SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, good morning. Hey.

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Round two. We tried one.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

We didn't like it.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

We're on round two. Yeah, we don't normally do that, but we thought we would do that this morning.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

So how are you this morning?

SPEAKER_01 0:09

I'm doing rather well. I think I had a good night's sleep. Um yesterday was really good. What?

SPEAKER_00 0:14

No, I love it.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

We're at the age where we're like, let's start there. So he slept. No, you know what? I slept good and uh regular. I woke up and Ryder was up early, so he wanted to work out, so that was good. He he came and got me. We're back to uh our routine from time change. Uh a routine from time change. So now we're hopefully getting workouts in in the morning, which is good. Nice. Um, good start with making a good nutritious breakfast, so that was good. And then rolling here and get going. Good meeting uh with the um the the team for the Mac this morning, so that went really well. And yeah, we are uh I don't know, I'm feeling good, good rest. Um and I mean it was nice and warm out this morning when we got out of the house. I was like, yeah, here we go. We're gonna turn the corner in April and let's go. And then you know, you're like the April showers is like true. It's true this week. How are you doing? Good, good. I don't have much to say.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

You're looking good. Yeah, thanks. No, I yeah, thank you. Hey, thanks. That's I was not preparing to film today, so I'm back in my black uh comfortable pants and t-shirt and not looking at all like a pastor. So no, no, you're hopefully people listen to this mainly on audio, not video. Hey, but listen, so what I want to talk about this morning. Um I uh had the uh privilege of helping with a set-free at um the United Church in Elmer, which on a side note is kind of an interesting thing because I know there's a lot of um they would say it much harsher than I'll say it, but I'm not part of the church, so I won't say it. They would say they're part of the remnant of the United Church who still follows Jesus. And I know there's a lot in the United Church that over the last couple of years, a lot of decisions have been made that people would say they've certainly wandered away from a rootedness. Uh, but our Elmer congregation, and I can't speak for anything else, because again, this is not my I'm using their words, um, they are gems of human beings. I would agree. We've had a lot of interactions with them just through Family Central and different areas where their generosity and their their determination to serve and with ECAP and a few other places, and so really good people.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

I would second what you're saying, though. I think it is a consistent trend, not just in the United Church, but across the evangelical movement, Protestant movement, Catholic movement. We have we have gotten captivated by ideology rather than following Jesus. And we have swung the door far too much into trying to be something rather than um and by be something I mean to fit the mold of culture in an ideological way rather than to be who Jesus asks us to be and follow him. And those might seem like they're similar sometimes, but they're not.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Yeah. No, and I just I think the bigger lesson, because we're not really diving into that part of it for the podcast. I know, but we're going there just a little bit. Like, I just you know what this is one of the things that I learned early on. Um yes, there are denominational, there are big, big picture things where you know, a whole group we say evangelicals. Man, 11, like you go to a different city, you go to a different church, evangelical. There are some gems who are evangelicals, and there are some who aren't. And I mean, that was one of the things that we learned. Because I mean, I wasn't very cultured, I grew up in Elmer. Like this is I did not, yeah. So when we went to Mexico City, one of the things that you learned was, wow, okay, so being Catholic in Mexico City is different than being Catholic here. Because we have some dear Catholic friends who are devoted followers of Jesus. Um, and so, anyways, that's a little bit of an aside, but I I think with how close our ministerial is, that's one of the privileges we've had where we look at some of these churches and go, yeah, you can look at the branding on the door. But I can tell you, I don't care what you think about a United Church as a whole, the United Church in Elmer is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

There's some really cool dedicated people.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

So always enjoy my conversations with them.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

So our connection with them was uh very random because um that's not a normal partnership we would embark on. We've we've talked about this before. So we went through something, and I'm gonna give a little bit of backdrop to this. So we went through something called um church renewal, which some of you guys would know. Um, but with how many new people are in the church, I feel like this is kind of a useful time to kind of revamp and explain this a little bit. So, church renewal is something that we went through years ago.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Okay, so let's go even further. Why, why church renewal and where where was the church at when God led to um to church renewal? Like what what what was like the backstory that kind of opened this where we were gonna step into this as a church body? Well, I think you lead a little bit of that history there, like yeah, I think there's there's long answer, short answer.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

I mean, stick to short and maybe we'll come back to it because um the problem with asking me questions like this is that my memory is not good enough to fully know. What I will say because it was like 2015 around there, yeah. But again, uh like a lot of at that time, I mean, we we kind of searched and saw it all over the place. So we had tried some things from uh Willow Creek, which was a really, really healthy church at that point, and they'd done some good leadership stuff. We did some things from North Point, we did some things from a few other churches, and then before we got into ever doing set free, we did something called cleansing stream, okay. Um, which man, I don't even know if it comes out of a specific denomination or where it comes out of.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

So did cleansing stream lead to caring for the heart, or was that like a byproduct of each other?

