John Mark Comer on The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

Episode Summary

In this episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, Doug Smith interviews John Mark Comer, Author of The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry and pastor of Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon. In the episode, you’ll hear Doug and John Mark discuss the importance of the sabbath, how to work from rest, and having a proper view of success. 

6 Key Takes From Episode 275

1. John Mark discusses “pleasure-stacking” on the Sabbath and his journey toward making the weekly sabbath a lifestyle.
2. Comer talks about how painful it was for him to live the life of hurry.
3. The levels of belief:
   1. What we say we believe
   2. What we think we believe
   3. What we really believe (Our true/core beliefs)
4. Proper decision-making: Don’t make decisions from exhaustion, but with much rest and waiting. Comer also discuss how decisions should be made in community.
5. John Mark shares his thoughts on success - what it looks like.
6. In the digital age, we have to take digital Sabbath very seriously.

About John Mark Comer

Author John Mark Comer lives, works, and writes in the urban core of Portland, Oregon, with his wife, Tammy, and their three children, Jude, Moses, and Sunday. 

He is the pastor for teaching and vision at Bridgetown Church soon to be transitioning to lead a new non-profit Practicing The Way. 

Prior to planting Bridgetown, John Mark was the lead pastor of a suburban megachurch. Before that, he played in a band. John Mark has a master's degree in biblical and theological studies from Western Seminary and is the author of The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, God Has a Name, Garden City & Loveology. His next book is due out 9/28 entitled Live No Lies: Recognize and Resist the Three Enemies That Sabotage Your Peace.

For more of John Mark's teachings on the Scriptures, Jesus, and life, go to bridgetown.church and sign up for the podcast or visit www.johnmarkcomer.com.

www.instagram.com/johnmarkcomer

www.twitter.com/johnmarkcomer

www.facebook.com/johnmarkcomer 

Links Mentioned

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer

Loveology by John Mark Comer 

Garden City by John Mark Comer

God Has a Name by John Mark Comer

Bridgetown Church

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

[inaudible]

Speaker 2: 0:07

Hey, podcast, family, and welcome to another episode of the[inaudible] leadership podcast, where we're obsessed with helping you grow to your maximum potential and to maximize the impact of your leadership. My name is Doug Smith and I am your host. And this episode is brought to you by my friends at bear tongue advisors. If you're new to the podcast, welcome, I'm so glad that you're here and I hope that you enjoy our content and you'll become a subscriber. And if you've been with us for a while, thank you so much for listening. And it would mean the world to me. If you would leave us a rating and review on whatever app you listen to podcasts through, that helps us grow our audience and reach more leaders, which is our mission here at L three leadership. So thanks in advance for that. And in today's episode, you're going to hear my conversation with John Mark comer. And this was a conversation that I was looking forward to for a long time. John Mark had written a book called the ruthless elimination of hurry. That deeply impacted my life and my family's life. And it's probably been the number one book that I've recommended in the past year to everyone that I know. And if you haven't gotten a copy out of say this, I say it several times in the interview, but if you have not read this, please get a copy of the ruthless elimination of hurry. It will change your life. And we do spend the majority of our conversation talking about the book. So you'll get a little taste of it through this conversation, but go out and buy the book. And for those of you who may not be familiar with John Mark, let me just tell you a little bit about him. John Mark comer lives works and writes in the urban core of Portland, Oregon with his wife, Tammy and their three children, Jude, Moses, and Sunday. He is the pastor for teaching envision at Bridgetown church. And he's soon going to be transitioning to lead a new nonprofit called practicing the way he's the author of the ruthless elimination of hurry. God has a name, garden city and the Vology and his next book is due on September 28th. Entitled live, no lies, recognize and resist the three enemies that sabotage your peace for more on John Mark's teachings on the scriptures, Jesus and life, go to bridgetown.church and sign up for the podcast or visit John Mark homer.com. And before we get into the interview, just a few announcements. This episode of the L three leadership podcast is sponsored by bear tongue advisors, the financial advisors at bear tongue advisors, help educate and empower clients to make informed financial decisions. You can find out how bear tongue advisors can help you develop a customized financial plan for your financial future by visiting their website@beartongueadvisors.com. That's B E R a T U N G advisors.com securities and investment products and services offered through Waddell and Reed, Inc member FINRA, and SIPC bear tongue advisors, Waddell and Reed, and L three leadership are separate entities. I also want to thank our sponsor Henny jewelers. They're jeweler owned by my friend and mentor John Henne and my wife and I got our engagement and our wedding rings in Henny jewelers. And we just loved the experience. And one thing that we loved about it is not only do they have great jewelry, but they also invest in their customers. In fact, every couple of that comes in and gets engaged. They give them a book to help them prepare for their marriage. And we just absolutely love that. So if you're in need of a good jeweler, check out Henny jewelers.com and with all that being said, let's dive right into the interview. Here's my conversation with John Mark Homer. Enjoy. Alright, well, Hey John, Mark, thank you so much for being willing to do this interview. I will. And I've been looking forward to this for a long time. Um, but why don't we just start off with you just telling us a little bit about who you are and what you do before we dive in.

