Ep. 352 Heath Hardesty - How Apprenticeship to Jesus Is the Way of Flourishing in a Fragmented World
October 14, 2025 • 57 mins
We live in what Heath Hardesty calls the age of disintegration - a world marked by fragmentation, distraction, and disconnection. I feel that deeply. So many of us are trying to hold our lives together in a culture that constantly pulls us apart. In this conversation, Heath joins me to talk about how apprenticeship to Jesus offers another way - a way toward coherence, union, and wholeness. Heath is a pastor in the Bay Area and the author of All Things Together: How Apprenticeship to Jesus Is the Way of Flourishing in a Fragmented World. We talk about what it means to move beyond simply knowing about Jesus to actually living with Him - to abide, obey, and become people who image His love in a fractured world. We explore practices like unhurried presence and compassionate gentleness, and how they reveal a kind of power that’s rooted not in control, but in love. If you’ve felt scattered, weary, or disoriented in your faith, this episode is an invitation to slow down, breathe, and remember that in Christ, all things hold together.
Heath Hardesty is the author of All Things Together: How Apprenticeship to Jesus is the Way of Flourishing in a Fragmented World (WaterBrook; on sale 10/14/25) and he serves as the lead pastor of Valley Community Church and is the founder of Inklings Coffee & Tea in the heart of downtown Pleasanton, California. Heath grew up in a blue-collar home and was a plumber’s apprentice in Colorado before becoming a pastor on the edge of Silicon Valley where he, his wife, and four kids now reside. He holds degrees in literature, leadership, biblical studies, and theology from the University of Colorado Boulder and Western Seminary in Portland. Visit him on IG@heathhardesty
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Heath Hardesty (00:00):
You know, our problem is not that we just
(00:01):
don't go to church enough, oraren't, you know, just don't
stop doing this or stop doingthat. Our problem is that that
our existence, our being, isdisconnected from the only fount
of everything good, beautifuland true and and if we try to
fix ourself without that union,we're only going to fracture
(00:23):
more and more and more.
Joshua Johnson (00:39):
Hello and welcome to the shift in culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, did you
know our world feelsincreasingly disjointed,
disenchanted, disconnected anddisembodied? We scroll through
chaos, piecing togetherfragments of truth, beauty and
(01:01):
meaning, and yet still feelthin, weary and divided. In this
episode, I talk with Heath,Hardesty, pastor and author of
all things together, howapprenticeship to Jesus is the
Way of flourishing in afragmented world, Heath invites
us to recover the wholenesswe've lost, not by trying harder
or fixing ourselves, but byrediscovering the life that
(01:22):
coheres in Christ, we talk aboutwhat it means to move beyond
information about Jesus toapprenticeship with him. We
explore how union with Christheals our divided selves, how
practices like unhearingpresence and compassionate
gentleness become countercultural acts of power, and how
the biblical story reframes ourfractured reality into one of
(01:44):
integration, delight and love.
If you felt the weight ofdisintegration in your own soul
or the pace of a world spinningfaster than you can hold it,
this conversation is aninvitation to slow down, breathe
and remember that in Him, allthings hold together. So join
us. Here is my conversation withHeath. Hardesty Heath, welcome
to shifting culture. Excited tohave you on. Thanks for joining
(02:08):
me.
Heath Hardesty (02:09):
Glad to be here.
Joshua, thanks for having me.
I'd love to talk a little bit
Joshua Johnson (02:13):
about apprenticeship to Jesus and your
your paradigm at the core of thebook is you're talking about
union to Jesus, going intoabiding and obeying Him, and
then imaging Jesus to the worldas part of our our core way to
move into this world offragmentation that you talk
(02:33):
about, into a place where it'smore holistic and whole, and we
want to integrate take us to thebeginning. Where does
apprenticeship come in? Why areyou talking about apprenticeship
to Jesus? What is that word foryou?
Heath Hardesty (02:47):
So quick back story, which is kind of the the
genealogy of my my interest inthis. So I'm a pastor now in
California. I've been here forabout 15 years in the Bay Area.
But before I was a pastor, I wasactually a plumber. So my father
is a master plumber, and so Igrew up in a blue collar home. I
(03:08):
grew up vowing that I wouldnever be a plumber. And life,
you know, you know, threw mesome curve balls. And I
eventually, yeah, I became aplumber, a plumber's apprentice,
rather. And you know, those wereyears that it when I was in
them, I was not super happyabout them, because I just never
thought that's where my life wasgoing. I didn't feel like it was
(03:29):
my skill set. But now, lookingback, I'm so thankful for those
years. And there's a story inthe book about a mentor of mine,
a Pastor Tom hover, who kind ofleaned into me one day and said,
You're complaining about thisstuff, but God's doing something
in you through this, and you'lllook back on it. And sure
enough, Pastor Tom was right. SoI learned a lot about
(03:51):
apprenticeship through thoseyears, and it was a special kind
of apprenticeship, because itwas my father who was a master
plumber. So there was a familialrelationship there as well. But
moving on from that periodreally quickly, you know, and
stepping into being a greenpastor here in Silicon Valley,
(04:12):
trying to figure out how to helppeople live a fully embodied
faith. And then over the years,just seeing the fragmentary
nature, not only of the world inwhich we live, but of people's
understandings of the faith,just kind of piecemealing it,
putting together these theselittle fragments and bits and
(04:32):
pieces, and trying to figure outhow to walk it out and in often
reductive ways, I wanted to findA way to talk about following
Jesus that was just deeplycohesive, that was that was
coherent, that had an accessiblestory, a way of imagining it and
then a way of walking it out, away of inhabiting this world.
(04:54):
So, so, yeah, you could say thatthe origin of, like, why I wrote
this book, why. To talk aboutapprenticeship. Well, it's
partly because I was a plumber.
It's partly because I'm apastor, and then I think
ultimately it's because Ibelieve it's the essence of
following Jesus, that there's noChristianity without union to
him, and true union will lead toa life of abiding with him, a
(05:19):
life of obeying, not perfectlyin any way, shape or form, but
through progressivesanctification, learning,
growing, taking on his wisdomand walking in his ways, and
then ultimately, yeah, imaginghim and looking more and more
like Him, being conformed to Hisimage, as Paul says in
Corinthians.
Joshua Johnson (05:40):
I think a lot of us, if we're looking at
discipleship to Jesus, I thinkthe an old paradigm is, you
know, is classroom knowledge.
You know, we're going to get theright information about Jesus,
and that means we're going tothen start to be discipled to
him, because we have the rightinformation. And that's part of
it. We need the rightinformation. But then the right
(06:02):
information throughapprenticeship feels a little
bit different. I mean, you seethis in like Paul and
relationship with Timothy.
Second, Timothy two, two, thethings you've heard me say in
the presence of many witnesses,teach to reliable people who
also be able to teach others,meaning that Timothy has been
with Paul as an apprentice, hasbeen walking alongside of him
(06:26):
for a couple of years, and then,you know, things will then start
to multiply. How did you movefrom like getting the right
information about Jesus intobeing apprenticed to who he is
and what he does?
Heath Hardesty (06:43):
Yeah, great, great question. So the pieces
kind of came together over overthe years, because, yeah, you're
right. It's not justinformation, and that's part of
the reductionistic way of ourculture, part of the fragmentary
nature of it is we reduceourselves, you know, to like
what James K Smith is called,like brains on a stick, right
(07:04):
that, and then if we justdownload the right information,
we'll be okay. But that's that'snot a holistic understanding of
the human being. So basically,what happened at one point I
tell the story in the book is Ifound myself under under a sink
laughing after we bought ourhome here in Livermore,
California, we gutted it, and Iwas reworking a number of
(07:27):
things, and I'm laying under thesink in the bathroom downstairs,
and it just it hit me, like thepieces kind of came together.
And it wasn't the water orfalling sink part that hit me,
but it was the realization.
Thought was like, oh mygoodness, like, I've become my
dad, or rather, I've become likemy dad. Because I was, I was
(07:47):
holding a crescent wrench layingon my back, turning a faucet,
and I was painted orange. My dadalways painted the tools orange
so he wouldn't lose them in aditch or a vault or a crawl
space. And it was the samebrand. It was the same paint
color, and I was turning thewrench the way I saw him do it
1000 times. And so here I am,like, 10 years removed from
plumbing at that point, and, youknow, hundreds of miles away,
(08:11):
and I'm like, oh my goodness,here I am. I'm imaging the
master. The pieces just startedto fall together. Where I
realized, you know, I had knownfor a long time, it was far more
than information, and it neededto be fully embodied faith. But
how, you know, how does a storystring together? What's the
narrative? What doesapprenticeship really look like?
And and so, yeah, like, well,I'm looking like my dad now, all
(08:34):
these years later, because Ihave muscle memory. I learned to
do the things that he did,because I had this new orienting
relationship with him calledapprenticeship. I was abiding
with him. I was in the plumbingtruck with him daily. I was, you
know, in the bathrooms, in thecrawl spaces, in the vaults. And
then he put the wrench in myhand and said, You do it. And
(08:55):
then it watched me. Things wouldfall apart, and I'd rework it
until it got into my musclememory. And so that's that's
somewhat of how it came, cametogether, and that's why our
faith isn't just meant to beintellectual alone. I'm all for
the the life of the mind. Weshouldn't check our heads at the
sanctuary door. We should bethinking people, but we're an
(09:17):
embodied being and andinformation gets encoded into us
physically. So there's a lotthat's caught, but there's also
a lot that's that's taught. Andso Jesus says, Come and see, and
then you'll, you know, do thethings that I'll do. And so we,
we need to then live into whathe teaches, not just have some
mental reflection.
Joshua Johnson (09:41):
Talked about embodied faith, like we want to
embody the ways of Jesus in thisworld. And you've also talked
about fragmentation already sofar, and we're like, eight
minutes in. And so these are thethings that we want to diagnose.
What is the world? Why is it? Isit fragmented? Are there? Are
heaps of broken images allaround like, what does it look
(10:05):
like? What's the world like? Andbecause it, if it is, it seems
to be hard to move about intosiloed images in this world. So,
Heath Hardesty (10:18):
yeah, yeah.
Well, I do believe we live inwhat I would call the age of
disintegration. You know,there's always some kind of age.
People are always putting a nameto it, Age of authenticity, you
know, you know, the industrialage, Information Age. But there,
there is something I believethat is is unique to this, this
time period that we live in, andI would call it the age of
(10:39):
disintegration. And so I canexplain that. I'll try in brief.
There's, there's six differentways I try to talk about the age
of disintegration in the book.
And that's, that's disenchanted,dissociated, disc
contextualized, dislocated,disembodied and disconnected. So
(11:00):
it's a super happy, fun list.
