The Pastor Theologians Podcast
A theology podcast for the church. The pastor theologians podcast consists of conversations and teaching resources at the intersection of theological scholarship and life and ministry in the local church. The vision for this show is to help equip pastors to be theologians for today’s complex world.
The Pastor Theologians Podcast
Cultural Intelligence and the Preacher | Gerald Hiestand (Preaching and the Pastor Theologian Episode 6)
In this conversation, hosts Joel Lawrence and Matt Kim speak with Gerald Hiestand—senior pastor of Calvary Memorial Church and co-founder of the Center for Pastor Theologians—about cultural intelligence and the work of preaching. Drawing from his ministry in the diverse and politically complex context of Oak Park, Illinois, Gerald describes the challenges and opportunities of engaging culture thoughtfully from the pulpit. He reflects on how pastors can understand the visible and invisible layers of culture, avoid the “ditches” on either side of cultural and political extremes, and use cultural “types” as pathways that point people toward the gospel. The discussion explores how preaching can form a theological vision of culture, how to love congregations well by understanding their varied backgrounds, and how pastors can navigate political tensions with a Christ-centered framework. Gerald also shares personal reflections on growing in pastoral confidence, learning to give clearer admonition with less scaffolding, and shepherding faithfully through turbulent cultural seasons.
So I think culture's like that. Everything in culture is it can lead us back to the truth of who God is. So rather than like gathering up all those threads and then thumbing them into the fire, it's like I want to grab those threads and like trace them back to the hope of the gospel.
Joel Lawrence:Hi everyone, and welcome to the Center for Pastor Theologians special podcast preaching and the pastor theologian. I'm Joel Lawrence, one of the hosts with my co-host Matt Kim. Matt, good to see you again. You too, Joel. So we're uh talking today with Gerald Heastand, who serves as the senior pastor of Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park, Illinois. Many of our listeners probably are aware of Gerald. He's the co-founder of the CPT, and he also serves as the chair of our board. And uh in today's episode, we're talking with Gerald on the subject of cultural intelligence and the preacher. As what we're doing in this series is thinking about a theological framework for preaching. One of the key elements of this is the relationship between theology and culture, church and world. And there's lots of different directions that we can go with that. And we we it will explore some of those in the in the conversation with Gerald. But I think one of the challenges for preachers is that we can lean too far in either direction. One toward the sermon being largely disconnected from the broader culture, or toward the sermon basically being a commentary on culture, which then sometimes tend to be without deep rooting in scripture. Um and Gerald, as as we'll talk with him in the conversation, often talks about the danger of the ditches on either side. Like I said, we'll we'll talk about that with him. But Matt, I I wonder in in your pastoral career, and you've, as we talk about in the in the conversation, you've written a book on preaching with cultural intelligence, award-winning book, I should say, uh, about the relationship between preaching, theology, and culture. Just help us give some framework to this conversation from from your perspective on how preaching should be engaged with culture and how we build cultural intelligence as preachers.
Matt Kim:Yeah, thanks, Joel. I I think Gerald did a remarkable job of explaining uh the role of the preacher and pastor in this endeavor. Um I would say that one of the things that we want to remind ourselves of is uh that this is not transactional. And uh the arch the architects of cultural intelligence who coined the term were Stanford business professors, uh, thinking through how do I make a deal and how do I cross cultures in order to make make a deal. And sometimes we think as pastors and preachers, why do I need to go out of my way uh to get to know someone from a different background culture? And really, I think what Gerald didn't specifically say, but I think he was alluding to is the fact that it's all about love. It's about loving the people. And if I love the people enough, why wouldn't I want to get to know their culture? And and that's demonstrated effectively, obviously, in his ministry at Calvary. So uh that's just some something to think about is that the reason we do this, the reason why I take that extra effort is really to love that person and those people.
unknown:That's great.
Joel Lawrence:Yeah, I I I really appreciate that kind of very gospel basic reminder that this is this is all born in love, right? Preaching is born in love and engaging with the world is born in love. So let's roll the conversation. Really hope people enjoy this uh and look forward to sharing with you this thoughtful, meaningful conversation that we were able to have with Gerald. Gerald, it's great to have you back on the podcast. Thanks so much for joining us for this uh special series on preaching. Yeah, great to be back. So uh many of our listeners will be somewhat familiar with you. If they've listened to the podcast over the years, you've you've made fairly frequently, fairly frequent appearances. But uh, why don't you take a few minutes and and just uh give us a bit of a uh refresher of the background of your faith journey, your educational journey, and your your pastoral journey?
Gerald Hiestand:Yep, I grew up at a Christian home. My uh grandfather was a pastor, my dad uh was a pastor at various points throughout his career, also worked in missions. So um I kind of a ministry Christian home I grew up in and uh grew up in Chicago, went to Moody Bible Institute for my undergrad, and uh studied uh theology there uh with a view to doing pastoral ministry. That was that was the intent, and then uh did a little stint as a youth pastor at a free church out in Nebraska, and then came back uh and did some grad work at TED's, and then from there got involved in a big church in the Chicagoland area, spent uh about 10 years uh there um pastoring part of that after I finished up my grad work uh was one of the associate pastors uh working with small groups, and then um connected with Todd Wilson at some point in that journey, and we began to think about and talk about the vision uh that eventually became the CPT and ended up pastoring together in Oak Park at Calvary Memorial Church. Uh, he was the senior pastor at the time. I was the uh senior associate pastor or the executive pastor, and uh we pastored together for a decade, and then he went on to run the CPT full-time, and I took over uh as the senior pastor at Calvary. And so I've been at Calvary um since 2010. Nope, hold on, let me think this, let me get this right. Yep, uh, 2010, and um then I've been the senior pastor since 2018. Uh, and then during that uh time as the associate pastor here, I did a PhD in classics through external research at the University of Reading over in the UK. So senior pastor now of uh Calvin Memorial Church and uh living here in Oak Park. And Oak Park is um it's the the nearest west suburb coming out of Chicago uh on one of the main train lines. And uh so we're we're butted right up against um Chicago on our on our east side. So that's my context.
