For some of you, this may be your first time hearing Greg, while others of us have known this God-graced communicator for a couple of decades. In a living room setting, Greg shares his understanding of biblical hospitality from his experience, study and, more importantly, how it plays out in real life.
“Hospitality is the most often mentioned good work in the New Testament… in the middle of God's heart is a spirit of hospitality.”
In this session, Greg offers some thoughts to ponder with open questions and mindful responses in a dialogue with those present. In his transparent teaching style, Greg offers food to chew on – or, as he calls it – “a theory.”
“I burn out at least once a year. I get depressed for a month or two, and I don't function very well …. burnout is not a theory for me. It's something that I've lived through over and over and over again because I'm a slow learner. Here's my theory….”
Dr. Greg Mitchell is the Sr. Pastor of EN Vancouver, where he and his wife Debbie have raised three biological children and seven other children. He contributes greatly to the EN Seminary with his passion for ‘Relational Theology’.
For some of you, this may be your first time hearing Greg, while others of us have known this God-graced communicator for a couple of decades. In a living room setting, Greg shares his understanding of biblical hospitality from his experience, study and, more importantly, how it plays out in real life.
“Hospitality is the most often mentioned good work in the New Testament… in the middle of God's heart is a spirit of hospitality.”
In this session, Greg offers some thoughts to ponder with open questions and mindful responses in a dialogue with those present. In his transparent teaching style, Greg offers food to chew on – or, as he calls it – “a theory.”
“I burn out at least once a year. I get depressed for a month or two, and I don't function very well …. burnout is not a theory for me. It's something that I've lived through over and over and over again because I'm a slow learner. Here's my theory….”
Dr. Greg Mitchell is the Sr. Pastor of EN Vancouver, where he and his wife Debbie have raised three biological children and seven other children. He contributes greatly to the EN Seminary with his passion for ‘Relational Theology’.
Here we go. I'm sorry I have to use this I'd much rather not, but it's great to see some I won't say old faces that's not very nice, but faces I've seen before and some new faces. Brent just here. If you want to know the difference between Brent's personality and mine, this is Brent's wallet and this is my wallet, and I just feel like that says everything right there. This is how we're different from one another, but the truth is, this is what I need in my life and yeah, that's right.
Greg Mitchell:I wasn't going to go there, but Brent and I have been very good friends for a long time and for lots of reasons, but one of them is I just need him in my life. I'm quite a linear kind of person, but what I value are deeply relational things. So I've needed Brent in my life to keep reminding me about what's true and really to have somebody to live it out with, that approaches the same things from a different perspective, and I'm so grateful for his friendship, for his leadership in my life, and that we've been able to journey through all of our mistakes and messes and just come out the other side not just appreciating each other, but still being able to pull in the same direction. I just think is a huge gift to me. So, brent, thank you so much for your friendship. It means a lot to me. I was expecting to just have a conversation with a few people, so I'm hoping that that can still be true. I have a couple stories, a couple thoughts, but I'm really more interested in us talking about these things together.
Greg Mitchell:A number of years ago now, we had a woman come from mainland China. I'm from Vancouver. She came to Summit Fraser University, came to Christ there and became a campus missionary in our church. Jessica, not Gao, not anymore. She got married, so she's out on the SFU campus and she's now going to be an evangelist for Jesus. And so she comes up to a white dude which was her first problem, anyways, but very different and so she comes up to a white dude, and she comes up to him and she says Jesus loves you. And the dude says well, why wouldn't he?
Greg Mitchell:I mean.
Greg Mitchell:I'm a great guy. What's there not to love? And so he just went on a little bit explaining how great he was. And then Jessica says well, actually you're a sinner. I mean, she's just new, so it's just God's love you and you're a sinner, like within a few minutes.
Greg Mitchell:But and so this guy says he says, look, what you Christians call sin, I call solutions. He says whenever I don't do well at work, I lie. He says it works well, all the time I just lie. And he says it's served me very well. When I'm not feeling very good about myself, I gossip and I feel better. And if I'm stressed out, that's when I smoke weed, and if I have, you know, physical desires, that's why I go to the bar and pick up somebody. And he says what you Christians call problems, I call solutions. And she comes back to our team meeting and she says you know what do I do with this guy? I don't know, how do you, how do you even begin to have a journey toward faith and relationship with Christ?
