Faith for Exiles

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The Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole.

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Hi I'm Paul Lewis Cole and this is the Brave Men Podcast.

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Fired up that you're here with us because one of the most interesting men that's a friend of mine is...

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Mark Matlock.

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And Mark is here today.

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This guy's the executive director for Urbana with InterVarsity.

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He's a fellow with Barna Research.

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With David Kinnaman, he wrote the book Faith for Exiles, which is how I first saw his name, and then we became friends after I read that.

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But one of my favorite things about Mark is he was the executive director for Youth Specialties for years.

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And that's Mike Acquinelli and all those guys that just turned the world upside down.

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So Mark is one of these men who's been in the forefront, in the middle of, around the edges of cultural change and shift.

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over the last decades and it is a great conversation.

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One of the things that Mark and I agree on is that if we disciple men, we change everything.

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If we disciple fathers, we change the future.

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And so that's what Christian Men's Network is committed to, and that is the sponsor of Brave Men.

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Go to cmn.men, cmn.men.

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Tools and resources to disciple men, for churches to grow, to help disciple your son and daughter, and also majoringinmen.com is a resource if you're a pastor or leader, to go through a whole series of our, how we launch a ministry, men, how we sustain it, how you make it grow.

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But today, Brave Men, it's about encouraging us.

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Really, it's about, for me, it's about engaging my heart and then equipping my hands and empowering my feet.

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Just making stuff happen.

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but it comes out of a deep place of our heart, not a panic in our hands or some sort of exterior thing.

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And that's really what Mark leads us into.

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It's a powerful conversation.

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Thanks for being here today.

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Here's Mark Matlock on Brave Men.

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You know, one of the things that really attracted me to you before I ever met you was the book you wrote, Faith for Exiles, which I had a hard copy of.

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And now I'm sitting with the famous author.

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Yeah, I wish I would've brought a copy with me.

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I usually carry one in my backpack, but they're so heavy.

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Yeah, they're so heavy.

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And, but you made a statement in that, that our, and that book was written a few years ago, but it all, I think it's evergreen.

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Really speaks clearly.

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It says, technology has outpaced theology.

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Yeah.

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And what do you mean by that?

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I mean, what was the, where were you headed on that whole?

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Yeah.

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Well, it was really the idea that technology outpaced our ability to disciple and that screens disciple.

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David and I wrote those two words on a post-it note and were probably silent in the room together for 45 minutes when we saw those screens disciple.

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Because the church had kind of...

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I think reached a point where they were thinking, hey, technology is not really affecting us, the Internet age.

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People want to be in person, and we're not really seeing the impact of it.

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But what they weren't realizing is that where people would normally come to a pastor or a leader, a spiritual leader, a small group leader, whatever it is,

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to get advice or help, they're now going to the internet first.

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And so they're going and getting information from directly rather than having somebody help process that with them.

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And I think that was kind of what we were getting at is this idea that...

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we are being connected to faster than we're able to figure out what's appropriate.

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Yeah.

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And what are the rules?

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What are those card rails?

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You talked in that book about complexities.

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And, you know, so it's high-tech, low-touch.

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Exactly.

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And at the same time, one of the things, because... And we couldn't even see AI coming.

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Right.

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Right now, like 75% of people say they trust AI as much as they trust a pastor.

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You can't trust the AI.

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That's huge, right?

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In fact, even on every AI machine there is, right?

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Whether it's Grok or Chad or Claude or whatever.

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Yeah.

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All of them at the bottom say this is not supposed to be a final source of facts, factual information.

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In fact, I'm at the baseball game last night with my daughter.

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And we're at the Rangers game.

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And I'm like, how many guys are still here from the World Series team that the Rangers had?

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We were both like, yeah, because none of the guys who were in the field, and of course, it was a Tuesday night game.

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So, you know, some guys were sitting down.

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There was one guy on an injured reserve or IL, whatever it's called in baseball.

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And so I look it up, and it wasn't accurate.

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It was like, I'm like, ah, you know, because AI jumped in front of the search engine that I was using.

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He goes, here's the AI answer.

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At the bottom, it says, may not always be accurate.

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And it wasn't.

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And we look at her and she goes, well, he's not still here.

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I go, you're right.

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So now what do we do with that?

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Well, you know, once again, people are turning to it.

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for, to help solve their deepest problems.

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I was talking to a widow the other day who actually has created a virtual version of her husband and she has interaction with him, has loaded in information about things.

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Yeah.

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And she's not a technical person, right?

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Like she's not like, you know, she's just an average person who's found that she could get this comfort in her life.

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Mm hmm.

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And, um, and so it is a, it is an interesting thing.

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And what's interesting is pastors have been more resistant toward AI, um,

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and congregants are leaning into it.

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And Christians, practicing Christians, our research at Barna shows, are actually leaning into it even with greater gusto by a couple percentage points compared to the general public.

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So it's important that we're paying attention.

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Yeah, so in Faith for Exiles, basically the subtitle was Five Ways a New Generation is Following Jesus in Digital Babylon.

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Yeah, and you had that, you created that phrase.

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We created that phrase, digital Babylon, yes.

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So digital Babylon, which is a great picture.

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And yet, okay, so and then came COVID, because you wrote it just as COVID was happening.

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It came out maybe six months before the lockdowns, yeah.

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So digital Babylon, great sales were doing really well.

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And then unless you were using it for toilet paper, nobody was buying it.

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Yeah.

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But then it came, started coming back up again.

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Yeah.

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Well, you know what?

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We needed toilet paper in those days.

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We did.

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We did.

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Like six weeks.

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We did.

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There was a shortage.

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So crazy, the whole thing.

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And of course, then we find out the truth, which is fascinating to me and fascinating to you.

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You're a researcher.

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You're a writer.

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You've written how many books?

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Probably a dozen now?

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Over 20.

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20 books.

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Okay, over 20.

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Mostly for teenagers.

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No, but it's for youth.

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And you were the head of youth specialties, which has had this great, amazing impact.

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on probably the generation after me, but on my generation also.

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Incredible impact, you know?

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Who was that?

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Iaconelli and... Wayne Rice.

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Wayne Rice.

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Chick Long.

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Yeah, and then the guy in Sacramento at Bayside, you know, pastor in Bayside Church.

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I know who you're talking about.

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Oh, my goodness.

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Yeah, you know, we're doing this live.

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I know.

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We're not going to edit this.

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I know.

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So...

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Well, Denny Rideberg, too, with Young Life, he was one of the original YS guys.

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Yeah, so the youth specialties just had this amazing impact in terms of understanding what people are thinking, right?

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So that's what you've been in the middle of your whole life.

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Right now, media, you're the executive director of Urbana, right?

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Which is every three years.

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Every three, a triennial, been going on since 1946.

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Since 1946 with InterVarsity.

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Are they the parent thing of that?

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They're the steward of it, I should say.

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Steward of it, yeah.

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Yeah, trustee.

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And so you've got this background.

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So you study these things, and a lot of it, you study the next generation a lot.

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Now Digital Babylon, to me, in fact, I opened it up before you got here because I was thinking about that same phrase.

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Because prophet Jeremiah, Jeremiah 29, 11 says,

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You know, God says, the thoughts I have for you, not for your destruction.

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But if you go prior to that, the reason he said that is because prior to that, he says, in verse seven, he says, hey, where you're at, you need to plant yourself.

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And he's talking to exiles, which is what you were writing to.

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Yes.

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He says, plant yourself.

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And then my favorite verse in that,

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Paper Bible, by the way.

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It says, work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you.

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Pray to the Lord for its welfare will determine your welfare.

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Yeah.

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And I've been involved in a lot of work with city movements around the country as well and the globe actually.

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And yeah, that's been a big part of my work as well.

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So and that verse is really powerful.

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Yeah, that verse is huge because if we're not careful, we silo ourselves away from culture.

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We silo ourselves away from culture and we also confuse our national identity with our heavenly identity.

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And kind of one of the cases that I made in Faith for Exiles and then continued with a little more depth in my book, Faith for the Curious, which was a project that followed it, was this idea that...

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that this idea of exileship is actually embedded into New Testament Christianity.

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For Israel, it was positional and seasonal, depending on what was happening in Israel's program.

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But for the Christian, when we are regenerated, we are grafted into a new family, our citizenship changes, we are now ambassadors.

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We're told to be aliens and strangers in the world.

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And that's a real transformation of an identity shift.

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And so helping Christians understand that identity shift and the role that that plays to the place that they're at.

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So that was where for us, we were really seeing a lot of parallels in discipleship and kind of the discipleship crisis we're seeing in the United States right now.

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So what is that crisis?

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What's the discipleship crisis?

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Because everywhere I turn, of course, in my framework, that's what we deal with is discipling men.

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Yeah.

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What's the crisis?

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Well, I think most- If everybody's talking about it, why is there a- Yeah, I think most pastors, when we survey them and ask them to score their church, like let's just say we just ask pastors, Hannah, give yourself a letter grade for how your church is doing with discipleship, most would give themselves a C. Wow.

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And and probably that means it's a D plus, right, because they are optimistic, but they're also pretty honest.

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You know, obviously they're pastors.

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I hope they are.

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And that.

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And most pastors, what they love doing the most is they love preaching.

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And the thing that's in every mission statement of churches and denominations is that we are about making disciples.

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So it's interesting not making sermons.

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So I think we as a church have, because discipleship is so personal and one-on-one intensive,

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we've kind of opted for these mass communication methodologies to try to deal with the capacity problem.

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And so when Jesus tells his disciples, hey, pray to the Lord of the harvest, in the book of John, that he'll send more labors into the field, it's a capacity issue.

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It wasn't a strategy issue.

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It wasn't a content issue.

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It was just, we need more labors in the field.

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discipleship's a lot slower.

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And Pete Scazzaro, I did a project with him.

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We were contextualizing emotional, healthy spirituality for teenagers.

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And he made me spend a year just going through the material to the point that I could teach it before he even let me start working on the actual youth project.

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Wow.

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And at the time, I'll be honest, I thought,

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I don't need this, I've read the book, I've been doing spiritual discipline formation work for a long time.

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But after going through it, I was like, he's absolutely right, I was a changed person at the end of that in a way that I hadn't, just by reading the book or by having read about spiritual formation in the past.

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Going through that in community with other people

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really shaped me.

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I think that's the key then, isn't it?

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Yeah.

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And youth pastors didn't want to do it.

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Like we were trying to do these pilots and a lot of youth pastors, they were already on to another church or out of ministry by the time we finished the program with them.

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And so it was like, how do we actually make a disciple?

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You know, I was with a group of youth pastors and I said, how many of you felt like you were discipled?

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Only about half the room raised their hands.

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And I said, how many of you can tell me who like discipled you?

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And I'd say another 46% of the hands went down.

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These are the leading youth pastors in the country.

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So if we haven't been shaped ourselves and discipled ourselves, it's really hard to replicate that.

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All right, so my framework is the spirit of a father.

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Right.

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To be fathered.

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Yeah.

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And most men don't know how to father because they were never a father.

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Correct.

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So what you have in the church is you have pastors who were taught how to preach sermons, not how to disciple men.

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Yeah.

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Right.

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Yeah.

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And so what we've done is raise people with a what they lean into.

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In other words, we've created a DNA in which the metric is listening to a sermon versus studying the word.

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Yeah.

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And then the study of the word thing is like, what are you guys doing?

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We're doing a Bible study.

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Oh, yeah.

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It's like, you know, it's like Jamal's group or Bobby Joe's group or something.

228
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And it's boring.

229
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It's like, oh, man.

230
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Well, and Jesus did not take his disciples on...

231
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a boring journey, right?

232
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It was filled with adventure and- And dangerous.

233
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And frightening at times.

234
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And I think that's what's missing on our discipleship model.

235
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And it's been interesting as I tried to help churches implement faith for exiles, right?

236
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So one of the beautiful things about the timing of it going into the pandemic is all of a sudden, the world locks down.

237
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we have all these copies of the book that have been out in, in circulation.

238
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A lot of, uh, college, college and seminaries were using the book as a textbook.

239
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I started getting calls.

240
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Would you sit down with our seminary class that we're reading your book?

241
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So I spent a lot of time on zoom, actually interacting with readers that were practitioners.

242
00:15:44.972 --> 00:15:48.534
And it was just a remarkable experience.

243
00:15:50.195 --> 00:15:52.036
And I, um, I,

244
00:15:52.938 --> 00:15:54.999
So I learned some really interesting things.

245
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And one of the things I realized is that most people, discipleship is read your Bible, pray, go to church regularly, share your faith, and if you have an income, tithe, right?

246
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And it's that wagon wheel model.

247
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The thing is none of those things in and of themselves really produce what Jesus was going after with his disciples, which was he wanted them to trust him.

248
00:16:15.570 --> 00:16:17.051
And even to the last,

249
00:16:17.651 --> 00:16:22.952
minutes of his time on earth, that was still up for question, right?

250
00:16:23.032 --> 00:16:24.653
Until they received the Holy Spirit.