But in short, we live in an agewhich you could call
disenchanted, you know. So welive in response to, you know,
decades, a century, of secularforces that have tried to say
there's, there's no God, ortried to exercise God from the
world, and so reducing the worldto just what is in the
(11:24):
mechanical forces, right? And sowe've exercised God from the
world. We've disenchanted theworld, yet we were still like
trying to cling to transcendentthings, because our hearts are
designed for eternity. So it'sdisenchanted in that way, and
then we become dissociatedbecause we are spiritually we
are spiritual beings, fullyembodied beings, and we're
(11:49):
designed for union with thisGod. But if we say now we're
done with you, it's going tocreate inherent tensions with
us, so we can't even be okay inour own skin, because we've
broken the the most importantcore relationship of our life,
and so we're dissociated. Inthat sense, we're kind of like,
(12:09):
like Voldemort and Harry Potter,you know, who in in murdering in
order to, like, maintain his ownkingdom and live forever. He
actually fractures his soul. So,so that's the dissociation. Then
there's the discontextualized Welive in a world that's radically
discontentualized from the thetechnology and the social media
(12:30):
flood that we swim in. And I saydis contextualized, not not just
decontextualized, becausedecontextualized means, yeah,
you're taking something out ofits place. You're pulling it
out. You're pulling it out ofsocket. But discontextualized is
what I'm trying to get at. Isnot only do we think take things
out of their place, but then wesituate them in other places, in
(12:50):
incongruent and kind ofnightmarish ways, kind of like
Frank and stinian ways, youknow, where we're putting
together pieces in a corpse,like way and and that's a
desacralization of the world. Sohere's a quick way of like,
explaining, like, you hop onyour social media feed, right,
and you see an ad for some someAir Jordans, and then right next
(13:13):
to that, there's an ad for somekind of medication, and then
there's, there's a pornographicimage, and then there's an image
of a friend at Disneyland havinga great time, and then there's a
verse from lamentations, right?
And all these things are juststrung together and and these,
it's like, it's like lookingthrough glasses that were made
(13:35):
up of 1000 different shatteredprescriptions put together. The
proportions gone, the context isgone. And so you're combining
trivialities and traumaticthings and beautiful things and
terrible things in a hodgepodgeway that's catechizing us,
teaching us that this world ischaos and that there's no true
(13:57):
order in it. So that's justcontextualized. I'll be brief on
these next ones. Dislocatedliving primarily is like digital
natives. Now, you know, we're sodisconnected from the place in
which we live like we'll, we'llknow more about a coup in some
other country than we'll knowabout our local government,
(14:17):
because we're just taking instuff from all over the world.
So we're very unrooted, less andless analog, more and more
digital. We're kind ofeverywhere. We're on our phones,
being everywhere. We're nowhere,and then disembodied. The
ideologies of our age, thecultural forces have have put
forward that you know, the humanbeing is just kind of who you
(14:42):
are inside, and the body isbasically organic, plastic that
we can do with what we will. Andit's not truly who we are. But
the Christian faith is anHebraic thought, if you go back
to Old Testament, it's just aearthy like really embodied
faith, that the body is a giftfrom. God, and it's not just to
be shed and done away with. It'sactually to rise and and have
(15:04):
eternal life, you know, andwe're to be fully integrated in
that sense. And lastly,disconnected through the social
breakdown, through familybreakdown, through attachment
bonds breaking down, we'vebecome more and more isolated
and living more and more livesdigitally and separated. So So I
(15:25):
do believe our age has thisunique hyper fracturing. Sin is
a constant. There always wassin. There's still sin. The
human heart was a problem backthen. It's now, but it's like
it's plugged into an amplifier,and it's created this feedback
loop that's creating greatdamage.
Joshua Johnson (15:41):
So what do we do about it? Like
Heath Hardesty (15:45):
question,
Joshua Johnson (15:47):
because I mean that, I mean not a happy list,
right? Really difficult worldthat we live in. It's a hard
world if I'm if discontextualized, I'm not rooted
to where I am. I don't know howto embody my faith. I don't know
how to actually be with peoplein real life anymore in
(16:09):
community. Is there a solutionto bring us into a place where
we can be rooted and we can beembodied and we can actually re
integrate our lives?
Heath Hardesty (16:24):
Yeah, you know, there's no push button, you know
solution, but there is a grand,a grand story of redemption from
this, from this fragmentationthat be began way back when the
garden went dark. So the answerhere is union with Jesus, that
the subtitle the book is howapprenticeship to Jesus is a way
(16:47):
of flourishing in a fragmentedworld. You know, Colossians,
chapter one has this brilliantpassage. Colossians, 115,
through 20. And a chunk of it, apiece of it, says that all
things were created through Himand He is before all things and
in Him, all things holdtogether. So that's the core.
That's where this idea camefrom. Scripturally, that Greek
(17:08):
could be translated all thingscohere in Christ. And so the
solution, the answer, is that inthis fragmentation, in this
condition of sin and entropy andthings breaking down. What what
needs to happen is we need tobecome more more truly human. We
need to, as image bearers ofGod, follow, follow this Jesus,
(17:33):
being united to him, let hisspirit rework us from the inside
out and conform us to his image.
And what I would say is thatit's only in relationship with
him that the outward, flyingfragments of our lives can
actually cohere. So yes,apprenticeship is is the way,
and by that, I don't mean usdoing stuff. I mean us entering
(17:56):
into the intended humancondition of relationship with
our Creator, being with him,dwelling with him, enjoying him,
delighting in him, and thenliving in accordance with
reality, doing what he says, andthen growing more and more like
him. The two basic ways thatthis happens, if you were to try
(18:18):
to simplify it, which I try todo in the in the book, is first
it's to re imagine the world andreimagine what apprenticeship is
to re see the world like we'restoried creatures. We stories
help us take all the bits andpieces and hold them together.
So I believe one of the thingsthat we need to do is help
(18:39):
people to re see the world. AndJesus did this all the all the
time. It's It's amazing. And inthe first part of the gospel,
John the words see and look andbehold are there, just over and
over and over and over again.
And Jesus invites the newdisciples to come and see, right
(18:59):
to come and see he's going to beabout the work of re teaching
them how to envision reality andthen how to then inhabit that
reality. So if we can envisionreality in this cohesive way,
understanding the scripturalnarrative, the drama of
redemption, what it means tofollow this Jesus, not just have
some data about him, then we caninhabit the world in a different
(19:24):
way. So short answer, it's awhole lifelong process that's
born of grace, that's empoweredby grace, and he's at work
changing us bit by bit.
Joshua Johnson (19:35):
I think that's helpful, is the reimagination
and reimagining the world of theway that it truly is. You talked
about like walking into thereality of life. I think that we
when we perceive what's on thesurface of things and this
fragmented world, I think thatmost people believe that that is
(19:57):
reality like that is how theworld is. Really is and how God
actually designed the world. Butyou're saying that as that's
actually a false perception ofthe world on the surface is like
that, but God's intention anddesign is different. It's
integrated, it's whole, yes, andso I think that reimagination
(20:19):
and perceiving the worlddifferently as God intended it
to be is going to be reallyhelpful for people. Can you help
me? What does that look like, toreimagine, re image the world,
perceive how the world is inreality,
Heath Hardesty (20:37):
a piece of that is understanding the biblical
story doesn't begin in chapterthree of Genesis, right? It
begins in chapter one. Andthat's that's deeply
significant. And what we see inchapter one, chapter two, and
then, you know, and start tofall apart in chapter three, is,
(20:58):
is a good God, a good gardenerwho brings together space and
time and people in his presence,and all those things are bound
up in what you would callshalom, right? Active peace.
Shalom isn't just the absence ofpeople, you know, like bickering
like it's it means fully active.
It's a fully active, robust,thick piece where all the
(21:23):
aspects are working together formutual flourishing, right? So
often, when we think of peace,we define it by the absent or
the negative. It's like badthings are not happening.
Actually, peace is way moreprofound and thick, thick than
that, right? So God's createdthis world of shalom, all things
integrated for for flourishing.
(21:47):
So if we can look at the wholestory again and see what he's
done, and see how all thosepieces come together for our
flourishing and for His glory,and then to see what sin is that
sin is this disruptive,disintegrating force that
dehumanizes human beings andtakes us further and further
(22:07):
away from flourishing, furtheraway from joy, further away from
from Peace. Then that'll help usstart to reframe our main
problem. What is, what is theproblem in this world? Well,
it's, it's exile from God. It'sdisunion from the God that we
are created to be united withand have a flourishing
relationship with. And ourproblem is not that we just
(22:29):
don't go to church enough, oraren't, you know, just don't
stop doing this or stop doingthat. Our problem is that that
our existence, our our being, isdisconnected from the only fount
of everything good, beautifuland true and and if we try to
fix ourself without that union,we're only going to fracture
(22:51):
more and more and more so. Sothat that's a piece of it.
Joshua is, I would say,reframing the story, going back
looking at what the Scripturessay, seeing the scriptures as a
fully integrated narrative thatultimately points us to Jesus
versus just a hodgepodge ofancient wisdom. So seeing how it
(23:11):
points us to Jesus, and thenseeing how Jesus brings us in
from that exile of disunion,overcomes the autonomy of the
self, and then brings us intothe family and restores us and
helps us to love him and andlove others. So it's really a
zoom out to like to reimagine,right? We're zooming back out to
(23:31):
the whole storyline. And onelast thing I would say is that
we would see apprenticeship, notas like something invented, you
know, by the Greeks, you know,or something invented by the
rabbis. But we're seeing it kindof like gravity. It's, it's part
of, part of the principles ofreality, right? That we are
(23:53):
designed to be united to someonewho will be for our flourishing,
who will be with, who will teachus, who will lead us, who will
guide us, and we'll become moreand more like him. So
apprenticeship principles areembedded there in the Garden of
Eden from day one. And I thinkit's destructive, or it's
unhelpful when we start to seelike apprenticeship to Jesus as
(24:18):
like a extra credit or asecondary tier kind of thing,
because what we're saying is wedon't understand the primary
dynamics between the creator andthe creation.
Joshua Johnson (24:28):
Maybe the most helpful thing in my faith, in my
walk with Jesus, has been to doa whole narrative, look at the
story of the Bible and be thensituate myself within the story,
and situate our community andwhere we are in the story, I
think is really important. Whatdoes that big zoom out look like
(24:51):
for people like talk to talk topastors and people within the
church? How do we root people inthe story? In the narrative of
Scripture so that we canactually stand firm and know who
we are and know where we are inthe story, and not just, you
(25:12):
know, be really hyper focused onthis small little piece that's
in front of
Heath Hardesty (25:16):
us. Yeah, well, so this is why I'm a huge
advocate of biblical theology,right? And by biblical theology,
I don't just mean we get ourtheology from the Bible. I mean
the discipline of biblicaltheology, which is different
than systematic and biblicaltheology, is seeing how all, all
the threads Hold, hold together,right? How there's this grand
(25:39):
story of Scripture. One of themy favorite ways of talking
about what Scripture is is thatScripture is the God breathed
humanity, penned story, shapedlibrary that leads us to Jesus
and so as a pastor, one of thethings I'm constantly trying to
do from the pulpit, whetherexplicitly or implicitly while
(26:01):
preaching a passage is, is toshow the context of that passage
is in that the near context, butalso the far context, and then
then the cosmic context, likeand then, and then naturally
weaving in. This is why inExodus, God did this and and
this is why in numbers this so,because it's all of one we've
(26:22):
and so to help people to see theintegrated nature of the
scriptures, which is God's selfrevelation and revealing
himself, then that helps us tosee the integrated nature of
reality that we're living in,and why the disruptions and
fragmentations are so sodamaging and so so ruinous. So
(26:42):
that's one of the things I wouldsay, is to to find ways to help
people see the integrated natureof Scripture, and then to show
how that actually applies to thelife. And doesn't just remain
abstract theology, but that allthese threads leads lead to
Jesus. It has so much impact onour life because it's he's the
(27:03):
only way that we're going to beable to overcome the
depressions, those dark spots inour in our soul, the the
addictions, the the doubts, allthese, all these things that
that harangue us. We're onlygoing to be empowered to enter
further into soul health throughunion with Him. And so truly,
(27:26):
like, we need a savior in everyaspect. So, yeah, so that's I
would start there, like, let's,let's get this bigger story in
our vision, see how it fitstogether, and then live in light
of that. And stories arepowerful, right? They change us.
