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AI Goes to Church: Todd Korpi shares What Christians Need to Know · Future Christian

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  Martha Tatarnic (00:05) This is the Future Christian Podcast, a conversation about church leadership, fresh ideas, and the future of the church. Martha Tatarnic (00:18) Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today, Lauren Richmond Jr. is in conversation with Todd Corpey. Todd is a pastor, missiologist, and church consultant. He is Dean of Digital Ministry Programs at Ascent College, Assistant Professor of Christian Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary, and works in several capacities at
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  OneHope. He also serves as the lead researcher of the Digital Mission Consortia. collaborative research initiative exploring the frontier of digital ministry. Todd is the author of Your Daughter Shall Prophecy and The Life-Giving Spirit. He and his wife Tara live in Chicagoland with their three daughters. A reminder before we start today's conversation, please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and share Future Christian with a friend. Connect with Lauren, Martha, and
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  Future Christian on Instagram. Shoot us an email. at lauren at resonate media pro.com with comments, questions or ideas for future episodes. We appreciate your support in making this podcast possible. Loren Richmond Jr (01:31) This is Loren Richmond Jr., and I'm pleased to be joined today by Todd Corpey. Hello, welcome to show. Todd Korpi (01:37) Hey, great to have you. Great to be here. Loren Richmond Jr (01:40) Hey, you can have me, that's fine. I'm glad to have you as well, how about
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  that? Todd Korpi (01:48) Thanks for having me on. Loren Richmond Jr (01:49) Yeah. Share if you would, just a little bit about your background, your faith journey, what that's looked like in the past and what that looks like today. Todd Korpi (01:56) Yeah, so I grew up in, I was a kind of typical church kid ⁓ at church just about every night of the week. I grew up in the Pentecostal tradition in the Assemblies of God. ⁓ it really kind of, my testimony was really one more of God's kind of
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  enduring faithfulness ⁓ throughout generations than it was of kind of a, you know, I had my wayward moments before the age of five when I finally surrendered my life to the Lord, but. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (02:24) Yeah. Todd Korpi (02:26) But yeah, the Lord called me to. ⁓ to ministry at a young age. And ⁓ so I started ⁓ preaching as a teenager and eventually went to school ⁓ at Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, which is where I met my wife. And we've been married almost 18 years.
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  And, yeah, so that's been it. We have been kind of done a little bit of everything in vocational ministry, both in the local church and now very much near the church. So we're we both do Loren Richmond Jr (02:42) Hmm. Wow. Todd Korpi (02:58) We run a ministry providing consultation, strategic leadership and research and stuff to churches and ministries. But then most of my role, I work as the missiologist in residence for a ministry called One Hope, which specializes in scripture engagement
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  for next gen around the world. so, yeah, that's kind of been in a nutshell, in a very kind of tweetable moment. That's 40 years of serving Jesus in in a second. Loren Richmond Jr (03:32) Well, the most fun fact for our listeners, Todd and I are bitter rivals. Bitter rivals from years ago. So Todd, like he mentioned, is a graduate of formerly CBC, Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. I am a graduate of formerly Baptist Bible College, now Mission University, and also Springfield,
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  Missouri. So we were, gosh, I don't know. It sounds like we may or may not have crossed paths. Maybe like in a visiting trip, perhaps you did, Todd. But our Todd Korpi (03:37) It's true. Yeah. Loren Richmond Jr (04:01) our Bible colleges were bitter rivals ⁓ back in the day. Todd Korpi (04:05) They were. I remember getting, I remember getting scolded one time in chapel, the whole, the whole school got scolded because as, because we were, it was after a basketball game and admittedly our
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  school was just full of a bunch of people that turned heathen during the basketball game. And so we actually, as a nod to our theological differences between the two schools, we're chanting, we've got spirit. Yes, we do. We've got spirit. about you? And that, that did not settle, that did not settle well with school leadership. Loren Richmond Jr (04:10) ⁓ my goodness. Yeah. ⁓ man, that's good. That's good. Todd Korpi (04:35) Shit. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (04:36) That's good. ⁓ Okay. Since Todd
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  brought it up here, I can share some of my embarrassing stories. think ours, as I was sharing with Todd before we started recording, ours was, ⁓ so Todd, forgive me if I'm not getting the finer nuances of assemblies of God theology, correct? But, ⁓ the joke was that we would, we would often like, ⁓ say, I think they lost their salvation in the midst of, know, if we were critiquing, you know, CBC's play during a game. Todd Korpi (04:52) It's been a long time. Yeah, yeah. Loren Richmond Jr
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  (05:06) We would often say that now, unfortunately, like if we're real, like those years, at least the tail end or the, my, my time there, like CBC was like the powerhouse and BBC was often, I think there was one time I remember us getting a big win versus y'all. And thankfully like in the years since in the years recently, the basketball program at my alma mater seems to have really turned it around. ⁓ But nonetheless. Todd Korpi (05:33) Has it. Yeah. Loren Richmond Jr (05:34) We are not here
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  to talk about sports and, and, guess, I guess we're recording this, what, on the second day of the NCA tournament. I suppose it's, ⁓ Todd, let me say this joke real quick, Todd. Like one year I was in a passage group with a guy from Truett Seminary. That's the one at Baylor, right? ⁓ it was a year they had just won the tournament and I was like, Hey, my alma mater's national champs too. Todd Korpi (05:41) Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. ⁓ Yeah, once I left the Bible college bubble, I realized that it
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  wasn't quite as big of a deal outside of our little world than what it felt like at the moment. Loren Richmond Jr (06:11) You Yeah. All right. ⁓ Any kind of spiritual practice you want to share about? Todd Korpi (06:22) Yeah, I think for me, I have over the last decade or so been kind of on a journey. know, as we've talked about, I grew up in the Pentecostal tradition, which is very much places a great deal of emphasis on experiential faith of, you know, demonstrating the faith. that
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  admittedly is, you know, one of the reasons why Pentecostalism spread so rapidly in the 20th and now the early... Loren Richmond Jr (06:37) Mm-hmm. Todd Korpi (06:50) first quarter of the 21st century of just that, especially globally of the emphasis on direct experience and encounter. But I found ⁓ I had kind of, don't know if you call it a dark night of the soul season as a church planter. ⁓ wife and I planted a church in Flint, Michigan. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (06:52) Mm-hmm. Todd Korpi
