#95: Mark Clark: The Problem of Jesus
In this conversation, we sit down with pastor, author, and speaker Mark Clark. Mark is leading a movement of God that is focused on the skeptic, the disillusioned, and the unclear. In our dialogue, we discuss what it means to follow Jesus in the world today.
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EP. 95 Mark Clark
Tony: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the reclamation podcast, where our goals to help you reclaim good practices for faith and life. I am Tony and today is episode 95 of the podcasts, and I get to sit down with pastor author and speaker Mark Clark. Mark has a brand new resource out called the problem of Jesus.
And it's all about challenging Christians to understand and articulate the value of who Jesus is. I think you're going to love this resource. Mark is a phenomenal storyteller and he brings so much to the table with his experience. He's also pastoring in Canada, which if you didn't know, Canada is a little bit more I'm going to use the word de-churched here.
So they're not quite as, as Christian as we are. So his apologetics are a little bit stronger in the sense that he has. Has had to, to kind of tackle this for quite some time. Also, I, I want to invite you if you haven't subscribed yet, be sure that you subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen on that way.
You never miss any of our episodes. We're really approaching episode 100 very quickly. We're going to be doing some. Fun stuff. Make sure you follow me on Instagram at TW melts. And if you subscribe and follow me, you're sure you're not going to miss anything. We're going to be handing some stuff out.
We're going to be celebrating maybe a bonus episode. You never know, wink, wink bonus episodes coming. Make sure you subscribe. Also, if you found today's episode. Valuable. If you enjoyed your time with Mark be sure to share this episode with a friend, getting the word out really does help. Finally, the last thing you can do though, is a huge help for us leaving a rating or review on iTunes really does make a difference in how people find the podcast.
So I think that's it for me today without any further ado, let's get to the conversation with pastor author and speaker. Mark Clark. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm here today with author speaker and pastor, pastor Mark Clark from the village church in Vancouver. Pastor Mark. How are you, sir?
Mark: I am doing very well, sir. Thank you. How are you?
Tony: I'm good. I'm so it's, you know, and I was telling you before we pressed record. My congregation has you to think because I took your art a better preaching course, and it really had a huge impact with the way I did that. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Mark: Awesome. Well, they've been, they've been sending me. Thank you notes ever since Tony. Sorry. That's good.
Tony: In the land of COVID. I'm just glad they're listening to me.
Mark: Yeah.
Tony: Mostly it's preaching now to an empty room or partially empty. How has, how have the restrictions been in, in Canada? You guys have been pretty disciplined up there, huh?
Mark: Yeah. We're yeah, I mean, we're, we're having a fun time up here. Looking, looking South to our our brother down there and just wondering what is going on. No, we, I, I love I love the U S I spent a lot of time there actually. And yeah, the restrictions have been a little bit Hardcore here from the beginning, actually different provinces do different things.
So on the East coast, the East coast like. The Nova Scotia, new Brunswick, you know, all of that, which probably none of your listeners even know what I'm talking about, but it sounds really.
Tony: Exactly who doesn't want to go to Nova Scotia.
Mark: Exactly. All of that stuff has been like even crossing the province.
You weren't allowed to leave. And if you did, you had to court, like if you came from Toronto to there, you'd have to quarantine for two weeks. So they've been like that from the beginning West coast. Hasn't been like that we've had less cases, but but we haven't gathered as a church since March. Wow. We have not physically gathered.
It's all been online. So I have no idea, Tony, if I'm going back to nothing, like when we gather it can, I don't know if our churches, you know, been gutted. I really, I mean, I hope not, but we have a lot of people online people gathering with families and stuff, but. It's hard when you haven't gathered since March to do kids ministry and youth ministry like that, you know, people want, you know, talk about discipleship before before we came on and it's like, people want to be able to disciple their whole families.
And and sometimes that's hard when you're just sitting at home. So anyway, I hope to get back out by the fall. That's our prediction.
Tony: How has that impacted you as a pastor? Because I know for me, like, it's really done some weird things to my psyche. Like I, it's certainly not. It's created quite a bit of content for me and my counselor and dealing with my own personal affirmation and my need for a crowd.
And I mean, but you've been, you've been doing this a little bit longer than I have. You, you obviously have a very successful ministry. How have you personally handled it?
Mark: Well Actually, you know, surprisingly good from the side of the, you know, I our structure was that I would preach to a half like eight o'clock in the morning.
I would preach to a room that we purposely made half empty because we had to put cameras up to re and we didn't want people in the way. So I've been kind of, and then every other service is a video. Of that sermon. And so I haven't had kind of that full room affirmation for years. So you know, the room's full, but it's at the 10 o'clock service and I'm already home watching golf by that point or whatever.
So so in that sense you know, I haven't really been having that like, Hey pastor, good job for a long time. So. Me and the camera, man, doesn't feel that much different from a preaching standpoint. I mean, obviously it. It's not as good as looking out in your people and shepherding them from, from the front is, is a beautiful thing.
