July 27, 2023 • 46 mins
We are in an interesting era of the church. The days of "motivational" messages are behind us (thankfully), and we now have the younger generations hungry for scriptural depth and understanding. On this episode, founder of Arma courses and traveling pastor Manny Arango breaks down the millennial mindset when it comes to scripture reading, and how we as the church can better teach and empower Millennials and Gen Z in their quest for Biblical Truth!
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Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
If all I do is I pull out inspirational bits out of
(00:03):
the Bible, I'm prostitutingscripture to get a men's The
goal is to actually help peopleto learn the Bible. I think
right now we're in a churchspace, where there's a lack of
like real accountability, okaythat you have a board, but that
board is less like a group ofyour friends. There's gotta be
somebody in your life saying,Are you watching your life? And
(00:24):
are you watching your doctrine?
A pastor turn tech leader andthe millennial churchgoer,
exploring the intersection oftechnology, culture and faith,
equipping you with innovativestrategies to support you as you
live out your calling leaderchurches with confidence to step
into the future together. Thisis the give it up podcast.
Welcome back to the give it uppodcast. And today, we have to
(00:48):
give it up for none other thanthe man ie the myth, the legend,
it's Manny Oh, rango right here.
And Manny knows that I lovepuns, especially with him. He's
wearing a rude shirt if you'rewatching this on YouTube. So I
entered by saying I don't meanto be rude, but it looks like
you did mean to be rude. Sowe're having a good time already
(01:09):
here on the podcast today. ButManny, you are a dynamic
speaker, preacher. You are alsoa social media Pastor, I would
say. In fact, that's how I foundyou. I'll say that. And you also
have a Bible courses online,which I think is a Dynamic
(01:31):
Pairing. So today, we want tofocus on the topic of millennial
mindsets when it comes toreading the Bible, because we
couldn't think of anyone betterthan you to discuss this with.
So I first want to know, Manny,how has Bible reading in the
concept of it changed throughthe generations, let's say baby
(01:53):
boomers now to Gen X,millennials, and of course, Gen
Z coming up as well. Yeah.
Good question.
Boy, How's it changed? I thinkthat let's so my context for
baby boomers are my parents.
Okay, like, yeah, my parents areboth boomers. And I would say
that for for both of my parents,like, there wasn't like a
(02:18):
question of like, a separationbetween what does the text say
versus what does the text mean?
And I don't know that they thatthey were asking, like a
hermeneutical or exegeticalquestion when it came to the
separation between what does thetext say versus what does it
(02:41):
mean? And I think millennialsand Gen Z are asking that
question. I think that like,what would normally have been
found only in seminary, like fortwo generations ago, is now like
on YouTube. So I think there'san access to information that is
(03:01):
a is a blessing and a curse. Solet's talk about the blessing
and let's talk about the curse.
Yeah, the blessing of it is thatthe potential for millennials
and Gen Z to be more Biblicallyliterate is is astronomical,
like, we have a we don't have topay 40 $50,000 a year to go to
seminary to become Biblicallyliterate, the access to that
(03:22):
information is now you know, atour fingertips, that's the
blessing, here's the curse, isthat the average person doesn't
know how to weed out, like good,healthy. What I would say
theologically conservative,historical confessional
Christianity from people whojust sound smart. So like,
(03:45):
there's a lot of people on TikTok who sound smart, but they
are they, they don't know whatthey're talking about. And so
I'll give you a good example.
Right? This may becontroversial, we'll see. I
(04:08):
always like to tell like theyoung people at our church, or
really their parents, when I wasa youth pastor for 10 years, and
I would always tell parents, thefirst person to expose a child
to something becomes the experton that topic. So the very first
person to expose them to sexbecomes the expert. So you have
a decision to make the theeighth grader who's exposing a
(04:30):
fifth grader to sexual you know,content could become the, you
know, the expert on that, or youas the parent could become the
expert. The decision is reallyup to you. And so, I think that
a lot of times passed orally. Ithink pastors who have gone to
seminary No, man, there's somecomplicated, tough things to
(04:54):
deal with in the Bible. And if Iexpose that to you middle school
students and high schoolstudents first, then I get to
say, Hey, I know that there areI know that there are
inconsistencies with thesetexts. However, I'm still a
(05:15):
Christian. And I still believethat Jesus rose from the dead.
And these inconsistencies that atip talker who's deconstructing
is going to expose you to isgoing to lead you to believe
that this is a reason to leavethe faith. Whereas I'm going to
expose you to this, and I'mgoing to tell you, this is not a
(05:36):
reason to leave the faith. Ifyou if, if if if pastors are not
honest about, you know, issuesin Scripture, and I say issues
in quotes, then I think what weend up doing is we communicate a
couple of things. A, we knew,and we didn't tell, which means
we're hiding things, who wedon't know, which means we're
(05:59):
not, we're not educated enoughto actually be preaching and
teaching the Word. And so, youknow, I used to tell the kids in
my youth group straight up, theBible is not a guide for dating.
So we're going to talk aboutthis dating series. And we're
not going to use the Bible,because in the, the cultural
context of the Bible, wasarranged marriage, there is no
(06:21):
dating. And so it wouldactually, really, really, it
would be dishonest of me topreach a sermon about Ruth and
Boaz. And this is how we canthen learn how to date because
the reality of the situation isyou're not trying to marry your
uncle. And, and if all I do is Ipull out inspirational bits out
(06:47):
of the Bible, then I'm, I'm, I'mprostituting scripture to get a
mens. And that's not actuallythe goal is to actually help
people to learn the Bible. Okay,so I'm gonna kind of recap all
the things that I said, becauseI kind of went on a stream of
letme let me try. Let me try me.
Let me try. So the thing thethread that I'm taking, is this
(07:08):
sub theme of credibility. Okay.
So something that buildscredibility is actually
accessibility. And so whatyou're saying is that with young
people, sometimes if a tick tockinfluencer, got to them first,
yeah, because they wereaccessible. They're building
(07:29):
some level of authority andcredibility in that young
person's life when it comes tothings like maybe tick tock
theology or whatever. Right.
Yeah. What you're saying is oneway that we as pastors might be
able to counteract that is beingintellectually honest about our
approach. Yeah. Right. And soproviding context context, also
can build credibility. I always,I always say this, because I
(07:53):
think it's so interesting. It'san interesting phenomenon,
right? Where a lot of my friendsthat are single, they get
relationship advice from otherpeople that are single. So, so I
guess, I guess context is oneway to build credibility
historically, when we talk aboutBoomer, even Gen X Gen X
(08:14):
certification. Right? So thesame analogy of like going to a
married person for mayberelationship advice, being wise,
it would be similar to going toa certified individual, whether
it's an ordained pastor, orwhether it's somebody that's
gotten a certification, intheology, whatever that
(08:34):
certification looks like, whatI'm realizing though, especially
for millennials, and Gen Z, isthat those certifications are
meaning less and less. Exactly.
Why is my question to you? Andis that trend going to continue?
And if it does, is that good orbad?
(08:55):
Huh, ha, well, we've got to findcredibility somewhere. Yeah,
like, and I think we're findingless and less credibility in
this certification. Becausethere's this like, Okay, you
like so let's say in my field,right? There's a bunch of people
who like, went into debt to geta Masters of divinity. That's
(09:16):
right. M div is like the goldstandard for like, pastors and
preachers and leaders. But thenlike, you could have an M div,
and not lead a thriving church,understand how to evangelize,
not know how to do marriagecounseling, or like, not know
how to talk about finances in away that actually like prompts
generosity in the church. So youcould you could do all this and
(09:40):
then still, like, not not do andI mean, successful. I'm making
sure that we draw a line betweenfaithful and successful. So I
want to be both. I want to beboth faithful with what God's
given me. And I want somemetrics that show that I am
success For that I am fruitful.
Okay. I think sometimes we tryto create a false dichotomy.
(10:03):
Well, you can either be faithfulor fruitful. And actually, I
think, in an ideal world, youcan be both now that we don't
always have ideal worlds. Ithink that the institution of
the seminary, some were alongthe way, forgot that their
primary client was the seniorpastor. So not only are they not
(10:24):
preparing that person for theministry well, but then they are
not giving any ongoing trainingto help that person flourish,
right? Chuckie Cheese has torealize that the real client is
not my two year old that thereal client is me, my two year
old pay for Chucky Cheese,right? So I'm actually the
(10:44):
person they need to like, theyneed to win over. Which is why I
don't know if you've seen allthese viral videos that Chucky
Cheese were like, you know, theygot beer at Chucky Cheese now
and parents get drunk and theystart fighting. It's actually
very, very funny. If you type inlike drunk people at Chucky
Cheese on like, Twitter, it, youcan have a blast, like, okay.
