In this episode, I talk with my friend Tyler Johnson. Until recently, Tyler was the Lead Pastor of a ten-congregation multisite church. He recently decided to step away from that and is now a spiritual and social entrepreneur entering into the marketplace. He's a man of many convictions and recently started a business called “The Human Element.” We take sips of a 2021 Argyle Nusshaus Riesling and a 2019 Il Farneto - Rosso ‘Giandon’ as we converse about baseball, entrepreneurship, and our favorite wines.
The discussion gets deep as we explore Tyler’s transition from leading a congregation to leading in the entrepreneurial world. He shares his journey, challenges, and lessons learned about human capital in the business landscape. Tyler's business, the Human Element, is a testament to the belief in human beings as the most potent form of capital. We explore his unique approach to leadership that emphasizes empathy, relational intelligence, and emotional intelligence. Tyler drops an incredible analogy of a chef at a restaurant to what it can often feel like when leading in a church.
Our conversation with Tyler culminates with exploring unity and diversity within Christianity, and how elements like wine, food, and ambiance can reconcile religious divides. We discuss his relationship-building strategy to bridge these divides and the role of social trust in this process. As we wrap up, we delve into seeing the world through Jesus's eyes and how prioritizing the marginalized can unlock ultimate reality. So, lean in, listen up, and join us for an enlightening episode filled with thoughtful insights, wine, and baseball.
Wines:
2021 Argyle Nusshaus Riesling
2019 Il Farneto - Rosso ‘Giandon’
See audio and video episodes at: https://communionwineco.com/podcast/
Find out more at: https://linktr.ee/communionwineco
In this episode, I talk with my friend Tyler Johnson. Until recently, Tyler was the Lead Pastor of a ten-congregation multisite church. He recently decided to step away from that and is now a spiritual and social entrepreneur entering into the marketplace. He's a man of many convictions and recently started a business called “The Human Element.” We take sips of a 2021 Argyle Nusshaus Riesling and a 2019 Il Farneto - Rosso ‘Giandon’ as we converse about baseball, entrepreneurship, and our favorite wines.
The discussion gets deep as we explore Tyler’s transition from leading a congregation to leading in the entrepreneurial world. He shares his journey, challenges, and lessons learned about human capital in the business landscape. Tyler's business, the Human Element, is a testament to the belief in human beings as the most potent form of capital. We explore his unique approach to leadership that emphasizes empathy, relational intelligence, and emotional intelligence. Tyler drops an incredible analogy of a chef at a restaurant to what it can often feel like when leading in a church.
Our conversation with Tyler culminates with exploring unity and diversity within Christianity, and how elements like wine, food, and ambiance can reconcile religious divides. We discuss his relationship-building strategy to bridge these divides and the role of social trust in this process. As we wrap up, we delve into seeing the world through Jesus's eyes and how prioritizing the marginalized can unlock ultimate reality. So, lean in, listen up, and join us for an enlightening episode filled with thoughtful insights, wine, and baseball.
Wines:
2021 Argyle Nusshaus Riesling
2019 Il Farneto - Rosso ‘Giandon’
See audio and video episodes at: https://communionwineco.com/podcast/
Find out more at: https://linktr.ee/communionwineco
Welcome to Episode 2. Today I'm joined with a guest. I'm so excited we're going to have so much fun. It's Cabernet and Prey Began last week starting us off and now we get to have some fun with one of my favorite people. This guy is so incredible. His name is Tyler Johnson. He's been a friend of mine for a long time. Before I bring him in, I want to just give you a little intro so you can set the stage of what kind of a guy we're done with here. He's originally from Denver, Colorado. He loves Colorado, Played baseball at Arizona State University, which is legit. He's been married to Hailey for 21 years. They have four kids a 17-year-old, 16-year-old, 12-year-old, 11-year-old. All of them are athletes.
Speaker 1:You're starting to notice a trend here. He's a spiritual and social entrepreneur, just now entering into the marketplace, Started a business called the Human Element. Ladies and gentlemen, my friend Tyler Johnson, how you doing, buddy? Hey man, how are you? I'm great. For those of you who are just listening to the audio version of this, you can't see, but Tyler is somewhere up north. He's rocking cabin vibes behind him, so where are you at right now? I'm?
Speaker 2:in Flagstaff, Arizona, which is very nice to get out of the heat.
Speaker 1:You're a smart one. I am not in Flagstaff, so the rest of us will rough it for you. All right, tyler, anything else we need to know about you? That didn't make the intro list.
Speaker 2:No, that's pretty good. I'm an active, active dad with four kids, as you said, that are all active in sports, so we're driving everywhere. My wife constantly says she's the unpaid Uber driver, so that's our life, like many people's.
Speaker 1:Many parents can relate to that feeling Well before we begin, you can relate, I have a sound effect to play, which means it's time to drink some wine. So I'm going to start us off. I'm going to share what I'm drinking today and then we're going to find out what Tyler's drinking. So today I am drinking a 2021 Argyle Nus-Hoss Reisling, which is just a fun wine to talk about Now.
Speaker 1:Reisling I want to just throw it out there I think is one of the most underrated white grapes that you may or may not have in your repertoire. Reisling can be made in all levels of sweetness, so sometimes people have a sweet Reisling and they're like, oh, that was gross, I don't like that. But this is a very diverse grape and it can do a whole lot, and the one I'm drinking right now is actually medium dry. So just a little bit of sweetness to it and, as I was tasting this earlier, amazing honeysuckle apple notes, because I'm not up north like Tyler is. This is very refreshing on a hot Arizona day and Argyle is a winery. It's actually right down the street from our rental home in Oregon. In fact, from our front porch of our wine home, you can see Argyle, and when they do concerts and stuff. We can hear them from our front porch, so super cool that they offer an Oregon Reisling. That's what I'm drinking today. Tyler, what are you drinking?
