10,000 Questions with Valerie O'Brien

Summary

In this conversation, Val O'Brien discusses the shifting questions surrounding faith, particularly among younger generations. He contrasts the historical inquiry of 'Is God real?' with the contemporary question of 'Is God good?', emphasizing that while the routes to the gospel may differ, the fundamental human condition remains unchanged.

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Transcript

Val O'Brien (00:00)
in previous generations, people were asking, is God real? That was their main question. We have a lot of classic apologetics, arguments for God, that type of thing. They said the main question that young people are asking today is, is God good?

Rob Paterson (00:14)
Mm.

Val O'Brien (00:15)
And those are two, you know, very, they're, they're totally different routes to the gospel, we'll always get to the gospel that doesn't change. I'll often talk about how like the deepest questions people are asking are the same. it's just, you know, there's nothing new under the sun. There's no like new human condition under the sun. However, it's a different route to get there.

Jason Allison (01:09)
Welcome everybody to the church talk podcast with Rob and Jason. It is so good to have everyone here. Uh, we're excited about a great episode today. We've got a conversation in store. That's going to be a ton of fun. can already tell Rob, my friend, it's, you know, we're recording this in late November. It's a dreary day. Golfing seems to be way in the background. Um, I'm, praying for a, another, I don't know, Indian summer. I think I'm hoping that comes.

Or at least maybe before third fall hits and then winter it's Ohio. What are you going to do, man? How you doing? Are you making it?

Rob Paterson (01:46)
You know, I mean, I was pretty optimistic about life until you just said the things you said, and it sort of pulled me down a little bit. ⁓ yeah, which is kind of your thing, right? Like we... So it was interesting. I had a late meeting last night, and then one of my elders, who's also a very, very close friend of mine, shot an incredible buck. So I went over and saw the deer and kind of was part of that process a little bit.

Jason Allison (01:53)
Yeah, you're welcome.

My job is done.

Rob Paterson (02:13)
and then hung out with a buddy. And actually tonight and tomorrow night, my wife and my youngest son are in a play ⁓ in our community. We have a great little community theater and a bunch of the people who have been a long standing part of that have written kind of an original adaptation of A Christmas Carol. So tonight and tomorrow night I'm going, so those are all things that.

Jason Allison (02:20)
yeah, that's right.

Rob Paterson (02:37)
I'm looking forward to and I'm excited about and actually next week my oldest son comes home for Thanksgiving break. there's lots of things to look forward to that are pulling me out of the depression that you tried to put me into.

Jason Allison (02:49)
See, I knew your family would come through for you. I wasn't worried. man. Well, we've got a guest in store today that I'm excited. We actually had her lead a webinar for the next gen leaders for Converge Mid-Atlantic a few weeks ago. And man, I hopped on the webinar just cause I kind of started hosting it and then handed it over to the guys who were managing everything. And I stuck around for the whole thing. And I just, by the end was like, I have to get

Rob Paterson (02:52)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (03:15)
this person on because she's amazing and exciting and and she lives in Ohio. So I mean that just makes her a little bit cooler now it's it's Cleveland. So I don't know but no we yeah.

Rob Paterson (03:21)
Which is cool.

Well, and Jason, I don't know if

it was during the podcast or the webinar or if it was right afterwards. But yeah, I mean, I'm getting text messages from you going, hey, I am listening to somebody and we got it. I mean, that was pretty cool. I could feel the energy in your text messages, which I don't know for like, you know, blowing this up way too much, maybe, you know, but even talking to her before we hit record, I'm like, I'm super excited about this conversation as well.

Jason Allison (03:45)
Yes.

Yes,

yes, we have on with us the amazing Valerie O'Brien, who is coming to us from Cleveland, Ohio, native to Cleveland, which is pretty impressive. But I'm just looking at some of your bio here. And, know, you hold a bachelor in Bible and student ministry from Moody. You got an MA in organizational leadership from Regent University, which is that's saying something. And you've been in.

Ministry, especially with youth for 15 plus years now you've been doing that and you kind of just, I don't know about five years ago transitioned into a parachurch organization and, and that's called Aspen ministry. And that's one of those things where I will put obviously links and everything in the show notes so people can go check it out. Cause it's amazing, but I just am so excited because we had you talk about the anatomy of a question, which sounds super boring, but

It was not, and you just gave us a new perspective on engaging kids and other people. man, Val, thank you for joining us. We're so excited to have you.

Val O'Brien (04:59)
Guys, that might be the best introduction I've ever had. I need to take you guys on the road with me. How incredibly kind, incredibly, incredibly kind of you guys. So thank you for having me on. I'm really looking forward to this.

Jason Allison (05:11)
We make pretty good hype men, but only for people we like. If we don't like you, you're not going to get much hype.

Val O'Brien (05:14)
Seriously, I know!

Rob Paterson (05:14)
Hahaha

Val O'Brien (05:17)
Well, I'm honored.

I am honored to be on the podcast with you guys today.

Jason Allison (05:23)
⁓

Rob Paterson (05:24)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (05:24)
Well, and hey, real quick, before I forget, you also, I know have started a podcast with Aspen Ministry, right? And has, has it's, it's dropped, right? The first episode is gone. Okay.

