Latest / Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews / Bryce Crawford on Gen Z Revival, and Street Evangelism

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Bryce Crawford on Gen Z Revival, and Street Evangelism · Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Life Audio. Hey, Bryce, thanks for joining me.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: No, thanks, Michael, I'm glad to be here. Evangelist and
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: podcaster Bryce Crawford. He's the host of the Bryce Crawford Podcast,
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  Speaker 2: runs a ministry called Jesus in the Street. He's everywhere
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  Speaker 2: on social media as well, and he's traveling the country
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  Speaker 2: right now as part of the I Love Jesus Tour. Bryce,
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  Speaker 2: I want to talk to you about your ministry, but
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  Speaker 2: I also wanted to briefly start off with a personal question.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: You recently got married. What is marriage taught you about
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  Speaker 1: your faith and maybe about the character of God.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it's taught me how selfish I am. Didn't realize
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  Speaker 3: how selfish I was until.
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  Speaker 4: I got married.
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  Speaker 3: But man, what a beautiful picture of union and commitment
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  Speaker 3: it is to know, like man, God has always been
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  Speaker 3: so faithful to us, and his faithfulness fuels us to
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  Speaker 3: be faithful back to him, and so the same way
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  Speaker 3: that my wife and I choose each other daily. It's
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  Speaker 3: such a beautiful picture of man and how God chooses us.
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  Speaker 3: And so it's really encouraged me to remain faithful. Even
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  Speaker 3: when I don't feel God, it still encourages me to
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  Speaker 3: choose Him in those times, I.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Think every husband can understand exactly what you're sitting there.
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  Speaker 1: Let's transition to the tour in your life. You've been
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  Speaker 1: traveling in the nation speaking to a lot of young people.
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  Speaker 1: Do you sense a real hungry for God right now?
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  Speaker 1: And if so, what do you think is driving that? Well,
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  Speaker 1: it's not that I just sensed it.
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  Speaker 3: I think there's a real visible hunger for God, and
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  Speaker 3: I think it's almost tangible. And I think the thing
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  Speaker 3: that's driving it is we're tired of fluff. We're tired
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  Speaker 3: of fake stuff. Phones and entertainment has been the gateway
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  Speaker 3: to a lot of vices in people's lives, whether it
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  Speaker 3: struggles across the board, mental health, particular vices, substance abuse,
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  Speaker 3: you name it. And because of the access, how quickly
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  Speaker 3: we can get into our hands, and the quantity we
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  Speaker 3: can get it in because of our phones. I think
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  Speaker 3: my generation has gotten tired very quickly of fake stuff.
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  Speaker 3: And so that's why they're turning to Jesus. Because Jesus
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  Speaker 3: is the truth. He is not a truth, he is
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  Speaker 3: the truth. And so because they're finding Jesus, they're going, Wow,
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  Speaker 3: this is everything I've searched for everywhere, But in Jesus,
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  Speaker 3: so I need him and I want him. That's why
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  Speaker 3: I believe we're seeing a real sense of As.
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  Speaker 1: You said, there seems to be a revival or hungry
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  Speaker 1: for God right now among young people that there wasn't
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  Speaker 1: even five years ago.
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  Speaker 4: Do you think the pandemic helped spark that?
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  Speaker 3: Was it?
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  Speaker 1: Social media? Just I mean, I've been trying to figure
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  Speaker 1: out what is going on. I know God's driving it,
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  Speaker 1: but I mean, are there ways to explain it that
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  Speaker 1: you thought of?
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  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I think the pandemic did something. I
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  Speaker 3: think the negative effects of the pandemic kind of made
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  Speaker 3: people realize, Like I know, for me, like in twenty twenty,
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  Speaker 3: this in between fiftwenty twenty was the year I was
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  Speaker 3: gonna take my life. So leading up to that time,
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  Speaker 3: I remember what the isolation and being alone and having
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  Speaker 3: to stay inside and all that did to me mentally.
