John Mark Comer (Author of Live No Lies)

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 their most exceptional work.

For the glory of God and the good of others.

Every 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 the work they.

Do in the world. Today.

We're doing something we've never done before. Here on the Call to Mastery, we have our first ever repeat guest, my friend John Mark Comer. We first had him on the podcast back on episode 15, almost two years ago. So why have him back? Why have a repeat guest?

Two reasons.

Number one, John Mark is easily in my top three favorite authors. And frankly, I just had a lot of questions I didn't get to the first time. I've even even more after this conversation. But two, John Mark's got a new book out that has a ton of application for the work you and I.

Do in the world.

And I wanted to make sure you guys heard some of that content. If you don't know John Mark, he's the author of six books, including the mammoth bestseller the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, which you've heard me talk about a million times on this podcast. He's also the founding pastor of Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon. So John Mark and I sat down recently. We talked about why he's passing the baton of leadership at his church after 18 years. After founding Bridgetown, we talked about the difference between thinking about scripture or and thinking scripture. And we talked about how and why we need to read the Gospels as biographies of the life of Christ. You guys are gonna love this conversation with my friend, John Mark Comer.

John Mark, welcome back to the called Mastery.

Oh Jordan, I'm so happy to join you for a conversation. Love the work that you are up to.

We were just talking before we started recording. You listened in for my episode with Cal Newport, who were both massive fans of.

What'd you.

What'd you think?

I don't think I'd ever. I've read every single book by him. Fun fact, my 15 year old son is right now reading. You know he got started before anybody knows about him writing about like study hacks for teenagers.

That was his blog. I think it's still his URL. Like studyhacks.com or something?

Yeah, something like that. So my 15 year old boy, I have, you know, we make our kids do an hour of college reading every morning in the summer. So right now he's reading Newport's. I think it's how to Be a High School Superstar I think is the title. So he's loving it. So I read everything by him, including how to Be a High School Superstar.

Just as a dad.

Not.

Cause I'm planning on repeating high school.

Though maybe I need to.

But I don't think I'd ever listen.

To an interview with him.

And you know, a lot of writers are not great kind of talkers. Some are. A lot of great talkers are not great writers.

They're both communication, but they're really different mediums. Very.

So I was delighted and surprised.

He was a fantastic interview.

It just, I mean, at some point.

He'S preaching to the choir, like I'm.

Smoking what he's selling, you know, and so like I'm just, I'm a fan because I'm so in alignment. My biggest bummer about most of his.

Books is he writes about all the.

Things that I'm currently excited about and living. So he's not like, I feel like we've been on a similar journey toward digital minimalism and deep work and mastery of your craft.

And so good they can't ignore you. So it's a little bit like, hey.

Bro, I need you out in front of me so that I can learn.

From you a little bit more. But I just love his work. It was a fantastic interview.

He was a great guest. I loved that episode.

And hey, by the way, listening. Go back and give it a go back.

You missed it.

Find episode. I don't know what number, but just search Cal Newport, Jordan Rayner, and you'll find it. By the way, it's a little silly that we're doing this interview remotely. I'm literally boarding a plane in 20 hours to come to Portland.

I had that thought. I thought, why are you not three feet away from me at my home office?

I know.

What is this?

Well, I'll see you on Sunday. But before I do, what's one thing I've got to do and one thing I've got to eat in Portland?

Okay, so the one touristy thing that for you as a writer is a must do. You know, every city has its tourist list And I would say about 80% of that tourist list is a waste of your time and a money trap. And about 20% is like.

Yeah.

Like, if you're in San Francisco, drive.

Over to Golden Gate Bridge. You're crazy if you don't. Yeah. Full house if you're in Portland. Yes.

It's Powell's Bookstore.

It's the largest independent bookstore in the world.

The main one is an entire city.

Block of four buildings that have been.

Like, kind of put together with entrances and exits.

And then they have other buildings, too.

Like a whole technical one and all this kind of stuff and four stories, and it will just blow your mind. And it's right downtown in a cool.

Part of the city.

And as a writer, I mean, it's just like if literature had a Mecca or a Jerusalem, It's Powell's Books, you know, it's already on the list.

So done.

I would say Powell's Books.

Yep.

And if you get time, the other one is go for a walk in.

Forest park, which is up against downtown. Largest urban forested park in America. 5,000 acres, pure forest, straight up against downtown. It is a gift. Where to eat.

I would recommend this place called Shlom Yal.

As in Shlomo. Yes.

This is on the list.

Yeah.

Which means it's a Mediterranean food company started by a guy from the South.

Right.

Is just wicked good.

It's on the list already.

Good.

I'm glad we did our homework. Well, all right. So, hey, big update. Since you were last year on the call to master, you announced you're transitioning out of Bridgetown Church, this church you founded, to focus on building this new nonprofit. Tell us a little bit about this new endeavor.

Yeah, that's a long time coming. I can give you the short version, and I don't know where you want to go with the conversation, but a lot of it has to do with vocation and accepting your limitations.

And that's where I want to go. So go there.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you know.

Okay.

So at the top end, to give away the punchline. Yes.

Planted a church 18 years ago.

We're right in the urban core of Portland, Oregon.