But I think what we're saying isthat, Hey, okay, there's a now
(11:09):
there's a vicious cycle past usof becoming successful without
the certification. Certificationis becoming less and less
relevant. However, at somepoint, you reach a breaking
point. And now we have pastorsgoing viral for saying things on
stage that are theologicallyinaccurate. So now the pendulum
(11:31):
swings back to do any of thesepeople have degrees, like who's
certified these individuals likeso because the institution fail
to train pastors, pastorsrealized, if I'm anointed, and
I'm gifted, and if I joined witha phenomenal organization like
Ark, like I could get relevanttraining to actually help me to
(11:53):
grow my church, but at whatcost? And that cost has become,
ah, you know, we're really, youknow, where executives and
leaders and marketers andfundraisers and building
builders, but have neglected,like, Oh, dang, I think we
forgot we also have to be like,theologians, and like, we have
(12:17):
to be Biblically literate likeas, as pastors as leaders. And I
think now, I think we're gonnago, Okay, we're who's now going
to be? Where's where is theplace where we can get
certification that's going to doall of the things. So I think
it's a constant kind of like,No, this is, this is disruptive
(12:39):
thinking, Man, this is reallydisruptive thinking. And I want
to get on the same thing withdenominations. People use to
find trust in a denomination, ifit's Methodist, or if it's
Baptist, or if it's whatever, Ikind of know that, okay, the,
the pastor could go off therails, but I believe in this
(12:59):
Methodist institution, thepastor could lose his mind. But
I believe in being Baptist, theSouthern Baptist Convention for
the very first time in 100years, had the biggest decline
in membership last year. And soI think we're going, Okay, we're
seeing a shift from organizationtrust in organizations to trust
(13:23):
in individuals. And and what'sgoing to end up happening? Well,
we're one call lengths away fromwhat the pendulum going back to,
we need to trust anorganization's again, because
we've trusted in people and Ithink what we need to find is
that there's actually a healthy,God ordained balance between
institutions and people, thatthat actually, it's not either
(13:46):
or, but institution that peoplehave to figure out a way where
your personal brand and thebrand of the institution can
both elicit trust within peopleand provide that level of
certification. Okay, yeah,that's kinda
like, no one. I, I like the Ilike how you put it, you know,
it's a balance between faithfuland fruitful, right. I mean,
storytime really quick. I'mbased in the Silicon Valley. And
(14:09):
when I started my career atGoogle, one thing in my head
just because, you know, I grewup with Gen X parents, and this
was just kind of my mindset isthat, well, at one point, I need
to get an MBA, because I want tobe prolific in business. You may
get an MBA, but I remembersharing my ambition to get an
MBA with my manager at Google.
And he laughed at me. Like, thisdude laughed at me. He's like,
(14:30):
he's like, if you get an MBA andcome back to Google, you're
gonna be the laughingstock inthe office. Because they, they
thought it was like a joke.
They're all building, worldchanging technology. And none of
them have MBAs. They're juststraight up builders. Right. And
that's a similar thing, where inthe church space, it seems like
pendulum is swung to Hey, no,we're just straight up builders.
(14:53):
But then, you know, a decadelater, I'm starting to see some
issues with some of thesefounders of like, He's tighten
organizations, big tech now thatdidn't have maybe a values based
or moral framework. And now it'sgetting them into trouble.
Right? So in a similar way, in ain a very specific business
vein, I'm starting to see thependulum swing swing towards
(15:17):
wanting to see managers thathave like governance principles
that know how to contextuallyintegrate these new innovative
breakthroughs into society in amorally responsible way. Yeah, I
mean, the whole conversation onAI right now is you have people
super bullish on it. And thenyou got other big technologists
like Elon that's trying to pumpthe brakes, because he's like,
(15:39):
Hey, have we thought about usersafety? Yeah, and in the same
way, I kind of hear that threadwith you is like, okay, hold up.
We're in this moment of time,cool. The churches alive, the
churches? Well, we're buildingbuildings where we're gaining
followers. On social media,we're making a dent in society,
we're culturally relevant, youknow, all those things. But Hey,
(16:02):
is anybody thinking about usersafety?
Yeah, I am.
Okay. So that's what I want toget to you're not just
critiquing this, you'recontributing towards you with
ARMA? What you're doing with AR?
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat, in your perspective, your
approach? Yeah, so2020, I realized, man, this
vicious cycle between seminaryand church is like, this is a
(16:23):
broken system, and somebody hasto model that they can go to
school, even though they don'tneed it. So I decided to jump
into a doctoral program. Andthat doctoral program has not
like somebody, once I'm on azoom call, said, what doors is
your doctoral program openingfor you? And I said, Well, I
(16:44):
didn't jump into the program forto open doors. For me, that's a
terrible way to think about adiscipline, I jumped into a
doctoral program, to showPentecostals, that you can do
this stop saying that you can't,or that you don't have time, or
that you're too busy. Stopmaking excuses. When when the
Holy Spirit asked me to jumpinto a doctoral program. First,
(17:07):
I had to get my master's degree,because I hadn't, I hadn't
gotten a master's degree. And sothat was two years of my life.
And then I jumped into a fouryear doctoral program. And the
Holy Spirit said, this is youract of worship to me, I want you
to sacrifice something, and goto school, because there are
(17:28):
young people coming up behindyou that think that school is
irrelevant. And the problem isthat you actually need the
discipline of a professorreading over your sermon and
saying, Yeah, I think you're alittle right on this, I think
you're a little left on this.
Here's the center line, I gainedprofessors along the way that
(17:50):
have become allies, for me, thathave that watch me preach, and
will hold me accountable. Ithink right now we're in a
church space, where there's alack of like, real
accountability, okay, that youhave a board, but that board is
less like a group of yourfriends. And like, who can
really say, hey, like, theperson, the random person on
(18:13):
YouTube isn't the person to holdyou accountable. You know, I
hate these people who likereview people's sermons on
YouTube, um, like, get a life,you know, the person because
there can't be accountabilitywithout relationship. So
there's, there's got to besomebody in your life, who's
just like Paul saying toTimothy, watch your life and
doctrine closely. Because if youexcel in them, you'll save both
(18:37):
yourself and your heroes. Ithink there's got to be someone
saying, Are you watching yourlife? And are you watching your
doctrine? I'll give a shift. Ithink that has taken place like
a generational shift. I actuallylearned this in my master's
program. So before World WarTwo, prior to World War Two, if
you went into any pastors, ifyou went to any church, and you
(19:01):
got a meeting with the pastor,the Secretary would usher you
into that pastors study. Everypastor had to study because the
pastor was the publictheologian, the pastor's job is
to study is to is to make surethat they are preaching doctrine
that is Presbyterian or doctrinethat's Baptist, or doctrine,
(19:21):
that's Methodist, or doctrinethat's based on whatever
denomination they're in? Well,the World War Two hits America
becomes a superpower. And thenumber one most, you know,
admired person in the publicspace becomes the CEO. And so
every pastor goes from having astudy to having an office, and
(19:42):
why do I have an office becauseI'm a CEO, I'm the Chief
Executive Officer. I go frombeing a theologian to being an
officer. And if we look atchurch now, there's a lot of
there's there's a lot ofpositives that have happened
because of this. This is notOnly a negative thing. I want to
(20:02):
talk with nuance, you know whatI mean? Like, there's a lot of
positives that have happenedbecause of this church becomes
irrelevant. All the things thatyou kind of mentioned before,
like, churches are thriving,they're growing, they're
culturally relevant. Like, hey,we're building buildings in
cash, like, we're debt free.
We're doing all kinds ofphenomenal things. And I'm going
okay, we can't go back to thepast. So what does the future
(20:23):
look like? And I think thefuture has to be some kind of, I
would call it a studio. It's astudy, but that is tech infused.
It's it's back to, hey, we'regonna be theologians again.
We're gonna be we're gonna belike, we got to know what the
doctrines of the church are wewe can't let 2020 hit and waves
of millennials, deconstruct, andthere's no response. There's no,
(20:48):
we're all just mad at the kidsdeconstructing. It's like, we're
all just pointing our fingers atpeople deconstructing. And to
me, you know, Paul says to theCorinthian church, I laid a
foundation of none other thanChrist. And then the fire will
revealed what we've all built.
(21:10):
That some build with gold, somewith silver, some with classy
stones, some with wood, somewith hay. And what happens when
you build with wood and hay, thefire, burns it up and consumes
it. What happens when you buildwith gold, silver, and cost the
stones the fire refines it andmakes it better? So Paul is
saying that if somebody candeconstruct what you built,
(21:30):
maybe the issue is not theperson deconstructing. Maybe the
issue is that you built itwrong. Maybe the problem is with
the church, maybe the problem iswith the pastor who built it on
cultural assimilation tocultural values in our church,
and not on like, hey, the NiceneCreed, like when's the last time
you cracked open the NiceneCreed and read it and, and maybe
(21:54):
we shouldn't be building it on,hey, we vote for this political
party. Or maybe we should bebuilding this on. Hey, there's
actually just some, like,foundational, and when I say
historic confessionalChristianity, I mean, hey,
there's the Nicene Creed asChristians have all agreed since
325. AD, hey, this is what thisis what defines a Christian. And
(22:19):
so I kind of go, Ah, there'ssome ancient paths that I think
we kind of need to like, go backto, but not to glorify the past,
but to go okay, like, what, whatdoes it mean for us to create
credibility? How do we createcredibility? We can't just point
it people deconstructing, andbeing like, you're, you're y'all
(22:41):
are idiots we gotta go, though.
I'll give you a good example.
