 Good morning, everybody. I appreciate that sales pitch I encourage you to try to get through those books They're really challenging When you said that something back when you said I bet it's not a better in her head I hate when that happens, you know, you have such a good thought and it comes out just totally sideways Totally ruin a sermon. I know you don't need to hear it, but I am gonna go on record say you've been right all along I That was an outstanding message that Megan gave this morning. I think she's just Nailed it the experience that Megan had is one that I've been in for the last ten years or so Just people out of the blue Find out that you're holding to this theology and they say man, that's where I'm going That's what I've been thinking in this all over the place. This flame is is is just erupting and people are Looking for guidance looking for a home looking for tradition want to get anchored in something I this is well about a month ago at the end of a service of young pastor came up from North Dakota he was visiting our church and basically a story as he's a youth pastor at a Mainline evangelical church was a youth pastor started reading the wrong books and listening to the wrong podcast Look at the wrong videos and as you put it you totally wrecked me You totally wrecked me and I get that better for a lot You you ruin me because what happened is he begins to teach the kingdom to his kids and trying to do it as discreetly and delicately and It's possible, but the kids start to get it and so the kids start to ask their parents How can we have a giant flag in our church and how come we spend a million dollars on our building? But don't have any outreach to the poor and how come we're in a so aligned with this political party and the military and all this It ripples up to the pastor and the pastor says to the youth pastor Look at you got to back off of this stuff or I'm gonna have to ask you to leave He says I can't back off of it. So now he is there with his wife's eight months pregnant He has no job and he's saying what's the next step here? What do I do? And I've lived in this I I'd say over the last ten years an average about one About a person a week. That's a three or four a month. I Request like this or questions like this or statements like this All over the place people are waking up to this this vision. That's a beautiful thing Well, the hills we now have over 20,000 podcasters every week from all over the globe Just tapping into this, you know to the message and for a lot of them it makes going to traditional church Difficult if not impossible and so they're sometimes starting their own home churches all over the place It's a beautiful thing. It's also a challenging thing for the people who go through it. This is the transformation. I Underwent throughout the 90s. It's kind of gradually waking up to How different the movement that Jesus birthed how different that is from what passes as the standard face of Christianity And and the clear I got about the kingdom the fog there. I got about what the church has anything to do with it and You start you start noticing it's a notice the water you're swimming, right? It's it's it's just your your your acculturation but as you get the kingdom you begin to notice standards assumptions that just don't fit any longer and you start to call those out and name them and People love it and a lot of people don't love it and that's you know, that's just the way this thing goes It's how it was in Jesus mystery that how it that's how it is today, but that kind of awakening is happening all over the place That's why I believe and this has been kind of my message to the Anabaptist over the last seven or eight years I've just been called to sort of begin to speak into this that if the traditional Anabaptists are able Embrace folks youth pastor. I just talked about Embrace and welcome and make them feel welcomed assimilate folks like this and commissioning them to be church planters I believe that the traditional Anabaptist Fellowships are positioned to experience an incredible beautiful wonderful revival that last song we sang the world the world's about to turn and I it's a kairos moment. It's a kairos moment But it all depends on whether we're able to Embrace folks that are going to be very very different than What has traditionally looked like an abaptist means we have to accept and even celebrate that the face of? Anabaptism is going to change And change in some some radical ways the challenge is as Megan so wonderfully pointed out is that there's the main challenge there's a number of them, but the central challenge I believe is that Oying partly to the history of Anabaptism the early persecution of the church And the kind of a retreat from the world that happened there What happens is is when when you have a culture of people who are already counter-cultural a Lot of ways and that they're largely isolated That in culturation goes very very deep because part of your identity can even become It's an illness with the faith we identify it as the faith We didn't make the distinction between Culture and and and kingdom whereas folks who are in a more cosmopolitan environment If you're bumping up to people from other cultures all the time It tends to make you a little more flexible with your own because you're aware of that This is just culture, but to the degree that a group is isolated And it can happen that you begin to look with suspicion towards all other kinds of cultures And that becomes