Empowering Young Messengers: Sharing the Gospel with the Next Generation

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Very simply put, we have a strategy to reach the
next generation for Jesus and it's on a on a
global level.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Now, hey, guys, thank you for joining us on stuff
God never said. Episode three Today with Today with Us
is Joey Prophet. He is a good friend of mine.
When we worked in church ministry together, I used to

(00:31):
say that he I would joke, but was I really joking.
I would joke that he was my mentor, my mentor,
Joey discipleship master.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Just master guru any of those times.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yes, really helpful under you Just you're so good with
discipleship and it comes naturally because you grew up being discipled.
But we'll get into all that. But I'm just so
glad that you're here and that you've agreed to share
some of your in with us, because who doesn't need
to know more about discipleship and what God says about it?

(01:07):
So tell us who you are, what you do, How
great it is that you're here.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
All great, so great, all the things. But we've known
each other for about seven years on staff together at
a church. But my name, of course is Joey Prophet.
But right now I got a really fancy title. But
Of course, in ministry titles don't mean very much. It
just means that you have a lot of people you support,
which is an honor. But I'm the executive director of

(01:36):
a ministry called First Priority Global, and very simply put,
we have a strategy to reach the next generation for Jesus,
and it's on a global level now because they're statistically
there are two billion people, two billion young people in
the world that really have zero opportunity to hear about Jesus.

(01:59):
The numbers are staggering. Even you know, I've looked at
our experience in America and you go, the experience of
the life we've had, the percentage, the prosperity, those things
is such a tiny little picture of what life looks
like on this earth. And that you know, to see
the heart of God, to walk into other nations and

(02:22):
see young people that the heart of God is for them.
But very clearly in his plan he has sent us
out his children as messengers of the gospel. And so
really our solution to reach the next generation, what we've
been called and shown by God is that we are
going to equip the local church in these places leaders

(02:45):
that he has raised up and and and brought to
us and just brilliant, passionate called people of God, and
we're going to help partner with them and equip them
with the things he's taught us on how to reach
the next generation in their community. And our other unionness
is who are the best messengers of the gospel to

(03:07):
a younger generation?

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Who are they?

Speaker 3 (03:09):
Joey, the next generation?

Speaker 1 (03:12):
We always say that the best messenger of the Gospel
to a fifteen year old is another fifteen year old,
and we have seen that played out over and over again.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
I want to tell you a quick story. I think
that just sums it up.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Got a message from one of our partners in Me
and Mar. So this guy's name is all y'all. Yet
they have the best names ever.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Oh my gosh, could you say that one more time?

Speaker 3 (03:33):
All y'all yet?

Speaker 1 (03:34):
I don't even know if we make that public, but
yes we can. But he sent us this story that
something that had just happened. He's got a teacher that
he just trained at the seminary, and he sent this
teacher out to a different part of Me and Mar
to teach in a school. But is equipped for ministry
and doing first priority. But when he tells his story

(03:57):
of how he got reached. It was only like two
years ago, I mean less than two years. And he
was a strong Buddhist growing up in me and mar
had never met a Christian. And he met a thirteen
year old out on the street. He met a thirty
so he's in his twenties, early twenties. He met a
thirteen year old, and he said, I just saw this

(04:20):
life and confidence in them. I begin to talk to
a thirteen year old. He said, he was amazed about
just his view on life, his hopefulness for the future.
And he goes, and I had none of that because
of his worldview, and he said, I started asking this
young person. This young person was telling him about Jesus.
A thirteen year old. It's hard to picture that unless

(04:42):
you've seen it. But he comes back with this story.
And so the thirteen year old starts telling about Jesus
and he says, hey, let me introduce you to doctor
Mark no yo Yet that's his American name is let
me introduce you to na Ya Yet goes. They share
the Gospel with him, and so over this past year
has become a believer. And not only that is going

(05:03):
to be sent out to be able to proclaim the
gospel in these communities, right, and so you go a
thirteen year old. So we've just seen the evidence over
and over again that if the Church here, there and
everywhere is willing to equip the next generation, that that's
the same thing that Jesus saw when Jesus got sent

(05:24):
on a mission by his father to proclaim this gospel
the kingdom of the whole world. The first thing you
started was a youth group. He grabbed a bunch of
young guys and said, Okay, I'm create in you and
that's discipleship that I'm going to create in me. You
and you're still young enough where you can change and
you have you know, obviously we know Peter had a

(05:46):
family to step away from, but yeah, his other grabbed
these young men, grabbed this youth group, and to see
that that was even Jesus's plan, Yeah, to use the
next generation to reach a whole new generation. So we
just we feel so honored by the people the Lord
has has shown us and allow us to work with.
We always say that we get to work for our heroes. Yeah,

(06:08):
so we're engaging now in about eighty different nations, incredible
leaders that God has has reached and raised, and then
we get to help equip and partner with to go
and have a plan of how do you reach the
next generation in your community.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah, and what's that look like in America?

Speaker 3 (06:26):
So America?

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah, so a first party historically in America has been
around since about it started about since the time I
was born. My father is the founder, so of course
I'm I'm an insider for it. Amazing, But it was
in the States. It was around us schools. Our young
people are in our schools and they're they're not coming
into our churches. It's funny that even forty years ago

(06:50):
they were saying the same things now like, hey, the
young people, they don't just walk into our churches. We're
going to have to go to them. And so we
saw that in our communities young people they all go
to the schools. And its course it's different now with
these different homeschool movements and they're great in private.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
School movements, but still.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
But still you know in our community that's there, they're
going there every day. So can we equip can the
local church equip our young people to go to be
ministers and messengers of the gospel? To their friends and
in simple and simple ways of the things that Jesus did,
looking at people showing mercy and forgiveness and compassion. And

(07:30):
we see just amazing stories happening in cities all across
the US. There's about almost eleven hundred First Priority schools
in America.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Eleven hundred. Yeah, I did not know that.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
You're gonna have to fix that. Oh and yeah, eleven hundred.
I'm making sure I'm not saying eleven thousand. I want
to be I always try to be accurate, but there's
about eleven hundred around the US, and we're thrilled. We
see stories every single month. But you take a community
like in in Decatur, Alabama. Again, here's a community and

(08:07):
last year they had over eight hundred kids come to
Christ and they go, how does that happen? We go,
We send our young people in the schools and we
share the gospel, and the gospel works.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
It's a gospel does work.

Speaker 3 (08:19):
And it's compelling.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
It's important, and it's important to say, and it's.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Compelling when young people share it with their friends and
they go, how does that happen? We go, we just
try to do Jesus things. Yeah, And we go there,
tried and true and they work.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yes, and especially sharing Jesus accurately and truthfully, which you
just inspired me, as a homeschool mom to start a
homeschool first priority group. So thank you for that.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
You have so many statistics and numbers and all the
things in your head, and I've learned so much of
that from you. One thing that you have told me
that stood out to me and is ingrained forever in
my head about what happens to a child at age thirteen? Yes,
can you expand on that a little bit?

Speaker 1 (09:04):
So youth ministry, I think even for the past, my
entire life. In the past, there was a statistic that
came out in like the nineteen fifties or sixties that
basically said, and I think everybody's heard a version of it,
that if people are reached with the Gospel, it's before
the age of eighteen. So we kind of heard like, oh,
if you're going to reach him, you have to do
it by eighteen. Majority of people come to Christ do

(09:26):
before eighteen, And that has kind of fueled youth ministry,
and not only in America but in the world. Yeah,
but here is this time where their hearts are not
as closed. They're still open and you know, with influence
and relationship. But there was another statistic that the Barna group,
who was you know, they do all the statistics and
they're they're incredible, but they came up with another statistic.