251
00:16:25.533 --> 00:16:29.254
And there was still, Peter was still really fragile in the garden.

252
00:16:29.354 --> 00:16:35.515
And so one of the things that's missing, I think in our discipleship is this idea of what our goal is.

253
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It's not to just have people believe things.

254
00:16:39.036 --> 00:16:44.098
It's not just to get them to do new habits, but it's for them to really lean on

255
00:16:45.958 --> 00:16:50.601
stop leaning on their own understanding, as Proverbs 3, 5, 6 tells, and to lean into Jesus.

256
00:16:51.362 --> 00:17:03.671
So literally for me, what I'm trying to do as a discipler is I want to take the disciplee and I want them to stop standing on their own two feet and lean, put all their weight onto Jesus.

257
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And I literally feel this in my own life when I'm working through something, I'm panicked, I go, wait a minute, I can feel the strength of my feet.

258
00:17:13.478 --> 00:17:14.939
I'm standing in my own strength.

259
00:17:15.719 --> 00:17:17.741
I need to lean into Jesus and trust him.

260
00:17:18.422 --> 00:17:21.225
And I think we're not doing that in the discipleship process.

261
00:17:21.265 --> 00:17:25.670
We're either imparting content and knowledge or we're developing habits.

262
00:17:26.010 --> 00:17:28.954
But are you trusting God with your life?

263
00:17:30.377 --> 00:17:41.086
Sometimes that happens through reading the Bible and doing all of these different things, but I don't always know that it's because we're intending to help them see that and be able to do that.

264
00:17:41.566 --> 00:17:44.749
So you're not discounting reading the word?

265
00:17:44.949 --> 00:17:45.650
Of course not.

266
00:17:45.870 --> 00:17:46.891
No, no, no, no.

267
00:17:47.491 --> 00:17:53.136
So, but when you're talking about leaning in and trusting him, how does that, how's that worked out in a daily life?

268
00:17:53.656 --> 00:18:00.059
So like Jesus, one, Jesus, like he took his disciples into a boat and then the storm happens, right?

269
00:18:00.500 --> 00:18:02.981
The storm happened because Jesus made the storm happen.

270
00:18:03.481 --> 00:18:04.882
He put them in a situation.

271
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It was the storm.

272
00:18:05.762 --> 00:18:05.923
Yeah.

273
00:18:05.963 --> 00:18:15.488
He put them in a challenging situation so that they would realize the edges of their trust and then realize they could trust him.

274
00:18:16.787 --> 00:18:30.458
And I think the reason that service projects, evangelism, mission trips are so powerful in the lives of believers is because they are forced to get off of their own understanding and trust.

275
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But those are really extreme situations.

276
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How do we make this more of a normal part of growth?

277
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How do we actually create challenging activities?

278
00:18:39.465 --> 00:18:41.027
And a lot of that is you have to know a person.

279
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You have to know their life so you can see it.

280
00:18:43.088 --> 00:18:43.429
Yeah.

281
00:18:43.449 --> 00:18:44.510
So now you're talking about scale.

282
00:18:46.105 --> 00:18:46.665
And it doesn't.

283
00:18:47.265 --> 00:18:47.466
Yeah.

284
00:18:47.706 --> 00:18:50.126
And it does discipleship is context sensitive.

285
00:18:50.427 --> 00:18:50.707
Yeah.

286
00:18:50.807 --> 00:18:53.728
And because of that, it doesn't, it doesn't scale.

287
00:18:53.768 --> 00:19:06.072
The best we can do is write a book and that might do some things we can, we can speak and give some speeches, but it really comes down to intimacy with a person who's a little bit further down the road than you.

288
00:19:06.172 --> 00:19:14.175
And sometimes even maybe in the same boat as you, uh, you can learn a lot together if the goal is to try and figure it out and you know, you have good source material.

289
00:19:14.355 --> 00:19:26.128
Yeah, Pastor Eddie Leo in Indonesia, who's on our board for Christian Men's Network, he developed when he and the young men in his college that became followers of Christ and just radicalized in it.

290
00:19:27.113 --> 00:19:34.517
out of their background there in Indonesia, they developed something called Havruta, which is a Greek word which means fruit.

291
00:19:35.357 --> 00:19:36.237
And so what's fruit?

292
00:19:36.498 --> 00:19:38.679
Fruit is a couple people.

293
00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:44.381
So they developed this thing, one another lifestyle, where it's just groups of two or three.

294
00:19:45.022 --> 00:19:49.324
So all they did was empower groups of two or three to get together on a regular basis.

295
00:19:49.984 --> 00:19:56.366
You know, a lady gets together with two other ladies once a week, and they didn't have a program.

296
00:19:56.406 --> 00:19:57.786
They couldn't do all of that.

297
00:19:57.886 --> 00:20:00.227
They just said, begin to discuss the Word of God.

298
00:20:00.387 --> 00:20:02.968
Begin to talk about the sins and pray for each other.

299
00:20:03.508 --> 00:20:05.069
Spend 45 minutes or an hour together.

300
00:20:05.709 --> 00:20:12.351
Well, they ended up with 250,000 people doing that, you know, which then built this large church called I Beloved.

301
00:20:13.520 --> 00:20:28.948
And so to me, the scale is when a person is discipled to the point that they're willing to be active, pull somebody else in, have a bite to eat, cup of coffee, talk about it.

302
00:20:29.788 --> 00:20:33.090
And I think, you know, the Western culture is we hire people to do that.

303
00:20:33.836 --> 00:20:33.996
Yeah.

304
00:20:34.356 --> 00:20:34.537
Yeah.

305
00:20:34.877 --> 00:20:35.017
Yeah.

306
00:20:35.037 --> 00:20:36.018
We hired a guy to do that.

307
00:20:36.138 --> 00:20:36.318
Yeah.

308
00:20:36.899 --> 00:20:41.642
Well, you know, it's interesting, Paul, if you asked me like, what, what do you consider some of the most successful things?

309
00:20:42.443 --> 00:20:46.486
You know, I've run comp bit, large conferences and written lots of books.

310
00:20:47.147 --> 00:20:48.428
I never think of those things.

311
00:20:49.309 --> 00:20:56.434
I always think about time in my living room with a couple that's marriage is falling apart and now is stronger than it's ever been.

312
00:20:57.795 --> 00:21:07.339
I think about a young man or a young woman who is hanging by a thread in their faith and were able to intervene and help them.

313
00:21:07.859 --> 00:21:10.701
Those are the fruit moments, right?

314
00:21:10.821 --> 00:21:12.321
That's where you actually see the fruit.

315
00:21:12.381 --> 00:21:13.742
I don't know that a book is fruit.

316
00:21:14.922 --> 00:21:18.544
When I'm in heaven, my book's Jesus is going to be like, Hey, I read your book.

317
00:21:18.584 --> 00:21:19.404
It's really good.

318
00:21:19.424 --> 00:21:20.325
You know what I mean?

319
00:21:20.345 --> 00:21:23.566
He's not going to be like, Yeah, this is great stuff.

320
00:21:23.626 --> 00:21:25.087
You opened my eyes, right?

321
00:21:25.127 --> 00:21:26.087
There's not going to be that.

322
00:21:26.287 --> 00:21:27.489
I never saw that before.

323
00:21:27.549 --> 00:21:31.033
But whoa, look at all these people that are here.

324
00:21:31.093 --> 00:21:32.615
I might say, it's enduring.

325
00:21:32.635 --> 00:21:33.757
You didn't expect this.

326
00:21:35.237 --> 00:21:36.257
That was unexpected.

327
00:21:36.737 --> 00:21:37.698
Where'd that come from?

328
00:21:37.718 --> 00:21:38.978
It wasn't me.

329
00:21:38.998 --> 00:21:39.498
Yeah, yeah.

330
00:21:39.718 --> 00:21:43.919
There might be more embarrassment, like, oh, I got that way wrong, you know?

331
00:21:44.799 --> 00:22:03.603
Yeah, but at the same time, isn't that part of, I mean, writing a book, doing a video, writing a new song, getting up in front of some people, gathering a group of people at a home group, isn't that all part of pushing things down, expanding the kingdom?

332
00:22:04.343 --> 00:22:04.983
You know what I'm saying?

333
00:22:05.043 --> 00:22:06.604
Everybody has a lane.

334
00:22:07.525 --> 00:22:19.551
If we do what we're supposed to do, like you're extremely gifted as a writer, you're a coordinator of cultural things, you know, you're a provocateur, you get people thinking about stuff.

335
00:22:20.231 --> 00:22:22.852
You're those things, that's your lane.

336
00:22:23.432 --> 00:22:26.014
Now somebody else's lane is they coach little league baseball.

337
00:22:26.214 --> 00:22:26.414
Yeah.

338
00:22:26.834 --> 00:22:27.755
And they're really good at it.

339
00:22:27.935 --> 00:22:29.355
And they impact young men's lives.

340
00:22:30.576 --> 00:22:32.497
It seems to me that if we all do that,

341
00:22:34.113 --> 00:22:36.114
in largest things, right?

342
00:22:36.394 --> 00:22:36.614
Yeah.

343
00:22:37.014 --> 00:22:39.815
So nothing wrong with writing a book, writing a song, anything like that.

344
00:22:39.875 --> 00:22:41.455
That's sending that labor into the field.

345
00:22:41.475 --> 00:22:41.876
You know?

346
00:22:41.896 --> 00:22:43.856
It's what's my field.

347
00:22:44.696 --> 00:22:46.937
You know, what is the field that God's called me to be in?

348
00:22:47.337 --> 00:22:55.420
And, but I think if you ask most authors and big speakers and stuff like that, you know, about the moments, it's usually going to come down to people.

349
00:22:56.200 --> 00:22:57.541
that they invest in.

350
00:22:57.581 --> 00:23:00.743
They consider the high points where they really help somebody.

351
00:23:00.823 --> 00:23:04.305
Yeah, it's that thing about on your deathbed, let's say.

352
00:23:04.845 --> 00:23:08.827
You're not thinking about, hey, man, I had some great rims on that 58 Chevy.

353
00:23:08.987 --> 00:23:10.728
Yeah, yeah.

354
00:23:10.788 --> 00:23:13.489
It's going to be, I remember that time we went fishing.

355
00:23:14.110 --> 00:23:17.471
It's going to be moments, right, with others?

356
00:23:17.491 --> 00:23:17.852
I think so.

357
00:23:17.992 --> 00:23:18.392
I think so.

358
00:23:18.432 --> 00:23:23.655
It's really fascinating because I was in my daily reading this morning with a

359
00:23:25.217 --> 00:23:31.219
John, of course, one of my favorite stories, Raising Lazarus, and John 11.

360
00:23:31.479 --> 00:23:34.760
And then I just hadn't, I underlined it for the first time.

361
00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:36.860
It was like, I'd never underlined this before.

362
00:23:37.781 --> 00:23:40.761
And it said that they all got up in arms, you know, I can't do this.

363
00:23:40.801 --> 00:23:42.102
He can't raise guys from the dead.

364
00:23:42.722 --> 00:23:43.982
We're going to have to kill them, you know.

365
00:23:44.622 --> 00:23:50.584
And it says that Jesus, because of the danger, took his disciples and they took off to Ephraim.

366
00:23:52.100 --> 00:23:58.844
Now there's, I don't know what the gap is, you know, another couple months before we actually see something.

367
00:23:58.924 --> 00:24:01.886
But he didn't stick around, like keep poking it.

368
00:24:01.906 --> 00:24:02.746
He's like, you know what?

369
00:24:03.267 --> 00:24:04.227
There's a lot going on here.

370
00:24:04.507 --> 00:24:05.108
Let's go this.

371
00:24:05.848 --> 00:24:09.070
And those gaps is where he discipled.

372
00:24:10.083 --> 00:24:13.064
It was in a sense, we hear some of the stories, right?

373
00:24:13.684 --> 00:24:17.386
But some of this discipleship happens in the unseen places.

374
00:24:18.526 --> 00:24:18.747
Right?

375
00:24:19.267 --> 00:24:19.787
I think so.

376
00:24:20.127 --> 00:24:20.327
Yeah.

377
00:24:20.527 --> 00:24:21.948
Just helping somebody with something.

378
00:24:23.383 --> 00:24:30.424
Now, big events, you're the head of Urbana, which is this, if people haven't heard of it, you had a big event in Phoenix.

379
00:24:30.444 --> 00:24:32.325
You got another one coming up in three years.

380
00:24:32.505 --> 00:24:33.265
Yeah, 2028.

381
00:24:33.285 --> 00:24:34.325
Yeah, 2028.

382
00:24:34.345 --> 00:24:34.565
Yeah.

383
00:24:35.145 --> 00:24:35.825
And where's that?

384
00:24:36.346 --> 00:24:36.926
We don't know yet.

385
00:24:37.206 --> 00:24:37.626
Oh, okay.

386
00:24:37.646 --> 00:24:38.626
I'm actually working on that.

387
00:24:38.686 --> 00:24:38.966
Yeah.

