Julie Chang  00:04

You’re listening to the Created For podcast. We believe that everyone is created to make a unique impact in the world. Join us as we explore everyday lives and how they find their place in God’s story through calling and design. I’m your host, Julie Chang. Josh Chen is a dreamer and a storyteller. He finds the story that God invites us into captivating, as he is passionate about inviting others into that story. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, Wendy, and four children. In this episode, Samantha Holland and I have a conversation with Josh about kingdom longings.

Julie Chang  00:46

Welcome everybody. I’m Julie Chang, your host, along with Sam Holland. And here on today’s episode, we have Josh Chen. Welcome, Josh.

Josh Chen  00:57

Hey, Julie.

Julie Chang  00:58

So Josh, I’m just so excited that you’re here. Would you be willing to introduce yourself to the audience?

Josh Chen  01:06

Yeah, yeah. Um, I live in Portland, Oregon. I have four kids and one wife and been doing full time ministry for about 18 years with, you know, the the demographic of about 18 to 28, 30 or so. Um, and yeah, and I’ve been loving it.

Julie Chang  01:32

Great. I’m glad that you have one wife.

Samantha Holland  01:35

And you might actually, listeners might remember Josh’s wife and recognize the name Chen. Wendy Chen, Josh’s wife, was the host of our virtual Created For event back in February, and then, also, she has her own episode on the Created For podcast. So now we’ve come full circle, both Chen’s have been guests. Thanks for being here.

Josh Chen  01:58

Of course.

Julie Chang  01:58

Thanks Josh. So Josh, tell us a little bit more about, kind of, your journey of how you are getting to where you, how you got to where you are today. I know that our podcast is about people finding their place in God’s story and finding their calling, and I, I was just curious if you’d be willing to share some of your story.

Josh Chen  02:21

Yeah, yeah, sure. Um, so I, you know, I grew up in the church. And really, it didn’t really kind of click with me, so to speak until college. And then after college, I went into full time ministry, did full time ministry with Asian American students for about nine years. And in that time, I think I realized that, that we weren’t necessarily preparing people really well for life after college. Like we were, we were preparing them well to do ministry in college and to build community in college, but a lot of our grads were struggling. So I started kind of this learning phase of, what does it look like to live out your faith after college? To live out your calling, to, to do, kind of, to share your faith, all of that, what does that look like after college? And, and so I started researching. At the time it was Millennials, but now it’s Gen Z’ers, kind of what that looks like, the questions that they’re asking, why the questions that they’re asking are different than their parents? And ultimately, how is Jesus good news to them? And how does Jesus help them live fully out of who they are created to be? So that, that’s what that, that’s what the last nine years or so has been like for me.

Samantha Holland  03:53

I’d love to hear more about from that research. What are some of the questions they’re asking?

Josh Chen  03:58

Yeah, yeah, you know, I came in with some thoughts, a hypothesis that: I think Christianity is trying to answer a question that, Millennials at the time, were no longer asking. And so kind of digging into that was like, “What are the questions that, that Christianity has been trying to answer like, at a, at a longing level, what, what does it meet? And, and I thought of the questions, “How do I get to heaven and what do I do with my guilt?” And I realized as I started kind of testing those questions against younger people, that, that they didn’t resonate them for a number of reasons that I would come to find out later, but you know, like they didn’t care about nearly as much as their parents did about what happened to them after they died. And, and this idea of guilt, they dealt much more with something slightly different, but related, which is shame. So, so I realized, oh, man, we’re gonna have to figure out how we engage this audience a little bit differently than we had.

Julie Chang  05:09

Just, just for clarity for our audience to hear, what is the difference between guilt and shame?

Josh Chen  05:15

Yeah, that’s a great question. Um, guilt is, is kind of like this, this idea that something internal is telling you if you’re good or bad.  And I would say shame is, kind of, more communal in the sense that like, it’s, it’s your, it’s a group of people around you or the people that you value, it’s what they think of you that defines who you are, and if you’re good or bad.

Samantha Holland  05:43

It’s a good explanation. What do you think has taken place in our society that has moved us from questions about our guilt to questions about our shame?

