Tricia Lyons on Why Churches Should Be More Exclusive

>> Paul: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast, your source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church in the 21st century. At the Future Christian Podcast, we talk to pastors, authors and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical wisdom to help you and your community of faith

walk boldly into the future. Whether you're a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member of your faith community, this podcast is designed to challenge, inspire, and equip you with the tools you need for impactful ministry. And now for a little bit about the guest for this episode. >> Martha Tatarnic: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today, Loren Richmond Jr. Welcomes Dr. Tricia

Lyons to the program. Dr. Lyons currently teaches evangelism, works with the Lifelong Learning Team, and serves as the Senior Advisor to the Dean for Evangelism Initiatives at uh, Virginia Theological Seminary. She also directs the Evangelism formation Lab at VTS, a digital portal on YouTube and Facebook offering original content from the seminary as well as thoughtful curation of resources in evangelism and formation

for the wider church. Dr. Lyons was a lay chaplain and teacher of religion in episcopal schools for 20 years before being ordained a priest and then serving parishes in Washington, D.C. eventually serving as Canon for Evangelism in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. Currently, Tricia serves as a non stipendary priest at the Church of St. Clement in Alexandria, Virginia. Tricia is a member of the Presiding Bishop's Strategic Cabinet on Evangelism and one of the original writers of the Way

of Love. Tricia is an honors graduate from Harvard College, the Harvard Divinity School, and received her doctorate from the Virginia Theological Seminary. She is the author of four books on faith formation, the Soul of Adolescence, Teaching Faith with Harry Potter, what Is Evangelism? And her most recent, the Evangelist's Breviary. A, uh, reminder, before we start today's conversation, please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review and share Future Christmas with a

friend. Connect with Loren, Martha and Future Christian on Instagram. Shoot us an email at uh, laurensonatemediapro uh.com with comments, questions or ideas for future episodes. We appreciate your voice in how we faithfully discern the future of the church. >> Loren: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. This is Loren Richmond Jr. And I'm pleased to be joined today by Reverend Dr. Tricia Lyons. Hello and welcome to the show. >> Tricia Lyons: Good morning. Good to see you.

>> Loren: Yeah, thank you so much for being here. Anything, uh, else you want to say about yourself? >> Tricia Lyons: Oh, uh, let's see. Beyond the bio. Um, well, my spouse And I, about two years ago bought a farm, about 150 acres. Uh, in northern New Jersey. I grew up in New York, and let's just say I didn't grow up hearing great things about New Jersey. So that was very much a God thing that, uh, we'd always dreamed of. Um, we both

teach at Virginia Theological Seminary. So we both had always dreamed about after that maybe living in some kind of intentional, uh, community, something a little more in nature. Um, and this family farm opened up in New, uh, Jersey. So now we sort of live in both places, um, uh, hoping to finally settle here. So that's a long way of saying I'm sort of a farmer, which I never saw coming, uh, growing up just outside New York City. Um, but it's mostly. It's like the Hogwarts grounds,

if you read those stories. It's mostly deep woods with trails. Um, but we do have some fields. And just this last year we did a lot of donating of our food to local food pantries. And we have rescue dog organizations that train here and hunters that donate their meat, uh, um, to people, uh, who need it. Uh, so we've sort of stepped into this whole agrarian ministry. So that's the kind of thing I don't know how to put on a form. I don't want to call myself a

farmer. But, uh, so for those who are listening, who have, um, no people like that, or who are people like that who are thinking about the church kind of outside, um, the walls, uh, and being church to a community and sort of opening up the. That you have for other people that have skills, but they don't have land. Um, so that's this interesting last, most recent chapter I've stepped into. So I'm sure that's not listed, um, on the bio, but just add farmer to it.

>> Loren: This is obviously an audio podcast, but for me, and anyone who sees clips of this might see your background looks like a little bit of a Hallmark movie behind. Uh. So that's a nice image from. >> Tricia Lyons: I'm at the farm right now. So, um, uh, I've got my stockings up and I've got my tree up and, uh, yeah, over the mantle. I'm sure who are listening, but I'm up for putting that stuff up early and, uh, leaving it up to the feast of Candle

mass, which is February 2nd. So we stretch out the season for as much of the winter as possible here. So, yes, lights are blinking and everything right behind me. >> Tricia Lyons: Yes, indeed. >> Loren: Yeah. Share, if you would, kind of about your faith journey, what that's looked like, uh, in the past and what that looks like today. >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah, um, like many Episcopalians, um, the majority of Episcopalians, actually I'm a former Roman Catholic.

Um, I was raised in, uh, the Catholic Church, uh, an Irish Catholic in New York, which is sort of its own denomination of Catholicism in some ways. Um, I, uh, live right across the street from a Catholic church. Uh, so it was sort of an extension of our home. Um, and I just loved the Catholic Church. Uh, I really wasn't aware of many other kinds of churches. Um, but I loved it. I went to Mass,

uh, every day when I was, uh, in high school. I went to a public school, but I would sneak over to Mass at 6:45 and then go down the street to my public school. I just couldn't believe that, um, you could do church on Sunday. But then I found out you can actually do church every day. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. Um, but also when I was a child, I was 8 years old and, uh, my older sister, um, was killed in a car accident. She, um, she was 12 years

older than me. So she, um, had a real hard time in high school kind of finding herself. And I watched that as a child, kind of at the top of the stairs, all the, um, my brother and I. So this poor teenager had these two young, um, siblings. Uh, so she really struggled and eventually it was, um, a drunk driver. Um, but I just throw that out because that, um, I would say at 8, 9, 10. Um, that's where I really began asking what I would now call sort of theological

questions. Um, this God I'd already fallen in love with at 5 years old. I thought going to church was the best thing in the whole world. Um, so my parents, it took them a few years to kind of even recover language for God. I mean, your first child of course was a nightmare for them. She graduated from high school and she was ready to start her life. Um, so that was sort of my theological curiosity. Um, and I think I came back to the church

in some ways before they did. We'd, uh, just go across the street and just sit in the church. Um, so I loved my Catholicism very strong. Went off to, um, Harvard College, which was not exactly a very religious place, but it had always been my dream to go there. Um, and when I got there I actually bumped into some evangelicals. And like most environments, you know, the more sort of agnostic or atheist, the major culture is kind of the more on fire, the

sort of parrot. So that the Jews who were there were just, you know, a lot of them are just incredibly observant, joyful Jews. And it went across the board. So I spent about four years very involved with something called Campus Crusade. >> Tricia Lyons: Uh. >> Tricia Lyons: Hm. And boy did I learn the Bible. Oh my gosh, I had no idea. I mean they all thought that I grew up with superstition and accept Christ as my Lord and Savior, which I did my freshman year.

Wanted to cover all my bases. >> Loren: Hm. >> Tricia Lyons: Um, but I learned a lot about ministry and now looking back, I learned a lot about what you'd call lay ministry.

>> Loren: Mhm. >> Tricia Lyons: Um, because as you know, so many of these groups, Navigators, intervarsity, Campus Crusade, all those groups, yes they have staff, but the whole notion of ordination, which had been kind of the obsession of my Catholicism and frankly on bad days can really be uh, a real hang up in the Episcopal Church where I am now. I had a couple of years where we were believers, we were disciples. Um, there was definitely a hierarchy of teaching

in some sense who the teachers were. But I'll never forget those four years of kind of the pressure of being in such an agnostic. An agnostic, uh, I mean an atheist, um, learning and teaching environment to just bonding with these other folks, knowing that um, being baptized was all you needed. Um, and then after that, uh, by the end of my twenties, I started um, back in the Catholic Church and was um, now a mix of all things like many American Christians are.

And uh, then actually realized that I was a gay person. Which was a um, bit of an inconvenience at the time. >> Loren: Yeah. >> Tricia Lyons: Um, as a Roman Catholic. And so I researched and I um, was really drawn to the Episcopal Church which is very similar in the sacramental life of the Catholic Church. It was very hard then and frankly it's kind of hard now. I'm sort of a theologically conservative person, um, on scripture and tradition and authority.

Um, so uh, it was hard. It was hard. I said I've never stopped loving the Catholic Church. But um, the feeling wasn't mutual. So it's very hard to be in a church where I wasn't allowed to. I'd done graduate work and everything else and I was already teaching Catholicism, um, and moral theology was my main interest. So it's very hard when you can't receive communion in your own church without lying. So

that was unsustainable. So then I um, came down to Virginia, um, ah, from the Boston area and started attending Virginia uh, seminary to kind of get a new education for this ah, new church. And that was 20 years ago and I became ordained. Uh, so now I'm an Episcopal priest

and I still teach at Virginia Seminary. But again, the Episcopal Church is well over 50% of it is former Roman Catholic. So um, I sort of left the Catholic Church and joined the uh, Catholic, um, section in the pews, you would say, of the Episcopal Church. So it's been a journey of different faiths. But um, honestly that's my

experience of a lot of Christians now. Um, the whole notion of being born into one church and if you do marry, marrying someone of the same denomination, I just really don't meet anyone like that anymore. And we all kind of have this quilt that gets knit together. >> Loren: Yeah. I suppose that the Episcopals are great at keeping data. So is there data on that that 50% of episcopals are ex Catholics? >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah. Ah, it's probably over 60% now.

