June 26, 2023 • 40 mins
In this episode, Jaredith interviews Jordan Frye, author of the Amazon best-selling children's book, "Male and Female Created He Them". This book is a very relevant one in a time when there is much confusion about the very nature of nature.
You can pick up your copy here: https://a.co/d/b1TTMKE
Jordon P. Frye resides in Anderson, Indiana with his wife and helpmeet Katlyn, where he serves as Student Pastor at the First Pentecostal Church of Anderson under the leadership of Senior Pastor Luke St.Clair. Having traveled nationally and internationally as an evangelist and speaker, Jordon continues to minister through preaching, teaching, and writing.
Reach out on social media and let us know your thoughts on this episode, the new book, and the issues of gender and gender identity as they relate to the church.
You can pick up your copy here: https://a.co/d/b1TTMKE
Jordon P. Frye resides in Anderson, Indiana with his wife and helpmeet Katlyn, where he serves as Student Pastor at the First Pentecostal Church of Anderson under the leadership of Senior Pastor Luke St.Clair. Having traveled nationally and internationally as an evangelist and speaker, Jordon continues to minister through preaching, teaching, and writing.
Reach out on social media and let us know your thoughts on this episode, the new book, and the issues of gender and gender identity as they relate to the church.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to Two Pentecostals and amicrophone. I am so glad that you
chose to listen to us today.We're excited about today's episode. It is
interview with the brother Jordan Fry.He is the student pastor at First Pentecostal
(00:22):
Church in Anderson, Indiannna. Butmore importantly, he has written a couple
of books and today we are goingto talk about one of those books and
it says in his process and howhe created it and the tools that he
used to get this out. What'smost impressive to me about this is the
timeline and Jaredith gets into it alittle bit later in the episode, but
(00:45):
so incredible on how from from fromthe conception of the idea to the reality
of seeing it come to reality.It's it's so amazing what God can do
in just a moment in time andthe abilities that He gives us in the
talents that we have. And todaywe talked with him about this book that
(01:07):
he wrote, to children's book andit's called Male and Female Created He them
it's an incredible book and we're excitedto talk to him about it. I
hope you enjoy it. Today's episode. It is just Jaredith. I had
a prior work commitment that I connectit out of and Jaredith both and I
(01:33):
agreed to just go ahead and givethe interview without me. But that's okay.
I will be back in the nextepisode for sure, and I'm so
thankful that we still get the opportunityto speak with some incredible people and just
(01:56):
just share our hearts with each other. That's what this podcast is all about.
And we're excited to get back ontrack and start recording episodes and get
in the mountain. Please please enjoythis episode of Two pentecostles and a microphone.
(02:17):
Well, welcome to the podcast,Jordan Fry. You've written a new
book and that is what we're gonnatalk about today. Yes, sir,
thank you so much for having me. Man, it's a pleasure to meet
you. Good to be on withyou. Nice to meet you as well.
Glad to have you on. Now. We're talking a little bit before
the show about your your background.And you are in Anderson, Indiana,
(02:40):
as I correct, Yes, sir, up here in Anderson, Indiana.
Awesome, And you're in Who's You'reborn and bread born and bread my blood
might bleed read Yes, sir,who's You're through and three same here,
Same here. I was born indown south of Vincenns, but I always
lived in Indiana whole life. Sowell, it's great to have you on.
You have done something a little differentthan our former guests who were authors,
(03:07):
because you have written at children's bookI don't think, yes, sir,
don't think we've interviewed at children's bookauthor in the past. But you
are experiencing I think some success,quite a bit of success with this book,
and I just want to start outby asking you tell us a little
bit about it first, like whatthe title, the premise, just kind
(03:29):
of give us a little overview ofthe book. Sure. Absolutely, man,
We've been blown away by the responseto the book. We launched it
publicly on June first, that wasthe first We sent out a promotional video.
That was how we launched it.The title comes directly from Genesis,
chapter one, verse number twenty seven, and very simply the titles male and
female created He them. And thepremise of the book it walks. It's
(03:53):
kind of a two part deal.It walks through the creation account in God
creating the animals and how He createda male and a female in every single
category, and then it goes andintroduces the story of Adam and even how
God created a man and gave mandominion course smaller words than than dominion in
the book, but man starts namingthe animals and and he's alone. So
(04:14):
God creates for him a she,and God created male and female created he
them. So that's that's the premiseof the book, that there are two
genders. God made both of amale and female. Awesome. Okay,
So, um, what is thetarget? Like? Um, I did
look at I watched the video ofthe flip through video on Amazon. You
can see that if you're curious.Sure, um, and that's probably the
(04:35):
best place. We'll talk about thatlater, but the best place to pick
up the book is probably what amazones. Yeah, that's where we're selling at
Amazon. Amazon. Okay, sothere's a flip flip through video there so
you can kind of see, um, the art and the and the pages
and just kind of see what it'sabout. But um, I noticed that
it looks really great. The artlooks great, so um, the layout
(05:00):
looks great. Um, who areyou? Who is your target with this?
Is this more targeted to um?To parents or two kids? I
mean, obviously you want to entertainthe kids, you want them to enjoy
the book, but you also wantto teach sure them something right. Sure,
Yeah, it's a very good question. And we were very intentional in
putting this book together to keep itvery streamlined. With the scripture, we
(05:24):
don't I don't go and add alot of us. It doesn't get preachy,
doesn't get dogmatic. And the reasonI kept it so streamlined was because
I wanted to have as wide ofan age range as possible. Now,
the book is particularly meant for whatan education you would call guided reading,
so a parent reading to their children, but I wanted to leave enough room
(05:46):
in the story that parents could umimpart foundational truths and biblical truths to their
kids to the level that they're at. So you're not going to find a
lot of overly dogmatic things. Doesn'tget super preachy, but it just tells
the facts of the creation account andit leaves room. And even with illustrations,
you have extra information in the picturesthat's not necessarily in the story.
(06:08):
So depending on where the child is, whether they're very young and are just
enjoying the pictures and enjoying understanding thatthere's male and female or a little bit
older four five six, and youcan actually start having some of these deeper
conversations about you know, about havinga mate, what that means, and
having in something, being married andso you. So we left room to
(06:30):
be able to teach to where thechild is at. So it is a
wide age range, UM, butit is primarily intended to be guided reading
with parents and their children. Okay, great, great, so did you
you you wrote the book, butdid you do the illustrations as well,
or did you have an illustrator withfor that? Sure? So it's a
it's a cool story the illustrations.And I won't jump off into the technical
(06:54):
details because we could be you know, four hour long podcasts on exactly how
we produced artwork. But the artwork was largely produced with AI technology.
Great, I was hoping you weregoing to say that, because yes,
sure, sure, I'd be happyto jump into any of that. But
UM, I used a generator calledmid Journey and set up a custom discord
(07:15):
server and began engineering the prompts umfor it. Which one of the interesting
things about it is, UM thistechnology that we have access to is absolutely
incredible generating images not hard. Generatinga consistent landscape with consistent characters in a
consistent world very difficult. So Iend up doing a lot of custom compositing
(07:38):
myself and Photoshop, and we pulledit into Procreate and did some custom editions
and changes, but largely it wasgenerated with AI. Okay, interesting,
Okay, So you're using mid Journey, which I have been using off and
on, kind of learning tea myselfhow to use and the prompt the prompt
engineering or you know, learning howto write a prompt and get the results
(08:00):
you want is a kind of afun process. Absolutely. I kind of
explain it like pseudo coding or likesemantic coding. So it's the idea of
you have certain parameters in there.It's a certain way you have to build
your prompts. But it's not necessarilycoding language. It's plain English, but
there are certain ways that you talkto it to get the results that you're
(08:22):
looking for. Yeah, exactly,it is. It is very Yeah,
it's natural length. Well that's whatit is, right, natural language processing.
But right right. On the otherhand, you do have to engineer
in a certain way or you're notgoing to get creda results that you want.
So right, I have a wholetreasure trove of what I guess you
could call bloopers, of images thatwill not be released and maybe I'll show
(08:43):
you in private. But it getscrazy. But yeah, it is definitely
a back and forth process of reallyhoning it in and getting exactly what you're
looking for. Yes, yes,and you can get some pretty hilarious results.
Sometimes. I have a funny storyabout there's a picture from the Book
of Adam sleeping on a rock,and for whatever reason, so he's got
like this bluish shirt on throughout thewhole book, and for whatever reason,
(09:07):
whenever he goes to lay down,the mid Journey insisted that he being a
striped shirt. Oh that'sist. Icould not change it. And matter of
fact, I worked on that.That was the hardest image of the whole
book. And at one point Iwas about to give up, and I
was like, you know what,We're gonna try a couple of different things,
and the AI doubled down and notonly put stripes on the boy,
but put stripes on the rocks aroundhim. Like it was doubled down.
