Theology that cannot be Dismissed and Power that cannot be Denied - Jon Tyson

Jon Tyson speaks with Mike about learning from the best of various traditions and groupings within the Christian church in order to embody ‘Theology that cannot be dismissed and power that cannot be denied.’ They also discuss his upcoming preaching course “Preaching in a Secular Age” and the importance of ongoing mentorship and coaching in order to continue to grow as a Bible teacher and preacher.

Jon Tyson is a Pastor and Church Planter in New York City. Originally from Adelaide Australia, Jon moved to the United States over 2 decades ago with a passion to seek and cultivate renewal in the Western Church. He is the author of Sacred Roots, A Creative Minority, The Burden is Light and the forthcoming Beautiful Resistance: The Joy of Conviction in a Culture of Compromise. Jon lives in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan with his wife and two children. He serves as the Lead Pastor of Church of the City New York.

twitter : @jontyson
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www.church.nyc


Quotes from this Episode:
I felt the power of God’s Word change my life. It just changed me! And then I remember thinking - “God, If this happened in me maybe He could use me for this to happen in others?”

The first time I heard expository preaching I sat in the front row and just sat there weeping. I literally felt my inner man being nourished. I felt the Word of God build my heart. And I remember thinking “ If I could keep the passion of the Pentecostals with this kind of preaching from the text that would be the thing.” Those are the two great things that have marked me ever since.

The gift that expository preaching gave me was like “Dear God, if he can do this with 5 verses in Hebrews - look how fat the book is?! How much of this stuff is in there?! I want to study this book. And I want to know the God behind this text!” It was revelation and wonder. That’s the gift it gave me.

A trap I see many people fall into is self-righteously judge the season they were in before, rather than integrate the best of it and do something fresh.

At the heart of any human system (theological, philosophical, etc.) there is a “sacred core”. And until you acknowledge and respect it you’re never going to persuade somebody around it. And so you have to, with honor, touch the sacred core before persuasion can happen in any way. And most people assault the sacred core and wonder why they get resistance rather than acknowledging it and then moving towards the conversation. You don’t have to affirm what others believe
to acknowledge their sacred core.

The Bible doesn’t exist to make gay people straight. The Bible exists to make dead people alive. We are all coming to Jesus from various cultural positions and dispositions. And so my message is that Jesus Christ wants to change you in ways that are way more threatening than your orientation if you really want to call him Lord.

New York is nowhere as near as distinct as it used to be because the world has been flattened through social media and shared media outlets. There are still differences, but there is a similar pattern throughout across the world.

The Master starts with the Student. The Teacher starts with the Text. If the goal is “how do I communicate this to you”, you don’t start with “this is what it says”. You start with “this is where you’re at”.And then “how do I get this to you?” But if you only preach to where people are and what they want - they’ll never mature. But if you only preach what people need to mature you will lose them along the way, so you have to find that tension point.

I try to include a minority theologian, a minority voice. No white people notice it but my minority friends always say thank you. I always try to put a women’s voice in there. And then I try to put a church father, someone from church history to show that I am not making this up.

I am a high-school drop out. I am staggeringly undereducated. But I am intellectually curious. So I definitely read more than a lot of folks. And so people always say your teaching is too academic, too conceptual, too many ideas. I’m not trying to be like that, its just how my mind works. So I used to reject that because I’ve been a Teacher not a Master. So now the question is how do I get the core of it in a way that you take it into your life. So that’s one of the big things I’ve been working on lately.