>> I first want to say,
how grateful I am to Steve, Evan,
Rachel, I don't know where Rachel is,
like he fifth
Oh, there she is.
She's everywhere.
Like the Holy Spirit in
a green dress it's just.
But I'm really grateful to be here.
To be part of this conversation,
and I know that I'm going
to yap at you for a while,
but I really want this
to be a conversation.
If we can make it that.
I'm grateful for the
opportunity to be here.
I'm grateful for the material
that we're going to talk about.
I'm grateful for a
group of friends of mine
who are here to support this.
You've heard some things about me.
You've heard that I've been
married for 26 and a half years.
which is really an impressive
thing on my wife's part,
given that it's me that she's married to.
I have a daughter who's in her first year
at Duke Divinity School
and a son who's in his first
year of Undergraduate School.
And I'm also from Washington D.C.,
which as many of you know,
there's this small word going
around called sequestration.
The sequestered.
You've heard this word?
I think I heard that word
like 10 times in my life
and now it's 20 times a day.
But I have to say,
if you're from Washington
and there is a sequestrar going on,
everybody is anxious.
This is really good for psychiatry.
But it feels kinda bad
knowing that people being
anxious about losing their jobs
means I'm more likely to keep mine.
But this is who you are dealing with
and in addition I would say this:
I am professional at
one thing in particular.
I am a professional sinner.
For you Calvinists,
are the Calvinist here? Yes.
So for you Calvinists I am
really good at being depraved.
For you Arminians I'm
really good at backsliding.
For you Contemplatives
I'm really good at just being mindless,
but all that to say that
we are all in this place
longing for God to continue to work in us.
That we may be his
vessels to work with him
to Usher in the kingdom of God.
And what I hope for us to do today,
is to spend some time talking about
a particular part of God's good creation.
That he is using to light the path
where by which we may be more
effective in that journey.
I'd like to do three things.
Sermon right, three things right?
First thing we're gonna talk
a little bit about neuroscience.
We're gonna talk about
Neuroscience as a cultural dialect
and what that is.
The second thing we're going to do is,
we're going to talk about
what does it mean to proclaim the gospel
in the language of neuroscience.
and the third thing we gonna talk about is
what does it mean for
us as followers of Jesus
to embody that proclamation.
We can't really talk about
that which we are not becoming,
very well or very effectively.
So those three things
but I wanna couch it in these terms:
That this is not intended to be 30 minutes
of information download.
This is intended to be a space where,
in the time that we have together,
Jesus is here to work
and I invite us to be aware of
and attuned to what the
Holy Spirit is doing
in and among us, literally,
while we are together.
Because this is not about me.
This is about Jesus
coming in his fullness.
We have only part of that story,
somewhere in that story we are.
I don't know where exactly but were here.
So let me start with this idea,
the first thing is we're gonna talk about
Neuroscience as a cultural dialect.
And when I say neuroscience
let me be more clear about
what I'm talking about.
You can say neuroscience
and meet a range of different things.
It can mean people who
are just working with
neural bundles in Alzheimer's
disease in the brain.
Now that might not sound
very exciting to someone,
but if you're married to
the person with Alzheimer's,
it's very important stuff.
Or you may be talking
about someone who looks at
the brain changes that take
place in attachment disorders.
It's much more relationally driven.
That's neuroscience as well.
So there's a whole range
of different disciplines
that are converging that
are all kind of a part
of this thing we call neuroscience.
So what I wanna suggest is
out of the discipline that I work,
which is what we call
interpersonal neurobiology.
Those two words interpersonal neurobiology
tend to help us bring together
these different disparate disciplines.
That all look at the function
of the mind and relationships,
as they interact with each other.
this phrase comes from
my friend Dan Siegel
and he coined this a number of years ago
and it's just everywhere now.
you can hear about it.
So one of the reasons that we
wanna talk about neuroscience,
it's going to be shorthand for
interpersonal neurobiology,
is because whether you know it or not,
it has become it has become the language
that culture uses to talk
just about everything.
You know this.
People know this at the Washington Post.
This is Tuesday February 12th.
That's two days before what important day?
Valentine's Day.
Love is in the brain not in the heart.
I mean we've even got to like talk
about Valentine's Day
with using the brain.
There's you know we have all these
research pieces that
are done now that says:
if you write an article.
