Dr. Richard Kannwischer - "Cultivate"

Apologies!! Somehow the audio file for this episode got mixed up. This is the actual interview with Dr. Richard Kannwischer. It is a great conversation!!

In this episode of the Church Talk podcast, hosts Jason Allison and Rob Paterson engage in a deep conversation with Dr. Richard Kannwischer about the importance of cultivating the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. They discuss the challenges of pastoral care, the significance of community, and the slow process of spiritual growth. Dr. Kannwischer shares personal stories and insights from his new book, 'Cultivate,' emphasizing the need for patience, kindness, and the presence of Christ in our lives. The conversation highlights the importance of training for spiritual growth and the role of relationships in fostering transformation.

Get Richard's book "Cultivate"

More about Dr. Richard Kannwischer

Chapters

00:00 Navigating Life's Rhythms and Challenges
02:46 The Role of Pastoral Care and Emotional Burden
05:44 Introducing Dr. Richard Kannwischer and His Book
08:17 The Journey of Faith and Ministry
11:04 Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit
14:01 The Importance of Joy in Daily Life
16:45 Practical Steps to Cultivate Joy
19:36 Building Community and Connection
22:39 Exploring Peace and Future Topics
24:48 The Relationship Between Peace and Self-Reliance
27:05 The Non-Anxious Presence of Christ
30:55 The Importance of Keeping Your Eyes on the Captain
34:29 Patience as a Spiritual Practice
39:00 The Role of Community in Spiritual Transformation
43:00 Understanding Kindness vs. Niceness

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Transcript

Jason Allison (00:00)
Welcome everybody back to the Church Talk podcast with Rob and Jason. Rob, is is 2026. I wasn't sure we'd make it, but we did. It was it was a good year. You know, how are you doing? Like now that we're truly a full week and a half in, are you going to be OK?

Rob Paterson (00:20)
You know what, it's funny that you asked me this question today, because when we did our episode a couple weeks ago, just about the new year and all that kind of stuff, we always talk about just rhythms and patterns and sort of how to hopefully live well in a day-to-day, week-to-week kind of way. And I said this thing where even though it had been a really busy season, and I have lots of unexpected things even popping up during the...

some of the busiest days and week of my life every year that I know that I typically live with good rhythm and pace. So it's okay that Christmas was extra, extra busy with funerals and people, you know, passing away and things like that. And to add on top of that, I spent all day yesterday at the Cleveland Clinic. One of my kid had a bunch of tests and actually those all came out great. So that's good news, right? But the last two nights I have not been able to get to sleep.

Like I just, I toss and turn, which is not a typical thing. Um, and so yesterday as we were up in Cleveland all day, um, I had all these like intense emotions because I was basically, you know, sleepless. And I had all these great ideas for these very extreme Facebook posts where I could like let a whole bunch of people know how I was feeling about some, you know, extreme and polarizing things. mean, the things we always talk and advocate against doing.

Jason Allison (01:26)
exhausted.

Rob Paterson (01:41)
in general, and I was feeling all the things. So I don't know if this is helpful for anyone to hear, but man, if you just maybe had a sleepless night or you're extra busy and all of those things apply to me right this second, just be really wise. Like don't don't do anything you're going to regret in that moment.

Jason Allison (01:56)
I will try not to provoke you to say things that you and I would normally say when the mics are not hot. So yes, I will be very sensitive. And yeah, I appreciate that. I know it's been a rough couple of weeks for me to just in, you know, I had to do a really, really difficult funeral earlier this week that just one of those you don't you don't ever want to do. But and I know after it was in the morning by that afternoon, I was just

Rob Paterson (02:03)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (02:21)
totally spent. And I think there's a sense in which as pastors, you know, we need to acknowledge that sometimes you take on the pain and the loss that people are experiencing. you know, part of, I think part of our job is to help absorb some of it on their behalf and almost take it and then turn it over to God, but to be that kind of mediary.

Rob Paterson (02:40)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (02:46)
you know, for people as they struggle through things. And it can be exhausting, it can be hard.

Rob Paterson (02:52)
Yeah, it's interesting when you the day I think you knew that this funeral was coming, you texted me and you you said, hey, would you pray for me? Which obviously I did. But it wasn't just I prayed for you. I actually immediately called you because the context was I was complaining to my older son because basically somebody was using me. I love to help people.

Jason Allison (02:57)
Yeah. ⁓

Rob Paterson (03:13)
but I just felt like people in a really busy season were using me as the free version of services so that they, you I could help solve problems in their life. not because they really wanted or needed me, but because I do it for free for them, you know, and I was just in an exhausted, frustrated moment. So I called and we talked for a few minutes cause I'm like, well, situation that you are now walking into is way worse than mine, which kind of gave me some perspective on the things that I was grumbling about, like in the privacy of my own home.

And I think again, for everybody in ministry, like having a friend that you can talk to honestly, just for a minute, who, you know, they're not going to enable you to be grumpy or complaining, but they are going to listen. They're going to care and they're going to pray. You know, those are, those are good gifts. And I appreciate that, that, you know, you're that for me and hopefully I'm that for you.

Jason Allison (03:52)
Yeah. Yeah.

And,

absolutely. Yeah, no, that's, that's good. And honestly, what, what I think pastors need to understand is, you know, this, this type of relationship and even this type of ministry doesn't happen overnight, right? We're so into quick and hurried and so forth, but it really takes time. I mean, we've known each other for almost 15 years. Yeah. and, we've worked together on many things and, and, and that's why I'm excited about our guests today, because our guest today, the book that just came out,

Rob Paterson (04:10)
Hmm.