Matt Kim:Great. Thank you for uh the background, Gerald. You you brought a nice segue to our conversation as we're thinking about uh the topic of cultural intelligence and preaching today. Tell us a little bit about Calvary uh Memorial. Tell us about your church. Uh, what are some of the cultures and subcultures you see in your congregation?
Gerald Hiestand:So Calvary is a suburban-urban church. If you're coming from the suburbs, it's Oak Park feels like a kind of an urban community. If you're coming out of the city, Oak Park feels like the suburbs. So, I mean, it's it's a suburb church, it's a suburb community, but it is right next to the city of Chicago. And so it's got a lot of the feels that you would get from a Chicago neighborhood. Um and it's a little bit like, you know, where the uh the freshwater river dumps into the uh to the sea, and you have kind of this mix of uh salt water and freshwater, and there's a lot of kind of biodiversity that happens in those places, like particular kinds of fish that can go back and forth between the open sea and the freshwater um, kind of certain kinds of uh plant life similar. So I would say uh an oak park community uh, and then consequently Calvary has that kind of um ecclesial diversity, ecclesial biodiversity, we could say. So that is true uh as it relates to race and ethnicity. There's a fair bit of diversity in Oak Park, and that's reflected in our church as well. There is kind of the political fusion, you know, suburban uh contexts tend to be a bit more conservative politically, and then urban contexts tend to be more progressive uh politically. So we have that kind of cultural fusion going on. There is the socioeconomic diversity as well. Oak Park is it's a pretty affluent community on the whole, uh, but it's surrounded by communities that are less affluent. And so, you know, there's just quite a bit of uh there's just quite a bit of socioeconomic uh diversity that's reflected even in our church as well. Some of the blue-collar communities around Oak Park, and then Oak Park is primarily a white-collar community with a lot of folks that are uh working in the city and take the train down, you know, down into the city. So Oak Park is a it's a beautifully diverse town with all sorts of kind of the diversity you expect in in kind of a more urban context. We are, I would say, um predominantly progressive as a community. And here I'm talking about the Oak Park community. Uh in terms of like politics and cultural issues, uh, we're gonna be the community is gonna be uh much more progressive. One might even say aggressively progressive. You know, we we take our progressive politics very seriously uh here in Oak Park. So but it's a great community and uh really prioritizes its schooling and uh spends a lot of its kind of interest and attention on wanting to make sure the schools are are doing a good job for families. So it's it's it's a family context. It's got that suburban feel to it, and then it's got the urban vibes as well.
Joel Lawrence:I think that that description of Calvary in Oak Park uh is a good explainer of why we wanted to have you on the podcast for this conversation about cultural intelligence. And as you pointed out in our in our pre-conversation, uh we're also uh well suited because we have uh Matt Kim as co-host who wrote a book called Preaching with Cultural Intelligence.
Gerald Hiestand:It was very intimidating to have me be honest, I guess.
Joel Lawrence:Well, as Matt pointed out, you you wrote an endorsement on the back of the book. So that that qualifies you.
Gerald Hiestand:I didn't read the book, so hopefully I can recount some good ideas for that.
Joel Lawrence:But no, but again, I I I find myself in a position that's happened a number of times on the podcast where uh we're with Matt's expertise and the guest expertise, he's a co-host, but also uh we'd love to have him contributing to this conversation as as well. But um I I love that description of Oak Park, Gerald, that where the salt water where the river runs into the sea and the kind of biodiversity and interesting creatures that arise in those kind of uh biospheres. And it's uh a vibrant place for ministry, vibrant opportunities for the gospel. So so let's just start with some definitions as you think about it. When when you think about cultural intelligence, Gerald, as a pastor, as a preacher, and and kind of thinking theologically about the world around you, the world that you're ministering in, how do you understand that term? And and why would you say that this is an important notion for for preachers to understand?
