96 - Broken and Sent: One Man’s Journey From Oklahoma to Africa with Jerry Lout

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Jerry grew up the youngest child of Dust Bowl migrants, in a family that found faith through grief. By age nine, he was paralyzed from the waist down his second bout with polio, while a small Oklahoma church prayed him back to his feet when doctors had stopped expecting it. But behind the miracle was a quieter story: decades of hidden shame, a teenage rebellion that nearly destroyed everything, and a God who seemed determined to build something out of the wreckage anyway.

What followed was a life that reads like it was arranged from the outside: a motorcycle ride to a city he didn’t know, a phone book opened to a random church, and a pastor’s daughter who had told her parents at age nine she wanted to be a missionary to Africa. By 1972, Jerry and his wife Ann were boarding a plane at JFK, Kenya-bound, with Ann seven and a half months pregnant.

Jerry talks openly about spiritual warfare in rural Africa, the dangers of theological tribalism, what it costs to stay vulnerable in ministry, and what it actually means to know Christ rather than just know about him. This one is worth settling in for.

Prayer, Praise & Confession

Prayer: Jerry has a heart catheterization coming up and asks for prayer over the procedure and results.

Confession: A tendency to breeze past the Holy Spirit’s promptings, conviction, needed correction, and the pursuit of Jesus himself. Genuine and ongoing.

Praise: Gratitude for his wife Ann, for the local body of Christ, and for brothers safe enough to be vulnerable with.

Transcript

Why Jerry’s Story Matters

Pete 0:32

All right. Well, Jerry, we'd just like to start with uh getting your story. We don't have any introductions or anything like that. We're just like, this is a regular old guy just like me and we like to talk about Jesus and want to hear how you came to him and kind of growing up and that kind of thing.

Jerry 0:49

So You bet. Well, thank you. I was born in Berkeley, California, of Oklahoma parents who were part of the Dust Bowl migration. My mom and dad did know the Lord when they got married. Dad

Dust Bowl Roots And Early Faith

Jerry 1:05

rode freight trains out to California trying to kind of keep kinda to keep from starving to death in Oklahoma as an orphan young man. And got out there, found work, sent for my mom, and she came out on Greyhound buses on the old mother road and they married out there. Four children born there. I'm the youngest. Part way down their journey. Their two firstborn children before I was born, they both had asthma. This is the San Francisco Bay Area, so they moved to Phoenix, and during their time in Phoenix was when my mother and dad met the Lord, and it was through a tragic drowning of their son, three and a half years old, in irrigation canal in Phoenix. But they came to faith through that trauma as a result of the witness of my dad's older sister who had come to the Lord before that time. Moved back to California, and then my next brother and myself were born. So I was about a year old when we came back to the roots here in Oklahoma. And I had a case of polio when I was about a year old, and kind of came through that before they actually had it clearly diagnosed. Left me with a limp, kind of a distorted left foot, a short left leg, which carry which is carried through till today. So then later, eight years later or so, I got hit with polio a second time. So I'm kind of one of those rare, rare guys. And this was during the time when in the early 1950s, this would have been 1954, I was nine years old, and a polio epidemic was really sweeping the nation and the world, actually. Hillcrest Hospital in Tulsa were receiving so many young people, children, young adults who were taken by this round of polio. And in my case, by the time I was diagnosed, I already was paralyzed from my waist down. We lived down on a little acreage. My mom had seen through the window me walking and falling, getting up and walking and falling. So when they got me to the local physician, he learned my history that I had had polio before, so he kind of ruled that out. So I was hospitalized for something that they had no idea what it was. So about a week later was when he advised us to get a further checkup. And at that time I was unable to walk. So in Hillcrest, I lay there and m most of the time I was lying there. I was continuing to decline. How old were you at this point? I was I was nine and condition kept going downhill. Some folks might remember the or just Google it or look at history and see the instruments called the iron lung. And it was a like looked like a horizontal tin can that would a a person would be put inside of it with only their head exposed, and it was a breathing apparatus. And I was now being considered for that because now my respiratory system was getting compromised. So super weakened, skinny little kid, unable to walk, bed fast now. The little church that we were a part of in our in our town of Oakmaugy, blue-collar people, small community, they just kind of went to the mat for me, praying from day one. At one juncture, when I'd gotten to my worst state, my mom and dad were told by one of the physicians that just to not not look to my ever being able to come through this sufficiently to walk again. So yet another visit to the hospital from the church, no drama, no dramatic kind of expressions of prayer, but prayer was made again. And right about that time my condition leveled off, stopped declining, and within about a month, I was able, by God's grace, to walk out of the hospital. And so a significant turnaround happened, obviously, right there, that I trace clearly, you know, to just loving, praying people that prayed me into wellness along with just good medical care that was given. But it was clearly something beyond what would ever appear as being just a normal process of recovery through through the medical profession. So that was that was part of my journey as a as a kid. And growing up in church, grew up in things like vacation Bible school, Sunday school. One fellow talks about when I was a youngster, I had a I had a drug issue. I was drugged to church all the time. So in my case, it was Sunday morning, Sunday night, Tuesday night, and Wednesday night. And then you add youth meetings, and it was like, and my dad was a blue-collar plumber to today. I look back and say, wow, he just saw to it that his family were exposed to the faith. And so anyway, through that journey, I came, I became a believer probably during one of the vacation Bible school sessions.

Pete 6:18

Now, what denomination or what kind of church was it?

Jerry 6:20

This was yeah, this was a non-denominational, Pentecostal, very independent Pentecostal denominator. There were lots and lots of them scattered all across the country.

Speaker 1 6:31

Okay.

Jerry 6:32

Ironically, the person who oversaw every year the vacation Bible school was became my absolute hero. She was a lady named Opaline, high school teacher, who herself had had polio when she was a child, and now all the rest of her life, she's navigating life with crutches and full-length braces. And she had gone up, I had uh I had witnessed her going up multiple times in our little Pentecostal church for the in the healing line. She would work her way back, you know, struggling, always with a pleasant disposition, demeanor, sweetest, kindest kind. So in my world, this is kind of a little rabbit trail on some of my view of faith and miracles and all that, that while on the one hand, I personally feel that the work of recovery for me came about through a supernatural touch of the Lord, through a lot of people praying in faith, I equally, at least equally, have come to at least embrace the proposition that when I reflect on the life of this woman, Opaline Collins, I see every bit as much of authentic, vibrant, vital faith at work in and through her life throughout all of the service that she also oversaw the church's Christmas program and other stuff. So that was very helpful to me. Now, during my pre-puberty years, there was there was a dark moment when an older, older boy in upper, he was probably in his upper teens, there was a function, and it turned out that he was assigned to be sharing a room with me overnight. And I was sexually abused, of course, totally confused. All I knew intuitively, I felt, I didn't didn't have the maturity to process any of this, but just the shame related to it, the the

Childhood Abuse And Hidden Shame

Jerry 8:37

weirdness, and just the there was a knowing of some kind of exploitation, though I didn't know the word. Well, how were you? 10, 11, 12, somewhere. I would have been, yeah, 10-ish, maybe something like that, somewhere in there. I don't even recall. So that was held inside my world all my life until I was in my sixties. I just didn't have the tools or the understanding, or didn't, you know.

Pete 9:06

I don't think people understand how common that is. I mean, I've I've sat in front of a man in his 60s that telling people for the first time, you know, I'm that's a lot of in addiction, honestly. I think we see it a whole lot in addiction. I mean, I know Jared's story was part of that, that we talked to him, and it's so common. It's it's one of the more common things I think in our culture that people don't realize is common. And we make judgments on addiction and things like that without knowing something like that has happened, and and it's just awful, honestly. Just awful.

