← The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 781 | John Mark Comer Goes to the Desert, Clarifies Where He Stands, and Deep Dives on a Major Challenge for Modern Discipleship
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- [00:01]
John Mark Comer
The Art of Leadership network. And I think some people think, oh, he's drifting leftward, like he's getting sucked into. And it could not be further from the truth. Like, I am deeply rooted in the orthodox teachings of the church and deeply rooted in scripture. I have been drifting, though, I realize, and it's drifting backward. I've not been drifting to the right or left. I've been drifting back into church history.
- [00:30]
Carrie Newhoff
Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff leader. I hope our time together today helps you thrive in life and leadership. Today I am with John Mark Comer. A lot of you know who he is. He is the founder and the primary teacher of Practicing the Way. New York Times bestselling author. And what do we talk about? Well, we talk about him heading into the desert, okay, 21 days, and what it did to him. Or basically what it undid in him, what that means for your life. We also kind of set the record straight. Some people are like, where are you trying drifting, you know, to left, to the right. He's gonna set the record straight on this one. And we also have conversations about quiet and noise and just how important it is to be still and know that God is God. And I know that sounds like a Christian tourism. Trust me, when you're done with our conversation today, you'll realize it won't be so. Now, without further ado, my conversation in his home just outside of Malibu, California, my conversation with John Mark Comer. John Mark, welcome back.
- [01:35]
John Mark Comer
Really great to be with you.
- [01:37]
Carrie Newhoff
Thanks for opening up your home, having a conversation.
- [01:39]
John Mark Comer
I want to say welcome back. I've been here for a while now. Yeah, that's right.
- [01:43]
Carrie Newhoff
You've been here for a while. And it's our second time here at your place. You've been thinking a lot about noise.
- [01:51]
John Mark Comer
Yes.
- [01:51]
Carrie Newhoff
And we prayed before we started this conversation. We had a moment in silence. You're right. I mean, I had a peek at your project. I'm in la. It is a noisy city. We live in a noisy world. What are you thinking about lately when it comes to noise? Distraction?
- [02:11]
John Mark Comer
Yeah. Well, there are multiple types of noise. One is the kind of informational noise of the information age and the digital world. That's just this sonic assault in our front right pocket everywhere we go. But then there's just like the auditory noise. Noise, you know, not the metaphoric, the literal. And LA is one of the loudest cities in the world, but most cities are really loud. And I've just been tracking a lot with the noise pollution research coming out of science. And there's A growing kind of body of scientists that are really starting to sound the alarm. And I think the, the thought is that in the same way we look back now at cigarettes or lead paint or mercury or asbestos, we will one day look back at helicopters overhead and freeways because of just the devastating impact it has on the body and the mind. And so if you think about it, I'm not a scientist, but if you think about it at just like a pretty basic level, our bodies were created and, you know, evolved or whatever for quieter soundscapes. So your body essentially, this is how I understand the science. It interprets any sound over a certain decibel range as a threat. So if you're out in nature, like I started backpacking recently and I just love it. You're out in the Sierra Nevadas or whatever, in the eastern Sierra Nevadas and you're in nature. I went this summer, we saw one person in four days. And if you're out there, if you hear something really loud, the odds of it being dangerous are extremely high, right? It is a predator, or it's an avalanche, or it's a rock slide, or in other parts of the country it's a hurricane or a tornado or a tsunami wave. There are very few things in nature that are loud and safe. So when you're driving down the 405 freeway in Los Angeles, your left brain may know, I'm just driving down the freeway and it's noisy and there's a plane overhead and a garbage truck next to me. But your body is just hearing danger, danger, danger. And so it puts your body into fight or flight, just being exposed to a certain decibel range, which by the way is well over the decibel range of most modern church services. And so like there's this physical element to noise that has profound implications on our discipleship to Jesus. Because any disciple of Jesus is going to be thinking really carefully about anxiety. Because once we trigger our body's kind of automatic fight or flight system, we have then just made loving whoever is in front of us next to impossible. Because you're gonna go into fight or flight or free, you're not going to go into self sacrificial love. So Christ is the prince of peace. And that's not just like another nice Christian virtue, it's a prerequisite virtue to becoming a person of love. The most loving people, you know, tend to be the most peaceful, you know, and highly anxious tend to misbehave relationally everywhere they go. And I say that with no judgment. I say that as a highly anxious person who's doing what I'm saying. So I just think the noise of the world, and we're not even talking about op eds and political polarization and social media and the incessant conspiracy theories and the noise of our devices, just the noise of the world, I think has profound implications that I think Christians and churches need to really think about.
- [05:49]
Carrie Newhoff
You did a retreat, I don't know how long ago, but was it the last year or so?
- [05:54]
John Mark Comer
You're referring to the 21 day? Yeah, that was. Right? That was in 2021. Oh, it was. It was that long. When I stepped down from Bridgetown, I had a six month sabbatical. I'd wanted to do it for a long time, but it's three weeks long. And I was like, man, how do I pull that off in my, like give all of my vacation? So it was the first time I had time and I did it then.
- [06:19]
Carrie Newhoff
So lots of people do retreats, right. But this was. Do you want to take us back into what that was like? Because it was excruciating. Because of the fact, I guess, that there was absolutely nothing to do other than have an hour with Gandalf in the morning. Do you want to describe that a little bit?
- [06:39]
John Mark Comer
Sure. It's a beautiful paradigm. This program is five decades old. I think the guy who runs it now is. He looks eerily like Gandalf. And he is like a doctor of the soul kind of guy. He's older and he went through the program as a PhD student out of Fuller back in forever ago. And so when I had done it, I think that was his 44th year or something. Program has no name, no website. I can't tell you where it is. Google find it. It's all word of mouth. You can't Google it. And it's essentially an attempt to recreate. He would say what happened to Jesus in the desert or Elijah in the desert, or Moses in the desert. So it's 21 days. It's up in the Pacific Northwest. You're in this tiny little cabin on kind of an ocean sound in a very rural area, right on the water. But it's like I did it in winter, which was a terrible idea. It was like over the top, depressing.
- [07:38]
Carrie Newhoff
Did it rain every day?
- [07:39]
John Mark Comer
It rained literally 21 days in a row. I did get into cold plunging. That was fun. It was my first time. I just went into the ocean every day, but it was miserable. And the idea is basically for three weeks, it's the strict rules. So you Turn in all of your devices, like, absolutely nothing. No phone, no laptop, no books are allowed.
- [08:03]
Carrie Newhoff
That was the part that got me. You can't even read because I'm like.
- [08:06]
John Mark Comer
Great, I'm getting even. The Bible. The Bible was, quote, allowed. That was the word he used, but with a strong warning. And he said, only if you do not use it as a distraction from God. And I'm just like, okay, this is not what I'm used to. And no alcohol, no more than one cup of coffee a day. No exercise. So you were allowed to go for a walk in rural area. We go on a long walk every day. But you're not allowed.
- [08:34]
Carrie Newhoff
No push ups, no gym, no you.
- [08:36]
John Mark Comer
Can'T go running, nothing. To quote, discharge anxiety from your body. He wants you to feel like all of the bad stuff. And then your one, you pack in all of your own groceries and your one, you do all your own cooking. Your one point of contact with the outside world is five mornings a week, Monday through Friday at 5:50am And I was like, why so early? And he said, because your mind is more open to its unconscious. And you do an hour and a half of depth therapy, which is essentially like normal therapy, but without the happy feelings at the end. Just leaves you depressed. In his modality. You kind of start with your family of origin and you. Day one was like, let's bring dad into the room. And I mean, it was the most out there stuff I've ever done. And it was a mix of kind of spiritual direction and clinical psychology. And you kind of start with your upbringing and you work your way in concentric circles over a couple of weeks up to the present day.
- [09:38]
Carrie Newhoff
And what happens when. Cause I looked at some writing you've done on this and you said it was extremely difficult to have nothing. I mean, you wrote ruthless elimination of hurry.
- [09:55]
John Mark Comer
Yeah.
- [09:55]
Carrie Newhoff
And literally you still, I imagine you play by a version of those rules. Right. When we message. I rarely get anything from you in the morning. It's like cell phones away, laptops away. You're in this beautiful rural area.
- [10:09]
John Mark Comer
Yeah, I love rural area now you do?
- [10:11]
Carrie Newhoff
Yeah. At the top of a mountain.
- [10:13]
John Mark Comer
Yes.
- [10:13]
Carrie Newhoff
And, you know, it's a pretty simple aesthetic. There's not a lot of distractions. I don't see a TV in this house, you know?
- [10:21]
John Mark Comer
Yeah. Honestly, I thought I would crush it. Like, there's no. Like you don't get a grade at the end.
- [10:26]
Podcast Sponsor/Announcer
Yeah.
- [10:27]
Carrie Newhoff
If anybody's, if anybody's gonna.
- [10:29]
John Mark Comer
This is not like it'll be you. This was a few years ago, like I'd been teaching on the spiritual discipline of solitude and silence for years. I've been practic practicing contemplative prayer. I'm an introvert. I'm fairly Luddite in my approach to technology. I thought, man, this is just gonna be great. I'll get like 21 days phone free. It'll reset my neurobiology. I was so burned out from just shy of 20 years at Bridgetown Church. And it was a wonderful experience, but.
- [11:01]
Carrie Newhoff
I was, yeah, but you're tired, man. Come on, you do 20 years anywhere.
