Rob Chartrand (00:00.603)
Oh, that's the problem.
Rob Chartrand (00:06.206)
All right, here we go. Hey, Bill Hogg, welcome to the Church in the North podcast.
Dr. Bill Hogg (00:13.957)
Thanks Rob, delighted to be with you.
Rob Chartrand (00:17.374)
Yeah, we've introduced Bill in the pre-show, but just to recap, he's the National Director of Message Canada and he's the lead for Advance Canada and probably another number of extraordinary titles behind his name of organizations he leads, like lawn bowling clubs. Is that correct, Bill?
Dr. Bill Hogg (00:35.245)
As well as Guardian and High Protector of Scotland. I've got that on my business card as well. You know, carrying the torch that William Wallace dropped when he was executed and dismembered by the English.
Rob Chartrand (00:40.174)
I'm sorry.
Rob Chartrand (00:50.546)
I, well, hey, let's introduce our audience to you. And let's start with your ministry background. Can you give us just like a real general topography of your ministry journey? Obviously you were not born in Canada, but how did you end up through ministry to your current role with Message Canada?
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:10.733)
Well, let's see how brief and succinct that can be. There's a challenge for an evangelist, but as a young Scottish boy, I bounced in and out of the United States of America like a yo-yo because my dad worked for IBM, which I thought stood for IBM moved, but actually just international business machines. So it's kind of like being a military brat, you're in and out, and in one of those boondoggles in the United States.
Rob Chartrand (01:28.59)
Blue suits.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:40.497)
I encountered Jesus at a camp and followed Jesus, drifted away from Christ till my final year of high school where I had got into the duplicitous fog of being a religious hypocrite who would check into church weekly but didn't live for Jesus, didn't follow Jesus, and I know the Lord is limitless in his patience and kindness.
but it was almost like he was saying, okay, are you in or are you out? You know, quit messing around. And I had this intuitive sense, if I surrendered fully to Jesus, He would call me into ministry, ill-defined at the time. I did surrender to Christ and had a more radical encounter than my 12-year-old encounter with Jesus in the woods of northern Minnesota. And off the back of that, began to share Christ and became an obnoxious
boy preacher, you know, in my teens and preached in our local church and people didn't have good spiritual categories for what was going on here but they were saying stuff like, this is what you should do with the rest of your life. I had an amazing encounter with the Holy Spirit when I was an engineering student and that propelled me into an awareness that God had called me to be an evangelist. So a Pioneer of Youth for Christ in Scotland.
and then moved to the US and served a large church in the Pacific Northwest as their youth pastor, then returned to Youth for Christ as an evangelist at large. So I used to say, Rob, I'm like Tommy La Sorda, like baseball fans will still remember and cherish Tommy La Sorda, who said, if you cut me, I'll bleed Dodger blue. I used to say, cut me, I'll bleed Youth for Christ. So Youth for Christ was precious to me because it was formative in my...
emerging ministry as an evangelist. I've also pastored churches, which is fun and painful and challenging, all at the same time, because I have a conviction that the local church is not the hope of the world, Jesus is, that we thought that wrong. You know, lift Jesus high, the bullseye is a life-giving Christology and an existence.
Rob Chartrand (03:58.316)
Amen. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (04:07.365)
potentially centred life on Jesus, not the church. But the church should be defined by mission as a participant in the mission of God. And my dream was always that the local church would be defined by a culture of evangelism. So I've also been an adjunct prof.
teaching mission, evangelism, youth ministry from a missiological paradigm as an adjunct prophet, Seattle Pacific University. I said, what if we reframed youth ministry instead of placing it under adult education, but we saw it as a missiological discipline? So that's been my bias for some time. Laterally, I was the national missiologist for Canadian Church Planting Network, which worked with
Rob Chartrand (04:50.576)
Right. Hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (04:59.377)
31 evangelical denominations across Canada in various depths of partnership. But I think that was a great gift to be a convener of bringing the people of God together around the mission of Jesus and the planting of churches. And then in August the 1st, 2019, I became the first National Director of Message Canada. So that's a bit of a flyover.
Rob Chartrand (05:18.016)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (05:28.193)
lots of years, lots of blessing, grief, pain, joy, fruitfulness, desolation and consolation along the way.
Rob Chartrand (05:37.194)
Yeah, well done. Well done. That's succinct. You and I connected and worked together when you were doing your stint with C2C Network. I mean, that's when we first got to know each other and then, of course, we've partnered on some other endeavors since then. So just for our listeners to know, if Bill and I sound very comfortable with each other, it's because we've put in the time.
So why don't you tell us about Message Canada? What is your mission? And maybe flesh it out a little bit. Boots on the ground. What do the practical outworkings of that mission look like?
Dr. Bill Hogg (06:18.033)
Great question Rob and we are at ease because we're friends and have always enjoyed connecting with you when you were a church planter because you were one of the few church planters who viewed the whole enterprise missiologically and I think every church planter should be a missiologist and be a Catholic to move the church on mission. Just as James Denny said, all our evangelists should be theologians and all our theologians should be evangelists, you know, all our planters.
Rob Chartrand (06:45.674)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (06:47.557)
be missiologists, but regarding Message Canada, we're part of a global movement. Message Trust was founded by a level five leader, an apostolic evangelist, Andy Hawthorne OBE. So entrepreneurial, but apostolic. In my lexicon, those are two different things. Businessmen who started part time doing schools evangelism and then it's morphed into...
Rob Chartrand (07:01.954)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (07:15.949)
holistic missional enterprise that's seen community transformation, seen gobs of prisoners encounter Christ, loads of young people here and respond to the good news of Jesus. And you know it's a joy to be part of that global movement with expressions where they were very Manchester-centric, you know committed to Manchester, but then it's morphed into the home countries of Scotland, Wales and England.
Rob Chartrand (07:38.158)
Okay.
Dr. Bill Hogg (07:45.621)
South Africa, Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil, and here in Canada. So we're a new kid on the block in Canadian terms. We're about six years old, and I became the National Director on August 1, 2019. And we're committed to fanning the flames of evangelism. We're committed to serving and supporting the body of Christ in the evangelization of Canada.
Rob Chartrand (07:50.252)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (08:04.898)
Hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (08:11.009)
and I would say also sharing and showing the love of Jesus in words and deeds with the hardest to reach young people and also adults in some of our communities pop marked by poverty and deprivation. So it's our joy not simply to speak the gospel, which we must do, preach the gospel all the time and use words because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ, but also to pursue community transformation.
Rob Chartrand (08:24.418)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (08:35.33)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (08:41.193)
and to serve the church. And we're doing this through advance, which I know we'll talk about and Eden. Now Eden are teams. We don't need rugged individualistic heroes or brave couples. We need teams of people who live in God's community in places of deprivation to pursue community transformation in Jesus name and to bless and elevate the poor. The Eden name comes from the
Rob Chartrand (08:57.686)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (09:10.161)
prophetic word of Ezekiel, the city that has been laid waste has become like the Garden of Eden. And there's wild proof of concept in the United Kingdom where now about 80 Eden teams have been deployed across 25 years, therefore deploying over a thousand urban missionaries in communities defined by being in the bottom 10% of the social indices in the United Kingdom. And they've seen
Rob Chartrand (09:15.861)
Hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (09:40.093)
measurable community transformation using the lens of asset-based community development. Now how so? When people relocate or rise up from within or return to a community pockmarked by poor housing, crime, addiction, dysfunctional, wobbly families, isolation, and they live in gospel community and they follow the spirit with intentionality.
and they serve their neighbours and love their neighbours and roam the neighbourhood asking the spirit what he's up to, surprise, surprise. The community will be changed by the power of the gospel. Isolation will recede, addiction will decline, and all these things are measurable through the power of the gospel. The gospel can seep into a broken community. So that's Eden. And we could talk about Eden in Canada and then advance.
Rob Chartrand (10:17.432)
Hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (10:39.049)
Advance is about activating evangelism. So one of our great missional malaises in Canada is the suffocation, incarceration, suppression of the evangelist. And we need to reclaim the evangelist. Our friend Brent Trask says if you look at the crown of King Jesus in Canada, there's a missing jewel.
