#75 | Holy Discontent, Heart Desire, and Hope in Desperate Times, Pt. 2 | James Choung

Commitment is inversely related to meaning, right? So if you like in your value for commitment, you don't commit because you value freedom so much. But if you don't commit, you'll never have meaning.

Right?

Like relationships, for example. Right. Like our most important relationships, let's say a marriage.

It's a commitment to one person, and in that commitment you're actually saying no to a thousand other people. And I'm on the roll.

It's watering time, everybod. It is time for Apollo's Water, 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 we're having another one of our deep conversations. It's actually the second part of a deep conversation that I had with James Chong. Is God calling us to be relevant.

How do we evangelize in a post Christian society? And better yet, how is the world evangelizing us? How do we serve people who are commitment phobes? These are just some of the questions.

That James and I are going to.

Be discussing today as we talk about revival, relevance and remnant. For those that don't know, or you didn't catch last week's episode, I would encourage you to go back and listen to it.

Here's a bit about James for those who don't know.

He is the Vice President of Strategy and Innovation, overseeing evangelism, discipleship, planting, growth missions, multi ethnic initiatives and the creative labs at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. We are continuing our discussion on revival and his book Longing for Revival.

What does revival look like in our postmodern, technologically savvy, commitment phobic world where people fear committing because they think there is something better out? For me, this is really a tough conversation, not the subject matter itself. I believe in revival. I've studied revival and I love what revival is.

It's just my unbelief, if you will, because it's hard for me because of the complex nature of the world. I have yet to see a revival in our modern society on par with what I have seen historically.

Revivals like the first and Great Awakening, the Prayer Meeting Revival, the Welsh Revival, and the Pyongyang Revival. I believe in revival, but our world now seems to be so complex.

However, we all know that it's not beyond the power of God and we have to preach that to ourselves.

I think that's it really.

Believing God, taking him at his word rather than looking at the world. It's just what Corrie Ten Boom once said. If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed.

If you look at God, you'll be at rest. God must be bigger, and he is. I don't have to make him that way. Neither do you.

When we look at God, we're not looking at him through a microscope, trying to make him bigger and amplify Him. We are looking at him through the telescope of His Word, simply bringing him closer so that we might be amazed at who he is.

We all know that God is in the business of changing lives and there is nothing outside of his scope. Our problems may be complex, and they are to us, to be sure. But God is the only one who is bigger and can help us where we are.

I want you to listen in and find encouragement as well as some laughter and insight into what God is doing and what he is calling us to.

Do in this world. Happy listening. Breakthrough U curve. And they started off with number one was holy discontent. And that goes to number two, which is untested faith.

And then you go down to crucified hope. And I liked how you did that because I thought, really, that's how it is, right? We get to this part where we have these.

We do have a discontent, but our faith hasn't been tested yet. And then we do have it where it's kind of peeled away, where God. Like I used to say that about seminary.

Seminary is a bit like a spiritual chemotherapy where it kills part of you in the hope that the other part does survive. But it's in that suffering, and we have to learn, really, to hear the shepherd's voice. And you mentioned hearing God's voice.

I remember hearing about C.S.

lewis and mother Teresa both said as they got older, they didn't hear God's voice as much because in many ways, God was testing them still further to discern more. You think you grow and hear more. And I think when we're young, we hear it so often, but as we get older, I feel like it shifts.

Not that God intentionally does that with every single person, but. But I do think he's trying to strengthen our faith and our trust in the middle of that.

So when you guys put this U curve together, what was the whole purpose behind that? Because you guys have a lot of different kind of figures and graphics to kind of build around.

But what's this U curve that we can kind of grab ahold of?

Yeah. No, it's there because you see it in history, especially these histories. Of revivals. And we just felt like it was an important dynamic to bring up.

For instance, like, if I hear something from the Lord in my. In my 20s, I used to think like, oh, that's what I'm supposed to do. It's going to be like, open doors, green lights all the way down.

God's, you know, flesh. All the resources are going to come in. It's going to be amazing. Thank you, Lord. Right?

That's what we Hope in our 20s, when we hear direction for our lives, that it's just. Everything's going to be incredible and beautiful and easy. Right. Because God's with us. So it'll be a lot easier.

Now, in my 40s, if I hear the Lord speak that clearly about something I'm supposed to do, I brace myself. You know what I mean?

Grab a hold.

The question I'm asking in my head is, why did God think I needed to hear it that clearly?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

It's probably going to get harder before it gets easier. And that's just true. Like, this is. That's the breakthrough. You curve.

It's really trying to help people locate where they are and to build grit and perseverance and trust in the Lord when it gets hard, because you're going to hear something. And if it's glorious and if it's of the Lord and of the kingdom, it will have opposition. It will take trust to see it through.

And so we do see, like, that pattern of people going up to their untested faith, and they get really excited. And as a leader, your temptation is just like, hey, hold on, youngster. You definitely, you know, we've been through the ropes. Don't dream so much.

Your dreams are gonna die. You're just feeling it. It's just like, it's miserable.

But you illustrate that with the wedding, right? Like, you talk about a couple getting married, and I was like, oh, that hurts. Cause my wife's like, oh, that's you.

And I'm like, Cause you talk about it like. Cause I'm one of those. I'm getting to be that crotchety old guy. Get off my lawn. You know, I'm getting to be that guy. And I'm trying not to be.

But you mentioned that in the book. And it's like, okay, you see this couple, and you don't sit there and walk up to them and go, this is just. It's not going to be like this forever.