Josh Chen  05:54

Some of the things that, that kind of arose in the Millennial generation as well as Gen Z is, is this rise of anxiety. And so something that, that I was learning about was that, that Millennials, and Gen Z’ers are the most anxious generations, probably of all time. And anxiety does something to people that causes them to, with such high levels of anxiety, it’s almost like a fight or flight state. Dr. Betsy Nesbitt talks about this. She talks about how like, when you’re standing in front of a bear, like you’re not thinking about that project you have due next week, or your retirement plan, or any of that, you’re thinking about how do I survive right now? Because young people have such high levels of anxiety, it keeps them in that fight or flight state. And so they’re not thinking about what’s later, they’re think about what’s, what’s right now. That’s, that’s one of the reasons why they’re asking questions about life right now, rather than later. Like not what’s happening after death, but but what is, “How do I survive right now? How do I how do I figure out what it means to thrive right now?” So the questions that I found that young people were asking were questions more along the lines of, like, “How do I live more fully out of who I’m created to be? How do I become fully alive? How do I avoid this anxiety, this depression, all these negative emotions?” And then with the shame piece, you know, the rise of social media, I think, had a huge part to play in kind of, almost rewiring our brains to seek out that, that honor, in likes, and then avoid shame in, you know, things like canceled culture, or ways that the toxicity of the internet is able to influence what we think about ourselves.

Julie Chang  08:00

That’s good. I just keep on thinking about, when you’re talking about that, just the concept of emotions not being able to pass. Because so often, if you’re sitting in the now and you’re sitting in the immediate emotion, you’re not thinking about, you’re not going to feel this way, potentially, next week. But right now, you’re sitting in the now of the immediate and getting the external, needing an external comfort, in order to help with your identity. Is that what you’re saying, Josh?

Josh Chen  08:34

Yeah, I mean, I think I think that’s a big part to play in it is, you know. Like, I’ve heard one of my good friends, Carrie Lauer, she talks about sin as, “meeting a legitimate longing or need in an illegitimate way.” And I love that definition of sin because, one, it gives us compassion for why we feel the things that we feel. No longer are we just trying to block it out, like, okay, “I shouldn’t feel this way.” It actually legitimizes that feeling, and that longing. And it recognizes that we’re trying to meet that longing in an illegitimate way, which, you know, it doesn’t bring shame and guilt, the way that, that we’ve talked about sin in the past, but it really kind of highlights this idea that, that, one, that there is an illegitimate way to find life, and two, that, that if there’s an illegitimate way to find life, what is the real way of finding life? What is the true way that is going to bring the fullness of life and help me to fully live out of who God’s created me to be?

Samantha Holland  09:45

So is that, is the fullness of life, sort of, something that maybe we would have only called salvation in the past? Like the fullness of life is actually the new goal? I don’t know.

Josh Chen  10:03

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think, I think that is probably true in the sense that like, when you look at the word, “saved”, or “salvation”, you know, the, the [Hebrew] word for that is really interesting. It’s, it’s this word “sozo”, and, and it means “saved”. But it also means “to be made whole’. Like I think of, you know, a number of passages in scripture where Jesus says, you know, “Your faith has saved you”, He uses that word, “sozo”. But then I think of other passages where it says, “Jesus says, Your faith has made you well”, after healing somebody like the the bleeding woman, he says, “Your, your faith has made you well”. And that word well is also the word, “sozo”, which is “saved”. And so it is, the reason why that word is used in that context is because they’re becoming more like what they were created to be in creation and who they will one day be in the new creation. And that’s exciting to me. Like, that’s exciting, I think, for, for young people, to listen to that. And to be like, “Okay, like, I may not be living fully out of who I’m created to be but, as I follow Jesus, that, that will become more true. As I surrender aspects of my life, lies that I believe, to Jesus, I’m gonna become more like who I was created to be.

Julie Chang  11:42

What you’re saying is, life is now the “sozo” is is here, we can be whole today. So I’m curious about just your story on on how, how you talk to people about,”sozo”, and thriving and, and just the paradigm shift that took place from conversations with the people of, “You get to go to heaven after you die,” to “Life is now when you can live fully, in a manner of thriving and new life”, of what you just explained.

