Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All hosts of Forest and firest Kyle Man, j Warner, Wallace, Here, Davis.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Who's been up?
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Hey?
Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is David Basis, Kerry Camroli.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
This is Mike Water, this is Lamb Morgan, Instgram Barker
the Fifth GP.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And this is why you should never never, never, never never.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
How I got suckered in.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm so embarrassed about here. You're wasting your time. You
got better things to do.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Never lessen close Darling, yummy, Reverend and the Rapper.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Banke about that, everybody. Welcome to The Reverend and the
Reprobator Show, where two best buds at interview people they
have no business talking to. I'm Lucas Pinkard, and here
with me is today's Probationary Reprobate for I think the
second episode number two of that.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I guess come back.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
It's it's Josh Strass. What's up man?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
What's up? Buddy? How are you?
Speaker 5 (00:41):
I am happy to be here?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
What's what's anything interesting happening? Are you doing any jiu
jitsu tournaments this year? I know it's a big.
Speaker 5 (00:48):
I'm going to do one. Yeah, it'll have to be
November December, since I pretty much am gone right August
through October.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, working all your your FTX stuff and you're stuff
there with them Mustard Salon front work in the Mustards.
Today on the show, we've got uh, Mike and Daniel Blackaby.
Now many of you may be familiar with their granddad,
Henry Blackabia, their dad Richard Blackaby from Blackaby Ministry International,
both incredibly influential Christian authors. Mike and Daniel are kind
(01:20):
of following in those footsteps. Brilliant dudes. They've written a
book called Straight to the Heart, which talks about how
to interact with gen Z in a way that makes
the Gospel meaningful to them.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
It's an absolutely incredible book. I got a ton of
info out of it. We talk a little bit about
what their impetus for writing the book was, and then
we really get into the meat of what it means
to share the Gospel with a generation that views things
much differently than us. We talk about the importance of
building relationships, how to get out of some of the
habits where we have where we want to build an
(01:53):
easy one, two three point strategy where maybe that just
isn't the case anymore, and a few ways where we
get in our own way whenever we're trying to share
the Gospel with the next generation. It is absolutely one
of the best books that's out there on the subject,
and I am so stoked that we got to do
this interview with him. Likewise, Yeah, so check it out.
(02:13):
Without any further ado, on our sweet clean airways today,
Josh are two men whose last name you might recognize.
They are grandsons I believe I'm getting head nods there,
grandsons of Henry Blackaby. They are the authors of Straight
to the Heart, which is a really interesting and new
(02:37):
take on how to talk to gen Z about the Gospel.
I think this is definitely something if you've got Sean
McDowell and Jim Wallace's books on your shelf, this is
one that has to be added to your collection, especially
if you're trying to reach anybody in gen Z. Definitely
merging into jen Olf, it's one of the best reads
(02:58):
that I've had, one of the most comprehensive books on
how to bring the Gospel to the next generation. It
is our esteem pleasure to have on two very handsome gentlemen,
Mike and Daniel Blackabee. What's going on, Jens, how are y'all.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Main glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, yeah, thanks guys.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yeah, so I want to just jump straight into it, Okay.
In the introduction to your book, you guys talk about
something that is a pretty common experience I think for
a lot of people, which is that we who grew
up in the late nineties early two thousands, there was
(03:36):
this big push for apologetics because the atheists were on
this like truth or rampage, and it was all about
rationalizing everything, and every one of us was reading Nancy
Pearcy and people rediscovered Francis Schaeffer and Chuck Colson was
like a big player and everything now and it was
all about hard evidence for the gospel. I mean, we had,
you know, new evidence that demands a verdict, and that
(03:58):
is the route that we went for years and years.
And now those of us who grew up with that
style of apologetics have found ourselves in a place where
we're looking at students who say, I don't give a
crap about any of that stuff. Talk to me about
my feelings. So I think that's an experience that a
lot of us have. You kind of tell a story
about that at the beginning of the book. Talk to
(04:21):
us about like what that interaction was like with with
this guy who kind of comes up with that problem,
and how that problem began to become the motivation for
writing straight to the heart.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (04:33):
So the opening story in the book was an encounter
I had speaking that she had the Billy Graham Center
training center in Asheville.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
The cove.
Speaker 6 (04:43):
Essentially to speak to the question, Hey, how do you
reach the next generation? I was kind of the relative
of the young guy on the program speaking there with
my father, who was the not relative the old guy
on the program, and you know.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
To answer that question.
Speaker 6 (04:56):
And I was all ready for my talking kind of
before I was waiting for the session to start. A
man came up to me and had a whole stack
look at this came from a bookstore or something of
of you know, all the heavy hitters of apologetics, so
you know, some of the books that you just mentioned,
and you know, came up to me because he knew
that I had done some doctoral work in the field
of apologetics and just wanted to know, you know, what
(05:18):
are the best books? What do you think of these problems?
And he kind of, you know, not in a not
in a bad way. You know, he's a great guy.
I got to talk to him later in the conference
to you, but just sort of unloaded a little bit
about just the frustrations he had and he you know,
he just about this young generation is all about the
emotions and how do you reach them, and there's no
standard for truth, and you know, go into the different
(05:39):
ideologies in Hollywood and college campuses and just you know,
kind of unloading from his heart and really as he
as he did that just just since you know, just
a great frustration for him. This is a good guy,
very committed lay person in the church that had had
a desire to reach the next generation, to communicate the gospel,
(06:00):
you know, for discipleship. And yet you know, the way
that he was familiar, the way that he was attempting
to do so there was a disconnect and it wasn't
getting through. And you know, he kept trying to go
to the bookstore and get one more resource or you know,
one more you know, argument or something just to bridge
that gap, and just couldn't seem to cross over that.
And really, for me, you know, I I don't remember
(06:22):
much about that conference I went to. I don't I
hope some of the people there remember some of my
talk more than I remember remember it, But that conversation
just stuck with me of that here's a here's a
you know, a good Christian man that just feels hopeless,
feels frustrated, feels bewildered. And I think, as both me
and Mike have you know, in our own ministry settings,
just look at you know, the people that we're interacting with,
(06:43):
realizing that's not an isolated feeling. There's a lot of
people within the church that are just struggling with that
question and just struggling on the desire isn't lacking, but
I think maybe some of the the understanding or that
you know this, the knowledge of how do I actually
do so as this led to a lot of frustration.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Yeah, and I think, uh, one of the other things
too that that has come across for us is oftentimes,
when when people talk about the emotionalism in culture, it's
done in a real negative way, and and it's picturing
this as as a really bad thing. And there are
certainly excesses of it that that can be not so good.