15 years.

Jason Allison (04:26)
As we're recording, it came out yesterday, but the name of the book is Cultivate. And it's about really that slow process of, you know, growing and of having God change you and mold you and shape you and, you know, all those things that you know, in a microwave society, we're so used to everything being instant. We forget that this is the type of thing that takes time. And just real quick introduction, our guest today who we've just been talking for a few minutes and I can already tell.

We're our our listeners are gonna like this like like this dude. Okay. We've got ditch. Dr. Richard Can't I to pronounce his name, right? I listened but it's conwisher. Dr. Richard conwisher. He's the pastor at Peachtree Church in Atlanta He holds a degree from Princeton Theological Seminary Fuller Seminary and and honestly just reading through all of his stuff the thing that I really have sensed is he is a pastor and he loves people

and he loves to teach. He loves to teach his people and he loves to live in community with his church and to do that. And so he has come out with a book. You can find it. The link will be, of course, in the show notes. And the name of the book is Cultivate. And it's all about basically developing the fruit of the spirit in your life, what that looks like. So Dr. Richard Conwisher, we are so glad you are with us today. Welcome to the Church Talk podcast.

Richard Kannwischer (05:44)
Rob, Jason, it's great to be with you, Rob. If you need to take a little nap during this conversation and you need Jason and I to do the heavy lifting, just let us know, okay? Like if we see you starting to nod. Well, you know, I mean.

Rob Paterson (05:52)
Nice, I appreciate that. Jason has never extended that to me.

Jason Allison (05:56)
Yeah, that's because it normally just happens. And so I have to just cover.

Richard Kannwischer (06:02)
Well, I

can already tell you all sorry for pastors and look, this project was birthed out of an enormous amount of pastoral pain. Like I opened the book by talking about how a guy came to me. was a really busy season. It was up in the New York city metro area. And he just had some of those basic doctrinal questions about heaven, about hell, about prayer, the questions that we've answered a hundred times can do in our sleep. and

And know, honestly, he was in like a 30, 45 minute slot, didn't know him. He wasn't a member of the church. And he left my office and I didn't give a second thought to it.

And then the next day I saw his face in the news and he had murdered his wife and his son. And then he threw himself in front of a train. And I don't know if anybody who's listening to this has ever experienced pastoral failure. Like God, you put this person in my office, you put them into my care and I totally missed it.

And part of the point is, that look, you and I can look really fine on the outside and be rotting on the inside. And the goal can't be to run great church programs or even deliver a polished sermons. The goal is who are we becoming in Christ? And I think we've absolutely forgotten.

what the enterprise is for, what the target is. And I feel like we've forgotten as pastors, I didn't write this book for pastors, but I started out on my pastoral pain and what the actual goal, God right at the beginning said, I mean, the Bible says he blessed them and he said, be fruitful. And so we're supposed to bear fruit that lasts. And the culmination of that is the description of the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5, 22 and 23.

Jason Allison (07:38)
Yeah.

All right. Well, there you go. That's the book. No, I'm just kidding. That was awesome. mean, that that yeah. And then take an offering. No, I love that. And maybe let's just get started here. Tell us a little bit about yourself. I mean, did you grow up in a Christian home? Did you know what was it like? How did you experience a call into ministry? Maybe just catch us up on that, because I can tell you've got a heart there that's it's built out of more than just

Richard Kannwischer (07:53)
Let's close in prayer, everybody.

Rob Paterson (07:55)
Yeah, yeah.

Jason Allison (08:14)
a few, you know, reading some stuff and getting a few degrees.

Richard Kannwischer (08:17)
Yeah, no, I grew up in a Christian home with the kind of parents that came to my bedside every night to pray with me. It was genuine Christian love support just right out of the gate. I can honestly say I don't know of a time growing up where the presence and the reality of God and Christ wasn't just a part of the air that we breathed.

But in my sophomore year, my youth director, I had three things I was really passionate about when I was in high school. It was scouts, it was tennis, and it was youth group. And my youth director and my scout master were caught in a long standing affair. And for me, it was like, if this is what the Christian faith is, I don't want anything to do with it. I was just, I'm out.

And, I mean, I wasn't combative about it. I, you know, I was a really bad atheist. didn't like jettison all my ethics or anything along those lines. was as Frank Turcotte's, I was stealing from God. was pulling some of that stuff back, even though, I didn't believe in him and I didn't want anything to do with God. And for several years,

I walked away from God, but when I was in college through a series of events, but one of the most poignant of which was a friend who just invited me to pray with him and I hadn't prayed in years and my heart just melted. So I came back to faith when I was in college. I experienced my call to ministry by working at a church in Houston. I was going to work in a management consulting job. was in an internship. was...

Jason Allison (09:32)
Mm.

Rob Paterson (09:32)
Mm.

