Jesus has done this thing that we know is profound, but to make the law, or to restore understanding of the law to be about love. And so then if sin is missing the mark of something, it is missing the mark of love. So that's gonna be the first category is like, yes, it is missing a mark, but it's not missing an arbitrary moral law. It's not missing the mark of some abstract, distant, ethereal standard. It is missing the mark of love.
Hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, our show is powered by you, the listener. If you want to support the work that we do, get early access to episodes, Episode guides and more. Go to patreon.com/shifting, culture, to become a monthly patron so that we can continue in this
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your family, your network. Tell them how much you enjoy it and let them know that they should be listening as well. If you're new here, welcome. If you want to dig deeper, find us on social media at shifting culture podcast where I post video clips and quotes and interact with all of you. Previous guests on the show have included Megan, Larissa good, David Fitch and Terry Christ. You go back listen to those episodes and more. But today's guest is Johnny
Morrison. Johnny Morrison is CO lead pastor at missio day in Salt Lake City, Utah. He's responsible for teaching and vision. He's passionate about helping people gain a bigger imagination for God, experience the radical love of Jesus and learn to see and join God's work in their everyday lives. Johnny has a master's degree in exegetical studies from Western seminary and a doctorate in contextual theology from Northern seminary. Johnny is the author of light as air and his
newest book, prodigal gospel. In this conversation with Johnny Morrison, we explore a holistic relational understanding of the gospel and sin. Johnny shares how his personal story of loss and doubt led him to rediscover the good news of Jesus as a revelation of God's relentless love and restoration and packs how sin is best understood as missing the mark of love rather than just breaking arbitrary
moral laws. Johnny emphasizes the importance of storytelling and community and participating in God's work of healing generational trauma. Johnny highlights how the parable of the prodigal son illuminates the gospel's message of relationship, belonging and transformation. So just join us as we discover the good news of Jesus all over again, here is my conversation with Johnny Morrison and Johnny. Welcome to shifting culture. Excited to have you on thanks for joining me.
Yeah, thank you for having me so good to be here.
I'm excited to get into your book, The prodigal gospel, what that looks like. But first I want to get into some of your story. And since we're talking about the good news and what good news is, how have you been caught up in the good news of Jesus. Where did that take place within your story?
Oh, that's a great question. There's a handful of different moments that feel really important. And I often joke, and I tell my wife this a lot, that I feel like I am reconverted pretty regularly. Something new surprises me about the Jesus story that is good news for a particular moment or for particular situation or particular life stage. So there's lots of those little moments where I'm like, sitting on a beach reading a book somewhere, and I'm like, Oh yeah, I believe this. And it's
pretty cool. Like that happens to me pretty consistently. I my first profound experience with the good news came when I was maybe in high school, early college, I grew up in a family that was deeply religious, deeply committed to the way of Jesus, but my dad died when I was pretty young, which is a big part of my story and a big part of the book, and shaped my view
of God. For many, many years, it was very hard as a young person for me to hold goodness of God stories with the Lost death of my father, and I didn't have the most articulate ways to name that, or the most sophisticated questions to that, it was just a feeling that I had and held. I don't even know that those questions were answered initially, but through the love and commitment of a local church community, through encountering
the. Words of Jesus through the Gospels pretty consistently, I just feel like the Spirit of God pierced through those questions, those doubts, those struggles, to reveal very profoundly a heart of love for me and towards me that then gave me the space to kind of wrestle with those doubts, those questions, those kind of like stickers in the back of my mind that had held me at bay for so long, but it wasn't coming at those things first, it was like being consistently met with grace and
love through a local church community, and very specifically, the words of Jesus in the gospels that I just couldn't shake.
What was the difference between growing up being angry at God saying, you know, my my dad is gone. I've lost him to actually, then being wooed by by love and grace in the words of Jesus, how? How was that different? What was that shift? I
think there's a couple of things that are important. I grew up in a religious context that was really connected to, I bet a lot of your listeners will know this, like a word of faith tradition or a prosperity gospel tradition. So some of it was just shaking that right, like that, that Jesus loves me and is for me and God is for me, but that does not mean I am insulated from difficulty or suffering. And you read the story of Jesus, who is the ultimate person who suffers
ultimately. So I think some level of it was just like, I don't know that I would have used this language at like 16, but like, a deconstruction of problematic or harmful theological traditions that I had not known how to wear. You know what I mean? Like, you're like, how do you wrestle the problem of evil in a story that tells you you always overcome evil, and you're like, I didn't, and my dad didn't, and my family didn't, yet we were faithful.
