Logan Dixon - The Everyday Nearness of God
Exploring faith journeys and inspiring ministries that embody the good news of God. This is the Cumberland Road. I'm your host TJ Malinoski. Today, Logan Dixon joins us. Logan is serving the Mars Hill Church in Arkansas, and he's currently working towards ordination to the word and sacraments in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. He's writing right now for the encounter, a discipleship studies curriculum. He's also a contributing writer for the late night theology. Logan hosts his own podcast. It's called the Monday morning megaphone, and he has new episodes every other week. Logan, thank you for joining us on Cumberland Road.
T.J.:How are you?
Logan:I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to this ever since you invited me.
T.J.:Well, I am glad that you're here. I'm excited to to hear how God has and is working in your life. I like starting these conversations with the question of when did you first encounter God or when did God first encounter Logan?
Logan:Well, I I can't think of a moment in my life where I didn't believe or didn't know that God was there. I was raised I was raised by my grandparents who are devout Christians. My grandfather is a second, third generation Pentecostal preacher. And it's really it's really interesting because his I guess he's second generation Pentecostal. His grandparents before him were actually Cumberland Presbyterian.
Logan:Okay. And and then I don't know how they left the Cumberland Presbyterian Church for the Pentecostal Church, but it happened. And he's been preaching and doing ministry for forty years. And so I grew up hearing my grandpa preach. I I grew up in their home and my my grandma told me about Jesus from the time that I guess from the time that I could communicate or or that she could thought I understood.
Logan:And so there was never a moment where I wasn't surrounded with the gospel. And so that's that's how I grew up. And I think my first experience with God, my first real experience with God, probably happened when I was about nine or 10 years old. I went with my grandparents on a Saturday night. He my grandpa was probably preaching at some revival or camp meeting or something.
Logan:I remember I actually remember the church. It was Cherylville Community Church. It was up on this mountain in Clarksville, Arkansas. The the church building was one of those church buildings that was trapped in the past. Like, they didn't even have indoor plumbing.
T.J.:Oh, wow.
Logan:And they had they had this wood stove that was right in the center of the building up by the stage. And it was it was the December. We went up there for so my grandpa could preach this meeting. And I don't remember what he preached on. I don't remember the songs that were sung.
Logan:I just I don't know when he got done preaching and gave the altar call, I I responded and it wasn't it felt it didn't feel like I had a choice but to respond.
T.J.:I,
Logan:I was I was weeping and crying and I knew something was happening. And I wasn't able to articulate exactly what that was, but I knew later that that was God calling me and me surrendering to that call. And that was, I guess that would I guess you could say that that was when I got saved. And so that's probably my earliest experience with God. But there was never a time when I doubted his existence, when I doubted his presence, when I doubted his nearness.
T.J.:How has your faith and where you are today, Logan, how has it given you purpose?
Logan:That's a good question. I'll just be very open. Have depression. I suffer from depression. I've taken medications for it before.
Logan:I've gone to therapy, you know, and it just seems like as as much as the medication does help me and the therapy does help me, it seems that everything I do all goes back to my face, you know, and I'm not saying that I'm not saying that the medicine isn't effective and that the therapy isn't effective because I know it is, but I don't think it would help me personally if I didn't have my faith. My counselor happens to be a very devout Christian woman, and she always points me back to how God is working in my life. And that's I need that. I need to be reminded of what God is doing because I forget, you know, whenever the Reformation was first getting started and Luther was preaching to his people, someone asked him, Why do you preach the gospel every Sunday? And he said, Because my people forget it every Monday.
Logan:So, I find myself forgetting that God has been with me this whole time. And then I realized, you know, God has been with me through all of these things, and I've suffered a lot, but God's been faithful. And there have been times that I've been faithless, but God's still been faithful. And I couldn't do the things that I do without Him. The none of the doors that have opened in my life would have never been opened without him.
Logan:How has my faith given me purpose? Well, you know, when I wake up in the morning, I'm groggy and I don't don't feel like praying. I usually feel like throwing my alarm clock against the wall. But as I as I get my day going, remember that God's given me breath. I remember that God's given me life and purpose.
