February 10, 2024 • 46 mins
Have you ever felt bound by the rules of your religion, struggling to reconcile legalism with the freedom of grace? Join me, Shawn, as I sit down with Nathan Mayo, whose story of transformation echoes the struggles and revelations many of us encounter on our spiritual paths. From the confines of an unhealthy church denomination to the eye-opening experiences as a missionary in Haiti, Nathan's insights illuminate the profound shift from stringent adherence to the joyful embrace of the New Covenant introduced by Jesus.
Together, we traverse the landscapes of spiritual upbringing, the perils of legalistic extremes, and the beautiful complexities of living a grace-filled life. Our conversation journeys from the question of sin's true nature to our human limitations, viewed not as flaws but as part of God's perfect design. As Nathan shares his personal narratives—from confronting Russian aggression in the army to empowering impoverished communities through charity—we unpack the life-changing power of recognizing ourselves as God's cherished children.
We wrap up our intense discussion with a message of hope and liberation from the shackles of shame, highlighting the ever-present grace that invites us into a life unburdened by our past. Nathan's work with those leaving hyper-fundamentalism and aiding the poor stands as a testament to grace's transformative potential. This episode of Simple Grace podcast is an intimate exploration of faith, a candid dialogue on the transformative power of grace, and an inspiration for anyone seeking to grow beyond the confines of their religious constraints.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
And welcome everybody to the Simple Grace podcast.
My name is Sean and today I'mvery excited to have my second
Nathan in a row.
This is Nathan Mayo.
We'll see how long we can keepthis streak going of Nathan's.
I have a couple more Nathan'sin mind.
(00:22):
I do have several Nathanfriends, so we'll see if that
works.
I don't know I got some otherones scheduled, but it's great
to have you, nathan Mayo.
I'm good friends with you andyour wife, abby.
We met in Haiti doing a pastrest conference down in Haiti.
But before we get to that, Ijust wanna give you a chance to
(00:47):
kind of introduce yourself.
Let us know who you are, whatyou do, what your family looks
like, where you live and I'm inDenver, so we're really far away
at this moment, I believe.
But let me just give it over toyou, nathan Mayo.
Welcome to Simple Grace podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Absolutely well.
Pleasure to be here.
And of course, nathan meansgift of God, so I'm glad that
God is blessing you and abundantwith all the nations he's
sending into your life?
Yes, no.
So there are many differentaspects of my story that I could
share, but a very brief versionof it.
Was raised in Alabama in apretty unhealthy church
(01:28):
denomination.
Maybe we'll unpack that alittle bit later.
Was in the army for better partof nine years.
Have a degree in economics fromWest Point.
Was stationed in Germany forfour or five years, focused on
deterring Russian aggression,which ended up being a big thing
.
Then my wife and I moved toHaiti to be missionaries for a
couple of years, and back in2020, we transitioned out of
(01:50):
that and I now live in Chopin,missouri, where I work as vice
president of programs for anorganization called the True
Charity and we help churches andnonprofits make their
ministries to people in povertymore empowering.
So get to wear a lot ofdifferent ministry hats, and
it's a lot of fun to do so.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Okay, well, welcome to the show.
I think this is gonna be areally fantastic discussion.
I'm gonna start us out byreading a verse that just kind
of gets our brains and ourhearts all going in the same
direction.
So it was Luke 2220.
And that says likewise he tookthe cup after supper saying this
(02:31):
cup is the new covenant in myblood, which is shed for you.
And I love this verse because,you know, this is basically the
pinnacle of Jesus' life andright before his death, this is
the last supper and it showsthat basically, the whole point
(02:51):
of Jesus coming was to give usthis new covenant of grace.
And I just find so much, youknow, confusion and just flat
out ignorance of what is in thenew covenant.
What did Jesus really come togive us?
A lot of people would sayforgiveness, but that's great
and, yes, forgiveness isdefinitely a part of the new
covenant, but there's so muchmore.
(03:14):
What does that verse kind ofinspire in you as you think
about the new covenant in myblood, which is shed for you?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Well, I think you know you mentioned people asking
what is the new covenant about,and I think the Bible uses a
lot of synonyms and I say thatbecause you can pick any one
verse and you can say, oh look,the Bible says this means, you
know, this means such and such.
But then if you keep readingthe Bible and Jesus too, in his
(03:47):
ministry say a lot of things inmany different ways you know
he'll tell a parable that hasthe same moral.
He'll tell three differentversions of the story back to
back and I love how scripturedoes that.
But there's certainly a lot ofwords that describe the new
covenant and what it brings withit.
But it's definitely central tothe New Testament and it's easy
(04:09):
to overlook.
And I did a little study on whatthe word gospel means just in
the scripture, how it's used,and it's amazing how broad
gospel is in the usage in theNew Testament and you know
really where it starts out isthe gospel or the good news is
of the coming of the kingdom ofGod.
So really we have this idea ofthere's something changing,
(04:31):
there's a kingdom coming.
It's not just there's sometheological thing that happened
behind the curtain and now yourstatus has changed, but there's
a lot of complexity and a lot ofwholeness that's being brought
through the new covenant to thegospel.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Absolutely.
There's even a.
Paul refers to the gospel inthe book of Acts as the gospel
of grace, which is praiseworthyOne another way that he uses the
good news of the message ofgrace that he wanted the people
to hold on to all the churcheshe was planning.
He's like I commend you to Godand to the word of his grace, to
(05:09):
the gospel of his grace, and hejust he loved talking about
grace, we love talking aboutgrace.
So we'll take us back to thebeginnings of Nathan and what
you're.
You kind of briefly touched onit, but I kind of want to dig
into that.
What was your religiousexperience growing up and how
(05:32):
did that form you and form your,your opinions and vision of
what God was and what, whatgrace and law played into that?
So take us down that road.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, I, I think I'll take you way back to hundreds
of years before I was born.
It's just because there'sreally a kind of church movement
tree that has many differentbranches but Most of them are
unhealthy and I was just on oneof those branches.
But I kind of now understandthe whole tree and I've met
people from many other branchesthat maybe maybe there's one In
(06:06):
the audience whose story weconnect.
So so John Wesley, way back inthe day, he taught this idea
that you could be perfected inlove.
So this is idea that you couldachieve some sort of perfect
sanctification.
And he wasn't.
He didn't teach this in a superstrong or super harsh way and
he kind of backed off on alittle bit later in life.
So it wasn't an extremedoctrine the way he taught it,
(06:27):
but it was fairly novel.
And in the 1840s a lady comesalong named Phoebe Palmer.
She kind of takes this to thenext level and says, okay, well,
you can be perfectly sanctified, but it actually doesn't happen
Over the course of a process,like John Wesley taught, but it
happens instantaneously.
It's an experience that issubsequent to salvation, this
(06:48):
perfect sanctification thatbrings forth the broad holiness
movement which you know grew,grew forth from that day,
fast-forward to the around 1900s.
You have a guy named CharlesParham who comes along and he
said actually there's a thirdwork of grace, there's baptism
of the Holy Ghost and speakingin tongues, this is a third
(07:09):
thing.
This comes after you'reperfectly sanctified.
So that brings Pentecostalmovement, which you know has
many different branches of that.
But so what I grew up as wasindependent Pentecostal holiness
, so we retained that sort ofsecond doctrine of perfect
sanctification, and then we alsoadded on the Pentecostal
elements.
There are other branches of thetree that are holiness, that are
(07:32):
what are called conservativeholiness.
They have never accepted thePentecostal side, but they have
that second Second work of gracesanctification, you know, in an
instantaneous experience.
And then there are also variousPentecostal branches, like the
Apostolic oneness, that aremotorists and to my infinity,
and they are Holiness in somerespects so, and they actually
(07:52):
teach that you have to speak intongues in order to be saved.
But then that also brings it.
And so then they're, they'relike all kinds of little tiny
sub camps, like ones that teachOkay, this is free holiness, you
have to speak in tongues to besaved.
Once you speak in tongues, thenyou are perfectly sanctified
and if you ever sin again once,then you can never be saved past
(08:14):
that point, right.
So that's obviously a pretty.
It's pretty out there.
But you know, I visited thosechurches growing up.
They were in our circles,there's there.
They're very big.
So I grew up in this world, inthis movement in which the idea
was you didn't sin and, and youknow we would straw man, the,
(08:37):
the Baptist right.
And I had a friend who'sCatholic.
He's like you, didn't grow upbelieving Catholics were going
to heaven.
Right, I was like we didn'tbelieve Baptist were going to
heaven, but I we were on thelast bus to heaven.
So so that's that's how I grewup and we we would just you kind
(08:58):
of lived in terror of sin, butat the same time you redefined
sin in convenient ways.
You didn't you made mistakes,you, you know you.
You maybe had some issues, butit wasn't sin and sin, you know,
because sin the Christiansdon't sin again.
We would sort of straw man, Iwas saying the Baptist, and we'd
say, oh, the Baptist say yougot to sin a little every day,
(09:20):
but God's more powerful thanthat and you know we have the
truest truth and so, yeah,that's.
That's the environment I grewup in.
Of course, they added a lot ofother things to scripture and as
I, as I dug into scripture, IStarted to see that part of my
experience, and really myjourney out of that, was that I
(09:41):
was in a good Boy Scout troopand it was very Christian,
wasn't related to mydenomination, it was a bunch of
homeschoolers and it was.