(09:49):
When I heard it, it just haunted me. And you
can see how true it is even based on our experiences.
But basically, the summation came back is what a kid
believes by the time they turn thirteen is what they'll
die believing that your basic worldview is set at age thirteen.
And and we kind of we can see that to

(10:10):
be true within not only our experiences, but we know
how formative those years of a child is.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
Very quickly.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
You know, you know what a bar mitzvah and bot
mitzvah are you know, so the Jewish community has been
operating under the same assumption for thirteen thousands of years.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
So again, this twelve or thirteen year old has their
bar mitzvah and the girls have a bot mitzvah in
which they are accountable to the law of God themselves. Yeah,
and so they even view that this is not a
child anymore. They are now accountable to follow the laws
of God themselves. So again it's not a new idea.
You can see it affirmed even in these traditions.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
Wow, that's that's true. I didn't think about that with
the bar mitzvah and the butt mitzvah.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, and so you had this a stat like that,
and again it's haunting you look and you say, how
formative for these years, that basically their worldview is going
to be mostly set by this age of thirteen.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
It really is.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
It drove me towards children's ministry. I was a youth
pastor since I was nineteen years old. Maybe not a
very good one, but called and loved it. But really
what drew me to children's ministry was a lot was
this was this stat is going that these are the
formative years. I would love to be part of the

(11:36):
spiritual formation of young people, not necessarily only the rescuing
and the kind of knocking out of these wrong beliefs
in their worldview.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah. Yeah, And you are a fantastic children's minister pastor, guy, dude,
whatever you want to say, Yes, you're just it is.
It's amazing how fun and honest and true you teach
the word to children. And I have I have learned
a lot about that from you, where it's like these kids,

(12:10):
you don't understand all the things they can understand. We
had orientation for our for our homeschool tutorial last night,
and I was telling someone who's teaching Bible with me
that last year I went through the Bible with kindergarten
first second grade. I went through Genesis to Revelation in
the year ten thousand foot of view, just essentially saying, hey,

(12:33):
these are some of the stories, and these are some
of the things that like the things we see repetitively,
like God is saying this again. Oh he said he
did this back here, like there's a theme he's chasing
after his children. He's it's it's one story. It's not
just a million little stories that like aren't related. And

(12:54):
when I uh did the end of year review with
five and six year olds, we did this like pictionary
review game of every story in the Bible, from not
every story obviously, but like the big ones, how they
tied together, from Creation to the Fall, to abram to
like all all of it, all the way through Jesus coming, dying,

(13:19):
being raised again, all the things and every single pictionary
thing I drew every single one. The kids knew exactly
what story it was. They knew the names, they knew
when it happened, they knew, yes, like they remembered. They remember,
and they were complex. I mean, of course they simplified them,
but they it was the truth. It was the real,
actual story at a five year old, six year old level.

(13:41):
But they remembered the first week. On the last week,
they remember the first week and the third and fourth
and fifth.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
Yes, And what I love that they care. They care,
so they care.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
You come in and you teach them from the Word
of God and obviously use your giftings and creativity and
uh and and be able to put thing in terms
that they can understand, which I've found is what adults
need as well. It's not that different that we have
all these words we love to throw around, righteousness and
all these and you go, give me a definition of that.

(14:13):
And people, even adults are like good stuff. I understand it,
but for a definition. So we were doing the same thing.
You know, with kids, if you define things and give
them context and clarity through God's word, they go, I'm in,
they vote, I'm me in. And one of the things
I love is even in a local church context. The

(14:34):
kids are like, that's what we're here for. Like they
get that more than I think even teens and adults.
Like that's what we came here for. Like that, that's
what you do as a as a community of believers,
we learn God's word. So when you get that buy
in point where they go, that's what we're here. They're
open to be taught, and they care and their minds

(14:58):
are designed this age to believe these things that are
true and that they're placed in their hearts.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, and that innocence there is so it's so it's
so cute.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
I'm just so sid I want to make this story
so quick. But again a story. I was blown away.
I had this one teaching Sunday that I was transitioning
between serieses and I was talking about the h the
Second Temple where they came. They built the second Temple,
and but it wasn't like when they dedicated the first.
So they fired did not come down from heaven. All

(15:31):
the old people are like, I remember the old one.
I liked it better. Yeah, And so you know, one
of the deep truths is that they say the spirit
of God had not returned to the temple in the
same way. This in the same way when I was
transitioning into our Easter series in which we were taught,
it's like, okay, let's go from this. I want to
make sure you know connect and time and place. And

(15:52):
we transitioned into the triumphal entry because we're heading towards Easter.
And a kid raises their hand, second grader, I mean
a baby, a baby guy. He goes, Oh, I get it.
The Spirit of God had finally returned to the temple.
I went, I went. The flesh and blood did not

(16:14):
teach you that. Yeah, and you go, a child, they
saw this that here is Christ then coming and going
to the temple, and here is God's presence returning, and
so just blown away, blown away by even also how
the spirit is the real teacher. Yeah, oh, honey, goes,
So we use these methods and these giftings, but you

(16:35):
go out, Holy Spirit. I would rather you teach these
kids and me any day. I'm amazing.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah, that's incredible. It's amazing how they have these like
incredible mic drop moments and you're like sometimes I'm like, oh,
I didn't even put that together. Yeah that's that's yeah,
just incredible. And then all other times okay, and then
other times you realize oh, oh, oh, that's what you

(17:01):
thought I said, or or just how kids are incredible
observers and terrible interpreters a lot of times where just
trying to tackle a topic you think is like so
cut and dry. Yes, like my daughter, I'm trying to
teach her. We're just entering the age where more complex
ideas are coming to mind and understand, and so it's

(17:24):
just the conversations are getting bigger. She's six years old,
and she's like, she just thinks, you know, I'm trying
to help her navigate that the enemy of God doesn't
always look like the enemy of God. He's not always scary,
he's not always mean, it's not always ugly. Sometimes he
likes to trick us with beautiful things and things that
look really good. Yes, yes, totally. And she's like, okay,

(17:48):
so I thought everything from everything ugly and bad was
from the enemy of God, but it's actually everything good
is from and pretty is from the enemy of God.
And I was like, no, not that, not that either.
It's just he wants to trick you by thinking it's
really great, but it's actually not. She's like, great, can

(18:10):
you tell me when that's happening. Yes, I was like,
we'll keep Morgan on it.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
Sists, and we didn't plan one of the things. And
so you take that same principle right there. And so
what here's one of the things that I very purposely
do with children, because they are they're concrete thinkers and
they're literal thinkers, and that is the strength of their learning.
But the weakness, of course, is this type of interpretive

(18:36):
or abstract thinking. And so with teenagers and adults, you
go to the abstract. I always say, like, you try
to sneak the messages in the back door. You almost
want to like them to think. I thought of that myself,
or I came to that conclusion along with you. But kids,
you tell them what's true and they believe you. And
so most of my ministry people go, how do you

(18:57):
communicate to well with kids?

