0:08

It is the Pastors' Heart and Dominic Steele and creating

0:11

a future-proof church with Stephen

0:13

McAlpine . Stephen McAlpine says

0:15

never mind the question does

0:17

the church have a future ? The

0:20

real question is does the future

0:22

have a church ? And

0:24

the statistics are not our

0:26

friend . We've been talking on

0:28

the Pastors' Heart about the drop in church

0:30

attendance in Sydney , but Stephen McAlpine

0:33

is writing about a more widespread

0:35

phenomena , he says , of the drop

0:37

in church attendance and religious commitment

0:39

. Some countries , like the US are

0:42

coming off a high base and there's

0:44

fat and cultural cachet to play

0:46

with , whereas the level of religious

0:48

commitment in the UK has dropped

0:50

so dramatically that it

0:52

is possible to imagine a time

0:54

when Christianity will be a thing

0:57

of the past there . In

0:59

Australia the population self-identifying

1:03

as Christian has shrunk to 51%

1:05

from 67%

1:07

a decade ago . Young Christians

1:10

fall away from faith at an alarming

1:12

rate on entry to university

1:14

and there's a real concern that

1:16

we are losing a generation

1:18

of young people to a program

1:21

of self-fulfillment . Ministry

1:23

consultant Stephen McAlpine is with

1:25

us in Sydney from Perth in Western

1:27

Australia . And , steve , I've just read your

1:30

new book , future Proof , and at

1:32

times you're speaking to pastors , but

1:34

your heart is particularly

1:36

for the individual Christian

1:38

who is being buffeted by these cultural

1:41

changes . Yes , look , I obviously

1:43

want to write for pastors as well , and I think

1:45

, but it's a combination . How do we

1:47

work together as a church through leadership and

1:50

into your people , just dealing with

1:52

the anxieties that people are seeing

1:54

come forward culturally in

1:56

the same sense that the anxieties

1:58

that the wider culture has

2:00

? We also have , but we

2:03

have this is what I'm writing about in Future

2:05

Proof . We've got a framework

2:07

to mitigate those anxieties and

2:10

indeed move

2:12

beyond them into a hope and also

2:14

show that to the world . Which gives

2:16

the scary story there of the stats

2:19

. I think I wrote my first

2:22

book saying well , here's where we've come from and

2:24

it looks hard , but I'm writing a

2:26

second book going . You know what ? There's

2:28

some confidence we can have going forward as well

2:30

. Well , we can have confidence because we know the gates of

2:32

hell will not prevail over

2:34

the church . And yet I've

2:37

got these statistics that say

2:39

the road is going to be bumpy in the short term

2:41

. Yeah , look , that's the thing I think

2:43

I don't want to just go . Well , we know , we've

2:45

read the back of the book and we win . We've got

2:47

to say what does it look like in

2:49

2024 to be getting ready for

2:51

2054 ? And that's part of what my

2:54

conceited in the book is . If the DeLorean

2:57

car from Back to the Future arrived on your

2:59

church car park and a 30-year-older

3:02

version of your pastor jumps out and says

3:04

quick , I want to show you what it looks like . You'd

3:06

want to do that but you don't get the chance

3:09

to do that . But you can see the trends of where

3:11

the future is going and that's what the book's

3:13

about . How do we put the money in the

3:15

bank now , or start to put the money in the bank now

3:17

to be a faithful , flourishing Christian community ? Well

3:19

, you've got to say it's madness not

3:21

to be saying there's a change coming

3:24

. We've gone beyond the

3:26

point of saying , oh , that was just a slight

3:28

breeze . You know , the wind has

3:30

come in full bore . And if

3:32

you think about the cultural changes that

3:34

we've gone through in the last 30 years , what's

3:36

acceptable to say , what's not acceptable to say

3:39

? The drop-off in church attendance

3:41

, the framework about how you think

3:43

, about what you can know

3:45

, what you can't know , meaning and

3:47

purpose questions , all those things in the

3:49

West seem to have come up to the surface in

3:52

hot-button ways as well , not just

3:54

philosophical abstract ideas at university

3:57

on the ground , and that's , I think

3:59

, where people are feeling discombobulated by

4:01

what we're going culturally , and Christians are not immune from

4:03

that , do you think ? I mean

4:05

, as you engage with pastors , are

4:07

you finding some are saying yes , yes , yes

4:09

, we've got an issue here , and some are putting their heads

4:12

under rocks ? Very few putting their heads

4:14

under rocks , I think , these days , and

4:16

I think partly because as we've aged

4:18

and baby boomers are retiring and my

4:20

generation , the X-generation type

4:22

, in more

4:24

leadership roles . We were

4:26

in that crossover generation where we saw things

4:29

start to happen . It's not so much where

4:32

we see things happening . Do we

