March 2, 2025 • 40 mins
Brian committed himself to practising contemplative spiritual disciplines every day for a month. Here’s what happened…
Psychological studies suggest that certain personalities are better suited to hearing God’s voice than others. Those who are “feelers” rather than thinkers seem to be pre-disposed to experiencing the Spirit in sensory ways. So what does that mean for the thinkers and the intellectuals among us?
On this episode of the show, we’re talking Spirit experiences and analytical thinkers with someone who appreciates both. Dr Brian Ross is an associate professor at Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary in California who hails from the Anabaptist tradition but regularly ministers at a wide range of churches. In Brian’s words, he’s always “lived in his head,” but things changed when he began practising some of the contemplative spiritual disciplines. You’ll love this conversation, particularly if you’re a “thinker” rather than a “feeler”! Brian brings some wonderful wisdom and insight to the topic.
In this conversation, you’ll learn about:
- Brian’s journey to faith from a broken home, through a nihilistic and depressing season as a teenager to his decision to follow Jesus and enter pastoral ministry.
- Brian’s angst in discovering that the church was not always a place where people were naturally oriented to answering his questions.
- Relating to God as an intellectual:
I’ve always lived in my head by nature, but this doesn’t mean my walk with God isn’t practical or personal. God as an incarnational being meets us where we are – that’s where God has met me. Sometimes you might hear people say things like Christianity is not a philosophy – it’s a relationship and I know what people mean by that, but I would always say, “what’s wrong with it as a philosophy?” because I find that compelling.
- Brian’s initiation into the spiritual disciplines and the Spirit encounters that followed. Brian committed himself to practising the disciplines – such as contemplative prayer, meditation and sitting in silence – every day for a month. He explains what happened:
Nothing changed for a while. Then after a few weeks, I began to have experiences I’d never had before… that I do not have words or categories for. I found them often beautiful and compelling… So, this is what Pentecostals and Charismatics talk about!
- Brian’s reflections on the variety of personalities God has created and how we all experience God differently. Since we all reflect God’s likeness, we should expect that we would relate to God in different ways. For example, through acts of service, doing justice, intellectual enquiry, participation in nature and prayer or worship experiences.
- The need to incorporate all aspects of our intellect to know the fullness of God including rational discourse and deep thinking. Indeed all the early church leaders related to the Greek thinkers of their time.
- The impact of spiritual experiences on Brian’s life…
These experiences that are often beyond words are a visceral reminder that there’s much more to reality than what we see or understand or control.
- Some advice for those who haven’t had those Spirit experiences.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
God Conversations with Tanya Harris.
Let me ask you that question. What does God tell me?
Well, you know, Thunder life is.Mother Teresa?
Someone asked. Her when did God speak to you?
And she said whatever he wants. So essentially the Bible is a
collection of God conversations if you like.
I had a vision of a car accidentand I'm sitting on the couch
(00:20):
thinking why have I just seen this?
How could I know if God was speaking to me?
And how could I know that that dream or that thought was
actually just me thinking about how I upset the bad pizza?
Jesus said we'd recognise his voice.
It was never meant to be a one way conversation.
Psychological research suggests that certain personalities are
(00:43):
better suited to hearing God's voice than others.
Those who are feelers rather than thinkers seem to be
predisposed to having spiritual experiences.
So what does that mean for the thinkers and the intellectuals
among us? Hi and welcome to the God
Conversations podcast. My name is Tanya Harris and I'm
(01:04):
a pastor, practical theologian, author, and the founding
director of God Conversations and Ministry.
That equips you to recognise andrespond to God's voice on the
show today, we're talking Spiritexperiences and analytical
thinkers with someone who appreciates both.
(01:24):
Our heart is to minister to everyone.
We believe that the Spirit was given to sons and daughters,
young and old, that everyone could hear the voice of God for
themselves, no matter their personality or psychological
makeup. So I love this conversation.
Doctor Brian Ross is an associate professor at Fresno
Pacific Biblical Seminary in California in the US.
(01:46):
He's been involved in all sorts of ministry, pastoral ministry,
planting a church, working with youth consultancy, and today,
training leaders for ministry. He comes from the Anabaptist
tradition, but he regularly ministers at all sorts of
churches, from Pentecostal to Mennonite.
I think you're going to love this conversation.
It's such an insightful 1 and particularly if you're a thinker
(02:09):
rather than a feeler, I encourage you if you know
someone who this might bless, toshare it with them because Brian
brings some really insightful wisdom to the topic.
And a big welcome to all our newlisteners far and wide,
particularly any from the US of A.
It's so good to have you. And I just encourage you to
(02:30):
check out the whole range of podcasts that we have on so many
great topics. Some really great thinkers from
across the globe who are hearingfrom the spirit and really
complementing each other and theinsights that they bring.
And if you've enjoyed the podcast, why don't you leave us
a review or a comment on iTunes or Spotify?
We'd love to hear what stood outfor you, what struck you, what
(02:50):
resonated with you and what was helpful to you or perhaps not so
helpful and you don't forget that you can go to
godconversations.com to and signup for the fortnightly updates
that come out. They always have a new resource
we're making available. That's our heart to research the
church. And beyond that people may hear
this beautiful voice of God, this loving, personal,
(03:13):
relational God that wants to connect through with us through
communication. So onto our show today, Spirit
experiences and analytical thinkers with Doctor Brian Ross
Ryan. It is so great to have you on
the show. Welcome to God conversations.
Thank you. Great to be here, Tanya.
(03:35):
Brian, we met in the US earlier this year at the Jesus
Collective Conference and so wonderful to hear some of your
ministry story. I remember thinking this guy
needs to be in radio. Well, I I have a face for audio,
that's what. I say it's just that voice, but
(03:58):
it's so great to to meet you andto see how ministry intersects
you. You come from the Anabaptist
tradition. Your ordination is with that
which is very focused on Jesus centredness.
And we were just chatting earlier how the Holy Spirit
speaks as the continuing voice of Jesus and it's such a, a
great intersection of ministry there.
(04:19):
So Brian, you are the associate professor of pastoral ministry.
So you're obviously a very smartperson and you've been involved
in all sorts that's. Debatable.
You know, to have that seat, you've been involved in ministry
for 25 years and now training students, which is an amazing
(04:40):
privilege. But perhaps for the sake of our
audience and those who are outside the great US of A, can
you tell us a little bit about the Brian Ross story?
How did you come to be doing what you are doing now?
Ohhh. Yeah, great question.
And probably like many of us, what I'm doing is, is not what
I've planned. Now in my 40s, when students
(05:04):
maybe ask about the future or they're making decisions or
maybe what God has for them, I say one of the things I know for
sure is that your life will probably not play out the way
you expect it to. So I, I grew up in Columbus, OH
in the States and like, like many people, kind of a common
(05:27):
broken complex home. I was a little bit more of a
petty person by nature, kind of live with in my head.
And as a teenager, I could really find no purpose for life.
Looking back now, I would say I was pretty nihilistic really
there. There's no meaning, no purpose.
(05:47):
I was fairly depressed, have just kind of a bleak outlook on
life. And just.
Kind of personally, psychologically, emotionally,
kind of drowning and and my mom wasn't sure what to do and kind
of kind of forced me to check out a a new church, a Wesleyan
(06:07):
Church. And there heard about the
teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. And I remember just thinking,
this describes me, this, this ismy problem.
