Few Christian thinkers in the last century have shaped the conversation on discipleship quite like Dallas Willard. His vision of the Kingdom of God, spiritual formation, and what it truly means to follow Jesus has influenced pastors, scholars, and everyday believers around the world. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Gary Moon to talk about Willard's life, his lasting legacy, and why his voice is more important today than ever. We explore Willard's idea of the "Great Omission"—the tendency to reduce the gospel to getting people into heaven instead of helping them become apprentices of Jesus. In many ways, Willard helps lay the theological foundation for Missioholism. When discipleship is neglected, mission inevitably becomes something we do for Jesus rather than the life we live with Him. We also discuss why so many Christians are hungry for a deeper experience of God and how Willard points us beyond shallow religion to a life of genuine transformation. If you've ever wondered why Dallas Willard still matters—or you've wanted to know where to begin with his work—this conversation is a great place to start.

Takeaways:

• Travis Michael Fleming and Gary Moon explore the profound influence of Dallas Willard on contemporary Christian thought and spiritual formation. Their conversation examines how Willard's vision of the Kingdom of God, discipleship, and spiritual formation exposes many of the assumptions that have driven modern ministry culture.
• They discuss the importance of vision, intention, and means in overcoming burnout and recovering a way of ministry rooted in abiding with Christ rather than striving for Him.
• Moon presents Willard as a modern-day reformer who bridges the wisdom of the early church with the needs of contemporary evangelicalism, calling Christians back to apprenticeship rather than mere profession. Throughout the conversation, Willard's thought provides a greater theological grounding for a vision of mission that flows from communion with Christ instead of relentless activity.
• Moon also highlights Willard's insistence that Christianity is centered on experiential knowledge of God rather than mere intellectual assent to doctrinal truths. Together, they argue that a deeper life with God is not only the goal of discipleship but the indispensable foundation for faithful, fruitful, and enduring ministry.
• His call to apprenticeship rather than mere conversion undergirds the argument of Missioholism, exposing how easily the church can become preoccupied with the work of God while neglecting the life with God from which that work is meant to flow.

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May the Lord our God give you stability, grace and influence.

Dallas, like to talk about the vim model that any.

Any significant complicated new learning requires vim vision, intention and means.

And so if someone has a problem such as burnout, it will.

Let's go back and let's look at the most important part of that formula.

Vision.

Let's review your vision of God.

Let's review your vision of yourself.

Let's review your vision of salvation.

Is your view of God both magnificent and loving enough?

Is your view of yourself both magnificent and beloved enough?

And is your view of salvation at least as much at home in a hospital as a courtroom?

If there's vision issues, that might be what's driving the difficulty in eliminating Hurry.

Welcome back to Ministry Deep Dive.

My name is Travis Michael Fleming, and I am your host.

You know, one of the goals that we have for this podcast is to introduce you to voices that can help you know Christ more deeply and serve him more faithfully.

Few modern Christian thinkers have had the influence of Dallas Willard.

His writings on discipleship, the Kingdom of God, and spiritual formation have profoundly shaped pastors, scholars, and ministry leaders across denominational lines.

Yet despite his enormous influence, many Christians still today have never heard of him or aren't sure even where to begin.

And today's guest is uniquely qualified to help us.

Dr. Gary Moon serves as the Executive Director of the Martin Institute for Christianity and Culture at Westmont College.

He knew Dallas personally and wrote the acclaimed biography Becoming Dallas the Formation of a Philosopher, Teacher, and Christ Follower.

Gary, welcome to Ministry Deep Dive.

Thank you, Travis.

Looking forward to being with you.

Okay, for someone who has never heard of Dallas Willard's name, or maybe heard of his name, but has never read him, who was he, and why should they seek to know more about him?

Well, I sometimes have fun saying that he's America's answer to C.S.

Lewis.

And the reason I do that is because he's an academic like Lewis.

Although Willard's discipline was philosophy, he was a faculty member at USC for 46 years, School of Philosophy, chaired the department for a while.

But he got better known, much better known, I would say, for his Christian writing.

Like Lewis, you spent years studying his life.

What makes him such a significant voice for people?

Why do so many people gravitate toward him?

There are several things Travis I think, still kind of a bridge to even that.

First question is he's somebody that had just a remarkable intellect.

He was a respected academic, a scholar philosopher, had a high view of scripture, was an ordained Baptist minister.

And I think you put all that together and he becomes what I would call a modern day reformer of evangelicalism in particular and to extent mainline Christianity.

But back a reformer back to the vibrancy of the church of the first two or three centuries.

And that's a remarkable gift.

But in addition to that, I think the main thing that made him worth studying, he lived what he taught and that is a rare thing.

But you realize he didn't just teach certain things, it just was into the fabric of his life.

Why do you think that Dallas's influence has grown so much since his death?

Yeah, and that's a very good question.

I thought about that a lot and I hate to admit it, but I'm a little bit surprised.

Not totally surprised.

I was kind of hoping 10 years from the time of his death or more, it's been 13 now, he would still be as irrelevant.

But you're right, I think it's gaining momentum.

Well, first of all, I think Dallas came along.

This is a ridiculous example, but the first thing that pops to mind is that phrase from Ross Perot.

