New Waters S2 | Episode 2

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In The Wake

Every generation of the church has asked similar questions, it just happens to be our turn. What can we learn from historical missteps and genuine moves of the Holy Spirit? What does revival and renewal look like in Canada as we navigate faith and the future? Join the conversation as Raja, Dom, Lydia, Rob, Milissa and Nathan share from personal experience and consider significant moments and movements throughout history that have shaped how the church responds to culture and change.

Show notes and a full transcript of the episode are available below!

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+ Full Episode Transcript

RAJA STONE: Hey, welcome back to the next episode of the New Waters podcast. A podcast that's aimed to try to wrestle with some issues in regards to culture, church, looking at the future. My name is Raja Stone and I'm the lead pastor for the church plant Uptown Community Church in Waterloo, Ontario. Let's go around the table and reintroduce ourselves to everyone listening.

DOM RUSO: Hey everyone. Thanks for joining us. My name is Dominic Ruso and I'm the church planter and lead pastor for the 180 Church in the Greater Montreal area. I'm also a dad. I've got three boys, young boys and they keep me busy.

ROB CHARTRAND: I'm Rob Chartrand. I'm the lead pastor of Cross Point Church in Edmonton, Alberta. I've also got ... Let me start that again. [Clears throat]

RAJA: Don't make that noise ever again please.

DOM: That is disgusting Rob. You're not going to be in the future.

ROB: I'm Rob Chartrand. I'm the lead pastor of Cross Point Church in Edmonton, Alberta. I'm also a dad. I got two daughters. If you want to pass the shoe a little bit later on and discuss marriage arrangements that's fantastic. Actually my daughters are way too old for your sons and one is already married so-

DOM: That's awesome. They'll teach us about the future.

MILISSA EWING: I'm Milissa Ewing. I am the pastor of family ministries at Tenth Church in Vancouver, British Columbia. This my first time in Manitoba. I've always thought that we had the edge on natural beauty in British Columbia but I'm looking out the window and it's pretty beautiful here.

NATHAN WESELAKE: You're also looking at Raj.

MILISSA: That's true.

RAJA: My mocha goodness.

ROB: He is a natural beauty.

NATHAN: It's discouraging that guy over there.

LYDIA STOESZ: Well I'm Lydia Stoesz and I am the pastor of educational ministries at Prairie Alliance Church and also the principal at West Park school. This a great way to be spending my summer vacation away from the school and hanging out with you guys.

NATHAN: I'm Nathan Weselake, lead pastor at Prairie Alliance church in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba.

RAJA: Thanks everyone for the introductions. We mentioned before that we have kids and I have three daughters as well. One of the things that's interesting is seeing the world through their eyes. I think I know what's happening until they start telling me that I have no idea what's happening. The question I want to start off with for all of you is when did you feel like an outsider in culture? What was the moment? What was the technology? What was the media? What was it that made you realize, "Wow, I might be a step behind."

DOM: Well my boys are avid Fortniters. Anyone listening knows Fortnite changed the world. It's changing so much of the culture. When I try to play with them, although I think I'm into video games and I try to play video games they'll often turn to me and say, "Dad you're so old school. You don't understand how this game works." I feel like they're right. So I'm starting to feel like an outsider. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it's just trying to make sense of, hey, what's my role right now as I'm trying to lead and how I'm trying to be a father and all ... That's an example that comes to mind right away.

MILISSA: Yeah. Vancouver is a really big coffee culture.

DOM: Third wave people, right? Third wavers.

NATHAN: Fourth wave, fifth wave.

MILISSA: We love coffee and our church is situated within very close proximity. 1, 2, 3 blocks away from some of the best coffee shops. I usually go with people and I often go with people who are younger than me who know how to order from these places. And so I find myself sometimes by myself, and I get to the counter and I have no idea how to order a cup of coffee. I've entered into ... I go into this place all the time but when I don't have somebody holding my hand I have no idea. Pour over, drip, French press, AeroPress. I don't know.

DOM: Double-double means nothing.

MILISSA: No double-double. That's a bad word.

NATHAN: This Thursday I'm going to the Winnipeg folk festival with my daughter and I'm definitely not part of that tribe but I love acting the part for a night. I wear little cutoff jean shorts that are embarrassingly high and my wife's gardening hat. No shirt. I just fit in with everybody and just groove in my very unfunky way.

DOM: Follow us on social media we're going to post a picture of that.

MILISSA: Nobody needs to see that.

NATHAN: I'm definitely outside that culture but it's a bit of a kick to pretend I'm a part of it for an evening.

ROB: How long have you been doing this?

NATHAN: This will be my second year.

ROB: Okay. I was there four or five years ago and I saw somebody who looked just like that. I thought how bizarre.

MILISSA: You've missed the mark on the culture.

NATHAN: No. That would be funny. My daughter seems to indicate that I may have missed the mark but just seems like people dressing weird.

MILISSA: Very inclusive culture at folk fest.

ROB: You're a bold man.

RAJA: Anyone else? As far as when did they feel like an outsider in culture?

LYDIA: My husband is Mennonite and when I first went to meet his family it was Remembrance Day. They were making farmer sausage from Remembrance Day, which is a yearly tradition. You go into their ... His parents garage and they've got like all this pork and they're chopping it up and they're putting it through meat grinders.

DOM: That's not my culture. That's a different culture.

LYDIA: Then we're eating food that it's just different. Everything is very, very different. They're asking me questions because we're trying to exchange our culture. They're like so, "How do you normally celebrate Remembrance Day?" I'm going, I don't think anybody really celebrates Remembrance Day. It's not like let's bring the fireworks and stuff like that. It's just been navigating through that whole thing and some of the assumptions that they make and I make in try to figuring it out and try to find the best things of each culture.

RAJA: Rob how about you?

ROB: One thing that comes to mind I can remember back in high school, this is a family culture shock. Going to a friend's house and this guy played on my basketball team and he invited me for family dinner at his house and we went in. We sat down for dinner around the table. We all ate at the same time. Everyone was polite, they talked to each other, they took turns talking, we ate the meal together. There was grace before the meal. Then after the meal everyone lingered for dessert and coffee. For me complete culture shock from my family of origin. Which was maybe we might see each other at dinner, TV blaring, the room full of hazy smoke. Lots of shouting, food on your lap as you watch television, completely different world to step into that. I was shocked. You talk about culture shock. For me this was overwhelming.

