Latest / Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News / Chicago pastor Corey Brooks halts walk for surgery while fighting America’s youth crisis

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Chicago pastor Corey Brooks halts walk for surgery while fighting America’s youth crisis · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:08
  You're listening to the Hidden Lightness on America Out Loud Talk Radio.
• 0:12
  I'm your host, Jimmy Hinton.
• 0:13
  If you remember, Pastor Corey Brooks from Chicago is doing a walk across America.
• 0:21
  He's uh spending an entire year walking across America, raising awareness for youth in Chicago.
• 0:32
  Youth in Chicago face a lot of uphill struggles.
• 0:37
  Uh Chicago is some parts of Chicago anyway, are known for uh some pretty rough activity.
• 0:46
  And Pastor Corey Brooks, if you also remember, spent months on top of a roof.
• 0:54
  And he uh he decided to not come down and was raising awareness to raise money for a project, uh, and uh he is bringing help to the youth, bringing awareness, bringing mentorship and developing skill sets for employment.
• 1:16
  And uh this is a really cool thing, but his walk across America is taking a pause.
• 1:23
  We're gonna talk about this today.
• 1:25
  Uh, in fact, Corey Brooks wrote a piece, it's an opinion piece on Fox News on why he's taken a break and his walk across America.
• 1:36
  I believe he's 190 days in, and he's got to stop.
• 1:43
  So his article is why my walk across America must pause and why it's not ending anytime soon.
• 1:51
  Rooftop revelations, I believe in the power of prayer, the way I believe in breathing.
• 1:57
  I love that.
• 1:58
  Absolutely love that.
• 1:59
  He said, I need it right now.
• 2:00
  Please pray for me.
• 2:02
  I believe in the power of prayer, the way that I believe in breathing.
• 2:08
  Boy, I wish more people took that stance.
• 2:11
  I also am a believer in prayer.
• 2:13
  I believe that without prayer, uh, we're pretty much sitting ducks, and there's not a whole lot that we can do.
• 2:24
  Uh, you know, we can do kind things, certainly.
• 2:26
  Uh, I'm not saying that unbelievers uh have no merit in this world.
• 2:33
  That's certainly not true.
• 2:35
  I I don't feel that.
• 2:38
  But at the same time, there are things that are so huge, and when we're up against uh a giant, I believe that God is the only one who can walk us through that.
• 2:48
  I believe that uh miracles happen in in a lot of different forms.
• 2:54
  I was just uh again reading up on North Carolina and the rebuilding after Hurricane Helene, and I believe that a miracle has happened, and it's not that God waved his his wand and fixed things up, it's that people showed up and they continue to show up.
• 3:17
  And what was first viewed as an impossibility is now becoming a reality that entire towns are being rebuilt because of sheer manpower, people showing up.
• 3:30
  That's a miracle.
• 3:32
  I don't believe that just happens.
• 3:33
  I don't believe it's coincidence, I don't believe in coincidences.
• 3:38
  I think that everything happens for a reason and that God uses us, God uses us to show up whenever people need us the most.
• 3:50
  I believe he reveals that to us, he uh he puts certain things on our minds and on our hearts, and we show up at the right place at the right time.
• 4:02
  Or in our lives, people show up for us at the right place and the right time.
• 4:09
  So I will read a little bit from what Pastor Corey Brooks wrote here, and excuse my voice and and nose here.
• 4:19
  I'm um fighting allergies, and uh according to the uh weather report, the allergens are low, but I just don't buy it.
• 4:31
  I am really uh struggling here in my in my throat and and mostly lungs.
• 4:37
  But at any rate, after over 190 days of walking across America through heat and cold, through towns and forgotten highways, through moments of extraordinary grace and moments of bone-deep exhaustion, the doctors have told me I must pause.
• 4:56
  Surgery on my heel is scheduled for March 30, and next Thursday, I must see a cardiologist as well.
• 5:05
  I did not plan for this.
• 5:10
  But I would be lying to you if I stood here and pretended I was not emotionally broken tonight.
• 5:16
  This journey has taken everything out of me on a physical, spiritual, and emotional level.
• 5:23
  Every reserve I had when I started this walk, I've spent.
• 5:27
  There's nothing left in the tank that I put there myself.
• 5:33
  I mean, you can hear the exhaustion on Pastor Corey Brooks.
• 5:37
  You can hear the exhaustion.
• 5:40
  And I get it.
• 5:42
  Yeah, ministry to begin with is really tough, but when God has placed a burden like this on his on his heart.
• 5:51
  The burden to raise, he's raising 47 million dollars, by the way.
• 5:56
  And we'll get into that a little bit later for why he's raising money, what he's raising money for.
• 6:02
  47 million dollars is a lot.
• 6:06
  But he goes on to say it's it's not about the money.
• 6:10
  You know, the the exhaustion and even the drive to do this walk is it's not about the money.
• 6:18
  It's about helping people who are in need.
