Welcome and Witness: How to Reach Out in a Secular Age

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Rebecca McLaughlin
If I had to pinpoint what is my what is the thing about Sunday morning that most gets me, it’s looking around the church at people whose lives I know. And who struggles on only stories. I know. Watching them worship is so powerful, because I can sound like I know where you’ve come from. I know where you were even like a few years ago, I sat with you and you’re crying last week like to have that sense of that the vertical and the horizontal dimension are all just like smashed up together in a way that they’re only going to get more smashed up in the new creation, right as we together are Jesus’s bride. Seeing that beautiful expression of God with us in the faces of my brothers and sisters is perhaps my favorite thing about church.

Glen Scrivener
Hello, and welcome to post Christianity. My name is Glen Scrivener. I’m Andrew Wilson, we are thinking about our post Christian moment how we got here and what we do about it. And we’re thrilled to be joined by Rebecca McLaughlin, all the way from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Thank you for joining us, Rebecca. Hello, hello, hello. Now we’ve just filled you in a little bit on where the podcast has been. We have done a history of the world stopping off quite a bit instead, that was episode one. already covered. We got to 17 we spent quite a bit of time in 1776. And so that’s the focus of Andrews book as as the invention of the of the modern world remaking our world. And we’ve thought a little bit about air we breathe type things, which is my book and compassion and equality, consent and freedom and kindness and all those sorts of things and how Christianized we already are. And we’ve sort of got a little working definition of post Christianity, I like Andrews kind of analogy of it’s like post industrial, because it’s been forever shaped by industrialization, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re all going up chimneys and working at Mill. But we have been forever shaped by this thing and cannot wind the clock back and cannot cannot be anything other than a kind of a branch on this tree. That has happened. And so here we are in this post Christian moments, you have lived a lot of your life in the US now. But I grew up in the UK and you’re ministering in a context in which people are thinking very deeply about our culture and our cultural moment. So how do you navigate this? This question, we’re really trying to bring it into land in the series. So what that even if we get the pin in the map about where our culture is, what does that mean for the Church of Jesus Christ to live faithfully and fruitfully today?

Rebecca McLaughlin
I think it’s really easy for people to hear even the term post Christian and I know you guys have done a lot of interesting work and thinking about what that does and doesn’t mean and think that what that means is the church is in decline on the backfoot. Whereas me, in batten down the hatches at best try and hold on to our kids, certainly not out there, knocking on knocking on doors, gathering people in calling them to repent and believe. I actually think that we are very much in a place where as the Lord put it, The harvest is plentiful. And the workers are only somewhat few. So I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which in case listeners are not familiar, it’s not the Bible Belt in America, you know, this isn’t this in American terms is one of the most post Christian. And the particular kind of question that the Northeast is, is posed, at least in sort of more recent memories is more kind of post Catholic. I think there’s quite a lot of sort of historically, Catholic families here, you know, relative to other parts, my husband’s from Oklahoma, which is proper bible belt, and where most people if they’re post Christian, I kind of post Baptist I suppose, in flavor. And what I’m increasingly struck by is just the spiritual openness actually, around me here. And the fact that some of the most basic Christian the most basic things that Christians have always been called to do or in many ways, the things that Christians are called to do now, inviting people into our homes, inviting people to church are asking questions to understand what people what individuals believe and why. To get to know them to have a real interest in their lives. And even just in the last week, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with people from a whole range of backgrounds. You know, a friend raised Jewish in California who is seriously considering the Christian faith young woman was raised was no Christian. background has been coming to our community group and very, very much on on the edge of repenting and believing a woman who randomly walked into our church building yesterday when I happened to be meeting with one of the pastors and another friend who wanted to pick up some furniture that we’d left out for anyone to pick up, you know, stuff we didn’t need anymore. And on the way out, I said, Oh, would you like us to help move the furniture? She said, Yeah, I said, We’re here every Sunday, would you like to come? And she said, yeah, she you know, I’ve been thinking about coming to church, but I’ve, I’ve driven past this church, but I’ve never kind of taken the step. Great. Come on Sunday. I mean, just the even even just in the last 24 hours, as I say, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, not the Bible Belt. So much opportunity for people who, who just need an invitation, often an invitation, a relationship, an ongoing and ongoing invitation that isn’t only come to church on Sunday, but maybe also come to a Bible study, come and have dinner come just like a kind of come and see. Welcome. That gives people space to hear about Jesus. Sorry, I’m like going kind of. No, this is.

Andrew Wilson
Right. I think I think that was fascinating to think that for all the analysis that I think you I think telling the story about what how we got to where we are, I hope is very helpful. The reason I find it helpful is because I understand people better when I’m talking to them, but actually the fundamentals of what you do, praying for people, inviting people to church, having meals with people asking good questions, taking opportunities to share being bold when you need to, but basically the same sorts of things that Christians have had to do in every generation. And I just think that’s, I think instinctively should probably resonate with all Christians going, of course, the same things. Jesus said, I love I love the way you’ve read. Well, I’ve come to believe that what the Lord said is true. And obviously, those who don’t agree are not with the Lord.