>> Loren: Wow, that's. Wow. Okay. Interesting. >> Tricia Lyons: Honestly, I would love to believe one of the things I teach at seminary is evangelism. Um, and I'd like to think that this was kind of an achievement of evangelism, but it's not. I mean the Episcopal Church, um, our desire is that people are

growing and having encounters with Christ. So I really don't know many Episcopalians that would want someone who was encountering Christ in the Baptist Church or the Catholic Church to pull them away from that. That's not what I mean. The problem in the Catholic Church is they are losing for every baptism. I think they're losing about nine people and not to death. Um, so they have the largest kind of bleed out rate of any form of

Christianity in this country. I mean when I grew up there were 90 million Catholics in America. Um, they have a fraction of that now. So what's happening is, and it's really over one or two teachings, you know, that you can't use birth control for any reason. Abortion is um, wrong in every setting. Um, so with no exceptions. And that you can't receive communion once you've been divorced. >> Loren: Yeah. >> Tricia Lyons: And I remember my mother was actually an orphan who was

raised by Catholic nuns. I mean I couldn't love the Catholic Church more than I do. It really was a matter of, you know, who I was, couldn't serve communion. But

I, um, have a great love for that church. But there's no question that those um, kind of moral teachings, um, is creating this exodus of people leaving the Catholic Church, when you think about it, for moral reasons, which is very different than church decline, you know, they're leaving because of their love of someone who's impacted by those teachings or their love of themselves who's impacted by those teachings. So it's a very Interesting group of people who are leaving the church because they

want more intimacy with God. They have a stronger view of more maybe inclusive view, you might say, of the moral life. So it's a wonderful place to be in the Episcopal church because these 50 or 60% of our congregations, I mean, it changes regionally, right? >> Loren: It depends. >> Tricia Lyons: The average is well over 50%. Um, and it's really, frankly, it's American Catholics who just don't want the divided conscience anymore. They love the music, they love the sacraments,

but you have all that in the Episcopal Church. What you don't have is this kind of secret you keep, uh, in the pews, that there's a few things. So my great prayer for the Catholic Church is that they listen to people's experience of that and realize that they're not losing people because the country is becoming more atheistic. >> Loren: Yeah. >> Tricia Lyons: They're losing people because their daughter is divorced and she left a marriage that was abusive, and she now is

in a marriage that isn't. And she's coming fully alive. Uh, and that family of all generations is just looking for a version of Christianity with the Eucharist and baptism that loves her as much as they do. So that's my prayer. My prayer is that they did it. But until then, I mean, if you go into an Episcopal Church, I mean, you're gonna. If you look around, you're gonna see a lot of people whose name is O'Malley and Rivera, um, ah,

And Kozwalski. And basically, they're just all these ethnic Catholics who found their way to a church that affirms their moral, um, epic struggles and doesn't sort of make decisions at the beginning. >> Loren: Yeah, that's such an interesting thing you share. I don't want to spend too much time on this, but I'm remembering how I'd heard this from an evangelical source, that there's a lot of Catholics coming to evangelical churches.

Obviously, they're going to have similar views on abortion, but they're going to be far more open on, you know, communion and divorce. Obviously. I, uh, mean evangelicals far more, I suppose, ambiguous. Right. On birth control. Some communities are more accepting than others, I guess. Right. But interesting nonetheless. Um, well, that's.

>> Tricia Lyons: Let me say one thing about that. With the. These statistics, I'm, um, one of the largest megachurches, um, Willow Creek, right out of Chicago. Um, years ago, um, I think one of the times Bill Hybels came back after his first retirement, they. They decided to do a large study of the congregation, um, because what they were Finding is, although they kept getting new members, they, they finally were admitting that they were losing

about a third every few years out the door. They're just so good at bringing in people. >> Loren: Right. >> Tricia Lyons: Um, but. And they did a huge study. A couple of books have been written about it, and they published their findings. And the risen people were leaving. You're ready for this, Willow Creek, right? One of the, like, you know, platonic forms of the megachurch. People said they wanted to read more scripture, they wanted to learn to pray, and

they wanted more time in silence. Uh, yeah. Now Willow Creek, I mean, this was a, ah, earth shattering finding for Willow Creek. Um, they wanted a closer relationship with Jesus, they wanted to learn to pray and read the scripture and things like that. And what they realized is they'd become such a presentation ministry, um, and hadn't put as much, these are their words, not mine, hadn't put as much ministry, um, into forming people who can form other Christians.

Which, uh, is very different than, uh, having people accept Christ and then teaching them to have other people accept Christ as their Lord and Savior. That's not a small thing. Um, but that's different than forming the whole life of the believer. Practices of prayer, practices of repentance, practices of fasting, practices of silence, and forming them to help other people with words or with, not without words, form other people into people of practice and hope. And they realize this sort of.

>> Tricia Lyons: They had all the money in the. >> Tricia Lyons: World to have the professional everything, musicians, lighting, set design. But that doesn't form people, first of all, that when they leave the, you know, and you can send them as many newsletters as you want, as many texts. And they've been very good

at that. They've been attracting the technology from the beginning. But they realize that's really not the same as doing this ancient, what we used to call the catechumenate in the church, which is coming alongside people over the entire liturgical year and rising up mentors around them and having the chief goal that the person literally live into every dimension of their life to be lost in

Christ in all things. So that's what they weren't doing. But there's a lesson there for all of us, um, which is that, you know, when we take people into our communities, um, it's America, right? We're so good at the show. Um, and I'd rather great music than bad music, right? So these are not bad things. I'd rather feel welcome and see hospitality than not see hospitality. But these things are not virtues. Um, and the practice of hospitality is just that it's practicing good manners, not

being rude, not being. Being a stumbling block to someone coming back. Honestly, that's not forming a Christian. Jews are hospitable. Muslims are hospitable. And like most Christians, some of the most hospitable people I know are atheists or agnostics precisely because they're spiritual seekers who believe anything could be God or something like it, or any piece of nature should be

respected as other people. So, um, hospitality is not a spiritual virtue in that sense, and it doesn't form Christians any more than the Boy. >> Tricia Lyons: Scouts that's, you know, forms Christians. >> Tricia Lyons: But we'll get to that, I'm sure. >> Loren: Yes. This is a great lead in to the purpose of our conversation. What I want to explore today with you, Tricia. So I came across Tricia and her, her enthusiasm for what we might call exclusivity. And stay with

us listeners here. Uh, via. >> Tricia Lyons: It sounds like I'm pro root canals, but that's okay, keep going. >> Loren: I'm with you via. Uh, what even is the podcast? The, uh, Try Tank podcast, A podcast I produce for, uh, Lorenzo Labrija and the Tri Tank. What are they calling themselves? Laboratory Think Tank. I don't even know anymore. >> Tricia Lyons: The Innovation Laboratory. >> Loren: Innovation Laboratory. They're a great resource. Lorenzo is doing

great work. Uh, I'll try to remember to leave a link to this episode that I'm referencing in the show notes. Um, but anyway, as I was listening, I was like, holy smokes. Tricia is talking about something that I feel like I don't hear enough in Mainline Circle. So two things here that I want to kind of introduce the topic. You said, talking about Willow Creek. You didn't use the words, but certainly Willow Creek really trumpeted

what we'd call the seeker sensitive model. Like you said, the lowering of the barriers, the easy entry. I'm also thinking how this. You said something to the effect of hospitality not being formative. Now it's, to me at least, mainliners have taken the seeker sensitive model in a different approach of becoming. We're going to be super hospitable, welcoming to all people, you know, all are welcome, everyone is welcome sort of thing. And it seems like it's not

tracking. I mean, uh, we'd, uh, say, broadly speaking, like the data is showing, like it's not tracking, like we're losing people hand over fist. So let's talk about this kind of, I don't know, approach to be everything to everyone and why that's not. Why that doesn't work. >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah, it doesn't um, let's just begin with that. It doesn't. It's not working. It hasn't worked. There are very few examples in Christian history going back to Jesus that this view has ever

worked. Um, I'm just shocked at the track record of failure of the low bar for Christianity because it's a complete perversion of what Christianity is. So I'm glad it hasn't worked. I'm not cheering for it to work, um, because it's not giving people, um, abundant life. Um, it's like a cruise that leaves, that has a cruise director who's the pastor or the minister or the priest or whatever. And that's who you send the emails to. If the food isn't hot enough, um,

you participate. But it's not what we call being the body of Christ, being an actual, like a corporal member. Um, a member. Like I have members of fingers, they're members of my hand. Um, and I understand where it comes from. It's centuries of Christians being in charge of the empires, um, and the countries and the governments. Um, and what comes with that is the kind of assumption that your citizenship in France or your citizenship in Ireland is what makes you a Christian. Yes,

baptism. But it's really cultural expressions. The Orthodox Church has this too. If you're born in Moscow, you're a Muscovite Christian. Um, uh, so you have your own patriarch. And the problem when you become the emperor, become the empire, is, uh, joining the faith, um, becomes a matter of sort of government and politics and things like that. And as a result, then you sort of take on the cultural matters of whatever the Catholic state is again.

