New Waters S3 | Episode 2

Simplicity, Trust, and the Goodness of Jesus

When we face seasons of uncertainty in our own lives or as leaders, our tendency can be to swing between over-reacting (think: seizing control, planning, and a stack of Post-Its) and under-reacting (think: apathy, naive optimism, and an extra nap).

In this episode, Josie Vance artfully leads our Season 3 cast through a conversation about how to land in the middle of these two extremes with shared stories, Biblical reflection, and dialogue around the profound practice of simplicity.

+ Show Notes and Resources

• Stockdale Paradox
• The Attentive Life: Discerning God's Presence in All Things Leighton Ford
• "The Three Hermits" by Leo Tolstoy
• John 17
• Philippians 4:6-8

+ Full Episode Transcript

JOSIE: Well, welcome back to the New Waters Podcast Season 3, and we're heading into Episode 2 here. My name is Josie Vance and I live in Edmonton, Alberta. I have served as a pastor in the Christian & Missionary Alliance for about 13 years, yet recently stepped out of my church position and into a role in the public sector where I'm working as an organizational health consultant in post-secondary school. So, that's a little bit about me. Here today, I also have Rob, Alicia, Vijay, Sonia, and we're going to take just a quick minute now to introduce ourselves so you know who you're listening to. So, Rob, why don't we start with you. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

ROB: Yeah, thanks, Josie. Rob Chartrand, Edmonton, Alberta. I'm lead pastor of Crosspoint Church, a church that I was able to plant 11 years ago. I'm just very thankful that it's sunny outside and that the polar vortex has left us and gone to Texas.

ALICIA: My name is Alicia Wilson. I live in Hamilton, Ontario. I run a nonprofit that I founded called Restoration Project, where I teach woodworking to adults with developmental disabilities.

VIJAY: Hi, my name is Vijay, I am a lead pastor at a church called The Well which was formerly Upper Room Community Church. Same church new name. Eventually we're going to be a symbol like Prince, be “the church formerly known as.” But for now it's The Well. And we're in the north GTA, the Greater Toronto Area. And I've been pastoring here for 11 years, but it was actually a privilege to plant the church as a lay person with a group of people 15 years ago. So it's been a great ride. And I’m so happy to be on the podcast with all of you.

SONIA: My name is Sonia Friesen, and I am a campus pastor at Prairie Alliance Church. I am in Neepawa, Manitoba where one of our multi-sites is and I co-pastor that with my husband, Rylan. I too am enjoying sunny weather. You know when -20 is warm, you're really in Prairie life.

JOSIE: For sure. I am looking out at a little bit of sunshine now, and that sure feels good after the super cold that we just came out of. So thanks, everyone, for introducing yourselves. We are going to kick off with a quick question here. Since we are in the midst of this season where we're talking about shifts and what our anchor points are in the midst of those shifts, I've got a question for all of us to consider. Where have you in your life journey experienced a shift where what was going on for you on the inside was really different for others in their perception of you at the time… what they saw in you and what they saw from the outside. And you had a different story going on the inside. Could be something super deep, could be something totally trivial. Think on that and share. I'm going to toss the ball over to Rob.

ROB: I'm not ready yet. Could somebody else go before me? I'm still thinking.

JOSIE: I'm going to toss the ball over to Alicia.

ALICIA: I was also still thinking.

JOSIE: I'm going to toss the ball over to Vijay.

VIJAY: Yeah, I'm just going to speak without thinking about that. I mentioned how I used to work in another profession, and when I was transitioning into ministry and I was telling the people I was working with that I was leaving corporate life to go do this, I remember the conversation I had with my CEO. He said to me, "Are you sure you want to do this?" He said, "Think about your children." I'm like, "What do you mean my children?" He's like, "Well, think about all of the money you're going to say no to and the opportunities you won't be able to give them."

JOSIE: Wow.

VIJAY: Yeah, it was fascinating. I remember thinking, oh, actually, my dad did the same thing when I was four, and one of my sons was four at the time. And I remember thinking, I never regret the decision he made. I feel like it actually opened the door to so many things in my life that I'm so thankful for. So I said, “I think I could probably justify this decision if I was only thinking about my kids,” which was kind of a nice little zinger to have. I liked him. I didn't want to zing him, but you know what I mean.

ROB: I'll talk about something from my childhood, from my preteen years, real quick. You might not know my story, but I didn't grow up in the church. I'm from a pretty broken background. And thievery was a big part of my childhood experience. Shoplifting, beanies, a whole lot of things. And the only time I got caught is when I wasn't guilty. So, I was in a local convenience store and I was actually looking over the candy, and then I decided I didn't want any. I was about to leave the store and I got brought down by a very enthusiastic cashier. And she's patting me down and looking all over the place, trying to find, and there was nothing, nothing. She swore I took something, but I'm like, "I didn't take anything." So I had this experience where I felt guilty but I knew I wasn't guilty. And that actually had a profound impact because when I was guilty, I never felt guilty. But here I was innocent and I felt guilty, which really had a profound experience on how I understood thievery. But I didn't stop. That's it.