Our troop motto was fromMatthew 514 You're the light of
the world.
A city, town on the hill cannotbe hid.
Our troop motto was be a light.
Our number was 514, right, sothere were some good Christians
that I was around and theirfaith was defined by what they
(10:03):
did.
And my faith was Defined by whatI did not do, and I was very
good at not doing the things Iwas not supposed to do, but one
of the ways you keep fromsinning is you don't put
yourself in any context otherthan you go to work or school
and you go to church, and you goto church many, many, many
times a week and then you go torevivals every quarter.
You just spend a lot of time inchurch and we didn't really
(10:26):
focus on sins of Omission, itwas just sins of commission.
Of course we had lots ofstandards to keep us from those.
So there was no TV, there wasno jewelry that you know.
Women didn't cut their hair,didn't wear pants, you didn't
wear shorts.
You know all lots of rules.
He had nice long list of rulesso you could be sure you didn't
sin.
You spent so much time inchurch.
You didn't have time anyways,and and that's how, how we live.
(10:50):
But when I started to meetpeople who were really on fire
for Christ, which Extendedfurther when I went to West
Point and fell in with a goodcrowd of folks who, again, their
faith was defined by what theydid, I said wow, these people
are breaking all of the rulesthey listen to.
You know Christian rock musicor secular music.
(11:10):
You know mind-blowingly awfulstuff, but at the same time it
was Jesus and they're expandingthe kingdom and I'm just trying
to stay out of trouble byfollowing a list of rules.
So that's some of the theexperience I had and then the
way I kind of grew out of that.
I don't know if I went farenough back for you.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, no, that was an incredible Insight into kind of
the roots of it.
That's.
That is the kind of contentthat people Need in their
podcast world.
I'm telling you that right nowthat's where I, where I go to
get my history lesson of theholiness movement is gonna be
you.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
We believed that we were just a part of the remnant
and there were Christians who'dalways believe what we believe.
When we taught church historyit's like, well, the apostles
believe what we believe, ofcourse.
And then we just kind ofclaimed random people in history
who we liked, oh, martin Luther, you know.
So they're all kind of in ourlineage.
We didn't get into the details,right, yeah.
But then when you, when you getout a little bit from these
(12:12):
movements, you start to meetpeople who were in the parallel
movements and you go wait asecond, you're a conservative
holiness, you had all the samestandards that we had, and yet
you didn't speak in tongues.
And so you, we, you know wehave totally different theology,
but we were both fullyconvinced around the last bus to
heaven oh, you're apostoliconeness.
Again different theology, butthere's so much similarity that
(12:36):
when you meet somebody we didthis so to my sister, and I have
ministry called Berean holinessto kind of help people out of
these movements.
And so we had a conference andjust brought people together is
probably about a hundred folks.
We had some main stage speakersand then we had people around
tables and you just have peoplefrom these different backgrounds
connect with each other and go,wow, I Thought we had all the
(12:57):
truth.
You were told the exact samething and in some things that
were not in our movementindependent fundamental Baptist
and Amish Mennonite you knowthere are things that aren't
quite in that precise tree, butthey still share the same traits
of legalism andauthoritarianism and and some
really unhealthy things yeah, sowhat?
Speaker 1 (13:19):
how would you describe what spiritual life
looked like before and thenafter you started kind of a
revived relationship with Jesusbased on grace and and what was
that Explain the difference inyour life from what it was
before to after?
(13:41):
And kind of, what was thespiritual side of inside you
that caused that change?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Well, one key aspect of our theology, too, is that we
were what I would call oncesaved, never saved.
And what I'm, what I'm human to, that is.
The thought was, hey, I could,you know, step out in front of a
bus and if I said a bad wordbefore the bus hit me, then I'm
(14:12):
not going to happen right.
And, of course, part of whatI've learned since is that,
again, the Bible defines sin inmore painful ways than I would
like.
So, you know, we had morelimited definition.
So you could, just as long asyou didn't say a bad word before
the bus hit you, you still havea chance.
But I said, I noticed, hey, theBible says it's a sin to be
(14:33):
ungrateful.
So what if, before the bus hitme, I was ungrateful, the bus
was about to hit me, right, thisis one saved, never saved,
which is?
I mean?
it's far beyond the idea that,okay, you know there's some
theological debate about otherany situations under which
somebody can give up theirsalvation, and you know it's
just a separate point, but wetook that to a hyper extreme,
(14:55):
okay.
So there's that level ofunhealth, the practical
outworking of that.
Again, if sin goes under therug, we don't talk about sin, we
definitely don't confess ourfaults to one another.
We maybe try to spend a lot oftime talking to God and hope
he'll forgive us for all, forthe things that we are aware
we've done.
So when I went through aprocess of moving past that,
(15:18):
realizing that a lot of therules that I was following
weren't protecting me anyways,you know they were guardrails
that weren't doing anything.
It's like the guardrail of notwearing a ring.
Okay, that's not doing anythingfor me spiritually other than
maybe giving me a little senseof pride, which is a sin.
So I had to lose the securityblanket of the legalistic
(15:41):
standards but at the same time,I was freed to know that my
salvation was in God's hands,and so I could put myself out
there in terms of beingvulnerable, in terms of
confessing, in terms of tryingto find opportunities for
service with others and putyourself in maybe more stressful
situations where you're morelikely to sin.
(16:02):
You know, in basic leadershipadvice, you always wanna give
your people freedom to fail.
Right, because if you as aleader, if people under you,
don't have the freedom to make amistake or fail, then they're
never gonna try anything.
And I think the same is truewhen you are held to a standard
of perfection you never tryanything, you never go out into
(16:26):
a situation that's gonna bestressful, and so forth.
So, really, the people who railagainst those who leave the
movements right, and there aremany very unpleasant things that
have been said about me on theinternet for the role that my
sister and I have played inhelping people out of these
movements but they're alwayssaying, well, you just want
(16:49):
freedom from these rules and youjust wanna go out and live any
way you want.
But that's not what it comesdown to Really.
Understanding grace and movingpast legalism is about freedom
too.
It's about freedom to live intothe fullness of the life that
God has called us to and liveinto the fullness of service.
Cause I used.
It was kind of funny and ironicas we were writing a lot of
(17:12):
early articles addressing someof these legalistic issues that
are really niche and nobody elseout there needs a 5,000 word
article about why women can wearpants, but, as it turns out,
that's now the most populararticle on the internet on the
topic.
Right, I'm looking out mywindow in a camper in Haiti back
in 2019 when I'm writing thesethings and I'm like you, really
(17:33):
think I left this movement sothat I can go live any way I
want and please the flesh Causeman.
I picked a dumb way to do it,but the reality is I picked a
great way to move from thestandards of man to trying to
live into the actual standardsof the new covenant.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah, I've heard it said and I say this all the time
that legalism, the people whoare struggle with legalism and
really employ a lot of legalism.
They think the other side islicentiousness right, that we
have a license to sin.
And so they look at people whoare licentious and say you know,
(18:16):
the solution here to yourproblems is more rules and the
licentious people.
You know they look at thelegalist people and say the
solution to your, you know youhave no fun.
So the solution to you is whydon't you sin a little?
Right?
And the reality is that neitherone of these are the correct
(18:37):
way and there are certainly notopposites in a way that you know
the solution for legalism isn'tlicentiousness, the solution to
the very licentiousness is notlegalism.
But there's another way that,if you kind of imagine going up,
you know the Holy Spirit is thesolution for licentiousness.
He, you know he says that he'llproduce righteousness in our
lives, but without the law.
(18:59):
You know we have died to thelaw, we are no longer under the
law but we're under grace.
So those Holy Spirit that graceprovides, produces
righteousness that the law couldnever even come close to
touching.
And furthermore, in this sideyou know the freedom that and
the grace and mercy that we need, as opposed to legalism, is
(19:22):
also provided by the Holy Spirit.
We're set free to have a lovingrelationship with God, kind of
like what you described where itwas.
It's a harsh thing to grow upin that kind of world.
I've also heard it said thatlegalism.
You know, the problem withlegalism is not that they see
(19:44):
the law too highly, it's thatthey see it too low.
They actually think that theycan achieve.
You know, and that is amisunderstanding of what the
meaning of the law is, and youdescribed that you would set up
these strong and argument youknow where, but when you
(20:05):
actually just look at what Jesussays about the law, when he
explains it, that if you evenlooked at a woman with lust,
you've committed adultery.
If you, you know, hatedsomebody, you're guilty of
murder.
Where he says you know the law.
You know we're judged by theintention, not only just the
actions and outward, but theactual intentions of our hearts
are still right on display andbeing judged by the law.
(20:27):
And the standard of the lawnever changes.
So what are we to do?
Cause we can never measure upto that standard.
So God gave us this newcovenant with a new way where he
, we die with him on the crossand we're lifted above this
standard.
And so the actual practicaloutworkings of our life, can you
(20:51):
know, look like we're keepingthe law.
But it's not.
It's love that comes out, it'sa fruitfulness.
Not, we're not trying to keepthe law anymore, but by nature
we kind of start to look likeour heavenly father through this
abiding relationship.
So those are the kind of thethings that rattled around in my
brain as you were talking aboutyour story.
(21:12):
What kind of thoughts are youhaving right now?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Well, I'm thinking you're absolutely right about us
holding the law in that youknow, unhealthy denomination in
too low a regard.
