Mark Davis - The Church Showing Unconditional Love & Acceptance
Exploring faith journeys and sharing inspiring ministries that embody the good news of God, You are listening to The Cumberland Road. I am your host, TJ Malinowski. An ordained elder and the former editor of the Cumberland Presbyterian Magazine, my guest is Mark Davis. In our conversation, Mark talks about the impact of receiving unconditional love and acceptance from the church all throughout his life and how the ministry of Jesus is shaping his understanding of the treatment of others. You are listening to the Cumberland Road podcast, and here is my conversation with Mark Davis.
T.J.:Well, hello, Mark Davis, and welcome to the Cumberland Road podcast.
Mark:Hey, TJ. How are you doing?
T.J.:If you'll indulge me for a moment, I'd like to start with a story and then let you finish it. But something that you you had shown me in the treatment of other people that has left quite an impression on me. Years ago, you and I were working together at the Cumberland Presbyterian Denominational Headquarters. And it was, fairly early one morning before the office actually opened and I was gonna go out the back doors. And when I went to hit the crash bar, the door wouldn't open.
T.J.:I thought, well, that's strange. So I walked around the building and I discovered that, there was an awning there. And, there were 2 young people, young couple that had found it as a place to rest overnight. And they were in transit. And I talked to him for a few minutes and then I went back inside and talked to you and you had said, well, I wanna meet him.
T.J.:And, we went out there together and, you treated them like old friends even though you'd never met him before. And what really stuck with me is, the 4 of us walked down to the Waffle House, which is just down from the office, and you took them out for breakfast. And the 4 of us sat there and you just asked questions. You spent time. You were intrigued in hearing where they had come from and where they were going and how they got to Memphis.
T.J.:And that really, really made an impression on me because there was so many other ways to approach, 2 strangers. And you approached it in the most welcoming and hospitable way for a first encounter. And I've remembered that over and it's been several years since that happened.
Mark:Yeah. That was that was a pretty interesting morning, as I recall. They were, you know, they were they were interesting people. I I do recall, sitting in the where was the Waffle House, and and talking to them. And, you know, everybody everybody has stories, and, it just felt like we connected with them.
Mark:My recollection is, as you say, we we got them some breakfast. They had not eaten in a while. One of us and I asked if they were hungry and they said, yeah, Let's let's go over to the waffle house and got them a good breakfast. And and they ate quite a bit, which was fine, which was fine and had interesting stories to tell. And, you know, I think in within the context of this podcast, I think that's the kind of thing that comes from being reared in the church, reared in the Christian church.
Mark:Certainly it's possible and does happen for people of other faiths to do that kind of thing. But for us, that's I think that was an expression of our faith whether we thought of it that way or not. And frankly, I wasn't thinking of it that way when we when we went with those folks. It was just here are 2 people who were, without a home. They were, you know, they were out without a place to go to, without good food.
Mark:And it just it felt like the right thing to do.
T.J.:Does that, that expression of of, grace and and love that you share with these 2 strangers, does that come naturally to you? I I was just in awe because there was just so many different ways of approaching, these 2 people, 2 young people. And, I learned and I was enriched by that experience. And I I meet strangers. There are some that just have the gift who are able to encounter and approach anybody and strike up a conversation, and that's how it fell in with you.
T.J.:Is it is that always the case? Well,
Mark:frankly, I'm not a, I'm not a real gregarious sort of person. I'm not, you know, some people and I've often wished I were more outgoing than I am, for whatever reasons and not. But, there have been a number of times when I found myself in a similar situation to that, and, there is something in me that wants to reach out. And, it's, you know, I've I've worked with, with a room in the inn there in Memphis while we were in Memphis, and met some really interesting people. I hope that it's not a lot of selfishness involved because it's really, to me, it's one of the first things that comes to mind, unless unless the person is just really in a terrible situation to begin with, generally you're talking about people who are without a home or without good food, things that can be addressed relatively easily depending on the circumstances.
Mark:And almost always, they've got interesting stories, stories that are so different from the stories of the people that I normally hang out with. So I I enjoyed doing that, and, I think it I think it's something we're called to do anyway.