4:34

pull the same levers as the past to make

4:37

things continue ? Can we expect

4:39

that if we do this A , b and C

4:41

in church , we'll have the same results as 30

4:43

, 40 years ago ? I'd say that the headwinds

4:45

we're facing , the cultural headwinds , push

4:48

back against that a little bit . Let's

4:50

drill into the headwinds first

4:52

, and here's a quote anything that restrains

4:54

self-fulfillment is a threat to

4:56

individual and social well-being

4:59

. Hence , the default position is

5:01

to assume that we belong to ourselves

5:03

and that any authority

5:05

that challenges this will be met

5:07

with a vociferous and hostile

5:10

response . And the cheap way

5:12

to say that is you , do you . And

5:15

that's the cultural moment we're in , that personal

5:17

identity and personal identity markers

5:20

are absolutely critical in our cultural moment

5:22

, that I decide who I am

5:24

, the expressive individualism thing and

5:26

Alan Noble's book You're Not your

5:28

Own talks about these issues

5:30

and I know , as I'm writing about them , I'm saying

5:33

how do you bring the gospel message

5:35

to bear in a way that already culturally

5:38

people are saying that would do violence to my personal

5:40

identity ? And obviously

5:42

there's always issues around sexuality and gender

5:44

that are primary with this identity

5:47

issue , but they're not the only issues . It's

5:49

that autonomous self that is

5:51

a big challenge , but it's not

5:53

just for what's going on out there . We

5:56

imbibe that as Christians and so we come

5:58

to church and we live in such a ways that we go well

6:00

, you do you is my default

6:03

, and then I'll figure out how to do the Christian discipleship

6:05

stuff underneath that , rather

6:07

than saying do I need to put you , do you ? Aside

6:10

at some level for the context

6:13

of what it means to be part of a Christian body

6:15

moving in a certain direction ? Let's just

6:17

analyze America for a minute , and

6:19

I mean the

6:21

Roe versus Wade overturning . What

6:25

was your take on that ? Well

6:27

, it's interesting that there has been 20 or 30

6:29

, 50 years of pushback

6:31

from conservatives on the Roe versus

6:34

Wade decision and many articles

6:36

in the last 10 saying they could see

6:38

a time when Roe versus Wade would be overturned

6:40

by the Supreme Court . And indeed it happened . But

6:43

it's interesting that even prior to that happening

6:46

and just when it happened , there was

6:48

a shrill sort of response from very

6:50

strong progressives that somehow

6:52

this was an overturn . This

6:54

is going back to Gilead , you know Handmaid's

6:57

Tale . I mean , that's what some have

6:59

said , that it really was the Handmaid's

7:01

Tale being played out in the United States . But that

7:03

didn't happen . And what you noticed

7:05

and more prescient

7:07

progressive writers

7:09

and thinkers said , the

7:11

cultural tone has changed so much that

7:14

, even if it's overturned by the Supreme Court , the

7:16

framework of our culture will ensure

7:18

that it continues in the states . And that

7:20

is what's happened in the states , as

7:22

it's gone from a federal issue to

7:25

states to side on it . Guess what

7:27

? Each state votes for abortion

7:29

rights . Something's changed in

7:31

the last 50 or 60 years in the in

7:33

the water we're swimming in about what

7:35

freedom means , what it means to do

7:37

what we want to do . Now there

7:40

are caveats to that , of course , but it

7:42

wasn't the case that it was a return to the 1940s

7:45

. It just didn't happen and it's not going to happen

7:47

. You explored

7:51

an issue

7:53

surrounding a photograph of one

7:56

woman with her a pregnant woman

7:58

, eight and three-quarter months pregnant , with

8:00

her belly exposed and

8:02

written on her belly not

8:05

a human speaking of , yeah , not

8:07

yet a human . Not yet a human , yeah , do

8:09

you want to reflect on that for a minute ? That was a very

8:11

interesting . I know right about in

8:13

my book , a very interesting point at the

8:15

protest against the

8:17

reversal of Roe versus Wade , that

8:20

someone who is obviously going to have a baby

8:22

writes not yet a human . It

8:25

actually kind of backfired a little bit because

8:27

people everywhere . I was quite surprised

8:30

because I mean , I'm thinking by

8:33

eight and a half months , haven't you got emotional attachment

8:35

going on and that all came up . So I think

8:37

she was making a statement , but in one sense

8:40

, the visual of that statement was even

8:42

too confronting for those who would be

8:44

progressive . Yeah , very much

8:46

so , and so it's

8:48

much more complicated . Where did that debate go

8:50

? Well , it kind of died down a little bit , I

8:54

think , because most

8:56

of our ethics is driven by aesthetics

8:58

these days . I think culture and

9:01

we see that that beauty determines

9:03