Richard Kannwischer (09:43)
one of those guys that was dead set on how much money can I make and how ambitious can I be? And a youth director got lost at a church, so they hired a kind of a bevy of interns. And I'm like, you know what? The business world is always going to be there. That sounds like a lot of fun. And so I decided, let me do that instead this summer. And it ruined my life because I fell in love with those people. I fell in love. And for the first time in my life, I met a pastor who I didn't just

respect kind of as a nice person, but was leading and mobilizing an externally focused church. And there was all this life and energy and fruit and joy. I was, it literally was a lightning bolt for me. was 22 years old. And I said, if that's what pastoral ministry can be, I will give the rest of my life to it. And that was, that was, that was the moment for me where I said, I'm do it. I came back to my fraternity brothers and I'm like, I'm going be a pastor. And they're like, wait, what? I mean,

Rob Paterson (10:29)
Mmm.

Jason Allison (10:29)
Wow.

you

Rob Paterson (10:37)
⁓

Richard Kannwischer (10:39)
It was something.

Rob Paterson (10:39)
that's so good. I love that. You know, as you were talking, I was thinking and I love that line, you know, the idea that the love of Christ in your home kind of growing up was just the air that was always there. That's the, you know, the air that you guys breathe. And I'm thinking how many times people would say things like about my two sons, like, wow, you guys have done a great job. And I don't know, in some ways, maybe we have in some ways we haven't, but I think a part of it is just that, know, like just

doing your best to make Jesus kind of that constant presence so that your kids don't know anything different, right? So that's just part of the culture. you know, your book Cultivate, it's interesting. It's kind of built around the fruit of the Spirit. And Richard, I remember years ago, we do this thing in the summertime where a lot of times we'll have like different, you know, people sharing in different testimonies, especially in the month of July.

And I filmed actually in my side yard. have 20 acres where I live. There's this like fruiting apple tree. So there's like all sorts of like flowers and there's like little apples starting to grow on it. And we filmed me sitting under that kind of, know, with all this fruit all around me. And for each week we pre-recorded these little eight to 10 minute devotionals that were part of that series. And I thought they were fine, you know, it was obviously.

pretty just because of the location and the time of year and the content was fine. But I had so many people talk to me about how those little, simple, less than 10 minute devotionals on the fruit of the spirit was so transformational in their life, in their walk with the Lord. maybe share with us a little bit about what kind of caught your attention about the fruit of the spirit and how that is critical.

Jason Allison (12:18)
.

Rob Paterson (12:24)
in helping people become more like Jesus.

Richard Kannwischer (12:28)
Yeah, it's one of those things where, I mean, I remember being a kid and being in vacation Bible school and we'd sing the cheesy little fruit of the spirit song. mean, guess some of this would be an adult rescue of the fruit of the spirit from vacation Bible school curriculum. but it's so easy to drift,

right? Like we live in an age accelerated outrage and the algorithm is pulling us in all kinds of different directions. And you just.

If you aren't partnering with God to cultivate these qualities, they do not naturally grow. mean, you cannot grow the fruit of the Spirit in the soil of selfishness and individualism and that kind of thing. so if, look, if Jesus said, I chose you and I appointed you to go and bear fruit that will last. And what is the nature of that fruit? And Paul fully more kind of fully reveals that.

Jason Allison (12:54)
Because the more important thing is God, the more important thing that quality may be not necessarily correct. And we cannot throw the fruit of the spirit away with something.

If you are, if you said, I told you and I appointed you to go and be a priest in the last year, and what is the nature of that person, Paul Holyworm?

Richard Kannwischer (13:17)
This is who we're supposed to be becoming. I think we kind of think that a Christian is someone who does Christian activities, but you can do a lot of Christian activities and not be becoming the person. I mean, you can be reading the

Jason Allison (13:18)
If you were to just go and be priest last year, and you were just kind of think of a person as someone who does this in a certain way, if you could see a lot of Christian activities and not be becoming a person, that would be a good thing.

Richard Kannwischer (13:32)
Bible and be becoming more judgmental and more closed minded and, you know, more hate filled. mean, you know, we need to separate practices are good, but we need to make sure that the practices are in service to the end.

And in language, we would refer to this as sanctification, right? Like, mean, and so I think in a lot of places, all we have in American Christianity is justification and glorification. It's nerd out theologically a little bit. we've taken it. Like, so Dallas Willards would say that this is, you know, kind of the great omission within the great commission. Well, like teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you. Dallas played a huge influence in my life, my journey. And I think he was really

Rob Paterson (13:47)
Mm.

Jason Allison (13:51)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Yeah.

Richard Kannwischer (14:17)
onto something that there's some there's this hole in the kind of the center of the American gospel that we tend to proclaim and we're missing what people need and are hungry for.

Jason Allison (14:30)
so true. mean, that is it because I mean, honestly, it's hard to teach people that this requires effort and.

You know, like you don't want to you want to you want to build a crowd. You want more people to come and feel good. But then to turn around and say, hey, this this is a something you've got to work at. This is not just a hey, I checked a box. Everything's fine. Yeah. Yeah. And so I appreciate that. And you know, you refer to God as a gardener in the book multiple times, you know, from the very beginning even to, you know, Revelation, we see it over and over.

Rob Paterson (14:55)
I prayed a prayer. Now I'm good forever. Yeah.

Jason Allison (15:09)
Why is that image of God so important to you as you were writing the book?

Richard Kannwischer (15:15)
I think for today, one of the things that we've forgotten because most of us live in urban or suburban contexts as opposed to rural context, we are further and further away from soil. We have forgotten the most basic thing that everybody would have known in the ancient world. That is, look, if you ignore your soil, it's going to be overgrown with weeds, thorns, thistles, all of those kinds of things.

