Life Model, Immanuel Approach, and Recovering our Mental Health: an interview with Michael Sullivant part 1

What if your brain is wired in such a way that understanding the way your brain works could be a great aid in spiritual growth, healing of the heart, and mental health? What role does the Holy Spirit and the love of God play into the inner healing of the human heart? Join Joshua Hoffert, and Murray Dueck as they interview friend of the podcast Michael Sullivant. Michael Sullivant is the Director of Relational Networks for Life Model Works. He is a church planter, pastor, author, poet and speaker.

For more about Michael Sullivant and Life Model, visit: https://lifemodelworks.org/

For more about Murray Dueck, visit: https://www.samuelsmantle.com/

For more about Joshua Hoffert, visit: https://www.windministries.ca/

Transcript

00;00;27;22 - 00;00;33;22
Michael Sullivant
Heal the human heart. Heal the broken human heart. How do we do that? Let's do something else.

00;00;33;25 - 00;00;36;09
Joshua Hoffert
That's going to be calling for a specific person.

00;00;36;09 - 00;01;02;06
Michael Sullivant
Over there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, how do we do that?

00;01;02;08 - 00;01;09;05
Murray Dueck
Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Voices from the Desert.

00;01;09;09 - 00;01;14;10
Joshua Hoffert
Desert Island in.

00;01;14;12 - 00;01;16;02
Murray Dueck
Getting the Powell in there.

00;01;16;03 - 00;01;18;05
Joshua Hoffert
That's right. You did the turn to look right at me.

00;01;18;25 - 00;01;34;02
Murray Dueck
right at the door. Aden. Aden has become a local fixture on the podcast. Think. And by the way, yesterday everybody has been around for the journey of him as a puppy because Murray got him at one point. I think, actually, you took a week off from recording just to go get him.

00;01;34;07 - 00;01;34;15
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah.

00;01;34;17 - 00;01;40;08
Murray Dueck
Yeah, I did, actually. Yep. Yep. That was kind of like a little pup thing right there.

00;01;40;08 - 00;01;42;23
Joshua Hoffert
Murray did that because I was in Alberta. I picked that up when I was.

00;01;43;03 - 00;01;51;13
Murray Dueck
yeah, Yeah. There you go. That's right. Yes. So Aden has has grown from a puppy to he's quite a quite a strapping young lad at this point.

00;01;51;19 - 00;02;01;23
Joshua Hoffert
He was here a minute ago trying to take over the show, but I have since given him a vegan dog bone to chew and he.

00;02;01;26 - 00;02;26;29
Murray Dueck
Yeah, So. Well, everybody, my name is Joshua Hoffer, too. I run a ministry called the Wind Ministries, and, ah, I'm with my good friend Murray Duke, who runs a ministry called Samuels Mantle. And and really our heart in all that we do is helping people connect with the heart of God. And so I'm I am. Whether that's you know, we have a focus on prophetic people, on leadership growth, on integrating spiritual practices, this kind of stuff.

00;02;27;02 - 00;02;49;09
Murray Dueck
And I'm so excited for today's episode because we are welcoming a a new friend onto the podcast we were just talking about You can't make old friends, but you can make new friends. And I guess unless your friends are old, then they can be old friends as a whole, new friend, age or old new friends that can work to irate.

00;02;49;12 - 00;02;53;04
Michael Sullivant
Irate on that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;02;53;07 - 00;02;53;14
Murray Dueck
Yeah.

00;02;53;20 - 00;02;55;15
Michael Sullivant
I'm 69 this week.

00;02;55;19 - 00;03;14;28
Murray Dueck
okay. Well you know let's not old so the the older I get I just turned 43 actually yesterday so the older I get, the younger ages like 69 seem. So when I was 20, 69 what was 2043 was really old. You know.

00;03;15;01 - 00;03;16;27
Michael Sullivant
You're under a beautiful deception now.

00;03;16;27 - 00;03;19;05
Murray Dueck
Yeah.

00;03;19;08 - 00;03;21;16
Joshua Hoffert
Yes.

00;03;21;18 - 00;03;47;15
Murray Dueck
The problem is I still start, I still try and play sports with the young guys. And so that's where it doesn't always go very well. So we're here with our new friend Michael Sullivan's and Michael Sullivan. He he works with the life model Works. Guys, you're the director of Relational Networks, right? That's right. Yes. And so we met through some mutual friends.

00;03;47;15 - 00;04;17;00
Murray Dueck
I was on the Remnant Radio podcast, and you'd seen some of the stuff that I had put there. And then we connected and I joined one of the lifelong lifelong works life groups. My dad had connected and recommended that I do that anyway. And so I a couple of years ago I went through some of the the, the I think the purpose of the life model groups would be connectedness with the fathers heart and relational exercises and being seen in community and just a beautiful thing.

00;04;17;00 - 00;04;42;09
Murray Dueck
And so one of the reasons actually that I joined in was because we were just at our local church launching our life groups yet again after COVID. And I wanted to see what you guys did, what kind of practices we can integrate. And I really liked what was there. And so I've been following Michael from a distance, looking at Facebook and reading through one of the book that he wrote on the biblical practices in life.

00;04;42;09 - 00;04;59;15
Murray Dueck
I can't remember what the name of it is, but the biblical practices in life model and the life model is kind of a collection of actually like really well trained people. I did Jim Wilder started was David, was he the guy who started it?

00;04;59;18 - 00;05;06;14
Michael Sullivant
You know, basically it was a team of people, but it was kind of the main thought leader. There certainly has become that more and more.

00;05;06;15 - 00;05;33;00
Murray Dueck
Sure. Sure. And so there's been a there's a lot of different resources that are represented in the life model works group courses, books. And I've taken in a number of those that the rare leadership book and the rare leadership there was a conference that you guys put on, I think that was connected with life model as well. And so anyway, I really like what what is being put out through the brain skills, the relational exercises, that kind of stuff.

00;05;33;00 - 00;05;44;14
Murray Dueck
So anyway, I thought, well, I'm going to reach out to Michael and see if he would be on with the two crazy voices from the desert guys and read. So here we go. And then three days before we do.

00;05;44;14 - 00;05;45;27
Joshua Hoffert
Quite the tournament after that.

00;05;45;28 - 00;05;55;23
Murray Dueck
Yeah, Yeah, that's right. That's right. And, and so when I told Mary that we were going to have Michael on, he's like, I know that name from age is way Past and prophetic.

00;05;55;26 - 00;06;00;16
Joshua Hoffert
Excellent book on called Prophetic Etiquette. And I was always little jealous about that title because it just.

00;06;00;20 - 00;06;01;26
Murray Dueck
It's like.

00;06;01;28 - 00;06;02;01
Joshua Hoffert
A.

00;06;02;06 - 00;06;11;02
Murray Dueck
Right. It's a really good one. Yeah. So we've got we've got Michael on the podcast today and we're going to talk about all kinds of things.

00;06;11;04 - 00;06;36;15
Joshua Hoffert
And, you know, if I could just throw out a quick question or maybe a quick statement. Yeah, go ahead. No, for those of you watching, you know, or still listening and they haven't left. Thank you. Journey is such an important thing of becoming and and this journey of becoming like crises as you all know and it it's a wonderful thing to to interview somebody who who has come out of the same camp if we want to put it that way.

00;06;36;15 - 00;06;57;12
Joshua Hoffert
This whole prophetic camp although he doesn't really no know us at all. You know you know you from you know, back in the day and you've ended up in the same kind of thing that I have in a way, which is, you know, spiritual direction and life coaching and and and I'm just looking forward to hearing this journey and how you ended up doing from where you came from to where you are now.

