Latest / 4-Freedom Podcast / 198. Bryce Englin and the Unaccredited Bible Mills

Transcript

198. Bryce Englin and the Unaccredited Bible Mills · 4-Freedom Podcast

• 0:02
  Welcome back to the four freedom podcast.
• 0:04
  We're glad you're here with us we've had our Thanksgiving,
• 0:08
  we've had our Turkey, we've had our our leftovers.
• 0:11
  Hopefully all the leftovers are gone.
• 0:14
  You've eaten them all. If you have not eaten all the
• 0:16
  leftovers now, throw them out because they are no longer any
• 0:20
  good. Unless.
• 0:21
  You froze. If you froze them, you're good.
• 0:24
  Well, I guess if you froze them, froze.
• 0:26
  You know, pretty much I had a pretty successful Thanksgiving.
• 0:29
  I pretty much got everything that I that I wanted.
• 0:32
  There was a little bit of family drama, but it wouldn't be
• 0:35
  family. It would be Thanksgiving without
• 0:37
  drama. Absolutely.
• 0:39
  James, that was your holiday. Man, it was great.
• 0:42
  We had Brett. I had something that I've never
• 0:44
  had before and it blew my mind. Two things that I've never had
• 0:47
  before and it blew my mind. First one, we're sitting there
• 0:50
  Saturday before Thanksgiving and my wife comes out.
• 0:54
  We're outside watching the game, hanging out with the
• 0:58
  brother-in-law, and we're just chilling.
• 1:00
  And she says, I need you to try this.
• 1:03
  She never brings me food to try just randomly.
• 1:06
  So I'm like, do I did it fall on the ground?
• 1:10
  Did the dog lick it? What?
• 1:12
  What's going on? Why are you bringing this to me?
• 1:14
  I just need you to try it. And I said, OK, that took a bite
• 1:18
  of it. Oh, it was like it melted in my
• 1:20
  mouth. It was it was some meat, some
• 1:22
  smoked meat. And she said, did you like it?
• 1:25
  I said I loved it. I don't care what kind of meat,
• 1:27
  it was great. She goes, it was a deer brisket.
• 1:30
  My brother-in-law smoked a beer brisket.
• 1:33
  Oh my goodness, it was fantastic.
• 1:36
  That was great. And then I made my pumpkin or my
• 1:40
  pecan cobbler. My kids loved it.
• 1:42
  My my son ate like three extra plates the next three days of
• 1:46
  the leftovers that we had. And then when I finally was
• 1:49
  done, he was like in tears in the corner of the house morning
• 1:53
  with sackcloths and ashes because he was out of the pecan
• 1:56
  cobbler and I was making tacos. The day we left, we were out of
• 2:00
  it. And he goes, Dad, are you making
• 2:01
  more pecan cobbler? I'm like, no, I'm making.
• 2:03
  Hamburger meat? What are you what?
• 2:04
  Are you talking about like he was?
• 2:05
  He was in love with it, so it was great.
• 2:08
  Deviled eggs all the way up to my eyeballs.
• 2:11
  It was great. Great weekend, great
• 2:13
  Thanksgiving. My Dolphins won this past week.
• 2:16
  It was great. That's always a good thing.
• 2:19
  We're on a little wind streak there and yeah, so we we had a
• 2:23
  great time with family. Of course there's drama always,
• 2:26
  and so we got to experience that as well.
• 2:29
  Yeah, for. Florida State didn't do too good
• 2:32
  this year, So, you know, JC is a little upset about that, yeah.
• 2:40
  I saw the post about your good luck charm wasn't such a good
• 2:44
  luck charm. It wasn't.
• 2:45
  Such a good luck charm after all.
• 2:47
  And so, but we'll listen. Thanksgiving, we're glad it
• 2:50
  came. We're glad it went.
• 2:51
  Now it's Christmas time. Let's go.
• 2:53
  Christmas time is here. So let's see what we've got
• 2:57
  going on. We've got Israel coming up in
• 2:59
  January, so doors just about closed.
• 3:04
  We could probably get another week or two.
• 3:05
  If you really want to go, let us.
• 3:07
  Let us up, man. I just can't wait.
• 3:10
  I'm almost got all all my ducks in a row ready to go to Israel
• 3:15
  and I'm looking forward to it going with you and what else we
• 3:19
  got going on. Brett, we have our convention
• 3:25
  coming up in June, 1st week of June down in Orlando.
• 3:30
  That's going to be a wonderful time down there and we can't
• 3:33
  wait to to get the house will be renting it here soon.
• 3:37
  I am I'm pumped about Israel, man, We, I was, I was looking it
• 3:40
  up just a minute ago before we got on here 59 days away from
• 3:45
  this time of the releasing of the recording and we'll be
• 3:47
  leaving on a jet plane to go to Israel.
• 3:50
  I'm having lunch. I had lunch yesterday.
• 3:53
  We're recording this on Tuesday. So I'm having, I had lunch
• 3:55
  yesterday when this came out on Wednesday with a guy named Rick
• 3:59
  Ivy who we went to. He was at an RFP meet up couple
• 4:03
  of last year down in Catoosa and he's going to Israel with us.
• 4:08
  And so we're meeting come on where we we met to have lunch.
• 4:12
  And so it was a great time. We're meeting to have lunch at
• 4:14
  the time of the recording. We just met to have lunch when
• 4:18
  it came out and. I did not know Rick was going
• 4:22
  until we got on the Zoom call. While we're on the Zoom call,
• 4:26
  I'll text him. I'm like, dude, you're going to
• 4:27
  Israel with us, this is awesome. And tell you it was.
• 4:30
  It was pretty cool. I'm going to love seeing Rick
• 4:32
  there. Yeah, I'm looking forward to
• 4:34
  that, looking forward to us being down there together.
• 4:37
  So we, like I said, I've got, we've got 345 more spots left,
• 4:40
  not many. And so sign up if you want to
• 4:43
  go, it's going to be a great time.
• 4:46
  Been able to talk with everybody before we go, starting to plan
• 4:49
  on what we're going to be teaching and where we're
• 4:51
  teaching at and the the devotions are going to be there.
• 4:53
  It's going to be a wonderful time.
• 4:55
  You're not going to want to miss it as we get down there.
• 4:59
  July, we're going down to Nicaragua, Brett, we've we've
• 5:03
  been asked to come down and get do a pastors conference, a
• 5:08
  pastors sermon, teaching time down there.
• 5:14
  And it's going to be a wonderful time down there, the last week
• 5:17
  of July and it's going to be great, so.
• 5:22
  Absolutely. And listen one, one other thing
• 5:26
  Christmas time is, is coming up. So listen, if if you want some
• 5:30
  stocking stuffers, you go to 1689.com/four Freedom Cigars and
• 5:37
  get some stocking. Stuffers.
• 5:38
  And we've got some things on there, we've sold out of a few
• 5:41
  things, but we've still got some some things on there that you
• 5:44
  can give your loved one for Christmas time and be the
• 5:48
  perfect gift. Yeah, we had a had a 50% off
• 5:51
  sale during Black Friday. If you didn't take advantage of
• 5:54
  that, I'm sorry, it's our biggest sale of the year.
• 5:57
  You got boxes of cigars for 100 bucks.
• 6:00
  You could have got our experience package with the
• 6:03
  cigars and the coffee and the soap for like 30-40 bucks.
• 6:07
  Just it was the cheapest that that will ever be.
• 6:10
  We never do a more than that off.
• 6:12
  And so that that happens maybe once or twice a year.
• 6:16
  And so we'll, we'll be running maybe one more cell before the
• 6:19
  end of the year on there. And so, but, but we're like,
• 6:23
  like Brett said, we're already starting to sell out because of
• 6:26
  that big percentage off. And so if you're looking for
• 6:29
  some gifts from that way to benefit us, please go by and
• 6:34
  check that out. Also, the book that we've put
• 6:36
  out for Brokenness to Freedom, a great resource.
• 6:39
  Maybe you've got a family member that's stuck in the IFB and you
• 6:42
  need to give them a resources that's going to help them get
• 6:45
  out of that. Buy the book From Brokenness to
• 6:47
  Freedom on Amazon, $10. It'll be at your door in just a
• 6:50
  couple of days and you can do that.
• 6:53
  I do still have just a couple of free books left.
• 6:55
  If you want to reach out to me, we can send those to you as
• 6:58
  well. And Brett, anything else before
• 7:01
  we jump into today's episode? I think that covers everything.
• 7:05
  We've got a big one for you today.
• 7:07
  Bryce England is with us. And buckle up, get your
• 7:12
  seatbelts on. It's a long one.
• 7:14
  It's a fun ride. You're not going to want to miss
• 7:16
  it. And so let's jump into today's
• 7:18
  episode. For freedom set me free.
• 7:21
  Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee grace.
• 7:25
  Lift the flame. Now I'm puffing.
• 7:26
  Peace cigars and Victory Justified released.
• 7:31
  Welcome to the For Freedom podcast.
• 7:34
  This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for
• 7:37
  everyday Christians with everyday issues.
• 7:41
  Say by dress codes, not by what I eat.
• 7:43
  I'm covered in the righteousness, washed from head
• 7:45
  to feet. No tally of tradition, no man
• 7:48
  made code. Blood bought my freedom.
• 7:50
  Now I ride that road. They clutch pearls when they see
• 7:53
  smoke rings rise, but my prey still ascends past the legalist
• 7:56
  cries. Christ plus nothing.
• 7:58
  That's the real math. So miss me with your fence laws
• 8:01
  and your extra path. He sat with sinners, I'm sitting
• 8:04
  with Saints. Slipping grace from the bottle.
• 8:06
  No room for face. I like one for liberty.
• 8:09
  Toast to the king. Every ash of sermon.
• 8:12
  Death has lost its sting for freedom.
• 8:14
  He set me free. Not for change, not for guilt,
• 8:17
  not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame.
• 8:20
  Now I'm puffing peace, cigars and victory.
• 8:22
  Justified release for freedom. He set me free, not for change,
• 8:27
  not for guilt, not for Pharisee grace, Let the flame now.
• 8:31
  Puff and peace, cigars and victory.
• 8:33
  Justified, released, let grace begin for freedom.
• 8:37
  He let me free, not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee
• 8:41
  Grace. Let the flame now.
• 8:43
  Here are your hosts, Victor James Seyfried and Brett Martin.
• 8:48
  We're excited to have with us today.
• 8:49
  Bryce England. He's here from Ohio.
• 8:53
  He reached out to me several months ago and we've had some
• 8:56
  conversations. He did an interview for me at
• 8:59
  Liberty. He's getting his PhD there and
• 9:02
  we talked for a while and it was just talking about ministry and
• 9:06
  what that looks like. And so excited to have Bryce on
• 9:08
  his long time listener and he's long time part of the RFP fam.
• 9:12
  Listens to a lot of all their stuff and just excited about him
• 9:16
  and his ministry that he's been doing.