And so this is to read the words of Jesus and to be like, Oh,
that actually isn't one. It's not a promise or a guarantee, and also isn't a burden or an expectation that I'm supposed to place on myself, because when my in that tradition, which I'm thankful for in some ways, I don't want to, like, throw it under the bus entirely, but in that tradition, the faith of the believer is so important to overcoming difficulty, and so then you kind of put yourself in this very strange, like, almost like attachment, disordered attachment to God, which is
like, if I believe enough that you love me, then you love me, and if I show up the right way, then you and so then to read the words of Jesus to be like, Oh, that's not the expectation. That's not the burden. God is for me in a different kind of way, but God is always for me. So I think that was a really important part of that process. Was like that dual kind of like deconstructing and finding something much better on the other side of it, how God sees me and what God is doing. I
think that's helpful for a lot of people that are in that position right now, because you're talking about a disordered attachment to God, and now let's reorder it and have a healthy attachment, and what does it look like? Who is he? He really for me, who is he in the midst of suffering and loss and pain and struggle? So as you're now a pastor in Salt Lake City, you're you're talking to a bunch of people about the gospel. I know you start an
introduction. You're talking about a story when, when a couple comes and says you you're not preaching the gospel, we're gonna leave the church. You're not preaching the gospel enough, and you walk through a long process with them, over and over again, discussions about what is the gospel, as you've been working with people and in this Western Christianity that this construct, what is the predominant cultural view of gospel and sin?
Yeah, yeah, great question. It's so interesting, even in light of just the setup to like my own story, I feel like I leave the tradition I grew up in, and I make my way into, like a kind of baptisty tradition, and then I find my way, for better or worse, it's like a NEO reformed kind of tradition. And that was really refreshing to me the time, because they were highly intellectual traditions, and the community I grew up in before was not so we wouldn't have articulated the gospel in
systematic ways. We wouldn't have articulated sin in systematic ways. We wouldn't have wrestled with the problem of evil in systematic ways, all things that I wanted. So then I go into this tradition, and the church I lead is sort of burst
within that tradition also. And so then the way that we wrestled with the gospel was intellectual, but very much a reflection of that kind of like Neo reformed, Reformed Baptist tradition, which I think is somewhat representational of most people's Gospel who came from like a Protestant tradition and has a high emphasis on the individual, that the individual has sinned before God and. And that something in God requires satisfaction or satiation, depending on kind of the way in
which you frame this. Jesus dies on our behalf to remedy that thing God requires on our behalf to make us justified before God. So it's an individual kind of exchange that happens before our individual sins before God, that makes us have right standing with God. That was the, I think the articulation of the gospel that in that story I tell was the dominant theme of like they told me they wanted to hear more about individual sins and how their God has dealt with their individual sins.
I think that individuality is really an important too well to American culture. I mean this, this is who we are. This is the water that we swim in, and the United States at least, and in the church, in the US, it's very much individuals, individualistic we could talk about individual racism when it's hard to talk about systemic racism. We could talk about whatever individual sin you have, but not systemic sin, right? Yes. And so as we're you're walking into a space. How
is that not? I mean, I'll just give you an example of my life, if I moved in that that world as well. I'm thinking that a Jesus died, you know, for my individual sins, I'm he's now my savior. I'm now going to heaven when I die. The question for me then and for a while, is that, what is the does it really practically impact my life? What good news to my actual lived reality of life is there when it's just about going to heaven, When I die, and so does it actually touch anything here on
Earth? Or am I just sitting around waiting and going, Hey, I'm excited. I'm gonna get to heaven someday. So how does it then start to reach and be practical for us? Yeah? Like, good news for our daily lives?
Yeah, yeah. So I think there's a lot of really good ways of articulating what the gospel is. You know, I think about like NC Wright or Scott McKnight would go heavy emphasis on Kingdom language. I don't use that language in the book primarily because I hoped my book would be accessible to lay or even like deconstructing or non Christians. And in my own tradition, I just found like preaching here, pastoring here, Kingdom language and always have
resonance with people. But I still think that's like theologically, the framework that I'm orienting with, but instead, the language that I use in the book is that the gospel is good news, that Jesus reveals what God is like, that Jesus restores all things, and that Jesus invites us to participate in the work that he's doing. And I think if I just go to the story that I told about my own life, Jesus revealing God to me.
And again, this is personal, and profoundly personal in this way, but is the greatest news that I think we can possibly hear because of what it does to our attachment to God, because of how it heals our images of God. I think that maybe is one of the great problems and dilemmas into the human heart is that we have images of God that are deeply broken by sin and by culture and
by story and by trauma. And so Jesus is revealing the perfect image of our God of love so that we might be healed, transformed and move into intimacy. So I think massive implications for our daily life and how we communicate the gospel Jesus is restoring all things. So then we come to the social, communal and also individual, but the political reality of Jesus, which is Jubilee, that all things are within the purview of God's work and God's intention for the universe is shalom. This
wholeness is harmony. And so there's nothing outside of that that is beyond the scope of God. And so that's good news for all things. And that could you could, if you stopped right there, then you could be like, I just wait for God to do that. But we believe that God has called us to participate, that that's actually the invitation the Gospels. Are we gonna live resurrection? Are we to live
restoration? And I think that's essential to good news, that I have a job to do, I have a purpose in this world, that being an image bearer actually means something for my vocation. So I like that three categorization there, because I think it helps me articulate why I think it matters so much and why it's good news.
Yeah, yeah, it is good news. And I love that we get to participate in it that it is not just something that is done to us, but is done with us, that he's saying here, this is for us together, and it feels like an actual restoration to me, especially, you know, in light of the Genesis story, when, you know, Adam and Eve were gone from the garden before they were walking. With God
every night. You know, it'd be great to have a stroll with God in the evening, and but now I get to, you know, I get to have that stroll with God in the evening, and we could be restored back to that place, and then we could help restore humanity creation with God himself. So that's, that's good news. Why? So now you use the story of the the prodigal son as a framework for for your your book, Why you know Jesus is is now sharing this parable with others to say, you know this is
actually good news. Why do you use the story of the prodigal son? What is the the influence on you? What is the impact on you? Why do you think it's crucial for us to start to understand and dig deep into this story?