Logan:And there are when I when I was younger, probably in my late teens, there were very few things I wanted out of life. But the few things I wanted were significant. I wanted to be married. I wanted to have my own house. And I wanted to be in full time ministry.
Logan:Those were really the three things I wanted. And today, I'm 29 years old. I'm married. I have my own house and I'm in full time ministry. I mean, it's not the house I wanted.
Logan:It's but my wife is my wife is great. My wife is is better than I could have ever met and hoped for in a wife. And my church is fantastic. I would I don't want to be anywhere else. I don't, you know, I don't want to I don't want to pastor a megachurch somewhere.
Logan:I'm pretty happy with where I am. And so God's been faithful.
T.J.:Well, let's dig a little bit deeper into that, Logan. What is it about God and that faithfulness in God that just keeps you coming back and identifying with Jesus Christ?
Logan:Well, I think just the fact that He's there all the time. His presence, you know. I know that whenever we talk about the presence of God, or at least in some of the charismatic circles that I'm familiar with, whenever we talk about the presence of God, we talk about it in this supernatural way, I guess. And God is there supernaturally, don't get me wrong. But I guess it's just the everyday nearness of God that keeps me coming back.
Logan:Just remembering that he's always there, remembering that that. Oh, this is a good example. I just it just came to me. I actually mentioned it this last Sunday in my sermon. Last Sunday night, my wife had a CPW meeting with the ladies from our church.
Logan:And while while the women were in the fellowship hall having their CPW meeting. I was in the sanctuary and it was completely quiet. It was just me and God in the sanctuary. And I was reading, I was studying, I was praying, and I was perfectly happy and perfectly content. And then the CPW meeting was over.
Logan:We left and my wife and I were hungry. So we decided to go through the drive thru at McDonald's. And they get my order wrong. And I'm pretty unhappy because we waited for quite a while and they bring out my food and it's incorrect. But, you know, they say, Okay, we can we can fix this.
Logan:It's not a problem. So, you know, if they're willing to fix it, this is fine. I'll wait. So they bring our food back out and they mess my order up again. And I'm livid.
Logan:I'm just I'm not happy. I'm ready to go in the store, throw my burger down on the counter and just let them know what I think. I'm ranting and raving about millennials wanting $15 an hour when they can't even get one order right. I my my wife, my my sweet, precious wife, my sweet, precious Christ like wife is telling me, calm down. It's just a sandwich.
Logan:It's just a sandwich. And I said, you see a sandwich, I see the moral decay of our society. I, and it occurred to me, later, not thirty minutes before that happened, I was in our sanctuary, quiet and content and happy. And I managed to go from enjoying a holy moment alone with God to being an unholy, vile person. And there are there are people who wouldn't let me live that down.
Logan:But then I remember that God deals with unholy, vile people. Jesus died for people like me. Luther, again, he said that one time he felt Satan attacking him and he he said that Satan said, you're just a dirty, vile sinner. And he just kept hearing that voice over and over again, calling him a sinner. And then finally he said, you know what, Satan?
Logan:That's good news because Jesus died for sinners. And so that I think that's what keeps me coming back, realizing that Jesus took all of my Jesus took all of my disobedience and my rebellion and my pure stupidity into account whenever he died for me.
T.J.:So shifting gears just a little bit, and recognizing that you and all of us are sinners, besides your grandparents, who else has had a great impact on your journey of faith presently and also in the past? You've mentioned Luther a couple of times.
Logan:Yes. Well, some of my best friends are old dead guys. So I really like Luther. I really like Calvin and Spurgeon. Those are my three go to dead guys.
Logan:I always jokingly tell people that if Spurgeon got his view on baptism right, he would have made a great Presbyterian. And so those are the those are the dead guys. But as far as the living goes, there is a man and me and him have kind of we've not talked to each other in years just because he moved away and he's he's doing he's pastoring another church now. But early on in my faith journey, Back when I started, after I turned about 18 or 19, I started going to a different church other than the church my grandparents went to. I just kind of wanted to find where I belong.
Logan:And I started going to Unity Assembly of God in Pottsville, Arkansas, and there was a pastor there by the name of Michael Sullivan. He's pastoring another church now in Arkansas, but he was very influential. In my faith journey. He was really patient with me and he was just a wise man. I could sit and listen to him preach all day long.
