Doug McKelvey (Author of Every Moment Holy)

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 guarantee on this book. I'm so confident you're gonna love this book that if I'm wrong, if you pre order the book, you don't love it, I'm gonna send you a $20Amazon gift card as a money back guarantee. Why? Two reasons. One, this is a different book for me, right. I know this is a very different biography. What is Jordan Rayner doing? And I know it's risky, so I'm going to de risk it for you. Because listen, in my other books, Redeeming youg Time, the Sacredness of Secular Work, Master of One, etc, etc, I am telling you and me how we can glorify God in our work, but in five Mere Christians, I'm doing something very different. I'm showing you what that looks like practically through these unforgettable life stories of five Mere Christians from history. These are the top men and women that I would love to have on this podcast today if, you know, they weren't dead, right?

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Hey friend. 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 or religious professionals, but who work as EPIDEMIOLOGISTS landscapers, and broadcast technicians. That's the question we explore every week. And today, I'm posing it to Doug McKelvey, the author of Every Moment Holy, one of my absolute favorite products on the planet. It's a collection of prayers and liturgies from for every moment of your life in your work that sold more than 300,000 copies across three volumes. Doug and I recently sat down to talk about how liturgies can help us see and respond to the holiness of every moment at work, even the super mundane ones. We talked about what quantum physics can reveal about why God may choose to work through you and me.

And we also talked about how rehearsing.

For the new creation shapes Doug's approach to his science fiction writing. Please enjoy this episode with my new friend, Doug McKelvey. Hey, Doug. Welcome to the Mere Christians podcast.

Thank you so much, Jordan. I'm happy to be here.

So I asked you before if you had a liturgy for recording a podcast, and you said that this request came from a very obvious person, a publicist, which makes all the sense of the world. Is this going to come into future volume also?

That I failed you by not having that one yet.

Future volume, Volume four, Volume five could be.

Probably not volume four, because that one is going to be topical, it looks like. But yeah, maybe volume five.

All right, well, hey, let's do this. I pulled open volume one. I think this is relevant. A liturgy before taking the stage. So before we get into this and you and I take the proverbial stage together, let me read just an excerpt of this liturgy you wrote. Lord, take this tiny heap of my talents, of my brokenness alike, this jumble of what is best and worst in me, and meld it to the greater work of your spirit, using each facet as you will, so that even as sunlight coursing through a cracked prism, your grace might somehow be revealed upon this stage in whatever glorified, gloried, and peculiar patterns you have fashioned me to display. Amen. I love it. And that is from Every Moment Holy, Volume 1, for those who don't know. What is this Every Moment Holy thing you've put out in the world, Doug? What is this?

Yeah, that's a question I continue to try to answer by writing more of them.

I suppose you'll find the answer if you write more of them. Yeah.

So the whole project began just as something I wrote for myself because I needed. It was a season where I had been working on writing a science fiction novel, and I worked on it for. For well over A year as it being kind of the primary thing I was spending my work time on. But I had gone through, or I was in the middle of a season of just kind of lack of discipline. And I would sit down every morning with good intentions to get some writing done that day. And lunchtime would roll around, and I would have checked, responded to a lot of emails, and, you know, read some really interesting articles and never opened the document to do any work. So one morning I just thought, I need something that would just reorient my mind and heart in the moment toward my relationship to my creator, my relationship to the gifts that have been given to me to steward, including the time that has been given to me to steward, and also in relation to the people I hope to serve by what I might create. So just this, just recognizing I need something that could serve to reorient me. So I just decided that day I'm going to write a prayer. And it was on a whim that I thought, I'll structure it as a liturgy. And so I wrote a liturgy for fiction writers. And there was a hutchmouth conference. Rabbit Room puts on a hutchmouth conference every year. There was one coming up that I was speaking at, and the session that I was doing was collaboratively with Andrew Peterson and then a Northern Irish Bible scholar and author, Heidi Johnston. And I thought, well, this prayer is kind of topically related to our session in an interesting way. So maybe it would be a kind of a novel way to close a session if we had everyone pray this. So I emailed it to Andrew, just asking, hey, would this be an interesting way to close the session? And he responded pretty quickly and said, I love this, but, man, I wish I had a liturgy for beekeeping. And he named a couple other, like, hobbies and interests of his. And it was when I got that email back from him, that was the epiphany moment where it was just like, oh, yeah, this isn't just a novelty thing for me. There's something in this form, in this model, that really could serve the body of Christ in a lot of ways. But what every moment holy is is it's a collection of prayers. Some are written in liturgical form. Others are more of a personal or even psalm like kind of expression. But they are for moments of everyday life, or many of them are for everyday moments, like changing a diaper or making your coffee in the morning or doing laundry or, you know, viewing a sunset or just this wide cross section of parts of our lives. And others are more seasonal or special occasion, like A liturgy to mark a birthday or, you know, for the first hearth fire of the season, some of those kind of things. But the idea was, okay, so propositionally, I believe certain things. I believe that God is at work through history, that he is weaving things together unto a glorious end, and that history is moving toward the new creation that he has promised. So I believe, and I believe that the Spirit of God is present and active at all times, you know, ready to move and work in and through and around his people as our hearts are yielded to Him. So I believe those things propositionally. But what does that mean in the actual moment when, you know, a young parent is about to have to change the seventh diaper of the day?