RAJA: That's interesting you bring that up because that's like culture as far as our family culture. The reality is there's many layers to culture. We're going to talk a little bit about that and I don't know if we're going to do a great job of getting to all the layers then our discussions are going to be trying to grasp a hold of this thing called culture. We're going to have different definitions of it but I don't know if we're going to get the exact definition that's going to please everybody but from different contexts, different conversations we've had. Obviously it's a many a multifaceted conversation.

ROB: Let me just interject on that. I wasn't part of last year's podcast but I did go back and listen to all of them. One of the things I noted was that the word culture was used a lot but at the end of the day there was no real clear consensus around the table about what we meant by the word culture and so I just thought as a starting point that might be a good way for us to begin as just to talk about well what do we mean by culture? What is a culture? Just as a place to launch from.

DOM: I think defining culture is difficult because for many people culture often is connected to the world and we use the world out there as this negative thing that people are trying to hide from. We have secular culture all these things but maybe understanding that there's a more simple way to just hold onto the idea of culture that will help listeners just know what we mean. I don't know Rob if you have words or some thoughts that might be helpful.

ROB: Yeah. The thing that's really helpful when we think about culture is we're not seeing it as a negative or a positive thing.

RAJA: It's kind of a neutral one.

ROB: It's a neutral. It's neutral. Now cultures can have negative and positive aspects towards them.

RAJA: That's important.

ROB: But in terms of our working definition of culture, culture is not negative. That's why it's different than a biblical understanding of the word world. Cosmo's son which is evil that the dominion of the evil one and he's in control and all that. We can't make them parallel. I have a basic understanding how I think about it is a culture is a reality that people experience in their behaviors and their assumptions and their values. They're these behaviors and assumptions that are common to a group of people that-

RAJA: That are shared.

ROB: It's usually manifest in the language that they speak and the symbols that they use, in the values they share, in the artifacts that you'll find about a culture. That's really this is about behaviors and about assumptions.

RAJA: I think of that to the stories they tell themselves about their identity.

ROB: That's right.

RAJA: One person has defined culture as saying asking people about culture is like asking a fish about water. You're so immersed in it that it's almost difficult to step outside of that and say, "This is what it is." I think Rob what you said that was really interesting in that we have to distinguish between the concept of the world and culture. Because of course as the Bible portrays it we have an antagonism towards the world as the dominion of a place where the enemy or darkness resides in that we are meant not to be of the world but to be in the world. We have to have that distinction. Culture and world are two separate things. Does anyone else have an idea about maybe defining culture in the world and separation from the two?

DOM: I like what Rob is saying. I think one of the best things that we can give our listeners is to just try to hear the word culture at least in our conversation like something neutral that has potential for negative or potential for positive and to not equate it with the idea of the world that we often think about in the Bible.

RAJA: Thanks Rob for giving some clarity in regards to definition of culture. Because I think it's going to be helpful because we're going to be throwing that word around a lot. It's great to have maybe a rudder on the boat to guess the direction we need to go. One of the new formats for this season of the podcast is that we asked two people to step aside and to listen and to observe and then come back at the end to give us a commentary or some insights to what they've listened to you. For this podcast Milissa and Nathan are going to step aside to hear and to listen and then come back at the end to give us some insight.

DOM: Great. You guys get a little break now.

MILISSA: All right.

ROB: Go to the balcony.

NATHAN: Nap time.

MILISSA: Going to go listen.

DOM: Later.

[Musical Interlude]

RAJA: I just want to give three viewpoints in regards to how Christians view culture and how we engage with it. Dr. Bruce Ashford in his book Every Square Inch talks about three main views that Christians have with culture. He says there's either a Christianity against culture, Christianity of culture, or Christianity in and for culture. Let me just give you a brief synopsis of what each of the points are before we discuss them. Christianity against culture I think is the more common or popular one is this idea of saying some proponents of Christianity against culture tend to view the church primarily as a bomb shelter. The idea behind a bomb shelter is what's on the outside is so damaging, so horrific that you need to hide yourself away and this very safe-

DOM: Bunker style.

RAJA: Absolutely. Christianity of culture is the idea of saying those with a Christianity of culture perspective tend to build churches that are mirrors of the culture. Again we can ... We'll be talking about this a bit more as well too. Actually before we talk-

DOM: Would you say those two are extremes of two sides? One is you lose yourself and the other one is like you're super-

RAJA: Yeah absolutely. Well, just before we go to the third one obviously before we go to the comfy bed to use Goldilocks let's talk about the two concepts. Christianity against culture and Christianity of culture. What do you think predominantly is in the mindset of most pastors today?

DOM: Man, that's a good one Raja. I think it's easier to be polarized on this one. You have some that tried one over the other. I think one of the things I think about has a lot to do with the way one develops as a leader because part of your leadership stance comes out of whether you think people want you to be the leader who keeps them safe from all the bad stuff out there. You almost develop a bunker framework because there's an expectation that's placed on you to do that.

RAJA: Do you think a preacher like that would be speaking more towards fear?

DOM: There's just a tendency to see everything. Even the biblical narrative through the themes of culture is bad and culture equals the same as the world but bad, bad world out there.

ROB: I think that confusion really plays into it.

DOM: It happens often, right? Or you hear people say the secular humanism the term people use like and I'll often ask them what does that even mean? What do you mean by secular because humanism can be a positive word. It's about humanity thriving. That's my sense.

RAJA: Your stance would be that the predominant view within churches today within maybe Canada or in the context you understand is Christianity against culture?

DOM: No, I just think that both of them are probably temptations. They're both dangerous. They both are ones that I can think of either wrestling with myself for seeing churches live too much on those two polar extremes.

ROB: Yeah. It's difficult to characterize all pastors or more commonly or this camp or that camp. I think you're going to see a whole spectrum.

DOM: You can change too. Some people start one way and then they move towards-

ROB: Yeah. I think in my life in my ministry I've done that. Are there any examples you can think of though in your own contexts where you've seen maybe one extreme or the other?

DOM: Yeah. I mean I grew up early on going to ... In a Roman Catholic context when I was young. Then when I was about 13 years old my mom had a Pentecostal renewal experience. In that context because of how we learned about the end of the world or Jesus coming back very quickly our stance was if we're going to be ready for Jesus and be Holy, we're going to have a view of hiding away. I don't think people would use those words. They felt that they were being obedient, and they were really helping us. But over time they never gave us a lens on how to process culture from another perspective. It was just that.

RAJA: Dominic I think that's a great point because when you look at this idea of culture especially with growing up from a Pentecost background which is holiness was this idea of ... Like I remember the debate I had with my parents about school dances. One of the things that when I was a youth pastor, one of the big time bombs that was ticking in the youth group was school dances.