Rob Chartrand (11:05.718)
Hmm. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (11:06.709)
and that's the evangelist if you think of apostle, prophet, evangelist, shephard, teacher. So we can wax eloquent about that and happy to deep dive into that. At the same time, we need to support leaders who are stirred to do the work of the evangelist. There's no silver bullet for reclaiming the mission of God and seeing days of gospel glory in Canada. There's no silver bullet. We need the evangelist.
Rob Chartrand (11:29.09)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (11:31.809)
evangelists for a variety of reasons that it can unpack. But we need to support leaders who say, I'm not an evangelist, but I want to see lost people encounter Jesus. I want to see our people energized to share the gospel. And so it advances about that, helping support churches create cultures of evangelism and to embolden and inspire everyday Christians to bear witness for Christ. And that started nine years ago.
Rob Chartrand (11:56.94)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (12:00.569)
with a group of 12 evangelists huddling in a warehouse in Manchester. And it's now become a global movement where there's maybe 15,000 advanced groups, which are cohorts who meet for mutual sharpening and evangelism in 93 nations across the planet. So, you know, globally, God is up to something. He is elevating the evangelist for the advancement of the gospel. The spirit of God is fanning the flames of evangelism.
And there is actually, in this kairos moment, an unprecedented harvest. But we're in the nuclear winter of pre-Christian, post-Christian Canada. So we're not seeing all that. So we need to cry out to the Lord, Lord in your mercy and kindness, might we not see a new day by your grace and by your power and by your spirit.
Rob Chartrand (12:51.81)
Yeah, amen. So you're, you know, to just to summarize it succinctly, I mean, you, Message Canada is the banner organization, it's the overarching body, and you have two significant arms. One is Eden, the other is Advance. Advance is about, you know, empowering, raising up training of evangelists. Eden is actually much more urban evangelists doing work, and you're working with them as well. We, you know, I wanna get deep on those, but is that basically the general framework?
Dr. Bill Hogg (13:21.285)
That's the general framework. And there's the biblical, like I'm a bit of a Bible snob, my wife and I describe ourself as Bible snobs. So there is a biblical definition of the office of the evangelist, but advanced would be, we do have a working, who's active in evangelism? Let's name them an evangelist, right? They might not be a biggie, but they're an evangelist. And then in 2024, we're gonna roll out Creative Mission, which is a mashup of the creative arts. It might be dance, music.
Rob Chartrand (13:36.67)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (13:47.298)
Okay.
Dr. Bill Hogg (13:49.645)
videography spoken word with gospel proclamation as a means of mentoring and mobilizing young people and young adults on mission to reach their lost peers. But right now we've got these two mission alarms so you've summed it up very well Rob.
Rob Chartrand (14:05.046)
Yeah, so let's talk about Eden for a bit here. Eden, you're raising up leaders whose job is to form a team in a broken postal code and to do mission in whatever form that is, contextualizing the gospel, understanding what's God already doing in the neighborhood, what could God be doing, and then partnering with the Holy Spirit in his work in this broken part of the city. Is it?
Is it similar to MoveIn or is it different than MoveIn? How would you make the difference? Because I think some of our listeners might be familiar with MoveIn Canada.
Dr. Bill Hogg (14:43.033)
From a distance, you go phenomenologically, maybe it's very similar, but actually they're very different. So there is a move in dynamic. You could talk about relocators, returners, and those who are redeemed and rise up from within a broken community. So eating teams would not be defined singularly by relocation, namely moving in. I mean, they get that...
there's an incarnational impulse as the Father has sent me, so I'm sending you. But I would think there's Eden teams must be gospel centered, the gospel must be front and center and then there's an ecclesiological distinctive where we will always partner in with and through the local church always, always. Even if as in Prince George the Eden teams are
Rob Chartrand (15:25.206)
Right.
Dr. Bill Hogg (15:37.777)
catalyzing microchurch kickstarts. So the goal is we've got two Eden teams that we're looking to actually merge into one Eden team who are in low-income apartments. And so why not combine forces to be on mission and then catalyze microchurch in your respective apartment complexes. So, I mean, back when I was with C2C, one of my first ever field trips was to Tirana.
And I went to Thorncliffe Park, Toronto, and went to Thorncliffe Park and hung out with the move in people there. And was so refreshed by the very evident commitment to the Great Commission. Was keen on them because they were doing stuff like door to door evangelism in low income high rise apartments. I'll tell you for you. And
Rob Chartrand (16:09.31)
It's Toronto. Anyway, keep going.
Rob Chartrand (16:23.758)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (16:36.849)
having an impact amongst new Canadian immigrants. But the thing that surprised me was that the young adults there who lived in community, the young men in relationships of spiritual and holiness accountability, the commitment to prayer, the commitment to think about unreached urban poor, were scattered into different churches. So, you know, the big, huge difference would be eating, you know,
Rob Chartrand (16:59.465)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (17:04.277)
not just, you know, there's a pragmatism around that. So if you've got, I love the idea of the Body of Christ coming together in partnership in the gospel, but if you've got an Eden team of eight or nine men and women, and they're from three or four churches, you've just got the, you've got the pragmatics of how do you sync up the calendar if you're in a community group, in a worship event, and this, that, the other thing. But I think it's more than pragmatics. I think it's our understanding that an Eden team leader.
Even if they're a fully funded missionary, is a staff person in the local church under the authority of the local church and their line manager would be from within the local church. And we would be, if I'm there, I'd be Uncle Bill in the room or Heath, our Eden mobiliser, or Paul, our director of ops and training, would be there as a mentor to pour into them and equip them. So I think that would be a significant difference.
Well, let me answer it.
Rob Chartrand (18:02.61)
Yeah, yeah. Is one of the other differences though, I mean, is that your Eden teams and their work can often culminate in gospel enterprise and the development of some sort of a tangible expression of the gospel that serves the community.
Dr. Bill Hogg (18:19.661)
That's true. It's not a prescription. So there's a six year old Eden team out of Coastal Church in Vancouver, and under the leadership of Dave and Cheryl Coupe, Coastal Church, their motto and mantra, which I know would make Ray Bakke smile from heaven, is Coastal Church helps make the city a better place. So there's a love and a heart for the city.
Rob Chartrand (18:23.467)
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (18:48.805)
They've got an Eden team under the leadership of Fary and Angela Magami, and they run a cafe as a vehicle of Christ-centered social enterprise. But that takes a lot of leadership moxie. It takes a lot of capital. It takes a lot of energy. And so...
Rob Chartrand (19:07.009)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (19:09.453)
I'd be thrilled if there were Eden teams in every deprived community in Canada, with or without social enterprise. So there can be a marriage in the United Kingdom. There's a significant marriage made in heaven between an Eden team and a community grocer, which we're looking at, but it's a slow, low and slow story in Canada regarding the community grocer. But the community grocer is a Jesus-centered,
Rob Chartrand (19:17.484)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (19:40.677)
to food insecurity. So it's not a food bank where the idea is to expedite a package to your patron and it's not a supermarket where the customer is sovereign, but it's again in the local church, addresses food insecurity in Jesus name so there's word and deed and there's wraparound care and there you know there's a marriage made in heaven but it's not it's not required. I think one of our
Rob Chartrand (19:42.86)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (20:09.925)
with our preconceived ideas, with the program I worked in Lethbridge, Alberta, and the won't work in Prince George, but hey, that was such a great program and we think so programmatically, but we actually need to be fluid, adaptive, contextually nimble and discern what God's doing and actually do the grunt work of community assessment to identify what are the real needs that should be addressed in Jesus' name.
Rob Chartrand (20:12.11)
That's right.
Rob Chartrand (20:35.318)
Yeah, and live in the community, move into the community, feel the gospel rhythms of the community, partner with the Holy Spirit in his work that he's doing. Yeah, all of that is necessary before we jump to solutions, which we love to do. And if anyone's read the book, When Helping Hurts, I think it's a good reminder to all of us is that sometimes in our enthusiasm, we can do more damage in the name of Jesus than help in the name of Jesus if we haven't done the groundwork. And so,
Dr. Bill Hogg (20:50.189)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (21:04.63)
You know, we love quick solutions, but sometimes we have to wait on that and just listen and trust and yeah, with great humility. So let's talk about advance. I mean, you're all about catalyzing and cultivating evangelism. So why do you think we're not seeing this evangelistic pulse in our churches today?