(07:22):
But but our approach in this book was what what's
the other side, What what if we approach this as
an opportunity? What if we approach this as you know,
there's there's potential here. There's some positive things that that
have come from this too, as as it's not just
that people have become emotional and they weren't before, but
that emotion has been elevated to a sort of authority
(07:45):
that it that it hasn't really had before, where what
you feel on the inside determines what is true on
the outside. And uh, and you know you're led through
life by your emotions, but but that's not really different
from how things have been in the past. Like we're
wired that way psychologically. We do navigate through life based
on our emotions and our passions. And so we wanted
(08:06):
to look at, Hey, there's a lot of great apologetics
books taken you know, taking more of the rational side,
and we have bookshelves full of those. We love those,
those were very instrumental in shaping our own views. But
as we looked around, there's not much out there that
comes from the other side that says, Okay, if you
want to reach somebody's head and their heart, how do
(08:27):
you reach their heart? And so we wanted to, I
guess offer some offer something into that conversation.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
So when in particular, you look at and I know
you guys quote him at the beginning of the book,
stuff by like doctor Carl Truman, right rise and trying
for the modern self or the more condensed version strange
new world when we look at those kind of things,
he sort of picks up, in my estimation, kind of
picks up where Shaffer left off as far as in
(08:56):
the sort of analysis of the cultural imagine area, I
believe is what he calls it and what Philip Reef
would have called it. Whenever you're looking at how our
culture has now changed into something that is really self driven,
it seems for a lot of us like this was
an overnight thing. But it sounds like what you're saying
is that this has kind of been the undercurrent, especially
(09:17):
in the modern and post modern world, and now that
the United States is heading more towards a post Christian world,
particularly with the things that we've seen like in the
Olympic Games, right the Olympic opening ceremonies, which a lot
of people have tried to argue and said, knows is
the thing about Dionysus, Well, that guy was like, no,
we actually called it the Last Supper. That's really what
it's based off of. We kind of did some you
know that they've admitted as much. Why is it that
(09:40):
all of of the people in our generation and the
generations before us, right, why are we, do you think,
trying to make this more of a black and white
issue where we can come at it from, you know,
rationalizing it using the logical laws and those kinds of
things laws reason in order to get to the bottom
(10:01):
of it. Why are those attempts still what we're going
to when it's obvious that the culture around us is shifting.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Well, I think there's as we all know.
Speaker 6 (10:11):
I think there's there's great you know, it's just comfort
and what's familiar to us. I think what we know,
what you know, what we're used to. You know, the
whole craze with nostalgia these days, with you know, everything's
about nostalgia and selling millennials, you know, stuff that they
enjoyed when.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
They were you know, teenagers.
Speaker 6 (10:27):
There's comfort and just being reminded of, Hey, things were
good when you were young, your memories. And I think
as the church too, like you were saying, you know,
it feels like it happened overnight. But I think some
of that it's just that we weren't looking for the change.
We weren't noticing the small changes as as you know,
some of the cultural stuff was shifting because we were
focused on what's familiar, you know, the more rational side,
(10:47):
and we were because that was what was needed, you know,
the new atheists there, you know, that was the church
needed to respond to those logical, evidential, you know, demands
for proof and objective argument. So they did, and they
did so well and conventioningly. But I think we sort
of settled into that. There's being you know a lot
of resources and stuff and training in churches for apologetics,
(11:09):
and that just sort of became the default. I got
a lot of my experience, you know, especially with people
that maybe haven't aren't as deep in apologetics, sort of
the connotation of that is, you know, you have a
little handbook and you flip through and there's arguments, and
you kind of memorize those, and then you go, you know,
you distribute them to people in the culture and here's
the ontological argument for you and the cosmological for you,
(11:29):
and you know, we sort of we memorize all these
and we feel safe because we've we feel like we've
sort of cracked the code a bit. There are objections
that that seemed difficult, but because we've spent our time
invested in it, we have answers. We can have confidence
in how we respond to that. But as soon as
those questions began to shift and they begin to go
places that maybe make us more uncomfortable or you know,
(11:51):
when it comes to or aesthetics or narrative where it's
where it's just more subjective and it's harder to quantify,
and then that becomes scary. I think a lot of
Christians aren't comfortable kind of wading into some of that,
you know, more ambiguous territory. And I think so we
you know, I think that's where a lot of the
frustration comes is, you know, we want the culture to
shift back to what we're familiar with because we have
(12:12):
those you know, ask the questions that we have the
answers to you because we're ready for that, rather than
I think a posture to say, questions that are being
answered and how can I adapt to that and give
answers to those questions.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
It's interesting you mentioned the Olympic opening ceremony because you
see an example of of us what we call a
heart culture in that something happens in the culture and
then immediately everybody has a hot take on it. Everybody
is putting their opinion on social media, and they haven't
taken more than five minutes to sort of think through it.
(12:46):
But it's just like immediate, sort of shooting straight from
the hip, from the heart kind of reaction to things.
And it's fascinating to see the different responses to it
because because in a sense, like the the opening ceremony stuff,
it's having to do with with art, you know, like
they would I think the creators would say, we tried
(13:07):
to sort of create something here. It's not particularly creative art,
but they're like, we're we're creating something here, We're telling
a certain kind of story. We're doing this on the
basis of trying to appeal to certain people's desires or
a sense of community. We're trying to show people who
maybe feel on the fringes that they can be in
(13:28):
on something, that there can be part of the community.
Like all the things that they're talking about are the
heart language stuff that we talk about in the book,
like story and art and beauty and community and desire,
like all these things. You just see this example right
in front of us of like this is the language
that our culture is trying to speak, and what will
(13:50):
our response be. Will we respond in the same length,
do we understand that language, or will we immediately try
to sort of what danielis say and fall into what's
familiar and it's like, well, here's all the reasons why
this or that? Or will we actually hear what the
culture is saying implicitly? What is the heart of the
culture saying? Because if we take time to listen to
(14:12):
the culture, then we can also then take time to
formulate a response to the questions that they're actually asking,
rather than the questions maybe we wish that they would ask.
We have all these answers that we're ready to give,
but maybe some of our answers are for another era
and the questions have changed and they may not be
obvious questions. But if you learn how to sort of
(14:35):
recognize the language of the heart in culture, then you
can start to recognize those questions and something that like
the Olympics just screams loud and clear from the heart
right And so if you can learn how to engage
on that level, we think it's a really effective way
to engage with the culture. But if you don't, then
you end up sort of speaking past each other, speaking
(14:57):
different languages to each other, and anybody who who's ever
been in that position of trying to speak to someone
who doesn't speak the same language, like a lot gets
lost in translation.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Josh, you get anything.
Speaker 5 (15:16):
A quick aside? What do you think the question they
were they're asking with that?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
What?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
What?
Speaker 5 (15:21):
What are they speaking with that?
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (15:25):
I know that's a broad thing, so maybe it's like
a hot take on it.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
I guess, yeah, hot hot take.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Not not having spent a lot of time sort of
thinking through that, I would say in some ways, I
think some of what they've even said was they I mean,
if it is based on the Last Supper, they're trying
to subvert something right there. They're trying to kind of
say that the out with the old sort of in
with the new. It's Paris, right, so it's super progressive.
(15:53):
It's it's super like Paris has been that way for
a long time and so and so. In one sense,
I think they're trying to say, like the Olympics is
a place where where even the marginalized have a seat
at the table and not a background seat, but actually
like an upfront make it obvious. I mean, they had
(16:14):
to know that it would cause controversy, and so I
think I think controversy can often be used to spark conversations.
They're trying to say something it was not like a
they thought through that decision. And so I think in
some ways, some of the questions they want to they
want people to struggle with, is is the Olympics for everybody?
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Right? Like?
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Is is this a truly inclusive global thing that we're
trying to bring everyone a seat to the table with?