You're gonna have a lot of. Don't celebrate right now and be in the joy of the moment, you have.

No idea what you're getting into, right? I was dying.

I was like, this illustration sucks.

I was like, darn it, I don't.

Like this right now.

Right? It's for us. It's for people our age. The Xers need to hear that. Cause we want people to be real and authentic and know the truth.

But no, it's so cynical to do that. We should be stoking the dreams that they need those kinds of dreams to get through to begin.

And then God will take you through it where he's refining it, and you hit that crisis of faith, and with any breakthrough, you just see people going through that crisis moment. And this is God sort of saying, it's not you. You don't get to be in control.

You.

It's a place where God kills our expectations, right? Which and raises expectancy. That's a big deal. Like, expectations say, God, you got to show up this way or you're not good.

To me, expectancy says, I trust in you and your hope. Make it come however you want. Expectancy, right? So it's like, if we don't make this here, then God didn't show up.

It just forces the hand where expectancy is open and flexible to the will of. Of the spirit. And so it is a place where you're. It crucifies, you get your hope, gets crucified. You enter into this.

This place where then you have to ask, is this worth it? Is. Did God really speak to me? Is, you know, you're asking all those questions. And so a lot of these revival leaders went through those doubts.

It wasn't like, revivals are messy almost across the board.

And sometimes we have these pictures that are more fairy tale than reality about where revivals are, like, they're awesome, and everyone loves the Lord and loves each other, and it's perfect, and it's heaven on earth. You know, it comes with a lot of opposition, a lot of criticism. People, like, wonder what's happening over there. There's.

People are wondering whether you should lead it. There are other people who are thinking of leadership. There's a constant struggle there.

And the Lord is refining us and our desires in it so that if we make it through that crisis of faith and don't and don't stay in that loop of despair, then we can come out the other side right with them and seek breakthrough. And I just, you know, it's almost intuitive.

When Ryan was the one who sort of showed that graph, that just felt really intuitive and helpful for people who. God just puts A big dream on their heart. In business speak, that's an adaptive change, right? That's an adapt.

It's such a tremendous dichotomous challenge that revival callings tend to be just so much bigger than your typical ones that those almost invariably require that walking through the crisis and letting God sort of take you to the next place. And so it was a way just to say, look, it is, it kind of is our extra way to tell people, hey, glad you got that dream.

You know, we are kind of being that guy. We are sort of being that guy a little bit to say it'll go down before it goes up.

But we hope that it's a hopeful thing to say because we let you know ahead of time. Then it gives you the strength to persevere and to build grit.

And they'll ask God to meet you in that place when you're at the bottom so that he might take you to breakthrough.

Do you think, I mean, you've worked with college students now for years and years. I mean, you've been in pastoral settings, you've been in college settings.

Do you think that younger people, I mean, we just know that younger people are more willing to take risk? And you mentioned that in the book, like, if you want to take a step of faith and it's spelled R I S.

And do you think this is something that older people have a harder time with?

You know, actually, I think this. So the millennials, so people in their, like mid-20s to mid-40s, mid-20s and 30s, they'll take the risk. They're more willing to take the risk.

This new younger crew that are in college now, they're much more risk averse. They don't want to take the risk. They want to be. They want to live the right kind of life. What's the most excellent kind of life?

And so they actually, they're different. And a lot of our campus ministers, our millennial campus ministers are struggling. They're like, I don't understand this generation.

Because, you know, the millennials were like a ready, fire, aim kind of generation. You know, like, yeah, here's the vision, here's the mission. Let's change the world. They're like, yeah.

And then back like, what in the world are we doing? Igen's like, but how are you going to get there? What's the plan? Do we have any experts helping us with this?

Because they're just, they've got access to YouTube, they've got access to experts all the time. They really are much more risk averse.

Interesting.

Than the new Jack than the previous generation in college. So no, I think it just depends. Xers people like in their late 40s to early 60s, those folks, we were risk takers.

We were always questioning everything. The boomers day, you know, like what you want to do. Big church. Forget that we're going to do this other thing.

There's a reason why the dot com shows up with extra leadership, right? There's a. They are the generation that tends to rebel and innovate and take. Take lots of risk. Millennials also more willing to take risks.

The Igens or Gen Z much less willing. And so no, it's. You're just meeting each generation where they are.

That's crazy hearing that. I'm like, we took a lot of risk, but there was a reason. There was a dot com burst. Bubble.

Bubble burst too.

That's right. Going back though, you mentioned one of the other C's was contending.

You even talk about calling out contending day and night and then you have things in here. I'm just going to read it. Open your schedule. Do mornings and evenings start small. Build gradually. Have rest days and long days. Print it out.

I mean one of the things that we try to do here is we try to say, here's your water bottle away. Take this away. This is what you're going to sip on for the week as we're watering your faith. Why did you put that in the book?

Revival, right? It's such a big word. And you go to the big dream and then without going like, but what does that mean today? What are our steps now?

There's a huge gap. And besides, let's pray for it. We don't really know what to do next.

So we really wanted to take that to a place where we could have some accessibility. Like, this is our next step. This is where we're going to go. This is how we can long together. And we just felt that that was really important.

One thing we know revivals always start small, right? It almost. It's a number. Revivals always start small. And then they sort of catch fire from a group of people and they sort of.

They go on from either relational angles. And God could do that with a bunch of different groups at the same time and bring them together, but they always start small.

