Spiritual, Not Religious

Hey, y'all. Welcome to spiritual not religious. This is a podcast for young adults that explores the intricacies of God's kingdom and the modern world.

Welcome back to our sixth episode of Spiritual Not Religious with your hosts, a man with two first names but one way to your heart, James Henry. And a woman who knows how to back a 15 passenger van down a steep gravel driveway, Molly June Miller. And of course, yours truly, a guy so clever that I seldom don't understand what I'm saying, Sean Windburn. Now, we are truly excited that you are joining us as we are often running through the podcast wilderness. And for those of our brave listeners who are giving us a chance, we just want to say how much we appreciate you and hope that as this podcast grows, that you are gonna be growing with us in a way that you'll be encouraged to share this with others who are wandering in the spiritual deserts of their lives and need a place of rest and healing and just good conversation.

Now, you found yourself saying, you're spiritual, not religious, then welcome to our little online family who invites you to come on in, have a seat on our virtual couch and grab a digital drink as we chat about all kinds of topics relating to faith and belief, God and the church, spirituality and religion, and who knows what else. But for everyone who feels that deep calling to deep feeling deep inside your soul, but you struggle to make sense of that connection with what you see happening in the world, well, we welcome you. I mean, in this episode of Spiritual Not Religious, we're going to take a look at a study that was done recently that asked young adults what was the most important thing to them in matters of faith and connection to a faith community. And our conversation today is going to focus on the spiritual substance that today's 18 30 somethings crave but may or may not be finding it in a faith community setting, but they do seem to be finding it in other ways, which we're gonna look into as well. Now, of course, we wanna hear your thoughts and opinions on this topic, and we will let you know how to share those with us at the end of the podcast.

We've got a lot to talk about in this podcast, and I'm really excited to be getting into this with you all. So James and Molly, can you believe that this is our sixth podcast we're doing together? I mean, our podcast is growing up so fast. It seems like only two months ago we were recording the first Reboot podcast together. What do you think?

Wow, I just have to say it has been an honor to work with both of you on this journey. And it is hard to believe this is our sixth podcast. And, you know, I'm going to have to go back and listen to the first five so I can remember each time it's so engaging and it's so there's different and connections. It's exciting to be with you both in this. But but our sixth podcast, that is pretty cool.

What do you think, Molly?

I think it's wild that we're already on the sixth podcast. I can't believe it. It feels like two seconds ago, we were doing the first one. It's just awesome. I love it.

It's something I look forward to and I just love being with both of you and our online family. So thank you guys.

Yeah. Six podcasts old. Man, where's this where's this kid gonna what's he gonna do when he grows up? You know? What's gonna happen to him?

All the fears and the trepidation and the hopes and dreams we had for this little guy or girl or I don't know. Maybe it's gender neutral here. But now we're getting off topic, which is a lot of fun too. Like I said, you never know what's gonna happen on this podcast. But in our last podcast, we were only five podcasts old, we talked about the roadblocks that get in the way of young adults connecting with God and faith communities in order for them to move forward in growth and healing in their spiritual journey.

And part of that conversation came out a book by the author, Mark Matlock, who wrote Faith for the Curious. Go check it out. Pretty cool stuff. And today, I wanted to look at another study that Mark was involved with that looks at three ideals that are Gen Z and Millennials and Alpha and others are collectively saying regarding their desire for real substance that they don't seem to be finding within their local church. And according to the research done in this book which is called Faith for Exiles and that was written by Ali Hawkins, David Kinaman and Mark Matlock, These guys were able to narrow down three points of utmost importance that young and emerging adults had regarding their spirituality.

The first point was that many young adults wanted to find a way to follow Jesus that actually connects them with the world they live in. Number two, they believe that God is more at work outside the walls of the church than inside them and they want to be a part of that. And number three, they express a desire to be a person of faith without separating themselves from the world that they live in. And so they found that young adults are deeply motivated by a God of the universe, a God they see and hear exemplify things like loving your neighbor as yourself, seeking justice for those facing injustice, caring for the downtrodden, the disadvantaged and the oppressed, things like lessons on turning the other cheek, laying down one's life for another person, seeking out love, joy, peace, faithfulness, patience, kindness, gentleness and self control and other ideals that seem to give each person a level of dignity no matter who they are. And so just kind of right off the bat friends, what do you think about these three points that the authors kind of narrowed down that young adults seem to be really wanting to prioritize in their life?

Any of those kind of stand out to you?

I think definitely the point about individuals, especially young adults, feeling like there's more work that's being done outside of the church than inside of the church. As a campus minister, I see that a lot, and I see my students talk about that a lot. Or how they know Christian people, but they're not watching them in a way that shows a Christian example. And so I think that that's kind of what they're talking about when they are talking about this.

Yeah. The idea of substance itself makes a lot of sense. I think for a long time what church has become inside the walls has been sent to a group of intellectual thoughts about who God is rather than what God's all about. We leaned heavily at the time of the reformation about five hundred years ago on the idea of, you know, focusing on faith. Know, that it's not works, it's faith.