T.J.:Well, Mark Davis, you served the Cumberland Presbyterian Church at a denominational level for, what, 9, 10 years as the communications team leader
Mark:Right.
T.J.:And with a main focus or a big focus on being the editor of one of the denomination's publications That's correct. Yeah. The Cumberland Presbyterian. I know there's more to you than that, but that's when I first got got to meet you. How was that experience, Fama?
T.J.:How did you fall into that role?
Mark:Well, I had recently retired from 25 years with Nike sportswear company, sports and fitness company, and had intended to stay retired, really. But this opportunity came along at the time. I was also serving on the board of trustees for the seminary, MTS. And one of my lifelong passions has been writing. I love to read and, I enjoy writing.
Mark:I'm not that good at it. Did some writing, as part of a, well, lived off my writing somewhat, back before I even went to work for Nike. Got married and figured out pretty quick that you can't just support a family on a nickel word. So so that sort of went by the wayside. Anyway, somebody who knew that, about my, love for writing, love for the language, called me and said, hey, they're looking for somebody, on the communications ministry team with the ministry council.
Mark:And that just, that felt like a call from God, frankly. It felt like, gosh, here I have finished I thought I had finished my working life and doing stuff that, I was able to raise a family with and things that I enjoyed, but it wasn't the thing that I enjoyed most or a lot more. So it it felt like a call, really. And as as you know and probably most of the people that have listened to this podcast know, when you hear a call from God, it's just it's best not to not listen to it. It's best not to ignore it.
Mark:So yes, I took that position and, it was, and actually it was 9 years. It was, I enjoyed doing it. There were a lot of disappointments. There were a lot of trials, I felt. There were some things that, frankly, mistakes that I made that, in approaching the position, things that dreams that I had for the job that didn't, frankly, didn't sync up with other people's dreams.
Mark:And that didn't make, you know, that didn't make their dreams wrong or mine right. It's just, but I did enjoy and I really enjoyed working with the ministry council. There was, at that time, and I'm sure that's still the case, there were some really, really fine people to work with. People who I think knew what the ministry of the church should be. And I worked very hard, very hard and very selflessly to advance that ministry.
T.J.:You had used the word earlier, the call. Mark, you grew up in a Christian household, and if you would talk for a few minutes about that, about your dad, being a minister and the influences and I don't want to speak for you, but, you know, what was it like growing up in a house that was a Christian household and, you know, a die hard Cumberland Presbyterian and a minister? How did you have any chance of escaping?
Mark:Well, actually, there was no escaping. Yeah, my dad went to what was then just the Carmel Presbyterian Seminary. It was at Bethel, and his first real pastor was in Newburgh, Tennessee. And I don't think that they had been there very long, when I came along. Well, actually, I was born in Memphis.
Mark:They he was offered a job as I believe it was director of youth work at the time, or or something to do with youth ministries at the time. And they my dad and mom moved to Memphis about 3 months before I was born. And, so I lived lived there until much later. Grew up in the, Park Avenue and Bright Haven churches, neither of which are absent anymore. I don't know if I don't know if there's any significance there or not, but my my dad wound up he he did a lot of, work, with youth and eventually worked his way up, or I don't wanna say worked his way up, but became the executive secretary of the Board of Christian Education, a job that he thoroughly enjoyed, I think, for the most part.
Mark:My mother, was very active in CPW, Church Women United, and some other organizations, similar organizations. So again, there wasn't really any getting away from it. And I honestly don't recall wanting to get away from it until I was, you know, in my mid to late teens. And I think that's probably I hope that's probably a fairly common thing for most teams. I don't I don't know, but it was for me.
Mark:There came a period when, you know, I was I was ready to get away from the church, or maybe not ready to get away from the church, but when it became less important to me than other things. Both my mother and father were very active in the civil rights movement, in the sixties, very active in, my mother in particular active in the civil rights movement in Memphis. She was, she and 2 or 3 of her, colleagues from the Church of Women United Organization went, actually went to meet with the mayor of Memphis during the sanitation workers strike when things were really on edge trying to persuade him to cede to some of the demands that the sanitation workers were making. Like, this guy was, I guess, well, he was a jerk and, I think history has would say that he was pretty much responsible for what all happened in Memphis during that, but she she was very active in that. I myself, along with my parents, were quite active in the anti war movement of the late sixties, early seventies.