This is what I need. I need Jesus.
I need his way of life and and pretty quickly after after
(06:27):
converting to the Christian faith, I kind of decided to give
my life to this. If if Jesus is really the Lord
of all, if his way is what we all need.
What would be more meaningful than to give my life to to his
ways and and leading others. And so for me that that looked
(06:48):
like probably pastoral ministry,becoming a pastor, but I also
pretty quickly felt some dissonance in that as much as I
love the church and it's where Ifound Jesus and people cared for
me, I also felt like churches were not a place that were
(07:09):
naturally oriented to answering the questions I was asking or,
or to relate to people that maybe had some more complex
backgrounds. And so also pretty quickly, I
kind of purpose that eventually I wanted to be a church planter.
I wanted to begin a new congregation in particular to
try to connect with people that maybe if they were not at that
(07:33):
church, they were just doing their own thing on Sundays
instead. So I was an associate pastor for
a few years and then I eventually did begin a church in
Eastern Pennsylvania. I was there for 10 years in a
community that was fairly secular or post church, at least
for the states. Kind of rough going for a little
(07:56):
while, but we we kind of figuredout how to be Jesus people there
and had some some great connections.
So God do some interesting things in people's lives.
But over time, people started torecruit me to do some seminars
for pastors, to do some trainingfor ministry leaders started
(08:18):
being asked to teach some some courses in my doctoral ministry
studies. I was the youngest one in my
cohort in my 20s and some older leaders began to ask my thoughts
on various things. My, my mentor, Leonard Sweet,
United Methodist writer and teacher, he started to pull me
(08:40):
aside and say, hey, you should probably do what I'm doing.
You probably should be training pastors.
And then eventually my current seminary kind of recruited me
about a decade ago. I just kind of reached out, hey,
we're not offering you a job, but we have an open position and
we'd, we'd really encourage you to apply for that.
(09:03):
So I've been here full time for the last 10 years.
I oversee our ministry degrees. We have on campus the Master of
Divinity or a Master of Arts in Christian Ministry, and we have
an online degree, an MA in Ministry, Leadership and
Culture. We've had students from all over
the world. Someone just graduated from New
Zealand. This year.
(09:26):
Yes, yes, that's right. So, so that's what I've been
doing the last 10 years. I do a lot of guest preaching in
churches, consulting. I met with the church this
morning doing some consulting work with them, another one
tomorrow. But I have the privilege of of
teaching students that are from all sorts of different
(09:47):
denominations. And one of the real joys of
living in Fresno, CA is it's it's one of the more diverse
cities in the US. I really resonate with your
thought about you had a lot of questions that weren't always
appreciated. I, I gave my pastors,
particularly in the early years,such a hard time because I was
(10:08):
like, what about this and what about that?
And you sure about this. I, I, I always wanted to know
and learn and sometimes I found that there's not a lot of space
for that, which is unfortunate. So I think often we find
ourselves in theological institutions at that point and
the joy of actually exploring that.
Well, well, yes. And, and to be fair to the
(10:31):
leaders of that, that first church and, and actually mentors
I've had all throughout my life,I felt that they welcomed my
questions. But you know, the typical pastor
is not really trained to have a little budding intellectual
asking all sorts of questions all the time.
And, and, and, and that makes sense, but I also really feel,
(10:56):
at least in the States, there's real tension that a number of
ministry leaders were kind of a trained to assume that people
were more or less culturally Christian.
Maybe they were living it, maybethey were not.
Maybe they personally had given themselves to Jesus, maybe not,
(11:16):
but they they basically know theChristian story.
They basically respect it. They're familiar with the Bible,
basic Christian beliefs that that is rapidly changing.
And I think maybe myself and some others like me were maybe
(11:36):
an earlier movement of that. And for people that did not grow
up in the church, the questions are just radically different.
It's interesting. Problems, etcetera.
Yeah, it's interesting you say that.
When I started God Conversations15 years ago, I took a part time
job teaching religious studies in the secondary private school.
(11:57):
And I'll never forget this 15 year old boy coming up to me and
he used to watch, you know, The History Channel and the National
Geographic Channel on TV. And he came up to me and said,
old Miss Harris, you don't really believe that they were
able to put every single speciesof animal into a boat, do you?
(12:18):
And I looked at him and I thought my first thought was,
oh, my gosh, I've never even thought about that question
because. And I, you're absolutely right,
because I had just growing up ina Christian tradition, we had
just accepted it. You know, we had the Noah's Ark
story and I and it never occurred to me to ask that
(12:40):
question. And it threw me a little bit.
I think you're absolutely right.There are very different
questions. And I'm, I, I think that the
beauty of the gifting that you have is the curiosity and the
desire to learn and explore. I think that is a gift to the
church and to the world because we need to be able to embrace
(13:01):
the unknown and to allow space to explore that, don't we?
But the the reason why we connected, at least Brian, what
I was super interested is we hada conversation around hearing
the voice of God and the Holy Spirit and what it means to
connect with God. So can you tell us a little bit
(13:21):
of your own journey with the Holy Spirit?
Yeah, and and I fully admit I don't, I don't claim to always
be able to discern the voice of God.
And this is still kind of a kindof a feeling out experience, if
you will, of, of discerning whatGod is up to or what God is
(13:44):
communicating to us. But, but like I said, I don't
know if it's DNA, the way God made me, etcetera.
But I've always been someone who's kind of lived in my head
by by nature thinking through things, deeply, questioning
them, probably a natural personality that's relatively
(14:06):
sceptical. And so even after my conversion
experience and moving into ministry and being very
committed to Jesus, I would say I've largely through much of my
life related to the divine intellectually, which doesn't
(14:28):
mean that there isn't that it's not practical or personal, but
I'm intellectual by nature. And so that's where, you know,
God as an incarnational being meets us where we are.
Think that's where God's met me.So sometimes you might hear
people say things like Christianity is not a
(14:49):
philosophy, it's a relationship.And I know what people mean by
that, but I would always say what's wrong with it as a
philosophy, because I've found that compelling and, and a
source of meaning and what and what's drew me in but a, a
number of years ago. So my, so I've always believed
(15:09):
in the Holy Spirit part of the Trinity.
Maybe when I'm convicted of sin,that's the Spirit working in my
life, etcetera. But a number of years ago, one
of my very good friends was justkind of a throwaway line, but we
were in conversation and he said, you know, Brian, it's been
a little while since I've heard you talk about what God's doing
(15:30):
in your life. And and then he and then he just
kept moving on. But I guess that would be the
Holy Spirit. I took that as, yeah, I'm kind
of spiritually dry at the moment.
I'm not not the best place. And so I just committed, you
know, starting the next day, some classic spiritual
(15:50):
practises, meditating on the Bible, active prayer, I'm just
really going to commit myself to, but also a contemplative
prayer, which I'm sure many of your listeners are familiar
with. But it's a, an ancient spiritual
practise of just sitting silently, not asking God for
things, doing their best to not think about anything other than
(16:14):
the presence of God, other than God being with us.