Yeah, I mean, I still love what's just because I like it, you know, like, I like
this story. And, like, I say this in the book, and I and even to the question you asked the very beginning, like my own story, like they got the parable of the provocative side, is one of those stories that, for me has consistently been like that, kind of like gospel reveal, where you're like reading it, and I find something new, and I find something inspiring and something challenging or funny, and I find that I resonate with all the characters in really different ways and different
seasons of my life as Henry now and talked about how we get to be all the characters, even the Father, in certain moments. And I love that like that. Sometimes I am the obstinate older brother who struggles to celebrate the return of his younger and sometimes I'm the younger who struggles to enter the party and to be welcomed and loved and and sometimes I even get to participate in the restoration of all things, like the father, like, I love that, so I could be
there endlessly. But I think this story, and the reason I think Jesus tells it especially in that, like, there's the trilogy of celebration stories right there in Luke. And I think the reason Jesus does this is because, for him, it is a bit of his articulation of the gospel, like if Jesus, Jesus is being pressed by religious leaders. He's surrounded by religious leaders and kind of like outcasts of one side. They're grumbling about what he's doing.
And so he tells these stories of celebration to confront, again, I think, false images of God, religion that's become restrictive and exclusionary, and to articulate his own understanding of what God is like and what his mission is. And I, and I love this story too, because I think it this is not a very technical word, but it to me, it really gets the vibe right of what God is doing. And I feel like so often the way we tell the gospel
vibe is technically cool. It's not a very theological
way. But I'm kind of pitching that it becomes one. Because I think, I do think there's something really important about vibe, when we tell stories, and how we articulate the gospel. And like, I remember when I was writing the book, I asked people how they first heard the gospel, and pretty consistently the answer I got was like the bridge visual illustration, where the cross bridges the divide between God
and us. Now there is truth to that story, like and lots of people's lives have been changed by that story, but the vibe of that Gospel story is really off to me because pitches God on one side of a cavern us on the other, and it doesn't articulate how deeply committed to us Our God is, and how throughout the entire narrative of Scripture,
God is committed towards us. But when Jesus tells a gospel story, a metaphor to articulate all of this complexity, he presents an image of God as consistently for us as scanning the horizon to find us. And when the older brother doesn't enter the party, what does the father do? He leaves the party to go find him. It's like in every moment, every iteration, the vibe of God, the vibe of the Father, is relational, restorative for us. So those reasons to me, like, I
love this story. I think it gets the theology and the story of Scripture, but maybe just as importantly, it gets the vibe of God, right?
You talk about the relational restoration of relationships, and we're restoring our relationship with God. Do we have a misunderstanding of then sin and judgment, if you're thinking about the good news as restoration of relationship, yeah,
oh, yeah. I think, like, Yes, I think that's such a clear sin is such a complicated and it's such a loaded thing, right? In our culture, it's important we get it right, and we give it the weight that it deserves. Because God deeply cares about sin, Jesus deeply cares about sin. The gospel is dealing with sin. So I don't want to play light with those things, but I think we need to, maybe, like, create some categories for what we mean when we talk about sin, because
I think often. When we talk about sin, we go towards missing the mark. We say sin is missing the mark. And that's true, like, that's what the Greek word means. That's fine. But then we have to be clear, what do we mean by the mark is the mark, the law is the mark, some holy
standard of something. And I feel like if you look at the parable of the prodigal son, but more if you just look at the ministry of Jesus, and Jesus redefining the law, he says all the law can be summarized as love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul in your mind. And the second is like it to love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus has done this thing that we know is profound, but to make the law, or to restore understanding of
the law to be about love. And so then if sin is missing the mark of something. It is missing the mark of love. So that's gonna be the first category is like, yes, it is missing a mark, but it's not missing an arbitrary moral law. It's not missing the mark of some abstract, distant, ethereal standard. It is missing the mark of love. And so then the way we measure what sin is, is less about law keeping and more about what causes harm, what extends or does not extend,
love to those around us. And I think that's the only way you can make sense of certain stories in Scripture. I think Scripture holds this kind of view of the law and of sin, like, for example, when Hebrews praises the midwives for lying about hiding infant children from the female. You're like, well, technically, they have violated a law by lying, and yet they're being celebrated for saving a life. You're like, yeah, because they chose the
loving way, right? They may have missed the abstract standard that's divorced from real life, but they did not miss the mark of love. So I think that's one category. Is like, okay, let's place sin in a conversation about love, because then when you go to the parable of the prodigal son, the younger son comes to his father, demands his inheritance, and at no moment does he break a law. It's not illegal to ask for your inheritance. It's not illegal to wish that your father was dead
so you can have his money. You can make a little bit of an argument that it's illegal in the Old Testament law to be disrespectful, but it would be kind of up to interpretation. But we all understand that fundamentally, the younger son has done something deeper than just violate a law, like he's caused harm to his brother, to his father, and I think, to himself by alienating himself. And that's how Jesus chooses to articulate the wrong in the
story. And I think that's fascinating and worth paying attention to how we define and think about sin. So I'll pause there, because I just talked for a long time. We can talk about the second way I talk about sin, but I think that's the first place. Is like sin is is not missing some abstract law. It is. It is missing the mark of love, and that's how Jesus seems to articulate it in that parable, which is way more relatable, understandable, and I think serious.
