A Call to Cultivate - Interview with Owen Strachan

Kevin talks with Owen Strachan about how Christ restores relationships as well as truth — and the surprising elements of the gospel which attract gen Z. They look at the natural life through supernatural lenses, discussing the revolutionary act of building healthy, joyful lives…the appeal of structure, stability, and order…and whether we are pilgrims on the way to the celestial city, or dominion-takers doing something of eternal consequence in this world.

Download the episode MP3 here:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2520780/episodes/18926314-a-call-to-cultivate-interview-with-owen-strachan.mp3

New kids and family podcast from Generations - TeachMeTheFaith.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

And welcome friends to Generations, Kevin Swanson with you, and today uh we are going to talk about the importance of uh Christians engaging in culture, and culture is, as one person said, worldview, externalized, effectively, the way in which we think of all of life lived out day to day. Uh, but wow, we have an opportunity to express uh a hopeful culture in a hopeless world that's all around us. How did modern man come to be wandering like a vagabond uh with Cain in the wilderness east of Eden? How did this all happen? Uh, think of the existentialism of John Paul Sartre, uh hell is other people kind of worldview, doesn't really contribute to anything but isolation for modern men. And uh so modern man is wandering in the wasteland of the electronic universe, void of permanent relationships. Not good, not good. Relationships tenuous, friendships fleeting, that kind of thing. We we talk about this. We've been talking about this for 25 years uh in this ministry. Uh lonely in the big city, so many people, so little relationships. Um fact, when we started the broadcast so many years ago, the moniker was this man is lost and lonely without truth and relationships in a lost and lonely world. And we're about restoring not just truth in terms of a biblical worldview, but relationship. We have two problems. We're lacking truth and relationship in a lost and lonely world. And so our goal is, as Christians, certainly, is to bring back the truth, yes, God's truth and relationship to a lost and lonely world. So here we are planting gardens in the ashes of the post-Christian world, so to speak. We've used some of these monikers in the past to try to understand the times and to better uh engage the times. And uh so we're gonna bring somebody in today who's been thinking through these things, probably more so than me, and so I'm thankful for that. Dr. Owen Stran has uh new book out called A Call to Cultivate. And by the way, it's it's coming out in just a few weeks now, so so stay tuned. It's gonna happen. But the the new book is A Call to Cultivate, and uh Owen is director of ongospel.net and uh author of many books. So it's good to have you here, Owen. You're finally on generations.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

I made it. You made it so much for having me. I love your intro and uh yeah, good stuff so far.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Yeah, yeah. And I I'm repeating some of the things you write into the foreword or the introduction to the book and the first several chapters. Uh, but you uh you are addressing some really, really important issues in the modern age. We need to understand the times so we will know what to do. And wow, we live in time, the time of isolationism, of a lack of relationship, of wandering east of Eden with Cain, you know. You resonate to those sorts of analogies, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Oh, I absolutely do. Um, it's funny because I think one of the things that screw tape does, one of the things that Satan does, is he cloaks what the culture does not have in language that tricks everybody into thinking it does have that. What I mean is something like this. We're in the age of social media, social media, and yet what is less social than social media, right? Exactly. It is so much better for you. Let's just be honest, everyone knows this now intuitively. You don't have to do a study on it or a scientific research project. It is so much better for you to have, you know, let's say a nighttime dinner conversation that goes for three to five hours with friends or family members, just around a table, enjoyable, good food, lingering, laughing, debating. So much better to do that, any age, young people, middle-aged, old, than it is to spend hour after hour after hour on social media. So screw tape has done his work and he's done it effectively.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yeah, yeah. And uh yeah, lost in the big city, right? Or lonely in the big city. You got so many people, but there you are, as isolated as anybody can possibly be. Um wow, it's it's interesting. Also, Kane, okay, he kills his brother, develops polygamy, builds a city, and wanders east of Eden in the wilderness. Uh, if if that doesn't describe modern man, I don't know what does. Of course, Steinbeck kind of got that. He was picking up on that early on, if you think about it.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yes. Yeah, very much so. Uh, we're in the age of these meta-cities, and and many people go into cities thinking that they are going to find the tribe or the community that they need and want. And yeah, you you end up more isolated than ever. It's not a case of, you know, the rural area is perfect. I'm from coastal Maine, so I know the challenges of rural living, just as I know the challenges of big cities, lived in DC, Chicagoland, Louisville now. Um, but it is to say that we're in an age where man has lost sense of who he is. The younger generation, for example, is having a widespread crisis of identity. They have been told that their identity is found in their strongest desires, in their most uh pervasive inclinations. They've tried that out. It hasn't worked. Many young men, I I think and write a lot about manhood, they have been told that if they just give into uh a pornified existence, they'll have everything they want. The younger generation has been sold a what I call a plastic life, where if you're on devices and screens all the time, you'll be lastingly happy. And and it's fascinating, Kevin, because what we've seen actually is is a really fun kickback against a plastic digitized world. And the younger generation is doing things like knitting and um wanting to build things, what young men wanting to get outside and build a shed or something like this.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