Speaker 3 (18:59):
And I go, because.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
God designed them to hear truth, and this goes back
to family, from a loving mother and father, and especially
a father. I go, So here I am in this
stage of my life with kids, these age and I go,
I speak to them like a loving father and guess what,
No surprise, they listen to me, and they believe me,
and it's internalized as truth, and so it then becomes

(19:22):
if they're this formative, then it is a very it's
a heavy, special responsibility to teach children because what you
teach them they will believe as truth. But the thing
I learned how to do is I love you know,
we love using images and media and things to teach
kids because they're so strong visually. But one of the

(19:42):
things I learned very quickly is if you're going to
teach them, I would always say, let's teach the story first.
Let's teach the scripture first, and read it first for
what it says, so again going back to truth, and
then we'll watch the video, because if you watch the
video first, they will then test the scripture towards what

(20:02):
they saw.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah, and they will.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
They will lock in on some of the things that
are irrelevant, the color of someone's hair, the expression on
their face. And so I remember this awesome Sunday where
we talked about Daniel, even Daniel and the lions, and
the scripture does not tell us if he will walk
in there very proudly and brave, Oh, the God's going

(20:25):
to protect me, or if he went in there and
he was terrified all night. The scripture does not say it. Actually,
that story is from the reference of the King, of
him running down and to make sure, I hope he's
not dead because he's favored by God and I. So
we said that and go, how different does the story feel?

Speaker 3 (20:42):
Though?

Speaker 1 (20:42):
If you're looking at a video of like or he
walks in and like, oh, I just sit down with
the lions and fearless. You go, But that's not in
the scripture.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
It doesn't. It doesn't tell us that. And so you go.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
Sometimes showing the video first it will make it about that.
Oh the moral of the stories, Oh I walk in fearless. Yeah,
I walk in. I'm scared, but God still took care
of me.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
You go.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
The scripture did not make that the key to the story,
but the videos, because you view it, it does.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
So what we did was we read the passion of
the scripture. Then we watched two different videos and I said,
which which one see which one of these? Asked them
which one of these was more accurate to the Bible. Yeah,
So it was like, it's understanding that that's where they're at.
And to me, I was like, well, that's how you
make it interesting. Let's let God's word be truth. Let's

(21:34):
let these videos and say how accurately do they portray
what's in God's word?

Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yeah? I love that. Yeah that's so.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
Good, so simple once you think about it. But you go, oh,
throw the video on. They'll like that. They don't want
to read God's word, they want to watch the video. Yeah,
And I was like, guys, there may be a better
way to think about this, depending on you know, their
ages and how they learn.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
Yeah, that's so good. Okay. Another haunting statistic that this
one might be worse than the first one is the
two hours a day. Oh, that's about the two hours
a day.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
So I don't I honestly, I don't know when this
kind of popped into my head.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
So this is your own, like your own. You just
did the map on this. That makes sense. So one
this came from one one line of thinking. We're thinking
about money and how right now culturally we're looking at
like the government spending trillions of dollars, And honestly, I say,
we have no idea how much money a trillion dollars is.

(22:39):
Like I'm telling you, your mind cannot wrap around how
much a trillion is.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
So I always tell my kids. If you were born
and as soon as you learn to talk, you tried
to count to a billion, you wouldn't be able to
finish in your life, in your whole life, you cannot.
It's it's impossible in your life to count to a billion.
If you tried to count to a trillion all of

(23:07):
recorded history, if the first person started counting got all things,
we wouldn't even be halfway.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
Thirty.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
So if thirty a trillion, a trillion is thirty two
thousand years. So a trillion seconds is thirty two thousand years.
So I go, guys, we can't even think about these
kind of numbers, the decisions we try to make with
these amount of moneys, their concepts, they're not concrete.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah, that honestly impresses me that we're in that much
set right.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
It's terrifying. It's it's ideological. It's not like, I know,
it's real money. But it's like, guys, we're thinking about
things that are I'm not even sure we can grasp
even how much a trillion is. But it came back
and started me thinking about time, and so I was
looking at how you know, you everyone and parents. We

(24:03):
feel guilty about screen time and tablets and TV and
all those things, and each generation did it. You know,
we came home and watched TV. I was watching Wings
before dinner in my Wings fans out there watching Wings
and all these things, and every generation is like, oh,
what's a waste of time? What's a good use of time?

(24:23):
But then it came back to this math thinking. It's terrifying.
So what you spend two hours a day doing so
on average, if you spend two hours doing something a day,
you have spent one month of your year doing that.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
I don't like.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
It's pure math.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
So now you take those people look at your phone
and you say, oh, look, screen time is and you
now you look at the public stats of kids and
even us gaming looking at screens and social media those things,
and I go, if the average is two hours, you
have one month of your year doing that. And what

(25:03):
makes it more terrifying is you were going to sleep
five months out of your year, So you're going to
sleep five months this year, so almost half of your
years just you're your sleep sleeping and you're waking hours.
If you do something for two hours on average, you've
spent an entire month doing that. It makes it haunts
it haunts me.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, I mean that is that really I feel like
that really quantifies our priorities for us, Like two hours
a day, I feel like the I mean, I don't know,
I don't I don't know, but I feel like two
hours a day scrolling for the average adult, it's very normal.

(25:46):
Is not uncommon, not uncommon at all.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
And we you know, we I know, we go through
lives and there's whether it's managing stress or you get
home and you're tired, or that's your downtime and you
refocus time. But it is one of those things that
you go if at the beginning, you'd say, hey, how
do you want to spend a month of your year
with your face looking at your phone? Would you like
to spend one month of this year.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
And after after your five months sleeping.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
Right, nobody would say yes, YEA like to plan that out.
Nobody would say yes to everyone was so absolutely not.
I don't want to do that. Yeah, but that's that's
just the realities we live in. So it's honestly, it's
not to feel guilty, but it's just one of these
like kind of reminders.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
I mean, that's just pure math.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah, it's just it's just math, but it's it's haunting,
it does it It lets us things like that helps
us understand and kind of take our take our time
and our thoughts, you know, captive to say, hey, our
lives are very purposeful or they're not at all. And
I think that's as millennials, I think that that has

(26:50):
been one of the things that we've been really focused
on is I want to be very intentional about my parenting,
my my work, home balance, it's the important things in
my life. I want to be intentional about those things.
But then you go, I'm not sure I know what
to do and how to do. It makes me think

(27:12):
about even some of the concepts that you've brought up
with this, you know, with this podcast and these ideas.
Here's a thought I typically have is with with our generation,
I think we from everything I've seen, a very intentional generation,
like I want to I want to look at what
my kids eat, what they watch, the things that are

(27:34):
coming at them, even the stuff they play with and
who they play with. We want to be very intentional.
And I even think when it comes to discipleship, they go, man,
I want to be a disciple or my kid, and
so those the movements of the church and the biblical
things that the primary discipler of a child is their parents,
Like we've taken them and go, I'm for that.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
I'm in. I'm really I'm in for that.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
I think the challenge has been is we say I
have the desire to do that, but it wasn't modeled
for me.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
I don't know if I know what to do.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
So then you say, you see the options we have
with the social media's and things with just a million
different ideas, and you go, I'm supposed to parse through
all of this and choose different ones, and like, oh, well,
these ones are true, and these are ones true, I'll
try these, and we are just inundated with information and