It could be about making yogurt
and you have a picture of
the brain in the article,
people are more likely to believe you.
I don't know why the
Democrats, Republicans
haven't figured this out yet.
Why aren't they just sending white papers
with like little pictures
of the brain on them.
It's everywhere.
How many of you know
of Brené Brown's work?
Some of you here, right.
It's common, it's just everywhere.
But it's not just that it's everywhere,
it's become authoritative.
It has become authoritative.
It isn't just out there.
It is out there telling us
what is good and what is right.
You're following me?
It's telling us what is
good and what is right.
You may not know this
but starting tomorrow,
there is a major conference at UCLA,
being run by my good friend
and a number of others,
called How People Change.
Dan Siegel and his friends
are running this program,
Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
How People Change.
Relationships and
Neuroplasticity in Psychotherapy.
Now I wanna say,
it's gonna be an important conference
because there's gonna
be alot that we learn
about how people change.
But I want to suggest to you
that there are probably
those of us in the room
who would like to say that
if we wanna talk about how people change
it wouldn't be a bad idea
if Jesus shows up in that conversation.
I will tell you I don't think
Jesus is going to be
showing up at that party.
Not in person because I'm
sure he's going to be there.
I just don't know if people are
gonna talk about him from the podium
and that's because we live in a world
where most of the world is listening
to my friend Dan Siegel
as much if not more so
than they are listening to those of us
who are preaching from pulpits.
You following me?
It's everywhere and it is authoritative.
But I want to I want to
draw attention to something.
It's been very helpful for me
to read a guy named Michael Polanyi
and if you should know him Michael Polanyi
and Lesslie Newbigin.
And they talk about this idea
called the prevailing plausibility
structures of the world.
This idea that there are many, many
different possible structures.
Many different lenses through which
we can choose to understand
the nature of the universe.
And how the universe operates.
It is important to know
that we in the West
have for many, many years now lived
and do live still under the authority
of the plausibility structure of science.
We don't go to the bathroom
without having research
telling us that this is the right toilet.
Like the last time you used the toilet
someone researched that.
Oh, you laugh until the toilet overflows
and because we're in America
then somebody needs to be sued.
It's just the way it is
but that makes people anxious
and that's why psychiatrist have jobs.
But you see you see what I mean.
There is nothing that we do
that doesn't have some homage
to be paid to that particular
way of seeing the world.
Do I make sense?
And like a fish who doesn't really know
that it's swimming in water most the time
were not paying that
much attention to this.
And in fact we in the church now
we preach our sermons this way,
we build our building this way.
We do a whole range of things
living under that auspice.
Now there's something to be
said for science that is good
because we'd say it was around 300-400 AD
that the Cappadocian fathers
started to write theology
that lead us to science.
I mean Gregory and Basil and Gregory
were some of the first great,
thoughtful scientists in that sense,
because they believed in a world
that could be observed
and could be studied
and could be thought about.
And so another reason why this center
for Christian thought is
so crucially important
to be thinking about these things.
But even before that we would say this:
Saint Paul in Romans Chapter
1:20 says this ,paraphrased,:
From beginning of time
if you look at creation,
creation points you to God.
From the beginning of
time we've known this.
And so it's important for us to be aware
that the discoveries
of science are helpful
because they are now giving
us an additional language
by which the Gospel of
the biblical narrative
can be described and unveiled to a culture
that listens to science.
Does that make sense?
When I wrote the anatomy of the soul
there are basically five
points to this book.
One is, we all long for a
world of goodness and beauty.
I don't know anybody who
wouldn't want that, number one.
Number two, if we pay
attention to the emerging data,
that interpersonal neurobiology
is pointing us toward,
that data points us to the
very world we long for.
Number three, that same
data not only reflects
but energizes the biblical narrative.
It reflects and energizes
the biblical narrative
and as such it changes our
very experience with God.
If we are willing to pay attention to it
and do what the data asked us to do.
Fourth, a crucial element
of implementing this data
is completely dependent upon human beings
engaging in the process and
practice of being known.
The process and the
practice of being known.
In 1 Corinthians 8:3 Saint Paul says,
"The person who loves
God is known by God."
He does not say the person
who loves God, knows God.
The person who loves god is known by God.
Let me ask you this question:
For each of you
and this is something I would invite you
to consider doing as an experiment.