And then or are we sort of stuck in the past,
are we stuck with sort of old time religion stuff
or and so there's I think there's probably a lot
of statements being made, but I think underlying things about
like identity and community and includeiveness and connectedness and sort
(17:02):
of global The Olympics is all about sort of bringing
the globe together, and so I think there's probably a
lot of underlying interesting things that are being said. But
I think our temptation is to zero in on the
thing that offends us, right, and something can be offensive,
but we can choose to be offended by it or not,
(17:22):
and so we can actually be offensive, but how we
react to that is up to us, and I think
oftentimes we react from our own heart place of being
offended by something and this must be targeted at me,
And it's hard to sort of step back and see
maybe a broader picture because we immediately sort of connect
(17:43):
it to me as an individual. This is why it
offends me. This must have been aimed at me, and
it's like they may not have been thinking about you
at all, right, but that's our immediate reaction and that's normal.
But so I think you see a lot of the
hot takes that get riled up because it sort of
tweaks something and offends us in a personal way.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
That initial offensive reaction.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Yeah, it's kind of a and this has always been true,
but it's like a knee jerk reaction, right, And knee
jerk reactions are aren't always you know, they don't always
zero in on the truth of what's happening.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Right. I believe it was the English philosopher Jimmy Carr
who said offenses not something they can be given, It's
only something they can be taken. If you know Jimmy Carr,
he is a very raunchy comedian.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Philosopher whole that's a good line, though.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
That's his whole gimmick is he's asked, like, what's the
most offensive joke in the world, and he goes, well,
it's a difficult thing to say, and then he spends
the next ten minutes like gradually increasing in the darkness
of his comedy to see where the line is drawn,
you know, And it starts with jokes about infanticide and
(18:58):
then moves on to jokes about Princess Diane as death,
and then on and on it goes, and tell the
audiences like ooh, and he's like, all right, so there's
the line.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
There's a line.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
I found it, but it wasn't there for all of you, right,
you all had had to kind of come to to
that point. I do think that the Olympic thing in particular,
I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but
the Olympic thing in particular I bring up because it's
an interesting thing because when this has been my experiences
as a Christian musician, right, is that we are we
(19:26):
live in the culture day to day, but when it
comes to things that we look at as church specific,
we're maybe between ten and twenty years behind the curve, right,
And so the response to the Olympics stuff that we've
seen online is a very heart response, Like we're responding
(19:47):
in the way that the culture responds. Yet when it
comes to the things that we do inside the church,
we're still trying to do the things inside the church
that we did fifteen twenty years ago. So why why
do you guys believe that there is this disconnect from
us engaging in a culture where we're obviously acting in
the same way that our culture is, Like we're having
these knee jerk responses. We're having these well, I'm offended,
(20:08):
you should cater to my offense instead of like you're saying,
take a step back, maybe do a little bit of reflection,
deciding not to take offense to it, Like you know,
I was preaching this Sunday about like you know, this
is something that should break our hearts for what's happening
in France and for what the world is going through.
Instead of us rattling on about our offense, we're ready
to engage in culture with a heart first mentality and
(20:31):
when it comes to something that bothers us, But when
it comes to defending our faith, we're still ten, fifteen,
twenty years behind the curve. Why do you think there's
this disconnect in the way that we're approaching the Gospel
within the church.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
Well, I think maybe in some ways too, it's it's
well meaning. I don't know any Christian is doing so
not with you know, good good intention. I think it's
trying to be true to this scripture. We want to
honor the by want to honor that story, you know,
we want to and our framework for for scripture, I
think for a lot of people that have grown up
in the church is a very head centric approach. It's
(21:11):
it's doctrine, it's theology, it's versus. We memorize, and it's
you know, we do Bible drills and it can be
it can be taught in a very way that appeals
to our heads. It's knowledge and we can take pride
and how much of the you know we've memorized of
the Bible and how you know, how much thought you know, theology,
how deep we can do those those dives. And I
think what isn't maybe is as this explored, is as
(21:36):
openly I think for some of the same reasons that
we talked about, you know previously in the Bible is
just how much of that is an appeal to the
heart and you know, just the fact that so much
of the Bible is given through narrative, through story. You
know this the medium of the Bible itself is so
much narrative. And then within those narratives you know of Jesus,
you have you know, like inception, you keep going, there's
(21:57):
deep and Jesus is you know, in a narrative, telling
a narrative, and you know, responding to narratives, and you
know Psalms, you have a whole book of poetry, so
you know of songs, you have song of songs. There's
you know, from the start of the Bible to the end,
this is constantly God appealing to our hearts, speaking, you know,
to our emotions, even if the you know, the verses
(22:17):
to you know, revering your heart. You know Christ is Lord,
or you know, love the Lord of God with all
your heart. I think, and I think that's part this
that has been missed in And I think because it's
it's harder some things to quantify, and maybe there's a
there can be a negative sense that sort of emotions
and that it's subjective and therefore maybe less valuable, and
we just need to make sure we stick on the
(22:38):
on the more objective truth. But I do think there
is there is in many for many Christians of lacking
understanding of just how much the Bible and how much God,
through the Bible is constantly appealing to our emotions and
to our hearts. And I think kind of what we
wanted to do in the book is, you know, if
that's how God appealed to us, if that's how God
chose and his wisdom to reveal his nature to us,
(23:00):
and that can be the template for how then we
can you know, point other people towards God.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
So I guess, then how do you do it right?
Like when we're in a place where deconstruction is now
kind of the new buzzword. You guys talk a little
bit about that yeatline six areas where deconstruction has kind
of taken root for a lot of people positively and negatively.
You do talk about that, which I appreciate that there
is a balance there that some people are positively deconstructing.
(23:28):
They're seeing these things and then they're realizing that, you
know what, they want to reinvest in their faith instead
of step away from it. But the six thing you
outline is overprotective, shallow, anti science, repressive, exclusive and doubtless,
and that five of those those six things all have
to do with things about our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions.
Right when we look at how this is a question.
(23:51):
I asked to Jim Wallace, right, who a brilliant apologists
but all of his stuff cold case Christianity, person of interest,
his newest book, The Truth and True Crime. We asked him,
you know, you have all this intellectual stuff. How do
you balance out the intellectual piece with the heart component,
(24:14):
because it seems like even within the church today there
is a split between those two things. If you want
an intellectual faith, then you go to you go to
the village, you go to Matt Chandler, you go to
John Piper, you go you know, to one of these
churches where it's more reform, where everything is very strict,
(24:35):
and that there's a highly intellectual faith that is talked
about there. But when you want something that's a little
bit more of an emotional faith, well that's when you
end up at an elevation or a life church or
someplace like that where the focus is more on the
arts and worship and those kinds of things. Like we're
even seeing this split within the church. So without you know,
(24:55):
talking so much about the over the overarching theme of
like how to merge those those two things together, which
I think is an incredibly complex question and probably needs
to just be Yell's next book after reading this one.
That's the next question I need you all to answers faster.
When we look at at, for instance, like the five
of these six things, right, how how do we interact
(25:18):
with those things? How do we make overprotective, shallow, repressive, exclusive, doubtless,
how do we make those things points of the emphasis
for us as individuals, as a church to be speaking
to the you know, not to be to use the
word too much, but to be speaking to the heart
of those issues, so that we're actually making a compelling
(25:38):
argument to the heart to the emotions, to the thoughts
the feelings of the people that we're called to minister to.
