Find out which “season of calling” you’re in
Jordan Raynor sits down with Brian Sanders, Founder of The Underground Network, to talk about his freeing approach to calling outlined in his terrific book, The 6 Seasons of Calling, thinking about eternity in three stages of rest, reward, and reign, and why it’s essential that believers not “lose the plot” of redemption and why we do what we do.
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[00:00:05] JR: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I’m Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Every week, I host a conversation with a Christian who is pursuing world-class mastery of their vocation. We talk about their path to mastery, their daily habits, and how the Gospel of Jesus Christ influences their work.
Guys, today's episode is a dynamite one. I'm talking to Brian Sanders. He's the founder of the Underground Network, an incredibly innovative ministry that is now operating in 17 cities in seven countries. Brian and I talked about his freeing approach to calling outlined in his terrific book, The 6 Seasons of Calling. We talked about how we can think about eternity in three stages of rest, reward and reining. Finally, we talked about why it's so essential that we believers not “lose the plot” of redemption, and why we do what we do. Trust me, you guys are going to love this episode with Brian Sanders.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:01:24] JR: Brian, welcome to podcast.
[00:01:25] BS: Hey, Jordan, good to be here, man.
[00:01:27] JR: We've got an unbelievable number of mutual friends. We both live in Tampa. How in the world is this the first time we're meeting?
[00:01:36] BS: Because your elusive, man, that’s why.
[00:01:39] JR: It is this reputation I've heard is like this elusive guy at the top. I kind of dig it. I kind of dig it. But not if it keeps you from meeting awesome people like Brian Sanders.
So, hey, I was mentioning before we start recording, my assistant who doesn't rave about many things. She's very even keel. It's something I really respect about her. She has been raving about your book, The 6 Seasons of Calling. What's the core premise of this book? Because I want to unpack it a little bit. But I want to set the table for our listeners.
[00:02:14] BS: I guess the idea is, maybe behind it all, is just that we probably have this erroneous idea that calling is something that happens maybe once in our life that we have sensed that this is what I'm meant to do. This is my vocation or something. Maybe that's not the case, that maybe our calling evolves over time and I'm making the argument that it's certainly more than one of these events, one of these kind of watershed crisis and discovery events and my taxonomy is that there's about six of them, or they occur every 12 years or so, in a normal developmental cycle of the Christian life. So, I'd say that's maybe the baseline idea.
[00:02:55] JR: I love this so much. Because I completely agree, I don't think calling is static. I think it's dynamic. I think when you see it through that lens, I think it takes a lot of the pressure out of discerning the right thing, right? Have you seen that with readers? Has the pressure kind of eased a little bit here?
[00:03:13] BS: It's twofold. Imagine the pressure that you feel when you're 22, 23 years old, and you're thinking, what am I meant to do with the whole of my life? You barely can understand the next six months. That's a lot of pressure to put on somebody. What mark are you going to make in the world? Can you have clarity on the trajectory of the fullness of your life?
Then also, when we hit a crisis in our mid-30s, or late 40s, or 60, or something, then what are we meant to do with that? We actually feel like we're 23 again and we actually feel like life is starting over in some ways. Your kids leave the house or you're meant to feel like something's maybe wrong with you. Because essentially, you're beginning again, with that crisis of identity. Exactly part of what I'm arguing is that's perfectly normal and healthy, and if you can embrace it, it can result in a kind of new dawn in your life, a fresh awakening to who you are and to what God's called you to.
[00:04:03] JR: Yeah, I touched on this idea, the dynamic nature of calling in my book, Master of One, but you've taken it to an entirely different level, which I love. I think a lot of Christians view calling the way that Hollywood views romantic love. As if there is this one Mr. Right in the world, there's only one thing God created us to do. But he has kept it a secret and we are on a wild goose chase, trying to find that magical one thing. What would you say to that line of thinking that I think is implicit in a lot of corners of the church right now?
[00:04:41] BS: Maybe in some ways, romantic love is a good metaphor, because it's not to diminish that catalytic moment where you fall in love with somebody. It's the beginning of a relationship, right? But you don't even know what you don't know. I was reading the other day, John 16 again, where Jesus says it's really cool, this line that stood out to me. It was something like I have much more to say to you, more than you can bear. But when the Spirit of truth comes, will guide you on true. He was basically saying, “Guys, there's so much more stuff I want to tell you and teach you. But you just can't handle it right now. Where you are in your life and understanding who I am and so much hasn't happened yet to you, that I just can't tell you all of that now.”
