Sean McGever

Sean McGever describes himself as a “jack of all trades — master of very little.” We’re not convinced of the last part of that title, but he certainly has an impressive repertoire of skills and experiences. Despite his love for math, music, sports and reading, he somehow has still had the time to earn his Ph.D. in systematic and historical theology, serve as the area director of Young Life in Arizona, and write four books, the latest of which digs into the troubling relationship between historical evangelical leaders and slavery. Sean’s academic yet practical and carefree personality shines through each of his answers in today’s interview. So join us for a fascinating conversation about Chicago deep-dish pizza, the daily discipline of listening to God and the films, songs and sermons that are adding a new dimension to his faith and career.

QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT

There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?

Nowadays, if my family and I are heading out and I’m picking dinner, you can find us at Lou Malnati’s Pizza. They are famous for their deep-dish Chicago-style pizza. It is a chain of stores from the Chicago area that reminds me of my mom’s hometown in Wheaton. When I was a child, she told me endless wild and idyllic stories of her youth in the Chicagoland area alongside her seven rambunctious brothers and sisters. Lou’s (as we call it) only came to my town about a decade ago, but it quickly became a place for me to remember both my mom’s childhood and my own.

Like many people, pizza has always been my go-to favorite meal — but my preference goes a little deeper. As an only child of a single mother, my mom would hand me a $10 bill as she left for her shift as a waitress for the night. Each night, I called the same local pizza place. When I called, I only needed to say “hi.” They knew my voice within one word. They would reply, “Hey Sean, we know your order and address — we will be there in 30 minutes or less.” All I had to say was, “Hi.” Pizza is a snapshot of my childhood.

mechanical pencil, graph paper, trigonometry book — Lum3n; Pexels

QUESTION #2: REVEAL

We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activity (or activities) do you love engaging in, which also helps you find essential spiritual renewal?

I have so many side interests that I rarely mention them at all to people. Jack of all trades — master of very little. I love math: despite my wife’s wise advice to throw them away, I still have my partial differential equations textbooks from my engineering undergrad degree. I love music: I own and play drums, guitar, bass, mandolin, banjo and a little piano. I’m good enough to impress a stranger, but not much beyond that. I love sports: I’ve coached high school basketball for 22 years at the same school, I golf, I ran two marathons last year and I played high school tennis. I love learning: lots of degrees, books and writing. I know that all sounds like a flex, but here’s the thing: I still want to do more but can’t.

I think my endless desire to do so many things is a symptom of an issue that runs through a lot of my writing. My Ph.D. was published as “Born Again: The Early Evangelical Theologies of Conversion of John Wesley and George Whitefield” (Lexham Press). It emphasizes that humans are not in control of our salvation. My book “The Good News of Our Limits: Find Greater Effectiveness through God’s Gift of Inadequacy” (Zondervan) is explicit about our human finitude. I wrote a book that examines the temptation to manipulate people and ourselves in our efforts to share Jesus: “Evangelism: For the Care of Souls” (Lexham Press). At the core of my most recent book, “Ownership: The Evangelical Legacy of Slavery in Edwards, Wesley, and Whitefield” (IVP), is the terrifying reality of what happens when we think we control another person.

All of my books help me see, in different ways, that I am designed to be finite before an infinite God. I can’t do or have everything I want.

QUESTION #3: CONFESS

Every superhero has a weakness. Every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you hide it?

My biggest strength is likely my biggest weakness: I just keep going. From a very young age, in almost every environment, I was thrust into leadership positions. While I’m skilled at leadership, I realize in retrospect that I simply do whatever needs to happen to get a job done.

An employer put me through a detailed personality and work-type evaluation early in my professional career. When I met with the psychologist to debrief the findings, most of the things he shared didn’t surprise me — except one thing. The psychologist told me that I was so low on the “worry scale” that he was concerned. He said most people worry a lot more than me — and that worry is a good and healthy thing most of the time. My lack of worry helped me understand why I didn’t mind taking on new and significant challenges — it had been a huge “strength” in my life and career. (Also, to be clear, I do worry, but it just shows up less and in different ways than most people.)

Yet, my lack of worry is also a weakness because often there are things we should worry about. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed that there is much wisdom in pausing, in saying no to opportunities, in slowing down and assessing. Sometimes I shouldn’t “just keep going.”

QUESTION #4: FIRE UP

Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?

Recently, my book “Ownership: The Evangelical Legacy of Slavery in Edwards, Wesley, and Whitefield” was released. I’m thrilled and humbled that leading historians, theologians and church leaders have found it accurate, compelling, readable and useful.

From the moment the idea for this book started brewing in my head, I immediately began anticipating — and worrying about — the feedback and response. Since the book was released, I’ve participated in numerous interviews, podcasts and public discussions about important, sensitive and often very personal issues related to slavery, evangelicalism and race relations.

What I didn’t anticipate was the people who reached out to me privately to share with me how the book has helped them in their journey. I’ve heard stories from people who want to hold on to their faith in Jesus but have struggled to do so because they discovered Christianity’s unsettling history and complicity with slavery and other issues — and really didn’t know how to process it. I’ve found that many people in this situation have few balanced resources to lean upon. Many people I’ve spoken to sense that writers, pastors and leaders take overly simplistic and inaccurate positions on Christianity’s relationship to slavery. I’m honored that many people have found my book to be a careful, honest and accurate historical and personal guide through this topic.

QUESTION #5: BOOST

Cashiers, CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?

Over the years, I’ve paid more and more attention to listening. I can often sense God at work when I listen harder. This happens most often when I listen to the person in front of me, but it also happens when I listen to the words on the page of a book (or a screen) I’m reading.

