FamilyLife Today®

Speaker 1

Fred allowed the Lord to transform his pain into a passion of serving others who had some similar struggles. He had a Hebrew rendering of Song of Solomon 2:16 hanging in his office: "My beloved is mine and I am his."

In the middle of taping neighborhood, he would just hole away in his office and stare at that. He would remind himself, in the busyness of his day, that he was loved.

Speaker 2

Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

Speaker 3

And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us@familylife today.com. this is Family Life Today. Okay. What do you think? We got Jordan Raynor back with us.

Speaker 2

I love having Jordan with us, don't you?

Speaker 3

Oh, yeah. I mean, you Jordan tackle, you hammer home. And I mean, hammer home. That work matters. When I look at you, I think.

Speaker 1

It'S annoying, isn't it?

Speaker 2

No, it's awesome because it's like, in our brains.

Speaker 3

I mean, one of the reasons I'm excited is because I don't know anybody else hammering this in the Christian world.

It's like, there's the secular and there's the sacred. We think the secular and sacred never mix and it's only sacred.

And you're like, no, secular matters because it is sacred, right?

Speaker 1

Yes, because Jesus is lord of it all.

And so as we go throughout this world in the power of the Holy Spirit, that same flame that represents the presence of God, who is with Moses, is with us, walking and reclaiming territory for the kingdom of God.

I think I've said it here before. The only thing you have to do to make your secular school, your secular workplace, sacred is walk through the front door or log on to Zoom. Right?

Speaker 3

Explain that. Why?

Speaker 1

Let's define some terms. That word secular literally means without God, but we believe that God is literally with us wherever we step.

Right. It's not what we do that determines whether or not our work is sacred. It is why we do it, how we do it, and most importantly, who we do it with.

Communion with the Holy Spirit as we do that work and live in our communities today.

Speaker 3

I mean, you talk about something that's critically important. I mean, Jordan, you don't even know the story. I don't think I've ever said it on air because it sounds conceited.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Come on.

Speaker 3

So I've kept it under, but it's a secular, sacred conversation. I play college football, right? I get done with my senior year, and I get a call from Cincinnati Bengals that they don't want to draft me. But they want to offer me a free agent.

Speaker 2

Wait, you don't think you've ever shared this?

Speaker 3

Not on air. Maybe I have. Have I?

Speaker 1

I think I've heard it.

Speaker 3

Bruce knows everything I don't have. I shared it a bunch.

Speaker 1

Keep going. We're not sure yet. We're not sure yet, Bruce.

Speaker 3

You're serious? Okay, Bruce hadn't heard it. If Bruce hadn't heard it, it hadn't been shared. Maybe it's been shared in that room, but not on air. Anyway.

So I'm a brand new Christian, like a year young in my faith. Don't know anything. So I go to my mentor on the college campus, and he's not really an athletic guy, but he's my mentor.

And I say to him, hey, so I have a shot to go to camp with Cincinnati Bengals. Doesn't mean I'll make it, but I have a shot.

Speaker 2

And you'll get paid money and I'll.

Speaker 3

Get paid a little bit, you know, but if I make the team, I get paid a lot, right? Even back in the 70s.

So I say to him, I want to do what God wants me to do. How do I know God's will for this decision? And he looked straight in my eye and he said, God does not want you to play in the NFL. He wants you to go in full-time Christian work.

That's not full-time Christian work. You're called to ministry. Call him back and say no. So I did.

Speaker 1

So sad.

Speaker 3

And I'm not sitting there saying, hey, I would have been the next Tom Brady.

Speaker 1

Probably. Yeah.

Speaker 3

Probably. Probably. Yeah. Thanks for. I like you, man. I love you. Of Doug Flutie.

Speaker 2

I couldn't.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I was a little guy like Doug. But anyway, all that to say, that was really bad advice, right?

Speaker 1

It was terrible.

Speaker 3

I know.

Speaker 1

Advice. But it's the advice that so many young people are hearing. And it's why I'm so deeply committed to this work and championing this message in nonfiction books like *The Sacredness of Secular Work* that we talked about here before.

Picture books like *The Creator in You* and *The Royal in You*.

And also, I know I'm trying to break into this new genre of extremely entertaining biography because, listen, there's only so many people listening who are gonna read a book called *The Sacredness of Secular Work*.

Speaker 3

But if I told you, hey, we.

Speaker 1

Got a beach read that you're gonna crush at the beach this summer, right? And just love and, oh, by the way, be inspired that your quote unquote, secular work matters. I don't Know, a different listener might pick that up and be forever changed.