SPEAKER_00 5:46

No, so caring for the heart and so you guys get in all sorts today. Uh so caring for the heart is a counseling ministry that is Christ-centered. Um, that is like you would go up there for a week. It's not like you're more individualized, one-on-one, more intense, okay with a focus on let's bring Jesus into this. Okay, okay. Um, and so that that that was would have been around some of the same time. Um cleansing stream would have been so if you if you think about cleansing stream versus Seffrey. Okay. So cleansing stream was awesome when we did it. So it's like an eight-week thing, and then we went to London, and then the the last week is there, or the last weekend retreat is there. So really, really good. Um, what we found with it though was I I don't like the idea of confession and stuff being something that you have to have professionals work with you on. Okay. So, like, you know, we'd hear a session on trauma or something, and then you go to the front and you'd have a specialized prayer team that kind of prays over you. And I think there's a place for it. And I think as a church, we want to move in that direction more because I think there are people who have the gifting of prayer. Um, just like you want people with the gifting of singing to be leading singing, right? But everybody sings in the congregation. Right. And so I think there's a spot for that. But during that time, we went to Steinbeck, and I don't actually know the exact reason why we went. I know we had family out there. So Steinbeck, Manitoba, um, there's a church there called Southland, which when I was actually at Steinbeck Bible College way back in 2000. No, 2001, 2001, 2002 is when we were there. Wow. No, no, I know. It's yeah. Dude, I was born in the 1900s, man. Crazy. Crazy. So we went there. Southland was pretty small, and then it exploded. Um, and one of the big things that people talked about with their church was these retreats. And what they were finding was it wasn't that the stage presence was so amazing. It wasn't that they were doing something radical in terms of Sunday morning. It was these retreats, and people were finding authentic healing and they were finding freedom. And so we went up there for a weekend and went through it the first time, um, and then began to slowly bring it back. And then over the last whatever, it's been 10 years, it has evolved into something significantly more than just those retreats.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

So, would you say that it was the working of the spirit within the congregation here that was poking or prodding that there was more that we need to step towards Jesus more, that like kind of like leading in this direction of there needs to be reconciliation, there needs to be, there needs to be, you know, cleaning of the hearts, repentance, there needs to be confession. Like it was kind of like leading that way. Like, like you don't pursue after something unless there's like a a desire to, like a, like, like a what are we like where are we going as a church or like what was the yeah?

SPEAKER_00 8:39

We had already come out of the um the major reconciliation service, and so there was already a significant move. I think more it was a search for um a tool to help people walk through some of this. Okay. So it I know people uh at least some people would kind of push back on that right away. Like, we no, no, we just follow Jesus, yeah, yeah. But like if if someone teaches you how to read scripture, right? It's more meaningful. Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:08

Okay, yep.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

And so with Seffri, what we really liked about it was um, because I did a lot of work with youth. And one of the things that I discovered as a youth, and one of the things that I felt with a lot of the youth was they really didn't know what to do with their guilt and shame. Okay, yep. Right? Like how how do how do I still follow Jesus when I'm and then the other thing that I noticed was that what happens is so uh in your young years, you and a lot of it ends up being sexual at that age where you're you're battling with whatever, whether it's porn or um that kind of stuff. Um, but then you get into your 20s, into your 30s, and then by the time you're in your 40s, you have these deeply ingrained ruts of sin in your life that you have no idea what to do with. And so a lot of them would be it wouldn't necessarily be sexual anymore. At this point, it's stuff like bitterness. Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Right? Like you think about a lot of the counseling. What do you start with? Well, what my parents did to me, you're 40 years old. That means for 30 years you've held this in. Right. And so trying to figure out, okay, well, if Jesus says that he came to give us life and life abundantly and we're supposed to live free, how do we do that? Because we're not. And so there was a deep search to try to figure out like from a leadership standpoint, how do we help our church live like this? And so you're looking for different, and it's not techniques and tools, but it is techniques and tools. It's like, how do I do this? If if Jesus promised it, I want to live it, I want to experience it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

