Worship and the Body: David Taylor on Why Physicality Matters in Worship

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Paul (00:07):
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast, your
source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church in
the 21st century. At the Future Christian
Podcast, we talk to pastors, authors,
and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical
wisdom to help you and your community of faith
walk boldly into the future. Whether

(00:27):
you're a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member
of your faith community, this podcast is
designed to challenge, inspire, and equip
you with the tools you need for impactful ministry.
And now for a little bit about the guest for this episode.

>> Martha Tatarnic (00:43):
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today,
Loren Richmond, Jr. Welcomes David Taylor
to the program. W. David O.
Taylor is Associate professor of Theology and
Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary
and the author of several books, including
Prayers for the Pilgrimage, A Body of
Praise, Open and Unafraid,

(01:06):
Glimpses of the New Creation, and
the Theater of God's Glory.
In addition to a range of scholarly and
popular essays, he has also edited
several books, including the Art of
New Creation, Contemporary Art and the
Church, and For the Beauty of the
Church, Casting a Vision for the Arts.

(01:29):
He serves on the advisory board for Duke
Initiatives in Theology and the Arts, as
well as IVP Academics
Series Studies in Theology and the
Arts. An ordained priest, he has lectured
widely on the arts from Thailand to South
Africa. In 2016, he produced a
short film on the Psalms with Bono and

(01:51):
Eugene Peterson. He lives in Austin,
Texas with his children and artist wife,
Phaedra, with whom he has produced three
sets of Illustrators prayer cards.
A reminder before we start today's conversation,
please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast,
leave a review and share Future Christian with a

(02:11):
friend. Connect with Loren, Martha
and Future Christian on Instagram.
Shoot us an
email@laurensonatemediaprouh.com
with comments, questions or ideas for
future episodes. We appreciate your
voice in how we faithfully discern the future
of the church.

>> Loren (02:41):
All right, welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. This is
Loren Richmond Jr. And I am pleased to be
welcoming today David
Taylor. So thank you for being here. Welcome to the show.

>> David (02:52):
Hey, thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

>> Loren (02:54):
Great, great, great share. Uh, if you want anything
about yourself, uh, we don't know already.

>> David (03:01):
Well, let's see. Recently, uh, in recent
years, my wife and I,
um, purchased 21 acres just
east of Austin, and we have
only just recently finished the construction of the
house. And, um, my
wife comes from multiple generations of farmers.
I do not, uh, I

(03:23):
appreciate somebody like Wendell Berry, but I'm
not a fanatic. But I have found myself,
uh, coming alive, uh, in ways That I had
not imagined myself coming alive because so much
of my life now involves working uh,
the land and um,
yeah, it's very life giving. So we

(03:44):
live out here surrounded by
prairie. Well it used to be corn fields,
cotton fields, amaranth, uh,
fields. But this uh, we're part
of what's uh, an ecology called the Blackland prairie.
It kind of goes up, I think up into
North Texas, maybe southern Arkansas. And

(04:04):
my wife um, did what's called
a master naturalist certificate where she learned
everything that can be learned about the local ecology. And one of
her hopes is to return this land that has
been cultivated for decades and
centuries back to its original prairie condition.
And I uh, I'm, I'm happy to participate in that.
It's uh, it's quite wonderful.

>> Loren (04:25):
Well that's a cool little thing. That's a cool little factoid. Thanks for
sharing that.

>> David (04:29):
Yeah, yeah.

>> Loren (04:30):
Share if you would about kind of your faith journey and
background and what that looks like today.

>> David (04:36):
Yeah. So I was born and raised in
Guatemala City. Um, my parents were
missionaries there. Uh, my parents also put
us in a private ah, Austrian
school. So I spoke English at home, Spanish with friends at
church and German at school. And you know, from a
very age I found myself
wired uh,

(04:58):
to kind of the global world, um, kind of
global context, global church.
And I'm grateful for that formative experience.
Moved to the States when I was 13 but
still it just left a very deep impression on how I perceive the
world, how I perceive my place in the world. I am,
you know, technically I'm what's called a third culture, kid. I

(05:18):
would think of myself as amphibious,
um, you know, occupying
different kinds of uh, spaces as it
were. Um, and I'm,
and you know I was surrounded by people who
had a very genuine, sincere
faith. Uh, they felt that they had had these life

(05:39):
transforming encounters with God. And so it
was all very real to them. Like there was always
something at stake when we gathered on
Sundays. And I have not always found that to be the
case in my adult life here in the
um, eventually went to the University of Texas, lost
my faith, eventually recovered my faith
and then spent uh, five years in seminary and then ten

(06:01):
years as a pastor and then
five um, years in the PhD world and then I've been
teaching theology for ten years. And uh,
I would say um,
that one of the things that's very important to me
is this sense that I feel
called to the twin work of

(06:24):
pastoring and scholarship. Um,
so I would think of myself as a scholar priest
and I sincerely and
eagerly want both of those callings to
implicate the other. That my
ordination is not simply a certificate, but
that it not only invites me to be a certain kind

(06:45):
of professor, a certain kind of theologian, but it obligates me,
it inconveniences my
capacity to be, as it were, maximally efficient as an
academic. And so, uh, I try
to be very involved as much as possible
in our local congregation. Mostly I teach Sunday
school with children. Um, so yeah, so I find that

(07:05):
very formative.

>> Loren (07:06):
For me, that's a brave spiritual practice,
teaching children.

>> David (07:12):
It, it is, uh, it's
humbling, but not in a bad way humbling. It's like, it's
a wonderful, it's simplifying.
Right?

>> Loren (07:21):
Mhm.

>> David (07:22):
Um, things are, things are complicated in the child's
life in the way that children can sometimes feel very overwhelmed
by all the moving parts of life. But there's also
a kind of simplicity, a kind
of, um, they don't
dissimulate, uh, they
don't pretend usually to be something that they're not in the way that adults
can easily, you know,

(07:44):
um, present something
that is not maybe true to who they are deep, somewhere deep down inside.
So kids are not, um, afraid to ask
questions, not afraid to ask hard questions and not afraid to ask
theological questions. And so I love
the opportunity and the challenge to think
concretely. The Gospels are just full
of concrete things and the danger of an

(08:06):
academic life is it all sort of floats up
into abstractions.

>> Loren (08:10):
Right, right.

>> David (08:11):
Um, yeah, I love it.

>> Loren (08:13):
Yeah. My son is 6 right now and he's really asking a lot
of those questions that again,
those kind of concrete, like, you know, he asked me about
heaven just the other day
and you know, he said, uh, this past
week or a few weeks ago, hey, my friends
at school, not a lot of them believe in God.