And I, I had heard people talk about that I, you know, once or
twice, but said, I'm going to commit myself to this every day
for like the next month. And so I began to do that, and
nothing unusual would happen fora little while and would go
(16:35):
about my day and felt like God was bringing up some issues in
my life throughout the day. But after a few weeks, I began
to have experiences that I've never had before.
I began to, yeah, I experiences that I do not have words for
(16:57):
that surprised me that I did notexpect that I did not have
categories for. I found them compelling.
I found them often beautiful. And when it be became much more
strong, I talked to a couple of friends and some of them began
(17:17):
to say, hey, you know, academicstalk about mysticism or
contemplation, but some of us charismatics or Pentecostals
would say you're experiencing the Holy Spirit or maybe even
being baptised by the Holy Spirit.
And that was maybe kind of the first time where I was like, oh,
this, this is what Pentecostals and Charismatics talk about.
(17:42):
And, and I fully admit that I think my experiences maybe from
my background, personality, etcetera, I still probably view
these experiences maybe a littledifferently than the typical
Pentecostal or Charismatic. But I began to say like, oh,
there, there's this whole other tradition of Christian faith
(18:05):
that I've known very little about and and frankly probably
considered just people being deeply in their feels, honestly.
That. That I began to say, Oh no,
there's there's really somethinghere.
And and I've continued to find this, this way of knowing God,
very compelling. That is such an interesting
(18:27):
journey, Brian. I, I, I really do relate to you
over the intellectual connectionwith God because that was my
experience too. And I had a similar
confrontation, I think with a, with a friend who seemed to
experience God very differently.And I was intrigued and super,
super curious. So I wanted to go there, but
(18:48):
it's interesting to me that there are certain, it would seem
personality types that find thiskind of realm easier, if you
like, since come across the workof neurologists and
neuroscientists that say they'vedone studies around this.
And it seems that creative, musical, artistic types have a
(19:12):
different capacity to sense things spiritually and that
there's actually a part of the brain that lights up and they've
called it the God spot. I think, you know, for me, it's
always been an interesting journey that I am involved in a
ministry such as this because I,I relate to the kind of like the
analytical thinking, intellectual part.
(19:34):
I'm not your natural sensory part.
A friend of mine, she wrote a book, Maria Mason, we had her on
the podcast recently about highly sensitive people.
And it's actually a psychological term that there
are what, 15% of the population that seem to sense things more
deeply. But perhaps that's what you are
(19:58):
entering into that space a little bit more.
You know God's awakening that a little bit.
I I think about Thomas Aquinas, apparently his story, he's a he
was a mediaeval theologian that shaped much of our thinking.
And towards the end of his life,he has this experience with the
spirit and he stops writing and he says all that I've written is
(20:21):
a straw compared to So how? How do we?
So obviously it would seem that there are people who are
naturally inclined towards spiritual sensory experiences.
What does that mean for people who are not that way inclined?
What would be your comments on that?
Yeah, interesting. You bring up Aquinas.
(20:42):
I'm I'm about halfway reading through the Summa Theologica
right now, so I still I'm. Not going to light reading for
you bro. I'm going slowly but.
A lot of. Brilliance there.
Yeah. Well, I do think there is
something to, you know, what we call personality or the way
(21:05):
people are wired. And if it's true that that God
not only created all people on all things, but as the ground of
all being, he, he permeates all people on all things and yet is
larger, then as human beings we are all small and finite and we
all are made in the image of God, which I interpret that as
(21:28):
we all represent something of God's likeness.
But it takes everyone who's everlived throughout the history of
the world to begin to represent God and all of God's fullness.
And if that's true, I think it it's fine.
It's OK. It should be expected that all
(21:48):
of us will relate to God in different ways.
And for some people it might be through active helping other
people, using their body to serve, meet needs, show mercy,
do justice. For others that might be kind of
intellectual inquiry. For others that might be through
some kind of prayer or worship experience.
(22:11):
And we probably all need a bit of all of these different ways
of relating to God, but I think it makes sense that some of us
would be more naturally inclinedto to some approaches to
spirituality than others. But with that being said, going
back to thinking of some of the Greeks, like if we go to
(22:34):
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, obviously not Christian, living
a few centuries before Jesus, but the early church very much
drew from them. If you read any Plato, to a
certain degree Aristotle, but certainly Plato, you will see
that all of our writers in the New Testament are, are quoting
(22:57):
them if if they haven't read Plato directly, their teachers
have. I mean, there, there's parables
of Jesus that we find in Plato very much drawing on these
sources. Some even referred to them as as
Christians before Christ. I don't know if that's true but
but that's how the early church thought of them.
(23:17):
And Plato and Aristotle I was taught in school they were kind
of like proto rationalists. They were these deeply logical,
analytical thinkers before the Enlightenment, obviously way
before. But as I have read Plato and
some of Aristotle, I would describe them a little bit more
(23:39):
as spiritualists in their culture.
And that Plato's Academy, reallythe first Western university
would be more like how we would think of as as a monastery than
just like a state modern university.
So there's, there's reading, there's thinking, there's
discourse, but there's also spiritual practises and fasting
(24:03):
and, and maybe even times of service.
And Plato has this strong emphasis on one's character or
integrity or virtue or lack thereof, helps one to think
clearly or not. And so drawing on these early
Greek sources and then into the early and mediaeval church,
(24:24):
there's always been a sense thatto be a fully committed
disciple, that we need both of these parts.
We need kind of rational discourse, thinking deeply, the
teaching, the tradition, the creeds, the the doctors of the
church, the primary theologians.But we also need like, like
(24:47):
Aquinas later in his life, we also need these experiences with
the Spirit that are personal andbeyond comprehension and
mysterious and that we, we struggle to put words to that,
that we need both of them in many ways.
And so I, I think we can get there if we desire to, to see
(25:12):
kind of these, these different approaches to knowing God.
It would make sense, wouldn't it?
Because God created our minds and the ability to think and the
ability to theologize. And I love what you said, that
we're all different and the bodyof Christ in all its beauty and
its diversity needs to help one another.
We are talking with Professor Ryan Ross from Fresno Pacific
(25:35):
Biblical Seminary, Fascinating conversation.
We will be back in just a moment.
Hearing God's voice is one of the most important ways we get
to know God, yet so many fail toexperience it.
Here at God Conversations, we'recommitted to equipping people
all over the world to recognise and respond to God's voice.
(25:56):
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(26:17):
partnership, go to godconversations.com/partners.
Well, your thoughts are thought provoking, Brian.
I, I am. I'm just wondering as, as we
talk about this in your own life, for how did your spiritual
experiences impact you? How did it impact your thinking?
(26:40):
Did it change anything? Yeah, that's, that's a great
question. And again, I think if we're
talking about spiritual experiences, many of them are
beyond words or maybe even beyond our mental category.
So it's, it's kind of hard to say how it changes your thinking
(27:04):
other than to say, I think one of the benefits of being open to
spiritual experiences is we're kind of reminded viscerally that
there's much more to reality than what we see or understand
or control. And it's interesting to me that
(27:28):
in the Bible we have lots of genre of writing.
We have plenty biblical figures that are complex and flawed and
have all their struggles and relate to God in different ways
and question God and complain toGod and and have lament,
etcetera. But I also think in the Bible
(27:49):
that we see post the resurrection of Jesus, there is
a confidence in the early Christian leaders that we did
not see before. Even this sense of you can
threaten me, you can throw me inprison, you can beat me, you can
kill me and we will just rejoicethat we can suffer for Christ
(28:12):
for for the way. Now what?