The person I was when I was 20, the person I was when I was 30. Of course, you're meant to grow, you're meant to discover new things about God, about yourself, about the world. You're meant to deepen your character. So, it's not that you're totally different person, but you are being conformed into the image of Jesus. So, hopefully, you look more and more like him, and that means that the way in which he delivers your calling to you, is what you can bear. It's what you can understand. But hopefully more of that will be revealed.
In a sense, calling changes with the changes of our lives and changes with maybe the old idea of sanctification, that you actually become more like Jesus. So, you're capable of greater levels of obedience, greater levels of trust, I guess, and some assignment in the world.
[00:06:10] JR: Yeah. Maybe, growing more into the image of the work that we're going to be doing on the New Earth. I've never thought about it in that context, right? But as we age, and we get closer to that thing, I don't know, who knows. We know there's work on the New Earth, when heaven comes to earth, Isaiah 65. Maybe that's a part of this process is getting closer as to what that work is the King Jesus is going to allow us to do for His glory.
[00:06:33] BS: I think that's a profound idea. It's like, I think it was Mike Bickle that said, “This life is just a 70-year internship.” But I mean, if you think of it that way, and it is an argument I make per day seven, essentially death or leaving this world, and moving into the next that we have been promised some things. Obviously, rest is a part of that idea of like the last, but also reward, and then reign, like this future work, which you're alluding to. Maybe the whole entire thing was just preparation for that. So, if that's true, it is growth and development. It’s not just trying to get out the bad and trying to become more holy or be less sinful. But it's actually preparing us for something creative.
[00:07:18] JR: Yeah. Man, that rest, reward, reign framework. That's dynamite. But that's it, right? That's kind of the arc that we see of eternal – there's present heaven, where believers who are in Christ Jesus are going to rest until Jesus brings Heaven to Earth, where we will receive – all of our work, all of our actions will be judged and rewarded. I think a lot of people view Revelation 21 and 22 as the end. But it's just the beginning, right? Because revelation 22:5 says, “We are going to reign forever and ever alongside Jesus, the King.”
Anyways. That'll fuel our hope. Alright, back to calling, we’re getting off base on one of my favorite side drills. I love this. Let's be real explicit. What are the six seasons of calling as you've outlined in this book?
[00:08:11] BS: Yeah. So, I mean, because I was looking at most of my experience is with people pursuing some sort of missional idea or missional identity and just watching that over time change and evolve with them. The first two are easy. The zero to 12 is childhood, obviously, there's a lot of a whole body of work and research on early childhood development. And 12 is a pretty easy turning point for us because of puberty, and so on. Even in Jewish culture and ideology, 12 is a turning point toward adulthood. And then adolescence, a lot of work has been done on adolescent development and understanding from about 12 to 24, from puberty to about 24, there's a lot of changes happening. We're talking about the formation of the prefrontal cortex, and our brains aren't finished forming really, until about 24, 25 years old.
Those are easier and there's a lot of work done in understanding how we grow and change and develop through those two, what I would call days. Those two seasons. Zero to 12, 12 to 24. But less work has been done, I think in terms of adult development. So, if you keep on that pathway, so I would say, the calling that God has on a child is simply to be a child. It may be the only time in our lives, zero to 12, when what you are is all you really meant to be. I make an argument for that, both biblically, but also sociopsychological developmentally, whatever.
Then the adolescent, the job of an adolescent is really to be a student. So, day one is about a call to be a child. Day two is a call to learn about the world, to test it, to push back, to try to understand the world in which we live. Then I would say early career, 24 to 36, I would call that a call to be a servant, to learn to be a team player, to come under someone else's vision, to discover as much as you can about yourself, actually. So, if the student is learning about the world, our 20s is about discovering what we can and can't do, what our skill set is, what our personality is, what we do well, what we do poorly. I would argue, just try everything.
[00:10:12] JR: Yeah, totally. Experiment widely.
[00:10:15] BS: Experiment widely and don't feel the pressure to be the boss yet. In some ways, in terms of the Christian story, we've probably rushed people too soon into primary leadership, and we're paying the price for that. We have a lot of cautionary tales right now, for people who are rushed into leadership in their early 20s and their character was not forged in a season of serving. So, I would say that third day, 24 to 36, is really about serving.