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  (07:10) little over 10 years ago. And through that season, know, the Lord really, you know, it's the suffering that a church planner endures will bring out, you know, the, the weaknesses and stuff. And I began to, ⁓ kind of go on a journey of encountering, the faith from the Anglican tradition and other, kind of elements of the sacramental traditions, ⁓ of the faith reading Callisto's where who kind of have been responsible for bridging and translating Eastern Orthodoxy. Loren Richmond Jr
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  (07:11) Yeah. Yeah. Todd Korpi (07:40) evangelicalism. And so it was through that I felt like not a replacement of the kind of church culture in which I had grown up, but as a compliment to it of really leaning into what does it mean to sit in stillness before the Lord, which as a fourth generation Pentecostal we don't do very well all the time. What does it mean to Loren Richmond Jr (08:00) Yeah. Todd Korpi (08:03) you to lean on the prayers of those who've gone before us in, you know, the
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  Book of Common Prayer and that sort of thing. And then to begin to recognize that, you know, so much of our faith is so... ⁓ ancient and emerged from, you before, you know, our American culture was ever a gleam in, you know, it's their founders eyes. ⁓ But instead it is something that is enduring and transcendent. And that's really, I felt like Ben is a quietness in prayer of, ⁓ of recognizing that God often speaks in the stillness because he's able to ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (08:30) Right. Mm-
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  hmm. Todd Korpi (08:49) He's often able to get through to us where the noise of life and the chaos of life, or in my case, in what constituted good prayer was speaking without ceasing, know, of never taking a breath. ⁓ So much of that is the spiritual life can be enriched, mine has been enriched, by embracing the perspectives and the practices of those who have gone before us. Loren Richmond Jr (09:00) Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for sharing all that. I, I'm tempted to want to ask you a bunch of
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  questions about Pentecostals and that experiential nature, let's, let's save that for now because I do have Todd on to talk about his book, AI Goes to Church, Pastoral Wisdom for Artificial Intelligence. And Todd, it's been a minute since I read the book. So I just like, when I grabbed the book again for this conversation, I was noticing again the subtitle Pastoral Wisdom. for artificial intelligence. I think as I think about this book versus other like AI and church books, like I think that
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  little subtitle does well to speak about what this book is versus what it's not and why I found it so much more engaging and meaningful. Do you want to talk just about like the overall theme or vision for the book? Todd Korpi (10:06) Yeah, so my discipline where my masters and my doctorate are both in the field of missiology, which is really kind of the study of Christianity and culture and how the two bridge one another. How do we effectively communicate the gospel? How do we raise people up
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  in the faith? How do we cross cultures in a way that we're taking just the gospel and minimizing, bringing cultural baggage and calling it ⁓ right faith? ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (10:33) Mm-hmm. Todd Korpi (10:34) And so my background ⁓ and now working a lot in the area of ⁓ technology and ministry, I lead a research collab called the Digital Mission Consortium, which is focused a lot on ⁓ understanding what digital ministry really even is, how we engage it well, what are the best practices and
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  stuff like that. And so I approached this book and I actually, I believe I actually say it in the book ⁓ that this was from the perspective of really a pastor and academic ⁓ that is addressing this topic from that lens. So it's not a, I'm not a technologist in the sense that, you know, this isn't the book to help you learn to, you know, Loren Richmond Jr (11:17) Yeah. Todd Korpi (11:20) do coding better with Claude or prompting better with chat GPT. But I wanted instead to look at the subject
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  of AI from the lens of the broader kind of constellation of things that are a part of our faith and to wrestle through, you potential. Loren Richmond Jr (11:22) hate. Todd Korpi (11:38) Pastoral concerns that I thought would be or that I believe are and I believe is proving out and since the book has been published ⁓ To be you know concerns that we need to consider and kind of approaching this whole subject with a proactivity to engage the conversation ⁓ proactively rather than just a
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  reactive kind of the way we did with social media where, you know, we were headlong into the social media age before we realized, this is actually having an effect on how we understand friendship, how our kids are, you know, developing and that sort of thing. So that was really kind of the posture that I wanted to take was one of, ⁓ was one of, you know, from the heart of a pastor mixed with some scholarship. And then ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (12:01) Right. Right. Todd Korpi (12:23) kind of
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  addressing AI through that lens. Loren Richmond Jr (12:27) Right, right. I want to talk, this is not AI specifically, but I found this quite, quite stark as someone who has not studied Biblical Hebrew. You talk about, I'm not sure if I can get this word correct, Nekash or the translation of the word for serpent in Genesis, thinking about that early story of the serpent coming to tempt or talk to Adam and Eve. And first talk about like that understanding of the word. And then I think about this
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  and like these voices of chaos in our world. And certainly there's this understanding to bring it back to AI that AI could be a voice of chaos in our world. Todd Korpi (13:09) Certainly. And I think in many ways it's used that way. Often you think about, you know, deep fake propaganda videos and yeah. Yeah, exactly. And it's what's interesting is I find that my daughter's generation, you know, my daughter's 15. Loren Richmond Jr (13:14) Yeah. feel like anything on X, anything on X today or
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  Twitter, I'm like, is this real? Todd Korpi (13:28) They're able to spot AI fakes so much faster than even I am as a millennial. I find myself lamenting my aging in that. But I also am encouraged the fact that their generation growing up in it is going to hone a level of discernment that we don't have. yeah, think that so the Nahash is this, or we'll just say serpent to avoid doing violence to the Hebrew, but is this image in Genesis. Loren Richmond Jr (13:32) Hmm. Mm-hmm. Todd Korpi (13:58)