Greg Mitchell:And so here's something that dawned on us back then and I've been thinking about it for a very long time since then is that gospel solutions require gospel problems, and unless we have the right problem, jesus never really makes sense. And so we talk with people about how much God loves them, or they should repent and believe, or those kinds of things, and, at least in my city, it often falls on deaf ears because people really aren't very interested. And what we realized is that we had to actually back up the process. By the way, it's so great to be in Canada. I can say process without people giggling. When I'm in the States, it's always process and I think that's very funny. They think it's cute. When I say process, it annoys me every time. But so what we needed to do was to back up the process and say maybe our first responsibility is to give people better problems before they'll receive better solutions. And so then the question becomes what's the problem? What's the problem that Jesus came to remedy when it says, for God's love, the world, he gave us only something. What did the Father give the Son for? Like what's going on? That would first of all require such a drastic response on God's part. And so I find it interesting and maybe you can add to this list what people think their problem is. So, and this is just, I'll touch hot buttons just more for the point of conversation than anything else.
Greg Mitchell:But what I notice lots of people come to Christ for would maybe be under the banner of success that I have, I want to be. They can even use Christian language. I want to be all that God has called me to be, and so I need the work of the Spirit and Jesus to somehow enable me to become successful, and God kind of, at that point, becomes a resource for their own personal development. And so that one doesn't make too much sense to me, although I think it's also true God does. I was just listening to a speaker say that he was referencing King David, and somebody comes up and says to David God is going to give you success, success, success, and we're all David's children, and so that's what God wants to give us as well. So that's true, so there's truth to it, and so maybe the primary problem I don't think it's the primary problem, but it is a problem would be our personal success.
Greg Mitchell:Maybe another one in my city it's a super big deal, and it would be called mental health, and so I have a counseling background that I'm incredibly grateful for. My mentor is a psychologist, and so I've been steeped in these things for a long time and I really care deeply about this. But mental health and we can maybe discuss this if you want to go deeper but mental health is just like one degree off of gospel health, it's just a little different. But people will assume that mental health is exactly the same as what Jesus came to bring, and so they'll go on a journey of self-awareness and working through having an image of self and of God and of others that has been refined and perhaps purified by scripture and ministry. But that can be a problem that they think is the primary problem that Jesus came to solve. And again, we can talk about this because I'm not trying to bash mental health anymore than success, but I don't think it's the core problem.
Greg Mitchell:And then another one that I've spent many years exploring and have found great personal benefit in would be maybe what could be described as inner healing, slightly similar to mental health, but it was for me an inward journey of finding peace within my soul through deliverance from demonic oppression and forces and finding healing through the power of the Holy Spirit, and those moments for me have been transformational. They changed my life. But I found that as I minister to people in that kind of vein which, again, I'm trying to emphasize that they're helpful but maybe not the core issue. But, as I that people actually ended up chasing after freedom instead of Jesus, and it just was slightly. It just went slightly, just slightly off, and then I found that people kept coming back again and again for more and more inner healing and I wondered why it didn't stick. And then it got me wondering whether maybe even that wasn't actually the core problem that the gospel came to remedy Again, important, but maybe not the core problem.
Greg Mitchell:And so I think the core problem would be summarized in St Corinthians 5, 18 to 20, that let me just read it and then it's better that way, it's faster if I do it this way. So, oh, this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them, and he is committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. So we implore you, on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. I think that the core problem that the Father sent the Son to remedy through His work and the work of the Holy Spirit.
Greg Mitchell:I think it's reconciliation, I think it's a relational problem and I think that's the main thing going on. And when success and mental health and inner healing serve that deeper problem, they all get redeemed and they all become super helpful things. But they're only helpful when they're serving something more profound and I think it's alienation. So, if you've heard me talk before, we have a definition of sin that's based on Isaiah 59, verses one and two, that sin is anything that breaks right relationship. Sin isn't an arbitrary list of dos and don'ts. It's a God opposes everything that opposes relationship, and then what God came to remedy is everything that would reconcile First to God and then to one another.
Greg Mitchell:And so I really believe that there's only one ministry in the church, and sometimes in churches that we have worship ministry and children's ministry, and I think there's only one ministry in the church. It's the ministry of reconciliation, and unless the church is serving that ministry, I don't think it's doing Christian work. We can run programs and amuse kids and have amazing worship, but unless it leads towards reconciliation, it can actually be a distraction to the work of the kingdom. So I think I think that's the problem and in my city. We're trying to help them care about that problem, so that the gospel would be good news. But unless they have that problem, it just doesn't make any sense, and so the hyper-individualism that we experienced, I think, in Canada in general, in a my city at least in particular, is very profound, and sadly, people have come to befriend it where their problems are, because they have relationship, and they'd prefer to have fewer relationships in order to reduce their problems. That's one of the primary difficulties, by the way, with mental health is that I am never angry, sad, confused when I'm alone. It's only when I have other people around me that life gets more difficult, and so I think that the gospel is about reconciliation, and our journey is to help people have a gospel problem so that they can receive a gospel solution. So we're going to talk about how to do that in a minute. But how are you doing with that idea? So far, you doing OK, ok.
