Wake-Up Call Conversations - Andrew Forrest

JD (00:09) Hey, JD Walt here. This is not your normal wake up call entry today. We're bringing what we might call a bonus feature to the wake up call. We're gonna call them conversations. And we're gonna be meeting with friends of ours from across the world, sowers. They're just like us and yet they're doing something special and unique. Maybe they've got some kind of project that they've launched. Maybe it's a book they've written. Maybe it's just a story that we felt like everyone should hear. So thanks for joining us for this one today. JD (00:52) And today we've got Andrew Forrest with us. Andrew's the pastor of Asbury Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is an incredible community, the church, and they're making Tulsa incredible through their witness and presence in that city. So lot for us to talk about. I'm not big on long intros and... and certainly there'll be no ads that you have to push your way through. Let's dive straight in with Andrew. Welcome, Andrew. Love for you just to kind of give us the spark notes on your life. Andrew Forrest (01:35) JD, I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me. And as you said, I'm the pastor, senior pastor at Asbury Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I've been here three years. I moved here from Texas where I was part of a new church start and a pastor of that church in the heart of Dallas for 12 years. I'm married and I have two children and I've lived a bunch of different places in my life. I went to college in New York City, I to seminary in Dallas. I grew up in Virginia and in West Africa. I'm a third generation pastor. and really ⁓ grateful for the position I'm currently in and for the time we get to do ministry in. I'm glad for this time this afternoon. JD (02:13) Yeah, well, you know, we first met Andrew, I bet it's been 10 years ago when we invited you to come, you were at Munger Place in Dallas and we invited you to come and be a speaker at what was then our new new room conference. We've been doing it for 10 years now. That was year two. And you just, brought such a word that day that I'm still asking myself, why did it take us 10 years to get you back? You just came again this year to New Room. Andrew Forrest (02:53) I did, yeah. I did, it was fun. JD (02:55) And yeah, thanks. It was done in Montgomery. We're going to do it again there in Montgomery next year. ⁓ you know, following up on that, I'm like, we need to just talk some more. ⁓ You did a pre-conference there. There's a book that you have released here quite recently that I wanted for us to talk about today. It's a, hey, look at there, you got one. You know, Andrew, I had a copy and somebody, like they wanted to buy it from me. So I like I should give it to them. Andrew Forrest (03:29) Hmm. I put tape on my copy. Weird looking tape so that nobody would take it. JD (03:35) That's good. That's what you got to do these days. These books, Andrew, are not easy to get right now. Andrew Forrest (03:44) That's right. Yeah, it's been out for one week actually. This is the seventh day of its release and I'm pleased. I hope so, yeah. I don't know anything about the book business, unlike y'all, but I think it's doing well and our church people are starting to dig into it, which is what I'm excited about. JD (03:52) It's doing good, isn't it? Well, when you can't, when you have a hard time getting it, it's doing good. And so it's called Love Goes First. Subtitle. Andrew Forrest (04:12) Reaching others in an age of anxiety and division. And sort of the operative. JD (04:17) I mean, did you know it was gonna be so bad right now when you wrote this? Andrew Forrest (04:21) No, no, and of course I have mixed emotions on the one hand. Of course I'm pleased the book is timely, but on the other hand, in some sense I wish it weren't timely, you know what I mean? ⁓ Because ⁓ the way I keep explaining the book to people is this, how are we going to reach the people that hate us? You everybody's talking about division and polarization all the time, which is good, it's important to explain how we got here. But JD, this is me, and feel free to contradict me. I don't hear anybody telling me what to actually do. JD (04:31) Yes. Andrew Forrest (04:50) How do I actually reach these people who don't think like me, who don't look like me, who don't vote like me, maybe even they hate me? How do we reach them? And for me, this is kind of like the pertinent question. JD (05:01) It completely is. I we are now thoroughly in our own echo chambers with the way that the internet works, the algorithm, you are constantly reinforced with your own point of view in a stronger and stronger and stronger way and polarized against other points of view. And we can lament that, which there's lots of that going on. We can moralize about it and have all sorts of oughts and shoulds. Or we can do something. But then what is that? And so give us like the big, just like the 50,000 foot, what does it mean for love to go first. How did you come up with that? Andrew Forrest (06:01) Yeah, well, if it's okay for me to say on this podcast, I think the words came from God. I had an interaction with somebody one time. My old church had a balcony, and I was, after one of our morning services, waving to get the sound guy's attention in the balcony. And there's a guy behind him. He kind of thought I was waving at him, you know, that kind of awkward half wave you do. And then it was obvious I was talking to somebody else. Well then, you know, three hours later, after