Latest / Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews / Tim Timmons on I Can Only Imagine 2 and Living with Cancer

Transcript

Tim Timmons on I Can Only Imagine 2 and Living with Cancer · Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Life audio. Tim Timmins featured in a new IM second
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: film and of course and I can only imagine two
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: that's your story in Vart Miller's story. Of course. I
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: really enjoyed both of these immensely. Tim. I just want
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: to start off by referencing the IM second film. You
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: were diagnosed with cancer about how many years ago and
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: you were given in five years to live. How many
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: years is that?
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, so it was twenty five years ago. They
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: gave me five years to live, Yeah, and curable cancer
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: stage four. Still tumors of my litter today, wearing out
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: my heart and this bald guy got to wake up again.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Amen to that.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: You said in the im second film. This is one
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: thing that really piqued my interest that you were going
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: through a period of deconstruction and reconstruction during that time.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: What did that look like? And how did you rebuild
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: your faith?
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I don't know. I mean, there's so many different
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: seasons of questioning God, and I think early on it's
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: kind of like, don't do that. You don't want to, like,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: you don't want to throw this whole thing out if
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: you start asking real questions like what could happen? And
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: I just don't see that biblically. And I think there's
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: such a beauty in wrestling and questions about God and
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: honesty with God. And so I think I've had a
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: few really great mentors that have encouraged me to just
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: just be honest. It's not like you're shocking God by
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: my questions or by my strong words at him or
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: about him or whatever. And I just there's been such
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: a freedom in knowing that He can handle these things.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: And I can say that I don't know about this,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know God, this sucks, this is hard, or yeah,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: I think there's something really beautiful. A friend of mine, Susie,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: she has called it the detangling. Instead of like deconstructing
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: my whole faith, there's almost been I'm like a detangling
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: of all the little little strands that you kind of
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: got none of that and we're like, no, that's probably
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: actually not the real heart of God. That might be
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: like our religious Christian Western Christian idea of God. But
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: I want to detangle my faith enough to see a
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: bigger view of actual God.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Amen to that you mentioned in the I Am Second film,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: and it's referenced of course, And I can only imagine
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: too as well that you said homeless people and you,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you worked at a homeless shelter
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: or what exactly it was. Tell us what you did
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: there and kind of how it strengthened your faith or
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: impacted your faith.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Man, I had just been a worship leader at
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: a ginormous church in Orange County, California, and two really
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: huge churches there that were really successful and awesome. And
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: I after fifteen years of doing that, however, we left.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: We left being awesome big pastors. And we just started
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: hanging out this nasty motel, just like this little place
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: that's near one of the richest places in America, and
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: it's a hotel where, you know, you've got a bunch
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: of homeless crew that live there. You've got a mom
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: with ten kids living in one bedroom. You've got prostitutes,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: they're pimps working out of this place. And a friend
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: just invited us to come and just hang out with
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: these people. And I remember going, man, blissed of the
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: porn spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God. The
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: people that don't fit in our gatherings. And this girl
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: she does certain things at night and I play guitar
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: for a living and write songs. But like, what if
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: we're both trying to figure out if Jesus is actually real?
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Like what could happen if we both tried to figure
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: this thing out together and we're both orient our lives,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: orienting our lives toward the heart of Jesus. And it
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: really shaped Hillary and I and my wife and I
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: in a huge way, thinking, oh, church, you can't even
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: go to church Biblically, we say, like, come to church,
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: which is not even biblical. It's who we are gathered
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: and scattered. And I just was like, man, this crew
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: taught us so much about about hardship and grief and
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: messy and how to see Jesus in the midst of it.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: So that will forever be one of the greatest gifts
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: to Hilary. And I.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Did it help you put your own trial in perspective?