Jerry 9:35

Yeah. That's something I've been I've been being discovering, you know, over the last number of years since it was disclosed and it was disclosed in such a such a meaningful redemptive, healing, recovery kind of way that I'm just astonished at the goodness of the Lord to allow that to occur. In those days f following the abuse, I uh then, you know, you you move into the puberty years and you hear the bathroom talk on Monday mornings after of kids that are in school talking about their sexual ex exploits and all that during the weekend. And so being influenced by that and having no adult, no male adult navigate with a kid. And of course, that was so much a reality of just the culture and the the the religious or the Christian culture in those days. You just for the most part, those kinds of topics were just skated past and not addressed, not so I had no I had no point of reference as to how to sort of get beyond the issue of lust. So I was influenced through that. By the Lord's grace, I was I was just preserved somehow for falling into a sexual relationship with any any girl or even throughout all of our marriage, while this issue continued to dog me. The secrecy, the shame, the addictive nature, how that works was a crippling thing. So uh years later I wrote a little memoir. The title of it is Living with a Limp. And of course, the earlier part of this conversation references that which is obvious about the physical limp from polio. Along with that, I've become aware all through my years, not only myself, but all humanity, we come up against this reality that we are incomplete and we're broken. We we carry a limp, internal,

Living With A Limp Inside

Jerry 11:42

if not external. And so in the in the journey through the difficulties of all of that and the back and forth, because I I had come to love Jesus. I my introduction to Jesus, I always, always just easily trace a depiction of Jesus as the shepherd, as the good shepherd. And of course, it's scripture is replete with that imagery and character of who he uh who he was, who he is. And I was just drawn from that, drawn toward that ever since I was a little kid in Sunday school VBS and so on and so forth, stories of of Jesus flannelograph in the old days of the flannelograph presentations. So the coming to Christ was very real for me. And then I experienced a quite a dramatic occurrence in one of the VBS's, one of the vacation Bible school times. Addison Sessions was the name of an older, close to retirement age real estate gentleman in our town who attended our church. He was honored, he was a respected man. And in a VBS setting where they had the assembly together, he just invited all of us kids with this question, would any of you like to have more of Jesus in your life? We we were already known to have come to faith. And so, of course, our young hands we go up and he invites us up forward. And then

A VBS Encounter With God

Jerry 13:09

after just a few moments of talking with us, he invites us to position our hearts before the Lord and begin thanking him for who he was verbally. Through through a step or two that he put before us, he just invited us to continue speaking to the Lord, but realizing we'd be doing that in a different language. So this was kind of unorthodox, but in that time I didn't know what orthodox or unorthodox meant. I and my fellow youngster kids up and down these altars just knew that this was a this was a man who loved us, loved God, in a moment that, as I look back to it as a epiphany and radically transformative moment for me, I would characterize it as that in in the sense that an awareness of something occurred of the presence of God that defied any kind of explanation and could not be denied. And in moments, all of us kids, all of us in that little sanctuary were weeping, we were laughing, we couldn't keep our hands off each other, we had to hug somebody. Love was like tangible. And don't know how long that went on, and we were speaking in these languages that we've never learned, and I had no theology background for that, except I, you know, I did in the sense of almost indirectly by virtue of being in that that stream of the Christian community. So what it did not do, what that what that encounter with with God did not do, it did not cure me of my frailties, my weaknesses, but it it placed it, it served as an anchor in my soul that I became really for the rest of my life kind of homesick in the best sort of way. Just knowing that the presence of Jesus is the one thing that I would I would love to have in my life always more and more throughout my lifetime and beyond. Fast forward, going to my teenage years, went off the rails. I never became I never became like an overt, rebellious kid, but in the interior part of me was clearly not at all compliant with submission to authority, got crosswise with my parents, quote, fell in love, unquote, with a gal who was married. She was separated from her husband, who was in another state. She didn't lure me into this,

Teenage Drift And Hard Lessons

Jerry 15:50

but I just fell for her. And I'm like 16, sneaking around to try to meet this 19-year-old married old one. Wow. Go figure. So by the time I was in my senior high school, this was going on. One day I took our, we lived out in this kind of rural area, so I saddled up my horse and I I very unwisely uh rode the horse down the road to the place where this gal's grandmother lived, knowing that she would be there. And I tied the horse, you know, I linked it up and tied it and went inside. And of course, that route was the very route that my plumber dad used all the time. And he saw his horse. He saw our horse right out there. He knew who lived there. So he knew something was up. He confronted me when I got home. And and I I gave him a very unwise look. I just looked at him with defiance. And I had been familiar with my dad's disciplinary belt numbers of times through the years. Yep, I had those two. I think in an appropriate way. But this time I'm 17 years old, and he takes strides right across that room with taking his belt off, and he starts lashing me with his belt because he was a very good dad, but he grew up with no dad. And he's it was amazing how how well he navigated fatherhood, but he lost his temper. And the next thing I know, within weeks, and I'm I'm in my early part of my senior year in high school at Preston, Oklahoma, and in a couple of weeks, I'm on a bus being sent out of Oatmae by my parents to go to Denver to live with my older sister, who's 10 years, my senior, married, with three little kids. And I'm just sent away to to be with sis. And I really, I really look back at that time and I I kind of honestly believe this. I don't know, never never did really flesh this out with my dad over the years. I g I really am suspicious that he might have sent me to Denver to keep from killing me because I was a jerk and I was defiant about this, and he knew that he couldn't trust himself to be so angry as he was that day when he went after me. So fast

Denver Detour And Coming Home

Jerry 18:10

forward in about two months' time, my sister, who had a lot of wisdom with her, she was in the middle of her own marriage drama and all that. But God used her to just listen to this shipwreck of a kid brother of hers and to speak things, say things, point me in a direction. So then in a short amount of time, there's one writer who makes this statement that what is God's address? God's address is at the end of your rope dot com. And so that's where I was. Bottom of the barrel.

Pete 18:42

Yeah. So where's Jesus at this point in your life? I mean, is the sister going to church? Are you going with her?

Jerry 18:47

I mean, what's Yeah, she's in and out of church. She's got uh her her husband is uh being unfaithful, she's learning this all the time that I'm there. I don't know about this until later on. But I wasn't I wasn't in an environment where I was really being trained or instructed in this Christian ways. I I got a job at a McDonald's. It's probably one of the first of the first 500 McDonald's that existed on the planet. I worked at that one there in Denver, uh, Inglewood, California. So anyway, first thing, I mean, I am blubbering on the phone to my mom and dad, repenting. I've already asked, Jesus asked the Lord to just forgive me for my foolishness, stupidity, hardheartedness, and self-will, all that kind of stuff. I call mom and dad. They are more than ready to forgive, receive me back home. So I go back and I actually graduate from my Preston High School that year. And during the time of that season, even during the time when I was living a double life, kind of learning guitar and playing it in church, and at the same time trying to hold on to my hiddenness of my attraction to this gal and also my own addictive nature, there was there already began to be something in me that felt like I was to be serving in Christian ministry. I was a mix, I was a mix of so much stuff going on here. You know, one part of me felt just utterly shameful and condemned. And I grew up in an environment, bless their hearts, all of our, you know, churches, many churches, can only give us what what they have. And that's that's me as well, as a minister later on. I could only present what I had to present, and some of it would be accurate, and some of it would be maybe maybe quite off. But at any rate, I grew up in this environment where so much of the Christian life was defined as expressive emotion, not a whole lot of biblical instructive grounding. But there was this sense of desiring to know God and and serve him, serve him some way. And interestingly, it was in eight Oklahoma through a ministry. We were in a youth rally because our little church and that little church and a number of other churches, he was the pastor that always facilitated our monthly youth rally, get togethers, and all those kids would converge and rotate to a different church, and there would be ministry, and there would always be some emphasis on missions. So in those settings in Ada on Main Street in that church was really where I can trace back more than any other place. I'd call them seeds of an interest and a

Seeds Of Missions And A Calling

Jerry 21:44

heart toward the nations. I would hear a lot about Africa. So from there, I began to just carry this in my heart that maybe one day I would serve. There was a word that was given to me by a pastor in my church that there was like a vision and I'd be be standing before a lot of black-skinned people. And so I just kind of set that on a shelf, you might say. It would come back to my mind from time to time. I get out of high school and work with my dad in plumbing for a little while as a gopher. I go to what's now called Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology. We called it Oakmoge Tech in those days, and took a course in teletype, newspaper related stuff. That landed me a job. In Cody, Wyoming, at a little weekly newspaper. So I was living there, working at this newspaper, didn't know a soul other than as I was getting acquainted with people in the workplace and at a little assimilative God church that I started attending. And then this little rabbit trail is going someplace.