The church is thriving in.

Whatever that means in a post.

Covid slash, middle of COVID slash.

Or is this the middle of COVID I don't know anymore. Right now with all the variants and the scary news. A beautiful church. We just moved into a building last.

Year, an old church building that we.

Bought and renovated, and it's just this.

Just really beautiful community that's following Jesus. In what pew Research just termed the least religious city in America.

So it's been really a gift to.

Be a part of it.

But in four weeks, actually from this coming Sunday, I will hand the baton.

Of lead pastor off to a dear friend of mine, Tyler Stayton, who has been a church planter and pastor in Brooklyn, New York, who has now moved here. He just got here a few weeks ago. And he will take over the kind of point leader position on our elder team and pastor our church and anchor the teaching position. And he is just an extraordinary leader. And yeah, I'm transitioning after a long sabbatical, God willing, to start a new nonprofit called Practicing the Way, which is.

This kind of five year discipleship and.

Spiritual formation initiative that we've done with our church that I really feel a call to give myself more to, not less to, and to redo the entire.

Thing, simplify it, synthesize it, and give.

It away to kind of the church at large and followers of Jesus around the world.

And there's lots we could talk about there.

I think discipleship in the Western church is abysmal for all sorts of different reasons. And it's a broken model that does not, on the whole, yield a high degree of healing and transformation into the image of Jesus and a person of love.

And I think part of that is, you know, because it's not a high.

Value in the Western church. But there's a deeper problem when I don't think it's actually done according to both the ancient wisdom of the way of Jesus or modern social science. I don't think it's designed to actually produce deep healing and change.

So I want to create discipleship resources.

For the church at large and followers of Jesus in the West.

So that's kind of what I'll be.

Giving myself to more fully is teaching, writing and then creating discipleship resources for churches to run.

No, it's interesting to me because the last time we recorded an episode of this show is about two years ago. I was in the middle of launching my book Master of One, and we were talking about this concept of focus invocation. And you were talking about how. Yeah, you're. One thing in the, in the parlance of the book is really that craft of teaching and teaching the way of Jesus. So it sounds like that certainly informed this decision to get even more focused on that core craft.

Right, yeah. And, you know, it's hard. I know there are a lot of similarities in the business world, but in pastoral work and obviously it feels kind of gross to talk about pastoral work.

As a career. And so just go easy on me here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But in pastoral work, if you're a gifted teacher or preacher, then people automatically assume that you're a gifted leader and that you're the type of leader that can run an.

Or. They're all different types of leaders.

And that you're the type of leader that can run an organization really well.

And ironically, depending on your model of church.

But in a church where there's a.

High value for teaching or preaching, or if you want to call it the sermon on a Sunday, then often the growth of the church is hopefully not.

Directly tied, but is at some level commensurate to that teaching experience. Now, you could say that's a horrible thing. You could say that's a good thing depending on your value system. But I think if we just kind of set aside our moral judgments, it just kind of is at some level.

Yeah.

So what happens is often somebody who, like me, I'm not lying, I'm not a leader, but I'm a little bit.

More of a thought leader than an organizational leader, which is a different gift set.

You don't want to be the COO of the church. That's not exactly.

Oh, heck no, bro. I struggle to manage my assistant, who's wonderful. You know, like, I'm like. Like, I was listening to Adam Grant interview Malcolm Gladwell.

Yeah, yeah.

And apparently those two guys are friends. And Adam Grant's, you know, like, organizational psychologist.

Sure.

He was asking. Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favorite writers right up there at the airport. One of my, like, man, if, you know, just.

Just some.

As far as nonfiction writing, that's really.

Smart, but super easy to read, but.

Without simplifying things too much.

I mean, those two are great examples of that.

Anyway, Adam Grant asked, you know, Malcolm Gladwell, like, some question about how to organize, like, office dynamics.

Da, da, da. And Gladwell was like, what are you talking about?

Like, I text with my assistant and I work at a coffee shop. Like, I don't. I don't know anything about how to run an organization, but obviously Gladwell has.

Been an extraordinary thinker and gift to the world at large on social media.

It's just different lanes and, you know, your lane.

Different lanes.

But often, you know, it's similar. Like, Portland's a hub for advertising. Some of the best advertising agencies in.

The world are here, which probably is.

Because Nike started here, and Nike is really more of a brand than a footwear company.

And.

And so they needed kind of outside, you know, agencies.

Important's a very creative kind of city.

And I see this a lot where you know, cause a lot of people.

In our church that work in advertising, they'll start out as artists, they'll be.

Gifted designers artists and then maybe they have the right brain for some of the branding stuff which is a really kind of intellectual like if you get.

With somebody who's good at branding, they're basically an intellectual artist because they can. They're helping you understand the vision and the philosophy behind your business or your product or your nonprofit and then they're creating a vision, visual language for it.

But then often, you know, as the career path goes up, they end up in some form of like management and all of a sudden you're like wait a minute, what makes somebody a great artist or maybe philosopher is not the same thing that makes somebody good at not even managing 30 employees. But that's the career trajectory, that's the next raise, that's the next you know.

Step up the corporate ladder.

But at some point they like lose their soul. And I've known a number that have.

Basically demoted themselves and gone back to doing art.

