If the preaching is faithful, why doesn’t the conversation continue after the service?
Tony Payne joins Scott Sanders to explore why every Christian is called to speak God’s Word to one another. Discover how simple, everyday conversations can become one of God’s primary ways of growing disciples and building a healthy church.
Tony is an author, and the Director of the Centre for Christian Living and lectures in theology, philosophy and ethics at Moore College in Sydney.
Toolbox:
Let the Word Dwell Richly by Tony Payne
DISCOUNT CODE: tpra20
Six Steps to Loving Your Church by Tony Payne
Centre for Christian Living website
Credits:
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Transcript:
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
00;00;08;12 – 00;00;32;00
Scott Sanders
Yet I am Scott Sanders. Welcome to The One Thing, a podcast designed to give you one solid practical tip for gospel centered ministry every week. Today I’m with Tony Payne. Tony Payne has a very long title of his of his current role. He’s a faculty member at Moore Theological College, here in Sydney, and he’s a lecturer in moral theology and Christian thought and is also the director of the college’s center for Christian Living.
00;00;32;00 – 00;00;37;05
Scott Sanders
So there’s a lot of stuff there. What do you actually do, Tony? What’s your day to day actually look like?
00;00;37;07 – 00;00;56;07
Tony Payne
Well, both of those roles are focused on helping students. That’s more college and the broader community, I suppose. That’s throughout Sydney and the center for Christian Living to connect what they what they understand and believe in the Bible to what they do. And so moral theology does it. It connects theology to action, to how we live, to how we practice.
00;00;56;07 – 00;01;05;01
Tony Payne
And so that’s the space in which I’m I’m doing a lot of thinking, working, teaching students at War College, which is great fun and also spreading a bit further afield through the center for Christian Living.
00;01;05;02 – 00;01;23;05
Scott Sanders
Well, we’re going to be, talking about your new book, Let the Word Dwell richly. So we’re going to push into some of those, thoughts, practically and what it means in the local church. But for now, you’ve pressed play on every member word ministry.
00;01;23;07 – 00;01;48;26
Speaker 3
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00;01;48;29 – 00;02;05;00
Scott Sanders
Now, Tony, you’ve written lots of books and you’ve edited lots of books. You’ve been doing a lot of that for a very long time. Trellis on the vine was kind of a seminal work with Cole Mash where you you put out the theory. We’ve got trellises and, trellises and, and able vine work, and we want to get vine work happening.
00;02;05;00 – 00;02;25;18
Scott Sanders
People getting into the word. It was a philosophic philosophy of ministry approach, that you were kind of getting down on paper. You then followed that up with the vine project, which was. Well, then what does this actually look like? How do we actually get every member ministry taking place in our church? And so most people would be sign themselves of two books.
00;02;25;20 – 00;02;34;07
Scott Sanders
That’s enough philosophy. I’ve got to go to, But you’ve written let the word grow richly. So what’s the thesis of? Let the world grow richly.
00;02;34;14 – 00;02;52;18
Tony Payne
Well, did come out of the trellis and vine, because one of the many things that came out in the discussions following that book was the idea that every Christian should be a minister or a disciple, maker of other people. Everyone ticked and said, yes, yes, yes. But the idea that every Christian should be a would minister should actually speak the word to other people.
00;02;52;21 – 00;03;06;25
Tony Payne
People had lots of questions about that. What? What sort of word do you mean? Putting Bible verses at each other. Word. What’s realistic to expect a Christian disciple to do? What does it mean for a Christian to have a word ministry? And there were lots of discussions about that, and we only covered it fairly briefly in the book.
00;03;06;25 – 00;03;23;12
Tony Payne
And so in The Chosen, The Vine. And it’s hardly mentioned at all in the vine project. And so I thought, oh, I should do a little bit more research and just write something a bit more kind of to flesh that idea out. What does it mean? What function does the word ministry of each Christian play within a healthy Christian community?