For each of you,
I would like for each of
you to give me three names.
Three names of three people
who if I were to ask them about you
they could collectively tell me everything
there is to know about you.
Everything.
Not just your vital statistics.
They would tell me what
your worst fear is.
They would tell me
the number of times
you felt ashamed today.
Which it would be hard for them do
because of how ubiquitous that affect is.
But who knows us that well and get this,
who knows us that well
and we are aware of it.
Like I'm aware of being known that well
that I can step back and
say wow this person knows me
with all my stuff and they
are still in my life today.
Could you give me three names?
Some might be able to.
Some of us would find that hard to do.
But I want to suggest to you
that the degree to which we love God
is associated deeply
with the degree to which
we have the experience
of being known by God
and the degree to which we experience
being known by God is directly related
to how well we are known
by embodied people.
This is really important
because one of the things
we come to find out
is that it is in the
process of being known
that so many other important things
begin to happen in the
brain that leads to health.
A process that we call integration
that we're gonna talk about
more of tomorrow night.
That's fourth, here's
fifth piece of this book
and that is we live in a world
that is increasingly atomistic.
Individuals want to kinda
go and do their own thing.
That's not a biblical
picture of the universe.
Anatomy of the Soul was
not written primarily
or solely for people's
individual personal growth.
Because growth never ever
occurs only individually.
It only occurs in the
context of community.
But we live in a culture
that wants to tell us
that I by myself can know
everything I need to know,
logically and linearly as
longer just study hard enough.
And that I don't need to be known
in order for me to have
an awareness of myself.
We can't know ourselves until
as we say in the business,
I see myself in your eyes.
Which of course is completely
consistent with this idea
in Genesis 1:26 and 27 where God says,
Let us make man in our image
and then let's let man live like we live.
It's paraphrased.
Let us make man in our image.
In the context of community,
what's really interesting,
in the context of being
known my anxiety drops.
And if my anxiety drops
it is possible for me to be more creative.
This is not just about
my own personal welfare,
this is about my capacity
for being creative and
thoughtful about my vocation.
This is about who am I
called to be in the world,
who are we called to be
and how do I use the
"we" in order to help me
figure out who I am
called to be in the world
It is a way of living out that
Genesis mandate, if you will.
And so paying attention
to the neuroscience
is really helpful and important
because the more we do,
the more we don't just grow personally,
the more we become the
kingdom of God on the Earth.
And prepare for the
Kingdom that is coming.
As Dallas Willard said at a
conference back a few months ago
I believe God, just like
this like I didn't know.
From Missouri, I didn't know
that Missouri was in the south
but like I believe God will let anyone
into his heaven who can take it.
And you know here's the thing
with all my professional sinning
I'm not sure I'm going
to be able to take it.
But god does not leave
himself without a witness
and for such a time as this
when the brain is so sexy.
It is. You know 10 O' clock at night,
Tuesday, I just roll a
picture of the brain.
No, I don't. Really, I don't do that.
We have other methods
and so I completely forgot
my train of thought.
He does not leave us without a witness
and so we're at a place where his creation
now opens itself in order
for us to access it.
To use that information
to help point people
to the story as we understand it.
As God has been bringing it
to pass from the beginning.
Does that make sense?
Again another reason why the work
that you are doing here at CCT
is like so crucially important
not because it's just a bunch
of smart women and men doing things
but because it adds to this rhythm
of using my left brain and my right brain.
This rhythm of being rigorous theologians,
being rigorous philosophers
and being rigorous people
with boots-on-the-ground.
That's how we live.
What does it mean for us
to proclaim the gospel
using this language?
This is a part of my little talk
that we can just go on
forever and ever and ever.
I'm just gonna name a few things
why is it important to
pay attention to this.
In no order of importance,
one thing that strikes me is that
about Jesus telling stories
and parables and so forth
is that he used a lot of different medium
a lot of different motifs
for the stories that he told.
So he told stories about people
who planted things, right?
I don't know how expert he was
in the vocational field of farming
but he knew enough to
know that you throw seed
and it grows or doesn't and
there might be some reasons why.
And there's probably some people here,
most of us here would have some sense
of what it would take to grow plants.
But we aren't all horticulturist.
But the point is that he knew
enough about those motifs
that were important in his
day to use them effectively.
