RSS<\/a><\/p>\nTopics Addressed in This Interview:<\/h2>\n
Matt Tully<\/em>
Kevin, thanks for joining me again on The Crossway Podcast<\/em>.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Always good to be with you.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Kevin, since the Great Commission, I would say, Christians have undoubtedly been devoting themselves to the task of making disciples. We spend a lot of time and thought about how to win people for Christ. And throughout history we see different strategies and different methods and emphases when it comes to thinking about what it means to win someone to Christ. And I wonder if you can set us up for today in answering, How would you summarize what our approach to that has been like as Christians?<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
One way to answer that question, and it will lead in probably to the rest of our conversation, is to think whether our efforts to bring people into the church, disciple them, win them to Christ, is that task mainly the same as it\u2019s always been or is it going to be vastly different from age to age or generation to generation. There\u2019s always some level of no one\u2019s going to say, hopefully, just repristinate the fifteenth century or something. Hopefully every evangelical is going to say the message is still the same. But in terms of the task and the strategy and what to do, I think the last fifty years in particular in North American evangelicalism, what I would know best, has leaned pretty hard into the We\u2019ve really got to do things in a totally different way<\/em>. Some books have had that kind of title even\u2014Change or Die<\/em>. So you think of the seeker sensitive movement, which has a kind of popular level, but before that it had an academic, theoretical level. A lot of that coming out of Fuller Seminary or Donald McGavran.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
There was an intentional strategy behind it. <\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
That\u2019s right. It was a homogenous unit principle, or it was we really need to understand the culture. So there was a time where people did cultural surveys. Survey your neighbors, find what they would want in a church.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
What are the felt needs that are dominant in their minds?<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
So I think that has been woven pretty deep into a lot of how evangelicals think that if we are to reach the next generation, of utmost importance is to understand the movies they\u2019re watching. And so we maybe even need to watch all the movies, even if they\u2019re garbage. We need to understand the way that they think. We need to understand their objections. We need to know even their tastes, their preferences. And we need to find the maximum cultural bridges that would allow them to come over into the faith.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
I don\u2019t know how much of that too is predicated on this growing sense that the chasm separating Christians from non-Christians is growing bigger and bigger, and even that Christians are losing ground in the culture broadly. Is that part of it, where over the last few decades, we\u2019ve just sensed that Christianity has lost its influence over the culture that maybe we once felt like it enjoyed?<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
I think it\u2019s certainly that, and that is just growing exponentially, that the same old ways of doing things or saying the same old things isn\u2019t going to work anymore. And we\u2019ll get to that. There\u2019s an element of truth there. But I think it\u2019s also the way in which we now think of generations. And I do believe that there are generational differences that are driven by events and technology, so there are certainly things to learn from that. But it seems to me in the last fifty or sixty years that has become paramount in many people\u2019s minds so that a baby boomer and a Gen X\u2014see, when I was growing up\u2014I\u2019m a Gen X\u2014it was my people that the church was trying to reach. And I have lots of funny remembrances of baby boomers saying, We\u2019re not going to reach you college students unless I get up here with my guitar and play \u201cShine, Jesus, Shine.\u201d<\/em> No, actually, that\u2019s not winning any college students, even when I was a college student. So we tend to kind of see the world as our generation. And so there\u2019s been a lot of thought that this next generation has different styles, preferences, questions, and so everything needs to be sort of tailored to them. But then when that generation moves on, you have to reinvent the whole thing.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
It\u2019s interesting you say this has characterized in the last few decades of the church in America, at least, and yet it hasn\u2019t seemed to have been working. We see lots of stats, and I want to get into some of those in a minute, where the number of people who are disavowing the Christian faith, walking away from it, and not wanting to be part of it, are bigger than they\u2019ve ever been before.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
