Andrew Nemr (Tap Dancer)

Today's episode will begin in three minutes. But first I want to tell you about something crazy I'm doing for my new book, five Mere Christians. I've never seen an author do this before, but I'm giving a money back.

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Welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast. I'm Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of mere Christians? Those of us who aren't pastors but who work as graphic designers and pilots and bank tellers. That's the question we explore every week.

And today I'm posing it to my.

New friend, Andrew Nimmer. Described by the New York Times as, quote, a masterly tapper, Andrew has performed alongside musicians like Harry Connick Jr. And Les Paul and. And was a member of the original company of Stomp. His work has been recognized with the TED Fellowship as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and Google. He's world class at what he does and just an extraordinary human being. Andrew and I recently sat down to talk about how we can hear the applause for our work before we go on the metaphorical, or in Andrew's case, literal stage of our work. How Andrew came to realize that God doesn't need us, but wants us, and why we should all view failure as a gift, a gracious gift from God. Andrew just breezed past that last one towards the end of the episode. I Wish we had 10 more minutes to unpack it. But even without that, this is a terrific episode.

I'm confident you're gonna love.

Please enjoy this conversation with Andrew Nimmer. Andrew, first tap dancer ever on the Mere Christians podcast. Welcome.

Amazing. Thanks for having me first.

Hopefully not the last. We'll see. We'll see how this shapes up. So I've never talked about this publicly, probably for good reason, but I've got huge personal respect for your craft. Because when I was a junior in high school, I had this very tap dance heavy role in the musical 42nd Street.

Oh, sure.

And I was terrible at it. I mean, when I did it, I probably would have given myself like a 9 out of 10. Right. As a tap dancer today, I gotta find a video. It's somewhere out there. Probably, I don't know, four out of ten.

Oh, man.

But you do way cooler tap dancing than tap dancing at 42nd street, right?

Well, it's, you know, I think it's kind of relative. I like what I do, but there, you know, as with other things, there are many streams and many ways, and that's. Right, you know.

All right, so this is what I know when I think tap dancing. I think like tap dancing that you see in musicals from the 50s. That's not what we're talking about with your art form. Right. How would you explain the type of tap dancing you perform? Andrew?

My approach to the craft is tied to the people who taught me. So the easiest way for me to explain it, or one of the easiest ways is to say that I come from a lineage that includes Savion Glover, Gregory Hines, Jimmy Slide, And Mabel Lee, many, many, many, many others. Back to Bill Robinson and John Bubbles. And some of the key attributes of the approach is it's very, very tied to personality, to an ethic of improvisation and expression. Not only individual personality, but communal personality. And in that way, the technical aspects of the craft work are pursued for the sake of trying to say something. So we learn a lot about music. We learn a lot about how to use our bodies and kind of press them into some things that others might seem completely unnatural, but we figure out a way. And depending on the dancer, their purpose ultimately might vary. But for me, it really is about trying to engage with a kind of experience and bring others into that experience as much as I can.

How did you get into this?

So I'm an only child. My folks are from Beirut, Lebanon. Not a very popular spot for tap dancing.

You don't say.

Yeah, right. And my mom had been a kindergarten teacher. So when I was born, we moved around a lot when I was young. We eventually landed in Alexandria, Virginia. My mom was homeschooling me as a preschooler and my folks thought I should do something with other kids. It's not good for me to just be alone. And there was a dance school by the house. It was close enough that it was walking distance. So, you know, if something happened to the car, I would still be able to make it. And I went, I watched one class and my folks asked me if I liked it and I said yeah. So they signed me up.

Pretty simple.

It was. It was pretty benign. You know, there wasn't a big.

It wasn't a big aha moment. It was just like, yeah, that's cool.

No, I was three and a half. You know, I took a liking to the teacher. The context of the class seemed fun. You know, at three and a half years old, you're in a room for 45 minutes. 15 minutes is tap dancing, 15 minutes is tumbling, and 15 minutes is ballet. Or something that you can call ballet. Right, right, right. So that's how it started.