JOSIE: I think we should do an episode on that.

VIJAY: Seriously, let's just pause there. I have lots of questions.

JOSIE: So, Alicia.

ALICIA: Yeah. I had kind of a fun one that came to mind. I can think of at least four or five times, probably more, where I began a conversation with someone and started talking with them, and maybe a couple minutes into the conversation, just realized that we were completely on a different page, only to realize that they actually thought I was my twin sister. But it's now too late in the conversation for me to go back and be like, I'm not the person that you think you're talking to. And so we just have to play out the conversation and then tell her later and be like, so you had this conversation with this person today, FYI, when they started talking about it later.

JOSIE: That is awesome.

SONIA: All right, I'll share a shift for me. Believe it or not, Friesen doesn't scream Spanish, but I come from Spanish heritage. And so, I've had some shifts with language. I've done quite a bit of interpreting for people, and I remember this one scenario where I'm interpreting this leader that I don't really know, and halfway through his points, it just doesn't make sense. This doesn't even translate cross-culturally, this actually could be offensive, and everyone's tracking. And it's one of those moments where like, what do you do? Do you save face for the guy? Do you just let him just like completely cause this chaos or what do you do? I did help save face, I just gave him a nudge, maybe we should take a timeout here and get our thoughts back on track here. But it's one of those where people wouldn't have noticed, but if something wasn't averted, it could have created something else. And so, there's some fun language shifts there for you.

JOSIE: That is great. Thank you, everyone, for sharing your thoughts, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Coming into our episode today, here we are, Episode 2. In Episode 1, Rob talked about a ton of shifts that we're seeing in the culture and in the church. And today, we're going to continue to talk about what anchors us in the midst of it. So, a few questions for us to think about. In a culture full of shifts, what actually holds firm? What roots us? What anchors us, tethers us, in a way that both gives meaning and offers peace to us in the midst? What holds firm when we can't actually figure out what can be counted on and when our world turns upside down?

So a little bit about me. I really like to have answers. They have in the past created a sense of security for me. And I grew up in a family of rightness, right thinking, right action. And this shaped the lens through which I saw the world and responded to it. If I knew it was right to think or to do, then there was a sense of solid ground beneath me, not that I always thought or did the right thing. But the knowing of what the right thing was gave me comfort. There was some power in that, maybe some freedom in knowing the rules. So, I valued knowing what was right. Yet in my early years, I was also introduced to this whole concept of faith to the person of Jesus. Forgiver, Gracious One, Friend, Prince of Peace. It was an environment of rightness and one of grace, yet these experiences were at times oddly juxtaposed.

So, fast-forwarding to the early months of the pandemic, I felt the shift along with everyone else. A rather immediate loss of surety, a loss of the knowledge of what was the right thing to think, the right thing to do. Trying to grasp at a sure thing in that early season of COVID-19 was a little bit futile, nothing was for sure. Nothing is for sure. So, it was hard to find an anchor point. We all respond to shift differently and to uncertainty differently, yet I've noticed a couple of trends, inclinations in my own responses at least, when shift happens. And this isn't just in reference to living in the world of a pandemic, but really any surprise shift, how do we respond to uncertainty and to shift. First, I see seeking to control what I can. And that's something that I do, that's my go-to, I want to figure it out, and I want to conquer it. I want to get on top of it and stay on top of it. And that might look like making a list, organizing something, figuring out what everyone around me might need, over-planning, building a system, just anything that I can do to ensure that my life is well ordered. Follow the rules, and also just know stuff. The power, the peace and the comfort of knowledge and of knowing, of seeing a way forward. So, those are ways that I have responded to uncertainty, seeking to control what I can, but also, I'm recognizing that knowing facts is not understanding. I think of that passage in Philippians 4:8, it says, "Whatsoever things are true, good, honorable, worthy of praise, think on these things." We're familiar with that verse. But thinking about what is true, in this sense, is not referring to a knowledge grab, that posture of fact-finding and problem solving and striving that I often embrace.

This verse comes on the heels of another passage that specifically addresses uncertainty. So, a little factoid for us, I found it fascinating to learn that by far, the most highlighted book of all time on Kindle is the Bible in its various translations. So that was news to me, but it shows us that the world is looking for God, the world is looking for hope. And perhaps even more striking, the single most highlighted passage in the most highlighted book, and we're talking about those who are in the church and not in the church, that passage is Philippians 4:6-7, which is all about worry and uncertainty. And this gets me curious, and I think also that it tells us something about the state of humanity and our desire for anchor points.