And then you'll appreciate this, Jordan, but that call to create that, yeah, day for 36 to 48, I think is really, like probably like a high watermark for our careers. It may be a point where we really figure something out that we were a part of an agency and organization, an enterprise, we have problems with it. We think this should change or could be better in some way, and that becomes our moment where we maybe step out a little bit, or we do create something, we bring something to the world that didn't exist before and wouldn't exist, it not for us in some way. It doesn't have to be a big thing. It doesn’t have to be a company or a ministry or something. It could be, books written or curriculum or a group that started in a neighborhood or something. But something truly unique and creative, that only you could do and bring into the world.
And then day five, 48 to 60, I would say is about the call to be a mentor. So, child, student, servant, maker, mentor. Day five then is about you kind of step out of the middle, a little bit. You're less interested in being the boss and being the one driving, but you have created something, you have brought something in the world and you want to sort of see that given away and the wisdom that's discovered.
And then the last day, day six, I use the word mystic. Somebody with one foot in the next world and in this world, and their focal point becomes smaller. They have a smaller group of people that they invest in. It's kind of like day six of creation, where God makes human beings in His own image. Not to stretch the metaphor, but we look for a smaller group of people to pass on who we are.
[00:12:17] JR: It's the passing of baton.
[00:12:18] BS: It is the passing of baton and a preparation of our own hearts for eternity, for that next beginning that we talked about.
[00:12:25] JR: Yeah, I love it. I love in the book, you marvel at the fact that God took his time creating in those first six days. What do you think this means? What do you make of this, Brian?
[00:12:39] BS: Whatever we think about the first chapter of Genesis, first few chapters of Genesis, whether those are literal days, or metaphorical days or whatever. It wasn't instantaneous, right?
[00:12:49] JR: Yes. God paced Himself. That’s a wild idea.
[00:12:52] BS: He did. And he wanted for some reason to layer one piece of creation upon another. I'm not a biologist, so maybe there's some sort of significance there. But I think probably for people like you and me just to look at God, not only taking his time, but being deliberate about what I would call development, saying, I want this sort of world to exist. I'm going to take these steps, I'm going to move in these periods of time to get to that final endpoint, or really to create a world for human beings, for my offspring. The last thing it creates, of course, is us. But he has slowly made this world for us, and then he rests and presumably, when he puts his image in us, you'll appreciate this Jordan, we carry that creative intent. Maybe that's even what it means to be maintenance image.
[00:13:42] JR: Yeah. I know a lot of scholars who would say that's exactly what it means to be made in His image, basically, up until Genesis 1:26, when God says, “Let us make mankind in our image.” We know one thing about the image of God, he makes stuff, right? He creates, right? So, to be made in the image of God is to be made to be creative and to make more of this world than what we started with. I thought this was really interesting. You call it the primary developmental threat, in your later years. Is this fear of obscurity? I think every human, not just in your 60s and 70s, I think every human being fears this, maybe every adult, I don't think kids fear this. But you're dying in their work, not out living them. How have you thought about this person? Like how can God's word help you help our listeners deal with this very real, very human fear?
[00:14:42] BS: Maybe it goes back to what calling really implies. For me, at least, to believe in something like calling. To say that there's such a thing. It first implies that there is one who calls. This is almost become a secular idea calling, but it's ours, right? It's rooted in mysticism, actually, to have heard a voice. A vocation is rooted in the mystery of God speaking over a person's life and saying, “This is what I've made you for.” And we understand it, to some degree having to do with purpose and significance and maybe fulfillment. Do your calling, you don't feel fulfilled in some way. Job satisfaction.
But actually, the first connotation of calling is just that you're known by God. If I shout out one of my kids’ names in the house, it's because I know them. It's because I have this deep relationship with them. I know them by name. But yes, it means they're meant to come to me. The first connotation of calling is to come to Him, and to be in relationship with Him. So, I think as we go through these sorts of crisis and identity crises throughout the course of our lives, and come back to him, return, essentially to that core idea that I'm called by him, because I'm known by Him, because I'm loved by Him, because he wants me for Himself first.
Yeah, there's something for me to do. There's an assignment that he has for me, that only I can do in the world. If you think of Jordan, that way, to me, the two deepest longings of the human heart are to be known and loved, and to have purpose. We want intimacy and we want significance. Calling gives us both. But if you don't first have that draw from the well of intimacy, that God knows me, he wants me, he has something for me to do. If you rush ahead too quickly to the idea of like, “What is my purpose? Or what can I do in a world that makes me significant?” Then I think, you lose the plot a little bit, and later in life, it becomes more important than the purpose, more important than the work, more important than the assignment, then it does that core relationship.
