Listening to God

In this episode of the Church Talk podcast, Jason, Courtney, and Rob discuss the importance of leadership in the church, focusing on how to listen to God and the various spiritual practices that can enhance personal growth and community engagement. They share personal anecdotes about snow days, the challenges of hearing from God, and the need for a true prayer life. The conversation emphasizes the significance of bridging the gap between learning and doing in ministry, and how spiritual practices can be tailored to individual personalities. In this conversation, the speakers explore the challenges of engaging with God amidst the chaos of modern life, emphasizing the importance of simplicity and quietness. They discuss how busyness and success can hinder spiritual growth and listening to God. Practical practices such as the Kairos circle and the Jesus Prayer are introduced as ways to cultivate awareness of God's presence and to develop a deeper spiritual life. The conversation concludes with a call to embrace these practices to enhance one's relationship with God and to support others in their spiritual journeys.

www.churchtalkproject.com

Ken Boa "Conformed to His Image"
Dallas Willard "The Divine Conspiracy"
Richard Foster "Celebration of Discipline"

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and New Beginnings
03:02 Snow Days and Seasonal Joys
06:01 Listening to God as Leaders
12:11 The Challenge of Hearing from God
17:53 Spiritual Practices and Personal Growth
19:53 Engaging God Amidst Life's Chaos
30:08 The Impact of Success on Spiritual Listening
40:55 Practical Practices for Hearing God
44:48 Cultivating Awareness of God's Presence

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Transcript

Jason Allison (00:00)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Church Talk podcast with Courtney and Rob and me, Jason. I am so glad that you guys are here today. We feel like it's been a while since it's just been the three of us, but we got some good stuff we want to talk about as we enter into this first quarter of 2025. Rob, I'm glad you're here. Courtney, I'm probably a little more glad you're here because, you know.

It's Rob and he can only take so much of Rob, but you know, he's a, he's a good one to have around. That's right. Hey, do you guys all have a good new year? Everything good? Everybody's happy moving forward. No major like things you got to announce. No. Good. Okay. Good. Good. Well, you never know. mean, I just want to make sure, you know, Rob, if you were pregnant or something, you never know.

Courtney (00:26)
Just to save you from rot.

Rob Paterson (00:30)
Amen.

Courtney (00:42)
Yeah.

Yes.

Rob Paterson (00:48)
You know, unless it's immaculate, which, you know, that,

Jason Allison (00:50)
That

Rob Paterson (00:52)
but that adds a whole other wrinkle too, right?

Courtney (00:55)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (00:55)
does, that does. That would change a whole lot of things. So yeah. Well, so go ahead.

Rob Paterson (00:56)
Yeah. You know, yeah. I, I just a funny thing. So at the end of a break, Christopher, you know, started college again on the same day that Liam was supposed to go back to school. so, you know, sophomore in college and sixth grader.

and it was hysterical because, we actually were a little bit concerned because in Indiana they were calling for this, like snowpocalypse kind of situation. And, and so, you know, with him having a car now and driving back and forth, we wanted to make sure he could drive in daylight hours and, leave early enough and all those kinds of things and drive slow. And, and, his whole drive, like zero snow.

no issues. was good, which is what you want as a parent, right? but here in Ohio, that same day we got a ton of snow and Liam at the end of his two week break, got a, got a snow day and his first day back to school. So, you know, my 11 year old has significant joy in his heart in this season for the, for the bonus day.

Jason Allison (02:07)
Yes, starting the year off right with the day off.

Courtney (02:10)
Oh, that's always something that we didn't get growing up where I grew up. We had hurricane days instead, which are not quite as fun whenever you cancel school. So you can't go sledding in a hurricane. Right.

Jason Allison (02:18)
hmm. Yeah, you can't go sledding in a hurricane. Yeah,

we had kids in the back of the church here. It's got a little hill and they come and they sled on it. So then I run off. Then I run them all off. Get off our lawn. No, I'm just kidding. I don't do that. We let them slide. No, I'd be the one going sign this waiver. I don't want you to sue us when you break your arm.

Courtney (02:32)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (02:34)
No, you totally would do that. Courtney.

Courtney (02:40)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (02:43)
When you were talking about you didn't get snow days, it's funny because I grew up in Canada where, know, it was not uncommon to get literally a foot or more of snow and just a regular winter day. And they have to go out and shovel multiple times that day. Cause you obviously couldn't let it get too deep or else the shoveling would literally take forever. we never got snow days either because it was so normal to get that amount of snow.

Courtney (03:02)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (03:08)
nobody ever canceled anything because it was too snowy. It would actually have to like, you'd have to get freezing rain and put a layer of ice on top of the snow in order for anything to be canceled. So, I did get a couple snow days, but it was, they were few and far between because it was horrific weather. now.

Courtney (03:20)
Mm.