But I think we lean so far on the faith thing that we made faith an intellectual thing that as long as you check the box that you believe, it doesn't matter how you practice. And I think that young adults are actually catching up with the first century Jesus who spent very little time in religious institutions and instead mostly spent time in the hillside and on the you know, by the lake and on in boats and engaging with people who really needed to be reassured that they mattered and to find true healing and wholeness in their lives. So Jesus is the model for get outside the four walls. I completely I see this generation is like, since when did church become inside a building? And when did we forget that we're supposed to be like Jesus Mhmm.

According to Jesus, do things even greater than he did in the world, and how are supposed to do those things if we hang out behind four walls with the doors closed?

Yeah.

So I think that young adults are really onto something and calling all of us in the church back to seeing, hey, what is real about this faith? And real as in touching our hands and our actual actions, not just, hey, I've got the correct creed in my head.

Mhmm. Yeah. Which of course, you know, things like creeds are important. And I think the way that today's church has the evolution of it anyway, has been more towards a come and experience a personal time of healing and growth. And yeah, there's community there, which is great, but it's something that's more tractional.

We're gonna focus on your worship experience and your personal connection with the creator. And we do this shoulder to shoulder in a sense and we're in a room full of people and we are hearing good things maybe from a pastor that again, it's something that we personally grow from, but and those are and those are important things, but I feel like the the substance of the whole picture of the kingdom of God that we're being called into gets missed cause then we just kind of walk outside those four walls, get into our vehicle, go grab lunch and then we're just sort of back into the routine of our lives that may or may not have us doing the kinds of things that get our hands dirty, that go outside like Jesus did and mix and mingle with the things that God cares about in the world. And these young adults, these emerging adults, they want that. And they don't

seem to

be finding that. At least according to this study, which kind of backs that up. And so many of these young adults seem to be bothered with these folks in the churches that have a very different take on some of these teachings of Jesus and what they find written in scripture and what that should look like and what that should mean. There's a little bit of a different translation there. And I think it's interesting before we started the podcast, James was talking about folks who they look at the Sermon on the Mount and they're like, no, no, no, that might be a little too woke for today's modern Christian.

We can't be like talking about stuff like that. So don't really preach that and we're certainly not gonna live into that. Which I think is really interesting that we're finding the teachings of Jesus, the red letters of scripture being a tough place to be to like live into. The very words of Jesus are challenging for sure but now that when you hear Christians are like, I don't think that's really what Christ meant maybe. That's really tough.

Well in my moments of mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, in my feed I came across this satirical portrayal. It's a video in which a guy playing the role of Jesus and his followers who are listening to his teachings but with a bit of a twist on how they might be interpreted today that I think we might find interesting. So I'm gonna hold this up and hopefully we can hear it together. Take take a listen and tell me and we'll talk about it.

Welcomes one of these little ones in my name might be letting in a murderer or a drug. Let's get her to a detention center, you know, till we can figure out what's going on. I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. And behold, now I'm all lazy and entitled.

You shouldn't have done that. Do unto others as you suspect they might wanna do unto you. What is a man profited if he gain the whole world but lose his soul? A lot. He has profited a lot.

One soul for the whole world? That is an amazing deal. Why do you look at the speck of dust in your brother's eye but ignore the plank in your own? Because of Urgent females. If a man strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him and shoot him.

That is the law. If you want to be perfect, go. Sell all the possessions that you have and give the money to a solid mutual fund. By this, they will know that you are my disciples. That you Christmas.

Christ. Christmas. That's my name in there, and I put it in there because I put it in there so we can all celebrate Big Boy Jesus birthday time. Okay? Okay.

So,

yeah, there's little bit of a different take maybe on Christ's teaching, but how they get interpreted, right? Like, I feel like it does feel some people would agree with that and it kind of comes across that way. And so the substance of it kind of gets lost. It gets watered down for sure. What do you guys think of when you hear something like that?

What does it make you think of? And I know Molly, again, you're directly in the midst of working with young adults and maybe that might be something that they're like nodding their heads to. What do you think?

Absolutely. It's so funny to me because they would definitely hear that and they would laugh and think it's funny. And then they'd say to me, I've seen someone actually do this. Like, I've seen like, to us, it's funny because we're people who are like, we should be who Jesus was. But to other people, this is what they think is true.

And this is who they think they should be like. And so I think I laugh at it, but then when I hear my students, they also think it's funny, but they'll also be like, well, I know someone who does this. It makes me so sad because I'm like like, in the part where he talks about gaining the whole world and then putting it in a mutual fund, like, that's hysterical. You know? Like, that's what we're doing sometimes.

We're gaining the whole world and putting it in a mutual fund instead of being able to know that, you know, this is from God, and this is this is who we're called to be. So it it rings true in a lot of ways. And I love what you talked about before, Sean, when you mentioned, like, when it's hard sometimes to follow Jesus, and I think that's the whole point. Right? Like, if it was easy to do, everyone would just do it.

And there would be no moments of suffering and no moments of mourning, and it wouldn't feel like a call in your life. But that's the point. It's we're set apart from the world. That's why it's hard. And so it should be a difficult thing to live into who Jesus was in a way that's authentic and true.