I'm sure there are other, lots of.

Other examples in other vocational fields.

But in pastoring I think really my.

Heart is teaching and spiritual direction.

Like I love writing books, I love.

Preaching to groups of people and I love sitting one on one for like two or three hours with another person.

And helping them discover God's invitations in.

Their heart and help them sift through their desire and help them discover how.

God's coming to them.

And I love the practice of inner healing, prayer, sitting with people and helping.

Them discover the lies they've come to.

Believe and getting freedom from those lies.

So that kind of stuff I love. Newport said that in your interview with him. He said a lot of pastors, Protestant.

Pastors, he said he was really surprised were drawn to his book Deep Work and he nailed it.

He said it's because they often got into it because they like love the craft of preaching or they're like kind.

Of therapists, kind of personalities. They love like the healing of the soul with other people but then they.

End up basically running a mid sized business.

Right, right.

You know, and so our church is amazing but it's like 25 employees, 4.

Point something million dollar budget now we have a 36000 square foot building.

You know, so it's all, those are all great things. I'm not like a cynical anti church guy.

I love it, it needs and it's important stuff but it's Not.

I don't think it's my.

Yeah, I hear you. I totally get it. I've made a similar decision in my career trajectory. So, hey, you're not just launching this nonprofit, though, you're also launching this book, Live no Lies, which I loved. And we're launching our books a couple of weeks apart. So Yours comes out September 20th.

Isn't that crazy?

Is that the date?

Yes, yes, September 20th. And when is yours?

Yes. So Redeeming youg time comes out October 19th.

Oh, come on. But this is not about my book. Man, I can't wait to read it.

No, I know. Give us a short summary of this new title, Live no Lies.

Oh, goodness. Okay, I'm still working on the elevator pitch, Jordan.

I need to get it down.

So two questions. Question one.

Do you ever just feel like life is a bit of a struggle?

Like even if you make enough money and you aren't sick or have a disease or your life, you know, at an external level is decent or maybe even really good and up and to.

The right, but you feel this like.

Inner, like tug of war, this tension.

In your desire, in your heart, and you feel almost like a opposition, like this just sense of man. Where is this pressure from? Why is life hard? Why does it feel like struggle? One thought could be because it is.

And late modern Western people have been.

Duped into thinking that life is easy.

When the reality is all great religious.

Traditions and philosophical traditions have all said.

Life is very hard. From Jesus saying, in this world you will have tribulation, which is like a promise that your grandma will never have in her, like pocket promise book.

You know, you're never going to see that stitched onto a.

You're not going to see that on the. Like, I grew up in the 80s 90s church, like the little calendars with a little scripture for the day, you know, on the kitchen windowsill. You're not going to see in this world.

You will have trouble.

You know, the first in Buddhism, the.

First of the four Noble Truths are, is basically life is suffering. Life is hard.

And I think that's absolutely true. You know, you don't need to be a Christian to believe this. You just need to be breathing. That doesn't mean life is not rich.

And good and meaningful and full of joy, but it's hard.

And ancient Christians were hyper aware of.

This reality, as were most ancient people.

Who didn't have, you know, modern medicine and electricity and running water and democracy.

And all the things that make us so comfortable and affluent. And often with that like an affluenza.

They were just hyper aware of this.

And ancient Christians, starting with the desert fathers and mothers, they saw your soul like your whole being as kind of under assault, like there was this war, this fight.

I read this morning in my morning.

Scripture reading, Paul's line, fight the good fight of faith. For him, Christian spirituality wasn't like, you know, Christian Buddhist mindfulness, though there's a lot of that in the Christian tradition. At its core, it was like a fight. It was a struggle, it was a war. It was this oppositional force, like within you and without you, that you were up against.

And ancient Christians identify what they called.

The three enemies of the soul, starting with the desert fathers and mothers in the third and fourth century that they gave the language later to of the world, the flesh and the devil. And this was language that was used by the church really for 1500 years.

To kind of frame a life of.

Discipleship and kind of a spirituality of struggle and really how to grow and mature and overcome that struggle and come to a place of peace.

But in the last, you know, depending on how you count it, couple of decades or century, that kind of paradigm.

That language has been lost. And the result is, I think, a lot of neurosis. Psychologists define neurosis as when you suffer more than you need to.

You know, psychologists are quick to point.

Out there's a difference between pain and suffering. Pain is what is.

It's I lost my job or my business just failed, or I was betrayed.

By a coworker or belittled by my.

Boss, or I just got diagnosed with.

COVID or a disease or somebody I love died.

That's pain.

Suffering is the meaning that we make the lens by which we interpret and emotionally experience what is.

And.

And so pain and suffering, we often.

Suffer more than we need to because.

We don't have a meaningful paradigm by.

Which we interpret the struggle that is life.

M. Scott Peck, you know, in his.

Famous book the Road Less Traveled, which is in my top 10, who at.

The time was a secular psychologist, he.

Later came to faith in Jesus, but.

His opening line is, life is difficult. And then it's not a morose book.

It'S a beautiful book.

And then he just points out that.

If you expect life to be easy, like you're full of neurosis and suffering, and like you're just wracked in your heart. But if you expect life to be.