Speaker 2:I am drinking an Italian wine, so I love Italy. I was going to Italy at least twice a year and I actually have a Farnetto Rosso Giandone is what it's called and it's actually a fermented red wine which I'd never had until I was in Italy and they handed it to me and I tried it. So it's like a 2019, so not very old, but it is a very unique flavor and kind of steps back a little bit. That's very unique and good, so I'm enjoying it as you enjoy your Reisling.
Speaker 1:There we go, love it, ok. So, tyler, lately you have been sending me photos of wine bottles and not just any wine bottles, but really nice wine bottles and you've been drinking these with some interesting people in some unique settings. Tell us a little bit about some of these bottles you've been sending me.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So my best wine story which you may get into lately I've been actually drinking some Perl 1990s Zinfandel's. We were into an 80s Cabernet the other day. There's a bunch of guys I know in the baseball world, which is something Jeremy and I have in common because we both love baseball but we are. So I have some really good friends with the Dodgers, some guys that coach with that team and they're huge wine guys. One of them is the manager actually has his own vineyard in winery himself. So we'll get out there and I've been out with them in San Diego and then recently in LA, and they'll always uncork really good bottles of wine. So, knowing you love wine, I like to snap pictures, not so much for you to celebrate with me but for you to be jealous. So it's fun to talk baseball and wine.
Speaker 1:That's right. I get these photos from him. I'm just like, wow, that looks like a really good bottle and that looks like a really good time.
Speaker 2:My buddy said to me the other day because he uncorked it and I drank it. And I'm like, bro, this is incredible. And he's like, at what point are you going to stop saying this is incredible and just know we drink only great wine?
Speaker 1:Have you got to the point yet, because that's a great experience. But have you gone back and tried some really cheap wine, like you're on a flight and hey, whatever red they give you, and have you noticed that your taste buds are changing or no?
Speaker 2:Oh, very much. It's almost impossible to go back and drink cheap wine. It's what happened to me with coffee too, which is a problem typically for your pocket book, both for coffee and for wine, but my taste buds have definitely changed.
Speaker 1:That is a problem. If you do learn to acquire the taste of nice wine, you can't go back. So just be aware if you have that experience, there's no going back. So we love baseball. Let's just get it out there. This is a podcast about wine, but we need to set things straight. Why is baseball the greatest sport ever, Tyler?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I love it. I grew up with it. So I love it because I grew up with it. But I think it's the best sport ever because there's an incredible amount of detail, there's unbelievable amounts of strategy. It's incredibly difficult. Most people that have studied this stuff would say hitting a baseball is one of the hardest things to do, if not the hardest thing to do, in sports. So watching the level of skill and strategy and the fact that it's a great sport for Americans because it necessitates more patience than any of us have anymore- yeah, and I love when people say that's such a boring game, it's such a boring sport and there's so much thinking involved.
Speaker 1:And it's interesting if you watch or listen to a game on TV or on the radio or whatever, they're explaining everything to you in real time. And if you go to a game, you have to try to make sense of what just happened. Or what was that player? Why is that guy going to that base? And that's when you realize how complicated baseball is when there's not an announcer in your ear literally explaining it. And I've become the dad at baseball games that when the other parents are asking the question that kid just struck out why is he on first base? Like, OK, let me explain. Job, third strike, I just have to be that guy. But yeah, you're totally right, there's just so much to love.
Speaker 2:Now it's gotten even more so with the whole the rise of Moneyball, which kind of made it famous. But the nature of analytics now the level of strategy, is amazing and when you get in there's all kinds of really cool websites. You can watch guys talking about this stuff now. But it's really fun when you get into it Because there's a level of detail and understanding of why certain moves are made. People complain a lot especially historic baseball people of why managers are pulling pitchers as early as they are, and it's all. Science is what it is. It's literally analytics that they just smash up and how it works, which is pretty fun.
Speaker 1:It is fun to mix the I have a gut feeling about this with. Here's what the charts show and try to put those things together.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right.
Speaker 1:Ok, tyler, when I was thinking about early on like, who do I want to have conversations with you immediately came to mind, partly because you and I have been having quite a few conversations recently about your life.
Speaker 1:There's been a lot going on for you and we've been talking through it, and I just asked you if you would be comfortable sharing some of that journey or whatever, to every degree you feel comfortable. For those who don't know, tyler was the lead pastor of a multi-site, multi-congregation church in Arizona and recently decided that that's not what he wanted to keep doing. So we just stepped away from that and I would just love, to whatever degree you feel comfortable, to share a little bit of that journey, because this was not a short run for you in that role. You did it for many years and obviously a lot of thought went into why you don't want to do it anymore, and I think it's really insightful for all of us to hear from someone who's been deeply in the trenches and now has decided to do something else. What's going on, what's your thought process and all that.
Speaker 2:So I have my whole adult life professionally I've been in this world of ministry, which is unique, to start with, because I didn't grow up in it. I didn't grow up in the church at all. So even when the professional decision to be in church work and in the faith sector, if you will was a real shift and challenge for me I've been around baseball my whole life, so my father's a really prominent amateur baseball coach I thought I'd be in baseball as long as I could be there. I'd play as long as I could and then end up in a coaching realm like he was. And when these options came to me, jesus had kind of gotten really real to me and it was a wrestle with me to think about professionally working in the church space. And yet everything kind of just snowballed and it happened and it was a great experience. I mean it's over 20 years. My first job out of college was July of 2001. And I went in professionally on staff at the church that I ended up leading and it changed names. There was a merger of the churches, launching the multi-congregational network. But really I think the die got cast on my transition a while ago and I'm not certain I could pinpoint a day in time, but I do think you begin to hit your late 30s and 40s and, whether you're consciously or subconsciously knowing it, you're asking these questions about your preferred future and what do you really want?