And so well, we've seen techniques and tools also laid out in scriptures, like when you talk about what Matthew chapter 18 or whatever it is, and you, you know, somebody has a fault with somebody, you go and you tell them the fault, and then what's the process? What's the well, if they didn't hear you, you're supposed to bring, you know, a couple other close people that know this individual and the situation, and you go and you you say, Hey, like, dude, like we need to resolve this, we need to fix this, this needs to be made right. And if they don't, then again, you bring it before the church and you like in front of the like so there's like a process that's actually laid out and prescribed for like how do you handle a situation. Okay. I I think it's just important, you know, some of the history of the backstory actually speaks a lot of meaning into, you know, uh, you know, where the church was at, coming through reconciliation, God leading in a powerful way of you know, showing the church the value and the power that's there in terms of healing and as a church body, having guilt and shame like lifted off of you and like trying to make things right from a history of broken people trying to do faith together. And now you guys are like, okay, what more? Like I can't see why you would like to.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

You think about the reconciliation, people talk about it as such an incredible moment, and it was, but it should never have happened. Right. Like, why did we get to the point where that was needed? I agree. But but then how do we now live that we don't end up in that same cycle? And I think that's the dangerous part that people want to pretend doesn't exist. Right. Like there's no reason to believe that we can't end up in that same cycle.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Where you had 25 years of pent-up problems, sure there's where we could deal with it like on a daily basis instead, so it doesn't become this huge monster that you know, this big, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

So how do you live like that? And I think as much as we say it was a discipleship tool for the church, this was a wrestle for us. Like I gotta w walk up on stage, you know, 40 40 Sundays of of the year or whatever it is, I gotta walk up there. I I gotta be in a good place. Right. I don't have the time to be better for you know six, seven years and slowly work. I I just I can't. I how do you go up there and in and not you know water down your calling by living in that way? And so I think there's there's a personal striving for me as well, because I mean, I was very young, um, but not naive. I had watched my mentor fall um into adultery. Um, and if you're in any any pastoral ministry, you see this all the time. Like there's just pastor after pastor after pastor. Um, and there's thousands that don't, but lots that do. And so, well, how do how do I stay in a good place? And so Southland had put together um a mentoring program basically saying, hey, look, it this has really worked well for us. If you guys are interested, we'll kind of mentor you along and and walk through with you on that. Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

So here are some techniques, here are some methods, here's some teaching, here's some direction on how to how to help people walk through and dealing with sin, how to, how to walk through and connecting with God, and how to, you know, how to also have God speak into hurts and brokenness from your past.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Right. And in a lot of it, I mean, is something we're gonna try to do. Like we've had some pretty cool successes in the last couple of years. Yep. And the idea being like, we're never trying to hoard any of this stuff. Like we've learned some things. If there are churches that want to learn from us, let's go. Giddy up. And so that's that's what they were doing. Um, and so then in that process, there's there's three key things kind of up the beginning. There's a course they run on hearing God um and what that relationship actually looks like. And then there's something called set free, which focuses a lot on how do we actually live in confession and repentance and deliverance and that. Um, and then it moves to inner healing and actually attacking some of those because a lot of the triggers that we have, they're they're real moments, they're real traumas. Like it's not like it's made-up stuff, like when we talk about having um triggers, yeah. Yeah, like we still want to deal with those. Jesus might remove all of them. He might. You might come and you might confess, and everything just disappears. But that's not most people's experience. Right.

unknown 14:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

And it certainly wasn't Paul's experience, and there's no reason to believe it was any of the disciples' experience. Their experience was a slow, steady walk towards Jesus. And as they were walking, there were things they had to deal with, and there's things they had to navigate and fix. And um, so anyway, so we we started doing that. And so Sephiri has always been pretty special for me because I felt like of all the places and things that we do, that's where God seems to be the clearest for me. And I don't think that's for everybody, and I don't want to make this sound like, hey, come here, I promise this, but for me, it's been like that. And so we've had the opportunity, I think, in our church for probably 10 times, I think is the last number.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Yeah, we've we implemented it amongst our youth, our junior youth on a number of different occasions.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

We've yeah, and then we got to go to Belize and uh we're interviewed the staff there to it. And so, anyways, went to um the United Church here. So Brian Wilkie, sorry, back to the original. Uh, we connected because he was in one of the mentoring groups, and so they're all Zoom groups, and all of a sudden I was looked over and I'm like, oh man, I know that guy. That guy's from Ellimore. He's a United Church. What in the world? Sadly, so that was a couple years ago already. So we'd just begun a friendship. Um, and then a couple months ago, he reached out and said, Hey, we're running a set for you, would you help me teach it? And so that's how I ended up there. And so show up and man, it is so much more relaxing not leading these things. I do want to say. Wow, that was fun.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