Again, as you come closer to your own death, to walking from this life into the next, intimacy matters more even, because you realize I'm about to receive my reward and actually, my reward is Jesus Himself. It is to look into his eyes, it’s to be face to face with the one that knows me, and has walked with me through the whole of my life, who has been my best and purest and truest friend, this is what I have lived for, is essentially, this moment. It is union, it can only be summed up in Revelation as a marriage, is that the deepest of all intimacy that we know.
I think obscurity is a threat to us, in part because it muddies that water, it obscures even the idea that our whole reason for existing is union with God not to do cool things or perform or whatever.
[00:17:29] JR: Yeah, but it's the source of that relationship, that identity being with God first, before we get an assignment, before we get work to do. I love this. I've mentioned this before in the podcast, just seeing this at the baptism of Jesus, right? Jesus comes out of the water says, “This is my son in whom I'm well pleased.” There's the identity. You are my child. Now, you've got some work to do, right? Go kick off this big public ministry, working all the way to the cross, but it's the identity first, that enabled that work to begin.
[00:18:07] BS: I think, part of the case I'm making in the book is that these discoveries that we make at each stage of life, these sense of calling, like a calling to be a child, actually, and then a calling to be a learner student, we don't lose those, we don't trade those in for the next one and the next season, that we build upon them. They're cumulative, right? So that's exactly right, that if we learned in our early years, that we are a child, you never lose that. You keep that with you through the whole of your life. But if you didn't, if there's some sort of developmental breakdown there, that in a way, it inhibits every other form of development.
So, Jesus knew he was a son, a child, and you never lose that. It stays with you all of your life to be a child of God, a son or a daughter of God. And then yeah, you learn to be a learner, a student in your adolescent years, but you never lose that. You always are a student. And then you learn to be a servant in your early career, but you're never meant to give the help. You don't trade that in to become the boss or the CEO or whatever. You keep that servant identity. So, each of them in a sense, they build upon each other and they become necessary for the next revelation of your own character development and maybe your calling, which the baptism of Jesus, I just think is what a poignant vignette that is for precisely that idea that Jesus knew, even as he went into his creative moment in life that he was just a son.
[00:19:30] JR: It's almost like these callings compound. It's the power of compound interest apply to calling. It's super interesting. I do think though, I think a lot of people, once a child always a child. I think that can get muddy though. It can be easy to be going day in and day out doing “the work of the Lord”, and lose sight of being a child of God. How do you maintain this identity? I mean, legally, obviously, we never lose our identity as children of God. That's not what I'm saying. But how do you cultivate the experience of sonship, day in and day out? A reminder that you are first and foremost a child of God.
[00:20:16] BS: I make the argument in that first day that the big developmental concept is play, that a play researcher that said that plays essentially the only thing that human beings do, where the point is just joy.
[00:20:29] JR: Yeah. Stuart Brown, Dr. Stuart Brown.
[00:20:32] BS: Okay, thank you. There you go. So, I think later on in life, we still “play”. But maybe there are other points like winning or succeeding or whatever fitness or something like that. Maybe there's a clue there to the renewal of our sense of sonship, daughtership, childhood, childlike faith, to stay connected to the kingdom as a child, is to still keep joy, as a target. I don't know. That's probably a poor way to say it, but not just to play, but to look for joy. Because a child isn't trying to win, they're not trying to be the best, they’re not trying to compete where someone loses and put someone down. They want to interact with the world in a way that gives them a sense of wonder and joy. Maybe that's what the way you keep that heart is to be playful, to continue to have a sense of joy, to be with people in our life of prayer with God. Obviously, it's not just have a hobby, or something. It's probably something deeper than that. So, I'm going to be honest with you, Jordan, this would not be a strength of mine.
[00:21:40] JR: That's why I'm asking the question. It’s exactly what I’m asking, because we went deep on this with my friend, Kristin Joy Taylor here on the podcast a few weeks ago. I'm terrible at this. There are very few things in my life that I do for the pure joy of doing them. Everything is intentional. Everything is purposeful. I don't think that's healthy, right? Spoiler alert. So, I'm unpacking this and trying to understand how other people are doing this. Because, number one, I think this is important to really experience what it's like being a child of God. But I also think it's pretty important to doing our most exceptional work. I think it's hard to be truly world class at what we do if there's no, just totally purposeless fun.