To this generation who's who's rapidly changing the way that
they think about things.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Yeah, I think I think maybe just as a as
a starting point, just learning to take those things seriously
and not not to be dismissive of those things. And
I think I think probably gen Z if if you
were to ask some some gen Zers, you know, do
you think that the the older adults in your life
(26:13):
take seriously the things that you're passionate about, the things
that that are on your radar, as as being a
big deal that that you're that you know, fire up
your emotions. I just I wonder what they would say, Like,
I wonder if they feel like that these these things
that are that they are passionate about are are held
(26:33):
with respect or taken seriously by by the older generations,
because a lot of what we see is is maybe
people being dismissive of those things, you know, like oh,
they're they're just snowflakes, or they're just the safe spaces
and all this stuff, and there's there's some truth to
you know, yeah, this this stuff can be taken too far.
(26:54):
But then there's also this sense of like, but what's
going on beneath the surface, Like what is it that,
like what lies what lies at the root of these things?
Because often these things are they're they're further along down
the line, right, It's like it's.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Like symptoms of of something else.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
And I think if we're too dismissive right away, then
we never really get get past the surface. And so
and so that's the hard part. I think for for
maybe the older generation, and we would consider ourselves now
entering the older generation. Right, how we've got kids. I'm
thirty nine, Daniels, I don't know. He's like a kid.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
I have less gray in my beard than Mike Goodness.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
He also correlates with wisdom.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
So we're more and more we're like to be with
the older generation.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah, for sure, Yeah, we're we're right there with you. Right,
I'm I'm an eighty five model. Josh is darn near
in the seventies.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
Now, yeah, eight, I'll be forty one this year.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
We're all kind of in that, in that same demographic,
and it is it's weird to be the old guy.
I was just preaching, you know, I was. I was
preaching at a at a huge camp, and I made
a reference. Right, I'm there with the staffers, right, so
they're they're twenty two, twenty three, twenty four. I'm there
with the staffers and one of the kids like, I
think I have a fever. And I was like, well,
you know what we should do. Should go over to
(28:21):
the drum set and grab that cow bell, right, And
he looks at me and he's like why. I was like,
you got and there's like six other people there and
I was like, well, that's that's the cure for fever
is more cowbell. And they're like, what are you talking about? Like,
none of you No, They're like no, it's like it's
a it's a Saturday Night Live skit. And I was like,
(28:42):
they're like looking at me like Blake's I said, Will
Ferrell and they're like the old guy from Alpha.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
I was like, shut up, I'll show myself out.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, gets your phone to show you something.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
You don't know anything about sanctification, y'all are all, you know,
gonna burn. So that's but it is, when when did
we become old people?
Speaker 4 (29:01):
Well? And the crazy thing too, I think it.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
I think it was just what leads to a lot
of this the you know, the trepidation is it just
changes so fast, I think culture And there's been a
lot of the studies, you know, there's even been debate about,
you know, do we even keep segmenting out the generations
the way we've always done it, or is it changing
so much faster that you know, an old gen Z
is about as different from a young gen Z as
(29:24):
a millennial was to a boomer.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
And it could even my wife. She's a young millennial.
Speaker 6 (29:28):
She's a high school art teacher, so she teaches you know,
a lot of these gen zs and she might as
well be the oldest boomer on the premises like this,
the you know, the gap between those generations, you know,
where it's just there, there is that disconnect, even from
someone that's you know, only ten years removed from the
age or so that she's that she's teaching. And I
(29:49):
think technology obviously has a lot to do with that.
Just know how rapid the culture is changing that I
think it makes the task of sort of keeping up
with that and keeping your finger on the pulse for
for people that are older. Uh, just I think a
lot more challenging.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yeah, a couple of things. There's there's a book coming out.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
It's not out yet, but it's I think her name's
gene like Twinge or something. Jonathan Hyde quotes her a lot.
She's done a lot of a lot of study in
the area of technology and its impact and and actually
I think the premise of this book coming out is
basically like technology plays a huge factor in how we
(30:32):
how we divide up generations, and almost like now that
we're in the age of like the iPhone and all
of this stuff. It actually becomes harder to know where
the lines are of future generations because because each generation
has to have something sort of distinct about what you
know sets them apart from the generation before, and and
iPhones and everything have connected us so much. Technology changes
(30:54):
so rapidly that you're almost, like what Daniel was saying,
within within a generation, there can almost be so much
change that it's like you almost have to divide generations
up now. And so I think I think one of
the things we tried to get across in the book too,
is that when you're dealing with emotion, we are all
(31:16):
a combination of the head and the heart. And even
though maybe some of the issues change and some of
the cultural atmosphere changes and stuff, at heart, like us
us old guys are are driven by our emotions too,
and so it's not something that is unique to the
younger generation, although they may have elevated it in a
(31:39):
sense of giving it more authority over how to determine truth.
But the irony is that the older guy at the
beginning of the book that Daniel talks about, he's he's
very emotional and passionate about what he's talking about even
as he is being dismissive of the emotion and passion
of the younger generation. And we're just emotional and passionate
(32:01):
about different things. And so I think when we can
kind of step back and take a look at ourselves,
be introspective a little bit and say, you know what, like,
I'm driven by my emotion too, And were I to
grow up in the world as a gen Z today,
would I be that much different than they are? You know,
it's giving different it's given different expression today than maybe
(32:23):
it was when we were growing up in like the
early two thousands and late nineties. But I think we
can start to find a little bit of common ground
because because human nature hasn't really changed, we're still driven by,
you know, trying to find out what our identity is
and seeking community, and those sorts of things are still
(32:44):
at the basis of what drives us. And so the
hard part is trying to understand, Okay, so how does
a gen Z or you know, a Gen Alpha or whoever,
how are they trying to navigate the world asking similar
questions that we ask when we were their age, but
living in a completely different world than we lived in.
These these digital natives who who've never known life without
(33:08):
a smartphone, Like how do you navigate that world? And
that often is going to mean I think doing a
lot of listening, but then also sort of digging beneath
the surface, like what is it at heart that's that's
driving a young person. Often it's the very same things
that drove us, trying to figure out who they are,
what's their place in the world. They're trying to make
(33:30):
sense of the story that they're living. What character am
I in this greater story? Where do I fit in?
Like that sort of stuff, And so I think I
think doing a lot of listening and trying not to
be dismissive of the younger generation, which is hard the
older you get and the more far removed you feel.
But having kids of my own has been very eye
(33:54):
opening to me because it's like, what world are they
growing up in? And I want to stay connected to them?
And so that may take some work on my part
to find those connection points, but but it's worth it.
Speaker 5 (34:06):
Would you say, maybe part of the problem is us
the olds. So maybe some of the stuff that y'all
mentioned earlier was like the Bible drills and the and
the stuff we learned growing up, maybe we failed to
actually take it to heart, and it's more of a
head thing. So we have we are emotional creatures that
(34:29):
respond emotionally. But all this stuff we learned in the church,
this is this, it's very structured, it's very rigid, and
we never took it to heart. Do you think that
may be part of the disconnect we have going on here?