• 9:20
  He's in the military and he'll, he'll share some of that.
• 9:25
  But Bryce, welcome to the show. Why don't you share your early
• 9:28
  experience in the IFB, how that shapes your understanding of
• 9:32
  faith? And then, you know, sort of walk
• 9:34
  into your military background. Why?
• 9:36
  Why did you choose the military and how was that a turning point
• 9:39
  of your life and even your faith journey as you went through
• 9:42
  that? So how long y'all got?
• 9:46
  We, we, we got, we got, we got 80 minutes for my, my testimony
• 9:50
  and everything. There we go, babe.
• 9:52
  Yeah, yeah. No, no, I unfortunately I can't
• 9:54
  bring the the Spurgeon like you, you and Brett do James, which is
• 10:00
  my, I think that's become kind of the symbol between me and me
• 10:04
  and James. And if, if I'm texting Brett,
• 10:07
  I'll be like, hey, you got you guys bringing the Spurgeon.
• 10:10
  So I am from Northern Illinois originally and I I grew up in a
• 10:17
  very blue collar family. So my father worked for Brinks.
• 10:23
  Then he got into truck driving in the 90s and I saw the so when
• 10:30
  I say saw the Rust Belt, you you see the destruction of the Rust
• 10:34
  Belt. I saw it growing up in the 80s
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  and 90s in Northern Illinois, very farmland, you know jobs
• 10:40
  being taken away and stuff. So my father had built a house
• 10:47
  We had neighbors in in Rockville, Illinois is the town
• 10:51
  where I was born and grew up in. And essentially what it what it
• 10:55
  what happens? We got neighbors.
• 10:58
  Well, where do the neighbors go? They go to the IF features where
• 11:01
  the neighbors do. My my mom had been raised as a
• 11:03
  Christian. My father had been raised in an
• 11:07
  Episcopalian tradition and neighbors invite us.
• 11:12
  What do we do? My dad goes to that.
• 11:14
  We start going to the Heritage Baptist Church in Roscoe, IL
• 11:18
  again. I'll I, I will give give names
• 11:21
  and places of churches. I don't hold any grudges against
• 11:25
  these people. They're, they're all wonderful
• 11:27
  people as I've known. I'll share the IFP does have
• 11:30
  great people in it. There are, there are people who
• 11:34
  unfortunately, I think get manipulated by the system.
• 11:37
  So I, I will we start going. I remember 1984.
• 11:45
  So buddy of mine who I go to church with dad was a car
• 11:49
  salesman. You know, it was and we, we got
• 11:54
  involved heavily in the IFP church.
• 11:56
  My, my father, you know, and we and we start going.
• 11:59
  And when I say heavily at what point it would be Sunday
• 12:03
  morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.
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  My mom didn't my mom pulled me out.
• 12:08
  The church heritage started a, you know, all the way through
• 12:12
  1st through 6th grade. I would be educated in the IFP
• 12:16
  Christian School. First off between our church and
• 12:20
  then down at North Love where Paul Kingsbury was the pastor.
• 12:24
  I think everybody knows the name Paul Kingsbury through the fact
• 12:27
  that he's hard that he would eventually be kicked out of the
• 12:32
  kicked out of the church for harboring folks.
• 12:34
  His connection to Dave Hiles, him and Dave Hiles and a lot of
• 12:38
  folks don't realize this. He runs whatever the the
• 12:42
  ministry that Josh Duggar went to.
• 12:45
  So the second time you know, Josh Duggar goes to Bill Gotter.
• 12:48
  So if you watch, if you watch the Shiny Happy People or if you
• 12:53
  watch Eric's Thing praying from the pulpit, Paul, Josh Duggar
• 13:00
  goes to Bill Gothard's, but there's a second time he goes to
• 13:04
  under falls under King Kingsbury's thing.
• 13:07
  And there's actually one of my favorite bloggers, Bruce
• 13:11
  Gehringer, who is a former IFD pastor who runs a, A blog called
• 13:15
  The Life and Time of Bruce Gehringer.
• 13:16
  Now Bruce, I'm going to warn everybody, he's an atheist and
• 13:21
  I'm kind of side tangent in here.
• 13:22
  I'll come back in a second. He emphasizes a lot of these
• 13:26
  things. Bruce is one of those who will
• 13:30
  go after Bob Gray. He'll also go after Dave Hiles.
• 13:33
  But I love Bruce. I think he's a great guy, very
• 13:35
  down to earth. But he pastored IFP churches for
• 13:38
  25 years. He decided to go humanistic
• 13:42
  agnostic again. He's and I think his blog is
• 13:46
  Keeling. But I love, I love Bruce.
• 13:48
  He's a great guy to communicate with him.
• 13:50
  I love talking to him. We'll, we'll talk over text and
• 13:52
  just amazing, amazing down to earth Guy. 1984 comes along.
• 13:58
  We know 84, right? Yeah, making a little subtle.
• 14:03
  Well, baby, love it. Yeah, I'm sorry, Georgia, Will.
• 14:07
  Love it. Yeah.
• 14:08
  Well, So what happens in November 1984?
• 14:12
  Bunch of guys come over, I get saved.
• 14:15
  I'm six years old. How do you think a six year old?
• 14:19
  Do you think a six year old fully understands the Romans Rd.
• 14:23
  You know, you know, and and we're in, we're in the hiles
• 14:26
  things. What is it?
• 14:27
  It's about, It's about numbers. And I only did it because a
• 14:31
  buddy of mine went forward and got saved and he want, I don't
• 14:34
  want to get baptized the same day he did.
• 14:36
  So did it, got baptized. But I will tell you, all through
• 14:41
  my life, I did not feel that I would.
• 14:46
  I didn't feel like, you know, imagine that idea of the Baptist
• 14:52
  Church creating that unobtainable goal.
• 14:56
  And imagine again, you know, you throw in my dad with mental, my
• 15:00
  dad, he would find out later in life, he had mental health
• 15:03
  issues. We're we're sitting here and the
• 15:08
  goal was never achievable. And this is one of the things
• 15:12
  that I think I have a problem with to this day from a personal
• 15:15
  standpoint, is people not clarifying goals, people not
• 15:18
  being open and honest. And but what do you want?
• 15:21
  Well, I don't know what I want. I I don't know what Wright looks
• 15:23
  like. Well, you've got to clarify what
• 15:25
  Wright looks like to me. And this is one of the biggest
• 15:27
  problems I think we have in leadership.
• 15:29
  Again, I'll talk about that later.
• 15:32
  Fast forward in 1995. I'm a junior in high school.
• 15:36
  So March of 95, I was at an overnight and there was this
• 15:42
  overwhelming sense in it. It's like there was this weight
• 15:47
  inside me in my heart area. Guy guy's like Bryce, you ain't
• 15:50
  getting away from me. So in front of a bunch of people
• 15:54
  broke down, I said OK, God, you got it.
• 15:57
  Did it in front of a bunch of teenagers and my sister's in the
• 16:00
  room. I don't think she remembers
• 16:01
  this. I don't think people are going
• 16:02
  to remember it. I remember it broke down and
• 16:06
  that's when I got accepted. You know when I formally
• 16:08
  accepted Christ the Mark March 95.
• 16:11
  I know where I was at. I don't remember the exact date,
• 16:13
  but I remember it the next day. We're going to up to Iron
• 16:17
  Mountain, MI. It was another IFB church or IFB
• 16:21
  like church. The pastor was was another I
• 16:25
  don't even remember the pastor's name, but and, and, and it's
• 16:31
  interesting because I've been listening to it's because I've
• 16:33
  been listening to DC Talk free at laugh was was my was my jam.
• 16:38
  I would roll around with that. David Meese was another one of
• 16:40
  my favorite ones. White Hart was another band of
• 16:42
  mine. I love always loved Christian
• 16:45
  rock music, which everybody else seemed to not like in my church,
• 16:50
  but it would take me a few more months.
• 16:55
  I was a senior beginning in 96. I decided to go forward and
• 17:01
  that's when I got baptized for for the second time.
• 17:03
  But that would be my baptism in in the church and that is my
• 17:09
  salvation and baptism story. Well, Fast forward.
• 17:14
  I joined the military so I in December, 95 I go on the delayed
• 17:20
  enlistment program and I in June, in 96, I graduated high
• 17:25
  school. 12 days later I'm on my way to Lackland Air Force Base.
• 17:30
  Now as soon as I go off to Lackland Air Force Base, that
• 17:35
  begins a 20 year journey. 14 years includes overseas travel.
• 17:40
  That's where it's going to start to get kind of fun.
• 17:44
  So I remember I'd gotten to my first base at White Men and I
• 17:50
  had some people in the church who were very happy that I was
• 17:54
  going in the military. They thought it would do good
• 17:56
  for me and help me grow up. There was others.
• 17:58
  Yeah. We don't think Bryce is going to
• 18:00
  go into the church. And I didn't really have a lot
• 18:01
  of options. I thought about maybe I want to
• 18:03
  go to Bob Jones University and be A and be a chef.
• 18:08
  Oh, that sounds crazy. And I remember the guy who's my
• 18:13
  brother-in-law now back and again.
• 18:16
  I'm backing up a little bit of kind of bounce.
• 18:20
  He would. I saw him one day.
• 18:23
  I said yeah. And he had joined the Army and
• 18:26
  he's back at school and his Blues visit or Army greens
• 18:29
  visiting in the fall of 95. And and I said, yeah, I really,
• 18:34
  I don't, I didn't know what I wanted to do.
• 18:35
  I'm I'm a senior at the time. I really don't know what I want
• 18:37
  to do, where I want to go. And and he was oh, so he goes
• 18:44
  and tells the recruiter. Recruiter comes to my house.
• 18:47
  I I started looking at the Army and my dad's like, hey, Bryce,
• 18:50
  why don't you look at the Air Force, call the Air Force
• 18:53
  recruiter up. And that's what got me onto the
• 18:54
  road to the Air Force six months later.
• 18:58
  Yeah, go ahead. No, yeah.
• 19:00
  I just wanted to clarify just a couple things you said.
• 19:02
  So David Howes was his ministry was called fallen and Grace.
• 19:06
  Yeah, Yeah. And then there was one thing you
• 19:09
  said that I think resonates, and we say it often, is this moving
• 19:13
  of the goal post where we're going to have a standard set up
• 19:18
  that we're expecting you to live in and be a part of.
• 19:21
  And then once you attain that, we're going to move the goal
• 19:24
  post to somewhere else where now you've done this, but now to be
• 19:27
  this next level of Christian, you're going to have to do this,
• 19:30
  this and this. And I think that a lot of our
• 19:32
  listeners can resonate with that because often time that is how
• 19:36
  the IFB runs all their ministries.
• 19:39
  Is this manipulation to move the goal post?
• 19:43
  Yeah, and I was going to even tell you guys this.