[00:22:24] BS: There's that research about happiness that is kind of coming to the fore right now, that there's this kind of U curve, that people are happiest – the research of Andrew Oswald and others, where people are happiest when they're young. So, late teens, we register our highest levels of personal happiness and then when we're old. Essentially, it's a U curve. It's a downward facing U curve and we're our saddest selves, at the height of our careers, our highest earning potential, at our highest creative moment, where we're actually doing something that maybe we've built up to, have a sense of significance or place, or whatever in the world. That's when we're the least happy.
It's a little bit tragic, actually. And maybe it's something to do with a broken American dream or something. But maybe you and I are both confessing to each other here that we have been there in that the bottom of that U curve, you're driven by something, and that's a good thing, and you're creating something, you're building something, and that's a good thing. But we do lose sight of maybe the joy and wonder, and maybe we have an overdeveloped sense of our own significance at that point in life. So, we take on too much, too much responsibility. A child doesn't probably feel that way. Older people don't either. They let go of that. They stop thinking that they are the center of the world or the center of the universe, and older people can manage joy and pain at the same time. When we're in our midlife, we tend to think we have to eliminate pain, we have to eliminate suffering, to create happiness, that they're mutually exclusive realities.
But the truth is, I think one of the things that people who are older discover is, you always carry a little bit of sadness in you, but you can also look at the world to wonder and joy, and those things can happen simultaneously. That happiness stuff is a little bit daunting. So, if you've figured out Jordan –
[00:24:15] JR: I'll let you know. You’ll the first one I’ll call. That’s exactly right.
It's really good. I do think part of this is related to this over overinflated sense of self and purpose. I talked a little bit about this in my last book, Redeeming Your Time, we would never explicitly say this, but I think implicitly we tell ourselves, “Well, God created this work for me to do and so he needs me to do it.” That's a lie, right? God doesn't need any specific person to do any specific work. If I die and the things on my to do list are on his to do list, he's going to complete them with or without me. And as I meditate on that, I find a lot of freedom and can approach the work in a more life-giving way, knowing that it's a response of worship, and yes, I'm contributing to his plans to renew creation. But if I don't finish the job that is more than okay, because he's going to have to redeem and perfect everything I do anyways, right?
[00:25:13] BS: There's a guy called James Carse who wrote a book that no one read called Finite and Infinite Games and Simon Sinek popularized it. He just wrote a book called The Infinite Game. But Carse’s idea is that human beings do play these two kinds of games. Finite games are like checkers, or football or something. They have rules, they have boundaries. It's clear how to win. You know who your opponent is. It has a beginning and an end. Those are finite games. But he says, we also play infinite games. Infinite games, don't have clear rules. They don't have necessarily a beginning or an end. The goal of a finite games to win, to defeat your opponent, whatever. The goal of an infinite games to simply play, to simply keep playing.
Something like the gospel of the kingdom or church or the Christian life, these are infinite games. This is the infinite game. I think the older you get, the more you realize, “Oh, I'm a part of something that started well before me, it will go on well, after me. God is in full control of Himself, His people. I get to play a part.” It's not that purpose is like the whole world is hanging in this deep, profound sense of responsibility and my calling. But it's that I am privileged to play a part. I get to be handed an assignment within this great theater, this great drama of the unfolding of the story of God, in the world and over time. So, I am important.
It's a paradox, isn't it? There is a part that only I can play. There are lines in this script that only I can say. But the story will go on. You can say your lines or not say your lines, but this play will unfold for the world to see either way. So, you are significant. You do have a part to play. But at the same time, you're not as significant as you think. Actually, God's story started well before us and it will go on well after us and His Church is going to be okay, and His justice will reign eventually, and goodness will triumph and all of that. So, also letting go. I think where we go wrong, Jordan, I'm sure you'll probably agree, in the church and Christian leadership stuff is we play a finite game. We turn the church into a finite game, where I'm trying to win or be better, than some other ministry or have a bigger church or more significance or whatever success in some earthly terms, metrics, whatever.