• 6:22
  And our youth right now are facing a whole lot of struggles in America.
• 6:27
  And while I believe in the youth and I brag about the youth, and I will continue to do so.
• 6:33
  I'll continue to brag about the youth in America because I think that's the only way.
• 6:38
  I think trash talking them and talking about how worthless they are and how lazy they are, that's not gonna motivate them.
• 6:47
  That's certainly not gonna help them.
• 6:49
  That's not gonna transform their lives.
• 6:55
  I don't understand.
• 6:56
  I've never understood what people think they're gonna accomplish by talking down to kids.
• 7:04
  Whether it's school teachers, I've heard pastors do it.
• 7:09
  It's very, very common for pastors to talk about the problems of the problems we have with the youth.
• 7:17
  You know, it's not like it was back in my day, you know, you hear things like that from the pulpit, and I just don't get it.
• 7:24
  I don't understand it.
• 7:27
  I can't imagine thinking that the youth sitting in the audience are sitting there like stoking that up, saying, Man, this really encourages me.
• 7:38
  This really motivates me to do good.
• 7:42
  I just don't understand it.
• 7:45
  I don't understand why people take that approach.
• 7:50
  Employers, when they trash talk young people.
• 7:55
  They're lazy, they don't want to work, they're worthless.
• 8:00
  And then you wonder why you're having a hard time getting people to work for you.
• 8:05
  You know, people are not, they're not dumb.
• 8:09
  And when they hear you trashing them, talking about how bad they are, how lazy they are, why would they want to work for you?
• 8:16
  Or why would they want to attend your church?
• 8:18
  And what I've noticed is in a lot of the churches, when when they talk bad about the youth, it's typically because the youth have already been leaving and they're mostly left with adults, and they have aging populations, they're dying churches, and so they're their defense, I guess to justify why all the young people have left the church.
• 8:45
  The way that they justify that is to talk bad about the youth.
• 8:48
  Well, the youth don't love God anymore.
• 8:49
  The youth don't want to be at church anymore.
• 8:52
  The youth put sports over over church, you know, on and on and on.
• 8:56
  They'll give this laundry list of issues, and what they're doing, essentially, is they're justifying their bad behavior that caused the youth to leave in the first place.
• 9:10
  If the youth are not showing up at a church, the the problem is not with society.
• 9:18
  I promise you that.
• 9:20
  The problem is not with society, the problem is with something that's happening in the culture of that church.
• 9:29
  The church is the problem.
• 9:32
  And I'm not pointing fingers and saying that they're bad people.
• 9:35
  I'm just saying you've got to figure it out.
• 9:37
  You've got to figure out why the youth don't want to be there.
• 9:43
  And it's fixable.
• 9:46
  But to encourage the youth and to motivate the youth is it's a much better path.
• 9:52
  And so that's just kind of my own personal philosophy.
• 9:55
  I I choose to look at the good that young people are doing across America.
• 10:00
  And to really focus in on that.
• 10:03
  And to say, you know, we're not, they're not a lost cause.
• 10:08
  We're not doomed as a nation.
• 10:11
  I've heard that so many times in so many different ways, and it's been packaged in a lot of different ways.
• 10:16
  Well, we're we're doomed.
• 10:18
  These young people are snowflakes.
• 10:22
  I've heard that a lot.
• 10:24
  You know, the using derogatory terms to describe they're lazy, they're snowflakes, they're they're soft, they're uh, they're misguided, they're lazy, uh, they're dumb.
• 10:38
  You know, on and on and on.
• 10:40
  I've heard every single insult.
• 10:42
  So I want I do want to look at some of the issues that the youth are facing, and this will give a little bit of context for why Pastor Corey Brooks is so passionate about what he's doing.
• 10:55
  So they're they're basically a handful of crises that the youth in America are facing.
• 11:03
  And again, I'm not saying that this is their problem or that they created it.
• 11:09
  This is just informational.
• 11:11
  It is what it is.
• 11:13
  And so the question is how are we as adults going to respond to this?
• 11:17
  As parents, as uh pastors, as lay church members, as members of society in America.
• 11:26
  How are we going to respond to this?
• 11:29
  How are we going to respond, knowing what the problems are?
• 11:33
  And that's what I love about Pastor Corey Brooks.
• 11:37
  So, in order, these are the major issues facing the youth.
• 11:44
  Number one, the drug crisis.
• 11:47
  And it's not necessarily an issue of uh quantity.
• 11:54
  It's not that we have more young people doing drugs than ever before.
• 11:59
  In fact, the numbers are actually declining.
• 12:04
  But the crisis facing the American youth.
• 12:08
  It's very severe, but it's not about the number of teenagers experimenting with drugs, but it's about the extreme lethality of what they're consuming.
• 12:20
  At the very top of the list, it's the fentanyl factor.
• 12:24
  It's the proliferation of illicit fentanyl that's completely altered the landscape in America.