DOM: Whether or not to go to them right?

RAJA: No, I remember having ... And this is adventures and totally getting everything wrong. I invited both the parents and the youth to a meeting and I said at this meeting that I was going to finally clarify this discussion of should youth go to dances or should youth not go to dances? The parents were sitting there on the one side.

DOM: The night Raja almost died.

RAJA: All the parents were sitting on the one side arms crossed like you youth pastor, you tell our kids what we want to do. The youth on the other side are looking at me okay, pastor tell my parents that I can go to the school dance. So I stand up and I say to them, "Here's the deal. I want you all to love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and do whatever you want." And I sat down and you've never seen an entire group of people so unhappy with any discussion. That was a moment of, the culture of is school dances ... Is this we're going to finally become sinful. Because my daughters, it wasn't even a conversation if they wanted to go to school dance because there was chaperones for every-

ROB: Do people go to school dances anymore?

RAJA: I don't even know anymore. That was this moment of Christianity against culture.

LYDIA: In the school where I'm the principal this is really on the cusp of where we are at because usually a Christian school would be considered to be a bomb shelter where you stick all the good little Christian boys and girls inside of a school and you hunker down like a greenhouse. That's often used as a picture for something like that where you can have them grow and flourish in this wonderful nutrient environment. No weeds at all. Everything is perfect so that they are perfect plants, so that when they leave the greenhouse they're awesome. Except that you need to harden off the planets really before they leave the greenhouse. We forget that step sometimes I think. Then there's the other side, which says well no I want my kids to be self enlight- so I'm going to put them into a different environment and not worry about that. What we try to do as a school is to do that.

RAJA: Both and?

LYDIA: Both and. I sometimes will have hard conversations with parents who say why are you allowing kids from a non-Christian home to come into our school? Why are you allowing some Indigenous culture to come into our school? Why are you allowing these different things that are very dangerous? Because I want my kids in this greenhouse, I want my kids in this bomb shelter. It's okay to paint the bomb shelter to look like culture as long as it remains a bomb shelter. That becomes very difficult because then we're not actually teaching kids how to share their faith. We're not teaching our Christian boys and girls how to actually be like Jesus if they never have the opportunity to do that. That's a tension that we definitely live in at West Park.

ROB: That's a great example.

RAJA: Lydia that perspective is fantastic because and I love what your school is doing. You are making a very uncomfortable decision but you're making the best decision in regards to the- which is actually brings us to the third point of what Dr. Ashford said. He says this idea of Christianity in and for culture and so this is what he says about it. "A third better mindset is one that have used human beings as representative of Christ who lived their lives in the midst of and for the good of the cultural context and whose cultural lives are characterized by obedience and witness." I actually put in brackets ambassadors, which is a great term. An ambassador is this idea that the embassy is literally the soil of the country that it represents and the ambassador lives under the rules of the country that they represent. And so creating ambassadors within culture rather than creating bomb shelters of culture which I think is a really interesting way of looking at it.

DOM: I mean I like books like this but I always have a kind of angst about the simplistic formula for culture. This one of the things I maybe ... It's not a common idea that I think we can forget that the Bible itself and the story of Christianity is given to us from within a culture. We're not trying to find some purist way of making sense of culture. If that was the case I mean Jesus could've came as something we had never seen like a pure version of God's holiness in the sky in the form of a dragon. I don't know. Instead he embeds himself in a human broken culture. Any time I think in the early church we see this in the scriptures where those who are falling when Jesus are trying to detach from the beauty of that, Christians would say this a Gnostic expression of Christianity. There's a real danger here.

RAJA: You use the word Gnostic so can you want to define that or-

DOM: The word Gnostic is groups of people in the at least we know the first century who are developing around when Christianity is taking shape that believed that things of this world were bad. The dualistic idea of the Gnostic spiritual leaders was that everything spiritual was good and everything material was bad. It was a dualistic view of the world.

RAJA: Can I-

DOM: Let me just finish this thought because it's important. One of the things that became really important for Christians when they developed a theology of the incarnation was to emphasize that Jesus they didn't just come as a spiritual person who gave us spiritual light to free us from this world. He actually took on human flesh and the Gnostics hated that about the Christian idea of Jesus. What they did is they hijacked Jesus and they turned Jesus into a savior who was just going to free people spiritually. The earliest Christians kept fighting against that idea of saying of course there's a spiritual truth to that but Jesus was also 100% human. That really I think needs to be a new lens we give listeners because it gives us a different way on how we approach an idea of culture. The Bible is culturalized in some sense.

ROB: This really important I think when we talk about the mission of God is because this idea of incarnational theology. It's so critical because ... Jesus was born into a culture. He was born into a people.

DOM: In a time period.

ROB: In a period of time within history. If you forget that ... This maybe it may in fact be one of the challenges that certain aspects of the church today wrestle with is the circle up, get it to the fortress. Because this world doesn't matter. What only matters is that I'm going to go to be with Jesus forever. I can ignore the world around me. I can ignore all aspects of it. Put aside the mission of God. The mission of God requires us to incarnate and actually to in flesh to be like Jesus in the culture, to engage with the culture itself.

DOM: I think the danger Rob is when people don't learn that or when we as leaders maybe don't teach this well. One of the ways that maybe this episode will help us is to think about how the past can inform and teach us to think about maybe culture in a new way. In the early church we know this and it's well documented research that one of the earliest heresies or ideas that was starting to develop and emerging that was very different than what the earliest followers of Jesus believed was essential was that one of the earliest thinkers named Marcian believed that we can have a version of Jesus without the Old Testament story. He develops a canon or a version of the authority of the Bible that excludes the Old Testament, which is just saying like we don't need that culture. Your descriptions are like wait a second, if we don't hold onto the Hebrew culture we don't know who Jesus in his humanness was. There's another example of the positive nature of culture.

RAJA: There's actually like a modern representation of that.

ROB: Yeah. We have a gospel version that Christ ignored the Old Testament.

RAJA: Christianity. It's just idea of I want to concentrate on the ... of Jesus and I'm going to ignore everything else. Again that's incomplete.

ROB: Jesus completes the story of Israel. You cannot take that-

RAJA: One thing I think it's interesting is that when we talk with Jesus inhabiting a culture it wasn't just simply the Jewish culture though because Jesus put himself in the midst of three competing cultures. So it was the Jewish culture which is the Hebrew way of thinking. It was the Greek philosophical way of thinking. It was also the Roman way of thinking as well. Latin. Jesus comes in and he plants gospel seeds in all three of these worlds. These three worlds, these three ways of thinking are really the foundations of the world that we live in today.