So, one response to uncertainty is trying to figure it all out, get anchored by conquering it. And I admittedly will say this is my go-to: try and figure it out. So, I'm curious to hear from some of the rest of you, what is your go-to in times of uncertainty? What's your response?

ROB: I used to be a football player. So for me, I tackle the problem, I just grab onto it and I take it down and I take control and I make it work. That's my go-to response, which isn't always good. I like to wrestle the problem.

JOSIE: That's great. I can hear the grip.

VIJAY: I will go back and forth between trying to wrap my arms around it, solve it, and saying hey, this can be good somehow. And then if I feel like I feel, then I go to escape… oh, I'm just going to watch a basketball game tonight. So, it's like a ping pong back and forth between those two extremes.

ALICIA: I totally relate to that Vijay. I feel like I'm like, let's just figure it out, so I know what moving forward it looks like. Or I'm like, I just want to nap, and just completely avoid it and just be like, I'm just going to sleep and hope it changes when I get up.

SONIA: I think for me, it depends how personal it is. How much does it affect me personally like my day-to-day living. If so, I will try to conquer it. If not, then I'll be a runner. I'll get busy with other stuff.

JOSIE: That's good. Sounds like I'm not alone in my responses. Thanks for sharing your input. So, I'm going to keep sharing a little bit on this trajectory for a few more minutes and then we're going to pull people back into the dialogue and we're going to have some conversation about this, our responses and what is good and what is anchoring, truly anchoring, when it comes to uncertainty and how we navigate it.

So one response: trying to figure it all out. One other response that sits perhaps on the other side of the polarity is to deny or to minimize the shift. Deny the uncertainty that's there. I have heard from you guys, but I'm not alone in this either. So that often looks like ignoring something or even oversimplifying it. And I'll say again, this isn't just a COVID-19 issue. This is a what do we do when we don't know what's going on issue. And sometimes we under-respond. Rob talked about this in our last episode too, the under-response at times of the church when it comes to culture shift, when we don't know what to do. And the response to uncertainty might conjure with it that image of an ostrich with its head stuck in the sand. If I can't see it, then it doesn't impact me. So sometimes we can avoid reality by minimizing it, denying it, maybe calling it a conspiracy, or blame shifting.

And I believe these tactics can make us feel better. Knowing it all, figuring it out, and overindulgence in order and information gathering, or denying it, minimizing it. But they are false anchors I believe. It's like activism versus apathy in some ways. And again, these aren't just pandemic coping mechanisms, they're coping mechanisms that we see in a society of shifting sands and changing tides. Concur it or deny it.

But what if there is a better way? And we are all navigating shift and we need to find ways forward. So, I've recently come through a season of transition vocationally⏤I shared a little bit about that in the intro. From a world of pastoring and developing ministry and leaders in the church for several⏤13⏤years, to shifting into the public sector. And before I landed in my current consulting role with a post-secondary institution, I didn't know where I would be next. So, I was out on a limb. And in between those worlds, I experienced a long pause and a surprise pandemic. So yeah, shift happens.

Over the last several months in the midst of uncertainty, I found myself reflecting on, journaling about, and finding good sanctuary in the idea of simplicity. And for me, simplicity is an anchor point. It feels like the land between this drive to fix stuff and create my own certainty and the urge to just ignore some other stuff.

So, here's where I'm at. Simplicity has been an anchor for me. And I'm not speaking of the recent minimalist trends or simplicity as a spiritual discipline, but simplicity of faith, the freedom to not have all of the answers, but to trust deeply in the One who does. Interestingly, Scripture instructs us, always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. And this has led many into intensive and worthwhile studies of apologetics. We talked about this a little bit in our last episode. And that's something that has appealed to me because I've loved my own learning, and because I often, really often, take comfort in having the answers, my surety. Yet I realized that surety, an anchor for many, is not found in having all of the answers. Actually, this may be a false anchor. My surety is to be placed in Jesus. He is my one true thing. He is the reason for the hope that I have.

So the anchor point for me is simple trust in Him, believing that He is who He says He is and allowing my naivety, even playing the fool, if you will. So I think of David as he danced in the streets without inhibition⏤he was willing. The woman breaking her jar of pricey perfume to anoint Jesus' feet was willing. It may not seem very strategic. Simple faith displayed in extravagant worship. Am I willing? I hope so. And I trust that He will hold me. And my strongest anchor point is the place where I abandoned my craving for comfort and safety and surety, and instead, just trusted Him. I do feel that that sounds lofty and perhaps just too easy, trite maybe even. And some might say that a greater understanding of culture, of context, of the other are reliable anchor points. And I really can be persuaded. Yet I've also had moments of being so wrapped up in my own musings that the spotlight moves to pointless conjecture rather than life-giving conversation. So I've come to learn that the one thing I know that really matters in this cacophony of know-it-alls in today's culture, the one thing I know is that I am loved by a God who is good, and this world as it has been and will be in my lifetime and beyond, is loved by a God who is good, and who has a plan. Is that all I really need to know? Yes, kind of. Simply yet wonderfully, this is the anchor point for everything else I know, or think I know.

