Preaching for Theological Formation | Paul Hoffman (Preaching and the Pastor Theologian Episode 3)

Joel Lawrence and Matt Kim speak with Paul Hoffman, senior pastor of Evangelical Friends Church in Newport, Rhode Island, about his ministry journey and upcoming transition to a faculty role at Samford University. The conversation centers on the book Preaching to a Divided Nation, coauthored by Hoffman and Kim, exploring how pastors can preach for reconciliation amid cultural, political, and racial divisions. Together, they discuss the theological foundations of unity, the “four isms” that divide the church, the importance of empathy and storytelling in pastoral ministry, and how preaching forms Christian identity. Hoffman also reflects on listening as a spiritual discipline, cultivating a “non-anxious presence,” and embracing the call to be ambassadors of reconciliation in a fractured world.

Living Church - Awe and Presence

Transcript

Joel: 0:27

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Preaching in the Pastor Theologian podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Matt Kim. Matt, good to see you again. Hey, Joel. Good to see you. So, on today's episode, we're talking to Paul Hoffman, who serves as senior pastor of Evangelical Friends Church in Newport, Rhode Island. And as we'll talk about in the podcast, has a transition coming up. Paul has an MDIF from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, a PhD from the University of Manchester. And this is another one of those podcasts, Matt, where you're both co-host and uh and guest, because you and Paul co-wrote a book together that we talk about quite a bit in the podcast, uh, uh Preaching to a Divided Nation. And um we dig into the backstory of that book and kind of your relationship with Matt or sorry, with Paul. So, but why don't we begin just with kind of some general thoughts you think will help frame the conversation for listeners around our divided culture, our divided nation, and where preaching fits into that.

Matt: 1:37

Yeah, sure, Joel. I I think that uh some people will have different uh perspectives on the topic that we're addressing in the book. Uh some pastors won't want to talk about these things that we're bringing up in terms of our divisions. Uh, some people are somewhat eager and some people are very eager, but yeah, I would say most people fall into the camp of being shy about talking about anything that will be uh potentially seen as divisive. So uh I recognize that, and we recognize that as we wrote the book. But hopefully, I'm hoping that as as our listeners uh hear this podcast, it would inspire them to want to speak to these issues. Uh we recognize that there are challenges in doing so and potential drawbacks of doing so. But at the same time, uh we as uh shepherds uh want to be mindful of the fact that this is part of our discipleship. And part of the greatest part of our discipleship is addressing our division.

Joel: 2:36

Yeah, and I I am so grateful for that, both in the book and in the conversation that we we have with Paul here, of the the the sense of of being courageous in preaching to to encourage, but also to to confront and to challenge. And um what I so appreciate about both the tone of the book, um the heart with it that you and that you and Paul both have, there's not a there's not an excoriating that comes through with it. There's a humility that that is is itself exhorting of the the call of the pastor is to challenge and to confront where necessary. And I I think that comes through so well. I also think it fits really well in our framework of this series of the the preaching God listening church, that what we we do need to recognize is uh this is God, the gospel is God's message, and and God's message does encourage and does build up, but it also judges and it confronts. And if we're shying away from some of those elements, then maybe it's actually our message that we're preaching, and it's not God's word and the power of the Holy Spirit. So I think those are uh some great kind of diagnostic thoughts for us as we think about our preaching. So let's let's uh go ahead and turn to the conversation uh and uh uh hope this is a really rich and valuable uh conversation for folks to be listening in on well, Paul Hoffman, welcome to the CPT Podcast.

Matt: 4:23

You're here with Joel, Lawrence, and myself. Thanks for joining us today. It's great to be with you. Well, as we get started, uh let's let's jump in and and if you can share a little bit about your faith journey, uh educational background, pastoral experience, and current role. And I I I hear you have a a change coming up soon, so maybe you can talk about that as well. I do.