Hard, then most people agree that life.

Is actually deeply beautiful and good and full of joy.

And so a lot of it is.

About how you Frame it.

So really, the book is about this.

Sense of struggle that we feel in particular as Christians, where I think this sense of struggle is endemic to the human condition. But often it gets worse when you become a Christian, not better. Because our worldview is increasingly at odds with the dominant narratives on both the right and the left in secular Western culture. And the world is increasingly on both sides, the right and on the left, hostile toward any form of, you know, following Jesus that is like an orthodox, historic Christian faith.

If you are willing to kind of update your faith to align with the.

Ideology of the right or the left.

Then people on either side will be.

Okay with you, but not if you actually stay true to Jesus and his teachings and discipleship to him. Life in a community defined around his life and his values.

Often following Jesus makes this struggle at some level worse, not better. And that's really disorienting. It's all worth it, but it's disorienting.

If you don't have a paradigm for that.

So that's kind of what this book is about.

It's about the struggle. It's about this sense of following Jesus in this increasingly hostile secular culture in the middle of the culture wars, where.

I don't care what side you get the most flack from, you're getting flack. You know, how do we not just survive this kind of a moment, but.

Actually flourish and just find peace and joy and stay faithful to Jesus and his call in our life in this moment? And. And then the rest of the book is really about the role of the mind in that and the thought life and lies and truth and how that really is the core of both our neurosis and our journey to peace.

One of the things I loved about the book is you looked at the practices of Jesus in order to fight these three enemies. Right? The devil, the flesh, the world. But, you know, you talked about this in the ruthless elimination of hurry. You know, to see Jesus's practices, we often need to rethink the way we see the Gospels. Right. This idea that we read the Gospels for their theology and ethics, but not as biographies. Can you talk a little bit about this and why it's so important that we approach the Gospels through this biographical lens?

Yes, and I wrote about that in my previous book, the ruthless elimination of hurry. But it's foundational to my whole view.

Of what it means to follow Jesus and how I really read the New Testament.

And it's very simple.

Like, we often miss that, the four Gospels. And it's interesting, we have four not one are biographies, but often Christians don't read them.

As far as genre of literature, like depending on what genre of literature you're reading, a comic book or a novel or a science textbook or the New.

York Times, you intuitively approach it differently, and you read it differently, you interpret it differently, you apply it or don't.

Apply it to your life differently based.

On the genre of literature. And Christians often don't read the four gospels like the biographies they actually are.

And if you think about how we.

Read biographies, I'm not like a die.

Hard biography reader, but I always read a few. Every summer, you know, on vacation, I just finished President Obama's, and every summer.

I'll read at least one, maybe a couple.

But if you think about a biography, most of the time we read about somebody that we at some level have.

An aspirational desire to be.

Like, not always, or maybe it's a pariah.

Like I remember reading Elon Musk's, which I could not put down.

It was phenomenal, but it wasn't because I wanted to be like him. It was more because I'm just fascinated by him. And I kind of want to avoid, you know, some of the stuff in his life as a father and husband.

And that kind of stuff. So you do this intuitive thing when you read a biography. You pay attention to the details of.

That person's life, their story, like what.

Was their family of origin, like where did they go to college, did they go to college, what kind of career.

Path did they have?

Then you pay attention to the details of like their, their habit system, like.

What'S their morning routine like? And you know, like I just read.

A whole thing on Winston Churchill's like daily habits, and it was absolutely fascinating. Yeah, you do this intuitive thing.

You're kind of mining their life story, both their kind of history and their.

Habit system, in an attempt to see, hey, are there any, like, pearls of.

Wisdom and how they lived that I could kind of pick up out of their story and filter through my personality? I'm not Winston Churchill, I'm not running.

England, I'm not running a nation through World War II, you know, but that.

I could pick up and I could.

Apply to my own life. Like, oh, here's how I could do.

Something like that with my personality and how I could kind of flesh that.

Out and here's how it could work in my schedule. We naturally try to copy the best parts of their lives into our own in the hope that we will achieve something similar to what they achieved. This is just Intuitive.

It's just how we think.

Think as human beings. And it's right. Sadly, very few of us approach the Gospels that way where we read the Gospel.

I'm not saying that's the only way we read it, because the Gospels are full of theology and full of ethical vision. And, you know, Jesus is.

Is different than me. He is both as human and me and more, but he's also more than just that.

Yes, the analogy breaks down at some.

Level, but we need to also read it as a template for how to be human. Yeah.

And so we need to read these.

Stories which don't have commands, like none.

Of what we would call the spiritual.

Disciplines, which are all basically rooted in the life of Jesus, with a few.

Exceptions like journaling or something, you know.

Because Gutenberg wasn't around yet.

But none of these are commanded by Jesus.

Jesus doesn't command you to read your Bible in the morning.

He doesn't even command you to Sabbath.

He doesn't even command you to go to synagogue or church on Sunday. He doesn't command you to fast. He doesn't command you to tithe or give your. He just does all of these things.

And then says, come, follow me.

Yeah.

And so the Gospels are just full.

Of these stories about the details of Jesus life. Mark 1, one of the first stories in Mark's biography. Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and went out to his solitary place and prayed. Yeah, no command, no moralism. No.