Pete 22:51

And this was in your book that you wrote, right? I mean, some of the story. Yeah. Or a lot of it, actually.

Jerry 22:55

Yeah. So I don't know if uh if we wanted to carry on with it.

Pete 23:00

Yeah. I'm just trying. I'm I read the book and I'm just remembering kind of parts of it now. It's been a little while since I read it.

Jerry 23:05

This family from my home church in Oklahoma had

A Motorcycle Trip Changes Everything

Jerry 23:08

moved to Billings, Montana. Now, Billings is a hundred miles north of Cody, Wyoming, where I was living. And this family had moved up there on a whim. I thought I'm kind of homesick for Oklahoma people. I'm going to go visit the Creeson family. And so I get on my motorcycle on a Labor Day weekend, bitterly cold morning in Wyoming, and I go a hundred miles and I have no idea if they're home. I don't have their phone number, their address. I don't even know if they know I'm in Wyoming. But I'm going to go see the Creesons. So I go to the largest town in Wyoming in Montana where they live. I get in town and I go into a hotel to find a telephone. And so these red telephone booths that were around in those days, and the yellow pages of the phone book, I just go down this list of a whole bunch of churches because now it's Sunday morning. It's Sunday morning when I did this ride into Billings. And I figured, well, they're probably in church someplace. I went to non-denominational category, and there's this whole list of churches there. And I randomly picked one and jotted down the name and address and got on my bike and went and took it a couple of turns. And I found the street, find the church, and I go in, and here's this family. It was like, in my view, it's like just God having mercy on an idiot, you know, God have mercy on a doofus that just had no clue about what he was. It was like no other explanation. So I go in, they see me. The church hasn't started yet. And so we have this little mini reunion. And after that, they wanted, after the service, they wanted to introduce me to the pastor and his family. And so they did that. So the pastor and his wife had three kids, a daughter and two younger sons. So I met I met them. So I head back to Cody afterwards. You know, we had this good time together. And I go back home, back to Cody. And then I nearly froze to death in Wyoming one night, not literally, but the temperature there got down to like 35 below zero. And I'm thinking, why am why did I move to this place? You know? And Oklahoma looks more attractive all the time. And so I I left my work, left my place there, and headed back to Oklahoma. Well, I get a job. Took a while, but I I get a job in Oklahoma, and then I start thinking about this daughter of the pastor that I had met. I was gonna say, you left out the being fond of the daughter part. I I remembered that part. And so when I first met her first met her, yeah, it was her eyes. And uh I she was like 15, and I had just turned 19 when I met her, you know. So I'm back in Oklahoma now. Time has gone by a bit, and I and I'm thinking, I wonder if I wrote to this girl, if she would reply. And so wrote to her, and she replied. So that began what ended up serving as like three-ish years of courtship before we saw each other again. And it was just snail mail letters back and forth. I was working at Douglas Aircraft and uh they had a layoff, and by this time, after three, three and a half years of this correspondence, and now it's phone calls I'm making to her. And kind of the joke is, you know, in those days phone calls were not cheap, uh, long distance calls. Yeah, I remember that. You're all like I am. Well, not quite like I am, but I uh so the joke was, you know, maybe it'd be cheaper if I go up there and ask her to marry me than to keep paying these phone bills. So I have I'm laid off. I have some uh resources enough to get me up there and and such. So I go there. While I'm there, I propose marriage. And meanwhile, for some reason, this thing about missions and feeling about missions and more and more Africa in particular, that had not made it into my correspondence with her. She didn't know about that. So in my proposal of marriage, I, you know, in the interest of giving her some fine print, so to speak, I I told her about, you know, if if you marry me, it'll probably be we'll be living overseas, and I I feel drawn to serve in Africa. And so when I said that, you know, kind of holding my breath, but she smiles and then she says something that just utterly surprised me. She said, you know, when I was nine years old, there was a minister who came through and spoke at our church. He had uh been overseas and he had been in India. He made such a appeal and a case for basically the Great Commissions. And I was nine years old. And so after church, when we came home, I I announced to my mom and dad, when I grow up, I'm going to be a missionary to Africa. She's telling me right this right now, after I proposed. And I'm thinking, man, there is a there's a God in heaven, you know. So so I returned back to Oklahoma. You know, I get permission from her dad, and I turn back. She's she's like going into her senior year of high school. That would have been in early 67, April 67. I'm still not born yet. Thank you for that. Thank you, Peter. Thank you for that. A lot of people were not born at that time. And so we were married in, yeah, next year would be, the Lord willing, next year would be number 60 years for us to be married. So we were married in December of 67, and uh we both had jobs in Tulsa. She got employment there. She went to the same technical school in Oakmulgi that I had gone to, but we both had good jobs there in Tulsa, but we we left to come to San Antonio,

Finding A Missions Agency By Surprise

Jerry 29:16

go to San Antonio to a Bible college down there, and served. We felt after a period of time during our time in San Antonio, and and became an LPN licensed practical nurse through some training there, but she didn't serve in that field. She got that that training because she was also in tending to her newlywed husband and going to taking some classes at the Bible college as well. So we get accepted after a time. Well, there's a there's a piece right in here that is quite astonishing to me still, that as we were considering how to uh make our way to the mission field, because both of us were had this heart to serve, and we knew so little about anything cross-culturally and so on and so forth. We needed to be under the covering of some missions agency or somebody that had background and experience and knowledge and missions. I'm taking a uh church history class at the at the Bible college, and the teacher gives us an assignment because he's now talking about contemporary development of Pentecostalism because we were in a Pentecostal kind of a school. And so he gave all the students in his class a printout of a a bunch of names, Pentecostal type organizations. He said, pick one, just pick it, doesn't matter which one, there's a whole list. So pick one whether it's Assembly of God or Church of God or an independent group. So I get my sheet and I go down this list and I just select one. This whole kind of story of mine, again, is one that just has to do with a guy who knows so little, and the Lord just sees how utterly little he knows and needs a lot of help. I pick a I pick this place called Elam, E-L-I-M, Elam Bible Institute, which also is a missions agency connected with it. And uh, I don't think I even knew that it had a missions agency related to it at that time. So I write to New York, Rochester, New York area, and the assignment was to write and ask for a copy of their bylaws and let that be, and you do a little report on that and turn it in as a home homework assignment. So I get this reply from New York, I write this little deal, and within, I'm thinking it was within a week, that I'm talking to an upperclassman friend of mine and telling him, we're kind of at a loss as to know who to go with, what agency, or what how to how to move toward getting to Africa. And this friend, David, he said, you know, my dad used to teach at a school in New York, and they had a mission they had a mission program. And he he knew nothing about my church history assignment and all that. And he says it's called Elam. They they do works in Africa and elsewhere. You might want to write them. And so I get in touch with them again. Or no, I learned that an Africa missionary with them is in California. So I call him and he says, You need to you need to contact New York again and talk with the president of the school. And so I did, had a conversation with the president of the school, and he says, Oh, you're in San Antonio? You're at International Bible College? I said, Yes, sir. He said, I'll I'm I have a meeting there a week from now, and I'll be speaking in your chapel. So I'll meet you there. I guess, okay. So fast forward from that, we end up going after we completed college, we ended up going to New York as missionary candidates to Elam. Elam Missionary Assemblies was the name of the missions agency arm associated with it. It's since been renamed Elam Fellowship. We went there, we learned that we needed to itinerate, we needed to raise our own partnership and funds and prayer support. So we did that through various churches and there were a couple of family members that participated and individual friends, and we got accepted as missions candidates. We spent some time there in Lima, New York, and took some classes. And then in 1972, in May, we boarded a jumbo jet at John F. Kennedy Airport, made our way to Kenya. That missions agency had had served in Kenya for that missions arm for since the 1930s, and so there had already been developing a church ministry for a number of years of African indigenous work. So our sense of direction was to help serve. There was actually another little piece of this, another little rabbit trail piece, but when we were in San Antonio, the fellow that had told me about his dad teaching it, having taught at Elam, he himself also, during our time at the college, was asked to come temporarily and serve at a kind of a fundamental Baptist church as a fill-in pastor because the pastor of that church had suddenly left. And so here he is, a dyed-in-the-wool Pentecostal kid, college student, now serving as an interim pastor in a very Baptist church. And and he and his wife invited my wife and myself to join them and kind of serve as assistant with them. So that was that became part of a little training component for us in a way of being involved in ministry that way. While we're there, he has a a gentleman come and speak on a Sunday night. And so he spoke for a little bit in the evening service, and I thought, well, he's been to Africa. Our trajectory, we believe, is to that continent. So I wanted to speak with him. So after the service, I talked with him a little bit and learned from him, just in general conversation about missions. There were two things that stood out in my mind. One was that Swahili was a primary language that was spoken in that region where he had been, East Africa. And the other was that in his view, the most singular need for missionaries in that region was for trainers for people to go and just help pastors get basic training in scripture and in leadership, so training ministers so that they could serve their people. So Swahili and this training component, those were two things that he said that stayed with my mind. About a week later, maybe it's two weeks later, David, this friend of mine, and I go up to Oakmauge from San Antonio to a week-long ministry convention, they called it. And it wasn't a missionary convention, but they had this guy from this main speaker was from Georgia. He didn't know me, I didn't know him, but he's preaching, and David and I come up to Oakmaugy. We're in this service, we're sitting near the back, and this fellow, he was kind of classical Pentecostal, you know. He he

