Interview with Chris Nye

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Hey, I want to just uh take a moment and share what we're gonna be doing in this time and why.

Uh Romans 13, 7 says this.

It says, give to everyone what you owe them.

Uh interesting, the context is in um Paul's talking a lot about governance there, but so the next line is if you owe taxes, then taxes.

So I hope nobody's convicted, but if you are, okay.

Um not what this sermon is about, but for some of you.

If you just never know.

You just never know.

If revenue, then revenue, if respect, then respect, and if honor, honor.

Well, one of the things that's really important to us at Awakening is that we make sure and give honor where honor's due.

And Chris, one, first and foremost, so thankful for the season that we've gotten to enjoy the last four and a half years that you've been on staff here at Awakening.

Um, and all the things that Nash just listed.

We want to make sure to honor you well.

And let's be real, in our culture and age today, we don't honor well.

And we don't honor others well.

Uh, it's been said that secure people celebrate others well, insecure people criticize others.

We want to be a secure church, right?

Yeah, and we want to celebrate really well your life.

The other part of this is we want to send you well.

And we're gonna, I'm gonna interview Chris over the course of this time and ask a bunch of questions uh as kind of like swan song-y type moment here.

But but Judy and our church years ago said, we're gonna be ascending church.

And that was at such a time in the life of our church, because Silicon Valley's hard.

People you love, i.e.

the nice, eventually they move away because this is a Silicon Valley.

It just happens.

And and her vision of like, no, we get people for a time, we get to invest, we we get to be able to be a part of their life, and then we get to launch them and send them.

So yeah, we're not losing the knives, we're sending the knives to be a blessing to Portland, a light in such a dark place.

And so that's uh a big part of what we're doing here.

And so I'm just gonna spend the next few minutes asking you some questions and hearing your heart.

And so let's begin with the beginning, I guess.

Uh, not all the way back to maybe your birth, but the beginning of the process of what what led up to this transition?

What why Portland?

Um, how did you make this decision?

Um, yeah, what's going on?

Yeah, um, well, I was born in Portland.

There you go.

There's there's one.

I will start there and then skip a long ways.

Um, it was, yeah, some of you guys know a little bit of this story, so I'll I'll keep it brief.

But um about a year ago, right now, uh my wife and I and our son went back to Portland to visit for like 10 days and um see our family.

Our family's up there, um, most of them um are there.

And just seeing our son Jude there and man, Portland in August.

It's like one of the months it doesn't rain, the only month it doesn't rain.

Um, so it's kind of a bad time to visit because it stirred our heartstrings a little bit.

Saw our son there.

Um, and I told Ryan when I came back, you know, he was like, Hey, how's the trip?

I'm like, honestly, I'm a little depressed.

Um, I just was sad coming back for one of the first times.

I actually always loved coming back.

Um, but I think, yeah, the pandemic, like we hadn't seen our family in a long time.

Our son was growing to that age where he know he knew, you know, his and could respond to his family a little bit more.

So I came back a little depressed and I kind of brought it to Ryan and a few people just saying, like, yeah, I don't know, our hearts were longing for Portland and just kind of want to acknowledge that.

And I think for Allie and I, it started us thinking that maybe we would we would move back back then.

And we've always kind of envisioned our family like if and when the Lord brought children, that the children would be raised around their grandparents.

Um, but we weren't like in a rush.

We were like, I don't know, maybe they're raised for, you know, until they're in fifth grade or something.

I don't know.

And last year it just seemed urgent and to go back.

So I I told Ryan, and and Ryan's been, so you guys know, one of the, you've been the key, I think, just uh discernment voices in my life and in Ali and I's life.

Um, and we invited you in day one because we trust you and we know you trust us.

And that's sadly sometimes kind of rare in churches or in businesses or in organizations, but it felt very natural to just come to you and get your wisdom on it.

And you know, Ryan shared something with me that I think might be helpful for some of you guys if you're making decisions and stuff.

Is I was spinning my wheels over like, well, what would it have, what would it look like and when would it be and all this stuff?

And Ryan was like, you just need to pray about where.

Like, don't get to what, don't get to how, don't get to when, if that all happens, just pray where.

Like, where would the Lord have you staying in Silicon Valley?

Um, or not.