I just wanted to make sure that I said that. I think that's a beautiful thing. What about you, James?

I do think that sometimes the there is always a danger that the church will buy into what the culture is selling. And I do think that, you know, the whole prosperity gospel, that's not gospel at all. You know, that you know, as long as you stay good with God, God's going to reward you with cash. You know, suddenly you'll wake up one day and your bank account's got 10,000,000 extra dollars in it because you behaved. And I just think that that's not the gospel Jesus.

Jesus, I can't think of anybody who followed God more closely, and I don't remember anywhere in scripture that he got $10,000,000 or 10,000,000 denari in his bank account. I just don't think that happened. So we have sold out the message to, you know, sometimes nationalism, sometimes prosperity, sometimes whatever seems to be popular right now. And at no point was Christianity about being popular. Well, not until 03/25 and you know, the emerging the empire and church.

We won't go there. We won't go there, but Thanks, God. Before that, it was never about being it's not a popularity contest. If Jesus was winning popularity contests, I don't think the crucifixion would have happened. But, know, it's really about loving the neighbor, doing the hard work, and really engaging the world.

If we wanna know about God's, to borrow a phrase, I guess, in some ways, God so wanted to be a part of what's going on. God had a boots on the ground sort of approach to humanity. I'm going to be there. I want to see what it's about. I'm going to model that for people, and I'm going to bring healing and wholeness so they can know really what it you know, what it's like.

What it what I want, what I hope for. And if God became one of us to model it and his model was simplicity, letting go of things, forgiving your enemy, loving your enemy, then perhaps that's also, I don't know, something we're called to try too. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I could be wrong. I have been many times in my life.

So that's my thought.

Yeah, it's again, the teachings of the gospels and many in scripture, they're tough. They're not easy. And I think we've tried to simplify them perhaps. And we've certainly misunderstood some of them, think, when the character portraying Jesus was like, when someone strikes you in the face, pull out your gun and shoot them. That's kind of how we feel like we like arm ourselves and if anyone tries to come and hurt us or try to take stuff from us, then we're we're gonna blow them away in Jesus' name.

And I know there I don't wanna simple oversimplify that because, you know, that gets us into a whole lot other, you know, how do we, defend ourselves and how can we protect the ones we love and things like that. I think the point that I hope we try to make is that it is not so simple, but we do need to reconsider. Young adults these days want to seriously grapple with the substance of these teachings of Jesus. I I came across a quote from Bono, who is the lead singer of the Irish band U2. Funny enough, was talking to a 24 year old not too long ago and I was talking about Bono and he was like, Who?

I was like, You too. Who's that? So I feel like I have to like really over explain some of this but go check him out if you've not heard YouTube, go listen to the Joshua Tree, you'll thank me later. But that lead singer, Bono, said something that sums it up in this way. He says, I'm not doubting.

I don't doubt God. I have a firm faith absolutely in God. It's religion I'm doubting. And I thought that was interesting. It's religion that I'm doubting.

And we can, we probably will say a lot about what this actually means. And I think a part of this kind of religion involves an unwillingness to accept people just as they are, right where they are. And I've talked with friends who don't think that they can darken the door of a church until they get their lives in order. And again, we've talked about this before where they kind of look a certain way or they believe a certain way in order to be accepted into a faith community. Or that there is an expectation that once you're inside the church, if you aren't saying all the right things and performing all the right acts, then there's a problem with you.

What do you guys think about that?

I think if we think about Jesus and the disciples as, like, the first real, like, church experience where, like, community was made for good in a good place, none of the disciples had it all together. None of them were people who were like, oh, we're great at everything. Everyone loves us. So let's now go and tell people more about this guy who we also love. I think that's what we forget is, like, the people who follow Jesus, especially in the beginning

Mhmm.

Were not perfect people by any means, and were not people that were always loved in the way that they deserved love. So I think that we have to be really careful when we talk about, like, coming into a church setting and not being ready for it. I think if our heart is ready and yearning for something more, then find that place where that deep calls to deep really. But we are never like James said when we were talking before, we're never gonna be perfect. That's something that we put on God and that's not that's not fair of us to put on ourselves.

Perfection will never be achieved. We can move closer to who Jesus is, but perfection will never be there.

But boy, idea of perfection has really crept into the church, hasn't it? I don't think any pastor or religious leader would say that you've gotta be perfect and that we're all messed up in some way. But somehow over time, there has been this notion of you need to kind of get your act together a little bit. And I think that's why when we come to church that everyone's doing great. Hey, how are doing?

Great, doing fine. You know? And when really we know that, no, people are struggling with stuff. There's some addictions out there that people are dealing with, but they're too afraid to share those in a church setting because they don't want to be looked down upon or embarrassed. And so we can't be genuine.

We can't have that substance that I think we're looking for. Yeah.

I think that authenticity is something that a lot of people yearn for and are less likely to find in church sometimes than anything else. And I think it's you know, people do come in and feel like I've got to have my stuff together. There was a time in certainly in American history where people went to church less it was less about their faith and it was more about making their political connections, their social connections, their business connections. They were to be a respectable person, you had to belong to a church. And we found out after a, you know, period of observation that people who belonged to churches were just as likely to misbehave as people who didn't belong to churches, and I think young adults have seen that.

