In this episode of NCC Unplugged, the staff members of Norwin Christian Church gather for a roundtable discussion. They share personal experiences, including Garrett's trip to Boston to present a paper, the process of moving into a new house, and visiting friends from out of town. They also discuss upcoming events such as Serve Day and the Membership Class. The conversation highlights the importance of community, ministry, and serving others.
Takeaways
- Community and relationships are important aspects of church life.
- Engaging in academic and theological pursuits can deepen one's understanding of faith.
- Moving to a new house can be a significant life event.
- Participating in service projects and joining a church membership class can help individuals grow in their faith.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction 01:07 Garrett's Trip to Boston 05:00 Discussion on Hermeneutics 07:21 Discussion on Traveling and Family 10:16 Discussion on Moving and New House 13:25 Discussion on Visiting Friends 21:37 Discussion on Serve Day and Membership Class 29:29 Conclusion
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to NCC Unplugged, the podcast from Norwin Christian Church,
where conversations, community, and culture converge.
Welcome back to another episode of NCC Unplugged, a podcast based out of Norwin
Christian Church, where we have community conversations and talk about culture along the way.
(00:25):
And we're going to do a brand new episode and kind of a new theme to an episode.
We're calling this the Staff Roundtable, where we try to gather as many staff
members together just to talk about life, things that are happening in ministry,
maybe some things behind the scenes that you don't often get with the church staff,
(00:45):
some things that are happening in our lives outside of church,
and just to get to know us a little bit more.
And so I am joined on my right with Jonathan Slatt, our youth minister. All right.
On my left, Joshua, our executive minister. Thanks for joining us.
And further on my left with Garrett, our minister of small groups and outreach.
Hello. And as always, behind the controls is Matt Mastroianni.
(01:09):
So we really appreciate him being here and helping us as well.
But to start this off, a lot of us had been out of the building recently.
Now we're recording this midway through March, but you're probably hearing this
probably probably midway through April, maybe beginning of April,
as we get our schedule here for our podcast together and different episodes as they come out.
(01:30):
But Garrett, you've been, you were away this last weekend. Tell us a little
bit about your life, what's going on, what are some things that have been in your life recently?
Yeah, we took a little trip to Boston, not necessarily for a vacation.
I submitted a paper to the Evangelical Theological Society,
(01:53):
ETS is the abbreviation, and there was the Northeast, there's different chapters
of that society, I think there's four different chapters, and the Northeast
chapter, it got accepted to be presented and peer-reviewed.
So, we went up to Gordon-Conwell Seminary and I presented that paper on this past Saturday,
(02:14):
day so that would have been march 16th something
like that yeah that's awesome is that you've ever done anything like
that before no that was that's the first time i've ever presented a paper you
know i've published a book but i did it myself so this was the first time it
was like through another organization and i i've written quite a bit of academic
(02:36):
papers but not had them like presented.
So it was really nerve wracking because like, these are the group of people
that I present and read my paper and they can say, no, you're wrong.
And like, it's like, why I'm wrong.
But did anybody do that? No, they didn't. And I was so nervous.
Like, I think I was sick going into the week and like, I just told my body or
(03:00):
somehow like, I just didn't really get sick because I was so worried about Saturday
that I couldn't be worried about anything else.
And then Sunday it all just came out and I felt really bad the next day but.
There was nothing to be worried about it all kind of it went real smoothly there
was really good responses to the paper a lot of people were.
(03:20):
Found a lot of value in it, in my thesis, in my main takeaway.
What was your thesis? In words we can understand.
So, the title is Jesus as Lord in the early church.
So, it's the use of the Greek word Kyrios and how that's associated with the
Hebrew term Yahweh, which you spoke of in a sermon series not long ago.
(03:44):
But then the Hebraic and theological implications of that.
So, namely, that if Jesus is declared Lord or Yahweh by early Jewish Christians,
then they are affirming that he has always been Yahweh even in the Old Testament.
So, then any anthropomorphic or use of Yahweh in the Old Testament was also
(04:08):
Jesus, a pre-incarnate Jesus.
And then the theological implications of that, I tied it to what's called compatibilism,
that God is both foreknowing and predetermining and provident and also active in time.
And the way that we can understand that relationship is through a pre-incarnate Jesus as Yahweh.
(04:34):
So that was what the paper was about. I mean, I did say in words we can understand,
but I think we got 90% of that. That was as best as I could narrow it down.
Really just wanted to say anthropomorphic.
It's a fun word. Couldn't take that one out.
Anthropomorphic just means something that presents itself as human, even though it's not.
So is there like an opposite position that's still kind of within conservative Christianity?
(05:01):
Yeah, so that conversation, the whole paper came out of, so I'm working on my
dissertation, and I've been having some conversations with Dr.
Garrett DeWeese out of Biola University and Dr. William Lane Craig.
I don't know if you're familiar with that name, maybe. And they both take positions
that if God is in time, then He can't be timeless.
(05:28):
And I take issue with that because I think that if God is—if we see in Scripture
that God foreknows events to a specific degree, which we see that as happening,
then God has to be timeless for that to happen.
But if God is going to work and bring about salvation, He has to be in time.
(05:50):
So, there has to be a compatibility there. Philosophically speaking.
That's a contradiction. And so people like Craig and Deweese,
they focus more on the philosophical contradiction than they do on the biblical precedent.
So even though they're classified as conservative, I don't see them taking their
(06:12):
position from a scriptural view as much as they do from a philosophical view.
So I'm using a scriptural point to make a philosophical point.
And that's technically that's called
a theologies of correlation methodology which is
the type of methodology i use in my dissertation cool sorry
that's i know that was probably too much technical information
(06:34):
that's good very good excellent good so you guys flew up there flew back everything
went well with the baby all that i mean not baby yeah well grayson didn't go
but oh okay he he stayed with my parents which was nice he loves being at my
parents house because they 35 acres and he just goes out and runs amok.
But no offense to Pittsburgh, but Boston's got to be our favorite city.
(06:57):
It's so cool. And it's flat, so you're not like walking up hills all the time.
Garrett, you just like old stuff. I do.