Jason Allison (03:27)
Then it was almost

like a hurricane of snow.

Rob Paterson (03:30)
Yeah. Yeah. Right. And it's so funny in, and I, always tell people like we, I've always had this policy because the one time we canceled church, was our first church plant and it was, you know, got up at six and it was terrible. And so it's like, we're going to cancel church today. Well, I drove over to the, the space we were meeting, just in case people did not get the text email memo, whatever, and showed up. I wanted to be there.

And the whole drive in the roads had been plowed, salt had gone down. They were clear. The parking lot was plowed. It was clear. And I'm just like, we totally could have had church today. And so I just, at that point I decided, you know what? I feel comfortable driving in whatever. It doesn't really bother me at all. So I will never cancel church unless the roads are legally closed. And if you don't feel comfortable, if you wouldn't go to the store, if you wouldn't go to work,

Please do not risk life and limb to come out. But if you would go to work, why wouldn't you go to church? So we'll, and we'll be here. You never have to wonder if the roads are legally open, we will be having church. So.

Jason Allison (04:44)
Yeah, that's kind of how we do it. you know, if the snow level emergency is a three, then we obviously shut down because you're not supposed to be out anyway. The other thing we have to think about is, you know, it costs us four or $500 to plow the lot, you know, and so if it all comes, we have to pay all that money. We hope enough people show up to justify that expense. That's, I mean, it sounds bad, but you got to think about it.

Rob Paterson (05:08)
it,

Courtney (05:09)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (05:10)
it's so sad when church sort of gets reduced to sort of dollars and cents sometimes, but you're right. There, there are economic realities that you do have to consider.

Jason Allison (05:14)
I know.

Courtney (05:19)
Mm.

Jason Allison (05:20)
Yes, yes, yes. You don't have to worry about that where you are Courtney, do you?

Courtney (05:26)
Not too much. mean, we occasionally get the ice or snow day, but generally speaking, we don't have to worry about that here in North Carolina either.

Jason Allison (05:35)
Yeah. well, well, speaking of amazing things, I don't know. I got no segue. I thought today as we really start building into leaders, like that's really what I want to focus on for the first quarter of 2025 as leaders, as pastors, as you know, what does it look like to lead well, to be healthy in the process, to, be, and I use the word successful.

Courtney (05:42)
Yes

Jason Allison (06:01)
but I use it with air quotes or an asterisk around it because the idea is what does it look like to truly lead the way God called you to lead within the context that you're in, within the setting, all that stuff. And so I thought we'd start out just by looking at the topic of basically listening to God or hearing from God. What does that actually look like for a leader, especially in the church though?

other leaders I think also need to be able to hear from God when the time is there. And so I guess maybe just to start it off, I'll just open it up to you guys. When I say listening to God, what comes to mind? What are the type things that as leaders in ministry, what do you think of when you think of listening to God?

Rob Paterson (06:53)
Um, you know, for me, I remember reading a great, uh, and it was, was probably maybe his least popular, but I thought it was incredible. Uh, Larry Osborne wrote a book called the contrarian's guide to knowing God. And, uh, and I, there's so many things that I could say about that book right now, but obviously that's not the, uh, the topic of our podcast. But one of the things that he kind of his big idea is the point is.

that we were able to connect with and hear from God, not the exact process that we took. And for so many people, I think, you know, it was this book that I read, it was a journaling experience, it was a devotional, whatever, you know, it was this passage of scripture. And so we excitedly say, you know, if you just read this book and do this devotion and pray this prayer, like, you know, like,

beams of light will shoot down and then other people do that exact same thing and they're like, it was like, like the ceiling was concrete and nothing was coming in or getting out. And, and so I love that, you know, he talks about how so many of our disciplines, so many of our practices are really designed for introverts who love to read and are of European descent.

Jason Allison (08:17)
group.

Rob Paterson (08:18)
where even biblically, mean, there's so much to do with being out in nature, like agrarian kind

of farming metaphors. Cause you know, people weren't educated. They worked the land and, raised animals and those kinds of things. So, you know, when I, when I hear that again, I think so many times we have these prescriptive ways of saying, if you do these five things, you're going to hear from God. And that may or may not be true because we, we each.

hear from God and connect with him, you know, maybe a little bit differently.

Jason Allison (08:53)
Courtney, what are you thinking?

Courtney (08:54)
Yeah, I think for me, it also kind of revolves around those kinds of spiritual practices, which like Rob said, like there are ways that the people of God have connected to God and heard from God all throughout history, whether they were literate or not, no matter what age they were in, whether they were children or older adults. And so it's kind of developing this kind of like whole life approach to toward God so that we're more open to him and attuned to him.

in such a way that like doesn't require, like Rob said, just like being able to actually read a book or something like that. Because I think so often the spiritual life that we hand people in church every single week is to like read your Bible. And that's like what we tell them to go and do. like, and they encounter God in His word because He is surely there and promises to meet us there. But that is also a particular skill and something that we couldn't have really prescribed to everyone to do for most of Christian history.

