Collin Hansen & Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra (Editors at The Gospel Coalition)

The episode you're about to listen to was released back when the Mere Christians podcast was called the Call to Mastery. Now, if you love Mere Christians, you're still going to love these older episodes because the majority of each conversation focuses on how the gospel influences the work of our guests. With that disclaimer out of the way, please enjoy the episode. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I'm Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Each week I host a conversation with a Christian who's pursuing world class mastery of their craft. We talk about their path to mastery, their daily habits, and how the Gospel of Jesus Christ influences their work. Today I'm joined by Colin Hansen and Sarah Zylstra. Colin is the editor in chief of the Gospel Coalition. He's a graduate of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He's also got a degree in journalism for Northwestern, where Sarah also went to school and got a degree in journalism. Sarah today is a senior writer and the faith and work editor at the Gospel Coalition. So you can see why I wanted her and Colin on the show. She also co authored a book with Colin recently called Gospel Bound, which was terrific. So the three of us sat down, we had a really interesting debate about what the whole self movement will mean for Christians in the workplace. We talked about the surprisingly practical implications of the theological truth called inaugurated eschatology. And we talked about the three problems with following your passions in your career. I think you guys are really going to enjoy this conversation with Colin and Sarah from the Gospel Coalition. Colin and Sarah, it is a joy to be with you guys today. So, Sarah, hey, I want to start with you because in this great, great book, Gospel Bound, you guys mentioned something I talk a lot about with regards to discerning one's vocational path. At least I think these ideas are connected. You guys mentioned these three problems with the secular. You know, you do you find yourself language. Would you mind sharing those three problems with this kind of ideology with our listeners?

Sure. And I think that's a great link. I mean, we were thinking about it in terms of just finding your own happiness, but certainly for a lot of people, finding the exact right job is sort of like a heaven or a utopia that they're looking for. So here's the problems that we found. First of all, language like that or looking inside yourself assumes that the human heart is a good and reliable guide, which we as Christians of course know the human heart is the opposite of a good and reliable guide. You can't trust yourself.

Desperately wicked.

Right. Second, it assumes that the highest good in the whole world is that you can achieve your own happiness, which also we know as Christians, the highest good in the world is to know God, to glorify him, to serve other people. We're not looking to create our own heaven here because we know how fruitless that would be. This isn't our heaven. And then the third thing is that it assumes that anybody trying to tell you what to do, and this would be including maybe your parents or the church or God, is interrupting or derailing your journey to finding out what makes you happy. So it kind of puts you in opposition to the people who would be speaking into your life. Wisdom and truth and honor and hey, you're doing that wrong. Kind of puts you, you know, angles you to be. No, I know what's right. I'm looking in my own heart and this is what my heart tells me is right.

Yeah. So in the book, you guys did apply this, like, broadly to the pursuit of happiness. But Colin, contextualize this for work, because I do think, I think in the workspace we hear this as find yourself, follow your passions. You know, my parents would always tell me, well intentioned, like, do whatever makes you happy sort of advice. Why is that problematic as Christ followers seek to make career choices?

Well, it's problematic for a number of different reasons, Jordan, but in part because of what Sarah had just said, that our calling is to glorify God and then it's to love other people, love God, love other people. The commandments are summed up in those two things. Well, what's not included there is whatever feels good, do it, or you can be anything you set your mind to be. I also think that that perspective, not only does it fall short of what we're called to as Christians, but at the same time, it's not practical for most people around the world. I am really grateful that I get the privilege to be able to talk with people like you, Jordan. I get to write book, I get to travel and speak and things like that. And I'm very, very, very passionate about that. And it's something I believe that God has called me to do. But at the same time, I think the world could much easier do without me than they could without my garbage man. I mean, the world's gonna keep going without me, without the garbage man, Everything falls apart. We're gonna have increasing problems with disease, not to mention all kinds of other different issues that we can only begin to imagine. But I'm not does anybody grow up and set their mind to say, I want to collect garbage? Well, I don't think so. But does that mean that it's not a worthy and dignified calling? Well, of course it is, because it's one of the most tangible ways that you can love your neighbor. It's one of the easiest ways to put this into practice. And so I just think it's impractical for a lot of different people, really. It does fall short of what we're called to do as. As Christians as well. So, yeah, a lot of different problems with that language when it comes to calling.