part of the tradition the challenge then is to Be able to lighten the grip on that To welcome people who are going to look very different because as far as I can see in this This new kingdom movement that's rising up this neo neo-anabaptism That's going on it it encompasses just the widest range of ethnic diversity style diversity background diversity All over the place is as diverse as you can imagine So embracing that Is it's going to be a challenge. Whatever we identify as culture is our normal. That's our normal And so when we come up with come come against Come contact with cultures that are different from us. It feels abnormal Strange alien other maybe even suspicious. Maybe even ungodly It just doesn't come forward to our normal and it's always hard It to go beyond your comfort zone. You're normal to embrace other people's normal um It's difficult for all of us A couple years ago. I was teaching at sunshine festival. I don't know if you've ever Been up there. Probably not, but it's this rock festival that goes on for three days Any rockers out there And and they decided to include some teaching components in this so they asked me to come and do a couple sessions While the rock concerts are going on Which was a bad idea They meant well, but it didn't work. So I I am teaching in this tent. This is I think July hot july day in this tent So it felt like uh a sauna. I we should take off our clothes and smoke a piece pipe. This is like a sweat lodge It's like It was so hot. So i'm trying to do this teaching in this hot circumstance That was already tough Then next to us not very far away. They have four stages. They're playing different types of music There was this grunge band a christian grunge band now, I don't know if you know grunge is but it's Very abnormal I'll say definitive they have this. It's called monster voice And and so the singing singing is like I'm not exaggerating that is what it sounds like And the guitars is screeching the drumming is really cool though because the guy's really going fast And what can be bad about fast drums? I love that. So the drumming I appreciate But everything else was just so I'm now having to compete with this Sound like Linda Blair and the pope Exorcist or something, you know So i'm trying to i'm screaming over this Monster voice Finally, I let the class out a little early because we're all dressed in sweat and i'm competing with the monster voice So I go and watch these folks for a while And these there's they're all teenagers and they're slamming into each other They were like right bump into each other and they was like pinball. It was crazy Uh and it it looked and sounded to me demonic Frankly, and yet this is supposed to be a christian band here But i'm a 57 year old white guy. So you got to take that into consideration So I watched this and i'm just sort of amazed at this I've seen and heard that kind of music before but I never seen like it played out let alone in a christian environment And these people are slamming into each other and they they look i mean alternative Very alternative Parts of their body are pierced that i'm sure never supposed to be in pierced. It was like What's up with that so Later on as i'm walking around in between sessions. I run into the lead singer or growler Of this band And I get to talking i'm interested. You know, I just I want to find a little bit about him So we we we get into a conversation And this kid was on fire for jesus like nobody's business Just and he starts giving some testimonies about these what's been happening to these kids Who a lot of them were listening to Kind of demonic grunge stuff, but they come to christ and now they they christianize it They just bring that part of culture and they christianize it and he gives them incredible testimonies And that just shows how A lot of times they discover the beauty Of a of a different way of doing things a different way of looking at different way of being different way of singing To discover the beauty you've got to push past your own comfort zone And and and just take down the walls of judgment and embrace folks as they are it's it's a challenge But it's not negotiable. It's necessary And at the end of it is beauty. I remember the first time I preached in this all-black penny costal church It was a different experience. I Got up to preach and I started with my text And go about a minute at some point all of a sudden as i'm starting to get into the flow of things A guy in the front row stands up and says you know what you're talking about I was like And I kind of paused and I went thank you Then I go on a little bit longer and someone starts to go imac bring it word and they start, you know If I have ad to start with so this is kind of a distraction We just shut up. I'm trying to speak here But I go with it and in time I began to get a flow to it, you know, it's like, okay It was kind of a rhythm to this thing. I'm catching on here and and Not only was he able to tolerate begin to really kind of enjoy it I mean it starts I find myself all of a sudden going places I never dreamed I'd be preaching because somebody said something was got me going on a different track Preaches for an hour and a half because half the time is them talking back at you You know, you can't get near the content of it man It's just like going along and someone's you're just like we're bring it now come on man You got it got to be a joy. It was just wonderful Um, it takes it takes time it takes effort to get used to kind of a cultural