Speaker 2:And there are some factors when you're in faith and church space that are complicated. There's a lot of complications around the nature of a big organization. You're leading multi-million dollar organizations, so people would talk about the business dynamics. There's dynamics of that that have a lots of parts of it that are enjoyable and then a lot of parts of it that are very disorienting to think through. How you're giving shape to Jesus and trying to show people Jesus and form people in the Jesus way of life, and you have all of these leadership responsibilities and they're webbed together like this. That's complicated, and so you start having some internal wrestles. Then there's a lot of that work that really does I don't know any other way to say it but it does isolate you or extract you out of a lot of the warping woof of other things in culture, and so a lot of times you start looking at people that you're leading, that are inside your church and beginning to go.
Speaker 2:I wonder what their life's like as a medical sales device person. I wonder if it's like to engage in these people as a teacher that have all two different types of stripes of kids in the midst there. I wonder what it's like to serve as a public servant. And you end up kind of having these moments I did, I shouldn't say you do. I started having these moments of a little bit of fantasizing and it's hard to not say it this way of what does it look like to just live a real life as a real person, follow Jesus in pursuit of that, which is not a downgrade on pastors I mean, I've been one my whole entire adult life but there was something in me churning.
Speaker 2:And then I would say the biggest factor for me in business, there's this book called the Blue Ocean Strategy, which is basically there's this huge blue ocean of opportunity that we can go after, but everybody seems to go after the same thing and Jesus has a line like that where he talks about this field that's white for harvest. And I just began to be very compelled to say I'd rather spend my time in a wider lane that has more complexity, more surprise, many more people of difference and, like I said, the diet was cast. I made the decision just recently. It was a definite push-pull factor to it, meaning there were things pushing me out and things pulling me out. But yeah, I mean that's the general rule is me looking at my future and just saying, is I think about a preferred future? I grew in certainty that I didn't want it to be there.
Speaker 1:Hmm, no, I think what might be surprising for some people is in your position, you know, with a leadership role and in so many local different churches, that would seem to be, I think, from the outside at least, a very wide possibility for you like. Well, you know what is it you couldn't do with that. You have influence in all these churches. Isn't that kind of the pinnacle of what you can do? Why was that model limiting? Why did you feel like, hey, I can't actually do some of these things? Speak to maybe some of the complications of the church.
Speaker 2:I mean on one yeah, there is complications, and I would be amiss to not also say there is a moment you lead inside where you begin to realize where you want to take something may either be where they don't necessarily want to go or they don't want to go as far as you'd want to go, and there's a moment where you just go. Because of all these varying factors, I'm not the person to lead this anymore. So it's not even just they're so bad, but you start going. I'm not fit to do this anymore and for me, the limiting factors of I'm a very, I'm very curious about culture, about different kinds of people. I love crossing barriers and boundaries and when you're leading Christian communities there's a lot of people that that's disruptive to. There's also a lot of people that go. Is that the job you should be doing, the job of pastor, is to care about those inside? And if not, go out.
Speaker 2:There's some pretty specific visions of what would be called evangelism. Go out, you can go out and share these things. But the idea of really doing life with people that are widely different, intense curiosity, starting at points of like bold, courageous conversations, but also a lot on like what's called a appreciative inquiry, the idea of like, how do I see in these people lots of levels of appreciation and that just adds a lot of complexity. I mean, it'd be a little bit at times. I'll give you an image. It can feel the people like if you were leading a restaurant that was a bistro, an American bistro and you started going, you know what, I want to start serving Chinese food. And they're going no, we're a bistro. Like, we're a bistro and you're trying to serve Chinese food. Well, if you're the chef of that restaurant, you go. Well, my vision is always been to have a restaurant of multiple cuisines.
Speaker 2:You have this moment where you start wrestling with like, am I trying to do something new in a shell that never, that didn't sign up for that, they didn't say so. Those are the things I had to start wrestling with. Is these things have been in me a really long time? I don't feel like this has been. These have been hidden things, necessarily, but I would like to do this. And you start asking yourself questions like maybe this really isn't. Jesus uses this language of when new things are going to be done.
Speaker 2:Interesting that we're on a podcast about wine but he talks about, if you take old wine important to new wineskins, or new wine into old wineskins, you can burst the wine skin and I started asking a lot of the new going into the old and bursting it of like. Are you just screwing the whole thing up in the midst of what you're trying to do? What tried to happen? Does there need to be a different container? And then that image. For me, the container was just my profession, the first part of deciding. I do think I'm coming to a point where, whatever it is I want to pour into this, this isn't the container. I'm supposed to be the one. As far as what I'm pouring, I'm not supposed to continue to pour it into this container.
Speaker 1:That new wine skin image takes on a whole different connotation with the restaurant analogy, you know, of bringing the Chinese food into the bistro and you break the Chinese restaurant. That's really good, I like that, just on, okay, so I have some similarities with your journey. Obviously a lot that's different. What are the emotions that this journey has been like for you? You say it so logically and it's like oh well, of course that makes sense, but you're a human and these are deep relationships and it's complicated. What have you felt along this road? What would you say have been maybe some of the dominant emotions that you've experienced?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean one of the things in the journey for myself in transition, of something you've done that's very community oriented. I mean it's a people oriented industry, if you're wanting to use that word best friends, families, wildly involved with each other. Because I'm not short on convictions, so I have a lot of convictions about a lot of things and where I aspired and desired to see our churches go, where there might be resistant, there was definitely sadness to it. There's sadness both to like whatever it was that you weren't able to accomplish. There was sadness over what I feel like were failures in my own leadership. Then there was just sadness that it couldn't happen. Then you have all the relational sadness of. There's just a reality in real life of proximity matters and when you start going, I'm not going to be as proximate to these people, I'm not going to see them. That's sad. The other part is when you know there's people you've had great relationships for a really long time, that you don't agree on a lot of stuff and at some points people are really mad at you. That's an awkward thing to navigate. People feel like your leadership was poor. That's an awkward thing to navigate.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I mean one of the things I've had to really work on is getting out of my head, because I can be logical and I think I have a human first approach to understanding a lot, so I can rationalize a lot.
