Evangelical Worship: Excellence, Accessibility, or Mediocrity?
Cameron (00:00.79)
Hello, and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co host, Cameron McAllister. Mm-hmm.
Nathan (00:03.882)
That man, that's a new hello. And I'm your co-host, Nathan Rittenhouse.
Cameron (00:09.592)
Let me set the scene for you, Nathan. You're out of church. The smoke machines are going. The smoke machines. You're in a room and there are no windows. There are perhaps bright stage lights. Hands are up in the air. There is a there's a countdown. There's a big countdown clock, and there's some el electronic, almost kind of sort of Christian version of EDM music playing. And then
Nathan (00:16.631)
here we go with the smoke machines again.
Nathan (00:25.008)
Hands up.
Cameron (00:38.804)
Silence, and then the drums kick in, it's rather loud, and then you hear more joyous sounds. You hear something along the lines of, let's put our hands together for King Jesus today. And this is the scene of a fairly typical worship service in many an evangelical church. And it's certain it's this is this is by the way, this is my church. I need to take
ownership here. I think I've drawn attention to this fact a number of times on the podcast there is a garage door in our sanctuary because our church building used to be more of a warehouse. There we don't have smoke machines, but we do hand out complimentary earplugs in my church now. So I am I'm t I'm describing a scene I know Yeah, yeah, I know it well but I also think that this gives to us a picture of a very real tension.
Nathan (01:25.904)
You y you set you set you set the scene. Yeah, we got it. We're with ya.
Cameron (01:36.438)
that we feel in many of our evangelical churches. And it's a tension between
Nathan (01:40.434)
Over which Presbyterian hymnal are you using in that service?
Cameron (01:44.193)
Yes. So not quite. Not quite. Yeah. The tension is between whether we we display the lyrics on the monitor or whether we have the hymnal that you can actually pick up and look at yourself. No, the the tension is between what we might say is on the one hand, you know, artistic excellence, or I think Nathan would go further and use a word like how do we cultivate the sacred here? And then
Nathan (01:45.806)
Okay, sorry.
Cameron (02:10.284)
The only word I can come up with is the between that, so the the artistic excellence, the sacred, and then just accessibility. How do we make this for everybody? How do we invite everybody in? And it's a very real tension that we experience. And I think it's kind of unique to evangelicals, but evangelicals, massive number of Christians in place where we make our home, North America, are happen to be evangelicals. They're a very zealous bunch. So I thought we might talk about that.
Nathan (02:17.042)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (02:38.85)
Today. Talk about that interesting tension. Talk about the good, some of the bad, and how we process through that as two people who speak if we, even if we don't worship in that space every Sunday, certainly speak in many churches that fit that description and know and love many people who love that kind of love that kind of worship, love that kind of music, are honestly nourished by it. You may have gathered from my tone that.
n I'm not maybe in so much in that category, and and I don't think Nathan is either. So anyway, and I suspect that some of you listening aren't either. So I thought we might talk about it.
Nathan (03:09.937)
Nathan (03:18.556)
So well so the value of this conversation, I think, if I'm guessing where we want to go, is to show that this is a response to something, that it's an intentional development. Be because I think the people who don't feel nurtured by it think, this is a lowest common denominator, we're not taking this serious. But Cameron's about to make the argument for us, I think, that this is a specifically culturally crafted rebellion. I I think maybe
Cameron (03:28.682)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Cameron (03:36.033)
Yes.
Nathan (03:48.176)
Some decade ago, against an institutionalism that felt stuffy and non inviting. So back us way up, Cameron. Take us on the journey.
Cameron (03:52.303)
Mm. Mm hmm. Okay. Yeah. So I'm gonna recommend a book here. And it's not the typical book I usually recommend. It's not James Davison Hunter, so put those bingo cards away.
Nathan (04:04.722)
David Foster Wallace wrote a worship book? Who knew?
Cameron (04:08.826)
very good. Also, not David Foster Wallace. So there go. But this is this was written by Gregory Allen Thornbury. He's he, if you know who Gregory Thornbury is, he's an interesting guy. He used to be the president of the King's College in New York. Has had some interesting changes of of of mind and heart over his his involvement in the evangelical world. So but he's at any rate, he's a very talented writer. And this is a book he wrote about a guy with.