DOM: We also know that the earliest Jewish followers of Jesus who are ... They're not even Hebrew thinkers anymore that they need a version of the Hebrew Bible in Greek. We call that the Septuagint, which is already a sign that a culture has already changed them. Yet they have to figure out how to orient themselves around the good news of Jesus for a changing times.

RAJA: Let's pivot here and let me just use Acts chapter 15 as the backdrop for where I want to pivot here. In Acts chapter 15 you have this amazing moment called the council of Jerusalem. You have this incredible moment where all the great minds of the early church come together and the conversation centers around-

DOM: Those early first Jewish leaders.

RAJA: The conversation centers around what do we do with the Gentiles? Because the Gentiles are now starting to awaken to this Jesus movement.

DOM: Well a new culture is pushing against the Hebrew culture.

RAJA: Right, and so the conversation happens and so what do we do? Do we circumcise them? Do we give them the Law of Moses? How do we have this? This the first moment we have documented of this cultural clash of how do we do? How do we interpret this? Now I don't really want to spend too much time on Acts chapter 15 because we see how it turns out and the decision that was made. In your opinion what things have our culture or the world, depending which how you want to look at it have added to the gospel that has been a detriment to the gospel?

ROB: How does that tie back to Acts 15? I think we went over that real quick.

RAJA: Well so in Acts chapter 15 for me the idea is that we should circumcise the Gentiles. That was a part they were trying to place upon the Gentiles.

DOM: It wasn't a bad thing. It was important for when it happened. There was now a shift was going to happen.

RAJA: Right. It wasn't the culture for the Gentiles. The gospel didn't have to be ... They didn't have to be circumcised to embrace the gospel.

DOM: It is going to be sometimes, it's not important for them to be saved. Paul is going to circumcise Timothy. There's times where you-

RAJA: Right. James stands up and he gives his pronouncement and he says that Gentiles do not have to be circumcised. Now what Paul does with Timothy is an anomaly but not necessarily the norm.

ROB: I think there's something really interesting there that can add value to this conversation. There are a number of people that say that there are two postures, the two approaches that we can take towards how we do mission, how we relate to the culture around us. Some would say that you can have what's called a centered set posture, and some would say you'd have a bounded set posture. The idea of a bounded set is the idea of putting up fences. If you want to take care of the sheep that are among you-

RAJA: The protectionist kind of thing?

ROB: You put up fences and the boundaries are good. They're there for good purpose to provide a safe environment, to protect from outside wolves, etcetera. The centered set though is different. The idea of a centered set... The goal of both of these sets is to get people to Jesus, to bring people in the proximity of Jesus, to keep people in the faith etcetera. The idea of a centered set though is you don't build fences. Instead, what you do is you put a well at the center of your piece of land and all of the sheep or animals that you have-

RAJA: You just have to move.

ROB: Move towards that. When we think about the people within our churches within our ministries or whatnot we have two approaches. We can do a centered set so when you talk about the school that you're doing I think a lot of that is not so much focusing on the bounded set but the centered set, painting a picture beautiful picture of who Jesus is. People gravitate towards that. It's a centered set posture. Whereas in some other contexts you create a bounded set and your idea is just to create fences. Now getting back to Acts chapter 15, what's interesting about it is you actually have both of these postures at play. You have the early church wrestling with the mission of God. How do we do mission to the Gentiles? You have this idea of the centered set here's Jesus, here's the Holy Spirit. Gentiles are speaking in tongues. They're preaching the gospel. This who Jesus is. Then he gets back to Jerusalem. The immediate posture might be, "Whoa, we've got to put fences around this." In their wisdom they're discerning, they're listening to the spirit and they say, "Okay, we've got to put some fences up." If you read it, they don't put up all the fences but they do put up some fences.

RAJA: They absolutely have.

[Musical Interlude]

RAJA: Rob that's a great example and that's a great example of the church getting it right. What are some other examples historically where the church has gotten it right in regards to this engagement of culture?

ROB: Well I mean I have a lot of them that come to mind. One of them is as it relates to the whole development of monasticism. I mean you have the church trying to make sense of how the gospel of Jesus speaks to an empire system that is really navigated towards prosperity and power and control. They call the church back to spiritual vitality and a real deep connection with God. It's still being researched today of how powerful that was in shifting all of the not only Western but even the Eastern world. There's an example of how Christians were like "we're in a culture some of this doesn't feel right. God is throwing something innocent. Let's live out of that."

RAJA: One that comes to mind for me is this idea of social justice and what the church has done historically. The church has always seen the ... For lack of a better phrase the least of these. Children sick and also education. The church has always been at the very forefront. It didn't matter if they were professing Christians or if they had ... Identify in the same racial backgrounds. The church was always at the very forefront of saying, "How do we help? How do we find a way to serve these people in the best way possible?"

DOM: That's a great example. I think it's easy to forget that because at the same time obviously the church has done some negative things.

RAJA: Anything else you think we can maybe say that the church has done well on?

DOM: Well I mean I think about this a lot. I spent a lot of years living in the history and I'm also a proponent that history does have its limits on what we can learn from it. I think if it wasn't for how the reformation is going to change how we learn, the printing press will become like a revolutionary way that the church says, hey, this technology or this rethinking of how people learn is going to be helpful for us to share the good news in people's languages, in other nations. Not everybody's going to embrace that. Thankfully there was enough leaders that said, "Hey, this going to be helpful for us. We need to learn and step into this." Is another example which is not only going to change the church it's going to change the world. There's an example of how the church is the community that's creating culture. They're not only just adapting. They're actually going to be the creators of culture.

RAJA: Lydia how about you? Do you got any examples that come to mind?

LYDIA: For sure. I think in the past the church has been pretty in the forefront of the rights for children and making changes within. When you think of child labor back in the time of the enlightenment and bringing kids into school and bringing them food and then teaching them and trying to do that in a way that really did change their future and changed the universal education for people. That was something that was definitely done by the church. There's lots of missteps for sure and our country has some of those places where that became enculturation to evangelize and super bad stuff happened.

RAJA: Sure.

LYDIA: There are other stories, I'm thinking of Europe during the enlightenment and that thing where-

DOM: Of course. Do you think that part of the challenges that the church learns early on how to embrace the best of culture as they point people to God's kingdom, I mean a new idea from a place of surrender and over time that that posture changes to the church being able to do it because of power. And when the power part really becomes a dominant the church almost loses a bit of its way. It kind of loses a bit of its way. The goal is not for the church to have no power, no influence but for that to be done in the humility of the Spirit so new cultures can emerge.