Right? Tick tock is youth groupkids. They're like, and I
learned, it's funny because Iactually I say more than one
thing. Okay, here's the firstissue. My issue is not with
deconstruction, there's noproblem with deconstructing not
at all. If you're notdeconstructing your faith, then
(23:01):
you're not constructing yourfaith. Faith is not is a process
of deconstructing andreconstructing no issue of
deconstructing. Here's the issuewith detaching yourself from the
church and deconstructing inyour room by yourself. We're
deconstructing with yourboyfriend who's not really
saved, or deconstructing with agroup of friends in college that
are not a part of the church.
You can deconstruct all youwant, as long as you stay
(23:25):
connected with your pastor, andsmall group leaders and deacons
and elders, as long as you stayattached to the church, the
church is a great place toanswer your questions and to ask
hard questions, or I should say,church should be a great place
to ask hard questions. And toexplore some difficult topics
(23:49):
out there, I learned this myfreshman year of my
undergraduate degree. And it'scrazy how I learned something as
a 17 year old and the context inwhich I learned it did not cause
me to deconstruct. But then I'mlike, 33, we're going through a
pandemic, and my kids that theirkids in our youth youth
(24:11):
ministry, in young adultministry at our church that are
getting exposed to you the exactsame information, and for them,
it's crumbling their faith, andhere's what it is freshman year
Bible college, I learned thatfeet is can be not all the time
can be a euphemism for genitaliaand the Bible. Okay, well, this
is, this is like, there's notvery hard to even learn this.
(24:32):
And so, you know, there's acouple of different ways to read
Ruth's interaction with Boaz onthe threshing floor. Okay. You
know, one interpretation, whichis a big, you know, people who
want to push purity culture arelike, you know, they Ruth and
Boaz were pure and, and theydidn't do anything before
(24:55):
marriage, and I'm like, okay,sure, but there's another way to
read The text that when she liesat his feet, that maybe
something sexual did happen.
Now, I learned this my freshmanyear in Bible college and here's
the takeaway. The takeaway was,the reason that the story of
Ruth is in the Bible is to showus the lineage of David and to
(25:17):
show us who the Messiah is inthe show us that the that even
in Jesus's lineage, there wasalways a multicultural and multi
ethnic vision that God had thatalthough Ruth was not an
Israelite, she is grafted in,because Gentiles are not an
afterthought, Gentile who are amassive part of God's vision.
(25:41):
That's why this book is in theBible. Therefore, if Ruth and
Boaz did something sexual,before they were married, I
don't really care. Because thisbook is not here to teach me how
to date in the 21st century.
This book is to teach me aboutJesus, because Jesus is way more
important than me in my datinglife. Now, my kids hear this,
(26:01):
they're like Ruth and Boaz didsomething sexual that I have the
other than I have the right todo something sexual. And there I
go. This is the differencebetween baby boomers and
carrying the Bible andmillennials and carrying the
Bible. Baby Boomers could not goon YouTube and find out that
feet is a euphemism forgenitalia. They're not YouTube
(26:24):
doesn't exist, they don't haveaccess to that information,
unless their pastor is gonna getup and say that on a Sunday. And
most times, the pastor is notgoing to say that. I think we
people leading the church rightnow have to realize that hoof we
have to be more intelligent, andthe in the, in the defense of
(26:49):
the Bible that we give, and andhow we preach. If we preach self
centered messages, then we'llalways take the Bible and say,
What can I help you to learnabout your life, which is really
just a lot of self help. I thinkwe really need to return to a
place where we say, yeah, thestory of Ruth isn't in here to
(27:10):
help you navigate your life. Thestory of Ruth is in here to show
you God's plan of salvation tothe Old Testament. That's why
it's here. And so you're nothere on Sunday for self help
talk. You're here on Sunday, toactually like, learn what the
Bible teaches. And if I'm herefor self help talk, then guess
(27:33):
what I'll deconstruct, when Ifigure out that the stuff I
thought was a short Foundationwas actually not what I should
have been building on in thefirst place. So I think that we
have to acknowledge, I thinkthat, you know, when I was when
I was growing up, right, if myparents got like a bishop,
(27:53):
Jake's DVD, or like, or like aCD or DVD, like, they would
like, go back to my home church,and like, tell our pastor, like,
my pastor was big on like, mysenior pastor at the church I
grew up it was like, Hey, ifyou're gonna eat other grass,
just let me know what the grassis. So I could tell you whether
or not it's like, you know,like, healthy, you know what I
(28:16):
mean? And so I remember myparents coming back from a trip
and they got like, some cassettetapes and some DVDs. And like,
they showed it to like one ofthe Deacons of the church, like,
hey, like, we got this stuff.
What do you think? And my pastorkind of gave the thumbs up,
like, yeah, that stuff's greatteaching to listen to, like, go
for it. I think that if we'relooking at millennials and Gen
(28:37):
Z, sheep herders eating grassfrom everywhere, they're eating
poison grass, they're eatinggrass on Tik Tok, you're eating
grass there, you know, I wassitting down with a young adult
at our church, and I'm givingthem like, Biblically sound,
relevant relationship advice.
I'm like, Hey, dude, like,here's the deal. Like, I've
known you for years. I've knownthe girl you're dating. I've got
(29:00):
I'm at coffee with you. Like, Ilove you. I'm your Shepherd. I'm
your pastor. Yeah, here's somerelationship, like direction.
This man quotes my talk to me.
He said, Well, Mike Todd said inhis last sermon, done it. And I
was like, bro, let me tell youright now. Like, I know Mike
(29:23):
Todd personally. And if I toldhim that you did this to a
pastor, he'd be pissed, like,bro, I'm speaking in
generalities. It's only yourpastor who can speak and
specificities. And I think thatif you're going to lead in the
space that we're in today, thenyou've got to be the kind of
leader who knows how to like,know, the grass that your sheep
(29:47):
are friggin eating like that,like I can't operate from the
assumption that they're notgetting grass elsewhere. I've
got to operate from theassumption that like, yeah,
there is calm tip that isaccessible to you because of the
internet. And now I have totrain you not. I can't just say
(30:07):
this is where you eat grass, Ihave to give the sheep enough
discernment to know what's badgrass and what's good grass. And
that means I have to help themto be Biblically literate. So
they can like steer themselvesaway from bad grass, because I
can't helicopter parent, all thepeople in our church, I can't be
I can't micromanage whateverybody listens to, I have to
(30:30):
give them a better diet so thatthey go out about that. Okay, so
that's a lot of thoughts atonce. That's, that's awesome.
I feel like oh, it's it. It's sogood. It's so good. It reminds
me that I love that idea that wecan't micromanage everything, we
can't helicopter mom,everything, right, so to speak.
(30:53):
And it reminds me of just evenjust the tenant of free speech,
right? The anecdote to promotingfree speech is not actually
censorship. It's not actuallytrying to reduce speech, that
the anecdote to promoting freespeech is more speech. Right.
And so part of me and the wholepremise of this podcast really
(31:16):
is you have person that sits inthe seat of executive pastor,
that's also a technologistthat's passionate about
innovation. And then XO being amillennial churchgoer on maybe
the higher end of the millennialage spectrum xos on the lower
end, so we kind of create thattype of diversity there. But
(31:38):
when I think about from atechnology perspective, what
this means it does kind ofactually mean, a training, like
you said, many of bringing backorthodoxy, into our study and
into our scripture, and into ourpreaching, but also a leveling
(31:59):
of the playing field in terms oftechnological distribution of
that study. Right? Yeah. And soso even I just had this thought
with a friend, I was talking tothe other day of like, hey, at
the end of the day, any locallocal church pastor that wants
to show up digitally, everylocal church pastor should have
an opportunity for a podcast,separate from what they're
(32:21):
preaching on a Sunday. And inanother context to pastor there
people, even if they only have300 views, only if they have
like 150 views or listens, aweek at best your congregation,
it's going to be a lot morecontextual than somebody that's
just broadcasting, like yousaid, generalities. Right, I
guess so as, as a youngermillennial churchgoer? What are
(32:42):
other things that producecredibility? And I mean, you're,
you're a local active churchmember?
Yeah, I mean, I think the thingI just keep hearing is, this
concept of the future doesn'tbelong to the Creator, as much
as the future belongs to thecurator. And so it's this whole
concept of, if you don't provideus the answers, we're looking
(33:05):
for, guess what we're goingelsewhere, which means you're
going to the buffet, and nothingis the same, nothing makes
sense. It's just this wholesmorgasbord of who knows what's
here. I'm just eating becauseI'm hungry. You know. And so I
love this idea, many whereyou're seeing, there's a wide
open space, literally theexample of a pastor of I need to
(33:29):
put something here to showpeople, Hey, what's here is
good. Yeah. And it will satisfyyou in the same way that the
church should be. And you know,I love the parallel because
Vance, what we're building itoverflow is ultimately creating
a hub for people to be able togive anything. So Manny's here
creating resources for people toget the answers to all their
(33:50):
questions. And I, it's just asit's just this really perplexing
idea, and I love how thisconversation has gone because it
has really revealed to me thateven as churchgoers, of course,
this whole deconstructionelement, that's it's big, we
have to be so mindful of what weare consuming, where we are
(34:14):
putting our time and where weare putting our efforts and our
thoughts like it really is acall to action for me to not
even speaking as a churchleader. Because I really, it's
everything you're saying isreally landing for me and it's
actually making me so encouragedbecause yeah, many you have such
(34:34):
a boldness about you. That seemsto be few and far between the
fact that you're you're standinghere and you're like, Hey, I'm
one of these people, and I'mgoing forward into this unknown
territory and creating theresources and saying the stuff
that people are afraid to say,because I want to provide people
answers and help them to be wellfed. I just want to commend you
(34:55):
for that because it's abeautiful work and It's so
necessary.
