Brent Billings (1:40)

Yes.

Reed Dent (1:41)

And trying to be people who follow the way of Jesus. I think following the way of Jesus presents a lot of challenges, especially, like, the further into it you go, trying to go the way of Jesus just makes. I know. I don't want to burst anybody's bubble here, but it makes some things harder, not easier.

Brent Billings (2:02)

Oh, yeah.

Reed Dent (2:03)

Challenges to Bible reading. Like, how we read the Bible, what it means, challenges to our thoughts about God, theology. It presents challenges, even just to questions about, like, what do I do with my life if I'm trying to follow Jesus? And the way that comes to bear on so many things when it comes to what I do with my neighbors, what I do with strangers, what I do regarding Empire, what I do with my job and my working time and my money and my things, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And all of this has to be now brought into the light of Christ into the light of following Jesus. And it's really. It's complicated, it's difficult, it can be tiring. It is also, I mean, don't hear what I'm not saying. Like, it's also full of joy and full of shalom, but it is also hard. And so to me, we have community and in large part to help us along the way so we. We don't have to go it alone. And I also know that in my own self, if it's just me, I tend to go awry pretty easily in terms of, like, how I'm acting or what I'm thinking. And I need people to encourage me and to challenge me. And so, yeah, that's. That's kind of the premise behind, I think why community is important is because following Jesus is. It costs and it's difficult.

Brent Billings (3:35)

Yeah, we're talking about value systems and ethics is a lot of what you're referencing. Those are not. When you frame it up, you start to realize how silly it is that we picture these things as individual endeavors. I'm going to master a total remodel and overhaul of my value systems or how to live ethically in this world. Just in my own mind. Like, no way I'm going to have to do this in relationship with other people.

Reed Dent (4:01)

Well, it's not even just the. The way that it's formed in relationship with other people, but what does it mean to live it out in a purely individual sense? Like, unless you're just going to go be a monk in the desert somewhere, you have to live. The Jesus way is lived necessarily in community. It's formed by community. And it is also for community, for the community around you. So. Yeah, but I love that it's a pillar for Baymon, for what we do here, because the truth is that there is probably a brand of Christianity that a lot of people are familiar with that actually mostly restricts itself to the realm of the individual. And it's just kind of about the things you think about God and the prayer that you prayed and about you having your sins forgiven. And not that those things aren't a part of what's going on. They certainly are, but it can't be reduced to that. And if it is, gosh, it just becomes so flimsy and so impotent, I guess, is the word. And so, yeah, for our faith, meaning not just what we believe about Jesus, but the way that we actively trust and follow, for that to be robust, I think it must have community.

Brent Billings (5:13)

Yeah, well said.

Reed Dent (5:14)

So, I mean, from my. For the perspective of Reid that we talked about, we're now cramming the universe through the brain and ears and eyes and mouth of Reed, and it's getting squeezed out the other side.

Marty Solomon (5:26)

Talk about a challenge, but we're here to do it.

Reed Dent (5:28)

I live and breathe and work amongst a community called, called CCF Campus Christian Fellowship. It's the campus ministry that I have worked at for like 18 years now. Going on 18.

Brent Billings (5:42)

Your entire adult life?

Reed Dent (5:43)