- [11:04]
John Mark Comer
I was a level of tired. That the pastoral thing I always say to pastors. Not the years, it's the mileage, you know, and it's like I was in my early 40s, but I felt like a old man. I was just bone deep tired and you know what happens. But this was just a whole other level. So I thought I would do a really good job. I thought it would be a meaningful time. It was one of the top two or three most difficult moments of my entire life. It was brutal and not in a way that, like, I'm uncomfortable to talk about, but, you know, it's amazing what happens when you stop, when you get away from the noise, when you follow Jesus into the quiet. A lot of different things happen and you're not in control really, which is part of the gift and the challenge of that space, the desert. But the things that you have been running away from all catch up to you. It's what like pastors don't realize when they look forward to sabbatical and they think it's just going to be like a long vacation. I'm like, well, so these are all.
- [12:16]
Carrie Newhoff
Your suppressed thoughts, all your suppressed emotions, and you've got no escape.
- [12:22]
John Mark Comer
Like there is no distraction, nothing to mediate you from your pain. And I just realize how much of my life is like pain avoidance and I'm not even some like enneagram7. But just how I've developed, even in solitude. Like I've done a bunch of research since then writing a book on the quiet. And you know, when social scientists research solitude they have and its effect on the human brain and body, they have to distinguish between solitude and aloneness. Yeah, because you can be alone but not meet the criteria for solitude. For example, I can be sitting in this room. Can't see this on this podcast, but it's a beautiful view of the mountains.
- [13:05]
Carrie Newhoff
It is.
- [13:06]
John Mark Comer
I can be totally alone in this room and I can be texting or writing a book or reading a book or reading the news or whatever I want to do. Folding laundry, cooking dinner. I'm alone, but I'm not in solitude. I'm still distracting myself. It might not be through social media. It might be through making sourdough bread or reading Wendell Berry, but I'm still distracting myself. Or reading the Bible, but I'm still distracting myself at some level and in true solitude. One interesting piece of research I found, because a lot of people will write me off as well, you're an introvert. So that's the thing for you. And one fascinating thing I found is when you distinguish between solitude and aloneness, introverts have no higher enjoyment of or preference for solitude than extroverts.
- [13:55]
Carrie Newhoff
Interesting.
- [13:55]
John Mark Comer
It's an equal playing field. And I realized, so is it the.
- [13:58]
Carrie Newhoff
Presence of people, then that sort of is the difference?
- [14:01]
John Mark Comer
No, the presence. The difference between solitude and aloneness is the absence of distraction. So Newport, actually, Cal Newport, in a secular book. His book on digital minimalism has one of the best definitions I've found of solitude. I used it in my book. But he defines solitude as the absence of any other inputs just in his mind. It's not working from a Christian spirituality, though. I think he may be a Christian, but it's just, you go into solitude, and there's no other books. There's no other minds there. It's just your mind is in solitude. So I think from a Christian discipline perspective, it would be you're there with Christ in his mind and the Holy Spirit in your mind and imagination and your own heart and what's coming, but no other. So what I realized was for years, I'd been, quote, practicing silence and solitude and stillness. But really it was more like time for an introverted pastor to go work. It was like I would go through with a bag of props. I would come into solitude with, like, a bag of good books. I would read, like, two books a day, and I would come with, like, my calendar to plan. I bring my laptop, and I no wi fi. I'd be, like, very happy to go offline. Like, again. I'm great with that. But I would, like, work, and I would write and I would calendar plan, and I would make decisions, and I bring a bottle of red wine when I'm in the mood, you know? And I realized that's not solitude. That's like alone time for an introvert to go do creative work. That's deep work. That's really beautiful. But that's not true solitude, which is literally, I would never just, like, go to a quiet place and just sit there before God and let whatever comes up come up. I mean, that's terrifying. And so I did that for the first time. It's profoundly changed how I try to practice as much as I can solitude. And it's amazing how it has profoundly changed. I now go in with no books. There's a place in Big Sur I go to multiple times a year. I try to go in with no books, just literally my Bible, my journal and my heart and just, okay, God, what do you have? But yeah, so much. I was just, I was ripe for it too, you know, just right kind of that seam between the long run of life. There's a lot that caught up to me.
- [16:21]
Podcast Sponsor/Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Studio C. So one of the biggest questions pastors are asking right now is how do we support real spiritual formation without rushing people, without losing the personal touch, even as our church grows? So if you want to pay attention to how churches are answering that question, check out Studio C. Their platform helps churches guide people intentionally meeting individuals where they are, encouraging next steps at a pace that fits their season of life. Studio C works with the tools you already use to understand where people are on their spiritual journey, and then it enables you to deliver personal encouragement through your mobile app, email, or text exactly when it's most helpful. If information is about helping people practice the way of Jesus over time, Studio C helps make that possible, even at scale. They've also created a short member Engagement Assessment to help leaders gain clarity on how well their church is supporting spiritual formation today. You can take it for free at thestudioc.org carrie that's the studio letterc.org c a r e Y this episode is brought to you by my 2026 church trends. So if you're enjoying this episode, I think you're going to love my annual Church Trends Report. For this year, I've identified seven disruptive trends that are shaping the future of the church. So when you dig into the report, you're going to see Gen Z's surprising surge in church attendance. We'll quantify it. That's something a lot of us didn't expect, including me. There's a new boldness and evangelism that's starting to emerge that you probably need to pay att too. Algorithms are quietly taking control of discipleship. And guess what? As a church leader, you're paying the price. And maybe most concerning of all, most churches still aren't ready for the AI revolution, and that's already reshaping leadership ministry in the world. So those are a few of the trends that I am unpacking this year. The trends are backed by data, much of which is collected by Barna, and I share my thoughts on why it's important for you and what you can do about it. So if you want access to the report, head on over to 2026churchtrends.for free access or simply click the link in the description of this episode. I'll send you a copy right away and you'll be in the loop for everything 2026 church trends related. Again, it's all free by clicking the link of this description or by visiting 2026churchtrends.com.
- [18:50]
Carrie Newhoff
You you know, I'm wondering what happened to the passage of time? Sometimes we're looking, it's like, oh, I can't believe it's 4 o'.
- [18:57]
Podcast Sponsor/Announcer
Clock.
- [18:57]
Carrie Newhoff
Right? How did that happen? What happened to the passengers?
- [19:00]
John Mark Comer
Whatever you can imagine, it was even worse. It was just like, I just remember, like, you know, you get done the therapy, it's like 7:30 in the morning, still pitch black outside because it was winter. And then, you know, I go. He would give me like a little exercise to do every day, sometimes like kind of zany stuff. And then you journal every day. And then it's like, okay, it's like 11 in the morning. And then I'd go for a long walk and then I'd like cook myself some lunch, clean it up extra good. And then it's like one and you're just like, what? What do I do? You know, day after day, it was. I can laugh about it now, but it was excruciating.
- [19:44]
Carrie Newhoff
Yeah. What makes it hard when you're. I don't. I doubt that there's anybody watching this podcast who has had that experience where for 21 days there's literally nothing to do and no inputs, no distractions. So what happens? It's almost like a detox, right? Except you're not curing yourself from an. Well, I guess you are curing yourself from an addiction.
- [20:08]
John Mark Comer
I'm sure there is. Absolutely. Just at a neurophysiological level, there is like a stimulation detox that you have to go through. And the withdrawal is painful. And I do think, you know, now with that on my radar and life doesn't always cooperate. But when I am moving into a longer time of solitude, not just my morning time or Sabbath time, but a retreat, which I try to do as often as I can. It's difficult in my stage of life, but I try to do it as often as I can. I Do try to ramp down my use of technology and even the stimulation of meetings and conversations with lovely thought partners like you. Because Cassian, the desert Father in the fourth century, essentially said, how you are outside of prayer is how you are inside of prayer. So you can't just be on your phone constantly and taking prayer 25 meetings a day and working insane hours and pushing your nervous system to the limit. And then all of a sudden, like, wake up and before you go to work today, have 20 minutes of like blissful contemplative prayer or go on retreat and just all of a sudden be caught up in union with the Trinity, you know, I mean, never say never. Can't is a strong word, but like, it just. Your body doesn't work that way. And so I think that's part of the gift of disciplines of abstinence, whether that's Sabbath or solitude, is they often expose our level of addiction. So some of it was just that. But I think the harder thing, particularly as a leader and as a pastor, was there was just nothing to mediate my awareness of my shadow and of all. For example, I had to face how much of my motivational structure as a pastor was deeply compromised for the first half of life. And again, I had this weird. I've kind of started everything a bit too early. And so I'd done a lot by my early 40s. And so it was a real gift where I had the gift of the sabbatical, but I wasn't about to retire. So funny. When I was stepping down from Bridgetown, all these people, they had just no category for, you know, so many.
- [22:29]
Carrie Newhoff
40, 41.
- [22:30]
John Mark Comer
I wasn't like, leaving to go to another church. I was like, you know, and. And so many people said to me, congratulations on your retirement.
- [22:38]
Carrie Newhoff
Part of the fire movement. Good for you.
- [22:39]
John Mark Comer
So many people said that. And I was like, listen, the books have done pretty well, but not that.
- [22:44]
Podcast Sponsor/Announcer
Not that well.
- [22:44]
John Mark Comer
What do you think?
- [22:45]
Carrie Newhoff
I've just got to sell a lot.
