Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / Beauty & Resistance: Practicing a Life That Forms You (Jonathan P. Walton)

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Beauty & Resistance: Practicing a Life That Forms You (Jonathan P. Walton) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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  Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
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  Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
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  Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.
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  Speaker 2: I'm Dr. James Spencer.
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  Speaker 1: Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways
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  Speaker 1: God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural,
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  Speaker 1: and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now,
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  Speaker 1: on to today's episode of Thinking Christian.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr.
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  Speaker 2: James Spencer, and I am joined today by a special guest.
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  Speaker 1: He's written a book that I really enjoyed, but the
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  Speaker 1: one we're going to talk about today, which I also enjoyed,
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  Speaker 1: Jonathan P.
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  Speaker 3: Walton.
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  Speaker 1: So we're going to be talking about his book, Beauty
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  Speaker 1: and Resistance, as well as maybe one of his other titles,
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  Speaker 1: which will be kind of cool. Jonathan is also the
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  Speaker 1: author of a book called, I'm trying to pull up
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  Speaker 1: my screen here so I can make sure I get
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  Speaker 1: the title completely right, 12 Lives That Hold America Captive.
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  Speaker 1: And the truth that sets us free. And so I'm
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  Speaker 1: excited to have a conversation with Jonathan. Jonathan, welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast, man.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, James, for having me on.
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  Speaker 4: I really appreciate you, the work you're doing and trying
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  Speaker 4: to push people to think.
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  Speaker 3: That would be great.
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  Speaker 1: We got to have the space for it. And I
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  Speaker 1: think that's one of the things I really loved about
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  Speaker 1: your book. It feels like some of the themes that
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  Speaker 1: we've written on and I've thought about and, you know,
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  Speaker 1: it feels like we're going to have a really cool
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  Speaker 1: conversation because I think we we are thinking along the
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  Speaker 1: same wavelength. So give me a little background, man. Like,
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  Speaker 1: where did the where does your impetus to write come from?
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  Speaker 1: You know, you wrote the 12 Myths book.
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  Speaker 2: Now you've got Beauty and Resistance.
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  Speaker 1: Like, what is it about your life and your interests
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  Speaker 1: that lead you to write these books?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So writing for me started off when I was 16,
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  Speaker 4: 17 years old.
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  Speaker 3: So I was an.
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  Speaker 4: Angry kid and I wanted to fight and do all
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  Speaker 4: the things. And my mama said, go play football, be
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  Speaker 4: as angry as you want to be on the field.
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  Speaker 4: And I did that to injury to myself and other people.
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  Speaker 4: And she said, you know, write these things down. And
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  Speaker 4: so like I started off as like poetry, slam, all
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  Speaker 4: that stuff. I remember the first time I came home
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  Speaker 4: and told her I was going to be a rapper
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  Speaker 4: and she was like, your name is Jonathan, not whatever
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  Speaker 4: you're thinking about pitching.
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  Speaker 3: To me right now. And so I'm still Jonathan Walton.
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  Speaker 3: There's no nickname or anything like that.
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  Speaker 4: So specifically with 12 lies and beauty and resistance, we
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  Speaker 4: actually wrote, I had me a team of students that
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  Speaker 4: I've been working with.
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  Speaker 3: We wrote those book proposals at the same time.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 4: And my wife told me, she's like, you know, I
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  Speaker 4: would not be able to do anything without her.
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  Speaker 3: She said, Jonathan, you could write 12 lies whenever.
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  Speaker 4: She says, but you can't talk about what was at
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  Speaker 4: the time emotionally healthy activists with any sort of integrity.
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  Speaker 4: She says, you don't live any of that. And so
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  Speaker 4: all of your interviews, any conversations you'd be talking.
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  Speaker 3: You'd just be bullshitting. Like that's. Yeah. Yeah. So you
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  Speaker 3: can write 12 lies. You believe that stuff.
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  Speaker 4: You know, that stuff, that, that stuff oozes out of you.
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  Speaker 4: She goes, you know, nothing about spiritual formation. You're not,
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  Speaker 4: you're not, you don't Sabbath. You don't have rhythms. Let's,
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  Speaker 4: let's be honest with people.
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  Speaker 3: And if that blew up and that's what you're known for,
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  Speaker 3: that'd be a tragedy. That's what she said. So seven
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  Speaker 3: years later, beauty.
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  Speaker 1: So it's coming out of that lived experience, but I mean, I,
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  Speaker 1: I will say having read 12 lies and now having
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  Speaker 1: read beauty and resistance, I see a lot of commonality
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  Speaker 1: between the two. I mean, this idea of, um, to
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  Speaker 1: some degree it feels like, and you can correct me
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  Speaker 1: if I'm wrong, but like when I read 12 lies
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  Speaker 1: or 12 minutes, um, What I saw was sort of
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  Speaker 1: the intellectual side, sort of the cognitive side working out
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  Speaker 1: of a lot of what then you talk about ultimately
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  Speaker 1: in Beauty and Resistance.
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  Speaker 2: So you've got this, how do we think about these things?
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  Speaker 1: How do we frame them intellectually, examine them from more
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  Speaker 1: of that academic kind of perspective? But then in Beauty
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  Speaker 1: and Resistance, now what does this look like as a
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  Speaker 1: lived experience? How do we go about actually implementing some
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  Speaker 1: of these things and avoiding those myths, those lies? How
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  Speaker 1: do we structure our lives so that we're not as
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  Speaker 1: susceptible to those things?
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  Speaker 2: Is that a fair?
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  Speaker 3: That is exactly right.
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  Speaker 4: If I was able to, because a lot of people
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  Speaker 4: can't do both at the same time, right? We go
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  Speaker 4: and we watch a documentary. We understand the problems. And
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  Speaker 4: that's an hour and a half. And that's about all
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  Speaker 4: the space we have. And then we go pick up
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  Speaker 4: our kids or go to out to dinner.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: Like we, we.
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  Speaker 4: Don't have the, like, here's the five minute video. Now
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  Speaker 4: let's spend 55 minutes unpacking how you're going to address
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  Speaker 4: whatever hard.
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  Speaker 3: Thing just came up for you. You know what I mean?
