Mark Sayers on A Non-Anxious Presence

Aaron Santmyire: 00:00:09

Hey there. Welcome back to the Clarity Podcast. This podcast is all about providing clarity, insight, encouragement for life and mission.

And my name is Aaron Sandemier and I'm going to be your host. Today we have the phenomenal opportunity to have with us on the podcast Pastor Mark Sayers.

Mark also is an author and we get to sit down and talk about his book, Non Anxious Practice Presence. This is a book I think that really, really challenged me.

Mark will, as we get into the interview, I ask him to share an illustration of a volcano and the eruption of that. And we get into discussion that of what he calls gray zones and just the reality of walking in the.

And he delineates the idea of complicated versus complex, what that looks like. We have discussions. He gets, we get to learn from him about the idea of walking, what it means to be. Be in this, this gray zone.

And as missionaries that are around the world planting seeds, he gives us some encouragement.

I thought was, was very, very valuable the idea of someone's mental health and how that can play into being connected versus conflicted and what that looks like and making us more anxious. And Mark just intertwines and interweaves a lot of wisdom and knowledge for us today and really enjoyed having him on the podcast.

He's someone I was looking forward to long time and yeah, it was, it was excellent.

Would also like, like to ask you to continue to subscribe to the podcast and who the podcast I subscribe to, the ones that show up on my, my playlist for the week and appreciate those who listen in and support the podcast. One last thing. My book A Caring Family comes out this fall and I'm excited about seeing that in coming days.

And we'll go ahead and do an interview on that maybe sometime late this summer, early fall, but A caring family. How we can love better and care, care deeper. Well, there's no time better than now to get started. So here we go.

Greetings and welcome back to the Clarity podcast. Excited to be here today with a new friend of the podcast, Pastor Mark Sayers. Mark, welcome to the podcast.

Mark Sayers: 00:02:19

It's fantastic to be here, Mark.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:02:22

You know, the joy of reading people's books is somehow you feel like you get to know them. And so I've read, read your books and followed you listened another podcast and somebody that has spoken into my life and really challenged me.

But maybe there's people in the audience that haven't had the, the opportunity yet to read your books or, or to follow you on other podcasts. But would you share just a little bit about yourself before we jump into some of the long list of questions I have for you.

Mark Sayers: 00:02:49

Yeah, My name's Mark and I live in Melbourne, Australia. I'm a pastor here of a church called Red Church.

Married to Trudy and have three children, Grace, Billy and Hudson, and have been pastor here for over my 20 years now, which is great. But then sort of, I guess my ministry outside of this is writing and talking about culture. I'm fascinated by the world.

What are the big trends happening in the world and have a real heart for God renewing his church in the world at this time.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:03:18

Yeah, Mark, that's. It's a unique, you have a unique perspective. Where did that, where's. What's the Genesis story of focusing on culture and trends in the world?

Because you're very unique in that perspective and also the Christian worldview. I took anthropology classes and different things in the past, studying culture in university, but it wasn't from a Christian worldview.

It was for more of, I would say a secular worldview. But you, you intertwine and bring those two together. What could you share just a little bit about the Genesis story of your love for culture?

Mark Sayers: 00:03:51

Yeah, I think my, my parents were not in ministry, but my dad worked at a college here in Melbourne and did ministry like in his spare time. And a lot of that was with international students. And my house was filled with people from, you know, Asia, India, Africa.

Always different people coming through our house. And I think that gave me a real interest in cross cultural, you know, like, life. And before I sort of got called to ministry, I did, I had two parts.

I got into two courses. One was becoming a multicultural sort of social worker here in Melbourne or getting into advertising. I chose advertising.

But then I did a sort of missions trip to sort of work in some economically challenged areas in the US and first we sort of in an area, there's lots of people from Cambodia who'd moved the US from Cambodia, and then also people from Central America. And yeah, God just really spoke to me there. And the direction my life changed. I came back and kept studying advertising.

And advertising was all about understanding demographics, how people really think. They often vote with their wallets.

And all of this came together and then, yeah, I then entered into ministry with actually the Salvation army to begin with. And yeah, so it's a bit of a blender.

Yeah, but God's used all these different influences and I'm just really privileged that he can use my different interests to help other people.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:05:14

Awesome, Awesome. I love to hear the Genesis story about people's passion and how God, the God story intertwined in there.