Swahili Prophecy And Spiritual Gifts

Jerry 36:37

was loud, he he sweat a lot, and he knew the Bible very well. And he's walking. He's just he's a big, tall guy, and he's just making these big strides up and down the middle aisle of this church, preaching away, and in the middle of that, he just stops and he kind of cocks his head to the ceiling. And to my utter astonishment, he just pauses and says, Swahili. I'm hearing the Swahili language. Somebody in this sanctuary is called to East or Central Africa. And needless to say, it was like Niagara Falls just broke open inside me. I'm I'm sitting back there, you know, and just weeping. And then nothing goes forward in the service. There's just this pregnant pause, just there. I'm feeling like I'm just assuming they must be waiting for a response, and I just can't do anything but respond. And so I get up and I walk, walk along the sidewall of the sanctuary, up to the front up that aisle. And here he comes with his big long strides, and he comes over to me and almost wraps his large hand around my head, and he begins this giving me this word. He said, It's distilled down to this thing about my assignment that he felt was the Lord was giving me. And he said, You will you will serve to train pastors and leaders so that they will be able to teach their own people. And so Swahili, the training component, those two things.

Speaker 1 38:13

So I gotta say this, I gotta stay like that. So I gotta say this, I gotta stay laggers.

Pete 38:17

I've got cestactionist brothers who wouldn't who would believe that the gifts have ceased after the Bible's writing, I guess, and prophecy is included in that, dreams, visions, whatever. There's no convincing you that that that's I mean, with your just several of your in your story already, it's just I've been thinking about this a lot. I'm like, I mean, I've experienced some of that too, and I think, well, first of all, there's no evidence in Scripture that that's the case. I mean, there's no argument for that that I've that I've seen this any good anyway. And secondly, I think it's a lot of times we get caught up in the study of Scripture. A lot of these or some of these scholars need to get out from behind the book and in the streets or in the field, so to speak, instead of in the stands. And I think once you experience something like that, there's no denying it. The experience still matches with Scripture. Now I know we can get our experiences ahead of Scripture sometimes, and I think in the Pentecostal and charismatic movement, sometimes that happens. But that doesn't make the others not true. I don't know. I've just been thinking about that a lot because I've even got a brother that would have believed that for years and years, thirty something years of his life, grew up in that environment, and now him and his wife have experienced these dreams, visions. There's no denying it, you know, no denying it now. And so anyway, I've even told I have a relative that doesn't believe in that, and I was talking to him one day, a close relative actually. I was like, Have you ever prayed to receive a dream revision? You know, because I was telling about something and he said, Well, no. Why don't you do that? Maybe I'll practice that too. Reveal yourself. Yeah. So anyway, I don't know.

Jerry 39:58

It's just an appreciation for those that that find it difficult and it's challenging to kind of entertain this element or these elements related to what Pentecostals and charismatics refer to, you know, the infilling of the Spirit or the spiritual gifts and so on. And partly because, I mean, I think I'm sympathetic, because I grew up in a world that was a real mixed bag, as I've alluded to earlier, richness of just life of coming to know Jesus through opaling collins and through the experience of my recovery from polio and through just knowing people, grassroots people in our church. There's so much richness of just life itself relationally and in the gospel, while at the same time I was exposed to, I just saw a lot of abuse. I look back and I realized that there's just this human feature that comes with the territory, whatever the stream of denominational or non-denominational theology might be. And I've kind of arrived at this notion that in a in a similar way, there there is no, I believe, there is no non-dysfunctional person. It doesn't mean that every person is dysfunctional, but every person has some dysfunction. And in the same kind of way, I've kind of got this I've got this notion that all movements, all denominations, all communities of streams of faith, we have our we have our elements of incompleteness, a bit of distortion. Doesn't mean that we're evil or it just means that we we need a lot of grace from God and we need a lot of mercy to love one another well. And so I'm still endeavoring to grow in in all that, you know.

Pete 42:08

Yeah. I think you know, with with hypocrisy, it's like we see these people doing not what the Bible teaches or whatever that call themselves Christians and that keeps people from the faith. I think that's a big deal with a lot of objections to the faith. Well, they're hypocrites. And I'm like, well, first of all, if there weren't hypocrites, the Bible wouldn't be true. Because the Bible tells us almost every book of the New Testament talks about false teachers and hypocrites. I mean, we just see that over and over and over. And secondly, I just think of what other part of your life or our lives do we operate in that regard? So when a coach is cheating in football, do we stop watching football? When we go to the gym and we watch these people fake, lifting a lot of weight and they move the weights up when they leave to act like they lifted a bunch of weight, do we stop working out? I mean, like, what other parts of our life do we do that? And I don't I can't really come up with any, you know, but except for church and Jesus, oh, there's hypocrites, so I'm not gonna go to church, and you know. It really doesn't hold water when you when you kind of dive into it.

Jerry 43:04

To the cessationist viewpoint, well, there on the one hand, there really is, to our almost embarrassment, within some of the Pentecostal charismatic communities, you know, some history of certainly imperfection and some abuse and some cause for being skeptical or cynical. At the same time, I've made peace with the the reality, I believe, that there's plenty, there's plenty of scripture from Genesis Revelation that still is a puzzlement to me.

Pete 43:38

Oh, absolutely.