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  Speaker 4: And that I think to your podcast and it's ethos
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  Speaker 4: is like, that's what discipleship is like, I've been leading
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  Speaker 4: different groups for the last 15 to 20 years. And
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  Speaker 4: someone can say they believe that every person has made
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  Speaker 4: the image of God. But then we go out and
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  Speaker 4: they meet somebody who's unhoused or homeless.
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  Speaker 3: Or a foster kid.
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  Speaker 4: All of a sudden, all that theology goes out of
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  Speaker 4: the window and all of their baggage comes forward. And
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  Speaker 4: I think that's the fundamental difference between orientation, which is
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  Speaker 4: what most Christian content is, And then training and formation.
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  Speaker 3: Training would just be discipleship in a Christian environment. And
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  Speaker 3: then formation would be that long-term deep work. It's like,
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  Speaker 3: why can't I do the thing that somebody asked me
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  Speaker 3: to do? You know what I mean?
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  Speaker 2: I do.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So beauty and resistance, I think, is the invitation to
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  Speaker 4: training and formation or discipleship.
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  Speaker 2: I think it's something I've thought about a lot. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I would just get your take on it.
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  Speaker 1: When I think about discipleship and formation, I've had a
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  Speaker 1: lot of difficulty understanding how to do that with a book.
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  Speaker 1: So like the way you phrased it, that invitation to
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  Speaker 1: training and formation, I think is as close as I
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  Speaker 1: can get in a book form to really helping somebody
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  Speaker 1: do that work because it requires more than just thinking
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  Speaker 1: about it. It actually requires people to do something about it.
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  Speaker 1: There has to be an activity of participation. And books
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  Speaker 1: can nudge people that way, but they don't provide the
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  Speaker 1: sort of accountability and the, you know, the discipline and the,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the structures, like you were saying with your wife,
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  Speaker 1: like books, not going to tell you that your wife will,
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  Speaker 1: but a book won't.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: And so there's this sort of lived component that a
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  Speaker 1: book just can't reach. I don't know what your thoughts
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  Speaker 1: are on that, but.
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  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of. I think,
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  Speaker 3: rising popular books about this.
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  Speaker 4: I think John Mark Comer's book, The Ninefold Path, or
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  Speaker 4: even before him, Mark Scandrett with Free. You've got, I think,
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  Speaker 4: smatterings of that with Rich Valotis, his stuff. I think
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  Speaker 4: Pete Scazzaro, he points at that, but unless you're in
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  Speaker 4: the church and doing the work, it's hard to get.
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  Speaker 4: But everybody's kind of pointing to like, we have, this
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  Speaker 4: has to be embodied, which is just Jesus.
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  Speaker 3: Jesus didn't say like, believe in me and I'm going
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  Speaker 3: to leave you right here. He said, no, like come
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  Speaker 3: and follow me, you know? So we are very far
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  Speaker 3: away from.
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  Speaker 4: Just the models of discipleship and formation that would have
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  Speaker 4: shaped the early church and obviously shaped like Jewish believers
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  Speaker 4: at the time in the, in the life of Jesus.
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  Speaker 2: So, yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So if, if there was a way to, and I might,
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  Speaker 4: I have a thesis work around this, but like, um,
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  Speaker 4: Jerry Falwell, because that's like my scholarly work was.
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  Speaker 3: On Jerry Falwell, the megachurches.
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  Speaker 4: Jerry Falwell, you know, in Lynchburg, Virginia, when he came
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  Speaker 4: out of seminary, decided that he was going to try
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  Speaker 4: to build an institution that took over the entire life
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  Speaker 4: of everybody involved, right? To his own ends in many ways.
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  Speaker 4: And there are fruits of those things that, by God,
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  Speaker 4: grace has happened, and then there's things that are really
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  Speaker 4: unhelpful that came from that, right? But I think what
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  Speaker 4: we're looking for is how can we have an all-encompassing way.
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  Speaker 3: That leads to fruitfulness and wholeness as.
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  Speaker 4: Opposed to an all-encompassing way that leads to violence, exploitation, accumulation.
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  Speaker 3: And death, right?
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  Speaker 4: Because I personally don't think that all-encompassing things are bad.
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  Speaker 1: Right?
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  Speaker 4: You know, but like the kingdom of God is all
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  Speaker 4: encompassing and colonization is, right?
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  Speaker 3: And so like, how do we.
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  Speaker 4: Lean into the kingdom in ways that are transformative and
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  Speaker 4: helpful and sustainable and getting back to what Jesus experienced
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  Speaker 4: in the context of the disciples would be, I mean,
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  Speaker 4: just an amazing thing to experience if we were able
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  Speaker 4: to do that, you know?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: It's a really interesting insight. I think I've sort of
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  Speaker 1: been playing around with that myself and sort of thinking
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  Speaker 1: about what's the appropriate constraint to put on our vision, right?
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  Speaker 1: So that we can, so that it enables us to
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  Speaker 1: do appropriate things. So in other words, when we think
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  Speaker 1: about it, you know, if you and I were not
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  Speaker 1: speaking English right now, we wouldn't be able to understand
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  Speaker 1: each other. We're working within the constraints of language to
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  Speaker 1: actually have a conversation and those constraints enable that. And
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  Speaker 1: so when you talk about like Jerry Falwell and that institution, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's going to have some good things and some bad
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  Speaker 1: things because it's an extension of something else. And what
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  Speaker 1: we're trying to get is we're trying to get down
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  Speaker 1: to what are the governing dynamics of reality? And those
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  Speaker 1: governing dynamics really are let's be dependent on God, follow
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  Speaker 1: his lead. And that doesn't necessarily lend itself all the
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  Speaker 1: time to us accomplishing our own agendas.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: Right. It's inefficient. It's unprofitable. It's messy. Right. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: It's sort of fascinating. And when I read your book,
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  Speaker 1: Beauty and Resistance, I'm sitting there thinking like, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I've had conversations with people about the political realm. And again,
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  Speaker 1: having read your other book, I'm kind of sitting there thinking, yeah, like,
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  Speaker 1: The basic insight that I usually give people is being
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  Speaker 1: a Christian means that we have to be willing to obey,
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  Speaker 1: even if obeying means that we take that we.
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  Speaker 2: Suffer political losses. Right.
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  Speaker 1: Like we're not out here for the politics. We're out
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  Speaker 1: here for the obedience. We're out here for the bearing witness.
