Sunday School | The Church's Place in the Public Square

I want to tell you, I'm incredibly excited about what we're going to do here today. I think this is going to be rich. I think it's going to be a sweet time for us as the body of Christ. I think this is what it means to be the body of Christ—when we are willing to have sometimes potentially uncomfortable conversations together.

As I set this time up, I mentioned to you, if you got my email this week, I said that the first half of this is going to be prepared thoughts from Tim and me, and then the last half of this is going to be a time for Q&A.

The Gospel Before the Call

As many of you know, I cut my teeth in ministry on Young Life staff, and we had something at Young Life camp called the smokers pit. That really represented something, and it was this: we're not going to expect kids to live differently until they've experienced and heard the gospel. We're going to meet them where they are.

So we had a smokers pit because we thought that, way back in the forties when this thing kicked off, lots of kids smoked cigarettes. Now it's vape. We tried to observe the law, but we had this place where kids who don't know Christ could smoke cigarettes because that's what non-Christian kids did.

I carried that framework into my life in the public square. In fact, at times I winced when I would hear pastors engage on what was happening in the world because my thought was, it isn't right to impose a Christian worldview on people that don't know Christ.

A Change in Perspective

I want to say before you this morning that over the last couple of years, I've realized that while that works at Young Life Camp, I think it's an error. I think there was something I had been missing in my framework, and here's why.

Jesus calls himself the light of the world, but he also calls you and me the light of the world. He also calls us the salt of the earth. Salt is a preservative, and it is part of our responsibility as salt and light to help a world that does not know the God that made them and the world that they live in, how he designed it to be lived.

I always thought it was rude to impose a Christian worldview, but now I'm realizing that when the church goes silent, the world gets darker. People don't know how God designed the world to be lived, and it is a great kindness when we enter in and are willing to say uncomfortable things—not in an argumentative way, but to a world that desperately needs to know him, but also how he designed his world to operate and to function.

Finding the Third Way

Historically, there are a couple of different kinds of churches. There are those who blur the lines between their chosen political party and the church. Maybe one of the best visible representations of this is flags. Maybe you see churches in town that have a rainbow flag out front, or maybe you see churches where in the sanctuary they have an American flag. These are examples of people too closely blurring their political ideas and platform with the gospel. We're not going to do that. That's what I said in my email.

The safest place for a church to stand is in silence, to not offend. I don't want to step on anyone's toes. Because here's the deal:

Be wise towards those who are without. — Paul

We really want to do that. We want to be wise. We don't want to be in your face. The light we are the light of the world—it can be either helpful or it can be harmful. If you shine your light in someone's eyes, it hurts. It's not helpful. But there is a way, and we need to figure it out.

So there's these two extremes, and what we're trying to figure out this morning is a third way, and it's probably going to be messy. We might not get it right every time, but we're going to try. We're not going to be silent, and we're not going to too closely align with any one political platform. What we are going to be is Bible people. We're going to be under Christ and his reign.

A Word About the Email

I want you guys to know I've gotten this question a few times this week: Did you know Tim was sending that email? I just want to say publicly in front of everyone—yes. Tim sent it to me, God help him, and seven other people, and we read it. I had a really busy day. I looked over it. I made some suggestions. Tim adopted those suggestions, and he sent it.

Now I'll also tell you, having some distance from that, there may have been some things and Tim, if I'd had this conversation, and maybe this will come up during the Q&A—there might have been some things that I wish we would have tweaked and changed about the email. But we still would have sent it. And we'll talk about why during Tim's section.

So I want to pray for us, and I'm going to hand it over to Tim. Father, we thank you. We love you. We need you.

We want to be salt. We want to be light, and we want to walk in wisdom towards those who are without. Help us. And I pray that this conversation that we're gonna have now would bear good fruit in Christ's name. Amen.

Tim Henderson, ladies and gentlemen. Alright. So as Dave said, we're gonna do some prepared remarks, and then we will take some Q&A. The way we're gonna do Q&A this morning is we'd like you to text them in. If you could point to here—let's see. Throw that up there, Caleb. There should be a slide that's got a QR code you can point your phone at or you can just type in the number. We don't want your questions. So that's how that's gonna go. Maybe it'll be there. It'll be there before too long, I'm sure. Okay. And so you can point your phone at it, or just type in the number. Bob Beck Smith is gonna be sitting here madly trying to prioritize the questions that seem to have the greatest resonance. And then when I'm done talking, Dave will come back up and we'll talk about stuff together. Okay?