(08:33):
So it is really challenging.
You know, I'm like thinking, I have so many years of theological
education, so many years of experience, how do I make
this, how do I answer this question
in a way that's gonna like make
sense to him?

>> David (08:49):
Right, right.

>> Loren (08:50):
And uh, not just be totally over his head.

>> David (08:54):
That's really good. Yeah.
Actually, let, uh, me just say this just as like an aside, but
related to that, I have the possibility
of taking a sabbatical in a couple years and yesterday
I was working on my application and I have to
identify what I would like to do. And there's an academic
monograph that I like to do. But the other thing I really have been wanting to

(09:14):
do for quite a number of years, I'm wondering if I might
finally be able to pull it off is to
write a theology book for children. But that
would entail a partnership with artists so
very much.

>> Loren (09:27):
Mhm.

>> David (09:28):
Um, you know, like a visual
theology, uh, where the art is part of
the telling of the story, not merely illustrating, but part of the
telling of the story, showing obviously not just
telling. And I'm excited and terrified
about the project, but m m mostly
excited. Uh, and I want to
write it with the kids, so I'll just,

(09:49):
I'll probably spend several years workshopping it
with uh, kids. So we'll see how that works.

>> Loren (09:55):
Yeah, I want to see that. I want to see that. Come m To be.
I want to see that. Come to be. Well, speaking of
books, uh, I'm excited to have this
conversation and I'm thinking already here about
some questions that have, have
percolated in my mind around curiosities, uh,
I've been wondering about. So David is the author

(10:15):
of the book A Body of Praise, Understanding the role of Our
Physical Bodies in Worship. Do you want
to just start out with a general like hey, how did this book
come to be? What inspired it?

>> David (10:26):
Yeah, I mean I was raised in a tradition,
um, let's say a non denominational tradition
that at best thought of the body as
neutral, at worst as a problem
to be overcome, to be solved, to be
superseded, transcended, so on and so forth. When I was in seminary,
I did a THM in New Testament and wrote
a project investigating

(10:48):
the theological significance of Jesus, healing
miracles, particularly in the Gospel of Luke. And I
came away from that study with sort of the stark
realization that I in my
entire life had taken bodies much less
seriously than Jesus had taken.
And uh, there's a sense of excitement and
adventure. Uh, I've always loved sports, so I've always

(11:11):
used my body. I've been surrounded by artists, so I've had a sense
that artists, you know, are particularly attuned to
sensory things. Um,
but I think when I came out of that project
and then, you know, began years of pastoring,
I just kept being uh, haunted by well, what
does that mean? You know, what does it mean to live into

(11:32):
this reality? Uh, what does it mean to live
more holy? Uh, you know, W
H O L L Y And
um, and then I would find myself in
liturgical settings and uh,
uh, sometimes asking folks in these
liturgical settings, whether Catholic, Orthodox,
Episcopal, Lutheran or otherwise, you know, why do you do

(11:53):
what you do? And surprised by how few people were able to
articulate why they did all that they did with Their bodies.
So I wonder myself initially, well, what if I just produce a little
handbook? Yeah, handbook, you know, a little grammar of
the body at worship and little history, a little Bible,
a little theology, a little context, culture.
Well, I started writing that

(12:14):
and then I became curious about other things.

>> Loren (12:16):
Right, right.

>> David (12:17):
What might the sciences tell us and what are some ethical
questions we need to attend to, and,
uh, how my artists offer unique
perspectives and invitations to embody. And
so then it just kept getting bigger and big.
And, uh, originally was conceived as a lay
handbook, turned into an academic book. But
I tried to write it in a way that the English is

(12:39):
eminently accessible to anybody who would
be curious about this. And I wrote it right around Covid.
So I, along with all the humans.
Mhm. Was experiencing something that was
certainly unique to our generation, not unique to human history,
but something that confronted us with, uh, the
question of what are bodies for? So, yeah, that's

(13:00):
the book.

>> Loren (13:00):
Yeah. So let's jump in because there's a lot
of interesting stuff, at least to me, I found
that I want to hear your perspectives on. So I think, I
think one thing for sure that stood out to me is you write about
posture and physical body movements in our
worship, impacting our faith.
So talk more about that.

>> David (13:20):
Mhm. Yeah. Okay, so a few things come
to mind. Um, having been raised in a Latin American
culture, I. My
childhood was shaped by a world where
it was more easy for boys to cry.
That is a.

>> Loren (13:36):
More easy than girls?

>> David (13:38):
Uh, no, no, I'm sorry, than American.

>> Loren (13:40):
Oh, gotcha.

>> David (13:41):
Gotcha to the American.

>> Loren (13:43):
Yeah.

>> David (13:43):
And so when I moved to the States when I was 13, I discovered.

>> Loren (13:46):
Uh, very clearly, boys don't cry.

>> David (13:49):
How very uncool, uh, it was to
cry. Uh, and that's not so much a
posture or a movement, but it is an expression,
a way that God has made us, has hardwired
us physiologically, neurologically,
in order to become attuned to ourselves
and attuned to others, and others can be attuned to our

(14:09):
pain. Uh, it's a way for us to be
fully present to each other and so wonder to
myself, what is it that we are
losing if not in what ways are being malformed
by, for example, the fact that so many of
our social cultures, and then, therefore,
ecclesial liturgical cultures have no space,
uh, for crying and weeping and those forms

(14:32):
of grief. Uh, and yet they're profoundly,
you know, psalmic. Um, certainly Jesus
is, uh, unashamed
of those things. And how might our
grief be more, um, sweetly and
richly shared with one Another if we felt
free to cry
in public. Um, so that'd be like, one.