And you know, if you've put your trust in an institution or even in a specific leader within the institution, and that person trips up and falls, then the authenticity, the idea of authenticity falls away. Jesus was nothing if not authentic. He was always present and caring for the people he was with. He got his greatest pleasure, if you read the gospels closely, by hanging out with sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes, going to parties at their houses. And his least, I don't want to say didn't love them, but his least favorite people to hang out with were all the people who were focused on the rules, you know, who were constantly pushing his buttons about what the rules were.

And his pushback was, you are so stuck on the rules, you have missed out on the point, and the point is loving your neighbor. And if you've got to wash your hands a certain way or behave in a certain way, you're missing out on what really this good news of God's love for all of us is. And I think young adults see through that, which makes it hard for them to come. Do think they're prone to the same mistakes the rest of us make, which is to generalize, to think that every church is the same as those churches that pretend to follow Jesus, and so they assume all churches are like that. And maybe we all are.

Maybe we all are. I just don't think we are though. I just think that there are, all of us are struggling to try to figure out how to really follow Jesus beyond the front doors into the world. And there ought to be a space for all of us to explore that in space, the real substance of faith to come back to what you you know, the nature of what we're talking about today.

Right, right. And that first point that I wanna get into from the study says that many young adults and emerging adults want to follow Jesus in a way that connects them with the world that they live in. It seems to me that a lot of young adults and emerging adults that I talk to, they wanna see examples of folks who actually embrace a lifestyle that emulates that example and those teachings of Jesus during the week. And not just on Sundays when it's expected during worship, but that this is based on research that found young adults, they want and they value substance in their faith journey to know that they are loved, that they're valued right where they are, no matter what they believe. And we've mentioned before in podcast, author, speaker and social advocate, Shane Claiborne, who is in charge of The Simple Way in Philadelphia a few times and so far he said something that got me thinking about this point on substance.

He said, how can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday? And I think again, it goes back to that point where the young adults, they wanna follow Jesus in a way that connects them with the world that they live in. Molly, again, you're right in the thick of things working with young adults in a college setting. Do you hear from them, the vibe that this is something that they're passionate about as well? How are they doing that in your setting?

Yeah. Absolutely. Most of my students are very, like, social justice minded, and their idea of how they connect with their faith is by bringing the world to a place of love and care. And so I have one specific student who really wants to, fight for women's rights, fight for women in general, be a place where there's inclusivity and love and grace. And I think that's exactly who Jesus is.

I think that we've kind of made Jesus someone else in the world, unfortunately. And so the way that I think about it and the way that I try to remind my students is where I work at Wesley. You know, inside Wesley, we're always going to love our neighbor and care for someone and, push the bounds of kinda what the rest of the world thinks because that's who I believe Jesus is and who I believe we should be emulating into the world. And a lot of my students really love that because we do different social justice things. And it bothers me when I hear that quote from Shane Claiborne about, like, how can we worship and, like, be with a homeless man on a Sunday morning and then just completely forget about it on Monday.

I think that's the world that we live in. We don't bring that from Sunday to Monday. We just leave it in Sunday, and then next Sunday, we come back to it again, and we just keep leaving it. And I try to teach my students, and I think a lot of my students feel that way of, like, no. We should bring this into Monday.

We should bring this into Tuesday. Let's continue this new honestly, it seems new in society to be doing that. And so I'm just really proud of my students and proud of the young adults that I get to be around and work with that they're inspiring to me. And I'm a young adult, but I I just feel really inspired by who they are and who they wanna see Jesus be in the way of us.

Yeah. And I think the vision of Jesus has been cleaned up and sanitized as well. Mhmm. And so that when we think of homeless people, we don't we don't see Jesus in that because Jesus is He's got some really nice robes on, He's usually carrying a little lamb that's spotless, He looks like He's just had His hair done and He kind of looks cleaned up. Not walking around muttering to himself and stinky and asking for money.

Right? And so we have maybe some conflicting views on who Jesus is and how can we see Jesus and other people in the world that we live in. And I think that young adults, they do appreciate a good worship service. I mean, who doesn't? They

do, do. To try for us to connect, right? And not only just with God during that time but with others during that worship service and feel like they're growing in their faith and we need that. I think the church is so vitally important. And however, our friends from the study, Faith for Exiles, they say undertaking a radical life altering mission is what our young generations crave. A radical life altering mission is what they crave but instead we take everything from our worship services to what's required of a Christian and mold it into the shape of comfort and entertainment.

Young adults, they say, want to get their hands dirty. James, how does that hit you? They found, what young adults crave, what they want and then actually what we as a church are giving them?

I do think the church has tended to make Christianity about a destination, heaven and the life. And we've lost the fact that, you know, based on the fact that the gospels are about a journey. Jesus walks around for somewhere between one and three years with a group of people, some of whom are men and some of whom are women who follow him. And I do think sometimes when we lift Jesus on the pedestal of worshiping him, I struggle with the word worship, and I appreciate Shane Claiborne's use of the word, but when we worship Jesus and put him on a pedestal, we think we can never be like him. He's on a pedestal somewhere else, and so when we fail, it's like, well, he's the son of God.