00;03;23;12 – 00;03;29;25
Scott Sanders
And you, you went to the lobby? Of course, you looked up some books on that and you said, well, you found that loads of books on preaching.
00;03;29;27 – 00;03;30;15
Tony Payne
Yeah.
00;03;30;17 – 00;03;33;22
Scott Sanders
We’ve been banging on that about in our circles for a long time, and.
00;03;33;24 – 00;03;34;29
Tony Payne
Rightly so, as we should.
00;03;35;00 – 00;03;39;12
Scott Sanders
It’s important part. Yeah. But then when you actually went to this topic, not a lot written.
00;03;39;14 – 00;03;59;14
Tony Payne
Very surprised. I thought I’d have some big shoulders to stand on. But, on this topic that is thinking theologically and biblically about the the way that Christians speak the word to one another and what that means, and especially what burden or load that word be in a Christian community. What does it do? Would we miss it if it wasn’t there?
00;03;59;17 – 00;04;14;23
Tony Payne
If it isn’t there, what are we? What’s not happening in a healthy way? And what what I need not only what is its nature, what kind of what it is, but what functional purpose does it serve? And a Christian community. I found very little written about that and nothing systematic that looked at that topic as a topic.
00;04;14;28 – 00;04;29;26
Scott Sanders
So if anyone has been around you for the last 3 or 5 years, you’ve said many a time this is a phrase the the word one another, is a phrase. It’s in the Bible 26 times. Is that right? If I got it right, well, 22 to 26 times, a few times.
00;04;29;29 – 00;04;59;07
Tony Payne
Well, it depends how you count the passages really. And so I, I found 26 to 27 passages depending on how you cut them. And you can argue about it at the, at the margins. But quite a lot of instances in the New Testament, many more than you’d think, in which the apostles, either describe this going on, describe the encouragement or admonition Christians are having with one another, or positively urge, encourage, command their congregations to do this, to speak the word, so to speak the truth in love to one another.
00;04;59;07 – 00;05;26;23
Tony Payne
For example, or to exhort one another every day is in Hebrews three, or to not neglect to meet together, but to encourage, exhort each other, Hebrews ten, etc. this. There’s many more instances than you first think. And it got me thinking. Well, given its a prominent theme in the New Testament. Wow. What? What it mean to to draw those together and think theologically about what the common ideas or common sort of, motifs are for all those different passages and what it says about the one other words.
00;05;26;24 – 00;05;28;08
Tony Payne
And that’s really what the book tries to do.
00;05;28;08 – 00;05;43;29
Scott Sanders
So the, the elevator pitch of the book is, that we ought or all Christians ought to be engaging in word ministry to one another. Is that, you know, if you only had 15 seconds, what would you what would you say the the main thesis of the book is?
00;05;44;01 – 00;06;00;20
Tony Payne
I’d say that the one another word is a mark of the normal Christian life. It’s just part of the new language that we have in Christ, the new word that’s on our lips as Christians. It comes from our hearts. So it’s just normal, like prayer or anything else. It’s just normal in the Christian life. And it’s the means.
00;06;00;20 – 00;06;11;24
Tony Payne
It’s one of the important means by which we grow and encourage and build each other up in the Christian walk, day by day. So it’s it’s a mark of the Christian life and a means by which the Christian life grows in others.
00;06;11;29 – 00;06;15;29
Scott Sanders
So what are the reasons it’s not taking place in our churches?
00;06;16;01 – 00;06;38;16
Tony Payne
I think it’d it’d if I compare it to prayer, which I just did briefly. It’s kind of an interesting analogy. It’s say, why isn’t prayer happening in our churches as it should be? You’d say, well, first thing is sin, right? It’s a lack of faith. A lack of faith in the word, in this case, a lack of, conviction and confidence that I can speak the word and that it will do good.
00;06;38;16 – 00;06;56;23
Tony Payne
So, it’d be like of conviction and confidence, but also sometimes a lack of, of understanding, a lack of practice, a lack of opportunity. And so just as if prayer was flagging in your church, you’d say, we need to teach about this more. We need to bring this to the fore. We need to explain it. We need to model it.