Rebecca McLaughlin
Because of course, Jesus was talking at a particular time and in a particular place. So what he said then was absolutely unquestionably true, then I just increasingly feel like it’s actually true now. And I’m also I’ve been thinking more and more about when when, you know, disciples haven’t caught any fish. And Jesus says, cast them out the other side, and then there are so many fish, that the boat is going to be overflowing. And I actually think, if we Christians, or those of us who are Christians don’t know who’s listening. If you’re a Christian who’s listening, if we actually jumped in as workers, I think our boats don’t have the capacity for the number of fish. Like I think, actually, that’s, I think that’s our problem, not the fact that the fish are all swept away, and there’s absolutely no way we could ever reach them. I think it’s actually we got to sling our nets. And if one slings in it, I’m not really official lady. So I don’t know if one swing sling.

Andrew Wilson
That’s astounding, Rebecca, because when I think of you.

Glen Scrivener
Fingers

Andrew Wilson
just did you talk about that then? So when you just go into that, when you say, I think it’s the it’s the lack of capacity we may have for fish rather than the fishbowl? So I’m away. I really liked that image. What do you mean by that? Talk a bit more about that.

Rebecca McLaughlin
I mean, I’m in a number of things. Number one, I mean, and I just finished reading a book by our our friend, Mike Graham, on titled The Great D churching, which is looking at the phenomenon of like, you know, millions of people even just in the last 25 years in America, in particular who were going to church now not going to church. And typically, when we hear that kind of headline, we think, Oh, that’s because they’ve completely like they are so far from the Lord. They’ve just like walked out of the door, and nothing is going to bring them back, hashtag expand Jellicle. Evangelical, and actually, the book even has a category of like, extended articles, in actual fact that the majority of these people would come back next Sunday, if somebody just invited them. Yeah, like if somebody if they had a positive connection with somebody who said, Hey, come to church with me. Next Sunday, they would come. So we have millions of people who have walked out of the church, for whatever reason, a lot of them kind of casually do church in the sense of, they moved to a new place or something happened, they just like, didn’t mean to stop going to church, but they did. And COVID is obviously like a big disrupter of that. So there are all these people who who used to go to church and don’t, but actually not for any particularly good reason, really, who needs to be welcomed in. And then there’s all the people who’ve grown up one way or another without, without a Christian faith or without any meaningful understanding of like, who they are in the world. how they might relate to God, what this means for others. Who were who were lonely. Who were who are floundering. I don’t I’m not. I don’t want to Make that sounds sort of contemptuous, but who, who have been told the way to human happiness and flourishing is for you to figure out exactly who you are looking at, you know, deep in your, in yourself, find out your unique identity and like actualizing that is what is going to lead to your happiness and fulfillment turns out, it’s a total disaster. And so there are all these people who are actually, you know, hungry for the Lord, who are seeking who are seeking spiritual performance, through, you know, yoga, or mindfulness or like all the things that that people reach for, which aren’t, you know, bad in of themselves, necessarily, but just when they had that kind of spiritual dimension, they’re trying, you know, they’re trying to meet a need that people have. And we, under the Lord, we have the words of eternal life for these people. And the folks who I’ve had the privilege of connecting with like, as I say, even in the last few days, and weeks and months, one of the comments a couple of them made is like, I have never seen community like this. I’ve never seen just a group of people who come from all over the world, I mean, the place where I live in Cambridge is very sort of Cosmopolitan, just because a lot of people move here for college and whatever. People from, you know, from China and from Iran, and, and from Turkey, and from Ghana, and from Nigeria, and from like, all over the place, Korea, coming together, around Jesus, and eating together and laughing together and playing together, and just like, community. And this is incredibly attractive to people. This is this is what people are hungry for. And I remember a few years ago, talking with a friend who had been raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, and then sort of very much lost her faith in college and live for many years, you know, outside of any kind of faith tradition, and, and I was describing her, you know, what do we do on a Tuesday evening, like our Bible study? And I was like, Yeah, you know, we get together, we share some snacks, we chat. We read the Bible together, and then we get into small groups and pray for each other. And she was like, oh, that sounds lovely. No, no, like, yeah, yeah. No actual belief in God, whatever. And she was like, that sounds like a really lovely Tuesday evening. And it kind of wistfulness I wish like, I would like something like that in my life.