(14:54):
Um. I've often been curious about silence and
shouting. Two
extremes, but both are in the Psalms, right? And the
Psalms have functioned as this determinative
worship prayer book for Christians for hundreds
and hundreds of years. And yet we either pick and
choose our way through the Psalms or we have what I might call the canon within
the canon of the Psalter. And yet I think there

(15:16):
is something about God that we
cannot know except by way of silence and
likewise by way of shouting.
And we know that, right, when we find ourselves in certain places
in nature. And there's that. What we might call a holy
hush, right, that we're feeling and
sensing and knowing and being, you know,
regarded as it were by creation, in this

(15:38):
silence that makes us
feel, um,
simultaneously small in creation,
but also. But also, uh,
profoundly seen and grounded and
fully alive, right? Conversely, you
know, if you've ever been to a concert or a sporting event
and you find yourself swept up, willingly swept up,

(16:00):
right? Um, in this
roar of excitement, right? And your
whole body is just full.
Like, this is the expansion. Expansion of
excitement and joy and
erupts and shouting. Uh, it's that sense
of, like, yes, you know, there's some quality of our

(16:21):
humanity that we tap into and that we share with others.
And I wonder, are we missing out? Right? And the Psalms
are repeatedly saying, you know, roar, exalt,
shout. But we don't.
Like, why don't we? It's right there.
And then maybe the last is, uh, there was this artist named Grunvald,
early 1500s, was commissioned,

(16:43):
um, uh,
to create a painting for the
Monastery of St. Anthony, which had a very specific
call to serve those with skin diseases of some
kind or another. As he paints. It's very famous, uh,
this triptych, uh, of Jesus. And he
represents him with the same kind of skin lesions that

(17:03):
they have. And so what did it
mean, um, for
these individuals who found themselves in
various degrees of
pain on account of their skin, to be
able to see the Maker of heaven and
earth, to see the Savior and the
Redeemer in a way that it was so intimately familiar

(17:24):
to them, this Christ had come
so close that he identified
what, uh, are we missing when our spaces of worship
don't have something like that for us to behold with our
physical eyes that then might bear witness to our. The eyes of
our heart, you know, as the New Testament puts it, and then
enable us to see the world around us and

(17:45):
sort of transform transfigured Ways.
Um, all these things that we, you know,
see all our senses, all the things that we do, our
hands raised, our hands held open
hands, uh, that humility, hands in honor, postures of
honor, um, how might that
form our humanity? Uh, more

(18:06):
holy in both senses of the word. Holy.

>> Loren (18:08):
Yeah, yeah. I want to get into
this deeper because
this past week,
my wife and I, with our kids, we attend like this kind of
like family type small group that's like a
meal and conversation at church.
And I guess the church is involved

(18:29):
in a study through some organization
that's of course funded through Lilly, because Lilly,
you've probably seen this, is doing these, this shelling out
tons of money to try to study children's faith
formation. And
this was like a small group. You know, there's probably
15, 20, I don't remember in this kind

(18:50):
of group conversation. So the questions was being raised
about, like, you know, how do you help? How do you
foster faith in your own family? How do you
think we can help foster faith?
And it seemed to be like I was trying
to. I mean, I'm just a layperson there essentially
in that, in this church context space.

(19:11):
So I'm trying not to overstep my bounds. Um, but
it seemed to be like a lot of, like, what
I would call, like, performative in
from families of this, like,
you know, we. We kind of just make it up as we go type
thing. And. And maybe I was mishearing, but
almost like a limiting, uh, or

(19:32):
diminishing of practices.
So this is. I'm being long winded here, but
I'm thinking about what is the importance
of physical faith practices, Physical
spiritual practices of retaining
faith.

>> David (19:50):
Like, how is what we do with our
bodies related directly or indirectly to
the formation of wealth, faith? Is that right?

>> Loren (19:59):
Let me add another story if I can. So years ago, I was working
as a hospital chaplain as a CP intern,
and I walked into this. I got a page in the middle of night
and walked into this secure room
as a psych hold room. And they're literally sitting outside,
they're literally strapping this guy down who
was having some kind of overdose reaction, I don't know

(20:20):
exactly what. And he's flailing all over. I'm freaking out
internally, right, thinking, what the heck? Why did these people call
me? And I can't remember someone saying, like, he had supposedly
uttered the word chaplain or. I don't know. I'm like, I
cannot believe that this guy,
this guy really asked for chaplain.
But, uh, you know, I'm. I'm young. I don't know better. I'm like, this is

(20:41):
my job. So they finished getting him strapped down
and the security guards and kind of come out and take off their gloves
and take a deep breath. And I walk in with like a
Bible and I'm like, hey, my
name's Loren, I'm a chaplain and I have no idea what to do. And
I start reading some scripture from. I think it was
Psalms 90 or Psalm 91. I can't remember exactly which.

>> David (21:01):
Right.

>> Loren (21:02):
And then all of a sudden, like, I
recognize this guy starts to
pray in a
very broken manner. The
Lord's Prayer.

>> David (21:14):
Yeah.

>> Loren (21:14):
And I just, I was completely
struck. Like, that was 10, 15 years ago. I'm still
struck by that moment.

>> David (21:24):
Yeah, I mean, that's really beautiful. And I
mean, our Catholic and Orthodox friends would say,
yes, quite
precisely, uh, that
the rituals of our body, when
matched to communal rituals, have a
capacity to form, ah, our

(21:44):
humanity, to orient our sense, ah,
of the world around us. Sort of as a parallel.
There's um, a book called After Image in
which this film scholar. I did a study
of, I don't know, it's like six or seven
very famous Catholic
filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola and Albert
Hitcock and Scorsese. And one of the things

(22:07):
that he was, the case that he was making to the reader is
that all these extraordinarily successful
filmmakers making really, really, uh,
important films over the course of the
last half century. They were all raised
Catholic, and
the Catholic sensorium, as it were, of the

(22:28):
liturgy had shaped how they
perceived their calling and their
work. And uh, so what we
do with our bodies from an
early age is
and can shape Christ
likeness in us. Uh, um,
one thing that our church started doing after Covid, when it

(22:50):
was safe to be in each other's
physical, proximate spaces was during the
Lord's. We say the Lord's Prayer every Sunday.
Uh, our senior minister,
our rector, invited us to hold hands.
And uh, holding hands is such a funny
thing. In some contexts it's the most natural thing in the world. Like

(23:10):
when NFL athletes at
national anthem or when somebody's injured, they'll hold hands.

>> Loren (23:16):
Mhm.

>> David (23:17):
But get them outside of the stadium is a different context.

>> Loren (23:19):
Right.

>> David (23:20):
It means something else and it causes maybe discomfort.
But our pastor was encouraging us
to lean into the actual
physicality of each other's presence. You
know, we have, you know, uh, people of all
ages. Maybe we have visitors. Um,
but the, but the act of

(23:40):
holding is a way to say, I
am bound to you.
You are not a. Take it or Leave it. Member of Christ's
body.

>> Loren (23:49):
Right.