And my wife is a um, she's a pediatric anesthesiologist, so she is way smarter than me.

Like, I have documents to prove that, okay?

Um, and her career is a really massive, a massive blessing in our family because um it gives us little windows and like seasons to pray more intently.

We're always dependent on the Lord, right?

But sometimes the Lord brings about seasons in our life to remind us of our dependency on him.

And my wife's career has done that.

It's like four years of medical school.

I remember we were a year married when we were deciding if she would go to medical school.

This is 12 years ago, 11 years ago.

Um, we were deciding if does she become a doctor and all this?

Well, we were praying desperately then.

And then after four years of medical school, she did a five-year residency that we prayed a ton about of where to go.

That brought us to the Bay Area.

Well, uh, when the residency was over, we prayed a lot, and the Lord was like, stay.

That kept her for another year.

And last August, she was kind of starting her final fellowship year, and we just started praying again, and we were longing for Portland.

And we just took Ryan's advice of like, let's just pray about where.

God, would you have us stay in the Silicon Valley?

Go to Portland, just give us the where first.

And it was like three months into those prayers, and I'm telling you, we prayed almost every day, I think, together.

And like um in about three months, Allie got a text message, and I always say, like, out of nowhere, but it was knowing it was in the context of the prayer, I think this text came from the Lord, uh, not actually, but from someone at OHSU, the training hospital where Allie was um, she did her medical training at.

And um, they just were like, hey, we were in a meeting, like, your name came up.

I'm sure you're super happy in the Bay Area, but like just thinking about the future of the hospital, like, would you ever consider, you know, coming back and joining the faculty?

And um, we just felt like that was something we had to respond to uh because of how we have been praying and discerning with our community.

And it was after that, um late last year, that really a ton of green lights came.

And Ryan and the leadership council, and some of you guys were involved in helping us discern that um in a real healthy way, and just seeing green light after green light for this job for my wife, that it would bring us near family.

And we had and still have some unknowns.

Um, I don't have a job, I don't know what ministry is gonna look like up there.

Well, today you still have a job.

Yeah, sorry, but I'm working right now, yeah, but not in the near future.

Punching the time card right now.

Um but um yeah, in the future, in the near future, won't have a job moving forward up in Oregon.

Just still some unknowns.

We felt like there was enough knowns to say yes, and so it was like back in February, January, things got real, and we we told some of you guys and said, hey, this is where we're we're going and what we're doing.

So yeah, no, and I just think would you tell people maybe a little bit about you had those moments, but I feel like this is such like a teaching opportunity in how to make big decisions.

And especially like COVID time, everybody, not everybody, but many people were making big decisions and it felt like knee-jerk or reactionary decisions, or I just don't like this, I want to get out of.

Yep.

And and kind of running from something instead of being called to something.

So, how what were some of those you you uh teased those out just recently?

Totally.

Yeah, I think like a lot of us, um, I think Ryan's right.

It's like we a mentor said this to Allie and me early on.

She said, Um, this mentor of ours, she said, life is not an emergency.

Sometimes it is, but it rarely is an emergency.

What she meant by that is like the decision-making anxiety we put on ourselves that we have to figure out everything right now is unhealthy and unbiblical.

You know, it was a really good word to Allie and me because we were like, we felt urgency.

And I think one of the keys to our decision was slowness.

Again, I'm talking about last year in August, we started to sense maybe that this would happen.

Probably six months of discernment and prayer before we decided.

Now another six months has been just kind of like figuring out what that would look like.

But I think a couple things really helped us out.

The first thing was scripture.

My wife is really good at like taking the Bible.

She'll take like one verse and just really claim that verse and ruminate on it and pray that verse a lot.

And she'll often tell me kind of what she was praying about.

And the verse that we had during this season of decision making was Psalm 43:3, which says, Send out your light and your truth and let them lead me.

Psalms 43:3

Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.

This psalm was prayed in our house hundreds of times.

Um, times, you know, we pray as a family at night.

Sometimes it's beautiful, sometimes it's hilarious because Jude's like almost three, and we're like, let's pray.

And he's like, garbage truck.

And we're like, thank you for your contribution, young man.

Um, pray for my son.

Um, but like, you know, we would just pray when we didn't know what to pray, we prayed that verse.