difference But there's a great payoff at the end. There's one lady in this in this this congregation who was just As a sermon went on she cried louder and louder and louder and louder Um, I thought man, she really doesn't like my message Or it was like that was over the top even for a already loud audience. She was just losing it And I had to kind of like you know with my a to d push that out of my consciousness to pay attention At the end of it though the pastor came up and talked to me about her. He says, you know, thanks for pressing through that Um, she's been like that. She came to our fellowship about two months ago and she's always liked that for the reason this because she Had sold her baby for some crack. She was so addicted And two months ago she came to christ and experienced forgiveness And whom much is forgiven the same loves much and she's just overwhelmed by the beauty and the grace of god And you know what anyone with that story gets the right to ball during a whole service It's to to acclimate it to embrace another culture is challenging But there's such a beauty at the end of it that expands you it Draw now some things I think maybe we just never get I don't know if I Could I ever really appreciate the growling I doubt it But you can appreciate that I was appreciated And and embrace that and someone's a culture, you know, if you're too old you just aren't going to get I With 10 years ago I and three other Shelly and I and three other couples we do life together and we're a really close small group We all decided to move into the city or while we're living in the suburbs decided We felt called to move in the city and kind of start living more of Communally on the same block and maybe eventually in the same house. So we move into the city And it's just been a wonderful experience. I mean Never and it's no judgment of suburbs. It's saying it's different And one of the ways it's different is that there's all this beautiful diversity Which which grows you it stretches you it's it's so I Start to attend a barbershop. I said to go to get my hair cut at this barbershop There's about a block away from my house And in 10 years I'm the only white guy that I've ever seen there I think it's it's an all-black barbershop But they cut hair so different than I ever got at cost cutters uh It's just a different experience and and there's uh I mean my barber says he's sure that I he's you have a brother somewhere in your background giving your hair That's not irish that that's And maybe he's right about that, but um, there's for one thing. It's very loud Judge Judy is playing in the afternoon They have this television and and there's just a lot of boisterous Batring going back and forth and a lot of humor laughing and it takes an hour to cut the hair because half the time They're giving high fives or they're just talking or whatever Uh, it's so you're getting a lot more than just a haircut for the for 25 bucks. It's it's it's great But there's a there's a part of that that I can't I can I love it I laugh with it, but I can't join it like I've tried there's a you got to Thrown a jibe or thrown off something and so you'll say something that you think is appropriate like What is he knows he's talking about and they all just kind of stop and look at you like Sounded better to my head, you know So, you know, that's just I I don't maybe I just I'm not going to get that part of it But you can still embrace it and appreciate it. This is I think the challenge that uh, um Twitter showing on Baptist's face because the movement that's rising up over there that flame that's growing out there It is as diverse as you can imagine And to embrace that to welcome that to join that to help build this temple as megan said That's going to be very different than what we've ever identified as a temple It requires collapsing all judgments being stretched Uh Going places we never thought we'd go joining songs worship styles. We never thought we'd we'd we'd we'd we'd be joining Not just tolerating difference but affirming it Because if you tolerate it, it's clear that you're just tolerating it and it's like I don't I don't like to bring my wife to my I've last year Uh gotten into speed metal Which is not the kind of metal it's uh, it's orchestral. It's really I love the drums and so fast and it's just It's like Taylor made for someone with 80d. It's like sensory overload. I love it But I don't want to bring shelly to it because I know she's just tolerating it. I can't have fun if she's just tolerating it I know she's doing out of love, you know, like, okay for you, honey But it's like no, she's not jumping up and down and she's not, you know, come on. You gotta Affirm it celebrate it with me. Otherwise it kind of ruins the fun and it's the same thing when we embrace others We maybe don't have to do it exactly like they do it or can't really get in the flow of it But to affirm it celebrate it because as a matter of fact This is a very biblical thing. Here is as I've looked at anabaptist theology I've grown into it kind of discovered this thing 10 years ago and been exploring avenues of it What is one of I think the greatest caveats in traditional anabaptist theology has to do with this very point This is what's working against traditional anabaptists at this point Paul says in Ephesians 2, I'm sure you know this passage that Jesus when he died He tore down the walls of hostility between the Jews and the Gentiles, which is the paradigmatic Division of all people groups. He