RAJA: That's actually really interesting because when the church has been most influential in culture is when it's been the servant.

DOM: In some ways yeah. Its posture is to serve.

Lydia: It's very difficult for the church I think to not be on the margins and do good things because when-

DOM: Like almost forced?

LYDIA: Because when we're on the margins we know where our strength comes from. We know who we answer to. We know who the person in charge would be, which would be God. When we are coming from a place of power well then we want to reserve that power and we want to preserve it and we want it to extend and can tend to ... Throughout history seems like that can tend to corrupt the church in a way that just makes it to be my culture, my church culture is the thing that's the most important-

RAJA: ... we actually are exporting our Western culture rather than exporting the gospel.

LYDIA: Exactly. Then it becomes a machine for the that and not for actually what Jesus was all about.

DOM: I'm curious if you guys have ever heard this language, which bothers me and I'm trying to think ... I don't think I know an answer on how to fix this. You have people like, "You know what we need in the church today? We just need more and more persecution. That'll help us." And I'm like, "are you on drugs?" Who would pray for more persecution? What they're trying to say-

RAJA: Yeah that's not something a pastor should say.

DOM: You know what they're trying to say is that how do we learn to depend on the Spirit that we the earliest Christians had to, but can we get there without wanting more persecution?

ROB: You know that we talk of persecution in our context and it's not persecution. The remainder of the world is experiencing persecution. I think I agree. Part of it is just a loss of this position within our culture of power. We're not in favor in necessarily in some contexts. You look at the statistical evidence. People are not necessarily polarized against Christianity.

DOM: No, not at all.

ROB: Only a certain maybe small group who's very loud on the internet and on social media. It's not that people are against Christianity or upset with Christianity, they just don't think we're relevant.

DOM: Yeah some of them are just indifferent.

ROB: They just don't care. That's the vast majority of people.

RAJA: That comes to the influence question. How do we influence people? Again we've historically done top-down because authority and power like Lydia said there, but really the best way we do it is from the bottom up that's serving.

[Musical Interlude]

RAJA: Let's shift gears here for a second and let's talk about cultural upheavals. Cultural upheavals is this term that we use in the church called revival. Revivals are these moments in time where something takes place that transforms and changes whether it's a city or a town or a country.

DOM: For the listeners how would you define a revival? Like A move of God's spirit or-?

RAJA: Let me kind of define revival. There's lots of different definitions of it. One definition that I like of revival goes something like this. Revivals usually occur after a prolonged spiritual moral decline. By definition a revival requires a state of death, neglect or loss. This has always been true historically. The church becomes apathetic to its master, its morals and its mission. It loses zeal and becomes ineffective. Its worship becomes dull and uneventful and its membership declines. It needs to be revived occasionally for its own sake.

ROB: I think there's a confusion about revival. We often quickly jump to the cultural transformation aspects of a revival and ignore the precursor, which the word revive means to bring back to life. The precursors is just simply the church itself coming back to life being reinvigorated, re-experiencing the gospel, love of Jesus. The spillover effect is within culture. Which then is evangelism and mission and all these other aspects that follow as a result. Which is I think part of your definition. I think it's important to delineate between those two things.

RAJA: Let me push back and ask a question. Is if are we mistaking the definition of revival with renewal? What's a renewal and what's a revival?

ROB: I think you make a great point there.

RAJA: Because I think renewal can happen within a church context or within a faith context. Revival for me seems to be this thing that spills outside of the church and actually starts affecting. One person defined it this way. Renewal is when a church is full. Revival is when the bars are empty. It actually seems to have this spillover that actually doesn't ... Because a lot of times churches can have these. Again my Pentecostalism is going to come out here. We have these Holy Ghost evening. These times together and the church is full of people who are Christians and that's renewal. That's when the church get excited. Now, renewal can lead to revival for sure. Whatever's happening in that church is it's particularly for Christ followers. Revival seems to be this thing that spills out of that.

ROB: Your definition, revival would include this culture changing?

RAJA: I would think so yeah.

ROB: Expression of the kingdom of God working.

LYDIA: I think sometimes too we have this idea that revival is some a magical thing that we're sitting in our church services all by yourselves and the lights are off and we're singing songs and all of a sudden something happens and people just randomly come in from the streets and say, "I'd like to believe in Jesus please." I know the four spiritual laws or whatever it is. That is the thing today.

ROB: There's so much else going around.

RAJA: Magic.

LYDIA: What we don't understand is that revival comes maybe out of renewal but out of people who are living out their faith in their culture so that it is so much like the well you were talking about so that it is people coming to that well and it changes culture because the Christians are actually doing something. Christians are actually ... Just coming out of what they ... They're changing. They're becoming more Christ-like. They're becoming incarnational. They know their neighbors names and they know the things that are happening in their neighborhoods and they're talking about their faith and it's not a magical thing. It's definitely a move of the Holy Spirit for sure but it's not ... There's the Holy Spirit changing the Christians in the communities that then becomes irresistible to the neighborhood.

RAJA: That's absolutely profound because that's exactly the point of the connection between the belief in the behavior.

DOM: Raja I would just say that most people that I think of today or that have experienced revival don't think of revival in this way at all. Revival to most people means this. Feel free to push back. Means I'm going to get a personal touch of the power of God for my own self exploration connect ... It's a modern view of the Spirit giving me a type of special blessing. I'm assured a ticket to heaven. I'm assured ... It doesn't need the church. It doesn't need discipleship. It doesn't lead to real communal transformation. If the Bible is supposed to be our guide that the spirit of God comes and the first revival of God's spirit is the church is born. I'm shocked that when you meet people who can show up for a revival service and never come back to church again. And I'm like what revival is ... Which spirit did you even meet? The spirit who basically is the head of this church? The spirit who is leading us to who Jesus is?

ROB: Well and the thing is my background again is part of the Pentecostal charismatic movement. So many times I prayed for revival as part of my Bible college experience or my church experience or my youth group experience not really understanding just how personally painful a revival will be.

DOM: So hard.

ROB: Because you will be convicted. You will be brought to your knees under the Lordship of Jesus. It will radically disrupt your life and your world around you.

DOM: So messy and the messiness of it.

ROB: We long for revival but it's oftentimes it's not really longing for a revival. It's a longing for a feeling or an emotivism and experience as you said Dom.

DOM: I want to connect it, Raja, back culture too. Because we think all this is a shortcut to the hard work of the way the spirit transform culture.

ROB: That's right.