The very his name's Larry Norman. And what I don't know why I find that name so hilarious because when you think of rock stars, you know, Elvis, Madonna, BB King. It's very cool. Larry Norman. But Larry Norman was, if you know who he is, and I'm guessing you probably don't, Larry Norman at one point was a cultural force in the evangelical world. He was and and and also in the secular world, he was a really big deal.
Nathan (04:49.804)
Larry Larry.
Cameron (05:07.874)
He was the first bona fide Christian rock star at a time when many leaders in the movement were writing against rock and roll and call yeah.
Nathan (05:18.64)
I wait, hang on. Time placement. Seventies? Late sixties? Seventies?
Cameron (05:22.102)
Yeah, so late s so he emerges in the late sixties b and then the early seventies. That's his his real heyday is in the in the seventies. But yeah, so he emerges in the late sixties. He's in a band before he he eventually goes solo. But the notion of a Christian rock star back then would have been seen as an outright contradiction to many people. You know, how can you rock and roll and Christianity do not these two don't go together and rock and roll is perhaps even
very dangerous, satanic, evil. There were plenty of people who were saying that. So he was he was an outsider. He was a kind of misfit, but he also was dubbed by the press as the leader of the the the Jesus movement. So I was sensing from the Lord that I just that he wanted me to read this book. I've had it on my bookshelf for years. And so I took a break from what I was reading, pulled it off the shelf
Nathan (06:18.578)
Now here's the category of divine inspiration and book selection.
Cameron (06:22.144)
Yeah, well I do have that s every now and then I where I I will I will get a nudge. Yeah, I'll get a nudge. Yeah, this is there I have something for you here that that is going to be a valuable insight. So I pulled it off, put put aside what I was reading, and pretty much went really fast going through this. It's it's like I said, it's really well written and it's just very interesting. He had a Larry Norman had a fascinating life. At one point, N Nathan, just to to pique your interest, there was an assassination attempt on him
Nathan (06:26.064)
This is important for me to know at this time. Yeah.
Cameron (06:51.756)
By the KGB. I'm not kidding. Because he happened to be there when Estonia was trying to on the day Estonia was declaring its independence, he was playing some concert. It was a folk folk concert where the people were trying to assert their voice. He just happened to be there as a performer. And they said, let us bring you some traditional, wonderful dishes that we've made especially for you at our hotel. And then he and another guy, his friend, started feeling
very sick and it took woo months before the toxins finally were cleared from their body. And then the nurse was trying to say, no, no, we would need to give you this injection and this infusion. And Larry Norman had the presence of mind to say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I want I don't want no no your appendix is bursting. No, no, no, no, no, I don't want an infusion. And so there was a there were if you look into the history of KGB assassinations, there have been a number of cases involving, quote, nurses who administer medicine
Nathan (07:30.054)
Yeah.
Cameron (07:46.073)
That doesn't help the person to whom it's administered. So anyway, fascinating. He fascinating life. But what what stood out to me and why I believe this book was important for me at this moment, Nathan, is because for the first time, I really saw the appeal of the kind of worship service I just described. Now, Larry Norman would would have no part with that kind of a worship service. He would, he would, I think, be very disappointed to see.
What became of CCM music. But it it what it opened it opened my eyes to the notion of church as this stuffy, formal, legalistic place where you just go for the purposes of social decorum or keeping up with the Joneses and completely ignore the homeless guy begging for food in the parking lot. And you don't actually care about Jesus Christ at all. You only care about looking prim and proper.
And being a staple of the community. And Larry Norman, of course, is this is this is the hippie era too. Larry Norman is talking about and he is talking in his concerts, in between songs, he it's almost like he's like a protest folk singer. He is talking about how Christianity is not churchianity. And he is talking about how if you want to follow if you want to truly be free, you have to follow Jesus.
If you truly want fulfillment and joy and satisfaction, you have to follow Jesus. And so the notion of going into some sort of high church, be it Episcopalian or Catholic or Anglican, would seem antithetical to this group of people. This was Christianity for the streets. This was Jesus with publicans and sinners and hanging out with prostitutes and tax collectors and all the people who were disparaged. And so for the first time, I was beginning to see.