That's one reality. If you ignore it, it's going to be a mess. And then the second thing is, is that even when you work at it, you cannot engineer the outcome. Meaning you play your role.

But it doesn't mean that you can make fruit, like you can't walk up to a tree and make fruit happen. You can create the conditions of sun and air and water and that kind of thing. This is the, I mean, it's the most basic thing in the world, but because we're, you know, our only experiences with bad houseplants, we can't relate to it. And yet the Bible is just so clear on.

I mean, most of Jesus' parables, like the parable of the sower and all of these kinds of things, like they're agricultural images that we need to recapture in order to understand our life with God. So I might do this. I'll try not to quote him one more time, but Dallas Willard used to say, grace is not opposed to effort. is opposed to earning. Grace is not opposed to effort.

Jason Allison (16:34)
Hmm.

Rob Paterson (16:34)
Mm-hmm.

Richard Kannwischer (16:36)
it's opposed to earning. And so we make the mistakes of saying like, it's all about grace. Of course it starts with grace, but grace isn't just the beginning of the journey. Grace is a part of the whole thing. An apple tree is supposed to bear apples and an orange tree is supposed to bear oranges. The trees don't just exist for themselves. They're meant to exist to bear a particular kind of fruit.

Jason Allison (16:45)
This isn't just the beginning of the great race. the first of all. An apple tree is the first of their kind.

Richard Kannwischer (17:01)
And we kind of think as Christians, our job is just to be a tree when no reality is we're supposed to fruit. An avocado tree is supposed to bear guacamole. I that's straight from Jesus.

Jason Allison (17:12)
Yeah,

Rob Paterson (17:12)
Amen, amen.

Jason Allison (17:13)
yeah

Rob Paterson (17:13)
That's right. So good. Hey, well, let's actually get maybe into like one of these kind of fruit of the spirit. And I love in the chapter on joy, you've already referenced him twice. So let's go for a third time. You mentioned something that Dallas Willard challenged you with, know, every six days a week to read, you know, one of the Psalms of praise from Psalm 145 through 160 and just sort of continue to do that. And I think you said this.

It's literally impossible to do that sincerely and not become a more joy-filled person. You know, I mean, we all train, right? We train our muscles. We train all kinds of things. What are some ways maybe that you would give people, because maybe that's true. Like maybe like they sit there, they smile, they say the right things on the outside, but if they were being honest, they are filled with so much tension and struggle and hate, all the division in the world, you know, all those kinds of things that we see.

You know, I don't know about you, but I know for me, some of the things I see sometimes from my people on social media, I'm like, how is it that they have sat under my teaching for a decade and a half and say that, you know, like, or think that or believe that like, so.

Richard Kannwischer (18:21)
confronted

one person in the church over one thing that they were saying, their immediate response is, I don't get enough credit for what I don't say.

Rob Paterson (18:29)
You know, there is some truth to that too. If I had posted everything I typed and then deleted, I'd probably be a far worse person. But how would you, if someone came to you and said, I wanna build this muscle, I wanna develop the fruit of joy, what are some ways people could do that?

Richard Kannwischer (18:32)
Yeah.

What you're absolutely right in the sense of this is about, to borrow the biblical language of training and righteousness. And everybody's training, it's only a matter of what is your training regimen and what are you training to do. So if you wake up first thing in the morning and your first thing is instinct is to reach for your phone that's on your nine stand and you start the doom scrolling, you are training in envy and in outrage.

Like that's what you're training. You're literally

Jason Allison (19:11)
Yeah.

Richard Kannwischer (19:12)
priming your mind. You're waking up in the morning. You are taking the neuroplasticity that God has given you. And that's how you were molding and training your day, not in joy, but in that type of thing. So the first discipline that I would say kind of in response to that is a discipline of abstinence. I mean, I'm not legalistic about it.

but I don't spend time on my phone before I've spent time in scripture. So that whole idea, I got this from Justin Early where he says, scripture before phone. I'm gonna give God the first word in my life. Now again, I'm not legalistic. It's like I wake up and I know there's an email I need to fire off or something's wrong or I need to send a message. It's like fine. But just in general, I want my mind to start.

Rob Paterson (19:49)
Mm.

Richard Kannwischer (20:01)
with that and overall fruit of the spirit not specifically joy. Imagine how your life might be different and I've gone through seasons where I have done this where you wake up in the morning and before you get out of bed you just say the nine of the fruit of the spirit and I can promise you this if you do that consistently every day for a while right as soon as you wake up in the morning you will be primed to see God at work

in the day with those things. And so, so that would be one kind of tip would be like just, Hey, what do I do basic level to kind of jumpstart how God might grow some of the fruit of the spirit in my life. Just start there. But if you're talking about other things to do with joy, look, one of the things that I don't know if you guys have seen the data on with the restaurants that only a fraction of their business now is

in the restaurant as opposed to takeaway. And that is eating more and more and more by ourselves with screens. So like one other discipline you could do to cultivate joy would be, look, I'm going to make sure that I eat one meal a day with at least one other person. I'm not going to go a whole day without meals are a form of celebrating.

Jason Allison (20:56)
yeah.

Rob Paterson (21:00)
Hmm. Hmm.

Richard Kannwischer (21:18)
Jesus

Jason Allison (21:18)
Yeah.

