A Theology of Geography

Redeemer is located in the Pacific Northwest, an area that is notoriously secular in culture, life, and faith. How do we think about the area we live in and how does our identity as the church inform how we think about moving or staying in a particular area?
Gabe, Riley and Jerod unpack what we think is a biblical way of thinking about where we live.

SHOW NOTES
Pew Research Religious Landscape Study
Pew Research Religious Attendance By State
Religion New Service Article: The Pacific Northwest is the American religious future
Seattle Times: The Unchurched Northwest
Gallup: U.S. Church Membership Down Sharply in Past Two Decades

Transcript

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Redeemer Church is located in a difficult area. Cost of living is high. The culture is largely secular. At best. It's neutral to Christianity and at worst it's fully hostile. So what's a biblical way of thinking about where we live as a church called to spread the light of the gospel to the dark world? When and how should we move out of the area? Or should we at all? These questions will discuss today on the Church Matters Podcast and Ministry of Redeemer Church. Welcome to Church Matters, a podcast designed to help the Church understand and apply a biblical worldview to all of life. I'm Gabe here with Jared and Riley. What's up, guys? Hey, good to be here. Afternoon. Afternoon. Time is a you're in that lunch. Lunch, lunchtime slump right now. Exactly. Ready for a nap and layoff. Afternoon is starting to get dark already. Well, also, though, this room is like a more of a amber color. So it just like it makes you want to take a nap. Yeah. Before we get into the subject that we're talking about today, I really do. I have to ask you guys this. I need to figure out here. It's not a big curveball. I want to know what Christmas movies you guys are watching and whether or not you've decorated your houses. I need to know what kind of if I'm in a room full of Grinches or if we're right on the cusp. Well, we are now technically in the Christmas season, and so I need to know what kind of meaning my sitting across from right now. So, yes. So yeah. So our tradition, our tradition is to decorate the house on the day after Thanksgiving. Okay. So far, your man I can trust. So we've got we have the whole house decorated. We're not like the overly over-the-top kind of Don't look at me like that. Whenever you say that everything is decorate like every any space that will hold something, it's got to decorate because I want it to look like Santa is workshop threw up in my house does mean we're not that okay. We make sure that everything we have by the end of it can fit in three bins. Okay. Okay. So that's impressive. That's if it doesn't spark joy. Jared, Is that what you're doing? Yeah, exactly. Peace, love, joy. And, yeah, I don't know the other one. And, and so and then when my in-laws were here over the weekend, we watched White Christmas. The Grinch, the new one with Benedict Cumberbatch, which is really great. And then we watched, gosh, what was the other one we watched in November? I can't think of what it was now. yeah, you told me now the Charles Dickens one. No, we have to watch that one. The man who invented Christmas is really great. Okay, I want to watch it, but. gosh, I can't remember what it was. We watched another one. Really? Older, new. I don't even remember. Okay, Riley, what about you? Is your house decorated so far? Jared, Respect Jared's respect That ruined your now. Gosh, how do we not know? And I am done. I mean, one, I may be Instagram, I may recall. I may be the person who. Home alone. We watched on the other, I may be the party animals that kids love. Yeah, we we may be. Or I may be my wife and children or not. I may be the person who's like, no Christmas music until, like, Thanksgiving. But like, once it is, it is non star like. So for sure I walk it. I'm just like Alexa play the classical Christmas. Yeah. You know okay so to my credit I do that as well. Okay. All right. So I want I have to listen to some Christmases before Advent. That's because we don't have to fire before. Yeah, yeah, that's good. But once. Yeah, once. Once the Christmas season actually hits and it's after Thanksgiving, I'll turn on the Christmas music of the Christmas movie. Are there lights on your house yet? Riley? There are not lights outside of my house. Okay. There are lights. You have plans for lights outside? Yes. Yeah. Okay. They're sitting on my kitchen table. Okay. Package kind of right now. Okay. And I just haven't got around to putting them up. What is that going to happen? Probably Friday, because we going to go eat our tree on Friday. Okay. All right. Okay. That's respectable. That's before the first Sunday, I think. I think. And I made the cut off, right? Yeah. All right. I'm just glad to know I'm doing a party. Okay. All right. I'm in good company then. But as you're listening to this snow, as far as movies go, we love the Well, Ari really likes that Grinch as well. The Benedict Cumberbatch. No. One. Yeah, Yeah. It's it's not the one that I grew up on. So there's that. But did you grow up on the old one or on the Jim Crow lives? Well, both. I'm both, yeah. And I like the the old one, the parole officer who's the guy who's the guy's voice does that. The great like you nauseated me. It does start with a B though I think it is. Burl Ives. Burl Ives. Yeah. Burl Ives is the Burl Ives is the voice of the people listening to this or someone that knows right now they're showing it to one 800. Yeah. Redeemer Church throwing things at their car. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I grew up with the old one and then the Jim Carrey one came out not long after I was in like the Ravenscroft Isn't that somebody? Ravenscroft I have No, that's what it is. Yes. No way. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. Go on. No, but I was I was in the height of childhood, the Jim Carrey one came out and that was just the funniest thing to us kids, because I had two brothers, one sister. I still have two brothers and one sister. Yeah, Yeah. They're all okay. Thanks for asking the rule. Thurl Ravenscroft That was right. Yeah, they're all Ravenscroft. He's the one who sings, though. who sings it? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. No, sorry. Boris Karloff. There you go. Thanks a lot. Yeah, they're all. Ravenscroft did something else. I don't know. He. I don't know what he did. He did some, but the other one that I have a real sweet. He was the uncredited vocalist for the song. Vocalists for the song. Sorry, I'm the. He's the background, so I don't know. He's I don't I don't understand. The other movie I have a soft spot for is It's a Wonderful Life. I watched that twice already. So can I make a confession? You've never seen better. I've never seen that I know of. Another family in our church is never sure. How would you come out? That's why. Because I've. I've seen parts of it, but I've never seen the whole thing. Like I've seen a I know the. I don't. Gerard, it's okay to cry. Okay? You can watch a movie and cry. That's okay. I want to just give you permission, right? I think as a kid, I hated it. It was very bad y. And so I was always like, I don't want to watch this. Like, they have colorized versions of it. I thanks, Gerard. If you need that. If you need to be spoon fed, you can go. You are missing out if you make you must not make it through this Christmas. This is not one of the ones that is one of the is that person. That's the one. That's all the time. Yes, for sure. Like, did you mention something about it in your sermon a couple of weeks ago? Yeah. I was like, yeah, yeah, I don't know. Yeah. That's also the one where it's like, every time a bell rings, an angel gets angel. Yeah, yeah. I don't watch it because about for or for that reason, I'm out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. my goodness. Because the Grinch is this like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's redemption. His heart grows. Yeah. Well, okay, well, maybe we should stop being silly. I did that to us. I'm sorry. I apologize. It just. I just felt like it started people asking for a longer podcast, and here we are. Yeah. Yeah. There's