church in the parking lot, I saw this guy who's old enough to be my grandfather. JD (06:20) Yeah, it is. Andrew Forrest (06:30) And I said, I'm sorry, I was waving to the sound guy and he said, that's okay. I thought you were saying hi to me for once. I'm like, whoa. And I thought this guy hated me because why, well, he basically said it. He would say like, I don't like you, I don't like this, I don't like that. And what I realized in that instant was this guy wants me to like him. And the words love goes first just sort of came to me. And it's a very simple idea. We talk about loving your neighbor. Jesus says, love your neighbor as yourself. My question is, what does that practically look like in my definition is, well, to love your neighbor is always to move toward him, both often literally, but more importantly, spiritually and metaphorically. And so ⁓ for me, when I say love goes first, I mean that in any and every situation, the loving thing to do is to be the one who moves toward the other. And so here's the point. In this age of polarization and division, just telling people they're wrong and marshaling all the facts, will often not be enough, which should be obvious, because if it were, if the facts mattered, then that carefully worded 10-point Facebook post that you put up there so quickly would have caused all your family members to say, you are right, what must I do to be saved? But that doesn't happen, because we're all caught up in our emotions. And somebody said to me recently, well, this is really obvious. And I said, no, no, it's not obvious. It's intuitive. It's not obvious. If it were obvious, everyone would do it. What's intuitive is this. We're constantly waiting to see how someone else will be disposed or behave toward us. We're like two junkyard dogs, you know, circling and growling, and it's either friend or foe. And so most of my life, I spend time waiting to react how someone has acted before me. And of course, the other person is doing the same. So the simple idea of the book is, well, when you act first, irrespective of how the other person is perceiving you or is thinking about you or agreeing with you or not, you are upending the status quo and thereby opening up a possibility for the grace of God. So that's kind of the idea I work through in the book. It's simple, but I don't think it's simplistic. JD (08:27) No, you know what reminds me? I remember years ago, was about to get married and we were going to lots and lots of parties, lots of social things. And I remember this seminary professor came up to me and he gave me some of the best unsolicited advice I've ever received. He said, know, you're going to be in so many social settings and no matter where you are in a social setting, everybody that you meet is asking you one question. They're not going to ask you with their words, but it's coming out of them. He said, here's the question they're asking you. How am I doing? How am I doing? Am I doing okay? And he said, your goal without words, maybe with words, but in every way embodied, you're telling them, first, you're doing fine. You're doing good. Right? And that's a posture. It's a bearing towards people. Andrew Forrest (09:35) Mm-hmm. Correct. Yeah, and I like the idea of posture. I ultimately, the result of the book I'd like to have would be people, the church has this sense of posture of always being on the front foot toward the other. So I have this ⁓ quotation. I saw Andy Crouch, the writer, give this talk at a conference and I transcribed it. I opened the book with it. He says, every one of us came into the world looking for one thing. The moment we were born, we were looking for a face. We were born. And in the shock and surprise of birth, we opened our eyes and we looked for a face. Because until we see a face, until another sees us, we do not know who we are. And we looked for someone who would look at us. Every human being is looking for someone who is looking for us. And that's exactly what your seminary professor said. It's just actually that simple. And the word I like to use now, JD, is not that people want to be tolerated or even seen. I like to say people want to be preferred. They want to know that like their existence matters. JD (10:34) Mm-hmm. Andrew Forrest (10:43) And so in some sense, I think actually it is often even literally wordless the posture you have toward another person that says, I'm glad that you exist and that God put you in front of me today. And we can dig into this. This is not a silver bullet. I'm not implying that somehow when you go first, it all works out and your enemies come around and it's, you don't always have the response that Jonah has in Nineveh, okay? But what I am saying JD is I see no other way for us to reach the world other than moving first toward it. JD (11:15) Yes, while we were yet sinners, Jesus went first. Andrew Forrest (11:20) Exactly, exactly. Right, exactly. And once you have the vocabulary, you see it everywhere. I mean, both in our everyday lives and of course it's the whole story of the scripture. We love because God first loved us. And so what I like to tell people is when you're moving first, it's not that the relationship always will change for the better. You can turn first toward your wife or your uncle or your colleague and maybe they're not gonna receive that. JD (11:32) First love does. Andrew Forrest (11:48) But when you move first, you are always changing the terms of the relationship. Just as Christ, once he has come, once the incarnation has happened, it's not that the world has