(28:29):
we go, I'm not sure because because this thing may
not have been modeled for me, a healthy home or
healthy parenting, and so I have the desire to do it.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
Yeah I've never seen it. I think.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yeah, that can be really tricky, I feel like, especially
with I mean, it's another you know, social media overall
is so bittersweet, like you can find anything that you
want to know about and you can see someone trying
it or doing it or whatever. But on the flips
I see so much like so many advertarises of never

(29:07):
say this to your child, never do this, Oh, don't
make them feel this way, no matter what, parent this way,
gentle parenting connective, like so many choices of things and
so much parent shaming. I feel like of, yes, if
you homeschool, your kids missing out on this. If you
do public school, your kids missing out on this. If
you you know, if you punish your child or make

(29:30):
them feel bad about themselves for making a bad choice,
like shame on you. Don't do that, they'll be insecure
or like whatever.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Like some people are like, oh, I say all these
encouraging statements, and some people are like, don't tell them
encouraging encouraging statements. Oh, you're so pretty. Don't tell your
kids they're pretty. Then that's well, they'll put their value in.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Telly saw that the other day, Like, my firstborn is
a fierce leader. She's intelligent, and honing that in is
a full time job. Yes, in a you know, trust Jesus,
let Jesus lead you type of situations. But I literally
got a video ad the other day that was like,
don't tell your kid that they're a leader, And I

(30:11):
was like, don't tell my child who's a leader, that
she's a leader, like, don't speak truth over her.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
And the reasoning behind it was something along the lines.

Speaker 3 (30:22):
Of like.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
It was like, they'll grow up shoving their emotions or
not being honest about their emotions because they feel they
need to be in a leadership role. And I was like,
or we can all accept the fact that no matter
how much we love our kids, they're going to have
a testimony at the end of the day. They are

(30:46):
going to have brokenness, they are going to hurt, and
they're going to have something they have to process through
with them and with Jesus. And if I am telling
my kid the truth about Jesus, about who they are
in Jesus, about what God did say, about what God
didn't say about how to lead, well, oh great, I'm

(31:06):
still glad. She'll still have something that she needs to
work through with God on her own that I can't.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
Do for her.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
Right, But I can't do that for her. We can't. Yeah,
we cannot do. We cannot do and be everything for
our kids all the time and whether we have them.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
Yeah, And that's unfair.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
And we so much pressure, so much, so much pressure on.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Parents, Yes, and and to take the successes and failures
that at the end, and we know this biblically doctrinally,
all those things there, the Lord is going to have
to to move in them. They're going to have faith
that is their own. Yeah, and we can we can
set the stage and model and all those things. But
I think so many parents struggle with like I felt

(31:48):
like I did all the right things, yeah, and it's
still not like it's not clicking. It hasn't clicked. And
you want to be encouraging like, yes you have you
are authentic, you shared, but the Lord still has to
work with them in their hearts and we continue to
pray and we continue to have hope. But it's I
do a lot of things that it's just math. Like

(32:09):
it's just like if you do this, this is a result.
But then you come to people, you go, well, people,
we're not we're not math.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
Math does not work on people.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
It doesn't math.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Now, there there are some things that are that are
still like true and you go, it's so like the
law of the harvest, right, So biblically there's several different
kind of laws of the harvest, but the most basic
one is you know, you reap what you sew like
you you put these things in, you get this result.
You plant oranges, You're gonna get oranges. Like so these

(32:42):
different kind of the laws of the harvest of yep,
what what you what you sew is is what you
will reap. And so you know, looking at that in
a discipleship since one of the things that has been
very formative for me in children's ministry and parenting in
ministry is something I went through. And so again another

(33:02):
quick story. I was working with this group of teenagers
and they were all these awesome Christian great Christian families.
That was a group of first party leaders in a
middle school. And I remember teaching them and as I
was teaching them, I was teaching them something out of
the Gospels, and I remember while I was teaching it,
the Holy Spirit the word I use is pinged, Like

(33:24):
I'm sitting there talking and I just like stopped.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
The Holy Spirit was like ing.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
I totally heard the ping Sunyeah, I was just like
and I.

Speaker 3 (33:30):
Was like it pinged me.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
And I went and so I looked at the group
and this was something I wish I remember what the
passage or what the thing that Jesus was saying was
in it. But I thought it was something that like
every church kid would have known.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
It was like I was like, oh, this is obvious,
like we're going to go on a deeper level of
a thing, not an introductory yeah version of this. And
I asked them, I said, okay, raise your hand if
you ever heard this before? And so these are I
had forty something kids in the room, and the forty
kids are these are Christian leaders. This is not like
an outreach time, this is an encouraging leaders. And half

(34:07):
of them raised their hand. I was like, guys, this
was like one oh one, this was.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Like John thre sixteen.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah, it's like like yeah, okay, half of them. And
I said, who's ever read this before? And four kids
raised their hand? So many half of them heard. Only
four of them had ever read it for themselves. And
I said, who's ever read the Gospel of Mark? He said,
it's the shortest one, Like you could read it before dinner.
You could go home in less than an hour and

(34:34):
a half. You could read Mark's account, John Mark's account,
the entire life and ministry of Jesus, this message that
he lived and died for to get out there. You
could read it for dinner. Who's read the Gospel of Mark.
One kid raised his hand. I did the same message
at several other schools throughout the next few months because
the Lord was teaching me something. And he was the

(34:56):
only kid who raised his hand. Well, guess what his
name was?

Speaker 2 (35:00):
John Mark?

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yes, yes, so he probably only read because it was
his own book.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
I still know John Mark.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
He's a circle.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
He just started his freshman year at Auburn this year.
So John Mark again the only one. And I go,
probably because you know, you read the books, got your
name on it, read the book, Audrey. But I was
probably really harsh. I was probably too harsh with them
on that first thing. I was like, who here goes
to a disciple making church and all of them raise
their hands. We like write it on the walls of

(35:29):
our churches. Oh, we're a disciple making the Great commission.
Disciple making, we're disciple making church. Is kind of the
wave and movement of the church to clarify that kind
of message and what the intentions of our church was.
And I was kind of like, so what is a
disciple Like, it's it's someone very simply, it's someone who
wants to become like somebody else, like it's not a

(35:52):
it's not only a Christian idea. If you in the
ancient world and even now, if you want to learn
a skill or a trade, or you find someone who
has accomplished that you work on them to become like them,
to learn the things that they've learned, to do the
things they did, so you can be recreated in them.
And that's that's the most simple picture of even discipleship.

(36:14):
Come follow me, I'll teach you fish for people. But
you know that's rabbitical. That's that's the rabbi. You know
system is these followers.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
I don't know that I've rabbi I ever heard.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
That rabbitical systems first first century rabbitical Judaism, fancy, it rolls,
it rolls, but that that was the idea they when
they uh, he when he said come follow me, that
was the same phrase. There's a Jewish phrase like a
I'm probably I love saying it, even though I'm probably

(36:46):
saying it wrong. But it's what all rabbis would say
to call their disciples. So he wasn't the only one
who called disciples. He called these young men, said this phrase,
and they knew what it meant. It means you're going
to come and you get to obey God's law and
the way I teach you and become like me. And
once you kind of see that, you can then see
like these different experiences. And even in the scripture of

(37:09):
even of even Peter getting out of the boat and
you go, what's in his headspace? He goes, my Rabbi,
my master, my teacher, he's walking on water. Yeah, I'm
a disciple. I could do Can I do that too?
That's that's their that's their expectation of being a disciple.