- [22:46]
John Mark Comer
Of books, chill and garden. I can only read so much Wendell Berry, you know, and so it was tricky. But I had this rare gift where God willing, and we do not know the future and I could drop dead tomorrow, but I will, God willing, have several more decades of generative work in front of me. So I had this chance to really look back. And I very intentionally applied a more critical lens to the first kind of half of my life in ministry. Not so much out of like a self flagellation, but more out of like, hey, what are my regrets? Like, I asked that Question a lot. What are my regrets? And it wasn't like a self hate thing. It was, hey, I hopefully have another 20, 30 years ahead of me. I don't want to just keep repeating the same mistakes. And I think looking carefully and analytically at my life with no emotional distractions, nothing to mediate me from my true broken self, and without even the comfort of community, it was. So I'll tell you this story. I asked Gandalf, the clinical psychologist running this program, like, why no books? I was very perplexed by that. Because books play a formative role in my life since a young age. I love the some writers just write. Cause there's a book contract where I am obsessed. I read constantly, all different genres. I love to go to bookstores, I love the smell of a book. I wanna read 90% of every book I ever see. And I just, I love the written word. I love it. And books have played a key role in my formation, intellectually, spiritually imprinted so deeply in my mind. It's been a chance to be mentored by people that I never could have gotten access to. And so I said, like, why no books? And he said, this experience was designed to recreate the experience of Jesus in the desert, Moses in the desert, Elijah in the desert. All the great ones, he said, went into the desert. And then he said this line that has never left me, he said, the desert teaches by taking away. And I realized my paradigm in particular from an evangelical background for learning, was all learning through addition. So it was. I'm going to listen to this podcast where Gary has an interview. I'm going to read this book, I'm going to listen to this sermon, I'm going to read scripture, I'm going to study the Bible, I'm going to Google this thing, I'm going to research, research this thing. It was all learning by addition. And there's very much a good and vital place for learning by addition. But what the desert or solitude and silence, if you want to call it that, it teaches by subtraction, by pruning you and purging you and stripping away all of your props to where it's like all of the lights go on. It's like you went from candlelit mood ambiance to like fluorescent lighting in the bright of day. And you're like, holy crap, I'm not as attractive as I wanted to believe I was, you know, and that is a profound gift. You meet God's love at the same place you meet your vulnerability.
- [26:19]
Carrie Newhoff
You mentioned regrets. What were some Regrets you identified man.
- [26:25]
John Mark Comer
Probably just the pedestrian kind. The Elizabeth Kubler Ross number one regret of the dying is I wish I had not worked so hard. I wish I had not worked so hard.
- [26:40]
Carrie Newhoff
How did you get that moment of clarity? Because I've heard that and I'm like looking back on it. Yeah, in my 30s I wish I hadn't worked this hard. But I feel like I've got a decent balance now. And I don't know if I'm 80, who knows how many years you have? And I'm looking back of my life, maybe I'll wish I hadn't worked this hard. But what made you say that?
- [27:00]
John Mark Comer
I think the number one thing would be realizing the wounding it caused to my family. So I don't have quite the right or to rephrase, I don't think I have the optimal personality to be the lead pastor of a Protestant type of large church. I'm a little bit too introverted or a lot too introverted. And I don't have the capacity for activity that I think is required or at least very helpful. And what I the challenge I face is I have probably with no false modesty, I probably have a much higher than average capacity to get crap done. Like I'm a task oriented personality. I can get a lot. So you can crank, I can crank. I'm a hard worker. But I actually don't probably have a lower than average capacity emotionally. So what I get is I have this glass ceiling and it's like every single day it is a temptation to blow through this glass ceiling. And the glass ceiling is basically this is what I can do and get off work and be a pleasant dad and husband and this is what I can get done. And there is a huge gap and the pastoral role and it's a bit better now, but still startup leadership, self employed, like those have their own similar challenges. As you would know, it's really hard for personalities. Like I think a lot of people that are drawn to pastoral work, either they're drawn to people and they may have a propensity for people pleasing especially like traditional pastor personalities or people like me, teacher types. They might have like a really a draw toward a moralism even in a healthy version of moralism. Like I'm deeply drawn to virtue and goodness and I don't think that's all bad. There's certainly a shadow to it. But the challenge is like you have demands coming at your time that are a black hole. You could never ever possibly satiate all of the demands. And if your penchant Your weak point is like, you'll sacrifice yourself to please people and make people happy with you. Or in my case, you'll sacrifice yourself to try to be the good person or the good pastor. Cause everything is moralized when you're a pastor. If somebody says, hey, can we have coffee this week? And you have no time to have coffee this week. If you say no, it's not like, oh, he said no. It's like, he's a bad pastor and therefore a bad Christian. And imagine that if you're just an introvert and nobody else sees your life, they just see their angle on your life. And it is so hard to resist that. And so you say yes, too much. And, and I think part of the challenge of that retreat for me was when you're in your 20s and your 30s, you can blame the overwork and the exhaustion on the church. This is a black hole of need. This doesn't go away. It's insatiable. We don't have enough staff. We just need to get to the next season. We need to get through this campaign. We are dealing with drama right now. And then you get into your 40s and you're like, wait, no, this just is church. Like, Scazzero said that to me at one point. He's like, it's not that pastors deal with crises. It's that the job is to deal with crisis. It's just like crisis after crisis after crisis after crisis. That's the job. And I don't know if I've said this to you before. I remember I was reading this is not a political statement at all. I read wildly. I read tons of stuff I disagree with. But I was reading Obama's memoir, which is so. I love his mind. It was so well written. And he had this two bit, like two page bit on how 90% of the presidency is two things. One, it is dealing with whatever crisis came up that week. And two, it's dealing with problems that you inherited from your predecessor. And he said, only if you execute on the 90% extremely well do you get to spend 10% of your time doing what you actually got into politics to do in the first place. And I remember reading that thinking, holy God. That's like what it's like to be a local church pastor. 90% of your job is getting through Sunday and dealing with crises. And only if you can do those two things and only extremely well do you even get the 10% of time to do what you actually, this is.
- [31:45]
Carrie Newhoff
What I'm called to do.
- [31:46]
John Mark Comer
Which for me would be formation and community. And I was like, oh, my goodness. And so I think getting into my 40s, I was faced, like, I had no more good excuses for why I was overworking. And I had no one to blame anymore. And I had to realize, okay, there's an internal thing in me. There's a drive. A coach said to me recently, very lovingly, he said, you are addicted to opportunity. And it was just like, right there.
- [32:22]
Carrie Newhoff
Yeah.
- [32:22]
John Mark Comer
And another mentor kind of person said to me recently, hey, if you do 10% of the things that are in your heart, that'd be a really good life. And he meant it as an encouragement. And I was like, what? I have so many great ideas. 10%, that would be a failure of a life. And he said, no, if you do 10% of your good ideas, that would be a great life. And I thought, I don't even know how to think that way. I'm gonna do one of these 10 things that I'm passionate about. And so I just think, yeah, it was just. I had to face reality, Carrie. And how much of my driven the great challenge. I think there are few jobs like pastoral life or Christian leadership, where it is easier and more dangerous to do the right thing for all the wrong reasons, because you can spiritualize it. In the same way that the world will reward workaholism, even if it's full on pathological coping, it will reward, like, certain addictions will put you on the street in downtown la, and other addictions will put you in a house in Malibu, but they're gonna have the same effect on your relationship with your kids. And the world will reward you for one and punish you for the other. And the church, in a weird way, will reward you for addiction to your dysfunctions, addiction to people pleasing, addiction to goodness, addiction to, you know, X, Y and Z. And I just think I had to face that. And it was really hard and continues. I wish I could say, like, man, and that was it. And now I'm done. And now I never overwork. Not true, not true. But I'm doing better. And I think that's the my. I have this extraordinary therapist, and he said to me recently, I never use the word healed because it makes it sound like a one and done point in the journey. And he said, I like to talk about healing. So from that paradigm, I'm not healed, but I'm healing. And I just think we don't think that way enough. You know, how do I make 10% progress? And compound interest, but applied to the formation of the soul. How do I become the kind of person who 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, is quieter and more peaceful and still generative and hardworking and servant hearted, but unhurried. And again, the language of Scazero is embracing the gift of limits. But we just, I just rebel against limits.
- [35:13]
Carrie Newhoff
Are not against limits.
- [35:14]
John Mark Comer
They are like a, you know. Yeah, I mean, they are a gift. But I don't feel that way.
- [35:19]
Podcast Sponsor/Announcer
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- [36:30]
Carrie Newhoff
Want to know what else you learned about yourself and about spiritual formation during those 21 days. You've done some writing about spiritual. And I said to you, you know, if this comes out as a book, your current project, it's not supposed to be about prayer, but I found it really helpful about prayer because I've come 10 years post lead pastor to think, yeah, it's just not my gift. I pray every day. I have adhd. I'm very distracted. I have all these competing thoughts and I'll interrupt my prayer time. And you go there, man, you go there and you're like, no, this is actually prayer. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about what you've learned about prayer, about spiritual warfare, how it operates and what happens when you really get quiet. Because I love quiet. I think I crave solitude. I think I've had it in moments. But then my monkey mind, as they say, gets moving and I feed it bananas and it gets louder.
- [37:32]
John Mark Comer
Yes. Yeah, I think we all believe the lie that it's Just my brain. That is a chaotic mess.
- [37:42]
Carrie Newhoff
Mine's a chaotic mess.
- [37:43]
John Mark Comer
And I think, you know, monkey mind comes from Zen Buddhism, and you don't have to embrace Buddhism.