Dr. Bill Hogg (21:11.973)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (21:28.037)
That's a great question. And it's sobering. We're not seeing an evangelistic pulse in most of our churches. If there's an evangelistically fruitful, vigorous church led by someone with palpable passion for the gospel and Jesus' Luke 19.10 mission, where he says, the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. The church is an anomaly and the leader is an outlier.
Rob Chartrand (21:35.557)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (21:57.625)
So it is an issue and we should set in that and let it unnerve us, let it sit on us with weight. It's not okay. Max Depree says the first job of a leader is to define reality and the reality is not good. The reality is bad news. So a leader with evangelistic zeal and evangelistic contentionality.
is rare. You're more likely to be the manager of a store providing religious goods and services. But you've asked a why question. And I think there's a very...
Dr. Bill Hogg (22:42.969)
basic issue, and there's a cluster of issues around that, is you can't have a culture of evangelism or a church defined by evangelistic heat and sizzle and evangelistic fruit if the culture is not permeated with the gospel. So there's the challenge of are churches defined by gospel culture?
Rob Chartrand (22:44.877)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (23:09.737)
You know, Nubagin said the only hermeneutic of the gospel is a congregation of men and women that believe the gospel and live by the gospel. And then prior to that, is there gospel clarity in the communication? So in our deconstructionist mode, you know, we downplay the power of oratory instruction, teaching, declaration,
Rob Chartrand (23:34.979)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (23:39.513)
The gospel's the power of God. So if we are not centered on Jesus and shaped by the gospel, there is no transformative power. There's a real weird, amazing mystery that God's redeeming, saving, delivering, forgiving, healing power is released through the declaration of the gospel. And when I was assessing church planters in teams.
not the singular Yoda in the room, but with a team of seasoned leaders. One of the startling issues was the lack of gospel clarity. So, you know, so there's a pandemic of gospel fuzziness. So what do we get? Depending on what tribe you're in or what end of the theological spectrum, you'll get a theological lecture. You'll get, you know, an exegetical display.
Rob Chartrand (24:21.003)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (24:37.049)
that demonstrates how long the vicar has spent at the sacred desk before they walk up to the pious. Or you'll get your best life now, or you'll get moralism and legalism, and we don't get Jesus centred, Jesus exalting, Jesus is strong, mighty to save, presently active communication.
Rob Chartrand (24:51.723)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (25:07.341)
So if we're not getting the gospel in the household of faith, it's the gospel that ignites missional impulse. And I used to talk about being gospel-centered because the network I was part of was claimed to be gospel-centered, Spirit-led mission focused. I've changed my language if I'm more careful in parse what I'm saying to say, we need to be Jesus-centered. We need to be existentially centered and surrendered to Jesus, the Lord.
the Lord of the cosmos, the Lord of the nations, the Lord of the church, and shaped by the gospel. And I'm just, I've kind of ended up becoming Simon Cowell in an assessment center or in an auditorium with my arms folded. I don't wear V-neck t-shirts, because that would be uncomely with a Marathon physique. But I do get twitchy because I'm just hearing a lot of moralism and obligation. The gospel's not a demand. The gospel is a promise.
and maybe we need to wallpaper the book of Galatians in many of our sanctuaries and auditoriums to get us out the starting block submission, because if we've got no Jesus-centered message, if we've lost sight of the gospel, which Paul says is of first importance, and he's not advocating a reductionist, tidy, neat, freeze-dried gospel, because he says, let me remind you of that which is...
of first importance, Christ and for our sins, according to the scriptures, and he was buried and rose again on the third day, according to the scriptures. So there's this whole sweep, I think, that Paul is pointing to of God's redemptive action in history, creation, and fall, redemption, the restoration of all things. And this is one of my sorrows of the loss of Tim Keller.
Rob Chartrand (26:52.332)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (27:01.061)
Tim Keller was a ninja and a savant at bringing you to Jesus. And that's what we need to be about, brothers and sisters. We need to be about the business of bringing people to Jesus. I mean, I remember hearing Keller at Lausanne Three in Cape Town 2010, and they gave him 15 minutes. So he flies from Manhattan to Cape Town. They give him 15 minutes to speak on a theology of the city.
Rob Chartrand (27:01.569)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (27:30.637)
And he has six points which he delivers in less than 15 minutes because he lands on that bartering session between Abraham and God, where Abraham's pleading, don't obliterate the city. You know, if there's 50 righteous, would you, you know, don't obliterate the city? What if there's 40? What if there's 30? And there's this weird exchange going on.
between Abraham and Yahweh. And Keller asked the question, we're all wondering, what is going on between Abraham and God? He said, Abraham is acting as a priest for the city. Every priest needs a city. And we have a great high priest and his name is Jesus. And you go, boo-yah! You know, he brings you to Jesus. His wife, Kathy, said she loved to hear.
Tim preach because he would bring you to Jesus. And that's the beauty of Alan Hirsch, like my wife, Moorach says, I could listen to Alan Hirsch every day. And we answered the question at the same time as married couples sometimes do or should do. And we said, why? Because he always brings you to Jesus. So we're not bringing people to Jesus and we've got guilty Christians, we've got unregenerate professors.
and I don't mean that academia. I mean those who profess faith have not experienced the regenerating power of the Spirit because God will not endorse, authenticate, or empower a message that is not the good news of Jesus.
Rob Chartrand (29:06.166)
Yeah, and I think it's important that when, you know, our listeners think of the gospel, we're being very clear. We don't mean the four spiritual laws, you know, or, you know, the Romans road, but it's far bigger than that. It's far more expansive. I mean, what I appreciated about Keller, I discovered him about, I guess it's been almost 20 years ago now, but he exposed me to how truncated my gospel was. And...
Dr. Bill Hogg (29:15.375)
Right.
Rob Chartrand (29:32.878)
I remember the terms, the cosmic implications of the gospel and him broadening my view of that because I think growing up, well not growing up, I mean I got saved when I was in grade 12 of high school but being trained in evangelicalism and for me that was very dispensational at the beginning, the gospel became just this four spiritual laws type of an understanding but it's far bigger than that, it's far more expansive than that.
We can't just be fixated on the salvific gospel as Mark McKnight would say, but it's the King Jesus gospel which is much more broad and expansive and whose implications are far-reaching. So that's the gospel you're talking about. Am I understanding that correctly?
Dr. Bill Hogg (30:15.781)
Yeah, correctly. It is both, it's both a satiric gospel and a kingdom gospel. And if you fix your gaze on King Jesus, that will expand your gospel. And this is, this is the gift of the Christian Missionary Alliance and the gift of a couple of the Pentecostal tribes that would speak of a four-fold gospel. Or what's the alliance? Are they the four-fold gospel and the Pentees are the four square? So the alliance is Jesus, saviours,
Rob Chartrand (30:22.891)
Yes.
Rob Chartrand (30:43.424)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (30:45.309)
sanctifier, healer, incoming king, but he's actually present king now. Oh thank you, appreciate that.
Rob Chartrand (30:47.902)
Oh, I'm gonna send you your credentials, Bill. Welcome to the tribe, yeah. With Jesus at the center though, so it's not a pneumocentric gospel, it's a Christ-centered gospel. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (30:58.309)
Christ-Centered Gospel. So, foursquare is of course, Saviour, Healer, Baptiser, and the Holy Spirit, and King. So, that expands. If we understand that Jesus is strong and mighty to save, if we immerse ourselves in Colossians, then you have a Cosmic Christ inviting you into his kingdom. The Christ who holds the whole universe together, he's the glue and the clue of the universe. In him, all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form.
I think we need to wrestle with that. You know, it's not a quick and easy path if you've been weaned on a reductionist, propositional, clothesline gospel to move into the expansive space of a kingdom gospel. So, I mean, you're right, Scott McKnight throws shade at Billy Graham. The real nemesis of reductionism was actually Bill Bright, so I'd like to correct Scott on that.