Speaker 3: 3:16

Yeah, thank you. It's an honor to tag along for a conversation. My name is John Mark comer. I live in Portland, Oregon, and the Pacific Northwest of America. I pastor Bridgetown church, or I'm one of the pastors there, which we planted about 18 years ago, this coming September, and I'm in the process of starting a new nonprofit called practicing the way with the aim of creating resources for discipleship and spiritual formation for local churches and increasingly post-Christian context. So kind of my, my work is, is very much in that kind of vein of discipleship, spiritual formation. Of course, I'm a pastor, so I have to do other responsibilities as well, but that's kind of my deep passion and particularly the intersection of kind of spiritual formation and cultural analysis. What does following Jesus look like in this particular cultural moment and particularly I'm in Portland, which is one of the very progressive, very secular, very hostile to Jesus in the way of Jesus and the church kind of mil you, what does it look like to apprentice under Jesus of Nazareth into life in the kingdom? What Jesus called eternal life, what we would often call flourishing? What does that, what does that look like here? And now those are some of the driving questions of my, my life and my work. But when I also write write books, which is probably why you have me on this podcast, I've, I've written a few books,

Speaker 2: 4:36

You have written a few books and that's actually where I want to start. Um, uh, my pastor actually handed me a copy of ruthless elimination of hurry last February. And I read it, transformed my life. Uh,

Speaker 3: 4:48

Well like a passive aggressive, like, you know, Hey man, you need to read this book

Speaker 2: 4:54

Probably. Yeah. I don't know how, I don't even know if it was passive. It may have just been aggressive. Um, but, but exactly what I needed and my wife and I have started practicing Sabbath every week as a result. And it's really wow. Rhythms of rest into my life and really transformed my life. And so I want to spend a lot of our time today talking about that book specifically. And so why don't you start off just telling us a little bit about why did you write this book? The ruthless elimination of hurry.

Speaker 3: 5:20

Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to turn it right around. Tell me in however many words you want the before and after of Sabbath and walking into that, what has that been like? Do I have to ask, what has that been like for you?

Speaker 2: 5:30

What sold me on it, to be honest with you, I'm an Enneagram seven, so, uh, don't want to miss out, which is probably why I didn't want to stop it before, uh, you quoted Dan Alexander, um, somewhere in the book and the quote was basically like the Sabbath is the day of the week that we should look forward to the most and reflect on the most after it happens. And it should be a day filled with fun and joy and yeah.

Speaker 3: 5:54

Yes. I can't remember if I did that in the book or not the idea of pleasure, you know, do you know about that? Tell us about it. Oh, it's like an Enneagram sevens entire life. So pleasure techniques looks like it's what psychologists mean when you think of a birthday or an anniversary or Christmas where you, you save up a bunch of great things and then you stack them all together. It's like, we're going to eat at this restaurant at this coffee and watch this movie and go on this bike, buy this experience with this friend and you put it all together and you're like, this is going to be the best birthday or anniversary or holiday or whatever ever. So like to apply that logic to Sabbath because Sabbath is a Holy day. It is a holiday. You know, what, if we were to pleasure stack on the Sabbath, that's the basic pitch, which is basically an Enneagram sevens dream.

Speaker 2: 6:36

Oh, that's, what's on me. I immediately, I, in fact, I think I got a little bit ahead of my wife and I said, I'm taking our kids. Let's go see frozen too. And she's like, wait a minute. Like, don't forget about me. Uh, so that's what really transformed in and it's, uh, and it has become a lot of fun, but it's also become a time of rest and unplug, which has been something that I did need. And so thank you so much for writing this and it changed my life. So tell us why, why did you write this book in and what do you want people to gain from it?