Speaker 2

So you're saying with these biographies, there's people that you see historically that have had an impact on the world and they're not necessarily in full time vocational Christian work.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that's exactly right. So the name of this new book is *Five Mere Christians*. And other than being a blatant steal from C.S. Lewis's *Mere Christianity*, it's a term that I use to describe the vast majority of our listeners who, like me, are not donor-supported missionaries or pastors, but who are working out in the world as entrepreneurs, baristas, teachers, nurses, et cetera, et cetera.

The story of Scripture is that that work is celebrated. In fact, Jesus spent 80% of his adult life as a quote, unquote, mere Christian. If we can, Paul, our Lord and Savior.

Speaker 3

Did you guys call Jesus?

Speaker 1

I did not. I did not.

Speaker 3

That's blasphemy.

Speaker 1

Scrap that from the record. Scrap that from the record.

But Paul and the women who financially supported Jesus and Zacchaeus, who was encouraged to go back to his quote, unquote, secular work as a tax collector, did that work.

I don't think we can always fully resonate with these biblical mere Christians. And the good news is we've got great stories of men and women who glorified God greatly in their work in more recent history. Those are some of the stories that I'm trying to tell in this book.

Speaker 2

And it's not boring. I was fascinated and I couldn't stop reading.

Speaker 3

I just gotta tell you the truth. I read it first.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

And then I told Ann because she looked at it honestly. She's like, really?

Speaker 1

Biographies?

Speaker 3

We're gonna read it. I'm like, you will not believe this.

Speaker 2

I like biographies.

Speaker 3

Yeah. I mean, she was like, okay. And then. I'm not kidding, Jordan. We're not just saying that because you're here. These are fascinating. Like, I know Fred Rogers, I think, and then I read his story. I'm like, yeah, well, you're bringing us.

Speaker 2

A movie on it.

Speaker 3

Well, you're bringing us.

Speaker 1

Nobody knows.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1

I have a love-hate relationship with biographies, if I'm being totally honest. Right.

And so I took on this project because I wanted to write the kind of biography I wanted to read. The first and foremost was mercifully short. Right?

We were saying before we started recording, the most popular biography on Winston Churchill's life is 3,000 pages long.

Speaker 3

No, it isn't. It really is.

Speaker 2

I mean, I love. I love history, but Churchill's mom didn't.

Speaker 1

Care about him enough to read that biography. Right?

Speaker 2

Well, that's the thing. We start him, but most of the time we don't finish him.

Speaker 1

So I wanted biographies that were short.

Number two, I wanted biographies that were extremely entertaining.

I'll give you an example. Most of C.S. Lewis's biographers agree that Lewis had an affair with his best friend's mom for most of his 20s. Right? That's pretty scandalous.

Speaker 2

What?

Speaker 1

And pretty interesting, especially in light of his future redemption. But I promise you would fall asleep reading about this affair because these biographers spend 20 pages in letter after letter of did they or didn't they just get to the action and the point of the story?

Finally, I wanted to write biographies that are personally relevant, right? Because so many biographies make the subject the hero. I'm saying, hey, no, no, no, no. The subject is a guide. Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ.

That's what I'm trying to do with this book. I'm saying, follow Fred Rogers and C.S. Lewis and the founder of Lego and Fannie Lou Hamer and Hannah Moore as they follow Christ and show you animated 3D of what it looks like practically to glorify God if you're not a pastor or donor-supported missionary.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Why these five?

Speaker 1

So I host a podcast called Mere Christians where I interview modern mere Christians. These are the five I most want on the show, but can't because they're dead.

Right. So that's the short answer because they point to practical takeaways for the readers today of how to glorify God.

For example, Fred Rogers, I think, gives us a really beautiful case study of what it looks like to truly experience the love of God as we work and work at a pace that allows us to extend that love to other people.

Speaker 2

Remind our listeners who Fred Rogers is.

Speaker 3

If they don't know it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, he's gonna do the whole thing. There you go right now.

Speaker 1

So I actually did not grow up watching Rogers, but tens of millions of American kids did. He was the host of a wildly popular TV show called Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. And so he's just one example of somebody whose life is extremely interesting and entertaining. But again, that points to these practical takeaways.

I picked him. I picked Fannie Lou Hamer, this civil rights activist who stood up to President Johnson on national TV and almost caused him to drop out of the race for the presidency in 1964. I picked Olekirk Christensen, the founder of Lego, who most people don't know was a deeply serious follower of Jesus, whose story very closely parallels Job in the Old Testament. I picked Hannah More, this poet, largely credited for abolishing slavery throughout the British Empire.

