The Testimony Podcast
The Testimony Podcast
6. Which Denomination Was Jesus? A Call For Unity
What if true unity within the church could transform not just your faith, but your entire community? Join us on this journey as we sit down with Pastor Mark Borseth from Resurrection Lutheran Church to explore the profound significance of unity within the body of Christ. Drawing from nearly 27 years of pastoral ministry and the powerful metaphor in 1 Corinthians 12, Pastor Mark shares how recognizing the church as a diverse body with many indispensable parts can deepen our collective faith and transcend denominational boundaries.
Listen as we delve into scriptures like Ephesians 4 and Psalm 133 to underscore the beauty and necessity of integrating diverse theological streams—contemplative, holiness, charismatic, and more—for a holistic representation of Jesus and the Christian faith. Experience firsthand accounts of how different Christian traditions can reveal new facets of Jesus' character, enhancing our spiritual maturity and fostering a deeper sense of unity. Concluding with a heartfelt prayer for unity and transformation, this episode invites you to embrace the rich diversity within the Christian community.
Connect with Pastor Mark at http://www.rlcok.org/
Connect with Bryan at thetestimonypodcast.com
Welcome to the Testimony Podcast. I'm your host, br Kelly. We've got an awesome episode today. It has been a long time coming. I appreciate all of you guys out there waiting patiently for the next episode. I've brought you a good one today. I am here in the studio I say studio but it's actually an office but I've got Mr Mark Borseth here. He's a pastor of Resurrection Lutheran Church and we are so blessed to have him on today. You want to say hi to the listeners out there, hi, listeners out there. So we're just really excited to bring you guys an episode today.
Bryan Kelley:We're talking about unity in the body of Christ, unity in the church. It's such an important topic for today and it's one that's really close to my heart. You know people out there who are listening. You'll kind of know a little bit about my story because of previous episodes, but I'm the type of person I was raised in a Catholic church. I had that traditional upbringing. I kind of I attend a non-denominational church now, but I'm definitely more in the charismatic bent. But we also have a larger body of Christ out there. That is, there are many different members of many different denominations and sometimes we have a tendency to view the church kind of on a very small microcosm, you know perspective. We kind of look at our own little body of believers and kind of define that as the church. And we have a tendency to maybe, you know, write off the other denominations, as you know, maybe in error, or they're missing something, or they don't have what we have in, you know, our own church circles, or they don't have what we have in our own church circles. And so it's just a really important thing to get God's heart on what unity in the church looks like and what's expected of us as believers in Christ.
Bryan Kelley:And I kind of want to start off this discussion pulling up a scripture that is well known and it's talking about the body of Christ and its many members. And you guys will know that this is from 1 Corinthians, 12. And I'm just going to read it real quick and we'll kind of get into it a little bit. So just as the body is one and has many members, and all of the members of the body through many are one body, so it is with Christ, for in one spirit we're all baptized into one body, jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we are all made to drink of one spirit. For the body does not consist of one member, but of many.
Bryan Kelley:If the foot should say because I'm not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?
Bryan Kelley:But as it is, god arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be as it is? There are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand I have no need of you. Nor again the head to the feet I have no need of you. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those, the parts of the body that we think are less honorable, we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which are more presentable parts do not require but God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it that there may be no division in the body but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Bryan Kelley:And I kind of want to just stop there for a second.
Bryan Kelley:And you know, this is a well-known verse in church circles and certainly I've heard it many times before, and I have the tendency to always think about it in a very individualistic sense, with, like, the people sitting next to me in the church pews or chairs and kind of looking down, and you know, the one person that always, you know, says the same thing at church every day and like, okay, well, that person's, you know, he's essential, he's, he's, uh, you know, a member of my body. I have to love him, I have to care for him. And we have a tendency to think about this verse in a very small scale, like all of these people seated around me on Sunday. That's what God's talking about, that's what the scriptures are talking about, but there's actually a way to view this more corporately right, and so I kind of want to kick off to you and why do we have a tendency to make it so small in our mind and not the larger body of Christ that it's probably actually talking about?
Pastor Mark:Yeah, it is interesting to think about because I agree with you that I would have early on. It's how do I become a good individual Christian? Well, I need to be nice to the people around me. I need to honor the people who go to church with me, but I think so much of it is. The whole point is that the trajectory of a life like that is how can I get myself to heaven when I die?
Pastor Mark:So, I need to be good to the other members of the body so that I can earn my way.
Pastor Mark:But I think, as soon as I started to realize that the trajectory of the Christian life isn't how do I get to heaven, but the trajectory of the Christian life is I'm saved by grace, through faith in Christ.
Pastor Mark:So now, how does heaven get access to my neighbor through me? And as I think about that, it's not just how do we have a nice-looking body in the church, but it's how do we become, as it says in Ephesians, the full stature of Christ for the sake of our neighbor. And so that's really why we have unity. Our unity is not just to have a nice worship service or a nice congregation. We have unity so that the whole world can experience God's goodness and God's love. And so the more that I spend time as an individual Christian and as a pastor, the more I'm starting to realize that everything that I experience from God is not just for my sake, but it's for the sake of my neighbor, it's for the sake of the community. And so the more I understand that, the more it helps me to see that the importance of my relationship with other people in the church is not just so we can have a nice church service, but it's so. Our world is transformed because we're actually living out what we're created to do.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah, and that's so interesting because it's always.