00;06;56;23 – 00;07;11;22
Tony Payne
We need to have it happening in our groups. We need to have it happening all across our church life. Let’s think about how are we going to do that. In much the same way I think with the one another word. We often don’t give it that place as a normal part of Christian life, and hence it kind of fades into the background and isn’t done.
00;07;11;28 – 00;07;37;29
Scott Sanders
So, Sunday just just passed out. A great message from one Timothy six on on the love of money. Lots of lots of practical stuff. Work through the text of, one Timothy six. Really, really. Well, as we, as we left church were encouraged, you know, to continue speaking about this. You know, the meeting later said he, you know, as, as you kind of you get that mini sermon at the end sometimes when they remind you of the key things, as I as we leave, we should be talking about this.
00;07;38;01 – 00;08;08;12
Scott Sanders
We head out, we head out into supper. And that’s not the first thing that we’re talking about when we’re not then speaking the word to one other, we’re not practically reflecting on where it’s looking like an out in our life. So to kind of flesh out more what you’re envisaging and picturing and again, why do we still find that, you know, so hard, you know, so hard to go straight after we’ve just been encouraged to do it and shown how to do it and set under it?
00;08;08;15 – 00;08;28;10
Tony Payne
Well, we’ve been encouraged to do it. I don’t know if we’ve been shown how to do it by by the preacher. We’ve certainly been encouraged to do it. And that’s that’s a wonderful start. But as with many things in the Christian life, you grow in it by example, by modeling, by saying other people do it by being given some simple instructions and tips on how to get started doing it, and then by actually doing it.
00;08;28;13 – 00;08;49;00
Tony Payne
And so there’s, I think, a preacher saying you should talk about this with each other. Go. I going to have a chat about that with each other. I think often Christians don’t realize that that process, the process of talking with others about the word and bringing the word to other people, I don’t think they often realize how essential that is to our growth as Christians.
00;08;49;02 – 00;09;17;26
Tony Payne
You see, you’ve heard that message about one Timothy six, and you’ve got it in your mind and so on. But they’ll come a time in the next couple of weeks or the next couple of months, when the importance of that word for your life, for something that you’re doing at that moment, will become relevant. And it’s at that time when you’re grappling with with something, with your soul, with your home finances that you need a Christian brother or a sister who knows you, who knows what you’re going through to say, hey, Scott, remember, we remember one Timothy six.
00;09;17;28 – 00;09;31;15
Tony Payne
What’s a what’s that mean for what you’re going through at the moment? Let’s talk that through together. What would that look like for you to now? That’s me bringing the word to you in the moment of moral decision, in a climate of being a Christian. And that’s what the one another word does.
00;09;31;15 – 00;09;32;07
Scott Sanders
And what does it mean? What it.
00;09;32;07 – 00;09;32;20
Tony Payne
Does really.
00;09;32;20 – 00;09;52;02
Scott Sanders
Well, what it look like my saying as well. Hi, tiny. I’m reflecting on the last month. We’ve been encouraged to be generous. There’s four things I can give my money to. Yeah, I just don’t know which one. They all. They all seem really, you know, vital. Important. Or maybe I’ll go even. How do I, I just don’t I just don’t want to give, like, fuel prices are up.
00;09;52;05 – 00;10;09;04
Scott Sanders
Food’s more expensive. Yeah. Oh, I need to hold onto this money. Because I don’t know what’s around the, you know, in the next 12 months. And so Tobys encourages us to give, you know, $3,000 to, you know, X, y, z ministry. And I’m thinking I’d much prefer to have that $3,000 in my wallet because I just don’t know what’s happening around.
00;10;09;07 – 00;10;13;18
Scott Sanders
Yeah. You know, the bend. So there’s that opportunity to,
00;10;13;20 – 00;10;29;25
Tony Payne
In a much the same way, because the thing about those 26, 27 different references in New Testament, they’re all different kinds. Sometimes it’s admonition, it sometimes might. You need to look at what that’s not. That’s not right. You know that’s not right. You’ve got to trust God that God is going to provide for you. You should be generous and give.