Mark:And all of that, all of that sprang from, just my understanding of what it means to be a Christian. So stayed active in the church, I guess, really until I went went to college, went to Vanderbilt in Nashville. And I, at least I hoped, like a lot of people, I sort of sort of drifted away from the church for a while. When I got back to Memphis, still still wasn't that interested in in going back to church. I had I had, through through the coursework that I had done, through a lot of reading and just maturing that I had done, I felt like it wasn't necessarily the case, but I felt like the church was not really what I felt it should be.
Mark:Sometime around there, I was living in Memphis and sometime around in there, a group of people got together. They were out of the Whitehaven Church, got together, Eugene Warren and Rosemary Warren among them. I think they were really the primary drivers. Had an idea for a new church in Memphis and invited me among other people. And I remember very well sitting in their living room talking about what we felt like church could be, and everything that I was hearing was great.
Mark:It it was, you know, we didn't really call it welcoming then, but that's what that was the message was that, this church was gonna be a place that was inclusive of everyone regardless of who they were, of what their life story was. And, that was that was, how the Germantown church got started. So, when I got started, I I started going back to church. I was a charter member there and was eventually, became was ordained as an elder in that church and continued regular tenants there until we moved, till I retired the second time and we moved. So now I've forgotten whether that answers your question or not.
Mark:No. But it was, that was really more autobiographical than anything. But, the thread throughout all of that was that the church from the time I was shown such love and such acceptance as a child, and on up through my teen years and even in my young adult years when I had drifted away from the church, the church didn't drift away from me. And again, found in the Germantown congregation especially. And I'm quite sure there are many other CP congregations like that.
Mark:They're not unique in that respect, but found a level of love and acceptance regardless of of things that I had done or things that I had said, of opinions that I have interpretations that that, I clung to. And so that was a common thread. It was this Christian faith that taught me that the importance of seeing every individual, every individual as my equal, you know, as as, children of God. Every individual has a child of God and just as worthy of love and acceptance, of the kind of love and acceptance that I've been shown.
T.J.:Well, looking at the Christian faith and and over the course of your teenage years and adulthood, what else about the Christian faith that just keeps drawing you back? Because some of the examples that you gave Mark, historically, we as a church, we don't always exemplify the best features, our best gifts, our best offerings. And in those times and places, what is it about that Christian faith that just keeps drawing you to where you haven't wiped your hands and said, I'm done. This is the home, this is the family for me.
Mark:Well, I tell you TJ, I think it's, the point that I've come to is that we've got, we've got a man, Jesus Christ, who I guess the way I look at it, is the way. Here was a man who lived a life that is the kind of life I want to live. There's everything about everything about his life is something worth emulating, trying to emulate. So it's, it's not about, in my mind is it's not about, I think what people think of as doctrine and rules and bylaws and all that kind of stuff. It's about living a life as closely to the kind of life that Jesus Christ lived as possible.
Mark:And I don't have to recite all the stories in the New Testament that that tell you how you live. But so in a way, it's not the church itself that draws me back as much as it is that here is a group of people who, to one extent or another, feel the same way I do about this man that we read about in the New Testament.
T.J.:I find the teachings of Jesus so challenging. And and many times in my life, it puts me off. It it puts me off in a way because it's hard for me I'm too selfish. I think humans are too selfish. And then we have this Jesus who is selfless.
T.J.:And when I do comparisons, I'm like, oh my goodness. I've got, you know, it's too much. It's too much. But yet I'm drawn to it at the same time. It's almost like a challenge that I, I, in my discouragement, I'm still intrigued to try and and to treat others that way and love others that way, even knowing that it will be imperfect in its, output, in its attempt.
Mark:Yeah. Don't get me wrong. I I I'm I'm far from being a, even a good, emulator of of, Christ. But I guess to your point, there is something about well, put it this way. I look at the things that he did, the way that he lived, and I cannot find anything negative about it.
Mark:You know, I cannot find anything wrong with that. And I think about this whole concept of love others, the way you love yourself. Well, that doesn't always work because sometimes we don't love ourselves as we should. But, ever since I was a child, of course, if you're if you're raised as a Christian, raised in a Christian family, you hear, you know, love, love, love, love conquers all. We need to love one another.