Yeah, no, I mean my entire adult life, my entire marriage, my entire life of raising children. All of this has been lived in this one community. And it's now my job to keep that community going. I'm director at the campus ministry and so it's my job to kind of set a tone and a pace for this is what our community is about. And when I tell new students who are coming in what we're going for, when it comes to community, I say think about it like a Japanese woodworking joint. So if you've ever seen pictures of Japanese woodworking, they will make these joints. And so joint is several pieces of wood coming together. And there's like a really slap dash way of doing joinery where you can just like take two blocks and mash them up against each other and drive a screw through it, or you can just clamp them with glue in between them. But the Japanese have a much more like intricate sort of way of doing it where each piece becomes a part of the inherent strength of the thing. And there's not glue or like a screw that's holding it together. And so if you've ever seen it, it's almost like these weird three dimensional puzzle pieces that, you know, have all of these tines or prongs to them and they're cut individually by hand, and they have all these angles, and yet when they come together, they become this incredibly strong joint that doesn't need anything else. And the pieces are both individual, but they also become a part of like an integrated whole that if you take that out, then you don't have the thing. And so for us, these three things are a part of our community. The very, very shorthand is friendship, conversation and practice. Or if I was going to put it in a little motto, it would be sharing life together and exploring questions of faith while taking faithfulness seriously. So sharing life together is the friendship part, the exploring questions of faith is the conversation part, which I love doing with college students in particular because they're like fresh out of the womb of their upbringing. And there's all of these now questions that they want to just consider out in the wide open. And I love that. And then taking faithfulness seriously is the practice part. And so we can just talk about each one of these a little bit, and hopefully that will be beneficial for listeners in some way.

Marty Solomon (8:01)

You know, what's interesting is I saw this heading about the Japanese woodworking, and I thought as you were telling the story of how you've been at CCF your entire adult life, all these things, that's something I associate with Japanese culture. As somebody who dedicates their entire life to. To one thing, constantly honing their craft and becoming more and more of a master of what they're doing. So it's interesting that you were talking about something completely different, but I think it's also maybe related in some way.

Reed Dent (8:28)

No, I'm actually really glad you brought that up. This is not in my notes, but I'm thinking that community is a crafted thing and it is kind of a learned skill. And this is an important lesson, I think, because I talk to a lot of college students who, especially post college, it's like, well, I tried a church and I was there for a week and I was like, this isn't going to work because of this or this or this, you know, or you can even be in a place for a while and then some offense happens or something goes wrong, and it's like, that's it. I'm done with. And not even just with church, but with people, too. Like, I'm done with this friend, done with this family member, you know. But the experience, the practice community is a practice in and of itself. And it is something that needs learning and growing and dedication. And of course there's going to be awkwardness and we're going to fumble our way through it and we're going to mess up and we're going to have to retry. Of course, of course, of course. But, yeah, no, glad you said that. So we begin with friendship because there's a line that I always paraphrase from John Paul ii, and I, for the life of me can never remember the exact quote, but at some point, actually, it's probably time for me to stop. Drop. I'm just going to drop the. This is a paraphrase of something, and I'm just going to say it, okay? The appropriate context for theological inquiry is love and mutual friendship. So what that means is that to discuss things of God, of faith, of discipleship, first of all, recognizing that these are not simple things. These are like deep, mysterious things, some of them, and serious things, the Appropriate setting in which to do that is with people that I am friends with, people who love me and that I love, as opposed to just talking heads arguing in each other about finer points of doctrine. Because we've done that. I think probably a lot of people at some point in their life have ended up in a conversation like that. And there's just no way to feel good about it. Whether you lose it, the argument, or win the argument, it doesn't really matter. Nobody's walking away from that actually benefiting or being refined in any way. And I think the reason why this is true, why the appropriate context for theological inquiry is love and mutual friendship, is because of something that. Apologies, not apologies. Frederick Buechner wrote that. He said, all doctrine begins as an experience. So what that means is that the writers of the Bible, for example, did not just sit down and like, muse about God, like write a treatise, a philosophical treatise, in an office with a typewriter or something. But the writers of Scripture are people who had experiences. And even creators of doctrines are people who had experiences with God. And then it starts there, and they try to find a way to convey the significance of that experience. And that becomes doctrine, that becomes theology, that becomes the Scripture itself. And so if it's true, and I think it is, that the things we believe actually are rooted in experiences that we've had, then if you're my friend, I can best understand what you believe and why you believe that and how you believe that. If I actually know something of your life and your experiences that have given rise to those beliefs, and we can share about that, then in a way that becomes much richer and much more fruitful. Then again, you are kind of a stranger to me, and we are just talking at each other about ideas about God. I mean, it's not that that's inherently bad. I don't want to say that. But that I think the best we can shoot for is that kind of investigation of God, that pursuit of God with people, where it's like, I have lived with you for 20 years now, and I know why you named your kid what you named your kid. And I know what it meant to you when you were a kid, won state track, or I know what it meant to you when your grandmother died or things like that. Because those are the kinds of experiences then that our doctrine puts down roots and grows up out of and becomes a real active living thing.