00;06;57;19 - 00;07;34;06
Joshua Hoffert
I mean, that had to be quite a journey. And it's almost like a whole new brain hemisphere had to open up, I'm sure, you know, because so and so I'm going to leave it to Josh to ask me questions. But for those for those of you listening, I just wanted to say we're all on this journey of of becoming and especially, you know, for those of you guys carrying, gifting to hear and to see in the sense and to feel and I mean there's these other aspects of our being that need to come along with that and and to hear people successfully navigate that and then take what they've learned and give it give it

00;07;34;06 - 00;07;41;10
Joshua Hoffert
away is a beautiful thing. So and that's we're going to just trip right into that today. So yeah, that's exciting. We're excited.

00;07;41;13 - 00;07;53;05
Murray Dueck
So so Michael, you you're you're married, you have kids, you have grandkids. Tell us a little about life today and then we'll we'll dive into where you came from. Yeah.

00;07;53;10 - 00;08;27;07
Michael Sullivant
Yeah. Married Terry in 1977. Just college and she's an Ohio farm girl. I'm a Detroit suburban kid. We went to the same university. Miami of Ohio, met there, fell in love after a few years of knowing each other and got married. And so 47 years now and we have five children who are all grown and married and walking with God, which is awesome.

00;08;27;07 - 00;08;28;24
Joshua Hoffert
That's awesome. Yeah. Wow.

00;08;28;26 - 00;08;36;22
Michael Sullivant
One of our greatest joys. And then 15 grandkids now and planning on a few more. I think so.

00;08;36;24 - 00;08;42;18
Murray Dueck
So how was Christmas like? Was that do you guys have offensive?

00;08;42;20 - 00;08;55;26
Michael Sullivant
I always but yeah, we have We get houseful households of grandkids and they go crazy and we send them downstairs to the basement.

00;08;56;03 - 00;08;56;08
Murray Dueck
for.

00;08;56;08 - 00;08;57;28
Joshua Hoffert
Sure.

00;08;58;00 - 00;08;59;22
Murray Dueck
That's what the basements for. There you go.

00;08;59;22 - 00;09;00;09
Michael Sullivant
Yeah, that's right.

00;09;00;09 - 00;09;09;21
Joshua Hoffert
My father was always Christmas plan was give them lots of sugar, buy them very, very loud toys and send them home.

00;09;09;24 - 00;09;17;01
Murray Dueck
Goodness. well, my kids are ten, eight and five, so I'm not quite there yet. So. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah.

00;09;17;03 - 00;09;44;11
Michael Sullivant
So Terry and I actually, you know, she was the homemaker, right, for five kids. So it takes a lot of energy to raise kids. And she's very dedicated mom. And I was a dedicated dad, too, But I was out, you know, doing a lot of ministry through those years. And she she said, I was never going to sacrifice my family and my children on the altar of ministry and history.

00;09;44;14 - 00;10;13;21
Michael Sullivant
So she made a commitment as a Christian leader to kind of lay down leadership responsibilities through those years. And I'm so grateful to her for that sacrifice. And then when our kids grew up and became adults, you know, she had more free time. So our lives and ministries are dovetailing like never before. She's a professional life coach as well as an ordained minister and helps me with the work I do.

00;10;13;21 - 00;10;21;21
Michael Sullivant
I help her sometimes. I think she world as well, so it's really fun to partner like never before.

00;10;21;24 - 00;10;33;18
Murray Dueck
Yeah, that's awesome. I love hearing that. Yeah. So you you 1979, you said 77, 79. You guys met.

00;10;33;26 - 00;10;34;26
Michael Sullivant
Seven. We were married.

00;10;35;03 - 00;10;42;12
Murray Dueck
At 77. You're married. So you met even before that? Thankfully, you met before you got married? yeah.

00;10;42;14 - 00;10;44;28
Michael Sullivant
Usually one of the prerequisites, actually.

00;10;45;04 - 00;11;02;00
Murray Dueck
Yeah. So was it, was it pastoral ministry from the get go. What, what was, what's the both vocationally. What were you involved in. When were you convinced of the call. You know, you know the father encounter you when you're ten. What like what happened? Tell us a little bit about that.

00;11;02;07 - 00;11;26;24
Michael Sullivant
Okay, Sure. I'll go way back to age six. I had my first encounter with God when I was six, but I didn't know it was an encounter with God. And this is one of the things that I help people with is to trace back God moments in their lives that they haven't connected the dots to yet. So I was six and I was laying on the hood of our family station wagon at night in Pennsylvania where we lived.

00;11;26;26 - 00;11;55;27
Michael Sullivant
And I looked up into the stars and I didn't know the word insanity, but I felt insanity and it freaked me out, my poor little brain. But I, I instantly felt like a speck of dust in the universe. So insignificant. But something very significant happened inside of me, which was my Romans one awareness of the existence of God for the first time in my life that I remember.

00;11;55;29 - 00;12;21;05
Michael Sullivant
And so I like was, there's somebody that made all this. And I know it's not me, there's somebody bigger than me, smarter than me, more powerful than me that that did this and made me and I was just overwhelmed and by my instinctive awareness of the existence of God. And now that I've gone back into that memory, I see Jesus there.

00;12;21;07 - 00;12;22;07
Murray Dueck
Right.

00;12;22;10 - 00;12;37;28
Michael Sullivant
So we'll talk more about that. I call them golden memories. Yeah. So six years old, I became aware of the existence of God, but I thought you had to die to meet God. That was kind of what I was taught. So, you know, it's like you die. And he's like, I'm so glad you died. You know, it showed up at my place.

00;12;37;28 - 00;13;04;03
Michael Sullivant
Come on in. All right, So. But, you know, I didn't know that you could meet God before you died, so no one ever told me you could. So in the when I became a teenager, the Jesus movement was happening. And so a lot of young people were coming to Christ. And my older brother came home from somewhere and I was doing my homework at the table and I was 16.

00;13;04;03 - 00;13;14;13
Michael Sullivant
He was 19. I had become at that stage of my life a pseudo intellectual hippie jock, which is really a strange combination of force.

00;13;14;13 - 00;13;15;19
Murray Dueck
Especially for a 16.

00;13;15;20 - 00;13;16;20
Joshua Hoffert
Year old.

00;13;16;23 - 00;13;40;00
Michael Sullivant
Yeah, and but anyway, I was doing my homework and he walks in the door of our home and he's all wet. And I was like, I thought he fell in a pond or something. And he said he got baptized. And I knew he was lying because I knew he couldn't be, you know, wet from being sprinkled. But he said that he I'll never forget, he said, I accepted Jesus as my personal savior.

00;13;40;02 - 00;14;02;08
Michael Sullivant
And it offended me because I thought he was saying he was like a rich person who had a personal chauffeur for his car. You know, I'm sure that you write having Jesus as your personal savior. So I was really offended by that. Then. Then he said I got saved. I'd never heard that before. And and then and then he said, and you need to get saved, too.

00;14;02;08 - 00;14;25;12
Michael Sullivant
And that's when I called timeout and said, No, I don't think I'm going to go on the same religious trip that you are. But anyway, fast forward, I went to a Baptist church where he had heard the gospel and responded and I and that was my next experience with God sitting in that Baptist church. And it was a culture shock because it seemed like everybody was pretending that they were happy to be in church.

00;14;25;12 - 00;14;54;17
Michael Sullivant
I'd never been like that before. So. And so then the the preacher, I'll never forget it for some reason, very indelibly imprinted that Romans ten opens up. The Romans ten reads like the whole chapter. It took like, you know, 2 minutes or 3 minutes. Yeah. I never heard anybody read a chapter of the Bible and act like now they were pretending that the Bible was relevant to modern life and he would start explaining it.