Val O'Brien (05:27)
Yes,

I have, yes, yes. It has, it just dropped

in September. So we're only a couple months in, but it's called the 10,000 Questions Podcast. And we are answering, I'm sure we're gonna talk about, but we're answering students' questions about God, faith, and life on it. So it's been so fun. You guys are further ahead on the podcast, down the podcast road than I am, but we've had so much fun with it already. And it's just been a fun project.

Jason Allison (05:42)
perfect.

All right.

Well,

I just learned about it 10 minutes ago, or I would have already talked about it. But yeah, I'm looking forward to checking that out. And I hope our listeners will as well, because I got a feeling it's going to be a lot of fun. Hey, let's just get started. For our listeners, who are you? And how did you get into ministry?

Val O'Brien (05:59)
system.

Okay.

Yes. Oh, thanks for asking that question. That's a great one. I, I, uh, oh man, I'll keep it quick, but I grew up in a Christian family. My parents were first generation believers. Both of them became believers as young adults. And we're like, okay, we're going to raise our family in a different way than we are both raised. And we really grew up in the faith together and it was just a beautiful, beautiful thing. Um, I'm one of four.

And I also went to, my parents both grew up going to private schools and they're like, we just, guess that's what you do. You send your kids to private school. So we're just going to send them to private school. So I went to a Christian elementary school in a Christian high school and they were so formative in my, in my spiritual life and my development and just had some amazing people pouring into me. Um, and I particularly, I always tell this story.

It's not why I went into youth ministry, but looking back on it, I can just see how it was. It shaped me so much, but I had a teacher in ninth grade who was my Bible teacher, who I always say was like the first person to really believe in me besides my parents. And she just saw me and asked me questions and would take me and my friends out to ice cream and.

all kinds of stuff and just really poured into me. She was nearing retirement at that point. She was in her sixties. She had lived as a missionary in Africa for 10 years. I just thought she was the coolest person in the world. and just the, some of the conversations that I had with her, just as a 16 year old, 17 year old kid, I still think of to this day, some of the things that we talked about together and it really shaped me. And I actually didn't want to go into ministry. I wanted to go into the medical world.

Jason Allison (07:51)
So.

Val O'Brien (07:57)
when I was in high school and then my senior year of high school, just really felt in the way that, you know, a 17 year old kid in their walk with Jesus can, you know, just felt like the Lord drawing me to be in ministry and kind of made peace with it at that time thinking like I could go back to nursing school at any point in my life. Many people do, but this might be my only chance to really like spend four years studying the word of God. So I applied to Moody. I got in and

I haven't gone back to nursing school yet. You know, it might still be coming. Who knows? Who knows? But all the, that was, you know, like what got my shoes on and got me into ministry was that like, I'll just do this first and then I'll go into that. But the Lord just so clearly had me on this path and I feel the weight of what a privilege it is. And it's just been such, it's been hard, but it's been so joyful to do it, to be in ministry all these years. So yeah, so that's a little bit of my story. Yeah.

Jason Allison (08:27)
Hahaha ⁓

Yeah.

Rob Paterson (08:49)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (08:52)
That's

great.

Rob Paterson (08:53)
I love that. So it's interesting, Val, when I first saw Aspen Ministry, it made me think, I think there's a thing out there called the Aspen Group that like builds churches or does things like that. So I'm like, I wonder how she's connected with that. This is totally different. And I have the mission statement of Aspen Ministry right here in front of me. I just want to say it I think it's really, really cool.

Val O'Brien (09:08)
Totally different.

Rob Paterson (09:18)
desires to biblically, historically, and winsomely show an emerging generation who Jesus is. And you guys wanna work to inspire and equip them. so, how in the world does Aspen ministry go about doing that?

Val O'Brien (09:35)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, I was in local church ministry doing student ministry for about 12 years. Loved it. Absolutely loved it. I loved the local church. I do tell people more seriously than nursing that I think I'll end up back in church ministry one day, cause it's my heart. It's my heart. ⁓ I left doing that. I was really aware of just the problems we were having in student ministry, the issues we were facing with students, parents, families, the whole bit. I left that and started doing training and coaching of youth workers.

Rob Paterson (09:50)
Yeah.

Val O'Brien (10:03)
And it was so kind of Jesus because he just gave me this like 30,000 foot view then of what was happening, not just in my church and in my context, but all over the country. And with all types of different youth ministries and urban churches, suburban churches, big, small, whatever. And so many of their leaders would come to me and it seemed like they were stuck in the same places. And they would say some sort of sentiment to me of,

It feels like we're not reaching the hearts of students. These kids feel so different. It feels like we're not, like we're speaking around them. We're speaking over them, but we're not like connecting with their hearts. Can you teach us how to do that? And I'm like, I don't know if I could teach you to do that. I was having the same problem myself, but I thought it was me. I thought that's like what it meant to start getting old and use ministry. You know, um, I was 30, I was 35 at the time, you know, 33, 35.

Jason Allison (10:46)
you

Yeah.

Val O'Brien (10:59)
And then I'm looking at stuff coming out of Fuller Youth Institute and BARNA and that type of thing. And I heard Kara Powell give an interview where she said, when she sits down with students, she so often hears some sort of sentiment of, from young people, of I wish the church would answer the questions I'm actually asking. And it was just this aha moment to me of, you know, we have both sides of that equation that are

Rob Paterson (11:18)
Mm.