But it's more of the like, Oh man, I miss the pastoral interaction of loving on people and hanging out and having fun in the foil and all that stuff. So, and the staff development piece, that's been tough.
Tony: So is your staff still not even gathering?
Mark: No w well, we could, in the summer we could come to the office, but pretty well since March, it's been a ton of zoom.
So it's hard to keep staff culture when, when that's the case. Right? So a lot of guys are predicting, you know, I was listening to Tom Rainer on our friend, Kerry new Haas podcast. The other day he was saying 20, 21 is going to be a big staff turnover a year. There's going to be a lot of existential crisis of people in ministry.
And I get it like, like you're referring to about yourself. I get it. It's like, this is not why we got into this.
Tony: No somebody the other day was like, Hey, how's it. How are you guys doing with the COVID? I'm like, well, I mean, surprisingly, the church's is doing pretty well, like health wise and, you know, we're, you know, we're very thankful for the faithfulness of the, the community, but but personally, like it's the hardest year of ministry ever.
Mark: A hundred percent, a hundred, hundred percent.
Tony: Yeah. And it's interesting that you've got this new resource coming out about kind of the skepticism and apologetics and, and all of this in a year when I think one of the real fears for a lot of us is are people going to come back to church? Are people going to come back to Jesus or the way that they, they kind of were following Jesus prior to the pandemic it, as you.
As you set out to kind of navigate this task of, of writing this sort of resource. I mean, obviously you didn't, I mean, you didn't know that the pandemic was coming right?
Mark: I did. I did. I just didn't anybody you didn't.
Tony: Perfect. I love it. How has that been for you in that whole process?
Mark: Yeah, the process was fun.
I mean, I love writing. I so the process of just, you know, taking everything I've read and thought growing up as a skeptic, you know, I didn't enter the church till I was about 19. Grew up in a fully atheistic agnostic family. I opened a book I wrote a few years ago called the problem of God.
I opened that book by telling the story that my, my father was so atheistic. I have a brother. His name is Matthew and my mom wanted to call him Matthew. But my dad said, I don't want to spell his name with two T's because that would be biblical. That'd be like a biblical name. And then four years later they have me and call me Mark.
So clearly the guy has never read a Bible. You know, if I had another brother be let's call him Luke. So, so he is like, I was that's the. Environment. I grew up in, so coming to faith when I was, you know, 19 by exploring the skeptic, I was a skeptic. I continue to be a skeptic. So exploring those kinds of questions specifically now with the problem of Jesus coming out around Jesus, who is he?
How do the gospels work are miracles actually legitimate? Did he actually claim to be God? And then. Other types of things for the Christian as well. Like what does it, what does discipleship actually mean? This huge, the call, the cost of following Jesus. What about loving God? How did the parables actually work?
You know, the kind of discipleship piece, the death, the resurrection, and what all that means for our life as we follow Jesus in the real world. So exploring all of that was fascinating. Writing it. During this kind of a little bit before the COVID moment hit, but then realizing there's swarms of people leaving the church, young people, leaving the church for a plethora of different reasons, of course, but one of them, especially in secular post-Christian Vancouver is, Hey Jesus.
You know, Has been hijacked by the church and he wasn't really the way that we think he was. And, and so this book kind of enters into that conversation. Yeah.
Tony: I would be interested to hear your definition of a skeptic because I think a lot of people understand it as like, Oh, just somebody who doubts, but a skeptics really has a little bit more feeling.
Than that. Right? Like how do you, how do you define like skeptic versus atheist versus agnostic help people kind of piece all that together?
Mark: Yeah. I mean, one of the things I I write in the book is the the idea that sometimes our skepticisms isn't just based on information it's based on now, the thing behind the thing, you know, the, the real fear that we have, you know, I, I, I look at my congregation at Christmas Eve or Easter.
Right. And it's re I, I don't know if it's the same for you, Tony. I assume it is. Probably even more so in the U S where you just have your attendance doubles and triples from times. Right? And so as a pastor, what I tend to do almost every time is look at them and say, Hey, thanks for coming. You know, putting on your nice pleaded pants, because grandma told you to come to church and you're going to go home later and eat some hammer or whatever.
But the bottom line is you, the reason you're going to listen to everything I say about the resurrection or. The birth of Jesus and just go on with your life tomorrow and not really give your life to Jesus right now, the reason you're going to do that, don't tell me it's because, you know, epistemologically, you're in a different place because, you know, blah, blah, it's because you're a coward and what I meet and what I tend to say that almost every year and there's kind of this.
And then I'm like, no, no, it's okay. I'm just using that word. Technically. I'm not, I'm not. Being combative with you. What I'm saying is the reason you're not going to do this is because you're afraid of what your girlfriend's going to say. You're afraid of what your, your, your, your friends are gonna say.
You're afraid of what your coworkers are going to say, because when you give your life to Jesus, it upends your sex life, your money, life, your family, life, everything about you. And that's what you're afraid of. And so the book kind of enters into. There are skeptics and let's answer those questions. So we've got two or three chapters on that version of the hardcore.
