Ministering in an Anxious World

Voiceover: 

Welcome to The Table podcast, where we discuss issues of God and culture, brought to you by Dallas Theological Seminary. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Welcome to The Table podcast, where we discuss issues of God and culture. My name is Kymberli Cook and I'm the assistant director here at the Hendricks Center. Today we're going to be discussing ministering in an anxious world. We are joined by Ronnie Martin, who is the lead pastor at Substance Church and the co-host of The Art of Pastoring podcast. Ronnie, thank you so much for joining us today. 

Ronnie Martin: 

Oh, thanks so much for having me. 

Kymberli Cook: 

First, I think to get started, so we're going to be talking about ministry, and ministering, and being a pastor, and all of the things in the midst of an anxious world. For anybody listening or watching that is surprised that we might be talking about an anxious world, they must have been some of the people who were on the island by themselves for the last three years. So I think we all know about the anxious world, but first let's get to know you a little bit, Ronnie. Let's first hear about how did you get involved in ministry, and the pastoral ministry, and ministry in general? How did you end up in this space? 

Ronnie Martin: 

Yeah. Gosh, that's always an interesting question. Like a lot of guys, a lot of men and women, the path was very windy. And it's almost hard to make sense of it now because God has this really unique way of not using a template to get people into that call to ministry. So for me, it was long time ago at this point, but I came in from the music side of it, the worship side of it, and being involved a little more on the creative end of it, in that sense. Before I just, slowly the Lord grew me in that ministry, and then eventually grew me out of that ministry, and gave me a desire for church planting and preaching and pastoring. So it's been a couple of decades now process, and so currently… Are we still in the call here? 

Kymberli Cook: 

Mm-hmm. 

Ronnie Martin: 

Oh, okay. 

Kymberli Cook: 

I can still hear you. You're fine. 

Ronnie Martin: 

I had frozen window. Yeah. So what I'm doing right now is I'm the pastor of Substance Church in Ashland, Ohio, which is right in between Cleveland and Columbus. So planted that church almost a decade ago. We're also working with a church planting network called Harbor Network. So I do pastoral care, leader renewal ministry, pastoring other pastors ministry with Harbor. I'm doing a lot in terms of ministering to other pastors, ministering to a local congregation, and all the stuff that contains in between. So yeah. 

Kymberli Cook: 

How did you make that step from, what was it that you felt, or what happened in the midst of your music ministry that made you realize, I think the Lord is calling me to step into more congregational leadership. 

Ronnie Martin: 

Part of it is that I was not really a great, I was a lousy worship leader. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Well, at least you're humble, that's a good thing too. 

Ronnie Martin: 

Yeah. I had come up through the music industry doing a lot of my own music, and I think when I got into worship ministry, it's very different. I always struggled with it. I was never very good at it. But I always had a heart for the word. I always had a heart for communication. And the parts I enjoyed the most in worship ministry were those moments in between the songs when I would communicate with the congregation a little bit more. So it really started off as simple as that, just realizing, "I don't think this is going to be long term for me, there's so many more gifted women and men that can do this than me." At some point I just got a really, just a desire for preaching, and then got opportunities to start doing that. And before I knew it just seemed like the most obvious next step. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Hmm. So how did you end up pastoring pastors? So you went from being a worship pastor to a lead pastor and a teaching pastor, and then you ended up working even further with pastoring pastors. And how did you end up doing that? 

Ronnie Martin: 

Yeah, I started my church planting journey a little bit older than a lot of guys. So I was in my early forties when that began. I got connected with a church planting network, like I said, called Harbor, very early on when we were planting. And I think it was just a case of having had ministry experience, being older, a good decade or so older than a lot of the younger people that were coming and planting. And then just being utilized in that from just a ministry functionality standpoint. "Hey, these guys could use somebody to sit down and talk with them and help them through," some, all the various details that goes into church planting. 