Jason Allison (09:40)
.

Courtney (09:53)
So how were Christians living the faith and passing down the faith and being devoted to the faith prior to, you know, the printing press, whenever it became really widely available. So those are kind of some ways that also resonate in my mind are those deeply experiential practices that you can do no matter what stage of life that you're in.

Rob Paterson (10:14)
Mm.

Jason Allison (10:14)
Yeah,

yeah, those are good. You suggested this book to me a while ago, Courtney, and I don't know. can't remember if we suggested it on during one of the podcast or it just a side conversation that we all had, but it's called Living and Wonder by Rod Trier. And it's an interesting book. He is Orthodox Christian. So Eastern Orthodox, Greek, whatever. There's lots of different, different versions, but basically, you know, it's Eastern Orthodox, which means

It's kind of Catholic, but on the other side. and so, but they are Orthodox in the truest sense. they're not heretics or anything like that. but, but I've been reading this book called living in wonder and, it's interesting to me how experiencing God or, or hearing from God, is something that. I don't know. We just kind of, we don't really spend time on it. Like we just assume that our gifts and the study that we did.

Rob Paterson (11:09)
Thanks

Jason Allison (11:12)
will produce the results that we need, whether it's our leadership skills or organizational skills or writing skills or preaching skills. Those are all skill-based ways of getting the outcome that we want. And yet in the process, I wonder, and to use his phrase, if we've not ended up being disenchanted from the actual presence of God in our midst. And so we just miss that because we're so amped up on doing

Rob Paterson (11:37)
Mm.

Jason Allison (11:42)
something and doing it well and all those things. And so I've just really been challenged in this over the last few weeks as I've been thinking through it and praying through it. really, actually, I mean, if I'm really honest, I'm learning how to pray all over again. I've got a ton of books that I've read on prayer. I've got tons of knowledge, right? But to actually engage God in prayer is such a... I don't know, it's almost like I said, I'm discovering it all over again.

and so I'm just, and I'm, maybe I'm projecting, maybe I'm just using this for my own personal therapy. I don't know, but I'm wondering if there aren't a lot of pastors out there and a lot of leaders out there who, if they were really honest, would say, I do this every week because I know I'm supposed to do certain things, but I study hard so that my message is good. And I try to do my best organizing and leading, but they don't really develop a true.

prayer life as a real strong spiritual center. don't know, Robin, am I just projecting onto everyone or do you think there's a little validity in that?

Rob Paterson (12:50)
No, no, I think that's true. I think it's true for all of us. I remember back to when I was in college and I was dating this girl. It was just for a few months, but we knew each other. We actually were camp counselors at the same camp one summer. It just became really, really good friends. And it was like that Christmas break we decided we would date, but she was going to school in Kansas and I was going to school in Indiana and we never saw each other. And it was back when

You know, you had to actually pay long distance bills. couldn't just call anywhere in the country, you know? So, you know, it, it was short lived, but I still remember that Christmas break. went to her parents' house, which was hours away. And then she came to my parent, like my family's house, you know, for a day or two each, just to hang out. And, I was talking one morning at breakfast to her dad.

And her family was a little bit more on the charismatic end of the spectrum. And I was, you know, I was just in college and I was learning all kinds of things and so excited about everything I was learning. And I was talking about, man, I want to, you know, not only get this undergraduate degree, but I want to get a master's and I want to get a doctorate and you know, I just want to, you know, keep learning. And, I still remember and probably, you know, in my head, I kept things okay on the outside, but he really cautioned me. He's like,

There's nothing wrong with learning, but a lot of times the more we learn, the more we rely on that and we actually lose some of our capacity to really trust in the Spirit of God and to hear from God because we just trust in our knowledge and in our sort of academic foundation. And as he was saying that to me, quite honestly, I can even still remember like internally this visceral response because I was so excited about this stuff and he just

hoard cold water and he wasn't trying to do that. He was trying to really, you know, be kind and give me what he believed to be very, very good advice. but quite honestly, like now decades later, I would say like there's some, there's some truth to what he said, you know, I mean, there's just after doing this for 30 years, there's just a lot of things that we know. And so we rely on what we know instead of really being

desperate to hear from God. And I really believe that being connected to and hearing from God is really like the lifeblood of church and ministry. And so, if what we are—what's fueling us is just our own learning and knowledge, we're probably missing out on a huge percentage of what God wants for us in our ministry and our lives.

Jason Allison (15:15)
I really believe that the best experience of God is really that his life was a certain memory. And so if one could look at he through, he would be...

