Latest / Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association / Episode 19: Using AI For Evangelism and Ministry, The Power of Old Testament Lamentation, Dead Billionaire Soda and World Cup Evangelism with Pastor Anthony Ferguson

Transcript

Episode 19: Using AI For Evangelism and Ministry, The Power of Old Testament Lamentation, Dead Billionaire Soda and World Cup Evangelism with Pastor Anthony Ferguson · Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association

0:00
Speaker2: We've got Dr. Anthony Ferguson back with us again on the podcast today.
0:04
Speaker2: He's a professor and a pastor, an author, and an evangelism pioneer.
0:10
Speaker2: And we're going to talk about artificial intelligence and its role in evangelism.
0:14
Speaker2: We're going to talk about the Old Testament book of Amos and pastoring the church
0:18
Speaker2: through the Old Testament.
0:19
Speaker2: And we're going to talk about the Yellow Card Initiative, which is this innovative
0:23
Speaker2: way to share the gospel with people. One thing Dr.
0:26
Speaker2: Ferguson said that really stood out to me, I want you to hear at the very beginning
0:31
Speaker2: so you can hear it twice. And I love the word he invented.
0:35
Speaker1: So God has the power to perfect us. He's chosen not to do it right now for a purpose.
0:40
Speaker1: Namely, as we wrestle with sin, as we seek to overcome sin, as we do this wrestling
0:45
Speaker1: match of sometimes doing well and failing other times, our dependency on him is growing, right?
0:50
Speaker1: So God is at work to do something in our toddlerness.
1:14
Speaker2: And resources that work together to build up your local fellowship and the broader kingdom of God.
1:19
Speaker2: Join hosts, Pastor Chris Cole
1:20
Speaker2: and Dr. Chase Thompson from the Great Commission Association, led by Dr.
1:25
Speaker2: Mike Stewart, as they explore the frontiers of ministry and aim for the goal
1:29
Speaker2: of making every church flourish.
1:30
Speaker2: Hello, everybody, and welcome into episode number 19 of the Every Church Flourishing podcast.
1:36
Speaker2: We are a ministry of the Great Commission Association in Northern and Central
1:41
Speaker2: California, And we are always looking for gospel partnerships,
1:45
Speaker2: whether you are in state, in our area, or out of it.
1:49
Speaker2: Reach out to us at our website, gcasbc.org. That's gcasbc.org,
1:58
Speaker2: just like a High Point University in North Carolina professor did this week,
2:03
Speaker2: who will be a potential upcoming guest on the podcast.
2:07
Speaker2: But today, we have pastor and professor and Everton Blues superfan Anthony Ferguson with us again,
2:14
Speaker2: and we're talking to him about World Cup evangelism with the Yellow Card Initiative
2:18
Speaker2: and a few other pretty fascinating things also,
2:21
Speaker2: including the Great Commission value of artificial intelligence and the importance
2:27
Speaker2: of preaching about the Old Testament in church and the beauty of the Book of
2:32
Speaker2: Amos and the Psalms and the Lamentations.
2:34
Speaker2: We've also got Cal Baptist ministry student and Valley Baptist youth minister J.C.
2:40
Speaker2: Thompson with us today to review a soda that used to be called Armless Palmer.
2:47
Speaker2: What is it called now? Will it muster enough Spurgeons to be recommended?
2:51
Speaker2: Well, you'll just have to listen and find out. If you do like the show,
2:55
Speaker2: please tell a friend about it.
2:57
Speaker2: That's how podcasts like ours grow by word of mouth. That said,
3:02
Speaker2: let's jump into our interview now.
3:06
Speaker2: And we are back with soccer expert, evangelism guy, pastor, and textual criticism, Bible nerd, Dr.
3:15
Speaker2: Anthony Ferguson. And we have been talking to him about evangelism and the World Cup.
3:20
Speaker0: We're so excited, Anthony, to have you back with us and to hopefully maybe we'll
3:25
Speaker0: hear some more about your fandom of Everton.
3:29
Speaker0: But we really want to hear because we know you're a fan of Jesus.
3:32
Speaker0: You're a fan of having people hear about the hope of Jesus Christ and the gospel,
3:37
Speaker0: and that's why we've brought you on today.
3:39
Speaker0: We're so glad to have you back on this episode.
3:42
Speaker0: I think where we left off in last week's discussion, I wanted to bring out the
3:49
Speaker0: comment that this is not just something for people who want to share the gospel
3:55
Speaker0: in English, that But in fact,
3:57
Speaker0: the Yellow Card Initiative has been designed in many of its elements for people
4:03
Speaker0: to use and share in many different languages.
4:06
Speaker0: So what can you tell us, Anthony, about those tools for people who want to share
4:11
Speaker0: the gospel in Spanish or Dari or other languages?
4:16
Speaker1: We have been able, by God's grace, to translate and quality check our resources in multiple languages.