I want the historical data. I want the legitimacy of the gospels. I want to understand whether this guy ever existed and if he did, what was he about? I want to enter into that conversation, but then there's the appeal to the thing behind the thing, the, the, the, the fear, the, the heart, the affections, you know, so you have that kind of skeptic and then you have.
You know, atheists, which are, you know, full on there is no God. And then there's of course, agnostics to say, I just don't know. And Vancouver is full of spiritual people who, who love to be positive. They love to talk about our, and I think there's a, there's a, there's a whole contingent of, of post-Christian culture.
That is like that. They're not. They're not proactively or aggressively atheistic they're open to spirituality, which sometimes becomes a harder conversation because of course Christianity comes in and goes, it's not enough to be vaguely spiritual. You actually have to be specifically and explicitly Christian.
Tony: Why do you think so many people have a hard time with withdrawing that line or, or, or what do you think has like th the post-Christian culture almost seems like it's spreading like wildfire and it feels to me like those two things are connected. Like, Oh man, we're, we're, we've almost become, Christians have almost become afraid at saying that out loud in a room.
Like in order to be Christian, you actually have to follow Christ. When did we get so scared of this? And, and how has that impacted the post-Christian culture? Yeah,
Mark: I think it's interesting. I think what Christianity used to be I think there's been an interesting flip that's happened in the last bunch of years where Christianity used to be seen as like this You know, th this, this moral kind of center or something to, to the culture.
And now it's almost seen as the opposite Christianity is now seen as the immoral thing. And what I mean by that is it's, it's exclusive, it's judgmental. It's, it's oppressive to the genders and these kinds of things. And so as culture has, has moved in a particular ideological direction, it's looking back at Christianity as this archaic weird.
That's the thing that's immoral and I it's no longer the moral center. It's now the marginal morality. It's like the thing you don't want to believe is the stuff that Christianity brings to the table because it's bad. It's bad to believe in hell. It's bad to believe in the exclusivity of Jesus as the way to God, you know, you should catch up.
And so where. Where I come at, it is, there's a difference between a repulsion and a legitimate reason to reject an idea. And so it's one thing to say. I don't like, hell I don't like the concept of it. And it's another to say, but it actually logically makes sense. Those are two different things. And so if an I, it never feels good to fire someone, but it might be the right thing to do.
There's some things in life, right? There's some things in life that don't feel very good that are right.
Tony: I tell my kids all the time, we do hard things. This is one of them, right? Like this is, it's just a hard thing. It's just the truth. But it's a hard thing.
Mark: When you're firing them. Yes.
Tony: When I fire my kids.
Absolutely. And they did, they always deserve it though. I just don't ever kick them out. So when did the church become so bad at this like a evangelism apologetics, sticking to our guns about things like, did we, did we, are we just caving to the culture or. Or, you know, what, what happened?
Mark: I think in some ways there's, I mean, obviously right now there's a popular conversation about you know, what Christianity really is. And I think when it, you know, Jesus. Jesus fought against an exoskeleton version of Christianity in Matthew 23. You know, it's like you look this like who hated a exoskeleton version of Christianity that didn't have an inside.
Didn't have a heart more than Jesus. He was against the concept that you could have a culture. That thinks it's Christian because it chants the slogans of Christianity and has the 10 commandments up in a, in a, in a court of law and yet dies and goes to hell. That's a scary place to be. And so what is it that we want?
And so I think what's happened is the culture war conversation has skewed things. Yeah. Right. Are we trying to build What's the goal of Christianity to build a Christian culture or to make sure that people know Jesus, you know, are saved from their sin, saved from the wrath of God, saved from these things.
And then out from there, be able to reform culture in particular ways. But you could have a whole culture that looks Christian and doesn't actually know Jesus and who warned against that more than Jesus himself. So I think I think that conversation has convoluted things. I think Leslie knew begin made a point years ago after being a missionary in India for 30 years and coming back to the West and realizing that what we're fighting in the West isn't just, you know, atheism or agnosticism or whatever.
And Christianity has constantly kind of focused there. It's that we're fighting paganism. And we actually have to find ways to fight idols and fight a proactive culture that actually worships other things than God. They're not a blank slate, they worship stuff. And so part of, you know, what I talk about in the problem with Jesus in the discipleship chapters, I talk about how to, to follow Jesus is not only to step into the, to the kingdom of God.
It's the step out of all the other kingdoms. It's not only a reformation of your ideas. It's a deformation of what you've been formed to already and how that's actually a pretty. It's not just that you have to believe, have a different theology about the divinity of Jesus than your neighbor. It's that your life hacks you, what you do with your time and your money and your family has to look different.
So if you believe this about the divinity of Christ and still spend your money, the same, still spend the same amount of time on Netflix and Instagram or whatever. Are you really a disciple? Hmm, is that, you know, Dallas Willard points out the idea. I talk about this about the 269 times or something in the new Testament, the word disciples used, and three times the word Christian is used that disciple disciple is the paradigmatic version of Christianity.