Bryan Kelley:I have always a tendency to just make it about us, to make it about our individual experience, but it's about changing the world and it seems like there's a constant readjustment that has to happen in our perspectives because as we go through life and we have our own struggles and our own challenges, you know, our tendency is to make it about ourselves, to fix ourselves and to not really grasp the larger picture that a unified body of Christ is what will change the world.
Bryan Kelley:And until we're unified in some way in some designed plan that God has for the church, we're not going to be the force that transforms the world completely right, we're going to be still missing something, missing large pieces of ourself, because we haven't really given ourselves over to the pursuit of unity. And even this topic I don't know how many people are actually talking about unity across denominational lines, how many people are calling for that and actually practicing it and making it a point to practice it. And that's why I love this conversation with you, because you actually make it a point to practice this in your daily life and so talk a little bit about the ways that you practice this.
Pastor Mark:Okay, yeah, it's been interesting. I've been a pastor for almost 27 years now and it has been encouraging because early on in my ministry the walls, I think, between denominations were higher than they are now. So through the course of my ministry I've seen a lot of those walls get smaller and so I am hopeful that way. But as I think about in my own life, I grew up in a place where all there were it was a small Norwegian community in northern Iowa, a town called Decorah, and it was in that community basically because it was Norwegian and Norway was state church Lutheran. Probably two-thirds of the population of the town I grew up in was Lutheran, so it's like my whole diversity was either Lutheran or not Lutheran, which basically meant Lutheran or Catholic, and as Lutherans we weren't supposed to love the Catholics because they were wrong.
Bryan Kelley:But no, just kidding.
Pastor Mark:But that was the whole diversity I had growing up and even as I began my ministry. I lived in the upper Midwest and there were enough Lutherans that even in my ministerial groups I never had a need to have ministerial groups that were really much bigger than just other Lutherans too. And so it's been interesting that, especially in moving further south, there's probably a fifth the number of congregations in the whole state of my denomination in the whole states of Arkansas and Oklahoma, which is my district, my synod here, than there was just in one of the Twin Cities. So it's like there's 45 churches of my denomination in Arkansas and Oklahoma total.
Pastor Mark:There are probably 250 just in Minneapolis and 250 just in St Paul so it was much easier to just spend time with people like me in that part of the country and I think, by doing ministry in Alabama for a while and then Oklahoma. The Lutherans this is sort of a joke, but the Lutherans aren't as dense in this part of the country as they are in the upper Midwest, so but yeah.
Bryan Kelley:So you're sort of forced to cross those denominational lines and be exposed to other churches and denominational categories.
Pastor Mark:Yeah, when I was in Minneapolis, there were all these different ministerial groups and I was in the Lutheran ministerial group and now here in Oklahoma City or in Yukon, the suburb that we're in the thing that's been neat about it is the first place that I've ever been in a ministerial that's included everybody, everybody, from the Pentecostals to the Catholics, to the Baptists, and it's probably also been the ministerial group that I felt the most connected to, I think, because we're able to love each other across some of our diversity.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah, and so do you think that that's one of the things that are necessary to kind of push the body of Christ towards unity? Is it maybe more of these ministerial alliances in the different parts of regions and states and cities and things like that?
Pastor Mark:Yeah, I think so and I think also it's just the way that the ministerial groups are handled. Many of the ones I've been in have been more just, very business focused. It's been more. People haven't really been very vulnerable because it's like you're competing with all the other pastors.
Bryan Kelley:It's all a giant competition to grow your membership.
Pastor Mark:Yeah, it's like a competition of well, we had this program and we're growing this fast and we have this much money come in, and often it's the relationship level doesn't get very deep in those kinds of ministerial groups. And so a few years ago I started getting together with just intentionally asked a diverse group of pastors here from UConn if they would be interested in getting together once a month for coffee and not just to talk shop but actually just ask what's going on in each other's lives and pray with each other. And I honestly thought that nobody would say yes to that invitation. I looked at the ministerial group here in Yukon and I thought, based on a few years of experience here, who are the people that have genuinely asked me how I was doing, who are the people that I feel like they really care about what's going on in my life? That if I had something go on, who would be the first people I would talk to? And so I just picked five, a diverse group well, actually four others than me and just said I'm going to go ahead and intentionally just ask and when everybody says no, then I'll drop the whole idea. But what ended up happening was I ended up asking this group and every single one of them said, yeah, I'll do that.
Pastor Mark:And so it was the Catholic priest in town, it was Christ Church Yukon, which was an independent Christian church across the street Bethel, which had historically been Baptist, more non-denominational, and a Nazarene, and it was really interesting as we got together. As we got together, the intent was to not just talk theology or not just talk business, but actually so, how's life going, how's your health, what are things we can be praying for for you and your ministry? And those were some of the warnings that I looked forward to each month more than anything else in my ministry was to just take a couple hours and just sit down. Often it was in either someone else's, sometimes in each other's church, but often it was in somebody's living room. Actually, I really miss Father Rex because he makes the best coffee.
Pastor Mark:But yeah, there was just something about the atmosphere. But yeah, there was just something about the atmosphere. You could just sort of exhale and just be present and just feel like there's somebody who's not there just as a competition, for sure, but also not as someone who's just there to. You need to protect yourself from them. But it's like, yeah, these people understand me. They understand the dynamics of being a pastor. They understand the dynamics of clergy families, father Rex, a little bit different that way, but still there was just something that was freeing to be with people who knew what you were going through, maybe from a different perspective, but yet it's like we could just share. This is what's going on with my marriage. This is what's going on with church politics. This is what's going on with church politics. This is what's going on with my health.