(09:30):
So I eventually pulled it into PhotoshopBeta and used the generative fill yes,
and created a new shirt for him, then fed it back into this system
and finally got something. It's stillsubtle stripes, but at least it's more
subtle. Now, Okay, that'sinteresting. So we've used I personally have
used Dolly from Open a Eye okayfor some similar like generative things for my
(09:56):
marketing business. But also we hada conference where someone brought a uh an
overhead slide image for their title,their summon title, and they said,
oh, they've already got it done. It was a square. We needed
it to be in nineteen twenty teneighty. So Dolly to the rescue and
it worked. Worked that. That'sincredible. The tools, the tools that
are available right now are just incredible. They are wild they are and in
(10:20):
a situation like this, you know, the art, it looks great,
The art looks really great. It'sbut it's not about the art. So
you're so, I think there's children'sbook writers or whatever that that are more
they are illustrators, So sure thepoint is more maybe the art than anything
else, you know. I thinkabout kid books I red when I was
(10:41):
a kid, like that have avery specific style, like where the Wild
Things Are or something like that.You know you know that style would you
see it? Um, it's moremaybe about the art, so you know
that still makes sense for an artistillustrator to go that route, but for
someone like you, who is thepoint of the book is the message and
teaching. UM. But you stillwant it to look great. You still
(11:03):
want it to be a beautiful book. M AI is is incredible for that,
absolutely absolutely. I was. Iwas really pleased with how it came
together, UM and was we wereable to create that consistent look across the
whole book. So I was verypleased without how it came together. Awesome.
That's that's really really interesting. I'mglad. I'm glad to know you
(11:24):
did that because I was I wasthinking about UM some different different projects that
I'm working on and using AI andwe and we've done it, UM my
marketing business. You know, we'restarting to use AI for certain things.
UM and actually recently a couple ofwebsites that we've built, we've used it
for some of the content generation andwe'll go back and edit. You know,
(11:45):
we know it wanted what we wantedto say, but it will right
you givet the right prompt and itwill give you the right length of content
and the right tone. Sure,so you still have to know what to
prompt. I think people want toprompt. Engineering is a very important key
of it. Absolutely. I thinkyou will understand or misunderstand the concept how
AI works, like, Oh,you're just being lazy or you're not your
(12:11):
job is unnecessary Now, well notreally. I think my job is just
going to be much more efficient becausethe AI tools. Sure, it teaches
you how to almost think in themindset of managing a team of people.
Right, because when you have whenyou have these tools, whether it's a
large language model like a chat GPT, or it's a mid journey like image
(12:33):
image based model, you are havingto think at a higher level of what
am I asking for? What doI need to ask for? What direction
does it need to move? Andit opens access up to somebody who maybe
doesn't have a team of illustrators ordoesn't have a team of copy editors and
writers. Now you're thinking more ina managerial role and creating the direction for
the content. So it's kind ofit's a different mindset for sure, but
(12:56):
if you can tap into it,it's some powerful tool. Yeah, absolutely,
absolutely, Um what I what I'venot seen yet is um and maybe
it exists and I just don't knowabout it. Or you put maybe you
can put the elements together, youknow, if you're use the illustrator or
something. But I have yet tosee a good H logo generator. I
(13:18):
don't think they just aren't there.I don't know why, but they're just
not there yet. It's hard,you know. I've I've done graphic design.
I've been a designer for ten yearsand I've done a lot of branding
packages, logos for churches, umfor corporate businesses, and it's it's such
an interesting thing. I think somebodywould have to create a more detailed prompt
(13:41):
of what you're looking for. Itlike, it's it's not as simple as
I want a logo that does X, Y and z. It has to
be there's so many variables in thedirection of it leans more modern, more
contemporary, your your font choices,your I mean, I think if somebody
could develop a longer form, somekind of form that you have to fill
out all this information for, Ithink that would I think that would get
it closer. But there's so muchback and forth with logo design that it
(14:05):
would it would be interesting to seean AI be able to do it really
well. Yeah, that's something I'venot seen. I think they'll get there.
I mean, AI is is early, still so early in the game,
Oh absolutely, absolutely, In thelast year are just mind boggling,
or last even eight months. Justyeah, the time frame is incredible.
It's almost stupid. Yeah, it'swhat it is, how quickly it's changing
(14:26):
and improving. And I think itis scary for some people. And I
think I think if you don't understandhow it works or what it really is,
I can see how it would bevery scary. M sure, you
know, in terms of the dangersof it, but also just economics,
like I'm not gonna lose my jobbecause of this, but I'm not afraid
(14:48):
of it. I think it's avery valuable too. I think it's like
Industrial Revolution times a thousand or amillion. Maybe. I think we're going
to see creative industry really thrived withthis tool. I don't see these tools
replacing graphic designers, replacing necessarily writers, or I see it being able to
enhance and unlock some some creativity becausereally it's the creative people who are trained
(15:15):
in UM, whether it's even likephilosophy or the arts. Those are the
kind of people who are going toknow best how to interact with this tool
because it's it's not an algorithm,right, it's not computer coding. You
have to to speak to it insemantic layman's terms, but be able to
craft ideas. So I think we'regoing to see the artistic people, especially
using these tools to more of theirfull potential. Right And just as now,
(15:39):
let's say you need a logo designed. You know, a pastor is
not necessarily a graphic designer, anda small business owner is not necessarily a
graphic designer. Same thing. Sothey don't know the words in the language
to guide the tools to create theartwork exactly. That's just like not knowing
how to use photoshop or illustrator.You're not you don't know how to use
chagypt or or whatever. The journey. It's the same thing. It's just
(16:02):
a different different tool. And andthere are AI integrations now with like with
photoshops that are absolutely incredible, andI've seen some others with some web web
design integrations that we use that havemade think so much easier. Sure,
absolutely so, So that's incredible.Okay, so you wrote the book for
(16:23):
the purpose of UM, not fornot for the purpose of entertaining children,
but for the purpose of teaching themand providing this resource. But also you
wanted to be entertaining and and looklook nice and it and it does.
UM. So as far as writingthe book, UM, where did you
Where did the inspiration come from?I guess that's the for this particular project,
(16:47):
where you inspired by a problem thatyou saw, you know that a
need or um just inspired by thefact that you wanted to Uh. This
was a project you wanted to dofor a long time, and this was
the opportunity to do it right.So this was a project that honestly came
together fairly quickly. The pieces kindof fell into alignment. But I can
tell you a little bit about whatwas the lead up to it. In
(17:11):
March, my wife and I foundout that we were pregnant, expecting our
firstborn, and we started doing allthe things that you do when you find
out you're pregnant, the doctor's appointmentsand ultrasounds, and found out that we're
having a little boy and he'll behere in November. We're so excited,
which thank you so much. Whichit's a miracle and of itself we lost
two pregnancies before this, but everythingis healthy, everything's going great. We're
(17:33):
very very thankful for that. Butas we started, you know, getting
online and buying all the things thatyou buy when you're expecting a child,
the algorithms started picking up, Hey, you need to push children content to
these people. So I started gettingall kinds of pop ups and videos,
and there was this video clip thatkept popping up on my Instagram. I've
never seen it before before all thisbut started popping up out of nowhere,
(17:56):
and is from a children's television showcalled Transformers, which I'm sure you're familiar
with what Transformed, at least whatthey used to be and all that.
Yeah, absolutely, So now apparentlythere is a revamped version which they're leaning
heavily into the trans part of Transformers. And there's this um I kept seeing
(18:18):
this clip of this robot who isapparently non binary, and the robot says,
you know, I don't identify asa he or as she, and
then it makes this quip it says, non binary. What a wonderful word
for a wonderful experience. And I'llbe honest, bro it kind of it
kind of took me off guard alittle bit wow, because I knew this
whole movement, this woke transgender movement, was against the church. I mean
(18:42):
that I think that much is obvious, but I wasn't aware of how intentional
this movement was in targeting children,right, And it grieved my spirit.