France, Germany, what have you. So this is the got served as well, uh, in the 1500 years after Constantine turns this movement of the first three centuries of the Church into, um, a political identity. And he puts the cross on the shield and he claims that the bit of his horse was, you know, um, uh, the nail that went into Jesus on the cross. And all of a sudden we get all this mixed. Um. So I'm not for some kind of ahistorical pre Constantinian Christianity,

but what I am saying is that we've reached a point now. We don't want to offend people. That's important. That's kindness. But M. Again, girl scouts, boy scouts, the united Way. You know, there's plenty of organizations that you could join that could teach you to be kind to people and not hurt people's feelings. Um, I think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's autobiography, you know, the Cost of Discipleship you open it up, first

quotation on the first page. The call to follow Christ is the call to come and die. Now, don't be wrong. I probably wouldn't lead with that, with a seeker. Um, but, gosh, there's something that's just. I find when you share that with even teenagers and you talk to them about it, um, there can be this kind of longing

in them. Why the Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Harry Potter, Black Panther, if you add up all those epics, you know, because Star wars, you know, goes back to, I think, 78, May 26, 1978 was when the first Star wars, you know. >> Loren: Better than I do. >> Tricia Lyons: Um, sounds right. >> Tricia Lyons: That was, I think. >> Tricia Lyons: I think it was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater. So I thought

that was a movie. And then I saw another one after it and I was really, like, down that. They all don't work like Star Wars. Um, but we're talking about 3 billion billion people, um, who have engaged those narratives either through film or through books or both. And they all have such common elements, and none of them have

anything to do with hospitality. Yes, hobbits are hospitable, but if you get to the end of the Lord of the Rings series and think the lesson to be learned from hobbits, right, is be hospitable. I mean, it's like reading, you know, um, Moby Dickens, thinking the whole thing is about a fish. I mean, you've missed the point. Hobbits save the world because they are so committed to each other, to friendship. No going back. Burn the ships, vows to each other that they.

And their desire to die for each other if need be, just sort of extends in concentric circles into other communities in which they wind up moving. They will die for others. And, you know, Star Wars, I mean, just go down the line and all these epics have, have older people, right? It's like the hero's journey. You know, Gandalf, there's a Dumbledore, there's Obi Wan Kenobi. And they all teach the person about a, uh, tool like a lightsaber or a wand or

so I don't care what anybody says about. Nobody wants a high bar. People will. Won't join your church if you ask them for money. People won't join your church if you ask them for time. I don't know what movies and books these people are reading because 3 billion people seem very moved. When Frodo says, I will take the ring, I will go. I will give my life, I will Serve. It's like marriage. As a minister, I marry people. Um, and some people

use the phrase, others update it. Um, I will take you and forsake all others. >> Tricia Lyons: Now, someone could say, well, that's a. >> Tricia Lyons: Hard thing to say. Yes, it is. What the heck would marriage, even a contract of any kind, be if you. >> Loren: Said, sweetheart, until this gets inconvenient. >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah. >> Tricia Lyons: Let's keep the bar low. So I'm gonna ask you to be polite in this marriage. I'm gonna ask you to be forgiving. But

if you're not, it's fine. I'm not gonna leave you. And as for forsaking all others, let's, like, try the monogamy thing. But. But that gets hard. That's also negotiable. Um, imagine if the college accepted you, but, like, two weeks into your freshman year, you didn't show up for a seminar, and they said, well, we accepted you, but, you know, now we're just gonna tell you to leave. Not because you failed,

but, you know, we said you were one of us, but you're not. I mean, so all around people, culturally, um, organ donation. I mean, I could just go on and on. There are so many times when someone puts their name in ink. They take a vow. They have an understanding of trust. Um, and yet in the church, we are afraid to, um, say to people. >> Tricia Lyons: Here'S how the universe works.

>> Tricia Lyons: There is a Creator. And in every world religion that we've been able to find and read its pictures, uh, and listen to its music and read its poetry, if possible. If it was written down, maybe it's just symbols we find in a cave. We notice that there is a sense that life comes from a creator and that life is about trying to be in relationship with that creator. And Christianity is. It's like the Sesame street song. One of these things

is not like the other. Christianity is not that. That I just said it is not that. It is not to try to seek a relationship with the Creator. It is not Simon says, to live like the Creator or any emanation or incarnation of the Creator. >> Tricia Lyons: It is not that. >> Tricia Lyons: That's exhausting. We can't do it. Christianity says the Creator becomes. Becomes a creature. So the creatures don't seek a relationship with the Creator.

The Creator incarnates the Creator into the creature and lives out the relationship between creator and creature as one. And through faith, a Christian is allowed to join the body of Christ that was incarnate of all of God, the triune God. And if we join that body of Christ through faith, through the sacraments

and there's different ways you could define it. We then by putting our lives into the life and the body of Christ, then the triune God who incarnated into the actual body, the full human body of Christ, fills our life. That is unlike any other seeking religion that you, whether it's Greco Roman mythology, whatever it is, that this notion is that the creature is seeking a relationship with the Creator, like a friendship or an affair or a marriage that has nothing to do

with. But again, this is a formation thing. And different branches of Christianity are better at some parts of it. They nurture, uh, a connection with the Bible itself and the Word and that's their intimacy. Other people, it's the sacrament. But I do believe we've kind of lost this idea that your whole life is what you offer to be grafted, as St. Paul says, grafted onto the body of Christ. That is a huge life change. It's

not. Christianity is not an idea. It's just not an idea that God loves us, we love God. But no, I mean, it has the fruit of those things. But Christianity is a physical experience where your body is grafted onto the body of Christ. And therefore when Christ dies, when we die, Christ dies with us. But because Christ rises, our body has been grafted onto his, we rise. So everything that when Christ is transfigured, you know, in the Gospel of Matthew, um,

that's our future. So all of a sudden, when you join the body of Christ, everything that happens to Christ, the suffering, the betrayal, the loneliness, the torture, the death on the cross, we will share that. But the truth is we were going to share that anyway, right? I mean, life has all that. But because he rises, we rise because nothing that happens to his body doesn't happen to any body that is part of his body.

So that's a lot to say. On the other hand, because we're not saying that Christianity has become a membership organization like the Rotary, and like the rotary, only 10% of people go compared to 1980. >> Loren: Yeah. >> Tricia Lyons: So we're failing as, um, ah, a voluntary association because we were never meant to be that. It's meant to be this total experience of your life joining the body of Christ on earth, which means joining the

church, which means our bar for membership at the very least has to include what I just said. So people really understand what they're being invited to. Because you know what, they may not want to suffer with Christ. You become a Christian. Dorothy Day, you know, um, great 20th century Catholic social, um, justice warrior, she talked about becoming a Christian, made her Sadder than she'd ever been, because as soon as she became part of the body of Christ, she could start to feel

things that other people were experiencing. She had this solidarity with all of humanity that has joined the body of Christ and she could literally feel it. So she kind of said, don't become a Christian if you want to feel good. Because if you take on the body of Christ, you are going to mourn, you are going to, uh, grieve, you are going to cry out for injustice because you are going to feel it's not just your body. What's the verse? It is no longer I who live.

>> Loren: Right, but Christ in me. >> Tricia Lyons: The life I live in, the body I live by faith in the Son of man who loved me and gave himself for me. So we should say to people, not we dare you to be Christians, because this isn't some kind of game, right? We have to present them with this invitation. Are you ready for your life

to be brought into the life of Christ? Which means you are going to hurt, you are going to suffer with the whole world, but your tomb will be empty because his was. >> Loren: You said so much good stuff here. I want to reflect and kind of just highlight some of the key themes that I heard. One is, I'm thinking of an episode that just released. I'll make sure again to put the link in the show notes. My co host, uh, Martha Tatarnic, Canadian Anglican. I, uh,

don't know if you know her. You should connect with her. Uh, she just released an interview with Mike Cosper and I imagine you're somewhat familiar with Mike Cosper from his Rise and Fall, the Mars Hill podcast. He just put out a book, um, recommend the book. >> Tricia Lyons: I used to listen to the Mars Hill. Yeah, they were audio tapes, right.