- [37:49]
Carrie Newhoff
But Nouwen did a similar thing.
- [37:51]
John Mark Comer
Well, yeah, Nouin learned a lot from Buddhist practice and meditation. And arguably Buddhism was deeply shaped by Eastern Christians by the necessarily.
- [38:01]
Carrie Newhoff
Yeah, you mentioned that 9th and 10th Christianity shaped.
- [38:03]
John Mark Comer
So, I mean, that's why there's different branches of Buddhism. And a lot of the more spiritual Buddhists of today was a response to or even a rejection of the Christian gospel. So, again, I'm not a historian, but Nouwen went deeper into that than I have. But again, you don't have to embrace Buddhism to appreciate the metaphor of, you know, when you go into prayer, you know, Nouwen would say, it's like my brain is like monkeys in a banana tree. You know, Nouwen just had this extraordinary ability to name the felt experience of the spiritual life. And so he would talk about going into prayer, and he's like, I'm going there to encounter the Trinity. And all of a sudden I wake up and I realize I've just been giving a long, hostile speech to my enemy or imagining myself, like, on a stage winning awards and getting a class. This is prayer for Henry Nouwen. Like the great spiritual master of prayer was sitting there imagining himself getting an award or lecturing some person and his enemies just getting revenge. Getting revenge.
- [39:03]
Carrie Newhoff
This is what I should have said.
- [39:04]
John Mark Comer
Oh, my gosh. And you know what's so helpful is reading, like. So there's lots of chatter in recent years about how we should read outside of the majority culture and read minority voices and female voices often, and people from different perspectives. And I agree, one of the things that sad to me is historical voices are never on that list. And first off, when you read ancient Christians, pretty much none of them are white, and they're certainly not out of our stream of the church. And it is so jarring. So I have spent. I think some people really misunderstand my journey the last couple of years because they try to map it onto the left right of American politics.
- [39:53]
Carrie Newhoff
Well, set it straight. What has your journey been?
- [39:55]
John Mark Comer
Well, I think right now we're seeing this political polarization thing, right? And so you see a lot of people drifting either to the right or the left into cultural compromise.
- [40:06]
Carrie Newhoff
The middle's disappeared.
- [40:07]
John Mark Comer
The middle's disappearing. And so I think some people. So I've spent my whole life, personal and pastoral, in super secular, progressive cultural context, so grew up in Silicon Valley Moved to urban Portland and now we've come to the LA area. So all I've ever known is secular, post Christian, overwhelmingly progressive. And I am not any of those things. But that's the cultural context.
- [40:33]
Carrie Newhoff
I read Live no Lies.
- [40:34]
John Mark Comer
Yeah, no, I read that in every room I enter. I am the most conservative person I know, right. In every room. But that's my missionary call. And so when I preach, when I teach, I'm attempting to contextualize to that. Not in an adoption way and often in a critique way, but I want to interact with it. Right. So I think the last couple of years, moving out of the pastoral role at Bridgetown, serving a wider swath of the church, I've just spent my whole life getting eviscerated by progressives for being an orthodox Christian. And so now the critique has come from Christian conservatives. And it's just been so bewildering to me because I'm like, again, I'm the most conservative person I know. And I think some of it is. There's always legitimate critique. Some of it I just think is misunderstanding. People see somebody from California who talks like a Californian, who's contextualizing, who has a contemplative heart, and we're just so.
- [41:33]
Carrie Newhoff
Used to quotes, non evangelicals.
- [41:35]
John Mark Comer
Oh, very intentionally, absolutely. And I will take that one for the team, for deep convictional reasons, but quotes wildly across the spectrum. And though I have a. I have a rubric for who I do and do not quote. And I think some people think, oh, he's drifting leftward like he's getting sucked into. And it could not be further from the truth. Like I am deeply rooted in the orthodox teachings of the church and deeply rooted in scripture. I have been drifting, though, I realize, and it's drifting backward. I've not been drifting to the right or the left. I've been drifting back into church history. I spent the last. I think I spent my 20s reading mostly NT Wright, my 30s mostly reading Dallas Willard and my 40s. I've mostly been reading psychology and ancient Christians, church fathers, apostolic fathers, medieval writers, desert fathers and mothers. It has been so jarring to me at times because man, do they think differently than I do about certain things. It has enriched and opened up my faith in ways that are just. I feel like a profound debt of gratitude. It has so many of the things that drive me batty about the modern church, you realize, are non existent in other areas of the church. So many things that I took for granted, even theologically, you realize, like, oh, wow, nobody thought this way. And it's just so helpful for me to rediscover this kind of older paradigm.
- [43:12]
Carrie Newhoff
So what would be so jarring? And I mean, you know, you are quoting from the desert fathers and mothers and the early church writers and medieval writers, which again, is a shared history. Like if you go all the way back to Jesus.
- [43:26]
John Mark Comer
Yes, absolutely.
- [43:27]
Carrie Newhoff
This is our history.
- [43:28]
John Mark Comer
And we're still now on a rabbit trail from your question about distraction.
- [43:31]
Carrie Newhoff
Yeah, well, I'm good at distraction. So what would be jarring?
- [43:37]
John Mark Comer
Well, lots of things. How they view money and possessions. So I mean, we're always culturally captive at some level. And it's like, at what point do we just live like Americans? And at what point are we wearing the mark of the beast, so to speak? And they have a pretty radically different take on level of standard of living than we would have.
- [44:01]
Carrie Newhoff
I'm gonna guess it's simpler.
- [44:03]
John Mark Comer
Much simpler. And again, to a distraction. So there's this great book. Not great book, like you need to read it, but there's a UCLA professor of medieval history wrote this great book called the Wandering Mind. Jamie, forget her last name. Great book. And she writes about what we can learn about dealing with distraction in the digital age from ancient monks. And she points out that the first waves of monks were obsessed with the problem of distraction. There's no iPhone, no social media.
- [44:34]
Carrie Newhoff
So this is what, fourth century?
- [44:36]
John Mark Comer
Or this is like fourth century when we're starting to read them. And there were obsessed with distraction because they are attempting to follow Paul's command to pray without ceasing. They are after union with God and transformation into people of love. And so everything for them is, how do I keep my mind locked into prayer 24 7. Right. So, for example, you read the earliest monks, like later, you get Gnosticism comes in. You get medieval wackiness around pleasure and self hate. But the earliest monks, like, why are they living in poverty? And it was very simple. It was like, the more stuff you have, the more distracted you. I was literally thinking about this this morning. Carrie. I just bought a motorcycle. Oh, cool. And yes, so I used to ride forever ago and then had kids. And with great respect to my reformed brothers and sisters, I'm not a Calvinist. And I think that I probably have a say in the day I die. And I know there's a theological debate about that. Some people think it's just set by heaven. I kind of think that how I live is probably going to affect what.
- [45:44]
Carrie Newhoff
You eat and how you drive that motorcycle.
- [45:46]
John Mark Comer
I say that playfully. I know that I Have I have deep Jesus friends that don't agree with me on this one. And so I got rid of my bike, and then my plan was to get a bike again when my kids are old enough that I can die. And I woke up recently, we've moved to the Santa Monica Mountains, which is some of the best motorcycle riding in the country.
- [46:05]
Carrie Newhoff
Yeah, yeah, it's gorgeous. All the canyons.
- [46:08]
John Mark Comer
And right where we live is literally like just dream riding. I thought, I'm diable now. Like, my kids are old enough. One is out of the home, the other a year away. Kids don't listen to the kids. Got a little residual income from books. I'm like, you know what? We have some life insurance. I'm like, they would be okay. So I just bought a bike. But all that to say, I was so excited. I've wanted a bike to get another bike for years, but man, the amount. To find a bike, go in la, drive across the city to see it, then drive again to get it, go to the bank, get stuck at the bank, get it repainted, get this part of it modified by a mechanic, pick it up, get it home, get insurance, get a cover for it, figure out now I need a helmet again and gloves again. And just the level. And now, by the way, I have to write it and keep it clean and keep the oil changed. And I'm like, the level of distraction I just brought into my life. And literally I just picked it up Thursday, and by the time I got home, I was like, I think I.
- [47:06]
Carrie Newhoff
Should sell this, like everybody who's ever bought a motorcycle.