Pastor Mark:And so we walked through things with Father Rex, had a little cancer thing that he went through, and just different things.
Pastor Mark:It was just to know that we had not just other clergy, but we actually had friends who were there for the sake of each other.
Pastor Mark:And so that was one of the places where I really started to think that communities are really suffering when churches end up being just sort of isolated silos. But when actually the walls start coming down and we start getting to the place where I wanted to be at, the place where I knew the other pastors and their ministries well enough that if someone came to my church and well, this really doesn't fit. I'm not used to this liturgical, formal, lutheran stuff that I would not be offended, but I could actually sort of say, well, what kind of church are you looking for? And know enough about the other churches in town to very confidently say, well, why don't you go over and check this church out? And so that's something where and I hope that they maybe were thinking the same thing but I think if that could be the kind of relationship that churches had in the community of I mean, it's like a restaurant Somebody comes to a Chinese restaurant and they don't like Chinese food. It's not like you try to convince them to like Chinese food.
Bryan Kelley:Here, eat this, you know what You'll like it. There's a.
Pastor Mark:Mexican restaurant down the road that maybe you might like.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah.
Pastor Mark:And to not be offended at that, but to just say you know what? We've got a diversity in our community and we I mean different people are wired differently. Some people experience their faith more through feelings and emotions. Some people experience their faith more through intellect. Some people experience their faith by going out and just getting busy doing things with their hands. And which one is right? All of them are right. It's just how do we end up realizing that together we can offer our community much more than if we all tried to just be cookie cutter franchises of each other? That our diversity can be a gift, as long as we're not using it to separate ourselves from each other and build our own kingdoms.
Bryan Kelley:I think that it's so interesting to hear you talk about that, because it's very much. The concept of change has to start in a human heart, right, and it starts with intimacy. So, when you're sharing, I just thought well, how do we get closer to God, how do we experience more of God and more of God's hand on our life? And it starts with the intimacy with him, right?
Bryan Kelley:If you don't spend time getting to know him and his word and through prayer and through proximity. You're not ever going to experience a stronger relationship and our unity with other pastors in this situation without getting to know them and spending time with them and lowering the walls and allowing intimacy to kind of grow, something between you guys. It's a beautiful concept that I feel as though we do a really sometimes lousy job with is we don't allow ourselves to be intimate with um people who might be our competition, so to speak, and we don't allow those things to grow. And just the fact that you're crossing that that threshold and inviting people into your life, being vulnerable with them, um, that trust is is something that that builds um harmony between the groups.
Bryan Kelley:And I got an email, actually from a church I used to attend down in Texas and it was just recent, but let me just read you this little excerpt from his email. It says it just brought it to mind A study on friendship from a few years ago calculated the hours it takes to move through different stages of friendship. It takes eight hours to call someone an acquaintance. It takes 40 to 60 hours to call someone a casual friend. It takes 90 hours to call someone a friend and 200 hours a close friend Community in the body of Christ takes time, intentionality and work, and it's just like I mean that encompasses this discussion that it literally takes time and proximity to grow relationships with people.
Pastor Mark:Yeah, and it's not even just to grow your own relationship, but it actually increases your experience of God. Yes, I always thought that, because I was able to have the privilege of being in a community where I could only need to hang out with other Lutherans if that would enhance my relationship with Jesus, that I'm not distracted by all these things. It's people like me I can spend all my time with.
Pastor Mark:And so, with no distractions, I'm going to have the deepest relationship with Jesus. Distractions, I'm going to have the deepest relationship with Jesus. And this summer, as part of my sabbatical, I had been introduced to CS Lewis. It just gave me a different picture of what's one of the reasons why church unity makes a difference. And so CS Lewis, writer of Mere Christianity, was part of a group of other fantasy writers who were Christians, and there were a couple of guys, one that most people would recognize his name, and it was JRR Tolkien, who wrote.
Bryan Kelley:The Hobbit Lord of the.
Pastor Mark:Rings and there were other people in the group. There was a guy, and now I'm actually forgetting the name, oh, charles. His name was Charles. My brain was going a different direction, but there was a story that CS Lewis shared about his experience in the group and he said that Charles ended up dying young. And basically CS Lewis had thought, and he referred to Tolkien as Ronald, so I'll say Ronald through the rest of the thing but basically he said, well, thought to himself that now that I'm not dividing Ronald's attention isn't divided between me and Charles, that we're actually going, I'm actually going to be able to get a greater relationship with Ronald because now I'm not competing with Charles.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah, now I'll have all the time with Ronald.
Pastor Mark:And so what ends up happening is he starts to think well, I'm really looking forward to having more time with Ronald. And then he started spending time with Ronald and he saw there were certain aspects of him that never showed up again after Charles wasn't in the room. There were the ways that he responded to Charles's jokes, or the certain parts of Ronald's personality that came out when Charles was in the room, certain parts of Ronald's personality that came out when Charles was in the room, and it really made him to think that maybe Christian love is not a selfish love, but actually we all get to know each other better when there's more people in the room who have different perspectives, and I've discovered that to be my own case. So it's like each person in the room does not dilute your ability to experience each other person in the room, does not dilute your ability to experience each other person in the room, but each person in the room actually gives you a different perspective, where you see things in each other that you wouldn't see if that person wasn't in the room.