DOM: It's not that at all. It's actually a lot more difficult when we really embrace revival.

ROB: Or we think it's a silver bullet to change culture or when we don't realize or we understate or minimize every single day, every Christian going to work, sitting on the sidelines of a kid's soccer game, loving their neighbor. That itself has a spillover effect in transforming culture as well. It's not just the revival.

RAJA: What's interesting too is and Rob I think you brought this up in such an amazing way. There is a cost to revival. Whether it was the great awakening, whether it's Charles Spurgeon these are times historically where incredible revivals took place. What preceded that though was an intense time of prayer was just people seeking after Jesus for Jesus. Not seeking after a show. Not seeking after anything else and not seeking out even just narcissistically, what Dom pointed out there. It was seeking after Jesus. When we seek after Jesus the revival just bubbles up within us. We can't help speak Jesus to those around us. We can't help live Jesus to those around us. We can't help serve as Christ did those around us. That's the spillover.

DOM: Again I think if we're not careful as we navigate the complexities of our culture and as we navigate how to think about how the Spirit is calling us to be his people in our culture. There is an emerging of an idolatry of revival language and revival culture. It's an idolatry that even when we talk about the references for a revival, it's honestly, it's the most crazy revivals in the history of Christianity. It's like thinking of a Stanley Cup all the time. It's really is everybody like Jonathan Edwards and is everybody all these people, that's all we think about.

ROB: Living on three hours of sleep.

DOM: Never being with their wives. Never being like I can't wait. My wife can't wait.

ROB: 80,000 miles on horseback preaching the gospel.

DOM: I'm like really that's what you want? God used them and we can celebrate that. History does teach us that when we love and we long for ... It's the romanticism of revival.

RAJA: It's nostalgia.

DOM: Yes. Not even that. It wasn't even that way at all. If God were to do a work of revival in our church and our church doubled by 200 people right now I would die. We can't even care for the people that are there. I often think God how are you already preparing us and as leaders to love those who are here so that if you do a special move or if you start to draw people we could care for them and disciple them. Most people don't want that in revival. They don't want to do that work. They're just like let's open the doors and have rallies and start a conference and write books. Really? That's what we want? That's the shortcut to cultural work.

[Musical interlude]

RAJA: As we talk about revival and we discuss and we look back at how could we define revival today without using the word revival? What would a genuine revival look like today? Let's not use the word revival. Let's find other aspects of it that would be transformative.

ROB: Lydia what would that look here in your community?

LYDIA: Well one of the things that we pray for as a church and we've discerned as one of the things that are super important to us in our context and important to God is that our church would reflect the demographic in our community. Revival for me would look like diversity in our community. Portage is about one third First Nations people. If we truly were to experience a move of God, we would see those indigenous people in our church not as my culture but as Christians from an indigenous culture. They wouldn't look like they were white. They would look they were indigenous. That's one of the things that we try really hard to bridge gaps in our school is through that and wanting to reflect the diversity in our community. I think that's one way.

RAJA: Taking intentional steps towards that because also you could just say, hey, we prayed for it but God didn't do it. Just wash your hands and blame Him.

LYDIA: Exactly.

RAJA: That's for some people what revival means. Passively do nothing.

LYDIA: That's something that has been really helpful as I'm working with our indigenous kids of saying, "No Jesus wants you to bang your drum. Jesus wants you to dance. Jesus wants you to pray blessings over people as you do the pow-wow." That is how you are worshiping Jesus in your culture.

DOM: As you're saying that you know Lydia I feel how beautiful is that? Then I feel it's going to be so messy.

LYDIA: It's totally messy. Isn't that revival? And revival is messy or whatever we're going to call it. That is messy because it's real and it's real people.

RAJA: I love how revival removes the labels. We really become the Galatians people, is neither Jew nor Gentile. Is neither First Nations nor Westerner nor whatever. We become Galatians people in revival because that idea of brother and sister and the body of Christ it's not a label. It's not a concept. It becomes an absolute ultimate reality. Rob how about for you? What would that look in your context?

ROB: I think couples who are breaking up and getting divorced would be healed. They would fall on their knees, surrender before Jesus and they would find their life and their vitality and their purpose in a better story through Christ. That these squabbles and these things that they're fighting over and they're dealing with and all that would just pale in comparison as they surrender their lives. I think of that. I think of restored families. The neighborhood we are in is very broken. The people of God living sacrificial generous lives that is other focused rather than self focused. Not because social media tells them to or because it seems like the right thing to do but just because it's the natural overflow of people who've experienced God's grace and truly, truly love him and are dreaming about a great future hope.

RAJA: When Tim Keller talks about revival one thing he says is that there's an overflowing of generosity in every aspect. If we could have that, that would be just so amazing. Dom for you as a church planter in Montreal and Quebec there. What would revival look for you in your context?

DOM: I think for me it really comes out of part of my own story of having grown up in both a Catholic space and then having grown up then later on in a Protestant world. I think that the world and the cultures around us are dying to see what it looks when Christians get along. When Christians who historically have killed each other in the name of purity and truth are starting to listen and say we're actually learning. That makes sense why you would do that or we understand why ... We didn't understand before. When it comes down to Jesus' prayer you're going to love one another in such a way where the world will for the first time get a glimpse of what it's like when people have different perspectives. Love one another. I think this question for me developed in my heart. I don't think I would use a word of revival at this time, when I was 14 years old because I was going to a Roman Catholic church and was I think a Roman Catholic church plant in my community when I was small because we met in high school. At the time I didn't understand church planting or anything but it was weird that our church was in that school. My mom then had this Pentecostal renewal. She went prayer meeting everything and she starts. She said, "Hey, I'm going to take you and your brother to a new church." And not realizing it's not a Protestant church it was a big deal. I grew up really quickly seeing my mom and dad begin to fight about Jesus. There were nights when my brother and I are I think our mom and dad are going to have a divorce because of this Jesus guy. I couldn't wrap my head because I'm like, isn't Jesus about love? How does this make any sense? Why are they fighting about Jesus? Jesus is supposed to be helping them. This caused incredible tension in my home. I remember being young and being in my room. I probably cried or was trying to pray and be like, one day I'm going to try to figure out in simplistic way why do Catholics and Protestants fight? My PhD would end up being on that theme. I never figured out the answer but I've worked through the questions and more and more in Quebec at least if I can speak from that space. The tensions, the historical tensions that are still very raw for people. They remember other people have one of the other traditions hurting their families or belittling their family. We're going to need a movement of God that creates a type of restoration that the world was like. That is miraculous. Who did that? You guys get along so that's something that is going to be done.