>> David (23:50):
And so how might those practices in a
liturgical setting then translate into the rest of our
lives? Um, I write about this in the book,
like, this question, which is not a simplistic question,
or it's not simple, uh, like, who's up front? Or what
testimonies are shared. Is it the testimony of the bold and
the beautiful and the brawny? Uh, or is it the
testimony, the witness of the broken and all kinds of brokenness

(24:12):
in our world, you know, physical, mental, emotional, relational, and so
on? Um, what is it that we
see? Um, what are the stories that are
told? And I don't mean just in art, just in our own
lives. And so. Well, in actual
fact, um, I'll say this, and then I'll
pause here, but, uh, in the chapter on ethics, which is the
most terrifying to write of the whole book, I truly wrote it

(24:35):
with a great deal of fear and trembling. But we
had a family in our congregation, have two children
with very specific disabilities, one
with down syndrome and the other with what's called a
swan, a syndrome without an name.
And, you know, different levels of intellectual and
physical disability. And so when I began writing this, and I
did, you know, a good deal of reading, but I wanted to talk to, you

(24:58):
know, real humans that dealt with this in real ways, not in,
like, bookish ways. So I asked the parents, like,
what's it like for you? I asked them, what would you want from us
as a congregation? Like, what forms of hospitality are you not
receiving? And that was wonderful. But the thing that was so
beautiful was to hear the parents talk
about how, inasmuch as our. Our worship
is, let's call it liturgical, is very sort of

(25:20):
ritualized. That their children, Henry, uh,
and Laila, have learned
the good news in their bodies
by standing, sitting, kneeling, prostrate,
you know, by walking. Um,
Layla, when she was 13, was
invited to be a crucifer. And we have different

(25:41):
weights of crosses. And so she could only
manage, you know, the. The lightest weight, wooden one. But
it was such a beautiful,
um, image of Christ's body to
see her fully engaged, joyfully, very
reverently engaged in her, in, you know, unique ways to
her. Um, and the things that
were said over and over were part of

(26:03):
the, you know, her spiritual
armature, as it were. Um, and so, I don't know,
just the things that, you know, as they say, caught, not taught,
are rather powerful.

>> Loren (26:14):
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm thinking again, I just
had on. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the book Worship, uh,
in an Age of Anxiety, J. Michael
Jordan, he's kind of an
evangelical.

>> David (26:25):
Uh, yeah.

>> Loren (26:26):
Okay. You're.

>> David (26:27):
I am, Yeah. I have it, actually.

>> Loren (26:29):
Yeah. I really like the book. I think his episode will
release here before this. And then, of course, I'm thinking of
the theologian. That's really resonated with me a lot.
Nandra Root, both who kind of talk about
the kind of performative nature of faith.
And I'm thinking of like, Michael, uh, Jordan
talks about this. Similarly,

(26:50):
you write about the value of communal
singing versus, like, again, as
Jordan in his context writes about, like,
the big band and the big production of
evangelical worship. And I don't want to just bang on,
you know, evangelical worship per se. But again, I'm thinking in this
context of, like, how, like Root would say we

(27:11):
have to, like, perform our faith has to be something like we
endeavor to produce within ourselves.

>> David (27:17):
Right.

>> Loren (27:17):
And again, I'm thinking from the context of, like,
how, like, I've been in church recently
where I did not want to say the words that were on
the screen. Like, my faith was not in a place where I was
like. Right. Full hearted. That.
But I felt like there was some benefit to me in repeating those
words.

>> David (27:35):
Yeah. I mean, Loren, I'm just going to say
amen, and we've been there.
And I think if you're honest enough, you've been a Christian long enough,
you know, exactly that experience.
Having grown up in a. In a predominantly
Catholic country, I don't think
I bring to my, you know, adult academic

(27:56):
studies a, ah, romantic view
of how, uh, the liturgy, as it
were, forms us in magical ways. It
doesn't, uh. There's nothing magical or automatic
about doing any ritual. Right. And I would
likewise say no ecclesial liturgical
tradition has a corner on the market of mindless, heartless
worship. I mean, it could be a very simple,

(28:18):
you know, sort of.

>> Loren (28:19):
Yeah, yeah. And Jordan for sure talks about that.

>> David (28:22):
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, Baptist,
Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, anybody can be mindless and
heartless, no matter what they say or don't say.
Um, but I do think
again that there is a
unique power in being
formed and reformed by what we

(28:42):
perform. If I can put all those forms
side by side, um,
obviously, you know, to borrow language from,
you know, the second Vatican,
uh, gatherings in the 60s, we want our
worship somehow to be full, active and conscious,
um, all things being equal in the sense

(29:02):
that when you see the words on the screen
or on a piece of paper or in a book, and you think to
yourself, I don't Feel it. I think
that can become a really beautiful form of confession.
Humility to say in this moment, oh God, I
do not. And yet in humility,
uh, and in trust, with whatever trust I can

(29:24):
muster, um, I say these words
and what I tell our people, you know, whenever I have a
chance to preach or otherwise, is
it's okay to come on Sunday
morning and simply sit
and do nothing else. The fact that you've like put your body
in this place is already something that we can celebrate.

(29:45):
I also say maybe you can't even manage to come and
there's a grace for that as well.

>> Loren (29:50):
Mhm.

>> David (29:51):
Also there are inertias that take over, you know, like the
whole Covid post. Covid. You know, all these studies have been done of people
that got into the habit, Right. Of not leaving
their physical homes and gathering with other physical bodies
and physical spaces. And eventually that acquired an
inertia and that took over. Right. So there's a
positive inertia in us gathering, doing things in

(30:11):
our bodies, performing certain actions, saying certain
words and trusting that
um, the ritual
will um, form us in life giving
ways. And to my students I say, well, it's just,
I mean the simplest thing we can do is distinguish between ritual and
ritualistic form and
formalistic. You, uh, know, just, we just add

(30:33):
ism to anything we can say. Anything can be abused. And
of course Christians have been attention to that for hundreds of
years. Um, but I think there is
something decisive
in choosing to say, I mean
in our families, right. In our friendships we don't always feel
it, uh, we don't
always feel love. But

(30:56):
it is meet and right to use the language of the book
of Common Prayer to open my
body up to my wife. When we're, you know,
kind of grumpy at each other. Instead of closing myself off
to speak words that I know are my heart will
maybe eventually catch up. And I think that can
happen when we gather in worship.

>> Loren (31:15):
Yeah, yeah. Let's shift gears a little bit because I do want
to explore the
conversation around seeing arrangements. You have this
really interesting conversation, uh, about midway through the
book where you talk about the three seating
arrangements. So I really kind
of got into church architecture

(31:36):
as I began to kind of just pay attention more. And I
was fascinated, especially with like
mainline context, especially at least
in my neck of the woods where
churches have like, they have kind of
the original sanctuary that was pretty
modest, often built

(31:56):
like in the 40s, early
50s and then kind of after like the post war
boom, these huge magnificent
sanctuaries were built, you know, like late 50s,
60s. And I
noticed this real, what I felt at least to be this
tension or contradiction of

(32:17):
what is often proclaimed in mainline churches of real,
progressive, inclusive, uh,
relational theology with these
sanctuary spaces that are, that are very,
uh, upward oriented
and separated.
Talk more about, uh, how worship
spaces shape our faith.