our ethics and which is why so much of our modern

9:06

, you know framework of

9:08

ethics is built around the beauty cult and

9:10

what things look like , and so people

9:12

thought that was a little bit odd . So I think

9:14

, even though there's

9:16

been 50 or 60 years of pushing the one narrative

9:18

on this , there's something in us that recoils

9:21

against that , against saying that an eight and a half

9:23

month old baby is

9:26

not a baby . Let's not dismiss natural law

9:28

in that process , and one

9:30

of the things I would say too is that Protestantism

9:33

in general hasn't done very well in public square

9:35

natural law conversations , perhaps as well

9:37

as the Catholic Church has done , and

9:39

things like that . So one of the things we're having

9:42

to do is figure a way to have conversations

9:44

with people around things when

9:47

things like this are such hot button

9:49

either or topics , and I think the

9:51

average Christian I speak to really loves

9:54

people , wants to see people love Jesus , but

9:56

is afraid of the hard question

9:58

that might get them bowled over or responded

10:00

to with heat . They want to answer

10:02

truthfully and lovingly

10:04

, but putting those two things together in the cultural

10:06

moment is hard , is part

10:09

of the answer asking well , why

10:11

is the case that if we've got such

10:13

a high standard of living , have

10:17

I got these big problems of anxiety

10:20

, this tsunami of anxiety , confusion

10:23

of a meaning purpose in life ? No

10:26

, it's . What I say to people is that all

10:29

the cultural moment we're living in gives us

10:31

every experience we want . This is something Mark

10:33

Sayers talks about as well . But the meaning

10:35

and purpose bucket , he says , is pretty empty . The

10:39

people are scratching on for meaning and purpose and

10:41

, in one sense , when you remove the Christian

10:44

framework from underneath , you've got to replace

10:46

it with something and there's a battle going

10:48

on , that's to say what replaces the meaning and purpose

10:50

program that the Christian framework gave the West

10:52

. And that isn't just a question that Christians

10:55

are asking . You can't you read Tom

10:57

Holland , you read Douglas Murray , you read some

10:59

of these major thinkers ? They're asking

11:01

, and that's why Jordan Peterson , for example , is so popular

11:04

among young men . There's

11:06

meaning and purpose issues going on . So

11:08

I think there's a deep , not

11:11

just a personal anxiety . There's lots of that and you

11:13

know that's something that if you need you have that

11:15

. You go and see a psychologist . But there's a cultural

11:17

anxiety . We don't know where we're going . It feels

11:19

like a rollercoaster . What's

11:23

going on with victimhood as my

11:25

mind set ? That's an interesting

11:27

one and I think Carl Truman talks

11:30

about this in his book the Rise and Triumph

11:32

of the Modern Self that the intersectionality

11:35

totem , where voices that weren't

11:37

heard in the past have been

11:39

pushed to the surface , and voices

11:43

that had it were loud , are told you've

11:45

had your say . So that's why I think that churches

11:48

that say , or Christian groups that

11:50

say we're victims too , here we should have our voice

11:52

, and they get pushed back . They

11:55

got to realize that the way the framework of

11:57

the culture is working at the moment , it pushes the

11:59

other voices to the surface Sometimes

12:01

. That's right . But also I think

12:03

we live in a therapeutic culture at

12:06

some level . That's not to say

12:08

that all victims are just into therapy

12:10

. There's true victimhood that needs to be repaired

12:13

. And I think we also live

12:15

in a culture that brings things to the surface

12:17

through information comes to the surface

12:19

much more quickly . You see , if there has

12:22

been a terrible environment , it comes to the surface

12:24

much more quickly . People can join the dots together

12:26

. So technology is changing that . But

12:28

also Carl Truman talks about the

12:31

way that the voices in the

12:33

past that were culturally on

12:36

the edge of the culture and I brought to the

12:38

surface . And that's happened culturally

12:40

but it's now happening legislatively

12:43

as well , and voices that maybe were at the center

12:45

have been told when you had the center of power

12:48

, you did things wrong . You need

12:50

to take a side step a little bit and

12:52

that's going to have implications for us in the church

12:54

. It does have implications for us

12:56

in the church . I don't think we should be too

12:59

nervous about it at one level . I'm not saying

13:01

I can't wait till the culture is not Christian

13:03

. I think that would be a terrible

13:05

thing . I've written a blog

13:08

post called Two Cheers for Nominalism . You

13:10

know , I think the Christian framework has been a good

13:12

thing and we don't want to lose it . But