Speaker 6 (34:43):
It's kind of you're often too, especially for you know,
maybe a father or mother that has like a prodigal
child that you know, they'll you know, like how many
times we've all probably heard just you know, they grew up,
they were there every every week and you know, they
were in Sunday school, and I just don't under stand
why it's you know, why they've abandoned the things. You know,
(35:03):
just even recently, was in a conversation where someone so,
you know, this isn't how I raised them, this isn't
how you know what I what I imagine, And I
think there is a sense of, you know, in those
same conversations, there's you know, there's well, if you know,
if only we could get them back in church or
back to this Bible study, and you know, again, not
that those things are that we shouldn't be doing those things,
but just sort of the you know, so they's somethings
(35:25):
I stop and wondering. You know, so they're they've been
in that for years. You know, they've been having the
same kind of Bible studies. Is the answer then, just
to if only we had given them one more you know,
we they were there on Wednesday and Sunday and some Mondays.
But you know, now and then we had a program
on Tuesday, and if only we could have you know,
that maybe would have pushed them over the edge. Or
I think what you're saying is there is there also
(35:47):
a responsibility for us to step back and see, you know,
it's it's not just more of what we're giving that
maybe is the answer, but is how we're communicating that
the most effective way? Or because it won't matter how much,
you know, quantity, we're giving them the same thing. If
that thing isn't sinking in you know, at a deeper
heart level, don just sort of this thing in their
head that they sort of understand but they've never really felt,
(36:10):
they've never experienced, you know, what it really means to
be filled by the Holy Spirit and follow after Jesus
and you know the life that they're called to, you know,
at more of a heart level.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
So I think it's right.
Speaker 6 (36:19):
I think there is a sense that I think we
need to be aware not just that we give them
lots of it, and that we give them lots of
biblical knowledge, but also see how are we giving them
that and is it sinking in at a deeper level.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
Rather than just pushing the structure of the biblical knowledge,
build a relationship to where it's more accepted rather than
just here, sit down and take this well.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
And the philosopher James ka Smith has been really influential
for me. He wrote a great book called You Are
What You Love, and he said, our education model has
so often been I just need to deposit this this
knowledge into your head. And if I can deposit enough,
and he said, that's been our discipleship approach. If I
can deposit enough you know, gospel knowledge, Bible knowledge in
(37:07):
from my head into your head, then then that should
be enough. And then we're and then we're surprised when
it's not enough.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
And he says, it's.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Because we are what we love. We're driven through life
led by our heart. And if you never capture a
person's heart. You can fill their head with knowledge, and
we know this, right we we've like you can fill
someone's head with knowledge, but if it never makes its
way to their heart, if they don't love it, if
they don't feel passionately about it, if it never captures
them at that level, then then they're very They become
(37:37):
a very knowledgeable atheist, like they have a lot of theology, but.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
But they don't love it.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And the truth is that that Jesus called us to
love Him, to love God, and that that doesn't mean
that our intellect gets you know, gets a free pass,
Like that's part of it, to love him with all
of who we are heart, mind, soul, strength. But but
to love something is a lot more than just have
(38:03):
enough have all the knowledge about it. And so I
think sometimes maybe in our discipleship we just think if
I can just give them more information, then this will
solve the problem. And yet what you find with a
lot of the nuns, like the n ones, is that
are leaving church, Like there are the deconstruction issues of
like I can't square this circle sort of thing, but
(38:26):
a lot of it is like it's either heart things,
like I passionately and am against sort of what I
see as immoral in the Bible, or or a sense
of just boredom, like we just kind of lost interest.
We don't love it, like it never made its way
to our heart. We've got all this Bible knowledge, but
we never actually learned to love God, and God never actually,
(38:47):
you know, we don't feel like God has shaped our
loves to proper because we're going to love something. You know,
we go through life as lovers, but the Church never
helped me, you know, know, how to direct my love's properly,
and so over time my heart got called away by
other things because the heart my church didn't teach me
how to properly aim my love at the proper at
(39:10):
the correct things. And they gave me a lot of knowledge,
but they didn't never shape my heart along the way.
And uh, and it's a hard question. There's I don't
think there's there's. Our our tendency is to want to
find a formula. And that's what we constantly do in discipleship.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Right.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
It's like and people will write a book about it.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
And if you just do this, here's the ABC's here's
the the you know, the six steps to this or
that and and the problem is every time we come
up with a formula, we put our trust in the
formula instead of instead of the God that we desire
to know. And and so we tried not to give
like a formulaic version in our in our book, what
(39:48):
we hoped to do is just bring up some good
questions and some ideas. But you're not going to find
here's the one, two three steps on exactly how to
do this, because a lot of it is go to
God and say, God, lead me to first change my heart,
help me to experience you at a heart level, and
then show me how to help disciple somebody else to
(40:09):
follow you at a heart level too, And that may
look different for different people. We give a few examples
of some sort of heart language to be aware of,
but there's so many more than that. One that we
don't get into in the book. That I think you
guys would appreciate is something like humor. Right like humor
is a very effective way to communicate with people that
(40:31):
can cross all sorts of boundaries, you know, good or bad, right,
but it can sort of get around defenses. It can
speak to a level at somebody you know. I would
love to see more I think some of the most
effective apologists would can be comedians, people who can use
humor to speak the gospel because that you know, at
(40:53):
a heart level, and humor is a social thing. There's
all sorts of interesting statistics on this about like you
laugh way more often when you're with people, So it's
not just that something is funny, like laughing is actually
a social thing. You laugh because it actually includes you
with the people that you are laughing with. The person
(41:13):
who's telling the joke actually laughs quite a bit more
on average than the people hearing the joke, And so
it's not just that you hear a new joke and
that that triggers your laughter. Laughter is a social thing.
It connects people together. And man, what a powerful way
to speak to the heart through humor. And that's something
we don't get into in the book, but I know
(41:35):
you guys do a lot of that on your podcast,
and I think that's a very effective way to speak
truth to our culture today.
Speaker 3 (41:43):
Yeah. The GK. Chesterton quote of humor slips in under
the door while seriousness is outside knocking is definitely something
that we have taken to heart whenever it comes to
our approach of things as I've gone through the book.
The thing that tends to come up over and over
and over again is, you know, not just these heart languages,
(42:06):
but it seems like now more than ever that connecting
somebody with the gospel is about building relationships and a
lot of the evangelism models that we were taught, the
faith model, of the door to door model is this,
we've got this sixty second gospel presentation. If you've got
(42:28):
sixty seconds for me to tell you about Jesus, I'm
gonna knock on your door and I'm gonna do it,
and I'm gonna ask you if there's any reason why
you shouldn't trust you, Yes, this today, and we're gonna
pray a prayer and then you're gonna come to church
on Sunday and be baptized and like we we got
another one that you know, we we have built this
that that's what's got to be the thing, is that
anytime we have a conversation with a person, if it
(42:49):
isn't a you know, simple, clear, concise presentation of the
Gospel where you ask for it, then that's not really evangelism.
With this new generation getting to somebody's you know, thoughts
and feelings and those kinds of things. It takes relationship building.
What for lack of asking you for the steps that
(43:11):
you intentionally did not put in the book? Right? Right?