Yeah,

yeah, yeah, I agree. Courtney, what are you thinking in this?

Courtney (15:42)
Yeah, no, I'm thinking a lot of the same things you are, Jason, because I mean, I, you know, not to toot my own horn, but recommended that book by Rodriere to you. And those are a lot of the same things that I had been thinking about for years now. My seminary had a particular emphasis on like spiritual formation and making sure you were spiritually guided through the process of seminary at the same time as like learning new things.

Jason Allison (15:49)
No.

Courtney (16:09)
And it was actually kind of weird. remember like a Christianity Today article as I was going through seminary that that was like apparently weird for a lot of seminaries to do. And it was becoming a thing that seminaries were doing and kind of making sure. But like I had like a mentor group professor where like we get together with five students and a professor every single week and all we do is pray for each other. And like that was their goal was kind of shepherd our spirituality throughout seminary and things like that, because you can begin to.

get destabilized as you're learning so many new things and then you try to figure out how to implement those in the church and you're trying to also figure out how to navigate moving from a non-leadership role into a church into a leadership role. And there's just a lot of things happening in there. And so I think for most people, it kind of starts in seminary because you were kind of told learn these things and then go do in the church. And there's this kind of gap as to like where the learning and the doing kind of come together, like kind of naturally meet.

And it's kind of seen as whatever you do on Sunday is separate from what you're doing the rest of the week. And you're kind of getting ready the rest of the week for Sunday and then Sunday is separate from the rest of week. And that's kind like your ministry life is kind of lived in these two movements between Sunday and the rest of the week. And just keep doing that for 52 more weeks every single year until you die. Right.

Jason Allison (17:18)
Or Jesus comes back.

Rob Paterson (17:19)
52 more weeks

for 52 more years. And then you, then you can retire and or die.

Courtney (17:22)
Yeah, for two more years.

Yeah, and so, so because of that, my seminary, guess, realized, you know, that the joke seminary is cemetery should die a literal death. And so they really worked hard to kind of expose us to some of these deeper spiritual practices. And I remember there was this book that we went through a couple books. Well, I'm just going to list them off. Anybody who's done spiritual disciplines knows of like Dallas Willard, Richard Foster and like renovare and stuff like that.

So start there if you've never done anything. That would be a really great place to start. But one book by Kenneth Boa called Conform to His Image kind of walk through like the Myers-Briggs in your personality type and kind of what spiritual disciplines are more fitted to your personality type. Like kind of what Rob was saying, if you're extroverted, then this is going to be kind of what you naturally lean towards. And if you're introverted, then this is going to be what you naturally lean towards and kind of how to cultivate your spirituality personally.

Um, with those ancient historic practices in the faith. So we've talked about what it were those practices that we've mentioned, you know, those are practices like fasting and prayer, silence, meditation, um, all of these Sabbath, regular Sabbath, um, a shared life of liturgy within the church, fasting and feasting, right? So those are lots of different things. And so somebody like me, who's an extrovert, I'm going to be all down on like the feasting, but the fasting aspects might be a little bit harder because those tend to be more.

a private introspective and things like that. So that was a really helpful book for me to begin exploring what it could be like to hear and experience God for me personally, and also begin to bridge that gap into how it could come to fruition in the lived worship life of the church. Because ideally, they should be giving and taking, you the individual moves into the body of the church and the body of the church moves back into the individual and vice versa.

Jason Allison (19:11)
Yeah.

What was the name of that boa book?

Courtney (19:23)
conformed into his image.

Jason Allison (19:25)
I just thought

I'd make sure and leave that in the show notes. Yeah. So let's get practical though for a minute. Cause those are all, that's all theory and that's all a book to read or a thing, know, day to day, week to week, we're always facing, there's another meeting. There's another thing that's got to get done. mean, stupid stuff like it year end giving statements have to go out cause it's January.

Courtney (19:29)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (19:53)
Like someone has to produce that, right? I mean, there's just so many things that have to be done. What do you think keeps us, what hinders us from truly being able to engage God, to hear from God in the rhythm of life?

Rob Paterson (20:10)
I mean, I think the big one is just our abhorrence of and complete resistance of living more simply and quietly. And so we just, every second needs to be filled with noise and activity and whether that's the TV being on or where are we going? What are we doing? You know, I mean,

There's just so much chaos out here and a lot of times in our heads as well. And so, you know, we just are so packed full. We don't have the margin and the space to really hear from God, even if that's the desire of our heart.

Jason Allison (20:52)
Yeah, that's good. What do you think in Courtney?

Courtney (20:53)
Yeah, I do think

that busyness is like, and kind of the biggest thing and like our schedules. It's very easy to see if you ever travel kind of outside of the U S where a society lives according to a different sense of time. Like, you know, they count the hours and the minutes just like we do, but they move at a different pace and they have a different sense of time. And so whenever you come back here, that's always what's kind of jarring for me personally. Coming back to the United States, whoever traveled abroad is like, wow, now I have to live at a different pace and.