Pastor Mark:And I think about in our relationship with Jesus. What I'm discovering is there are certain things about Jesus that I didn't see when I was only with people who thought and saw things my way. But when I started spending time with my evangelical or Baptist friends, there were things about evangelism that I didn't see. When I was just with my Lutherans and started hanging out with my Pentecostal charismatic friends, there were certain things that I didn't see until I started, didn't experience tangibly in some ways without hanging out with that portion of Jesus. So it's basically there's something about the more diverse a group of Jesus' friends that we hang out with, the more we're going to see different aspects of who he is. The water level gets raised for everybody.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah, you're not losing anything. It's not being diluted. It's actually being enhanced and like when you were sharing that I mean immediately. Ephesians 10 came to mind, that it tells us that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God is made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, and so the church is the expression of God's manifold wisdom, like the multifaceted wisdom the reflective wisdom of many different parts.
Bryan Kelley:And you know, this beautiful company of people and all of the different ways that we shine displays God's wisdom. And so who are we to scoff at God's diamond, which is the church?
Pastor Mark:Yeah, in many ways it's like I just as you were saying, that I was thinking about if we, if you only have one facet, then all you have is a mirror.
Bryan Kelley:Oh, that's so good, but when you've got all the facets, then it's like you have all this, the beauty that starts reflecting.
Pastor Mark:Wow, that's really good, that's really good.
Bryan Kelley:When, uh, when you spoke earlier, you brought up Ephesians 4, and I have the scripture here.
Bryan Kelley:So Ephesians 4, 11, he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and the teachers plural, all of those you know, kind of composing the many different church expressions that there are the larger body of Christ, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry and for building up the body of Christ.
Bryan Kelley:And so what is the ultimate end?
Bryan Kelley:It's until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure and the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, craftiness and deceitful schemes, rather, speaking the truth in love or to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love, but it builds itself up in love.
Bryan Kelley:And so it's this idea that we'll never reach spiritual maturity, we'll never reach the fullness of Christ, until we get our heads wrapped around this concept of unity and what unity looks like, and I almost feel like there's a greater call in this hour for and the Holy Spirit is impressed upon my heart that the upcoming move of God in the region and in this day, in this hour, is dependent upon our unity as a greater body, and so I just feel like there's something on that. Can you speak at all to that?
Pastor Mark:Yeah, yeah, I think that is true and it's been interesting. I went and heard. If you're familiar with many, actually 60 years ago now, the Cross and the Switchblade was written by David Wilkerson and one of the main characters in that story was a gang leader named Nicky Cruz in New York York, and Nicky Cruz is still going strong, going and speaking all around the world at age 85. I got a chance to hear him last week, but that was at a Latino church here in Oklahoma City and just starting to hear. The more places I go, the more I keep hearing that, yeah, our region, something's happening and it's happening because there's getting to be unity between the churches and I think, well, if there's any place that's lost in the country, it's California. That's where this church leader was from, san.
Bryan Kelley:Diego. Hey, I'm going to take that personal.
Pastor Mark:I know I knew you were from California, that's why I said that. But he said there's something that's happening in Southern California and he's seeing that there's this unity that's spreading all the way from Southern to Northern California and it's wherever I go. It's like that's often the ingredient that pops up. Obviously, prayer is important, very important. But there's also this sense that where unity happens which is interesting because you think of Psalm 133, it's like how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity because that's where the blessing is poured out. And I think that we miss out on a lot of blessings because we don't have that unity. But I see that popping up in conversations with clergy people around the country, that where something is happening, often if someone asks how do you think it's happening, one of the first things that I hear as the response is it's because there seems to be the walls seem to be coming down.
Pastor Mark:We're starting to see ourselves as one body and it reminds me it's okay if I go into something.
Bryan Kelley:I don't want to. Well, I just wanted to stop you real quick. I have Psalms 133 on my phone.
Bryan Kelley:I pulled up because I wanted to talk about this, the verse that talks about for harmony. It's as precious as the anointing oil that was poured on over Aaron's head, that ran down his beard and onto the border of his robe. And I like kind of taking this concept that you know you have the body of Christ right Once it's unified, when it's clothed in unity, the robe is wrapped around the body right. Then, and only then, is the anointing oil poured out on the head, dripping down the beard and then onto the robe. And it's actually the anointing comes when the unity is gathered together. And like this is a beautiful picture of what happens when we operate in harmony, we operate in unity, the anointing flows. It's just really cool that you brought that scripture up, because I had it up to talk about next.
Pastor Mark:Yeah, and I think that that actually fits well, because then it goes on to talk about the dew of Mount Hermon. Mount Hermon, it was like there was so much moisture there that it actually ended up watering what was down below it. There was that picture that Mount Hermon was the source of the water.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah, wow.
Pastor Mark:There's that unity, that when we actually are together, it's like we create that mountain that actually ends up flowing down into the community around us.
Pastor Mark:But as I've been going through my sabbatical and exploring different the benefits of unity and the whole that, like I said, in my 27 years of ministry, I've seen some of those walls come down.
Pastor Mark:One of the books each time I read a book it's like it refers to another book that makes me want to read that, which refers to another book that makes me want to read that, and I'm hoping I remember the name of this one right, but it's by Richard Foster, called Streams of Living Water is the name of the book. I keep wanting to call it Streams in the Desert, but Streams of Living Water. And he was talking about how he has been just speaking into the church over the years that he's starting to see and his image was very much like that each one of the different streams of the church over the years that he's starting to see, and his image was very much like that each one of the different streams of the church is like its own little stream that goes through the community and that each one of them are pretty shallow and pretty narrow.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah, there's a difference between a stream and a river right.