You know, it's why we go and wewalk. We watch a movie, whatever
new movie it is, and we could behaving a bummer of a day. And
(27:48):
then we watch the hero in thattwo hour time frame, like
overcome things, all the piecescome together. And it's like we
saw a microcosm of how it couldwork, you know? And then we walk
out feeling, feeling empowered.
The difference with this story,with Jesus is it's not just a
fiction. It's the ultimatereality and his spirit that
empowers us to actually walk outour true identity and live
(28:09):
differently.
Joshua Johnson (28:12):
How does this work within a body, the body of
Christ, where we are unified, wehave unity. There's one God,
there's one Lord, one baptism,you know, one church. But then
there is diversity, right? Madeup of different gifts of the
body, made up of different waysthat we move about and
(28:33):
participate in the life of theBody of Christ. What does union
with Christ look like in adiverse body of Christ, so that
we aren't just hyper fixated onour thing, but we could actually
be integrated together?
Heath Hardesty (28:51):
Yeah, that I love that question. So one of
the key practices that that Idiscuss in the book is simply
called life, life together. Andthat's this, can this life of of
deep, rich community that welive in, right? Because the
reality is, if union with Christis the core of what's going on,
(29:15):
being a follower of Jesus, well,if we're united to him, Truly in
spirit, and then you're unitedto him, and she's united to him,
and she's United him, and I'munited to him, then that means
there's we're united to oneanother, because the same spirit
is within us. We are now trulyin the deepest I don't even use,
like, the word mystical here,like most mystical sense that
(29:38):
we're united to him, we'reunited to to each other, so, so
we're a body. This is reflectiveof an indicative of the fact
that we're united to a TriuneGod, right? Not, not a solo God,
not a lonely God, but a God whois one in three, three in one, a
God who was always love, lovingyou. Each other. So we're
(30:01):
invited into that life ofperpetual and mutual delight,
and that's embodied in thisworld as brothers and sisters.
You know, in the church and man.
Do we need each other? You know,how are we to grow? How are we
to practice all the oneanother's that be patient with
one another. You know, longsuffering with one another. Love
one another. How are we to growin those things if we don't
(30:24):
have, you know, finite,frustrating human beings with
their, you know, with theirquirks that frustrate us that
we're sitting next to in the pewand in a small group with, I
would say, like, what we need todo. How does this lived out is
it's lived out slowly over alifetime with a bunch of broken
in process, image bearers whowill get underneath each other's
(30:49):
skin and frustrate the heck outof each other, but they are
image bearers, and we're unitedto them, and the Spirit leads us
in this journey of loving eachother well, to look like Jesus,
who loves us
Joshua Johnson (31:06):
and Jesus loves us perfectly. And I'm gonna go
into John 15. You're talkingabout abiding and obeying.
There's a lot of that in John15, right? If you abide in My
love, you will obey my commands.
If you obey my commands, you'llabide in My love. It's they go
hand in hand fighting andobeying. Something that has
struck me just recently in thelast it's been staying with me
is verse nine in John 15. Itsays, I've loved you. This is
(31:29):
the contemporary Englishversion, I have loved you just
as my Father has loved me. AndI'll get to the second part, but
that thing right there is toknow that I am loved as much as
the Father. Father loves theSon, and that God loves God,
like in that Triune God andJesus loves me like that, like
that changes so much for me.
(31:54):
That is just amazing, the mostamazing thing ever, like that,
that is complete, full love. Andthen in this contemporary
English version, it goes on tosay, so, remain faithful to my
love for you. And I think that'san interesting reframing. Is
like to remain. It says remainin my love in a lot of different
(32:14):
versions, but this one says,remain faithful to my love for
you. And I think that what thatdoes to me is that I now get to
love others. I get to love theother people around me, to
remain faithful to the loveJesus has for me. What does that
do for you? What is it? What doyou think
Heath Hardesty (32:35):
I mean, I love that portion of Scripture. It's
just, it's somehow so earthy andso like heavenly minded at the
same time. It just Yeah. It justmakes me want to take a long
walk and process it for for awhile. It just, it reminds me
again of the fact that to imagehim is to love others, and to
(32:56):
love others is to image him andand will you call that out
abiding and obeying. They'rethey're those two live and
breathe together. It's inhale,it's it's exhale. We're not just
abiding. And there's this movein spiritual formation, and I
love it. It's great to to abidewith him, and it's fantastic
because, yes, we are first thosewho are to be in to dwell with
(33:19):
His presence, yet then we arealso called to obey. And in our
culture, that word obey is notthe, you know, a fun fun. It's
not everyone's favorite word.
We'll just put it. Put it thatway, but there's nothing.
There's that's the truestfreedom is to live in accordance
with with God, and is designedto obey His good word to Shema.
That's the Hebrew word. Shemalike to listen, but not just
(33:40):
listening with sound waves, butto listen with the heart, with
your trust and affection. Andthat's only way Shalom will be
rewoven, is that if we actuallyShema, if we listen to him. So,
man, yeah, abiding and obeying,that's that's the breathing in
and the breathing out of thisunion with Him. And and it like,
what a reframing thought Joshua,I love that like that we are
(34:04):
drawn into this love that everwas. I mean, it's not what we
all want. We want to be seen. Wewant to be known. We want to
enter into an experience thatthe good the beautiful and true.
And Jesus says you have that inways that you will spend
eternity, like teasing out andexperiencing. So that creates a
(34:26):
vision of Christianity that isso beautiful, versus, well, I
better. I better go to church,you know, I gotta, you know,
tick off my my morality, to dochecklists and like fire
insurance kind of mentality,like, that's that does nothing
to the delight. But what yousaid, like, the fires of delight
(34:46):
are just like stoked in that Ilove it, man,
Joshua Johnson (34:51):
if this is the breathing aspect of union with
Christ, is that inhale and theexhale, abide and obey? Yeah.
Hmm, what are we to obey? Like?
What does it look like to put itinto practice this life with
Jesus? What are we doing?
Heath Hardesty (35:09):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, there's a lot,
a lot of things in there.
There's a lot a lot of teachingthat you could say, well, here's
a thing to obey here, here's apiece, here's a piece. The way I
try to do it by the practicesthat I talk about within the
book are to look at seven keypractices that are kind of at an
altitude where it's not likemicromanaging every little thing
(35:31):
you do throughout the day, butit's, again, it's trying to
reframe how you see certainthings and to walk in what we
saw Jesus do so, for instance, ascripture meditation is just
utterly, utterly huge, first andforemost, like God has spoken to
us, right? Like he starts thiswhole thing, like he began the
conversation, and then He givesus His Word, and then he draws
(35:54):
us and calls us to His Word. Soif, if you want to know the true
narrative about reality, youbetter be soaking in Scripture,
right? Because every day we wakeup and there's a war of
narratives in this attentioneconomy that's just after us.
You know, from you know, thethings we watched on Netflix the
(36:15):
night before to what streamingyou know, in our our social
media channels, all this, allthe stuff is narratives about
what is and what isn't. We needto hear God's narrative about
what is and what isn't and beconstantly reminded so first and
foremost, like meditation onGod's word, getting it in us,
(36:36):
letting it reshape our interiorlandscape. So that's huge.
Second, I would say, is this,this life of unceasing prayer,
and unceasing prayer is justthis constant communion with
Him. It's talking with God firstand most about about everything.
So it's hard to obey God if youwon't have any kind of
conversation with him, right?
(36:58):
It's hard to truly understandHis word if you're not talking
to him about his word. And so alife of prayer, of just
fellowship with him that, Imean, absolutely essential. And
we see Jesus doing it. I mean,he's getting up early to pray.
He's praying in front of thedisciples. He's praying for the
disciples. He's teaching themhow to pray. It's, how He
(37:20):
breathed in this world, likeit's his spiritual breath. Then
I would say life together. Weare called to live this life
together. And Jesus doesn'tjust, you know, find one Pat one
and one apprentice and go on asolo journey with them. He pulls
together a community of people.
It's an odd ragtag crew. So thislife together of being known and
knowing him and living andconfessing community. That would
(37:42):
be the third practice. Thefourth one is unhurried
presence. And you know all thetimes we're told, you know, by
Jesus, don't don't worry, don'tbe anxious, do not fear. We're
called to live a life present,to God's presence with us, and
to not be bullied about by allthe distractions and the noise
and the things of this world andso that one's super, super key,
(38:05):
joyful generosity, like to giveour lives away. I'm not just
talking about finances here. I'mtalking about like to give
ourselves away, our times,talents, treasures, as the old
formula goes, but in a joyfulway, like we're made in the
image of the greatest, mostglorious giver, right? God is is
(38:25):
a giver, and he's a joyfulgiver, like there's a mirth at
the heart of heaven, right? Likehe loves to give himself away.
He's not limited. He can justkeep on giving. And that's who
we're to be like. So we are topractice giving, and the more we
practice giving, the more we areseeing what it looks like to be
(38:45):
like this Jesus, who gavehimself away, ultimately on the
cross, and then, oh, socompassionate gentleness is
another practice, like we are touse the power God has given us
to steward it well in costlyways for the good of others. And
this takes all sorts of formsand is found in Jesus' teaching
all over the place. And thenlastly, I would say that on
obeying, what does it look like?
(39:08):
We proclaim who he is in wordand deed. So our actions are to
live in accordance. But then weare also to verbally express who
Jesus is and to be witnesses.
And this, is a command forChristians, you know, to tell
the good news. So those are someways to obey.
Joshua Johnson (39:26):
I love your practices here, and I want to
get into two of them that, forme, struck me as something where
not everybody has thesepractices. So it's both the
unhurried presence and thecompassionate gentleness. I
think those are some practicesthat aren't always in like, Hey,
this is what it looks like toyou know, follow Jesus, obey
(39:49):
Jesus, and I think they'rereally key to this fragmented
world that we live in. So whatdoes unhurried presence really
look like? How do we be presentwith God and one another in. In
this world, we have an attentioneconomy. We have fragmentation,
polarization. We have so manythings that are vying for our
attention, and we think theworld is sped up so fast right
(40:12):
now. What does unhurriedpresence really look like for
us? This is I want to do it. Iwant to be like that. Yeah.
