangled up in that um one uh uh one dimension of it, I think, is uh um part of what we've been already discussing. Um could maybe put it this way the church has an apologetic, but the church also is an apologetic. The church is a testimony to the work of God in the world and a healthy community of believers that is welcoming and is uh and is discipling people, uh, that they're growing in maturity in Christ. Um that's part of the uh that's part of the proclamation of the gospel, it's part of the defense of the gospel. This is really true, and you can tell it's true because this is what's happening uh in places where people believe it and practice it. So I think that just thinking about apologetics as a set of arguments, I think is too limited. I don't want to include the the church's own body life as part of the part of its apologetic work. But again, there are certainly places for um for argument and testimony and uh and addressing uh uh various kinds of challenges to um uh uh to the Christian faith, whether coming from science or uh you know secular philosophy. I think there's again, if it if you have a a church that in the aggregate has a uh full-orbed ministry in different different kinds of venues, then that would certainly be one of them. Um I guess the uh in answer to the question, then the role of the mind, um uh uh my uh so much of our reaction to things is context dependent. And my uh in my context, in the Reformed Protestantism, there has been a strong emphasis on theology, on doctrine, and on the mind. And there's a tendency, um, Jamie Smith talks about uh the view of the human being as a brain on a stick. Uh you forget the body and you forget the emotions, and you're just making an appeal to the mind. So that's that's kind of the bogeyman that I'm always trying to trying to resist. So uh reducing uh Christian faith just to uh just to the mind, or even reducing the appeal of the gospel just to an intellectual appeal, I think, is a mistake. It has a a full uh full holistic appeal that's an appeal that includes an emotional appeal uh and has a has a bodily and social dimension to it too. Um but what I mean my my tendency in that is to uh say so much uh about the cautions about the mind that uh you neglect the uh neglect the the the uh essential character of uh the intellectual appeal, which I do think is essential to a healthy Christian church. You can't you can't um you can't build a healthy Christian community, you can't build a healthy Christian mission uh on a kind of emotional high. Right. It has to have doctrinal ballast and it has to have intellectual weight. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Paul persuades people. Correct, yeah, right. Yeah. Okay. And and so the church doesn't just have an apologetic, the church is an apologetic. What what therefore is the character of the church? And and can we get specific about uh an evangelist? What would be the character of an evangelist that you would say is necessary as they go out to the nations and and uh speak of Jesus?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, uh there'd be an um a number of different uh characteristics that uh uh would be ideal in evangelists. I think there's a you know uh uh maybe a tendency to think of an evangelist as having a certain kind of personality, but uh I'm not sure that's the case. Um I don't I I think of Tim Keller. Um I don't know Tim Keller personally, but um listening to sermons and having some inkling of what he does. Um extremely low-key kind of he's not Billy Sunday. No, no, he's kind of a megaphone. No, he's not. Uh but extremely effective in just getting under people's skin and uh and really addressing um people where they're the questions that they're actually asking and the needs that they actually have. He's got a real gift for that. So I don't think I don't think it's a particular kind of personality. I think uh obviously um it involves uh profoundly Christ-like character. Um that would be a requirement for any kind of ministry in the church. Um I think it's important to emphasize that partly because of the variety of scandals that we've had in the last few decades, uh prominent Christian leaders who are caught out in various kinds of uh personal scandals. And uh their ministry can look very effective in terms of numbers, it can look very effective in terms of excitement, uh, but without the um unless they are really reflecting Christ in their person, and they're uh I think that that's an essential part of it. Um I I think too that you uh thinking Paul as a kind of model evangelist, um, one of the things that he stresses uh in a number of places, uh 2 Corinthians most prominently, but I think he's real alluding to it in in Galatians when he talks about uh bearing under his body the random marks of Christ. Um he's uh uh embodying the gospel in his suffering for the gospel. Uh and I think an a willingness to uh to suffer opposition and uh suffer uh slander, uh you know, uh suffer various forms of pu persecution that'll take different forms in different parts of the world these days. But uh a willingness to truly be a a a witness, a martyr in the in the original and the classic sense, I think that's that's certainly part of it. And then I kind of highlight those things not to minimize the kind of uh the standard things that people would say about an evangelist and um a uh knowledge of scripture, uh a knowledge of uh the gospel, a uh freedom and willingness to preach the gospel in whatever context, uh a sense of um the uh sensitivity to the kinds of questions and oppositions that might uh be being able to give an answer for the hope that lies within you and being able to address the the objections. Those are all part of the part of the toolkit of the evangelist. Yeah. But um when I I think uh I I'd want to stress the the personal character and the the willingness to suffer is something that maybe is neglected sometimes in thinking about evangelism.
