Together at the table. The podcast from Integrity Music, where people around the world sit at their tables and talk about life in all its colours.

Not to judge, but to love, share, listen, and learn.

Whether you're.

Rich or poor.

We all sit at a table.

When we gather, everyone has a part to play in the conversation.

Join us now as we share stories together at the table. Welcome to Together at the Table, the podcast from Integrity Music that brings you inspiring conversations with remarkable individuals. I'm Andrew Phillips, your host. Today I'm talking with Tim Timons, a worship leader and songwriter. Tim Timons' life has always been one of adventure, and after two decades of ministry and a lifetime of looking for Jesus, he's no stranger to pain, sorrow, failure, joy, and hope, having fought a cancer diagnosis for over 20 years. Since his debut album released in 2013, his music has been coloured by a newfound purpose of living each day to its fullest, practising a full life with Jesus. Tim started a non-profit weekly, encouragements, and a podcast called 10,000 Minutes with the premise of inspiring, inviting and equipping people to practice joining Jesus all week long. He's married to Hillary, with whom he has four children, two daughters and two sons. Tim's greatest desire, whether the catalyst is his cancer diagnosis, his theology, his podcast, or his songs, is to keep the conversation going so people can discover for themselves the real life found in Jesus. Tim, welcome to The Table.

Awesome. Thank you.

This podcast is based on Luke 11:37, where Jesus had finished speaking and a pharisee invited him to eat with him. He went in and reclined at the table. One of the things I like to do at the beginning of the show is get the guest to actually invite Jesus to the table. Would you pray now and invite Jesus to our table?

Oh, gosh. With my eyes open, I just say, Jesus, we're going to join you today. Thanks that we get to hang at your table all of us listening or sitting at this table. What an honour.

Amen. Amen. I want to start with by talking about the table you work at. Tell me about how you work. That table that you sit at every day and become Tim Timmons. Tell me about it.

Well, I'm really good looking because I'm bald and Jesus was bald. I feel like we're starting off well. That's all I'm saying. Gosh, what table do I... Give me more on that question.

Okay. So if you were defining your work at a table you work at, the irony is that Jesus was a carpenter, so he actually made tables. He probably knew what they were like. He made them, and he sat on them. So you work on a daily basis, and figuratively speaking, you come to a table of work. Yeah. So what do you do?

Yeah. I really have three jobs, if you will, that are part of my table, and then my home is the table. My kids' playing basketball with my kids is a table. I go on walks with guys most mornings, and that sounds like a real Christian term, like we're walking together. But I just mean, we literally go on walks. That to me is a table where we're just hanging out and we are joining Jesus as we're on a walk. I get to write songs and try to figure out how do we write these prayers that we're singing that I get to sing and that we, the church, get to sing all week long. That's part of my table. I could do that with other people. Part of that is cowriting is a really fascinating experience because you're really sitting around with your instruments, but you're really at a table together, whether there's a table or not. Because you're going through, here are the things I'm struggling with. Here's how I see that Jesus and who we are as the church, not just as individuals, it's just really where you hash out, agree and disagree on things, and then say, okay, now what prayer can we write and can we pray out of this?

I love that table. I get to do podcasts for my 10,000 Minutes ministry, nonprofit. I'm in a bunch of things, which is so fun just to be curious. I really want to hang out with curious people. I guess I've just been around a religious side of things with a lack of curiosity. Gosh, the table is filled with curiosity. Food in and of itself, if we just started there, I actually want to do a podcast with just curious people, which would be chefs and artists and different people. I'm like, Hey, what does it look like to just create and be curious about food or whatever?

Yeah.

Then I'm a part of a, which I never thought I would be again, a local church community. I'm a part-time pastor at this local church here in Nashville. It's been so beautiful. The only thing we do, the whole community that is based on the table, actually, right? If you say, Hey, do you have small groups? Do you have… They're like, Nope, all we have are tables. I think we could hang out and go bowling, you and me. But it's just every week, every month, we have a new table. I had people in my house two nights ago, group of 10 people that I didn't really know well, and now we do. Every month, we're getting to know our church by just being a part of a table.

It's almost something we do every day in so many ways. You're right. I just love the way you've broken down to how many tables you have. I want to focus on one table, which is your family table. Let's talk about that. That's the table that you and your two daughters, two sons probably, and your wife meet at and friends. Talk to me about that table. What traditions and approach do you have to that table? What do you do always the same?