Glen Scrivener
Right? Yeah. Such hunger for that. Yeah. Such hunger. Yeah, I we spoke in a previous episode about are we in a post truth moment. And Andrew, you made the point where we’re really in a post trust moment. And it’s not just that, you know, church membership is declining, or membership of all societies all. All corporate identity is absolutely shrinking, and those numbers are tanking across the board. But that that leads to the kind of hunger that you’re talking about, and a real opportunity for what does thick community look like? And where do you where do you have community that is across boundaries, that is across distinctives of age, for instance, and of race and of class? The church has such an opportunity?

Rebecca McLaughlin
Well, and here’s the thing, I think it’s easy for us if we are Christians, and if we go to church regularly, to think that church on a Sunday should be comfortable, and it shouldn’t be too much work, like, you know, we go there to be encouraged to hear a sermon to see our friends to be, you know, buoyed up by, by by the experience, and none of that is bad in and of itself. I’m increasingly convinced that actually on a Sunday morning, those of us who are followers of Jesus need to be like working, we need to be intentionally seeking out the people who don’t have friends yet. Maybe because they don’t fit in sociologically with most of the other people in the room, because then you maybe because they’re a single mother, maybe because they’re much older or much younger, or whatever it is, and start conversations. And the reality is, it’s much easier to talk to somebody if either you know them very well already. Or you have a very similar background. It’s it’s meaningfully hard work to talk to somebody who is from a very different place, either kind of geographically or just socially. It can feel awkward, you’re trying to think well, what will be a good question to ask them? I don’t relate to their life circumstances very well. It’s just it’s hard work. And I think that’s what we need to be doing on a Sunday. Because otherwise what’s happening and this is where I think the the boat is, our boats aren’t big enough, or they’re not doing they’re not doing their jobs efficiently. Every Sunday in our church, which is a lovely kind of little Southern Baptist Church, funnily enough in New England, people walk in for whatever reason, and it might be they were raised Catholic, hadn’t been to church in a decade and then something happened in their life. They thought they just sort of tried church but they didn’t want to go back to a Catholic church or maybe, you know, they drifted away from church some time ago. They thought they Come back. Or maybe they’re just somebody from the neighborhood who just thought, you know what I’m going to try it like walking into that church. They come in, they sit by themselves, they walk out. And we miss like, week after week, we miss the opportunity to reach the people who have literally walked through our door, like our physical building. We miss them. And we may be thinking, Oh, I would love to pluck up the courage to reach out to a colleague or to like, you know, pound the streets, calling people to Jesus. Those are both really good things. But we’re actually missing even the people like the fish who have literally swim into our building. We’re letting them slip through the net. Sorry, I’m a little bit.

Andrew Wilson
Now I’m just chuckling to myself about the use of the word literally in the sentence, the Fisher of literally swim, it’s

Speaker 3
extremely defensible, because you make a really, really important point. But that’s what it was. Yeah.

Glen Scrivener
I mean, I was struck as well by the figures that Mike Graham shares about the churches and just how many millions of Americans like they may have left institutional religion, they may have left the church, but they’ve left all sorts of institutions actually. And and everyone is kind of retreating into themselves and they just find clubs. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And, and that translates to the UK as well. So for our UK listeners, the talking Jesus survey was in 2015, and again in 2022. And no matter how many times I tell Christians in this country, like how open people are to invitations to the church, and how open people are to Christians and how absolutely positive they are towards a Jesus and be Christians. No Christian wants to believe it. Because everyone’s like, Oh, they just need to survey my friends. You know, my friends think I’m an idiot tomorrow. Well, why are you there? Friend? I don’t know. What’s, what’s this? What’s wrong with you? Again, and again, the talking Jesus survey, and they’ve done this properly with, you know, sample size about 3000, you know, non Christians and asking them, even when they asked, Do you think Christians are for instance, homophobic and, and maybe like, 8% or less, you know, when they’re offered the chance to okay, they hear a whole bunch of positive things, and they’re busy ticking all the positive things about, you know, the Christians that they know. And would you would you talk, you know, would you say that Christians are bigoted? Not so much would you say they’re homophobic, not so much. They might be a little narrow, they might be a little superstitious, or they’d have they have certain kinds of phrases for Christians, but it’s not the it’s not the defeaters that we think Christians hat non Christians have with us. And I just feel like we are disqualifying ourselves from outreach by thinking the world hates us or thinking the world is more distant from our message than it might well be. And that suits us because we’re lazy.

Rebecca McLaughlin
I think it’s partly that we’re lazy and partly that we are fearful. And and I understand that. It’s funny a few weeks ago, I gave a little talk on evangelism at my church. And it was not trying to say all that there is to be said about evangelism. But I always like to have like four points that people are actually gonna remember and see if I can remember the first one is that evangelism, evangelism is hard. Second point is that evangelism is hospitable. Third point is that evangelism is hopeful. That was actually the fourth point. So I’ve clearly forgotten what the third point is.

Andrew Wilson
I’m gonna guess it began with an age

Rebecca McLaughlin
of genius. I really want to know what it is because that’s a great message.