God, send out your light and your truth and let them lead us.

Lead us to your holy hill, like lead us to your presence.

That's really what we want.

We want to be in your presence so that when we make this decision, we feel like it's saturated in the reality of your Holy Spirit.

And that verse helped us so much.

I think some of us, some of you guys, if you're in a decision-making season, like go to scripture and go to the Lord and say, Lord, give me a word, give me something I can count on to say back to you.

And that's what we had.

We had that verse to just like there are many nights I didn't know what to pray, many mornings I didn't know what to pray.

I prayed that verse.

Said, Lord, send out your light and truth, let them lead us.

Lead us to your holy hill, lead us to your dwelling place.

Like, and I believe the Lord answered that over time.

The the second thing was uh Proverbs 24, 6 says, In an in the abundance of counselors, there is victory.

And I felt like we had an abundance of counselors.

Ryan, you were, like I said, primary in this whole season of just you were biased.

You wanted us to stay, you laid your cards down on the table.

Um, but man, your ability to zero in on ways to pray helped us tremendously.

And we just couldn't have made the decision with confidence without your support and help.

And even your bias, you know, we we take that in.

It was great.

But man, I would say if you're making a decision in isolation, be prepared to regret that decision.

Amen.

Like if you're and I would say, even I would say, as couples, if you're married, it's actually can be a little dangerous sometimes.

You the two of you can spin your wheels about one decision.

You become your own echo chamber.

And you become your own echo chamber.

You've got to have other people that are speaking in.

And I would say I'd go a little bit further to say authority.

I know it's a weird word, we don't like it a lot, but who has spiritual authority in your life?

Pastors, right?

I told you, like Ryan is my, like, we work together, but he's also my pastor.

He's my boss, the leadership council.

Like, I talked with people on the leadership council about this.

I was putting myself under wise people, mentors in my life who have known me for 20 years, like getting their getting their insights.

What do you think?

What should we do?

How should we pray?

Um, in the abundance of counselors, there's victory, authority, and just community.

Some friends here and people that are peers of mine, um, that that have just helped me so much through that decision making.

I think if you're in that season where you're making those decisions, like find scripture, claim that for your life, like ask the Lord for it, submit yourself to some wise people, and then also just kind of like a safe community.

You know, it was kind of hard as a pastor here.

I couldn't tell all of you about what was going on, but you know what?

Awakening has a I I am spoiled with people I could talk to about this.

And I I was able to for months just kind of sort through some of this with some of you guys.

So yeah.

That's so good and so helpful because we all have different seasons, major decisions in our lives to go back to God's word, go back to community, authority, and discerners in our lives, taking time through that.

So thank you.

Uh, you said you don't know what you're stepping into next, but you do have a little bit of clarity of kind of what you need in this next season.

So, what is that gonna look like for you?

Yeah, we um recently, just in the last couple months, we've been praying a lot about ministry.

And I said, you know, I don't have a church job up in Portland or anything like that.

But um, we felt pretty convinced that um I was gonna take a sabbatical.

Um, now that it was kind of around this idea of like, I want to take time away from like a church job for maybe six months or something and take a sabbatical.

I also was about to take a sabbatical here.

And uh every five years, this is a really cool part of your church, you may not know.

Every five years, pastors, full-time pastors, um get a three-month sabbatical.

And I was coming up to that five years, and then I decided to leave.

Um, so I was like, maybe I should take it anyways.

And right at the time I was praying about that, actually, Ryan and the leadership council very generously offered to kind of push us off well, and even though I'm ending staff to continue to pay us, and that was so kind.

And we wanted to give you your sabbatical.

Yeah.

So six months was like, yeah, well, maybe not.

Yeah, not six months, yeah.

Yeah.

Um, and so we are in a privileged position as a couple where we don't need me to work.

And we were praying about that reality, and it was kind of coming at the same time.

Ryan was praying about kind of how to bless us.

It was cool to see those two things overlap.

So here's what we know, what I'm gonna be up to.

I I am gonna take a break from church staff, but it's gonna allow me to dive into some of my academic work and uh some of the scholarship that I'm doing right now, which is exciting to me.

I haven't been able to give my full attention to it.

I'm also a writer.

For those who don't know, you're currently in your doctoral program at Duke.

