Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / Kickflips & the Great Commission: Varsity Skateboarding and Skate Church KC

Transcript

Kickflips & the Great Commission: Varsity Skateboarding and Skate Church KC · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

0:01
Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
0:04
Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
0:08
Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.
0:11
Speaker 1: I'm doctor James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking
0:15
Speaker 1: Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world
0:18
Speaker 1: and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that
0:22
Speaker 1: hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now on to
0:25
Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody, welcome to this
0:29
Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer, your host,
0:32
Speaker 1: and I am joined today by Nate and Dylan, and
0:36
Speaker 1: I'm going to let Nate introduce Dylan. They work together
0:39
Speaker 1: a little bit in a skateboard ministry in Kansas City,
0:41
Speaker 1: if I'm getting that all right, and so they know
0:44
Speaker 1: each other pretty well.
0:45
Speaker 2: So I'm going to let Nate go ahead and introduce
0:47
Speaker 2: our guest.
0:48
Speaker 3: Nate feel free, super excited to have my buddy Dylan on.
0:51
Speaker 3: We've known each other for years, skateboarded together for years,
0:54
Speaker 3: and we've been doing ministry now together for quite a
0:56
Speaker 3: while and it's been a big blessing in my life.
0:59
Speaker 3: As you guys know, I had a skape ministry here
1:01
Speaker 3: in town for many years, and right around the time
1:03
Speaker 3: I kind of put that on the shelf to start traveling,
1:06
Speaker 3: he was starting his But he's been doing ministry for
1:08
Speaker 3: a long time and it's been a blessing to me,
1:10
Speaker 3: to my son, to a lot of my old friends.
1:12
Speaker 3: I'm just constantly inviting people on Tuesday. So welcome Dylan.
1:15
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us. Excited to talk about varsity and
1:19
Speaker 3: skate church, KSE and everything that you got going on.
1:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me.
1:23
Speaker 5: I think one cool thing we could talk about is
1:26
Speaker 5: when we started doing the skate ministry in Kansas City.
1:30
Speaker 4: I think it's such a cool not coincidence.
1:32
Speaker 5: Obviously God was in it, but I believe we started
1:36
Speaker 5: doing it like the month after you guys had kind
1:38
Speaker 5: of like taken a break from doing.
1:39
Speaker 4: It, which we didn't know at the time.
1:42
Speaker 5: I remember moving to Kansas City from Springfield and literally
1:46
Speaker 5: it was like, man, we've been doing this Bible study
1:48
Speaker 5: thing in Springfield for so long, how do we finally start.
1:52
Speaker 4: It here in Kansas City?
1:53
Speaker 5: And I remember it was myself, I want to say,
1:56
Speaker 5: two or three other friends in a coffee shop at
1:58
Speaker 5: an indoor skate park. I had no idea that you
2:01
Speaker 5: guys had recently just like taken a break from it.
2:03
Speaker 5: So it's super cool to see, you know, God knew
2:06
Speaker 5: that needed to be skate ministry in case he's so
2:08
Speaker 5: bad that he's like, I'm not even gonna allow like
2:10
Speaker 5: a little break to happen in between.
2:11
Speaker 4: You're just going to keep it going absolutely.
2:15
Speaker 1: So Yeah, I'll just ask a couple of questions. I
2:18
Speaker 1: just kind of helped me frame it. I'm not I
2:21
Speaker 1: skateboarded when I was younger, and I use that really loosely.
2:25
Speaker 2: I was horrible. My wife knows this, you know.
2:28
Speaker 1: I lift just a look athletic, but anything that doesn't
2:32
Speaker 1: involve moving in a straight line in a relatively stable fashion,
2:36
Speaker 1: I have trouble with.
2:37
Speaker 2: So so I don't know. I'm wondering what you guys see.
2:44
Speaker 1: Is skateboarding sort of a a really is it a
2:47
Speaker 1: growing niche area or is it you know, has it's
2:50
Speaker 1: just sort of gone underground because I remember when I
2:52
Speaker 1: was a kid it was all over the place, and
2:53
Speaker 1: it doesn't really feel like it that way now. I mean,
2:55
Speaker 1: you had movies about skateboarding, and like thrashing is one
2:58
Speaker 1: of my favorite old you know skateboarding movies, right, Yeah,
3:01
Speaker 1: and so you had like thrashing out and you had
3:03
Speaker 1: the you know, a bunch of different like skaters that
3:06
Speaker 1: you'd see at video games all that kind of stuff.
3:08
Speaker 1: Is it still that part of the culture where you know,
3:10
Speaker 1: there's a broad base of people skateboarding or is this
3:13
Speaker 1: more of a niche group of people who are who
3:15
Speaker 1: are just still continuing it and it's a little bit
3:17
Speaker 1: more underground than you used to be.
3:20
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a good question. I do have some statistics
3:23
Speaker 5: that I'll kind of give in some analytics behind that.
3:26
Speaker 4: Cool.
3:26
Speaker 5: I think when you start and you look back, like
3:28
Speaker 5: when I started skating, it was early two thousands, and
3:31
Speaker 5: I grew up in a small town about an hour
3:33
Speaker 5: south of Kansas City, and I remember when they built
3:37
Speaker 5: the first skate park there. I played a bunch of
3:39
Speaker 5: traditional sports, but I'd never seen like a skate park
3:43
Speaker 5: in person except on like a Tony Hawk game or
3:46
Speaker 5: like MTV. So I remember for me, I was just
3:49
Speaker 5: like so fascinated. And when I share a little bit
3:52
Speaker 5: about my story, I'll share why I was spending so
3:55
Speaker 5: much time there. But when I think back then, I
3:57
Speaker 5: could tell another skateboarder in school.
3:59
Speaker 4: By looking at their shoes.
4:01
Speaker 5: It was like me and like three other people right
4:03
Speaker 5: that were like, oh, you've got on vans, you have
4:06
Speaker 5: to skate, whereas everyone else is wearing something a little
4:09
Speaker 5: bit different. Fast forward to today, we've definitely seen an uptick,
4:15
Speaker 5: one with it becoming in the Olympics right in twenty twenty. Yeah,
4:20
Speaker 5: there's an athlete that was on there that when she
4:22
Speaker 5: entered into the Olympic Games from when she ended, I
4:26
Speaker 5: want to say she gained three or four million followers
4:30
Speaker 5: just over those few.
4:31
Speaker 4: Days of the Olympics.
4:33
Speaker 5: A really cool statistic too, is there's a lot of
4:35
Speaker 5: younger girls that have started skateboarding, where before it's been
4:39
Speaker 5: a pretty male dominated sport. And so the stat that
4:42
Speaker 5: I love to share, there's roughly four hundred and forty
4:45
Speaker 5: million action sports athletes in the US. And one of
4:49
Speaker 5: the reasons that we start our organization and one of
4:51
Speaker 5: the stats we share most of them Christianity, is counterculture
4:55
Speaker 5: to the way that they live.
4:56
Speaker 4: Their everyday life.
4:59
Speaker 5: I can speak from myself like I am more relevant
5:02
Speaker 5: to go to the skate park when I was younger
5:04
Speaker 5: on a Sunday than I would ever want to go
5:05
Speaker 5: to church, because when I go into a church, nobody
5:08
Speaker 5: looks like me. Nobody's really interested in the things that
5:11
Speaker 5: I'm in. It's hard to have a conversation with somebody
5:13
Speaker 5: else when you're like just so ingrained in the culture
5:15
Speaker 5: of action sports. So really one of the goals with
5:19
Speaker 5: our ministry is how do we be that common ground,
5:21
Speaker 5: that common person and connect with somebody right there at
5:24
Speaker 5: what I would say is their home.
5:26
Speaker 4: A lot of people would say their local skate park
5:28
Speaker 4: truly is like their safe space. So how do we
5:30
Speaker 4: get them there, build a relationship and get to know
5:32
Speaker 4: them a little bit better?
5:33
Speaker 5: And I think Nick could agree with this, but we're
5:35
Speaker 5: seeing a lot more skaters that not only are at
5:38
Speaker 5: skate parks, but we're seeing people that are more open
5:41
Speaker 5: to sitting down to listen to who Jesus is, whether
5:44
Speaker 5: that's a Bible study or just having a quick conversation.
5:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, the cool thing is James, and I don't know
5:50
Speaker 3: if I've shared this with you, but we meet some
5:52
Speaker 3: initial needs right off the bat, and even if it
5:54
Speaker 3: takes a couple of weeks to kind of build the
5:56
Speaker 3: bridge and kind of connect the dots with people and
5:59
Speaker 3: let them get to know. We show up at a
6:01
Speaker 3: park and we're there for the whole month. Every Tuesday
6:03
Speaker 3: in that month at a different park in Kansas City.
6:05
Speaker 3: We always bring pizza over food, and we have a
6:07
Speaker 3: cooler full of water, and so usually if kids forget
6:10
Speaker 3: their water bottles or if they're hungry, they're.
6:12
Speaker 6: Like, oh, there's pizza over there. So even if they're
6:14
Speaker 6: skeptical of like.