Mark:Ever since I was a child, I remember having this kind of fantasy that, well, gosh, if everybody really loved each other, then there would be no problems at all. I mean, if they really loved each other and loved and and, lived out that love, there would be no wars, there would be no homelessness, there would be no famine, there would be, or or no hunger. You know, and, now in my sixties, I realized that, while that's a, that's a great idea and I still believe that it's, it's a a perfect world. It's hardly something that is going to happen next week most likely. But I just can't, I can't see where there's anything wrong with that logic Mhmm.
Mark:From a logical perspective, there's nothing wrong with that logic. Yeah. Well,
T.J.:looking over the course of your life, Mark, when when have you felt closest to God? You know, was there a particular experience or is it, something that could be replicated? Share with me when you feel the closest to God in the presence and whatever that presence means for you.
Mark:Guys, that one's kind of a hard one. I think most of us have known somebody, know of somebody who has had a, you know, quote, religious experience. Mhmm. Maybe it was the moment they, quote, got saved or whatever. And honestly, I I don't know that I've ever had a moment, a single moment that stands out among all others.
Mark:I can tell you that that, there have been many, many, many times when I've felt the presence of God. I've felt the presence of God, Well, the example that you open the podcast with, situations like that, sitting down with somebody who is a complete stranger, and particularly if it's a complete stranger who is in some way struggling in in a way that I'm able to help with somehow. And there have been many, many situations like that. I've I've really felt the presence of God in nature. Now that, you know, that's gonna be alarms for a lot of people perhaps, but I have always been, just have a great love for the outdoors.
Mark:I have spent, you know, countless hours, in in wildernesses here and there.
T.J.:Well, let me pause you for a moment. Sure. For those who may have hesitation with feeling the presence of God in nature, I think we have to take into account when you or someone says that, that nature, whether that's in a wooded area or hills or the beach, an island, whatever that may
Mark:be, it
T.J.:addresses all of our senses. Nature does.
Mark:Exactly.
T.J.:And there are other settings that may not do that in the same way. And, I just wanted to add that too.
Mark:Oh, that's a good point.
T.J.:What you're saying is it's one of the few things that is tangible that can nature being, that can touch all of our senses as as opposed to some other things. So I interrupted you. Please carry on.
Mark:No. I I think you might connect. That's an excellent point. And, there there have been times in nature. You know, I can I can remember all kinds of little vignettes, standing at the top of, Rimrock Canyon at dusk up in the wilderness up in Oregon, Eastern Oregon, and looking out over miles of cloud banks and, the cold air and just feeling, my hair standing on the end, you know, and it wasn't it wasn't just the beauty, it was the presence or something?
Mark:And I I think that's you make a good point. I've also found it in, as I said, sitting down with people who are not like me in some way or another, who who we don't share common background or common life situation and connecting with, you know, and that connection, that connection, is to me, it's God, it's God at work. So I, any one one moment, you know, a lot of people can point to a single moment, that changed their lives, as a lifelong, as somebody who was born into a Christian family and, has been reared that way. And, you know, sometimes there have been times when I felt like, gosh, I sort of missed out or something. You know, if I'd been born in a different situation and I'd had some kind of moment in my teen years or whenever it was.
Mark:You know, as I remember as a kid hearing other kids talk about this, like maybe at camp or in church. And, you know, nothing like that ever happened to me. I'm not I don't regret it necessarily, but it's been it's just been a constant string, I guess.
T.J.:Yeah. I like I like that. Yeah. I like that. I I'm enriched by those big transformational moments in individuals' lives.
T.J.:I'm also enriched in hearing where God is speaking in a very, in a variety of ways, but all throughout the days and the weeks and the months and the years. And it's just this ongoing presence that in the moment and in recollection, you can name it. Name that presence.
Mark:Right.
T.J.:It didn't have to be flashy or great or grand. And it can be flashy and great and grand.
Mark:For some people, it is.