Because our own moment, and we we'll talk about this next, Nathan, our own moment is so very different from that. Seekers seekers are looking for a different kind of church now because we tend to go full circle. But at the time, seekers really were looking for spiritual experiences and transcendence, but they certainly most of them, most of these hippie types, would not have darkened the doorway.
Nathan (09:42.096)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (10:02.829)
Of a Catholic church or a high church or anything where they s you know, anything that was stiff or formal. And that is the world Larry Norman was was preaching to. And those were the people who found him compelling. If you look at him now, he looks kind of hopelessly old fashioned and it doesn't nothing about what he does looks edgy. One of his songs is called Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music. He has another one called I Wish We'd All Been Ready. DC Talk covered that. It's it's a rapture song.
But very talented guitar player, very clever lyricist, very gifted guy, pretty sad life in many ways, complicated guy. But anyway, that's that that kind of insight of here's the here's the appeal of that. We're we're not there today. But to what you said earlier, Nathan, yes. So I was in the category of person who often seemed, this is just this is a reflection of mediocrity. This is shallow, pe these you these are
Shallow tastes from shallow people. What w was it Frankie Schaefer who wrote Addicted to Mediocrity? I think he makes an argument. Yeah, he he wrote an he wrote a book with I think it was called Addicted to Mediocrity. It has mediocrity in the title, and he's riffing on this a little bit. I have I see things otherwise now, and this book helped me.
Nathan (11:08.658)
Was he the one who did that? Yeah, okay. Yeah.
Nathan (11:23.292)
Okay, so let's flesh this out a little bit 'cause I think this is really an a really important point to make. and this is not a defensive mediocrity. It's a it's a statement about accessibility, not mediocrity. I think is is yeah, and putting into context. So
Cameron (11:37.293)
And putting it into context, I think yeah.
Nathan (11:43.517)
The the the the sh and and and I think there's gonna be a generational shift or response to this that's a hundred percent so so let's say you did grow up in the late fifties, sixties and what you thought was maybe a rather traditional you walked in in a suit and tie, prim proper, sat down liturgy, in and out, kind of and it was a social expectation and there was there was a culture built around that in your town.
Cameron (11:49.259)
One hundred percent. Yeah.
Nathan (12:12.99)
and then you have this this hippie wave movement, whatever you want to call it, cultural disruption of wait a second, are we really asking the right questions? Are we thinking about the right things? So and this goes from your Keith Greens to your Larry Norman's to I mean the whole Jesus people move I think there's this was a bigger thing than Larry Norman, but he certainly was a instigator isn't the right word in all of it, but a a figurehead, I guess.
And so I think for the people who grew up feeling overly constricted under the banner of the sacred, there was a massive appeal to another way of thinking that there is a a deeper so this all good motivations. There is a a a deeper, more spiritual, more legitimate way of engaging in our faith outside of the structure of the institution that the church has become. And so you see the proliferation of these expressions of worship.
Cameron (13:02.851)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (13:10.182)
that are str st strategically an not antithetical, but the the strategic opposite of what had been there in in the past. and that group is largely in their sixties and seventies now, I think. and so you do see a lot of churches that are led by an age group who have developed a style of church in response to a style of church that they grew up with to a certain extent.
Which so that makes sense and is perfectly fine and legitimate. what's the old joke about you can tell who the church is for by the age of the bass player? Or, you know, s something like that. so you so you have that model. Here's the the challenge for the moment in which we live is Cameron, you and I I don't know that we would have ever have said that we are I mean, y you got the the Presbyterian bona fide, so you're closer than I am to some of this. But
Cameron (13:48.569)
Sure. Yeah.
Nathan (14:08.039)
the a sense of we we never grew up in in the highly institutionalized structure structured socially conservative strictures of the institution of the church. So so we so we're we're missing the referent to which our modern form of worship is the rebellion.
Cameron (14:22.927)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (14:28.653)
Right. We we we were not reacting to the same thing 'cause we can't we didn't live through it. Yeah. Mm hmm.
Nathan (14:31.229)
Ca because we just didn't live through it. So what we ha but what we have lived through is a phenomenal amount of cultural change and chaos and disintegration as far as individual identities and the breakdown of community and stability of jobs and careers and family and changing definitions of everything possible and the rise and the flourishing of the internet and the pursuit of all of our own individualistic interests. And then you go into a church that
Cameron (14:39.663)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Cameron (14:58.991)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (15:00.339)
seems like it's more of that and it's no longer that's no longer the rebellious h outsider that's the norm and so it seems like it's lost its sense of the sacred not it's helping us in encounter the sacred more deeply.