Yeah, yeah, Duke, yeah.

So I'm gonna be able to do that.

Family of underachievers, the Nye family.

Yeah, um, we have problems.

Um, we're in therapy.

Um we are actually.

Um but um so yeah, okay, so I want to focus on that.

Um, I'm I'm also a writer, so like I just released this new book.

We actually have some copies for you, which is exciting.

Um, if you've already bought it, please, please don't get another copy.

We have limited copies, but we're giving it as a gift.

Um, the church is generous to just give it away.

None of the money comes back to me.

And Chris was generous to his heart.

Yeah, I want to give it to those that don't have it yet.

Um, so we've got some books out there.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'll I'll I just want to plug him real quick because he would never do it.

Um if you would be willing to go and uh like and review it on Amazon for authors, that's a big deal uh and makes a big impact.

And so enjoy the book.

It's a great book.

I love it.

Um, Chris is an excellent thinker, thought leader, and writer and communicator.

And so his writing's highly engaging and thought-provoking.

So uh read it, but then uh go like and review.

Um you're kind, thank you.

Uh commercial commercial ended.

Commercial ended, yeah.

It'll so this next season will allow me.

I'm gonna do a little writing and studying and finish the the a little bit of the season of the work at Duke.

Um, so that'll allow me to focus on that as I say kind of no to a church job.

But please pray for us because I'm not I'm not done at all in the local church.

I I see actually, like Ryan and I were talking even before, like past a year ago, I explained to Ryan a lot about my desire to be a lead pastor, to lead a church, to learn from Ryan on kind of where he's at and how he's learned as a lead pastor.

And so we see the next season as something close to that, which gives us another reason to take a break before we jump into that.

My wife's starting a new role, my son will be in a new school, be in a new house.

It's like, let's just not throw a new church on top of that.

Um, but please pray for us because we see the future as a place where we're leading a church and kind of discerning what the Lord would have for us in that space.

Yeah, we see this um uh from our standpoint, and I I know it's a bit this way for Chris too.

This is like the essence of bittersweet.

Um and one of the ways we talk about it around here is we always ask the question, what's best?

It's such a clarifying question.

What is absolutely best?

Because when we answer that really well for the nice, what's best?

I can I can have my bias, like we want you here, but at the end of the day, we want what's best for the nice.

And we recognize that somehow, in answering that, what's best for the nice is actually what's best for awakening to, even though it's sad and hard and there is grieving, uh, it will be what's best for us uh in this season.

And so we we have this kind of just bittersweet of like, oh my gosh, we we hate to say goodbye to someone we love, a family we love, and your impact.

I also get excited.

I think about Jude being around his grandparents and your mom, and like, you know, just like what you're heading to and the ministry, because we have had those conversations of lead pastor and God has built you that way.

I get excited to see that come into fruition.

And I really believe you need to be around your family to be in a supportive role, especially with the intensity of Ali's job to be able to do that well.

And so I go, like, that's best.

And so we can celebrate that and and grieve at the same time.

Um, would you just take a moment last four and a half years, just kind of share maybe some things you've learned over that you've had over the last four and a half years?

Yeah, I I want to share with you guys a few things.

Um and I was telling Ryan, I was like, I could share like leadership lessons, but I really want to share some things you guys have taught me to encourage you.

And for those of you that are new to awakening or you've just been here for six months or a year even, I want you to even have a forecast of the ways in which this community will bless you if you join it, if you come alongside the people in this church.

These are the things, the few things I've learned.

The first is generosity.

This is an extremely generous church.

I mean, as evidenced in just the way I'm being sent off, is there's so many waves of generosity, not just from staff, leadership council, but some of you individually.

It's amazing.

Um, and I remember getting here uh four four and a half years ago, Ryan, you were about to go on your sabbatical, and that was my first thing of like, wow, the lead pastor is like taking a sabbatical after five years.

That's awesome.

Like they're allowed him to do that, they're actually commanding you to do that.

Um, it was really cool that the church would be organized in a way to bless you and be generous to you.

And right after Ryan's sabbatical, we launched Above and Beyond, which was our first capital campaign.

How many of you were here for that?

Do you remember?

Yeah.

That was our first.

Like, I remember it felt like we're big kids now, we're doing a capital campaign.