And it was very, very old. And so you could go and like see all these historical
landmarks and we went and explored Harvard, which that was like we spent all
day Friday exploring Harvard.
Harvard and the town that Harvard's in, Cambridge. And that was really cool.
(07:23):
Spent like an hour and a half in Harvard's bookstore. That was a lot of fun.
So, can you say you went to Harvard then? I went to Harvard, yeah.
They have a museum of ancient Near Eastern artifacts.
And so, that was really cool. I
didn't know they had that, but a lot of my master's work was spent around.
(07:44):
Some of these artifacts, like, from a hermeneutical standpoint.
And then I actually got to see them in person. I had no idea Harvard had some
of them. And that was really cool.
Like, to see the cylinder of Nebuchadnezzar.
Have you ever heard of that? that.
So, all of the kings in Semitic culture, they would inscribe the things that
(08:08):
happened on a stone cylinder, and that was kind of like the records.
So, like the book of Chronicles is the writing of what happened.
It's the chronicles of the events of and the actions of kings of Israel and Judah.
In other cultures, they would put that on a stone cylinder. And so we were able
(08:30):
to know what happened in the reigns of these kings because of these cylinders.
And I've done research and stuff on that, but that was the first time I ever
saw it in person. And it was the actual cylinder of Nebuchadnezzar,
and that was really cool.
We didn't expect to have that happen, but yeah. So you mentioned hermeneutics.
Hermeneutics just means how you interpret scripture, right? Yeah.
(08:54):
So, hermeneutics is the art of interpreting, and it's not just Scripture,
it's the art of interpreting an ancient document.
And so, Scripture falls under that. And so, when you think of hermeneutics from
a biblical standpoint, we call that exegetical biblical hermeneutics.
So, when Jeff is preaching on a Sunday morning, hopefully he's done his due
(09:18):
due diligence of exegeting scripture, and that's a type of hermeneutic.
That's the art of interpreting scripture.
So while you were in Boston, I was in Indianapolis, and Jeff and Jonathan were
the only ones here working this weekend. We made it happen.
So thank you guys for doing that. So my grandmother passed away. She was 91.
(09:42):
She was my mom's mom, and she lived most all of her life over in Indianapolis, Indiana.
So we were over there for the weekend. And so, as you can imagine,
it just allows you to reflect, reflect on your life, reflect on your family, reflect on your legacy.
And thankfully, my grandmother was someone that she trusted Jesus for her life and her salvation.
(10:04):
So it's definitely the kind of funeral you like to go to. And she was always
active and committed to the local church.
So there was just a lot of support there and a lot of things to celebrate.
And then you get to see a lot of family members. And then my wife and I argue
over whether second cousins are a real thing or not.
So we know who our first cousins are.
(10:24):
But then when you have a great-grandparent, then there's that opportunity.
So like the children of my first cousins, they would be second cousins to my
children. So I think second cousins is a thing.
So maybe one reason I think it's a thing because— But I'm confused.
What's Aaron's defense that it's not? I think her point is that she just never
(10:47):
heard that word growing up.
And so my wife grew up more in this area of the country where there are the
coal miners and people just didn't live as long.
And she just didn't, I think, experience as much time with her second cousins.
But I think she would just call them cousins.
But it's the second cousins. In West Virginia, you're legally allowed to marry your second cousin.
(11:07):
Well, you know, every state has its limitations.
So we go from these big words to... We have to have contrast in our conversations.
Gotta represent my home state.
All right, so I'm getting ready for an Alabama story here. Speaking of...
We're moving around the country. So when my dad was growing up in a very rural area, and my dad's...
(11:31):
Father, my dad's father's brother married my dad's mother's sister. Pause.
My dad's father's brother married my dad's mother's sister. So there's no, they're not related.
It's just that there's two marriages happening between two different families in a community.
So then when you, so my dad had a double first cousins, and then I had double
(11:57):
second cousins. I need to see this. I'm a whiteboard.
Did they have to make up those words just for this situation? Double first cousin.
So it's not intermarrying. It's a tree that mixes together.
So that's why the whole second cousin idea became so impressionable on me as
a younger person because I had this double thing going on where they were related
(12:21):
on both sides of the family.
So as your kids now are, you know, you don't have a little one in diapers anymore.
They're getting older. Is it easier to travel and make trips like this with them? It is, yeah.
It's like an all-day trip to go there, but sometimes we can do it with just a couple of stops.
As long as you don't drink too much, as long as you have enough snacks and enough
music choices and the occasional device to entertain.
(12:45):
Do they enjoy spending time with their second and first cousins? They did. They did.
Yeah. You know, and cousins, they don't see very often because of the second
cousin. So it was fun. Yeah.
Very fun. So yeah, it was a good trip. It was a good trip. And one of those deals where like,
okay, it's a funeral and you know, everybody's saying, sorry about your loss
and sorry that we have to see you under these circumstances,
(13:06):
but it's good to, it's good to be together as a family and see all the people
that were supporting our family and they're in the state of Indiana. So it was good. For sure.
So we saw a lot of our family this weekend as well because they helped us move.
Exciting. Which is awesome, yes. We bought our first house in Greensburg, and it's awesome.
It's been a process that I'm so glad is over, and I'm not going to do it for at least 10 years.
(13:32):
We're not moving. Did your hand hurt for a few days afterwards?
You know what's funny? A lot of people hyped up the signing,
and we finished it, and I was like, oh, I was kind of expecting more. Really? Yeah.
How long did it take you to sign all the papers?
Probably an hour, I think. See, to me, that's just miserable, I guess.
(13:52):
I mean, I guess when you're in the midst of, like, I have to verify everything
I've ever purchased to the bank.
That is a first house. That's very exciting. Yeah, that's true.
For us, it's like, oh, we know what comes with a house.
What am I getting myself into? Yeah, I like to sign things, though.