We're just people, and he was just a person. He was a person and the son of he was fully both human and divine. A long theological discussion, not for today, but fully human part of him, you know, said, follow me. Jesus never once asked in the gospels, never once worship me. He was, in fact, one of the temptations was have everyone bow down.

If you just bow down and worship me, the whole world will essentially bow down and worship you, when he's talking to the deceiver, the tempter, and, Jesus says, uh-uh, nope, not doing that, And so when we do the whole bowing down thing, Jesus is amazing, don't get me wrong, but worshiping him makes him unreachable, unfollowable. And the Jesus I see getting dirty in his everyday life, getting thirsty at a well, getting tired and needing to sit down, hungry and eating food with people, annoyed with religious people who drew too many lines, that's a real human being I can follow, I can try to be like in my everyday life. And so I hear the echoes of that in exactly what you were quoting, Sean.

Yeah.

Well, this is a good time to take a break guys. And then when we come back, we're going to look at the other points and then maybe discuss a few things that young and emerging adults can consider to ways in which they can get their hands dirty in mission in the world because we believe that God's kingdom is he is a part of here on earth kind of thing. Right? We're invited in not only not only into a relationship with God, but into the work that God is doing here and now. And so we're gonna talk a little bit more about that when we come right back, so don't go away.

All right, and welcome back to our episode, Spiritual Not Religious, with Molly June Miller and James Henry. And we are talking about substance and authenticity. And we've got three points that we're kind of working through from researchers, Dave Kinnaman and Mark Matlock and Ali Hawkins from their book, Faith for Exiles. And the three points once again are many young adults wanna find a way to follow Jesus that actually connects them with the world they live in. We covered that.

And point number two, young adults believe that God is more at work outside the walls of the church than inside them and those young adults want to be part of that. And number three, they express a desire to be a person of faith without separating themselves from the world they live in. Now, of course, all these points really are an expression of kind of the same sentiment. And that is, they want to follow God and they want to follow Jesus, but they're looking for just the substance of what that looks like in their own life and what that looks like. This point number two, they believe that God is more at work outside the walls of the church than inside them and they wanna be a part of that.

With the young adults that I've interacted with, this has been just something that I've seen just really clearly played out in their lives where they feel like what they see and what they're doing outside of the walls of the church is just more meaningful than what maybe they could experience inside the church and also what they feel like scripture or Jesus' example explains to them of how they should be living their life. Let's start with you, Molly, on that point where young adults believe that God is more at work outside the walls of the church. Do you have young adults that are attending what you guys are doing there UT Martin. Gosh, I couldn't think of it for a second. I was like, where'd it go?

There at the Wesley Foundation that you work at, do you have young adults there that they are experiencing your ministry, your campus ministry, but they don't feel like they can quite connect perhaps with a local community faith or a church? Do you have folks like that?

I do. I have some folks who feel as though they are it's hard for them to connect with the local church. And some of that could be because of their sexual orientation or the way that they present themselves. There's a bunch of different ways. And I think it goes back to that I have to be perfect to step in this place instead of just being like, I'm gonna come as I am and not be judged.

It's that fear of judgment that I think makes students not wanna go into that place and be judged and hurt and then not ever wanna come back to a church again. So we're working on that. We're partnered with a local church in Martin, a Methodist church. And so a lot of my students will go there with me on a Sunday morning, which is really cool that we have that connection. But I think without that connection, it would be hard for them to step in there alone.

So it's been cool to do it with them.

I

bet you they really appreciate that, Molly, because then if something is said unintentionally or intentionally that leaves theologically uncertain questions in their minds, then, you know, after worship they have someone who's there who can help them demythologize the stuff the church sometimes hands out. And sometimes we just do it on autopilot. The church, speaking as a we insider in the church, we hand out some autopilot stuff that we haven't even taken time to think through in a while. And I could see how that's a wonderful model, You know, if you're looking for community in a church to gather some folks and take them with you to church, so you know, it's not just to insulate you from whatever happens there, but so that if you need to you know, kind of unpack what you heard, you can leave worship and go grab breakfast, lunch, dinner, brunch, linner, a snack, coffee, tea, or some other you know, I don't know, refreshment and talk about it. Really kind of let it go and figure out you know what really hit home and what didn't.

And so then they get a chance to see how the, you know, what they heard isn't the only way to hear it. There are other ways to hear it. They can take it outside the church and do something with it, so.

And what's really cool about the connection between we're a congregational model, so we're tied to that church, our Wesley is. And their pastor, pastor Amanda, she's incredible. She is one of the coolest people I think I've ever met. But she is so great because she used to be the Wesley director, like, while ago. And so she'll come to Wesley on Wednesday nights and be with our students.

So our students know her, and they're familiar with the pastor and familiar with what she believes and how she loves people and how she cares for people. And I think it makes a huge difference in her being in that place with young adults that they know that when they leave and they're in the church, they know where her heart is and what she means and how she cares. So that's been really great. And then me being with them too, I think it's just created a whole new outlook on what church can look like and be. So I if anyone's listening to this and they're like, what do I do to get young adults to go to church?