• 19:46
  I see it in people in who are not well grounded in leadership,
• 19:52
  not comfortable in leadership. So you you see this correlating
• 19:56
  to a lot of places. I think the moving of goal post
• 20:00
  is is a symbol of leadership culture today.
• 20:07
  Covey has emphasized it and. Brett, I don't.
• 20:12
  I know James is familiar of it. I don't know if you're familiar
• 20:15
  of Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
• 20:20
  I don't. Know.
• 20:22
  It's a, it's a great leadership book.
• 20:23
  Now most ifbers will tell you, oh, you, you can't listen to
• 20:27
  that because Covey Covey, the guys who run Franklin Covey,
• 20:31
  they're Mormons. They're Mormons.
• 20:33
  We we can only accept Mormons if if they're running for political
• 20:36
  office, because that's when when we want to meet again, kind of
• 20:40
  kind of being joking and being this, but we've changed it to be
• 20:46
  be based off of status from a perspective of being busy.
• 20:51
  Hey, the busier you are. And I think that's one of the
• 20:54
  end ideas that correlates to the moving of goal posts.
• 20:59
  As Bruce emphasizes it. He has this this blog, you know,
• 21:06
  he views it as a win the the four WS win them, wet them work
• 21:12
  em waste them of the IFB. So you win win them to Christ.
• 21:17
  What do you and and Brian even and I chuckle because Brian
• 21:22
  Edwards, I've I've listened. I love Bryant.
• 21:24
  There's two I love Jay-Z. But if there's two guys who I
• 21:27
  probably I I would appreciate from the RFP and I think that's
• 21:32
  more because they're philosophy. They're academics and
• 21:34
  philosophers like me, as Brian and Nathan and Brian was talking
• 21:40
  about on an episode, couple of guys run running around with the
• 21:44
  truck stolen and they got freezing pops and a thing in the
• 21:49
  the heat of the day where they'll allow the kids to come
• 21:52
  in and save this prayer. Again, I'm laughing because this
• 21:56
  is the grounds that we walk to. So you wash them.
• 21:59
  Hey, get baptized. And then what do you do for the
• 22:02
  adult? You bring them into the church?
• 22:03
  Work, work, work, work. Bring the goal posts and then
• 22:06
  when you are so burned out you leave the church.
• 22:09
  What do you do you it leads leads to abuse.
• 22:13
  It leads to the personal abuse, the punching you didn't do
• 22:16
  enough or much even like mental health, you're not praying hard
• 22:20
  enough. And I, and this is a trend that
• 22:22
  I am noticing. This is a trend I'm really
• 22:25
  noticing on preacher boys. I've noticed this on, even on a
• 22:31
  lot of the podcasts I've been listening to is people.
• 22:34
  Yeah. Oh, you're not, you're not
• 22:36
  praying hard enough. You're not doing enough.
• 22:38
  So James, I, I think you're, you're emphasizing that very
• 22:42
  well. And it's very well said about
• 22:44
  moving the goal posts. So let me ask you what, what
• 22:48
  kind of lessons did the military give you that helped you see the
• 22:53
  issues in the IFB? Like what?
• 22:57
  What were some of the things that you noticed once you got in
• 22:59
  the military that correlated? I love, I love how you guys work
• 23:05
  well together as in, in this podcast, because this actually
• 23:08
  helps me segue back to where I was going.
• 23:10
  So Brett, I don't know what what you guys do.
• 23:12
  If there's, there's good talk going on and stuff that you
• 23:15
  guys, you guys know how to keep it moving.
• 23:17
  And that was that's a great question.
• 23:18
  So, you know, I get in the military, get to my first base.
• 23:23
  One of the things I've learned about Ifbs in some countries
• 23:27
  and, and you see it overseas. You got some, some countries or
• 23:32
  some places where there's always a, a Christian Church and I
• 23:36
  have, you'll have an IFP church outside the, the gate of a
• 23:39
  military installation. We had one at Whiteman Air Force
• 23:43
  Base, Missouri. I go, it was what I knew.
• 23:47
  So I started, you know, they said, well, when you get to your
• 23:49
  first base, you got to find a church, got to find a church.
• 23:50
  So I started looking for a church.
• 23:53
  I I got the got to this church at the base and, and it was
• 23:58
  like, oh, hey, decide to, it's like, so I started attending
• 24:03
  this IFP church. I can't even remember the name
• 24:05
  of it, but I think I'm like, yeah, I want to become a member
• 24:09
  of the church. So I do it.
• 24:10
  And then I had a buddy of mine. He goes to the church one night
• 24:13
  and I don't, you know, we go on a Sunday night, but a really
• 24:17
  good buddy of mine named Chad. Awesome guy.
• 24:19
  I love, I love Chad. I haven't talked to him in
• 24:21
  years, but just he was raised in a Christian home, little more
• 24:26
  looser. I would say if I was talking to
• 24:31
  a guy who who did it, he would probably be comparatively think
• 24:39
  of the guy as like skillet, The, the, and when I say skillet, I'm
• 24:44
  talking the style, the profile, the rocker edge, the vibe and
• 24:49
  stuff. So he goes with me to church.
• 24:52
  He's comes out he's like Bryce, this ain't where you need to be.
• 24:56
  He's like these guys are just all these guys are doing is just
• 24:58
  brainwashing you. And now Mindy, Chad had been to
• 25:01
  Saudi. He had just gotten back and my
• 25:04
  buddy Dale, who was my roommate next door.
• 25:07
  So they they both had rooms next to each other and our rooms and
• 25:10
  bathrooms. We can't would connect.
• 25:12
  So what did I do? I was like, I need to go to
• 25:14
  church. So I start going to a not the
• 25:16
  non denominational base Chapel was like I'm done.
• 25:19
  So I started going every Sunday. That's when I start to see the
• 25:22
  problems come up. But that's where I start to see
• 25:25
  the IFP for what it is. I decided to go back and visit
• 25:29
  the church. And I said, hey, brother,
• 25:32
  brother. So and so I said, you know, that
• 25:34
  I go on a Wednesday night and they're all in their suits and
• 25:38
  ties. I'm.
• 25:39
  I'm going in jeans. I'm like, I'm a jeans guy.
• 25:43
  Hey, yeah, it's decided to start going to the Bass Chapel.
• 25:45
  I said, you know, to me, what's wrong?
• 25:47
  I mean, I look at it like this. What's the problem?
• 25:50
  We all get to heaven the same way, right?
• 25:53
  You know, how you believe is how you believe.
• 25:55
  Oh, Oh no, that don't work right.
• 25:57
  You know, I was told that that doesn't work.
• 25:59
  And this is by somebody who doesn't obviously haven't have
• 26:03
  an accredited education or have, you know, their, their, their
• 26:07
  view is sitting under the IFB church.
• 26:10
  And he would, he's like, there, there's a problem with this
• 26:16
  thing called feel easy feeling easy or easy feeling religion,
• 26:19
  as they call it. Again, this is what you see when
• 26:22
  people talk about, you know, church acting like a rock band
• 26:25
  and stuff. This is that feel easy free
• 26:27
  religion. So I, I was like, I'm done with
• 26:30
  this. So keep fast forwarding.
• 26:34
  I remember I was stationed in Iceland.
• 26:36
  They had a Baptist Church outside the front gate.
• 26:39
  One of the guys who attended there, he's an authoritarian in
• 26:43
  my, in my unit, you could tell he's very authoritarian in how
• 26:46
  he handled things. He didn't know anything about
• 26:48
  leadership. He, he, you know, the Air Force
• 26:51
  had been moving towards mentorship.
• 26:52
  And this is a guy who had been serving since the late 70s.
• 26:55
  So maybe somebody who comes in after Vietnam on his way out,
• 26:59
  He's and and he treats me and I'm a buddy of mine.
• 27:02
  He's like, yeah, well, I don't agree with the word mentorship.
• 27:05
  I don't agree with this. I don't, you know, discipleship.
• 27:07
  It's like discipleship means you sit down and you talk to people
• 27:12
  and you treat people with respect, you guide them.
• 27:14
  You didn't do that. So I was like, I'm I'm done.
• 27:18
  Or I was like, yeah, another another square peg.
• 27:21
  I remember when I got stationed in Cairo.
• 27:24
  So when I talk about 14 years of overseas travel ended 12 years
• 27:27
  straight. So I'm, I get my orders to
• 27:30
  Turkey, go from Turkey to Iceland, first tour in Japan,
• 27:34
  Masawa Air Base, left Japan, went to the US Embassy in Cairo,
• 27:37
  Egypt, spent three years there. That's where I found myself
• 27:42
  getting into the liturgical movement.
• 27:44
  So Lutheran Methodism. So it, it is kind of a
• 27:49
  combination of things. You do commute when you go to
• 27:53
  the liturgical service, you go to the communion mean it's going
• 27:56
  to be with the wine and the bread.
• 27:58
  I remember I started at 10. I was like, I really like this.
• 28:01
  And I remember Reverend Paul Gordon Chandler, a great, great
• 28:05
  guy. I loved he, he's a matter of
• 28:07
  fact, the guy who had done my confirmation.
• 28:08
  Now, mind you, I've been saved 10 years at this point.
• 28:11
  So I don't have any questions about my salvation baptism or my
• 28:15
  my ability. My goal now is building my
• 28:18
  knowledge that discipleship of Christianity.
• 28:22
  The IFB is not giving it to me. And I've always been.
• 28:24
  And I've got to tell you guys, I'm an academic.
• 28:27
  I, I function well, better in the educational environment.
• 28:30
  We all have our guilt, gifts and skills.
• 28:32
  James, I know you're an amazing counselor, Brett, you're your
• 28:35
  pastor and you're kind of building yourself through your,
• 28:38
  your master's, the divinity program.
• 28:40
  But, and, and what I will even share with you is we sometimes
• 28:45
  do not even find, you know, pastors until you've completed
• 28:49
  you, you may not find your, your full path to where you're going
• 28:53
  until after you complete your Mdiv.
• 28:55
  You just know that that's the path you want to go down.
• 28:58
  But again, that that's not a, not we just, it takes us time
• 29:04
  until we get into, you know, we've gotten the education,
• 29:07
  we've gotten in the classroom, we've gotten around others who
• 29:09
  are feeding and helping us with the feeding carry.
• 29:11
  And what I was going to say is being a pastor is a is, it's
• 29:17
  about as hard as being in the military.
• 29:20
  I would say sometimes I, I will tell you this matter of fact, I
• 29:24
  would say being a PKAP pastor's kid, a preacher's kid is
• 29:29
  similar, especially in think about this.
• 29:31
  If you're APK in the mission field, it's almost kind of like
• 29:36
  being a military brat. I had to think about it because
• 29:38
  you're going through the same level of hardships.
• 29:41
  And I'll get into that here in here in a couple of minutes.
• 29:45
  But my, but because I want to step back, but I'm sitting here
• 29:50
  and I started and I actually did confirmation and that opened my
• 29:54
  eyes to the history of the church.