There was no pressure on me. Here's what I think is cool, though, is here is another group of believers that are following Jesus, and their search happened to cross over with our church's search, with you know, seeking God to speak into their lives in ways that, you know, they're like, okay, well, God, can you be is this where you want us to go? And that those pathways have crossed, which I think is is so interesting because we've had a lot of conversations about how I mean their people are very active at the Family Central in terms of volunteering and commitment. And they're very active at, you know, the the Almer Corner cupboard and and being hands and feet of Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

And a lot of them are part of the launching teams of a lot of those things, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:41

So like and I think it's I think it it just it's so cool to see God leading if you just like give him space to show you where he's going. Like I I just it's it's a fascinating thing. And I think it's really cool that you know, here you are, right? Like interacting that way, because I'm a big fan of and this is not from my background, because my background would be very if you're not an independent fundamental Baptist, then you know, you know, you're unclean almost. And it can come across that way. 100%. And I've always been more inclined to believe that why is that? Like that doesn't make sense. If we're all gonna head towards Jesus at some point, as we all come at him from our different angles, our circle of where we're getting closer to him at is gonna get a lot closer to each other. Right. And we're gonna start looking a lot more like each other in terms of like how we see God and feel him and know him and have interacted. Pretty soon, the closer we get, we're gonna be in like lots of close group proximity to him. And that's the way it should be as we are approaching Jesus. Right. Not to say that we're gonna be the same or it's all gonna like that's not what I'm saying. But I'm like, there should be a lot more ground on which we say, yeah, yeah, you know, I'm I'm I'm with him. Like I see it that way. I'm good with that, I'm okay with that. That's not a problem. I agree with that. Why? Well, I think if you've gotten close to Jesus and I've gotten close to Jesus, we're gonna have a lot of similar ideas about who Jesus is because he's the same.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Well, I often wonder, and I'm saying this off the top of my head, so this may be wrong. So correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's interesting Jesus said hands and feet, or that it's written. I know it's recorded somewhere that we're the hands and feet. It never says we're the mind of Christ.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah. He always says, Let this mind be in you. That was also not not your mind, but this mind that was in Christ's feet. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Like it's not and so then you look and you go, Okay, when we do things that are hands and feet, we can figure out pretty quickly if there are churches who are totally against Jesus. Yeah. But the hands and feet, we can work together with most churches. Yeah. I can serve the poor, I can love our community, I can do all that. We can do that. Where we fight is in the mind. But those guys aren't doing it right. They don't believe right. They don't, and not to say that those aren't valid questions, I think it is important. If we're going to align ourselves permanently with somebody, yeah, you want to know what they believe. But again, Jesus didn't say that was our responsibility. You are not given the responsibility to condemn or confirm another church. Like, unless you are specifically assigned a role where God says, I want you to work in that church, that's not our responsibility. I mean, it's it's conversation. I think it's important to follow trends in churches and stuff, to be careful that we don't end up in a bad place, but we are to be the hands and feet and we are not to be the mind. And and I do think it's an important distinction.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

And I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan of you know, throwing this out there. If you're following people that are constantly telling you if your church doesn't do this or if your church does that, then you need to find a new church. I suggest you listen to different people because there are an exceptionally few amount of people that should be making those statements. If any at all, you know, the scriptures do say there's six things, you know, God hates, seven are abomination. You go to the book of Hebrews, uh book of Proverbs, you can read this. And he's like, What are the first things? Feet that are swift to sow discord among the brethren. Like it's one of the it's like in the top 10 list. So if you're like saying things that are sowing discord with other believers, you're in the category of that's there's a lot of like not nice, like from God coming to you for that. Right. So you have to be very mindful of that when you speak against, you know, it's like in that interaction where the disciples were like, Hey, those people are doing this, and Jesus is like, What is that to you? They're they're doing what I've asked them to do. You've got a job that you're supposed to be doing. Stick to what I've told you to do and let those people do what I've told them to do, and you don't need to worry about it. Yeah, that's for me to worry about, not for you to worry about. Yeah, right. And I know uh people are gonna jump, ah, you can judge people by their fruit. You don't even know that person, you don't know their leadership, you're not in their church, you don't know the direction, you don't know the history, you have no clue of what you're talking about, except for maybe a sound bite, a five-minute portion of what's been going on.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

But you have like crazy about judging people by the fruit. I don't know. If you ever drive by an apple tree, you gotta get pretty darn close to be able to check out the fruit. And then unless you actually taste of the tree, you still don't know if those apples are good. Yeah, that's pretty valid too, right? Right. Like we we talk about that so loosely, like it's so easy. I can just judge them by their fruit.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