• 12:32
  Many overdose deaths are the result of counterfeit prescription pills, fake Xanax, fake percocette, fake Adderall, and they're laced with lethal doses of fentanyl.
• 12:49
  This is why I fully 100% support President Trump addressing the fentanyl issue in America and saying we've got it, we've got to close the border.
• 13:02
  Fentanyl is manufactured in mostly China and sent to the United States through Mexico and Canada, but mostly Mexico.
• 13:17
  And I just recently heard Tom Homan talking about the border again.
• 13:21
  I mean, he talks about it all the time.
• 13:22
  It's it's his job.
• 13:24
  But he says he's worked under, I think it's eight US presidents.
• 13:31
  And he said, I can tell you the border, he he just recently drove over hundreds of miles of the border, and he said, I did not see one illegal alien, not one.
• 13:46
  Not a single one.
• 13:47
  He said that is never happened before in the history of working uh for the federal government.
• 13:54
  He's never seen zero illegal aliens at the border.
• 14:03
  None.
• 14:05
  They're not even trying to come to America illegally.
• 14:11
  And that's a huge deal.
• 14:13
  That's a very big deal when it comes to fentanyl.
• 14:16
  And we're seeing those numbers come down dramatically.
• 14:19
  The fentanyl deaths in America have decreased by more than 10% year over year.
• 14:26
  That's huge.
• 14:29
  And we've got to get a grip on fentanyl.
• 14:32
  President Trump knows this, and he's taken every single measure to throw everything, including the kitchen sink at this problem.
• 14:41
  Because there is a one-pill reality, and our president knows it.
• 14:47
  Because fentanyl is so potent and cheaply manufactured.
• 14:52
  One single pill bought on social media can be absolutely fatal.
• 14:58
  It's turned what used to be considered normal teenage experimentation.
• 15:02
  You remember back in our day.
• 15:06
  People experimented with drugs and pot was the big thing.
• 15:10
  And uh, you know, that was kind of like the starter drug, the gateway drug.
• 15:15
  They talked about it at school.
• 15:17
  I never touched it.
• 15:19
  I just had zero interest.
• 15:22
  I never touched drugs of any kind.
• 15:25
  I took one per cassette when I was, I think I was 16 years old.
• 15:29
  I had my wisdom teeth out.
• 15:31
  I took one per cassette, and it was absolutely horrific.
• 15:36
  And I ended up throwing the whole bottle of pills out because it was terrible.
• 15:41
  It it just didn't drive with me.
• 15:44
  But back in the day, uh, that was that was the thing.
• 15:48
  It was it was pot.
• 15:50
  And of course, you know, there were other drugs, extit ecstasy and things like that, but uh it wasn't laced with fentanyl.
• 15:58
  And now, I mean, it's it's a it's a major problem.
• 16:02
  And so this has been highlighted that the potency of fentanyl is going, it's declining.
• 16:08
  It's being mixed with different things, and it's not as potent now because President Trump really tackled the fentanyl issue.
• 16:17
  Number two, big issue facing the youth in 2026, beyond the drug crisis, it's the mental health epic epidemic.
• 16:25
  The rates of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation among adolescent, it remains critically high.
• 16:33
  The mental health infrastructure in the United States is absolutely overwhelmed, and it leaves a lot of teenagers without access to the necessary therapy, more psychiatric care that they need.
• 16:45
  It's a very, very big problem, and uh we just need to be aware of this.
• 16:50
  Well, we're coming up on a break here.
• 16:52
  We will talk more about Pastor Corey Brooks and his pause on his walk across the nation and what he's walking for, when he's gonna start walking again.
• 17:03
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• 19:25
  Pastor Corey Brooks is taking a pause.
• 19:29
  He's 190 days in for his walk across America.
• 19:34
  And uh it's a very, very worthy cause.
• 19:39
  And we're going to talk about that in a while.
• 19:41
  He's raising, I think it's uh 47 million dollars, which is absolutely incredible.
• 19:49
  And that's going to help the youth in Chicago with a great big uh youth center, and we'll talk about the nuts and bolts of what that is gonna do and
• 20:00
  What it's going to accomplish.
• 20:01
  And I think he's going to do it.
• 20:03
  I really do.
• 20:04
  He's a man of prayer.
• 20:06
  And he has a great vision for transforming youth in America, and particularly in Chicago, where he's from.
• 20:14
  And this is what this show is all about, folks.
• 20:17
  It's about finding people who have that hidden lightness.
• 20:22
  And who bring awareness to issues.
• 20:26
  And they do something about it.
• 20:29
  This is absolutely incredible to me.
• 20:32
  Absolutely incredible that he's taken this kind of initiative.
• 20:36
  And that one person, this is what I'm talking about.
• 20:39
  I talk about this so often.
• 20:41
  One person can make such a big impact.
• 20:45
  We see it every single day.
• 20:49
  One person makes a huge impact.
• 20:53
  And that can be for good or for bad.