Heath Hardesty (40:20):
Me too. Man, me too. So on that first one,
unhurry presence, Jewishteachers, rabbis for for years,
centuries, talked about what wascalled a Kavanaugh. This term
simply means likeintentionality. So it's living
with intentionality and andfocusing your attention on those
(40:42):
things that really matter,versus letting the world dictate
what your attention goes to. Soit's thinking about what we're
thinking about. Often we don'tthink about what we think about.
It's it's paying attention towhat we're paying attention to.
And so it's an amazing thought,like, if the scriptures are
(41:02):
true, if what Jesus says istrue, which I truly believe
they're true. And he says, Iwill be with you till the end of
the age, that, like he's with usnow, like in this here with this
conversation, we're not justtalking about somebody somewhere
else, like he's here on mycommute into my study here at
the church, like I was intraffic. I was in traffic with
(41:25):
Jesus this morning, like, and,and to, like, pause the crazy
current of thoughts goingthrough my brain, and just like,
acknowledge you're here now,like you're you're with me, to
be still for a moment, and toknow that He is God, in other
words, that he's there, thathe's with, with me. So that's a
(41:46):
huge piece of it is, is trainingour our brains, our minds, to
pay attention to what we'repaying attention to, and to
think about what we're thinkingabout. It's what Brother
Lawrence called practicing thepresence of God. He worked in a
Carmelite monastery in Paris,and he's well known for his book
called practicing the presenceof God. And he just realized,
(42:09):
like man while peeling potatoesin the kitchen or cleaning the
skillets or repairing, you know,brother sandal, like there was
God with him, and if he couldgive his attention and sit at
the feet of the master, right,that the great portion, no
matter what he was doing, itwould imbue whatever he was
(42:30):
doing with something sobeautiful that it would just
continue to change him from theinside out. So, yeah, unhurried,
unhurried presence. And, man,it's tough like because I'm in
Silicon Valley and we're on atreadmill that's like cranked to
11, and just got to keep upwith, with the Joneses and all
these people who aren't evenreal because the accounts are
(42:51):
filtered and the stuff isn'teven real. So you're trying to
keep up with, with an unreality,and it destroys the soul. You
know, John Mark comer haswritten a lot about this. Dallas
will it has written a lot aboutthis, and I'm really thankful
that there's a lot of attentionturned to it, because our souls
are are wearied and thin becausethe speed like it's it's hard to
(43:17):
have a nice conversation withsomebody, or to see the beauty
of the scenery when you're in arace and you're driving, you
know, the Formula One car, like,everything gets blurred. So
we're living in very blurriedlives,
Joshua Johnson (43:29):
yeah? But hey, f1 does make for a good IMAX
experience,
Heath Hardesty (43:34):
yeah, yeah. It's no it's no hate on f1 at all.
It's fantastic. It's just notthe place for like, a long
conversation while you're in thecar. You know exactly.
Joshua Johnson (43:45):
So, I mean, you're living in a place where
it you know, if everything'sgoing to 11, if every everything
is hurried and fast paced,you're, I mean, Silicon Valley
is like, Hey, we're going to wewant progress, and we want to
create more capital, more money,so that we could whatever it is,
we're just like, we're justgoing, going, going. There's not
(44:07):
an end in sight, right? We justhave to continue more and more
and more. What do you findhelpful for the people that you
get to minister to, to helppeople slow down in the midst of
that really intense area.
Heath Hardesty (44:22):
Well, you know, it's to repeat what I said
earlier. It would be to, youknow, call them into these
practices. It would first bethough to highlight the dangers
and the damaging nature of ofthe speed and the life that
we're living. Most people feelit in their bones, right? Truth
will out, even if you don't havea way of articulating it, you're
(44:46):
like, Why does my Why does myexperience or my existence feel
so blurry and and thinned outand fatigued? It's because
you're running seven days a weekand you're not designed for.
That. So one, I would just likehighlight, you know, what we're
built for, and also show likedoing more faster is not the
(45:08):
answer, and to talk about therhythms that God has created,
you know, there's, there's areason why it was six and one,
and the way he created thingsright that we're designed to
step away from all of our doingsand all of our trying to hold
the world together throughoutthe week and our jobs and all
the things that we do, and tobreathe and acknowledge like to
(45:32):
liturgically build into ourweek, like, oh, oh yeah, you're
the one who holds this together.
Like, you're the infinite one.
I'm a creature that is indesperate need of you for even
like my my most shallow breath,like I need you. And so I'm
trying to to help people see thebeauty of those rhythms. We're
(45:53):
designed for those rhythms. So,you know, that's the Sabbath
thing. But it's also throughoutthe day, having times of of you
know of solitude or quiet,turning again to Scripture
throughout the day, building insome rhythms to help push back
against the the forces that thatjust want to want to tear us
(46:14):
apart.
Joshua Johnson (46:15):
That's good.
Let's get into compassionategentleness for just a moment,
briefly. But how is that
Heath Hardesty (46:23):
power? Yeah,
Joshua Johnson (46:25):
what is that like? You're reframing power for
us and so give us. Why iscompassionate gentleness?
Heath Hardesty (46:32):
Power? Yeah.
Thank you. I really appreciatethat. That question, because
gentleness is often deeplymisunderstood that we see
gentleness as like the oppositeof power, right? We see it as
like, maybe gentleness ormeekness as like being mousy or
like not not having a big voice,or not really engaging, but just
(46:55):
being a little little quiet, orjust only saying positive,
affirming things or being nice.
But the reality is, God isgentle. Jesus is gentle. When
Jesus says that incredible thingthat he's gentle and lowly in
heart, like he's opening up,like the God of all creation is
(47:16):
is opening up his chest andsaying, let me give you an
explanation of who I truly am,right? See, he's gentle, he's
he's lowly in heart, so come tohim all who are weary and heavy
laden, and he'll give you rest.
So it's a big deal that God isgentle. What does it mean? It
doesn't mean he's like hesitantto have a crucial conversation.
It means that he always uses hispower for the good of others,
(47:41):
and he will do it at at cost toself, and do it in sacrificial
ways. So that's, that's whattrue power is. I i just think of
the cross, and it just thisstaggers me, the display of
gentleness and the display oftrue power on the cross, you
know all the mocking, thejeering like Come, come down.
(48:02):
And you know if you are who yousay you are, come, come on down,
and the things he could havedone but didn't do, because he
wasn't there to justify himself.
He was there to justifyhumanity, to restore humanity.
He would be justified. Theywould see who he was,
ultimately, but he stayed atgreat cost to the self. And so
(48:23):
what does this look like for usin conversations? Man, so often
it's hard not to think of socialmedia here, like we want to use
our power to, like, step up andover other people and show just
how incredibly smart we are,just how we have all the right
answers or how wrong somebodyis. So we want to like we want
(48:44):
to trounce them. We want to seethem verbally pummeled online.
But maybe the right thing to do,though, is to find a way to say
something true and kindly thatdoesn't hedge or compromise the
truth at all, and then to trustGod with the outcomes, versus
trying to coerce somebody intoit. And Dallas will it at one
(49:06):
point said, you know, a greatspiritual practice is the
practice of not having to havethe last word in a conversation
that's that's a form ofcompassion and gentleness. And
so gentleness is, is isstrength. It's not the absence
of strength, it's not theabsence of power. It's a proper
use of power for the flourishingof another, usually at a
(49:28):
sacrificial cost to the selfHeath.
Joshua Johnson (49:31):
If you had one hope for the people who would
read all things together and forthe people that you wrote this
book for, what would your hopebe?
Heath Hardesty (49:40):
I think ultimately it would be that that
Jesus would be reimagined andreseen with such such delight,
that we would look upon him andknow that the Father's love has
smiled on us through Jesus, andthat there is this, this
heavenly joy, this heavenly.
Delight that is looking upon us,that is calling us in to
(50:02):
wholeness, and calling us intowhat you and I had talked about
with that relationship, thatthat eternal mutual love, that
that's what we get to be a partof, and that's how all that the
pieces will come together, allthe aches that we have, all of
the longings that are within thehuman condition, what will find
harmony, and we'll find home inthat union with Him. So I would
(50:27):
pray that it wouldn't just belike, here's some new practices,
you know, do these things andOkay, apprenticeship is this,
but it would be like, oh mygoodness, I am invited into the
heart of reality, and the heartof reality is perfect, love and
joy and delight, and the end isgoing to be better than the
(50:47):
beginning and worth all the messin the middle.
Joshua Johnson (50:51):
That's good.
That's good. A couple quickquestions here at the end. One,
if you go back to your 21 yearold self Heath, what advice
would you give?
Heath Hardesty (50:58):
Oh man, 21 year old, year old me, I would have a
conversation like this, thiswith him, because he had a very
moralistic understanding, amoralistic framework of the
world. And I would appeal to himthrough the beautiful, through
through poetry, through song,through story, to show how those
(51:19):
things point to to who Jesus is,because he needed to see the
beauty and goodness of God, andnot just like the truth and not
data, and not just facts to dothe right things, but he needed
to see the beauty of who Jesuswas.
Joshua Johnson (51:35):
Anything you've been reading or watching lately,
you could recommend. What
Heath Hardesty (51:39):
am I reading lately? I'm preparing for a
sermon series on the book ofRomans. So I'm in Romans right
now reading a book by a friendof mine named Joshua Butler
called God is on your side. Sojust dive, diving into that. And
what else I've been reading.
I've been in a lot of poetrylately, reading a lot of Seamus
(52:01):
Haney poems and diving back intoa bunch of Gerard Manley
Hopkins. So if you're lookingfor some poetry, man pull up.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, start,start there and enjoy some
incredible brilliance withwritten word. Awesome.
Joshua Johnson (52:21):
Love it. Yeah, all things together will be out
October. Anywhere books aresold, it's a fantastic book.
This is something where I reallyhope that people don't just go
and get the book. I actuallyhope that that churches will
say, Hey, this is actually a wayof apprenticeship that we want
to orient our lives around toJesus. It's, it's really, really
(52:46):
good. I think it's going to helpa lot of people, and I think
it's going to help us figure outwhat discipleship looks like to
Jesus in this fragmented worldthat we live in. I highly,
highly recommend this book. So Iloved it. I really, really love
this, and I really do hope a lotof churches go and say, this is
(53:07):
something that we could, wecould take not just as a box and
a model for us, but somethingwhere we could, we could say,
Okay, I could actually imagethings and imagine what the
world is really like and helpbring people along with with
that image of reality, of wherewe're headed, and say these are
some practices that we need todo so that we can actually get
(53:30):
to that space with union withJesus. So it's fantastic. It's
really good. So it's outanywhere. So go and get the book
anywhere that you'd like topoint people to. How could they
connect with you, or what you'redoing?
