#74 | Holy Discontent, Heart Desire, and Hope in Desperate Times, Pt. 1 | James Choung

Which is kind of nuts, right?

Like if you think about how we, at least in evangelical circles, we talk about a relationship with God and yet in practice we make it more about a philosophy of life, these principles and these rules that we follow. But the relationship, if it's a relationship, and this is Dallas Willard speaking, right?

If it's a relationship, shouldn't there be two way communication? Because we would never settle for relationship. That's just one way. And I'm on the roll.

It's watering time, everybod.

It is time for Apollo's Watered, a podcast to saturate your faith with the things of God so that you might saturate your world with the good news of Jesus Christ. My name is Travis Michael Fleming and I am your host. And today on our show, we're having another one of our deep conversations.

A.

Deep conversation with my friend James Chong. Here's the question, what happened to revival? I'm not talking about setting up tents or calling everything that we do a revival.

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying what happened to Holy Spirit rot, life changing, Bible soaking, prayer saturated revival?

The kind that's really initiated by God, where he turns his people back to himself and they hunger and long for the things of God again. I hear a lot of stuff on social media today. I've seen podcasts, I've heard interviews, I hear people talking about almost everything.

You can be talking about social justice issues or deconstruction or whatever you want to fill in the blanket on. I mean, fill in the blank. And you're going to be talking about it. But who is really talking about and yearning for revival? That's my question.

Because really, at the end of the day, we, after all, we, we have all these discussions and I hope that some of these can make some headway as people learn to communicate together. But it's God that's really going to have to be the one that transforms our hearts and our minds.

And yes, we should understand the times to know what we should do.

But the last time I checked, when I've gone to the word of God, nothing really happens in a society or in the people of God without the spirit of God interceding and touching lives of people. And that's why I wanted to talk to James Chung. Reverend Dr.

James Chong serves as Vice President of strategy and Innovation, overseeing evangelism, discipleship, planting growth, missions, multi ethnic initiatives and the creative labs. This is all from his website. And, and he does all this at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA.

He is ordained with the Vineyard USA and has written three books, the latest being Longing for Revival with Ryan Pfeiffer and we're going to be talking about that a bit today.

He speaks frequently and consults at campuses, churches, seminaries and conferences, and most recently taught a doctoral course on evangelism at Fuller Theological Seminary. He's thankful that his work has been featured in Christianity Today, Leadership Journal, Outreach Magazine, seminary now, and explore God.com.

he wrote his DMin dissertation on postmodern leadership development also at Fuller, received his M. Div. From Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, my Alma material, and studied management science and marketing at mit.

He has served previously on the pastoral staff of a Boston area urban church plant or end of a mega church in Seoul and led an LA adjacent house church.

As for interest, he's led worship at various national conferences including the Urbana Student Missions Conference, and serves on boards for higher education and overseas for profit and nonprofit startups.

For fun, he likes to travel with his wife, laugh with his two sons, spoil his daughter, bask in Los Angeles Endless Summer, and swing a racket in hopes of playing something like tennis. We talk about his book Longing for Revival. Is revival possible in our time? What does it look like? What can we do? Anything. Listen in to find out.

Happy listening.

James Chong.

Welcome to Apollo's Watered.

Thanks.

Are you ready for the Fast five?

Maybe. Give it to me.

Okay, here we go. We got to get the Fast5 started. And the first question is we're going to just start off really basic. Ok, here we go. IPhone or Android? Real basic.

Oh, easy. IPhone.

I thought easy. That's an easy one for you. Good.

Why?

Tell me why.

Tell me why. I'm kind of an Apple fan over here. There was a time when I used to joke about like, I'm an advanced for two things, Jesus and Apple.

So I do like it a lot. So we're deep in the whole family. There's nothing PC or Android in this house.

Not allowed. It's like not allowed even. Not even dating? Not even dating?

No, no. Once you know. Once you know, you got to say no to everything else, Travis.

Once you go Mac, you never go back.

Is that it? That's how it is?

Is that how it is?

You don't go back.

Okay, now you have lived. You're out in California, you've been in Boston. So here we go. Boston, Southern California.

Oh, that's brutal. That's brutal. Oh, man. But Boston, folks, forgive me, I do have to say Southern California. Southern California is. It's. It's pretty nice. Over here.

Pretty nice.

I don't even know why that's a contest. I've been in California in the winter. I've been in Boston in the winter. This is not a contest.

Well, you know, growing up in Boston, I spent my 20s in the. In the Boston area. So, like teens, late teens, 20s, man, that's a great place to do that. Right? So.

And fond memories, like my best friends come from that time, you know, that's a pretty. Pretty powerful time for me. But yeah. Yeah.

If you're just going climate or just sheer comfort, it's hard to be in Southern California, that's for sure.

Yeah. I mean, when I was in Boston, the traffic there made me question my salvation.

Oh, yeah. They don't care about anything out there. Right. Like lights or the lines on the road. None of that matters. None of it.

And the streets don't make any sense. They make no sense.

It's like someone took spaghetti, threw it up in the air, and wherever it landed, that's how they drew the city lines in the streets.