Brent Billings (12:35)

I think that's such a powerful way to phrase a very. Speaking of experience, like something I've never really put or articulated a finger on is like, when you engage in theological discourse where love and mutual friendship. And it's not that you can't. I just love the way that was framed, the appropriate context for. Because you're just like, why are we? What are we doing? Like, what are we. It's just so unfulfilling. It's just debate. It's not good theological discourse. And that gave articulation to something that I think I experience often and why I find comment threads on social media posts just so stupid and unfulfilling and not the place to engage in true theological discourse. That was really well said.

Reed Dent (13:24)

Or even debates between Bill Nye the Science Guy and William Lane Craig or stuff like that.

Brent Billings (13:31)

Right.

Reed Dent (13:32)

These are just two people talking at each other about ideas. And it's really just. All it does is make people in whichever camp feel more entrenched in the camp that they're in. And sometimes that how. That's how it is when I'm the one in a debate and I just. Basically, it's like it becomes a matter of, like, argument, defense, dig in, you know, that kind of thing. And that's not. Whereas, like, when I find myself expanding in terms of, like, what I can consider and believe and how that belief actually, like, forms me at, like, a soul level and at a level of action, like, I find that really. I don't want to make this sound like, really exclusivist or something, but there are a small handful of people in the world that I have, like, a deep friendship with where those conversations are most fruitful and, like, you know what I'm saying?

Brent Billings (14:18)

Yep.

Reed Dent (14:19)

What's interesting, because we're on a podcast where we're talking about God and stuff like that. And so I can't really, you know, slam it that people want to listen to other people talk about. But it's one thing to, like, learn, you know, from other people that you don't know. And it's another thing than to actually engage that in a personal way. And I think, again, it's best done. So it's like, take what you listen to in Bama and then go to your friends who know and love you and discuss it there.

Brent Billings (14:44)

Yes.

Reed Dent (14:45)

And don't just let us be the only voices in your head about that.

Brent Billings (14:49)

Totally. Completely.

Reed Dent (14:50)

Yeah. And so for us, like, friendship at CCF is, like, way more than just going to the community, is way more than just going to church services. And again, this is what I love about college, is that college kids have so much time and space afforded to them and they live within A square mile. And they all have, like, they have to be somewhere for two and a half hours a day. And the rest of the time they're doing whatever they want. And there is lots of opportunity to build that friendship. And why I say to people, like, when we go and play games or when we go and watch movies, or when we do whatever we do, this is not superfluous to the thing. This is actually a core part of what we're doing in community and discipleship. That's what I'll say about friendship. The next thing is conversation, which is where we turn within the context of those friendships that are built and pick up basketball games and staying up all night and watching Lord of the Rings or whatever the things are we're doing. It's out of that soil, then that we actually turn our attention to directly explore questions of faith, where we open up a Bible and we say, okay, well, what about this parable? You know? Or we pull out a Bayma episode and we say, okay, well, what about this thing that Marty said in this episode on Elijah? And we actually dig into it. And I think for us, it is really important that we be a people in our community among whom we can ask those questions without rejection and without condemnation, without just fracturing when we disagree, right? But also, and just as importantly, without simply becoming an echo chamber, but where we can both, like, give space to answer and also challenge, right? And we can say, I don't think it's like that. I think it's like this, but not in a way that's, like, condemnatory or, you know what? You asked a question about, you know, the doctrine of whatever inerrancy, you can't be in our community anymore. You know, like, I remember talking to my brother one time where he was in a church community where there wasn't a context of friendship, and it was just people gathering to talk about God, ideas. And one night, and I think I've even shared this story on the podcast before, but he and I were hanging out, it was late at night. He was like. I mean, he had a tremble in his voice, and he was like, do you think that if I don't believe in the six literal days of creation, I can still be a Christian? And he didn't know. And I was like, well, I think you can. But he didn't feel safe that he could even ask those questions in his community without just being outright rejected, you know, as if he had suddenly caught some kind of super deadly, easily transmissible

Brent Billings (17:28)

disease or something, which assumes that on some Level, there's more to, to everything than what I see, than what I know. Even the things I know. Like, I know, like there's even more to somebody else's perspective. There are things that I could be wrong about. In order to do what you're saying, Reid, there has to be some level of openness to. There's something beyond what I currently perceive and understand and know in order for this true conversation to happen.