And the best example of this iswhen Jesus, you know, is
elaborating, expounding on thelaw and he's saying be perfect
as I am perfect.
Yeah, that's a high bar.
But we looked at that and wesaid he can't mean that Right.
(21:36):
Perfect has gotta mean likemature.
He can't.
It doesn't mean what he says,it means Right.
And then the craziest thing,thinking back on it, is we.
I heard someone at some pointsay well, jesus said unless your
righteousness exceeds that ofthe scribes and Pharisees, you
shall know why it's entering toheaven.
(21:57):
Of course we were King Jamesonly.
And then they said theircommentary on that was and you
know those scribes and Pharisees.
The Bible says they prayedthree times a day.
They fasted several times aweek.
If we're not doing that church,how do we think we are growing
to heaven?
And in retrospect it's like,wow, we missed the entire point.
(22:22):
My sister, I always kind of hada sense of this and so I faded
out of this.
I say I was the golden child inthe black sheep of the family
for a long time, as the goldenchild because I was at West
Point, I was the black sheepbecause I wasn't quite in the
fold.
But my sister believed thiswhole hearted and went full bore
into it and she said she hearda sermon at some point that she
(22:43):
needed to tithe her time.
So she started praying like twohours and 24 minutes a day
every day.
So because she had to tithe hertime.
I mean, all this led her justto misery, right until she
eventually came out of this aswell.
But I think about the OldCovenant, and while the New
Testament makes clear that grace, salvation was always through
(23:05):
faith, by faith, abraham and soforth, but it chooses to agree
that there were 613 commandmentsin the Old Covenant, it was for
a very static agrarian societythat you could prescribe not
quite all, but many of the rulesfor it.
It sort of worked.
But when you grow out of it andyou grow out of legalism, you
(23:27):
start to realize how, wow, theworld is much more complex now
and give you a for instance.
So obviously we believed intithing and tithing on the gross
right.
That was a legalistic standardand I've always kind of kept
with that, more or less a sortof force of habit, and I think
Christians are certainlycommanded to be generous in the
New Covenant.
(23:48):
But as I started to unpack thatstandard a little bit more
through a New Covenant lens andjust looking at the reality of
the world around me as arecreational economist which is
what I am I said wait a second.
When I worked in the army I kindof had a little of this in my
head I tithed on the gross and Ifelt proud of myself.
(24:08):
But when I left the army Irealized that I had a big health
care benefit in the army whichwas worth a lot of money that I
didn't tithe on.
And now that I'm, that was outof the army I realized, oh, now
I'm tithing on a bigger amountbecause I wasn't tithing on that
.
There's just a complexity there.
And then when I moved to Haiti,I was like huh, I just took and
(24:28):
this is no great thing topeople going to ministry I just
took a 60% pay cut.
Is that a sort of a tithe that Ijust made by giving up 60% of
my income to come work here fora couple of years?
And they just realized, oh,there's a lot more complexity.
So these sort of simple rulesabout what to do with the first
(24:50):
fruits of your harvest and your.
You know, in the old covenant,whatever it was, two or three
tithes a year, however many theydid, those don't work anymore.
So rather than try to figureout a new rule, we should just
lean into the principles thatwe're taught in the new covenant
, which is more than sufficientto guide our lives and to lead
us into all godliness and truth.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yeah, I've heard someone say it's almost as if
Paul, especially in the Paulineletters.
He says you know what, let'sjust take all the rules away and
you use this guide instead Dowhat's the most loving in any
moment, and that's a reallypowerful thing to think about.
(25:37):
Like God's like, I'm not goingto tell you what to do anymore,
I'm going to give you my son andyou need to connect with him
and get to know him, and thenyou get a kind of guiding
principle that's in the heartand it's much more powerful than
any rule could ever be.
(25:58):
You know, you mentioned whenJesus said be perfect, for your
father in heaven is perfect.
I always like to read thisversus Hebrew 718.
It says for, on the one hand,there is an annulling of the
former commandment because ofits weakness and
unprofitableness, for the lawmade nothing perfect but on the
(26:19):
other hand, there's a bringingin of a better hope through
which we draw near to God.
And it's kind of shocking forsomeone who's really legalistic
to hear the Bible call the lawweak and unprofitable, because
those are words we don't thinkof as being complementary.
But when you understand thepurpose of the law and that it
(26:42):
serves its purpose and it's verygood at what it's designed to
do, but if you try to use it forsomething it's not designed to
do, like save people or changepeople, then it's weak and
unprofitable, like you're notgoing to get a profit by
investing in lawkeeping efforts.
So I find that to be a goodcross reference to the.
(27:05):
You know, jesus said you got tobe perfect, but says in Hebrews
the law makes nothing perfect.
So what are we doing here?
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Well, and what's been challenging to me.
So when I left the sort ofhyper fundamentalist movement
that I was a part of, I didn'tleave with a big bang, I didn't
make fuss or argue with anybodyabout it.
But it wasn't until severalyears down the road when my
sister left and there was someinteresting story about that.
(27:32):
But basically she had kind ofgone fully down the rabbit hole
and gone to be the valedictorianof the best little school and
the movement and just realizedthere were no real answers.
The deeper she dug for realanswers she couldn't find them.
So finally she left and westarted talking about it and
writing about it.
(27:53):
But my thinking was sharpened inthat process because of course
we are writing to critics, weare writing to people who are
disagreeing with us, not afriendly crowd, and I realized
that the thing that kind of themainstream evangelical church
says is they go to the OldTestament law and they say well,
we can put categories on thelaw as civil, ceremonial and
(28:15):
moral, and we can pick throughand we can tell you which ones
are which.
Now there is universal moraltruth contained in the law and
the 10 commandments.
It reoccurs in the NewTestament.
That's how we know.
But I would argue there is noway to just look at a passage in
Deuteronomy and say, well, thisis the moral law, this is the
(28:35):
ceremonial law, withoutcross-referencing against what
the New Testament says.
And so really, theunderstanding that I didn't have
to go to the Old Covenant tofind truth, I could go to the
New Covenant to find truth andgo to the Old Covenant to
expound upon it, to understandthe backstory and more about
character of God and so forth,just really helpful.
(28:58):
And I think people who justopen up the Book of Deuteronomy
and say I'm going to figure outwhat in here applies to my life
are doing so at their peril andthey're missing out on some
pretty important backgroundinformation.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah, I was talking to a really good friend of mine
who's Jewish but he's born againnow, but he was like we were
talking about this very subjectand he's like I don't get why
Gentiles would ever want to beunder the law.
He's like do you not see themess that our family is?
(29:34):
He's referring to his Jewishbrothers and sisters.
He's like this is not somethingthat you want to be a part of.
Guys, we didn't do good.
We've never had life from thisexperience of being under the
law and Roman says the Gentilesweren't under the law ever.
(29:54):
They had a conscience.
So, yes, the laws principle,especially the moral laws
principle, still applied intheir life, but it's not like
they had pictures of the TenCommandments hanging up Gentiles
and yet God still had a plan tosave and redeem all of us.
And so, yeah, why bringsomething into this plan of
(30:16):
salvation that doesn't need tobe there?
Very, very interesting.
All right, so tell us moreabout Haiti.
How did you end up in Haiti?
What was it like to be in Haiti?
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Well, you know, thinking back on how we ended up
in it.
So when I was in the Army, ithad a good experience there, but
at the same time, I realizedpretty quickly that the Army was
set up so that nobody can breakit, which also means nobody can
change it.
So if you're a change agent,like I am, it's not a great
place for you long term, becauseyou'd figure out a solution to
a problem you know and you'd say, okay, can we implement this?
(30:57):
And the answer would be no, weneed an act of Congress to
implement that.
We literally need an act ofCongress to make that change.
Okay, moving on.
So I really wanted to be abigger part of a smaller
organization.
I wanted to go serve God'skingdom in a place and in a way
where, thinking with myeconomist hat on well, if I want
(31:17):
to make the biggest difference,why don't I just go somewhere
where people aren't lining up togo, either for pay reasons or
danger, or whatever the case is?
So that thought process led useventually to Haiti, where we
served with the ministry I'mstill involved with on the board
.
My wife still works part-timefor them, but their network of
(31:39):
churches and schools and HaitianAmerican Run very
Haitian-centric organization,Global Visionist, at Omenistries
.
We've got about 200 Haitians onstaff and about five Americans
part-time, and we were the onlytwo Americans that were down in
country.
We weren't there all the time,but we didn't live anywhere else
anyway, so we were either onthe road connecting with folks
(31:59):
like you and talking about theministry, or we were in there
serving.
It was very eye-opening in someways.
In retrospect, I also questionand I think we should probably
always all question our motives,but there's probably some part
(32:20):
of me that's still trying toearn my salvation.
If I'm being honest with you, Istill probably have some what
my wife calls holiness hang-ups.
So I've been trying to say God,okay, I want to serve you, I
want to be invested in thesuccess of God's kingdom.
I don't just want to have theAmerican dream and then go to
(32:42):
church on Sunday and sort oflive that dualistic life, but at
the same time, I also don'twant to be just doing hard
things for the point of well,maybe God will love me more if I
do hard things, and I don'tthink that was my full
motivation to go to Haiti, butit's probably somewhere in the
background too.
But what we saw on the ground isthe Haitian church is just very
(33:06):
much like the early church inall the good and bad ways.
So they have the zeal and alsothe ignorance, and we saw
several pastors conferenceswhile we were down there.