I'm like, somebody's got to doit. Somebody's got to like, I
feel like in a way I am like, aprobably this is the first
moment. And we're witness, we'redocumenting this moment, like,
(35:17):
you know, on cameras, like, ofme realizing, Oh, I'm
innovating. I didn't realize Iwas innovating until right now
I'm in cars. Yes,it is always just felt like,
Man, when I'm in like, churchspace. I'm like one of the only
people that's like, reallypursuing education. And when I'm
like, with my classmates, andwhen I'm at school, I'm like,
(35:38):
one of the only people who'slike, really trying to like,
push church forward. And so itjust feels like I'm a loner, you
know, it just feels like, oh,well,
we don't really we say anywhere.
Yeah, we say this, you canalways tell a pioneer by the
arrows on their back. Right? Andso it is, it is a little bit of
that journey. And you're, you'retotally an innovator, you're
(36:01):
totally a disrupter. And thereason why we started this
podcast to talk about innovativeideas and to start to talk about
disruptive thinking specificallyin the church context. Because
Bozo and I, our whole company ispassionate about serving local
church is because if you look atcertain tectonic shifts, in
evangelism, certain tectonicshifts in the gospel being
(36:22):
unleashed on this planet,certain tectonic shifts of where
faith has been integrated, andcontextualized. Deep within
communities. It's been becauseof innovation. If you go like
way, way back to even the waythat they constructed the
original cathedrals, and a lotof them are empty now because
they stopped innovating. Butback in the day, it was the hub,
(36:43):
the epicenter of society, evenjust the way they told the
Gospel story, through thewindows and through the way that
light refracts off thesedifferent angles and things like
that was architectural genius.
You fast forward to theGutenberg Press, and unleashing
(37:04):
text so that it can bedemocratized to people, right.
It's a similar thing we'retrying to do in regards to
finances and mixing it in withyour faith and understanding the
importance of the tithe and howto unlock generosity above and
beyond the tithe, and how thatcan lead to a flourishing life
biblically speaking, and thingslike that all the way to what
(37:26):
you're now seeing, in terms ofwhat needs to be disrupted, what
needs to be innovated with Bibleliteracy. I think that's where
it kind of boils down to rightis, you know, there's some,
there's some good things,there's some there's some
appetite in the atmosphere rightnow, it just needs to be
directed. Right? Yeah.
(37:47):
I would say the Reformationdoesn't happen without the
printing press. It just doesn'tlike and, and it, there's no,
obviously there's no way tohistorically prove that right.
I'm making a bold claim. Butthere were reformers prior to
Martin Luther who said the samethings. But the innovation, the
(38:07):
technology, the tech, like ofthere being a print printing
press, and him being able toactually like spread his ideas.
When John and when John andCharles Wesley invented the
track, like that was tech, itwas innovative. It was mind
blowing. You know, if you handout a track today, people think
(38:30):
you're a Jehovah's Witness, orjust weird, right? And so I
think sometimes it's like,there's all these moments where
the churches innovated. Butthere's all these moments where
the church like, hesitates toinnovate. And, obviously, we're
at another one of thosecrossroads, and we gotta go,
man, we we, we 100% need toinnovate. And innovation doesn't
(38:54):
mean we're always going to getit right. No, I think sometimes
we're scared to experiment andget it wrong. And I think
sometimes as pastoral leaders,one of the best advice somebody
gave me, like, a couple yearsago, was like, Hey, man, don't
just as your default, don'talways say God told me to do
this. Yes, yes. But as a leader,you're going to have to eat
(39:16):
those words. He's like, your,your employees and your crew.
Sometimes they just need to hearyou say, I think this is a good
idea. And I think this is wise.
And I, I think we shouldinnovate in this way. I'm not
about to add godly authority andgodly pressure to like make you
buy into the vision. I just haveto like, and sometimes I think
(39:40):
when when pastors want toinnovate, the default is I heard
from God, and God told us to dothis. And then there's all this
pressure for that innovation towork out.
You're afraid to fail. You'reafraid to fail. Right? Exactly,
exactly. There has Bespace within an innovative
(40:00):
culture is a space wherefailures, okay? And and I think
sometimes in church becausethere's that pressure of like,
we just need to do what God toldus to do. We don't innovate. And
I'm like, man, like, I'm allabout obeying God don't Don't
get it twisted, but God has alsogiven you creativity, and like,
(40:21):
like he's giving you likeagencies, and he's giving you
ideas. So that's good. If Icould give some kind of language
to like, the crossroads that Ithink a lot of like church
leaders get to, and why theydon't innovate, or why they're
scared to innovate. I think ifwe could just give people
(40:42):
permission to like, hey, like,just because you're a pastor
doesn't mean that yourexperimental days are behind
you. Like, you got toexperiment. Go for it. And you
Yeah, yeah, by all means, dowhat God is telling you to do.
But there are some times where Ithink God goes, Hey, like, you
know, there's this moment in theExodus, where Moses is at the
(41:06):
Red Sea, and he's crying out toGod, and gods like, What's in
your hand? And he's like, Oh,the staff. He's like, put the
staff into the water, like I'vealready given you, like, you're,
you're looking to me forpermission. But I've already set
you up with the very thing thatyou need for this miracle to
come to pass. So andI think I think that's part of
(41:29):
leaders, we need to hear that.
So good. I think that's part ofit, too, right? Is where, and I
totally agree with you, weactually say this in the Silicon
Valley fail, fast and failforward, right? It's this
culture that has been embracedhere that's led to a lot of
breakthrough innovation. There'sthis mentality that, hey, nine
out of 10 things that we'regoing to try is statistically
(41:51):
going to fail, but that onething is going to be
breakthrough. I also think thatsome of the mindset, like what
you just said about Moses,right? Where sometimes when you
only have a staff, it's easierto quote unquote, risk. It's
easier to experiment, right. Butif if you had like, if you had
like the Mercedes Benz ofstaffs, and it was like, super
(42:12):
valuable already, right? Andyou're like you like, oh, I
don't know, like, I don't wantto put this out there. Because
it's, I have like, it's, it'stoo much to fail. Right? And you
took it to the, to the extremeexample of we just, we keep
putting God on everything, wekeep putting the divine on
everything. And it locks us up,to actually innovate and have
(42:36):
that permission that hey, noteverything is going to work out,
hey, let's close. Let's closeout with this because I want to
end on vision. I feel like thetheme of this conversation has
been innovation and innovation,a lot of times it's birth with a
very distinct vision, right? Youthink about like some somebody
like Steve Jobs, he had a visionof a future that did not exist
(42:57):
yet that he endeavored tocreate. And that's what we
believe we're doing at overflow.
Our vision for overflow is tobuild the infrastructure that
makes generosity frictionless,across every major asset class,
the way that you can buyanything on Amazon, the way that
Amazon has all made us biggerspenders. We want you to be able
through overflow to be able togive anything through overflow
(43:20):
in the same way that overflowmakes people more generous. Talk
to me, Manny, everything you'redoing personally with ARMA all
your different endeavors, giveus give the listeners just to
close out a vision of what thefuture looks like for you.
The future looks like a worldwhere we, it's it's funny, we
(43:43):
bring Sunday school back. Like,Hey, I like that. It's funny,
like a youth pastor picked me upfrom the airport, and we were
going to church and he was like,Man, I'm sorry. Like, my church
is kind of old school. Like westill do Sunday school. And I
went if you ever apologize againor like, Sunday school, bro,
like, actually, that's kind ofwhat sustained a whole
(44:07):
generation was, like, Sundayschool and and I would say
making biblical literacyaccessible to everyone
everywhere. It's like my vision,like making high seminary level,
you know, biblical literate,like biblical content. Super,
super accessible. Yeah, andthat's accessible to black
(44:31):
people. It's best accessible,accessible to low income
neighborhoods, like I've been inChristian schools my entire
life. So from kindergarten to mydoctorate, I've been educated in
Christian environments, and I'venever had a black Bible
professor. So accessibility isis age, its gender, its
(44:52):
ethnicity. Its, you know, itscost. It's like how do we how do
we how do we create likeseminary level Bible resources
for the average person and makeit super, super accessible and
part of accessibility. Really, Ithink that the people who make
the Bible the most accessible insociety today are pastors. And
(45:15):
so we've got a big vision tolike help pastors to make the
Bible more and more accessible.
So yeah, it's a world wherebiblical literacy super, super
accessible. I love it.
So this was one of the mostamazing conversations we've had.
Manny, thank you so much. Thankyou for joining us on the
podcast rudest, you're therudest.
(45:42):
Thanks, man. Thanks so much forlistening to the give it up
podcast if you want to receiveeven more insights on church
innovation, culture, and giving.
Now you can sign up for free tobe an overflow insider where
you'll receive exclusive contentdiscounts direct access to Vance
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(46:04):
head to overflow.co backslashinsider, or just click the link
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are adamant about providingmaximum value to even more
(46:27):
church leaders. Thanks so much.