Reed Dent (17:56)

Thousand percent, thousand percent. And then the necessary corollary to that is like, something I say a lot to especially, you know, 20 year olds, again, fresh out of the womb of their own upbringing, and they're like, yeah, man, like nothing. They read Ecclesiastes. We talked about this actually in the text episode, you know, when I was 20, and I was like, yeah, but nothing really like, works that way, you know, but in our conversation, sometimes I remind people that, you know, sometimes the truth is hard because it's not what you've always been taught, but sometimes it's hard because it is what you've always been taught. Like, it's not like everybody just had everything wrong and you now at 20, are discovering like the. The absolute rightness of things, right? Just having that conversation that is rigorous, that is also curious. And that's a balance, right? Because the more rigorous you become, the less curious you. It's it. Or at least it's natural to become less curious. But there's a way to be rigorous without being rigid, without being inflexible. And so the rigorous just means, like, we are taking questions seriously and we are actually reading different kinds of things and listening to different kinds of things and truly like, investigating in a way that we can both lift each other up and hold each other to the mat, where it's like, wait a minute, why do you think this really? And does it really work that way? Derek, who has been on the podcast before talking about friendship, he is. He is really good at this. And it is not uncommon on a random Tuesday morning at the CCF house to hear Derek's very excited voice coming up through the floor, you know, into my office, because he's down in the living room after morning prayer with students. And he, like, can be a lot, but it's because he. He loves them and he loves the pursuit together. So anyway, that is conversation. But the kind of other half of exploring the questions of faith is that it's important to. That we still are a people who then take lives, like living lives of faithfulness seriously. Because I think there's a way to get so Caught up in like the wondering and the questions that then when it comes to what you are convicted of in the way that you should walk in the way of Jesus, you kind of let that fall by the wayside. And so we want to be a people where we can ask the questions openly of faith and also take faithfulness seriously. And I think thinking about how that plays out in our community, like in terms of practice on the one hand, I think faithfulness is about a following, it's about an obedience. And so like thinking about when Jesus says, why do you call me Lord and not do what I say? We want to be a people who together, like hold each other to that way. As opposed to like a version of church where people just become a bunch of like, it's like a country club where we sort of pat each other on the back and shake each other's hands and we're just excited by our mutual heaven bound ness, you know, and we just get to feel good about the fact that we're both saved or something. But like, Kierkegaard has this piece that I read on Maundy Thursday sometimes where he says that Jesus never asks for admirers, he asks for disciples. That doesn't mean we don't admire Jesus, but that he doesn't need a bunch of people who are just standing around talking about how great he is. It's rooted in that verse from First John Marty that you have had us repeat after you on trips. Like those who claim to abide in him must walk as Jesus walked.

Brent Billings (21:21)

Yeah, baby.

Reed Dent (21:22)

And we are just trying to take that seriously as a community. And so, yeah, like you can ask all your questions about Trinity and about the nature of Scripture and about predestination and the fall and all these things. And yet you must still walk as Jesus walked, even as we are asking those questions is what we're trying to do.

Brent Billings (21:41)

Which means you believe somewhat in the power of the practice itself. I don't want to make that sound weird or not generative power in place of the Holy Spirit, but I mean, you believe that in the practice of walking, in the practice of faithfulness, there's something in that, that does something that in addition to conversation, in addition to friendship, there's a triangulation of the communal experience there that all of these things do something for us and in us, including the faithfulness in the practice.