How could you possibly in the right season? Are you driving is is it like are you driving by in early spring when it's just like a little, you know, block like what when are you driving by? Is it is it late summer? Is it is it really late fall when you know you're looking at fruit that long should have been picked? Right. And you know, it's about ready to fall down. And it's not like what what do you Yeah, that's a that's a great point. And I think sometimes we just flippantly throw it out there. Ah, you'll know.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

But I do think as part of you know our church and when as we go through our vision over the next couple of months, like one of the big things is we cannot ever get to a place where we think we are the answer. We want to be a healthy church. Sure, we do. We want to do great things. But we want our actions to build up the local church. Yep. Right. Like I loved uh the new pastor from Pentecostal Church yesterday. I've never met him. I just saw him on stage yesterday at the evening service there. Um he walks up and he goes, How many churches are represented? And I was like, I don't know, probably 10, 15. And he says, one. I was like, oh, that's good. That's good. He's like, we're one church. Like, what are we doing here? I'm like, oh, it's so good. And then he has an accent, so he sounds really cool. And that seems unfair. And so we got, we're from now on, we're going to broadcast all of our services out with a filter that puts an accent on how we talk. But all right. So I'm sitting there at United Church Friday evening. Super cool. And Holy Spirit whispers to me and says, Do you want to be well? So I'm supposed to teach the second part, which if you've ever been through it, you know the second part is kind of where we jump into the first um groups of three, and then we do a lot of we go through an inventory type of thing. Um and then we do some confession. And the spirit goes, Do you want to be well? And it it hit me because I think as um as a pastor, the easy answer is yes. But then we had an experience this week, and so we um I know this is a little bit all over the place, but hopefully you guys can follow. Um, so we were listening to a podcast from Kerry Newhoff and Carl Lentz. Yeah. And so if you don't know Carl Lentz, uh pastor of Hillsong Church in New York, church that just exploded and went crazy, and he was all over the place, and then all of a sudden one day it was all done. It came out that he had an affair. And so he does this, it's like two and a half hour podcast with Carrie. And one of the things that uh Carrie asked me is like, but didn't you have people around you? Like, weren't there people around you? Because I think one of the assumptions people always make and that he brought up was these superstar pastors, like nobody ever says no to them and like their life is just easy. And and he says, No, I had great people around me. I had people who challenged me. I had people who asked me if I was having an affair, they asked me if I was doing all this. I just didn't tell them the truth.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Yeah, I didn't tell them the whole truth.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

And that hit hard. And I know we had between Trevor, Patrick, and I, we had pretty good heart-to-heart conversation about that this week of just like the amount of times that we lie to each other. And just that challenge of going, okay, so you get to this moment where you had a bad week. And maybe it was that I was a bad dad or I didn't treat Joe so well, or um, whatever the thing may be. And Patrick's like, hey, how are you and Joe's doing? And I've I have an opportunity in that moment to express, listen, dude, I really sucked at this this week. I really messed up. Or I can say, nothing's were good. And the amount of times that I will go, not things are good. And as we were listening to that throughout the week, the Holy Spirit bugging me there at set free was just like, like, at what point do you want to start being honest about yourself?

SPEAKER_03 25:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Like, at what point are you willing to go? Okay, I'm willing to lose my pride if that means I can get freedom. Because I'm leaving this thing. Right. And I'm walking up there going, man, like, how many times have I gone through this? And I'm gonna check some of these same boxes off. But what's crazy is in the year between doing set freeze, I never mentioned I struggle with any of those. Nor could I argue that I've put any work into getting better at any of those. Not specifically. Right? You get through the forum and you're like, all right, I feel better.

SPEAKER_02 26:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

And then you do nothing for two years and you're like, that's crazy. But we do this in in not to say, like, I have no, you know, people are always nervous. I have no major moral failure to confess. I have but I also listen to guys like Carl and realize that if I'm not careful, there may come a day where I have to have a big moral thing that I confess.

unknown 26:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Like we look at these little things and we just they're so nonchalant about it. Ah, it's just anger. Right. And so I gave them the example there. I was like, you know, if at one point your anger was a 10 out of 10, where every time you got angry you went to jail, when you're a four of ten, you still gotta deal with it. Like are you content with that? But we do that, don't we? Yeah. Oh, yeah, all the time. Well, my anxiety is only this now. My anger's only this now. Yeah. You know, my jealousy is only this now. Man, but is it is it where God wants you to be? Are you are you actually?