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  The creation narrative is ⁓ concerned. John Walton at Wheaton talks about this. So does Carmen Himes. at Biola that the story is concerned with addressing why we are here more than how we got here. ⁓ So it's less concerned with telling the story of material origins in a scientific way, the way that our minds kind of think, and more as an apologetic to help the people of the time and consequently us who have inherited that wisdom to understand why God created us. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (14:14) Mm-
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  hmm. Todd Korpi (14:34) So we see a lot of kind of strange imagery the snake that apparently is able to you know walk in some ways ⁓ we see these two trees and but what we see in that is is really this kind of discussion of wisdom and of choice in the tree of life we see them kind of this symbol of God's wisdom of doing life under his lordship, under his reign, and in partnership with his direction, ⁓ really kind of covenant. And the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is what Isaiah
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  describes of Lucifer, of ascending to be like the Most High. It's what we later see in Babel, of trying to ascend to the heavens to be like, it's this desire to rule as God does instead of ruling Loren Richmond Jr (15:08) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Todd Korpi (15:25) under his lordship and at his direction as kind of an ambassador to use Paul's term. And so the serpent, we think of serpents in our culture. ⁓ the snake is kind of a negative connotation. has, it's cunning, it's deceptive, it's fork
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  tongue. And that's kind of how we semiotically perceive that in our culture. But when we look back at even just how, like in the medical field, the ⁓ symbol of medicine has a snake wrapped around it and whatnot. That image has changed over time. And then the ancients, Mike Heiser, Loren Richmond Jr (15:51) Right. Right, right. Todd Korpi (16:09) who recently passed away, but wrote a book called The Unseen Realm, where he goes extensively into the imagery in that story. So if anyone wants to
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  nerd out over that, it's a great book to do so. But ⁓ really kind of this... tempting toward a choice of choosing human wisdom over godly wisdom. The Nahash is saying to Eve, does say to Eve, God doesn't want you to become like him, to paraphrase. Like he's essentially, he's got the hidden goods that he's trying to keep you from. And so I think that anything in our society today that takes us from a place of Loren Richmond Jr (16:41) Right. Mm-hmm. Todd Korpi (16:54) cooperation with God in,
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  of course, a subservient sort of way, like we're following his direction, but we're partnering with the work of the Spirit in the world today. Anything that takes us from a place of stewardship, I guess, to a place of rulership, is in the spirit of that nachash. It is, I mean, quite frankly, it's wanting to legislate. Loren Richmond Jr (17:07) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Todd Korpi (17:16) Christianity instead of do the hard work of person to person evangelism and sharing the faith over tables and building
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  relationships. It is wanting to, you know, secure our own place and belonging and power and comfort at the expense of other people. is wanting, again, wanting to rule instead of to steward, I think is the kind of the kind of the sirens call of the serpent that we see. Loren Richmond Jr (17:18) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Todd Korpi (17:46) genesis of essentially rejecting godly wisdom in favor of human wisdom to do it our way. Loren Richmond Jr (17:56) It's interesting you talk about control and power.
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  Like you just mentioned earlier, social media and how, gosh, has that been what 15, at least 15, 20 years now? Like I feel like I was reading about it when I was in seminary, like certainly 15 years ago, at least about how, like there was so much optimism and how we can use this. Like, especially for me coming from a mainline context more recently, like there was so much optimism, like how this is going to help us control and grow the church sort of on our own, sort of like by, by capturing,
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  I'm not sure the word would be, like making use of this technological wizardry. And we don't, I don't think the church wants to become Luddite, so to speak, but certainly we've seen like social media has not been all we wrapped, what we wrapped it up to be like 15 years ago. So yeah, talk more about that. And when you think about like this idea that like I don't know from your context, but certainly again, from my context, there was this idea like technology is going to save us, save the
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  church. Todd Korpi (19:03) Yeah, and I think that there's the relationship between technology and humanity is fascinating and goes back far before the digital age. Nicholas Carr in his book, The Shallows, talks about even like how technology, emergence of the codex, what we now call the book, changed, you know, even the neuroplasticity of the people who live through that change, the way that their brains function. ⁓ Something as simple as the introduction of GPS's into, you know, for Uber
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  drivers versus the generation of taxi drivers before. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (19:23) Sure. Yeah. Wow. Huh. Right. Todd Korpi (19:42) that had to navigate on memory and instinct actually scientifically, Carr talks about how that produces a difference in the size of the hippocampus of each respective person. tech. Well, I mean, thing is, is the brain is made to adapt to the needs of the person. we, mean, personally, I don't need a lot. I probably should do that more because I'm really
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  technologically directionally challenged. But. Loren Richmond Jr (19:52) Okay, so I'm here and I should turn off GPS when I drive then. Sure. Todd Korpi (20:11) But I say all that to say, I think that there's this dynamic of a lack of reflection and observation. ⁓ Cal Newport wrote a book on digital minimalism in which he talks about Amish hacker practices. ⁓ not two words you don't often hear together. But how, you know, we think of the Amish as very... ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (20:18) Mm-hmm
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  Yeah, yeah, you don't. Todd Korpi (20:36) by instinctually rejecting any technology. That's actually not true. There's a lot of diversity of practice between Amish communities. And the difference is, is they have kind of an ethical criteria that they use to determine whether or not they're going to integrate a technology. And there's actually a practice of a new technology wants to, know, someone in the community wants to try Loren Richmond Jr (20:38) Right, right. Todd Korpi (21:06) try a
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  new technology, they will at the the bishops direction, allow them to to try that new technology to use it. And the rest of the community observes how that affects that person. So not just, you know, the benefits, which is what we tend to leap to. But they look at what what did they lose, you know, in integrating this? What are the the unseen things? So something as simple as electricity. A lot of Amish communities actually use electricity, but it's solar powered because they they Loren