Gerald Hiestand:So I'm gonna do my best here, and then Matt, I'm gonna I'm gonna defer to you to give us the precise uh and true definition. But but I mean the term, I mean, cultural intelligence, first, like what is culture? You know, you get you're being intelligent about culture. And I think the term culture, it's gonna relate to a lot of things like that immediately you can see, right? So different cultures, you know, okay, well, there's there's different races, uh, and that's a visible thing that's very obvious. There's different ethnicities, which you may not be able to notice right away just by by visual, but you can hear it pretty quick just in terms of accent and um languages. So culture is going to be influenced by visible things and by some uh and but then beyond just like visible audible uh differences, I think culture gets into the way that we think about the world, the way that we, you know, just even process stuff. So it's interesting talking with some folks that have moved into Chicago from other major cities and have noted like the cultural differences of the Midwest versus, say, like the East or the West Coast. And um we use the same language, we you know, uh we have the same races and ethnicity in all three places, but there just is a different sort of way of being in the world, the sort of non kind of unspoken assumptions about uh how you interact with strangers or how you are like what hot counts as hospitality or you know what's considered rude uh to say or to not say, you know, so there's just all of these things combined into a stew, I think, that that um that kind of create a distinct culture. And then cultural intelligence is having an awareness of the stew in which you are like situated and the distinctions that are going on. And I think it's just it's natural for us just to assume the way that we personally move through the world is how everyone else moves through the world. And that just isn't the case. Uh, and so if we can get outside of ourselves just a little bit and recognize that uh other people take things for granted differently than we take things for granted, that I think helps us ultimately helps us to love people better, right? Because what we're wanting to do is we're wanting to extend the love of Christ to people. But if we don't really know people or understand how they need to be loved, it's you know, it it complicates our capacity to love people and then to communicate, communicate the gospel. So that would be that's not a super precise definition, but this is the way that I think about culture, cultural intelligence, and how it impacts with ministry. But Matt, I'd be interested if you've got anything to add to that or something that's a bit more technical or precise.
Matt Kim:I think you really uh addressed it well. Uh one of the books that I really appreciated in uh trying to understand the concept better was Patty Lane's book, A Big A Beginner's Guide for Crossing Cultures. And she lays out uh a nice uh image in terms of an iceberg and really thinking through um what are some of the things that are above the surface and objective cultures uh that we can visibly notice, like you were talking about of uh appearance and race, ethnicity and race at least and and such. Um but then there's that deeper level of subjective culture, and that's the hard part of getting to in terms of people's values and and their beliefs and and such. So yeah, it's it's a really complex concept. But uh as pastors, I think one of the things that we want to do is move from that objective visible culture to more of the subjective things underneath the surface.
Joel Lawrence:Yeah, that's good. That's good. And I think just to add to that, uh it it's in in some ways, uh some listeners who live in a context that's very different than Oak Park might think, well, yeah, cultural intelligence is is important for for Gerald given the kind of location that he's in. But I I think it's for pastors to understand if we're in a a big city or or in a a small town that may look very uh monochromatic, very similar to each other, that there are different kinds of cultures always operating from the family level to a town level to a state level. And so I I think we we have to be careful not to assume, well, like Gerald and Oak Park needs to be culturally intelligent. That's not as important in other places. I I think this this is a critical part of the preaching task is to be able to kind of tap into and understand our own cultural biases, structures, frameworks, as well as those in the in the church, in the city, in the town, wherever we might be.
Gerald Hiestand:And on that point, I mean, I would say that there are distinct cultures within the Christian community. So like even if it's a more monochromatic uh culture, the Christian community is going to have its own culture, and then the non-Christian community around that Christian community is gonna have its own distinct culture. And there needs to be a cultural intelligence even as you navigate between those, at least at the very least, between those two cultures. Uh, you can't bring the same assumptions uh to both.
Matt Kim:Yeah, that leads us really well to the next uh question, Gerald, and and that is how have you navigated this? What what are some of the strategies or uh ways or processes that you've thought about or just high-level what does it mean for you to grow in cultural intelligence as a pastor and preacher?
Gerald Hiestand:Yeah, I mean I for me I feel like a lot of this has been uh probably more intuitively gained than it has been like a direct strategy about, you know, do my push-ups, my cultural intelligence push-ups, you know, three three days a week, you know, kind of a deal. I'm my personality is is fairly diplomatic and um and I'm just wired in kind of my general deportment and makeup to yeah, to just sort of hear and see other people. I can get out of my I one of my gifts is I can get outside of myself and sort of see like the world through how other people are seeing the world. So so it's been kind of intuitive for me. I will say that I, you know, this is maybe minor, but I do try to uh stay up to date at least on the headlines. I don't read a lot of news, I'm not on social media. Um, but I do try to stay aware of the headlines at least, because I know that particularly my congregation is engaged with the headlines and like what's going on both in the local culture, but even more broadly in like the national culture, especially right now, we're in quite a bit of you know national cultural upheaval. Um and knowing what's happening and then being able to just um even if I'm not gonna preach on those topics, but I just am not being caught flat footed or um making sort of side comments that shows kind of an ignorance or a uh lack of sensitivity to some of the cultural situations. So I guess the one answer that comes up here, I guess, is just that. It's like trying to stay informed of the the headlines, at least of what's going on around me.
Joel Lawrence:So, with that, Gerald, you know, you as you're preparing for a Sunday morning, people are coming to your church with some kind of framework of culture, maybe varying degrees of healthy theological shaping to that framework. Um as you think about the preaching event, as you think about the communication of the word of God, what do you think is the role of the sermon in in challenging, shaping, forming, you know, a theological vision of culture, maybe more broadly, but also helping us maybe unpack where some of those biases are, where some of our own cultural frameworks are coming into play. How how do you understand the work of preaching in this formative process of helping the church understand broadly culture, but also our our own selves and our own formation in culture?