>> Loren: What was so interesting about uh, the Mars Hill story that he talks about in this conversation with Martha is like it was a high bar to entry like Mark Driscoll for good or bad. And we can leave that. Obviously there was some bad, but there was a high bar of expectation. Um, a. So, you know, I'm hearing that from what you said too. I'm thinking of the. You said something to the effect of like

Christianity is not that. And I think there's been this trend in certainly mainline liberal progressive circles. Like I remember doing this in seminary where we take the multi faith cultural. I don't

remember what the class was. Where there's this kind of like, because we want to bring down this obviously not good prejudice and bias and violence in uh, the name of religion that we Kind of synchronize our faith and religion to the point that it's just, like, about hospitality and being nice to one another. You know, I'm thinking about the song we love to sing, at least in circles. I'm a part of Draw the Circle. Draw the circle wide. Like, we want to draw the circle. Uh,

but also, like, uh, I'm reflected recently. Like, can we have, like, the circle. Can it be wide, but can we have lines on what the circle is and is not? And then finally, I think you're familiar with this. I think it's Priya Parker who wrote the book the Art of Gathering. And she wrote. She wrote about how for there to be cohesion or not cohesion is not the right word. But, um, really, like, stickiness. For a group to have bonds or stickiness, there has to be some high levels of

expectation. So all of this sounds completely counterintuitive. It sounds like an anathema. It sounds just completely paradoxical to, whether implicitly or explicitly, how mainliners have been training pastors and church leaders to do it for at least as long as I've been a part of mainline Protestantism. Why is that? >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah, well, uh, you know, you say mainliners, I always call them manner liners. Um, because I find a lot of

mainline Christianity is not Christianity. It doesn't make martyrs. Yeah, that's for. >> Loren: Yeah. Mannered liners. I love that. >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah. No, it's. >> Tricia Lyons: It's. >> Tricia Lyons: And again, manners help us communicate in certain cultural contexts and only in certain cultural contexts. And it's important to know your cultural context. So I'm not saying that there's anything noble about being rude.

>> Loren: Right, Right. I mean, that's certainly. That's a thing right now in the right far right is, like, where it's gonna be rude to just be a jerk. So we're not saying that, right? >> Tricia Lyons: No. Right. There's no nobility, um, in, um, being iconoclastic. >> Loren: Yeah. >> Tricia Lyons: Which is to really take a very important word, icon. Uh, to be iconoclastic, um, is to really. To shatter norms. That also is not an end in itself.

>> Loren: Yes. >> Tricia Lyons: You want to stand in a room. >> Tricia Lyons: Of broken glass at the end of. >> Loren: The day, which, again, I'm trying to cut you off. But, like, that's. There's these. These. These are. We're both passionate about the subject. These are, like, the two moves right now in, like, progressive Christianity. Either we're gonna be. We're gonna draw the circle so wide that there are no limp boundaries, or we're just gonna

smash things. To smash things. >> Tricia Lyons: So when we think about something again like marriage. They, that this, this notion that, that, that Christians, mainliners, um, or manner liners basically as we were saying, um, have taken on that that the more you draw the circle out the more and here's the words that are used and these are not unvaluable. Like these are values to be, to, to present yourself to people as

inclusive. Remember, um, for generations now we live in a society of deceit and divorce and division. So people have trauma from that. We have sort of a collective trauma about being just dropped um, by uh, people we care about. You know, so people don't want to take the risk. You know, we have cortisol and

adrenaline. I mean there are chemicals on the side of not wanting to make yourself vulnerable to a community, um, especially if you study any kind of Christianity in the 20th century alone, um, with the abuse of leaders and of money and of cultural. And so to actually look at people and say why don't you want to join something? Is just not taking seriously how much damage. Any

kind of religious community. It could be the Girl Scouts or the Boy Scouts, I mean just name it, um, the Amish, um, uh, uh, Boys and Girls Clubs. I mean no one has been free um, from the abuse, um, of vulnerable members of communities. So anyone whose community shy is not withdrawn, um, or over anxious. I mean that's just someone who's aware of the danger of any kind of community, any kind of marriage, any kind of friendship. Right? So we have to respect that. But what's our answer to that?

Do we form the convictions of our community based on the fears of those who might join it? I don't think that's the answer. You know, I think the answer is that the community has to live up, up to a rustable organization. And that's hard. It's a lot easier to say we will take everyone and we won't trigger anyone's concern by having no ask, no high bar because we don't want to turn people

away. The truth is then what we're offering, which is what the especially people under 50 that I know, I mean from age 5 to 50 are saying, what is it about who you are that is an invitation not to another thing. The Internet will always have more things than we can offer our people. The United Way will always be better at social justice and the um, defamation leagues around us will always be better at fighting

anti Semitism. So when mainline churches fall into social service or even social justice organizations, quite frankly our coffee isn't as good as Starbucks. Our community organizing you know, is rarely ah, as good as organizations that are aimed at uh, community. It's an insult to people who are getting doctorates or have spent 50 years without any education at all. You know, migrant workers, farm workers. We're gonna, we're gonna do community organizing better than like them.

No, there's a conceit to that. We have to say what does Christianity offer the world? And I go back to what I said before. It offers the individual person an opportunity to the extent that they can. I mean whenever someone has an understanding of ministry and it doesn't include a non verbal autistic teenager in your, in your faith community, your understanding and your invitation to the Christian faith is shallow.

It, there has to be room for every created being, whatever, however they present, define, whatever their abilities are, whatever their charisms are. We have to have this view that Christianity is an invitation to take your life and to merge it not by coercion. This is why, you know, predestination, double predestination, um, are to me like disgusting ideas. Sorry. The Calvinists who are out there, um, those of you reformed theology. I don't know what was up with Calvin. I know at

26 he wrote the institutes of the Christian religion. I wish Calvinism had, as Calvinism culturally had as much mystery and interesting um, and sacramentality as that original work. Thomas Aquinas actually really started on the Summa when he was 26. Um, so you know, young people can have great ideas, um, but this idea that the human person, um, according to Calvinism, is totally depraved, that we are somehow not able as people as we

are right now. Whoever you are listening, not listening, um, uh, in a coma.

The idea that we cannot as people as we are, enter into the life of Christ on earth through the body of Christ on earth. So how does the person who's bed bound, who's a non verbal autistic, let's uh, say in bed, how do they interact with the body of Christ? The people around them part of the body? Better darn well get over there and pray and sing or sit in silence and be a presence and give these opportunities for people to be grafted on

to the body of Christ. And remember, God doesn't need any of us to go into that room. Whether it's a hospital room or an apartment or a jail. That's the colonialism, right, that we bring Christ to people. What happens is we have the opportunity to be part of Christ coming to a person. So we have to start saying to people, this is what Christianity is It costs you everything. It requires everything. It encompasses everything. CS Lewis said a phrase that people probably seen on

mouse pads. Um, I do not believe in Christ. I believe in Christianity, as I believe the sun has risen, and that not only do I see it, but by it, I see everything else. So, again, it's not just an idea among many. Like, some of your head thinks about capitalism, some of your head thinks about, um, veganism, and then some of your head thinks about Christianity. If you're thinking of it like that, we've already lost. Um, and of course, if you think of it like that, then having a high bar is

pull away and express your view somewhere else. But Christianity is not a moral enterprise. We fail it as a moral enterprise. That's why it hasn't worked to invite people to, I don't know, be better people. CS Lewis said, you know, Christianity makes you a new person, not a good person. We've, uh, had plenty, uh, of wicked Christians. So the offer is not to join a moral life. The author is to do this incredible thing, which is to go into the font and drown. The font is really just

the tomb turned on its side. We're invited to die to the individual that we are, and the burden of all of creation that crushes us with choice and guilt, collective guilt. Um, and you watch a, um, story about the Holocaust, um, and you could be crushed just by your participation in humanity. What would you have done then? What are you doing now? So all that crushes the individual, let it crush it. Go into the tomb

with the water baptism. We call it the font, and come out as a resurrected person, which means you can be beaten and abused, um, and martyred, uh, but Christ's destiny is your own. When you come out of the font, his destiny is yours. So I think it's a long way of saying what you and I clearly are agreeing on, which is that when we offer people a shallow cultural, um, polite Christianity, I don't even know why we're using the term. Uh, there are many things that

are that, but it's not Christianity. And it also, if you look at people's longing for epic stories in every culture of sacrifice and of. Of friendship, um, it doesn't meet the longing. It just doesn't meet the longing. We long for a life in the creator, not chasing a creator, hoping to be, um, a kid who gets an A from God. Um, we want to know God in our breathing, as the Bible says,

through whom we live and move and have our being. And what you got to say to people is this community is here to help you understand that and to help you shed some things. That's what fasting is about. Um, and not to reward yourself for getting a fasting badge like the Boy Scouts or something, but to realize, my gosh, my iPhone is tearing me apart of relationships with other people. So I need help. I need to be in a community that

helps me. Not as an end in itself, because remember, the end is not to put your phone down. The end is to have a relationship with the triune God. That is to, like, hang out in the hammock of God. Um, and to do that in your daily life. And that's a high ask, because you're asking people to learn. You're asking people to care for others, to take the burden of solidarity, to help each other with their hope when their hope is weak. So there's a lot to

ask of people. But I work on LILY grants, uh, and research here at Virginia Seminary. We're on our fifth Lilly grant now. Um, and there are three or four years and they're over a million dollars each. >> Tricia Lyons: And. >> Tricia Lyons: But the truth is, it's all just research. And I'll tell you, from Guam M to Cuba to Europe, which is the breath of the Episcopal Church,

this is a data driven conviction I have. The higher the bar is, the deeper the focus on helping people understand the faith, helping them understand the scripture, helping them have encounters with God. The quote, harder versions of the faith. Those are the communities that are growing, whether growing from two people to four or 400 to 800. This idea that the comfort Christianity is how you bring people in and keep them. The only problem with that is data.