all received him, but it is the case that the world now is in a different relationship towards the Lord who made it than before the incarnation. JD (12:04) Yeah, you know, I want to you mentioned Jonah and I want to come back around to him. but you also sparked in me this thought. And I think about this a lot in the particular culture that we live in the United States. And. You know, Christians, we've lived through a long season where we kind of saw ourselves and we were seen, I think, by the culture as sort of the host of the country, we hosted the culture. And that's not true anymore. And so we find ourselves upset with the culture a lot of times. But I keep trying to remind myself that we're now the guest. We're the guest in this culture, the church. And it's one thing to be a hospitable host. It's another thing to be a hospitable guest. And we've got to learn a whole new set of dispositions and ways. It's like what once was a given in our worldview, our sense of morality, all these things, it was a given in the culture. It's not anymore. And I sometimes think, you know, I have to wake up and think, I don't really live in the America that I grew up in. I live more like in Denmark. And I should see myself as almost a missionary in Denmark. And if I were to go into a home in another country as a guest, I'm not just going to go in and start moving their furniture around and telling them I don't like their wallpaper or their art. But Christians often do that. They polarize it. They're like, that's other. They other, right? Which is the opposite of what we're talking about here. Andrew Forrest (14:16) Yeah, and I think a lot of it comes out of fear. And that's what I really like about the posture of going first. So when you're afraid, you're on the back foot, so to speak. And even you might even, whether you use the language, you might embrace the position of being a victim. You know, they're all against us. Every organization has been taken over. Everybody's out to get us, whatever. My point is not to argue whether that's true or false. My point is to say, Jesus was not a victim. He's a sacrifice. He says, nobody takes it from me my life. I lay it down in my own accord. And his people are not victims, right? And so the reason that matters is because when I decide I'm going to go first, I like the image of being a well-mannered guest. When I decide I'm going to go first, I'm now, I'm an agent. I'm no longer a passive recipient or victim. I'm an agent. In this case, I'm an agent for the gospel, the love of God. And there's just something that changes in the relationship. So here's a practical example. And a lot of times in marriages, One person is more of the extrovert, one's more of the introvert. One's loud, one's quiet. One's late, one's on time. So in my marriage, I'm the extrovert, I'm the loud one, and I'm the late one. My wife is on time, ⁓ more quiet, and more introverted. We have a big church and a big sanctuary on Sundays, but she feels a particular responsibility and even charism from God to go around and try to greet people on Sunday morning in the sanctuary. And in a big church, there's always those kind of weird people who are kind of sitting like this. And my wife says that at church, she said she couldn't do this at the PTA meeting, but at church she feels a gift from God to always be the one who moves toward those people. And even when they sort of rebuff her, good morning, or don't even speak, she says she kind of makes it a mission to try to bless them and to be a blessing toward them. Here's my point, is that I think, JD, in this hostile culture, the more we take offense and see ourselves under attack and be sieged, it'll actually produce the exact wrong effect in the other people in the culture. It's when we decide, I'm going try to bless today. I'm going to try to move forward. want this culture to know that God loves it. It actually becomes more delightful for me as the agent moving toward them in that way. JD (16:25) Yeah, this is a mindset. I mean, practically speaking, mean, in your book, how do we change the mindset? I think we've identified this whole notion from going from like, I'm the host here to I'm the guest. And ⁓ we're approaching people with a sense of like, I belong to you. Right? I'm not. Everybody's also constantly in that calculus of like, do I belong here? And they're gonna make the decision, right? You don't get to make the decision, but you know what you can decide in approaching a person is that you can decide that you belong to them. Andrew Forrest (17:12) Yes, yes, yes, with an important caveat, which I know you and I are on the same page about, but I think our viewers should hear. Yes, but we do so without letting go of the gospel. See, that's the move there, right? It'd be relatively easy to accommodate, and there's a chapter in the book, I talk about different options the church faces, and one of those options is to accommodate, just to let go, to become, to paraphrase Jesus, salt-less salt. JD (17:40) Right. Andrew Forrest (17:40) The real beauty is in not giving up your saltiness and yet still saying, belong to you to use your language. So here's a practical scriptural example. Jesus and Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus knows he's a sinner. The crowd knows Zacchaeus is a sinner. And Zacchaeus knows the crowd knows he's a sinner. So then when Jesus says, Zacchaeus, come down, I'm going to come to your house today. What Zacchaeus experiences is the strange I think it's cognitive ⁓ dissonance. Zacchaeus goes, this man, this