So, back to that most popular passage for a second. Philippians 4:6 says to me and to us, don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand or wrap our heads around. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

So, that's where I'm at. I'm curious how that strikes you, and I acknowledge my own concern that it just sounds too easy, yet I think it matters. And it has mattered really for me. So I'd like to invite my friends back into the conversation, and coming back in now is Vijay and Sonia, and in a little while, we'll have Alicia and Rob come in and offer us some questions and insight. But as we think about simplicity, as we think about a trust in the goodness of Jesus, how does this perhaps anchor us in a way that is different from our own understandings? Can you guys share your thoughts on that a little bit?

VIJAY: Even as you were talking, my mind went to Ephesians where Paul is praying that the church would have power to grasp⏤it's this very strong language “power to grasp”⏤and then he says, the love of Christ. And I've heard and known that verse, but it was, my wife pointed out to me like a year ago, isn't it interesting that after all of, it comes near the end of the letter, a lot of the teaching he's done, and all these Ephesians 1 and 2, these magnificent truths, and then he says, but you're going to need power, Holy Spirit power to really get this, how wide and deep and long and high as the love of Christ. I know I made fun of Soul Care the other day, but I actually really love it.

He begins this book and this whole idea of being people who are kind of holistically healthy and full of God's Spirit with this whole issue of identity. And he says, if we base our lives on lies, and lies, not that somebody we were in our 20s, things that we grew up believing that were just a part of the fabric of our world that were actually false, then we actually have a life that's built on something false. And this idea of a life built on love, that God loves us. So I agree with you, Josie, the risk is that it's so simple, we just go oh yeah, especially if you've been in the church a long time, it's like, no, there's something about this that clearly we don't quite get that is meant to be grasped on to.

JOSIE: Yeah. And so interesting too in that passage, that the word power is used, because there's an empowerment that comes when we get God's love and the strength that it offers us.

SONIA: What I'm thinking of is why has simplicity become too simple. What is it that we've allowed in when we actually define what, and if I'm hearing you right, the simplicity you're talking about, it isn't a compromise of depth. There isn't a compromise to this simplicity. But culturally or personally, whatever angle you want to take on it, what have we allowed to clutter things so much that just this basic act can seem too foreign, if that makes sense.

VIJAY: It's interesting too that Jesus, in the final days with his disciples⏤at least how John records it in the Upper Room Discourse⏤that culminating prayer that He prayed for them and for us, there's a real prayer for one of the most important things for Jesus that we would experience was the love that the Father had for the Son. I remember someone explaining to me in the Trinitarian understanding of the relationship between Father, Son and Spirit, the Spirit is the love between the Father and the Son. You talk about, whatever, like you said, Sonia, it's not a reductionist kind of oversimplified thing, it's like, whoa, if that's true and Jesus prayed somehow that they would know the love, that we would know the love that God, we don't know that, that's really profound. And that out of that, then comes unity, and then if you think about unity and the church and what profound impact that could have. So it isn't a reductionist kind of thing or a thinner kind of spirituality I don't think you're talking about. It is something. If we're going to wrestle and debate and dialogue, it probably should be heavily weighted around this thing because it seems to be the anchor point and the starting point for where everything else kind of flows out of.

JOSIE: I love that passage that you mentioned in John 17 where Jesus is praying, and He's saying, yeah, we can have that same kind of unity, that same kind of relationship that he has with the Father. And then out of that, probably my favourite phrase in that whole prayer is so that the world will know You sent Me. And there's something about just that connection and that relationship that is a powerful witness to a watching world, our unity. Thanks for that. I'm curious on this continuum of knowing it all and denial or avoiding when uncertainty crops up, and we've touched on this a little bit at the beginning, where do you find yourself on that continuum and how do you see it playing out for those around you who are followers of Jesus or outside of the church? What are you noticing are people's go-to’s when it comes to how they manage the uncertainty around them?

VIJAY: You mentioned conspiracy theory.

JOSIE: Did I?