Your bio says you had this like life changing moment with the movie tap. What's the story there? Is that later on what happened there?

It's later on. I'm nine years old. I convinced my folks to go to the opening night of this film at Union station in Washington, D.C. they had just remodeled this old train station and there was a movie theater in the basement.

I've been to this movie theater.

It's incredible.

It's beautiful. And there were rumors running around that Gregory Hines and Savion Glover might make an appearance there. So I knew who Gregory was at the time, and I was super entranced with kind of.

So wait, I have no idea who this guy is. Who's Gregory Hines?

Gregory Hines is. So in the 1980s, he was probably the most popularly known tap dance figure.

Okay, so this is a big deal for you at the age of nine.

Yeah, huge. Think about the popularity of a Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, OR Sammy Davis Jr. Yeah. And that gives you some context for who Gregory was, especially in the world of dance at this time. And so he's starring in this feature film. It's all about tap dancing. And there's opening night at this theater. And so I convinced my folks that we have to go on this night, and we go, and I'm super excited. So I take my tap shoes with me, but I'm super kind of nervous, and. And so I leave them in the car and I go in, watch the film. Before the film even screens, somebody comes to the front of the theater and they introduce the film. So this is a big deal. They apologize. Gregory and Savion will not make an appearance tonight. However, we're really excited to screen this film for you. And I'm just curious how many people have their tap shoes with them? And I jump up and I look around the theater, and they're like 30 other people who also have their tap shoes with them. This is amazing. And the guy who's introducing the film points at me and says, come down.

Oh, this is.

And I say, oh, yeah, because I've left my tap shoes in the car and all these other people actually have their shoes with them. And I'm walking down the street, walking.

Around Union Station and tap shoes, right?

Going down. And he looks at me and says, where's your shoes? I said, well, they're in the car. And he says, okay, well, we'll overlook that technical problem right now. And how about we just do a step together? And so in front of this audience, I perform this basic tap dance step. And then I go back to my seat and I'm kind of thrust into this community where there are many more people than just me that carry their shoes around everywhere. And I watch the film, and in the film, there's a quintessential scene called the challenge scene, in which Gregory and a host of dancers from Sammy Davis Jr. S generation. So these are all old dancers, real life dancers that would have been headliners in the 20s, 30s, 40s, and they all, in this very informal setting, kind of make a circle. One by one, they Come out. They each dance like a rap battle. Yeah. It's a cipher. Right. In the hip hop parlance. And there's a guy on the piano, so he's changing the music up for each one of the dancers. And every dancer is different. Right. They're all evoking something of. It seemed to me as a nine year old, like, wow, they're individual people. And coming from dance school, my experience of dance school was you, you do the same thing that everybody else does in the line and you get told what to do. And this was just very different than that. The dynamic in the circle was also really attractive. Everybody was encouraging, they were egging each other on. You know, if somebody did a step that was a little bit like a joke, they would laugh. So it just felt alive. And I left the movie theater and I told my parents, I want to become a tap dancer.

That's awesome. And never look back. That's it. That was the thing.

Yeah.

So this is the second time this movie theater has made an appearance on this podcast. I just realized. Yeah. So my friend Mark Batterson, pastor of National Community Church in dc, he used to preach, like in the early days, they preached out of the. The Union Station theater.

Wow.

And I was in D.C. in 2006. I was doing an internship up there and it was the only church I ever visited was a Union Station theater. So how about that Wild that this is. Why in the world would a movie theater make two appearances in this podcast? All right, so what's your faith story? So you grew up in Lebanon. Were your parents believers?

So I was born in Canada. My folks grew up, were both born in Beirut. They were both believers. Yeah. They actually met in a fairly radical non church affiliated youth group in Lebanon that self funded in order to do public works projects. Cool.

So what about you? When did you start getting serious about Jesus?