rabbi, he knows I'm a sinner and yet he's trying to be with me today. That's an example of going first, because what happens then is that it opens up, as I say, possibilities for the grace of God. So the real trick there, JD, is when they know that you know and you still move toward them with love anyway. That's where the power lies, I think. So it's not giving up who we are, it's staying who we are and moving toward them anyway. JD (18:39) But because that is who we are. We are... So for instance, know, Jesus, he not only goes to Zacchaeus' house, he has tax collector parties. And everybody is upset, particularly the religious leadership, you know, that in that world of virtue signaling, they're like, he eats with sinners. And he's like you're darn right I do. That's who I am. this is another posture. me... This is what I think too about grace. Grace is so radical that it is willing... So grace never affirms sin, but it will always affirm sinners. And it's willing to go so far in the affirmation of sinners to risk being misunderstood as the affirmation of sin. You track with me there? Andrew Forrest (19:47) Yeah, I think I'm like, absolutely. I would go further almost and say to love is to be willing to be misunderstood. It just comes with the territory. It's what love is. Yeah. And this is why there's often an agony with it, right? So I think love always comes with a cost. I think there's no such thing as a cost less love. And one of the costs is to be willing to be misunderstood. And Jesus is misunderstood, the Father who sends the Son is being misunderstood, and we the church are often misunderstood by all different kinds of people. And grace does it. I look at the parable of the prodigal son. The older son cannot possibly understand why the father would extend this sort of grace toward the prodigal. And Jonah, you mentioned Jonah, Jonah is the same way. He would literally rather die than try to understand what the Lord is doing with regard to the people of Nineveh. JD (20:42) Yeah, and that, those are great examples. This is what I would call profound love for God and profound love for people. And it's off-putting and it's awe-inspiring. Right? You're gonna have both responses in situations. ⁓ Off-putting and awe-inspiring. And that's just the nature of the presence of God in the world. Press on Jonah as a big story in all this. And it may be a timely one for our age. Andrew Forrest (21:23) Yeah, I think so. think what's interesting about Jonah is that the response... So he's the most successful prophet in the Old Testament, I think, probably by any means. And he's also totally reluctant. But Jonah moves toward Nineveh. I'm wondering if you've ever read Jonah chapter three, you realize that his message seems to be... has a lot to be desired in it. He says, in yet 40 days Nineveh will be overthrown. And everybody immediately repents, even though he doesn't really talk about repentance or mercy. It's not clear. Does he truncate his message? Does the narrator truncate his message? But either way, he's remarkably successful in his prophetic ministry. Now why? I think part of the reason is the nonverbal message of an Israelite who would have, of course, looked different being in Nineveh, going toward Nineveh and speaking to them. There's something about the actual act of literally going first that provokes this amazing response. The sad part of Jonah, of course, is that JD (22:10) Yeah. He didn't want it. Andrew Forrest (22:19) Jonah, yeah, he doesn't want it. He'd rather God kill him. Which leads me back to Jesus. Okay, I'm getting old enough now, JD, that I'm wondering if maybe Jesus was right about everything. He says, yeah, yeah, he says, he says, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. And so this is sort of the premise of the book is that like, what if JD, we are not so much in a post-Christian moment, although, JD (22:29) Everything. Everything. Andrew Forrest (22:47) We see the elements of it. like your image of now we're the guests, not the host. But we're not so much focused on being post-Christian, but pre-awakening. Right. And what God is wanting is people who are ready to move toward the mission field, the harvest, et cetera. JD (22:55) Pre-awakening! Yes! It's Isaiah, forget the former things. Do not dwell on the past. Behold, I'm doing a new thing. Now it springs up, right? Do you not perceive it? This is the call to awakening and it is to reset because that whole post-Christian thing, that's such a negative word. It's time to get on the other side of that and realize that you know what? That's an opportunity. And who will go first? Andrew Forrest (23:42) Right. You know where people will get ahead of themselves though is they start thinking about trying to go first towards an Islamic terrorist or something, which there are some people who are called to that. That's probably not most of the people listening to this today where they find themselves. What I know God is asking us to do, JD, is to go first now, today, with the people in our lives right now. And tomorrow, and a year from now, we'll take care of itself. Maybe God has some you in some radical situation. What I'm sure of is that it's gonna be you moving first towards your neighbor or the guy next to you in the checkout line at the grocery store or with a child or with a parent or that kind of thing. That's the posture we begin to adapt and then what happens over time is we become the kind of people who go first in the habitual character formation that God has given us. You know, there's seven chapters in the