Richard Kannwischer (21:19)
was constantly going from one meal to another and so it's a really basic anything can be a spiritual discipline whether you're taking something away or you're adding to it as long as you do it unto the Lord and So so you can reverse engineer this you can literally say where is joy missing in my life? And how can I start?

to cultivate that. And like I say in the chapter there, look, there are plenty of joy prayers, joy scriptures, and it was joy was missing from my life. And Dallas is like, if you stay on this rhythm, joy will begin to increase.

Rob Paterson (21:55)
Hmm. Hmm.

Jason Allison (21:55)
Yeah,

that's great. am. OK, let's let's keep going with this. The next chapter is on peace and we're not going to hit all nine. Don't worry. I mean, I have questions about all of them after reading. Hey, aren't you doing like a teaching series at your church right now called Cultivate?

Richard Kannwischer (22:04)
except for our podcast people.

Rob Paterson (22:07)
you

Richard Kannwischer (22:11)
We are doing the whole year on the nine fruit of the spirit. Well, February is love, not because it's Valentine's day, but because it's first one. And then we're going to work our way through the whole year and then have kind of a capstone month in November. and yeah, so we're going to spend a whole year on this, just preaching through the different passages in the Bible. And I'm actually preaching through my study guide. People are like, you preaching through your book? I'm like, no, no. But the study guide, like every.

Jason Allison (22:15)
Nice.

Richard Kannwischer (22:39)
passage that's in the study guide is the 48 or 47, whatever it is, passages that we're gonna be studying together. And I anchor each month in the study guide with a prayer and a proverb, one proverb for the month. So for me, I'm gonna wake up every day and I'm going to say that proverb for a month. It's one of my spiritual practices.

Jason Allison (23:02)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Paterson (23:03)
I love that. I love the depth

over the breadth too. Just drilling that into our minds and hearts.

Jason Allison (23:06)
Yeah.

Yeah, that please, please.

Richard Kannwischer (23:10)
Can I read on that a little bit? Because my greatest

content in American Christianity with our devotional life is the difference between that breadth and depth. Because I think for a lot of times we think a devotion has to be novel, meaning it's new content every day. I think you will find a greater impact if you are willing to pray the same prayer or the same scripture and do it every day for a week, as opposed to

hey, let me read a new chapter in this. There's a place for that. But I find that like, I'm flying around too much and there's something that happens on the sixth time that I'm hearing a scripture. That it just gets to a soul level that's deeper than that.

Jason Allison (23:48)
Yeah.

Yeah,

I'm all I've got one chapter to go in AJ Swaboda and in Jay Gupta's book, Slow Theology. And that what you just said is what they call for when it comes to even doing theology, right? Instead of trying to do it all at once or have the answer, hey, what would it look like within the context of community to think, think together, think it because that's what the creeds were. Right. It was that that building of that.

Well, so with with peace, that's one of the one of the fruit that we talk about. say peace is not the absence of chaos, but the presence of Christ. And that that line stuck out to me as I was reading what when you talk about it, about peace, you also refer to the American value of self-reliance. You kind of compare those, you know, those I would say competing values of sorts, you know.

Rob Paterson (24:41)
Mm.

Richard Kannwischer (24:45)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (24:48)
How does that undermine peace? If peace is the fear of the Lord, what does that mean? What does that actually look like?

Richard Kannwischer (24:57)
I based that fear of the Lord out of the text. mean, we know that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. like there, there's that story of Jesus calling the storm in Mark four, where they're afraid of the storm. Then Jesus calms the storm. And then the text says that they're mega afraid that they're greatly afraid. And the whole Oswell chambers line, if you fear God, you will fear nothing else. If you do not fear God, you will fear everything else. So.

So it's interesting to think, you know, part of the way we need to get into peace is out of a greater sense of awe and reverence of God. If we, if we have a very small view of God, it's going to be very hard for us to have any peace because we're going to think it's all up to us. This is where it gets to that self-reliance. If, if, if God is just kind of like a little bit of the cherry on the ice cream of the Sunday of my life,

then that's not a very big, robust, sovereign Lord and rescuer and savior. That's just, hey, God is supposed to give my life a little bit of meaning. By default, if I have a small God, I will have to rely on myself more. And that's why peace and self-reliance are so related to one another in the midst of it. And it was James Davison Hunter who

Wrote a book on how to change the world my favorite line from that book I mean, it's a massive thick book on culture and Christianity and that kind of thing and I'll save you I'll save all of your listeners the time of having to walk through it. He talked about the non-anxious presence of Christ in the world and In boy the minute I heard that phrase I realized that's what a person of peace is

is that you're able to walk into the tumultuous family situation, office, neighborhood association meeting, whatever it is, social media outrage, and we exhibit the non-anxious presence of Christ wherever we go, and that's what a person of peace would do.

Jason Allison (27:05)
So, hey, do you mind sharing? I love the story about the boat. Do you mind sharing that story? I don't want to give the whole book away, but that was a great story.

Rob Paterson (27:05)
Yeah.

Richard Kannwischer (27:13)
Hello, it's fine.

And as you could tell by diving into the book a little bit, am like, I'm just a storyteller. Like, I mean, I just any, any time. So we did one of those footsteps of Paul trip where we took our, you know, a group of people from our church. And so we're in Greece and Turkey, we're going to Ephesus and Athens and Corinth. And it's a really great experience. But because you're on a cruise ship that goes to multiple destinations, I don't think I quite go into this detail, but it's kind of fun.