- [47:11]
John Mark Comer
But you're thinking in and out. The early monks were so much wiser than we are. You know, the, the minimalist movement talks about how every single item that you bring into your home comes with a hidden tax. Cal Newport writes the same about any work project. You think, okay, I'm going to do this thing, I'm going to write a book, and it's going to take this many hours. But what we don't calculate is the hidden tax of this many meetings with your publishers and marketing and podcast interviews. This many interviews and this and copy editing and so and so. And people angry at you online about this. And then you have to respond and then you, you know, there's all the. There's a tax that goes into every work project, into every item that you own. So all that to say, the monks are like, they're talking about. They have a whole, like, spirituality distraction in the desert fathers, they, they believe that demonic beings, non human entities that are at war with God have access to our mind and our imagination. And so they're pretty quick to name invasive thoughts as demonic in origin. But whether you buy their demonology or interpret it more through the lens of just like modern adhd, evolutionary brain, Ethan Cross, if you've read his stuff on chatter or psychic entropy from Csikszentmihalyi, whether you wanna go at it through the lens of evolutionary psychology or ancient Christian demonology, you kind of end up at a similar spot where with distraction, the main way you deal with distraction is you just don't give it a second thought. You move on. And so the monks are thinking about this all of the time. So I have just learned so much from these people living a millennium and a half before Steve Jobs, about first off, just how normal distraction is and back to what you're saying, the great lie I think people go into. I'm going to use the word contemplative in the broad, broad sense of that word, which just means a way of quietly being with God, where you are deeply attuning to the person of Christ within you and you are loving as you are loved and you are listening as you are being listened to. And these quieter ways of being with God, which are very common in church history, very common in the global church, and tragically uncommon, at least in evangelicalism. Evangelicalism has a lot of strong, A lot of virtuous, beautiful charisms, but it has some huge weaknesses. And one is it is just so profoundly noisy. It has aped the culture of noise, busyness, size. Bigger is better celebrity rather than even, certainly rather than critique the culture or rather than even rebelled or resisting the culture. And I just think we've really missed it here. And so what happens in particular people from a more noisy church background or faith background, they attempt quieter forms of prayer or a solitude retreat. And their brain is. It's monkey brain. It's just like they're sitting there and they're just like pissed off at some person they haven't seen in seven years. And like, this is not prayer. I'm sitting here ruminating on how much this person hurt me, but it is prayer. Or I'm thinking about my to do list or I'm trying to write my sermon in my mind, or this is my prayer time. This is the work. And first off, it is prayer. And you know, there's a. And there's just so many different, so many different things we could say about what you do in those moments, but at nothing else. You're getting information and you're getting information about the state of your heart. Heart. You're getting information about what the Desert Fathers would call your attachments, what modern Christians would call your idols, about the things that you have an inordinate emotional attachment to that you need emotionally in order to be happy and at peace that are sabotaging your peace and therefore blocking the flow of love through you. You get information about all of this stuff. And so often, if you come up with a performance orientation toward prayer, like, I want to be good at prayer, which is like, good luck there, or a consumer orientation toward prayer, like, I want to enjoy prayer, which is why I think with all the spiritual disciplines, it has to come from God. I'm just offering this to you in love, and I just want to show up. Success is, you know, successful prayer means you prayed. It doesn't mean that you had an emotional high, you're caught up in a third heaven, or you had a download of exactly how to handle the situation. That's all awesome. If that stuff happens. I believe in all that. But success is just. I sat down today and I was quiet before God, and I offered myself deeply to him and my brain. You know, Thomas Keating used to say. I don't endorse everything he said, but he said some really good things. He used to say, if you're praying and you find that your mind is wandered or not. If. When you find your mind is wandered. He said, if your mind is distracted 10,000 times in prayer, that's 10,000 chances to return to God. And so you just. It's just an invitation back to love.
- [52:42]
Carrie Newhoff
It gave me so much hope reading through that, because I'm not a pastor anymore, really. Founding pastor. What does that mean? Not much.
- [52:54]
John Mark Comer
Retired pastor.
- [52:55]
Carrie Newhoff
Retired pastor, Exactly. And that is my prayer life in the morning. And I pray. I can't think of a day where I didn't pray. But it is that constant distraction and in the emptiness, stuff pops up, and you just surrender that to God. How do you know you're making spiritual progress? And I'll give you my test. Like, you know, burnout. You had a hinge point at 40:41 when you stepped back from Bridgetown. For me, it was burnout. I was 40, 41 when I burned out. And in my 30s, I felt I had a great prayer life. God and I were like this. My wife and I were not like this. We were not tight. And she would say she didn't see a lot of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in me, but the church has grown like crazy, man. Like, come on. So I'm getting validated at work while it's not going well at home now, we still, you know, after I burned out, I recalibrated a lot of things, and one of the things that never came back was that same sense of God's presence. And I've thought about that a lot, and on my worst days, I think, am I still a Christian? Like, what am I getting wrong? It didn't feel like, what did you say? The consumer says, was that enjoyable? Did I feel? And, like, no, it's not. But my wife would say, oh, man, you've changed. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is so much more evident in your life now than it was 20 years ago in our marriage now. And I'm like, a lot of that. I don't want to claim that I worked that out in prayer, but that's what often comes up in prayer. And it feels like you mentioned a motorcycle. It doesn't actually run. It just sputters. It's like, oh, stalled, stalled again, stalled again. Back in the shop. That's my prayer life. But you see, Toni would say she sees fruit. Any thoughts on that? For people who maybe don't have that kind of rapturous, evangelical, charismatic experience in.
- [55:00]
John Mark Comer
Prayer, thought one would just be full agreement. I think if there is a metric, it is as simple as, do the people who know me best see me slowly, incrementally growing in whatever New Testament kind of criteria? So the top contenders would be the Sermon on the Mount, the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians, Peter, chapter one. Faith, Hope, and Love. I mean, there's very. Romans 13. Like, there's various, you know, but pick one. Any of them work pretty well?
- [55:39]
Carrie Newhoff
There's enough text there that we can pick a few.
- [55:41]
John Mark Comer
Do the people who know me best. And that's, I think that's likely your most accurate metric. Now, I think that comes with the caveat of the most difficult people to love well, are the people we're closest to. So, like Willard used to say, if you make a decision in your heart to really intentionally begin apprenticing under Jesus and becoming a person of love, don't start with your family, because it's too hard to love your family. He would say, like, start with a coworker that doesn't report to you because it's, like, easier to love somebody like that. He's like, get some small wins on the board. You know, because once you get to your. You know, if you have a family, your spouse and your children, I mean, you are so Deep into your shadow, you're wounding your ego.
- [56:35]
Carrie Newhoff
The triggers.
- [56:36]
John Mark Comer
Yeah. And that's where it matters the most. But that's where like the ripple effect of transformation is gonna hit there last. Like I saw transformation in like how our staff would talk about us.
- [56:50]
Podcast Sponsor/Announcer
Sure.
- [56:51]
John Mark Comer
Way before how my kids, you know, But I think what are other people who know me well saying? Which is interesting because especially when you're in wilderness time, like I have been through. Or naming a bit of your experience of prayer, a dark night of the soul, you feel like you're regressing, not progressing.
- [57:11]
Carrie Newhoff
That is true.
- [57:13]
John Mark Comer
And in solitude, like you're exposed to the worst part of your heart. And so you can come away just thinking, I'm just, I don't even know if I'm a Christian, much less, set aside good Christian. You know, My son said to me the other day, I have a 20 year old son, amazing kid. We could not be more different. And so, you know, we're working really hard to try to understand each other.
- [57:37]
Carrie Newhoff
That's how it goes with sons. I don't know about daughters, but with.
- [57:40]
John Mark Comer
Sons with same gender and different personality, you know, I have two sons, one's much more similar to me. The other is like, wow, this is tricky. And we regularly do kind of affirmation circles. And this was for a, it wasn't for a birthday, it was for another special event. And my family was kind enough to go around the table and affirm me. And my son said, dad, I've really seen transformation in you in a couple of these areas. And then he said the most interesting thing that like literally shocked me. He said it all started when we left Portland, we moved down here. And he went on, he's like, that's when I really saw you start to transform. And those were three of the worst years of my life. I was an emotional mess. I was living through an identity crisis. Multiple things I'm not at liberty to talk about. But it was horrible. I just felt like my life was falling apart. I felt like, where is God? I was in an abject wilderness time. I felt deeply abandoned by God. And here's my 20 year old son who I've had a, you know, uphill relationship with, saying, yeah, that's when I really saw you start transforming. And I was like, wait, what is.
- [58:53]
Carrie Newhoff
My compass even pointing north?
- [58:55]
John Mark Comer
And he was not remotely saying, like, you're there, you've arrived, you're the best, you know, but. And it was again, it was an affirmation circle. It wasn't. It was a non Normal moment. But I just think that is. That's the. That's the primary metric that matters. Do people who know me best say that I am growing again, Healing, not healed, you know, moving forward. And yes, there are breakthrough moments. And I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. I think charismatics and contemplatives are both wrong and both right. Need to listen to each other more. But are we moving in the right direction? So that's the main metric I would pay attention to. But that doesn't negate the metric of how am I experiencing God in prayer? And I think, yeah, that's a long conversation. There are seasons I very much believe in, like St. John of the Cross's basic idea around dark nights of the soul. I think that's a underdeveloped spirituality in the Protestant tradition. Again, because the Protestant tradition has made Bible study the focus more than prayer. It's an oversimplification, but sure, what Protestants? The role that the Bible plays to Protestants, prayer tends to play to Catholics, and that's an oversimplification. But because of that, we're often, you know, prayer feels a little bit, in particular, quiet or more contemplative types of prayer feels a little bit more alien. But so there's a. There's a underdeveloped theology of the dark night, I think, if you want to call it that, or the wilderness or the desert in the. In the Protestant arm of the church. And I think there's a lot we can learn from St. John of the Cross and others that have been through long periods of dryness. But I also think there's a stage thing there, like often where we find life with God in our earlier stages and earlier years is not the same place that we find life with God in our middle years, which is not the same place that we find life with God in our elderly years. And so I think it's not like a formula. And you hack the formula and you figure out what you like, and then you just do that for 70 years. It's like a spiritual journey. And there are. You know, Eugene Peterson would write about the spiritual badlands. There are spiritual badlands, and you keep walking. But. So I don't know. I think there's longer conversations there of how does prayer change over a lifetime?
- [61:27]
Carrie Newhoff
And you mentioned the three years after you stepped down from the lead pastor role being three of the worst years of your life. And obviously not everything. We talked about elements of that before, and we don't need to repeat that. But to the extent that you're comfortable sharing what was so hard about that?
