Introducing Season 4 and the Center for Gospel Culture

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Sam Allberry: Hey guys, this is you’re not crazy. This isn’t a proper episode. We’re just cutting in Ray and I. Hi, Ray.

Ray Ortlund: Hi, Sam.

Sam Allberry: Because we want to fill you in on a couple of things that are coming up. So Ray, we finished recording season four just recently what’s coming up in season four?

Ray Ortlund: Okay, before I answer that perfectly legitimate question, I want to say something about you, Sam all very. And you’re gonna sit there and take it like a man because I want to tell our friends who are listening to this what a great guy you are and why I respect you. I would put my life in the hands of Sam Albury and I would put my finances in the hands of Sam Albury. And here’s the reason why Sam is not out for himself. There’s not a selfish bone in his body. And we all know that even among Christian leaders, there can be self seeking self exalting personalities that really complicate everything. Sam is not like that. Sam reminds me of Jesus. And that is the key to gospel culture. And I’m sorry, Sam, I’m throwing you a curveball. That was not the agreed upon plan. So what was your question?

Sam Allberry: Well, firstly, thank you for sharing that. It’s very kind of you to say it’s true. Well, I can’t let you get away with saying that without a response.

Ray Ortlund: No, no, no, you’re not going to do that. I’m answering your question now.

Sam Allberry: Well, Ray has been an amazing father figure to me in the faith. Right. I don’t know where I would be without you. We could try and outdo each other in showing honor for the next several minutes. But we have season forecast. We do finish that recently. And what are we covering in season four?

Ray Ortlund: Here’s what we’re going to do. Sam and I take Romans chapters 12, through 15. And think those chapters through we think out loud together on how Romans one through 11. The doctrine of Romans nurtures, creates, puts beauty upon churches as gospel culture described in Romans 12 through 15. I’m plowing through Romans all over again, in my own personal Bible reading, and I’m seeing with fresh eyes even since we recorded the season. Sam, I’m seeing how Paul’s whole point is to create beauty in our churches through the book of Romans.

Sam Allberry: Yeah, I was talking with someone last week about Romans 14 and 15. And he came up with some wonderful insights that we didn’t have. So we might need to go and re record that season. So that is coming up soon. TGC are kindly editing our ramblings into actually shareable episodes. We love TGC. We do. They’ve been so kind to us. But we’re breaking into the feed now because there’s a couple of things we’ve been working on that are coming up that we wanted to let you know about. One is a small group curriculum that we’ve been working on together, right. Do you want to share a little bit about what that is?

Ray Ortlund: Well, the book, You’re Not Crazy, came out what last September, I think it was, and Crossway and TGC co-published that we’re so grateful. And that is all about what gospel doctrine does in a church, how it creates the beauty of human relationships in a church, that the gospel does not hang in midair as a mere abstraction, but enters into us and becomes embodied in the beauty of our human relationships together, and you use the word health. I like the word beauty, but we’re talking about the same thing. Yeah. A healthy church is where people can live again. A beautiful church is one people can trust. And we need both. So anyway, we wrote the book, you’re not crazy. Now that content is being translated into a small group curriculum by our friends at b&h, Broadman and Holman. And so that’s coming out very soon. That’s the next step we’re going to be taking together.

Sam Allberry: It is and those guys are amazing. Together, small group curriculum material, they had us out filming together. So there’s video content to go with the kind of discussion questions and everything else, it was we had fun.

Ray Ortlund: It was really fun doing that. What was it you drove us around in? Or is this awesome? 1969 Chevy pickup. Yeah.

Sam Allberry: So anyway, that is coming out soon. We’d love you to know about that. Because a few people have asked about how we can teach some of these concepts in a small group context, we hope this will help you to do that. The other thing we’ve got coming up in the works is something that is being launched at our church, Emmanuel Nashville, and it’s called “The Center for Gospel Culture.” This has been something we’ve been talking about for a few years now. And we finally pulled the trigger on really to try to help us build out a way of resourcing the wider church in thinking about these kinds of things. So let me just say a couple of quick things about what that center will do. There’ll be some in person events that we’re looking forward to running. We’ve already had a few pastors come and join us on sabbaticals or steady Lee For sometimes for a few days, sometimes for a few weeks, that’s an option that is always available. We’re hoping to start running weekenders. So maybe a team of elders or a staff team can come join us for a few days, we’re hoping to run the first of these in late 2024, later this year, wow. And then the other thing, which has been so much on our heart is we would love next year 2025, to run a conference for weary pastors, where we can come together and try to just be encouraged together, through the Lord through his kindness. So there’s a few in person things. Also, there will be a lot of online resources, where you have taught on gospel culture, the manual, over the years, we’ve had lots of other seminars, and other friends of ours have taught things that we’ve loved on this. So the aim really is to put all of that in one place where you can find it easily and access it. So those sermons from about 10 years ago, you did on gospel culture that you thought would never see the light of day anymore, right, you’re going to be back and available to enjoy. Now, we would love folks to be praying for us in this, it’s still in the early stages. So if you could pray for us, we would love that, that this would be a useful thing for the kingdom of God. If you wanted to partner with us through giving, we’re still trying to raise funds to get this thing off the ground on how to do any of that go to gospel culture.net. And the reason we’re doing all of this is what you were just saying earlier, right? We need more. We don’t need more churches, per se. We need more Busey, in our churches, and more health.

Ray Ortlund: Yes. We need more churches were injured, exhausted, bewildered people can come and breathe a huge sigh of relief. Settle in, rethink their lives and live again. Yeah. And pastors need that very same rejuvenation. Sam Emanuel church was birthed in exhaustion and pain and loss. It was the best thing that ever happened to us. Because it left a profound impression and imparted to us a fierce determination. People are going to be treated right here. And so we just feel so grateful to God for the gift of devastation. And the beauty that he brought from it that he did. We did not mastermind gospel culture on a whiteboard somewhere. It was a gift God gave us. And once we had sort of stumbled into those green pastures, and beside those still waters, and sort of blinked and looked around and said, Wow, this is great. What how did we get here? Oh, let’s call this gospel culture. I think that’s what this is. And we just want that same gift and treasure and sigh of relief and newness of life for everybody. Absolutely.

Sam Allberry: One of the things I’m looking forward to is every time we’ve had conversations where you and I’ve been doing this podcast for a few years now, other pastor friends of ours have been sharing their perspectives. The more I have conversations with more pastors about this, the more I learned from them, other people are making their own discoveries that we can learn from heart of the hope. And the prayer with a sense of a gospel culture is really to give all of us a place to talk some more we are longing to hear how other people have stumbled into breakthroughs, insights, how other churches have found spiritual healing through Christ. So we hope it will be a place where we can really just pull all of our resources together and revel in what the Lord is doing.

Ray Ortlund: Gospel culture.net is the website live it will be by the time people hear these words. Okay, great. Is there a donate section there?

Sam Allberry: There is I believe, yeah.

Ray Ortlund: I think that will come in handy.

Sam Allberry: So thanks for letting us interrupt your feed Season Four is on its way fairly soon, bro. Thanks as always for your Thank you Simon, your company and we’ll see you guys soon.