Greg Mitchell:So the question then becomes how do we stimulate a need for a relationship with God and one another? And so I think that, from what I can understand, the overwhelming answer is actually hospitality. That what hospitality does is it awakens inside of people's hearts their need for a relationship, and so Debbie and I have really devoted our lives to being hospitable people. She's way better at it than I am. I'm an introvert and I think about stuff, but I'm not super friendly, and so I'm working on it, though I'm only 62, so I have a few more years left to nail this thing, but my heart deeply cares for that.
Greg Mitchell:Hospitality is the most often mentioned good work in the New Testament. It's the most often mentioned. What I find interesting in the Old Testament is that there were three primary crimes that the prophets would highlight in God's people. It was idolatry, immorality and not caring for the alien and the poor. Like it made the top three, like it's right up there with idolatry and adultery, was not caring for the alien, for those in the outside, for the disenfranchised. That's very sobering to me. That that's in the middle of God's heart is a spirit of hospitality. He's a welcoming God and his primary motivation is that I would be your God and you would be my people. That's what's motivating him from Leviticus 26 right through to Revelation 20. And so we see this as being the primary mechanism. I think that awakens people's needs. So we've had I don't know dozens and dozens of people live with us. We have 10 children, and three biological, and don't tell me it gets complicated after that. It's one or two adopted and then, I think, three foster and then two other who just lived with us for years. They call us mom and dad, and so what we've longed to do is live an open life, because we've noticed that people don't recognize their need for Jesus unless they've tasted of his love.
Greg Mitchell:I remember there was one guy who's still a very good friend of ours. He struggled all of his life with same sense of attraction. When we first met him he was in a relationship. He broke up, they broke up, and so then he came and lived with us for a while, and just a well, I just have to say this because I think it's so funny. But he was a comedian on cruise ships and so just the funniest guy you could ever. One of my favorite jokes of his and I've said it so many times, but I still think it's funny he says Greg, he says I don't repeat gossip, so I'm only going to say this once. I just think that is so funny, I just love that. Anyways, he came to, he lived with us, I don't know for how many months. Oh OK, so I didn't remember that. And so here's, so it's well into him living with us.
Greg Mitchell:And he's having a talk with him one day and he says Greg, I don't want to live the gay lifestyle anymore. And so I said to him I'm trying to be funny. It wasn't very funny, but I thought it was funny at the moment. You'll always be gay, anyways, I thought I was being funny. He goes no, no, no, I don't want to do that, I don't want to do that anymore. And I asked why. He says well, anytime.
Greg Mitchell:So he's kind of very flamboyant and so he says anytime anybody looks at me, they could see that I'm gay. And then they assume that I'm a pedophile. And he says nobody lets me near their children and I never get to experience family. He says but you and Debbie have let me into your home and you've let me play with your kids and I've tasted of a better love. And if this is what the love of God is like, he says, this is way better than the quote, unquote love that I was chasing for many, many years of my life, and that's just very moving to me because I love them very much. So I'll just say one more thing, and then we can talk.
Greg Mitchell:So hospitality, to me, is the doorway into the kingdom of God. It allows people to identify right problems so that they can have right solutions. Are you OK with the idea? Is this making sense? Ok, there's one more complication that I'd like to introduce and then we can talk.
Greg Mitchell:So, as I said, we have 10 kids Now and they've come to us in different kinds of ways, but here's what we've believed. We believed that if we could demonstrate the love of God to these children, most of whom have come from horrendous backgrounds I can't tell you about it for lots of reasons for confidentiality, but if I do, I just get so choked up because it's so horrible what human beings have done to one another. It's not right and it breaks my heart. So we believed that the remedy would be and it is the remedy, but I have to qualify it or expand it at least that we thought the remedy would be extravagant love. And so we just love them like our own kids. If we're all going on vacation, we don't say if the foster kids or the other kids don't go with the no we're just a family, we call ourselves a forever family, and we treated them as our own kids.
Greg Mitchell:And then we discovered that they super enjoyed that and many of them had no intention of changing. And so we thought, oh, they just haven't tasted the love of God enough yet, and so we would try to love them even better. And then there's this definition that I think is still the best definition of personal health. It's Matthew 10.8. Freely, you have received, freely give. And so I think that they nailed freely receiving. I don't think they quite got along around to freely give. That was a bit of a gap in their relational development, and so they were happy, happy, happy to receive all kinds anything.