6:15
Speaker 3: I don't know if I want to sit down and
6:16
Speaker 3: do that Bible study thing, but once they skate with
6:19
Speaker 3: us for a couple of weeks, we've seen it where
6:21
Speaker 3: they kind they'll kind of get closer and kind of
6:23
Speaker 3: earshot to listen, and then slowly they'll kind of eventually
6:27
Speaker 3: come over to us, which is awesome. But it's just
6:29
Speaker 3: it kind of breaks down those barriers and it's really cool.
6:31
Speaker 3: Like you said, Dylan, when I first moved here in
6:34
Speaker 3: ninety six, for my senior year, we had one skate park.
6:37
Speaker 6: In Kansas City.
6:38
Speaker 3: So to speak of how it's grown, James, like, now
6:41
Speaker 3: all these years later, we have over thirty in Kansas City.
6:44
Speaker 3: I used to drive to Lawrence every weekend and any
6:46
Speaker 3: chance I could forty five miles from here just to
6:49
Speaker 3: skate we would save up money, will get a ride, whatever.
6:52
Speaker 3: So it definitely has grown, and I'm so excited. I
6:55
Speaker 3: love how intentional Dylan's ministry is. He also has this
7:00
Speaker 3: share how many people it is Dylan But on Instagram
7:03
Speaker 3: he sent these inspiring little mini DeVos, and it's like
7:09
Speaker 3: a way.
7:09
Speaker 6: That I start my day.
7:10
Speaker 3: It's always like, oh, I need to read what Dylan
7:13
Speaker 3: said because it's always encouraging and uplifting to me. But
7:15
Speaker 3: these kids are really engaging with it. They're giving prayer requests.
7:18
Speaker 3: It's really cool because, like he said earlier, a lot
7:20
Speaker 3: of these kids don't really have a whole lot of support,
7:23
Speaker 3: and that's why I originally wanted to start skate ministry
7:25
Speaker 3: back in two thousand.
7:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just interesting, I think, you know, for somebody
7:29
Speaker 1: like me who has never really involved in it in
7:31
Speaker 1: any serious way, to understand how much it's grown is
7:35
Speaker 1: just helpful.
7:36
Speaker 2: You know.
7:37
Speaker 1: My only linkage back to skateboarding was like Tony Hawk,
7:41
Speaker 1: and I know he's still around, but I'm guessing there
7:44
Speaker 1: are other skateboarders that I'm not aware of.
7:47
Speaker 2: I guess what I'm saying, But that's awesome.
7:49
Speaker 1: I think that's fantastic so you go out to these
7:51
Speaker 1: skateboard parks in Kansas City on you know, various days
7:56
Speaker 1: of the week, you build relationships with the skaters who
7:58
Speaker 1: are there, and then how how does skate Church sort
8:01
Speaker 1: of evolve from that?
8:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's good.
8:04
Speaker 5: So when you look at the mission of our organization,
8:07
Speaker 5: we keep it really clean, clear cut. It's to teach
8:10
Speaker 5: equipment and power, and we do that in a twofold sense.
8:13
Speaker 5: So one is I love skateboarding, I also love ministry obviously,
8:17
Speaker 5: super passionate about following Jesus. So kind of on the
8:19
Speaker 5: surface level of our mission statement when it comes to teaching,
8:23
Speaker 5: one of the things we'll do our free skate camps,
8:25
Speaker 5: so we'll teach kids how to skate.
8:26
Speaker 4: The goal with that.
8:28
Speaker 5: Is to bring in underserved kids with other organizations we
8:31
Speaker 5: partner with, whether it's Big Brother and Sister, Hope Center,
8:34
Speaker 5: Casey Operation Breakthrough, and let them experience something different, something challenging.
8:38
Speaker 5: I believe that being a skateboarder has helped me learn
8:42
Speaker 5: how to persevere through so much in life. And if
8:45
Speaker 5: you've ever been on a skateboard, if you've ever tried
8:47
Speaker 5: a kick flip, it does not happen in the first
8:49
Speaker 5: ten tries, it takes weeks, it takes months.
8:53
Speaker 4: You're going to fail, but.
8:54
Speaker 5: What you're also going to learn is how to persevere,
8:56
Speaker 5: how to change things, and you just have a better
8:59
Speaker 5: feeling to win in the end. So we teach them
9:01
Speaker 5: at skate camps. We equip them with free boards, helmets,
9:05
Speaker 5: sometimes shoes, clothing if they need it, and then on
9:07
Speaker 5: the back end of that, we empower them to also
9:09
Speaker 5: be a good citizen, you know, overall, and help encourage
9:12
Speaker 5: somebody else to do something that they love a little bit.
9:15
Speaker 5: On that deeper level, what we do is then we
9:18
Speaker 5: get to know people and we invite them back into
9:20
Speaker 5: what we call skate church. And skate church when we
9:23
Speaker 5: started hearing Kansas City, if I can be honest, was
9:25
Speaker 5: filling a need for me. I knew a lot of
9:27
Speaker 5: people in Kansas City that skated, But when it came
9:30
Speaker 5: to finding like a legitimate Bible study life group with
9:33
Speaker 5: people that I enjoyed being around that we kind of
9:36
Speaker 5: share the same passions, there wasn't anything. So I met
9:39
Speaker 5: two guys that I've kind of known that are faithful believers,
9:42
Speaker 5: and we started meeting at a coffee shop and the
9:44
Speaker 5: mission change and I went a little bit deeper. So
9:46
Speaker 5: now we're just not only teaching people how to skate,
9:48
Speaker 5: but we're teaching them who God is and also how
9:50
Speaker 5: He calls them to live in their everyday life. We're
9:53
Speaker 5: equipping them not only with a trusted mentor somebody that
9:56
Speaker 5: can help guide them through their spiritual journey, but we're
9:59
Speaker 5: also giving people by we partner with the U Version
10:01
Speaker 5: Bible app and be given away over one hundred and
10:03
Speaker 5: ninety thousand devotionals in the last five years, and we're
10:05
Speaker 5: giving out Bibles to skateboarders at skate parks all the time.
10:09
Speaker 5: One of my favorite stories we had a dude come back.
10:12
Speaker 5: He's in his twenties, hadn't seen him for three or
10:15
Speaker 5: four years, and he pulled out this Bible that I
10:17
Speaker 5: got on Amazon and ended up giving him like three
10:20
Speaker 5: or four years ago, and he's like, I still have it.
10:22
Speaker 4: I've written all over it.
10:24
Speaker 5: Because you always wonder, like am I just giving this?
10:26
Speaker 5: And you know where's it going to end up? And
10:29
Speaker 5: the last thing we do is we empower people not
10:31
Speaker 5: just to know and understand who Jesus is, but to
10:34
Speaker 5: follow out the great commission of Matthew twenty eight and
10:36
Speaker 5: to make disciples specifically where God has called them to be.
10:40
Speaker 5: Man we're a big advocate for the local church and
10:43
Speaker 5: also for our community. I believe you don't have to
10:46
Speaker 5: fly go overseas to make a difference or be a missionary.
10:50
Speaker 5: I believe the second you wake up in the morning
10:51
Speaker 5: and your feet hit the floor.
10:53
Speaker 4: That's your mission field.
10:54
Speaker 5: And so I always encourage and kind of challenge the
10:57
Speaker 5: leaders of the volunteers or even the people that just attend
10:59
Speaker 5: Skate Chard of like, hey, who's in your life that
11:02
Speaker 5: you see every single day that you can be a
11:04
Speaker 5: missionary to? Who can you be Jesus to? Because you
11:06
Speaker 5: may be the only Jesus somebody else sees. So it
11:09
Speaker 5: did start pretty loosely, but we've recognized we try to
11:12
Speaker 5: be as intentional as we can, just to make sure
11:15
Speaker 5: that we're not just hanging out because I think, you know,
11:18
Speaker 5: ten fifteen years ago, we were very cultural Christians, and
11:23
Speaker 5: I see it now like gen Z and jen A,
11:25
Speaker 5: they want intentional. They don't want the big show we
11:28
Speaker 5: feel good. They really want to know who Jesus is,
11:31
Speaker 5: want practical steps of how to follow him.
11:34
Speaker 1: So, like when you talk about skate Church, here's what
11:36
Speaker 1: I picture in my head. So you're going to have
11:38
Speaker 1: to change the perception, right. I'm an Old Testament guy,
11:41
Speaker 1: So I've been over to Israel a couple of times,
11:43
Speaker 1: and you know, when you go up on the amount
11:45
Speaker 1: of olives, you see you kind of where Jesus sat
11:46
Speaker 1: and there's this you know, sort of and what it
11:48
Speaker 1: reminds me of is like somebody standing on the top
11:50
Speaker 1: of a half pipe and everybody else sitting on the
11:52
Speaker 1: inside of the half pipe and delivering a sermon.
11:56
Speaker 2: Is that how skate church works? Yeah, like the ramp exactly.
12:01
Speaker 4: I would say we've probably done a few like that.
12:05
Speaker 5: I also recognize what it's like to be on the
12:07
Speaker 5: other side of when something like that is going on.