[00:27:34] JR: Yeah, so good. I think when we get lost in that bigger story, then the role that I play in the story, the part I get to play is less important. Sheryl Sandberg, when she was COO of Facebook, used to say this all the time to new talent, right? When they're recruiting talent at Facebook, she’d say listen, when you are asked to hop on a rocket ship, you don't ask which seat, you just get on the rocket ship because we're going to the moon. I think it’s the same thing with the kingdom of God. Jesus has drafted us all into service of cultivating the eternal kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. The part we get to play, who cares, right? Who cares? Just get in the game and make a choice as to what that calling is going to be in this season of life and get working. So, Brian, it’s super helpful. I want to talk a little bit more about your work. You were the executive director for the Underground Network for a while, which season of calling was this for you?
[00:28:34] BS: Yeah, good question. So obviously, I see my own story in this as well and I was a part of a parachurch college ministry for my 20s and early 30s. That was good for me to learn, to have a supervisor and to be a part of a bigger organization. I'm critical by nature. So, I would see things I disagree with, but to play my part anyways, to still be a team member to learn to submit, before I lead and that kind of thing.
I was still planting things and starting things because that's maybe a thread of calling through the course of my life. But then to sort of step out to look at the church and to say there's certain things about the way the church was done that I just felt weren't right. So, at some point, you realize that you're complaining about it doesn't really do anything. It doesn't honor God. No one listens anyway. So, I think it's around your mid-30s where you realize, well, you're a grown person do what you think is right. Why don't you start something else?
So, the underground comes out of that and it is exactly a day for creative endeavor. It's essentially to step out of the existing kind of ecclesial landscape and to try something else, to experiment. So, the underground is my day for creative contribution to the world. But I'm day five now, right? I'm 49, so I would just have just stepped into this day five, 48 to 60. It is interesting that right around 48, I felt like I need to give this away to a younger team of leaders, and I just need to move out of central leadership and so I did that. I went to Europe for a couple years and have been trusted a really amazing group of young leaders to take on the Underground.
I have other work that I'm doing now, which is really more in line with that mentor day where I'm taking some of what I learned and discovered through my career so far, and trying to multiply that essentially, to share that with others. So, I mean, it does mirror my own story.
[00:30:31] JR: Yeah, I love it. Give us the 32nd overview of what is the Underground Network, Brian?
[00:30:36] BS: I mean, the Underground is an experiment in church, if you were to have a bias towards mission, towards empowerment, and you were to think of the church is essentially a network of autonomous, smaller missional enterprises, or what we would call micro churches. I mean, the platform itself is an incubator for micro churches, and a network for called people to start small expressions of the church, and then to link those small expressions of the church together, in a family, a network of micro churches. As an approach, that idea is gaining traction, not as a franchise or as a model. But just that idea of kind of decentralizing the church in some way. I'd say that's become interesting, even traditional legacy bigger churches are taking a good hard look at that, which I think is the right thing to do.
[00:31:29] JR: Well, yeah. I mean, because you guys have achieved some impressive scale. The Underground Network has what you guys call movement hubs and 17 cities, seven countries. How did you do that? How did you guys figure this out this fairly unique model of ministry?
[00:31:48] BS: We had the courage to just start over, just start from scratch. Most church innovation or change is incremental. It's transitional change. It's essentially you start with an inherited system and you try to affect modular change within it. I'm sure you know a bit about change management. That is one way to approach change management, modular, incremental. And I would say in the 20th century, that was probably the primary mode of change was transitional, incremental, modular change, because you had essentially more of a stable environment in the 20th century. So, that's how change works. The diplomat is the change agent.
In the 21st century, that is just less and less tenable to change that way, because the externalized change in the world is too fast, it's too rapid. So, you have to be more radical instead of modular, and the startup has an advantage. The startup can go from scratch and say, “Okay, what are our values? What are our founding principles?” Releasing yourself from a certain economic model. Everything can fit conceptually within a brand-new model. I'd say we had that advantage. You just start off and say, “Okay, if you wanted to build a church form, of full, comprehensive ecclesial structure that had a bias towards mission and empowerment and define the church is something small, which could belong into the hands of ordinary Christians, and leaders.” There wasn't a Clergy-Laity Divide, that kind of thing. If you wanted to free up the economic model so that you could plant cheaper, smaller, autonomous little churches, then what would you do? And how would you build it? What staff would you hire?
