Latest / Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association / Episode 23: Practical Wisdom for a Deeper Prayer Life. How does phone addiction contend with our prayer life, and what can we do about it? Prayer Distractions and How to Deal with Them. BACON Soda Review.

Transcript

Episode 23: Practical Wisdom for a Deeper Prayer Life. How does phone addiction contend with our prayer life, and what can we do about it? Prayer Distractions and How to Deal with Them. BACON Soda Review. · Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association

• 0:00
  Speaker0: How can we have a distraction-free prayer life? Today's guest,
• 0:04
  Speaker0: Dr. C.J. Wan, suggests we ask.
• 0:07
  Speaker1: Is this a possible distraction that Satan is throwing at me so that I will be
• 0:11
  Speaker1: preoccupied or spent rather than being with the Lord?
• 0:29
  Speaker0: Leaders, and pastors find health, encouragement, practical advice,
• 0:34
  Speaker0: soul care, and resources that work together to build up your local fellowship
• 0:38
  Speaker0: and the broader kingdom of God.
• 0:39
  Speaker0: Join hosts, Pastor Chris Cole and Dr. Chase Thompson from the Great Commission
• 0:44
  Speaker0: Association, led by Dr. Mike Stewart, as they explore the frontiers of ministry
• 0:49
  Speaker0: and aim for the goal of making every church flourish.
• 0:51
  Speaker0: Hello, everybody, and welcome in to episode number 23 of the Every Church Flourishing podcast.
• 0:59
  Speaker0: We are sponsored by the Great Commission Association of Central California,
• 1:04
  Speaker0: and today we have a deep discussion with the GCA's own Dr. C.J.
• 1:09
  Speaker0: Juan on the topic of prayer. Dr. Juan goes beyond the normal prayer discussions
• 1:14
  Speaker0: and will lead us into a wonderful blend of spirituality
• 1:18
  Speaker0: and practicality as we discuss how to enrich your prayer life and why the tyranny
• 1:24
  Speaker0: of the urgent is less worth your time than abiding in Christ is. C.J.
• 1:30
  Speaker0: Shared one of my favorite quotes I've heard recently when he said that we often
• 1:34
  Speaker0: settle for what we can do, what we can muster up rather than what God can do.
• 1:39
  Speaker0: Sometimes we miss out on the fruitfulness of what God can do because we are doing it our way.
• 1:45
  Speaker0: Now, I can totally relate to that, and I bet you can too.
• 1:48
  Speaker0: And I think Dr. C.J. is going to help us today to prioritize prayer and abiding
• 1:53
  Speaker0: over, under, and in addition to all of the day-to-day tasks of ministry and life that all of us face.
• 2:01
  Speaker0: It's a powerful and practical episode, and Dr.
• 2:04
  Speaker0: C.J. will close out that interview with a great time of prayer,
• 2:07
  Speaker0: but don't leave yet because Pastor Christopher and I will almost ruin it with
• 2:11
  Speaker0: a review of Lester's Fixin's Bacon Soda.
• 2:16
  Speaker0: Not baking soda, that probably would have tasted better, but bacon soda.
• 2:22
  Speaker0: This is a soda that should have been prayed over far more before it was released.
• 2:27
  Speaker0: You will hear a former law enforcement officer testify under oath.
• 2:31
  Speaker0: This has some odor peculiarities that are similar to methamphetamines,
• 2:36
  Speaker0: and the world's foremost cereal expert will suggest that this soda smells like
• 2:40
  Speaker0: it'll take 10 years off of our life and I feel like I'm drinking a pig and it's weird.
• 2:45
  Speaker0: But before we have that rough experience, let's talk prayer and go deep.
• 2:51
  Speaker0: And we will welcome in Dr. C.J. Wan with the Great Commission Association.
• 2:56
  Speaker0: Dr. C.J., please introduce yourself. Tell us about yourself,
• 3:00
  Speaker0: your work and position with the GCA, and maybe a little bit of your history
• 3:04
  Speaker0: prior to joining the GCA.
• 3:06
  Speaker1: I'm glad to be here. I serve as the Associate Director of Mission and the Director
• 3:11
  Speaker1: of Operations, overseeing finances, compliance, and many other operations stuff.
• 3:16
  Speaker1: Prior to GCA, I was a church planter and worked also for an overseas mission
• 3:21
  Speaker1: organization. So I kind of been around the world doing different mission alliances,
• 3:26
  Speaker1: mission networks with mission agencies, and then things like that.
• 3:29
  Speaker0: Fantastic. Where all have you lived?
• 3:31
  Speaker1: I have lived in Korea before I got to US and then here in San Jose Bay Area
• 3:37
  Speaker1: basically is where we landed and Texas when I was in school.
• 3:40
  Speaker1: But California has been my home for 45 years. Okay. 46 years.
• 3:44
  Speaker0: So you were only in Korea for a few years. Yeah. Nice. All right.
• 3:48
  Speaker0: So how did you find yourself in ministry when you were growing up?
• 3:53
  Speaker0: Is that something you aspire to? Did you kind of accidentally back into it?
• 3:58
  Speaker0: Did you have a clear and obvious calling or was it sort of more subtle and gradual?
• 4:05
  Speaker1: I was born into and grew up in a Christian family. Mom prayed for a son for
• 4:10
  Speaker1: particular, like a Hannah prayer.
• 4:12
  Speaker1: I'll give you my son if you give me this son.
• 4:16
  Speaker1: I was a second boy to the family. And so that was what I heard.
• 4:20
  Speaker1: But soon after I immigrated to the U.S. when I was in 1980, I felt the calling of the Lord.
• 4:25
  Speaker1: Now, what that means to a nine-year-old means different.
• 4:29
  Speaker1: But I felt that serving Him was the thing that I would like to do with my life.
• 4:34
  Speaker1: So no other career or occupational choices seemed to measure up.
• 4:39
  Speaker1: I felt like serving God would be the greatest thing I can do.
• 4:42
  Speaker1: Ever since then, that's sort of been my goal, high school, college, seminary.
• 4:47
  Speaker1: And here I am after, I don't know how many years, since seminary in 1997,
• 4:52
  Speaker1: I continue to serve the Lord this way.
• 4:54
  Speaker0: So you were eight or nine when you kind of first began to discern the call to ministry.
• 5:00
  Speaker0: I know for me, growing up, there was only one period in my life where I kind of considered that.
• 5:06
  Speaker0: I was eight or nine myself. And a buddy of mine, when we went to a Presbyterian
• 5:11
  Speaker0: Christian school and we got it into our mind after a missionary came and visited
• 5:17
  Speaker0: our classes that we wanted to be missionaries.