Yeah, exactly. When I have to send that angry email.

Yeah, yeah.

What would otherwise be an angry email. Yeah.

Can we unpack that and actually set it a little less abstractly on that timeline of the movement of redemption through history and through our lives? Can we find the connection points between this little act of love and service, however begrudging that I might be engaging in here right now, you know, unseen by anyone, and the new creation that's coming? Right. So for me writing these prayers, one of the things that the Every moment Holy project quickly became was this exploration of, can I connect the dots? Can I unpack the eternal significance of these moments at the same time? And as part of that becoming, engaging in this practice of reorienting our hearts and minds toward God, toward an awareness of his presence and his desire to work in us and through us in all moments. It really is a way of saying, practicing an ongoing mindfulness of God's presence and letting that reality shape our moments, our life experience.

So there are practices we can put into place to help us recognize that every moment is holy and respond to that reality in kind. Right. And I think that these books are. They're one of my favorite tools for doing that and one that I recommend a lot. I want to go back to something you said a minute ago, because it jives with something you said in the forward to volume three, every moment holy, the work of the people. You wrote. This is the great mystery of the church. God does not need us. He could accomplish his labors by divine fiat, yet it is his good pleasure to labor through us, end quote. Something we talk a lot about on this podcast. So I'm just curious, and this is something I've riffed on out loud a little bit in my books and on the show, but why do you think we can't know? Right? We're not God. But why do you think God chooses for you and I, for human beings to be a primary instrument through which he does his work in this world? You got any guesses here, Doug?

Well, I suspect that any answer that would approach accuracy would have to be multi layered. And I think it's safe to assume that those layers would extend just like the visible spectrum of light, right? We see such a small part of the light that is actually there. There are some animals that in interesting ways can see parts of the spectrum of light that we cannot. And then there are, you know, there are wavelengths on the spectrum of light that no living creature in the world can see. That when we talk about God's purposes and consider his purposes in anything, I think it's probably like that light spectrum that, you know, there might be a 5% slice of that spectrum that we even can have any cognizance of, you know, hints of it that we might be able to discuss. And most of it is just too high or too low on the spectrum for us to even be able to talk about it. But when you asked the question, one of the things that came to mind, and this might not even be the most prominent part of the answer that I would give, but it's just because I've been reading some books by John Polkinghorne, finished one a few weeks ago and I'm in the middle of another. And Polkinghorne is a very interesting writer and thinker because he was a particle physicist, lived in the UK, but at the age of 47, determined. I've contributed everything to this field that I set out to do. It's time for a new season. So he became ordained as an Anglican priest. I'm assuming he went through the the seminary track to do that and then spent the remaining decades of his life. I think he died about eight years ago, writing largely about this intersection of faith, Christianity and science and quantum theory. And there was a chapter in the book that I'm currently reading of his where he's looking at how does God interact with the physical world? How is God involved in shaping events, in determining outcomes? And he's looking at things from the quantum physicist level and within the mysteries of the workings of quantum particles is actually building this assertion, suggesting that this may well be the place where the Creator actively influencing events, but in such a way as not to violate the free will human beings announcing his presence in a way that would be unavoidable or irrefutable. I wonder for that same reason that if God did everything by divine Fiat. It doesn't leave room for his creatures to make significant choices as to whether they will pursue this path of openness to their Creator, of love toward Him. That. So I think there could be part of the answer in that.

That's actually where my mind started to go, is about that relationship. Right. I think our Father wants to be with us and work as a canvas for being with us. Right. Like, if we believe we're made in the image of a God who works and creates, then his children doing that alongside him must bring him joy. And this is part of the reason why I enjoy every moment holy so much. Because, man, Doug, it is hard for me to remember to work with my heavenly Father day in, day out. Right. Just being mindful of his presence, relying on him through prayer. And I just think this is a really practical tool for working with God in every moment of the day.

Right.

In volume three, you got liturgies for writing a difficult message. Right. I think every working professional could resonate with that. A liturgy for beginning and artistic work, for those anxious about air travel, etc. Etc. And I think these are just beautiful ways to practically be working with God on a daily basis. A lot of these have been written by you. A lot of them have been written by others. I'm curious, is there a liturgy or two that you come back to on a near daily basis as you're toying away at your desk?