>> David (32:39):
Right. Yeah. And
a book before a body of praise. One of the
books that I wrote is called Glimpses of the New Creation.
And in that book I explore how
the different media of arts form us. And the basic
argument I make in that book is that every practice of
art, whatever it may be, every incident of

(33:00):
art both opens up and closes down
possibilities to form,
to form our knowledge and love of God
in some fashion. And I try to be, uh, as
generous and hospitable in the book to be able to
say, you know, I'm not going to come down on the
Pentecostals. I'm not going to come down on, you know, the

(33:20):
High Church Lutherans. I simply want you to
understand that what you do is not neutral.

>> Loren (33:25):
Yeah.

>> David (33:26):
Uh, and you may be missing out on the
fullness of what God may have for you. It
doesn't mean you can, you know, build new
cathedrals.
Um, but be mindful of the fact that every
space retains associations. Every
space is generating a certain
way of being in the world individually

(33:48):
and corporately or communally. And so I talk about the
three spaces, one which we'll call them
longitudinal, sort of. You think of like the Gothic
cathedral, Neo Gothics, a long
nave and you have the transepts and the chancel and so on and so forth.
And the idea there is that the, uh, Christian
life is a pilgrimage and you're coming from the world,

(34:09):
the place of the profane, which is the, the Latin
for outside the temple. You enter in and there's a
baptismal font and you know, it's a pilgrimage. And then, you know, there's the New
Jerusalem, hopefully. And um, that's beautiful.
Um, that
kind of space resonates, uh,
architecturally with images of

(34:30):
God is majestic, God is holy, other, God is
sovereign. You know, those images that we find in Holy
Scripture. It's very difficult, however,
for people in that space to have any sense
or grasp or feel both in the literal and the
figurative senses of those terms. For the body, Christ
is a family. Mhm. It's just our

(34:50):
bodies are not oriented. No. Every generation of
Christians is reacting to these kinds of things.
And 20 years ago is the emergent church
that was, uh, very fired up about many things. And I
was in the middle of some of that fired upness. And they wanted
to return to a different idea,
idea of being the body of Christ, a

(35:12):
different way of worshiping. And therefore they all
found other spaces in which to do this.
Right. Many of them did in homes, which is a
very kind of natural place, you know, to explore
alternative ways of worshiping together. So there's a
longitudinal. There's
um, sort, uh, of what
I'll call sort of the semicircular, the uh, half

(35:32):
moon. And there's a wonderful,
um, C.R.C. ah, church up in
Grand Rapids that I visited and had a chance to talk
to some of them and to understand
how the half moon is a way to
gather around the table. So everybody has sort of
like an equal sight line.
Um, but it's not a full circle because as

(35:55):
reformed people, they wanted to underscore the fact
that we do not enclose or
master God in this sense.
Symbolically. At the table there's a window
and it opens up a way of saying,
hey, when we come to this table, we are
always recipients,
recipients. And then the last,

(36:17):
um, seating arrangement is, uh, the face to
face. Um, which I
say, well, we see in the upper room. Ah, many
places in the Gospels. A lot of house churches
have that very keen sense of like we
are beholding one another. It's very
intimate. Um, but conversely, it's
difficult to get

(36:39):
a feel for otherness and majesty
and so called transcendence in those kinds of spaces.
But, you know, not every church can change. But
maybe there are micro changes that enable people to
be, I don't know, um, more fully and
richly related to each other as. As the
body of Christ.

>> Loren (36:57):
Yeah, I'm thinking of. There's a church in
Minneapolis. Well, I guess it's. Technically
there's three churches in one building. I'm not sure if you've heard
this one's a disciples church.
One's, I think ucc. I can't remember what the other one
is, but they have three worship spaces and
part of their practice is to rotate through
the worship spaces throughout the

(37:20):
year. On my. Again, I don't know what the
regularity is, but I've always found that
interesting to
that perspective of changing perspectives.

>> David (37:30):
Yeah, there are ways that we can,
you could say, disrupt. Uh, it doesn't have to be
disruptive. It can just start to be creative.
And I think maybe one of the ways that the Catholic tradition
has creatively taken into account sort
of the fixity of. They're
usually their usual. Not like 2000

(37:51):
years worth, but you know, sort of a certain Style
of architecture is. Is all the feast
days are opportunities to become ambulatory, you
know, so there's. There can be an opportunity to walk around or to go
outside, you know, uh, uh, you
know, for, um, the triumphal entry, you
know, reenactment. Uh, and so getting out of

(38:11):
the space. And we do that in our church as well. Everybody. The
service starts outside in the parking lot, and we walk together. And it's
silly and it's goofy, and, you
know, uh, there's nothing terribly
orchestrated about all our voices, but there's something
convivial.

>> Loren (38:25):
Right, right, right.

>> David (38:27):
About that, um, that I think is, you
know, really. Ah, beautiful.

>> Loren (38:32):
Yeah. I'm just thinking,
uh, I'll try to be generous with my words here, but I'm just
thinking about, you know, some traditions where it's like the doors are
closed, the lights are off, there's a countdown.
You know, you walk in in darkness, can't see
your neighbor.

>> David (38:46):
Yes. No, that. That. I've seen that.
I mean, speaking of the emergent church, I remember
lots of, you know, folks, maybe
pastors, who had the authority and power to make these kinds of
changes. Removing pews and putting sofas and
chairs.

>> Loren (39:01):
Right, right.

>> David (39:03):
And, uh, that was their way maybe to swing to the
opposite end of the pendulum. Like, we want to be at home.
Come as you are. Nobody's the
boss of anybody. It's sort of all these things that sort
of collect into. Let's be a different people together.
Eventually, sofas and chairs start talking. You
know, they acquire a gravitational force field of their

(39:23):
own, and they move people in certain
directions that, you know, may fight other
things.

>> Loren (39:29):
Right.

>> David (39:30):
That, uh, church leaders would like to form in,
folks. And so there's nothing neutral. That's the point of
that book that I wrote. There's nothing neutral. Uh,
every space, every practice of music, you know,
opens up and closes down. For example, ways of
knowing God. So, yeah, so in that book, I actually do a close
study of oceans by Hillsong.