And just watching, like, Ryan, your faith, your leadership through that time, you kind of you were, I know you didn't.

Didn't weren't like, you know, there was times you were trembling before that.

But I think you had an inner confidence that the Lord would build generosity into the church.

Second Corinthians 9 7 says the Lord loves a cheerful giver.

And this church met that capital campaign above and beyond$1.5 million.

And we were smaller then and we were younger.

And like, dude, our staff was different.

We didn't have the office building yet.

Like, there's so many lessons from that time of stepping out in faith and asking the Lord to generate a kind of like selflessness in our body that we hadn't seen before.

And to see how that has then contributed to like just our giving going up.

I don't know.

Giving's a weird thing to talk about.

And I was thinking about a few things I could share that I can share on my way out, like in a way that, you know, if I like if I was on staff here, it's a little hard to talk about money sometimes as pastors.

We always navigate it.

We always love talking about money because Jesus talked about money a lot.

But it's kind of difficult sometimes because we're pastors and you know, we get our paychecks from the church and stuff.

But as I'm leaving, I can speak freely to say this.

Jesus Christ said, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

He said that.

Pastors didn't say that.

We just repeated that because that's what we do.

We repeat what Jesus has said and implore you to do it.

And what I saw, what I've seen over the last four and a half years is that awakenings, treasure is in the mission that God has for us here.

Therefore, your heart is in the mission.

And I've been personally challenged by it, to be honest.

I've been very challenged by your generosity.

I've been convicted by it to be a good steward and a good leader here, to honor your sacrifices and gifts.

And I've also been spurred on to be a more generous person myself.

And so that's a huge lesson I've learned from our people and from our staff and our leadership council man, the way that different people have um stepped up and us as a community has grown in that way.

The second thing is in friendship.

I've really learned a lot about friendship from you.

It's kind of hard being a pastor because you exist in like a pastor to congregant relationship a lot of times.

Like you're on stage, you're preaching.

Like people, when you come up to their friend group, they're like, oh, let's stop cussing or whatever.

Like there's just like weird social dynamics, okay?

That has not really been the case at Awakening.

Um people cuss around you all the time sometimes.

You should hear what some people say.

No.

Um no, just like the care with which you've given me and my family.

I mean, my wife, it's really sometimes kind of hard to be a pastor's wife.

Um, you guys have been friends to us.

And um I don't get emotional a lot, but this is where I get as close as possible, man.

You guys have gifted us with the gift of friendship of like you have opened your lives to us, you've opened your homes to us, you have had no judgment mentalism, your expectations have been like tempered, you know, you're not like expecting the world of us as pastors.

And I gotta tell you, I have learned a ton as a pastor of like how to engage in relationships where some of you guys have been able to say, dude, Chris, you're kind of talking like a pastor right now.

Just talk to me like a dude, you know?

It's like that helps me, like, helps me become a better leader who can navigate those friendships.

Uh, 1 Thessalonians 2, 8, it says this.

So being affectionately desirous of you, this is Paul writing to a little church in Thessalonica, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves.

I love that line, because you have become very dear to us.

I feel like you guys, you have not just shared the gospel with my family, you've shared your very selves.

Some translations say your own lives, like not just the gospel, but your life.

And that's what really matters, you know?

Um, friendship, relationships, loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.

You guys have really taught me that you've shared yourselves.

So as you go, continue to be that community.

And those of you that are joining, that's those are some things that really um have taught me.

The last thing, real fast, is just leadership.

I have learned a ton about leadership, particularly from you, Ryan.

I want to honor you, like your ability to lead, your way to lead me, even as a staff member, and your ability to navigate how to lead me as an employee, and as you are my pastor.

And your ability to navigate that duality has been so instructive for me.

The decision making, the leadership council that I've witnessed and been able to be even involved in some ways of the decision making of the church, I've learned a ton about the leadership, about leadership in the kingdom of God through the leaders here.

You guys have incredible leaders, and you have an incredible lead pastor and pastoral team and leadership council.

And unfortunately, we can't take that for granted anywhere.

We can't just show up to a church and expect that the leaders are gonna be humble and wise and careful like they are here.

And so I've learned so much about that, and that's a whole other sermon, but yeah.