That was probably part of it. by the time
like i was at like the 45th minute of
(14:15):
signing my name it just like becomes a
line oh it's yeah i my signature is
just j and then i kind of squiggle but they were like you need your middle initial and
i was like i don't even spell out my first name what do you need i need my
middle so i did i did something i don't know i did it
many times but yeah so we got all moved in
and we were able to get a lot of stuff unpacked with our
families like enough that it was we're not like living amongst
(14:38):
boxes like we can just kind of focus on where
we want to put things and not necessarily like we don't
have anything we have to get like if you want a plate you have to go to a box like my
mother-in-law was able to like stock our kitchen which was
awesome yeah when your all's experience was different too because natalie never
saw the house yes that's true she did not see the house so we were looking for
(15:02):
months and then we found this one that was It was like everything we wanted
pretty much. And it was like, it checked all these boxes.
It was in our price range, which was just unheard of. And then, so I went to it.
She wasn't able to come visit though, because she was at work or school. She was somewhere else.
But we had to like fight to get a spot to go see the house.
(15:23):
And Natalie was like, this house checks our boxes. If you like it,
put an offer in. I was like, okay.
So I liked it. So I put the offer in and our offer got accepted.
And then we went through months of paperwork and all this stuff.
And she just, for one reason or another, like wasn't able to go and see it.
And then she didn't see the house until the final walkthrough on Wednesday.
(15:46):
And we were closing on Friday.
So, yeah, everyone in our small group was like... We were so nervous for you. Yeah.
I know your realtor was too. Tell the story. I heard a story,
your mother-in-law, about the neighbor when you guys started moving in.
Yes, this was super cool. So we were moving in and, you know,
one of the things like worried about when you're moving is neighbors,
right? So we have a whole street of neighbors.
(16:07):
But while we were unpacking, the one that lives to the right of us,
this guy came out and he was talking and I went out, introduced ourselves.
Themselves and it turns out that they're really devout
followers of jesus and they're involved in a couple different churches they
i can't remember exactly what he said because it was kind of a in the shuffle
but his wife was somehow involved with the starting of the father's heart i
(16:30):
don't know if it was her or her family or what happened but and they're still involved with that so,
that was super cool and he like told me his nephew's name and i was like your
nephew's coming to Mystery Mayhem in a couple of weeks. That's insane. That's wild, yeah.
I should also clarify that Father's Heart's an organization that we support.
Yes. For those that don't know. And your brother-in-law said these people have
(16:52):
been praying for you guys.
Yes. That they knew that somebody was going to come to the house and they're
praying for more Christians on the street. Oh, wow, that's cool.
So then you show up and say, oh, I'm a minister.
You know, one of the first things he did was ask you what you did.
Yes. Like, oh, this is wild. Yes.
So just neat, neat connections there being made. and hopefully some great relationships
start there with some neighbors. Yeah, absolutely.
(17:13):
Good neighbors are always important. And you'll have the Persals driving by
or riding their bikes by your trail. Yeah, absolutely.
We've seen your house before. We're like ready for a potty stop now that we
know you live there. Absolutely. In the backyard.
John and Natalie will have lemonade sitting out there. Yeah.
So amongst all that, in my world, I had some friends from down south.
(17:37):
We had two different couples come up.
They live in Florida. And so they came up and we hadn't seen one couple since
we moved up here 12 years ago.
Another couple we've seen off and on a few times, just different visits,
but never had that, hey, we're going to spend some long quality time with each other.
(17:57):
And so they came up for five days or so, and just we had some great conversations.
And, I mean, there's just something different about deep Christian friends and
the connection you have.
And, you know, for those that have experienced it, it's just a blessing to have
other people in your life that...
You can connect with each other after 12 years, and it's like you've never had time away.
(18:23):
And so I get along with the husbands. My wife gets along with the wives and
just, yeah, spent some really good quality time. And one couple, he's a preacher.
The other couple, they do campus ministry at FSU.
And so just ministry-minded people that you could talk to about life and the
struggles of ministry, the blessings of ministry. ministry, and just compare
(18:45):
notes on how we're doing in ministry and how churches are doing in the health and all of that.
So they're able to come on that Sunday morning that they were here,
and I preached that Sunday morning, and just something to it that's hard to describe about.
I met these people when we were at Bible College down at Florida Christian College,
and for some of you guys, you have those relationships too.
(19:09):
Jonathan, you're pretty fresh out of college, But, you know,
for us that have been out for over a decade, maybe more, just to continue those relationships is huge.
And so it was really neat to connect with them and have some time with that.
What were their thoughts on Norwin and Pittsburgh?
They loved it. They really did. And, you know, being in Pittsburgh,
(19:31):
we always want more sunshine.
And so they came out when it was 40 degrees and snowing out and overcast the
entire time. So it was like, well, I wish I could say, you know,
we normally have better weather, but we don't. This is what we get. So welcome.
But their kids had never seen like snow accumulation on the ground.
And so that Sunday, there's a little bit of snow, just enough to do like a little bit of sledding.
(19:51):
And then by the second time you go down the hill, like it's just pure mud. But they loved it.
So that was fun. And throwing snowballs around and going to Permanente Brothers a bunch.
Oh, did you go a bunch to Permanente? We did. We went to the original one in the district and stuff.
So that was good. Yeah, we did a tour at PNC Park.
Got to see the behind the scenes a little bit there. And it's like opening day
(20:12):
in a month for the Pirates. So a lot of groundskeepers getting stuff ready and all that.
So we did some neat stuff like that. But a lot of it really was just sitting around talking.
And so they came to the church. They love the church.
One of the things that they took away was just how great it was when they saw
people sticking around after service talking.
Talking like what it's so refreshing just to people
(20:34):
see people stick around talking and you can tell people
just really love being here and and
and absolutely i mean for so many people they see this as as their second family
and so just really encouraged by their visit and the things that they had to
say about ncc and and their experience here so just those neat neat times we
(20:55):
get to have in life with other people and one of our last prayers together was just.
Thanking God for getting a little slice of heaven, you know,
just those reunions we get with people.
And even in this broken world we live in, those times are going to be fleeting
and those times are not going to be, you know, they're going to have snow involved
(21:17):
and so they're not going to be perfect.
But I think to me, it's a glimpse of just the joy that we'll have in heaven
with other people and their reunions with that.
So, yeah, just some good stuff. They critique your sermon from Sunday.
A little bit. Yeah, we talked about it a little bit. All good stuff.