other people listening going. Who the heck is that? That's like, podcast. What's wrong with those people? Yeah, we are. We're talking about a non Christmas related subject this year, although, you know, I don't know, maybe we find some crossover here, but we're basically going to address the question what is a biblical way of thinking about where we live? And so the whole concept of this podcast is that there is a biblical way to look at everything. There's a biblical worldview that applies to all facets of life. And so our desire is to help us think biblically about every facet of life. And that includes thinking biblically about where we live and then some kind of tangential ideas related to that. So we'll get to that as well. Well, let's let's talk a little bit about what is a biblical way of thinking about where we live goes. How do we want to jump into that conversation? I've written down maybe a couple of ideas of where we could go with it, but I would just love to hear, what do you guys think about that, that question If somebody were to ask you that, a lot of times where that comes up is people say, Man, I'm living in the Pacific Northwest and you're specifically talking about. Yes, but I mean, this applies obviously, generally if you're living someplace else. But I we do want to specifically talk to those who are living in the Pacific Northwest, because here's the problem. I guess maybe I should set that up first. People will often look at our our region, conservative Christians, evangelical Christians, and they go, man, this is a tough place to live. We we have it can be tough economically in terms of it's expensive. So it can be hard to buy a house here if somebody wants be able to do that, which I think is a great thing and they want to be able to do that, it can be hard to do that. Living in the Pacific Northwest, for some people, they're living far away from family and and where they grew up and they missed grandparents and siblings and uncles and aunts and cousins and all of that for for some people, they just look at our culture and the region that we live in and they're like, Man, it is so godless and it just seems so thoroughly pagan and thoroughly corrupt. And why are we raising a family in this region again? And and so we were looking at some stats kind of related to this subject before we jumped into the podcast. And rather, do you get some of those stats in front of you? Yeah, there's an there's terminology that people use with this stuff, the called the nuns. You may have heard of that before, and that's referring to people who have no religious affiliation when they're asked how religious are you they or what religion are you, they say, None. I'm not affiliated with any religion. And that's really high in the Pacific Northwest. The Pew Research Center, I think this was from 2022. I might be wrong about that, but fairly recently, the last few years says that that category encompasses 32% of people in the Pacific Northwest and another 22% are just nothing. And of that, 30 to 22% are nothing in particular, and then 10% are atheist and agnostic. Yeah, and Religion News Service says that in the Pacific Northwest, basically the religious nones have gone from 20 to 32%. Yeah. So it's going up the way up, right. And that was that was from 2019. And then there's this interesting. The whole article itself is really interesting, maybe linked to it in the show notes there, but it talks about in this region that and some of you have certainly experienced this. We've heard this from people as they've looked for, as you've been looking for churches or that kind of thing. But it says two decades ago, I'm just going to quote the article here. It says, Two decades ago, the Pacific Northwest region saw a mission territory ripe for making major inroads and the vast number of the unchurched. Then they understood themselves as at the crest of a powerful evangelical wave sweeping over America. But now, he says, they see themselves as living on the shore of an ebb tide, Christianity, and are finding ways to accommodate to the dominant culture. Increasingly, evangelicals in the Pacific Northwest have become open to, if not quite affirming of LGBTQ members. They're soft on abortion. They embrace the environment. I don't know if that means maybe just sort of I read somewhere just that there's kind of in the article about the the kind of that that's kind of the spirituality of this. Yeah, exactly. It's the religion of the northwest is environmental very classically pagan and in some ways they embrace the environment. Some even go so far as to forswear evangelization. There's an effort on the part of evangelicals in the region to now redefine themselves, says Michael Wilkinson, a sociology professor at Trinity Western University in B.C.. They're speaking of Christian evangelicals. Confidence is gone. And so what he's talking about is he's saying so all of that to say, like your experience or the reports that we hear of people and even our own experience living in the Pacific Northwest, when people say, man, it seems like it's tough to be a Christian out here. It doesn't seem like there's a ton of churches that hold to a inherent, authoritative, inspired view of scripture. It seems like on a lot of cultural issues, many of the churches in our region are just really, really soft, if not all the way, just have gone liberal and theologically. And so if that's been your experience and you've encountered that in churches and and I've heard from people in our church that have said our criteria to find a church didn't seem like we set the bar that high. We wanted the church. You would preach through books of the Bible who was going to be gospel centered and we wanted them to, you know, be reformed, etc., logically, like we wanted them to have a kabbalistic view of of salvation, right? These three things. And then just general conservative Christian. And they're like, it was so hard for us to find a church that met just that basic criteria. And I know there are other good churches out there, but in the Pacific Northwest, your experience of that being difficult to find isn't unusual and it's not in it is backed up by the data, it seems like. And so all that to say I want in the backdrop of this conversation as we talk about what's a biblical way of thinking about where we live, I think what's appropriate to have in the backdrop of that conversation is we we know this is a tough region to live in. We're not blind to that fact. We see that every day in different ways as pastors. And and so now giving given that fact, how should we think about where we live? So, guys, where do we want to go from there? I think one of the first things that we want to look at is God's sovereignty. I think, it's really helpful to look at a verse like Act 1726 where, God, we're not God, we're Paul addresses the area, I guess, and he says, and he made from one man, every nation of mankind, to live on, on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place like God is sovereign over where we live, as when as one person I read one time put it, our addresses are not accidents, right? They're given to us by God for his purposes. I think I think when we think of it that way, then we start to think of, okay, if God has given us this time and place and put us here for a particular reason at this particular time, then how do we use that time wisely? How do we how do we do this in such a way that we can be good stewards of our addresses? Right. Okay. So one of the reasons or one of the ways that we should think about how we where we live, a biblical way to think about that is to remember that God is sovereign. And so where we live is in an accident. Now, let me just push on that for a second and you guys can respond to that. But, you know, the person who says, well, yeah, but God is also sovereign over my cancer. I've got a sovereign over my various diseases and problems. And he's given me doctors to help eradicate the the cancer. Right. And so saying that got a sovereign over the place that we, we live. Can't I then just say well yeah he is and he's sovereignly given me legs to leave that place where I live and so therefore. Well like isn't that what does it mean to say that God a sovereign over the place I live