April 15, 2025 • 61 mins
The recent American election - and its disastrous results - are causing many to look at themselves, their lives, and their relationship with their government in a new way. What does idolatry have to do with this? Everything! Join Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino and guests Ministers Charlie Reep and Nik Lewis for a discussion about the need for community, self-examination, and a spiritual revival where we look past our government, to God, for our needs. (Intro and Conclusion Track "Ready to Rock" by Yvgeniy Sorokin, https://pixabay.com/users/eugenemyers-40510887/. ACTS Seminary ad back track "Worship" by Ivan Luzin, https://pixabay.com/music/main-title-worship-151061/.)
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Episode Transcript
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The Revolution starts here.
Welcome to Kingdom Now, the podcast featuring Faith with an Edge, as we celebrate the Kingdom
(00:57):
of God within you.
I am your host, Dr. Lee Ann Marino, Apostle author, podcaster, professor, and theologian,
and founder of Spitfire Apostolic Ministries and all the works that go along with it.
I am excited to share this program with you as we explore the ins and outs of counterculture
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Christianity present as you live out the Kingdom of God in your everyday life.
Want to learn more?
Visit my website at www.kingdompowernow.org
And now, our program, which features a variety of formats here, just for you.
Interviews on a variety of relevant topics, teaching and preaching proclaim everywhere from my
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North Carolina studio to sanctuary and beyond, and powerful insights here for now as we
turn the world upside down everywhere we go.
Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening.
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Happy whatever time of day this, wherever you are, and to our listeners.
How do they say hi in Korean?
Annyeonghaseyo.
Great.
We are listeners in South Korea.
We say what Nik just said.
Because if I try to say it, I'm going to butcher it.
And so we welcome you to this edition of the Kingdom Now podcast.
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And I am your host, Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino here as the Spitfire serving as the voice of
counterculture Christianity, where we feature the theme of faith with an edge.
And if you would like to learn more about the world of counterculture Christianity, feel
free to visit my website at www.kingdompowernow.org.
And I do encourage you to keep track of kingdompowernow.org because we have some very
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exciting things coming up in the next few months.
So I don't think that it's really a big secret to say that the world as we know it has become
a shit show.
And by the time this episode airs in April, it will probably be even more of one.
So what's the spiritual answer to the circumstances that we find ourselves in as federal
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workers look out over their current situation and they deal with the fact that we might all
be laid off soon or other matters by which agencies you're closing and funding is not going
through and groceries are through the roof and rent is through the roof.
And we all keep having to keep paying out.
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Whereas things as we see it out in terms of the natural realm look kind of bleak.
What do we do and what's the answer and what do we look to?
Well, my guests today are returning and they are ministers Charlie Reep and Nik Lewis of
sanctuary International Fellowship Tabernacle in Charlotte.
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And I'm going to turn this over for the two of you to fight over who's going to go first
to introduce yourself.
I mean, do you introduce me first?
I guess I'll go first.
Hi, I'm minister Charlie.
They/them pronoun user, the minister of education at sanctuary.
Glad to be back.
I enjoy speaking on the Kingdom now podcast.
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And you have a website.
I do have a website.
Yes, it's been a long week.
My website is beloved-not-broken.com and it's basically a resource for queer
questioning and deconstructing Christians.
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That was so professional of you.
Thank you.
Okay, I guess I'll go next and try to follow with that professionalism.
I am minister Nik pronouns they/them.
I am also a returning guest as Lee Ann said minister of music and worship leader for
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sanctuary.
Charlotte, sorry, it is definitely been a long week.
I also have a website nickfits.com that's nikfits.com and on my contact page, there's a
linktree with all my socials.
You can follow me on there if you so desire.
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Okay.
So in short, we need acts 2.0.
And I guess I'll start with how we kind of came up with this topic.
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I had no idea what we were going to talk about by the time this airs this particular situation
might have kind of blown over.
And we all know this is not a particularly political podcast, but I have a federal job.
So my day job in order to pay bills and help supplement income as we develop what we're
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doing at sanctuary is civilian work.
I don't work for the administration.
I am a civilian employee.
And as of today, we are dealing with that.
We may very well be laying off all of our jobs.
And I sent the link because I've been worried about this for a while since all this stuff
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started going on.
I sent a link to everybody that I knew about it.
And it was said by minister nik that, you know, we really need to get serious about our
spirituality here in about our community because we really do need that now more than ever.
And having said that, I'm going to turn that over to minister nik so that they can elaborate
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more on where they're coming from.
Well, I'm going to kind of quote, Charlie here actually because I have lost count of
how many posts they've done basically saying that systems can't save us.
And I don't say that in like a teasing way like it's good.
They've been very good posts.
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But especially with politics, I feel like we look to certain candidates to fix our problems,
which I'm not going to say that no politician has ever done right by at least a few people
in this country because they have.
Some have done more than others.
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Others have done more harm than good.
And but the thing is people are human and are prone to making mistakes and are prone to
being selfish and are prone to being blinded by their own ideals, their biases, their beliefs,
what have you.
And they're not going to, it's impossible to do right.
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Well, this is my belief.
It's impossible politically to do right by every single person in this country because there
are so many different needs and so many different things that cross over.
And with so polarizing beliefs between individuals, I don't think that we're ever going to reach
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a point of full reconciliation where the government can basically make everyone happy.
So for all of us to keep looking to politicians with our own agenda is my view.
To see who best aligns with our goals when I feel like just kind of like randomly gets
in people in a room, not all of our goals are going to align, it's just not going to work.
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Basically people can't save us.
So when that happens, we just have to turn to each other for support, encouragement,
and trust about everything we need.
So.
Well said.
Yeah.
Yeah, I didn't know half of that was going to come out because I'm not going to lie, head
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empty no thoughts when you originally targeted over to me.
Yeah, so.
I'm also thinking about what we had originally talked about which ties in and that's idolatry.
I saw a post on Facebook yesterday.
I think it was an I don't remember who posted it or where they got their info from because
I hadn't looked it up, but people were saying that the new religion is politics.
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And I thought about it very long and very, very hard because I don't think that politics
have the ability to classify as religion because they don't have the same goals, but I do
feel that people are looking to the government and they are looking to agencies with a spiritual
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devotion with that type of fervor.
And this is what idolatry gets us.
It sure do that.
I felt that sigh from over here, Charlie.
Do you want to share?
I said, I'm shocked.
No, I didn't think it was that loud, but.
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I don't know if that will society heard around the world right now.
Well, I mean, y'all are both in my blog post for what will be tomorrow as we're recording
this, but by the time it's posted, it'll be a few months old.
But so far, I'm planning to write about, once again, write about idolatry in systems and
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stuff like that.
I did not expect my blog to become just this, you know, what it's turned into of, hey, this
is what modern day idolatry looks like, but I mean, I guess it does fit the deconstructing
Christian brand.
But anyway, side note, in terms of, Leanne, how you were saying that you're facing what you're
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facing with your federal job, we're also facing sort of the same kind of,
insecurity at work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was also the side heard around the world.
And basically the title of this blog post so far is, who do you trust more, God or your
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boss?
And how?
I need to hide after that.
Oh my God.
And if we wanted to just, you know, apply it to the conversation we've been having, it's
who do you trust more, God or the president?
And I think, unfortunately, for a lot of people in the US and unfortunately, a not so small
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number of Christians, it would be the president and everything that that entails.
And at this point, it's like, you know, I've been, I've been thinking long and hard about
like, what do we do in this kind of scenario?
As the minister of education, I'm just like, oh, it's my job to like kind of educate within
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sanctuary, but at some point I recognize that not everybody wants to be educated.
And we have to draw a line somewhere between getting the information out and then trying
to protect our peace.
And I feel like in this upcoming, I don't know if it's at whatever the cycle is going to
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be, but it's going to be a matter of, yes, get the information out there, but when inevitably
people are not going to listen, what do we do?
And that's what we have to turn to each other.
We have to, we have to rely on, on community to get us through like literally every day,
every moment.
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Yeah.
What's that bit?
And I want to say for Samuel, where, Israel is like, we want a king in Samuel's life,
like, you know, the king's going to not do right by y'all, right?
And they're just like, we don't care.
We want a king.
That sounds very, very familiar and kind of timely and relevant, you know, today.
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Yeah.
It's like he wanted a president who said some very, and did some very controversial things.
And now we're shocked to pick a king.
Is everything that's going on?
It's going to leave that there.
I think it might be also timely for me to bring up the fact that my last blog post, at
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least at the time that we're recording this, was about people who had changed their minds
about voting.
The last post was something, was something called, so you regret voting for the sitting president,
dot, dot, dot.
And I tried to approach it with as much compassion as I was able to muster because honestly,
there is a lot of compassion missing from these conversations.
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It's very polarizing the reactions to people who are either allegedly changing their minds
or just whispers of people changing their minds or people actually changing their minds.
But there is a lot of vitriol from people who did not vote for the sitting president.
It's gotten to the point where we're forgetting about Jesus' command to love others as we
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love ourselves.
And it's, yeah, there's a lot of love and compassion missing from these conversations.
I'm shocked.
I'm sorry.
Sorry, not sorry.
But I mean, if you want to, if you have, if you are listening to this podcast and you
did vote for the sitting president and then you've since changed your mind about that, I
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mean, I highly recommend reading it.
It's going to be an uncomfortable post because it's going to be an uncomfortable time for
you just in terms of the reactions that you're going to be experiencing from others.
And then the changes that are going to happen to your own perspective, but I think that
blog post is also helpful for those of us who didn't vote for the sitting president and
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are like, hey, we need to approach, we need to approach people with compassion.
So I mean, I wrote that with one audience in mind, but it could apply to anybody.
And I mean, as I sit over here and grow because one of the things that I think a lot of us
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don't realize, and it's not just for me, but for the other 222,000 federal employees who
are on the line here, that this is personal for us.