And so you're seeing a lot of kickback against the digitization and atomization of modern life, which means that Christians can exemplify this, incarnate a proper culture, a proper way of looking at life and each other and God and everything, uh, to a lost and lonely world. And we're talking to Christians here. And Owen, your new book speaks directly to this by drawing in Jeremiah 29. And uh, so you know, explain to us how this it kind of works, you know, this idea of planting the gardens and and rooting ourselves. We're still in the world, but not of it, but we're still in the world. I guess that's the point here.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

That's exactly right. Uh, several years ago, maybe six years ago, I was in my devotions. I think it was in COVID season, and it was a difficult time for a lot of us. We're literally locked down and that sort of thing. And you know, Jeremiah isn't the place most people are gonna go for a pep talk, but in the midst of Jeremiah's Jeremiahs, you come to this glorious section in numerous places throughout Jeremiah. That's how the Old Testament works. You do have to do some hard work, right? But then if you do the hard work, you get these absolute glorious passages where the clouds part and the sun comes out. One such passage in Jeremiah is Jeremiah 29, 1 through 7, but especially 4 through 7, where Yahweh says to the Babylonian exiles, roughly in 587 in the 580s BC, that even as he has sent them into exile in Babylon, the superpower of the era, that he does not want them to erect temporary shelters. He does not want them to hide out and he's gonna come get them in a couple weeks. Instead, surprisingly, he wants them to build houses, he wants them to plant gardens, he wants them to take wives for their sons and daughters, and he tells the exiles they're gonna be there for about seven decades, seventy years. All of that is not directly applicable to right now, by which I mean it's not covenantally binding on us. You and I aren't in Babylon right now. But what I argue in this new book, A Call to Cultivate, coming out in early May, is that I think that is reflective of what it means to be a Christian in a fallen world. So even though I'm not in Babylon in the old covenant era, I can read that passage and go, hold up. Yahweh said to build a peaceful, stable, and joyful life that is kind of on the quieter side. The joys aren't these stratospheric highs of unending travel and opulence and consumerism. The highs of the life that Yahweh is calling his people to are quiet. They're the pleasures of the family, of food, of uh togetherness, of cultivation, and that is the driving metaphor of the entire book. It's all about being a cultivator as a Christian.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

And here's here's you know, attention. And I'm gonna throw some tensions here. Here's attention. Are we pilgrims, wanderer strangers on the way to the celestial city, or are we dominion takers, you know, culture warriors engaging some part of culture or at least living out some kind of culture, and still, you know, doing something in this world that has some eternal consequence? That makes sense. In other words, are we just ignoring this present world, or is this present world matter to us as as long as we are here? So, where where are we on this? Are we both a pilgrim and the dominion takers? Is it a both end?

SPEAKER_00 10:45

It's a never-endingly fascinating both and I love the question. Uh, I love what the question is bringing to the table. I agree with the premises of the question in that God actually strangely hasn't said one thing about our existence. There is this weird tendency that you see all throughout scripture where we expect God to say one thing, to lay down one track, one line. And make no mistake, there is only one way to God. I'm not a I'm not a weird anti-exclusivist or something. I'm an exclusivist in terms of Christ. There's only one way to God. But in terms of what Christian fidelity means in many different areas, once you've established the one way to God through saving faith in Christ alone, you recognize that God lays down one track of uh lead a quiet life. 1 Thessalonians 4.11. Well, okay, well, great. So that's what we are supposed to do. We're not supposed to cause a ruckus, we're not supposed to try and shape our community, let alone change the world, right? Well, hold on. Then God says, be salt and light. Now you can be salt and light in your community and your neighborhood in a quiet way. Don't don't get mis mistaken. But also, the weird thing about that mandate is that it isn't contained to smallness. It can be small, it also can go all the way up. So you can be a faithful person, Christian, as salt and light, yes, within the proximity of one neighbor. One neighbor, be a be a witness to one neighbor. You also can be William Wilberforce, and you can campaign for four decades for the end of the British slave trade and slavery itself and see it struck down. Both the grandmother who is on a quiet parcel of land, who pray her primary ministry is praying for her grandkids and caring for her husband who has dementia. Both that grandma, who who is not profiled in any news, media, or podcast episode, and William Wilberforce are being faithful to New Testament Christianity and biblical Christianity, I would argue.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