>> Loren (39:50):
Oh, yeah. Okay.

>> David (39:51):
And, uh, In Christ Alone, sort of the
Reformed Baptist, you know, song.

>> Loren (39:56):
And yes.

>> David (39:57):
A, uh, a spiritual. And I sort of do a
close analysis of the music and the lyrics. And, um,
just a way to say, hey, if you unpack the engine
of all this stuff, it's
the difference between a blender engine and a Boeing engine.
They're both engines, but they're making different things possible in the
world.

>> Loren (40:16):
Yeah. Yeah. Let's do
one more question here before we take a break.

>> David (40:21):
Okay.

>> Loren (40:21):
I want to talk about. On page 154.
Um, I'm going to read a quote here. You write over against
the prevailing assumption of our contemporary world.
Our bodies are not ours to do with as we
please. Our bodies belong to Christ's
flesh and his flesh belongs to
us. So you kind of wrote about it
there and I kind of gave you a heads up. I want to ask this question.

>> David (40:44):
Yeah.

>> Loren (40:45):
I similarly recognize this dynamic,
I think in our. At least as I'm interpreting that
quote in our world today, where it's
very much like a bodily autonomy. Uh, you
know, I'm sort of,
I'm sort of flabbergasted. I don't know if you've seen this
on social media. These folks who are like anti
kids

(41:07):
and I have kids.
I recognize it's a huge commitment, a
lot of work, and
I've had an experience literally just
yesterday with my middle school daughter that's
terrifying, frankly.

>> David (41:22):
Um, Right.

>> Loren (41:25):
And I can't expand on that. So
I understand kids a lot. But I also think
this kind of time that we're focused on
where it's like it's me centered, essentially, I'm
the biggest thing. And I
guess my bias is I'm a believer that,
uh, believing in something bigger

(41:47):
than yourself or connecting with something bigger than
yourself and giving of yourself is the best way to find
yourself rather than this kind of inverse that I think
I see. And I'm assuming your quote relates
to that. Um, you know, taking
care of me and my body, you know, my, my
body's purpose is to serve me first and
foremost.

>> David (42:08):
Yeah. I think obviously, you
know, that part of the chapter or
the book should be titled Handle with Care.

>> Loren (42:16):
Yeah.

>> David (42:17):
Ideas should be handled with care. People should be
handled with care. Our neighbors who irk
us should, ah, be handled with
care. All things should be handled with care.
Um, probably what I'm doing
there is attempting to
identify extremes. It's easier,
I think, to identify extremes than to identify

(42:39):
the middles in which we're attempting in fits
and starts. Right. Um, on one extreme
obviously is slavery. That's
the idea that my body wholly belongs
to someone else to do it as they
wish. That is to be rejected. On the other end,
perhaps more, um,

(43:00):
we identify it with greater difficulty because we're
Americans, is the idea that my body is
my property.

>> Loren (43:07):
Mhm.

>> David (43:07):
Which to Americans seems to be the
most normal way to think of my body.
Uh, perhaps because we have forgotten, you know, that
our three ideals
are not actually life liberty in the pursuit of
happiness. The original actually was life liberty in the
pursuit of property. Um, so as

(43:28):
Americans, property is Very important to us.
I have nothing wrong with property.

>> Loren (43:32):
I have property.

>> David (43:34):
But the extreme right is that all
the entire earth I'll
use this verb, is colonized as property. Everything
is perceived as property. Right.
Acquisition and retention of property. And then
bodies get caught up in this, you know,
philosophical way of perceiving the world.

(43:55):
And I think I'm pressing against that. To say, as
Christians, as people who want to be formed by
holy Scripture and by the life of Jesus, we
see that bodies in the beginning are a gift,
uh, in the middle are a gift, and at the end are gift.
And because they are a gift, they are to be handled
with care. They're handled with love.

(44:15):
Um, and there are things, yeah, that are
mined by God's grace to
enjoy fully. Um,
but my body's not something I own.
I think, uh, that's the wrong
verb. My body is something that is
entrusted to me, uh, and

(44:36):
therefore I love it. Well, I'm to love my neighbor as
I love myself. Um,
but it's not. It's not. I don't own it.
And therefore to do with as I please.

>> Loren (44:47):
Yeah.

>> David (44:47):
I think that just sends us in very, very dangerous places. I
mean, even with the best of intentions.

>> Loren (44:52):
Right.

>> David (44:52):
Property mindset, I think, gets us in trouble.
Because the moment I think of myself as property, and then I
see others, they have property. Well,
then we're in a commercial, you know,
um, frame of mind. This is
sort of a, you know, exchange of
services and goods, and bodies become part of the
thing that we exchange. And

(45:15):
I think, you know, like the Christian tradition
uses this language of the great exchange, the
mysterious, uh, exchange
of Christ's body for our bodies, like our bodies
become part of his so that our bodies can become
true, truly, you know, the bodies, the
beautiful, beloved bodies that God made them in
the beginning. And I think it's

(45:37):
a way of thinking, but I think it's a way of living that gets
us into trouble the moment we think of our
bodies as property, uh, that we
possess autonomously.

>> Loren (45:47):
Um, yeah. Tell me if
this is tracking. If I'm following again. I'm
just thinking of my day yesterday where I was planning
to come home from work and. Or not come home,
but just head to the gym straight after work. Because
I like taking care of my body. Right.
Keeping my body fit, which we would say is
important, but

(46:09):
I'm thinking of it from your entrusted context. There was a
situation at home that I felt like my physical
presence would be
supportive. I don't know, uh, which adverb. Adjective to
use. There would be A benefit to my family
at home. So, I mean, does
that track with what you're saying? Like, if we're thinking purely like,

(46:31):
my body is my own, my first priority is to my body,
rather than my body is
entrusted to me to do good in the world,
to serve others, but also to serve. I
don't know if that makes sense.

>> David (46:44):
I mean, I would say yes. Right. Uh, like,
if we think of our bodies as a gift that is entrusted to
us, um, and
then the primary lens or software that's
running inside of us is a gift economy,
that changes the way I relate to the earth,
way that I relate to my enemies.

(47:06):
Uh, it changes the way that I relate to the people closest
to me who perhaps see all the ways
in which I fail in bodily acts of
love, you know, um, and,
you know, the primal, uh,
sin led to the primal temptation, which is to
hide. Um, hide, fight, and run.

>> Loren (47:25):
Yeah.