Oh, that's right. You know that. That whole joke about, like when you asking for directions and people can't get there from here. Right. Like, that's a.

You know, it's crazy. Yeah. There was no city planning at that time.

I love the fact that you have the accent.

That's the best part of it.

Because I was at church one Sunday and I had to get the bubbler. I had to go to the bubbler to get the carrot. You know, it's all that stuff from Boston. I had to pick up all those.

That's right. You're packing your car. It has.

That's right. You gotta pack your car.

But it was fun.

I tried to preach like that once.

I don't think it went over very well.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Neither of us being Boston natives. Yeah. I hope we haven't offended New England people all across the board now. Probably just turned off already.

Yeah.

Okay, here we go. Next one. Okay, you've done your traveling now. Strangest food you have ever eaten.

Oh, man, that's. I don't think I'm trying to think of something. Nothing's coming right to mind. Strangest food. It's a great question.

And I don't think I've got anything that crazy. Chicken feet. That's pretty normal.

Chicken what?

Chicken feet. Like Chinese food when you go to dim sum, you can eat chicken feet. Or blanking out. When I was in Korea, they tried to make me eat Dog Stewart.

That was almost a thing. But the Korean Pastors, they love to watch the Americans, like, squirm a bit. So I am of Korean descent, but I've never had dogs do bosintang.

And I was like, oh, so almost ate that, but didn't have that.

I was with a group of Filipinos at a Filipino Bible study, and they were doing the same thing, trying to get me to eat balut, which is a fried duck egg where the ducks have formed, and it's got the beak and the feathers. And they were all laughing through the entire thing.

Yeah.

And the younger. The younger. The younger Filipinos in the group are like, I'm not touching it.

Yeah.

You know, so I get it.

Blood sausage. I've had blood sausage. That's a really delicacy. Yes. It's just like, intestine that wraps around noodles that are soaked in blood. That's gnarly.

That is. Wow. Trying to stifle down the gag reflex was pretty brutal.

Okay, here we go. Next question. Okay, now, you said you've grown up, you know, Korean, American, but you still.

We all have those cultural experience when we interact with different people, different ethnic backgrounds. What's your most embarrassing, most embarrassing cultural moment that you can share on the air?

Most, of course, you know, I try to block that stuff out. Most embarrassing cultural moment. You know, there was one.

So I grew up in Seattle, and from the second grade till the 12th grade, went to predominantly black school. So it'd be African American, would be in the majority, but they would also be pretty multiethnic. And I decided as a transfer into this high school.

So Garfield High School for those who know Seattle, proud, historic black high school. Like Jimi Hendrix, Quincy Jones alumni, also Bruce Lee. But, yeah, it's this very historic kind of high school.

And I decided to run for class president. And which, you know, I was like, hey, I had a kind of backwards. I kind of wanted to try to be popular, so I ran for president.

You're supposed to actually do that the other way around. So I ran and I ran against someone who would eventually be my prom date, and she was great. But then what?

So I went up and I decided, so imagine Korean American guy decided that Jesse Jackson spoke at our high school twice while I was. While we were there. So just. We get big name speakers. So I decided I was gonna give my speech in the style of Jesse Jackson.

So imagine I'm 14 years old, I'm doing it, and I'm going for it. I'm going for it. And actually, the crazy thing about it is it's sort of working. You Know, we're the Garfield Bulldog, like, nickname.

We're the Doghouse. So I said, if you don't vote for me, instead of being in the doghouse, we're gonna be in the poor house, right? Barking. It's kind of working.

And I'm taking the speech up to this crescendo, right? And so, like, when we're seniors and I'm just rattling off all the list of things we're gonna do, we're gonna have our prom at the West End.

Like, we're gonna have a cruise around Elliott Bay. And they're like, yeah. And to top it all off then. And this is some building up.

And when we're done at the end of the year, we're going to go to Wild Waves. Now, Wild Waves is a water slide park that's in a way, a little bit south of Seattle.

And little did I know that that would not connect with an urban, inner city high school crew. So I go Wild Waves. I'm expecting the cheer. The place goes silent.

And then after that, they started crumpling up paper and throwing paper, booing me off, laughing. I couldn't even finish the speech. And when I got off the stage, like, I was the social leopard for a week, no one wanted to talk to me.

My friends were avoiding me. Before the vote was out, people were like, maybe there's next year, man. You know, like, just brutal. Brutal. So I bid it pretty big.

Yeah, that's awesome story. I love that.

That is so good.

And I actually get, like, the Jesse Jackson style. I'm a huge fan of EV Hill. And I have imitated, like, he has one sermon that I've listened to like, a hundred times. And I have imitated him over the.

Years because he just.

His cadence, his delivery is just so good. And sometimes it would creep into my sermons and I didn't even realize it. And people be like, you know, turn it down.

And I'm like, that is me.

I love him. You know, Anyway. Okay, here we go. If your life were a movie, who would be the main character and why?

My life for a movie. Who would be the main character and why? You know, and this will be weird. I'm named after James Bond. Are you serious, people? Yeah.

It's like, no, you're not. No, I really am. My dad read James Bond novels when he was growing up in Korea learning English. And so he named me after James Bond.