And you said a lot in a short, a short, that short amount of time about your father and the cultures and Salvation Army. There's. I could go down 15 routes, but I won't do that to you today.

Today we're going to talk about the non anxious presence and you talk about a changing and complex world. But in the beginning, you share the story of a volcano. I love the visual description of it.

And would you share just a little bit about that word picture? And then the concept of gray zones, you kind of introduced that. That was new, new to me also.

Mark Sayers: 00:05:56

I became fascinated with an event that happened in the 19th century at the end of the 19. And it was one of the world's first global events, a multimedia event because the telegraph had just been invented.

So all of a sudden the world was connected. It wasn't connected digitally, but it was connected through these cables.

And it was the basically the explosion of an island just off Indonesia called Krakatoa. And there was a volcano and it just blew up. And it was one of the biggest explosions sort of known to humanity recorded at that time.

It was heard all over Asia, all the way even to Perth in Australia.

And then it actually fills the atmosphere with like a lot of ash, which gave these incredibly vivid like sunsets and some of the paintings, like even Edward Munch, who did a famous painting of the Scream, a lot of the sort of crazy red sort of sunsets and stuff you saw was a result of that volcanic ash in the atmosphere. But it captured the world's imagination. And the island was very lush and it was, you know, in a jungle sort of environment.

But then when they finally got onto the island, it was just completely obliterated. It looked like the moon.

And, you know, this, this image captured me and I feel like the world in the last few years for lots of people felt like a lot of things have exploded and there were things bubbling under the surface that have now imploded and exploded and, you know, have everything from political polarization. In many countries around the world, institutions are questioned and falling over economic challenges.

We had a global pandemic, you know, got war returning, multiple flashpoints across the world. And so a lot of people feel like, man, all this stuff has just come up from underneath the surface and the world looks unrecognizable to some people.

And I then began to think about this image of the island as just this very transformed place, like a moonscape of Krakatoa. And I began to read about how I read. Read a book by some in Winchester on. On Krakato.

And he talked about the sort of first guy to go in the island went, and it was just nothing. But then people slowly began to return and at first they'd see some trees growing.

And then not that long after the island was returned to, you know, a place with trees and animals and insects and plants, and it had replenished and thought, oh, that's really interesting that often what looks like destruction is actually the moment before rebirth.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:08:24

Yeah.

Mark Sayers: 00:08:25

And I guess I'm trying to reframe this moment for people that I just found a lot of people in different areas, like all areas of life, people who are believers, not believers, people who were doing mission and ministry people are not doing mission and ministry. People on the street, politicians. Everyone feels like this is a challenging and. And sometimes dismaying moment.

But actually, what if we look this through God's perspective that often the moment that looks like nothingness and formlessness actually is the moment for rebirth. And I compare it in the book to the beginning of Genesis where the spirit of God hovers over the unformed chaotic sea.

And that's a lot what the imagery of Krakatoa looked like. So I'm trying to get people. We're looking at the unformed Earth. Yeah, we need to look at the spirit hovering over those moments.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:09:10

Wow. And I love the. How you provide perspective for us because sometimes we. It's very.

It's common it to get focused on what's going on in forgetting God's presence. And the. This is not a surprise to him. He's not shocked by any of it. And sometimes the anxiety that you. You share about can. Can seem to.

Can seem to win the day. Many of the people listening into this podcast are going to be missionaries serving around the world. How can we be seeds. Missionaries?

How can we be seeds of renewal? In this period that you talk about the gray zone, how can we be seeds of renewal? Rather. Rather than. There's probably other options. This.

It's not an either or, but rather than provoking anxiety, bringing anxiety and, and being, you know, catastrophic in our thinking, is that. Is that a fair question mark?

Mark Sayers: 00:10:02

Yeah. Well, the one thing that I was surprised about was how did this island that was completely destroyed come back to life?

And so I began to sort of research this and effectively what happened was through sea currents and birds sort of droppings, seeds went onto the island. I thought it's amazing this thing. It's the middle of the ocean. It's not near any anywhere there's no like urban planning.

So any like, you know, sure, receding things some government did somewhere, it happened. And, and what it said to me is that renewal begins really small. And there's that image of seeds and, and it's a very biblical image.