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  Speaker 1: And so when I read your beauty and resistance, I'm like,
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  Speaker 1: this is a recipe for suffering.
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  Speaker 2: Failure in a lot of ways.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes.
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  Speaker 1: But it's also a recipe for maybe it'd be better
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  Speaker 1: to say it is a recipe for reframing success. It's
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  Speaker 1: a recipe for understanding how we actually become more human.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, it's so the hard part about following Jesus.
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  Speaker 4: I was having a conversation about this in therapy like
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: two weeks ago because I got I've been rejected from
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  Speaker 4: three conferences this year.
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  Speaker 3: So I've I've been booked to speak. And then like
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  Speaker 3: a week before they're like, Hey, my bad. Like, we
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  Speaker 3: don't want you to come. Um, then I talk, I
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  Speaker 3: did another conference, like I've spoken there before and they're like, actually, no,
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  Speaker 3: we can't do that.
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  Speaker 4: Um, and then this last one, I went to the
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  Speaker 4: conference spoke and I was supposed to give a second talk.
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  Speaker 3: And in the middle of the night, I got a
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  Speaker 3: text message to be like, ah, no, don't come back. Right.
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  Speaker 4: And here, and here's what I think the gap was
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  Speaker 4: in all three places. is that if I am successful, right?
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  Speaker 4: And I say this everywhere that I go.
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  Speaker 3: Take up your cross, deny yourself, follow me. That's what
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  Speaker 3: he said. And so let's figure out what our crosses are.
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  Speaker 3: What does it mean to deny yourself? What does it
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  Speaker 3: mean to follow him? Try to pull that into context.
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  Speaker 3: And that is disruptive.
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  Speaker 4: Peter left his father's business He like there's generational wealth
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  Speaker 4: that's being given up. There's influences given up. There's this
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  Speaker 4: place in society that's given up. That's long term provision.
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  Speaker 4: Like his children may not have the skill. Like there's
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  Speaker 4: a lot of stuff happening. And like that's disruptive in
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  Speaker 4: a lot of church environments.
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  Speaker 3: If I say if I start saying like, hey, Jesus
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  Speaker 3: said that we're to honor our parents. So why don't
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  Speaker 3: we honor our elders? What would that look like? These
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  Speaker 3: are basic, difficult things that some places don't want to
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  Speaker 3: deal with.
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  Speaker 4: But if we incorporated it, it would be obedient and
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  Speaker 4: it would be successful.
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  Speaker 3: That's Philippians 2, right? That's in 12. I love Philippians 2.
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  Speaker 4: For the joy set before him, he endured the cry.
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  Speaker 4: And it's like, okay, what is the joy set before me?
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 4: OK, that's going to help me endure. And that doesn't
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  Speaker 4: look like, you know, house of dog kids and all
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  Speaker 4: the time.
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  Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
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  Speaker 2: So I do.
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  Speaker 5: I do.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: It's interesting. I'll tell my I was a jerk story.
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  Speaker 1: And so I was kind of a younger, you know,
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  Speaker 1: seminarian finishing on my Ph.D. Still hadn't sort of knocked
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  Speaker 1: the rough edges off of the all the arrogance. And
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  Speaker 1: so my church at the time I was going to
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  Speaker 1: they were having this big campaign and.
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  Speaker 2: They wanted to grow by, I don't know, 5000 more people.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: And so they said, we would like testimonies. You know,
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  Speaker 1: you go decide how much you're going to give to
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  Speaker 1: this campaign. And then we'd like testimonies about, you know,
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  Speaker 1: your decision. And so I went to our pastor and
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  Speaker 1: I said, hey, you know, we we thought about this.
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  Speaker 1: We don't we are not going to give anything to
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  Speaker 1: the campaign. We don't feel like this is the appropriate
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  Speaker 1: direction for the church to be going.
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  Speaker 2: Can I share?
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  Speaker 1: And again, this is my jerk story. But I mean,
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  Speaker 1: it illustrates something. It really does that. What we're, when
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  Speaker 1: you're talking about that disruptive moment, right? If you really
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: do feel like you're not going to go along with
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: everything that's happening in your church, that's everything that's happening
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  Speaker 1: in the Christian community.
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  Speaker 2: At some point you become a problem. Yes.
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  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: And, and I, and let's, let's, let's lean in Jay.
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  Speaker 3: Let's leave it. All right. So like, the people who
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  Speaker 3: become a problem, right?
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  Speaker 4: So like I've, I've had pastors sit down with me and,
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  Speaker 4: you know, someone came in, they're large givers to the church.
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  Speaker 4: They sat, they sat down for coffee, you know, and
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  Speaker 4: the person goes, what you're preaching about, I don't come
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  Speaker 4: to church for. I come to church to like get my,
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  Speaker 4: you know, get my hour and a half, get my
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  Speaker 4: fellowship and go home.
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  Speaker 3: And like, you're messing that up for me essentially. Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: And so the pastor said, I hear you and I
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  Speaker 4: appreciate your, role in our community, but these are the
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  Speaker 4: issues in our community and we're going to go this way.
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  Speaker 3: And then they left the church, right? Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Now, the pastor then has to deal with the fact
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  Speaker 4: that they took 20% of the church's ties with them, right?
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  Speaker 4: And so then the pastor has to decide, okay, what's
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  Speaker 4: going to go, right?
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  Speaker 3: Like all these different things.
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  Speaker 4: And so I literally had a conversation with someone they
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: came up to me and they said, Hey, Jonathan, just
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  Speaker 4: want you to know where I'm, I am not a pastor.
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  Speaker 3: Let's be clear. I'm just in churches.
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  Speaker 4: But they came up to me and cause I had
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  Speaker 4: been preaching a six week series there. And they said, Hey, Jonathan,
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  Speaker 4: just want to let you know that I'm leaving the church.
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  Speaker 3: And I said, Oh, okay. God bless you. Like there
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  Speaker 3: are many believers.
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  Speaker 4: Like I hope, I hope things go really well where
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: you're going. But can you tell me like what, why,
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  Speaker 4: why you're going there? And she said, well, you know,
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  Speaker 4: I just think there's like too much emphasis on the
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  Speaker 4: poor and the marginalized here.
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  Speaker 3: Like we really have to figure out like just some
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: other priorities. And I was like, oh, great. I hope
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  Speaker 3: you have great, have a great day. Like I didn't,
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  Speaker 3: I was not expecting that. Like it just wasn't expected.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 4: You know, I thought she was like upset about something.