>> Loren: Yeah, you said so much good stuff there. I want to respond to or at least reflect on. Um, I'm thinking of the book. I'm trying to find it on my stack here. Sustaining While Disrupting by Weems and Doug Poe. I don't remember the first name of the Weems, but, um, I'm remembering Doug Poe. Shout out to Doug Poe, new incoming president of Phillips Seminary, my alma mater. Um, but they write in the book about the problem of the SO that I think is the

terminology. Like the. So that people often say, like the. So that we want to be welcoming so that youth, even LGBT youth, will have a place to be. And they make the point like, that's not. That's not the ultimate so that you need. So that needs to be like, you know, you can have the welcoming so that LGBTQ youth will have a home. But then this, that we skipped like the last. So that is so that they'll know and become, uh, you know, followers of Christ kind of thing.

>> Tricia Lyons: Exactly right. >> Tricia Lyons: Because again, even feeling included in a human community, to me that's just not the depth of longing that I meet in other people. Just like you can meet someone who's happily married, even, um, who themself is still searching or seeking or the number one sign to me that people have not been, I'll use this formal word catechized, you know, into the Christian

faith. Um, the depth of it, the invitation to the depth of it is that quite often the Christians I know are just as afraid of death as anyone in the world. Now, I think any of the ancient. I mean, we're talking about the first century. These are people who are still, you know, food for lions in the coliseum, were just professing Christianity. And, um, of course, there are places like that across

the world. I mean, I remember during the war, um, in Iraq, you know, um, the Episcopal Church had an Anglican priest in Baghdad. You know, he would baptize people and those children and their parents would be beheaded in public the next week. Um, so you don't have to go back to the ancient world to find where being a Christian could cost you your life. Um, but that kind of seriousness to me does meet the longing of people.

So again, if someone came up to me and said, you know, I just think you're being too exclusive. And not as even that isn't in itself, but what they're saying is, you know, you're asking too much. People don't have a lot of time. Their kids are on travel, soccer teams. Um, you have people taking care of their parents, and because of the economy, they have their young adults living with them. So I get all of this, um, very true testimonies of the

complexity of modern life. Student loans, private, um, uh, the debt that comes from credit cards, which is always the way we make the difference between how much we make and the cost of actual living. So I don't even shame credit card debt that literally want to measure the space between the cost of living and wages. That's what your credit card bills are. Um, so all that being true, that's what I want to say to people. That's why there is no yoga group, pilates, um, ah, CrossFit. Those are

all communities. And we learned in Covid not to shame those communities. I know some CrossFit groups that stayed more connected during COVID and smaller churches and faith communities that collapsed under Covid. It. So we're not saying that you're not going to get a casserole when your mother dies from your CrossFit group, you are. But I believe the deep longing of people is so much deeper than that. Saint, um, Irenaeus, right, um, 120 AD, you know, first, second century

has this beautiful phrase. This is 200 years before we even have a Bible. This is 200 years before Chalcedon and Nicaea and these other, before we even actually figure out the Trinity. What is this dude saying? Ah, the glory of God is the human person fully alive. Think about it. He could have said, the glory of God is the person who follows Christ, or the glory of God is Christ. He could have said stuff. I mean, this is like, you know, 80

years after the death of Christ. The glory of God is the human person fully alive. So when someone comes to me and says, you know, I want a church where I feel welcome, where, you know, it's easy to join and, and I feel comfortable, I, I, you don't shame that. Especially if people don't have any other. They only know about the Rotary or the bridge club or the, you know, the after school group. Um, so they just want it to be as kind or maybe even kinder than that. But we need to

answer and say, no, no, no. Deep in you. This is why I love being Episcopalian. This is why I'm not a

Calvinist. I do not believe that deep in the person is a depraved creation. No. God said in Genesis, it is good. Creation is good. Creepy crawly animals are good. Crazy winged birds in the sky are good. And what does he say on day six when humans are created. Very good. That's who we are. No sin, no decision, no orientation. Nothing can separate us from being in the image of God. So what we say to a person is, your longing is planted in you. It

is planted. I don't have to put it there. That was the colonialism that, that has killed half the world. That I had to go to Beijing or Boston or Bangor and actually put Christ into people's lives. That conceit is murderous and has been a war crime from the beginning because, and it also put a lot of stress, frankly, on the conquistador or the missionary who actually thought they could do that. So just like racism hurts people of all races, colonialism

hurt everybody because the burden is enough to crush you. The white man's burden, as they used to call it. But, but this idea that when you go up to another person, you are encountering the image of God you are encountering. Now you might say, oh, wait a Minute, is this person on the podcast a universalist? Is she saying it doesn't matter what religion? Of course I'm not saying that.

Our call is to be fully alive and what we believe Christ has done, which is by coming into the human being from, from God and make, remaking us on the inside that we, then it's through Christ we are fully alive. You can be alive. Everyone is right. Um, who's walking around so you can be alive. But our conviction as Christians is that it is through Christ that we are fully alive. Uh, that, that is the full. Now someone would say that's pretty

controversial. Now I sit on a lot of panels as someone who teaches at a seminary with people who are Muslim and Jewish and things like that. And you know what's always funny to watch is how the Muslim often or Jewish imam or rabbi or layperson in either faith unapologetically explains that Muslims believe or Jews believe, uh, and everybody nods politely. >> Loren: And when Christians say something like the horror.

>> Tricia Lyons: And they just get the hell out of here. Um, so meanwhile the Muslim says, well, Muslim doctrine, um, and the Quran is a beautiful collection of poetry. If anyone hasn't read it, you should. In fact, it has great stuff about Mary. If you're a Mary freak. There's like more on Mary in the Quran than there is in the New Testament. It's beautiful. Um, but we tend to just nod when the, when the Muslim says the whole universe is Muslim, right? Which you know to be Muslim

is to Islam means to be submitted to God. And um, then some people connect as Muslims and some don't. But basically the person stands up and declares the whole universe Muslim and everyone just nods. And then the Christian says, in accepting the life of Christ into your life, you are connected with the Creator for eternity. Your eternal life doesn't begin when

you die, get hit by a bus or something. Your eternal life begins when you enter into the triune life of God through the waters of baptism. >> Tricia Lyons: That's when you went into the tomb. >> Tricia Lyons: And you came out of it. And the idea for Christians is we quickly figure out, well, you can't say that now. Here's the thing. I don't want to say that, um, oh, that's all political correctness. And I think Christians should just say what they want to

say. We have got to take, especially with Jews, we've got to take responsibility for the fact that speaking and acting as a Christian empire has almost removed Jews from the earth. So it is true that we have to think about how we talk about, um, this idea that Christian ideas that are exclusive ideas. And I've always taught this. Someone says, how can you be an evangelist? I have some good

friends who are rabbis who, you know. I say to them, what's it like when you tell your friends that you've got a good friend who's a. Not just a Christian, not just someone who teaches at seminary, but someone who's, you know, who's written books about evangelism? I have a book called what Is Evangelism? So I say to my Jewish friends, what are you doing hanging around with me? Um, are you not sort of nervous or embarrassed? Um, but it's because I've

communicated them this phrase. And if your listeners have a pen, I hope they could write it down. Um, the former archbishop of Canterbury, a guy named Rowan Williams. Um, he is not the current archbishop, but he was the former one. And it just means you're the kind of symbol. He's not like a pope, but he's the symbolic head of all Anglicans in the world, which is about 80 million. There's only 2 million Episcopalians, and, uh, there's 78 million of our

siblings. So we're the small minority of the Anglican Church. But this is what he said. Someone asked him, um, he was in Washington, D.C. a couple years ago, what's the purpose of the church? Now, Ron Williams is a scholar. He's got over 50 books. And by the way, he's not one of these guys that writes the same book five times. Like, these are, like, literally 50 different books. He writes about poetry and semiology and stuff. He. No one even understands. He's a genius. And you look at the

person when they said, what's the purpose of the church? This guy, kind of off the street, you know, off a bus stop, that came to a lecture and just said, what's the purpose of the church? And Ron Williams, without a beat, looks at him and says, the purpose of the church is to form people into the kinds of people who can receive the gifts that God wants to give. Now, that's wordy, right? Because he didn't have an editor. It was just a verbal.