It's also out of whack with the example of Christ. Right. Like this. This follow your passions mindset focuses exclusively on what value a job can bring you. Christ came to serve, not to be served. Right. And I wrote about this in my book Master of One. There's actually a lot of good academic research now, especially with this researcher named Amy Rezneski out of Yale, that finds that the number one of vocational joy is sustainable. Vocational joy is not whether or not you were passionate about the work before you started it. It's the number of years you've spent practicing the craft. So basically, how good are you at this thing? How well are you loving others? And that's what leads to vocational joy. Like, I'm curious, Sarah, have you found that in your experience, or is there evidence of this truth in your own vocational journey?

Yes, I am nodding right along with you. I think that's true. The longer you do something, the more confident you are in it. I would even say for me, the longer I've been doing journalism, the more able I am to see the creation, fall, redemption, restoration, arc of it, and the better able I am to sort of think about things not, you know, like when I first graduated from journalism school, you're trained in a certain way, and so that's just how you practice. But as the more you get into it and the more you do it yourself, I think you're able to take a little step back from that or just say, you know, this seems to be working better over here, or could we change something over here? I think you get a little of that experience that helps you to experiment and helps you to think, you know, if you can think theologically about it too, you know. Yeah, I think that also gives a lot. Gives a lot of joy into the work.

I'm so glad you're touching on this broader narrative of scripture. That's a good segue to what something I wanted to Ask Colin. You know what? One of the main features of this book, Gospel Bound, are these stories of God working through us, through human beings. I found in my own work that many Christ followers just don't have a really clear grasp on this. Many believers have this truncated two chapter understanding of the gospel. Fall, individual fall, individual redemption. Jesus came to save me and I'm just waiting around until he eternity. But you guys did a really masterful job in the book of showing how gospel Bound Christians we work while we wait for the return of Christ. And Colin, I think it was you who used this big theological term to make this point, inaugurated eschatology. So for those of us who are not trained theologians, can you break this down for us and what it means for our work?

Pretty amazing how many wonderful things are unlocked with the concept of inaugurated eschatology. The basic perspective is that Christ has come and as a result he's brought his kingdom. And we see that through the spread of his gospel around the world. We see evidence all over the place. If we're looking, we see evidence of redemption, we see people being saved, we see a common grace being spread to those people who are just and unjust at the same time. We see all kinds of evidence. And yet we know that his kingdom is not here in its fullness until he returns, until he comes and inaugurates that new heavens and that new earth there as well. And I think what it helps us to do with our work is to understand that what we do in our work right now matters. It matters because we're working for God. It matters because we have a tangible opportunity to love other people. We can make an actual difference in this world. We can improve it. Things can get better. At the same time, there is a limit. There is a limit because the world is still fallen. The world is still saturated in so many ways by sin. We are individually still struggling. We are, as Martin Luther said, we are simultaneously justified, declared righteous before God, and at the same time we're still sinners. That's an individual version of inaugurated eschatology. One day, as the old liturgy would say, one day we will be freed from sinning. That's something that we look forward to. But for now it continues to be thorns and thistles. God has given us a kind of gospel hoe to work out in the dirt, to try to uproot a lot of those thorns and thistles. But. But they're going to keep coming back. They keep. It's just like weeding your garden. They're going to keep coming back. Until Christ comes. And then these thistles will be only flowers. I don't know, maybe they'll be edible. I'm not really sure how it's going to work. The new heavens and the new earth, but that's what it looks like there. So for our work, we can make a real difference now. But ultimately, we shouldn't be overly discouraged when those vines come in and they overtake. And I live in the south, so I'm always battling wisteria. I shouldn't be overly discouraged. But one day God will find a way to redeem even the wisteria.

That's the line. That's the quote for the whole episode. All right, so, Sarah, to ask the natural follow up. If God's going to renew all things in the end, why does it matter what I do right now? Why does my work in the present matter?

I think because that's how you love God. Because when he saves you, that's what he puts in your heart. Because that's your, you know, that joy and that love that you feel for other people. That's just kind of a natural outworking of your response to him that he has put in you. It's like a circle going right back to him because he's the source of it and he's the end of it. And so the work that you do, you do out of joy and love for God and other people, and you also do it out of God's strength. It's not like you can do a great job on your own. Good grief. I can't even time block a day on my own and stick with it. But if I have God's strength and energy and I keep depending on him and bringing all the things to him and working through all the emails of the day and the meeting meetings of the day and bringing those to the Lord, that's what makes a difference. That's how he's redeeming, at least for me, my work and my time.