Paul: 4:45

Thanks for yeah, I think so. Um so I was born in Vermont. I was raised outside Portland, Maine. And I'm so grateful to my mom who brought us to church, who uh brought us to Sunday school. And so I grew up with a rich heritage of hearing the gospel, and also we visited a number of different churches. So early on in life, um, I got a sense that the body of Christ was wider than just a particular um denomination. So, for example, went to Baptist churches, went to vineyard churches, and uh so forth. But I came to saving faith actually when I was a sophomore in high school. And that was a time in which um God revealed himself to me directly, personally. I could hear him calling me to him. And at that time, I started reading scripture for myself out of my own interest, not because I thought it was the right thing to do or it was the expected thing to do, but I started to get curious about God and God's story and my place in God's story. So that was a journey during my sophomore year. And I believe that was not just the time I came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, but it was also at that time, I believe I received the call to enter into ministry. So from there, uh the Lord led me to Gordon College on the North Shore of Boston, and that's where I met my amazing and lovely wife, Autumn. And in just a few days uh from this recording on May 22nd, we will be celebrating. I can't believe I'm saying this out loud, uh, 26 years. Wow. 26 years. Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you. God's grace has been amazing, and I give uh God and Autumn all the credit for that. So she's been amazing and supportive and godly spouse. So after Gordon went to Gordon Conwell um and studied there, um, I took only a month off in between Gordon College and Gordon Conwell. I don't know if I recommend immediately going from um being a biblical and theological studies major um to seminary. That was um didn't give me a lot of time to decompress, but did that anyway. Was really excited because at Gordon Conwell I got to study under Haddon Robinson, um one of the great um, I don't know even what to say, one of the greats, I guess I would say, a legendary in the field of homiletics and just taught me um about the beauty of God's word and how to rightly not just exegete it, but uh correctly share it and apply it to the lives of real people. And was also mentored by Dr. Scott Gibson. It was just such a rich time of growth. And then after that, um, the Lord led us to be church planners with a Conservative Baptist Association, now known as the uh Venture Church Network in Denver, Colorado. And so that's a little part of my story I don't talk too much about. Maybe that'll be a book one day. Um we were there three and a half years, failed spectacularly uh as a church planner, in the sense that never even got the church planned off the ground. Um but um God ordained, and it was a time of growth and sanctification for uh me and my wife. And I'm just so thankful for that time. And our first son, Landon, uh, was born there. And then after that, at the end of 2006, the Lord uh opened the door for us to move to Newport, Rhode Island, where I received the call to become the pastor of Evangelical Friends Church of Newport. And so that's where I've been serving now for over 18 years, coming up on, I think 18 and a half actually. And it was here that our second son, Kellen, uh, was born. And it was also here that uh the Lord led me to get a PhD at the University of Manchester, where I studied Tim Keller's urban missiology model and started to develop a passion for um racial reconciliation and racial justice. And so um that brings me up to the new role and the exciting announcement is that um in just a short window of time here, um, in July of 2020, I will be moving to Birmingham, Alabama, where I have accepted the position to be an associate professor in the Department of Biblical and Religious Studies at Samford University, which is awesome. We're very excited. And one of my key roles will be uh director of the pre ministerial scholars program, where I will be um personally mentoring, discipling, training, equipping around 35 to 40 undergraduate pre-ministerial scholars, uh, students who are in a very specialized program on a track to be prepared for ministry. So that's the big news is that after 18 years, we're about to move from Newport to Birmingham. And I'm pretty sure I've never heard of any person in the world uh leaving Newport, Rhode Island and the mansions in the ocean to go down to the deep south of Birmingham. But we're very excited.

Joel: 9:46

That's that's incredibly exciting. Uh yeah, that that's not a well-worn path. I think you're right. But uh no, that's fantastic. Uh love to hear that that calling and and what you're gonna be doing. We we we need to talk offline. Um we've got some rich CPT connections at at Samford, at Beeson, uh, and I'm actually I'll be down there three times this fall, winter, and early next uh early next winter. So uh we'll have to we'll have to connect for coffee down there.

Paul: 10:19

Definitely, definitely or sweet tea.

Joel: 10:22

Gotta have sweet tea. There you go. There you go. That that you're getting you'll be getting acculturated to the South by doing that. For sure. Good. All right. So before we go on, uh Paul, I want to talk to you about your research interests and and and some of what you've been working on. But before we do that, um, you guys co-wrote this book, which is kind of the framing of our conversation. Uh I've I've sensed a couple different places where you might have connected with each other. The Gordon Conwell Connection, also Denver Connection. I'm curious where along the line you two got connected.

Paul: 10:55

Yeah, so I met Matt at Gordon Conwell. He was a student there, one year ahead of me. And we both shared a mentor in Dr. Scott Gibson. I think we took a couple classes together as well. Both just had a passion and a call to preach God's word. And we're mentored by Dr. Scott Gibson, Haddon Robinson, Jeff Arthurs, and others. And so um, yes, we we met there, started becoming friends there. And then, yes, when I lived at Denver, it was near the end of my time in Denver. I think right around my last year, year and a half, Matt took a pastorate there. And so we got to reconnect um after his time in Scotland. And that was a beautiful time to overlap, sharing pastoral ministry, although in two very different contexts in the Denver metro area.

Joel: 11:41

It's great. It's great. So um tell us about some of your research interests, Paul, and and some of the uh what you've recently published.