How Christians Should Speak About Politics

So basically, as Luke said, what we wanna share with you is how CHS thinks that Christians and churches and Christian leaders should talk about topics that are traditionally labeled as political. Now for the better part of a generation, the assumed answer in most quarters to that question is that you should not talk about politics. Our assumption this morning is that for many of you that will be a very familiar perspective. So familiar perhaps, that it may not have even occurred to you to question how you came to hold that view. And it may not have occurred to you to question like: is that biblically grounded, right? Maybe you have some sense of there's supposed to be a separation between church and state, and so we're just supposed to play by those rules.

Now I would agree that avoiding any discussion on things political is unquestioningly the safest strategy for a church that doesn't wanna lose members. And it's probably also the most convenient strategy for a pastor who doesn't like getting emails from unhappy people. But depending on what you mean by that, I don't think that it's biblically grounded. And I don't think that it's biblically defensible. And so that's kind of what I wanna talk about this morning.

First, I just wanna echo the word of reassurance that Luke gave you. Church of the Holy Spirit is not a political organization, it is not a partisan organization. We are not and never will be a wing of any political party. We will never swear allegiance to any political candidate. That's simply not on the table. We will never take our eyes off our focus of making healthy disciples who make healthy disciples. We are deeply and joyfully entrenched in the critical work of doing evangelism and discipleship.

Our obligation is to faithfully teach the scriptures, to care for the poor, to honor Christ, to provoke worship, to let our primary citizenship be in heaven, and above all, to keep Jesus at the center of all things. And it is for that exact reason, as well as our obligation to teach the whole counsel of Scripture, that we also refuse to withdraw from the world, to voluntarily refrain from speaking about the most important things that are happening in our culture.

I want you just for a minute to consider this perspective that says that Christians are not allowed, or Christian leaders are not allowed to speak into whatever we call politics. The problem with doing that, you guys, is once you have established an area that is off limits for Christian leaders to speak into, then the culture not only can place, but will place and has placed into that supposedly off limit zone enormously important things about which we must speak.

Friends, we are to be salt and light in the world. And if we refuse to speak into the world due to a self-imposed gag order, then the world loses our needed voice. Not only that, but if church leadership refuses to speak to you, then we are failing in our obligation to disciple you. And I assure you that a godless world has no such scruples, and they are altogether too happy to speak into the silence created through our abdication.

Just consider some of the things that are labeled as political. Do not talk about abortion, transgenderism, divorce, racism, poverty, immigration, sexuality, war, gambling, pride. Those things are in fact deeply theological, and they are deeply anthropological. And they are well within the domain of things about which we must speak.

Now, how big exactly is that domain? Well, Psalm 24:1 says:

The earth is the Lord's and everything in it.

Dutch theologian and prime minister Abraham Kuiper captured this in a way that was so pithy, so powerful that it's been quoted literally hundreds of thousands of times.

When he said, there is not one square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ who is sovereign over all does not cry mine. It is all his. And Dave and I deeply believe that the lordship of Christ extends to every corner of the human experience. And therefore, we have an opportunity, yea, even an obligation to speak into the most crucial issues happening in the world, even if they happen to be labeled as political.

Now, in believing this, we are not in any way departing from the rich, biblical tradition in history of believing leaders, who through the centuries have spoken to civil leaders. We do not have a thorough look at this, but I'll just hit some of the highlights. Consider this:

• Moses confronted Pharaoh
• Nathan confronted King David
• Elijah confronted King Ahab again, and again, and again
• Nehemiah confronted the nobles and the officials that were exacting usury
• Isaiah confronted Kings Ahaz and Hezekiah
• Jeremiah confronted King Jehoiakim and Zedekiah
• Daniel confronted Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar
• Amos confronted literally every civil leader in any nation remotely proximate to Israel and Judah, and then confronted the leaders of Israel and Judah themselves
• Micah did the same
• John the Baptist confronted Herod
• Jesus confronted Herod
• Paul and Peter confronted the quasi civil religious leaders of their day