It's really serious. Well, I think that what we do is we get to this place of the gospel in our culture, in the Western culture, that is all about moralism, and it's all about becoming good, being moral people. And for someone on the opposite end of of that, if they're a pre believer out there, a lot of times what they view Christians as is people that look at them saying you're not living morally. So you're not a good person. I don't think you're a good person at all.
Yeah, how is how is that unhelpful for the culture to to actually enter into a restorative relationship and restore their relationships to others and and, you know, they're missing the mark of love. We're all missing the mark of love, right? And then, is there a better way to articulate something so people know that, hey, we're actually talking about restoration here. We're talking about something different.
I think, I think people in our culture, who are I like that phrase, pre believers, are aware of what it means to miss the mark of love like that resonates, I think, at a fundamental level in most of the world around us, we know what it looks like to be harmed. We know what it looks like to harm. We know what it looks like to violate relationship with other people, and so I think once you start speaking that language, you are speaking a language that
has deep human resonance. But I have found in leadership and ministry that if you try to convince people that sin is bad because it violates some moral holy law, I think you start to lose people. And maybe that's because we're like, simply post Christian, and those things just don't mean what they used to
mean to people. And we can lament that, we can complain about that all we want to, but it's kind of irrelevant, like I want to communicate in a way that people resonate with, and I think why sin matters to God is because it causes harm. And so I. I could just use that same language and be like, hey, the reason God cares about these things is because they cause harm to you, to others, and that that is actually what God wants to seek, to remedy and to deal with. And then I I love the
other. I did. I think this is the point of like, how do we talk about it? Like the parable of the prodigal son, to me, is such a helpful tool for sharing the gospel, because the story of a father being willing to absorb harm that his son has caused him in love also has a deep
resonance. I tell a story in the book about my stepfather absorbing harm and absorbing my pain and self into himself, and I love to tell that story as an expression of the gospel, because I just think it it like every time I do that, it hits something that I think is deeply human and deeply connected to the human experience, and that vision of God that, going back to the Gospel, revealing what God is like, is really beautiful
and is really good news. And so that, like restoration, and then the harm that it's engaging with, it speaks to something I think all of us know. And so it's a good way of, you know, getting at this conversation,
if you're going out in Salt Lake, you're hanging out in coffee shop, you're and you are meeting somebody that doesn't yet know Jesus at all, and you're walking them through a place of, hey, he's going to restore these things and and how Would you articulate good news for somebody who has not yet heard the good news of Jesus, what is your articulation? And I know, I mean, I'm just like, each person should be a little bit different, like you're so I don't know how we're gonna do
that. So we're gonna generalize things, but knowing that we're gonna actually take individualized, specific instances with people and actually customize the language for them. But in general, what would you say? Yeah,
well, so in Salt Lake, and I don't know what this is like for other people, so Salt Lake is an interesting environment in that, like, the thing that Utah is maybe most form famous for is, like, the presence of the LDS church. And so most people that I'm sharing the gospel with, they are post religious. They're just not post evangelical or post Protestant. They're post Mormon. That's because that's the religious
environment here. And so I love to begin with the revelation of Jesus as the revelation of God. Because everybody that I talk to here likes Jesus. And this is true when I am when I'm traveling abroad, and when I'm, like, just talking to people in church, like working
with Muslims, they all love Jesus. Like, it's Yeah? Like, I think everybody around the world Jesus, yeah. Everybody loves Jesus, yeah.
I feel like, I mean, I this is, like, one of those things about our Gospel that we've kind of forgotten. And it goes back to the vibe. Question is that we, first of all, we often begin with what is wrong, and sometimes that's appropriate, like, sometimes it's appropriate, because that's where the conversation is, to your point about contextualization, but like I think it is a better, more powerful strategy to begin with,
the good and we have the best. I really believe this the best good thing to begin with, which is that we we follow Jesus, and believe that Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God, that He is the perfect image of the invisible God. And so that's that's always where I like to begin a conversation, is to say Jesus is revealing what God is
like. And so if you grew up in a religious environment that you've shed and left, or maybe you grew up just in America, kind of like absorbing some the religious environment around you, or you didn't grow up religious at all, like we can still begin with this person who we believe reveals just what God is like. And so then what do we see? And what like you see a God who, when he, you know, moves towards women who have an outcast, that's what God is
like. When you see Jesus toss the tables in the temple, you're seeing an image of what God is like. And when you see Jesus wash the feet of his disciples, you're actually seeing an image of what God is like. And so then we can narrate and dialog through what these pictures of God is like, which then leads us to that restoration and participation piece, because then we can start talking about, what do we see Jesus doing, and what does Jesus call us to do?
That's good. You touch on it in your book too about original sin or generational sin. You're talking about those things. Could you just unpack that for us? What you Yeah, the distinction between original sin and generation. All sin.