And of course, believing some stuff is part of that. Of course. What we believe is, is filters down to everything. But sometimes it's, it's what we act. It's how we follow Jesus as teacher in the world holistically over our whole life. That's the thing that's going to define us out and I'm not, and I'm sure, I think there's been a bit of a break in that.
So to come back to your question, I think people look in at it and they say this isn't worth my life. Because it's just a different ideological system. It's not something that filters down to my practice in my daily life. So who cares?
Tony: Yeah. So that was going to be my question right on a random Friday in January.
How did, how do we wake up today and say, I'm going to have my life look different. So that I can follow Jesus. Like what, what, what are some of the things that you do daily? You know, one of the things we say around here a lot is that if you're not, if you're not dedicated to your disciplines, you'll be destroyed by your distractions.
And so w what is some of the disciplines that you, that you do in order to stay on track, to look different? Because looking different in this world seems right.
Mark: Yeah. I mean, I think one of the, one of the big ways is You look at your budget for instance you're, you're you're because money, you know, I always say to my my exec team, like when you're setting budgets, money is a moral document.
A budget is a moral document in an organization, and it's also a moral document in your own life. So you can tell me that you worship Jesus. You can tell me that you worship the things that Jesus is about, but, but w w what's the definition of that? The songs that you sing, you know, while you're driving your car around.
Okay, great. I'll tell you what you worship. Show me your credit card bill. That's what you wish you. That's what you take joy in. So you can sing all the Christian songs that you want, but I want to know what you spend your money on. That's a massive indicator to what you value to what you take joy. And so, you know, I know it doesn't sound kind of very spiritual, but it's in the sense it's like, Hey, honey, what are we, what do we do with our money this month?
You know, are we making sure that we're. Spending our percentage of our money on kingdom things, because that's the thing that's going to fight against my worship of money and materialism and comfort. Right. So it's those things. It's the, it's the, it's the monthly practice, the yearly practice of looking at those things and saying, are we actually supporting enough kids around the world?
Are we investing in kingdom ventures? Are we doing this? Are we doing that? And that's going to form my heart. You know, and of course Bible reading prayer. We just did a day of prayer and fasting as a, as a staff around, you know, what we want 20, 21 to be. These things are for me as a preacher. You know, I know they say not to do this, but I, I break the rules a little bit, but like my study life around, you know so I do like exegetical expository sermons, where I just kind of worked through verse by verse through biblical books.
And so my life right now is. John too, it's water in a wine. And those, you know, 10 or 11 verses are my whole life right now.
Tony: And now you're going to do this for like the rest of this year, maybe next year too. I mean, you just go until you, like you have no. You have no agenda?
Mark: So we, we said let's do gospel of John and it's just whatever I get to that week. That's what I preach. And then I pick it up at the next verse the next week. Okay. So As a, as a, as a creative team, it's not ideal. As, as a,
Tony: Hey, we're gonna hit John two, one again, one more time. I just didn't feel like I got everything I wanted.
Mark: Exactly, exactly. So, you know, so that piece of it's partner, but yeah, it'll go for a few years. Maybe a couple we did about three and a half years in Matthew because there's certain sections where you, you, you run a little quicker than others. And then there's certain times when it's like, Man this word he said, and I'm 35 minutes in on one word.
And I'm like, okay, let's pray together. You know? And it's like
Tony: Philippians, but I, I couldn't, I was, I mean, honestly, true confession. I was too scared to stay there that long, like totally. I mean, you know, I just, I just, I, I chickened out, I mean.
Mark: And that's, and that's legitimate and it's not for everybody. Certainly. And, and even in the, in the online thing, you know, it's, it's a different, it's a different thing too, because, you know, moving quicker and being taught more topical and stuff is probably easier for people to connect into.
So yeah. But the good thing is I record some of these two or three weeks in advance. And so our team has some creative time with it to say, okay, we've listened to this content. There actually is, you know, a couple of themes in here that we could frame. Topically, you know, I don't go in knowing that I just, they pull it out after I'm done yapping.
Tony: Oh, that's super interesting.
Mark: Yeah. So, so for instance, all of January's done. So now that they have four weeks of material to sit around and go, okay, he, he kind of hit this theme. Let's let's on social. Let's put this clip. And frame it topically this way, even though I didn't know, I didn't think about that going in, you know, so they have the time to be able to do it.
Tony: So then every morning, do you either from home or from the office, you just, you kind of camp and where you're going to be preaching regardless of wherever the church is per week since you're working ahead anyway.
Mark: Yeah. I mean, there's times where I certainly do other stuff. I jumped into the songs, you know, and I, and I, you know but the, the, the passage I'm preaching the way I work overwhelms.
My thinking for an entire week, spiritually theologically devotionally and that's just kind of how it's always been for me.