SPEAKER_00Yes, whenever I do evangelism training, I always uh say, you know, tell me some adjectives. When you think of an evangelist, what do you think of? And they describe this horrible human being as just you know, thick skin, firing their belly, always a man. I always think of a man. And um and then I say, okay, break up into pairs and tell your neighbor about somebody who is significant in you trusting Christ. Uh and they end up with these much nicer characteristics. You know, this person's warm and personable, always available, integrity, and all those sorts of things. So it's uh I think it's absolutely right to start with with character like that. So we're gonna circle back to to going to church again on on a on a Sunday, but before before we get there, um is there a place for some people call it cold contact evangelism? I call it sort of first contact evangelism because it doesn't have to be cold, but um door-to-door in the streets. Um is there a place for that?
SPEAKER_01Uh I I think absolutely, and uh this again is an I think a signal of a breakdown of church order that uh that's um uh isn't maybe isn't done or isn't done as effectively. And I what I have in mind is this. Um let's we can blame the automobile uh and the availability of easy and cheap transportation, uh which gives you the opportunity to drive past dozens of churches on your way to a church where you that you ideal you feel you fit ideologically. Yeah, people like me, ideologically, socioeconomically, sometimes ethnically, racially. Um that's not a comment about uh people being racist. I think there's just a there's a there's a uh there's a there's a uh natural stick to see. Yeah, exactly. So um I think the the modern the order of modern society I think presents particular challenges to um the church functioning as an a body within a particular place, particular neighborhood. And so the door-to-door kind of work that you're talking about, I think is bound up with the church having a sense of place, being uh set in a particular location and having obligations to minister to the people within reach of the local church that are right next door. Um rather than you know uh raising raising the banner, uh we're the truly reformed church, or we're the you know, the the truly Methodist, I don't know, truly Lutheran, whatever it is. Uh rather than raising that banner as the attraction point for people from uh miles and miles away, you're put in a particular place, you're called to that place, and those are your neighbors as a church.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um the other the other part of church order that I think is uh relevant here. I have a friend who's a missionary in Peru, and one of his evangelistic strategies has been uh to uh uh they they have a very strong sense of uh localism trying to work in a local area. And uh one of his strategies has been he's puts on a clerical collar uh and he walks from door to door introducing himself to the neighborhood as your pastor.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01I'm your pastor, right? Uh I'm at the church down here. Right. If you need pastoral care, I'm available. Right. That can lead into evangelistic um opportunities. Uh can certainly lead into mission, mission ministry opportunities, because some people do take him seriously, and they, you know, when they have a family crisis, well, this pastor, this nice pastor, came by several months ago, and his church is just down the block.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna go see if I can get his help.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and there's a kind of um assertion of authority there. Uh, God has placed us in this neighborhood. These people are our responsibility because God has placed us here. And whether or not they're members of my church, um, these are the people that I'm supposed to minister to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I remember reading Acts 17 and getting to the place where Paul says, From one man, God made every race of men, and he he determined the exact times and places where we should live. He did this so that men would reach him and find him, although he's not far from each one of us. So there is an evangelistic purpose behind the geographical location where we are. And I I think that that's fascinating about a church might want to raise a banner for being my brand of church, as opposed to raising a banner for I am a church for Eastbourne where I live, I'm a church for the locality.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I do think that there's an growing appreciation of that sense of place in churches. There's a um in a lot of different areas I see signs that there's a uh kind of recovery of a sense of parish or neighborhood church life. Um But the the the challenge is one of the challenges is um it it's you know it's much church life can be much easier if you're gathering people who are a lot like you. Um church life can be much easier if you're targeting people who already are like-minded. We want like-minded people to come in. And um much easier and sometimes much more successful, you can gather a larger crowd if you put up a banner with a particular kind of uh ministry, a particular kind of theology, and that's one that has some kind of um that has a certain degree of popularity. You can you can build a church rapidly, but I don't think you you have this we don't have the same kind of maybe not the same kind of depth, and certainly not you're not fulfilling the calling that I think is placed on the church to be ministering in a particular locale.