388
00:24:39.546 --> 00:24:41.907
I've been on planes the last few days looking at cities.

389
00:24:41.987 --> 00:24:42.327
Yeah.

390
00:24:42.387 --> 00:24:48.428
So then, because if people don't realize, your convention planning has to be a couple years out.

391
00:24:48.768 --> 00:24:48.988
Yeah.

392
00:24:49.228 --> 00:24:49.488
Right?

393
00:24:49.588 --> 00:24:53.670
Everybody's kind of geared into it because of their connection with InterVarsity and Urbana and so forth.

394
00:24:54.230 --> 00:24:55.371
Yeah, Billy Graham.

395
00:24:55.571 --> 00:24:59.312
I mean, Billy Graham spoke at more Urbanas than anybody.

396
00:24:59.792 --> 00:25:01.573
Really?

397
00:25:01.593 --> 00:25:09.336
And he basically said that 55% of North American missionaries came, received their call at Urbana.

398
00:25:09.396 --> 00:25:09.576
Yeah.

399
00:25:09.676 --> 00:25:10.677
And somebody did some...

400
00:25:11.756 --> 00:25:36.802
graduate paper to see if that was test that actually true if it was true and it turned out to be true so it's been a significant force in the missions movement where we're at in the world today with globalism with gen z being a hyper connected generation um you know the world's changing and and how we live into the great commission is changing what used to be kind of the west to the rest is now kind of from everyone to everywhere and so it's a really

401
00:25:42.104 --> 00:25:49.909
understand how to help a young generation live into God's global purpose for their life in the midst of all this incredible change.

402
00:25:50.189 --> 00:25:53.992
So Urbana, you had 28,000 people, something like that?

403
00:25:54.835 --> 00:25:55.315
Young people?

404
00:25:55.376 --> 00:25:56.096
No, it was only 7.

405
00:25:56.376 --> 00:25:57.457
7,000 young people?

406
00:25:58.258 --> 00:26:03.263
Okay, I was reading a stat where it must have been a cumulative stat of how many you'd have over the last number.

407
00:26:03.303 --> 00:26:06.626
Well, there were times, you know, it used to be it was the only college event out there.

408
00:26:06.646 --> 00:26:09.068
Now we've got lots of other great events for colleges.

409
00:26:09.088 --> 00:26:09.708
Yeah, yeah.

410
00:26:09.728 --> 00:26:10.469
So you had 7,000.

411
00:26:10.509 --> 00:26:12.031
This is pretty amazing.

412
00:26:12.051 --> 00:26:12.371
7,000.

413
00:26:15.127 --> 00:26:16.708
basically 18 to 25?

414
00:26:16.868 --> 00:26:18.648
That's roughly, that's a sweet spot, yeah.

415
00:26:18.788 --> 00:26:21.689
Okay, and so you got 7,000 in a room.

416
00:26:21.709 --> 00:26:24.070
So you're building these big events.

417
00:26:24.170 --> 00:26:27.051
And they've come to learn about how they can be missions.

418
00:26:27.071 --> 00:26:32.112
This isn't like, there's no real headliner, bands, or anybody like that.

419
00:26:32.472 --> 00:26:37.474
You're doing a big thing, you know, in order to do the small things.

420
00:26:38.218 --> 00:26:43.022
Yeah, I always say that Urbana is a big event, but it's an intimate experience.

421
00:26:43.723 --> 00:26:49.668
Because when I interviewed people, when I first came into the role, and I went to Urbana 35 years ago myself in 1990.

422
00:26:52.390 --> 00:26:57.614
And what I realized for people is that it was a pilgrimage-like experience.

423
00:26:58.375 --> 00:27:01.617
It was a moment that they kind of said, ooh, I kind of found my place.

424
00:27:02.418 --> 00:27:03.818
my place in the world, right?

425
00:27:03.838 --> 00:27:05.059
It was a direction setting.

426
00:27:05.679 --> 00:27:11.720
It confirmed something or something shifted or it opened their eyes to an opportunity.

427
00:27:12.140 --> 00:27:13.360
It kind of is that.

428
00:27:13.380 --> 00:27:15.501
And it's not just an emotional experience.

429
00:27:15.581 --> 00:27:20.002
It's a, all of a sudden I realize, hey, I'm gonna be doing my job in a different way.

430
00:27:20.022 --> 00:27:24.443
I mean, I was talking, I was in Kenya just a few weeks ago and there was a girl from,

431
00:27:26.103 --> 00:27:29.565
I'm actually meeting with Tamara online, who's from Montana.

432
00:27:30.265 --> 00:27:36.309
And she came into Urbana and says, she just got her degree in geospatial information systems.

433
00:27:37.630 --> 00:27:42.733
And she was like, Lord, I wish there was a way you could use my passion.

434
00:27:43.513 --> 00:27:47.315
for geospatial information systems for your glory, right?

435
00:27:47.915 --> 00:27:57.460
And at Urbana, she realized that there are these incredible mapping projects that are going on to try and figure out where we need churches and where there isn't.

436
00:27:57.780 --> 00:27:58.140
Oh, wow.

437
00:27:58.160 --> 00:28:02.743
You know, where there's a deficiency of churches for the number of people and things like that.

438
00:28:03.123 --> 00:28:04.123
And so she's pursuing that.

439
00:28:04.143 --> 00:28:06.745
So we're gonna talk about tomorrow is connecting her with some of the groups.

440
00:28:06.765 --> 00:28:07.405
That's fantastic.

441
00:28:07.665 --> 00:28:15.171
Yeah, and so Urbana kind of has that kind of a thing where people come in and God connects them with opportunities.

442
00:28:15.211 --> 00:28:19.895
Yeah, so it's not, this is really fascinating to me, and I've got a couple other questions.

443
00:28:20.936 --> 00:28:23.538
Ray Johnston, by the way, just popped into my brain.

444
00:28:24.158 --> 00:28:24.879
Yeah, that's right.

445
00:28:24.919 --> 00:28:25.619
Yeah, from Bayside.

446
00:28:25.639 --> 00:28:26.099
Yes.

447
00:28:26.119 --> 00:28:26.580
Thank you.

448
00:28:26.880 --> 00:28:27.100
Yeah.

449
00:28:27.800 --> 00:28:28.981
It's like, hang on.

450
00:28:29.901 --> 00:28:34.664
I was saying there because he spoke at You Specialties for me for compassion.

451
00:28:34.824 --> 00:28:37.366
And I'm like going, I was standing right next to him.

452
00:28:37.446 --> 00:28:39.827
His name's in my contacts.

453
00:28:39.947 --> 00:28:41.128
He's such a good man.

454
00:28:41.168 --> 00:28:42.189
I love that guy.

455
00:28:42.389 --> 00:28:44.870
And what a visionary leader Ray is.

456
00:28:45.711 --> 00:28:46.872
But so...

457
00:28:47.841 --> 00:29:01.213
So now somebody comes to Urbana and what they find out is they don't necessarily, because when I was growing up, if you were going to commit to like sharing your faith, you had to go do it in a sense professionally.

458
00:29:01.593 --> 00:29:01.793
Yeah.

459
00:29:02.274 --> 00:29:11.482
You had to go, you know, like the guys who do live dead, you know, and some of those amazing groups, you had to go all in or you just go be a welder.

460
00:29:12.334 --> 00:29:19.300
Yeah, I mean, missionaries used to pack their belongings in a coffin so that they had something to ship their body home or bury it in, and they went.

461
00:29:19.320 --> 00:29:24.945
Yeah, I mean, it was kind of a one-way trip, and now people are fluidly moving around the world.

462
00:29:25.105 --> 00:29:27.387
But we're also understanding that if I'm a welder,

463
00:29:28.924 --> 00:29:32.447
In that world in which I live, I am that guy.

464
00:29:33.028 --> 00:29:33.308
Correct.

465
00:29:33.328 --> 00:29:35.010
I am that missions person.

466
00:29:35.030 --> 00:29:35.430
Correct.

467
00:29:35.930 --> 00:29:36.211
Right?

468
00:29:36.351 --> 00:29:49.662
That I don't have to, in order to be a productive follower of Christ, increasing the kingdom of heaven, having a life that's significant, I don't have to sign up to be this guy or that guy on a stage.

469
00:29:51.449 --> 00:29:52.790
I just have a sense that.

470
00:29:52.870 --> 00:29:53.671
And I think that's that.

471
00:29:53.771 --> 00:30:02.180
This thing's coming a little bit of a, I keep hitting this, but that's the field and the workers going into the field, right?

472
00:30:02.580 --> 00:30:04.823
Where's my field?

473
00:30:04.843 --> 00:30:07.485
If I'm being called to a field, what is my field?

474
00:30:07.526 --> 00:30:09.367
What is the field space around me?

475
00:30:09.608 --> 00:30:12.070
I'm only gonna harvest what's around me to harvest.

476
00:30:13.171 --> 00:30:16.212
And what we have now are, and that's my field.

477
00:30:16.432 --> 00:30:17.472
And that's what I need.

478
00:30:17.492 --> 00:30:24.334
We need more labors in the field so that they have more surface area that they can cover in there with the amount of time that they have, right?

479
00:30:24.554 --> 00:30:25.854
We're covering surface area.

480
00:30:26.034 --> 00:30:26.994
Yeah, yeah.

481
00:30:27.014 --> 00:30:28.655
So it's like, yeah, we need more welders.

482
00:30:29.095 --> 00:30:30.095
Yes, we need more welders.

483
00:30:30.115 --> 00:30:30.955
We need more technology.

484
00:30:30.975 --> 00:30:37.457
We need more, like there are incredible movements of women that are going in housekeeping in other countries.

485
00:30:37.477 --> 00:30:38.997
We need followers of Christ in all those places.

486
00:30:39.597 --> 00:30:40.818
Yes, 100%.

487
00:30:40.898 --> 00:30:41.698
Be salt and light.

488
00:30:41.838 --> 00:30:54.685
I'll tell you what we need is about 600,000 followers of Christ who become youth coaches in little leagues and things like that across America, North America, and the States because coaches really impact young people.

489
00:30:54.725 --> 00:30:56.866
Yeah, reading buddies, anything.

490
00:30:57.106 --> 00:31:09.033
One of the things I think that happens is we've become really good at, if you will, discipling a man or mentoring a man into his life

491
00:31:10.402 --> 00:31:16.470
platform of ministry rather than mentoring him into being effective at the kitchen table.

492
00:31:17.411 --> 00:31:17.631
Right.

493
00:31:19.153 --> 00:31:19.413
Right.

494
00:31:19.734 --> 00:31:22.717
It's like, but that's where we want him to be effective.

495
00:31:23.513 --> 00:31:23.733
Right?

496
00:31:24.313 --> 00:31:28.034
Again, because Christian Men's Network, Fathers, this is what we do.

497
00:31:28.054 --> 00:31:32.875
Well, if you're a believer, just starting with your own children is powerful.

498
00:31:33.095 --> 00:31:35.216
There you go, change the world, the future of the world.

499
00:31:35.296 --> 00:31:42.318
There are parents that aren't at a place in their discipleship where they can really be effective there, and so they should lean into the network and the community of the church.

500
00:31:42.338 --> 00:31:42.638
Of course.

501
00:31:42.758 --> 00:31:43.018
To help.

502
00:31:43.418 --> 00:31:48.459
Well, you've written, that's why you've written some amazing books for young people.

503
00:31:48.659 --> 00:31:49.459
Yeah, and parents.

504
00:31:49.719 --> 00:31:51.360
Yeah, and their parents.

505
00:31:52.200 --> 00:31:54.869
You know, what was the one book you wrote about parents?

506
00:31:55.692 --> 00:31:56.354
How not how?

507
00:31:57.057 --> 00:31:58.877
Real world parents or.

508
00:31:58.897 --> 00:32:00.138
I was thinking of the one.

509
00:32:01.318 --> 00:32:03.999
It was how to love your parents or something like that.

510
00:32:04.059 --> 00:32:04.559
What was it?

511
00:32:04.599 --> 00:32:04.979
Oh, yeah.

512
00:32:05.019 --> 00:32:06.599
Wisdom on getting along with your parents.

513
00:32:06.619 --> 00:32:06.819
Yes.

514
00:32:06.899 --> 00:32:07.219
Wisdom.

515
00:32:07.419 --> 00:32:08.740
I had a whole series called Wisdom on.

516
00:32:08.760 --> 00:32:08.940
Yeah.

517
00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:09.840
A series on Wisdom on.

518
00:32:09.860 --> 00:32:10.720
That's what I'm thinking of.

519
00:32:10.860 --> 00:32:11.160
Yeah.

520
00:32:11.440 --> 00:32:13.521
Wisdom on getting along with your parents.

521
00:32:13.661 --> 00:32:13.901
Yeah.

522
00:32:14.001 --> 00:32:16.402
And they translated that one into Spanish.

523
00:32:16.562 --> 00:32:20.302
And the translation was Lord, save me from my parents.