What things do we need to be doing to show
the next generation that we care about them but also
that we are intentional about building relationships?
Speaker 4 (43:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Well, I mean, how many loaners do you see in
your church?
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Like them?
Speaker 1 (43:33):
They don't last, right, You know, you don't see a
lot of people who just slip in the back door,
sit in the back take in the content and then go.
There'll maybe be some, but the people who stick around
long term are the people who plug into community. There's
a relational aspect to to the Christian faith and to
the church that is not a second order thing. Like
(43:55):
it's right at the at the center of it that
the called out ones, you know, like the gathered ones.
These The church is about a group of people in
relationship and so and so. I really believe if if
somebody doesn't find community at a church, then there are
days at the church are numbered, Like they're not. They're
just not going to stick around, no matter how good
(44:16):
the preacher is, no matter how rock and the music is,
no matter how much content you throw at them. If
you don't meet people at a community level, they just
won't stick around. They won't they won't be in it
long term. And so absolutely there's this sense of almost
this lost sense of like friendship and hospitality, Like how
often do we talk about that in our churches? Like
(44:38):
what is a friend?
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Like?
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Like how do you define friendship? Like the philosophers like
Plato tried to dig into this right, like like what
is a friend?
Speaker 2 (44:46):
What?
Speaker 1 (44:47):
What is the category of friendship? And what does a
Christian friend look like? How do we do friendship as
a church? Like that that sort of thing, like how
do we be good friends to each other? How do
we connect to each other? Because most people who come
to visit a church are going to come on the
arm of somebody else, And so I think, uh, I think, yeah,
that relational aspect of like it's discipleship is not just
(45:11):
about dumping ideas into their head, but a lot of
times it's it's building community, it's it's being intentional to
build friendships, and and I think that needs to be
at the forefront. I think I think people can figure
out and learn doctrine later, but what gets them in
the door oftentimes is friendship and then doctrine helps them
(45:32):
to see and explain what they're experiencing. But their experience
is sort of what gets them, what drives them into
the in the doors.
Speaker 6 (45:40):
And I think, I think too, that there's a there's
sort of this misconception that you know, the younger generations
today are just very antisocial. And I think because they
connect differently than maybe we connected, their different tools to connect,
that we can assume that they just don't want to connect.
And you know, they don't meet with their friends like
we used to do in the at the baseball field
on a Saturday and play ball for an hour, so
(46:03):
therefore they must be anti social, which really just isn't
the case. Like if you you know, especially my wife
being a high school teacher, of these gen z, you know,
in some ways they're more connected than we were. You know,
they're constantly you know, I used to you know, boot
up my PlayStation one and just play all night alone,
where now they're you know, gen z's seeking out. You know, Hey,
(46:24):
I want to watch someone else play, which is weird
to me still, but you know, and not only that,
but I want to talk to other people who are
watching someone else play, and I think just that longing
to be a part of something, to have some of
you know, that community. I think that they want that
more than sometimes older generations in the church give them
credit for.
Speaker 4 (46:42):
And I think that there is a hunger for that.
Speaker 6 (46:44):
If I think, if we connect in the right way,
and i'd mean we say, just to go back to
that original question, just one of the ways to do it,
I think, And I think this is one of the
things we try and hammer home. You know, a lot
of our book is based and just learn to be
good listeners, you know, learn to be good observed because
you often hear you know, older generation they they're not
interested in what I have to say, and they're sort
(47:05):
of this disconnect. And you know, I think of vern,
none of us want people to tell us what to do,
Like I don't think, you know, I don't like people
telling me what to do and how to live my life.
Speaker 4 (47:14):
But but you don't find nearly.
Speaker 6 (47:16):
As many people who aren't eager to talk about things
that they care about. People like talking about themselves. If
you ask good questions, I think you can get almost
anyone talking. I think there is that sense of building
that trust, you know, even just the rise of like
the influencer sort of generation of you know, in many ways,
it reflects a lot of the same sort of boomer
commercialism of you know, there is sort of an artificial
(47:39):
quality to a lot of that, but I think it's
you know, the reason that has exploded is because it
does give that sense of you know, yeah, this might
sort of be selling me products and pushing me different
directions and stuff, but I kind of know this person
because I tune into their live streams a couple times
a week.
Speaker 4 (47:55):
You know, I've.
Speaker 6 (47:56):
Followed them for years, and there is sort of that
gradual you know that you know, over a year's time
of just built trust. It's not that the church should
just become like influencers, but but just some of that
patience to just to you know, to allow that relationship
to grow and not be too quick to you know,
to jump in and try and get to the you know,
the deep end of the pool before we've allowed ourselves
(48:18):
to sort of build that initial trust.
Speaker 5 (48:21):
You kind of touched on what I was about to
ask about. But I know we talked about there's not
an easy one, two three solution for all of this,
but turning it rather from outwards to speaking to them.
What are some suggestions you have to prepare your heart
for that, Like as an individual, some of the things
(48:43):
you just mentioned kind of cover that, but in general,
I think.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
In part like being a little introspective on like what
what is in your heart? When we started writing this book,
I thought it would be interesting because you know, I
saw myself as more of coming from the head perspective
and Daniel was the you know, emotional, artistic, sensitive one,
(49:12):
and I was like, this is good. We can come
from opposite perspectives and you can sort of present the
you know, the artsy fartsy kind of stuff, and I
can like represent you know. And over the course of
writing the book, I was like, no, like I'm I'm
driven just as much by my heart and it manifests
itself in different ways, but like, we're not so different
(49:35):
to you. And I how a thing happened this realization
and I had to ask myself, So, what is in
my heart? What is driving me? What are the desires
that sit at the base of like my control console
and things like the movie Inside Out Too is just fantastic.
The first one is my all time favorite Pixar movie.
We just took the kids to see the second one,
(49:57):
and things like that give such good perspective of like
what's going on inside my own head and heart, you know,
like what are the emotions jostling for control over my
control console?
Speaker 2 (50:09):
And the more we.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Come to sort of introspectively understand ourselves, I think it
gives us a lot more empathy for others because we
realize how complicated we are. And essentially, I'm working on
a sermon for this coming up Sunday, and I went
back to this to the book by Malcolm Gladwell Talking
to Strangers, and he makes the point right at the
(50:32):
beginning where he says, we think others are way complicated
or no, we think others are easy to understand, and
we think we're complicated and nuanced and everything. And we
found is that we actually don't know others very well.
We don't know strangers very well because we we think
that we're like somehow different than they are. We're complicated
(50:54):
and nuanced and they're not. And rather than looking at
how complicated we are and saying, if I'm this confusing
on the inside, I can't imagine what's going on in
that person too, And it gives us some empathy to
realize Okay, wait a sec and more and more, I've
been sort of interested in not so much what people believe,
(51:14):
but why they believe it. Okay, so what is it?
What are the stories you've told yourself? You know, what
are the narratives you've brought into that have made you
believe the things that you believe? Not so much and
apologetics is almost always just aimed straight at the content,
like this is what you say you believe. Now I'm
going to try to refute that rather than why do
(51:35):
you believe that? Like what process got you to that place?
And that's a really interesting question to try and understand people.