Logan:I could sit in his office and hang out with him all day long and just hear him talk about the Bible and just the way the way he explained things was really was really down home and simple. And it was in a way I could understand it. And he really and he and I think he really showed me the value of being patient with people. And I don't I don't obviously based on while ago, I don't always practice what I preach, but he showed me the value. He showed me the value of being patient with people.
Logan:He showed me the value of just listening to people. Because you, you learn a lot when you're able to just sit and listen. And I have to, I have to watch myself sometimes because I, I don't want to get caught up in conversations where I just want people to hear my my viewpoint, my side of things, because I feel like what we do a lot is we we talk in such a way to prove our point and try and leave the other side speechless. You know, we want to try and gridlock the other person into an argument instead of just listening to their side of things. And I feel like I've been guilty of of that.
Logan:And I want to try and repent of that and move forward so that I can hear people. And if what they say if I feel like what they say isn't correct or isn't right, I want to be loving and gentle with them. But I also don't want to compromise truths. And I feel like we, you know, we're all about not compromising truth in our culture. Well, you know, some of us are all about not compromising truth, but I don't feel like we have the gentle part down.
Logan:So we need to we need to be gentle with how we talk to one another. We need to be wise. And I feel like Mike Sullivan really showed me the value of that. And then another person who's been really influential. Well, three people.
Logan:Mike Sullivan and then I had another pastor. His name is Kirby Vardeman. And I sat in his church for three and a half years and I would say Kirby taught me how to preach. Kirby knew how to break down a text and preach it in such a way that you could hear the gospel. And for the three, three and a half years I sat in his church and hung out with him and he mentored me.
Logan:I was blown away because he was the first pastor I ever encountered who would sit and preach through books of the Bible. He would start at chapter one, verse one and go all the way through. And that was just how he operated. He preached the I remember he preached the gospel of Mark. He when he started in chapter one, verse one, it took him a year and nine months to preach to the entire gospel of Mark.
Logan:Wow. And people. Yeah. And people just just sat there like he didn't even he didn't even do Christmas or Easter sermons, man. Like, it wasn't that he just didn't.
Logan:It wasn't that he just didn't believe in it. It's just that he was on a roll. It's like, Happy Easter. Christ has risen. All right.
Logan:He heals a blind man. You know, that's and that's kind of that's that's really what I learned from Kirby Vardeman is the value of preaching the Bible. And then the third pastor is Mark Lykins. Mark Lykins is the man that I consider still to be my pastor to this day. I think every pastor needs a pastor.
Logan:Every pastor needs someone that they can go to and sit in their office and say, this is what I'm going through and I have no one. Because being a pastor is sometimes really lonely. And so Mark Lykins is that guy for me. And he taught, he also taught me the value of of just listening to people. And he taught me the value of looking at the big picture.
Logan:He's Mark is such a such a wise man and I'm very thankful for his counsel. He pastors it. A matter of fact, he's he he doesn't say so. He doesn't believe so. But he is one of the best preachers I've ever heard as well.
Logan:If you want to if you want to look up Mark Lykins sermons, go to Grace Fellowship Church, Russellville, Arkansas. Look up their church website and just listen to the way he breaks down a text. It's really good. And he's not academic. He's not lofty.
Logan:He's just he's very practical. And so those are the those are the three main guys for me who who have really influenced my faith journey. And then on the day to day basis, it's probably my wife. My wife is probably more qualified to Pastor Mars Hill than I am.
T.J.:When I first met you two, you guys were newlyweds.
Logan:Yes. So funny story about that. In January 2018, I got called to be the pulpit supply pastor for Mount Carmel CP Church. And Britney and I were engaged at that time. We weren't married.
Logan:And she was still living in Texas. And that's that's a whole other story in and of itself. But she was still living in Texas. And so in January 2018, I got called to go pastor at Mount Carmel. And two months later, we moved her up to Arkansas and we got married.
Logan:And we are our wedding date was March 11. Well, presbytery for the Arkansas Presbytery was March. And so she went to presbytery with me and I came under the care of the presbytery. And as soon as people found out that we were getting married like the next day, we got like 10 offers from different CP ordained ministers who wanted to marry us on the spot. And looking back on it, I kind of wish we would have.