Rob Chartrand (31:51.742)
Yeah. Well, Billy Sunday as well. Billy Sunday, he really seems to be throwing stones.
Dr. Bill Hogg (31:57.165)
Well, and stones should be thrown, you know, because there was a mashup of abstinence, the recabyte movement and the weird transactional promise, which is Pelagian, that you could basically guarantee how many converts per dollar. I mean, what in the world? And we're not far from that with some of our ROI conversations. You know, where...
Rob Chartrand (32:17.108)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's true. It's true. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (32:22.093)
I understand philanthropists and entrepreneurs in the business sector want to see ROI, but there'll be no redemptive ROI if we don't announce the gospel in word, in deed, and communicate a big gospel, and we're invested in holistic mission.
Rob Chartrand (32:40.31)
You know, and I think practically, I mean, if we were to look at a large scale example of what a, I guess the implications of gospelist preaching has done is to just to look at Christian Smith's studies on moralistic therapeutic deism, as he, you know, did longitudinal studies on young adults, and the implications of them being in churches and
not really understanding a full gospel, but a moralistic gospel. So, you know, three steps to you know, be good. God just wants you to essentially be good and a therapeutic gospel, you know, the 12 steps to a better life and then a deism, but not true deism, but just a sense that God is, you know, distantly removed and he's not going to mess up your life. But if you have a problem, just call on me, he'll come fix it. But then he'll disappear and leave you alone, which is kind of an oprified gospel. It's a positive understanding.
life, you know, the best version of yourself essentially, what the culture is preaching. And so you have this whole generation of young people saying, that's no different than the world. Why would I? Where's the teeth in that? Where's the surrender in that? Why would I come to church when it's exactly the same as what I'm hearing in the culture? And so you dilute the gospel or the gospel disappears. And what do you have you have?
young people running away when we think, oh man, if I soft pedal the gospel, if I just let them ease into it, if I just make it a little bit nicer, they'll stick around. But all the research is saying that, well, that's, that's not true. It's actually exactly the opposite.
Dr. Bill Hogg (34:17.889)
Yeah and the young people, there's an exodus of young people, those who remain are miserable you know because they've not had an authentic encounter with King Jesus which is a spiritual travesty and tragedy.
Rob Chartrand (34:28.874)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (34:33.226)
Yeah, and experiencing that abundant life of grace and transformation through the Holy Spirit and all that the gospel offers us and a great and future hope.
Dr. Bill Hogg (34:43.665)
Amen. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (34:44.99)
Yeah. So gospel deficit. How are we going to recover the gospel in our churches? Do you want to touch a bit more on that or do you want to move on? What do you think?
Dr. Bill Hogg (34:56.449)
Well, I think it's so important. You know, there is a gospel deficit in our churches. And, you know, we know before they were, we called them deconstructionists, we called them postmoderns. We know there's an unhappiness with authoritative monological communication, but we do have pre-. Teachers and we are a community of word and spirit.
And so really, I think we need to do remedial equipping and training so that our communicators actually are immersed in the gospel and can communicate the gospel. And there's a wrestle there, you know, you know, to get to the place where I remember as a youth evangelist preaching on David and Goliath.
Rob Chartrand (35:28.863)
Hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (35:47.393)
every youth pastor, youth worker, youth evangelist would have that in their repertoire and exhorting young people, you can fight Goliath, you can slay the Goliaths. Wrong, wrong you can't. You're actually a loser. You're actually like Saul. You're not like David. And what you need is the son of David to slay the giant. So it requires retraining. You know, I think
It was unfortunate in the church planting network. We were so busy and we were growing and we were deploying people to plant churches who were low on gospel articulation. So what would the answer be? There would it be a moratorium? Would it be a remedial path? And of course, you know, I want to offer evangelistic preaching institutes, gospel preaching institutes.
And so, hey, come to this great location and be equipped and mentored, be evaluated, be shredded and rebuilt, but it's gonna take more than a week, right, of saying come to the Institute. So, we need some thought on this. Maybe we need to huddle together and say, what can we do to catalyze a new generation of gospel communicators?
Rob Chartrand (37:13.938)
Yeah, yeah. You know, I think there are some biblical studies majors out there would be concerned with...
Rob Chartrand (37:25.238)
Christ-centered preaching that they might have some concerns with the overreach in our approach to exposition of the text you know and so the sense that for those who do Christ-centered preaching in a sense what you're trying to do is to see Christ in the text I mean
Right? And that's not like looking for where's Waldo. That's not the understanding of it. But sometimes people might feel like that. And I think we've been in churches where somebody preaches a text and attempts to find Jesus in the text. And there is a bit of overreach. Would you agree with that? And he's like, well, hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (38:04.181)
There could be. I mean, if we're guilty of any overreach, that's the best one to go for. Because what I hear is a lot of moralism, the power of do, shoot, shoot. So the people of God are being shooted upon rather than pointed to Jesus. And of course, it's tricky. How do you find? I think you could find Jesus in the Book of Esther, although God isn't mentioned in the Book of Esther. It's just probably...
Rob Chartrand (38:09.426)
Yes.
Rob Chartrand (38:17.324)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (38:31.928)
He's winked at.
Dr. Bill Hogg (38:33.577)
He's kind of winked at. Yeah. And so I think, yeah, you could go, okay, are you stretching it here? But what's the purpose? I mean, Luther said, didn't he, that the scriptures are the cradle in which we come to see Christ. So we've got to think about that. Other than that, what's the Old Testament doing? Is it just narrative populated with principles and morals? And of course, we've seen some of that in children's ministry.
Rob Chartrand (38:35.063)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (39:03.257)
where basically what we're doing, we're downloading virtues. The Bible is not a book of virtues. So somehow we've got to immerse ourselves in the story of God. And how does this passage, I think, you know, exposition of preaching is good. You know, it gets you off your hobby horses. You've got to wrestle with the texts, but we're not commissioned to get up and give a bundle of virtues to the people of God.
searching lost souls. We're supposed to preach Christ and Him crucified. So I think we need to figure that one out.
Rob Chartrand (39:43.166)
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I, I agree, like, it's, it's probably unwise to try and find, I think there's two areas we can make. And number one is to try and find like a Christophany in every single passage, like this is an appearance Jesus and every passage in the text. I don't think that's being faithful to it. Second,
Dr. Bill Hogg (39:59.781)
Right.
Rob Chartrand (40:08.818)
I think that just to pull out and just to say I'm going to be just true to the original historical text, you know, so apply the grammatical historical method to the interpretation and I'm just going to stick with that. And so if I'm in Leviticus, I'm just going to preach Leviticus and stick with that. But then you you're looking at it with first century or whatever date it was written eyes, but you're not seeing that this is actually embedded in a meta narrative. Like every text is part of a meta narrative that eventually ends up with Jesus.
I think you can faithfully preach any text in scripture and end up with Jesus, either in the particulars within the text, you can see that glimpses of that, or you can make a beeline to the cross at the end through the meta-narrative. You know, this isn't the end of the story, guess what? You know, there's more to this. Or applying the general principle of grace and then ending up speaking about the cross. But the other error, Bill, is that I think we, when we think of Christ,
finding Christ in every text, for example, is that we tend to lean towards atonement and towards just that aspect of it, but we miss the fullness of the gospel, right? So we can get a real truncated view of, you know, well, there's the cross, but let's not forget the resurrection. Let's not forget our, you know, glorification, great and future hope and the return of Christ. And I think you can find that in a lot of texts too. So, yeah. So, but yeah, let's keep Jesus in the center of our preaching. If we don't, if we,
Dr. Bill Hogg (41:29.796)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (41:36.222)
So I mark sermons for one of our districts in their ordinations. And sometimes I will read entire sermons and there is no mention of Jesus. Like that it's not in the text at all. And only God is spoken of in a very general sense. And so then I'm like, okay, well, let's pull out the rubric here and let's talk about that. Cause I think it's important that the gospel has to be proclaimed. Otherwise it's moralism.