• 29:55
  But one of the things I loved about Paul Gore and Chandler, I
• 29:58
  remember at the end of one of our first messages, it the
• 30:03
  pastoring was so much better. He says things happen, trials
• 30:07
  happen. You don't know why they're going
• 30:09
  to happen. But it started connecting me.
• 30:10
  It gave me something that I felt I needed.
• 30:13
  But I remember he at the end, he he's playing, he plays the same
• 30:17
  song. If I ever lose my faith at, at
• 30:21
  one of the things I was like, Sting could be, I was like, wow,
• 30:24
  Sting. You know, most folks don't
• 30:26
  realize Bono's a Christian. Bono has faith.
• 30:28
  I think Sting has faith. Bob Dylan.
• 30:30
  Most folks don't even realize Bob Dylan was a Christian.
• 30:34
  You know, he was saved in the Vineyard movement.
• 30:37
  He moved away from the born again, the the born again
• 30:40
  craziness movement because I don't think that was what he
• 30:43
  wanted. But you come out of the Jesus
• 30:46
  movement of the 60s and 70s, You know, Bill Kidd talks about the
• 30:50
  70s was rocking. That was the outgrowth of the
• 30:54
  Jesus movement, which was very interesting from a historical
• 30:58
  standpoint. And again, I'm not saying it
• 31:00
  negatively, I'm not looking down on it, but it's amazing where
• 31:05
  you look at how things go from the 60s and 70s.
• 31:09
  If I have to turn it's broadband style Christianity or it's more
• 31:13
  of a DIY, do it yourself punk aesthetic kind of
• 31:18
  commercialization. Money starts being thrown in,
• 31:21
  gloss starts being thrown out and what do you get?
• 31:24
  Prosperity gospel. All the other stuff that comes
• 31:26
  from it culturally, historically, but and and I
• 31:29
  think that's where many of where where we've seen it go astray.
• 31:33
  But when I see it like this, I'm like, wow, I kind of like this
• 31:37
  stripped down unplugged version or unplugged approach to
• 31:41
  Christianity, if I'm going to use a musical metaphor.
• 31:44
  So in O5I completed confirmation, which was a for
• 31:48
  me, it confirmed it was discipleship.
• 31:52
  Six weeks I Start learning and it was right after, after Pope
• 31:56
  John Paul the second had passed away.
• 31:58
  So that was really an opportunity to talk about the
• 32:01
  Catholic Church, to talk about the schism.
• 32:03
  I mean, we don't talk about church history a lot today.
• 32:07
  We don't talk about, you know, I have bees.
• 32:10
  Everybody hears the word confirmation.
• 32:13
  What's the it's confirming? We're confirming history.
• 32:18
  So again, it's has it been hijacked by some elements?
• 32:22
  Yes. And I was thinking about this
• 32:24
  before I was coming down today. It's been hijacked by some
• 32:26
  element. It's been taken out of
• 32:29
  contracts. I won't deny that.
• 32:31
  There's some people who. Yeah, go ahead, James.
• 32:34
  Would also say, I think that a lot of ideas in, even though IB
• 32:39
  have been hijacked from other denominations and we've just
• 32:43
  rebranded it into our own thing. And that is that, you know, now
• 32:49
  that we've stepped out of the IFB and I have, you know, I'll
• 32:53
  go to a convention or I'll go somewhere and I'll, I remember
• 32:56
  the first time we were at like a breakout session and we were
• 32:59
  going around and we're talking about where we all come from.
• 33:01
  And I'm like, do I mention like the IFB or not?
• 33:05
  I didn't know like, you know, because we were told when we
• 33:07
  were growing up, the IFB was the the largest denomination out
• 33:11
  there. We were the only ones doing it
• 33:12
  right. And I get there and it's like
• 33:15
  we're like little fish in a big pond.
• 33:17
  And I would mention, yeah, I grew up in the Independent
• 33:19
  Baptist Church. And they're like, oh, you're one
• 33:21
  of those guys. Yeah, I can relate.
• 33:24
  But like the board of directors that I'm on for the North
• 33:27
  Carolina convention, we've got 7 or 8 that are all former IFB
• 33:31
  guys that are now Southern Baptist.
• 33:34
  And, and we get together, we hang out, we talk like we can
• 33:37
  relate to where we came from. And then we begin to see where
• 33:41
  these ideologies have been taken from, what some other group is
• 33:47
  doing and they've just modified the name or the whatever it is
• 33:50
  to, you know, glorified into their context.
• 33:54
  They're just, they're still an idea.
• 33:55
  What's wrong with that? I mean, but they claim it as
• 33:58
  their own, not that we took this from, you know, this, this
• 34:01
  movement or that movement or whatever.
• 34:03
  So. I was going to say, let me, let
• 34:05
  me finish up because I'm getting close to the end of the, the
• 34:09
  personal testimony background and then I'll I'll speak.
• 34:11
  I will actually talk about that about that as well too.
• 34:15
  And and just so you guys know, the lessons or perspectives
• 34:18
  that's kind of wrapped, I think into the, I think you're some of
• 34:22
  that should be getting captured in what I'm sharing with you
• 34:24
  now, because I've the military brings you into contact with all
• 34:31
  different folks. When you when I lived on the
• 34:35
  ground in Cairo, I got to meet Muslims.
• 34:37
  You know, it helped open my eyes that all Muslims are not bad
• 34:43
  people. They're just they they
• 34:47
  realistically have different branches.
• 34:50
  Islam is very much like Christianity in that there's
• 34:55
  different branches, offshoots and everything.
• 34:59
  Judaism is the same way. The Abrahamic religions, as
• 35:02
  we'll call them, are all the same way.
• 35:05
  There are multiple different conservative elements.
• 35:10
  There are factions of Christianity that are no
• 35:14
  different than radical fundamentalist Islam.
• 35:21
  And matter of fact, I'll even highlight this.
• 35:23
  If you look at what would become a khatab Saeed Khatoob kind of
• 35:30
  QQUTB is how he him and Ayman al Zarwahi who would form.
• 35:36
  So Ayman al Zarwahi forms Eij, Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
• 35:44
  He was influenced by Syed KATU. Both those men had come to the
• 35:47
  US early on. They didn't like it.
• 35:49
  They come back, they formulate what will become the radical
• 35:54
  form of Islam or radical ideas of jihad.
• 35:58
  But jihad, much like any of the forms, is taken out of context.
• 36:03
  It it's very interesting because you will have charismatic
• 36:06
  leaders. I have not uncovered it with
• 36:08
  Judaism to the level that I I probably should.
• 36:12
  But when you get that I've, I've seen, you know, I've met Coptic
• 36:16
  Christians, Coptic Christians in in Egypt, landmarkist would call
• 36:23
  them they're heathens. They're very Eastern Orthodox,
• 36:27
  but they're still Christians. The, the view of Christianity is
• 36:30
  is completely different. I left Cairo, went back to
• 36:34
  Japan, got stationed in Wyoming, decided to go to sub-Saharan
• 36:38
  Africa, went to work at the US Embassy in Djibouti.
• 36:40
  That's another perspective that opens my door.
• 36:42
  Now mind you, at this time I married my wife who was raised
• 36:46
  Methodist. We decided to, I decided to
• 36:50
  convert from being Lutheran liturgical and I've done gone
• 36:54
  through the Lutheran Missouri sitting out as well.
• 36:57
  Too little, too conservative for me.
• 36:59
  But I met some really great chaplains who helped me.
• 37:03
  But I've been practicing Methodist for the last 15 years
• 37:07
  I've been practicing Methodist in terms of the UMC, I've seen
• 37:11
  the UMCGMC split, the United Methodist Church, Global
• 37:14
  Methodist Church split. I can it's very interesting.
• 37:20
  Again, some of these things are so philosophically driven.
• 37:23
  It's not possible that spend you have to have an hour just to
• 37:27
  unpack it because of how complex it is.
• 37:31
  And I'm going to again, talk about the Bible meals today.
• 37:34
  But the military really shaped who I was.
• 37:38
  It gave me values, put me around people.
• 37:40
  But when we even start talking about social issues within the
• 37:44
  church, abortion in a place like Africa for Christians isn't, you
• 37:50
  know, we put abortion up here, abortion, gay marriage here in
• 37:54
  Africa. They're more worried about
• 37:55
  female genital mutilation. So, I mean, I mean, you know, I,
• 38:01
  so this is another thing and this is kind of that lack of
• 38:04
  education of Bible mill. Do they ever talk about
• 38:07
  worldwide, global issues? Do they talk about female
• 38:12
  genital mutilation? You know, and this is one of the
• 38:15
  things you do see with some of the IFP missionaries who go out
• 38:18
  and they're like, well, what I was taught and what I was fed in
• 38:22
  an unaccredited Bible mill. And, and, and I'm going to tell
• 38:25
  you Kyle's Anderson College is an unaccredited Bible mill.
• 38:29
  Anybody who is opening up a school that doesn't want to go
• 38:35
  get accreditation that they're opening it up in their basement.
• 38:38
  It isn't unaccredited Bible meal.
• 38:40
  I'm sorry, Jack Kyles, Tony Hudson and, and, and I'm being,
• 38:45
  I'm kind of pushing pretty blunt on this one.
• 38:48
  Tom Malone, Bob Gray, all these guys who run around doing,
• 38:54
  claiming to be doctors who have never done a capstone or a
• 38:58
  dissertation in their life are not doctors.
• 39:01
  They run around. Oh, I'm sorry, but what?
• 39:07
  Larry Brown, you are not a doctor.
• 39:09
  John Hamblin, the Christ was Jesus was not a bartender.
• 39:13
  You are not a doctor. You are nothing more than a
• 39:16
  charlatan heathen who runs around as an evangelist who
• 39:19
  thinks you're going to get you're nothing more than a
• 39:21
  prosperity poverty pimp. I'll, I'll call you what you
• 39:24
  are, yeah. So as we think through that.
• 39:30
  Sorry I I I get a little heated with it.
• 39:33
  I think it's good, I think it's good to address some of the
• 39:35
  things because I, you know, I can relate to, you know, the in
• 39:41
  Bible college, they're not teaching both sides often that
• 39:45
  that's part of the, the issue that you can have from it.
• 39:48
  And as we think through you, you mentioned the unaccredited Bible
• 39:51
  meals. Let's sort of talk through that,
• 39:53
  you know, as you are at liberty and preparing to do some things
• 39:59
  with what you're doing. Why is formal accredited
• 40:04
  education important for pastors today?
• 40:06
  And me and you have had this conversation when it comes to
• 40:09
  the project that you did. And what are the dangers that
• 40:13
  can exist inside of an unaccredited Bible meal?
• 40:16
  What what does that look like it?
• 40:18
  And how do we sort of? Encourage guys that are going to
• 40:22
  ministry to think a little more critically on where they're
• 40:26
  getting their education and why that's important all.