Glen Scrivener
Was it heretical? It

Rebecca McLaughlin
wasn’t heretical. But one of the friends who had come was, you know, not non Christian, who has been exploring Christianity with us. And she, whenever I see her, she’s sort of rehearsing these points to me, sort of kind of makes me laugh, because, you know, her background is one where you would imagine that she would be one of the people who would make evangelism hard and actually, she’s, you know, loves to be there in these kinds of conversations. But I think, I think we need to know that it’s hard, it is vulnerable, even inviting somebody to something and the possibility that they’ll, they’ll say, No, is like that’s taking a risk. I have a humble evangelism as a humble that’s the one my specialism hard evangelism is humble. Evangelism is hospitable and evangelism is hopeful. We need to be ready for the hard. We need to be okay with being rejected, which is why we need brothers and sisters with us because I’m puny like I’m I’m all fragile and puny and I’m not. I will struggle to put myself out there. In bold evangelism, if I don’t have brothers and sisters to come home to us or to go with anything,

Glen Scrivener
it’s important to figure out the shape of what’s hard about evangelism too. Because, again, one one way that we might disqualify ourselves from evangelism is by thinking It’s hard intellectually, and I don’t have all the answers. And so it’s best not to try sort of thing. Or it’s hard because most of my friends will just think I’m a bigot and a homophobe. And therefore, it’s not worth trying. Well, so I, I’m fully on board with thinking. Like, it’s hard because it’s vulnerable. Absolutely, it’s, it’s hard to be hospitable. It’s hard to open your life out to other people, it’s hard to name the name of Jesus in a conversation, it can feel like a sort of sack of rocks just landing on the dinner table. That that’s, that’s kind of

Rebecca McLaughlin
gonna laugh at our analogies or

Unknown Speaker
I’m just gonna laugh at your verbal typos, but I’m not.

Glen Scrivener
So do you see what I mean? Like, like, I think, I think absolutely is hard. And rejection is hard. And, and, and just being vulnerable and opening ourselves out and, and intentionally leaving space in our lives, so that we can, you know, be open to people and open to relationships, and that sort of thing and, and inviting people to things and they might reject us that might not having conversations with people and it gets awkward. But I just I just wonder whether we should press into like what in particular makes it hard? Because I do feel like Christians can disqualify themselves from evangelism thinking it’s the wrong kind of hard.

Rebecca McLaughlin
Yeah, I think that’s absolutely right. It is certainly the case. I mean, I not infrequently find myself in conversations where it is hard. And in that sense of pretty deep disagreement. That requires, I mean, it’s my day job to think about these things. So I tend to have I, you know, I’m probably more equipped than the average person just because I have the privilege of spending, you know, all day long thinking about the objections to Christianity and how we might address them. But I understand why it feels intimidating to people. But I think this is where the, the hard and the humble Can, can help each other. Because the last thing, the last thing we want to do if we’re sharing the gospel is to come across as if we are sort of self righteous and have it all together, because we’re actually kind of undermining the gospel, if that’s what we’re, if that’s what we’re communicating, and it’s sometimes what people are primed to, to hear us as saying. So I think it’s okay to say when, you know, I don’t know, I’m actually not sure that’s a really good question. I don’t know the answer, I’d love to, I’d love to look into that more and get back to you. I think actually having the humility to say that at times, is helpful. And as you as you point out, actually, many people are much more positively disposed toward this conversation than we might think. They’re eager for deeper conversations about meaning and truth and love and, and flourishing. And they’re, they’re intrigued, actually, by people who seem to be orienting their lives around. Yes, Jesus, but it’s, it’s intriguing.

Glen Scrivener
Yeah, I think I think the more we scatter seed more widely. It is true, the more I get surprised at how hard some people are to the gospel, but also more surprised by how open some people are to the gospel. So we, you know, we, we don’t knock the parish around our church three times a year. And it’s, it’s, it’s less common for people to kind of slam the door in our face than it is for people to open up the door and say, Come in for a cup of tea. I was actually praying last Sunday. And I think you’re an answer to my prayers. That happens a lot more than people slamming the door in our face. But you get, you get so much, you get shocked by both ends, I think. But one of the things about that parable marked up the foreign in scattering the seed is, is the the evangelistic wisdom of moving on, you know, if, if the door doesn’t open, there’s something about my personality, because I spend all day thinking about objections to Christianity as well, that I want to batten down the door and say, you know, here are all the reasons why. But, you know, I’m not called to bat the doors, I’m called the scatter seed. And like, in the New Testament, moving on, in those circumstances, is huge, you know, shake the dust off your feet, and don’t cast pearls before swine. And, and like, even in Acts chapter 17, I love that there’s pulling the Areopagus and he’s, you know, going toe to toe with the Epicureans and the Stoic philosophers, and some of them are sneering at him. And Paul just moves on, like, you know, the, there are a couple of named individuals who come to faith and it sounds like you know, they might start the church, you know, and so he just kind of hands it off to those people and he moves on. And I just think, you know, my temperament is I would, I would want to stay there and wipe that snare off their faces because like, it is intellectually credible to believe in Jesus and I want to have that and he just moves on to Corinth and he just scattered some more seeds and scattered, some more said, and I just think that’s a that’s a very healthy attitude. due to opposition, whatever opposition there is, you know, you circle back to that friend. And if and if they had a an adverse reaction to your invitation to Carol services. That’s all right. There’ll be another Carol service next year and I can circle back to that person. But I don’t I don’t have to batter down every door. That’s that’s closed in my face.