VIJAY: Yeah. We could do a whole episode on that. I was reading an article about the reason that those theories are so compelling is because they are simple. Our brain actually looks for the simplest way out of things… a book that I started listening to for a while and then stopped listening because it was too much about kicking my butt, it was by a former Navy SEAL, blah, blah, blah, but whatever. The whole thing was, he said, your brain is always trying to get you to quit on what you're doing. It's looking for the easiest way out, and your body and brain conspire together to find it. And I was thinking, yeah, that's kind of true in terms of how we process the world which we're in, and so conspiracy theories, Big C, small c, or even if we wouldn't label what we think as conspiracy theory, a simplified explanation we want it to alleviate, I would say for me, the hard stuff of having to wrestle with things I don't get, and to avoid the extreme of escape, which I want to do when I feel like it's too busy, too complex for me, I can't solve this, I'm just going to not think about it, or at least you talked about napping which is like yeah, I'm just going to sleep and hope when I wake up it's gone.

The conspiracy theory, whatever it is, maybe if I think I don't believe those, I still look for simplistic responses. I found early on in the pandemic, it was exhausting for me because I'm so used to going into problem-solving mode, or even for me, I'm positivity, so I think, oh, we're going to get better. I was listening to a guy who talked about the Stockdale Paradox, it was this General Stockdale was a naval commander in a POW camp during World War II I think it was, who basically said the optimists in the camp died, literally died of a broken heart, where they kept thinking, this will get better, this will end soon. Help is coming. And in a sense, I saw that in myself, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm going to die, I'm not going to make it through this pandemic because I'm an optimist.

I remember coming to terms with the fact that going, you know what, there might be some permanent damage done. My church might be worse off from this. There might be a lot of rebuilding to do after this is over. And that was hard to come to terms with, but there was something about that, to your point, Josie, it drove me to Jesus in that place of saying, oh, Jesus, you got to help. If that's where it's going to be, and maybe that's actually more likely than my oversimplified optimistic explanations of where this is going to end up. This is going to be up alright. There'll be a silver lining. If I don't take the escape hatch, then it forces me to Jesus and saying, okay, we talked about mystery as being something we're not comfortable with Sonia, I think you mentioned that, in the first episode, is like, yeah, this is actually a threshold of mystery, that if I'm daring to cross it, will bring me to an intimacy with God because that's where He lives, and that's where worship begins.

So I realized that I was cutting short my worship life by refusing to accept mystery and that simplicity and worship maybe, I don't know if you've thought about that, that I can maybe put those together and saying they're related in that, that maybe this makes me worship God in a way that, like David says, I can't remember which Psalm, 73 or 70, all this was too much for me until I came into Your presence. I was an ignorant beast. So those are some thoughts. I've been processing this for myself.

SONIA: Yeah, I like that, just even your process Vijay because I think it gives us and our listeners just even a practical take on what does it look like to live simplicity. Where do you come to that place where you're like, okay Jesus, I'm done trying to figure it out or I'm done escaping, I need you, and just that heart posture. And I wonder if we can tap into what does living simplicity actually even look like because I think we can all define it in a very different way. But maybe at times we are doing it and we haven't even realized it, and that's good, because we want to be self-aware to tap into those moments. And maybe there's places, yeah, that we still need to go there. And so I wonder, what are the places where you guys see practically living out simplicity.

JOSIE: Great question.

VIJAY: Rob asked in the chat here, when is simplicity a conspiracy theory, which I think maybe is a question, is: when is it also an easy backdoor out? And I guess maybe one of the things that it makes me think is, I am an extrovert and I am a something better is always coming kind of person, which for most of my life meant that I was not reflective at all about my inner life. I did not know what was going on in the inside. And so, I would say one of the ways for me to ensure that I'm not just taking an easy backdoor somewhere, is do I understand my emotional responses to what's going on around me?

I guess I would say, okay, it's been almost 12 months of this pandemic. Have I traveled any distance in understanding in that time or am I basically thinking about this the exact same way I did 12 months ago? Because if I haven't learned anything about myself, if I haven't even observed some shifts within me, probably to your point, Sonia, for me, that's a way of living simply is, is continuing to exegete my own soul, and my responses to this.

And I don't mean that to sound very introspective because I do think, yes, it is about learning to love others in this, but if I don't actually know what's going on inside me, I'm probably going to respond not well to others. So that's been a huge one for me is really leaning into a more contemplative way of living, which I just never did for many years for all kinds of reasons. And I have seen some shifts in me, some good ones, some not good ones. So that's been one of the ways is to note my progress or regression I guess in this.

JOSIE: So in terms of some of the false anchors that are out there, and we acknowledge this gravitation to either tackle it, conquer it, figure it out, make the plan on one hand and avoid it, deny it, blame shift. So, if each of those are false anchors not really leading us forward, what other false anchors have you noticed over the course of your own journey? I'm okay with the pause.

VIJAY: Yeah, no, it's a good question.