So that's one thing to pay attention to is that mustard seed. And I think that's true. The other kind of obvious thing that we say is no revival happens without revived people. That almost seem so obvious.

But then you gotta think about like, oh, if we want to see revival, then we've got to ask revival to start with us.

So much so by Gypsy Smith, the old quote, when asked about revival, he said, go into a closet, close the door, draw a chalk circle around yourself and ask God to start revival within that circle. And I think that's. It's that idea then. So how would you do that? How would we ask God to start revival in us? That's why we're breaking it down.

Consecration. Here's some things you can do. Seek the calling that the Lord has put in your heart. Okay.

Now that you're in this, how do you contend and keep laboring away? Because it's at that place that if revival doesn't show up for you right in the next 3, 5, 10, 20 years, what is our posture? What do we do in the.

In the meantime?

How is that new normal different than staying on the mountaintop? Because we all know that we got to come off the mountaintop and go into the valley.

But how's the new normal differentiate from the mountaintop experience?

Fascinating.

It's probably the difference as we were talking about what Prince of Egypt, the difference of the burning bush and then sort of creating the society as they're going through the desert. The Torah, the rhythms, how we're going to do this. What does this look like in practicality?

You're still following what you heard on the mountaintop, but it's got teeth, it's got rhythms, it's got structure. That's why we talk about the mystery and strategy, why you got to hold both. And other writers on movements talk about how you need both.

You need the sail to catch the wind if the wind were going to blow. You need both structure and the structure, the strategy and the mystery. How do those things go together? So, no. Yeah.

There's moments where on the mountaintop, you hear what God is asking you to do. You hear the call. You've consecrated yourself. You've heard it, and now you're doing the integration. You got to come back down. Right.

And as you come back down, what does it look like then to just to dig in and to go deeper and to let those rhythms sink in? And that's. That's really, you know, with us with InterVarsity, we heard this call four years ago. The whole national movement is seeking.

We're longing for revival. That's actually what we call it to 20, 30. And now, what are the rhythms for that? What does that mean? How do we integrate that?

How does that change our leadership practices? It is these kinds of Questions that get kind of strategic.

Again, how do you make this stuff concrete enough so that others can join you if they're invited in?

I mean, you mentioned for InterVarsity, and I can hear some of our listeners are going, hey, these are college students. You're talking about revival among college students.

Do you think that churches, I mean, we know that they need these practices, but I'm not sensing a lot of churches pleading for revival anymore. I see them fighting instead of a spiritual battle, they're fighting a political one.

Often talking about masks, they're talking about all the different politics that are going on. How do we change that narrative?

Oh, that. Is the Lord such a big thing to change the heart? No, and I think that's true.

I think we do have pockets that are talking about revival and our community, our staff go, you know, all the way up to age 69, 70, 71, as well as we serve students and faculty. So there's sort of a mix there. But it's that revelation, have we lost our first love? I think that's. I keep wanting to go back to love.

And that's such an old school word. You don't even hear a lot of either talks or themes or people just talking about love because it feels so like, oh, God's love, God's love.

Sure, sure, sure, right. It doesn't feel, I don't know, Herculean. There isn't like a sense of kind of vigor in it, but it's got to be the ground. And I just wonder in.

We've chased after other loves potentially, like either political power or our vision of some other kinds of things, rather than falling back in love in this relationship with God. And that love fueling devotion, not white knuckling things, not like just trying to get our will engaged.

But, man, that sense that we had when we first met our spouses, that sense when we first. Not that we can always feel that level all the time, but there's got to be some moments in the relationship where you're like, you know what?

I just love her because I just love my wife. There's a genuine affection that's there because you have a healthy relationship.

What would it mean for us as an American church to return to a first love? Just return first love. Back to basics. I have Jeremiah 6:16 sitting on my desk, right?

It's thus says the Lords, stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient paths where the good way is, and walk in it and find rest for your souls. And the next line is, but you would have none of it. And Jeremiah understood his audience.

Do this, but you're not going to get it.

You're not going to do this, you're.

Not going to do it, but that's what you should do.

I think in a time when culture now is trying to take the moral high ground on us, we're in a post Christian society, and the difference between that and pre Christian society is that this culture is evangelizing us as much as we're evangelizing it in a culture like that. I just think rather than seeking relevance more and more, which is what we did for a long time. Right?

Yeah, yeah.

Seeker sensitive churches sort of make it really accessible to everyone.

What if we sought the remnant, the ones who are really like, committed and stoking the kind of faith that wasn't just easy, but something that found love and devotion at its center Again, I like how Dallas Willard would put it, is grace is opposed to earning but not effort.

Yeah, yeah, I saw that in the book. You have a whole thing on it.

And that's. Yeah. And we're not trying to get into a place where you're earning your way into heaven. That's. No, that's not the Bible at all.

But there is a sense that in going that far in Protestant circles, then we go like, well, then we don't have to do anything at all. There's no effort needed. Jesus did everything that is needed. So we just sort of coast, kick back.

When Jesus seemed to be saying, you know, if you want life, you kind of have to die.

You know, here's your face right now.

If you want life, you kind of have to die.

You just. He doesn't seem to mince words. You want to be great, Be the servant of all. You want to find your life, you got to lose it. Here's a cross.

Pick up your cross.

There is a taking up of the cross. There's effort involved, right? There's effort. There is a place where we give all of ourselves to Jesus. It's not earning our place in heaven.