And so to proclaim the gospel
means it is important
for us to be familiar
with the cultural dialects of our day.
In order for us to use them effectively.
You don't have to be an expert
in brainstem activation.
You don't, I'm sure you might have thought
that you needed to be.
You didn't. It's disappointing.
But it is important to know
some fundamental basic things
about how this is working
because this is the language of your day
and it'll be important for Believers
to be able to name and tell people
what the purpose of this language is.
As opposed to people
who develop the language
deciding what the gospel is.
Which of course is what happens.
I have many friends who are
what we might call reductionists.
If it's in the brain
and we can take it out
then it doesn't exist in the universe.
If I can find that set of cells
that represents my experience
of God and we eliminated it.
Then apparently God goes away.
Not withstanding the
fact that I say well gosh
I could probably also find the
cells that represent my wife
but those cells go away
I think my wife is still gonna be there.
But you see what I mean,
there's a reductionism with which we live
and it's important for us to know enough
to be able to have that
conversation with folks.
There's some other ways
that are important for us
to keep things of the mind in mind.
For example: How many of
you here are preaching
sometime between now and Sunday night?
A handful of you, okay.
How many of you still have some prep work
to do on your sermons?
Yeah buddy, all right.
So let's just keep this in mind,
I mean I don't know how this will sound.
When you are done with your sermon,
I mean not just preparing
it but preaching it.
Within two hours
people would have forgotten
probably 85% of it.
Is that not encouraging news?
I went to seminary, I
got to homiletics class.
No, it's not to suggest that
what we say is unimportant,
it is to suggest that things like
how we deliver sermons is important.
That people remember
things that they experience
as much, if not more than things
that they just simply hear.
So the stories we tell
are crucially important.
Including things in our worship services
that embody the body
are crucially important
because you're not just
simply in sermons either
trying to download information.
That's not what we're trying to do.
We want to offer a gift
that people may take in
and eat and walk out and be changed. Amen?
This is hard work.
This is really hard work.
Here's another thing,
how many of you are part of churches
in which when people come in and sit down,
they're sitting in pews or chairs
that are lined up or curved or chevroned?
But where most of the folks,
except the people who are
sitting in the very front row,
are looking at the backs
of other people's heads.
Okay, I mean that's what we do.
You know I'm not thinking
that this is a good idea
for people be looking at
the back of my noggin.
So here's something else,
if you take a group of people
and you sit them in a circle,
it means that they are
going to be far more aware
of the presence of other people
because they are going to see
whether they are consciously
aware of it or not.
They are gonna sense
all the nonverbal cues
that are coming from other people
in response to whatever
is happening in the room.
That's why what's happening
in this room right now.
There are things that you were sensing
not just that I'm saying.
You're already sensing things
that other people at
your table are sensing.
Now you weren't aware of
that like seven seconds ago,
but now you are.
Notice that this room for instance
is almost full to capacity.
If we took this group of people
and had an auditorium
that was twice the size,
we would not be having the same exchange.
Your brains would be having
a completely different experience.
These are small things
but these are things that are big deals
and these are things
that God's good creation
and information that we
are gathering from it
is being laid before us
in order for us to proclaim the gospel.
Not to mention other ways
that we proclaim the gospel,
we proclaim the gospel with artistry.
Oh, my gosh!
The CCT offices, you do,
you have to take them all
on a tour of just these two rooms.
It's unbelievable.
Somebody did some real
thinking in designing a room
where by which the very
physicality of the room itself,
not this room, although
this is a good room.
It's a great room, I love this room.
It's my favorite room in the world.
The very physicality of the offices
like you walk in and you feel a change.
Somebody is paying
attention to these things.
It's really good stuff.
I have a friend here Nicole Johnson
who is an actor, a dramatist
and she does the kind of work
that is not preaching from a pulpit
but that grips people in such a way
that the Holy Spirit has
access to make change.
So things like acting and
dance and music and literature,
all those kinds of
things are all important
and the more we pay attention
to how it effects the mind,
the more we line up with what God
is wanting to do in the world.
That is intended to be encouraging.
But it takes work.
And it takes work for us to
figure this out together.
Again another reason why places
like CCT are so important,
Have I done a good job
on the marketing thing?
Okay, I'm just checking.
You call me,
as long as it's not about me,
I can market anything.