It's at a different schedule. And so that distraction and busyness is really easy to let that overcome kind of the best intentions to slow down and be more moderate and minimalistic in our life. So I think that those things, the distraction, the busyness, which is why for me personally, setting up a rule of prayer really helped and coming from like the,

background that I did, was always seen as like prayer should be extemporaneous, it should overflow from the heart. And the more extemporaneous it was, and the more Spirit-filled or like Spirit-led it was, and I wasn't like from a charismatic background, but it still was, still seen as like kind of the ritual is bad, I guess, and things like that. But having a rule of prayer where I'm going to wake up every single day, I'm going to do this at this time, and I'm going to do it morning and evening, and then kind of like a noonday prayer of examine, those things really kind of help orient my day.

to where I didn't just allow the day to get away from me and forget about prayer.

Jason Allison (22:18)
Yeah, yeah, because I mean, I would say even some of the other things that I think hinders us, at least I've found historically in my life is there have been times success actually kept me from hearing from God more because I just kind of started believe my own hype, right? You know, I just I didn't have that much. Don't get me wrong. But when you're you know, when you things are going well and you feel like

Rob Paterson (22:39)
Yeah

Jason Allison (22:46)
the effort that I put in, the skills that I bring to the table are what is needed in a situation. You kind of look at God and say, Hey, I got this one. You can, you can sit this one out. We're all good, you know? And, and that'll come back to bite you really quickly. if you're not paying attention. And so I don't know. I think there's some pastors out there and some leaders out there who things are going really well and I'm really happy for them. Like don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you should be miserable and failing, but

But in the midst of the success, just remember that you gotta put just what you were saying, Courtney, those rules in place, right? The rhythms and the natural rhythms of your life where you're engaging God and you're being more and more aware of God around you. Yeah. And I think that leads to, you know, as we were talking about this book, that disenchantment, this idea that, and some of that too is historical and

we could go through all this stuff from the Reformation and the Enlightenment and how that really shifted the way we think, right? Even our epistemology of processing things more in a logical, left brain kind of way. And most of the past, it was more of a right brain, or maybe even a more balanced of the two.

right, that said, hey, let's think in terms of concepts and see what's going on and appreciate the aesthetic of everything and also understand the logic of why things are the way they are, but also tapping into the mystery and being okay with some mystery. And that's okay. That's where faith really steps in. So I feel like those are some things. mean, any others you want to throw out there of things that hinder us from really listening to God.

Courtney (24:24)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (24:39)
Jason, when you were talking about success being a hindrance, know, I mean, obviously we all want not only for ourselves, but for each other, you know, we all want success and fruit in ministry. But I really feel like the order that those kinds of things happen matters. Like when we're young, if we just have too much success, we just think again, I just, I might be God's gift.

to this vocation or whatever. Where I think when you're younger, if you experience some difficulty and hardship and you're like, man, this is really tough and people can be, I love them and God put me here to serve them and lead them and guide them and shepherd them. But man, like those sheep wanna bite the hand that feeds them quite often. I mean, if you have some of those experiences when you're younger,

and then experience some success when you're older, you have more of an appreciation. So I know for me, when, when, when, for me personally, for my family, for my church, when it seems like we're just in a season of blessing, because I have experienced, you know, difficulties and, and struggles and people and whatever. I, I, I almost am like, I sit back in awe and I don't want to mess it up because I know God is up to something.

in spite of me, not necessarily because of any greatness that I inherently possess myself. But again, if I had experienced success early on and just continued in that, I think how I thought about it and how I handled it would be drastically different. then Courtney, when you were talking about just pace and being in different parts of the world and how kind of slow they are.

Jason Allison (26:08)
Mm.

Yeah.

Rob Paterson (26:31)
We talked about this in a very early podcast episode. read a book called rest that actually was like all the scientific stuff and all these studies and literally throughout history.

you know, some of the most productive people, the people that solve the biggest problems came up with like, you know, like cures for diseases or, you know, wrote the most books where people who literally worked for like five hours a day and made sure that they,

had leisure time and rest built into their lives. Cause I think we have this sort of broken thinking that, you know, if you have too much leisure, too much rest, you're lazy when in fact, the opposite is true. if, if you work too much, there's this law of diminishing returns and we get too busy and even look at health stats, you know, like in our country, you know, we have so much innovation and so, you know, just so much.

awesomeness that comes from us working hard. and yet we do not live the longest and we are not the healthiest. You know, there are places that, that, you know, don't do as much, take it a lot easier and live longer and live more in a more healthy way. And I think all of these things are just like, you know, stuff that we as pastors and ministry people, we should embrace these things and say, Hey, like it's okay to slow down and

And in doing that, we're not only going to be healthier, but we're going to hear God more. We're going to help other people hear God. We're going to be better examples. yeah, I think, you know, just thoughts everywhere about the importance of all this stuff.