Josh Chen  12:21

Yeah, yeah. And I think this is where we’ve really gotta learn to listen to people. To listen to what they’re longing for. The way that I think about it is that we as human beings, we all have longings, like every one of us. And we all have longings because we were created to live in the kingdom of God. But our reality doesn’t reflect the kingdom of God. And so like, I think, of like, you know, two lines, where you know, the line on top is the kingdom of God, the line on bottom is our current reality, and the gap in between that is where our longings exist. And so the greater the gap, the greater the longing. And, and so when I listen to people, I’m like, what are they longing for? And ultimately believing that, that the kingdom of God does meet them in their longing! And so how does it meet them in their longing? I think we have to do the hard work of that to, to be like, “Okay, how does Jesus meet them in their longing in a way that, where they’re currently meeting, you know, like, finding life in, isn’t meeting that need?” At least not fully. I mean, it is partially, otherwise they wouldn’t go to it. And so I started thinking about both evangelism, discipleship and even justice in this framework of thinking, like, “How do I, how do I seek the wholeness of somebody else, the thriving of somebody else?” And, and that’s really changed how I engage people. Like, no longer am I, like, you know, I think in the past, maybe I felt like a little bit of a salesman, if I was trying to share my faith, but now I’m like, “No, like, you don’t understand, like, you can experience this fullness of life.” I mean, I don’t say those words, but I call them micro testimonies. You know, this, this story from my life of how I had a similar longing to another person, and how Jesus met me in that longing. I might cope with that longing differently than somebody else, but the longing is the same. So if I let, I have to listen to what’s behind their, their actions. And in doing so, I can share the micro testimony of how I, you know, Jesus was able to meet me in my longing. I’ll give you an example. Because that’s kind of like….

Samantha Holland  14:47

I was gonna ask for one.

Josh Chen  14:49

Okay, um, so, like, I grew up believing that I was, I was stupid. You know, like, I have these genius brothers and sister, I have a genius brother and sister, not brothers and sisters, but have a genius brother and sister. And they, and you know, I grew up with ADHD. Didn’t do well, real well in school. And so I believed in this, this idea that I was stupid my whole life. And so there, there’s, you know, in some regards, it’s a lie, because at the end of the day, I’m not that stupid, right? But I realize they’re smart.

Julie Chang  15:25

You’re a smart boy, Josh, you’re smart.

Josh Chen  15:27

Thank you, Julie. Thank you for that affirmation. But even that, even that, it’s like, like, um, my, the lie is not necessarily that, that I’m, I’m stupid. It’s actually behind that, it’s the lie behind the lie, which is actually this lie that I believe that in order to be valuable, I have to be smart. And, and because I’m not, I’m worthless. So that’s, that’s the lie that I have to address. That’s the longing is actually value. It’s not, it has nothing to do with intelligence, it actually has to do with value. And so as I think about my own life, Jesus has really done a tremendous work in my life in the area of value, believing in my own inherent worth. And, and this whole idea of, of “imago dei”, that we bear the image of God, and that’s what makes us valuable, and putting my my hope in that rather than my hope in this idea that I’m smart. And so, so now, when I listen to people, I can go, “Oh, like, you may not be wrestling with the exact same lie, but you are actually wrestling with this idea of where your value lies.” And so when I share a story of how Jesus has transformed the paradigm that I see life through, to not only see myself as having inherent value, but other people as having inherent value as well.

Julie Chang  17:01

You know, it’s interesting, because even as a believer, as you say, these things, I feel like I’m being witnessed to now, because so often I want to get things right. Or I forget that my inherent value lies in my “imago dei” and in what Christ is, who Christ is and how He sees me. And I just keep on thinking about even in the past year, during this pandemic, there’s been such a binary conversation taking place nationwide, even among Christians of who’s right and who’s wrong, whether it be with max, masks, or vaccines, or race, and all of these different things. And what you’re saying is, it’s not at that level, it’s at a deeper level, where if you, if you peel back those onion layers, you can see we all forget, we all forget where we put our value, because it’s so easy to become distracted. So it’s not just for people who don’t know, Jesus, but it’s also for people to be reminded again, and again, and again, who may have a relationship with God.