Rebecca McLaughlin
Yeah, I think that’s right. I think it’s a tension because on the one hand, we do want to make sure that we are continuing to scatter the seed and that we don’t only kind of get caught up with the people who seem least interested, which, you know, I can certainly resonate with that. At the same time, I think. I think there’s something to persistence and to just continuing to show love and to be Invitational with people who maybe even have been quite hostile toward us. I’m not Oh, yeah. Like, you’re not saying going on from

Glen Scrivener
loving them. Yeah. You never move on from loving them. Yeah, ever. Yeah.

Rebecca McLaughlin
Yeah. And just, and certainly, I’ve known people where it’s really been years of, of questions in their lives, kind of putting up with actually, their hostility before they’ve, they’ve repented and believed in Jesus. So yeah, but I, it’s funny that the parable of the sower, I used to be like completely unmoved by it. To be honest, I was like, Oh, this parable of serve great. And then I was writing a Bible study last year, and I was looking at the parable of the sower. And I suddenly became deeply moved by it. Because it was a reminder, it’s not my job to figure out what kind of soil somebody else like. It’s just not my job, my job is to is to be out there scattering. And the Lord is bringing this extraordinary harvest, like, even though the majority of the ground that you’re scattering on seems sort of unfruitful that the Lord is, is then bringing this massive harvest that kind of outweighs the the kind of barrenness or the the neediness of the other soil, that the harvest that He brings from the good soil is just extraordinary. And so I suddenly became really moved by that that parable in a new way.

Glen Scrivener
Yeah, I remember I was I was preaching in a London church for three years before I went to train to become a vicar and do my theological training. And so as three years in a church where 50% would not have claimed to be Christians, there was an incredibly evangelistic kind of church, and they were happy to keep coming back Sunday after Sunday. But they also seemed happy not to come to Christ. And my final sermon was on Psalm 32. And I was just pleading with people come to the Lord come to the Lord, I was, I was in tears in the pulpit, and I was in pieces after the after the service, and a friend came up to me, and he gave me the most efficient pastoral care I’ve ever received. He completely changed my mood in four words, he just said, you sowed the seed. And I was like, You’re right. I, you know, for three years, I’ve sowed the seed, okay, I can move on from this place. And, and the power is not in me. Seeds are incredibly power, but incredibly powerful. But it’s this slow, low secret power that you hand over. And then it’s it’s not in your hands anymore. Yeah.

Andrew Wilson
I’ll ask you about how, how have you found sort of sharing the gospel evangelism in a in a post Christian environment changing in the last 20 years? So we’re all of the same age, I think we’re all at uni in the late 90s. And in the last 20 years, since our 25 years since we went to uni or whatever, how, how do you have you found evangelism changing in terms of the kinds of things we’re talking about what what you found helpful, what you found, that actually used to be quite a fruitful way to talk to people? And it isn’t now that never I never used to think that way. Now. I do all the time. And perhaps anything about talking to young people as well, which I know you do, but we all do, I guess. But. But, yeah, so contextually the, if the heart of what we’re doing remains the same and is always the same in every generation? Or how did the expression or the How has the expression of it changed in your life so far, and change according to the generation of the people to whom you’re speaking?