It's just we're working out that salvation he's already given to us. And I just wonder if we've just lost that. We just went, you know what? I get to live my life plus Jesus. I've got my. My ticket to heaven, per se.

So when I get to the barcodes of heaven, boop. I'm in. Right? Like, thanks, so good. But like an iPad, maybe there's more, right? Maybe there's more. If.

If the word saved in the Bible is being saved and Healed and delivered, Right? It just depends on the context what that means. Then we are also we're. We're not just saved, we're being saved and we will one day be saved. Right?

And so what if then we knew not just what we were saved from, but what we're saved for and let that inject our faith again so that we're not just remembering what has been done, but God is speaking his life and words into our community so that we know how to respond now, as we have front row seats to when God is making all things new.

Hold that thought. We'll be back in just a minute after a word from one of our sponsors. The most important Bible translation is the one you read at Apollos Watered.

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Get one today because understanding the Bible changes everything and the NLT is the Bible you can understand. And we are back. Before we get to the second part of my conversation with James, I want to set it up a bit for you.

James and I got into this subject of salvation and why today people have such an incomplete or a truncated view of what salvation is.

And we also talk about the idea of the multi ethnic church and why God created us all so differently and how he desires to bring us together to display his glory to a lost world. Then we transition into this idea of how to minister in a post Christian society. Out of all the things that we.

Talked about, this is actually my most.

Favorite part of the conversation because he offers some great insights that I think.

Will help each one of us as.

We seek to water our world.

And I just think we've lost those pieces of salvation and we've sort of made our services more of a memorial.

That and I think people have such a limited view, like you mentioned, how we're saved, we're being saved, and we will be saved from the penalty of sin, from the power of sin and then the presence of sin.

And it seems to me that we've got, most of our people have this idea of just the decision, just give me the first step, give me the liability, give me the fire insurance to get me into heaven. And there's so much more that's involved in that. And I like how you're drawing that out because you talk about holistic discipleship.

And that's what we're advocating, what we call Missio. Holistic discipleship, where it's all of life under the authority of God is used to display God's glory in the middle of all this.

And that's what you guys are advocating for. You're saying we want to see all of life and we want to see the church revived.

And yet we're seeing in many ways the church divided along. I mean, there are a lot of multi ethnic churches and thank God for that because I'm a huge advocate of that.

But we're also seeing a lot of division along racial and cultural lines.

Do you think that really, I mean, your book could be used in some ways to really bring people together in that regard, those who claim to be followers of Jesus? My hope is that we're all worshiping the same Jesus because it's only through him that we're going to find really this allegiance.

Is that also what you guys are hoping to accomplish by something like this? Or was that in your purview? Or is that just something like, hey, you know, we see this going on and really God's the only hope here.

I mean, we, God is the only hope. If our book has a small part to play in it, that would be great. But that's our hope. I mean, that's why we have word, deed and power together.

And we have to find ways that what that does is it allows a unity because we, our primary identity is in Jesus, but it also allows for a diversity. And how do we, are we able to kind of operate in that diversity as well? And both are needed.

You go to the extremes where like, let's just ignore all our differences. Well then you Never address Acts 6, Acts 15 like these places where there's some real kind of lies that divided.

But what's cool is that the apostles didn't like, go like, that's just the left, or that's just the right. They went, this is us, so let's address it right. And they then put Greeks in charge of the food distribution. Right.

Empowered them, these Jewish leaders. And then in Acts 15, just made some changes in the way you're welcomed in the church so that it could be more welcoming to people who aren't Jewish.

Just there's a we to it, but we're listening to the differences.

And as we listen to that, to go like, well, then how do we respond together, I think is a key thing, because where there'd be one part of the community, like, we're just ignoring the pain that we're in, then that's not a true unity. You're ignoring the injustices that we're feeling. That's not a true unity.

But if we say no, we see that, let's address that together and not be divided.

Then there's a way that, yeah, maybe the ministry of reconciliation, it was us and God in Romans, but also that reconciliation with each other in Ephesians and other parts of Paul where it's just Jew and Greek. There was a way that this was supposed to reconcile us to each other too. And yeah, it is the hope. It's word, dean and power for those reasons.

And we purposely chose revival examples from around the world that you see that our American examples, a lot of revivals, right. About the Great Awakenings or books on revivals talk about that. We really tried to touch more on things around the world.

Yeah, Pyongyang, you mentioned that. You mentioned India. You mentioned Bazi.

African revivals. Yeah, India. Because you'll see that in those places, word, deed and power came together.

At Pyongyang, for instance, it was a time when the Japanese were oppressing Koreans and would later about within eight years, begin to occupy Korea. So they were already in that way of doing it. So there was a lot of hatred in the Korean church against Japanese oppressors.

And during the Pyongyang revivals, they also sought to address those injustices in nonviolent ways, but also to forgive their oppressor and somehow were able to do both. There was places where people stole from each other and they were called to reparations and to pay back what they stole.

It was a pretty fully orbed kind of thing that was happening in Pyongyang. That was word, deed and power. These Things that were happening altogether.

And we just wanted to highlight the ways that that played out, some of it playing out in the East African revivals and how that affected either governments or other kinds of institutions. It's not going to be perfect. You could always point to things that are wrong. But we wanted to expand revival to just beyond conversions.

That kind of a revival has a way of spilling out into redeeming society.

And when we see them coming to their fullness, like abolitionist movement and its connections to revival movements, you know, all these kinds of things that are part of the history, but we just sever them because we want to view spirituality in one bucket and then sort of social issues in another bucket. And actually these kind of. In the kingdom, those weren't separated before the 20th century in the Christian faith.