Wow, thank you, man.

Yeah, so grateful for you.

Um, would you just give us a word?

Yeah, maybe a word of encouragement, something that as you just want to admonish or encourage us as a church.

Yeah, definitely.

I have this passage from Nehemiah on my heart for you guys.

I was sharing with with Ryan a little bit about this.

Um, Nehemiah chapter eight.

It might have been on my mind because I was reflecting a lot, thinking about above and beyond.

Ryan preached through Nehemiah, through Above and Beyond, through that financial capital campaign thing we did back four years ago.

And that's a book that is about the people of God.

They are they go in exile from sin they've done, they they no longer live in their city.

And they're welcomed back through a miraculous political effort from Cyrus that they um come back to the city of Jerusalem.

And it's in ruins.

So the book of Nehemiah is about like rebuilding the city that they all lived in at one point and kind of reclaiming it.

And right as the construction project is finishing, uh, the people gather and they kind of have this commemoration of the new city that's gonna be built there.

And they bring in the priests and the spiritual leadership, and there's a person named Ezra who shows up at that time.

He is a character from that we know about from before, but he pops up in chapter eight, and it has this really cool description of the community that I want to give this to you to think on.

Nehemiah 8, 5.

It says, Ezra opened the book.

This would be like the first, probably it's just the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.

He opened the book, and the people could see him because he was standing above them.

And as he opened it, the people stood up.

Ezra praised the Lord.

Uh, Ezra praised the Lord, the great God, and all the people lifted their hands and responded.

Amen, amen.

Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

This is they he hasn't even preached yet.

You know, they've just opened the Bible, opened the law, and uh they're starting to worship because they just know good things are coming, you know?

And it says in verse 7, the Levites, which are like that's the spiritual leadership of the community, the priests.

There would have been about 12 of them.

They instructed, look at this, instructed the people in the law while the people were standing there, and they read from the book of the law of God, look at this, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people understood what was being read.

I love, even back then they didn't know what the Bible meant.

They were like, we need help, we need interpretation.

Giving you this verse for several reasons.

The first is to admonish you to stay connected to your church.

And here's why.

Back then, these people needed shepherds.

And we're called pastors for a reason.

It that word, the etymology of that word, is linked to the action of shepherding, which is like corralling sheep, you know, getting sheep and protecting them and feeding them and making sure they're headed in the right direction and that they're with their fellow sheep.

Our jobs as pastors is to shepherd.

And one of the things I love about this verse, and something again, I was thinking and praying through, what can I say that could uniquely be a value add to you?

That's harder for me to say when I'm a staff pastor.

And here's one thing it's harder for me when I'm a staff pastor to say, you need pastors.

Because it's like, I am one, so I'm in some ways saying, you need me.

So as I'm on my way out, let me say that.

You and I need pastors.

We need shepherds.

I need shepherds.

I have needed Ryan through these last four years.

I've needed people like Joel Dombrow in my life, who's been a mentor of mine for 20 years, to shepherd me, to direct me, to protect me, to teach me, like these guys were doing in this verse.

Like, show the meaning of the text because not all of us can spend eight hours looking at a particular passage.

You need someone who's guiding you and shepherding you because here's what I've learned you won't find that anywhere else in culture.

There is no other place other than, I'm not just saying awakening, just a good local church.

There is no other place where you will be directed and protected in the Word of God.

There's just no other place.

You will not find it on the internet, or you'll find it to the ability that your algorithm can do it, which is pretty limited, right?

And often untrustworthy.

You won't find it at work.

You won't even find it at some level in your family all the time.

You won't find it in all your friendships.

The church is the place that God has given you and me to sit under and be directed.

We all need shepherds.

We all need people to help us know what the Bible says, how to obey it, how to walk faithfully in this complicated world.

And I've become increasingly convinced of the importance of pastors.

And it's just a unique season where I'm maybe able to say it where you could hear it in a way that doesn't sound self-serving because it's not self-serving.

I truly need it myself.

I couldn't have made this decision without Ryan.

I couldn't have made this decision without pastors in my life.

And for all of us as believers, a word of admonishment for you is to sit under great shepherds.

You have amazing shepherds here.

You've got Ryan, you've got Nassim, Christina, Robbie, Ashley.