Yeah, thanks very folly. This was I meant to get back to here a long time ago. So thank you for keeping me on the agenda. Yes, so I think this is so important and really healing to me. So many of us grew up with a notion of original sin, and I really do want to add a little context. So Original Sin is often related to Augustine, the church father. And Augustine is wrestling with a question that is so deeply human, which is, why do I do
things I don't want to do? And Augustine is an addict, based upon what we read in his confessions. He struggles with like the impulses and desires of his own body being different than the desires and impulses of his heart. And she's trying to figure out why, which is like such an, you know, deeply
relatable story. And Augustine decides that it probably is his body like that there is something about his inherited biology and genealogy and spiritual nature that is actually broken and that it came from, if you trace it all the way back Adam, that Adam's sin broke something within humanity, and it's been passed on from person to person to person to person. This is kind of a, you know, a simplified way of
describing it. So we inherit both sin nature, our sort of spiritual and biological self is oriented away from love and goodness and God, and we inherit guilt. That's a really important part of that original sin notion, is that we've we are destined and doomed, sort of to Adam's fate. Because of Adam, we're going to do the same things, and we are going to suffer the consequences of Adam's state. And I think, again, I think Augustine is trying to wrestle through
something deeply human. I don't know that he means for it to have the implications that it does, but I do think in our context today, what that has metastasized into is almost the celebration of an anxious or shame based attachment to God like that. There is this almost celebration of seeing ourselves as bad, and the worse we see ourselves, the better we are and the more despisable we understand ourselves to be, the better. You know what I mean? Like, like, this is kind of
like. That's how that's metastasized to be in us. And I, I think if we look at Scripture, we see neither of those two things clearly. Now I don't want to like Augustine's wildly brilliant human being. So I'm not trying to like, compete intellectually with Augustine, but I don't know that we see either. And I actually think we see moments in scripture where God is pretty frustrated with
that kind of thinking. So in the book, I talk about a story in Ezekiel where people are passing on a proverb of children being blamed for and suffering the penalty of their parents sin. And goddess like, Stop spreading that rumor. People experience a consequence of their own sin only. So I think Scripture is pretty clear that we are not guilty because of Adam's sin. I don't think that's how that works, but I do think Augustine is naming something interesting when he talks about inheriting a
nature or a biology. I don't think it's exactly that, but I think it's interesting, because we do know that our family of origin, our culture, our stories, shape us in profound
kinds of ways. And so what I suggest in the book is that instead of seeing Original Sin as like a damaged nature or a spiritual disorientation away from God, we start talking about original sin using language, I think is more scriptural, which is generational sin as a thing We've inherited like a story and or like a trauma or a wound that we've inherited. And the more that we do psychological research today, the more we know that we can inherit traumas from our previous ancestors and from
our generations before. And we know that even from our own family of origin, that I I am a product of the death of my father, which is not my fault, but is the reality of sin, and it does shape me, and that inheritance is mine to spin, right? I don't get to choose that I have the inheritance, but I am responsible for how I spend that inheritance. And I think that's the big distinction between a generational sin, or like an ancestral sin kind of
notion and an original sin. I'm not broken by the death of my father, but I am impacted by it, and I am wounded by it, and need to do some healing and some tending and so that I can spin that inheritance. Well, I.
Yeah. So then, if we think about generations, what does restoration look like within generations when we're dealing with trauma and wounds and and sin of the past generations?
Wow, that's a really good question. That's a question that's probably also beyond my knowledge and expertise as a as a Bible nerd, you'd like someone who's a real trauma therapist would probably be a better person to answer that question. But I do think, I love that you asked it, because I think if the gospel is about restoration, then it has to speak to those things too,
right? Like it, if it's good news about all of life, and it has to be good news for me, the trauma, the stories that I've inherited, the families that I come from, and all that that comes with that the gospel has to be good news for and I don't always know what that means or that looks like. But I do believe that for the gospel to be good, it has to be good all the way through into all the places of our lives.
It is, it is true. I just, I'm just reflecting on the on a moment I think in the last couple of years, my wife said to me that, because of our relationship, she feels like it's like restoring the generations of her past. And we we actually start to now get to give a new inheritance to future generations, and we don't have to actually live with the the wounding and the trauma of
generations past. And so I was just reflecting on, you know, there's a conversation I had with my wife about, you know, generational trauma and then bringing it forward into, you know, restoring those relationships within our family, and then giving new life to future generations. And I also, you know, we had one woman, a Syrian refugee woman, who came to Jesus. She had a dream of
Jesus. She started following Jesus. She's a Muslim background woman, and you know that that moment then shifted the trajectory of her family about, you know, three, four years later, her her daughter came to to Jesus and started to follow Jesus as well. And I was just thinking. I was just reflecting again that it's not sometimes. It's not just an individual person saying, Yeah, I believe in Jesus. I want to follow
Jesus. It actually impacts future generations, like families are the whole trajectory of that family is going in a new direction than it ever did in the past. And I just think that's good news. I love that. Well, I
love that you just told me that too, because I think that's such a that's a really good kind of articulation of what participation looks like, too, like if like, because the work that you just did in that with your wife and your family, and the work that she did in this like series, when we were talking about feel so gospely, like there's something healed, there's something hole made in you, and then you get to participate in that work and extending that kind of healing
and whole making work to those around you, like Henry now, and in his book on the prodigal son, says, The the hands that heal become my own. You know, like you got a place at the table, and now you get to extend places at the table for those around you. So I just, I appreciate you telling me that, because I think it's both really beautiful examples
of that. Yeah, so what is the the table, and how does the The prodigal party? What does the party actually bring transformation?