Man, it really messed me up. And so I had I had that
kind of rolling around for a coupleof weeks, and then my pastor got
up and preached a message on Mother'sDay. And I won't go into the
(19:03):
whole story. It's an incredible story. Uh it's it's sad, it's a
sad story. But the where hegot to it the story was he said,
we only have two options as parents. We either are going to hide
our kids from the things of thisworld, or our kids are going to
hide things from us. And hetold the story of a boy who who
was in middle school, middle school, or who was um who's wedding the
(19:26):
bed every night he was just havingthese night terrors and his parents couldn't figure
out what was going on, andevery night he'd get up and put his
sheets in the dry or trying to, you know, hide it, and
his mom finally asked him, knowwhat what what is going on, and
he just started weeping and began totell her the abuse and what was happening
in his school and it and Imade up my mind when when pastor was
(19:47):
preaching that message that I am notgoing to expose my kids to this mess.
I am not exposing my son tothis agenda, to this ideology.
It's not going to happen. Sothe next day, my wife and I
are sitting in a coffee shop andwe're getting ready to have Mother's Day dinner
with my family, and we're sittingthere, We've got our laptops working on
a couple of things, and bro, it was almost out of nowhere,
(20:07):
like God just popped this this thoughtin my mind, like you need to
write a children's book called Male andFemale Created he them. So at this
point, I've written a book,but I've never written a children's book.
So I just kind of, youknow, kind of got zoned in.
It was just kind of sitting there, typing away, and my wife looked
over, she goes, what doyou What are you doing over there?
Said, I'm writing a children's book, and she goes, huh, you're
(20:29):
do want to do one? Whatare you doing? So, yeah,
I'm I'm writing a children's book calledMale and Female Created he them, and
she was all right, cool.Then just that's that's where it started.
That was that was the lead upto it, of of realizing how hard
this agenda of the world is targetingour children, and the church has got
to step up and teach our kidsbiblical morality and biblical foundational truths before the
(20:55):
world perverts their minds, right right, I see. I maybe it's just
me, but it seems like there'sa lot of yelling and you know,
shaking your fist in the air bypeople in the church about what's happening,
but not really a lot of actionbeing taken. So, man, you
know, I've been blown away byI've had so many conversations the last several
(21:15):
weeks of um men I'm connected towho have maybe written books, who have
produced publications, and so many ofthem had said, Bro, I have
been wanting and thinking about making andwriting a children's book, but I just
haven't been able to figure out howto make it happen. I've had so
many people say that, and theend of conversation is always just run with
(21:37):
it, bro, We're behind you, run with it. We need this
there. There is not enough literaturefor our children about about these topics.
Absolutely, yeah, we have to. Um, if you want to teach
your kids something, then it's onyou to do it right. If you
want that book, you know,write it, and that's great. I'm
glad you've taken that step. That'sawesome. So how how long? About
how long did it take to writethe book? Because obviously it's a very
(22:00):
different thing than writing a two hundredpage book, right right, So,
man, the processes was so interestingand it's gonna sound like a crazy number,
crazy time frame when I give itto you. Um, But just
to preface it a little bit,Um, I've been a designer for ten
years, so I'm very familiar withthe tools of creating publications. I already
(22:22):
have the entire pipeline of ISBNs andpublishing already set up from my last publication
last year. So all that wasready to you know, ready to rock
and roll. So from the timewhere I had that Monday afternoon, I
had that thought, I need towrite children's book male female, cready heath
them until I hit published on Amazon. Now, there was still a few
days after that where I did somerevisions in small changes. But that timeframe
(22:45):
from the thought to hitting published wasone week in five days. Wow,
it was. It was a longweek in five days. I get a
little obsessive about how things when whenI jumped into it, but but it
was, honestly, it was incredible, just why the pieces just kind of
fall into place. The story cametogether, which you know, is kind
of one of those outflows where youcan tell that you've been prepared for something
(23:07):
and then the pieces fall into placefor it to happen. So the story
was kind of already in my spirit. I kind of knew what needed to
be said, and it just cametogether, and I was able to spend
most of that two weeks focusing onthe artwork and putting the story together.
And then after that, you know, we sent some review copies out to
some mentors and we had them readit to their children, and we use
(23:29):
that feedback to make some revisions,so the whole process was closer. You
know, it's about three weeks.But contrasting that with my last book,
which was about eight months of writingand editing and copy editors, content editors,
and it's just it's kind of awild thing to see it see it
come together. But I truly believethe hand of God was on it and
that's the only reason it was ableto come together as quickly as it did.
(23:52):
Awesome. So the reception for yourbook has been very positive. I
feel like overwhelmingly positive it has been. You know, we have upset the
UM Queer Paul Nby community a littlebit. There's there's been some pushback from
there, but on honest to goodness, the overwhelming majority of comments of messages
(24:14):
have been nothing but positive. Itwas It was so funny when we published
that video at three pm on thatThursday afternoon. For the next um like
nine hours, which we had prayerbeing from seven but we took a pause
for prayer being at the church.But for like nine hours straight, we
did nothing but respond to comments,respond to messages. UM just so many
people saying thank That video right nowis on Instagram as past fifty thousand views
(24:40):
has I believe is over a thousandshares, has hundreds of comments, and
we were we tried our very bestto respond to everybody, but the support
of people saying our kids need this, we need to teach our children this.
The response from across denominations, thisisn't just something that's you know,
moved in the Pentecostal circle. It'swe've had Catholics reach out, Baptists.
(25:03):
I mean, so many people I'vereached out saying thank you, thank you
for putting this together. Wow.I was going to ask about that across
denominational reach, and I think that'sprobably more likely with a book like this,
and you know, it's it's verymuch common ground. It's us targeted
toward toward children, teaching children,and there's nothing really to disagree about as
(25:25):
far as most you know, mostchurches go, most mainline churches, right,
and that you know, I mentionedat the beginning here that I was
in very intentional about keeping it veryvery close to scripture right now was part
of the motivation for that. Ididn't want it to be something that would
get stuck quote unquote in our circle. I wanted this to be something that
if you believe in the Bible,you can get behind this book. And
(25:45):
if you don't, we've got differentproblems. We've got we've got bigger problems.
But if you believe that the scripturesinspire word of God, you can
get behind this book, right absolutely. Yeah, So I see that it's
right now five stars on Amazon,which that kind of surprised me because I
thought you would get some pushback,maybe in the form of review bombing or
something like that. But I meanyou're right now, not yet. You
(26:08):
know, we've had, um somenasty comments on Instagram and your messages like
that. Um, but so faron Amazon, everything is going really well.
The weekend that we launched we BrokeWithin, I think it got all
the way up to the top fifteenhundred books on Amazon and it was the
number one best seller in um childrenChristian Ministry on Amazon. It still is
(26:30):
number two again, right yeah,Um, it's still the number one new
release in children's Christian ministry on Amazon, right, Um, so it is.
It's been incredible the response that we'vehad to the project. We're so
thankful, that's so awesome. Wow. Yeah, you couldn't ask for a
better better response than that. Andand honestly, sir, if you're not
getting um bombed on Amazon, thenreally the comments, you know they're gonna
(26:56):
come, but that's doesn't really matterall that much. And I think even
if you even if you were toget that something like that happening, there
will be support that would overwhelm it. Yeah. You know, I've made
the comment several times the last fewweeks, and I say it kind of
tongue in cheek, but I alsokind of mean it. You know,
people ask how the response has beensaid, and I've said, you know,
(27:18):
no death threats yet, right,But that just means our audience isn't
big enough. Yeah, so eventually, you know, Yeah, I mean
it's it's really this simple to me. We either stand on the word or
we don't. We either believe thatthe word is true or we don't.
And if if people come against it, I don't take it personally. They're
not coming against me that if theyhate me, it's because they hate the
word, right. It really isthat simple to me. That's true.
(27:41):
And we've talked about in the past. In the past, we've talked on
the podcast about dealing with these issuesin the in our community, our local
community, or in the church,because inevitably, if you have a large
enough church or a large enough reachand new people coming in, you're going
to encounter this. You know,there's going to be a family in the
church who has someone whom you know, and we've had this in our church,
(28:04):
you know, with children who areare gay or or whatever and then
navigating that and that's happened with thechurch families. Um, and that is
always difficult to navigate. I think, Um, it's you knew people coming
in. We have had an influxin the last year of growth, just
(28:26):
a huge amount of growth. Andwith yes, it has been amazing,
but with that comes all the challengesof people, you know, that have
been living in the world. Andman, church work would be so hard
if we weren't right right right,And it's and every you know, everybody
has problems. Every I mean everyonein the church has has their problems too.