Greg Mitchell:Our love, money, roof over their head, our time, energy. Thank you so much really, but never really got around to giving love freely. Some of them Feels like the 10 lepers, you know. Let everybody comes back to say thank you. So here's my question to us To thoroughly embrace hospitality, to give away our hearts, I think, in a more robust and profound way, requires that our hospitality leads people towards repentance and faith, that it's possible to live in such a way that we can be thoroughly loving and actually give them the illusion that we can be truly loving, that they're mature, but they're really just living off of our godliness and they've never really committed themselves to lay down their life for their neighbor. And so what we're in the middle of trying to understand and we don't really have answers. So that's why this is a genuine discussion is how do we exhibit a spirit of hospitality which I think is the heart of God, in a way that leads others towards repentance and faith, where they would churn toward that themselves and do it in a way that was founded in faith, not just performance and you know works, righteousness, but with a genuine trust in the gospel. So what do you think about that? How does hospitality produce heart transformation. I don't know where I want to go. So this is all good.
Greg Mitchell:I keep thinking about burnout and you guys burned out doing that, but what are your thoughts towards that? Oh, do I have a thought? You didn't know that you set me up? Yeah, he was first hospital Before he ever invited us to do anything. So this is a theory that we can talk about as well. It's just a theory. So Most people that I know are really nervous about burnout, and for legitimate reasons. I burn out at least once a year. Usually comes around May, june. I get depressed for a month or two and I don't function very well Something I look forward to every year and it's a real issue for me. So burnout is not a theory for me. It's something that I've lived through over and over and over again because I'm a slow learner. Here's my theory.
Greg Mitchell:So you have Jesus. This is the story of the woman at the well. You have Jesus, who is exhausted, right, because he's been walking for a very long time. We know that he's exhausted and tired because his disciples go off to find some food. They're tired. It's been a long day or life. And then he meets a woman, and now there's another need in front of him and he's exhausted. They have, as you guys all know, an amazing encounter. And then, and so he offers her living water, which is refreshment, right. And then, so you know, incredible encounter, verse 27 of John 4,.
Greg Mitchell:Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman, but no one asked what you want or why you're talking with her. Then, leaving her jar of water, the woman went back to the town and said to the people come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah? Then they came out of town and made their way towards him. Meanwhile, his disciples urged him rabbi, eat something. Okay, so they can see that he's tired and exhausted and hungry.
Greg Mitchell:Psychologically, we can overlay burnout, perhaps. And then he says this. But he said to them I have food to eat that you know nothing about. In a classic fashion, the disciples then said to each other because someone had brought him food, like totally missing the point, you know. So here's my theory Freely loving others is not exhausting.
Greg Mitchell:Anxiety is when I make it about me having to save a soul, or me having to be a rock star, or when I take on responsibilities that are only the responsibility of God. I can't change hearts right, I can't bring conviction only the Spirit of God does that. And so as soon as I start doing his job, that's a little exhausting and it leads to my burnout. But when I'm walking in his will, in response to him, then I find loving others to be life-giving, and that I have food to eat that you know nothing about. And this, to me, ties in with the issue that I discover in my home, in church and city. Is that here's the mentality? I think, because I recognize it in myself is something like this I need my love tank filled so that eventually I'll be able to. Then it'll overflow into loving others.
Greg Mitchell:Are you familiar with the theory?
Greg Mitchell:That's never true.
Greg Mitchell:We give in faith.
Greg Mitchell:I never feel full, I never go.
Greg Mitchell:Wow, I am so bloated with the love of God and I like I give you a.
Greg Mitchell:God bless you. If that has happened to you, that's not happened to me. I'm always hungry and thirsty for more of him and feel inadequate in most every moment. But so my kids don't want to be selfish. They don't wake up in the morning hoping to be selfish, but what they do think is I'm not ready to love yet I need to receive more yet, and then there'll be this magical moment when it'll spill over into loving others. And I wonder if their issue is fear and anxiety as well, that they're afraid to get burned out, and it's why repentance must always accompany faith. It's only by trusting in the work of Christ, in the work of Christ, are we able to then have the freedom to love out of our poverty, not of our amazing riches or whatever it is. So I think receiving love and giving love are not tiring. I think that my flesh pollutes that and pulls me away from relationship or makes me over a function in relationship, both of which are exhausting that steal away the beauty and life-giving nature of love.
Jose:Yeah, it is very interesting that you say that hospitality is very important. I think the hospitality, like you said, God start hospitality with the Adam near. We build this earth to be in love. Unfortunately, we see we cover up everything. For me, hospitality, probably because my culture is more hospitality than Americans.