Spiritual leaders throughout the scriptures rebuked political leaders for their pride and arrogance. They warned them of the judgment of God, citing examples of rulers who had gone before them who also demonstrated the same pride and disobedience. They rebuked them for their sexual practices, questioned their faithfulness. They warned them of the wrath of God and exhorted them to humble themselves before him. They did so publicly, they did so privately. They wrote about what they said so that we could read it too. They rebuked believing and unbelieving leaders in their own countries and outside of it. And in so doing, they modeled for us an expansive domain into which we may and must speak.

Spiritual leaders throughout the scriptures did not merely address civil leaders, they addressed political topics such as care for and abuse of the poor, slavery, taxation, interest rates, warfare, breaking treaties, border disputes, unjust courts, and bribery. Nothing was off limits because nothing is off limits.

Our Approach at Church of the Holy Spirit

Now, having said all that, Church of the Holy Spirit is not within a thousand miles of becoming a Sunday morning news show. We will never be a Sunday morning news show. There's just too much that we are eager to discuss and draw from the scriptures as we relish the gospel together, as we worship our Lord, and as we present him to you as clearly and compellingly and as winsomely as we can. I am hopeful that the feedback that we've gotten about the John series is evidence that you already know this to be true.

And as we continue on that exact same track, inevitably, important things will happen on the world stage and very often, we will feel compelled to talk about them. Truthfully, important things happen every single week. And it will be that way for the rest of time. And there will be many, many, many weeks where we need to resist the temptation to talk about current events because we simply cannot talk about everything. But the fact that we cannot talk about everything does not mean that we are not allowed to talk about anything.

In the last years, I combed my mind for the things that we discussed that could be considered political. I believe we talked about the Charlottesville shooting, the need to disagree agreeably. I turned my Sunday school class one week into a discussion of the great moral evil of abortion, and the grave threat that just came to pass this Tuesday is gerrymandering redistricting may have locked Virginia into being a state that will be heavily pro-choice for years to come. It is grievous. We warned of it and it came to pass. We will see tomorrow what the Virginia State Supreme Court chooses to do about that.

Those topics were not that popular for several of my friends in this church who lean left in their political preferences. But addressing them created an opportunity for conversations of which I had many. There were people who didn't appreciate what we said or that we said it, and I was grateful for every one of those conversations. And I love my friends here who disagree with me, as I think and hope that they know and experience.

And then last week, not remotely in the interest of equal time, but simply in the interest of honesty, under Dave's authority and in collaboration with him, I commented on a posting that President Trump had made of himself that was inarguably theological in nature. Some of my friends on the right took offense at that.

Now, just candidly, I found it puzzling that people would ask me not to talk about politics when a politician was so explicitly saying something theological. Even if you disagree with my opening comments that we are allowed to talk about literally anything and everything, I would hope that people of goodwill could agree that that particular image was fundamentally and unavoidably theological. And if you don't see that, or perhaps—and I say this tenderly—but if you're more offended by my remarks than by that image, I wonder if that might provoke you to a little bit of curiosity. Just to wonder why. Why do you weigh those as you do?

Now, we've gotten lots and lots of emails this week. Overwhelmingly supportive, warm, and friendly. And even the ones that are disagreeing are disagreeing in good Christian charity, as we want to do. We want to disagree agreeably. We want to work together.

But one question I got a couple times, I just want to mention. The question is: why don't you keep your opinions to yourself and let other people form their own opinions? I really appreciate that question. I want to answer it.

First of all, I promise you, people will form their own opinions. That's not a risk. That is going to happen whether any of us like it or not. So I have no fear of that.

But more earnestly, it is always Sloop's pleasure and my pleasure. It is our obligation to seek to shape your beliefs. That is literally our job description. And it is not a responsibility that we take lightly. We have read James 3, that says that we who teach will be judged more strictly. And it is with that in mind that it is our job to show you what God's word says and to bring it to bear into this actual broken world.