• 5:20
  Speaker0: So we went around door to door telling people about hell and warning them about
• 5:25
  Speaker0: hell and telling them about Jesus. And kind of we were many missionaries there
• 5:29
  Speaker0: for a while. But for me, as I got into high school and
• 5:32
  Speaker0: even really college. I worked in a church as a youth minister.
• 5:37
  Speaker0: I worked as a camp counselor at a Christian camp, but a lifetime in ministry
• 5:44
  Speaker0: is a bit of a surprise for me.
• 5:47
  Speaker0: I did have a clear and obvious calling point when I had graduated from college,
• 5:52
  Speaker0: but it kind of came as something of a shock to me.
• 5:55
  Speaker0: So I understand that you recently were on a pastor's prayer retreat.
• 6:03
  Speaker0: Been on a couple of those myself, but they're all different.
• 6:05
  Speaker0: So kind of tell us the story of how you got to be on that retreat.
• 6:09
  Speaker0: Tell us a little bit about it. Give us some background.
• 6:12
  Speaker1: This February, Dr. Stuart Christopher Cole and I went to this pastor's retreat
• 6:16
  Speaker1: in Forney, Texas. Never been to Forney, Texas.
• 6:19
  Speaker1: But this retreat was a bit different because it was, maybe I was different.
• 6:23
  Speaker1: I took away different things.
• 6:26
  Speaker1: It wasn't just another conference or another seminar on what to do,
• 6:29
  Speaker1: but it gave me insight into how the prayer topic might have been misunderstood as an end in itself.
• 6:35
  Speaker1: And the prayer was one of a few ways for us to draw near to the presence of
• 6:40
  Speaker1: God. And often we left prayer to be prayer, things we do because we need God.
• 6:47
  Speaker1: But this allowed for us to think about what is the end goal of prayer? Why is it that we pray?
• 6:53
  Speaker1: It's not so much because I want to tell God everything I need,
• 6:56
  Speaker1: but really to commune with Him, to be with Him. And I think that was powerful.
• 7:01
  Speaker1: And for us to spend time with Him, if it did, just the amount of different things
• 7:05
  Speaker1: that could happen just by God being in our presence and change us inside out.
• 7:10
  Speaker1: And so those are the highlights.
• 7:12
  Speaker1: There's many things I'm sure I'll talk about in different questions,
• 7:14
  Speaker1: but that's, it was a great retreat.
• 7:17
  Speaker1: I think they used the word right. It was a retreat, not a conference.
• 7:20
  Speaker0: Who put on the conference? Who led it?
• 7:23
  Speaker1: Nathan Lino is the pastor of Forney, and him and one other pastor from the area
• 7:28
  Speaker1: actually puts this on twice a year.
• 7:30
  Speaker1: And this is one way for them to encourage, hey, we found something.
• 7:34
  Speaker1: It's not, you know, crazy, but it's actually helping us to stay in the presence
• 7:39
  Speaker1: of God. And so that's sort of what's inspired us, and we wanted to follow up.
• 7:45
  Speaker0: Yeah, that's great. So, like I said, I've been to several of these kind of prayer conferences before.
• 7:51
  Speaker0: I think every pastor, every mature, seasoned Christian leader knows that prayer is important.
• 8:00
  Speaker0: Just like pretty much every person in the West knows that good nutrition and exercise is important.
• 8:07
  Speaker0: But maybe most of us don't have a lifestyle of that.
• 8:11
  Speaker0: So how did the leaders of this conference, how did the conference,
• 8:15
  Speaker0: because I've heard feedback from some of the guys that went.
• 8:18
  Speaker0: I've heard that it was very special.
• 8:20
  Speaker0: How did they communicate the
• 8:24
  Speaker0: call to the importance of prayer in a way that was sticky, in a way that
• 8:29
  Speaker0: kind of went beyond just a few days of transformation into a longer tail than that, a longer impact?
• 8:35
  Speaker1: I think they've approached it really from at the end of what we want to get
• 8:40
  Speaker1: done through prayer. And prayer is one of many ways for us to approach the presence of God.
• 8:46
  Speaker1: And getting to the presence of God was their goal. And prayer happened to be
• 8:49
  Speaker1: one of those mechanisms rather than a prayer is a program or it's a template
• 8:55
  Speaker1: that we need to use. And so that was special.
• 8:58
  Speaker1: And they allowed us to experience that firsthand, not just through prayer.
• 9:03
  Speaker1: Seminars and topics and teaching on it. But we spent, I think,
• 9:06
  Speaker1: a good half a day just being alone with God and asking those questions and thinking
• 9:12
  Speaker1: through processes and what does it mean to consecrate ourselves?
• 9:15
  Speaker1: All of those were words we know of, but really something that we don't really practice.
• 9:20
  Speaker1: And that was special because we got to, I got to at least spend that afternoon
• 9:25
  Speaker1: just alone with God and what that meant and how that felt. And so you walked
• 9:29
  Speaker1: away, not just having prayed a lot of prayer, but you walked away having spent time with God.
• 9:34
  Speaker1: And so that was a difference maker, at least for this retreat.
• 9:37
  Speaker0: Yeah, you and I are both Baptists. And I think the Baptist way is generally
• 9:43
  Speaker0: to try to teach people into transformation.
• 9:47
  Speaker0: And I appreciate that. I mean, we've both been to seminary, worked in seminaries.
• 9:52
  Speaker0: I think teaching is really primary, but I like the fact that it sounds like
• 9:57
  Speaker0: this retreat was more about practicing the presence of God,
• 10:02
  Speaker0: to borrow Brother Lawrenceism rather than just kind of 90% teaching.
• 10:09
  Speaker0: We had a marriage retreat earlier this year with the Great Commission Association.
• 10:14
  Speaker0: And one of the things I really appreciated about that GCA marriage retreat is
• 10:18
  Speaker0: that there was intentional time built in to
• 10:23
  Speaker0: work on our marriage rather Rather than it being wall-to-wall teaching. Again, I'm a teacher.
• 10:31
  Speaker0: When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you're a teacher,
• 10:34
  Speaker0: everything looks like a lesson that needs to be taught.
• 10:37
  Speaker0: When you do that, you don't actually sometimes have the experiential reality
• 10:43
  Speaker0: of working on your marriage or, in your case, working on your prayer life and your ministry.