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: I think so. I mean, you know, people, I was
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: given five years to live twenty five years ago in
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: curable cancer stage four. There's still tumors on my liver today,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: wearing out my heart up. They say, but I got
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: to wake up again today and write this X of
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: my rich which we'll talk about. But people are always like, well,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: I haven't gone through what you've gone through. I'm like, well, man,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: you're going through something, and whatever sorrow you're going through,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: sorrow understands sorrow. Sorrow is just painful either way. So
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: I think in that season it wasn't about comparing, like
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: which which sorrow is hard. It was more like, man,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: life's just hard, and you're on the street, dude, and
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: this stuff. And we grew up real different and if
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: I had the same upbringing as you had, I'd be
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: in the same spot. And so it's like all of
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: us just have hard things and heavy things to hold.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: It's just how we hold them and how we hold
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: them together. I think is kind of the invitation the movie.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: I can only imagine who picks up right around what
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: we're talking about. You come into Bart Miller's life. You're talking,
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: you know, I think they're told this guy Tim Timmans
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: work is at a homeless shelter. What do you remember
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: about Bart after you met him for the first time,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: and did you realize that you were impacting him positively? No,
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: I am. I'd quit working for God at that point, so,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: which is another piece of my journey that i'd worked
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: for God. My whole life. I've been an awesome varsity
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: American Christian. Like, try to beat me. If you want
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: to do a sword drill with the Bible, all beat you.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm awesome. I've done my quiet times. I mean,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: I'm just awesome. And once I left being a pastor,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: if you will, like just a full time guy, I
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: quit working for God, working for God to suck the
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: life out of me. It was like exhausting trying to
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: evangelize for him, trying to do all these good things
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: for him, trying to feed the homeless for him, I mean,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: just all these things for him. And I said, I'm
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: gonna never work for you again. I'm exhausted. I'm just
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: gonna hang out with you for the rest of my days.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: So included in that me quitting working for God was
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: me also quitting schmoozing people to get what I want
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: and what I think is best for God's kingdom. And
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: so I actually was like, I'm not gonna shrewbooos, barred
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: or try to get in with those guys. I mean,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: we'll be friendly and we'll have fun together, but I'm
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: not going to try to like make my way in there.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: It's just not my job. That's Jesus' job, it's not mine.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: So I mean, we got a lot of fun. We
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: talked and enjoyed each other. But then on that first
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: tour we really became close and it was like, oh,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: I think we just found really close friends right here.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it's been so fun. Our wives are best friends,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: our kids are best friends, and I'm on tour with
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: him right now. So yeah, I didn't know I was
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: impacting people. But isn't that the gift of just living today?
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Like if we're joining Jesus that's our one job, then
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I get to love the clerk at
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: the grocery store today, Like, yeah, it's way more fun
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: than like working for him.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: He remembers kind of being annoyed by you. Did you
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: sense that at all?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he is full of it. He's full of it.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: He's totally full of it. Nobody likes that guy. No, Yeah,
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: I mean we had just had a friend. We had
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: just had a friend who told me the night before
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: who's one of a really good mutual friends. He's like, dude,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: I think you guys are going to be best friends.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: And so I just told Barta said, dude, I was
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: just talking to I was just talking to our friend Matt,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: and he says, we're supposed to be best friend, so
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: you know, who knows? And yeah, Bart was going through
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: a hard time in that season, and he was yeah.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: I mean for a guy like Bart, you know, fame
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: is a really dangerous thing, and I think in the
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Christian world it's even more dangerous in a lot of ways.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: And I think everybody wants something from Bart and from
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: famous people, and I just decided I don't want to
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: be that guy. I don't want to be the guy
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: who wants something from him. So I'm just me and
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: I'm just kind of a dork and I have a
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: lot of fun in life. And I'm sure at the
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: beginning is like who is this yahoo?
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: So yeah, let's talk about how this became a movie.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: At what point did you realize it might be movie?
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: And how did that begin? I mean, what was the
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: spark for the film?
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I think my good look, to be honest, I
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: really themed seemed to be a big impetus for that.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: And it hurts me that you at that. No, I
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: they wanted to do a movie, a second movie. One
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: of the producers, Cindy Bond, wanted to do another one
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: about even if she loved that song so much, and
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: they were gonna try to get some fan mail, to
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: get some stories just from people that have listened to
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: the song and have been encouraging, and everybody's like, nah,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: we don't want to do it. Who needs another movie
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: about us? Which I love about the whole Mercy Meat
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Crew by the way, that they're not like, you know
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: what we should do, we should do another movie about us,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Like they were like, no, we don't need that. No,
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: not too And then once he and one of the
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: other producers, Brent Writer producers, got together and kind of
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: he told Brent his journey with Sam and then how
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: my journey with cancer. Brent's like, uh, oh, I think
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: you just found your movie. So yeah, I just I
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: don't take myself that serious and don't think I'm that awesome,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: to be honest, And so this is just kind of
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: a fun season for us to go great Jesus, you
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: open this door. It's not something we've opened or tried
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: to make happen, and so we get to love people
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: that are in front of us.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: There's my events. Midleia portrays you did you were you
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: fired up? When you learned who was gonna play you
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: in the movie.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I knew who he was just because
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: my girls watch Gilmore girls, like you know, religiously, they
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: know that way better than they know the Bible, which
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: is a proud parent moment. And I remember telling my daughter, like, Babe,
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: I think my love and Tamilias coulda played me, and
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: she's like, she started crying in my living room. My heir,
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: I'm like, babe, you can't cry. But the dude that's
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: playing your dad, you know that, like you know. So, yeah,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: it's been pretty fun. And he's like one of the
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: greatest humans around. He acts more like Jesus than most
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Christians I know, which is fascinating and you got to
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: put that into your theology as well and try to
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: figure out how that works, because the way that he
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: loves is like the heart of Jesus. Like he'll always
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: put me in the highest place of honor, even though
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: he's the guy, like he's the dude, right, but he'll
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: he'll make sure I'm in the highest place of honor.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: He gets to know. He got to know everybody's name
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: on set and something about them, and he like serves
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: people the whole time, I'm like, dude, I you know,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: And I told him our first hang, I said, just
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: so you know, I will never try to like proselytize
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: you or get you into my Christian club, just so
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: you know, I just want to be friends and love
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: you well and learn from each other. And so that's
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: kind of been our relationship. And man, he looks a
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: lot like Jesus in a lot of ways, and I'm
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: really challenged by him and encouraged by him. And I
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: think the same goes for him too, which has been
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: so special.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: As we began closing, let's talk about what you do
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: right on your wrist every morning. It's in the film,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: and the movie you say it initially stood for the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Christ and it's a daily ritual. Now I'm curious, what
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: was the first day like when you did that? Were
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: you inspired by something you had read, something you had seen?