We who teach will be judged more strictly. — James 3

So if it is surprising to you that we would seek to shape your thinking, I have bad news for you. All day, every day. Every time we're behind this lectern or the pulpit, if we're in a Bible study, if we're writing, anytime we are teaching in a large group, in a small group, one on one—friends, we are trying to change your mind. This is what we are doing. We are not here to amuse you. We are not here to entertain you. We want to persuade you of what is true in light of God's word. We want to help you love and do that which is good. We want you to see and delight in what is beautiful. And where you are mistaken, we want to correct you. Where you are correct, we want to encourage you to go deeper still. When you're thinking poorly or not thinking at all, we want to win you to a new way of thinking—not by force or coercion, but through kindness and reason and always through the lens of Scripture.

And Dave and I want the same from you. Help us. You may see something more clearly than we do. You may have had experiences that we haven't had that would be tremendously beneficial for us to learn from. Iron sharpens iron. It doesn't dull it. And we are to engage with one another. We are to love one another.

God's word is useful for teaching and rebuking and correcting and training, so that all of us will be well equipped for every good work.

That is just what it means to live in Christian community. It's what it means to be a pastor. And the truth is, you guys, every one of us, myself included, has disordered loves. We are all about the great work of reordering those loves, so that we might prize things and prioritize things in the manner and to the degree that our Lord prizes them.

The Church's Engagement with the World

That is my opening take. Christian leaders must not voluntarily sit at the kiddies table, discussing religious abstractions, while the grown-ups are talking about the things that matter in this world. We are to be thoroughly engaged in the things that are happening and in the things that matter. We are to be salt and light. And I think it would be highly preferable as we discuss things that we would do so with a worldview that is richly informed by Scripture. We should be well practiced at disagreeing agreeably, as we try to discern what is true, and as we let go of our pet preferences that cannot survive biblical scrutiny. It's important that we follow the patterns of those that have gone before us in grace and truth, in kindness and in conflict, bringing God's word to bear in every sphere of life.

That's my opening bid, and we would love to hear from you and take some questions and process through. So we'll yield to Bob and go from there.

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First question: Can you explain why we've had three flashpoint political sessions or communications in the church within the past six months, while not addressing other issues in the same way during the three previous years? What's changed?

Well, I would say first of all, just because we can't talk about everything does not mean that we can't talk about anything. We are prayerful and thoughtful about what we do choose—not in the interest of equal time, but what we think you need to hear. Now you may disagree with some of our judgments, and that's okay, but we're not playing favoritism. We really are seeking to be spirit led in all of those decisions.

What changed for me personally? My own conviction about who the church is supposed to be has been changing. It's fresh for me. And so I have tremendous grace for those of you who might be where I was a couple of years ago, thinking that the church probably just needs to be quiet and not offend and not take a stand. I have changed. I happen to be in a position of leadership, and therefore, some of the direction that we move will be a reflection of what God is doing in me. Sometimes that might be uncomfortable. And sometimes you might disagree with that.

Church History and Political Engagement

I think the history of the Church of the Holy Spirit actually has very significant political flashpoints in it. We split away from a denomination and suffered significantly over what were unmistakably the intersection of political and theological issues. So I don't think it's actually that big of a departure that we would speak about those things.

Every week, there's something that we could choose to talk about. We have picked a couple of things that I think were particularly significant. What I found noteworthy about this moment—first would be, the actual posting that the president made was so obviously not merely political, and it touched on my primary allegiance in this world, which is to Jesus. I think the appropriation of his image was worthy of comment.

Syncretism and Cultural Drift

Every expression of Christianity that has ever existed is fundamentally syncretistic. What that means is that nobody is purely Christian. Everyone in this room is a Republican Christian, or a Democrat Christian, or an American Christian, or a capitalist Christian. Every one of us. You're a medieval Christian, you're a Roman Christian. You have some context.

But what happens with syncretism is it fundamentally has a frog in the kettle aspect to it. If you throw a frog in boiling water, he's gonna jump right out. But you throw a frog in lukewarm water and slowly heat it, and he's gonna boil to death before he recognizes that it got hot.