00;10;29;25 – 00;10;47;01
Tony Payne
Let’s talk about generosity and let’s go back to Luke. Sometimes it’s an admonition, a word almost of of rebuke. Sometimes it’s just a reminder. Sometimes it’s a word of warmth or comfort when you’re grieving and you just need a reassurance of the truth from someone standing next to you. Sometimes it’s a word of you doing great. Keep going.
00;10;47;03 – 00;11;08;23
Tony Payne
So the the scope or the mode of the one, another word in the New Testament and in our lives is it’s really very guided. It’s it it meets the person in the situation with the Word of God. And that’s the most important thing about it. Sometimes when people hear about the one another word or one another word ministry, they think, oh, you must be talking about reading the Bible 1 to 1 or or some particular method, which is great.
00;11;08;23 – 00;11;27;14
Tony Payne
I’m very much in favor, but it’s really a way of life where I know the Word of God and I know you as my brother, and I love you as my brother. And I want to bring some encouragement to you, or some admonition or some help or some reminder, in the in the walk of the Christian life, day by day.
00;11;27;16 – 00;11;40;17
Tony Payne
So that’s that’s the load that it can bear in the Christian life. Then, in a sense, the preached word cut the preacher. What happens once that one Timothy six sermon happens once and hopefully it’s some of it sticks.
00;11;40;20 – 00;11;55;21
Scott Sanders
And so small. And I guess what I’m also showing you size small. If you’re in a small group, small groups is not enough. You know, an hour and a half an hour on a, you know, a Tuesday or Wednesday evening is not enough. And it’s not the it’s not the every day and it’s not the every member either.
00;11;55;23 – 00;12;13;27
Scott Sanders
And then you don’t probably also push back. If I said, well, what about just having a really good personal devotional life, like we’ve got great apps, you know, they can send me messages and I can, you know, give me noises and stuff that encourage me to keep reading God’s Word. Is it enough that I just have a good personal devotional life?
00;12;13;28 – 00;12;20;27
Scott Sanders
You know, why? Why don’t I use to can your nose into my mouth, into my way of thinking about money and other things.
00;12;20;27 – 00;12;44;02
Tony Payne
And one of the guys I interacted with in the book is, is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And he’s got this wonderful quote where he says, that very often the word of Christ in my own heart is weak, failing, or I’m struggling. I’m, I’m, I’m I’m wobbling. It’s not the easiest. I’m paraphrasing. And then the word on your lips is my brother, when it comes to me, is stronger than the word in my heart because I’m.
00;12;44;02 – 00;13;09;06
Tony Payne
I’m struggling. It’s. God has his. So, put together and arranged the body of Christ, his church, our community with one other that we need each other for exactly this reason. That, we need each other to help each other when we’re flagging and failing and to encourage each other when we’re doing well. And in that sense, a devotional life is great because it gets the word in my heart and in my mind.
00;13;09;09 – 00;13;28;29
Tony Payne
It equips me, to speak that word to you. But I still need to hear that word from you in those moments. When I need a human being to speak to me and encourage me and remind me and and struck me. And you mentioned small groups. Small groups are obviously a great theater in which this sort of thing can happen.
00;13;29;01 – 00;13;56;13
Tony Payne
Sometimes they’re not, of course. Sometimes they’re just a mini lecture from a from a small group leader. Sometimes they’re just a sharing of ideas. Sometimes it gets batted around up here at the theoretical level, and you don’t get down to what it means for one another. But I think one of the things that a small group can really do well, that obviously is much harder in a church gathering, is to talk about the practical implications with each other, to help each other, remind each other, challenge each other.
00;13;56;15 – 00;14;05;03
Tony Payne
In other words, coming to a small group, we should come to the small group as speakers of the Word of God to one another and realize that’s the main reason why they’re so tiny.