You know, Jesus talked about the mustard seed.

And I think if you're a missionary and you're in a country and there's all these things happening in this country, you have personal challenges, maybe your family's got challenges, there's cross cultural challenges, political challenges, economic challenges. In that country, you can feel like, man, I'm just a tiny, tiny person in this big crazy system. And how do I change this?

But from the kingdom of God, that's how things change.

And I think we've become so attuned to the world being changed by these almost gigantic heroic figures from presidents, kings, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, the real movers of the world. I think actually historically often change happens through ordinary people being very faithful. And that's the story of the kingdom of God.

And so one of the metaphors I give in the book is of this idea of the non anxious presence.

And it comes from actually a rabbi and family therapist, Edwin Friedman, who talked about this idea that leadership is not so much based on your training, your charisma, your personal characteristics. Are you tall, imposing?

h me. He read the book in the: 1990

I think his daughter put some of it together. But I thought, man, that's our day. Everyone's anxious. The world's connected. Social media has meant that we're all closer than we've ever been.

The missionary used to, you know, kiss their parents goodbye and go off on a steamer and never be seen again in some cases. Now we can, you know, WhatsApp people and be constant contact. And we're chatting here from two different continents.

So the sense is everything comes close and we feel further from each other but closer to everything. So it means that bad news travels on social media. It's not the good news stories that travel quickly, it's the bad news stories.

You know, I was talking to a pastor of a megachurch and there was an incident where sadly there was a, you know, someone had done something bad and the news got around. He reckoned in his church in a few minutes.

But he had a number of people who came to faith in Jesus and they had to make a video about it and tell the good news story because sadly, bad news travels faster than good news. And that's true in our connected world.

So I'm arguing in the book, using Friedman's argument, that actually one of the ways that as small seeds we can have an impact is through the presence of God actually in our lives gives us a different story, it gives us a different posture. We're not to be shaken by the shaking happening in the world because we know where this is all going. We know Jesus is triumphant in the end.

We know the kingdom of God is going to come in fullness and the powers of the world cannot stop that. And that that's a good news story. So we don't need to be anxious, we don't need to fear death, we don't need to fear that sin is going to win.

We know the victory and this gives us a centering in God. And when you're non anxious, that will mean people see you differently. And that's the hope in, in these, in these times, in this moment.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:13:41

Wow. It is. You talked about it. It made me think back to my medical training.

They do teach you that they, you know, when you're going into an emergent situation, the last thing that the, the patient or their family wants is an anxious, frazzled doct room. And you know, and they teach you.

It's a, it's my wife and I, we first started dating, we were on a long walk and this person got hurt and she's like, you just like zoned out for like 30, you know, 15 seconds. And then all of a sudden you came. It's like your personality changed and you were.

And I said it's, it's part of the training because the last thing the hurt person wanted was somebody to come in and just be frayed in a mess about all that. But you're supposed to think objectively, care for the person at any time.

So anyway, it's just, it resonated with me and it honestly challenges me to apply that same principle when it comes to life and mission and the people I come in contact with in spiritual realms rather than just in the medical realm is part of the training.

But I do think that bringing that rather than an anxiety provoking and I think the other thing that I've seen in Africa over the last 22 years is mental health.

And so the realities of, of anxiety and things that I didn't See, in my first, you know, years in Burkina Faso was not necessarily topic, a topic of the day, but the last four or five years, you know, social media, as you mentioned, the connectedness of it in Africa, it's. You can see that the challenges with mental health and anxiety are ever on the increase.

Any cultural assumptions you think missionaries should be aware of when it comes to walking in gray zones and things that we should be aware of maybe of ourselves?

Mark Sayers: 00:15:22

Well, I think. I think in a gray zone, another metaphor for it is, it's that the place between two eras. So, you know, I.

I realized that often we'll talk about eras in the world, like, and classically going back and, you know, you took that the Victorian era, which is characterized by the reign of Queen Victoria. And often it was when a king or a queen or even in the US Presidential eras and stuff like this.

But it's rare that, like an era ends and then the next one begins, like within a day. There's always this overlap period. And I talk about in the book, the movie the Third Man.