And why would you name me after, like, someone who kills people and womanizes? And he goes, no, no, no, no. James also is in the Bible, James the disciple.

But my brother Gerald was not named after anyone in scripture, you know, named after the president at the time. So, you know, so I'm actually named after James Bond.

And I, you know, so then Father, Son tradition, and we're both believers, he became a pastor after me. But we still, to this day, opening day, we're going to go to a James Bond movie. When it comes out in the theaters, we'll see it together.

And that's tradition, or not necessarily opening day, but we will wait so that we can see it together. So James Bond, but it also has, like, spiritual significance. There was a time I was reading Wild at Heart by Eldritch, right?

That's kind of when it was popular at the time. And there's this part in the book where he says, why don't you ask God for a new name? What's the name that he's giving you? You.

You know, to be wild at heart.

So I remember doing this exercise because my buddy did it and he, he heard Servant of the Poor, which actually led him to become a missionary in Cambodia. And so I said, okay, sure, sure. I sat there and as I was praying about it, I heard your name is James. That's so boring. That's already my name.

Can it be like something else? Like James Bond or something else like that? And what God says is, no, James. And he reminded me in the Hebrew, it's Jacob.

It's one who grasps the heel or one who overthrows. And then the invitation from the father was.

And this is pretty vulnerable, the invitation was that I'll use you to overthrow the kingdoms of this world.

Oh, that's cool.

For my sake. And you can join. So I get to join in the kingdom of God and its advance. So James Bond is the fun one that I would relate to.

But then there is a James Bond part that's also more connected to me.

So my name means toll taker at a crossroads.

Really? Toll taker at a crossroads.

It's like, this is horrible.

You know? And then I remember when my kids were born, someone says, are you going to give him a Bible name? I said, yep. Isaiah's son, Mahir Shalal Hashbaz.

It means swift to the booty, speedy to the prey.

That's great.

And my kids, cause I was in the inner city of Chicago, they're like, what? So I was like, no, no, not that, not that.

Well, that's great. I mean, you could be like the toll taker at the crossroads. I imagine you in a robe. You've got A giant scythe.

And you're standing there kind of like the Grim Reaper. It's like, pay your toll, you know, confronting them with the major decisions of their lives. You know what I'm trying to say?

I guess, yeah, there's a lot more names that I think are a lot prettier, but that's okay.

Yeah. Other names. That's okay.

The names there, man, that's pretty good. All right, so we've got this. We got.

But.

Oh, but you never said. So James Bond.

I'll go with James Bond. Yeah, yeah. Just, you know, trying to do the sneaky thing.

Who would play the part? Not like, not would it be after. So if your name were a movie, who would play your character?

Who would play my character? Which actor would play my character? Oh, yeah. Oh, wow, that's a great. It'd be Kevin Hart. No, I'm just kidding. Who would play me?

That's a great question. I totally heard you wrong on that. That's okay, man. Who would it be? Maybe it's. I'm just thinking of total stereotypes. Right. The kid who helped.

Is it Short Round that helped Indiana Jones. Is it gonna be. You know, there aren't any Asian American. You know, there aren't that many Asian Americans who are. Who would be out there.

So there's some great actors out there, though. There are, though. Yeah. There's more that Marvel could be. That guy from. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marvel superhero series. I don't remember his name either, because.

Yeah, maybe the guy who's in Crazy, Crazy Rich Asians. That guy can, you know, he can definitely up. Up my image.

Okay.

Okay.

That's a good looking brother.

Okay, so let's.

Let's hear your story.

Because you talk about that in your book Longing for Revival. I read the book. I want to hear your story for a bit.

I mean, you're Korean American, but your story really starts going back, actually a couple generations. And it's really unique in how it goes to revival. So share that with us.

Yeah, yeah. There's a story.

There's a young shaman, and she is the spiritual leader of a village about, I think about 50 miles north of Pyongyang in a small village called Yeonmi. And she was the leader of the tree shrine, and that's where the people in the village worshiped.

But she lost her first two children when they were young. And so she got so mad at the tree shrine, she cut it down and defecated on it. I mean, just. I just imagine like angry Korean woman. Just.

You let me Down. And that's a dangerous thing to let.

A Korean woman down.

So she was so angry that that happened. And I sort of imagine her then, she's like sort of sitting near the tree and just mad, just doing that.

And kind of at the time, a missionary meets her. This is a missionary who, like, has just experienced the Pyongyang revivals and is sent north from the revivals as a missionary.

And this missionary meets this young shaman and tells her that there's God has come to her, this Jesus, and that you can believe in him, that he is the forgiver of sins and he'd be the savior and leader of your life. And she goes, yeah, she becomes a follower of Jesus at that point.

And then what she does is then, because she becomes a Christian, basically the whole village, almost the whole village becomes Christian. And she plants the first church in this community. That shaman is my great great grandmother.

And then my great grandfather sort of was a leader in that church. My grandparents met at that church. My dad was infant baptized in this church.

Since he was born in the north part of Korea, it wasn't North Korea at the time, but geographically now is North Korea. And. And from that point, Right. So that's my heritage.