SPEAKER_01 26:51

I didn't murder 10 people this week. I only it was only two. Like I'm doing so much better.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

So much better.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

High fives. No, I think that's a valid question. And I think I I'm a big fan of those moments where there's an opportunity for God to speak clarity. Um, which is a wild experience that you're describing. So, like for your life, the lead up to the events that took place where God says, Do you have do you want to be well? were orchestrated by him.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Like he led you to that specific moment of clarity, which is when you think back, it's been a number of years now since you realize Brian was part of it. Like this is God saying, Okay, now like we cannot take his sovereign planning for granted in this moment. Like it's just, it's not. And that's where I've been like, ugh. Like I'm 51, and I've had I've had God saying some things to me this last number of years now, and I'm like, the question, do you want to be well? How much of this do you want? Right? Like we talk about the children of Israel walking into Promised Land, and they're good. Yeah, like they they conquer lots, right? But they only conquered like 30% of what they could have conquered. Right. Right. Like they they had a lot more. It was the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun, man. It was from the great year of Euphrates to the sea, man. Like they could have gotten lots. Like, I don't even know if we'd be talking about Iraq right now or Iran, like with what they could have conquered. It would have been Israel. Like it would have been their land. But it's a wild thought. What how much of this do you want? Right. Like, do you want to be well? And I love the way he frames it. Not are you good?

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Do you want to be well? Right. Like. So my brain goes in all sorts of directions. I'm like, okay. So when he asked the guy at the pool, and he's like, you know.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

38 years. Yeah. 38 years you've been there.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Right. 38 years of, hey, dude, I'm here. What do you think? What do you think? Well, that wasn't the question. How long have you been here? Wasn't the question. Wasn't the question if people got in before you wasn't the question. Do you want to be well?

SPEAKER_00 29:20

Okay, just I don't know where your brain is going with this, but just you threw me off there with that Iraq and Iran comment um comment. And you just kind of go, okay, my decisions for where I'm willing to obtain freedom and where I'm willing to live in slavery are going to have generational impacts. So you may die, but the areas that you did not pursue after God fully will impact your family and your neighbors and your community.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

For generations.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Yeah. It's a wild thought. It is.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

I just Why'd that hear you? Well because I don't want to leave my kids with what could have been more. Like if God is saying, hey, this is the moment, like you're the crew that gets to lead in. Like it's on you guys. Do it. Well, how much are we gonna go get?

SPEAKER_02 30:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Because it will matter. Like it it always matters. There is no such thing as like our choices don't don't carry forward like they do. So you know, I think I I think I can relate very well to hey, good job. You know, let's kick back, open up a couple suds, and let's enjoy the moment. I think the question is, is are you gonna get back up?

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

Are you gonna get back up and keep going? Because what's where are you going next?

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Um yeah, I mean but it's certainly been our journey, like and and we talk about um we talk about visions, and so like when I look back at our set-free journey, I just don't think I've uh we have time. So one of the things that God has given me through that is every couple of years we'll get a different image that's kind of really built off of each other. I always record them, and very rarely do they make sense until you kind of look back. But there are seasons where he has warned we're gonna be running, and those seasons were crazy. And then there were seasons where he told us just to sit down and he had some things to deal with.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Um yeah, I remember that.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

Do you want to hear a crazy story?

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

We may have to cut this out if we can't share it, but that's okay. So another vision I got this week was we were I I was doing the uh the inner healing piece there at uh Sofree. And I had written down some of my emotions that I felt about over the last couple years and just some of that anxiety and some of the depression that you kind of battle through some of the really tough challenges. And so I asked God, specifically when a lot of it was going through with um the sexuality thing, I asked God, where were you in this? Because that's a big part of the practice. And the image was of him with his arms wrapped around Alexis, and it hit me like a ton of bricks, because I think we have often approached those years as if we were the ones protecting. And God was like, No, no, no. I was doing the work. You guys were faithful, you did your part, but make no mistake. Who was doing the work? The work was done by me, and it was such a profound like why am I feeling the weight of that? Because I don't think God's doing it. The reason I feel like I have to do this, the reason I have to own this is because I don't think God's there. Right? We would never say that out loud. Like it feels so weird when you say it, but it's the way you act.

unknown 33:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

And then God's like, no, no. I was there during those years, and I had my arms solely wrapped around her.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