Oh, the same. I don't know what we do always the same. I think we ask a lot of questions. That's a hope and something that I hope my kids come away with is the art of asking good questions to each other. Now, I wish I would say, Man, it's all my kids. We just sit and ask each other questions, which is just not true because we're 16, 14, and then we had a surprise pregnancy that were twins. We call them the twins, and that's the boy, girl, twins, they're 12. It's chaotic and crazy. The one thing that is the greatest joy in my life is parenting. The hardest thing I do is parenting in my life. But yeah, I would say my hope is that they're seeing, by example, what it looks like to be curious about each other. That they know that I'm curious about them because I love them for all the things. Yeah, I wish that I would say that we would... Gosh, they would really love our prayer time, which would be amazing. But I think we've tried to be less dogmatic. Makes it sound bad, so I wish there was another word.

Systematized on how we spiritually raise our kids. It's just become part of the liturgy of our conversation, which I love, which I think is a good thing. Maybe in 10 years, I'll come back and go, You guys don't do it that way. Because I think I was raised where in some ways, in that time, I was like, Have you guys all prayed together? Have you done all the things? It's like, Well, praying, I'm going to open my eyes more when I pray. If it really is an all-day thing and you're with Jesus all week long, how do we just be with them all week long as a family?

You know how when you get to the table, you get to the table and you come from different perspectives: jobs, work, school, whatever. How do you prepare yourself to be at the table? The attitude that you want to have for your family and your kids?

Yeah. One practical thing is I write an X on my wrist every day just with a Sharpie. Some doctor told me at one point, I said, Am I going to get sick doing this? He's like, You might get sharpieitis. Literally, I bit for a second and I'm like, Oh, you're being an idiot. You're totally joking. There's no such thing as sharpieitis. But I write this on my wrist for the past probably 12 years for a bunch of reasons. One of them is just I woke up again today, which I'm not supposed to be here just for cancer diagnosis and what's still in my body. But I got another day, and I get to hang with you at this table at this moment and celebrate that. If I get to be at my next table at the next meeting or whatever, then awesome. But this is what I got. In this moment, this is where I am. This is my reminder of, Tim, don't go anywhere else. Just hang here. Join Jesus at this table. That's your only job today, Tim. But I move so quickly past that. I get to a place of like, Well, what about tomorrow?

What about this other stuff? What about my finances? What about X, Y, Z? I lose the moment, being curious in the moment as I'm curiously sitting here with Jesus and with you. That changes things. I also say this often that with my ex, it's part of my sobriety. I don't mean with alcohol or all the other things. I get drunk on my daily circumstances or how my kids respond to something or don't respond to something. I literally get hammered just all out drunk. Sobriety is saying, Jesus, what are you up to? I just want to join you in it. What a waste for me to let this take me out completely. Hence me writing this on my wrist going, Okay, Tim, you've got another day. It's not about you or your kingdom today. What a waste of time if it's about my kingdom today.

One of the things that Jesus did, I think, with tables, He spent a lot of time at them. People could bring whatever they were to that table and put it there, hopefully leave it there. But they brought it there. Can I ask you, how did you feel the day you brought cancer to your table and it changed your life and your family?

Oh, next question? No, I don't know how to answer that other than that was one of the most sobering days of my life, sobering seasons of my life. When you're told you've got five years to live, I was 22 or 23, I think 23. Gosh, there's so much in that season that I remember coming to this place of saying, Okay, God, you're either God or you're not. Because I was an awesome, varsity American Christian up until that point. Just awesome. Try to beat me at being so awesome as being a Christian. Then it was like, Uh-oh, does this thing work or is he God or is he not? Is he good or is he not? And then what's my response? That's the place that I came to when that all hit. I mean, so much more to that. I'm sure. Yeah, it wrecked us in a lot of ways and was also beautiful. Yeah, my wife had a major wrestling match with God for a few years. Gosh, thankfully, she did. I'm so happy that she did, and I was able to wrestle in just a real vulnerable way that that was allowed?

A question I'm almost frightened to ask, and there is something personal with me. My dear father was a minister, and he died of cancer Christmas Eve, stage four for three years. This year? Christmas of last year. So sorry. Wonderful man. Beautiful man. Obviously, he prayed for the pain to go away, but it didn't. But he never lost his faith and hope in who God was, which I have been impacted on dramatically. Yeah, I bet. I wanted to ask you, has the experience, do you think it's made you a better person or not?