- [61:47]
John Mark Comer
Well, one thing that was just really hard was we left Portland and we basically had been in the same neighborhood for just shy of 20 years, same church. We had incredible community carry. I mean, just incredible. Like the church was amazing. Our home community was amazing. Our Sabbath community was amazing. Our elders were amazing. I had been, you know, kind of brought up in a more traditional, mega church approach to church leadership. And I was really impacted by. My favorite book on community is by Joseph Hellerman down here in southern Californ. Wrote the book when the church was a family. Wonderful book on the New Testament doctrine of church as family. And the idea of the ideal church being like what sociologists would call a fictive kinship group, like basically a large extended family that blurs the lines between biological family and friend. And it's a beautiful book. And at the end he writes just about how they work it out with their elders. And it like broke all of the rules that I was was raised in, which is more. More corporate, more business oriented. All the power dynamics, all the dual. Every one of those relationships, a dual relationship. And you know, just so many wonky kind of church leadership stories. And we just gave it. We just gave it a go. Covid was actually one of the best things to. It was a horrible time in my life, but it was that one of the best things to happen to our elder group. And so we started doing group spiritual direction, confession of sin. We'd do a three hour meeting every single week. And it became this rich community where, I mean, I was able to process my entire journey of do I step down from the church or not with all of our elders. I talked to so many pastors that have to hide that. He did that too.
- [63:39]
Carrie Newhoff
And it is so liberal.
- [63:40]
John Mark Comer
That's how it should be.
- [63:41]
Carrie Newhoff
Yeah.
- [63:42]
John Mark Comer
But it only works if you have incredibly emotionally mature, spiritually mature, trustworthy leaders. Talked to somebody else who said that recently and they gave him two weeks notice and he was done. Screwed him over.
- [63:54]
Carrie Newhoff
Heard that story. And I'm careful about how I share my experience now.
- [63:58]
John Mark Comer
But yeah, I think it's uncommon. I think our experience was uncommon.
- [64:01]
Carrie Newhoff
I had three or four months where they had known. I was thinking, okay, sometime in my mid-50s. But then it was sort of, you know, from May, we opened the question. By October, I was done. I was 100% processed with the elders. And you know what? Of all the things that I gave up when I was a lead pastor, that's the one I miss the most.
- [64:19]
John Mark Comer
That was the hardest. That was the hardest.
- [64:20]
Carrie Newhoff
It was like, gosh, I miss the elders.
- [64:22]
John Mark Comer
You know, it was interesting. These were like my closest. I had a few. You know, you stay in leadership at a church long enough, inevitably all of your friends end up in some form of leadership, which in hindsight speak of regrets. I was like, ah, save a few friends who don't even go to your church. Like in hindsight, go back to my 25 year old self. I had these rich partnerships, relationships, friendships. But when Tyler came in, I realized, look, none of these leaders want me to go. So we are discerning together that my time of leading this church is coming to an end. And I am called to start up practicing the way we're discerning this as a community and sensing the leading of the spirit. But it's not like there's bad blood and conflict that people want me out. And so here comes Tyler, who now, in hindsight is like a better leader than I ever was and extraordinary, like a, a, a a But at the time was like a little not a risk risk, but was like young, from a way smaller church, you know, and it's like, all right, how's he gonna do? And so my role then becomes to champion him. And all of a sudden that dual relationship has to be more pastor than brother. Because now I have to adhere to his leadership, come to fall in love with him, which was no problem. He's just extraordinary. But that means all of my, like, oh, I got my feelings hurt, or I disagree with how this was done, or I really don't like how you handle that situation. The first line of emotional defense that I would normally process all that stuff with, I can't process with him gone, gone. And now that creates a gap between me and my closest brothers. Not a gap of, of unhealthy gap, like a healthy gap, man. I just need to moderate a necessary gap, unnecessary gap. You need to emotionally connect to him. He needs to begin to take a role in your life that I used to play. And so, for example, now when I run into one of those leaders, I can't say to them, and it's going great now. So it's not a temptation now, but the first year or two, everything in me wanted me to be like, how's it going? Are you okay, Alec? How's it going? Da da, da da. I cannot be the person. If there is stuff that they're angsty about or whatever, I can't be the person person they come to. You know, I had a leadership coach this wonderful and that's why the transition.
- [66:49]
Carrie Newhoff
Went well, for the record. That's why it went well.
- [66:52]
John Mark Comer
I had this amazing leadership coach who said to me, all right, he said, you now have two roles. He said, role number one is you are Tyler. It's the name of my replacement. You are his number one biggest fan. You champion him, you scream for him, you cheer for him, you bless, bless, bless. Rule number two, if he does a horrible job, you come back in and lead a coup. And he's like, you turn the whole church against him, you get him fired, and you take back over. And he said, everything in between is completely off limits to you now. Thankfully, again, Tyler is a better leader than I ever was. And the church is thriving. Coup is unnecessary, friends, and no coup was required. And hopefully he will never listen and realize that in my back pocket was a possible coup. But that was really hard. So leaving that. And it's kind of a long, complex story. We came to where we live now on a wild step of faith. And I'm not even ready to tell that story yet because it's still being written and there's some stuff that I think is going to happen but hasn't happened yet. So pin in that one. But we came here, literally. I had a dream about the neighborhood or the. The place I lived. I'd never heard of it.
- [68:07]
Carrie Newhoff
You told me that last time. I don't think we filmed it, but, like, you had a picture of what? This house? This neighborhood?
- [68:13]
John Mark Comer
Yes. I saw this house in prayer. It sounds really weird. I kept. I was really scared to move here. You know, it's so expensive.
- [68:19]
Carrie Newhoff
This house is really hard to find.
- [68:20]
John Mark Comer
Yep. By the way, it's weird up this crazy road. And as I would pray, I'd get really anxious about moving here. Are we. How are we going to find a house? It's a small area. We had dreamed about this area. It's like wild step of faith. I am not that person. I'm like control, feedback, planner, left brain guy. But we felt that the spirit. There's a couple. I won't go into it. It's a long story, but there was some really prophetic stuff in this dream. And we felt like God was saying, take a wild sip of faith and move to this place that you've literally had to Google and for no reason. Why? I didn't come here for some job. I didn't come here because I'm trying to do ministry to celebrities in la. No. It was literally like I dreamed of a place I'd never heard of.
- [69:02]
Podcast Sponsor/Announcer
It would be hard.
- [69:03]
Carrie Newhoff
Hard to do something from here.
- [69:05]
John Mark Comer
Exactly.
- [69:05]
Carrie Newhoff
Can we just put it that way?
- [69:06]
John Mark Comer
And it's really isolated and we had this incredible community. We literally knew nobody here. I have a sister in downtown la, not a soul up here at the time. And left a church where you're just like right in the thick of a community, came down to nothing and had this wild dream in prayer. I would get really anxious before the movement and I kept seeing these pictures of a house in my mind and like weird details of a house. Like I kept seeing this particular doorknob. I saw this sighting. I saw a Buddha and a St. Francis statue. When I say saw, I mean I would just be sitting there in prayer and quiet and these just reoccurring. I'd have reoccurring thoughts and they kept happening. I was like, this is so weird. At one point I wrote them down in a journal and I was like, what? I don't know, but I see this and I see this window and I wrote them down. Like I have no idea what that is. We bought this house actually, sight unseen. I was out of the country at the time. We put an offer in on this house and I walked in for the first time a few days after it was accepted and it had every single one of those things. I'd seen it break down to the doorknob, down to weird, insane. And I was like, okay, God. But we had no idea.
- [70:21]
Carrie Newhoff
And that's not your typical pattern.
- [70:23]
John Mark Comer
No, I'm not that kind.
- [70:25]
Carrie Newhoff
I'll put a pin in this.
- [70:26]
John Mark Comer
And that's so skeptical. I am theologically charismatic, but my brain has been so like Portlandified and like.
- [70:33]
Carrie Newhoff
I read too much, question it a million times.
- [70:35]
John Mark Comer
I'm so skeptical by personality. So some people make, I think, leaps trying to connect the dots and everything. I probably have the opposite weakness if I'm. I'm probably too skeptical of a God saturated universe. But all that to say we didn't even know why God brought up stair. We still don't know for sure, but we, we think we have a much better idea now. Now, all that to say that was so hard, losing our community, leaving our community. We've not been transient. I know many Americans are transient and I don't know how people do this.
- [71:07]
Carrie Newhoff
I know 30 years in the same community for us. I get it, I get it. Well, thanks for sharing that. You know what's interesting for the non charismatics in the crowd because I grew up Presbyterian mainline and have some Calvinist in me, but it was a series of dreams that turned out I had for Years turned out to be a confirmation I was to go into ministry. So I'm like, are you sure? Are you sure? I walked into our seminary, I had been dreaming of that classroom for like five or six years. Never been to it.
- [71:38]
John Mark Comer
Never been to it. Crazy.
- [71:39]
Carrie Newhoff
Crazy how that stuff happens.
- [71:40]
John Mark Comer
Yeah. You see this laugh off dreams.
- [71:42]
Carrie Newhoff
Yeah, it's like, oh, yeah, you just wanted to see that.
- [71:45]
John Mark Comer
Almost like we've been co opted by secularism and a materialistic view of the universe.