Heath Hardesty (53:43):
Yeah, so you're right anywhere books are sold,
Amazon, Barnes and Noble, youcan get it there if you go to
Heath hardesty.com is just myfirst and last name, Heath
hardesty.com or.org that's kindof like the central hub for all
sorts of things. You know, allmy social media stuff is is
there, but links to all thedifferent places and podcasts
(54:05):
and stuff. So yeah, if you want,you can go check that out.
Joshua Johnson (54:09):
Perfect Heath.
Thank you for this conversation.
Thank you for actually taking usthrough what apprenticeship to
Jesus really looks like, and howthat we could take a fragmented
world that we live in andreintegrate it with Jesus, union
with Him, figuring out how wecan abide in Him to obey what He
has given us, and that we couldactually see some reintegration
(54:33):
in this world. And oh, it wouldjust be an amazing so thank you.
It's fantastic.
Heath Hardesty (54:38):
Joshua, thank you. It's been a joy. I
appreciate you having me on you.
You know, our problem is not that we just
(00:01):
don't go to church enough, oraren't, you know, just don't
stop doing this or stop doingthat. Our problem is that that
our existence, our being, isdisconnected from the only fount
of everything good, beautifuland true and and if we try to
fix ourself without that union,we're only going to fracture
(00:23):
more and more and more.
Joshua Johnson (00:39):
Hello and welcome to the shift in culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, did you
know our world feelsincreasingly disjointed,
disenchanted, disconnected anddisembodied? We scroll through
chaos, piecing togetherfragments of truth, beauty and
(01:01):
meaning, and yet still feelthin, weary and divided. In this
episode, I talk with Heath,Hardesty, pastor and author of
all things together, howapprenticeship to Jesus is the
Way of flourishing in afragmented world, Heath invites
us to recover the wholenesswe've lost, not by trying harder
or fixing ourselves, but byrediscovering the life that
(01:22):
coheres in Christ, we talk aboutwhat it means to move beyond
information about Jesus toapprenticeship with him. We
explore how union with Christheals our divided selves, how
practices like unhearingpresence and compassionate
gentleness become countercultural acts of power, and how
the biblical story reframes ourfractured reality into one of
(01:44):
integration, delight and love.
If you felt the weight ofdisintegration in your own soul
or the pace of a world spinningfaster than you can hold it,
this conversation is aninvitation to slow down, breathe
and remember that in Him, allthings hold together. So join
us. Here is my conversation withHeath. Hardesty Heath, welcome
to shifting culture. Excited tohave you on. Thanks for joining
(02:08):
me.
Heath Hardesty (02:09):
Glad to be here.
Joshua, thanks for having me.
I'd love to talk a little bit
Joshua Johnson (02:13):
about apprenticeship to Jesus and your
your paradigm at the core of thebook is you're talking about
union to Jesus, going intoabiding and obeying Him, and
then imaging Jesus to the worldas part of our our core way to
move into this world offragmentation that you talk
(02:33):
about, into a place where it'smore holistic and whole, and we
want to integrate take us to thebeginning. Where does
apprenticeship come in? Why areyou talking about apprenticeship
to Jesus? What is that word foryou?
Heath Hardesty (02:47):
So quick back story, which is kind of the the
genealogy of my my interest inthis. So I'm a pastor now in
California. I've been here forabout 15 years in the Bay Area.
But before I was a pastor, I wasactually a plumber. So my father
is a master plumber, and so Igrew up in a blue collar home. I
(03:08):
grew up vowing that I wouldnever be a plumber. And life,
you know, you know, threw mesome curve balls. And I
eventually, yeah, I became aplumber, a plumber's apprentice,
rather. And you know, those wereyears that it when I was in
them, I was not super happyabout them, because I just never
thought that's where my life wasgoing. I didn't feel like it was
(03:29):
my skill set. But now, lookingback, I'm so thankful for those
years. And there's a story inthe book about a mentor of mine,
a Pastor Tom hover, who kind ofleaned into me one day and said,
You're complaining about thisstuff, but God's doing something
in you through this, and you'lllook back on it. And sure
enough, Pastor Tom was right. SoI learned a lot about
(03:51):
apprenticeship through thoseyears, and it was a special kind
of apprenticeship, because itwas my father who was a master
plumber. So there was a familialrelationship there as well. But
moving on from that periodreally quickly, you know, and
stepping into being a greenpastor here in Silicon Valley,
(04:12):
trying to figure out how to helppeople live a fully embodied
faith. And then over the years,just seeing the fragmentary
nature, not only of the world inwhich we live, but of people's
understandings of the faith,just kind of piecemealing it,
putting together these theselittle fragments and bits and
(04:32):
pieces, and trying to figure outhow to walk it out and in often
reductive ways, I wanted to findA way to talk about following
Jesus that was just deeplycohesive, that was that was
coherent, that had an accessiblestory, a way of imagining it and
then a way of walking it out, away of inhabiting this world.
(04:54):
So, so, yeah, you could say thatthe origin of, like, why I wrote
this book, why. To talk aboutapprenticeship. Well, it's
partly because I was a plumber.
It's partly because I'm apastor, and then I think
ultimately it's because Ibelieve it's the essence of
following Jesus, that there's noChristianity without union to
him, and true union will lead toa life of abiding with him, a
(05:19):
life of obeying, not perfectlyin any way, shape or form, but
through progressivesanctification, learning,
growing, taking on his wisdomand walking in his ways, and
then ultimately, yeah, imaginghim and looking more and more
like Him, being conformed to Hisimage, as Paul says in
Corinthians.
Joshua Johnson (05:40):
I think a lot of us, if we're looking at
discipleship to Jesus, I thinkthe an old paradigm is, you
know, is classroom knowledge.
You know, we're going to get theright information about Jesus,
and that means we're going tothen start to be discipled to
him, because we have the rightinformation. And that's part of
it. We need the rightinformation. But then the right
(06:02):
information throughapprenticeship feels a little
bit different. I mean, you seethis in like Paul and
relationship with Timothy.
Second, Timothy two, two, thethings you've heard me say in
the presence of many witnesses,teach to reliable people who
also be able to teach others,meaning that Timothy has been
with Paul as an apprentice, hasbeen walking alongside of him
(06:26):
for a couple of years, and then,you know, things will then start
to multiply. How did you movefrom like getting the right
information about Jesus intobeing apprenticed to who he is
and what he does?
Heath Hardesty (06:43):
Yeah, great, great question. So the pieces
kind of came together over overthe years, because, yeah, you're
right. It's not justinformation, and that's part of
the reductionistic way of ourculture, part of the fragmentary
nature of it is we reduceourselves, you know, to like
what James K Smith is called,like brains on a stick, right
(07:04):
that, and then if we justdownload the right information,
we'll be okay. But that's that'snot a holistic understanding of
the human being. So basically,what happened at one point I
tell the story in the book is Ifound myself under under a sink
laughing after we bought ourhome here in Livermore,
California, we gutted it, and Iwas reworking a number of
(07:27):
things, and I'm laying under thesink in the bathroom downstairs,
and it just it hit me, like thepieces kind of came together.
And it wasn't the water orfalling sink part that hit me,
but it was the realization.
Thought was like, oh mygoodness, like, I've become my
dad, or rather, I've become likemy dad. Because I was, I was
(07:47):
holding a crescent wrench layingon my back, turning a faucet,
and I was painted orange. My dadalways painted the tools orange
so he wouldn't lose them in aditch or a vault or a crawl
space. And it was the samebrand. It was the same paint
color, and I was turning thewrench the way I saw him do it
1000 times. And so here I am,like, 10 years removed from
plumbing at that point, and, youknow, hundreds of miles away,
(08:11):
and I'm like, oh my goodness,here I am. I'm imaging the
master. The pieces just startedto fall together. Where I
realized, you know, I had knownfor a long time, it was far more
than information, and it neededto be fully embodied faith. But
how, you know, how does a storystring together? What's the
narrative? What doesapprenticeship really look like?
And and so, yeah, like, well,I'm looking like my dad now, all
(08:34):
these years later, because Ihave muscle memory. I learned to
do the things that he did,because I had this new orienting
relationship with him calledapprenticeship. I was abiding
with him. I was in the plumbingtruck with him daily. I was, you
know, in the bathrooms, in thecrawl spaces, in the vaults. And
then he put the wrench in myhand and said, You do it. And
(08:55):
then it watched me. Things wouldfall apart, and I'd rework it
until it got into my musclememory. And so that's that's
somewhat of how it came, cametogether, and that's why our
faith isn't just meant to beintellectual alone. I'm all for
the the life of the mind. Weshouldn't check our heads at the
sanctuary door. We should bethinking people, but we're an
(09:17):
embodied being and andinformation gets encoded into us
physically. So there's a lotthat's caught, but there's also
a lot that's that's taught. Andso Jesus says, Come and see, and
then you'll, you know, do thethings that I'll do. And so we,
we need to then live into whathe teaches, not just have some
mental reflection.
Joshua Johnson (09:41):
Talked about embodied faith, like we want to
embody the ways of Jesus in thisworld. And you've also talked
about fragmentation already sofar, and we're like, eight
minutes in. And so these are thethings that we want to diagnose.
What is the world? Why is it? Isit fragmented? Are there? Are
heaps of broken images allaround like, what does it look
(10:05):
like? What's the world like? Andbecause it, if it is, it seems
to be hard to move about intosiloed images in this world. So,
Heath Hardesty (10:18):
yeah, yeah.
Well, I do believe we live inwhat I would call the age of
disintegration. You know,there's always some kind of age.
People are always putting a nameto it, Age of authenticity, you
know, you know, the industrialage, Information Age. But there,
there is something I believethat is is unique to this, this
time period that we live in, andI would call it the age of
(10:39):
disintegration. And so I canexplain that. I'll try in brief.
There's, there's six differentways I try to talk about the age
of disintegration in the book.
And that's, that's disenchanted,dissociated, disc
contextualized, dislocated,disembodied and disconnected. So
(11:00):
it's a super happy, fun list.
But in short, we live in an agewhich you could call
disenchanted, you know. So welive in response to, you know,
decades, a century, of secularforces that have tried to say
there's, there's no God, ortried to exercise God from the
world, and so reducing the worldto just what is in the
(11:24):
mechanical forces, right? And sowe've exercised God from the
world. We've disenchanted theworld, yet we were still like
trying to cling to transcendentthings, because our hearts are
designed for eternity. So it'sdisenchanted in that way, and
then we become dissociatedbecause we are spiritually we
are spiritual beings, fullyembodied beings, and we're
(11:49):
designed for union with thisGod. But if we say now we're
done with you, it's going tocreate inherent tensions with
us, so we can't even be okay inour own skin, because we've
broken the the most importantcore relationship of our life,
and so we're dissociated. Inthat sense, we're kind of like,
(12:09):
like Voldemort and Harry Potter,you know, who in in murdering in
order to, like, maintain his ownkingdom and live forever. He
actually fractures his soul. So,so that's the dissociation. Then
there's the discontextualized Welive in a world that's radically
discontentualized from the thetechnology and the social media
(12:30):
flood that we swim in. And I saydis contextualized, not not just
decontextualized, becausedecontextualized means, yeah,
you're taking something out ofits place. You're pulling it
out. You're pulling it out ofsocket. But discontextualized is
what I'm trying to get at. Isnot only do we think take things
out of their place, but then wesituate them in other places, in
(12:50):
incongruent and kind ofnightmarish ways, kind of like
Frank and stinian ways, youknow, where we're putting
together pieces in a corpse,like way and and that's a
desacralization of the world. Sohere's a quick way of like,
explaining, like, you hop onyour social media feed, right,
and you see an ad for some someAir Jordans, and then right next
(13:13):
to that, there's an ad for somekind of medication, and then
there's, there's a pornographicimage, and then there's an image
of a friend at Disneyland havinga great time, and then there's a
verse from lamentations, right?