And it's personal, not in the same way that we just don't maybe agree with somebody or
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respect somebody's beliefs, but it's hitting home in a way that's scary in a way that
has the ability to change the entire trajectory of our lives.
And so me being a human being, I mean, and I'm not going to say what I said, although they're
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probably going to both laugh, but I'm going to say I said something less than understanding
before I came on because naturally there's different feelings about everything that's
going on.
And for me, being out of work with this particular job would be bad.
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It would be really, really bad right now.
And these two basically brought me back to reality in that whether we like people or not
everybody needs Jesus.
And as you're talking about, we still need to have compassion and understanding.
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But for no other reason, we all make mistakes.
And we all sin.
And it's like I've said, none of us sin by ourselves.
We're not going through this experience, whatever it is that we're having alone.
And that's why we need community and that's why community is so important.
And that's why we love community because community does not just supply our need as we
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needed.
It supplies our need when we don't really want to deal with that.
And it makes us confront ourselves and our own realities because whether I'm a federal
employee right now or not, I'm not going to be one forever.
And my primary job is not to represent the federal government.
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It's not to hold that position.
It's to represent Christ.
Yeah.
That's a kind of a piggy back
Sure, go.
It's a kind of piggyback off all that I had to look up the passage because I couldn't just
be like, oh, somewhere in the news estimate.
But specifically, first Peter 4:8 above all, love each other deeply because love covers
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a multitude of sins.
And not to say that like, not to say voting is a morality issue in that, you know, you
send in voting for whoever you voted for.
But basically, it also comes with saying what you believe in.
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And ultimately, a lot of decisions boil down to do love your neighbor or not.
And are you putting God first or not?
Which the two greatest commands are love God, love yourself within implicit, or not, sorry.
Love God, love your neighbor within implicit command to love yourself because if you can't
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love yourself, how are you going to love your neighbor as yourself?
But so there, in lies the morality.
And that's where we kind of need to have compassion because like what Charlie was saying, if
we basically keep coming for each other's throats, that's not Christ like either.
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As we all sit and think about that.
I was just about to say as we all sit inside of it.
Selah.
Oh, yeah.
Because to have community, you have to be community.
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To have a safe space, you have to be a safe space.
And I think one of the major reasons why people don't delve into community, why we don't see
Acts in the modern church.
And I don't really think it's not because of lack of doctrine.
It's not because of lack of scripture.
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I mean, we all know there are bibles everywhere in every translation you can think of.
It has to do with that.
Do you have a lot of things to do with that?
Or bibles everywhere in every translation you can think of.
It has to do with that.
Do we really want to make the same commitment that they made to God and to one another?
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Because it requires sacrifice and it does.
I mean, bring up my experiences with community sacrifice.
Like it's, I guess to go back, we in America are taught to be self-sufficient.
And it is a shameful, it is almost a shameful thing to admit that you need help, to admit
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that you cannot do everything on your own.
And so this is, like community is something that I struggle with to this day.
Like there are times when I have like full out arguments with God where I'm just like,
I don't want to like burden my community with this.
I don't want to have to ask.
I don't want to have to inconvenience anybody.
And when like I would be just as happy to be a blessing to somebody if they ask me for help,
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it's like why can't I, why can't I do the same and have the same understanding that other
people want to be blessed by helping me.
But it's just, it's the self-sufficiency thing.
And there inevitably comes sacrifices that must be made.
So I think I could, I can actually tell it's kind of a funny anecdote at this point.
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I think, Lee Ann, you're going to know what I'm talking about.
But in my, like it was, it was a few months ago where I ended up having like a low tire pressure
day.
I think, yeah, I think I have like, I think it was a cold day or something.
And I was like, okay, let me, you know, around here we have a gas station called QT
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that gives out that you can pump your, you can pump your tires for free at QT, usually at
other gas stations you have to pay.
But the QTs around me, none of their pumps were working.
And so I was like, okay, well, I saw, I saw that Amazon was selling stuff.
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I don't know if I necessarily trust the Amazon brand, but I was like, oh, but you know,
who does sell air pumps is the hardware store.
And so I was like, let me go to the local hardware store.
And the entire time that I'm driving, I'm having this conversation with God of, like God's
nudging me like, hey, you know, Lee Ann has like a portable tire pump just ask her to borrow,
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just ask to borrow it.
And I was like, yeah, but that's, that's an inconvenience I'd have to wait until like a few
more days from now.
And then by the time I finally get to the hardware store, I was like, fine, you know what,
I'll text Lee Ann.
And she was like, yeah, you can totally, you can totally borrow this thing.
And then I ended up talking with, I talked with you later actually because Brad had recommended
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like, hey, get you a portable tire pump or something.
And is like, oh, yeah, by the way, Lee Ann has Amazon prime or whatever.
So you can get it tomorrow.
I was like, oh, shoot, okay.
So it's all this to say that it wasn't just about the tire pump.
The tire pump wasn't the problem.
I was able to like get my tires filled and everything.
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We're totally fine with that.
The underlying issue there was I was so self reliant that it was a matter of humbling
myself to ask for help from my community, the uncompuneness of humbling myself because
it is an uncomfortable experience when you have to basically like say, hey, I can't
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do everything by myself.
Sometimes you do have to wait a little bit to get the results.
So in this case, I had to wait an extra day to get some air on my tires.
But at the end of it, my car was safe.
I got what I needed.
And I basically asked community, I really, I obeyed God at that point of asking for help from
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my community.
It was a really good life lesson as far as like, hey, you know, asking for community, like
the whole process of seeking community and relying on community is very uncomfortable.
And a lot of sacrifices have to be made.
It's a lot of swallowing your pride, humbling yourself.
And that is probably the biggest, the biggest issue that we don't talk about when building
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a community is the, is the having to humble yourself.
That reminds me of a song that, okay, you're going to feel bad in a minute.
That reminds me of a song that we used to sing as kids, you know, humble thyself in the
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sght of the Lord.
And he will lift you up higher and higher.
That sounds very familiar to me.
Thank you very much for that.
You know, that somebody's going to feel bad in a minute.
But I think that there's truth in it for us to be lifted up, whether it's by God or community,
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we have to step up for what's needed.
We have to, there's an obedience involved in it.
And I guess I'm going to say it's a level of obedience that's not really comfortable.
That part, that, you know, really for us to be a part of something, it can't be all about
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us.
And now I'm thinking of that line and touch the sky by Hillsong.
How, what is it?
I touch the sky when my knees hit the ground.
So what is that?
The thing about the pride versus the humble, God versus is the proud.
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That doesn't versus the humble.
That is not what the verse says shows grace to the humble.
Yes, that thank you.
I'm sorry, I'm coming off a migraine I've had since Sunday.
The brain is still trying to figure out how to work.
But the thought was there.
So thank you, Charlie, for finishing the thought.
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And the song is called Touch the Sky.
Yeah, so the, yeah, I didn't hear that part.
But, yeah, but basically to get the help we need, we have to surrender essentially.
And that's the hard part because, to some degree, we all like being in control because
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we know how we like to do things.
We know, well, think we know, quack.
Generally, the results we're going to get if we do things our way.
And there's factors that we can see or think we can see play out how we either want them
to or that we think we can look with, manage what have you.
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And if we're reaching out to someone else, people are wild cards at base level.
So we don't always know what we're going to get.
But sometimes we just have to, to an extent, put our faith in people too, not ultimately
put our faith in people.
It should be in God because people, again, are prone to failing.
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But to an extent, we have to too.
Man, quack.
And I'm thinking of idolatry again.
There's a verse.
And I'm not going to tell you I remember where it is because I don't.
It's in the Old Testament somewhere.
I can even narrow it down further.
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It's in the prophets.
So it's one of the prophets.
And the passage basically makes the point that you fashion this idol yourself and then
you worship it.
Oh, that's also one of the letters Jeremiah, the aprogrph.
Well, it is.
It is.
It's there as well.
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And the reason why I'm thinking about it is,
because ultimately idolatry is self-worship.
And the reason we don't like to reach out, the reason we don't do what we should do, the
reason why we object to the things of God, the reason why we fight so hard against community
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is ultimately because we want our own way and we want our own way with God.
And I remember something that Chuck, that you said once that you know, God is not insecure.
God is not going to try to please you just so that you'll be leaving him.
And I feel like as we kind of look out over the current landscape that we have, the whole
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reason why things have got to this point is because of that idolatry because we are putting
self above what's good for our communities.
We're not belonging anywhere.
And when we don't belong anywhere, we justify our idolatry even more.
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I believe the verse you were referring to is Isaiah 44:15, is it the is used as fuel for
burning?
Some of it, he takes warms himself, he can't do the fire and bake spread, but he also fashions
of God and worships it.
He makes an idol and bows down to it.
That's the verse.
Yep.
Isaiah.
You did.
Jeremiah was a prophet too and they were contemporaries.
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Wes and I thought it was one of the minor prophets.
That was a way off.
Well, you know, there might actually be a variation that is one of them.
As well to say, somebody said, they probably is.
Yeah, they had similar messages to an extent.
So, because they were all at the same time dealing with the same problem.
I mean, if you really study the Bible, older New Testament, the major issue that we always
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have is idolatry.
It's the major problem.
It's the major sin whether it's that we're putting our subs first or we're trying to put
other gods first, aka ourselves in disguise or it's, however you want to fashion it, idolatry
is the major human problem.
It is the thing that ultimately comes between God and it comes between all of us, which
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the irony that idolatry is such a widespread problem is so widespread through the thrift
scripture and through human history.
And I cannot tell you the number of sermons that I've heard on it.
I could probably count on two hands in my lifetime.
The number of sermons I've heard directly directly address idolatry because we tend to think
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of it as like an old Testament problem.