Josh Chen  18:12

Yeah, no, that’s a that’s a great point. And like, when I think of, of like, this whole conversation of like, vaccines, for example, is that people that think vastly differently than us, oftentimes have the same exact longing. We’re just coping in different ways. And so that becomes our unifying point, that becomes our connection point. And where we can start to build relationship, empathy, trust, and in [an] environment of safety of conversation, so that, that we’re not antagonistic towards one another, but we’re actually building bridges towards one another.

Samantha Holland  18:54

I want to circle back to something you said earlier about, just when we are talking about guilt, shame, or guilt, innocence, shame, honor, pure power from, The 3d Gospel. And I know that in the book, they talk about different people groups who, on the spectrum, tend towards one or the other. And I wondered if both of you, Julie and Josh, as I think you both identify as Asian American, how has that been? Maybe coming from more of a “shame, honor” family, but living in more of a “guilt, innocence” culture?

Julie Chang  19:35

Go ahead, Josh. You go first. You’re our guest.

Josh Chen  19:39

Yeah, yeah. I’m trying to think, I spent so much time thinking….

Samantha Holland  19:44

I made a lot of assumptions there. I mean, I just, that may not be true at all.

Julie Chang  19:49

I think those are great assumptions, Sam. Yeah.

Josh Chen  19:52

Yeah. Well, I you know, I think I think my family is interesting because I think my mom kind of raised us on Focus on the Family. And she, she would tell, tell us things that like, you know, I don’t necessarily hear in the Asian community. Like, you know, she would tell me things like, you know, “When you’re 18 like, you’re, you’re off on your own and you need to, like, you know, figure out life.”

Julie Chang  20:20

Not, “Stay home all of the time, you are wasting money? [Speakers talk over one another]

Josh Chen  20:26

Yeah. Um, and so I think, I think I did experience a lot of this guilt and innocence kind of culture. And I think the shame probably came more externally like, I identify as a Millennial. I’m, I’m what they call a “Geriatric Millennial” now. Like, I’m on the older end, and yet, I, I very much resonate with the, the shame piece that comes from the Millennials. But I do think that it came from the culture rather than my own like family, if that makes sense. Oh, Julie, what about you?

Julie Chang  21:04

Shame all the way baby! Shame, shame, shame, all the time is what I grew up with. I would have to say that guilt is something that also I experienced on an underlining realm if I have, if I’m unaware of my power dynamic. So if I have a bias, and I believe that I, internally, am more powerful or better than another person, then I will experience more guilt. If I navigate in a way that I’m not trying to help that person, or if I navigate in a way where I’m rude to a person who is seen, “less than me, or lower in power”, or “lower in worth in a world view”, then I will feel guilt. So I think it’s a little bit of both; guilt and shame. But more so, shame. I was, just took a class this weekend, and I, there were so many things that took place in this class, and I felt so much shame in it because of the way I was navigating a group of people in the class, or criticizing, and I found myself shrinking and feeling more shame and needed to extrovert because I am an extrovert, extrovert my emotion in order for myself to feel better. So that Josh, when you were sharing about your worth, and peeling the onion layers, and taking some time to introspect and ask the question of, “Why? Why am I feeling this way? What’s going on inside of me that I need to be comforted or validated, or someone to be on my side?” So I just think that what you’re sharing, Josh is so valuable to everybody to hear and to apply. Because we need it, we need this, we need this message, we need to hear that our value lies outside of what people say, what we do, doing things right, doing things. well. All of the above.

Samantha Holland  23:24

Yeah, and I, even Josh, when you were sharing about, you know, this lie that you’ve believed and what was underneath it, it resonated with me, because I have found myself, as an adult, feeling like, I’m surrounded by lots of people with graduate degrees. And this, this started, really, and I don’t have a graduate degree. So this started really, I realized I was sort of thinking about it a lot and comparing myself a lot. And I’m sort of like a 99% soft skills person, like I, you know, and I just I found, wow, I’m really, this is making me feel shame. And I had to think through like, “What? Why does that matter to me so much?” No one else is saying anything to me about the fact that I don’t have a graduate degree, but it’s just sort of this cultural thing. Especially in the town I live in, where I feel like a minority, I feel different, and so I think one of my underlying assumptions was, in order to be a valuable adult, you know, in this town and this space, I need to get my master’s in something, stat.