524
00:32:20.803 --> 00:32:21.823
That was the translation.

525
00:32:22.903 --> 00:32:24.003
Maybe they hit it better.

526
00:32:24.243 --> 00:32:24.483
Yeah.

527
00:32:24.884 --> 00:32:25.164
Yeah.

528
00:32:25.184 --> 00:32:25.824
I liked it better.

529
00:32:25.884 --> 00:32:26.624
It was a better title.

530
00:32:27.265 --> 00:32:31.555
So, David Kinnaman, Barna Urbana, you're working with that.

531
00:32:31.575 --> 00:32:33.540
You've got a position now also.

532
00:32:33.620 --> 00:32:35.585
You're working, something just began...

533
00:32:36.230 --> 00:32:39.252
Yeah, with the Hendrick Center, Dallas Theological Seminary.

534
00:32:39.272 --> 00:32:39.932
Yeah, BTS.

535
00:32:39.972 --> 00:32:54.961
So Daryl Bach has always been a huge influence on me, and he and I were talking about just, you know, boy, I'd really like to work closer with you and all that, and he said, you know, we should offer you a fellowship at the Hendrick Center.

536
00:32:54.981 --> 00:32:55.521
Yeah.

537
00:32:55.661 --> 00:32:57.042
So I just begun that.

538
00:32:57.062 --> 00:33:02.225
I don't even really know all that's involved there yet, but I'm working on forming a project that I'll do with them.

539
00:33:02.285 --> 00:33:02.765
Oh, that's fantastic.

540
00:33:02.785 --> 00:33:05.287
It'll be something around cultural engagement and giftedness.

541
00:33:06.287 --> 00:33:07.468
Yeah, that's fantastic.

542
00:33:07.588 --> 00:33:10.650
And then right now, media, all the different things you've been involved in.

543
00:33:12.511 --> 00:33:21.616
To many of us, we would drive along in our neighborhoods, particularly in Western hemisphere, and we'd see a church here, a church there.

544
00:33:22.156 --> 00:33:23.997
Seems to be churches everywhere.

545
00:33:24.137 --> 00:33:26.819
We seem to be in pretty good shape, and yet...

546
00:33:28.240 --> 00:33:37.867
We look at progressive socialism or the Communist Party's larger today than it was 10 years ago, whatever the little instigating factor might be.

547
00:33:39.008 --> 00:33:46.134
And I'm wondering, churches don't seem to be growing in general.

548
00:33:46.334 --> 00:33:46.894
Is that right?

549
00:33:46.914 --> 00:33:47.515
Fairly flat.

550
00:33:47.855 --> 00:33:48.916
Fairly flat.

551
00:33:49.636 --> 00:33:52.559
And yet there seems to be a lot more talk about spirituality than...

552
00:33:53.475 --> 00:33:54.356
In Christian things.

553
00:33:55.096 --> 00:33:56.918
So how do you figure all that?

554
00:33:57.578 --> 00:33:59.279
Are we good?

555
00:33:59.319 --> 00:34:00.100
Are we not good?

556
00:34:00.120 --> 00:34:01.721
Are we in crisis?

557
00:34:02.001 --> 00:34:06.565
I think what's happening is that people are looking for more.

558
00:34:08.286 --> 00:34:12.989
And the He Gets Us ad for the Super Bowl this year was all about more.

559
00:34:13.109 --> 00:34:13.870
What is more?

560
00:34:13.930 --> 00:34:14.550
I want more.

561
00:34:15.551 --> 00:34:17.953
By the way, great group.

562
00:34:18.333 --> 00:34:20.438
Yeah, what they're, yeah, yeah.

563
00:34:20.498 --> 00:34:26.530
I know they get critiqued for spending all this money on ads, but I'm like, I wish I had that kind of money to glorify God with, you know?

564
00:34:26.550 --> 00:34:28.995
Well, the thing is this, is that...

565
00:34:31.089 --> 00:34:33.531
You know, all of us need to do what we're supposed to do.

566
00:34:33.551 --> 00:34:33.972
That's right.

567
00:34:34.452 --> 00:34:48.686
So if what I'm doing is building a racing team and I'm drag racing, okay, and you're putting a lot of money into it and I got to rebuild the engines every time you do a run and all that kind of stuff and we're into that.

568
00:34:48.866 --> 00:34:54.012
And yet at the same time, I'm doing the chapel service on Sunday morning before the races and...

569
00:34:55.158 --> 00:34:57.621
You know, somebody could say, well, you should have spent that money.

570
00:34:58.202 --> 00:34:59.544
But at the same time, you know what?

571
00:35:00.365 --> 00:35:04.570
Most of the people who critique that stuff need to be going and doing something about it.

572
00:35:04.591 --> 00:35:05.372
Well, that's correct.

573
00:35:05.472 --> 00:35:10.098
I mean, whether you eat, whether you drink, whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.

574
00:35:10.258 --> 00:35:11.800
And what do you do to the glory of God?

575
00:35:11.880 --> 00:35:12.781
You make him known.

576
00:35:13.742 --> 00:35:15.443
And we need people to do that.

577
00:35:15.463 --> 00:35:20.627
And the great thing is, is I know some of the people behind those ads and they're all doing the other stuff too.

578
00:35:21.447 --> 00:35:23.969
So it's not like they're, they're a one trick pony.

579
00:35:24.009 --> 00:35:28.291
I mean, they are literally glorifying God in every aspect of their life.

580
00:35:28.331 --> 00:35:29.492
They're caring for the poor.

581
00:35:29.552 --> 00:35:32.714
They're doing a lot more than just doing Superbowl ads.

582
00:35:32.754 --> 00:35:34.675
God, that was a little sidebar.

583
00:35:34.996 --> 00:35:35.196
Yeah.

584
00:35:35.316 --> 00:35:37.417
But anyway, because I had to stay up for those guys.

585
00:35:37.557 --> 00:35:37.757
Yeah.

586
00:35:37.797 --> 00:35:40.319
But the point was by doing early, but we're talking about more.

587
00:35:40.479 --> 00:35:49.345
Yeah, but the point of more is simply people, I think there's a failure of secularism in our culture.

588
00:35:49.365 --> 00:35:55.208
This is what I write about in Faith for the Curious, because we actually measured the spiritually curiosity of America.

589
00:35:55.228 --> 00:35:57.150
And Faith for the Curious just came out.

590
00:35:57.910 --> 00:35:59.732
Yeah, just a couple years, a year and a half ago.

591
00:35:59.912 --> 00:36:01.713
Four months ago.

592
00:36:02.894 --> 00:36:14.443
And basically what I was noticing in all the research that we were doing for all these different Christian organizations, there's this group of people that just don't look like what we all think of when we think of somebody who's unchurched.

593
00:36:15.380 --> 00:36:17.702
what is going on with this group of people?

594
00:36:18.402 --> 00:36:22.064
And so I wanted to try to tease that group out and figure out who they were.

595
00:36:22.084 --> 00:36:23.785
And so we call them the curious.

596
00:36:24.806 --> 00:36:28.869
And they make up about 64% of the unchurched population.

597
00:36:31.390 --> 00:36:33.112
Which is huge, it's massive.

598
00:36:34.323 --> 00:36:36.644
Um, and really, yeah.

599
00:36:37.084 --> 00:36:41.406
And they are actively seeking spiritual means to improve their lives.

600
00:36:41.446 --> 00:36:43.527
And they've realized money isn't doing it.

601
00:36:43.747 --> 00:36:44.968
Education isn't doing it.

602
00:36:45.648 --> 00:36:53.771
And the way that I think about it is, you know, uh, uh, St. Augustine talked about us having a hole in our soul, right?

603
00:36:53.791 --> 00:36:54.912
A God shaped void.

604
00:36:54.932 --> 00:36:54.992
Um,

605
00:36:55.930 --> 00:36:58.692
we always think, well, what we need to do is put a big Jesus plug in that.

606
00:36:59.493 --> 00:37:03.436
But the way I like to think about it is that there's broken pieces inside of that void.

607
00:37:04.076 --> 00:37:08.439
There are little shards of mirror that reflected the glory of God, the image of God.

608
00:37:09.140 --> 00:37:13.884
And that little shard is reflecting something in every broken person.

609
00:37:14.904 --> 00:37:17.786
And they're feeling like, I'm experiencing intimacy, but I

610
00:37:21.249 --> 00:37:22.250
want more creativity.

611
00:37:22.830 --> 00:37:29.535
I'm experiencing a sense of, you know, I want justice in this world, but boy, I'm not getting it through the means that I'm pursuing, right?

612
00:37:29.555 --> 00:37:30.095
They're feelings.

613
00:37:30.115 --> 00:37:31.616
I, you know, I'm loving being generous.

614
00:37:31.676 --> 00:37:32.797
I want to be more generous.

615
00:37:33.157 --> 00:37:37.340
They're, they're experiencing something of the image of God in that little broken piece of mirror.

616
00:37:38.040 --> 00:37:40.662
And it wants to fill that void and get bigger.

617
00:37:40.722 --> 00:37:43.924
And the only way that that happens is through Jesus Christ.

618
00:37:44.485 --> 00:37:46.326
Now here's, here's the crazy part, Paul.

619
00:37:47.841 --> 00:37:56.343
as I've been working, workshopping this with different churches, trying to help their congregants understand like what's going on here because people are trying to tarot cards.

620
00:37:56.363 --> 00:38:06.886
They're turning to, uh, horoscopes, numerology, uh, meditation, mindfulness, all kinds of different spiritual practices, trying to get that more.

621
00:38:07.426 --> 00:38:10.727
You and I know that will never happen without Jesus.

622
00:38:11.087 --> 00:38:11.407
Right.

623
00:38:12.451 --> 00:38:17.677
So when I'm talking to a person that's outside the church, I'm listening.

624
00:38:17.977 --> 00:38:23.903
What is that thing, the image of God in them that wants to come out, that wants to get bigger?

625
00:38:24.724 --> 00:38:27.647
And now we have something in common because I want more of that too.

626
00:38:27.707 --> 00:38:27.847
Mm-hmm.

627
00:38:28.428 --> 00:38:38.532
And so now we have something to base a relationship on that isn't just about salvation, but it's about this pursuit of this thing that we both love or we both want more of in our lives.

628
00:38:39.032 --> 00:38:42.713
And now I can help them see how Jesus fulfills that.

629
00:38:43.214 --> 00:38:48.636
But as I've been workshopping this with churches, what I found is most Christians aren't experiencing more either.

630
00:38:49.556 --> 00:38:57.124
They have believed that Jesus is Lord, but they've not experienced the benefit of Jesus as Lord.

631
00:38:57.445 --> 00:38:59.827
So they aren't experiencing more intimacy.

632
00:39:00.168 --> 00:39:02.470
They aren't experiencing more generosity.

633
00:39:02.510 --> 00:39:04.593
They aren't experiencing more creativity.

634
00:39:05.937 --> 00:39:16.472
And they're not getting the full benefit of grace and mercy in their lives and the restorative work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

635
00:39:16.953 --> 00:39:19.656
So if we aren't experiencing it as believers...

636
00:39:21.713 --> 00:39:25.016
How can we can't be winsome to the people around us?

637
00:39:25.076 --> 00:39:25.316
Right.

638
00:39:25.516 --> 00:39:25.817
Yeah.

639
00:39:26.137 --> 00:39:30.220
We don't have to be perfect, but but it's that we're chasing after this.

640
00:39:30.260 --> 00:39:32.642
And hopefully Jesus is making a difference.

641
00:39:32.662 --> 00:39:43.412
And so as I'm talking to these these people and they're like, well, I don't I don't know how to talk about how Jesus helps me be more creative or how Jesus makes me gives him helps me be more intimate because I'm not experiencing that in my own life.

642
00:39:44.052 --> 00:39:48.134
Well then, whoa, we have no good news to share.

643
00:39:48.574 --> 00:39:57.578
So if we're supposed to be good news people, right, we got to look at like where is the good news in my life, you know, and how is Jesus helping me experience that good news?

644
00:39:58.398 --> 00:40:00.859
Because, man, my life is filled with good news.

645
00:40:02.080 --> 00:40:09.143
And I find that there are very few people, there are some that reject me on the base that I follow Jesus.

646
00:40:09.343 --> 00:40:11.304
But more people are more like,

647
00:40:12.024 --> 00:40:14.267
wow, I'm happy for you.

648
00:40:15.448 --> 00:40:18.132
Maybe not for me, but I'm glad for you.

649
00:40:20.294 --> 00:40:23.819
That's an interesting thing because it talks about it in Luke 21.

650
00:40:23.839 --> 00:40:24.459
I was looking it up.

651
00:40:24.499 --> 00:40:26.201
It talks about in the last days.

652
00:40:27.492 --> 00:40:34.355
And Romans also talks about in the last days that men will fall into fear because they have been subjected to frustration.

653
00:40:34.735 --> 00:40:34.955
Yeah.

654
00:40:35.196 --> 00:40:37.717
In other words, it's the narrowing of things.