Like we're not bowing down to a statue, therefore it's not idolatry.
But a modern day version is putting, like you're saying, putting our trust in something that
we've made or something that is entirely human creation instead of God.
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And I mean, I've done a couple of blog posts on this where I broke down like some of the
common idols between progressive Christianity and conservative Christianity.
And I've only done five for each, but like we could just go on about politics is an overlap
for both of them.
Money is an overlap.
The blog post I'm putting out tomorrow is work is going is, is a big idol because we, it
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is literally the work of our hands, our jobs that we put our trust in for providing enough
money for us to put a roof over our heads and food on the table and all that stuff instead
of looking to God as our provider.
Wow.
Wow.
Yeah.
And the thing about idolatry that you kind of touched on Charlie is, because I've heard
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sermons about this too, but it's always focused on like the quote unquote negative stuff or
the things that we can easily point to and kind of look down on like money is a big one
sex.
I've also heard things like that entertainment, but like we heard drugs, substance abuse,
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things like that, but we don't talk about how the ordinary things can become our gods
in essence like work or I think I was just about to say the nuclear family.
Yeah.
We don't hear the messages about it in a way that stirs us.
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That makes us deal with us.
Because we're not seeing us.
It's, we still have an us versus them mentality to an extent, we're studying the Bible because
I remember private Christian school, girly talking now at my second, yes, second one, we
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I think I think it was actually Bible class where we were learning about how the Israelites
kept, you know, going back into sin, idolatry, things like that.
And I straight up asked in class like, why do they keep going back and my teacher clapped
back with, well, why do we keep going back?
That shut me up real quick.
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And that's, but we keep looking at them and because we're not quote unquote struggling
with the same sin that we can identify, then we think we're, I don't know, sometimes
better than or that keeps us from seeing the commonalities between us and other people.
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Now I definitely think that we lived down on the Israelites and I definitely think that
we think that we're better than Bible people.
And we forget that the reason we have the Spirit, the reason that we have these different
things is to make us aware of ourselves, you know, the issues between Old and New Testament
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really didn't change.
Maybe the way that they were handled did, but you know, the Bible talks about God writing
the law, writing what he wants us to do on the hearts of these people.
And we still don't follow it.
And I remember years and years and years ago, I had a message called moving up higher, was
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one of the first sermons I ever preached.
And it was about the Israelites in the wilderness.
I think it was a dude around me one where, you know, God says you've dwelled long enough
on this mountain.
Let's go.
And I remember reading about the Israelites in order to do it and hearing them complain
about that they didn't like the water and complain that they didn't like the manna and
(36:03):
that they were sick of the manna and all they had was manna and that, you know, we read
that and we go, oh my God, you had water from a rock.
And we read it and we go, you had manna and it rained down and you took it and then you
know, I'm reading how the Israelites didn't follow the rules for the manna and the Israelites
didn't do what they were supposed to do here and how they complained and they wanted to
(36:26):
go back to Egypt and they sounded like such ingrates.
And if we stopped and we listened to it, they sounded like me.
Maybe we're not complaining about manna.
Maybe we're not complaining about where our water comes from, but we are still mad at God
about something or not happy with something or not satisfied with something and we're still
(36:55):
not getting the point as to what we're supposed to be learning when we read all that.
Now I'm sending of that line or go ahead Nik.
I'm sending of that line and Todrick Hall wanted from his musical Forbidden, You Point Your
Finger long enough, you find someone to blame.
(37:21):
And we never realize that when we point one finger at others, we have three pointing back
at us.
Chuck, but yeah, I mean, we're supposed to...
And we have all these records, we have all this stuff and you can't read the New Testament
(37:45):
and not know that God calls you to community, but in order to get to community, we have to
get over ourselves.
Are you okay, Chuck?
I'm fine.
It's so many revelations in the span of an hour.
(38:08):
Well, you're the one who said if we don't have any existential holy crap moments on here,
we're not doing it right.
I did say that, didn't I?
You did.
Fair.
And I mean, Charlie, we had some before 8 a.m. this morning, so it's kind of the reason
we're over here.
So...
What are you doing at 8 a.m.?
(38:29):
Not being able to sleep.
Yeah.
And me.
So I guess to give a personal anecdote, I mentioned coming off of my brain for like...
What was this like day five now?
Six, five, I don't know how time works.
But I have not worked at all this week because I work at a job that requires me to, you know,
(38:54):
use my brain to write, edit and to search things.
So if the brain can't fully brain, I can't do my job.
And Monday and Tuesday night, I just didn't sleep at all for whatever reason.
And last night, I finally got some sleep.
And because of that, I was like, "Oh, I can work today."
(39:15):
And God had to be on me like, "No, Nik, you need some rest."
And because I've just been kind of like laying in bed or on my couch for the past few days,
I'm just like, "God, how much more rest do I need?"
And then God was basically like, "Nik, you're coming off of two days where you haven't
slept."
Yeah, yeah, that, all right.
(39:36):
Cool.
I guess I'm calling out again today, too.
Got it.
Mm-hmm.
But me and my hubris, because that's basically what it was, thought, "Oh, I got one night
of rest, forgetting, you know, the two nights that I didn't, this surely waste out everything.
I surely can do my job at full capacity today."
Yay.
(39:57):
Look at me, God.
God also hits in former people pleasing, currently trying to unwork years of being top producer
high achiever, which itself, not to make you crack even more, but being a people pleaser
(40:19):
and a high achiever is also a form of idolatry in the sense that it is us saying, "Hey, we
can do this at a high level so that nobody needs to supervise us."
And therefore, like, we pretty much, and we don't, I would say we don't make mistakes,
(40:41):
but we think we're less likely to make mistakes at that level.
And yeah, it just all comes down to hubris where we do need, even in our jobs, we need
to rely on other people, as much as management at various places is all about self-sufficiency
(41:04):
and independence.
We, as human beings, need to rely on each other to do things efficiently and correctly and
to the best of our ability.
And to tag onto the...
Why do I have, I need you to survive in my head now.
I was thinking of that earlier, but also the whole, like, people pleasing being idolatry
(41:27):
that really is what it is because if you're trying so hard to make another person happy,
then quote, or you think things will go well for you if they're not mad at you.
And as someone who has been in at least one abusive relationship, that is definitely a
thing.
Granted, an extreme example, but same principle.
(41:51):
You try to please the partner and make them happy and things are quote, unquote, fine until
they're not.
And that's not self-love.
No, and now I'm, oh my God, I'm thinking of that there's a couple of TikToks I've seen
on this specifically, but one where within, like, the first five seconds that came from
(42:13):
my throat, which is basically, like, people please just tend to forget that there are people
to argue, please.
And I'm just slowly, yeah, I'm slowly sinking down like, I think I should embed or something,
just like wanting to hide under the covers.
It's just like, oh, okay, you're right, but I'll.
Damn it.
I don't have anything to say at this time.
(42:40):
Well, because I never really considered myself to be a people pleaser.
It's not really something that I guess, I guess I'm coming more to see that I think it's
probably impossible for us to have come up in ministry at the era that I did and not be
one.
(43:01):
It's probably more of the reality of it because the truth is that in ministry, when I came
up first of all, we had a very, very big designation between leaders and members and that
does still exist.
That is still a thing, but I think that more than anything, maybe for me personally, we
(43:21):
did what the people wanted and so we panned it.
If you wanted to get in the conference, you had to be the most entertaining.
If you had wanted to get the preaching engagement, you had to speak the language of the people
to a certain extent.
And I do feel that we should not talk over people's heads.
(43:41):
It's not what I'm talking about, but you had to basically kind of skip them, but they wanted.
And if we look at the Bible, God denounces that.
That is very much not what we are supposed to be doing.
That is denounced in the word that we should not just be giving people fluff because that's
what they want to hear.
(44:03):
And I never really thought about it in terms of people pleasing, but it really was.
And I reached the point where I couldn't do it anymore where it's like I said, I mean,
I was in the car driving home telling God if I never preached ever again, I was never
going to preach again, but I could not do this again.
And that I never really thought about it in terms of relationships, but that obviously
(44:28):
that same type of nature, you wind up doing it in your own relationships too because you
don't really want to upset the status quo.
And I mean, isn't that ultimately what people pleasing is?
And then that literally does go to idolatry because we don't want to call things out.
Everybody makes a big deal about speaking of power.
They make a big deal about speaking truth.
(44:49):
It's like it's got to be a production.
No, it doesn't.
It's just something that we do when we are in God and when we are living life with other
people, we speak the truth.
We speak the power.
We don't do it because we want to get noticed or because we think this is our big break,
but because God has given us a word and it has to come forth.
(45:11):
And Lee Ann, I think I found the reference you're talking about 2nd Timothy 4:3 and 4.
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine instead to suit their
own desires.
They will gather around them a great number of teachers to say whether it's in ears, want
to hear.
That does fit.
(45:32):
I was also thinking of one and I don't remember where it is.
I want to say it's also in Isaiah about slogans that there was a time when it was like,
"All right, they're just going to give the message to the people.
That things are going to be okay, that everything is going to be abundant, that there is going
(45:52):
to be plenty of beer."
And that's not really what God was saying, that God was telling them, "No, you're going
to go into captivity."
So it all fits.
And it's ironic because 2nd Timothy doesn't really talk about us going into captivity.
But it does talk about another one of these cycles where people just don't want to hear
the truth.
(46:15):
So where do we go from here?
Where do we go from here?
I think one of the most important things is self-awareness and knowing what we've been
talking about idolatry.
So it's like understanding what you personally idolize.
(46:38):
I mean, it's for there to be common idols.
We've talked about work, we've talked about family, we've talked about politics.
All of those are common for a reason, but even just recognizing which ones are a crutch
(46:58):
to you.
That's the first bit.