Speaker 2:And there was seasons of this journey because it's been multiple years in the making that were more disorienting than others. And I think one of the things I would say a lot because you just said this about you sound so rational is they'd say my head can make sense of this, my heart can't. And I've been challenged recently to say you're trying to make so much sense of this in your head. Maybe you should actually trust your intuition and feelings more than even your thoughts about what this is, whether or not people agree with that as they're listening to it. It was really good for me to begin to go when you're kind of trying to live out a whole reality of who you are and there's this word of embodiment making it makes sense holistically through who I am, not just rationally in my head. So that's why I appreciate your question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so good. And I think, to go back to your analogy, you, as the chef, maybe had hopes and an energy that you could serve different food, and so when you realize that's not going to be a reality, there is that sense of sadness and almost a grieving. In my experience of this could have been something that I would have been really excited about, and for a variety of reasons, it's not going to be that, and so you almost have to let that dream die so that these things that God has planted in you, these excitements, these convictions, to use your word they're able to be manifest in new ways. And now you've ended one season very nobly and a tremendous amount of courage. I just will say publicly I've said this to you to your face but just immensely respect you for how you have led for many years and for how you're handling this season of transition where you're right.
Speaker 1:It's an awkward thing to be in that seat and have the criticism aimed at you, because this isn't what I thought it should be and I don't understand why. Why can't you just keep serving Chinese food? Well, I feel like there's something else. Or why can't you just be the bistro or whatever it is? I just I really admire how you've done that. So for all of us in evangelicalism or whatever we're in, thank you.
Speaker 2:That's one of the things about this, that's so. I'll just say this quick, but that is confusing. Maybe the word I don't know if disorienting is too strong or not it feels disorienting, but is when you go. I know we could get there, I know we could do this, and you go and I think it's really important. So it isn't just like, hey, I have a bit of itch, I wanna scratch, and you all are gonna be forces of what this is, but these senses of like. There's a way you understand the kingdom, there's a way you understand the context that you're living in. There's a way you understand leadership, and when those things begin to be pressed upon and they get very personified to you, it is it's a deep internal wrestling match, for sure.
Speaker 1:One of the things that has come out of your convictions is something I introduced called the human element. Why don't you tell us a little bit more? What is that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so as a concept, it's basically saying there's various forms of capital. The one you think about all the time is financial capital and there's different kinds of assets and liabilities when you begin to think about money. But really trying to say the most potent form of capital any leader ever has is the people and every dynamic of what we study. Well, let's say it's cultural intelligence, relational intelligence, even down the line to like P and L sheets. P and L sheets at the core, when you get underneath, it is about human interaction. Economies are about human interaction. So the human element is just saying, especially in a world that's in all these emerging technologies, ai and robotics, so we have in the most potent form of capital is human beings and that's the human element which I would say is your greatest competitive advantage. So what, practically, what do you do with that? So, yeah, so I have started a company that really falls in the frant. It's essentially an organization on strategy and execution, but it gets as zeroed in on working leader to leader, of helping leaders find out, learn themselves, learn who they are, not just as leaders but as humans, and then how to activate in their leadership or complex problems inside of organizations, which could be crisis management, it could be specifically, they're looking for strategies that would be more human centered. So it's an organization that essentially says you have.
Speaker 2:If you drew a circle with, like, a Mercedes emblem and one of the triangles of the Mercedes emblem would be your specific industry focus. So if it's an engineer, you're an engineer. I would shade that out and go. I'm not an engineer, I don't claim to be an engineer. I don't have the experience or expertise. You have an engineering. Another part of it would be actual money, all the money that goes into this. You have to figure all that out. But where it's people, this is where we'd enter in and go. We think we have background, experience and expertise to be experts in human nature, and so when you get into this, let's have a conversation around how all of your struggles, at a core level, seem to be human struggles.
Speaker 2:So I'll give an example when I've met with some professional sports teams coaches or some front office people, it's always incredible to me how they spend so much money on data and analytics one. They spend so much money on training the physical bodies of the athletes and developing routines and then strategy on game planning related to both of those. But when push comes to shove and they come back and drink wine, what they're talking about fundamentally is the human challenge. Why did this person see the information they had and still shake off the catcher and throw a pitch? We told them not to throw. Well, you get in and you go.
Speaker 2:Well, there's something fundamental in what it means to be human when a human receives information of don't throw that pitch they're hearing you're not good enough. In that, when you add human nature, it doesn't like to be confronted with something they're not good at and they wanna prove to you they are. They now throw a pitch they weren't supposed to throw in baseball, give up a home run. Why does that happen? That's the angst. So typically a leader would complain about that, would be frustrated about that. There'd be gossip in the center circles of whatever the leadership called. When you take a perspective of the human element, you humanize a situation and then begin to build strategies according to human nature for greater execution of what you'd wanna do. But it is my experiences. That's rare because it takes time. It takes a lot of conversation that most people don't wanna live in. They want efficiencies to get them there and yet continue to have the same problems, the same conversations over and over and over.
Speaker 1:Sounds like it's a great application of empathy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think empathy is a substantial part of what this is. One of the things I use is this idea of multi-form intelligence, and one of the components of that is relational intelligence, which emotional intelligence, which empathy is a huge part of, would be a part of it. But also cultural intelligence begins to be a huge part of that, because people are working with people from vastly different backgrounds than they have, but it is a huge exercise in empathy.
Speaker 1:And I love you could approach the picture and say here's our analytics, here's why we told you not to throw that pitch. Or you could say hey, how are you doing what's going on right now? Totally right, you're suggesting the. Let's treat them like a human first, not you're just the product of these analytics. And yeah, I think that's powerful. Obviously it works in sports, but that has huge implications for every arena of life, it would seem.
Speaker 2:For sure. I mean, if you took it out of the athletic arena and just put it into whatever arena, it's a person coming into evaluate a teacher and go, why did we do this evaluation? And the next time we're in here you're doing the same thing. It's not always as easy as like they're obstinate and don't wanna do it. There's and again, I don't wanna be a pure optimist. I mean there's certain points people are obstinate and do go. I don't wanna hear it from you, but a lot of times it's just the complexity in human nature is far more. It's far more complex and interesting if we're willing to engage with it.