655
00:40:38.277 --> 00:40:41.759
So we have AI and the complexities of life.

656
00:40:41.879 --> 00:40:46.641
And everybody says life's faster and more stuff happening quicker.

657
00:40:47.877 --> 00:40:50.978
And everybody feels, you know, if you ask that person, are you busy?

658
00:40:51.018 --> 00:40:53.219
Oh man, I'm just wiped out.

659
00:40:53.719 --> 00:40:54.700
I am so busy.

660
00:40:55.260 --> 00:41:03.743
And then they'll go, on the other hand, they'll go, and then last Friday I binge watched, you know, an eight-part series.

661
00:41:04.183 --> 00:41:07.284
Yeah, some horrifically immoral show, yeah.

662
00:41:08.885 --> 00:41:15.147
So wait a minute, you started at 10 p.m., you went to 4 a.m. watching this thing, right?

663
00:41:15.287 --> 00:41:17.088
Filling your mind with this crap.

664
00:41:18.193 --> 00:41:21.034
And yet your life is just jammed.

665
00:41:21.574 --> 00:41:24.496
Well, no wonder you were tired the whole next day.

666
00:41:25.496 --> 00:41:33.239
You know, it is funny how all these things impinge on us, but I do think there is a subjection to frustration of the whole culture.

667
00:41:33.259 --> 00:41:35.120
It says we groan, right?

668
00:41:36.120 --> 00:41:43.283
And if you will, what it says then is that the hope is that every knee will bow to unconfessed Christ.

669
00:41:44.182 --> 00:41:52.767
So this pushing together this compacting of our lives, is it a plan?

670
00:41:53.008 --> 00:41:54.428
Is it a strategy of God?

671
00:41:55.929 --> 00:42:01.573
So that we live in a sense of dissatisfaction that then looks for an answer?

672
00:42:04.183 --> 00:42:04.944
I mean, it could be.

673
00:42:05.364 --> 00:42:13.234
I mean, it could be the, you know, squeezing the toothpaste tube so the toothpaste comes out, you know, and then you got to deal with it.

674
00:42:13.694 --> 00:42:17.098
You know, how do we figure out what to do with this?

675
00:42:17.238 --> 00:42:20.102
That could be the, that's an interesting frame on that.

676
00:42:20.242 --> 00:42:22.223
Yeah, subjected to frustration.

677
00:42:22.283 --> 00:42:26.525
So I look at it as kind of like when you're loading cattle, something.

678
00:42:26.545 --> 00:42:28.907
You start with a large thing and you just narrow it.

679
00:42:28.927 --> 00:42:32.068
Pretty soon they're all lined up, you know, the right direction.

680
00:42:32.709 --> 00:42:38.112
And the fact is, is that if we didn't have that, if there wasn't that tension,

681
00:42:39.097 --> 00:42:40.358
Would we look for a savior?

682
00:42:41.138 --> 00:42:44.540
Well, this goes back to our original thing about trust and discipleship, right?

683
00:42:44.980 --> 00:42:47.461
I think people are clinging to the wrong things.

684
00:42:48.221 --> 00:42:52.423
They're clinging to a political solution, and they were doing that in Jesus' day too, right?

685
00:42:52.443 --> 00:42:53.644
Yeah, it's...

686
00:42:53.664 --> 00:42:54.044
I mean...

687
00:42:55.044 --> 00:42:56.065
It's like the divided nation.

688
00:42:56.085 --> 00:43:01.167
A lot of his disciples were looking for a political leader in Jesus, and Jesus goes, I got something better.

689
00:43:01.507 --> 00:43:03.248
People say, it's never been this bad.

690
00:43:03.628 --> 00:43:04.869
I hear this all the time.

691
00:43:05.369 --> 00:43:06.510
It's never been this bad.

692
00:43:07.549 --> 00:43:10.291
I don't know, man, the dark age is pretty bad.

693
00:43:10.331 --> 00:43:12.532
25% of the world died bubonic plague.

694
00:43:13.592 --> 00:43:14.093
That was bad.

695
00:43:14.153 --> 00:43:15.213
Civil war was not good.

696
00:43:15.253 --> 00:43:25.779
Well, in my book, Real World Parents, we actually ask people, do you think the world right now that you're raising your kids in is the same, better or worse?

697
00:43:26.659 --> 00:43:27.840
than 20 years ago.

698
00:43:28.540 --> 00:43:30.702
And the overwhelming majority of people said worse.

699
00:43:30.802 --> 00:43:37.186
And then I gave data and just showed how, no, this is actually a great time to be alive as a person.

700
00:43:37.206 --> 00:43:38.627
I mean, look at where we're sitting.

701
00:43:38.647 --> 00:43:39.568
Look at the opportunity.

702
00:43:39.688 --> 00:43:40.589
Look at this.

703
00:43:40.629 --> 00:43:45.372
We've got this studio that used to cost a million dollars to build.

704
00:43:45.712 --> 00:43:47.934
And we invested in the building $300,000.

705
00:43:47.954 --> 00:43:48.214
And then...

706
00:43:50.475 --> 00:43:57.578
you know, 100,000 of equipment and whatever, or a little less even, and yet we're doing what would have cost 10 million dollars years ago.

707
00:43:58.018 --> 00:43:58.958
I got an iPad.

708
00:43:59.479 --> 00:44:08.522
My grandkids, when they turn 13, get one of these little phones that, not a burner phone, but they're kind of compacted where they- Yeah, they're limited.

709
00:44:08.542 --> 00:44:09.903
They can only do certain things.

710
00:44:09.943 --> 00:44:10.123
Right.

711
00:44:10.443 --> 00:44:11.883
But they got a little thing in their hand.

712
00:44:12.424 --> 00:44:13.484
Get this little thing.

713
00:44:13.504 --> 00:44:15.405
I mean, that's only 15 years old.

714
00:44:15.545 --> 00:44:15.745
Yeah.

715
00:44:16.638 --> 00:44:16.838
Right?

716
00:44:17.458 --> 00:44:19.439
I mean, YouTube's only what, 16 years old?

717
00:44:19.500 --> 00:44:20.060
Yeah.

718
00:44:20.120 --> 00:44:22.301
I mean, there's so much.

719
00:44:22.341 --> 00:44:24.402
I didn't even have a VCR when I was a kid.

720
00:44:24.982 --> 00:44:26.423
I'm old, but not that old, you know?

721
00:44:26.443 --> 00:44:30.825
You know what's funny is I had some cassette tapes I wanted to look at, and I couldn't find a VCR.

722
00:44:30.845 --> 00:44:33.767
I had to order a special order of VCR.

723
00:44:34.047 --> 00:44:36.207
Whenever you have media you can't use, call me.

724
00:44:36.928 --> 00:44:42.188
I have zip drives, I have a Betamax player.

725
00:44:42.208 --> 00:44:43.129
Betamax?

726
00:44:43.149 --> 00:44:48.229
They ended up selling notes in South America because they couldn't sell them in the US.

727
00:44:49.010 --> 00:44:52.950
So the fact is that this is the most awesome time in the world.

728
00:44:53.410 --> 00:45:01.432
My grandson just turned 13, my second grandson, second oldest, just turned 13 and his dad took him to a

729
00:45:03.012 --> 00:45:06.033
a surfing place in Waco, Texas.

730
00:45:07.674 --> 00:45:10.655
And he learned to surf in Waco.

731
00:45:11.755 --> 00:45:13.056
How cool is that?

732
00:45:13.816 --> 00:45:14.516
You know what I'm saying?

733
00:45:14.556 --> 00:45:14.756
Yeah.

734
00:45:14.776 --> 00:45:19.218
I mean, the coolest time in history to be a kid, also the most dangerous.

735
00:45:19.638 --> 00:45:20.678
Also the most dangerous.

736
00:45:20.738 --> 00:45:25.840
Like John Tyson said, he said, it's as if a porn store

737
00:45:27.372 --> 00:45:39.078
built themselves next to your house, and then took a giant opening, you know, little funnel, funneled it into the inside of your house and just started dumping stuff into it.

738
00:45:39.939 --> 00:45:46.162
He says, that's the battle that we didn't face when I was a kid, you know?

739
00:45:46.422 --> 00:45:48.763
You had to go find somebody's bad uncle.

740
00:45:49.784 --> 00:45:50.044
Yeah.

741
00:45:50.284 --> 00:45:56.768
Oh, no, there was a great article in, it was Esquire or GQ, it was, are you jealous of your 14-year-old sex life?

742
00:45:56.788 --> 00:45:57.288
Yeah.

743
00:45:58.375 --> 00:46:05.409
And it was talking about from a purely secular window, just like what that whole experience is like.

744
00:46:06.471 --> 00:46:09.597
And it was really kind of mind-blowing because, yeah, I mean...

745
00:46:10.710 --> 00:46:16.074
I'm really grateful that if my father ever looked at pornography, I don't believe he did, but I never found it.

746
00:46:17.595 --> 00:46:19.876
I never had access to it because it was an atomic.

747
00:46:19.936 --> 00:46:20.196
Right.

748
00:46:20.837 --> 00:46:25.300
You had to have atoms to be able to see it, and then you had to manage those atoms.

749
00:46:25.320 --> 00:46:34.686
So I never really even confronted any of that stuff until I was much older in life, when I had friends that had access to those types of things.

750
00:46:35.087 --> 00:46:37.308
I guess it's a real blessing not to have that.

751
00:46:37.888 --> 00:46:39.349
Yet our children,

752
00:46:40.250 --> 00:46:48.578
you know, through not even like accidentally came across stuff on the internet, you know, not even intending to find things.

753
00:46:48.958 --> 00:47:05.133
It was, it was there in our home, you know, and, uh, and it, and it was, uh, you know, so those things are really more reason for us to be vigilant in our faith to express and explain why your identity, this is who you are.

754
00:47:06.055 --> 00:47:13.100
And that's the role of a father is identity, to help that young man identify, this is who I am, that's why we don't do this.

755
00:47:13.120 --> 00:47:16.822
That's why we're protected against that, that's why we do this stuff.

756
00:47:17.503 --> 00:47:22.847
You know, it's the most awesome time in history to be alive and some of the most difficult.

757
00:47:24.010 --> 00:47:26.091
Yeah, I think everybody's a little overwhelmed.

758
00:47:26.531 --> 00:47:32.753
And that's why we have to be careful and really ground ourselves in the fact that we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven.

759
00:47:33.453 --> 00:47:36.414
That this is supposed to be chaos all around us.

760
00:47:36.574 --> 00:47:44.436
And when the monster hits in the superhero movie, the hero's going toward the monster.

761
00:47:44.736 --> 00:47:47.717
Everybody else is freaking out over the chaos.

762
00:47:48.337 --> 00:47:51.558
And it's that inner resolve of that

763
00:47:52.538 --> 00:48:00.184
of that hero that's able to see clearly to be able to defeat the thing that really is the problem and not the wrong problem.

764
00:48:01.104 --> 00:48:09.310
And when Paul says, you know, whether, you know, whatever circumstances I've been in, I've learned to be content in all things.

765
00:48:09.950 --> 00:48:14.334
To me, that is not a like I'm just sitting in a chair on a porch or.

766
00:48:15.054 --> 00:48:18.078
you know, watching the day go by with a glass of lemonade in my hand.

767
00:48:18.258 --> 00:48:18.438
Right.

768
00:48:18.458 --> 00:48:24.985
He's basically saying I'm an inner peace so that what the external world does not define my interior world.

769
00:48:25.526 --> 00:48:26.307
I am content.

770
00:48:27.108 --> 00:48:32.314
And I think that as Christians, that's one of the best things that we can use as a litmus test.

771
00:48:32.334 --> 00:48:33.095
When I start,

772
00:48:34.532 --> 00:48:39.914
when I start feeling like I'm losing control, that tells me I'm not trusting in God.

773
00:48:40.114 --> 00:48:44.915
So that's my early warning system, that oh, I'm not trusting in the right place.

774
00:48:44.935 --> 00:48:49.177
If I'm worried about what the competition's doing, then I'm not trusting in what God's doing.

775
00:48:49.277 --> 00:48:57.780
If I'm more comparing myself to the neighbor or this other family in our church, well, I'm not focused on what I'm supposed to be doing, because I have enough to do on my own

776
00:48:59.122 --> 00:49:01.584
then worry about what's going on in somebody else's home.

777
00:49:02.485 --> 00:49:10.973
And I always say don't judge your family by what you don't know about another person's family because we only see things through a certain window.

778
00:49:11.513 --> 00:49:11.753
Yeah.

779
00:49:11.913 --> 00:49:12.154
Yeah.

780
00:49:12.974 --> 00:49:18.860
And Facebook gives us the ability to do plastic surgery on our reputation, right?

781
00:49:19.380 --> 00:49:23.784
Like we give people the illusion that we're living something differently than we really are, you know.

782
00:49:23.884 --> 00:49:27.705
Yeah, there's some people that, yeah, it's like, yeah, it's pretty pictures.