And all these things are juststrung together and and these,
it's like, it's like lookingthrough glasses that were made
(13:35):
up of 1000 different shatteredprescriptions put together. The
proportions gone, the context isgone. And so you're combining
trivialities and traumaticthings and beautiful things and
terrible things in a hodgepodgeway that's catechizing us,
teaching us that this world ischaos and that there's no true
(13:57):
order in it. So that's justcontextualized. I'll be brief on
these next ones. Dislocatedliving primarily is like digital
natives. Now, you know, we're sodisconnected from the place in
which we live like we'll, we'llknow more about a coup in some
other country than we'll knowabout our local government,
(14:17):
because we're just taking instuff from all over the world.
So we're very unrooted, less andless analog, more and more
digital. We're kind ofeverywhere. We're on our phones,
being everywhere. We're nowhere,and then disembodied. The
ideologies of our age, thecultural forces have have put
forward that you know, the humanbeing is just kind of who you
(14:42):
are inside, and the body isbasically organic, plastic that
we can do with what we will. Andit's not truly who we are. But
the Christian faith is anHebraic thought, if you go back
to Old Testament, it's just aearthy like really embodied
faith, that the body is a giftfrom. God, and it's not just to
be shed and done away with. It'sactually to rise and and have
(15:04):
eternal life, you know, andwe're to be fully integrated in
that sense. And lastly,disconnected through the social
breakdown, through familybreakdown, through attachment
bonds breaking down, we'vebecome more and more isolated
and living more and more livesdigitally and separated. So So I
(15:25):
do believe our age has thisunique hyper fracturing. Sin is
a constant. There always wassin. There's still sin. The
human heart was a problem backthen. It's now, but it's like
it's plugged into an amplifier,and it's created this feedback
loop that's creating greatdamage.
Joshua Johnson (15:41):
So what do we do about it? Like
Heath Hardesty (15:45):
question,
Joshua Johnson (15:47):
because I mean that, I mean not a happy list,
right? Really difficult worldthat we live in. It's a hard
world if I'm if discontextualized, I'm not rooted
to where I am. I don't know howto embody my faith. I don't know
how to actually be with peoplein real life anymore in
(16:09):
community. Is there a solutionto bring us into a place where
we can be rooted and we can beembodied and we can actually re
integrate our lives?
Heath Hardesty (16:24):
Yeah, you know, there's no push button, you know
solution, but there is a grand,a grand story of redemption from
this, from this fragmentationthat be began way back when the
garden went dark. So the answerhere is union with Jesus, that
the subtitle the book is howapprenticeship to Jesus is a way
(16:47):
of flourishing in a fragmentedworld. You know, Colossians,
chapter one has this brilliantpassage. Colossians, 115,
through 20. And a chunk of it, apiece of it, says that all
things were created through Himand He is before all things and
in Him, all things holdtogether. So that's the core.
That's where this idea camefrom. Scripturally, that Greek
(17:08):
could be translated all thingscohere in Christ. And so the
solution, the answer, is that inthis fragmentation, in this
condition of sin and entropy andthings breaking down. What what
needs to happen is we need tobecome more more truly human. We
need to, as image bearers ofGod, follow, follow this Jesus,
(17:33):
being united to him, let hisspirit rework us from the inside
out and conform us to his image.
And what I would say is thatit's only in relationship with
him that the outward, flyingfragments of our lives can
actually cohere. So yes,apprenticeship is is the way,
and by that, I don't mean usdoing stuff. I mean us entering
(17:56):
into the intended humancondition of relationship with
our Creator, being with him,dwelling with him, enjoying him,
delighting in him, and thenliving in accordance with
reality, doing what he says, andthen growing more and more like
him. The two basic ways thatthis happens, if you were to try
(18:18):
to simplify it, which I try todo in the in the book, is first
it's to re imagine the world andreimagine what apprenticeship is
to re see the world like we'restoried creatures. We stories
help us take all the bits andpieces and hold them together.
So I believe one of the thingsthat we need to do is help
(18:39):
people to re see the world. AndJesus did this all the all the
time. It's It's amazing. And inthe first part of the gospel,
John the words see and look andbehold are there, just over and
over and over and over again.
And Jesus invites the newdisciples to come and see, right
(18:59):
to come and see he's going to beabout the work of re teaching
them how to envision reality andthen how to then inhabit that
reality. So if we can envisionreality in this cohesive way,
understanding the scripturalnarrative, the drama of
redemption, what it means tofollow this Jesus, not just have
some data about him, then we caninhabit the world in a different
(19:24):
way. So short answer, it's awhole lifelong process that's
born of grace, that's empoweredby grace, and he's at work
changing us bit by bit.
Joshua Johnson (19:35):
I think that's helpful, is the reimagination
and reimagining the world of theway that it truly is. You talked
about like walking into thereality of life. I think that we
when we perceive what's on thesurface of things and this
fragmented world, I think thatmost people believe that that is
(19:57):
reality like that is how theworld is. Really is and how God
actually designed the world. Butyou're saying that as that's
actually a false perception ofthe world on the surface is like
that, but God's intention anddesign is different. It's
integrated, it's whole, yes, andso I think that reimagination
(20:19):
and perceiving the worlddifferently as God intended it
to be is going to be reallyhelpful for people. Can you help
me? What does that look like, toreimagine, re image the world,
perceive how the world is inreality,
Heath Hardesty (20:37):
a piece of that is understanding the biblical
story doesn't begin in chapterthree of Genesis, right? It
begins in chapter one. Andthat's that's deeply
significant. And what we see inchapter one, chapter two, and
then, you know, and start tofall apart in chapter three, is,
(20:58):
is a good God, a good gardenerwho brings together space and
time and people in his presence,and all those things are bound
up in what you would callshalom, right? Active peace.
Shalom isn't just the absence ofpeople, you know, like bickering
like it's it means fully active.
It's a fully active, robust,thick piece where all the
(21:23):
aspects are working together formutual flourishing, right? So
often, when we think of peace,we define it by the absent or
the negative. It's like badthings are not happening.
Actually, peace is way moreprofound and thick, thick than
that, right? So God's createdthis world of shalom, all things
integrated for for flourishing.
(21:47):
So if we can look at the wholestory again and see what he's
done, and see how all thosepieces come together for our
flourishing and for His glory,and then to see what sin is that
sin is this disruptive,disintegrating force that
dehumanizes human beings andtakes us further and further
(22:07):
away from flourishing, furtheraway from joy, further away from
from Peace. Then that'll help usstart to reframe our main
problem. What is, what is theproblem in this world? Well,
it's, it's exile from God. It'sdisunion from the God that we
are created to be united withand have a flourishing
relationship with. And ourproblem is not that we just
(22:29):
don't go to church enough, oraren't, you know, just don't
stop doing this or stop doingthat. Our problem is that that
our existence, our our being, isdisconnected from the only fount
of everything good, beautifuland true and and if we try to
fix ourself without that union,we're only going to fracture
(22:51):
more and more and more so. Sothat that's a piece of it.
Joshua is, I would say,reframing the story, going back
looking at what the Scripturessay, seeing the scriptures as a
fully integrated narrative thatultimately points us to Jesus
versus just a hodgepodge ofancient wisdom. So seeing how it
(23:11):
points us to Jesus, and thenseeing how Jesus brings us in
from that exile of disunion,overcomes the autonomy of the
self, and then brings us intothe family and restores us and
helps us to love him and andlove others. So it's really a
zoom out to like to reimagine,right? We're zooming back out to
(23:31):
the whole storyline. And onelast thing I would say is that
we would see apprenticeship, notas like something invented, you
know, by the Greeks, you know,or something invented by the
rabbis. But we're seeing it kindof like gravity. It's, it's part
of, part of the principles ofreality, right? That we are
(23:53):
designed to be united to someonewho will be for our flourishing,
who will be with, who will teachus, who will lead us, who will
guide us, and we'll become moreand more like him. So
apprenticeship principles areembedded there in the Garden of
Eden from day one. And I thinkit's destructive, or it's
unhelpful when we start to seelike apprenticeship to Jesus as
(24:18):
like a extra credit or asecondary tier kind of thing,
because what we're saying is wedon't understand the primary
dynamics between the creator andthe creation.
Joshua Johnson (24:28):
Maybe the most helpful thing in my faith, in my
walk with Jesus, has been to doa whole narrative, look at the
story of the Bible and be thensituate myself within the story,
and situate our community andwhere we are in the story, I
think is really important. Whatdoes that big zoom out look like
(24:51):
for people like talk to talk topastors and people within the
church? How do we root people inthe story? In the narrative of
Scripture so that we canactually stand firm and know who
we are and know where we are inthe story, and not just, you
(25:12):
know, be really hyper focused onthis small little piece that's
in front of
Heath Hardesty (25:16):
us. Yeah, well, so this is why I'm a huge
advocate of biblical theology,right? And by biblical theology,
I don't just mean we get ourtheology from the Bible. I mean
the discipline of biblicaltheology, which is different
than systematic and biblicaltheology, is seeing how all, all
the threads Hold, hold together,right? How there's this grand
(25:39):
story of Scripture. One of themy favorite ways of talking
about what Scripture is is thatScripture is the God breathed
humanity, penned story, shapedlibrary that leads us to Jesus
and so as a pastor, one of thethings I'm constantly trying to
do from the pulpit, whetherexplicitly or implicitly while
(26:01):
preaching a passage is, is toshow the context of that passage
is in that the near context, butalso the far context, and then
then the cosmic context, likeand then, and then naturally
weaving in. This is why inExodus, God did this and and
this is why in numbers this so,because it's all of one we've
(26:22):
and so to help people to see theintegrated nature of the
scriptures, which is God's selfrevelation and revealing
himself, then that helps us tosee the integrated nature of
reality that we're living in,and why the disruptions and
fragmentations are so sodamaging and so so ruinous. So
(26:42):
that's one of the things I wouldsay, is to to find ways to help
people see the integrated natureof Scripture, and then to show
how that actually applies to thelife. And doesn't just remain
abstract theology, but that allthese threads leads lead to
Jesus. It has so much impact onour life because it's he's the
(27:03):
only way that we're going to beable to overcome the
depressions, those dark spots inour in our soul, the the
addictions, the the doubts, allthese, all these things that
that harangue us. We're onlygoing to be empowered to enter
further into soul health throughunion with Him. And so truly,
(27:26):
like, we need a savior in everyaspect. So, yeah, so that's I
would start there, like, let's,let's get this bigger story in
our vision, see how it fitstogether, and then live in light
of that. And stories arepowerful, right? They change us.