Ronnie Martin: 

And I think it just happened and grew organically from that. And it really became just a passion of mine too. I love sitting down with younger leaders, and just hearing where they're at, and being able to listen, being able to maybe offer just, I don't know, a kernel of wisdom, which is about the extent of what I have and see if it helps, see if it benefits them. And so the Lord has given me some opportunities to do that and it's been really fun. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Hmm. So in the last, I joked earlier about living on an island in the last three years, but I mean, I think we may have said, before 2019, I think we all may have said, "Oh yeah. We live in a stressful world." Or, "We live in an anxious world." And then the tsunami hit, and we all really realized what it is to, at least another step in living in an anxious world. So I'm assuming in the midst of your ministry with pastoring pastors, you've had to start to really think about how to help, and I mean you yourself, but also help others think about ministering in the midst of such an anxious culture, and an anxious environment, anxious congregations. So tell me a little bit about what your journey has been in that in the last three years or so. What have you been thinking through? What have you seen? Just walk me through what that's looked like, especially with regard to pastoring the pastors in the midst of it. 

Ronnie Martin: 

Yeah. It's so interesting the way you even frame that. Because if you go back a few years, if you go back pre-COVID, pastors have always struggled with anxiety and it comes with the job. I think it's one of the high components of the job, for sure. But I would say the majority of the conversations, three years ago, would've been having conversations with pastors about how to minister to people in their congregations that are struggling with anxiety. The big shift now is, "Hey, I don't need you to help me with the guy five rows back three seats in. I don't need help ministering to him for his anxiety. I'm the one that is struggling so bad right now. How do I deal with this level of anxiety?" 

Ronnie Martin: 

Because it's hit a ceiling. It's at a fever pitch. The conversations that really surfaced, I think, in the last three years for many pastors, and I think the stats prove this out, is, do I even want to continue doing this? The pressure and the stress and the anxiety is so high right now, it's nothing that I anticipated, because of course nobody anticipated a global pandemic. And then how to go about doing our job with needing to have all kinds of answers for issues and topics and things that we've never given more than 21 seconds of thought to, if that. And I think that's been the major shift, is just pastors really struggling and just losing their foot in that whole arena. Yeah. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Yeah. So let's dig a little bit into that anxious world that we're talking about. I think perhaps first more than anything, it would be helpful, we've already thrown the word around quite a bit. When we are talking, this is the classic academic, if we're using the word anxiety, what exactly are we saying? But I think it is relevant because it's a really popular word, especially in our mindfulness culture. And everybody talks about their anxiety and all of that, but what are we meaning, you and I, when we use the word anxiety? 

Ronnie Martin: 

Yeah. Gosh, that's a great question. The way that I process the word, and the way that I see it played out in real time, it seems to be when you are faced with circumstances of which you have no control over, and they seem all encompassing, and they actually now are shaping both the inner culture and the outer culture of your day to day life. There's probably way better ways to define that, but talking about it from a pastoral standpoint, I think what you've seen happen in the last three years is… From an intellectual standpoint or from a biblical standpoint, we believe that control is elusory. We know that we really, at the end of the day, don't have a lot. We have some self control over the way that we respond and react to things. But control in terms of sovereignty of God level control and how the world is working itself out, we know we don't have any control over that. 

Ronnie Martin: 

And I think what the last three years have done has pulled the rug out from under us about the things that we would say we didn't have control over, but it actually presented itself as truly not having control over those things. And by things, we probably more specifically mean people, and people saying things, and doing things, and behaving in particular ways that really adversely have affected our lives and our vocations. And the fact that it happened at a rate and a speed that we had no idea was going to come to that particular rate and speed, I think it made it all the more difficult to even try to understand what was going on. And so that leads to heart rates that are through the roof. It leads to lack of sleep. It leads to all these physical realities and emotional realities that just completely affect you from a holistic standpoint, I would say. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Yeah. And I think, I mean, just going along with what you're saying, I think, not only it affected the relationships, and the people, the assumptions we thought we had about that. But even whether or not we actually would've ever admitted feeling like we had control over disease and health and all of that. I think, I mean, certainly given all of the reactions to everything that has happened, I think, we thought we could control that too through science and all of that. And obviously we have breakthroughs and all of that in lots of areas. But I think that's another place where we assumed that we had control, and then lo and behold, that rug is ripped out from under you too. And that leaves you reeling when a lot of these things that you felt like were solid ground, that you were standing on, you realize no, they were just inflatable mattresses on a pool and you were really balanced. 