And then, of course, C.S. Lewis, author of the Chronicles of Narnia and Mere Christianity, who changed the world through his works of fiction. I picked these five because I'm competing with Netflix and TikTok and I'm competing to win. I think these stories are better and more entertaining if told properly than what's on TikTok and Netflix. And again, they point us to practical, tangible ways to glorify God as we live our lives in our modern context.

Speaker 3

All right, let's go. Let's go. What do you want? You want to do Beautiful day in the neighborhood. You want to do Fred?

Speaker 1

Let's do it.

Speaker 2

Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 1

You wanna talk about Fred?

Speaker 3

Tell us about Fred.

Speaker 1

So a lot of people don't realize that Fred spent years, up to eight years by some biographer's estimation, debating whether or not he was gonna pursue a calling in TV like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

Or whether he was gonna go into full-time pastoral ministry.

Speaker 3

And so for eight years, NFL or ministry?

Speaker 1

NFL or ministry? That's exactly right. JV and so Varsity.

Speaker 3

If I would have had your biography in the 70s, I could have made a different decision.

Speaker 1

You could have made a difference because you're gonna.

Speaker 3

You're gonna teach us that he did ministry, even though it wasn't called that.

Speaker 1

That's exactly right.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 1

So for eight years, he splits the difference. He would go to work at the TV station in the morning, and then on his lunch break, he would drive across town to Pittsburgh to attend seminary classes. And by the time he earned his degree, he knew that God was leading him to work in television, but he still wanted to be ordained by the Pittsburgh Presbytery to do so because he just felt like this was a calling from God and he wanted the presbytery to recognize that.

Sadly, although not surprisingly, based on the story you just shared, Dave, the presbytery vehemently disagreed, refused to ordain Fred Rogers, and they pushed him to a career in pastoral ministry, but he wouldn't do it. And so, thankfully, there was this one member of the presbytery who believed in Fred, this guy named Bill Barker, who believed that Fred's work on TV was ministry. I pulled up the quote from the book here. Barker goes before the presbytery, after they give the decision not to ordain Fred, he says, quote, "Look, here's an individual who has his pulpit proudly in front of a TV camera. His congregation are little people from the ages of 2 or 3 on up to 7 or 8. And this is a whole congregation of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of kids. And this man is as authentically called by the Lord as much as any of you guys sitting out there." End quote, mic drop, who walks out of the room.

And short story, the Presbytery does ordain Mr. Rogers. But here's what I love about the story. A couple of years later, Barker is going on vacation to Scotland and he stumbles across this necktie that's a blue and black tartan pattern. It's this pattern, that's this tie traditionally worn by Presbyterian clergy. So Barker buys two of them: one for himself, who was a donor-supported pastor, and one for his friend Fred Rogers.

Fred loved it so much that he wore it for years on air to quote, "give a subliminal message," end quote, that he believed he was doing full-time ministry on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood by showing Jesus' love to the kids on the other end of that screen. He loved it so much that he actually asked to be buried in the tie. To this day, Fred Rogers is six feet under wearing that blue and black tartan tie.

And here's the point for our listeners today, guys: just like Fred, all of us are part of what First Peter calls the royal priesthood. It is no longer just literal priests who represent God in the world and extend his blessings. It's every carpenter, every entrepreneur, every teacher, every television personality, any Christian doing genuinely good work.

And that's why I wrote *Five Mere Christians* to show readers that truth in a fun, binge-worthy, entertaining way, but also to challenge them to do that work more faithfully for the glory of God and the good of others.

Speaker 2

I was even intrigued with Fred about like, don't you wonder like where did that compassionate heart come from for kids? And you tell the story about that. He came from a wealthy family and he had a driver drive him to school every day.

But then after school one day, he didn't get in the car because some kids bullied him and they were calling him Fat Freddy. He ended up running all the way home. But as he was running, he's praying, "God help me." And he said, it's the first time I really recognized that God was real. It was a tangible part of his life that he wanted.

He realized he needed this God, you understand, like, cause he was so sensitive to kids that had been bullied, kids that felt out of place. He just had a compassionate heart towards the underdog too. You could feel it in his episodes.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and there's a couple of things I take. I love that that story stuck with you because I love that story. There are a couple of things I take away from it. Number one, Fred allowed the Lord to transform his pain into a passion of serving others who had similar struggles. And two, in that scene is the first time we see Fred truly experiencing the love of the Father.

All throughout his career, he made time not just to read the word, not just to pray, but to sit and watch his heavenly Father watch him, to experience the love of God. For 30 years or so, I actually had this sign that hung in his office reproduced for my own office. It's how meaningful this was to me. He had a Hebrew rendering of Song of Solomon 2:16 hanging in his office: "My beloved is mine and I'm his." In the middle of taping Neighborhood, he would just hole away in his office and he would stare at that and remind himself in the busyness of his day that he was loved.