Jason Allison (28:07)
Yeah.

Courtney (28:14)
Yeah, I do like also resonate with what you were saying about success. And I think a lot of people might not tap their finger on like, oh, man, my ministry is so successful right now. Like, because they might kind of be looking at their ministry and thinking, oh, I could see it improving this way and that way. You know, they just did their year end review and they're looking at all the ways they want to project success into the future. Right. But what

Jason Allison (28:14)
Yeah.

Courtney (28:36)
that another way to reframe that success is kind of the norms of doing things. Like kind of that first time you ever preach a sermon, like you could never be praying harder in your life, you know? And like, Lord, please give me the words. I have no clue how to do anything. You're super self-conscious as you're like stepping up on the stage or stepping down from the stage. You're like, is this how people walk? You know, you don't even know how to do anything anymore. But then the more you get used to it, the kind of the more of a routine it becomes and you almost can.

pray less and still preach what you felt like was just as good of a sermon, right? And so it might not look like external success in terms of like, you you're building and your people, everything is growing numerically, but it is just like you've become more acclimatized to the routine of doing ministry, which is great. It means that God has grown you in your gifts to where, you know, the stress of doing ministry is not as great, but also then we need to just realize that maybe we are relying, we need to rely on God in new ways, right?

Rob Paterson (29:30)
Mm.

Courtney (29:31)
in new areas that would need to be stretched as well. So it might not look like success. It might just look like, I'm doing things normally.

Jason Allison (29:38)
Yeah. Well, and so with that, let's turn the page a little bit and say, what are some practices that people, leaders, pastors, I mean, I'm assuming that pastors know that they should pray and know that they should read the Bible outside of their sermon prep. But I also understand that, you know, just because we know that doesn't mean we actually do it. And so I'm just curious, like,

As you're thinking about practices, I'm going to start because I been using this thing with a men's Bible study that I've been leading that I learned from someplace else even. And it's been helpful. And I don't mean to steal Courtney, you know, the title of your company or anything, but it's a thing called the Kairos or the Kairos, depending on how you pronounce your Greek circle. And the idea is come straight from Mark 115.

And it just talks about how Jesus says the time has come is fulfilled, right? The kingdom of God is at hand and the word there is is Kairos. It's not the Kronos, you know version, but all that to say we need to see moments that are full, right? That's what a moment like that is. It's a moment where there is something happening that is more than just the succession of minutes. It's a moment where God is doing something.

And sometimes it's a wonderful, amazing moment. It's birth of a child, right? You get married, you see something happen that's amazing. Sometimes it's a horrible moment, right? It's when you get the call that you're fired or that the cancer is back or that you fill in the blank, right? And so what I've been working with this men's group is I'm trying to help them see every week the Kairos moments that are happening.

And then also take the time to review back through their life. Hey, what were some of those moments where I had a decision to make, right? I could respond in multiple ways. How was I? And then we go through the whole circle where we say, first is to observe. And some of this is the way I study scripture too. I observe what's actually going on. I reflect on what are my options, what are the things. And then I discuss it with a small group of people that I trust. And then you move in, cause Jesus says the time has come, you the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe that's the actions he tells them to take repent is basically saying hey That's the whole reflect observe reflect and discuss and then he says but believe and that's where you're not just saying What is God telling to me? You're saying what am I gonna do with it? And that's where you then begin to make a plan you get accountability and you say this is what I want to do But here's you know, will you hold me accountable to getting it done and then you act on it?

And hopefully after you go through that, that circle, the Kairos circle, when you get back to the top, the trajectory of your life doesn't stay on that plane that it was on instead. It increases a little, you know, there's some spiritual growth that happens because you've learned to listen to God in that moment, whether it was a simple thing, you know, interaction at work that you saw, God was doing something here. I want to pay attention to it. Or maybe it's a big thing. I've got a job offer. have to consider or.

you know, hey, we're pregnant. What now? Like those are those are big moments, obviously. So that's for me. That's what I've been working on. How do I take that and use that as a lens through which I, you know, just intake the world, so to speak, and intake scripture? Like what's going on? I try to put myself in the in the shoes of the characters that I see in scripture.

you with this men's Bible study, one of the first things we do is look at the story of Zacchaeus. Okay, well, what was the moment for Zacchaeus? Was it climbing the tree? Was it Jesus stopping everything and pointing at him and saying, I'm going to your house? Was it serving the meal? Was it, you know, where did that moment happen where everything changed? And so just learning to see, see that kind of thing through, the lens of scripture, which

Rob Paterson (33:48)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (33:53)
know, that's Lectio Divinia, that's Imaginative Reading, Meditation. There's so many things at play at that. But so for me, there's my little sermonette. Sorry, didn't mean to hog the conversation there. But what else do you guys see? What are some practical things that that leaders could engage?