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  Richmond Jr (21:18) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right, right. Yeah. Hmm. Todd Korpi (21:36) believe that sourcing ⁓ and consequently giving money outside of the community damages the community. It's not just because they don't like electricity. ⁓ And I think that we could stand to benefit. Now there are downsides to that. Amish societies can be very hierarchical and in some ways even oppressive. But I think that they're onto something there of recognizing as we're approaching a new technological
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  development, not just rushing to the productivity questions, ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (21:41) Mm-hmm. Right. Right, right, right. Todd Korpi (22:06) Efficiency to essentially just buying the promise that the the developers of that technology offer us but looking at What is what does this stand to do to me? You know, what is can I? Rather than looking at it from the lens of just productivity. Can I look at it from the lens of fruitfulness which related to AI? ⁓ That changes that that small little
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  adjustment changes everything because if we're in a productivity phase then it's about outcomes. It's about ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (22:07) Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. Todd Korpi (22:36) It's about scalability. we're talking fruitfulness, then it becomes about how do I use this in a way that creates margin in my life to invest in the people around me? ⁓ How do I account for the fact that it's an enormous consumer of energy and can do violence to creation ⁓ if we're simply exploiting creation for its
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  resources? How can I temper that? Maybe I make a few Loren Richmond Jr (22:45) Mm-hmm. Todd Korpi (23:06) fewer ⁓ random ⁓ deep fake memes and stuff like that and instead only focus on using it when it's necessary. Very similar to trading in my four mile an hour Hummer for more eco-friendly vehicle or choosing to walk somewhere instead to steward the environment better. Making those kind of choices I think is crucial in a of a broader sense of ⁓ how we approach technology of really inspecting
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  what Loren Richmond Jr (23:23) Right. Todd Korpi (23:36) what it's doing to us, how it's affecting us and allowing, but that's going to really take us abandoning or walking away from some of our individualism and recognize that we need to discern that stuff in community. Loren Richmond Jr (23:48) Yeah. Yeah. Something that was interesting around this topic of AI, there's certainly some, you know, as your book and other books I read get into it, like what is the difference between cognition
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  or what is personhood? What is humanity? What is, you know, what is, is the AI actually thinking at what point will it become, you know, as the, as the social stuff or the, the, the fiction stuff talks about coherent in its own right. You know, what is human is, I guess, the question you have this quote here. I want to read some of it about anchoring the desiccate or the, danger of anchoring the designation of humanists outside of our own authority and the dangers that can come with that. Do
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  you want to talk about, ⁓ why it's why that's dangerous to anchor humanists in other sources? Todd Korpi (24:44) Yeah, so my, what I was saying there is that the danger comes from in actually assuming that authority to designate human and not human. ⁓ And history has really borne that out time and time again, that any time one people group looks at another people group and says, they're less human, or they're three fifths of a human, or we look at the eugenics movement in the ⁓ early 20th
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  century. Loren Richmond Jr (24:53) Okay. Yeah. Right. Todd Korpi (25:13) And there were people that spent an unbelievable amount of time trying to rank the races in genetic superiority and whatnot. Anytime that we've stepped into that mode as human beings, ⁓ catastrophe and tragedy has always followed because we simply, 100%, absolutely. so when we look at the Genesis story, again, a story that's focused more on Loren Richmond Jr (25:29) Yeah. I mean, it's still happening today. Todd Korpi
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  (25:41) why we're here than how we're here. We see a God who... ⁓ Again, in the time, the prevailing creation narratives in the ancient Near East were humanity was at best an afterthought, if not kind of slave labor created to ⁓ take care of creation, because creation was kind of an accident. One creation myth refers to two gods engaging in a battle, and one god splits the guts of the other with a sword, and from the guts of ⁓ the slain god comes the universe. And you see that even in Greco-
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  Roman Loren Richmond Jr (25:55) Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Todd Korpi (26:16) mythology, which a lot of ⁓ people today are more familiar with, that the gods were interested in humans to see what they could get from them, maybe to mess around with them because they're bored, but it had their own stuff going on. They didn't really care about ⁓ humanity unless they were angry. The writer of the creation story comes along and tells a very different tale, that each element of creation was intently and
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  purposefully and directly created by the words of God himself. Loren Richmond Jr (26:20) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Todd Korpi (26:46) And then he gets to humankind and bends down into the dirt and with his own hands forms humanity, breathes his own breath. And that term image in Hebrew is used elsewhere in the Old Testament to refer to an idol. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (27:04) Hmm. Todd Korpi (27:05) And when we look at what is an idol, well, an idol is something that is created by hands to represent a
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  deity. When you look at that stone figure or that wooden figure, it's to call to mind the God that that ⁓ idol is to represent. So in Exodus 20, when God prohibits creating a graven image for him, it's because he had already made his imagers with his own hands, and that was us. Loren Richmond Jr (27:33) Hmm. Todd Korpi (27:35) really designating something as human that was not created by God himself. ⁓ regardless of how human-like it may be, is a violation of that commandment of creating a
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  graven image. It has nothing to do with iconography. It has to do with assigning an image-bearing status to something which isn't, and to looking upon that thing as though it is something made with the hands and the breath of God. And so when we look at what it means to be human, we recognize that that origin story shows us that that designation is something that comes from God alone, and we don't have the authority to assign it to somebody else. Doesn't mean we should mistreat, you know, a
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  future anthrop- like embodied form of AI any more than, you know, gives us license to kick our dog as we walk by the, you know, the hall. ⁓ But it does, it does keep this special reservation in kind of our framework of thought that being human is actually something unique and special and is Loren Richmond Jr (28:23) Sure. Right, right. Todd Korpi (28:42) determined by God and relinquishes that power out of our hands, which I think is, from what we see in history and today, very important.