And I think if we try to understand ourselves at
that level, then that can translate and become we can
become more empathetic to others and more patient with others
to try and understand that they're they're complicated just like
(51:57):
we are.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
Well gentlemen, we greatly appreciate the time. And as we
told you in the beginning, we end all of our
episodes with a little segment that we like to call
controlled routiness. Now, these are just a series of rapid
fire questions which you could answer with as shorter, as
long an answer as you would like to expect nothing
(52:21):
from us by way of replyier response as these questions
get fired at you, and I'm gonna send it over
to Big Joshi to get us going.
Speaker 5 (52:27):
Got a softball, And I think, what game? And we're
gonna skip all the classic consoles? What games were you
playing on PlayStation one?
Speaker 4 (52:37):
Well, I probably misspoked.
Speaker 6 (52:38):
I was definitely a Nintendo kid, okay enough to have
a PlayStation, but any of any of those legend of
Zelda games. I mean I haven't grown out of that.
I still for the sake of the kids, we always
buy the new ones. I mean they watched their dad
play for hours.
Speaker 1 (52:53):
Nice when we were growing up. Daniel was the one
who controlled the character. I was never good at the games,
but I would sit with him and I would sort
of be the co pilot trying to help him figure
out the puzzles and stuff, and so it was sort
of a team effort.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
Do you guys think your books would have sold as
well if your names were Dan and Mike Smith?
Speaker 2 (53:15):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
People joke They're like they're like, yeah, you know, how
does it feel being Henry Blackaby's grandsons and We're like,
we're going to ride those coattails till the last thread.
Speaker 3 (53:27):
That's actually my next question. Whose coat tails are better
to ride, Hank's or Richard's.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
Well, well, Richard's riding the same coattails we are. So
we're all writing around all very grateful for those who've
gone ahead of us.
Speaker 5 (53:45):
I was going to I will just point out I know,
he said, we weren't going to respond, but I was
forty years old today, years old when I was informed
of the heritage there. So I came into this just thinking, y'all,
y'all did it on your own, So kudos. He pointed
out to.
Speaker 1 (54:02):
Me, A lot of opportunities come to us because of
the faithfulness of the generations that went before him.
Speaker 3 (54:09):
Okay, do you guys know Thomas Blackabye?
Speaker 2 (54:12):
He's our uncle.
Speaker 4 (54:13):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
He was actually the pastor of the church that I'm
the pastor of in the early two thousands.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
Where are you? What's your church?
Speaker 3 (54:21):
First Baptist Church, Lake Dallas and uh in Lake Dallas, Texas,
just north of Dallas.
Speaker 4 (54:28):
Have you cleaned up the mess yet? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (54:32):
Anything that's got his name on is in the cairn.
Speaker 4 (54:36):
No.
Speaker 3 (54:37):
They I was looking through the through the old pastors
who had who had been there, and there's a few
guys that had been between him and I, and that
was one of the ones that came up, and they
were like, yep, he was there, he was at He
was a pastor of the church at a point where
it was struggling. And actually your your father and your
grandfather's ministries gave to our church in order to make
(54:57):
sure that we could keep the doors open while he
he was the pastor here and continue to invest in
the community. So, y'all's legacy is a little bit more
than just the harritage of the books and all of
that stuff. Like, part of the reason that I've got
a gig is because of the stuff that you and
your family have done in the way that God's working
here and in the lake Dallas, Texas, a tiny little
(55:18):
popcorn part of a city just north of Dallas. So
it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
That's cool.
Speaker 3 (55:24):
Yeah. So one of the things, there's a song from
growing up that I heard often. I want to know
bonus points if you guys recognize what the lyrics are from.
But second, I want to know why you, after reading
your book, why you think that this song is wrong
and the song goes, Hey, what a wonderful kind of
day where we can learn to laugh and play and
(55:45):
get along with each other. You got to listen to
your heart, Listen to the beat, Listen to the rhythm,
the rhythm of the street. It's a simple message, but
it comes from the heart. Believe in yourself, and that's
the place to start. So one do you know the song?
And second, why is it that your book thinks to
that song is wrong?
Speaker 4 (56:02):
Like I should know that I know those lyrics.
Speaker 1 (56:06):
And our general does it?
Speaker 3 (56:07):
You gotta know those lyrics.
Speaker 5 (56:10):
I didn't. I'll just tell them myself.
Speaker 3 (56:13):
Okay, I'll give it.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
I need the tune with it.
Speaker 3 (56:15):
Yeah. So if my voice was in better shave? But
that is that is the theme song to the kids
Smash Hit on public television Arthur And yeah, yeah, And
I just want to know.
Speaker 2 (56:29):
I wouldn't have thought of a TV show. I was
thinking more like radio.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (56:35):
So, so why do you guys hate Arthur the fact
that that it's it's all about the heart.
Speaker 1 (56:41):
What is Arthur anyway?
Speaker 4 (56:44):
I've never known.
Speaker 3 (56:45):
He's like an art Arker.
Speaker 2 (56:46):
And that's a million dollar questions.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
Yeah, but you while you guys answer this question, I'm
gonna google what is Arthur?
Speaker 6 (56:54):
And well, I feel like if if we knew we
were going against Arthur, we probably read a different.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
Would he has yea Arthur is indeed an art work? Okay, yeah,
well I think it's yeah, I think uh.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
I think part of the part of the problem is
like we are driven by our hearts, but but our
hearts are easily led astray, and and so to just
follow your heart is sort of this sense of like, well,
there's no input from other people, no input from your head.
Like the heart and the head work together to to
(57:39):
sort of keep keep each other in check. And Bible
says the heart is deceitful. But then it also says
to love God with your heart, and so like, how
do we do that? Right, Well, we we need God
to reform our hearts. But but you don't dismiss your
heart or get rid of your heart. You just learn
to aim aim your loves in the proper direction. And
(58:00):
so the Disney theme right of just just follow your heart,
that's sort of our our culture today is just whatever
is in your heart by default is good and should
be trusted. I think we all sort of know that
deep down that that is false. But at the same time,
it doesn't mean that we completely dismissed the heart it long.
Speaker 2 (58:19):
We will love something.
Speaker 1 (58:21):
It's just where we love it well or correctly.
Speaker 3 (58:24):
Yes, So so Arthur's only half wrong, then he's half wrong.
Speaker 1 (58:28):
We'll assume ard mark or whatever art mark.
Speaker 2 (58:31):
I'd say he's got got.
Speaker 1 (58:33):
Some wisdom that's not your average Daniel.
Speaker 3 (58:38):
This question is for you. What does Mike have to
do to get on the Blackabye Ministry's international website because we.
Speaker 4 (58:47):
Have pretty low standards to hurdles.
Speaker 1 (58:53):
Keep failing the entrance exam?
Speaker 3 (58:57):
Is the age off?
Speaker 5 (58:58):
Is that what this is?
Speaker 3 (58:58):
No, there's definitely not. Because Rick Fisher's photo is still
from the church directory from nineteen eighty that's definitely as Definitely.
Speaker 4 (59:07):
We put even non black Cobies on there.
Speaker 1 (59:09):
And I know I was going to say that maybe
if I was a Fisher, I could get on there.
Speaker 6 (59:14):
We put you guys on if you send us pictures.