Tony: Yeah. Well, and, and that's, I mean, that is, that's a, that's a great answer to the original question, right. That, that has a lot to do with it shapes your life in a different fashion as you As you follow Jesus now, as your, and I know you have a passion for young adults specifically, and you've done a lot of work with young adults over the years as you're teaching them to follow Jesus.
And maybe somebody who's listening to now is just getting started on this journey. How do you get them started in, in helping them. Getting their life to look a little bit different. What's the, what are those first couple of steps that you you do with somebody?
Mark: Yeah, I mean, I think I think that.
Community has changed even since, even over the last decade. So I was doing young adult ministry a decade ago. And so I think there's probably two parts. I think the one part is at least in my experience, what they connected to was I was doing a lot of worldview thinking and ideas at that age are very important.
And so they don't want, they can smell cliche. They can smell sentimental a mile away. And that's just not where they're at. They're not, they're not thinking about them dying and going to heaven because. That's they're never going to die. I suppose they're invincible. And they're going to change the world and they need someone to tell them, to lay down their life and give up everything to, to this cause.
And so somebody they're going to follow a leader who's, who's so sold out to the cause that there's no distinction between the cause and themself. And then they attached to the ideas and they say, These ideas are good or bad, you know, it's like, it's like, why does anyone read a book? Like a Malcolm Gladwell or a, you know, whatever it's it's so that when I'm talking to people, I, I can come at them from a different angle and I can, I can, you know, share new ideas and all of that.
So they're kind of looking for that. And they're looking for worldview thinking and preaching. That's going to help. Then construct. So, so what you're doing is you're, you're teaching them not only what to think, you're teaching them, how to think you're, you're bringing, you're bringing them in to the thinking process, not just giving them the conclusion of saying, look, Jesus has God here.
It's like, yeah, Jesus is God, let me, let me, let me show you how we got there. Is all part of the discipleship of them. And then on the other side of it is the habits piece of it. And I think what's happened in the last. You know, I'm not saying this is the first time young adults I've ever wanted to be told what to do, but there's a piece of it over the last 10 years or so, where they are looking for habits, they are looking to be told, what are the things I need to do to shape my affections?
What are the things I need to actually talk? And that's where you know, showing them it's like, it's like a, I just ordered a book called atomic habits because I'm trying to think through if they want. To be told more, you know, how am I going to frame that for them? How am I going to tell them the practices they need to do to form their own heart?
And so I think we could probably get better at that. And it's something that my generation of young adults didn't necessarily want. 20 years ago. Yeah, but they want now, so it's something that I think the church has to catch up on.
Tony: Well, I think the kind of, one of the, kind of the cultural things that we see with that is the the Spartan race phenomenon.
I don't know if it's up there in Canada, as much as it's here in the U S but like, everybody wants to sign up for something where they run across fire, or, you know, they're in icy water and they want these incredibly challenging. Because they're looking for those life defining moments and they're looking for that big goal.
And I, for me, it gives me hope as somebody who wants to raise the bar of like, I don't think we need to lower the entry to the church. I think we need to raise the entry to the church and say, Hey, this is, this is what we get to do when we follow Christ. Yeah. And, and so I love that thought process of of habits and disciplines.
And I think that's really important. Another part that I think is important that you, you were not afraid to jump into is the natural versus the supernatural. And and you, you tell a story in the book that is super interesting about demons in your closet. And I was wondering if you could talk a little about that and about why About why you felt the need to address that as it pertains to Jesus.
Mark: Cause I think that's very powerful. Well, you know one of the chapters in the book is called the problem of miracles and it's the it does two things. It answers it from kind of that apologetics, you know, science perspective. It's like are miracles actually legitimate from a, from a particular worldview.
And it talks about the weaknesses of the present. You know, scientific stance on certain things and why in light of quantum mechanics and the deeper that the deeper that science goes, it actually makes miracles and the supernatural more legitimate than it than it probably was before. And then the second half of that chapter talks about Jesus' miracles and what he did and what they all meant.
And so. In the midst of that. Yeah. I tell the story about a demon in my house. Actually start the whole book with, with the story, because I kind of want to basically ask the question. Like we, we tend to separate life into there's these spiritual questions about God and salvation and whatever.
And then there's my real life. You know, money and family and sex and how I do work and all of that. And, and we separate these things. And, and, and my argument, of course, in the book is these things are fused together and they need to center around the person and the work of Jesus and everybody who has ever lived their whole.
Their whole life is defined by the question of how Jesus is the place where all of that comes together in life. And and so this this particular experience that I had, you know, and, and I've of course, as a pastor, we have these different experiences. I just listened to a, a phone call from someone who recorded themselves for an hour and a half, you know, and they thought maybe I'm in some kind of demonic.
They, they were not me in some demonic training, somebody like that. So th these things go on quite, did you, did you think they were in a demonic train? My my discernment on it is no. Yeah, they did. And it was kind of some of the classic you know, indicators, but yeah, so, so the bottom line is Do you want me to tell the actual story or just.
Tony: Well with it?