So it's hard work but when done together
God is like so stoked about this.
Those are just examples of what it means
for us to proclaim.
One last thing I'll say about that,
Is my friend Dwayne here in the room?
There he is, right.
So my friend Wayne is a Spiritual Director
and there are others in the
room who may also do this work
but one of the things that directors,
and I'd had one for 16 years,
one of the things that directors do is,
they invite us into spiritual disciplines.
You know I really have
to say I hate fasting.
Anybody else with me on this?
Wow, I'm so glad I'm
not by myself with it.
It would be really embarrassing
if I'm the only one raising my hand.
It's really hard work
but there is work that
gets done by that process.
But not just when I'm doing it by myself.
When I'm doing it with
the three other guys
that I meet with on a weekly basis
for prayer and confession
when we do this together.
So like we all hating it. It's great.
But these kinds of things open us.
These kinds of things open us
to the work of the Holy Spirit
and it is a way for us to pay attention
to things of the mind that
neuroscience would now suggest
is really taking place
literally in your brain.
This is not just some abstraction.
So when Saint Paul talks
about renewing your mind,
he's not kidding.
Last piece and then we're
gonna have some Q and A.
How do we embody this?
It's one thing for us to know about
interpersonal neurobiology
and that it exists in the universe.
God's creation is out there and open to us
and we can learn more about it.
We can also begin to work
at making this possible
and doing things with it in our work
as scholars in our work, as pastors.
But it will be difficult
for us to do either of this,
if we are not personally
embodying this in our lives.
So here's the story:
He's 42 years old and he's
married with five kids
and his church, naturally,
because he is who he is.
And who is he?
He's bright. he's articulate.
He's thoughtful, He's kind.
Tireless worker, funny, engaging
because of this of course,
he's church is involved
in a building project.
It is inevitable coz if you're really good
this is the benchmark, right?
If you're a really good
Pastor at some point
you have to have a building project.
But it starts to drive him crazy
because with the building
project people have opinions.
Now they're not just having
opinions about following Jesus.
Now it's about like how
many square footage.
And things start to get overwhelming
and he reaches this place,
that now even there is
literature about this,
called burnout. Right?
And I would guess that there are people,
who are in this room,
who either if they have
not been there in the past
may be close to that now or
are headed in that direction.
And he comes to see me.
Now of course this is the
other thing about Pastors.
I don't know of many other professions,
where it's just not easy to go talk
to the other Pastor down the street.
To talk about how your
ministry is blowing up.
This would be like if
somebody from, I don't know,
the Redskins going to
somebody in the Eagles camp
and saying how can we do
better to beat you next year.
It's not working very well.
But here's the thing,
with all of his travail
and with all of his effectiveness
living as a human being.
There were certain things
that he had never paid attention to.
After having become a
Believer as a college student,
he worked through some of the stuff
but he hadn't worked through
all the beatings as a kid.
He hadn't worked through all of what
it felt like to be in isolation
because his marriage was not really
in reality what it looked
like to most folks who saw it.
I really don't have to say
much more than this, right?
And he'd been to his
Primary Care physician.
He's already on an anti-depressant, right.
So he's getting all the help from culture.
But we began to pay attention to things
like what he was paying attention to.
And to memory and to emotion
and to his attachment.
And to a range of different things
that gave him language for contending with
and needing those elements of his mind
that were a wrecking ball for him.
We also were able to say
healing is not gonna happen
just with you and me in this office,
coz I'm just not that good.
Don't tell people I said that.
This is going to require your being able
to talk with other people.
Whereby which this shame
stuff that you carry with you
can be known and as
the Hebrews letter says
can be scorned, can be disregarded.
Just as Jesus did that at the cross.
This became a project were in which
his taking on these elements of the mind,
gave him an opportunity to, albeit slowly,
climb out of this place that he was in.
But it required him beginning to connect
with other people in the community.
This is really hard if you're a pastor.
Coz pastors just don't have
that many places to go,
where you can really be known.
Coz word gets out,
the building project
goes away in a heartbeat.
You follow me?
So the question I have for us today:
To what degree are we known?
To what degree have we incorporated
all those different elements
of what it means to love
God with all of our mind.
When we know for a fact
that most of our mind
operates in ways that are non-conscious
and we're not aware of.