You know, it's why we go and wewalk. We watch a movie, whatever
new movie it is, and we could behaving a bummer of a day. And
(27:48):
then we watch the hero in thattwo hour time frame, like
overcome things, all the piecescome together. And it's like we
saw a microcosm of how it couldwork, you know? And then we walk
out feeling, feeling empowered.
The difference with this story,with Jesus is it's not just a
fiction. It's the ultimatereality and his spirit that
empowers us to actually walk outour true identity and live
(28:09):
differently.
Joshua Johnson (28:12):
How does this work within a body, the body of
Christ, where we are unified, wehave unity. There's one God,
there's one Lord, one baptism,you know, one church. But then
there is diversity, right? Madeup of different gifts of the
body, made up of different waysthat we move about and
(28:33):
participate in the life of theBody of Christ. What does union
with Christ look like in adiverse body of Christ, so that
we aren't just hyper fixated onour thing, but we could actually
be integrated together?
Heath Hardesty (28:51):
Yeah, that I love that question. So one of
the key practices that that Idiscuss in the book is simply
called life, life together. Andthat's this, can this life of of
deep, rich community that welive in, right? Because the
reality is, if union with Christis the core of what's going on,
(29:15):
being a follower of Jesus, well,if we're united to him, Truly in
spirit, and then you're unitedto him, and she's united to him,
and she's United him, and I'munited to him, then that means
there's we're united to oneanother, because the same spirit
is within us. We are now trulyin the deepest I don't even use,
like, the word mystical here,like most mystical sense that
(29:38):
we're united to him, we'reunited to to each other, so, so
we're a body. This is reflectiveof an indicative of the fact
that we're united to a TriuneGod, right? Not, not a solo God,
not a lonely God, but a God whois one in three, three in one, a
God who was always love, lovingyou. Each other. So we're
(30:01):
invited into that life ofperpetual and mutual delight,
and that's embodied in thisworld as brothers and sisters.
You know, in the church and man.
Do we need each other? You know,how are we to grow? How are we
to practice all the oneanother's that be patient with
one another. You know, longsuffering with one another. Love
one another. How are we to growin those things if we don't
(30:24):
have, you know, finite,frustrating human beings with
their, you know, with theirquirks that frustrate us that
we're sitting next to in the pewand in a small group with, I
would say, like, what we need todo. How does this lived out is
it's lived out slowly over alifetime with a bunch of broken
in process, image bearers whowill get underneath each other's
(30:49):
skin and frustrate the heck outof each other, but they are
image bearers, and we're unitedto them, and the Spirit leads us
in this journey of loving eachother well, to look like Jesus,
who loves us
Joshua Johnson (31:06):
and Jesus loves us perfectly. And I'm gonna go
into John 15. You're talkingabout abiding and obeying.
There's a lot of that in John15, right? If you abide in My
love, you will obey my commands.
If you obey my commands, you'llabide in My love. It's they go
hand in hand fighting andobeying. Something that has
struck me just recently in thelast it's been staying with me
is verse nine in John 15. Itsays, I've loved you. This is
(31:29):
the contemporary Englishversion, I have loved you just
as my Father has loved me. AndI'll get to the second part, but
that thing right there is toknow that I am loved as much as
the Father. Father loves theSon, and that God loves God,
like in that Triune God andJesus loves me like that, like
that changes so much for me.
(31:54):
That is just amazing, the mostamazing thing ever, like that,
that is complete, full love. Andthen in this contemporary
English version, it goes on tosay, so, remain faithful to my
love for you. And I think that'san interesting reframing. Is
like to remain. It says remainin my love in a lot of different
(32:14):
versions, but this one says,remain faithful to my love for
you. And I think that what thatdoes to me is that I now get to
love others. I get to love theother people around me, to
remain faithful to the loveJesus has for me. What does that
do for you? What is it? What doyou think
Heath Hardesty (32:35):
I mean, I love that portion of Scripture. It's
just, it's somehow so earthy andso like heavenly minded at the
same time. It just Yeah. It justmakes me want to take a long
walk and process it for for awhile. It just, it reminds me
again of the fact that to imagehim is to love others, and to
(32:56):
love others is to image him andand will you call that out
abiding and obeying. They'rethey're those two live and
breathe together. It's inhale,it's it's exhale. We're not just
abiding. And there's this movein spiritual formation, and I
love it. It's great to to abidewith him, and it's fantastic
because, yes, we are first thosewho are to be in to dwell with
(33:19):
His presence, yet then we arealso called to obey. And in our
culture, that word obey is notthe, you know, a fun fun. It's
not everyone's favorite word.
We'll just put it. Put it thatway, but there's nothing.
There's that's the truestfreedom is to live in accordance
with with God, and is designedto obey His good word to Shema.
That's the Hebrew word. Shemalike to listen, but not just
(33:40):
listening with sound waves, butto listen with the heart, with
your trust and affection. Andthat's only way Shalom will be
rewoven, is that if we actuallyShema, if we listen to him. So,
man, yeah, abiding and obeying,that's that's the breathing in
and the breathing out of thisunion with Him. And and it like,
what a reframing thought Joshua,I love that like that we are
(34:04):
drawn into this love that everwas. I mean, it's not what we
all want. We want to be seen. Wewant to be known. We want to
enter into an experience thatthe good the beautiful and true.
And Jesus says you have that inways that you will spend
eternity, like teasing out andexperiencing. So that creates a
(34:26):
vision of Christianity that isso beautiful, versus, well, I
better. I better go to church,you know, I gotta, you know,
tick off my my morality, to dochecklists and like fire
insurance kind of mentality,like, that's that does nothing
to the delight. But what yousaid, like, the fires of delight
(34:46):
are just like stoked in that Ilove it, man,
Joshua Johnson (34:51):
if this is the breathing aspect of union with
Christ, is that inhale and theexhale, abide and obey? Yeah.
Hmm, what are we to obey? Like?
What does it look like to put itinto practice this life with
Jesus? What are we doing?
Heath Hardesty (35:09):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, there's a lot,
a lot of things in there.
There's a lot a lot of teachingthat you could say, well, here's
a thing to obey here, here's apiece, here's a piece. The way I
try to do it by the practicesthat I talk about within the
book are to look at seven keypractices that are kind of at an
altitude where it's not likemicromanaging every little thing
(35:31):
you do throughout the day, butit's, again, it's trying to
reframe how you see certainthings and to walk in what we
saw Jesus do so, for instance, ascripture meditation is just
utterly, utterly huge, first andforemost, like God has spoken to
us, right? Like he starts thiswhole thing, like he began the
conversation, and then He givesus His Word, and then he draws
(35:54):
us and calls us to His Word. Soif, if you want to know the true
narrative about reality, youbetter be soaking in Scripture,
right? Because every day we wakeup and there's a war of
narratives in this attentioneconomy that's just after us.
You know, from you know, thethings we watched on Netflix the
(36:15):
night before to what streamingyou know, in our our social
media channels, all this, allthe stuff is narratives about
what is and what isn't. We needto hear God's narrative about
what is and what isn't and beconstantly reminded so first and
foremost, like meditation onGod's word, getting it in us,
(36:36):
letting it reshape our interiorlandscape. So that's huge.
Second, I would say, is this,this life of unceasing prayer,
and unceasing prayer is justthis constant communion with
Him. It's talking with God firstand most about about everything.
So it's hard to obey God if youwon't have any kind of
conversation with him, right?
(36:58):
It's hard to truly understandHis word if you're not talking
to him about his word. And so alife of prayer, of just
fellowship with him that, Imean, absolutely essential. And
we see Jesus doing it. I mean,he's getting up early to pray.
He's praying in front of thedisciples. He's praying for the
disciples. He's teaching themhow to pray. It's, how He
(37:20):
breathed in this world, likeit's his spiritual breath. Then
I would say life together. Weare called to live this life
together. And Jesus doesn'tjust, you know, find one Pat one
and one apprentice and go on asolo journey with them. He pulls
together a community of people.
It's an odd ragtag crew. So thislife together of being known and
knowing him and living andconfessing community. That would
(37:42):
be the third practice. Thefourth one is unhurried
presence. And you know all thetimes we're told, you know, by
Jesus, don't don't worry, don'tbe anxious, do not fear. We're
called to live a life present,to God's presence with us, and
to not be bullied about by allthe distractions and the noise
and the things of this world andso that one's super, super key,
(38:05):
joyful generosity, like to giveour lives away. I'm not just
talking about finances here. I'mtalking about like to give
ourselves away, our times,talents, treasures, as the old
formula goes, but in a joyfulway, like we're made in the
image of the greatest, mostglorious giver, right? God is is
(38:25):
a giver, and he's a joyfulgiver, like there's a mirth at
the heart of heaven, right? Likehe loves to give himself away.
He's not limited. He can justkeep on giving. And that's who
we're to be like. So we are topractice giving, and the more we
practice giving, the more we areseeing what it looks like to be
(38:45):
like this Jesus, who gavehimself away, ultimately on the
cross, and then, oh, socompassionate gentleness is
another practice, like we are touse the power God has given us
to steward it well in costlyways for the good of others. And
this takes all sorts of formsand is found in Jesus' teaching
all over the place. And thenlastly, I would say that on
obeying, what does it look like?
(39:08):
We proclaim who he is in wordand deed. So our actions are to
live in accordance. But then weare also to verbally express who
Jesus is and to be witnesses.
And this, is a command forChristians, you know, to tell
the good news. So those are someways to obey.
Joshua Johnson (39:26):
I love your practices here, and I want to
get into two of them that, forme, struck me as something where
not everybody has thesepractices. So it's both the
unhurried presence and thecompassionate gentleness. I
think those are some practicesthat aren't always in like, Hey,
this is what it looks like toyou know, follow Jesus, obey
(39:49):
Jesus, and I think they'rereally key to this fragmented
world that we live in. So whatdoes unhurried presence really
look like? How do we be presentwith God and one another in. In
this world, we have an attentioneconomy. We have fragmentation,
polarization. We have so manythings that are vying for our
attention, and we think theworld is sped up so fast right
(40:12):
now. What does unhurriedpresence really look like for
us? This is I want to do it. Iwant to be like that. Yeah.
Heath Hardesty (40:20):
Me too. Man, me too. So on that first one,
unhurry presence, Jewishteachers, rabbis for for years,
centuries, talked about what wascalled a Kavanaugh. This term
simply means likeintentionality. So it's living
with intentionality and andfocusing your attention on those
(40:42):
things that really matter,versus letting the world dictate
what your attention goes to. Soit's thinking about what we're
thinking about. Often we don'tthink about what we think about.
It's it's paying attention towhat we're paying attention to.