This is not a political statement, but he had that memorable phrase about that giant sucking sound.

I think there was a giant sucking sound over time within modern Christianity because of the loss of the experiential, loss of this being actually real, that something you can step into.

And it became a lot more about again, impact of kind of modernism, of precise thinking and things like this and arguing about which One of the 35,000 different denominations I think was roughly the last count are most right.

But it left the hunger for the experiential and a hunger for looking at the church the first few centuries that you read about in Acts and the Epistles and you think, when did that go away?

And he was helping people understand that it didn't go away and it's accessible even today.

Well, what problem do you think in the church that Dallas was trying to solve for people?

Was that the experiential part, that they just felt it was all doctrine and they weren't getting the experiential side of things?

I think we could probably say several things if I had to just pick one.

And he has a book with this title.

I think he was very focused on the Great Omission at the Martin Institute.

And I should say I'm the founding director.

I still work for the Martin Institute.

We have a new director, Steve Porter.

Oh, no worries.

I'm very proud of the title founding director because they do such a Good job.

But the Martin Institute offers an annual conference, academic conference, and it's a wonderful format.

They bring in 10 scholars from a variety of disciplines, and they present papers built around some targeted spiritual formation theme.

For that year, there's another academic that responds to the paper.

We've been inviting 20 or more pastors or ministry leaders.

They're there for the conference, and after it's over, they stick around for a day to talk about, in practical terms, you know, how do we attach an engine?

How do we attach a transmission.

I'm sorry, to the engines we've been listening to that have been described.

All right, well, all that to say, one of the presenters, about two years back, maybe three, Kristin Johnson, a theologian, she presented a paper and she had a line in there that just floored me.

I never had thought about it.

She said that the phrase the Great Commission that you see over the last verses of many translations of Matthew's Gospel was a recent addition.

It was brought to us through the Scofield Bible.

And it had some perhaps indirect effects that it says, go and make disciples is what it says.

But it kind of got read especially within the context of revivalism.

Go and make converts.

Go and make people who prayed the prayer, who raised their hand.

And that's all great, but there's a great omission because the words are actually go and make, not converts.

Go and make disciples.

And that was a process that Matthew and the others well knew.

They had spent about three years in that interactive disciple making project with Jesus and baptized them.

That is, as Dallas would say, immerse them in the reality of the Trinity that is still present and here and now that you can interact with.

So, yeah, I think he's focused on many things, but correcting the Great Omission and getting it back to experiential and disciple making.

Apprentice was the word he liked to use.

Becoming apprentices of Jesus.

What do you think makes him especially relevant, though, today for our cultural moment?

Because I do think that there has been that overemphasis on the conversion piece to pray the prayer.

We've done a lot of episodes actually, on that very thing.

And I would even go back before the Scofield Bible.

So it is a recent addition.

Even then you might say, well, the Roman Catholics didn't do any of that and the Reformation recovered it.

Fair enough.

But that's still.

The Great Commission doesn't become a term until 250 years after the Reformation.

So you're right, it's playing into that because we've done a lot of work on the first and second century, doing Alan Kreider's work, the patient ferment of the early church.

We've had Stephen Pressley on just looking at so many different pieces where we lost that apprenticeship and we feel that there's a huge wasteland of discipling.

It's been formation, we've done even a deep dive in kind of the church growth movement and how the gospel was really just weaned down from justifications, sanctification, glorification, and really just became justification in the event.

That convert piece.

So do you feel like that he is so relevant today because people are tired of just the.

The pray, the prayer, the event piece, but not the ongoing transformation aspect?

I think he's so relevant because that just doesn't work very well.

I will sometimes tell a story for like if someone said, and I can be in certain settings where that's very important to people and they will say tell us the time that basically you made the decision.

And for decades, for two, three decades, I referenced the time that I was nine years old.

My father was pastoring a church.

He had brought in a salvation specialist and he was telling frightening stories and about me becoming a rotisserie item in the afterlife.

And I made a very frightened and narcissistic decision that I don't want any of that and I'm kind of making fun.

I was very sincere and I don't doubt that.

I don't doubt that warmed the heart of God that a nine year old would go down front and say these things.

But in terms of salvation, as entering into a here and now or apprenticeship with Jesus that night actually set that process back quite a ways because I did not want to be in the same room with the person who could think up such a thing.

And I was so glad to have a signed contract that says I'm good, but it didn't create something that draws you into a relationship through the moments of the day with.

With a friend.

And you, you mentioned culture today and culture that is such a. I was.

During the early years, I was directing the Martin Institute of Christianity culture and probably couldn't.

Didn't have a real good idea of what a big word culture is.

I have a friend, James Cut for that likes to divine culture whimsically as what is culture?

Well, that's the way we do things around.

That's exactly how we define it.

I love that today our culture is doing things around here in a world that Dallas predicted, a world experiencing the disappearance of moral knowledge.

I'm going on a little bit here, but let me say one more thing.

I'm fascinated that the first systematic program that I'm aware of, a formal program in Christian education at a university or college level I've read and reread, was started by Clement of Alexandria.

And the curriculum was built around John 17:3.

The only place Jesus defines eternal life.

Knowing how do we teach students to know the Father, the Son whom he sent, Holy Spirit implied.