Yes. I wouldn't trade this for anything in the world. Now, with that statement, cancer is stupid. Cancer is so dumb. There's nothing awesome. There's no celebration of cancer. We're like, Oh, it was a good thing, or really, God wanted to give you this. All the stuff that Christians say, That's another podcast. That's a table I might turn over. But I wouldn't trade what and who I've become and who I'm becoming in the midst of this. I think my wife would say she would probably dare to say the same thing. I recently was teaching on the four soils that Jesus talks about, and I really see myself as all four soils all day long, really. But I was talking about the four soils and I was looking up soil. In the soil, it talked about manure. I was like, Well, that's cool. I looked up manure like, Who doesn't? The definition of manure was the softening agent to hardened soil. Wow! I hear you. So manure happens, and it's going to happen all the time, and it always is happening. If it's not happening at the moment, wait a week, it's coming. What do we do with it?

Not that we don't grieve, and I'm learning how to grieve and be thankful at the same time. It's just part of my process. But what if manure happens, the stuff in life is actually one of the greatest gifts? Because it's the only way that something actually grows beautiful is through manure. The other agent that it talked about is that manure is the agent that holds all the nutrients into the plant. The plant can grow beautifully and full because the manure is there. Because when the rains come and the wind comes, it holds all the nutrients together in the plant so the plant can stay alive and be more beautiful. I was floored by that idea. And so as I look at my stuff and I still say, God, please take this. And in the same breath, I'm saying, You woke me up again today. I don't know why I got to wake up again today. I don't know why you got to wake up again today. Whoever's listening, who knows why we got to wake up again? I don't know how God works. If He gives things as He takes things away. I used to have all the answers.

I don't have the answers anymore. But I do know that I woke up again today and I get to join him in my day, period. Whatever table I'm at, I get to join him right this X on my wrist is going, Tim, just join him. You don't have to work for him. Just join him today.

Well, thanks for sharing that. I appreciate that. I was going to ask you this then. You described that the manure is the perfect soil for planting. So what did you plant?

What did I plant? I don't know if I planted anything. I just know that I'm in manure and my soil, or the four soils. I'm wanting my soil to be... I'm wanting my plant and the fruit that comes off of my limbs, if I'm merely a branch in John 15, that's my role is just to be connected to the vine. And that there's going to be manure that happens that helps that vine grow. I mean, we're mixing metaphors and things, yet there's still some beauty in there. I don't know what I'm growing. I'm just trying to be attached well. And we all... The reason why so many of my friends are no longer following Jesus or part of the religious thing that we're somewhat affiliated to, barely, I'm on the edge of it, is because stuff, manure has happened, and we, as Jesus people, have not had good answers. We've just given them some Christian quip and said, get over it, figure it out. Our friend, her brother just died. All these Christian people are now reaching out to her saying God really needed another one in heaven or whatever dumb stuff that Christians seem to say.

That poor friend is on the edge going, Really? Is this what we're going to do? Is that the hospitality of a table? Is that sitting with Jesus at a table in the midst of our grief? How do we do that well? Gosh, I just went on a little tangent.

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Together at the table. Hi, Andrew Phillips here. We've put together a resource for you to take your podcast experience to the next level. You can now bring the heartwarming conversations from our podcast to your very own table. Introducing the Together at the Table PDF Listening guide. This guide provides a deeper insight into our series and offers you the chance to host your very own Together at the Table gathering. Inside, you'll find all the thought provoking questions we discuss in every episode. Use these questions to create meaningful conversations with your friends and family just as we do on the podcast. It's a great way to connect and grow together. Download your copy now by going to integritymusic. Com/togetheratthetable. We'd love you to share your responses with us. What insights did you gain and what conversations were sparked around your table? We've set up a voicemail so you can get in touch and tell us about your stories from your table. Call 1607-96 table. That's 1607-968-2253. We look forward to sharing your stories and thoughts on a future episode. Thank you for being part of this beautiful community.

Together at the table. Jesus often dined with people. In fact, they said he was a friend of publicers and sinners.

And.

Tax collectors. And tax collectors. The worst. Exactly. But he spent time with the marginalized, the people that nobody wanted, the people who weren't allowed at tables. He deliberately went to their tables. My question to you, Tim, is how do you get the marginalized to your table, or do you?

Yes. I think there are seasons of that in some ways in our lives. Hillar and I, I was a pastor at a really large church in Orange County, California, and did that for 15 years, and it was a great experience. I just had a lot of questions about, Okay, Jesus, number one, are you real? What do you care about? Because we're killing it on our Sunday morning services. I mean, killing it. But there are 10,000 other minutes until we gather again. Who are we? Who are the people that are here? We ended up leaving that church community and we went to this... We started going to this motel, this nasty motel near our town. The motel had all these prostitutes and pimps and homeless people and people that would live in this motel, 10 kids in this one motel room. I was like, Okay, she does that for a living with other dudes. I play a guitar for a living, but we're both trying to figure out if Jesus is real. And if the kingdom bless her, the poor in spirit, the people that do not fit in our communities like this woman who is a prostitute, she would not fit going to that community or into most places, Jesus places.