12:09
Speaker 5: I was pretty resistant to skateboard for a while, and
12:12
Speaker 5: so one of the easiest ways we can show honor
12:14
Speaker 5: and respect is actually by stepping off to the side
12:16
Speaker 5: of a skate park, still allowing the locals to have
12:20
Speaker 5: that whole space. The last thing I want to do
12:22
Speaker 5: is like come in as conquerors. Right, Jesus came in
12:25
Speaker 5: and is a loving way. He didn't come down and
12:28
Speaker 5: necessarily strike us in that moment, So I don't want
12:30
Speaker 5: to be eating on what they have going on.
12:32
Speaker 4: Even from a mental health standpoint.
12:35
Speaker 5: Man, I know skateboarding is such like an escape for people,
12:39
Speaker 5: and so there's some people that I hope they get
12:41
Speaker 5: to know Jesus. But the thing they probably need right
12:43
Speaker 5: now is ten minutes of the skate park where they
12:45
Speaker 5: can just blow off some steam. So if we can
12:47
Speaker 5: allow them to be able to do that and then
12:49
Speaker 5: still offer a space where we're there, we can build
12:52
Speaker 5: that common ground, that relationship to share you know, longer, hope,
12:56
Speaker 5: longer peace of just going and skating at the park.
12:59
Speaker 5: We want to be a able to do that as well.
13:01
Speaker 3: One thing I absolutely love that I wanted to share
13:04
Speaker 3: is like when we come into a new skate park,
13:06
Speaker 3: say the first Tuesday of next month, when we go
13:08
Speaker 3: out to Least Summit, We're going to run into kids
13:11
Speaker 3: that maybe have never seen us before.
13:13
Speaker 6: So kids that I haven't met, that Dylan hasn't met,
13:15
Speaker 6: or vice versa. But there's a whole team of leadership.
13:17
Speaker 3: It's so cool to see sometimes and you can speak
13:20
Speaker 3: to this to Dylan, but sometimes on the first Tuesday,
13:23
Speaker 3: kids will kind of be like, what's going on? Why
13:25
Speaker 3: are there is is this a birthday party, like why
13:27
Speaker 3: are they bringing coolers and pizzas?
13:29
Speaker 6: And then they'll see us like.
13:31
Speaker 3: Step off to the side, and some kids are like sweet,
13:33
Speaker 3: Like now we have the skate park to ourselves because
13:35
Speaker 3: like all of a sudden, fifteen kids just got off
13:37
Speaker 3: the park for ten minutes. Some kids will stay, but
13:40
Speaker 3: then you can kind of see kids kind of edge
13:42
Speaker 3: and get closer and try to get with an earshot
13:44
Speaker 3: and figure it out. I love that we have the
13:46
Speaker 3: opportunity to break down misconceptions because the reality is these
13:50
Speaker 3: kids could have not gone to church ever, or they
13:52
Speaker 3: might have gone to church, and they think it's something
13:54
Speaker 3: that is totally not We have no idea, so we
13:57
Speaker 3: literally get to break down those walls and those misconceptions
14:01
Speaker 3: just through meeting a couple needs, but also just showing up.
14:03
Speaker 6: And building relationships with kids. And that's what fires me up.
14:06
Speaker 3: If I ever have to miss a Tuesday for work
14:08
Speaker 3: or something, I'm super bummed because it's like my favorite
14:11
Speaker 3: thing in the whole world. So I'm super grateful for
14:14
Speaker 3: Dylan and all that he does with his organization, and
14:16
Speaker 3: it's awesome.
14:17
Speaker 6: We're seeing God move where, seeing relationships being built, so.
14:19
Speaker 2: It's great well, I sort of get so I'm interested. Dylan.
14:23
Speaker 1: You mentioned earlier you were talking about, you know, why
14:27
Speaker 1: what skateboarding meant to you when you were younger, And
14:30
Speaker 1: I mean just I was never great at sports, Like
14:32
Speaker 1: I said, I'm not athletic at all. But I found
14:34
Speaker 1: weight training when I was fourteen, and I would say
14:37
Speaker 1: I would speak about it in the same way year
14:39
Speaker 1: speaking about the skate park, like the gym was my home.
14:42
Speaker 2: I'd go there after school.
14:43
Speaker 1: I'd spend two three hours there in the weight room,
14:46
Speaker 1: Like you know, you just lift, you get some of.
14:48
Speaker 2: That stress out, you're enjoying yourself.
14:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's other guys there and you're hanging out and
14:53
Speaker 1: you're bantering or whatever. But it was really just a
14:55
Speaker 1: solo activity for me to get away from everything and
14:58
Speaker 1: do something that I was enjoying. And it sounds like
15:01
Speaker 1: that's kind of what it was for what it is
15:04
Speaker 1: for a lot of you know what skating is for
15:06
Speaker 1: a lot of kids now.
15:07
Speaker 2: But I'm wondering what your experience was with that. How
15:10
Speaker 2: you why skating was so crucial for you.
15:14
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, that's a great question. When I was twelve
15:18
Speaker 4: thirteen years old, like I said, our town had built
15:20
Speaker 4: a skate park. And I remember the reason we got
15:23
Speaker 4: into skating.
15:23
Speaker 5: I had an old skateboard, maybe from Toys r US
15:26
Speaker 5: or something, you know, I got for like a random
15:28
Speaker 5: Christmas thing.
15:29
Speaker 4: It's probably on sale.
15:31
Speaker 5: And I had this friend that someone did a trick
15:34
Speaker 5: on Tony Hawk pro skater when we were playing, and
15:37
Speaker 5: my friend was like, I could do that, and we
15:40
Speaker 5: were like, no, you cannot, you can, And so literally
15:43
Speaker 5: like we went and got this board, probably deep from
15:45
Speaker 5: under my bed or out in the garage, and just
15:47
Speaker 5: kind of started rolling around on it. And what I
15:50
Speaker 5: found out later in life is through that time, my
15:54
Speaker 5: father at home, he was struggling a lot with alcoholism
15:57
Speaker 5: and addiction, and actually addiction runs in our families. So
16:00
Speaker 5: having an addictive personality is just something that like I have,
16:04
Speaker 5: and I think a lot of skateboarders have too, or athletes.
16:08
Speaker 4: Or high performing anybody, right.
16:11
Speaker 5: And so at that time, I actually played traveling baseball,
16:14
Speaker 5: played some football and really enjoyed doing it. But what
16:17
Speaker 5: I found is when I would go to the skate park,
16:20
Speaker 5: there's something different about being alone and kind of challenging yourself. Right,
16:24
Speaker 5: My win isn't necessarily it doesn't matter if it's on
16:29
Speaker 5: somebody else, it's fully me. There's no other teammate that's
16:32
Speaker 5: going to pick me up, there's no other teammate that's.
16:34
Speaker 4: Going to fail. It truly is just me.
16:36
Speaker 5: And so I fell in love with skateboarding the aspect
16:39
Speaker 5: of that way. But the reason I kept going back
16:41
Speaker 5: to the skate park it was actually easier to see
16:43
Speaker 5: what was going on at the skate park than what
16:44
Speaker 5: was going on at home, because not only was there
16:47
Speaker 5: alcoholism and addiction, but there's a little bit of domestic
16:51
Speaker 5: violence that were going on, and tensions were just high,
16:53
Speaker 5: Like I could feel addition as I walked in and
16:55
Speaker 5: I went home.
16:56
Speaker 4: And so a lot of times it was me.
16:58
Speaker 5: Going to high school, going to the skate park early
17:00
Speaker 5: in the morning, staying at the skate park until the
17:02
Speaker 5: sun went down, and even led me to a place
17:05
Speaker 5: to where when I was seventeen eighteen years old, started
17:08
Speaker 5: making a little bit of money skating, was kind of
17:10
Speaker 5: working some odd jobs, moved out to my parents' house
17:14
Speaker 5: actually early so my senior year of high school was
17:18
Speaker 5: living with one of my friends who also raced motocross.
17:21
Speaker 5: Was kind of living like the action sports dream. I
17:23
Speaker 5: always tell people I got to live the pro skateboarder
17:26
Speaker 5: lifestyle without.
17:27
Speaker 4: The money or like the board or anything like that.
17:31
Speaker 5: Like every weekend we were, you know, partying, thought we
17:35
Speaker 5: were doing everything that was going to make us feel good.
17:38
Speaker 5: And I remember there was a specific point in my life.
17:41
Speaker 5: I'd kind of grown up going to church, but I
17:44
Speaker 5: didn't really know who Jesus was. If I could be
17:46
Speaker 5: honest to the church I went to. I saw people
17:48
Speaker 5: act one way on a Sunday and they were completely
17:51
Speaker 5: different Monday through Saturday. And so even as a schooler,
17:54
Speaker 5: it's like this is fake. This seems fake. But I
17:59
Speaker 5: remember there's a time my life.
18:00
Speaker 4: Where we were at this party, had skated.
