The Church, Culture, & How Jesus Changes Everything with Stanley Hauerwas

Today’s conversation is a bit of a departure from our usual worship leader/worship industry conversation. I’m talking with Stanley Hauerwas.

Here’s his bio:

Stanley Hauerwas, a theologian and Christian ethicist, is professor emeritus of theological ethics and of law at Duke University. He is the author or editor of more than fifty books, including Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (1989), which he co-authored with William H. Willimon. His lower-middle-class upbringing informed his later approach to theological and ethical questions (at one point, he was apprenticed to his father, a bricklayer). In 2001, Time magazine named Hauerwas “America’s Best Theologian”; he replied that “best” is not a theological category. 

Stanley will turn 85 this year.

I’m new to Stanley’s work but absolutely devoured his new book Jesus Changes Everything as well as his landmark work, Resident Aliens. I find his thinking incredibly helpful in navigating our current times. He don’ts pull any punches or hide behind any veneer of religiosity. 

Topics Covered:

• Stanley's love of travel and baseball
• How Stanley came to faith in Christ
• The influence of Karl Barth
• How Stanley "got saved"
• The similarities between evangelicalism and protestant liberalism
• How Christian "experience" gets us off track
• How Jesus changes everything
• How evangelicalism can recapture a more robust faith

Resources Mentioned:

• Show Sponsor: Planning Center
• Jesus Changes Everything: A New World Made Possible by Stanley Hauerwas
• Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony by Stanley Hauerwas
• Lives of the Saints by Fr. Alban Butler
• Dogmatics in Outline by Karl Barth
• God Matters by Herbert McCabe
• Friendship and Ways to Truth by David Burrell
• Naming God: Addressing the Divine in Philosophy, Theology, and Scripture by Janet Soskice

Show Sponsor: Planning Center

My goal in this podcast is to help you grow as a worship leader. Of course that includes your formation, but it isn’t limited to that—it’s also with practical tools to help you in your ministry.

It’s hard to talk about being a worship leader without mentioning Planning Center. As you know, I’m a huge fan. A lot of you are already using Planning Center Services to schedule your volunteers, plan your worship services, and give your team the tools they need to learn their music. But with Planning Center People, you can stay even more engaged with your volunteers and anyone looking for how to get plugged in.

First, some good news: People is completely free with any Planning Center subscription. No, you didn’t hear me wrong—it’s free. Second, some better news: you can use People to add new volunteers to your teams quickly and automatically.

In People, you can make forms for anyone interested in volunteering, put them in a step-by-step training workflow, and then automatically add them to Services to schedule them for the right team. And that’s just one way you can use People. From sending automated emails and seeing church-wide engagement to organizing your member database and keeping information up-to-date, there’s tons you can do.

So go to planningcenter.com to use People for free.