They probably held back a little bit. It was all good.
(21:39):
So we call this staff roundtable. We're missing Allison Murray,
our director of children's ministry.
(22:01):
Wow.
Yeah.
I'm definitely behind, for sure, with buying the house and everything.
We just had a lot of stuff going on.
And yeah, it's just been like, I haven't been able to be as on top of things as I like to be.
(22:23):
But it's not that these things aren't going to happen.
We're still full for Mystery Mayhem. We're going to have a full van.
I'm super excited. Fortunately, one of our volunteers, Gary,
is the one that he really does pretty much everything for that event.
And it's always awesome. so super excited for that coming up
it'll probably by the time people are listening to this it's probably
already happened so it went well i know that
(22:46):
it went well it's going to be awesome but then after that you
know the biggest thing is ciy and middle school camp over the summer so already
have some people that know they're coming to that and you know things like having
vans reserved and details like that are kind of what we're doing now and then
probably after easter is when it gets into the nitty-gritty of.
(23:07):
You know, for camp, we got to pick the curriculum, get it ordered,
get the books made and all that.
And I think that's the fun part, you know, is like the content and the spiritual
development and like what games are we going to play, that sort of thing. So I'm excited.
Yeah, a lot of stuff goes into that planning. It's not just showing up to camp.
With a busload of kids. A lot of stuff to get prepared for.
(23:30):
So we're excited about all that stuff coming up in the summer,
but that doesn't mean we just don't do anything these next few months.
We still have a lot coming up. We have a serve day coming up,
missions weekend coming up, but just a lot of stuff still on the church calendar
even before summer hits. But then once it does, lots of other things.
Yeah, serve day, I guess once this comes out, serve day still is going to be a little bit away.
(23:53):
So this is a good time to plug if you're listening to this in April,
it'd be a good time to plug, hey, serve day is about a month away because that's
May 18th, and we have a lot of different organizations that we partner with that are in our area,
and sometimes we don't realize that we have so many different outreach organizations,
(24:16):
but even the ones that are specifically geared towards ministry going beyond
those places like Transitions Healthcare, which is right down the road from us, or Redstone, own.
Those are like elderly care facilities.
It's opportunities for us to really kind of go out and be the hands and feet
of Jesus in those situations.
(24:38):
And to also do that as a church body, whether it's in our small groups or,
you know, just connecting with people we've never connected with from NCC.
So I'm looking forward to that happening and.
The unraveling of communicating with all these different organizations and finding
(24:59):
out what is it that, how can we help you? How can we serve you?
And, you know, hopefully by the time people are listening to this,
that's already been done.
That's kind of my big task for the next month. Yeah.
Serve Day is just such a great opportunity for our church to have a united front
of service in our community and just be reminded of those things.
(25:20):
I mean, a lot of the organizations that you've mentioned are places we're already
partnered in some way or have in the past, but it's a greater emphasis on this
day to go out maybe with your small group,
maybe with some other people in the church that you know to do something.
And some people, you may have heard that we've partnered with the Father's Heart,
(25:41):
but you've never been there to see what they're doing or to interact with some
of the leaders of that ministry.
And Serve Day is a great opportunity to do that. I know for the Father's Heart,
we're going to go and last year we purchased a bunch of air conditioners because
they don't have central air.
So we purchased air conditioners and we're going to install those on Serve Day.
(26:05):
So that's the big project there. So that's a great opportunity to really help
with a tangible service project and also really see the facility that they use
and hear about the ministry that they do, which is really a great ministry.
So different opportunities like that, you might know or have heard of the partnership,
(26:27):
the ministry that we partner with, but now you get to see it firsthand.
So it's a great opportunity. Service Day is a great opportunity for that.
Yeah, and Serve Dave has also been a place where it's been a catalyst to finding new ministry partners.
We go out and do something with them for a day, and then we realize there's
good alignment between their mission and ours, and it becomes a relationship
because of that. So that's really cool. It's really cool.
(26:49):
I've been really enjoying the membership class. So by the time the podcast is
out, we will have completed that.
But we've got over 25 people in our membership class this season,
and we're just really thankful for it.
We see God sending people to NCC, people that are curious, people that are seeking.
People that have questions, and people that want to follow God.
(27:15):
They want to honor Him in their life, and they know how important it is that
they join with other people that have the same mission in mind.
And so our membership class, we take it in four weeks. In the first week,
we try to lay out some of our theological distinctives, some of the ways that
we might be different than other churches. is it's not that we're better.
It's just that, hey, this is kind of where we land on some biblical topics.
(27:35):
And then the middle two weeks are really about discipleship.
They're about following Jesus.
And it's not necessarily unique to us, but we just remind people this is what
following Jesus is all about.
And then the fourth week is a lot of fun, and that's what's coming up this Sunday
when we're recording this,
is we bring in some of our ministry leaders, and people just get a chance not
to just meet our staff and elders, but to meet some of our volunteer leaders
(27:58):
that are just doing doing great things and find out how they want to,
maybe a different way they want to join in the mission.
Whether it's hands-on or serving in a ministry.
So it's just, for me personally, it really checks a lot of boxes because I love
just getting to just be a little part in seeing people be more active and engaged in their faith.
(28:19):
So it makes membership a fun opportunity.
And for this week too, everyone comes prepared with the spiritual gifts.
Taking the spiritual gifts, what's that called? Yeah, spiritual gifts inventory.
Inventory. Yeah, you're right. That is super fun. I just love people,
just the light bulbs going off to realize that God created them with unique
(28:41):
gifts and no one is the same.
And God has just a special place for them to be in the body of Christ.
Excellent, guys. Well, thank you for sharing a little bit about your worlds and what is going on.
And I hope this just shows you a little bit of the pulse here at NCC and the
things that that we go through as different seasons approach and different events
on the plate and all of that.
But thank you for joining us for this first session of the Staff Roundtable.
(29:06):
Really appreciate you listening to our podcast.
Of course, we'd love for you to subscribe, give us a like, all of that good
stuff so more people can hear about us here at NCC Unplugged.
Thank you for tuning in to NCC Unplugged.