13:14

the church is going to find that it's

13:16

been told you've had a seat high at the table for a

13:18

while . Well , move down . And

13:21

you're seeing that effect more in

13:23

the public intersection between

13:25

the church and the state , not

13:28

just simply in church . You're seeing it in Christian schools

13:30

. What does legislation mean for

13:32

employment ? What does legislation

13:34

mean for identity of your students , how

13:36

they can dress , what they can be called ? And

13:39

if you hold to a creation view of what

13:41

it means to be human as a church and

13:44

that was fine 30 or 40 years ago

13:46

to say that suddenly it becomes

13:48

, gets on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald or

13:51

whatever newspaper in your city and

13:53

suddenly you're battling against a sense

13:56

that you're creating more victims by being

13:58

an institution that won't let people express themselves

14:01

. All of that is very discombobulating

14:03

. Now you're actually helping

14:05

consult Christian schools . How

14:11

do you give us a little consultation

14:13

here ? Because we've got some principals watching . Yeah

14:15

, that's true , so I'd better watch what I say . I'll be sent to the principal's

14:18

office . I think what I'd be saying is the

14:20

first thing is you need to understand that the average

14:23

person who comes to your school who's not

14:25

a Christian , from a non-Christian

14:27

family , is not Christian in

14:29

a different way to what people were not Christian 40

14:31

years ago , meaning that

14:33

I think people 40 years ago were

14:36

not Christian in a kind of Christian way the

14:39

framework and now they're kind of not Christian

14:41

in a way that many Christians don't understand

14:43

, and questions of identity

14:45

and meaning and purpose are very different . So people

14:47

are sending their kids to Christian schools because

14:51

they're nervous about the wider culture . They

14:53

don't necessarily want the gospel roots , but

14:55

they want the safety framework that a Christian

14:58

school might give . And I would say to principals look

15:00

, don't go in feeling shocked when

15:02

kids come to you who are completely all

15:05

over the place in their thinking , or when parents even

15:07

do that , or even their lifestyles . You've

15:09

got to then decide how do we showcase

15:12

the gospel fruit in this

15:14

setting ? We

15:17

can maintain our school's framework I think we

15:19

but you have to hold your nerve a little bit when the culture

15:21

comes to get you . The biggest

15:23

advocates from any Christian schools are the non-Christian

15:25

parents , who realize there's something different about

15:28

the Christian school , but they can't put their finger on it

15:30

. So I think in our future

15:32

, if things get hotter

15:34

for Christian organizations , the temptation

15:36

is to lean back , and I think no , lean

15:38

into your difference . I think the

15:41

difference thing will play out well for Christian

15:43

schools . That's not to say that I

15:45

don't think legislation will make it harder for Christian

15:47

schools . It already is , and it's , in

15:50

some states of Australia , just making it harder for

15:52

Christian churches to

15:54

speak about issues

15:56

around anthropology , for example , and I think

15:58

anthropology is the big question at the moment

16:00

in our culture . So Christian schools

16:02

will keep going . They have to navigate

16:05

that space well , and there's different types of

16:07

Christian schools . I mean , if

16:09

one thing is clear , well , church

16:11

attendance is dropping . Enrollments

16:14

in Christian schools is skyrocketing . It is

16:16

, though , and it's not translating . So

16:18

the question I would have to say is is

16:21

there a way that the Christian school can say

16:23

how do we work to help

16:25

our people

16:27

see that after school , when

16:29

you finish school , this family could still

16:32

be embedded in a Christian community ? And that's

16:34

the hard one . I long for

16:36

the Christian school councils to

16:39

really think

16:41

hard about how

16:43

to we promote the mission of Christ

16:45

Jesus . Yes , and I think I'm

16:48

not sure the family's correct , and

16:50

as I look at the Christian schools around me

16:52

, I'm fairly consistently

16:55

disappointed . Yeah , I

16:57

look , there's always going to be a battle between those . I

17:00

think , for Christians in general and Christian schools

17:02

. Don't be afraid to weird it up a bit as

17:05

a Christian , because I think the vision

17:07

of human flourishing that Christianity has and

17:10

the goal of humans not just what a human

17:12

is , but who a human is for is

17:14

so vastly different to the

17:17

secular framework at the moment , but

17:20

it's almost what I call repellently attractive

17:22

. It's like that seems really

17:24

odd . I think a strategy

17:26

of saying minimizing difference is