• 20:56
  You know, so don't mishear me here and think that people only make influence or impact for for the good, because as much as we can do that for good, we can also do it for bad.
• 21:08
  So the question is are we using our influence for good or for bad?
• 21:15
  All right.
• 21:16
  So before we get into the nuts and bolts of what Pastor Corey Brooks is doing, I want to talk about the issues that are facing the youth in 2026.
• 21:27
  We have a lot of big issues that are definitely, definitely facing young people.
• 21:38
  The drug crisis is definitely at the top of the list.
• 21:43
  It's the lethality of drug use, though the drug epidemic is starting to get under control somewhat, at least with the overdose deaths.
• 21:56
  Now, drug use in America is still really bad.
• 21:59
  I think that we're naive if we don't believe that.
• 22:04
  It's very bad.
• 22:07
  It's always been a problem.
• 22:10
  It always will be a problem.
• 22:12
  But President Trump has worked very hard to bring the lethality of the drug factor down.
• 22:19
  And particularly, he's fighting the fentanyl that's been pouring over the borders.
• 22:23
  And I think that's a very, very good thing.
• 22:31
  It's good for parents.
• 22:33
  It's good for everybody.
• 22:36
  We've got to stop allowing people to die, especially young people because of this fentanyl issue.
• 22:44
  I know of I know of quite a few people who've lost their lives, people I've been friends with, uh, neighbors, people I know, and it's it's terrible, and it is the fentanyl factor.
• 22:57
  It's a huge issue in America right now, but as I mentioned, the fentanyl overdoses have decreased by 10% year over year from 2024 to the end of 2025, just a couple months ago.
• 23:15
  So it is getting much better, and I'm kind of anxious to see where where the numbers fall at the end of 2026.
• 23:23
  But I was saying before the break, Tom Holman said that he just drove across a few hundred miles of the southern border, uh the US Mexico border, and he said, I did not see one illegal alien, not one.
• 23:42
  Nobody was peeking through the fence, nobody was loitering next to the fence, not one.
• 23:49
  Nobody's trying to get into America right now illegally.
• 23:54
  And that's huge.
• 23:56
  You can say what you want about Trump's policies and the way that ICE has enacted some of these laws.
• 24:04
  I think that's fair.
• 24:06
  I think it's absolutely 100% fair to question their tactics.
• 24:11
  That's perfectly fine.
• 24:14
  But nobody can deny that America is safer because our border is secure.
• 24:19
  I'm not talking about deporting people, I'm talking about the border.
• 24:25
  Right now at the border, we don't have the drug trafficking, the drugs pouring over the border, we don't have unvetted people pouring across the border, we don't have young people being raped and trafficked at the border.
• 24:40
  That all stopped.
• 24:43
  So again, you can say what you want about ICE's tactics for arresting people.
• 24:51
  I think it's absolutely fair to criticize.
• 24:53
  It's it's fair to ask questions.
• 24:55
  We should be asking questions.
• 24:58
  But when we look at the border itself, that's huge.
• 25:03
  Absolutely huge.
• 25:05
  So here's some of the other top issues facing the youth in 2026.
• 25:08
  As I mentioned before the break, the mental health epidemic.
• 25:12
  It's very, very bad.
• 25:14
  Number two, the social media and digital toxicity.
• 25:19
  There is a major impact of continuous connectivity that can't be overstated.
• 25:27
  Algorithmythic echo chambers, cyberbullying that happens on a daily basis, the relentless comparison culture of social media that's directly linked to the decline in youth self-esteem and body image.
• 25:46
  Look at the number of young people, young women, particularly, who are flocking to OnlyFans.
• 25:56
  I mean, millions.
• 25:57
  And speaking of OnlyFans, I'll put a little teaser out there.
• 26:01
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• 26:11
  And there's some interesting developments that I think y'all might be interested in.
• 26:17
  So I'm just going to kind of leave that there.
• 26:19
  I will be talking about this probably on tomorrow's show.
• 26:24
  Fascinating, fascinating stuff.
• 26:28
  But the social media and digital toxicity and the body image and the clothing that people wear now and the cries for attention, the endless obsessant need for likes and followers and all that stuff.
• 26:47
  It's ruining our young people.
• 26:49
  It really is.
• 26:52
  Excessive screen time is disrupting sleek patterns.
• 26:58
  There are studies that show the human brain, the human young brain literally gets rewired when people are addicted to their screens.
• 27:10
  And that's just screen time.
• 27:12
  That's not even all the crap that they're ingesting.
• 27:17
  And I'd love that to be part of the make America healthy again.
• 27:23
  Yeah, what about what about mental health?
• 27:29
  You know, we're focused on physical health, which is good, it's great.
• 27:33
  But what about mental health?
• 27:35
  What about getting people outside, getting youth outside?
• 27:38
  And that's something too that at least locally.
• 27:43
  Some people have noted whenever I'm outside with my kids, they they comment as if that's just like the rarest find in the world.