I'm a fifth generation, fifth generation spiritual generation, descendant of the Pyongyang revivals and didn't know this until, like, as I was writing the book. Oh really came to me. I didn't know the story at all. Was it planning? I just thought the way we found out about it was crazy, actually.

So I've already written most of the book with Ryan, and I'm looking for an epilogue. And I'm thinking, my family story is connected to Pyongyang. Almost every Protestant Korean story is connected to Pyongyang in some way.

So I'm just assuming my family has a story. I hadn't yet figured out what that story was.

So then I was talking to my dad and I said, you know, so, dad, how are we connected to Pyongyang revivals? And he goes, we're not. You know, And I went, what? I looked at him, but he said it. So, like, certainly we're not connected to it at all.

I'm like, you don't know what you're talking about. So this is me talking to my dad. So I go, dad, can you, like, call our family and find out if we have a connection? Because I don't believe you.

I mean, we're Protestants, so there's got to be some connection to this thing. So then he gets on the phone and starts calling his family. And that's where he finds out this story for the first time. He's what, in his.

He's in his 70s. Yeah, he's in his 70s when he's heard the first story for the first time. So he couldn't wait to tell me. And, you know, and it was amazing.

So both of us heard the story around the same time and this history. And my family was surprised that my dad didn't know because he's the firstborn son. I'm the firstborn son of the firstborn son of the firstborn son.

Right. So it's sort of we are the leaders of our generous families generation. Right. That generation in our family. So he didn't know about it, but now. Yeah.

So it was encouraging to him. And so then to hear, like, the stories of plants, church plants in our family.

My dad, then my grandfather, then, as he had to run from the Communists, and he just. He escapes from what is now known as North Korea in this really Hollywood, like, story, using his wits, getting his family across the river.

You know, there's so much to tell about that. Then ends up in Busan, the southern coast of Korea.

And there plants a church which still exists today, and then goes up to Seoul a few years later with his friends. They plant another church there that still exists today.

And then my dad, sort of, as he immigrates to America, Arkansas, Chicago, then does up Seattle, helps a fledgling church plant there, gives birth to me, and then I get to be a part of a couple church plants. So it's this crazy way that the Lord has given us an inheritance. There's a legacy that's been passed down, and we had no idea.

But once we heard the stories, we're like, that kind of makes sense. Wow. Such a deep Christian heritage in our family.

That's so impressive. And you hear about that, how God is faithful to those who fear him, to, like, a thousand generations.

And that's so encouraging to be able to have that.

And I would also think what I know about a Korean heritage or a Korean just with the ancestors and how ancestors are valued, especially within other cultures.

But to see that spiritual Christian ancestor heritage would even be more amplified, I would think, and more honorable, which is really, really amazing. And so your family's been involved in revival for some time, and you write this book, Longing for Revival with the subtitle, and I love this.

From Holy Discontent to Break Through Faith. Cause I think everyone gets the discontent. But what was the impetus to write this book? It wasn't about your grandmother defecating on.

A tree that she cut down, which.

I'd like to know how that story got passed down. That was a story. That's. By the way, kids, let me tell you about grandma.

Yeah, well, apparently they did. My dad just sent me in the story, you know. But, yeah, it's funny and it's really ironic because.

And I think I mentioned in the book, it's my first ever talk outside of my ministry, when I was invited to speak somewhere else, was actually against revival. Like, I made it a point to just preach against it because, you know, I grew up hearing about revival all the time. All the time, all the time.

Same here.

Totally makes sense. I didn't know why, but in Korean churches, they talk about it a lot.

Everything that isn't on Sunday is like a revival meeting or a revival gathering or, you know, it's. It's tacked onto everything you do. A retreat is called the revival. And I didn't know.

To me, it just felt like they were just trying to drum up my emotions or trying to. It felt manipulative to me, the way they kept using this word to try to stir me up into some stronger devotion for faith.

So I grew up really with a negative attachment to that word because it was just around me all the time. So then that's why I went and gave this first talk of like, don't seek revival, just be faithful. Right.

The king's already here, which you can imagine. Like, in some ways there's a truth to that. But I really went out of my way to try to dress down revival. So it's sort of fast forward a long time.

And this is Ryan Pfeiffer and I. We're in San Diego. We're seeing revival playing out on campus. And it's just God moving and people becoming Christian by the droves.

It was a wild time and a wild season. And so he's the one that really was talking it back into my ear.

And I just remember every time he brought it up, I'm like, come on, man, why do we need to talk about revival? Let's just have people be faithful, you know?

But as we kept talking, as we went along, there were just some dynamics about what it meant to seek revival, why the word might be important. All of a sudden, it just started to take on more and more weight as we went along.

And maybe then as we were thinking about it, could we write a book that would be like revival for the rest of us, you know, because revival literature can go on to some Extreme. It could be like, really academic on one end.

And so you're just going through the history of it and see how that kind of plays itself out or it goes way the other end, you know, like with eagles and fire on the COVID and, you know, just for a lot of mainstream, I guess, Christians, wherever you want, that just feels like this really edgy kind of thing.