tore down those walls and in his one body created one new humanity Beautiful passage. Jesus died for this to tear down those kind of walls That's why Paul elsewhere says in Galatians that in Christ There's neither male nor female nor either Jew nor Gentile. I'm gonna slave or free Rather, if you've been baptized into Christ, you've been immersed into Christ You wear Christ you've been clothed with Christ What he's saying there I believe is just that all of the distinctions and differences that have divided people that the world invests so much Into because they identify with it All of those once your I once your identity is in Christ that one foundation that we heard about this morning All of those are rendered inconsequential Now it's not that we don't see those because obviously we do But in the kingdom those become part of the beauty rather than part of the problem In the world's way of doing things that you're getting your identity in your life from the distinct way you do life and Distinct way you look in a distinct culture that you have or whatever Well, those become points of division, but when you no longer are getting life from that From the way you look the way you sing the way you do church the way you build temples When Christ alone is your life, well then all the different ways of doing it become positive things That's why in revelations 21 I love this passage says that the gates of the heavenly city are always open And the kings bring the glory of their nations to it There is a glory there a distinct beauty in the different ways people do life do relationship with God A distinct beauty that's there that's only we only arrive at if our identity is in Christ not in our distinctness But once our identity is in Christ now these different ways of reflecting that glory It contributes to the kaleidoscope of the body of Christ and puts on display the full array Of of of God's glory the way a rainbow reflects light and it brings off the different colors The different possibilities that are involved in like sex is pure white. No, there's a few colors So also the beauty of Christ gets reflect Refracted and displayed in the different ways that people have of being human and of of worshiping him and of walking with him It puts on all that on display the beauty of it all. That's why the day of Pentecost. I'm convinced People were speaking in different languages Holy Spirit came on them They began at all speaking tongues and different people groups heard them in their own language And I think part of what is being reflected there is that where the spirit of God is at work The walls of babble will be torn down The kingdom is that in intrinsically an anti babble Body it's there to tear down those kind of walls And people begin to hear each other and talk to each other people who normally wouldn't be interacting are going to be interacting Where the spirit of God is at work that kind of diversity is going to be being put on display and happening Which means this folks and here Receive this it means that diversity This isn't just a politically The motive here at all Diversity is an intrinsic kingdom good In fact, it's an intrinsic kingdom necessity seeking diversity About ethnic lines on style lines on back row lines gender lines all of that. It's an intrinsic good To the degree that a group is homogeneous to that degree it can't put on display the rainbow the the multi Color the different glories of the different nations and people groups that are out there One aspect of the atonement is missing Jesus died for this Which means that We need to be pursuing seeking out not just like okay, we're open to this See, we're not just open to people believing that in the forgiveness of sins. We proclaim it Jesus died for sins to be forgiven And so we proclaim that that's a necessity. We're a heretic if we don't proclaim that Jesus also died to create one new humanity And and to have people coming together who otherwise wouldn't be coming together And therefore it is as non-negotiable as preaching the forgiveness of sins or any other aspect of what Jesus died for This is I think one of the major omissions that I so far as I can see in anti-baptist theology Maybe partly because of the the early persecution and the isolation. This just never got put on the front burner Or even on the radar screen But you shouldn't feel too bad about that because it hasn't been anyone's radar screen If the early church struggled with this right this is this is a major problem early church I mean Jesus last word go out into all nations make disciples of all nations Some years later, where'd we find Peter still in Jerusalem And there's hanging out hanging around there So God has to in acts 10 give them this vision of uh, you know the clean unclean animals and and how that's you know Don't go by that anymore. You know, there's nothing unclean that goes in the mouth Finally Peter gets it. Yeah, I see that God's no respecter of persons You see it's hard. It's hard to take things on the inside He's an acculturated Jew and and Acculturated Jews just don't do that And so God has to kind of beat him over the head a couple times and then later on we find in in in Galatians, too Paul has to chastise Peter because he's still a segregationist He's still eating all the Jewish folks that don't want to be mingled with those dirty Gentiles This is hard stuff to get it's always been a challenge and then acts 15 the first church council. It's about this What are we Jews going to do with these Gentiles