If you've enjoyed listening to our podcast, we encourage you to share this with
your friends and family.
NCC Unplugged is available on all major podcast platforms.
(29:29):
And if you're ever interested in experiencing Norwin Christian Church firsthand,
we invite you to join us for our services every Sunday at 8.45 and 10.30 a.m.
We have engaging classes available for all ages, ensuring there's something
meaningful for everyone in our church community.
For more information about NCC or any other inquiries, visit.
(29:50):
Music.
Welcome to NCC Unplugged, the podcast from Norwin Christian Church,
where conversations, community, and culture converge.
Welcome back to another episode of NCC Unplugged, a podcast based out of Norwin
Christian Church, where we have community conversations and talk about culture along the way.
(00:25):
And we're going to do a brand new episode and kind of a new theme to an episode.
We're calling this the Staff Roundtable, where we try to gather as many staff
members together just to talk about life, things that are happening in ministry,
maybe some things behind the scenes that you don't often get with the church staff,
(00:45):
some things that are happening in our lives outside of church,
and just to get to know us a little bit more.
And so I am joined on my right with Jonathan Slatt, our youth minister. All right.
On my left, Joshua, our executive minister. Thanks for joining us.
And further on my left with Garrett, our minister of small groups and outreach.
Hello. And as always, behind the controls is Matt Mastroianni.
(01:09):
So we really appreciate him being here and helping us as well.
But to start this off, a lot of us had been out of the building recently.
Now we're recording this midway through March, but you're probably hearing this
probably probably midway through April, maybe beginning of April,
as we get our schedule here for our podcast together and different episodes as they come out.
(01:30):
But Garrett, you've been, you were away this last weekend. Tell us a little
bit about your life, what's going on, what are some things that have been in your life recently?
Yeah, we took a little trip to Boston, not necessarily for a vacation.
I submitted a paper to the Evangelical Theological Society,
(01:53):
ETS is the abbreviation, and there was the Northeast, there's different chapters
of that society, I think there's four different chapters, and the Northeast
chapter, it got accepted to be presented and peer-reviewed.
So, we went up to Gordon-Conwell Seminary and I presented that paper on this past Saturday,
(02:14):
day so that would have been march 16th something
like that yeah that's awesome is that you've ever done anything like
that before no that was that's the first time i've ever presented a paper you
know i've published a book but i did it myself so this was the first time it
was like through another organization and i i've written quite a bit of academic
(02:36):
papers but not had them like presented.
So it was really nerve wracking because like, these are the group of people
that I present and read my paper and they can say, no, you're wrong.
And like, it's like, why I'm wrong.
But did anybody do that? No, they didn't. And I was so nervous.
Like, I think I was sick going into the week and like, I just told my body or
(03:00):
somehow like, I just didn't really get sick because I was so worried about Saturday
that I couldn't be worried about anything else.
And then Sunday it all just came out and I felt really bad the next day but.
There was nothing to be worried about it all kind of it went real smoothly there
was really good responses to the paper a lot of people were.
(03:20):
Found a lot of value in it, in my thesis, in my main takeaway.
What was your thesis? In words we can understand.
So, the title is Jesus as Lord in the early church.
So, it's the use of the Greek word Kyrios and how that's associated with the
Hebrew term Yahweh, which you spoke of in a sermon series not long ago.
(03:44):
But then the Hebraic and theological implications of that.
So, namely, that if Jesus is declared Lord or Yahweh by early Jewish Christians,
then they are affirming that he has always been Yahweh even in the Old Testament.
So, then any anthropomorphic or use of Yahweh in the Old Testament was also
(04:08):
Jesus, a pre-incarnate Jesus.
And then the theological implications of that, I tied it to what's called compatibilism,
that God is both foreknowing and predetermining and provident and also active in time.
And the way that we can understand that relationship is through a pre-incarnate Jesus as Yahweh.
(04:34):
So that was what the paper was about. I mean, I did say in words we can understand,
but I think we got 90% of that. That was as best as I could narrow it down.
Really just wanted to say anthropomorphic.
It's a fun word. Couldn't take that one out.
Anthropomorphic just means something that presents itself as human, even though it's not.
So is there like an opposite position that's still kind of within conservative Christianity?
(05:01):
Yeah, so that conversation, the whole paper came out of, so I'm working on my
dissertation, and I've been having some conversations with Dr.
Garrett DeWeese out of Biola University and Dr. William Lane Craig.
I don't know if you're familiar with that name, maybe. And they both take positions
that if God is in time, then He can't be timeless.
(05:28):
And I take issue with that because I think that if God is—if we see in Scripture
that God foreknows events to a specific degree, which we see that as happening,
then God has to be timeless for that to happen.
But if God is going to work and bring about salvation, He has to be in time.
(05:50):
So, there has to be a compatibility there. Philosophically speaking.
That's a contradiction. And so people like Craig and Deweese,
they focus more on the philosophical contradiction than they do on the biblical precedent.
So even though they're classified as conservative, I don't see them taking their
(06:12):
position from a scriptural view as much as they do from a philosophical view.
So I'm using a scriptural point to make a philosophical point.
And that's technically that's called
a theologies of correlation methodology which is
the type of methodology i use in my dissertation cool sorry
that's i know that was probably too much technical information
(06:34):
that's good very good excellent good so you guys flew up there flew back everything
went well with the baby all that i mean not baby yeah well grayson didn't go
but oh okay he he stayed with my parents which was nice he loves being at my
parents house because they 35 acres and he just goes out and runs amok.
But no offense to Pittsburgh, but Boston's got to be our favorite city.
(06:57):
It's so cool. And it's flat, so you're not like walking up hills all the time.
Garrett, you just like old stuff. I do.
And it was very, very old. And so you could go and like see all these historical
landmarks and we went and explored Harvard, which that was like we spent all
day Friday exploring Harvard.
Harvard and the town that Harvard's in, Cambridge. And that was really cool.
(07:23):
Spent like an hour and a half in Harvard's bookstore. That was a lot of fun.
So, can you say you went to Harvard then? I went to Harvard, yeah.
They have a museum of ancient Near Eastern artifacts.