And you hear all these stories, and maybe some of our listeners are familiar with this, of the extraordinary acts of kindness that Fred showed people. I'll just rattle off a couple. One time, he's in his apartment in New York and looks across the street and sees a guy get mugged. And he's at the height of his fame; he's recognized by everybody, right? Fred leaves his apartment, he's writing a script for the show, goes outside, walks across the street, hands the victim a hundred dollar bill and says, "I just want you to know that you are seen and you are loved by the God of the universe." And walks away.

There was also a time where this little girl named Beth Usher was going under surgery by Dr. Ben Carson. Remember Dr. Ben Carson ran for president for 30 minutes? Ben was going to do surgery on this girl, and the only thing that made her 100-plus seizures a day stop was watching Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. The mom writes in, says, "Hey, can Fred send a picture, a signed picture for her surgery?" He's like, "I'll do you one better, make sure you're home at 7:00."

And he sits there after a long day at the office and for an hour and a half talks to this girl about her fear of dying, about the fact that she didn't have friends. And then hangs up the phone. He’s got a family of his own at home. He looks at his wife and says, "I gotta go." He calls Dr. Ben Carson and says, "I'm coming to sit with this kid during surgery. One rule, no press." And he goes and he sits by this girl's bedside just to show otherworldly love. But here.

Speaker 2

But he didn't want anybody to know.

Speaker 1

He didn't want anyone to know. But here's what I read about Fred's life. I've never read of a person who's more Christ-like than Fred Rogers, ever. And I read these stories, and it feels so impossible. Like, how did he do this? He's got a family to take care of. He's got all these responsibilities professionally.

But I believe the secret was he took time every day to experience his belovedness as a child of God. I think if we modern professionals, moms, and dads would take time to feel the love of God for our cup to be so full we won't be able to contain it all.

We will have to share it with other people in ways that are radical and beg the question why? To which the answer is Jesus Christ.

Speaker 3

How would you say you do that? How do you sit? Maybe you don't sit, but how do you experience your belovedness?

Speaker 1

One, I'm a really practical guy. I have to have physical things around me that remind me of his love. Right. I don't know what that is for you. Maybe it's a verse. Maybe it is a picture of some experience in your life that you remember and recall. Man, I felt God's love in that moment. For me, it's that song of Solomon, 2:16 in Hebrew, hanging over. And every time I walk through my doorway, I'm remembering the love I have in God. That's one practical way. Some physical reminder.

Second, it could be time to put a little quiet time back in quiet time.

Speaker 2

I was gonna say mine is just being in the Word every day.

Speaker 1

Yeah, like, but like a lot of people's time in the Word is reading, reading, reading, intaking information, intaking information, closing the Bible and then going throughout the day.

We don't sit and dwell on the Word and really think about what we just read and see God's love for us in what we read.

So for me, those are two things: physical reminders, Dave, and then taking time to read the Word and reflect on how God's showing his love to me in what I just read.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I mean, my only thought was going to be that I've done the one year Bible on my phone. And I started to realize because it's on my phone, if I don't turn off notifications, I'm gone.

Because a text will come in or any little ding. I'M like, I need a real Bible, I think, or turn off my phone. But I need a real Bible that separates.

Put the phone in another room. Don't even have my watch on because it'll. And then just say, I'm going to be locked in to experience what you just said.

Speaker 1

That's. Man, I'm so glad you brought this up. I have no technology during my time in the Word. It is a physical Bible.

And I do it for a couple of reasons. One, so I'm not distracted, so I can experience the love of God.

But two, I want my kids to see the physical word of God so that they don't mistake me reading the Word on my phone as me checking text messages.

Speaker 2

And that's why I got you a Bible. Good thing I did.

Speaker 1

What'd you get, Dave? What'd you do?

Speaker 3

You get the one year chronological Bible.

Speaker 1

Oh, all right. Come on.

Speaker 3

Never done it that way. So. And you can take a pen and you can actually write in your. This paper. You can make notes.

Speaker 1

I wasn't planning on sharing this today. It's a little off topic, but whatever. Let's go there. In the spirit of helping my kids feel the belovedness of God, I changed up my Bible study habits. I got one of these wide margin Bibles.

Speaker 2

That's what I have.

Speaker 1

But what I'm doing is I'm writing a personal commentary to my daughter in this Bible. I'm going page by page. I'm trying to highlight at least one thing on the page. Man, Leviticus is a struggle. One thing on every page. And writing a note to her.