• 10:49
  Speaker0: I mean, your intimacy with God, and it sounds to me like it really harkens back to the old days,
• 10:56
  Speaker0: the Brother Lawrence, even before that, the Desert Fathers, the early church,
• 11:01
  Speaker0: who really did practice abiding, I think, at a much higher level than we do.
• 11:08
  Speaker0: So along those lines, what's, you know, the previous emphasis of the church
• 11:16
  Speaker0: on prayer versus the busyness of life today, what stops prayer from happening in the church?
• 11:23
  Speaker1: From the retreat and different meditations and things that happen afterwards,
• 11:28
  Speaker1: we come to, at least I come to realize that there's many things that's preventing
• 11:32
  Speaker1: us from being with the Lord, not just in prayer, but just being with the Lord.
• 11:37
  Speaker1: And the word they used was distractions.
• 11:39
  Speaker1: And I think that spells it right because, you know, it could be anywhere from
• 11:44
  Speaker1: fear of unknown, that's a distraction or ignorance. I just don't know what is going to happen.
• 11:50
  Speaker1: And sometimes we don't believe the words we actually study.
• 11:55
  Speaker1: And so we don't really think that, hey, I'm going to call on God and I'm going
• 11:59
  Speaker1: to expect God to do different things because I'm with him.
• 12:03
  Speaker1: And often we choose not to pray or to enter the presence of God because we're
• 12:09
  Speaker1: just, it's just inconvenient for me right now. I have too much going on.
• 12:14
  Speaker1: And you could use the word busyness of life.
• 12:16
  Speaker1: And many do that. And also there's a problem, I think, called religious insistence.
• 12:22
  Speaker1: We try to be a good follower. And we do a lot of things that we believe will be helpful.
• 12:29
  Speaker1: And so those are many things that I think hinders us. But under that word distraction,
• 12:34
  Speaker1: these are my thoughts, not theirs.
• 12:36
  Speaker1: And so I don't want to misquote anybody that has taught and let that retreat.
• 12:40
  Speaker1: But the word busyness and distraction, I think we could include things like this.
• 12:45
  Speaker1: Strategies, plans, preparations, convictions, passion, you know,
• 12:50
  Speaker1: and we do audits and accountability and we do numbers and we do events, budget.
• 12:54
  Speaker1: I mean, you think about so many ways we do church or ministry life,
• 13:00
  Speaker1: and a lot of it is really us trying to make this work. I'm not saying it's bad.
• 13:06
  Speaker1: None of these are bad, but I think we have bought into the idea that we do the
• 13:11
  Speaker1: 99% preparation, and ask God to bless a spiritual blessing over our plan rather
• 13:16
  Speaker1: than spending a lot of time with the Lord who has greater plan than us.
• 13:20
  Speaker1: And so for me, that was the wake-up call.
• 13:23
  Speaker1: I am a processor, so I like solving problems, but maybe that's the problem.
• 13:28
  Speaker1: And that I am trying to solve the problem when God is saying,
• 13:32
  Speaker1: no, I want you to be with me.
• 13:34
  Speaker1: So that's a distraction. Many things that I just listed are many,
• 13:38
  Speaker1: many distractions that are pulling people away from being with the Father.
• 13:43
  Speaker0: Well, I want to get into some of those distractions and some...
• 13:47
  Speaker0: Ways we can overcome them. But I think you put your finger there on the thing
• 13:51
  Speaker0: that might be the primary issue. And, you know, it's the old adage,
• 13:56
  Speaker0: if it's to be, it's up to me.
• 13:59
  Speaker0: I think church leaders in particular, pastors, their experience gets them to
• 14:04
  Speaker0: the place where they wouldn't vocalize that, but they'll say that.
• 14:08
  Speaker0: And so therefore, the church with the leader thinking that, thinking that human
• 14:13
  Speaker0: effort is the fuel that will get us to fruitfulness and success,
• 14:17
  Speaker0: they fall into that trap.
• 14:19
  Speaker0: I think that's one of the biggest, maybe the primary obstacle is self-dependence.
• 14:26
  Speaker0: So a pastor is listening to this and he kind of feels that burden of,
• 14:31
  Speaker0: I got to make things happen, man.
• 14:33
  Speaker0: I'm too busy to pray and I know I should pray, but if I just sit around and
• 14:38
  Speaker0: pray, none of this stuff is going to happen. So Dr. CJ, what do you say to them?
• 14:42
  Speaker0: How do you get them to overcome that first and foremost obstacle?
• 14:46
  Speaker1: I think it's got to be where we just surrender.
• 14:50
  Speaker1: And that is a word I've been chewing on, doing teachings on and books I read
• 14:55
  Speaker1: and other things. But for us to really surrender and say, God, this is your ministry.
• 15:00
  Speaker1: I'm called to do your work and I need to be with you so that I could understand
• 15:04
  Speaker1: and hear the voice and messages that you want me to have. Now,
• 15:07
  Speaker1: that doesn't have to be, you know, 60 hours a week, but it has to be a priority.
• 15:12
  Speaker1: It has to be something that we do and set aside intentionally.
• 15:16
  Speaker1: Otherwise, schedules, calendars will get filled up and other things will crowd
• 15:21
  Speaker1: our time and we will get distracted.
• 15:23
  Speaker1: And I didn't mention this, but, you know, problems and troubles are distractions.
• 15:28
  Speaker1: Tragedies are distractions.
• 15:30
  Speaker1: They're bad in itself. But when, you know, the urgent matters happen and success
• 15:35
  Speaker1: and failures and all of these things that comes with our ministry
• 15:39
  Speaker1: tends to pull us away from the presence of God rather than draw us closer to
• 15:44
  Speaker1: the presence of God. And I think
• 15:46
  Speaker1: For us, first is admit, Lord, I need you. I can't do this without you.
• 15:51
  Speaker1: Rather than saying, Lord, let me try 10 more times on my own.
• 15:56
  Speaker1: And then if all of that fails, which will fail, then I'll come back to you.
• 16:00
  Speaker1: And so I think it starts there for us to say, Lord, this is yours. I'm yours.
• 16:05
  Speaker1: And I can't do anything better than to spend time with you and make that a priority.
• 16:10
  Speaker1: And if we are with the Lord, hearing his message, being filled by him and cooperating
• 16:14
  Speaker1: with the Holy Spirit that's in us, then you know what? He could do everything better than us.
• 16:20
  Speaker1: And 10 times, 100 times more, if we are actually an effective tool in his hand. Yeah.
• 16:25
  Speaker0: Amen. So I was raised by a dad who was a great dad, but that taught me to value
• 16:33
  Speaker0: effort, try hard as the key to success.