T.J.:Yeah. But
Mark:there's a, I I guess going back to one of the things that attracts me to the faith is the importance of humility, and and there's a humility in just kind of, moving from moment to moment to moment to moment where you experience presence of God and and, and not necessarily having a single big moment. Yeah. So that that, appeals to me.
T.J.:Well, I wanted to read a quote from you that came from the Cumberland Presbyterian Magazine. And, this was an editorial. You had an editorial in the magazine and you called it, As I See It. And my question that I like to ask each guest is, you know, what is what is the church getting right and what is the church missing? I know that's a loaded question, but you had written in your last editorial, here's what you said.
T.J.:As I see it, while resistance to change may not always be a bad thing, we ought to be engaging in some serious soul searching when fear of change becomes an existential threat to who we are. We keep trying to put new wine into old wine skins, fearing, I suppose, that the new ones just won't look as good. That fear, in fact, may be the most serious challenge we face as a church. You wrote that a couple years ago.
Mark:Yeah.
T.J.:And and with my question, as a church, as a Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Church Universal, what are we getting right? And from your perspective, Mark, what are we missing?
Mark:Well, you start by saying that's a loaded question, and I think it is. First of all, I think we're getting a lot of things right. You know, I look at, just in in, our denomination alone where I look at a couple of ministries that stand out, Room in the Inn there in Memphis. The, well, shoot. I'm gonna pass it on.
Mark:I think it's a lottery ministry. Sacred sparks? Sacred sparks. Lisa Cook's thing in Nashville. The burrito ministry that, Hartford were were were were that against.
Mark:Yeah. I I I look at ministries like that and we are getting a lot right. And we need to continue that. I think we're getting some stuff wrong too. I'm certainly not a, an expert on church growth or or even church contraction.
Mark:One of the most disturbing things to me, disturbing facts to me, that has been disturbing me for a number of years. If you look, and I did this once, while I was with the communication ministry team. If you if you go back through all of the annual yearbooks back to, I think, late fifties, early sixties, you find that every every year with only a handful of exceptions, no more than 4 or 5 exceptions I think, maybe not that many, the denomination has shown a decline in membership. Now that's, in a sense, that's not that unusual because, and it's not, certainly not confined with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. What it tells me though is that we're missing something.
Mark:You know, the optimist in me has to believe that if we knew what it was, we would fix it a long time ago. Today, I think, you know, and we've missed various things in the past. In the sixties early seventies, it was, being slow to realize the importance of of the civil rights movement, the anti war movement, and and of not being afraid to take a stand on those issues, public stand, and say this is wrong or this is right. More recently, the, issue, I think, there is to probably no one's surprises the, LGBTQ, issue. And for whatever reason, and I cannot for the life of me figure it out, We've we've got a number of people who all of a sudden, after, you know, a couple 100 years of being a denomination, it was really built on on being inclusive and on, being being open to different interpretations of scripture and so on and so forth.
Mark:All of a sudden we've got a number of people who seem just dead set on adding exclusions to the church. And it just it makes no sense. As I said earlier, I'm a 5th generation Carmelian Presbyterian. And and by the way, you know, this cradle to grave, Cumberland Presbyterian stuff. I mean, I mentioned it just just because I am.
Mark:I don't think it I don't think it matters that much. But, but I say it just to make the point that from from the day I was, well, not the day I was born, but from the day I was old enough to start learning about this denomination, which I'm a part, that's been one of the things that, stood out to me because this was a place, this was a denomination. This was an expression of the Christian faith where we we we could, it was a big tent. And and what we things like interpretations, differing interpretations of scripture were, I won't say meaningless, but they were secondary to the inclusiveness of the of the church based on, love, you know, trying as hard as we can to get to as as pure a, expression of love for other, and especially for other as in people who are outside outside. So, you know, some of the recent news, the there's, apparently, a group in West Tennessee Presbyterian wants to split off from West Tennessee Presbyterian because, they simply they simply cannot abide, the inclusion of people who were who were not like them.
Mark:I think that's I think that's wrong. And I think it's, the kind of thing, the kind of closed mindedness, the kind of fear to go back to the quote. I think that is based in fear, fear of things that they don't understand. Fear of fear of growth in a way. You know, we're we're supposed to grow in Christ.