00;14;05;10 – 00;14;21;12
Scott Sanders
Did we ever do this? Well, you know, do you can you point to, you know, first century Christians? You know, we see obviously in acts two, obviously, that, you know, every everything can be, you know, put in place on the horizon next to. But do we have a have we ever done it?
00;14;21;12 – 00;14;44;17
Tony Payne
Well, I think the New Testaments an encouragement in this respect, Scott, because it, it, it shows us it happening. But many of the instances of discussion of this question are imperatives where the apostles are saying, you should do this more and more or don’t give up doing this, or one Corinthians 14, 12 to 14, all these other words, stuff you’re doing that’s a little bit chaotic and all a bit self-focused.
00;14;44;17 – 00;15;05;25
Tony Payne
No, no, no, you should be encouraging each other and edifying each other. That’s the purpose of our speech together. And I think it’s the same in Christian history. I think it’s always happened. Of course, Christians have always spoken with each other and and, it’s it’s been stronger, different parts, different times of Christian history. But I think we’ve always also needed the encouragement to speak to each other and the teaching of the New Testament to encourage us to do this.
00;15;05;25 – 00;15;32;03
Tony Payne
And I think in the swings and roundabouts, in the seesaw of Christian history, I don’t think if we look back over the last couple of hundred years, it’s been a strong theme. We’ve been much more focused on other aspects of ministry, and I think it’s it’s something that’s there in the New Testament very prominently. And I think pausing to consider how this really important facet of what it means to be a Christian and to minister to others what it might mean for us in our churches, I think, is really important.
00;15;32;10 – 00;15;47;23
Scott Sanders
So I think about the desired outcome of, one another. Every member would ministry what what is good look like if you were to paint a picture for pastoring a local church of, you know, 120 people, what, should they be aiming for?
00;15;47;25 – 00;16;01;26
Tony Payne
That’s that’s a hard question, Scott, because, it might look different in different places, but let me give you a couple of, of possible examples. One thing I don’t want to do is say there’s one method or model and you should follow this, much just as I wouldn’t say there’s one way to teach your congregation to pray.
00;16;01;26 – 00;16;18;26
Tony Payne
Do it this way. But, for example, it might mean, as I know some churches do, that at the end of the sermon, or partway through the sermon. You don’t just say, go and talk about this over morning tea. You say, turn to the person next to you, or in twos or threes if you’re comfortable. And if you’re not, that’s okay.
00;16;18;28 – 00;16;41;13
Tony Payne
And talk about this together. What does this mean for you? So if you can and build a culture every week that when we’re hearing the word, we’re also chatting about it with each other. And it’s it’s not only in our hearts, but on an ellipse with each other. And you make that a norm. And there’s one particular church I’m thinking of that’s, that’s practiced that regularly for 3 or 4 years and the same, quite a massive change in the culture of the congregation.
00;16;41;15 – 00;16;52;04
Tony Payne
So I’d say make speaking to each other something that you profile and make heroic, in your church gatherings, you know, it’s something that happens that we that exist among us. And so.
00;16;52;04 – 00;16;54;29
Scott Sanders
What so what does it look like for leaders and to be modeling that as.
00;16;54;29 – 00;16;56;19
Tony Payne
Well? You mean a leader of.
00;16;56;19 – 00;17;04;12
Scott Sanders
Of of a church? So, so again, we’ve been given leaders in the church to, equip us for ministry to.
00;17;04;14 – 00;17;05;07
Tony Payne
To service.
00;17;05;09 – 00;17;08;18
Scott Sanders
What is. Yeah. What does it looks like? But for pastors and teachers to see.
00;17;08;21 – 00;17;30;10
Tony Payne
Pastors, I want to know the ministers as well. But you don’t only preach. Excuse me, we also speak to one another. So to model that is a normal thing we do that pastor’s, speaking and encouraging individuals and and doing that ourselves, of course is is it really important I would say a really important thing the pastor’s can do here is to teach about this topic.