• 16:37
  Speaker0: And he's a very successful man. And that has spilled over into my ministry.
• 16:44
  Speaker0: That's my wiring. And for me, it helps to, not that that's wrong.
• 16:48
  Speaker0: I mean, I think effort is still incredibly important.
• 16:51
  Speaker0: It's just not our fuel source.
• 16:54
  Speaker0: And to me, it helps to meditate on verses like Jeremiah 17, 5,
• 16:59
  Speaker0: where it says, cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength,
• 17:05
  Speaker0: whose heart turns away from the Lord.
• 17:07
  Speaker0: I mean, my natural tendency is to do that. And I have, I've preached about this
• 17:12
  Speaker0: verse so many times you'd think I would have mastered it and lived it and walked in it.
• 17:18
  Speaker0: But one of the reasons why I preach about second Corinthians 12 is it's just
• 17:23
  Speaker0: so contrary to my nature where Paul talks about how God's power is made perfect in weakness.
• 17:32
  Speaker0: And when I am weak, then I am strong. And I think that's, that's a huge key
• 17:37
  Speaker0: to abiding. It's lowering your trust in yourself and
• 17:43
  Speaker0: raising your fundamental trust in God and what he can do.
• 17:48
  Speaker0: One of the first podcasts we had with you, I think it was episode six,
• 17:51
  Speaker0: you said something that has really stuck with me in your role as the director
• 17:55
  Speaker0: of operations for the GCA.
• 17:58
  Speaker0: You were talking about how you had all this administrative scheduling,
• 18:02
  Speaker0: complicated things to do, and you tried to approach it from a point of prayer.
• 18:07
  Speaker0: And, you know, most beaver processor type personalities would say,
• 18:13
  Speaker0: well, how do you even do that?
• 18:15
  Speaker0: So I'll kind of throw that question on you.
• 18:18
  Speaker0: How do you process, how do you approach mundane things of ministry prayerfully?
• 18:25
  Speaker1: The way I do it is probably not the best way to do it, or this is just one way.
• 18:30
  Speaker1: But I obviously start the day, hopefully with a clean slate,
• 18:33
  Speaker1: having settled any accounts with God before I go to sleep.
• 18:37
  Speaker1: But start the day listening to the scripture, come into the office and pray
• 18:40
  Speaker1: and have that devotional time when I'm just listening to God and asking him,
• 18:45
  Speaker1: Lord, I got a bunch of stuff that's got to get done today. Help me through this.
• 18:49
  Speaker1: Give me wisdom and discernment. And I can't do this.
• 18:52
  Speaker1: I want it to be done that honors you. And so that's really how I start the day.
• 18:57
  Speaker1: And then throughout the day, it's just processing, asking, thinking and talking to other people.
• 19:02
  Speaker1: And so it's not so much of how do I stop for everything.
• 19:05
  Speaker1: It's just I start the day and I end the day and I want to be in the Lord.
• 19:09
  Speaker1: And so that's kind of a regular day to day. But on a week to week,
• 19:13
  Speaker1: I also have a different, I guess, a cycle where I try to carve out at least
• 19:18
  Speaker1: two days a week when I'm just skipping a couple of meals and just saying,
• 19:21
  Speaker1: Lord, I don't have everything done here.
• 19:23
  Speaker1: I don't have clarity. However, I want to give you space and time for you to say what you want to say.
• 19:28
  Speaker1: And I want to be sensitive. And that word is still new to me because I,
• 19:32
  Speaker1: again, as being Baptist and being trained in theological training,
• 19:35
  Speaker1: sometimes we get weary about spiritual sensitivity and, you know, things like that.
• 19:40
  Speaker1: But I want to be able to hear the nudging of the Holy Spirit.
• 19:43
  Speaker1: I want to be able to respond according to what He's asking me to do.
• 19:47
  Speaker1: But I can only do that if I'm actually giving in time and space where I'm not
• 19:52
  Speaker1: babbling, where I'm not, you know, doing all the talking.
• 19:57
  Speaker1: At least a couple of days a week, I'm skipping lunch or whatever else and just saying, Lord, I'm here.
• 20:02
  Speaker1: You have reins. If you want to say anything to me, talk to me,
• 20:05
  Speaker1: remind me of a book or a Bible verse or whatever it is, I'm here.
• 20:10
  Speaker1: So I'm scratching the surface, I think, as I do that.
• 20:13
  Speaker1: But I could tell you this, that for all the years that I have served in full
• 20:17
  Speaker1: time, I feel like I'm at a different place now where I feel like I'm more attuned
• 20:22
  Speaker1: to and willing to listen to the Holy Spirit.
• 20:26
  Speaker1: And so it's scary for me, but that's sort of how I go about it. Okay.
• 20:30
  Speaker0: Praise God for that. So back into distractions, doubt, fear,
• 20:36
  Speaker0: yourself, and just practical distractions like your phone or the tyranny of the urgent.
• 20:43
  Speaker0: What would you say are two or three of the worst of those distractions?
• 20:48
  Speaker0: And can you give us some practical advice for church leaders and pastors to,
• 20:54
  Speaker0: ignore, overcome, step aside from the distractions to prioritize prayer?
• 21:00
  Speaker1: Yeah, I think obviously it's who controls your calendar is one,
• 21:04
  Speaker1: how much you put in there.
• 21:06
  Speaker1: You have to be willing to carve out time and that you do have control over.
• 21:10
  Speaker1: And, you know, sometimes, you know, for anybody listening out there,
• 21:14
  Speaker1: you know, for you to spend X number of hours preparing and studying is one thing.
• 21:19
  Speaker1: Do you have separate time that's carved out in your calendar to say,
• 21:22
  Speaker1: I'm just going to listen and be with the Lord?
• 21:24
  Speaker1: So I think that's got to be something that we intentionally have to practice.
• 21:28
  Speaker1: And that is to carve out time in our calendar, put it as a block time that we're
• 21:31
  Speaker1: just going to spend with the Lord. Not sermon perping, not doing my devotional,
• 21:36
  Speaker1: but just being with the Lord.
• 21:38
  Speaker1: I think that's one. The other is, you know, trying to solve problems on our
• 21:42
  Speaker1: own, which as we talked about, we are gifted, I think, in that area.
• 21:46
  Speaker1: Yeah, we like solving problems and we want to go head first and try to resolve
• 21:51
  Speaker1: issues. But every time that comes up, perhaps we should think about it as,
• 21:54
  Speaker1: is this a possible distraction?