Val O'Brien (11:27)
Burdened because they're missing each other. You know that are are heavy-hearted because of that and how in the world do we start to really what what really is going on between the generations first of all is this something different is it not and I kind of started out on a journey to figure that out like is this something unique to this time period or is this just what every iteration of generation feels and No matter what that answer is. How do we do a better job of meeting each other?

And particularly of the older generation being able to do what scripture tells us to do from the very beginning, which is to pass on the faith to the next generation and to entrust that to our children and those coming behind us. And so just said, okay, Lord, how in the world, if this is kind one of the resounding problems, needs that your people are facing in the student ministry world,

Jason Allison (12:07)
Yeah.

Val O'Brien (12:19)
how can we take a swing at it? that was kind of what it, and thinking about all of those things was kind of what started us off on the journey of starting Aspen Ministry. But we just decided to do kind of a big project called 10,000 Questions, where we are trying to gather a literal 10,000 questions from students all over the country about God, faith, and life in all kinds of different contexts, different settings, different types of students.

and really sit and listen to them, kind of like a ethnographic study, and really hear if they don't feel like we're answering the questions that are really on their heart, then what are those questions? Then let's start there by hearing from them. So that's kind of how we started.

Jason Allison (12:51)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, well, I mean, that

that's so important because I mean, what I hear from other pastors who aren't even necessarily working with student ministries is I'm hearing pastors, they're answering questions that people aren't asking anymore. And so I'm like, you know, that that's a great answer. Too bad no one cares, you know? And so like I'm trying to figure out. So understanding the art and the

Val O'Brien (13:16)
Right, right.

Rob Paterson (13:16)
Mmm, yeah.

Val O'Brien (13:23)
Right? ⁓

Jason Allison (13:28)
beauty of actually listening, right? mean, that's the idea is what if I approach this with an approach this other person, whether it's a student or a young adult or anyone, right? With curiosity rather than with, you know, certainty that might change the dynamic of how I interact with them and how they see me ⁓ in so many ways. last week, Rob and I were talking to talked about the church that I

Val O'Brien (13:39)
Totally. Yeah.

you

Jason Allison (13:56)
was baptized in 100 years ago. And it just celebrated 110 years by closing its doors. And the reason being, they were answering questions no one was asking and hadn't been asking for 40 years. And so as I think about the ministry that you've developed around this, what kind of questions are you beginning to see? I'm sure there's some categories that you're seeing that some questions that are being asked. Maybe it's a

Slightly different, but it's really the same same question. I'm just kidding. You know as you look at some we've got what four or five thousand responses already, right? Yeah Wow Yeah, what what what are some I'm just curious. What are some themes that you're seeing?

Val O'Brien (14:29)
Ooh, yes. Yeah. I've got about 4,000 questions. little more than that. Yeah.

Jason, such a good question. So one of the things that is like the, the big answer to that question, and this came even before like what my, this work with 10,000 questions started to reveal, which I'll get into that for sure. But I think this first point is so insightful, but people have it as they talk about this next generation, particularly Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

So that's like roughly, people measure in different ways, but that's roughly like our 26 year olds down to like elementary eight, mid elementary age would probably be Gen Alpha. They say that in previous generations, people were asking, is God real? That was their main question. Is God real? We have a lot of classic apologetics, arguments for God, that type of thing. They said the main question that young people are asking today is, is God good?

Rob Paterson (15:22)
Mm.

Val O'Brien (15:23)
And those are two, you know, very, they're, they're totally different routes to the gospel, right? Like we'll always get to the gospel that doesn't change. And even I'll, I'll often talk about how like the deepest questions people are asking are the same. You, it's just, you know, there's nothing new under the sun. There's no like new human condition under the sun. However, it's a different route to get there.

And we have to pay attention to that, right? If we start going down, you know, the route of like, I'm just going to prove the existence of God to you using all of the different arguments. But this kid is, you know, really stuck on like, this is why would I even want to be a Christian? You know, why, why is that even good for society? Is that even good? You know, like those are two totally different routes to Jesus. And so I think that that's why it matters. But one of the things that I've seen that flesh out

Rob Paterson (16:06)
Mm.

Jason Allison (16:13)
Absolutely.

Val O'Brien (16:19)
very clearly in the specifics of this project. But like I said, we've collected about 4,000 questions so far. And just last month in October, we released our first report of those questions and the findings that we have. So that's available also, which was just such a labor of love to get done, but it was a lot of love I had to give towards it. So it was such a labor of love, but it was such a fun project. And one of the things that came out

Rob Paterson (16:34)
Hmm.

Val O'Brien (16:47)
from that, the number one topic that students are asking questions about is the topic of pain. Of some sort of general pain or personal pain are the first two. And that almost, I just in my small little piece of the data that I have, that those two topics, general pain and personal pain, blow out number two by at least a hundred questions. So it's a lot.

Jason Allison (17:12)
Mm.

Rob Paterson (17:12)
Mm.

Jason Allison (17:13)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (17:14)
Yeah.

Val O'Brien (17:14)
And I think that that is, you know, the problem of pain, the problem of evil, yes, that is a very, it's a very, very common question. You know, it is one of those questions of the human heart. And yet I think that it's one that this generation in particular is feeling very profoundly. And it's really the, it's not a after question for them, it's a primary question for them. And

I think it's one that a lot of us, it's a question that has answers to it, but it also has mystery to it. And it takes a lot of experience and wrestling with that with Jesus to come to the other side of that. ⁓ And yet it's probably one of the most real conversations a follower of Jesus can have with somebody. It's like, do we do with our pain?