You need to get up at this time tomorrow morning and spend this much.

Time in Scripture and prayer. Just, hey, look at how Jesus started his day in a busy season of life. Interesting.

What would that look like for me as an apprentice?

I talk about this in Redeeming youg Time because when I read this in Ritual Soul Elimination for Hurry, this is a huge idea, you know. My mission is to help every Christ follower do their most exceptional work. Not for their fame and fortune, but for the glory of God and the good of others. And I knew for a while I wanted to write a book on time management as redeeming the time, as Paul says, is a huge piece of that puzzle. But I never wanted to write just another time management hack book with a bunch of quick fixes that are here today and gone tomorrow. I only wanted to write about the stuff that was timeless, Right. And where better to look? When I read that in the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, I was like, oh my gosh, this is it. Jesus is the author of time in the flesh for these 30 some odd years on earth. Do the gospel biographies say anything about how he lived his life, how he stewarded his time? And not surprisingly, they do. Right?

Mark, chapter one.

He got up early. He dissented from the kingdom of noise to spend time with his father. There's all of these habits, and that's what my book is, right? These seven timeless principles from the life of Christ. I want to go back to time in the Word, though, right, because you argue in Live no Lies that this habit of Christ is this critical practice for combating lies from the devil. You talked about this difference between thinking about Scripture and thinking Scripture to do this. Can you give us an example of how our listeners might think Scripture to combat lies they're telling themselves at work?

Oh, gosh. Okay, so there's hours of fascinating. I know, I know, I know here. This all started for me. I would love to say it started with my brilliant reading of Matthew 4 and Luke 4, but it actually started by reading a 4th century desert father.

Named Evagrius the solitary, who just changed my life. And he and the desert fathers had.

This fascinating take on the story of.

Jesus in Matthew 4 and in Luke 4, where Jesus, right before kind of the launch to his, after he's baptized and anointed by the Spirit, before he comes kind of teaching and preaching and doing his thing. There's 40 days out in the wilderness in the desert where Jesus goes head to head at the end of that with this creature, this Satan, this devil, this personification or personalization even of evil itself.

And it's this fascinating story. I'm guessing a lot of you listeners have read it at some point in your life, where the devil comes to.

Jesus out in the desert with these three temptations.

They're fascinating temptations because they're not blatant.

They're not like Jesus, go murder this person, or Jesus go steal this person's money, or Jesus go have an affair.

They're very subtle.

You know, temptation one turns stones into bread, like, ooh, what is that?

Which is essentially, as I understand it.

A temptation to basically flex his God muscles and rather than go the way of the incarnation, the way of taking on humanity's suffering and humanity's fragility and.

Mortality and eventually dying, rather to play the Zeus card, the Apollo card, and to be like all the other gods.

And just flex your muscles. So there are these subtle temptations and what does Jesus do with each one?

So basically what Evagrius said is he.

Said, pay close attention to that story. The devil doesn't come at Jesus with a sword and an army of Roman legionnaires. He comes at Jesus with a lie, with a deceptive idea, is this subtle kind of temptation to a disordered desire in the human heart. And what does Jesus do? He doesn't fight back with a sword either. How does he fight back? So to speak? And he fights back by the quotation of scripture and Evagrius in the desert.

Fathers and mothers said, that's not like a magic incantation.

It's not like if you quote scripture, the demons are scared and fly away.

Nor is it like a sword drill Bible study.

What Jesus was doing was what neuroscientists would call thought redirection.

And this is where vagreus and they.

Would say Jesus was thousands of years ahead of the best thinkers of his day. This is like leading edge neuroscience stuff.

Which is basically, you know, Hebb's law, neuroplasticity. Neurons that fire together, wire together. Changing kind of neural pathways in your.

Brain and your thought life. The videos that play in your mind is hard because you can't not think about something like, if I tell you.

Jordan, don't think about the pink cat, what are you thinking about right now?

Pink cats, pink cat.

And if I said just keep telling yourself, don't think about the pink cat, don't think about the pink cat, don't think about the pink cat. Like you actually are wiring neurons together that make you more likely to think about the pink cat, by tomorrow morning, all you'll be able to think about is the pink cat.

I'm going to be dreaming about pink cats tonight.

You're going to be dreaming about pink cats tonight. So if you want to erase neural pathways that I just started to lay down in your mind with a pink cat and start to carve out new.

Ones, the requirement is thought redirection.

And so that, I think is what.

Jesus is doing is he's using neuroplasticity in our language to build new neural pathways in his brain through thought redirection. And his thoughts are scripture. He's replacing the lies of the devil with the truth of scripture.

And this, I would argue, is actually.

The heart of spiritual warfare, which is not language used in the New Testament. And it means all sorts of wonky things to people in the modern world today.

But that, I would argue doesn't mean that there are other examples of spiritual.

Warfare, such as demonization or illness or death or natural disasters are not legitimate. I think theologically and biblically they are.

But I would argue the primary locus.

Point of our fight, so to speak, in the spiritual kind of realm with the devil or demons is in the realm of our mind. It's the battle between truth and lies. I think that's what Jesus goes on to say later when he calls the devil the father of lies, when he lies, who speaks his native language. So this kind of thought redirection is the gift of scripture.