• 27:52
  And they're like, it's so good to see parents with their kids outside because we just don't see that anymore.
• 27:59
  And I'm like, that's sad.
• 28:04
  When it's nice out, well, by nice, my nice is very subjective because it can be five below zero and windy and snowy, and to me, that's nice.
• 28:17
  My kids and I, we're gonna be outside.
• 28:19
  Doesn't matter the temperature, doesn't matter the time of year, we live outside.
• 28:26
  We spend a lot of hours outside.
• 28:28
  We log so many hours outside, and a lot of people don't do that.
• 28:34
  And so there are studies that show that the youth are really, really struggling because of social media and the digital toxicity.
• 28:44
  All right, another major issue facing the youth is economic and future anxiety.
• 28:49
  Today's youth are acutely aware of the macroeconomic challenges that that lie ahead of them.
• 28:57
  Again, they're not dumb.
• 29:00
  We can't treat the young people as these naive, dumb little uh snot-nosed brats that run around and sit on their gaming devices and they just hate, they hate everything about the world.
• 29:15
  You know, young people are are they intelligent, and they are acutely aware of the macroeconomic challenges that that lie ahead of them.
• 29:27
  They're expressing significant anxiety over the soaring cost of living, housing affordability, or rather, unaffordability, and how emerging technologies like artificial intelligence are already disrupting their future career prospects.
• 29:48
  I have a friend who their son went to college, spent four years at college, got a degree that has to do with.
• 30:00
  I I won't say exactly what the degree is, but has to do with uh it's in the field of computer programming.
• 30:08
  Started his career, just recently graduated, and already his degree is obsolete.
• 30:17
  And he's been told this.
• 30:19
  He's very intelligent, very intelligent young man.
• 30:24
  But he's told he applied to tons of jobs.
• 30:28
  And they just said basically you're holding a useless piece of paper in your hand.
• 30:37
  So that's a major issue.
• 30:40
  That's an expensive piece of paper that literally does nothing for people.
• 30:45
  So the the youth are aware of this.
• 30:46
  They know that AI is pushing them out of certain jobs.
• 30:52
  They are whether whether we like it or not, they're concerned about climate change.
• 31:02
  And a lot of this, unfortunately, has been manufactured, but a lot of a lot of it has credibility.
• 31:11
  You know, there are only so many landfills that we can create to put our garbage.
• 31:19
  We know that resources, oil, gas, coal, those are limited resources.
• 31:29
  They will run out.
• 31:32
  Not in my lifetime, but in somebody's lifetime.
• 31:38
  And the youth know this.
• 31:42
  They know that.
• 31:42
  They're not dumb.
• 31:44
  So that's an anxiety that they're facing.
• 31:48
  Uh safety and social polarization is another issue.
• 31:54
  We're growing up in an era of intense political division.
• 31:59
  I've never seen it like this ever in my life.
• 32:02
  The amount of division, though I still argue, and and I still will, we're a lot more unified as Americans than what the media makes it out to be.
• 32:13
  They make it sound like we're on the verge of a civil war.
• 32:17
  In fact, I think the Democrats want a civil war.
• 32:22
  James Carville talks about.
• 32:25
  By the way, he just admitted again that he's insane.
• 32:30
  And he's doubling down on it.
• 32:32
  He's like, Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm crazy.
• 32:35
  So what?
• 32:38
  So anyway, you know, the political polarization, it's really bad right now.
• 32:43
  And a lot of young people experience chronic stress related to the threat of gun violence in schools, public spaces.
• 32:52
  They're navigating a highly polarized social climate where debates over civil rights and identity play out very aggressively in their schools.
• 33:03
  And in online spaces, especially.
• 33:05
  The keyboard warriors.
• 33:09
  So yeah, a lot of stuff going on, and that's exactly what Pastor Corey Brooks is treating.
• 33:17
  So he goes on to say, you know, I I cannot quit.
• 33:20
  He can't quit his walk.
• 33:21
  He's been walking 190 days.
• 33:23
  He's his goal is to spend a year and walk across America.
• 33:29
  He said, I know I cannot go back home to the South Side of Chicago as a quitter.
• 33:36
  I keep coming back to a verse I've leaned on many times before.
• 33:41
  Philippians 4 13.
• 33:43
  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
• 33:46
  Not through my own conditioning, not through willpower or toughness or sheer stubbornness, but through him.
• 33:56
  Because of this, uh, because if this walk depended on what I had left in me tonight, it would already be over.
• 34:07
  He said his tank is dry.
• 34:08
  He's out of gas.
• 34:10
  He's completely run dry.
• 34:13
  And he's only 190 days in.
• 34:17
  And what he needs is support.
• 34:18
  He needs encouragement.
• 34:19
  He needs Americans to rally around him and to encourage him along the way.
• 34:28
  So he's talking about the pain.
• 34:29
  He's got this pain in his heel.
• 34:32
  That's where it all started.