Ronnie Martin: 

That's a great way to put it. That's really good. Yeah. And I think it was even, I mean, to your point, it was so interesting. We all remember this whatever, mid-March March 15th when around the nation, around the world, it's like, "Okay, this is the thing." And you remember this, when everybody said, "Just give it a couple of weeks. Everything's going to be back to normal." And so even the way you're describing that, which is to say, "We got this. We can handle this. We can find a way. And it's not going to be long, and it's not going to be inconvenient. It'll maybe be inconvenient in the moment, but there are people…" It's the big they word, they're going to find a solution, and we can depend on that, and we can trust them. And that, of course, all went south. 

Kymberli Cook: 

And we realized there was no they, it was just a bunch of other broken people. And that's okay. But it's just a bunch of people doing the absolute best that they could, and working as hard as they could, but lo and behold we're just human. And we found out what that really means. And yeah. So let's, to make this even more depressing and horrible, before we get into how to minister in the midst of it. So let's talk a little bit about what does an anxious world look like? And the reason I think that's a helpful question to talk about here is I think sometimes we're really quick to jump to the individual, and like I even joked with the mindfulness culture, we're quick to jump to our own anxiety and recognizing that. 

Kymberli Cook: 

But I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that our culture, our world right now is in the same place that we in individuals are. And that there are certain symptoms that we see that if you really trace them down, it's founded in this underlying anxiety. So what would you say are some of those symptoms? Are they the same symptoms of a person who has anxiety? Or what are we seeing on a more corporate scale that we can look at and say, "You know what, it looks like we're fighting or whatever, but really it's just anxiety underlying this." What are your thoughts in that area? 

Ronnie Martin: 

Yeah. That is such a real, that's a really good question. I think when we think about an anxious world… Again, I'm probably going to use the word control a lot. But I think it's a world that is fighting for control that it's not meant to have, because that is not the way God intended the world to operate. And that's not the way He intended his creatures to know Him and to be known by Him. And so I think an anxious world is a world that is fighting for something that it will never gain any grip around. And then responding to that, and more than responding to that, really reacting to that in ways that promotes self-interest over love of neighbor. 

Ronnie Martin: 

And again, so when we think of the Christian ethic in an anxiety ridden world, the Christian ethic would be, "Well, how can I lay down my life? How can I help you? How can I love you the way that Christ has loved me? How can I look to the good and the benefit of you through something that is very difficult?" And I think you see pockets of that obviously in the world in how they respond and how they react, for sure. We don't want to paint it too far one way. But I think at the end of the day, it's an anxious world. The result of that, or the symptoms of that, is going to be an increasing level of self-interest that puts other people at risk so that you can retain the level of control that you feel like you're losing. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Hmm. Fascinating. Yeah. I was in a conversation the other day with someone and they said what do you think are two or three of the major misunderstanding, theological misunderstandings in the church? So nothing small with regard to that question. But my answer, like the first two were that I think we have a misunderstanding of fear and anger, and that fear and anger are driving so many things right now. 

Kymberli Cook: 

And to a degree, some of us in the church think that fear and anger of certain things is legitimate. But like you said, there is a strong line, theme in scripture of… I mean, obviously there are certain circumstances where anger is okay, but because God can also, God is also angry. But there's a strong line and theme of this is not about me, and this is not about us, and it is not necessarily about our best interest. 

Kymberli Cook: 

And the reason we know that is because Jesus abandoned, not abandoned, oh goodness. Yeah. Jesus, He humbled Himself, and He came down, and He was willing to not be in the most comfortable situation, and to not be getting the things that He deserved, and that is who we are called to follow. And the fact that we think that we should have control, and we should have comfort, and all of those things, we're missing out on it. 