A hundred amens to that. Um, here's here, we are salt in line. There's something attractive, there's something evangelistic, there's something preservative, obviously, about salt. Um you hardly need an apologetic today. Uh you hardly need to run out and do this incredibly intellectual, you know, C.S. Lewis style apologetic for the neighbor and all the neighbors, including you know, that seminary or excuse me, that you know, um atheistic university professor lives across the street. You hardly need an apologetic for him given the depressing, hopeless, meaningless worldview of the pure materialistic, anti-supernaturalistic, nihilistic, whatever, you know, your cosmic dust, then you die kind of worldview. Life is the pits, and then you die. That worldview hardly commends itself. Does that make sense? I mean, it's like, well, that's really depressing. You know, can we change the subject or something? Um, so in other words, the Christian world, the resurrection life of the Christian should shine in every neighborhood.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

I love the point. And I think that is exactly what you have seen writ large. I mean, many examples come to mind, but let's take one prominent one, Richard Dawkins, literally your atheistic, naturalistic professor that you just spoke of, who has who has spent most of his life working against the extension of Christianity in any form into the public realm, and has tried to almost single-handedly bottle the influence of Christianity. But then Richard Dawkins and others have watched as uh godless ideologies like wokeness and paganism have worked their way through the younger generation in particular, and Dawkins has seen the devastating effects of those and related worldviews, and he recognizes they leave you without truth, they leave you without comfort, they leave you without cheer in the world. So we're not we're not on the truth claims of the faith at this point, but to your point, just in terms of gathering data and gathering evidence at a basic level from how worldviews work out, Dawkins sees that naturalism, at least in its later stages, leads to misery. He himself, I'll close the point with this. He himself has said he loves Christmas. And he calls himself a cultural Christian almost purely because of the warmth and good cheer of Christmas season. And the Brits do Christmas big, as anyone knows who's been over there. I mean, they celebrate it for like they celebrate it from almost Halloween season to Christmas itself. And um, so you can understand why a man like Dawkins wants that. We're we're now in a point, I'll I'll conclude with this. We're now in a point where, yeah, I agree with you, Kevin, the world, this is this probably won't last for long, but the world is almost doing our work for us and making the case for Christianity.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Yeah. And this follows up my next question I had here. How does the salt and light of the average Christian, average Christian family today, uh, you know, planting the gardens in Babylon, how does how does that affect the world in a different way today than it did in 1950 or 1850?

SPEAKER_00 16:30

In those past days, lots of people were building a stable, solid tradition, what we would call now a traditional life.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Nowadays, after the sexual revolution has devastated the family, after many children have grown up in broken homes, uh, with a weird economy that we could talk about at greater length, you know, that's up and down, uh, with all sorts of political upheaval in the world, lots of people haven't experienced stability and health, and even a secular form of a common grace form of wholeness. And so planting gardens um in in terms of not just the actual cultivation of soil, but a mentality of building a healthy, joyful life that is revolutionary now. A lot of young people desperately crave rhythms, structure, stability, and order. It was denied them through no fault of their own. It was denied them, and they want all that. Um, suffice it to say that, for example, a happy family has never been more evangelistic than it is today.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Wow, that's well stated, really well stated. I hope the thousands of families tuning in say, Oh, yeah, I want to be that. And pull that apart just a little bit more. How do we build stable homes? So talk to these families. How do they do that?