Pastor Mark:And that he's starting to see those streams come together into a river which can flow deeper and wider.
Pastor Mark:And it was really interesting to, just because so often we think of streams of the church that we're not part of and we criticize them for what we don't like about them.
Pastor Mark:Yeah, but he was talking about how each of these streams and he broke them down into six different streams and he said each one of these streams has its strengths and each one of these streams has its weaknesses or its blind spots, and the book, basically, is broken down by a chapter on each of the streams and he'll talk about sort of the biblical reference of the stream and he'll talk about, like a historical figure and a more modern figure, who represents that stream.
Pastor Mark:And as I was listening to that and the importance of just how each one of the streams are needed he talked about, he said so he gave all these historical people who said this person fits in this stream and he said but there's actually one person who perfectly personifies all six of these streams, and he said Jesus. And we often think, well, we're the ones that represent Jesus, but often some of the streams of the church that we're busy disagreeing with are actually representing something of Jesus that we may not be very good at seeing or representing ourselves, and so, as he went through the whole thing, it really made me think about why we need each other, and most of us don't just fall in one of the streams. Most of us have sort of a mixture, but maybe okay if I just do like a quick overview of each of the six streams.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah, no, absolutely Like as you're talking, like, I have Psalm 46, 4 up and it's talking about the river of gladness and it's saying there is a river whose streams multiple streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the most high dwells. So it's the streams that form the river that makes glad.
Pastor Mark:And it's interesting that the biblical image of the river is that it starts out but it doesn't. It keeps on getting wider and deeper.
Pastor Mark:So at first it's like you're just putting your toe in and then you're waiting and then you're swimming. So yeah, I love some of those images. But as I was thinking about it, it really made me think it changed the way that I looked at the different streams. It changed the way that I looked at the different streams. Like I'd said, I often looked at them for what I disagreed with about them and how my stream was better. But he broke it down into basically six streams and I mean sort of subjective, but I think it covers pretty much the whole spectrum of the church and he talked a little bit about. The first one was the contemplative stream, or the more prayer-focused stream, where it's like the monks, it's the people, that their main direction or focus of their Christian life is between them and God.
Bryan Kelley:To steal away to retreat, yeah.
Pastor Mark:I'm going to change the world by spending time in the presence of God. And so he talked about historical. So, jesus, what did he do? He went off with his father and that's what changed who he was. And so there's those streams, the contemplative streams, where people are just. They're prayer warriors, and I need to have those prayer warriors in my life.
Bryan Kelley:Yes, yeah, absolutely.
Pastor Mark:And so I appreciate that I have some of that stream that flows into my life and my ministry, because I have people whose primary orientation is toward God.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah, and there's houses of prayer. That that's what that whole collective is about. It's about seeking the face of God and His presence, and I've got wonderful friends that are part of prayer houses. I just yeah, absolutely.
Pastor Mark:But yet, if that's your only focus, that's where the monks and the nuns sort of lost some of their. Let's go and separate ourselves from the world to be with God.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah, and you can't be salt or light or leaven very well when you're hidden away somewhere, if you're hidden away in a mountain and you never come back.
Pastor Mark:Yeah, so that was the first stream that he talked about, and then he went on to talk about the holiness stream. And being from the upper Midwest in Lutheran Catholic territory, especially as a Lutheran, I was pretty much taught that, well, you definitely don't want to do good works because then it means you're not relying on grace.
Pastor Mark:Yeah, I mean that's sort of the joke about it. I never did a good work in my life because I'm a Lutheran. That way I can show I'm depending on grace. But I think, coming especially being in the South, there's a lot more of the holiness stream, of just that sense that when you live according to God's word, when you allow the work of Holy Spirit in your life, that it changes who you are and you become a more beautiful person and you show the world what it looks like to be in relationship with God. So there is something about that that we are.
Bryan Kelley:You look different as.
Pastor Mark:God's people. We're supposed to be a billboard of what it looks like to live in relationship with God according to God's law, and so the holiness stream has been something I've really been blessed to spend time with the Nazarenes and different groups of you know what I've been missing out on, that I've been so focused on well, I get to heaven by grace that I don't actually focus on the gift of the law and the work to actually change what I look like. So that was the second stream, but then often the argument there is well, you're so focused on yourself. So then you get to the next stream, which is the charismatic stream, the Holy Spirit stream. And the Holy Spirit stream is dependent upon the Holy Spirit, but not just to make themselves look good, but to actually have the power of God be displayed in and through them.
Bryan Kelley:The demonstration, yeah, the demonstration part of it.
Pastor Mark:But then sometimes you end up missing out on the I'm going to go do this and not have the intimacy with God and you end up discounting the whole holiness of lifestyle. Yeah, you shrug that off. You could have a destroyed lifestyle, but I'm going to have the power of God. But I have power.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah, I flow with the power.
Pastor Mark:And that's where I think a lot of people have gotten in trouble was, instead of focusing on their private time with God or their God, I need to live according to your law, holiness and pleasing and lifestyle and we see a lot of more recent people have fallen in the charismatic circles and large big name people because they've neglected parts of themselves, parts of their development.