because he's going to be sovereign over the next place I live when I run away from that God blessed place. So what do you guys think about that? I think, yes, all of those things are true. Yeah, I think that's a very limited view of what God is doing there. Like if God has put you somewhere and you're there for a particular reason, then I think what we are supposed to do with what we can, where we're at. So if you think about the exiles during the deportation that God told them to, you know, make houses and and have families and invest and to like do good to their neighborhood because good of the city. Yeah. Seek the good of the city because God had put them there so that so that his purpose could be known. God put us somewhere so that his name is known. Now, maybe that doesn't mean that you need to move, but I think that we should first consider, if God has me here, how can I glorify him in the place that He's put me in the same way that if God gives me cancer, my job is to go, How can I glorify God in my cancer? Like I don't want to waste anything that God has has given to me, whether good or for you. God has put those things into my life to grow me, to to to glorify himself and to to use that for his purposes. And not just for my, my particular life. Yeah. So if we think about God, so so part of forming a biblical worldview around this issue is to say God is sovereign. And in saying that he is sovereign, then that means the fact that you are here isn't an accident. Therefore, we shouldn't just lamented, we shouldn't just grumble about it, we shouldn't grumble about a period. We shouldn't sort of just shake our fist continually. We should say, okay, Lord, you have me here. And what is that purpose for now, maybe we could get into the conversation of is it permissible to move? Which yes, of course it's permissible to move. But let's talk through that a little bit. What does that look like? But what we want to talk to you is more what would be the reasons you would stay someplace? That's hard. Right. And so part of what can allow you to stay someplace that you know is hard is that you go, okay, got to sovereign. So he's not surprised by these circumstances. He's not surprised by where I live. And therefore, I have that kind of confidence and assurance in the place that I'm in. God has appointed for me to live here. Therefore, the things that He's called me to do, he's not going to caught me off guard, that you're going to be in a place. It was tough to do those things. Yeah. So move someplace. It's easier to do those things and then all of my commands apply to you. But where you're at now, it doesn't apply to you. And that kind of attitude that you're talking about of not like begrudgingly living where God has put you, right. Like, did you talk to us last week about redeeming the time in Ephesians 516? Is that it? And that's kind of what I think the attitude we should take it too, even if we live in a place that the nuns are really high and it feels really godless and pagan, you should still make the best use of your time, even if it is just a season in that place. Make the best use of that time because you know that God has sovereignly put you there. So consider that first before you start considering. Before you think about all the practical things of like, man, it's really expensive here. Like all the things I mentioned earlier. Yeah. Okay. So remembering God's sovereignty is part of what we need to have operating in our thinking when we when we consider where we live. Right. The got a sovereign and that sovereignty also includes because sometimes we look at our region and we see scary things or we see things that concern us and God's sovereignty also reminds us that God is sovereign over the enemies against us. God is sovereign over not just where we live, but He sovereignly protects us and He sovereignly cares for us and sustains us. And he's he's not just sovereign over. It's not like he dropped this in a spot and then went, See, good luck over there. Like he's sovereign. Day to day. Moment to moment, second to second to right where we live. Okay. The next thing that we probably need to think about in terms of forming a biblical view, about a worldview, about where we live, is our identity like who are we in the midst of where we live? And obviously we've been in first. Peter And so really, what's the language we've been using a lot of in first? Peter I'm sure you Yeah, everybody, like we have banners on our stage that say first. Peter And then underneath it it says Faithful Living in exile, right? I think that's the exact language. And so first Peter talks about us being elect exiles. Yeah, and another word you could use would be like a sojourner or a stranger. Yeah, those two come together and first Peter to when he says, I urge you as sojourners and exiles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when we think about ourselves in that way. Yeah, the it's not going to be as it ought to be right now because we're not in we're not in the new creation right now. We are so draining. We are exiles in, in the world. And so when we think of it that way, and we think of ourselves more as being being light and being ambassadors of Christ in our exile, then that that changes how we think about where we live and what we're doing while we live there, too. Yeah. How does how does guys how do you think that being a sojourner and exile should change the way that we think about where we live? Well, when you're in exile, generally, you don't get to choose where you live. You're exiled and sent away from a place where you might want to live. Right. So it's a difference of you're not always going to be seeking out what is the most comfortable, the best place I could possibly live is my family work, although sort of like grow wealth, all those sort of things, it's not going to be that kind of attitude that affects how you think about those decisions when you're thinking about being placed somewhere or exiled somewhere, yeah, you're sent to that place. You don't necessarily get to just go to the place where you want to be. You're not going to be hanging an exile necessarily. Yes. Is language that is sounds like something you don't want to be in a way. Right? Because it means like you're you're out of sorts. You're away from a home, You're you're displaced. You are there's some odd man out. There's some kind of opposition to you in some sense. And so this is language that's applied to Christians in a expectant way of like, Christian, this is just your status, this is your identity. Yeah. And so, like in first Peter, I don't think we've got there yet, but he's going to talk a lot more about you're going to experience suffering. Yeah, like there was talk about that a little bit, but it's comes back to bread that's woven all throughout. First. Peter Yeah there's this It's not that we not that we look for it, not that we just go like, we're, we're suffering. Let me see if I can run headlong into that, but that there's this expectation of suffering, there's this expectation that we'll experience exile. There's this expectation. Jesus says that you'll be hated as he's hated. There's this like there's this normative Christian experience that seems to come through the New Testament writing in particular, that Christians should sort of just go, This is what I'm going to experience. Now, there can be debate about, you know, how long is that experience and to what degree is that experience obvious? In some places in the world, that's experience to a greater degree, but it it shouldn't be. If that's the case, that that's kind of what we should expect. Maybe one of the things I would say is then it seems odd to constantly be looking for a a culture, a place where you won't experience that. Right. And it seems like it could be training you to perpetually be looking for the greener grass. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it, I think. I think one of the ways that I've heard it said is that because we're in exile, what we need to remember is that this is not our home, that the that exile in includes non exile as a hope that one day we will be in the country that we were that we longed to be in, which is not just some perfect land of where only there's the people that agree with us. But what happens is that we constantly look at Zillow looking for the promised land that we can get now. Yeah. And so we just continue to do that. But that's not what we're called to do. We're called to live here as those who are not putting our hope in something here, but putting our hope in something that will come. You know, Abraham looked for a city built by God, but he was a sojourner and he was a stranger, but always putting his hope there because he knew that that was where he was intended to be. I think too much we think of this as home and not as exile. Do you So in that thinking about our identity. Right. I think that leads into another kind of identity that we have, which is one that Jesus spoke to in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew five, when he called us Salt and light. And so you guys want to unpack that a little bit, What that means that Jesus calls us salt and light. Yeah, I'm I'm preaching this weekend in the presence of God. And so thinking about the biblical theology of presence and how in the garden God sets up kind of his the kingdom there for Adam and Eve, and then says, Go fill the earth and subdue it, expand the garden to the whole world. And in the same way we as Christians are those we're image bearers of God, we are ambassadors, we're holy, we're priests of God, right? And so we take that light and we are to show it and spread it to the whole world. And that includes the darkest parts of the world, not just where there's already a lot of light and everybody can see the truth, but take the light to the darkness, take the salt to the food that's not seasoned right. Like you need to actually be spreading the light. And so if you if you leave, where's the light going to come from, Right? Yeah, you go ahead. Let me let me just read the text. Yeah. So Matthew five, starting verse 13, you are the salt of the earth, but a salt has lost its taste. How shall saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand. And it gives light to all in the house In the same way. Let your light shine before others so that you may so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. The two things that we need to remember, Israelis point out is it's our job to be salt and light. Salt has to be applied. Light has to be shown, but it's for the purpose. That's our very identity. Yeah, that's right. That's. That's who we are. We are salt and right. And so be salt. Right. And be a lady. Yeah, exactly. You can look for the Don't hide it. Yes. Like you are salt and light. No, don't hide it. Don't, don't store it away and not apply it. I think as a as the old song that we sang as children, you know, you know, hiding under a bushel. No, you know. No, you you want to you want to let it shine so that other people so that other people give glory to your father in heaven. I think the two things that we miss is that our time here, wherever we are in the Pacific Northwest or wherever is our job, is to bring glory to God by by living the way that we live in this area. The other thing that we can often miss is that there are people who need us to be salt and light. And we missed the idea of having compassion on those who are still in darkness. And so we just look at people and we say, let's just let them all go to hell. You know, they've chosen their path, they've done that. But I mean, imagine if that's how God treated us. Like, if God that they've already that's Genesis six. They're each their own way. So then I'll just go create a different world. But no, he had compassion on us. He had mercy, had pity on us, and he came and died for our you know, Jesus came and died for our sins. I think that we miss the fact that that we too are supposed to be compassionate, like our God was to to save us. And we are we build we are to be salt and light because we're compassionate with those who are still in the darkness. Yeah. Yeah. First, Peter was the other place I thought of first, Peter to 12 that says keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. So there's a couple of things that that assumes similar to the Matthew five passage. It assumes that there's going to be people around you who are who are godless here. It calls them evildoers, people that are against God, and yet that you are meant to live in a godly way in their midst so that they would see God and glorify him and in some sense that they would they would acknowledge that, yep, he is who he said he is, whether that's, you know, on the day of judgment or that's when they're converted and then they are able to look at those believers who were around them and say, yeah, I had in there is in breaking of God's grace all around me and God's presence all around me. And yet I resisted or and because the Christians persisted and loved and were merciful and spoke the truth when other people were lying to me because they did these things. Then when I came to faith in salvation, it was through these means that God had for me, had in keeping Christians in in difficult places. So the other thing about salt is that salt's a preservative, right? And so one of the roles, I think that that we're supposed to think of ourselves as playing as Christians is that we are a kind of stemming, holding back the tide of evil in some sense in the regions in which we we live just as salt preserve meat and keeps it from just rotting and and the way that it was used, I think there's a way in which we similar to when we talk about like the third use of the law or the different uses of the law of God. Right. We'll talk about the law of God and say, okay, one of the uses of the law of God is to show us our sin, right? We hear what God commands and we see how often we fall short of it and we're convicted of our sin. The other use of God's law is to tell us how we are to live. What does it actually look like to be obedient to God and how do we live righteously? And then the third use of the law is or rather, I think I think the third use of the law is I inverted a couple of numbers there, but I'm going in in order in my mind is, is that we would actually say the law restrains evil, that God's law written on the human heart that says murder is wrong and rape is wrong. And some of these different kinds of things that are just universally true, whether or not people always obey it. But God's law is meant to function as a restraint against evil. And so in places where God's law is is honored and looked at and maybe laws are even formed in relation to it, that's going to be a preserve. Have a preserving influence on virtuous kind of conduct. And so as Christians, when we are people who are acting in that way, where we are acting like like salt and we can actually act as a preservative in a region, keeping it from just being utterly given over to evil. And that's part of the role that God has called us to play, as well as that light role, which means in order for light to really be seen, Reagan I think as President Reagan talked about America as the shining city on a hill. Well, he really was just borrowing biblical language and applying it to America. But but this is language that was applied to the church, that God applied to the church and said, I intend for my people to be this shining light, that they are the ones that the unbelieving world will look at and see, see truth and beauty and goodness. And so that that all presumes and that we're living in dark places in order for that light to be seen, you need that contrast. So part of what it means to have a biblical view about where you live is to say, okay, got a sovereign over the time. Some places I live and he has called us Sojourners in the Exiles, which means I shouldn't be surprised when things are difficult and when I don't quite fit in. And when there's an opposition that comes, that's that's what God wanted me to be prepared for, is that kind of living. And I need to be mindful of the fact that because of my American way of thinking, because of my simple way of thinking or just whatever, I often I'm going to desire comfort more than I'm going to scientific subtlety. And so it's really easy to just constantly, constantly be looking for where is it better, where is it going to be easier? And and yet biblically, it doesn't seem like that's the prime way