Reed Dent (22:13)

Totally. The way that God wants to change the world in people following in the way of Jesus is again not an individual pursuit. This is a communal thing. We have to do it together. Stanley Hauerwas said the church doesn't have a social strategy. The church is a social strategy. And so us together, being the people of God, both toward one another and shoulder to shoulder out toward the world, that is a thing that God needs us to do, I think. And I realize that might make some people a little uncomfortable. Like, God needs us. And I think to some extent, yeah, like, God is seeking hands and feet. He is in search of a body, and that body is the body of Christ. So, yeah, there's the faithfulness and the obedience side there. But I also think that our practice is about remembrance. And so we're not just a people who hold each other to the way of Jesus, but we're also a people who together remember and look for God through things like sacraments and festivals and rituals and text and prayer, where it's not simply a matter of, like, we're a collective action agency. Right. It's not only that, that we're doing together, but that we are through these ways of remembering, through worship, through liturgy. We are asking then, okay, so, like, what does this mean for our context? It's a local thing. So, yeah, that practice is both a matter of remembrance and worship and also action following the way of Jesus. And so, yeah, again, those three things, sharing life together, friendship and exploring questions of faith, that's conversation while taking faithfulness seriously. That's practice. To us, that's what community looks like.

Brent Billings (23:52)

Yeah. No, I like that last part you just said, because so often I think we see practice, especially sacramental. You talked about sacraments as something we do almost. Almost. I don't want to say isolated, but almost in a vacuum. And you're pushing us to like.

Reed Dent (24:08)

No, no, no.

Brent Billings (24:09)

What is that? That sacrament, which we have always done, has a context. It's not done in a vacuum. It's the same sacrament we've been doing for 2000 years or whatever we're talking about. And yet the world I live in is not the same world at all that it's been for the last 200 years or 20 years. And what does that sacrament mean for. What does that practice mean for who we are in the world? I love that.

Reed Dent (24:32)

Yeah. It's not just a matter of piety, although I'm not anti piety. I think a devotion of faithful, that's all good, but that's not in a vacuum. You're right.

Brent Billings (24:43)

I don't know. I know. Read, Dan, I'm pretty sure you're anti piety.

Marty Solomon (24:48)

Reid, what would you say of the practices is your. I don't want to say favorite necessarily, but the practice that makes you feel most unified as a community, especially within

Brent Billings (25:00)

your CCF community, the only one you

Reed Dent (25:02)

belong to in terms of an acute practice. Thinking about the last thing we were just talking about, I mean, I think for us it's communion. It's Eucharist. Yeah, that's like. So we do it on Sundays after the sermon, and the sermon flows a little bit seamlessly into Eucharist. But I like preaching, and there's definitely something to teaching the text, and I think that's really important. When we shift to Eucharist, there's a different kind of proclamation. It's a much shorter reflection that we do. But there is something where. I don't know. To me, it feels like that's where the juice really is. And the sermon is kind of a setup for that is how I've come to see it more and more. And that, like, we together as a community, we talk about being. You know, what it means to remember, literally the word is re and member. Like, to member is like a body, you know, and so it's like to body again. And so we're gonna take this in and remember that we go out together as the body onto our campus, you know, for the next six days until we come back here.

Brent Billings (26:06)

Yeah.

Reed Dent (26:07)

So, yeah, for me, it's Eucharist. That's probably the top one. But we've come up with a lot of practices over the years that I deeply ad love. But, yeah, I could do a whole episode just on those various practices, so I won't. But, yeah, Eucharist is what I would say. Good question, though.

Marty Solomon (26:24)

Well, and it's like the equalizer. No matter how you're feeling through the sermon, you know that that point is coming at the end where it's like, okay, I can just like, if that didn't work, I can just set that aside and I can still come together with my family and remember together.