What would lead them to that? Well, again, they encountered
the risen Christ which which displayed to them that this one
who represents God, who is sent from God, who is God in the
flesh, that even if the worst thing happens to him, he still
(28:33):
vindicated that that God and God's power and God's ways and
God's spirit is stronger than any any material thing or or any
person in our physical world. And that that gave them this
boldness. And I think part of what happens
is we open ourselves to spiritual experiences we don't
(28:56):
know fully. We see through a glass darkly.
That's Paul again quoting Plato.No.
Is that quoting Plato? Oh, yes.
Yes. Oh.
Yes. But as as we do that, we begin
to sense there's more going on than we know, which can give us
(29:18):
a sense of contentment, a sense of even if things are not OK
eventually, ultimately things are OK.
That we are free to give and serve and love people, even if
it's a little risky. Because ultimately ultimate
reality is founded on this, on goodness and truth and beauty
(29:42):
and love in the way of Jesus. So I don't know how my thinking
has changed, but maybe I would say in the best moment,
certainly not all the time. I'm just reminded that there's a
whole bunch more going on than Isee, and am regularly reminded
(30:03):
that my thoughts are very small attempts at trying to understand
things that I cannot fully understand.
Which also maybe turns down someof the thoughts running in the
brain all the time, if that makes sense.
Yeah, it does. I think of conviction that's
(30:25):
that's a shit. And and then things like
humility and you mentioned contentment.
The, the, the big shift I noticed in my experience before
experiencing the Spirit, before hearing God's voice and after it
is that I had more emotions around my spiritual life.
So it actually felt real to me. I had a lot more joy and it felt
(30:49):
tangible to me and connecting meperhaps with that ultimate
reality that you're talking about.
And that's the difference. And, and then the intellectual
side was what the heck happened?What was that?
And then I'm going back to the Bible and going, what difference
did it make for them? So I, I, I really can relate to
(31:11):
that. You talked about spiritual
disciplines were significant foryou.
And I think in the US, when I was over there, I was visiting a
church. They were about to engage in
John, Mark comas, Practising theWay, which is kind of a tool for
developing spiritual disciplines.
We talk about prayer, Bible reading, service fasting,
(31:33):
Sabbath meditation. There's nine of them, but you
said that's what you started to to practise in your own life as
a means of kind of connecting more with God.
What do you think is this connection between the spiritual
disciplines and the revelation of the Spirit?
Oh well. Again, if, if God is the creator
(31:56):
and sustainer of all things, Godcan and does show up in all
sorts of ways in our lives that we don't plan or that we don't
expect. But at the same time, I think I
agree with the late Dallas Willard that the classical
spiritual disciplines are the practical means by how we open
(32:19):
ourselves to the Spirit, where he, you know, he would be fond
of saying we don't, we don't earn the grace and love of God.
But it normally does require effort, not for earning, but but
to open ourselves to, to engage the, the Spirit of God.
(32:40):
And so, yeah, I think the, the classical practises, they don't
make us more godly. Practising them by themselves
does not make us a better person, if you will.
But they tend to be the means ofturning down our own thoughts,
of turning down some of our own personal desires, and being open
(33:03):
to hear from God and receive from God.
One of the things that historical spiritual masters
have always made clear that our biggest problem is our own
desires, our own ambitions, our own thoughts and contemplative
prayer or fasting or active worship or active service or
(33:27):
giving thanks. All of these classical practises
in one way or another have a wayof helping us to again kind of
turn down the volume of what is going on in our own mental space
or our own hopes and goals and, and to be open to, to different
experiences or, or different encounters with reality.
(33:52):
I think that's a a brilliant explanation.
I often talk about it with God conversations that we hear God's
voice through the eyes of our heart and it's that posture.
But then that posture expresses itself in action in some sort of
way. We humans, we need some
structures around that, don't we?
We need, OK, this is my prayer time, my worship time, my
(34:15):
fasting time, my meditation time, whatever that might be.
So you're right, those things are not, we're not working to
gain God's vindication, God's pleasure.
We have that, but it's creating.It's creating space, isn't it?
Yeah. I love that it's helping.
It's taking off the blinders from us to be able to see what
(34:38):
what is really real. I also, I really like that
phrase you use there, Tanya, about our posture because the
other thing with spiritual practises, I again, I agree with
Willard. I think these are the means by
how we connect with the Spirit, but we have to have the inner
posture of being open. We have to come to them with a
(35:02):
desire of I don't fully know. I don't exactly know what I
need. I don't know what kind of
changes God needs to do within me, but I am open.
And that is something that we, we can't make other people have
that posture. And when we, we try to, we do
ugly, terrible things as religious leaders.
(35:25):
But that is kind of an individual choice all of us have
because we can use prayer or fasting or worship and still be
focused on our goals or what we want or how do we have power or
influence or control over other people.
But we have to come with that posture of an open, no matter
what the Lord may have for me. Oh, that is a brilliant
(35:48):
observation completely agree with you and perhaps the
intellectual mindset that's always curious and wanting to
learn is conducive to the heart towards God going speak to me.
You know, I, I think about the apostle Paul who was a brilliant
man and at the end of his life, the words in Philippians 3 that
I may know Christ well, he already did.
(36:09):
Hasn't his whole life has been that, but he's still showing
this incredible humility and openness and cure.
I want to know God. He's still he's still pursuing
and perhaps the spiritual disciplines are a form of saying
I'm pursuing you, God, I'm seeking your Kingdom first.
I love that. I think that's exactly right.
(36:30):
Looking back at your journey andthe ongoing journey, Brian, it's
so brilliant to have your insight and and wisdom.
What would you say to someone, perhaps to your younger self or
someone who hasn't had those kind of experiences of the
spirit? What advice would you give them
past or early at this point? Yeah, great question.
(36:55):
And again, I don't think we all need to have the same kind of
experiences and we are only ready when we are ready.
So how I tend to offer a little counsel, particularly the again
to the average person or maybe or maybe has not grown up in the
church and all this is new. How we know that God is at work
(37:20):
in our life where we meet God isnot simply by being religious or
being at church necessarily, butthe God encounter always brings
always takes us deeper into what's beautiful and good and
true and loving on the inside. Whereas Christians we we use the
term fruit of the spirit. How do you know the spirits at
(37:42):
work? It's not because you had an
amazing experience. It's not because you had power.
It's you are seeing the fruit orthe character of Jesus coming
out of you. So my encouragement to people is
whatever you engage, whatever activity or experience you have,
where afterwards you feel more thankful for your life as it is
(38:06):
and you feel more motivation to care for people that you
disagree with, whatever that is,intentionally spend more time
with it because that's the placewhere you encounter God.
And depending on our culture or background or personality or
life story there, there are 1,000,000 different ways where
(38:27):
people might encounter God and and that probably changes over
different stages of our life. So that's my counsel.
What activity do you engage in where afterwards you're thankful
for your life as it is and you're more motivated to care
for people that you disagree with?
Just keep pursuing that and thatwill pry open more and more
(38:49):
things over time. Brilliant.