Rob Paterson (34:12)
What do think Courtney?

Courtney (34:14)
Well, if I had to lead with one, it would be the Jesus Prayer that Rodger mentions in his book. It's this prayer from Luke with the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. When the Pharisee and the tax collector go to pray in the temple, and the temple is supposed to be a place where you know this is where you can go and meet God. This is the one place on earth where you can go to meet God. And the Pharisee beats his chest and says, thank God I'm not like this tax collector.

right? And the tax collector not even lifting his eyes to heaven says, Lord Jesus, well, he didn't say Lord Jesus Christ because he, you know, Christ is the one giving the parable, but forgive me a sinner. So the Jesus prayer is Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, forgive me a sinner. And it's this meditative prayer that reminds you of that state that which you're supposed to enter into the presence of God, because it reminds you that you're entering into the temple because God is everywhere present filling all things. So

He is nearest to you now as he is in any moment in time. And if only we could have eyes to see and ears to hear. And so that Jesus prayer just gives you that kind of moment of stillness that you can kind of breathe in and breathe out that prayer. And as you do it over time, eventually you'll just kind of become attuned to God's presence in your life. And that's a prayer that the monastics since, you know, like the desert fathers and like the third and fourth century, they prayed that prayer.

Jason Allison (35:36)
St. John of Christendom

is the one who kind of put that out there in, you 407, somewhere in that range. Yeah.

Courtney (35:44)
Yeah, yeah, St.

John Chrysostom was like, let's do this thing. And so it's been used for a really long time and it really does kind of help focus you. And whenever you tie it in with that scriptural meaning of like, this is whenever they were entering the temple into God's presence and it helps you kind of metaphorically enter the temple in your own space and time.

Jason Allison (35:48)
Yeah.

Yeah, one

thing I would add to that, just building on even more of what you were saying is it's not about doing it once. It's not even about doing it one day. It's about cultivating because it takes time to build that muscle of being able to calm yourself in the midst of Robbie already mentioned it, the craziness of the world around us, whether it's the inputs of TV and et cetera, or it's one more thing going on in the room around us. But to actually find that stillness.

Courtney (36:12)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (36:33)
You have to work at that and take captive every thought as Paul says, you know, and that just takes time and doing it over and over and then it's not for a couple of months, you know, after doing this on a regular basis that you just all of a sudden realize, wait, I'm able to find stillness in the midst of the chaos and I can hear from God in the midst of that that I couldn't have a few months ago. Rob, what are you thinking?

Rob Paterson (36:58)
Mm.

So, I got an idea and then I got like you, Jason. have like some points. so for me, one of the things is to, and I, and even for me to say this is frightening. and so I suspect some people hearing this are like, yeah, I would never choose to do that ever for any reason, but to intentionally,

Courtney (37:07)
We.

Rob Paterson (37:29)
take steps that create desperation, I think is important. Maybe a different way to say it is intentionally push yourself outside of your comfort zone as much as possible so you're not able to rely on what you know and what you've learned and sort of your past practices, but you really have to rely just on the Spirit of God. So for me,

again, a few kind of ways that I think about this. So like when I get ready to preach, I mean, I got the structure, I got notes and stories and like, and, and that is like, you know, like that creates a level of comfort for me. And so sometimes, you know, instead of just having, Hey, this is exactly what I'm going to say. You know, having a prompt here and there, where I have still have the structure, but you know what, like I got a prompt and.

If I want to just sort of run with it or, you know, not having everything fully manuscripted, but like speaking more extemporaneously on things that I'm just, I know, and I'm passionate about without, you know, like just creating some of that extra space. I remember being at a conference one time with a whole big group of people from my church and one of my staff guys, spouses was there. And, and I remember, you know, she heard this world-class communicator.

And she, and she didn't mean anything by it. This is going to sound horrific, but really she was, he used all sorts of great like illustrations and whatever. And she's like, wow, if you preach like that, my boys would listen more intently. And, and, and she had no idea again, how potentially offensive that sounded. But you know, what I wanted to say was, you know what? Like when I go somewhere else and preach, like I got, you know, a hundred illustrations, I know by heart.

that I can use, but if I use them in the church that I've pastored for 13 and a half years for the fifth time, everyone's going to go, he always tells that story, you know? So, so again, you know, we can do these things just, you know, easily, especially after years and decades, because we've done them so many times. And so I think we rely on our past preparation.

the things that were like, man, this always works, that story always hits and always lands, so I'm gonna tell it again. And here's one of the things that I think, and this is kind of where I'm landing my little plane. I think one of the reasons pastors tend to move as frequently as they do is because they have like two or three or four years of gold, and when they get through their content, it's a lot easier to actually move and reuse their

Jason Allison (40:13)
like two or three or four years old and when they get through the context, it's a lot easier to actually do.