Gerald Hiestand:I mean, part of this, I guess, is work, you know, some of the assumptions we bring about what what is culture and is in culture, is culture inherently good? Is it inherently evil? Like what I I don't think the role of the pastor is to uh dismantle secular culture, you know, kind of put it in scare quotes, right? As though everything coming out of the secular culture needs to be deconstructed and you know, kind of appropriated and then, you know. I think there's just a lot in the culture as a whole uh that is both good and bad and and neutral, right? So when I'm preaching, I think there are legitimate touch points within the variety of cultures that are represented uh collectively in the congregation at any point that that you can launch off of into meaningful kind of gospel engagement. So I tend to I tend to think typologically of creation. So like I think that theologically give a little insight into my theological framework. I think that I view the entire creation as as types and signs that point ultimately to Christ and to God, right? So you can pick up the thread, like any any created thread, you can pick it up and you can like follow it typologically back to God and to the hope of the gospel. So I think culture is like that. There are everything in culture is it can lead us back to the truth of who God is. So um rather than like gathering up all those threads and then throwing them in into the fire, it's like I want to grab those threads and like like trace them back to the hope of the gospel, right? So so I I look at culture in a lot of ways, um, my more my first disposition towards culture is it's like it's there as a friendly aid to like lead us back to God. The truth is though, culture like anything is also marred by sin. So there are there are these types have been damaged, right? So if we think for a second about like a biological father is a type that helps us understand what it means that God is our father. Okay, so that's great. I can follow that type back up to God and I can teach about God as biological father or God as our father from a biological father. But some fathers are abusive, so that actually is not going to be helpful for some people. Like to talk about fatherhood doesn't like help them get back, you know, to God. So it's sin can damage the types quite a bit. And then I think that is where it's helpful as a preacher to repair the types. Like we have to repair the types in some ways, right? So it's like this is why I think we have we we should be talking about parenting, you know, in our churches. Not because the nuclear family is the end-all be-all of like God, you know, God sent Jesus, die on the cross to save the nuclear family, but because the nuclear family is a type that points us ultimately to the hope that we have in God in Christ and being part of his family. So part of the preacher's job is to repair the types to make them more effective in like leading us back back to God. So maybe I'm rambling around here a little bit trying to it's super helpful. I want to say, yeah, so I want to say like there is a there is a there's a beauty to the types because there's a beauty to culture, and we want to make good use of culture. But we also don't want to be naive about it. Like sin has damaged the culture, so then we need to like fix the culture at certain points. And the this is the point I was getting to, I guess I was gonna say, is certain cultures have certain types that are like are more kind of intact, and then other cultures have types that have been pretty dismantled. So cultures are not, I don't think cultures are necessarily better or worse than each other, but they're not the same in their advantages, right? So like warm cultures can do can be really effective, like warm ethnicities, warm kind of warm race cultures can be very effective in communicating kind of like the open-hearted like love that we have back and forth between God, but you know, may not be as effective in other areas of the kind of Christian journey to God, you know, and then say like more kind of cold, I don't know cold, that's a negative term. Trying to how do we describe my culture? You know, but uh you know, more controlled or buttoned up cultures, they have their advantages too, you know, and they can we can use those to get to God, but it it's got some downsides. So I think we want to, yeah, we want to come in and sort of correct and uh valorize the cultures as we're able to. So I don't there's at least something to get some thoughts going.
Joel Lawrence:Matt, why don't you why don't you I'd love to hear your your kind of two cents on that as well. Um, kind of your sense of the the role of um the sermon in in framing, forming, challenging, encouraging these kind of visions of culture.
Matt Kim:Yeah, that's that's an interesting question because I I take a different approach, I think, over my ministry, and especially as a pastor, uh, when I was pastoring at the church in Denver, uh, one of the things I tried to do is uh isolate one culture to preach to every week. And that that enables me to not get overwhelmed with 150 different cultures. And that that approach has helped me so that I can singularly trust that the Holy Spirit's gonna work in everybody's heart and life, even though I might focus on, let's say, a single mom or single dad uh raising children. That I I write the entire sermon for that person uh from that person's ethnicity race, you know, uh socioeconomic, socioeconomic background. I think of that person the whole time I'm I'm writing the sermon. But you would be surprised uh over the years how many times someone else who I didn't write the sermon for technically uh came up and would say, Hey, I didn't know you you knew that about my life, or how did how did God do that? And and so that's where I feel like one of the ways that we can not get trapped into thinking that I need to preach to everybody every single week is to maybe go about go about it so that each week I might just focus on one person from one particular background, and then the next week I might say, I'm gonna write this sermon for that person. And and that way uh we actually expose people to different cultures uh in the congregation. Uh, because I'm really focusing on my illustrations or my application to a particular person. But we trust that even in doing that, God's speaking to other people too.
Gerald Hiestand:That makes me think, Matt, of they they talk about when you're like in writing, like this it's the same principle, right, is made about like how you write, you know, that if you sort of write in sort of this general, you know, kind of everybody sort of audience, uh, you you actually talk to nobody. But when you write to something specific to somebody specific, then like others can sort of like tap into that and make use of it. And I think I think that's a I think that's very right. I try to do that in my own way too. I think. Um I don't know that I have thought of it in quite the way that you've said it there, but I do often um, and I tend to think about it a little bit less in terms of culture, but I do think about more like there's this person that has a problem. Like here's this person's problem. And so I'm writing the whole sermon to like meet that person's problem. So even though it is their problem, we all have problems, and we can kind of tap into the true answer for their problem and still hit something that's solid as well. But that's good.