Jason Allison (17:50)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (17:57)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (17:58)
I feel like some of that,

well, yeah, I feel like some of that's because we live in a culture that values the elimination of pain. You know, take a pill for that. You do this, you know, we don't like discomfort and part of the sign of saying I've made it in whatever is that I I'm comfortable. Right. And so I think we've set up this generation to wrestle with reality, right? Because I mean, let's be honest, being a teenager is not easy. I don't care when you were a teenager.

Val O'Brien (18:05)
Correct, totally.

Rob Paterson (18:06)
Yeah.

Val O'Brien (18:10)
I

Rob Paterson (18:14)
I'm comfortable. Pain free, yeah.

Jason Allison (18:26)
cause I mean just, and so there's always going to be questions in pain. And so I do think there's something about being able to give a real answer, right? Not the pretty pie in the sky, sweet, by and by Jesus is the answer to everything, you know, and he'll make your pain go away. Cause that's just not true. And so being authentic about that is, is, is pretty significant. that's so fascinating to me that that is kind of the number one, ⁓ question.

Val O'Brien (18:53)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (18:55)
Yeah, yeah. Val, I have a question, but I think this might be a great time. Like if some of our listeners are wondering, man, I have some teenagers in my church that are, you know, asking questions. How could I contribute those questions to, you know, this 10,000 question thing? Or maybe some people are also thinking, ooh, you've already released a report. Like how do, if I wanted to read that or dig deeper, like tell people how they would find access to that kind of thing.

Jason Allison (18:55)
Yeah.

Val O'Brien (19:06)
Hmm.

Yes! ⁓ we love them!

Yes,

yeah, sure, sure. So one of the most fun parts of this project for me has been being able to be in so many different spaces where students are and hear their questions. So, you know, we go to church youth groups and do big Q &A nights, which are a blast. It's so fun. I've been to schools, done chapels. I spoke to a football team in New Mexico once.

Not my normal audience, but loved it. We had so much fun together, that group of boys. We've been to the juvenile detention centers here in Ohio, and we've collected questions from incarcerated teenagers. So it has just, which those, those keep me up at night. It took me a couple of days to recover after we were in the girls unit. And I'm serious. Like it was, it was so hard, but so beautiful. And so no matter what the context is of the listener,

Rob Paterson (19:44)
Huh.

Jason Allison (19:51)
Okay.

Val O'Brien (20:10)
If they have students under their care in any way, we would love to add their students questions to this project. So there's two primary ways that you can do it. So I I love going and doing them in person so I can come out and do something in person with you guys, which is a blast. Or also we just released a resource, a question box that you can sign up for on our website, which actually we can put the sign up in the show notes also.

we'll drop that in there too, but you can sign up to receive a box and you can rent with little instructions on how to run a question event in your context and then submit those questions. So we'll send you either a little card for your students that has a little digital question box where they can just scan a QR code and type in their questions and submit it. Or if you want to do, paper and pencil, we send you little question cards where kids can fill out their actual questions and a little envelope mailer to mail them all back to us. So.

Jason Allison (20:54)
Mm-hmm.

Val O'Brien (21:05)
I love doing the digital versions for sure. It's easy, it's quick, all the stuff. But there is nothing like seeing these kids' questions in their own little handwriting. ⁓ It just moves my heart every time. like, Lord, I don't think I'll ever get over this. I don't think I'll ever not be moved by seeing these kids' questions in their own handwriting. So there's something really precious about that. And then also the report is not even up on our website yet.

Jason Allison (21:16)
Mm-hmm.

Val O'Brien (21:31)
That's how new it is. So you can just email me and I'll happily send you a PDF of it. And hopefully it'll be up in the next couple of weeks. So.

Jason Allison (21:38)
And that website just, mean, I'll put it in the show notes, but in case people don't actually look at that, where do they go?

Val O'Brien (21:40)
Not!

Yeah, it's Aspenministry.org. And the sign up for the box is under the For Students tab. So you can look for it there. Yeah, yeah.

Rob Paterson (21:46)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (21:50)
Okay, okay, yeah.

Rob Paterson (21:53)
Yeah, that's great. Val, so my question, I'm thinking, and a lot of times we have guests, like this is where my mind starts to go, right? Because like people are talking about like their ministry, their thing. And instantly I'm starting to think, okay, how does this apply to me? How does this apply to my church or even churches in general? Like, how can I sort of mine some gold here that's gonna like help me next week, next month, next year?

And so as you're talking and you're gathering all of this right now information from students, and one of the challenges that the church has talked about for a long time is just becoming irrelevant to students. And maybe students stick around because their family goes to church or whatever, so they stick around, but they go to college and either they don't come back for a long, long time or maybe they don't ever come back.

You know, and so the church has, I think, been talking about and wrestling with how to more effectively reach students. And so I'm kind of wondering a little bit generally about that, but I'm also wondering because, you know, in some of the questions you're even talking about in terms of is God good and like, what about this whole pain issue and things like that? I'm wondering.