00;14;54;19 - 00;15;19;24
Michael Sullivant
And while that's going on, I hear a voice, literally an audible voice. To me, it was audible. And I don't think that the I actually I don't think the Baptist there would have appreciated what happened to me while I was sitting in their pew. But Baptists are different nowadays. But anyway, I heard God speak to me and he basically called me by name, told me I wasn't okay.

00;15;19;27 - 00;15;46;12
Michael Sullivant
It was very convicting and all of my sins, you know, just came up in my face and I was convicted of following this in my own heart. And so it was unsettling. God's first words to me, unsettled my life and disrupted me in a very deep place. And I did not come to the Lord. I didn't surrender to him.

00;15;46;12 - 00;16;23;07
Michael Sullivant
I tried to run away from that. And I tried for two years. And finally he caught up with me and and tracked me down and laid hold of me. And and when I was converted two years later, I was gloriously converted by the presence of Christ. And I had visions. I had two visions when I was converted and and then a week later, as I was walking around my home thinking, you know, praising God for my forgiveness, which was overwhelming to me that I was forgiven and I can still to this day consider myself to be like the last person on earth that would become a Christian, You know, like, I didn't think I would.

00;16;23;07 - 00;16;43;14
Michael Sullivant
And I did. You know, it happened to me. And it was I had three praise words. Thank you. Those are two. And then. Wow. So I do. Well, thank you. Thank you. Wow. And I think the father was looking down upon me and saying to the son, we need to give this boy some more words to praise us.

00;16;43;14 - 00;16;54;13
Michael Sullivant
And so all of a sudden I'm speaking out in this unlearned language, right as a wind came across the room and hit me. And it was a very phenomenal experience.

00;16;54;13 - 00;16;57;27
Murray Dueck
But were you in it were you in a charismatic culture at that point at all?

00;16;58;07 - 00;17;20;00
Michael Sullivant
I had no idea what was happening to me, except I knew it was God. Right. And I actually I, I didn't know what had happened to me until I got a hold of a little Bible that had outlines in the front. And you kind of go through the Bible, you know, the word of God, who the father is, who the son is, and then the Holy Spirit turn to this page.

00;17;20;00 - 00;17;36;18
Michael Sullivant
I turn to the page and there's wind and there's other languages. I said, that's what happened to me. And, you know, shut the Bible, okay, that was from God. And then I met some Christians who told me, I'm from the devil. And I said, No, it's not. No, it's not.

00;17;36;21 - 00;17;41;29
Murray Dueck
So you didn't they didn't do they should have bought a Honda, you know, just start talking and it'll come out. It just happened to you. Wow.

00;17;42;04 - 00;18;12;04
Michael Sullivant
It just happened. It was a phenomenal experience and changed me forever, you know? And I start weeping when I tell the story because I relive the visions and the experiences when I tell it. So that was my inauguration. And to the faith was through hearing God's voice, through visions. I saw that perfectly describe my situation and then through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon me.

00;18;12;06 - 00;18;26;20
Murray Dueck
Right, Right. So what was the what was the the the the catalyst moment for pastoral ministry? Because you have you've always been in pastoral ministry is up in kind of just from the get go. What was the catalyst for that? I know anyway?

00;18;26;21 - 00;18;52;03
Michael Sullivant
Well, I would say I began as an evangelist because I, I, I went away to college after I was converted at age 18 in my hometown. I went away to college and didn't know anybody. And so I was a new person as a new Christian in a new in a new place. And I just started to tell my story like I just told you to my dorm mates.

00;18;52;03 - 00;19;16;28
Michael Sullivant
And 13 of them came to Christ the first year. And then I started to read about how the laying on of hands is a thing to do. And so I started laying hands on my friends and they started to experience the presence of the Holy Spirit like I had. And then it was like, my gosh, weapons, you know.

00;19;17;00 - 00;19;18;26
Joshua Hoffert
There's bullets in these guns. I pray these.

00;19;19;00 - 00;19;20;23
Michael Sullivant
These puppies are dangerous. You know.

00;19;20;27 - 00;19;21;19
Murray Dueck
It's.

00;19;21;21 - 00;19;51;09
Michael Sullivant
And so so I started laying hands on people as well as sharing the gospel, you know, with them. And a revival broke out on our campus and about 500 students became believers. Wow. In the next few years on our campus, through that little band of young men and women, students who were on fire for the Lord. And and I and I started to teach the Bible, you know, in Bible studies.

00;19;51;09 - 00;20;03;15
Michael Sullivant
And then I ended up becoming a preacher. I started preaching at age 19 on a weekly basis to the group of people that we had wanted to Christ. So they I was just two steps ahead of them, you know?

00;20;03;17 - 00;20;04;03
Murray Dueck
Right, right.

00;20;04;07 - 00;20;24;11
Michael Sullivant
Just learning. It's kind of it was kind of freaky and a little bit dangerous, you know, as I look back on it. But God protected us from that heresy. Wow. Yeah, I'm so grateful. So actually, then the transition into pastoring came in my heart. It came because I went away to a Christian camp and I met a Christian who was suicidal.

00;20;24;11 - 00;20;55;01
Michael Sullivant
And that didn't compute. It was like, how can a Christian be suicidal? But he was and he was a Christian. And so that experience awakened in me, a deep longing to care for Christians and not just think that it all happened effortlessly for people to come in to the the love and the joy and the peace that just seemed to kind of flow for me.

00;20;55;04 - 00;21;08;07
Michael Sullivant
And I now understand why that did much better than I did then. But I've always then had a heart for Christians to to enter the deeper life. I would say, Wow.

00;21;08;10 - 00;21;11;08
Joshua Hoffert
Wonderful.

00;21;11;10 - 00;21;20;09
Murray Dueck
I'm reminded of a an analogy. I can't. It was in a book by David Tackle who do you know who David Tackle is?

00;21;20;09 - 00;21;20;21
Michael Sullivant
I do.

00;21;20;22 - 00;21;41;00
Murray Dueck
Yeah. And he talked about how I think forming the heart maybe anyway and he talks about how there's a number of Christians who are in their boat and they have both orders and they can make it through the water. But there's a number of Christians who are missing one of their orders, and so they just end up spinning around in circles and they don't realize what the problem is.

00;21;41;02 - 00;21;58;11
Murray Dueck
Now, no one's been able to say, hey, here's the other order. And and I really like that analogy. And it sounds it sounds like that was kind of that moment was what no one ever helped this guy find the other or and how do you move forward?

00;21;58;14 - 00;22;09;14
Michael Sullivant
And I think David uses the analogy of a sail as well. There's a time where you put the doors away and put up your sail and let the wind catch your sail. And that's what we're really meant for, you know?

00;22;09;14 - 00;22;10;08
Murray Dueck
Right.

00;22;10;10 - 00;22;37;05
Michael Sullivant
And and it makes me think of, of a life passage for me is second Timothy one seven. God hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but power, love and a sound mind. And you know, the kingdom of God is it delivers us from our fears. And so many of us are driven by our fears. And so we we want to get rid of the fear.

00;22;37;08 - 00;22;58;04
Michael Sullivant
And then there's the Holy Spirit. And he's a spirit of power, his spirit of love, you know, And those make sense to us because we read the Gospels and the Book of Acts. But he's a spirit of a sound mind. And that's kind of a weird word. It's only used one time in the New Testament, in that passage, in that form, and only one other time in a different form.

00;22;58;06 - 00;23;16;02
Michael Sullivant
But it was a very well-known Greek word, and I believe that the best translation for sound mind, power loving, sound mind. And you'll notice that the translators have problems with that. You know how to translate that word. And I believe the best translation for it in our day is mental health and power, love and mental health.