Cameron (15:03.46)
Right.
Cameron (15:08.973)
Outsider. Right. Correct.
Cameron (15:20.173)
You know, did there's and that's broadly reflected in our culture too, I would say, Nathan. It's not limited to the church. I don't know if you remember years ago there was a very famous Apple commercial, and Steve Jobs was the really spearheaded it. He came up with the concept, and it was basically sort of a here's to the outsiders, you know, the people who the rebels. And it, you had people like Bob Dylan in it and all that. You if you watch it now.
It fits the sensibility perfectly that you just described. You would say, This is a boomer's idea of
Nathan (15:56.93)
you you're gonna be a rebel by getting an iPhone?
Cameron (15:59.69)
Yeah. And so then the towering irony but you also remembered, Nathan, that not so long ago, all sorts of people had you had the Apple sticker and you put it on your car or whatever, and it was supposedly a badge of your how different you were, your your individualism. Your you know, by being an Apple customer, you were the creative, kind of rebellious type. So I mean, jobs succeeded in in selling that image that, hey, yeah, you're n you know, you're kind of the Bob Dylan of the tech world, even though
That's pure fantasy in an interesting way.
Nathan (16:32.679)
Well yeah, but it's different it's there's there's a slight difference in that in the church. I d I think it was all there's nothing nefarious here in my mind. It's all very well intentioned. It's it's a good it was a is a it was a good thing.
Cameron (16:40.993)
No, I'm not so what I'm saying is well
It was. So what I'm saying here with this advert well, with this advertising campaign, what it's reflective of was a was a cultural moment when rugged individuals and outsiders still held a lot of sway. But we're at a place now where that feels hollow because it's largely succeeded. And so there's such a n there's such a loneliness and such an emptiness that all of the all of the sudden
Nathan (16:48.197)
And still is for a significant demographic of Christians.
Cameron (17:14.681)
People are rediscovering community values. They're re you you even have influencers who who make make their name by being trad wives. So to me, there's nothing that anomalous about that. It has to do with, again, when something when something really succeeds, when something g begins as a as rebellious and it's edgy and and it is these are daring outsiders. But then when it succeeds, when you get the record deal.
Nathan (17:25.724)
You're reading.
Cameron (17:42.958)
When you start selling t-shirts everywhere and everybody suddenly buys into it, well, there's nothing rebellious about it anymore. Now it's just homogenized. And so on a broader cultural level, I think that's happened. But also today, because that that model in churches was so successful, and because that was largely a cultural model as well. So back in the 50s and the sixties, the church was largely culturally irrelevant.
And and that was a bad thing. It actually was a problem, Nathan. Churches felt completely remote in in important ways and disconnected, particularly from young people in I mean in the sixties and the sexual revolution. I mean, the country was in an uproar. All sorts of stuff was happening. And the church, in to a significant degree, just was alienated from a lot of that. And so then when you had these movements, you had the you know, the vineyard churches. So Larry Norman was was involved with the beginning of the vineyard.
By the way, he was right there at the beginning. But other other, you know, stuff like that, it starts to open it up and make those real kinds of connections. But now we're at a place where the church looks very similar to the culture, as you said. That model in significant ways looks very similar to the culture. And so yeah.
Nathan (18:59.249)
So so w are we are we hinting at the idea that if Larry Norman were alive today, he'd probably be Anglican. Y you know, like there's there's there
Cameron (19:08.813)
Yeah. Well g yeah. Yeah. He would start playing he may start I I don't know, but he may start playing more traditional of course. But if he wanted to do the kind of thing that he was doing and continue that kind of mission, be the sort of blessed misfit, yeah. He would he would be doing some so now we have rock stars who are doing that though, Nathan. the the one the example I point to is Nick Cave, who began as
Nathan (19:14.983)
This is all speculative. Yeah.
Cameron (19:38.69)
A chaotic punk rock performer in a band called The Birthday Party. I mean, really, this is not, we're not talking like Blink 182 pop punk. This is this was extremely challenging confrontational music and highly violent performances, heroin usage, and all that. Now Nick Cave is a sage of grief and writing deeply spiritual and religious music with a piano and I mean it just
That's the it's the arc you just described.