Yeah, I so, I love that you asked that I and I think this is maybe one of my favorite parts of the story that often doesn't get enough love. You know, we spend a lot of time talking about the father, a lot of times talking about the son and or the sons, because both are important characters. But then the party, to me, is also an essential part of the story.
And from and I use it going back to like, how we frame the gospel, like, to me, party and table are biblical metaphors that get at kingdom in ways that are really relatable to the context that I'm preaching. At least this is like, kind of a leader aside, but when I preach in this context, to talk, in my context about kingdom, sometimes the response I get is almost like imagery of like tyranny. Kings and kingdoms don't mean as much. I think so. Like it'd be
young people in a democracy. But party language, table language, celebration, language, belonging. Language has deep resonance and so, so I love to use table party as kind of reference points for the community work that Jesus is doing, or the kingdom work that Jesus is doing. Doing, and tables and parties are such a huge part of Jesus' ministry, it's kind of an easy thing to do. You have the parable of the prodigal son, and then you also have the lost sheep and the celebration, the lost coin and
the celebration. But if you read Jesus's story in Luke you actually have 10 party stories, and I think all of them are these, kind of like wonderful. They're real, but they're metaphors and examples of what the kingdom can look like for people. And Jesus will show us in these party stories and these parties that he attends, how wonderful, restorative, powerful
the kingdom is. So you have moments where you know, like, one of my favorite party stories is the party story with Zacchaeus zakis in the tree, you know, sees Jesus coming, comes down. And we actually have very little information of the party.
We just know that Zacchaeus invites Jesus over to his home, throws a party, and somehow, throughout that whole party experience, Zacchaeus decides to stop exploiting people for taxes, to give away a massive portion of his income, we would basically be like reparations to the Judea area and to become a follower of Jesus. And you're like, oh, that's what party Kingdom transformation looks
like. It looks like people who experience the welcome of the table a place to belong and in the generosity and abundance of Jesus's table are transformed into generous and abundant people. And I think that the table is such a perfect, kind of wonderful example of what this thing with God looks like, the ongoing story like, yes, the younger son enters it. That feels sort of like the beginning of the Christian life to me, and the party is sort of what the ongoing Christian life looks
like. That doesn't mean it's always a celebration. It doesn't mean it's always easy. It's more like, it's more like living into that kind of already not kingdom of God that we believe is coming. We believe the ultimate table is being laid, and we now get to live in it here and invite our friends and families to be restored to the Father and to practice life together at this table and to celebrate
together at this table. And we get to extend it when we go to our workplaces and our neighborhoods and continue to play out this thing that God has invited us into.
Well then, if you look at then a community that is maybe like the younger son or the older son there, they see themselves in different places, but they get to this place where the father will throw a party, and then everybody's invited to the table. You're looking at at what we would call as communal justice, justice that is actually done as restoration, reparation into a place that they can actually come to the table together. How then do we embody good news in community
and invite all to the table? How do we celebrate with people on the margins, the neglected and people, and how do we help bring them into a place like, let's celebrate together?
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think at its most basic, we just we have to start doing it, we have to start gathering at tables, going parties, inviting our neighbors, being invited by our neighbors. Like I think that there is something that is almost like an imaginative work maybe, I think maybe this is what worship is. In so many ways, it's like expanding our capacity to see what God sees and to live the way that God lives. And I think table is such
an important part of that. Like we gather on a Sunday around a table, and I we also talk about, in our community that this is like, almost like a physical therapy moment, where it's like, pretty guided. We're growing into healing, we're developing some strength, we're learning some workouts that we can take with us. Then we go into midweek space, like a house church space, where we practice that less formally, but still with friends of folks that we know.
And then the goal being that you would live this the rest of the week that it like these two spaces reinforce this third space, where you are now you know, in your local neighborhood or in your community, practicing and living the table. But I think that the work actually has to be done, otherwise we never get to taste and see that the kingdom is near or good if we don't ever, you know, lay the
table, gather the table. And I think that's in some ways the biggest barrier to practicing this for people is that we don't have a lot of places to see it. So then, you know, all the imaginative barriers actually kind of stop us from it. So
then, what does it take if we don't have a lot of places to see it, what is it going to take? Is it going to take us creating those spaces and then bringing people along and saying, Here, look at this. This. This is something to spark some imagination for you. What's it gonna take?
Yeah, I think that's a great place to begin. Honestly, like I said the very last chapter of the book, I make a really brief suggestion, and this should be bigger, and it could be bigger and it could grow into bigger places, but I love the idea of people throwing a doing a dinner, like a very practical dinner, with people they know, and then committing
to do it consistently. Because I do think the transformation is kind of in the rhythm, and if we don't stay in this work together, where we ask questions, we get to know one another, we share our lives, we practice vulnerability. We practice hearing people's vulnerability, we practice inviting people into it, the kind of transformative work doesn't get to happen in us.