So, we asked all those questions, and it's early form. I often say the Underground is like Netscape Navigator in 1998 or so. I mean, where even is Netscape Navigator? It's gone. But it was like the first way to get on the internet and it was useful to build out better web browsers. I think and believe, I really believe that we're going to see the Chrome and the Edge and Firefox of the future. The church is going to do this better than we did. But it breaks open something to say, you can re-from the church, from scratch, comprehensively. That's probably the advantage we had. I feel a lot of respect, even, for people that are trying to change church and institutional systems, inherited systems really hard. I mean, really, really hard. It takes Herculean effort and a lot of time.
I probably just didn't have the patience for that. But some people may and good for them, and I would want to be supportive of anybody trying to see the evolution and reformation of the Church, which by the way, happens in every generation. It's not just us that's going through this. Every generation of believers has to take a look at the inherited form of the church they've been given, look at the scriptures, look at the Bible, and with fresh eyes and open hearts, look at the culture in which they're contextualizing the kingdom and start again. Every generation, I think is meant to be that.
[00:34:53] JR: Yeah. But I love this. I think this is a lesson for church leaders, but any leader of any organization, just two diametrically opposed models of change. There's modular form and there’s radical form. I do think it's interesting to think about, like, startups for maybe one of the first times maybe the only time in history, I don't know well enough, have a unique advantage. For centuries, it's been a disadvantage to be so nimble and scrappy and whatever. But that's actually advantageous in this day and age where radical change is the game of the day.
[00:35:31] BS: That's it, yeah.
[00:35:32] JR: Yeah. So, you exited your executive director role of Underground, what do you do in this next season of life? You touched on it, this idea of mentoring, but what specifically does that look like for you?
[00:35:42] BS: With the National Christian Foundation, trying to help them start what we're calling impact alliances, but this idea of collective impact pulling together, agencies, government, non-government, churches, faith communities around certain causes. You have intractable social problems, that will only probably can only really be solved by greater levels of collaboration. But the convening of that collaboration is a little bit unclear, like who has the right or power to convene those things?
So, I'm involved in right now, in about nine of these alliances, where we're trying to bring to the table siloed, disparate agencies to do strategic planning together, to look at the map together, to share data, to do whatever they can to create higher levels of efficiency and ultimately, change. To move the needle in some of these what feels like intractable problems, and in turn to release significant funding into those cost areas based on that, those higher levels of collaboration. So that's a very much a day five thing, because you have to have a certain perspective. I'm not leading anything. I just convene. I call meetings. I listen. I am in a place where I can trust the wisdom and the expertise of these people. This is their field, it's not mine. So, this idea of like directional visionary leadership, you can't walk into a collaborative environment with those tools. They won’t work.
[00:37:10] JR: I love asking guests about their routines. I want to ask you about your reading routines. Because I've heard for years that the legendary Brian Sanders reads like a book a day. Is this true?
[00:37:28] BS: Well, it isn't. I mean, it's audiobooks, first of all, although I probably read what, 75 books a year. But yeah, audio books. I’m well over 350 to 375 a year.
[00:37:45] JR: This is insane to me. This is mind boggling. I got to know, I got to know. I love and I think our listeners need to know. What’s your system for capturing that knowledge and reviewing the future? How do you build a knowledge management system out of all that?
[00:38:06] BS: Well, you're going to be disappointed, because I mean, look, I'm a hunter. I am just always looking for killer ideas. So, the way I read is more like a search. I go cover to cover. I'm not cheating. I don't go halfway and count a book. If I don't finish a book, I won't count it. But I'm listening for the standout ideas. You'll understand this. Most of what I read is derivative, very derivative. There's a lot of conflated ideas. People borrow the same stories, the same research, whatever. But every now and then, you get a truly unique thesis of a book. I love the long form argument. I think that's being lost in our time, because of the nature of sound bites, and Twitter and so on. We don't have the attention span.
I'll read a book on intermittent fasting or something. I'll give you an entire book to convince me about intermittent fasting. My intention is not to really know that or be able to teach it or something like that, it's just have listened to a long form argument. I'm just looking for those killer ideas. So, I do keep a list, a running list of the best ideas. If I get one or two ideas out of a book, that's good. I'd say that was a good book. Many books, you don't get anything, not because it wasn't nice or fine, but it's just because it's all derivative. It's been said before.
[00:39:24] JR: Yeah. So, you just have a running list of killer ideas from books. This is fascinating to me. We have radically different approaches. Listen, you're reading a lot more than I am. So, I don't know, maybe I need to rethink this.