Jerry 43:39

And and and I've just reconciled that that is okay because there is one omniscient one, and it's not me, and it's not any of my most brilliant, most well highly honored and rightly highly regarded theological, you know, heroes or whatever. And he just he's bigger than any of I I mean, I'm embarrassed that my nurturing in the faith in a Pentecostal environment, this is not at all to throw as you would know, it's not at all to kick my heritage to the curb, but I I did. I grew up with such a bias on the other end that those who were non of not of our persuasion, we we wouldn't word it this way, but they're second class Christians. Christians, if you're if you've not been baptized in the Holy Spirit and with the evidence of speaking in tongues and and so on and so forth, then well, maybe one day and one of the coolest things about God's, I think, sense of humor part of this is that one of the real best gifts he gave to me, though I love my heritage, love the background, one of the best gifts that I got was being sent off to San Antonio where I ended up being an assistant pastor in a Baptist church that was anything but Pentecostal. But I love with these dear people who just loved the Word of God. And they loved my wife and me. And they were imperfect people, but we were growing together, and some experiences of the reality of Jesus kind of flowed out of that fr through both sides of these cultural religious backgrounds in that church. And then we serve in East Africa, rubbing shoulders very closely with Presbyterian and Baptist and some Anglican and Methodist and Mennonite. And what a enriching, enriching journey that that has been. And then fast forward after our Africa years, Ann and I had the privilege of serving at the University of Tulsa for 20 years in international student ministry. We had about 15 in Kenya and five in Tanzania.

Pete 46:09

So what would be the biggest difference in Africa and America with regards to the people and then even the theology would be my question.

Jerry 46:18

Yeah. In Africa, in terms of the church at large

Africa And The Supernatural Gap

Jerry 46:23

and the Christian message at large, there's much in Africa that is seen in the activity of the church that can easily be linked and traced to the place where the original message of the Christian faith came back from. So for instance, we export and what gets exported is what gets embraced. And so in one sense, say, you know, we were touching on some of the denominational aspects a minute ago. There are very distinct lines of denominationalism, I would call it, across the continent. Some of those, like here, thankfully, I think are being beautifully blurred because Christ Himself is sort of being allowed to emerge more as a central figure. There's a on the contrasts, the openness and the receptivity of the reality of the supernatural. No one has to convince hardly any African person, oh, there are evil spirits, oh, there are demonstrable evidences of a very dark world that you cannot see, but it will be manifested in your home, in your village, in your community, in your tribal group, distinctive of other tribal groups, etc. Whereas here, give myself as an example, I get a headache, and I don't instantly think to pray and ask Jesus to deal with my headache. I think where's the aspirin bottle? And that's okay. It's all right. But my tendency, my conditioning propensity is centered around the science world in that regard. And I and I know there's validity that God heals in any number of ways. In Africa, a person, you know, breaks a finger, they're calling to Jesus right now. Or on the other hand, they might be calling to Jesus and wondering at the same time, did I offend a great grandfather and his spirit is now bugging me and injuring me. So there's a there's a mix of that that'll sometime happen. Yeah. So those are a couple of things that come to mind. So yeah, we are blessed with three children. All three of them were born in Nairobi hospital. So my wife is like a rock star. I didn't push her at all to do this, but she got on that plane to go to Africa when she was seven and a half months pregnant. So we get there and six and a half weeks later, you know, she's she's she's having our little baby who now is this grandmother herself living up living out down here in Oklahoma. So to me, I would say, and thanks for letting me just ramble down memory lane. I I love it, partly because I love story, but also in this context of just sharing with any and whoever the goodness of the Lord, the faithfulness of him who who loves to take the least likely individuals and just work at cleaning them up, sort of the rest of their lives and reorienting them, redeeming, bringing along the Holy Spirit to be the unstoppable companion.

Pete 49:55

I mean, you see throughout your story God's sovereignty, his plan is going to happen, but also the will of man. You see how that's intertwined in your story. And in theology too, I think we just want to separate those two so much and build whole camp on, you know, the free will of man or God's sovereignty and he chooses everything. I mean, it's like I don't know how you can not read scripture and not see both. And yeah, I have to bow out. I can't I can't explain all of that. Yeah. But yet it's there. Yeah, the will of man and God's sovereignty. They're they're they go together beautifully and wonderfully.

Jerry 50:29

Um that is so that is so irrefutable, isn't it, Peter? That there has to be, in my view, just this wonderful complimentary blend. When Jesus says, Come to me, all you who labor heavy laden, take my yoke upon you, learn of me. So there's this sharing. We can't do this on our own. Without him, we can't. Without us, he won't, is a phrase that I've come to begin just appreciating.

Pete 51:00

I heard a story on a podcast not long ago. Guy forgot his tools in the yard, got in bed, was laying down, decides he's gonna pray that they don't get stolen and that it doesn't rain. He says he clearly heard, I do what you can, not what you want. You know, so he needed to get up. Get up and get your tools. I just thought that was a pretty practical, funny story that uh applies to sometimes that just when you take those steps, he's asking us.

Jerry 51:29

Dallas Willard, uh former professor of philosophy at University of Southern California. He says, While it is true, as Jesus says, that without him we can do nothing, it is equally true that if we do nothing, it will be without him. It sounds kind of like a little wordplay, but that reality that we're and the marvel, isn't it? The marvel that his his generosity and his grace and knowing that we are dust, he remembers that we are dust. He welcomes us to partner with him of all things, to advance his family, to advance his kingdom, and to grow together in this messy thing called the church, and learn forgiveness and be a person who needs forgiveness along the way. Which, by the way, just to tag on to one of the other earlier comments about the struggles that I had through my life in many instances of this thing of the appetite of the flesh, you know, appetites of the flesh that dog me from time to time. After our years in Africa, now we're back in Tulsa, we've had the Lord leading us in surprising, marvelous ways to become involved in international student ministry. And while there in the church that we became

Ministry, Recovery, And Honest Pastors

Jerry 52:52

part of for like 25, 26 years in Tulsa up until recently when we moved to Ada, the pastor of that community, deeply humble, courageous disciple of Jesus, led a uh opened a 12-step program that he he called it, and instead of it having sort of a traditional name, which would be celebrate recovery, there was the letter P put in the middle of it, C P R, with the P representing pastors. So it was distinctly to help those who've been in vocational ministry who just have stuff that needs to be fleshed out in a safe environment with people who might be peers who also have lived in this world of you're a man of the cloth or a woman of the cloth. So how could you possibly have issues such as, you know, you name it?

Pete 53:48

I think America's created that pastor title instead of pastor gift. It's not a title. It's not supposed to be something that we go around, I'm pastor so-and-so. The gift, and and and audibly it's a shepherd, but but they're not shepherding because they feel like they can't shepherd, because they can't get close to the people because they're supposed to preach and teach on Sunday, and and they don't have any deep relationships, therefore they're lonely, therefore they're suppression. They're I mean all of that. So we've just we've created that somehow out of our system and of man. And yeah. It's uh I don't know that I don't even know how to get out of it. I mean, I have lots of pastor friends, and I see that in some. And but let's let's talk about how we met, speaking of pastor friends. Pastor Drew over in Connell. I think it's been what a year.

Jerry 54:37

Yeah, it's been at least year when we met. I mean it's at least a couple years, I think now.

Pete 54:41

Couple years, something like that. And you came over to we have a Bible study over there at Pastor Drew's church that he attends. I think it's so cool that a pastor attends a Bible study that he doesn't teach and he takes notes. Every time he's bringing paper and writing stuff down and then referencing it back. And I just think it's just that's just you just don't see many leaders of churches, you know, or well, I don't know that. I don't see many of that. I mean, I there may be a lot of them out there. Hopefully there are doing that because I think it's so important to for me anyway, I teach a lot of groups, but I I love the groups that I attend because I can just show up and just be there and enjoy my brothers and sisters without having to deliver a message or teach or be expected to answer questions or, you know, any of that.

Jerry 55:29

Yeah.

Pete 55:29

I think that's really helpful for for leaders and teachers.