And you can do that by literally just asking God, "It's going to be an uncomfortable conversation
and God is more than happy to point out the idolatry in your life."
You can also do some self-discovery.
(47:18):
I've written extensively about idolatry.
I'm sure.
Lee Ann, you've gotten some resources I imagine in your collection of what is it?
40 titles on Amazon?
37.
Okay.
So 37, but close to 40.
nice to know, folks.
(47:39):
Close enough.
And then Nic, you've done a lot about the intersection between scripture and pop culture.
And so that's going to be super helpful for the people who aren't like me and Lee Ann
and who are like, "Let's delve into ancient history just for fun, these."
(48:00):
Yeah, no, that's definitely not my bad.
But, oh, were you done Charlie?
Yeah, I'm done.
Okay, because I was actually going to shamelessly promote my own blog again because the past
two, yeah, two blog posts I've done based off of Epic the musical "Shut Up Lee Ann" which
(48:25):
I'm not even sure.
I want you to know, wait a minute now, before you say anything, I want you to know, you got
on me for listening to Indiana Bible College five times last week.
Okay.
Your little thing.
Squealed on you about listening to Stephen Rodriguez nine times this week.
(48:47):
Go on.
Okay, I did that thing to you because last year with your Spotify rap being like all Maverick
city and IBC, you were like, "I want some more fun stuff."
So then I have to call out when you listen to like, "Maverick City 10 times."
But anyway.
That's fine.
Anyway, nine times Stephen Rodriguez.
(49:11):
And I had on one repeat before this podcast.
I'm undershade anyway.
And I had "Maverick City" on repeat before this podcast.
See, there we go.
But I had promises on, but anyway.
What did I have?
Wait, anyway, that's a road.
But one doing a post based off the song's dangerous and corruptist from the vintage saga.
(49:38):
And then another one talking about the song, "Wouldn't You Like From The Cersei Saga?"
Kind of giving a very abridged version of both of those.
How we need to trust God to lean in our community and to basically have a different mindset
for having to go about things.
And I would definitely support the introspection and gaining self-awareness thing that Charlie
(50:01):
mentioned, but there is only so much you can do on your own.
You kind of need people to highlight where you need to work on stuff.
And that's when accountability comes in.
The thing we don't like to talk about.
Yep.
(50:23):
But that proves what I've said, I guess God showed it to me a few years back, that accountability
is more than just getting into trouble and admitting that you have a problem.
It's about being there and being connected and being plugged in, so that sometimes things
(50:44):
don't even come up, so that maybe things don't become that much of an issue.
But that also makes us more self-aware.
The Bible tells us to esteem ourselves.
It's a let a man examine himself.
It doesn't say let him examine everyone else.
And the more that we come to that place, we're looking to connect with other people, it
(51:08):
makes us more aware of the issues that we have.
It's like we talk about whether it's marriage, whether it's friendships, whether it's ideally
the family in the body of Christ that we're supposed to be connected to.
The reason why we are there is to become more aware of what we need to work on and what
we need to grow toward.
And if we keep trying to ax all that stuff, we're missing an important part of our development.
(51:35):
Well, for people who had no idea what they were really going to talk about.
We certainly set a mouthful in these 52 or so minutes.
(51:57):
And we are getting to the end of our episode.
And so I'm going to turn it over to each one of you for a thought that you guys would like
to leave our listeners with.
So we use all the thoughts for everything else of the podcast.
(52:18):
Now we have to search for more words to end the podcast.
I was going to say, I have wouldn't you like stuck in my head and whose fault is that?
Look, I have dangerous in my head and I guess I can recite the chorus of that in closing.
Sure.
Yeah.
I'm not sure if you can say the chorus is actually not to say you could say the epic theme, but the chorus kind of circles back to what I talked about basically saying, wouldn't you like a taste of God's power?
(52:50):
But anyway, for the dangerous mention, the chorus of that song is it's going to be dangerous.
My friend, you'll need a mind to change for this.
You cannot get away with playing safe for this. You want to get home, put it all on the line and put your own brain in it.
Remember, I'll be tricking your domain for this.
You got to treat it like it is the main event.
(53:12):
You want to get home, put it all on the line, be dangerous.
And learning to trust each other can be dangerous because again, you're surrendering control of that.
It ended up itself a scary, but if we're going to make it through, then that's the mindset change we're going to have to make.
You said it.
(53:33):
I think my closing thought is something I'm circling back to that we discussed before we got on the podcast about Grace and how learning idolatry and trying to get out of this mindset of serving two masters because it's not like you can just recognize that you're putting your trust in something that's not going to be dangerous.
(54:00):
Trust in something that's not God and then immediately be like, OK, I'm changing my mind and I'm never going to do this again.
It's it's been a mindset for a while. You can't just unlearn a mindset in a snap. You have to work at it.
I like to say that faith is a practice, but usually anxiety is an instinct.
(54:24):
In this case, idolatry is an instinct looking, this looking to put our trust in ourselves is an instinct. And so looking to God, it takes practice and it's over and over and over.
And you are going to mess up and for the people, pleasers and top achievers who are listening, it's going to suck because we can't do the mindset change perfectly.
(54:50):
But thank God for God because he just surrounds us with grace and is more than willing to give us multiple chances.
I mean, God is way more forgiving than human beings are. So even if you're at the end of the erode with forgiving yourself, I mean God is quite there willing to forgive you again.
(55:14):
And we thank God for grace every day. We thank God for grace. Well, I thank you both for being on here, even if it was a huge Owl at Spock.
And how can everybody get in contact with you if they would like to?
(55:36):
I will go first this time, I guess. As I mentioned earlier, I have a blog that's nikfits.dot com that's N-I-K-F-I-T-S.
And if you go to my contact page, I have a link to my linktree. It will take you to pretty much all my socials. I am largely active on Instagram more now.
(56:00):
I'm more active on TikTok or however much longer we have that in bluesky.
And that's pretty much the main ones I use. So if you want to get in contact with me, basically, best bets.
I am not as active on social media as Nik is, but I do have a blue sky and I have Tumblr accounts. Both are beloved, not broken.
(56:33):
But I am probably most active on my on my website. I'm, you know, posting something about once a week at this point.
but I do have a contact form on there if you want to like send me an e-mail or something.
The Web address is beloved-not-broken.com, that's B-E-L-O-V-E-D-N-O-T-B-R-O-K-E-N.com.
(57:00):
Well, I thank you both for being on here and I thank you for being a voice, actually, to voices.
I mean, when we kind of come together, we form one voice, but for basically being
voices of reason in a world that's become very unreasonable and why we definitely need this community in these times.
(57:23):
And I thank all of you for listening today and if you'd like a resource that kind of is about dealing with
difficult times and hearing God's voice in the middle of them, I recommend my book
between the porch and the altar a journey through the book of Joel.
Which is designed to help us focus in on our spiritual needs and you better believe even though I wrote it,
(57:45):
I'm going to probably get off here and go read it.
That we definitely need to hear God's voice in the middle of crisis and the middle of difficult times.
Look me up to Dr. Lee Ann B. Marino on Amazon.com or wherever books are sold and my titles will come up.
There is definitely something for everyone with so many choices.
Over 35 available, so go find something today.
(58:09):
Also, if you are interested in a blog that is about leadership, not just specifically four leaders, but about leadership.
So if you're interested in leadership, you want to learn more about it.
You want to develop more into it.
Check out my column at patheos.com/blogs/leadershiponfire
That is the title of the blog leadership on fire.
(58:33):
That's patheos.com/blogs/leadershiponfire
And you can subscribe to that and so definitely go over and check that out today.
Also connect with me across social media @kingdompowernow.
That's @kingdompowernow.
I'm on Facebook, BlueSky, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok.
I am trying to be a little bit more active on BlueSky.
(58:54):
It's not really happening at the moment, but I'm working on it and I'm making the effort.
So, add me @kingdompowernow and let's start that conversation today.
Also, if you'd like to learn more about the world of counter-culture Christianity, feel free to visit my website at KingdomPowerNow.org.
That's KingdomPowerNow.org.
If you are interested in seminary that's entirely affordable, you will use everything that you learn.
(59:17):
And you can do it right from where you are at home.
Check out Apostolic Covenant Theological Seminary.
That's Acts for short and acts176.org.
That's acts176.org.
And if you are ready to find Acts 2.0 and to experience the community that we talked about and you're in the Charlotte North Carolina area, feel free to check out the work of sanctuary at WelcomeInThisPlace.org.
(59:41):
That's WelcomeInThisPlace.org.
And if you have a question that's not answered on the site, feel free to reach out and we will get back to you.
And this is Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino reminding you in closing that the book of Acts did not just happen because the spirit fell when the spirit fell people came together in unity.
So let the spirit work in you so that you can see yourself and connect to others as well.
(01:00:05):
Until next time, be blessed.
Thank you for joining us on the Kingdom Now podcast today.
I pray it is proven to be a blessing in your life.
To learn more about this work, ask a question, submit feedback, advertise with us, be a guest, or donate to support this work.
(01:00:27):
As our podcast is sponsored by listeners like you, visit my website which contains essential information, projects and works for other points of contact around the web.
At KingdomPowerNow.org. Also, if you are in our area and would like to visit sanctuary International Fellowship Tabernacle, visit WelcomeInThisPlace.org.
(01:00:53):
Until next time, this is Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino reminding you that the Kingdom of God is within you. And that means the Kingdom is now.
(soft music)
Are you called to ministry but not sure where to start?
(00:04):
Apostolic Covenant, theological seminary, is here for you.
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(00:30):
Tuition is offering based, and most books are included in your monthly tuition payment.
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Apostolic Covenant Theological Seminary.
The Revolution starts here.
Welcome to Kingdom Now, the podcast featuring Faith with an Edge, as we celebrate the Kingdom
(00:57):
of God within you.