We'll see you next time.
If all I do is I pull out inspirational bits out of
(00:03):
the Bible, I'm prostitutingscripture to get a men's The
goal is to actually help peopleto learn the Bible. I think
right now we're in a churchspace, where there's a lack of
like real accountability, okaythat you have a board, but that
board is less like a group ofyour friends. There's gotta be
somebody in your life saying,Are you watching your life? And
(00:24):
are you watching your doctrine?
A pastor turn tech leader andthe millennial churchgoer,
exploring the intersection oftechnology, culture and faith,
equipping you with innovativestrategies to support you as you
live out your calling leaderchurches with confidence to step
into the future together. Thisis the give it up podcast.
Welcome back to the give it uppodcast. And today, we have to
(00:48):
give it up for none other thanthe man ie the myth, the legend,
it's Manny Oh, rango right here.
And Manny knows that I lovepuns, especially with him. He's
wearing a rude shirt if you'rewatching this on YouTube. So I
entered by saying I don't meanto be rude, but it looks like
you did mean to be rude. Sowe're having a good time already
(01:09):
here on the podcast today. ButManny, you are a dynamic
speaker, preacher. You are alsoa social media Pastor, I would
say. In fact, that's how I foundyou. I'll say that. And you also
have a Bible courses online,which I think is a Dynamic
(01:31):
Pairing. So today, we want tofocus on the topic of millennial
mindsets when it comes toreading the Bible, because we
couldn't think of anyone betterthan you to discuss this with.
So I first want to know, Manny,how has Bible reading in the
concept of it changed throughthe generations, let's say baby
(01:53):
boomers now to Gen X,millennials, and of course, Gen
Z coming up as well. Yeah.
Good question.
Boy, How's it changed? I thinkthat let's so my context for
baby boomers are my parents.
Okay, like, yeah, my parents areboth boomers. And I would say
that for for both of my parents,like, there wasn't like a
(02:18):
question of like, a separationbetween what does the text say
versus what does the text mean?
And I don't know that they thatthey were asking, like a
hermeneutical or exegeticalquestion when it came to the
separation between what does thetext say versus what does it
(02:41):
mean? And I think millennialsand Gen Z are asking that
question. I think that like,what would normally have been
found only in seminary, like fortwo generations ago, is now like
on YouTube. So I think there'san access to information that is
(03:01):
a is a blessing and a curse. Solet's talk about the blessing
and let's talk about the curse.
Yeah, the blessing of it is thatthe potential for millennials
and Gen Z to be more Biblicallyliterate is is astronomical,
like, we have a we don't have topay 40 $50,000 a year to go to
seminary to become Biblicallyliterate, the access to that
(03:22):
information is now you know, atour fingertips, that's the
blessing, here's the curse, isthat the average person doesn't
know how to weed out, like good,healthy. What I would say
theologically conservative,historical confessional
Christianity from people whojust sound smart. So like,
(03:45):
there's a lot of people on TikTok who sound smart, but they
are they, they don't know whatthey're talking about. And so
I'll give you a good example.
Right? This may becontroversial, we'll see. I
(04:08):
always like to tell like theyoung people at our church, or
really their parents, when I wasa youth pastor for 10 years, and
I would always tell parents, thefirst person to expose a child
to something becomes the experton that topic. So the very first
person to expose them to sexbecomes the expert. So you have
a decision to make the theeighth grader who's exposing a
(04:30):
fifth grader to sexual you know,content could become the, you
know, the expert on that, or youas the parent could become the
expert. The decision is reallyup to you. And so, I think that
a lot of times passed orally. Ithink pastors who have gone to
seminary No, man, there's somecomplicated, tough things to
(04:54):
deal with in the Bible. And if Iexpose that to you middle school
students and high schoolstudents first, then I get to
say, Hey, I know that there areI know that there are
inconsistencies with thesetexts. However, I'm still a
(05:15):
Christian. And I still believethat Jesus rose from the dead.
And these inconsistencies that atip talker who's deconstructing
is going to expose you to isgoing to lead you to believe
that this is a reason to leavethe faith. Whereas I'm going to
expose you to this, and I'mgoing to tell you, this is not a
(05:36):
reason to leave the faith. Ifyou if, if if if pastors are not
honest about, you know, issuesin Scripture, and I say issues
in quotes, then I think what weend up doing is we communicate a
couple of things. A, we knew,and we didn't tell, which means
we're hiding things, who wedon't know, which means we're
(05:59):
not, we're not educated enoughto actually be preaching and
teaching the Word. And so, youknow, I used to tell the kids in
my youth group straight up, theBible is not a guide for dating.
So we're going to talk aboutthis dating series. And we're
not going to use the Bible,because in the, the cultural
context of the Bible, wasarranged marriage, there is no
(06:21):
dating. And so it wouldactually, really, really, it
would be dishonest of me topreach a sermon about Ruth and
Boaz. And this is how we canthen learn how to date because
the reality of the situation isyou're not trying to marry your
uncle. And, and if all I do is Ipull out inspirational bits out
(06:47):
of the Bible, then I'm, I'm, I'mprostituting scripture to get a
mens. And that's not actuallythe goal is to actually help
people to learn the Bible. Okay,so I'm gonna kind of recap all
the things that I said, becauseI kind of went on a stream of
letme let me try. Let me try me.
Let me try. So the thing thethread that I'm taking, is this
(07:08):
sub theme of credibility. Okay.
So something that buildscredibility is actually
accessibility. And so whatyou're saying is that with young
people, sometimes if a tick tockinfluencer, got to them first,
yeah, because they wereaccessible. They're building
(07:29):
some level of authority andcredibility in that young
person's life when it comes tothings like maybe tick tock
theology or whatever. Right.
Yeah. What you're saying is oneway that we as pastors might be
able to counteract that is beingintellectually honest about our
approach. Yeah. Right. And soproviding context context, also
can build credibility. I always,I always say this, because I
(07:53):
think it's so interesting. It'san interesting phenomenon,
right? Where a lot of my friendsthat are single, they get
relationship advice from otherpeople that are single. So, so I
guess, I guess context is oneway to build credibility
historically, when we talk aboutBoomer, even Gen X Gen X
(08:14):
certification. Right? So thesame analogy of like going to a
married person for mayberelationship advice, being wise,
it would be similar to going toa certified individual, whether
it's an ordained pastor, orwhether it's somebody that's
gotten a certification, intheology, whatever that
(08:34):
certification looks like, whatI'm realizing though, especially
for millennials, and Gen Z, isthat those certifications are
meaning less and less. Exactly.
Why is my question to you? Andis that trend going to continue?
And if it does, is that good orbad?
(08:55):
Huh, ha, well, we've got to findcredibility somewhere. Yeah,
like, and I think we're findingless and less credibility in
this certification. Becausethere's this like, Okay, you
like so let's say in my field,right? There's a bunch of people
who like, went into debt to geta Masters of divinity. That's
(09:16):
right. M div is like the goldstandard for like, pastors and
preachers and leaders. But thenlike, you could have an M div,
and not lead a thriving church,understand how to evangelize,
not know how to do marriagecounseling, or like, not know
how to talk about finances in away that actually like prompts
generosity in the church. So youcould you could do all this and
(09:40):
then still, like, not not do andI mean, successful. I'm making
sure that we draw a line betweenfaithful and successful. So I
want to be both. I want to beboth faithful with what God's
given me. And I want somemetrics that show that I am
success For that I am fruitful.
Okay. I think sometimes we tryto create a false dichotomy.
(10:03):
Well, you can either be faithfulor fruitful. And actually, I
think, in an ideal world, youcan be both now that we don't
always have ideal worlds. Ithink that the institution of
the seminary, some were alongthe way, forgot that their
primary client was the seniorpastor. So not only are they not
(10:24):
preparing that person for theministry well, but then they are
not giving any ongoing trainingto help that person flourish,
right? Chuckie Cheese has torealize that the real client is
not my two year old that thereal client is me, my two year
old pay for Chucky Cheese,right? So I'm actually the
(10:44):
person they need to like, theyneed to win over. Which is why I
don't know if you've seen allthese viral videos that Chucky
Cheese were like, you know, theygot beer at Chucky Cheese now
and parents get drunk and theystart fighting. It's actually
very, very funny. If you type inlike drunk people at Chucky
Cheese on like, Twitter, it, youcan have a blast, like, okay.