And the ways that bring those together.

I think it's key and I think having then if we can have these kinds of things where we're keeping them together in our time, maybe we can then help those who see it just about where we go when we die to see that there's this other component or for those who just see it as a justice movement, to say there's a spiritual component that's really important too, and bringing those together in his name.

Do you think that the diversity of the American church allows some of those issues to be brought out more fully? Because each culture has a tendency to approach from a certain milieu or genre, if you will, to certain issues.

Like I see within the Latino church the issues of liberation and oppression and brought in injustice. And then I see other cultures bringing a different element to that.

Do you think then that that's, I mean, one of the things that we should build off of for this kind of idea of a beautiful community coming together and learning from one another. And that helps us to get a fully orbed gospel. And without that diversity, our. Our gospel is still there, but in many ways is somewhat diminished.

And that we can't take the full essence of its diversity without that around us, provided we are in a community that has that type of diversity at the same time.

Agreed, I think that's true.

And I also think even if your community doesn't have that diversity in and of itself, that's why we have the body of Christ connecting to communities that are not like yours.

So in one sense, I know it's frustrating for some because they might say like, well, my church has to be fully multi ethnic and that would be great if it was, but if it's not, or you're just not in that kind of community where that's a possibility, then what are the other avenues that you're creating for places for connection and to learn from a different group? Because there is some power in being apart and there's some power in being together. And if there's ways that, that can come together in its best way.

For example, does the civil rights movement happen without the black church? Now, you know, and I'm stepping into waters not as a historian, so I do need to.

Not as Jesse Jackson at a high school.

Right. I gotta be careful. There's a lot of sin involved on why the church is divided the way it is.

Yes.

But some of the ways that that might be redeemed is that it's paying attention to other things so that we can bring that together. And then as the black church led in the civil rights movement, they invited other communities to be with them.

And I think there are places where maybe is like the Sunday hour. Is that going to be the best place for us to learn from each other and connect?

It might be for some, but it also might be like the missions trip we're doing together, or the service projects we're doing together, or the places where we have more time to interact with each other, where we're really doing some good learning. And InterVarsity does some of that modeling.

We might have some ethnic specific ministries, we might have some multi ethnic ministries, but there's some commitments if we're on a particular campus, to do retreats and missions trips and service projects together or outreach together, while also having spaces where we're dealing with our own stuff too. And so it is more like being one unity and diversity, having both. And so there's just.

I just think there's different models out there on how that could play itself out as long as the leaders we all see like this is actually one thing and not separate things.

Let me change gears just for a second, because talking about revival, I was chatting with Os Guinness. I mean, he's 80 years old, he's written 30 some books, just kind of this elder Christian statesman in the community.

And he's hoped for a Christian renaissance of sorts. And I had mentioned that to him. And he goes, no, I'm hoping for revival. And I thought, wow.

He said, I come from the generation where I watched John Stott sitting in the corner right before he went out to preach on his face, pleading before God to awaken and be in him preaching. And I was struck by that. I wasn't expecting that from him because I had just read and we read a lot in what we're doing.

But I read Rod Dreher's book Live not by Lies, and a book he had written called the Benedict Option. And in many ways, he's calling for a strategic retreat from culture. And because of how it's become.

So in many ways, the faith has become compromised, and it's become where Christians are having a harder time engaging in the culture with a good conscience in some ways. And I'm curious on how do you respond to. And I don't know if you've probably read the book or not, but just that idea or concept.

Because you're saying we want revival, but it seems that we're in a post Christian culture. We get the stats that the church is decreasing. For the first time in 80 years, membership's gone below 50% level.

Of course, we see evangelicals, younger evangelicals have no problem with cohabitation and living together and those kind of things. And yet we have the lgbtq, all of the different things that are going on right now.

How do you engage this younger generation and just people in general, in this concept of revival? I mean, yes, I read it.

I'm a fan of it, but yet I look at the stark realities that are staring me in the face in my own tribes, and I'm saying, okay, Lord, this revival, that has to be you, because I can't do this. I can't fight these battles. This has to be you. And I want to be faithful with where I'm at.

But how do you respond to that kind of idea and thought process and place where we're at in society right now?

No, I think that's. There's a lot of wisdom in that, and that's what I mean by the remnants.

And you'll hear a lot of people kind of in these revival circles talking about the need for the remnant. It is a strategic temporary retreat.

But elaborate on the remnant here for a second. I mean, I know biblically, but elaborate that for our listeners. What do you mean by that remnant idea?

Yeah, and I'm posing that idea to the idea of relevance. So remnant in the scripture. Right. It's the. It's Elijah on Mount Carmel. He's had this crazy victory, and then now he's in the. In the. In the caves.

Well, the broom tree first, when he wants to pass out, and he says, I'm no different than what, you know, he's got a rest. And then he goes into the cave.

That's right, the rest. And it's there. That sort of the gun reminds him Actually, I've got a remnant. I've got like 7,000. I've got people.

They're the ones who have not bowed the knee to baal. You didn't know they were there, but they're there, these folks who are devoted even though culture has gone the other way.

And that's the idea of remnant versus relevant. Relevant is sort of the community that's you're trying to make the connections with culture in order to make the gospel appealing or understandable.

So this didn't make the book. I wish it did because it came to us afterward.

It's awesome. Second book, volume two.

Volume two, volume two. So what we do is we do a two by two grid. InterVarsity loves our two by two grid where we put remnant and relevant.