The rise of the nones, which is well documented and continues to accelerate. So though there are examples\u2014noteworthy ones we can point to\u2014of very big churches with this kind of methodology, you\u2019re right. Certainly, for society as a whole, it\u2019s not working. If we\u2019re banking on that strategy to overcome the sinful proclivities of the human heart, that\u2019s not working.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Let\u2019s talk about the nones. I was looking at an article from the AP recently, they just published it last month, and it indicated that a full thirty percent of US adults polled identified as nuns. That includes atheists and agnostics, but anyone who doesn\u2019t affiliate with any formal religious identity or group. But that group of the nones was especially prominent among young people. The same article reported that four out of every ten people under the age of thirty would identify as a none. Which is close to as many people now in that same age cohort who would identify as Christians. What do you make of that, particularly around young people?<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
It is happening, and it needs to be considered. I think there\u2019s a temptation to make the argument, and from the books I\u2019ve read, they say this doesn\u2019t really account for most of it. There\u2019s a temptation to want to say, Well, all of these nones weren\u2019t really Christians anyways. These were just people who used to say one thing, and now they say something else<\/em>.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
They were nominal?<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Yeah, probably nothing\u2019s really changed except their answer to the question.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Gotcha. So the poll has changed, perhaps.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
The poll has changed because now it\u2019s more socially acceptable to say I don\u2019t have any religion. So that accounts for some of it, but the sociologists I\u2019ve read say that doesn\u2019t actually account for most of it. It\u2019s not just people who had no religiosity now daring to say it; there really are\u2014<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
There are shifts happening. <\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
There are shifts, and there\u2019s decreasing religiosity. Now, some good news, or at least a little less bad news, those changes have been less so among evangelical churches than they have been among Catholics and than they have been among mainlines. So it\u2019s not as bad for our kind of world, but it\u2019s still bad and it still makes a difference for the world that we\u2019re living in. I look at some of the things I probably said fifteen or twenty years ago where I might have said, You know what? The rise of the nones\u2014have at it. It\u2019s better. We\u2019re showing who the real Christians are, get rid of cultural Christianity, the light will shine brighter in the darkness<\/em>. And of course there\u2019s an element of truth to that, but I think we\u2019re seeing a broad Christian consensus\u2014the goal is not nominalism, of course\u2014but a broad Christian consensus in the culture does make it easier to introduce people to Christianity. Nominalists have some cultural categories that many of these nones now have none of those categories, or they are antagonistic to the category. <\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
That leads to another question I have. It seems like every generation of people, in particular Christians, we tend to look at the next generation and increasingly as we get older we see the differences, and we sometimes magnify the differences and maybe overblow the differences between us. We feel like they\u2019re strange and they don\u2019t seem to resonate with the things that make a lot of intuitive sense to us. But when it comes to Gen Z, this younger generation under thirty, do you think there\u2019s anything to that? Is there something different about the worldview\u2014about the culture that surrounds young people today\u2014that maybe is a pretty significant difference compared to previous generations?<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Yeah, that\u2019s a million dollar question. You can go read the Puritans and you can read people in the eighteenth century and they\u2019re always lamenting\u2014back to the earliest church they\u2019re always lamenting\u2014that we don\u2019t seem to be as godly as we used to be, and the next generation that\u2019s coming could be the very end. It\u2019s getting bad. Now, there are seasons where people are more optimistic, but that\u2019s a strain that is always there.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
It\u2019s part of getting older. We just get grumpier, I think.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Yeah, and the good way of viewing it is to say it\u2019s a part of getting closer to the Lord, maybe, that you see the sinful patterns more clearly, and maybe we tend to look at our own past experiences with more rose-colored glasses and it just looks bad. We didn\u2019t see the blind spots in our own age. So you think of somebody who maybe grew up in the fifties and sixties\u2014maybe a white evangelical\u2014and we\u2019re blind to pervasive racism in the culture. And that person may say now, Yes, I\u2019m glad we don\u2019t have that. That was bad<\/em>. But the way they look at that may not really register. What they feel is, Can you believe that we have men becoming women, and we have gay marriage, and we have abortion, and we have divorce?<\/em> Those things. So we feel that more poignantly, but to your question, yes, there is something different. And I do think Jean Twenge\u2014her book is on generations, and she\u2019s one of the leading experts on it\u2014her theory is a technological theory of generational change, that it\u2019s largely driven by different technologies. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s all of the explanation, but I think that\u2019s an important one. And that does mean that generational and cultural change is truly accelerated, that things that might have taken a hundred years may take ten years. Things that might have taken ten years may take one year. It really is the case that change can happen much more quickly because of our digital age. One example of cultural change is as a Gen Xer, I am conversant and comfortable and familiar with the digital world, I\u2019ve had a blog for a long time, I\u2019m on Twitter, and I know how to work my iPhone. But I have a very distinct memory of when email became a thing. Dialing up the modem and when you had to go to a computer lab at the college to get on there and type your paper. So I remember. I\u2019m not a digital native.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