But I think what we're saying isthat, Hey, okay, there's a now
(11:09):
there's a vicious cycle past usof becoming successful without
the certification. Certificationis becoming less and less
relevant. However, at somepoint, you reach a breaking
point. And now we have pastorsgoing viral for saying things on
stage that are theologicallyinaccurate. So now the pendulum
(11:31):
swings back to do any of thesepeople have degrees, like who's
certified these individuals likeso because the institution fail
to train pastors, pastorsrealized, if I'm anointed, and
I'm gifted, and if I joined witha phenomenal organization like
Ark, like I could get relevanttraining to actually help me to
(11:53):
grow my church, but at whatcost? And that cost has become,
ah, you know, we're really, youknow, where executives and
leaders and marketers andfundraisers and building
builders, but have neglected,like, Oh, dang, I think we
forgot we also have to be like,theologians, and like, we have
(12:17):
to be Biblically literate likeas, as pastors as leaders. And I
think now, I think we're gonnago, Okay, we're who's now going
to be? Where's where is theplace where we can get
certification that's going to doall of the things. So I think
it's a constant kind of like,No, this is, this is disruptive
(12:39):
thinking, Man, this is reallydisruptive thinking. And I want
to get on the same thing withdenominations. People use to
find trust in a denomination, ifit's Methodist, or if it's
Baptist, or if it's whatever, Ikind of know that, okay, the,
the pastor could go off therails, but I believe in this
(12:59):
Methodist institution, thepastor could lose his mind. But
I believe in being Baptist, theSouthern Baptist Convention for
the very first time in 100years, had the biggest decline
in membership last year. And soI think we're going, Okay, we're
seeing a shift from organizationtrust in organizations to trust
(13:23):
in individuals. And and what'sgoing to end up happening? Well,
we're one call lengths away fromwhat the pendulum going back to,
we need to trust anorganization's again, because
we've trusted in people and Ithink what we need to find is
that there's actually a healthy,God ordained balance between
institutions and people, thatthat actually, it's not either
(13:46):
or, but institution that peoplehave to figure out a way where
your personal brand and thebrand of the institution can
both elicit trust within peopleand provide that level of
certification. Okay, yeah,that's kinda
like, no one. I, I like the Ilike how you put it, you know,
it's a balance between faithfuland fruitful, right. I mean,
storytime really quick. I'mbased in the Silicon Valley. And
(14:09):
when I started my career atGoogle, one thing in my head
just because, you know, I grewup with Gen X parents, and this
was just kind of my mindset isthat, well, at one point, I need
to get an MBA, because I want tobe prolific in business. You may
get an MBA, but I remembersharing my ambition to get an
MBA with my manager at Google.
And he laughed at me. Like, thisdude laughed at me. He's like,
(14:30):
he's like, if you get an MBA andcome back to Google, you're
gonna be the laughingstock inthe office. Because they, they
thought it was like a joke.
They're all building, worldchanging technology. And none of
them have MBAs. They're juststraight up builders. Right. And
that's a similar thing, where inthe church space, it seems like
pendulum is swung to Hey, no,we're just straight up builders.
(14:53):
But then, you know, a decadelater, I'm starting to see some
issues with some of thesefounders of like, He's tighten
organizations, big tech now thatdidn't have maybe a values based
or moral framework. And now it'sgetting them into trouble.
Right? So in a similar way, in ain a very specific business
vein, I'm starting to see thependulum swing swing towards
(15:17):
wanting to see managers thathave like governance principles
that know how to contextuallyintegrate these new innovative
breakthroughs into society in amorally responsible way. Yeah, I
mean, the whole conversation onAI right now is you have people
super bullish on it. And thenyou got other big technologists
like Elon that's trying to pumpthe brakes, because he's like,
(15:39):
Hey, have we thought about usersafety? Yeah, and in the same
way, I kind of hear that threadwith you is like, okay, hold up.
We're in this moment of time,cool. The churches alive, the
churches? Well, we're buildingbuildings where we're gaining
followers. On social media,we're making a dent in society,
we're culturally relevant, youknow, all those things. But Hey,
(16:02):
is anybody thinking about usersafety?
Yeah, I am.
Okay. So that's what I want toget to you're not just
critiquing this, you'recontributing towards you with
ARMA? What you're doing with AR?
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat, in your perspective, your
approach? Yeah, so2020, I realized, man, this
vicious cycle between seminaryand church is like, this is a
(16:23):
broken system, and somebody hasto model that they can go to
school, even though they don'tneed it. So I decided to jump
into a doctoral program. Andthat doctoral program has not
like somebody, once I'm on azoom call, said, what doors is
your doctoral program openingfor you? And I said, Well, I
(16:44):
didn't jump into the program forto open doors. For me, that's a
terrible way to think about adiscipline, I jumped into a
doctoral program, to showPentecostals, that you can do
this stop saying that you can't,or that you don't have time, or
that you're too busy. Stopmaking excuses. When when the
Holy Spirit asked me to jumpinto a doctoral program. First,
(17:07):
I had to get my master's degree,because I hadn't, I hadn't
gotten a master's degree. And sothat was two years of my life.
And then I jumped into a fouryear doctoral program. And the
Holy Spirit said, this is youract of worship to me, I want you
to sacrifice something, and goto school, because there are
(17:28):
young people coming up behindyou that think that school is
irrelevant. And the problem isthat you actually need the
discipline of a professorreading over your sermon and
saying, Yeah, I think you're alittle right on this, I think
you're a little left on this.
Here's the center line, I gainedprofessors along the way that
(17:50):
have become allies, for me, thathave that watch me preach, and
will hold me accountable. Ithink right now we're in a
church space, where there's alack of like, real
accountability, okay, that youhave a board, but that board is
less like a group of yourfriends. And like, who can
really say, hey, like, theperson, the random person on
(18:13):
YouTube isn't the person to holdyou accountable. You know, I
hate these people who likereview people's sermons on
YouTube, um, like, get a life,you know, the person because
there can't be accountabilitywithout relationship. So
there's, there's got to besomebody in your life, who's
just like Paul saying toTimothy, watch your life and
doctrine closely. Because if youexcel in them, you'll save both
(18:37):
yourself and your heroes. Ithink there's got to be someone
saying, Are you watching yourlife? And are you watching your
doctrine? I'll give a shift. Ithink that has taken place like
a generational shift. I actuallylearned this in my master's
program. So before World WarTwo, prior to World War Two, if
you went into any pastors, ifyou went to any church, and you
(19:01):
got a meeting with the pastor,the Secretary would usher you
into that pastors study. Everypastor had to study because the
pastor was the publictheologian, the pastor's job is
to study is to is to make surethat they are preaching doctrine
that is Presbyterian or doctrinethat's Baptist, or doctrine,
(19:21):
that's Methodist, or doctrinethat's based on whatever
denomination they're in? Well,the World War Two hits America
becomes a superpower. And thenumber one most, you know,
admired person in the publicspace becomes the CEO. And so
every pastor goes from having astudy to having an office, and
(19:42):
why do I have an office becauseI'm a CEO, I'm the Chief
Executive Officer. I go frombeing a theologian to being an
officer. And if we look atchurch now, there's a lot of
there's there's a lot ofpositives that have happened
because of this. This is notOnly a negative thing. I want to
(20:02):
talk with nuance, you know whatI mean? Like, there's a lot of
positives that have happenedbecause of this church becomes
irrelevant. All the things thatyou kind of mentioned before,
like, churches are thriving,they're growing, they're
culturally relevant. Like, hey,we're building buildings in
cash, like, we're debt free.
We're doing all kinds ofphenomenal things. And I'm going
okay, we can't go back to thepast. So what does the future
(20:23):
look like? And I think thefuture has to be some kind of, I
would call it a studio. It's astudy, but that is tech infused.
It's it's back to, hey, we'regonna be theologians again.
We're gonna be we're gonna belike, we got to know what the
doctrines of the church are wewe can't let 2020 hit and waves
of millennials, deconstruct, andthere's no response. There's no,
(20:48):
we're all just mad at the kidsdeconstructing. It's like, we're
all just pointing our fingers atpeople deconstructing. And to
me, you know, Paul says to theCorinthian church, I laid a
foundation of none other thanChrist. And then the fire will
revealed what we've all built.
(21:10):
That some build with gold, somewith silver, some with classy
stones, some with wood, somewith hay. And what happens when
you build with wood and hay, thefire, burns it up and consumes
it. What happens when you buildwith gold, silver, and cost the
stones the fire refines it andmakes it better? So Paul is
saying that if somebody candeconstruct what you built,
(21:30):
maybe the issue is not theperson deconstructing. Maybe the
issue is that you built itwrong. Maybe the problem is with
the church, maybe the problem iswith the pastor who built it on
cultural assimilation tocultural values in our church,
and not on like, hey, the NiceneCreed, like when's the last time
you cracked open the NiceneCreed and read it and, and maybe
(21:54):
we shouldn't be building it on,hey, we vote for this political
party. Or maybe we should bebuilding this on. Hey, there's
actually just some, like,foundational, and when I say
historic confessionalChristianity, I mean, hey,
there's the Nicene Creed asChristians have all agreed since
325. AD, hey, this is what thisis what defines a Christian. And
(22:19):
so I kind of go, Ah, there'ssome ancient paths that I think
we kind of need to like, go backto, but not to glorify the past,
but to go okay, like, what, whatdoes it mean for us to create
credibility? How do we createcredibility? We can't just point
it people deconstructing, andbeing like, you're, you're y'all
(22:41):
are idiots we gotta go, though.
I'll give you a good example.
Right? Tick tock is youth groupkids. They're like, and I
learned, it's funny because Iactually I say more than one
thing. Okay, here's the firstissue. My issue is not with
deconstruction, there's noproblem with deconstructing not
at all. If you're notdeconstructing your faith, then
(23:01):
you're not constructing yourfaith. Faith is not is a process
of deconstructing andreconstructing no issue of
deconstructing. Here's the issuewith detaching yourself from the
church and deconstructing inyour room by yourself. We're
deconstructing with yourboyfriend who's not really
saved, or deconstructing with agroup of friends in college that
are not a part of the church.