SONIA: As I think of in terms of simplicity and how we could see it, yeah, at times, you can play that card really just for laziness, if we're honest. If you just play the easy route, or some people might define it that way, I would tap into self-awareness as well. We live in this time and with people having more time in a way, just people really hungry for this self-awareness. We have this Enneagram, we have different just outlets for discovering who I am. But it doesn't stop there. Self-awareness isn't enough. If we just know it, there's this action step that's still required with what we do with it. And so I find in this time, people have been either running away and hiding their gaps of identity or trying to really flesh it out and really use this time to figure out who they are, at the sake of actually not even moving forward because now you just take the place of like, oh, I'm an Enneagram, whatever, fill in the blank. And this is who I am. But what are the implications of that? If you want to use that tool, for all the haters of Enneagram or all the lovers, I'm not taking a position on that, that's not the focus, but find self-awareness, we need it. But if not used correctly, it can be a false anchor that we raise a flag on.

JOSIE: That's gold, Sonia. Thank you.

VIJAY: I think one of the things I saw exposed in me a little bit in the pandemic and talking to other pastors realized I'm not alone, is we've almost had an unconscious, unevaluated growth mindset when it comes to leadership in our communities, that more is better. And then all of a sudden, this thing happens that cuts off so much of what we measured for growth at the knees. And then it's such a disorienting thing to say, well, okay, so if I can't grow that thing anymore or that thing I've been growing for so long is going to probably die in 12 months, what was my role and what is it now? So I wonder if a false anchor in a sense has been the words “more” and “next” have marked so much of the way that I have thought and led.

And when something like this comes in and says, that's actually now, we don't know what's next, and more is going to turn to less really quick. Where does that leave you as to what you're supposed to lean into? What does it even mean to be a spiritual leader? What does it mean to build God's kingdom? All these things that are still true but I had attached, and therefore, I'm left with one or two conclusions: either we've suddenly finally hit the thing that God is also going to throw up His hands and say, oh, this wasn't what I planned, this isn't a part of My kingdom, I can't figure out how to deal with this either. Or we're like, well, God maybe meant something else then when Jesus says you're going to build my church, and the gates of hell will prevail against it. And that's something else I think is a bit of a scary cliff, as we're saying, I've never traversed this before. I don't mean to say growth is bad, I just mean, you don't mean one kind of understanding of it.

JOSIE: I think about we're in a season of uncertainty, rapid change, we've all heard the word “pivot” 50 billion times…

VIJAY: I hate that word.

JOSIE: Let's reframe this, we'll be nimble, we'll pivot. What I wonder is, does our pivoting just look like planning in a different way. In some ways, absolutely yes. Rob says in the chat, at Crosspoint we oscillate.

VIJAY: It's better than vacillating.

JOSIE: That's awesome. But does our pivoting just look like doing what we used to do under different circumstances, or does it look like a posture shift, like an actual posture shift, an actual pivot in the way that we think about things? Are we asking questions like, going back to the, not the what and the how always, but going back to the why questions. Why do we do what we do, what is the purpose that we have, and letting that totally reframe the “what we're doing” and the “how we're doing it?” I wonder if for the church, in particular, if simplicity might help us on that journey, coming back to Jesus, because in my view, what the world needs now is not a ton more strategy coming out of the church. People need love and life and connection and a posture shift perhaps when compared against the way we have been doing things.

VIJAY: I know we kept mentioning the first episode, so good obviously, you have to go back and listen to it if you haven't listened to the first episode. We talked about in that one relationships and the centrality of relationships as something to fix our eyes on in not just dealing with a postmodern context, but I think, Josie, when you talk about simplicity and love, you know this isn't a new form of minimalism. When Jesus talked about simplicity, it was about love in the context of relationship. I was interviewing my father who⏤in a series we're doing, he's a retired pastor, but he's from a Hindu Brahmin context⏤and became a believer when he was 17.

And when he was describing why or what was key in coming out of religion in a sense into Jesus that was sort of for him categorically different than religion, any kind of religion, he said, it struck me that he said, I had started to become aware of my own need and my own guilt or whatever. And realizing that God had come to me in relationship as a person was profound, because I realized, oh, that's how any change happens in life is through relationship. And so, it makes me think, yes, this simplicity, it has a very concrete call on it, it is a call back to relationship. And if God chose to change the world through relationship in terms of that was his methodology, was not primarily didactic teaching, although Jesus was a teacher, it wasn't about cosmic rewiring or to wipe the slate clean with a flood and start over, it was to put Himself in the middle of it as a person, to come to us in a language in a form we could understand, and then invite us to respond to him in the same way, as we rethink our methodologies saying, what was inherently tied to relationship and fueled relationship and meant to facilitate relationship, and what things were actually not, those are good questions to say, well, that's where some of the focus or the refocus needs to happen.