18:03
Speaker 5: All day when to this party, and I blacked out
18:06
Speaker 5: and I woke up and I remember everybody had left me,
18:09
Speaker 5: like in the middle of this field, and I remember
18:13
Speaker 5: waking up and everything was just pitch black. And my
18:16
Speaker 5: thought on that moment was, Lord, if you're real, if
18:20
Speaker 5: this is all that is for my life, I don't.
18:23
Speaker 4: Want to do it anymore. And if you are real,
18:26
Speaker 4: I need you to show up.
18:27
Speaker 5: And the best way that I can explain it to
18:30
Speaker 5: people is it's almost like he increased the brightness of
18:33
Speaker 5: that time by like ten or fifteen percent, just like
18:37
Speaker 5: this beacon of like, hey, just just hold on, and
18:40
Speaker 5: so got up, started walking. Eventually got a way back
18:44
Speaker 5: to the place that I was staying at. Didn't remember
18:48
Speaker 5: a whole lot that had happened the night before, and
18:50
Speaker 5: it actually ended up getting kicked out of the place
18:53
Speaker 5: that I was staying at, so kind of was living
18:55
Speaker 5: in my car for a few days. And literally the
18:59
Speaker 5: next day I had a and call me and he said, Hey,
19:02
Speaker 5: I do this thing called Action Sports Ministry.
19:04
Speaker 4: We have an event coming up in Houston.
19:06
Speaker 5: I would love to have you join us as talent,
19:09
Speaker 5: but I don't want you to speak to anybody while
19:11
Speaker 5: you're there. And I was like, in hindsight, I was like,
19:16
Speaker 5: for sure, that is exactly what I would have done too.
19:20
Speaker 5: And so this couple I got to go stay with them,
19:22
Speaker 5: got to live in their couch, and there were two
19:26
Speaker 5: things that they wanted from me. They said, Hey, one,
19:28
Speaker 5: you have to go to church with us on Sunday
19:30
Speaker 5: until you have to go to Bible study with.
19:32
Speaker 4: Us on Wednesday.
19:34
Speaker 5: And I'd never seen anybody read a Bible outside of church.
19:37
Speaker 5: I didn't even know that was like legal, that you
19:39
Speaker 5: could open your Bible.
19:40
Speaker 4: Outside of church. But for the first time in my life.
19:44
Speaker 5: I got to see a healthy, godly marriage between two people.
19:49
Speaker 5: I got to see people that didn't just talk about
19:51
Speaker 5: who Jesus was, but they.
19:52
Speaker 4: Lived out his life in every aspect.
19:56
Speaker 5: I got to see legitimate skateboarders that love skateboarding but
20:00
Speaker 5: also recognize it's just a form of worship that we
20:02
Speaker 5: get to have and enjoining of who God is. And
20:05
Speaker 5: so that led me to a place where I ended
20:07
Speaker 5: up giving my life to Christ. Started going to church consistently,
20:10
Speaker 5: and this was about twenty ten twenty eleven. I started
20:13
Speaker 5: traveling and doing events full time, kind of in the
20:16
Speaker 5: action sports space.
20:18
Speaker 2: Cool so cool do you find like, as you're working
20:22
Speaker 2: with kids now, do you find that they have sort
20:27
Speaker 2: of similar experiences where do skateboarding draw a certain type
20:32
Speaker 2: of personality that really is not necessarily like wants to
20:38
Speaker 2: be socially ostracized or you know, just totally on their.
20:40
Speaker 1: Own, but that they have sort of more of an
20:45
Speaker 1: internal perspective. We might say like I'm I'm going to
20:49
Speaker 1: work toward this on my own and if other people
20:52
Speaker 1: around to help me, that's fantastic, But really it's just
20:55
Speaker 1: it's me and I need to do this.
20:57
Speaker 2: Does that make sense as a question.
20:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's interesting to see.
21:01
Speaker 5: A lot of the people that are in the professional
21:03
Speaker 5: world or are just phenomenal skateboarders.
21:06
Speaker 4: I also see them do a few different other sports,
21:09
Speaker 4: and it's golf or endurance running.
21:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's.
21:13
Speaker 4: Similar of like you're kind of on your own.
21:16
Speaker 5: You're kind of pushing yourself progressing forward, but not so
21:19
Speaker 5: much as relying on a team to be able to
21:21
Speaker 5: do it.
21:22
Speaker 2: Yeah.
21:23
Speaker 1: My daughter does gymnastics, and so it's a very similar
21:27
Speaker 1: sort of feel like she gets along with her team,
21:29
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, none of them
21:31
Speaker 1: can really help her or hurt her on a given event,
21:36
Speaker 1: and it's an interesting personality to watch. She also plays lacrosse,
21:40
Speaker 1: and it's always harder for her on the lacrosse field
21:43
Speaker 1: because it's like she's not in control of what these
21:47
Speaker 1: other people are doing and it kind of drives her
21:49
Speaker 1: a little nuts. I think she's getting more and more
21:51
Speaker 1: used to it. But it's just an interesting mentality. It's
21:54
Speaker 1: just kind of interested to see how do people respond
21:58
Speaker 1: to the gospel with that mental because the gospel draws
22:02
Speaker 1: you into a deeper community, and there's some sense in
22:04
Speaker 1: which there's a deep interconnectedness between people, but it almost
22:09
Speaker 1: feels like it'd be more natural because Christian life, you
22:12
Speaker 1: are developing your own character and that's happening within a
22:15
Speaker 1: body of Christ.
22:16
Speaker 2: But it is still very much you developing your own character.
22:20
Speaker 1: So I don't know, I'm just interested to see, you know,
22:23
Speaker 1: what dynamics you see there having interacted with the church
22:25
Speaker 1: more broadly.
22:27
Speaker 5: Yeah, I definitely feel like there's still a community in skateboarding,
22:31
Speaker 5: and I think because it is small, there are people
22:33
Speaker 5: that still get together and you know, I would say
22:37
Speaker 5: more times, and Nate you could tell me if you've
22:38
Speaker 5: seen this, but I feel like more times when you're
22:40
Speaker 5: together with other skaters, you're kind of just hanging out
22:42
Speaker 5: and having fun. You're not really like leaning in of like, oh,
22:45
Speaker 5: I want to learn this thing today and I'm going
22:47
Speaker 5: to do all these steps to be able to get there.
22:50
Speaker 5: At least for me, especially as I've gotten older, I
22:52
Speaker 5: will learn a lot of like newer tricks or we
22:55
Speaker 5: learned older tricks that I've lost over time, gone on
22:58
Speaker 5: my own. But then when you're skating with everybody else,
23:01
Speaker 5: then you're kind of learning like, oh, how do I
23:02
Speaker 5: pick up these things that have already done, or just
23:06
Speaker 5: like even try new things that may not be.
23:08
Speaker 4: Difficult but are just more fun to be able to do.
23:12
Speaker 5: As far as the Christian aspect of it, one of
23:15
Speaker 5: the things I love about our organization that we do.
23:18
Speaker 5: We're not affiliated with like a single church. So it's
23:21
Speaker 5: not if you show up to skate Church so I'm
23:24
Speaker 5: in attendia Life Church. I'm not someone who's like, all right,
23:27
Speaker 5: you have to go to Life Church. All of our
23:30
Speaker 5: volunteers are leaders. They go to different churches, and my
23:33
Speaker 5: hope is that they start attending skate church on a Tuesday,
23:36
Speaker 5: but we'll go to a church on Sunday, one that's
23:39
Speaker 5: local to them, one that may be familiar to their
23:41
Speaker 5: demographic or how they were raised. And my hope is
23:44
Speaker 5: that you know, one of our five, six, seven, eight,
23:47
Speaker 5: ten leaders that are there that go to different churches
23:49
Speaker 5: will be there at the front, do already be able
23:51
Speaker 5: to greet them, and so it does kind of take
23:53
Speaker 5: them from that. Yes, you're going to grow in your
23:55
Speaker 5: own faith individually, right, it's your own relationship with Jesus,
23:59
Speaker 5: but at the same time, you are using that community
24:01
Speaker 5: aspect of how do we pull someone back into church
24:03
Speaker 5: and overcome that feeling that I felt that was man.
24:06
Speaker 5: Nobody here looks like me or isn't interested in the
24:09
Speaker 5: same thing as me. I think it's harder too in
24:12
Speaker 5: young adults, and I think you guys may feel this too.
24:15
Speaker 5: But you know, you could be in youth group your
24:17
Speaker 5: whole time. Ye're in youth, you graduate now you're nineteen.
24:21
Speaker 5: If you don't have a college ministry or a young
24:24
Speaker 5: adult ministry, you know, are you going to Bob's you know,
24:27
Speaker 5: forty five year old men's group? Like how are you
24:31
Speaker 5: able to connect there? Like that there's wisdom and that's
24:34
Speaker 5: good and you should be there easy.
24:35
Speaker 6: That's my age, But you know what I.
24:38
Speaker 4: Mean, it's like, what do you do?