I grew up not going to church. My church family was my parents and my family. We would experiment, we would try to find a community and nothing seemed to click for us. But we made it to church every Easter and every Christmas. And one Christmas I remember the pastor making a call saying, if you would like to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, just repeat after me. And if my timing is right, this happened the Christmas before I saw the movie Tap. And I just remember thinking, well, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. So I bowed my head and repeated after the pastor. And that kind of set this course of this journey that ultimately would land me at a Southern Baptist church in the Lower east side of Manhattan in 2011, where I was baptized. And very quickly after that, I would be connected to Redeemer Presbyterian Church through the Gotham Fellowship and connected to a Vineyard Church in Boise, Idaho, on account of an art and faith conference.

Very cool.

So within three years of being baptized, basically, I saw very clear expressions and different expressions of the body of Christ and traditions and streams. And that journey has kind of continued to where I've landed most recently with being introduced to the work of Dallas Willard and the spiritual disciplines, Richard Foster, and this intersection that I've found myself at between kind of the things that we believe, how we express ourselves and who we become. So our doctrinal faith, the practices that we find ourselves engaging in, and ultimately our experience of life.

For you as a tap dancer, you've talked a lot about identity, right? There's even this short documentary on your life titled Identity. I'm curious how you view the relationship between kind of this primary identity as an apprentice of Christ and this vocational identity as a tap dancer. How do those two things overlap? How do those two things interact with each other?

That's a great question. The backstory to my questioning around identity has to do with an experience that I had in high school where I realized that I was carrying kind of all these monikers, like labels of who I was. And I found myself feeling like I needed to switch when I was in community with other people who carried that label and kind of bouncing from one to the other. And the way my mind seemed to work at the time was, okay, well, I need to figure this out, because it doesn't make sense for me to have to switch. I'd like to be. Or I'd like to feel like I'm the same person wherever I am. And so I wrote a list of all the tags, of all the tags. So I had Christian, American, Canadian, Lebanese tap dancer. I put down hockey player because I was Canadian, so I may as well try that. And literally, I spent a week on each of them and tried to figure out, okay, if I lived fully into this idea of what I thought that label meant at that time, what would I find? Would I feel complete? Would I feel a fullness of life around that? And very quickly, I found that kind of the national labels, you know, Lebanese, American, Canadian fell flat for me very quickly. You know, I loved my mom's cooking. I was born in Canada, so everybody felt that that's what made me a nice person. But I was living in America, and I wouldn't have found tap dancing in the way that I had had here. So There were, you know, key attributes of each one, but the fullness of them wasn't a place that I could kind of plant my feet in. And so at the time, I kind of landed at, you know, Christian and tap dancer and so Follower of Jesus and expressing myself through this very embodied craft. And I think I've been trying to work that out ever since. Where I've landed is that there's an order of operations to this, that if I get it right, things feel easy and light and free and purposeful and full. And if I get it wrong, things begin to feel burdened and heavy and weighted.

But it's an issue of sequence for me.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I think that's right. That. That rings true for me. So give us an example maybe of a time in your life where the sequence has been out of whack.

Sure.

Where Follower of Jesus is not first. What are the implications of that on your work specifically?

That's a pretty good segue into the experience of burnout that I hit a couple years ago. So one of the things that I realize I've been formed into as a tap dancer, this is something that I've trained, is an ability to expend more energy than I have. And so in a show, I get an hour and a half to put everything that I have into the presentation of the dancing. And I know that once the show is done, the show is done. And so what I found myself training into is this idea that I can go all out and the end of the show will signal the stop of my need to go all out. Now, if you transfer that ability into a 9 to 5 or into a leadership role at an organization, it's almost a recipe for burnout.

Yeah.

Because as many leaders mighty experience, the work is never done. There's no signal for endings.

Right.

You kind of have to extract yourself out of the day, knowing that tomorrow the Lord's mercies renew and your to do list is still there.

Yes.