I mean, it's, it's a great part of the book and I don't want to, I, you know, like I ha hesitant to ask it it's up to you. I'll leave it up to you.
Mark: Yeah. So, so what happened was I was living in we rent, we rented a bunch of different houses and we were living in this one particular house and And, you know, everything seemed fine and whatever, but then I kept getting kind of creepy feelings, weird vibes.
I'd go down to the basement and work on my sermon for three hours on a Saturday night. And just something felt off, you know, it just kind of a general ethos. And then I'd be working, you know, in my office and I would just feel like this. So I would just leave. Mm. And then I found myself waking up at two or three in the morning, walking around my house with a baseball bat for like two weeks in a row.
Every night thinking someone was in my house. And I'm like, I've never went, what is going on? Oh, why am I, why am I so convinced? And then one night I'm watching TV and I hear this chair drag across the ceiling in my house. I, and, and it's in my bedroom and I Oh, wow. And I thought, Oh my wife's upstairs.
So I said, Hey, Aaron kind of yelled for. And right behind me, she was like, yeah, what's up. And I turned around and she's sitting there folding clothes. So I run upstairs at all. My kids are asleep, you know, all the classic, I'm a Scandic right. So all the classic example, like there's, this, isn't a thing like this is, you know, whatever.
Anyway, so all that's going on. And then I fly out to Toronto to speak at a conference. And this pastor who I've, who I met, like, I think. No 2020 years ago and kind of said hi to him. And that was it. He wanted to meet, talk about mystery. So we go to this coffee shop and we're sitting there in this coffee shop, we're chatting about life.
And all of a sudden he looks at me at the end of the conversation. He says, so how do you, how are you liking your house? And I'm like, why is this guy asking me about my house? I'm like, I'm like, well, it's you know, it's fine, whatever. I said, you know, whatever. And then he just, he starts going and he starts doing this weird like sound and like physically sneezing, like with his body.
And I'm like looking around Starbucks. I'm like, dude, what chill out, bro, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm having a physical reaction to your house and I'm like, what are you, what, what are you talking about? And he goes do you want to know where they are? This is what he says to me. I'm like, I haven't even mentioned this.
I've never posted a picture of my house. I've never, I've never mentioned anything about that.
Tony: Does that, by the way, this was an incredible way to start the book. I'm just telling you that if you should buy the book for this, if nothing is a great, so.
Mark: So he says do you want to know where they are? And I'm like, Where, what is, what are you talking about?
And so he goes, gets a piece of paper from the barista and he puts it down. And Tony, he starts to draw my house room for room. Like the guy drew the blueprint for it himself. Okay. Any points down at a room. And he goes, your bedroom's connected to your office and there's a closet in between your office and your bedroom.
I said, yeah, he goes there in the closet. I said, what's in the closet. He goes, demons.
Tony: I love it.
Mark: I go, what he goes, they were invited there years ago. They're violent and they're sexual spirits at this point. I'm like my family's back at the house and I'm in Toronto. And I'm like, what? I, I'm not going to tell my wife this story right now while I'm in Toronto.
Cause you're not gonna be able to sleep. Right. So he starts having this physical reaction and he starts telling me. He's like I, and so his spiritual gift, one of the spiritual gifts is the discerning of these things. This is kind of what he does. It's not what I do. I don't know what you're talking about.
You tell me a demon store. I'm like, whatever, bro. I got 20 other explanations. So he, this is what, and so he starts to tell me how it happened and blah, blah, blah. So I, you know, Went home and kind of prayed over the closet, dead in the name of Jesus and all this stuff. But it was just this fascinating moment where then I was able to explain to him, you know, and there was other things that actually built up to that, that trip that had happened that, that made it legit, like really confirmed, like, okay, there's something going on.
And this guy, I've never mentioned one thing to knows it from across the country. How's this even possible. You know, so it kind of raises this question of even if the naturalist position on the universe, which is there is no anything, but what we, you know, what scientific method and so on can show it. I talk about Craig keener.
You know, he had this 500 page book on miracles where he goes through all seven continents and talks about. All of these legitimate, like doctors who've gone in and confirmed all these miracles. And my point is, you know, he predicts there's 200 million miracles being reported right now in response to Christian prayer on all seven continents and goes through all eight Craig keener.
He's a legitimate scholar, he's on a whack job. And and my point is if even one of those miracle right is true. Or any of the miracles that have been reported in the last, you know, 2000 years, if even one is true, all of naturalism falls apart because there is something behind the veil. Yeah.
Tony: How do you so I I'm I'm method costal, so we're, I'm in a Methodist church, but but I love the charismatic side of our faith.
I love, I want a God that I don't understand, like.
Mark: Yes. So I, I, you know, this.
Tony: This is a great joke is what this, yeah, exactly. How, how do you, how do you how do you practice. How do you practice living in the natural and the supernatural as a, an everyday Christian or in your church? Like how, how do we promote more of, I don't want to say more exercising demons, but more authority, more of the authority that comes with Christ in this kind of stuff.