Greg Mitchell:Just say Americans, don't say Canadians, it's just the Americans. I feel better about that. I can only say to everybody hospitality is a gift from God.
Jose:Why I only say to everybody, do you know others? And I say, do you know others? And I say I make others but I don't know others. It's very difficult because no others. I have to be hospital, open my house to bring others to my house, to a place Actually I don't say to my place, the house of God, because everything that is here is not us, it's not God. And if I hospital the others, I'm going to start a relationship with you.
Greg Mitchell:That's right.
Jose:If I don't have a relationship with any of you, I make you, but where is the love? Me to all of you, and that's the reason that God is. The first thing that God wants is to love the people. If you don't love the people like James I think it's James said if you say that you love God and you hate your neighbor, where is the love? So love is kind of love, unfortunately, the human love and the love coming from God. And you was the answer to him. If I am going to be tired to open my house, no, why? Because you love God is in that house and I give love to him. I'm going to learn things from any of you because I am not perfect. I remember one thing that James Jordan was saying that he was very burned out until he realized that he was carrying on all the burdens of the other people.
Jose:I am not Jesus, I am not God, god, god. I think it's a good thing that I only can do is to pray, and whatever is trouble in that knowledge, in that religion, in that love, I give up to him.
Greg Mitchell:Isn't it interesting that when it says in Matthew 22 that the sum of the law and the prophets is to love God and to love your neighbor, I don't know that I would have written that if I was God, I would have said the sum of the law is to receive God's love.
Greg Mitchell:But there's something, and I think it goes along with what you're saying. There's something about loving others that opens us up to the love of God in a very profound way and that maybe it's not nearly as sequential as we think it is. It's actually cyclical or reciprocal. That as we decide to open up our hearts to love, we find ourselves experiencing being loved first by the Father and then by the people around us in very remarkable ways that it can't be neatly put I receive and then I give. Maybe I mean, according to Matthew 22, it's actually I give and then I receive, because there's something that happens in your heart when you decide to love that opens yourself up to be able to receive love. And I'm not trying to put it into a sequence, but it's just interesting that the two build off of one another instead of our mutually exclusive. Thanks for your thoughts. Anybody else, what are you thinking?
Greg Mitchell:Yeah, I sense that maybe a part of being able to love people is seeing them with God's heart and with his eyes.
Greg Mitchell:And you know, the scripture says and I don't think it's all for the sweet buying by when we see him, we shall like him. So perhaps giving love away, even like by faith, what you were saying a few moments ago is a little glimpse of me seeing something that humanized would never see, because behind it is God's love. And then there's a sense in which I see him, so I become more like him, and part of the process of becoming more like him is receiving his love so good. So you know, I'm giving him faith and I give away and I want someone to experience the heart of the Father, with his love and his goodness and his acceptance and his truth. Then in that moment something happens that I don't have words for and part of me somewhere, maybe even here as well, in my head. But I see him and perhaps that's one of the line upon line changes of I become more like him because I'm expressing his heart.
Greg Mitchell:Oh, you're saying that so well, you know, it's the. It's when the servants say when did we see you? And he says what you've done to the least of these, you've done to me also, and we didn't see you poor, blind or naked, ah, but what you did to these I got. You caught the heart of God in that and it transforms us because we see him actually in the act of loving those who are marginalized on the outside. And isn't that beautiful. Even when we're loving others, we still are always receiving, because it's just what God is like, so beautiful. Thank you for saying that. Any other thoughts? Yeah, nice to see you, but there's a glow about you, so I see you as being darker than that. Yeah, yeah, I assume that. I assume that, Steve, I'm sure your wife would agree. That's right.
Steve:The thoughts I'm trying to put together, Greg, are my experience with God has been, in the last 12 days, 60 years, so it's constantly called the rest, but I've done more than I've ever done before. So there's that normal God thing where opposites are going together Sure.
Greg Mitchell:Then there's an invitation to receive love and there's an invitation to give love.
Steve:but the giving of love is done, as you said, in a place of rest, so striving is actually an act of love.
Greg Mitchell:That's right. That's right. I'm trying to create a health quality, so what?
Steve:I'm trying to put together and because you're really really good at all. This stuff is how you love someone, but the second you put an expectation on them, it's almost not love anymore. Maybe I've heard you talk about this before, but it's like we have a person we're thinking of hiring. He's super broken. So this is a question. He's super broken. We can just hire him, love him through it, or we can just love him through him and I'm going to be broken. We really want to hire this person who's broken, but the invitation in my mind can't be okay. If you say this is a prayer. Now you're in the car, you know what I mean. Like I actually told him that I don't even know what this is. I don't even know what that magic sentence does, but I said I want you to experience life when you're around us and we'll love you as best as we can, but it can't be great, or one of these things you're seeking, or one of these things you're looking for, because then I'm back. So those are all.