Whenever we see like two opposing ideas, we wonder if it's more like a two by two grid rather than an opposition. Because right now that's what it's being talked about. We went for relevance before we did these big kind of events.

You know, rock bands try that stuff. We sort of. But. And that might have worked when we were more in a Christian culture where there were.

There was more foundations and more grounding, people understood the scriptures more, there was more authority given to church leaders, that kind of stuff. But now that we're in this space, maybe we need to push more into the remnant. And so a lot of people saying, ditch the relevance, go to remnant.

What we're trying to say is actually what would it look like to be high relevant, high remnant in this two by two grid? Because what that would do is that that's actually the place of influence. That's actually where revival happened, is where relevance meets remnant.

But and so this is what we actually say to get to high relevance and remnant. In the past, we went through the relevant side of things, right? We made these kind of, you know, met in movie theaters.

We sort of created rock contemporary worship. We had services that used non churchy language. When I was in like for example, when I was in college, right?

If you had friends who aren't Christian, you were like in Christian circles, like, whoa, you have friends who aren't Christian. You're so cool, man. That's crazy. It was pretty unheard of. You kind of hung out with other Christians.

I'm laughing because it's so true.

It's so true.

And what you would do then for young people at the time was you wanted to send them out, like go to the fraternity, go to the dorm, go to that club, be relevant, right? Send them out. So that they'll be salt and light in those places. And more often than not. Well, yeah, more often than not, they could be an influence.

If they're sent in community supported. They're an influence on the community that they're sent to. Nowadays, if we just send people out, we don't know if they're coming back.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, right. Because the culture is evangelizing us as much as we're trying to evangelize.

I love that by the way, that description, culture, evangelizing us. That's good.

So then we can't just send them out because they don't seem to have the same grounding or the foundations or the culture. Even the supports of a vestigial Christian culture is not there.

So we actually need to go deeper with them to teach them what it means to be committed, to persevere, to stay faithful and to call people to commit. It is so hard for Igen to commit the young people. So hard for them to commit. You've heard of fobo, fomo, fomo, Fear of Missing Out.

Mark Sayers, in his book, he talks about fobo, Fear of Better Options. And I think that's so true.

We can't even get our young students to commit to, like, coming to a Friday gathering because they don't know if another better option might show up on Friday night. So they're not committing to our meeting. They're not committing to anything else. Until, like, the last moment.

I was like, I guess I have nothing better to do. I'll come to a large group or I'll come to the gathering. So our staff are even doing these spontaneous things.

They're making it look like a spontaneous Bible study, but it's been planned. But they're asking people then, because that's how you kind of deal with the FOBO is really. The people have a hard time with committing.

But the thing is, right, commitment is inversely related to meaning in your value for commitment. For you don't commit because you value your freedom so much. But if you don't commit, you'll never have meaning. Right.

Like our relationships, for example. Right.

Like our most important relationships, let's say a marriage, it's a commitment to one person, and in that commitment, you're actually saying no to a thousand other people.

Yeah, you guys talk about that. We all make these choices over and over that continually they limit your options. You're intimidationally limiting yourself.

Like when you get married, you're saying, I'm saying no to all those other people. I do this, I'm saying no. So you guys talk about that in the book. But keep going, keep going.

I love where you're at when you make those kinds of commitments. That's how you find meaning in relationships, in society and communities is when you commit, right?

So consecration is like one way to seek commitment. You're actually saying no to a bunch of things so you can learn to commit again. And this is what we're trying to teach our folks.

So in the past, instead of making people become relevant, we're pushing them more the remnant direction, right? To say, what does it mean to go deeper so that when you go out there, we don't lose you. One great example, right?

Like sort of sexual ethics, that kind of thing. Like back when we were in college, right, like, we would get comments like this, like, whoa, you don't do what until you're married?

That's crazy, dude. I. Well, I could never do that. But I respect you for it.

Right, right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, respect you for it.

So there was a sense of like, that feels unattainable. But there was at least cultural respect for Christian sexuality. Now, fast forward 40 years, 30 years later, right?

What's Christian sexuality look like now? Right. It's intolerant, it's bigoted, it's old fashioned, it's hatred. You know, it's. It's all of this. It's bigotry.

And so now where before culture might have given us the moral high ground, it's flipped.

Yeah. Which is weird. So weird.

But that's true across the board. Culture thinks it's better than Krishna. A lot of that's our fault.

A lot of that is our fault.

And that's sort of why we need to recapture some of these things. It's more holistic, it's more fully orbed. It's word, deed and power.

It's kind of these pieces, instead of getting caught into these culture wars, maybe we can just show people that we're not against them, we're just in love with Jesus. And that just requires some other things. I think that's a missing piece right now.

So this is kind of a long discourse to say we do need to push people toward commitment, need to push people these days more toward finding faithful rhythms and communities to stick with you and you with them so that you can have the grit and perseverance to survive in a post Christian culture before we even get to relevance. But we hope by investing in that other piece, then we don't want them to stay a holy huddle. Right. That's the other issue.

So it's not that you don't want relevance. It's just you don't seek relevance first anymore. Because now everybody.

Everybody's these days, any young person, they have friends who aren't Christian. That's. That's. You're weird if you don't.

Yeah.

And you know, how many times have you heard musicians, like, young musicians? Well, we're not a Christian band. We're a band that is Christian. You know, that whole.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which I'm sort of being tongue in cheek about it. But, you know, that's sort of. There's a lot more, I think allegiance. It's not quite the right word. The relevance is high.