Rebecca McLaughlin
Yeah, I think we have seen something of a shift from maybe more more the credibility intellectual credibility questions being on the front foot to more than moral questions being on the front foot. And it’s not the those questions weren’t there. So you know, when I was an undergrad like Christian sexual ethics was weird then and it’s weird now. But I think it’s, it’s even weirder now. And one of the things that I kind of like to say to people as well when we sort of get into a con position and I had had one like literally yesterday with a woman in the neighborhood near our, our church who has never been a churchgoer is sort of has a positive impression of our church from having been in the neighborhood for some time. But no kind of Christian background or whatever, and was just, you know, asked me some questions. And one things I like to say about like Christian sexual affairs is it’s actually weirder than you think. You know, it’s, it’s not just that, as a Christian, I believe that sex only belongs in marriage between a man and a woman. But that this, the whole point of this is a metaphor, that it’s all about pointing us to Jesus’s lover as people. And and so the the, even the, the most beautiful, wonderful, amazing relationship of that kind that we could have with another human being is only ever going to be a tiny echo of Jesus love for us like that, actually. I think often in those kinds of conversations where sexual ethics can feel like a kind of distraction from the gospel or a defeater to the Gospel, I think it actually can be a gateway into talking about the gospel. If we can just sort of name from the first this is like, this is wild, right? This is crazy, weird stuff. And I’m not pretending it’s not. But actually, my, what I believe springs out of this understanding that actually Jesus stands at the center of reality that Jesus is the one who fulfills our deepest desires and the longings of our hearts. And that he’s, he’s left little clues and signposts to what that might mean in, in creation in our in our lived experience, and relationships. But ultimately, they’ll only ever disappoint us if we put all all the weight of our worship on that they will only disappoint. So I think in terms of how things has changed, I think there is, you know, more of a front foot when it comes to sexual ethics. And and obviously, gender identity is an increasingly important and fraught conversation. For for Christians today, even more so than it was, you know, two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, a very kind of rapidly moving conversation that I think is, especially in the US. conversations around race is still extremely important. And I think, sadly, I think a lot of questions and a lot of churches have done a very poor job of representing well how the Gospel speaks into into those conversations, I think we’ve been far too quick to just sort of defend the record of our tribe, those of us who, like me are both white and Evangelical, rather than being willing to say, yes, actually, there’s a painful, horrible record of sin here. And I can acknowledge that I can, I can acknowledge that and grieve over that. Because I believe the Bible actually like it. My Christian faith motivates me to do that, rather than Oh, well, that becomes a reason not to believe in Jesus. So I think, yeah, the remote conversations

Speaker 3
may be more acute in the US, but I think that’s that’s true across the West, isn’t it?

Rebecca McLaughlin
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Glen Scrivener
You spoke earlier about there is hunger for Jesus. In fact, that was one of the first things you said, how is that expressing itself nowadays? Because in another age, I guess people who are ripe for hearing about Jesus might have felt an overwhelming sense of sin and guilt, and they need the relief of the gospel to come to them. And, you know, that is what the anti chamber of the church looked like, and the anti gender of the gospel as people are kind of ripe for hearing of Jesus. It strikes me that that’s, that’s not kind of the shape of what it looks like when people are hungry today. What does it look like when people are hungry for Jesus today?

Rebecca McLaughlin
I think it’s a sense of loneliness and meaninglessness. And a sense that I’ve done all the things that that culture told me to do, and it’s left me miserable, depressed, confused, hurting. So I think then the anti chamber is, is community. I think it’s calling people in, in very tangible, physical, visceral ways, and saying, Welcome, and I think it’s a it’s an opportunity for the church to function as the church because you and I in and like, we are, we are utterly insufficient, not only because of our sinfulness, but also because of our limitedness to reach all the people around us. You know, if I walked out of my door right now, within a half mile radius, there are far more people to reach than I can reach. And there are many people who I wouldn’t even probably be the right person to reach them. But you as a as a member of a local church in a Christian community, I, we have a whole team. And I think fielding that team, to where we’re all playing our different roles. You know, some of us I’m, I’m somebody who’s naturally happy to go and do the like first contact, you know, come into church or grab your your new camera or start a conversation, I then really would love to connect you with somebody else, who you might have been to the same university as or who might have come from the same state as or who you might like some kind of connection. And then to have that team be, yeah, be mobilized around people who might be interested in exploring Christianity. And there is a deep and delightful sense of joy and love and community that comes through working as a team together. And I think that’s something that we Christians are actually starving for. I think we’re robbing ourselves of the community that we could have, because we are not out there working, the mission that God has given us.

Glen Scrivener
Yes, yes. And therefore the realm of pastoral care. And evangelism kind of comes together in really fruitful and helpful ways. Like if we’re going to reach out in these sorts of ways we’re going to be have to have to be, you know, very pastorally sensitive, we’re going to have to have the kinds of communities that can really be places of healing and help for those who are lonely and those who are broken. And, you know, I’m always trying to say to people to give a vision that evangelism and pastoral care, the best of friends that, you know, pastoral care is just evangelizing Christians and evangelism is just pastoring non Christians. And one of the things that that helps with is just as you say that all the church then becomes emboldened and equipped to be a part of this great evangelistic task, because I might not be a kind of a lippie person who is able to have all the words but in one Peter, chapter four, Peter gives like the shortest gift list in the New Testament. And he basically says, you know, some people are really good with words, let them speak as though speaking the very words of God, some people are, serve and let them serve, serve with the strength that God requires. And I think those are umbrella terms for some people are good with words. Some people are good with this Deacon kind of hospitality service. And what would it look like to get these two people, you know, working together in the great priesthood of God, one Peter, chapter two, it would be evangelism the way it happened in the early church, evangelism, the way it happened, you know, in the book of Acts of evangelism the way it happened in those early centuries, which is opening up tables and homes and sprinkling it around with yep, there are there are some Rebecca McLaughlin’s in your church and there are there are some Andrew Wilson’s in your church and and let’s get them around the table. But it doesn’t just take those kinds of speaker type gifted people with it. Really. It really in franchises, you know, the entire body. Yeah, because pastoral care and evangelism are integrated.