Yeah. Amen. You know, it's significant. My pastor was preaching this past Sunday on the parable of the 10 virgins and the parable of the talents, which of course are right next to each other, right in the Gospel of Matthew. And it's that significant that they're connected, right? Because the parable of the talents, all about working and stewarding the gifts, has given us, comes after the parable, the ten virgins, which is all about waiting for the Lord's return. Turn right. And Jesus says in Matthew 25:13, Watch therefore, for, you know, neither the day Nor the hour. And the very next verse starts the parable of the talents and stewarding what God has given us in this life. The point's so clear. Work while you wait. Right? And God doesn't need us to accomplish his redemptive purposes, but it's a gift that we get to participate in that work during this life. Right. That's living the kingdom life right here, right now. Hey, so shifting gears real quick, Colin. You two talked a lot about rising persecution in the Western church in this book. And you guys argued that this trend and growing secularization is actually an opportunity for the church. So my question is, how can our listeners, most of whom who are working outside the four walls of the local church, embrace this cultural moment and see this cultural moment as an opportunity?

I had. I was talking with somebody at church, somebody I've known, I've been in church with actually, until, gosh, my earliest memories. This person. This person came to me pretty kind of distraught about the changes in the world. And he just asked me right after the service, said, colin, what's one thing that I could do right now to make a difference in the world with all this stuff that we're seeing on the news that's so discouraging to me. I thought about it for a second, and of course, what I thought about was this book. I thought about Gospel Bound, Living with Resolute Hope in an Anxious age. And I said, stop. And realize that a lot of the reasons that you feel worried and feel anxious are because people are trying to make you feel that way. Don't assume that that's just the way everything is. This is, in part, something that people are trying to make you think. I said, stop. And then pivot from that and say, stop worrying about all the things that you cannot control and invest more and more and more in those things that you can control. And that includes our work. That includes whatever opportunities God's given us vocationally with those precious hours of each week. How can you honor God? How can you glorify him? How can you love other people in tangible ways there? How can you do that with your family? How can you disciple your immediate family members? How can you make your neighborhood a place that's more full of love? That's. I mean, there's a lot of things outside of our control in terms of what's happening in Washington, people's attitudes in rising generations. We could talk endlessly about statistics that are worrisome. The decline of church membership, 20 points last 20 years. But all of that talk and analysis doesn't really move the needle. It doesn't really change anything. But what can change things is simply our families honoring God and teaching one another and being a refuge from a difficult world. Same thing with our church, same thing with our neighborhood. So that's one of the reasons why in the book, we talk about how you need to simultaneously think big and think small. Think big in terms of what God's doing inaugurated eschatology. The kingdom has come is not already consummated. Okay. But then at the same time, think small. What difference can I make? Tangibly here we find, Jordan, that so often we spend our time worrying about things that we cannot control and responding in ways that are guaranteed to make no difference.

Yeah. And I think part of this is related to our news saturated and obsessed culture. I wrote a little bit about this in my book that's coming out in October, Redeeming youg Time. So I was a PR major, right. We didn't have a journalism school at Florida State. Right. So I was a PR major, but very much this kind of journalism type background. I ran a news organization right out of college. I was obsessive about the news. And somewhere along the way, probably seven years ago, I just stopped. Like, I went from an all information diet to a zero information diet almost. I basically read the Gospel Coalition and full length nonfiction, no joke. That's my. That's my news consumption. No podcast, nothing else. And. But I, you know, there's so many studies that have proven that we are making ourselves anxious with all of this news. So, Colin, follow up question for you. You're a journalist. How do you fight back against this noise that's making us anxious and putting noise, if you will, information in people's ears that is redemptive and hopeful? I mean, obviously the book is part of that solution. You know, the Gospel Coalition, the content you guys are doing, how have you guys been thinking about that over the last couple of years?

Well, I had to understand, Jordan, first of all, just the nature of journalism as it's currently constructed. And so you have to learn to identify your own field and your own calling as it is essentially standardized vocationally. But then you have to be willing to reimagine it from the ground up. So, for example, journalism as we're trained to do that, as Sarah and I were both trained to do this at Northwestern, it has a strong preference for the new. The bigger the novel, the different, essentially the superlatives. This is the biggest, this is the worst, this is the deadliest, this is the whatever. Okay? That's how you're trained to do it. And realistically, that's how people react. One of the things that I've learned, Jordan, in the process of publishing this book is I used to think people don't want to be anxious. I've now learned through the process of publishing this book that actually people enjoy feeling anxious. Not everybody, and I'm not talking about anxiety disorders and things like that, but people like to feel as if they're part of some sort of big, big fight. They like to feel as though they're part of something that's much bigger and more dangerous than themselves. Okay, well, that's, that's, that's a concerning thing for a lot of different reasons as a Christian. But now you can see why media organizations prey upon that because it's actually something that people are looking for. Okay, so that's, that's the way. That's the way kind of our vocation is set up to be, however, is that the only way you could live it out redemptively as a Christian? Well, one of the things I had the privilege of doing in seminary was going back and studying the life of Jonathan Edwards, Pastor In 18th century America, the colonies, instrumental in the first great.