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  Loren Richmond Jr (28:53) Yeah, that makes sense. So if I'm hearing you right, your basic point is like, there's no discussion. Like there's no discussion we had. you know, God is assigned humans as in the image of God or vice versa. Yeah. If I'm saying that right. So again, your point is like, there's no discussion we had. Case is closed, right? Todd Korpi (29:15) Right. that's really important for the future, but it's also important now. Things of, I mean, I read an article in the New Yorker
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  just this week that was talking about people and their ⁓ forming strong bonds with ⁓ AI character bots. And one person interviewed referred to the bot as her spouse, that they were married. ⁓ And people roll their eyes at that, but that kind of bonding is very Loren Richmond Jr (29:32) Right, right. Todd Korpi (29:45) pervasive, it's not relegated to simply young people, it's young and old alike. ⁓ And it's something that's only going to become more of a thing as the field of relationship bots
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  and that kind of stuff. And cybernetics, is there's a massive push to create embodied forms of AI. When those meet in the form of your household maid, think of the Brady Bunch with Alice as ⁓ an AI kind of bot ⁓ that Loren Richmond Jr (30:02) Yeah, yeah. Right. Todd Korpi (30:15) is the vision. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But instead of it looking like a robot, looking like a human being, a little bit more like the movie subservience that came out in 2024 of a very human-like character. So I think that
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  we need to. Loren Richmond Jr (30:15) Or I guess the Jetsons too, right? Right. Yeah. Todd Korpi (30:31) think about and anticipate those sorts of things in anticipation of having to ask questions or to address in the public conversation issues like that and to have a good case to make of the dignity and the specialness and the uniqueness of what it means to be human. Loren Richmond Jr (30:49) Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking of just like, gosh, my son is eight. And since the new Amazon Alexa
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  upgrade, he just like likes talking to Alexa. And I'm like, come talk to us, son. Like come talk to us. Todd Korpi (31:02) Yeah, for sure. Loren Richmond Jr (31:04) I want to ask you about, I'm trying to find the quote here on 112 about the, you talk about the risks of the church in their commitments to social action, aligning to political and social causes, but you may say that it must never be hitched to them indiscriminately and permanently. This is, this is certainly something that I
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  wrestle with within my own tradition and my own context of wondering like, you know, How much differentiation is there between ⁓ my brand of Christianity versus like a political party? So talk more about how you, what that looks like for you and what you advise for churches and communities of faith and believers. Todd Korpi (31:51) Yeah, so I have a lot of strong opinions on this subject, but I think that it fundamentally comes down to Augustine's concept of ordered loves. ⁓ A lot ⁓ of people
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  have disordered loves in relation to their country and their faith, so that their faith is formed more by their Loren Richmond Jr (32:01) Hmm. Right. Todd Korpi (32:19) ⁓ cultural or national identity than it actually is by historic Christianity. And we see this probably most frequently in ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (32:22) Right. Todd Korpi (32:29) in a lot of our conversation today in the year of our Lord 2026, where you have a lot of co-opting of Christian language and symbols and norms in a
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  way that actually is kind of absent of any Christian substance. Loren Richmond Jr (32:42) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Todd Korpi (32:50) think of a quote Beth Moore said years ago that is, man, as it rang true, that it's going to become increasingly necessary to determine ⁓ what or to distinguish between what is Christian from what is Christ like. And I think that we're really living that out. And I see that a lot in, not I hesitate to name specifics, but in the reaction to some of the comments that James
• 4:12
  Tallarico has made about his faith may not agree. Loren Richmond Jr (33:03) Hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm, right. Todd Korpi (33:19) agree with everything of it, but branding him like a heretic and all of this kind of stuff from like certain conservative media outlets is just and people. Loren Richmond Jr (33:21) Right. Feels a little much. Todd Korpi (33:30) Yeah, but people are like, well, he must be because Fox News said so or whatever. that's just it. But it happens the other way around, too.
• 4:16
  You know, the idea of, you know, when we talk about Christian nationalism and stuff like that, the undergirding thing that I think is the more pervasive concern is ⁓ American civil religion. It's it's a folk religion. ⁓ It's actually not Christianity, but civil religion transcends Loren Richmond Jr (33:35) You Right, right, right. Todd Korpi (34:00) the political binaries and whatnot. ⁓ Every political party misuses scripture to its own ends or hitches itself to certain causes as kind of in
• 4:20
  the spirit of the crusaders saying Deus vult, God wills it, and our cause is holy and just. And the church has an obligation, I believe, to have a measure of distance from investment. Loren Richmond Jr (34:08) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Todd Korpi (34:30) into that doesn't mean we don't care about civics, but it means that we approach it with a level of awareness and consciousness of what's going on in in this. ⁓ are what are the things that are instead of just buying into whatever narrative, you
• 4:24
  know, this person or that or this party or that is pushing instead looking at what is what is it that's actually happening? What's happening in the unseen realm? What's happening among the principalities and powers and rulers of this age that are both seen and unseen that need to be considered and how and paying careful attention to the inwardness that of how I am becoming disordered or anxious or ⁓ hyper vigilant in certain situations and and social media has a huge role in that. The algo is
• 4:28
  there that undergird that chooses what you see is choosing Loren Richmond Jr (35:14) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Todd Korpi (35:29) what you see to get you to come back. It's mining your attention. It's sustaining your attention so social media companies can sell to advertisers and so it's going to show you those things that confirm your bias, that make you mad, that make you see others as an existential threat. And so we have to kind of recognize the time that we're in and also approach and
• 4:32
  engage with a level of kind of holding it with an open hand of detachment. Loren Richmond Jr (36:01) Yeah, and I suppose this goes back to what you've talked about already with like the... the, ⁓ Gosh, not the Mennonites, blanking on their name. ⁓ the religious group you just talked about that is technologically averse. thank you. My goodness. The Amish had a, had a brain moment there, but like the Amish, they're, they're, they're cautious around technology, recognizing the dangers of just
• 4:36
  hitching their wagon to a technology. Like, yeah, this is what I'm saying. Like the, the. Todd Korpi (36:19) The Amish. Yeah. Loren Richmond Jr (36:37) The willingness of some to hitch their wagons to a political party or political movement for the sake of advancing their agenda. think that's, if I'm hearing it right, I feel like that's the real danger around AI. It's like, we're just going to hitch our wagon to AI and assuming it's going to do all this work and solve all our problems for us,