And yet, gosh, what if that's the great invitation that I'm just on equal ground? I mean, that's the beauty of communion. If her and I are both taking communion, it's because we're both equal. Hiller and I have really tried to figure out how do we stay in those places. I really think Jesus would be hanging those places more than other spots. Gosh. Yeah, there are so many. I have so many thoughts about that. But that's so beautiful, and that is such a Jesus way. And also the marginalized, that can be a race comment. That can be the immigrants that are coming in people that are not allowed here and loved here. We're getting some dirty, thick water here. But gosh, where would Jesus be? I don't know how protective he is of his rights. He surely was not all-just say this. Jesus did not protect his rights. But we Christians think our rights are something to hold on to and fight for. Yet the kingdom is about service. Anyways, you're getting the deep waters. Different podcast. But yes, Jesus is so beautiful and radical, and I want to be more in that vein and join him in those places.

My next question has like, there's two parts to it, but I'll give it and then you work with it. But Tim, what do people say about you when you leave the table? You can also answer that with what you'd like them to say about you when you leave the table because it's not just your table. You go to other people's tables. Yeah.

What happens to you? I hope people know that I actually cared about them. That's something I really hope that when I'm asking people questions that they know that I care for them. That's huge. I'm a disruptor and an inviter. Those are two words I want on my tombstone. Not in a lame way of just poking holes and things to poke holes in them, but I just started watching how Jesus was such a disruptor of the religious norm yet inviting into this bigger story. And so if I get to just have some role in joining Jesus as he's probably already doing that, hopefully, he's still doing that in me. He is disrupting things in me all the time, yet inviting me into a bigger awareness. It's like I spend most of my life with a thimble of the fullness of God. He's like, Dude, your religious stuff, you just need to let that go because there's a whole table in a bucket full of fullness. My hope is that people would know that they're crazy-loved and that they might even see a representer of the way and the heart of Jesus.

That would be my hope. What a beautiful thought, though, that came from that when you said, disruption, but it's all about love. So it's not a disruption to create havoc and more pain than it was before, but to actually bring love to the experience.

That's beautiful. Inviting into this bigger star. It's literally what Jesus did. He disrupted like crazy. Yet it wasn't just to throw rocks at things. It was disrupting because the only way we change is through... The only way I get out of anything that I'm in some addiction or proclivity to something is that my routine is disrupted.

If you could leave something at the table today, what would you leave me?

I love your questions. Great. I'd leave you a review saying great questions. That's what I'd leave at the table. If I could leave you anything at the table, what would it be? Gosh, just a curiosity to what would it look like to join Jesus today, period. Just don't do it. Please don't do it. But just stop to think. If Jesus people started being more curious about Him and joining Him, I think we'd have a really different world. I think we'd start looking like Him. Can you imagine if Jesus people started looking like Jesus instead of religious whatever we look like? It makes it hard for me sometimes to do what I do for a living because I go, Gosh, we could sing all these songs all day long. And yet, is it changing anything in the rest of our week? If it's not, I think we need to rethink what we're doing because I don't know if God really cares that much if we keep having more awesome worship services. Man, these songs are killing and CC-A-Live charts are killing. Man, the church was on fire. God, great job on Sunday morning. But when somebody cuts us off, we consider ourselves better than them like I do.

Man, that's not the way of Jesus. Tim, I'm speaking to myself. When I see a candidate in the political scene that I completely disagree with, and then I become, well, I other them. I make them the marginalized and I make them my enemy. Man, I've just left the way of Jesus. But what would it look like if we, Jesus people, started joining him? Oh, my gosh. That's a revolution.

It is.

I just want to be part of the revolution that he already started. I don't have to start anything. We don't have to start any cool revolutions.

Yeah, he's already built the table. He just wants us to sit at it.

So good.

So right. You've sat at a lot of tables in your lifetime, probably when you were small to now and whatever. I want to ask if you can remember one moment, a memorable moment at a table that will stay with you forever.

That's unfair.

I'm.

Sorry. No, it's so good. A table moment that will last forever in my mind.

Oh.