The nature of this unholy alliance that always exists between your faith and your culture is that as the heat gets turned up on your culture, you may not notice it. The frog begins to boil. What we need to do in those moments is startle the frog—to say, "Hey, hey, do you see what is happening? Can you see this?"

I think this particular cultural moment we're in—not just this week but this century, should we say—has a lot of that to it. It calls for a "hey, hey, hey, do you see what's happening? Do you see the risk of your culture eating your Christianity?" That happens all the time.

Preparing for This Conversation

There's a third reason for today. It's really important to us that we'd be having a conversation. Throughout the fall, I spent about ten weeks with the staff team discussing what we're discussing here—the idea that the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. We spent ten weeks together walking through, looking at all kinds of examples of how we are supposed to do this. In fact, we came up with a statement of faith and practice that we want to share with you today. Part of the reason I wanted to talk about things last week is so that we can have this conversation today.

And in fact, Caleb, could I ask you to change that slide? This right here. Okay. So if you QR code that, you can get a PDF of a document. But if you don't want to do that, I've got a stack of them on this front row we'll give you. And then there's a stack of them on the connection table out there.

What that is on the front page of that document is a statement of faith that Luke and I wrote that will look very ordinary to you—the deity of Christ and the nature of the trinity and things that you would always see on a typical statement of faith. You flip the page over and it's going to talk about the implications in culture of our beliefs. That is going to give you a sense of what we mean when we say we want to engage the culture, what we think right now at this time in this place are the cultural issues that really matter.

We want to have this conversation. Dave and I are both deeply committed to dialogue. If I simply covered this in my Sunday school, many of you wouldn't be in the room right now. So we want to catalyze a conversation about these important things.

Let me just say one more thing about that. There's a long answer to the first question. We promise not to do this every time. But this might be sitting on this stage more intentionally than it was in my mind. I didn't know we were going to be sitting here when I signed off on that email, but I'm so glad that we are. I'll tell you why.

I've had a number of conversations this week, and I've heard second or third hand a number of things that people have said. Tim referenced this in his prepared statements, but I want to say it again because I think it bears repeating: If what your pastor said about your president is more offensive than what your president said about your savior, that should concern you. It should concern all of us. I think that alone is worth this conversation.

Questions for Discussion

I'm going to add two questions because they kind of go hand in hand. Please discuss: How do you balance what the church should comment on versus what it shouldn't? Is it only appropriate to comment when the church is offended? Is there ever a time when the church and state agree, and if so, should that be praised? And then the second one is: How will the church determine what political topics rise to the level of needing to be talked about?

I'll go first, and then I'll let you jump in.

We are in the process. Tim and I have spent a lot of great time together this week processing what has occurred. We're looking in the mirror, asking, could we have done this better? Are there things that maybe, in my flesh, I thought could have avoided some of the fallout? But I'm telling you guys, I'm grateful for the fallout. I'm so glad that we're sitting in here so that we can have this conversation.

The answer to your question is we don't have a printed list of criteria that we're looking at. It is going to be a little bit more art than science. But we are going to be having more conversations about what is the lens that we're looking through to determine whether or not this rises to the level of something that the church needs to hear about.

What Tim already said, and I will agree with wholeheartedly, this is not about both sides. Like, if we say something that seems negative towards those on the left, next time it needs to be towards the right. Our standard is Christ and his word, and there may be times that we sense from the spirit that this is something we need to discuss. That is what happened in the instance with Charlie Kirk. It was a catalyst for me, not just because someone on the right side died, but because it gave us a window into where we were as a culture, right and left. And so that's why we spoke up on that, and I think that's sufficient for me.

Do you need to add to that?

No. Totally agree. Yeah. That's great.

Bonhoeffer's Example

How does Bonhoeffer's life speak to this topic? His priest refused to address the situation of the Nazis and lived to regret it. He spoke to it; it cost him his life.

If you're not familiar, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German who lived in Nazi Germany. He didn't just speak up about Hitler; he actually tried to assassinate him. So Dietrich Bonhoeffer is broadly seen as an incredibly courageous Christian. I would not disagree with that at all.