• 4:40
  for the church, right? Todd Korpi (36:44) Yeah. Yeah, and I think the two are intertwined. whole idea of kind of hitching our wagon is a paraphrase from how Leslie Newbig entreats that subject in his book, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, where he talks about how if we marry ourselves as the people of God to... Loren Richmond Jr (37:02) Yeah. Todd Korpi (37:22) a movement or a party or an institution, even if it's something that looks inherently and completely virtuous, but we hitch
• 4:44
  ourselves, are lockstep, no matter what, with no level of discernment. Loren Richmond Jr (37:30) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Todd Korpi (37:37) it's going to go bad because as they move, so the church then to move and and often at a pace or with a kind of subtlety that we don't realize. So all of a sudden, years later, we're dramatically off course in need of reformation. And we have like Samson waking up and realizing his and not realizing his strength was gone. That's I feel like a lot where we're at in
• 4:48
  hitching our wagon. And that's not just to, you know, the GOP or to the Democratic Party. Loren Richmond Jr (37:41) We move. Right. Hmm. Todd Korpi (38:07) That's to social action causes. You you should be able to look at a social action cause of a kind of ideology that you don't necessarily lean toward, but to see potential avenues of cooperation, but that cooperation being specific and time bound and for a specific purpose, but not, but being able to say like, we believe in what they're
• 4:52
  doing in this way. It doesn't mean that we, you know, our lockstep with every Loren Richmond Jr (38:10) Yeah. Yeah. Todd Korpi (38:37) that they stand for and that being okay. Like we're not in gangs at least, you know. We shouldn't be. Loren Richmond Jr (38:39) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because certainly we don't want to get into these like hard, rigid boundaries of like, you know, like, like we were like, you know, 20 years ago, Todd, when like I was like, I can't be friends. can't know
• 4:56
  someone from CBC. Like, you know, I remember even like 20, 25 years ago, you know, talking to a Baptist pastor in Springfield and he's like, ⁓ CBC, that's a good school. And I was like, what, what are you talking about? How could that be a good school? You know? Yeah. Todd Korpi (38:57) All right. How dare you! ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (39:11) So I certainly don't want to replicate that. So I'm glad you're talking about this nuance. Getting into, you know, as we think about the future of church
• 5:00
  and sharing the gospel, you talk about this idea of a post-industrial world. Talk more about how you imagine that and what you think, you know, this idea of like, what it might look like to recapture. Playfulness, community centeredness, mean, I have to, gosh, again and again, tell myself like, hey, I can just like sit and relax, you know? Todd Korpi (39:49) Yeah, that's actually a thing. And, and, and we almost view that as, even if I now, because information comes at you so fast, ⁓ if I take
• 5:04
  time to digest that information, I'm somehow lazy, you know, like thinking has become a vice in some, in some respects because of our pace. Loren Richmond Jr (39:59) Right. Yeah. Right. Todd Korpi (40:09) So yeah, so a post-industrial world when I talk about that, I'm referring to the fact that as humankind has... emerged from the Enlightenment period into the Industrial Revolution. We moved into this space where ⁓ because of our interconnectedness, specifically because of the railway
• 5:08
  system allowed for transit to happen much faster. ⁓ Before that, would be, know, the time was very localized. So it might be, you know, 12 o'clock in Paloma and 1204 in Tuscany or whatever, or wider variances than that. And it was Loren Richmond Jr (40:41) Right. Todd Korpi (40:50) much more relational. So it was about when the right people had shown up because not everybody has, know, the time was very approximate. Loren Richmond Jr (40:54) Mm-hmm. Todd Korpi (41:01) And I'm not dogging on
• 5:12
  that, but again, the emergence of a technology, we gain some things, we lose some things. And some of what we lost was a freedom in that, that I actually can spend time with people. I can linger with somebody and society has a measure of kind of grace built into itself ⁓ for the... Loren Richmond Jr (41:07) Mm-hmm. Todd Korpi (41:26) and not such a strict adherence to the calendar. Now we are in this time where ⁓ we have through the emergence of the Industrial Revolution, there became, ⁓ you
• 5:16
  know, there emerged the eight hour workday, which was brought in. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (41:41) Hmm. Todd Korpi (41:45) through a lot of the kind of labor movements, even kind of early Marxist movements that took place in that timeframe to give us, you know, this ceiling of what constituted, you know, how much an organization could pull from us. And that was eight hours a day, 40 hours a week, and with some variance. Now that's viewed almost like a mandatory minimum. And if you're not putting in
• 5:20
  that, it's a floor, then you're not. And we almost, I mean, one of my favorite shows is The West Wing. that, but that show, Loren Richmond Jr (41:59) Right. Right. Right. Right. Todd Korpi (42:15) the people that just, they're always working. They're just obsessed with their job. And we look at that as like a virtue almost. And some of that's breaking off, but we're still in a place where a lot of our time and attend, or like our concept of work is still fitting in this eight hour day that
• 5:24
  I've put in a good day's work if I've worked eight hours. But we have all been around people that have blown off a whole day at work while at work, you while at the office. Loren Richmond Jr (42:18) Mm-hmm. Right. Yes. Ha ha. Todd Korpi (42:45) Or people that perpetually just get less done in eight hours than someone who's focused and engaged can do in three hours. And now that our economy has increasingly moved toward a knowledge economy, ⁓ toward kind of even gig work and things of that
• 5:28
  sort, we need to begin to move with that and to look at, can actually create some redemption of what was before we became schedule obsessed, before you know, eight hours constituted a good work ethic and redeemed some of that to recognize that AI gives us a faster pace, but it can also, we can use that faster pace to get what we need to do done in a shorter amount of time and do the things that matter and the things that make meaning in the world ⁓ more, or just to spend more time in our day
• 5:32
  doing that. So. investing in our community, reading and pursuing meaningful hobbies to actually doing things that make a difference in our society rather than just, you know, working to feed the bottom line of a corporation. So that's that's kind of what I'm hoping that we can and I think the church has an advocacy role to play in that of and leading the way of of make allowing this the pace that AI can get stuff done ⁓ to create margin in our lives to do the things that matter. Loren
• 5:36
  Richmond Jr (44:14) Yeah, I think that's the most challenging thing I found and I try to remind myself of is like this not, cause it seems like, can't remember if you talk about this in your book or certainly elsewhere we've all read about this, about how with increasing technology seems to be this increase of productivity and this, this, this pressure to be more productive. And I think what the case you're making is important. And I like, have to remind myself all this. of this all the time is
• 5:40