Speaker 3: 7:05

Yeah, I mean, I think like most people, I, I come to whatever motor come of wisdom I possess and maturity and clarity the way that most of us come to it and that's through suffering pain and failure and, you know, and, uh, I think that's pretty common for most of us. And so suffering and pain and failure for me looked like some of the shadow side to success. Um, very short version. I planted a church in my early twenties with another group, with a group of people. It grew very fast by about a thousand people a year for about seven years straight. By the time I was 30, I was pastoring a very large church working insane hours. And by outward American metrics, man, things were humming by way of Jesus metrics. Things were in a pretty bad way. There was no scandal in the sense of, I did not embezzle money or have an affair or whatever, but I, you know, if you just take the very basic metrics of maturity in the writings of Paul and in the teachings of Jesus, that kind of trifecta of love, joy and peace year over year, my apprenticeship to Jesus was not turning me into a more loving, more joyful and more peaceful person. But I was trending in the opposite direction with the increased pressure of leadership, adulthood parenting. Now the phone social media I was becoming, if anything, less loving, less joyful and far more anxious year over year. And I was just, you know, you hit that age where, when you're in your twenties, you feel really plastic and pliable. And you're like, you know, you kind of live with that question, who will I become? And what most 20 somethings don't realize is that feeling goes away. That question, you stop that question at some point. And it's replaced by like, dang like this who I became, you know? And not that you can't, you know, think of the saying you don't treat, you know, you don't, uh, teach an old dog new tricks who says that young people don't say that older people say that because you realize that you become more fixed and formed as a person with each passing year, with every habit, with every choice, every decision of your lifestyle. So, you know, a lot could be said about that point is I kind of hit that point where I, I could sharp the trajectory of my life and do a hypothetical future. And it was a bit terrifying and I realized, wow, I can be a quote success as a pastor, not actually, but by the Americanized Christianity, Christianity metrics and a failure as an apprentice of Jesus, as far as becoming a person of a God through loving relationships with other people. And so it was a real come to Jesus moment, as they would say in the South, a real kind of wake up call for me. And I, it was one of the, it was that season of life. Have you ever been there where it's like ever been in a season where you just feel confused? You know, something is wrong, but you're not quite sure what the problem is. The root issue, much less the solution. And there's just like an ambiguity in your mind. And it was one of those seasons for me. I just, I could tell something was not right about the way I was living the way I was following Jesus, this, that like the, the, there was a gap between what Jesus was saying was on offer with his easy yoke and what I was experiencing as a busy overbusy pastor and disciple. And that's when I came across that beautiful pithy wisdom of saying from the philosopher Dallas Willard, who called hurry the great enemy of spiritual life in our day and said, here was this advice. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. That's his work, not mine. I named my book after him and gave him credit from the first page, but that just struck like at a tuning fork level, this deep chord of resonance in my spirit. And I just would one of those aha moments of, ah, that's the, or a serious problem. And now let's make our way toward a solution. And that kind of started me on a multi-year journey that I'm still very much on over the last better part of a decade toward what Pete Scazzero would call a slowdown spirituality and both the idea, the aspirational kind of vision of, Hey, hurry is the great enemy. Let's slow down, be present to what is, and then the practice of it. Like, what does that actually look like when you have a demanding job, a little kids that wake up at six 30 in the morning and an iPhone and email and all the things you live in a city and the world's falling apart, or it feels like it. What does that actually look like day to day, week to week? That's kind of what the book came out of.

Speaker 2: 11:56

I love this and in the book and actually even recently, uh, and correct me if I'm wrong, but through that journey, it led you to a place where you actually ended up quitting things, quitting positions. So you got to this place, you talked about a striving in our twenties. And honestly, you know, a lot of people in ministry who are listening to this in their twenties and thirties, they're striving to have what you had, how I want to be pastor of a church of thousands or how I want the platform that John Mark has, or I want influence like that. Or I want to write books. You were there, you had it. And then all of a sudden you realize I'm not turning into the person I want to be. And so you actually quit things. And actually, I believe recently you just are transitioning again from pastor of your church. And so can you talk about the journey of actually quitting things and, you know, did you have an identity crisis once you left those things? Walk us through that journey. I'd just be interested to hear your insight.