• 34:36
  He has a pyogenic granuloma.
• 34:41
  That's the name for a painful growth.
• 34:44
  They had cutoff before.
• 34:47
  And he said only to wake up recently and find that it had grown back.
• 34:51
  The pain was excruciating with every step.
• 34:54
  It's the kind of pain that makes you question everything.
• 34:57
  Pain has a funny way of doing that.
• 35:00
  It makes you ask why you're doing what you're doing.
• 35:03
  It makes you ask if what you're doing is worth it.
• 35:07
  And this is exactly the point.
• 35:09
  This is why I highlight the hidden lightness.
• 35:11
  It's not easy.
• 35:13
  I never want to make this sound like we click our heels, and all of a sudden the world is a better place.
• 35:20
  There is no magic in letting your hidden lightness shine.
• 35:30
  Is that God takes what we struggle through?
• 35:35
  And if we're persistent and consistent, God blesses that.
• 35:39
  I truly believe that.
• 35:42
  Now you might define blessings very differently than I do.
• 35:46
  And I talk about this with my church a lot.
• 35:50
  Some people view blessings as you start a walk, and God's going to bless you, and it's just gonna be it's gonna be, you know, you're gonna have the uh follow the yellow brick road, and you're gonna be skipping along the way, and everything's gonna be great.
• 36:05
  I I don't define blessings that way.
• 36:08
  I think that we're incredibly blessed as a nation.
• 36:11
  We're definitely the wealthiest nation in the world, and yet we have extreme poverty.
• 36:17
  We have a wealth gap that keeps growing year after year.
• 36:24
  It needs addressed.
• 36:25
  We need to, that's why I talk about finances so much.
• 36:30
  There's a lot going on.
• 36:32
  Blessings sometimes mean that you're you're gonna have to stop.
• 36:36
  Blessings mean that you are gonna face pain.
• 36:39
  Blessings mean that sometimes you're gonna hit failure and you're gonna have to dust yourself up and try again.
• 36:46
  Sometimes hundreds of times.
• 36:50
  But we are blessed.
• 36:53
  And Pastor Corey Brooks is using this blessing, and he's not giving up.
• 36:58
  We're coming up on another break.
• 36:59
  When we come back from the break, we'll talk about what specifically he's doing to bless the youth in Chicago.
• 37:05
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• 37:07
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• 37:13
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• 37:16
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• 38:50
  Pastor Corey Brooks is walking across America, though he's taking a pause at the moment.
• 38:56
  He's taking a pause because he has a condition, a pyrogenic granduloma, uh, which is basically a fancy name for a painful growth that he had cut off of his foot previously, and it has grown back.
• 39:12
  But I'm going to focus mostly on why he's doing the walk.
• 39:16
  We know that our youth are facing a lot of troubles.
• 39:20
  Uh, we are in troubled waters in America, and the uh and I don't want to make it sound like this is a special time, and the the youth have never had problems before in America.
• 39:32
  The youth always face problems.
• 39:35
  And those problems just the nature of the problems shift.
• 39:41
  And right now, youth, as I mentioned, they're facing mental health crises, they're facing uh drug issues, overdoses, they're facing uh anxiety and worry about the future when it comes to their jobs and how much money they're gonna make, the housing.
• 40:00
  Housing affordability.
• 40:02
  So there's a lot.
• 40:03
  There's a lot on their plates.
• 40:06
  But Pastor Corey Brooks is walking because he says, I know I will keep walking because I keep thinking about the children on the South Side of Chicago for whom we are building a leadership and economic opportunity center.
• 40:23
  There it is.
• 40:26
  Every mile is for them.
• 40:28
  Every step is for the opportunities we are creating.
• 40:33
  My purpose is stronger than my pain.
• 40:36
  And I believe that now more than ever, I have before.
• 40:44
  Very, very cool.
• 40:46
  So this is what I'm talking about.
• 40:47
  We can either talk bad about the youth, how bad they are, how lazy they are, et cetera, et cetera, or we can do something to motivate them and to help them transform their lives.
• 41:01
  Now a leadership and economic opportunity center is a huge deal.
• 41:09
  Let's listen a little bit more about what Pastor Corey Brooks is talking about.
• 41:16
  He says, I think about the Apostle Paul who wrote from prison.
• 41:20
  He had been beaten, shipwrecked, and left for dead.
• 41:23
  He said in 2 Corinthians 4 8 that we are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed, perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not abandoned, struck down, but not destroyed.
• 41:40
  I admit this is not poetry to me tonight.
• 41:43
  But it describes my situation, the road that I'm on.
• 41:47
  I've been pressed on every side.
• 41:49
  I've been struck down, but I am not destroyed.
• 41:54
  I love this because I'm not a fan of the victim mentality.
• 41:59
  Where people complain about everything and they're always a victim, and somebody else, it's always somebody else's fault.