I always say relevance is high.

Remnant is low for Christians these days in America and just such a different experience than like our Muslim background believers or others who just. It's all remnant.

Right.

But they still seek to be relevant, you know, and it's not that they're shying away from preaching the gospel. It's not that they're shying away from these things. It's just it has to go way deeper for them.

Do you feel like the church, and I say the church and I mean like the kind of the American, or let's say Western evangelical church has failed to grasp this remnant idea because they've been the majority for so long? There doesn't seem to be a depth, but yet I'm sensing now people, that remnant idea is almost growing.

Where people want to grow, they want to go deeper and they're willing to suffer. Some already are, but it seems to be there's a pruning going on and that remove.

I love how you contrast the relevance versus the remnant idea, but do you see this remnant idea growing in churches that were even in the Christian groups that you're working with? Because you guys mentioned you work not just with iv, you guys are working across the board.

I mean, you're working with crew, you're working with other different groups that are out there trying to share the gospel and really see God transform college campuses. And I was really encouraged by reading that in the book. But do you see that within churches or. Well, have you guys heard that?

I mean, what do you guys see?

Yeah, no, and depends on the church for sure.

But yeah, like a growing interest for some of the bigger churches that I'm connected with, like how much they were more interested in the power circle or sort of experiencing God rather than their programs. That was sort of the beginning of it, like five, ten years ago now.

But hearing a lot more about the Remnant these days, because, I mean, we're just seeing it. We're just. The attrition is. Is high out there. And. And I think for those of the leaders who see hope in it.

So there's a lot of Christian leaders that are like, oh, man, this is the end, right? Like, they're going to take away all our privileges, our tax exemption statuses are going away.

There's a lot of things about that that will be real costs to us.

And yet at the same time, I just wonder if post Christian culture is actually going to be good for the church as a pruning, as a cleaning, as a cleansing, as a being helping us kind of jettison things that aren't as important. Finding our first love again. I just think there are benefits to not being in power. Christians in power don't usually do well.

We don't, you know, but when we're under the gun, man, that's where our faith comes alive. And not that I want to glorify the suffering at all.

No, not at all. I mean, because there's also real danger. I mean, we talk about the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.

But I had Philip Jenkins on the show and he'd recently wrote a book called Fertility and Faith.

But we actually talked a little bit about his book called the History of Lost Christianity, where he talks about places that were once bastions of Christianity, that you can barely find a Christian there now because of persecution. So that's also a reality that I don't think the Church often talks about.

We do acknowledge persecution, and I think it's more of a nod, hoping that it doesn't come our way. And I find that some Christians are, while they see the benefit of persecution, they don't want it.

And I mean, no one really wants persecution, I would hope. We don't long to see people killed or hurt or things like that. But there is a purification aspect that you mention to that.

And I do wonder, though, how much the American church we have.

I think it was Piper, and I think you guys mentioned this in the book where the problem isn't so much persecution, but it's apple pie and it's in the good. And we're so close to the gifts and the comforts that we have. We really don't. We're allergic to suffering.

Like my kid's allergic to peanuts, you know, that type of thing. And we're like, instead of gluten free, we're persecution free. Like, I'll take my Christianity Persecution free. Thank you very much.

We've become really like good friends with the Ethiopian movement and the Ethiopian student movement and they're going. There was a time about 10 years ago where the American movement and the Ethiopian movement but were the same size.

We've shrunk and the Ethiopian movement has blown up. They're sort of gangbusters. And so we went over there to learn, which was so much fun.

We just, I grabbed my team and we just said we're not here to teach anything, we just want to learn. Fortuitous meeting with their General Secretary of Ethiopia at a missions conference and then he invited us out and really it was an amazing time.

But you know, so when we look at what's happening, right, this movement of like they're on every campus in their country. A movement of 50 to 60,000 now with only like 70, 80 full time staff. It's like crazy what they're, what the Lord is doing there.

Suffering persecution in the north, right? They're having students by other Christians, Orthodox Christians are throwing rocks at them as they share the gospel. They have to move.

They can't walk alone on campus for fear of violence against them. The police have been called on their meetings, those kinds of things where they're real suffering, real persecution.

This is what's happening right now is amazing. And the general secretary just shook his head at us. He's like, no, didn't happen. It's not happening now.

It happened back when we were under communist oppression. And so he then locates Revival in this place where the communists came in, right?

This is the 80s, literally early they come in and basically Christian church has to go way underground. Particularly like the non state church. They're just underground. They're smaller than they've been. They take some hits.

I got to meet the General Secretary who was the secretary during that persecution in Ethiopia. But the way that General Jensek would say it is. But I can't think of another time where we prayed more.

And that time was a time when God gave us a heart for him. And that's where Revival was born. Was there when we were Praying together. And I'm watching this movement.

We just went through a day where they went through a whole day they of a six day conference of fasting and praying together, right? It's not like these guys don't know how to pray. They absolutely do. And they were praying for their students who are persecuted in the north, right?

And then they started a worship song that was written in the time of persecution to say it was like they considered a prophetic song where the lyrics were, we were small, but we will be big again. Something along that lines. And just how much courage it gave to their students. Like, you're looking at it and you're thinking, this is revival.

And yet they locate it in the place of persecution, in the place where they were forced on their knees. And you know, that's just my team, the American team were like, dang, you know, what do you do with that? Right?