Nathan (20:07.805)
The est so so it's is it's not it's not just the aesthetic that changes though. It's the concept of a of accessibility and where do we f
Cameron (20:17.133)
And what will draw pe yeah, what will draw people in? I mean, let's pose the question now, Nathan, where would where were today's what kind of churches do today's seekers go to?
Nathan (20:28.529)
Right, and what does the Yeah, no, largely high church, I think, would be churches that have well defined history, structure, stability, authority, and clarity on doctrine and yeah. So
Cameron (20:33.399)
Right. Yes.
Cameron (20:38.819)
Yep. Churches that look different, that look alien to our culture, churches with yeah, absolutely. All of that. That's what's drawing people now. So I think let me back up and just say, Nathan, that that's not that's not necessarily it's not a bad thing. It's not necessarily a great thing. Part of what we're pointing to here is that the historical stage changes a little bit. So I guess I'm not saying this very clearly. If you are like me,
And sitting in the in the pew sometimes feeling all hoity toody, this is just empty and shallow, you know. If only people were drawn to high church, you're every bit as much a product of your cultural moment as as those people. You you you you totally form so because let's be honest, the Anglican church is really cool right now. It's r or or becoming an Orthodox Theo, bro, that there's a there's a kind of cool edginess to that.
Nathan (21:20.339)
Mm.
Cameron (21:35.822)
Okay, you you want to tell me that that's not that there's not some superficial side to that? Of course there is. You want to tell me that it doesn't have at least a little something in common with the smoke machine? Of course it does. So I'm preaching to myself here. Don't think, don't sit there and think because you don't like Hillsong or Maverick City or whatever worship music is being sung. Don't think that that makes you somehow deeper than the person next to you who is worshiping the Lord, has the has their hands in the air and it has
Tears streaming down their face. It doesn't. Again, I'm preaching to myself.
Nathan (22:08.331)
So well done, Cameron. I think you're close to conversion. so so here's the here's the tricky thing, Cameron, is Jesus was a populist of sorts. I mean, he's out in the middle of nowhere. The the the references to tiny irrelevant towns, I'm using that in air quotes because I kind of live in one, that that are in the New Testament that are referenced that Jesus didn't spend all his time in Jerusalem.
Cameron (22:11.585)
Yeah.
Cameron (22:18.902)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Cameron (22:29.005)
Yep. Yep.
Nathan (22:35.099)
He's out there with the Samaritan woman, he's crossing boundaries, he's going into homes, he's touching sick, unclean people, he's eat let the children come to me. This man eats with sinners and tax collectors. If he knew what kind of woman this was, she eat, you know, he was just neck deep in that, with a high ability to have deep sacred moments by breaking bread and eating fish. And so what what evangelicalism has done a phenomenal job of is
Cameron (22:41.645)
Let the children come to me, you know, yeah.
Nathan (23:05.027)
opening up the doors, broadening the mouth of the funnel, whosoever may come as you are, and not just come and sit and watch, but participate. And so you're gonna have amateur musicians for the most part in in most churches, some churches would have, you know, a little bit more professionalism there. But evangelicalism in general is going to prioritize participation over professionalism and would rather have somebody who is a true believer who is part of them.
Cameron (23:16.428)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (23:34.3)
strumming on a guitar than somebody who is an expert musician that they don't know who isn't a believer leading and conducting the the music. And so that participation and performance version of this evangelicalism does have that broad not just come but get involved. Everybody has a way in which they can contribute. and there's a lot of good to that. And at the same time, it can also look like
To somebody coming in, the the seeker from the outside, like these people really don't take this that seriously. Because if worship was important to them, they could get somebody who could maybe get the slideshow to work correctly on the screen and would have, you know. Yeah. So like there's a way of saying, does does the what is the thing that is important here that is communicated by do we see this as a sacred space, as a actual intentional
Cameron (24:22.445)
Mm.
Cameron (24:27.523)
Yeah.
Nathan (24:29.041)
So so I I'm try I'm trying to work out I don't and and there isn't an there isn't a answer an an answer to this of how do you take the the populist whosoever may come and have a high vision of non exclusive but no actually this is a special time and we are very intentional about what happens within this allotted time.