Yeah, I think about some conversations that we've had over the last number of weeks with our kids about, you know, how much things cost and you know the um the effort that we put into helping facilitate opportunities for them. And not doing so because we want them to pick up the weight, but having open conversations because we want them to see and not be blind to what you do. Like, how do you help them engage with, you know, the monetary commitment and the the valuations? But the response was um a picking up of the weight, thinking that they had to own it. And then having to tell them that's not yours to carry. Right. Like that's mine. Right. Like I'm the dad. Right. I'm your father. I carry that. But you just need to know that it's there. Right. Not that it's for you to carry. And I think we do that with God. Because we assume that we have to be the ones that shoulder the weight. When I think he just wants us to recognize that no, that's him. That's his.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Right. Well, and I think that when you get into some of the the the church battles and some of that, a lot of it when you actually get down to the core of it is you're fighting a battle that God did not ever ask you to fight. He leads the church. Yeah. It is his church. What he actually told you to fight for was your love for each other.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Do you think that's like because we've seen this as being a problematic thing with humans. So like Joshua coming into the promised land and he meets up with the angelic being who's like a foreshadowing, some believe, of Christ, and he's like, you know, whose side are you on? is the question that he asked them. He's like, I'm a gods. Right. It's not yours or them. Right. I'm I'm on his side. Right. And I think sometimes we have a way of thinking about things as being, you know, two-sided here. Like, I'm gonna win this. Oh no, no, like I'm not here to fight for you. I'm I'm I'm fighting on behalf of God. Right. Like it's it's a whole different answer. And I feel like it's easy for me to get caught up in the in the the the earthly plane of sight and battle, and to think that, you know, it's mine to fight or I'm fighting against that that person. And we know we're told not to, but we like we see that, you know, that's the that's what's in front of us. So we that's that's gonna be that's my goal, that's my target, that's my he's like, I what are you even talking about? Right. Like, first of all, take off your shoes. Okay, you know, you know, it this is a place that is holy, and my battle is on behalf of the Father. It's not your victory.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

Well, I think that's right. The Proverbs begins and goes, Look, it's the fear of the Lord. That's gonna be the beginning of wisdom. And I think the minute we forget that, it's so quick to forget though in my head. Like that's not Old Testament, that's also New Testament. It's through the book of Acts constantly, the fear of the Lord and that recognition of who God is. Because if we don't recognize that, then we feel the weight of everything. But not only that, but we assume we can make all the choices. Right? Like we would never have allowed Jesus to go to the cross. I think it's important for us to remember that. I get it's there's no possible way we would have allowed that.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

That that right there is the exact tie-in to the same question that God asked to to the person to the angelic being, to the pre of Christ, whatever the all the theologians want to call that moment. But like they wanted Jesus to make their kingdom and to fight on their behalf. While his battle was gonna be, I'm gonna go slay sin and I'm gonna redeem you back to the Father. Right. This battle is not, you don't even know the battle. Like, right, I'm gonna go fight that battle. Right. You want me to slay Rome? I'm gonna bring redemption. Like it's a com like the battle you think you're fighting is not it's it's that. Right. I I think it's fascinating. The same kind of interaction happened between Joshua and Jesus as like Peter and the disciples and Jesus, like the same.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

We see that now. Like people think that they can legislate change. Right. And I think that's what they wanted. They wanted, well, we want our own king, and when we have our own king, then the world's gonna be a better place. No, but your hearts are still gonna be sour because you guys had your own king. Israel, do you guys not remember? You guys had your own way. You guys had your victory, and what'd you do with it? And I mean, we see it now all the time that we think if we can put a law in place, we want to have bullies. That's not that's not like you don't change people's hearts because of legislation. I think legislation is important, I think laws are important. But Jesus was like, no, if we're actually gonna change humanity, the hearts have to change. And if that is driven by law, we have thousands of years of human history that says that is not enough.

unknown 39:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

And then you have Jesus shows up, lives. Sounds very legalistic in the sense, like very rules-based. There's still things that he says, like Sermon on the Mount, lots of things in there. There's lots of rules. But he goes, This is what it looks like. And I'm going to take all of that away from you. And then I'm going to send my spirit that is going to give you self-control and gentleness and love and patience and kindness and goodness. That's how we change the world. And so a lot of this comes back to that same old boring thing where you just kind of go, Do you trust God with your life? Or as he asked you, do you want to be well? Right.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

It's the same question. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

It's it's and it really at the end of the day, like it's super interesting. Um, one of my boys asked me about the two services on Sunday. I was like, Why do I have to go to the second service? Like, they're literally gonna be saying the same thing we did in the first service. Fair, fair enough. And so I didn't have an answer at first. I I did a little bit of a because there's two evening services a year that I want you to go to, so you're gonna go darn it. But then I was thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it, and coming out of this efforty weekend and coming out of uh church on Sunday, and somewhere after lunch it clicked. And I said, When the boys train, most of what they do is boring.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

And most of what they do is not where they actually want to be.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