book, an introduction and an epilogue, and there's an eighth chapter that ⁓ I'm glad I didn't write it in the book, it didn't fit exactly in the book, but the eighth and unwritten chapter is this, J.D. JD (24:39) Deleted scene. Andrew Forrest (24:39) How do we become these kind of people? How do we become these kind of people? That's what I want to know. JD (24:46) Where's that chapter? Andrew Forrest (24:48) Well, hey, I'll have to add that as an extra epilogue online or something. I am gonna preach about it for sure. ⁓ Because we really are talking about being so, you said the love of God, we're so filled with the love of God that we naturally move toward other people, even though rejection and dare I say it, even crucifixion, spiritually and every now and then literally, is a possible outcome. It doesn't matter, we go first anyway. JD (25:15) Yeah, mean, it's preemptive embrace. Andrew Forrest (25:20) Correct. That's a nice phrase. JD (25:22) It's because oftentimes, what we typically are dealing with is preemptive rejection. I'm gonna reject you before you reject me. And I'm gonna virtue signal my tribe that I'm with them. Andrew Forrest (25:40) I think this might be why, JD, that there's such an attraction towards proclaiming judgment more shrilly. One of the options the church faces is just to say, everybody, you're all sinners, turn around. You're all are bad. And by the way, that would have the virtue of being true. It's true. But I think the reason that's so attractive to the church these days is because it's almost a version of, I'm going to reject you before you reject me. I'm going to stand on my pedestal, tell you how all the ways you're wrong. JD (26:03) Yep. Andrew Forrest (26:07) And then ⁓ I feel like I've delivered my soul, and then you can't reject me. The problem is, judgment alone does not provoke people to repentance. They have to know that there is a God who actually invites repentance and is eager to send mercy. This is why the church exists. If we don't need to proclaim that message, if it can be deduced from the natural law and just see that God is a God of mercy, then people would do it, but they can't. It's a special revelation from God. The gospel needed to be proclaimed to us through Christ. And now it is our job on his behalf to proclaim it to the world. If we don't do it, how they going to hear? What does Paul say in Romans 10? How will they hear without preaching? JD (26:43) How will they know? Yep. And how will they preach unless they're sent? And that's, you said, I'm an agent. That's what apostle, that's a sent one. ⁓ And that's the other shift that we in the body of Christ have to make, is we have to shift from a... We're the customer mentality to we're the employee. We're the servant. We're the agent. We're the sent one. Andrew Forrest (27:22) Yeah, and again, I think if you take that mindset, it actually is both freeing and more delightful and pleasant. So if you've ever been an employer, one of the things that frustrates you is that the employees don't do always what you want them to do. Or if you've ever been a parent, children don't always do what you want them to do, or often rarely, right? And there can be a frustration, how come you didn't do it, X, Y, Z? But when I am not seeing myself in that position, but I'm the agent, I'm the one who's gonna provoke the change, it takes away all that stress of people not meeting my expectations. I have no expectations of them. My expectation is that Christ has asked me to move forward and I'm going to do it and then I'll leave the results to Him and the other person. JD (28:04) Yes, I mean, it's a cliche, but it's the same idea. It's like, are you gonna sit in a hot room and complain about and fan yourself? You're a thermometer. Or are you gonna go look for the thermostat and turn the thing down? That's... Andrew Forrest (28:24) Yeah, and I think more than we'd like to admit, most of us, most of the time have adopted the first mindset in our relationships, in our world, et cetera. But when you say, how are they going to change? What are you going to do about it? Where are we going to reach them? And by the way, obviously, JD, this is a gospel imperative, and we're talking about this as ministers of the gospel. But by the way, this would also apply to sort of like secular progressives. I want to say to the secular progressives, how are you going to reach me? How do you want to reach me? If what you believe is true, then you should want me to embrace it and to be a full-throated supporter of whatever, you know, this position or that position. And so, although the book is a Christian book and I'm a Christian pastor, I'm talking about this to my church, and actually it's just a very simple question. How are we going to reach the people who don't already agree with us? And it seems like to me that everyone, literally everyone, ought to be interested in this question because it's vital for our time. JD (29:27) It's, yeah, it's how do we get out of our own echo chamber and get in. Andrew Forrest (29:35) Yeah, and to use crass marketing terms, like, don't we want to broaden our customer base? You know, we want to create new customers or whatever. Now that's a marketing term, but I think you see the utility of it. JD (29:42) Right. Yeah, I was thinking about that whole host-guest thing and I was just thinking about how Jesus, how he came as a guest who was actually the host. He was himself the creator of the world and he comes in as an unassuming guest. And I made this statement earlier that like the church is no longer