Cameron (24:38.914)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (24:45.295)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (24:54.479)
And balance that out and go. Solve this for us, Cameron, immediately.
Cameron (24:56.429)
Yeah, well there's there's obviously no perfect answer to that. I think a couple of things are worthy of note here. You and I are both a little bit platonic, I think, in some of our ways of approaching beauty. And I think I dare say I think Christianity is a little bit too. Certainly Paul is. And so we would just this is just a philosophical consideration. The intention behind what's what's being done matters tremendously. So if you walk into a cheesy worship service
But there is real sincerity there. You might be I think that sincerity and that the heart can cover a multitude of aesthetic sense. Yeah. Yeah.
Nathan (25:33.85)
see, mm. Well, here's another here's another wrinkle though, is because some of this is dependent very much on the size and the scale of the congregation. So do you know the other people who are in there? If you if you attend a funeral and a lady whose husband just died gets up and sings the hymn, Because He Lives, I Can Face Tomorrow. And she's a little flat in the chorus. And you care about that, shame on you. On
Cameron (25:44.131)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (25:58.768)
Mm, yep.
Nathan (26:03.695)
On the 'cause that's not that's missing the the entirety of the s
Cameron (26:07.043)
The profundity of of who she is makes all the difference in the world.
Nathan (26:10.171)
Right. Correct. But you have to know that background in order to get g get the sense of that. So anyway, scale does matter here a little bit. I detracted us, back to you.
Cameron (26:15.927)
You do, yeah, you do. It's a very good point.
Scale matters here. Well, part of another analogy I use there is the the works of art in quotes from my children that go up on my fridge. I cherish them, not for their necessarily for their artistic qualities sometimes, but it's because my children made them. And I love them for that reason. You got a similar, not dissimilar dynamic happening sometimes in some of these.
These churches. Now, on the other hand, Nathan, we could illustrate the point, we could make our point in a negative way. You could say, so we know of churches that sometimes outsource their worship to professional bands. And these people are not necessarily even Christians, but they put on a a stellar performance. And this these churches justify that decision by saying, Well, yes, the worship needs to be professional. Now that leaves me
Personally uneasy, and I know it does you, Nathan. And I suspect that many of our listeners, even if they don't love the kind of music we're describing, if they found that out, they wouldn't be too happy about it. Why? Well, because it feels dishonest or inauthentic. And I think that matters. That goes to our point that the intention behind this is important. But
Yeah, I think other considerations here are you know, you just I don't know that I have anything that helpful to say here.
Nathan (27:49.454)
No, what what here's what we're saying that I think is helpful is that there's a high probability that the structure of your church's worship is intentional, even if you think it isn't. And it c it could be an in t this is gonna sound like an oxymoron, but it it could be intentional in a subconscious way. That that it that it developed as a as a collective response among the leadership to a real problem that they experienced.
Cameron (28:01.859)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (28:17.285)
in their youth or that they saw in the world around them. And so the decisions that were the the things that happened were the byproducts of of of of a desire for the good, not a desire for the mediocrity not for the mediocre.
Cameron (28:31.321)
Yeah. And I mean I think a lot of these churches actually I should also state that there's growing awareness of this. There has been there has been for years. There has been an a concerted focus on Christianity and the arts in evangelicalism since the nineteen seventies that has just continued to develop in sophistication and in it's d it's not just in scholarship, it's in it's in artistic communities. So a lot of churches actually a lot of evangelical churches doing this exceedingly well.
Nathan (29:00.111)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Cameron (29:00.141)
And they are putting the artists in their congregation to work and they're so a lot of good stuff is happening. I mentioned the chosen. We have a we have the chosen is orders of magnitude better than God's Not Dead. And you know, so you've you're seeing real growth.
Nathan (29:05.17)
Whoa, ooh.
Nathan (29:13.169)
But but you can you you admitted to me that you see the appeal of God's not debt.
Cameron (29:18.009)
I d well yeah, I think when I look at something like God's God's Not Dead, so do I like it as a movie? No. But the heart behind it, there's something very endearing about it. The
Nathan (29:29.073)
Yeah. But the chosen like you're talking about the cinematography of the chosen.
Cameron (29:33.239)
And the and the script, I mean the writing, the the creativity that's gone into it, there's it there's I mean, there's real excellence there. And that's a huge leap forward, I would say.