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: Like somebody's, and I was like, oh, you're upset with
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: Matthew 25.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: Oh, all right. Yeah. God bless you. Because at the
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: end of the day, that is not successful in 2025.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: It's not. Another writer I love is Ocean Vuong. He's
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: a poet, Vietnamese immigrant. And he has a book called
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: The Emperor of Gladness. Gladness is a town in Connecticut
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: that is kind of powered on. And he's like, his
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: brother works at Dick's Sporting Goods. And he will work
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: at Dick's Sporting Goods for the next 35 years.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: And he loves it. And he will probably die working
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: at Dick's Sporting Goods. In this town of 10,000 people.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: And he goes, that is not the American story everybody
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: wants to hear. But most people are just normal, loving,
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: kind people. But that doesn't rub the thing. That doesn't
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: get on YouTube.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: It doesn't get the likes. It doesn't get the money.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: So I think being a Christian means you will be
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: insignificant and exceptionally kind.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: And that would be great, you know, but anyway, I
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: just talked a lot.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: No, it's really helpful.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, my mind goes a number of
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: different ways because if I'm, you know, I've read your
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: two books again in tandem, sort of, I read them
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: at different times, but thinking about them in tandem, you
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: just think about the cultural narratives that we've got that
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: we have to deal with and overcome in order to
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Sort of move into, we could call it the success
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: of the gospel, right? What does it really look like
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: to live that life? And it isn't trivial. I had
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: a couple of guys on, they wrote a book called, shoot,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: I'm going to forget the name of the title.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: They were talking about kids sports, away game. That's the
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: name of the book.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: And so they're talking about, you know, this whole sort
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: of movement that's gone into travel sports and how parents
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: can deal with it.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: And my, my daughter's played lacrosse, so we're dealing with that. But,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: you know, you get down to this point where it's like, okay,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: if the tournament's on Sunday, what do you do?
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: They were really helpful in kind of navigating some of that.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I actually learned a lot from their conversation, but, but
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: for a long time, I was just kind of sitting back, like,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: you know, if you, if you landed in the either
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: or scenario, you're either skipping church to go to a
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: tournament or you're telling your kids that they can't have
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: this opportunity because they'll miss Sundays.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: And, and that's just part of the structure that we
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: deal with. And I think that's part of the structure
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: that you're really addressing in, you.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Know, uh, beauty and resistance, right?
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Like how do we, how do we break out of
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: that and, and accept some losses for the inevitable gains
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: that we get out of this?
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: Right. So concrete example, right? Um, Where are they at?
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: Justin Early wrote a book called Habits of the Household. Yeah, yeah.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: Great book. Great book.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: And so I, you know, gleaned some things from that.
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: And I remember having conversations in our own house, right?
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: And we're dealing with these tensions. And so my daughter,
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: my older daughter, she started gymnastics three and a half
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: years ago. And we just made a decision. You're not
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: going to compete on Sundays. And if we do compete
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: on Sundays, we've got a Sabbath or have some time
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: with other people.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: She goes, OK. Right. Because she was six.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean? And so so here's here's
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: the here's what I want to push forward for that.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: So like we've been having those conversations since she. was
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: a kid. Oh, she's still a kid.
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: She's nine now, but like having those conversations. So she's
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: listening to us make purchases.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: She asked why she has a conversation.
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: When we, when we pray and eat, when we, you know, my,
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: the prayer that we pray.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: When we eat food is in the book. Right.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: So we're like, you know, bless us food to our
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: bodies and our bodies to your service. Be with those
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: who don't have food. God, would they experience the same freedom,
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: fellowship and community that we have today?
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: Right. And so we're praying those things. When we do that,
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: our kids are going to ask hard questions, even of us.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: So now we can't pass people on the street without
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: my daughter saying we have to go back. Didn't we
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: pray about that?
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: You know, now my daughter doesn't bring up competing and
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: doing events on Sundays.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: You see what I'm saying?
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: There's a thing that can happen when all of a
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: sudden we get formed differently.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean? I do. I won't say
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: her name for security stuff. So she's like, oh, we
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: just don't do that. You know? So it's in her already.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: We just don't do that. And then we move on.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: I think there's beautiful things that we can do And
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: then our kids will get it.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: And the loss that we think they're going.
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: To experience, they actually won't because they know what gaining is,
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: you know?
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Talk a little bit about your journey.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Cause I mean, when you read the book, you, you know,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: you came out of a pretty difficult situation for you, right? Where,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: where all this is coming out of sort of a man,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: my life's breaking apart. I, I, you know, there's obviously
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: something wrong here. So, Just talk a little bit about
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: that and then maybe give us a, I don't know,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: you don't.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Want to do spoiler alert.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: So, you know, just give people a little bit of
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: a teaser of the book and what you're talking about there.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: So like, oh man, there's a lot of hard stories
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: in the book. But if I'm going to go back
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: and get one that's not in the book, like.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: Within four years.
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: So me and my wife Priscilla got married. Her dad
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: was fighting cancer at the time. I didn't know my
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: mom had cancer at the time. And we lost my mom,
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: her dad. We had a miscarriage. Her aunt and my
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: aunt and my sister had disappeared but had since.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: Like, re-ended our life. All of that happened in the
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: span of five years.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: From 2012 to 2016.
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: And that was deeply disorienting. But I had no skills
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: to deal with those things.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: No skills. I dealt with things with more effort.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: I will just be superhuman.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: That is what we do. We double down.
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: That's not possible when there's no reserves there. And that's
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: not even talking about the social unrest of the time.
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: We're not even talking about the ascendance of Trump and
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: Black Lives Matter and just all of a sudden recounting
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: police shootings and the ascendance of racialized violence.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: We're not talking about any of that. Right. So like
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: I burned out before COVID. I burned out before.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: And then you had COVID.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: And then we had COVID and a second child. Like
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: it was, it was, none of this was helpful. You
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: know what I mean? And, and so I remember, and
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: I did write about this in the book.