Speaker 3: 12:42

Oh, heck yes. I mean, yes. I, I kind of, I joke that my career path, you know, careers, a little bit of a weird word for a pastor to use, but interpret that in a gracious way, a vocational path, if you want to use more Christian language is all about like downward mobility, you know, from multi-site mega church, pastor to mid-sized urban church. And now to like nonprofit, that will be me and my EA if we can afford her, you know, so it's all about downward mobility. Um, you know, that's, I, I quit. That's not all true, but yeah, I mean, I can romanticize it. Like then I was leaving this mega church and then I, I did not quit. Um, the simple version as I demoted myself, we were kind of a multi-site church. I was overall three and I basically resigned from leading all three and asked permission to be elders, to kind of, um, just going along sabbatical and then come back and just pastor one of our smaller congregations in the city where my heart was and kind of, we eventually moved to an autonomous church for all good reasons. Um, so it was more of a, of a voluntary demotion. If that makes sense, then it quitting. I've been at the same church for these 18 years now. And, um, all that to say, I would love to romanticize it, but I felt more like an addict, like coming off meth or something, you know, it was excruciating. And there was, I had to, you know, there's a, there's a Catholic, let me digress. There's a Catholic theologian named Michael Novak who has this great paradigm of the three levels of belief. Maybe you're familiar with this public belief, private belief, core belief, your public belief is what you say you believe, but it's not actually what you believe. So, you know, this is Harvey Weinstein, right before he was outed, standing up at whatever the award ceremony was giving a speech about the rights of women and wearing the pen before he was outed as a sexual predator. Right? So public belief, he didn't actually believe that private belief is what you think you believe, meaning it's what you, in your mind, if somebody were to ask you, do you believe in the resurrection of the dead? Or do you believe that God is with you? Or do you believe whatever you say? Yeah. I believe that. And you think you believe it, your core belief is what you actually believe. It's what your body is actually living. The mental maps that your body's actually living by and navigating the world by making decisions by. But often you don't even realize that at a conscious level, until it's revealed by suffering or pain. So we might say that we believe God is good and God is with us. But if we lose a loved one in a tragic accident or somebody we love is diagnosed with cancer, and God does not answer our prayers for healing, that will reveal what you actually believe about who God, I might say that I don't believe that money will make me happy. That might be my private belief, but I might be living from a core belief that actually says, I need more money to be happy and safe. And okay. You know what? You could use a thousand examples of this. So all that to say, as a pastor, I might say public belief or even think private belief that my identity is not what I do. It's who I'm loved by that I could be a pastor or a plumber, and it doesn't matter. The most important thing in life is who I become through union with Jesus and the relationships I form and forge along the way. That's all I will carry with me into eternity is my character, my relationships, what some people call your relational soul. I might say, I believe that I might even think I believe that. But what happens when all of the identities success is stripped away. And there's a brutal couple of years where I went from being a mega church pastor to a smaller church, that church began shrinking under my leadership, getting smaller, not larger. There was one. And I felt like I had stuff that God put in me that I felt what was I even for the church at large. And it was trending in the exact opposite direction. I felt like all of my best days as a leader, as a pastor were behind me. And, um, I felt like I would just manage the client over the years to come, you know, and that called into question, all of the, where is my identity actually found? What is God's call on me? What, what is my leadership, actual pastoral leadership, which is a form of suffering love. And what is ego ambition, greed desire for fame or American success or Americanized success masquerading through spiritual language and mental gymnastics as pastoral leadership. It called all of that. I say, I'm happy if I have God and some basic needs met and community. Do I actually believe that when my church is smaller week after week after week, so mat it refined me like nobody's business. It put all of that to the test. And I can't say that, like it solved all the problems and now I'm a Saint and never struggle with those things anymore. But that painful work of what felt like humiliation at the time was really the seeds of my liberation. As some would say, breakthroughs often start with breakdowns. And so it was a breakdown at an emotional level for me, but it became a breakthrough.

Speaker 2: 18:04

Yeah. So a few things, one, I guess I'm just curious, what would you say to the leader who, who maybe they're continually strive they're in the same position you were, and they're just like, I don't think I could do that. You know, I feel like I'm in over my head. I don't know if I'm ultimately called to do this, but how would you actually encourage someone to actually process whether or not they're supposed to not walk away, but even, maybe in demote themselves into something else that God may have for them?

Speaker 3: 18:28

Yeah. Well, you know, it's interesting to ask that question right now because we're coming out of 2020, uh, in theory coming out of COVID. So all of us are not only exhausted, but feeling for the most part, pretty dang beat up. So I think right now we should, you know, you don't want to make major decisions from a place of exhaustion of wounding as a general rule. You know, sometimes you have to, but as a general rule, you want to make decisions slowly over a long period of time with community, with much waiting on God and from a place of rest and peace, not exhaustion and fear, you know, so if I was a leader, I'd just be really slow to make any major life decisions until 20, 22. And until I've had a very long summer vacation, some, some good therapy, you know, um, you know, as I, I don't know, there there's a couple of different streams of decision-making process down through the Christian tradition. One is the kind of Ignation tradition like Ignatius work. Um, even for those of us that aren't Catholics has worked around decision-making and what he would call discernment is utterly phenomenal. And there's great resources online that you can read or listen to kind of to guide you through. And he would almost, you know, Ignatius has such a sophisticated view of desire and an understanding of your desires that are the desires of your flesh and your desires that are of the spirit that are God's desire when you through your desire. So he has this very sophisticated apparatus by which you break down decisions into a thousand kind of tiny questions and tiny, uh, does self awareness questions of discernment that kind of add up into one major decision. So just by paying close attention to your desire through quiet prayer, that's one stream, the other stream would be the, like just communal decision-making, you know, that you see exemplified on like a Quaker clearness committee or in the evangelical. Like I have a mentor and I ask for counsel kind of thing, same, same basic principle. We make decisions in communities. We're big believers in communal discernment. You don't make any of these decisions alone. My decision eight years ago to resign or demote myself and my decision. Um, more recently over the last few years to step down for leading this church that I started and to launch out in the middle of my life, when my kids are approaching college, all of that to start a nonprofit from scratch, which could utterly, completely fail and flop. I have no idea those were made with, I mean, dozens of people, honestly, or at least a dozen or two people were involved in those decisions. That was not a decision I made, or my wife and I like prayed about it one morning without on date night and decided to whatever that was, the leaders, our mentors, our family, our leaders, our community, our friends, we're all a part of that decision. And then the third stream is like the more charismatic Gideon's fleece kind of stream, you know, where you're just looking for God and his conspiracy of Providence. What is God doing? You know, I'm a, I'm a charismatic at heart, if not in personality. And so for me, that was looking for like double prophetic confirmation. I wanted at least two prophetic words spoken over my life by people who had no idea what I was considering doing. Um, before I, and when it happened this last spring, when I was making this major decision to step down, there were two eerily prophetic words that came on eerily, prophetic moments within the hour of asking for them. It's a very long story that it was one of those, like, man, I'm a, I'm a pretty, pretty cynical or pretty skeptical person by nature and men that it's pretty hard to like, it's where you get like new age people being like the universe has your back or whatever. I'm like, ah, I don't think it's a universe. I think it's God, there are certain moments where it's just like, man, like the coincidence there just does not, I believe in luck, I believe in that theologically, but just does not compute on this one. You know? So I think some of those decisions, long story short don't make decisions when you're exhausted or scared, make them when you're rested and at peace before God and surrender to him, do the Ignation staff. If you're not familiar with it, go read up on it, do it with other people and look for the conspiracy of God. And in the, in the Providences of your life would be kind of my, my peace.