the host, I'm like, but we are. We're the host of the creator who created this world and yet we have to ourselves learn to come as a humble, unassuming guest. It's almost like you throw open a palatial home and you have a party and you're walking around that party and nobody knows that it's your home. And you're not boasting like it's your home. In fact, you don't really care if anybody knows it's your home. You're just trying to make people feel at home. Andrew Forrest (31:05) You see this with the Christmas girls. The Christmas girls love that strange paradox, the irony, the juxtaposition of the Lord of the universe in the manger. The one who made the moon is now bathed in moonlight. know, the poetry just works, almost trips off the tongue. And so I think you're exactly right. We actually do have the truth. That's why Jesus vis-a-vis Pontius Pilate is such an interesting example in John chapter 18 and verse 19 where he's talking to Pilate and everybody's afraid, Pilate's afraid, the Jews are bang for the blood of Jesus, they prefer Barabbas, Pilate says, what is truth? And then Jesus is so calm. And so he's there, he has put himself under their power, but he actually holds all the power. And you see what happens when you approach the world like that. Again, we're not gonna argue that crucifixion is not a reality, it's that God can actually even raise the dead. JD (32:03) Exactly. We have nothing to lose because we've already won. So be gracious. You know, I remember this story of, I don't know, back, it have been back in the 70s. I read about it. I was alive, but I read about it. And it was when Jimmy Carter was in the White House. And this would have been, I guess he would have been elected in 76. Well, in somewhere in the middle of his term, Richard Nixon came back to the White House for the very first time. And, you know, he had such an awful ending. know, he was going to be impeached. He resigned. He left the White House in shame and went into exile, essentially you know, unclean. And he comes back. I guess Carter had invited him for some kind of a big occasion. Former presidents all there. All the former presidents that were alive were there. And so they're in the Oval Office. Nixon walks in. And these other presidents, I mean, we just by nature, we are a shunning people, it's in us to other, to distance, to push away. And so these other presidents are kind of looking at each other and nobody's really making a move toward Richard Nixon. And Jimmy Carter gets up, walks across the room and famously, now famously says, welcome home, Mr. President. That's the move, it? Andrew Forrest (34:01) It is, that's exactly it. I wish you had told me that before. I could have included that in the book. That's a great example. Bonus feature, yeah. Just think about the feeling in that room at that moment. What changed when Carter did that? And as I always say, grace changes everything. When you move forward like that, atmosphere of that room was changed that day. And that's the move. That's what it looks like exactly there. And look how controversial that can be. Are you excusing it? Are you approving of it? JD (34:04) Bonus feature. Yeah. Andrew Forrest (34:30) And no, no, this is what love does. It moves toward the world. You already quoted it. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's just kind of, that's the gospel right there. JD (34:39) Yeah, yeah, that's so good. Well, this book is a, it's a solution, it's an antidote, it's a salve and I hope that it's a conversation that we desperately need in this time. So thank you for writing it. It's a lonely enterprise to write a book. It's very frustrating. It takes long. I think, I don't know, I I'm interested, what thoughts do you have about, stories? I think we need more stories, just like that one I told. mean, that inspires people. And how do we get it from conceptual to visual in a story, and then in a way that can become stories? I think of a book like this, I'm always asking authors, I'm like, if you just consider this idea that you have that becomes a book and it's a seed and we plant it in the ground and it actually grows up into a tree, what's, tell me about the fruit. What does it look like? What does that fruit taste like? What's the shape of it? Andrew Forrest (36:00) think it would do two things for us if this were to be planted and grow into a tree. I love that image, by the way. Number one, we would be able to explain what it means when we say love your neighbor. That's a simple glib phrase right now, but it doesn't mean anything. Right? It's just, we think it might mean handing out water at the neighborhood fun run or something. Be nice, right? There's a place for that. But I like love going first as a very practical and actionable. JD (36:12) Right. Yeah. Be nice. Andrew Forrest (36:29) thing to do every time you're trying to love your neighbor, number one. So that would give us clarity on the inside of the church. But then I think the other result I would see is we would actually be able to reach the people who hate us and share it in the good news, and we'd see a remarkable spiritual harvest. So that'd be the two things I'd want. One, clarity in the church about what it looks like to love somebody, practically. And then out of the church, we'd see this remarkable spiritual harvest. And I don't know what God is doing, JD. I don't claim to speak for the Lord. But I'm pretty sure that the reason the Lord has not returned and brought the curtain down in history is because He's not done yet. That every breath therefore is proof