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ValleyChat
The official podcast of Shepherd of the Desert Church, Scottsdale, Arizona. Faith, life, and wisdom in the Valley of the Sun.
ValleyChat
Human Christians, What a Thought!
Do you ever feel like your Christian life has become more of a spiritual task list than a vibrant, human experience? Pastors John Karolus and Scott Seidler challenge this notion as they illuminate the biblical truth that we are called to embrace our humanity while following Christ. In a thoughtful exploration of Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost, they unearth the vital balance between our spiritual duties and earthly roles, emphasizing the joy and abundance inherent in Christian living and the genuine authenticity this brings to our service in the gospel.
Taking cues from Paul's words in Corinthians, we also examine the liberating truth that we don't bear the entire weight of evangelism. God gifts us with relationships for a purpose, and in this episode, we learn to leverage these connections to share our faith authentically. As the holiday season approaches, we encourage you to engage more deeply with those around you and to remember God's personal love for you, irrespective of where you are in your spiritual journey. Join us in this engaging discussion, let's interact on a more human level and inspire one another to live out our faith with authenticity.
Well, welcome everyone back to our Shepherd Digital podcast. I know it's maybe been more than even 12 months probably, since we last put something up like this, but I'm Pastor John Corollus here with Pastor Scott Seidler and we are just looking forward to some conversations together, hopefully enriching your spiritual walk as we just explore some topics together, digging deeper and trying to understand how it is that we can be walking faithfully, talking faithfully with the people around us when it comes to being a Christian in the world. Today and even just this last weekend, on Sunday, you were preaching about what it means to be a human being and that we can't ever forget being a human being, especially as we're pastors, but also just as Christians in the world. Can you share a little bit about that and then we can talk more about it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, for me, the farther I get into ministry, the more simple things need to become and basic structures by which I understand what it means to be a church, to be a Christian, and one of the things that I've just been really stuck on lately is the need to be a human Christian. And it may sound like it's a truism that you've got to be a human Christian, but I just find in my experience these days there's a lot of Christians who have given up being human. They are so intent on mission and ministry that they've forgotten what it means just to live life with other human beings and to enjoy humanness sharing a meal without having to make it overly spiritual, watching a football game with their families without having to break into some evangelistic tirade in order to help their kids or grandkids get back to church. And so this past weekend in worship we were talking about Peter the apostle, on the day of Pentecost, when he preached his first sermon, which was also, by the way, the first sermon of the Holy Spirit in the adolescent church.
Speaker 2:And you know, there's this opening part where everybody thinks Peter and the apostles are all drunk because it's the Feast of Pentecost. There's a huge party going on in Jerusalem and you know we oftentimes just pass by that opening little setting the stage of they were drunk and Peter saying, no, we're not drunk, we're actually, you know, filled with the Holy Spirit. But it reminds me that people were giving the apostles the benefit of the doubt that they were behaving normally in the middle of this huge feast in Jerusalem. And I said the first lesson we should learn from the day of Pentecost with Peter is how to have a human party and to enjoy a human party. And it's not a cause for inebriation or intoxication, but it is a recognition that everybody thought Peter and the apostles were just normal people, so much so that they assumed, oh, these few had a little bit too much to drink.
Speaker 1:I feel like that's a theme throughout the New Testament too is we've got these instructions on specified holistic and holy living that is separate from the rest of the world, but it's almost always aligned with the recognition that you're going to be living life with these people and you're never supposed to pick up your home or your family and get into some area of the city or some area of the country. That's distinct and separate, unlike what set the Hebrews apart. You know this is a church without a homeland, necessarily, and so there's these differentiators, but always, always, always that recognition that you are people and people live with people, talk with people and experience life, enjoy life with people, and it frees us from, I think, then, some of the present day stress and pressure we face to be perfect or to be winsome or to be evangelistic heroes. You know there isn't that kind of tone and language from the words of the apostles in the early church, but we kind of get wrapped up in it.
Speaker 2:Well, and you know we'll talk about this in a future podcast. But you know, jesus, john the Baptist, the disciples, they are all coming throughout the Gospels saying a really one single common phrase repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. And repentance means not just moral repentance or changing our worldview, it also is vocational and that is you know, how am I a better dad, a better mom, husband, wife, employer, employee, all these this great Lutheran tradition around the top of vocation? Well, part of that repentance in our vocation means how do I just be a normal dad and I'm going to be a Christian. I'm not giving away my faith or my worldview and I'm going to. I want people to draw closer to the person of Jesus Christ. But when it's all said and done, I am put here to live life as God intended, not on the day of Pentecost, but equally as much on the day of creation. How do I live as a real human?
Speaker 2:And the extension of this, by the way, for those of us who are in ministry, is how to be a human Christian pastor or a human Christian DCE, because I know a lot of pastors who talk weird, bluntly and just like I remember John, there was a day where I was at Disney World several years back with my family and there was a pastor there with a youth group.