Josh Chen  24:35

Yeah, yeah. No, I know exactly what you’re talking about. Yeah, both of you. Like those, those are feelings that I think are common, not even just among, you know, uh, you know, Christians, but, you know, people of all religions, ethnicities. It’s just kind of something that we have in common and so, in my mind, the ideal would be if the church was a place where we treated one another in a way that it affirmed the truthes of the kingdom of God. Affirmed this idea that, that you belong, regardless of what you do, who you are, your sexual orientation, all of that, you belong, regardless of your religious background, or what you believe now, anything, you belong. And I think that is true about the kingdom that, that Abraham was sent to be a blessing to all the nations of the world, to invite them to be part of this, this family. This family of God. So that’s the first thing.  And I think the second thing is that we have inherent value. So we’re treating each other as if we have inherent value. And it’s almost like when we go out into the world, our value is defined by certain things: how we look, our jobs, our education, our wealth, our ethnicity, our orientation, like, all of that. And so, what if there was a space that all these things could be affirmed, that that you are inherent value, regardless of all those things, so that it starts to train our mind to actually believe it. Because you can tell me all day long, “Josh, you’re inherently valuable”. But I’m not going to believe it until somebody actually treats me that way. Until a community of people, until there’s a safe place where I’m actually treated that way. It starts to change my psyche in a way that when I go out into the real world, I live out of that reality now. There’s this freedom, this is immense freedom that comes along with not having to chase after what other people are going to approve. But from, “Oh, this is who I’m made to be”. So even if nobody values it, I’m going to live this out, and it’s going to, it’s going to be amazing, because this is who I was created to be, you know.

Samantha Holland  27:11

Created for.

Josh Chen  27:13

Exactly!

Samantha Holland  27:13

This is what I was created for.

Julie Chang  27:17

I just think so often, even in, in many environments, whether it be a Christian environment, or non-Christian environment, where people are very friendly, you can tell the difference between politeness and friendliness versus love. We’re just trying to be nice to people, polite to people, friendly to people, almost transactional feeling versus like a rooted in love type of aspect of going,”It’s more than this. It’s deeper than this.” And we’ve forgotten and we kind of know it, but we need to define it and change our vocabulary in it. Like,

Josh Chen  27:55

Yeah.

Julie Chang  27:55

Like redefine the word.

Josh Chen  27:56

And, and yeah, absolutely. I, and I spent, I spent my early days in, you know, this 20- somethings space, trying to redefine vocabulary in a way that is both accurate biblically, but speaks to people. And so, you know this sounds kind of funny, but I stopped using words like “sin”, “faith”, “repentance”, “salvation’, because one of the things I did early on was I tested this language with 20-somethings. And it wasn’t necessarily to test if it was received positively or negatively, because I’m not afraid of offending people. But I wanted to see, are they understanding the word in the same way that I am trying to communicate it? Because that’s, that’s what language is for, is is for somebody else to understand what I’m trying to communicate, right?

Julie Chang  28:52

Yes.

Josh Chen  28:53

And so take, for example, the word “sin”. What they heard was maybe judgment. Whereas what I was trying to communicate was, you know, like, meeting a legitimate longing in an illegitimate way, or like a coping mechanism, or finding light where there is no light. Like, the way that I was thinking about it is much more from a compassionate standpoint. Or “repentance”, like, you know, they’re hearing, “You’re trying to change me.” And what I’m hearing is, “There’s, there’s this paradigm shift that can happen that is going to free you.” I’m not trying to force anything on you, but like, if you believed in your own inherent value, for example, it would free you up. And so yeah, for, for them, it’s actually something that they want to believe in already, but their framework of belief doesn’t allow them to believe in it. So changing the way that we talk to people, I think makes a, makes a huge difference.

Julie Chang  30:05

It’s great. I have one last question, Josh.

Josh Chen  30:09

Yeah.

Julie Chang  30:10

It’s actually regarding longing. So what if somebody doesn’t know what their longing is? How do you help them find their longing? What if they go, “I don’t know, I don’t know what my longing is?” And how do you walk somebody through that or help them in that? Or do you just keep on asking them, “Well, take time to reflect?” Or what do you do for that?