• 21:57
  Speaker1: Is this a possible distraction that Satan is throwing at me so that I will be
• 22:00
  Speaker1: preoccupied or spent rather than being with the Lord?
• 22:04
  Speaker1: And so that's secondary. I think we have to consider everything that we're doing
• 22:09
  Speaker1: and facing and kind of measure it. Is this a distraction or is this something
• 22:14
  Speaker1: that's going to be advancing the kingdom of God?
• 22:16
  Speaker1: That's, I think, very important. And I would say, lastly, we're talking about
• 22:20
  Speaker1: the busyness of life. Things are going to happen, but you know what?
• 22:23
  Speaker1: We don't have control over those things anyway. And for us to come to a place
• 22:27
  Speaker1: where we just surrender and say,
• 22:29
  Speaker1: God, I can't control, I have no control over what this is going to be.
• 22:32
  Speaker1: And just literally surrendering that part to Him. Those are,
• 22:36
  Speaker1: it may be practical, it may not be practical for some, but calendar you could
• 22:39
  Speaker1: control and put a marker in your mind to say, hey, is this a distraction for me?
• 22:46
  Speaker1: To be with the Lord. Those we could easily do. And we should really,
• 22:50
  Speaker1: really look at the things that are distracting us. It could be phones.
• 22:53
  Speaker1: It could be movies. It could be good things, even exercise.
• 22:57
  Speaker1: Are they distracting me from being with the Lord?
• 22:59
  Speaker0: Yeah. Well, you mentioned one of those that I think is one of the biggest distractions
• 23:03
  Speaker0: we have now. We went through the COVID pandemic.
• 23:07
  Speaker0: I think there's probably a greater pandemic in our lifetime that is technological in nature.
• 23:17
  Speaker0: I think if we went back 30 years and said, hey, one day there's going to be
• 23:22
  Speaker0: something we carry around in our pocket that we look at six hours a day.
• 23:28
  Speaker0: Pretty much everybody looks at six hours a day. That's in addition to TV and
• 23:32
  Speaker0: whatever else hobbies we have.
• 23:34
  Speaker0: I think most of us would be shocked and we would have a hard time imagining, well, what possibly...
• 23:40
  Speaker0: Would capture people's attention for almost a third of the hours that they're awake.
• 23:46
  Speaker0: And I remember 12, 13 years ago, I went with two other pastors,
• 23:51
  Speaker0: church leaders, on a trip to a camp with our daughters. And we all were struggling
• 23:58
  Speaker0: with phone addiction at that time.
• 24:00
  Speaker0: And I was obnoxious about it. And I took a bunch of pictures of them on their
• 24:04
  Speaker0: phone and put together a collage. Not that I was any better.
• 24:09
  Speaker0: I might have been the worst of all of us, but that was close to 15 years ago.
• 24:15
  Speaker0: It was a long time ago. And I think bone addiction among everybody has just gotten worse and worse.
• 24:23
  Speaker0: I still remember in 2004, I went to Kenya on a mission trip and went to the
• 24:30
  Speaker0: Maasai Mara, which is next to the Tanzanian Serengeti, and saw all of these Maasai Mara,
• 24:38
  Speaker0: herdsmen in their traditional outfits on their phones.
• 24:42
  Speaker0: And that was like 20 something years ago in Africa, in one of the greatest wildlife
• 24:47
  Speaker0: reservations in the world.
• 24:48
  Speaker0: And man, it owns us. So again,
• 24:52
  Speaker0: we're speaking to pastors and church leaders who are struggling with phone addiction,
• 24:57
  Speaker0: maybe if they don't even call it that, but how can they practically and spiritually,
• 25:03
  Speaker0: discipline themselves to maybe set aside their phone and focus on abiding more?
• 25:09
  Speaker1: Yeah. Again, you got to carve out time and that's something you can control,
• 25:13
  Speaker1: but you have to be trusting that God will be in control over all the fear of
• 25:19
  Speaker1: unknown, you know, fear of missing out issue.
• 25:21
  Speaker1: God is in control of it. And, you know, people that are worried about what if
• 25:25
  Speaker1: an urgent call, you know, something happens and somebody needs to get in touch with me.
• 25:30
  Speaker1: Well, you know, even if you got that phone call, you couldn't do much unless God is in charge of it.
• 25:36
  Speaker1: And anyway, so we have to be willing to say, this is something I'm going to let go for a few hours.
• 25:41
  Speaker1: Again, can we do that for three days? Probably not, unless you're committed.
• 25:45
  Speaker1: But on a weekly basis, you can carve out one evening to say,
• 25:49
  Speaker1: I'm just going to, this is a time with the Lord. And start there.
• 25:52
  Speaker1: And I think God can do great things when we draw near to Him.
• 25:57
  Speaker1: When we say, Lord, I want to spend this time just with you.
• 25:59
  Speaker0: Yeah. I think far too many of us trade away the fruitfulness that comes from
• 26:06
  Speaker0: abiding for the technological advantages we get from all of these things that
• 26:11
  Speaker0: are part of our lives now.
• 26:13
  Speaker0: So along those lines, let's kind of slide into talking about humble,
• 26:17
  Speaker0: desperate dependence on God versus what we usually settle for,
• 26:22
  Speaker0: which is much less than I think what he offers.
• 26:25
  Speaker0: How do we settle for less than God's fruitful best when we live lives that just
• 26:33
  Speaker0: basically pray over a meal, pray at the beginning of a church service,
• 26:37
  Speaker0: but other than that, we're just living our lives?
• 26:40
  Speaker1: Yeah. Again, some lessons learned from the prayer retreat is I think we often
• 26:45
  Speaker1: settle for what we can do, things that we can muster up, things that we could
• 26:49
  Speaker1: try and make happen rather than what God can do.
• 26:53
  Speaker1: And I think that's a biggest separator that we have to be worried about as pastors and leaders.
• 26:58
  Speaker1: And we're pretty good. We could do a lot of things. We could create a lot of things.
• 27:02
  Speaker1: But sometimes we miss out on the fruitfulness of what God can do because we
• 27:07
  Speaker1: are trying to do it our way or we're trying to make it happen.
• 27:11
  Speaker1: Rather than letting God do what he wants to do. And I think it goes back to
• 27:15
  Speaker1: the similar theme again, but if we are able, just imagine, if we're able to
• 27:19
  Speaker1: spend our time with the creator, think about those words.
• 27:23
  Speaker1: If we are just spending our time before the creator, omnipotent God who knows
• 27:28
  Speaker1: all things, who can do all things, nothing is impossible for him.