  like, even if I'm using AI to accomplish like writing a donor letter that would normally take me an hour and it takes me 10 minutes, like I don't necessarily have to fill in those 50 minutes, right? I can take a deep breath. Todd Korpi (44:53) Exactly. Yeah. And life gets a lot richer if we, if we choose to do that, but it is, it's that addiction to busy is a, is a drug and it's, hard to break up with. Loren Richmond Jr (44:56) Well. Yeah. Well, I've kept you along here already, but I want
• 5:44
  to ask you one more question before we take a break. You talk at the end of the book about your ideas of the pastor of the future. And you write that, you know, being less like a modern version of a Greek philosopher and more like a gardener entrusted with caring and nurturing. I'm always someone in this show is always a show that we're always thinking about the future of the church and of ministry and leadership. Talk more about that image you, you imagine. Todd Korpi (45:35) Yeah, so there
• 5:48
  was a time centuries ago, even just a couple of generations ago, where the clergy in a specific town generally was the one that was the dispenser, not just of religious knowledge, but in some ways kind of knowledge in general. They usually had the largest library. were you know, they had the audience on Sunday mornings as folks would gather. so there was kind of this stage on the stage quality that the role of the pastor had. Now we're in a place where you can be preaching a message and, you
• 5:52
  know, ⁓ person in the youth group is, you know, got an air pod in the back row and is listening to Craig Rochelle preach that message better than you on the same text, you know, like, where people have. Loren Richmond Jr (46:20) you Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's pretty generous to assume they're listening to Craig Rochelle, but let's go with that possibility. Todd Korpi (46:31) Just naming someone, yeah, just naming anyone. People have access to the world's information at their fingertips. AI
• 5:56
  gives them the ability to be taught that information at their level. I've never taken a class on quantum physics, but ChatGPT can teach me step-by-step quantum physics like I'm a five-year-old. ⁓ And that's huge, and that's wonderful. But. Loren Richmond Jr (46:44) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Todd Korpi (46:56) it amidst all of that just democratization of access and even even contextualization of knowledge, we're no better off in terms of wisdom. We're still very knowledge rich and wisdom poor. And
• 6:00
  so I think there's a function for the role of the shepherd for those who pastor to be less like a sage on the stage and more like a guide on the side. ⁓ That doesn't. Loren Richmond Jr (47:08) Yeah. Yeah. Todd Korpi (47:22) that doesn't negate the role of preaching, but it also kind of situates it within its proper context that preaching is a kind of a liturgical art form. it, homiletics is an art, I believe that we rehearse in very much the same way we do the other things that we do within
• 6:04
  Christian worship. It's not, it's not a primary mechanism of discipleship. ⁓ Your average congregant is being discipled by their social media feed and cable news channel much more than they are on the Loren Richmond Jr (47:32) Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Todd Korpi (47:52) Sunday morning message. But what we can do... is to the way that we compete with that is not to just badger people to be in church more, but instead to focus on how can I be a source of wisdom to help people apply the
• 6:08
  knowledge that they're gaining, to wrestle through the tough questions, the situational stuff like the elders at the city gates that we see in the Old Testament, to be able to be that source and to create opportunities and environments where people can discuss and learn ⁓ not just from the pastor, but the pastor creating that environment for people to learn from one another, to encounter the presence of God, and to grow in their faith together, I think is huge. So I think a lot of what we do as
• 6:12
  clergy is kind of the hard work of interpersonal relationship and helping people in what they're walking through and cultivating that wisdom. Wisdom has always been something that's been translated through experience and through learning from those who have gone before us. And I think that pastors have, I think there's an opportunity for there to be a bit very missional shape to that because wisdom is attractive. You know, we've all we've all been around that person that it's like, man, I feel
• 6:16
  like just spending a half an hour with them. I feel like I've met with Jesus. And that's because that's that's wisdom. Patek also called the anointing. That's there's an there's a depth there that that intimacy with Jesus is palpable. And I think that we need to pursue that. Loren Richmond Jr (49:10) Mm-hmm. Right. Todd Korpi (49:26) and embody that and create environments where people can learn from that. Loren Richmond Jr (49:31) Yeah. Well, I'm glad you ended here, this section talking
• 6:20
  about wisdom. Cause I think if anything like that's what I would describe the book as like, like it's true to your subtitle, Pastoral Wisdom for Artificial Intelligence. So I recommend the book again, AI Goes to Church. worth checking out. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back with some closing questions. All right, we're back with Todd Corpy and thank you so much for this conversation. I wanted to ask you more about that last part, but we're already long, so I really appreciate your
• 6:24
  time. So some closing questions, you're welcome to take these as seriously or you're not. ⁓ If you're Pope for a day, what might that day look like for you? Todd Korpi (50:14) Well, I'd be very interested to try out what those slippers feel like that the Pope always wears. But yeah, if I were a Pope for a day, I would actively engage. Loren Richmond Jr (50:19) Okay, yeah. Todd Korpi (50:26) every try to actively engage every corner of the faith as much as possible, like every the ecumenical
• 6:28
  patriarch to the head of, every Protestant denomination and bring together to not necessarily solve the all the problems that we have, but to eat together and to begin to create a pattern of breaking, actually breaking bread together. Loren Richmond Jr (50:31) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Todd Korpi (50:48) because I think that that's where a lot of our division starts is, and I'm encouraged to see that some of that actually does happen, ⁓ especially beginning with Francis. But yeah, I would eat with others
• 6:32
  from different traditions. Loren Richmond Jr (51:04) There's something so powerful just about being in the presence of someone we disagree with. mean, yesterday I got my haircut from a woman who was clearly like hardcore MAGA. Like I'll just be frank. and we were just chatting and somehow she shared like a really profound ⁓ personal loss she's experienced. And then we talked a little bit about our faith and we probably see things very differently politically, but I was really touched and moved
• 6:36
  by. moment we had of, you know, her sharing with me and and yeah I just so much resonate with that point of being in relationship with people who are who are different than us. theologian or yeah a theologian or historical Christian figure you'd want to meet or bring back to life. Todd Korpi (51:46) Mmm. That's so good. Theologian, it would be Paul Hebert, who actually just passed away about 15 years ago. But he was a Christian anthropologist that I got into missiology as he was in his final
• 6:40
  years and have just benefited so much from his work. So I'd love to meet him. Historical figure, it would probably be St. Maximus the Confessor, who was a, yeah, he was a Byzantine. Loren Richmond Jr (52:17) Oh my goodness, a lot of names, k- Todd Korpi (52:22) monk in the sixth century, in the early seventh century, and wrote a lot on ⁓ kind of the metaphysics of the faith, the prophetic, and was just kind of an all-around interesting human being. And so, yeah, I'd like to hang out with him