Mark:We're supposed to, in my mind never become stagnant in our faith. Why there is this this movement towards embracing stagnancy? I don't know. And it makes me sad. So I think that's but in the larger sense, your question, what are we doing right?
Mark:What are we doing wrong? What I think what we're doing wrong is we're missing opportunities to demonstrate to the world that we're we're really living out this love, this unconditional love and acceptance, welcoming anyone whoever whosoever will into the faith and fellowship and leadership in the church is, by by putting that aside, trying to be exclusive there, I think we're missing some real opportunities. And I'm I'm afraid that if we don't come to our senses, it's gonna hurt us even more than we've been hurt in the past by that kind of, fear.
T.J.:When the church is facing challenges or, growth spurts or or growth stunts, we'll just say when the church is facing challenges, Historically and from your perspective, what are good steps to take in facing those challenges? What works? What helps the community of faith move forward?
Mark:Wow. That's that's a good question too.
T.J.:We're we're tempted
Mark:One thing
T.J.:we're tempted at times, you know, that we we are aware of our flaws and our mistakes and our warts and things like that. We can identify them, but there does become a time and place where it's like, okay, this is who we are, complex and messy, and yet there's still mission and ministry to do. How do we move forward?
Mark:You know, when you asked that, the first thing that popped in my mind, and I'm not sure what to think about this, But the first thing that popped in my mind is, the importance of good leadership. And I'll kind of explain that a little by telling sort of a story, not not really a story, but, yeah, kind of a story about about my dad's ministry. I mentioned earlier his his work with denomination, but shortly after, they moved to Memphis, he took up what was then, a state of supply position with a small church down in North Mississippi. By all accounts, by his accounts and and others, this this little church out in rural Red Dirt Mississippi in the 19 fifties was pretty much was was peopled, pretty much the kind of people that you would expect. Somewhat uneducated, although that's not a crime, but but, some pretty virulent racists, and people of that nature.
Mark:This is about as far from who my father was as you could get. Even when I was, I used to go fairly often with him. He preached 2 Sundays a month down there. It was a very small church. And I would go down there, with him.
Mark:And even as a child, let's say when when I got to be 7, 8, 9, 10 years old and and started becoming aware of such things, even I could see that's at least some of the people in this community were again about as far from what I felt a Christian should be as as you could get in terms of wanting to exclude somebody who was not like them. My dad passed I said it was a stated supply. He often joked it was the longest stated supply in history because he didn't leave there until, longest stated supply in history because he didn't leave there until 50 years later. Wow. He was he was never
T.J.:never called.
Mark:He's a full time pastor. And he's as I say, he served church peers like 2 Sundays a month, 3 Sundays on, and they had a 5th Sunday. But the thing that caught my attention, catches my attention is that over the course of 50 years, and this had a lot to do with his his talent, I believe, as a, as a minister. Over the course of 50 years, those people changed. Those people changed.
Mark:There was a, you know, he didn't go in right away and try to change people, but through loving them for who they were, through guiding them slowly but surely through the scripture to a more complete understanding of what it was to live as Jesus lived. By the time he left there, that kind of attitude had largely, very largely, mostly dissipated. There were there were families in that church that were several generations. I've been in church for several generations. And by the time he left, signs of this, this, tendency to exclude others, exclude people who were not like them was just about gone.
Mark:It was a remarkable transformation. So leadership, the right kind of leadership, and, pastors, some school teachers, people who are willing to patiently lead the congregation to a fuller understanding of what it is to live like Jesus Christ. Now you can get into all kinds of questions there about, well, where do you get these people? Do they have to have gone to seminary? Do they have to pass some kind of litmus test?
Mark:Those are different questions. I don't know. We've had a number of of you know, to to numerous dimension, a number of great leaders in this denomination. I think back to people like Hubert Morrow and, E. K.
Mark:Reagan, Tom Campbell, we're in East Tennessee. People who, are exceedingly wise and, have a have or have had, just an outstanding deep understanding of what it means to, live as close as possible to the way that Jesus lived. In in a way, I'm kind of surprised that that came out of the first thing because I'm not I'm not always one to I'm not a follower necessarily by nature. But I think that's, well, I think that's something that's important.