do they need to become Jews or to what degree and they got to work that out They have a discussion. There's a debate It's it's it's tough stuff and they finally come up with okay Can we just ask them to do this? All right, you know, maybe it's halfway stop fornicating and don't eat bloody meat You know and things that were just very very, you know offensive to them And so they need in the middle. It's a tough conversation to have but it's a non-negotiable. It has to happen I have found at Woodland Hills that that this has been a very challenging thing for us um We just have to be realistic about this We're right now our church is about 21 non-white last demographic thing we took which I guess if you're if you're Less than 80 percent majority anyone uh race than you are considered A multi-ethnic congregation, so I guess we qualify by one percentage point But it's been challenging I We're sort of stagnant of there and and I have control pushing beyond that But knowing that diversity is an intrinsic good of the kingdom a necessity. We need to seek it out You just you can't ever plateau and be satisfied with that It's it's we basically reflect the demographics of our neighborhood, but we want the kingdom to be uh Going beyond that It's challenging in leadership um There's it's just I Been some struggles Here's here's an example of one such struggle asked an african-american musician to be our worship leader just a wonderful Incredible musician And so he comes on staff and He is at this point the only african-american on our staff and at this point in our church history Our church is probably still 95 percent mostly white. I always thought that if you just say if you just proclaimed Hey the kingdom, you know, it's for all people of all colors all nations all ethnic tribes people just start showing up It doesn't work like that It's a little more difficult than that. So so he's on staff now at some point There's this guy in our congregation who's crazy I'm sure none of you have had those these types in your congregation, but I've read that actually if you go to any city corner and did an interview uh and put give folks a standard psychology test Psychological evaluation one out of 50 people walking the streets would be clinically insane And I suspect that a far greater percentage actually attend church Think about it. So I'm aware when I'm talking to a crowd of a thousand there's at least 50 looty tunes out there Thank god for him praise god, but that's part of the diversity So this one guy had he he was touched He would be leaving messages on my phone about Oh, he had some revelation and we're doing communion wrong and The rapture is going to take place and blah blah blah blah But he also left some messages a few messages on this worship leader's phone And he the message to him was that you need to take that do rag off when you lead worship Because the bible says a man shouldn't have a covering on his head Now I meet with this guy twice trying to talk this through I'm saying well, look if you're going to insist on the covering No covering on a guy's head Why aren't you insisting that women have to have a covering because that's part of the whole thing same thing But don't worry about it. It's a cultural thing and I tried to explain that He'll have nothing to do with it. He just was mad at this person's having a do rag So he left a couple of messages there Our worship leader was very concerned about this He'd bring it up every step being like we need to put something in place to you know a restraining order or something This is going to go bad Now my advice it's real intentional advice was this Brother In any given service, there's 50 of these folks out there This is standard stuff in the ministry get used to it You know, this is this is what happens. You're going to get nasty phone calls. You're going to get pushed back Um, and so I I said don't yourself get crucified on six inch crosses And this is a little cross, you know, don't don't sweat this stuff And I'm trying to toughen them up for ministry, right because you got a thick skin in ministry Uh, I think I'm going by the book what I didn't realize is I was going by the big white book Because see I couldn't enter into at that point What would be like to be an african-american with all white staff in a mostly white congregation and Having a history you've had several times where When a white customer complained about you to your white boss you got fired Um, I'm I'm living from a different point different perspective Um, and this thing didn't end well at one point this crazy guy Approached our worship leader out in the gathering area and started pointing his finger at him and uh, our worship leader pushed him back So this guy came at him with fists and then they had to break it up And then since you know, we're teaching non-violence here The worship leader has the next week apologized for having gotten aggressive Uh, even though he was accosted by this guy and this has caused a deep wound a deep wound that I'm sure you ever ever could quite get over um And it's because I was operating out of my own normal On my own normal. I'm not threatened by someone's you know making accusations against me or claims or whatever um What I learned from that experience and many many others like it is that I need to as much as I can out of relationship with others Trust their perspective Trust that perspective even though I can't fathom how you'd be threatened by this I need to believe it and then try to understand