Pastor Mark:Yeah, so that was the third stream he talked about. Like I said, his premise is that all of these are representations of Jesus, all of them have strengths, but if they don't connect with the other streams they're going to have some blind spots that are going to cause problems. And then the next one he talked about was more of the social justice stream, and the Bible does talk about that. That justice come down like streams, and this is true religion caring for orphans and widows, the whole idea of Jubilee, that we need to have a structure where the slaves get set free and people get their property restored.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah, the debt erased, yeah.
Pastor Mark:And so often this gets to be a stream of the church that either people love or people hate all those social justice people. But yet it's a part of who God is in the world. So we might be praying to God, we might be living a nice, holy lifestyle, we might be doing miracles, but we might not be changing society in a way that actually sets people free and restores people. But yet that can be dangerous too, because sometimes we do our social justice as, instead of having intimacy with God, we're just busy doing things for God, and so it has its own line spots as well.
Bryan Kelley:It becomes a works-based thing. I'm going to earn my salvation through effort and through serving.
Pastor Mark:Yeah, so it's like I don't need to talk. I've got my instructions, I'm going to go out and do my work and I never need to talk to God again about it.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah, he's already talked to me once. I'm good, or?
Pastor Mark:else we get to the place where the end result is it's supposed to look like this and we end up disregarding all of God's commandments to get the end result and we end up missing out on a lot of the holiness stream gift there.
Pastor Mark:And then the next one he talked about was the evangelical stream, which is well obviously the Bible talks about. The Word of God is living and active and powerful. It accomplishes things. Faith comes by hearing the Word and preaching and proclaiming the Word, and so I think some of my Lutheran background is we didn't get that strong at it because we always came from places that were state church, so it was never converting people. It was always well, you're already a Lutheran because you're Norwegian, so we just need to do confirmation and teach you about the Bible. But spending time in the South especially where I think that maybe people are a little better at going out and evangelizing that there's something about we forget about the power of the word that well, we need to go do, do social justice, or we need to do this without realizing if we just speak the truth of Jesus, then God's word will accomplish things.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah, it won't return void yeah.
Pastor Mark:But yet sometimes we preach God's word without actually ever getting to know our neighbor or loving our neighbor, or we preach God's word as if all you need is the Bible. You don't need a living experience of God working through your life.
Bryan Kelley:You don't need the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Mark:Yeah, so there's strengths and weaknesses in that stream as well. And then the last stream that he talked about was the. He called it the incarnational stream or the sacramental stream, and I think that was another one in my denomination. There's a lot of the social justice and there's a lot of the sacramental, incarnational, but basically that whole idea of the word became flesh and dwelt among us and expecting to encounter God in the normal everyday things of life, which I think sometimes we think we got to go to church or have this religious experience instead of starting to see, you know, what God is being manifest in our world, in our relationships, in our vocations, and so I think there's a strength there that the holiness side might get so focused on performance, but the incarnational streams, I think, sometimes get so caught on.
Pastor Mark:But we meet God in our brokenness. So it's like well, it's while we're sinners, while we're enemies of God. That's when Christ died for us. The word became flesh and dwelt among us in our weakness. We carry this treasure in earthen vessels and I think part of my tradition that becomes a danger. There is that we're so comfortable with God encountering us in our brokenness, which is a gift. The rest of the streams need to hear.
Pastor Mark:He doesn't wait for us to fix ourselves, but I think sometimes we get used to staying in our brokenness.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah.
Pastor Mark:That God met me while I was doing all these things or living this way.
Bryan Kelley:Yes.
Pastor Mark:So he loves me the way I am. I don't need. Maybe, when you get to that place, maybe you need to start hanging out with some of these holiness people who said, well great.
Pastor Mark:He met you in your weakness but if you live this way, you may actually experience more of what God wants to do in your life. So, as I was just listening to that book, it really made me think. It changed my perspective from the competition mode or the criticism mode to more of that sense of a hunger. So how can I fully experience the gifts of these other streams? How can I share my gift with the other streams in a way that it's not to criticize, it's not to condemn, it's not to judge, but it's a way that we need each other.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah.
Pastor Mark:That all of our individual streams are effect on our communities, our experience of God are all going to be limited unless we actually allow other streams to share their gifts and allow people from other streams to show us our blind spots. And so that's one of the things that I think it's given me, sort of a that book has given me a little more motivation to not just use this as a discipline. Well, I've got to be disciplined because the Bible says I'm supposed to have unity, but it gives me more of a hunger, sort of like the CS Lewis thing of I have a hunger because I want to experience more of Jesus, and I'll experience more of Jesus if I've got the contemplative and I've got the holiness and I've got the social justice and I've got the evangelical and I've got all of these different streams. If I have those people in my life and I think it starts with pastors, but I think it also I'm hoping it'll go to church members that then it's great to have the pastors come together in unity.
Pastor Mark:But my vision is that we actually encourage our church members to not be so busy, using all of their energy to do ministry in our church building that we can actually encourage people to say why don't you get together for a coffee group with your neighbors, your co-workers? Maybe you've got a neighbor or a co-worker that goes to the Baptist church. Maybe you've got a neighbor or a coworker that goes to the Baptist church. You've got a coworker that goes to the Catholic church. You've got a coworker that goes to the Pentecostal church. Instead of saying, well, you go to different churches, so I'm just going to go to my church Bible study.
Pastor Mark:What would it be like if you actually got together with diverse groups of people and said let's share life together. Let's not start with our theological distinctives, but let's just ask how life's going. What's going on in your marriage? What's going on in your family? What's going on with your health? How can we pray for you? And then just pray together, study the Bible together and, instead of arguing about which perspective is right, to just say well, you know what? From my perspective, when I read this, it's like it gets me excited because it brings out this part of who Jesus is and to have your neighbor to say yeah, I read this. I've always thought of it in a different way, but I get excited because it brings out this aspect instead of saying you're wrong and I'm right.