Josh Chen  30:32

Yeah, yeah, that’s, I’ve realized that that is a tough place to get to, because you’re digging and you’re digging, but it, one of the one of my favorite ways is to watch movies, or read books of fiction. And just pay attention to those places that you get emotional, like deeply emotional, like, like, you start to tear up or you’re getting super excited. And then start to ask yourselves, “Why, why am I getting teary eyed?” You know, like, while back, I was watching the movie, Guardians of the Galaxy. And you know that, there’s that scene where Groot builds that ball around them. And you know, like, Rocket is saying to him, like, “Why are you doing this? You’re gonna die. Like, why are you doing this?” And in the whole movie, he says,”I am Groot.” And then in that moment, he says, “We are Groot.” And I started, like, tearing up big time. And I was like, “Why am I tearing up? This is, this is so, such a weird time to tear up.” And as I started, like, thinking introspectively, I was like, “Oh, it’s because I long for family, and belonging, the way that, you know, these characters have built this incredible family.” Like they’re like these, you know, all these five or six, kind of, Lone Ranger’s that come together and form this beautiful family. Messy, but beautiful. And, and it was, so it was speaking to something that I was longing for. So that, that’s one of my favorite ways. It’s, it’s why I, I built that into the study. And, to also listen to the longings of others. Because sometimes when we listen to other people, we’re able to identify things in other people faster than we are in ourselves. But somehow, we’re going to resonate with those things in other people, because we’re all human beings and we probably all have similar longings. It’s a skill that I think, is grown over time. It’s not necessarily, when I think of like Christian growth. Like I think, you know, sometimes we can think of it more from an intellectual standpoint, like I continue to learn new things about theology or God. But this is kind of a different type of growth, where we’re, we’re just able to identify, quicker and quicker, the longings within ourselves, and within other people. And what is true about the kingdom that, that meets us in that longing.

Samantha Holland  33:10

I love that you brought up Guardians of the Galaxy and that scene with Groot because I always loved that scene and Groot’s character, because Groot is like the Christ figure, right? He’s giving himself up for his family and, and giving his family his identity. Like by saying, “We are Groot,” like, you, like, “You are in me, we’re together”. And then he resurrects! He’s baby Groot . So it’s very, yeah it’s just, I love that. I love that movie. I love that part of that movie. But also, when you were talking about you know how to identify your longings. That’s a, there’s a similar exercise that our marriage counselor took us through where she was like, “Okay, anytime that you find, you know, that you’re having a disagreement or having really strong emotions about something that the other, that your spouse said or did,” shows this flow chart, and it was, “I want you to stop and really process and think internally about that emotion.” And it’s this whole, it’s sort of, this goes lower and lower, and it’s exactly what you’re talking about. It’s like, “Okay, what, how am I reacting? Why, and what’s the really deep and often childhood-type thing value that’s being threatened?” And, and that’s been so, I mean, I think it would be good in any relationship but you know, in marriage, it’s just. It’s, there’s so much closeness and togetherness that these things come up a lot, it pushes on your values and your most deeply held truths and lies so much. So, I do think that’s such a valuable thing to learn and discover about ourselves. It is very freeing.

Josh Chen  35:12

Yeah, yeah.

Julie Chang  35:13

Yeah, I love that.

Josh Chen  35:15

That’s great. I love that too.

Samantha Holland  35:17

Well, thanks so much, Josh for being on the show. So great to learn about these kingdom longings and I look forward to when you have that study out there for the world.

Julie Chang  35:27

Yes, thanks, Josh.

Josh Chen  35:28

Yeah, Yeah, me too. Yeah, it’s been fun being here.

Julie Chang  35:32

It was fun talking to you. Valuable things!  Excited to share more and and see what comes out as well. Thanks, Josh.

Julie Chang  35:43

What does your discontentment reveal about your kingdom longings? And where are you placing your value today? What steps might God be challenging you to take in order to live deeper into your “imago dei” and the gospel?

Julie Chang  35:58

Created For is hosted and produced by Cru. If you enjoyed this episode then subscribe, rate, or review us wherever you’re listening. For more resources to explore your calling and find your place in God’s story, check out the show notes on our website at Cru.org/createdfor and follow us on Instagram at _CreatedFor. Tune in next time when I interview Kelly Mark, a therapist in Seattle, Washington, as she shares about her journey and discovering her calling and finding her place in God’s story. Thanks for listening. See you next time.