I thought now that is the first one that's very experiential about arguably one of the top 10 important verses in Scripture.

This is eternal life.

Then you fast forward, you get to the modern university system and you see it built around something pretty similar, built around the transcendental of goodness, truth and beauty, which becomes the colleges of theology, Goodness, Truth, Science, Beauty, arts.

And so trying to.

It takes a university to understand a small amount of the key transcendentals of God.

And then with about 500 years ago, goodness gets escorted off campus.

I'm saying that playfully, theology.

Why?

Well, because they're talking about things you can't see or measure that doesn't belong here, that doesn't fit with a world different worldview that's just rolled in.

Truth, except for in some of the hardcore sciences, seems to be under attack to say the least.

And so I'm fascinated by some of the books.

I think there's one by the title maybe Beauty will Save the World.

But I'm rambling, but why is this teaching?

Why does what he have to offer so important?

Well, for one thing he predicted this mess that when you lose the transcendentals and when you get away from trying to get to know the things that you cannot see or measure, you, you're in trouble.

That's so true.

There's just so many of those different things that we've really lost a grasp of today.

I was talking to my daughter who is at a major Christian university and she was talking about some of her friends.

And of course you're going to get this at any Christian school, but who don't live up to the code of whatever the code is of that school.

It's inevitable.

But I think what bothered her is just the flippancy.

And these are people that all purport to follow Jesus.

But there seems to be a Lack of honor and a lack of an understanding of goodness and beauty.

And I remember Chuck Colson.

There was a story that I had read about him one time where he was talking to this donor to the Colson center, and the guy was getting ready to give a million dollars to Harvard Business School.

And it was to teach a class on ethics or something with ethics.

And he goes, well, Harvard doesn't teach ethics.

Don't give him your money.

And the guy, he said, what do you mean they don't teach ethics?

He goes, they don't teach ethics.

So the guy withheld the money.

Well, of course, Harvard calls, wants to know where the money is.

And so then they learn that Colson said, hey, you don't teach ethics.

So he said, we'd like to talk to him.

And he goes, yes, we do teach ethics.

He goes, no, you don't.

He says, well, we do.

We have classes on ethics.

He's like, no, you teach people how not to get sued.

That's not ethics.

And so I look at that.

That's when we don't talk about goodness any longer.

We want big, we want personal.

We want people to make us feel good.

But we don't like the intrinsic nature of goodness or who we're becoming.

We don't think along those terms, but I think our world does in some respect.

They want to be more in tune.

They want to have peace.

They want to have things, which is what the gospel offers, but we've just really weaned it down.

But thinking back to Dallas's works here for a moment, for those that are out there that still aren't familiar with him, if someone were to read one Dallas Willard book, what would you recommend and why?

Well, Travis, you finally asked me an easy one.

I would read Becoming Dallas Willard.

I'm only.

I'm 90% kidding.

But if you have anything, the 10% that isn't kidding is to get an overview of the life.

And then it also lets you know where all the books came from.

But.

And that's one of the hardest questions I ever get, because I don't think there is a wrong place to start.

I'll say this real quickly.

I can say it really quickly.

In writing the biography, I had known Dallas for, I don't know, close to 25 years.

Been following, following him around.

Any chance I could get.

He had passed away a couple years prior to me almost being finished with the biography.

I'm almost done.

I'm on page, like, chapter nine or 10.

But I hear about a conversation he had with one of his 31 PhD students.

And in that conversation, he told the student about the four critical concerns that drove his whole life.

And when I heard those, even though I'd been hearing him and reading him everything he had written many times, weeks and weeks, listening to him teach in retreat center settings, it was like a light bulb went on.

It was like the.

I sometimes say the could hear the tumblers of the safe align and the door swing open.

Because these four critical concerns, he was one philosopher speaking to another.

So I didn't understand a word of it.

I had to get it translated.

But once I got it translated, I realized, wow, this is a remarkable.

Because he was saying his entire adult life, his academic life, his writing life, his teaching life, he was focused on four concerns.

And each of his books flows from one of those concerns.

So to me, understanding those concerns is key.

In a nutshell, the first concern, as he said it, one philosopher to another, is a concern for a robust metaphysical realism.

What does that mean?

It means that there is a mind independent reality that includes invisible things that you cannot see or measure that not only are more real than tables and chairs, they're the fountain of all reality, the kingdom, the Trinity.

And he writes the divine conspiracy out of that concern.

Let me introduce you to this invisible reality of the kingdom and along the way, more about the Trinity.

Second concern was for an epistemic realism.

I got a little bit of that, but the full unpacking it is in lay terms, which I needed.

Not only are these things real, you can step into them, you can interact with them here and now, and they can become a source of actual knowledge.

Well, that's pretty huge knowledge, not a leap of faith knowledge.

So how do you do that?

Well, he helps out a bit.

He writes.

He writes the book that now is known as Hearing God and the Spirit of the disciplines.

His third concern was for a complete anthropology.

And that one actually I did get because by training, I'm a clinical psychologist, and so I knew what he was talking about.

Modern psychology leaves out arguably the most important aspects of the person from their textbooks.

And I'm a big fan of psychology and modern psychology, but there is a great omission, if you will.