You know what life was like before the iPhone.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Yeah. None of my kids do. They can hear about that, just like you and I wouldn\u2019t have any idea of a time without cars. We know there was a time when people didn\u2019t have cars, but it\u2019s just some place in the distant past. It doesn\u2019t really have any cultural pull on us.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
And therefore, we don\u2019t see the cultural influence and impact that technology has on us. We don\u2019t understand it.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Yeah. We take that as a cultural given. And this is where I think not just evangelicals but just people can be naive. But evangelicals, and it gets somewhat to the point of this whole book, is we can tend to see technology as just a neutral. Samuel James, of course, has written a lot about this<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Digital Liturgies<\/em>.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
And Tony Reinke. And I had both of them on my podcast. Tony\u2019s a little more technology positive and Samuel more technology cautious, but it\u2019s true that we often think of them as just tools that we can use without realizing how they use us and how they change us. So the car\u2014if you just take that as a cultural given, as all of us do (of course you have a car), we just think, Yeah. This is how I get from place to place. How do you live without a car?<\/em> You don\u2019t think, Well, what did this do to neighborhoods where people used to have their porches facing out to the streets and now they have their patios on the back towards the lawn? What did this make suburbs possible? How does this change how churches work and how you get to church?<\/em> There are all sorts of things that are massive that the automobile is without a doubt one of the most significant things that\u2019s happened in human history, but we all just grow up with it and we don\u2019t think about it.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
It seems like one of the other big things that is often mentioned alongside the rise of the nones, and in particular the younger generations, relates to the way that people have lost a lot of respect\u2014and not just respect, but trust\u2014in institutional organized religion. There\u2019s the sense that Christians\u2014and maybe especially Christian leaders, like yourself\u2014are too often in it for themselves and they are looking out for the in-group, but anyone who\u2019s not in that inner circle is disposable. We hear a lot of critiques around that, and that\u2019s often cited as a reason that people are leaving the church or suspicious of organized religion, generally. How would you counsel Christians who want to reach the next generation\u2014and this maybe leads into the topics of your book and what you hit on there\u2014how would you counsel them to think about this issue when it comes to reaching the next generation?<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
I\u2019m going to agree and disagree with the assessment, and I think you\u2019ll probably track with me. It\u2019s certainly the case that there\u2019s a low level of trust in institutions. It used to be, even when I was growing up, basically three networks, and three networks give you, \u201cI\u2019m Walter Cronkite, and that\u2019s the way it is. I\u2019m just telling you the way it is.\u201d<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
And everyone tuned into that one newscast. <\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Yeah, of course. Walter Cronkite\u2019s before my time, but the three networks and a kind of common culture. You\u2019re kind of watching the same TV shows. I mean, I just look back at what the Nielsen ratings would be for shows when I was really young. You never hit anything like a thirty-three percent share or fifty percent. <\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
The series finale for Friends<\/em> was this massive number that\u2014<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
And except for NFL football, probably, nothing gets anywhere near because it\u2019s all very segmented, everyone\u2019s got a streaming platform, and cable was before that. So that\u2019s just an example of when you have a few gatekeeping institutions, the positive is sort of that\u2019s where we go, and we trust them. The negative is, well, what if you shouldn\u2019t trust them? What if ABC, CBS, and NBC was pretty slanted in what they were doing? Well, then you\u2019re glad that Rush Limbaugh came along or Fox News came along. But as all of that proliferates, what you end up with is nobody has much trust in what somebody else is doing.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