And who is with you such that,
that healing and regeneration and creation
can come to fruition.
My invitation is for you to take this
and by this I don't just
mean the stuff I've said
but the things we're going
to be asked about now.
And not simply forget it.
As you are likely to do
just because you're human.
Not because you're not serious about it.
Not because you don't care.
The people who listen
your sermons they care.
They like your sermons
by the way, they do.
They wouldn't keep coming
back if they didn't.
My encouragement for you is to take this
and allow Jesus to knead
it into your lives.
That you and those around
you may be changed.
You've been a lovely audience.
Thank you very much.
I think we're going to
take some time for Q and A.
>> I was, Doctor Thompson,
I was intimidated when I enter the room
because of this august body
of theologians and experts.
I'm not an expert.
>> Me neither. I love this is great.
>> Anyway, I had a very
interesting experience.
That came back to mind not to long ago.
I have a son-in-law who
is a messianic Jew and
when he heard that my wife who had done
some of her post-graduate
work in Denver seminary.
She kept telling me that maybe
we should experience living
in a four-season place.
So I said I'm going to Denver.
He said can I go with you Dad.
He calls me dad that's how close we are.
And he kept on driving my wife's SUV
and after midnight there
was a radio talk show host
who you understand my action?
>> I believe so, so far.
>> Well I'm an alumnus of here at least.
>> We're good.
>> Well he was interviewing
the chairman or chairwoman,
to be politically correct,
enabling Social Science Department
or Psychology Department.
And she say that we have done
all kinds of sonograms on the brain
but up to now we cannot
find where memory is stored.
And I said that's interesting.
He say Dad what's interesting?
She does not know where memory is stored
because she is a secularist.
Because as a humanist and humanist being
that it is the measure of all things.
While I was talking, I was
talking to my son-in-law,
I remembered Dives and
Lazarus having a conversation
across the gulf in their
disembodied spirits, right?
So I said to him that I believe
that memory is stored
not in any brain lobe
but in the spirit.
Am I right or wrong sir?
>> That's a great question.
I'm going to refer that
to the philosophers over here.
It raises a great question.
Again, we find it to be really helpful
and interesting for us to
ask where is memory stored?
Frankly, where is anything stored? Right?
I wanna suggest this:
That the pursuit of knowing things
is something that we do
with mixed motivation.
Part of what we do to discover things,
to know where memory is,
to know where thoughts are,
where feelings are and so forth.
We do that because we
long to inculcate that.
To make that a more conscious,
intentional part of our life.
But frankly, a lot of, in
fact for me personally,
most of why I want to know things
is because I like Eve and Adam before me
want to know that I know that I know.
It is about the knowledge of everything.
I'm much more interested
in being able to know certainty,
than I am to live in a
world of probability.
Now with Newtonian physics,
we thought we had certainty. Am I right?
And with quantum mechanics we now know
for certain that we don't have certainty.
Did I get that right?
Or we think there's a good probability
that we just have probability.
My point is this:
Probability about anything,
for instance there's a good probability
that short-term memory is housed,
is highly correlated with the activity
of the cells of the hippocampus.
There is good evidence to that in fact.
Because if we cut them
out or if they die off
while you have your sleep apnea
episodes, which they will.
You don't remember things as
well in your short-term memory.
You don't encode things as well.
But why do I need to know
that, that's where they are?
Sometimes I need to know this
because I wanna do new
interventions on behalf of people.
But I know that lurking
underneath all that
is my old Adam that wants to know things
because I'd rather know than to trust.
I'd rather live in a world
where I can in my isolation
control all my variables
rather than have to live
with the specter of a God
who is moving in the cool of the day
and who gets to ask me questions
and who tells me things.
You follow me?
Great question. Yeah?
>> Thanks for being here Doctor Thompson.
As a teaching pastor you encouraged us
to consider how we can
incorporate neuroscience
into the preaching event
or into the sermons.
And I would love to do that
and I elicit with the 15 other disciplines
that I'm supposed to be and expert on.
And I preach so I can give 15-30 minutes
to try and understand neuroscience
which we don't think will be sufficient.
And most of the neuroscience information
I get is filtered through
some sort of popularization.
A TED Talk, a NPR interview,
something more conservative
than NPR to make people
feel more comfortable.