Speaker 1:I love that it also applies to parenting, as I'm. Let's see you talk A whole lot, a whole lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like, why are you doing what you're doing right now? You are passionate about ecumenism and this is something that's not on the radar for most Christians. Many Christians probably have no idea what this word even means, so just I'll give us a working definition. Ecumenism is the belief that the different Christian churches should be as united as possible Kind of a vague way of understanding it. Why would you say that is such a value and passion for you?
Speaker 2:I mean, on one hand, if you just go the Bible, jesus has this prayer where he's praying for the oneness of all of his followers so that the world would know how relevant Jesus really is, that the world would know that God had sent Jesus into the world. So that's the passage that gets referred to a lot in the midst of it. There's another part of that, of why I think that's true, is there is this sense of the and the apostle Paul talks about this in the book of Ephesians of this manifold wisdom of God, which is this like multicolored nature of who God is, is expressed in diversity. So this idea of distinct, equal and one is humanity. And so there's a lot of appeals out there by some Christian leaders, pope Francis being one around human beings, walking in social friendship and in fraternity. But when it comes to Christians, it's the notion of being curious and believing that the genius is inside the total whole of the body of Christ, not just in one part of it.
Speaker 2:So my experience with it is I have grown deeper in my faith the more I've been around Christians of difference from me, of different theological beliefs, different cultural beliefs, different historic Christian traditions in the midst of it. So there's a better in the sense of like better together. If we were together, collective impact, that's true. Then there's like a better in the brilliance of what you don't know. So when you begin to explore and see what you don't know, you get stunned by it and see the beauty inside so many of these traditions, so I am deeply passionate about it. I do think it is. The division is a massive problem inside the Christian church and I think the ones that lose is us at a very core level of the opportunity to just see far deeper the brilliance of God than we've ever seen before.
Speaker 1:Now speak because I know a little bit of this history speak to. This was one of the menu items, I think, for you to use your restaurant analogy that you were trying. This is a dish you were trying to bring in and was very tough in the reception, but what was that like when you tried to make this a value in real time?
Speaker 2:Well, like anything one, our with 10 churches inside of our one church, 10 congregations, we would call them. Even inside each church there's different people who receive these things very differently. So a couple who came out of, let's say, a mixed marriage meaning one was Roman Catholic, one was Protestant ended up love it. I mean they're fascinated by it. It helps them understand their families. Some of the biggest resistors to it in our world, which was a Protestant church, were people who had become kind of more Protestant or evangelical out of Roman Catholic backgrounds because they'd had really poor backgrounds inside their Roman Catholic. Even in that, if you take the human side of it, you have to remember there's also a lot of evangelicals becoming Roman Catholics. So there's this dual highway of people crossing each other's paths along the way.
Speaker 2:But the opposition at the core level is in our in the world I was in for so long have been told the other historic Christian traditions aren't biblical, maybe even not Christian. So it gets very disoriented to people when you're gonna sit down at a table and go. We're gonna talk about Jesus and how you love Jesus and how we love Jesus. To some it feels like you're compromising the core convictions of what you've told them and or taught them for a long period of time. I clearly don't believe that and I don't believe it's up to me to do the work that I think only God can do to go who actually believes in Jesus, who actually is following Jesus. All I can do is kind of take people at their word and say you're saying it. I know there's scriptures in the Bible that say your life should match the one you say you follow. That's all true, but when it comes down to like the deep, visceral opposition who's a Christian and who's not a Christian, that's that's a bit outside of my pay grade.
Speaker 2:So for me it's as simple as like, even in the end, if, if many people say that are Protestants, let's say evangelicals we don't think Roman Catholics are Christians, or there's a lot of Roman Catholics who don't think Protestants are Christians, to me it feels so ironic that sitting at a table talking about Jesus could create that much controversy, because it's like well, don't you think that would be a good thing? Like maybe their eyes would be open to the real Jesus in the framework you're in, maybe. So to me it feels like a very safe game, if you will, to go hey, we're gonna sit down at table, we're gonna have a glass of wine and some food and we're gonna talk about the beauty of Jesus. It's been an incredible experience for me, but at the level of opposition, this is where I just I, you know I felt like there was moments where, yeah, I felt crazy, like am I nuts? Or does this feel crazy?
Speaker 1:because this doesn't seem as problematic as some people really feel like it is so I think one of the challenges because I would say I found I found a very similar reaction in my ministry experience as well one of the challenges I think in real time for people is yeah, you're saying we, you're united on Jesus great. But what we're not united on is x, y and z that I believe over here and they believe this differently, and I think for many people they don't know how to live in that tension where you're saying you follow Jesus but you don't follow Jesus the exact same way I do. How do you help someone who's struggling in that to saying how do I get over the x, y and z that we disagree on, even though we agree on Jesus? Have you found any way to kind of nudge someone along or say, hey, this is a really helpful way of thinking about that yeah, I mean my answer to that would be let's start sitting at a table.
Speaker 2:So the community I've been doing a lot of this work with uses this line of start with the feet, not with the head, meaning it's an image of when Jesus washed the disciples feet. So if you start in service and in relationship, a lot can become a surprise to you. So this I have this real strong conviction that people most often are the center of surprise. That if you want to be surprised, sit at a table, serve somebody, ask good questions, even about your disagreements and my experiences and and what I've heard of many other people when I've been in these environments, is they're stunned by what they thought these people believed compared to what the leaps. And so the starting point is to perceive like, hey, I think we have a disagreement here. It seems like it's a significant one. Can you tell me what you believe about Mary? Can you tell me what you believe about how somebody comes to faith in Jesus? Can you tell me what you believe about the Pope? Well, pretty soon and I'm using only Roman Catholic examples would be very similar with Orthodox, eastern Orthodox Christians. What's pretty soon is a lot of times they start answering in a way where you go, wow, that doesn't even feel that different than what I thought, or it's really different than what I thought you thought. And then at other points, what you realize is they're not done there. I mean, they have Bible verses to support these things.