Kymberli Cook: 

One other quick question about anxious world. So there have been anxious times in the past. Like World War II, World War I, the Spanish flu, we can point to other times. What do you think, if anything… I really don't know. What do you think is different now about the anxiety that we're facing on a corporate global scale? Or is there anything different? 

Ronnie Martin: 

Well, yeah, I think there's probably things that are similar because when you get down to some foundational levels of things, things can't be different because we're humans and that has never… I do think what would be different now is, and this is maybe the easiest and simplest way to think about it, is that the way information is exchanged now. It just, well, you didn't see that a hundred years ago. I mean, you didn't see that 25 years ago practically. And so I think the level of information sharing, and I think the access to it, and I think the 24 hour nature of it, I think it doesn't allow people to settle on a particular truth that is agreed upon by the majority anymore. 

Ronnie Martin: 

And it allows you to find a particular truth, whether it's true or not, that suits your level of comfort, your level of belief, your level of philosophy in life. And you can run with that, whether it's true or not, or whether it has components of truth. But then what that does is it creates dissonance now. Because if anybody even has a slightly different take or different version of it, we're not very good at finding common ground, I think. And I think there's an overload of information now that makes it very difficult to say, "Hey, you know what, I think we are thinking more alike on this than we are having differences." But we're not operating now in mediums in which that is an easy thing to do in the moment. You know, Twitter's not a great place to have great discussions. 

Kymberli Cook: 

To sit down and… 

Ronnie Martin: 

Yeah, totally. And so I would say that to me is the, that to me, it seems to be the, I mean, on a very basic level, that seems to be a pretty big factor. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Yeah. I would agree. I feel like the, just the pure amount of information too. Not only the ways in which it's distributed through social media and that kind of thing, but just the, I mean, just the overwhelming amount. I can find out about something tragic or unjust that happened in some backwoods town in Australia in two seconds. And so it's almost like it allows our feelings and our anxieties to reach this certain fever pitch, and then it never lets up. Because all of these things are constantly available and put before us, and so we can never… 

Kymberli Cook: 

I mean, back in the old days they'd have news reels or something, so you might see it on a Friday night, but then you wouldn't know very much beyond a couple newspaper articles until whenever the next news reel came out. And so you were able to still kind of go back to your normal life. But here it's just always before us. And so I think there is a level of anxiety present, perpetually present in a way that perhaps it wasn't… I wasn't there in 1940, so I'm not a hundred percent sure, but it doesn't seem like it. 

Ronnie Martin: 

Yeah. And I think that brings especially, so I think the burden then for the church then becomes wisdom. It becomes an issue of wisdom. So when you are somebody who has the Spirit of Christ in them, and you are going into a situation of where that is not present, and you don't want to be an anxious presence to add to all the other anxious presence that's there. I think what we've been given, in scripture, is this opportunity to display wisdom. And out of wisdom comes the very things that can cut a knife through an anxious presence, which is patience, and kindness, and self-control. And so I think the burden on the church, to me in this day when we talk about an anxious world is, but are we living out the wisdom that we have because we have the Spirit living inside of us. And obviously, and unfortunately, we're not seeing that a lot. We're seeing the church react in the way that the world reacts, and now that's creating its own culture, at the end of the day. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Yeah. And it's almost like, and I don't want to imply in any way that anybody having problems with anxiety, because I don't know how you couldn't in the midst of our current situations. I think it's also a matter of faith. I love what you're saying with wisdom. I agree with that wholeheartedly. And I think faith and wisdom go hand in hand. And I think it's a matter of true faith that like, "No, I really recognize that I am not in charge." We were talking about control earlier. I am not the one in control. And I refuse to try to be in control. I refuse to play these games, to try to be the voice that is the loudest, or the one that results in the most power. I refuse to play this game. 