Paul: 11:51

Thanks for that. So I've published three books. Um the first two are concerning a practical theology as it relates to a theology and practice of reconciliation, which I make the case is the gospel. We have a gospel of reconciliation. And so the first book is Reconciling Places. Um, that I tried to expand out of my PhD thesis at the University of Manchester and um talk about this idea of how do we think about reconciliation theologically, but also how do we um practice it from an ecclesiological perspective? What does that look like in local churches? Um I tried not to create a straitjacket of a template, but to create a contextual template that pastors and churches can draw from. And then uh second book was written with Matt, uh Preaching to a Divided Nation. Um that was a crazy time to write a book. Uh, we got the contract, um, I think uh right after COVID had commenced. And so that was quite the challenge, not just to write a book on a short time frame, but literally America was in flames. Um, there was major social unrest. There was um uh, you know, George Floyd, his murder, and just the attending consequences of that summer, where it just seemed everything in America was unmoored and unrooted. And and um that was um a terrifying time, but also a great time to write a book about reconciliation. And so we wanted to root it in scripture, but it was hard. You know, how much do we draw from the present um circumstances to pull into the book? But we wrote it together, wrote it separately. We would convene every so often over Zoom. And in fact, I think the only time we met in person was right at the tail end, pretty much when the book was written. I was like, hey, we gotta get together, we gotta see each other once face to face before we formally turn this thing in. So we wrote that. Um, we received great feedback, great reviews. I will say we were just so humbled to uh receive Outreach Magazine's uh award for because it was listed as a book of the year in the category of leadership. And so we were really humbled by that. And then more recently, um, I just in recent months um uh published a book with Baker Academic with a friend of mine named Sean O'Callahan. It's called AI Shepherds and Electric Sheep. And it's leading and teaching in the age of artificial intelligence. And so we try and present a theological lens through which to examine this technology, which has just been released uh upon us. I think it was the end of uh November uh 2022 where ChatGPT was publicly released. And so now it's just dominating. And I'm really pleased with that work as well, that uh Sean and I really tried to think deeply and biblically about um God's story and where does this new technology, this very powerful technology, fit within God's plan to redeem and to restore all things.

Matt: 16:10

Well, uh Joel, I want to give you some more background about the book a little bit. Um this was Paul's idea. And so uh I I always want to start anytime I have to have the opportunity to talk about the book. Uh it wasn't my idea, it was Paul's idea uh in a good way. I'm not trying to shift blame shift here. Uh this was this was a this was a reason. If you don't like it, it was Paul's idea.

Joel: 16:35

If you do like it, it was Matt's idea. Right, exactly.

Matt: 16:38

That's what we're doing here.

Joel: 16:39

Yeah.

Matt: 16:40

Um, Paul, since it was your um vision uh of writing this book, why don't you give us a high-level overview of it? What what are some of the things that in your mind and our mind we wanted to accomplish in this book? Maybe just some of the themes.

Joel: 16:55

If I could just add a quick a a little addendum to that too. Um the idea clearly came before 2020, right? If you so obviously the nation was divided before 2020, the church was divided. But um what was the prompting conversation and how did that intensify or clarify as you guys went through 2020? Just to kind of add to that question.

Matt: 17:16

Yeah, uh I'll I'll answer for Paul. Uh Paul wrote an Paul wrote an excellent paper for the Evangelical Homiletic Society on reconciliation and unity, and he actually uh received uh the Keith Wilhite Award for it, which is basically the society's most excellent paper in that conference. So that's what uh that was really the impetus for the idea. And then later on, Paul approached me about writing the book together. Great. Thank you.

Paul: 17:44

That is true. That that is if you like it. If you don't like it, then it was all my uh idea, and I forced Matt and blackmailed him to write it with me.

Joel: 17:53

There you go.

Matt: 17:56

So let's go back to the high level uh things that you were thinking about.

Paul: 18:01

So uh what we intended to do, and I think we accomplished was to come up with a uh seven-step uh process or paradigm through which to equip pastors and homiliticians, ministry leaders, um, through which to think about the isms, the things dividing us, and how we can both theologically and practically serve as God's bridge builders, his peacemakers, uh his reconcilers in this current uh era where there's so much division, there's so much heat. Um so we in this process, just to summarize it, uh the the first step, which for Matt and I is the most important step, as trained theologians and both have PhDs, both studied in Europe, um, because we want to get outside of the American context and really be challenged. Um the first step is the theological step. And in that chapter, we endeavor to demonstrate that scripture can be understood as a grand narrative. In fact, we call it a reconciling narrative. And so there we talk about this idea that God is a creator, God is a triune being, right? Uh one being three persons. And so the whole idea of reconciliation goes back to the idea of paracaresis, that the Trinity is this uh mutual relationship of interpenetrating love. And that is the foundation of reality. God's being, God's personhood, God's character defines reality. Not my opinion, not your opinion, um, Joel, although you're a great guy and a great pastor and theologian, um, it's God's word that we stand on and God's story that we stand on. Yeah. So we we talked about that's our foundation, and we received a lot of great feedback that we started with scripture, um, not with context or other things. However, in the second step, we do move on to context that um after we understand God's story, we also need to understand the place in the people that we serve. And so there we talked about historical intelligence. And that was a chapter that Matt wrote. It's an outstanding chapter. He drew there from his uh conception of cultural intelligence, articulated um in his previous works. And so there we talk about after we understand God, we need to understand our context, the places that we serve, because each place has a different history. And also each place um probably has different idols. Um in America, we have sit we have certain idols that we all share, but each place has uh more specified idols. And if we don't name them, if we don't unmask them, we'll probably um, to a certain extent, be preaching in vain because we're not preaching at the idols that are causing so many of the problems we're facing. After that was the personal step. That's the third step, and we talked there about how God calls us to grow, how Psalm 51 is a great um template or paradigm for our worship lives, our inner reflective or introspective lives, and then also lives that are shaped by being in thick relationships of koinania and community. And that uh we have to understand ourselves to be able to minister well to others. If we don't start to appreciate that we have blind spots and have other people help us identify our blind spots, then we're gonna preach out of a place of spiritual poverty because uh we we have not done what the scriptures talk about, uh, where um the psalmist helps, uh teaches us to pray, Lord, help me to know myself, reveal to me my blind spots. And I'm I'm paraphrasing there. So those first three steps are really critical. If we do not understand God, if we don't understand the place we serve and the people we serve, if we do not understand ourselves, we're probably not gonna be very good at uh fostering reconciliation and unity.