Grandfather of a one Aaron Burke, Vice President. Aaron Burke.

Fun fact of Hamilton fame, correct?

Yeah, that's right.

So, yeah, try to imagine that. Arc there from first Great Awakening to one of our most notorious vice presidents. I love it. One of the things Edwards did in the first Great awakening year was 1743. And he said God works in this mysterious way when news about revival, about the renewal of the gospel in an individual, a community, a neighborhood, even a nation, when it spreads to another place, the revival spreads with it. That news brings revival with it because it brings a longing, it brings a hope, it brings a prayerfulness. And he said, what if. What if we had a publication that actually published these accounts of revival and then it spread it all over the place. 1743, they published it out of Boston. They called it the Christian History. It was the first religious periodical in colonial America. And I thought, what if we actually tried to do that today with this amazing technological advancement that we call the Internet? What if essentially, now, instantaneously, these stories of God working in powerful ways in one part of the world could immediately essentially be seen and experienced and read about in other parts of the world? What would that do to build things up? What if journalism were used to do that? And so really, that's what Sarah and I have been engaged with the last five years at the Gospel Coalition and that a lot of the major fruit of that is this book, Gospel Bound.

I love it. And Sarah, you're the faith work editor at Gospel Coalition. You're writing about these stories. I want to get your take on these two converging trends. I've been really interested in. One, it seems like it's going to become more and more difficult for churches, parachurch ministries to do their work without breaking laws and regulations. Like that's a very real threat. On the other hand, there's this trend in the corporate world that I think is really positive of this whole self movement. Right. Encouraging people to talk openly about their sexual orientation, race, even religion at work. Do you see those converging trends converging related and creating an opportunity for Christ followers who are working in secular workplaces.

Oh, what an interesting question. I love that you're hopeful about this. I don't know if I'm as hopeful as you about the.

Yeah, tell me. No, please tell me why.

I was like that was such a good question, Jordan. And I'm pretty sure I just don't agree.

Great.

Just wish that was true. Great.

So make me pessimistic. Yeah, please.

Well, maybe just realistic. I mean I do. Here's what I do think. I do think as our culture trends away from like a sort of a, you know, Christmas and Easter, Christians who sort of feel guilty that they don't go to church all the time. But you know, I do think real Christianity to say you're a Christian will. Will once again really mean I follow Christ like my life is legitimately. And I do think also that then Christianity can sort of, you know, in the long run regain some of the trust and some of that respect as the people that you meet who say they're Christians actually are real Christians. I think that's those are all good things. I don't think that's on the immediate horizon. I don't think. I think our media, which goes to church far less than our, in our academia who goes also goes to church far less than our general public. I think there's just a pendulum swing that we're on right now, I guess that thinks Christianity is homophobic and racist and rigid and old fashioned and that's this what's shaping the stories. And I think that will shape the stories for some time to come before that swings back around.

Yeah. So let me ask you this. Do you, are you pessimistic about this idea of the whole self movement being inclusive of Christians?

I'm wondering how long the whole self movement is gonna last. We saw Colin, remember that thing we saw a couple weeks ago about the company who was like, we're just gonna quit with this because companies can get.

It was base camp. They said that we actually don't really care what your political views are anymore. We don't care what you think or.

If you go to the gym, y.

You can't talk about.

And they said, we don't really care.

We're not going to babysit.

It almost was like, we don't want to babysit you. Like, if you go to the gym, great. You know, if you want to have a book club with some people, go ahead, but that's not going to be on our time anymore. So I'm wondering if. If that whole self itself, with all, you know, the. And legitimately some good caring for. For, you know, employees and customers. I think that'll only go as far as it's economically makes sense.