We helped to find pastors forthem, fund them, and so we'd
bring an American pastor downand connect that pastor with our
70 or so Haitian pastors whohad come in from all over the
(33:27):
country and come and listen to afew days of teaching translated
, and have some opportunity tobond with each other.
And really your pastor'sconference that you thought you
taught was transformative andthe superintendent told us and
I'm sure we passed it along toyou at the time this is some of
the most amazing content we'veever heard, because the dynamic
(33:50):
spiritually is again a lot ofzeal, a lot of fervor, a lot of
fear from voodoo and otherthings.
So people could come into achurch, be delivered, be saved,
be set free, and then a pastorsays oh no, I just had 45 people
that got saved in this revivaland they're ignorant and they're
syncretistic and they're mixingvoodoo with Christianity and
(34:14):
I've got to set some rules upquick because I don't have time
to disciple them, so we've got ashort circuit the discipleship
process.
And having grown up in anenvironment where the
discipleship process was shortcircuited, the problem is
legalism is just not a goodshortcut to discipleship.
So we've had conversations withpeople who've left hyper
(34:39):
fundamentalist movements andthey said, oh well, our church
started allowing TVs.
And then the conversationimmediately went to well, how
big can the TV be?
Can it be in your living room?
Is it better if it stays putaway?
But then you take it out.
But you know what theconversation didn't go to what
content is on the TV?
(35:00):
So these folks that in theirnew liberty they'd be watching a
bunch of R rated movies and notthink a thing about it.
No real thought going into that.
But they were thinking aboutthe dimensions of the TV because
they hadn't been discipled.
They didn't know how to thinklike Christians, they just knew
how to think like rule follows.
Well, the same thing can happenin a place like Haiti, and I
(35:25):
remember the kind of funnycrossover a pastor I know from a
hyper fundamentalist church.
He posted on Facebook aroundthe time it was a picture of a
sign, some instructions outsidea church door in the Philippines
.
So, developing world contextand it was just a list of rules.
No one coming in here withsandals on or with showing their
(35:46):
shoulders or anything like that, Right, so just a list of rules
.
And he was making the point infavor of it like, wow, overseas,
they really have it figured out.
You know, they're reallyenforcing truth over there,
which we could get to thatstandard in America, but me,
knowing all the things that Iknow, just like.
No, that system is broken, yoursystem is broken, and what we
(36:08):
need is the new covenant, andthat's actually the right answer
to this death.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Oh man, you have seen some stuff you know I get.
You know.
Basically the hardest I getpushed back is when someone says
you give too much grace, youtalk about grace too much.
If you talk about grace so much, people are just going to take
advantage of it and they're justgoing to live lazy lives, which
(36:37):
there's many, many answers forthat, the number one being man
living by grace is the mostexciting active life that I have
ever experienced, because it'slike actively diving into the
life of Jesus Christ every day.
Now, is it self-sourced and isit self-started and is it?
(36:59):
You know, do I have to do it bymy flesh?
No, it's not self-life, butit's me participating in the
life of Christ and diving intothat.
There's nothing more excitingor energizing than that
experience ever in my life,diving into his active, risen,
(37:20):
resurrection life is nothing,you know.
I talk to people and sometimesthey describe their relationship
and it just it seems likethey're happy or proud about
talking about a dead Messiah, adead savior, like he's, like
it's like he's still hanging onthe cross for them.
(37:40):
And it just blows my mindbecause in my mind, jesus is
risen, he's in heaven, he'sparticipating with us, like he's
very active and he said hewould build his church.
So he's building his church,he's building me, and all by his
Holy Spirit.
It's just like so muchlivingness as opposed to it's
(38:04):
dead.
I go to church on Sunday toremember his dead body on a
cross and I'm like, wow, I don'tjust get that anymore.
Like it's like life is just sodifferent once you've kind of
seen the resurrection life inits reality.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Well, and you know I'm thinking back to really what
I've been learning recently andsome of it was very much
sparked by reading your book.
So I became secure in mysalvation over a decade ago as I
left this and realize, oh no,I'm saved by grace and God has
me Right.
So that that was transformative.
(38:45):
What I've just started to havea dawning realization of is what
you emphasize in your book,that I'm also sanctified by
grace.
So I actually just had a localrescue mission.
I did a morning devotional forthe staff and volunteers and I
taught on this topic sanctifiedby grace and just kind of unpack
(39:07):
a little bit of my journey andhow I opened the audience with
this question.
I said just think about thisfor a second.
If somebody comes to you who'sa believer and says they're
struggling with some kind of sin, they want to overcome it.
They're struggling.
Think about what your advice tothem would be.
They want advice.
And then I circled back to itlater and I said you know, if
(39:28):
your advice is like mine, it's awell smart goals and boundaries
and read your Bible more andChristian disciplines and that's
all good stuff.
But that presupposes that youcan overcome sin through your
effort.
And we have to realize thatwe're sanctified by grace.
Of course there are a lot ofgreat passages that you brought
out in your book to that effect.
(39:49):
And then that also gives us acertain freedom because I can
look at my sin, which I canacknowledge exists now I don't
have to hide it under a ruganymore and I can say that's
God's problem, I'm his child andthat's his problem.
And I'm invested in overcomingthat, because sin is death, it's
(40:13):
destruction, it hurts everybody, it hurts me, it hurts the
people around me.
So, yeah, I want to get overthat, but I don't have to bear
it as a burden.
And if you've ever fought aforest fire which I've fought a
few of my property, don't askabout how there ended up being
several forest fires on myproperty.
I grew up in the country.
Okay, it's just one of the mostfear inducing things in the
(40:38):
panic inducing experiences asyou're running around with a
shovel or a bucket or whateverand there are just fires
everywhere.
I've got to put this one up.
I've got to put that one out.
And if you're aware of the sinin your own life and you're
taking that approach to it oh no, everything's on fire, I've got
to go put it out.
It's just a terrible way tolive.
(41:00):
But if you understand that Godhas this whole thing under
control and I'm going to standhere by this little burning
patch and I'm going to take mytime and I'm going to beat this
thing with a shovel for a whileand get it good and dead, and
then I'm going to mosey on overto that next fire and I'm going
to start working on that throughthe power of the Holy.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Spirit.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
That's a very different approach, and it's
just so, and it's just soliberating to know that God is
not only taking care of mysalvation, but also my
sanctification.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Beautiful man, beautiful.
Thank you for those kind words.
For sure I always love hearingwhen my book has made an impact
in somebody, because it wassomething I learned at college
from Bob Hoekstra, an amazinggrace guy that transformed my
life, and my goal is just to seethat same freedom and
transformation in whoever I getto minister to.
(41:55):
So that's really cool.
I think it was kind of the lastlittle nugget that was in my
head is you add laws on thepeople's life.
It doesn't stop sin.
You take laws away.
It doesn't stop sin.
(42:15):
You add grace to people's lifeand there can be victory over
sin.
So if you're going to sineither way, if people are going
to sin, then why don't we bepeople of grace who look to the
Lord, place our confidence inJesus, call upon him, depend
upon him and encourage eachother to trust in grace?
(42:39):
That's kind of the last littlenugget I have is like adding
rules into anyone's life hasnever stopped sin.
How many rules does themilitary have?
Many, many books have them, anddoes it ever change someone's
heart?
Does anyone follow those ruleswith all their heart?
(43:00):
No, I can't say that they do,and it's the same with every
rule.
It's not just God's rules, justrules in general.
Don't have the power to deliverus.
Well, nathan, it's been trulyan honor and a joy to get to
know you a little bit more.
My streak of Nathan's is goingstrong, so we'll see how many
(43:22):
more I can get in.
Any final thoughts about thenew covenant that you'd like to
kind of bring out.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Yeah, just one more thing that has been really
powerful to me.
So I picked this up from thebook the You're Only Human,
which is about the theology ofhuman finitude and he talks
about.
The author, kelly Capich talksabout how we don't have a good
understanding of the limits ofcreatureliness that are good
(43:54):
limits that God created in us,right?
The fact that we need sleep andso forth that are not results
of the fall, they're justresults of the way God made us.
One of the manifestations thathe talks a lot about Grace in
there too is, he says, a childlearns to walk through a process
that is really kind of apainful and slow process, but
you as a parent do not get madat your child when they stumble
(44:17):
and fall.
And even if your child is simpleand at this point in my life I
now have a two year old daughterand objectively I would not be
her friend in real life if shewasn't my child right, she's not
, she's not.
Somebody contributes a lot inthe sort of objective way that
she would look to an adultfriend to do, and she does all
(44:37):
kinds of bad things and I notonly love her but I like her.
She's great, she's the bestthing since sliced bread in my
eyes and realizing that I am nota better father than God and
that means that, even though Ido things that are as dumb as my
two year old, god not onlyloves me, but he actually does
(45:00):
like me too, and he chose thisslow and painful process for my
growth and maturity and he couldhave snapped his fingers.
And the moment I accepted himmade me perfect, like my
theology taught for years that Iwas, even though I knew it was
wrong.
Right, just that realizationI'm not a better father than God
and he really likes me.
(45:22):
It's been very powerful in myown life.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Wow, I think that that really confronts shame in
our lives.
You know, there's so many of usthat really struggle with shame
, that really struggle with ouridentity, and that really just
speaks into that Like there's noshame with God, like he knows
everything about you.