RAJA: Dom, what you said. What does it look for people of different even sex within Christianity finding that that piece. How do we communicate that? How do we talk about that? That's where I want to wrap up our time together is this idea of what does it look to communicate this in an inauthentic way and a presentation and to a culture, to a world that needs to hear it. As many of you probably watch TED talks are so popular and so amazing. One of my favourite Ted talks is by a person named Jennifer Lee. The TED talk is called The Hunt for General Tso. Just to summarize it, basically this idea that she brings forward is that she tries to hunt down who created General Tso's Chicken. General Tso's Chicken's great. It's sweet, it's spicy. I love it. What she finds out when she hunts it down is that it was actually not even created in China or any place like that but it was created in San Diego. What she begins to discover is that almost every culture in the world has adopted Chinese food but interpreted through their own lens. For example, she mentions that in Italy they have ... In Chinese restaurants have gelato. There's a form of Chinese food called Hakka which is an interpretation of Indian food, which is my food. It's so interesting to me how this type of food has been interpreted and embraced by all these cultures but also retained what it is but also transformed and found a way to speak into the culture. And I wonder if part of the pieces that we're missing is the saying that the gospel is like Chinese food. It doesn't have to have the cultural baggage or the world baggage that we have placed upon it. There's something beautiful and pure. In its essence. It can infiltrate any culture and find the redemptive work in that. What are your thoughts on that?

ROB: Well I think history has demonstrated time and time again that Christianity is the most radically inclusive religion in the world because its founder, Jesus was radically inclusive. His kingdom is that way. I think it's been demonstrated that the gospel can be contextualized in any environment. I mean the thing about Chinese food to get back to that illustration is where's the point where it stops being Chinese food because it's so diluted that it's lost its true essence. I think that's true of the gospel as well. If it can keep its true essence, it can contextualize anywhere. It can go anywhere.

DOM: I think too what we're trying to wrap our heads around is this idea that Jesus and the good news that he came to proclaim critiques every culture, but it also redeems every culture. There's something powerful about that. Again right away Jesus isn't going to wait long for this. In the first few years of Christianity you're going to see that with the Hebrew culture, the Greek culture, the Roman culture, the Latin culture. There's going to be trends. Something going on, something powerful there. We have to believe I think we have to return that the power of the Spirit is always helping us learn how to do that. I tell people in our church this that if Pentecost teaches us anything it's that the first move of the Spirit is for people to hear the glories of Jesus in their own culture. That's what the spirit does. The spirit bites the way nature comes to us for the sake of others. The minute we make revival in the spirit, something that's for our sake we're already doomed. Oftentimes in the biblical, story we have the cultures being languages because the people hear, the good news in their own language. What if we need to broaden that idea, that languages are technological shifts, linguistic shifts. Not only languages of nations but every time I'm with my sons and they're playing Fortnite or they're playing something on their iPad. I'm trying to think how can I maybe tell them something that might help them? I just pray. Jesus I need a Pentecost moment right now. I need your Spirit right now to help me figure out how to translate this truth so that they will get it, because theirs is a different culture. I think we need to broaden that and embrace that and just say, "Historically Jesus you've done it." The people who are there, here's the most profound thing. They're like, "These are a bunch of drunks. Isn't that crazy?" The most profound selfless moment is interpreted as they're drunk. Wouldn't it be great if the world just looks at us again and be like, "How are you guys able to translate this?" We're like, "We can because Jesus is teaching us how to do this again."

LYDIA: I was just thinking when Rob when you were talking about at some point when does it dissipate? I think even colonialism as bad as that has been for the world shows how Christianity was part of that culture. I mean it just shows the ubiquitous nature, the universal nature of Christianity within anything. It can go down the wrong path because when we become the powerful brokers and we lose sight of who Jesus really was. Then two, I think one of the things that can help us with that is understanding when we're talking about the Bible being written in a culture and the Old Testament coming from one culture and the New Testament coming from a pluralistic culture. What's interesting about that is then when you read the Bible that way and you understand you can navigate the culture and discern what is cultural and go how is this pointing us and how is this directing us as opposed to the Bible being an instruction manual because an instruction manual does not consider culture. It's not like IKEA where there's no language at all and it's just these little diagrams. That is not the Bible. You have to understand the culture. You don't have to understand Swedish culture in order to put an IKEA furniture together. In order for us to discern the Bible we do have to see it within culture.

RAJA: That's a great example. I think the interesting part where we landed and I didn't even predict this but is in order to have the gospel of the transcultural is by keeping separate the Spirit.

DOM: 100%.

RAJA: The spirit is working, moving, changing, transforming. What we need to do is just stay in step with the spirit, keep in step with the spirit where the spirit is and therefore we will be able to-

DOM: In the most correct way. In the most correct way because in step with the Spirit again can mean-

ROB: Oh Donnie.

DOM: You like that? My kookiness.

ROB: I know.

RAJA: Let's invite Nathan and Milissa to join us back to give us their thoughts as well.

[Musical Interlude]

RAJA: Nathan, Milissa welcome back. We'd love to hear your thoughts on what you heard. We'd love to hear some insights in different places we'd like to go. Nathan we'll start with you. What did you pick up on? What do you want to give some more thoughts on?

NATHAN: I liked what emerged but wasn't really put into a succinct phrase but I think me getting to sit and listen for a while gave me the option or the opportunity to maybe put a finer point on it. I think what we ended up saying was revival is a byproduct. You're not actually aiming for it, which fits into the revival idolatry I think that you mentioned that people are praying for the emotion and the excitement and the sense of significance that can come with being part of something. We long for revival and we don't want to pay the price for it. In a weird way it might connect ... Not a weird way but in a good way. It might connect with your centered set and bounded set. If the revival is about having that center that draws people then Christians confess and repent, which is really about putting new boundaries in their lives and places that they're not going to go anymore. That they used to go at the confession repentance and the changed life. I thought that was pretty cool.

DOM: It's a good point.

ROB: That's really good.

MILISSA: The thread that came through for me was hope. Sounded like a very hopeful conversation. The confession and repentance piece however I think was touched on. You mentioned Rob the painful part of revival, the dark places that we have to go as we turn away from those things.

NATHAN: There's a surrendered posture that confession flows out of as well, which they alluded to which whenever you surrender in the sense that I think we're talking about you risk getting kicked or humbled. It doesn't really line up great because I think Jesus' foot washing activity is really about how the disciples treat each other. I still think you could extend it to a metaphor of how you would treat everybody as a servant or a pace of surrender. That's an interesting way to engage with culture. Again what would it mean to wash the feet of culture to be looking for what's underneath all the dirt and it's going to be messy like Lydia talked about and confession. Again honest confession not the kind that says, "Hey, if I confess then I get to unleash revival."