Greg Mitchell:That's great, it's even really great. So here's what's interesting to me and again, you push back on this because we're just trying to figure it out together. I don't think expectations are antithetical to love. I have lots of expectations of myself, of my children, of my church. Lots of expectations. It goes weird when I control people toward those expectations. That's a problem. But the expectations I want my kids to be well, just simply happy. That's an expectation. I want them to be good. But if I feel like I have to control you toward that expectation, well then the whole thing's messed up. Keep going.
Steve:I desire my kids to be happy.
Greg Mitchell:I'm not expecting, if you're not happy, but if you can glineate the Sure, oh, do you think that they're different?
Steve:Yeah, I think they're what you're saying. Expectations are good Because I want my kids to be happy, but my expectation isn't the happy of those.
Greg Mitchell:I just want to get the land back. God has expectations. It says, 1 Peter, that he desires that all come to know him. He expects us to be holy and righteous, yet he's never manipulative or coercive in his expectations. So I'm okay with the word expectation. I'm okay with it. It's just what I do with my expectations. And when I start caring more about my expectations than I do about you, it's not loving. And it's super hard to figure that out, isn't it? It's really hard. It's really hard. I'm going to ask somebody else if they have other ideas and then I'll go back to you.
Person:Yeah, it reminds me of the family that I grew up in. I grew up in a house with four generations and I was the baby right and my family was not well-loved. All those women came from broken relationships, and so C-Sola, the marriage, who's over 45 years. He was a fresh person in my life that ever said I love you.
Greg Mitchell:Wow.
Person:I didn't miss that because I didn't know about it, but when I was telling my 30s as a music practice and I felt God say focus on getting out, there is no natural vacuum in nature where it sucks in, he says think of your vacuum cleaner. It doesn't have a sucking motor, it has a blowing out motor and because you create that flow, it will come in. And he didn't say give out so that you'll get. He just said focus on getting out and implied was I'll look after you, honey. But you know he's trying to support me because I'm him from this. Oh, please love me, Please care about me, Please notice me too.
Person:I'm learning about you learning about you, I'm a granny and my granny, jean, just kicks in and I just want to love people and hug them and wow, he's really done that. But that's what he said to me Give out, just focus on that, not even with an eye to get Just focus on getting out.
Greg Mitchell:It's profound and you just and he never separates them in his mind. He never thinks oh, I remember one time I don't know if you guys know this but if you're from Vancouver, you're not allowed to like Toronto. I don't know if you know that. Do you know that? It's just a rule? It's just a Canadian rule. So I remember we were wanting to start a church. Brandon and I went out there quite a bit. We were going to start a church in Toronto and I remember praying one day. I said God, if you want me to move to Toronto, I'm from. You know this is like the ultimate sacrifice for Jesus, but if you want me to move to Toronto, I'll go. And this is what I said. I said I just want you to use me. And then God responds and he says I never used anybody.
Greg Mitchell:And I go.
Greg Mitchell:I know, I know it's just a let's not do the word game thing and I just you know, I'm just trying to. He goes no, he says I never use anybody. And that just struck me that even when he's inviting us to love he's never using. And there's something beautiful about what you're describing that is so clarifying of what the heart of God is like. I just think it's beautiful, brent, I don't know what our time is like, but Okay, just a thought.
Brant Reding:I'm going to hear you. So love others as you love yourself. That's your line, and it always takes me back to stories like Mother Teresa, who suffered her whole life. She loved so many people that nobody even had the compassion or courage to go, and I remember as you talked about how she would see Jesus. For her there was something about the life of God is in everyone and I'm not loving because I have to or I need to, or it's actually him. And when he starts being in, when he comes across his group of love others, you love yourself, and for a while that felt like well, I got to love myself, that whole self care deal.
Brant Reding:Let's get our whole world together and get it all set up. Now I'm okay and I got 50% now and I can remember, as you were talking about, it's just the silliest thing in the world Because you talk a lot about spiritual worker and things like that. He says it's just most of it. It's just people don't love, Because actually people love. You'd be probably happy or drippin' your part of life in half because you know those caret of concerns. But what if you just actually went across the street? What if you actually went to that politician? What if you actually did that?
Greg Mitchell:Fascinating and so and I remember him saying it for hundreds of people.
Brant Reding:So I hope you don't think loving yourself means being selfish. How do you love yourself? Well, let me get up, you'll get some food. You're not being selfish, you're just living. It's just thinking of the basic things, of what living is. And what would that look like? Why don't we turn it into this massive thing?