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: Like I remember holding my kid being on sabbatical and
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: protests are happening. I get this phone call. They're like, Jonathan,
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: Can you come lead this prayer meeting in Times Square? Like,
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: we're all marching from these five points to meet there.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: And like, we need these leaders on stage. And I said, no,
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: I'm on sabbatical. And I hung up the phone and
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: I went back to holding my kid. And I was like,
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: what the? Jesus, you know, if this is the draft,
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: I just got put on the bench.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to get signed. My career is over.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: That's the story I'm telling myself. Yeah, yeah. Which is
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: just not true. But I deeply believe that.
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: That if I'm at home holding my kid, being faithful
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: to being a dad, being faithful to being a husband,
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: being faithful to my lot today, that somehow I'm missing
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: out on something else.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: And when we follow Jesus, we don't miss out. We
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: have God.
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: And like that is, I learned a lot of that
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: during that time. And we had another kid in 2020,
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: another non-eventful year.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: So my kids are.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Born in 2020. I don't remember anything happening in 2020.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: My kids are born in 2016 and 2020. Just fun times.
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: And so like writing and processing that stuff, um you
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: know death loss and then collective death and loss like
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: sure i i think there's there's something deep within us
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: that's unlocked when we grieve and you know empathy i
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: have this like hierarchy where it's like pity sympathy empathy
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: a compassionate incarnation and like god is not calling us
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: to incarnate everywhere we're not omnipresent you know right but
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: we like when we hear and see something we should
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: be sparked to mourn we should be sparked to rejoice
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: so just pity like just feel sorry you know and
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: like and that i think when when we actually get
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: in touch with our own grief and incarnate around us
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: that actually unlocks it for anybody around the corner around
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: the world you know what i mean yeah um but
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: i think that would be the thing that isn't in
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: the book in like a huge way, but man, like
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: when you can actually enter into grief and suffering in
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: your own life, it actually allows.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: You to do that with, with, with other people.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: I've had a number of people on the podcast talk
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: about lament in scripture. So a lot of old tests,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: I'm an old Testament geek. So I have old Testament
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: geeks on and they, when they talk about lament, you know,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: one of the things we try to process is, you know,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: what's the practice of lament today. And when we see
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Paul talking about, you know, one member of the body hurts,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: all the members of the body hurt. We don't really
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: practice that. We tend to be a little bit more
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: distant with our emotions and with others and say, well,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: that's not affecting me. And so I guess it doesn't
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: really matter to me. The reality is that when we
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: see brothers and sisters in Christ mourning, whether we agree
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: with why they're mourning or not, or whether we think
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: it's a big deal, like those things sort of should
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: probably go out the window and just sit back and say,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I feel bad that they feel bad.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: You know, at the minimal level, I feel bad that
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: they feel bad. Yes.
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: And you know, if we're going to like put that
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: into a disciple, so somebody just heard that and they're.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Like, Oh, I don't know how to do that. Right.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: So like, let's break it down. Right.
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: So I, I am able by God's grace because I'm
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: in touch with my own pain to empathize with my enemy.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: So I was, I was on, I was online a
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: couple of days ago and I wrote something about, Um,
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: and someone posted, oh, like these, like they were talking about, um,
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: Lindsey Graham, Lindsey Graham, Senator in the United States, um,
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: was talking about something.
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: I don't know what it was right now, but, oh,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: it's Israel and Gaza. So Lindsey Graham was explaining that,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: you know, whoever curses Israel is, will be cursed by God.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: We must support Israel.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: And someone in the comments just came for him. And
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: they said, this stupid, ignorant, boneheaded person. And I'm like,
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: Lindsey Graham's not a bonehead.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: He's deceived. Yeah.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: Because I've been deceived before.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: I lived in patriarchy. I've exploited people with my purchase.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: I'm aware that I'm complicit with lots of things. And
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: so I am no better than Lindsey Graham.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: If I really want to live out Romans 3.23, all
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: if I really want to jump into what it looks
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: like to love my neighbor as myself, and literally the
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: Sermon on the Mount to bless my enemies, then I
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: can't dehumanize Lindsey Graham or Ted Cruz or Tucker Carlson
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: or that article was highlighting them.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: And I can't do that.
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: If we're going to show empathy, we've got to break
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: it down, right? So individual, intimate, interpersonal, institutional, ideological, right?
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: I'm like, let's, let's just, let's not say I got
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: to empathize with everybody. Most people, they start off intimate.
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: They say, who lives in my house?
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to shut down my kids' feelings when
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: their toy gets stolen. I'm not going to shut down
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: my mom who just called me because, you know, she,
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: she lost a friend. I'm not, I'm not going to like,
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: I'm going to practice being present with people's pain in
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: my own life for six months.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Right. And then just say, okay, so what, what practice
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: are you going to build around that? Okay. Like, I
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: got to set aside an hour to check in with
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: this person. Okay. What meditations are you going to do?
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: I'm going to read these three scriptures. Okay.
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: What two things do you need to remember? And then
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: what's your step? You know, like we help people do that.
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: So the empathy moves from an idea to like how
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: you're exercising it in your life, which then your spiritual formation,
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: you moving towards wholeness actually means you have a more
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: fruitful community.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: That's, that's the, that's the, my hope would be for
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: people reading the book and any concept that you're bringing up, like,
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: We just brought up empathy.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: Like, how do we make it practical for people? Right, right.
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: Because that's the work of discipleship.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually liked it. was dope right it was.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah I thought that was imminently practical and you know
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: I sat there I read through it I'm like I
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: wonder why I don't do this it seems like it
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: would be really helpful to do I you know I
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: don't I don't think that way.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, I kind of plan week to week, I suppose,
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: but yeah.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: So explain it a little bit and just give it a,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: you know, give that practical approach you've got.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: So like, I'll tell you why you don't do it.
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: Cause I don't want to do it. My wife, I'm not.
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: Interested in planning anything, you know, but she's like, I
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: think she mitigates the chaos that my life would be
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: by planning.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: So she can literally say, Jonathan, like, you said these
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: were the four weekends we're going hiking. You can't do
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: anything on the weekends.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: She can always go back. And I'm like, you're right.
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: But she, you know, we, we all, we all carry
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: different gifts and liabilities.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: And my wife, one of them is planning. And for me,
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: it's like, I'm totally fine with chaos. Right. And so.
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: Dope day basically came up because Priscilla was like, Jonathan,
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: we need margin.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, Oh, we'll take Sabbath. She goes, no, no, no, no, no. Like,
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: she's like, Sabbath is the minimum. And I'm like, what?