• 40:29
  Right. So Brett, I'm going to have to
• 40:31
  ask you for Brett. I want to ask you if you can
• 40:34
  help me out here because you probably will be able to speak
• 40:36
  to some of this a little bit better than I can as well too.
• 40:41
  But this is more collaborative, collaborative in terms of being
• 40:46
  somebody from an M division as well too 'cause I think 'cause I
• 40:51
  think you'll see it in your curriculum as an MDF.
• 40:54
  So First off, let me let me share with you guys.
• 40:56
  I've got my undergrad in business admin and and logistics
• 41:01
  and I have an MDA. My first foray into liberty was
• 41:06
  actually an executive certificate in public policy
• 41:08
  through the Helms School of Government.
• 41:11
  I decided that I wanted to pursue.
• 41:13
  So my pursuing of a PhD at that point was, hey, I want to go
• 41:20
  organization management with the cognitive and executive coaching
• 41:23
  because I love studying the relationships, the behaviors,
• 41:28
  the strands that bring things together.
• 41:30
  Public policy was great and I love the biblical integration.
• 41:35
  When I started, when I have looked at because I had thought
• 41:38
  I wanted to be a chaplain earlier on in life and I
• 41:40
  realized I don't have the temperament to do it.
• 41:45
  And I also, it would come after I left the military and retired
• 41:48
  in 16 where I would formally enter academia.
• 41:50
  Come, leave Alabama, come to Ohio and where I've been since
• 41:56
  2019. I spent 4 1/2 years teaching.
• 41:58
  But when I start looking at an M at a master's of divinity
• 42:03
  program, one of the things that sticks out to me is how much
• 42:07
  emphasis we, you know, and M diff puts on past world care
• 42:11
  education, right? I, I think I've looked at New
• 42:13
  Orleans, there's a significant, it's either pass for oral care,
• 42:18
  but there's also a ton of different other things like
• 42:20
  apologetics. So it's almost kind of like
• 42:23
  you're going through a 90 hour intensive program, 75 or 90 hour
• 42:27
  intensive program, but you are given a, you know, in some it
• 42:34
  differs, but I've seen you can get 8-7 or eight different
• 42:39
  classes along with real world build experience.
• 42:43
  Like you'll, you'll be in the field working under another
• 42:46
  chaplain in the area of trauma or, you know, in the area of
• 42:52
  trauma certification or apologetics, Bible reading, you
• 43:01
  know, textual criticism. But I think but pastoral care is
• 43:04
  the one that really sticks out to me, especially the mental
• 43:06
  health aspect of it with the raise rise in it.
• 43:11
  I am not. And and this is where where I
• 43:14
  feel like a Bible mill, an unaccredited Bible mill goes
• 43:17
  wrong. Imagine putting someone like
• 43:21
  Jack Hiles or Bob Gray or J Frank Norris in a trauma room.
• 43:26
  They're going to be more concerned about winning bodies
• 43:28
  for Christ and actually providing pastoral care.
• 43:31
  Am I, am I right on that, Brett? No, you're right.
• 43:33
  Absolutely 100%. One of the biggest things that
• 43:38
  was my problem was I was told it, it didn't make a difference.
• 43:42
  Like accreditation didn't matter.
• 43:44
  Like no one's going to care. No one's going to look at it.
• 43:47
  They they sell you that and then you get out in the real world
• 43:50
  and it's a complete lie. And then even when I went
• 43:55
  through the program, it didn't prepare me for the real world.
• 43:59
  Like I came out actually on the other side worse from going to,
• 44:05
  you know, how's Anderson and a how's Anderson like college then
• 44:08
  I did going in because what they taught me actually hurt me and I
• 44:13
  I was unprepared going into the ministry.
• 44:17
  And I like you like you're saying about pastoral care.
• 44:21
  I had no idea how to do that. You know, you get up, they get
• 44:24
  up there, they teach the house church manual for, you know, a
• 44:27
  semester and some other things. They teach you how to get up
• 44:31
  there and bark about your personal preferences.
• 44:35
  They don't teach you how to execute the scriptures.
• 44:37
  You don't properly know how to can't council church members.
• 44:41
  You don't know any original languages and and so because the
• 44:46
  King James better than the Greek and things like that.
• 44:49
  So you, you're totally, totally unprepared.
• 44:53
  All you have is a piece of paper.
• 44:56
  And I'm, I'm glad the Lord led me down the academic path that
• 45:00
  I'm going now. But but yeah, it, it, it's a
• 45:04
  real problem. And you know, for I was thinking
• 45:07
  about going to to Pensacola, at least that would have been
• 45:10
  accredited, but I had to go to house and that's the Mecca
• 45:13
  house, Anderson College, that's the IFU Mecca.
• 45:16
  Yeah, and and Jane and, and let me also caveat here, there's no
• 45:21
  one entry point that's the correct way.
• 45:23
  Everybody's journey is going to be a little different.
• 45:27
  James, for instance, I look at your journey going to you.
• 45:30
  You went to track, went went to a Tracks accredited school which
• 45:33
  does have some standards. Now when I was tracks accredited
• 45:37
  and they're just now tracks accredited and you know, that's
• 45:41
  the lowest form of accreditation, that's the
• 45:43
  regional form. And a lot of times that that
• 45:45
  doesn't even transfer from state to state at times.
• 45:49
  And so my degree sitting right here behind me, it's
• 45:52
  unaccredited piece of paper that they they promised it would
• 45:56
  grandfather in it did not grandfather.
• 45:58
  In Oh man. There was a lot of a lot of that
• 46:02
  miss misconceptions that came from it.
• 46:05
  You know that the grandfathering in would be, hey, come back and
• 46:09
  take these three classes under the new program, pay this amount
• 46:14
  of money and pay the graduation fee and come walk.
• 46:18
  And then you would have an accredited degree that's tracts
• 46:21
  accredited. That's still, you know, certain
• 46:23
  places aren't going to accept that degree because it's
• 46:26
  regional. So, so it needs to be that next
• 46:28
  step. At least they're looking at at
• 46:30
  accreditation, but it's still it's, it's regional and it's
• 46:33
  based on the, the region that you're in.
• 46:37
  And so there are some regions that now don't accept the region
• 46:41
  of the Hot Springs area. And so you're still having that
• 46:44
  that difficulty when you come through that.
• 46:47
  I follow what you're saying and what all I was going to add on
• 46:50
  to that though, was the fact that in when we talked about
• 46:54
  the, the interview for my industrial psychology class that
• 46:58
  I'm working on right now. My, my point being that when you
• 47:01
  went out and got the side counseling thing, though, I
• 47:04
  think that adds on to the added to the value of it.
• 47:08
  So if somebody goes and gets a bachelor's, but you know, they
• 47:11
  get a badger, but they don't go the M dev route, but they've
• 47:14
  decided to go get specialized counseling or specialized
• 47:18
  pastoral care and they're going to an accredited thing perfectly
• 47:22
  fine. So for instance, I'll and I'll
• 47:24
  give you a reason why I think you know Phil Kidd.
• 47:26
  To me, he, he's a doctor and, and he, and here's why.
• 47:31
  What, what clues me in on Phil Kidd, and again, I'm Phil Kidd.
• 47:34
  Is he, he, he's a very amplified person.
• 47:37
  He knows how to turn it on and turn it down South.
• 47:40
  I believe if Phil Kidd was to go into a trauma room, he, he would
• 47:45
  know how to turn it off, turn it down because of his psychology
• 47:49
  background and provide pastoral care.
• 47:51
  But when he's he's in church and he's who he is, yeah, he hoops
• 47:55
  and hollers from the pulpit. That's not, not to say, but when
• 47:59
  I listen to him, and a lot of this just comes from me
• 48:02
  listening, I I'm like, this is the guy who knows his audience.
• 48:05
  He knows how to turn it on and turn it off.
• 48:08
  But I, I firmly believe that as a pastor, he, he is who he is.
• 48:12
  He dresses who he is that, and that's perfect.
• 48:14
  You know, he, he's like, let me be who I want to be.
• 48:17
  If I want to be a King James Version only that's perfect.
• 48:20
  But the, the, the, the key I want to highlight there is Bill
• 48:24
  Kidd knows how to turn it on and turn it off and he doesn't do
• 48:29
  things from a number. I've actually heard him sit
• 48:31
  there with a son, Paul, and he's he, he has railed against the
• 48:36
  IFB church and been called a compromiser because he's like,
• 48:39
  I'm going to go out and do my own thing.
• 48:41
  I I love and I love that about Phil Kidd.
• 48:43
  Matter of fact, I, if I had a chance, I, I would love to know
• 48:48
  what Phil, both Phil and his wife, who's also a doctor, I
• 48:52
  think she's got a doctorate in sociology.
• 48:55
  I would love to know what their research was in for me.
• 48:58
  It would be great to hear what he's done, but I firmly believe
• 49:02
  it. You listen to him.
• 49:03
  This is a guy who's done the work, done the dissertation
• 49:06
  work, and he doesn't have an honorary Dr. He's got a natural
• 49:09
  PhD or or doctorate. One of the other things I real
• 49:12
  quick wanted to emphasize also about New Orleans and Liberty is
• 49:21
  program accreditation. So you've got Association of
• 49:24
  Theological School ATS accreditation.
• 49:27
  New Orleans is an ATSATS accredited school.
• 49:30
  So this is another thing. You've got regional
• 49:32
  accreditation, then you've got legitimate program
• 49:35
  accreditation. So what does ATS mean?
• 49:40
  This is an accrediting agency. That program accredits not only
• 49:44
  Christian Judaism, They send religious professors out to
• 49:49
  assess the program to see the rigorous requirements.
• 49:54
  So Brett, I want to tell you when I saw that for New Orleans,
• 49:58
  that is an extra standard for where your for for your school
• 50:03
  as well too. Liberty's had ATS accreditation
• 50:06
  since since 2020. It is one of the things that I
• 50:11
  would love to see Luther Rice and Mark Milioni over at Mission
• 50:16
  actually strive to get because I think those schools, in my
• 50:19
  opinion, I think Luther Rice, especially as they are starting
• 50:25
  to merge and and as you guys have seen from the academic
• 50:28
  standpoint, it's not that I can you know, standing up a a
• 50:31
  college program is not as simple as plopping a bunch of things
• 50:36
  down. There is a a significant amount
• 50:39
  behind the scenes that goes in and when I use the term pedagogy
• 50:43
  education pedagogy determining learning environments, the
• 50:46
  business to Luther Rice and Doctor Merritt the the what
• 50:53
  they're having to go through to set up that business program.
• 50:58
  And imagine this 100, you know you're talking A120120428 credit
• 51:03
  hours. It is.
• 51:06
  And if you don't have lower level courses that you, you have
• 51:10
  to have that for, for undergrad, it is a huge amount of decline
• 51:17
  the and the standards of evaluation for.
• 51:21
  So this is there are instances where school, why you pay for
• 51:26
  it, but regional accreditation is great, but also program
• 51:32
  accreditation as a secondary standard to it.