I am your host, Dr. Lee Ann Marino, Apostle author, podcaster, professor, and theologian,
and founder of Spitfire Apostolic Ministries and all the works that go along with it.
I am excited to share this program with you as we explore the ins and outs of counterculture
(01:17):
Christianity present as you live out the Kingdom of God in your everyday life.
Want to learn more?
Visit my website at www.kingdompowernow.org
And now, our program, which features a variety of formats here, just for you.
Interviews on a variety of relevant topics, teaching and preaching proclaim everywhere from my
(01:40):
North Carolina studio to sanctuary and beyond, and powerful insights here for now as we
turn the world upside down everywhere we go.
Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening.
(02:02):
Happy whatever time of day this, wherever you are, and to our listeners.
How do they say hi in Korean?
Annyeonghaseyo.
Great.
We are listeners in South Korea.
We say what Nik just said.
Because if I try to say it, I'm going to butcher it.
And so we welcome you to this edition of the Kingdom Now podcast.
(02:24):
And I am your host, Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino here as the Spitfire serving as the voice of
counterculture Christianity, where we feature the theme of faith with an edge.
And if you would like to learn more about the world of counterculture Christianity, feel
free to visit my website at www.kingdompowernow.org.
And I do encourage you to keep track of kingdompowernow.org because we have some very
(02:46):
exciting things coming up in the next few months.
So I don't think that it's really a big secret to say that the world as we know it has become
a shit show.
And by the time this episode airs in April, it will probably be even more of one.
So what's the spiritual answer to the circumstances that we find ourselves in as federal
(03:12):
workers look out over their current situation and they deal with the fact that we might all
be laid off soon or other matters by which agencies you're closing and funding is not going
through and groceries are through the roof and rent is through the roof.
And we all keep having to keep paying out.
(03:32):
Whereas things as we see it out in terms of the natural realm look kind of bleak.
What do we do and what's the answer and what do we look to?
Well, my guests today are returning and they are ministers Charlie Reep and Nik Lewis of
sanctuary International Fellowship Tabernacle in Charlotte.
(03:54):
And I'm going to turn this over for the two of you to fight over who's going to go first
to introduce yourself.
I mean, do you introduce me first?
I guess I'll go first.
Hi, I'm minister Charlie.
They/them pronoun user, the minister of education at sanctuary.
Glad to be back.
I enjoy speaking on the Kingdom now podcast.
(04:20):
And you have a website.
I do have a website.
Yes, it's been a long week.
My website is beloved-not-broken.com and it's basically a resource for queer
questioning and deconstructing Christians.
(04:40):
That was so professional of you.
Thank you.
Okay, I guess I'll go next and try to follow with that professionalism.
I am minister Nik pronouns they/them.
I am also a returning guest as Lee Ann said minister of music and worship leader for
(05:02):
sanctuary.
Charlotte, sorry, it is definitely been a long week.
I also have a website nickfits.com that's nikfits.com and on my contact page, there's a
linktree with all my socials.
You can follow me on there if you so desire.
(05:25):
Okay.
So in short, we need acts 2.0.
And I guess I'll start with how we kind of came up with this topic.
(05:46):
I had no idea what we were going to talk about by the time this airs this particular situation
might have kind of blown over.
And we all know this is not a particularly political podcast, but I have a federal job.
So my day job in order to pay bills and help supplement income as we develop what we're
(06:12):
doing at sanctuary is civilian work.
I don't work for the administration.
I am a civilian employee.
And as of today, we are dealing with that.
We may very well be laying off all of our jobs.
And I sent the link because I've been worried about this for a while since all this stuff
(06:36):
started going on.
I sent a link to everybody that I knew about it.
And it was said by minister nik that, you know, we really need to get serious about our
spirituality here in about our community because we really do need that now more than ever.
And having said that, I'm going to turn that over to minister nik so that they can elaborate
(07:00):
more on where they're coming from.
Well, I'm going to kind of quote, Charlie here actually because I have lost count of
how many posts they've done basically saying that systems can't save us.
And I don't say that in like a teasing way like it's good.
They've been very good posts.
(07:22):
But especially with politics, I feel like we look to certain candidates to fix our problems,
which I'm not going to say that no politician has ever done right by at least a few people
in this country because they have.
Some have done more than others.
(07:46):
Others have done more harm than good.
And but the thing is people are human and are prone to making mistakes and are prone to
being selfish and are prone to being blinded by their own ideals, their biases, their beliefs,
what have you.
And they're not going to, it's impossible to do right.
(08:09):
Well, this is my belief.
It's impossible politically to do right by every single person in this country because there
are so many different needs and so many different things that cross over.
And with so polarizing beliefs between individuals, I don't think that we're ever going to reach
(08:31):
a point of full reconciliation where the government can basically make everyone happy.
So for all of us to keep looking to politicians with our own agenda is my view.
To see who best aligns with our goals when I feel like just kind of like randomly gets
in people in a room, not all of our goals are going to align, it's just not going to work.
(08:56):
Basically people can't save us.
So when that happens, we just have to turn to each other for support, encouragement,
and trust about everything we need.
So.
Well said.
Yeah.
Yeah, I didn't know half of that was going to come out because I'm not going to lie, head
(09:22):
empty no thoughts when you originally targeted over to me.
Yeah, so.
I'm also thinking about what we had originally talked about which ties in and that's idolatry.
I saw a post on Facebook yesterday.
I think it was an I don't remember who posted it or where they got their info from because
I hadn't looked it up, but people were saying that the new religion is politics.
(09:46):
And I thought about it very long and very, very hard because I don't think that politics
have the ability to classify as religion because they don't have the same goals, but I do
feel that people are looking to the government and they are looking to agencies with a spiritual
(10:09):
devotion with that type of fervor.
And this is what idolatry gets us.
It sure do that.
I felt that sigh from over here, Charlie.
Do you want to share?
I said, I'm shocked.
No, I didn't think it was that loud, but.
(10:29):
I don't know if that will society heard around the world right now.
Well, I mean, y'all are both in my blog post for what will be tomorrow as we're recording
this, but by the time it's posted, it'll be a few months old.
But so far, I'm planning to write about, once again, write about idolatry in systems and
(10:53):
stuff like that.
I did not expect my blog to become just this, you know, what it's turned into of, hey, this
is what modern day idolatry looks like, but I mean, I guess it does fit the deconstructing
Christian brand.
But anyway, side note, in terms of, Leanne, how you were saying that you're facing what you're
(11:18):
facing with your federal job, we're also facing sort of the same kind of,
insecurity at work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was also the side heard around the world.
And basically the title of this blog post so far is, who do you trust more, God or your
(11:39):
boss?
And how?
I need to hide after that.
Oh my God.
And if we wanted to just, you know, apply it to the conversation we've been having, it's
who do you trust more, God or the president?
And I think, unfortunately, for a lot of people in the US and unfortunately, a not so small
(12:03):
number of Christians, it would be the president and everything that that entails.
And at this point, it's like, you know, I've been, I've been thinking long and hard about
like, what do we do in this kind of scenario?
As the minister of education, I'm just like, oh, it's my job to like kind of educate within
(12:26):
sanctuary, but at some point I recognize that not everybody wants to be educated.
And we have to draw a line somewhere between getting the information out and then trying
to protect our peace.
And I feel like in this upcoming, I don't know if it's at whatever the cycle is going to
(12:47):
be, but it's going to be a matter of, yes, get the information out there, but when inevitably
people are not going to listen, what do we do?
And that's what we have to turn to each other.
We have to, we have to rely on, on community to get us through like literally every day,
every moment.
(13:07):
Yeah.
What's that bit?
And I want to say for Samuel, where, Israel is like, we want a king in Samuel's life,
like, you know, the king's going to not do right by y'all, right?
And they're just like, we don't care.
We want a king.
That sounds very, very familiar and kind of timely and relevant, you know, today.
(13:34):
Yeah.
It's like he wanted a president who said some very, and did some very controversial things.
And now we're shocked to pick a king.
Is everything that's going on?
It's going to leave that there.
I think it might be also timely for me to bring up the fact that my last blog post, at
(14:00):
least at the time that we're recording this, was about people who had changed their minds
about voting.
The last post was something, was something called, so you regret voting for the sitting president,
dot, dot, dot.
And I tried to approach it with as much compassion as I was able to muster because honestly,
there is a lot of compassion missing from these conversations.
(14:23):
It's very polarizing the reactions to people who are either allegedly changing their minds
or just whispers of people changing their minds or people actually changing their minds.
But there is a lot of vitriol from people who did not vote for the sitting president.
It's gotten to the point where we're forgetting about Jesus' command to love others as we
(14:54):
love ourselves.
And it's, yeah, there's a lot of love and compassion missing from these conversations.
I'm shocked.
I'm sorry.
Sorry, not sorry.
But I mean, if you want to, if you have, if you are listening to this podcast and you
did vote for the sitting president and then you've since changed your mind about that, I
(15:18):
mean, I highly recommend reading it.
It's going to be an uncomfortable post because it's going to be an uncomfortable time for
you just in terms of the reactions that you're going to be experiencing from others.
And then the changes that are going to happen to your own perspective, but I think that
blog post is also helpful for those of us who didn't vote for the sitting president and
(15:39):
are like, hey, we need to approach, we need to approach people with compassion.
So I mean, I wrote that with one audience in mind, but it could apply to anybody.
And I mean, as I sit over here and grow because one of the things that I think a lot of us
(16:02):
don't realize, and it's not just for me, but for the other 222,000 federal employees who
are on the line here, that this is personal for us.
And it's personal, not in the same way that we just don't maybe agree with somebody or
(16:23):
respect somebody's beliefs, but it's hitting home in a way that's scary in a way that
has the ability to change the entire trajectory of our lives.