(37:29):
And so it came to the thing of like what
what is a disciple? So at that point I came
up with a very simple definition. I think it really
stands it. It communicates to kids, but I think it's
true to us in our whole lives. It's someone who
knows and does what Jesus said. Like, guys, don't make
it complicated. Ye we say, oh, we're disciples, We're a disciple,
making what's somebody? It's someone who knows and does what

(37:50):
Jesus said. Next hard question, can you be like someone
if you don't know what they said and did? No, No,
it's impossible, Like it's not even it doesn't even lie
makes sense. You cannot be like Jesus unless you know
what he said or did so if I'm working with
these teenagers, and it wasn't to make them feel guilty,
it was something that the Lord had to teach me.

(38:11):
Because of course then the Lord's question and thinking, do
you know what I said and did so? I mean
I went on this big journey of me reading through
the Gospels over and over again, of like, okay, if
I'm going to challenge somebody else, like I have to
take this on. But it was it was formative for
me and my parenting and my ministry. I go, we
want to be like Jesus. I got to know what

(38:32):
he said or did like and and that's this challenge
to these young people into families, go, guys, don't don't
make it complicated if you're if you're not doing it
in that way, maybe we're following a Jesus that we've
created or we've pieced together from different voices or music.
And again, these things are are are our worship and things.

(38:54):
They're true, and much of it doctrinal and from Scripture itself.
We don't sing about every idea that we can't. So
where do our believe Where does our discipleship what we're becoming, Like, yeah,
where does that come from? If not the word of
God and the things Jesus said and did. So it's
a it's a big challenge.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
Informative for him, but it's really hard. I think a
lot is people base who Jesus is, what he does,
what he says is simply based off how they feel
and what their ideas are. And did he show up
for me the way I wanted him to show up
for me? And usually that's not it. He's like, I

(39:36):
don't want to show up for you because that was
a bad thing for you. Like I'm not gonna condone
this bad thing for you. You know.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
It's like, yeah, there are these, like a good parent, Yeah,
there's these. I think he goes into our concepts of truth.
And we were talking the other day as we were
preparing for this, just about these big sweeping ideas of
what is true. And now that you cross generations and
we're going to cross them again, you know, we we
we have this model of truth that we inherited from

(40:05):
our ancestors. But I mean I think about it. I go,
I look at my generation and generation X, I still
look like mostly in America, it seems to be kind
of a true story even that like, oh, I have
a godly grandmother, yeah right, and we have this sense
I know, but I maam all, but I think most people,

(40:26):
even in their experience, they go, Okay, I've made these mistakes.
I don't necessarily connect with church. But I got that
little grandmother and she I know she prays for me.
And if at all, if my whole life fell apart,
I know I could go to her. Her door would
be open. I could I could stay there and she
would invite me to church. And I've said no to her.

(40:48):
You know fifty times. That's not really for me, ma'am.
I mean, you have those things, but I go, man,
that was still something that was true in America. I
felt like in these and in the generation ours and
the one right above it, Now what happens we have
in America where that's not the story of their grandmother? Right?
And you go that And to me it was the
sense of home. It's like, Okay, I go and try

(41:10):
all these things new ideas. Liz's life had these experiences,
but I can always go home. I had that fallback thing,
this foundational thing, of those that godly generation that came
through a great trial in America in World War two.
I mean they call them the greatest generation for a reason.
But the things they came through and their their faith,

(41:30):
and you go, well, what happens when you don't That
generation is for the most part dead. So you go, Okay,
now we don't have that. Now what is what do
you go back to? What is that thing that you
fall back on? So even these different concepts of truth
and the challenge of it, and you know, I looked
at my own grandmother. I had this this great story.

(41:52):
One time was right after college, I went and was
sitting in her living room. She was a bread lady,
so she cooked bread and cookies for everyone. She was
known as like the bread lady of Newport, Tennessee, and
bread lady, but made awesome bread.

Speaker 3 (42:06):
But that's what you went.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
You always went there, and like you're just like stuff
in your face with sourdough bread and all these things.
But she answered her phone with the big long cord
and walked around the corner with a big cord, and
I hear her talking about some bread order and she
just starts talking about Jesus, right, So just can't help herself.
She walks back around and I was like, who are
you talking to? And she goes, Joey, I just don't

(42:27):
think I can talk to anybody anymore without knowing where
they're at with the Lord. And you go, Mamma, can
I I want to learn that now. I don't want
to wait till I'm to that stage of life where
you go it got really simple again. It's like, you
know what, I'm not going to have any interaction. So
I was like, man, what a But I look and

(42:49):
I look in my grandmother's life and they go, how
does somebody become a mamma?

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Like?

Speaker 1 (42:54):
You go, The Word of God was hidden in her
heart her entire life quote scripture right, like all these things.
You go, that's how she became like that. It wasn't
because she was part of some generation or whatever. The
Word of God had been hidden in her heart her
entire life, and so that's what flowed out and all
this stuff. And I love it because we have the

(43:15):
same access. We have the Word of God. And I
think that's what I want in my heart and my
children's heart, that's what I want in their heart. That's
what I want to be flowing out of them over
their whole lives.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
Yeah, which is such an important thing to even be
praying daily over our kids and over ourselves, to be
an example of that.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Of like, how often does the Bible say guard your heart,
protect this thing, because out of it flows everything else.
So what you put in it, what you take in,
what you hold in it, what matters to you, and
your heart is going your life is going to reflect that.
So if you're scrolling eight hours a day, your life
is going to reflect that. You're gonna be stressed out thinking, Oh,

(43:54):
I can't tell my kids she's a good leader. Don't
say that. Oh wait, oh wait, tell her she's Oh gosh.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Another video, You're a great leader. Repeat after me this morning.
Look in the mirror. I'm a leaner. It's like, all,
I don't know, Yeah, what what do we do?

Speaker 2 (44:11):
So it does follow Jesus, that's right, and we show
our kids that we follow Jesus.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
It comes it does, I think, you know. I think
that's one of my hopes as it comes back to
something very simple. I don't think there's like a one
if you if you call living by God's word a secret,
it's not a secret. Yeah, it's the worst kept secret
of the past two thousand years or and longer than that,
if you see how God has worked in the for
the Israelites and the nation of the Jews. But I mean,

(44:39):
it's it's that's that's worked out, the word of God
has has tried and true and so again, not not
a secret, but I love it something accessible for us.
And but how we relate to truth is is important.
It's it's that core foundational thing about us. It's what
we want to put into our kids of what is true,

(45:01):
what is right, and how do we build our lives
around that.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
Yeah, it makes me think of the quote. I'm sure
you know exactly who said this and what day of
the week they said it, But the quote that says
hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times.
Good times create weak men. Yes, and then the cycle

(45:26):
starts over.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
I think that's true for so many reasons. But to me,
the biggest reason is that when we are comfortable, when
we are safe, when life is easy, when our feelings
are never hurt, that's as big as our world is.
It's only as big as that's how big our God is. Like, Oh,
everything's going good, Like God must love me or if
there's a God, whatever, It doesn't matter when you're living

(45:51):
in a hard time, when you're being raised in you know,
like the greatest generation they had nothing but God, I know,
and their world was so big and nothing was going
their way, and you got a bunch of mammas out
of it. They love Jesus. Yes, they're like, actually, we
don't have time to care about whether or not my