• 51:35
  And that's one of the things I want to highlight to you, Brett,
• 51:37
  And I've been thinking about is you have, you know that that's
• 51:41
  one of the things that makes your program so well and solid
• 51:46
  of a program in my opinion. I have, I'll tell you what, I've
• 51:49
  really, really enjoyed my time at New Orleans so far.
• 51:54
  And you know, I've learned so much.
• 51:56
  I really, you know, I think the program I'm on, you were close.
• 52:00
  It's like 87 credit hours from the masters and I am taking the,
• 52:05
  the pastoral care. Actually, that is the one that
• 52:08
  I'm taking. And, but I, I want to circle
• 52:10
  back to something that now I can tell you are, you're very
• 52:14
  passionate about it. And that was the the the
• 52:16
  unaccredited, the unaccredited Bible meals in the IFBI.
• 52:20
  Want to know how you think those affect the health and reputation
• 52:25
  of the IFB on the inside and the outside looking in?
• 52:29
  OK, no, great question. Great question.
• 52:31
  I'm going to tell you right now, look at all the serial abusers
• 52:35
  we've had come out. Eric.
• 52:38
  I think Eric stumbled onto something.
• 52:41
  The Dallas Fort Worth Telegram The 412 cases look at all the
• 52:46
  patterns of abuse. Most, most folks, I'm I'm going
• 52:54
  to even go down the road. Some folks don't look at all the
• 52:56
  systematic racism. You know, we can call it
• 53:01
  systematic institutional racism, especially in the South.
• 53:06
  You know, J Frank Norris and Jack Howe were avowed racist.
• 53:15
  Most people don't want to talk about that.
• 53:16
  But the the you know, when I think it was the GFBC and I
• 53:21
  actually Eric had suggested this book one in hope and faith,
• 53:26
  talking about Baptist fundamentalism from 1870s to
• 53:30
  1950. I I actually finished that book
• 53:32
  recently hile the reason Hiles ends up taking the Southern and
• 53:38
  it's amazing how the how the Hiles ISM and you know, Norris
• 53:42
  Norris was a very vengeful, hateful man.
• 53:48
  But when they split, so when they split off in what would be
• 53:51
  the GI think it's the GRBC, which is where they that's where
• 53:56
  you would get Baptist Bible college where Mark Milioni is at
• 53:59
  today. The history behind where he went
• 54:02
  is amazing, but the Heil's wing that breaks off from that which
• 54:08
  is influenced by the South action man of God.
• 54:11
  So Mark, you know, if you look at the difference between
• 54:13
  Northern Baptist or Northern Independent Baptist and Southern
• 54:17
  Independent Baptist, Southern Independent Baptist are based
• 54:20
  off of man of God. They're based off of this, you
• 54:25
  know, they're based off of the number soul winning preaching
• 54:28
  hard preaching Hellfire in brimstone where the North tends
• 54:31
  to be a little more academic that southern strand, which is
• 54:36
  what has caught on and which what I believe is especially
• 54:43
  Hiles Anderson putting forward a lot of our putting forward a lot
• 54:49
  of these unaccredited Bible mills are influencing them are
• 54:52
  why we have significant sexual abuse.
• 54:56
  Why has Dave Hile, I mean, let's let's be let's call it what it
• 55:00
  is Dave Hile there. They I don't know why he's still
• 55:05
  he never got indicted from from murdering his kid, you know, Oh,
• 55:10
  there's not enough evidence there.
• 55:12
  No, I don't think you know, you can call me a conspiracy
• 55:14
  theorist. It's not about evidence.
• 55:16
  It's about the fact that your daddy probably paid somebody off
• 55:21
  because you have so much money or your daddy made made some
• 55:25
  promise to somebody to keep you out of jail.
• 55:28
  I mean, look at look at the you know, Eric puts it in and let us
• 55:31
  pray where they got the video of Jack Scott.
• 55:35
  It had to be for for Hiles seventy 70th birthday.
• 55:39
  They walk in with a wheelbarrow cash for your 70th birthday.
• 55:43
  These students have raised $70,000.
• 55:47
  How much money do you think was getting washed through Hiles
• 55:50
  Anderson College and and and and was probably going into pockets
• 55:55
  of politicians or pockets of certain people to keep Dave
• 55:58
  Hiles out of jail? It is it is it theoretical?
• 56:01
  Yes, I'll I'll say it, it's theoretical.
• 56:03
  I don't have proof. And I and I want to be very
• 56:06
  careful because I don't want to be sued for, you know, these
• 56:09
  guys. It's an amazing level of
• 56:13
  hypocrisy. A second one, hypocrisy from the
• 56:16
  pulpit. Anytime I see A and this is
• 56:20
  where I think public policy really has helped me to
• 56:23
  understand it. And, and most folks would say,
• 56:26
  you know, Jerry Falwell, I don't agree with him, but he he's
• 56:31
  turned, you know, now that his son is no longer the chancellor.
• 56:35
  And they actually have Donde Costin there, who's a retired
• 56:37
  Air Force major, chief of chaplains for the Air Force at
• 56:41
  one time very good president. I think it was good that they
• 56:45
  went out and got retired General Costin as their as the
• 56:50
  chancellor and the Provost, his other son who has been more
• 56:54
  focused in on ministry. Liberty in 50 years has turned
• 56:58
  into something amazing. Matter of fact, I would say
• 57:00
  liberty in terms of where I think it's going, I I would
• 57:05
  probably say it is very much like Grand Canyon.
• 57:09
  I think it's Grand Grand Canyon or which is out West, the Bible
• 57:13
  college out West or the Liberty has become very multi
• 57:18
  denominational but with more of a conservative Christian Go
• 57:21
  ahead, let. Me say one quick thing that you
• 57:24
  make me think of. No other university was bashed
• 57:30
  at housing answering harder than Liberty University.
• 57:34
  Yeah, it was bashed beyond recognition.
• 57:37
  It was like that. I mean, I promise you, every
• 57:41
  other week in Chapel they were preaching against Liberty
• 57:44
  University. I I think that's hilarious.
• 57:47
  And and and I'm doing my golf clap.
• 57:49
  I love it because and, and it doesn't bother me if the trolls
• 57:54
  come. It really doesn't bother me if
• 57:56
  the trolls come out because that's all they do is they sit
• 57:58
  behind a keyboard and talk. OK, cool, great.
• 58:01
  You guys want to sit behind a keyboard and talk?
• 58:03
  We're we're we're, we're exposing the the truth out here.
• 58:06
  We're we're three guys conversating across a digital
• 58:10
  space about it. But I love it.
• 58:13
  I I golf clap on that one, you know, because OK.
• 58:16
  Hey, it means to do something, right?
• 58:18
  Yeah, well, well, and I'll give you guys this.
• 58:20
  So when I looked at my look at the professors I'm learning
• 58:23
  under at Liberty. So for instance, my first class
• 58:28
  when I go to public policy, my teacher is an adjunct.
• 58:33
  But. He teaches during the day at
• 58:36
  Texas A&M University. The current Speaker of the
• 58:42
  House, Mike Johnson, was a law teacher at Liberty.
• 58:47
  So he's in he's in serving in Congress, but he's an adjunct
• 58:50
  professor. Dave Brock, who served in
• 58:56
  Virginia's Economist, more of a more of an academic went up, but
• 59:00
  he's one of the chairs, I believe, at Liberty, the chair
• 59:02
  of the Helm School of Government.
• 59:04
  One of the things Doctor Becky Munson, she was educated at
• 59:12
  James Madison in the health school of government.
• 59:17
  So there are some very good professors there with good
• 59:20
  education standards. They're not pulling in people
• 59:23
  who just got liberty degree. There's not somebody who goes to
• 59:26
  hile to Anderson who gets an honorary doctorate and was
• 59:29
  educated in using the Hiles manual.
• 59:34
  But This is why, again, I'm I'm kind of talking to it.
• 59:39
  Abuse these guys, this cult of personality has led to abuse.
• 59:45
  The lack of accreditation and oversight has LED abuse.
• 59:49
  This is why again, I, I will sit here and I'll and I will sit
• 59:54
  here and I will look and again, I, I hate, you know, it's the
• 59:58
  character of the individual. So for instance, I don't know if
• 1:00:03
  you guys are familiar with this, but if you look at I, I know
• 1:00:08
  everybody says Rager's a shock talk.
• 1:00:10
  I'm not going to lie, he is. But he's also entering into very
• 1:00:14
  dangerous territory with what he's doing on the Internet now,
• 1:00:18
  because we're highlighting him, he he, he'll take those as, as
• 1:00:22
  points and potentially want to use them.
• 1:00:24
  Great. But what do I and, and here's
• 1:00:27
  where I'm going with the hypocrisy.
• 1:00:30
  I'm even talking to the hypocrisy of this one.
• 1:00:32
  The guy was actually, he's divorced, which I believe he's
• 1:00:38
  divorced. He's also and arrested for
• 1:00:41
  spousal abuse. Doesn't that run contrary to
• 1:00:46
  First Timothy if we're going to talk to pastoral qualifications?
• 1:00:49
  Second, he's harping around now running videos on Christian
• 1:00:53
  nationalism. I thought Jefferson told us that
• 1:00:58
  Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were big emphasizing the
• 1:01:02
  wall of separation between church and state when I and and
• 1:01:09
  it's really becoming hard for me to you know the hypocrisy
• 1:01:15
  anytime you see an elected official of a certain you know,
• 1:01:22
  they're coming to take our guns. They're coming to take our guns
• 1:01:24
  or or pass or you know, in the late 80s and 90s.
• 1:01:27
  I loved it. This the culture work, you got
• 1:01:29
  to vote for this party, but the second somebody gets, Oh well,
• 1:01:36
  you're coming to take our 5O1C3 status or well, so, so the, you
• 1:01:41
  know, the pastor will it, it's hypocritical because they'll,
• 1:01:45
  they'll preach about certain, you know, they'll preach about
• 1:01:49
  one thing, then they'll bash the government about another.
• 1:01:52
  But then when the cops or the federal government want to come
• 1:01:55
  in and arrest them for somebody, they'll be the first to tell you
• 1:01:59
  that you can't. That's a private property you
• 1:02:03
  can't get. So it's kind of my right, as a
• 1:02:05
  buddy of mine would say. Now again, I'm not even pushing.
• 1:02:08
  I don't I've never listened to either you guys preach.
• 1:02:11
  So understand, I'm not saying that I'm talking about the
• 1:02:16
  importance of understanding that there is a clear line.
• 1:02:23
  Me and my pastor have talked about this at my church here in
• 1:02:26
  Ohio. And he tells me that he tries
• 1:02:29
  to, he, he avoids it for the point that he wants to ensure
• 1:02:34
  that our 5O1C3 status within the Methodist community is not
• 1:02:39
  damaged because we do, because we actually do have a recovery
• 1:02:43
  ministry here. We have food banks.