We have one day on the island of Santorini, which is like the honeymoon capital of the world. And we had to tender our boat. I told our group, there is no biblical significance to the island of Santorini. Enjoy the beauty of the Lord. Like that was the devotional for the day. It was that short. And so we had to tender a boat and the boat was a functional life raft, if you will.

a hard shelled and it was just super windy. It clear day but it super windy. So like just imagine the waves are just pounding the side of that boat in order to try to get to the island. I'm facing one direction and right in front of me is a middle-aged redheaded woman from Ireland and she's facing, I mean you're like really close to one another, kind of awkwardly facing one another and as the boat's going up and down and getting hammered.

side to side with the waves. I can just tell like her red hair is starting to be matched with her green face. And I'm like, this woman is going to throw up all over me. And she was also kind of a nervous talker. And so eventually she basically just blurted out like, like, why are you so calm right now? And I realized in that moment that she was looking out the window. So all she could see was the impact of the wind and the waves.

Rob Paterson (28:38)
Mm.

Richard Kannwischer (28:57)
I was facing the opposite direction from her and what I could see was the captain. And that captain had zero anxiety in his face. I mean, he was just driving that boat as if it was just a lazy Saturday afternoon. And so my piece was a gift. It was derivative of his piece, of his non-anxious presence.

And so what I talk about in that story in the book is just like, Hey, where is your gaze? Are you gazing at the captain? Are you gazing at, you know, the one who is in charge and it gets back to Mark four of the wind and the waves or are, know, where's your, are you looking? Where are you able to, cause your mind is a place of freedom and where you spend your attention will determine to the degree that which you spent that fruit is evident in your life. It's going to be very hard to have your gaze.

Rob Paterson (29:48)
Hmm.

Richard Kannwischer (29:51)
on the wind and the waves of the world and have the peace of Christ. We have to put our gaze on Christ. And that gets back to what we talking about at the beginning of like, look, we can't make peace happen, but we do have to partner with God to do it. So it's that both and it's that effort and the grace that are all together.

Jason Allison (30:11)
So if pastors didn't hear that, then they aren't listening because I just I part of my job is I talk with pastors all over our region and the thing of keeping your eye on the captain like that. I don't care what's going on in the church, how rough everything is or, whatever is happening, the wind and the waves. Right. When your eye is on the captain, it gives you peace, which then gives you the ability to be a non anxious presence.

in the life of your church, which then can actually help mitigate the wind and the wave. So, man, that that's gold right there. ⁓ So if don't stop listening, because we still got some even better questions coming. But yeah, I think that's great.

Rob Paterson (30:47)
Mm-hmm.

Richard Kannwischer (30:55)
I'll give one more quick story. The first time I learned that, I was helping to run a church camp when I was in college and the DJ quit. And so I was having to step in as an impromptu DJ. And this is back in the day of compact discs. So I had dueling compact discs. I wasn't spinning anything. I did not. I mean, look at me. I'm like the preppiest. I am the least likely candidate to be a DJ on the planet, right? And I'm pretty sure I still had the bowl cut at that point.

Rob Paterson (31:10)
Did you have a hat backwards and stuff too?

Richard Kannwischer (31:22)
you know, eighties nerd as a DJ. And people would come up to me, running up to me, canning me a CD, you have to play this, you have to do this. And people were like, your music stinks, blah, blah, blah. That's probably the nicest version of what they said. And I realized something in being a DJ. That is, my job is to watch the dance floor.

I am supposed to listen to the person who's with me, but I don't set what I'm doing by the person that I'm listening to. I tell this to pastors all the time. You are to listen to your person who is complaining and chewing your head off in your office, but you do not program to dysfunction or to sin or to pain. You program for the dance that is the church. Now know you guys kind of come from a Baptist, so I don't know if that's okay for me to say the word dance, but ...

Rob Paterson (32:14)
Totally good.

We don't dance because of joint issues, not because of theological beliefs.

Richard Kannwischer (32:16)
You

Hahaha!

that's great.

Jason Allison (32:23)
That's awesome.

Rob Paterson (32:25)
Yeah, I suspect all of us would say this, you I've heard this at least my entire adult life. You know, people say, hey, the most important thing in ministry is keeping your eyes on Jesus. So your devotional life, your prayer life, you know, opening the scriptures, not just for sermon proper teaching, but, know, for our own souls. So we've all heard that. But I think, you know, I mean, this conversation has been great because this is this is giving us a little bit more of the why that we do that.

Richard Kannwischer (32:41)
f***.

Rob Paterson (32:51)
you know, cause it's easy to say that and it's even easy to think that and, but just in the busy pace of life, sometimes it's easy if we don't know why we're doing it, to sacrifice some of those daily rhythms and some of this training that really does, you know, kind of fan into flame, fruit of the spirit in our life. And Richard, I kind of want to juxtapose something I heard as a kid with something that you say in the book when you're talking about patience. So my aunt,

always had this statement. said, patience is just the lack of courage to change a situation. and so, you know, I, I grew up in a home where I grew up in Canada. My dad grew up in Scotland. He was an Episcopal choir boy. And then when he went off to serve in the air force, you know, that was kind of the end of his faith journey as a kid. My mom's family always just believed.

If the Anglican church is good enough for the queen, it's good enough for us. Like we never really went to church. It really had no like grounding in our life. So, you know, I, but I think a lot of people even sitting in our pews probably have like a similar thought. Like the world has told them patience is weak. Patience doesn't matter. You know, it's just this lack of courage to actually do something about our situation. And so I love that you say this patience is not passive, right? So that kind of, you know, grabbed my attention.