I was going to say the same thing, Sarah. It is. The more you kind of try to replace the church as a business, the more the business has to essentially take on all kinds of responsibilities that it is not equipped to be able to do. And all of a sudden, at what point does the business say, well, I don't know, we've already got chaplains over here, we've got counselors over here, we've got dietitians over here, we've got weightlifting coaches over here. Like, we've got all of this. Where exactly does it stop? And is it any longer financially viable for us? Or does that make sense if you're Google doing that or Facebook doing that? But it doesn't make sense if you're a smaller company trying to do that. I mean, I think what you're seeing is this is a response in part to secularism, as people are looking for some sort of avenue apart from the divine to be able to invest their hopes and their dreams and their. And really to find. Find comfort for their fears. And so it appears that the two places that people are really expressing this are in their workplaces and in politics. But I would of course argue as a Christian that your politics and your workplace are not equipped to replace God. So. And of course you would agree with that as well, Jordan. That's why I'm just skeptical long term that that effort will become anything other than a really expensive kind of nanny nanny state like we're seeing with colleges right now, where the administrative costs of patrolling every relationship on campus and maximizing its full, you know, full flourishing is really just economically unviable. Because that's not really what the college is equipped to do.

Yeah, I think what I'm most interested in is I think we're going to see, hopefully see more of the scattered church over the next decades of Christ followers. Hopefully recognizing that my place of work obviously is not my church. The role of the local church is always will be relevant, but it is the place where I am going to intentionally make disciples. And just embracing that role of this is where I have a great opportunity. These co workers of mine probably aren't going to walk into my church, but this, this is where I can make disciples. This is where I can show what it looks like to be a Christ far at work and share the gospel explicitly when appropriate. That's my hope. I hope I'm right.

Me too. I hope that's right.

I can see that. Jordan. I think the only concern is that as Christians, this is hard for everybody right now. There's a difference between saying I'm a Christian because Christ was raised on the third day and he now is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, where he is judging heaven or it will come back to judge heaven and earth. Okay, that's a subjective theological historical language. The challenge is that our culture, enthralled to expressive individualism, only seems to recognize our ability to speak. If it doesn't have any particular effect on other people, like if it's just you, do you. I'm glad that works for you, then it's acceptable. But the moment it brings any sense of responsibility or judgment to someone else and their decisions, that's when it's not considered inbound. So I do think it means Christians will feel more free to talk about how Christ inspires them in their life and in their vocation, whether they'll be able to translate that into any necessary moral conclusions or objective standards or evangelistic appeal. We're going to have to see some more changes before that happens.

No doubt. And it's what makes Christianity unique and true. Jesus claimed that he is the way. It is an offensive claim.

Right.

It is a divisive claim and that is likely not to be tolerated anytime soon. So it'll be interesting to see this play out. Hey, Sarah, you interviewed John Piper for the book and talked about our desire to see fruitfulness at work and kind of this just this frustration and lament when we don't see fruitfulness, which I really enjoyed the section and I want to read this Piper quote, Piper said, quote my job is faithfulness, God's is fruitfulness, end quote. Can you share what that truth has meant to you in your own work as a writer, as a journalist?

Yes, I think so. Sometimes Colin and I do things. Well, often over the last couple years, we've done things that we weren't sure was going to work. We started telling these stories, as Colin said, sort of these revival stories of like, where is God working? Around the world? But we weren't at all sure anybody would click on them because we know people like to click on negative news headlines and all the numbers show that. So we weren't sure that would work or toward the beginning we started. I started kind of accidentally at first showing these stories to my sources before we publish them, which is like a cardinal sin of journalism. However, it really honors your sources. And the more I thought about it, I couldn't think of a good reason to put up that wall between me and my source and my reader. Of like, we're gonna. I'm gonna interview you and then you don't know what your final quote looks like or what I'm writing. If I'm writing a story about God at work, you and I should be on the same page. And. And I have found. I don't know if that was faithfulness, but it's certainly been fruitful. When I show these stories back to is almost always will they at least catch something that I've gotten wrong? And so that helps me to serve not only them, but my readers as well. Otherwise I'd be telling them the wrong thing. So I just think there's little things along the way, like praying a lot about interviews and which stories we're going to take and not worrying about which ones get a lot of clicks and which ones don't. Some of them don't do as well as others, but that doesn't mean that God's not using them just as powerfully in somebody's life or we'll use them in the future. Like a lot of this stuff we're writing for history, right? Like this is what happened, you know, maybe 20 or. Or 50 years from now, someone will find this and it will be useful again because God. God's working always.

I think it's tough. You guys are in book launch mode right now, right? I know what that feels like. It's tough when you pour so much of your time and energy into a project. Just stepping back and recognizing that the results are not in your hands at all. The Lord alone produces results through work. Colin, how. How have you been thinking about that? This tension between faithfulness and fruitfulness as you've been launch this book like real practically.