JOSIE: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Thanks for that, Vijay. And thanks for the good dialogue on this, Vijay and Sonia. We're not done yet. I'd love to invite in now, Rob and Alicia, who've been listening in on the sidelines for a few minutes here and who are going to come in and just respond to some of what they've heard us say, ask questions, interact with the topic we've been looking at.

JOSIE: What are you hearing? What are you thinking? What do you feel about what we've been talking about? Welcome.

ALICIA: Thanks for letting us back into the conversation.

JOSIE: We want you.

ALICIA: I think one of the first things that comes to mind is the idea that, I think simplicity is really grounded in the present. When we look at kind of one day at a time and how do I live my life today in this moment, it feels really simple. When I add in the future and all those other pieces, I think is where the complexity can often become overwhelming. I love how the idea of simplicity actually grounds me in today in the now.

ROB: I really appreciated what Alicia talked about. Leighton Ford has this great book about the attentive life. So much of our world now, we're so distracted by, we got our faces in screens, we're busy and all these sorts of things. But if we could learn that practice of the simplicity of attentiveness… paying attention, as Vijay would say, paying attention to our souls, paying attention to the world around us, paying attention to creation. So much about Scripture is just developing this discipline of the attentive life and being attentive. God, what are you doing in this moment that I find myself in? So, I just love this conversation about simplicity, and I think, wherever we are, whether we're in crises, life is just kind of the normal that we hope that to will ever get back to, it probably won't. The pursuit of simplicity is I think the utmost posture we need to have.

JOSIE: There's an interesting parallel I'm hearing in what you're saying, talking about how the pursuit of knowledge or the desire for knowledge and figuring things out isn't a bad thing. We ask ourselves the question, but what place does it have in my heart and what hope am I putting in it. And I can see some lines that are similar between this polarity of figuring it out, knowing what to do, and avoiding and denying. And that parallel that we sometimes talk about, with legalism and license.

So, we've got legalism, where there's this sense of security in I know the rules, I check the boxes, I've done my spiritual disciplines for the week, and therefore I'm good to go. Versus license, which is I'm going to let go of all that, God's going to figure it out, it's all going to be okay, and completely releasing any sense of personal agency or need for action. Yet there's this beautiful place in the middle. And it is a fairly simple place to be where our posture is yieldedness to the work of the Spirit in us, which is a healthy combination of the ideas that push us into those polarities too. It's where do these ideas and ideals find their place in my heart. What authority and weight am I giving to them? Any other thoughts as we keep talking?

ROB: This is where I think I'm going to do something that I learned to do recently, and that's blame my past. I was raised in a Christian home and in an evangelical Christian context. Everybody told me I should read my Bible and pray, but I didn't know why. I know that was the “you'll grow, grow, grow.” I didn't understand until recently that these were means of giving God access to my life, of God giving me access to His will, and to that idea of saying, how do I treat the next day with a surrender to God to say, okay, Lord, I want to live out according to your will. And that's why I meditate on his Word, that's why I need times of silence and solitude. That's why I have a Sabbath every seven days to reorient. So it is very much about, Alicia, what you said about the present. And realizing that the life of Jesus, it was Dallas Willard who said, we were mistaken to read the life of Jesus as a life that somehow we are supposed to be able to command ourselves to emulate in the moment of crisis, temptation, suffering, without actually adopting the practices of the way of Jesus that allowed him as a human to do those things.

And so, that has revolutionized the way I think about those things in my life, and the way I invite others to practice them. And it doesn't always happen. It's not like, oh, yeah, I feel such, but it's like, when I'm unhinged, I know why and what I need to come back to.

JOSIE: Yeah. So good. It's coming back to the why again. It's not what we're going to do for the sake of doing, but why we're walking that out, and recognizing that those spiritual disciplines are not ends in themselves, but they place us in a posture in which we can receive from the Holy Spirit and experience His transformation in us in that place.

ROB: Reminds me of a story. Sometimes stories and metaphors reveal things to us that ideas and categories can't. So, can I just share a story?

JOSIE: Please do.

ROB: It's a story from Leo Tolstoy. You familiar maybe with the story of the three hermits? And I know that not everybody agrees with Tolstoy's theology, I certainly am not on the same page as him in a lot of ways, but it's a profound story. And Josie, as you were sending out the notes to this, I was reflecting on them, and I just recalled this story of this bishop who's on a ship. He has a number of followers with him and sea crew and captain and whatnot. And they're going about to different places, locations, to bring the gospel, to encourage churches. And they go past this island, and as they go past the island, some of the crew members are familiar with the area, start telling the bishop about these three hermits who live on the island. And they live there in solitary. They're not dressed in the best of clothes, they're pretty rundown, and they seem like they're very, very simple people.