SPEAKER_00So when we go around the the the doors, I go to an Anglican church in Eastbourne and uh we would go and we'd say, Hi, I'm Glenn, this is Peter, we're from All Souls Church, it's the one with the clock tower there. You you're very welcome any Sunday. We'd we'd hand them some literature and on the front it would talk about Sundays. On the back it would talk about toddler groups and English as a second language, you know, English classes and debt counselling and and things like that. And so we draw their attention to one or two things and then sort of say, and and do you have a faith yourself? And just and see, and you know, and if if they go quiet, we go quiet, thank you, have a nice day, and and on we go. But uh it's it's it's had a marked impact on the parish. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well I think that uh the the kind of I was trained in uh evangelism explosion, the uh D. James Kennedy's program. Um you know, if uh if you died tonight and you were standing before the pearl gates and Peter said, or Jesus said, Why should I let you into my heaven? Peter's not there, I don't think, in D. James Kennedy's uh good pre Presbyterian. It would be Jesus. Yeah. Why should I let you into my heaven?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and that would be that's the opening to talk about salvation by grace through faith. Um and I think uh that was extremely effective in the southern part of the United States uh during a certain period of time uh when you had memory of God, of the gospel, when almost everybody that you ran into, and still the case in uh in large part in the South. I'm in Alabama and it's still very much the Bible belt. Um but in in particular in you know the era that Kennedy was developing that, um, it resonated with people in ways that I don't think it would today in the South quite as much, and it certainly wouldn't in other parts of the country. You know, what is heaven? Who is Jesus? Right. Why do I care? Yeah. That's even the case there, but um I I think Birmingham and other parts of the South, Alabama is uh uh the most Protestant state in the United States. The Bible in the Bible says, yeah, it's uh I think it was the last survey was like 80, 80 some percent of the state identifies as Protestant. Um so it would be less uh uh very few people that I have met in over um a total of uh almost a dozen years of living in Birmingham at two different times, uh very few people would admit to not being Christians. And the it and many of them have had some contact with the church. They walked the aisle at some point, they got baptized. Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but that kind of question makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right. It does. But I think a lot of contexts it doesn't. So the kind of thing that you're pointing to, um we have an English class, you know. Um that's gonna be appealing to people. You have certain kinds of um community life that they can be invited into. Uh that seems to be hitting a need and something that they can that'll uh meet them where they are in a way that some of those earlier types of evangelism uh don't as much today.
SPEAKER_00And you find you find that as you scatter the seed more widely, you're you're surprised by how hard some soil is, and you're surprised by how open some people are at at the very same time. So it's been great to get our get our congregation out there doing that sort of thing. But if so let's let's say it goes well and they say, Oh, what time on a Sunday? And you say, well, 1030, just over there, and they come, they come to your church. Um I'm always thinking about 1 Corinthians 14, and and Paul seems to he has a category for um those who are outsiders. They're they're not believers, but they don't seem to be utterly hardened to the gospel, but they're they're outsiders, and they don't understand everything that's going on, but they understand enough to say God is really among you. And I just think so often we sort of fall off either side of the horse. Either everything that goes on is so incomprehensible that no one could ever say God is among you, they just don't know what what's going on. And and some people, everything is so lowest common denominator. Um, it might be plain, but it's not plain that God is among you. Um so how how do how do you stay on that horse that that things are to some degree comprehensible to the outsider, but also there's a sense that God is really among you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh a couple a couple of things, thoughts on that.
SPEAKER_01One is um might be a longer conversation. I'm not sure exactly what kind of event is being described in 1 Corinthians 4 uh 14. Um is it a Lord's Day gathering or is it some other kind of event where it's more um uh you know community sharing? Um that would that would be a um that's a question in my mind. I and I'm not sure that I have a strong uh conclusion on that, but it's uh that that's it that would be uh something to explore. And I think the other another uh dimension of it would be um, I think there have to be times when the focus of attention in the church is on building up the community of believers and instructing the people of God and um the people of God communing together, uh praising God together, praying together. Uh you know, you think about a family analogy. Um we're called to be hospitable if every meal, every meal has guests, uh, and you never have a time when it's family time, then uh that's that's that's not healthy for the family. The family has to has to be Together as family in order to be effectively hospitable. So I think there have to be family times. That doesn't mean that unbelievers would be excluded, but it does mean that the focus or orientation of, and I think the Lord's Day liturgy is largely that. It's the focus is on ministering to the uh to the church and teaching the church, building up the church, gathering the church at the Lord's table. Having said that, um uh suppose an unbeliever comes in. Um I'm thinking first of all in terms terms of preaching, uh is anything I is anything I'm going to say going to resonate with them? I think it's not going to resonate if my sermons are full of theological jargon and if I'm teaching a kind of if I'm if I'm doing the the kind of lecture that you mentioned earlier, if I've turned the worship service into a lecture moment. If I'm focused on teaching the Bible, um uh with you know Jordan Peterson on my shoulder, perhaps, reminding me that the Bible is about human beings in real human situations. Right. Uh, and Jim Jordan certainly on one shoulder, uh telling me, uh, look at all the beautiful things that are here in Scripture. Right. So I think that uh I try very hard to avoid um uh including technical terminology and jargon in sermons. I think there's a place for that, certainly a place for that in theological training, a place for that in certain kinds of discipleship within the church and leadership training, that kind of thing. When you have the gathered people of God, you have people of um you know every level of maturity, every age, you want to teach the Bible to them. And I think uh with the Jordan Peterson example that we've already discussed, uh you can teach the Bible in a way that even an unbeliever who comes into that setting is gonna say, Wow, I I never understood that about myself, I've never understood that about the world, I see the world differently now. And that, you know, that came from the Bible. That's a really interesting thing. So um, in terms of preaching, that would be one important part of it to uh and I'll uh that's not to say I'm trying to uh uh dumb down what I'm saying. Um uh I I am going I you know I'm going to avoid I'm not gonna have much discussion of Hebrew grammar unless it's really crucial to the point I'm trying to make. Um usually I try to avoid that kind of thing. Want to teach the Bible, uh, and I think it's God's word, it's the word of the Creator to his creatures, and that has its own power.