(45:46):
He agreed to save you when youwere a big, hot, steaming pile,
and his expectation was that hehad the grace he has much more
grace than you could ever needand of his fullness we have all
received grace upon grace upongrace.
So I think that's a wonderfulencouragement for all of us.
(46:07):
So, thank you, nathan.
If people want to hear moreabout your organizations, where
can they find that out?
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Yeah.
So if you're interested in sortof helping folks out of hyper
fundamentalism beryanholinesscomyou can learn more there Lots
of social media accounts.
If you're interested in helpwith your church or charity
running more empowering programsto people in poverty
trucharityus we've got lots ofgreat resources for you there as
well.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Awesome.
Thank you, Nathan.
We'll end it there.
Have a good one.
And welcome everybody to the Simple Grace podcast.
My name is Sean and today I'mvery excited to have my second
Nathan in a row.
This is Nathan Mayo.
We'll see how long we can keepthis streak going of Nathan's.
I have a couple more Nathan'sin mind.
(00:22):
I do have several Nathanfriends, so we'll see if that
works.
I don't know I got some otherones scheduled, but it's great
to have you, nathan Mayo.
I'm good friends with you andyour wife, abby.
We met in Haiti doing a pastrest conference down in Haiti.
But before we get to that, Ijust wanna give you a chance to
(00:47):
kind of introduce yourself.
Let us know who you are, whatyou do, what your family looks
like, where you live and I'm inDenver, so we're really far away
at this moment, I believe.
But let me just give it over toyou, nathan Mayo.
Welcome to Simple Grace podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Absolutely well.
Pleasure to be here.
And of course, nathan meansgift of God, so I'm glad that
God is blessing you and abundantwith all the nations he's
sending into your life?
Yes, no.
So there are many differentaspects of my story that I could
share, but a very brief versionof it.
Was raised in Alabama in apretty unhealthy church
(01:28):
denomination.
Maybe we'll unpack that alittle bit later.
Was in the army for better partof nine years.
Have a degree in economics fromWest Point.
Was stationed in Germany forfour or five years, focused on
deterring Russian aggression,which ended up being a big thing
.
Then my wife and I moved toHaiti to be missionaries for a
couple of years, and back in2020, we transitioned out of
(01:50):
that and I now live in Chopin,missouri, where I work as vice
president of programs for anorganization called the True
Charity and we help churches andnonprofits make their
ministries to people in povertymore empowering.
So get to wear a lot ofdifferent ministry hats, and
it's a lot of fun to do so.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Okay, well, welcome to the show.
I think this is gonna be areally fantastic discussion.
I'm gonna start us out byreading a verse that just kind
of gets our brains and ourhearts all going in the same
direction.
So it was Luke 2220.
And that says likewise he tookthe cup after supper saying this
(02:31):
cup is the new covenant in myblood, which is shed for you.
And I love this verse because,you know, this is basically the
pinnacle of Jesus' life andright before his death, this is
the last supper and it showsthat basically, the whole point
(02:51):
of Jesus coming was to give usthis new covenant of grace.
And I just find so much, youknow, confusion and just flat
out ignorance of what is in thenew covenant.
What did Jesus really come togive us?
A lot of people would sayforgiveness, but that's great
and, yes, forgiveness isdefinitely a part of the new
covenant, but there's so muchmore.
(03:14):
What does that verse kind ofinspire in you as you think
about the new covenant in myblood, which is shed for you?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Well, I think you know you mentioned people asking
what is the new covenant about,and I think the Bible uses a
lot of synonyms and I say thatbecause you can pick any one
verse and you can say, oh look,the Bible says this means, you
know, this means such and such.
But then if you keep readingthe Bible and Jesus too, in his
(03:47):
ministry say a lot of things inmany different ways you know
he'll tell a parable that hasthe same moral.
He'll tell three differentversions of the story back to
back and I love how scripturedoes that.
But there's certainly a lot ofwords that describe the new
covenant and what it brings withit.
But it's definitely central tothe New Testament and it's easy
(04:09):
to overlook.
And I did a little study on whatthe word gospel means just in
the scripture, how it's used,and it's amazing how broad
gospel is in the usage in theNew Testament and you know
really where it starts out isthe gospel or the good news is
of the coming of the kingdom ofGod.
So really we have this idea ofthere's something changing,
(04:31):
there's a kingdom coming.
It's not just there's sometheological thing that happened
behind the curtain and now yourstatus has changed, but there's
a lot of complexity and a lot ofwholeness that's being brought
through the new covenant to thegospel.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Absolutely.
There's even a.
Paul refers to the gospel inthe book of Acts as the gospel
of grace, which is praiseworthyOne another way that he uses the
good news of the message ofgrace that he wanted the people
to hold on to all the churcheshe was planning.
He's like I commend you to Godand to the word of his grace, to
(05:09):
the gospel of his grace, and hejust he loved talking about
grace, we love talking aboutgrace.
So we'll take us back to thebeginnings of Nathan and what
you're.
You kind of briefly touched onit, but I kind of want to dig
into that.
What was your religiousexperience growing up and how
(05:32):
did that form you and form your,your opinions and vision of
what God was and what, whatgrace and law played into that?
So take us down that road.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, I, I think I'll take you way back to hundreds
of years before I was born.
It's just because there'sreally a kind of church movement
tree that has many differentbranches but Most of them are
unhealthy and I was just on oneof those branches.
But I kind of now understandthe whole tree and I've met
people from many other branchesthat maybe maybe there's one In
(06:06):
the audience whose story weconnect.
So so John Wesley, way back inthe day, he taught this idea
that you could be perfected inlove.
So this is idea that you couldachieve some sort of perfect
sanctification.
And he wasn't.
He didn't teach this in a superstrong or super harsh way and
he kind of backed off on alittle bit later in life.
So it wasn't an extremedoctrine the way he taught it,
(06:27):
but it was fairly novel.
And in the 1840s a lady comesalong named Phoebe Palmer.
She kind of takes this to thenext level and says, okay, well,
you can be perfectly sanctified, but it actually doesn't happen
Over the course of a process,like John Wesley taught, but it
happens instantaneously.
It's an experience that issubsequent to salvation, this
(06:48):
perfect sanctification thatbrings forth the broad holiness
movement which you know grew,grew forth from that day,
fast-forward to the around 1900s.
You have a guy named CharlesParham who comes along and he
said actually there's a thirdwork of grace, there's baptism
of the Holy Ghost and speakingin tongues, this is a third
(07:09):
thing.
This comes after you'reperfectly sanctified.
So that brings Pentecostalmovement, which you know has
many different branches of that.
But so what I grew up as wasindependent Pentecostal holiness
, so we retained that sort ofsecond doctrine of perfect
sanctification, and then we alsoadded on the Pentecostal
elements.
There are other branches of thetree that are holiness, that are
(07:32):
what are called conservativeholiness.
They have never accepted thePentecostal side, but they have
that second Second work of gracesanctification, you know, in an
instantaneous experience.
And then there are also variousPentecostal branches, like the
Apostolic oneness, that aremotorists and to my infinity,
and they are Holiness in somerespects so, and they actually
(07:52):
teach that you have to speak intongues in order to be saved.
But then that also brings it.
And so then they're, they'relike all kinds of little tiny
sub camps, like ones that teachOkay, this is free holiness, you
have to speak in tongues to besaved.
Once you speak in tongues, thenyou are perfectly sanctified
and if you ever sin again once,then you can never be saved past
(08:14):
that point, right.
So that's obviously a pretty.
It's pretty out there.
But you know, I visited thosechurches growing up.
They were in our circles,there's there.
They're very big.
So I grew up in this world, inthis movement in which the idea
was you didn't sin and, and youknow we would straw man, the,
(08:37):
the Baptist right.
And I had a friend who'sCatholic.
He's like you, didn't grow upbelieving Catholics were going
to heaven.
Right, I was like we didn'tbelieve Baptist were going to
heaven, but I we were on thelast bus to heaven.
So so that's that's how I grewup and we we would just you kind
(08:58):
of lived in terror of sin, butat the same time you redefined
sin in convenient ways.
You didn't you made mistakes,you, you know you.
You maybe had some issues, butit wasn't sin and sin, you know,
because sin the Christiansdon't sin again.
We would sort of straw man, Iwas saying the Baptist, and we'd
say, oh, the Baptist say yougot to sin a little every day,
(09:20):
but God's more powerful thanthat and you know we have the
truest truth and so, yeah,that's.
That's the environment I grewup in.
Of course, they added a lot ofother things to scripture and as
I, as I dug into scripture, IStarted to see that part of my
experience, and really myjourney out of that, was that I
(09:41):
was in a good Boy Scout troopand it was very Christian,
wasn't related to mydenomination, it was a bunch of
homeschoolers and it was.
Our troop motto was fromMatthew 514 You're the light of
the world.
A city, town on the hill cannotbe hid.
Our troop motto was be a light.
Our number was 514, right, sothere were some good Christians
that I was around and theirfaith was defined by what they
(10:03):
did.
And my faith was Defined by whatI did not do, and I was very
good at not doing the things Iwas not supposed to do, but one
of the ways you keep fromsinning is you don't put
yourself in any context otherthan you go to work or school
and you go to church, and you goto church many, many, many
times a week and then you go torevivals every quarter.
You just spend a lot of time inchurch and we didn't really
(10:26):
focus on sins of Omission, itwas just sins of commission.
Of course we had lots ofstandards to keep us from those.