it get on the inside of it But it's challenging We don't know the water that we swim in until we could meet a fish that's swimming in different water And that's how we grow that's how we expand these are difficult issues that just need to be grappled with and It takes a while it's it's long. It's hard, but it's absolutely uh non-negotiable another factor I found and this is something to always be aware of is the make and mention this morning our struggle is never against flesh and blood Though we usually think it is But it's never against flesh and blood. It's against the principalities and powers and rulers and authorities And in the spirits of Rome they They are they try to play us To get us to not believe that uh our battle is not against flesh and blood They want to make it a battle of flesh and blood so that we're not doing warfare against them And we do warfare against them precisely by refusing to ever make flesh and blood our enemy If it's flesh and blood it's someone we're fighting for and that's someone we should ever be fighting against Now that doesn't mean you don't have tough conversations about stuff But you always do it in love for the purpose of fighting the principalities and powers I say that to say this I found one of the issues in leadership as long as I a white guy am That the top of the helm here whenever I needed to confront something on staff Uh particularly with african americans There was a funkiness that happened. It just was fun. It wasn't like Normal things we have to correct things or challenge things There's always something else going on and it took us a while to figure out Things were getting misunderstood and cloudy and confused and all of a sudden we're not even talking about the issue We were talking about something else all together And then sometimes the person would say that this is a racist issue and you're saying well, how is this a racist issue? I'm just trying to confront the way that you interact with people at the desk or something I came to call it. We all came to realize we called the shadow of the plantation That there's no way if you can for 300 years have whites ruling over african americans enslaving them Profiting off of the blood of their backs And then you say okay, we're done and not have you're feeding the principalities and powers there And and those are strong principalities and powers. They're well fed and they persevere And there still is that clouding polluting influence that's going on So what we've learned is that that When there needs to be that kind of confrontation The first thing to do and do it in the middle and do it at the end is run the whole Discussion with prayer. Well, you pray together. Okay. We are in this together. We're on each other's side We're fighting the principalities and powers who are trying to divide us and make us Enemies of one another To always remind yourself the real battle we're fighting is the principalities and powers And that's the one thing that can keep us trusting one another going forward And and working at this in some some constructive ways It requires being honest truthful and being willing to have difficult conversations and what i'm told is that traditional anabaptists are not necessarily that refined in the art of confrontation Non-resistance came to be identified with non-confrontation So your wage war by doing the silent treatment I'm not talking to you anymore Okay, there you go Hell healthy confrontation See Yeah, it requires that you have a willingness to say things out loud to be honest But always making sure that your love You speak the truth that you speak in love if he's in sport 15 speak the truth. Here's how I see things Receive how others see things Do it in love but say it straight because if you don't say it straight it always stays under the surface And that's the thing it sabotages all this Sabotages everything the plus I think is this here's what I think the anabaptist tradition has going for it That's a huge plus Is that uh part of the culture and it's a very biblical part of the culture is humility And having a servant attitude and being willing to suffer for others because this requires something suffering for others For the sake of the kaleidoscope for the sake of the this rainbow kingdom for the sake of diversity Which is an intrinsic good and necessity of the kingdom You suffer the hard work of trying to get on the inside of of a worldview that is so foreign to you It requires sacrifice. It requires Canosis as jesus set aside, you know the prerogatives of his divinity to become human beings To so also it requires those who are In any cultural setting to set aside the prerogatives the privileges that go along with being the dominant Voice the dominant face in order to enter into worldviews that otherwise You'd be would remain totally foreign to you This is why I think, you know, whenever we have things like we've had recently with a shooting of african african-american males All of a sudden we see this great cultural divide It's always beneath the surface there, but when it comes to things like this or j trial or anything that has a race component to it There's this cultural divide and who is to be believed And uh, it's because to a large degree folks live in different worlds I've never been pulled over and questioned where I I thought the policeman it was because I was white Or you just don't like irish do you? Yeah, you're now it never occurs to me but uh I am in relationship with plenty of folks for whom that's a