SPEAKER_00 18:01

Yeah, they go to the water of God's word and we we live out the design of God, and we encourage our young men to become leaders, protectors, and providers, uh, not in any sense against women, but for women. We encourage our young girls to see the goodness of the home and the family and embrace the role of a homemaker and a wife and a and a mom and such things. And of course, there's gray areas and there's play and seasons of life, you know, for for both of the sexes in terms of what they're doing. But fundamentally, you've seen a real revenge of tradition among the younger generation. And it's because, for example, a lot of these young girls who have been raised on feminism. Well, it's not that, you know, getting a college degree is bad or something, or using your skills for work is necessarily bad for a woman. That's not the case. But it is the case that a lot of them end up, of their own volition, wanting a family, wanting children, wanting to bake sourdough bread, uh, wanting to sit on the porch, you know, drinking coffee, having a calm, pleasant existence. They don't want to work 70 hours a week in a massive city and have no friends and be exhausted all the time. All this to say, for men, many men have had that plastic life experience where their only experience of building something has been in a computer game. And they they are like, hold on, I have more capacity than this. There's something I could do to create real value for others. Maybe I could be an entrepreneur, maybe I could build a business, maybe I could do bigger things than just sit on my couch and eat junk food. It's fascinating. Young men, for example, this is a small point, but they're even changing their physical habits. A lot of them want discipline and and and food structure and not to be just eating awful all the time. So we're seeing the rising generation want rhythms, stability, and the goodness of family. Now, you need the gospel for all this because you can put Instagram pictures of a shiny, happy family, and that doesn't get you through the hard mornings, the tough conversations, the disagreements, the realities of raising teenagers. I have two of them in the home right now. It's never boring. So what you need is more than just the outward structure. You need the gospel driving all of this so that there are rhythms of confession, humility, forgiveness, and growth in the home as well.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Let me invite your takeaways on Ephesians 5 just for a moment. Because as I see it, Ephesians 5, 15 and forward is one of the best passages that incarnates the day-to-day warp and woof of the Christian life. So I just throw this out. It's just anything that just you you you can take away and run with. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be unwise, understand the will of God, do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation, be filled with spirit, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing, make a melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God. Okay, so there it is. What's the what's the takeaway? Uh what how do we build in Babylon on this?

SPEAKER_00 21:20

You ask questions that are too good, Kevin. That's too big. That's too good. Just a little takeaway here, Owen. I could preach a sermon for an hour on that. I think you could make a case that Paul, maybe Paul had Ecclesiastes open on the side as he's writing to the Ephesians there, because what initially strikes me, Kevin, is there's a lot of the richness of the natural life, but from supernatural lenses, from a God-centered orientation in that passage. The life that Paul asks the Ephesian Christians and us to live, at least most of us, is not a high-flying life. It's not stratospheric. It's not going to be captured in a biography. Most of us, some people are called that, as you said earlier, and they are. But it's a life where you give thanks for the simple things. It's a life where you sing, it's a life where you are joyful. It's a life where you are watching your engagement of pleasure. So you see pleasure as a gift from God, you know, wine or something like this, but you are not indulgent or debauched with it. It's uh a family life later on in the chapter where a husband who is given headship of his wife and by extension uh leadership of his family doesn't. dominate or or control in a sinful way his wife or family but I think of just one phrase he nourishes and cherishes his wife Ephesians 5 29 what a picture that I mean there's a worldview right there of of a godly man and a godly marriage every marriage has its ups and downs its sins its challenges but fundamentally that picture in Ephesians 5 is of a third a thriving and flourishing life in which Christians aren't um separating themselves from the world as God has made in its natural goodness they are separating themselves from their own sin but they are enjoying all the goodness all the common grace gifts and especially all the the ministry of the spirit that God uh blesses them with and they're thankful and and I would just say there what a what a what an apologetic thankfulness and joy is too often Christians think our only calling is to be holy and kind of grimly holy you know grit your teeth and be holy and we'll be witnesses I don't I I I honor the desire to be holy absolutely but I don't know how evangelistic that ends up being whereas when you meet a Christian who is pursuing holiness and the power of the spirit but then is joyful oh it's so powerful.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Yeah huge um I'm gonna throw a scenario at you Owen um and I just kind of curious how you responded to this uh this would have been four or five years ago I think it was around the COVID time there was a family came through our little country church out here and uh this guy said he was looking for the perfect church he was traveling the nation I mean he was going through the states you know trying to find the perfect place trying to find the perfect church of course I said not ours ours is not perfect please you know you know right that was my first response not here you know um but uh your response to that what would you tell this gentleman um I would say well if it was perfect before you joined it it won't be afterward uh I there's that issue the the no here here here here's what I told him I told him hey brother you got a bloom where you're planted totally so I mean I that's about all I said because I thought that's probably the best thing I could tell him but you you you you're pushing for a commitment to a local church you're com pushing for a yeah a fruitfulness and uh a rooted and groundedness so uh so what do you say to to families like this?