Maybe it's fun one time, but this is almost like a spiritual discipline of gathering together and being discipled in the way of the table, so that it can become a posture and orientation everywhere else, and so we can then bring that same kind of energy everywhere else that we go. So I mean, my base suggestion would be like, get a group of people together, order a pizza, sit at a table, and do that every Tuesday for the next couple of years. That
sounds fun. I'll do it. I'm good. Let's have pizza every Tuesday, yeah, and some drinks, and we're all good to go. And that'll be be great. So I'm thinking of traditionally, you know, one of the things that you know young people, especially we, we get young people to do it more often, is, is, with all the zeal that they have following Jesus, is that we say, here's here's your bridge illustration. Now go evangelize your neighbors with
with this. So if we're if we're shifting our thoughts, our thinking about the good news, about restoration, how does that affect evangelism, and how does that affect like the bringing good news to the people around us, how is it different than just a proclamation of like a gospel tract that we've seen in the past? And then, so what's, what's different? What's, what is good news for people that are actually bringing good news?
You know, I had a really important time in my life where tracks were I don't know it was substantial. I use them a lot. I learned to evangelize with tracks, so I'm kind of committed to trying to figure out how to do it again, but with like, a better theology track. So I'll see if I can work on one and pitch it to you someday. I because I think there could be a place maybe for that, in sharing a very different kind
of gospel story. So I'm not against it, and I think we just have to say is the vibe of our Gospel right in those moments. But I don't know that that's the primary way in which people are going to come to know Jesus is through track evangelism, even if we got really cool tracks, I think mostly it happens through being present in places long enough to know the people that are there and to share the story of the gospel out of our own
stories. This is the thing I think is so beautiful about the gospel, and that, I that, I think, is an invitation that we like. The invitation to participate is an invitation for us to tell our own gospel stories. Like the gospel is good news to the world, but it is also good news to me, actually, and I am invited to share how that news is compelling to me, and why it's compelling to me, and what it means in my own story, and how the complexity of my own story is a part of that.
Like it's not the Gospel story that I'm telling is not always rosy. It's not always easy. It includes the death of my father and the wounds that you've inherited and the time you spent outside the party because you were too afraid to go in and confront your older brother or be confronted. I mean, all of that's a part of that story, and
sometimes it's hard to hold. And yet we believe the father is always for us, and that he leaves parties in search of older brothers, you know, like so that story gets to become our own. And I think as we know people, and as we're in relationship to people, we get
to tell our Gospel story. You know, it's the story of Jesus in and through our lives, how he's revealed the Father to us, what it looks like for restoration to be happening and not happening, and what it looks like to be participating, and the invitation that we get to extend to those around us. So I think presence with. People and learning and growing and the ability to tell our own story to people around us,
I think that's it, and that's really important, to tell your own story, but also, you know to to continually tell gospel stories from your life. That is not just the first time you met Jesus, but Jesus is doing that restoration work in you constantly. You're living new gospel stories all the time.
So I could be sharing a story from last week, or I you know, you know, there's new stories that are happening, and I think that's going to resonate with a lot of people is sharing multiple stories, how Jesus connects to our life now, and it's not just one and done. And yeah, so I think that's helpful. The thing
that's like, really interesting about the moment that we live in, culturally, and I don't know this is your experience, or other leaders experience, but for me, people are maybe less specifically religious, but they are not less spiritual, and they're not less interested in spiritual dialog. And I actually think, and I'd be interested to know, if you what you think about this, if you've heard this, I think earnestness actually goes a long way today.
And there's definitely a culture and era where cynicism defined religious conversations. I don't know that that's so true amongst young people anymore. I think there's an openness and an earnestness. There's definitely
baggage. There's wounds that have to be navigated with, like Christendom and religious infrastructure in the United States, but I think there's a genuine openness and earnestness to the stories that you tell, and even stories about Jesus, like, it's not cynicism towards Jesus necessarily.
Yeah, I have, I know a lot of people, like, I have friends that go like to Burning Man every year. And there's, like, it's not so easy to talk about Jesus, Holy Spirit, right? It's very simple there, because that's what they're all seeking. You know, spiritual seekers, they said, you know, even in places where we would think that, you know, you have some, like Portland, people think that Portland is like, just like, off the deep
end. There's nothing good that's happening there, but there's, they're like, but they said, you know, it's the easiest place to talk about Jesus to people, they're hungry. It's just, it's easy, it's simple. And I think it's, it's that old Christendom framework that you have, like, oh, people are living outside this, this moral box, and so they're not really interested in spiritual things. But it's not
true. They're really interested in spiritual things, and they're they're seeking and trying to find it in so many different ways. Now, where conversation, spiritual conversations are easy and simple, outside of the church framework,
yeah, yes. I think that's totally true. And I think I get, I'd be interested to hear what you think about this. I think that you need less knowledge or resourcing to have good spiritual conversations, like you don't need a lot of apologetics to have a spiritual conversation with somebody. Because I don't think that that's really the questions most people are asking anymore about, like, the believability of
something. It's interesting. I just feel like, mostly we've kind of moved past that, and people want to know if something is good or not. Being
with Muslims, I spent a lot of time reading the Quran and getting to know like, hey, how do I point to Jesus through the Quran. What like, what are they going to believe? How could I, you know, the apologetic, you know, things for the Christian faith and what are the arguments that I need to have? And I just I realized that when I just sat down with families in a living room, none of that mattered like I got to tell, I got to tell Jesus stories from my own life or from
the Gospels. And that resonated more than any argument that I could come up with, defending my faith, against their faith. It was Jesus stories that transformed the lives of people because they wanted to live into the good news of what this Jesus story gave them. And so it, I didn't have to use it ever, and so I don't, I just don't think if we cut, if we do come with it an apologetic mindset, like as an argument, and I'm going to
win. People are going to be defensive, and they're not going to be open to having a spiritual conversation. They just want to win an argument, and it's not that helpful. Yeah,
people love a good story, you know. And that's the thing that we have really going for us. Is that gospel is the best story, you know. So if we could just, like, tell that, which, again, was why I like the parable of the prodigal son. To me that. An easy story to tell myself and to others, that God is like this man.