I love how you pointed us to theoutcomes that the Spirit
produces. The free to the Spirit.
The Spirit makes us more like Jesus.
I think that's profound. Well, thank you so much, Brian,
for giving up your time in the in the midst of a very busy
(39:09):
schedule. Thank you for your insights and
wisdom, and we so appreciate hearing from your story.
Anyone who's in the US is looking for a great degree, you
can jump on the Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary Seminary
website. Did I get that right, Brian?
Yes. And well, and I want to say they
don't have to be in the States. We do have an online degree, the
(39:32):
MA and ministry leadership and culture, actually partnering
with Rich Velottis, now from NewYork City, and Jay Pathic, who
leads to Vineyard Church in the US They're having some
involvement with our programmes.So we do have an online
programme that would be available to people all over the
world. When you get to learn from
(39:54):
brilliant intellectuals and followers of Jesus like Brian,
isn't that right? Or, like Rich and Jay, I would.
Say yes. Thank you again so much for your
time, Brian. It's been an absolute joy to
have you on God conversations. Thank you, Tanya.
This has been great. Thanks for listening to God
Conversations with Tanya Harris.Don't miss the next episode by
(40:14):
subscribing to the show on your favourite podcast.
And remember, the Holy Spirit was given so we could all hear
God's voice. It was never meant to be a one
way conversation.
God Conversations with Tanya Harris.
Let me ask you that question. What does God tell me?
Well, you know, Thunder life is.Mother Teresa?
Someone asked. Her when did God speak to you?
And she said whatever he wants. So essentially the Bible is a
collection of God conversations if you like.
I had a vision of a car accidentand I'm sitting on the couch
(00:20):
thinking why have I just seen this?
How could I know if God was speaking to me?
And how could I know that that dream or that thought was
actually just me thinking about how I upset the bad pizza?
Jesus said we'd recognise his voice.
It was never meant to be a one way conversation.
Psychological research suggests that certain personalities are
(00:43):
better suited to hearing God's voice than others.
Those who are feelers rather than thinkers seem to be
predisposed to having spiritual experiences.
So what does that mean for the thinkers and the intellectuals
among us? Hi and welcome to the God
Conversations podcast. My name is Tanya Harris and I'm
(01:04):
a pastor, practical theologian, author, and the founding
director of God Conversations and Ministry.
That equips you to recognise andrespond to God's voice on the
show today, we're talking Spiritexperiences and analytical
thinkers with someone who appreciates both.
(01:24):
Our heart is to minister to everyone.
We believe that the Spirit was given to sons and daughters,
young and old, that everyone could hear the voice of God for
themselves, no matter their personality or psychological
makeup. So I love this conversation.
Doctor Brian Ross is an associate professor at Fresno
Pacific Biblical Seminary in California in the US.
(01:46):
He's been involved in all sorts of ministry, pastoral ministry,
planting a church, working with youth consultancy, and today,
training leaders for ministry. He comes from the Anabaptist
tradition, but he regularly ministers at all sorts of
churches, from Pentecostal to Mennonite.
I think you're going to love this conversation.
It's such an insightful 1 and particularly if you're a thinker
(02:09):
rather than a feeler, I encourage you if you know
someone who this might bless, toshare it with them because Brian
brings some really insightful wisdom to the topic.
And a big welcome to all our newlisteners far and wide,
particularly any from the US of A.
It's so good to have you. And I just encourage you to
(02:30):
check out the whole range of podcasts that we have on so many
great topics. Some really great thinkers from
across the globe who are hearingfrom the spirit and really
complementing each other and theinsights that they bring.
And if you've enjoyed the podcast, why don't you leave us
a review or a comment on iTunes or Spotify?
We'd love to hear what stood outfor you, what struck you, what
(02:50):
resonated with you and what was helpful to you or perhaps not so
helpful and you don't forget that you can go to
godconversations.com to and signup for the fortnightly updates
that come out. They always have a new resource
we're making available. That's our heart to research the
church. And beyond that people may hear
this beautiful voice of God, this loving, personal,
(03:13):
relational God that wants to connect through with us through
communication. So onto our show today, Spirit
experiences and analytical thinkers with Doctor Brian Ross
Ryan. It is so great to have you on
the show. Welcome to God conversations.
Thank you. Great to be here, Tanya.
(03:35):
Brian, we met in the US earlier this year at the Jesus
Collective Conference and so wonderful to hear some of your
ministry story. I remember thinking this guy
needs to be in radio. Well, I I have a face for audio,
that's what. I say it's just that voice, but
(03:58):
it's so great to to meet you andto see how ministry intersects
you. You come from the Anabaptist
tradition. Your ordination is with that
which is very focused on Jesus centredness.
And we were just chatting earlier how the Holy Spirit
speaks as the continuing voice of Jesus and it's such a, a
great intersection of ministry there.
(04:19):
So Brian, you are the associate professor of pastoral ministry.
So you're obviously a very smartperson and you've been involved
in all sorts that's. Debatable.
You know, to have that seat, you've been involved in ministry
for 25 years and now training students, which is an amazing
(04:40):
privilege. But perhaps for the sake of our
audience and those who are outside the great US of A, can
you tell us a little bit about the Brian Ross story?
How did you come to be doing what you are doing now?
Ohhh. Yeah, great question.
And probably like many of us, what I'm doing is, is not what
I've planned. Now in my 40s, when students
(05:04):
maybe ask about the future or they're making decisions or
maybe what God has for them, I say one of the things I know for
sure is that your life will probably not play out the way
you expect it to. So I, I grew up in Columbus, OH
in the States and like, like many people, kind of a common
(05:27):
broken complex home. I was a little bit more of a
petty person by nature, kind of live with in my head.
And as a teenager, I could really find no purpose for life.
Looking back now, I would say I was pretty nihilistic really
there. There's no meaning, no purpose.
(05:47):
I was fairly depressed, have just kind of a bleak outlook on
life. And just.
Kind of personally, psychologically, emotionally,
kind of drowning and and my mom wasn't sure what to do and kind
of kind of forced me to check out a a new church, a Wesleyan
(06:07):
Church. And there heard about the
teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. And I remember just thinking,
this describes me, this, this ismy problem.
This is what I need. I need Jesus.
I need his way of life and and pretty quickly after after
(06:27):
converting to the Christian faith, I kind of decided to give
my life to this. If if Jesus is really the Lord
of all, if his way is what we all need.
What would be more meaningful than to give my life to to his
ways and and leading others. And so for me that that looked
(06:48):
like probably pastoral ministry,becoming a pastor, but I also
pretty quickly felt some dissonance in that as much as I
love the church and it's where Ifound Jesus and people cared for
me, I also felt like churches were not a place that were
(07:09):
naturally oriented to answering the questions I was asking or,
or to relate to people that maybe had some more complex
backgrounds. And so also pretty quickly, I
kind of purpose that eventually I wanted to be a church planter.
I wanted to begin a new congregation in particular to
try to connect with people that maybe if they were not at that
(07:33):
church, they were just doing their own thing on Sundays
instead. So I was an associate pastor for
a few years and then I eventually did begin a church in
Eastern Pennsylvania. I was there for 10 years in a
community that was fairly secular or post church, at least
for the states. Kind of rough going for a little
(07:56):
while, but we we kind of figuredout how to be Jesus people there
and had some some great connections.