• 42:06
  And anytime that there's a problem, they just shut down and they feel like a failure, and they believe that they messed up, and so what's the point in even trying anymore?
• 42:17
  I don't like the victim mentality because I think it ruins so many good people.
• 42:26
  When they have a victim mentality, it's as almost if it forces them to stop doing good, to stop trying to do good.
• 42:40
  But listen to his attitude.
• 42:42
  He says, God did not bring me a hundred and ninety days and 3,000 miles to leave me on the side of a Louisiana Highway.
• 42:53
  I do believe that.
• 43:02
  This is what I'm talking about.
• 43:06
  When I say that blessings oftentimes bring failure.
• 43:17
  I think God is using him.
• 43:19
  God is going to continue to use him so long as he has breath in his lungs.
• 43:23
  God is going to use him for good.
• 43:27
  But it comes at a price.
• 44:02
  And that's really incredible.
• 44:05
  We are blessed.
• 44:07
  So what's he doing here?
• 44:09
  What's what's the whole purpose?
• 44:11
  He says the mission is to build a 47 million community center on the south side of Chicago, a place where young men and women can learn trades.
• 44:22
  That's huge.
• 44:23
  First of all, let me just pause there for a second.
• 44:26
  They can learn trades.
• 44:28
  What have I harped on for well over a year now?
• 44:34
  When I talk about jobs, when I talk about the economy, it's the trades that are wide open.
• 44:41
  The trade, the trades are absolutely wide open.
• 44:45
  Artificial intelligence will not take away the trades.
• 44:50
  The trades are recession proof, plumbing, electricians, welders, etc.
• 44:58
  It's recession proof, and AI cannot do those jobs.
• 45:04
  So the fact that this is at the top of the list, this is a top priority.
• 45:09
  This is massive.
• 45:11
  This is huge.
• 45:12
  This is a big deal.
• 45:13
  This is great.
• 45:16
  So this 47 million dollar community center on the south side of Chicago.
• 45:22
  Again, Pastor Brooks says it's a place where young men and women can learn trades, find mentors, and discover that their lives have direction and value.
• 45:35
  That building does not care about my heel.
• 45:39
  Those children do not get a pause button on the circumstances they were born into.
• 45:45
  The need does not rest while I recover.
• 45:50
  So here's what I'm asking.
• 45:52
  Pray for me.
• 45:55
  I believe in the power of prayer the way I believe in breathing.
• 46:00
  I need it right now.
• 46:02
  And if you believe that we are building, and you believe in what we are building, stand with us.
• 46:09
  Share the mission.
• 46:10
  Let the people in your life know that there is a pastor somewhere in Louisiana who is broken and hurting and trusting God and who will be back on that road as soon as the Lord allows.
• 46:27
  An incredible person.
• 46:30
  What an incredible human being.
• 46:34
  Do you hear the determination?
• 46:36
  Do you hear the passion?
• 46:38
  Again, that formula for the hidden lightness is that there's something that connects to the heart, whether it's a heartache or a problem that somebody faces in their own life, or both, or just something that you saw that sparked an interest.
• 46:55
  I've I've talked repeatedly about the wells, uh, the well project that we began at our church.
• 47:03
  That began with my daughter when she was eight years old, an eight-year-old child that who had never had a need her entire life.
• 47:15
  Still to this day, she has never had anything that she needs.
• 47:21
  She's always had a roof over her head.
• 47:23
  She, and she knows this.
• 47:24
  She's very humble about it.
• 47:27
  She's an absolute sweetheart.
• 47:31
  She's always had a roof over her head.
• 47:34
  She has never had to miss a meal for any reason.
• 47:39
  She's never had to worry about what clothes she's gonna uh have to wear or not wear.
• 47:45
  She's always had clothing, she's always had every single need is provided for, and then some and then some and then some.
• 47:55
  But as an eight-year-old, her passion didn't come from her own personal struggle, it came from seeing the struggles of other people and that connected with her heart.
• 48:07
  And she said, I want to do something about it.
• 48:12
  That sparked a very long-term commitment.
• 48:17
  In fact, it reshaped the identity of our entire church, our congregation.
• 48:25
  We are now known as the church that provides wells for people.
• 48:30
  That is our mission, not plural.
• 48:34
  We don't have multiple missions.
• 48:37
  We have one mission as a church.
• 48:40
  That became so clear and so it came so much into focus that we became the church that raises money for wells, and we are now reaching somewhere in the ballpark of 15,000 people every single day are getting fresh, clean drinking water because one eight-year-old let her hidden lightness shine.
• 49:10
  There is not magic in this.
• 49:14
  And we've expressed or experienced rather failure along the way.
• 49:21
  We've had things that have failed.
• 49:23
  We've had things that we've had had to completely retool.
• 49:26
  Uh, that's okay.
• 49:28
  It's okay to fail.
• 49:30
  We've experienced a lot of heartache.
• 49:35
  We've lost several church members who are deeply passionate about these wells.
• 49:42
  And we have wells named after them.