So there was no TV, there wasno jewelry that you know.
Women didn't cut their hair,didn't wear pants, you didn't
wear shorts.
You know all lots of rules.
He had nice long list of rulesso you could be sure you didn't
sin.
You spent so much time inchurch.
You didn't have time anyways,and and that's how, how we live.
(10:50):
But when I started to meetpeople who were really on fire
for Christ, which Extendedfurther when I went to West
Point and fell in with a goodcrowd of folks who, again, their
faith was defined by what theydid, I said wow, these people
are breaking all of the rulesthey listen to.
You know Christian rock musicor secular music.
(11:10):
You know mind-blowingly awfulstuff, but at the same time it
was Jesus and they're expandingthe kingdom and I'm just trying
to stay out of trouble byfollowing a list of rules.
So that's some of the theexperience I had and then the
way I kind of grew out of that.
I don't know if I went farenough back for you.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, no, that was an incredible Insight into kind of
the roots of it.
That's.
That is the kind of contentthat people Need in their
podcast world.
I'm telling you that right nowthat's where I, where I go to
get my history lesson of theholiness movement is gonna be
you.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
We believed that we were just a part of the remnant
and there were Christians who'dalways believe what we believe.
When we taught church historyit's like, well, the apostles
believe what we believe, ofcourse.
And then we just kind ofclaimed random people in history
who we liked, oh, martin Luther, you know.
So they're all kind of in ourlineage.
We didn't get into the details,right, yeah.
But then when you, when you getout a little bit from these
(12:12):
movements, you start to meetpeople who were in the parallel
movements and you go wait asecond, you're a conservative
holiness, you had all the samestandards that we had, and yet
you didn't speak in tongues.
And so you, we, you know wehave totally different theology,
but we were both fullyconvinced around the last bus to
heaven oh, you're apostoliconeness.
Again different theology, butthere's so much similarity that
(12:36):
when you meet somebody we didthis so to my sister, and I have
ministry called Berean holinessto kind of help people out of
these movements.
And so we had a conference andjust brought people together is
probably about a hundred folks.
We had some main stage speakersand then we had people around
tables and you just have peoplefrom these different backgrounds
connect with each other and go,wow, I Thought we had all the
(12:57):
truth.
You were told the exact samething and in some things that
were not in our movementindependent fundamental Baptist
and Amish Mennonite you knowthere are things that aren't
quite in that precise tree, butthey still share the same traits
of legalism andauthoritarianism and and some
really unhealthy things yeah, sowhat?
Speaker 1 (13:19):
how would you describe what spiritual life
looked like before and thenafter you started kind of a
revived relationship with Jesusbased on grace and and what was
that Explain the difference inyour life from what it was
before to after?
(13:41):
And kind of, what was thespiritual side of inside you
that caused that change?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Well, one key aspect of our theology, too, is that we
were what I would call oncesaved, never saved.
And what I'm, what I'm human to, that is.
The thought was, hey, I could,you know, step out in front of a
bus and if I said a bad wordbefore the bus hit me, then I'm
(14:12):
not going to happen right.
And, of course, part of whatI've learned since is that,
again, the Bible defines sin inmore painful ways than I would
like.
So, you know, we had morelimited definition.
So you could, just as long asyou didn't say a bad word before
the bus hit you, you still havea chance.
But I said, I noticed, hey, theBible says it's a sin to be
(14:33):
ungrateful.
So what if, before the bus hitme, I was ungrateful, the bus
was about to hit me, right, thisis one saved, never saved,
which is?
I mean?
it's far beyond the idea that,okay, you know there's some
theological debate about otherany situations under which
somebody can give up theirsalvation, and you know it's
just a separate point, but wetook that to a hyper extreme,
(14:55):
okay.
So there's that level ofunhealth, the practical
outworking of that.
Again, if sin goes under therug, we don't talk about sin, we
definitely don't confess ourfaults to one another.
We maybe try to spend a lot oftime talking to God and hope
he'll forgive us for all, forthe things that we are aware
we've done.
So when I went through aprocess of moving past that,
(15:18):
realizing that a lot of therules that I was following
weren't protecting me anyways,you know they were guardrails
that weren't doing anything.
It's like the guardrail of notwearing a ring.
Okay, that's not doing anythingfor me spiritually other than
maybe giving me a little senseof pride, which is a sin.
So I had to lose the securityblanket of the legalistic
(15:41):
standards but at the same time,I was freed to know that my
salvation was in God's hands,and so I could put myself out
there in terms of beingvulnerable, in terms of
confessing, in terms of tryingto find opportunities for
service with others and putyourself in maybe more stressful
situations where you're morelikely to sin.
(16:02):
You know, in basic leadershipadvice, you always wanna give
your people freedom to fail.
Right, because if you as aleader, if people under you,
don't have the freedom to make amistake or fail, then they're
never gonna try anything.
And I think the same is truewhen you are held to a standard
of perfection you never tryanything, you never go out into
(16:26):
a situation that's gonna bestressful, and so forth.
So, really, the people who railagainst those who leave the
movements right, and there aremany very unpleasant things that
have been said about me on theinternet for the role that my
sister and I have played inhelping people out of these
movements but they're alwayssaying, well, you just want
(16:49):
freedom from these rules and youjust wanna go out and live any
way you want.
But that's not what it comesdown to Really.
Understanding grace and movingpast legalism is about freedom
too.
It's about freedom to live intothe fullness of the life that
God has called us to and liveinto the fullness of service.
Cause I used.
It was kind of funny and ironicas we were writing a lot of
(17:12):
early articles addressing someof these legalistic issues that
are really niche and nobody elseout there needs a 5,000 word
article about why women can wearpants, but, as it turns out,
that's now the most populararticle on the internet on the
topic.
Right, I'm looking out mywindow in a camper in Haiti back
in 2019 when I'm writing thesethings and I'm like you, really
(17:33):
think I left this movement sothat I can go live any way I
want and please the flesh Causeman.
I picked a dumb way to do it,but the reality is I picked a
great way to move from thestandards of man to trying to
live into the actual standardsof the new covenant.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah, I've heard it said and I say this all the time
that legalism, the people whoare struggle with legalism and
really employ a lot of legalism.
They think the other side islicentiousness right, that we
have a license to sin.
And so they look at people whoare licentious and say you know,
(18:16):
the solution here to yourproblems is more rules and the
licentious people.
You know they look at thelegalist people and say the
solution to your, you know youhave no fun.
So the solution to you is whydon't you sin a little?
Right?
And the reality is that neitherone of these are the correct
(18:37):
way and there are certainly notopposites in a way that you know
the solution for legalism isn'tlicentiousness, the solution to
the very licentiousness is notlegalism.
But there's another way that,if you kind of imagine going up,
you know the Holy Spirit is thesolution for licentiousness.
He, you know he says that he'llproduce righteousness in our
lives, but without the law.
(18:59):
You know we have died to thelaw, we are no longer under the
law but we're under grace.
So those Holy Spirit that graceprovides, produces
righteousness that the law couldnever even come close to
touching.
And furthermore, in this sideyou know the freedom that and
the grace and mercy that we need, as opposed to legalism, is
(19:22):
also provided by the Holy Spirit.
We're set free to have a lovingrelationship with God, kind of
like what you described where itwas.
It's a harsh thing to grow upin that kind of world.
I've also heard it said thatlegalism.
You know, the problem withlegalism is not that they see
(19:44):
the law too highly, it's thatthey see it too low.
They actually think that theycan achieve.
You know, and that is amisunderstanding of what the
meaning of the law is, and youdescribed that you would set up
these strong and argument youknow where, but when you
(20:05):
actually just look at what Jesussays about the law, when he
explains it, that if you evenlooked at a woman with lust,
you've committed adultery.
If you, you know, hatedsomebody, you're guilty of
murder.
Where he says you know the law.
You know we're judged by theintention, not only just the
actions and outward, but theactual intentions of our hearts
are still right on display andbeing judged by the law.
(20:27):
And the standard of the lawnever changes.
So what are we to do?
Cause we can never measure upto that standard.
So God gave us this newcovenant with a new way where he
, we die with him on the crossand we're lifted above this
standard.
And so the actual practicaloutworkings of our life, can you
(20:51):
know, look like we're keepingthe law.
But it's not.
It's love that comes out, it'sa fruitfulness.
Not, we're not trying to keepthe law anymore, but by nature
we kind of start to look likeour heavenly father through this
abiding relationship.
So those are the kind of thethings that rattled around in my
brain as you were talking aboutyour story.
(21:12):
What kind of thoughts are youhaving right now?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Well, I'm thinking you're absolutely right about us
holding the law in that youknow, unhealthy denomination in
too low a regard.
And the best example of this iswhen Jesus, you know, is
elaborating, expounding on thelaw and he's saying be perfect
as I am perfect.
Yeah, that's a high bar.
But we looked at that and wesaid he can't mean that Right.
(21:36):
Perfect has gotta mean likemature.
He can't.
It doesn't mean what he says,it means Right.
And then the craziest thing,thinking back on it, is we.
I heard someone at some pointsay well, jesus said unless your
righteousness exceeds that ofthe scribes and Pharisees, you
shall know why it's entering toheaven.
(21:57):
Of course we were King Jamesonly.
And then they said theircommentary on that was and you
know those scribes and Pharisees.
The Bible says they prayedthree times a day.
They fasted several times aweek.