Jerry 55:33

Yeah. Yeah. So some of our family, our oldest daughter and her family live near Kanawha. My wife and I, of course, being parents and grandparents, now great-grandparents of an increasing number of the tribe up there. I I got acquainted with, I met uh Pastor Drew Isaac G close to 30 years ago. And off and on we've crossed paths. I've come to very much appreciate him. We've had some very good conversations along the way. And at one point I had asked him, I said, you know, sometime this is when we were still living in Tulsa. You know, sometimes we would come down and we would stay in our little camper when we were visiting with the family. And I said, sometime I needed to get away and do some writing. And if I brought my laptop, would it be okay if I come down to the church where I just have some space in uh in an off time for the church? Gave me access to that. And so then one day on a Thursday morning, he said, by the way, he he happened to be in the church. I said, By the way, we've got this Bible study group that happens every Thursday, and we have a little bite to eat, and guy comes out and we do do some Bible study together. You're welcome anytime. So it was that Thursday that I said, Oh, thanks. I showed up and you've been afflicted with me ever since. And then it was shortly after that that I learned in one of those settings because I came back two or three times when we were down this way and learned that, oh, there's other Bible studies in this region of the world.

Pete 57:09

And that's when you start coming to Thursday.

Jerry 57:10

Thursday morning at Aldridge Bible study, and also another one earlier in the week. And and now I know that you know there's this whole range of others at different times. It's not an overstatement, Peter, for me, has been something of a lifeline for me. And I love we're a part of a wonderful little church community, small church community, who which ironically is pastored by the grandson who had been instrumental in dropping the seed of missions in my heart when I was a kid. So quite quite remarkable that. I think it's so crucial.

Pete 58:33

That little study, I don't I I may have told you, but I mean 2015 is when we started that Thursday morning. I got asked to lead by the pastor at the time of the church we were going to, and I was like, not me, because some of the guys that are still going were s were there and older knew the Bible. I did not know the Bible really very little at all. And I kind of turned it down and he he insisted, and I was I was like, okay, I'll do it, you know. And that but that really was a spark in my walk for the scripture. For just getting into scripture and knowing, I mean, people are going to be relying on me to know something about it when I get there. But but even at first we didn't, I I still didn't know much, and we would listen to this. There's an app called, you guys out there, it's called Through the Word, it's a wonderful app. It's a free app. I still look at it sometimes. It's got an audio summary of every book of the Bible, every chapter of the Bible. And so you just click on the chapter and you'll hear a five to ten minute audio summary, and we would play that before Thursday morning. We'd listen to the chapter, and then we'd play that little audio teaching, and then we would talk about it. And we did that for years. Never was that group intended to be other groups or I mean, God's plan was God's plan, and now we're, you know, like you said, we've got groups Monday through Thursday and all different times, and just off of that little branching off. In fact, we just started another one because that one got to where it was there was just too many people, and and we started another one on Monday morning. So praise God for that, and nobody can take credit for it. That's kind of how he rolls sometimes. Most of the time, I think in scripture it's like because he knows that if if he's not seen, then we start taking the credit and pride and all that takes over and doesn't work out right now.

Jerry 1:00:10

Someone said God will get to glory if we don't care who receives the credit, you know. And and that's a feature that's one of the features that is so attractive to guys who come because there's not an assumption or perception that, oh, this is this is a big top-down kind of a thing. Right. And walk in and salute, you know. But you just come and you just got these peers of brothers uh of varying ages, varying levels of development in their own spiritual growth. And you can feel safe and at home. So kudos to your brother and and the others that just responded. When that guy asked you to do this, I would call it something of a sovereign moment.

Pete 1:00:58

So absolutely. So as a as a missionary in Africa, what's the story, what's the moment that kind of still sticks with you today?

Jerry 1:01:10

There were a few of those kind that you're referencing. One of the one of the ones that immediately comes to mind was in our first term on the field a year or two in. I remember we were in this remote tribe of people. The gospel had been there for some years, but still there was so much that was female circumcision was still going

A Curse Letter And Fear Breaks

Jerry 1:01:33

on, and some in some time inside, outside the church, and just some mix and all that. But I'm this young missionary, and most of the pastors that I'm working with and helping to introduce some something called theological education by extension, very basic introduction to biblical truth, you know, for pastors. And they love God, they're wanting to serve, they're wanting to grow. But at that same time, there was this awareness, difficulty of me, this young novice white guy. So I remember I remember kneeling down in in a separate room in my house one day, and I remember asking God, Lord, would you would you please help these people to know that I love them? The only response that I felt coming back, and it wasn't an any kind of a demonstrable thing, but was you just love them. And I'm still trying to figure out what is is fully meant by that. But my takeaway has been that way back to what we were alluding to earlier, that it's this this this joint caring sharing of God and us, and He knows that I can't just love them. I can't I don't have that. But over the years from that time, one of the takeaways I would say that maybe came almost in a delayed way, is discovering that in order for me to love at all in the way that he calls me to love in Mark chapter twelve, with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, neighbor as myself, I can never do that apart from being loved. And not just being loved once upon a time, but being loved and being embraced as one knowing that I'm received as one who's loved every single day, and and in that, in that kind of a milieu of the percolating mix, you know, of God's grace, out of that I I'm able to love. Apart from that, it's like forget it.

Pete 1:03:54

I know you saw some demonic stuff. You talked about that. Wasn't there a a story that really stood out? You told it one one morning, I think, and Thursday morning, about that was the second one that came to mind when you were asking that.

Jerry 1:04:06

And there was Mennonite friend also named Jerry, he and his wife and kids lived up the road about 20 miles away, and he worked in a vocational school. And my wife and I were over visiting them in the daytime, and up the trail comes this fellow on a bicycle, and he's telling he's letting Jerry know that there's a guy that's really in bad shape, a student back at the school, which is about a quarter of a mile down this trail. So Jerry said, I'm gonna head down there, you wanna come with me? So we go together, and we get there, and there's this young, strapping, very well-formed, muscular young man, look like just a picture of athleticism and all that. He's sitting on this large boulder rock thing, and he's just holding his head, and we learn through someone he's suffering from a intense headache, and he knows that he is under a curse, and he knows that he is going to die. And what had happened was, I don't know if it was that morning or how how recently, but he had received a letter from back in his home area by the lake, Lake Victoria. In that letter was this combination of some broken bones, some ash. There might have been a feather or two, like from a rooster or whatever, but whatever it was, just this this letter, and nothing was written in the letter. But he knew because of his culture and background and witchcraft and all that, he knew that that was a curse that was placed upon him by some enemy, and what that meant was that he wasn't going to survive. And so it was so real for him, because he he knew again, he understood the experience. This was this theory. Yeah. And so Jerry and I, we're we're these two young guys, you know, still trying to figure out some of what it means to be a missionary, you know, and we're faced with this. We're just asking, trying to trying to seek some wisdom. I I brought a proposal to Jerry. I just said, would you think that if we have a little Time with this fellow, and someone bring us bring us some matches, and he brings us the envelope with the contents here. And so I remember Jerry said we're we're sitting in this kind of little hut area, and the young fellow is sitting between Jerry and myself, and I'm just talking to the young guy, and I began to share with him about the enemy of fear. Because in my understanding, and I think experiences of a lot of people that have had to deal with the dark forces, fear itself many times opens the door to literal powers of the adversary to manipulate and do damage to stuff. And so, and I could just see it in this guy. He just was traumatized. So I brought the matches and I talked with him about just about the gospel and about Christ and about his coming to to expose and to eliminate the power to deal with the powers of Satan and darkness and everything associated with it. Gave him some scripture. And then I led I led up to, and I was just going by the, you know, flying by the seat of my pants, so to speak, because I it was like just keep sharing with him about Jesus, you know. And I said, are you are you ready to renounce everything in your own life that's associated with evil powers or with witchcraft or with curses, anything at all, and acknowledge that Jesus is the authority over all power and that these do not have say or sway over your life. Are you ready to acknowledge that? And it took a couple times asking him because the fear was like palpable, and it was as though he was intimidated by what if, what if, you know. He came to it and he started nodding his head, so I kind of instructed him with the contents, gave him a match. He couldn't strike the match, have the little box to strike apart, and he was so shaking. So I put my hand around his hand and just helped guide it, because I knew he was ready and he wanted to do that. So we struck that, set the thing on fire, talked with him further about entrusting himself over fully to Jesus and letting him be the Lord of his life, that that those kinds of things. And then then it got quiet. This sense that what needed doing, as far as we understood, was done. And Jerry and I both started thanking God. And Jerry he just expressed in a in a very sincere, heartfelt way, you know, just praise to God. Things things went calm. The fellow seemed to be fine. And I think it was the next day that he went back to his home area. He need he was needed back in his home area or whatever. So so I learned where the village that he was from, which was miles away, and I knew a pastor who served in that immediate area from our denominational group. Didn't hear longer-term accounts from that story. Thankfully, it this speaks to the the growing maturity of the church leadership in much of Africa. They are so they are so given over to the life of God and to the truth of scripture and to lives of of holiness and of walking in the power of the Holy Spirit, it seldom falls to to foreign missionaries to do the face-to-face work. To do something like that, yeah.