Matt Kim:Yeah, that's a great way to see it. Um, for those of you who know Gerald, Gerald is known for his Geraldisms, and so one of them uh happens to be the danger of ditches. And so uh as a framework, how has that understanding helped you in your pastoring and specifically in your preaching over the years?
Gerald Hiestand:Well, this is related to what we were talking about, because I I think that every culture has strengths and weaknesses, right? And um but I think what and everyone's gonna agree with that, uh, but what I think could get lost sometimes is that the weaknesses are actually moving weaknesses always move in two directions, right? So I tend to conceive of um the Christian life uh as a as a road that has ditches on two sides, right? And so some cultures are gonna kind of be more situated on the right side of the road, and some are gonna be situated on the left side of the road, which means the ditch that they're most likely to fall into is the ditch on the right or the ditch on the left, you know. Um, and I'm not meaning this yet politically or anything, I'm just meaning this just kind of like conceptually generally, right? So um, and what can happen, I think, is that we think of there's only one mistake. Like I'm part of this culture, there's only one mistake that can be made here. Well, actually, there's two mistakes that can be made. And in trying to avoid the one mistake that I see, the one ditch that I know is there, I actually can end up um you know pushing too far in the other direction. Or uh and I think what happens is the reason why you end up with a say like a cult, like a uh whether it's a yeah, you end up with a culture that's like hovering on the right side of the road is because they see the ditch on the left side. So they're very aware of the ditch on the left side and they have moved all the way to the right side of the road. But they don't recognize that there's a ditch actually on the right side of the road now. And they're very they're Their danger is not falling into the left ditch, their danger is falling into the right ditch because they're so reactive against the ditch that they do see. So I think there are blind spots in the way that both cultures, but then also individuals, navigate life. We're just more prone to see certain ditches. And it makes sense that we would then intuitively move away from the ditch, but it's not like we're moving away from the ditch into a broad open plane. We're like moving away from the ditch towards another ditch. And we have to stay in the center of the road. And this is where I would say that I probably don't spend a ton of time getting too explicit on cultural issues. I have them in my mind, I think, when I'm preaching. But the center of the road is Christ. So I think what we're preaching is Christ. And that pulls both the left and the right kind of margins into the center. So particularly in diverse communities like where I'm situated in Oak Park, like I've got people on the political left, people on the political right. I've got people on the socioeconomic left, on the so you know, like they're just all over the map, right? So I I if I want um, it's not it's not always as simple as just telling everyone on like I get to, let's say I get to politics. It's not as simple as just saying, hey everyone, pick up your chair and move to the left. Like we all need to move left, or we all need to move right, right? Because some of my people need to move to the left, and some of my people need to move to the right in order to get to the center of the road. So rather than then telling everyone to move left or move right, I just want to hold out like here is Christ, he's in the center. And so if you need if getting to him means moving to the left, then move to the left. And if getting to him means moving to the right, then move to the right. And I want to do that on all like a host of issues. Um But the ditches thing helps me remember, and then now it's become sort of a uh, you know, a joking fun thing with the congregation. Um, it helps us remember that there are dangers on both sides of an issue. And you it's not always just one way or the other.
Joel Lawrence:So to to use an another Geraldism, that that's not bad. That's not bad. That's good. I do want to dig in a little bit. You mentioned politics. Um, obviously, we've been navigating a fraught political culture. You are ministering in a pretty dark blue town of Oak Park, with I think you would describe your congregation as pretty purple. You have you have Democrats, you have Republicans, you have people from across the board. I just kind of for like a case study how this has worked out for you in preaching and and in a cultural moment, um, take us through how you've navigated uh preaching about the political in the last, you know, five, six, seven years? You you're ministering at Calvary through COVID. You've been ministering through the latest election cycle. What does this look like for you? How have you decided to approach addressing this in a way that has the kind of ditches in mind, that has these subcultures and cultural intelligence in mind? What does that look like for you in practice as a preacher?