4:23
Speaker1: I think we're at 13 languages right now. I mean, I think from a theological perspective,
4:28
Speaker1: I would just want to impress onto the hearts of anybody listening that we are,
4:33
Speaker1: by God's grace, through technological innovation, namely the advent of artificial intelligence.
4:38
Speaker1: And if we were to have tried to produce the Yellow Card Initiative four years
4:42
Speaker1: ago, it would have been impossible for 11th Street Baptist to produce what we produced in 2026.
4:48
Speaker1: If it was possible for the IMB to do it, it would have cost them,
4:52
Speaker1: I would imagine, millions and millions of dollars to do so.
4:56
Speaker1: But because of not agenic generative AI, I'm sure agenic AI will be able to
5:00
Speaker1: do a lot in the future for us.
5:02
Speaker1: But we literally are able to
5:05
Speaker1: take the gospel into as many languages as we want. The sky is the limit.
5:11
Speaker1: So for example, we have training in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
5:15
Speaker1: It's really interesting because one of the people in our videos is from Brazil.
5:19
Speaker1: And it's really funny because he is speaking English, but then we've dubbed
5:22
Speaker1: over his voice in a Brazilian voice, but it's not his voice.
5:26
Speaker1: So that's really funny. But we have training resources in English,
5:29
Speaker1: Spanish, and Portuguese.
5:30
Speaker1: But then we've translated the video and the website into 13 languages.
5:35
Speaker1: I probably will miss a few, but English, Spanish, Portuguese,
5:39
Speaker1: French, German, Italian, Dari, Farsi, Arabic, Korean, Mandarin,
5:47
Speaker1: Cantonese, Pashtun, Arabic.
5:49
Speaker1: So, I mean, and these are a lot of languages. And it's remarkable that when
5:54
Speaker1: I had each of these checked for quality, very few needed any edits.
5:59
Speaker1: Now, they might not be like pristine Arabic. Like I have, there's several,
6:04
Speaker1: there's a handful of people at the church I pastor who are from, from the Middle East.
6:07
Speaker1: And one guy was like, yeah, you know, like it makes complete sense.
6:10
Speaker1: Everything you're saying,
6:12
Speaker1: There's one issue I'm not so sure. So he had his mom listen to it.
6:15
Speaker1: She was like, oh yeah, that's fine.
6:16
Speaker1: So it's like AI had very, we had to correct AI seldomly, which it's just insane.
6:24
Speaker1: And I think, again, this is just another talent God is giving to the churches.
6:27
Speaker1: He's giving us this talent, this ability to do great commission work in a way
6:31
Speaker1: that we would never have been able to have done four years ago.
6:35
Speaker1: But in this moment, we can leverage the moment and we really can give a tool
6:39
Speaker1: now to somebody who knows zero English and they could hear the gospel.
6:45
Speaker1: So when I was in San Jose, I think it was San Jose, my Uber driver from the
6:49
Speaker1: airport was from China, from Beijing.
6:52
Speaker1: And his English was very poor. And we were talking through, I think Gemini was the AI he was using.
6:57
Speaker1: And we were talking and then I gave him the card and he was able to listen in,
7:02
Speaker1: I don't know if it's Mandarin or Cantonese, and he was able to listen to the video.
7:06
Speaker1: And we were able to try to walk through a conversation.
7:09
Speaker1: And I don't know Chinese culture. Maybe this is typical, but when he left, he gave me a big hug.
7:13
Speaker1: I don't know if that's typical or not typical in Chinese culture.
7:16
Speaker1: But I think the point is simple, is that like the gospel was shared to this
7:20
Speaker1: Uber driver from Beijing in San Jose because of AI.
7:25
Speaker1: I don't know any Mandarin. I don't know any Cantonese. I have the yellow card. Yeah.
7:30
Speaker1: And he heard the gospel. So what a moment, what an opportunity for us and really
7:36
Speaker1: excited to see what God does.
7:37
Speaker1: Because again, this is just all stating, look what God did.
7:40
Speaker0: You know, it's such an amazing testimony, Anthony, that you've got there.
7:44
Speaker0: And you're talking about the reversal of Babylon. When you talk about the reversal
7:47
Speaker0: of Babylon, I always think about Revelations 5 and Revelations seven.
7:52
Speaker0: Every tribe, every people around the throne claiming the glory of God,
7:59
Speaker0: saying worthy is the lamb to receive all glory and honor and power and dominion.
8:03
Speaker0: And that's our heartbeat, right?
8:05
Speaker0: To see every person come to saving faith that we can share the hope of the gospel
8:11
Speaker0: with and being able to do it in so many different languages.
8:15
Speaker0: And I so appreciate your heart of talking about AI, not as something to be scared
8:21
Speaker0: of, while we want to be wary and wise and careful, wise as serpent,
8:25
Speaker0: innocent as doves, as Jesus has commended to us.