If because like it feels like, you know, we have almost sort of sidelined this idea, which is so big in theology and in the scriptures about the mystery of God and in the, in the American church, you know, we have one of Jason and I's favorite authors and we almost got canceled because Jason mentioned him one time, but he wrote a book called the sin of certainty.

and how, you know, when we give all of these definitive certain answers, everything's black and white and whatever, you know, over time that can really like seem disingenuous and people are like, this isn't real and I don't want anything to do with it. So, you know, like just from your work, you know, if someone was saying to you, Hey, is there, is there one or two initial steps you would suggest that would help us to in much

realer ways engage with and see younger people kind of connect with what we're up to. Like what would you tell someone who is facing that kind of stuff?

Val O'Brien (24:06)
Yeah.

man. Rob, there's so many things I'm passionate about that were just in that question. So we could talk a long time about it. So many things, so many things. okay, let me, let me hit the first question that you are like the last question, the question you ended with, and then I'll, I'll, you know, pick a couple of the other things that are just like burning in my mind now. but I would say the first, like what are the first couple steps? I think the very well,

I'll do it in three parts. think the very first step is that we as church leaders, no matter how long we have been following Jesus, we have to be honest with our own questions. And we have to not ignore them and just push them down. And I think that a lot of times within church ministry, you know, I entered full-time ministry when I was 22 years old.

I tell people, I'm like, the Lord kept me, the Lord kept me by His mercy. He just held His little hand around me. I'm like, and yet at the same time, I didn't really get to have a chance to figure out what it meant to follow Jesus in my twenties. Because I was an example, I was a church leader, I was teaching, I was leading stuff, I was leading adults. You know, like I was in charge. Okay, great. Where does that leave me as a 26 year old?

single woman trying to figure out how to live for Jesus. And so I think in some ways my, when I entered ministry, my own personal discipleship got truncated. And all of a sudden now I was discipling others. And it leaves us in a place sometimes where, you know, and I've wrestled with this and with some ministry leaders that I mentor now and that type of thing, but it's like, where is it? Where is a 28 year old youth pastor?

Rob Paterson (25:40)
Hmm.

Val O'Brien (25:55)
who's really wrestling with the inerrancy of scripture. Who are they supposed to talk to about that? What are they supposed to do with that? Are they supposed to tell their boss? Are they supposed to tell their wife? Are they supposed to tell their youth leader? Are they supposed to tell their best friend? Like how are they supposed to like intellectually wrestle with that without risk of like losing their job or like making it something bigger? Like so what do people do? They just like shove it down.

Rob Paterson (26:22)
Mm.

Val O'Brien (26:22)
you know,

or what do people do with, with sin or with other areas that they're re-evaluating and growing and learning about maybe their own, their own pain and the hard thing that they've dealt with, they push them down. And I just think like it is, it takes so much, not just courage, but I think it takes so much invitation of other leaders around them to say like, Hey, we,

Jesus still wants to meet us. He wants to meet our congregation. He wants to meet our sheep, but he also still really wants to meet us in whatever our questions are, wherever our pain or those stuck places are for us. And I think when we let Jesus meet us as leaders in those places, then we're able to so genuinely be unafraid to invite other people to ask their real questions.

because we know that like the same Jesus that's met us in our hard questions is also gonna meet them. And he might not meet us with like exactly like we talked about like the mystery, like he might not meet us in like, Val, you just didn't know that's buried in the book of Isaiah, you know, like not even just like that or like, there's like a theological thing you didn't know about here, but like that he's met us even in the mystery of it, but met us in a real way. And so I think the first thing

Jason Allison (27:27)
You

Rob Paterson (27:28)
Hehehehe.

Mm-hmm.

Val O'Brien (27:40)
as far as creating a culture where people feel free to ask their questions and go there is doing that hard work ourselves and letting Jesus meet us in our hard questions. And then number two is then how do we be intentional about creating that space in the fabric of our ministries? And I hate to say the programs, but you know what mean?

Jason Allison (27:51)
That's good.

Val O'Brien (28:05)
Actual structures and the programs of our ministries, how are we leaving space for people to have conversation and ask genuine questions and not shut them down.

Rob Paterson (28:16)
Mm.

Jason Allison (28:17)
Well, we like to be the answer givers because there's power in that. Right. I mean, if I can answer your question and makes then all of a sudden I am the keeper of knowledge. Right. And so there's something powerful. Yeah. And yeah.

Val O'Brien (28:19)
Yeah.

Great, great. This is why you pay me. You pay me because I'm low.

Rob Paterson (28:31)
Yeah, well, and

I'm even thinking right this second, and I think this is really real for our listeners, because you're saying that, and everybody gets it, right? That's a very risky thing, and it's way messier than this, so I'm going to oversimplify something that I'm not going to discuss really at all other than this one comment. But very recently, I have had a key leader who has been, like, for two decades, a servant, a crazy sacrificial generous giver.

you know, decide to walk away from our church and which is super painful because I love this person. I love this family, but I would say probably one of the dynamics was he wanted in general and from me even probably at times and I'm putting words in his mouth. is just my own perspective. He wanted a lot more certainty and.

Val O'Brien (29:21)
Hmm.

Rob Paterson (29:22)
I wanted to leave room for more ambiguity and mystery and over time that became a deal breaker. So I think even our listeners, understand that for us to really work hard to create safe place, to ask questions and to wrestle with things is going to cost us.

Val O'Brien (29:32)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it's way easier, right? It's way easier to just be like dogmatic about things and just like let the kids talk.