Have them come with you. First, let have them trust you and then have them come with you because it will be a beautiful experience.

Mhmm. And and what I kinda wanna go back to with that second point that I find so interesting is that young adults believe God is more at work outside than inside the church. And I love the church. I think that it is the place where a lot of connections to God occur. There's a lot of transformational work that happens within the walls of the church.

But it's interesting to me why they would think that God is more at work outside of what's happening in a church and what those implications might be and where they see God more at work than inside of a church. Where I think the logical conclusion would be, oh yeah, God's over there inside that church over there.

So you can go, if

you wanna meet with God, you gotta go inside there and to meet with God, there's a little process you need to go through, but you can meet God there and young adults are seeing God more at work in the world and they wanna be a part of that. Where do you guys find that maybe young adults are seeing where God might be at work outside than inside a church? I know for me, for all three of us, I think the answer is gonna start with maybe Appalachian Service Project, which is a Christian organization that is literally outside of a church, working on people's homes, rebuilding from disaster or building from the ground up a new home for folks that are in need. And that is a real tangible way to be involved in making and affecting real change in the world that they live in. So talk about ASP if you like or where else do you see that maybe God is at work out in the world that maybe young adults are attracted to?

Does anything come to mind for either one of you?

Well, I could say that in my own church setting, I have several young adults who pop in on us periodically in person but watch us online as well. And one of the ways that they have seen fit to the traditional model, of course, of supporting the building and giving money and offering and that kind of thing, at least two of them actually make it a point instead to give directly to our wish list which goes to our food pantry that serves about 100 families every Monday night. And so their engagement, they would much rather give directly to something that's going to mean somebody eats. And so they're putting their money where their mouth is for them is actually giving directly to And we've even had some conversations about how they could get involved in doing the serving at food pantry that is a part of our congregation, cooperative with actually several local congregations across denominations. But the truth is I see that right there.

When we talk about what their heart is, their heart is for mission in the world that actually they see means that people eat. Because the good news is the good news when it's heard on a fuller stomach. Easier to hear the good news perhaps on a fuller stomach than it is if you're starving.

Yeah. And I like what you said there about the churches in your area working cooperatively, working in concert with one another. I think that has a huge impact on young adults too, where they actually see these faith organizations working together. And there has been I mean, you go down any small town USA in any state that you see there's a million churches, right? You might also be wondering, why does there have to be so many churches and they're all in disagreement and they're all kind of at each other's throats and but when they see churches like this come together, I think that makes a huge impact as well on on their their view of God.

Absolutely. I can think of a couple, but one local to the Martin area in Martin, Tennessee is We Care, and it is a thrift store. They also have a food bank there, and they help individuals with electricity. So it's almost like how Habitat does their Habitat restore where any of the proceeds that are made from the donated items then go back to the families in need. And they do a really cool thing called the Christmas shop, and each family will pay a dollar per kid, and they get new Christmas gifts for their children for the for that Christmas.

And I think it's just a beautiful thing to empower people, and they still have some stake in the game of being like, okay. I gave some money for this. I might not be able to do more than this, but this is what I can do. And then with their food bank, they give food out, I believe, every Thursday, which is awesome. And so I've helped out with that.

Some of my students have helped out with that. And it's just been a cool way to see God at work in our community, in our world, in that moment. And I've had a lot of students who have really enjoyed that experience. And, you know, they ask, when are we gonna go do it again? Or could we do it another time?

So we'll be doing it again at the end of this month. So I'll have to talk about that once we do it again. But it's been a really cool thing to see.

That's great. Yeah. And this gives them the opportunity to, you know, authentically live into what it is that they believe or find what is true for their life. And that is, you know, helping other people around them and building relationships. And so that tangible way that they can live into what it means to authentically live out their faith is so important.

And you can have the word and the deed occurring simultaneously. And to know that they are part of something bigger than themselves, that calling into helping to build out the kingdom is a huge part of that as well. And they want to make a tremendous difference. I mean, I think we all do. But when a when a faith community can can offer opportunities to get outside the walls of the church and go and serve instead of just, you know, come and do your thing and hear this really cool sermon and experience this amazing worship and then go home.

They know there's more to the story than just that. And so that's really important. I worked with young adults who were camp counselors at a camp in Central Florida and a lot of them weren't associated with a church. And I would ask them, why are you involved with this faith organization? Because it was a Methodist camp and conference center and they loved working with these kids and making an impact in these kids' lives.

And that brought a lot of significance and meaning to their lives and what they believed was the right thing to do. And yet they weren't really experiencing that or given opportunity in their local church or faith community. And so it's just really important for churches to really reconsider how they're engaging young adults and their congregants in getting outside the walls of the church. And then finally, this last point, young adults express a desire to be a person of faith without separating themselves from the world they live in. And this is a tough one, I think, in the sense that we read also that we're in the world but we're not supposed to be of it.