If we're not doing that church,how do we think we are growing
to heaven?
And in retrospect it's like,wow, we missed the entire point.
(22:22):
My sister, I always kind of hada sense of this and so I faded
out of this.
I say I was the golden child inthe black sheep of the family
for a long time, as the goldenchild because I was at West
Point, I was the black sheepbecause I wasn't quite in the
fold.
But my sister believed thiswhole hearted and went full bore
into it and she said she hearda sermon at some point that she
(22:43):
needed to tithe her time.
So she started praying like twohours and 24 minutes a day
every day.
So because she had to tithe hertime.
I mean, all this led her justto misery, right until she
eventually came out of this aswell.
But I think about the OldCovenant, and while the New
Testament makes clear that grace, salvation was always through
(23:05):
faith, by faith, abraham and soforth, but it chooses to agree
that there were 613 commandmentsin the Old Covenant, it was for
a very static agrarian societythat you could prescribe not
quite all, but many of the rulesfor it.
It sort of worked.
But when you grow out of it andyou grow out of legalism, you
(23:27):
start to realize how, wow, theworld is much more complex now
and give you a for instance.
So obviously we believed intithing and tithing on the gross
right.
That was a legalistic standardand I've always kind of kept
with that, more or less a sortof force of habit, and I think
Christians are certainlycommanded to be generous in the
New Covenant.
(23:48):
But as I started to unpack thatstandard a little bit more
through a New Covenant lens andjust looking at the reality of
the world around me as arecreational economist which is
what I am I said wait a second.
When I worked in the army I kindof had a little of this in my
head I tithed on the gross and Ifelt proud of myself.
(24:08):
But when I left the army Irealized that I had a big health
care benefit in the army whichwas worth a lot of money that I
didn't tithe on.
And now that I'm, that was outof the army I realized, oh, now
I'm tithing on a bigger amountbecause I wasn't tithing on that
.
There's just a complexity there.
And then when I moved to Haiti,I was like huh, I just took and
(24:28):
this is no great thing topeople going to ministry I just
took a 60% pay cut.
Is that a sort of a tithe that Ijust made by giving up 60% of
my income to come work here fora couple of years?
And they just realized, oh,there's a lot more complexity.
So these sort of simple rulesabout what to do with the first
(24:50):
fruits of your harvest and your.
You know, in the old covenant,whatever it was, two or three
tithes a year, however many theydid, those don't work anymore.
So rather than try to figureout a new rule, we should just
lean into the principles thatwe're taught in the new covenant
, which is more than sufficientto guide our lives and to lead
us into all godliness and truth.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yeah, I've heard someone say it's almost as if
Paul, especially in the Paulineletters.
He says you know what, let'sjust take all the rules away and
you use this guide instead Dowhat's the most loving in any
moment, and that's a reallypowerful thing to think about.
(25:37):
Like God's like, I'm not goingto tell you what to do anymore,
I'm going to give you my son andyou need to connect with him
and get to know him, and thenyou get a kind of guiding
principle that's in the heartand it's much more powerful than
any rule could ever be.
(25:58):
You know, you mentioned whenJesus said be perfect, for your
father in heaven is perfect.
I always like to read thisversus Hebrew 718.
It says for, on the one hand,there is an annulling of the
former commandment because ofits weakness and
unprofitableness, for the lawmade nothing perfect but on the
(26:19):
other hand, there's a bringingin of a better hope through
which we draw near to God.
And it's kind of shocking forsomeone who's really legalistic
to hear the Bible call the lawweak and unprofitable, because
those are words we don't thinkof as being complementary.
But when you understand thepurpose of the law and that it
(26:42):
serves its purpose and it's verygood at what it's designed to
do, but if you try to use it forsomething it's not designed to
do, like save people or changepeople, then it's weak and
unprofitable, like you're notgoing to get a profit by
investing in lawkeeping efforts.
So I find that to be a goodcross reference to the.
(27:05):
You know, jesus said you got tobe perfect, but says in Hebrews
the law makes nothing perfect.
So what are we doing here?
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Well, and what's been challenging to me.
So when I left the sort ofhyper fundamentalist movement
that I was a part of, I didn'tleave with a big bang, I didn't
make fuss or argue with anybodyabout it.
But it wasn't until severalyears down the road when my
sister left and there was someinteresting story about that.
(27:32):
But basically she had kind ofgone fully down the rabbit hole
and gone to be the valedictorianof the best little school and
the movement and just realizedthere were no real answers.
The deeper she dug for realanswers she couldn't find them.
So finally she left and westarted talking about it and
writing about it.
(27:53):
But my thinking was sharpened inthat process because of course
we are writing to critics, weare writing to people who are
disagreeing with us, not afriendly crowd, and I realized
that the thing that kind of themainstream evangelical church
says is they go to the OldTestament law and they say well,
we can put categories on thelaw as civil, ceremonial and
(28:15):
moral, and we can pick throughand we can tell you which ones
are which.
Now there is universal moraltruth contained in the law and
the 10 commandments.
It reoccurs in the NewTestament.
That's how we know.
But I would argue there is noway to just look at a passage in
Deuteronomy and say, well, thisis the moral law, this is the
(28:35):
ceremonial law, withoutcross-referencing against what
the New Testament says.
And so really, theunderstanding that I didn't have
to go to the Old Covenant tofind truth, I could go to the
New Covenant to find truth andgo to the Old Covenant to
expound upon it, to understandthe backstory and more about
character of God and so forth,just really helpful.
(28:58):
And I think people who justopen up the Book of Deuteronomy
and say I'm going to figure outwhat in here applies to my life
are doing so at their peril andthey're missing out on some
pretty important backgroundinformation.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah, I was talking to a really good friend of mine
who's Jewish but he's born againnow, but he was like we were
talking about this very subjectand he's like I don't get why
Gentiles would ever want to beunder the law.
He's like do you not see themess that our family is?
(29:34):
He's referring to his Jewishbrothers and sisters.
He's like this is not somethingthat you want to be a part of.
Guys, we didn't do good.
We've never had life from thisexperience of being under the
law and Roman says the Gentilesweren't under the law ever.
(29:54):
They had a conscience.
So, yes, the laws principle,especially the moral laws
principle, still applied intheir life, but it's not like
they had pictures of the TenCommandments hanging up Gentiles
and yet God still had a plan tosave and redeem all of us.
And so, yeah, why bringsomething into this plan of
(30:16):
salvation that doesn't need tobe there?
Very, very interesting.
All right, so tell us moreabout Haiti.
How did you end up in Haiti?
What was it like to be in Haiti?
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Well, you know, thinking back on how we ended up
in it.
So when I was in the Army, ithad a good experience there, but
at the same time, I realizedpretty quickly that the Army was
set up so that nobody can breakit, which also means nobody can
change it.
So if you're a change agent,like I am, it's not a great
place for you long term, becauseyou'd figure out a solution to
a problem you know and you'd say, okay, can we implement this?
(30:57):
And the answer would be no, weneed an act of Congress to
implement that.
We literally need an act ofCongress to make that change.
Okay, moving on.
So I really wanted to be abigger part of a smaller
organization.
I wanted to go serve God'skingdom in a place and in a way
where, thinking with myeconomist hat on well, if I want
(31:17):
to make the biggest difference,why don't I just go somewhere
where people aren't lining up togo, either for pay reasons or
danger, or whatever the case is?
So that thought process led useventually to Haiti, where we
served with the ministry I'mstill involved with on the board
.
My wife still works part-timefor them, but their network of
(31:39):
churches and schools and HaitianAmerican Run very
Haitian-centric organization,Global Visionist, at Omenistries
.
We've got about 200 Haitians onstaff and about five Americans
part-time, and we were the onlytwo Americans that were down in
country.
We weren't there all the time,but we didn't live anywhere else
anyway, so we were either onthe road connecting with folks
(31:59):
like you and talking about theministry, or we were in there
serving.
It was very eye-opening in someways.
In retrospect, I also questionand I think we should probably
always all question our motives,but there's probably some part
(32:20):
of me that's still trying toearn my salvation.
If I'm being honest with you, Istill probably have some what
my wife calls holiness hang-ups.
So I've been trying to say God,okay, I want to serve you, I
want to be invested in thesuccess of God's kingdom.
I don't just want to have theAmerican dream and then go to
(32:42):
church on Sunday and sort oflive that dualistic life, but at
the same time, I also don'twant to be just doing hard
things for the point of well,maybe God will love me more if I
do hard things, and I don'tthink that was my full
motivation to go to Haiti, butit's probably somewhere in the
background too.
But what we saw on the ground isthe Haitian church is just very
(33:06):
much like the early church inall the good and bad ways.
So they have the zeal and alsothe ignorance, and we saw
several pastors conferenceswhile we were down there.
We helped to find pastors forthem, fund them, and so we'd
bring an American pastor downand connect that pastor with our
70 or so Haitian pastors whohad come in from all over the
(33:27):
country and come and listen to afew days of teaching translated
, and have some opportunity tobond with each other.
And really your pastor'sconference that you thought you
taught was transformative andthe superintendent told us and
I'm sure we passed it along toyou at the time this is some of
the most amazing content we'veever heard, because the dynamic
(33:50):
spiritually is again a lot ofzeal, a lot of fervor, a lot of
fear from voodoo and otherthings.