He is love, and he is coming after you, and He loves you and he's gonna, oh, it's incredible. It's amazing. Johnny, if people go and read prodigal gospel, which is a fantastic book, they should get it, and then they should start to live it out and get this restoration. What would be your hope for your readers that would read your book?
I wrote it for folks like in my own community, and folks who are wrestling with the gospel. So I think my first hope would be that they would discover or rediscover what makes this story so good, kind of just the thing that you and I were talking about that like, about that like that, if anything else, it was like your friend and a pastor to somebody who loves you writing a book about why they love Jesus and that might help spark some of
that in you. This book ended up being way more memoiry than I intended it to be. There's a lot of stories about my own experience with Jesus and my father or my church that communicated that to me. And so hopefully, through that, you could discover some of that, or find maybe a willingness to risk in some of that, and to be like, Okay, I got hurt by the church, or I this has not been good news for a while, and I'm gonna, like, press in, and then this.
The other goal would be that if you read this and you're like, Yeah, then my hope would be that it would help you articulate and come to terms with your own sort of gospel story that you could tell, like, if this is me wrestling in some ways, with my own story of the gospel and Jesus's story, that maybe like through these kinds of questions in this conversation, that that would happen with you, and so it would empower you or resource you to start having some of those conversations with your
friends and family and neighbors, and you with your own heart, just to be talking about the gospel and preaching it over yourself a bit. So those are my those would be my two helps is it would sort of re spark the gospel in you and help you
bring that to others. Yeah, wonderful. If you could go back to your 21 year old self. What advice would you give if I could
get back to my 21 year old self, what advice would I give, breathe a bit, slow down a bit. None of this is as urgent as you think it is. I think I when I was 21 everything felt very important and very urgent, and I wanted to rush into responsibility in adulthood in ways that also look I think, kind of made me not very responsible. You know what I mean? Like, I hadn't done the training to take on the responsibilities that I think something about those lines is to be like, it's like, it's,
you're gonna get there. You just breathe a bit.
Yeah, I read the tyranny of the urgent when I was about 21 and I just put it aside and didn't think about it like, hey, now everything's urgent.
It doesn't work. Yes, what
anything you've been reading or watching lately recommend?
Oh, yeah, well, I watch terrible television, so you don't want that for me.
What's terrible? Television, reality TV,
objectively bad reality TV, yeah, it's a thing that all my friends hate about me, is that I don't watch much TV, and when I do, I watch objectively bad. So the TV show that I've been watching the most is a show called homestead rescue, where a family shows up and helps, like homesteads that are struggling get above water. It's a terrible show, and I can't stop it. I'm also reading there's a so I fly fish a lot. I'm in Utah. It's a beautiful zone that's my primary like hobbyist fly fishing, and
it's amazing. I'll be out there in the river in a couple of weeks, and I'm excited.
Oh, really, where you are? Where are you going to be?
I'm going to be northern Idaho. Oh, yeah.
I mean, amazing, amazing fly fishing there. Yeah. So there's a author, John guyrich, who's written a handful of fly fishing books, and I'm reading trout bum right now, kind of like getting me in the headspace for this night. And you know, it's just like beautiful writing about fish and water and nature. Awesome.
I love it. It's good. How could people go get prodigal gospel? And where would you like to connect people to? How could they connect with you? Anyway?
Great question. You can buy prodigal basically anywhere books are sold Amazon. You can go directly to the publisher, Harold Barnes and Noble indiebound, just for your local bookstore. That way, you can order, I think, through most local bookstores. And then my website is Johnny is.com J, o, n, n, y, I s.com, and then I have a sub stack that's probably that's primarily where I do most
of my writing. Is my substack, which you can actually see the website, or Johnny is in the substack is called prodigal gospel, perfect.
Well, go out by prodigal gospel. Go to Johnny's substack, which is also prodigal gospel and his website. Johnny is.com Johnny. Thank you for this conversation. Thank you for helping us figure out what is good news, and how, really the good news of Jesus brings restoration to us and relationships that we could actually participate in some of this restoration that Jesus is bringing to all things. And, yeah, it was fantastic conversation. Really, really enjoyed it. So thank you for
joining. Thank you
so much for having me. It's really good to be here. Yeah,