So basically Avagrius, you know, wrote this.

Book in the 350s in North Africa.

Brilliant book. You can get it online called Talking Back.

Subtitle is a monastic handbook for combating demons.

Which is best title punk rock.

It's amazing.

I just, you know, the cool thing about books is titles and subtitles are not copyrighted.

So theoretically I could, I could take that, I could steal that as my subtitles.

And basically it's just, you know, it's a four. It's not really a book, it's a handbook. There a four page intro.

That's genius.

And then he just has these eight.

Chapters based on these eight kind of groupings of thoughts that fun fact later became the seven deadly sins of antiquity. They collapsed to. To make pride and vainglory were really similar. So they.

That's where we get this language of.

The seven deadly sins. It all comes back to Evagrius.

These eight kind of thought groupings, you know, greed, lust, anger. And then he had all these examples.

Of thoughts that he struggled with as a monk. These thoughts that were deceptive ideas that were lies, that came into his mind, that were temptations to his heart. And then he had a corresponding scripture for every single one that he memorized. 500 entries in the. In this book.

So that whenever that thought came to.

Mind, he would just change the channel in his mental attention. He'd just redirect his thoughts to this other scripture, to this corresponding truth.

I love it.

So this is like, this is freaking brilliant.

This is where ancient Christian spirituality and the bleeding edge of mindfulness neuroscience are perfectly enmeshed.

Not just compatible, but mutually reinforce each other.

And there's a spiritual discipline here where we need to approach scripture.

There's lots of different ways to approach scripture. I don't think there's a right way.

There's devotional reading, there's theological reading for worldview, for ethics, there's study trying to.

Understand what God is saying.

But for our formational purposes, we need.

To have scripture in us at some level of memorization.

Like memorization of scripture, I think needs to come back in popular church culture.

Amen enough that we have it in.

Our mind and our imagination.

So as Jesus said, we can abide in it. So you know John 15, one of.

Jesus most famous teachings, his most in depth teaching on spiritual formation, on the process by which we're formed.

He has that great line is all.

About abiding and the vine is beautiful agrarian metaphor.

That line about how if you abide.

In my word and my words abide in you. Fascinating. So what's he talking about? I think what he's talking about is what we would call in kind of more modern language, the flow of consciousness. Yeah, the thought flow and the emotional flow through our mind stream.

These kind of videos that play in our mind from the moment we wake up until the moment we conk out at night.

He's talking about this flow of consciousness. Words, ideas, images, sensations flow through our mind stream all day long.

Every moment that we are awake, we are conscious.

So Jesus is not asking us to do something new.

He's talking about something that we already do. We have words that we abide in words. We abide in ideas, we abide in.

Narratives, whether they're true or false, whether they're lies or the truth of Jesus in scripture. And to us, we abide in thoughts and narratives and belief structures and worldviews that pass through our mind stream all day long. What he's inviting us to do is to curate our consciousness as an act of discipleship to Jesus, to begin the lifelong journey of thought replacement, where we're trading words from our culture or from our own experience of wounding that are lies, and we're replacing them with the truth of the words of Jesus, his teachings, his life.

I love that in the book. You made your own little monastic handbook in the appendix to give people so. Which is so great. So real quickly, give us an example from your own handbook of a lie you've told yourself about your career or your work and how you have replaced that lie with biblical truth.

Well, let me give you one example that is just from the last week.

So I've been slowly compiling this monastic handbook where I just have a list of some of the lies that I struggle with and a list of corresponding scriptures.

And so, you know, I'm at that real vulnerable point in the launch of.

A book that you know about where.

Probably a dozen people have read this thing.

Yeah.

And so I don't have a great feel for, like how it's going to play. Right. A dozen people are not like an accurate sample set.

Yeah, they're your superfans, they're your friends. Yeah, yeah, well.

Or my super fans.

They're like editors and, you know, People that are trying to help me make it better by pointing out everything that.

Sucks about it, which is great. That's what they're for.

So, yeah, there's all that.

You feel really insecure.

It's like all of a sudden you're just gonna. You've been working out for a year and also you're just gonna take your.

Shirt off in front of people. What will people think?

You know, that's good.

Wonky, wonky analogy.

But it just feels really vulnerable, you know?

Yeah.

And this is the first book I've written that has some controversial stuff in it. Nothing controversial as far if you're an orthodox Christian. But, you know, the culture wars are.

Just at a fever pitch right now.

And so unless if you are just.

Thoroughly on the left or thoroughly on.

The right, which I'm not either, then, I mean, you're just going to get crucified if you say anything other than just, you know, have difficulty, be happy.

Yeah.

So I'm guessing that I will get a lot of flack for it and I'm worried that people won't like it. Like, I'm a human person. I want people to think that I'm a smart, good writer, and I want people to think it's. I don't. I don't even want people to think it's good.

I want them to think it's the best book they've ever read and it's brilliant and it's, you know, it's.

I'm not content with just.

That was good.

Thanks.

And so there's all these.

There's all this fear in me, you.

Know, of that, and fear of attack.

And fear of will. This cause undue controversy. And so the scripture that God gave.