And so it's an amazing thought,like, if the scriptures are
(41:02):
true, if what Jesus says istrue, which I truly believe
they're true. And he says, Iwill be with you till the end of
the age, that, like he's with usnow, like in this here with this
conversation, we're not justtalking about somebody somewhere
else, like he's here on mycommute into my study here at
the church, like I was intraffic. I was in traffic with
(41:25):
Jesus this morning, like, and,and to, like, pause the crazy
current of thoughts goingthrough my brain, and just like,
acknowledge you're here now,like you're you're with me, to
be still for a moment, and toknow that He is God, in other
words, that he's there, thathe's with, with me. So that's a
(41:46):
huge piece of it is, is trainingour our brains, our minds, to
pay attention to what we'repaying attention to, and to
think about what we're thinkingabout. It's what Brother
Lawrence called practicing thepresence of God. He worked in a
Carmelite monastery in Paris,and he's well known for his book
called practicing the presenceof God. And he just realized,
(42:09):
like man while peeling potatoesin the kitchen or cleaning the
skillets or repairing, you know,brother sandal, like there was
God with him, and if he couldgive his attention and sit at
the feet of the master, right,that the great portion, no
matter what he was doing, itwould imbue whatever he was
(42:30):
doing with something sobeautiful that it would just
continue to change him from theinside out. So, yeah, unhurried,
unhurried presence. And, man,it's tough like because I'm in
Silicon Valley and we're on atreadmill that's like cranked to
11, and just got to keep upwith, with the Joneses and all
these people who aren't evenreal because the accounts are
(42:51):
filtered and the stuff isn'teven real. So you're trying to
keep up with, with an unreality,and it destroys the soul. You
know, John Mark comer haswritten a lot about this. Dallas
will it has written a lot aboutthis, and I'm really thankful
that there's a lot of attentionturned to it, because our souls
are are wearied and thin becausethe speed like it's it's hard to
(43:17):
have a nice conversation withsomebody, or to see the beauty
of the scenery when you're in arace and you're driving, you
know, the Formula One car, like,everything gets blurred. So
we're living in very blurriedlives,
Joshua Johnson (43:29):
yeah? But hey, f1 does make for a good IMAX
experience,
Heath Hardesty (43:34):
yeah, yeah. It's no it's no hate on f1 at all.
It's fantastic. It's just notthe place for like, a long
conversation while you're in thecar. You know exactly.
Joshua Johnson (43:45):
So, I mean, you're living in a place where
it you know, if everything'sgoing to 11, if every everything
is hurried and fast paced,you're, I mean, Silicon Valley
is like, Hey, we're going to wewant progress, and we want to
create more capital, more money,so that we could whatever it is,
we're just like, we're justgoing, going, going. There's not
(44:07):
an end in sight, right? We justhave to continue more and more
and more. What do you findhelpful for the people that you
get to minister to, to helppeople slow down in the midst of
that really intense area.
Heath Hardesty (44:22):
Well, you know, it's to repeat what I said
earlier. It would be to, youknow, call them into these
practices. It would first bethough to highlight the dangers
and the damaging nature of ofthe speed and the life that
we're living. Most people feelit in their bones, right? Truth
will out, even if you don't havea way of articulating it, you're
(44:46):
like, Why does my Why does myexperience or my existence feel
so blurry and and thinned outand fatigued? It's because
you're running seven days a weekand you're not designed for.
That. So one, I would just likehighlight, you know, what we're
built for, and also show likedoing more faster is not the
(45:08):
answer, and to talk about therhythms that God has created,
you know, there's, there's areason why it was six and one,
and the way he created thingsright that we're designed to
step away from all of our doingsand all of our trying to hold
the world together throughoutthe week and our jobs and all
the things that we do, and tobreathe and acknowledge like to
(45:32):
liturgically build into ourweek, like, oh, oh yeah, you're
the one who holds this together.
Like, you're the infinite one.
I'm a creature that is indesperate need of you for even
like my my most shallow breath,like I need you. And so I'm
trying to to help people see thebeauty of those rhythms. We're
(45:53):
designed for those rhythms. So,you know, that's the Sabbath
thing. But it's also throughoutthe day, having times of of you
know of solitude or quiet,turning again to Scripture
throughout the day, building insome rhythms to help push back
against the the forces that thatjust want to want to tear us
(46:14):
apart.
Joshua Johnson (46:15):
That's good.
Let's get into compassionategentleness for just a moment,
briefly. But how is that
Heath Hardesty (46:23):
power? Yeah,
Joshua Johnson (46:25):
what is that like? You're reframing power for
us and so give us. Why iscompassionate gentleness?
Heath Hardesty (46:32):
Power? Yeah.
Thank you. I really appreciatethat. That question, because
gentleness is often deeplymisunderstood that we see
gentleness as like the oppositeof power, right? We see it as
like, maybe gentleness ormeekness as like being mousy or
like not not having a big voice,or not really engaging, but just
(46:55):
being a little little quiet, orjust only saying positive,
affirming things or being nice.
But the reality is, God isgentle. Jesus is gentle. When
Jesus says that incredible thingthat he's gentle and lowly in
heart, like he's opening up,like the God of all creation is
(47:16):
is opening up his chest andsaying, let me give you an
explanation of who I truly am,right? See, he's gentle, he's
he's lowly in heart, so come tohim all who are weary and heavy
laden, and he'll give you rest.
So it's a big deal that God isgentle. What does it mean? It
doesn't mean he's like hesitantto have a crucial conversation.
It means that he always uses hispower for the good of others,
(47:41):
and he will do it at at cost toself, and do it in sacrificial
ways. So that's, that's whattrue power is. I i just think of
the cross, and it just thisstaggers me, the display of
gentleness and the display oftrue power on the cross, you
know all the mocking, thejeering like Come, come down.
(48:02):
And you know if you are who yousay you are, come, come on down,
and the things he could havedone but didn't do, because he
wasn't there to justify himself.
He was there to justifyhumanity, to restore humanity.
He would be justified. Theywould see who he was,
ultimately, but he stayed atgreat cost to the self. And so
(48:23):
what does this look like for usin conversations? Man, so often
it's hard not to think of socialmedia here, like we want to use
our power to, like, step up andover other people and show just
how incredibly smart we are,just how we have all the right
answers or how wrong somebodyis. So we want to like we want
(48:44):
to trounce them. We want to seethem verbally pummeled online.
But maybe the right thing to do,though, is to find a way to say
something true and kindly thatdoesn't hedge or compromise the
truth at all, and then to trustGod with the outcomes, versus
trying to coerce somebody intoit. And Dallas will it at one
(49:06):
point said, you know, a greatspiritual practice is the
practice of not having to havethe last word in a conversation
that's that's a form ofcompassion and gentleness. And
so gentleness is, is isstrength. It's not the absence
of strength, it's not theabsence of power. It's a proper
use of power for the flourishingof another, usually at a
(49:28):
sacrificial cost to the selfHeath.
Joshua Johnson (49:31):
If you had one hope for the people who would
read all things together and forthe people that you wrote this
book for, what would your hopebe?
Heath Hardesty (49:40):
I think ultimately it would be that that
Jesus would be reimagined andreseen with such such delight,
that we would look upon him andknow that the Father's love has
smiled on us through Jesus, andthat there is this, this
heavenly joy, this heavenly.
Delight that is looking upon us,that is calling us in to
(50:02):
wholeness, and calling us intowhat you and I had talked about
with that relationship, thatthat eternal mutual love, that
that's what we get to be a partof, and that's how all that the
pieces will come together, allthe aches that we have, all of
the longings that are within thehuman condition, what will find
harmony, and we'll find home inthat union with Him. So I would
(50:27):
pray that it wouldn't just belike, here's some new practices,
you know, do these things andOkay, apprenticeship is this,
but it would be like, oh mygoodness, I am invited into the
heart of reality, and the heartof reality is perfect, love and
joy and delight, and the end isgoing to be better than the
(50:47):
beginning and worth all the messin the middle.
Joshua Johnson (50:51):
That's good.
That's good. A couple quickquestions here at the end. One,
if you go back to your 21 yearold self Heath, what advice
would you give?
Heath Hardesty (50:58):
Oh man, 21 year old, year old me, I would have a
conversation like this, thiswith him, because he had a very
moralistic understanding, amoralistic framework of the
world. And I would appeal to himthrough the beautiful, through
through poetry, through song,through story, to show how those
(51:19):
things point to to who Jesus is,because he needed to see the
beauty and goodness of God, andnot just like the truth and not
data, and not just facts to dothe right things, but he needed
to see the beauty of who Jesuswas.
Joshua Johnson (51:35):
Anything you've been reading or watching lately,
you could recommend. What
Heath Hardesty (51:39):
am I reading lately? I'm preparing for a
sermon series on the book ofRomans. So I'm in Romans right
now reading a book by a friendof mine named Joshua Butler
called God is on your side. Sojust dive, diving into that. And
what else I've been reading.
I've been in a lot of poetrylately, reading a lot of Seamus
(52:01):
Haney poems and diving back intoa bunch of Gerard Manley
Hopkins. So if you're lookingfor some poetry, man pull up.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, start,start there and enjoy some
incredible brilliance withwritten word. Awesome.
Joshua Johnson (52:21):
Love it. Yeah, all things together will be out
October. Anywhere books aresold, it's a fantastic book.
This is something where I reallyhope that people don't just go
and get the book. I actuallyhope that that churches will
say, Hey, this is actually a wayof apprenticeship that we want
to orient our lives around toJesus. It's, it's really, really
(52:46):
good. I think it's going to helpa lot of people, and I think
it's going to help us figure outwhat discipleship looks like to
Jesus in this fragmented worldthat we live in. I highly,
highly recommend this book. So Iloved it. I really, really love
this, and I really do hope a lotof churches go and say, this is
(53:07):
something that we could, wecould take not just as a box and
a model for us, but somethingwhere we could, we could say,
Okay, I could actually imagethings and imagine what the
world is really like and helpbring people along with with
that image of reality, of wherewe're headed, and say these are
some practices that we need todo so that we can actually get
(53:30):
to that space with union withJesus. So it's fantastic. It's
really good. So it's outanywhere. So go and get the book
anywhere that you'd like topoint people to. How could they
connect with you, or what you'redoing?
Heath Hardesty (53:43):
Yeah, so you're right anywhere books are sold,
Amazon, Barnes and Noble, youcan get it there if you go to
Heath hardesty.com is just myfirst and last name, Heath
hardesty.com or.org that's kindof like the central hub for all
sorts of things. You know, allmy social media stuff is is
there, but links to all thedifferent places and podcasts
(54:05):
and stuff. So yeah, if you want,you can go check that out.
Joshua Johnson (54:09):
Perfect Heath.
Thank you for this conversation.
Thank you for actually taking usthrough what apprenticeship to
Jesus really looks like, and howthat we could take a fragmented
world that we live in andreintegrate it with Jesus, union
with Him, figuring out how wecan abide in Him to obey what He
has given us, and that we couldactually see some reintegration
(54:33):
in this world. And oh, it wouldjust be an amazing so thank you.
It's fantastic.
Heath Hardesty (54:38):
Joshua, thank you. It's been a joy. I
appreciate you having me on you.
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