But that idea for me is an Episcopalian, um, because I substitute all kinds of words. When someone says, what's the purpose of evangelism? I quote Ron Williams. I say, the purpose of evangelism, I just switch out of it. Church is to form people or to, say, support people. However you teach people, support people into the kinds of people not who are Christian, because all I can form someone in is my Christianity. Or I could have Some theoretical

view of some orthodox Christianity that I never practiced. That's pretty shallow. But even if I tried to convince someone of that, that's still just not really real. That's just what I think it is. And I probably am wrong. Half the time, I don't even know what I want for lunch. Right. So how am I going to say that my version of Christianity. But Rowan says, don't do that. Don't form people into that. Was colonialism into the kind

of Christian you are? Form people into the kinds of people who can receive all that God wants to give them. Um, faith in Christ, generosity, healing for their cancer. I don't know. >> Loren: Uh-huh. >> Tricia Lyons: That's not my job. And now I realize that's not even my responsibility. The reason I love going into completely pluralistic environments, which just means all kinds

of religion are none. And I absolutely have no shame at all telling people about my relationship with God is because ultimately I'm not trying to get them to accept my relationship with God. Because, you know, on any given Tuesday, it's not even a good story. I mean, I'm trying. >> Loren: Yeah. >> Tricia Lyons: But imagine if my goal instead is that people whose hands, uh, are in fists. It's something I do, something I sing, something I pray, silence

I share with them. Them grieving, I admit with them, even though we're different races or classes, if they can just open their hands or hearts or minds just a little bit more. I want what God wants to give them, not what I want to give them. That's not just colonialism, you know, I mean, I eat too much chocolate. So what do I think? I'm going to get someone to believe in Jesus like me? Who knows? They might wind up with the

chocolate thing, too. And then they're going to have no teeth in their. Your mouth is going to look like an Irish Catholic Stonehenge, like a lot of people I know who were raised eating this much sugar. So we don't want any of that. What we want. And I just wish we could centralize this, uh, and take the manner liners out there and say, I know you're shy about evangelism because the evangelism you're worried about was a disaster.

Of course you don't want to go to Thanksgiving and try to get your Uncle Buck to become a Christian, because you know what? We weren't called to do that. What we're called to do is go to Thanksgiving, sit next to him, despite the how he drinks and how he smells. And you pray and find out what God is asking. You to do to make Buck with his free will more open to what God wants to give him. That's evangelism. And the truth is that God could give him salvation.

God could give him, you know, some kind of purgation. I don't know, better ideas. Um, how dare we guess? So this is why I'm not a universalist, for two reasons. >> Tricia Lyons: Reasons. >> Tricia Lyons: One, I believe we have to participate. God has allowed us, right? So it's not all Seth in the beginning. And the other reason is I don't believe that everyone is going to be forced to

go. And every time someone says to me, I'm a universalist, I believe we're all going the same place, I want to say to them, so there's no consent to use a common word in our culture right now I'm like, what kind of God is going to stick you somewhere where you don't want to be worshiping God forever? That's ridiculous. So, of course, I'm not a universalist. I believe the invitation is to. To is to the person if they want to be with God. Which is kind of crazy, right? That God gives you a choice.

But universalism says it doesn't matter how you live your life. We're all going to wind up at the same dinner party. And I just take human choice more seriously than that. I don't know that everyone wants that. It may be the case that everyone who's given the option at death or during life, um, chooses it. And hell is the place where C.S. lewis said, it's possible that hell is empty. That Calvin might be right

about one thing. He's a jerk about a lot of things, but he might be right in this thing called irresistible grace. That as the Bible says in Corinthians that now we see through a glass dimly, but then we would see face to face. Now we know in part, then we will know fully as we are fully known. It is possible that upon the vision of who God truly is and who we truly are, hell might be empty. But anyone that doesn't believe in some way that the human can express that they do or

don't want to gaze at God forever. I mean, when I call that hell, I mean, don't do the medieval art. It's a big, you know, hibachi. And we're like, toasting people on sticks forever. Um, that's art. That's not theology. The theology is, I. I do hold that God is loving enough, which is crazy, right? But God is loving enough stuff that our consent, however it's given Even if it's a developmentally delayed person who we don't,

we don't understand the communication that they do. I believe that, that God will communicate and does communicate and that no one will be forced to be somewhere forever doing something like worshiping God in community that they don't want to do. So two reasons why we're not universalists. One, humans participate in one another's salvation. >> Loren: Mhm. >> Tricia Lyons: Clearly. I don't know why. I think that's a crazy hire for

God to do, to give us work to do like that, but we get it. And the second is, um, God's relationship in the Trinity is of consent. Jesus has given an out in the garden of Gethsemane and he doesn't take it. He consents once again, um, that I and the Father are one. So I believe that that consent will be granted. >> Loren: Well, this is so good. You've gone through so much stuff here. Before we take a break, I want to do

this. I want to talk about kind of practical things because like, I'm thinking about, you know, some of the things you said about, you know, people are too busy because they got kids, soccer and book club and whatever. And there's this assumption that like, oh, well, a. Like uh, we want to make space for people's busy lives. Two, there's this kind of fear that, oh, we'll lose people if we ask

too much. Um, so I want you to just name off like some of the things you see that like, churches need to stop doing and then some things you think you should start doing. >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah, okay. Churches need to stop trying to figure out how to get between people and their activities, you know, to talk them out of a couple of book groups and

a couple of, um. And truth is, most of the work that is stressing people out that I know is actually not book groups and it's actually not driving their kids to essay

prep classes. Um, my experience is that the average American, um, who has so much personal credit card and student debt is they are working and they are picking up the fact that we don't live as in some European societies in I'm m not saying we should or shouldn't, but it's a fact that we do not live, that there's a social safety net that will protect people who have children but have to work anyway, um, who have aging

parents. Um, so to be honest, I think people insult people when they say the reason that you're not coming to church. Um, and that also lets them off the hook as a church. When we say the reason you're not coming is sum total of book groups, um, Uber driving and taking care of kids or your parents. That's an insult. That's not why people aren't coming to church. That puts the problem as a misapprehension of people of how important, important we. >> Loren: Are as a church.

>> Tricia Lyons: In my experience, people make time. See, if everyone was so busy, they. >> Loren: Wouldn'T be in like people make time for what they care about, what matters to them. >> Tricia Lyons: Exactly, exactly. So the reason people are quote, so busy is, is they've either found or they're searching. >> Loren: Searching. >> Tricia Lyons: Which is what? Searching, searching. So we've decided, oh shoot, how do we have them search with us instead

of Pilates? And again, these are all class based things. I'm saying, um, the average person, uh, in this country now who makes less than $50,000 a year and is raising both children and parents at home, um, whose wages haven't kept up with inflation for the last 70 years, um, uh, they are not, not near church because they're, uh, in a year, big group. >> Loren: I mean, Ryan Burge has not age, right? >> Tricia Lyons: Mhm. >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah.

>> Tricia Lyons: So this is crazy. I mean, the average American has more than one job now, according to the labor department. And a lot of people will say, well, how does that possible? And it's just 40 hours a week. I mean, you can't live on 40 hours a week. Um, so unless you're part of the top 5%. Um, so what we've got to start saying is there's one thing that the church, which is the body of Christ offers and it is life in Christ again,

Starbucks coffee is better. And especially if you go buy the Starbucks and bring it over to your church, well then it's just, you know, not as hot as it was at Starbucks. So don't even tell me that. Oh, we do serve Starbucks. I've been out to churches on the Pacific, you know, Northwest, and they have people that make their own coffee. Better than peace than Starbucks. Why are we competing like that? Um, let the people, you know, let people, you know, bring their own Starbucks.

That's not. Christ died and rose again. And to, to quote a philosopher probably has come up on your podcast, Canadian Charles Taylor. Um, but we don't want to be like all npr, you know, snooty here and say like, go ready? >> Loren: Read his second read, Nandra Rood. He's my favorite interpreter of Charles Taylor. >> Tricia Lyons: Yeah, yeah, but you know, I'm from, you know, a family who didn't have. >> Tricia Lyons: A lot of formal education in that.