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: There's no commitment. Okay, I hear you. She's like, Sabbath
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: is the minimum. Like, how do we like build in
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: these rhythms? She goes, go read your own stuff. I'm like,
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: all right, I hear you. Go read. She's like, you know.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: And so we built out these rhythms before work, right?
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: Like literally setting out the Sabbath, setting out family vacations,
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: setting out.
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: Birthdays, setting all these different things. and then putting everything
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: else around it. That is a hyper reversal for me
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: of like, I'm like, I don't like to hike. Like
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: I grew up in the country, right? A farm in
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: South side, Virginia. She was like, we're going to go hike.
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, why are we walking outside? Like that's
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: work for me. I'm like walking the land to make
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: sure like cows are good.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: I've been working my whole life to be comfortable indoors.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: So anyway.
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: All that to say, we sit down in January, we
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: try to get, we get childcare, you know, we get,
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: you know, can we get our budget for the year straight?
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: How much are we going to give? Cause like, that's
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: the other thing. We say no to a lot of
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: things with no plan.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Like, so that's the cool thing, right?
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: If someone says like, Hey, can you give a hundred
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: dollars to this? I can't tell you that without a budget.
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: Otherwise I'm really just telling you based on how I feel,
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: you know? So like, I know we're going to tie
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: at 10%. I know we're going to give this amount
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: of money. I know the extra money.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: That we have. So when I say no, I feel
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: like I'm being obedient, not just impulsive. You know what
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: I mean?
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: Same thing with impulse buys and all those kinds of things.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: But Dope Day helps us set our priorities for the year.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: And we've done it three years straight, which has been good. So, yeah.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: It's good. I will admit I am not a planner either.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: But I've gotten kind of good at and I say
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: kind of good because.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: It isn't without difficulty.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: But like, you know, I decided for a while there,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not going to miss any of my
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: girls lacrosse games.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Like I only have them for four years. Now it
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: turns out they're going to play in college. So we'll
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: have them for another four. But basically what I do
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: when their schedule comes out, I just sort of put
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: it all in my calendar, block it all off and
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: just say, like, I'm not I'm not going to take meetings.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to be gone. I'm not you know,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: like these days are just off for me. I can't
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: I can't do it.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: So, you know, I'll still work, but I'm not I'm
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: not going to be in a place where I have
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: to miss those games. Yeah. And so I've been getting
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: better at those kind of things. And I think I've
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: I've also had the practice, you know, you mentioned impulse shopping.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Amazon's rough for that. But what I started doing was,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: you know, if I really feel like I got to
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: click something, I just put in my list. So now
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: I have a list of books. Then when I go
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: back to them, I'm like, why would I have ever
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: wanted that book?
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: Right. Yeah. Right. It's true. It saved me.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: The list function saves me tons of money. Right.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: I want to circle back around to something though. So
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: you got dope day, this day of planning. You also
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: though in the book, you know, you're, It seems like
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: there's just an intentionality to the approach that you're advocating for.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: But when I've heard you sort of talk about things
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: in other places, you talk about how that emerges from
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: who we are. And so I just want to kind
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: of key in on that because I think that's a
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: really crucial aspect. This is not about time management. This
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: isn't about, you know, quote unquote, setting priorities or something
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: like that. This is actually a living into a conviction.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: So I think it's Ephesians 2. We are his workmanship.
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: We are Christ's workmanship. First and second, Peter talks about
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: we want to be like living stones. I don't believe
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: that we can't do things because we don't have skills.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: I actually think we can't do things a lot of
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: times because we're just literally not that person.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: I can't dunk. It wouldn't matter how much work I
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: put in.
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean like it's not happening for
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: me but that's fortunately like literally it says physical training
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: is good for something spiritual training is good for all
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: things right so I'm like great I can be all things.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: In Jesus so but someone said to me they're like
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: oh like why don't we see miracles I was like
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: but when was the last time you prayed for one
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: like did you.
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: Stand in front of 50 people saying that God was
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: terrible and called down fire from heaven you haven't done
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: that recently Like, you can't have a conversation with your father.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: Like, maybe you should ask for a miracle at Thanksgiving.
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean? And so, like, I think
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: that in the book, I try to talk about a lot,
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: particularly chapter one, because that was the one me and
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: Priscilla worked on together. Like, I have problems with intimacy.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: I have problems with connecting with people. I have wounds from.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: My dad and my mom. I feel terrible.
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: Deeply insecure the majority of the time like it doesn't
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: really take a lot for me to question like oh
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: like am i as cool as james like when these
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: videos show up side by side like will will it
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: look like you.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: Know what i mean like yeah like oh like did
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: his book sell more like like those all those things
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: could happen right yeah but i literally have to layer
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: in in the book about scaffolding like my thoughts, my
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: actions in these daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual times that
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: will help ground me when my feelings come.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: Because our feelings are not reality. I may feel apart
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: from God. His word says he's never left me. So
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: I think layering those things in has helped me immensely.
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: And I have started to change. So one of the
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: things I talk about in the book is like, I
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: don't know how to say this in a cool way.
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: I peed blood in 2023.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: We could not figure out why.
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: I couldn't figure out why. Maybe four or five months ago,
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: my stomach just started hurting really, really bad.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: I was like, what is happening?
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: Then I asked myself, I was like, oh, In 2023,
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: I had this thing happen. I didn't know what it was.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: I was really stressed out in 2023. And so I'm like, oh, okay.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: Is this stress?
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: I had hip surgery six months in May. So I
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: was injured before that, like the pain to walk around.
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: The work that I do within Arasi, I'm fundraising. We're
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: shutting down a publishing company that wasn't as successful as
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: we wanted it to be. Me and Priscilla, marriage has cycles.
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: There are things that go really well and there's things
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: that go tough.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: And so I'm like, oh, I'm stressed out. Right.
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: So the, like I was in 2023, my brain went
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: haywire when these things happened.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: In 2026, I'm not the same person. Yeah. Like, oh, okay.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: Something's off. Let me go look at our schedule. Let
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: me go figure out what's happening.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: Let me take the time to go to the doctor.
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: Let me actually take my vacation days. Let me actually
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: step back. You know what I mean?
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: Right. Cause I'm a different person.