I saw the Third man when I was like a kid, and I grew up watching old World War II black and white movies, at least to be on in Australia and Saturdays at lunchtime, I was very clear, you know, these are the good guys, these are the bad guys. But in the Third man, it's in this period after the war, it's in the end of World War II, but the Cold War hasn't began.

And there's just these bits where I couldn't as a kid work it all out. And I realized that that's like this moment. And I feel like an era has come to an end.

We've come to an end of an era where, you know, you had a unipolar moment for the last 30 years where, you know, the US was dominant in the world. You had mass media, Hollywood was dominant, big institutions were dominant.

We're now going to a much more multipolar world, and we're not exactly sure what the institution is going to look like. We've got competing blocks in the world, different influences. So in Africa, China has a lot influence at the moment.

Turkey has influence in Africa, Brazil is. It's really interesting, all these dynamics and we don't know exactly what the future looks like. We can see elements of.

We see AI social media, you know, like, why is the world gonna look like. We don't. Robotics, even, you know, like drones.

You know, some of Africa's gone from, you know, like, often in Western developed countries, you went from sort of like the personal computer to the cell phone.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:17:20

Yeah.

Mark Sayers: 00:17:20

You know, and then we're going to other things. Africa's made the jump from sort of nothing to cell phones. So we can see that the remnants of the previous era.

You can find places if you're in the mission field which look like things did way, way back in the past, perhaps centuries. But then also the hyper modern is also right there. So what I said is that people is we're not in a new space now. Something is appearing.

But when you're between eras, it's like there's an evangelistic opening. There's also an opening for people to reimagine what community look like, justice could look like. Because they're not committed to that.

They're seeing that something's passing, something's not fully here.

And actually these gray zones, they can be anxiety driving, but also they're very sort of fecund periods where new ideas can emerge that actually can be hopeful places. So I would encourage people in that mission space. I think the whole world's in a gray zone.

I don't think this is just like this is particularly true all across different continents, cultures are changing everywhere because we're in a globalized, connected world. What are the openings that that change creates for you, reframing it in that way?

Aaron Santmyire: 00:18:30

Mark is a pastor in Australia. Is there some of those openings that you see that in. In the world you live in? Some openings you see as a pastor of a church living in this gray zone?

Yeah. Would you. Would you be willing to share some of those openings you see?

Mark Sayers: 00:18:45

Yeah. I mean, one fascinating thing that, you know, I'm seeing is.

And I literally had a call earlier this morning with a friend in San Francisco and we often chat is a pastor there. And both of us are going, we're seeing stuff in the last two years we've not seen before in years of ministry.

Increasingly, people are in that gray zone moment questioning the institutions, the ideas, the ideologies that they previously bought into. Both. Our little hint is we've been cities which are seen as quite secular, and there's increasingly people questioning that story.

Both of us have had people coming to faith from backgrounds. We just never thought that would happen. So I think that's one big thing.

You're seeing some of the intelligentsia of the west starting to move towards faith. There was a fascinating article Justin Briley wrote just about in Britain.

But, you know, he talked about sort of this renewal of Christianity in Britain is just starting amongst some intellectuals. Again, the secular stories not working in the way that we thought. We're definitely seeing that.

I'm seeing more openness to a bigger spiritual worldview that perhaps you would associate with outside of the West. We're seeing it now here as people. I remember coming out of the pandemic, I could go.

We couldn't go more than a few kilometers during most of the pandemic for almost two years here in Melbourne. But I went to the city about 10 minutes from me and not much was open.

But I saw this line of young women all lined up against at the front of this store. I'm like, what is this store? Is it some product that they're wanting to buy? And I got there and it was actually a psychic reading store.

And I was fascinated that coming out of the pandemic and they had this figure at the front of this witch, which is like a. Almost like an idol type figure. I thought, wow, this is, this is not normally what you'd associate with the scientific, rational West.

And so there's those openings and we're seeing movement, you know, like the immigration patterns at our church. We're getting people coming from southern India exploring faith. There's Persians who are exploring faith.

Just we started a new service which is at 5pm A lot of people from around the world. There's movement happening and when people move, they asking questions about God, meaning and all that.

So there's some of the exciting things that we're seeing and an increased hunger. Just had one more. I'm seeing as cultural Christianity drops off.