17:28

it hasn't born good fruit , and

17:31

I think it's challenging

17:33

it . You'll get pushed back , but there's

17:35

something about it that's attractive to people

17:37

as well , the saying there's something different about you

17:39

. I don't think that's a bad thing to lean into

17:41

difference at all . Going forward , another

17:43

thing you're suggesting we can speak

17:45

with confidence about is this

17:47

chronic problem in our community of

17:50

loneliness . It's a massive one

17:52

, and that's I'll be looking at the future . We're

17:55

becoming more polarized and we are becoming

17:57

more lonely , even at the same time that technology

17:59

is promised to bring us together . It

18:02

actually can do both pretty effectively . It

18:04

drives apart , as we see in

18:06

the way social media can do that . But

18:08

already in Australia , one third of Australian

18:11

dwellings are single person dwellings . Yeah , I

18:13

live in an apartment complex of 1500

18:15

units and 70%

18:17

of one bedroom and imagine saying

18:20

my church is here to reach the families

18:22

in the area , but 70% of the people living

18:24

in your housing complex are single . Yeah , and

18:27

it might

18:29

feel confronting for them . You might say

18:31

you don't want your church to feel like a

18:33

family reunion , but someone else's family

18:35

reunion all the time . So loneliness

18:38

and singleness , and by

18:40

choice . It's not as if everyone's looking

18:42

to get married . There's a lot

18:45

of choice . It's too hard , it's too complex

18:47

. I don't fit . That's

18:49

going to be an increasing factor and

18:52

we've become a little bit atomized with

18:54

the polarizing debates around various

18:56

things . We always feel like we're , you

18:58

know , one wrong

19:00

comment away from a personal cancellation by someone

19:03

. Tim Keller's last book was

19:05

called Forgive , for all the great things he wrote

19:07

on culture , his last book on forgiveness

19:09

is a really interesting book

19:11

about how you do forgiveness

19:14

with people and how you navigate that space

19:16

. I think we're going to becoming

19:18

more lonelier and less

19:20

forgiving cultural frame in the future

19:22

, and the church has the opportunity to

19:24

showcase something different . Help me , then

19:26

, on this issue of loneliness . I

19:28

mean , if 70% live

19:31

alone , what

19:34

strategy should we be adopting ? Well

19:37

, befriending people isn't a bad

19:40

idea , is it ? I think one of the things

19:42

I was writing about in my book is if you've

19:44

got people coming to your church who aren't in family

19:46

units , what does it look like

19:48

to just simply broaden

19:50

your table and I literally mean your table

19:53

that you

19:55

can operate as a family unit ? If you have

19:57

a family unit with single people there

19:59

, with divorced people there , with widowed

20:01

people there , with people who don't fit

20:03

the narrative of what a

20:05

successful person is , and you

20:07

can model that to each other and to

20:09

the next generation growing up ? Because

20:12

I know we like to be with people we like to be

20:14

with . But somehow the gospel

20:16

says that's not quite what this is

20:18

about and I've

20:22

seen churches doing it well , where they lean

20:24

into helping the lonely people . You talked about

20:26

a plus one within your church

20:28

. I thought that was a

20:30

lovely idea . Yeah , look back

20:33

in Perth our church had that idea of every

20:35

semester you do a plus one thing . So

20:38

we're not trying to make you ninja Christians

20:40

where you've got to change everything up all the time

20:42

. We recognize people are busy and have other

20:44

commitments . But

20:47

if you plus one with a

20:49

meal together once a month with

20:52

a group of people diverse from your

20:54

church who you normally wouldn't get together with and who

20:56

might be on the fringe just once a month

20:58

, and if enough people did that in your church with

21:00

a plus one every month , it

21:02

would start to just . The

21:04

wheels would start to turn a little bit . It would lose the

21:07

inertia of that and

21:09

that's where you can invite someone else in who's

21:11

perhaps not Christian and it's not a bait and

21:13

switch . Now we're going to have a big Bible study . It's

21:15

just a meal together so that people can observe

21:18

what people in community live like

21:20

. You can imagine if 30% of households

21:22

are single dwelling and that goes up , people

21:25

won't see what long term relationship

21:27

looks like when you have to forgive someone or

21:29

when you have to put up with someone's foibles or

21:31

something like that . And we want

21:33

to be able to do that as a body because of what

21:35

we believe that God has done in bringing us together

21:38

as the temple , living

21:40

stones brought together , body parts working

21:42