So people could come into achurch, be delivered, be saved,
be set free, and then a pastorsays oh no, I just had 45 people
that got saved in this revivaland they're ignorant and they're
syncretistic and they're mixingvoodoo with Christianity and
(34:14):
I've got to set some rules upquick because I don't have time
to disciple them, so we've got ashort circuit the discipleship
process.
And having grown up in anenvironment where the
discipleship process was shortcircuited, the problem is
legalism is just not a goodshortcut to discipleship.
So we've had conversations withpeople who've left hyper
(34:39):
fundamentalist movements andthey said, oh well, our church
started allowing TVs.
And then the conversationimmediately went to well, how
big can the TV be?
Can it be in your living room?
Is it better if it stays putaway?
But then you take it out.
But you know what theconversation didn't go to what
content is on the TV?
(35:00):
So these folks that in theirnew liberty they'd be watching a
bunch of R rated movies and notthink a thing about it.
No real thought going into that.
But they were thinking aboutthe dimensions of the TV because
they hadn't been discipled.
They didn't know how to thinklike Christians, they just knew
how to think like rule follows.
Well, the same thing can happenin a place like Haiti, and I
(35:25):
remember the kind of funnycrossover a pastor I know from a
hyper fundamentalist church.
He posted on Facebook aroundthe time it was a picture of a
sign, some instructions outsidea church door in the Philippines
.
So, developing world contextand it was just a list of rules.
No one coming in here withsandals on or with showing their
(35:46):
shoulders or anything like that, Right, so just a list of rules
.
And he was making the point infavor of it like, wow, overseas,
they really have it figured out.
You know, they're reallyenforcing truth over there,
which we could get to thatstandard in America, but me,
knowing all the things that Iknow, just like.
No, that system is broken, yoursystem is broken, and what we
(36:08):
need is the new covenant, andthat's actually the right answer
to this death.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Oh man, you have seen some stuff you know I get.
You know.
Basically the hardest I getpushed back is when someone says
you give too much grace, youtalk about grace too much.
If you talk about grace so much, people are just going to take
advantage of it and they're justgoing to live lazy lives, which
(36:37):
there's many, many answers forthat, the number one being man
living by grace is the mostexciting active life that I have
ever experienced, because it'slike actively diving into the
life of Jesus Christ every day.
Now, is it self-sourced and isit self-started and is it?
(36:59):
You know, do I have to do it bymy flesh?
No, it's not self-life, butit's me participating in the
life of Christ and diving intothat.
There's nothing more excitingor energizing than that
experience ever in my life,diving into his active, risen,
(37:20):
resurrection life is nothing,you know.
I talk to people and sometimesthey describe their relationship
and it just it seems likethey're happy or proud about
talking about a dead Messiah, adead savior, like he's, like
it's like he's still hanging onthe cross for them.
(37:40):
And it just blows my mindbecause in my mind, jesus is
risen, he's in heaven, he'sparticipating with us, like he's
very active and he said hewould build his church.
So he's building his church,he's building me, and all by his
Holy Spirit.
It's just like so muchlivingness as opposed to it's
(38:04):
dead.
I go to church on Sunday toremember his dead body on a
cross and I'm like, wow, I don'tjust get that anymore.
Like it's like life is just sodifferent once you've kind of
seen the resurrection life inits reality.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Well, and you know I'm thinking back to really what
I've been learning recently andsome of it was very much
sparked by reading your book.
So I became secure in mysalvation over a decade ago as I
left this and realize, oh no,I'm saved by grace and God has
me Right.
So that that was transformative.
(38:45):
What I've just started to havea dawning realization of is what
you emphasize in your book,that I'm also sanctified by
grace.
So I actually just had a localrescue mission.
I did a morning devotional forthe staff and volunteers and I
taught on this topic sanctifiedby grace and just kind of unpack
(39:07):
a little bit of my journey andhow I opened the audience with
this question.
I said just think about thisfor a second.
If somebody comes to you who'sa believer and says they're
struggling with some kind of sin, they want to overcome it.
They're struggling.
Think about what your advice tothem would be.
They want advice.
And then I circled back to itlater and I said you know, if
(39:28):
your advice is like mine, it's awell smart goals and boundaries
and read your Bible more andChristian disciplines and that's
all good stuff.
But that presupposes that youcan overcome sin through your
effort.
And we have to realize thatwe're sanctified by grace.
Of course there are a lot ofgreat passages that you brought
out in your book to that effect.
(39:49):
And then that also gives us acertain freedom because I can
look at my sin, which I canacknowledge exists now I don't
have to hide it under a ruganymore and I can say that's
God's problem, I'm his child andthat's his problem.
And I'm invested in overcomingthat, because sin is death, it's
(40:13):
destruction, it hurts everybody, it hurts me, it hurts the
people around me.
So, yeah, I want to get overthat, but I don't have to bear
it as a burden.
And if you've ever fought aforest fire which I've fought a
few of my property, don't askabout how there ended up being
several forest fires on myproperty.
I grew up in the country.
Okay, it's just one of the mostfear inducing things in the
(40:38):
panic inducing experiences asyou're running around with a
shovel or a bucket or whateverand there are just fires
everywhere.
I've got to put this one up.
I've got to put that one out.
And if you're aware of the sinin your own life and you're
taking that approach to it oh no, everything's on fire, I've got
to go put it out.
It's just a terrible way tolive.
(41:00):
But if you understand that Godhas this whole thing under
control and I'm going to standhere by this little burning
patch and I'm going to take mytime and I'm going to beat this
thing with a shovel for a whileand get it good and dead, and
then I'm going to mosey on overto that next fire and I'm going
to start working on that throughthe power of the Holy.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Spirit.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
That's a very different approach, and it's
just so, and it's just soliberating to know that God is
not only taking care of mysalvation, but also my
sanctification.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Beautiful man, beautiful.
Thank you for those kind words.
For sure I always love hearingwhen my book has made an impact
in somebody, because it wassomething I learned at college
from Bob Hoekstra, an amazinggrace guy that transformed my
life, and my goal is just to seethat same freedom and
transformation in whoever I getto minister to.
(41:55):
So that's really cool.
I think it was kind of the lastlittle nugget that was in my
head is you add laws on thepeople's life.
It doesn't stop sin.
You take laws away.
It doesn't stop sin.
(42:15):
You add grace to people's lifeand there can be victory over
sin.
So if you're going to sineither way, if people are going
to sin, then why don't we bepeople of grace who look to the
Lord, place our confidence inJesus, call upon him, depend
upon him and encourage eachother to trust in grace?
(42:39):
That's kind of the last littlenugget I have is like adding
rules into anyone's life hasnever stopped sin.
How many rules does themilitary have?
Many, many books have them, anddoes it ever change someone's
heart?
Does anyone follow those ruleswith all their heart?
(43:00):
No, I can't say that they do,and it's the same with every
rule.
It's not just God's rules, justrules in general.
Don't have the power to deliverus.
Well, nathan, it's been trulyan honor and a joy to get to
know you a little bit more.
My streak of Nathan's is goingstrong, so we'll see how many
(43:22):
more I can get in.
Any final thoughts about thenew covenant that you'd like to
kind of bring out.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Yeah, just one more thing that has been really
powerful to me.
So I picked this up from thebook the You're Only Human,
which is about the theology ofhuman finitude and he talks
about.
The author, kelly Capich talksabout how we don't have a good
understanding of the limits ofcreatureliness that are good
(43:54):
limits that God created in us,right?
The fact that we need sleep andso forth that are not results
of the fall, they're justresults of the way God made us.
One of the manifestations thathe talks a lot about Grace in
there too is, he says, a childlearns to walk through a process
that is really kind of apainful and slow process, but
you as a parent do not get madat your child when they stumble
(44:17):
and fall.
And even if your child is simpleand at this point in my life I
now have a two year old daughterand objectively I would not be
her friend in real life if shewasn't my child right, she's not
, she's not.
Somebody contributes a lot inthe sort of objective way that
she would look to an adultfriend to do, and she does all
(44:37):
kinds of bad things and I notonly love her but I like her.
She's great, she's the bestthing since sliced bread in my
eyes and realizing that I am nota better father than God and
that means that, even though Ido things that are as dumb as my
two year old, god not onlyloves me, but he actually does
(45:00):
like me too, and he chose thisslow and painful process for my
growth and maturity and he couldhave snapped his fingers.
And the moment I accepted himmade me perfect, like my
theology taught for years that Iwas, even though I knew it was
wrong.
Right, just that realizationI'm not a better father than God
and he really likes me.
(45:22):
It's been very powerful in myown life.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Wow, I think that that really confronts shame in
our lives.
You know, there's so many of usthat really struggle with shame
, that really struggle with ouridentity, and that really just
speaks into that Like there's noshame with God, like he knows
everything about you.
(45:46):
He agreed to save you when youwere a big, hot, steaming pile,
and his expectation was that hehad the grace he has much more
grace than you could ever needand of his fullness we have all
received grace upon grace upongrace.
So I think that's a wonderfulencouragement for all of us.
(46:07):
So, thank you, nathan.
If people want to hear moreabout your organizations, where
can they find that out?
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Yeah.
So if you're interested in sortof helping folks out of hyper
fundamentalism beryanholinesscomyou can learn more there Lots
of social media accounts.
If you're interested in helpwith your church or charity
running more empowering programsto people in poverty
trucharityus we've got lots ofgreat resources for you there as
well.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Awesome.
Thank you, Nathan.
We'll end it there.
Have a good one.
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