Those who are remaining are really hungry and the church may be a little bit smaller, but it's actually, I think more alive is what sort of a post Covid dynamic I'm seeing.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:21:11

Wow. And thank you for the encouraging words and that's exciting and fascinating to hear about.

Mark, you share in the book about the relationship between being connected and being conflicted and then somehow the anxiety in there. Would you share about those concepts for us? Connected, conflicted and more anxious.

Mark Sayers: 00:21:37

Yeah. So it's interesting in a sense that in life there was often boundaries and you know, I, I think about when I very like my mention, my dad again.

My dad, when he would leave work, he would get on the train and his work didn't bother him.

He didn't have a cell phone back then and you didn't ring people unless there was something really bad, like so he could come home, spend time with me and my brother and have. Have a life. People are now more connected.

So just from an employment sense, you can be dealing with problems A missionary who might have gone to the mission field. And one of the benefits of that, maybe there's a little bit distance with some, you know, family conflict back home.

And, you know, the cousin used to argue with or something like this. All of a sudden, that cousin can text message you and FaceTime you. And, you know, you're dealing with churches and church dynamics.

And I think people sometimes actually almost felt relief to leave some of the dynamics of the Western church and be further away that that may now be there. I'm dealing the same. I'm here and I'm dealing with all this stuff. You see people on things like Facebook that you maybe clicked, you know, yes.

On following them, and they're following you, and you're like, man, I don't want this. And so I think what's happened is a connected world. It's interesting.

Marshall McLuhan spoke a lot about the global village, and he was a media theorist, very ahead of his time, Canadian guy, actually Catholic, had like a faith, and that's hovering in the background of his work. But he said the global village, and people used that in the 90s when the world was first connecting as, oh, wow, that's lovely.

We're all going to be sort of holding hands and singing around a campfire. But when you actually read his definition of that, he said the global village is a much more tribal, conflicted place.

And I think that extra connectivity is driving a greater tribalism in the world. And you know that because there's no boundaries between you. And almost the personal is the political, everything is constantly driving conflict.

So that means that I think that people are looking for spaces of peace. They're looking for spaces where they could listen.

This Sunday, I preached on the Sunday after Easter, and I preached on the disciples and the Great Commission and worshiping Jesus, meeting him on the mountain at the end, I just felt this moment, I said, I'm just gonna leave two minutes here so you guys can think and just listen to Jesus and what's he saying to you from this message? And people utterly loved it because they're normally sitting somewhere getting interrupted by their phones, getting distracted by something.

And so I think actually giving people space is going to be a really powerful thing that we can use.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:24:20

You mentioned tribalism. And how do we as Christians, how do we not fall into the, I don't know, maybe the world movement of that or the culture shift towards that?

Yes, we want to stand strong on our faith, but how do we not get into tribal. Is that. Am I making sense? Mark that when you said that. It just got my attention.

Mark Sayers: 00:24:43

Well, I think one thing we need to recognize is when I talked about that end of years, I think we ended from a sort of globalization era, and we're moving to a new kind of globalization.

The old globalization era was everyone's wearing the same jeans, listen to the same music around the world, and tribalism, and people are surprised by that. Now that might be less surprising if your missionary context is a place where there's different ethnic groups, tribal groups, whatever.

But I think that's global. And I think in the midst of that, it's really interesting.

You know, we see this picture in Revelation where the different nations bring almost like their culture as an offering to Jesus in the sort of coming kingdom. So it's interesting, isn't it?

It's like it's their identity and it's the things that mean something to us, but they're bringing that and bringing it to Jesus.

I think the mistake of the previous era was you can just be this floating individual who drinks Coca Cola and, you know, listens to whatever musician and has jeans and Hollywood movies and has a. An iPhone.

Yeah, but people were lacking that sense of meaning because, you know, where we're from, who we're connected to, the land that we walk on deeply influences us. The danger of when you go fully into that and it's just defined by those things without the lordship of Jesus.

Well, often that land is contested or where these people. But these people did this to us in the past and we did this to them, and it's a spiral of violence and you're defined against the other.

And so what I like in that, that that revelation image is it's.

It's understanding those deepest sources of meaning that we have as humans, but then it's bringing them under the lordship of Christ that they do not become idols. So I think the church actually has something to model there. The beautiful embrace of who we are, who we've come from, where we live.