Joel: 21:57

So, Paul, I I'm I'm curious as you have um been pastoring in Newport for 17 years. If I'm doing the math right, you started around 2008.

Paul: 22:10

Uh actually, yeah, call was end of 2006, and I actually moved here at the beginning of 2007.

Joel: 22:17

Okay, it was a pretty different world in a lot of ways back then. Yeah. Um I just think socially, like 2008, the financial crisis. Yeah. Then you start to see, you know, on the right, kind of the rise of populism, the Tea Party starting to emerge in light of that. The left, you're starting to see the intensification of identity politics and all the things that are are starting to really play out in the culture. You're pastoring through this time, you're preaching through these 17 years. What are what are some of the the challenges that you have faced in guiding the church toward unity in a in a culture that is that is intensely intensely dividing over that time? How have you approached that as a pastor and and what have you learned, what have you seen in that time?

Paul: 23:06

So much. It's I was telling someone the other day um that in 18 years it seems to me as if pastoring is completely changed. Because uh, you know, not even quite two decades. You know, uh before I came, social media was not a big thing. Right? It was on the it was innovators who were using social media, and then it just started exploding um in upon the American consciousness, and then everyone started using it. So Facebook went from uh maybe a more of a niche thing, a new thing, to being the thing you had to be on. Everybody was on it. Um then we have the election of President Obama, and that was when many started heralding that now we're in a post-racial society, right? Some some were saying, look, we've done it. We now have a person of color in the White House, dead, gone, buried. No more racial problems, no more racial tensions, no more disagreements. Right. Um I hope you sense the sarcasm of my voice there. It's commentary. It's commentary, yeah. Yeah. So if anything, it it heightened them, it made them more aware, and then uh it could be argued, and I'd probably agree that that some of the election of President Trump was a response to that um to President Obama because it seemed we had a completely opposite. It was like a you know Jekyll and Hyde scenario. Um it looks like the electorate is Jekyll and Hyde here. Um so yeah, partisan uh polarization increased, and all of this was amplified through social media. Um, yes, we had the major um economic financial crisis um around housing that um happened in 08-09. Uh thankfully our church was growing then, and uh financially actually we were growing, and part of that is because a lot of our church um is comprised of active duty military who uh were pretty much guaranteed a paycheck, whereas others were losing their jobs, they um continue to maintain their jobs. So, yeah, there was the financial ups and downs. You know, it it the populism thing grew because I was actually in the UK right before Brexit, right before the Brexit vote.

unknown: 25:13

Right.

Paul: 25:13

So uh people would come up and ask me what's going on with Trump, and I'd say, Can't you see it's the same phenomenon here in the UK, that there's there's, you know, this populist uprising, there, there's um issues with immigration, and that's being used as a cudgel or a flashpoint, or however you want to talk about it. Obviously, immigration is a legitimate issue that the countries need to work out, but unfortunately it's been used to uh as a cudgel to to attack people. It's been a polarizing issue, although I think it's a legitimate issue. I would say um our uh United States needs to work on that. We've not solved it. Um and we need to find a better way with it and learn how to dialogue and properly assimilate people because we are a nation of immigrants. I keep telling people over and over, unless you've been here 500 years and you're an indigenous person and we can trace your direct lineage for the last 500 years, you're an immigrant. You might not be an immediate immigrant, but you're an immigrant. Um, other than 500 years of direct tracing back to being an indigenous person. So yeah, it's been issue upon issue, and it's been hard as a pastor. Uh, it's been challenging. Uh we're we're more uh readily uh criticized. It's now not just in the in the fellowship hall after service. Um right now it's just on social media with passive aggressive posts. Yeah. Um people sharing, look what so-and-so said. And okay, what why are you sharing that post with me? What are you trying to say? I need to be more like this person. And so um I've seen it change radically, um, radically. And again, through it all, though, Christ has been my North Star. God's word has been my North Star. Um, and I've never wavered, I believe, as best I can tell, in my commitment to be a reconciler, to be a uniter. And as we talk about in the book, um, I've never uh wavered, as best I can tell, in my attempt to fight what we identify in the book as the four isms uh racism, or we could also call it ethnocentrism, classism, sexism, and this is a real word, partisanism, which is our party divides.