And there's like a teaching of separation and kind of detaching from some certain things. And yet Jesus' model was he was very much surrounded by folks that were considered to be outcasts and the deplorables, if you will. And so he was very much in the world and things like where Jesus says, hey, look, I didn come to the world to condemn it. I came to redeem it. I came to save it.

I came to love it. And so what do you guys think when you hear that last point where young adults, they want to be a person of faith, they want to hold their values, but without feeling like they can't be a part of the world that they live in. How does that hit you guys?

I would say that the world were the funny thing is Sean and I are in a study together on Tuesday nights. And so last night, this is being recorded on a Wednesday, we were having a conversation about world. Particularly in the Gospel of John, the world gets, you know, both a good and a bad kind of, you know, it gets a bad rap, as well as a good rap. And what is in the world and not of the world really mean? And I was sharing with Sean that from my perspective that the world is not always literally the physical form that we find ourselves in.

That sometimes when we're not meant to be of the world, it's not meant to follow the world's the cultural, know, the things that are necessarily valued by the world. To not be of the world is to not think that in order to be real human beings, we have to be successful or rich or snooty or whatever it may be that our culture tells us are most valuable. So to be in the world is to be fully engaged in this form. That's why we're here. This is not punishment.

This is an opportunity for us to grow and learn and engage. That's what being in the world, being in form, embodied as we are is for. But to not be of the ways of the world that values things we don't value. Whoever has the biggest toys, the most toys, the most money, the biggest title, the most power, nothing is more illusory in the world than that. But you know, whatever we think that those things are what's most important, that's the not being of the world.

It's not disdaining this wonderful form, the trees, the plants, all this stuff we get to be a part of and care for. We're actually supposed to be engaged with that and love that, just not the maybe the patterns that the world tries to feed us as the right ways to be. Do you have some thoughts on that, Molly?

I just love hearing James talk. I I love that. I completely agree with everything James said, and I love the way that you put it. I don't think I could put it any better.

What, Molly? You don't have something to add on to that?

Well, I definitely do, but I feel like James did a great job. But I think that there's there's different ways that we can be in the world and not of the world, not letting things get to us in a way that hurts us or makes us feel like we're less than because of a specific level that we are at. I think young adults are taught that, you know, everything is about advancing in your career. And so you need to go to school to then go to college. And then from college, you need to get a good job.

And from that job, you need to constantly be doing better and better and better in that role. And if you change jobs or go to something else, like, that's something to be ashamed of. And so if we're in the world, we're letting all those things bother us instead of being of the world and letting those things roll off our back and say, I know what's important. I know what's good. I know what's holy and letting that shine through.

Right. And I think it's important for us to consider what we choose to demonize in the world. Because once we start to do that, we begin to build walls of separation.

And

I think for all of us, young adults included, we need to be careful who we consider that we shouldn't be around or they're the bad guys, we're the good guys. Because at the end of the day, you know, all of us belong to God. All of us originate from God. And I think it's easier said than done. And that is, you know, we say we, you know, we we should love each other as Christ first loved us.

But it's hard to do that when we've demonized them and they're a Republican or they're a Democrat or they're this or they're that. And suddenly, they've become the enemy. And so how can we be in the world and love these people? We may not agree with them. We may not like what they have done or they may have hurt us in real ways.

And of course, that's where the teachings of forgiveness and healing and other things come into play. But I think it's been tough to kind of navigate the choppy waters of how do we love these rough people. People that they ve done wrong or they don believe like we do and or they're strange and weird and bizarre and I don't know how to be around something like that or they're not of God. And for me, I think we have to sit down and really consider, if that's gonna push them away from me and I'm not gonna be able to love them in a way that Christ loved me, then that's a problem. And I think it's a problem for young adults who, again, they wanna cling to their faith but they also want to be a part of this world that they don't want

to be

detached from things that we have claimed to be bad or wrong or sinful. Yes, there is sin in the world and there are some bad players and there are some things we are not going to agree with But we can agree to disagree and we can still love someone in Jesus' name the way God loves us. But that's maybe for another podcast to walk through but it's just kind of had me thinking about some of those

The other detachment I think that they don't want is, know, what if you're a young adult and you're studying biology or physics or, you know, the universe And the church is telling you there is this God who made everything. It was fixed. We live in a Newtonian universe. All of our theology grows out of a Newtonian theological perspective, which is it was all created all at once. It's fixed, and there are certain rules as opposed to an evolutionary or quantum universe that is growing and changing continuing to reflect the infinite goodness of, from a Christian here, this is my perspective, the infinite goodness of God and the infinite diversity of God in all these many forms, how do I come to terms with my church says the world was created in June, which by the way is not the Hebrew way of understanding yom, the word for day anyway.

It's only while the light's out, there's a light time, and there's a dark time. But so God only works for, like, however long the light was out. And since it was beginning, in any case, we're not gonna go all there. The truth is trying to build the bridge between and religion is another one of the challenges that I think that they want to be able to go into the world. If I'm learning about evolution in school, but I can't talk about that when I go to Sunday school or church because somehow that's heretical, why does it have to be heretical?