Kymberli Cook: 

And I am an ambassador for the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and his values are my values, regardless of where they fall on either side of any conversation that we have going on right now. I refuse to act out of fear or anger or anxiety. I just, I am going to respond with wisdom. I'm going to respond with faith. And I think that that's, it's something that's really hard to do. I think it's something we don't know how to do. But I'm curious, what else do you see as the relationship between the gospel and anxiety? How does the gospel address anxiety, especially corporate anxiety? 

Ronnie Martin: 

Yeah, I think what you just said, you said really well. And I think a Christian is not a person who tries to put a lid and deny anxiety, and press down and go, "LA LA LA LA LA. It's not there." I mean, that is not what the gospel presents us with, is ignoring, on a holistic level, what we're facing and feeling. All those things are real. We have an entire book called the Psalms that is people singing out their anxieties. David is singing his anxiety. But I think the idea of presence is so important. And I think getting back to even spiritual disciplines and saying, "Lord, I am an anxious person living in an anxious world, but I'm also representing a kingdom that is being built by Jesus, who is just the epitome of anti-anxiety." 

Ronnie Martin: 

Because our worldview would tell us that there is not one stray molecule in the universe. The Lord has everything under his control. And I don't think that there's a magic formula. I think that there is, I think that we have been given biblical precedent when we look in scripture that says… And you see all these women, you see all these men that are fighting all of the anxiety of their times and their culture and the ones that found some sense of center and balance… And again, that's why David and the Psalms I think is so important, is he acknowledges what's out there. He acknowledges what's stirring in his heart, but he also acknowledges what's greater in his heart than even the stirring, which is God and just his absolute love, patience, and the steadfastness of his love, which I think is the answer for the anxiety. 

Ronnie Martin: 

That, again, the world can't embrace that because they don't have a heart to embrace that. But I think we can offer that in ways that will surprise, and shock, and utterly just almost unseat them in a sense. I do think we have that. We have the power of the Spirit, which is all of those fruits that just, I think, cut a knife through anxiety, even when we are feeling anxious. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Mm-hmm. And I feel like the reality is, when we are feeling anxious and recognizing all of the anxiety producing realities in our world, that is actually necessary for hope if you really think about it. Because hope requires you to want something other than, and to be looking forward and looking to something. And so if you don't really have a strong sense of hope, and a strong sense of looking for the redemption that we need to come, if you don't actually recognize what is deeply and horribly broken. And I think that sometimes the church does kind of have a tendency to stick their fingers in their ears and say, "LA LA LA, LA LA, it's all good. Jesus has got us." And Jesus wept. Jesus recognized the hard things that were happening in the world. 

Kymberli Cook: 

But again, He wasn't… Like you said, I love that. He was the epitome of a non-anxious presence in the midst of it. He refused to be pushed or pulled into anything that wasn't of his kingdom and wasn't of His will and His plan. And so, yeah, we have to come to the point where we're okay with surrendering that and surrendering to his plan. And that's, I mean, I'm talking to myself here. It's not like, I'm like, "Yeah, everyone, get your act together." That's incredibly difficult to do. 

Ronnie Martin: 

Yeah. We're just holding up mirrors right now. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Right. So we've been talking a little bit about personal, a little bit about corporate anxiety as we've been kind of chatting through what, but with regard to ministry, in ministries specifically, how do we tweak existing ministries to address this onslaught of anxiety? And I know some of those tweaks have already been attempted in the last three years. What have you seen happen? What do you feel like has gone well? Where do we still need work? What are your thoughts on what needs to be done to better minister, to better pastor in the midst of this world that we find ourselves? 

Ronnie Martin: 

Yeah. Gosh, I think one of the things that I've noticed, and I think this is maybe one of the things that COVID really surfaced is that people are so fragile. And most of the time when we are connecting with people, we just have such a small portion of their story. And ministry can have the tendency to want to be like a fix it organization. And if we just, here's the book. Read the book. Here's the three things you should do before you go to bed, and when you wake up. And if you would just stop doing this, everything will be great. And I think that's informed a lot of the ministry culture that you see, I think, happening at churches. Where they don't want to… I think this idea of presence has been lost a little bit and maybe COVID has helped us back, where it really is about sitting with people, spending time with people, listening to their stories, trying to get an understanding of their anxiety. 