>> Tricia Lyons: Historically, uh, so, you know, I, I hate when people just think Emmanuel Kant just explains it all. Just go, go read it. Um, that's not what I'm saying. But this particular Canadian dude, um, who was a philosopher, um, did point out something that I think is very true. And he's talking about what he calls the disenchantment of culture, that we don't really believe in stories anymore because of, um, the. The market has failed the country more than

once. Free market capitalism has failed most of the country. Um, we still have the American dream. But remember, the American dream just means that I somehow want to escape what is actually my reality, which is the American daily life. So people continue to believe in the American dream, but it, you know, and I see myself as someone. I mean, you know, my mother got married when she was 18. My dad got back from the Korean War and he got married. He

was kind of a kid too. And rather than start their lives with college or something like that, they started with a family. Um, and I just decided I was going to go to Harvard as a young kid, um, because I thought I saw it on the Cosby show, to be honest. That's how I knew what Harvard was. And the guy in the Cosby show that went to Harvard seemed to be happy and have money to pay his bills. So I decided and then I went. So I'm an example, um, in

many ways of the American dream. And yet I realized so much of that. I was Christian, I was white, I spoke English, I was a citizen, I. >> Tricia Lyons: Had two parents at home. >> Tricia Lyons: You know, so there's a hundred reasons why I succeeded, um, at the lottery or the roulette, actually. That is the American dreams. So when you have people who are that stressed, we've got to take a step back and say, we are not primarily a social organization. We're not a

morality cult. Um, we're not as kind of a cultural. You know, a lot of the evangelicals. >> Tricia Lyons: I knew in the 80s, like, I. >> Tricia Lyons: Felt like if you were a guy and you didn't have on like, khaki pants and a denim, um, oxford button down with a leather belt and leather shoes, like you weren't a preacher. You know, we get these, like, cultural norms, um, that we mistake as the face. And yet they're just cultural norms in

certain parts of the country. Um, but when we stick to our distinctive, to use business school language, which is that we are telling people, don't stop going to the things you go to, and we wish we could help you, but you may not ever get out of Being the only child who could take care of your parents. Parents. Or your special needs child. I mean, get to know someone like that in your congregation who's trying to get everywhere in the world that

you are. But they've got one kid with a wheelchair, if not more kids with them as well. Um, and what about all the, you know, yeah, sure, you're on Medicaid or you've got insurance, but I don't know. I have Crohn's disease, for example. Um, and I can't tell you how much I pay for out of pocket. And I have, like, fancy Episcopal Church insurance. But you know what? It never covers what it costs to be

disabled in the world. Um, so we look at all these people, and we shouldn't offer them anything that Christ didn't offer us. Christ never offered comfort, never offered a group that meets once a week. He said, come and see. Taste and see. Follow me. Zacchaeus in the tree, the woman at the well, the woman bleeding in the crowd. He just walked around and said to people, come, follow me. You're living your life. I want you to come and live. Live not near me, but in me. Right?

>> Tricia Lyons: So that. >> Tricia Lyons: That's his last words. This is my body given for you when you eat it, like, literally. That's why, you know, Episcopalians and Catholics. >> Tricia Lyons: Take this so literally. Is. >> Tricia Lyons: Again, he's not saying, keep the idea of me because I have ideas about Pilates and everything else. He's saying, don't you understand? When you take my life into your life, I will bring my resurrection into your

life. So I want everything. I want it. Uh, was Augustine that said, you know, anything not included is not redeemed. There's different translations, but what he means is the more of your life that you give to be bonded with Christ, then Christ's destiny affects more of your life. So if you only want your hands to be redeemed, then just do Christian. >> Tricia Lyons: Things with your hands, you know, to help people.

>> Tricia Lyons: Bind some. But do you want your heart redeemed? Well, then give your heart to Christ. Share his heart. And now your heart's redeemed. So anything not included is not redeemed. Is a pretty powerful teaching. But then what you say to the person is so that now go to yoga. >> Tricia Lyons: Different. >> Tricia Lyons: Go to yoga and know death is off the table. Off the table.

The thing that makes you anxious in yoga, that makes you want to go to Pilates, the reason you guys are paying for things like water and silence, which is crazy, is because it's not working. What I mean by it's not working, no offense to your yoga class. It's because what's in you is a fear of death. And, and being able to roll around on a mat may or may it may kind of distract you from the. This is what Sigmund Freud, he called it the painful riddle of death.

That it's part of everything we do. We don't want our friendships to die, we don't want this summer to die. Some of you don't want the winter to die. You know, we don't want our health to die. And yet it will. My gosh, I was a big shot putter in college. Like, you know, big division one athletic stuff. Um, because when I get up and walk across the room now it sounds like a chorus of like joint cracking and I'm not that old, so it's coming and I, but you know what I'm afraid of

dying. I'll be honest. Like I've seen enough in ministry, people dying and it's so horrible. But pain, the isolation, the failure of medicine, I have, have fear of the, of uh, dying, but I do not have a fear of death. And when I meet Christians who, who that, that's probably where I lead with people. If they said I don't have time for church, I would sit

down and say, what do you got two kids over there? You know, one's five, one, seven. I'll suddenly, you know what, I'm not trying to scare you, but at some point at 18, they're either going to go into the military, they're going to go into independent life, or they're going to go to college. They're going to be sitting on their bed at the end of the week, they're going to have a roommate or a friend who's tried to kill themselves. They're going to have addicts around

them. They might be one themselves. Where are they going to find peace? You're not going to be there and you're a wonderful parent. I don't shame helicopter parents. I mean, look at the way I treat my dog, my beagle, my God. Of course, if I were a parent, I can't even imagine, um, I would be a helicopter parent, um, in this culture because of all the things I'd be afraid of. But there's this part of me that says we should say to people, we don't have better coffee, we don't have

better exercise classes. We do get together for a pretty good march and we all get T shirts. I mean, sometimes we all fly to Washington D.C. and represent justice issues. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what? The thing that besets human creativity, healing, forgiveness, um, innovation, uh, uh, the ability to breathe, um, is when death loses its sting, even for someone who then five minutes later dies in the bed. I have been there in the sacrament of the

sick, as we call it in my tradition. And a person releases their fear of death in life. And even if they only live four more minutes, I'm telling you, I have seen it change their life. That now is only four minutes long and change the people around them. It wasn't the cancer, it wasn't the cystic fibrosis of the 8 year old who I've also seen die on the table for the people around them, uh, it was death itself. And to have one person standing there and say, I and the

resurrection. This is what say at the funeral, I am the resurrection and the life. And you just recite the words of Jesus and you realize the key to the story of Lazarus. Because think about it, if I were Lazarus, I feel like I got screwed. Not because I was risen from the dead, but because that poor son of God has to die again. But what doesn't get preached often enough in the church is, so why does Jesus do this? Remember, he does it Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday.

So in the Catholic and the Anakin church, actually we call it Lazarus Saturday, the Saturday before. And what we believe is, it's, it's not just a foreshadowing of how the next week is going to end. It's to remind us, and I hope Lazarus, you know, when I meet him, you know, uh, for eternity, I want to just thank him for allowing his body to be a lesson because it meant he had to go back and form like a yo yo. But what we learn in Lazarus is you can be resurrected. Here's the power in this life.

Lazarus is not meant to be a pre Christ kind of the week before because Christ is going to do it all the next week. So Christ doesn't need a human to be resurrected. It kind of undermines his own story. That's not what that's about. What that's about is what he's saying is, this thing I'm going to do for you next week, it can happen in this life. Lazarus come forward. And what does Jesus say? He then tells his friends, um, he doesn't take all the rivets off. He

tells the friends to do it. And he's showing us that each one of us can go into the grave. Our fears can literally kill us. But if, when Jesus says, lazarus, come out when Christ calls us, because everyone around us, remember, has formed us into the kind of people who can receive the gifts God wants to give. We know how to answer the shepherd's voice. Lazarus comes out to show us. Wait a minute. I mean, next week, Jesus is going to show

us, when you die, you can be resurrected. Lazarus is going to say, I can be resurrected into my life. All of a sudden, we're not competing with yoga. And by the way, it sounds like I'm very anti yoga. I'm not anti yoga stuff. I'm just not a particularly. Every time I go to yoga, I kind of roll around the mat. I told you, as a shot putter, everyone you can imagine, I'm not exactly a distance runner. And I feel like one of those beached whales where all the Girl Scouts

have to come and push them back into the water. So that's how I move around a yoga mat. So, um, I do have thoughts about yoga. But my point is, when the Christian church says what we are, we believe life is almost killing you. The pace you're keeping is killing you. You are just about Lazarus with a foot into the grave. >> Tricia Lyons: Grave.

>> Tricia Lyons: You're sleep deprived, you're dehydrated. The number of people we have medicated for, um, and not people who have classically always been medicated for psychological, um, distress, but the number of people, look at the commercials on TV just for general anxiety disorder. These are people who have a foot in the grave. And we got to say, you know what Jesus says, Come, come to me, all you who labor.

You know, my yoke is easy. My burden is like, even, you know, that invitation, I feel like people would give anything for it. They might skip a yoga class or better. They find a way to have this encounter with Christ that actually lets them be a better home health care worker with their mom. That actually gives them the energy with their autistic child, because you're not giving them activities. You're giving them, let me just say it, eternal life. Charles Taylor is

right. I think our culture has become disenchanted. But you know what I'm worried about? No offense to Charles Taylor, the church is disenchanted. >> Loren: It is. >> Tricia Lyons: You talk about miracles and people think you hit your head. You talk about believing in the resurrection of the body. Any of you who are no Catholics, you know, they cross

themselves. And Episcopalians, when we say the creed, we say the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and you'll see them actually cross themselves. You know, what we do that is to Actually punctuate that line in the creed, and you touch your own body. So you're saying, I don't just believe theoretically that somebody's body would be resurrected. You say, um, this one. And then they go, you know, up, down, right, left. This body will be

resurrected. And people are like, well, how is that even possible? What if a shark bites off your leg? So when you get resurrected, you've only got one leg. You want to try to remind people the God that made all things can actually bring your body together, whether or not part of it is in a shark halfway across the Atlantic. >> Loren: Yeah.