Dr. Bill Hogg (42:03.713)
No, exactly right. You mentioned the word rubric and the late David Nicholas created a rubric because he was so agitated by church planters, preachers. And we could critique his rubric as not being expansive enough and he would say, has the bad news and good news of the gospel been communicated? But there's good news that precedes the bad news. The good news is creation. There's...
Rob Chartrand (42:14.175)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (42:30.028)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (42:31.397)
Bad news, like you're more screwed up than you possibly can imagine by virtue of the fall. And then there's amazing news and fantastic news to follow. So I think to build a rubric and not hand the rubric willy-nilly to people, but to go on a journey of evaluation and say, am I really lifting up Jesus? We know, we know when Jesus said this, He was talking singularly, but not exclusively about the cross.
If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me. Well, to me, that's the goal. Are we lifting up Jesus? Are we exalting Jesus? And he has saved your rescuer, but he's also healer, forgiver, great high priest. He's also pioneer. He's also apostle. I mean, I think you can't exhaust the riches of the fullness of Jesus, who is also the big brother.
Rob Chartrand (43:25.475)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (43:32.453)
you never dreamed you could have. He's the one whose, you know, Proverbs is like a weird book, but in there it talks about one that sticketh closer than a brother. Now who might that be? I think that might be Jesus of Nazareth. But it gave it more thought, and then for the preachers who are listening, you know, when I was a pastor, I would do Saturday night prep. It's a bad idea. I think we need...
We need to immerse ourselves in the text and not pull something out of a part of our anatomy or out the back of our heed or off the back of a napkin on a Saturday, but wrestle with the text to prayerfully consider how can, where do I as a broken sinner encounter Jesus? How do I need the grace of God in this text? And then, you know.
Rob Chartrand (44:04.898)
Hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (44:27.377)
Preach to yourself for a while, lingering the presence of Jesus, gaze on Him, and then say, okay, let's go on a journey and let's meet Jesus in this story, in this episode, in this text, in this book.
Rob Chartrand (44:31.444)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (44:39.63)
Mm-hmm. That's good. Couple of books, resources, if our listeners are wondering more about Christ-centered preaching. Tim Keller wrote a book, it's called Preaching. In there you'll find it, I think he's got a good appendix with some good examples. I happened upon a book this last year by Christopher Wright, W-R-I-G-H-T. It's called How to Preach and Teach the Old Testament for All It's Worth, and fantastic couple of chapters about Christ-centered preaching.
that is so balanced, like it's just so good and gives so many different practical examples of how you can do that. So, you know, just wanna recommend that to our listeners. We can put it in the show notes. But Bill, you had said earlier on, you talked about the office of an evangelist. So let's get into Ephesians chapter four, shall we? I mean, some would say that these are gifts rather than offices, but I mean.
You can delineate a little bit between that, but I mean, for our listeners who know Ephesians 4, it's the Apest gifts are in there, apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. And the role they have is to equip the saints, not just to do the work, but to raise up the saints so that the body of Christ might reach its full maturity. So evangelists, office or spiritual gift, let's start there.
Dr. Bill Hogg (46:03.821)
Both. There's the couple. It's true. It's a charism. It's a manifestation of the grace of God by the Spirit of God. So some are graced and anointed to be evangelists. Clearly, just as evangelists doesn't appear in 1 Corinthians 12, doesn't appear in 1 Peter 4.
Rob Chartrand (46:08.394)
It's true though. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (46:32.545)
or the Romans 12, a list of spiritual gifts, but it's a spiritual gift. So there's a supernatural capacity that an evangelist carries. Now it might be dormant because of this contextual issue where it's my conviction we've got men and women who are sleepwalking. They're not spiritually self-aware that Jesus has anointed and empowered them to be an evangelist. I had a friend who tried to recruit me to lead his ministry in the United States, and I said,
What's the job description? He said, there is none. Now I love that, because I don't like straight jackets and unregulated job descriptions. I said, so, no job spec? He said, yeah, be who Jesus made you to be. And that always makes me smile even years later. And I never took that vacuous, vague gig in the United States of America. But there's lots of men and women who don't know Jesus has made them to be.
evangelists. Now first and foremost you're a redeemed child of God and dwelt by the spirit of adoption who enables you to cry Abba Father. But for you to walk in God's assignment you need to walk out that gift that he's deposited in you. So I think it's a gift and you know and you're right you know there's a prophets prophesy but they also activate prophecy.
So, you know, our friends say, well, of course, if Angus are there just to equip the people of God, no. They're there to bear and announce the good news. How beautiful on the mountains are those men and women who bring good news. So there's announcing, there's a heraldic dimension. Not simply when I say heraldic or announcing, right away we think pulpit and platform and stage. Yes and amen, but street corner, pub.
Rob Chartrand (47:58.638)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (48:13.004)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (48:28.369)
cafe, backyard, you know, there's a declarative dimension where there's authoritative communication of the good news of Jesus by the power of the Spirit from an evangelist who has, by the Spirit's grace, a unique access into the hearts of unregenerate men and women. And so by the Spirit, through the announcing of the gospel, an evangelist can see faith and repentance activated in an unbeliever. At the same time,
Rob Chartrand (48:36.686)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (48:58.361)
You're quite right. There's an equipping dimension where a teacher could do a great exposition on evangelism, but won't grab your heart the same way an evangelist will because there's words that need to be part of our deployment vocabulary like transmission, importation. So an evangelist carries a supernatural love for the lost, burden for the lost. They're agitators for gospel centrality.
Rob Chartrand (49:18.572)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (49:29.453)
and they would be asking your question, where's Waldo, where's Jesus, in the communication, and they're restless souls who want to see the people of God moved in sharing the good news. They're recruiters, they're God's sales force, not in a crass sales forcey way of our old evangelistic paradigm. So, honor, peril.
we lose the evangelist. And I don't think a shepherd or a teacher should be given the assignment of figuring out community engagement, community outreach. Get it? Cabal of evangelists in the mad scientist laboratory together to dream up how the church can see the gospel spread like a virus into a community, how the people of God can be emboldened. So there is equipping, which is a huge issue. We need equipping.
Rob Chartrand (50:22.188)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (50:23.717)
We need equipping evangelists and probably equipping evangelists because there's so few of them who are nimble enough to dance across different tribes. You know, can you be an equipping evangelist amongst the Baptists, the Pentecostals, the Christian, the Israelites, the Presbyterians? You know, if you've got emotional intelligence and ecclesial intelligence, but frankly, we need equipping evangelists. So you're right, you know,
The telos of the gift according to Ephesians 4, 11 through 13 is to equip and empower the people of God for the work of God. But I think they need to be a player coach. Now, player managers in the history of baseball have been fairly common over the years, like the scoundrel Pete Rose, like Leo de Rocha. Player managers in the beautiful game association football are more rare, like Wayne Ruiz.
DC United or Graham Soonus at Glasgow Rangers football club in the 1980s. But they're a rarity, but we do need the player, coach of the evangelist who can equip and therefore the evangelist needs to think more than the scope of their personal ministry. You know this is the challenge for many evangelists who can be lone rangers and outliers and that's often thrown at them.
to disparage them, but there's an element of truth to that. So what are you doing to mentor others?
Rob Chartrand (51:54.858)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (51:58.222)
Well, let's talk about that. I mean, I think it's been said that the majority of Christian leaders in churches are really down on the spectrum of the shepherd teacher. So they care for the flock. They teach the flock because I mean, in our theological institutions, that's predominantly what we train them for. But there's a real vacuum when it comes to the
Rob Chartrand (52:26.054)
in our churches and in leadership in our churches, like representation in our leadership in churches. And so, I mean, there's even been a movement in the last number of years come out called Release the Ape. So the APE part of the Apeest that's happening. So what do you think that is? I mean, why, why are evangelists not on our radar when it comes to local church leadership?
Dr. Bill Hogg (52:45.745)
I think they're threatening to that modality. The shepherd has an impulse that leads to don't rock the boat because they want to see stable community. The teachers are didactic. And I think the evangelist can be like the rock in your shoe.
when you don't have a sock on. You know, they can be an irritant. And I've thought about this, you know, like release the apes. And I know there's certain typologies that see the apes, apostles, prophets, evangelists as pioneers and the shepherd teachers as settlers. Now that reinforces shepherds and teachers in an un-missional life and an un-missional posture in an un-missional community. I've had to revise my thinking.