00;17;30;13 – 00;17;50;05
Tony Payne
So you would say if you are wanting to encourage prayer, more prayer in your congregation, one of the things you’d want to do is convince and teach and challenge the congregation theologically and biblically about what prayer is and why it’s so vital. And you might have a little mini series on prayer from time to time. We’ll do a weekend away on prayer or something in much the same way.
00;17;50;08 – 00;18;17;08
Tony Payne
The the rich material in the New Testament on this subject is worth teaching about explicitly, and raising that expectation and teaching Christians that this is what it means. Just as to be a Christian is to be prayerful or generous. So it’s also to be a speaker, to be a minister to one another through the word. And so I think one of the most important things ladies can do is to teach their congregations that this is a normal facet of the Christian life.
00;18;17;11 – 00;18;29;15
Scott Sanders
Excellent. Are there any other, Well, this is an opportunity for to give the, the plug for the book. So it’s a big one and 95 pages. It’s not it’s not a short read.
00;18;29;18 – 00;18;44;04
Tony Payne
That’s partly because I was kind of having to start from scratch. Like, I couldn’t just say, here, go on. These other books have established this already. Here, let me just tease it out. I had to do a lot of the spadework and kind of make the case, because it hadn’t been made in this way before. So that’s part of the reason I.
00;18;44;04 – 00;18;47;16
Scott Sanders
Don’t apologize for writing a long book. I think long books are good, I love them.
00;18;47;23 – 00;18;49;11
Tony Payne
That’s one reason it’s long.
00;18;49;14 – 00;19;08;07
Scott Sanders
But I’ve just I’ve just like, people know it’s a it’s a rich one that you gonna have to, you know, sink your teeth into it. So, where should someone dive into it? You know, maybe someone thinking, okay, Tony, you’ve convinced me. I want to do this, but I want to. I just want to get to the meat of many of your book.
00;19;08;09 – 00;19;36;16
Tony Payne
Well, the book’s in a few sections, and I guess if you want to be convinced there’s some there’s some biblical sections actually sink in description and see if this is what’s going on there. I’d recommend you do that, not skip that. Yeah. And then there’s a theological theological integration section where I look at three particular themes the Word of God itself and how the one of good 1 to 1 another word relates to the Word of God, how it relates to the growth of Christians, what function and load it bears in our community life, and then what it means for a community.
00;19;36;24 – 00;19;53;29
Tony Payne
So there’s some theological stuff there. And then the last section of the book does the kinds of things you’re talking about. It teases out what it might look like for this sort of normal culture of Christians speaking the word to each other. What would our Sundays look like? How might they look a little different? What do I what might, as small groups be different?
00;19;53;29 – 00;20;11;09
Tony Payne
How might have families be different? Because a family is a wonderful theater for the one another word. What it might mean for our neighbors. What does it mean, of course, for evangelism, because evangelism is just a species of this kind of one. Another word, it’s just the one, another word to someone who’s not a believer. Look in Colossians four, what does it mean for us?
00;20;11;09 – 00;20;30;07
Tony Payne
Singing. Singing is a form of the one. Another word. And so, it teases out different aspects of that and invites you to think about if you had this, this different lens on what the role of the Christian was as not just a recipient of the word, but as a speaker, how might that change a whole bunch of things?
00;20;30;09 – 00;20;45;16
Tony Payne
It’s more like that. And I keep making the analogy to prayer. It is more like prayer. It’s you’d want prayer not to be just an activity. You do somewhere. You’d want it to permeate all your service teams, for example, that you might have. And in the same way this is it’s just a currency of the Christian life that we’re speakers of.
00;20;45;16 – 00;20;47;00
Tony Payne
The word bubbles out of something.
00;20;47;00 – 00;21;02;01
Scott Sanders
So yeah, I’ve heard I’ve heard Haiti, Haiti often use the phrase, if you cut me, I bleed Bible. Yeah. Look, it’s it’s, and or another phrase we want we want the whole to. It’s kind of basting. So I picture a, a roast chicken on a building.
00;21;02;05 – 00;21;02;21
Tony Payne
And I, I think.