00;23;16;02 - 00;23;17;07
Murray Dueck
Interesting thing.

00;23;17;10 - 00;23;18;08
Michael Sullivant
Yeah.

00;23;18;10 - 00;23;30;06
Joshua Hoffert
Wow. So how was contextually how was it usually used in culture in that form in Greek? Like if you were talking to an an average of Greek guy back in the day, they would go, that's what that word means kind of thing?

00;23;30;08 - 00;23;47;25
Michael Sullivant
Yeah, I think it would be, in their words, probably something like your your thought life, your inner thought and emotional life is regulated. They would probably use some a word, something like that. It's it's harmonized. Harmonized or regulated.

00;23;47;27 - 00;24;26;25
Murray Dueck
Right. Wow. Okay. Well, that yeah, that's so many questions even just about that. So let's just camp on the story for a little bit longer. So so you kind of by virtue of the fact that there was a need, you're you've entered into the preaching part of things expounding on the word that kind of stuff. Yeah. So anyway what's kind of the journey then because you ended up in a very prophetic, charismatic context in Kansas City in the late eighties and early nineties, and then we're on staff, you know, major church there, saw lots of things like that.

00;24;26;25 - 00;24;39;11
Murray Dueck
So what what got you into was it the was it continuing in with the Jesus People movement into Vinyard? Like what was the what's the, the progression of that.

00;24;39;14 - 00;25;08;22
Michael Sullivant
Yeah. The first churches and movements I was a part of were actually UK, UK, British House Church movement. Okay. And got to know quite a few of the British leaders in the charismatic world of their day and they were planting churches. And you know, I have a lot of love for the UK theologians. They thought deeply about the faith and I've learned a lot from UK church leaders and theologians.

00;25;08;25 - 00;25;31;05
Michael Sullivant
So that was the first movement I was a part of. And then in 1986 is when I met John Wimmer for the first time and went to a conference that he was hosting. And I had an encounter with the Lord. Again, I didn't know it wasn't an encounter with the Lord because it happened. It happened subconsciously, but something left me.

00;25;31;05 - 00;25;59;08
Michael Sullivant
It was like an unbelief left me when I saw John Wimmer, minister, and it just imparted a confidence and the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. But it wasn't in the Pentecostal culture, which I didn't like. And so, you know, all the trappings of the cultural trappings of Pentecostalism didn't fit for me. But I saw John's approach, you know, they'd kind of joke and say, You heal the sick with a Coke in your hand, right?

00;25;59;11 - 00;26;26;00
Michael Sullivant
So, you know, it was naturally supernatural. And that was something that when that was modeled to me, I was like, I can do this. This is what I made for. So God experienced exposed to the vineyard movement and came to Kansas City. And it wasn't long before the Kansas City Group actually became a vineyard and connected more personally with John and the leaders of the Vineyard at the time.

00;26;26;00 - 00;27;00;16
Michael Sullivant
And to me, that was a wonderful development for our group because we really needed what they had. And so that was part of the transition. And and the Vineyard was committed to inner healing. You know, for me it was a biblical thing, like the sound mind side of the Holy Spirit's ministry. I understood it back then. It was like, This is really important that we get healed in our emotions, get healed and our thought life get healed in the inner life and and that people's hearts have been broken.

00;27;00;16 - 00;27;18;14
Michael Sullivant
So Isaiah 61 was very important to me. He's the Messiah comes to heal the broken hearted. Yeah. And I think a lot of church leaders through the centuries have read that and gone Heal the human heart, Heal the broken human heart. How do we do that? Let's do something else.

00;27;18;17 - 00;27;21;15
Joshua Hoffert
That's going to be calling for a specific person over there.

00;27;21;15 - 00;27;58;29
Michael Sullivant
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, how do we do that? But I believe that the good news of Jesus is very much as one of the primary things heals the broken heart. But how does the human broken heart can healed? And I've always asked that deep question. I became friends with Dallas Willard along the way in Dallas, of course, took the classic disciplines of spiritual life and picked him up out of the mud because he said they're not meritorious, washed them off and handed them back to the Church of our day saying, Look, these practices are essential to discipleship and to transformation.

00;27;59;01 - 00;28;01;16
Murray Dueck
I love yeah, go ahead.

00;28;01;18 - 00;28;12;17
Michael Sullivant
I just became friends with Dallas and that was a kind of a side thing. Nobody really knew I was friends with him in our group, but Dallas had a vineyard background as well. He attended a vineyard church.

00;28;12;17 - 00;28;13;05
Murray Dueck
Okay.

00;28;13;05 - 00;28;31;11
Michael Sullivant
And yeah, so, so it all fit together for me. And it's always, it's always fit together in my concepts. But as humans have come my way that represent those influences and relationships form, then it's like, okay, now we got a better package here.

00;28;31;16 - 00;28;52;12
Joshua Hoffert
Interesting. So, you know, just because 1977 you got married in 1986, you're you know, you're already, you know, John Weber like that's a I mean considering everything in there, all the I mean we would use the term impactful event, you know, impactful event, spiritual principle, core value, life goal, you know, that's kind of how we play it out.

00;28;52;12 - 00;29;10;28
Joshua Hoffert
And it's just just amazing how these impactful events or anchor points, how they changed you and you grabbed hold of them and not knowing where you're going. I joked last week that my father likes to say, in life you get the test first and then afterwards you get the you get the lesson, you know, and and it's kind of like that for you.

00;29;10;29 - 00;29;26;01
Joshua Hoffert
You had to figure it as you go. Well, no one else is preaching. I guess I'll do it. There's these broken people. No one else is doing it. I guess I'll do it. You know, you're you're jumping in all the time. Like, where did that boldness come to? Just. I'm going. There's a cutting edge here. I'm going to walk it.

00;29;26;04 - 00;29;35;19
Joshua Hoffert
And now that's a lot. I mean, that's a nine years. You covered a lot of ground in nine years. Yeah. And how did you when you look back, does it surprise you at all?

00;29;35;19 - 00;30;10;22
Michael Sullivant
It does, yeah, it does surprise me. But I've been reading my Bible and reading the Gospels and reading the Book of Acts, and so it's not that surprising. You know, It's like, okay, God's doing what he's always wanted to do, and he's he's doing some great things in our day. So for me, I think the boldness just came from reading my scriptures, believing them, laying hold of them, them laying hold of me, and then my encounter, my initial encounter with God and with Jesus, you know, changed me forever.

00;30;10;22 - 00;30;16;21
Michael Sullivant
I could never deny that. So it's just naturally supernatural.

00;30;16;23 - 00;30;18;24
Joshua Hoffert
Right? I mean.

00;30;18;26 - 00;30;39;03
Murray Dueck
Right. I love, you know, going back to Dallas Willard and what you were saying about bringing the disciplines out of the mud. One of the things that kind of the core concept that he brought to the disciplines of essentially what you do in your own effort that enables you to do what you can't do in your own effort.

00;30;39;05 - 00;31;05;03
Murray Dueck
And and and I think just just because I want to I want to get into the the your movement into spiritual formation, healing practices and life model because some of the exercises that you're having people do are just that doing what you can do in your own effort, which is your golden memory exercise that you would reference. Right?

00;31;05;04 - 00;31;22;11
Murray Dueck
We can talk about that in a little bit, but that's something you can do in your own effort that enables you to do something you can't do in your own effort. Maintain a connection with the heart of God at all times, but it gives you that the the kind of the the touchstone point for moving back to that at all times.

00;31;22;13 - 00;31;45;28
Murray Dueck
And so then when temptation comes, well, now I have a place where I can go back and say, what's it like to be connected with the heart of God? So so I just see in this maturation of Dallas Willard the principles of Dallas Willard there. Anyway, so what, what was the when you got, when you started your involvement with life model works?