And so, that was really cool. I
didn't know they had that, but a lot of my master's work was spent around.
(07:44):
Some of these artifacts, like, from a hermeneutical standpoint.
And then I actually got to see them in person. I had no idea Harvard had some
of them. And that was really cool.
Like, to see the cylinder of Nebuchadnezzar.
Have you ever heard of that? that.
So, all of the kings in Semitic culture, they would inscribe the things that
(08:08):
happened on a stone cylinder, and that was kind of like the records.
So, like the book of Chronicles is the writing of what happened.
It's the chronicles of the events of and the actions of kings of Israel and Judah.
In other cultures, they would put that on a stone cylinder. And so we were able
(08:30):
to know what happened in the reigns of these kings because of these cylinders.
And I've done research and stuff on that, but that was the first time I ever
saw it in person. And it was the actual cylinder of Nebuchadnezzar,
and that was really cool.
We didn't expect to have that happen, but yeah. So you mentioned hermeneutics.
Hermeneutics just means how you interpret scripture, right? Yeah.
(08:54):
So, hermeneutics is the art of interpreting, and it's not just Scripture,
it's the art of interpreting an ancient document.
And so, Scripture falls under that. And so, when you think of hermeneutics from
a biblical standpoint, we call that exegetical biblical hermeneutics.
So, when Jeff is preaching on a Sunday morning, hopefully he's done his due
(09:18):
due diligence of exegeting scripture, and that's a type of hermeneutic.
That's the art of interpreting scripture.
So while you were in Boston, I was in Indianapolis, and Jeff and Jonathan were
the only ones here working this weekend. We made it happen.
So thank you guys for doing that. So my grandmother passed away. She was 91.
(09:42):
She was my mom's mom, and she lived most all of her life over in Indianapolis, Indiana.
So we were over there for the weekend. And so, as you can imagine,
it just allows you to reflect, reflect on your life, reflect on your family, reflect on your legacy.
And thankfully, my grandmother was someone that she trusted Jesus for her life and her salvation.
(10:04):
So it's definitely the kind of funeral you like to go to. And she was always
active and committed to the local church.
So there was just a lot of support there and a lot of things to celebrate.
And then you get to see a lot of family members. And then my wife and I argue
over whether second cousins are a real thing or not.
So we know who our first cousins are.
(10:24):
But then when you have a great-grandparent, then there's that opportunity.
So like the children of my first cousins, they would be second cousins to my
children. So I think second cousins is a thing.
So maybe one reason I think it's a thing because— But I'm confused.
What's Aaron's defense that it's not? I think her point is that she just never
(10:47):
heard that word growing up.
And so my wife grew up more in this area of the country where there are the
coal miners and people just didn't live as long.
And she just didn't, I think, experience as much time with her second cousins.
But I think she would just call them cousins.
But it's the second cousins. In West Virginia, you're legally allowed to marry your second cousin.
(11:07):
Well, you know, every state has its limitations.
So we go from these big words to... We have to have contrast in our conversations.
Gotta represent my home state.
All right, so I'm getting ready for an Alabama story here. Speaking of...
We're moving around the country. So when my dad was growing up in a very rural area, and my dad's...
(11:31):
Father, my dad's father's brother married my dad's mother's sister. Pause.
My dad's father's brother married my dad's mother's sister. So there's no, they're not related.
It's just that there's two marriages happening between two different families in a community.
So then when you, so my dad had a double first cousins, and then I had double
(11:57):
second cousins. I need to see this. I'm a whiteboard.
Did they have to make up those words just for this situation? Double first cousin.
So it's not intermarrying. It's a tree that mixes together.
So that's why the whole second cousin idea became so impressionable on me as
a younger person because I had this double thing going on where they were related
(12:21):
on both sides of the family.
So as your kids now are, you know, you don't have a little one in diapers anymore.
They're getting older. Is it easier to travel and make trips like this with them? It is, yeah.
It's like an all-day trip to go there, but sometimes we can do it with just a couple of stops.
As long as you don't drink too much, as long as you have enough snacks and enough
music choices and the occasional device to entertain.
(12:45):
Do they enjoy spending time with their second and first cousins? They did. They did.
Yeah. You know, and cousins, they don't see very often because of the second
cousin. So it was fun. Yeah.
Very fun. So yeah, it was a good trip. It was a good trip. And one of those deals where like,
okay, it's a funeral and you know, everybody's saying, sorry about your loss
and sorry that we have to see you under these circumstances,
(13:06):
but it's good to, it's good to be together as a family and see all the people
that were supporting our family and they're in the state of Indiana. So it was good. For sure.
So we saw a lot of our family this weekend as well because they helped us move.
Exciting. Which is awesome, yes. We bought our first house in Greensburg, and it's awesome.
It's been a process that I'm so glad is over, and I'm not going to do it for at least 10 years.
(13:32):
We're not moving. Did your hand hurt for a few days afterwards?
You know what's funny? A lot of people hyped up the signing,
and we finished it, and I was like, oh, I was kind of expecting more. Really? Yeah.
How long did it take you to sign all the papers?
Probably an hour, I think. See, to me, that's just miserable, I guess.
(13:52):
I mean, I guess when you're in the midst of, like, I have to verify everything
I've ever purchased to the bank.
That is a first house. That's very exciting. Yeah, that's true.
For us, it's like, oh, we know what comes with a house.
What am I getting myself into? Yeah, I like to sign things, though.
That was probably part of it. by the time
like i was at like the 45th minute of
(14:15):
signing my name it just like becomes a
line oh it's yeah i my signature is
just j and then i kind of squiggle but they were like you need your middle initial and
i was like i don't even spell out my first name what do you need i need my
middle so i did i did something i don't know i did it
many times but yeah so we got all moved in
and we were able to get a lot of stuff unpacked with our
families like enough that it was we're not like living amongst
(14:38):
boxes like we can just kind of focus on where
we want to put things and not necessarily like we don't
have anything we have to get like if you want a plate you have to go to a box like my
mother-in-law was able to like stock our kitchen which was
awesome yeah when your all's experience was different too because natalie never
saw the house yes that's true she did not see the house so we were looking for
(15:02):
months and then we found this one that was It was like everything we wanted
pretty much. And it was like, it checked all these boxes.
