Hey friend welcome to the mere Christians podcast I'm Jordan Rayner. How does the

gospel influence the work of mere Christians?

Does my who aren't pastors or religious professionals, but who work as factory workers,

professors and custodians?

That's the question we explore every week, and today I'm posing it to my friend John Tyson

one of my absolute favorite teachers of the word. He's a pastor at Church of the City, New York,

and the author of some great books including a

creative minority and the intentional father. John and I recently sat down to

talk about what will make us mere Christians distinct in the workplace.

We talked about John's framework for thinking about Sabbath as ceasing, resting, embracing

the Father's goodness, and feasting on his gifts.

And we talked about why the goal of local churches should not be to take people out of the work they're doing as mere Christians, but to equip them for that work outside

of the local church. I think you guys are going to love this conversation with the brilliant

John Tyson. John Tyson.

John Tyson, I can't believe it's taking us so long to have you on the podcast.

Welcome. Thank you so much, really happy to be here. Yeah so hey

unlike a lot of pastors you've been a quote-unquote mere Christian you've worked

outside the church you worked as a butcher right that is I, uh, Eugene Peterson was a butcher. Really? I didn't know that. Yes, yes, a big chunk of his story and his early formation takes place in the butcher shop. So I feel like at least have some other friends who pastor in that space that it was yes I'm a fully qualified apprentice butcher graduated into a I don't know an adult butcher I don't know.

Yeah, I heard you dropped out of school to do this to be a butcher's

apprentice what's the what's the story there? It's interesting so when I was 14 I've always had a good work ethic I think I think that's a sort of from the family that I was raised in when I was 14

I went and got a part-time job. Wanted to get some money for myself. I worked for a boss that was absolutely

incredible, a visionary, very successful businessman.

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