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: How did this all start?
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Before I got I found out about cancer, there
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: was a scripture that kept coming up from me to
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: live as Christ, to die is gain and I kept
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: hearing it everywhere I went. I was teaching on it,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: or I would like hear on the radio. It was
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: just such a weird, like, man, this is too weird
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: to be just coincidence. And so I kind of became
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: my life verse like for me to live as Christ,
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: to die, to die is gain. And then I found
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: out about cancer and they gave me five years to live,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: and it was like, okay, wow, this just got real
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: that my life is to live with Jesus, not for them,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: but just with them. And so when I wrote the
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: ex used to stand for the Christ. And so when
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: I just said I'm done trying to live for me
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: and build my kingdom, my kingdom is so silly. So Jesus,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: this is about you. I just get to hang with
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: you for the rest of my days. And if you
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: waited me up again, I will write Christ on my wrist,
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: remembering that I get to be a representer of you
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: to anybody.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: In front of me.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: I get to join you in the cool things that
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: you're doing, and I don't have to be awesome. In fact,
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: it's better if I'm not awesome. So that's kind of
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: why I started writing it. And then it was like
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: every day I kids, I get to wake up again.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: So that's that's a that's a real big gift.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Is it, as Sharpie? What kind of market do you
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: use for this?
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a sharp but again I don't know.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: I just it's all I have. And I just started
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: writing the X on my wrist and somebody's like, well,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: you're gonna get sick. I'm like, you know what, maybe
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: then don't write next on your wrist. But for me,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: I'm like, if I get something because I'm remembering Jesus
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: all day long, I'm fine. And if that's how, if
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: I get taken, that's like, man, okay, that's great, sue me.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: So for me, it's just it's a daily instead of
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: a tattoo, it's the daily reminder of like this, I
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: would get good at what I practice. I'm going to
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: practice being present and aware and saying Jesus you have
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: my attention. Today, Hillary and I wrote a book called
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Waking Up Again, and the whole concept of it is
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: how do we wake up more intentionally? And I want
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: to I just to give you Jesus people, if we
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: can wake up and join Jesus. I mean, imagine what
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: could happen even in our country alone, if Jesus people
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: stopped just doing our religious thing, but we just began
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: to say Jesus, you have my attention. I want to
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: wake up today and be more intentional about just joining
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: you and what you're doing. Man, then we're going to
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: be hated because we are the biggest blessers of others.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: We bless our enemies. We are the people who people
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: hate because we are so generous that it's like, man,
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: you know, let's hate us for that. So anyways, I
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: get really excited about if Jesus people begin to actually
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: practice the heart of Jesus in the world. So that's
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: why I write music, That's why I'm writing books, is
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: putting this stuff out there and inviting Jesus people to
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: join them.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Amen to that. Let's as we do close, let's chat
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: briefly about your ten thousand minutes ministry podcasts all of
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: that for those who are just learning about this. What
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: is ten thousand minutes? And I can they find out
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: more information about it?
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, everybody there, you're welcome. Ahead of time.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: There are ten thousan on an eighty minutes in a week.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, you feel better by your life right time
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: those eighty minutes in a week. Eighty of those minutes
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: are spent in some church gathering. If that's what you do,
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: which is awesome building or a coffee shop or something.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: But eighty minutes that we gather as the church, and
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: there are ten thousand other minutes until we gather again.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: And I'm so good in those eighty but somebody cuts
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: me off for the ten thousand minutes, and I have
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: other things to show them, right, And yet Jesus is like, no,
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: in the ten thousand minutes. What if you practiced my
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: heart in the ten thousandnutes, what have you started praying
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: blessing for that person to just cut you off? Instead
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: of curses and memes, we just started like putting all
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: these little practices and into play. I think Christians are
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: so fat on content Christian content, but so anemic in
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: the way of practicing the heart of Jesus. And so
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: I just wanted to be found inviting the church with
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: me because as I'm doing this every day, going man,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: I keep blowing it and Jesus keeps disrupting me. What
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: can happen if Jesus people practice the heart of Jesus.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: So that's the whole idea of ten thousand minutes, is
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: giving us practices that we can do every week.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Ten thousand minutes dot com. I believe is. The website
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: is a ten Yeah, zero minutes dot com. If you
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: like today's episode, please subscribe and leave a five star review.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: That's how we help more people just like you find
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: the show. A big thanks to the team at life
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast. If
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: you go to lifeaudio dot com, you will find dozens
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: of other faith centered podcasts in their network.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: See you next time.