00;31;46;01 - 00;31;56;13
Murray Dueck
Was it just, this is what I've always been doing. Was it a totally new context for you? What you know, what was that transition like?

00;31;56;15 - 00;32;30;00
Michael Sullivant
Yeah, well, of the neuro theology, that's what the life model is. It's a it's an overlap between neuroscience and biblical theology. Well, and so that's Jim Wilder's space, you know, for many decades now doing all kinds of important work on that front. And so for me, I didn't know the neuroscience until I met Jim. But when I heard it, I realized, I had intuited a lot of that, just like the early church fathers would have intuited that.

00;32;30;00 - 00;32;35;25
Michael Sullivant
Right? They didn't know the brain science, but they did no relation. Relational wisdom.

00;32;35;27 - 00;32;36;09
Murray Dueck
Yes.

00;32;36;09 - 00;33;01;22
Michael Sullivant
And and this is all about relational stuff. The the neuroscience is helping to unleash a lot more relational wisdom and relational health. Yeah. Inside of people and through people. So when I heard it, it's like, I kind of knew that, but I didn't have the science for it. And lo and behold, the God who wrote the Bible made the human brain.

00;33;01;24 - 00;33;27;04
Michael Sullivant
Yeah. And then you're like, Well, of course, you know, this is it fits perfectly because this is God's creation being renewed. The creation gets renewed by the New Covenant and by the Person of Christ. And so God, this is an important theological point, that God is not eradicating the original creation. He's renewing the original creation through the New Covenant, through the new creation.

00;33;27;07 - 00;33;51;12
Michael Sullivant
So the new creation subsumes the old creation, the original creation that became broken and it digests it and it spits out the bones and it keeps the nutrients because there's all kinds of goodness in creation and some theories of spirituality in the Christian church have had this division between creation and redemption, and we need to bring those back together.

00;33;51;15 - 00;34;14;16
Michael Sullivant
So so I had that theological whole paradigm. And so when I learned about the neuroscience of life, of course, and of course I met God first by looking up into the stars, something that he made. Right. So the fact that creation bears witness to the New Covenant just makes all kinds of sense.

00;34;14;18 - 00;34;26;13
Joshua Hoffert
Wow, that's pretty cool. So that when you started looking at the neuroscience stuff, did that that golden memory, did it come back to you of when you were a kid laying on the car going, my goodness, this is that.

00;34;26;15 - 00;34;54;17
Michael Sullivant
Like I stumbled onto that memory in my work with working with people with golden memories. And and then it kind of popped back up. And then I started to perceive the presence of Jesus in that moment in my life. Yeah. So it was like a renewed mind, right? My my memory was renewed, Yeah. Because all of a sudden I see Jesus in the picture and he's there on the car with me.

00;34;54;24 - 00;35;19;00
Michael Sullivant
Yeah, he's got his arm around me and he's, he's, he's pointing up into the heavens and he's pointing out his handiwork. And so that that was, you know, a visitation from Christ, and I didn't know it. Wow. It's like. It's like, Jacob, you know, he goes to sleep on a Rocky mountain, you know, a rocky hill and has a dream.

00;35;19;02 - 00;35;30;18
Michael Sullivant
And he says it's the house of God. And I didn't know it. So people have all kinds of God encounters that they haven't yet figured out or God encounters. Wow. And I help them connect those dots.

00;35;30;20 - 00;35;55;15
Murray Dueck
You know, it reminds me a little I'm just thinking, you know, historically here, the reminds me that moment reminds me of the dream that evaporates. You remember this one, Murray of Zagreus, A solitary has a dream as a young boy. And in his dream of Vine comes out of his mouth and fills the whole heaven. And sweet fruit is produced in the birds of the air eat the fruit.

00;35;55;17 - 00;36;18;29
Murray Dueck
And he held that memory of that dream. It thoroughly impacted him. And later in life, as he meets a man skilled in interpretation of dreams, he talks about the words that come out of your mouth. They're going to fill the heavens and they're going to impact the people. And you can have a great kingdom. So that that the the dream that he had as a young man stayed with him until someone interpreted it and it unlocked the meaning.

00;36;19;02 - 00;36;47;02
Murray Dueck
And he really did. He had dramatic impact in his day. And so I'm just, you know, this these kind of stories, I love seeing that 1919, you know, 1950s and 1960s Michael Sullivan has an encounter at six years old laying on the hood of a car. And we look back 1500 years prior and you go, Hey, if zagreus had a woman with with the father, and we'd see these kind of things happening throughout human history, right?

00;36;47;02 - 00;37;04;01
Murray Dueck
This is the story of God at work in his creation, the creation. He loves, the creation He's redeeming. You said just before we went live, I remember exactly how you phrased it, but Jesus came to humanize the earth. It was I love I love that phrase. Right.

00;37;04;01 - 00;37;06;14
Michael Sullivant
It's nondairy. Really nice.

00;37;06;14 - 00;37;41;27
Murray Dueck
There you go. Yeah. Humanize the earth. I love that. That's just so to me, that's solid, redemptive theology. And that's and you're getting back that kind of thought process is when you when you look back at some of the earliest concepts of the redemptive narrative, there's a redemptive theology Google statement called recapitulation, recapitulation theology, right? Where where he comes to retell the story and redeem in the midst of the story.

00;37;42;04 - 00;37;59;11
Murray Dueck
And that's that's the earliest concept. So when we come up, we come up. A lot of our evangelical thought process was heavily influenced by the the kind of the legal sinners saved by an angry god.

00;37;59;14 - 00;38;00;07
Michael Sullivant
Yeah.

00;38;00;09 - 00;38;22;26
Murray Dueck
You know that we come up through the Middle Ages and and we lost a lot of that God coming into creation redeeming and restoring. Because what we see obviously in Revelation 21 and 22 is the same kind of creation, not an entirely new type of creation, but a creation that's full of trees, that's full of rivers, that has a city right that seems like the beginning of creation, doesn't have a city.

00;38;22;26 - 00;38;37;29
Murray Dueck
And God kind of gets upset when the gut, when the people organize in the cities. And then by the time you get to the end, you know, you've got Babel and all of this kind of stuff, right? By the time you get to the end, he's like, Hey, that city thing was a good idea. Which is interesting when you think about that.

00;38;37;29 - 00;38;47;24
Murray Dueck
God says, I'm going to live in the city, occupy it and rule and reign from here. Yeah, and he's pictured as a son. You know, all this picture is the picture of his creation.

00;38;47;26 - 00;38;48;17
Michael Sullivant
And then.

00;38;48;23 - 00;39;06;14
Murray Dueck
Review. Like you said, I love the language. Re humanize. You know, that was Weinberg's thing, right? The here and there, the overlapping of, the kingdoms and the here and that the here and there, the here and now and the not yet of the kingdom, Right? Yeah. That was living. So I just love that language and.

00;39;06;16 - 00;39;17;16
Michael Sullivant
Jesus in Revelation, Jesus doesn't say, Behold, I'm making all new things. He says, Behold I'm making all things so new.

00;39;17;20 - 00;39;22;29
Joshua Hoffert
Amen. Yeah. Wow. Brilliant. Just a little word change there changes a big perspective.

00;39;23;05 - 00;39;53;16
Murray Dueck
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. The other story I'm thinking about and I think we've talked about this one, Mary, is Mary the Harlot, and she she encounters it is she was a prostitute. But your story reminds me of Mary the harlot. Not that you're a prostitute. Or you know what? Clarify that there, you know, But she encounters Jesus on her journey in the four inches the fourth century without even not even expecting to encounter him.