Matt: 27:24

Aaron Powell Paul, that uh nicely leads us to the next topic, which is you you just mentioned those four uh major isms, and I'm there are many others, obviously, but how have you helped the church through your preaching or other pastoral roles to foster unity and reconciliation amid all those different isms?

Paul: 27:44

Yeah, that's a lovely question. Thanks, Matt. Yeah, we've we've called out and identified the isms in sermons. I say, look, these things aren't new. Well, first, these this is what's going on. Um we have these four isms that are dividing. That's really what an ism uh is. And by the way, uh I try and explain to people that God, God made ethnicity. God made ethnicity. That's that's part of the cultural mandate that God has made uh different ethnicities and God God exults in that. Um, ethnicity is not some weird random thing that happened. And we know this, I would say, from Revelation chapter seven, where we see what I believe is taking place in my eschatology uh right now in heaven is every tribe, tongue, nation, and people group worshiping the Lamb who was slain. And so to me, that is made by God. But what happens is the world, the flesh, and the devil, and I try and teach on this, preach on this, the world, the flesh, and the devil are trying to take the differences that God has made and turn them into negatives and to polarize around them, that Matt, Matt is different than me. He is Korean American, and not to see that as a blessing and a benefit, but to see that as a bad thing, that he's the other. That's what the world, the flesh, and the devil want to do. They want to they want to drive a wedge um in between us rather than seeing that as a gift. Um, sexism, we know that God has created maleness and femaleness. That's in Genesis chapters one and two. But then we know in Genesis chapter three, part of the issue of the fall is through the curse and through Adam and Eve's sin now is that there will be enmity between males and females. And uh we see this, we see sexism. Um, we've seen this in the Me Too movement, in the Church Two movement, where this is now being amplified. And I would say this is probably one of the benefits of social media is that now things that were hidden in the dark can be brought to the light. And I'm very much in favor of bringing um sexism to light and believing that churches and denominations must, um, if they're going to be faithful to Jesus Christ and understand that they will stand before the judgment seat of God, they must do everything they can to rectify sin that has been uh committed against males and females uh due to their maleness and femaleness. So, yeah, you know, and and again, we can go on with with other things. Um, you know, people have different earning capacities, but it God doesn't look at a billionaire and look at someone in the majority world that has the same talents as that billionaire and think that the billionaire is worth more than the person in Zimbabwe who's an entrepreneur, but because of their the the the culture that they're in and the economic situation there, they'll never make uh millions more or less billions. And so um there are different earning capacities and different educational opportunities. And yet we've created these class structures that would seem to indicate that um you're you're only valuable in some cultures if you have attained a certain level of education, or you live in a certain part of the town or city, or you live in a certain kind of house, or you drive a certain kind of car, or you send your kids to a certain kind of school. That is not how God looks at his creation and and um treats them. We're all equal in his sight because we're all his image bearers. And in my theology, God died, God shed his precious blood for all of us.

Joel: 31:11

Matt, can I can I ask you as a as co author, kind of to jump in on this as well. Um And uh Paul, really appreciate your your heart and your passion that's clearly coming through and in and addressing these things and the call of pastors to confront these things. And we want to talk about how preaching can do that in a moment. But Matt, kind of as as you were writing the book, as you were working on this, um, give us some of your your thoughts too on these on these isms and and ways you've seen uh or are encouraging pastors, students that you're training, how they can be equipped to confront some of these things in the church.

Matt: 31:55

Yeah, thanks, Joel. For me, I think the running theme or uh mindset that I had when I was writing was thinking about empathy and not just uh sympathy, but empathy. And uh that movement is a big movement in terms of uh being being idle or uh stuck in in one's mindset. Um we we talk about in the book centered sets versus bounded sets. Uh centered sets are the things that unite us versus bounded sets, which are the things that divide us. Um and for me, as a minority person living in the United States, it's like a daily reality or daily confrontation of dealing with my identity. Because I walk, I walk into a room, I walk into a restaurant, and I'm always faced with the fact that I don't look like white people. And so it's like uh it's this daily uh sense of negotiating and reminding myself I'm a child of God, I'm loved by God, and wherever I go, I'm not part of the majority culture in the United States, but still uh how can I be a positive influence where I am?

unknown: 33:05

Yeah.