Bryan Kelley:Both of you are edified and you end up sharpened yeah.
Pastor Mark:So I would love to see every Tuesday morning to do a prayer and Bible study time and they say what church are you from? And they say well, actually from four different churches, and just see what kind of conversation that starts with people.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah, that's the church that's going to change the world. It's the capital C church the larger church. Psalm 1-3 says he is like a tree planted by streams, like plural multiple streams.
Bryan Kelley:Sometimes, when you think of that verse, you think, oh, he's planted by a stream, but it's actually plural planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers, and that's a picture of what it looks like. If you are planted by multiple streams, gathering your edification, your encouragement, your teaching from many sources, many reflections of Jesus, you live a prosperous life and you actually change the world around you because you're drawing on the larger perspective. You're not staying in your lane, so to speak. You're understanding and accepting that there's a larger revelation of Jesus that the body is trying to portray.
Pastor Mark:Yeah, and I think it fits well with just what happens after 1 Corinthians. 12 is well, this is the body. But then Paul quickly goes on to say but there is actually a proper operating system for all those gifts to function, and that is love.
Bryan Kelley:Yes.
Pastor Mark:We can do all these charismatic things, we can be holy, we can have a great prayer life, we can go do our social justice, and even our social justice we might serve people, just so we can feel better about ourselves and not get to know actually love people. And he says all of these, all of these different things, are basically missing their point if they don't happen in a context of love. They're worthless.
Bryan Kelley:He says it's the ultimate goal?
Pastor Mark:Yeah, it's worthless if you are part of any of these dreams, but it doesn't cause you to love your neighbor, and so yeah, and we can't forget John 7, 38.
Bryan Kelley:Whoever believes in me, as scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them and the concept there is water flowing from you, that water of love to the world around you, and it's important that the source of that is God's love, revealed in the church and through the church. The river changes the world. It's kind of like the idea in Revelation, you know, like the stream flows from the throne room yeah, yeah, and we're just called to release that.
Pastor Mark:Yeah, and I think that's the context of the chapter is it's on the last day of the great day of the festival? When they would ceremonially pour a little bit of water just to say this is some day, when God's kingdom comes, this is what's going to happen. To just say, well, let's not just wait till some day, but let's actually start practicing. I think that some day in many ways has already come. That he referred to the Holy Spirit, that was going to be poured out.
Pastor Mark:So it's not like we're waiting for the end of time for the river to flow out from the temple.
Bryan Kelley:It's flowing already.
Pastor Mark:Yeah, it's just we are the temple and if we are actually experiencing God's Spirit for the sake of not just to bless ourselves, because then we miss out on the point, but flowing out to bless our neighbors, then it's like we're starting to already be part of that thing that was prophesied each year at the festival, that this time is coming, and Jesus, basically, what part of his message was? That thing you've been waiting for. It's happening now, yeah, and I feel like there's an invitation.
Bryan Kelley:I feel like even now, even as you're speaking, that you're speaking it prophetically that there's an invitation to get in the river, that the river's flowing now. There's an invitation. Who is ready to jump in the waters of unity to see a greater move of God in this day, in this hour, in this time and our timing isn't—what we're experiencing now, with our denominational divisions, is not like a new problem. I mean, even in the Old Testament you have 12 tribes that made up Israel, each of them with their own bent, their own flavor, but you know, corporately they were Israel. Here I kind of was asking the Holy Spirit like is there a biblical story concept that kind of encompasses all of these things? And just, I mean, I was like 15 minutes away from here and he started talking to me about Gideon and I wanted to share this with you, I want to get your thoughts on this, because I was just like the Lord just started speaking to me and he was telling me more and more, and I just think that we're at a Gideon moment right now and I kind of wanted to share what, what my thoughts are. So, you know, you have Gideon and he's unlikely hero right, he's, you know, hiding, and he's called mighty man of valor. And you have the Midianites that are are coming against. And so he is. He is there as an unlikely hero that's being called, and he's asking for confirmation from God about whether or not he is actually being called to do these things. And instead of going to his tribe I think it's Manasseh he is asked to come against these forces. I think it's the Amalekites and the Midianites. But he's asked to gather different tribes together, right? So I think he ends up I have it here so he goes to Asher, zebulun and Naphtali and gathers as many people as possible from different tribes together to face this opposing force which would, in this time frame and our current modern concept, is the kingdom of darkness and we're coming against that with the kingdom of light. And so he's going outside of his tribe to gather all these members.
Bryan Kelley:And God ends up telling Gideon like, oh, there's too many people, you know, go ahead and send home everyone that's afraid, you know. Like that doesn't want to be here. And so there's. Right now there's a larger corporate body, there's a body of Christ that exists, but a lot of people are fine, and you know, dandy, to stay in business as usual and not get involved in in this, you know, larger war that we're facing, spiritual war. You know, kingdom of darkness versus the kingdom of light. And you have a lot of people who are just content to just go back home because maybe they're afraid, maybe they've got too many things, you know, focused on their own life, or they're just distracted, right? So you have a large group of people leave.