So you\u2019re saying this issue of a lack of trust and the fragmenting of this institutional trust is much broader than just the church. <\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Yeah, that\u2019s right. So it\u2019s not just the church. It\u2019s broader than that because if you got a million people watching your television show at night, you\u2019re big time. Well, a million people is a lot, but it\u2019s really kind of not a lot with 330 million people. So to make it now, it can be small, but it just needs to be committed. And so where I was saying that I agree, certainly, that there\u2019s a lack of trust in institutions and leaders\u2014it\u2019s a huge populist moment right now that I think no matter what anybody did was bound to happen because of the internet. Everyone has access to everyone else\u2019s opinions. It couldn\u2019t be otherwise, I think. <\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
We all hear the terrible stories that do exist of things going wrong, people doing bad things, but we all hear about them because of the internet. <\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
If some church in Topeka, Kansas had some church meltdown with their leader, that would happen there and it would be a big deal. Maybe the denomination would be involved, maybe some people in town, but now if it\u2019s the right sort of person or wrong sort of person with a platform, it\u2019s going to be news and all of a sudden you extrapolate. So all of us can go through the list of whatever. You just say three names and people could say, Wow! There\u2019s a massive problem<\/em>. Well, maybe there is, or maybe those were three big names that we\u2019ve heard of, and maybe the actual numbers, if we knew them, are not any different. So, yes, this is an issue across the board. And why I say a little pushback, I think people are people, and they\u2019re always going to want leaders. They\u2019re always going to need heroes. They\u2019re always going to follow authority figures. So you can find the most fever swamps on the internet\u2014conspiracy theory, agitators of all sorts of things\u2014and they\u2019ll have somebody in that fever swamp who\u2019s a leader. Someone whose opinion they don\u2019t want to cross. Someone whose voice in that group is taken to be very important. So anybody who starts by making a name against that institution, if their influence is going to endure, they\u2019re going to create a new institution, and they\u2019re going to be a voice in it. And so it\u2019s not that people don\u2019t still have authority figures in their life. In fact, the scary thing is they have some really bad ones at times. But you\u2019re right. It gives, at times, a very sincere heartfelt and at times I think just a convenient out for people who don\u2019t want to give the church the time of day, or it leads us to reinterpret our own experience now with these new categories that in previous generations maybe that was just kind of a rocky patch. Now you have a way to experience and reinterpret that experience as something much more nefarious.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
That\u2019s a really helpful summary of that particular issue. And obviously, there are lots of other related issues that help to explain, but not fully explain, the rise of the nones and just the trends that we see more broadly in our culture today. And that kind of gets then to the title of your book, which I love. It\u2019s a classic Kevin DeYoung book title. The Not-So Secret Secret to Reaching the Next Generation<\/em>. At the risk of spoiling the book for our readers and causing them to not want to buy the book, which you should buy the book, what is that secret?<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
It\u2019s a very short book, so it\u2019s a very short secret. At one level I say the secret is that there\u2019s no secret. I first started thinking about this, writing on it, preaching on this way back in the Emergent days.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Refresh our memory. Quick history lesson. What was the Emergent Church?<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
The Emergent Church, in one sense, is no longer with us, but I think the spirit of it is there. The emergent church was in the early 2000s. You might say it was a vibe that on the one hand it wanted to do lots of creative things in worship, so it kind of had that We don\u2019t like seeker Boomer worship strand<\/em>. There was also\u2014<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
More authentic.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
More authentic. Let\u2019s just draw a picture on butcher block paper as we worship<\/em>. But some of it wanted to recover liturgy, and that was good, but then there\u2019s a strong social justice, anti-religious right part of it. And then there was the Velvet Elvis<\/em>, our doctrine is too freeze dried, buttoned down\u2014<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
More Jesus, less doctrine.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Yeah. Red letter Christians\u2014we need to emerge from all that. So I wrote Why We\u2019re Not Emergent<\/em>, and that\u2019s back when I was young. Now I\u2019m just DeYoung. But people would ask, If Emergent isn\u2019t the answer<\/em>\u2014and then I was pastoring University Reformed Church right across the street from Michigan State. Okay, you\u2019re right there with college students<\/em>. And it was like somebody put the microphone, Tell us, what\u2019s the secret?<\/em> I\u2019d almost get that question.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
It goes back to that idea that we\u2019re always looking for the next thing that\u2019s going to unlock the current generation.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Yeah, exactly. And that generation is now one or two generations\u2014they\u2019re the old people, the middle-aged people now. So what I started to say back then was there\u2019s no secret. Okay, they sort of get it, but can I say anything more helpful than that?<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