You don't have chapters under the heading spirit, will, heart, soul, and very, very little, even on mind.

And so he says, so that is a big deal.

So he writes his psychology textbook, Renovation of the Heart, and the first half of the book is about the part that's being omitted.

He calls it the CEO of the person Scripture, interchangeably using the words Heart, spirit and will.

And then finally his fourth concern is the verifiability or prubit concern.

He says that he's concerned that people know that if a person is doing this, if they are becoming progressively aware of real presence, they're interacting with that presence with all of the aspects of their personhood, it will produce real and measurable change.

Are we doing something wrong?

So, long winded answer that says doesn't really matter.

Pick of those.

Pick the concern you're most interested in and read the book that goes with it.

Knowing Christ today was the one lay version of the one for that fourth concerned.

And what this means is it's mind blowing actually, that we're not talking about leaps of faith, we're talking about actual knowledge.

And in that sense, authentic Christian spiritual formation deserves as much a place in the university setting as does sociology or biology because you're talking about real knowledge.

And even though you can't see it or measure it.

Now, after that long winded thing, if you force me to say but yes, but what one book, it would be one that he wrote posthumously.

You know, he keeps, he kept writing after he passed away.

I thought I'd never finish the biography, but my favorite is, you know, that recordings were taken and transcribed and Life with Life Without Lack, his reflections on the 23rd Psalm might be.

If I had to just pick one for someone who didn't know Dallas well, where to start.

Probably Life Without Lack.

How many books did he write?

Oh, well, he's still, he's still 13 years old.

He's dead.

He still speaks.

They were the big five that, that I referenced in terms of the four critical concerns and, and then, but there's been, there's been many, three or four at least after he's passed away from his talks and lectures.

And then a lot of young scholars are coming along, like Michael Stewart, Robb and Keesler and others, and are writing great books about Alice.

You know, when you talk about the books that he's written, some assume that he's difficult to read.

Is that fair?

Yes.

What's your next question?

How about this one?

I'm kidding.

His writing is dense in the best possible sense of the term.

I don't think it's as tough as, as people say, but you want to, if you Normally read whatever 20 pages an hour, read him at a 10 page an hour rate or something like that.

And I have found personally that the fifth time through a book of his was a charm.

That's when I started to get it.

What misconceptions keep people from reading him.

I think the biggest one is they think that he is promoting works over grace, and that is not true.

I think some people are applying their pet modern theological interpretations, which gave us 35,000 different denominational groupings, to a person who is describing the vibrant Christian faith of the early centuries.

So they're just.

There's so many ways to say it.

I think what is missing is what I would consider a classic definition of salvation from the early centuries.

There's a chance that if you could travel back in time and have a conversation with someone from the second or third century and you introduce yourself as a Christian and in the conversation that came up.

So how would you define salvation?

I think most people would be blown away by what they heard.

But it's such a beautiful definition and salvation, they might say, what is that?

Well, that is the synergistic interplay of grace and participation on the healing journey back home to union with God.

That would also be a perfect description of Willard and the kingdom, not pinning Calvinists versus Arminians.

It is a.

A synergistic interplay of both.

It can't be done without grace.

Grace.

If you want to pick one thing that's more crucial, yes, of course, it's grace.

But it's the interplay of these on the healing journey, not instantaneous zap back home.

To what?

To union with God.

Well, what is that?

That is the end game of the.

Of the pathway of authentic Christian formation, transformation.

Well, that then leads to my next question and something you've already talked about a bit.

He said that one of the greatest issues facing the world is whether those who identify as Christians become disciples.

I would ask what he means, but we already kind of know what he means.

That we've been talking about converts for so long but not actually apprentices.

Is that right?

I think that's a great way to say it.

There's a great difference between making a crisis decision and learning how to turn all of one's life over to Jesus as a presence, friend, teacher, and most importantly, a reality.

Yeah.

Well, taking that into consideration for a moment, because there's been the critique of some of those who, I would say, come after him.

John Mark Comer.

There's been those who say, okay, there's a redefinition of maybe evangelism and then discipleship.

How did Dallas redefine discipleship for so many evangelicals?

I think I'm with you.

But the only thing that nothing troubles me about John Mark Comer, I like him very much and greatly respect his work.

But so maybe just one thing about.

I don't see it so much as a redefining those terms.

I see it as a recapturing of how it was defined and experienced in the ancient faith.

Faith.

So I think if it's a re.

I mean, once you get X number of thousands of denominations and everyone with Bible colleges founded after their pet theology and of course you're going to get.

You're going to trouble the waters if you're talking about something back in the time when there were no Baptists or Methodists or for that matter Catholic or Orthodox, they were just Christians.

So yes, he's.

I think he's bringing us back to that kind of understanding.

So.

Yeah, yeah.

Again, I'm not so sure.

He redefines as.

Emphasizes that all of this is still possible and it's an experiential reality or more of a.

Like rediscovers.

That might be a better way rediscovering what discipleship really is.

Yes.

Yeah.

Because he puts it in.

I mean, think about it.

If you stop and think about it.

I remember a long time ago when I had.

Both of our daughters were very young and Bible devotions had been important in the family I grew up in.

So I discovered once that if you lay all the scenes in the Synoptic gospels out in chronological order, there are 366 of them.