>> David (47:26):
Um, and, uh, so we hide in our
bodies, we fight with our bodies. Right. And ultimately we're doing
violence to our bodies and the bodies of others. But if my
body is fundamentally a gift, graced by God in Christ,
empowered by the spirit, uh, to
be a vehicle, an instrument
of healing, uh,

(47:46):
and all the other goods of
God's reign, then,
um, it changes.
I mean, okay, I'm going to say this, and I hope I don't get too in trouble, but
I remember not long after Covid, we were driving
somewhere like a year
after M. And, uh, driving through a small
town, and, uh,

(48:06):
it was like, by like a little shopping center, and
I saw these people, and I first thought it was,
um. Uh, it was like
a car wash, you know, like a bunch of questions in a car wash.
But they had big cardboard signs up. I couldn't see them. And
then drove by and looked back. I was like, oh, oh, they're
protesting the vaccine.

>> Loren (48:26):
Interesting.

>> David (48:27):
Uh, and on their. All their cardboards was my body,
my choice.

>> Loren (48:30):
Right.

>> David (48:31):
And I thought, oh, this is so fascinating. It's just like a
quintessentially American. And I don't want to get into. Into the politics of it
all, but just sort of like that was the most natural phrase,
as it were, the most natural way for Americans to think of these
things. And I guess I'm one would say, I think for followers of
Jesus there is not just the better. Like, it's like
an upgrade. I think it's just like
ontologically radically

(48:53):
better. Um, and if I can.

>> Loren (48:56):
If I can take this step further as I'm thinking about
this, like,
I'm sure you've seen the news, right, that
young men are increasingly moving,
conservative, moving into church
spaces. And it seems like I don't want to make
too broad a judgment here
that there's this kind of like,

(49:18):
encouragement of young masculinity as, like,
celebrating them and their bodies. And I think,
uh, I want to like, echo what you're
saying here. I was having
a conversation on this with one of my good friends who also
has a son, about teaching your
sons that manliness is about.

(49:39):
He didn't use this word, but I think your word here fits with what
he's saying. This kind of gift economy, like men
have privilege
and we're supposed to use that privilege or
that what has been entrusted to us
to serve others.

>> David (49:55):
Yeah, I mean, I would say
yes. And, uh,
um,
I wrote a book of prayers that came out recently,
Prayers for the Pilgrimage. One of the prayers that I had
included there was. I had originally titled
it. It was like something like For Being Jesus. Y.
And then the publisher's like, well,

(50:18):
maybe you can come up with a better. And I was like, well, I think
what I'm trying to do is to. Is to name in
this prayer all the things that Jesus. All the ways
that Jesus handles other people's bodies with care.
Uh, and saying, you know, to myself
and to my son, let's do that.
You do that

(50:40):
and, um, that'll
generate life. That'll be life giving,
uh, to your mother, to your sister, to your friends,
um, you know, to be in the
world as Jesus was in the world.
Um, and,
uh, I mean, I think I saw this, this article that

(51:01):
you're referencing. And I mean, we just live in such
catastrophically messed up times,
but, um, you know, in terms just get us in
trouble or they are trouble.
Um, and so I guess maybe what I'm
trying to do with myself, you know, um, and
in this book is to

(51:22):
say,
what if we simply
tracked how it is that Jesus handles people's
bodies. And in fact, uh, the point that I make in the book is
not only does he handle others with care. He himself, for
nine months in his mother's womb, was handled with
supreme care. He was totally

(51:42):
enveloped in this care
filled place, uh, of, uh,
comprehensive loving touch.
Um, and I suggest that that can be like
a metaphor for then he
emerges and then, uh,
offers his body as the life of the world and
offers comprehensive care,

(52:05):
uh, in and through his body and that we are now his body
in our own places.

>> Loren (52:09):
So, yeah, well, well, let's leave it
there for the sake of time. This is good conversation Again,
the book is that we discussed today, A Body of Praise.
Understanding the role of our physical bodies in worship.
David, let's make sure. Send me a link for the other book
so I can include that in the show notes. Let's take a
quick break and we'll come back with some closing
questions.

>> David (52:33):
All right.

>> Loren (52:33):
We're back with David Taylor and really, uh, enjoyed
the conversation. Appreciate your time. Hopefully
it's helpful for our listeners. Let's talk,
uh, about some of these closing questions.
You're welcome to take these as seriously or not as you'd like
to. Some folks get tripped
up over the Pope question, but

(52:55):
what would you do with your, uh, if you're a Pope for a
day?

>> David (52:58):
Okay, so I thought about this again. I grew up in a Catholic country,
so, you know, there's a lot of talk of the, uh, of the Pope amongst my
friends. Friends, uh, El Papa, as they would call
it. Uh, if, uh, I were Pope for the day, I
would tell, uh, my secretary
that, uh, I'm going to spend the entire day looking at all the
art, ah, in the Vatican
collection. Alternatively,

(53:21):
I would tell my secretary that I'm going to disguise
myself and go for
morning prayer or whatever, morning Mass in some small
church in Rome. Disguise and just kind of
slip into the pew, uh, and, and
experience, uh, life that way. Just
kind of like, take a peek.

>> Loren (53:41):
Um.

>> David (53:43):
Um. I imagine that the Pope
does not get many opportunities just to
chill out.

>> Loren (53:50):
Yeah, Yeah.

>> David (53:52):
I think kind of fun.

>> Loren (53:54):
A theologian or historical Christian figure
you'd want to meet or bring back to life.

>> David (54:00):
Okay, so I did think about this, and I
apologize in advance. I'm going to cheat.

>> Loren (54:05):
Yeah.

>> David (54:05):
I would like a dinner party.

>> Loren (54:07):
Okay.

>> David (54:08):
And, uh, it's going to be a dinner party for six, myself
included. And I'm going to invite five
musicians. And I would love to
see the conversation that unfolded. I'm going to
invite Ephraim, the Syriac, the Syrian,
uh, who's very profoundly influential, uh,
in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Hildegarde, uh,

(54:28):
Bingen, uh,
Palestrina, a very influential and,
um, polyphonic Renaissance music, Bach and
Fanny Crosby. And I just
want to ask them what was it
like? Uh, you know, because you guys all made
new music, you know, in your time, and
we have worship wars in our time. Did you guys. I mean, I know

(54:51):
they actually had worship wars in their time. I just want to hear them talk
about it. I think it'd be so fun.

>> Loren (54:55):
That is a broad. That's a broad spectrum.
I guess you could make it seven and maybe invite Chris,
Tomlin, just see what happens.

>> David (55:05):
I mean, I could, um.

>> Loren (55:07):
Yeah.