Logan:It would have been it would have been fun to go back into the into the history books of the Arkansas Presbytery and see a couple getting married at a Presbytery meeting.
T.J.:That would be. Yeah. That would be interesting. Well, Logan, you are in the midst of ministry and yet preparing for ministry at the same time, and it's a unique place to be. So for the people that you are serving with and for, what do you tell them, and where do you tell them to look for where God is present and at work today?
Logan:Well, I tell them to mostly look in their everyday lives because you you know, the way it is at our church is we don't have Sunday night services. We don't have a Wednesday night bible study even. We just have Sunday morning. We have Sunday school, Sunday morning service. And then on the first Sunday night of the month, the women will meet for CPW meeting and that's it.
Logan:So our people only get one day a week where they're in the house of God with the people of God worshiping. And so if they need encouragement, if they need to find if they need to find where God is working, they need to look to their everyday lives. One of the things that I really try to teach our people is that God is always at work. And if you don't think God is at work, it's because you're not looking hard enough. So even in even when see, how do I say this in a politically correct way?
Logan:I pastor below the Mason Dixon line in a rural community. So you can imagine which one of our candidates our people were voting for. And I'll just leave it at that. So even in the midst of a time where it doesn't seem like our candidate is winning, or it doesn't seem like our candidate is gonna be the one in the White House, God is still at work. Like, your your faith doesn't rise and fall with the results of the election.
Logan:And And I feel like there's a sense of hopelessness from people because they they have their faith in the way the government in which side the government is leaning. They have their faith in in the direction of the nation. Nations are temporary. Governments are temporary. In the end, they all bow at the feet of Jesus.
Logan:There are Christians who are faithfully serving God in in nations that are far more left leaning than America. And they are doing just fine. So guess what? We'll be just fine. You know, we have this idea that, you know, everything rises and falls with the red, white and blue.
Logan:And that's not so. Everything rises and falls with Jesus. He raises up leaders. He casts down leaders. You know, Romans 13 tells us that there's nobody who has any authority without Jesus's control.
Logan:So I try to tell our people just to look to see how God is working in their lives, in the everyday cycle of life. When they get up in the morning, do they have something to eat? You know, are they still able to go to work? Are they still able to to get around and do what they need to do to provide for their families? Then God's working in that.
Logan:You know, it may feel like a cycle. It may feel like you're doing the same thing over and over again. But just because something is repetitive doesn't mean it's nihilistic. God's in the cycle. God's in the repetitiveness.
Logan:I'm reading. I'm doing a men's discussion group right now with two or three other guys, and we are reading Joy at the End of the Tether by Doug Wilson, which is basically his kind of practical commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes. And at the beginning of the book, talks about how God gives us the ability to enjoy the repetitive cycle of life. You know, in the way he uses it, the way he the way he talks about it is like this. He says that for it.
Logan:I'm stumbling over my words here trying to figure out what I want to say. But the way Doug Wilson says it is that God has given everyone a can of peaches. But he's only given believers a can opener. The best unbelievers can do is lick the label on the can. And so whenever you have that relationship with God through Jesus Christ, you're able to enjoy the repetitive nature of life because you know it's going somewhere.
Logan:You know that God's at work. And so that's really what I tell people.
T.J.:That's good Logan. I want to know and be curious to hear what are your ideas? What are your hopes for the church today and also in the future?
Logan:I want to see unity without compromise. I want to see unity without compromise on issues that matter, and I want to see us come to a place where we recognize that there's a lot of issues that we make a fuss about that don't matter. You know, we we're in a place now where politics has divided us. But the truth of the matter is there are Christians who voted blue. There are Christians who voted red.
Logan:There are Christians who voted third party. And social media and politics have divided us so much that we can't recognize the work of God in someone else's life that believes or votes differently than us. And that is so sad because politicians have term limits. Relationships do not. My friend Jay likes to say that Republicans and Democrats sit in the same pew and partake of the same bread and wine.
Logan:Why can't we realize that? I want us to have unity without compromise. We can be and so how do we do that? We we centralize everything we think, everything we do on the truth about Jesus and who he is. The truth of His character, the truth of His life, the truth of His resurrection, you know, all of these little things that we make a fuss over are not all that big in the grand scheme of things.