There are flooding. They're flooding in. I wish you could see my imagination right now. I do think of one of my mentors when I was, and I actually don't like calling people mentors. I think people aim each other. I want to be an aiming, somebody who aims people to be who God created them to be, not mentor in the way that I am. But a guy that really aimed me and my friends early on, I remember being at his table. We'd be at his table every week, literally. He would cook this amazing food. We'd sing songs. He taught me poetry. He put color to my black and white life. Jesus was a part of that. That table really changed me. Another table that changed me, I think, was the table when we'd spend time for three years with this motel community. That table was bonkers. Some people are strung out some really beautiful people, some whatever. Then you've got us who are probably all the above and just sitting at that mutual table going, Oh, we're the church. We don't ever have to do church again. Thankfully, Jesus, don't let me ever do church again.

I just want to be it. Period. Join you and be your church with these people. That was a really powerful table.

This is aIt can be a tough question, but hopefully not. Who would you like to sit at the table with if you could? If you could invite anyone living or historical to your table for a chat or a meal, who would it be? What would you hope to do or discuss or learn from that moment?

Gosh, can you get any more cliché than Jesus? But that would be pretty high on my list. I would really be curious to be at a table with my parents when they were younger for a lot of different reasons. I would really be curious to be at a table with them and see how they grew up, why they grew up certain ways. It's probably not your normal answer, but that's what pops into my head.

I asked my father that question before he passed, and he said his parents, too. He said that because he wanted to say how much he loved them. I get you.

There's something there, huh?

There is. If you sat with Jesus, though, if that did happen, I know you said Jesus, obviously, but if you did, I guess the real question is what would you say?

I have so many questions. I have so many questions. I want to know what he cares about. I really do. I want to know what he cared and mostly what he cares about. What does the heart of God care about? I have had many thoughts. I've had many convictions of that over the years. I don't know if all those convictions are actual convictions or just opinions or small beliefs. I want to know what He cares about, and I just want to be about that. But I'm not sure. And so it's part of the life of faith and curiosity is going, Okay, God, I don't know, is it this? Because I've been told that this is what you care most about, but I don't know. Help me. That's what I'd say. That's one of the 100 things I'd ask, but top of my list.

Tim, I have one final question for you. One final question. For those listening to this podcast today who've maybe heard about this Jesus and this table but are hesitating on coming to that table. What would you say to them?

Here's what I wish. I wish all of us could like, you know those in movies when somebody like zaps your memory and you just lose all the memory? I wish that we could zap the history of what our image of God and the table is because the table that has been set for most people is a terrible table. I want no part of that table. It's so discriminatory. When Jesus was not at all. Gosh, just our communities going back through all the tables that Jesus sat at and invited people to. And it's just everybody everywhere. What if that's actually true. I don't know how heaven works because I used to, again, know all these things. I just don't know how it all works anymore. But I do know that the way of Jesus is so crazy beautiful that like, Let's just start there. If you're listening out there and you're going, I don't know about this whole thing. I don't know. Text me. Find me. I'd love to talk because I'd love to learn stuff. But it's just what if it's... Well, this is a crazy thought. What if Christians don't own Jesus, number one, which if you want to throw stones, you go right ahead.

But what if they don't own Jesus? What if he's huge? What if he's bigger than our fit in our little system? I mean, Jesus Christians should mean little Christs, and that's a hope. But yeah, gosh, you're welcome at the table. You're welcome at my table. If I'm welcome at the table, you're welcome at the table.

Tim Timmins, thank you for coming to the table.

Honored.

Together at the Table. Together at.

The Table is an Integrity Music podcast and hosted by Andrew Phillips. The show is produced by Lasting Media Group. Our executive producers are Andrew Phillips and Jason B. Jones. Special thanks to Cali Argent, Bruno Beltuino, Olivia Buchana, Madison Frans, Alicia St. Jolie, Matt Lott, Noah Newman, and John Schneck. Our theme music is Good God, Lofi version by Special Music from their upcoming album, Still Worship, Lofi, Volume 2. To listen to more Lofi and Christian instrumental music, search for Still Worship wherever you listen to music. To learn more about Together at the Table as well as Integrity Music, visit integritymusic. Com. To get more involved with the show, follow us on socials at Together Table Pod. We've also set up a voicemail at 1-6-0-7-9-6 table. That's 1607. 968. 22. 953. If you have comments or questions or you'd like to be a part of the show, please call and leave a message. Also, be sure to subscribe, rate, and review our show wherever you listen to podcasts. This helps keep Together at the Table on the charts where people can find our show. Thank you once again for being with us Together at the Table.