Speaker 2: 22:49

Uh, I'm curious, you know, you've processed through this, you did the hard work. How would you say that you define success prior to making this journey and you know, now that you're even launching your own nonprofit well, how do you view success today?

Speaker 3: 23:02

Yeah, I mean, gosh, let's just be honest. I think, uh, my therapist has this great phrase. He talks about what he calls the gospel of upward mobility, which is kind of the, the gospel of America. You know, meaning, meaning like the kind of good news of America is if you work hard enough and you pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you're smart and whatever that your life can just kind of go from more, to more, to more and more success, more square footage, more fame or status, more pleasure, more freedom as defined by choice, you know, whatever. And of course, you know, um, the racial uprising of the last couple of years has really called that whole rubric into question, but that's still like very much alive and well in the kind of ethos and just the atmosphere, the air that we breathe as Americans. And there's often a, an Americanized version of the gospel that falls prey to that kind of upward mobility kind of life is up into the right mindset that you see in popular slogans. Like the best is yet to come. So honestly, I think success for me was like the gospel of upper mobility. It was up into the right. It was each year, it was more people in our church. I'm making more money, I'm more successful selling more books. I'm happier, I'm having more fun, more pleasure in my life. My marriage is better. My kids turn out perfect. You know, it was that kind of American up into the right suffering was not in part of it. And honestly, character, it was there, but it wasn't the driving thing. And, um, and that was honestly, you know, that we can critique churches for their, you know, metrics of success, which are basically butts, budgets, buildings, and buzz. You can critique the four BS, but you know, it's easier to point the finger than direct recognize that whatever we do for work, those kinds of American metrics, bigger, better, faster, easier, more pleasurable. Those are in all of us, all of us have that kind of inner mental map that we received from our culture and, you know, plays in a deep part of who we are. So my, my metrics now there's my aspirational metrics. And then there's my core beliefs. You know, my aspirational metrics are, I would love to live from a core belief that the most important thing in life is the person I become through union with Jesus and the relationships that I've formed along the spiritual journey. That's what matters at the end of the day, who do I become in Jesus and who, who do I become that person with? Those are my metrics for success. Am I becoming more loving, more joyful, more peaceful, more wise and bold and courageous and calm, more, more patient, more, slow to speak, slow quick to listen and slow to become angry year over year, more like Christ. And as a result, more of my true self that God made me to be. If you're fleeing wonderfully before I was in my mother's womb. And am I developing deep, meaningful, rich relationships with other souls that last for a long seasons, if not for a lifetime and will last into the age to come, I would love those to be my two primary metrics for success and maybe a third one being, am I doing the work that God has called me to do? Can I say with Jesus, I always do it pleases the father. And when I get to the end of my life, can I say, I've finished the work that the father gave me to do, which is a small work. It's my particular burdens, not the work of saving the world or saving the church or even saving our church. Each of us has our particular burden from God, our vocation, if you want to call it that our calling of the contribution that God has made has made us to make in public or private glamorous, or very mundane have I done what God's called me to do? I'd love those three kind of metrics, uh, which in our frame of discipleship, it's be with Jesus to be a disciple or to apprentice under Jesus, deliver on three goals, be with Jesus, become like Jesus and do what he did. So it's kind of that like, am I, am I growing in union with Jesus through prayer? Am I becoming a Christ-like person through relationship? Am I doing what God made me to do? Those are the three kind of basic metrics. Those might not be my core beliefs yet. They might still be at a private belief level, but I'm really wanting to integrate those into the core of my being.