24:39
Speaker 5: How do you connect in a way of like, you know,
24:42
Speaker 5: I'm thirty four and it's still hard for me to
24:44
Speaker 5: connect with sixteen seventeen year olds at skate now. So
24:49
Speaker 5: to find people that are like interested in the same thing,
24:51
Speaker 5: have common interest, I think it gives them a safe
24:54
Speaker 5: space to be able to have a trusted mentor to
24:57
Speaker 5: be able to ask the tough questions. I don't know
25:00
Speaker 5: if you guys are felt this, But like when I
25:02
Speaker 5: was younger, early twenties and started going to church, I
25:06
Speaker 5: was like scared to ask questions because I felt like
25:10
Speaker 5: if I asked a question out of the Bible that
25:12
Speaker 5: I didn't know or understand, I would be met with
25:15
Speaker 5: the response of, oh, I don't think you have enough faith.
25:18
Speaker 5: And it's like, well for me to wrestle with that individually,
25:21
Speaker 5: if that's what I think I'm going to feel. But
25:23
Speaker 5: if we can bring alongside some other people to build
25:25
Speaker 5: this community, it gives them a safe space to ask
25:28
Speaker 5: those questions and struggle and try to find those answers
25:31
Speaker 5: as well. And it may not be the perfect answer, right,
25:35
Speaker 5: but it's something that even if we don't know. One
25:37
Speaker 5: of the things I share with our leaders is if
25:39
Speaker 5: somebody brings something to you that you don't understand, my
25:42
Speaker 5: favorite response is, hey, man, that's a great question.
25:46
Speaker 4: Why don't you take a week do some research on it.
25:48
Speaker 5: I'm going to take a week, do some research, connect
25:50
Speaker 5: to a few pastors, let's wrap around next week and
25:52
Speaker 5: figure out what we kind of landed on or what
25:54
Speaker 5: we think theology or the Bible says about it. And
25:57
Speaker 5: I think that takes you from that solidarity standpoint of
26:02
Speaker 5: being a believer to oh, okay, I can grow my faith, yes,
26:06
Speaker 5: with me and Jesus, but also in community alongside other people.
26:09
Speaker 3: Nice and one thing I love to add to that, Dylan,
26:12
Speaker 3: And you can speak to this too, And I'm sure
26:14
Speaker 3: relate skateboarding for me from when I first started at
26:19
Speaker 3: a young.
26:19
Speaker 6: Age to now.
26:20
Speaker 3: It's always not a catch all, but it's a place
26:23
Speaker 3: that if you show up and you've got a skateboard,
26:25
Speaker 3: even if you're not good at your first day, if
26:27
Speaker 3: you are trying, like you're in like there's no judgment.
26:31
Speaker 3: Like I feel like sometimes in sports like it can
26:34
Speaker 3: be clickie and stuff, but skateboarding it's like gonna accept everybody.
26:38
Speaker 3: And you've probably experienced this too, Dylan. But I've been
26:40
Speaker 3: in other countries where there's a language barrier, but you
26:43
Speaker 3: have that common ground with skateboarders, and it's like, Man,
26:46
Speaker 3: if I'm in a city, I don't know, if I
26:47
Speaker 3: don't know anybody, I'm gonna find a skate park because
26:49
Speaker 3: I can make instant friends because it's like that commonality,
26:52
Speaker 3: that common ground. Everyone's so accepting. So I think there's
26:55
Speaker 3: a lot of kids that don't really feel like they
26:58
Speaker 3: fit in anywhere else, and it's like a safety net.
27:00
Speaker 3: Skateboarding's got them. So there's a gallo at my church
27:03
Speaker 3: and you know Tamika Dylan, Yeah.
27:05
Speaker 6: I've struggled.
27:06
Speaker 3: I've watched her struggle the last couple of years trying
27:07
Speaker 3: to find her way and get connected into the community
27:10
Speaker 3: to our church. Well, my pastor's mom was telling her
27:14
Speaker 3: about skate ministry and so she connected with her with
27:16
Speaker 3: us and we have a text line and I think
27:18
Speaker 3: we have you know, social media that tells like where
27:20
Speaker 3: the kids are.
27:21
Speaker 6: But she has loved it, even though.
27:23
Speaker 3: She's like, I'm not a good skateboarder and I feel
27:25
Speaker 3: like and so slowly she's kind of been like putting
27:27
Speaker 3: that away, but she just loves being there and like
27:30
Speaker 3: feeling like she's part of something and connecting.
27:32
Speaker 6: And so we see that all the time.
27:34
Speaker 3: And that's what I love about taking skate ministry to
27:37
Speaker 3: people because a lot of kids might not go to
27:39
Speaker 3: church at first, but through relationship they will after having
27:42
Speaker 3: that common ground and like when we bring church to them,
27:45
Speaker 3: so it's like they show up thinking they're just going
27:47
Speaker 3: to skate at a skate park and they're like, dude,
27:48
Speaker 3: these guys got pizza and they're encouraging us, and then
27:51
Speaker 3: afterwards they're cleaning up the park. We always do that,
27:54
Speaker 3: James the Bible Study, and it's just really cool to
27:57
Speaker 3: build those relationships slowly and that's what fire me up
28:00
Speaker 3: and I want to do it for the rest of
28:01
Speaker 3: my life.
28:01
Speaker 4: It's awesome.
28:04
Speaker 1: Let me ask this question, is it just a little
28:07
Speaker 1: broader You're working with a lot of younger aged kids
28:10
Speaker 1: like gen Z and whatever is after gen Z?
28:15
Speaker 2: What is that gen A or something like that. Do
28:17
Speaker 2: we start over?
28:19
Speaker 1: Yep, So gen Z and Jena, do you find that
28:23
Speaker 1: they're asking I think there's this perception a lot of
28:27
Speaker 1: times that gen Z and Jena are asking different questions
28:30
Speaker 1: than previous generations asked when they were like sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.
28:35
Speaker 2: What are you finding, like.
28:36
Speaker 1: Do you find that they have different sort of questions
28:39
Speaker 1: about Jesus, different sort of questions about God and the
28:42
Speaker 1: Church than you remember having when you were that age.
28:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think.
28:48
Speaker 5: It's more of they're seeing a lot more and so
28:50
Speaker 5: they're taking in a lot more. One of the things
28:53
Speaker 5: that we've talked a lot about is like with gen
28:55
Speaker 5: Z and Jena, I remember getting the Internet. I remember
28:59
Speaker 5: the family computer like at home. I remember logging on
29:03
Speaker 5: to MySpace.
29:07
Speaker 4: It so good.
29:08
Speaker 5: Yeah, I remember it was like so for me, getting
29:10
Speaker 5: online is like something you do and you like prepare
29:14
Speaker 5: and you plan for it. Like I remember, I literally
29:18
Speaker 5: got Instagram because skateboarders started getting Instagram, and I was like,
29:22
Speaker 5: I've got to be on Instagram because I want people
29:25
Speaker 5: to see these moments that I'm curating. I've seen gen
29:28
Speaker 5: Z and Jena have always been online. It's not just
29:32
Speaker 5: something they do, it's like a part of their personality.
29:35
Speaker 5: And so I think because they're receiving so much information,
29:38
Speaker 5: they just don't know what to do with it. We're
29:41
Speaker 5: leading to this place to where I don't think they're
29:42
Speaker 5: asking new questions, but I think they're being bold enough
29:45
Speaker 5: to ask the questions that we've thought about and we're
29:47
Speaker 5: too afraid to ask.
29:49
Speaker 4: There's this really.
29:50
Speaker 5: Interesting book called The Anxious Generation, and it talks a
29:54
Speaker 5: lot about gen Z and Jena and how they are
29:57
Speaker 5: literally just being flooded with information but dopamine, and it's
30:01
Speaker 5: leading to a place to where it's like they literally
30:03
Speaker 5: feel paralyzed and can't move. And so we have an
30:06
Speaker 5: opportunity to kind of answer those questions. But also I
30:10
Speaker 5: think it has led them to a place where they're like,
30:12
Speaker 5: just tell me, tell me the truth. Like because I
30:15
Speaker 5: open TikTok and it has four different things about who
30:18
Speaker 5: Jesus is, and I open Instagram and it's four separate
30:20
Speaker 5: different things, and I'm hearing all these things. I need
30:23
Speaker 5: a trusted mentor who can share with me the truth
30:25
Speaker 5: of who Jesus actually is and how he wants me
30:27
Speaker 5: to live my life, especially like everything that's happened in
30:31
Speaker 5: the past week.
30:31
Speaker 4: Right, it's like news and communication and move so fast
30:35
Speaker 4: and it's not always after it.
30:38
Speaker 5: And so what I think I see from them is
30:40
Speaker 5: they're just so overwhelmed that they don't care where or
30:45
Speaker 5: how to get the information, or how dumb they feel
30:47
Speaker 5: asking the question, which they shouldn't feel dumb, but they
30:49
Speaker 5: just want to know.
30:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's just being flooded with everything that's interesting,
30:54
Speaker 1: it really conforms. So I had a sociologist on the
30:57
Speaker 1: show I Don't Know a few months ago, and she
31:00
Speaker 1: studies technology and adolescents and the generations and all that
31:04
Speaker 1: kind of good stuff. And one of the things she
31:06
Speaker 1: mentioned was that gen z Jena seem to be more
31:10
Speaker 1: sensitive to what they are missing out on because they're
31:13
Speaker 1: so immersed in that digital environment. They said, it's people
31:17
Speaker 1: like us, like gen X, you know, and older maybe
31:22
Speaker 1: millennials that don't tend to notice it because even though
31:27
Speaker 1: we've seen both worlds, we're kind of just trying to
31:30
Speaker 1: cope with what we're doing in a digital space, and
31:34
Speaker 1: so we don't really notice all that we're missing. But
31:37
Speaker 1: the gen Z and Jena, because they'd never had it,
31:40
Speaker 1: they're seeing it from a completely different, like a little
31:43
Speaker 1: bit different angle than we are, and they're they're kind
31:46
Speaker 1: of doing exactly what you're talking about. They're trying to
31:48
Speaker 1: seek out and be like, what's authentic, what's real, what's true?
31:51
Speaker 1: Where do I find some stability within all of this mess?
31:56
Speaker 1: And they're starting to gravitate back toward more concrete practices
31:59
Speaker 1: as oppos to.
32:00
Speaker 2: Just all digital all the time. So that's fascinating.
32:03
Speaker 1: That's that's really uh interesting that that's what you're seeing
32:07
Speaker 1: as well.
32:08
Speaker 5: Yeah, one of the things that I'm seeing too on
32:09
Speaker 5: that is the like rebirth of analog analog everything. The
32:16
Speaker 5: past two years, the church that I was working at,
32:18
Speaker 5: we would see anywhere from twenty five hundred to thirty
32:21
Speaker 5: five hundred people on a weekend, and young adults were
32:24
Speaker 5: bringing in Bibles like paper bibles, which are church the
32:28
Speaker 5: one that we attend to help created the Bible app
32:32
Speaker 5: on your phone. So that's kind of what we push
32:33
Speaker 5: people to do is practical, right, But I remember just
32:38
Speaker 5: seeing all these young adults bringing in paper Bibles and
32:41
Speaker 5: I was like, this is insane, Like you practically, it
32:45
Speaker 5: doesn't make any sense. You can just have it on
32:47
Speaker 5: your phone, your care on this big thing in a
32:48
Speaker 5: journal and three pins and markers.
32:51
Speaker 2: Right like a back church.
32:53
Speaker 5: Basically, yeah, yeah, we always made this joke that was
32:57
Speaker 5: like we can kind of tell who's new in the
32:58
Speaker 5: church on if they bring in like their actual big
33:01
Speaker 5: Bible or not. But what we're seeing more and more
33:04
Speaker 5: with that too is it's not just analog in their Bible,
33:08
Speaker 5: but it's a lot of the way that they're living
33:09
Speaker 5: and practicing what they're doing. Whereas like I'm taking on
33:13
Speaker 5: a lot of like podcasts, different leadership teachings where they
33:18
Speaker 5: rather get the actual physical book that they can feel
33:21
Speaker 5: that they can write in and take notes, which I
33:24
Speaker 5: think is so interesting as well to see the shift
33:27
Speaker 5: of almost pushing away this digital lifestyle that we've created
33:32
Speaker 5: to try to get back and to slow down and
33:34
Speaker 5: spend time and get to know who God is through
33:37
Speaker 5: you know, more traditional practices.
33:40
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how encouraging that is. I mean
33:44
Speaker 1: it's just a really.
33:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.
33:48
Speaker 1: I mean I've done I started out an online education
33:50
Speaker 1: and higher ed and you know now we do a
33:52
Speaker 1: lot with digital and obviously podcasts and stuff like that.
33:55
Speaker 1: So I don't think it's not valuable. Yeah, but I
33:58
Speaker 1: also just know. I mean I can still remember that
34:01
Speaker 1: musty smell you get when you go to the library
34:04
Speaker 1: and at a book, right, And it's like kids should
34:07
Speaker 1: have that memory, right. It's just there's something really tangible
34:11
Speaker 1: and cool about it. And even though you couldn't say
34:13
Speaker 1: this is exactly what benefit it gives you, there's some
34:17
Speaker 1: benefit it gives you, Like I refused to believe there's not,
34:20
Speaker 1: So it's just really encouraging to hear that they're they're
34:23
Speaker 1: headed back to those more analog spaces.
34:25
Speaker 3: I love that, yeah, because it's it's got tons of
34:29
Speaker 3: stuff written in it, like when I was a Bible
34:31
Speaker 3: school and like my whole journey, and then it's got
34:33
Speaker 3: skate stickers all over it's over there on my side table.
34:37
Speaker 6: But otherwise, yeah, I love it.
34:40
Speaker 3: And the cool thing is too Dylan has really adapted.
34:42
Speaker 3: Like when I was doing skate Ministry, Instagram really wasn't
34:45
Speaker 3: launched yet, and nobody I mean I didn't even have
34:46
Speaker 3: a cell phone twas twenty three, so the first few years,
34:49
Speaker 3: like it was literally just flyers at places or just
34:52
Speaker 3: running into kids at skate parks and then inviting them
34:54
Speaker 3: to Tuesday. But like Dylan has has fully embraced and
34:58
Speaker 3: done an amazing job, even me at my age, Like
35:01
Speaker 3: I'm encouraged every single day by his little thing that
35:04
Speaker 3: he sends us. And then you know, I'm seeing the
35:05
Speaker 3: community starting to build, people asking for prayer and just
35:09
Speaker 3: connecting on a deeper level, which kids need, like we said,
35:12
Speaker 3: because otherwise they're just going to be out there and
35:14
Speaker 3: digital land, like you know, consuming all the other things.
35:17
Speaker 3: So it's nice to kind of disrupt and break that up.
35:20
Speaker 3: And how many people do we have, Dylan, Like you've
35:23
Speaker 3: said the number before, we have a lot.
35:25
Speaker 5: Of Yeah, I looked this morning, So in our skaters
35:27
Speaker 5: and scripture, there's like four hundred and thirty people that
35:30
Speaker 5: are in there right now that are reading it every day,
35:33
Speaker 5: which is super encouraging coming from someone who worked for
35:36
Speaker 5: the company.
35:37
Speaker 4: That created the Bible app. I just kind of started
35:40
Speaker 4: asking people, you know, like, hey, are you doing the.
35:42
Speaker 5: You know, first of the day, it's on the Bible app,
35:44
Speaker 5: and a lot of people just they either don't want
35:46
Speaker 5: it on their phone or they just don't digitally want
35:48
Speaker 5: to really be digging through their phone super often. So
35:51
Speaker 5: I was like, how can I create something that's less
35:53
Speaker 5: than four hundred words, it's tangible that I'm already, you know,
35:57
Speaker 5: filling up my cup in the morning.
35:58
Speaker 4: How can I just pour out real quick to other
36:00
Speaker 4: people that I hope.
36:02
Speaker 5: That encourages them, but I also hope it inspires them
36:04
Speaker 5: to rediverse and be like, oh, I've never heard that before,
36:08
Speaker 5: I've never looked at it like that before, and take
36:10
Speaker 5: time to dig in a little bit deeper.
36:12
Speaker 4: Totally.
36:14
Speaker 2: That's fantastic.
36:16
Speaker 1: I think there's still definitely still a place for the digital,
36:21
Speaker 1: but yeah, it just amazes me that gen Z and
36:23
Speaker 1: Jena are sort of headed back to the analog and
36:26
Speaker 1: that what they're looking for is something that's more authentic,
36:30
Speaker 1: probably even less intense in a lot of ways than
36:37
Speaker 1: what you're describing, you know, with the all the information
36:41
Speaker 1: that sort of comes at them. And I think ultimately
36:44
Speaker 1: that's just a really good helpful movement for gen Z
36:48
Speaker 1: and Jena to be stepping back from those things.
36:52
Speaker 5: So I'm sure you've probably seen through the barn and studies,
36:56
Speaker 5: but like physical Bibles are.
36:57
Speaker 4: At an all time high when it comes to purchase.
37:01
Speaker 5: And then another one that I love and we're really
37:03
Speaker 5: trying to looking at a skateboarding. We're seeing more females
37:06
Speaker 5: in it, but it's still a male dominated sport.
37:09
Speaker 6: Is gen Z.
37:11
Speaker 5: Males are leading the way and going back to church,
37:15
Speaker 5: which is one of the first generations and I don't
37:17
Speaker 5: know how long where men are leading away. And so
37:20
Speaker 5: it's shifting the way that we should communicate with people. One,
37:23
Speaker 5: if you're a pastor and you're talking to your church,
37:25
Speaker 5: it used to be okay, I'm speaking to a woman
37:29
Speaker 5: to bring her husband, you know, into church, And I
37:31
Speaker 5: think of so many people that I know whose wife
37:33
Speaker 5: is the one that kind of brought them back into church.