Going to the gym in the mornings sucks. Going out to hit a couple hundred balls again sucks. But you do it, and the more you do it, the more you hope that when the moment where you actually get to employ these skills shows up, you'll do well. And in sports, we see at least with the higher level of complexity, those who don't train don't perform. It's very simple. And so I said if you think about your life in faith that way, how mediocre of a Christian do you want to be? And what kind of situation do you want God to be able to put you in? Like if you have not trained, and I it is so funny yesterday. So um uh Damien and uh some other people came over after lunch, and so we played baseball in the barn and they were pitching to me, and it is shocking how much worse I am than my boy. So as long as the pitch is under 40 miles an hour from where we are, yeah, I feel very confident. Yeah, anything past that, I'm done. With the boys, I can sit there and throw as fast as I can and they'll adjust. And so when you think about that in spirituality, you go, well, they're going to be able to be put in situations that I will never be able to succeed in. And so the way you train also provides the future where people expect, like, uh God's gonna assign me this massive role that I refuse to train for.

SPEAKER_03 42:13

Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

God's not dumb. Like, where do we get that? Where did we get that idea? Like, and so I I think if you can look at your life that way, not just showing up to church, but the the reading and the pray, I get some of it's boring. I get some of those days are not fun. I get some services aren't your favorite, totally. But that's that way with everything, it's that way with the life, with practice, with whatever skill you're trying to learn, but you're trying to prepare yourself for a place where when you finally get to that moment, you can succeed. And so I think that was one of those little things that also came back to me going, okay.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

Just popped in my head, probably man, 30 years ago. So you were 40 at that time? Sorry. It's awesome with my stone tablet. One of the best moments, I think, of my night. That was good. I love it. And they don't bounce. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

If you don't get that joke, you weren't there last night. Let's worry about your loss. Yeah, not repeating it, but it went over really well. It's good. We nailed it. Yeah, MSEC bringing the comedians to town.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

I got so many people appreciative of having a little bit of levity in their evening, and I was like, all right, good. No, I had a I had a pastor basically speak over me that um he really foresaw a like a sports ministry that I should be running when I was twenty. And I'm like how much of God's purpose and plan do you want? Like how much? And not from the point of view of success. How much of him do you want to see through you? Like how much?

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Yeah. Yeah, I think there's there's a the conversation that's often had about that's interesting. You know, things you miss out because you're a Christian.

unknown 44:28

Oh god.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

But I think there's a conversation to be had about the things that you miss when you don't give your all.

SPEAKER_02 44:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

And I think there's something to be said about the whole imagery and um revelation where he's like, look, this lukewarm stuff is just garbage. And it's garbage because you don't ever experience faith all the way, which means you're not going to enjoy it. And you think the world's going to bring you something because you haven't engaged in it. And so when you go all in on the world, you realize, okay, well, there's not hope there. But if you never go all in on faith, you'll never understand. Right? It's just like relationships. When people refuse to commit to each other, your marriage can never work. At some point, you have to be like, no, I'm all in, or I'm not. That's it. And so I think that's, you know, that's part of our journey. And as we I think this is a good chance to wrap it up or about a 45-minute mark here. But you know, I think the going into Easter, I can't help but endlessly question my own life and go, you know, I'm gonna proclaim how good Easter is. Is that what's the gap between my proclamation of Easter and my experience? It's a great question. And if there's a gap, why is there a gap? Why am I not well? Why am I not healed of this? Why have I not grown? And so then the question becomes as you know, Paul would say, he asked God to take his throne away three times and God didn't. And he said, Well, then that is what it is. And while we don't know exactly what that is, like I'm not expecting at any point after an Easter service, I'm gonna be perfect. I also think I should continue to strive for that. Strive for I I want to be everything God created me to be. I want to get to heaven and God go, Yeah. Like, not just well done, but like you experience what I wanted you to experience. Like you jumped in where I wanted you to jump in. Because you get one shot at this. Like I I'm now over my 40s, and that's something that's just hit a lot. Like, those days are gone. Like my 20s are they're just gone. Like you can't, and I know it sounds obvious, but what as you get to this stage of your life, it it's it just sinks in. Like you can't redo it.

unknown 46:31

Nope.

SPEAKER_00 46:32

You cannot buy back that time. And so just you know, for anybody that I know some of the younger guys are listening to this, man, own this. If Jesus is who he claims he is, don't wait another 10 years to go all in. Go all in. Go now.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

Yeah, I think as we head towards you know, Good Friday remembering. It's wild what our God did.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

Mm-hmm. He's all in. Just wild. Yep. All right, as you guys are reflecting, I'd encourage you guys to read through uh the different accounts of the gospels throughout the week as we prepare for a Good Friday service. Yeah. Uh but praying for you guys, looking forward to seeing you again Friday morning at 10 a.m. Have a great day.