00;39;53;18 - 00;40;13;23
Murray Dueck
You know, much the same way you said I didn't expect to. And then he was there. And so I just love that those kind of stories are all are all there. Well, what was the what's the time frame for when did you start getting involved with the life model and and Nero theology.

00;40;13;26 - 00;40;16;20
Michael Sullivant
Yeah. When did the Nero theology come into our work?

00;40;16;21 - 00;40;17;14
Murray Dueck
Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

00;40;18;15 - 00;40;47;10
Michael Sullivant
so my, my wife had a brain injury and she needed brain surgery to correct the problem. It was called trigeminal neuralgia. It's. It's a terrible condition. It's on a spectrum. Something hers was very severe. She had to have neurosurgery to correct the problem in her brain. And she laid on the couch for almost two years recovering. It changed our life very dramatically.

00;40;47;12 - 00;41;14;17
Michael Sullivant
And so when she started to kind of wake up, she was like Rip Van Winkle story, you know, lost two years of her life, woke up and Jesus had healed her of the pain, which was awesome. But she still had PTSD symptoms. And so a friend who was also a life coach, my wife became a life coach. But she was still suffering from PTSD symptoms.

00;41;14;19 - 00;41;46;11
Michael Sullivant
So her friend handed her a book. It was Living From the Heart Jesus Gave You by Jim Wilder and Company and they studied that together, and it led Terry to take a trip to Pasadena, California, to receive what the life model calls Emmanuel prayer. It's a form of inner healing prayer. And she had two prayer sessions with Jim Wild and his wife Kitty, who's now passed away but two three hour prayer sessions with Kitty.

00;41;46;13 - 00;42;13;28
Michael Sullivant
And she had a miraculous abatement of all PTSD symptoms through that experience. Wow. Dallas Willard was a friend of Jim Wilder and a colleague and an advisor to the life model. And he was my friend. And so because Dallas put his thumbs up on the life model and because Terry got this healing, it was like, we've got to pay attention to this body of wisdom and these practices.

00;42;14;03 - 00;42;41;17
Michael Sullivant
Yeah. And we started reading the books and then we connected more personally with Jim and his team in 2000 and maybe 15. And then they recruited me to join the board of their ministry in 2017 and then to be the CEO in 2018. Then two years later, I stepped to the side to bring in a new executive director for the organization, because that wasn't my best suit.

00;42;41;20 - 00;42;54;06
Michael Sullivant
So then I became the director of Relational Networks. So that was that's kind of the quick story of how we got connected to Jim Wilder. On the Life model leaders.

00;42;54;08 - 00;42;58;19
Murray Dueck
Yeah, any question, Mary I can see Mary's the thoughts are just spinning.

00;42;58;19 - 00;43;24;11
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, I, I'm way back at your when you're five or six again I'm still back over there. Yeah galore and well just the progression here because somewhere I you know back in the day I ran something called God Rock, which was kind of a street outreach kid thing. And this is about 1991. This happened, I mean, pretty early on, maybe 92.

00;43;24;14 - 00;43;42;12
Joshua Hoffert
And there is this girl who had been through about ten or 15 orphanages on the ground during the service. You know, there's a rock bands playing and it's, you know, all that stuff, just screaming, you know, And we're trying to cast this demon at her. And the Lord says, Why don't you just have her look for me in the picture instead of the bad thing?

00;43;42;14 - 00;44;05;25
Joshua Hoffert
It's like, I never thought about that before, you know? It's just, why not? And she goes, he's right there. And then off she goes, It was that quick. We're like, What have we been doing all this time? You know, like and that really started this journey of, of, you know, inviting Jesus into memories, you know, you guys call it a golden moment that we would call it an impactful event.

00;44;05;25 - 00;44;17;26
Joshua Hoffert
I like your terminology better, but somehow you picked that up. Is that partly what happened with with your wife right there going back? Yeah. Yeah. And just walking through it.

00;44;17;28 - 00;44;44;03
Michael Sullivant
Yeah. The Emanuel healing basically. Lee What differentiates it from some of the other modalities is that you you don't begin with the trauma. Yeah. Begin with something beautiful. why are you connected to the presence of God? And then you ask the Lord to take you back to something upsetting. Or maybe traumatic in your life, and you stay connected and.

00;44;44;03 - 00;44;46;02
Joshua Hoffert
You bring the presence in with you.

00;44;46;04 - 00;44;59;21
Michael Sullivant
Yes. Brilliant. He leads you to what? What it is that you need to notice about your history, about your situation. And then he's in the scene. You know, he's on the scene.

00;44;59;21 - 00;45;00;09
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Yeah.

00;45;00;09 - 00;45;29;04
Michael Sullivant
And his presence then mitigates the. The trauma that you've experienced. Where the be trauma, which is bad things that have happened to us should never happen to people but do. But Jesus is there. And so this is what mitigates the trauma is the presence of Jesus really the situation? Because you didn't see the full reality of the situation when you were upset and when you were traumatized.

00;45;29;10 - 00;46;03;03
Michael Sullivant
So it's not changing what the reality is, changing your perspective on what happened, because suddenly there's God's sight in the situation. You're seeing the kingdom of God, you're seeing the presence of God. And he was you were never alone. And this is what especially mitigates trauma, is knowing that you're not alone and you never were alone. And this is where Psalm 139 fits and the Josh and I have gone through in depth together where we were never alone in our darkest moments.

00;46;03;05 - 00;46;22;03
Joshua Hoffert
So beautiful. You know, I'll just throw it out if you don't mind, because it's we've gone, you know, I don't know anything about it. So it's like what you guys do this to, like, I don't know. And I'm. I'm working with this lady. She's an emergency room doctor and had worked through that. And she came back the next week really depressed.

00;46;22;03 - 00;46;39;15
Joshua Hoffert
I'm like, what's going on? She goes, Wow, I was really bullied from grade five to grade nine, and I didn't know. You know, I said, Well, let's invite Jesus into that memory, okay? And she's just got her jaw set right. She's going to war. And I'm like, What's wrong? She goes, I want Jesus to deal with that.

00;46;39;18 - 00;46;57;05
Joshua Hoffert
It's like, Well, what does Jesus want to do? he wants to leave. Like, okay. I'm like, okay, I don't know. Like, let's go where Jesus wants to go. So she finds herself on this beautiful snowcapped mountain with Jesus, and she's a real outdoors person, right? So for her, that's a real thing. Yeah. That's so vast. It's like trying to count the stars.

00;46;57;05 - 00;47;18;13
Joshua Hoffert
I. I can't comprehend it. And he's given me this beautiful, white, impenetrable snowsuit, and then. Well, let's take that back into the memory. She goes, those bullets. They're like little Lego pieces that this big. This isn't a big deal. The Lord just shows up in a little drawer. We're done. And that was it. It's really taken the, you know, beauty.

00;47;18;13 - 00;47;24;03
Joshua Hoffert
The beauty in of who she. That's so beautiful. Like, anyway, I'm just like, thank you.

00;47;24;06 - 00;47;47;19
Michael Sullivant
We call it Emanuel Healing because he's the God with us. So he was with her when the bullies were there and she was intimidated and spiritually attacked. Yeah. Through that experience in her life. But now Jesus is on the scene and he changes the picture. So he we're restored by being restored. He restores us right. This is recapitulation.

00;47;47;19 - 00;47;48;12
Murray Dueck
That is.

00;47;48;14 - 00;48;13;23
Michael Sullivant
He gives us the the the bigger reality we see the bigger reality. And then it puts the problems in perspective. And our relationship is always more important than the problems. Absence of the the relationship comes in and trumps the problems. And suddenly where you got stuck in trauma, you're released from being stuck and you're able to get back into your flow.