Ronnie Martin: 

"Actually what is your anxiety? What are the fears that you're experiencing?" And instead of just dropping something quick, that makes you feel good about you doing your job… I think instead of trying to always find, I think answers that at the end of the day can be largely ineffective. I think just being with people and having people gain a particular kind of understanding about their pastors and their ministry leaders. "That these are people that care about me. They care about my life. They care about the things that I'm going through. They're not just trying to wring me out so that all these things aren't bothering me anymore. So that I won't bother them anymore." I think if we just, again, look at the life of Jesus and see the way in which He listened, and He spent time, and He wasn't hurried. He wasn't trying to get everybody from A to B as quickly as possible. I think we can just learn so much from that. But that's the investment of a pastor that maybe has been lost in some pastoral job descriptions these days. I don't know. 

Kymberli Cook: 

That's really interesting. The word investment is interesting. Because sometimes I think it has become so much of a… I don't know. All I can think of is fast food, but I'm actually trying to think of the clothing version of it. But like trying to get through things quickly, like you're saying, they're wringing you out so that everybody's okay. And moving you along in the line of holiness and righteousness. And really it's this element of investment that perhaps has been lost in a lot of church cultures, and that really needs to be rediscovered. And that this is a long organic process that is going to go through good seasons and bad seasons. 

Kymberli Cook: 

I really like investment. Speaking of that, what other language do you think, is there any language that we should adjust? Things in the church that now we should, or we shouldn't say? What are helpful things with regard to anxiety and fear and those kinds of things that need to be said, or that need to stop being said? 

Ronnie Martin: 

Well gosh, you might have to delete the whole section, so we'll just jump right in. But I think even so I'm ministering in… I'm a Southern California transplant into mid Ohio. Little bit of a different culture that I'm ministering in. I think a lot of fear over faith language, I think it really presented something to the church that on one hand is true on one level, but it doesn't tell the whole story. 

Ronnie Martin: 

And I think what's really unhelpful, and it goes back a little bit to what you just said and what we've been talking about, is it's really unhelpful to think that God's view of sanctification is somehow doing things as fast and as famous as possible. And removing people's experiences, removing people's level of trauma they've experienced, removing the stories that have either been built into their lives because of their own mistakes or because of the harm that has been done against them through the years, and trying to, trying to eliminate that by saying, "Hey, if I just get the coffee mug with the scripture on it, and I just read it 10 times over and over again in the morning, as fast as I can, that's somehow going to be the thing that helps alleviate all of the worries or all the things that I don't feel like I want to deal with that take time." 

Ronnie Martin: 

And I think we are caught up in that culture of fastness, and quickness, and girl wash your faceness, and let's just do this thing. And that is not the mentality of Jesus. That is not the mentality of a Christian life that grows and develops over time, taking into consideration all of the things that affect my faith on a daily basis, and that are hitting against my faith on a daily basis. 

Ronnie Martin: 

And so me putting on a t-shirt that just says fear over faith, and saying, "Yeah, you just go do that." Well, that's missing 99% of the story. And that's really, really unhelpful, for me, in terms of wanting to grow deeper into the life of Jesus. So I think a lot of this language is about fixing, and fast, and you should know better, and you should forget about the past, and you should ignore these things that are hard for you, because we have a Jesus that has conquered everything. And that's true. We do have a Jesus that has conquered everything. But He also is doing something in us that takes time. And I think we've missed that. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Yeah, I mean, yeah, we have a Jesus who has conquered everything. But God, who Jesus is one of the three persons. He is also the creator of the world and of nature. And one of the key things we see in nature is that growth, and all of that takes immense amounts of time. And you barely even see it happening. And it is a long term investment. 

Ronnie Martin: 

Well, and I think, even when we go to scripture, and you go to Peter, and Peter was always so hurried. And Jesus is always, essentially, in some ways he's slowing Peter down, and He is just saying, "Stop, Peter. You got to stop. You got to stop stirring." We get to Luke 10, we get to the story of Martha and Mary. It's "Stop, Martha. You're just stirring. You're trying to gain control. You're trying to find quick solutions to long term answers that I provide, but you have to slow down to gain it." And that is so hard for us. 