• 27:31
  Speaker1: He's the author of life, author of salvation.
• 27:33
  Speaker1: He's in control, he's sovereign. These are words that I'm not throwing that
• 27:37
  Speaker1: you go, what, CJ, you know a lot of words. No, these are words that we all understand well.
• 27:42
  Speaker1: The problem is, if that is true, and if I could spend my time with the Lord,
• 27:48
  Speaker1: who is all that, and reaffirm that He is in perfect control, for me, I could
• 27:53
  Speaker1: live in peace knowing that, yes, there are things that I can't solve,
• 27:57
  Speaker1: but I trust in God because...
• 27:59
  Speaker1: As I spend my time with the Lord, he gives me a sense of peace.
• 28:02
  Speaker1: And again, an experiential thing, he gives me a sense of peace that I can't explain away.
• 28:07
  Speaker1: But that's, I think, the power of fruitfulness that we miss out.
• 28:10
  Speaker1: If we don't prioritize, I guess prayer is one, but spending time with the Lord,
• 28:15
  Speaker1: I think what we end up doing is we crowd ourselves with our attempts,
• 28:19
  Speaker1: what I think I can do, what I wish I can do.
• 28:22
  Speaker1: And then all the other things that come with it, all the worries and anxieties
• 28:26
  Speaker1: and discouragements and shame and guilt, you name it.
• 28:30
  Speaker1: I think our, you know, Satan himself and our adversary, they know how to press
• 28:34
  Speaker1: the buttons that'll frustrate us.
• 28:36
  Speaker1: And we do not get to a place where we're just really being in the presence of
• 28:41
  Speaker1: God, just adoring our Savior and sometimes just listening to the Holy Spirit.
• 28:46
  Speaker1: And so, yes, personally, I think we miss out because we don't have that experiential
• 28:51
  Speaker1: feeling from God and being with Him.
• 28:54
  Speaker1: The other is, we reap the other side, which is, well, you did what you did on
• 28:59
  Speaker1: your own. And so how's that going for you?
• 29:03
  Speaker1: And so that's the other thing. So he can do so much. He is able,
• 29:07
  Speaker1: more than able, to do everything on his own. And he could do so much better
• 29:10
  Speaker1: when we become a choice instrument in his hands.
• 29:14
  Speaker1: And that's, I think, where we would really experience different things.
• 29:17
  Speaker1: If we become the instrument of God because we are spending our time with him,
• 29:21
  Speaker1: listening to Him, abiding in Him, then I think God can do far beyond what we
• 29:26
  Speaker1: can imagine. And He promises that.
• 29:29
  Speaker1: I think that's what we're missing sometimes because we're busy trying, we're busy doing.
• 29:34
  Speaker0: Yeah. Trying and doing is often the opposite of abiding and waiting.
• 29:40
  Speaker0: And we're supposed to wait on the Lord far more, I think, than more.
• 29:43
  Speaker1: Far more. Yep. Yep. Yep.
• 29:44
  Speaker0: Let's talk about biblical pictures of prayer in the Bible.
• 29:50
  Speaker0: What is your one or two favorite prayer stories in the word?
• 29:55
  Speaker0: And how do those episodes inspire you?
• 29:58
  Speaker1: I could only tell you what's favorite in recent time because there's been many,
• 30:02
  Speaker1: but there's a couple that comes to mind.
• 30:04
  Speaker1: One of my recent favorite is from Mark chapter nine and where a father brings
• 30:11
  Speaker1: his son who's possessed by evil spirit.
• 30:13
  Speaker1: And he comes to Jesus saying, if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.
• 30:18
  Speaker1: And you know the answer, Jesus said, if you can, You know, everything is possible
• 30:22
  Speaker1: for him who believes. Amen.
• 30:24
  Speaker1: But I love verse 24 where the father actually says, I do believe,
• 30:28
  Speaker1: help me overcome my unbelief. Yeah.
• 30:31
  Speaker1: And I think that part, the last part of his confession, his prayer and how he's
• 30:36
  Speaker1: pleading with the Savior that's about to heal his son.
• 30:40
  Speaker1: I think that's for me a touch point where, yes, Lord, I do believe. It's honest prayer.
• 30:45
  Speaker1: It's such a raw prayer. Lord, I do believe in you. But I do have a part where I have unbelief issues.
• 30:52
  Speaker1: Help me overcome my unbelief. And so I think that's a confession from my end,
• 30:57
  Speaker1: but I think that's something that
• 30:59
  Speaker1: Many of us may have to revisit in an honest way with God. God,
• 31:04
  Speaker1: I do believe in you, but I know that there are areas in my life I don't believe in you.
• 31:08
  Speaker1: So help me overcome my unbelief.
• 31:10
  Speaker1: So that's, for me, that's been echoing in my head. And I've been saying that
• 31:14
  Speaker1: prayer, help me overcome, Lord. Second is from, you know, 2 Kings chapter 6,
• 31:18
  Speaker1: you know, Elijah praying for his servant.
• 31:21
  Speaker1: They're surrounded by the king of Aram. And obviously the servant can't see.
• 31:26
  Speaker1: He sees the physical army.
• 31:29
  Speaker1: And so Elijah prays this prayer. And this is a theme here. Oh,
• 31:33
  Speaker1: Lord, open his eyes so he may see.
• 31:35
  Speaker1: Open his eyes so he may see. Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes and he
• 31:39
  Speaker1: looked and saw the hills full of what?
• 31:41
  Speaker1: Horses and chariots of fire all around him. I think that for me is a vivid picture
• 31:47
  Speaker1: of how often I am living my life. I only see what's the physical,
• 31:52
  Speaker1: what is here right now, what I could touch.
• 31:54
  Speaker1: But sometimes I just need a prayer like this. Lord, open his eyes,
• 31:58
  Speaker1: open my eyes so that I can see what you're doing.
• 32:02
  Speaker1: The chariots of fire, all the things that you're already working on.
• 32:05
  Speaker1: He's not stopped. He has not stopped working. The Holy Spirit is always at work.
• 32:09
  Speaker1: Then what's the issue? I might be blind or I might be unable right now to see
• 32:15
  Speaker1: what the Lord is doing. So yeah, asking to overcome unbelief.
• 32:18
  Speaker1: And then really this secondary prayer, which is Lord, help me see. help me see
• 32:24
  Speaker1: Those are a couple of things.
• 32:25
  Speaker0: I got a couple as well. And then I'll do something unusual that's not even in our script.