together . Both are the analogies in the scripture . I'm

21:45

just thinking about loneliness and forgiveness

21:47

. But you were also saying , I

21:50

think , that our

21:52

community life

21:55

as a society is

21:57

fragmented . It is Sporting

22:00

clubs , volunteer associations , men's

22:03

sheds , all those kind of things on the way down , not

22:07

just churches . No , I mean churches going

22:09

well . The discipleship program isn't working because people

22:11

aren't volunteering . That's across the board . But

22:14

even though I was reading in the paper today

22:17

, there was one about attendance

22:19

at school that we were tracking on at 80%

22:22

before COVID and

22:24

it's armoured and

22:26

what you're seeing is there's a sense

22:28

in which social anxiety has kicked

22:31

in a big way . There's also

22:33

a sense that people still get together , but they're far

22:35

more tribal about it now . So what we're

22:37

seeing is there's much

22:39

about hotter groups , where

22:41

you don't have people in your group

22:43

who think differently to you . So the

22:46

churches in one sense , a group

22:48

of people that are they're maintaining

22:51

the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace . They're

22:53

not attaining it . They're maintaining what

22:55

God has given them . So the church

22:57

should look like a bunch of people that

22:59

would have no right to be together for any other reason

23:02

but for Jesus . And

23:04

what you're seeing in other organisations and I see

23:06

it as this you thin out

23:08

the depth of your relationships . I do

23:10

park run from time to time . You know the 5K

23:13

run . It feels like church without Jesus . But

23:15

if you fell out with someone at park run , there's no . Well

23:17

, here's the forgiveness way to get back in you just go to

23:19

another park run and forbid it

23:21

that we would ever just up and leave a church and go down the church . But

23:24

if that's

23:26

a sadness , isn't it ? And that's what we've got to learn

23:28

how do we figure those things out ? And that

23:31

you know that's part of the issue . But for

23:33

me it's saying , culturally

23:35

, we're atomising and technology

23:37

allows us to do that , and

23:39

then people are spending more time at

23:41

home and all those things are all happening

23:44

at the same time . And when you pull the lever , if I need

23:46

some help , it's usually you only got the

23:48

government left , and that's

23:50

partly the problem , I think . How do

23:52

we outlast the culture ? It's

23:57

interesting that one

23:59

of the things we picture that Christianity is

24:02

it gives you a better life now

24:04

. But the point of the Gospel is that we

24:06

have life in the age

24:08

to come and it's the hope

24:10

of the Gospel that one

24:13

day this body will be

24:15

raised and a new creation

24:18

will come about . So

24:21

I don't need everything I

24:23

want now , because

24:25

it's not where my hope lies . And

24:29

the way you can outlast it is

24:31

to be so

24:33

committed to the goal

24:35

of where God is bringing the new creation and

24:37

Jesus' return that you go

24:40

. I don't need to play this out my

24:42

way all of the time . I

24:44

can live in deep , meaningful ways that aren't

24:46

just about this age and

24:48

that will over time , I think

24:50

, shape Christians differently to how people

24:53

who don't have that hope are

24:55

built . It means that the people who retire

24:58

in church aren't going well . I've done

25:00

my bit . It's entitlement

25:02

day now . I'll see you in 20 years time after

25:04

I've done seven laps around Australia . It

25:06

means how do we serve now that we

25:08

have more time and

25:11

we don't see those incremental bits . And

25:13

I want to commend the church here that when

25:15

I meet people who are not Christian

25:17

and have no Christian background , their first

25:19

response when they see Christians operating like

25:21

that is Bermusement and

25:24

almost envy . In fact , one of them used that

25:26

word to me I envy you Christians . I

25:28

said , why do you envy us Christians ? She said , I

25:30

see how you related to each other during

25:32

COVID . It was very different to my people and

25:36

she goes yes , it was just different

25:38

. And she was a lapstar-ish Catholic

25:40

and there's no one as anti-Christian as a lapstar-ish

25:42

Catholic . But she envied something

25:45

. Well , that's true , and that's

25:47

part of the outlasting the culture bit , because

25:49

I wouldn't want us to have just a life for this

25:51

age . The future proof really

25:53

is that there's a future coming . That's glorious and

25:56

I don't need it all now and I can

25:58

serve others

26:00

richly and deeply and

26:02

at cost to myself , because God

26:04

is no person's debtor that

26:07

comes back . In that sense , the

26:09

age to come will fulfill all those

26:11

things . What

26:14

should our engagement in politics be

26:16