Ronnie Martin: 

That is so hard for me. I don't want to… I'm the Martha, I don't want to just slow down and sit at the feet of Jesus. I'm the Peter. I don't want to sit back during the transfiguration, and behold this miraculous thing that's going on. I'm like, "Hey, I'm going to build me some tents. Let's set up camp here. Let's look around. Let's make something of this whole thing so that we don't lose the moment." And you have God literally interceding with his voice, basically saying, "Hey, Pete, you need to just actually listen to Jesus and you just need to slow down." And man, I am famously bad at that. And we all are. But that is the message. 

Kymberli Cook: 

But that's another, sorry. I was going to say that's another element of our ministry cultures that perhaps needs to shift because it's one thing… I mean, it might be a negative habit to be in initially, but when you have a culture and a world and a society that is getting more and more like we were talking about, the fever pitch of anxiety, then it starts to try to match that with the fixing plan. And it just kind of becomes chasing your tail rather than actually doing anything. 

Ronnie Martin: 

That's a good word. Yeah. 

Kymberli Cook: 

So one last thought, this is… Bear with me. How do we treat an anxious world? As if we were treating a person with anxiety symptoms? How do we treat our culture? So this is going a little bit beyond just the church, but saying, "Okay, we as a gospel people…" Let's say the Lord is gracious and the Holy Spirit is working deeply in us. And we come with wisdom, and we come with faith, and we come willing to slow down. What is it that we're actually offering the anxious world? And what is it that we need to be presenting? Does that make sense? As a question. 

Ronnie Martin: 

Yeah, I think it does. No, I think it does. I think it's a good question too. I think the answer is that we do have the peace of Jesus to offer an anxious world. I think so oftentimes we lack peace. And so we are people that have been given a peace that passes understanding. And yet we are grappling with the same anxiety that the world is grappling with. And so we are entering into situations, and we are entering into life with people, offering them anxiety for their anxiety. 

Ronnie Martin: 

And I think that it's very difficult, but I think again, we start breaking this down to spiritual disciplines in some ways. We start talking about what would it look like for me to… I only have one day at a time, like everybody, if I'm given the day. What does it look like for me to begin a day with the understanding that I'm susceptible to anxiety as much, if not more than everybody. I also have the Spirit living inside of me that has given me a peculiar and a particular peace that can guard me against delivering an anxious presence to another person. What would it look like for me to begin my day acknowledging my anxiety, but also acknowledging the God who is over my anxiety, and who has given me this peculiar peace. 

Ronnie Martin: 

And what would that look like for me in the world to be a person of peace that is offering that to those around me, that I know are battling, again, the same anxiety. But they may not know Jesus, so then they're not going to know the peace of Jesus. I think when people come into contact with that, it looks like nothing else they've ever seen. It's otherworldly. And that's why. It's supernatural. And we have that. So we have that and we access that through prayer. And we access that through being reminded through God's Word, that He is offering us Himself to be that peace. And I think it's just something that has to be so intentional for believers to say, "Hey, I want to be a person that is able to come into a room and be the peace within the anxiety that is permeating this whole place." And I think we have that if we have Christ, for sure. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Fascinating. Okay. Well, we are out of time. I would love to continue to engage. I do want to thank you so much, Ronnie, for joining us and for helping us think through what it means to be in an anxious world and to try to be that peaceful presence and what that might look like. Just thank you so much, again, for your time. 

Ronnie Martin: 

Thank you. Thank you so much. I learned a lot from a lot of the things you said today, so thanks so much. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Oh, well, thank you. And we also want to thank those of you who are watching and listening. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please be sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts. It really does help us be heard by others. And we just ask that you would join us next time when we discuss issues of God and culture. 

Voiceover: 

Thanks for listening to The Table podcast. Dallas Theological Seminary. Teach truth, love well.