>> Tricia Lyons: You know, so we. But I don't need to tell you that if when you go to a funeral and someone stands up there and says, this person now rests in peace. And our phrase, though, in the church is, rest in peace, rise in glory, those are not at the same time we rest in peace. There's no moment in death that we are not held in God. Like I always say, the hammock. That is God trying on life. But there will be a time where we will be resurrected

in that body. And people look at me like I'm crazy, and then I look at them and say, so then death really does win. If death has torn your soul from your body permanently, then why are you walking around saying, death has lost its thing, it wins, and we believe it doesn't. I mean, Christ didn't, you know, just have this ethereal spirit that just kind of wandered around that body with the. So you and I and my Crohn's disease and anything you've struggled, these are not for

nothing. We are going to be redeemed and resurrected in the strength, uh, that we fought in this body and this body, this crazy body we have right now. Very few people look in the mirror, get excited about it. Um, many people look in the mirror and think too much about it. Um, whether it's idolatry or shame, either one of those things, just know that there will be a time when our body is redeemed and is reunited with the soul that God gave us.

And I wish Charles Taylor, um, gave us more help in the church, but his goal was to say that the whole culture has been. But you and I and your wonderful podcast, um, are, um, I think, attempts to re. Enchant the search. Um, we are not that interesting as a social organization, and we're not even that skilled as a community organizing, but we are the people meant to say the things that, uh, St. Paul said would make us sound like fools.

>> Loren: And I hate to bring it back because I feel like this is kind of undergirding this entire conversation. Many of the conversations that I have on this podcast, this kind of idea that I was certainly introduced to through Nandra Root, but Charles Taylor, but this is like the undergirding that we're talking about. Is this the idea that church really doesn't matter? It doesn't really have any implications beyond this life.

And I hate to cut this off because we're running out of time and we could go on to that for another 15, 20 minutes. But share with people, uh, we'll have to end this year because I got a heart cut off here. But share with people how they can connect with you, get more in touch with what you're doing. Learn about this so much more refreshing idea of, uh, evangelism and um, having some passion for your faith.

>> Tricia Lyons: Yeah. Um, well, two things. One, I did write a book called, um, what, ah, is Evangelism? Um, and there's a whole chapter on wizards, um, uh, Jedi and hobbits. Um, so it's. I, uh, was asked by the Episcopal Church to write this book because so many of the books about evangelism are very technical. To use the Ron Heifetz language. Like there's a technical problem. Like if your sink is, you know,

leaking, fixing it is a technical, um. But as it's leaking, if you looked at it and said, what if we don't use sinks indoors anymore? That's an adaptive response. Um, so, um, I don't do much of the technical, uh, talking. And what is evangelism? I talk more about the things you and I have talked about on this, on this podcast, which is if you have, um, a life giving understanding of the whole universe, that God has put a black box in

every being that we call the image of God. And it is just sounding, um, uh, to be, um, for the person to hear and then be able to follow like we do with the black box. That's how you know how to get to it, is the closer you get to it, the louder the sound is and the closer. So we've just got to help people. What does it mean to form people into the kinds of people who can receive the gift?

Think of it as we help people listen to the black box that's beeping within them and if we can help them take out other sounds, um, take out other parts of their life and burdens that literally, like if you're in public and a woman has three children, one is crying, say, can I hold your bag for you? I mean, there are literal ways you can help people be

able to receive more. So, um, so that book, I think is a good read for people because it relieves people of the burden of thinking that we have to plant black boxes in people, we have to make Christians, we have to introduce people to God. Um, that ping at the bottom of the ocean of that black box that's buried. Um, the sound it makes is the breath of God from the beginning of creation as God hovered over

the waters. Um, so, you know, we just have to go out in the world and do everything we can do to help people hear it. Um, the other thing is, um, I did write a 30 day, um, devotional. Um, there are so many devotionals out there. Um, but I'm, you know, I love church fathers and mothers, so I love writers from the first three centuries. Um, I'm also a big, obviously epic, um, fan of Black Panther and other things. So, um, it's called 30 days, um, is the name of the

devotional. And I hope it kind of introduces a kind of epic narrative, uh, Christianity. Um, so every day, um, there's quotations from movies, um, like Star wars or Narnia or Lord of the Rings, and there's also quotes from saints, you know, Joan of Arc or things like that. Um, and there's some reflection questions. And I'm hoping that it's like a 30 day, like refresher into this larger view, um, that Christians aren't called to be

saviors. Um, Christians are called to look at yourself and admit the need and the excitement, um, of there being a savior. Um, and once you realize that job is already filled, um, my gosh, what can you do with your energy? Especially when death, um, I mean, I even say the word death now and part of me just smiles because, uh, I know I'll end with this. We have, uh, wooden altars in some churches and we have stone altars in others

churches. And there's a wonderful history of both that the wood altar is really assigned to help believers believe that this altar that we have, this remembrance meal is actually like your altar at home. So that image helps people, like, think of their whole Christian life as holy, not just the church. So that's the benefit of the wood altar. The stone altars have a different history. They are

older from the ancient world. And what it is is Christians used to have their Eucharist when Jesus says, do this in remembrance of me. So don't think you have to be Catholic. I just mean this is what the church did for a couple hundred years. And they would Go into graveyards. And they would have. I love this. They. I hate Screwtape M. Screwtape letters. So when you say Satan, it makes people nervous, and it should. Um, But

I say screw tape because, you know, that does a little better with online Christians. I don't think I'm so crazy, but I'm talking about the same person. So Screwtape hates this. And so I get excited. And whenever you're pissing off Screwtape, you know, you're on the right practice. They would go into graveyards and celebrate the Last Supper on top of. >> Loren: Oh, wow, I did not know that. >> Tricia Lyons: So that's where we get the long stone altar from. It's. It's a

tomb. And it's meant at the time to m. Mock death. This idea that the bones of the body is sort of in the ground and was had been, like, reclaimed by, quote, reality. You know, there's none of this pie in the sky. You're food for worms. And they would go to these places because they didn't have churches, because they were, you know, um, a faith that was on the run. And they would celebrate as if to. And then that's why they would lift up. You ever seen a priest lift up the

bread and the wine is. They literally had this hand motion where you would lift up above, uh, as if to say, this tomb will not hold this body forever. So stone Eucharist were held at, uh, the Holy Communion to literally go in. I love it. Into the graveyard, mock death, spit it in the faith, and actually have the Feast of the Resurrection on top of a grave. I love that. So that's the. Again. Say to someone, you know, I know you're busy. You

don't have a lot of time. Um, we've got to find ways to meet people off Sunday morning. According to the Labor Department now, close to 62% of Americans work on Sunday. Not all day, but have work on Sunday. So if your church only does something on Sunday, even Sunday night, you're writing off 62% of the whole country. We were not given the authority to do that. Go ye there for Judea Samaria and go out into all and preach. So you've got to

find a different way. It's not always about money to find people where they are during the week, because you can't do Christianity alone. God was right in Genesis when he saw says, it's not good for you to be alone. You can't do it alone because you're joining a body of other

people. And that's the first step, which is to get people involved with other people who are then teaching the faith as we've been talking about it now, and teaching them that we can't keep you from being hurt, we can't keep you from mental illness, from eating disorders. Christianity, again, is not that kind of band aid. But we can give you as a community, because that's who we are. We can invite you to graft

yourself onto the body of Christ. And then anything you face, the eating disorder, you know, you have a teenager who's a cutter. You know, whatever it is, um, you have in you, it is no longer they who live, um, but Christ who lives in them, which means even if they die, they will share the destiny of Christ. >> Tricia Lyons: And you know what? >> Tricia Lyons: I don't know anyone at yoga that's telling you. >> Loren: Well, that's a great way to end it. So, Tricia, uh, I really

appreciate this conversation. Really appreciate your passion for the faith and for the church. And folks, please, you know, this is not just kooky Loren here saying this. This is someone with real cred, credential experience. Like, listen to Tricia, please. So, uh, Tricia, I really hope, uh, more pastors and church leaders get this message. So, uh, but I always leave folks with a word of peace. Uh, so may God's peace be with you.

>> Tricia Lyons: And also with you, my brother. What I love is CS Lewis says there's no such thing as saying goodbye. There's only see you later. >> Loren Richmond: Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian Podcast. The Future Christian Podcast is produced by Resonate Media. We love to hear from our listeners with questions, comments and ideas for future

episodes. Visit our website@future-christian.com and find the Connect with Us form at the bottom of the page to get in touch with Martha or Loren. But before you go, do us a favor. Subscribe to the POD to leave a review. It really helps us get this out to more people. Thanks. And go in PE.