- [71:50]
Carrie Newhoff
And so let's think more about distraction in the church and distraction in our personal lives. Let's start in the church because you're right, life is loud. Our services are loud. And one of the things I've been drawn to more and more when I lead a service, which is not very often these days, but when I do, when I'm preaching, I'll try to slow down a little bit more. I'll try to have some intentional silence. Not like we're all sitting there for five minutes in dead silence. But people get so uncomfortable with it. And I realized when I started in ministry in the church I grew up in, mainline church, there was always silence. And as an evangelical pastor, I tried to fill the silence.
- [72:38]
John Mark Comer
Absolutely.
- [72:39]
Carrie Newhoff
It's like, no silence, no dead air. No dead air. No dead air. No dead air. And I did that and I'm like, no, I think we need dead air. I think people come in and you know that 30 seconds, 60 seconds, whatever of silence you have during prayer, after prayer in a message might be the only silence they had all week where Alexa wasn't playing something, or they weren't listening to a podcast, or the kids weren't screaming. What are you thinking about the state of worship, silence and where things are going. One of the church trends I wrote about this year was that I think something's shifting in Sunday morning when you think about what you can do online, what you can do in person. And the two have been.
- [73:20]
John Mark Comer
It changes the game.
- [73:21]
Carrie Newhoff
It really does. And online's about information.
- [73:24]
John Mark Comer
If you can get your Sunday experience through a web browser, what are we even doing? Yeah.
- [73:29]
Carrie Newhoff
What do you think about that?
- [73:31]
John Mark Comer
Yeah, I think you're right. I think we are missing a moment. I think the world is ahead of us right now on this one, and I think there are reasons for it. You know, you talk about church trends. One trend I'm following really closely is obviously all data can be disputed, but the claim is that in the last year or two, for the first time in 250 years of U.S. history, this is an American stat. Forgive Me, But I think it would be somewhat true.
- [74:07]
Carrie Newhoff
Yeah. Most of our viewers and listeners are Americans.
- [74:10]
John Mark Comer
Yes. So for the first time in US History, the Catholic Church is growing faster than the evangelical church. Wow. Has never happened. America has a strong anti Catholic bias that honestly is more political in its orientation because of Europe and King James and statism and democracy and the Founding Fathers. So. And like an anti immigrant bias that goes back. So there's a strong, strong. Like the last area where it's still a liability to be Catholic is in US Politics because still. Yeah, it was really. I'm like when JFK was elected, it was like, you know, you hear people talk about how scary it was. He was a Catholic. Right. So my point is there's a anti Catholic bias in the United States that's hundreds of years old. And that for people like me, we never really get. I grew up like, like after the Second Vatican Council. So Catholicism today is so wildly different than it used to be. I grew up in like the Pope Francis era. I was like the Bono of the popes. You know, like so many of the spiritual writers I love, Nouwen and Rolhiser and others are Catholics. And the Protestant ones I love are all quoting Catholics, you know, So I just, I'm not Catholic, but I just don't have that antipathy that most Protestants do or have in previous generations. But first time ever, it's a really big deal. And so that that is happening, my understanding is it's kind of data, it's fact. But why it's happening is wildly open to debate. So the two emerging theories that I think are the most credible, both are important. The second one, more so. First one is that Catholics did not go through the modernist fundamentalist split that the Protestants went through a century ago. So if you know your American church history, early 1900s split over social justice on one side, the evangelical gospel on the other. In that split, what became the liberals or progressives, the modernists, the mainline traditions they were made up of, they were more urban, more affluent, better educated, and more cultural elites, whereas the fundamentalists tended to be more rural, small town, less educated, more sectarian, and more orthodox theology. And they put their emphasis on biblical training. They started Bible institutes as they started to reject higher education and personal conversion. Right. So this split, it's a uniquely American thing. It's why I think evangelicalism was so much healthier in England than in America. It didn't go through that. That's why it created a. John, stop. You know, that was harder for an American. Somebody like that to grow on American soil. So Catholics never went through that. So Catholics have a rich theology of vocation and culture and the arts. They have a, to me, as a more Anabaptist, theologically oriented person, they have a terrifying level of comfort with power because they've been holding state power, military power for hundreds and hundreds of years. They have a robust social ethic that can even go across the partisan divides of America in a holistic view of the human person. And so if you are an emerging cultural elite in America who is a Christian, Catholicism is generally probably gonna offer you better resources than the Protestant tradition. So if you go into cultural elite, if you want to go into the boardrooms of New York City, the mainstream media floors of DC or a set in Hollywood here, and if you search around for a serious Christian, they're hard to find. And if you find one, the odds are going to be really high that they're Catholic and not Protestant, because they just are in many ways, they're just better. I'm not saying I'm not immortalizing this just to clarify agreeing or disagreeing here. I'm just analyzing. So that's one reason. And Mark noll in the 90s wrote the scandal of the evangelical mind punchline is that evangelicals have no mind. And the nice thing about that is I think that one is self correcting. I look at the work of some of the best evangelical seminaries. I think of just the rich outpouring of scholarship in the last 30, 40 years from just beautiful biblical scholars. I think of the rich work that Keller at a popular level and others did on theology vocation, the work happening in the art. I think it's self correcting and I think it already is and will continue to come around. The church today is not the church I grew up in as far as how Protestants think about culture. But the second one, I don't think we're coming around at all. On the second theory for why Catholicism is growing faster, especially among young people, than evangelicalism is because it's quieter that young people. Secularism is breaking down. My friend Pete Hughes in London calls it the shaking of secularism. It's a profound cultural moment. We're moving from post Christianity to post secularity as well. And they're both at the same time. It's not one or the other. And the secular story is breaking down. People cannot live without meaning. There's a explosion in spirituality amongst my age down and even now emerging from cultural elites, which in the past would have been much more Darwinian materialistic.
- [79:42]
Carrie Newhoff
Oh, yeah, Podcasters. Yeah.
- [79:44]
John Mark Comer
The world Teller is ministering to is a secular, Darwinian, humanitarian, you know, kind of world that is not the LA that I live in. It's wildly spiritual. It's not Rick Rubin. That's not Elizabeth Gilbert. That's not Coldplay. These people are post Christian and post secular. And so there's this awakening of spirituality. And there are many people that are very comfortable coming into the rock concerts of passionate evangelical churches, but there are many, many others that do not want that and are actively saying no and instead are opting for a Catholic expression of faith, which, again, wide swath General trends, tends to be so much quieter. So I had this profound moment. Carrie. I had a dear friend of mine. This story's a bit old. One of my closest friends at the time, and he moved away from Portland to go get his PhD. At our encouragement. This guy was brilliant. We're like, man, you need to be a literature professor. So he moved away and we kind of lost touch. Didn't stay in touch. Well, for no bad reason. And then word got back that he had become a Catholic, and he came out of this, like, staunchly evangelical home. His parents were both, you know, they would say saved out of Catholicism. That was the language that I grew up with. And so it was just like all this drama. You know, his family was in our church, and there was just all this drama. And I know, you know, for some people, that should code for, they're not really a Christian.
- [81:17]
Carrie Newhoff
Yeah, they're not a Christian. They've left the faith. They've left the faith. He's nominal.
- [81:22]
John Mark Comer
And so I sat with him, and it was the opposite. He was just thriving in his walk with God. I saw him recently. He came over for motorcycle ride, and we had the best. He is just thriving, rich life of prayer, fantastic family. And he'd left our church over this. And I asked him, like. And it was. Again, it wasn't a loaded question from me. It was from others. But I was like, why? Like, why did you change? Like, why did you opt for. You know, I don't think I said convert to Catholicism, but whatever the right nomenclature is. And it was so interesting. He gave two reasons. He said, I really wanted to work more on myself to become a better person. And two, I wanted a church that was less noisy. And I just remember it really imprinted on me because I thought, here is somebody who I love and have a relational connection to who's in our church, loves God, and they feel they have to leave our church. One, because something About. About the way we're doing church. And something about our preaching, our teaching, makes them, one, feel like they can't work on becoming a more Christlike person.
- [82:33]
Carrie Newhoff
Which is the body of your life's.
- [82:34]
John Mark Comer
Work to the body of my life's work, and weirdly out of place in large streams of the evangelical and Protestant church. And two, they just want something quieter. So if you look at, like, the. The world is ahead of us here because it knows how to monetize everything. So it sees, okay, people addicted to their phones. We'll give them an app on their phone to get off of their phone.
- [82:57]
Carrie Newhoff
Exactly.
- [82:57]
John Mark Comer
And we'll charge them 9.99amonth to use our Homespace app or whatever. Headspace app. And so the world knows how to monetize this. So, like, the meditation, like, there's all these now, like, quasi secular meditation studios. And these aren't like praying to demons. These are just like people who pay money to sit on the floor and have somebody help them breathe and, like, let go of their negative rumination and their thoughts. Like, they're paying money for this. And, you know, Keating, a lot of his work around centering prayer. And again, I don't endorse all of his theology, but his grief was writing in the 60s and 70s. He saw all of these. He was Catholic. He saw all these Catholics leave the faith and go over with the Beatles to New Age Eastern religion because they wanted a more meditative, contemplative experience. And he was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
- [83:46]
Podcast Sponsor/Announcer
We have it.