And so I entered into a leadership role at a tap dance organization not, you know, having been trained as a performer and entering in with this idea that if I give it my everything, that's how I know I'm doing a good job. And within a year, maybe a little bit longer than a year, I hit burnout. I hit a wall that I had never hit before, and I had hit walls after shows. There's a natural kind of come down. The post high of a performance is often a low. But I hadn't hit something like this before, and there were a number of things that I had to do, I guess, to work out of it. And I had a number of friends and support to help me do the things that I needed to do. One of those things was to recognize or to ask myself where God was in it. And thankfully, I had a sense that God was there, so I didn't feel abandoned, which was very important for me. And then I had to figure out, okay, well, what got me into this? And I had amazing support in terms of friends who had experience in counseling that helped guide me through the questions of, well, is it surprising that since you were formed in a particular way, this would be the outcome in this particular situation? Most of the things that came up in the conversations that I had were things like, well, how was your approach to energy management in Tap Dance Land? Like, when did you actually start working? I had my first job when I was seven years old. So there hadn't been a time in my life where work was separate from enjoyment or relationship that I can remember. Like, seven years old is very young. Start to start to bleed those things together.

Exactly. Right. Right in the net of this. After this burnout a few years ago was the core issue. Yeah, I've got these ordering of identities out of whack. Is that what it kind of netted out to?

Yes, in one sense. And in an almost deeper sense, it was an opportunity for a new revelation of what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus.

Yeah, go deeper on that. What do you mean?

So I had equated being a follower of Jesus to doing good work. And I knew as a tap dancer, I had this very keen sense that I couldn't do the good work without Jesus. Like, without leaning on his strength, his wisdom. So there was an interaction there. But fundamentally, my relationship with Jesus was for the sake of doing good work. And what I realized was that, yes, that is good and honorable and part of it. But more simply and potentially more importantly, God loves me full stop.

Amen.

Not for the sake of the good work that I'm gonna do, and not for the sake of how I affect others, but just because he loves me.

Amen.

And that was a revelation. And I come from a loving family. My parents are amazing. And yet. And this is one thing that's like. It kind of boggles my mind. Like, even in coming up in an amazing environment, I still hit this wall.

Oh, brother, I'm right there with you.

Right?

I'm 100% right there with you. Good upbringing, and you could still hit this for sure.

And so my journey out was kind of like this one on one with God to really understand what it meant and what it means. Because I'm still working this out. To be loved just for being.

Yeah.

And not turn it into some. Well, thank you for loving me. And I gotta go do this now because that's why you love me.

Yeah.

But you're coloring in some, like, really important nuance.

Right.

It's not that the Lord doesn't call us to do good work. He does. It's part of it. But it's the difference between doing the good work for his favor and doing it in response to his unconditional favor. Right. The favor that is secure regardless of the performance. Keller writes so beautifully about this that in Christian. It's only in Christianity that we get the applause. Before you go on stage.

Yeah.

Before you perform.

And that should radically change how we approach the work. You mentioned a couple of times that tap dancing is the way that you express your faith. What does that look like now as you're working through the other side of this burnout and kind of this realization that God doesn't need you, but he wants you. How is that shaping your art form?

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think there are a couple different ways that it's been playing out. One is I realize now that I can just enjoy what I do and share that. So the kinds of content that I reach for or that I allow myself to partake in and not just say, oh, that's too easy, or I've done that before, that's not worth my time. I need to go do something harder or more impressive. No, I just kind of let all of it sit and share that. From a project standpoint, I find myself more interested in projects that actually evoke something of this journey. And so the way I think about building shows or building projects or even kind of sorting all the ideas that might come up is seeking this intersection where the thing that we do or the thing that I do in a particular project evokes something of the interaction that I've experienced between me and God in the hopes that someone else's experience of me sharing my experience might do something for them.

Yeah, no, it's really good. Really profound. I totally get that.

I think it's interesting.

Before we start recording, we talked about our mutual friend Makoto Fujimura. And when he was on the podcast earlier this year, we talked a lot about the church's over obsession with all things utilitarian and useful. Right. Like culturally, we are so obsessed with the functional and the practical.