Speaker 2:We're talking about a humanism. They have Bible verses, they have deep amounts of thought about it, they have challenges to you and even if you walk out which I've done hundreds of times like I still don't agree with them, but I walk out with far more respect and a strong sense of like listen, that isn't unorthodox and it isn't unnecessarily like unbiblical to the level that would be wildly concerning, and sometimes it is. I mean, jeremy, sometimes I go, wow, that feels really problematic, like I don't. And then I walk out and go, that feels really problematic, but that person's pretty interesting and I don't. And then I walk out and go and this builds my faith. I walk out and go, god, I don't know what to do with all that, but I think, god, I don't have to fix it, because and you start realizing, like these people aren't done. They have deep-rooted convictions that I may even deeply disagree with. But then you start going these trite like slogan mantras that you think is gonna like prove your point and change their mind, just doesn't happen. So then I go let's say it was something I really did feel burdened by and wanted to change their mind.
Speaker 2:Then the question of, like, how do paradigm shifts actually happen? And I think they happen in the context of relationship and in the context of love, not in the context predominantly in debate. I'm not saying no one's ever changed their mind in a debate, but I think long-standing, real shifts happen in relationship and by love. Say one more line you can get somebody to agree with you in a moment, maybe just because you're being a jerk like and they're like just get me out of here. I'll say anything to just get out of this conversation because this person is annoying. Well, that's not, that's not what would. If it concerns you at a deep level, you're not looking for just cognitive scent, but an honest shift of a, of a change of mind, and I think that happens in the context of love and relationship far more than it does verbal battery or social media battle or social media battles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's exactly right, all right that's a good time for us to take a little drink break. You've already talked about drinking wine with baseball players. What is your favorite? If you had a pick a memory, maybe first scene to come to mind or the last great one you had if you've got tons of them a favorite wine experience. What was it? Why was it so amazing?
Speaker 2:so one of my best friends in the world got the bench coach job with the New York Yankees when Aaron Boone became the manager, and so you got to understand this is not me trying to name drop. I love baseball, my best friend in the world and I love food and wine and they took me to a place. So the New York Yankees do their spring training. In Tampa, florida there's a place called Burns steakhouse which is the largest wine library in the nation. So I mean it's a book that's like this. It's basically like the Dewey decimal system. Literally they have cataloged their wines according to the Dewey decimal system because the cellar is so massive you can see a portion of it, but then the majority of it I mean you could look it up how many of them was.
Speaker 2:So I'm literally sitting eating steak and drinking a 1972 Zinfandel. So I'm not young. I'm not young and that's five years before I was born. I was born in 1977 and I'm sitting there the whole time like is this real? You're a Yankees fan. I'm not a huge Yankees fan, I don't hate the Yankees, but but I sat there the whole time like you're talking baseball, the power of wine.
Speaker 2:I have a really good friend in the restaurant industry and he talks about the power of food and beverage to lubricate an environment and some of the best friendship moments I've had have been like that. So that night the dining experience was insane. The wine was insane. They have a separate dessert room. They use sit in wine barrel caskets, like big wine caskets are the seats so that they put them inside. So the whole experience was just absurd. I mean absolutely absurd. And I didn't have to pay for it. So that made it even better. But the 1972 wine was. So if you add wine, friends and good ambiance and food, a lot of laughter and talking about baseball, that's a that's a recipe for success in my book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds incredible. That's a good time. Okay, so you had issues, we'll say, trying to bring Christians together with other Christians. Okay, but you go further than that. You also are passionate about uniting people of different religions, which, if people have a hard time on the first, they're usually really going to have a hard time. Why on earth would we try to spend time with other religions? Why is that a passion for you? What have you seen in that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So let me just start and say I don't think they're the same thing, but it is the same strategy and methodology which is relationship. So you know, to walk in and say to a Muslim, we're basically the same thing is offensive to a lot of Muslims. It's offensive to a Jew, like you know. I mean I had a rabbi say to me, listen, I'm not a Christian, which is different than when you're sitting with a Roman Catholic and with an Orthodox person who all affirmed the historic Christian creeds going listen, we all believe in Jesus. Those are not the same things and yet we live in the same world. And so one of my favorite lines is, if you boil it all down and Jesus says, the greatest commandment is to love God with all your everything and love your neighbor as yourself. If that's the center of it is loving your neighbor as yourself, which we could get in a long conversation about the number of times that gets boiled down only to that statement Love your neighbor as yourself, because I think it's the means we love God. You can't love your neighbor if you don't know your neighbor, and there are tons of our neighbors who are not the same religion was we are. They don't have the same what philosophers would call first principles. Whether that's atheists, the synastics, hindus, muslims, a variety of stripes, jews a variety of stripes, zoroastrianism, whatever it might be, they don't. And yet I'm called to love my neighbor. So what's very interesting is I can't love them if I don't know them. And then you get into, like even I made this statement earlier about the human element.
Speaker 2:But when you study economics and economies, economies thrive where there's trust. So even in a capitalist society like ours that wants to advance economic impact, social trust is so massively important to a flourishing economy, which I think economics means way more than just money. But people don't begin to interact money. It's the old adage of like people do business with people, they trust you. You use Yelp because people are giving you a recommendation which makes you trust the restaurant. You just chose more because a variety of people are there. Well, if social fabric and trust is so important and as a Christian I'm called to love my neighbor I'm doing active work towards living out my faith of Jesus in getting to know my neighbor, and I think I'm loving all my other neighbors by building social trust amongst religions of difference. So when there isn't trust, at the most dramatic level. You have terrorist attacks, you have bombings of cities that happen and they and it always be like the other. Here's the other person. So when you're sitting in this is what I mean by the strategy and you're pulling people together at tables.