Gerald Hiestand:So a little bit of history of the church is if you wind back the clock, maybe 20 sure, 25 years, but probably just 20 years would do it. We were predominantly a politically conservative church. There were maybe some Democrats that attended the church, but they kept their heads down and you kind of didn't uh you didn't admit it, yeah, you know, uh, because it was just very much um a red state church in a very blue state uh town. And the posture of the church was a bit more kind of were a you know a bastion of truth in the midst of kind of a decadent uh pagan community. And so part of that bastion of truth was also republicanism, like re like being a committed repo uh Republican uh politically. So when Pastor Todd came in, there was a pretty long gap between the previous senior pastor and then Todd. And then when Todd came in, um, he worked hard to kind of renegotiate Calvary's relationship with the community and to have a little bit less of a hostile posture towards the community and a bit more of kind of an open, charitable uh posture. And that was not easy, honestly, for our church. That led to a lot of a lot of strife because there were many folks in the church that that was seen as uh fundamentally compromise. It was um it was a selling out of kind of Christian ideals, but it all but what a lot of it was linked to politics too, maybe not explicitly, but you know, Todd wouldn't hand out the Republican voter guides, you know, on the Sundays before the election, you know, for instance. And then if he, you know, then he well that means he's not pro-life, and if he's not pro-life, that means he's pro-choice, and then that means, you know, and it just kind of on down, right? So by the time uh Todd resigned and and moved into the CPT president, and then I took over of the church, the church had changed quite a bit. Um, it had kind of been bloodied a little bit through its its kind of internicene strife. But there was a bit more room now for folks to be openly uh Democrat, to have like a just a more progressive political uh take on things. And um, but we didn't like talk about it a ton. It was just sort of now we kind of agreed we could all kind of live together in the same place. And um then heading into uh the the 2016 election, um that was a that was a fraught year as every pastor, not not 2016 election, sorry, it was the 2020. But in 2016, um I got my dates right. This is the first Trump election, right? Trump and uh yeah and Clinton. I preached a couple of sermons that were kind of this two ditches sort of uh approach. And I use baptism as the framing metaphor, and I talked about how baptism has two movements. It has a dying with Christ movement, it has a rising with Christ movement, that these two movements reflect the sort of virtues that accompany the Christian life. And some Christian virtues are going to be more dying with Christ virtues, kind of surrender, submission, recognition of sin, thy will be done, not my will be done, you know, kind of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. And then some of these virtues are gonna be more rising with Christ's virtues, you know, victory over sin, freedom, joy, love, you know, peace, you know, kind of things. And the Christian life is gonna call us to live out of both of these sets of virtues. They need to be integrated together uh throughout our whole life. You can't just go one or the other. And I made the point that uh what happens in American politics is we take what is ostentially, substantially these two sets of baptismal virtues and we split them apart so that the political conservatives will will tend to valorize the sort of virtues that you find on the Christian right, the kind of baptismal virtues of dying with Christ. And the political left will tend to valorize the baptismal virtues of rising with Christ. And so Christians will often sort of uh move towards one party or the other based on their sort of preference for like which set of virtues they like most resonate with. The church calls us to hold these virtues together, but but our political landscape separates them apart. And um and so I wanted to help my congregation see that the my Democrat congregants who are valorizing, not valorizing, who who vote to the left are doing it for Christian reasons, that there are Christian virtues on the left. And my congregants who are voting to the right are also doing it for Christian reasons because there are Christian virtues on the right. And so let because our culture, the political landscape, has required us to bifurcate them, let's be sympathetic with each other, that we both can't vote both sides, right? So you are gonna make your best uh worst evil vote, and I'm gonna make my best worst evil vote, and let's just recognize that they're both they're both going to be worst evil votes, and uh um not worst evil, I got that backwards, but like the best evil vote. Like it's like this is the the this is what we're gonna have to do. Yeah. And so let's just agree uh that both of us are pursuing Christian virtues and how we're trying, uh, how we're trying to do this. And I would say that was a helpful healing moment for our congregation uh because it gave permission for both sides to recognize the Christian sort of impulses of the other side rather than just demonizing both sides. Um and then I spent some time talking about what happens if you separate these things and make them kind of isolated, right? So uh, you know, the all the dying with Christ virtues without the rising with Christ virtues, you just become in a spiritual realm, you just become a Pharisee. Uh, and in a political realm, you become a fascist. And then if you have all of the rising with Christ virtues, um, but when you don't have any of the dying with Christ virtues, in the spiritual realm you become a libertarian or licentious. Um, and in the political realm, you can move into like a Marxism. You know, and so there are ditches on both sides of these virtues. If you isolate them from each other, you kind of create you create ditches, and we want to hold them together. And the beauty of the church is that it does hold these things together and it provides an opportunity to do to do that. So I preached those sermons in 2016, and then that sort of set the ground rules for how we engaged politically over the next four years. A recognition of kind of what could and couldn't be done and accomplished in the political realm and kind of a realistic uh perspective. And then I re-preached those sermons as we came into this most recent uh election cycle again uh uh with Trump and and uh Harris. And so, yeah, I I think those sermons have gone a long way to just sort of establishing the sort of framework um for how our church approaches politics. But that also then is instructive about just how we approach almost any issue, right? Is that if you get polarized and say, I'm only focused on this side, not this side, you're you're gonna get unbalanced and you're kind of splitting the Christian virtues uh apart. So um, yeah, so maybe there's more to tease out there, uh, and you can feel free to ask more questions. But yeah, a couple sermon series uh kind of right around both elections helped it to frame, uh, to frame things. And then I'll say this too, particularly then in like 2020, you know, COVID was kind of a left-right issue, uh, like how to engage with it. George Floyd was a left-right issue, how to engage with it. And then the the sermon or the um politics that year were also a left-right issue about how to engage, you know. And so having this sort of recognition that like both sides are trying to get after something that's true uh was helpful in navigating all those issues together.
Joel Lawrence:Just a couple of quick comments before I turn it over to Matt to ask our final question. One is just an advertisement. You gave a a lecture on this idea at the CPT conference last September, our Kingdom Politics conference. And that really resonated with a lot of people uh uh at that conference. So I would encourage folks that can go to cptconference.com and find that lecture or uh wait for the volume to come out in hopefully uh not too, too terribly long, but we're working on that. Uh the that we'll have that lecture. And then the second thing I would just say is this I think what you've just described, you know, as we're thinking about this preaching and the pastor theologian, that feels like a like a wonderful example of pastor theologian preaching, which is setting theological framework, which is preaching the text, right? It is preaching the the word of God, but it's in doing that, it's also re-articulating a theological framework of how we see the the world and narrating the world in a different way from a theological perspective, then I think oftentimes we don't do that as well in preaching. We might we might preach texts, but the work of the pastor theologian to kind of be narrating the world theologically, I think that's so important. And I think what you've described, doing that framework in 2016 then set a trajectory for how your church has grown since then.