Reed Dent (26:39)

Totally. I mean. So my wife is a counselor, and she has to carry and hear people's horrific experiences. She's a counselor for the V. VA So she deals with a lot of. I mean, she's veterans who have a lot of combat trauma and other kinds of stuff. And it's a lot. And somebody has asked her, like, how do you cope? Because you have to carry these. You have to hear and carry these horrific things. Very heavy things. And she says it's all about Eucharist. For me, this is where I can wring it out. It's almost like I take all of that sorrow and I soak it into the bread and I wring it out and then I can be fed and now I can go back again. And when you do that in context together, you know, then it becomes now we're all sharing in this, soaking it up and wringing it out. And now we can get on for another six days. So, yeah, I mean, there's, there's one last little bit in my notes here which we can talk about briefly. This is something that I like to tell college students as especially a demographic who are still in the throes of figuring out who they are and a lot of identity things. And of course, when you don't know exactly, and this is not a criticism, this is just life. This is when you are 18 to 22, you're figuring out still who you are. And there is a tendency, well, and I would also say I know 40 year olds like me who are also still wrestling and figuring it out. And there can be a tendency to look at other people and say, well, I, if I were more like that, you know, then, then I could do something or I could be something. And just when I think Paul's teaching on the body and the many different members of the body is like essential reading for just living in the world. That though you are many and the many is important here, if you're this, this is what you are, and be that, like go all the way into that and don't wish you were this other thing because you have a part to play in this. There's a singularity that's made up of all this plurality, right? And if you are all the time thinking, well, I wish I wasn't a foot and I wish I was a hand, or, you know, that's the metaphor that Paul uses, then you're just going to wither and die like the world doesn't need. I recently preached a sermon on envy and Saul is envy of David. And I just talked about my own struggle with that in my own community. And of course, it's the people you're closest to that you probably tend to envy the most. I don't envy, you know, celebrities and movie stars. I envy Derek because I see all the goodness. Right. But the fact is that the world or the body of Christ doesn't need a bunch of fake Dereks, it just needs a real you. It needs a real me. And so in community there is this tension between, yes, be who you are, absolutely. But also remember, you are a part of this other bigger thing that is more than just you and that God needs you in your uniqueness, but the body in its solidarity. It needs all of those things firing on all cylinders to be the temple. Like to carry the presence out into the world world and to actually get things done and so pursue that be. That is my encouragement to people. Envy will kill that. Condemnation of each other will kill that also. Communities die because collectively they lose the ability to be self critical. And so as a community, to ask continuously like, are we doing what is right? Are we following in the way. I remember Richard Rohr, heard him on a podcast a long time ago and he said any people group that loses the capacity for self criticism will become idolatrous. Oof. Those are just some random miscellaneous thoughts on community. But yeah, that's. That's really all I got.

Brent Billings (30:15)

That's a little drop there. Any community that loses the ability to be self critical, to think self reflectively, will eventually fall in on itself as become idolatrous.

Reed Dent (30:30)

Yeah, right. I find that the things that make you go like, usually those are true things.

Brent Billings (30:37)

There's usually a thing behind that.

Marty Solomon (30:40)

That's how you could tell that's the marker.

Brent Billings (30:42)

Yeah.

Reed Dent (30:43)

So there you go. Those are my thoughts on the pillar of community.

Brent Billings (30:46)

I like it.

Marty Solomon (30:47)

Okay.

Reed Dent (30:47)

A great perspective.

Marty Solomon (30:48)

I'm happy to put on the red

Reed Dent (30:50)

dent glasses, minus seven and a half prescription.

Marty Solomon (30:53)

Well, we will take those massive lenses off now and put on the L glasses for the next episode. So we'll close this one out for now. I'll just say thank you for joining us on the Behemoth podcast. We will talk to you again soon with more perspectives. More wrestling. Well, not wrestling yet. More community. We'll get to wrestling in a moment. But we are thankful for our community. So thank you for joining us. We'll talk to you soon.

Reed Dent (31:31)

Gotta be the shortest episode I've ever done. 34 minutes. Gotta be the shortest one.

Marty Solomon (31:34)

Maybe it might be.

Reed Dent (31:35)

It's good. This is actually great. This is what I need. Be concise, you dummy. I'm gonna stop the recording there.