You can deconstruct all youwant, as long as you stay
(23:25):
connected with your pastor, andsmall group leaders and deacons
and elders, as long as you stayattached to the church, the
church is a great place toanswer your questions and to ask
hard questions, or I should say,church should be a great place
to ask hard questions. And toexplore some difficult topics
(23:49):
out there, I learned this myfreshman year of my
undergraduate degree. And it'scrazy how I learned something as
a 17 year old and the context inwhich I learned it did not cause
me to deconstruct. But then I'mlike, 33, we're going through a
pandemic, and my kids that theirkids in our youth youth
(24:11):
ministry, in young adultministry at our church that are
getting exposed to you the exactsame information, and for them,
it's crumbling their faith, andhere's what it is freshman year
Bible college, I learned thatfeet is can be not all the time
can be a euphemism for genitaliaand the Bible. Okay, well, this
is, this is like, there's notvery hard to even learn this.
(24:32):
And so, you know, there's acouple of different ways to read
Ruth's interaction with Boaz onthe threshing floor. Okay. You
know, one interpretation, whichis a big, you know, people who
want to push purity culture arelike, you know, they Ruth and
Boaz were pure and, and theydidn't do anything before
(24:55):
marriage, and I'm like, okay,sure, but there's another way to
read The text that when she liesat his feet, that maybe
something sexual did happen.
Now, I learned this my freshmanyear in Bible college and here's
the takeaway. The takeaway was,the reason that the story of
Ruth is in the Bible is to showus the lineage of David and to
(25:17):
show us who the Messiah is inthe show us that the that even
in Jesus's lineage, there wasalways a multicultural and multi
ethnic vision that God had thatalthough Ruth was not an
Israelite, she is grafted in,because Gentiles are not an
afterthought, Gentile who are amassive part of God's vision.
(25:41):
That's why this book is in theBible. Therefore, if Ruth and
Boaz did something sexual,before they were married, I
don't really care. Because thisbook is not here to teach me how
to date in the 21st century.
This book is to teach me aboutJesus, because Jesus is way more
important than me in my datinglife. Now, my kids hear this,
(26:01):
they're like Ruth and Boaz didsomething sexual that I have the
other than I have the right todo something sexual. And there I
go. This is the differencebetween baby boomers and
carrying the Bible andmillennials and carrying the
Bible. Baby Boomers could not goon YouTube and find out that
feet is a euphemism forgenitalia. They're not YouTube
(26:24):
doesn't exist, they don't haveaccess to that information,
unless their pastor is gonna getup and say that on a Sunday. And
most times, the pastor is notgoing to say that. I think we
people leading the church rightnow have to realize that hoof we
have to be more intelligent, andthe in the, in the defense of
(26:49):
the Bible that we give, and andhow we preach. If we preach self
centered messages, then we'llalways take the Bible and say,
What can I help you to learnabout your life, which is really
just a lot of self help. I thinkwe really need to return to a
place where we say, yeah, thestory of Ruth isn't in here to
(27:10):
help you navigate your life. Thestory of Ruth is in here to show
you God's plan of salvation tothe Old Testament. That's why
it's here. And so you're nothere on Sunday for self help
talk. You're here on Sunday, toactually like, learn what the
Bible teaches. And if I'm herefor self help talk, then guess
(27:33):
what I'll deconstruct, when Ifigure out that the stuff I
thought was a short Foundationwas actually not what I should
have been building on in thefirst place. So I think that we
have to acknowledge, I thinkthat, you know, when I was when
I was growing up, right, if myparents got like a bishop,
(27:53):
Jake's DVD, or like, or like aCD or DVD, like, they would
like, go back to my home church,and like, tell our pastor, like,
my pastor was big on like, mysenior pastor at the church I
grew up it was like, Hey, ifyou're gonna eat other grass,
just let me know what the grassis. So I could tell you whether
or not it's like, you know,like, healthy, you know what I
(28:16):
mean? And so I remember myparents coming back from a trip
and they got like, some cassettetapes and some DVDs. And like,
they showed it to like one ofthe Deacons of the church, like,
hey, like, we got this stuff.
What do you think? And my pastorkind of gave the thumbs up,
like, yeah, that stuff's greatteaching to listen to, like, go
for it. I think that if we'relooking at millennials and Gen
(28:37):
Z, sheep herders eating grassfrom everywhere, they're eating
poison grass, they're eatinggrass on Tik Tok, you're eating
grass there, you know, I wassitting down with a young adult
at our church, and I'm givingthem like, Biblically sound,
relevant relationship advice.
I'm like, Hey, dude, like,here's the deal. Like, I've
known you for years. I've knownthe girl you're dating. I've got
(29:00):
I'm at coffee with you. Like, Ilove you. I'm your Shepherd. I'm
your pastor. Yeah, here's somerelationship, like direction.
This man quotes my talk to me.
He said, Well, Mike Todd said inhis last sermon, done it. And I
was like, bro, let me tell youright now. Like, I know Mike
(29:23):
Todd personally. And if I toldhim that you did this to a
pastor, he'd be pissed, like,bro, I'm speaking in
generalities. It's only yourpastor who can speak and
specificities. And I think thatif you're going to lead in the
space that we're in today, thenyou've got to be the kind of
leader who knows how to like,know, the grass that your sheep
(29:47):
are friggin eating like that,like I can't operate from the
assumption that they're notgetting grass elsewhere. I've
got to operate from theassumption that like, yeah,
there is calm tip that isaccessible to you because of the
internet. And now I have totrain you not. I can't just say
(30:07):
this is where you eat grass, Ihave to give the sheep enough
discernment to know what's badgrass and what's good grass. And
that means I have to help themto be Biblically literate. So
they can like steer themselvesaway from bad grass, because I
can't helicopter parent, all thepeople in our church, I can't be
I can't micromanage whateverybody listens to, I have to
(30:30):
give them a better diet so thatthey go out about that. Okay, so
that's a lot of thoughts atonce. That's, that's awesome.
I feel like oh, it's it. It's sogood. It's so good. It reminds
me that I love that idea that wecan't micromanage everything, we
can't helicopter mom,everything, right, so to speak.
(30:53):
And it reminds me of just evenjust the tenant of free speech,
right? The anecdote to promotingfree speech is not actually
censorship. It's not actuallytrying to reduce speech, that
the anecdote to promoting freespeech is more speech. Right.
And so part of me and the wholepremise of this podcast really
(31:16):
is you have person that sits inthe seat of executive pastor,
that's also a technologistthat's passionate about
innovation. And then XO being amillennial churchgoer on maybe
the higher end of the millennialage spectrum xos on the lower
end, so we kind of create thattype of diversity there. But
(31:38):
when I think about from atechnology perspective, what
this means it does kind ofactually mean, a training, like
you said, many of bringing backorthodoxy, into our study and
into our scripture, and into ourpreaching, but also a leveling
(31:59):
of the playing field in terms oftechnological distribution of
that study. Right? Yeah. And soso even I just had this thought
with a friend, I was talking tothe other day of like, hey, at
the end of the day, any locallocal church pastor that wants
to show up digitally, everylocal church pastor should have
an opportunity for a podcast,separate from what they're
(32:21):
preaching on a Sunday. And inanother context to pastor there
people, even if they only have300 views, only if they have
like 150 views or listens, aweek at best your congregation,
it's going to be a lot morecontextual than somebody that's
just broadcasting, like yousaid, generalities. Right, I
guess so as, as a youngermillennial churchgoer? What are
(32:42):
other things that producecredibility? And I mean, you're,
you're a local active churchmember?
Yeah, I mean, I think the thingI just keep hearing is, this
concept of the future doesn'tbelong to the Creator, as much
as the future belongs to thecurator. And so it's this whole
concept of, if you don't provideus the answers, we're looking
(33:05):
for, guess what we're goingelsewhere, which means you're
going to the buffet, and nothingis the same, nothing makes
sense. It's just this wholesmorgasbord of who knows what's
here. I'm just eating becauseI'm hungry. You know. And so I
love this idea, many whereyou're seeing, there's a wide
open space, literally theexample of a pastor of I need to
(33:29):
put something here to showpeople, Hey, what's here is
good. Yeah. And it will satisfyyou in the same way that the
church should be. And you know,I love the parallel because
Vance, what we're building itoverflow is ultimately creating
a hub for people to be able togive anything. So Manny's here
creating resources for people toget the answers to all their
(33:50):
questions. And I, it's just asit's just this really perplexing
idea, and I love how thisconversation has gone because it
has really revealed to me thateven as churchgoers, of course,
this whole deconstructionelement, that's it's big, we
have to be so mindful of what weare consuming, where we are
(34:14):
putting our time and where weare putting our efforts and our
thoughts like it really is acall to action for me to not
even speaking as a churchleader. Because I really, it's
everything you're saying isreally landing for me and it's
actually making me so encouragedbecause yeah, many you have such
(34:34):
a boldness about you. That seemsto be few and far between the
fact that you're you're standinghere and you're like, Hey, I'm
one of these people, and I'mgoing forward into this unknown
territory and creating theresources and saying the stuff
that people are afraid to say,because I want to provide people
answers and help them to be wellfed. I just want to commend you
(34:55):
for that because it's abeautiful work and It's so
necessary.