then ? What is it , or what

26:18

it should be ? That's an interesting question . I've

26:20

just been reading Aaron Wren's book Living

26:23

in a Negative World , and Aaron

26:25

Wren talks about he

26:28

would like to see more Orthodox

26:31

Christians leaning into the political

26:34

space . It's going to be hard , but

26:36

he thinks that they have got something to say to

26:39

the cultural moment . How

26:42

you do that , christianly lobbying

26:44

, seems to me a little bit 2010

26:48

. I think the parliament itself feels

26:50

sort of sealed against the

26:52

Christian public frame . But

26:54

I think Christians should be involved in politics and we know Christians

26:57

who are . But

26:59

how you think it's going to swing

27:02

around to the Christian framework again , perhaps

27:04

, or their Christianized easy

27:06

way , an easier way of dealing with

27:08

life as a Christian from politics

27:10

, I'm not sure that's going to happen . But

27:13

I want people to be in the public square and

27:15

we have to get

27:17

up to speed , I think , with a

27:20

good way of speaking about

27:22

difficult ethical issues , a good

27:24

way of speaking about the direction of politics

27:26

and the future of the nation , a good

27:28

way of looking at what does a Christian

27:30

think about , how we do community

27:34

life together in lonely suburbs

27:36

, all those sorts of things . I

27:38

mean , you spoke about writing

27:40

to a journalist and

27:42

you wrote a thoughtful

27:45

letter disagreeing with

27:47

them , and yet they appreciated

27:50

, actually , both the kindness

27:52

in the tone as well as the

27:54

thoughtful engagement with their thoughts and

27:57

that's yeah , I did that and I remember her

27:59

writing back thanking me for saying something

28:01

in a way that , even though I disagreed with her , it

28:04

was kind and

28:07

this isn't a bad option at times , but

28:09

usually if you disagree with someone , you come out hot , and

28:13

that's what you expect as a journalist from a letter

28:15

and I said I disagree with you on these things

28:17

, but I can see why you hold those things . Part

28:20

of what I think we need to go going forward

28:22

is saying here's someone's belief

28:24

system . We should do this anyway . But

28:26

what's the iceberg under that tip ? What's

28:29

going on there ? And start to probe and

28:32

ask questions of people . Why do you think

28:34

that ? Have you thought about that ? Because

28:36

I feel like the cultural

28:39

moment is pushing us to extremes and

28:42

I want us to hold firm on what we believe , but

28:44

I want us to do so in such a way that we can

28:46

honour someone we disagree with . It's very

28:48

hard in our social media age

28:50

to honour the people we disagree with . Yeah

28:52

, I mean , I was reflecting , as

28:54

I was reading that , on my relationship

28:56

with my local MP and

28:59

I was watching her the other day in a debate

29:01

and I thought she actually , in

29:03

terms of the

29:06

manner in which she conducted herself

29:08

, I thought she just did a really good

29:10

job and

29:12

I thought I must write

29:14

to her , I mean , and

29:17

just tell her

29:19

that I watched an hour

29:21

of the council debate and I thought she was

29:23

good in this area and I

29:25

was particularly reflecting on the

29:28

line in Paul and seeking peace , and

29:32

I think it won't make

29:34

any difference in terms

29:37

of this month's issues

29:39

, but it'll be a

29:41

little deposit in the bank in terms of

29:43

our long-term relationship . Yeah , and

29:46

I think that's critical , that we build up

29:48

that credibility in the bank , even if

29:50

people say I don't agree with what they think . But gee , there's something

29:52

about the way they operate that

29:54

I don't find anywhere else , and

29:57

I think that's because of the hope we have . We're not looking

30:00

for the approval of human beings . We're

30:03

looking on the last day . We want to hear a

30:05

well-done , good and faithful servant . But , as someone

30:07

else has said , if God is big

30:09

in our lives , then other humans aren't too big

30:11

so that we're not scared of them , but they're also not too

30:14

small so that we despise them . If

30:16

God's big in our lives , other humans are

30:18

the right size , human size , just like us , with

30:21

all the foibles and weaknesses that we have and

30:24

the fact that we are mortal , and

30:26

we need to relate to them that way , with honour . And

30:29

it's very easy to find

30:31

biblical justification to dishonour

30:34

people who you disagree with , and

30:36

you don't have to go to YouTube for that . And

30:40

I think that's part of our issue is that the

30:42

technology stuff that we do , that we filter

30:44

everything through , allows

30:46

us to push ourselves in polarising

30:48

directions and encourages that at one level

30:50

. Now I've just moved

30:53

into this apartment block . We've just downsized