Speaker 2:But would you believe this? The pastor was dressed, at Disney World in Florida in the middle of summer in a black clerical collar, short pants, shorts, black shorts, black shoes, black socks. And I am like, for the love of everything good and pure, you are at Disney World with your youth group, dude, just put on a t-shirt and call it good and move along. And I know I'm second guessing and being judgy, but come on. Human Christians, then, are authenticated for real professional ministry, and so my prayer is and when I was teaching at the seminary just be a human Christian. If you can do that, then you're already two thirds of the way to being qualified to be a minister of the gospel.
Speaker 1:It reminds me of our young adult group here was just reading through the screw tape letters and the discussion between evil powers, evil spirits trying to distract someone away from the faith. And one of the things that is discussed a lot in the book is how to add other identifiers to your Christianity and almost make it secondary to these other things that would become distractions away from what just the pure gospel is. And they even talk a lot about how Christian life is a life that is full and abundant, and so God gives us gifts of enjoyment, gives us gifts of laughter, and gives us special times and difficult times, and we don't have to worry about whether we're Christianizing or religiousizing each of those moments. Another way that this plays out at least for me is and it still happens is when I think about interactions I'll have with people who I hope become Christian someday, and maybe someday soon.
Speaker 1:So if I'm at a wedding with friends who are mostly not Christian, I wonder before I get there, before I go to the reception or hang out with them, I'm like how am I gonna be the best Christian pastor possible so that every one of those interactions leads somebody to Jesus? Or Thanksgiving coming up, the family members I have or the friends I have? How do I interact with them in a holiday setting? That would show a very winsome picture of the gospel. And I think the answer to those questions is if you are a transformed person, if God is working in your heart and life, then you being you is the most effective communication of the gospel, rather than trying to talk them out of something they are or convince them of some biblical truth. When you show it just an authenticity, you have that opportunity.
Speaker 2:Well, when you grew up in a family, your dad's a pastor. You've got more ministers in your family than St Louis has in their entire Lutheran community. What are the challenges that you've had to face down as you've tried to? You were born and raised John Corolla's, but now you're pastor John Corolla's. What are some of the ways or stresses that you've had to kind of navigate in this identity of being human, christian and now pastor?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a good question because in my personal world, especially before entering into professional ministry or career in general, the majority of the people I was close to, yeah, were either super committed to church or were working for church. Three of the four children my parents had are in professional church work and one of them married a pastor, and so you know, that's just kind of the ratio is just getting more and more balanced.
Speaker 1:You know, my wife Kaylee and I were joking about our wedding reception, if you count kind of the broader picture of religions, idea of who a minister is and who a pastor is.
Speaker 1:so children's ministry, music ministry, hospitality, we would have had probably two pastors at every table who could have done the meal, blessing you know the whole you know there's just that's my world, that's my people, that's the language I know, and so when I'm brought into situations where we're talking about you know non-religious topics, crypto financing, or you know investing or starting a small business, or you know we're talking about careers in Medicare, or you know in the medical field, or we're talking about careers in business, it's like, oh, I don't know the vocabulary and I don't know the language for this world, but what I do know is how my whole world view is changed by what God's doing in me, and so I can still ask questions that I don't need to know the answers to before I hear a response to say you know, what does your world look like? What does it sound like? How do you, how do you share meaning in an environment where you're not constantly asking what you're going to preach to people about on Sunday? Right, you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:And you don't always have to have the you know kind of pre-planned manipulation of, okay, I'm going to have a conversation about this very human topic, but really it's not very genuine, because I'm really trying to get them to the gospel and so you've got this kind of you know ulterior motive at work sometimes. And you know, my prayer for myself with my family is I just want to enjoy my family, my friends, for who they are. And you know, there's a great. There's two, two passages of scripture that come to mind for me. One is the apostle Paul, and Corinthians says I planted another guy by the name of Apollos.
Speaker 2:He watered you know the gospel ministry but it's God who causes the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything. The only thing that matters is the God who makes things grow. And so that frees me from having to be the beginning, middle and end of an evangelistic effort. I can insert the gospel when it's appropriate, and then I can also leave the conversation without you know a Billy Graham, would you walk down the aisle and pray to receive Jesus? So you know, somehow having that kind of integrity that you know, just don't get so anxious, just be human, bring your Christianity along with you, and then let God figure everything else out.
Speaker 1:I think that's so important is to remember that. You know, god put people into their lives right. God didn't give me the family I was born into just to kind of erase that from me because I was born into, you know, this sinful state, this corrupted, selfish state, which is true. But also it's true that God put me there for the enjoyment of those relationships, for the deepening of those relationships, for the learning and just kind of teamwork of what growing up together means. And then he puts us in our places in life, so working with you, you know it's God had a reason, that it was me and that it was you. That's here at this church right now, and the same is true for every church and for every pastor and for every teacher, and for every doctor and for every manager and for every coach.