- [83:47]
John Mark Comer
We have thousands of years of, like, not only do you get meditation, you get union with the trinity of love. It's not just like mindfulness where you, like, get your monkey brain under control. It's like actually experiencing the love of God in the deepest core of your being. It's everything you get from, you know, mindfulness and a thousand things more. But people thought they had to leave the church and leave the faith in order to get something that was actually there all along but had been lost by the Western church. And he's right as a Catholic. And so I do think there's a moment here where the American and British church has been so deeply shaped by revivalism, and we can debate about that, but I think every thing, even if it's a good thing, comes with dangers. And I think part of the danger, not of revival, but of revivalism, which is a different thing, which is more of an attitude, a strategy, a mood, an atmosphere, a culture, is. It lends itself, I think, toward large attractional event based Church that requires and tries to drum up a huge amount of emotional fervor from people. And I think, gosh, there's a time and a place for everything. Certainly I think that is profoundly out of touch with where people are walking into church. So absolutely exhausted, so mind fried and digitally distracted. They can barely even like read a psalm in the morning, much less commune with God in contemplative prayer. And so, you know, my dream is that Sunday would feel more like the Lectio365 prayer app than like a rock concert. And, and that it would be a place where we can calm, where instead of being stirred up, we can come to quiet. I think it's a real mistake to define passion as emotional intensity. I think that is a confusion of category. Passion, biblically and historically the passion of the Christ, referring to the last week of Christ's life. Passion is what you are willing to suffer and die for. And often it requires not emotional intensity. What calls, what the New Testament writers call patient endurance. You're most passionate about what you will most patiently, quietly endure for a long period of time. Even though it's painful, it's suffering, love. That's your passion. And I think we need to understand that. I think the early Christians got this. And again, this doesn't mean throughout the baby at the bathwater of the British American emphasis on revivalism, but the early Christians, they were in a pre Christian culture. They weren't trying to revive a nominal Christian culture. And so their emphasis was on. They actually used the word dispassion was the goal. Like maturity was coming to this place of such peace and tranquility like early Christian art used to bother me because the saints all looked dour to me. None of them are smiling right. I'm a modern American like you smile for the camera. Peace out.
- [87:13]
Carrie Newhoff
You know, like, what's up?
- [87:15]
Podcast Sponsor/Announcer
Hi, everybody.
- [87:15]
John Mark Comer
Say cheese. That's such a goofy American modern thing to do. Not even American like modern, like Americans from the 1890s and everybody looks dour. And then I read this beautiful, like, interpretation of ancient Christian art and I said, no, no, they're not dour. The reason they're not smiling and the reason they look so calm is the artists are trying to convey the ancient Christian word was apatheia. The peace and tranquility that they have reached such a level of spiritual maturity. They're totally free of the world. They're like unflappable. They're Jesus asleep on the boat. They're Jesus in the garden. Not my will, but yours be done. They're Paul like. Like to live as Christ, to die is gain. Like I only must testify to God. Like, they're just totally free. That's what it's communicating. Not like that they're depressive or unhappy. These are deeply joyful people. They're lit. Their light comes from the inside. Ancient Christian art, there's no shadows like modern art. The light comes from inside the eyes and the face of the characters. And that was their picture of spiritual maturity. You radiate light from within, but it's a peaceful light. So I just think that's a spirituality that we need to recapture that's in our genetic history as Christians. And I do think this is an area where much of the church is missing an opportunity of a lifetime, where in the same way that there was a time where Sunday services took their cues from U2 concerts. And I'm not even saying that was not a great idea.
- [88:57]
Carrie Newhoff
I think it was a cultural moment.
- [88:58]
John Mark Comer
And still is, I think, in certain places. But I wonder if now we need to take our cues from again. Electio365 prayer app or, you know, and all of that's in the history of the church. We don't have to reinvent anything. It's all.
- [89:15]
Carrie Newhoff
This is not new.
- [89:16]
John Mark Comer
It's not new. And much of it's still very popular outside of our tradition. You know.
- [89:22]
Carrie Newhoff
My goodness. I'll tell you, the time has flown. John, Mark, any final thought? We've covered a lot.
- [89:33]
John Mark Comer
I would just say don't be afraid of the quiet. Fear keeps us from the quiet, which keeps us from facing who we truly are, which keeps us from finding who we are called to be, which keeps us from leading churches, organizations, communities into the destiny that God has for them and for us. So just banish fear from your heart one prayer at a time. Go into the quiet. It peacefully and gently accept what comes. Stay there long enough. You have to be patient. Anything I'm learning, I was so convicted. Carrie, just, you know, we're recording this in December and doing my read through the Bible thing and finished a few weeks early for once. And just reading through Revelation, which I think is such an applicable book for our time. And just the amount of time that phrase patient endurance comes up, this calls for patient endurance. Just so convicted. Like, I have so little patience, much less endurance, just like, get me out, you know, and the patience required to just stay with the quiet, stay with the work, stay with the process, stay with the calling of God on us. Stay with dreams that may take many years before they even start to Come to pass, much less finish. We live in an impatient age, and I want to be people of patience. Most influential book I read this year. I read a lot. I finally got around to reading Alan Kreider's Patient Ferment of the Early Church.
- [91:22]
Carrie Newhoff
Never heard of it.
- [91:23]
John Mark Comer
I would definitely say top 10 books of all time.
- [91:26]
Carrie Newhoff
Wow. We'll link to it in the show notes.
- [91:28]
Podcast Sponsor/Announcer
Yeah.
- [91:29]
John Mark Comer
What I call hurry. He would say that the early Christians used the language of patience for a similar or same idea, obviously in a, you know, early church setting. And he just points out that the first treatise on a virtue that the Christians ever wrote was not on love, was not on faith, was not on hope. It was on patience. And then he points out that they wrote not one, but three on patience. And we look at the early church as this explosive revival, this move of God sweeping the Roman Empire. And he's like, yeah, it was, but it happened over three plus centuries. So we can look back on it and be like, yeah, that was like a sweeping move of God. But nobody, if you're Gaius in the church in Corinth and Paul writes you a letter and you have 30 people in your church and maybe you die and there's maybe 85 people in your church, it wouldn't have felt like we are part of a sweeping move of God that's changing the course of human history. It would have just felt like we're a tiny little house church underneath the thumb of the empire and let's die faithful. And so I just think, man, the undervalued role. I think there are some things that we have undervalued. Quiet, solitude, gratitude, community, patience, hiddenness, contemplation. And I think it's time to go back. And again, I've been drifting backwards, so I'm biased.
- [93:07]
Carrie Newhoff
I'm glad on behalf of all of us that you're doing that historic church.
- [93:11]
John Mark Comer
And I'm gonna. I love it. And it has enriched my faith in ways I can't put into words. And I think there's some stuff we've lost. You know, Jesus, One of my favorite parables of Jesus is where he talks about the scribe or the teacher in the kingdom of heaven who brings out of the storehouse treasures old and new. And I just think the global historic church of Jesus has treasures. And some of them we still hold scripture preaching, evangelism, but there are some we've really lost. And I think we don't have to go to the left or the right. Better versions of everything is found backward in the story of God and the church of Jesus through history. And there's a treasure house of the long, the after effect of Jesus that we're stewards of.
- [94:15]
Carrie Newhoff
This is rich. You know, it's been so good, but it feels. I read the book of Jude today in my personal readings. Revelation starts tomorrow. For me, there it is. And I'm like, this feels like Jude. This should have been Revelation 21 chapters long, 22. But it's so rich. Even in the time we've had this coming out in January, your book probably won't be ready. But if it comes out in the future, some of the things we've been talking about.
- [94:41]
John Mark Comer
Yeah, no, it will. Yeah. It comes out in God will in October. Unless I die on my motorcycle nowadays, it will still come out, just won't be edited as well.
- [94:50]
Carrie Newhoff
That's right. That's right.
- [94:51]
John Mark Comer
Absolutely. Right now.
- [94:52]
Carrie Newhoff
And so there'll be a new book in October. It'll be about quiet, solitude, contemplation.
- [94:57]
John Mark Comer
It's an invitation to a quieter walk with God.
- [95:01]
Carrie Newhoff
That's great, John Mark, thank you.
- [95:04]
John Mark Comer
Bless you, Carrie. It's an honor to chat to you.
- [95:07]
Carrie Newhoff
That was a really riveting interview and I really feel like I said to John Mark, I'm like, okay, next time we got to book like three hours, hours, because I didn't even touch my questions. You just sort of ask question one and away you go. If you want more, we have show notes. You can find everything in the art of leadershipacademy.com and go there. Sign up, join over 15,000 leaders in the academy. Probably by the time you're watching this, it's like, I don't know, 17,000, 20,000 leaders. What are they? Church leaders who are growing together in their leadership journey, learning everything from practical skills through to deeper conversations like the one we had today in a guess what? Troll free environment. So that's theartofleadershipacademy.com youm'll find the show notes in there. If you're looking for some of the links. We talked about a lot of stuff in this conversation today. Next episode, we've got Les McKeown on the podcast. He does business and church coaching. We talk about the rise of many celebrity pastors a whole lot more. Also coming up, Craig Groeschel, Dr. Wayne Chappelle. John Crist is back for round two. I'm sorry. So excited for that. Henry Cloud, Patrick Lencioni and a whole lot more. We've done a lot of in person interviews in this season. I think you're really going to appreciate those. So for those of you who are watching, wherever you're watching or listening, give us a Follow, give us a subscribe and maybe share this episode with a friend. I think you will have found it. Hopefully you found it really enriching. I know I did. And we'll catch you next time. And I hope, maybe even in prayer or in your own personal walk, that the conversation today helped you identify and break a growth barrier you're facing.