You know, I'm going to be honest. It's not that I'm not honest in other cases, but it's. It's hard. In fact, I was just, I was talking with our senior leadership team at the Gospel Coalition. We were meeting not long ago in to do a lot of strategic planning for the future. And it was really encouraging times in so many different ways. And I did a did an exposition of Psalm 73 and I talked about how well I've been in book launch mode. I've just been rooted in Psalm 73 and I've been asking so many different people to help me, to pray for me that I would enter into the sanctuary. Psalm 73 is from Asaph. And the sense is starting off that he sees the triumph of the wicked. And it seems to be that they have no problems in this world. The wicked seem to prosper in every way. And then he turns in the middle of it and he says, but then I entered into the sanctuary and I discerned their end. And then you just see this beautiful progression that culminates in verse 23. Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You hold my right hand, you guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

You.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. And so I've prayed that because you see, when you're publishing books that the wicked often prosper. Books that are poorly written or they're full of lies, or they're malicious. They're devised to divide and to destroy the church of God. You see that those books actually succeed. Not every single time, but in many cases they succeed. And you really have to have perspective to say that when you're publishing books as writer in your vocation, you're not trying to get rich. Because when you try to get rich, that's a good example where everything's going to go wrong. You're not doing this because you believe that you are the only person who understands anything. That's a way of really kind of abusing your reader. So you're doing your best simply to try to be faithful, to guide people on a process that you believe that God is wanting them to undertake. But you just can't be fixated on a lot of the metrics with that because it's not just doesn't always pay off and you simply can't control that as Well, I know Jordan, you have this experience. You've sold a lot of books. Sometimes it just sort of. There's a wind that just. Just takes you, and it's like this amazing sailboat, and sometimes you're stuck in the middle of the water and there's no cloud in the sky, and it doesn't. And the quality of the book doesn't necessarily matter in that case. So maybe I've given you a little more than you bargained for there. But that's been. That's been my experience as a writer in this vocation.

No, that's exactly what I bargained for. It's funny, I don't think I've ever talked publicly about this, but, you know, I wrestle with a lot of pride after the launch of my last book, Master of One. So I published Call to create in 2017, published Master of One at the beginning of 2020. My years are all jumbled up because of COVID and Master of One was objectively a better book. Like, we got better reviews. We got whatever. I spent more time on it. I was more focused on it. I felt like the marketing was stronger, and it just didn't launch as well as Cult of Creative. My email list was five times bigger, and now, long term, it's sold roughly as well. But that was devastating to me, and it was just a reminder of. Jordan, you're called to be faithful to this craft. The results are in the Lord's hands. Right. And he's going to work all this for your good, your sanctification, and ultimately his glory. And just being content and resting in that, that's way easier said than done. So I'm glad you. You are struggling with me here. Colin and Sarah. Hey, Sarah. So we. We haven't had a journalist on the podcast in a while, maybe ever. I can't remember. But I'm curious, what do you think is the delta between a great and a good journalist? Like, what separates what. What makes you distinctly good at your craft?

Yeah, I think for journalists kind of in general, it's seeking to understand, I think, because journalism. And now, I guess I'm speaking out of Christian journalism, but journalism in general, which also has a lot of common grace, there's a lot of time pressure. And you. You live in the bubble of your newsroom. In fact, these days, you often don't leave your newsroom. You can, because it's expensive and journalism is not a wealthy industry. And so more and more, you're. You're sort of in this office with these people, and you kind of create your own bubble. And you're probably all on the same political page, and you're probably all on the same religious page, and you're probably all judging, at least from our Northwestern classrooms, of people who go on to populate these newsrooms. You're sort of running in that same circle. And so I think it's very easy to walk in with preconceived ideas about what's happening. And it's. And it's very easy to go real fast. And, you know, you need to get quotes from both sides. So you just. Just instead of really digging in for the truth, it's a lot faster and cheaper to grab a couple quotes off of Twitter and then present that to the world as a news story. I think it's much harder. Takes more time, takes you maybe even sometimes going against the grain in your newsroom and maybe, you know, doing something on your own time, because I'm not sure they don't want you to spend the time to dig super far into things and to do. To do your work really well. I guess I'm just saying it's easy to get lazy. And so I think those who keep digging for what is true and really understanding as much as they can about a situation are going to be ahead. Now, I think Christian journalists have an even bigger advantage because we start off with a worldview that is correct. I think it's really hard to be a secular journalist because it's hard to understand what's going on if you don't know the underlying story that we're living. So it's hard to, like, why is this happening over here? Or, like, what could possibly, you know, what's going on? But if you know, the arc of our story and that Jesus came and that there's a wrestling of evil and good. I'm not saying you understand everything. Certainly we don't. But you have a better shot at understanding some things, and you have a better shot at holding things in perspective. Like, okay, so, you know, maybe you won't take, you know, scream about everything that happens. You can kind of hold it in a longer arc of like, okay, well, yep, we have this pandemic. Here's these steps we can take. We don't need to scream at each other one way or another. We can hold this loosely because we know God is holding us. So I think that helps you, even in your writing, to write more measured and rational sounding.