I believe that God is always at work around us — kind of like the cellphone and wifi signals that swirl around us without us recognizing them. When I was younger, a mentor had me read Brother Lawrence’s “The Practice of the Presence of God.” To be honest, I don’t recall many of the details except that Brother Lawrence knew that God was always present and always at work — even when doing the mundane tasks that monks like himself did all day. My world is much busier and more dynamic than Brother Lawrence’s — or so it seems. Our lives are only different on the surface. Beneath the varied surface details of our lives, God’s sustained activity hasn’t changed. This is why I listen harder than I used to.

I’ve found focused attention to be a great gateway to experiencing God’s activity. It isn’t only listening — although that is important; the best way to see God’s activity in people’s lives is to ask them follow-up questions. Listening is not only a task for the ears; it is also a task for our voice. Follow-up questions serve as a shovel to dig and reveal a rushing river a few feet beneath the surface of the ground. When I’m reading, I can’t ask questions, but I often jot notes and pause to look up further information or send a message to a friend that sets me off on a journey to see what God might be up to in my life or in the lives of others.

QUESTION #6: inspire

Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you right now?

I have no secret spiritual shortcuts — the core practices that work for me are daily Scripture reading and frequent internal prayer.

Many years ago, I found the One Year Bible reading plan and format to work for me. I have to have the physical One Year Bible in my hands. I read it every morning. Since it is broken up into four parts — Old Testament, New Testament, Psalm and Proverb — the diversity usually has me noticing something each day; I feel like a “one out of four” lightbulb moment is a good minimal expectation. But I also treat Scripture like food — you just have to have it every day. Like meals, I rarely remember what I had in the last month, week or even yesterday. But if I were to miss a few days of food, my stomach would be screaming at me. For me, daily Scripture reading — even if it is brief — helps keep me from feeling like I’m spiritually starving. With that said, there are days and sometimes weeks when I get behind. I don’t beat myself up; I just get back at it.

My prayer life is pretty invisible. If I was one of those crazy YouTubers that had a camera on me 24/7, you might think that I never pray. But I do. My good friend Dan told me in high school, “Turn your thought life into your prayer life,” and that has worked for me. Yes, there are times when my prayers are more obvious and structured — sometimes I turn to the prayers in the “Book of Common Prayer” — but for me, my daily prayer life is much less formal.

QUESTION #7: FOCUS

Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed the game and changed your heart? What radically altered your life? What changed your reality?

I find it really difficult to put a finger on a few books that are on my Mount Rushmore right now, so I’ll go in a slightly different direction and share three movies that continue to shape me.

1. “The Shawshank Redemption”: When Andy Dufresne crawls out of the filthy sewer pipe with arms raised to the heavens and rain cleans him off drop by drop, I just lose it. I don’t know what it is about Stephen King, the author behind the movie, but he gets something about redemption that a lot of people need.

2. “Silence”: The only thing I knew about this movie before watching it was that it was about Jesuit missionaries. I suggested to my wife and teenage children that we watch it while we ate dinner one night. I’ll never live that decision down. The movie is brutal — absolutely brutal and haunting spiritually. There are many layers to it that took me weeks to think and rethink until I finally came to peace with what I thought it really meant. The struggle was worth it. Years later, my family and I, especially my son (who studies literature in college), continue to discuss it.

3. “Good Will Hunting”: The first time I watched this movie, I was fascinated by the math and the on-screen and off-screen friendship between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. I’ve seen the movie a few dozen times now. As I’ve processed my life with the Lord and helped others do the same, the movie reminds me of the many layers of complications that factor into the major and minor turning points in our lives. It has helped me be patient and gracious with myself and others.

We all have things we cling to to survive (or even thrive) in tough times — times like these! Name one resource you’re savoring and/or finding indispensable in this current season, and tell us what it’s doing for you.

1. Music is important to me. My favorite band is Radiohead. If you haven’t listened to their album “In Rainbows,” you should. It has energetic songs and slow songs and creates a strong immersive experience that I listened to on repeat during an important season of my life. I also have to add that Rich Mullins’ album “Songs” does the same thing for me but in a much different way.

2. I enjoy the sermons at Progressive Baptist Church by Dr. Charlie Dates. If you see me on my neighborhood jog and notice me raising my hands in praise (like I’m at church) and clapping — it is because I’m listening to one of his sermons.

3. When I need to switch gears in my mind or emotions, I like to grab the newest guitar in my house: a Lowden S02. I came across it in a music store in downtown Belfast. Later that year, my family surprised me by giving it to me for my birthday. It is a small-bodied simple guitar with an amazing sound and simplicity to it that I love.

QUESTION #8: dream

God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?

Two things have been stirring in my head recently. The first is that my wife and I will soon be empty-nesters. That seems like a huge new chapter in our lives. It is scary and exciting. The second thing is the bundle of new writing projects that I’m planning right now. Topics include: theological method, parenting, youth and family ministry, leadership skills and a new look at the history of evangelism.

When a friend is sharing their story with you, what do you do to show you’re actively listening? You might nod your head, offer an occasional understanding grunt, or even crinkle your eyebrows — just a bit — on cue.

These gestures are meaningful, but active listening is far more complex. Experts define it as “when you not only hear what someone is saying but also attune to their thoughts and feelings.” This kind of active listening goes beyond superficial understanding and reaches for a person’s heart, and it’s what makes people feel valued, heard and loved.

Earlier in this interview, Sean shared why he works hard to intentionally listen to God. Ask yourself: What if I applied true active listening to my relationship with Jesus? How would that change my time with him? How would that impact my ordinary routines? If possible, take five minutes right now and ask God to show you how to actively listen to him — what he has to say may just transform your prayer life.