And that was just too good for me to pass up because that's one for every day of the year, plus sleep year.

So I wrote a widely unread series of four devotional books.

Books about a family of four getting on the wrong ride at an amusement park.

They travel back in time and they go through all the scenes in Jesus life and kind of an Ignatian, almost like an Ignatian type experience.

But.

But I'm getting lost in the details.

I'm working on this book.

I'm well into it.

We're into this last year of Jesus ministry on earth and there's a campfire scene.

I think it's around a campfire that it's not that important.

But his conversation with Peter.

Who do you say that I am?

Peter answers the question and Jesus says, blessed are you.

This wasn't revealed to you by flesh and blood.

And it just hit me like a ton of bricks.

Wait a minute.

This is two, two and a half years into the discipleship process.

Are you saying Jesus, you didn't explain the four spiritual laws the first night around a campfire.

What's going on here?

That, that, that's that is just kind of underscored to me the importance of what Dallas is saying.

This the separation between apprentice making and a crisis decision that has been made.

And by the way, it wasn't, you know, as you know.

Well, it wasn't.

Wasn't even done and settled at that point.

You know, Peter has a quite a difficult night.

The night that Jesus is arrested and denying the faith.

Only one of the disciples show up at the cross, is brave enough to show up.

Three women and John are the only ones that show up.

They still weren't ready to fully embrace all this until after the resurrection, it seems.

So anyway.

That's another long answer.

Sorry about that.

No, nothing to be sorry about.

I think about what you just joking around about the four spiritual laws.

And I wrote an article for our substack Deep Root Society and it was when did the gospel become a formula?

And it was interesting.

But you mentioned that Willard, he's kind of the C.S.

Lewis of America.

And I remember hearing Lewis gets asked near the end of his life, how would he sum up his ministry?

And I can't remember if he was asked if it was in two words or what, but he answered in two words.

And he said something very similar to Willard.

He said against reductionism.

And that's such a true statement.

It's just, you know, but in our culture today, we want just the facts.

I mean our capitalist, modernist, enlightenment, industrial revolution culture is very built on speed and minimizing it, making it efficient and continuing to move it on.

But yet Jesus is surprisingly and frustratingly inefficient in that he doesn't give us those things.

He instead invites us into a journey with Him.

But that leads me to go to the next question.

You know, how is his understanding?

And I'm talking about Willard now from simply just going to church and being a part of that, kind of checking that box and even.

Or having devotions.

How is his understanding different of that than it would be into to many.

Modern evangelicals, in the fewest words, because I owe you a brief answer.

Real presence, which very much is against reductionism.

And then I would, then I would go to his four critical concerns.

His, his.

His.

His four critical concerns is also a plan for disciple making.

How did Jesus make disciples?

Well, he found people who were learning to be with him, be in his presence first concern, so that they could learn directly from him.

Second concern, epistemic realism, so they could learn to be more like him, transformed from the inside out toward love of God and neighbor.

And so that they could pass that on, they could be more like him and pass that on.

The four critical concerns are crucial.

They are exactly the way Jesus made disciples.

Well, when even Jesus appears in Mark 1 14, 15, he says, repent and believe the good news for the kingdom of God has come.

So why was the kingdom of God, or how does his understanding, which is the central theme of his thought, this understanding of the kingdom of God, why was that so foundational for his thought?

Want?

Yeah, that's a good question, Travis.

I, I think it's.

I think the answer is very simple.

I think it was foundational for Dallas because it was foundational for Jesus.

And you probably read in articles or essays making the case that Jesus had a number one teaching point, that the kingdom of the heavens, the kingdom of God is present and available in a.

In a new and more accessible way.

Way.

It's here.

Paul had a number one teaching point.

And the first time I heard that, I thought, oh no, it's different from Jesus number one teaching point.

That can't be right.

But it's not different.

Paul, I think, was talking about the methodology of Christ in you the hope of glory or you in Christ the inness, because of the life, death, resurrection, Holy spirit within us.

So they both had the same teaching point.

But what is the kingdom?

The kingdom is a realm where the will of the king is done.

What is the journey towards spiritual formation, the process of us coming to believe that is in my best possible interest for there to be almost no gap between my will and the will of God, which requires a deep belief in the transforming friendship and the goodness of God to want that.

And so a brief visual imagery would be if they.

If you imagine a plate, but make it a gigantic plate that has almost no boundaries whatsoever, and imagine a saucer, a very microscopically small saucer, and you put the saucer on the plate, which is the way things were in the garden.

Two wills over time were to become one.

Our foreparents created in the image to grow in the likeness through relationship with.

But the saucer chose to be off the plate.

So now you have two kingdoms, two domains of will.

The kingdom of God didn't change, but now it is possible to have a separate will.

And we do, and we see how that worked out for the universe.

So at one level, spiritual formation is about getting the saucer back on the plate and Getting back to the conversations in the cool of the day between our foreparents and God.

It's.

Anyway, those are the first thoughts that come to mind.

You referenced spiritual formation, and that's become kind of a buzzword today.

Everybody talks about spiritual formation, but what did Dallas actually mean by it?

Because he's really one of the people that really kind of helped bring it on the map.

Well, I think.

Okay.

And I'm a little.