Speaker 1:God brings people into these vocations because of who they are, because of who he created them to be, rather than feeling like I need to unwind and undo all of who I am. So then God can kind of start from a blank slate, from a totally fresh place. Instead, he, you know, he creates us with a purpose, he gives us identity for those special reasons. So, looking forward to the holidays, looking forward to these times where even our pews and our chairs at church will be filled with people who aren't usually around, just as kind of a closing idea. You know, how do you see yourself, myself, pastor Allen, our ministry team, how do we keep ourselves from avoiding being human and engaging? How do we continue to engage people on that human level, you know, first, rather than trying to sort of over-spiritualize and really cashing on this hour we have with them on Christmas Eve or Sunday morning, Right, you know I think three.
Speaker 2:let me give you three thoughts. The first is enjoy the moment. You know, and when I get up to a lead or preach at Christmas Eve service, you know there's so often, so much anxiety. You got to get the lighting right and the candlelighting right, and communion and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:For me, I want to be completely a finite being at that moment. What I mean by that is I'm in a space, it's in the chancel, I'm facing a crowd of people and all I can do is talk to them like a human talks to them. So I'm not going to use weird words, I'm not going to use a weird voice, I'm not going to get into, you know, over-exaggerated theatrics. I just want to be truly present. As we all will often say, christ is truly present in the sacrament. I want to be, in a sense, a quasi-sacrament in my truly present. You know, effervescent, happy, goofy Polish from Chicago, you know, now here in the desert, and let's just enjoy this moment. Our family are here, we're going to sing great songs, we're going to have a sermon, and so let's just be present.
Speaker 2:Number two it would be that when the service is over I realize that for many folks, the most important ministry begins. They've come through the service, they've succeeded in enjoying the service, but now I'm going to be out in the narthex and they're going to get to meet a person named Scott Seidler, and God help me if it's not the same person that was just in front of them. If there is an offset between the person that's standing in front and the person that is greeting out the back, then we've got a real human Christian problem. And then finally, and this will be the third point, some may come back the following week. And when they come back, the second week of Christmas, right the seven days later, or maybe the first couple of weekends of January, will the experience of church on those three days be at least somewhat similar to the reality of what was Christmas Eve?
Speaker 2:If Christmas Eve is this magnificent event, which it should be it's the birth of Christ but it's such at an offset to what you normally do as a human Christian leader the other Sundays of the year, that tells me you're trying to do something that is not genuine, not sincere. You know, yeah, have the string quartet there, that's fine. Pull out the brass and timpani, okay, fine. But somehow there has to be congruence between what happens on Christmas Eve, what happens in these special holiday settings and the life of the human Christian church, that is, for the other 51 Sundays of the year. So those are the three things I keep in mind.
Speaker 1:What stuck out to me from that was that for a lot of people the ministry, most important ministry, happens after the church service, and so for their interactions with you, that's on the way out of church or on the way out through the lobby when they're talking to me over at Mountain View. But then also the most challenging part of the holiday also is happening outside of the service, because for those 45 minutes or 55 minutes or whatever, however long the church service is they don't have to really talk to each other. But then sometimes the stress gets high, the anxiety goes up, the pressure is felt because, well, what are we going to talk at? At least on the drive home we could talk about the service and whether we like the candles that year. Then you sit around the table and it's like how did the meal turn out? And then, okay, how are you doing?
Speaker 1:What's happening in your life? And am I being a good faithful Christian? Am I being evangelistic? Am I being caring to my family? It's okay to just be you, and you are an important tool in the hand of God in furthering his kingdom and sharing his love and grace with others. And in response to the idea of being genuine, of just being yourself. While you're preaching, while you're leading a service. Sometimes we feel like we need to try and appease everybody at the same time, but it's okay just to share what we love about the holiday and what I love about it, versus what somebody else some other pastor or some other worship leader or a member of the band may like about it. To just share who we are. That's going to ensure that congruence, that same consistency over the course of experiencing church life together.
Speaker 2:And I just wrap up by saying this that we've talked a lot about ourselves, the person of a minister or a Christian, which is very human-centered conversation. Jesus is the center of this conversation and the essential argument being made is the best way to give and transmit the gift of the gospel is by being true to who you are, who God has made you to be. When you start manipulating that, then there is something that gets changed in the transaction of giving the gospel. And so, for me, I want people to see Scott Seidler for the quirky, goofy, fun-loving, serious, somewhat neurotic person that I am, because ultimately that is who I am and that's who God has made me to be. God has made you uniquely, john, and so through that authenticity the gospel then uniquely gets transmitted through me, through you. Seeds are planted, seeds are watered. God causes the growth.
Speaker 1:And that just underlines the message God loves you personally. God loves you and me personally. Before we're ever transformed, before we ever even show a glimmer of potential for the kingdom or anything like that. God's love just invades us when we're still totally lost and so wherever you are on the spectrum of faith, on the spectrum of belief, god's God is eye on you and is interested, invested in interacting with you as well. So hopefully this conversation has been encouraging and uplifting for you. We look forward to sharing some more conversations with you. We've got one of our staff members peering through the studio windows wanting to catch our attention as he's preparing for another event in here. But thank you for some time and we hope you have a blessed holiday season and, pastor Scott, it'll be good to chat with you again soon.
Speaker 2:Oh, it'll be super. Thanks a lot.