• 32:30
  Speaker0: I'm going to ask you to close us in prayer and pray for the leaders and pastors
• 32:35
  Speaker0: who are listening to this episode that the eyes of their heart will be opened to.
• 32:41
  Speaker0: Hear the call to prayer, not just in a temporary inspiration kind of way,
• 32:45
  Speaker0: but in a long run kind of way.
• 32:47
  Speaker0: So two stories for me, and I'm the same as you. These are sort of recent inspirations.
• 32:52
  Speaker0: In 1 Daniel chapter 2 in the Old Testament, King Nebuchadnezzar has had his
• 32:57
  Speaker0: dream and he wants it interpreted, but he also wants the interpreters to tell him the dream.
• 33:04
  Speaker0: And they're like, nobody can do that. And he's like, okay, I'm going to kill
• 33:08
  Speaker0: every one of you by ripping you limb from limb and I'm going to turn your houses into a garbage dump.
• 33:15
  Speaker0: So the Bible says, Daniel, having found out about this and knowing he was under
• 33:19
  Speaker0: a death sentence, went to his house,
• 33:21
  Speaker0: told his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah about the matter,
• 33:25
  Speaker0: urging them to ask the God of the heavens for mercy concerning this mystery.
• 33:30
  Speaker0: So Daniel and his friends would not be destroyed with the rest of Babylon's wise men.
• 33:36
  Speaker0: Facing certain death, they get together and pray and ask for mercy.
• 33:41
  Speaker0: And that's huge. And the other one would be Acts chapter 10,
• 33:45
  Speaker0: which is kind of a twofold prayer deal.
• 33:48
  Speaker0: First of all, you have Cornelius, who is praying and seeking the Lord,
• 33:54
  Speaker0: doesn't even know Jesus, but his prayers to God come to the attention of God.
• 33:59
  Speaker0: And then you have Peter praying and resting on top of his house.
• 34:05
  Speaker0: Then God takes those incidences and basically launches the movement that reaches
• 34:13
  Speaker0: the known world. You know, this is...
• 34:15
  Speaker0: This is how kind of the gospel began to go to the Gentiles, to you and me.
• 34:20
  Speaker0: So I love those prayer stories there.
• 34:24
  Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. God worked in both of those situations where maybe the guys
• 34:28
  Speaker1: that were praying didn't even anticipate it. God has his ways.
• 34:32
  Speaker0: Well, hey, why don't you pray for us, Dr. CJ? All right.
• 34:35
  Speaker1: Father, we do pause, first of all, to acknowledge that you are God,
• 34:39
  Speaker1: creator, maker of heaven and earth. You are sovereign.
• 34:43
  Speaker1: You know all things. You are all powerful. Forgive us because at times we have
• 34:48
  Speaker1: not treated you that way.
• 34:49
  Speaker1: And we did that indirectly by trying to take things from you and trying to do it our way.
• 34:55
  Speaker1: Lord, through this podcast and as we think about what it means to surrender to you, what it means to
• 35:01
  Speaker1: acknowledge you in our life, Father, I pray that you would remove a lot of these
• 35:05
  Speaker1: distractions and help our pastors and listeners to know that distractions are
• 35:11
  Speaker1: what's causing us to step away from your presence.
• 35:14
  Speaker1: And so, Lord, would you give them this wisdom, just a tidbit,
• 35:19
  Speaker1: Father, for them to know that my spending time with you is far more productive
• 35:23
  Speaker1: than me trying to solve problems.
• 35:25
  Speaker1: And I do also pray, Lord, that for many who may not see, who are just blinded
• 35:29
  Speaker1: by physical realities and the tangible problems, Lord, that you would open their eyes,
• 35:36
  Speaker1: see who you are, see you at work, see all that you have already done,
• 35:41
  Speaker1: and to lean into you rather than to try to solve.
• 35:44
  Speaker1: On our own, or even just trying harder. I think that's the adage that we have.
• 35:49
  Speaker1: Try harder next time. Try better next time. And Lord, I just ask that you would
• 35:53
  Speaker1: give our pastors, our leaders, our listeners wisdom to just surrender,
• 35:57
  Speaker1: to say, Lord, I want what you want.
• 36:00
  Speaker1: I want to see you at work, and I want to be able to see you at work.
• 36:05
  Speaker1: So Father, we pray these prayers, and many who might be struggling with unbelief,
• 36:09
  Speaker1: and none of us would say that out loud, but Father,
• 36:12
  Speaker1: Help us overcome our unbelief or lack of belief. We pray this in Jesus' name.
• 36:17
  Speaker0: Amen. Well, thank you, Dr. CJ. For all of our listeners, next week we have more on this topic.
• 36:24
  Speaker0: For Dr. CJ and I, it will be about two minutes from now, but we're going to
• 36:28
  Speaker0: be talking about, we each have a similar hero of the faith in prayer,
• 36:32
  Speaker0: Andrew Murray, the South African pastor.
• 36:35
  Speaker0: We'll talk about some of the prayer stories in his life.
• 36:38
  Speaker0: We're going to talk about how to seek a God-presence-centered life.
• 36:42
  Speaker0: And we're really going to focus in on how pastors and church leaders can help
• 36:46
  Speaker0: their churches develop a culture of prayer. And we will close out by recommending
• 36:53
  Speaker0: some great resources in the prayer realm. So stay tuned for that.
• 36:57
  Speaker0: Dr. CJ, thank you for your time.
• 36:59
  Speaker1: Thank you for having me.
• 37:00
  Speaker0: Great wisdom there from Dr. CJ. I'm so appreciative of him as a guy and for his time on the podcast.
• 37:08
  Speaker0: And now I'm going to bring in my guest host, Pastor Christopher Cole.
• 37:12
  Speaker0: And we are going to buckle in because it's time to do something hard and painful.
• 37:19
  Speaker1: All right. Are we ready, Pastor Chase, to dive into this? I'm going to open your bacon soda for you.
• 37:26
  Speaker0: Thank you.
• 37:26
  Speaker1: And we want to hear the sound of the...
• 37:30
  Speaker0: All right. It's not very fizzy.
• 37:32
  Speaker1: It had a little pop there.
• 37:34
  Speaker0: Oh, gosh.
• 37:37
  Speaker0: This smells like it's going to take about 10 years off of my life. You smell that?
• 37:45
  Speaker1: That is not good, brother.
• 37:46
  Speaker0: I hate to say this in front of a former man in blue, a former law enforcement
• 37:51
  Speaker0: officer, but it smells like bacon.
• 37:54
  Speaker1: This does not smell like bacon.