I think Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived in a very different time than our own. The evil that he was forced to confront was orders of magnitude greater than what we are concerned with at this moment. But I think Dietrich Bonhoeffer in general is universally regarded as an incredibly godly and courageous man. And his idea that we should speak into the world, I would agree with that. He took several steps more intense than anything we have ever contemplated. Let's be clear about that. He also wrote pretty extensively on church and state. Bob, we had to go through our ordination stuff and had to read some stuff on Bonhoeffer if you wanted to read that. But he would have agreed with your email, I think.

The Question: Christian Values vs. Imposing Values Through Law

What's the difference between confronting the world's leaders with Christian values and imposing our Christian values on non-Christians through the law?

I'm still processing the question. I think I understand the heart of it. So the second option in that decision fork—imposing our Christian worldview—the Christian worldview is the best worldview that there is. The world would flourish if the reign of Christ were realized or responded to. There is no context in which we would impose some restriction on the world. What we will do, what we are doing, what we must do is invite the world to behold the beauty.

When we pray "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," that's because we believe that Jesus is the best king any world could ever hope for. His ways lead to flourishing in a way that no one else's ways do. We believe that the gospel is good news for transgender people. We believe the gospel is good news for people whose conservatism has blinded them. We think the gospel is good news for gay people. The gospel is good news for atheists. The gospel is good news for Saudi Arabians. The gospel is good news for people born and raised in Detroit. The gospel is simply good news.

At no point are we going to say, "You know what was really great was the crusades. I wonder how many people we can convert by the sword." But every single day we think, how can we convert people? How can we persuade them? How can we show them the beauty and the loveliness of Christ? How can we portray for them that his ways are literally better than any competing worldview?

All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Now go make disciples. — Matthew 28:18-19

We take him quite seriously in that. And so we are very eager to usher in the day that every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus is Lord. Not only because Jesus deserves their praise and their honor, but because the absolute best possible outcome for a human being is to come and see Christ in his beauty and his splendor.

Let me jump in on that and say one more thing. Two thoughts that I had as Tim was talking. Number one, when Paul was standing before a government authority, he was asked, "Paul, do you mean to convert me?" Paul's response was, "Yes. You and your whole family." He was not ashamed of that. He was proud of it because he genuinely believed, as Tim was saying, that when you bring your life under Christ's rule and reign, it is best for you and for everyone.

Here's the second thing I will say. One of my favorite quotes—Melissa has heard me say this so many times, as has Tim now. George Bernard Shaw says this about communication: "In the right key, anything can be said. In the wrong key, nothing. The important thing is the establishment of the key." I think this is what Paul means when he says we are to be wise towards those who are without. He's not saying be quiet. He's saying be thoughtful about how you say things.

So what I said at the beginning, we've had many conversations about whether we could have said this better. And I think that we could have, and I think that we're going to keep growing and get better. But again, I'm grateful that we're sitting here because of that email.

Trying to see if this one matches Bob's job. Bob's job is hard—sifting through a million of these. So bear with us. Thanks so much for your time. Let's try this. Two questions.

Render to Caesar, Give to God

Please discuss the tension between rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's and the general idea that there's something about secular political leadership that should not concern us as Christians. Also, the idea that we should be deferential to civil leaders like Romans 13. How do we support our government when our leaders are promoting hate and ideologies that go against what Christ teaches?

That's a great question. I'll jump in on this one. I love that passage. When Jesus says, "Render to Caesar, what is Caesar's"—do you know the context? That is not the end of the sentence. He says, "Give to God what is God's." If you look at a coin back in that day, it had a picture of Caesar on it. "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's"—he was talking about taxes, Caesar's face on there. But then when he says, "Give to God what is God's," you know what he's saying? Whose image is on you? Yeah. It's God's image. Your whole life belongs to him. Those two things are not in conflict.

There will be times when, because God appointed authorities, there are going to be things—laws perhaps that we wouldn't choose or that we think aren't the best. But the bottom line is, God's law always wins, and it is his law that we will always give preference and priority to. And if there's ever a time when a leader of a nation state promotes something or forces us to do something that goes against Scripture, we're going to go with what Scripture says, not with what our authorities say. But when those things are not in necessarily overt conflict, then it is our obligation to submit to the authorities that God has appointed over us.

Would you add anything to that?