I don't like that language anymore because all five gifts are to participate in the mission of God. So it's not like the apostles and the prophets and the evangelists are the trailblazers and they're heading out into the wild, wild west if I'm allowed to use that politically incorrect metaphor anymore. And the others are staying home building a settled community. We're all supposed to be on the open wagon on the Oregon Trail.
Rob Chartrand (54:02.103)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (54:13.405)
led by our Cagos, our apostle, our pioneer Jesus. But you know, evangelists rock the boat. I mean you think about it, really what we've, we're like zombies who've succumbed to business as usual. And so the prophets had disruptive voice, the apostles like what about the expansion of the kingdom, and the evangelists about what about Jesus and the lost. And meanwhile...
Those who are overseeing the enterprise are really settled into maintenance and business as usual. So when you overemphasize as we have, the shepherds, you could end up with group therapy, a therapeutic culture, an inward focus on me, my hearts, my needs. Oh, we need to be reconciled to each other fully before we're ever on mission. And the teachers, the church can become the gathering for a lecture in the lecture theater. Now we need teaching.
Rob Chartrand (54:55.039)
Hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (55:10.065)
Jesus said, you're my disciples if you continue in my word. So we need to be instructed in the word. And we need shepherds, but we need to reclaim the apes in a way we don't even grasp. So there's a reason why Alan Hirsch is still beaking off about apes. You know, he's beaking off about... He's writing books about it and remind us because I do think...
Rob Chartrand (55:31.882)
writing books about it. Come on.
Dr. Bill Hogg (55:38.725)
What you have in Ephesians is Paul's mission of ecclesiology. And if you want to be constituted around a biblical ecclesiology, then you've got to follow God's dream and God's design. And so Ephesians four points, I believe, to God's dream and God's design that we need all five gifts. And remember, I'm a pack rat, but I could never find these notes. Years ago, George Malone, who was a Plymouth Brethren leader who got zapped.
by the Holy Spirit, charismatized, and I think ended up in the vineyard, did an amazing lecture when I was in Youth for Christ in the old country. He basically gave everybody a handout. There was no fill in the blanks. But he unpacked apes, but also looked at gift conflict. And so there is gift conflict. Some apostolic leaders veer on abuse because they're all about the mission and they leave.
casualties, corpses and body bags in their wake. And, you know, there's a natural, probably conflict between prophets and teachers. So teachers are didactic, exegetical, and the prophets are, what's the rema word of the Lord? What's the spirit saying to the church? And that can be disruptive because a prophet's favorite word in the Old Testament, which doesn't get erased in the New Covenant,
is shoov, return. So there's always this return to the holiness of God, wake up to the justice of God, hey sleepy people of God. And then our concern is the evangelist, you throw the evangelist into the mix. The evangelist is the fisherman or the fisherwoman who takes the gospel dragnet into the wild ocean of the heath and pulls in all the fish.
and really doesn't care how clean the fish are and just tosses the fish in and says to the shepherd, care for these, I'm gonna find some more. So I think there's an inbuilt conflict and really Canadian leaders in particular, North American leaders mostly are risk averse. So we need to see deep change more than we ever know or dream. We need to experience deep metanoia. We need to see our churches go on a...
Rob Chartrand (57:29.826)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (57:57.625)
journey of deep change. And of course, Robert Quinn says, describes deep change as the hell of deep change. So what are we gonna choose, the hell of slow death or the hell of deep change? And so rather than embracing deep change and the disruptive perilous path of a new day of gospel transformation and fruitfulness, let's do business as usual. And of course, we have lapsed into a provider-client relationship.
between church leaders and church patrons for the most part. You know, there is a wrestle going across the country around the making of disciples, you know. But you put the evangelist in the mix, it's going to unsettle a status quo paradigm and call for greater fruitfulness. Is it okay that your baptismal tank is dry and your water bill is low?
year after year after year. The baptisms are few and exceptional and then you can you can clothe yourself in some hyper Calvinism that says well the Lord is not drawing many of the elect to himself in this season. You know the fact is God reaches the loss for the most part in spite of the people of God. Not because we're aligned with Jesus in the harvest fields and not because we're winsomely boldly
Rob Chartrand (58:57.836)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (59:23.701)
invitationally proclaiming the gospel and calling people to encounter Jesus. So
Rob Chartrand (59:29.667)
So what can then, like I think about local church pastors who are listening here, how can they endorse or empower evangelists in their midst?
Dr. Bill Hogg (59:41.233)
It's a great question, you know, because that's part of the story. And the evangelist can be uncouth, you know, like especially the street evangelists, you don't need social finesse. So the pastor, I'm not going to let them loose on the women's Christmas tea party. I'm not going to give them a microphone on a Sunday. Yeah, you know, so and there is this impulse which makes an evangelist and evangelist an outlier, a maverick, a loose cannon. So if you're a managerial leader.
Rob Chartrand (59:53.162)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:00:10.741)
They're not your worst nightmare, but they can be a pain. If you talk to evangelists, they would feel underappreciated and undervalued. So to scan, prayerfully scan your faith community and ask the Holy Spirit, where are the evangelists in our midst? Now, if you have an event that's about evangelism, if you don't like the E word, just say, good news. No, it's we're going to have a good news summit, a good news workshop.
Generally, the evangelists will migrate to that. You know, they'll just come to warn themselves by the fire and they may not have the spiritual categories, but it's to ask, what can you do to nurture and support and mentor them? And you may need others to come alongside. So I have the great joy as the National Director of Message Canada in partnering with Beulah Alliance Church, for example.
had an amazing evangelist on staff, Art Reimer, followed by an amazing biggie evangelist evangelism champion called Angie LeFavor, and Angie passed away. So you've got the grief of a dearly loved leader who was besotted with Jesus and had Jesus conversations, probably daily, not even weekly, who sparked evangelism mojo. So, you know, wisely, pastorally, they thought, okay, we can't replace Angie.
Rob Chartrand (01:01:16.418)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (01:01:26.198)
Yeah, yeah, it's amazing.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:01:37.133)
But we can't replace it because she's a unicorn. Like unicorns, you can't replace. So now what they're looking at is what can we do to create a culture where we raise up evangelists? And of course, that will lead to a culture of evangelism. And so we are partnering there and they're using advance as their strategy to.
Rob Chartrand (01:01:40.67)
Yeah. There's no one like Angie. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (01:01:53.07)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:02:00.401)
raise up evangelists and equip the people of God in evangelism and I'm coming alongside the new pastor of outreach. And I did say to Drake, my friend Drake, the exec pastor, what are you calling this guy? The pastor of outreach is an evangelist. So call him the evangelist of evangelism. Don't you believe in apes? And he goes, of course we do, but our people don't understand it. But the point being, you might need some help. And the challenge is, Rob, that Peter Wagner said something
points unhelpful, but it kind of pointed to a reality. He said, 10% of Bible believing churches have the gift of evangelism. Well, there is no gift of evangelism. Language is important, and I'm not being picky and pedantic. There is no gift of evangelism. We're all called to evangelism. The whole church taking the whole gospel to the whole world, but there are evangelists, and he claimed 10%. Now.
Rice Brooks, the founder of Every Nation, did his doctoral research on the gift and office of the evangelist. And I think he concluded, 2% of a survey that's 10 or 15 years old now skewed towards the United States, 2%. I would say in Canada, probably between 1 1⁄2 and 1% of a Bible-believing church, evangelical.
church, but God's got evangelists in heterodox churches, sad churches, deflated, they're everywhere, but maybe it's 1%. So if you've got a community, 400 people, 300 people, 200 people, call your church home. You might have a very small smattering, but then what do you do to encourage them? What do you do? Fund them to go to things that will ignite the flame, enfold them into...
some of your thinking and dreaming around community outreach and equipping, you know, what would it take to get into a dialogue, but not simply a utilitarian dialogue so that there are evangelistic outcomes, but to develop that man or woman as a Jesus-centred, Spirit-led, Spirit- empowered leader and to encourage them. I think we need encouragement, you know, that's the oxygen of the human soul.