The best note I ever received from an editor was, look this specific reader in the eye. And it was. It was so Good. Like, I could picture. I'm like, oh, right, I need to find somebody I know that fits this profile, look them in the eye metaphorically and rewrite this section. And I think that's true of any vocation, whether you're a writer or an entrepreneur or you're a marketer, serving your clients, your employer, just as I idea of empathy. So, like, how practically do you cultivate that, Sarah, as a journalist? Like, how do you step into the shoes of somebody whose background and story is way different than yours?

So it's very easy for me because I write for the Gospel Coalition, so I have a lot of freedom, and we've done this differently. So if I called you, Jordan, and said, jordan, we're going to talk about your life, I would say to you, here's what we're going to do. We're going to talk. You can be completely comfortable and open with me. I'm going to write stuff down. And then when I write and craft this story, at the end, I'm going to send it to you before it goes up, and you're going to be able to look through it and correct anything I got wrong. Or if you feel uncomfortable with how either you said something and you want to change it to make it more clear, or if you're like, that's too personal, I want to take it out, we can do that. So if you and I start from that point of view, then we are very comfortable and can have a whole conversation just as friends. And I can understand you and you can explain things without always thinking in your mind. And I know this, having been interviewed, how. How scary it is when you think I have to say this exactly right. I'm trying to protect all these other people in my story. I'm trying to protect myself. I'm maybe trying to spin this so that I can look good, or at least I probably don't trust you because you're not going to show this to me. And what if you mess it up? There's a lot of baggage that sources come in with. So if an interviewer, I think, can put them at ease by promising those things, which I can just because I work for Colin, then I can enter in with you a lot more easily. So that's my advantage.

I love. I love that answer. And I think the universal theme, regardless of vocation, is just explicitly making clear I am here to serve you. Right. Whether you're a marketer or a journalist.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. All right. Hey, guys. So three questions. We love to wrap up every conversation with I'd love for both of you to answer these questions. Sarah, we'll start with you. Which books do you tend to recommend or gift most frequently to others? And it cannot be the box of gospel bound books you have sitting next to your desk or the Bible next.

Oh, okay. Can it be the Jesus Storybook Bible, which is 100%. I give that away constantly. So, yeah, that's my favorite one to give away.

I think that's my. I was looking back on my most popular Amazon purchase purchases and that was like, by far my number one most purchased book. All right, Colin, how about you?

Not as pious as Sarah. I recommend most often a book called the Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. Jonathan is. We both interviewed him number of different times. He's been a great guest on my Gospel Bound podcast a couple different times. And the Righteous Mind, he's a secular Jew, a political centrist. And that book I found to be more helpful for ministry than almost anything else that I've seen because it helps give you perspective that I think accords perfectly well with the Bible, even though he comes from a totally different perspective on how people are motivated to think and to act morally. And I think without that book coming across my life 8 some years ago, I think I would have really struggled with what the Lord had or just what was happening in my vocation. So in the last decade. So I think that was a providential thing in my life, that work, the Righteous Mind by Jonathan Knight. And I recommend it to just about everybody.

Interesting. I got to check this out. Okay. All right, Sarah, who would you most like to hear on this podcast? I know you've listened to a couple of episodes, but who do you want to hear talking about how the gospel influences their work in the world?

I would want you to talk to a guy named John Hanford. I actually just wrote about him. He was the person who wrote the International Religious Freedom act. And he worked. I would love to dig in further with him on. I feel like there's a big unexplored area. I wasn't able to dig in with him. He worked in Washington for like 14 years before that, I think before he wrote that. And when he interviewed. He interviewed a girl to talk to him. She eventually became his wife, but at the beginning she was like, I quizzed him up and down on how his faith affected his work, how he prayed about things, how he thought about things, like, is this really real? And she was so excited about it. His answers to everything, which made me think, I wish I could have sat in on this conversation and asked him up and down, how does this affect your work? I think Washington is an extremely difficult place. It's so it's also its own. Very much its own bubble, very much about power, which is of course, in some ways doesn't work with the church and Christianity at all. And so it's got to be a very interesting one.