Everybody has their problems, but they'reusually different problems than if you've been
(28:48):
living in the world. And wehave so many teenagers who are confused and
and I think part of the issueis not not so much you know,
for some people, I think theyhave a tendency to be tempted in that
way. Um. But I thinkwith the with the culture the way it
is, uh, it's being it'sbeing taught in either directly or indirectly as
(29:12):
something that's not only an alternative,but a better alternative. And therefore you
have these these teenagers who may havenever considered it or may have never been
tempted by that who are questioning itand testing the waters and super confused.
So we it's been a it's beena challenge. And what I've well we've
(29:33):
said on the podcast before and whatI've said in working ministry is you know,
if if the word of God offensesomeone, then then let it,
you know, because that's the wordof God. That's they're offended with God
or by God, they are angrywith God. Um, but don't let
me be an offense to someone.So I you know, I try to
be careful in the way that thatI speak to those people or about those
(29:55):
peoples like that, but who arestruggled with that. But but if you
if it's the word God, it'sthe word of God, like you said,
you either believe it or you don't. So UM, I think it's
I think it's fantastic that UM,people like yourself are are working to create
things that that are needed like thisto help with teaching children in a way
(30:17):
that is aligns with scripture, that'sopposite of what they're hearing many times at
school. And I know we livein a small community, you know,
Seymour, Indiana, and I knowseveral of the public school teachers, you
know, we had we have acurrent public school principle in our in our
(30:37):
church, we have a retired publicschool assistant principle. Um, several public
school let's see actually right now,a couple of public school teachers, and
we have a Christian school, sowe have several Christian school teachers too.
So it is it's kind of interestingbecause there are such great people, um
(31:00):
in some of these public schools,and they are doing what they can,
but there's only so much they canand and there's so much just being pushed
by the by a different agenda byyou know, whether it's a Department of
education or different groups to influence that. It's it's an uphill battle for them.
(31:21):
They just try to show up andlive live as they feel they need
to live and still keep their jobs. So I know, I know it's
a struggle, but we have That'swhy parents have to be involved in their
children's education. Only involved, butresponsible, I mean, we we're responsible.
Um so uh yeah, I absolutelyam. I am thrilled with what
(31:45):
with what you're doing. Now,let me ask you before we wrap up
a couple more questions. Sure,Number one, your involvement in ministry.
Are you a um, so I'mtalking on the pastoral staff or uh it
was it a student My wife andI were installed a student pastor last summer,
Yes, sir, awesome, sothat is is that just like a
(32:09):
youth pastor, college and career combinedor when you say a student pastor,
is that basically? Yeah? Sowe oversee our team for our student ministries,
which is our youth group, ourcollege and crew group. And we
have a Christian school here, soyou know, I do chapels with them
every week and yeah, we absolutelylove it. Awesome. Okay, so
you do chapels too, great,so we are, yes, sir.
(32:30):
We are kind of transitioning this yearat our Christian school and I'm not sure
what the plan is yet, butwe've had an awesome two years past two
years in chapel with a new programthat we launched. We called it Ignite
and with you know brother Matthew Arwood. Yeah, ye, sir, he
(32:51):
was. He's like spearheading that andhe was the culinary for that. But
it was it was great. Iwas glad to be part of it the
last couple of years, and Ihope to be next year. Too,
But it was a lot of teachingand training, not just not just coming
together and having chapel, making surethe kids are trained to do all the
(33:12):
things that happen in chapel. Soin our services, the band, you
know, the band was all kids, uh. The media that really there
were some kids that really shined,you know in different areas you know,
like graphic design or whatever. Maybethey're not going to be a singer,
but they're they're doing something and preparingthem to work in their churches. And
(33:36):
I love, absolutely love the schoolchapel program. So man, it's a
great training ground for for young kids. I mean it's it's unparalleled. I
mean you can have, um,people get involved, you know, on
a weekly basis, but when you'vegot them in the church at the school
every single day, you can getyour hands on them, train them,
teach them. Man, It's there'snothing. Absolutely yeah, it's incredible.
(33:58):
We we've had, oh my gosh, just an incredible uh response from the
kids. Uh. And then fromtheir churches, um that they've got kids
that are already trained basically, um, to run the run the overhead or
to play an instrument or whatever.And then and god, I mean We've
had a lot of prayer this yeartoo, and fasting for the teenagers specifically
(34:21):
in our church but also in theschool. And we you know, over
the last two years, we've hadfamilies kids that were UM different denominations.
Maybe they didn't believe in the HolyGhost or speaking in tongues, but they've
been filled with the Holy Ghost inChapel and then their parents came and filled
the Holy Ghost grandparents in one case. UM, it's just incredible, awesome,
(34:42):
awesome. So I love Christian nowex Baptists in our church through through
the Christian School, we've had UMkids get the Holy Ghost in Chapel.
I mean it's it's incredible. Christianeducation is so nat is absolutely absolutely.
There's there's one kid, uh andI actually plan to have him on the
podcast. He is going into tenthgrade, I believe this year, and
(35:05):
he was I can't remember what thedomination he was, but I would let
him tell the story when he comeson the podcast. But long story short,
he received the Holy Ghost in Chapel. I think his sister did actually
the year before in Chapel. Awesome, and eventually he wanted to get up
and tell his church about it.And he was kind of told, you
know, that's fine, just don'ttalk about the Holy Ghost. And as
(35:27):
a ninth grader, so okay,okay, Well he gets up there and
he said he just felt like Godtold him. God told him you have
to go and tell your church aboutthis. And he said, I got
up there and realized that I haveto tell them, and whatever happens happens.
So he so he told him abouthis experience, and his pastors set
him down, shut him down andsaid no more. And and the long,
(35:52):
long story short again, his wholefamily has been filled with the Holy
Ghost now and baptizing Jesus name,and his pastor has intended our church a
couple of times since then, whichI thought was important. Body. So
I you know, there's there's whoknows what God's going to do through through
these things like Christian education, youknow, teaching kids anyway you can reach
(36:13):
um reach the kids. I feellike it's extremely important. So what you're
doing in student ministry, yeah,is right up there with I think the
most noble and difficult things that youcan do. It. Man, you
get some stories, you get somestories. Working absolutely absolutely. I understand
that The other question was your otherbook. Um, can you tell us
(36:37):
a little bit briefly about that?What is it about? It's not a
children's book, so that was yourfirst publishing experience. Yes, sir um,
it's called the Church that Caesar Couldn'tshut Down. I know, I
joke that I have a gift forshort titles. I just don't exercise it.
So the subtitle is how Paul preparedthe Church in Philippi to stand against
(36:58):
the attacks of Antichrists. Again,I don't exercise my gifting of short titles.
But it was birthed out of athree week series I taught in our
adult Bible class at the church,walking through the Book of Philippians and drawing
connections between acts and Philippians and kindof bouncing back and forth between Paul's work
in the church and Philippie and thenhis letter later to them, and then
(37:22):
I get into some rabbinic stories andit's really it's painting a cultural context around
the establishing of the church. Soit was an incredible series to teach.
It was kind of one of thosedeals where he teach one lessons like,
I didn't cover nearly what I wantedto cover, So there's another one and
then another one. So after afew weeks, I was like, you
(37:43):
know, well, I probably needto wrap this up in the lesson,
but there was still so much moreI wanted to explore that. I used
the notes from those that series thatI taught to start creating the manuscript for
the book. So that that's that'swhere the book came from. It's still
on Amazon. It's linked to myauthor profile. UM so if you search
for Jordan p Frye you'll you'll seethe new publication Male and Female created he
(38:05):
them and um, the church sayssoncouldn't shut down both show up okay,
awesome. And then if they wantto find you other places Instagram, Facebook,
yeah, absolutely all all of umMy social is at Jordan p fry
j O R D O N.My parents thought they were They were cool
changing changing my name spelling, whichworked out for me because it was easy
to get a domain with a funnyspelling. So Jordan p fry dot com
(38:30):
at at Jordan p Frye, Instagram, Facebook, um, all of the
above. Twitter, that's that's whereyou can find me at Jordan pef Awesome,
awesome, thank you so much,thank you for coming on the podcast.
It was great talking to you,yes, sir, and look forward
to picking up a copy of bothof those books. Uh. And if
anyone has any questions, reach outto Jordans on social media or head over
(38:51):
to Amazon and pick up a copyof one of his two books, and
be sure if you do, leavea review because reviews absolutely help authors very
elo very much. So I thinkthat's it. If if you would you
write another book, we'd love tohave you back on and I'm sure absolutely
well, brother, it's been it'sbeen a privilege and an honor. Thank
(39:13):
you so much. As great toconnecting with you today and so good to
talk with you for a little awesomethank you, See you soon, yes,
sir, goodbye, Thanks for listeningto today's episode of Two Pentecostals in
a microphone. As always, youcan reach us via our website at two
pentecostals dot com. There you canfind show notes anything about the episode.