(46:13):
you know, thirteen year old daughter is a cat or
a girl or you know whatever. Like the things that
we come up with these days, the things are the
things we put in place of God.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
So I love that idea, and that person was very
wise in saying it God's word in the ten Commandments.
So after the commandment of the images, and it says
you shall not bow down to serve them, for I
the Lord God amma Jealouscott responding to the transgressions of
the fathers by dealing with the children to the third
and fourth generation. So even that thing is has a

(46:50):
four generations citeurse. Of course, here's the hope and showing
covenant faithfulness to a thousand generations of those who love
me and keep my commandments. That's one of my big hopes,
even one in America. In America that I meet, I
meet people and they go again, one of those truths,
you become your parents.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
Right. Some people go, Wow, that's a blessing. I love that.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Some people go, that's terrifying. I hate that. That's a curse.
For me to become my parents is a curse. And
you go, well, then it's no surprise that God becomes
your father. He says, no, then I'll become your father.
And my image is then what you will become. I said,
I like that truth, you become your parents.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
They go nope.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
But when then God becomes you see the work of
the spirit in us, You go, nope. Now I'm going
to become like my parent, the Father. My journey now
is Christ's lightness in my life and to see those things.
But that that idea of these generations and curses and
falling away. But then also there's the downside of that.
But then there is the covenant promise of the other side.

(47:58):
And I believe not only to the nation of Israel,
and I do believe that from scripture, but I also
believe in the hearts of believers, God's God's children. That
I meet people internationally and they have generations like older
than America, even from before Jesus, like of these families

(48:22):
from priestly classes and these different things in these world religions.
And they go, but my mother was became the first
believer in our family, and she prayed for me, and
then I had this. And now the future of their
family coming from these generational curses now in one generation
is now a generation of promise and covenant faithfulness from

(48:44):
God with them and their hearts and in their families
and their children. I love meeting families internationally that they go, oh,
I'm the fifth generation Christian, and they say, well, you know,
five generations ago, this famous missionary came, shared the gospel
with my great great great grandfather and now my my grandfather,
my father, and I were all pastors.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
Wow, you go.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
It changed the complete trajectory not only of yourself, but
even your own whole family because of God's faithfulness and
their their faith and trust in Jesus. So that we
see these things again, that concept is so true, like
and these hard times things, and but it's in God's
word as well. It's just like back there, guys, you

(49:29):
you you obey and you worship things that are not me.
You get off off that path and to the third
and fourth generation you are your kids are falling away
and you and four generation does not know me. It's
you know, generations idolatry.

Speaker 3 (49:46):
Be goes.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
They don't know me, they don't even know what I'm like.
I feel that's the world we feel in America.

Speaker 3 (49:52):
Go I go talk.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
About Jesus or are we do these things? And they go, well,
we disagree what he's like. When you go, okay, like,
you know, I think Jesus is more like this, and
we're like this, and you go, how how are we
having a different picture of who he is and what
he's like? Like that is unchanging. Who he is and

(50:13):
what he's like is unchanging. But we have these different
different concepts. See, I've struggled.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
I feel like that brings us into our relationship with truth. Yeah,
and our in our culture's relationship with truth and how
There's a Josh McDowell quote that that you shared the
other day and it just sums it sums up so perfectly. Yeah,
I think where Josh.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
McDowell, he's uh, he's a friend of my father. Now,
my father and Josh are around the same generation of
kind of youth ministry influencers America and this you know,
this man has had incredible impact and ministry sent from
the nineteen seventies around truth, just this concept how important
it is. And I think he helped kind of guide

(51:01):
the church in America through that transition from what is postmodernity?
What is relative truth? What are these things? How are
we pass them through this because they go these next
generations they don't even know what anything, yes, but helping
kind of walk through. I think he's He had a
quote that I always kind of think about that helps

(51:22):
kind of understand it, and where we can say, how
can they look at these institutions and these things that
are ancient and and and are are powerful and from God,
how can they step away from those and deny them?
And he basically said, here is kind of maybe a
generational divide into postmodernism. Is the previous generations, if they

(51:43):
saw a marriage fall apart and a divorce happened, they
would have said, well, those that couple, they didn't do
marriage right right. Marriage was objective, it was defined, well,
they just didn't do marriage right, so it was it's
their fault. Where now we have this modern this kind
of subjective mindset generation, they would go, they look at

(52:05):
the same scenario and they go, well, marriage doesn't work.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
So they said, well those people do do marriage.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
But the new generation go, well, that's because marriage doesn't work.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
Let's change marriage.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
They took the standard and they said, well that's the standard.
Well people don't live up to the standard. And they go, well,
it's because the standard doesn't work. I'm going to side
on the on the people side. So you can see
how we fundamentally are looking at it from different things.
I feel we're kind of in the middle millennials and
some exers and the a you're kind of in the middle,

(52:36):
and we've obviously we've grown up and being told everything's
going to fall apart because of a relative relativism, and
and we kind of go, has it I don't totally know,
but we obviously we live within the challenges of it.

Speaker 3 (52:49):
Yeah, and you look.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
At your kids and you're like, we feel like we're
carving out, like carve into them something that is true.
But that's that's that is the world we live in.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
I mean like literally, they God God very clearly defines
this is marriage, one man, one woman together forever. Two
are going to become one. And the best way to
do that is to keep your eyes on me. Yeah,
come closer to me together, focus on me, let me

(53:24):
take care of you all the things. It's it's a
refining process. I think anyone who's been married more in
like five minutes is like, yep, yep, it's refining. That's
a great word for that. Beautiful, it's amazing. Like never
thought eleven years later, ten years, however long I've been married,
I would be who I am today. I couldn't be
without my husband, like I would never have to make

(53:45):
the sacrifices and have the humility and you know, all
the things. And it's it's created that way. It's supposed
to be not blissful at all times, you know.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
Okay, And I think here, so there's here's my if
you'll count it as a profound statement. But this is
something that here's the conclusion I came to and I'll
stand by it, and I think it is it's really
helpful to me.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
I think it's a true statement.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
Is when God chose to sin, we deal with like
objective and relative. So we have these things. Oh truth
is objective. Now they say, oh truth, there's relative. My truth,
it's relative, I said, so, how does the Gospel equally
before both those sides of these different generations. We know

(54:37):
that God has been faithful to all the generations, and
God has been true in all the generations. How is
he equally true and those who believed with an objective
side and now those in a relative side. But I
think it is perfectly there because it's in the person
of Jesus. Okay, so most the previous generations. What is

(55:01):
what is God's truth? May we go, oh, well, it's
the Bible, and don't don't don't take this as any
undermining God's word in the Bible. But when God chose
to send truth to the world, he did not send
a book. He sent a person. So then that truth

(55:22):
is not about the objective. He is objective. He is
the son of God. He is the third of the Trinity.
He is God is human, he is the incarnation of
the eternal. This truth, he is that. But it's not
that truth has become relative. It's that truth has become relational.
And for me, so to me, I'm not worried about,

(55:43):
oh is it objective or relative?

Speaker 3 (55:45):
I go, No.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
The important thing that I think we've learned from this
time period is that truth is also relational. It's not static.
It's not like, oh, we'll throw the book at him. Oh, guys,
we have the standard. So here's saying. Oh, God's words
says it's this, and I'll throw the book at you. Oh,
I'll hit you over the head with objectivity.