It was in our price range, which was just unheard of. And then, so I went to it.
She wasn't able to come visit though, because she was at work or school. She was somewhere else.
But we had to like fight to get a spot to go see the house.
(15:23):
And Natalie was like, this house checks our boxes. If you like it,
put an offer in. I was like, okay.
So I liked it. So I put the offer in and our offer got accepted.
And then we went through months of paperwork and all this stuff.
And she just, for one reason or another, like wasn't able to go and see it.
And then she didn't see the house until the final walkthrough on Wednesday.
(15:46):
And we were closing on Friday.
So, yeah, everyone in our small group was like... We were so nervous for you. Yeah.
I know your realtor was too. Tell the story. I heard a story,
your mother-in-law, about the neighbor when you guys started moving in.
Yes, this was super cool. So we were moving in and, you know,
one of the things like worried about when you're moving is neighbors,
right? So we have a whole street of neighbors.
(16:07):
But while we were unpacking, the one that lives to the right of us,
this guy came out and he was talking and I went out, introduced ourselves.
Themselves and it turns out that they're really devout
followers of jesus and they're involved in a couple different churches they
i can't remember exactly what he said because it was kind of a in the shuffle
but his wife was somehow involved with the starting of the father's heart i
(16:30):
don't know if it was her or her family or what happened but and they're still involved with that so,
that was super cool and he like told me his nephew's name and i was like your
nephew's coming to Mystery Mayhem in a couple of weeks. That's insane. That's wild, yeah.
I should also clarify that Father's Heart's an organization that we support.
Yes. For those that don't know. And your brother-in-law said these people have
(16:52):
been praying for you guys.
Yes. That they knew that somebody was going to come to the house and they're
praying for more Christians on the street. Oh, wow, that's cool.
So then you show up and say, oh, I'm a minister.
You know, one of the first things he did was ask you what you did.
Yes. Like, oh, this is wild. Yes.
So just neat, neat connections there being made. and hopefully some great relationships
start there with some neighbors. Yeah, absolutely.
(17:13):
Good neighbors are always important. And you'll have the Persals driving by
or riding their bikes by your trail. Yeah, absolutely.
We've seen your house before. We're like ready for a potty stop now that we
know you live there. Absolutely. In the backyard.
John and Natalie will have lemonade sitting out there. Yeah.
So amongst all that, in my world, I had some friends from down south.
(17:37):
We had two different couples come up.
They live in Florida. And so they came up and we hadn't seen one couple since
we moved up here 12 years ago.
Another couple we've seen off and on a few times, just different visits,
but never had that, hey, we're going to spend some long quality time with each other.
(17:57):
And so they came up for five days or so, and just we had some great conversations.
And, I mean, there's just something different about deep Christian friends and
the connection you have.
And, you know, for those that have experienced it, it's just a blessing to have
other people in your life that...
You can connect with each other after 12 years, and it's like you've never had time away.
(18:23):
And so I get along with the husbands. My wife gets along with the wives and
just, yeah, spent some really good quality time. And one couple, he's a preacher.
The other couple, they do campus ministry at FSU.
And so just ministry-minded people that you could talk to about life and the
struggles of ministry, the blessings of ministry. ministry, and just compare
(18:45):
notes on how we're doing in ministry and how churches are doing in the health and all of that.
So they're able to come on that Sunday morning that they were here,
and I preached that Sunday morning, and just something to it that's hard to describe about.
I met these people when we were at Bible College down at Florida Christian College,
and for some of you guys, you have those relationships too.
(19:09):
Jonathan, you're pretty fresh out of college, But, you know,
for us that have been out for over a decade, maybe more, just to continue those relationships is huge.
And so it was really neat to connect with them and have some time with that.
What were their thoughts on Norwin and Pittsburgh?
They loved it. They really did. And, you know, being in Pittsburgh,
(19:31):
we always want more sunshine.
And so they came out when it was 40 degrees and snowing out and overcast the
entire time. So it was like, well, I wish I could say, you know,
we normally have better weather, but we don't. This is what we get. So welcome.
But their kids had never seen like snow accumulation on the ground.
And so that Sunday, there's a little bit of snow, just enough to do like a little bit of sledding.
(19:51):
And then by the second time you go down the hill, like it's just pure mud. But they loved it.
So that was fun. And throwing snowballs around and going to Permanente Brothers a bunch.
Oh, did you go a bunch to Permanente? We did. We went to the original one in the district and stuff.
So that was good. Yeah, we did a tour at PNC Park.
Got to see the behind the scenes a little bit there. And it's like opening day
(20:12):
in a month for the Pirates. So a lot of groundskeepers getting stuff ready and all that.
So we did some neat stuff like that. But a lot of it really was just sitting around talking.
And so they came to the church. They love the church.
One of the things that they took away was just how great it was when they saw
people sticking around after service talking.
Talking like what it's so refreshing just to people
(20:34):
see people stick around talking and you can tell people
just really love being here and and
and absolutely i mean for so many people they see this as as their second family
and so just really encouraged by their visit and the things that they had to
say about ncc and and their experience here so just those neat neat times we
(20:55):
get to have in life with other people and one of our last prayers together was just.
Thanking God for getting a little slice of heaven, you know,
just those reunions we get with people.
And even in this broken world we live in, those times are going to be fleeting
and those times are not going to be, you know, they're going to have snow involved
(21:17):
and so they're not going to be perfect.
But I think to me, it's a glimpse of just the joy that we'll have in heaven
with other people and their reunions with that.
So, yeah, just some good stuff. They critique your sermon from Sunday.
A little bit. Yeah, we talked about it a little bit. All good stuff.
They probably held back a little bit. It was all good.
(21:39):
So we call this staff roundtable. We're missing Allison Murray,
our director of children's ministry.
(22:01):
Wow.
Yeah.
I'm definitely behind, for sure, with buying the house and everything.
We just had a lot of stuff going on.
And yeah, it's just been like, I haven't been able to be as on top of things as I like to be.
(22:23):
But it's not that these things aren't going to happen.