But then who is ultimately authoritative in Jesus.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:26:31

Yeah. And that, as you shared, I think we. Human desires. Right. Are to belong to matter and to feel known.

And I think sometimes if we can get our focus off of. Off of Christ because we belong in Him. We matter, matter to Him. We're known by Him.

I think when we get our off that it's easy to fall, easy to get into maybe some superficial tribalism. Things that are exterior, look. Maybe look appealing, but ultimately are destructive. And. But I do think those.

Those basic human needs of all of us, belonging, matter, mattering, Feeling that we matter what we do matters who we are, we matter to other people and we're known by. We can find those all in Christ.

But I just find in my own life, when I get my eyes off of that and try to feel it filled with something else, it, it doesn't, doesn't end up in a. In how.

One of the things you talk about too is how could any wisdom on how missionaries can remain present in unhealthy environments and act as a non anxious presence in anxious social systems. So the missionary is not bringing the anxiety in, but they're in an unhealthy environment. It would be easy to be drawn into that. Any wisdom.

Mark Sayers: 00:27:44

Well, I think that what's interesting is often the way we thought about missions is, you know, through a model of incarnation which I think is a really healthy one, that Jesus came and you know, was God, but lived as a human amongst us and he was a first century Jew culturally, you know, and that's a paradigm of missions. And often we can feel bad that in the sense that we're coming from outside and there's all those dynamics.

But there's also a possible benefit in that when we think about it through the no anxious presence. Because what Friedman said was that when you come as a non anxious presence in an anxious system, you're not going to get high fives and hugs.

There's a point where what he said if something happens is triangulation. So if you people bond through anxiety.

So think about a meeting, say and you know, unsure about the meeting, you go to the water cooler and you're like, oh, what do you think about that meeting? The other person said, I'm not sure. That guy's a bit strange. People bond over bad news, gossip over bad news.

There's this sense that that misery finds company and anxiety is actually a way of tribalism. It's finding a bonding around the negative. It's really interesting. So I actually wonder that sometimes do you get a.

It's not, this is, I'm speaking painting in a huge broad brush here and realizes there's many context listing hundreds of hundreds of people in, you know, hundreds of contexts. But maybe you get a little bit free pass because you're not from that culture.

When you're from that culture and you're trying to affect change, I think you get a bigger pushback sometimes because you're betraying the anxiety of that culture.

I find it often harder to say things in an Australian context than I do overseas because when I'm overseas people go, he's an Australian, I'll give him a free pass. Or maybe there's something in that. You know, it's like I get an open door.

But I say that in Australia, that he's from here, he's one of us, what does he know sort of thing. And that may not be true, but I just wonder whether that's another reframing thing. So it's really important. There's two things in that.

So there's that dynamic. But then the second thing is that to be a non anxious presence.

And I've had people come back to me and say I tried and it was terrible, people like me. Friedman said that exactly would happen, that it's almost like the anxious cells attack the antibody.

But then he said if the anti, if the noxious presence keeps going and is resilient, eventually the system has to change. You know, and he's using that from family therapy.

So family therapists, if there's a dysfunctional family system, they'll often find the healthiest person and encourage that person because if they choose healthy patterns, it force everyone else to either reject it or become healthy. So pushback is inevitable. Another interesting book, it's a secular book. It's called Leadership on the Line.

And they basically argue that leaders move people towards growth and people resist growth. And leaders need to know that the leaders need a survival plan. Yeah, and I was never taught that but oh man, have I lived that.

I think any leader has, you know, so it's being resilient, having people around you, great support systems. Finding your identity in God 100 essential. I mean the one bone I have to pick with Friedman is he's not writing from a Christian perspective.

He's running, he's rabbi, but really probably more writing as a family therapist. And I think what's perhaps missing in his. And look, he didn't finish the book so that's. I'll give him that.

But it's almost doing it through a sheer will and sheer strength. Yeah, I can't do that. I'm not good enough. I. I get hurt too much. I need Jesus to help me be a non anxious presence. I need God's presence.

That will be anxious presence.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:31:23

Yeah. I think the other thing is I'm learning being uncomfortable is not always bad. And I think it's so much of my life I've moved. Well, maybe I should.

Yeah, I don't like to be uncomfortable. So you know, we are. I am living on mission but I can take the uncomfortable heat and the uncomfortable elements environment. But the relational.