30:55

and we're talking about apartment therapy

30:57

. Well

31:00

, I've watched the Department of Therapy . If you watch it on YouTube

31:02

, it's quite funny , it's quite good . But I enjoy

31:04

the sort of people crafting their

31:06

apartments . But what I noticed very

31:08

much was this especially

31:11

in Brooklyn and all those places , people

31:13

are very content to say I live

31:15

alone , I craft my life my way . Perhaps

31:18

I've got a dog , but that's about it . Not

31:20

that everyone's living alone and that's a certain

31:22

city , but it felt like I don't need

31:24

other people close to me

31:26

. This is my life . I

31:29

carve it out this way and I collect around myself

31:31

the things and objects that justify

31:34

who I am and what I do . And

31:37

I often wonder what will that be like when you're

31:39

80 and

31:41

you're ill and

31:43

you're impossible and you make decision after decision

31:45

to do it my way . Yes , and

31:47

we haven't borne that fruit just yet because

31:50

we're still we're in a crossover

31:53

. My own father died in an

31:55

aged care facility seven years

31:57

ago and it was telling , and

31:59

my brother pointed it out , that the people

32:01

who look after Westerners

32:03

aren't Westerners . They're

32:06

people from other cultures that honour age

32:08

and honour community a little better

32:10

, and there were

32:12

people in there that never got visited by anyone

32:15

for seven years . And

32:17

what will that be like when we're even

32:20

thinner in terms

32:22

of community ? And what would it be like

32:24

for the church to honour its old people

32:26

well into the future ? Stanley

32:29

Harivas said that if in 100 years time

32:31

, christians

32:34

other people that don't kill are young and don't kill are old

32:36

will be doing well unless 100 years time . Read

32:39

the laws around euthanasia in

32:41

Canada , for example and non-Christian

32:44

secularists like Tom Holland are pointing

32:46

it out that the

32:49

generation 18 to 34

32:51

, the number of people who approve

32:53

that you should be able to access euthanasia

32:55

for homelessness or depression is

32:58

over 50% . Now

33:00

you extrapolate that out to when the 18 to 34s

33:03

are running the place and

33:05

you're going to have a brutal culture

33:07

In fact , with money going down

33:09

and housing going down . Even

33:12

in Canada they found people encouraging

33:14

other people to have euthanasia , to take pressure

33:16

of health bills , to take pressure of housing

33:18

. If that's not a

33:20

signal that there's a meaning and purpose problem

33:22

in our culture , in our Western post-Christian

33:25

culture , I don't know what is . I

33:27

was horrified at Christmas Day discussion at

33:29

much my wider family , how

33:32

many of my nieces and nephews

33:34

, had just bought the euthanasia

33:36

. Yeah , and that's about

33:38

a lack of hope and a

33:41

sense of I will find control in

33:43

an increasingly uncontrollable world

33:45

. So there's a vague sense of comfort to

33:48

euthanasia . If you think I

33:50

have no destiny beyond the grave

33:52

and I've got no control over

33:54

the terrible things that are happening in the world , whether that's

33:56

climate , whether that's war

33:59

, whether it's all these anxiety

34:01

or all these homelessness or poverty , all

34:04

these things . That's

34:06

what happens to a culture that runs out of hope . So

34:09

, last word , what do you want us as

34:11

pastors to do ? Yeah , not panic

34:13

. To be honest , this

34:16

is the counter-intuitive thing . I want

34:18

us to preach the big

34:20

picture of where God's taking history . I

34:24

think some preaching

34:26

not all preaching in the past has

34:28

said well , the

34:30

70s and 80s had a lot of crazy stuff about end

34:32

times . Let's not even go there . But unless we

34:35

as God's people are saying there is

34:37

hope beyond the grave and God

34:39

is going to bring about a new creation

34:41

and give us a bodily

34:43

resurrection where our hope and our joy will

34:46

be fanned and the presence of God forever

34:48

. We're not

34:50

preaching the Bible . Well , there's so much

34:52

end stress in the Bible as to where

34:54

this thing's going and we don't

34:56

lean into that enough . And I would say , if

34:59

you want to prepare your people for Monday to Friday , tell

35:01

them about the age to come and I think

35:04

that will bleed back into how and give

35:06

them a future-proof life going forward . Stephen

35:09

McAlpine has been my guest on the

35:11

Pastor's Heart . He's just released

35:13

the book Future Proofing the Church

35:15

and we will link to that book in the

35:17

show notes and you can check him

35:19

out at his blog , which he's also

35:21

linked to in the show notes . This

35:24

has been Dominic Steele . You've been watching the Pastor's

35:26

Heart . We'll look forward to your company next

35:28

Tuesday afternoon .