• 49:45
  They have plaques on these wells in African countries in memory of, and then it's our church member who was deeply passionate about wells, and they've passed away.
• 49:58
  So all it
• 50:00
  Takes is that we step out of our comfort zone and we just trust in God.
• 50:06
  Pastor Corey Brooks, this became his mission.
• 50:11
  I don't know at what point in his life.
• 50:13
  I don't know his story.
• 50:15
  At least not intimately.
• 50:18
  But I know that years ago, it became his mission to really focus on the youth in South Chicago, to clean up the city, to build better resources, to provide better resources for the young people so that their lives can be transformed.
• 50:39
  And that they can feel worthy and that they can make a difference in the world and that they can be now with this latest project, that they can be put on a financial and economic path that will secure their future for generations.
• 50:55
  This is how you break the generational poverty in America.
• 51:02
  We don't have to resign ourselves to the idea that because people are born into poverty, they're always going to be poor.
• 51:09
  That's not true.
• 51:19
  You know, there's not only one way to fix poverty in America.
• 51:25
  There are literally millions of ways to do that.
• 51:28
  And the sky's the limit.
• 51:32
  Down in Florida, what are they doing?
• 51:34
  Well, for one, they're uh they have a catcher's mitt, and they're essentially catching people from Florida or from uh New York, rather, and California, and other states, but mostly New York and California.
• 51:54
  And they're good people, good, hardworking Americans who are fed up and just tired, they're worn out from all the taxes, the tax burdens.
• 52:04
  They're moving to Florida and they're bringing lots of creativity with them.
• 52:10
  They're creating jobs, they're pumping money into the economy like never before in Florida.
• 52:18
  And what Florida's doing is they're taking that money and they're intentionally building the very best schools, brand new schools in the most poverty centralized areas within the state of Florida.
• 52:35
  But it's not just the buildings.
• 52:38
  They're hiring the best teachers, the best educators.
• 52:43
  They're zeroing in on the youth, and especially people who are growing up in extreme poverty who don't stand a chance.
• 52:53
  Right?
• 52:54
  We can talk about uh whether there's privilege or not.
• 52:59
  I I happen to believe that we do have a pretty certain high degree of privilege.
• 53:07
  If we're born into a family with supportive parents, uh, not abuse of homes.
• 53:18
  We're encouraged by people, we're supported by parents or friends or both.
• 53:25
  We have a certain degree of privilege that other people don't have.
• 53:32
  And that doesn't mean that the people who don't have privilege are victims and that they're doomed for the rest of their life.
• 53:39
  That's where I part ways with certain people.
• 53:43
  You know, this whole idea of paying reparations.
• 53:46
  We got to pay reparations to people who uh people of color, who just because it was hard for them to grow up.
• 53:54
  And we need to pay reparations.
• 53:59
  What that doesn't do is it doesn't instill self-worth and value.
• 54:08
  It doesn't mentor them, it doesn't teach them that they can and they will break the cycle of poverty if they're living in poverty.
• 54:19
  Now, the whole reparations thing, I don't think it has anything to do with the economy.
• 54:26
  I think it has more to do with race, and it's been shot down many, many times, and people are gonna continue to propose it.
• 54:38
  But I would much rather see something like this that's happening in Chicago, where there's an awareness, there's a passion, there's uh very clear goals, and the idea is to give some self-worth and value, intrinsic value to people who otherwise might not get these opportunities.
• 55:04
  This is a blessing.
• 55:05
  I I really think God's doing something in Chicago.
• 55:10
  And I keep seeing videos of this spontaneous worship that's breaking out in the streets, and it's not being covered by the media.
• 55:18
  You can't find it on the media, or at least I can.
• 55:23
  But I really believe God is doing something in Chicago, and maybe that's part of why Pastor Brooks is experiencing a lot of issues.
• 55:31
  Now, Stanton doesn't like this kind of stuff.
• 55:33
  He doesn't like success.
• 55:36
  And he's gonna do everything in his power to discourage people like Pastor Brooks and to get them to just give up, throw in the towel, quit.
• 55:47
  Well, Pastor Brooks is having none of it.
• 55:49
  He's committed, he's committed to the youth in Chicago, and Chicago is blessed.
• 55:55
  It's so much better because of people like Pastor Brooks.
• 56:00
  And that's what makes America great.
• 56:05
  We are so incredibly blessed, folks.
• 56:08
  And that is the hidden lightness.
• 56:12
  Follow Pastor Brooks and follow his journey, pray for him, and let's pray that this all works out.
• 56:18
  You can find more out about my show and get all the latest podcasts if you go to the Mendy Navigation Bar at America Outloud.news under our shows or schedule.
• 56:25
  There is a hidden lightness that shines inside of all of us.
• 56:28
  When there's so much darkness that envelops the world, remember that it doesn't take much light to expose that darkness and to ultimately inspire other people.
• 56:35
  Join me in being a light.