When it's uncomfortable. That can be a challenge.

And so a lot of times what we do do, you're learning to speak another language, you're learning to walk into a culture maybe that you don't understand exactly what's going on. And there, there can be this, you can bring anxiety into that situation because you're afraid of making mistake.

And the last thing you want to do when you're sharing the love of Christ is, is you're, you're going to make a mistake and offend people and upset. And I'm sure in 22 years, unintentionally I've done that.

But I do think it is, I'm learning to, that I'm being uncomfortable is not always bad, and that Christ is with me in that, in that time. And, and honestly, it, at least for me, creates more dependence on him. As you mentioned, I can't do it all on my own.

And if I move away from when I'm always comfortable, then it's, it's almost relying on Aaron. But when I'm uncomfortable, I need to rely on him.

And when I rely on him, it's amazing to see how much, how much better it turns out if I, if my dependence is on him and not on me. Just trying to be comfortable in the situation. So it's a, it's just a reality.

What, in what way do strongholds distort or impact how we see growth or about growth?

Mark Sayers: 00:33:01

Well, it's interesting, like the word stronghold we find in the Bible, and, and some people use that in spiritual sense. And I think that's true.

The, the first sort of meaning of it was that back, if you think of biblical times, you know, you were really, your security was not, you know, there's often not armies, not people to put, you know, police forces or whatever. And people had to find structures that, that's effectively what a stronghold. What, often it was a high place of protection.

And it's really interesting that we can find, when we're not looking for strength in God, we can look for stronghold.

So the stronghold initially is something which comforts you, offers you security and protects you, but then actually can become something which insulates you against growth.

And so, you know, I find that, I find that certain things which I look for, for comfort and security outside of God eventually begin to turn on me and almost become like idols. And I think that's when a spiritual dynamic comes over them, you know, And I would argue that the enemy gets foothold at that point as well.

And so, you know, I think that our World also gives us strongholds.

You know, our world is very much all kinds of systems in our world, from government to organizations to business to security, whatever can be places where we look for strength apart from God. And there's naturally some parts of that which need to happen in society.

You don't want to live in a society which is complete chaos and violence and anarchy. But in our world too, those things can become quite attractive, particularly in a gray zone moment when the world's changing.

The whole culture at the moment is like, what's the political system? What's the economic answer? What's the thing we need to look forward to bring peace? The world is searching for these strongholds.

And often they'll be apart from God, but people will defend those. So often what Jesus does is asks us to ultimately give him our worship and acknowledge his authority.

And that'll sometimes bring us into conflict with strongholds yet again too. That's another place when people's strongholds are challenged. Anxiety. Anxiety rises. Yeah.

And this is another way that I think the anxious presence coming from God's presence can speak into these moments.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:35:04

Wow. One last question for you. You talk about. You differentiate between complicated and complex. Honestly, I. I do a lot of reading.

This is the first time I came across somebody who differentiated between. Throughout your book, you. You differentiate a lot of things and it's challenging, it's insightful and it's very thought provoking.

So this idea between complicated and complex and some reasons that you think it's valuable for leaders to understand the two.

Mark Sayers: 00:35:38

I think the world is becoming more complex and that has to be differentiated to complicated. The world was complicated. It's becoming more complex. I'll give you a really simple definition.

If you're driving a car and you drive got to be somewhere and all of a sudden you get a flat tire and you're running late and you got to fix that flat T that's complicated your day. So you have a problem, but it's still linear. The answer is to get out the car jack and change the tyre. And hopefully you got a tyre.

You know, if you are driving your family somewhere and you get a flat tire and you're changing the tire, but then your kids are in the back of the car and they have a stomach illness and they start vomiting and at the same time that's happening, there's a traffic policeman who's all of a sudden giving you a ticket and it starts to rain and there's lightning and there's a protest, all of a sudden starts happening. That's complex. So it's about scale. And what happens is that complicated is linear complexes in a system which is non linear. Our world is now complex.

And what happens in a complex system is things affect each other. So for example, we have a global pandemic. And that global pandemic is a complicated issue of a virus which goes around the world.

We've seen that before. It's happened throughout human history. What complicates what makes that more complex then?

We have the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression. We answer that with primary stimulus around the world. And that prints money, but that then later on creates inflation.