We're still full for Mystery Mayhem. We're going to have a full van.
I'm super excited. Fortunately, one of our volunteers, Gary,
is the one that he really does pretty much everything for that event.
And it's always awesome. so super excited for that coming up
it'll probably by the time people are listening to this it's probably
already happened so it went well i know that
(22:46):
it went well it's going to be awesome but then after that you
know the biggest thing is ciy and middle school camp over the summer so already
have some people that know they're coming to that and you know things like having
vans reserved and details like that are kind of what we're doing now and then
probably after easter is when it gets into the nitty-gritty of.
(23:07):
You know, for camp, we got to pick the curriculum, get it ordered,
get the books made and all that.
And I think that's the fun part, you know, is like the content and the spiritual
development and like what games are we going to play, that sort of thing. So I'm excited.
Yeah, a lot of stuff goes into that planning. It's not just showing up to camp.
With a busload of kids. A lot of stuff to get prepared for.
(23:30):
So we're excited about all that stuff coming up in the summer,
but that doesn't mean we just don't do anything these next few months.
We still have a lot coming up. We have a serve day coming up,
missions weekend coming up, but just a lot of stuff still on the church calendar
even before summer hits. But then once it does, lots of other things.
Yeah, serve day, I guess once this comes out, serve day still is going to be a little bit away.
(23:53):
So this is a good time to plug if you're listening to this in April,
it'd be a good time to plug, hey, serve day is about a month away because that's
May 18th, and we have a lot of different organizations that we partner with that are in our area,
and sometimes we don't realize that we have so many different outreach organizations,
(24:16):
but even the ones that are specifically geared towards ministry going beyond
those places like Transitions Healthcare, which is right down the road from us, or Redstone, own.
Those are like elderly care facilities.
It's opportunities for us to really kind of go out and be the hands and feet
of Jesus in those situations.
(24:38):
And to also do that as a church body, whether it's in our small groups or,
you know, just connecting with people we've never connected with from NCC.
So I'm looking forward to that happening and.
The unraveling of communicating with all these different organizations and finding
(24:59):
out what is it that, how can we help you? How can we serve you?
And, you know, hopefully by the time people are listening to this,
that's already been done.
That's kind of my big task for the next month. Yeah.
Serve Day is just such a great opportunity for our church to have a united front
of service in our community and just be reminded of those things.
(25:20):
I mean, a lot of the organizations that you've mentioned are places we're already
partnered in some way or have in the past, but it's a greater emphasis on this
day to go out maybe with your small group,
maybe with some other people in the church that you know to do something.
And some people, you may have heard that we've partnered with the Father's Heart,
(25:41):
but you've never been there to see what they're doing or to interact with some
of the leaders of that ministry.
And Serve Day is a great opportunity to do that. I know for the Father's Heart,
we're going to go and last year we purchased a bunch of air conditioners because
they don't have central air.
So we purchased air conditioners and we're going to install those on Serve Day.
(26:05):
So that's the big project there. So that's a great opportunity to really help
with a tangible service project and also really see the facility that they use
and hear about the ministry that they do, which is really a great ministry.
So different opportunities like that, you might know or have heard of the partnership,
(26:27):
the ministry that we partner with, but now you get to see it firsthand.
So it's a great opportunity. Service Day is a great opportunity for that.
Yeah, and Serve Dave has also been a place where it's been a catalyst to finding new ministry partners.
We go out and do something with them for a day, and then we realize there's
good alignment between their mission and ours, and it becomes a relationship
because of that. So that's really cool. It's really cool.
(26:49):
I've been really enjoying the membership class. So by the time the podcast is
out, we will have completed that.
But we've got over 25 people in our membership class this season,
and we're just really thankful for it.
We see God sending people to NCC, people that are curious, people that are seeking.
People that have questions, and people that want to follow God.
(27:15):
They want to honor Him in their life, and they know how important it is that
they join with other people that have the same mission in mind.
And so our membership class, we take it in four weeks. In the first week,
we try to lay out some of our theological distinctives, some of the ways that
we might be different than other churches. is it's not that we're better.
It's just that, hey, this is kind of where we land on some biblical topics.
(27:35):
And then the middle two weeks are really about discipleship.
They're about following Jesus.
And it's not necessarily unique to us, but we just remind people this is what
following Jesus is all about.
And then the fourth week is a lot of fun, and that's what's coming up this Sunday
when we're recording this,
is we bring in some of our ministry leaders, and people just get a chance not
to just meet our staff and elders, but to meet some of our volunteer leaders
(27:58):
that are just doing doing great things and find out how they want to,
maybe a different way they want to join in the mission.
Whether it's hands-on or serving in a ministry.
So it's just, for me personally, it really checks a lot of boxes because I love
just getting to just be a little part in seeing people be more active and engaged in their faith.
(28:19):
So it makes membership a fun opportunity.
And for this week too, everyone comes prepared with the spiritual gifts.
Taking the spiritual gifts, what's that called? Yeah, spiritual gifts inventory.
Inventory. Yeah, you're right. That is super fun. I just love people,
just the light bulbs going off to realize that God created them with unique
(28:41):
gifts and no one is the same.
And God has just a special place for them to be in the body of Christ.
Excellent, guys. Well, thank you for sharing a little bit about your worlds and what is going on.
And I hope this just shows you a little bit of the pulse here at NCC and the
things that that we go through as different seasons approach and different events
on the plate and all of that.
But thank you for joining us for this first session of the Staff Roundtable.
(29:06):
Really appreciate you listening to our podcast.
Of course, we'd love for you to subscribe, give us a like, all of that good
stuff so more people can hear about us here at NCC Unplugged.
Thank you for tuning in to NCC Unplugged.
If you've enjoyed listening to our podcast, we encourage you to share this with
your friends and family.
NCC Unplugged is available on all major podcast platforms.
(29:29):
And if you're ever interested in experiencing Norwin Christian Church firsthand,
we invite you to join us for our services every Sunday at 8.45 and 10.30 a.m.
We have engaging classes available for all ages, ensuring there's something
meaningful for everyone in our church community.
For more information about NCC or any other inquiries, visit.
(29:50):
Music.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.