So God do some interesting things in people's lives.
But over time, people started torecruit me to do some seminars
for pastors, to do some trainingfor ministry leaders started
(08:18):
being asked to teach some some courses in my doctoral ministry
studies. I was the youngest one in my
cohort in my 20s and some older leaders began to ask my thoughts
on various things. My, my mentor, Leonard Sweet,
United Methodist writer and teacher, he started to pull me
(08:40):
aside and say, hey, you should probably do what I'm doing.
You probably should be training pastors.
And then eventually my current seminary kind of recruited me
about a decade ago. I just kind of reached out, hey,
we're not offering you a job, but we have an open position and
we'd, we'd really encourage you to apply for that.
(09:03):
So I've been here full time for the last 10 years.
I oversee our ministry degrees. We have on campus the Master of
Divinity or a Master of Arts in Christian Ministry, and we have
an online degree, an MA in Ministry, Leadership and
Culture. We've had students from all over
the world. Someone just graduated from New
Zealand. This year.
(09:26):
Yes, yes, that's right. So, so that's what I've been
doing the last 10 years. I do a lot of guest preaching in
churches, consulting. I met with the church this
morning doing some consulting work with them, another one
tomorrow. But I have the privilege of of
teaching students that are from all sorts of different
(09:47):
denominations. And one of the real joys of
living in Fresno, CA is it's it's one of the more diverse
cities in the US. I really resonate with your
thought about you had a lot of questions that weren't always
appreciated. I, I gave my pastors,
particularly in the early years,such a hard time because I was
(10:08):
like, what about this and what about that?
And you sure about this. I, I, I always wanted to know
and learn and sometimes I found that there's not a lot of space
for that, which is unfortunate. So I think often we find
ourselves in theological institutions at that point and
the joy of actually exploring that.
Well, well, yes. And, and to be fair to the
(10:31):
leaders of that, that first church and, and actually mentors
I've had all throughout my life,I felt that they welcomed my
questions. But you know, the typical pastor
is not really trained to have a little budding intellectual
asking all sorts of questions all the time.
And, and, and, and that makes sense, but I also really feel,
(10:56):
at least in the States, there's real tension that a number of
ministry leaders were kind of a trained to assume that people
were more or less culturally Christian.
Maybe they were living it, maybethey were not.
Maybe they personally had given themselves to Jesus, maybe not,
(11:16):
but they they basically know theChristian story.
They basically respect it. They're familiar with the Bible,
basic Christian beliefs that that is rapidly changing.
And I think maybe myself and some others like me were maybe
(11:36):
an earlier movement of that. And for people that did not grow
up in the church, the questions are just radically different.
It's interesting. Problems, etcetera.
Yeah, it's interesting you say that.
When I started God Conversations15 years ago, I took a part time
job teaching religious studies in the secondary private school.
(11:57):
And I'll never forget this 15 year old boy coming up to me and
he used to watch, you know, The History Channel and the National
Geographic Channel on TV. And he came up to me and said,
old Miss Harris, you don't really believe that they were
able to put every single speciesof animal into a boat, do you?
(12:18):
And I looked at him and I thought my first thought was,
oh, my gosh, I've never even thought about that question
because. And I, you're absolutely right,
because I had just growing up ina Christian tradition, we had
just accepted it. You know, we had the Noah's Ark
story and I and it never occurred to me to ask that
(12:40):
question. And it threw me a little bit.
I think you're absolutely right.There are very different
questions. And I'm, I, I think that the
beauty of the gifting that you have is the curiosity and the
desire to learn and explore. I think that is a gift to the
church and to the world because we need to be able to embrace
(13:01):
the unknown and to allow space to explore that, don't we?
But the the reason why we connected, at least Brian, what
I was super interested is we hada conversation around hearing
the voice of God and the Holy Spirit and what it means to
connect with God. So can you tell us a little bit
(13:21):
of your own journey with the Holy Spirit?
Yeah, and and I fully admit I don't, I don't claim to always
be able to discern the voice of God.
And this is still kind of a kindof a feeling out experience, if
you will, of, of discerning whatGod is up to or what God is
(13:44):
communicating to us. But, but like I said, I don't
know if it's DNA, the way God made me, etcetera.
But I've always been someone who's kind of lived in my head
by by nature thinking through things, deeply, questioning
them, probably a natural personality that's relatively
(14:06):
sceptical. And so even after my conversion
experience and moving into ministry and being very
committed to Jesus, I would say I've largely through much of my
life related to the divine intellectually, which doesn't
(14:28):
mean that there isn't that it's not practical or personal, but
I'm intellectual by nature. And so that's where, you know,
God as an incarnational being meets us where we are.
Think that's where God's met me.So sometimes you might hear
people say things like Christianity is not a
(14:49):
philosophy, it's a relationship.And I know what people mean by
that, but I would always say what's wrong with it as a
philosophy, because I've found that compelling and, and a
source of meaning and what and what's drew me in but a, a
number of years ago. So my, so I've always believed
(15:09):
in the Holy Spirit part of the Trinity.
Maybe when I'm convicted of sin,that's the Spirit working in my
life, etcetera. But a number of years ago, one
of my very good friends was justkind of a throwaway line, but we
were in conversation and he said, you know, Brian, it's been
a little while since I've heard you talk about what God's doing
(15:30):
in your life. And and then he and then he just
kept moving on. But I guess that would be the
Holy Spirit. I took that as, yeah, I'm kind
of spiritually dry at the moment.
I'm not not the best place. And so I just committed, you
know, starting the next day, some classic spiritual
(15:50):
practises, meditating on the Bible, active prayer, I'm just
really going to commit myself to, but also a contemplative
prayer, which I'm sure many of your listeners are familiar
with. But it's a, an ancient spiritual
practise of just sitting silently, not asking God for
things, doing their best to not think about anything other than
(16:14):
the presence of God, other than God being with us.
And I, I had heard people talk about that I, you know, once or
twice, but said, I'm going to commit myself to this every day
for like the next month. And so I began to do that, and
nothing unusual would happen fora little while and would go
(16:35):
about my day and felt like God was bringing up some issues in
my life throughout the day. But after a few weeks, I began
to have experiences that I've never had before.
I began to, yeah, I experiences that I do not have words for
(16:57):
that surprised me that I did notexpect that I did not have
categories for. I found them compelling.
I found them often beautiful. And when it be became much more
strong, I talked to a couple of friends and some of them began
(17:17):
to say, hey, you know, academicstalk about mysticism or
contemplation, but some of us charismatics or Pentecostals
would say you're experiencing the Holy Spirit or maybe even
being baptised by the Holy Spirit.
And that was maybe kind of the first time where I was like, oh,
this, this is what Pentecostals and Charismatics talk about.
(17:42):
And, and I fully admit that I think my experiences maybe from
my background, personality, etcetera, I still probably view
these experiences maybe a littledifferently than the typical
Pentecostal or Charismatic. But I began to say like, oh,
there, there's this whole other tradition of Christian faith
(18:05):
that I've known very little about and and frankly probably
considered just people being deeply in their feels, honestly.
That. That I began to say, Oh no,
there's there's really somethinghere.