Maybe the first chapter of the book of Genesis was not at all intended as a science book. It was about an ordered god who was bringing order to everything, and that it happened in this order, and the best way I could figure out how to talk about it is one day at a time. Maybe it was just one action at a time, and the action was like, you know, a hundred billion years at a time. I don't know. Okay.

Sorry. I went off on that little tangent, but I think it's not just the diff disconnect between behavior in in those places or belief in those places. It's also a disconnect between science and religion. And how do I work in a world where I want to care for climate but everyone tells me the climate doesn't matter because there's some heaven pie in the sky spot that I'm going to go to and that climate change doesn't matter. It does matter if you're a caretaker of the planet that you're entrusted to, and that's pretty clear from, okay, I've gone on to Mr.

Theological Dance now. I'm going to climb off my soapbox.

But

there's a lot of pieces that young adults no longer feel comfortable separating, compartmentalizing between this is what I think at church, this is what I think when I go to my job in the laboratory. They can dance together in a beautiful, beautiful dance that shares this woven tapestry that the infinite has been working since before time began.

Right, so you're kind of proving this point of we start to divide into sections, the creationist and the evolutionist on either side. And we begin to divide into these subgroups and really we have to be careful with that because suddenly someone's God is gonna get real small, real quick And God is big enough to handle all of it. There are people who are living out a life of absolute disgust and hatred towards anything spiritual, any notion that there's a God and yet God makes room for that person. And so if God is big enough to make room for our doubt and our questions and our disbelief or the way we choose to believe a certain something, my goodness, how many denominations are there? And how many interpretations are there out there just on scripture alone and yet, can hold even all of that.

And so whether you, and in James's case, believe in the literal six days or you believe that God used evolution to bring it all about, either way, shouldn't be things that separate us, but can we come together and can we still say, hey, you know what? I love you. I see the God in you. And we might disagree on this, but we can still hold each other in relationship. And it's those things that divide us, which I think is probably why the study found that young adults see God more out in the world than inside of a Because division happens within a church and we've got to be careful with that.

But I think if we believe that God is a little bit bigger than all of that and can hold all of that, then we need to trust God a little bit more. Like, okay, let God handle all of that minutiae and all those details. I'm just called to be a person who loves, who brings peace to a situation and who follows in the way and the footsteps of this guy named Jesus, who claimed to be love, who claimed to be God, right? So I'm gonna wrap us up with a quote again and it comes from our good friend, Shane Claiborne. And he kinda, I feel like takes all those points that we've discussed and kind of offers a bit of an apology based on the points that were made, perhaps a little bit of the rationale behind why those points were made as being kind of an obstacle to God which can be Christians.

Sometimes Christians who claim to have the truth but have weaponized that truth and have caused division, have caused people to not come to God, but been pushed away from God, which is nothing new. Right? Jesus was confronting the religious leaders of his day who are keeping people from experiencing God. They are pushing them away and Jesus was like, no, don't push people away from me. Let God do what God does best.

That's not your business. Your business is to bring them to me. Let me do the work. At least that's how I see it in Scripture. But we're kind of doing that today.

And so Shane comes out and says, hey, I am so sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I'm sorry that we have so often or that we so often have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity. And again, it kind of goes back to that little video that I played earlier with the vision of Christ as maybe that's how some people see Christ. And of course, when you look at Christ's life and his words, you realize that's not who that is at all.

And so our hope is for all of our young adults that you keep pushing into looking for ways to move into your faith journey, but also hold closely being in this world that God has created and wants us to be a part of. There's a lot of work to be done and I know God wants you to be a part of that. So final thoughts, Molly and James, what we've been talking about on any of the points or just something that you kind of wanna sum up. And we'll start with you Molly first. What do you think?

What do you have any final thoughts for us?

I think a final thought that I can offer is just remember that at the heart of it, it's all love. And so if there's any moment that we're going against love or it doesn't seem like we're loving, we're probably not doing what we're called to do in the world. And so just find yourself surrounded by love and with more love for other people because I think that's exactly what we're called to.

Would just remind you all who are listening that you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. And that gift is all that you're asked to bring into this world. All of your uniqueness, all of your personhood, every little thing that we like to label, you can set aside because those labels, nobody gets to denigrate you for them because you're a gift just as you are.

Thanks, guys. And we do appreciate you guys being a part of this. We hope that it's something you feel like you can share with your friends. We do just kind of wanna be a voice in the wilderness this time in your life when you're in that age range of 18 to 30 something or for anybody really, you are invited into this conversation that we're trying to have. We don't have all the answers but we do wanna have the discussion and we want to hear from you.

And so Molly, let us know how folks can get in touch with us with questions, with your reflections on what we've been talking about or maybe you would like for us to talk about something in particular. And so we would love to hear from you. So Molly, how can they reach out to us?

You can find us on Instagram spiritual. Notreligiouspodcast. And then if you wanna send us a Gmail, you can send it or an email, you can send it to spiritualnotreligiouspodcast@Gmail.com.

Awesome. Well, guys, thank you so much. It was great to have this conversation with you once again. And then for everyone who's listening, thank you for tuning in and staying with us. And we hope to hear from you.

And until next time, may you be blessed and know that you are loved unconditionally. We'll talk to you guys later.