And the bishop asks them, "Has anybody ever gone and shared the gospel with them?" And they say, "Well, no, and you wouldn't want to because you're not going to be able to have a conversation with these guys. They're just really, really simple." So then the bishops insists, and he says to the captain, "I want you to take me to the island, and I want to go and I want to talk to these three hermits." So they do, they anchor the boat, and he gets off on the island, and he begins having a conversation with these hermits. And as he's speaking to them, he says, "Would you guys like to learn about salvation? Would you like to learn about the kingdom of God?" And the hermits only say the same phrase again, and again, and again, they say, "You are three," and this is as they're looking up to the sky, they say, "You are three, we are three, have mercy on us." And again, and again, this is like a mantra to them. This is all they know, this is all they say.

So it seems like they have little knowledge. And so the bishop's like, "I want to explain to some doctrines, I want to teach you the doctrine of the Incarnation, and the doctrine of the Trinity." And he says, "You know what, I really think you need to learn the Lord's Prayer." So he spends all day with them trying to get them to memorize the Lord's Prayer. Goes late into the night. And he's just frustrated because they mumble their words, they can't get it right. And then finally at dawn, it seems like they've memorized the Lord's Prayer. And he said, I got my job, it's done. And he says, thank you. And they wave to him, he gets on the boat, he goes away, and he thinks he's done his job.

And then he notices off in the distance as his boat is sailing away, there's some movement upon the water, and he looks and the three hermits are running towards him across the water. So they're walking on water, and they get into the boat. And they say to him, they say, "Oh, we forgot the Lord's Prayer. Could you teach it to us again? We got to one point, we bumbled our words. After that, it all jumbled up in our heads, and now we can't remember it. Bishop, can you please teach us the Lord's Prayer?" And the bishop says to them, he says, "I should not be teaching you, you should be teaching me. Please, would you pray for us sinners here on the boat." And that's the end of the story.

Now, of course, my brain that spent tens of thousands of dollars on theological education wants to say, well, is it really that simple? Shouldn't they teach them at least a little bit more? There's a nugget of truth in that. We can't explain but we all kind of know intuitively, there's this intuitive knowing that says, okay, yeah, simplicity. Simplicity.

ALICIA: I feel like often, the complexity moves things to exclusivity, and that it's not available often. We make things so complicated that we exclude people, and yet, I think when we come back to simplicity, that that's actually where inclusion happens, is in those moments of simplicity. And so, there's this challenge as the church to not overcomplicate things, to not overcomplicate who Christ is and who Jesus is.

VIJAY: Maybe that's one of the calls of the church to leave the modernist lens a little bit, of the overemphasis on rational kind of teaching as the primary way that people are going to experience God, or that someone has the ability to teach others as if they have mastered those things. Whereas there's something else in there that's probably going to actually resonate more with the context we're in as well.

JOSIE: Turn down some of the noise.

VIJAY: And I guess your story, Rob, too is like, some of it is just actually looking at someone's life and seeing a reality of God in the everyday, that maybe at times will expose the thinness of our own real on the ground life with God that makes us go maybe I actually have a lot to learn from you.

ALICIA: I've worked in group homes for the last 16 years, and so much of my spirituality has been shaped in my understanding of who God is and has been shaped by those that I've cared for. And that wasn't how I entered into the job. I definitely thought that I was just going to go and do my thing and be the one that provided all the care, all the answers. But I remember very early on in starting with in this career, I was working with a gentleman, he was a quadriplegic, nonverbal, and I was on night shifts. Most of my job was to just care for him, change him, bathe him. He has a G-tube, so everything had to be done for him.

And in those moments, it really challenged because as a 20-something-year-old, my whole orientation was towards productivity, and how much can I accomplish in this day. And often, I found on these shifts that I would often be reset that we would go through a bathing routine and get everyone dressed and ready, and then he might soil himself, and I would start back over again. And it would feel like I had no productivity. And I had to learn that, I mean, I learned so many things, but a lot of it was that, I needed to slow down. There actually was no need to be productive. The gentleman that I was caring for was loved as equally by God as I am, and neither of us needed to accomplish anything in that day to experience that love.

And I think that so often, it's so easy to lose sight that we make productivity our goal, and so much in our culture today is towards productivity. But simplicity actually gives us that permission to just be, to just sit in who we are as children of God and as God's beloved. I love that it counters that cultural need for productivity.

ROB: That's a great story. Appreciate you sharing that now.

VIJAY: Yeah, really good.

JOSIE: I want to say thank you to everyone for sharing your thoughts, for giving us your insights, for asking the questions that are sometimes hard to answer. Not that we come away having answered all of the questions, but that's kind of the point, is that we don't need to.