It's not that you wish that, but there is something about that, that when you're just left here, you no longer have any other cultural cachet or power to pull on. And it's just at that point, who else do you depend on? What else do you do?

Seems to be the right place to set you up for the upper room or Antioch and Ex 13 to say, okay, God, what do you want to do? And I just wonder how much space we give God. You know, there's.

We have faithful communities, but in the American church as a whole, do we let him just call it or are we just protecting our stuff?

I'm scared to answer that question sometimes looking at our culture and knowing what I know. I mean, we hope to say one, but if we're really being honest with ourselves, how much of it is the other?

And I don't mean to judge us. I'm in this boat. I'm living that tension every day. So it's. I don't want to come off like I know everything, but these are the tension.

And the costs are real.

It is, and the costs are real. And it's my hope and prayer that God would use a book like yours and Ryan's to transform people and bring us back.

Because honestly, I haven't read a book on revival in a long time. I mean, and they've been out there, and even when they're out there, they don't stay very long because there's not a lot of people purchasing them.

And I just don't hear it in an evangelical circle.

I mean, of course you hear it in such more charismatic circles, but it's in some ways it's like we heard when we were kids, everything's revival, you know, and it's more manufactured than it is actually a genuine article and a genuine revival. And I hope and pray that God would use this to spark revival in people. And you guys don't just leave it at individuals.

You move it to communities, and even going up the different zones, layers that you have. One of the segments we like to end with is, this is your water bottle for the week.

Now, if we could say to our people, this is the water bottle that we want you to take home for the week, that are listening, and they're listening all over the world. What is the water bottle that you want to give them that they can just drink on in the week to come?

That's a great question. And I'm calibrating what level to bring it. My sense is it's in that level of consecration.

I wonder if, for those who are listening, if, as we've talked about, consecration, that that's been a tug, like a tug at your heart, and you're getting the sense that God might be saying, what if you set aside a time, it's not a permanent time. I'm not asking you to have a permanent rhythm that you stick to for the rest of your life.

Just a season, 40 days, three months, where you ask the Lord, is there something you want me to consecrate to you?

Is there something in this next season where I can consecrate and say, this I either give up or do for this next season so that I could seek your will in my life? I just think for revivals to really have their sort of. To really have it right, like, just. It's. It's.

I do think it starts small, and I do think revivals start with revived people. And it just. It took a journey for me to even embrace the concept. So I think my. My water bottle would be.

Is the Lord asking you to consecrate in this next season? And I just sort of will leave it open to that. Whether that leads to a sense of revival or what your place in it is, I don't try to determine for you.

I just want to say, would you be willing, like, whatever comfort, whatever thing that might be just there, just to say that's not going to be mine for a while so that I can make more space for God to speak. And my hope is that does something to restore our first loves. And from there, if you're hearing from the Lord, then I trust you're in his hands.

That's a Good word, brother. That's a good word. I want to thank you for coming on the show and encourage those that haven't seen the book. It's through InterVarsity.

We got a gift from InterVarsity. They let us have this book. But Longing for Revival. You can get it online. You can also follow you. Where can they follow you, James?

Ah, sure. James Chung. Just all in One word and most social media stuff. And then jameschung.net is where you can find me online.

And you got other books too. What are your other books?

Yeah, the first one, True Story Christianity Worth Living out is how to Share the Gospel More Holistic.

And the second book, if you're interested in the generational stuff that we talked about, that's in the second book called Real Life A Christianity Worth Living Out. And that's a book on discipleship.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you for coming on Apollos Watered. I'm sorry I didn't get to hear your Jesse Jackson impression.

I know you don't want to hear that.

But God bless you and may God take this book and really touch so many different lives. Thank you for coming on Apollos Water Brother. Have a great day.

Thanks. Thanks for having me. Travis.

James and I had a lot of fun in our conversation. He is an insightful and encouraging guy. His thoughts on revival, relevance and remnant were particularly enlightening.

And I don't know about you, but his words about how the world is evangelizing us put language to something that I felt but never would have put into those words.

And by him doing that, that made.

Me want to understand, understand the process and how the world is doing it and how we can counteract it. And if he has been a blessing to you and you want to know more, I would encourage you to check out his stuff online.

And I want to let you know that we are in our ready to launch campaign where we are looking for 80 new watering partners before the end of the year. Did you hear that? 8. 0. We're not looking at the amount specifically.

We're looking for partnerships, those who believe in what we're doing and want to be part of it. For those that have already partnered with us, thank you. We couldn't be where we are today without you.

You've enabled us to pull away from the terminal and make our way down the Runway. But we're not airborne yet. We need your help to really get that lift off.

And if we are helping you so that you are able to water your world better, then would you please consider partnering with us? Did you know that only 2% of those who listen give. We want to change that and we want to ask you to consider partnering with us so that we can fly.

Go to our website@apollos watered.o r g that's a P O L L o s w a t e r e d.org and in the upper right hand corner hit that support us button and then look and see what level you would like to give at. It would also be great for us if you would share this episode with other people.

The more people share it, the more people will discover it so that they can get their world watered. Also, before we go today, I want to let you know about next week.

We have Michael Heiser of the Naked Bible Podcast coming on the show and tremendously excited about that. I want to give a shout out to our Apollos Water team. Kevin, Melissa, Eliana, Rebecca and Donovan. This couldn't happen without you.

Your, your work is invaluable. Water your faith. Water your world. This is Travis Michael Fleming signing off from Apollos Watered.

Stay watered everybody.