And we're wondering maybe revival actually is a term we can re redeem and find a way to say, maybe there's something about revival for the rest of us. What would this look like?

And just try to unpack it in everyday language in a way that would make it something that would seem like something we should do and something that we could seek and sort of lean into the Psalm. Psalmist prayer in Psalm 85 of would you revive us, O Lord, so people may rejoice in you? That's. That was really the impetus to do that.

And then there were some dynamics that we were identifying that thought, maybe this would be helpful to getting more people around the table to long for revival together.

Well, then. Then you go on to not only just long for revival, but you then define it, which I really appreciated.

And you say it's a season of breakthroughs in word, deed and power that ushers in a new normal of kingdom, experience and fruitfulness. Hearing that you have those three different categories, word, deed and power.

Why is it so important for us to understand it as breakthroughs in word, deed and power? And why should we see it as a new normal?

Now, I know I don't want to take away from the book because you guys unpacked that over several chapters, but just briefly, why, I mean, really, even why that definition and word, deed and power, and ushering in a new normal. Why is that so important for us to understand?

Yeah, because it brings in a balance. The word union, power.

And so the biblical basis for that would be around Romans 15, where when Paul talked about fully proclaiming the gospel, there's a part where that full proclamation meant some geography that he was walking around in the text. But also it gives a qualitative picture of that. And you'll see Paul as he talks about his own ministry, he says he does it in word, deed and power.

And you'll see that language showing up there.

And we have also found that it sort of came out of our way of trying to invite people into a wider view of witness when we were in San Diego together, just to say, like, witness isn't just word, it's word, deed and power. And holding that Together created more space for people to be involved in witness rather than it having to look a particular way.

So why that's important with revival, particularly with word, deed and power folks, is that if you're. Most of us identify more deeply with one of the circles, maybe two, but we tend to identify more with one.

And left to our own devices, we will judge the other circles. So if you're a word centered person, you look at a deed person who might be involved in justice or compassion, right?

You look at them, you're like, well, they just seem angry. Why aren't they like staying in the scriptures?

Or, you know, you're looking at the power people and they're just looking like they're shaking and baking, they're rolling around the aisles. But how are they grounded in the word? You know, let's stay grounded in the word.

Whereas if you're like a deep person and you're looking at a word person and you're like, hey, you just look like you're so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good. Why not get in the dirts and really love people? Or they'll look at the power of people. It's like, that's great that you're doing that in your closet.

But hey, there's a lot of needs to meet today.

And on the power side, right, like, you look at the word person and you're going like, they have a form of godliness that seems to deny his power, right or power. People look at the deed folks and go, you know, there's the joy of the Lord. Experience him.

You know, don't worry about all the stuff that's happening in the world today. And there's a way that because of our either temperament or spiritual gifting that there's a way that we'll look down on the other circles.

And we just found that that's.

We need a unifying concept to say actually no matter where you are on this grid of the three circles, your invitation is always to come to the center where they overlap and to do that in love.

And then when we looked at histories of revival, that often revivals will enter in one circle, but as they tend to mature often much of the time you'll find them sort of incorporating the other pieces as they go along, right? Where there's the Wesleyans with the Methodist, right, There's a word component to this strong thing.

But then, so the deed part, they really focused on the miners, like actual coal miners, the actual blue collar, not coal miners. And Wesley himself had a little more disdain for the elite really wanted to kind of lift up. Those were more marginalized.

But also then things were happening in parts of his community where in prayer, they were experiencing God. There were things that were happening in the experience in the power circle. And you can see that those.

You might start with one like the Methodist starting with Word, or maybe like the Franciscans, starting more with the deed and loving the poor.

But seeing how that plays out in a communal Bible study and how that also played out into these powerful ecstatic experiences that there was something about you could start one way, but as it matured, it sort of had a way of bringing people in. And of course, there's the bed. And sort of.

That's what we're trying to guard, is there are revivals that run into just halt or skid out because they don't know how to welcome the other circles, and they sort of burn out or spin out or don't come to where it could have gone.

And so we are trying to find a way to welcome and say, like, it doesn't have to look a particular way, but the invitation is always to come to the middle, where word, deed, and power are overlapping in love.

And trying to put together a little bit of your bio, because you mentioned your dad being baptized as an infant, so I'm assuming that he comes from. Because I know Presbyterians are huge within Korea. Yet you mentioned your home church, which is the Gardena Baptist Church, right?

Baptist, yeah.

And then you mentioned in your bio, though, you said you're ordained in the vineyard movement. So I'm like, okay, that's really three different groups of people.

Sure, that's right.

So I'm looking at that. I'm like, how does that play? Because I think he's fighting with himself.

Yeah, that's fair.

And I'm more from a Word background, but I recognize that there's a part that's missing. I had a friend of mine, Charlie Davis, used to be the head of team. He wrote a book called Slider Switches. Actually, I don't know if he calls it that.

It might be multiethnic, multicultural discipleship. But in it, he uses the metaphor of slider switches. And he says, within a culture, some cultures are high on the experience alone, the knowledge.

And he said, you got to turn that up. And every culture has to have their own setting, you know, like singers on a stage. And I love that.