Rob Paterson (40:22)
two or three or four years of gold somewhere else, than it is to try to find a brand new vein of gold. you know, like lightning doesn't strike every single day, right? And so that just creating the desperation, being tuned into hearing from God in ways that are transformative for us and for others, just takes so much work that sometimes we just wanna be like,

I've already done it. I've already done the work, so why can't I just keep reusing it? And again, I think doing that to an extent is kind of foundational and okay, but if that's all we ever do and don't, again, learn to put ourselves in situations where we have to and we're forced to hear from God and trust God, I think, again, we're gonna miss out on the kinds of fruitfulness and power that

Jason Allison (40:53)
Yeah. Yeah.

Thank

Rob Paterson (41:21)
God intends for all of us.

Jason Allison (41:23)
That makes me, reminds me Rob, we were interviewing Brian Dodd a year ago or so and we've got him lined up to come in the next couple of weeks. So we're going to hear from him again, because I love that guy. But he said something that has stuck with me and I haven't been able to shake it for over a year. He said in his travels, the churches that are truly growing, that are really seeing God do some amazing things. He said when he walks into the church,

every person that gets up on that stage to say anything, it is whether they're doing the announcements, whether they're doing a prayer, whether they're worship, or whether they're preaching, right? Every person that gets up there, it is so obvious that they spent time with Jesus during the week, that it just emanates off of them. And it doesn't matter what they say or how good the song is, or like, that's not the issue. But they've spent time with Jesus, and now they're helping the people around them also.

be excited and inspired truly to be with Jesus and to spend time with with Jesus. And, and I just, that just sticks with me because like you said, you know, I got some sermons I could pull out and they've I've used them in three or four different settings and they, just killed it all three. like I could pull that one out and do okay. But if I'm not spending time with Jesus during the week before I preach, I don't care how good the sermon is. It's, it's not going to land because I got to hear from God.

Rob Paterson (42:24)
with.

Jason Allison (42:48)
And the only way that happens is if I actually carve out time to do it and don't, can't skip that step. Uh, you know, it's like in working out, if you skip stretching, you're going to pull something, right? If you, you can't skip that step. Uh, and so, yeah, that's, that's what I'm thinking. Well, Hey, we're, we're, really need to wrap up cause we've been talking for a while and we're actually out of running out of time, but any, any last thoughts? Cause I want everyone to know, like we are here to help. And this year.

Courtney (43:06)
you

Jason Allison (43:18)
Like we would love for you to email us, know, connect with us, tell us some things that you're learning. You know, where's God moving? Because we want to expand the ministry of the Church Talk project and really begin to serve pastors in new and fresh ways and leaders of all kinds. So we would love to hear from you in that. Rob or Courtney, anything you want to say to bring us home?

Rob Paterson (43:44)
Yeah, again, I just I'll emphasize that, you know, we've said it for a couple of years now. We exist to engage with, equip and encourage pastors and leaders, people who are passionate about God and the ministry of the local church. And so any way we can speak into your life, encourage you, pray for you. We are all in on that. And especially like we talked today, you know, if we can all figure out how to help each other.

hear from God and listen to God more effectively, that, you know, we will all be better.

Courtney (44:22)
Yeah, I think my last word is, you know, whenever we say terms like listening to God or encounter God, a lot of times I know there have been times I wondered like, what do people mean by that? How do they hear God? I think so often the way that we think about that is like, as if God's going to show up like another person in the room, you know, and just start talking to us. And that's also how we like think of miracles happening is they just kind of like, something that breaks the laws of nature or something like that. But if all creation is something that

you know, God spoke into existence and comes by, comes forth from the words of his mouth and he's sustaining it even now. Then we don't have to wait for God to show up in the room. And so this is why we've talked about kind of developing practices to where we come, or attune ourselves to God's work in the world. We don't have to try to hear God. It's creation is already singing forth his praises and telling us of him. We just have to kind of slow down and then come to join God in what he's already speaking into our lives.

So it's not trying to hear another, it, find another person in the room, but try to encounter God who's already really real and living within us and like I said, is everywhere present, all things. And so that's why these practices of slowing down and prayer kind of help begin to open you up to how God is already moving in your life.

Jason Allison (45:34)
Amen. Amen. Well, thanks you so much for tuning in. We pray that you have an amazing week and we are here to serve you. Please reach out, do us a favor and take a minute and share the podcast with your friends and family and everyone else. If you think that they could learn from this and grow from this, do us a favor and like it and share it and subscribe and reach out, let us know because we're here to serve. Have an absolutely amazing week. Blessings. See you soon.