that we are being formed to think we're primarily being formed to think about living in difficulty for the purpose of acting as a preservative, salt as light, shining God's glory in dark spaces, and living in such a way that even unbelievers would eventually give glory to God for for the way that you conducted yourself. Yeah. So that's all part of what we need to have in terms of this biblical worldview about where we live. Charles SPURGEON once said this It is not at all a bad thing for us to be put where there is opposition because we shall not be stopped by it, but shall be shall, by that very process, be made to shine all the brighter as lights in the world. If you and I are put in difficult positions where we seem to be unable to shine to the glory of God, we must ask the Lord specifically, especially to constitute us, so that we can better reflect His brightness. Yeah. So. So this is this is part of forming a biblical worldview about where you live. And so specifically, the people that we want to think about this would be people who look around our region and are just kind of constantly saying, How do I get out of here now? We're going to talk in just a moment about if the Lord is leading you to to move out of this region or for various reasons, maybe have a job opportunity or there's different things that just might might lead you away, what does that look like and what's a what's a biblical way to approach that? A godly way to approach that, A mature way to approach that. But I first just want Christians to to realize that God doesn't have you where you out on accident and that you being there is actually an important part of his plan for the Great Commission to go forward. It's actually an important part of his plan for his glory to be seen. And so I don't think it's wrong for Christians to living in difficult places like the Northwest to think about themselves as as living on the front lines. In a sense, there's things that we experience in the Northwest culturally well before certain other places in the United States experience. Yeah, whether it be LGBTQ stuff or, or, you know, when Roe v Wade was kind of that buck was passed to the States, our state, along with and and I think a couple of others were states that were like we're going to be sanctuary states where people can come and get free abortions and we're trying to get people to come in to do that. And like we have already enshrined that. Right, right, right, right. So, like, there's there is things that we see. But what that means is you can look at that one or two ways. You can either look at that and say, what a dark place we live and how do I get out of this? Or you can say what a mission feel. God has placed me in the midst of. And how much brighter can our light shine in the midst of darkness. But to do that, I think you're going to have to be vitally connected to a church. You're going to have to be vitally connected to the Christian community. You're going to have to be well grounded in the word. You're going to have to be growing and maturing as a disciple of Jesus actively, because you are in a very real sense, on the front lines of difficulty and conflict. And there are places in the US you will feel like less of a sojourner. Yeah, less of an exile. You will feel that very tangibly in the northwest. Yeah. I mean, as as someone who spent significant time overseas. Yeah. It's one of the reasons why I wanted to be back up in this region rather than to go and work at a church where it's, you know, there's other churches and the culture is very accepting. I wanted to be where there was that missional feel of, of like there is a great need here. And so like when I look around like this is great preparatory time for people who might serve overseas because this is what life is like overseas. Many of our brothers and sisters around the world who who have that call to go to missions, they live this day daily as as we do. They live in cultures that do not accept them. They live in a hostile country. Some people live where the government hates them. They have to be secretive about what they're doing. We we experience more freedom than that, but we are all called to that kind of moving forward with the Great Commission to to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. And that may include the your neighbor next door. Yeah. And so. Okay. So let me ask you, is this what would you say to the person that that says, okay, I might feel that way if it was just me, maybe if it was just a single person or it's just me and my wife or me and my husband or whatever. But I have kids. And so I don't feel that way because I my kids, I want to protect my kids. I don't want them to have to deal with this. You know, I don't think it's fair that that they're exposed to the kinds of the kind of darkness that they're exposed to here. What would you say to to those families? I'd say that's a difficult thing to work through. I don't want to just I don't want to just say just buck it up, deal with it, like, move on, suck it up. But yeah, like, I want I want to honor that. That is a that's a tough thing to to weigh and to handle. I don't think that, I don't think that it negates anything that we're saying about salt and light and your identity and being sojourners and exiles. I think your kids being raised in this kind of environment in some ways are better equipped to go into life after leaving your house because they've already had to deal with all of this. Let's imagine if you were raised in a culture that was much more friendly to to Bible believing Christians, to followers of Jesus. And your kids grew up in that. And then they go to college in Seattle, they're going to have a just a really big slap in the face with that kind of culture. That's going to be hard. They're not going to be equipped in the same way to deal with that, or at least it's going to be harder to be equipped. So I think you can see raising kids in this this environment and this culture as in some ways a blessing to there are good things about it in that they can see in really tangible ways what it looks like to live as a sojourner and an exile, to be a follower of Christ, to not bow down to the culture but to speak truth and and light into the culture. What do you think, Jared? I think that I think if you're afraid of your kids being exposed to ideas that you don't want them to, then you better start getting a bubble ready. Because, I mean, it's in all the movies, it's in all the TV shows, in all the music, it's in the stores. Like you're just not like you. I mean, the thing with Target, it was all over Target. If you go to if you shop at Target, you're going to experience there. I think our job as parents is not to hide them from this stuff. It's to equip them on how to think through it. Yeah. So when they see it, you have the conversation. When you're walking down the street and you see a transgender person and your daughter goes, What's that? And you have a conversation. Here's where that happens. Here's here's why that happens. Here's where we see that, like the Bible speaks to that. Here's why I relate to that person. Prepare and equip them to grow in that, train them to think through those things. And and does that mean that they're going to be exposed to some things like that? Yes. But like that's the majority of Christians around the world. If like most of the Christians around the world are not able to move from a place where they're experiencing difficulty in in religion. Yeah. Yeah, I, I, I see. I agree with everything you guys just said, but I, but I am very self-conscious. Lee, I'm aware that all three of us have made the choice to homeschool, and I think that's I think you're going to have to make that decision. And so that's, that's the like we have said, okay, we want to in some ways protect our kids from some influences of the culture. Right? And so what we're not saying I think you guys would all agree with this. What we're not saying is it's wrong to try to prevent your kids from being exposed to the the ugly all of the ugliness of our culture. That that's not what we're saying. Right. Like, just like you don't go, well, I'm going to have my kids watch R-rated movies all the time and and they're going to we're going to just