SPEAKER_00Right. And I think so so often I because I'm preaching to unbelievers a lot of the time, um, some Christians hear me speak and they say, Ah, I see, Glenn, how you tried to get rid of jargon in your language so that you'd reach the non-Christian. And actually I'm thinking, it's actually because I'm trying to create reach the Christian, because I think so much of that jargon can mask our own ignorance. We don't really understand what we say when we say sanctification or whatever. Um and and that actually finding synonyms and finding finding ways of uh explaining these things is not just for the outside.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it can could have sp put us in kind of mentally into a uh into neutral and we stop thinking because we we have the term for it, we don't have to think about it anymore.
SPEAKER_00But we want to see with new eyes, you know. We want to we want to s and one of the ways of seeing with new eyes is actually trying to trying to evacuate our language of of pure jargon.
SPEAKER_01Um the other the other the other thought I had about your question about the unbelievers coming into the Lord's Day service. Um there's a um uh uh I I think uh different different kinds of churches have different kinds of emotional atmosphere. And I don't think that there's uh there can be a variation that I think is all different faithful expressions of of Christianity in the liturgy. Um there's certain kinds of liturgy and certain kinds of settings that are awesome in their uh uh kind of uh beauty and and in a sense the the calm of and uh the peace of God is evident in the way that the liturgy is done. I think that communicates something about the gospel and about the the uh about the uh about the Christian life and the Christian church. Um the emphasis that we've had at Theopolis is on life insofar as we can accomplish it as Reformed Presbyterians, we try to be vigorous and lively in worship. That's a that's a that's a challenge for us. Um but uh a large part of that for us is musical and the kind of music that we're singing, but the content of the words that we're singing, we place a lot of emphasis on psalm singing, and we want psalms to be sung with uh with vigor and with strength. And and if if you're really singing the psalms and singing the psalms from beginning to end uh and giving them their due, then you can't help but do that because their psalms are psalms are vigorous. There are wars. That's right. There are war songs and they're lament songs, and there's and I think um uh you know some of the churches I'm thinking of in the states that um I think do this particularly well. I can imagine somebody coming in for the first time and just being blown away by the the uh I know that people come in to the churches that I'm I'm associated with, and they're blown away by the number of men who are singing loudly in church. Yes. Um and they never have seen this before in any kind of setting.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Rarely see people singing together, but they've never seen so many men putting their whole uh whole soul into singing.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Swansea, I I think of where uh they they do sing unaccompanied, they also sing sing hill songs songs you know at at times, but um they speak of the the huge evangelistic gain in in just people coming and hearing singing. I mean they sing so loudly they get feedback in the room when nobody's mic'd up. This is Wales. So you know you can understand it, but but huge evangelistic uh benefit in the singing. So we thought about word, we thought about singing, let's finish with sacrament. Um because I guess ever since Charles Finney there's been this idea of, I guess, an altar call, which is, you know, that's an interesting, you know, word to use. And there's a thing called a sort of a prayer of commitment, which is sort of this this point of my declaration before the world that I'm committed to Christ. Um but more historically, sacramentally, um, there is an altar or table, um, and there is a ceremony of commitment, um, the Lord's to us, but also our declaration to the Lord. Um so how do we how do we think with a proper view of sacraments about not replacing them with these new evangelistic sacraments called a prayer of commitments? Um how how would our sacramentology help us?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, what obviously you're referring in the uh the commitment that you're talking about is baptism and the the altar call. Uh I'd I'd say that uh every every service that uh we have at our church ends with an altar call. People are invited to come and share in the Lord's table. Yes. Uh that's a more literal altar call than Charles Pinney had.