Brant Reding:A hospitality sounds so nice, but you're hospitable to yourself Unless you're in that place where it's so far and it's, like you know, caught in a road and I just think, wow, that really takes away all of this super spiritual house being. But it's incredible how what you're saying, greg, is how few people like my wife and I talk to each other a lot. This is a lot about how many people think they need to keep soaking in him, and to what place, and have they even tried? But they're so used to. I think the tri-part is that's where I guess you're. You know, strive to enter his rest. The word strive, in its visual language, means act of serenity. Wow, that being poor, that meaning being loved. And so to go across and love my neighbor, with no agenda to it. No, I got something for you. No, you know, it's just literally, and then it goes in a thousand different directions. But that loving yourself part, tell me how that? Because the guy on the campus going, yeah, he loves me. Because he wouldn't, I thought he'd be myself Best.
Person:People really love the self, love from the point of view of somebody who breaks both their hair, and to me that says as unique brothers and sisters at Christ who then in? The same with self-hatred, self-harm, as you mentioned. That's got lots. Best for them. They do release from that to see themselves and love my God. So they're really there for a release, for healing, for a down-going, because we're not too happy. So it's a talent for themselves.
Greg Mitchell:They have a good deal of thoughts. Let me jump in on that. I think about this a lot and I come from a background where I like what you said. Anytime you talk about receiving love or being cared for, that was just thought to be selfish. It was all about working hard for Jesus, which was incredibly exhausting. It's an interesting passage in Ephesians 5. It says no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body just as Christ does the church. So I like how the simplicity of that is beautiful.
Greg Mitchell:So what is self-hatred? Here's my hunch. Self-hatred is a form of self-love. So if I had a genuine enemy and they did poorly, how would I feel? Yeah, I mean, in Jesus, I'll tone it down, but I would there be just a little bit, just a little bit of happiness in there, just a touch. You know it's like, oh, but I'll pray for you. Like, but there is a little bit, there's just a little bit in there, you know. Yeah.
Greg Mitchell:So when I truly hate somebody, I'm delighted when they do poorly. But when I do poorly I am so angry. Why? Because I don't live up. I didn't in that moment live up to how profoundly I think about who I am and how wonderful I imagine myself to be. What if self-hate is actually a form of pride? Is actually a form of pride that I haven't? I haven't really died to my imagination of who I picture myself to be Now. Does that mean that because it's probably should be cruel and no, we need to come alongside people kindly. I don't think. I think it should be kind, but it is moral and I have found, in ministering to people, their love bucket and their self-acceptance bucket never gets full. But something beautiful happens when they recognize their moral poverty and let themselves be forgiven as opposed to admired.
Greg Mitchell:Forgiveness is a more profound foundation of acceptance than self-acceptances. There's a joke I don't know if it's very funny, but there's a joke that says you know how people always learn to forgive themselves. Well, the joke is you can only do that once, because when Jesus forgave us he died. So to forgive yourself means you have to die for yourself. I think that's a funny thing. But self-forgiveness, self-acceptance, is not a replacement for being forgiven by God. When Debbie knows me better than anybody else in the planet and when she forgives me, that is more healing than me learning to accept myself. Forgiveness is a more profound foundation for security than self-acceptances.
Greg Mitchell:Can you speak about personal suffering and how that plays into more discussion today? Well, asceticism is vanity. To suffer for suffering sake is vanity. I know you weren't, I'm getting there. So there's nothing noble about suffering for suffering sake. I can suffer all the time in self-righteousness, so suffering inherently isn't godly.
Greg Mitchell:But there's something beautiful about what is the Tim Keller? He wrote a little tiny book and it's called the Art of Self-Forgetfulness. I just love the title the Art of Self-Forgetfulness. I've watched my wife suffer over and over and over again with the people who have lived in our home, and I watch her and she's not thinking about suffering, she's thinking about loving, and it just so happened that suffering was included in that. But she's just not thinking about that.
Greg Mitchell:And there's something beautiful when we lose ourself in love, in the giving and the receiving of love, something shifts in our heart where there's a freedom to even sacrifice. But we didn't know that we were, because we were thinking about you, not us. And so I find that when I pursue suffering, it's always weird. It's just always weird. I'm a little bit self-righteous, a little bit the rescuer, a little bit the hero of the story, but when I think about loving others. I'm just not thinking much about me because I'm just so interested in you and what the spirit of God might want to do in this moment to bless you. So I think it's framing it in the context of love that I mean. I just think love redeems everything. But I think for me that's what's going on.