we're going to the gay pride parade and they need to see this stuff because they need to be trained. It's like we're like, no, no, no. Like, we want to prevent our kids from being exposed to too evil. At the same time, we know that even if you move to a a culture where it seems like Christianity is more acceptable, what they might actually get immersed in is moralism. Yeah, right. Yeah. And there's friends I have that are pastoring in in Texas or in the South and that that they're like yeah it's it's rough because everybody thinks they're a Christian. And so my kids are seeing a version of Christianity that's all about being nice and, all about saying the right things and maybe even going to church, but which is very but that's very absent the gospel and that's very absent being able to be honest about your sin and lacks a kind of authenticity. Everything's just kind of plastered with the veneer of of niceness and goodness. And that's what your kids are being model are having modeled for them. And so what we're saying going back to God is sovereign over the times and places you live is okay. So God has sovereignly placed you in the Pacific Northwest and that includes your kids. And so as you think about raising your kids, yes, do the things that you know, I don't like the thinking that says, my five year old is a missionary. And so I send them into the, you know, the worst or my even my ten year old, my 15 year old. I think we even have to go. Okay, hold on, Mike. They are kids. What is our equipping look like as parents? What does our our preparation look like for them as parents? They may not even be Christians themselves. Why are we thinking of them as a missionary when they're not yet a Christian? Yeah, right. I think those are all questions that come up around education and all of that kind of stuff. But I do think that so we should protect our kids. But I also think there is this that you're right that growing up it's similar to like a missionary growing up in a culture where you are looking around, you're like, man, the majority of people don't believe what I believe. The majority of people are against God. Well, there's a couple of things you're going to see. You're going to see the the true ugliness of sin. You're going to I've had conversations with my kids about abortion, even when they're very young, because they're seeing massive billboards talking about the value of it. Right. And and so they're asking me questions about that. And and we have dialog about that. And they go, okay, man, that's really dark. And I say, Yeah. And now they're seeing very like, what does sin actually look like as it works itself out in the culture? They're, they're seeing their family and their church try to figure out how do we as a church actually make a real impact and a real difference. I'm not just kind of do churchy nice things, but what are the like, how do we actually make an impact on the culture in which we live in? And they're they're they want to see that because they we live in a neighborhood where they our neighbor is is gay and they see that and they go, man, that she was you know, when she was younger, we had these kinds of conversations with her and now she's in this place. And what happened there and why why would she do that? And man, her parents, they don't want anything to do with church anymore. And and they're like and asking these kinds of questions. We're dialoging with them about this stuff because we are very much living as missionaries is how we think of it in the context in which we we live right now. And it's very obvious to them too. So we're not trying to bubble wrap them, but we're also not trying to just throw them to the wolves. And so there's some great discipleship opportunities that happen in this kind of a culture that I don't think happened to the same degree and in the same way in other places or the same frequency you might have all the same frequency. Yeah, Yeah. I want my kids to have guided exposure. Yeah. Where I'm with them to be able to do that. I think that the problem is, is that when we allow for other guides to speak into our kids, then that's the that's the issue and those things. Because like, that's the danger. Like, like, like you said, missionaries don't move overseas typically and send them to, you know, if you're in a muslim country, you don't send them to the local mosque to get their education. You're going you're going to homeschool. You look for a Christian school if they can, but you're going to allow them to play with their kid, the kids outside, and you're going to talk about, hey, Ramadan this month. That's why I don't think about this as Christians. Why is it you can't play with, you know, the little boy down the street anymore? Because I want you to come over to their house and participate in this Muslim feast. And can you or not? And what does that look like? And thinking about those things. And like, I think that if we were more intentional with all of life, these things could make more sense, I think. Yeah, I think there is a real potential to deepen as a disciple, especially if we think that the the United States, which it does seem like it's headed this way, even my post millennial friends will agree with this is it seems like we are moving more and more post-Christian and then the, you know, quote unquote pockets of Christianity are going to experience more and more of that. And so we're going to need Christians who are battle tested, if you will, and who have thought through these things and have learned how to engage and make connections and and also, I think it helps you with your church culture. I actually think it helps you make deeper connections in your church culture because you go and I can't actually exist in a culture that really wants nothing to do with God unless I have a strong, vibrant community of which I'm a part of. And I think as Christians were primarily meant to find that in our local church, you know, you can't fight a culture without a culture. And so it forces you to begin thinking more intentionally about the kind of culture that you're developing as a as a church as well. So, okay, so these are some reasons why we would encourage people to think seriously about living even in a tough place like the Pacific Northwest. Now, what about this before person moves? Because we would also believe very much I think all of you guys would agree, right, that people people can move for various reasons and what are necessary on the worship team. Yeah. What are some of the reasons that people might give for for moving jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. Yeah. One family. I want to be close to Family. Yep. What else? Political landscape like that's a that's I think people care about a lot. We just lost the living. A fear. Fear of kit for sure. For the kids. Yep. Yep. So so let's say, let's say for a variety of reasons, you just, you know, you hear what we're saying about living in the Pacific Northwest and you say, Yeah, I, I get that, but man, I want to be able to buy a house. And it's just really tough right now. And I don't see a way for us to do that. And we can, you know, my my friend over my parents live over here, my grandparents live over here, and I want to move closer to them. They're going to help us out. And also, you know, we're going to build a fort, actually buy a place there. And this potential for a great job promotion or whatever. What kinds of things do you think it's important for a person to consider and do before they move? What do you what do you guys think? One thing that I think is super important is this is assuming that you're a part of a church and a maybe even a community group or a small group. You're connected to the community of the church, right? You're you're under the authority of elders and pastors. Talk to your elders and pastors about it. So we would love to hear what you're going through in those decisions on the back end, not the front end. So we don't what is really frustrating to hear is the call that says, Hey, we're moving. That's just how it is. You know, like there's not a lot of dialog or conversation about it. It's more of just a notification to your community or to your elders and pastors. What I think is a healthy and and honestly, that is the majority of the way that people approach. That's usually how it goes over the years. That's the majority way is it's folks inform rather than kind of say like, hey, can we will you enter into praying about this with us? Yes. Can we talk about this? Here's some of the things we're weighing. Are there blind spots that you think that we have? Right. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, you're right. That that is usually the way that it goes is more of an inform informing people instead of asking for counsel and advice and leaning on the church and the elders and pastors of, of that church to help you and provide God the counsel in that decision. Because it's a big decision. It's not like, yeah, moving away from a community and a place that you're plugged into and serving in and, and, and served. That's a big decision to make of that move. And so we want to be involved in that and be able to counsel through that. And that's not I'm not saying that well, that every time our counsel is going to be a no, don't move. Stay here because I need you to play guitar. Yeah, there are there are reasons why God may be calling you to move. And so we want to help you determine that. And your church community wants to be involved in that. I'd said, maybe this is too harsh, but don't be selfish with your decision to move involved. The Church. Yeah. So I think that for a lot of people, they've just never even considered that that's something they should talk with their pastors about. Yeah, most of the conversations I have with people about that kind of a thing, they're like, yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't even like they were just they were thinking about it in a very, like a practical way, which is, you know, hey, I can make more money, I can sell my house, I can move. Why wouldn't I? And sometimes some of the questions I don't know what kinds of questions you guys will ask people, but questions that I've asked people have been things like, is there a good church where you're moving? You know, are you moving to an area where you can actually that's great. You're going have a good job and man, you can have this bigger house and you got to drive 2 hours for the nearest gospel preaching church. Like, that's going to be rough, man. Or, you know, what about it As far as for your your family, is there going to be Christian community? I mean, that's usually a part of being a part of a good church. But just is there going and what's the Christian community look like There? And I think a lot of people don't even think about that. I think that's another one that jumps out a lot is there seems to be not as much weight put on the goodness of the current community that you're in. Yeah. And the loss that that is not only to you, but to those people being a part of a church. It's not just something that you consume and take in like you are a participant in things as you come together in the worship gathering and you sing and you read scripture and you're singing to the your fellow brothers and sisters in the the chairs of the pews next to you like you are a part of a body. And losing that part of a body affects how the body functions. Yeah. And so think of think more highly of all of a sudden a hand went flying off my body. I would notice. Yeah. You're like, well, that had moved. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I actually did do a membership interview one time at the church that I was at previously and on their membership application it said where, Where have you attended church the last two years or something like that. And it was like at home and this was before COVID. And, and I just said, Hey, can you explain that to me? He said, Man, that was a big mistake on my part. He said that they took a job thinking that there would be a church. They just assumed that there would be a good church. And I forget where they were. They were somewhere up in the Pacific or no, not so up in the Northeast or something like that. And and he said, I took this job. We moved in and then we started looking for churches. And I realized, like the closest gospel preaching church was everything else was just liberal. And he said it was an hour and a half to 2 hours and we just could not like with little kids and things like that, we could not do it. So we watched a church online for two years until I could find a new job. And he said it was detrimental to our faith. It was detrimental to our family. It was it was just like he said, it was the worst two years of our life. Yeah. If we have a right view, I don't want to take all the time on the podcast to kind of prove this. If you, you know, really if you listen to the sermons through Ephesians in particular, Ephesians two or but multiple different terms to be given at this church, we think that the church is a vital and important part of your spiritual growth, that God has designed the local church to be a significant way in which you grow up and mature as a disciple of Jesus. That you're meant to use your gifts in the context of a local church, that you're meant to be disciples within the context of a local church, that you're meant to have pastors who are shepherding and caring for you, and you're meant to have people who genuinely know you and and are admonishing you and correcting you and loving you. And all of these things are meant to happen within the context of a local church. And so this is a a thing that too often we just take for granted and the community and the length of time it takes for that to actually be fostered and developed. There's an article that I two articles that we're going to post in the show notes The Religion News one That's great. You can look through that, but that's not sort of I wouldn't urge you to read those. There's going to be two articles I remember the other one was posted by some some guy from the Gospel Coalition did an article related to moving. That's really good. Helpful. I think actually in the past it's been a Redeem or weekly news article, but the the second one is written by Deepak Rijiju. I think, as I say, his last name. He's at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, I believe oversees like their biblical counseling program and that kind of thing. He's written some really good stuff, but he actually has this. I'm going to read a couple of the things here that are in his article, but super good article worth reading. But what he says here is so different than how I think the majority of people think about a local church. But one of the things he says is he says consider, some point in your life committing to a church long term. Okay, now here are some of the bullet points, he says. As far as why this is of value, getting to know the leadership of the church much better and allows them to get to know you. You can get to know the local community better, which will help your evangelism sitting consistently under preaching that it's benefiting your spirituality by building a kind of depth to relationships which you achieve over ten or 20 or even 30 years that you don't get if you move every five years being known by others who have the chance. See your needs, challenges and sin patterns over time, which in turn enables them to speak meaningfully into your life and care for you in a way that those you just met couldn't you earn trust among leaders in the church so that you might be assigned various responsibilities you earn trust among leaders and others generally that you might use to speak into their lives in significant and impactful ways? You have the opportunity to minister to the children of others as they grow from infancy to adolescence to adulthood, and you have the ability to help form in those children's minds a model of godly adulthood. You have a chance to build greater unity within the church by growing up with the church, provide a greater kind of stability to the church by staying and giving the example of commitment through thick and thin, being sanctified, through being at the same church during different seasons in life, single, married with kids, retired personally when thriving and when struggling in relation to the church, contentment and discontentment, witnessing long term spiritual growth. What it is like for God to