37:36
Speaker 5: But it's helping me kind of shift my perspective to
37:39
Speaker 5: these young adults and even some of these you know,
37:42
Speaker 5: mid twenties, early thirties all right, now I should be
37:45
Speaker 5: communicating kind of to the men of what it looks
37:47
Speaker 5: like to bring your family with you into skate church
37:50
Speaker 5: or just into church in general. But yeah, I'm super
37:55
Speaker 5: and just encouraged by that, and then just always trying
37:58
Speaker 5: to navigate with those studies to of like how should
38:00
Speaker 5: we be communicating you know, who's the one person we
38:02
Speaker 5: should be communicating to. I heard I think it was
38:06
Speaker 5: Chad Veach say one time. He was like, every time
38:08
Speaker 5: I go and speak, I'm speaking to the sixteen year
38:10
Speaker 5: old high school student because if I can reach him,
38:13
Speaker 5: I can reach everybody else in the room. Because that's
38:15
Speaker 5: who got him to be able to communicate too, because
38:18
Speaker 5: that's what he said he needed when he was that age. Yeah,
38:22
Speaker 5: so it is this like we get to know and
38:24
Speaker 5: understand the knowledge and me encouraged, but then also use
38:26
Speaker 5: it to be able to reach the right demographic at
38:28
Speaker 5: the right time.
38:29
Speaker 6: Totally.
38:30
Speaker 2: So it's interesting.
38:31
Speaker 1: I'll just ask this question, see if you one of
38:34
Speaker 1: the things I've been a little concerned about. I've seen
38:36
Speaker 1: the stats about men, you know, sort of leading the
38:39
Speaker 1: way back to church, and I don't think there's anything
38:40
Speaker 1: bad that you could say about that.
38:43
Speaker 2: But I also think that there's a lot of.
38:47
Speaker 1: I'll call it machismo floating about right, And I'm wondering
38:53
Speaker 1: how you think about that from you know, working with
38:56
Speaker 1: these young people, how do you help them cultivate a strong,
39:00
Speaker 1: confident understanding what it means to be a male disciple
39:04
Speaker 1: of Jesus Christ without them sort of falling into that
39:08
Speaker 1: machismost sort of bravado lifestyle. Is that a struggle for
39:13
Speaker 1: the kid you work with, you know, are they looking
39:16
Speaker 1: up to people who are just like, not necessarily even
39:19
Speaker 1: we might not call them bold, we might just call
39:21
Speaker 1: them brazen. Yeah, you know, yeah, I don't know you
39:26
Speaker 1: seen anything like that?
39:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think both.
39:28
Speaker 5: And so the role that I played when I worked
39:32
Speaker 5: in pastoral ministry was I was our missions and our
39:35
Speaker 5: life group's pastor. So I oversaw through my career life
39:40
Speaker 5: church anywhere from two hundred and seventy five to one
39:43
Speaker 5: hundred and twenty life groups at one time. And one
39:46
Speaker 5: of the things that I would definitely see, like time
39:48
Speaker 5: and time again, is you kind of need something that
39:50
Speaker 5: fits both groups.
39:52
Speaker 4: So one you need the.
39:55
Speaker 5: You know, the guy who went out and drank last
39:57
Speaker 5: night on Saturday that shows up to church is like,
40:00
Speaker 5: I'm not going to go to like a Leviticus Bible study,
40:02
Speaker 5: but I'll go hang out with some dudes.
40:03
Speaker 4: That skate at the skate park.
40:05
Speaker 5: So it's always recognizing, you know, what journey are they
40:08
Speaker 5: on and where can we start them and do we
40:10
Speaker 5: have practical things or people set up to be able
40:13
Speaker 5: to take them to the next level. And so with
40:16
Speaker 5: our specific organization, we definitely have these people that come in.
40:21
Speaker 5: Even some of our students are pretty bold in their faith,
40:23
Speaker 5: but I would say they're kind of like that Tier.
40:25
Speaker 4: One, Tier two getting to know who Jesus is. They're
40:27
Speaker 4: on fire for the Lord.
40:29
Speaker 5: Yeah, And you can see that group when they go
40:32
Speaker 5: out and they skate together. They're hanging together, and you
40:35
Speaker 5: can see the same of the people that are like, Okay,
40:37
Speaker 5: I've been a believer for a few years.
40:38
Speaker 4: They're kind of hanging together talking about what they're learning.
40:41
Speaker 4: And then me and Nate.
40:43
Speaker 5: And a few other people that are kind of in
40:44
Speaker 5: our crew that aren't skating as big of stuff because
40:48
Speaker 5: we're not trying to get hurt, are spending more time
40:50
Speaker 5: of like and we've been following the Lord for a while,
40:53
Speaker 5: and so we're just thinking about how do we impact
40:56
Speaker 5: these other people to take them to the next levels.
41:00
Speaker 5: That has been so cool of being in ministry for
41:02
Speaker 5: so long as you get to see those kids that
41:05
Speaker 5: used to go to skate camp just for the free
41:07
Speaker 5: food and water and that was it. And now ten
41:10
Speaker 5: years later I'm looking at them and I'm like, shoot, man,
41:13
Speaker 5: this this guy has a family, he's got kids, he's
41:16
Speaker 5: taken them to church, he's left who Jesus is And
41:21
Speaker 5: it's fun to see that from the perspective of people.
41:24
Speaker 5: Nate has pointed into as well, these people that have
41:27
Speaker 5: been going for a long time, you know, all the
41:29
Speaker 5: way back to two thousand and five, that are still
41:31
Speaker 5: showing up now with their families and so what is that.
41:34
Speaker 5: It's long it's the long term games kind of like, yes,
41:37
Speaker 5: we only catch them in the moment, but how do
41:40
Speaker 5: we continue to every single day, every single week, every
41:42
Speaker 5: single month. What's the next step? And so Nate talked
41:46
Speaker 5: a bit about our Men's Bible study, But the reason
41:48
Speaker 5: I started it was because a lot of the statistics
41:51
Speaker 5: that I'm seeing is, you know, how do we take
41:53
Speaker 5: these men that could live the common West cultural Christian
41:59
Speaker 5: lifestyle wile and move to be someone who's actually uncommon
42:03
Speaker 5: when it comes to male Christianity, someone who is bold,
42:06
Speaker 5: someone who is going to fight for their family, someone
42:08
Speaker 5: who's not going to look at those things that pop
42:10
Speaker 5: up on Instagram, someone that's not going to put just
42:12
Speaker 5: the verse in their Instagram bio, but someone.
42:15
Speaker 4: Who's going to live it out.
42:16
Speaker 5: So we're pretty strategic with the way that we're able
42:18
Speaker 5: to put some of those things in, and we have
42:21
Speaker 5: like practical tools that we're able to do all that
42:23
Speaker 5: stuff as well. But for me, it's how do I
42:26
Speaker 5: find the right people that have that bold faith that
42:28
Speaker 5: can be able to mesh well with the students, the kids,
42:32
Speaker 5: or the adults that are coming and kind of push
42:34
Speaker 5: them to that next level of getting to know Jesus deeper.
42:37
Speaker 1: That's awesome what we're about. Out of time and so
42:42
Speaker 1: we're kind of getting the end of the episode. I
42:43
Speaker 1: want to ask you a question that I ask almost
42:46
Speaker 1: everybody who comes on, so I'm just kind of interested
42:48
Speaker 1: to hear what you say. The question is this, what
42:51
Speaker 1: does the church need to be doing today to be
42:54
Speaker 1: and make disciples more faithfully? Yeah, what do you see
42:59
Speaker 1: that we're what are we missing? What do we need
43:02
Speaker 1: to be doing.
43:03
Speaker 5: I think one of the things that we will see
43:05
Speaker 5: over the next few years in the church we're kind
43:08
Speaker 5: of seeing on the West Coast. I have nothing against
43:11
Speaker 5: big churches. I worked at a master church for a
43:13
Speaker 5: very long time. If we cannot find a way to
43:16
Speaker 5: build legitimate, sustainable, consistent community within those people, I think
43:22
Speaker 5: that we in pastoral ministry will look back later and
43:26
Speaker 5: say we put on a really good show on Sundays
43:29
Speaker 5: or people shut up and they raised their hand and
43:31
Speaker 5: they gave their life to Christ, and then we kind
43:33
Speaker 5: of left them hanging.
43:35
Speaker 4: And so one of the things that I think we.
43:37
Speaker 5: Can be able to do is communicate every single week.
43:40
Speaker 5: The church isn't just a building, it's the people. How
43:43
Speaker 5: can we empower the people that are walking into the
43:45
Speaker 5: church to be out and to go into make disciples
43:48
Speaker 5: in their everyday life. For some people, it's going to
43:50
Speaker 5: be the first person you see in the morning, which
43:52
Speaker 5: could be your significant other. For others, it could be
43:55
Speaker 5: the guy you see at the gas station, the Starbucks barista. Like,
43:58
Speaker 5: how do we just take those small things? Because I
44:00
Speaker 5: think with social media we've made it into this well.