(39:37):
Any links that we had mentioned inthe episode will be found there as long
as the show notes on the episode. Also, please like, share,
comment wherever you can pass the informationalone. We are growing and we want
to continue to grow. We areon all the social media platforms at two
(39:58):
Pentecostals and as well as most mostpodcast platforms wherever you listen to your podcast.
Once again, we are so gladthat you chose to download and listen
to this week's episode. Thank youfor your support.
Welcome back to Two Pentecostals and amicrophone. I am so glad that you
chose to listen to us today.We're excited about today's episode. It is
interview with the brother Jordan Fry.He is the student pastor at First Pentecostal
(00:22):
Church in Anderson, Indiannna. Butmore importantly, he has written a couple
of books and today we are goingto talk about one of those books and
it says in his process and howhe created it and the tools that he
used to get this out. What'smost impressive to me about this is the
timeline and Jaredith gets into it alittle bit later in the episode, but
(00:45):
so incredible on how from from fromthe conception of the idea to the reality
of seeing it come to reality.It's it's so amazing what God can do
in just a moment in time andthe abilities that He gives us in the
talents that we have. And todaywe talked with him about this book that
(01:07):
he wrote, to children's book andit's called Male and Female Created He them
it's an incredible book and we're excitedto talk to him about it. I
hope you enjoy it. Today's episode. It is just Jaredith. I had
a prior work commitment that I connectit out of and Jaredith both and I
(01:33):
agreed to just go ahead and givethe interview without me. But that's okay.
I will be back in the nextepisode for sure, and I'm so
thankful that we still get the opportunityto speak with some incredible people and just
(01:56):
just share our hearts with each other. That's what this podcast is all about.
And we're excited to get back ontrack and start recording episodes and get
in the mountain. Please please enjoythis episode of Two pentecostles and a microphone.
(02:17):
Well, welcome to the podcast,Jordan Fry. You've written a new
book and that is what we're gonnatalk about today. Yes, sir,
thank you so much for having me. Man, it's a pleasure to meet
you. Good to be on withyou. Nice to meet you as well.
Glad to have you on. Now. We're talking a little bit before
the show about your your background.And you are in Anderson, Indiana,
(02:40):
as I correct, Yes, sir, up here in Anderson, Indiana.
Awesome, And you're in Who's You'reborn and bread born and bread my blood
might bleed read Yes, sir,who's You're through and three same here,
Same here. I was born indown south of Vincenns, but I always
lived in Indiana whole life. Sowell, it's great to have you on.
You have done something a little differentthan our former guests who were authors,
(03:07):
because you have written at children's bookI don't think, yes, sir,
don't think we've interviewed at children's bookauthor in the past. But you
are experiencing I think some success,quite a bit of success with this book,
and I just want to start outby asking you tell us a little
bit about it first, like whatthe title, the premise, just kind
(03:29):
of give us a little overview ofthe book. Sure. Absolutely, man,
We've been blown away by the responseto the book. We launched it
publicly on June first, that wasthe first We sent out a promotional video.
That was how we launched it.The title comes directly from Genesis,
chapter one, verse number twenty seven, and very simply the titles male and
female created He them. And thepremise of the book it walks. It's
(03:53):
kind of a two part deal.It walks through the creation account in God
creating the animals and how He createda male and a female in every single
category, and then it goes andintroduces the story of Adam and even how
God created a man and gave mandominion course smaller words than than dominion in
the book, but man starts namingthe animals and and he's alone. So
(04:14):
God creates for him a she,and God created male and female created he
them. So that's that's the premiseof the book, that there are two
genders. God made both of amale and female. Awesome. Okay,
So, um, what is thetarget? Like? Um, I did
look at I watched the video ofthe flip through video on Amazon. You
can see that if you're curious.Sure, um, and that's probably the
(04:35):
best place. We'll talk about thatlater, but the best place to pick
up the book is probably what amazones. Yeah, that's where we're selling at
Amazon. Amazon. Okay, sothere's a flip flip through video there so
you can kind of see, um, the art and the and the pages
and just kind of see what it'sabout. But um, I noticed that
it looks really great. The artlooks great, so um, the layout
(05:00):
looks great. Um, who areyou? Who is your target with this?
Is this more targeted to um?To parents or two kids? I
mean, obviously you want to entertainthe kids, you want them to enjoy
the book, but you also wantto teach sure them something right. Sure,
Yeah, it's a very good question. And we were very intentional in
putting this book together to keep itvery streamlined. With the scripture, we
(05:24):
don't I don't go and add alot of us. It doesn't get preachy,
doesn't get dogmatic. And the reasonI kept it so streamlined was because
I wanted to have as wide ofan age range as possible. Now,
the book is particularly meant for whatan education you would call guided reading,
so a parent reading to their children, but I wanted to leave enough room
(05:46):
in the story that parents could umimpart foundational truths and biblical truths to their
kids to the level that they're at. So you're not going to find a
lot of overly dogmatic things. Doesn'tget super preachy, but it just tells
the facts of the creation account andit leaves room. And even with illustrations,
you have extra information in the picturesthat's not necessarily in the story.
(06:08):
So depending on where the child is, whether they're very young and are just
enjoying the pictures and enjoying understanding thatthere's male and female or a little bit
older four five six, and youcan actually start having some of these deeper
conversations about you know, about havinga mate, what that means, and
having in something, being married andso you. So we left room to
(06:30):
be able to teach to where thechild is at. So it is a
wide age range, UM, butit is primarily intended to be guided reading
with parents and their children. Okay, great, great, so did you
you you wrote the book, butdid you do the illustrations as well,
or did you have an illustrator withfor that? Sure? So it's a
it's a cool story the illustrations.And I won't jump off into the technical
(06:54):
details because we could be you know, four hour long podcasts on exactly how
we produced artwork. But the artwork was largely produced with AI technology.
Great, I was hoping you weregoing to say that, because yes,
sure, sure, I'd be happyto jump into any of that. But
UM, I used a generator calledmid Journey and set up a custom discord
(07:15):
server and began engineering the prompts umfor it. Which one of the interesting
things about it is, UM thistechnology that we have access to is absolutely
incredible generating images not hard. Generatinga consistent landscape with consistent characters in a
consistent world very difficult. So Iend up doing a lot of custom compositing
(07:38):
myself and Photoshop, and we pulledit into Procreate and did some custom editions
and changes, but largely it wasgenerated with AI. Okay, interesting,
Okay, So you're using mid Journey, which I have been using off and
on, kind of learning tea myselfhow to use and the prompt the prompt
engineering or you know, learning howto write a prompt and get the results
(08:00):
you want is a kind of afun process. Absolutely. I kind of
explain it like pseudo coding or likesemantic coding. So it's the idea of
you have certain parameters in there.It's a certain way you have to build
your prompts. But it's not necessarilycoding language. It's plain English, but
there are certain ways that you talkto it to get the results that you're
(08:22):
looking for. Yeah, exactly,it is. It is very Yeah,
it's natural length. Well that's whatit is, right, natural language processing.
But right right. On the otherhand, you do have to engineer
in a certain way or you're notgoing to get creda results that you want.
So right, I have a wholetreasure trove of what I guess you
could call bloopers, of images thatwill not be released and maybe I'll show
(08:43):
you in private. But it getscrazy. But yeah, it is definitely
a back and forth process of reallyhoning it in and getting exactly what you're
looking for. Yes, yes,and you can get some pretty hilarious results.
Sometimes. I have a funny storyabout there's a picture from the Book
of Adam sleeping on a rock,and for whatever reason, so he's got
like this bluish shirt on throughout thewhole book, and for whatever reason,
(09:07):
whenever he goes to lay down,the mid Journey insisted that he being a
striped shirt. Oh that'sist. Icould not change it. And matter of
fact, I worked on that.That was the hardest image of the whole
book. And at one point Iwas about to give up, and I
was like, you know what,We're gonna try a couple of different things,
and the AI doubled down and notonly put stripes on the boy,
but put stripes on the rocks aroundhim. Like it was doubled down.