Not on a daily basis.

What about most regularly?

Yeah. So the liturgy for fiction writers is one that I've come back to, the one from volume one that, for whatever reason, meant the most to me personally and that I've come back to again and again, is a liturgy for those who work in wood and stone and metal and clay. And, you know, I wrote it for friends who are actively involved in those artistic disciplines, but as I was writing it, I also knew it was for the entire body of Christ. That there's the rule in songwriting or screenwriting that if you try to make something too general, it just isn't going to connect with people. But if you make it specific, it actually, in this odd dynamic, it gives them a doorway into the thing and it expands and find the connections to their own life and experience in that. So in that same kind of way, that particular prayer is a call. There's a refrain in that prayer that says, I am rehearsing the new creation in the making of this thing. And so, yes, it applies specifically to, you know, making ceramics or something with metal or whatever. It's no less applicable to any of us who are, whether we're making physical objects or, you know, engaging in acts of mercy or whatever it might be that our calling is. We can engage in that calling, in that vocation, with the understanding that we are rehearsing the new creation as we do this, that through this act, we are rehearsing the new creation.

How does that practically change the way you approach your work? For example, go back to the science fiction novel. How does this knowledge that you're rehearsing for the new creation practically shape that project?

Man, that's such a good question. I feel like I would almost have to write a book book to unpack all of the ways, you know, on the macro and the micro scale, how that works. Because there's the level on which I don't know that I would have the patience to spend a couple years laboring over a story if I didn't believe that stories mattered so much. And I would not believe that stories mattered so much if I didn't believe that there was a new creation coming and that we were created with this yearning for it, this longing, you know, that all of our hope leans toward that. Of course, if we aren't able to name that and articulate it, then we spend our lives trying to find the fulfillment of that in other things, or killing our hope to avoid disappointment and just becoming cynical and jaded. But there's this recognition that we're laboring towards something else. We're laboring toward that fulfillment, that these are the deposits and the down payments. And in the context of that prayer for those who work in wood and stone and metal and clay, the question is raised, is it possible to that in the economy of the new creation that we will find that these imperfect things that we've made and labored over that were the best we could do, but they didn't measure up to the glory of the vision we first had for them? Right? Will even those things be redeemed in a way where we will see these artifacts we've created in a new light? You know, for me, it is that glimpse into the new creation and how there is continuity and the things that make no sense to us in this life? You know, why is this so hard? Why have I not managed to build anything lasting? That when that veil is lifted and we see for the first time the eternal reality of what has been accomplished, what God has actually accomplished through our labors, even through the things that seemed like utter failures to us, that vision gives me hope to keep going. This season of life has become the most Difficult season of life that I've experienced. And there are a lot of things I am grieving that I can't do anything about. But that hope, that hope of the new creation has become so much more tangible because of that. It's like, I would be happy if Christ came back today to establish the beginning of the new creation. I'm ready. I'm so wearied by the way things in the world and in my life personally. And so that hope is just so central to me. And I can't see. I mean, to bring it back to your initial question. I can't see that I would have anything to write about apart from that. Apart from that. Informing. That's what I'm writing toward.

This is what Tolkien and Lewis were talking about. It's the true myth that makes sense of all the other myths, that gives meaning and purpose and heft to all the other myths and stories in the universe. I think patience in that work is tough. I think also I know you can resonate with this because you wrote about it in volume three is just the temptation towards perfectionism. I loved the liturgy that you wrote with our mutual friend Richo Simons, this liturgy for perfectionists. And you wrote, quote, perfectionism is a secret campaign to claim power and authority in my own life, apart from you, oh, God. End quote. I thought that was really interesting. Say more about that. How's perfectionism the secret campaign to claim power away from. Away from the Lord?

I mean, I've lost track with what I wrote and what other people wrote on the prayers that I collaborated. I think that was probably her line.

I'm talking to Ruth next week.

I'll ask her.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that was probably her line. I mean, she wrote the first draft of the prayer and she was the one who suggested that topic because I think that's something that she recognizes she struggles with. That's.

Do you struggle with this?

I don't. I probably struggle with the opposite of just. Rather than trying to control through perfectionist tendencies, I try to escape. I just, you know, I just want to step away from all. If things get stressful, it's just too much for me. I don't try to control it. I just want to walk away.

It's like avoidance.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's my thing.

What truths in scripture may be reflected in some of these liturgies keep you from that tendency of escapism and avoidance?