I can answer that, but I'm to speculate or kind of underscore again, I don't think he would have a bit of trouble.

I think he would celebrate that kind of ancient definition that the spiritual formation.

Well, okay, let's start with the word salvation.

Salvation.

As you know, the Greek word is sozo.

And yes, it means deliverance, but it also means healing, particularly the healing of our separation from living in union with God.

If sin is missing the mark, it begs the question, what is the mark?

Well, I think we've learned that it isn't necessarily a list of bad habits, which are bad habits, but they're far too small to be considered sin with a capital S. The mark is union with God.

The mark has never changed.

The.

The target of the arrow has never changed.

So if you talked about.

So what is salvation?

Well, the definition of salvation from the ancient faith is also a definition of spiritual formation.

Learning to be in a synergistic.

A journey of.

A synergistic interplay of grace and participation along the pathway back home to union with God.

He might also bring in, like Galatians 4:19 or something and say, where Paul is saying, my dear children, for whom I am again in pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.

It is Christ being formed in you.

It is a journey where the imago DEI create in the image of God, which didn't go away with the fall.

We didn't lose the image.

It became more difficult to grow in lightness.

So it is a process of growing in likeness to God, but from a more difficult starting place than Adam and Eve had.

Well, let's talk about that then.

Moving into grace.

Let's talk about grace here for a second.

Because he has famously said grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.

Why has that statement resonated with so many Christians?

I think the simple answer is because it is the.

It is the simple but so often unspoken truth.

How do you grow in grace?

If it's.

If it's a gift only, it is an opportunity.

It is so many things that are a gift.

But how do you grow in a gift by participating in it, same way you grow in a relationship.

You.

The gift is with the incarnation.

Jesus is doing a lot of things, but he is also saying, I am just watch through my presence with you, my life, death and resurrection, the return of the Holy Spirit.

That can be in you as a living counselor.

But it's going to require participation.

It's, It's.

It's a process.

It's.

It's school.

It's a journey.

How did Dallas keep this understanding of.

So the formation becoming legalism?

Because anybody can have their statement become legalistic and what they see becoming legalistic.

How did he keep it from happening that way?

Well, I think you quoted part of it as far as saying it's opposed to earning but not effort, but the other.

And I hope, I hope this works.

I'll try to tell this quickly.

This is a story from.

I think that comes to us from the second century.

And it's very much a paraphrase, but just brief version.

There's a.

Let's say there's a monk sitting on the edge of a large, very, very large lake.

And he's having internal debate about just the things we're talking about.

He's kind of asking himself and asking God, but I don't get it.

Which is more important is it is.

Is it, is it, is it is work and participation, or is it grace?

And he hears a voice that says, I will tell you on the other side of the lake.

So he first begins to engage with that voice and, and to speed the story up.

The voice directs him to some things that are needed.

A.

A dilapidated boat that needs attention, a finding a cell, hoisted and patched up and so forth.

And they go through quite a long process of working together.

And he's in the boat, it's got the sail, it's seaworthy, but then.

But nothing.

And then all of a sudden, the breeze starts blowing and he's.

It's kind of making the boat rock back and forth.

And the voice starts instructing, well, listen, this is how you can maneuver the sail.

This is how you can hoist it.

This is how you can catch the wind with it.

And he gets pretty good at it over time.

And if he goes from going back and forth to eventually, he's able to make progress, even sailing directly into the wind, tacking back and forth, gets the other side of the lake, gets out of the boat, sits down, and he says, wait a minute.

You said you would tell me on the other side of the lake.

Which is more important.

Grace and participation.

The voice says, what do you think?

And he said well, I guess it's grace.

I couldn't have done this without the boat being there.

I couldn't have done this without the wind.

And I guess grace voice says is that what you think?

And he says well, I did, I did.

I did things.

I assisted.

I did what you told me.

I followed your instructions and so I don't know.

And the voice says neither really.

I could have picked you up and dropped you on the other side of the lake take.

But you wouldn't have become what I most want you to become.

You learned how to be a sailor.

You learned how to trust my voice.

We developed a friendship that it's the wrong question.

Is it grace or participation?

And the ancient faith knew this.

They wouldn't be bothered.

They would say, well what kind of question is that?

It's both, of course, but that's not the point.

The point isn't to obtain a get out of hell free card.

The point is the restoration of a relationship.

For the divine spark to over time burst into flame and for there to be a growth in likeness.

Which is for us one of the most important parts of.

As I shared this in a pre show walkthrough with Missio holism, who you're becoming in the process, that's exactly it is that God is so concerned with who you're becoming as you're becoming more and more like him and moving more and greater way to that union.

We were just trying to find language, drawing on Dallas because Dallas had a huge influence on how we see things.

Because again for us the whole part of who we are, who we are is part of the mission of God.

Who we're becoming, how we're living in the world, how we're showing his reign in the new creation, all moving to that union and removing that gap between again our will and God's.

I think that's pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty amazing thing.

But going back for a moment because you knew him personally, what was he really like away from the classroom?

Because we know there's the public person and then there's who you get to really know.

I mean was there a difference in who he was away from the classroom?

Well, those were some of my favorite moments.

Only wish I had had more of those moments.