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um so yeah, I uh I think that's uh uh important for I guess for several reasons. I think it's important to give those their proper weight uh and not let them be replaced by, as you say, kind of replacement sacraments that are um these are the and the part of part of the reason for that is I think these are biblical rites that God has called us, uh commanded the church to do. Um I think the the uh Christian sacraments also place the emphasis properly on God's work and God's approach to us, as you've already mentioned. The baptism is God's claim on the believer. There's a necessary response. And in fact, if you have an adult who's never been baptized, they're expressing some kind of faith before they're baptized. Um, and you know, if they're hit by a bus on their way to the baptism, they'll be in the new creation with the rest of us. But uh that public act, uh, I think it's the act of Jesus of claiming them. Right, that's the moment when you have a uh Jesus publicly officially claiming them as members of his body. And what's happening at the Lord's table is Jesus offering himself in his spirit as our food. So that those uh the the um the alternatives, the you know, prayer of prayer of commitment or the altar call where you're uh you're walking the aisle, uh this kind of flip the flip the emphasis from God's act toward us to my human declaration, my human decision. Um I think one of the reasons why those are so ingrained in um evangelicalism is because they fit so neatly with kind of a modern emphasis on human decision and the will and consent. Um I have to consent. Only if I can consent, if I can, if I consent, can God claim me. Well, I don't know. That's not choose my own identity. That's right, that's right. Yeah, so yeah. So there's a uh I I think our um the uh the the these replacement sacrament-like events kind of flip the relationship between God action and our decision. I think the the the other, I mean the the danger on the other side obviously is you have baptism practiced as if it were um get out of hell free card. You've been baptized. Uh this is the problem that you find in places like Alabama, Bible Belt, um, maybe in in some kind of nominal Anglican uh circles in the in the UK, where you know you've been christened, you've been baptized, you're good. You've done you've given your You've been done. Yes. Uh and God is satisfied with you, and then there's there's no emphasis on that claim uh as a as a vocation. There's no emphasis on baptism as uh carrying obligations to the person who's baptized, but also obligations to other believers who are to encourage them in their in into maturity in Christ. So I think the the it's not that it's not that decision is eliminated in a properly sacramental understanding. It's that our decision is subordinated to God's claim on us, and our decision is always responsive. We're always loving uh the God who first loved us.
SPEAKER_00Right. And so as I bring my sermon to a close, and I I've spotted that there's these unbelievers, you know, in in the congregation, I am calling them to the God who is calling them already. I'm I'm saying uh be reconciled to the God who is reconciling you in Christ. What does that sound like? What do I like? Yeah. And especially like, okay, I I don't know whether they're baptized or not. Right. You know, do I say come forward to the table and receive?
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, uh just in terms of the form of words, I think there's it's important to say if you want to come and share this table, then you need to be um you need you need to wash up, you know. Right. Okay. Um follow your follow your mom's instructions that you wash up before you come to the dinner table.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's only the circumcised who took Passover, it's the baptized who took communion. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um but I do think that you know you can make an a s a powerful appeal to you know the unbeliever who's in the in visiting the congregation. Um uh God is God invites us into his own life in Jesus Christ. He invites us to share in this table to receive Christ. He invites you, what you can see is he invites you to come into this community of joy and fellowship. Uh uh come, join, uh, repent of your sins, uh, turn to Jesus Christ and join us as the body of Christ. I think you make a very powerful appeal that's kind of sacramentally oriented.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um I I I wouldn't invite them to come and share the Lord's table as uh I insist that they be baptized uh before they do. If you know if somebody gets excited, an unbeliever gets excited and rushes to the rushes to the Eucharist and receives it and finds out you find out later he's been baptized. I think Jesus can sort that out. Yeah. I don't think that's the end of the world. Um but there's a proper order to things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but wash up before you come. That's the and that's that's a a great note to finish on. But yeah, the call is into this festival gathering, the call is to belong to this family of life. Leave leave the old self at the door, wash up, come on home, join the joy. Yeah, that's that's what a holistic kind of evangelism looks like. Wonderful. Peter Lighthart, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, Glenn.
SPEAKER_01It's been a great