783
00:49:27.905 --> 00:49:29.485
And then there's the person who overshares.

784
00:49:30.085 --> 00:49:32.426
And you're like, yeah, I don't need that.

785
00:49:32.506 --> 00:49:33.346
I don't need to know all that.

786
00:49:33.366 --> 00:49:35.506
I don't need to like it.

787
00:49:35.526 --> 00:49:41.427
So the church is flat growth, but are we having significance?

788
00:49:41.447 --> 00:49:45.548
Let's just talk about the United States or North America, if you will.

789
00:49:45.708 --> 00:49:45.968
Yeah.

790
00:49:47.728 --> 00:49:48.848
Are we still having impact?

791
00:49:49.289 --> 00:49:50.389
Are we lost impact?

792
00:49:50.449 --> 00:49:51.489
Are we lost significance?

793
00:49:53.010 --> 00:49:53.730
So it's interesting.

794
00:49:54.931 --> 00:49:59.793
Excuse me, I didn't want to shortstop you there, but I see a lot of stuff.

795
00:50:00.053 --> 00:50:01.254
Maybe I'm just more observant.

796
00:50:01.414 --> 00:50:09.217
It's like when you buy a yellow car because you thought there were no yellow cars, and all of a sudden you see a bunch of yellow cars every time you turn around.

797
00:50:09.817 --> 00:50:15.860
I just see a lot of things, whether it's Justin Bieber singing Hallelujah at the World Cup or whatever.

798
00:50:15.900 --> 00:50:17.701
I just see guys kneeling and praying.

799
00:50:18.401 --> 00:50:19.402
I see a lot of that.

800
00:50:20.882 --> 00:50:24.227
And yet if the church is flat, or we have an impact?

801
00:50:24.748 --> 00:50:30.557
I would say right now, like I said, because everybody, we have this large spiritually curious group, right?

802
00:50:30.858 --> 00:50:35.665
So people are open to spirituality and spiritually, not necessarily Christian things.

803
00:50:36.859 --> 00:50:40.362
but they're not opposed to Christian things as much as we think they are either.

804
00:50:40.602 --> 00:50:40.863
Right.

805
00:50:41.844 --> 00:50:44.126
So I found there are two types of spiritually curious.

806
00:50:44.166 --> 00:50:52.233
Some that carry a Christian wound from church or growing up where Christianity was implemented poorly, maybe pharisaically.

807
00:50:53.514 --> 00:50:55.776
And then there are those that literally have no clue.

808
00:50:55.796 --> 00:51:00.420
So we have a post-Christian and a pre-Christian mind coexisting in our country.

809
00:51:01.687 --> 00:51:06.930
And that defines their posture toward their openness to spirituality right now.

810
00:51:07.050 --> 00:51:13.294
But what I'll say about, but we are seeing these pockets of revival that are breaking out on the college campuses.

811
00:51:14.154 --> 00:51:17.556
We're seeing some spiritual fervor there with young people right now.

812
00:51:18.056 --> 00:51:23.819
Gen Z and millennials are outpacing elders and boomers and Gen Xers and going to church.

813
00:51:24.160 --> 00:51:25.660
And they're going to church more frequently.

814
00:51:25.940 --> 00:51:28.342
Nobody's going to church with great frequency anymore.

815
00:51:29.062 --> 00:51:33.125
Like frequent going to church is 1.9 times a month.

816
00:51:33.165 --> 00:51:37.767
I saw your young men, you know, the young men was at Gen Z guys.

817
00:51:37.807 --> 00:51:38.048
Yeah.

818
00:51:38.368 --> 00:51:42.090
It's two out of four Sundays or two out of four weekend experiences.

819
00:51:42.210 --> 00:51:44.271
A little bit more than the average.

820
00:51:44.431 --> 00:51:45.172
More than average.

821
00:51:45.252 --> 00:51:45.472
Yeah.

822
00:51:45.772 --> 00:51:48.294
And that's pretty remarkable.

823
00:51:48.934 --> 00:51:49.194
It is.

824
00:51:49.234 --> 00:51:55.658
It tells us something stirring, but it's also a moment that we have to steward well because we have to look at why are people doing this?

825
00:51:55.758 --> 00:52:01.301
Because once again, we cling to false idols when there's chaos in the world.

826
00:52:01.341 --> 00:52:10.546
We're looking for certainty rather than trusting in the one who allows us to be confident in the face of uncertainty.

827
00:52:12.127 --> 00:52:15.530
Because we have a certainty in where things are going.

828
00:52:15.870 --> 00:52:18.012
It's just the immediate moment that's chaotic.

829
00:52:18.593 --> 00:52:25.239
And that's why that inner resolve, that contentment or inner peace is so important in this moment.

830
00:52:25.359 --> 00:52:26.840
Otherwise, we start clinging to politics.

831
00:52:27.141 --> 00:52:29.183
We start clinging to toxic masculinity.

832
00:52:29.703 --> 00:52:34.768
We're all in favor of biblical masculinity, but there's a toxic masculinity out there as well.

833
00:52:35.288 --> 00:52:41.051
that people cling to and go for trying to find some sense of identity.

834
00:52:41.071 --> 00:52:43.552
Well, we cling to all sorts of things for definition.

835
00:52:43.912 --> 00:52:44.272
Money.

836
00:52:44.512 --> 00:52:49.574
And what you allow to define you determines your destiny, and that's the issue for men.

837
00:52:50.435 --> 00:52:54.097
So this is a discipleship moment to help steward and shape.

838
00:52:54.397 --> 00:52:56.017
Now, men don't think in percentages.

839
00:52:56.318 --> 00:52:57.058
They can't really see them.

840
00:52:57.338 --> 00:52:57.618
Right.

841
00:52:57.878 --> 00:52:58.839
It's fascinating.

842
00:52:59.359 --> 00:53:01.420
So what you're saying is six out of ten people

843
00:53:02.721 --> 00:53:09.832
that we encounter in our daily life are spiritually open, curious.

844
00:53:10.193 --> 00:53:11.595
Just I think it's fantastic.

845
00:53:11.635 --> 00:53:12.717
Tell me the name of the book again.

846
00:53:13.108 --> 00:53:16.973
Yeah, and the 40% that aren't, you got a bunch of them that are Christians.

847
00:53:17.273 --> 00:53:17.874
Yeah, it's very curious.

848
00:53:17.894 --> 00:53:18.895
Like almost 30% that are Christians.

849
00:53:18.915 --> 00:53:20.938
So it's a very small percentage that are actually hostile.

850
00:53:20.958 --> 00:53:21.659
Anti.

851
00:53:21.679 --> 00:53:22.280
Yeah.

852
00:53:22.540 --> 00:53:24.302
Yeah, it's only one out of 10.

853
00:53:24.502 --> 00:53:30.950
And so the opening lines with people that I typically have, I try to figure out what they are spiritual about.

854
00:53:32.392 --> 00:53:43.906
You know, and so it just so happens about just about a little bit over 50% of everybody believes that they will be accountable for how they live their lives when they die, whether they're Christian or not.

855
00:53:44.247 --> 00:53:44.567
Okay.

856
00:53:44.727 --> 00:53:46.870
So if I sit down with somebody and goes, what do you think happens when we die?

857
00:53:46.890 --> 00:53:47.791
Whether it's God or Zeus or somebody.

858
00:53:47.811 --> 00:53:47.911
Yeah.

859
00:53:47.931 --> 00:53:48.632
Somebody's going to happen.

860
00:53:48.652 --> 00:53:48.772
Karma.

861
00:53:48.792 --> 00:53:49.493
Yeah, something's going to happen.

862
00:53:49.513 --> 00:53:49.633
Karma.

863
00:53:49.653 --> 00:53:49.753
Yeah.

864
00:53:49.774 --> 00:53:49.934
Karma.

865
00:53:49.954 --> 00:53:50.094
Karma.

866
00:53:50.114 --> 00:53:50.254
Karma.

867
00:53:50.274 --> 00:53:50.394
Karma.

868
00:53:50.414 --> 00:53:50.534
Karma.

869
00:53:50.554 --> 00:53:50.675
Karma.

870
00:53:50.695 --> 00:53:50.815
Karma.

871
00:53:50.835 --> 00:53:51.255
Karma.

872
00:53:51.295 --> 00:53:51.696
Karma.

873
00:53:51.996 --> 00:53:54.217
So I'll just sit down and go, what do you think happens when we die?

874
00:53:54.577 --> 00:53:56.618
And that can start a really interesting conversation.

875
00:53:56.638 --> 00:53:57.498
What do you do about that?

876
00:53:57.598 --> 00:53:58.379
You know what I mean?

877
00:53:58.399 --> 00:54:02.681
Hey, is there anybody in your life that you really admire their spirituality?

878
00:54:03.201 --> 00:54:06.542
Not Christianity or religion, but their spirituality.

879
00:54:06.602 --> 00:54:10.284
And they will almost always reference a relative.

880
00:54:11.288 --> 00:54:13.049
often a grandmother who was a believer.

881
00:54:13.890 --> 00:54:15.071
And then that opens up a door.

882
00:54:15.091 --> 00:54:18.413
Do you have any experience with the church or spirit?

883
00:54:18.433 --> 00:54:19.474
What was that experience like?

884
00:54:20.054 --> 00:54:21.435
Just start by asking questions.

885
00:54:21.836 --> 00:54:27.319
I'm finding that people are so starved to talk about spiritual things because there's always a party foul, right?

886
00:54:27.480 --> 00:54:29.821
Aren't people starved to talk to people, though?

887
00:54:30.322 --> 00:54:32.123
Isn't that part of it?

888
00:54:32.243 --> 00:54:35.065
They're looking for people that are willing to talk to them.

889
00:54:35.085 --> 00:54:36.866
Yeah, and they don't know whether they're willing to talk to them.

890
00:54:36.886 --> 00:54:38.307
I think we all want to connect more with people.

891
00:54:38.327 --> 00:54:39.328
Everybody wants to say something.

892
00:54:39.568 --> 00:54:41.731
Yeah, we live in an age of amplification.

893
00:54:41.951 --> 00:54:46.557
But people, I find men love to talk about spiritual things and meaningful things.

894
00:54:46.697 --> 00:54:54.106
What's so funny is I have men's leaders and pastors and whatever say all the time, yeah, we just can't get our guys to get together.

895
00:54:54.126 --> 00:54:57.190
I go, yeah, because it's not attractive.

896
00:54:58.458 --> 00:55:01.980
But they'll all go down here to a bar or go to wherever their hobby is.

897
00:55:02.641 --> 00:55:04.522
Let's say, you know, whatever that may be.

898
00:55:04.682 --> 00:55:07.123
They race airplane models or something.

899
00:55:07.724 --> 00:55:10.906
And these guys are talking BS like crazy.

900
00:55:10.966 --> 00:55:13.087
They're talking all day long.

901
00:55:13.947 --> 00:55:14.468
Here's the deal.

902
00:55:14.588 --> 00:55:16.329
Men talk.

903
00:55:16.349 --> 00:55:17.710
Way more than women sometimes.

904
00:55:18.530 --> 00:55:20.932
We're like some of the worst gossips out there, I think, you know.

905
00:55:21.332 --> 00:55:23.373
No, it's just, it's hilarious, man.

906
00:55:23.533 --> 00:55:25.975
I mean, you could, if you wanted to.

907
00:55:26.980 --> 00:55:30.543
Wherever you find yourself, you can turn and ask one of those questions.

908
00:55:30.964 --> 00:55:31.144
Yeah.

909
00:55:31.524 --> 00:55:32.365
You know?

910
00:55:33.566 --> 00:55:35.127
And I think spirit to spirit.

911
00:55:35.167 --> 00:55:36.068
I had this happen.

912
00:55:36.088 --> 00:55:39.091
I won't mention who it was, but it was somebody well-known.

913
00:55:39.451 --> 00:55:48.139
And I said to them something about the way they conducted themselves around me in some meetings that we were in.

914
00:55:48.779 --> 00:55:50.881
I said, you're different around me.

915
00:55:51.101 --> 00:55:52.362
I just actually said that to him.

916
00:55:52.382 --> 00:55:52.683
He goes...

917
00:55:53.693 --> 00:55:54.734
Yeah, I don't know why that is.

918
00:55:54.754 --> 00:55:55.755
I go, I don't know.

919
00:55:56.095 --> 00:56:01.560
Probably because you had some sort of Christian upbringing or something in your life.

920
00:56:02.220 --> 00:56:06.203
And it kind of tunes in to the fact that I'm a follower of Christ.

921
00:56:06.944 --> 00:56:10.347
And the guy goes, well, hell yeah, that's probably it.

922
00:56:11.533 --> 00:56:13.494
And then we ended up in this conversation.

923
00:56:13.514 --> 00:56:13.994
Yeah.

924
00:56:14.014 --> 00:56:14.994
Yeah, it's really something.

925
00:56:15.014 --> 00:56:16.334
We had a guy come to our church.