Bryan Kelley:Then you have God saying, well, there's still too many, and so he's inviting them down to the river, so to speak, to drink. And so he's saying, well, you know, come down here and we're going to divide you again. So maybe there's people out there listening that, like, yeah, this concept of unity, I mean it all seems pretty good. Like I, I can kind of take and glean some things and maybe apply it to my life. And those are the people that are taking water and they're scooping it and bringing it to their, their mouth and they're they're okay with with this idea and maybe it's sparking something in them, but they're not necessarily giving themselves over to it. But then you have the 300 men that shoved their face down and started drinking with their tongues from the stream, right, and I think.
Bryan Kelley:I think that right now we're at a Gideon moment where the people that are throwing themselves into this unity, this stream, and are lapping up like a dog you know this concept of what unity means are is are, they're the ones that are going to change our nation, the world, because those are the people that are, are headlong into this concept. And then you have, well, what actually happens after he takes the 300 men that were all about it. Right, like it was just so cool, the Lord started telling me like you know, you have a representation of all of these different streams. Actually, in the allegory of Gideon, you have the bread of the word tumbling down in the dream and crushing the enemy's camp. Then you have the broken earthen vessels that carry the torch of the fire of the Holy Spirit.
Bryan Kelley:Oh wow, yeah, right, so you have to. You know, in our brokenness that's a beautiful aspect. And then you have the shofar, the battle cry, the rhema word, and then you have the shofar represented this traditional ceremonial thing too. So, like I mean, it's all of these beautiful pictures of what, who, jesus, who God is revealed in Gideon and what happens. It's this revelation of we are outnumbered, god is too strong, and you have this decimation of these. It said that the numbers of the Midianites were outnumbering the sands and the sea, and with 300 men, gideon obtains a victory. And I feel like we're in that Gideon moment. I feel like the people that throw themselves into unity, who value each of the streams, who can see the larger picture of Christ, those are the people that are going to bring revival.
Pastor Mark:Yeah, I love that picture. Yeah, because all of a sudden you have a different thing that defines who you are. You're not a member of the tribe of Asher or the tribe of Naphtali or whatever, but you're the one who is willing to fight and not go home because you're afraid.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah.
Pastor Mark:You're the one who is not focused on what group you came from. But this is the way that I drink, this is the way I do things. It's like a whole different understanding of I'm not with a Baptist, I'm not with a Catholic, I'm with one who drinks the water, with somebody who is ready to fight, and I'm with somebody who is just hungry, thirsty for more of God.
Bryan Kelley:Oh, that's good yeah.
Pastor Mark:So that's, that's a neat picture.
Bryan Kelley:Yeah, I just loved, I love that you know kind of that concept of what it looks like to change the world and it starts with a hunger and a thirst.
Pastor Mark:Yeah.
Bryan Kelley:Right, and even I had an episode that I did on revival with a good friend of mine, rui, and he talked about.
Bryan Kelley:Revival begins in the human heart and it catches fire corporately after it burns and there's a longing and a disparity between what you know is available and what you're experiencing, and that's what kicks off revival, and I almost feel like that's the same concept as this.
Bryan Kelley:Once you realize what unity could mean for world transformation in the body, it should give us a hunger, and I feel like that's what you're here to release and why we were recording this podcast. It's so that you can release the hunger and the thirst that you're carrying for the larger body and for those, an impartation and just kind of whatever the Holy Spirit leads you to pray for and to speak, because I believe that the people listening out there are listening by design, because you've been appointed at such a time as this to listen to this podcast, to have your heart stirred towards unity, have your heart stirred towards unity and making practical steps, like we discussed earlier, to actually break down barriers and have coffee with your neighbor and extend a hand of love, across you know denominational lines, to somebody who you might not necessarily agree 100% with, but you can agree with love and passion and desire for more of God. So it's been such a fun conversation to have with you. Yeah, it's been good.
Pastor Mark:I just wanted to let you know.
Bryan Kelley:So I've had a really good time, but I'd love for you to pray and just kind of release whatever God puts in your heart.
Pastor Mark:Okay, yeah, well, god, just thank you for this time. Thank you for raising up people like Brian, who realizes that his calling is to help to get the message out and to stir up people by getting out people's stories. Like he said, it's our testimonies that are often the things that end up getting behind the barriers in other people's lives that our arguments would never get behind. So, lord, I pray that you would continue to just release testimonies that break through barriers, that break through denominational barriers, that break through just intellectual arguments, where we can actually learn to see that we are all important streams that need to flow together if we are going to change the landscape around us.
Pastor Mark:Help us to, instead of criticizing the other streams, help us to understand them and to love the people in these other streams, and my prayer is that whoever is hearing this, that you would stir up their heart and that you would give them a hunger to experience more of you, and that they would seek to know you, not by going deeper into the one well that they've been in their whole life, but by inviting in streams that maybe they don't know much about, and whether that's an individual relationship with a coworker or a neighbor, whether it's visiting a neighboring church just to understand whether it's doing a Bible study, where they are surrounded by other people who help them to see different aspects of you.
Pastor Mark:I just pray that you would be at work, calling together your army and, instead of having us define ourselves by our labels that we've come from, to have us come together based on our new identity in Christ, that we are one body, and I just pray that, as we flow together, that our communities would be transformed and that places that have been dry, places that haven't been touched because each of our streams have been too shallow and too narrow, I just pray, lord, that there would be people touched and lives touched that haven't been touched for years or decades or generations, because we finally come together as one in Jesus name. Amen.
Bryan Kelley:Amen, pastor Mark, it's been an honor and y'all have a wonderful time out there. We'll catch you on the next episode.