Producer 1:10:27

We've talked about there's many camps and they all have goods and moments of weakness in those. What would you say to somebody who's specifically in one camp, whether it's charismatic, con conservative, however you want to whiche whichever give me a reason why I should consider looking at different perspectives.

Jerry 1:10:52

Yeah. That's a kind of question that would have served me well years and years ago, and even in current times. The I would call it tribalism in the in the Christian

Leaving Theological Bubbles For Unity

Jerry 1:11:06

faith, by and large, in in a broad sense, my tendency is to be safe. And the place I'm most safe is among those who speak the same stuff that I speak and understand and embrace a strain of the Christian faith that is familiar to those within my community. I would call it bubble, theological bubble, doctrinal, whatever, experiential. And those those are safe places to feel. And what the Lord, I believe, called me to and continues to calling me to is to trust Him. It is not as though I'm distrusting my own tradition or throwing it out. I'm still cher in my case, I'm still cherishing so much of my own tradition, while at the same time I feel he has been helping me so much to not only be grateful for the fact that God's expression far exceeds the range of my and my my tribe's interpretation of the body of truth and experiential reality all down through church history, that I'm not only thankful for that, but I'm I'm able to just genuinely celebrate it, just rejoice in it. That because I've been so personally, I would say, I would say the word emancipation is not an overstatement. I I I just feel like there's this freedom that comes from and talk about safety, that safety has actually been deepened by coming to, you know, I sit with you guys, and you may or may not come from anything related to my background or tradition, but I feel utterly safe and welcome and benefited by being by what you bring, because you can you bring something from your backgrounds and lives that I don't bring.

Pete 1:13:23

That's the body. That's what I mean, that's what denominations and even non-denominations, let's be real, they're they're their own denomination, even though they call themselves non-denominations because they have their own set of beliefs. Yeah, you know. That's what they've done. They've separated the body. I mean, they've all the arms are over here in this church, and all the the you know, the ears are over here, and because they're all like each other.

Jerry 1:13:42

Yeah.

Pete 1:13:42

And then but when you separate the body, you lose the power the body has when they're we're together.

Jerry 1:13:48

And so Yeah. Not to be cheeky or mocking or anything, but the the the church that I grew up in when I was a kid, and I can kind of say this because that church dissolved over over the years. Out front of the church building, there were there were three layers of signs, each layer of phrase. And the top layer, I won't mention the name, but it's the name of the, it was the name of the church. The next statement was the word non-denominational. And the next word down, next line was non-sectarian. So what does that say about given church? Well, maybe we're more of these two than we would like to say because we're classifying ourselves.

Pete 1:14:37

Absolutely. You shouldn't have to say anything. Yeah, you should just be be that.

Jerry 1:14:41

But yeah, I've I've come to just uh so much appreciate Richard J. Foster wrote a book called, and he's of Quaker background, I think it's called Streams of Living Water, and Streams re is representative in this work that he did over years and years of the streams of everything from the contemplative stream to the evangelical stream to the charismatic stream to the incarnational stream and the holiness stream, all uh all of these threading the the whole expanse all the way back to the book of Acts and up until now and being able to appreciate and embrace those things which you can embrace and kind of l let the other parts be what they are, but not necessarily subscribe to some of the beliefs and some of the practices of different aspects of the overall church. Yeah.

Pete 1:15:46

Yeah, I think America, I mean Alex's been talking about this a little bit, but like we have all these hot topics in theology in America that when you really start researching the root, I even sent you a text about baptism of the Holy Spirit recently. When you research the roots of these theologies, these they're new. I mean, they're they're within a hundred or two hundred years old. And so for the first eighteen hundred years or, you know, of Christianity, they weren't even talked about. Like they really, like the early church and you know,

America’s New Debates And Old Scripture

Pete 1:16:18

and even in Africa, I mean, like I was just some real basic research in Africa theology, and the same, I was kind of seeing the same thing when I was looking on AI, you know, once they've all be saved, required tithing, the rapture. I mean, I there's several of these things that like when you look them up, one one dude or one little camp created them in 1500 or 1800, or, you know, and then and then it just took off and then it spread, and and now there's this big debate about all of this. And I'm like, the plain reading of scripture for 1,500 to 1800 years didn't come up with this by all of these Christians and all of these, you know, countries. And now we're gonna die on these hills of these new revelations, I guess you could say. It's it's just interesting, and I don't think we're Bible literate enough to just get in the word and read what it says. I mean, are there some confusing verses where these people get these? Yeah, there are, but there's a whole lot more over here that aren't confusing. Oh my god. You know, like let's just talk about the ones they've always saved. I've got some stuff written down. Those who endure to the end will be saved. How do you read that? You know, nothing can separate me from the love of Christ. How do you read that? On the last day, many will claim Jesus as Lord and be told that He doesn't know who they are. How do you read that? Simple. I believe I will be presented holy, faultless, blameless before Christ if I remain grounded and steadfast. If I remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel. I believe I'm saved by grace through faith, not from works. Created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared ahead of time for me to do. I believe if I deny Jesus, he denies me. How do we read that stuff? I just don't I I believe God hardens who he wants to harden. I'm quoting scripture on all these people listening here. I could I could go through all the scripture, but I mean these are these are what this is what it says. I believe we're told to examine ourselves to see whether we are in the faith. I believe I'm saved by believing the gospel if I hold firmly to the word. Otherwise, I believed in vain. They're just it's just common man language to read that and say, but instead we want to say, oh, it doesn't mean that, or it's not talking to a Christian, although the Bible I thought was written to children of God. But I don't know. It's frustrating to me because even in this little Bible belt culture here, I'm ruffling some feathers right now, but I'm reading the Word of God. I'm reading these are almost straight from, if not right exactly, I can reference all the scriptures that I and I got plenty more that I could I could read, but here's one. I believe a brother or sister wonders from the truth and is led back by another brother or sister. They have saved them from hell. That's in scripture, people. Now, what does that mean? Well, it means exactly what it says, and we don't have to debate it. So I don't know. There's just, and then, you know, you go on to my first big topic was required tithing a few years ago, and you know, and I dove deep. That was my first really deep dive, and the way that's taught is is embarrassing to me. I mean, it's just, it's just uh I researched and watched multiple men of God and and then got all over scripture, and nothing's wrong with tithing. I mean, the article's titled Cheerful Tither that I wrote. And I even used the 10% principle as to start to start my giving and how I did it. But the way it's taught is an obligation and required at this amount to this particular building, and that's what God says, or you'll be cursed. And, you know, they just rip scripture out of context and and do exactly the opposite of what Paul says about being a cheerful giver and doing it with the heart of giving, you know, like God wants. But so I don't know. I think in Africa you don't you probably don't run into that, those type tell me, dude, those topics that I could have threw out, do you run into a lot of that over there? Or is it not even uh talked about, other than us sending American missionaries over there to start camps over there? I've I've read about that too.