Speaker 3 (56:05):
You go.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Truth came to the world, and God chose to send
a person, and so truth became relational. The truth set
across the table from people, had a conversation and engage
them and ask questions of them, open them up in
their own assumptions. Go and we go, that's what That's
what I want to see the church be. And I think,

(56:28):
I think that's what we want. We go, I want
to sit at the table with those people. I can't
just stand apart and throw the book at him. That
won't work. And these people go, oh, it's my truth,
and I go, yet, guess what, you do have an experience,
But the truth will relate to you, just as Jesus
a person, the way the truth in the life. Truth
is a person. And so Scripture one hundred percent verifies

(56:52):
validates for Saul, and and I think God's word is truth.
So it's not the undermining of scripture at all, but
that when God chose to send truth to the world,
he didn't send a book, He sent a person. I
think that's powerful encouraging for me of these next generations.
I go, Yeah, your your relativeness, your your experience is

(57:12):
your thing. The Gospel is still powerful and effective for
you because Jesus wants a relationship with you. That that's
that's the message we proclaim is relationship, not law, not static.
Oh well, now abide by the truths, you go. Nope,
the truth came to us, the truth goes to them,
and the truth God will use us to go to them.

(57:34):
The truth will become relational.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
Yeah, that was my my MySpace intro Mecca. Whatever year
that was. Speaking of millennials, it was, it was. It
was something along the lines of remember it like, asked
you for your religion and stuff, and I said, I think,
I said, not about religion, It's about relationship, really, my space, relationship,

(58:01):
not religion, my space.

Speaker 3 (58:03):
These are these are my top nine friends in order.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
Wait, that one made me mad. I got to remove her.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
Yeah, you're you know what, you may be mad today.
Number two your number six. I wish we had that again.
I wish I knew who my kids stopped in were,
I'd be like number six, All.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
Let's get let's get that one the boot that's it.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
That would be really healthy for our schools today.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Oh my gosh, add that to the list. Okay, So
a couple things as we close out here. I you
have introduced me also to a couple of really awesome resources,
because the Bible can be so overwhelming, so overwhelming, and
even even someone who's in it regularly and has been
their whole life, it's like you open you know, Leviticus,

(58:49):
and you're like, wait, which part of the Exodus is
the Wait? Where are we? What's happening? Hold on, quick reminder.
So you have introduced me to the Bible Project, and
I of the Bible Project. And I actually was thinking
about this when you were like, don't show the kids video.
But this is great. It's just a YouTube or I
guess it's probably its own website, but it's like a

(59:10):
YouTube thing. They also have a podcast.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
They've got a lot of stuff, so surely it's an
a credible group of guys. I wish I would normally
know their names, but I don't have all the.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
Oh wait, no, I'm thinking flurry creatures, not the same.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
No, these great guys where they had a passion for
God's word and making it relatable to people and for
them to see this from a different lens, I think,
from an academic.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
Lens, very academic.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
But to take an academic lens and visualize it where
it makes these parts of scripture very approachable and you go, oh,
I see the big picture. Now I can kind of
know what I'm reading as I engage it.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
I want.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
Bible Project is amazing, And I think here's the ole point.
You don't even have to agree with everything once you
go into theologic and doctrinal whatever it's. I don't think
it's necessarily about that that you go because you could
find something. Go that's not what our church teachers is different.
I mean, it's not that. I think it's one of
those that you go at. Man, it's a resource, you
you know what, totally let me see few points from

(01:00:15):
from a scholarly perspective, but also visualize concepts and themes
that what to me, the hope is that will make
me try to read Leviticus.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Yes, yes, and that's exactly what I do. So if you,
if you are someone who is who wants to who
desires to disciple your kids in truth and love? And
but you look at the Bible, and this is one
of the enemy's greatest tactics. I think he convinces us
we're not smart enough to even know the Bible, much
less to to teach it to somebody. And I still

(01:00:47):
I still think that just about every time I go
to pick up my Bible, Like that is what the
enemy uses in my head is like who are you
for us?

Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
Like you need you need somebody else to do?

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Yes, yes, go you know, on the go, go on
social media. I let them tell you what it says. No,
don't do that Bible project will this feels like an ad.
It's not an ad. I just love it. It's resource.
It gives you context, it gives you like I love
the outline it lays. It says like this is the
first part of this book, and they cover this and

(01:01:19):
this is the second part. So I usually watch the
video and then and then after I watch the video,
then I read the word and I'm like, oh, my word,
this makes so much more sense because I like, I
see the king and I'm like, wait, which king was that?
And then I get fixated on I don't know what
king that was and when they were king, and what
they're what kind of economy they were ruling in, and

(01:01:40):
what the you know? And then I'm just like, never mind,
I'm gonna make coffee instead.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Yes, yes, right, I think I think the Lord has
used them in an amazing way to uh, to reintroduce
God's word to people, whether they thought they knew it
or whether they go, I'm so intimidated, I can't touch
these books. Interesting thing, what book? What book of the
Bible did Jesus quote more than any other? I don't know, Deuteronomy?

(01:02:08):
Oh if Jesus so we go like, oh I don't like,
don't do those are so scary and hard, And I go, well,
that's funny. Jesus quoted it more than the other. That's
what he's walking around.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
I mean, that makes sense the law, all the laws
and all the He's like, I mean, it makes perfect sense.
But it is also like it's almost just like reading
a whole book of of family like generations like okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
Okay, got it would get that. Maybe I could shorten that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
Yes, And then another thing I love, I don't remember
if you introduce this to me. You might have blue
letter Bible.

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
Yeah, awesome resource so much.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
It's just an app and it's and it you just
look up a scripture and it gives you original context, Greek, Hebrew,
whatever it is. So if you're the feel like one
of the big arguments these days is well there's not
a word in the Bible for that. Yeah, so that's
not real. And I'm like, bet, yes, maybe there's not
a word, but there's a description and exact description.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
Maybe to me it helps, it helps ground things in context.
Where again, this is the idea of like, Okay, this
wasn't written in English. It was written at a time
and a place and in a context and in a language,
and those languages have meaning and and those things are
are valuable and important. I think to me that the
trap of it is is we go, oh, well this

(01:03:31):
is exotic. And so I saw a word and now
you read it go oh it means this and this
and this, and I go, guys, it's still a language.
Like that's still a language. And so just like any tool,
you can use it for good is ever good or
for evil you can use Oh look at these we
never understood what this the translators, they got it wrong.

(01:03:51):
Now me, since I looked at a website, now I
understand it better. So I think it can you know,
some people can use it, you know, poorly, because our
translators there, there are a lot of the translations. They
are scholars, devoted, faithful people. We've are Our translations are

(01:04:12):
pretty fantastic. But the reminder of oh, these are ancient,
ancient concepts, ancient words. Be be open to going deeper
and viewing it from a cultural and even a language perspective.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
Is it's so helpful, it's so good, and it's just, yeah,
you just you don't have to be a theologian or
a rabbitical person. I'm so glad I got to use
that word already. I could have just said rabbi, but
I really wanted to implement, So thank you for being
here for that. Yeah you just, I just I don't like,

(01:04:52):
I don't like the lie of you're not smart enough
and that, and I I just because I experienced that
even still of just like, oh oh why why you
don't know what that means? You don't know where it is,
you can't remember all of history. But there are there
are so many, so many helpful things, and I yeah,
I just we can all talk about Jesus in truth
and tell the truth about him and know the truth

(01:05:14):
about him. Last thing, tell me about this book your dad, bro.