Well, I mean, there's not a particular scripture that comes to mind, but I think just in general, my understanding of God's intentions for his people and his movement in our lives, and his desire that we be engaged, that we be present to the sorrow and the joy of the things that we experience, that we be present to engage in the struggles that ultimately force us to come to better recognize experientially our dependence on him and the provision of his grace, that this pilgrim pursuit of Jesus is not something that he intends us to do in isolation, that he has formed his people, the church, as one body, one family that extends across history, past, present and future, and geographically around the globe. That includes those now living, those who have already died, those who have not yet been born, but will be part of the family of God. One of the long storylines in my life is that I did not know how to be in relationship with people. I couldn't maintain friendships as a kid, even into college. I would say the turning point. For me, the beginning of the turning point was about halfway through my college experience when I actually began to see the poverty of my own inability exist long term in relationship with another person. My tendency would just be to want to run. I would get a certain degree of closeness to a person, to a friend, a girlfriend. Then I would just suddenly be done. It's like, I don't want this anymore, I'm leaving and I wouldn't care. I wouldn't miss the person. During my college years, for the first time, I saw that in myself more objectively. You know, just that being how I had experienced life and relationships from the inside growing up, I didn't have the, the ability to see that deficit in myself. So, you know, decades later, 30 something years later, now I can see how different a place I'm in now from where I was before that. Then over time, community became so important to me. But I can also still see when things get hard, I would just want to go be by myself. I could be fine as a hermit. I don't mean I want to live in the woods and eat locusts, but give me a comfortable space and I don't feel the need day to day to be around other people or to talk to them or interact with them.

Yeah. But admitting that to other believers is a critical step to them being able to notice those tendencies. Right. And bring you back into the fold of that community. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. And now I know that part of my following of Jesus requires an obedience to say, okay, this is hard. I feel awkward around people. I would rather just be on my own and not have to deal with all the issues that come up. But that's not an option. Because if I'm going to follow Jesus, he's moving toward other people. Right? And I also know that I need it. It's only once in a while that I get that glimpse of, oh yeah, I really do need this. Right. So I understand that that's the case, but I don't feel experientially day to day. You know, I'm not in touch with that.

But it's interesting. I love that you connect this to obedience, though. You're like, oh yeah, commute is optional, right? This is part of what to walk in the way of Jesus. And by the way, clearly you're making progress or God's making progress on you on this issue. Because when you even when you just look at these books, right, the first Every Moment Holy was done alone. These latest volumes are being done with collaborators. I think it's cool to see that show up in your work. Speaking of which, Doug, we wrap up every show with the same three questions. And one of them, the first one, my answer to that question, is your book. So the question is, which books do you recommend or gift most frequently to others? And I understand that's hard to answer because it's super conditional based on the person and their needs, whatever, but by and large, like, if you looked at my Amazon order card history or actually, I think I order Rabbit Room directly from Rabbit Room. For your books, man, I've just bought a lot of copies of Every Moment Holy but for you, which books are you buying over and over again to give to those people in your life?

I have recommended all the Pretty Horses as an almost perfect work of contemporary fiction to a number of people. It's a novel by Cormac McCarthy. I don't go around recommending all of his books because there's a lot of darkness to be disturbed by in some of his books. But all the Pretty Horses, it's such a brilliant linguistic sort of experiment, kind of a Faulknerian just torrent of of language, where it's just like this cascading waterfall of poetic prose.

Who would you want to hear on this podcast talking about how their faith shapes the work they do in the world? Ideally somebody who's not a pastor or religious professional, but who's a Christian working as a novelist or a quantum physicist or whatever.

There's an author that when I was in Scotland last September in the Highlands, someone there, a couple people were talking about this guy's books. It was an author I was unfamiliar with, author from the UK named Paul Kingsnorth. And he had written this really interesting novel, might have been published in 2014 or so, called the Wake. I think he would be a great person for you to have on the show.

I love that name. That's really good. Hey Doug, I want to commend you man, just for the exceptional work you're doing every day. For the glory, God and the good of others, for this incredibly beautiful tool of Every Moment Holy. I love all three volumes of it. And just for reminding us that every moment we have at work in our lives is holy because a holy God is working alongside of us and through us. So just thank you for helping us respond to that fact by doing our work consciously with Him. Every moment of Every Day. Friends, if you're listening, I cannot recommend these books highly enough. Every Moment Holy, especially volume three, the Work of the People. Doug, thank you so much for hanging out with us today.

Thank you Jordan. It's been my pleasure, man.

I hope you guys enjoyed that episode as much as I did. If you did, do me a Favor and take 15 seconds right now and go leave a one to five star rating of the show on Apple or Spotify. If you're gonna leave less than five stars, you know, just ignore this psa.

But if you could just do that.

That would be incredibly useful. You'd be shocked at how much the number of those star ratings matters in helping people find this podcast. Guys, thank you so much for listening into the Mere Christians podcast today. I'll see you next week.

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