fairly irregular occurrence my son-in-law he's african-american was With a friend driving a pretty nice jeep and was pulled over And no real reason was given I policeman just wanted to check some things and policeman noticed that he had he had a bunch of of Bags in the backseat. They're coming back from a business thing and they had a lot of their equipment with them So there's a lot it's full of stuff Nice jeep full of stuff gotta be drugs and so they kind of asked if if he can Check the car Mind if I do a little search And the owner of the car was my son-in-law's Friend says no fine. That's fine. So they get out and he starts to do a search of the car looking through all the bags Uh, meanwhile, he tells my son-in-law to go stand by the police car You know it's uh, you go over there. I only want to deal with one of you So he's checking out the car with the owner of the car my son-in-law's over by the police car At one point and this is cold. It's about 30 degrees out He puts his hands in his pockets because his hands are getting cold The cop notices it and grabs his gun He says get your you didn't draw it actually but he has hand hand on it and and and this is the two days after The the first shooting my son-in-law's like i'm gonna get shot here, you know, so he raises his hands like this and um Nothing came of that, but it was just he was suspect for putting his hands in his pocket Because he had a gun there Then I that I don't think that would ever happen to me and I'm not saying most police are like that or anything and I This policeman I'm sure just doesn't notice the categories. He's operating in the water. He's swimming in the assumptions. He makes But see if if that's your history Then you're going to interpret things differently than you would if you have my history And what I've noticed is that as a white person I float in a realm of privilege that other folks Don't necessarily float in I don't bump into walls that other folks bump into And so if I don't bump into those walls and I assume that my normal is the normal Well, then I'm not going to believe others when they say they bump into those walls I'll come up with alternative explanations um and and That will keep going on like that until Those who are able who have the power can set it aside to enter into the worldview of those who don't And that only happens through credible relationships where you actually have Folks you're in a relationship with that you believe and then you learn from their perspective and their stories And that broadens you become aware of things you otherwise wouldn't wouldn't wouldn't become aware of If that doesn't happen The diversity of the kingdom of god just can't be manifested This is the decision I find that people have to make Well, then one of the challenges we found is this I found that Even the folks who are like most amen when you preach on diversity. Yes, amen. Hallelujah. They they be tall. Let's go for it As soon as the rubber starts hitting the road Uh, it's a lot of them high tail it. It's easy to say yay, but now when your Blind daughter is interested in an african-american man uh in 11th grade Out of the suburbs we go, uh, you know, we Their own assumptions kick in and either people make a decision of saying I am going to Call into question all my assumptions in order to enter into perspectives that are different from me Or they say I'm sticking with my normal and I'm out of here to protect my normal We either are defending our normal Is making was saying this morning or we're suspending our normal and and setting aside to enter into Perspectives of others and that's where the beauty is found. That's where that's where the beauty of the kingdom Uh is uncovered, but we've requires going beyond our comfort zone in order to do it The one final thing I'll say is this and then we'll open up for some questions Do you talk about the beauty of diversity and the necessity of that as a core kingdom value something for which Jesus died Raises the question of then what is the unity? We can't just be diversity for diversity's sake. Um, no that that's What is it that we're having the diversity around what is the fuel for what's the the core shared thing? What are the limits in other words? What are the limits of this? How far are we supposed to stretch? What's the core here? And and this is I think a particularly important question for uh traditional anabaptists to be asking at this time because what I've observed is that Among some who are have become aware of the Sure cultural nature of of what has been identified as traditional anabaptists as they've been setting that aside But sometimes the core of the kingdom is getting set aside too as a means of becoming irrelevant to the culture Some of the core distinctive features of the the anabaptist tradition are being compromised Because they just want to act like so they end up looking no different than the mainline evangelical church At this chairo's moment, I encourage anabaptists to do the exact opposite And you're advertising for seminaries and schools and and every the whole pr thing I would not try to downplay the distinctive I would maximize them because there's a whole population out there that's starving for it They don't need more of the same. They've already got that what they want is an alternative way of of following Jesus Which is I think the kingdom way of following Jesus I I would not in a prideful way, but I would just be out loud about the how different This is from what has gone under the