At one level, no he was there in one level there wasn't a difference other than outside the classroom he might have you experienced him as being even more humorous or, or more fun loving or.

But all always focused on the person in front of him and still, still brilliant.

No, it just was.

I wouldn't say there's.

There was any difference.

It was just more one on one, interactive, more aware of humanity and the humanity of.

Well, then, here's the next question I have.

What surprised you most about him?

But even, even after moving to Santa Barbara to direct an institute that in part was named after him, or at least the center that was.

And even beginning to work on the biography, there was still a surprise to come because I think like so many other people, I had mostly experienced him after he was 50 years old and was speaking in precise sentences and definitions and seemed to have read every book that had ever been written and seem to have most of scripture committed to memory.

That's an exaggeration, but probably not much of one.

The, the.

The word in the biography.

Becoming.

Becoming Dallas Willard.

Talking to people who raised him after his mom died when he was a little over two years old.

And it was.

Spent a lot of time with different kind of caretakers and so forth.

And he was very much a rural Missouri boy.

And just, it just made him feel more accessible that this was a journey.

And, and I think, I think a lot of the best of what came from that journey, that becoming part.

So I mean a lot of, I think was, was motivated like for the rest of us in, in pain, there was, there was a little more pain than I would have thought.

And, and it just, it, I was just, I was just stupid to even think this way, but just kind of expect that in kindergarten he was probably teaching the other students with precise definitions and philosophical answers, but just the, yeah, his own becoming journey.

And that filled me with great hope for me and for anybody that might read it that yeah, this is a journey anybody can be on.

You don't have to be a PhD with a mega, you know, mega genius.

What quality do people rarely mention that you think defined him?

Oh boy.

I'm not sure I could come up with just one thing that defined him.

I think most of what comes to mind, we've already talked about it, maybe might say someone who spent his life searching for answers, searching to the same four questions which I believe and why I think that's so important is he started so early on this journey and all the questions were classic.

I think the questions that were his concerns are the four foundational pillars of Christianity.

And I have spoken to people, a lot of people who, whose church life is very Much like that of the ancient faith in the early centuries.

And when they hear these concerns, they realize, oh, oh, I get what you're talking about.

And they can't believe that he never was a part of a church out of that tradition as far as being a member.

But it's just.

It's.

Anyway, yeah, I would say what defined him is his search for truth and what he had designated as the four kind of.

You can't have four true norths.

But those four questions.

As a true north of the search,.

What would you say to pastors today who are out there pastoring, but yet they just feel really burned out as they're trying to think through, what do I do?

How can Dallas help them?

Well, I think, and you already mentioned John Mark Comer, but I think John Mark wrote a book based on this very question, because Dallas would undoubtedly say that you must find a way to ruthlessly eliminate hurry.

That's easier to say than to do.

So that often the doing part often involves reviewing your vision.

Dallas like to talk about the VIM model that any.

Any significant complicated new learning requires VIM vision, intention and means.

And so if someone has a problem such as burnout, I would say, okay, well, let's go back and let's look at the most important part of that formula vision.

I want to.

Let's.

Let's review your vision of God.

Let's review your vision of yourself.

Let's review your vision of salvation.

Is your view of God both magnificent and loving enough?

Is your view of yourself both magnificent and beloved enough?

And is your view of salvation at as much at home in a hospital as a courtroom?

Because I would think that if there's vision issues, that might be what's driving the difficulty in eliminating hurry.

Taking that from the pastors, then into the church.

Because I do think we need to eliminate that hurry.

I mean, even the early church, one of the things that I found fascinating is that they said, Jesus was never in a hurry and we won't be either.

I love that.

And I think Comer has picked that up.

But we know that there's this idea of living the Christian life, talking about these things, but yet people have bought the elephant.

Now they have to feed it.

In other words, the church has to move, just like I think when Covid happened.

And some people are saying, hey, we need to get back.

We got to get this engine moving.

Because economics plays such a huge role in our.

Our daily lives, and churches need money to go on, so they're concerned with attendance and branding and success.

What do you believe that Dallas would be saying to those churches that are thinking about attendance and branding and success?

Yeah, I think this may sound flippant.

I don't mean it flippant at all.

I think he would say something along the lines of, Jesus offers a treatment strategy for that type of ego illness.

Now that sounds harsh.

I know that sounds harsh, but I think that you probably just want to sit down and say, let's look at why these things are so important.

And might there be a possibility of focusing on qualitative growth with some hope that with that the rest will follow.

He might bring in a quote from someone like Seraphima Sarov that says something like, let one person truly find peace and thousands around them will find their salvation.

I think is, why are you doing all these energy consuming things about attendance and branding and success?

Why don't you do what Milton Hershey did and for 100 years didn't have to spend a dime on market.

Just make a.

Just make good chocolate.

Everybody wants it.

The word will get out.

Just produce people that actually know the way to abundant living here and now.

And forget marketing.

See, that's, that's the part of like a key for us.

And what we're doing is going back to the early church, the only Bible people read, right?

That's it.

Because I've talked to so many people, they're like, well, we need to get Bible in people's hands.

And I'm not against that.

But my issue is not the Bible being read, it's people letting the Bible read them and transform them on the inside out.

And that's why to me, formation is so key for a church.