And and I've continued to find this, this way of knowing God,
very compelling. That is such an interesting
(18:27):
journey, Brian. I, I, I really do relate to you
over the intellectual connectionwith God because that was my
experience too. And I had a similar
confrontation, I think with a, with a friend who seemed to
experience God very differently.And I was intrigued and super,
super curious. So I wanted to go there, but
(18:48):
it's interesting to me that there are certain, it would seem
personality types that find thiskind of realm easier, if you
like, since come across the workof neurologists and
neuroscientists that say they'vedone studies around this.
And it seems that creative, musical, artistic types have a
(19:12):
different capacity to sense things spiritually and that
there's actually a part of the brain that lights up and they've
called it the God spot. I think, you know, for me, it's
always been an interesting journey that I am involved in a
ministry such as this because I,I relate to the kind of like the
analytical thinking, intellectual part.
(19:34):
I'm not your natural sensory part.
A friend of mine, she wrote a book, Maria Mason, we had her on
the podcast recently about highly sensitive people.
And it's actually a psychological term that there
are what, 15% of the population that seem to sense things more
deeply. But perhaps that's what you are
(19:58):
entering into that space a little bit more.
You know God's awakening that a little bit.
I I think about Thomas Aquinas, apparently his story, he's a he
was a mediaeval theologian that shaped much of our thinking.
And towards the end of his life,he has this experience with the
spirit and he stops writing and he says all that I've written is
(20:21):
a straw compared to So how? How do we?
So obviously it would seem that there are people who are
naturally inclined towards spiritual sensory experiences.
What does that mean for people who are not that way inclined?
What would be your comments on that?
Yeah, interesting. You bring up Aquinas.
(20:42):
I'm I'm about halfway reading through the Summa Theologica
right now, so I still I'm. Not going to light reading for
you bro. I'm going slowly but.
A lot of. Brilliance there.
Yeah. Well, I do think there is
something to, you know, what we call personality or the way
(21:05):
people are wired. And if it's true that that God
not only created all people on all things, but as the ground of
all being, he, he permeates all people on all things and yet is
larger, then as human beings we are all small and finite and we
all are made in the image of God, which I interpret that as
(21:28):
we all represent something of God's likeness.
But it takes everyone who's everlived throughout the history of
the world to begin to represent God and all of God's fullness.
And if that's true, I think it it's fine.
It's OK. It should be expected that all
(21:48):
of us will relate to God in different ways.
And for some people it might be through active helping other
people, using their body to serve, meet needs, show mercy,
do justice. For others that might be kind of
intellectual inquiry. For others that might be through
some kind of prayer or worship experience.
(22:11):
And we probably all need a bit of all of these different ways
of relating to God, but I think it makes sense that some of us
would be more naturally inclinedto to some approaches to
spirituality than others. But with that being said, going
back to thinking of some of the Greeks, like if we go to
(22:34):
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, obviously not Christian, living
a few centuries before Jesus, but the early church very much
drew from them. If you read any Plato, to a
certain degree Aristotle, but certainly Plato, you will see
that all of our writers in the New Testament are, are quoting
(22:57):
them if if they haven't read Plato directly, their teachers
have. I mean, there, there's parables
of Jesus that we find in Plato very much drawing on these
sources. Some even referred to them as as
Christians before Christ. I don't know if that's true but
but that's how the early church thought of them.
(23:17):
And Plato and Aristotle I was taught in school they were kind
of like proto rationalists. They were these deeply logical,
analytical thinkers before the Enlightenment, obviously way
before. But as I have read Plato and
some of Aristotle, I would describe them a little bit more
(23:39):
as spiritualists in their culture.
And that Plato's Academy, reallythe first Western university
would be more like how we would think of as as a monastery than
just like a state modern university.
So there's, there's reading, there's thinking, there's
discourse, but there's also spiritual practises and fasting
(24:03):
and, and maybe even times of service.
And Plato has this strong emphasis on one's character or
integrity or virtue or lack thereof, helps one to think
clearly or not. And so drawing on these early
Greek sources and then into the early and mediaeval church,
(24:24):
there's always been a sense thatto be a fully committed
disciple, that we need both of these parts.
We need kind of rational discourse, thinking deeply, the
teaching, the tradition, the creeds, the the doctors of the
church, the primary theologians.But we also need like, like
(24:47):
Aquinas later in his life, we also need these experiences with
the Spirit that are personal andbeyond comprehension and
mysterious and that we, we struggle to put words to that,
that we need both of them in many ways.
And so I, I think we can get there if we desire to, to see
(25:12):
kind of these, these different approaches to knowing God.
It would make sense, wouldn't it?
Because God created our minds and the ability to think and the
ability to theologize. And I love what you said, that
we're all different and the bodyof Christ in all its beauty and
its diversity needs to help one another.
We are talking with Professor Ryan Ross from Fresno Pacific
(25:35):
Biblical Seminary, Fascinating conversation.
We will be back in just a moment.
Hearing God's voice is one of the most important ways we get
to know God, yet so many fail toexperience it.
Here at God Conversations, we'recommitted to equipping people
all over the world to recognise and respond to God's voice.
(25:56):
It's a big vision, so we'd like to give you the opportunity to
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Well, your thoughts are thought provoking, Brian.
I, I am. I'm just wondering as, as we
talk about this in your own life, for how did your spiritual
experiences impact you? How did it impact your thinking?
(26:40):
Did it change anything? Yeah, that's, that's a great
question. And again, I think if we're
talking about spiritual experiences, many of them are
beyond words or maybe even beyond our mental category.
So it's, it's kind of hard to say how it changes your thinking
(27:04):
other than to say, I think one of the benefits of being open to
spiritual experiences is we're kind of reminded viscerally that
there's much more to reality than what we see or understand
or control. And it's interesting to me that
(27:28):
in the Bible we have lots of genre of writing.
We have plenty biblical figures that are complex and flawed and
have all their struggles and relate to God in different ways
and question God and complain toGod and and have lament,
etcetera. But I also think in the Bible
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that we see post the resurrection of Jesus, there is
a confidence in the early Christian leaders that we did
not see before. Even this sense of you can
threaten me, you can throw me inprison, you can beat me, you can
kill me and we will just rejoicethat we can suffer for Christ
(28:12):
for for the way. Now what?
What would lead them to that? Well, again, they encountered
the risen Christ which which displayed to them that this one
who represents God, who is sent from God, who is God in the
flesh, that even if the worst thing happens to him, he still
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vindicated that that God and God's power and God's ways and
God's spirit is stronger than any any material thing or or any
person in our physical world. And that that gave them this
boldness. And I think part of what happens
is we open ourselves to spiritual experiences we don't
(28:56):
know fully. We see through a glass darkly.
That's Paul again quoting Plato.No.
Is that quoting Plato? Oh, yes.
Yes. Oh.
Yes. But as as we do that, we begin
to sense there's more going on than we know, which can give us
(29:18):
a sense of contentment, a sense of even if things are not OK
eventually, ultimately things are OK.
That we are free to give and serve and love people, even if
it's a little risky. Because ultimately ultimate
reality is founded on this, on goodness and truth and beauty
(29:42):
and love in the way of Jesus. So I don't know how my thinking
has changed, but maybe I would say in the best moment,
certainly not all the time. I'm just reminded that there's a
whole bunch more going on than Isee, and am regularly reminded
(30:03):
that my thoughts are very small attempts at trying to understand
things that I cannot fully understand.