Jerry 1:20:43

But yeah. And one one very sad example of what we get when we import something from others, and then it can become magnified is the notion that, well, once you once you accept the Lord, or and perhaps m once you get into the issue of the ten percent or whatever, and or once you begin to believing that faith is what you're called to be, then there's God will answer every prayer you pray the way you desire for it to pray, if you sort of use the right formula and say it enough times, and because scripture says this and this, you know, receiving kind of hate to use the term, but cherry-picking verses, which of course, the list there. And when I gr when I grew up, I you know, I grew up in a tradition that I again I appreciate, but but rather than s say on the eternal security part, the uh perseverance of the saints, you know, that doctrine. I could have probably used a little of that doctrine for my growing up here. Because you were so far on the other end.

Pete 1:21:56

If you went to the lake on Sunday and died, you might be, you know, stuff like that.

Jerry 1:22:00

So my uh you define me as rather than being eternally secure, eternally insecure. That's that's exactly because it was like one from one revival to the next revival. I was lost again, man. It wasn't preached that way that you're not saved, but it was like you get ready because Jesus might come tonight. And I knew what I knew what a mess I was in yesterday, you know, or this afternoon. So, and then coming to the University of Tulsa and working with international students, uh, and all of our volunteers were this beautiful tapestry of a range of denominational people that I had not grown up rubbing shoulders with. And one of my great Presbyterian friends, you know, through having coffee with him and visiting with him, although he and I are not on the same page, but I'm probably somewhere in between, like you were just describing a minute ago, because of his the strength that he brings to convictions about the faithfulness of the Lord, I've been okay with using words like sovereign and providential, you know, which he could use all day long, you know. Right. And embracing those aspects that I need without jumping, jumping to to yet another narrow perspective and holding to that.

Pete 1:23:30

One position robs God of sovereignty, the other position robs man of will. Oh, that's well said. And that's that's the places that we don't need to be in either one of those. Uh Ecclesiastes says avoid the extremes. I think that's what we've done on some of these like that. And it's just but I think a lot of times when people get in scripture, when they really that's what, you know, God led me down this path of getting in and diving in. And I studied the MacArthur's and the the hardcore Calvinist type. That was that was who I first found when I started studying. So I've I've even I've got a MacArthur study bible. I mean, I've I've seen all of those arguments, I've seen all of those those teachings. Some some of it's great. I've learned a ton from it, but others, they just aren't willing to come out of their box and they have to make everything try to fit in their box, even if it means distorting what the word says in in certain areas that like where it's not a brother. This is not a real Christian. They're talking to Christians, but you know, in that that context, they try to say it's not. So I'm I've got that lens, and then I've read the other side, and I think one of the blessings for me is not growing up in any camps. You know, like you said, you grew up I I didn't have a camp. I mean I was all Presbyterian, let's see, Baptist, non-denominational, Pentecostal, Church of Christ. I mean, I was going to all of these churches from when I was young until now, even when I'm at my wife. And so I've seen and and talked to and been around those people that have got to hear all those perspectives and then let the word of God speak for itself. That's what's helped me a lot.

Jerry 1:25:01

Isn't that interesting that the Lord just He shapes us from the place where we have been and doesn't discard any of it and then utilizes that? I think of Saul of Tarsus, you know, he had all of this amazing academia from Gamaliel and and others. And here he's he's a radical church persecutor, and God snatches him. And Moses, is Moses out there defending, wasn't it he who the camels were not, you know, the people were they were stealing water, and he intervened and made sure that the women were able to get their camels to drink. Maybe I'm reading that from the Apocrypha. I don't think so, but I think so. And then later on he sees the he sees the guy killing the fellow. So justice rises up in him. So this thing about justice is deep inside of Moses' bones, and who is it that gives us the law, you know? Yeah. And anyway, the your background and each of our backgrounds contributes into somehow in some mysterious way what he's what he's wanting to bring about. You know, in in John 17, verse 3, which I had never paid attention to, I think, in hardly all my life, just in recent times, I've come to s just begin to mull over what is eternal life. And Jesus gave it.

Pete 1:26:41

The only true God and Jesus Christ whom who he has sent. Yeah. We were just in that in one of my groups, actually.

Jerry 1:26:47

Yeah, that's beautiful. I think it's the navigator movement that introduced or I'm not sure if it was them, but to know Christ and to make him known. It's kind of the slogan. So what is it to what is it to know him? Right. And here Paul is well into his ministry and still calling out that I may know him. And so the notion that, well, I know him because I prayed a prayer. Tick to box. No, you Yeah, there's no there's no true knowledge there in that. Know someone through an interpersonal and a continued ongoing relations.

Pete 1:27:26

Where you talk and talk to them and they talk to you. And yeah, that's that's beautiful. We always so Jerry, you know, I know you're part of our groups and you know how we get started. We always try to end these. I do it as well, but we do a prayer, a praise, and a confession. Unlike our groups, we just open the floor and anybody can you don't have to speak, or you can say all three, or you can say one. But in this one, you need to try to give me a specific prayer that you want to ask our audience or me to pray for, a praise that's going on in your life right now, and then any confession of sin that you have that you want to just kind of share that how you've worked through. Yeah. Put

Prayer Requests, Confession, And Blessing

Pete 1:28:04

you on the spot.

Jerry 1:28:05

Yeah. Need that. I'm coming up this Tuesday with a uh medical thing at the Oklahoma Heart Hospital. The cardiologist that I saw a few weeks ago felt like I was a good candidate to have a heart cath done so they can run up run the whatever tube or whatever it is up my veins into my some of the some of the vessels of the whatever of my heart. and take some pictures and see if there's a plaque or whatever needs might might need attention. So grateful for prayer for that. Confession I'm I'm I'm too I'm too easily one to be dismissive of the voice of the Holy Spirit and of the promptings in the Word of God. And I I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to continue being that guy. And this has been an arena for me for some time. It's easy for me to just breeze on past things that I need to be attentive to, whether they are offenses or laziness, maybe lack of proactivity in pursuing Jesus in his way. So focus is on there's several things all mixed in there. I could probably give you laundry lists of some confession things, but they're genuine. They're very, very real for me. I'm just grateful. Very, very grateful. I'm grateful for my wife. I'm so grateful for the church family, for the body of Christ, and uh particularly for brothers that I can be vulnerable with. Grace has come along sufficiently that a number of brothers feel they're they're safe to be vulnerable with me and conversations and prayer and the kinds of things we're talking about right now, confession and prayer.

Pete 1:30:12

I think my prayer, I've got a couple brothers that are falling away. I've got one in in jail and another one that just don't know for sure where he is. I won't mention any names but let's just I just want everybody lift them up. Praise just being able to sit here and talk about Jesus um with a a brother that I love deeply. Just want to continue to to do that in every day and just praise God for what he's doing one at a time which it's not a big giant movement that I'm involved in, but I'm seeing one at a time something's happening and he's moving hearts of men and women. Confession I'm staying on my prayer topic that I've been on for quite a while. I'm I am making some ground and making some changes, reading a book, just really specifically now focusing on silence in prayer and trying to even like with regards to your confession, I mean just hear, hear better or even listen. And maybe I'm hearing it and I'm not listening and I'm not acting or I'm not discerning it correctly that it that it is the voice of God that's telling me to do this or stop doing that. So just being still my head goes 90 miles an hour and even in my even in my silence there's screaming sometimes so I got out and walked this morning and just got outside and tried to tried to clear that up just I still don't think I'm I still think I'm missing the mark in that category with with him and the praying without ceasing. So all right I'm gonna close this in prayer and uh until we have another one thank you guys for listening. Father God I just want to thank you for this conversation and thank you for Jerry and our friendship and moving forward that we continue to to share life and do life together with you that you continue to bring men and women around us that we can share your love and your grace and your mercy and just thank you for all that you do for us all the blessings that I think we sometimes don't see. Help us to clear our minds and hear clearly from from your Holy Spirit in Jesus' name amen. Amen