>> Thank you, I was starting to feel
a sympathetic drive system starting to.
>> But I would love to know
because I hear you saying
we don't want to just
filter it through a secularist lens,
we want to have our own
ability to look at it.
But I don't have the capacity
or the time to read a
neuroscience journal article.
Where can some of this
be found that's useful
and what would you encourage
us as teaching pastors
so that we don't just sound
like we've read a time article
and are trying to be an expert?
>> I think three things.
First of all, my first
suggestion is don't sleep.
Coz I think if you just don't sleep
you'll have plenty of time to read
the stuff you need to read.
Secondly-
>> Male: You sound like a male.
>> Great, really?
Well I'm an elder of my church
so that's probably why I sound like that.
Secondly, again I would say
that this is a conversaton.
I think that you've raised,
how many here would say that's
like a crucial question?
What he just asked.
Because we're all being asked
to do more with less. Right?
The sequesters just like the stamp
on that or the government, right?
In our church we have a guy
who is a political scientist
and every four years he
runs a six week course
leading up to the election
that helps us pay attention
to how to think about, how to
be in the political process.
Now I don't have time to do
all the work that my friend Jerry does.
But that's the kind of thing
that we're talking about doing.
You're absolutely right.
No pastor is gonna have
the time, effort, energy
to do all the kind of work to know
all that you need to
know about everything.
But this is why places
like CCT are so important.
And so I would suggest a
thing to consider doing
would be to say hey once every six months
and this might even be to free
but once every six months
we're gonna get together
and we're gonna have two or three of us
as a group of pastors,
we're gonna get together
for an afternoon lunch
and we're gonna sift through
some stuff that we've seen.
And we're gonna have a
conversation about this.
That's a thing to do.
Where's Steve, where did he go?
So I'm getting ready for this talk
and I'm thinking to myself
Oh my gosh,
you could have a two day
conference for pastors
in which this is all we do.
We could come back and have this whole,
talk about all kinds of ideas,
but this is what places like
this are intended to do.
So I think that question is relevant,
it'd be like how can I be familiar with
all of the important contemporary
music that's being played?
I'm with people all day.
I don't listen to the radio.
I never listen to radio.
How am I gonna know these things?
Well there's certain things I can't know
but it will be helpful
for me to know people
who are kind of helping me
connect those kinds of things.
Again it's hard work but
were trying to do that here.
I'm sorry that I don't have the the answer
other than the sleep thing.
I think that's helpful.
>> Male: Is there anything to developing
your talks for the community.
Where as you bring your ideas
you have a variety of people
that are reflecting and
interacting with it?
>> So I think that your question raises
a whole host of options to consider.
That would be creative
opportunities to flush this out
and like all ideas are
born out of little things,
I mean gatherings like this.
All ideas that go someplace
and are helpful and meaningful.
>> I have a quick question
and then I'll pass the
mike when we're done.
Thank you again for your time.
I heard you talking
about community building
in the language of neuroscience
in your little talk about being known.
In your research does
it show that it takes
a certain amount of time
before someone enters a community
and they can really start
digging through their issues.
Coz as pastors we're not only Preachers
but we're building Communities
and people tend not to open up
until a certain amount of time.
I just don't know if that's
different for everybody
or science shows that they have to be
in your parish for year.
They must be in a small group.
>> So I'm gonna take this,
help me with your first name.
>> Blake.
>> Blake , I'm really sorry, in advance.
>> We can do confession later.
>> That's fine, we can
do confession right now.
But people have to go.
I could be here for a
long time confessing.
What prompt your question?
When you were talking about being known
and the character, the 42
year old with five kids,
I just immediately thought
of pastoral ministry.
I'm just thinking of a couple, a man
in a small group that I'm in.
They don't start opening
up until a year or two in.
Oh, a whole new person
that I didn't know before.
And I was just wondering,
I don't do scientific research,
if research shows a person
does not start opening up,
maybe it's even one on one therapy
until they've gotten to know them
for a certain amount of time
because as pastors people will come
into your church and they'll leave
and you start this process
of community building
and it tears that, it
rips it and it breaks it.
I see the community part as huge
and what you're saying about being known
and community it's all very fascinating.
>> So there's two level
of what I'm hearing.
There's two layers of which
things are happening in the room.
Right now, quite literally.
So one level there's a
question that's put out there.