I mean, you have such a community of brilliant and caring shepherds.

Sit under their leadership and follow them.

I mean, it's just the simplest I could say it.

But back then, the people in Nehemiah's day needed that.

Who are we to say that we don't need that, right?

We need good shepherds.

Second thing is in 2nd or 1 Thessalonians 4.18, Paul says to encourage one another with these words.

And then he goes on to talk about Jesus coming back.

And I was thinking about where we are culturally right now.

There is so much despair.

And there's also so much cynicism, because cynicism is kind of rewarded by the internet's snarkiness, and it's gets you the most attention online, and it even gets you the most attention I've learned just socially to just be a little critical.

You know what cynicism is?

It's the inclination towards questioning the best in somebody else.

It's like the inclination towards being suspect of someone's motives.

And this section in uh 1 Thessalonians, Paul says this God has not destined us for wrath, but rather to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live in him.

And then he says again, therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

I want to just admonish us as a church, and this is for me because I've seen the temptation in my own life, to just go towards cynicism.

And I want to obey this passage and reject cynicism and embrace encouragement.

You know, um, who are you regularly encouraging?

Who are you regularly?

I'm not talking about you said one nice thing to them six weeks ago.

I'm talking about you've almost targeted that person.

And you're like, they seem to be going through a tough time.

And I'm gonna just regularly deposit encouragement.

That comes from the word of God, right?

I love that Paul's talking about Jesus coming back, which sounds kind of scary.

He's like talking about the end of the world, you know?

And he's like, encourage people in that.

Encourage people that the world is not heading in a spiraling direction towards chaos and destruction.

It's actually heading towards somewhere in the plans and purposes of God where he will return and reign and redeem all things.

Christians are emphatically not people who lack in hope.

We are people who are filled with it.

We have so many reasons to be hopeful.

We were talking last service.

I was reminded of this book, because I'm like sadly cleaning out my office.

This um, I'm like packing my books up.

I found this book I loved so many years ago by Reinhold Niebuber.

He was a theologian in the 1950s, and actually Martin Luther King was highly influenced by his theology.

Don't agree with him on everything, but man, he's got this diary that was so cool that I read many years ago.

And the title of it is Leaves from a the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic.

And his whole thing, he's an academic, he's a theologian, and his whole story is like, he's like, my natural inclination is to be cynical, just to think things aren't gonna work out, to be pessimistic.

Um, and he's learning through his early years of ministry that actually that is not the countenance of a Christian.

And I love that he says a tamed cynic.

Like, how are you taming your cynicism?

You know how to feed it?

Get on your phone and read stuff and tweet and post on Instagram and retweet things.

That's how you're gonna feed your cynicism.

But to tame it will be to think about the ways in which God is working in your life.

Um, I just want to encourage us as a church to be people of deep encouragement.

I want to ask you that question like who are you regularly encouraging and how are you taming your cynicism?

Because the world, you guys, is full of cynics.

It won't be attracted to a church full of cynics, right?

It won't be like attracted to us if we're just always thinking, yeah, oh, this is going wrong, this political thing, this social thing, this thing in my work, this thing in culture, if we're constantly going that direction.

Nobody will come to the church and think we have something to offer, right?

We have the hope of the gospel.

We have Jesus Christ who has come and will come again and set things right.

And for our countenance to be any different would be to miss the great invitation of the gospel.

So I invite us now as a church, like, man, let's go that direction.

Let's be a church full of encouragement, taming our inner cynic.

Yeah.

Such a good word.

Thank you.

I even, especially in my own heart over COVID, the inner critic and cynic grew and so needed to just have encouragement as first response.

So it becomes this automatic response.

Yeah.

Um as we close our time, how can we pray for you?

Yeah, I really do covet your guys' prayers.

Kind of three couple things that I think about.

The one is um like we are grieving right now.

And um, so you know, I I I guess I I should have mentioned at the top that decision to leave, it was it was hard, man.

It was hard fought.

Um we made a list literally of the things we would miss by leaving here and leaving awakening and leaving the Bay Area, all this stuff, man.

It was so hard.

So I think in even this weekend, knowing this was coming, Allie and I are grieving.

And I would love your prayers that we would be shepherded by the Lord and that we would experience his tenderness in our grief.