I Think it can be hard for.

A lot of people to see what. And understand what you just said.

Right.

The eternal value of painting or tap dancing. And how that can be a vehicle for showing people a glimpse of God. Talk a little bit more about this, if you can, in the ways that you see your work as a means of showing glimpses of God to the world.

I look at the arts as simply a heightened expression of being human. So dancing is akin to walking. Poetry is akin to speaking. Dialogue in a theater is akin to conversation.

But just at a higher plane.

It's more technically proficient. There's some kind of wonder that it evokes or that it might be meant to or pointed towards. And you have special specialists. You have people who've dedicated parts of their lives to understanding, in the case of tap dancing, sound and movement, to a degree that their experience of sound and movement is more intimate than somebody else who's just listening to the world around them and walking. And in that intimate relationship with sound and movement, there is an intimacy with the creator of sound and movement that can be drawn out and presented. That, to me, is what the arts do. I have to say that I don't think that's very far from what a conversation can do or what seeing somebody walk can do. If we see walking as something that connects us with our Creator. Or if we see a conversation as a sacred space between two people in which the third person is Jesus.

Yeah.

You know, there is a lot of utilitarianism and pragmatism that's around. And so there often is a defense that needs to come for artists to feel like they can do what they do.

Right.

I tend to approach it from the opposite direction in saying that everybody has effect at the level of an artist. If we actually believe in who we are as created in the image of God. And so the words that we speak has the effect in our sphere of influence of the most imaginative and powerful poet in the world.

Yes. And I think that's the foundation.

Right.

Especially with artists. The art form is a means of reflecting the character of a creative God to the world. And I think there's this other sense in which tap dancing, whatever the art form is even working at a business. Right. Can be evangelism without words. Not to say that we shouldn't speak the words we should. Right. But especially in the arts, you're planting seeds of beauty and wonder and hope in people's hearts. Which ultimately can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, lead some people to a longing for the source of all Beauty and wonder and hope. God himself.

Right, right. Yeah. In tap dance land, the art is fundamentally experiential and the experience of the craft is predisposed for experience. Like people come to a space, they move their bodies, they prepare their hearts to rece. Receive a thing. And the thing that they're receiving is somebody who has prepared themselves and is moving their bodies. And in that sense, for me, I think there's kind of a unique power or a unique opportunity for an experience. And the way that my faith journey has gone, I really believe that an experience is the thing that we have some sort of interaction with God in our life, in our world that shifts the way that we see and hear and think. And all the words that might come in terms of evangelism or study or the further processing frames that experience supports. That experience reminds us of that experience. Yes, but in my life at least, it's not real until it's real. Until that interactive experience happens, it's hard to act as if that experience should happen.

Yeah, yeah, I see. I know what you're saying. I think too, the experiences that are most compelling to a watching world are the experiences people see of watching people do the thing God clearly made them to do.

Do.

Right, Yeah, I read this article. Somebody else was describing you as having, quote, the cheerfulness that comes from doing what he loves, end quote. It just reminded me of that really famous scene in Chariots of Fire with Eric Liddell, the sprinter, saying that when he runs, he feels God's pleasure. I think it could feel selfish saying that we bring God pleasure by doing the things that bring us pleasure, but I think in a sense that might be true, right where his children, God wants to see us fully alive so long as we're doing the work, doing the thing for his glory, and in obedience with his commands. What do you think? Do you think there's a sense that when you're doing your work with utmost pleasure, God is taking pleasure and delight in that? Andrew?