• 1:02:45
  I mean, the, the idea I love, I love the social justice aspect.
• 1:02:48
  And when I use that word, social justice, meaning you're helping
• 1:02:52
  those underprivileged in the community, not social justice of
• 1:02:55
  fighting for equality, but social justice of helping folks
• 1:03:00
  out, helping folks to get on their feet, helping folks who
• 1:03:03
  might be oppressed, especially if they've done work for for
• 1:03:08
  them. Yeah.
• 1:03:10
  All right, go ahead. Yeah, I want to push back one
• 1:03:12
  thing and then me and Brett have enough time for maybe one more
• 1:03:16
  question each. Just running up on time sake.
• 1:03:20
  You know, I've done some research on the history and I
• 1:03:22
  don't, I don't preach politics from the pulpit.
• 1:03:25
  I tell people, I said if it's in the Bible, I will preach it.
• 1:03:28
  And there are times where the Bible talks about politics and
• 1:03:30
  we'll we'll hit it when it talks about government and
• 1:03:32
  organizations. But I've done a lot of reading
• 1:03:35
  on the, the history and you know, Madison and those guys,
• 1:03:39
  the the church and state separation was more for the
• 1:03:43
  state not impeding on the church, not necessarily the
• 1:03:46
  church impeding on the state. You know, I one guy listen to
• 1:03:51
  Michael Knowles all the time. He says that culture is always
• 1:03:54
  downstream of religion. And so as religion devolves and
• 1:03:59
  we don't stand firm, the culture also devolves and gets worse and
• 1:04:03
  worse. And so the religious standard
• 1:04:05
  has to be high so that the culture can somewhat stay high
• 1:04:09
  as well because it's always going to be downstream.
• 1:04:12
  And so I have no problem with politics being religious because
• 1:04:19
  that is, I mean, if you read any of the founding documents, they
• 1:04:23
  are constantly referring to God and using their religion in the
• 1:04:28
  way they're writing things. So I think the separation of
• 1:04:30
  church and state was specifically for the state not
• 1:04:33
  mandating church the way the the English government was.
• 1:04:38
  Yeah, got it real, real quick. Can I, can I just, no, I think
• 1:04:42
  your, I think your push back was, was great, man.
• 1:04:44
  I, I think the push back was amazing and I I really
• 1:04:47
  appreciate that. I don't disagree with you
• 1:04:51
  either. I I think you bring up a very
• 1:04:53
  good point. I was going to say I think we
• 1:04:57
  can do it. I like the idea.
• 1:05:00
  Alfonso Rochelle, who was a former atheist, read the Bible,
• 1:05:03
  came to Christ, wrote a book called Weapons of American
• 1:05:07
  Socialist States destruction ASS and it's was written back in
• 1:05:15
  2012. Rochelle, though, emphasizes in
• 1:05:20
  some of his earlier videos that we were a judeo-christian
• 1:05:23
  influence. So I think we can even emphasize
• 1:05:27
  we can talk religion, but we could also talk about the moral,
• 1:05:31
  you know, the idea of morals as well too.
• 1:05:33
  And and the, and again, I'm kind of trying to keep probably
• 1:05:37
  because I keep my feet both in I want to be open to talking to
• 1:05:41
  folks from both sides, Christian and secular.
• 1:05:43
  Now, I know some folks would say, hey, that's lukewarm, but I
• 1:05:46
  think you you got it. You know, sometimes Christian
• 1:05:49
  testimony can be a better selling point, as JC alluded to
• 1:05:53
  during his time in Utah. And he's talked to you.
• 1:05:56
  So again, kind of, you know, that that's my approach.
• 1:05:59
  Again, your your approach, man, Spot on.
• 1:06:01
  I'm not going to even take away from it.
• 1:06:03
  I think you emphasize it. And I don't disagree with it.
• 1:06:06
  I just don't like the hypocrisy that I see with pastors who use
• 1:06:10
  dubious character claims. And yeah, yeah, go ahead.
• 1:06:15
  For a sake of time, Brett, why don't you give us your last
• 1:06:17
  thought or question for Bryce and then we'll trap this thing
• 1:06:21
  up. I really think it's interesting
• 1:06:24
  how you came out of like this IFP background to this
• 1:06:27
  liturgical thing, this liturgical style, which, you
• 1:06:32
  know, it was a big leap. I know it had to be.
• 1:06:35
  I know that I had when I was in the IFBI, have trouble with
• 1:06:38
  that. And now I'm starting to see
• 1:06:43
  that, you know, starting to open my open my mind.
• 1:06:45
  I'm at the point now where just because it's different doesn't
• 1:06:49
  mean that I can't stop. Take a look and see, see, see
• 1:06:53
  for, see for what it is. Try to open my mind to it.
• 1:06:57
  You know, I, I got no problem with that at all.
• 1:06:59
  I think that was really cool. My question to you would be,
• 1:07:04
  what advice do you have for pastors who want to grow, who
• 1:07:09
  want to educate themselves, who want to serve well?
• 1:07:13
  I want you to speak to these pastors who are looking to, to
• 1:07:18
  just, you know, to, to, to get to go down that road.
• 1:07:21
  So a couple of things I I recommend.
• 1:07:24
  One, you've got multiple different routes you can take.
• 1:07:28
  If you went to Champion, you've gone to Luther Rice, and you
• 1:07:32
  have an undergrad, then I recommend either go for your
• 1:07:38
  MDIP like you are Brett or go get counsel.
• 1:07:41
  Go get a counseling certification.
• 1:07:44
  Stay as far away from internal pastoral training programs.
• 1:07:51
  Real story, someone very close to me was at a summer camp this
• 1:07:57
  past summer here in Ohio and IFB summer camp got invited by a
• 1:08:03
  friend and the preaching was on hell fire and brimstone to the
• 1:08:13
  point that it was scaring this person.
• 1:08:18
  That person text the parents in the evening.
• 1:08:23
  I'm overwhelmed, I'm scared. Now imagine somebody who is
• 1:08:26
  struggling with anxiety. Parents had to get up out of bed
• 1:08:32
  at 11:00 or midnight and go kick pick her up.
• 1:08:39
  Person goes and sees there's every IFB from even areas where
• 1:08:44
  I from areas I heard they're like yeah, Rockford, IL.
• 1:08:48
  I was like oh great. Yeah.
• 1:08:50
  I'm surprised Heritage Baptist Church wasn't there when the
• 1:08:53
  person was sharing with me and observing all the church bands
• 1:08:56
  coming in. My problem is the pastor of the
• 1:09:05
  church who invited that person has an undergrad but was trained
• 1:09:10
  using an internal pastoral program and we are throwing
• 1:09:17
  people into you know, people are becoming pastors with little to
• 1:09:24
  no education. They or were degrees completely
• 1:09:27
  outside and they think they can become internally.
• 1:09:29
  This is the Bible mill aspect. It's somebody who thinks just
• 1:09:32
  because I you know, I have complete, you know, somebody who
• 1:09:37
  thinks just because I completed an education at Hiles Anderson,
• 1:09:40
  I can start a Bible thing internally.
• 1:09:45
  Look at the website if the website for supposed
• 1:09:50
  christiancolleges.org on the back of it or Hiles Anderson.
• 1:09:54
  Now they they mask themselves asa.edu when and then they'll
• 1:10:00
  talk about you. You look at their website for
• 1:10:02
  accreditation, but anything with a.org, hightail it and run a
• 1:10:08
  Bible college with a.org website.
• 1:10:11
  Stay away. So that's what one of the things
• 1:10:14
  I would say is I tell pastor there are tons, tons and tons of
• 1:10:19
  amazing, great universities out there with online.
• 1:10:22
  You can go to liberty, you can go to Luther.
• 1:10:25
  I'll tell you Luther Rice, New Orleans where you're going for
• 1:10:29
  the Southern Baptist is great. If somebody want you know,
• 1:10:32
  there's you've got Mission, which is great for the Christian
• 1:10:36
  Biola Bible Bible College or Viola University out in Los
• 1:10:43
  Angeles. Bible Institute of Los Angeles.
• 1:10:47
  Judson Maranatha is regionally accredited up in Wisconsin.
• 1:10:53
  Bob Jones and Pensacola. Yes, they carry tracks
• 1:10:56
  accreditation, but they are accredited today Buller
• 1:10:59
  seminaries very well. Grand Canyon is another
• 1:11:02
  Christian university. So I've just given a really
• 1:11:05
  great group of good universities work with solid evident programs
• 1:11:12
  that pastors can go to or again, they can go get the I think it's
• 1:11:15
  the ICBC. Am I correct, James?
• 1:11:18
  Yeah, IBCD. IBCD.
• 1:11:21
  ACBC biblical counseling certification.
• 1:11:24
  Yeah, and I've looked at those biblical, when I say looked at
• 1:11:26
  them, I've looked at them online.
• 1:11:27
  They're very rigorous. They're they're going to put you
• 1:11:30
  through a standard. The other thing is you have to
• 1:11:33
  have pastoral field training as part of your education.
• 1:11:36
  This this means that if you're going to go into pastoral care,
• 1:11:38
  it means you need to be under the care of a pastor sitting
• 1:11:43
  there in a trauma room. If, if, if somebody tells me,
• 1:11:50
  oh, well, I never spent time in a thing.
• 1:11:52
  Well, how can I expect you to handle grieving family members
• 1:11:56
  if you have never spent time in a trauma thing?
• 1:12:00
  How do I know? I, I've never done statistical
• 1:12:03
  analysis or stat track on this, but military members who have
• 1:12:08
  served in Afghanistan and Iraq. And oh, by the way, I'll tell
• 1:12:10
  you guys right now. I was in Kuwait the day 9/11
• 1:12:13
  happened. And then ten years later, I, I
• 1:12:16
  go to Afghanistan 8 days after my daughter's born.
• 1:12:20
  I know guys who have served 678 times, suffering from PTSD, who
• 1:12:24
  have gone to Iraq. And if they want to go to a
• 1:12:27
  Christian counselor. What I'm worried about is
• 1:12:30
  somebody with an IFB pastor who claims to be a counselor who,
• 1:12:34
  who tell them, oh, pray hard enough.
• 1:12:36
  Well, how do you feel if, and, and again, I'm hypothesizing
• 1:12:41
  here, how are you guys going to feel that you've given that guy
• 1:12:45
  past all care as an IFB minister or claim to be a pastoral care
• 1:12:49
  expert or under Paul Kingsbury's recovering.
• 1:12:53
  But whatever the the thing was, again, I'm bad with names
• 1:12:57
  sometimes and that service member goes out and commits
• 1:13:01
  suicide. So this is the part that
• 1:13:07
  irritates me to this end, because you're, you're playing
• 1:13:11
  with lives here, you're playing with people's lives, all because
• 1:13:15
  you want to scape up and scope out your numbers for those guys
• 1:13:19
  looking to leave the IFB faith. It is true.