Nathan (29:43.153)
Well, since we're since we're almost done with this episode, let me throw a a hand grenade in it. The other place that you see this up this this show up, Cameron, is in theological educational requirements for leadership.
Cameron (29:55.764)
yeah. You w you you you waited deliberately to put that in the list. Yeah.
Nathan (29:57.116)
Be because I guess no, I didn't think about it until just now. But I'm saying, because you were talking about the arts, and I'm saying, no, this this goes beyond that in the Hey, here's here's somebody who had a in and there's precedent for this in Acts. They recognize that these are unschooled ordinary men, but they had been with Jesus. And that's who Jesus called to to change the world. He didn't send them to seminary for three years to learn how to parse Greek verbs in order to
Cameron (30:07.247)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (30:17.684)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep.
Nathan (30:26.813)
Preach sermons. they're anointed, filled with the Holy Spirit, and off they went. And evangelicalism has by and large, to an extent, worked in that model of the the th the anointing trumps the education almost all the time. And then you would have other people who say, No, actually, investing in some educational resources here is a is a valid way of honoring the Lord with our mind. And it doesn't have to be and so the the the the broadness of the spectrum.
Cameron (30:37.305)
Well yeah.
Nathan (30:56.413)
From you can't work for our organization or ministry unless you have this, this, this, and this degree, to, you were baptized last week, stick them in the pulpit. people probably lose their minds on both ends of the spectrum there. but we w I think the point of this episode is to show that there is some strategic intentionality and maybe and and most likely overcorrection, I think, in in both directions. I was thinking about this.
last Friday evening raking hay and it was just a double row rake and my son was was standing in the middle trying to drive and rake two rows at the same time and he he now he's seven so you can cut him a little bit of slack but he he would he would drift toward one side and then cut hard all the way back over to the left and then cut back all the way to and and trying to get him to correct to the middle instead of correct to the extremes.
is a tricky thing to do when you're can hardly see where the steering wheel. But it's also a challenging thing for a church to do, I think, is to steer toward the middle and not steer toward the extremes. and that's true culturally in our own households, in our own everything from political to dietary considerations, is how do you steer toward the middle and not toward the extremes. And so I I think the way that you do that is you say that we have a standard other than culture.
Cameron (32:14.563)
Yeah.
Nathan (32:22.705)
by which we're steering toward. And so I it it doesn't to some degree, although we have our preferences, it doesn't matter how many windows your church has or the color of the walls or the carpet or the hymnal or on the wall or the professionalism of the musician. It's what are you doing with the the written and spoken word of God? Are you worshiping in spirit and truth? What is the guiding principle here? Is it the Harvest Har you know Harvard Business Review? Is it the advanced strategic church planning books? Is it whatever feels good to us?
Or are we saying, no, there is a way in which we're using scripture and we're trying to grow in a certain way to worship the Lord well and to serve our neighbors well and to be conformed to the image of the Sun. And in and then steering toward that, I think a lot of these other things, if there's an intentionality on the main things here, some of these other pieces will come together. And I also don't believe that every person has to be comfortable in every single church. Jesus sent them out to be fishers of men, and the great thing is is that
Cameron (33:03.023)
Mm.
Cameron (33:16.323)
Sure. Yeah.
Nathan (33:20.835)
Uniformity among the fishermen is only necessary if there's uniformity among the fish. And there isn't. It's a broad, diverse world out there, and not every church has to be all things to all people. And so I I think there's a way in which we can say, if our alignment and the motivations of our heart are in response to what God is prompting and calling us collectively together, then we can pursue that. And if that's not for everybody, then that's fantastic that there's some other options where they feel like they can
worship most accurately and and train and grow well.
Cameron (33:55.321)
Very well said. Well, in case it hasn't been apparent to you, you've been listening to Thinking Out Loud, a podcast where we think out loud about current events and Christian hope. Hey, please like us. We want you to like us. It's very important to both of us. We're needy that you like us. So like, share, and subscribe and tell people that they can listen wherever podcasts, wherever they get their podcasts, or they can, if they're really masochistic, they can watch us on on YouTube.
Nathan (34:07.507)
We're that needy.
Cameron (34:24.631)
Why? why. But go ahead. And if you'd like to support us financially, why do so at www.toltogether dot com.