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is Dallas Willard has an amazing quote where he says he believes that God wants to make us the kind of people that he can empower to do whatever we want. And whenever I've seen a video of Dallas and he says this line, he always has to pause. And he says, you might think that I might have said something wrong. You might think that he wants to make us the kind of people that he can empower to do whatever he wants. But if we take Dallas's first statement and says God wants to make us the Kind of people that he can empower to do whatever we want. There is a formation of our will that aligns it with God so that what we want is what he would want. And we get joy in doing what we want. And he gets joy in seeing us do the thing that we want. That is what he wants. And so the idea of desiring to love well, desiring to see goodness, beauty, justice, like, flow out into the world from us naturally, easily, just because that's the thing that we actually want to do. The glimpse of that for me is I really enjoy tap dancing. It's something that I want to do. And so all the work and training and discipline that goes in to me being able to do that well and me being able to do that well is what brings me joy, is kind of a mirror for the rest of the formation of my person. Such that that kind of joy flows out into every other aspect of my life.

It's really well said. I gotta dig into that Will. But I was reading somebody else. I can't remember who it was. I was reading some commentary says what the world needs now are human beings that are fully alive and fully animated by the Holy Spirit. I think part of that comes from doing the work that makes us come fully alive again. So long as that work is being pursued with excellence and love and in accordance with God's commands, you know. Yeah. I think it's interesting Keller and R. Paul Stevens and a lot of other people have pointed out that it appears that God worked for the sheer joy of it. Right? God had no need to create. Right. So in some sense, he created for the joy of it. And that frees us from, as Stevens calls it, the quote, tyranny of utility. We don't have to do things that are useful. We can do things just for the joy of doing them. Does that resonate as true with you, Andrew?

Yeah. In the world that we live in, the thing that couches all that for me is doing that with God. Because I'm not a fully perfected human. So the things that bring me joy, some of them might be completely distorted. And some of them might be fully formed in the way that would bring God joy to see. And so my pursuit seems to be how close and how continuous can I have a sense that whatever it is that I'm doing, God's at my right hand, at my hand of action. And I'm doing this thing with God because I am with God. Like, that's just the basis of my existence. And that relationship, that closeness, the proximity, you Know, if you spend tons of time with someone and they have a powerful character, that character is going to rub off on you. And that's my hope. Like, I want the personality of Jesus to rub off on me.

Yes.

Because I'm not going to get there under my own strength. I know that.

Yeah, man. This is a theme that's been coming up on this podcast over and over and over again, partially because I've been. I've been personally digging into it a lot. This idea of with, yes, we're called to do work for God, but we're also called to do it with Him. What does that look like for you in the work? What does it look like practically to do the work alongside Jesus, with Jesus at. What did you call it? The right hand of action. I love that so much. What does that look like?

Oh, man, it looks like a lot of doing nothing at this point, which might be weird to say, but tap dancing is full of action and it's full of interconnected thoughts. Like the music is related to the motion, is related to the purpose of the dancing is related to probably some market thing that needs to go out for the sake of the show, for the sake of the gig. And so there's all this stuff that's connected and it's all moving. And I find that for myself, the best thing that I can do is stop everything, drive down to the river and spend an hour, two hours, three hours sitting, walking around in a circle, trying to balance on river rocks as I walk a little bit into the river and setting my mind on God's face and just asking him to teach me something or tell me something or not trying to choreograph the time, but just say, all right, I'm coming to hang with you. What are we going to do?

The best picture I've ever heard of this. I can't take credit for it. I think it was my friend Paul Sohn who came up with it. Can't remember if I've shared on the podcast before, so forgive me, listeners, if you. You've heard this recently, but I think the picture here, it's. It's almost like the finale of American Idol, right? Or one of those singing competition. I don't know what's on TV today in terms of singing competitions, right? But right, every time in the finale, you've got these two, three finalists going head to head and they come out and they sing their final song and they're a ball of nerves because everything's on the line, right? Their palms are sweaty, the tension the nerves are palpable.

Right.