• 1:13:23
  You're going to have to start over again.
• 1:13:25
  It's the the the hateful truths. Yeah.
• 1:13:28
  And, you know, I think that yeah, go.
• 1:13:30
  Ahead, yeah. It's just like as I was, you
• 1:13:35
  were talking about something as far as just the way the training
• 1:13:37
  is and how quickly someone can go in the ministry that I had a
• 1:13:41
  conversation just a couple of years ago with some guys that
• 1:13:43
  were part of the Presbyterian Church.
• 1:13:46
  And you know, they have some theological differences in us, a
• 1:13:49
  couple of areas. For the most part, they're very
• 1:13:51
  well balanced and solid. But one of the things about the
• 1:13:55
  Presbyterians is you have to go through many years of training,
• 1:14:00
  education, apprenticeship, almost of serving under someone
• 1:14:04
  before you can even be a pastor. It's not just only for your
• 1:14:06
  Bible college. Boom, go start a church, which
• 1:14:09
  is why the IFB blew up so quickly.
• 1:14:12
  As far as numbers, it's because they were just sending guys like
• 1:14:15
  crazy without training. And then you got the the abuse
• 1:14:18
  scandal. Everything that comes to that
• 1:14:20
  where Presbyterian. I mean, they're 10 or 12 years
• 1:14:23
  in training before they even plan a church or pastor a
• 1:14:26
  church. So it, it takes a little bit
• 1:14:29
  longer for the size to be there. But man, once they get out
• 1:14:33
  there, they're solid, they're grounded.
• 1:14:34
  They're they're they're teaching biblical truth and the churches
• 1:14:38
  are healthy, which is the difference in that you can see
• 1:14:41
  there of the two churches and the the dominations.
• 1:14:44
  And real real quick, one thing I want to highlight, the Methodist
• 1:14:47
  require that as well too. Yeah, I haven't done as much
• 1:14:49
  research on that side. No, no, completely understand.
• 1:14:52
  I just want to let you know that's from talking to my local
• 1:14:54
  folks. Brad, I promise.
• 1:14:56
  I'm I'm shutting up now. You're fine.
• 1:14:59
  I didn't want to mention because you talked about, you know,
• 1:15:01
  infield training. I do want to highlight that New
• 1:15:05
  Orleans, the program that I'm in, you know, if it, it does
• 1:15:09
  require that requires to go out there.
• 1:15:12
  I've had to spend several hour. A lot of my credit hours are
• 1:15:17
  finding and most of my schooling is online.
• 1:15:20
  I live about, you know, 3 hours away from the seminary, but I
• 1:15:24
  still have to these classes, I have to go find these, these
• 1:15:27
  pastors that, you know, they're doctors, they're trained and
• 1:15:31
  then go study under them and learn under them.
• 1:15:33
  And then I talked to several people who went on past the
• 1:15:37
  master to the, to the doctorate, either got a PhD or doctor
• 1:15:41
  ministry. And they say that while the
• 1:15:43
  Master is mostly the classroom work, the, the the Doctor is, is
• 1:15:48
  even more infield experience. It's, it's hands on and, and
• 1:15:53
  that's where you're going to learn at.
• 1:15:55
  And that made me want to go to get the doctorate even more
• 1:15:59
  because a lot of them said they enjoyed getting the doctorate
• 1:16:02
  more than they enjoyed getting the Masters.
• 1:16:04
  And so I think that infield experience, it's, it's needed.
• 1:16:09
  It's where you learn at. You're going to learn in the
• 1:16:11
  field, you get the knowledge in the classroom, but out there,
• 1:16:16
  you know, in the field, in the ministry, sitting in there
• 1:16:20
  talking to real people, that's where you're really going to
• 1:16:23
  learn. And New Orleans definitely is,
• 1:16:26
  is doing that. So I just wanted to give a plug
• 1:16:28
  for them. Yeah, no, I appreciate that.
• 1:16:31
  And and and I'll plug New Orleans all day long, much like
• 1:16:34
  I know again here in really it depends on where you go.
• 1:16:40
  I know the Methodist Church work turn all over the place.
• 1:16:42
  There are some very left-leaning progressives.
• 1:16:45
  I live, I will admit, is a very progressive seminary out in out
• 1:16:49
  in Denver area. I don't agree with them, but and
• 1:16:55
  I had been accepted there, but very expensive and I was also
• 1:16:58
  stationed 90 minutes north and I just didn't have the ability to
• 1:17:01
  do that. Asbury in Kentucky, which yeah,
• 1:17:06
  I think you guys are familiar with the Asbury revival.
• 1:17:09
  Asbury's a Asbury's another interdenominational 1
• 1:17:13
  conservative, but they do have agreements with the method
• 1:17:16
  district. There are some very good main.
• 1:17:19
  When I say mainline, I do think liberties become mainline.
• 1:17:23
  I, I know folks who go from different Christian religions
• 1:17:28
  and I could, again, we could have philosophical debates.
• 1:17:31
  I've seen when I was studying public policy.
• 1:17:34
  So I'll use the ESB. That's my preferred vision for
• 1:17:38
  my biblical integration. I've seen people use the King
• 1:17:41
  James Version and it's interesting when you're a
• 1:17:45
  student in a PhD program or, or studying the for your doctorate.
• 1:17:50
  And let me emphasize this. The difference between a PhD and
• 1:17:53
  a doctorate is specifically the type of research folks too.
• 1:17:58
  So if somebody says I've got a doctorate or I think it's a THM
• 1:18:02
  or a doctorate in a theology, what they've done is they've
• 1:18:07
  done research in a real world problem.
• 1:18:12
  So they found a real world problem and they've researched
• 1:18:14
  it. So there's still a doctor in the
• 1:18:17
  classroom. It's just the research that
• 1:18:19
  they've done a PhD, which is a doctorate of philosophy.
• 1:18:24
  You're focusing in on new and emerging research.
• 1:18:28
  So you're you're looking at a new field, you're doing doing
• 1:18:32
  specifics in another area. So for me, I am pursuing APHD.
• 1:18:37
  My research area is looking to trail into probably leadership
• 1:18:45
  because I think it's an under, it's a very it's an area lots of
• 1:18:51
  great. You know, lots of folks will run
• 1:18:53
  around calling themselves leaders, but they act more like
• 1:18:55
  managers and I don't think anybody fully comprehends the
• 1:18:58
  difference of it. I'm looking at incorporating
• 1:19:01
  Covey and Carnegie in my research.
• 1:19:03
  So I tell folks read Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly
• 1:19:07
  Effective People and Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends
• 1:19:09
  and influence people. They are, are they secular
• 1:19:12
  books? Yes, they are, but they do come
• 1:19:14
  with Covey is very influent. He has a lot of religious
• 1:19:18
  influences in that are inferred in his view of the Seven Habits
• 1:19:23
  and even in his follow up book, The 8th Habit.
• 1:19:27
  He is a Mormon. He was raised in the LDS Church,
• 1:19:31
  but there is Christian, again, it's Christian influence, but
• 1:19:35
  enough to be secular that it can apply to everybody.
• 1:19:40
  But it's a good book and I would encourage anybody to read it it.
• 1:19:43
  It's a good starting place for somebody who might be looking to
• 1:19:46
  get out. The problem is, though, most
• 1:19:48
  folks will read the book once, put it down, and that's where
• 1:19:51
  it's. Both Kearney and Covey have
• 1:19:54
  earned the pop psychology where the the, you know, oh, it's just
• 1:20:01
  looks good. My view is I think it's not been
• 1:20:06
  really explored. So that's why I'm I'm looking at
• 1:20:09
  where I want to go, but more of applying it to emerging theory.
• 1:20:15
  The other thing too is. You have to make sure your, your
• 1:20:19
  head might tell you something, but you can't make the move
• 1:20:21
  until your heart's in it from a, you know that.
• 1:20:25
  And that's for a path through to go pursue education.
• 1:20:28
  And Brad, I was going to say, man, you, if you pursue the PhD
• 1:20:31
  or the doctorate route, I think you're doing a great thing,
• 1:20:33
  especially the academic route. And, and I'll tell you what,
• 1:20:37
  once you get into that level, guys like us, we, we, we tend to
• 1:20:41
  be a lot think different, thinking our, our world view is
• 1:20:45
  going to be a little different, but we tend to still be pretty
• 1:20:48
  humble. Again, you know, when you go
• 1:20:51
  down that route, man, we start talking.
• 1:20:52
  I'll, I'll give you everything you need to know in terms of
• 1:20:56
  where to, where to go with that. Nothing negative like James, if
• 1:20:59
  you decide you want to pursue the higher level, I, I know you
• 1:21:02
  may be like, Hey, I just want to keep doing certifications, which
• 1:21:05
  is fine. Again, that's.
• 1:21:08
  Higher education, master's level, doctor level, man, that's
• 1:21:11
  for the birds. But, and some guys love it and
• 1:21:15
  they're for it, but I just, I have So what?
• 1:21:19
  What I was going to say though is the horizontal level where
• 1:21:21
  you're at, though you're expanding on it, you're
• 1:21:23
  expanding the depth, depth that's helping people at A at a
• 1:21:27
  lower level with the decision making, which isn't as
• 1:21:30
  theoretical. And that's what I think it.
• 1:21:32
  And that's the ability that's also leadership in general,
• 1:21:36
  different little bit of a different kind of leadership,
• 1:21:38
  but I still think it's very leadership driven because you're
• 1:21:40
  leading people much like a pastor as the CEO leads people.
• 1:21:44
  It it is just there. There's ways to do it.
• 1:21:47
  You can go vertically to be higher and look for new ways.
• 1:21:50
  It can be horizontal and you're kind of I want to stay in my
• 1:21:53
  church. I want to be where I'm at, but
• 1:21:56
  you cannot leave the church. Anybody can't leave the church
• 1:21:59
  and you can't look to do anything until you're heading
• 1:22:03
  part agree that's. Right.
• 1:22:05
  Well, thanks, Bryce for coming on today.
• 1:22:07
  I know it's been a long conversation.
• 1:22:08
  Things been great. Yeah.
• 1:22:10
  You have enjoyed today and I hope you've enjoyed this
• 1:22:14
  episode. If this has encouraged you, like
• 1:22:16
  and share it, share it with other people on social media.
• 1:22:19
  Until next time to God, to the. Glory.
• 1:22:22
  Great things he has done. Found my new name, Found that
• 1:22:34
  good grace, found that healing. And the tears fell down my face
• 1:22:39
  when I found my beginning. It has no ending.
• 1:22:42
  I found that second chance. Found my best friend, Found my
• 1:22:44
  forgiveness, found my happiness. I've been singing ever since I
• 1:22:47
  found my. Feet on me.
• 1:23:02
  Thanks for listening to the Four Freedom Podcast.
• 1:23:06
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• 1:23:09
  subscribing, or sharing our podcast or whichever podcast
• 1:23:13
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• 1:23:16
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