926
00:56:17.995 --> 00:56:19.695
I'll tell you, Jim was last game.

927
00:56:19.715 --> 00:56:25.637
He's one of the world's leading authorities on upper body repair of injuries through therapy, physical therapy.

928
00:56:25.917 --> 00:56:31.619
So all kinds of awards, help the US Army and all this stuff with the frozen shoulders and all that stuff.

929
00:56:31.739 --> 00:56:38.821
Anyway, so when he first came by the church, he was hoping that his wife and daughter hadn't joined a cult.

930
00:56:39.681 --> 00:56:42.802
He's like looking in like, what are they a part of?

931
00:56:43.402 --> 00:56:47.123
So as he left, he said to me, he says, man, I love the aura of this place.

932
00:56:48.264 --> 00:56:56.767
And I said, hey, I can actually teach you how to pull up that aura anytime you want and carry it with you wherever you are.

933
00:56:57.667 --> 00:56:59.968
He goes, he goes, no kidding.

934
00:57:00.408 --> 00:57:01.248
In different words.

935
00:57:01.268 --> 00:57:02.408
I go, yeah.

936
00:57:03.169 --> 00:57:05.029
He goes, well, I'd like to find out.

937
00:57:05.469 --> 00:57:06.610
And so we met for coffee.

938
00:57:07.558 --> 00:57:10.460
And then the second time we met, he goes, okay, so wait a minute.

939
00:57:10.660 --> 00:57:13.562
So this aura, what you're saying is Jesus, right?

940
00:57:14.063 --> 00:57:14.703
I go, yeah.

941
00:57:14.723 --> 00:57:17.825
I said, man, I got to think about that.

942
00:57:18.686 --> 00:57:21.648
That's not how I ever framed Jesus.

943
00:57:21.808 --> 00:57:22.068
Right.

944
00:57:23.089 --> 00:57:27.492
And so about three months later, man, he prayed, became a follower of Christ.

945
00:57:28.253 --> 00:57:35.938
Got another friend who just through times of going to dinner as couples, over a long period of time,

946
00:57:37.875 --> 00:57:45.962
One day he went to church with his friend, lady, they were older couple, but they were, neither one of them married.

947
00:57:47.624 --> 00:57:51.728
And one day he says, yeah, I'm gonna get baptized next week.

948
00:57:51.968 --> 00:57:52.789
I'm like, really?

949
00:57:53.049 --> 00:57:54.630
I didn't even know you made a commitment of faith.

950
00:57:56.072 --> 00:57:57.073
Yeah, did quietly.

951
00:57:57.813 --> 00:57:59.775
Just our being together.

952
00:58:00.215 --> 00:58:02.598
And I'd never been like hammering them.

953
00:58:03.999 --> 00:58:04.239
Yeah.

954
00:58:04.479 --> 00:58:06.240
And so then he sent us the photos.

955
00:58:06.701 --> 00:58:06.801
Yeah.

956
00:58:06.821 --> 00:58:08.802
I got baptized today at this church.

957
00:58:08.862 --> 00:58:09.162
It's funny.

958
00:58:09.182 --> 00:58:11.844
So I, I, that's been more my experience.

959
00:58:12.024 --> 00:58:12.945
So awesome.

960
00:58:13.085 --> 00:58:21.550
I have more people report their conversion to me than I am actually involved in the traditional praying with them or whatever.

961
00:58:21.771 --> 00:58:24.412
And I think that's so wonderful, you know?

962
00:58:24.752 --> 00:58:28.515
Um, and, uh, yeah, it's, it's, don't you think something has to move though?

963
00:58:29.835 --> 00:58:30.295
In other words.

964
00:58:30.876 --> 00:58:40.923
And by the way, our research is showing that like, we have a lot of our population right now, but 80 million Americans are what we call revival minded.

965
00:58:40.984 --> 00:58:41.424
What does that mean?

966
00:58:41.444 --> 00:58:46.908
It means that they believe that spiritual change can happen and is coming.

967
00:58:47.428 --> 00:58:53.313
Now, whether it does or not, we don't know, and we weren't able to go in and define what do you think about, what do you think revival means?

968
00:58:53.333 --> 00:58:54.394
This is your work with Barna?

969
00:58:54.414 --> 00:58:55.174
With Barna, yeah.

970
00:58:55.194 --> 00:58:56.075
Okay.

971
00:58:56.215 --> 00:58:57.956
But it does say that people are hopeful

972
00:58:58.737 --> 00:59:03.639
and that people are expectant and that they believe spiritual change is possible.

973
00:59:04.639 --> 00:59:11.661
And so there's there is an energy in our country right now, if you look for it around all of this.

974
00:59:12.061 --> 00:59:16.082
But there's also some frames of just, you know, we're going to hell in a handbasket.

975
00:59:16.542 --> 00:59:21.524
You know, a is going to be the end of the world and sinfulness is everywhere and all this.

976
00:59:21.584 --> 00:59:26.768
It's easy to say since, let me see, since 32 AD.

977
00:59:27.129 --> 00:59:27.449
Yeah.

978
00:59:27.509 --> 00:59:36.556
Well, and that's the thing is if we have this mentality that we are persecuting, we can raise a lot of money and fill a lot of seats by preaching that message.

979
00:59:37.177 --> 00:59:45.083
But the point of faith for the curious was to give some foundation for this idea that no, the world is actually much more open right now.

980
00:59:46.464 --> 00:59:48.505
I did some specific research in New York.

981
00:59:48.925 --> 00:59:57.489
We found that one out of every two, so 50% of all unchurched people say at one time in their life, they attended church on a regular basis.

982
00:59:57.589 --> 00:59:57.849
Wow.

983
00:59:58.510 --> 01:00:08.554
So that means if I sit down with somebody in New York who is a, you know, who's not in church, and I say, hey, do you have a spiritual backstory?

984
01:00:09.194 --> 01:00:10.115
They probably do.

985
01:00:11.162 --> 01:00:13.843
And that gives us a great place to connect.

986
01:00:13.863 --> 01:00:14.724
Totally.

987
01:00:14.764 --> 01:00:19.606
This is Malcolm Gladwell had the book that just came out, Talking to Strangers.

988
01:00:20.447 --> 01:00:22.328
And his whole thing was, we're not good at it.

989
01:00:23.228 --> 01:00:28.050
And it sort of stacks on top of the book he wrote years ago called Blink.

990
01:00:28.350 --> 01:00:29.511
Yeah, good book.

991
01:00:29.591 --> 01:00:37.155
Thin slicing, how we frame people just immediately on a word, a thing they're wearing, a tattoo, or whatever.

992
01:00:37.955 --> 01:00:45.521
And all of a sudden we move it because we want some sort of, we like to have things positioned properly in our minds, right?

993
01:00:45.721 --> 01:00:47.322
Okay, we slot this person and slot.

994
01:00:48.123 --> 01:00:52.046
And he said, the problem is we really don't know people's backstories.

995
01:00:53.047 --> 01:00:56.349
And then, but we make up one right there on the spot.

996
01:00:56.469 --> 01:00:56.770
Boom.

997
01:00:56.830 --> 01:00:58.191
Yeah, this guy's going to be that.

998
01:00:58.231 --> 01:00:59.211
This guy's going to be that.

999
01:01:00.192 --> 01:01:04.655
And if we really begin to ask these questions, this is really fascinating to me.

1000
01:01:04.695 --> 01:01:06.816
What are some other leading questions that you?

1001
01:01:07.517 --> 01:01:08.677
Well, you brought up tattoos.

1002
01:01:09.518 --> 01:01:15.441
Tattoos almost always have a spiritual connection or a life moment connection.

1003
01:01:16.182 --> 01:01:19.804
So when I see, first thing I do is I admire their tattoo.

1004
01:01:20.024 --> 01:01:22.246
Wow, that is a cool tattoo.

1005
01:01:23.186 --> 01:01:25.087
Oh, you say, what's that ink mean?

1006
01:01:25.167 --> 01:01:25.327
Yeah.

1007
01:01:25.347 --> 01:01:25.867
That's what I'll say.

1008
01:01:25.907 --> 01:01:26.467
I understand.

1009
01:01:26.487 --> 01:01:26.608
Yeah.

1010
01:01:26.628 --> 01:01:27.888
I'll say, tell me about your ink.

1011
01:01:28.028 --> 01:01:28.328
That's you.

1012
01:01:28.388 --> 01:01:28.548
Yeah.

1013
01:01:28.568 --> 01:01:30.409
You use the word ink, you know?

1014
01:01:30.729 --> 01:01:31.230
Yeah, that's right.

1015
01:01:31.270 --> 01:01:31.590
That's right.

1016
01:01:31.650 --> 01:01:32.570
That's that's right word.

1017
01:01:32.850 --> 01:01:35.211
Um, and, uh, and I'll say, oh, that's some great ink.

1018
01:01:35.251 --> 01:01:35.972
Tell me about your ink.

1019
01:01:36.652 --> 01:01:37.612
People love to share.

1020
01:01:37.632 --> 01:01:39.413
They obviously marked their body.

1021
01:01:39.913 --> 01:01:41.794
So they love to tell the story behind it.

1022
01:01:41.834 --> 01:01:44.295
And sometimes it's me and my buddies got drunk.

1023
01:01:44.315 --> 01:01:47.756
I don't even know why I chose Tweety Bird, you know, and that's a good story too.

1024
01:01:48.176 --> 01:01:48.716
You know what I mean?

1025
01:01:48.776 --> 01:01:53.298
It opens up dialogue, but most of the time they're very meaningful.

1026
01:01:53.418 --> 01:01:53.678
They are.

1027
01:01:53.798 --> 01:01:56.319
Somebody who, in memoriam of somebody.

1028
01:01:56.339 --> 01:01:56.559
Yeah.

1029
01:01:56.679 --> 01:01:57.479
There's a lot.

1030
01:01:57.499 --> 01:01:59.320
A major life event.

1031
01:01:59.720 --> 01:02:00.320
Oh my gosh.

1032
01:02:00.340 --> 01:02:01.920
That was my friend who died.

1033
01:02:01.940 --> 01:02:03.321
And you go deep with people.

1034
01:02:03.701 --> 01:02:06.983
quickly just asking about their ink.

1035
01:02:07.083 --> 01:02:13.486
And so it is, I found that's a great question to open up with people.

1036
01:02:15.707 --> 01:02:16.407
What's another one?

1037
01:02:16.767 --> 01:02:20.989
We already talked about, name somebody, talk about somebody who's spiritual in your life.

1038
01:02:21.109 --> 01:02:26.612
Yeah, here's the deal, engaging in conversation has to do with actually listening.

1039
01:02:27.932 --> 01:02:31.773
And as I mentioned a few minutes ago, we live in an age of amplification.

1040
01:02:32.193 --> 01:02:33.514
Everybody wants to be heard.

1041
01:02:33.534 --> 01:02:34.814
Nobody wants to listen.

1042
01:02:35.494 --> 01:02:39.895
But the art of conversation is in the listening.

1043
01:02:41.276 --> 01:02:44.757
And then you find something in that conversation that's interesting to you, too.

1044
01:02:45.197 --> 01:02:45.577
Go ahead.

1045
01:02:45.597 --> 01:02:46.177
Tell me about that.

1046
01:02:46.888 --> 01:02:49.350
Yeah, and to be curious about people.

1047
01:02:50.451 --> 01:02:50.911
Yeah.

1048
01:02:51.352 --> 01:02:56.976
Especially if you do have something that's pre-forming an idea, say, I'm going to test this.

1049
01:02:58.137 --> 01:03:07.665
What can I ask a curious question that isn't too invasive but also might test my theory about what I think I know about this person?

1050
01:03:07.685 --> 01:03:10.207
Faith for the Curious is the book you wrote.

1051
01:03:10.227 --> 01:03:12.328
I'm talking with Mark Matlock, which...

1052
01:03:13.549 --> 01:03:20.097
If you're watching on video, you can see, you know, it's obviously a handsome man, on camera sort of guy and debonair.

1053
01:03:20.838 --> 01:03:27.785
But it, you know, you're it's we've talked about friends that we have that that we don't see often.

1054
01:03:27.886 --> 01:03:30.769
How do you do their their close friends, but not frequent.

1055
01:03:31.089 --> 01:03:39.054
Yeah, I call them deep friends, low frequency.

1056
01:03:39.074 --> 01:03:39.715
Low frequency, yeah.

1057
01:03:39.735 --> 01:03:41.216
Low frequency, deep friends, yeah.

1058
01:03:41.496 --> 01:03:42.256
Which I think is great.

1059
01:03:42.817 --> 01:03:51.482
And I feel like that's you and I because immediately when I see you, it's like, dude, Mark, but I also follow you on your Facebook and all that stuff.

1060
01:03:52.143 --> 01:03:53.524
Like I said, you're a provocateur.

1061
01:03:53.564 --> 01:03:55.005
You're saying, well, what about this?

1062
01:03:55.345 --> 01:03:56.265
What about that?