SPEAKER_00 25:12

I say um number one in all seriousness I do honor the desire for a God-honoring joy-producing local church that is such a good desire and so many people have come through a decade of difficulty and challenges and disappointment with their local church for lots of reasons praise God it's all of that is starting to recede into the rear view mirror just in terms of the ministry of time the ordinary ministry of time which you should never underestimate in any dimension of life just God moving you on from hard seasons. But I would also say yeah I I would agree with you that a huge part of finding the right church is definitely trying to find one that sinks with you so that you will not be in a hard place or the pastor won't be in a hard place and being your shepherd of the elders won't. But but then the real key is for you to commit to that church and serve that church and work in it humbly. And yes, that's what I talk some about in call a call to cultivate our our approach to the local church shouldn't be you know to win a game show prize and now we found the perfect one. Our approach I think should be from even the humblest angle let's serve a church. Let's let's not ask it to be perfect for us or else we are out of here pastor. Let's find one that fits that's important and then let's try to do our part to cultivate it to to grow it to health. And that's not last thing that's not a quick work. See here's the thing about cultivation as a metaphor in the Christian life planting gardens which is synonymous with a cultivation mindset for me is not a day or two days or a week or a month or even a year. The great things God has given us to steward are lifelong endeavors. Christians are called to change their church move to a new place but I would wager this a lot of us would do better if we would embrace a long-term approach to vocation family church and other dimensions of life.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Good yeah really solid stuff last question for you and this has been the tension that's been working I've been I've been grappling with this for years and uh I can't say I've got a uh an absolute answer to the question but what do Christians do in relationship to the world out there?

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Conform to the world well obviously that's you know kind of off off the table uh thanks to Romans 12 right um but conform to the world escape the world change the world or overcome the world you and and and you and you you've got some stuff in the book on this but I want to hear yeah how you respond to that outside of conform to the world all of the above are in play in different forms okay you you oppose the world in its sin um you um you are in the world in terms of participating in its structures I think as much as you can you are trying to change the world whether at the very micro level or for some or maybe in the aggregate as Christians are a voice in a country for example you're trying to shape the the the moral life of that country to whatever degree you can um you're doing a lot of different things at once this is why we were talking about this before the podcast started I don't think any of Nieber's Christ and culture models perfectly capture all that we are and do at any given moment. I like the models a lot they're very helpful he's a brilliant man but I I think in reality two postures that Christians are often in are we're against the world and we're trying to transform the world. So I don't just mean at the level of statehouse legislation. We're against the world in terms of our own sin by the way and then sin you know up the scale and then we're trying to transform the world in terms of being light in it at the micro level and it goes up. So I am not one who's going to say this is the model or this is the paradigm. I would argue that scripture gives us numerous metaphors, paradigms, approaches and leaves it to us God leaves it to us in human terms that is to figure out day by day how um you know which skill, which approach is needed in this moment.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

And I think the best wisdom that I have ever got is from my mother I would have been 60 or 70 years old I was very much an idealist. Told my mom I'm gonna go out there and clean up the world and she says that's great son. Why don't you go upstairs and start in your room clean up your room yeah and I think that's probably about the best wisdom we can give anybody just start in with your room and then work into your own backyard and then you can work up from there.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Well I think that's very much I know we're closing it up here but that's very much what God is saying in a form in Jeremiah 29. Okay. The exiles the the Judite exiles obviously want to change Babylon at some level they don't want to be in Babylon at the most visceral level but the way they're supposed to change things is by planting gardens building homes taking uh wives for their kids and so and so on. So um but we have been sold a vision of ordinary Christianity in which we're all supposed to get radicalized and do radical things every day. The reality is we need a jolt of that uh all of us we need somebody to shake us up at different points and help us see things from a different perspective I would argue but again God honors the quiet life and the the normal calling of most Christians is not to be some sort of world shaker it's to plant the gardens it's to serve the food it's to change the diapers it's to have the marital conversation you need to have it's to coach your son in little league baseball it's to teach the girls to to uh you know bake sourdough all all all the little things it's to show up Sunday after Sunday after ordinary Sunday at church those are the rhythms though by which you build a godly life through the power of the gospel those those are those are small but small does not mean meaningless actually when you accrue a whole not a whole lot of smallness you end up with something pretty impactful.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

And whatever you do whatever you do do not despise the day of small things I think we we can pick that up from uh for the prophetic books. Well my guest today Owen Stran who is uh the author of a new book A Call to Cultivate Overcoming anxiety by thriving where God plants you ergo bloom where you are planted and bloom for Jesus. I think that pretty much wraps it up today. Owen thank you it's a good conversation let's keep the conversation going sounds great thank you for having me and friends uh you've been listening to generations and this is Kevin Swanson inviting you back again next time as we continue to lay down a vision for the next generation this has been a production of the Generations Media Network for more information go to generations.org slash media