A crucially important question.
And once again we'd like to
know the answer to that question
because it's going to help me
make decisions down the line.
You follow me?
I'd like to know things
because it reduces my distress.
Right? Coz I wouldn't
be asking this question
unless at some level it's hard for me
not knowing the answer to
this creates some trouble.
How much longer do I have to
wait for this guy to open up?
Right? Like it's been 17 years
because he's a guy, right?
That's part of it but it's
also important to know
time is a function of intention.
Time is a function of intention.
Notice in the creation narrative
the scripture do not say
and God created mankind.
It says and God said
Let us create mankind.
There is thoughtful reflective intention
from the very beginning. Okay?
So if we're going to be in a group
and we're going to by intention,
draw this group to a place of transparency
and community and live out
1 Corinthians 12 and 13.
There are certain intentional things
we can begin to do to
facilitate it being more likely
that it won't be 17 years before he talks.
>> That's what I'm looking for.
>> Right. And that's next
year's luncheon I think.
>> Female: I was just
curious to hear your thoughts
on the effects of technology
on how that is forming our brains
either toward or against community
and if you see any hope.
>> It's a great question
and I go back to the wheel.
The wheel does lots of
really great things for us.
It let's us move things, places.
It makes it easier to transport things.
Like my wheat 10 000 years ago.
But it also means when I want to,
I can leave you more easily.
Yes, it's easier for me
to get to my kids now
when they're in Durham, North Carolina.
But it means I have to get to
Durham, North Carolina to get to my kids.
So we can say with technology
there's always going to be
this two edged sword element to it, right?
The part that we can do good with it
or we can do things that
tend to be not so good.
There those who would
suggest that we have reached
a different place with
things like the internet.
In that the more wired together we are,
the less connected we are.
And I would suggest it's
kinda like a perfect storm.
And we could talk all day
about just this particular item
but we would say that
I know you think you do
but you really don't have 500 friends.
I know that you think you're all that
but like it's just not the case.
But see there is a certain
illusion with that, right?
There is this illusion that as long
as I have that sense of
connection at a superficial level,
I don't have to be deeply
connected to anyone.
And I reinforce what I
would call Shame Ages.
I'm in the process of
doing a new manuscript
for book on Shame.
And we're not gonna find a more primitive,
negative, affective state than that.
And things like technology,
in the way we are currently using it,
tend to reinforce that
same affective effect.
I could say more about that.
I wish we had more time
to talk about that.
Again you could develop
another converse. Yes?
>> It seems to me that part
of what we're wrestling with,
maybe the main thing were wrestling with,
has been the gradual
depersonalization of life,
the world in general,
since the rise of Science.
Now science required a
kind of depersonalizing
of the pagan world to get
rid of all those spooks
and things that made
things go where they went
but the Christian world,
if you take a look at the
Christian biblical worldview,
it's inherently personal.
That it's fundamentally
personal not impersonal.
It's not a machine.
It's a creation by a living God
and it seems to me that we
need to get back to that.
Which would put this thing
were discussing today
in a whole different context.
That we would be approaching it
from a whole different context
because we modern folks have basically
bought into what a bishop of the 1700,
Bishop George Barclay said.
That machine that Newton has invented
is going to get in the way of God
and that's exactly what has happened
and we need to overcome that.
I think that's a doable project
and I think it's part of what
we need to be doing right here.
Does that make sense to you?
>> Does that make sense to other people?
Fine and good.
>> Thank you.
>> I mean, I would say this:
I would say that again like I said earlier
and this is where our
historians and philosophers
would be far better at
articulating this than I would,
we have to recognize that
science was born in the church.
But as our friend Micheal Polanyi said
in the end there really is
no such thing as science.
There are only scientists.
And it's important that we
keep that distinction in mind.
Now it doesn't mean that
ideas don't have impact
but it's important to keep in mind
that when someone says neuroscience says,
I gotta tell you it's not neuroscience,
like it's John Green in a lab coat.
And if you were to take John Green out
and have a beer with him.
You can do that right?
You can have a beer?
I'm just checking.
I couldn't do that where I grew up.
And you would find out
some things about John Green's family.
We're gonna tell a story tomorrow night
about one such person like this.
You're gonna come to find
that John Green's thoughts
on science are never just about science.
I think I'll stop with that.