• 6:44
  for a bit, find out what made him tick. Loren Richmond Jr (52:43) Well, you've given me lots of names here. Howser, it hyzer, Mike Howser? How do you spell that? Todd Korpi (52:46) Heiser, yep, Mike Heiser. H-E-I-S-E-R, Michael S. Heiser. Heber is H-I-E-B-E-R-T. Loren Richmond Jr (52:52) Okay, and then Heber is... Okay, okay. Well, for me it's gonna be helpful. What do you think history will remember from our current time and place? Todd Korpi (53:08) I think right now they will look back
• 6:48
  and see that we were extraordinarily fragmented by technologies and movements that we didn't understand. ⁓ And I think that our descendants will judge us for that, honestly. That we were playing with fire with a lot of the technologies that were emerging or that are emerging and that... at not taking enough time to actually think about their impact and how they're being used in many ways to tear us apart and make people super rich in the process. Loren Richmond Jr (53:48) Yeah, yeah, I mean,
• 6:52
  that's quite, that's quite a bold way to say it, but I can't disagree entirely. Can't disagree at all. What do you hope for the future of Christianity? Todd Korpi (54:04) My hope for the future of Christianity is that as the kind of seat of global Christianity moves from the West to specifically Sub-Saharan Africa, ⁓ that we will take a collaborative approach in working together. ⁓ there's still a lot of opportunity in a negative way for paternalism because the West may not hold the growth and
• 6:56
  the energy and the zeal, but it holds the money, holds the resources. And so there's a lot of opportunity for us to unintentionally inhibit the emergence of the African church, the church in Asia and Latin America from really stepping into what ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (54:30) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Todd Korpi (54:51) I believe God wants to do through them and to learn from them so that we can do mission better here. ⁓ I think that my hope is that we will truly be collaborative, truly kind of come
• 7:00
  with, you know what. Loren Richmond Jr (54:55) Yeah. Todd Korpi (55:07) Orthodox Missiologist Edward Raman calls a a canonic love that he sees in the the relationship between the persons of the Trinity this self-giving self just pouring out oneself and I think that that's that's kind of the future of even collaborative work within the church is this I'm coming to this not to assert my my desires but with a self-giving sort of love that what I have is yours and and you know, whatever I can do
• 7:04
  to do my part what we're going to do. So that's my hope is that we'll be more collaborative, more bound together, more ⁓ less hierarchical, more egalitarian in our shape, and more led by the Spirit of God and discerning where He's at work and partnering with Him in that task. Loren Richmond Jr (55:46) Yeah. Okay, I've got to ask you one more question. As a missiologist, you mentioned some of your work with, if I heard you right, young people. Do you have any kind of just thoughts around, you
• 7:08
  know, reaching the culture, reaching young people, missiology in general in the church? Would love to hear your perspectives just again as a missiologist. Todd Korpi (56:15) Yeah, so I would say there are two primary ones. The first is that there's a lot of talk right now about the future of Christianity. Obviously, we've been talking about that this whole time, but whole movements are dedicated to preparing for the church of the next millennium of Christianity and ⁓ talking a lot about the
• 7:12
  emergence of Gen Z as the future leaders without actually having them in the room. So we're planning the party and like, just hold off, wait for Loren Richmond Jr (56:25) Right. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Todd Korpi (56:45) to save the date, we'll invite you when it's time. I think they need to be at the table. need to under like they're the way that Gen Z and Gen Alpha culture is emerging just here in the States is very unique and we need to better understand it and help come alongside them to build
• 7:16
  a church of the future that is adequately prepared to to minister effectively. ⁓ The other piece is we need to recover the function of story ⁓ to tell good stories, intriguing stories. Loren Richmond Jr (56:59) Yeah. Yeah. Todd Korpi (57:18) to know how to share our personal story ⁓ effectively because Gen Z is ⁓ a ⁓ generation that by and large saying you you shouldn't do this or you should do this because the Bible says this their response is so what but Loren Richmond Jr (57:33) Yeah,
• 7:20
  yeah. Todd Korpi (57:34) when we share our personal story, when we begin with the personal transformation or experience that we've had with Christ, then that's the gateway to affirming kind of the meta-truths of scripture. And we really need to kind of... Loren Richmond Jr (57:40) Yes. Yeah. Todd Korpi (57:51) redeem and hone and just be good storytellers, tell curious stories, tell like empirical truths in the form of story ⁓ because story is kind of the great equalizer. Every culture tells
• 7:24
  stories. We tell stories both implicitly and explicitly so I think we need to really kind of redeem that function and recover that function within ⁓ the lifeblood of the church. Loren Richmond Jr (58:16) Yeah, I appreciate that so much because I'm thinking of like, again, like similar school, some of the ways of evangelism, probably you and I were all schooled in, right? Of, of the sort of, you know, if you, if you died tonight, do you know where you'd go to heaven or like the apologetics, like
• 7:28
  ⁓ evidence to demand the verdict? Like you're not saying like, I'm, I'm convinced neither of those frameworks are going to work today, but saying like, Hey, this is what God has done in my life or like, like I have this, this, this barber of, know, she shared about how she found forgiveness to came to forgiveness for, for, for a tragic accident that killed her son. Todd Korpi (58:59) Yeah, that's, and what we do, I'm actually not convinced that those other ways ever entirely worked. Like the,
• 7:32
  you died today, where would you go? Begins with an external motivator. And it doesn't, what story does, what you're describing is tapping into and aligning internal motivators and showing how Jesus can. Loren Richmond Jr (59:07) Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Todd Korpi (59:23) can deeply transform, not just kind of objective, like here's your get out of hell free card. And so yeah, I agree. think that it has such tremendous power that's often just, you know, it's left on the table, you know, in
• 7:36
  favor of some of kind of the traditional forms that we were talking about. But I think it takes a certain kind of... Loren Richmond Jr (59:30) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Todd Korpi (59:49) patience of recognizing that takes the Holy Spirit as a patient Holy Spirit like he works on people's hearts over the course of time and sometimes being faithful and trustworthy and just open about yourself and your relationship with Jesus and ⁓ is actually one of the most powerful ways to ⁓ to share Jesus then you
• 7:40
  know kind of walking through the Romans Road or handing somebody a track and running running away Loren Richmond Jr (59:54) Yeah. Right. Which I guess again, ties into our broader theme here of AI and not trying to control and speed things up, right? Trusting God's timing, not ours. So, Todd, I really appreciate this conversation. Thanks so much for your time. And, I feel like I should leave you with like a BBC cheer, but I, I'll be a good Christian and you know, we're still around. How about
• 7:44
  you? You know. Todd Korpi (1:00:28) Absolutely. 100%. You That's awesome. Loren Richmond Jr (1:00:46) But yeah, thanks so much for time. We always leave folks with a word of peace. So may God's peace be with you. Todd Korpi (1:00:52) Thank you, and also with you.