Gerald Hiestand:Yeah. And I may have my dates right. I wonder if I preached that first set of sermons in 2020. Uh could be. I can't quite remember my my ordering. But um, but yes, and I would say to your point, Joel, about um uh the the role of the pastor theologian, it's like inherently integrated. Because what what we're trying to do with the pastor theologian is bring together theology and kind of practical Christian life, right? Or to bring together like acad like the wins of the academy and then using that in the context of the local church or producing theology that is for the local church, right? So I think there is something that's inherently integrative and sort of bridge building about the pastor theologian. And then that I think gets translated into the way that we just approach, we as pastors uh have to approach all of life, right? We're building, we are bridge builders, you know. We're trying to connect the truths of a you know first century document written in another language, an entirely different culture, and we're trying to like show the connections from that uh to our present culture, make those bridges and connections. I think we're just the more that we have the capacity to bridge to build bridges, I think the more effective we can be uh in our roles as pastor theologians. So yeah, I think there's something just inherent about the nature of the vocation that lends itself that way.
Joel Lawrence:And I think what we've kind of been discovering at the CPT is to be able to have pastors who do that is a very particular formational uh process that uh has to happen over over time. It seminary is great, but it can't, you're not fully formed as a pastor theologian when you come out of a seminary. And so I think this uh kind of model of what we're commending is not just a certain set of skills or a certain set of knowledge. It's a it's a particular vision of the pastor that that in some ways transcends the structures of how we've formed pastors and trained pastors in the past. And so we're we're we're commending something I think that's um that's that that does take us beyond a smart pastor or a pastor who has a certain level of education to a particular kind of formation as a pastor in this identity of theologian that is about attending to the flock and the formation of the flock. And so I think I think that's been an important like growth for us as an organization as we've been kind of figuring out what we're here to do and and and where we're going. Yeah, that's right. That's right.
Matt Kim:Gerald, I just want to thank you so much for the thoughtful conversation. As we come to a close here, uh any reflection on what God's teaching you as a pastor or as a preacher these days, or any words of encouragement for our listeners?
Gerald Hiestand:Yeah, I I would say one of the things that I've been reflecting on probably the last six months, maybe. Um my personality, my deportment, I'm by nature a fairly like egalitarian person. So like one of my advantages and strengths as a pastor is that people don't, like they're not super intimidated by me, right? So like you get stuck on an elevator with me, that's not like a that's not a super intimidating experience. I've had pastors that like getting stuck on an elevator with them would be enormously intimidating. That's not who I am. Um, but there's a downside to that. The downside is um I can, in my own sort of self-understanding, I'll feel like, okay, if I'm gonna preach to you, Matt and Joel, and you guys are part of my congregation, I'll I'll I'll not assume that I'm such a big personality that I can just tell you what you should do. I'll feel like I need to justify my pastoral admonitions by providing a lot of scaffolding and context and framework and explaining so that when I finally say you should do such and you should love your wife, you know, kind of a thing, right? It wouldn't matter who said it because you've had such now, you've been so convinced by the logic that I've put together that now you're gonna do it regardless of whether I say it. So what I've what I become a more aware of is like I don't have tons of confidence in my capacity as a pastor sometimes to just say, hey guys, love your wife. I'm your pastor, I'm telling you to do this. I'll have to spend, you know, I'm exaggerating here for the effect of this conversation, but but I'll, you know, I'll spend 15 minutes providing some typological account of marriage, you know, and how it connects to Christ and the church and like your role, you know, all this sort of stuff, right? And uh and I that's good. There's a beauty in that. And I that is, I think, one of the things that my congregation loves about me is I'm very good at explaining things. But I think that there are times where I could just be better off and they would be better off if I just told them what they should do because I'm their pastor and it's true, and not spend 45 minutes, you know, explaining why they should do it, you know. So I'm trying to, and I don't think this is for every, this is not for every pastor. Some pastors need to spend more time justifying why they're giving their admonitions because they they're a little too full of themselves and think that everyone should just listen to them. But that's not me, right? This, you know, got the ditches on different sides, right? I know for me, um I I feel like the Lord's been pressing me to grow in my capacity to just say, this is what's true, and you know, this is how you should live. Uh, without giving up all the stuff I'm good at, I still do very well at explaining things. Um but to have a little bit more confidence in my calling and role as a pastor and what that means then for preaching. Like I'm the pastor of this church. So that gives me a platform to say these things and to make these admonishments and uh doesn't make me infallible, but like I I have had a little bit too much self-doubt at times to just give those admonitions, uh, and that doesn't serve the congregation well. So that's something I've been uh kind of growing or more conscious of. Uh and what it actually has done is like I've shortened my sermons. So my sermons have been tended to be more like 38 to 40 minutes, and now they're more in like the 28 to 30 minutes. And um and part of what's dropping out is all of the sort of scaffolding and explaining that I've felt in the past necessary to do to justify my admonitions. And uh I've like using a lot less scaffolding to get to my admonitions than I have in the past. So um, and then kind of related on that, it's like we're in turbulent times. Um I mean, shoot, you know, here we are, we're making this podcast in in April of 2025. You know, Trump, particularly like economically within the last you know couple months, has really thrown things into a tailspin. Um some people are glad, some people are stressed, you know. I mean, there's just a lot of it's it's turbulent. However, you want to, however, you want to describe it good or bad, it definitely is turbulent. And I have been thoughtful, like, what do I need to do? Like, how do I need to speak into that? Uh, I don't spend a lot of time like doing politics from the pulpit, doing even cultural issues from the pulpit. But I also know that that people, these are on people's minds, so I want to be thoughtful about how to step into that. That's not as much of what I do, so I'm trying to give some thought to how I can step into those spaces.