Because I, I think I think a lot more people have moments like these than what they, they Acknowledge sure. Because we've put Christ strictly into a character in the Bible verses, you know, the, the Lord, you know, like so I'm, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that.
Mark: Well, it's a good, it's a good question.
I mean, there's so much of the Bible at particular, great moments of salvation history are filled with these, these things, and then other parts of the Bible kind of, you know, chill out. I think if you read a bunch of the data, it's an interesting question that you're asking as a pastor. If you read a bunch of the data, a lot of it is saying churches that are The growth is happening globally and in the us West around churches that are experiential and carrot, small key C charismatic because people want an experience.
We live in, you know, I talk about in the book, these, these guys, these Harvard guys, the experience economy, you know, we used to. We used to trade goods and services, and then we moved to this economy. Then we moved to that economy. And now we're in the experience economy. We don't just want to buy a cup of coffee.
We want to sit in an environment. You know, you go to Dunkin donuts. It's a, it's a, it's a goods and services transaction. It's like, give me a donut. It's smokey in here and get me out of here, you know, whatever. Whereas you go to a Starbucks, you go to out a, you know, what's down there. It's like comfy couch fire.
I feel like talking, I feel like I got to get the pipe out and because I'm experiencing and I buy my water and it helps. Kids in different countries, you know, there's an experience economy and I think that's true. And then of course at the end of the book, they say they, the next economy that they predict is the transformation economy, where people don't just want to have an experience.
They want that experience to transform them. And of course those two things together, I think, are what the church has to crack. How do we, how do we make the gospel experiential and transformative for people? And so I think your gut is right on that. I think. We need to figure out a way to do that. Now, the ways we've come up with have sometimes not been very imaginative, which is.
Charismatic things are going to happen at the 10 o'clock service between 10 Oh five and 11 on-site.
Tony: You really do have to be willing to give up order if you want, if you want. Ah, you know, if you want on one day.
Mark: Yeah, totally. You do. But it also has to be pushed down to the every day. It's a people should be coming to faith.
Not at the 9:00 AM and the 11 o'clock service on the Sunday, but Tuesday night at 11:00 PM in your living room. And this is where the experience, this is where the church is going to be pushed out to have power in and of itself. Like, imagine you didn't have one good evangelist. In your church named Tony, that everyone brought their friends to listen to, but you had, I don't know how big your church is, but hundreds or thousands or whatever, right.
Of missionaries working around the clock who were doing their job, that's where the power is, you know? And so that's where I think some of this experiential transformational, small seat charismatic, looking for the movement of the Holy spirit in the lives of people. I mean, It's funny that I'm a Baptist because a Pentecostal guy was the guy, the Lord used to bring me to Christ.
I was immersed in charismatic theology from just reading. I used to sit outside my school, smoke a pack of cigarettes and read the new Testament and then just do what it told me to do. So it'd be like, that was literally my favorite two years. I love it. So it was like, I, I, you know, someone, would I be reading the sermon on the Mount?
It'd be like, someone wants your, you know, your coat, give them your sweater as well. And so. A guy would come up and Hey, you got to smoke. I'd be like, here's the whole pack. You know, Jesus wants you to have it, you know, whatever. Right. I didn't know. She wants me to have my cigarettes.
Tony: Totally love it.
Mark: Tony. I was listening.
I used to sit outside the park, outside my house, smoke a pack of cigarettes and, and, and, and tell all these, I remember this one night, there was a group of like 15 guys getting hammered in the middle of the park and I'd be reading my Bible and just preaching to them, telling them about Jesus. And to two of these guys are like, we want this.
I used to bat. I used to baptize people in Lake Ontario at one o'clock in the morning before I was baptized, I don't even know. I don't even know what the ecclesiological answer to that is. It doesn't even make any sense, but that was my life. I had an experience of the Holy spirit that drove me to mission, not just sanctification, but mission and.
And you can't deny it. So when I entered into the church I have always tried to the whole, both of these worlds together to the best of my ability. And I think discipleship going forward, if you look around the world, unless your head is buried pretty deep inside the sand the Holy Spirit's moving around the world and, you know, we got to catch up.
Tony: One of the things that I become passionate about is teaching people how to pray and like physically lay hands on people and pray for things in the powerful name of Jesus. Like I just don't think we, we just don't give the name of Jesus enough credit. And yet the scripture says like, you know, like it's such a powerful name.
And, and so I, I, I'm excited for this resource to get in the hands of many, because I think when people understand. The depth of who Jesus is as Lord Jesus is Lord and, and, and all of the, all of the other things that you outlined in the book, it's going to be such a good gift for the church and for the, and for the readers.
So thank you for that. And, and I know my reader or my listeners are also very good. At praying for people. And so I always love to ask people, is, is there something around this book, like if they could pray for one thing on your behalf what would it be like? What's your prayer for the book and how can we come alongside you?