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: We can't like the reason we say like when pigs flies,
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: because we know pigs don't fly.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: Um, and so one of the stories I tell in
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: the book is like, when I first started getting serious
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: about Sabbath, my alumni, one of them was there at
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: our program and.
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: He came to me, he pulled me to the side.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: He's like, Hey, um, it's like the middle of the day,
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: the third day of the program, like, y'all taking a
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: retreat of silence? I'm like, yeah.
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: It's the hinge of the week, so they're going to
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: reflect for like six hours and we'll come back together.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: They're like, but there's so many people.
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: Jonathan, you just said there's 50,000 unhoused people in New
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: York City, 3,000 people on the streets right now, like,
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: and we're going to.
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: Pray and sit? And I was like, yeah. He goes,
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: that was just, he goes, that just wasn't what we
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: did four years ago. I said, I know I was
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: a different person four years ago. And I said, I'm
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: really sorry that I passed on that toxic cocktail of
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: theology to you. You should take a retreat. Do you
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: have six hours? And he stayed with us. You know
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: what I mean?
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: So we have to become different people. Because Ephesians 2,
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: we're being worked on so that we can be.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: These living stones, these living witnesses that Jesus calls.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: Us to be. I'll say, man, it really resonates with me.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: It's one of the passages I've been reflecting on lately
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: is Hebrews 5.14.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: It's that one.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: It's usually translated, you know, we've been trained by constant
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: practice into maturity so that we can discern good and evil.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: But in the Greek, it's that the word hexis, which
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: is usually translated and affiliated with training, it really refers
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: to a mature state that we've already attained that allows
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: us to discern good and evil. And so what Hebrews
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: is focusing on is this mature state that we enter into.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: That gives us the perspective to understand which way to
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: go and which way not to go. So it's a
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: slightly different nuance. And I think that just as I
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: reflect back on my life, the spiritual disciplines have always
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: sort of been a part of it. But I wouldn't
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: look back and go, hey, you know what it was
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: that really allowed me to mature? It was this time
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: in prayer, this time in Bible study, this time in whatever.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: It wasn't that I worked myself toward it. Right.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: It was that you have these moments where people say
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: a word to you, you have a crisis, you know,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: of some sort and it transforms you without you even
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: trying to be transformed almost, right? Like you wouldn't have
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: gone this direction if someone hadn't shoved you in that direction.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: And I think at least in my life, and it
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: sounds like we have some similarities in common, right?
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: But, I think at least in my life, I needed.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: Those pushes to become sort of almost level up and
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: become that different person who now is no longer going
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: to be running, you know, 120 miles an hour with
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: my hair on fire. Like it's just not, I'm not
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: doing that anymore. I don't think it's just age either.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: I think that, you know, I get, that gets pinned
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: on me an awful lot. Like when I talk about this,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: it's like, well, you've gotten older. Yes, I've gotten older,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: but the age isn't the problem. It's the experiences that
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: are the issue. It's the way life has unfolded that
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: has sort of brought me to this new place.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: And over the next 20 years or 30 years.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Or however many I get, I'm sure I'll be a
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: different person then than I am now.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: And it's just sort of interesting to think about that way.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: And so that was one of the pushback pieces that
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: were in the book.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: And any time we were doing.
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: Justice work pre the book, they'd be like, well, it's
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: because you're in New York or it's because you're older
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: or it's because you have this, you have this, you
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: have that.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: And I was like, so I have a part of
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: them in the book about delight.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: And like, yeah, because I, I, I write about like,
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: I had never taken a vacation. So I got married.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: My wife was like, we're going to go here. And
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: I'm like, what do you mean?
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Just show up.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: This should not have been a big deal, but it
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: really was. I literally told her, I said, so you
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: want like us to pay for this flight?
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: Like you want us to spend my own?
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: Cause like, I had never been anywhere where like I
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: wasn't going to work, you know? And so I'm like,
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: she goes, yeah, you like get a car, you get rewards,
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: like rewards. I was like, yeah, like people, but Priscilla,
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: it's not free. Like I've only gone home or gotten paid.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: Like I don't, yeah, it's ridiculous conversation. But, but all
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: that to say, like, um, I had, I tried.
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: To make sure that there were like these expensive examples
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: of And then these like free, these free ones.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: Like, just like you could go walk in the park.
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: You could go and have retreat of silence in, um,
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: like the, it's not the cost.
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: It's the, the intentionality, you know? Yeah.
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: And I, and I think my mama taught me that,
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: you know, I remember, um, in 2011 to 2015, we
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: were working on like what it looks like to fight
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: sex trafficking and labor slavery in like a holistic way.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: And, um, we were doing budgets.
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: Like, okay, if you're going to get all organic food
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: or all fair trade desserts, all these different things on
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: a snap or food stamp budget, could you do it?
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: And so we're doing it in New York city.
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: And then I go home to Broadnax and my mom
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: was eating the same way on like $ 10, 000 a year.
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: And she was like, Oh yeah, well this farmer over
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: here and that farmer were there.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: And like, I'm like, this is fascinating.
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: Like her income, allowed her to eat this way that
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: I had to create a program for to teach people
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: how to eat like in New York City. And so
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: it's just like, and like, you know, people are like, oh,
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: I got to go to this retreat center. It's like
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: $ 299 a night or whatever.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: And I remember walking.
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: My mom and she was like, I said, mom, why
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: is there a bucket like 50 feet in that path?
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: And she goes, oh, I go sit on that bucket
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: and think. And I said, what?
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: And so I walked into the woods, I sat down,
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: I was like, she sits right here.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: And prays and talk. I was like, but that costs
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: her nothing. You know, but it's the intentionality.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: You know, Deuteronomy says like we seek, we find God
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: and we seek him with our whole hearts. And I
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: think that's what you're talking about with Hexis, right? Like
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: there's a, you know, Deuteronomy second giving of the law, right?
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: The first time the Ten Commandments came out, it's like,
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: this is what you should do, right? And then Deuteronomy
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: is like, this is what we do. Like the, the
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: tenses change and how they describe it. And in the
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: same way, it's like the thing that freed me from
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: pornography was realizing that I'm not that person. Like, I
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: just like, Oh, I'm not like, I am not that
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: person anymore.
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: And I've always not been that person. As soon as
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: I decided to follow Jesus, like my righteousness is hidden
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: with him.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: Like, he who knew no sin became sin for me
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: that I might become the righteousness of God. Oh, I'm
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: hidden within his righteousness. Righteous people don't export other people.