I love that because I think that the Gospel challenge, it confirms something in every culture, and then it challenges something in every culture, and it's learning from other People in those cultures so that my view of God can expand. So I know I'm much more word centered. But I know that the Spirit does things that I don't always am comfortable with.

I mean, even just looking at the scriptures, he chooses a teenage girl to bring forth the Messiah. You know, God has a way of operating some outside of my comfort zone. The hard part is when do I say that is out of bounds.

I mean, we have the biblical parameters, but sometimes there's a gray areas. And even some of the stuff that you guys wrote in here, I was.

Like, oh no, I don't know where.

I'm at with that prophetic stuff. And again, I'm not against it, I'm open to it. But my Baptistic conservative root starts freaking out a little bit and I get a little bit nervous.

But that seems like it's also kind of what you guys want to do is to say, okay, let's rethink this a little bit. Let's broaden our parameters a little bit. Is that what you guys are trying to do a bit? To say let's rethink how we can have revival.

And it's not always going to fall within our parameters. Matter of fact, we've been doing it in our parameters for a while and we haven't had revival.

That's right.

Is that what you guys are saying?

Absolutely. We definitely want to. There's a humility and we write about the humility that's needed. Right.

Like to be able to chew on the meat but spit out the bones. And there's gotta be something where we're learning and a place where God gets to surprise us. Right.

If it's everything going along to our strategy, then we don't get to experience what that verb in the book of Acts where it's just constantly the sense of being amazed. They were amazed, they were amazed and they got to see God moving. So we do want to create space for the others to be at the table.

And here's the other side of it though. If you don't create the space. So let's say, and this is my background too, but I'm much more of a word centered background.

My sort of connection with the vineyard comes late, like basically end of college, post college. If you do not create spaces for that kind of either experience or power, right. Where it can be kind of either protected or guided by the word. Right.

If you don't do it, people are going to seek it somewhere else. And then how well off are they if they seek it somewhere else?

That's actually worse because it's not being grounded in the scripture or if people seek justice and compassion. If you don't do it in your communities, obviously look at our culture, people are going to seek to do it somewhere else.

I think it's going to be more fruitful and much more aligned with the Kingdom, more long lasting if it's done in the kingdom. So how would you create space for the Word to influence that?

So there's a danger, like one way to say is like, well, it makes me nervous so I'm not going to deal with it. But what you're doing is by cutting off that space in your community or the places you lead, it's actually going to squirt out elsewhere.

And then you've got another problem maybe. And that comes from just, you know, experiencing campus ministry and church ministry like you know what that's like.

Those who lead, like you don't create spaces for the prayer ministry or that kind of healing ministry. If you don't, then they start going to other ministries to learn about it or they'll create issues in your own community.

They'll start creating divisions, saying you don't care about this stuff.

And there's a way that these three circles, Word, Dean and Power, work together and can guide each other to a more, I think, a more holistic view of the mission.

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James and I continue our discussion, except now we transition more to the modern Western evangelical church and some of the observations that we've had over the past several years at the current state of the church, it's not always pleasant, but it's one that's necessary because we realize that so many things that are going on there are a lot of political stuff, social unrest, but how many people are really praying and longing for God to work? That's what we continue to talk about.

Meaning that they're just kind of coasting along. They're in their spiritual kind of complacency. They got all their comforts. And there's not a longing.

I mean, there is like an internal longing for more. But they go to the churches, and the churches are just trying to. In many ways, just trying to stay afloat.

I mean, they're trying to manage all of the different things going on culturally. And I just don't see the focus on prayer meetings. I don't see the focus on encountering God.

I see, and I hate to say this, in some circles, not all, but more of a manufactured joy. And there's this. We're going to just kind of drum it up rather than just a byproduct of true revival.

And I remember reading an article some time ago where they said, we've traded prayer for posting online. And we've. Yeah, and we've traded spiritual practices for sometimes for protest. Now, sometimes there's necessary for protests.

I'm not saying there's not. But oftentimes we go to the external rather than go into your father, who in. Pray to your father, who is in secret, and he will reward you.

And in our very kind of narcissistic branding culture, I mean, it just is what it is. I feel like we've got a lot of activity, but I remember hearing a pastor from Northern Ireland say years ago, we're like a bird in a cage.

A lot of activity but no progress. And yet it seems like if we're ever going to advance, we have to recover that heart for God because we can't do it ourselves.

And you guys talk about that. You actually mentioned consecration, something that I don't hear very often in the circles that I've been in.

Why the focus on consecration and putting oneself at the availability of God to touch and move? I mean, why consecration again? What brought that up?

Yeah, well, it's the entry. The consecration marks the four Cs that we talk about in the book Consecration Calling, Contending and Character.

And it really is very pastoral right there, Borri.

Pastoral. I'm going to steal.

That's right. And Give you no credit, Unterian Father. That's right.

You got it all the iteration right there. And then you got it. You got to do it like, you know, Jesse Jackson. Then we got consecration. You got to do that.

And then we got colic and you get to keep going.

So that's right, we keep going.

So consecration.