And then all of a sudden, because we live in globalized worlds where our goods are moved around the world in containers and China's locked down for a period. I mean, someone in Africa is trying to do a deal and get jeans into Lagos.

All of a sudden the distributors in China can't get it because the factory's locked down. And then they can't pay that person and just, just exponentially.

So so many of the issues in the world are linked to gas, oil, pandemics, politics, you know, all of these things. And I think this is really important for leaders to understand and for people doing, you know, running organizations, missions, whatever, whatever.

Your contribution, you know, that you do is that in the past, most of our leadership paradigms around dealing with complicated problems. Complicated problems are dealt with a linear solution that's often around efficiency.

But a complex world means we're a lot less in control than we realize. There's less we have ability to control.

It's almost expecting that the complicated world is, oh no, we've hit a problem, let's get past the problem and move on. Rather, I think the complex world is there's a whole landscape of problems.

What are the opportunities in the midst of all these problems that are going to keep happening and what can we learn from them? And how can this build resilience in us?

Aaron Santmyire: 00:38:28

Wow, Mark, you're the expert on this subject. I asked you a lot of questions.

Are you or is there something you think if Aaron was a good podcast host, he would ask this question and he forgot to ask him anything else that you, you'd like to share? Anything you think I should have, I should have asked you.

Mark Sayers: 00:38:44

That's a great question. I don't normally wonder what people shouldn't have asked or should have asked. Oh, look, I, I think, I think, think I might just make a comment.

I think it's just a fascinating time in the world and I think that this shift From a sort of unipolar moment to a multipolar moment is a really interesting one to be serving in missions.

I think we're in a world where different parts of the world, almost like I think the old paradigm of missions is you went here and you went to this far away place. Everything's connected now.

You know, the fact that my church, I've got people coming from southern India and ask them stories of faith and they're in, you know, they're bringing, bringing faith to my church. And you ask these stories and they tell stories going back to different missionaries, William Carey, even back to, you know, Thomas the Apostle.

And I just think that what's happening is it's like this. If the world's now a system, like almost that old way of thinking about missions was linear. It's now a system.

I just would encourage people that you're not isolated, you're actually part of the bigger thing that God's doing in the world. And I noticed in the pandemic is I remember there's a few weeks there because I couldn't travel.

And I just did literally podcasts with people in every continent. And it was fascinating. And what really surprised me was a common heart I saw in so many people of we just want more of God.

This is overwhelming, the challenges we're facing, but a pushing into more of him.

And I think there was almost a recognisation that whether you're a missionary, a pastor, you're involved in an ngo, you're in the marketplace, whatever it may be, that man, this thing's getting really complicated. We need more of him and I need to change. God needs to do something deeper in me.

So I think at this moment it's a global challenge, but the actual answer is personal, you know, and it's a deepening of your relationship with God. That's where non anxiousness comes from. So I'm super excited that I think we're at a really opportune, strategic moment in the history of the world.

And I've encouraged people wherever you are, wherever you, however isolated you feel, maybe you're in a tiny country. I did have a sense too that, you know, like small things have, that's in a complex environment, small things can have big effects.

You know, think of like, look, a tiny virus in Wuhan changed the world, you know, and a person who's in a country that you feel is off the beaten path and forgotten the world can have a massive impact in the kingdom of God. So what you're doing matters, you know, would be my encouragement, particularly at this moment in history.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:41:17

Mark, thank you so much. Would you pray for us?

Mark Sayers: 00:41:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah. God, we just begin with that idea that we can't do this in our own strength. We can't do this in your strength.

I think my brothers and sisters across the world, what an amazing time that we can send this across the world to people listening in so many different contexts who may be feeling a sense of anxiety. We confess that. That we sit with that, and we recognize that really only peace can come for you, the peace that transcends all understanding.

So, Jesus, we just ask for your peace at this moment. We pray for actually your reframing of the some of the scary challenges that we see in the world. May you reframe them in our minds as opportunities.

Maybe we be a people of hope. So I just want to just pray now just for a sense of your empowerment, your encouragement for everyone who's listening.

And may we be your hands and feet in the world at this time, at this pivotal turning point, this gray zone moment. We love you, we honor and bless you, God, and it's a privilege to serve you. In your name, Jesus. Amen.