Um, we're really sad to leave.

Uh, we're there's true losses.

There's true losses by leaving.

We're relationships will change, things will not be the same, and that's a true loss.

And so please pray that the Lord would show us his tenderness and his compassion as we grieve this next month.

I think the second thing is just like protection over us as a family, physically, spiritually, emotionally.

We're moving.

My wife's starting a new job, son's gonna be in a new school.

We're um closing on a house in a week from tomorrow, which is exciting.

So, like, we've got a house in Oregon that we're really excited about in the city.

And so um we sense the Lord providing a ton, but we want protection and provision in there.

Um, that the Lord would provide all the things kind of leading up to the move and everything.

The last thing is um, I told First Service, man, would you pray that the Lord would give us vision for the city of Portland?

We don't know, again, exactly what we're gonna do.

We know we're gonna be in ministry.

We know the spiritual landscape of Portland is in need of healthy churches and healthy pastors and families.

Allie and I want to jump in.

We don't want to go in though and like think we have anything like new to offer.

We want to be like, what is God doing and how can we join in with what's God, what God is doing in the city.

So I guess the prayer would be, Lord, give us vision of what we could see in Portland and how we could jump in and what God's already doing.

Because God's already doing so much.

We just want to jump in and be a part of it in the way that um he wants us to.

So please pray for that.

Um, I feel like there was one other thing I was gonna say on that.

Oh, this verse has been guiding us.

I wanted to give you guys this as we go.

Please pray this over us.

We had Psalm 43 kind of earlier.

Right now, Psalm 37 has been really operating in our family.

Trust in the Lord and do good.

Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

That is what we desire.

So would you pray with us that we would dwell in the land, in the city of Portland, and befriend faithfulness, and then that we would delight ourselves in the Lord and He will give you the desires of our heart.

Kind of our plan and what we would love your prayers for is that we would dwell in the land, befriend faithfulness, and delight in the Lord.

Then he'll give us the desires, he'll give us the vision, he'll give us kind of the way forward.

But if you could pray that psalm with us as a family, it would mean a ton.

Absolutely.

We'd love to pray for you.

And something said last service, and we'll say it again, is um the thing that I get excited about is we're not losing you.

We're sending you.

And we've watched Portland and people we know and uh that are no longer in pastoral positions and churches that were once thriving, that are struggling.

Um, it desperately needs great pastors, great leaders in great churches.

And the thing that I am so grateful for is you're a great leader.

You're a great pastor, uh great teacher.

And uh, you know, we've talked a lot over the years of wanting to lead a church and God's placing that desire on your heart.

And I just I get excited because you're going to be a great lead pastor.

Uh, God's gifted you, He's given you such incredible uh mind and heart.

And the marrying of those two is such a beautiful thing.

And so we want to bless you and send you uh to be a light and to build his kingdom uh and his church uh in the Portland area.

So would you mind standing with us as we pray and just reach out your hand if you feel comfortable doing that as I pray over Chris?

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the Knife family, we thank you for what a blessing uh they are to our community, what a joy and a delight uh that we get these seasons.

We're just grateful for that.

Grateful that we get seasons in our our lives to be with um just incredible people.

And God, we thank you that you are sending them.

You're sending them to a place that needs great pastors, great Christians, great churches, and you have equipped them.

And God, you've put family there to empower them.

And so, God, we bless their family.

God, we bless Allie and her workplace, that she would be a light uh and you would use this as just a time of flourishing after years and years and years of hard work and uh tirelessly uh training to be a season of flourishing for her.

God, we bless Jude as he gets to grow up and be close to his grandparents.

What a joy! And have cousins and just bless him.

God, may he come to know you at a young age and walk with you all the days of his life.

God, we bless their family with protection in this season, that you would guard their hearts and their minds and uh just homes and all the decision that they're doing and moving, that you would just go ahead of it, guard them from just any quick responses or tired responses that could come out of this, God.

God, we bless Chris in this moment, a season to um pause to catch your vision, catch your heart, exactly what you're doing and where you're working and what you're calling him to.

Would you give him deep and profound vision and show him exactly the next step and how you long to use his life and continue to use his life to advance your kingdom in Jesus' name and all God's people send.

Amen.

Amen.

Thanks, guys.

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