Rob Chartrand (01:03:58.956)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:04:19.957)
Gerard Houlier, who was the manager of Liverpool Football Club in Aston Villa Football Club, passed away a couple of years ago. And I read with interest the eulogies in, I think, the Guardian newspaper, which is free to read online, so a Scotsman likes that. And his assistant manager, Phil Thompson, who may be played for Gerard Houlier at Liverpool.
might have played for him, but certainly was as a sitting manager. Said something fascinating. As far as I know, Huy wasn't a believer, but he said he never ended a phone call or a conversation without saying, I love you, Phil. And people need to know they're loved, like they're loved by you. They're loved by me. Some of my guy friends, I've started doing this. They're weirded out when I say, I love you. Come in for a hug. I love you. And then you're weirded out. Others will reciprocate at the same time.
Rob Chartrand (01:05:16.427)
Bill, you've never done that to me. You're holding out, man.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:05:20.917)
Okay, we're in cyberspace. I can't hug you but Rob, I love you. I appreciate you. I'm grateful to God.
Rob Chartrand (01:05:26.55)
I receive it brother, I love you back. Sorry, keep going.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:05:30.625)
So that came on the heels of a little epiphany that I had. My wife had a big important birthday and I put together a book of blessing. So I got a printer to create a book. I went through photocopies. She was out at a women's event I had jazz music on in an IPA and I'm going through all these photographs to find and I'm weeping because there's my beautiful wife of my youth and I'm pausing and remembering memories. So...
We had photos, but I reached out to people across the span of our lives. We were at Bible college with, when we were in Youth for Christ, say, hey, would you like to share how Morag impacted your life? And it blew her away. Now, the point I'm making is, a lot of this stuff goes on at a funeral. You'll like my cousin about how Morag was transformational in her continuing on a journey of faith, or a gal who was my assistant.
was so smitten by how Morag raised our kids. They never said that at the time. So where am I going with all of this with these two anecdotes? We need to tell the evangelists and everybody else that they're dearly loved, not just by God but by you and me. I appreciate you. And speak out, encouragement, validation. And I think that's the issue because we've done these advanced summits and there's been prophetic activation, the Word of the Lord spoken over.
sleepwalking evangelists who go, wow, God's called me to be an evangelist, but others who are discouraged in that environment of worship and prayer and validation and affirmation of the enterprise of evangelism and the gift and call of the evangelist, they feel validated and encouraged. Rather than, I think for the most part, evangelists are like Harry Potter, living under the stairs in Uncle Vernon's house. They're stultified.
They're not allowed freedom of access to move around. And then there are an unwelcome presence at the dining room table and that shouldn't be so. It shouldn't, they're a gift. You know, the gift of the evangelist and what is the gift of the evangelist, a man or a woman in your faith community? They're a gift to you, a gift to the church and a gift to a broken world.
Rob Chartrand (01:07:39.403)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (01:07:51.69)
Yeah, yeah, we, I mean, we, we need to elevate the evangelists in our midst. And you've got actually, you just mentioned this evangelist summit. I mean, you've got a big event coming up in February in Calgary, the advanced evangelists summit. I wonder, what do you, what do you tell us a little bit about that? Give us some details. What's going on with that event?
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:08:14.509)
Well, what's going on at the event is layered. You know, the language is intentional. Like I've not retreated on the language, the advanced evangelists summit, because we need to restore and reclaim and validate the evangelists, but it's not exclusively for evangelists. I need to say that. But we want to create an oasis of refreshment and encouragement, equipping, empowering, impartation for the evangelist.
a space to encourage leaders who are called to do the work of an evangelist. And as we're thinking strategically about the story of God and the mission of God in Canada, we need to see cultures of evangelism established. So you could have an Alpha course, kind of plug and play, but really not have a culture of evangelism. You could tolerate or...
empower evangelists on your periphery like a fractal edge nuisance or mission force. But what about creating a culture of evangelism? So, you know, one of the reasons we've got Alan Hirsch speaking and we've been in conversation with Alan and Rich Robinson is we want to create learning communities and offer that as a gift to leaders so they can journey together.
Rob Chartrand (01:09:19.341)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:09:34.313)
off the back of the instruction, encouragement, inspiration, impartation of the summit and a journey. So I would encourage pastors to come with their teams because you and I, we go to conferences and we have an epiphany or a nugget. And then you're reporting back to people, it's three minutes in a conversation or if it's on a ministry agenda. So what happened when you went to Tallahassee or you went to the UK or the Philippines and...
for five minutes or seven, you tell a story, next item the agenda, but what if leadership teams come, they get infected with evangelism mojo, and then they go on a journey of discovery, on a journey of metanoia, where we're not talking about behavioral modification as the pathway to a culture of evangelism, but a journey of metanoia, prayer.
receptivity of the Spirit to create a new day of evangelistic fruitfulness. So really what we want to do is we want to encourage the evangelist, support leaders called to do the work of the evangelist and also embolden everyday Christians. Now the fact that it's a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday does skew it towards vocational leaders and those of us who are full-time professional Christians paid to follow Jesus, but leaders
Rob Chartrand (01:10:53.707)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:11:01.441)
We're not the be all and end all. I think John Maxwell's wrong when he says, everything stands or falls on leadership, full stop, everything full stop. But leadership's significant. Leadership carries weight. Whatever your governance, whatever your ecclesiology of your faith community, you do carry the currency of influence. So why not spend the cash of your leadership influence on catalyzing the culture of evangelism and come and learn from others?
So there's going to be anointed monologues, there's going to be a pre-conference when we look at church renewal, church transformation. I did my doctoral research on missional renaissance. Kyle Harnett did his on the relationship between renewal and mission. Raphael Anzenberget is a French missiologist and evangelist who's got some clear thinking around creating a culture of mission. And then Alan's going to be like the Jedi Master.
Rob Chartrand (01:11:57.782)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:12:00.673)
in the house for the pre-conference, but we want to fan the flames of evangelism. And that's why we're calling it Fan the Flame. It's in Calgary at Foothills Alliance Church from February 20th to the 22nd. And if you go to advancedsummit.org, you can click on and scroll up and down that event page and you'll see Becky Pippert's joining us, who's...
Rob Chartrand (01:12:26.338)
Yeah, Becky Piper is a legend.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:12:29.545)
She's a total legend. I mean, I remember as an engineering student reading out The Salt Shaker, and that was one of the books that you were supposed to read as a university student. But she's written Stay Salt. I think that's a three-year-old book. And I mean, Tim Keller said, he thought it was the best book on evangelism that came out in a 15-year span or more. But it's a remarkable book, and she's remarkable.
Rob Chartrand (01:12:54.443)
Hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:12:57.993)
evangelist and equipper who think strategically about evangelism. So, I mean, I've got to know Becky as a friend. Last phone call was an hour long. I mean, she's just effervescent, full of gospel, full of encouragement. Last year at the summit, we'd given her an assignment and she said, Bella, I wonder if I could change my assignment. I said, sure, Becky, what are you thinking? She said, could I just preach on the cross? Bearing in mind it's pastors and evangelists.
Rob Chartrand (01:13:11.544)
Hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:13:26.625)
And I said, of course you can. I said, probably if we could deploy you in such a fashion, you could preach that message every day, every week, all across Canada, preach the cross. So in one of the sessions, she just took us by the hand and took us to the cross. And I didn't take a single note. I've just bawled my eyes out. So I mean, she's a powerful anointed gospel communicator, but she's been activating people in personal evangelism.
which is actually the most effective evangelistic expression, but she's got some clear thinking around strategies of evangelism. So I mean, we're kind of happy if we've got an evangelism pulse, you know, but she's helping us think strategically, leadership team, pastor, senior leader, whatever your name is, Grand Puba, cultural architect, do you have an evangelism strategy that does involve equipping and training your people?
Rob Chartrand (01:14:09.42)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:14:25.565)
And then we do this at our events. We'll also introduce people to the concept of the advanced group, which is a peer cohort, mates on a mission sharpening each other in evangelism. And the goal is not to necessarily or inevitably engage in evangelism together, but to encourage each other in our respective spheres of influence to be gospel torchbearers. And...