Matt: 33:06

Uh regardless of how I'm treated, regardless of how I'm treated in this world, uh, I need to shine the light of Christ the best I can. And in many ways, it was almost like a therapeutic exercise writing this book, uh really seeing my role as uh a bridge builder, as someone who has lived in the United States, but also has a Korean ethnic background. I'm constantly in this hybrid negotiation uh of who I am. So for me, it was really a therapeutic, helpful uh exercise and really helping uh through story, telling my stories that uh enables us as pastors, I think, to be able to bridge that difference. Uh and so the more we can tell our stories to each other, I think that's gonna help us in the church. Um, you know, if if you're telling your story about uh being an immigrant, you know, I'm not an immigrant, but my parents were immigrants. So telling that story about how my parents immigrated to the United States, that, you know, if if if if someone's willing to hear that story, then they're gonna get a sense of life that they never experienced or their parents didn't experience. So that element of story is what I think is the common denominator across all the chapters that I wrote is how can I help the church in that way to be a bridge builder. So um it was it was a really helpful project. I think I think Paul and I uh touched on some really important themes uh throughout the book. And so that that was that was my perspective and my experience.

Joel: 34:36

Yeah, that's great. I think that really connects us into our uh the the ministry of preaching in the church. Um let me set up this question with a uh what I hope aren't kind of some rambling thoughts here. But if if they are, we'll edit it out and we'll start over. But uh so one of the things that's changed for me, I would say, in the 20 years of preaching that that I've been doing is a bit moving from teaching, uh, preaching is about teaching the Bible, it is that, but to preaching as the theological formation of the church's vision.

Paul: 35:15

Yeah, right?

Joel: 35:16

The teaching fits within that larger project. And and I think one of the challenges that we are recognizing is how deeply embedded evangelicalism on the one hand, also I'd say liberal mainline Protestantism on the other hand, have been formed by the American narrative, and therefore kind of reading the Bible through that narrative rather than formed by the theological narrative of scripture that then sends us into America, but from a very different place and identity. So I would be curious, kind of with that's my framing. Obviously, that's not your guys' framing, but I would be curious, as you think about preaching, and we'll start with you, Paul, if it is something like what I just explained, right? Kind of theological re-narration, that kind of thing, then then how does that shape the way that the pastor confronts, challenges, encourages, exhorts the congregation, particularly around some of the questions of division, but also maybe even confront some core, like we've been formed in the wrong identity.

Paul: 36:30

Yeah.

Joel: 36:31

Or we we need that identity challenged. How do you understand preaching to have a role in that and in the role of pastors and shepherding that? Does that make sense? Sorry, that was a a lot of a lot of throat clearing to get to my question, but hopefully that hopefully that works.

Paul: 36:48

No, it's a fantastic question, Joel. So I I want to give Matt credit here because Matt did a great job in the book. Um, one of the things he talked a lot about is the importance theologically of preaching, of identifying and unmasking and preaching against idols. One of the idols he brought up is rightness. We live in America where it's all about being right. I have to be right, you're wrong. It's very binary. It's a zero-sum game. I'm right, you're wrong. And that that shows a lack of humility. You know, we stand on the truth with humility, but uh God doesn't need to defend himself. We we teach what the word says and and let that be that. But it's this whole, I've got to be right, I've got to win. Um he did a great job there. Um also identifying idols of like nationalism. You know, my nation comes first in my identity. Well, if you're a Christian, the kingdom of God comes first. You worship a king, that king has a kingdom. And as I read scripture, I don't see United States in Scripture. Um, I see a king with a kingdom, and many nations, many empires have have come and gone, and the king in his kingdom will always win and succeed and prevail. So we talked about, you know, naming and preaching against those idolatries. And then Matt also did a great job talking about virtue formation preaching as it relates to, you know, spending more time preaching on humility because um we don't want to just focus on the cognitive function. Um, systematic theology is critical, but also um the idea of preaching is formation, and we actually talk about this in the book as a category that we need to preach in a way that that encourages people to be formed into um the image of Christ. That's 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and other so many other texts. So, what does it mean to be conformed to the image of Christ? It means we embrace humility, Philippians chapter 2. That is the way of Christ. It means we embrace empathy and kindness and compassion and hospitality, which are repeatedly affirmed throughout scripture, that these are markers that set aside the people of God. So we preach in a way that that elevate God's virtues, God's um character traits, that to be godly, to be like Christ, is to be and to do these things. So that's one thing we did. Um Matt can speak more to that, but we also emphasized what he mentioned earlier, the the um centered sets. And so centered sets are sometimes uh the danger is that we when we preach on divisive topics, we start with the division. But our encouragement is we start with the things that unite us, not the things that divide us. So, for example, uh we talked about four uh centered set things that we think it's wise for pastors to start with before they get to, when they're preaching, before they get to the things that divide. So we talked about shared doctrines. What do what do we as followers of Jesus Christ in the global church, historic church, what do we share? Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed, Jesus as Lord, authority of scripture, you know, um, salvation by faith alone, uh through Christ alone, you know, that kind of a thing. Second, we talked about a shared identity. We are the bride of Christ. We are the body of Christ. We are branches connected to the true vine, which is Jesus who nourishes us. Um, we need to focus on the fact that you are not the other. Matt is not the other. Matt is my uh brother in Christ. We are the family of God. And that is more important than his skin color, his educational background, although that does matter, and we we should not uh ignore it, but God has knit us together in a supernatural way through the Holy Spirit, through the body and the blood. We have a shared mission. We have the great commandment. We're called to love one another, love Christ, or love God the Father and love one another, um, and we're called to make disciples. That's true of every Christian everywhere, all times. And after shared mission, the Great Commandment of the Great Commission, the fourth thing that Matt and I talk about in the book is this idea of shared experiences, that one of the centered sets we can work toward is shared experiences. Now, to be honest, I haven't experienced the racism that Matt has experienced as an Asian American. But um what I can say is that I have experienced the sting of rejection. I have experienced the pain of misunderstanding. I have been called names and epithets that that wounded me. And so, you know, Matt and I talk about this in the book that there's that we can build around a common empathy, a common sense of compassion that we've all experienced rejection and loss. And so that's not to minimize at all the racism that he's experienced, but it's to acknowledge that we do have shared experiences around um suffering, pain, and loss.