normal guys of standard sort of christianity Uh, it is different. But what are those distinctives? I would just say this this is This is this is nothing that needs to be talked about. Uh, can't just be decreed But from my perspective what the way I identify the neo-anabaptist movement that's rising out there It's just Sort of a slogan that evolved for me is it is about a jesus-looking god Rising up raising up a jesus-looking people That's kind of the core a god who looks like jesus raising up a people who are increasingly looking like jesus See in the anabaptist tradition and I see this as being the center of the center There was always a strongly christocentric view of god I for this book i'm doing now on Interpreting old testament violent portraits of god I've been reading a number of the early anabaptists and what they said about the old testament things like that and really they didn't know What to do with it Some were trying to you know Go back to an origin in the early church and see it as allegory But they all agreed that whatever we do with this our marching orders come from jesus our picture of gods to come from jesus And we'll try to explain that I think if they would have lived more than a generation the scholars They would have made progress in this but they all got killed too early And then the whole thing kind of came to a halt But uh They all agreed on a christocentric vision of god god jesus isn't just part of what god's like He reveals the fullness of what god is like, especially on the cross god is this self-sacrificial love Uh, and strongly strongly christocentric understanding of god Don't compromise this by bledding it with any other portraits. No, this is what god is really like But it wasn't just what god is really like He's also the incarnation of what we are called to be and this is another just central distinctive of the anabaptist tradition We're not just called to believe in jesus. We are called to follow him And and and to imitate him And at the center of that is taking up our cross and being willing to die for enemies because that's what he did for us That is that is just the The most distinctive thing in the world, uh, that got lost very early on in in christianity right after constantine and all that um To actually be a follower of jesus Jesus looking god who raises up a jesus looking people That is I think the the central gem of the anabaptist tradition and with that comes one more implication and that is To the degree that any culture that we are in Has elements of it that disagree that are in conflict with conformity to christ To that degree we are called to revolt against the culture. We're called to be counter cultural Anything that is anti christ Anything that causes us to compromise What it means to be a faithful follower of jesus We have to live in revolt against that so it's we're literally revolutionaries revoltors In the same way jesus was you put jesus in its cultural context and almost everything he did Was was was standing against some aspect of the fallen culture. He was in so also to be a follower of jesus is to Revolt against it by how we live To live in revolt of the consumerism of this culture and and the you know the ungodly nationalism of it Celebration of the military and violence and every other thing It disagrees with with jesus that we're called to revolt against so then the balance is this To Dissern the degree to which a cultural difference is simply a cultural difference And can be redeemed it it's consistent It can be made to be consistent with the what it means to be a follower of jesus Versus the aspects of any culture our own because that's the hardest to notice Season to notice how ungodly someone else's culture is but not our own We tend to just christianize that stuff but to wake up to that and to say To the degree that that is in not in conformity with christ to that degree We have to revolt against it that i would support as the criteria to always be assessing be maximally flexible And everything that is compatible with the character christ be inflexible Being against everything that's inconsistent with the character christ And if if the anabaptist tradition can begin to do that With the humility and self-sacrifice that has been such a central part of this this tradition Humbly same thing to people when they come in when you embrace them um in that that Help us Learn you And humbly and say teach us Uh, you know how just We'll give you the essence of what following jesus has been like in our christian, but we need to learn from you Uh, you know teach us at the same time say up front say up front. This is so important to say Look at here's what's going to require of you Will you first of all trust that our hearts are in the right place even when we're stupid Because when it comes to cultural stuff, we do stupid Uh, we're going to make we're going to step on your toes and you're going to step on ours and Let's just be upfront about that, but will we trust that we are all trying and trust our intentions um, and then have patience Lots of patience It requires patience on both sides because it this doesn't come easy. It doesn't come easy It's a long haul, but it's so cross like it's so cruciform. It's so beautiful And it's non-negotiable If if that can happen, I believe the anabaptist Fellowships are going to experience a revival while the world is about to turn the anabaptist world's about to turn Do it right your heads are going to be spinning, but it'll be a beautiful kind of dizzy