And then it's a countercultural resistance to the tyranny of the urgent. It's the spirit's quiet revolution in us, training us to live at peace, at the pace of eternity, rather than the pace of anxiety. that is so good. So maybe talk a little bit about how patience is training us.

Richard Kannwischer (34:30)
I, maybe other people have easier relationships than I do, but early on in my marriage, I had to learn that when my wife would share with me something that was hard or heartache, I had to learn patience in my marriage to not try to fix something or do something right away. I needed to trust the slow work of God.

and to realize that in an instantaneous society, think everything ought to not just happen around our desires, but we think it ought to happen on our timetable. And reality is just not like that.

And I mean, think one of the things that got exposed in the pandemic was not just the limitation of how everything we think is always supposed to work, but particularly when we want it to work.

and how difficult it is and how little patience we have for our friends, our politicians, for anything. Like we're not willing, I mean, let's take college football for a minute. It's like, we're not even willing to let you finish the season, even though we're paying you a gobsmack of money. Like, you're out.

That's just so we have no, mean, almost if you were to do a patience indicator in the United States, I mean, we would be in a patience recession right now. It is really the tyranny of always having at our fingertips a supercomputer that delivers us any information we want whenever we want it. And so,

Rob Paterson (35:53)
Mm. Mm.

Richard Kannwischer (36:03)
Patience is like kind of what we talked about. It's not gonna happen naturally. You're gonna have to cultivate it. I love it's a suggestion that John Ortberg has one time. I remember he was talking about patience one time and John's a friend. He said intentionally choose the slow lane on the highway and use that as an opportunity to pray God give me patience or you know how when you go to the grocery store you're like picking which line is maybe 30 seconds shorter than the other one. Just pick the longest one.

Rob Paterson (36:22)
Mmm.

Richard Kannwischer (36:30)
and use that as a time to be able to pray for patients and for the people around you. Again, anything can be a spiritual practice. I think, interestingly enough, think that particularly the patience, kindness, gentleness, that part of the book is probably the most interesting, at least to me as I was writing it, because we talk a lot about love and joy and peace and church. And so that's more of a well-worn path. It's more familiar, but.

man, how often do we really dig into Psalm 40 and talk about how David had to wait and wait and wait on the Lord? And that that might be true for somebody right now as they wait on a pregnancy test or as they wait on a cancer diagnosis or as they wait.

It is, waiting is a part of life. And I do tell this story at the beginning of the book. We used to live in SoCal and we, mean, Disneyland was 15, 20 minutes away without traffic.

And because we had passes and we would kind of go at off peak times, we had a rule no more than 15 minutes in a line at Disney. And one time we had these guests and they wanted to go and wait in these long lines. And I realized that my kids were acting like spoiled brats. And I'm like, I turned to my wife, who raised these saying creatures? And sure enough, I realized that I had trained my children.

to go to Disneyland with the expectation that they should never, with the entitlement, I should never wait more than 15 minutes. And while that may have been a, you know, kind of a fun thing for us as a family, it certainly was training my children in a lack of patience for it.

Jason Allison (38:10)
Wow.

That's yeah. OK, so we're running close to the end of time here and, we still got a bunch more fruit that we could talk about. But I want to I want to kind of skip for it, although I want to go back. You said, you know, love, peace. We those are easier to preach about than some of the others, because I think because love, and peace are a little more, you know, idea.

Right. They're not they're more amorphous. I can be loving. I can be peaceful like that, whatever. But when you start talking about patience and kindness and goodness. Right. That's as my my grandfather used to say, the the preacher goes from preaching to meddling at that point. Right. Because you're getting into the nitty gritty of stuff. And yet we need to do that within the context of, hey, working together. We are if it's a garden.

Richard Kannwischer (38:51)
Yeah, totally agree.

Jason Allison (39:00)
Right. It's not just one plant. It's a garden. It's a community. And towards the end of the book, you talk about how one of the greatest enemies of spiritual transformation is not a lack of willpower, but isolation. Tell me what you mean by that.

Richard Kannwischer (39:15)
Well, you can't exhibit, you can't train, you can't live out fruit unless you're in community. I mean, it's just, it's not possible. It would be fake. It would be, I mean, is there kindness apart from being in some sort of relationship with another person? I mean, I guess to some degree to be kind to yourself, maybe, but.

Rob Paterson (39:26)
Hmm.

Richard Kannwischer (39:40)
That's just a small part of the pizza. I mean, there's so much more that's there. And it's really easy to be kind when you're the only person in the room. Try being kind when, you know, when, you know, when you step on your kid's Lego and your foot hurts like crazy. Like, I mean, that's, that's, you know, that's a different level of kindness than

Jason Allison (39:59)
Mm-hmm.

Richard Kannwischer (40:05)
than one that's done just kind of in your head. So the real testing point for the fruit is when it's embodied and when it's lived out. And so, and that has to be not just an individual practice, that has to be in fellowship with other people.

Jason Allison (40:15)
you

Rob Paterson (40:15)
Mm.

Jason Allison (40:22)
Yeah, yeah.

Rob Paterson (40:22)
Yeah, that's so good.