Mark: Well, I mean, the books, the books heart is to try to speak to both the skeptic and the believer and move the skeptic from doubt to faith in Jesus and move the believer deep into a level of discipleship. Away from, you know, it's going to affirm a bunch of stuff. We kind of maybe thought we believe, but we're not sure it's going to reframe some things that, that Christians might have thought Jesus was saying or what he was about or whatever.
And it's going to challenge that a little bit. And so, you know, my hope is both of those groups. Would, you know, the, the skeptic would actually come to faith and the believer would, would go deeper in their faith. That's probably the biggest thing. Th th that's the heart behind the book. So that would be my prayer for it, that it would actually be effective at that.
Tony: That's awesome. I know that that people are going to want to learn more about you and your ministry. You do marriage. Coaching, you do leadership coaching. You're kind of out there in a lot of different ways. Where's the best place for them to connect with you or to, or to pick up the problem of God, your first book or?
Mark: Yes. So, so Amazon is probably the easiest for everybody problem with God problem with Jesus, both available promised Jesus drops February 23rd. And then both of those actually have websites. So the problem of jesus.com. And the problem of god.com. So he could probably just go there and they click the Amazon button and it tells a little bit more about the book and has trailers and that kind of thing.
And then, yeah, you can look me up on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and all those things. I like to try to share, you know, things about apologetics and, you know, ways of discipleship and so on in those platforms. So.
Tony: That's great. Okay. Last question. I always love to ask people. It's an, it, it's an advice question, right?
So if, if you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice and I'm going to take you to your very first your very first day as lead pastor of the village church, right. Which is the movement that you've been kind of shepherding for awhile. What, what is the one piece of advice that you would give yourself?
Mark: Good question. I would say stay in your lane. And by that, I mean what happens as you know, in leadership is. You the thing that got you to where you are can end up biting back and so. You know, there's two or three things. I'm probably good at Tony. Some lanes I should probably stay in and then there's some lanes that I should give away to better people than me.
You know, it's better to give than to receive as not just a text about money and gifts. It's about ministry and leadership too, that I'm learning more and more that so really fight to do the things I've called you to do. God speaking stay really focused in on those things. Because people are going to criticize you.
People are going to not like certain things about you. People are going to leave the church. People are going to bash you on social media, whatever. But if you know, Your lane, if you know what you're doing, if you know, then, then, then not criticism won't cause you to have an existential crisis. It'll just cause you to go, Oh, I could have said that better.
I could have done that better. It won't make you say, should I be doing it? Yes, because I called you to that. I didn't necessarily. And this is where I think pastors, right now we're in such a weird spot, right? We didn't get into this to become professional epidemiologists. Right. That's not what we're passionate about.
So I didn't realize I had so many in my church, but there are many, many epidemiologists, I guess, in my church who know all about how diseases work and what we should do in light of it. But but it's not what I. It's not why I got into this. So I have to shepherd, I got to lead. I got to say some things, but not other, you know, all of that wisdom, but it's like when you get, and I'm just using that as an example, there's a thousand examples.
But when you get criticized for that, it doesn't hurt as much because you didn't put the pressure on yourself to say, that's who I am. That's what I do. You know I did, I was working with a church on Wednesday night. They asked me to lead a Bible study with them. And so they had a bunch of registrants online and then they said, You know, basically Mark, just take us through Galatians chapter one, verse one down to two 10 and Tony, I didn't, I didn't even open a commentary to prep.
This. I sat down, I opened up my Bible. I grabbed a pen and live. Just started processing the book of Galatians and X and G eating it. Oh wow. As I went and they w they only gave me 30 minutes, which is really hard. So I talked really fast and just, and just went and when it was done, you know, I just did a little Instagram story posts.
And I just said, you know, at the end of the day, Of all the things I do, trying to lead this leadership movement across church planting movement across Canada and yada yada teaching the Bible and writing these books. That's what I feel called to do the most. Wow. In my life. And when you know that, then you're a little less hard on yourself about all the other things that you actually probably suck at.
And you're not very good at it and you get criticism for, you know, so anyway, that's a little, little long and I loved it.
Tony: I love that. And I think you're probably speaking to a lot of people who are wrestling with what they should be doing now or what they should be doing. Next, so that's good. That's a good word.
That's a good word. Thank you. Thank you so much, pastor Mark, for being so generous with your time today. Thanks for having me to your heart and your spirit and all of that. It's just a very, very good time today. That conversation with Mark, he's such a good guy. I really appreciate the way he has such a heart for the skeptic.
And I don't know about you, but I know in my own life there have been seasons of skepticism. That almost feel insurmountable. And so Mark's heart for the skeptic is so important. I think for a lot of the people I know for myself even. And I hope her help helpful for you too, as always be sure to subscribe, share this podcast with a friend and leave him writing a review.
Those are the three things that you can do to help spread the word as always. I'm so thankful to be in this community with you to serve alongside you and to see what God is doing in us all. Thank you guys so much. I'm excited for episode 96 coming at you next week. See you guys real soon.