00;21;02;22 – 00;21;03;22
Scott Sanders
Basting in the word.
00;21;03;23 – 00;21;21;26
Tony Payne
Well, it’s it’s had, the imagery of a fountain. Right. We want what, the whole what, the whole church to be someone in which they’re so basted in the word and so rich in it that it bubbles out because from the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks, right? You know, it’s it’s. We want the church to the whole church.
00;21;21;26 – 00;21;42;20
Tony Payne
And every member in, in in principle and in theory, not every member will. Of course, says not to remember. We’ll pray. You want you want them to grow in this. We want it to be bubbling out into every facet of our of our lives, so that in our service teams, we’re sharing the word with one another and encouraging and exhorting each other as we serve others and as we look after each other.
00;21;42;26 – 00;21;57;26
Scott Sanders
Yeah, it’s a it’s a beautiful picture. And one that we want to say in all our churches. And it’s good to see you riding on church growth. Tiny. Excellent. So what’s the one thing you want to say about every member word ministry?
00;21;57;29 – 00;22;05;28
Tony Payne
It’s a normal, wonderful, redeemed, spirit given mark of the Christian life. And it’s the way that God grows his church.
00;22;06;01 – 00;22;26;17
Scott Sanders
Awesome. Well, I’m praying that this book is, like most of your books. A great blessing, a great blessing to the church and one that encourages us to get back into the word and encouraging our members to get back in the word as well. Now I’m going to open up the toolbox. Obviously, you want to get a copy of, let the Word dwell richly and Mathias media, Gavin Chalmers.
00;22;26;23 – 00;22;38;26
Scott Sanders
Dennis. Another deal. So if you’re one thing, listener, and you want to purchase this book, Mathias are giving a 20% discount. I don’t know what Tony’s thinking. It’s only just it’s only just live. They’re already giving 20% discounts.
00;22;38;26 – 00;22;39;25
Tony Payne
Fantastic.
00;22;39;28 – 00;23;04;29
Scott Sanders
Lot. Good. Excellent. Now the code is going to be TPR Ray 20, TPR Ray 20. If you put that in at the checkout, you’ll get 20% discount off that book. So again I encourage you to get, the book and let the word dwell richly. The second, second part of the toolbox that I want to encourage is, Tony’s written another a smaller book, Six Steps to Loving Your Church, that you can put in the hands of every congregation member.
00;23;05;06 – 00;23;07;04
Scott Sanders
So. Yeah. Why you read that book?
00;23;07;06 – 00;23;36;15
Tony Payne
It was done before this. And in some ways, as a leading to this kind of thinking, it was to help every Christian see church, see coming to church on Sunday as, as a normal part of their life in which they serve other people, so that you come to church to love and serve. And so what are some ways in which I could love the people around me in church, as I come to church, and as a kind of a preliminary into this kind of thinking, because one of the ways you do that is to speak and that’s that’s mentioned in the six steps, but it mentions all the other things you can do as
00;23;36;15 – 00;23;45;10
Tony Payne
you come to church to be a servant, to think about other people. And so as a practical resource, it’d be a nice complement to this kind of stuff as well. It’s a nice, easy way in for people.
00;23;45;12 – 00;23;59;06
Scott Sanders
Excellent. And if you, wanted to hear more of Tony Payne as well, I’ll put a link in the show notes to the center for Christian Living website, because they often you often drop, podcasts and resources from the things you do. All right. Well, Tony, it’s been great having you on the one thing.
00;23;59;06 – 00;24;00;06
Tony Payne
Thanks, Scott.
00;24;00;08 – 00;24;17;18
Scott Sanders
If, this has been helpful for you, I want to have this conversation with your staff time, share this podcast around, and discuss it with them. Maybe ask the challenging question of, where are we doing this? Well, in our in our church. Where where can we do this? Better. I’m Scott Sanders, chat soon.
00;24;17;20 – 00;24;18;07
Scott Sanders
Soon.