I just jotted down because I'm thinking about this. Like how many times do people I mean, maybe, hey, my gym's hard and the equipment's old. So I'll go to a fancy new gym and I'll feel it'll be easier. Right. Or man, my marriage is really difficult. So if I leave this person and get with a brand new person, it can feel easier. Or if I don't like this church because they metal. So I'll go to a different new church. It can feel fine for a while until

relationships develop, like staying in environments and in community for a long period of time, for a lifetime even, man, that there's a lot of transformation and a lot of the fruit of the spirit that is required in those environments, which is so good.

Richard Kannwischer (41:02)
Absolutely. If I recall, it was Benedictine spirituality that added to the traditional vows of chastity and obedience and poverty and those kinds of things. They added stability because what they were noticing is that monks were going from place to place and they didn't have a chance to grow because they weren't in community long enough in order to grow.

Jason Allison (41:16)
Mm.

Richard Kannwischer (41:28)
I mean, one of the things that's hard today is that we refuse to be challenged.

Like we have this, like it used to be that feelings were inside and truth was outside. And in the late modern world, that's gotten inverted. And so the only thing that's true is me and feelings are these things that have to be managed. And so, I mean, try challenging somebody today, even in a loving kind way. And they're probably like, I'm out. And ⁓ so that's fake relationship. Like there needs to be some sort of stability in something deeper.

Jason Allison (41:55)
Mm-hmm So that's the thing. It's really interesting. But there needs to be something more than just a building. that's the thing.

We're going to need to build a life. And you have to love yourself more.

Richard Kannwischer (42:03)
⁓ I mean this whole like you have to love this about me in order to love

me is a lie. It's a myth. so yeah, I mean if one of the takeaways for people is not just hey, this is what the target needs to be. This is what God's word has said, who we need to become in Christ. But also just, man don't try to go at it alone. I mean.

Jason Allison (42:09)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (42:09)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Allison (42:24)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (42:25)
Yeah.

Richard Kannwischer (42:25)
If you try to buckle

Rob Paterson (42:26)
So.

Richard Kannwischer (42:27)
down and do it by willpower, you're just only gonna get so far.

Rob Paterson (42:30)
So that'd be a perfect end, but I can't help myself. I have to ask one final question, you know, just because for me, I just think as we think about the fruit of the spirit, this is so important in our world today, you know, just with all the tension, all the division, heck, even just this last week, I mean, every one of our Facebook feeds are filled up with positive and negative diatribes right about Venezuela, you know, and you can get sucked in every direction. At least that's how I feel. So, you know, as we think about this, Richard, last question.

What is the difference between kindness and niceness? know, what, like how, how can we have the kindness fruit of the spirit, but sometimes like wade into some of these things where we're going to kind of have an opinion and come across, you're not very kind. No, I'm, I'm kind. I'm just not nice.

Richard Kannwischer (43:17)
Yeah. So when our kids were growing up, we kind of loosely based out of Philippians four, we would tell them before you do anything, before you say anything, there are three questions. Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it kind? So what you could be doing is true. It could be helpful to that person and to you, but if it's not kind, it's not going to work. And

Kindness is not about politeness. It's not about manners. Kindness is about that genuine form of compassion showing up in someone's life. I give the example in the book of a parable, because I think this is one of the most confusing parts of the book when we get to kindness, goodness, gentleness. I use an analogy of a broken bike. ⁓

Jason Allison (44:03)
Thank

Richard Kannwischer (44:03)
And it's like kindness

is what makes you stop to help the kid with the broken bike that got hurt. Goodness is, is, know, helping the kid fix the bike to make it right again so that he can ride again. And gentleness is being willing to sit down with that kid and just to listen to their story. And so, you know, kindness is kind of about a gift. It's about showing up with that posture of grace.

Jason Allison (44:19)
and willing to put down a vaccine and just to live that. And so.

Richard Kannwischer (44:30)
It's kindness that leads to repentance that we learn in Romans. so, I mean, if any change is gonna happen for me, for someone I love, it's always gonna have to happen through the portal of kindness. Any last.

Rob Paterson (44:47)
So good.

Jason Allison (44:47)
Yeah, yeah,

I love there's a little section. I can't remember what page number, but you say kindness helps. Goodness intervenes. Gentleness listens. And I mean, like that right there, I just circled it and said, there we go. Now I understand, you know what these are. So I mean, Richard, thank you so much, number one, for putting the effort into writing the book. We know that's not just a simple thing.

But you took the time to do that and I know you're blessing your congregation with it, you know over the next year, but Thank you for sharing that with the world and honestly Thanks for taking some time just to hang out with two guys from Ohio. We really do appreciate it

Richard Kannwischer (45:25)
It was not just an act of kindness. It was a lot of fun. so enjoy getting to meet you guys and love what you're ministering and what you're doing in that part of the world. And yeah, if we can chip away a little bit and making sure that we're putting this up in front of our people, like, hey, this is who we're supposed to be becoming in Jesus. Like, let's just keep the main target in the right place.

Jason Allison (45:48)
Yeah, well to our listeners, if you want to get the book, you can get it on Amazon. The link will be in the show notes and stuff. It is it is really good. Rob and I both would would endorse it and say yes. If you're trying to think of teaching plans for the year or whatever, this might be a really good starting point to do that. It's already shaped for you and so it could be very helpful. So.

To all our listeners, we really do appreciate you. We love you. We would, we're cheering for you. If you would like to reach out, please do. We love to hear from our listeners and we love to, you know, engage, equip and encourage you in any way we can. Have an amazing week and we'll talk to you next week.