(09:30):
So I eventually pulled it into PhotoshopBeta and used the generative fill yes,
and created a new shirt for him, then fed it back into this system
and finally got something. It's stillsubtle stripes, but at least it's more
subtle. Now, Okay, that'sinteresting. So we've used I personally have
used Dolly from Open a Eye okayfor some similar like generative things for my
(09:56):
marketing business. But also we hada conference where someone brought a uh an
overhead slide image for their title,their summon title, and they said,
oh, they've already got it done. It was a square. We needed
it to be in nineteen twenty teneighty. So Dolly to the rescue and
it worked. Worked that. That'sincredible. The tools, the tools that
are available right now are just incredible. They are wild they are and in
(10:20):
a situation like this, you know, the art, it looks great,
The art looks really great. It'sbut it's not about the art. So
you're so, I think there's children'sbook writers or whatever that that are more
they are illustrators, So sure thepoint is more maybe the art than anything
else, you know. I thinkabout kid books I red when I was
(10:41):
a kid, like that have avery specific style, like where the Wild
Things Are or something like that.You know you know that style would you
see it? Um, it's moremaybe about the art, so you know
that still makes sense for an artistillustrator to go that route, but for
someone like you, who is thepoint of the book is the message and
teaching. UM. But you stillwant it to look great. You still
(11:03):
want it to be a beautiful book. M AI is is incredible for that,
absolutely absolutely. I was. Iwas really pleased with how it came
together, UM and was we wereable to create that consistent look across the
whole book. So I was verypleased without how it came together. Awesome.
That's that's really really interesting. I'mglad. I'm glad to know you
(11:24):
did that because I was I wasthinking about UM some different different projects that
I'm working on and using AI andwe and we've done it, UM my
marketing business. You know, we'restarting to use AI for certain things.
UM and actually recently a couple ofwebsites that we've built, we've used it
for some of the content generation andwe'll go back and edit. You know,
(11:45):
we know it wanted what we wantedto say, but it will right
you givet the right prompt and itwill give you the right length of content
and the right tone. Sure,so you still have to know what to
prompt. I think people want toprompt. Engineering is a very important key
of it. Absolutely. I thinkyou will understand or misunderstand the concept how
AI works, like, Oh,you're just being lazy or you're not your
(12:11):
job is unnecessary Now, well notreally. I think my job is just
going to be much more efficient becausethe AI tools. Sure, it teaches
you how to almost think in themindset of managing a team of people.
Right, because when you have whenyou have these tools, whether it's a
large language model like a chat GPT, or it's a mid journey like image
(12:33):
image based model, you are havingto think at a higher level of what
am I asking for? What doI need to ask for? What direction
does it need to move? Andit opens access up to somebody who maybe
doesn't have a team of illustrators ordoesn't have a team of copy editors and
writers. Now you're thinking more ina managerial role and creating the direction for
the content. So it's kind ofit's a different mindset for sure, but
(12:56):
if you can tap into it,it's some powerful tool. Yeah, absolutely,
absolutely, Um what I what I'venot seen yet is um and maybe
it exists and I just don't knowabout it. Or you put maybe you
can put the elements together, youknow, if you're use the illustrator or
something. But I have yet tosee a good H logo generator. I
(13:18):
don't think they just aren't there.I don't know why, but they're just
not there yet. It's hard,you know. I've I've done graphic design.
I've been a designer for ten yearsand I've done a lot of branding
packages, logos for churches, umfor corporate businesses, and it's it's such
an interesting thing. I think somebodywould have to create a more detailed prompt
(13:41):
of what you're looking for. Itlike, it's it's not as simple as
I want a logo that does X, Y and z. It has to
be there's so many variables in thedirection of it leans more modern, more
contemporary, your your font choices,your I mean, I think if somebody
could develop a longer form, somekind of form that you have to fill
out all this information for, Ithink that would I think that would get
it closer. But there's so muchback and forth with logo design that it
(14:05):
would it would be interesting to seean AI be able to do it really
well. Yeah, that's something I'venot seen. I think they'll get there.
I mean, AI is is early, still so early in the game,
Oh absolutely, absolutely, In thelast year are just mind boggling,
or last even eight months. Justyeah, the time frame is incredible.
It's almost stupid. Yeah, it'swhat it is, how quickly it's changing
(14:26):
and improving. And I think itis scary for some people. And I
think I think if you don't understandhow it works or what it really is,
I can see how it would bevery scary. M sure, you
know, in terms of the dangersof it, but also just economics,
like I'm not gonna lose my jobbecause of this, but I'm not afraid
(14:48):
of it. I think it's avery valuable too. I think it's like
Industrial Revolution times a thousand or amillion. Maybe. I think we're going
to see creative industry really thrived withthis tool. I don't see these tools
replacing graphic designers, replacing necessarily writers, or I see it being able to
enhance and unlock some some creativity becausereally it's the creative people who are trained
(15:15):
in UM, whether it's even likephilosophy or the arts. Those are the
kind of people who are going toknow best how to interact with this tool
because it's it's not an algorithm,right, it's not computer coding. You
have to to speak to it insemantic layman's terms, but be able to
craft ideas. So I think we'regoing to see the artistic people, especially
using these tools to more of theirfull potential. Right And just as now,
(15:39):
let's say you need a logo designed. You know, a pastor is
not necessarily a graphic designer, anda small business owner is not necessarily a
graphic designer. Same thing. Sothey don't know the words in the language
to guide the tools to create theartwork exactly. That's just like not knowing
how to use photoshop or illustrator.You're not you don't know how to use
chagypt or or whatever. The journey. It's the same thing. It's just
(16:02):
a different different tool. And andthere are AI integrations now with like with
photoshops that are absolutely incredible, andI've seen some others with some web web
design integrations that we use that havemade think so much easier. Sure,
absolutely so, So that's incredible.Okay, so you wrote the book for
(16:23):
the purpose of UM, not fornot for the purpose of entertaining children,
but for the purpose of teaching themand providing this resource. But also you
wanted to be entertaining and and looklook nice and it and it does.
UM. So as far as writingthe book, UM, where did you
Where did the inspiration come from?I guess that's the for this particular project,
(16:47):
where you inspired by a problem thatyou saw, you know that a
need or um just inspired by thefact that you wanted to Uh. This
was a project you wanted to dofor a long time, and this was
the opportunity to do it right.So this was a project that honestly came
together fairly quickly. The pieces kindof fell into alignment. But I can
tell you a little bit about whatwas the lead up to it. In
(17:11):
March, my wife and I foundout that we were pregnant, expecting our
firstborn, and we started doing allthe things that you do when you find
out you're pregnant, the doctor's appointmentsand ultrasounds, and found out that we're
having a little boy and he'll behere in November. We're so excited,
which thank you so much. Whichit's a miracle and of itself we lost
two pregnancies before this, but everythingis healthy, everything's going great. We're
(17:33):
very very thankful for that. Butas we started, you know, getting
online and buying all the things thatyou buy when you're expecting a child,
the algorithms started picking up, Hey, you need to push children content to
these people. So I started gettingall kinds of pop ups and videos,
and there was this video clip thatkept popping up on my Instagram. I've
never seen it before before all thisbut started popping up out of nowhere,
(17:56):
and is from a children's television showcalled Transformers, which I'm sure you're familiar
with what Transformed, at least whatthey used to be and all that.
Yeah, absolutely, So now apparentlythere is a revamped version which they're leaning
heavily into the trans part of Transformers. And there's this um I kept seeing
(18:18):
this clip of this robot who isapparently non binary, and the robot says,
you know, I don't identify asa he or as she, and
then it makes this quip it says, non binary. What a wonderful word
for a wonderful experience. And I'llbe honest, bro it kind of it
kind of took me off guard alittle bit wow, because I knew this
whole movement, this woke transgender movement, was against the church. I mean
(18:42):
that I think that much is obvious, but I wasn't aware of how intentional
this movement was in targeting children,right, And it grieved my spirit.
Man, it really messed me up. And so I had I had that
kind of rolling around for a coupleof weeks, and then my pastor got
up and preached a message on Mother'sDay. And I won't go into the
(19:03):
whole story. It's an incredible story. Uh it's it's sad, it's a
sad story. But the where hegot to it the story was he said,
we only have two options as parents. We either are going to hide
our kids from the things of thisworld, or our kids are going to
hide things from us. And hetold the story of a boy who who
was in middle school, middle school, or who was um who's wedding the
(19:26):
bed every night he was just havingthese night terrors and his parents couldn't figure
out what was going on, andevery night he'd get up and put his
sheets in the dry or trying to, you know, hide it, and
his mom finally asked him, knowwhat what what is going on, and
he just started weeping and began totell her the abuse and what was happening
in his school and it and Imade up my mind when when pastor was
(19:47):
preaching that message that I am notgoing to expose my kids to this mess.