I'm like, somebody's got to doit. Somebody's got to like, I
feel like in a way I am like, aprobably this is the first
moment. And we're witness, we'redocumenting this moment, like,
(35:17):
you know, on cameras, like, ofme realizing, Oh, I'm
innovating. I didn't realize Iwas innovating until right now
I'm in cars. Yes,it is always just felt like,
Man, when I'm in like, churchspace. I'm like one of the only
people that's like, reallypursuing education. And when I'm
like, with my classmates, andwhen I'm at school, I'm like,
(35:38):
one of the only people who'slike, really trying to like,
push church forward. And so itjust feels like I'm a loner, you
know, it just feels like, oh,well,
we don't really we say anywhere.
Yeah, we say this, you canalways tell a pioneer by the
arrows on their back. Right? Andso it is, it is a little bit of
that journey. And you're, you'retotally an innovator, you're
(36:01):
totally a disrupter. And thereason why we started this
podcast to talk about innovativeideas and to start to talk about
disruptive thinking specificallyin the church context. Because
Bozo and I, our whole company ispassionate about serving local
church is because if you look atcertain tectonic shifts, in
evangelism, certain tectonicshifts in the gospel being
(36:22):
unleashed on this planet,certain tectonic shifts of where
faith has been integrated, andcontextualized. Deep within
communities. It's been becauseof innovation. If you go like
way, way back to even the waythat they constructed the
original cathedrals, and a lotof them are empty now because
they stopped innovating. Butback in the day, it was the hub,
(36:43):
the epicenter of society, evenjust the way they told the
Gospel story, through thewindows and through the way that
light refracts off thesedifferent angles and things like
that was architectural genius.
You fast forward to theGutenberg Press, and unleashing
(37:04):
text so that it can bedemocratized to people, right.
It's a similar thing we'retrying to do in regards to
finances and mixing it in withyour faith and understanding the
importance of the tithe and howto unlock generosity above and
beyond the tithe, and how thatcan lead to a flourishing life
biblically speaking, and thingslike that all the way to what
(37:26):
you're now seeing, in terms ofwhat needs to be disrupted, what
needs to be innovated with Bibleliteracy. I think that's where
it kind of boils down to rightis, you know, there's some,
there's some good things,there's some there's some
appetite in the atmosphere rightnow, it just needs to be
directed. Right? Yeah.
(37:47):
I would say the Reformationdoesn't happen without the
printing press. It just doesn'tlike and, and it, there's no,
obviously there's no way tohistorically prove that right.
I'm making a bold claim. Butthere were reformers prior to
Martin Luther who said the samethings. But the innovation, the
(38:07):
technology, the tech, like ofthere being a print printing
press, and him being able toactually like spread his ideas.
When John and when John andCharles Wesley invented the
track, like that was tech, itwas innovative. It was mind
blowing. You know, if you handout a track today, people think
(38:30):
you're a Jehovah's Witness, orjust weird, right? And so I
think sometimes it's like,there's all these moments where
the churches innovated. Butthere's all these moments where
the church like, hesitates toinnovate. And, obviously, we're
at another one of thosecrossroads, and we gotta go,
man, we we, we 100% need toinnovate. And innovation doesn't
(38:54):
mean we're always going to getit right. No, I think sometimes
we're scared to experiment andget it wrong. And I think
sometimes as pastoral leaders,one of the best advice somebody
gave me, like, a couple yearsago, was like, Hey, man, don't
just as your default, don'talways say God told me to do
this. Yes, yes. But as a leader,you're going to have to eat
(39:16):
those words. He's like, your,your employees and your crew.
Sometimes they just need to hearyou say, I think this is a good
idea. And I think this is wise.
And I, I think we shouldinnovate in this way. I'm not
about to add godly authority andgodly pressure to like make you
buy into the vision. I just haveto like, and sometimes I think
(39:40):
when when pastors want toinnovate, the default is I heard
from God, and God told us to dothis. And then there's all this
pressure for that innovation towork out.
You're afraid to fail. You'reafraid to fail. Right? Exactly,
exactly. There has Bespace within an innovative
(40:00):
culture is a space wherefailures, okay? And and I think
sometimes in church becausethere's that pressure of like,
we just need to do what God toldus to do. We don't innovate. And
I'm like, man, like, I'm allabout obeying God don't Don't
get it twisted, but God has alsogiven you creativity, and like,
(40:21):
like he's giving you likeagencies, and he's giving you
ideas. So that's good. If Icould give some kind of language
to like, the crossroads that Ithink a lot of like church
leaders get to, and why theydon't innovate, or why they're
scared to innovate. I think ifwe could just give people
(40:42):
permission to like, hey, like,just because you're a pastor
doesn't mean that yourexperimental days are behind
you. Like, you got toexperiment. Go for it. And you
Yeah, yeah, by all means, dowhat God is telling you to do.
But there are some times where Ithink God goes, Hey, like, you
know, there's this moment in theExodus, where Moses is at the
(41:06):
Red Sea, and he's crying out toGod, and gods like, What's in
your hand? And he's like, Oh,the staff. He's like, put the
staff into the water, like I'vealready given you, like, you're,
you're looking to me forpermission. But I've already set
you up with the very thing thatyou need for this miracle to
come to pass. So andI think I think that's part of
(41:29):
leaders, we need to hear that.
So good. I think that's part ofit, too, right? Is where, and I
totally agree with you, weactually say this in the Silicon
Valley fail, fast and failforward, right? It's this
culture that has been embracedhere that's led to a lot of
breakthrough innovation. There'sthis mentality that, hey, nine
out of 10 things that we'regoing to try is statistically
(41:51):
going to fail, but that onething is going to be
breakthrough. I also think thatsome of the mindset, like what
you just said about Moses,right? Where sometimes when you
only have a staff, it's easierto quote unquote, risk. It's
easier to experiment, right. Butif if you had like, if you had
like the Mercedes Benz ofstaffs, and it was like, super
(42:12):
valuable already, right? Andyou're like you like, oh, I
don't know, like, I don't wantto put this out there. Because
it's, I have like, it's, it'stoo much to fail. Right? And you
took it to the, to the extremeexample of we just, we keep
putting God on everything, wekeep putting the divine on
everything. And it locks us up,to actually innovate and have
(42:36):
that permission that hey, noteverything is going to work out,
hey, let's close. Let's closeout with this because I want to
end on vision. I feel like thetheme of this conversation has
been innovation and innovation,a lot of times it's birth with a
very distinct vision, right? Youthink about like some somebody
like Steve Jobs, he had a visionof a future that did not exist
(42:57):
yet that he endeavored tocreate. And that's what we
believe we're doing at overflow.
Our vision for overflow is tobuild the infrastructure that
makes generosity frictionless,across every major asset class,
the way that you can buyanything on Amazon, the way that
Amazon has all made us biggerspenders. We want you to be able
through overflow to be able togive anything through overflow
(43:20):
in the same way that overflowmakes people more generous. Talk
to me, Manny, everything you'redoing personally with ARMA all
your different endeavors, giveus give the listeners just to
close out a vision of what thefuture looks like for you.
The future looks like a worldwhere we, it's it's funny, we
(43:43):
bring Sunday school back. Like,Hey, I like that. It's funny,
like a youth pastor picked me upfrom the airport, and we were
going to church and he was like,Man, I'm sorry. Like, my church
is kind of old school. Like westill do Sunday school. And I
went if you ever apologize againor like, Sunday school, bro,
like, actually, that's kind ofwhat sustained a whole
(44:07):
generation was, like, Sundayschool and and I would say
making biblical literacyaccessible to everyone
everywhere. It's like my vision,like making high seminary level,
you know, biblical literate,like biblical content. Super,
super accessible. Yeah, andthat's accessible to black
(44:31):
people. It's best accessible,accessible to low income
neighborhoods, like I've been inChristian schools my entire
life. So from kindergarten to mydoctorate, I've been educated in
Christian environments, and I'venever had a black Bible
professor. So accessibility isis age, its gender, its
(44:52):
ethnicity. Its, you know, itscost. It's like how do we how do
we how do we create likeseminary level Bible resources
for the average person and makeit super, super accessible and
part of accessibility. Really, Ithink that the people who make
the Bible the most accessible insociety today are pastors. And
(45:15):
so we've got a big vision tolike help pastors to make the
Bible more and more accessible.
So yeah, it's a world wherebiblical literacy super, super
accessible. I love it.
So this was one of the mostamazing conversations we've had.
Manny, thank you so much. Thankyou for joining us on the
podcast rudest, you're therudest.
(45:42):
Thanks, man. Thanks so much forlistening to the give it up
podcast if you want to receiveeven more insights on church
innovation, culture, and giving.
Now you can sign up for free tobe an overflow insider where
you'll receive exclusive contentdiscounts direct access to Vance
Roush to get your questionsanswered, and also invite only
access to our monthlyfundraising leadership forums,
(46:04):
head to overflow.co backslashinsider, or just click the link
in our bio to sign up for freetoday. In order to get this
podcast in the ears of even morechurch leaders. Could you please
subscribe and leave a review forthe show? This tells the podcast
players what people are enjoyingand want to hear more of and we
are adamant about providingmaximum value to even more
(46:27):
church leaders. Thanks so much.
We'll see you next time.
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