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
I love getting a chance to do a little promo.
My father wrote a book many I mean, I was
over twenty years ago.

Speaker 3 (01:05:29):
Oh wow, so it's not not new, not a new book.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
Well, we got lots of copies of it, but he's
spoke in me church about it. But here I'll share
this idea very simply, and I hope it is a
blessing to you. And we'd love to make this, you know,
even available to listeners, so we'll probably put some details
or whatever about how they could get it and even
if we can get it for free. I mean, I
think that our thing is most people, you write a

(01:05:55):
book and for the first couple of years you're like, okay,
I'm we need people to buy it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:58):
We got to make the money back.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
And then at the end you've got like boxes full
of your books and you go, I wish somebody would
read and be blessed by it. And so we're definitely
at that stage with all of our materials, same as
our ministry, like guys, we give it away. We want
people to use. I wish people would be faithful and
use the tools.

Speaker 3 (01:06:16):
I don't need.

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
Forty five for you to read something that hopefully will
bless you. But the idea is charting the course. So
charting the course my dad wrote this. I got to
write a forward in it. I was a freshman in
college and wrote a forward about kind of our family
and the racing experience. But my father wrote a book.
But the idea basically charting the courses. You're not raising children.

(01:06:42):
You're raising adults like that. They will be your little
children for a minute. For a minute, they will be
up to eighteen for a small fraction of life. They
will be your peers for the rest. You're raising an adult.
One of the expectations. You're raising them for freedom and

(01:07:03):
to make decisions. So your life is not, oh, how
do we hold back, hold back home back. No, you're
raising them to be a peer that makes good decisions,
that operates in freedom and independence. Know what you're raising
them for. Chart the course for their independence and freedom.
Don't chart a course for them to only be able

(01:07:23):
to live and survive in your world. And so under
the guise of protection, sometimes we go, wait, I've not
charted a course for their healthy life that they're going
to be leading to. But here's the biggest thing for it.
Here's the spoiler for the book. People say, oh, Benny,
Benny was a great parent and all these things, and

(01:07:44):
they view me and they go, he was such a
great parent.

Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
Look at product.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
It's such a good job. If you bet Jojo, I.

Speaker 1 (01:07:48):
Had a great experience for home, was so blessed and
things and eve of my forward that's what I wrote.
I said, Yeah, we had a very you know, I
believing parents that were devoted to Christ and was modeled
for us.

Speaker 3 (01:08:00):
That that was very true for me.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
But the result people will read this and they'll say,
I thought I was going to get tips on parenting.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
Yeah, discipleship one on one?

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
How do I fix my kids or how do I,
you know, plan this thing for my kids? When the
truth old book is understanding your own discipleship journey. What
is discipleship? What is this journey of for Christ's likeness?
God's planned for you, the sanctification for your life, your
journey with Jesus into Christ's likeness. And if you get

(01:08:32):
that part right, if you are on the authentic journey.
You will have modeled that for your kids. And that's
actually the best thing. You can try to write little
things for them and put it on their mirrors and
put all that stuff and you go, I'm going to
program these things into my kids. When the old phrases
it's more caught than taught, and that is so true

(01:08:53):
and everyone knows it from their own experiences that you know,
let let your kids be things that you weren't. And
I go, that's not how it works. Yeah, if you're
on a journey, authentic journey with Jesus, that will be
model for your kids and that will be the best
experience so you can get for them. Showing them success
is failures journey. But your devotion onto the Lord is

(01:09:15):
going to that's that is your job as a parent.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
Yeah. Yeah, And in that there's gonna be so I
feel like there's gonna be way more times, way more
opportunities to say I'm sorry, I blew that. Yes, I'm sorry,
I messed up. Let's I'm gonna take you to the Lord.
You can. Even with my daughter the other day, I
got angry and you know, raise my voice and I
was like, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I did,

(01:09:40):
I know, And I was like, do you I'm gonna
go ask Jesus to forgive me and help my heart,
not you know, not do that again. And I don't
want to be angry. I was like, do you want
to compary with me? And she was like no, that's
between you and Jesus. And I was like, well, you
can come watch me be with Jesus if you want.
She's like, no, thanks, I'm in the color. But I

(01:10:02):
was like, this does not feel like a win. But
I am just praying that the Lord somehow is like
going to use this and she's gonna remember.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
No doubt, and no doubt he will. I think it's
it's true for us. I mean, we look back and
you go, Dad, it wasn't the thing you said.

Speaker 3 (01:10:19):
We saw.

Speaker 1 (01:10:21):
We saw children see the real realness of their parents.
That's what it's going to be replicated in their lives.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
They're going to see it one way or the other.
So what are we going to do with it? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
So your your work for your kids is more of
of your journey than it is you trying to like
fix them or do or do things in them that
are not being done in you.

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
Yeah, which is so funny. I just I just remember
being you know, young, married twenty to three year olds
and talking about one day when we have kids, and
Cody's like, well, here's all the things that we need
to not ever do again before we can have kids,
because you know your you know, whether it's like your
temper is short or I did or whatever the thing is.

(01:11:08):
And I remember thinking like, yeah, that's a good plan.
Let's fix all of our sin first before we have kids.
Let's make sure that we are wait.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
Till we're perfect, perfect and have enough money. We'll be
perfect and wealthy in.

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
Things, perfect rich, we'll know everything. Okay, that's not helpful.
Don't do that. Teach your kids how to how to
move forward from sin, because it's it's it's going to happen. Well,
thank you so much for being here. So fun, just
the best day of my life. Oh good, good, guys,

(01:11:41):
so good. How would people get a hold of you?

Speaker 1 (01:11:46):
Our website, our first Parties is first Priority dot global
and we've got our stuff and information on there. If
anybody's got a part for the Nations, and so many
people do. But with the next learn more about kind
of our vision and the things we've gone through or
maybe even has connections internationally. They go, hey, this sounds
like something that a church I've served or work with,

(01:12:08):
as somebody even I support, is asking for because they
are a lot of times we go places and they go, y'all,
and it's it's the best response we ever get. Y'all
are an answer to our prayers. We've been we've been
we've been praying for someone to come and show us
how we can equip young people because we have a

(01:12:28):
desire to do it. But nobody has done that before
and modeled that for us. So to be an answer
to somebody's prayer, as you go, wow, God, we're in
for that doing things like how do we export the
things we want to? All the places that that stinks,
that's no fun, but you know, to be able to
be obedient to the work the Lord has already been doing.

(01:12:51):
I think that I've got good news for all of y'all.
Here's my my look at the camera. Good news for
the Lord is working in almost all of the nation
by amazing people. He is calls and raised up there
by their own people, And so I love it is
that's been affirmed over and.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Over encouraging, so encouraging. Well, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
All.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
This has been so fun. Thank you guys so much
for joining today. This was an awesome show. If you
want to get in touch with us, you can email
us at sup that's s up, Sup, at stuff goodnever
said dot com. You can find us on the website
at stuff stuff goodnever said dot com. That's a mouthful

(01:13:36):
YouTube our YouTube channel like subscribe, comment, or you can
find us on Instagram at stuff God never said. Thanks
so much, we'll see you next time.

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