I am not exposing my son tothis agenda, to this ideology.
It's not going to happen. Sothe next day, my wife and I
are sitting in a coffee shop andwe're getting ready to have Mother's Day dinner
with my family, and we're sittingthere, We've got our laptops working on
a couple of things, and bro, it was almost out of nowhere,
(20:07):
like God just popped this this thoughtin my mind, like you need to
write a children's book called Male andFemale Created he them. So at this
point, I've written a book,but I've never written a children's book.
So I just kind of, youknow, kind of got zoned in.
It was just kind of sitting there, typing away, and my wife looked
over, she goes, what doyou What are you doing over there?
Said, I'm writing a children's book, and she goes, huh, you're
(20:29):
do want to do one? Whatare you doing? So, yeah,
I'm I'm writing a children's book calledMale and Female Created he them, and
she was all right, cool.Then just that's that's where it started.
That was that was the lead upto it, of of realizing how hard
this agenda of the world is targetingour children, and the church has got
to step up and teach our kidsbiblical morality and biblical foundational truths before the
(20:55):
world perverts their minds, right right, I see. I maybe it's just
me, but it seems like there'sa lot of yelling and you know,
shaking your fist in the air bypeople in the church about what's happening,
but not really a lot of actionbeing taken. So, man, you
know, I've been blown away byI've had so many conversations the last several
(21:15):
weeks of um men I'm connected towho have maybe written books, who have
produced publications, and so many ofthem had said, Bro, I have
been wanting and thinking about making andwriting a children's book, but I just
haven't been able to figure out howto make it happen. I've had so
many people say that, and theend of conversation is always just run with
(21:37):
it, bro, We're behind you, run with it. We need this
there. There is not enough literaturefor our children about about these topics.
Absolutely, yeah, we have to. Um, if you want to teach
your kids something, then it's onyou to do it right. If you
want that book, you know,write it, and that's great. I'm
glad you've taken that step. That'sawesome. So how how long? About
how long did it take to writethe book? Because obviously it's a very
(22:00):
different thing than writing a two hundredpage book, right right, So,
man, the processes was so interestingand it's gonna sound like a crazy number,
crazy time frame when I give itto you. Um, But just
to preface it a little bit,Um, I've been a designer for ten
years, so I'm very familiar withthe tools of creating publications. I already
(22:22):
have the entire pipeline of ISBNs andpublishing already set up from my last publication
last year. So all that wasready to you know, ready to rock
and roll. So from the timewhere I had that Monday afternoon, I
had that thought, I need towrite children's book male female, cready heath
them until I hit published on Amazon. Now, there was still a few
days after that where I did somerevisions in small changes. But that timeframe
(22:45):
from the thought to hitting published wasone week in five days. Wow,
it was. It was a longweek in five days. I get a
little obsessive about how things when whenI jumped into it, but but it
was, honestly, it was incredible, just why the pieces just kind of
fall into place. The story cametogether, which you know, is kind
of one of those outflows where youcan tell that you've been prepared for something
(23:07):
and then the pieces fall into placefor it to happen. So the story
was kind of already in my spirit. I kind of knew what needed to
be said, and it just cametogether, and I was able to spend
most of that two weeks focusing onthe artwork and putting the story together.
And then after that, you know, we sent some review copies out to
some mentors and we had them readit to their children, and we use
(23:29):
that feedback to make some revisions,so the whole process was closer. You
know, it's about three weeks.But contrasting that with my last book,
which was about eight months of writingand editing and copy editors, content editors,
and it's just it's kind of awild thing to see it see it
come together. But I truly believethe hand of God was on it and
that's the only reason it was ableto come together as quickly as it did.
(23:52):
Awesome. So the reception for yourbook has been very positive. I
feel like overwhelmingly positive it has been. You know, we have upset the
UM Queer Paul Nby community a littlebit. There's there's been some pushback from
there, but on honest to goodness, the overwhelming majority of comments of messages
(24:14):
have been nothing but positive. Itwas It was so funny when we published
that video at three pm on thatThursday afternoon. For the next um like
nine hours, which we had prayerbeing from seven but we took a pause
for prayer being at the church.But for like nine hours straight, we
did nothing but respond to comments,respond to messages. UM just so many
people saying thank That video right nowis on Instagram as past fifty thousand views
(24:40):
has I believe is over a thousandshares, has hundreds of comments, and
we were we tried our very bestto respond to everybody, but the support
of people saying our kids need this, we need to teach our children this.
The response from across denominations, thisisn't just something that's you know,
moved in the Pentecostal circle. It'swe've had Catholics reach out, Baptists.
(25:03):
I mean, so many people I'vereached out saying thank you, thank you
for putting this together. Wow.I was going to ask about that across
denominational reach, and I think that'sprobably more likely with a book like this,
and you know, it's it's verymuch common ground. It's us targeted
toward toward children, teaching children,and there's nothing really to disagree about as
(25:25):
far as most you know, mostchurches go, most mainline churches, right,
and that you know, I mentionedat the beginning here that I was
in very intentional about keeping it veryvery close to scripture right now was part
of the motivation for that. Ididn't want it to be something that would
get stuck quote unquote in our circle. I wanted this to be something that
if you believe in the Bible,you can get behind this book. And
(25:45):
if you don't, we've got differentproblems. We've got we've got bigger problems.
But if you believe that the scripturesinspire word of God, you can
get behind this book, right absolutely. Yeah, So I see that it's
right now five stars on Amazon,which that kind of surprised me because I
thought you would get some pushback,maybe in the form of review bombing or
something like that. But I meanyou're right now, not yet. You
(26:08):
know, we've had, um somenasty comments on Instagram and your messages like
that. Um, but so faron Amazon, everything is going really well.
The weekend that we launched we BrokeWithin, I think it got all
the way up to the top fifteenhundred books on Amazon and it was the
number one best seller in um childrenChristian Ministry on Amazon. It still is
(26:30):
number two again, right yeah,Um, it's still the number one new
release in children's Christian ministry on Amazon, right, Um, so it is.
It's been incredible the response that we'vehad to the project. We're so
thankful, that's so awesome. Wow. Yeah, you couldn't ask for a
better better response than that. Andand honestly, sir, if you're not
getting um bombed on Amazon, thenreally the comments, you know they're gonna
(26:56):
come, but that's doesn't really matterall that much. And I think even
if you even if you were toget that something like that happening, there
will be support that would overwhelm it. Yeah. You know, I've made
the comment several times the last fewweeks, and I say it kind of
tongue in cheek, but I alsokind of mean it. You know,
people ask how the response has beensaid, and I've said, you know,
(27:18):
no death threats yet, right,But that just means our audience isn't
big enough. Yeah, so eventually, you know, Yeah, I mean
it's it's really this simple to me. We either stand on the word or
we don't. We either believe thatthe word is true or we don't.
And if if people come against it, I don't take it personally. They're
not coming against me that if theyhate me, it's because they hate the
word, right. It really isthat simple to me. That's true.
(27:41):
And we've talked about in the past. In the past, we've talked on
the podcast about dealing with these issuesin the in our community, our local
community, or in the church,because inevitably, if you have a large
enough church or a large enough reachand new people coming in, you're going
to encounter this. You know,there's going to be a family in the
church who has someone whom you know, and we've had this in our church,
(28:04):
you know, with children who areare gay or or whatever and then
navigating that and that's happened with thechurch families. Um, and that is
always difficult to navigate. I think, Um, it's you knew people coming
in. We have had an influxin the last year of growth, just
(28:26):
a huge amount of growth. Andwith yes, it has been amazing,
but with that comes all the challengesof people, you know, that have
been living in the world. Andman, church work would be so hard
if we weren't right right right,And it's and every you know, everybody
has problems. Every I mean everyonein the church has has their problems too.
Everybody has their problems, but they'reusually different problems than if you've been
(28:48):
living in the world. And wehave so many teenagers who are confused and
and I think part of the issueis not not so much you know,
for some people, I think theyhave a tendency to be tempted in that
way. Um. But I thinkwith the with the culture the way it
is, uh, it's being it'sbeing taught in either directly or indirectly as
(29:12):
something that's not only an alternative,but a better alternative. And therefore you
have these these teenagers who may havenever considered it or may have never been
tempted by that who are questioning itand testing the waters and super confused.