• 37:56
  Speaker0: It smells like bad burnt bacon. How about that?
• 38:00
  Speaker1: As a former law enforcement officer, this does have some odor peculiarities
• 38:04
  Speaker1: that are similar to methamphetamine, which is not a good thing, by the way.
• 38:10
  Speaker0: Folks, this smells awful.
• 38:13
  Speaker1: It is not good. It is not good.
• 38:15
  Speaker0: And it has sugar in it, and that's frightening.
• 38:18
  Speaker1: But we are going to be bold and press on. Okay. Salute.
• 38:23
  Speaker0: Cheers. Here we go. To our health.
• 38:26
  Speaker1: Wow.
• 38:27
  Speaker0: Whoa.
• 38:31
  Speaker1: Are you getting the smoky
• 38:32
  Speaker0: Flavor i just feel like i'm drinking a pig and it's weird.
• 38:41
  Speaker1: I don't know that I would say it's like drinking a pig.
• 38:48
  Speaker1: Do you know that the cooking stuff, you drip in liquid smoke?
• 38:54
  Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a little bit like drinking liquid smoke to me with a sweetness to it.
• 39:02
  Speaker0: Okay, so I'll say this for it. You were right. It's not worse than Lester's Fixin's Ranch.
• 39:09
  Speaker0: The front end is not very pleasant to me.
• 39:13
  Speaker1: It is not.
• 39:14
  Speaker0: The aftertaste is...
• 39:16
  Speaker1: It's kind of cream soda-y.
• 39:18
  Speaker0: Not bad. It's not terrible. It doesn't leave a terrible taste in your mouth.
• 39:23
  Speaker0: And you know what? After the ranch soda and some of the other things we've tried,
• 39:27
  Speaker0: I kind of appreciate that.
• 39:29
  Speaker1: But it does leave an aftertaste in your mouth. Sort of like that greasy aftertaste
• 39:34
  Speaker1: you get in your mouth when you've had some bad bacon. It's sort of like that.
• 39:40
  Speaker1: It just sort of like covers your mouth with a film here.
• 39:44
  Speaker0: It does a little bit. All right, I'm going to take one more taste,
• 39:46
  Speaker0: and that's probably all I can endure.
• 39:52
  Speaker0: It just hits hard going down. It's strong.
• 39:57
  Speaker1: Well, Pastor Chase, what is your recommendation?
• 40:01
  Speaker1: How many Spurgeons would you give the Lester's Fixin' Bacon Soda?
• 40:07
  Speaker1: There's a look on your face for those who can't see this. We're not sure if
• 40:11
  Speaker1: this is going to be live on video or just you're getting the audio.
• 40:14
  Speaker1: There is a look on Pastor Chase's face that looks like someone stuck a dirty sock in his mouth.
• 40:20
  Speaker0: Yeah, yeah, that's about how I feel. I would recommend Charles Spurgeon avoid this soda.
• 40:26
  Speaker0: He's already got enough health problems as it is with his cigar smoking and
• 40:30
  Speaker0: gout and all that kind of stuff. But I'm going to give this zero Spurgeon's out of five. Zero.
• 40:38
  Speaker1: Zero. As I recall, we gave the Lester's Fixin's Ranch Soda like negative Spurgeon's.
• 40:45
  Speaker0: Negative five Osteen's.
• 40:47
  Speaker1: Yeah, we gave it Osteen's, right. That's what we did.
• 40:50
  Speaker0: It's not as bad as that. I'm not going to have nightmares about this,
• 40:52
  Speaker0: but I'm also not going to—I can't think of a use scenario. Right.
• 40:57
  Speaker1: You would not want to bring this back.
• 40:59
  Speaker0: No. No. I'm going to pour this out in the sink.
• 41:02
  Speaker1: You would not bring this to a friend's party.
• 41:04
  Speaker0: Depends on the friend. I might. You know, it depends. I wouldn't bring it to
• 41:10
  Speaker0: Pastor Jason's house, who recommended
• 41:12
  Speaker0: this beverage for us, because he's a good guy and a good neighbor.
• 41:16
  Speaker1: And he is over there, dare I say, almost giggling with glee at us having to
• 41:22
  Speaker1: drink this foul beverage.
• 41:25
  Speaker0: Lord, do not hold this sin against him.
• 41:27
  Speaker1: Well, we would want to forgive our neighbors as we have been forgiven. Amen.
• 41:33
  Speaker1: And this is not a recommendation. I also will concur. This is definitely a zero Spurgeons.
• 41:41
  Speaker1: I don't think it strays into Osteen category, but it is not something I would
• 41:47
  Speaker1: ever want to consume again. Yeah.
• 41:49
  Speaker1: It could be very happy never doing so ever again.
• 41:52
  Speaker0: It smells a little like bad bacon. It doesn't taste like bacon.
• 41:56
  Speaker0: No. It tastes like something cooked, but not.
• 41:59
  Speaker1: And it's got that smoky, and it also does leave kind of a film in your mouth. That's not pleasant.
• 42:05
  Speaker0: Okay, Lester, do better. Do better.
• 42:07
  Speaker1: Do better.
• 42:08
  Speaker0: We will close out today with a call to prayer for the yellow card initiative
• 42:13
  Speaker0: that you have been hearing about.
• 42:15
  Speaker0: Several of our Great Commission Association Hispanic churches and our guy Enrique Ramos have been
• 42:23
  Speaker0: passing out the yellow cards all around Levi's Stadium and other places around
• 42:27
  Speaker0: Central California, sharing the gospel with people attending World Cup soccer
• 42:33
  Speaker0: games and regular soccer games.
• 42:35
  Speaker0: So that effort is going to be continuing with GCA member churches and Anthony
• 42:41
  Speaker0: Ferguson and the Yellow Card Initiative team.
• 42:44
  Speaker0: So pray for great fruitfulness for that. You can check out updates on our Facebook
• 42:50
  Speaker0: page, which is facebook.com GCASBC.
• 42:54
  Speaker0: Or you can go to our website GCASBC.org.
• 42:59
  Speaker0: And if you want to find show notes for the podcast or subscribe,
• 43:04
  Speaker0: all you got to do is go to Apple Podcasts or any other place and just search
• 43:08
  Speaker0: for Every Church Flourishing.
• 43:11
  Speaker0: And the show notes are at our website, everychurchflourishing.com.
• 43:16
  Speaker0: More of Dr. CJ next week. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for telling
• 43:21
  Speaker0: your friends and sharing the news.
• 43:23
  Speaker0: Good day to you and Godspeed.