Only that you can obey someone and critique them. Right? You can vote for someone and critique them. In fact, I would say that if you vote for someone, you might have a greater obligation to critique them. Which feels a little bit counterintuitive the way our culture functions right now.

I was deeply influenced by a Christian psychiatrist named Henry Cloud—you might know him from the book Boundaries—but that's not his only concept. One of the things that has been really helpful to me was something called the "good-bad split." One of the fundamental immaturities that human beings tend to adopt is that things are all good or they're all bad, right? Or very often, we think that someone is all good until they disappoint us a little bit and then they become all bad.

He's like, calm down. You are made in the image of God and tragically fallen. Everything we have a very strong sense that you're not allowed to critique. As soon as you critique anything political, then it's like you're clearly on the other side. As soon as you affirm something, clearly you think that the other side is purely evil, and it's just silly. Nothing is all good, nothing is all bad—everything is a mix.

And so I think that we can both critique people and support people. We can disagree with people and love people. I just think we need to be a little bit less siloed. You can obey someone and still say, "I think that was a bad idea." You can love someone and disagree with them. I think those are—man, if we lose that, we're goners, right? It's really, really important that we're able to do that.

Yeah, and we have lost that.

Yeah, we really have.

Gifts and Mission Beyond the Walls

Okay, we are very close, alright? Bob, you got one more?

Just some layup, Bob. Just kidding.

What are some ways our church can truly take the gifts each of us have in this congregation that we've been given to disciple and spread the love of Jesus beyond the walls of our church? Is God calling us to grow in this area with all these new members that we have joining our ranks with their new gifts to minister to those who are hurting and lost?

That's a great question, a long one. I'm still processing it. I mean, the first thing I would say—and I'm sure Tim will have thoughts—I do think that when I first came on staff, one of the first things I remember saying to you guys who might be in the room was: it is a tremendous privilege to be in a position of leadership over God's people. We want to see things happen in our lives. But what I said to our staff is it will start with us. And I would say that to you. What we want to see happen in the world, if it doesn't happen here, it will not happen there. It has to start in our hearts.

And this is part of what I think brings it full circle. If you were here at the first service talking about Jesus as light and then him saying to his disciples, "You are light"—it's because it started with them.

And that's when the movement exploded, when people saw disciples who had genuinely been transformed by the savior and they bear his image, and they emanate his life as they're being transformed from one image of glory to the next because they are looking at Jesus. We tend to become like the one that we look at.

So my knee jerk response is that what we wanna see happen out there needs to start in here. I wouldn't improve upon that.

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That's the end of the hour. We gotta go let new people in the building. However, conversations never end. We'd love you. We want you to love each other. We want you to love us. We wanna have dialogue about things where we agree, where we disagree. We wanna walk in humility. The chief virtue of the Christian life is humility. And if you don't believe me, read Andrew Murray's book by that title. It will completely unmake your life.

As we engage with one another, we wanna do so in a spirit of kindness and graciousness, as we so richly experience. This is my favorite church I've ever been a part of, and it is because of you. Because of the way that we treat one another. So let's continue to do that. Let's talk about things that are meaningful. Let's talk about things that matter. When we're presented with new ideas, let's consider. Let's take a heartbeat. Maybe there's something there that I could take from that.

Friends, if we could be good at this whole thing of not being avoidant of political topics, not being narrowly partisan and blind, can you imagine the impact we could have in the Roanoke Valley? It would be a rare thing. It is a rare thing. It's basically an unheard of thing. Let's crush that. Let's do that so well that Christ is exalted and lifted up and people come to say, what's happening there? Because of the way that we talk about things, the way that we treat one another. Can you imagine? It'd be lovely.

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Father, thank you. We're so grateful. We thank you that you are the king. That it's not pie in the sky to say that all authority has been given. It is an event that occurred. You are the king. And life gets better when people realize and live under your reign.

So we wanna start here. We want to be first among those who acknowledge your lordship. And I thank you for the grace of this congregation. Lord, we want to do this well, and we wanna do it well, not just here, but out there. And I pray that you would help us as we step out in faith. Lord, we love you, and we thank you for this time in Christ's name. Amen.