So yeah. And so it is an entry point. It's a, it's the place where you. It's an admitting that what you're experiencing right now is not what you're meant for.

It's an admission that there's a gap between what life in the kingdom could be and where you're at. And there will always be this gap on this side of heaven.

But it is a place where we say, for this season, I want to be set apart and just sort of like, like any consecration, when you're consecration consecrating the items for the temple or you're consecrating people, you're basically just saying, I'm setting this apart for this season. And say God, all right, it's creating a space or a room for God to speak more clearly and more powerful. And it's that.

Right, that stuff sort of the litmus, like when we talk about even power, one way the entry place for us in university is it's about listening. That's all we're asking people to do is do you listen to God?

Like one litmus test I often have is like, well, when people are saying like, well, my spiritual life, it's not very strong or I'm not feeling very vibrant. Well, when was the last time God spoke to you that you understood?

And that doesn't necessarily mean like an audible voice, just a sense that God gave you some direction, connection.

And those who are vibrant, they've got something in the last two months they could talk about, about how God said this or spoke to this or spoke through that sermon or through this song. There's something about God speaking through that.

And then for those where it's just dried up, they, you know, it's been like years since they heard something which is kind of nuts, right?

Like, if you think about how we, at least in evangelical circles we talk about a relationship with God and yet in practice we make it more about a philosophy of life, these principles and these rules that we follow.

But the relationship, if it's a relationship, and this is Dallas Willard speaking, right, if it's a relationship, shouldn't there be two way communication? Because we would never settle for relationship. That's just one way.

And so what would it look like for us to have those spaces where we're not just reading the word, but the word reads us? Right. It's a place where we're listening to sermons, but it's not that we're just hearing it and comprehending it.

We are sensing what God is saying through that for us now. And that's important.

Yeah, but how do you differentiate? You know, I read a book by Mark Job, who's the president of Moody Bible Institute.

He wrote a book just recently on kind of just discerning the will of God for your life.

It's a short little book, very similar to another book that just came out by Michael Lindsay, who's going to be the new president of Taylor University, called Hinge Moments. Great book.

But Job talks about hearing God's voice, and he tells about being a young pastor and got called out to Hollywood to when Prince of Egypt was getting ready to be released. And they got to actually go and get a hearing before, watch it before everybody else did, because it was a bunch of religious leaders.

And they heard from the director. And the director said the most strangest scene, the scene they had the most difficulty with was Moses at the burning bush.

And they said because they couldn't figure out what to do with his voice. And I remember hearing that, because when I heard.

I mean, not from them, but I remember watching the movie and Val Kilmer plays Moses, and you hear Val Kilmer's voice come out of the burning bush. And that actually bothered me. But Job said, well, that's really how it is. God speaks through that. And oftentimes it's the voice that God speaks to.

So how do you differentiate, being my Baptistic roots here, how do you differentiate between it's just your flesh talking to your voice or just that's God. How do you know that when that's God?

That's a great question. And that can be a teaching on its own.

But if I'm trying to locate really is familiarity, there's, like, right now, like, if I were to ask the listeners to close their eyes and then ask, oh, who's speaking to you right now? Well, and it was all about you, James. Well, because I've been introduced, we've been hanging out for, what, the last half hour?

But we already have enough familiarity where you can recognize my voice. And it does seem then Jesus seems to be making that kind of promise in John 10, right? This idea where the sheep will know the voice of the shepherd.

And it's an old, ancient Near Eastern image of, like, There's a common sheep pen in most of these villages, so there'd be multiple flocks. And a shepherd would come up to the gate, right? And I don't know what a sheep call sounds like. I don't know. I don't know what it sounds like.

But a shepherd would come up, right? And the sheep would self sort. They would recognize the voice of their own shepherd and follow him out.

And Jesus seems to be using this image of the variety of voices you can hear. You'll be able to recognize mine. Michael, what you know, and that should be both, like, that's crazy.

But also the hope of what sustains us in the Christian life.

And so much so that I would say, like, isn't that the work of any disciple, any follower of Jesus is to be able to recognize what God is saying in the everyday and to obey what we hear? Isn't that really the primary work of what we do? But okay, so that being said, how do you then recognize that and familiarity?

Because familiarity doesn't sound like a great answer. You're like, well, give me some more. I do have five questions that I'll generally ask that help us get there.

But I do think discernment's easier now than it used to be back in the Old Testament.

And I got this from my friend Jordan Tseng, who wrote Miracle Work, a great entry book, if you're interested in sort of what it means to exercise spiritual gifts. It's a book for everyone kind of thing. But he talks about in the Old Testament, like, God spoke to one person in a generation, right?

So if that person said something that didn't come to pass, you were supposed to stone them because you needed to exercise like tight editorial control.

Big time, big time, big time.

But Joel 2, Acts 2, where is the Spirit located now? It's in the community of believers, right? And already poured out on us, which is awesome.

And so much so that in 1st Corinthians 14, we have a sense that if someone speaks on behalf of the Lord, two or three should weigh what it is said. There's a sense where community, I would think the main pillar is being what does the scripture say, and does this align with that?