00;48;13;26 - 00;48;20;01
Joshua Hoffert
Amazing. I everybody look up life model and do it. I mean it mirrors.

00;48;20;07 - 00;48;23;03
Murray Dueck
Murray's firmly convinced.

00;48;23;05 - 00;48;26;19
Joshua Hoffert
Well I understand the process I mean this is kind of the.

00;48;26;21 - 00;48;45;04
Murray Dueck
I feel like I feel like actually, you know, what Michael described as coming in contact with Jim and going, this is what I've been thinking all along, and this just gives me language and a deep a depth of understanding that I'm realizing it had before. But now I can. And I think, like Murray's having his Michael Sullivan moment.

00;48;45;04 - 00;49;02;04
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, yeah. It's just incredible. Like this is the way the Lord led us. But I didn't know. I didn't know. I mean, you know, a lot of work on dreams. Like, I've come to realize that when you're working on a memory, there is the memory. And then, you know, you can invite Jesus into the memory. And then there's what He does.

00;49;02;06 - 00;49;21;06
Joshua Hoffert
But there's this other aspect of this memory where it starts to form a belief system for you about yourself, you know, so that the classic is, you know, they're picking teams in elementary school or high school and you're the last one picked. I mean, what does that tell you about your value and your identity in the favor and your coordination?

00;49;21;06 - 00;49;43;07
Joshua Hoffert
Right. And and and it's these memories. They you know, what does this mean, that question, these things shape values and belief systems that are that are very ungodly and and, you know, often now I'll have people meet with Jesus and just how does he see you? Does he have a garment for you? Does he have a because I know what he gives them when he gives them a garment.

00;49;43;07 - 00;50;02;26
Joshua Hoffert
He's not giving them a garment. He's giving them righteousness or joy or he's giving it's full of presents. And then that presence goes back with them into the memory, you know, And then you just go, my goodness, this doesn't matter anymore, or something like that. Right? Right. But you have to see this encounter of Jesus rewiring the brain and the meaning of the thing.

00;50;02;26 - 00;50;10;08
Joshua Hoffert
So it doesn't mean it didn't happen. But but the value and the meaning we've taken about ourselves. anyway. Yeah.

00;50;10;08 - 00;50;19;08
Michael Sullivant
So it's an identity narrative that gets set up and, you know, true transformation is about the identity being reformed.

00;50;19;10 - 00;50;19;29
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah.

00;50;20;00 - 00;50;48;20
Michael Sullivant
And reunite re humanized and Christianized, you know, Christ is there with you. And so yeah so there's a, a better story that God wants to tell you about your life because we've had skewed and distorted stories that have gotten embedded in us about who we are and what souls and who what the world is and even what the enemy is.

00;50;48;22 - 00;51;18;15
Michael Sullivant
And so I like to call it the authorized, revised version of your story. The authorized, revised version of your story. That's the story. God wants to tell you. And it's an identity story. And when it goes in and bears witness and the Holy Spirit makes it real to you, then it changes your identity. And that's the very fountain of transformation, is when the identity is reformed.

00;51;18;23 - 00;51;21;01
Joshua Hoffert
Hey, man. Wow, It's so beautiful.

00;51;21;04 - 00;51;22;01
Murray Dueck
You know, it's. you're.

00;51;22;02 - 00;51;24;23
Michael Sullivant
Restored by being restored.

00;51;24;25 - 00;51;26;10
Joshua Hoffert
Right? Nice.

00;51;26;12 - 00;51;55;13
Murray Dueck
Which, like even mentioning yet again was earliest conception of redemption. That really, as you go all the way back to our Irenaeus, he became what we are so that we can become what he is. That's that is he became like, man, he says this You became like man to accustom man to receive him. So his he's restoring and this is this is I just want to point something out to contextualize it, a conversation.

00;51;55;13 - 00;52;26;15
Murray Dueck
Mary and I have had a number of different times, and that's about the development of Christian theology in the early church, culminating in we talked about this a bunch, right, culminating in the the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which is kind of like the that the final place where arguments are. They still argued after that, but that was kind of like the the main settling of the Christological debate and and the thing the the the thread through the whole thing that finalizes in chalcedon is about the, the hyper static union.

00;52;26;17 - 00;52;58;26
Murray Dueck
Right. The, the the two natures in Jesus preserving his fully God and fully man that the divine nature doesn't overtake the human nature. The human nature doesn't diminish the divine nature. They're both held in union together, not one diminish or one emphasized. And the reason why just just what we're talking about, the reason why this is increase credibly important as a piece of Christian theology is because Jesus came as a human united humanity.

00;52;58;29 - 00;53;21;14
Murray Dueck
Like what you're seeing in every story that Michael and Mary has shared is the hypothetic union, is the divine nature united with the human nature that Jesus accomplished in his flesh. And now offers to all of mankind. And so the early church, the church fought for this, and people argued back and forth about how well Jesus can be really fully human, because if he was fully human, then God's limited.

00;53;21;14 - 00;53;45;27
Murray Dueck
And they're like, No, no, no, he's not limited. He's still fully God. That's the mystery. So yeah, so what you get in all of these early church arguments, preserving the full humanity of Jesus is the understanding that in his humanity he's redeeming humanity. So every memory is a holy and sacred thing that he engages with and enters into because he's fully human, united with humanity.

00;53;45;29 - 00;53;50;07
Murray Dueck
He's redeeming humanity because he's you united humanity with his divinity.

00;53;50;10 - 00;53;51;17
Michael Sullivant
So when I.

00;53;51;19 - 00;54;12;07
Murray Dueck
It's like, this is why I get so excited about the early church debate, about the full humanity of Jesus. Because when I hear statements like this and things like this, it's like, that's why it's important. Not it's because if he's somehow less than human, he's not invest it in healing the memory and bringing identity and retelling the story.

00;54;12;14 - 00;54;33;03
Murray Dueck
If somehow he's less than human, if somehow the humanity wasn't as important to him. But this is where you look at Irenaeus saying something like, He became all that we are and this is restating what is it, Second Corinthians seven. I think that he became poor for our sakes, that we might be rich for his sake. And it's the same kind of statement.

00;54;33;06 - 00;54;35;07
Murray Dueck
And so that's to me, that's what that.

00;54;35;07 - 00;54;38;02
Joshua Hoffert
Quote that Aaron is statement again, you're going to say even.

00;54;38;04 - 00;55;01;27
Murray Dueck
He became so he became all that we are that we might become all that he is. And Athanasius said God became man. That man might become God, little God like God. That's that's fascinating. Creed in a nutshell. And that's where I get I go like, this is so important because this actually sets the stage theologically for exploring and saying all this stuff is Germ should be germane to the Christian life.

00;55;01;27 - 00;55;02;21
Murray Dueck
If we understood.

00;55;02;21 - 00;55;04;29
Joshua Hoffert
It would be that should be what it's about, right? They're going to.

00;55;04;29 - 00;55;29;20
Murray Dueck
The Christian life because this is what Jesus did when he became human was he retold the story. He said, I'm going to read story. I'm going to humanize you, all of you, all of humanity and and the early church, some maximus, the confessor who who you know, we talked about him somewhat. Maximus, the Confessor, had his tongue cut out and his hand cut off because he refused to say Jesus didn't have a human will.

00;55;29;23 - 00;55;35;00
Joshua Hoffert
And and then seven years later, everybody went, That guy was right. He was right.

00;55;35;03 - 00;55;40;09
Murray Dueck
You unfortunately, you can't give him the tongue in his hand back at that point. And. Right.

00;55;40;12 - 00;55;47;29
Michael Sullivant
But that and of course, Pontius Pilot's statement went down in history to ex-gay homo. Behold the human.