make people more like himself over decades. So he get I mean, I think that list is so great and we live in an area that is so transient that people the very first thing they think about when it comes to moving is all pragmatics. And so I get it. I think there are legitimate, good and even godly reasons to to move. But I do I do think part of us thinking with a biblical worldview about the location in which we live is is one not allowing the difficulty of where we live to be the trump card to actually say, okay, there's some things I need to think about in relation to my identity and some things I need to think about in relation to God's sovereignty and and mission and these kinds of things. And there's this other dimension that I need to think about where there's this value of being a part of a community, of a local church. And I don't necessarily know or I might have maybe I've spent some time creating that and fostering that, and others have spent time pouring into me. And I don't I'm not seeing it with the value that I should if I just am quickly giving that up for a bigger house, for a better paying job. And so because there's so many different variables and so many different things to think through, these would be all part of the reason we would say, don't make those decisions all in isolation. Do that in community with your community group. Ask your community group to pray for you. Come to your pastors and say, Hey, there's some opportunities, but here's what that might mean. And and will you help me see blind spots? And when you pray about these things with me and and like we you know, we when we've had to say goodbye to people, it's bittersweet. We love them. And we we definitely pray that God would bless them in the New place that he has them. And often we hear that he does and and we believe that he does. But other times we think to ourselves, man, we we even if that same result ended up happening, where they ended up moving to that particular location, we would have loved to get to pray with them through that. And missing that, there's a missed, I think, like an opportunity there for us be shepherds and for them to be shepherded through those those various decisions. It's also that's beautiful. So to go after it, that's a really beautiful thing. I've walked through a few a few couples fairly recently through this kind of thing, and when it happens that we get to talk about it beforehand and we walk through it, and then maybe even they move, there's still a beauty to that and a deepening of relationship and affection that's happened there. And I think that that's on both sides too. I'm not just saying that for me, but yeah, it it works out really well. Okay. We're not just telling you to do this because we think you should. Yes. It's something that is beautiful when it happens correctly. Think. Yeah. Before we move on. I think it's also a very loving thing to do to your community, to invite them into that so that there is not a lot of the amount of of sadness and grief that goes into it is, is lessened because it's one thing to to go to a community group and you're like hay bales go some hey, we got some news. We're moving in two weeks because I took a job and you're like, you come home and you're like, Did you know that They were saying, no, I didn't know. Did they ask it? No, they didn't talk to me. And then you're like, Why didn't they like it? Are we not of a loving community? Are we not friends to like? There's a lot of questions that come up with why would they not even think about like bringing this up? It's loving to go, Hey, we're thinking about this. Could you guys take to this to us? And at the end of it, if we all agree, yeah, this is probably a really good thing for you and your your family. Or even if we don't agree and you still do it, at least we had the time to prepare to go. Hey, at least we can get coffee. We can help you guys think through moving. We can watch your kids as you pack. We can like, do all of these things that that we wouldn't potentially wouldn't have been able to do because of the time. Yeah. You know, for us, as your pastors we commit to is when you if if you will walk through that and you will say, man, I am a part of a body and my absence is going to affect that body and so therefore, I want to to walk this out in community, in community with the body and community, with the pastors and conversation with them, then what we commit to doing is to actually pray for those things with you and for you not to just say, no, no, no, don't leave. We need you. Don't don't go anywhere. That's not that's not going to be our our response. Our response is going to be to pray for you and to ask you sometimes maybe some hard questions. And and what we would ask of you is that you wouldn't just because there's a good opportunity to move doesn't always mean you should move. And because there are hard things about staying, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't stay. And so these are things that we think have to be talked about in community and pastorally prayed through. And just this is a part of shepherding. And so, yeah, I think this is again, all part of if we think about forming a, a, a biblical worldview to all of life, which is the goal of this podcast, then the goal in this conversation is to help you think more intentionally about building a biblical worldview and thinking biblically about where you live. Yeah, the in the article that you're talking about from Gospel Coalition, I think this is a really helpful part of it. He talks about like the A need for better questions when you're thinking through these things. And so he says, here's the question that people normally ask and then he gives the opposite. Here's a better question to ask. So the first one is why should I stay somewhere that disrespects my beliefs? The better question is what might God want to accomplish in and through me, in through me by staying or moving? The second one is how can I make life easier or safer? The better question is how can I show the courage of a disciple Christ and his sovereignty over circumstances? The next question Why? Why would I let my kids grow up here? A better question would might be what intentional adjustments can I make in the way I disciple my kids? What other Christian parents will link arms with me in this effort? Another question Where will state policy? Where will state policy reflect my theology? A better question is with the gifts God has given me. How can I reflect Him in this tough environment with truth and grace? And then finally he says, Where will I feel at home, politically or culturally? And the better question is how would moving away affect my lost friends, family, neighbors here? Am I trying to create a pseudo heaven, or do I or do I trust God's promise of heaven enough to make it make the sacrifice? Now? So you might not know this, but we we often post articles in in the show notes, rather. Will you just explain to a person that they're like, I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't know how to access those things. How can they find the articles that we were talking about them? Yeah, well, occasionally reference in the in the podcast. Yeah. Wherever you're listening to podcasts, if you're if you're an elite and you have an Apple phone, I'm not sure if I can help you with that. No, it's it's in the podcast under the description and you might need to click show more or something like that. It's in that description. You can find it there. You can also find it by going on to our website, Redeemers icon slash church Matters, and each episode is on there as well. If you click into those and there's a little info button that will also show you the show notes, but it should just be right in the description under the podcast you're listening to right now. Yeah. So if you if you want to think about this concept or the anything that we're talking about, we usually in various podcast episodes try to, to at least through a couple of resources your way to think about. And so we'll have some of these resources for you to check out. Yeah, I hope this has been a helpful topic for you guys to, to consider and hopefully it's all part of helping frame a biblical worldview for all of life. Thanks was just.