Matt: 41:48

Yeah, thanks, Paul. Uh, I appreciate you uh drawing from my experiences as well uh in that question. One of the themes that's been common uh uh as we've gone through this uh podcast series is thinking about the listener and the role of the listener in in the entire uh sermon moment. So maybe uh if you could share some reflections on what do you think of the church as a listening community? Uh what does that mean for you, and how has that been uh in as a pastor and thinking about forming disciples for you? It's a deep question.

Paul: 42:22

I think part of our divisions, a significant part, is that we don't know how to be present with God and with one another. Um the phrase that's used is we're in an attention economy, right? The these uh tech companies are spending billions to capture and to uh monetize our attention. And so I believe it's actually attentioning our sh it's shortening, excuse me, our attention spans. Yeah. And I think this is actually being proven uh scientifically. So um I think uh one of the ways that we can uh move back toward greater unity, greater discipleship, have stronger, healthier churches is to make a renewed effort, a concerted effort to uh listen better. When I say that, I think listening needs to go in multiple directions. First, listening to the voice of God. God is alive, God is present. We just a number of weeks ago um celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. He has defeated death, he is alive, he is now um ascended and been seated at the right hand of God the Father, where we're told over and over in the New Testament that He is our great high priest. And so we want to not just speak to Him, but also listen to our living God. The scriptures exhort us to do that over and over. Next, listen to the Word, the Word of God, which is codified. Is God's voice codified? It is authoritative, um, it is infallible. I know we have different definitions of infallibility, but um it is the inscribed word of God in the Protestant conception. That's the 66 uh books of Scripture. So first, we listen to the living voice. Second, we listen we listen to scripture. Third, we need to do a better job of listening to one another. And Matt writes beautifully about this, not just in preaching to a divided nation, but in his many other uh books and writings about the need for deep listening, for deep empathy, for being present with people and not trying to make a point or prove a point, but just listen and acknowledge. We've lost that. And um, I pray God gives us uh grace as ministers, as scholars, as the body of Christ, to become better listeners, to be fully present with one another without having an agenda. And then also we need to learn to listen to ourselves, to listen to our own um inner dialogue. Some have called it the chatter box. I need to be aware of my fears and my anxieties because those will oftentimes impede my ability to listen to the prior three voices that I've identified. So I think the preaching event uh incorporates all four of those. That as I'm preaching, I'm um trying to convey the living voice of God, but also even listen to God as I'm preaching, because occasionally God will shift our preaching and lead us into a different direction, a different illustration, or God will sometimes just say, Stop, listen to the people, and he'll give us a deeper understanding of what people are going through than what we might uh normally have. I think there's times uh we're preaching that God even gives us deeper insight into the word in the homilytical moment, where he shifts us into a deeper mode that maybe when we were doing our prior study prayer next to Jesus and the writing or preparation of the sermon, even in the homilytical moment, God can can speak to us. But are we listening as preachers and teachers and homilyticians? And then again, as I've already mentioned, the people. Um, am I listening to the people? Am I seeing the people, or am I just trying to spit a message? Or do I really have compassion for them? As Jesus had compassion for the sheep who are harassed, for the crowds that felt lost and had no shepherd. And then am I listening to myself? Am I being present? Just to give an example, when I announced to the church that I was leaving after 18 years to uh become a professor, I was present with myself and I allowed myself to express emotion, sadness, grief, joy. And in that moment, I wasn't just trying to get through points that I conveyed to the church. And I did, I did notify the church. I didn't just pop it on them on Sunday. I went talked to each of my leaders individually first. I called them or met with them. I met with my staff in person, I met with the key core leaders and people at the church. Then we sent the wider email, but then I announced it on Sunday. But I wanted to be present to their emotions. And to be honest, I was I was shocked. I had to pause because when I announced it, the people broke out uh clapping and cheering. Um, I literally almost dropped the mic and just walked off and said, That's it. I did it, man. I'm leaving. I'll never see me again. Or we get here right now. Yeah, mic drop. But I I I had to pause and I let them respond joyfully, which honestly surprised me. Um but then later on I conveyed the emotion that I felt, the grief I still feel that at the separation and the change of my call. So also being present to ourselves.