I was talking to this pastor who came kind of in that kind of a purpose driven model and he's saying it was always evangelism all the time.

And the people were dying on the vine.

They want to go deeper, they want to understand, they want to become more like Jesus.

Jesus.

And I said, you have to flip the script.

You're 90% evangelism and 10% formation.

You need to get 90% formation and 10% evangelism.

Now I know that sounds a little crazy.

And again, percentages don't always play out.

But my point is, is that who are you becoming in the process?

Because you're right, the proof is in the pudding.

It's like if something is beautiful to you, you share it.

And if you're being transformed, people will know it.

And you don't need to tell everybody.

I mean, you should, but it's so noticeable and yet it seems that we've gone the opposite way today.

And part of that is just our capitalistic culture where it's just drive.

We have to produce.

We have to, again, feed the elephant.

We got to feed it, feed it, feed it.

And what has been in the process is if we notice that discipleship has been weaned and weaned and weaned and weaned down to just get them to pray the prayer.

And what we've done is we've cultivated consumer consumers and not disciples.

How can we cultivate disciples?

Get back to cultivating disciples and not consumers.

Well, I want to say something.

I don't know what you're.

Go for it.

Just say it.

Your listenership is out.

Is like.

So please forgive me in advance if this offends anyone.

I say you start with stop feeding the elephant and get it the hell out of sanctuary.

Oh, that's funny.

But that's going to take them.

That's going to take, you know, means.

And I agree, what you said about 90 should be about formation.

I think 90 of that 9% should be.

And this is a pretty much a Dallas quote, should be about vision.

Vision of God, vision of yourself, vision of salvation, if you get that right.

And people are on a journey that's actually producing what everybody on the planet wants, a life with more love and peace and joy.

There is no place the elephant is not needed and he needs to quit eating up all the bananas.

Okay, so how about this one?

I mean, you've already talked about the reading order of how people would recommend.

But I want to know personally, what book of Dallas has changed your life the most?

Most.

Well, that's easy to answer, but it's only because it was the first one I read.

I read Spirit the disciplines back in.

I think it was like 88 or 89.

It was.

I went through Fuller with.

We were in class together, shared an office together last year, but with John Ortberg and the.

About three years after graduating, somebody put a copy of that book in both of our hands on the same weekend.

And we both read it and just changed the directory of things.

But it was because it was the first one.

In fact, I liked it so much, even though it was a little bit dense.

I stopped reading it after the first three chapters because I was afraid to read anymore.

I was afraid I would never have another original idea.

And then after about a month, I started thinking that original ideas are overrated.

And about a month after finish.

No, I hadn't even finished it.

And I wrote 15 people, Dallas being one.

And I'm like, I don't know, whatever, 31 years old or something.

And I write just out of blue, I write 15 people and ask them to be part of something that I wanted to start where I was teaching, called an institute of clinical theology.

14 To 15 said yes immediately.

The 15th eventually did, and Dallas was the first letter back.

And so he, he was the speaker for the first conference on, under the banner of clinical theology in the U.S. but so anyway, that book was the first, but I can't say that it was.

I think they're all equally important because something's missing without all of them, because they each are tied to those four critical concerns.

After all these years, what do you think that Dallas's greatest contribution to Christianity will ultimately be?

Well, it's kind of summarizing what we said.

I guess I would say that he was, he will.

That he is a modern day reformer who taught the modern church the quote, unquote, secrets of the ancient faith that were all, all hiding in plain sight.

I mean, you think about it when, I mean, you know, of course Dallas was also very much integral to the birth of Renavari.

What is the elevator speech or in a varia or what has it been for many years?

It's presenting a practical strategy and a balanced vision for authentic change and transformation.

Well, what is that practical strategy?

The classic spiritual disciplines.

And then what is that balanced vision?

Well, actually it's treating all the six great streams of living water, as Richard Foster might call it, all flowing from the life of Jesus, flowing through the centuries of the church, not trying to pit one against the other, but treating them more like a food group.

It's not which one is better.

It's like what's missing from my diet if I'm not consuming from all six of them.

So those things are going back and mining the centuries of the best of church history, the best of spiritual theology, and bringing them to a modern audience.

I think that's what they did and are doing.

Gary, you've spent years helping people discover Dallas.

Willard.

And if someone listens to this conversation today and decides to read Dallas for the very first time, what do you hope happens in their lives?

Life?

Oh, I, I hope they will put the book down at any place that seems wor, that promotes this and look up toward the ceiling and say thank you.

All the things I was hoping were true about Christianity are.

That's a good word and that's a good water bottle.

Gary, thank you for joining us on the show today.

I really hope this conversation inspires people to not only pick up the book Becoming Dallas Willard, but to discover Dallas's own writings.

You know, his vision of life and the kingdom of God has helped countless Christians move beyond merely believing in Jesus to actually apprenticing themselves to Him.

If you've never read, read Dallas Willard, let this be your invitation.

Start somewhere, read slowly, read prayerfully, and don't just admire his ideas.

Put them into practice.

If today's episode is encouraged, you subscribe to Ministry Deep Dive.

Leave a review and share it with someone who wants to grow deeper in their walk with Christ.

This is Travis Michael Fleming signing off.

Stay watered, everybody.