The interviewer\u2019s face fell at that point. <\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
So what I wanted then and want now in this little book to reinforce is that most of what we need to do is what Christians have always needed to do. You put the necessary caveats there, that the generations do change. The answers don\u2019t change, but the questions that people are asking change. We do need to be mindful. We do need to withstand the temptation to just live in some other century and just make that\u2014<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
So there is some contextualization that has to happen.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Yeah. And I think Zane Pratt said this one time, that contextualization does not mean making the gospel or the truth of the Bible more palatable; it means making it more clear. So yes, if people aren\u2019t understanding what you\u2019re saying\u2014<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Because of cultural preconceptions or a lack of cultural familiarity with certain ideas within Christianity, all those things could be true.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Yeah. If you say our church has elders, contextualization might mean trying to explain what an elder is so they don\u2019t think it\u2019s just an old person or a cult or something. But with the gospel, there\u2019s lots of different ways to explain the gospel. Contextualization means just trying to make sure they don\u2019t misunderstand what you\u2019re hearing and in a way that they can understand, but isn\u2019t to say, I\u2019m not going to talk about the difficult things. I\u2019m going to make this just as palatable as possible and remove this scandal<\/em>. So yes, contextualization. And no one accuses me of being hip or cool, but I think I live a fairly normal, observant life. When I drive my kids to school, they want to listen to\u2014I know some of the current pop songs, I guess, because my kids do. I don\u2019t go see the movies, but I know what\u2019s out there. All that to say\u2014<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
You\u2019re not totally isolated from the real world. <\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
I\u2019m not totally isolated. I\u2019m not just living in the seventeenth century because that\u2019s where all of my dead friends are. So I just want to say it is possible that there are people who major on the minors or they put unnecessary barriers up. The gospel is a scandal in itself, but then they sort of make it like you need to enter into a cultural time warp to come into your church. So all of those caveats. What I want to say in this book is that it’s mostly the same. It\u2019s loving people. That\u2019s why I think cultural understanding has value. We need great cultural apologists. We need people to help us understand that. But I do want the ordinary pastor, the ordinary parent, to not feel like, Oh, if I\u2019m going to do youth ministry or I\u2019m going to talk to my teenager, I need to read the French philosophers, have an extra degree in critical theory, I need to know everything that Taylor Swift is singing about in her songs<\/em>\u2014like you need to have a cultural refresher course every two weeks. No. And in fact, if you try too hard at that, you will seem really, I was going to say cringy, but I think that word has already passed by. <\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
It\u2019s already passe. <\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Yeah. So I think what a lot of Christians are trying to do with that, the good instinct is I want you to know I care about you. I want there to be a connection. But one of the big things in the book is loving people is a better way to make that connection. Give people the gift of your curiosity. Ask good questions. Almost everyone likes to talk about themselves. You don\u2019t have to be an expert in all of this and know how to deconstruct all of the cultural errors that are out there. Show love to people. Show hospitality. Invite them over. Ask them questions about themselves. Love covers over a multitude of cultural ignorance.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Let\u2019s talk through some of the other specific suggestions that you have in the book. So there\u2019s no secret and there\u2019s no silver bullet, but you do mention a few things. So the first one is \u201cgrab them with passion.\u201d What does that mean?<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
People want to know that this really matters, and the illustration I\u2019ve given so many times when I preach is the story\u2014whether it\u2019s true or not, it should be\u2014of George Whitefield and Benjamin Franklin.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
It\u2019s a classic pastor\u2019s illustration.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
If it\u2019s not true, it should be. It\u2019s true that Franklin was a fan of George Whitefield, even though Franklin was not any kind of evangelical Christian. But the story is told somebody said, Franklin, why do you keep going to hear George Whitefield preach? You don\u2019t believe a word that he says<\/em>. And Franklin replied, I know, but he does<\/em>. He was gripped by the\u2014I hesitate to use authenticity<\/em> because that word has been spoiled, but he really means it. He really believes it.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
And you could see it.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