T.J.:Good leadership and then the the wherewithal and longevity for slow and steady change. Can you help the church through challenging times?
Mark:Well, so that that last part, slow and steady change. There's such a thing as being so slow that you miss out. Being so slow that, death overtakes you, frankly. You know, how do we as a denomination, as a church, speed things up? I'm not sure.
Mark:That's a good question. I'm just I'm not sure that I can answer that.
T.J.:Yeah. I think, the church needs more authenticity and honesty, specifically to society at large and to be readily to admit that, we don't have all the answers. We've made some terrible mistakes, historically Yeah. Presently. And, yet, we humbly continue to serve this wonderful God and learn more with each and every day, and just invite others who want to go along on the ride and learn more about this God, through Jesus Christ.
Mark:I'm remembering more. You know, something you said there, we several years ago, or actually now, I guess it's been a couple of decades ago, one of the big things in the Christian faith was emerging emerging Christian. Mhmm. I remember, reading several things that Phyllis Tickle had written, for example. Some some of the ideas expressed in American Christianity were valid, some maybe not so valid.
Mark:I don't know. But I think one of the messages was that the church, you know, we have talked for in our own denomination, we've talked for decades about church growth. You know, how do we grow churches? And yet in a way, I think it's almost as if we're afraid to grow. We want to grow, but we want to grow based on an understanding of of the world that we live in.
Mark:It's based 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago. And that's that's simply not sustainable in my in my view. The world changes. Our response to the world as Christians needs to change. Within within the confines of the Christian faith.
Mark:I'm not saying that, you know, the principles of the faith change. They don't. They're steadfast. But the way that we respond to the world can change driven by really driven by those principles and driven by getting rid of the fears that we have of things that we don't understand.
T.J.:Yeah. Well, to push back, let me ask this question. Is church growth the end game?
Mark:No. No. I don't I don't think I don't think church growth as we as popularly popularly understood is the end game or is the is the ultimate goal. That's missing it completely. There are a number of examples of ways to to get tremendous church growth if that's what you want.
Mark:You know, you look at these megachurches out in Texas or Florida or wherever they might be, and there's there's people who know how to grow a church in terms of membership. So no, I don't think, I don't think church growth in terms of numbers is the goal in itself. I do think that if we can, to the extent that we find ways to show people the, just the incredible joy and benefits of learning to, live as as much like Jesus as Jesus did. To the extent that we can do that, church growth in quotations will not be a problem because it'll be a bifurcant. The fact is there are plenty of instances, plenty of cases where people are drawn to a church, not because of, you know, fancy ad campaigns or strategies put together by church growth experts or not.
Mark:But people are drawn to the church because they find acceptance, and they find love, unconditional love. And, you know, just just try to imagine somebody who's in a class that that is, typically excluded or ostracized. It's been all kinds of number, all kinds of classes of people. But they find a group where, hey, we don't care, about this difference, this thing that makes you different from us. We love you as if you were our own brother or sister.
Mark:People are drawn to that. Who wouldn't be? No. Who wouldn't be?
T.J.:That kinda takes us back to where we began the conversation. And again, this wasn't planned. But that emulating and expressing how we understand our faith, you live that out, in my observation, to these 2 strangers who were in transient, who were hungry, and the 4 of us walked down to the Waffle House for breakfast. What better way to express the love of Christ but over breaking bread and sharing time together and listening to somebody else's story?
Mark:You know what, TJ? To go back to that, my recollection is that, those two people had some kind of awareness, and because I believe they asked about it. They asked about who we were. They had an awareness that they were dealing with people from a church. Did they know about common affairs teams?
Mark:No. Heck, they might not know that much about Christianity in general. I don't know. But they had an awareness that the people they were dealing with were somehow connected, had some kind of connection to a church and to the Christian faith. I don't know if that guy and that girl ever set foot in a church after we after we parted.
Mark:I don't know. What I do know is that when we parted, they knew they knew that there were these 2 people who were connected to a church, who didn't care what their story was. I mean, in in terms of it didn't matter what their story was. They were interested in who they were as people. They were interested in, in helping them, however they needed help.
Mark:And that made an impression. I know it made an impression. Did they ever come back and say so? No. But they didn't have to.