Speaker 2:So I've been in retreats, like going away with imams, which is like a Muslim leader, a clerical leader, like a Muslim pastor. So imams, rabbis that are leading synagogues of Judaism and will literally sit in rooms. A lot of Muslims, most Muslims don't drink alcohol. Some people be drinking alcohol. I've been at a dude ranch in Texas where people are shooting, skiing, watching, riding horses together and the whole point is to be human beings together and you start realizing fast we have far more in common as human beings than we do differences. But then it gets to these really interesting. If you're willing to honor people's deep level of convictions and not always go well, we're basically the same thing. I'm not a. I'm not opposed to those moments, but when you can go, we have a ton in common as human beings.
Speaker 2:Now I want to talk about the differences. There's some of the most robust conversations I've ever had in my life because many of these people have beliefs that in believing what you believe you. It's a it's an eternal problem for you. People would call it hell, muslims call it the hell fire. So you get in these very emotionally charged in a good way passionate conversations about deep rooted beliefs and it's just it's fun, it's fascinating, it's fun. I've developed incredible friendships, had amazing opportunities, and I believe it's it's about way more than my incredible experience. It's about our kids are going to school with kids that are massively different, and if we can help them work together, far more can be accomplished in society. Far more can be accomplished in businesses, business partnerships, and then, ultimately, that's the positive You're also combating. The negatives is when people don't know each other, they typically fill the gap in in pathological ways and do crazy stuff, even to the point of murder.
Speaker 1:So you frame this with this is a way to live out Jesus's command to love your neighbor. Would you then say, you know, because I can imagine some Christians here in this and going, okay, great, if that's your thing, then you know, meet with Muslims. But would you go further than that and say that there's a sense of obligation of, if you are following Jesus and you do want to love the other, well, that this is something you should take a look at? Or how, how strongly, I guess, would you say that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I feel it pretty strongly. I mean essentially in this in a specially in the sense that I know you're called to love those in proximity of you. So if you take your physical neighborhood as an example, so there's two guys that are both good friends of mine, dave running a, j pathic wrote a book called the art of neighboring and it's basically what if Jesus is calling you to love your literal neighbor? Well, I know in tons of neighborhoods of people that I'm friends with in Arizona and the United States, they have a lot of diversity of belief in their literal neighbors. So to me it would be. I think Jesus is calling us to have barrier crossing love with people. So yes, I would say that strongly. The other part is in love based upon what you believe. So in Islam there's this concept called Dahua, which is, if you're a Christian, it's called evangelism, which means you are trying to get people to believe the way you believe. Because you think it's important, short story, I'll tell you very quickly when there was a, there was a gubernatorial race, race for governor in the state of Arizona Some years ago now. So do see was eight years, so this is about 10 years ago. It was a man named Fred Duval running against Doug do see, and the Democrats were asking all these questions because the evangelicals had begun to rise in the political climate and I had an opportunity to go in and talk to the campaign headquarters for Fred Duval, a Democratic candidate for governor. And I'm asking you to speak on what is an evangelical. And there's this historic quadrilateral by a guy named David Bevington Bevington's quadrilateral, where he talks about what an evangelical is in four ways. So they emphasize the cross, the Bible is the word of God, social action and then one of them is evangelism. And I said I know when I say evangelism your guys skin crawls right now, but the truth is this campaign headquarters exists because of evangelistic like belief. You believe Arizona would be better going blue than it would be going red. That's why you exist. You're trying to persuade people. I'm in the room because you're trying to persuade evangelicals to vote Democratic and at the core level, when you have any deep conviction, you want to share it and persuade people to love wine, cabernet and pray. I mean part of it is going. You're trying to do that.
Speaker 2:I don't necessarily think evangelism is a bad thing. I think it's a human thing. So even in that, when you get into the multi faith conversations I do, when I sit there and have led many of these, I'll say Will you give me two reasons why you'd sit at a table like this with people of big difference? My answers every time are one I follow Jesus and Jesus calls me to love my neighbor, and I can't love my neighbor if I don't know my neighbor, which I shared. And number two is I really want you guys to see and to understand the beauty of Jesus the way I see and understand the beauty of Jesus, which is evangelism. So some people are much more like. I've got four points. I'm going to share them because I want you to know Jesus, even in that idea. You have to get in proximity with people to share Jesus with them.
Speaker 2:Now I would argue you should do it in a far more relational context than sitting on the side of the road screaming. That's my opinion, but. But that's a. So yes, I would. I mean my. That's a long answer to say. I could have just said yes, I think people should. I would also say it as an invitation. I would say it as an invitation of, I think, when you get around people different than you whether they're Christians who are different than you. If you're a Christian, they're Muslims, they're Hindus, whatever they're people. That piercings all of themselves. You will be stunned how amazing human beings are If you're willing to sit and listen, hear stories, ask good questions, be pharma. You know, as a Christian practice, if I would say practice, this wisdom that comes would be quick to listen, slow to speak. Yeah, I mean, it's the power of curiosity.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's so good, tyler, one of the things that I love about you and this this is woven in between all of this. You have a heart for people in the margins and people who get overlooked and the people who don't seem to get invited to these tables or these. You know these conversations and you've done it in a way and this is why I admire you on a personal level. As I've seen it, you do it in a way that has cost you, so that it's not just a theoretical. I love them out there, but I'm going to, I'm going to invest whatever I can to try to, you know, to meet them. How has the idea of people in the margins in the way you understand the world and the way you understand society? How has that shaped you? Yeah, massively.
Speaker 2:I mean I, and I mean this. I I couldn't answer that question without believing I really do believe Jesus, looking at the person of Jesus that Jesus is the clue and the key to the world, like I really do. So Martin Luther King Jr had this statement where he said love is the key that unlocks the door to ultimate reality. And if God is love and Jesus is God when you're in Jesus, this is now the margins. If you, if you really believe, seeing the world through Jesus's eyes unlocks the door to ultimate reality, if you get inside of Jesus and look through his eyes which, interestingly enough, is language that the New Testament uses over and over and over for those who have faith in Jesus, is that you're in Christ.