And so me being a human being, I mean, and I'm not going to say what I said, although they're
(16:43):
probably going to both laugh, but I'm going to say I said something less than understanding
before I came on because naturally there's different feelings about everything that's
going on.
And for me, being out of work with this particular job would be bad.
(17:05):
It would be really, really bad right now.
And these two basically brought me back to reality in that whether we like people or not
everybody needs Jesus.
And as you're talking about, we still need to have compassion and understanding.
(17:28):
But for no other reason, we all make mistakes.
And we all sin.
And it's like I've said, none of us sin by ourselves.
We're not going through this experience, whatever it is that we're having alone.
And that's why we need community and that's why community is so important.
And that's why we love community because community does not just supply our need as we
(17:51):
needed.
It supplies our need when we don't really want to deal with that.
And it makes us confront ourselves and our own realities because whether I'm a federal
employee right now or not, I'm not going to be one forever.
And my primary job is not to represent the federal government.
(18:16):
It's not to hold that position.
It's to represent Christ.
Yeah.
That's a kind of a piggy back
Sure, go.
It's a kind of piggyback off all that I had to look up the passage because I couldn't just
be like, oh, somewhere in the news estimate.
But specifically, first Peter 4:8 above all, love each other deeply because love covers
(18:41):
a multitude of sins.
And not to say that like, not to say voting is a morality issue in that, you know, you
send in voting for whoever you voted for.
But basically, it also comes with saying what you believe in.
(19:04):
And ultimately, a lot of decisions boil down to do love your neighbor or not.
And are you putting God first or not?
Which the two greatest commands are love God, love yourself within implicit, or not, sorry.
Love God, love your neighbor within implicit command to love yourself because if you can't
(19:25):
love yourself, how are you going to love your neighbor as yourself?
But so there, in lies the morality.
And that's where we kind of need to have compassion because like what Charlie was saying, if
we basically keep coming for each other's throats, that's not Christ like either.
(19:48):
As we all sit and think about that.
I was just about to say as we all sit inside of it.
Selah.
Oh, yeah.
Because to have community, you have to be community.
(20:10):
To have a safe space, you have to be a safe space.
And I think one of the major reasons why people don't delve into community, why we don't see
Acts in the modern church.
And I don't really think it's not because of lack of doctrine.
It's not because of lack of scripture.
(20:31):
I mean, we all know there are bibles everywhere in every translation you can think of.
It has to do with that.
Do you have a lot of things to do with that?
Or bibles everywhere in every translation you can think of.
It has to do with that.
Do we really want to make the same commitment that they made to God and to one another?
(20:52):
Because it requires sacrifice and it does.
I mean, bring up my experiences with community sacrifice.
Like it's, I guess to go back, we in America are taught to be self-sufficient.
And it is a shameful, it is almost a shameful thing to admit that you need help, to admit
(21:16):
that you cannot do everything on your own.
And so this is, like community is something that I struggle with to this day.
Like there are times when I have like full out arguments with God where I'm just like,
I don't want to like burden my community with this.
I don't want to have to ask.
I don't want to have to inconvenience anybody.
And when like I would be just as happy to be a blessing to somebody if they ask me for help,
(21:44):
it's like why can't I, why can't I do the same and have the same understanding that other
people want to be blessed by helping me.
But it's just, it's the self-sufficiency thing.
And there inevitably comes sacrifices that must be made.
So I think I could, I can actually tell it's kind of a funny anecdote at this point.
(22:07):
I think, Lee Ann, you're going to know what I'm talking about.
But in my, like it was, it was a few months ago where I ended up having like a low tire pressure
day.
I think, yeah, I think I have like, I think it was a cold day or something.
And I was like, okay, let me, you know, around here we have a gas station called QT
(22:30):
that gives out that you can pump your, you can pump your tires for free at QT, usually at
other gas stations you have to pay.
But the QTs around me, none of their pumps were working.
And so I was like, okay, well, I saw, I saw that Amazon was selling stuff.
(22:50):
I don't know if I necessarily trust the Amazon brand, but I was like, oh, but you know,
who does sell air pumps is the hardware store.
And so I was like, let me go to the local hardware store.
And the entire time that I'm driving, I'm having this conversation with God of, like God's
nudging me like, hey, you know, Lee Ann has like a portable tire pump just ask her to borrow,
(23:11):
just ask to borrow it.
And I was like, yeah, but that's, that's an inconvenience I'd have to wait until like a few
more days from now.
And then by the time I finally get to the hardware store, I was like, fine, you know what,
I'll text Lee Ann.
And she was like, yeah, you can totally, you can totally borrow this thing.
And then I ended up talking with, I talked with you later actually because Brad had recommended
(23:37):
like, hey, get you a portable tire pump or something.
And is like, oh, yeah, by the way, Lee Ann has Amazon prime or whatever.
So you can get it tomorrow.
I was like, oh, shoot, okay.
So it's all this to say that it wasn't just about the tire pump.
The tire pump wasn't the problem.
I was able to like get my tires filled and everything.
(23:58):
We're totally fine with that.
The underlying issue there was I was so self reliant that it was a matter of humbling
myself to ask for help from my community, the uncompuneness of humbling myself because
it is an uncomfortable experience when you have to basically like say, hey, I can't
(24:21):
do everything by myself.
Sometimes you do have to wait a little bit to get the results.
So in this case, I had to wait an extra day to get some air on my tires.
But at the end of it, my car was safe.
I got what I needed.
And I basically asked community, I really, I obeyed God at that point of asking for help from
(24:48):
my community.
It was a really good life lesson as far as like, hey, you know, asking for community, like
the whole process of seeking community and relying on community is very uncomfortable.
And a lot of sacrifices have to be made.
It's a lot of swallowing your pride, humbling yourself.
And that is probably the biggest, the biggest issue that we don't talk about when building
(25:13):
a community is the, is the having to humble yourself.
That reminds me of a song that, okay, you're going to feel bad in a minute.
That reminds me of a song that we used to sing as kids, you know, humble thyself in the
(25:35):
sght of the Lord.
And he will lift you up higher and higher.
That sounds very familiar to me.
Thank you very much for that.
You know, that somebody's going to feel bad in a minute.
But I think that there's truth in it for us to be lifted up, whether it's by God or community,
(25:56):
we have to step up for what's needed.
We have to, there's an obedience involved in it.
And I guess I'm going to say it's a level of obedience that's not really comfortable.
That part, that, you know, really for us to be a part of something, it can't be all about
(26:17):
us.
And now I'm thinking of that line and touch the sky by Hillsong.
How, what is it?
I touch the sky when my knees hit the ground.
So what is that?
The thing about the pride versus the humble, God versus is the proud.
(26:38):
That doesn't versus the humble.
That is not what the verse says shows grace to the humble.
Yes, that thank you.
I'm sorry, I'm coming off a migraine I've had since Sunday.
The brain is still trying to figure out how to work.
But the thought was there.
So thank you, Charlie, for finishing the thought.
(27:02):
And the song is called Touch the Sky.
Yeah, so the, yeah, I didn't hear that part.
But, yeah, but basically to get the help we need, we have to surrender essentially.
And that's the hard part because, to some degree, we all like being in control because
(27:23):
we know how we like to do things.
We know, well, think we know, quack.
Generally, the results we're going to get if we do things our way.
And there's factors that we can see or think we can see play out how we either want them
to or that we think we can look with, manage what have you.
(27:49):
And if we're reaching out to someone else, people are wild cards at base level.
So we don't always know what we're going to get.
But sometimes we just have to, to an extent, put our faith in people too, not ultimately
put our faith in people.
It should be in God because people, again, are prone to failing.
(28:10):
But to an extent, we have to too.
Man, quack.
And I'm thinking of idolatry again.
There's a verse.
And I'm not going to tell you I remember where it is because I don't.
It's in the Old Testament somewhere.
I can even narrow it down further.
(28:31):
It's in the prophets.
So it's one of the prophets.
And the passage basically makes the point that you fashion this idol yourself and then
you worship it.
Oh, that's also one of the letters Jeremiah, the aprogrph.
Well, it is.
It is.
It's there as well.
(28:54):
And the reason why I'm thinking about it is,
because ultimately idolatry is self-worship.
And the reason we don't like to reach out, the reason we don't do what we should do, the
reason why we object to the things of God, the reason why we fight so hard against community
(29:16):
is ultimately because we want our own way and we want our own way with God.
And I remember something that Chuck, that you said once that you know, God is not insecure.
God is not going to try to please you just so that you'll be leaving him.
And I feel like as we kind of look out over the current landscape that we have, the whole
(29:41):
reason why things have got to this point is because of that idolatry because we are putting
self above what's good for our communities.
We're not belonging anywhere.
And when we don't belong anywhere, we justify our idolatry even more.
(30:03):
I believe the verse you were referring to is Isaiah 44:15, is it the is used as fuel for
burning?
Some of it, he takes warms himself, he can't do the fire and bake spread, but he also fashions
of God and worships it.
He makes an idol and bows down to it.
That's the verse.
Yep.
Isaiah.
You did.
Jeremiah was a prophet too and they were contemporaries.
(30:26):
Wes and I thought it was one of the minor prophets.
That was a way off.
Well, you know, there might actually be a variation that is one of them.
As well to say, somebody said, they probably is.
Yeah, they had similar messages to an extent.
So, because they were all at the same time dealing with the same problem.
I mean, if you really study the Bible, older New Testament, the major issue that we always
(30:53):
have is idolatry.
It's the major problem.
It's the major sin whether it's that we're putting our subs first or we're trying to put
other gods first, aka ourselves in disguise or it's, however you want to fashion it, idolatry
is the major human problem.
It is the thing that ultimately comes between God and it comes between all of us, which
(31:18):
the irony that idolatry is such a widespread problem is so widespread through the thrift
scripture and through human history.