Rob Chartrand (01:14:33.921)
Right.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:14:55.157)
If you go to advancedgroups.org or you go to messagecanada.org and you go to what we do, you can find about advanced groups and download free PDFs.
Rob Chartrand (01:15:08.498)
Yeah, that curriculum is incredible. Like so well done. Yeah, I hope people tap into that, but how do you guys use it?
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:15:17.901)
Well, we use it to undergird a group that really meets. Nine years ago, a group met in Manchester, 12 evangelists, to ask each other the hard questions, how clear and pure is your gospel? How clear and pure and spirit dependent is your life? And accountability of life, and accountability of stewardship of gospel opportunity. So if you like it's a three-legged stool, when that group met, they had no curriculum.
They were led by Andy Hawthorne, a seasoned apostolic evangelist. And so I reckon Andy could walk into a room with little forethought and ignite a very fruitful discussion in time of sharpening prayer, accountability, transparency. But we use, 18 months after that, there was a curriculum created just to undergird the group. Now a seasoned leader would use the curriculum and content to dip into as a resource.
but it doesn't need seasoned leadership. Someone who can simply facilitate interaction, and even if you need to follow the content slavishly, because you don't have that leadership gift, it's proven very fruitful, Rob, and people being sharp in the gospel. Tom Phillips, who's still at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said it's the most gospel-centered, evangelism-equipping content he's ever seen.
And really, what are you doing? You're immersing yourself in the gospel. You're looking at scripture. You're having discussion. You're praying for each other. You're staying in contact. And you're reinforcing each other in evangelistic intensity and intentionality. And what we're seeing remarkably, from that one group in Manchester, England, about nine years ago, now there's 14 and a half thousand, 15,000 advanced groups in 93 nations.
Rob Chartrand (01:17:00.871)
Hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:17:14.905)
And I was, over the last week, was just reading the global impact report. So relational fruit from those 15,000 groups, 25,000 people made commitments to Christ through the interpersonal engagement of those activated through an advanced group. Now I'm a preaching evangelist, I need to concede, relational evangelism is actually more effective. Why? Because...
Rob Chartrand (01:17:19.376)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (01:17:30.263)
Wow.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:17:43.433)
If you lead me to Christ, Rob, you are my discipler, and I am your disciple. We've got that relational connectivity, and so I can simply follow you life on life, and you disciple me in the rhythms of everyday life. And what we've seen with those 25,000 professions of faith, about 80% or 78% of them enfolded into life in the local church and in a disciple-making relationship. So.
Rob Chartrand (01:18:11.607)
Right.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:18:12.333)
So it elevates and emboldens because the issue is every believer on the planet who's had a real encounter with Jesus knows they need to share that, but they need support, they need training, they need equipping, they need encouragement, they need reinforcement.
Rob Chartrand (01:18:23.628)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (01:18:28.854)
Yeah, yeah, and it's, I mean, it's hard to build a multiplying discipleship movement out of just preaching evangelists. You need local people on mission, on boots in the ground. And this, you know, as they've discipled those new believers, they're immediately deploying them in evangelism, right? So there, there you see the traction in the movement. Well Bill,
I wondered if you could give a final word of encouragement to our ministry leaders who are listening and maybe help to fan into the flame the embers of witness that may have gone cold or lie dormant in our churches.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:19:08.337)
Sure.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:19:12.241)
I mean, what would I say? I mean, well done.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:19:19.605)
walking it out for running the race. We've had a uniquely challenging season. Now none of us are on mission with Jesus in the Joss region of Nigeria where there is persecution and execution of Christians for the sake of Jesus in the gospel. But it's been tough. It's probably been the toughest season for any Canadian pastoral leader, ministry leader.
navigating the uncertainties of the pandemic and coming out the other end, almost inevitably depleted through the exhaustion of leading through change and maybe candidly the exhaustion of doing things in our own strength and discovering actually after all that's a bankrupt enterprise. But what I would say first and foremost is that God is for you.
Rob Chartrand (01:19:51.807)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (01:20:05.132)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:20:14.281)
He's not against you. The goal of this podcast is to invite you into a new story and a new day, and that can only happen at the feet of Jesus. So, you know, you can implement and strategize, but what's the invitation of Jesus? It's abide, remain. And he says that 10 times. Why? Because if you're like me, as a leader, you're a numbskull.
Rob Chartrand (01:20:23.472)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (01:20:34.14)
Hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:20:40.409)
You learn your best lessons through the school of hard knocks or through the power of nauseating repetition. And there's never nauseating repetition from the mouth of Jesus. It's life-giving repetition and invitation that our first call is to follow Jesus and to spend ourselves in loving union and communion with Him. He's the vine. He's the faithful and true life-giving vine and we are the branches.
So I'd invite you, if you want to see a new day of evangelistic fruitfulness and to see the green shoots of a culture of evangelism pop up in your life and soul and in your leadership's fear and in your ministry and in your congregation, stick close to Jesus. Carve out space, hang out to him, and it can be awkward, right? Because most of us, if we're honest,
Rob Chartrand (01:21:32.176)
Hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:21:39.301)
don't really get this abiding thing. And it can be like a flashback to when you stumbled into the school dance as a clumsy grade eight boy and figured out that you would embarrass yourself on the dance floor because you couldn't put your left foot, your right foot. And so there's a clumsy dance where we echo the words of the disciples that say, Lord teach us to pray as John taught us to pray. So I would say the first order of business is to pursue.
Rob Chartrand (01:21:41.847)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:22:08.677)
the presence of God and to become a God chaser and to spend time lingering in the presence of Jesus and to listen to what he has to say. Lord, what's your agenda? What's your word? Allow the Spirit to renovate your heart but also wait and listen to the Lord. What's his game plan? Don't cut and paste something from some church or ministry in the United States of America. You're...
Rob Chartrand (01:22:14.82)
Hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:22:38.277)
body has a unique collective vocation. And so our business as leaders is to spend more time with Jesus, to listen to him, and to say, what is the Spirit saying to the churches? And listen, and it might take, God's not silent. I mean, Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by a steady stream of words that proceed from the mouth of God. So we need to spend time lingering.
Rob Chartrand (01:23:04.814)
Mm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:23:08.449)
not expediting sermon prep and getting into the routine of unhurried time in the presence of God, pursuing the manifest presence of God. And with our hearts full and our spiritual eyes open, confront the brutal facts. Look at your ecosystem, look at your ministry and see where there needs to be change and ask for supernatural courage to lead the change. But frankly, the change has to start in you and me.
Rob Chartrand (01:23:31.179)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:23:39.397)
And if you've lost sight of the gospel, repent and reclaim the gospel. It's of first importance, as Paul told the gospel, amnesiacs in First Corinthians. If you've lost sight of your first love and you've succumbed to professionalization and the routinization of charisma, ask God to restore your heart and then take it a step from there. Find other brothers and sisters to journey together in a story of renewal.
Rob Chartrand (01:23:49.218)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:24:07.425)
and gospel transformation and mission because that's the way God set it up. God is community, Father, Son and Spirit. And so seek out help. And if we can serve and support you, we've got a towel over our arm and a basin of water nearby. It would be our joy to serve you. But I think first order of business is go face to face with Jesus, you know, and see what He wants to do in your life.
Rob Chartrand (01:24:27.425)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (01:24:32.651)
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:24:36.869)
Listen to him. If you've lost sight of your call, repent. I mean, God is faithful. He's the God of new beginnings. He's the God who says, I will restore the years the locusts have eaten.
Rob Chartrand (01:24:42.742)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (01:24:48.254)
Good word. Abide, abide, remain. Yeah, good. Well, Bill, thanks for being with us. I hope to get you back on the show here in the future and to hear what's going on. And I hope to see you at the Evangelist Summit in Calgary in February as well. And we'll put all the information on in our show notes about how people can contact you. And we'll put a link there for the Evangelist Summit as well. It's been Rich, my brother. Thanks so much. God bless.
Dr. Bill Hogg (01:25:16.817)
God bless, thanks Rob, take care.