Be like Ellison. Do you see how much God loves you? That he is continuing to protect the seed of Jesus Christ. Redemption. And calling out specific things in her, like Ellison, God loves beauty. See Genesis 2, 9. You love beauty. When you design dresses around the house, you're reflecting this beauty in the world.

So trying to take all these principles that I'm writing about in these books for grownups like Five Mere Christians, and giving this as an heirloom to my daughter that I plan to give to her when she's 18. I'm gonna do it for all three of my girls in my home.

Speaker 2

I wish I would have done that. What a good idea.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Stole from my buddy Sean. It's a great idea.

Speaker 3

One of the things that happens when you read this, at least for me, was my faith is encouraged. And here at Family Life, that's what we're about. Helping you grow, be encouraged in your faith.

We have a site for you to help you do that. It's familylife.com/strongerfaith. You want to grow in your faith. You want to get strong in your faith. We have resources there for you. Go to familylife.com/strongerfaith and let us help you. We all need that help.

And I'd also say, pick up this book. You can send a donation to us at Family Life, and we will send you this book for a donation of any amount.

Yeah. So obviously, you can see why this is a good biography compared to the bad ones. I wonder when we use the word you used about how bad they are, but they're really bad. These get really practical, and these are life-changing. So help us from Fred's life. Apply something.

Speaker 1

Yeah. So I spend. You can finish one of these biographies in about 45 minutes, 50 minutes. And at the end, I come in and look you, the reader, in the eye, say, okay, reader, what does this mean for you practically today?

And I share some really, really practical things. One of those are these three practical tips for eliminating hurry from our work lives, from our personal lives, so that we can live at a pace that allows us to show radical love to those around us, like Fred Rogers did.

So, number one, budget tons of margin in your calendar. Right.

Speaker 2

How do you do that? When you feel like you have no.

Speaker 1

Time, you have to do less things. Right. And you just have to know that everything's gonna take longer, which forces you to say no to a lot of things. Not easy, right? The solution is simple. It's not easy. But budget tons of margin.

Speaker 3

I mean, one of the easiest things we did at church, which was hard to do, is we didn't stack meetings.

Speaker 1

Yeah, There you go.

Speaker 3

One to two, don't put a two.

Speaker 1

To three, not two to three, at.

Speaker 3

Least 2:30 or something. Give yourself some margin.

Speaker 1

That's right. Second, resolve to be with who you're with. If you're making a decision of, I'm going to be with the Wilsons today, I'm not with anybody else.

And I'm writing that off because not only did Fred not hurry in his life, but when someone entered his presence, his coworker would frequently describe how time would slow down. They called it "Fred time." Time would begin and urgency dissipated because he made them feel like the image bearers of God that they were.

We could do the same thing today by silencing distractions and resolving to be fully present with who we're with.

And, man, if you really want to take this to the next level, keep your phone when you're home in a separate room on Do Not Disturb. This way, you actually have to physically go walk and get it if you want to be distracted from your kids.

Speaker 3

We'll stay alive if our phone's in another room.

Speaker 1

I don't know.

Speaker 3

I don't know if I can make it 15 minutes.

Speaker 1

Let me give you one more tip for eliminating hurry. Like Fred, when you fail to be unhurried, choose the important over the urgent. Fred became so much more human to me when I heard his son say that. There were days when Fred was hurried, when he was rushing home after work in order to sit down with his family for dinner.

Because he didn't always succeed in being hurried. But even when he didn't, he always chose the person rather than the project. He always chose the important over the unimportant, over the temporal. So he had this kind of rule, this mantra in his life of, hey, if I'm gonna be hurried, I'm gonna choose the important over the urgent.

And I'm always gonna choose my family over whatever's keeping me up at work. Because guess what? When I show up at the office tomorrow, that work's still gonna be there for me.

Speaker 2

These are such good principles for every single person listening. We can all relate to it and we all need to do it.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I wanna get a bracelet. That, you know, what would Fred do? I mean, it sounds like. And you said it earlier, he really did reflect Jesus to people in a beautiful way.

So what a great conversation with Jordan Raynor. And I gotta be honest with you, when I first saw this book, *Five Mere Christians and Their Biographies*, I thought, this is gonna be boring.

Speaker 2

I know. You told me that.

Speaker 3

I just did. And then I read it and I'm like, oh, my goodness, this is powerful. These lives were incredible. And I'm telling you, you want to get this book.

So all you have to do is go to familylifetoday.com. You can get the book there. And I'm telling you, this would be a really good read. You can just read one biography and then take a break and read another one.

But again, it's familylifetoday.com. Get your book right there. It's in the show notes.

Speaker 2

Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.