And I cannot tell you the number of sermons that I've heard on it.
I could probably count on two hands in my lifetime.
The number of sermons I've heard directly directly address idolatry because we tend to think
(31:42):
of it as like an old Testament problem.
Like we're not bowing down to a statue, therefore it's not idolatry.
But a modern day version is putting, like you're saying, putting our trust in something that
we've made or something that is entirely human creation instead of God.
(32:02):
And I mean, I've done a couple of blog posts on this where I broke down like some of the
common idols between progressive Christianity and conservative Christianity.
And I've only done five for each, but like we could just go on about politics is an overlap
for both of them.
Money is an overlap.
The blog post I'm putting out tomorrow is work is going is, is a big idol because we, it
(32:30):
is literally the work of our hands, our jobs that we put our trust in for providing enough
money for us to put a roof over our heads and food on the table and all that stuff instead
of looking to God as our provider.
Wow.
Wow.
Yeah.
And the thing about idolatry that you kind of touched on Charlie is, because I've heard
(32:55):
sermons about this too, but it's always focused on like the quote unquote negative stuff or
the things that we can easily point to and kind of look down on like money is a big one
sex.
I've also heard things like that entertainment, but like we heard drugs, substance abuse,
(33:16):
things like that, but we don't talk about how the ordinary things can become our gods
in essence like work or I think I was just about to say the nuclear family.
Yeah.
We don't hear the messages about it in a way that stirs us.
(33:45):
That makes us deal with us.
Because we're not seeing us.
It's, we still have an us versus them mentality to an extent, we're studying the Bible because
I remember private Christian school, girly talking now at my second, yes, second one, we
(34:06):
I think I think it was actually Bible class where we were learning about how the Israelites
kept, you know, going back into sin, idolatry, things like that.
And I straight up asked in class like, why do they keep going back and my teacher clapped
back with, well, why do we keep going back?
That shut me up real quick.
(34:29):
And that's, but we keep looking at them and because we're not quote unquote struggling
with the same sin that we can identify, then we think we're, I don't know, sometimes
better than or that keeps us from seeing the commonalities between us and other people.
(34:51):
Now I definitely think that we lived down on the Israelites and I definitely think that
we think that we're better than Bible people.
And we forget that the reason we have the Spirit, the reason that we have these different
things is to make us aware of ourselves, you know, the issues between Old and New Testament
(35:17):
really didn't change.
Maybe the way that they were handled did, but you know, the Bible talks about God writing
the law, writing what he wants us to do on the hearts of these people.
And we still don't follow it.
And I remember years and years and years ago, I had a message called moving up higher, was
(35:41):
one of the first sermons I ever preached.
And it was about the Israelites in the wilderness.
I think it was a dude around me one where, you know, God says you've dwelled long enough
on this mountain.
Let's go.
And I remember reading about the Israelites in order to do it and hearing them complain
about that they didn't like the water and complain that they didn't like the manna and
(36:03):
that they were sick of the manna and all they had was manna and that, you know, we read
that and we go, oh my God, you had water from a rock.
And we read it and we go, you had manna and it rained down and you took it and then you
know, I'm reading how the Israelites didn't follow the rules for the manna and the Israelites
didn't do what they were supposed to do here and how they complained and they wanted to
(36:26):
go back to Egypt and they sounded like such ingrates.
And if we stopped and we listened to it, they sounded like me.
Maybe we're not complaining about manna.
Maybe we're not complaining about where our water comes from, but we are still mad at God
about something or not happy with something or not satisfied with something and we're still
(36:55):
not getting the point as to what we're supposed to be learning when we read all that.
Now I'm sending of that line or go ahead Nik.
I'm sending of that line and Todrick Hall wanted from his musical Forbidden, You Point Your
Finger long enough, you find someone to blame.
(37:21):
And we never realize that when we point one finger at others, we have three pointing back
at us.
Chuck, but yeah, I mean, we're supposed to...
And we have all these records, we have all this stuff and you can't read the New Testament
(37:45):
and not know that God calls you to community, but in order to get to community, we have to
get over ourselves.
Are you okay, Chuck?
I'm fine.
It's so many revelations in the span of an hour.
(38:08):
Well, you're the one who said if we don't have any existential holy crap moments on here,
we're not doing it right.
I did say that, didn't I?
You did.
Fair.
And I mean, Charlie, we had some before 8 a.m. this morning, so it's kind of the reason
we're over here.
So...
What are you doing at 8 a.m.?
(38:29):
Not being able to sleep.
Yeah.
And me.
So I guess to give a personal anecdote, I mentioned coming off of my brain for like...
What was this like day five now?
Six, five, I don't know how time works.
But I have not worked at all this week because I work at a job that requires me to, you know,
(38:54):
use my brain to write, edit and to search things.
So if the brain can't fully brain, I can't do my job.
And Monday and Tuesday night, I just didn't sleep at all for whatever reason.
And last night, I finally got some sleep.
And because of that, I was like, "Oh, I can work today."
(39:15):
And God had to be on me like, "No, Nik, you need some rest."
And because I've just been kind of like laying in bed or on my couch for the past few days,
I'm just like, "God, how much more rest do I need?"
And then God was basically like, "Nik, you're coming off of two days where you haven't
slept."
Yeah, yeah, that, all right.
(39:36):
Cool.
I guess I'm calling out again today, too.
Got it.
Mm-hmm.
But me and my hubris, because that's basically what it was, thought, "Oh, I got one night
of rest, forgetting, you know, the two nights that I didn't, this surely waste out everything.
I surely can do my job at full capacity today."
Yay.
(39:57):
Look at me, God.
God also hits in former people pleasing, currently trying to unwork years of being top producer
high achiever, which itself, not to make you crack even more, but being a people pleaser
(40:19):
and a high achiever is also a form of idolatry in the sense that it is us saying, "Hey, we
can do this at a high level so that nobody needs to supervise us."
And therefore, like, we pretty much, and we don't, I would say we don't make mistakes,
(40:41):
but we think we're less likely to make mistakes at that level.
And yeah, it just all comes down to hubris where we do need, even in our jobs, we need
to rely on other people, as much as management at various places is all about self-sufficiency
(41:04):
and independence.
We, as human beings, need to rely on each other to do things efficiently and correctly and
to the best of our ability.
And to tag onto the...
Why do I have, I need you to survive in my head now.
I was thinking of that earlier, but also the whole, like, people pleasing being idolatry
(41:27):
that really is what it is because if you're trying so hard to make another person happy,
then quote, or you think things will go well for you if they're not mad at you.
And as someone who has been in at least one abusive relationship, that is definitely a
thing.
Granted, an extreme example, but same principle.
(41:51):
You try to please the partner and make them happy and things are quote, unquote, fine until
they're not.
And that's not self-love.
No, and now I'm, oh my God, I'm thinking of that there's a couple of TikToks I've seen
on this specifically, but one where within, like, the first five seconds that came from
(42:13):
my throat, which is basically, like, people please just tend to forget that there are people
to argue, please.
And I'm just slowly, yeah, I'm slowly sinking down like, I think I should embed or something,
just like wanting to hide under the covers.
It's just like, oh, okay, you're right, but I'll.
Damn it.
I don't have anything to say at this time.
(42:40):
Well, because I never really considered myself to be a people pleaser.
It's not really something that I guess, I guess I'm coming more to see that I think it's
probably impossible for us to have come up in ministry at the era that I did and not be
one.
(43:01):
It's probably more of the reality of it because the truth is that in ministry, when I came
up first of all, we had a very, very big designation between leaders and members and that
does still exist.
That is still a thing, but I think that more than anything, maybe for me personally, we
(43:21):
did what the people wanted and so we panned it.
If you wanted to get in the conference, you had to be the most entertaining.
If you had wanted to get the preaching engagement, you had to speak the language of the people
to a certain extent.
And I do feel that we should not talk over people's heads.
(43:41):
It's not what I'm talking about, but you had to basically kind of skip them, but they wanted.
And if we look at the Bible, God denounces that.
That is very much not what we are supposed to be doing.
That is denounced in the word that we should not just be giving people fluff because that's
what they want to hear.
(44:03):
And I never really thought about it in terms of people pleasing, but it really was.
And I reached the point where I couldn't do it anymore where it's like I said, I mean,
I was in the car driving home telling God if I never preached ever again, I was never
going to preach again, but I could not do this again.
And that I never really thought about it in terms of relationships, but that obviously
(44:28):
that same type of nature, you wind up doing it in your own relationships too because you
don't really want to upset the status quo.
And I mean, isn't that ultimately what people pleasing is?
And then that literally does go to idolatry because we don't want to call things out.
Everybody makes a big deal about speaking of power.
They make a big deal about speaking truth.
(44:49):
It's like it's got to be a production.
No, it doesn't.
It's just something that we do when we are in God and when we are living life with other
people, we speak the truth.
We speak the power.
We don't do it because we want to get noticed or because we think this is our big break,
but because God has given us a word and it has to come forth.
(45:11):
And Lee Ann, I think I found the reference you're talking about 2nd Timothy 4:3 and 4.
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine instead to suit their
own desires.
They will gather around them a great number of teachers to say whether it's in ears, want
to hear.
That does fit.
(45:32):
I was also thinking of one and I don't remember where it is.
I want to say it's also in Isaiah about slogans that there was a time when it was like,
"All right, they're just going to give the message to the people.
That things are going to be okay, that everything is going to be abundant, that there is going
(45:52):
to be plenty of beer."
And that's not really what God was saying, that God was telling them, "No, you're going
to go into captivity."
So it all fits.
And it's ironic because 2nd Timothy doesn't really talk about us going into captivity.
But it does talk about another one of these cycles where people just don't want to hear
the truth.
(46:15):
So where do we go from here?