00;55;47;29 - 00;55;49;11
Joshua Hoffert
Being. Yes.

00;55;49;13 - 00;55;51;20
Michael Sullivant
This is the paragon of humanity.

00;55;51;20 - 00;56;18;16
Murray Dueck
Exactly. Exactly. And so all of those things that when you look at those first four or 500 years, they're they're actually really important to the conversation we're having today. And then, as you said, looking at what Jim was saying, the Nero theologian and the understanding of the brain that we have today and going, he's even redeeming that and he's not going, well, let's get rid of the brain.

00;56;18;18 - 00;56;41;23
Murray Dueck
Right? Let's get literate, let's get out of the body. Let's you know, he loves your body, he loves your brain, He loves every part of it. And he's fully invested in entering into the specific wiring of it that constitute a memory to read to, to reframe every neuron and every synapse and every synaptic cleft. So now, all of a sudden, the same memory still exists, but the physiology is totally changed.

00;56;42;00 - 00;56;52;12
Murray Dueck
This this to me, is the result of the hyper State of Union, and that's why I go, Got it. It's got to be important. Guys. You can't. You can't. We can't deny it.

00;56;52;14 - 00;57;06;16
Michael Sullivant
One of the one of the things I like to tell people because they stumble over the neuroscience part of what we teach sometimes because it's not the Bible. The ancient Hebrews didn't even have a word for the brain. Right? Right. So, you know, it's like they didn't know the brain.

00;57;06;19 - 00;57;07;09
Murray Dueck
Totally. Yeah.

00;57;07;09 - 00;57;24;24
Michael Sullivant
They throw the gray matter out. The ancient Egyptians threw the gray matter out when they made their mummies, but they put the heart and the kidneys and gold, you know, really? Yeah. Because they didn't understand the connection of the gray matter to the rest of their being, you know? But now we do. And we shouldn't pretend like we don't know.

00;57;24;26 - 00;57;45;08
Michael Sullivant
Yeah, Yeah, that. And so Jesus had a brain and he had a human brain and Jesus's human brain developed. And Jesus still has a human brain that's glorified. Yeah. So come on. You know, this is where we're going. Our human brains are going to be glorified, and they're going to be working really, really well.

00;57;45;10 - 00;58;06;09
Murray Dueck
Yeah. When his when Ephesians four says he ascended on high, he led humanity captive to captivity. Captive. Right. And he gave gifts to men. What Murray and I talked about this on the podcast to that that it says when when Paul quotes that in visions for is quoting Psalm 78 and I think it's 7868 78 something like that.

00;58;06;12 - 00;58;36;12
Murray Dueck
And when what what it says in the psalm is that he led captivity captive and he received gifts among men and in Ephesians fours as he gave gifts to men. And Tertullian said he hypothesized that the reason Paul changed it because only an apostle can change the context of scripture, I guess, right. It's funny to me that Paul changed the verse and thought that was okay, but but, but it's because what he received, he gave, and what he received as a as a human, he gave to humanity.

00;58;36;15 - 00;59;03;15
Murray Dueck
And so his ascension is, is in human form so that all humanity ascends with him. It has to be so seated at the right hand of the father, ascending to the father he ascends as a human, which they saw physically happen. They recorded in Scripture that he went up and because every human who's been in captivity ascended in his human body, and now his human body is right there, glorified.

00;59;03;19 - 00;59;21;01
Murray Dueck
And I mean, this is this should be to me, this should be theology 1 to 1. I mean, it's germane to the patristic theology of everything. But it but when you understand it, it's like, of course, the neuroscience is important. Of course, the inner healing practices are important because these are all building blocks of what he did.

00;59;21;03 - 00;59;42;02
Murray Dueck
If he led captivity captive, he led humanity to the right end of the father in him. He's redeemed it all and he's glorified it all. And he's standing there continuing to glorify it. And again, this is what the this is what the early church fought for and lived for. And then you find practices very similar in their model to what we see in the inner healing movement today in the early church.

00;59;42;04 - 01;00;01;02
Murray Dueck
Right? When you wake up, when you wake up, consider all that you did yesterday, everything that brought pleasure to the father and everything that brought pain to the father. Yes. One of the common practices in the monastic movement and early church in early Christianity reflect on the memories and where was God in them. That's essentially what they're saying.

01;00;01;04 - 01;00;32;03
Murray Dueck
All right. And it's like you see these things and you're like, they were integrating similar kinds of practices because they saw the same kinds of results. And, you know, there's there's a constant like when you look at I mentioned to various there's another story of him where he almost succumbs to temptation, ends up having a dream where which warns him about the temptation is going to go into there's a a very wealthy woman who's married, who fancies evergreens as a priest in the city and keep sending him gifts.

01;00;32;05 - 01;00;51;22
Murray Dueck
And almost, you know, he's he's just on the verge of falling into sin with this woman and has a dream, sees himself in chains. Angel Nystrom If if you do this, this is going to be you. You need to leave the city and find and save yourself. So he leaves the city, but he ends up getting really sick.

01;00;51;22 - 01;01;13;08
Murray Dueck
He gets around a desert mother named Macrina Macrina starts caring for him for six months, and she and. But he's not returning to health. And it's not until he confesses what has happened that Macrina says this I love you made me think about this. And one of the things you said, Michael, is she said it's going to be okay.

01;01;13;11 - 01;01;30;11
Murray Dueck
It comes in the tenderness of the father. It's going to be okay. I'm going to continue to pray for you. So he had an awareness that someone was for him, was with him, was praying for him, and go forward and you won't be sick anymore because he confessed it.

01;01;30;13 - 01;01;32;19
Joshua Hoffert
To the brought it out and looked at it.

01;01;32;22 - 01;01;52;29
Murray Dueck
Looked at it, talked through the memory with someone who was caring and wise and concerned, who would pray for him and pray through him and promise to continue to check in on him. And he went forward and he and it becomes one of the most influential men of that time. And you just see the principles. You're like this this this stuff's not new, guys.

01;01;53;01 - 01;01;53;24
Joshua Hoffert
It's yeah.

01;01;54;00 - 01;02;11;13
Murray Dueck
It's it's always been in Christianity. To get freaked out by it is like, well, yeah, that's because maybe some of the more conservative elements of Christianity turned us off to it. And it's like they just are missing out on something that has been part of Christianity for the whole time.

01;02;11;16 - 01;02;13;14
Joshua Hoffert
Thousands of years, thousands of years.

01;02;13;14 - 01;02;29;12
Michael Sullivant
It's sometimes called. Some of what we're talking about is sometimes called the two book theory goes way back that God wrote two books, scriptures, which are a special revelation, but he wrote the book of creation.

01;02;29;15 - 01;02;29;26
Joshua Hoffert
General.

01;02;29;26 - 01;02;44;10
Michael Sullivant
Revelation. Yeah. And we're we're called by God under stewardship to study both books. That's right. That's right. And then we learn more about God by studying both of those books. And they fit together. Perfect.

01;02;44;10 - 01;02;45;08
Murray Dueck
Perfectly. Yeah.

01;02;45;09 - 01;02;56;21
Joshua Hoffert
Perfect, wasn't it, Anthony? Some philosopher comes to him like the first monk, and he goes, How do you live out here without books, Father? And he goes, Creation is my book and I can read it any time I want to.

01;02;56;24 - 01;03;15;20
Murray Dueck
Well, I it Mary the Harlot. She never has a Bible her whole time. She goes into the desert right away after her encounter. And when she meets Abu Zosimus 20, 30 years later, she's quoting scripture verbatim to him. Yeah. And he says, How do you know the word? And she says, The word lives in me and teaches me.

01;03;15;23 - 01;03;17;29
Joshua Hoffert
But nice.