Rebecca McLaughlin
Yeah. And actually, I think we have been infected with the idea that it’s so prevalent in, in the culture more generally, which is that I should be sitting around and thinking about my my own identity and my own, you know, very much kind of caught up in in my own self fulfillment, or lack thereof, my own sense of sense of who I am or failure to, to recognize who I am and increasingly becomes a sense of inadequacy, I think, the more I sit around by myself, reflecting on my own self, the more boring and foolish and inadequate and unlovable I, you know, I appear to be like, you know, it’s only a downward spiral. It’s not my job to sit around thinking those things, actually, it’s my job to be out there, extending the love of Jesus and sharing the gospel and partnering with my brothers and sisters. And when I’m out there on mission, I am absolutely my best self. And so I think there’s not that this is the primary point of it, but there is a kind of, for want of a better whether a sort of therapeutic shape to mission, that I think many of us as Christians. And actually, I think even even something as wonderful and beautiful as marriage and a nuclear family can feed this, where we sort of retreated into ourselves or into our immediate kind of households. And, and we’ve, we’ve lost that, that gospel oriented outward focus. And we we isolate ourselves and make ourselves sort of miserable in the process. When if we were out there? We wouldn’t have we don’t have time for that, you know, we were running toward eternity. And I didn’t have time to waste sitting around thinking how useless and inadequate I am. Do you know like, like, I just need to shut up and get on with it. I realized that may come across as like horribly insensitive to some and, and so I want to walk that back a little bit because I’m not saying that Christians can’t and don’t struggle with like real painful depression anxiety like these, these things that can can grip us and that can crop up in the lives of the unit, the most faithful Christian who was serving with all their heart like that, that’s, that’s not what I’m saying at all. But but I just know from my own experience, the more I’m focused on, on working under the Lord being a worker in his harvest field, and the less I’m focused on Rebecca McLaughlin, actually, the better, the happier and healthier I am, and the more I’m receiving Jesus’s love, in relationship with other people. Rather than, than sort of turning in on myself. So I think, finding ways to encourage each other in that, to draw each other out to see each other’s gifts and capabilities, not as an end of themselves, but as a kind of mobilization of the team. Spurring each other on drawing each other out, shoulder to shoulder together, locking arms, as we, as we, we engage in the work that God’s given us to do.

Glen Scrivener
Yeah, what about the vertical dimension, because we’re thinking a lot about the the outgoing, reaching out kind of posture, and I absolutely agree that, you know, atomized me by myself is not a healthy place to be. And we’re meant to be outwardly curved, you know, in that sense, rather than sort of inwardly curved. But there’s another sense and you mentioned that there as well. But together in church, you know, we receive, you know, we receive from God, and what about worship, as well. And I’m turning to our charismatic friend here as big because, you know, Sunday is not simply, you know, us reaching out, we’re reaching up and we’re receiving with open hands, from a God who is strange, a God who has other we spoke in previous episodes about that, you know, there are times where it feels thin between heaven and earth. And there’s a hunger for that as well, isn’t it? What about weirdness and worship? Tell me about weirdness and worship?

Andrew Wilson
This is the key Christianity weird thing isn’t. And I think you’re right, it’s, I think the the tent the temptation can be the world think this is very strange. So let’s close the gap between us and the world. Even if it means increasing the gap between earth and heaven. He’s feeling like you’re clever. You don’t you never as you do, but you feel like you are. And I think you need to do the opposite. No, you need to say actually, the gap, this the strangeness of the church, in the sense of our union with Christ, and our, our worship, our, our exuberance, our joy and suffering are, the sacraments are just bizarre. Obviously, they’re my kind of spiritual gifts of just bizarre, but the whole singing and people just, I mean, just the person who came to our church and just went with us feedback and didn’t actually pick up at any of the strange things, but I just don’t have to a hell of a lot of singing. And it was like the idea that in an outside of a football match, you would spend so much time singing for joy. And almost no matter what was going on in your life was a very alien idea. And and that weirdness is itself. Just like, I totally agree with Rebecca Cydonia, that people are often much more struck by the power of it than they are alienated by the strangeness of it they, it just, it seems to, I know it’s not the same year. But as you make the gaps, you almost see the connection between earth and heaven, which you express in all different kinds of different traditions actually have different strengths that some, it is very much a strength in the sacramental liturgical side and others it’s a strength in the sort of exuberance and spiritual liveliness side. And obviously, ideally, we’d be both but but actually, as people see that they’re like, there is something about this, that is quite the number of people we found who are not believers who come to our church, and then they just don’t even know why they just find themselves crying through the worship as the seeing, it’s very rarely people go that point you made. I mean, I preach all the time. So I want people to listen, and people don’t engage. And often people are interested by it. But the bit that usually moves people isn’t the preaching in my experience, or at least a bit that usually moves the unbeliever is often not the breaching, that’s often where you get the chance to say, given what you feel, this is the thing to do. This is where you could come we’ll talk more but the bit that often reaches the parts that other beat bears don’t reach is is worshipped for dachser logical joyful sacramental, perhaps it it’s it’s different. This the things that you just don’t get anywhere else. And people do give compelling speeches and arguments for 2025 30 minutes in other walks of life, but they’ve what they never do anywhere else is the sort of corporate worship, so I don’t want to downplay preaching, and I know none of the three of us would want to do that do it all the time. But I think you’re right. Sometimes the greatest appeal you can make to somebody is to show someone Christian worship and then say, so what do you think or what did you feel Yes.