Where do we go from here?
I think one of the most important things is self-awareness and knowing what we've been
talking about idolatry.
So it's like understanding what you personally idolize.
(46:38):
I mean, it's for there to be common idols.
We've talked about work, we've talked about family, we've talked about politics.
All of those are common for a reason, but even just recognizing which ones are a crutch
(46:58):
to you.
That's the first bit.
And you can do that by literally just asking God, "It's going to be an uncomfortable conversation
and God is more than happy to point out the idolatry in your life."
You can also do some self-discovery.
(47:18):
I've written extensively about idolatry.
I'm sure.
Lee Ann, you've gotten some resources I imagine in your collection of what is it?
40 titles on Amazon?
37.
Okay.
So 37, but close to 40.
nice to know, folks.
(47:39):
Close enough.
And then Nic, you've done a lot about the intersection between scripture and pop culture.
And so that's going to be super helpful for the people who aren't like me and Lee Ann
and who are like, "Let's delve into ancient history just for fun, these."
(48:00):
Yeah, no, that's definitely not my bad.
But, oh, were you done Charlie?
Yeah, I'm done.
Okay, because I was actually going to shamelessly promote my own blog again because the past
two, yeah, two blog posts I've done based off of Epic the musical "Shut Up Lee Ann" which
(48:25):
I'm not even sure.
I want you to know, wait a minute now, before you say anything, I want you to know, you got
on me for listening to Indiana Bible College five times last week.
Okay.
Your little thing.
Squealed on you about listening to Stephen Rodriguez nine times this week.
(48:47):
Go on.
Okay, I did that thing to you because last year with your Spotify rap being like all Maverick
city and IBC, you were like, "I want some more fun stuff."
So then I have to call out when you listen to like, "Maverick City 10 times."
But anyway.
That's fine.
Anyway, nine times Stephen Rodriguez.
(49:11):
And I had on one repeat before this podcast.
I'm undershade anyway.
And I had "Maverick City" on repeat before this podcast.
See, there we go.
But I had promises on, but anyway.
What did I have?
Wait, anyway, that's a road.
But one doing a post based off the song's dangerous and corruptist from the vintage saga.
(49:38):
And then another one talking about the song, "Wouldn't You Like From The Cersei Saga?"
Kind of giving a very abridged version of both of those.
How we need to trust God to lean in our community and to basically have a different mindset
for having to go about things.
And I would definitely support the introspection and gaining self-awareness thing that Charlie
(50:01):
mentioned, but there is only so much you can do on your own.
You kind of need people to highlight where you need to work on stuff.
And that's when accountability comes in.
The thing we don't like to talk about.
Yep.
(50:23):
But that proves what I've said, I guess God showed it to me a few years back, that accountability
is more than just getting into trouble and admitting that you have a problem.
It's about being there and being connected and being plugged in, so that sometimes things
(50:44):
don't even come up, so that maybe things don't become that much of an issue.
But that also makes us more self-aware.
The Bible tells us to esteem ourselves.
It's a let a man examine himself.
It doesn't say let him examine everyone else.
And the more that we come to that place, we're looking to connect with other people, it
(51:08):
makes us more aware of the issues that we have.
It's like we talk about whether it's marriage, whether it's friendships, whether it's ideally
the family in the body of Christ that we're supposed to be connected to.
The reason why we are there is to become more aware of what we need to work on and what
we need to grow toward.
And if we keep trying to ax all that stuff, we're missing an important part of our development.
(51:35):
Well, for people who had no idea what they were really going to talk about.
We certainly set a mouthful in these 52 or so minutes.
(51:57):
And we are getting to the end of our episode.
And so I'm going to turn it over to each one of you for a thought that you guys would like
to leave our listeners with.
So we use all the thoughts for everything else of the podcast.
(52:18):
Now we have to search for more words to end the podcast.
I was going to say, I have wouldn't you like stuck in my head and whose fault is that?
Look, I have dangerous in my head and I guess I can recite the chorus of that in closing.
Sure.
Yeah.
I'm not sure if you can say the chorus is actually not to say you could say the epic theme, but the chorus kind of circles back to what I talked about basically saying, wouldn't you like a taste of God's power?
(52:50):
But anyway, for the dangerous mention, the chorus of that song is it's going to be dangerous.
My friend, you'll need a mind to change for this.
You cannot get away with playing safe for this. You want to get home, put it all on the line and put your own brain in it.
Remember, I'll be tricking your domain for this.
You got to treat it like it is the main event.
(53:12):
You want to get home, put it all on the line, be dangerous.
And learning to trust each other can be dangerous because again, you're surrendering control of that.
It ended up itself a scary, but if we're going to make it through, then that's the mindset change we're going to have to make.
You said it.
(53:33):
I think my closing thought is something I'm circling back to that we discussed before we got on the podcast about Grace and how learning idolatry and trying to get out of this mindset of serving two masters because it's not like you can just recognize that you're putting your trust in something that's not going to be dangerous.
(54:00):
Trust in something that's not God and then immediately be like, OK, I'm changing my mind and I'm never going to do this again.
It's it's been a mindset for a while. You can't just unlearn a mindset in a snap. You have to work at it.
I like to say that faith is a practice, but usually anxiety is an instinct.
(54:24):
In this case, idolatry is an instinct looking, this looking to put our trust in ourselves is an instinct. And so looking to God, it takes practice and it's over and over and over.
And you are going to mess up and for the people, pleasers and top achievers who are listening, it's going to suck because we can't do the mindset change perfectly.
(54:50):
But thank God for God because he just surrounds us with grace and is more than willing to give us multiple chances.
I mean, God is way more forgiving than human beings are. So even if you're at the end of the erode with forgiving yourself, I mean God is quite there willing to forgive you again.
(55:14):
And we thank God for grace every day. We thank God for grace. Well, I thank you both for being on here, even if it was a huge Owl at Spock.
And how can everybody get in contact with you if they would like to?
(55:36):
I will go first this time, I guess. As I mentioned earlier, I have a blog that's nikfits.dot com that's N-I-K-F-I-T-S.
And if you go to my contact page, I have a link to my linktree. It will take you to pretty much all my socials. I am largely active on Instagram more now.
(56:00):
I'm more active on TikTok or however much longer we have that in bluesky.
And that's pretty much the main ones I use. So if you want to get in contact with me, basically, best bets.
I am not as active on social media as Nik is, but I do have a blue sky and I have Tumblr accounts. Both are beloved, not broken.
(56:33):
But I am probably most active on my on my website. I'm, you know, posting something about once a week at this point.
but I do have a contact form on there if you want to like send me an e-mail or something.
The Web address is beloved-not-broken.com, that's B-E-L-O-V-E-D-N-O-T-B-R-O-K-E-N.com.
(57:00):
Well, I thank you both for being on here and I thank you for being a voice, actually, to voices.
I mean, when we kind of come together, we form one voice, but for basically being
voices of reason in a world that's become very unreasonable and why we definitely need this community in these times.
(57:23):
And I thank all of you for listening today and if you'd like a resource that kind of is about dealing with
difficult times and hearing God's voice in the middle of them, I recommend my book
between the porch and the altar a journey through the book of Joel.
Which is designed to help us focus in on our spiritual needs and you better believe even though I wrote it,
(57:45):
I'm going to probably get off here and go read it.
That we definitely need to hear God's voice in the middle of crisis and the middle of difficult times.
Look me up to Dr. Lee Ann B. Marino on Amazon.com or wherever books are sold and my titles will come up.
There is definitely something for everyone with so many choices.
Over 35 available, so go find something today.
(58:09):
Also, if you are interested in a blog that is about leadership, not just specifically four leaders, but about leadership.
So if you're interested in leadership, you want to learn more about it.
You want to develop more into it.
Check out my column at patheos.com/blogs/leadershiponfire
That is the title of the blog leadership on fire.
(58:33):
That's patheos.com/blogs/leadershiponfire
And you can subscribe to that and so definitely go over and check that out today.
Also connect with me across social media @kingdompowernow.
That's @kingdompowernow.
I'm on Facebook, BlueSky, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok.
I am trying to be a little bit more active on BlueSky.
(58:54):
It's not really happening at the moment, but I'm working on it and I'm making the effort.
So, add me @kingdompowernow and let's start that conversation today.
Also, if you'd like to learn more about the world of counter-culture Christianity, feel free to visit my website at KingdomPowerNow.org.
That's KingdomPowerNow.org.
If you are interested in seminary that's entirely affordable, you will use everything that you learn.
(59:17):
And you can do it right from where you are at home.
Check out Apostolic Covenant Theological Seminary.
That's Acts for short and acts176.org.
That's acts176.org.
And if you are ready to find Acts 2.0 and to experience the community that we talked about and you're in the Charlotte North Carolina area, feel free to check out the work of sanctuary at WelcomeInThisPlace.org.
(59:41):
That's WelcomeInThisPlace.org.
And if you have a question that's not answered on the site, feel free to reach out and we will get back to you.
And this is Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino reminding you in closing that the book of Acts did not just happen because the spirit fell when the spirit fell people came together in unity.
So let the spirit work in you so that you can see yourself and connect to others as well.
(01:00:05):
Until next time, be blessed.
Thank you for joining us on the Kingdom Now podcast today.
I pray it is proven to be a blessing in your life.
To learn more about this work, ask a question, submit feedback, advertise with us, be a guest, or donate to support this work.
(01:00:27):
As our podcast is sponsored by listeners like you, visit my website which contains essential information, projects and works for other points of contact around the web.
At KingdomPowerNow.org. Also, if you are in our area and would like to visit sanctuary International Fellowship Tabernacle, visit WelcomeInThisPlace.org.
(01:00:53):
Until next time, this is Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino reminding you that the Kingdom of God is within you. And that means the Kingdom is now.
(soft music)
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