Me a few days ago last weekend was Jesus line in Luke 26.

Woe to you when all people speak well of you. For that is how they treated my ancestors, the prophets.

And so I thought, oh, wow, like here, I want all people to speak well of me.

I want the praise of men. And Jesus said that Pharisees refused to.

Follow him because they love the praise.

Of men more than the praise of God.

And that doesn't mean that if I'm.

Criticized, it's because I'm a righteous victim.

And, you know, that's not what I'm saying at all.

Most criticism of me is at least partially very valid because I'm human, infallible and all of that.

That's a great example. Now, when that thought comes to mind, oh, no, what if people attack me online or whatever?

Because I talk about abortion or I.

Talk about, you know, Donald Trump or I talk about whatever woe to you.

And all people speak well of you.

I just turn, turn the channel and.

That'S the thought that I now bring to mind.

Really good example I've said before, I'll say it again. You're easily top three writers for me who I look up to and just in love everything you write.

Okay, I'm just, I'm eating this up right now.

I know you are coming off of that example. Tell you more. Let me just get.

Tell me more like. And in the top three, am I number one? Am I number.

Absolutely. No, no, no.

I'm just.

No, absolutely not.

So I am curious.

I think you're world class aircraft as a communicator. And I ask this of nearly every guest on the show. I don't know why I didn't ask you it the first time you were on. What's the delta between good and great writers in your opinion?

Well, I mean, it depends what you're.

Coming to a book for.

There's too many different types of writing. I'm reading the overstory right now, which.

Has pulled won the Pulitzer Prize.

It's a long meandering literary novel. So what makes that brilliant, and it is brilliant so far is totally different.

Than why I love a Malcolm Gladwell book or something.

So let me just talk about the vein of writing that I'm in, which is basically nonfiction. That is a synthesis and simplification of kind of highly intellectual ideas for an educated reader.

But that's accessible, easy to read and down to earth. Right.

Other writers in this vein would be a Brene Brown would be a master.

For craft or Malcolm Gladwell or Cal Newport or people like that.

In my mind, the separation from the.

Good to the great is about artistry.

And it's about editing. Because I read so much nonfiction for.

My work for study, I have to.

Read all sorts of academics.

I read all sorts of pastors or Christian intellectuals.

And my number one critic would be, you know, they just take 10 pages.

To give you one page worth of helpful information. Yeah.

And it's nonlinear and they go off.

And they repeat themselves and they often use Christiany language.

And it's like, hey, your point that.

You just made was brilliant. You could have made that with 10% of the time that I just gave to you.

So I think it's like brutal editing. Like, you know, my editors are always mad at me because apparently most. This last book was the first book I've actually cut Down. I cut out 20,000 words of this book.

Book from the rough draft.

But every other book has come in too short. And the editors, you know, will come back to me. I've literally had this problem since I.

Was in high school. I used to fight with my high.

School lit teachers and my, you know, freshman college professors because they would always.

Say, give us more in this paragraph.

Say the same thing two or three times more in different ways.

That's why.

What is the point? Like, point me clearly made my point in one sentence. You want me to add two more sentences saying this same thing in different way? Like, that was literally educated to write that way. And I think it's horrible writing. So my poor editors are always like, asking me to, like, elaborate on this or.

And I'll do it if it's nuanced.

Because I love nuance in writing, as.

Long as it's not too much.

But I'm always fighting back.

Like, no, like, if we can say it in one sentence, don't say it in three.

If you can say it in one paragraph, don't say it in four paragraphs.

You can say it in a page, don't say it in a chapter.

And you know, there's like, how many books have you read that were a.

Great blog post that turned into a poor book?

Oh, yeah, all the time. That's most books.

This is a great idea. But this would have been like a great podcast interview or a great blog.

Or maybe a long form article. But not.

This is not a book.

You don't have 300 pages here.

I've been telling people with regards to redeeming your time, part of my goal with the book was not just to expound upon these time management principles for the life of Christ, these timeless principles, but also to take the gold from the 12 time management books I used to recommend, which would take up, I don't know, however many hundreds, thousands of pages of a book and distilled into 200 pages. And guess what? I think we pulled it off. Right? They don't need to be that long.

That's exactly my sense, too. So before I became a pastor, I.

Wanted to be a journalist.

And I was drawn not to, like, beat reporting. I have no desire to report on, like, the wildfires right now. I was drawn to, like, explanatory journalism where, you know, there's some big, complex thing going on and it could be like a current event thing, like Biden's.

New infrastructure plan, or it could be.

You know, something larger. And there's some journalists will Go do the work and spend like two weeks.

Reading all this obscure stuff and then.

They'Ll just do it in one article.

They'll like simplify and synthesize the whole thing for you and in a way.

That the average person can understand without.

Spending 60 hours reading.

I want to do that for people with spiritual formation. That's what Gladwell did for social.

I was just going to say this. This is why you love Gladwell.

Yes.

I want to do this for spiritual formation. I want to do this for helping.

Followers of Jesus, most of whom are smarter than I am. You know, I don't need to speak down to them.

But they're not going to go. They don't have the time.

I'm literally getting paid to read, research, study, think. Yes. So I want to simplify and synthesize.