Logan:You know, there there's a whole reason why the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed are so short. They cover the big yeah. They cover the big stuff.
T.J.:Yeah. And it stood the test of time as well.
Logan:Sure. And so we we need to get back to the historic faith. And we need to understand that, you know, a lot of the issues we're facing now are are similar to the same issues that the early church faced. And they didn't view them the same way that we did because they understood who Jesus was and what he's like. And you mentioned as we were as you were kind of briefing me over the podcast that, you know, this this particular question, you wanted to know what I thought about the church locally and the church, you know, on a universal level.
Logan:What I wanna see from Mars Hill is I want to see us I want to see us open up the doors of the church the way that Jesus has opened up the doors of his kingdom. Jesus opens up the doors of the kingdom and says, whosoever will may come. Doesn't matter what you look like. It doesn't matter where you've been. The only thing that matters is where you're going.
Logan:And so that's what I want us to do at Mars Hill. I want us to be able to open up the church doors in such a way that we're sitting in the same pew with people who don't who don't look like us, who don't think like us, who may not even act like us, but we're all there to partake of the gospel. We're all there to sit under the preaching of the word and partake of the bread and wine of the Lord. And so that that's what I want for Mars Hill, and that's what I want for the church all over. Right?
Logan:That's what I want in the grand scheme of things for the body of Christ. You know, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church at large needs to understand that we are a people who are united by who Jesus is. Like, the confession of faith, the first verse of the confession of faith right out the door is John three sixteen. For God so loved the world. That's the overarching truth that binds the truths of our confession of faith together.
Logan:And We need to understand that that Jesus has opened the doors of the kingdom to people who. We may not like ordinarily. Who we may not get along with ordinarily, but we're family. And I and I think we can do that. I think we can believe that without compromising what the Bible has said about certain things.
Logan:Right? So we we think that in order to be we think that in order to be open, we think that in order to be open to all kinds of people that we have to compromise certain truths about what the Bible says about sexual immorality or, you know, other things. But the truth is we can uphold we can uphold scripture and we can still be open. We can say, this is what God has says, and you are welcome to come and repent and believe the gospel with us.
T.J.:I have I've always said that unity and conformity are two different things. Very different things. Logan, how can we continue to follow you on your faith journey?
Logan:Well, I blog over at Late Night Theology. So you'll see articles and and sometimes I'll post my sermon notes over there.
T.J.:And that's that's a web excuse me. That's a website. So latenighttheology.com.
Logan:Yeah. Latenighttheology.com. I started that blog back in 2011. And then back in 2015, 2016, something like that, I started recruiting a few people to to come and write with me there. So mostly, you'll see my articles, but you'll also see articles from my friend Jay Sari.
Logan:You'll see articles from Hannah Conroy and a couple articles from Sean Bowie every once in a while. And so, you know, all those are writers for Late Night Theology. And then, of course, you can can hear the sermons from Mars Hill every Sunday by following our Facebook page. I've also been writing lessons for the encounter. I've had I had one lesson in the fall quarter.
Logan:I'm gonna have three lessons in the winter quarter and God willing, I'll have two lessons in the spring quarter and then I'm done for a while. Thank God. You know, I love writing for the encounter, but man, it's a lot of hard work. Then, of course, I I podcast over at the Monday morning megaphone. And what I've been I haven't posted an episode recently.
Logan:And so I'm kind of behind schedule. But typically what I'll do is I'll post a new episode on the second and fourth Monday of every month and it'll just be it'll mostly be me ranting and raving about something. Sometimes I'll have a guest on and the newest episode that I'm gonna be working on, possibly recording it tomorrow, I'm going to be interviewing my pastor friend of mine, Robert Willis, who has written a new book about his grandmother and he's he's using he wrote that book to kind of chronicle her journey of faith and how she moved from how she got from New Mexico to Arkansas, and talked about her involvement in, in the Pentecostal movement at that time.
T.J.:Well, that's a lot of places to find find you Logan.
Logan:I got my hand in a little bit everything.
T.J.:Well, Logan, I want to thank you for sharing on today's podcast. And thank everyone for listening. Travel with us on our next journey down Cumberland Road.