Speaker 2:If I'm looking through his eyes, who does Jesus always see first? If you're reading the Gospels which was Matthew, mark, luke or John and you go, who are the people that, when the scene slows down, are always in closest proximity to? And if you win, if I'm looking through Jesus's eyes, who do I see first? It's the woman who's bleeding. Even when he goes to Simon, the Pharisees house and the woman of the city comes in, he turns towards her. When the woman's caught in adultery. He gets low to see the world through her and I just really believe you don't see reality unless you see first through the margins, like I literally think it is impossible, which is even the nature of the way the Bible talks about the kingdom.
Speaker 2:The first will be last, the last will be first. Is this ordering, which I do think is prioritization, which many people really struggle with that language, but there is a prioritization. I think, for this reason, because these people are never prioritized, but I think it goes even a step further that it isn't just prioritizing because they're never prioritized, which is true. I think there is something about reality that cannot be seen but through the lens of intense suffering and marginalization. I believe that, to the core of my being is that it orders reality in a way you never can if you're drinking wine with the chummies all the time. That's powerful.
Speaker 1:I love that you frame, you almost frame it for us, not just oh, this is going to be an altruistic thing I can do, but almost you could internalize it. This is a way for me to be more grounded in what is real and the way the world actually is, and so many of us run from that, I think that's it.
Speaker 2:And what we don't run from is wanting life. So what we run to so often is to try to retain whatever life, even if it's life support we're on is just keep it going. Or we run to alcohol or we scroll our phone, ultimately to take care of our anxiety, but to get as much life as we possibly can. So I like saying to people a lot you want life that's worthy of the word, and I'll say capital L, capital I, capital F, capital E. Jesus says he came to give us life and give it to the full. And if you do what he says so this is when he uses this famous thing at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, which is this very is if you put these words into practice, you'll be like a wise builder. To me, that's the abundant life. So if I want life, it's so.
Speaker 2:Reality is what I was talking about, which I think is so true. But I do think there's this invite given to us in Jesus that I think all of us know in our bones, whether we believe in Jesus or we don't, is this fundamental belief that what many people would call altruism, that if I lived like that all the time, I would experience life and would be happier, which is what you know. The Bible says this like remember the words of the Lord Jesus, who said it's more blessed, which is literally the word happy. You will be happier in giving than you will be in receiving. So it's an invite to reality and happiness into life.
Speaker 2:I believe that to the core of my being. But it's scary because we, you know, we're creatures of comfort and a lot of times what reality is is an exposure of where we have sickness inside of ourselves, and that's really hard for people. You know it's confirmation bias. I'd way rather have a bunch of people around confirming where I'm at rather than things exposing like what, if something really is wrong that I should really change.
Speaker 1:So that's so good. Okay, I want to to wind this down with a couple of questions. I'm planning on asking every guest, whether they're in the ministry side or the wine side, just because this is a. These are human questions that I think we can all relate with. So first one is what's the problem you're trying to solve in this new season of career life?
Speaker 2:whatever. Yeah, I'm having an image come to my mind, but the blockages in collective impact, so the human blockages to the power of what we can do together, I'd like to solve, be a part of solving that problem where I can is where people typically say I'll never work with that person, to see the power of collective impact.
Speaker 1:The human element, if you will, the human element.
Speaker 2:See what it is. I see what you did. Keep doing it, bro. That's marketing.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you. You plug Cabernet and pray, so I felt like I was what's something you're excited about right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm excited about starting this company. I really am. I'm excited about who I'm doing it with and having opportunities to do it with I'm. You know there's. You're at a stage of business development, so there's not a lot that I can talk about that. In business development you end up in some spaces and around some people and projects. There's a couple projects that would kind of be in the public private partnership side or opportunities with some communities or cities. That gets really exciting to me. That, I feel like, brings out a lot of the areas I've gained some experience in of interacting with different kinds of people and to think that that could drive beyond a experience to real solutions, that excites me a lot.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, so I'm excited to watch that develop for you. Okay, anything you want to plug for our audience to check out. Find more about things that you're working on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean in the in the ecumenism area, john 17 movementcom. I think of you as the community. I'm a part of that. I'd be very interested in people checking out. I'm also a part of a wider network called the surge network, which is an interesting community and group that really focuses multi ethnicity in the church and a lot around the ecumenism stuff as well. And then go to mlbcom so that you can follow baseball, because Jeremy and I both affirm it's worth it.
Speaker 1:Literally before the episode. We're like talking about the latest roster updates and things like that and trying to make sense of why the kids are so bad right now.
Speaker 2:That's that's pretty well, you know, what is crazy about that man is they're not. They're not bad. I mean, people that have bad teams can't stand people like you, because they're like, if this is bad, but they're just. They're not on pace to win a world series, which, for the Yankees, is bad.
Speaker 1:I mean they're in last place. I would, I would, I'd say that's bad in the in the best division in baseball. But when you're in the last place, you're, you're. I know that hopes aren't, aren't high, so we're not. We're not talking world series, we're talking. I don't. I don't think they're going to keep playing once everyone's done, I don't think they will either, which is crazy.
Speaker 1:But well, tyler, seriously, this has been so good and I love that. You know new people are going to get exposed to these ideas and to your heart and to a different way of following Jesus and, and you know, kind of elevating the person of Jesus above a lot of the systems and things that that sometimes we can get lost in. I love your phrase start with the feet, not with the head, and you know there's there's so many ways we go about this and we go, yeah, it's not working or not, this is the way it is, and Jesus is like no, there's a better way to do it. And one of the things I'm just grateful for you and for your friendship is that you inspire that and me, you, you bring that out and me and not better for that. So thanks for taking the time to do this and, dude, love you.
Speaker 2:Love you, bro, a lot, appreciate you a ton, so thank you.
Speaker 1:All right, everybody will be back next week with another guest and we're going to go to the wine side of things. So we're gonna, we're going to explore some, some wine industry and it's going to be a good time. So we will check you out next week. Thanks for listening.