And create it, package it in such a way that it's, you know, there's all the things books are, you know, all, you know, we hear the narrative books are over. People aren't reading anymore. Actually, people are reading now more than ever. They just read very differently in little snippets online. So I think books will always have.

A place because there's something that happens in the quiet of a book that.

Just does not happen reading an article online.

But I think books do, with a few exceptions, just need to be shorter and to the point and not waste so much time because people don't read to read like they used to.

Speaking of books, three questions I love to wrap up every conversation with. The first is which books other than your own do you recommend or gift most frequently? On the whole, I get that a lot of book recommendations are nuanced and specific to somebody's specific situation. But on the whole, what are you recommending?

Okay, I gift one of three short.

Little books I gift a lot. This book by a 20th century Quaker I love named Thomas Kelly. The book is a testament of devotion.

It's in my top 10.

It's absolutely beautiful.

It just kind of captures the heart I want to have of prayer and centering my life.

And there's a bunch in there about slowing down and unhurry, even though it was written, I think in the 40s.

So a testament of Devotion by Thomas Kelly or Letters by a Modern day.

Mystic by Frank Laubach, which is tiny. I mean, it's like a pamphlet basically. And it is absolutely beautiful. All about the practice of the presence of God. And then there's this one little book.

It'S not really even a book.

It's like a 40 day prayer journal that I gift a lot called the Welcoming Prayer. It doesn't even have an author. It's put out by some contemplatives in Pennsylvania or whatever. And there's a little bit of theology.

In there I don't endorse.

But the overall kind of practice it.

Summarizes in this little 40 day pamphlet.

That you kind of pray through each day, one or two pages a day of reading.

It summarizes so much of what I.

Think spiritual formation is about.

All right, so you're consistent because two years ago you said letters by a modern day. Oh, I did, in response to that question. So good for you.

Memory of that.

There we go.

And now everybody I've ever given, if anybody's listening to me that I've given that gift to, you're like, oh, I thought this was a special gift.

I know, exactly.

I literally have a couple of those books, like I buy extra and stack them in my office to give them away.

I love it. Who do you most want to hear? You've heard Cal on the podcast talking about how he's thinking about the intersection of faith and work. Who do you want to hear next on this show?

Have you had Andy Crouch on yet?

I have not, but Andy is always welcome. That's a great answer. I love Andy.

I think he thinks really well. He and the crew at Praxis, I just think they think really well and.

Kind of the bleeding edge, similar vein to what you're in of kind of redemptive entrepreneurs.

Dave Blanchard is a good friend. He was just on the show.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

I would like to go listen to that.

Yeah, I'll send it to you. All right, last question. What's one thing from this conversation that you want to highlight or reiterate to our listeners before we sign off?

Either you will direct your thought life or your thought life will direct you.

And so you must take an active.

Role in the curation of your thought life toward truth as an apprentice of Jesus, or in the end, your mind, rather than being a place of the kingdom of heaven, the rule of God.

The result of which, as Paul says.

In Romans, is life and peace, will.

End up wreaking havoc in your mind.

In your heart, in your body, in your career, in your ministry, in your life. So may you daily surrender your mind and your mindstream to the love and the truth of Jesus.

Well said, John. Mark, I want to commend you for the exceptional work you do. Thanks for just helping us follow Jesus's lead more carefully. Hey, guys. The book is Live no Lies, Recognize and Resist the three Enemies that sabotage. Your piece came out yesterday. I highly recommend it. Hey, and by the way, John Mark, where can we keep track of your work with this new nonprofit?

You can head over to practicingtheway.org and it's just a landing site for now.

We plan to.

It's kind of a slow start because.

Of my transition out of Bridgetown and a sabbatical. And we have a high value for kind of quality. So that means everything takes a bit longer.

So we're planning to kind of a.

Public facing launch in August or September 2022. So just under a year from now there should be practicingtheway.org will begin to house a resource library of practices and courses from four week long practices to longer courses that you could go through with your church or your small group or a couple of friends before work or on your lunch break.

That could kind of create pathways for.

You for discipleship and formation.

I love it. John Mark, thanks again for joining us.

Yes, it's happy to be along. And I'll see you Sunday.

That's right, I'll see you Sunday.

Look forward to I love John Mark so much. I'm so grateful for his help in helping us see the Gospels for what they are. Yes, the Gospels have a ton of theology, a ton of ethics, but they are also biographies of the life of Christ. And as I mentioned on the episode, that is one of the core premises of my new book, Redeeming youg Time, that once we read the Gospels as biographies, we can see at least these seven timeless time management principles from the life of Christ. Right. And remember, if you pre order the book, you can enter to win a trip for you and a friend of your choice to go to the Holy Land and walk where Jesus walked. You could choose the trip or if you're not comfortable going to Jerusalem in the next trip three or so years, you could choose a prize of an equivalent cash value. But entering to win this is super simple. Step 1 Go pre order redeeming your time on Amazon or wherever you buy your books.

Right.

I'll give you one entry for each copy. You pre order up to three entries and then step two go to jordanrayner.com just the homepage www.jordanrayner.com fill out the form and you'll be entered to win. Guys, thank you for tuning in to the Call to Mastery this week. I'll see you next time.