Speaker 2: 27:36

That's so good. And, and really you, you talked about that's what you've aspired to, but you wrote this book because at some point in your journey, what was holding you back from that was the pace and everything you had coming at you and it looks book. Yeah. And in the book with this elimination of her, you've laid out for solutions, silence, and solitude Sabbath, which we talked a little bit about simplicity and slowing and, you know, I'll just leave this open-ended, you know, what are some ways that you've slowed your life or ruthlessly eliminate hurry in your life and your family's life to enable you to become more like Jesus.

Speaker 3: 28:07

Yeah. I mean, gosh, it's like life is a living experiment, right. You know, our body's kind of a laboratory and sense for discipleship to Jesus and, and there's some really unique challenges that we're facing that human beings had never really faced before, at least in this way, through technology and particular through the iPhone or a smartphone, um, through the internet, through social media, through entertainment culture, uh, like this is just some really great challenges and whatever our discipleship to Jesus and our war against kind of hurry, looks like in the modern era. It must take very seriously, um, our role and our relationship to all to the digital world. I mean, that's really, I think the moment we're living through, uh, will be described by historians a hundred years from now as the shift from an industrial or even information based economy to a digital world and digital economy and the, and the disruption and chaos that was created by that, you know, now whether or not the future is like hunger games, you know, and the world falls apart, or whether, hopefully as, as America went through a really tumultuous time, 150 years ago, and the shift from an agrarian economy to an industrial one, do we, do we find ways to reacclimate? And, you know, do we look back at everybody, you know, tweeting and texting and carrying smartphones around 50 years from now, the way that we look back on people, you know, in, in, in slums, in New York or smoking, you know, 20 cigarettes a day or whatever, and be like, what were they thinking? They had no idea. You know, we figured it out. I don't know. I want to be, I hope the latter, not the former, but I want to be a part of the latter, not the former. So all that to say, I think, um, whatever our leadership and discipleship to Jesus look like in this era, it must take very seriously our relationship to technology through practices like a digital Sabbath. You know, we put all of our devices in a box before every Sabbath, our phone, our laptop or iPad, we don't have a TV, but if we had one we'd unplug it or something, you know, can, all of it goes away and off. You know, we have a lot of disciplines like that to limit our addiction to technology.

Speaker 2: 30:22

Yeah. This is Eugene. I don't know if you put this in the book or if I, I may have missed it, but I was just listening to you on, um, the intentional parenting podcast. And it was the first time I realized you didn't have a TV in your house. Actually. We just got the tech-wise family book by Andy crouch. Um, because you recommended it, but can you just give a plug for no TV? I love Andrew rule. I think your kids, no smartphones. So 18, no phones, no 16. Is that correct?

Speaker 3: 30:45

Yeah. Uh, yes, the rule we'll see. I mean, our oldest is 15, so, so far we've been disciplined. Well, we'll see if we follow through it. Yeah. The rule is no phones till 16, no smartphone till 18, no social media till three months before college. And even then we will strongly discourage you from ever using social media. I'm more and more of the conviction that you should only use social media for work. And only if you have to, um, as my, in my growing kind of opinion, that's all it is. And the opinion, I'm not trying to moralize that, just an opinion, but that is my growing stronger. But with each day opinion, uh, yeah, I mean, it doesn't really mean much anymore to not have a TV in your house. It meant something. When we first got married, I was like, I played in indie rock bands when I was in college. And I had at 1977 Volkswagen bus back in the day, all my, my guitar gear and the drum set around in, and I had to kill your TV bumper sticker on the back of it. Remember that from the late nineties, which was my kind of indie rock, like, you know, fight it or whatever. So I've had that. I grew up in a interest, great home, strict home. Uh, we never had cable. We did have a TV and a VHS player. We never had cable and I was never allowed to play any video games. And I thought it was just short of criminal as a child. And now I am beyond grateful. I mean, it shaped me. I don't even know how I could do much of the work I do now if I had grown up in a different kind of atmosphere. So yeah, I mean, knowing that our kids will kind of hate us for it now, I hate us for it now and hopefully love us for it later. We've put in some strict parameters and we, you know, but not having a TV now doesn't really mean anything anymore because everything's just streaming through websites now. So, um, so now it's more about strict discipline around devices and yeah, we're not a family where our kids have iPads and they're up in their room doing whatever they want. And you know what I mean? It's, that's not, that's not the vibe of our home. You know, there's no TV there. We do have like a big movie projector that we set up. And once a week we do family movie night and it's awesome. It takes, you know, like 15 minute we set the whole thing up. We make a whole night of it. And it's a really fun. We look forward to it. The kids talk all week long about what movie we're going to watch that week. But we're also pretty strict about like at a moral level. We really believe in, um, both the neuroscience and the ancient kind of Christian wisdom of, you know, you become what you contemplate. You become what you look at, think about and give your attention to. So we take very seriously. We have a high view for art and art that is honest about the depravity of the human condition. And I want to teach our kids to be a cultural critics at some level of film and art and literature. But at the same time, we also really want to guard that inner part of us because when we become like what we give our eyes and our attention to. So we have, we have just some personal deep convictions about, about mental curation in our family's life.