Jason Allison (29:42)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (29:48)
Preach to the choir. I'll tell you what you want to hear.

We'll all wink and nod and be happy and move on.

Val O'Brien (29:53)
Yeah,

Jason Allison (29:54)
Yeah. But that's

Val O'Brien (29:54)
yeah, yeah.

Jason Allison (29:55)
also a great way to exclude the entire rest of the world around you. know, like, but that's what, know, mean, Val, that's what I love about this concept of the question and so forth is, you know, you're, you're intentionally and purposefully creating space for students to ask questions that, and they can do it in a way that's safe. Cause I mean, let's be honest, like you just said, if we ask a question of our faith, then all of a sudden we could lose our job.

Rob Paterson (30:00)
rate. Yes.

Val O'Brien (30:23)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Allison (30:24)
You know, I mean, that's pretty big. I read

a book a long time ago. It's called The Critical Journey by Janet Hagberg and Robert Goulash. Don't know why I remember their names, but I do. Yeah, I think it's out of print anymore. But they talk about the six stages of a Christian's journey through life. And, you know, one, two, three, those are pretty what you'd expect this stage of all the stage of knowledge and the stage of doing. But then you get to stage four, it's the inward journey.

Val O'Brien (30:33)
What a combo. What a combo.

Jason Allison (30:51)
And at the end of stage four is the wall. And for most of us, we just hit the wall and bounce back to a home stage, whether it's serving somewhere or cleaning lots of knowledge or, whatever. And for pastors, we hit that wall and our boards won't let us go through it. Right. Because it is you don't go over it or under it. You have to go through it. You have to allow God to kind of take you apart.

Val O'Brien (30:53)
interesting.

Thank you.

Jason Allison (31:15)
and then put you back together on the, because stage five is now, you know, is the journey outward. And then stage six is the life of love where you truly are just living out of love. And it's beautiful. but man, we don't want to be vulnerable enough. And our boards often won't let us because we may not come back the same with the same passions and the same certainty that we did when we started that journey. And that's just scary. So I can imagine as a student leader, right?

Rob Paterson (31:31)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (31:43)
as you're leading students trying to give them hope of certainty, but then that can actually be misleading rather than helpful. So like as you're giving space for these questions, what do you see happening in these spaces where you're encouraging questions? I'm just curious, maybe it's just anecdotes, I don't know, but what's happening when these students feel that permission?

Val O'Brien (32:06)
Yeah, yeah. I, you know, I'll go to probably the most vivid example of like what happens in that space, you know? Well, I'll say this first that like one of the things I pulled it up here, because I just, I think it's so powerful, but it's a quote from Fuller. And it says, according to our studies, which looked at over 500 youth group graduates, over 70 % of church going high school students report having serious doubts about faith. 70 %

Sadly, less than half of those people shared their doubts and struggles with an adult or friend. Yet these students' to express and explore doubts were actually correlated with greater faith and maturity. In other words, it's not doubt that's toxic to faith, it's silence. Isn't that so great? And so I thought, I know it's a long quote, but I just think it's worth reading because

Jason Allison (32:55)
That's good.

Rob Paterson (32:55)
Mm.

Mm. Mm. Yeah.

Val O'Brien (33:02)
And I think that that's true for adults too. I'm like, okay, well, survey 500 adults who have been sitting in the church for 10 years and they might say the same thing. Note that they've experienced a time of significant doubt also. And the ones that actually are able to express it and work through it are so much stronger in their faith for it. I think that a lot of times we can be really afraid of questions because we're like, that means that they're doubting.

Jason Allison (33:10)
yeah.

Yeah.

Val O'Brien (33:30)
That means they're on the edge. This is going to turn to a whole thing and they're going to, if they start, you know, pulling the thread, it's all going to unravel and they're going to walk away or, you know, they're going to, they're going to de-charge. They're going to, you know, all the, all the work they're going to become an ex-vangelical. All the words for it we have now, you But what we, what the research actually says is that the people that are able to express their doubt are actually the people that,

are more inclined to thrive in their relationship with Jesus. And so how do we model that? How do we model that? What I see happening with students, I would say that, and again, students are such a beautiful microcosm of adults. They're just raw adults, but they respond the same just faster. You know what mean? They have the same types of things.

Jason Allison (34:00)
Mm.

Val O'Brien (34:21)
I would say this is what I was going to say to start with that the most profound example of this, think, is probably when I was in the juvenile detention center with the girls. And we walked into this room, into their little living room kind of area. And I think there's probably about six or seven of them. And all I was, I wasn't able to bring anything in except some three by five cards. So that was what I brought. And they have their little, you know, their pencils and stuff like that. So I think I gave each student

Jason Allison (34:28)
Hmm.

Val O'Brien (34:47)
two cards that was there. And I was like, Hey, tonight I give a little intro. Tonight we're going to talk about questions and blah, blah, blah. And, um, I actually talked about John the Baptist sending word to Jesus from jail. Are you the one or should I look for someone else? Which also hits different when you're sitting in a jail. But, um, I was like, you know, Lord, I'm still going to go for it. So we, talked about that story and I was like, Jesus is not afraid of our questions. And I start passing out these cards.

Jason Allison (34:58)
Mm.

Rob Paterson (35:01)
Hmm.