What's the funny thing, even just about our book, I
don't I think we were maybe in the same country
once in the entire time we wrote this book together.
Mike's in Canada, and so I don't know if we
just we work better when we're on opposite ends of
North America. Apparently, Well it's.
Speaker 1 (59:34):
A suple thousand miles of space between us, seems to
do the trick.
Speaker 3 (59:38):
Yeah, that's a good social distancing practice. Yes, right on, man,
you got anything else, Josh?
Speaker 4 (59:45):
No?
Speaker 3 (59:46):
All right, Well, hey, thank you guys so much. Again,
the book is straight to the heart. We really appreciate
you all being on the show. Your wealth of information
and let us let our audience know where does it.
They can find you if they want to go, not
just check out the book, but if they want to
fall you in social media.
Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
Yeah, no, you can find me.
Speaker 6 (01:00:02):
I run a ministry out of Blackabuy Ministries called The Collision.
You can go to our website, the Collision dot org
and a lot of it's sort of application of the
principles of our book of just engaging with the culture.
We review all the big movies and you know, have
articles just you know, on different trends and things going on.
We've got a podcast and and if you go to
the Collision dot org you can find links to my
(01:00:23):
own social media's and if you want to you know,
love to have you guys, whoever listeners find me there
and just join the conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
Sweet.
Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Yeah, I'm not on social media as much these days,
but if you want to find sort of what's bouncing
around in my head, probably tuning into our church live stream.
Our church is called Canvas like a painter's canvas, Canvas
oak Bay, Oak Bay is the part of the city
that we're in, So canvasoak Bay dot ca A our
(01:00:52):
live streams or sort of anything that's going on in
my head and heart usually come out in my sermons
at our at our church. So probably the best place
to find what I'm thinking is is just our church website.
Speaker 4 (01:01:03):
Especially if you don't find him on the Blackaby whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Yeah he is, I can tell you where not to
find you.
Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
Also cannot find him at Mike Blackaby dot com because
that now is just in a four oh four error loop.
I had to go. I to go like that used.
Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
To be my blog spot.
Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
Yeah, I paid for the domain name. And then I
was like, I write like one blog a year. Yeah,
well why am I paying for this?
Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
We took it.
Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
So I think if you go to a WordPress dot
com slash Mike Blockaby, you'll find my one blog a year.
Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
Yeah, maybe you can find his twenty fourteen blog on
Mark Driscoll, which Duck Duck Go puts in his top
five links. Yeah, just this picture of Mark. Driss was like,
I'm curious as to what this is about from twenty fourteen,
and I was like, I'm pretty sure Mike doesn't hold
to many of these things as tightly as he.
Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Trying to distance ourselves a little bit more from just
coming up.
Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
Well, hey, once again, we appreciate you guys being on
this show. Thanks so much, and we look forward.
Speaker 4 (01:02:03):
To having you back than I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (01:02:06):
These guys, Mike and Daniel freakin' yeah, they were awesome.
They were dude, they were really really great. In our
off air piece of the interview, we learned that we
not only share the same favorite Star Wars movies maybe.
Speaker 5 (01:02:24):
Not generally, we were in the the.
Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
Same affinity for Star Wars, but also that they listened
to all the same European European prog metal bands that
we that we do, which is pretty awesome.
Speaker 4 (01:02:36):
Man.
Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
What was your biggest taway you think from these guys.
Speaker 5 (01:02:39):
I had a lot of takeaways. Honestly. There was one
part where they were talking where it's so easy to
fall into this and I think of this in like
they presenting the gospel or building relationships with people so
you can lead them to Christ or whatever. But a
lot of times they were saying it in a way
where it made me just think of like a sales sheet.
(01:03:00):
So like, so often the questions they ask people ask
us aren't the questions we're equipped to answer because we're
just reading off of a sales sheet and these are
the things I know, and these are the things ript Yeah,
like overcome the objectives. Well, none of the objections that
you have are on my list here, Like, you're not
asking me the right questions I need to answer with
(01:03:22):
these answers. And so often when we go off of
a script like that, which it's not actually a script,
but it's just what we have in our head, what we've.
Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
Learned, that the rehearsed answers, and they're not wrong.
Speaker 5 (01:03:33):
Answers, but that's not the questions people are asking. You
end up talking over each other. And it's something I knew,
but I don't know. It just it struck me very
blatantly that how often that happens.
Speaker 3 (01:03:45):
Yeah, I think this is one of the reasons too,
why looking at things like Greg Cochle's book Tactics and
Cokeal's going to be coming on the show here soon,
which I'm really excited about. Is so important because it's
about asking those earnest questions, and it's a lot of
stuff that you guys teach me, right, but the idea
that you know, they don't care whether or not God
is good because they don't think God is nice, all right,
And like if somebody says I don't think God's good,
(01:04:06):
well I got all the answers for God's good. But
if somebody tells me, well, I don't you know, I
don't like Christianity because God doesn't seem very nice. Well,
who who gives a crap whether or not you think
he's very nice?
Speaker 4 (01:04:17):
Right?
Speaker 3 (01:04:18):
He is?
Speaker 4 (01:04:18):
He?
Speaker 3 (01:04:18):
You know, there's a lot of people that aren't very
nice but are really good at that, you know, at
their jobs or whatever. So it's about getting to the
heart of that asking that you know, well, what do
you mean by by nice? Why do you think God
should be nice? Right?
Speaker 4 (01:04:29):
Why?
Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
Why does God being nice matter to you? Those are
the types of questions that we are are not asking
because we're getting kind of in this this pattern of like,
oh my gosh, it's not, like you said, It's not
my rolodex of answers that I've got coming up, So
why am I gonna ask that question? It's about building that,
(01:04:50):
like that next deeper thing, because people want to be
seen and they want to be heard and they want
to feel, you know whatever. And it's a really challenging
shift that we're all having to make in the ways
that we're we're doing a presenting evangelism. But for you
and I, that's one that we've got to make. I mean,
your kids are you got a teenager, You got a
(01:05:11):
couple of younger kids. Mine are three or yeah, three
months and two years now, right Like, if we don't
learn how to speak this language, we're never going to
be able to disciple our kids properly. Man. I can't
recommend the book highly enough. Straight to the Heart. Make
sure that you check out the show notes for all
this stuff from Mike and Daniel, where to check out
(01:05:33):
Mike's church, the Collision dot org yep, and where you
can look at places where you can get your hands
on a copy of Straight to the Heart, which I
think maybe is I'm gonna put it probably one of
the best reads that I've had of twenty twenty four
and I met like book forty five of sixty hour.
We're cruising through. We're about to make it all the way.
Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
I'm in like six.
Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
Yeah, well I think sixty by the end of the year.
Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
Year was the goal, clown.
Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
And so I'm I'm on pace. I'm on pace to
get there and uh and this is one of the
ones one yep, Mike and Daniel Blackaby check it out.
Thank you guys for listening. Once again, y'all stay hard,
keep jamming, and we'll see that.
Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
Hey, my name is Mike Blackaby.
Speaker 4 (01:06:19):
I'm Daniel Blackabee.
Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
And you should not listen to the Reverend and Reprobate
because their favorite Star Wars movie for some reason is
not Return of the Jedi.
Speaker 4 (01:06:29):
They just hate e walks.
Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
Shameful