You could see it. So I think someone literally coming off the streets into our church, I think you could sing with a pipe organ. I think you could sing with guitars. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s limitless; I do think the instruments matter, but I think you could praise God in a lot of different ways. And if you have the most cutting edge music and you look in and its concert quality and you look around and no one\u2019s singing, that communicates something. And you could be in a forty-person psalms-only singing church and they\u2019re singing their guts out and it\u2019s not any kind of musical connection probably with the person, yet they\u2019ll sense, Why are all these strange people singing this strange song like their very life depended on it?<\/em> That\u2019s what I mean by passion. And it\u2019s not a personality thing. I\u2019m not saying that you all have to have a certain intensity of your personality.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
I\u2019m thinking of John Piper preaching. We don\u2019t need to be preaching to our kids like John Piper would preach. <\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Glory!<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Yeah, with all the hand motions.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
No one doubted that Tim Keller really believed what he was saying. Totally different personality, but in earnestness\u2014and it is a biblical verse that says, \u201cdo not be slothful in zeal.\u201d So in a sense, yes, when parents drag their kids to church and make them go and their kids sense, This doesn\u2019t mean a whole lot to my parents. They\u2019re just doing it<\/em>. That is communicating more to your children than almost any lesson you\u2019re didactically giving them. <\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
And all parents know that. We\u2019ve seen that in our kids that they tend to follow us, at least at a young age, in our passions. What we\u2019re excited about, they get excited about.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
And it\u2019s much more caught than taught. We should still teach. We should still do family worship. But if you do all the family worship and it\u2019s not caught from your life, it can have a negative effect. And conversely, if you struggle, like our family does, to get to the family worship every day but hopefully there\u2019s a sense that this really matters to mom and dad and they really love us and care for us and it\u2019s really the most important thing in their life, that\u2019s communicating a lot more than you realize. <\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
The second thing you highlight is \u201cwin them with love.\u201d We\u2019ve kind of talked about that one, so we\u2019ll keep moving. \u201cHold them with holiness.\u201d Maybe that\u2019s one that is a little more\u2014where are you going with that?<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
The opportunity we have in our increasingly godless age and the rise of the nones is that true Christian virtue will stand out. It will stand out more than it used to. The hard thing is we can\u2019t rely on the culture to do a lot of the formation for us. I think that\u2019s where a lot of us have been, whether it\u2019s the schools or just the entertainment or just the general sweep of things. We need to be discerning, but a lot of it is like you\u2019re on that lazy river at the water park. It\u2019s kind of floating your inner tube in the right direction.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Even a lot of that comes through cultural taboos, things that everyone kind of agrees are not really good, even if sometimes we do them.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
What you shouldn\u2019t laugh at, what you shouldn\u2019t show, what sort of disqualifies someone from public life.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
All of that is breaking down all around us. <\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Yeah. So we don\u2019t have that leading us in the right direction. A lot of times it feels like rapids pushing us back the other way. So the opportunity is genuine Christian commitment and virtue in an objective and noticeable, though not ostentatious, holiness. That\u2019s what I mean by \u201chold them with holiness.\u201d This is biblical. Peter says, \u201cMay they see your good works and glorify God on the day he visits us, or they\u2019ll be put to shame.\u201d Even when someone opposes us, we may not see it, but maybe there\u2019s something in the back of their mind that says, I don\u2019t know. He is a genuinely really kind person. She is the best person, the hardest worker I have<\/em>. <\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
I see integrity in this person<\/em>.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
I see integrity<\/em>. And I think just with people from the outside that\u2019s why I say \u201chold them with holiness\u201d so that they have a sense that says, Okay, I may be rebelling in my my mind and heart against these hard Christian truths and what they say about sexuality, but I can\u2019t deny this is a different kind of community, and they do live a different way than other people do<\/em>. There are a number of books written by feminists right now who are kind of being mugged by reality to say, The sexual revolution has been a really bad deal, especially for women and children<\/em>. And so I\u2019m hopeful that people will see that, and it\u2019s going to be a long journey for most of them. But maybe they\u2019ll say, You know what? You know where people actually treat one another with love? You know where women are really honored, actually, is in the church<\/em>. And that distinctiveness, to be a distinctive people, is what God calls us to.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
And some of our drive to be holy has to come from, though, a belief and a fundamental trust that what God calls holy is actually good for us. It\u2019s not just burdensome rules that steal the fun out of life.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