Which also maybe turns down someof the thoughts running in the
brain all the time, if that makes sense.
Yeah, it does. I think of conviction that's
(30:25):
that's a shit. And and then things like
humility and you mentioned contentment.
The, the, the big shift I noticed in my experience before
experiencing the Spirit, before hearing God's voice and after it
is that I had more emotions around my spiritual life.
So it actually felt real to me. I had a lot more joy and it felt
(30:49):
tangible to me and connecting meperhaps with that ultimate
reality that you're talking about.
And that's the difference. And, and then the intellectual
side was what the heck happened?What was that?
And then I'm going back to the Bible and going, what difference
did it make for them? So I, I, I really can relate to
(31:11):
that. You talked about spiritual
disciplines were significant foryou.
And I think in the US, when I was over there, I was visiting a
church. They were about to engage in
John, Mark comas, Practising theWay, which is kind of a tool for
developing spiritual disciplines.
We talk about prayer, Bible reading, service fasting,
(31:33):
Sabbath meditation. There's nine of them, but you
said that's what you started to to practise in your own life as
a means of kind of connecting more with God.
What do you think is this connection between the spiritual
disciplines and the revelation of the Spirit?
Oh well. Again, if, if God is the creator
(31:56):
and sustainer of all things, Godcan and does show up in all
sorts of ways in our lives that we don't plan or that we don't
expect. But at the same time, I think I
agree with the late Dallas Willard that the classical
spiritual disciplines are the practical means by how we open
(32:19):
ourselves to the Spirit, where he, you know, he would be fond
of saying we don't, we don't earn the grace and love of God.
But it normally does require effort, not for earning, but but
to open ourselves to, to engage the, the Spirit of God.
(32:40):
And so, yeah, I think the, the classical practises, they don't
make us more godly. Practising them by themselves
does not make us a better person, if you will.
But they tend to be the means ofturning down our own thoughts,
of turning down some of our own personal desires, and being open
(33:03):
to hear from God and receive from God.
One of the things that historical spiritual masters
have always made clear that our biggest problem is our own
desires, our own ambitions, our own thoughts and contemplative
prayer or fasting or active worship or active service or
(33:27):
giving thanks. All of these classical practises
in one way or another have a wayof helping us to again kind of
turn down the volume of what is going on in our own mental space
or our own hopes and goals and, and to be open to, to different
experiences or, or different encounters with reality.
(33:52):
I think that's a a brilliant explanation.
I often talk about it with God conversations that we hear God's
voice through the eyes of our heart and it's that posture.
But then that posture expresses itself in action in some sort of
way. We humans, we need some
structures around that, don't we?
We need, OK, this is my prayer time, my worship time, my
(34:15):
fasting time, my meditation time, whatever that might be.
So you're right, those things are not, we're not working to
gain God's vindication, God's pleasure.
We have that, but it's creating.It's creating space, isn't it?
Yeah. I love that it's helping.
It's taking off the blinders from us to be able to see what
(34:38):
what is really real. I also, I really like that
phrase you use there, Tanya, about our posture because the
other thing with spiritual practises, I again, I agree with
Willard. I think these are the means by
how we connect with the Spirit, but we have to have the inner
posture of being open. We have to come to them with a
(35:02):
desire of I don't fully know. I don't exactly know what I
need. I don't know what kind of
changes God needs to do within me, but I am open.
And that is something that we, we can't make other people have
that posture. And when we, we try to, we do
ugly, terrible things as religious leaders.
(35:25):
But that is kind of an individual choice all of us have
because we can use prayer or fasting or worship and still be
focused on our goals or what we want or how do we have power or
influence or control over other people.
But we have to come with that posture of an open, no matter
what the Lord may have for me. Oh, that is a brilliant
(35:48):
observation completely agree with you and perhaps the
intellectual mindset that's always curious and wanting to
learn is conducive to the heart towards God going speak to me.
You know, I, I think about the apostle Paul who was a brilliant
man and at the end of his life, the words in Philippians 3 that
I may know Christ well, he already did.
(36:09):
Hasn't his whole life has been that, but he's still showing
this incredible humility and openness and cure.
I want to know God. He's still he's still pursuing
and perhaps the spiritual disciplines are a form of saying
I'm pursuing you, God, I'm seeking your Kingdom first.
I love that. I think that's exactly right.
(36:30):
Looking back at your journey andthe ongoing journey, Brian, it's
so brilliant to have your insight and and wisdom.
What would you say to someone, perhaps to your younger self or
someone who hasn't had those kind of experiences of the
spirit? What advice would you give them
past or early at this point? Yeah, great question.
(36:55):
And again, I don't think we all need to have the same kind of
experiences and we are only ready when we are ready.
So how I tend to offer a little counsel, particularly the again
to the average person or maybe or maybe has not grown up in the
church and all this is new. How we know that God is at work
(37:20):
in our life where we meet God isnot simply by being religious or
being at church necessarily, butthe God encounter always brings
always takes us deeper into what's beautiful and good and
true and loving on the inside. Whereas Christians we we use the
term fruit of the spirit. How do you know the spirits at
(37:42):
work? It's not because you had an
amazing experience. It's not because you had power.
It's you are seeing the fruit orthe character of Jesus coming
out of you. So my encouragement to people is
whatever you engage, whatever activity or experience you have,
where afterwards you feel more thankful for your life as it is
(38:06):
and you feel more motivation to care for people that you
disagree with, whatever that is,intentionally spend more time
with it because that's the placewhere you encounter God.
And depending on our culture or background or personality or
life story there, there are 1,000,000 different ways where
(38:27):
people might encounter God and and that probably changes over
different stages of our life. So that's my counsel.
What activity do you engage in where afterwards you're thankful
for your life as it is and you're more motivated to care
for people that you disagree with?
Just keep pursuing that and thatwill pry open more and more
(38:49):
things over time. Brilliant.
I love how you pointed us to theoutcomes that the Spirit
produces. The free to the Spirit.
The Spirit makes us more like Jesus.
I think that's profound. Well, thank you so much, Brian,
for giving up your time in the in the midst of a very busy
(39:09):
schedule. Thank you for your insights and
wisdom, and we so appreciate hearing from your story.
Anyone who's in the US is looking for a great degree, you
can jump on the Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary Seminary
website. Did I get that right, Brian?
Yes. And well, and I want to say they
don't have to be in the States. We do have an online degree, the
(39:32):
MA and ministry leadership and culture, actually partnering
with Rich Velottis, now from NewYork City, and Jay Pathic, who
leads to Vineyard Church in the US They're having some
involvement with our programmes.So we do have an online
programme that would be available to people all over the
world. When you get to learn from
(39:54):
brilliant intellectuals and followers of Jesus like Brian,
isn't that right? Or, like Rich and Jay, I would.
Say yes. Thank you again so much for your
time, Brian. It's been an absolute joy to
have you on God conversations. Thank you, Tanya.
This has been great. Thanks for listening to God
Conversations with Tanya Harris.Don't miss the next episode by
(40:14):
subscribing to the show on your favourite podcast.
And remember, the Holy Spirit was given so we could all hear
God's voice. It was never meant to be a one
way conversation.
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