Val O'Brien (35:16)
And this one girl is like, I don't, I don't need a card. And I'm like, that's fine. Like you don't have to submit any questions here. I'll just leave one for you. And if you think of one, you can submit it. If not, you can just take it. don't care. and we answered the first question and one of the very first questions was about forgiveness. I think the first one, was how, how do I forgive my mommy is what she had written on her thing. Submitted it.

So we start talking about forgiveness and the other ladies I was with start talking about forgiveness and the most real, the other woman took lead on answering it, the most beautiful, genuine answer. And in the corner, I see this girl writing on her card, the other girl writing on her card and she kind of walks over, slips it into the pile. She goes back to her seat. She walks up two minutes later, takes three more cards, goes back to her seat.

And I see her writing and writing and writing. And I just think that that is, and, again, like I said, that night we had such a great, we had so many great conversations with these girls and they submitted a ton of questions, but I think it is, you know, like the vulnerability breeds vulnerability breeds honesty breeds honesty, you know? And so I think just the, the modeling of that, or even I have found,

even in our teaching to try to anticipate what those questions might be and bring them up. And to even say, know, so, okay, so I just talked about this thing about Jesus, but you know, someone, someone who doesn't, you know, know the story of Jesus and stuff, might say, this sounds, this sounds kind of crazy because this and this and this and say, and that that's a great observation. And you know, what, what God's word tells us and then go on from there.

But know, to like actually, if they're not in a place yet where they're raising their hands, you know, or submitting questions or something like that, to just pause and think even in our teaching, what really would be the questions that somebody doubting, that someone who has no faith in Jesus at all, maybe even is antagonistic, what might be the question they would see in this? And how can I just lead with that?

And how can I acknowledge that as a part of like what we're talking about today and keep going and teach through it and teach through it for other people. But I think that even that type of honesty or that type of acknowledgement of like, I understand that some of the people that are hearing my voice might not be in full agreement with this. And being able to acknowledge that I think goes a huge long way, a huge long way, no matter what age of people you're teaching to.

Jason Allison (37:50)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (37:54)
Yeah, Val is you're sharing this. I'm thinking to myself, you know, you are passionate. You are articulate. You are compelling. So if I was just like listening to this podcast, I'd be thinking to myself, I've got to do this, right? Which then makes me like, here's what my mind does. My mind jumps to this. I knew this guy he's since passed on, but he just had this passion and this belief that in his ministry, if they, if they loosened up a little bit, if they, if they created more of like a

coffee shop environment at his very conservative Mennonite church that that would really reach way more people and his elders were completely opposed to this idea. So in order to get it done, here's what he did. He's like, we're going to pull out all the chairs. going to put tables in. We're going to put some art on the wall of the sanctuary. We're going to do this like secretly, not tell anybody so they can experience it and then go, you were right. So he did this on a first Sunday.

Val O'Brien (38:49)
No.

Rob Paterson (38:53)
and then was fired Monday, right? cause that, you know, like, so probably that was a little too quick, but you know, if there's, if there's people listening to this and they're a little bit inspired and they're like, I've got, I've got to figure out how to do some of this. Like if someone's thinking those thoughts, you know, and they wanted to say in the next three to five years, I want to go maybe from not being very good at this, reaching, you know, kids and youth.

Val O'Brien (38:59)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (39:20)
to five years from now, I want us to be amazing at this. Like what is that pathway look like?

Val O'Brien (39:28)
yeah. Yes, don't get fired. Don't be like, you know, today I'm gonna preach the sermon as though I were an agnostic. they not go over great. I do think, again, if it was a five-year plan, I would say 100 % the first six months to do that deep work with the Lord first.

Rob Paterson (39:33)
You

Jason Allison (39:38)
Yeah.

Val O'Brien (39:50)
of like, where has the Lord met me in my life in my hardest questions? And which ones am I still afraid to go to? And I would probably spend some time with my leadership talking about that also. And saying, you know, we are going to, if we are gonna model this for our congregation, then we need to make this place and us as leaders unafraid to deal with these things.

and to start there. So that's probably where I would spend my first year, six months with me, next six months talking about it with my staff. And those things are hard, you I don't want to gloss over the fact that like, I don't know, you might lose, like the thought that you might lose your job if you no longer believe in the inerrancy of scripture is probably a very real thing. You know, like I'm not trying to make this sound like you should bring up anything and don't worry, it's going to be fine. You know, but I think that

we do need to wrestle with those inappropriate places. So I think talking about that and creating that type of space in your family and amongst your leadership team, whether that's the elders or the leadership team or the directors of ministries and saying, hey, these are the things that we want to cultivate in our church to start building the culture there. And then,

Jason Allison (40:47)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (40:48)
Mm-hmm.

Val O'Brien (41:07)
I would say to start slow even in the teaching of maybe it is just even like one, start by just including one thing that's a critique, but to really honor that critique, not another thing that I don't know why I've been tempted to do this before too, but not just bring up a critique and like lambast it for why it's wrong, but to really honor the like.

Rob Paterson (41:31)
Hmm.

Val O'Brien (41:33)
the intelligence and even the sincerity of someone who might be asking that question. And to really learn to discipline ourselves to do that, not just like, you know, some people will say this and this is why they don't really understand. Not like that. But I know Tim Keller used to say this and I think about it, but that he would try to understand his, people that opposed him understand their arguments even better than they did. And you want to be able to like express honestly and

Rob Paterson (41:37)
Mm-hmm, that's good.