Joel: 47:29

Paul, as we kind of draw the conversation to a conclusion, uh, we've got a pattern on the podcast series of finishing with a more general question about what God is teaching you. And uh given that you're in a moment of transition, I would imagine there's a whole lot going on between you and God right now. But um, if you could summarize a bit, what what is God teaching you these days as a as a pastor, as a discipler? Now is one transitioning into a new role where you're gonna be discipling young people who are, Lord willing, on the way to being ministers of the gospel. What what themes maybe are emerging in you in your life with God as as you're in this time?

Paul: 48:22

Appreciate that. I think the first thing is to continue to seek God and ask him to make me what's been called a non-anxious presence. Um, that's not my phrase, it's been used by others, but to to do what I just talked about, which I'm not great at. I'm I'm not gonna pretend I'm a great listener. If you were to bring my wife on this podcast, oh my lord, um, she would she would uh rightfully admit I have a long way to go when it comes to listening. Um, and being present and not defensive and these kinds of things. So I think being a non-anxious presence, I I'm always seeking to be rooted in a way that I don't need to defend, I don't need to explain, I don't need to justify. I just accept that I am a love, I'm a beloved child of God. I am beloved. Um, I think in the words of Henry Nowen, I'm beloved. And uh He loves me, He set His love on me, and therefore I don't need to worry. I have concerns, but I'm not to worry. And so um that takes um time in the Word, it takes time pondering the meaning of the Word, it takes silence, it takes going on a prayer walk and just being appreciative of the world around me and just giving thanks, being filled with gratitude, which is hard because it's easy to focus on all the things we don't have rather than the things we do have. And I'm guilty of that. I think next I'm always trying to focus on and keep this in front of me, being the Revelation 7 uh community, or as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it, the beloved community. Um I want to be part of the beloved community, I want to love the beloved community. Um, I can't do it without them. Um we are one in the conception of Jesus, the way he teaches in Scripture. So never forgetting that we are this broken and also beautiful and also deeply loved community of people. Um I've been thinking more recently about thirdly, um, James Davison Hunter's concept of faithful presence. Um, you know, in his book to, I think it's what is it, to transform. To change the world. Change the world, yeah. Yeah, not to use language that um is um connotes power or connotes that I'm some kind of savior. Um when I moved to Birmingham, Alabama, um, I'm there to join God's work there. There's already people there doing amazing work. And my job is to do what I like to say is scratch and sniff. I grew up in the 80s with the scratch and sniff books. Um scratch and sniff, where's the Holy Spirit moving? What's he doing? How can I get behind him? And um to be a faithful presence in that place and join the people that are already being a faithful presence. Um and that's really important to me. And then I I think this is how I'm gonna end my time here as a pastor, 18 and a half years. I I want to end with 2 Corinthians 5, that I have been given the message and the ministry of reconciliation. Um, that's not just uh, I don't think that text is only for the Apostle Paul and the Apostles. I think that's for every Christian. And not only have I been given the message in the ministry of reconciliation, not only have I been reconciled through the body and the blood of Jesus Christ, but also I have an identity rooted in reconciliation, where the Apostle Paul says that we are ambassadors of Christ. And so I am an ambassador of the kingdom of heaven to the kingdom of earth, to the kingdom of this world. And that therefore means I have an identity rooted in being a reconciler and a bridge builder and a peacemaker. Not just me, not just you, Joel, not just you, Matt, but I believe this is the call of every follower of Jesus Christ.

Joel: 52:18

Amen. Amen. Thank you, thank you for that. And and thanks, Paul, so much for joining us for the podcast. Uh, thanks, Matt, as well. This has happened a number of times on the podcast where Matt's been co-host slash guest. Uh, and that was one of the reasons we wanted him as part of this, was we could tap into multiple things with him. So, Matt, thank you so much again for your participation and um blessings to you, Paul, for you and your family as you make this transition and look forward to connecting in in Birmingham.

Paul: 52:51

Amen. Thank you. And and when you're in town, please do text ahead and uh would love to take you out for some sweet tea. Um, Matt, I always love seeing you. I don't get to see you enough. We'll definitely hang out soon.

Matt: 53:02

Sounds good. Thanks, Paul.

Zach: 53:03

God bless. Thanks, guys. Thanks for listening to today's episode of the CPT Podcast, a theology podcast for the church. If you enjoyed this episode, would you consider subscribing if you haven't already? You can also help us out by leaving a rating and especially a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. We love hearing from listeners in this way, and it helps others find Apple Public. The Pastor Theologians Podcast is a production of the Center for Pastor Theologians. You can learn more about the CPT at our website, Pastertheologians.com. You can also find us on Facebook, YouTube, and follow us on Twitter. This show is produced by Seth Porch and Sophia Luke. The show is recorded and edited in partnership with Glowfire Creative, and editing is done by Seth Freak. Hosting duties are shared by Joel Lawrence, Ray Humble, and me, Seth Wagner. Thanks for listening.