44:04
Speaker 5: For me to be a impactful Christian, I need to
44:07
Speaker 5: have four podcasts and one hundred thousand people on following
44:11
Speaker 5: a book every year, when in actuality, it's like, dude,
44:14
Speaker 5: look at Jesus like he had his twelve And if
44:17
Speaker 5: we're trying to build sustainable, deep relationship with people, I
44:22
Speaker 5: think we start with a twelve.
44:23
Speaker 4: First.
44:25
Speaker 5: It's not fun, it's not pretty, it's not glamorous, it's dirty.
44:29
Speaker 5: But that's literally the life that Jesus has called us too,
44:32
Speaker 5: not a life of perfection or glamorous or anything like that.
44:36
Speaker 5: It truly is taking authority, taking the extreme ownership of
44:41
Speaker 5: I'm going to occupy the space that God has given
44:43
Speaker 5: me as the church, not as the building, but as
44:46
Speaker 5: an individual that walks in through the doors on Sundays,
44:50
Speaker 5: I think the more that we can shift away from
44:52
Speaker 5: the consumer mindset of man, this church isn't for me,
44:56
Speaker 5: this message wasn't for me. My favorite one I'd always
44:58
Speaker 5: hear is like, yeah, ill didn't play my worship song.
45:01
Speaker 4: You know this is Sunday.
45:03
Speaker 5: And my response was, I don't know if you know
45:05
Speaker 5: that those songs aren't for you, brother, like those songs
45:08
Speaker 5: are to worship God. And so I think with just
45:11
Speaker 5: the consumeristic culture we have is reminding people we're not
45:14
Speaker 5: called to be spiritual consumers, but to be spiritual contributors.
45:18
Speaker 4: In everyday life. And it doesn't always need to be
45:20
Speaker 4: like the most incredible, glamorous thing.
45:24
Speaker 5: It's take the time to give a word of encouragement
45:26
Speaker 5: to somebody who needs it. I was on a call
45:28
Speaker 5: with some professional eskateboarders on Monday and my biggest encouragement
45:32
Speaker 5: and they all laugh because it's all happened to them.
45:34
Speaker 5: The easiest way that we can love someone else at
45:36
Speaker 5: the skate park is if you're like me. I go
45:38
Speaker 5: to the skate park. I've got thirty minutes to an
45:41
Speaker 5: hour because you know life right, put my headphones in,
45:46
Speaker 5: I want to skate. And every time I do that,
45:49
Speaker 5: there's some child or student who's just like wants my attention.
45:55
Speaker 5: And in those moments we recognize we as the church,
45:57
Speaker 5: we are called to be disruptible, and so just taking
45:59
Speaker 5: the moment and saying, hey, you know what's God calling
46:03
Speaker 5: me to do in this moment? How can I actually
46:05
Speaker 5: be the church? Not just on a Sunday, not just
46:07
Speaker 5: someone that goes to the church, but is a church
46:09
Speaker 5: Monday through Sunday. And that's something I want to share
46:14
Speaker 5: this real quick before we get into But another part
46:16
Speaker 5: of our ministry that we just started and we're going
46:18
Speaker 5: to do in a lot more communication with it is
46:20
Speaker 5: recognizing we're called not just to addition, but to multiplication.
46:26
Speaker 5: And so earlier this year we started something called Skate
46:28
Speaker 5: Church Network and it's a way for us to help
46:30
Speaker 5: empower other people that want to start a similar organization
46:33
Speaker 5: that we have. But years we've been doing this, I'll
46:36
Speaker 5: have people that will ask like, hey, we love what
46:38
Speaker 5: you're doing.
46:38
Speaker 4: How do we do this where we're located?
46:40
Speaker 5: And so we've created this network of people that share resources,
46:44
Speaker 5: have strategy, and.
46:45
Speaker 4: Then a digital community.
46:47
Speaker 5: Right now we have twenty three organizations in sixteen states
46:49
Speaker 5: and two countries, and it's just this reminder of like,
46:53
Speaker 5: not all of them are in full time ministry, not
46:55
Speaker 5: them all of them are getting paid to do it,
46:57
Speaker 5: But it's them saying I want to be a contributor to.
47:00
Speaker 4: What God has called me to do. I've got two
47:02
Speaker 4: hours on Tuesday night.
47:03
Speaker 5: I can sit in front of the TV and watch
47:05
Speaker 5: whatever brain rot they're gonna play, or I can actually
47:08
Speaker 5: go out in my community and make a difference. And
47:10
Speaker 5: one is so much more rewarding than the other one.
47:13
Speaker 5: It may feel like more work.
47:16
Speaker 4: In Nate.
47:16
Speaker 5: I'll say this and don't repeat it, but there are
47:18
Speaker 5: Tuesday nights where I'm like, I don't know if I
47:20
Speaker 5: have it in me to go like I've worked all day.
47:22
Speaker 5: I've been doing this for close to a decade. Every
47:25
Speaker 5: single time I leave, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is
47:28
Speaker 5: this is why we do it. This is so rewarding
47:30
Speaker 5: every single time. What else would I have done? You know,
47:34
Speaker 5: I'm going to get to the end of my life
47:35
Speaker 5: and be able to look at Jesus and say, man,
47:37
Speaker 5: I recognize as many opportunities as I could that you
47:40
Speaker 5: put in front of me, and I hope that I
47:42
Speaker 5: was able to do something that mattered and made a difference,
47:44
Speaker 5: even in just one person's life. If one person's life
47:47
Speaker 5: is eternally different because of me, that's a win.
47:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's cool.
47:51
Speaker 3: I could jump in and say something too that I
47:53
Speaker 3: know Dylan won't say about him. Say it myself, but
47:55
Speaker 3: he is very gifted with digital stuff. Him and his
47:59
Speaker 3: wife are amazing, Like they've really built something that's super creative.
48:02
Speaker 6: I think it's dynamic.
48:04
Speaker 3: So we'll put in the show notes, but follow Varsity skateboarding,
48:07
Speaker 3: follow skate church case.
48:09
Speaker 6: But get involved.
48:10
Speaker 3: Anyone that's listening to this, even if you don't live
48:12
Speaker 3: in Kansas City, you can be part of that network.
48:14
Speaker 6: You can be inspired to reach out in your community.
48:17
Speaker 3: But Dylan does a lot of videos for a lot
48:19
Speaker 3: of like extreme sports companies, and he's just really gifted
48:22
Speaker 3: in the digital space. So I sometimes you tell people, oh, yeah,
48:25
Speaker 3: follow this person, but in the back of your mind,
48:27
Speaker 3: you're like, it's not really, it's not really that greatly,
48:30
Speaker 3: Like I will co sign all day long on everything
48:33
Speaker 3: that they do because it's amazing and it really points
48:36
Speaker 3: people to Jesus. And so I'm super thankful for him
48:39
Speaker 3: in my life and just getting to get plugged in.
48:41
Speaker 6: I'm thankful for my son being able to be there.
48:44
Speaker 6: Like you don't know.
48:45
Speaker 3: I've told you before, Dylan, but you don't know how
48:47
Speaker 3: much that means to me, Like my son will be like, Dad,
48:49
Speaker 3: I know you're tired, but you've got to come tonight,
48:51
Speaker 3: Like he's dragging me to tuesdays when I feel like
48:53
Speaker 3: you were saying, sometimes it gets like that, especially when
48:56
Speaker 3: we get older.
48:57
Speaker 6: So but anyone that's listening will put it in the show.
49:00
Speaker 4: Notes.
49:00
Speaker 3: Check their organization out is making a huge difference if
49:04
Speaker 3: you're interested in supporting, coming alongside them, praying for them.
49:08
Speaker 3: We have a skate camp coming up for Halloween called
49:10
Speaker 3: Spooky Skate Camp. I'm super pumped and I think, Dylan,
49:13
Speaker 3: you said, we have a few ministry partners that are
49:15
Speaker 3: doing from that group you're just talking about that's going
49:17
Speaker 3: to come in out of town.
49:19
Speaker 6: So it's just exciting.
49:20
Speaker 3: I love seeing what God's doing and I can't wait
49:22
Speaker 3: for what the future holds.
49:24
Speaker 1: Very cool. Well, Dylan, this has been great, Thanks for
49:27
Speaker 1: being here. Thanks for all the work you're doing. It
49:30
Speaker 1: sounds like a fantastic ministry. Obviously, Nate is endorsing it,
49:33
Speaker 1: he's been involved. We'll put the weblinks in the show
49:37
Speaker 1: notes so everybody can get in touch. Just encourage you
49:40
Speaker 1: to check it out because reaching the next generation is
49:43
Speaker 1: something I'm really passionate about obviously, and I think you're
49:46
Speaker 1: doing a great job with it.
49:47
Speaker 2: Brother, So thanks for being here.
49:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you guys for having me. This has been awesome.
49:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, y'all, we'll call it a day there
49:54
Speaker 1: and we'll catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian.
49:56
Speaker 2: Take care, everybody, just want.
49:57
Speaker 1: To take a second to thank the team at Life
49:59
Speaker 1: Audio for the partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast.
50:03
Speaker 1: If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens
50:05
Speaker 1: of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got
50:08
Speaker 1: shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.