Speaker 2: 33:49

Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. And, um, with the time I have left, I just want to go through a few of our lightning round questions. Cause I think it'd be fun with you. Sure. Again, if you're listening to this and have not purchased the ruthless elimination, hurry, I can't recommend it enough. I already shared how it changed my life. What would say the same thing. So make sure you go get a copy of that. Um, I had someone ask him when I told people I was interviewing you. I thought it was a great question. What is your strategy? Um, for reading both in variety and quantity, I'll just leave it open.

Speaker 3: 34:18

Um, when I'm my best self and I'm on my rule of life, which is not always COVID has, has been a really hard year for me. Um, it's an hour every morning of reading work-related stuff, nonfiction stuff before I turn on my phone. So I get up, I do time and prayer and scripture, and then I will try to read for an hour before I touch my phone. Um, and then at night I read fiction before I fall asleep and then more reading on my day off in the Sabbath and vacation. Um, I'm always reading a couple of different John Reza books at a time, but Sabbath I'll always carve out kind of any long gated time for reading as well. So I shoot for, uh, my, my quota's two books a week and it's really not that hard to get through that reading an hour every morning and you know, maybe two hours, three hours on the Sabbath. But again, I love reading. I mean, reading is about the discipline and a delight for me. I don't love all reading. Um, some reading is just pure work. Some of it's just pure delight depends on what it is.

Speaker 2: 35:18

All right. Uh, if you could put a quote on a billboard for everyone to read, what would it say

Speaker 3: 35:22

You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life,

Speaker 2: 35:25

Go, uh, what's the best purchase you've made in the last year for a hundred dollars or less,

Speaker 3: 35:32

A hundred dollars or less. I bought an expensive bottle of wine for my 40th birthday. Nice. And I thank you. And it was wonderful experience.

Speaker 2: 35:51

Uh, what do you wish people knew about your journey that they may not know

Speaker 3: 35:57

That I've made a lot of mistakes and had a lot of failure along the way.

Speaker 2: 36:02

Do you have a favorite failure that led to a success or led to a valuable lesson that you always share?

Speaker 3: 36:07

No, I have no favorite failures. I hate all of them and yet deeply grateful for what God has done through them.

Speaker 2: 36:16

What's your greatest challenge right now,

Speaker 3: 36:20

Politics and the way that people have been completely co-opted by ideologies on the left and on the right and tend to not even think Christianly about the great questions and issues of our day, but tend to think ideologically based on whatever side of the spectrum they come from and that the lever of anger on social media is probably the greatest challenge I face right now.

Speaker 2: 36:46

When you get to spend time with a great leader, someone that you want to learn with, is there a question or learn from, is there a question that you always ask every time?

Speaker 3: 36:55

Yeah. I always ask about their schedule. Hmm.

Speaker 2: 36:59

What about their schedule? Because whatever, whatever you ask, I want to hear about your schedule then. Yeah. What's the schedule?

Speaker 3: 37:05

How do they flow their week? What time do they get up? How do they reading questions? Rest questions. Um, yeah, always ask schedule questions, and then I'll often ask on a metric of success questions. Like how do you know? And then just dealing with pressures, how do you deal with various pressures? You know, whatever. They may be criticism expectations. You can't meet getting attacked by people online, whatever it is, you know?

Speaker 2: 37:32

Yeah. Out of the three. Can we go with that one? I'd be curious your answer to that. How do you deal with pain? The hard things of leadership criticism? How do you process that?

Speaker 3: 37:43

Uh, yeah. I mean, no it's complex, right? I mean, it's just, it's really hard. And, um, multiple, let me say, I mean, multiple, you know, one would be rest when I'm carrying a lot of criticism or attack, or right now I have to process that from place of rest. I need to give more time to Sabbath and to quiet prayer too. Um, massive for me is like contemplative prayer practices. So, um, there's, uh, gosh, so much could be said here. Let me give you two quick reading recommendations. Um, both of which I do not endorse theologically. So I say that one is, there's a little booklet called the welcoming prayer. Um, that's put out by contemplative institutes, uh, somewhere out your direction. I think if you Google the welcoming prayer, it should come up. It's a short 40 day kind of prayer journal and prayer journey into a contemplative prayer called the welcoming prayer. I pray that most mornings in particular on days when I'm dealing with relational conflict or pain or criticism, and it's a practice that doesn't take very long, it's been transformative for me. And then there's, um, there's a trilogy starting with a book called into the silent land by Martin layered. That is utterly phenomenal. There's a bunch of theology in it that I would disagree be more on the progressive side. Um, but there's just a rich, well there to drink from about kind of contemplative prayer identity, disconnecting from your emotions and feelings and finding a deeper place of abiding in Christ. Um, so I do a lot of those are two book recommendations and I do a lot of contemplative prayer. Third would be therapy is crucial for me. I have a weekly therapist appointment and of course I have an amazing therapist. So therapy in general. Isn't good for you. It's a good therapist. That's good for you. So you have to find a good wise soul. Um, you can't recommend therapy any more that you can recognize, recommend church or whatever. You know what I mean? There's bad churches and there's bad therapists and you need a guard your heart, but there's incredible ones that will transform your life forever. I've been gracious enough by the kindness of God to find one, uh, then like just deep relationships. I just have a couple, I'm an introvert. So I don't have, I'm not a super social person, but I have a couple really close friends. And one that I talk with every single Friday and usually a couple of times a week, we'll be in contact, but long conversation once a week, he lives in a different city, but you know, we just committed to that kind of deep soul friendship. And I have another guy like that here in town, you know, just some really deep relationships to process that kind of pain with. And sometimes just talking about it, a lot of them just not a solution, there's just not a fix. Um, and so just kind of processing the pain and relationship, letting go of the pain and prayer and resting and letting God restore you through Sabbath and sleep and rest and margin. Those are some of the key kind of ways that I deal with it.