Joel Lawrence:Well, Gerald, thanks so much for for joining us for the conversation. I I appreciated just hearing you there at the end. Um what I was sensing from you is a deepening confidence in your call. Yeah, yeah. Which is a a deepening confidence in the word that calls and that sends us to be proclaimers of the word. Um and I think that's a theme that has merged in a couple of our conversations has been greater expectation of of the word, greater expectation of what God can do. Um, where ironically, a deeper confidence in our call gives us not confidence in ourselves, but confidence in the word to accomplish what the word is given.
Gerald Hiestand:Yeah, and I might let me see if this if we're saying the same thing. But like in some ways, it's like my deeper confidence in the word gives me a deeper confidence in my call, yes, which then frees me up to give admonishments without having to always so deeply justify it through the word. Yeah, if that makes sense, right? So it's like not that you want to get away from the word and and but it's like if I have to give a a 10-minute sort of exegetical justification for every point of admonishment that I'm gonna give, it's like you become very hamstrung in your capacities to give admonishments. And but no, like the word tells me like I'm the pastor of this congregation and I need to admonish them. And I don't need to always uh yeah, I don't need to spend a I don't need to spend 45 minutes every time sort of like justifying it to the congregation before I give the admonishment, in part because my congregation is like ready to be admonished. They're like, just please like tell us what to do here, and I make them listen to like you know a 25-minute explanation of you know typology before I get to the to the admonishment, and they're you know, by the time I get there, they're falling asleep or something.
Joel Lawrence:But no, that's not that's not quite actually never, never, they never fall asleep. No, that that's great, Gerald. And and I I because I think the 45 minutes of scaffolding, like I because I've I've experienced this, is actually me not it's me trying to be confident in myself and my ability to build the argument rather than thus says the Lord. Right. And I'm commissioned by the grace of God, not because I'm some special communicated or a special gifted communicator, but because God takes up earthen vessels to be the means of his word, and that that kind of trust and confidence in that, I think, is a beautiful thing.
Gerald Hiestand:Yeah, that's right. That's right.
Joel Lawrence:Good. Well, Gerald, again, thanks so much. Grateful for you and and the work that you're doing, blessings as you continue to shepherd at Calvary and guide and lead the CPT as our board chair and my boss, and grateful for you. Thanks for being here. You guys are doing a great job. All right, bro. Take care. Okay, bye-bye. And wonder, Matt, are there kind of some high points for you from the conversation, things that that jumped out?
Matt Kim:Well, I think Gerald uh gave us a lot to think about and consider uh during this episode. And one of the things I really appreciate about Gerald is just his even-keeled nature. He doesn't see culture as extremely good or extremely bad, and it's just uh just reminding us of the importance of centering it all on Christ. That's the big takeaway for me, and and really helping us think through as pastors and shepherds, uh, we're gonna have people of all different backgrounds, and and it's it's really complicated if we think about it, and it can be overwhelming. But as long as we remind people and and bring people back to Christ, who is at the center of the road, uh, that's gonna make all the difference in our in how we approach ministry.
Joel Lawrence:Yeah, I I really appreciated the where he was talking about the role of preaching and repairing the types. I hadn't I hadn't heard that phrased quite that way before, but kind of that recognized, like you said, not approaching culture as all bad or all good, not having a culture warrior uh posture that we bring to the culture, nor a uh kind of if if it's in the culture, then it it it must be good and it must be right. But but there are types in the culture that the preacher can lock into and can explore and repairing that, taking those types back to God and how different cultures will approach different types in different ways, and we need to be an uh uh understanding of that. I I really appreciated that. Um, and also just kind of, you know, almost a bonus conversation at the end about Gerald's own sense of deepening in his vocation and how that's shaping his preaching. I I just appreciate uh a pastor who's kind of willing to open up themselves and how how God is at work in them and how they're learning how to be a shepherd of the people. And and that's uh if if we're not learning, if we're not growing, then uh that gets us to some pretty dangerous places. So I think he uh just demonstrated his humility and his growth as a pastor. So grateful for Gerald. Again, grateful for you, Matt, and and the expertise that you're bringing to these conversations as well. And uh look forward to chatting you uh chatting with you on the next one.
Matt Kim:It's great, Joel.
Joel Lawrence:Love it.
Zach Wagner: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 out about the show. The Pastor Theologians Podcast is a production of the Center for Pastor Theologians. You can learn more about this DPT at our website, Pastor Theologians.com. You can also find us on Facebook, YouTube, and follow us on Pastor. This show is produced by Steph Porch and Sophia Luke. The show is recorded and edited in partnership with Glowfire Creative, and editing is done by Steph Freeform. Hosting duties are shared by Joel Lawrence, Ray Paul, and me, Zach Wagner. Thanks for listening.