Val O'Brien (42:00)
succinctly like what the opposition says to the point that their eyes light up and they're like, yes, that's what I think. It's like, okay, now we can go from there. So I think like learning to be really honest about people's, the sincerity in which they have maybe disagreement or ask those questions and just starting to bring that into, maybe it's not even every single week, but just.

Jason Allison (42:09)
Yeah.

Val O'Brien (42:26)
slowly start thinking about that or even start crafting your sermons a little bit about that even if you don't bring up the direct question itself in the sermon. But try to address those questions. And then I think like in different ministries and in different spaces like learning to create, you know, again in student ministry I just talk about like, you know, we can't just do like any questions at the end. Like not sufficient, you know.

and so I think like, can we build little systems into our programs even where questions are allowed and where, you know, and do it in different ways and that type of thing. So whether that is from Sunday morning or whether that is in your small group ministry, teen ministry, children's ministry, just learning how to do that. And one of the things that, we, we started with the anatomy of a question and we didn't even,

get to all of it to talk about it. But what we do at the Anatomy of a question is we take questions that students have submitted and then we spend two hours dissecting that question that each individual person around the table, everyone gets a different question. They pick one in small groups and they work through it and say, what is really being asked in this question? Why is somebody asking this? What's going on in their head and in their heart, in their home that's making them ask that question? What presuppositions are there?

What values are intrinsic there? What different directions could we go in biblical answering this question? And just really starting to pull apart those pieces of questions and not assume that we know exactly what the person is asking as soon as they ask it. So really taking time to walk with people in their questions and not just like, that's your question and here's your answer. So.

Um, and I think even just little things like that of, of, doing training, most of the stuff, even when I do the anatomy of a question, I'm like, none of what I'm going to tell you guys today, you're going to walk away. Like I'm not pretending to create air here. You know, this is not, this is not revolutionary. You're not going to walk away and say, I've never thought about that before, but hopefully it just like as little reminders and put some puzzle pieces in place of like, what do you do? How do you respond when somebody asks you a really hard?

Jason Allison (44:23)
Yeah.

Val O'Brien (44:38)
question. Like what are we supposed to do as followers of Jesus in those situations and how are we supposed to not just answer questions but be but shepherd people's hearts because that's what Jesus was after. So I think like how so I think that there could be some just like training in there too and working with your congregation and saying hey this is what this is how we want to answer people that are struggling in whatever way they're struggling. So

Jason Allison (45:02)
Yeah.

that's good. That's real good. And I think that's like, you like you said, Rob, it's a process, right? We're talking. That's not something you introduce this coming Sunday. You know, you got to be wise and discerning in that. But over time, you know, we we replicate what we celebrate. And so if we celebrate the question and we celebrate not being silent.

Val O'Brien (45:12)
right through.

Rob Paterson (45:21)
Mm.

Jason Allison (45:26)
Right. If we if we celebrate the doubt and say, hey, it's OK. Like that's that doesn't disqualify you from anything. That just means you're actually thinking about things that creates the atmosphere where that can happen. And that's tough. mean, that's just it's risky because people may have some questions that I don't have the answer to right away. And I got to look at them and either make something up or be honest and say, that's an awesome question. And I don't know.

Rob Paterson (45:36)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (45:55)
Let's explore it together. Yeah. Well, we are, man, we are out of time and I wish we had another two hours because I've got 72 more questions that I want to go through. and so does Rob. So maybe we have to do this again. We'll do a follow-up to this, you know, especially once you get a few more of the questions into the, and, and definitely we'll, we'll put the link and everything in the show notes. If you're a pastor or a leader and you've got kids that

Val O'Brien (45:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Paterson (45:59)
So good.

Val O'Brien (46:11)
Yeah, that'd be great. That'd be fun.

Jason Allison (46:21)
They have questions, which they do. I'll just tell you, if you have kids, they have questions, ⁓ know, and you want to submit them or get them into this project, man, I will make sure you're, hook you up. you can either reach out to us. If for some reason you can't find any other, will get you connected to Val and to the Aspen ministry stuff. And, that's great. Val, thank you for. Yeah. I mean, just your time, but then also you've just spent a lot of time really thinking about and diving into.

Val O'Brien (46:25)
man, so many.

Rob Paterson (46:25)
Yeah.

Val O'Brien (46:41)
my gosh, thank you for having me.

Jason Allison (46:49)
the stuff going on in the minds of this next generation and one that's scary to even try to imagine what's going on in their minds. But then second of all, it's just a beautiful thing and I think God is using you in such an amazing way. And so thank you for just letting him use you in a way that is really reaching the next gen.

Val O'Brien (47:08)
well, thank you. It's for its It's for the church. So I hope it can be a blessing to them.

Jason Allison (47:12)
Yeah.

that's great. Well, to our listeners, we appreciate you taking time to be with us. Take a minute and share this podcast. Maybe subscribe to it. Spend some time talking about some things and please reach out to us. Let us know what questions you're either facing or wrestling with. Rob and I have questions all the time and we're not afraid to engage those and to wrestle with them. And sometimes we're not afraid of stepping a little over the line and

risk getting canceled because we're willing to engage it. And that's all right. We're good with that. But man, we have a wonderful week and we are cheering for you and can't wait to hear from you. Have a good week.