Speaker 2: 40:45

And this has been a rich conversation. And as we come to a close, is there anything else that you'd like to leave leaders with today?

Speaker 3: 40:54

You know, I would just love to warn you slash encourage you that I think one of the great tasks before leaders over the next six months is rest and healing. I was listening to, uh, uh, shortly the interview with Tim Keller from New York, I think last spring, right when COVID first hit. And he mentioned that two years after nine 11 in New York city, there was a way of, of pastoral resignations. Um, it's like this, there's this big adrenaline push to get churches through the trauma of nine 11 in New York. And then a bunch of pastors burned out was his interpretation. And, um, I would imagine that COVID, which is not a tragic day, but a tragic year and a half or so is going to have an exponential effect. We've already seen a wave of pastoral resignations for good reasons and bad ones over the last six to 12 months, I would imagine even more, a cascade effect over the next 12 to 18 months. We have to rest our souls and we have to tend to our wounds because most of us right now are exhausted. We've been in that place for over a year. And most of us are pretty wounded. I don't know any leaders that made it through the last year, feeling unscathed and often wounded by the very people that we attempt to serve. And so, um, we have to tend to our wounds and rest our souls, or we will likely not, and in a good place or a scenario at all. So I would just really encourage you. Are you making plans that the world is starting to go back to normal? The impetus is going to be to rush out and get everything going again. But actually this summer, it could be the first time when a lot of us actually could, since COVID started really disconnect and tend to our souls and tend to our bodies and tend to our relationships. And that's the great task we can't think about how do we get through the next 12 months? We have to think about how do I get through the next 12 years or the next 20 years, or the next 50 years of leadership and, and have a thriving soul and, uh, uh, uh, character of integrity and a marriage and a family, whatever it is. So I think my, my gracious invitation would be pleased rest, please rest for a long time, it's going to take you a lot longer to recover from this year than you think. And please tend to your wounds. If that looks like therapy, it looks like inner healing. If it looks like a silence and solitude retreat, it looks like whatever it looks like for you tend to your wounds, um, because we cannot minister and fruitfulness from a place of exhaustion and wounding. And so sometimes you have you're in that place and you have to persevere through it because that's what the moment calls for. But that moment is coming to an end. And I think the task before us is less about what we do and about how we posture our bodies for healing and rest.

Speaker 2: 43:56

John Mark, thank you so much for investing in will and I today, and everyone that are listening to this podcast and just thank you for your ministry. It's I know it's helping people all over the world, so thank you.

Speaker 3: 44:04

It's an honor, Doug, and thanks for having me on

Speaker 2: 44:10

Hey leader. Thank you so much for listening to my conversation with John Mark Homer. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did. You can find ways to connect with him and links to everything that we discussed in the show notes@lthreeleadership.org forward slash two seven five. And as always, if this episode helped you, it would mean the world to me. If you would share your key takeaways on social media or send this to a few leaders, you think you could add value to it's how we grow our audience and reach more leaders. So thank you in advance for that and leader, if you want a 10 extra growth this year, then I really want to challenge you to either launch or join an L three leadership mastermind group mastermind groups, or groups of six to 12 leaders that meet together for at least one year in order to help each other grow to their maximum potential, achieve their goals and to do life together. I've been in a mastermind group now for six years, and it's been the single greatest source of growth in my life. And so if you're interested in learning more about either launching or joining an LTD leadership mastermind group, go to L three leadership.org forward slash masterminds. And I like to end every episode with a quote and I'll quote Dallas Willard, who you've heard multiple times throughout today's episode, but I think you need to hear it again. Dallas Willard said this. He said, you must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. What a challenge to all of us leaders. I hope today's conversation encouraged you. I hope it added value to your life. Lauren, I love you so much and we will talk to you next episode.

Speaker 4: 45:35

[inaudible].