That's a great answer. All right, Colin, how about you again?

I'm just always less pious, I think, in some ways than Sarah. I interviewed Malcolm Gladwell years ago about his book David and Goliath. And I tried to interview him for his book Talking to Strangers. Just couldn't get in touch with him for that one and couldn't book something there. And then he just came out with his latest book, the Bomber Mafia. And since David and Goliath, his books have all been infused with a lot of conversation about Christianity explicitly, the teaching of Jesus explicitly. The Bomber Mafia has a whole section about Christian ethics and how it plays into just war and warfare and all that kind of stuff. And so I'd love to hear you or if Malcolm, you can book both of us. You can book.

Yeah, I was gonna say I'll double book.

Yeah, you can book both of us. But I'd love to hear you talk with Malcolm Gladwell.

Yeah, I've got an in with Gladwell. I got. I gotta follow up on this lead because we've had a couple of people mention his name in response to that question. I think that would be an amazing conversation. So we'll get Malcolm on the show. All right, last question. Sarah, looking back on this hour long conversation, what's one thing you want to underscore, highlight, reiterate to our listeners before we sign off?

I think it would be Colin's. When Colin brought up thinking small or thinking toward heaven, thinking toward God. I know this is a podcast about, you know, searching for mastery and I love that. But I think if you're searching after God, the mastery comes like God is what you should be seeking after first. And then looking around like, how could I serve my colleagues better? How could I write that email more clearly? How could I help my neighbor carry in her groceries? How could I, like all the small, tiny things around, that's what's going to move the needle. And it feels so small, but that just means that it's manageable. And isn't that how we build our habits too? Just like one little small thing at a time?

Yeah, the pursuit of mastery is mundane. Right? Like, I think about that a lot. It's Just day in, day out, putting in the reps and serving people. Well, it's not these big. It's not book launches. It's the 400 hours of work prior.

And I think the same thing like evangelizing to your neighbor, building your own walk with God. All these things are the same. Like one one morning devotional after another or whatever is is how that happens.

It's so funny. My wife and I were talking about that last night, specifically with our immediate neighbors, and we're talking about doing a Bible study with our neighbors right now and talking about just the little bits of social capital that we've had to build up to do that.

Right.

It's every afternoon going outside and asking about work and our kids playing together and just investing in relationships the way Jesus invested in people. All right, Colin, one thing you want our listeners to hear before we sign off.

Oh, man, I've really enjoyed this. I've really enjoyed this interview. I'll actually, you say one thing. I'll try to. I'll cheat. One of the things that makes Sarah so incredibly good at her job and I think translates to other vocations is that she is endlessly curious. She's always interested in people. And that whether it's ministry journalism, I really don't care what the. What the teachings. If you're interested in people, you are going to be good at that. If you just show that you are there to care for them and serve them and you find them interesting because they are made in the image of God. That is an incredible thing right there. And I'll piggyback on that, because the way that you stay curious with other people, I think, is to stay humble. And I will say, the further you advance in your career, whether that looks like. Like book sales or a promotion or a bump in your salary or a new title or something like that, the further you advance in your vocation, the more humility you will need as you go. It's not like you arrive and now you're the person has everything figured out. Like, things will become more difficult, less obvious. The challenges become much, much more complex. The temptations become more severe. The more successful you become, the more experienced you become, you will need more humility. And I believe that that humility manifests itself in part in showing continued curiosity. Curiosity to learn what that could be through books or things like that, but then also just a curiosity in other people and a desire to. To do whatever you can to be able to help advance their best interests. So. So yeah, that's. That's what I've a couple things I've learned in the last number of years.

Incredibly well said. Couldn't agree more. Hey Colin and Sarah, I want to commend you guys for the exceptional work you two do every day at the Gospel Coalition. Thank you for telling redemptive stories, stories of how God is using us to do his work in this world and reminding us that our work matters because we're his hands and feet. Hey guys, this is an excellent book. It's called Gospel Bound Living with Resolute Hope in an Anxious Age. Colin and Sarah, thank you again for joining me.

Thank you for having us.

That was a lot of fun. As soon as we hopped off the line, the three of us agree we probably could have got going for another at least two or three hours. I hope you guys enjoyed that episode. If you are enjoying the podcast, make sure you follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're subscribed, so you never miss an episode in the future. And if you're already subscribed, do me a favor, take 30 seconds and go rate the podcast right now so that more people can find this content. Guys, thank you so much for tuning into the Call to Mastery. I love, love, love making this show for you guys, as does my team. I'll see you guys next week.

Sam.