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: And so like there there's, I think there is something
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: transformative about, um, living out.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: The maturity that we have been given.
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: As best as we consciously can on this side of
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: this side of heaven. So, so yeah, go sit on
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: a bucket. People listen to it.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We're getting kind of close to the end.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: I want to I want to ask one more question, because.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: I just think it's interesting.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're involved in a lot of what people
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: might call social justice or activist issues.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: I don't know whether those terms are the greatest terms ever.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: I almost try to stay away from them, but it's
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: the ones we got.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: So.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: As I was reading through your book again and kind
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: of thinking through both your books, what what was striking
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: to me was how much of this could apply to
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: a corporate level. as much as it could apply to
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: an individual level. And so I'm just wondering if you
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: can kind of speak to that, because I think there's
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: a sense in which even just like you were saying,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: you know, I got to go to this retreat center
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: for 300 bucks. We don't collectively have the will. It
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: seems like to sustain places where people could just go
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: for nothing.
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, there are some of them, but it's not common.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: It's very difficult to do. And, you know, if you
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: were out fundraising for that kind of thing, people would
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: look at you like you were nuts.
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: And so just that's an example. But, yeah, talk about
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: how you see maybe some of these individual things that
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: you've learned and you write about in Beauty and Resistance,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: how you could see those extending into the corporate level.
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So like this is this is the hardest thing.
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: MLK said we need people who are as committed to
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: justice and love as people are committed to war and.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: Violence, right?
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: And it's really hard.
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: So I'll give an example that's in the book and
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: then I'll give an example that I was just thinking
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: about literally on the elliptical machine at physical therapy.
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: And so Phil, shout out to Phil too. He goes
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: to our church. Phil individually, right?
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: So we'll move through the five I's. It was like,
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: I need a rhythm in my life and I want
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: to play basketball. I want to play basketball.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: And in New York City, it's hard to just go
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: play basketball.
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: It's a whole thing. You've got to show up and
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: get a court and all those kinds of things. But
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: Phil was like, huh, I live in Floral Park.
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: I'm going to invite people to come. I'm a resident
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: of Floral Park, which means I can get everybody into
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: this court.
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: And so he's like, I'm going to go on Facebook.
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: And he gets a Facebook group. And ultimately, it's like
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: 40 people in this group. And he shows up to
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: play basketball. And all of a sudden, it's like, 10,
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: 15 guys coming.
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: And then I'm like, watch, I need a place to
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: go play basketball.
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: And so for like a solid year, we played basketball.
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: It was like 15, 20, sometimes 30 guys just playing.
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: And again, there's only 10 people on the court at
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: the time. So then the rest was just talking. There's
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: no kids in the neighborhood. And like, and that was,
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: and that was a season because then he had a
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: baby and these other things happen. But like every few weeks,
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: that Facebook group pops up and says, hey, does anybody
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: want to go play ball? Like it's still– Phil is
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: out of it, but there's a group there of people that.
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: Want to do this thing.
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: And so I think that most of us are afraid
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: of folks saying no to doing something with us.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: And I think that we're afraid that we won't be
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: able to sustain it.
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: And so I think like Phil saying yes to– I
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: think to a prompting from God, not just his own
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: need to dunk on people.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: He can't dunk. But anyway, I'm not going to poop
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: on Phil. Phil's great.
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: But one of the things was Phil was enthusiastic and
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: invited people and was whimsical when he was there.
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: Just having fun.
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: And he made everybody want to come and play every week.
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: And that lasted for a year and still goes on. Now,
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: the example I just thought about at a larger level
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: We have words.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: To describe our collective will not to do things. Poverty.
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: There's enough money in the world. We have decided that.
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: This neighborhood is going to have more and that neighborhood
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: is going to have less.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: Famine. We have decided that food is here and it's
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: not there. Just in the United States today, we grow
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: enough food to throw 50% of it away in the
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: field and 35% of it away in the fridge.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: We don't have a food problem in the United States,
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: but we, but we say like those people are food insecure. Right.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: And at the exact same time.
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: We can take 150,000 soldiers, put them in a desert
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: and give them internet showers, three meals a day and
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: the weaponry necessary to, To destroy– like we made some decisions.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean? Yeah. And so I think
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: we can model in little ways like– and I would
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: love for churches and faith communities to like champion these
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: little things.
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: Like, hey, Phil is getting a bunch of people together
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: to go play basketball. Jackie is getting a bunch of
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: kids together.
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: At her house every Friday night.
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: This group over here is like, they just have dinner
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: at their house and anybody can come. If we can
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: champion what happened in Acts 1.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: Through 4, I think we could do some.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: It could be very, very different because Jesus did not
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: change the world through the synagogue. He changed it with
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: Phoebe and Lydia and all these people doing amazing things
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: because they decided to follow him.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: So.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: Very cool. Appreciate you talking about that. I love that.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: I just, one of those aspects I felt like was
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: not completely implicit in the book, but definitely something to
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: think about going forward. So appreciate it, man.
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: For sure. For sure.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: Dude, this has been great. I've enjoyed the conversation. So
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: thanks for being on the show.
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: This is the highlight of my day, man.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: These are always the highlight of my day, man. Like
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: I love doing these interviews. It's crazy.
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: Well, hey, everybody, check out Beauty and Resistance. I have
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: the link in the show notes.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: IVP generously gives us a 20% off discount code. So
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: if you order it off the IVP Press website, which
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: is where I'll link it in the show notes, you'll
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: get 20% off. Just put in the code that's also
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: in the show notes. And I'm going to link your
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: other book in there as well. So people want to
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: read both, do both. I'd encourage that. I think they
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: really do pair oddly well together, given the different topics
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: that you're actually addressing.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: But I think they really do go well together.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: And your understanding and thought process flows, I think, really
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: well across both of them, even though you wrote them
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: at different times and across a lot of different perspectives.
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: So. I appreciate that. You're a scholar. You read lots
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: of books. You see the connections. I feel seen and known,
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: which I appreciate.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Well, thanks for being on, and thanks, everybody, for hanging
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: in and listening. Hope you enjoyed this, and we'll catch
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: you on the next episode of Thinking Christian.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: Take care.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: Just want to take a second to thank the team
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.