>> David (55:07):
I mean, uh, Yeah,
I mean, uh, sure, let's listen.

>> Loren (55:13):
I'll take them.

>> David (55:14):
Uh, Chris, I don't
know.

>> Loren (55:17):
Is that. Am I making assumptions? Who would be, like, the
definitive, like, worship guy?

>> David (55:22):
No, no, Chris is, you know, certainly in, you know,
the. The kind of, like, contemporary worship world.

>> Loren (55:27):
Right.

>> David (55:27):
Yeah. You know, nobody really cares about
him more. Kind of classical, you know, conservatory kind of music.

>> Loren (55:33):
Yeah.

>> David (55:34):
Um, it'd be that or like, I once hung out with
the Hillsong London. Uh,
folks.

>> Loren (55:40):
Uh, okay.

>> David (55:41):
M. David Crowder organized this
crazy worship conference, invited me, and I found
myself in the green room surrounded by all unusual
bedfellows, including Hillsong. They were, uh.
I don't know how, uh. How much you can
capitalize bold and italicize. Cool. They
were so cool. And I was like,
yeah, nope, I'm not cool. Uh, I'm not cool. I'm

(56:04):
okay. But I, uh, don't know.
Hillsong, you know, they're pretty big.

>> Loren (56:08):
Yeah. Yeah.

>> David (56:10):
But, you know, who's.

>> Loren (56:11):
Like, the. We're getting way into the weeds here. But I'm like, who's the
one? Is it, like, Darlene Sheck, maybe? She.
She gets in there.

>> David (56:19):
I mean, she's Certainly, like, the 90s, you know,
forerunner,
um, of. Of this
whole, you know, era.
Um, I mean, Chris. Yeah. I mean, he's. He's. I
mean, he's pretty influential. Uh, I mean, like,
he. He changed. But these days, you know,
they talk about the big four. Hillsong, Right.

(56:39):
Ethel, Passion and Elevation.

>> Loren (56:42):
Yeah.

>> David (56:43):
Ones that show up on the Christian stations. Um,
but, like, a singular figure. Sure. I'll go.
So, yeah, Chris is just always, like, you know, top
five.

>> Loren (56:52):
As long as it's, uh, not. Who's the
Elevation guy?
As long as it's not him. Right? No offense to
my.

>> David (57:01):
No, I don't know. I mean, I will tell you. I'm friends with Matt
Redmond, who is another figure in that world,
and he very, like, wonderfully, kindly, humbly
reached out a year ago and said, I'd love
to partner with a theologian, and I'd love all the
songwriters that I know to have opportunities
to partner with pastors and theologians, because I think that
church's music is not good. M.

(57:23):
Better, and it's only going to get better if we have better
relationships.

>> Loren (57:27):
Let me say this. Uh, I won't say
his name, but elevations. Pastor maybe could do well
to.

>> David (57:34):
Okay, wow.

>> Loren (57:38):
Moving on. Uh, what do you think history will
remember from our current time and place?

>> David (57:45):
Um.
I mean, gosh, I mean, I, I don't
know. Um, really I'll be curious to
know. Uh, I mean the
thing that comes to mind is that no generation
is exempt from corruptibility.

(58:05):
I, I and the truth of the matter is I
really would like to not excuse myself from that judgment.
Judgment. Um, I'd like
to, I like for everybody else to be
corruptible by their, you know, cultural, uh,
context. But I'm sure I am.
Um,
I mean this is the thing that I've wondered, you know, for the past

(58:27):
eight years and counting.

>> Loren (58:30):
Mhm.

>> David (58:31):
Uh, has there been
a massive failure of
discipleship in our churches at the
local kind of, you know, ho hum, um,
ordinary, you know, shape of our
lives that makes it possible for things
to now surface so
egregiously. Um, like that stuff doesn't

(58:52):
happen overnight, right?
Um,
I don't know. I mean,
yeah.

>> Loren (59:00):
Well, how about this? What do you hope then for the future?
Christianity.

>> David (59:05):
Uh, that's, Yeah, I think it's
like my hope is related to sort of the
lament. But I think I would hope
that we in this country, I'll just speak for
us, might become more fully
attuned, related with
and accountable to the global church.

(59:26):
I think we get in trouble more quickly
when um, we get
sucked under our own echo chambers.
And uh, wherever we may find ourselves
theologically, ecclesially, politically, we all
have echo chambers. And I think Leslie Newbegin,
um, the wonderful missionary

(59:47):
theologian, wrote a book called Foolishness to the Greeks. And he talks
about how one of the practices that the global church should
take on is members, uh, of Christ's body around the
globe should just continuously hold mirrors up to one another
to show where it is that the good news
is being corrupted, you know, um, where
we are being malformed in ways that we just cannot
perceive. So I think if we were able to find

(01:00:10):
ourselves not just on,
you know, social media, reading about things, but
traveling, uh, if possible,
inviting and participating in
meals and worship together and mission
together. I think that would,
I think it could be very powerful.

>> Loren (01:00:29):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I really appreciate your time,
really appreciate the conversation. Again, uh, want to
recommend the book and your work. Uh, tell
folks where they can connect with you, all that
stuff.

>> David (01:00:41):
Yeah. So, uh, formerly
called Twitter.

>> Loren (01:00:45):
Yeah.

>> David (01:00:46):
Uh, which we'll still call Twitter. Uh,
it's kind of the name that usually shows up on books W. David
O. Taylor. On Instagram, somebody actually
had that collection of letters. I was surprised, but they had one
follower on Instagram, so there's no way I could
recover it. Uh, so it's David
taylortheologian so

(01:01:07):
Instagram is kind of more personal. Twitter is just more
ideas. Then I have a website w. David O.
Taylor
um, yeah, you know, I try to be
a gracious presence. I wrote a, uh, series
of Beatitudes for being on social media. So I try to
abide by those Beatitudes.

>> Loren (01:01:28):
Yeah. Yeah, great. Well, always, uh, leave folks with a word
of peace. Speaking of, uh, rituals and practices here.
So may God's peace be with you.

>> David (01:01:36):
And also with you.

>> Loren Richmond (01:01:44):
Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian Podcast.
The Future Christian Podcast is produced by Resonate
Media. We love to hear from our listeners with
questions, comments and ideas for future
episodes. Visit our website@uh,
future-christian.com and find the Connect with Us
form at the bottom of the page to get in touch with Martha
or Loren. But before you go, do us a

(01:02:07):
favor, subscribe to the POD to leave a review.
It really helps us get this out to more people.
Thanks and go in peace.

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