[00:39:42] BS: Well, so you drill in more? You really try to integrate or understand what you're reading?
[00:39:47] JR: Yeah. I don't know if I've ever talked about this in the podcast. But yeah, I read almost exclusively on Kindle, unless it's an advanced copy of that book like yours that I skimmed and physically highlighted. But yeah, I read on Kindle. It automatically syncs all of my highlights and notes to Evernote and then I process all those notes. So, I wait three weeks until the book is done, because after three weeks, a lot of the things I thought were important when I highlighted, in retrospect aren't that important, right? And I go through and I just review the note. And I create permanent notes in my system, they are tagged to different themes that I'm writing on, or will write on in the future. A lot of it for me, I guess, as a nonfiction writer, is yes, a lot of these ideas are repetitive, but the expression of them are very different and the quotes in the stories that are used to illustrate that point are very different. So, it's worked for me, but I love the way you read books.
[00:40:39] BS: The pressure on you then is you have to choose good books to read.
[00:40:43] JR: Yes. Oh, 100%. Yes, I am wicked picky about what I read.
[00:40:49] BS: So, if I knew like, these are going to be the 20 books that are really meaningful, then yeah, maybe I wouldn't read the rest. But I'm on this quest anyway. So, it's like broad and shallow, I suppose. Although maybe about 20 a year stand out to me. Those I buy. Yeah and I do keep them and I really look at them, and I'll go back through. But it's almost the quest to find the ones that are worthy of my shelf.
[00:41:19] JR: This is a good segue. I love wrapping up with these three questions with every interview. Number one, which books do you recommend or gift most frequently?
[00:41:31] BS: I'm at meetings here in Dallas, and I just bought two copies of Upstream to give to some guys. I really liked The Second Mountain. I've probably given that away a couple of times. I've given away Systems Thinking for Social Change to people that are trying to understand some of what we're doing with collaboration.
[00:41:49] JR: Do you know John Tyson?
[00:41:50] BS: I don't know him personally. But yeah, I’d read his stuff.
[00:41:52] JR: John and I were together in Austin a couple weeks ago and he was trying to convince me to read The Second Mountain. Pitch me on The Second Mountain. Why do I need to read this? This is David Brooks, right?
[00:42:01] BS: Yeah, but how old are you?
[00:42:03] JR: I'm 35.
[00:42:05] BS: You don't need it yet.
[00:42:08] JR: So, you and John, you old guys.
[00:42:10] BS: Exactly. It's all about where you are in life and he's looking back to some degree and recognizing some mistakes he's made. You're still in your zenith, dude.
[00:42:24] JR: I am. It feels like I am. Alright, that's good. Those are good recommendations. Brian, you're talking to an audience of Christ followers who are very diverse in terms of what they do vocationally. What they share is a desire to do exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. What's one thing you want to leave them with before we sign off?
[00:42:46] BS: I just think you have to stay close to the one who knows you and who made you and to not lose your why. I think it's E.M. Forster that made a distinction between a story and a plot. And a story is, the king died and then the queen died. It's just events. It's a sequence of events, he says. But a plot is the king died and then the queen died of grief. A plot implies why. The queen dies because she loves the king. We can do our work and do it well and focus on that and we should, but to not lose the plot. That we are loved known people, that we have an eternal future, and that that relationship with Jesus is everything. It might sound simplistic, but stay as close as you can to the heart of God.
[00:43:36] JR: It's simplistic, but that's profound. Brian, I want to commend you for the exceptional Kingdom work you do. Thank you for leaning into God's calling on your life in various seasons and helping others do the same. And man, on a personal note, I just got to thank you publicly for your love of our great community, and for making Tampa look a little bit more like the Kingdom of God.
Guys, the book is called, The 6 Seasons of Calling, go pick it up wherever books are sold. Brian, where can people connect with you personally?
[00:44:08] BS: I'm out there, social media. I'm probably a little more elusive than I once was. I’m becoming more like Jordan Raynor.
[00:44:17] JR: Going underground. Well, Brian, thanks again for joining us.
[00:44:23] BS: Cool. Thank you.
[OUTRO]
[00:44:24] JR: I hope you guys enjoyed that episode. If you did, make sure to follow the Call to Mastery podcast in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode in the future. If you're already subscribed, do me a favor, take 30 seconds to go review the podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts. Guys, thank you so much for tuning in this week. I'll see you next time.
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