that God has more and He's working toward it. So I want to see what the more is and I'd love to see it in our time if God, we could be like Simeon, if God would just let us see with our own eyes something amazing, wouldn't it be delightful then in our old age to see it? JD (37:20) All right, so as we wrap up here, Andrew, ⁓ you know, you're talking to thousands of people every week. How are you seeing this, like, land? And what do you want to see happen, land there in your church? And then I think, but of course, the bigger question is in the community, which leads us to to answer, ask a different set of questions about what we're going to do in the church, because it's, we just, we don't just need more information, do we? We need approach. And I'm interested in that. Andrew Forrest (38:01) Yeah, somebody, yeah, somebody spoke to me. I obviously have to be vague here with lot of these personal stories, but somebody spoke to me. No, no, that was a different one. Somebody spoke to me ⁓ just past Sunday, because I'm preaching a sermon series about these topics right now. And somebody said, as soon as you're speaking today, I knew exactly who that person is, and it's part of the extended family. And this person is very difficult to love well. And so we talk very practically, what does it look like then to move first toward this person? How does one do that? At some point we talked about there's a lot that needs to change in me to be able to love well. And that's the exciting part where the Holy Spirit is maturing me and growing me up. And then I move toward that person. If that person rejects me, well that's, that's all I can do. Maybe then I circle back in a year or I circle back in two years and I don't ever give up until God calls me or the other person home. But on the practical side of it, I want people to start thinking that God has them where they are because he wants them to move first towards somebody else in their life. And it's a cliche, all right? Hey, we have a mission from God. We have to join God's mission. It's not just the pastor who is a missionary, but all the people are ministers. It's a cliche. JD (39:08) Yeah. Yes. Andrew Forrest (39:21) And people who've been around church have probably heard that, but I find that a lot of people have not really embraced it. my gosh, I'm supposed to be a missionary of the gospel today where I am. Yes, you are. And what it will look like is you move first toward those people. So I've heard some pretty cool stories already about people who have moved first and some remarkable turnarounds. Sometimes the story doesn't have a happy ending, but often it does. Something remarkable happens. Somebody was courageous, moved first, and then that there is this beautiful reconciliation or another door opened up, that kind of thing. And I'm praying that our church, what I'd really like to see is that our church habitually uses this language of going first as what it means to actually be disciple of Jesus. JD (40:05) Yeah, you said a lot right there. And it made me think about, I can be hyperbolic in the way that I say things because maybe I think people aren't paying attention to me. So I have to turn it up. But I say things like this. say, you know, God loved the world and he sent his son Jesus. But Jesus didn't love the world. I'll say Jesus actually didn't love people. He loved always a person. It was a woman by a well. He went first. He went to the place nobody went. It was a man in a tree. It was a beggar by the side of the road. It was a woman caught in adultery. It was always a person. And we, think, in this age, in an age of sort of strategy and scaling and all of that, we think, well, how are we gonna reach those people, that people group. I'm like, they're not a group. They're a person. And so pick a person. It's always a person. Love is the journey of Jesus from one person to another person. And he's going to go first. It's just like you said, Lord, who is that person today? That's what I call sowing. Andrew Forrest (41:27) Yeah, I'm trying to be polite on the podcast, JD, but I want to kind of bang the table or shoot off an air horn when you're saying this. There's no such thing as abstract groups of people. There's no such thing as the gay community, the Republican community, the New Yorker community, the hunting community, the vegan community. These are just demographic abstractions. There's only actual individuals created in God's image. And the only way we're going to reach that demographic group is by loving the individuals in that group. And maybe there's somebody, maybe, maybe somebody who's like, God, I don't know who these people are. Give me a name and the Lord will answer that prayer. Almost definitely everybody listening to this immediately knows, yeah, it's my old Uncle Bob. I'm gonna say it at Thanksgiving. It's my neighbor. It's my wife. It's my child. you start there and the rest of it will take care of itself. Exactly, see that person eye to eye and love that person that God has put in front of you. JD (42:10) Yes. Andrew Forrest (42:24) And the posture ought to be, God, I'm so glad this person is in front of me today. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. JD (42:31) And you spend time in the book too, really helping us understand what love is. You know, it's not sentimentality, it's not emotion, it's not feeling a certain way, it's willing, how do you say it? Andrew Forrest (42:37) Mm-hmm. I quote Thomas Aquinas, I love his definition. To love is to will the good of the other. And I love that because it moves it away out of the emotional and the sentimental and it makes it actionable. I'm willing the other's good. JD (42:57) Yes. That's why you can love your enemies. Like, I don't want bad for them. I want good for them. And how do my actions comport with that? Yeah, I mean, I just want to keep talking here. We could go on. Maybe we could do like the Joe Rogan length. ⁓ But you know, I'll tell you a story that I witnessed when we were up in Wilmore, you know, with this, what we called an outpouring of the Holy Spirit up at Asbury University back in 2023, I guess it was. And I mean, the clear, clear, clearly the Lord was present in a unusual way there. And it was the kind of thing where we experienced people feeling an overwhelming wasn't like a heavy burden, but it was a weighty movement that I need to reconcile some relationships. And in fact, it became like an invitation. Is there somebody that you are crossways or estranged from in your life. One of the invitations wasn't like come to the altar, was go out on the steps and text them. Just go, you go first, essentially. Go and just text them and say, you know, I just, it's been too long and I know things aren't good and it's complicated, but I just wanna signal to you that I'd like to start trying to work this out. Everybody's got somebody for that, don't they? Andrew Forrest (44:48) We all do, we all do. And the gospel is a ministry of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. And if you've ever been on the receiving end of that, if you've ever had anybody say to you, hey, come sit next to me, or hey, how are you, or call you first, it changes you. It just changes you. And so you know how sweet and powerful that is. JD (45:17) I was in a couple of sort of, we were meeting a lot with the, we weren't leading the thing in Willmore, we were just trying to hold on and to help shepherd it. But we were back there with people from Asbury College, university, like the employees, the leadership. And I saw it myself, mean, people who were in conflict, like, inside of the institution. They just started moving toward each other and reconciling. Somebody made a move. And I think it's a precursor. It's a sign of awakening when we begin to move toward people that we have broken relationship with or estrangement with. And we're just kind of wait, really, we're just waiting on them to go first, aren't we? Andrew Forrest (46:11) We are so allow me to be a little Sunday school here. All right, let's take the Asbury outpouring. Look what happens the Lord moves first It's his initiative his action his outpouring his love and the result being what then we start to move first toward others It's it's the gospel. That's how it works JD (46:29) Yeah, that's right. We love because he first loved us. Yeah, it is very simple at the end of the day. So yeah, and you mentioned that you've written a little bit of a discussion guide, right? And how do we get in touch with that? Andrew Forrest (46:47) Yeah, each chapter has questions, which should be helpful, but we've written more of them for groups at our church. We have a discussion guide. If folks go onto my website, which is andrewforest.org, F-O-R-R-E-S-T, or go to asburytulsa.org, either way, and just email anywhere they can find an email. Email anybody, fill out a form, contact form, contact me form on my blog, that kind of thing, and say, we like the Leader's Guide, we'll send you the Leader's Guide with a PDF for it with a bunch of questions broken down, how to use the book, that kind of thing. Our groups are just now meeting. They've just launched this week and folks, I'm already hearing great discussions because everybody kind of knows we have a problem. We have this polarization. What are we going to do about it? And I think people are enjoying thinking through the love of God and how we reach the world with that love. And it's fun. So I'd love to help anybody implement this in their churches and they can just email me or contact us in any way. JD (47:41) You know the other thing I want to encourage you, I'm gonna give you a to-do here. I want you, this is very important because in our work, right, there's all sorts of numbers and counts and whatever. We need better data. Our data in our work is stories. Figure out how to create a way people can tell you stories of when they went first. I don't know if it's a little, there are all kinds of ways to do it online, right? Little video, little audio, email. We need to become the collectors of going first stories because that's you get more of the stories you tell. Andrew Forrest (48:27) I love that. Yes. Okay. Challenge accepted. Yes, sir. Thank you. JD (48:28) He's gonna do it. Perfect. I'm gonna be up every day. I'm going and I'm looking for that portal because I got some stories I'm gonna tell. that will move the needle. So everybody listen, well, Andrew first, thank you. Thanks for taking, for writing the book. Thanks for being a part of this wake up call conversation. And ⁓ if you're watching this and you don't know about the wake up call, well it's gonna be ready for you at 3 a.m. in the morning. You can come back to YouTube, you can go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, you can, we'd love for you to get the email where we put all sorts of goodness in there. We might put Andrew for his cell phone in there. So go to seedbed.com slash wake up call, one word and jump in. And if you come in, I'll see you in the morning... if I don't see you in morning I'm gonna be looking for you on the field. So for the awakening with Andrew Forrest I'm JD Walt.