Debbie Mitchell:I have an anxiety that I call current of today and I think we talk a lot about anxiety and I think that even in the decisions that we've made and all the people that we've chosen to love, where God's brought to us, I think it's when we are anxious about things that it gets kind of scary, or I could be led to feel burnt out or I could feel sorry for myself or feel victimized by it or whatever it might be. But I mean, greg talks a lot about this but, like every major player in the Bible, struggled with anxiety. You know, they all have to come to terms with God and I feel like like I used to. I shared this yesterday but I wrestled with anxiety when Greg was teaching a lot about it because I thought, god, you said you made me in your image and you never struggled with anxiety. And you know I'm supposed to be more like you and why do I have so much anxiety? And I always think I'm always the one that has all the issues and that Greg has to learn about and then teach about.
Debbie Mitchell:But I was led to the passage in Gethsemane when Jesus, you know, needed to go before the Father and he left. His disciples said stay, watch and pray. And he gets on this. Not that you know, jesus, or anything, but there was this incredible moment where he gets on his knees and he says, father, you know, not my will, but no will be done. He talks about how he swept pearls of blood or this different versions, but I realized in that moment how much anxiety you had to have been, in that moment when the Lord of heaven is trying to say, father, you know, take this cup for me. He knows what he's about to go through, the worst death ever, like I mean it's. It's like if that wasn't an anxious moment, I don't know what was, but there's this. There's this moment where he just says not my will but your will be done.
Person:And I think that's where the power is right, like when it's no longer you know me, but Christ in me, you know, when it's not about my suffering or it's just about going.
Debbie Mitchell:God, what is it what's your will Like? And trying to follow that, and maybe even imperfectly, but you know, loving these children. It was like there were moments where when you say, you know burnout, yeah, you know I will get rid of my pillow because it's so stained with tears, but why I went there is because I was anxious.
Person:and why I went there is because he didn't remind me that these kids needed to be loved. And, yes, you have the power to do so. So I think the transaction is, you know, not my will, but your will.
Debbie Mitchell:Thank you, and and I don't know the answers to all the big questions in life, but I think that anxiety you know in everything, you know anxious about nothing but in prayer and petition anxiety should be the thing that draws us back to God, no matter what's in front of us, no matter what he calls us to. And people say, well, I could never do what you do, debbie, and don't do what I do.
Debbie Mitchell:I recommend you don't, but do what God's called you to do, you know, and that might be a bowl of soup for your neighbor, or it might be bringing someone in, it doesn't matter. It's like what is, what is that moment that God's calling you? What is, what is he calling me to do? And how's it pressing me further into relationship with him? And and so I I lean on not my will, but your will, be done. And that doesn't mean that it's always easy in it.
Debbie Mitchell:You know, blessed life doesn't mean a happy life Like we've learned those things. But I can't think of a better life, you know, than to to love those that God has put in front of us and to do it imperfectly and hopefully be forgiven in the process, because I think we learn more about the gospel in our humility than in anything else. So I don't know. I just think the world is suffering with anxiety and to me it feels like that's because God is drawing the world to himself and we can do. We can self-medicate, or we can fall on our knees and we're trying to help people, not self-medicate, hopefully, by modeling being on our knees.
Greg Mitchell:It's really good, debbie, it's great, thank you.
Debbie Mitchell:We all know that feels good.
Greg Mitchell:Maybe we're going to wrap up. Can I see one last thing, or do you want to? So I think, when I read Genesis three, that the root sin in the Bible is not private mistrust. I think it all started with, did God really say and as soon as we doubt God, then it's you be God, which is pride, but is second to mistrust. And so what we talk a lot about in our church is that love is always the goal and trust is the foundation of a love relationship. Without trust, you can't have love, and I think that Canada is trying to experience the maximum amount of love with a minimum amount of trust.
Greg Mitchell:I think Canadians are paranoid of trust, powerfully I would say demonically suspicious, and so, as I think about a journey into hospitality, into reciprocal relationships of giving and receiving love, not just between but also with the Father, and to see that dynamic happen, I think that the issue that I am always working on is actually not love but faith. Trust, I think, is my biggest issue, and when I'm being pressed into receive love, I get anxious because I don't want to be known or give love. I get anxious because I don't want to be burned out. Those are all faith moments for me, and unless I wrestle through my trust issues, I never get to receive or give love. And so I think I just, first of all, I just think this community is just so beautiful, and I think that what will continue to lead this community forward is, it's clear, the commitment to love, and I think it will be realized more and more as we all work through our trust issues and find freedom in the gospel. So that's what I'm thinking about. God bless you guys.