DOM: Yeah and also that. That's idolatry.

NATHAN: Yeah, exactly.

DOM: I think part of what I'm learning is that maybe revival is Jesus reminding the church what the church is always supposed to be about. It's not revival at the expense of the church or revival at the- It's that revival reminds us of the cultural living Spirit of God in his people. Those pieces come together that way.

ROB: You talk about ... And I talked about it too. The pain of revival but with it a tremendous joy. That you can never experience unless you're on the other side of that surrender, the other side of loosening the grip on your idols because you actually see Jesus for who he is. There's something beautiful on the other side of it as well. It is dark at first.

MILISSA: It is. I found myself bristling a couple of times. You guys resolved it, so thank you. Around talking about colonialism and thinking about some of the damage that the church has done and part of that confession and repentance piece of the church. Are we willing as the Canadian church to confess and repent? Of the ways that we have hurt people and hurt culture and cultures that are still dealing with the legacy of the way that the church treated them.

RAJA: In that case too, the gospel is piggybacking on politics, which is what colonialism is. That's when it becomes diluted as Rob had mentioned. That's when it becomes unrecognizable.

MILISSA: Exactly.

RAJA: Because it doesn't value the person, it doesn't value the human being. Instead it tries to subjugate and tries to import cultural values, worldly values for lack of a better term.

MILISSA: That have nothing to do with the gospel.

RAJA: Absolutely.

LYDIA: That's when the gospel becomes ... It does so much damage because when you say ... When you inculturate and you try to assimilate and you try to culturally, kill cultures in your context. You do that through the use of the Bible. You do that in Jesus' name that gets super dangerous because now you're doing a ton of damage. How do you repair that? How do you go back? How does reconciliation happen in that?

DOM: I think we want to be careful that we don't develop this simplistic view of the church and politics, where it's like ... For example the church doesn't have a place or a voice in the political framework. What we want to be careful as we're talking about when the church uses politics and power to control a situation because we know throughout history there's been times when some of the most important steps that the world took was because the right Christian leaders were in places of political influence. I think we have to be careful of that or else somehow we're moving back to a view of culture where Christians are all hiding in a bunker. They are not involved in politics or not. We've known the other church. Some of the most important people were bishops who were leading in the church with significant influence but they chose not to use power. They chose to surrender and model what it's to have influence. That was surrender to something bigger than the power of an emperor. I'm afraid that sometimes politics becomes the institutional church versus secret messenger church in the basement. That's not something in history that we have been in Christianity.

ROB: That's some great feedback from Milissa and Nathan. What else did you guys pick up?

NATHAN: When we talk about the situation in Canada between the First Nations population and the church there's a cool story that I think is a revival story except it's taken 25 years. It's more of a ferment. It's the yeast just working its way through. The school Lydia's talking about is actually the school that I was a part of when I was a kid. I'm in grade seven and there's one First Nations guy in the school and it's because no other schools in the city would let him in. As a last resort he comes to our school. So this would be probably 25 years ago and now our school is one third First Nations and every single one of those parents has a choice of eight different schools to send their kids to and we're the school of choice. What's happened is just the long-term effects of being the only place in the area where every kid is an answer to prayer. The place where no one's going to be loved quite the same way and the genuineness of that extended now over a decade and increasing in intensity. That's the revival you don't notice.

RAJA: You must have a fantastic principal.

NATHAN: She's pretty good. She's pretty articulate too as we're all finding out.

DOM: Why is it that most people would not define that as revival. Where we feel like that is what revival means. Why is it most people in our churches are like, "Well I don't know."

MILISSA: Could it be that we've talked about revival from a cultural perspective? What revival looked in a culture a hundred years ago or 500 years ago and we're trying to recreate something that happened in a cultural context that no longer exists?

RAJA: That's a great point Milissa.

ROB: I think there's probably a more nuanced technical definition of revival that's massive culture changing and whatnot. That's not to minimize the story but I mean there is a technical-

DOM: There's special moments where that is but it's like a burning bush moment. There's only one in the Bible for a reason. There's not many of those and everyone wants that moment. Nathan: If it's about love, if love is the center of revival in some sense. I mean we didn't really talk about that but it sounds good and Holy and probably right so let's go with it.

ROB: Love is a good-

NATHAN: Love is a good thing. You don't actually love somebody until they've changed you. Till they've made their mark on you they have some ... They could leave a scar and they've changed how you think. That's really been the story to use. Again a specific example of the school. It's not that we kept doing the same things, it's just we kept changing and we kept becoming more like them and a lot of really good and beautiful and challenging ways. The love it's not about people coming your way. It's about maybe you look for the seeds of revival and how you're changing and how the culture around you is changing you as you're motivated by love and in that space.

ROB: It's more like a slow burn as opposed to a gas fire.

RAJA: I think as we wrap up this session I think the thing that comes across most is that when we allow the spirit to transform us it will have its manifestation in different ways. Whether it's a school where a single indigenous child 25 years ago to one third now, to families being restored, to people being transformed. The overflow. I like what Dom said. He talks so much. It's a hard to remember what he always says. I love what Dom said in regards to ... Revival brings us ... The Holy Spirit brings us back to what our first love is meant to be. If we can just meditate on that, then we can have this revival without the bells and whistles. But we can just have the internal transformation of disciples for a price like this that the Spirit longs to have.

DOM: In some ways before we pray for revival for our cities we have to want it for ourselves. We have to really want revival for God to revive us. It's so much easier to be like, "Hey, fix other people."

ROB: We had a revivalist preacher who'd come to our camp I helped direct years ago and he had the same message every year. He said, “There's three stages to revival, three prayers. The first prayer is revive me. The second prayer is revive us. Then the third prayer is revive them.” So often we just pray the third prayer, we say revive them.

DOM: So true.

ROB: It begins with me. Revive me.

DOM: Boom.

[Musical interlude]

REGAN NEUDORF: The New Waters Podcast is brought to you by New Ventures a ministry of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada. Today's episode was produced and edited by me Regan Neudorf, and our theme music was created by Dad Versus Son. If you'd like to continue the conversation with us follow @newwaterscanada on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram or check out newwaters.ca for additional resources, collective learnings and info about upcoming live events. Thanks for listening and joining Jesus at work in Canada as we love the church and learn to think differently with curiosity, hope and wonder.

Regan NeudorfComment