1063
01:03:56.546 --> 01:03:57.987
Was Calvin right or was he...

1064
01:03:59.370 --> 01:04:07.112
Well, one of the things on my Facebook page is most of the people that are on my Facebook, that are my friends, and these are my friends.

1065
01:04:07.152 --> 01:04:11.533
This isn't a fan page or I'm a personal, I'm a public figure.

1066
01:04:12.354 --> 01:04:12.934
It's not that.

1067
01:04:13.054 --> 01:04:14.934
It's just friends on Facebook.

1068
01:04:15.555 --> 01:04:18.755
Most of these are teenagers that are now in their 30s.

1069
01:04:19.276 --> 01:04:19.576
Oh, wow.

1070
01:04:20.016 --> 01:04:24.237
That signed up when Facebook started and I was doing conferences for teenagers.

1071
01:04:25.237 --> 01:04:28.499
I filled up my, Facebook only gives you 5,000 friends.

1072
01:04:28.519 --> 01:04:29.680
And there's a reason for that.

1073
01:04:29.700 --> 01:04:30.640
Do you know what the reason is for that?

1074
01:04:30.660 --> 01:04:32.121
It's actually germane to our conversation.

1075
01:04:32.161 --> 01:04:32.441
Oh yeah.

1076
01:04:33.342 --> 01:04:34.643
Have you ever heard of Dunbar's number?

1077
01:04:34.883 --> 01:04:35.423
Yeah, 149.

1078
01:04:35.643 --> 01:04:40.626
Yeah, so Robin Dunbar came and said, 5,000's also one of them too.

1079
01:04:40.906 --> 01:04:41.226
Really?

1080
01:04:41.686 --> 01:04:44.448
And that's why Facebook uses this 5,000 limit.

1081
01:04:44.488 --> 01:04:49.511
Because there's this idea that you can only really hold 5,000 relationships at a time.

1082
01:04:50.331 --> 01:04:56.238
But you can have five close relationships, about 15 inner circle friendships.

1083
01:04:56.258 --> 01:04:56.458
Right.

1084
01:04:56.799 --> 01:05:00.623
And then it goes up, and then that 159 gets you into the size of your community.

1085
01:05:00.803 --> 01:05:01.024
Yeah.

1086
01:05:01.264 --> 01:05:03.006
This is something we never talk about in evangelism.

1087
01:05:03.506 --> 01:05:07.891
We always want people to go out and evangelize the world, but the reality is, if Dunbar's numbers...

1088
01:05:08.972 --> 01:05:11.313
And he says don't get focused on the specific numbers.

1089
01:05:11.653 --> 01:05:12.673
But look at Jesus, right?

1090
01:05:13.633 --> 01:05:15.834
15 is that inner community.

1091
01:05:15.854 --> 01:05:21.276
He had 12 disciples, mom and dad, some relationships, some friends, brothers and siblings.

1092
01:05:21.936 --> 01:05:22.896
It fits, right?

1093
01:05:23.496 --> 01:05:29.658
Christmas card lists, they measure people's, what's their average Christmas card mailing list, and it comes out to be at 159.

1094
01:05:30.138 --> 01:05:32.779
So you see quantities of personal things.

1095
01:05:32.799 --> 01:05:36.320
Well, Joe Girard, the greatest salesman who ever lived, which is a book he wrote about himself,

1096
01:05:37.242 --> 01:05:48.290
You know, that was that permission marketing thing, I guess, that Seth Godin came up with later, was the whole thing of he went to some funerals and he realized the average funeral is 150 people.

1097
01:05:48.510 --> 01:05:48.690
Yeah.

1098
01:05:48.810 --> 01:05:49.571
He said, you know what?

1099
01:05:49.911 --> 01:05:57.036
If I impact somebody positively, he was a car salesman in Detroit, then they're going to impact 150 other people.

1100
01:05:57.076 --> 01:05:58.357
And if I give them a little spiff.

1101
01:05:59.061 --> 01:06:03.943
hey, tell your friend, then I'll send you, I don't know, something, right?

1102
01:06:04.844 --> 01:06:09.186
That's where that whole thing happened, and that's all sort of the same thing.

1103
01:06:09.206 --> 01:06:14.368
So if I'm asking you to go into all the world and preach the gospel, I'm really talking about your world.

1104
01:06:15.028 --> 01:06:16.549
Yeah, which is probably about 159 people.

1105
01:06:16.569 --> 01:06:17.849
At the most.

1106
01:06:17.909 --> 01:06:18.810
Yeah, at the most.

1107
01:06:18.950 --> 01:06:25.313
And so I always talk to people that are trying to promote evangelism and go, what is the realistic capacity of,

1108
01:06:26.133 --> 01:06:34.601
of somebody sharing their faith and making a disciple because I only have so many seats that I can have open at any given time to help people.

1109
01:06:34.741 --> 01:06:37.724
And so it's really made me think a lot about that.

1110
01:06:38.104 --> 01:06:48.834
As a father, there's a, I can't remember who it was that came up with this idea, but it was the idea that you put your house in the center and you put houses around you and you pray for those houses.

1111
01:06:48.854 --> 01:06:48.974
Right.

1112
01:06:49.394 --> 01:07:05.569
So I took that same kind of concept and put my child in the center and said, who are the eight boxes of relationships I want around them that I'm going to invest in knowing so that they can influence my son, so they can influence my daughter?

1113
01:07:06.330 --> 01:07:11.875
And thinking about that in a strategic way, but that number is really important because it helps us think about what is my field.

1114
01:07:13.157 --> 01:07:15.079
What is the space I have to play with?

1115
01:07:15.179 --> 01:07:22.208
And that whole piece you're talking about is the scripture that says, I'll bring the heroes of faith, the heroes of the land to my home.

1116
01:07:23.337 --> 01:07:31.723
And the fact is the people you bring into your home, the people that you bring into your sphere of influence is who impacts your children.

1117
01:07:32.904 --> 01:07:36.826
And my, I mean, my children are all in their 40s now.

1118
01:07:36.926 --> 01:07:39.308
You know, I got grandkids that are going to college.

1119
01:07:39.368 --> 01:07:40.028
It's crazy.

1120
01:07:40.129 --> 01:07:40.669
It's weird.

1121
01:07:40.889 --> 01:07:44.431
I guess if you hang out, hang around long enough, stack enough birthdays.

1122
01:07:44.912 --> 01:07:45.112
Yeah.

1123
01:07:45.132 --> 01:07:46.053
You know, that happens.

1124
01:07:46.393 --> 01:07:46.573
Yeah.

1125
01:07:46.713 --> 01:07:52.638
But back to that Facebook thing, the reason that 5,000 number matters is I know most of those people.

1126
01:07:52.938 --> 01:07:55.580
They're not just anonymous people who've signed up to like me.

1127
01:07:56.220 --> 01:08:00.904
I've known them for years, since 2007 or whatever, when Facebook started becoming a thing.

1128
01:08:01.684 --> 01:08:03.786
So we've done some time together.

1129
01:08:03.926 --> 01:08:12.653
So when I throw these provocative things out, we can get in some pretty interesting engagements, and their friends will see it and get involved or whatever.

1130
01:08:12.673 --> 01:08:12.853
Yeah.

1131
01:08:13.313 --> 01:08:30.048
it opens things up it i hope so because i and you know i do it for myself a lot i just wrote about this in fact on my facebook page that you know why do i write these posts yeah you know and part of it is because i don't always know what i don't know so by presenting what i think i know and then hearing all the putting back and also

1132
01:08:30.428 --> 01:08:39.135
It helps me see the edges of my knowledge, you know, which I think is a humility that we all need in our lives is to go, oh, huh.

1133
01:08:39.315 --> 01:08:42.518
I thought I knew that or I thought I had that squared up.

1134
01:08:42.598 --> 01:08:51.625
And especially in the era of the algorithms, when we can literally live in a bubble that's just reinforcing what we already know.

1135
01:08:51.645 --> 01:08:51.745
Yeah.

1136
01:08:52.466 --> 01:08:52.626
Yeah.

1137
01:08:53.869 --> 01:08:55.830
Yeah, we need something that pushes us up.

1138
01:08:55.890 --> 01:08:58.552
Something that shakes us up and gets us thinking outside the box.

1139
01:08:59.172 --> 01:09:01.334
I think that that's the thing.

1140
01:09:01.354 --> 01:09:14.162
When I talk about these relationships in that 149 or that group, bringing those people in front of your son, bringing those people in front of your children, the people you hang out with,

1141
01:09:15.437 --> 01:09:17.258
Actually, it's pretty amazing.

1142
01:09:17.278 --> 01:09:27.124
The people you hang out with, my children later, in their 40s now, like I mentioned, have said to me, yeah, you know, Uncle Charles or this guy or that guy.

1143
01:09:27.924 --> 01:09:33.327
Yeah, he really said some nice things to me when I was 20 or something like that.

1144
01:09:34.028 --> 01:09:41.672
And bringing people across the path like that is super important for your family, but also for your own growth.

1145
01:09:41.912 --> 01:09:42.973
For our own growth, right?

1146
01:09:42.993 --> 01:09:43.093
Yeah.

1147
01:09:43.773 --> 01:09:47.736
So, electronics, technology, all that stuff's awesome.

1148
01:09:47.916 --> 01:09:49.978
I think it's all about preaching the gospel.

1149
01:09:50.778 --> 01:10:01.886
I think the growth of the amount of people in the world, if you parallel the ability to communicate, if you took it and said, here's the ability to communicate, starting with Gutenberg or wherever you wanna go, 1350,

1150
01:10:03.394 --> 01:10:04.354
you know, go forward.

1151
01:10:04.775 --> 01:10:07.916
I think the ability to communicate has risen with the number of people in the world.

1152
01:10:08.156 --> 01:10:09.317
And I think that's a God thing.

1153
01:10:10.457 --> 01:10:15.340
So that we can preach the gospel in a postmodern pre-Christian world.

1154
01:10:15.880 --> 01:10:16.160
Amen.

1155
01:10:16.280 --> 01:10:17.220
Yeah, it's awesome.

1156
01:10:17.320 --> 01:10:19.762
Thanks for coming on Brave Men today with me.

1157
01:10:20.082 --> 01:10:21.102
Hey, thanks.

1158
01:10:21.422 --> 01:10:22.183
It's good to be with you.

1159
01:10:22.683 --> 01:10:29.126
I mean, we should probably do one of these every so often because you just have this depth of stuff you're doing.

1160
01:10:30.350 --> 01:10:31.771
I think I shared it all today.

1161
01:10:32.111 --> 01:10:33.172
No, you didn't.

1162
01:10:33.212 --> 01:10:35.113
I think the conversation goes downhill from here.

1163
01:10:37.034 --> 01:10:40.916
Well, they get the book because the book's your best, right?

1164
01:10:42.557 --> 01:10:45.038
And so that one is Faith for the Curious.

1165
01:10:45.659 --> 01:10:48.980
And I have not read that book yet.

1166
01:10:50.441 --> 01:10:53.123
So I'm looking forward to that because I actually have it on Kindle now.

1167
01:10:53.683 --> 01:10:53.963
Okay.

1168
01:10:54.103 --> 01:10:55.544
So I'll read that.

1169
01:10:55.704 --> 01:10:57.826
It's the airplane thing and that kind of stuff.

1170
01:10:57.846 --> 01:10:58.667
It's an easy read.

1171
01:10:58.707 --> 01:11:00.708
I wrote it without a lot of filler.

1172
01:11:01.328 --> 01:11:04.170
So the publishers always want you to hit certain word counts.

1173
01:11:04.190 --> 01:11:07.613
And I'm like, this is really all that needs to be said about this.

1174
01:11:07.713 --> 01:11:09.994
Yeah, well, who moved my cheese?

1175
01:11:10.134 --> 01:11:11.135
Who moved my cheese?

1176
01:11:11.155 --> 01:11:12.216
Best-selling book, 74 pages.

1177
01:11:13.937 --> 01:11:21.980
You know, so it's like, you know, it's or like the book Dale Bronner, our chairman of our board just wrote Essentials of Excellence.

1178
01:11:22.000 --> 01:11:24.961
It's not a huge book, but it is packed, man.

1179
01:11:25.561 --> 01:11:27.502
And every page has gold on it.

1180
01:11:28.162 --> 01:11:29.463
And so, yeah, I like that.

1181
01:11:29.623 --> 01:11:30.543
I like that whole thing.

1182
01:11:31.244 --> 01:11:32.524
So thanks for being on today.

1183
01:11:32.544 --> 01:11:32.924
Hey, yeah.

1184
01:11:33.004 --> 01:11:34.085
Thanks for having me, Paul.

1185
01:11:34.125 --> 01:11:34.785
It was fantastic.

1186
01:11:38.454 --> 01:11:44.463
This has been Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole, sponsored by the Christian Men's Network.

1187
01:11:45.364 --> 01:11:49.931
CMN resources for discipling men are at cmn.men.

1188
01:11:49.951 --> 01:11:50.993
www.cmn.men.com