So we it's been a it's beena challenge. And what I've well we've
(29:33):
said on the podcast before and whatI've said in working ministry is you know,
if if the word of God offensesomeone, then then let it,
you know, because that's the wordof God. That's they're offended with God
or by God, they are angrywith God. Um, but don't let
me be an offense to someone.So I you know, I try to
be careful in the way that thatI speak to those people or about those
(29:55):
peoples like that, but who arestruggled with that. But but if you
if it's the word God, it'sthe word of God, like you said,
you either believe it or you don't. So UM, I think it's
I think it's fantastic that UM,people like yourself are are working to create
things that that are needed like thisto help with teaching children in a way
(30:17):
that is aligns with scripture, that'sopposite of what they're hearing many times at
school. And I know we livein a small community, you know,
Seymour, Indiana, and I knowseveral of the public school teachers, you
know, we had we have acurrent public school principle in our in our
(30:37):
church, we have a retired publicschool assistant principle. Um, several public
school let's see actually right now,a couple of public school teachers, and
we have a Christian school, sowe have several Christian school teachers too.
So it is it's kind of interestingbecause there are such great people, um
(31:00):
in some of these public schools,and they are doing what they can,
but there's only so much they canand and there's so much just being pushed
by the by a different agenda byyou know, whether it's a Department of
education or different groups to influence that. It's it's an uphill battle for them.
(31:21):
They just try to show up andlive live as they feel they need
to live and still keep their jobs. So I know, I know it's
a struggle, but we have That'swhy parents have to be involved in their
children's education. Only involved, butresponsible, I mean, we we're responsible.
Um so uh yeah, I absolutelyam. I am thrilled with what
(31:45):
with what you're doing. Now,let me ask you before we wrap up
a couple more questions. Sure,Number one, your involvement in ministry.
Are you a um, so I'mtalking on the pastoral staff or uh it
was it a student My wife andI were installed a student pastor last summer,
Yes, sir, awesome, sothat is is that just like a
(32:09):
youth pastor, college and career combinedor when you say a student pastor,
is that basically? Yeah? Sowe oversee our team for our student ministries,
which is our youth group, ourcollege and crew group. And we
have a Christian school here, soyou know, I do chapels with them
every week and yeah, we absolutelylove it. Awesome. Okay, so
you do chapels too, great,so we are, yes, sir.
(32:30):
We are kind of transitioning this yearat our Christian school and I'm not sure
what the plan is yet, butwe've had an awesome two years past two
years in chapel with a new programthat we launched. We called it Ignite
and with you know brother Matthew Arwood. Yeah, ye, sir, he
(32:51):
was. He's like spearheading that andhe was the culinary for that. But
it was it was great. Iwas glad to be part of it the
last couple of years, and Ihope to be next year. Too,
But it was a lot of teachingand training, not just not just coming
together and having chapel, making surethe kids are trained to do all the
(33:12):
things that happen in chapel. Soin our services, the band, you
know, the band was all kids, uh. The media that really there
were some kids that really shined,you know in different areas you know,
like graphic design or whatever. Maybethey're not going to be a singer,
but they're they're doing something and preparingthem to work in their churches. And
(33:36):
I love, absolutely love the schoolchapel program. So man, it's a
great training ground for for young kids. I mean it's it's unparalleled. I
mean you can have, um,people get involved, you know, on
a weekly basis, but when you'vegot them in the church at the school
every single day, you can getyour hands on them, train them,
teach them. Man, It's there'snothing. Absolutely yeah, it's incredible.
(33:58):
We we've had, oh my gosh, just an incredible uh response from the
kids. Uh. And then fromtheir churches, um that they've got kids
that are already trained basically, um, to run the run the overhead or
to play an instrument or whatever.And then and god, I mean We've
had a lot of prayer this yeartoo, and fasting for the teenagers specifically
(34:21):
in our church but also in theschool. And we you know, over
the last two years, we've hadfamilies kids that were UM different denominations.
Maybe they didn't believe in the HolyGhost or speaking in tongues, but they've
been filled with the Holy Ghost inChapel and then their parents came and filled
the Holy Ghost grandparents in one case. UM, it's just incredible, awesome,
(34:42):
awesome. So I love Christian nowex Baptists in our church through through
the Christian School, we've had UMkids get the Holy Ghost in Chapel.
I mean it's it's incredible. Christianeducation is so nat is absolutely absolutely.
There's there's one kid, uh andI actually plan to have him on the
podcast. He is going into tenthgrade, I believe this year, and
(35:05):
he was I can't remember what thedomination he was, but I would let
him tell the story when he comeson the podcast. But long story short,
he received the Holy Ghost in Chapel. I think his sister did actually
the year before in Chapel. Awesome, and eventually he wanted to get up
and tell his church about it.And he was kind of told, you
know, that's fine, just don'ttalk about the Holy Ghost. And as
(35:27):
a ninth grader, so okay,okay, Well he gets up there and
he said he just felt like Godtold him. God told him you have
to go and tell your church aboutthis. And he said, I got
up there and realized that I haveto tell them, and whatever happens happens.
So he so he told him abouthis experience, and his pastors set
him down, shut him down andsaid no more. And and the long,
(35:52):
long story short again, his wholefamily has been filled with the Holy
Ghost now and baptizing Jesus name,and his pastor has intended our church a
couple of times since then, whichI thought was important. Body. So
I you know, there's there's whoknows what God's going to do through through
these things like Christian education, youknow, teaching kids anyway you can reach
(36:13):
um reach the kids. I feellike it's extremely important. So what you're
doing in student ministry, yeah,is right up there with I think the
most noble and difficult things that youcan do. It. Man, you
get some stories, you get somestories. Working absolutely absolutely. I understand
that The other question was your otherbook. Um, can you tell us
(36:37):
a little bit briefly about that?What is it about? It's not a
children's book, so that was yourfirst publishing experience. Yes, sir um,
it's called the Church that Caesar Couldn'tshut Down. I know, I
joke that I have a gift forshort titles. I just don't exercise it.
So the subtitle is how Paul preparedthe Church in Philippi to stand against
(36:58):
the attacks of Antichrists. Again,I don't exercise my gifting of short titles.
But it was birthed out of athree week series I taught in our
adult Bible class at the church,walking through the Book of Philippians and drawing
connections between acts and Philippians and kindof bouncing back and forth between Paul's work
in the church and Philippie and thenhis letter later to them, and then
(37:22):
I get into some rabbinic stories andit's really it's painting a cultural context around
the establishing of the church. Soit was an incredible series to teach.
It was kind of one of thosedeals where he teach one lessons like,
I didn't cover nearly what I wantedto cover, So there's another one and
then another one. So after afew weeks, I was like, you
(37:43):
know, well, I probably needto wrap this up in the lesson,
but there was still so much moreI wanted to explore that. I used
the notes from those that series thatI taught to start creating the manuscript for
the book. So that that's that'swhere the book came from. It's still
on Amazon. It's linked to myauthor profile. UM so if you search
for Jordan p Frye you'll you'll seethe new publication Male and Female created he
(38:05):
them and um, the church sayssoncouldn't shut down both show up okay,
awesome. And then if they wantto find you other places Instagram, Facebook,
yeah, absolutely all all of umMy social is at Jordan p fry
j O R D O N.My parents thought they were They were cool
changing changing my name spelling, whichworked out for me because it was easy
to get a domain with a funnyspelling. So Jordan p fry dot com
(38:30):
at at Jordan p Frye, Instagram, Facebook, um, all of the
above. Twitter, that's that's whereyou can find me at Jordan pef Awesome,
awesome, thank you so much,thank you for coming on the podcast.
It was great talking to you,yes, sir, and look forward
to picking up a copy of bothof those books. Uh. And if
anyone has any questions, reach outto Jordans on social media or head over
(38:51):
to Amazon and pick up a copyof one of his two books, and
be sure if you do, leavea review because reviews absolutely help authors very
elo very much. So I thinkthat's it. If if you would you
write another book, we'd love tohave you back on and I'm sure absolutely
well, brother, it's been it'sbeen a privilege and an honor. Thank
(39:13):
you so much. As great toconnecting with you today and so good to
talk with you for a little awesomethank you, See you soon, yes,
sir, goodbye, Thanks for listeningto today's episode of Two Pentecostals in
a microphone. As always, youcan reach us via our website at two
pentecostals dot com. There you canfind show notes anything about the episode.
(39:37):
Any links that we had mentioned inthe episode will be found there as long
as the show notes on the episode. Also, please like, share,
comment wherever you can pass the informationalone. We are growing and we want
to continue to grow. We areon all the social media platforms at two
(39:58):
Pentecostals and as well as most mostpodcast platforms wherever you listen to your podcast.
Once again, we are so gladthat you chose to download and listen
to this week's episode. Thank youfor your support.
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