Glen Scrivener
And they don’t have to have gotten it either for that to be

Andrew Wilson
often they don’t like to say what was that? And they just I don’t know, I don’t know it’s numinous, it seems to touch different parts of the soul. And that doesn’t again, I’m not trying to be sort of mystical in it to the extent that you bypass the brain. But I think sometimes then the preaching or the evangelism or the seeker evangelism course, Christianity explored alpha, whatever it is, is an opportunity to talk about what people experience rather than simply rationalize the faith as if it is just a set of ideas to be transferred from one to another. Yes, yeah.

Rebecca McLaughlin
And I think that the deeper that you go into Christian community, the more powerful that is, because if I had to pinpoint what is my what is the thing about Sunday morning that most gets me it’s looking around the church at people whose lives I know. And who struggles I know, new stories. I know. Watching them worship is so powerful, because I can, I’m like, I know where you’ve come from. I know where you were even like, a few years ago, I sat with you and you’re crying last week, like just to, to have that sense of that the vertical and the horizontal dimension are all just like smashed up together in a way that they’re only going to get more smashed up in the new creation, right, as we together are Jesus’s bride. Seeing that beautiful expression of God with us in the faces of my brothers and sisters in worship together, is perhaps my favorite thing about about church just seeing that. And then I remember when COVID hit, reflecting like, oh, all the things I’m used to at church, I can’t do anymore. And it’s the singing is a huge loss. But it’s also like, I probably hug like 25 people on a Sunday morning, one way and you know, like, I’m holding people’s babies, or I’m like, just the cutting out the touch was like, Oh, what is that? It was horrible. I hated it. And getting that back now. It’s like, oh, this is who we are together is just delightful.

Andrew Wilson
As will be my last comment on the entire series, I think. But I just think there is something very powerful that that caught up to the new creation you gave Rebecca, I think of saying that for all. And we’ve talked a lot about you’ve we I don’t know how many times we’ve used the word post Christianity on this conversation. But I do think that ultimately, we will, we live in a pre Christian age. We live in an age where all the kingdoms of the world are one day going to become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ. And that actually, the optimism doesn’t come from looking at the landscape today and going these are all the things we could do to fix it. Although I think as we’ve said, today, there is a lot more hope and a lot more reasons to be positive about that than then perhaps many in the church would appreciate. But I think it’s out of coming out of our sense of eschatology and a sense that actually the direction of history is such that ultimately mean far more of the world will be Christian than it is than it is now that the whole world will be Christian, as opposed to what is now. And I think that anticipation, both of the worshiping life of the of the gathered Church on the last day. But also the sense of evangelistic mission accomplished that the the actually there’s no none of the struggles and tensions and how do you navigate that and triangulate this need with that question and this sexual ethical issue and that political dilemma, none of that will be needed. And I just think that’s for me, that’s the most hopeful thought in the world.

Glen Scrivener
Wonderful, wonderful. So I guess that’s a good place to draw post Christianity to an end. And that will be this series of post Christianity. If we do another series, we could call it pre Christianity. And that’s coming coming soon. Pre Christianity,

Rebecca McLaughlin
because we really were pre Christendom, not post Christians. Exactly. Pre

Glen Scrivener
Christendom. Yeah. And He shall reign forever and ever. Rebecca McLaughlin, thank you so much for joining us.

Rebecca McLaughlin
Thank you so much, Rebecca, thank you for having me.

Glen Scrivener
We’ll see you again. And please do give this a rating a review on your pod catcher of choice and share it on social media. I know I’ll be sharing the wisdom of Rebecca, far and wide. Why don’t you do the same on Twitter and Facebook and wherever else you share these things. Thanks so much, and hopefully see you again.