When they sing those songs and wait for the results and wait for the votes to be cast. But then once the results have been announced and the winner is declared, the winner comes back onto the stage. And oftentimes they sing the same song that they sung before the votes were cast, but the countenance of that winner is totally different. Same words, same melody, same tune, same technical difficulty of singing the song, but there's an air of lightness, of freedom that comes after the applause. And I think the trick for us as Christ followers, as mere Christians, is to remember that we already got the applause before we get out of the car on Monday morning, walk in the office, or before we step onto the stage for a performance as a tap dancer. Whatever it is, the applause is secure. You're a child of God. You have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and he calls you his adopted daughter or son. That's it. That's it. Amen.

Amen.

How do you remind yourself of that? As somebody who is a literal performer for a living? How do you keep that? How do you keep that? Because, man, this is me, right? Publish your books every two years of speaking, all the time, whatever. It's very easy to fall into the traps of. Oh, man, this podcast episode with Andrew crushed it, but the next one did it.

Like, how do you.

How do you remind yourself that you already got the applause before you go on stage?

Yeah, Well, I think there's. There's two things that play in my life. One is God's gracious provision to allow failure and the not hitting an expectation so that I can realize, oh, no, I do carry expectations, and that one didn't work. And so knowing that, that's part of it for me is to stay in the role of a follower. And what does that look like? How do I follow? Well, when from the public's perception, you're a leader and you're an innovator, or you're. You're the focus of attention, and in my own life, that can't be true.

Yeah, it's really good. Yeah, it's really good.

And practically the disciplines of silence and solitude are immensely helpful. Yes.

That is the practical outworking of this is taking the time to preach the gospel to yourself.

Yeah.

In quiet solitude. Right.

Like, it doesn't.

That's kind of it.

Yeah. And I would. I would say even taking the time to have the gospel be preached to you in silence.

Yes.

To be immersed in relationship such that the thoughts that come to mind can be, God's thoughts for you and not just God's thoughts for the next task that you need to complete.

Yeah, yeah, it's good. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Since so much of my work is expounded upon the scriptures. When I'm doing my personal devotional time, try not to look for something that I can take and give to my audience.

Right, right, right, right.

But look at the word like no, no, no, no, no. I need this first. And it appears selfish, but that's the only way that my cup can be full. I need the gospel before I could share the gospel with anybody else. Right? Andrew, this is so good, man. This is so good. Hey, you know every conversation with three questions real quick. Number one, books. Which books do you find yourself recommending or gifting most frequently to others?

There seems to be two that come up. One is CS Lewis's Grief Observed.

Yeah, so good.

And the other is almost any book by Dallas Willard.

Yeah, which one?

Divine Conspiracy, actually, Renovation of the Heart.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Great answer, Andrew.

Who do you want to hear on.

This podcast talking about how the gospel shapes the work we do in the world?

Oh, man, I would love to hear a local parish pastor, someone that I don't even know, but has a community of, you know, 25, 30 people that they've been with for, you know, either just starting or have been with for years.

It's a good answer. I like it. And are up close and personal in relationship with people doing the day to day work in that community. I like it. Andrew, before we sign off, what's one thing from our conversation you want to reiterate to our audience of mere Christians?

I think the thing that's come up for me that I've heard in our conversation is this idea of feeling selfish and doing the things, things that we need to do to be with God. And I would want people to hear someone say that in my life, the gospel has been most effective for me and I think in me for others, when it's an overflow of the abundance that I have received.

Amen.

And so taking the time that I need to be with God and to know, to really know what that's like and what that can be like naturally affects everything else.

It's really good. It's a great note to end on. Hey, Andrew, I just want to commend you man, for the exceptional work you do for the glory of God and the good of others. Thank you for working hard, hard but lightly to create beauty in the world that reflects the ultimate beauty of God. Guys, if you want to learn more about Andrew and his work, you can do so@Andrew Nimmer.com that's a N D R e W n e m r.com Andrew, thank you so much for hanging out with us today.

Thank you for having me.

That episode was fire if you're asking your host. Man, I loved that conversation. If you did, do me a favor and go review the Mere Christians podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify wherever you listen to the show. Guys, thank you so much for tuning in to Mere Christians. I'll see you next week.

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