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  Speaker 3: I also know the new gateways I had and going
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  Speaker 3: into devices and sin. So I think in a sense like, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: the pandemic has helped in that way where yeah, maybe
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  Speaker 3: there were negative effects of the pandemic, but the Bible
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  Speaker 3: says that God works all things together for the good
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  Speaker 3: for those who were in Christ Jesus, so he can
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  Speaker 3: use negative effects of anything for the sake of his
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  Speaker 3: name and his glory being known. But also too, like
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  Speaker 3: I think, aside from the pandemic, just think it is
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  Speaker 3: a sit and a hunger for truth because everything we're
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  Speaker 3: being fed is a worldview. Every time you open your phone,
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  Speaker 3: a perspective that someone preaches from a podcast, whether they're
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  Speaker 3: a believer or not, whether someone says something from a
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  Speaker 3: podium on a platform, a commencement speech, a video about food,
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  Speaker 3: it's some sort of worldview or.
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  Speaker 4: Belief about whatever's being shared.
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  Speaker 3: And so society and gen z is being fed a
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  Speaker 3: bunch of worldviews on a whole bunch of different things.
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  Speaker 3: What food is healthy for you, what religion is the
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  Speaker 3: true religion, and all of these things.
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  Speaker 4: And so I think.
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  Speaker 3: That's why there's this Jesus revival going, because they're finding
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  Speaker 3: Jesus and saying, oh, yep, that's the.
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  Speaker 4: One amen to that.
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  Speaker 1: You have a boldness for Jesus price that is rare
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  Speaker 1: among anybody, especially in this generation.
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  Speaker 4: What shape that and where does that come from?
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  Speaker 3: Well, Michael, Jesus saved my life into some between through
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  Speaker 3: the twenty twenty. So the real simple answer is the
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  Speaker 3: love that God has for me has fueled me to
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  Speaker 3: love people. It's the greatest commandment, love God and love people.
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  Speaker 3: And so it's what God has done in my life
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  Speaker 3: and the love that He has shown me that gives
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  Speaker 3: me that same strength to be bold and love people.
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  Speaker 3: You know, I think I'm going to butcher this, but
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  Speaker 3: Thomas Soule once said, if you want people to like,
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  Speaker 3: you tell them what they want to hear. But if
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  Speaker 3: you love someone, you tell them the truth. And so
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  Speaker 3: I think that that's very important, is that if we
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  Speaker 3: really love.
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  Speaker 4: People, we're going to tell them the truth. And there's
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  Speaker 4: a way that you can deliver the truth that is
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  Speaker 4: full of grace as well. And so I think that that.
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  Speaker 1: Just the love Jesus has for me has fueled me
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  Speaker 1: to love people. For someone bryce who wants that same
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  Speaker 1: type of boldness, but they feel timid, they feel a
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  Speaker 1: great what advice would you give them? Pray for boldness,
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  Speaker 1: just like the early Church did in the Book of Acts.
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  Speaker 3: They got saved, baptized holy Spirit, and they go, all right, Peter,
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  Speaker 3: what do we do?
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  Speaker 4: And he says, pray or boldness. We need to pray
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  Speaker 4: for more boldness.
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  Speaker 1: For people who know about your podcast but not about
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  Speaker 1: your backstory, what were.
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  Speaker 4: The key moments in your own life that shaped you well.
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  Speaker 4: I mean I grew up in a Christian environment.
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  Speaker 3: I went to private Christian school, you know, and I
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  Speaker 3: think growing up in the Bible Belt, I'm from Georgia,
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  Speaker 3: there's this sense of Christianity where it just becomes mundane.
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  Speaker 3: It's more of an attachment to a lifestyle rather than
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  Speaker 3: culture in our blood. And so for me, Christianity was
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  Speaker 3: just the thing on my Bible quizes and tests in school,
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  Speaker 3: and I was a good student.
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  Speaker 4: So I had a lot of head knowledge.
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  Speaker 3: But I think the difference for me was when I
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  Speaker 3: realized that Jesus is more than just an intellectual thing,
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  Speaker 3: that he's a real human being who wants relationship with us.