And what does the community say and does it align with that? That discernment seems to be located now not in one prophet in every generation, but in the community of believers.

And that together we can understand through Scripture and through being together that we can start to discern what God might be saying. And I just, I wish I had that advice in my 20s. You know, I really did because my friends would say stuff about like, hey, you know, you shouldn't.

That relationship that you're in doesn't seem that good. You know, like they would sort of mention some things and I would go, ah, you know, because I heard from God.

But I wasn't taking into account what my community was saying. Where I think it seems that discernment seems to be located there in some way.

I also ask other questions, like if you heard something, one test would be, does it produce faith or fear? And what would you do if fear was not involved? Because perfect love casts out fear. We know from first John. And so that's one question I love asking.

What would you do if fear wasn't involved? Would you follow with what was being said? What would happen there? Another is the fruit.

Does this produce more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control or not? So scripture, community, fruit, faith, right? Those would be kind of the main kinds of things. And then that's not going to cover everything.

That might cover like 90% of it. But that's where it's less about certainty. It's the old Flannery O'Connor quote. It's less of don't expect faith to clear things up for you.

It's not certainty, it is trust. And so it is that. Use trust.

And when you hear, really one best good way to go about it is to respond to it, sort of discern it in community, figure out, but do something about it. And once you do something about it, then see what happens and debrief and interpret that with the community.

And it's in this, what we call our discipleship cycle in intervarsity from hear, respond, debrief that in that cycle, we keep learning how to hear God's voice together through the scripture and in community and to keep growing in it. So that's the sure, as short as I can make that answer.

You can hear there's a lot of nuance in there because, yeah, there's a lot of abuse that could happen in this area, of course, but we don't want to throw out the idea that God speaks to us just because other people have jacked that up. Right? It's. We were wired for this, we were meant for this. But I think sometimes our fear of getting it wrong keeps us from even trying in this area.

The fear of getting it wrong. I've thought about his words. James and I had this conversation a few months ago.

But fear of getting it wrong for myself, I have to confess that's where I've been at, I'm afraid I'm going to get it wrong. And I know that that's limited me.

I know that I am one of those people that he has mentioned that sometimes live in such a way that I live by a philosophy rather than a living, breathing relationship.

And that's why I want to be like one of those people that goes in their prayer closet and draws that chalk circle around themselves and ask God to start a revival in me. I love God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength, and I'm amazed at what he has done for me.

And I know what he wants to do with so many other people around the world. But there are times in those moments where we start to go through the motions and that's part of the ebb and flow of the Christian relationship.

It's not always going to be mountaintops. There are going to be valleys and struggles and sicknesses and sufferings and misunderstandings and confusion.

But I still long for true biblical revival. I also have to confess that many of the things that James talks about makes me a bit uncomfortable.

My theological tradition is not one that always allows such things. In fact, it's been pretty against it in most instances because of the abuses that have occurred. It has made me stop and go, am I wrong?

What does the Bible say? What does that mean for me? What is God asking of me to ask of him to long for?

And I want to continue this discussion and invite you to come back next week as we do continue our discussion to discover what it is that God has for us and how can we truly long for revival. I do appreciate his perspective and it is challenging to me and I hope and trust that it is challenging to you too.

And I hope and pray that God uses discussions like these to reinvigorate or truly water your faith wherever you are. And if this episode has been helpful to you in any way, shape or form, would you do us a favor?

Go online to ApolloSWater.org or connect with us on our social media pages and interact with us. Let us know about what God has done and what he is doing so that we might be able to connect with you.

Feel free to email me travispollowswatered.org I'd love to hear from you and know how we can help you so that you can water your faith and then go water your world. I also want to let you know that we have our first ever giving campaign coming up, so please pay attention to that. For most of this.

God has blessed and enabled this ministry to occur with a few different partners that have come alongside us to give and to pray. But as we're really trying to launch into the stratosphere to see what God has for us, we're going to need more.

But before we even invite those who have not yet given, I want to thank those who have been partnering with us in order enabling us to kind of rumble down the Runway, if you will. And I can feel that engine going and the speed is increasing, but we need then to launch, and that's why we need you.

We are looking for 80 new partners before the end of the year. Go online@apolloswater.org and in the upper right hand corner is a support us button. Hit that and it doesn't matter the amount, really.

We're just looking for people that want to partner with us, who believe in what we're doing and who have been blessed by the content. And for those that already are giving. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

You are making a difference in the lives of people around the world as people are changing their perspectives and they are taking greater steps of FAI to water their world, to engage in conversations with people that they otherwise wouldn't have. And we want to thank and praise God for that because that is truly a work of God. And I also recognize that I could never do any of this by myself.

God has blessed me with a wonderful team of people around me that are incredibly gifted, and I just want to give a shout out to them. Kevin O'Brien, Eliana Fleming, Rebecca Badong, Melissa and Donovan Martin, who makes all of us sound in some magic way good.

And that's not an easy thing to do. But I want to thank all of them for all of their time and all that they do. They are amazing people to work with. Water your faith, water your world.

This is Travis Michael Fleming signing off from Apollos Watered. Stay watered. Everybody roll.

And I'm on the roll.