Mark:Because all I have to do is engage my empathy and put myself in their shoes. And I know, I know that it made an impression on them. Perhaps it made an impression, enough of an impression that at some point later on, they walked into a church somewhere, to see what it was all about. If that happened, hopefully it was a church where people welcome welcome them with open arms, regardless of what their story was or where they came from, what their past was.
T.J.:Mark, two questions. 1, what are you reading today, and what are you writing?
Mark:Well, I'll answer the second part first. I'm not writing as much as I need to. I've done a lot of, back in my former life I spoke of earlier, I did a lot of feature magazine articles, things of that nature. I have dabbled in poetry. So more recently I've been trying to work on, some little short stories and a couple of essays.
Mark:That was, you know, I enjoyed the Cumberland Presbyterian. And as I said earlier, probably a mistake to view it quite the way I did. But, I felt like, you know, maybe part of my call is to try to help others see things a little differently. So, anyway, answer to that part is I'm not writing as much as I should, and, I I plan to do better at that. As to what I'm reading, I'm actually as we as we right now, I'm rereading the book by a guy named Mircea Eliada, who is a, he's a Romanian anthropologist.
Mark:Myth and Reality, another book that may be more well known than he wrote was The Sacred and Profane. Had a long interest in myth and, myth and the function that myth plays in in culture and in our lives. I've, I just recently finished a couple of, Steinbeck books. Again, I have a habit of reading books that I like. I'll read them multiple times, but and because of, because of some of the things that are going on in the denomination right now, I also recently, picked up the confession of faith and just gone through that a couple more times just to, you know, just to see, did I miss something here?
T.J.:For extra credit. Hey. I just wanted you to know I'm reading the confession of hate.
Mark:For extra credit. Exactly. No. I on that front, you know, related to what we were talking about earlier, I've I've heard or or read of people saying, well, the confession of faith says this or says that. And, you know, I didn't remember it saying that.
Mark:So I went back and and sure enough, at least this time, my memory served me well. You know, what what what they were saying was their interpretation of what the confession might be saying. But, as far as I was concerned, what I was reading was something entirely different. Anyway, that's that's some of my reading materials recently. I one of the next things I wanna get to is, I'd I'd sort of jumped to these things.
Mark:Over the last year, I've read, gone back and and read and I actually read for the first time a couple of, Carl Jung books. I've had a fascination with Carl Jung, his take on religion and on Christianity in particular.
T.J.:And wrapping up, you know, psychology, the soul. It's a really interesting Yeah. Yeah. Really interesting read. Absolutely.
T.J.:Well, Mark, for those who wanted to continue to follow you on your faith journey, where would you like to point them to? Do you have, a Facebook page or Instagram or anything like that where folks want to, reach out to you? Without giving away your phone number or your address, Is there anywhere anywhere else that you'd like to point people to?
Mark:Well, if if anybody's interested, I do, have a Facebook presence. I I have engaged on Facebook a lot less often here, recently than than I did for a while. I I'm, finding it less and less useful other than to keep up with a couple of people that I know. I'm I'm on Twitter, although I don't really post on Twitter very often at all. So, as I said earlier, I'm not really a much of a follower, and I I don't really expect people to follow me.
T.J.:So we can find Mark j Davis on Facebook and Twitter with a little bit of searching. Mark, I thank you for your time. Thank you for your example of discipleship to me in the encounter that I shared. And thank you for your service to to the church, and, thank you for being part of this podcast and sharing your faith journey.
Mark:Thank you, TJ. I was glad to do it, and, I was glad to do it.
T.J.:Thank you for listening to this conversation with Mark Davis. If you enjoy Cumberland Road, subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, or your favorite podcasting site. And now let me leave you with some words from Mark Davis in his last editorial in the Cumberland Presbyterian Magazine. So I'm off to nowhere special. I'm pretty sure that it's a place populated by people who need good news and a lovely light, and I've got plenty of both to share. It also has a fiddle, a riding desk, streams to fish, a woodworking shop, forests to hike, and bicycles to ride, and it has my family who have sacrificed a lot so that I might answer this calling. Thanks again for the opportunity to be a little more of who I believe God created me to be. Now I lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies. Thank you for listening.