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  Speaker 3: That's where the shift happened for me. And I was like,
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  Speaker 3: oh wow, Like Jesus is alive, active desires more for
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  Speaker 3: me than just what I can intellectually imagine about who
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  Speaker 3: he is and his character. And so all in all, like, yes,
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  Speaker 3: my upbringing has shaped me, and so have the wrongdoing
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  Speaker 3: that I had. But you know, that night I was
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  Speaker 3: going to take my life that I had an encounter
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  Speaker 3: with Jesus. I was the most broken, most selfish, most prideful,
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  Speaker 3: most greedy, most lust filled version of myself that night.
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  Speaker 3: But I was the most honest I'd ever been, and
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  Speaker 3: I believe that's why Jesus met me was because that's
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  Speaker 3: the most honest.
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  Speaker 4: I'd ever been in my life.
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  Speaker 3: And that night I gave my life to Jesus and
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  Speaker 3: I've been following him ever since. Tell me how your
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  Speaker 3: street evangelism started, because it's what you're known for. What
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  Speaker 3: did that look like the first thing you were doing it?
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  Speaker 3: Why did you want to do it? Why? I used
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  Speaker 3: to run up to people and say, Jesus loves you,
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  Speaker 3: and I'd run away before they could respond because I
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  Speaker 3: didn't have the answers to their questions. And then I
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  Speaker 3: slowly started standing in the face and you know, letting
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  Speaker 3: people ask tough questions that allowed me to dive deeper
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  Speaker 3: into my faith. I've always been sharing my faith. I've
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  Speaker 3: always been passionate about it because I found the antidote
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  Speaker 3: to everything that I thought was endurable in my life.
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  Speaker 3: And so I know all the mistakes I've made that
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  Speaker 3: no one knows, and I thought one man, God could
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  Speaker 3: do it. In my life, you sure as heck can
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  Speaker 3: do it to anyone else's life. And so that's kind
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  Speaker 3: of where that love overflowed and ultimately led us to
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  Speaker 3: share in our faith. It's more than just a social
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  Speaker 3: media or a ministry thing. This really is a lifestyle
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  Speaker 3: that we live because we really believe that He is
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  Speaker 3: a necessity is the necessity.
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  Speaker 4: Some skeptics look at what's.
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  Speaker 1: Going on right now among gen Zy and they think
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  Speaker 1: it's just emotion or hype. How do you respond to
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  Speaker 1: skeptics who don't really think there's a real spiritual awakening
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  Speaker 1: going on.
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  Speaker 4: Keep being skeptical.
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  Speaker 3: You know, we need to be good, respectful skeptics in
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  Speaker 3: a sense, you know, don't just believe everything everyone says,
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  Speaker 3: you know, dig deeper. If someone claims Jesus is God,
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  Speaker 3: you should just sit in your high horse on your
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  Speaker 3: siat and go, oh man, that's a total lie and
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  Speaker 3: do nothing about it. Your skepticism should drive you to
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  Speaker 3: evidence and let the evidence speak for itself. And I
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  Speaker 3: think that the evidence overwhelmingly points to Jesus being the truth.
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  Speaker 3: So in fact, I am not afraid of skeptics. I'm
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  Speaker 3: not shy from me. I have in fact, invite skepticism.
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  Speaker 3: Bring it on, but be a good, honest, respectful skeptic
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  Speaker 3: and let that skepticism drive you further into evidence and truth.
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  Speaker 4: What can people expect on your tour.
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  Speaker 3: They can expect Gus to be in the room. They
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  Speaker 3: can expect God to show up. They can expect Heaven
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  Speaker 3: to invade the space. And that's the promise of the
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  Speaker 3: scriptures where two or more gathered, He is there, and
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  Speaker 3: there's definitely more than the two people in the room,
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  Speaker 3: and so we believe that God is there because of
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  Speaker 3: what the scriptures have promised.
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  Speaker 1: If you like today's episode, please subscribe and leave a
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  Speaker 1: five star review.
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  Speaker 4: That's how we help more people just like you find
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: the show.
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  Speaker 5: A big thanks to the team at life Audio for
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: their partnership with us on the podcast. If you go
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: to lifeaudio dot com, you will find dozens of other
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: faith centered podcasts in their network.
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: See you next time.