One of my go-to text is 2 Peter 1:5\u20138: \u201cmake every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.\u201d It\u2019s like the famous saying from M’Cheyne\u2014\u201dWhat my people need from me most is my own personal holiness.\u201d It doesn\u2019t mean, if you\u2019re a pastor, that your church will get large. It doesn\u2019t mean as a parent that you can guarantee every single one of your kids will be a Christian. But you will not be ineffective or unfruitful. If you\u2019re bearing fruit in your own life of holiness and godliness, people will be able to pluck that down and realize it. It goes back to your first question. There are lots of ways to draw a crowd. There are lots of ways still in America to have a big church. But there\u2019s still only one way to really be truly spiritually fruitful, and that\u2019s that you yourself need to be bearing fruit in keeping with the gospel. And that\u2019s sort of what I mean by \u201chold them with holiness.\u201d<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
I\u2019m struck, though, that the definition of fruitfulness matters there because again, we see a lot of examples of worldly fruitfulness, even within the church, that isn\u2019t necessarily the fruit that God ultimately is giving us. Now we\u2019ll just quickly go over the fourth: \u201cchallenge them with truth.\u201d What are you getting at there?<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
The truth is going to be challenging, and I actually think that people are willing not always to believe it, and they may hate it, but I think they really want to know. *Would you just tell me what you really believe? Are you hiding something?<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Don\u2019t play games<\/em>.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
And that goes back to a lack of trust in authority and authority figures. Paul gives us the answer\u2014by an open statement of the truth. So just a fastball right down the middle. Just let people know. Now, again, to be a wise communicator I think as a preacher, I may make certain guardrails. I want to make sure that you don\u2019t misunderstand over here and over here, but we don\u2019t want to undermine the truth with death by a thousand qualifications either. Challenge them with truth. Say, This is a hard thing<\/em>. I\u2019m preaching through Revelation right now. There are a lot of hard things. There\u2019s judgment, there\u2019s hell. And I\u2019m coming to the text where a third of mankind is wiped out by this demonic horde. And it\u2019s to repent. And part of what that passage is saying is one of the reasons God allows wars and death in the world\u2014horrible things we\u2019re seeing in our world right now\u2014is to call people to repent and to say something worse is coming. I don\u2019t care how long you\u2019ve been a Christian or where you live. That\u2019s a hard word, to say something worse is coming. I\u2019ll tell people that this is a hard word. But we need to get the right view of God, which really leads\u2014I just did the segue for you\u2014<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Here we go. \u201cAmaze them with God\u201d is your last thing. What does that mean?<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
I\u2019ll just give you my poor man Piper\u2019s imitation. Piper and others talk about big God theology. People don\u2019t realize it, but we live trivial lives. We\u2019re glued to these phones, like I am too often. There\u2019s a whole slew of people making good salaries to just learn the dopamine hits to just get you to\u2014<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Like that next cat video. <\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Candy Crush. Do they still do Candy Crush? I don\u2019t even know. Whatever it is, and I\u2019m not shaming you if you enjoy and occasional recreation, but people don\u2019t know what they\u2019re missing. They don\u2019t know that they need a picture of a big God. So I love what happens in Revelation 2 and 3 and Revelation 4 and 5, because you have the seven churches\u2014seven real churches\u2014and all the churches are different. They have different strengths and weaknesses. Some, you might say, are too liberal. Some, you might say, don\u2019t love people enough.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
It captures the gamut. <\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
It runs the spectrum of it. And so chapter 4 and 5 come next because what do they need? What do they need to be overcomers? It\u2019s no coincidence the next thing is, And I saw a vision of One who was sitting on the throne, and the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures and the seven spirits of God and peels of lightning, thunder, flashes of lightning<\/em>. All of that is to ask, Do you know what each of these churches\u2014Christ gave him specific commendation and condemnation\u2014but what all of them need most is a vision of the One who sits on the throne. They need a big, big picture of God and of the Lamb. And that\u2019s what people don\u2019t have. Conservative media, a lot of which I agree with, they might get abortion right, they might be right to tell you about the dangers of woke. They may get a lot of cultural flashpoint issues right; they will not give you a Revelation 4 and 5 picture of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Kevin, thank you so much for walking us through this short little book that you\u2019ve written and helping all of us to be a little bit more prepared to engage our culture for Christ.<\/p>\nKevin DeYoung<\/em>
Great to be with you.<\/p>\n
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