8:29
Speaker0: I know you're speaking also to one of Pastor Chase's big passions.
8:33
Speaker0: He loves the idea of using AI in appropriate ways, healthy ways,
8:38
Speaker0: one of our topics here on Every Church Flourishing.
8:41
Speaker0: How can we use this next tool to advance the gospel? So thank you for giving us that example.
8:48
Speaker0: And this opportunity to talk about that. So I know that in the process of developing this yellow card,
8:56
Speaker0: this yellow card right here, and it's got a QR code and it says North America 2026 on it.
9:05
Speaker0: There's some ramifications of using the wording around the World Cup event itself, but also
9:12
Speaker0: We wanted to use the yellow card as an opportunity to speak into so many different
9:18
Speaker0: things, not just the World Cup.
9:21
Speaker0: But I know that you, while you were beta testing this, you took some beta test
9:26
Speaker0: yellow cards out to some MLS games and you had some chances to share.
9:31
Speaker0: What would you tell us about those experiences?
9:34
Speaker1: Me and a couple of friends went two times down to San Diego for the MLS playoffs.
9:39
Speaker1: We, on one occasion, brought, they were just like paper cards.
9:43
Speaker1: The next was, I think, cardstock cards. So it wasn't good quality.
9:46
Speaker1: And it definitely had a big QR code on the card. So the design was very, very different.
9:53
Speaker1: So I would say it was a less strategic card. So we learned a lot from those beta tests.
9:59
Speaker1: And I think we implemented what we learned to make the card that we have now in our hands.
10:03
Speaker1: And so I went down twice, once with my uncle and then once with two friends from the church.
10:08
Speaker1: And on average, I think a normal person, so if you're in a place where there's
10:13
Speaker1: thousands of people, you can expect to hand out 80 to 100 cards per hour per person.
10:19
Speaker1: And that's about what we did. We handed out around 300 cards.
10:22
Speaker1: We had 30 people view the video, roughly.
10:26
Speaker1: And then three people said they wanted to become Christians.
10:29
Speaker1: So I took that information and I gave it to a church in San Diego,
10:32
Speaker1: Grace Church, San Diego, a church that's connected to Gateway Seminary.
10:35
Speaker1: And I don't know what came of that.
10:38
Speaker1: But definitely seeds were planted and we can pray to Jesus that those seeds
10:43
Speaker1: are being watered. So this is people were eating carne asada.
10:46
Speaker1: They were drinking modelos. they were people were smoking weed partying
10:50
Speaker1: and here i'm like hey get on your phone look at my qr
10:53
Speaker1: code so there's definitely a lot of reflections about that
10:56
Speaker1: but then the second time we went down there we did the parking lot but before that
10:59
Speaker1: we did the train station so we took the metro from downtown
11:02
Speaker1: san diego i can't remember the stop into snapdragon stadium and handed out cards
11:07
Speaker1: on the metro to see how people would receive that if they would receive it better
11:10
Speaker1: or or less so what reflections did i have so i think the first thing is that
11:14
Speaker1: okay 10 of the people who got the card viewed the video. I mean,
11:18
Speaker1: that's not a great statistic.
11:19
Speaker1: But then 10% of the people who watched the video wanted to become Christians.
11:24
Speaker1: That's a really great statistic, right? And if that statistic holds,
11:27
Speaker1: that's 1% of the people who got cards wanted to become Christians. That's amazing.
11:32
Speaker1: So when we were reflecting on that, we were thinking, okay, how do we increase
11:36
Speaker1: the amount of people who got a card and then they get to the watch video category?
11:40
Speaker1: So if you think about this in terms of a funnel, right?
11:42
Speaker1: 300 people got the card, but then the funnel got very narrow.
11:47
Speaker1: Only 30 people watched the video and then three people became Christians.
11:51
Speaker1: Like, what can we do to reduce those bottlenecks to make the funnel wider?
11:56
Speaker1: So it's not a funnel, but it's like a four inch PVC pipe, right?
11:59
Speaker1: So the water is just flushing through.
12:01
Speaker1: And so we reflected on that and we said, okay, so the paper card,
12:06
Speaker1: the cardstock card, I mean, that's trash.
12:08
Speaker1: You know what I mean? It wasn't super well designed. It's not good quality.
12:12
Speaker1: They held it up during the game to dissent the referee, to tell the referee
12:16
Speaker1: what they thought. But then they throw it away in the trash afterwards.
12:18
Speaker1: So we're like, okay, if we can make this vinyl, if we can make it plastic,
12:22
Speaker1: and if we could, in a creative way, make it World Cup themed.
12:26
Speaker1: Now, as you mentioned, there's lots of copyright infringement things here,
12:29
Speaker1: which prohibited us from using certain language.
12:31
Speaker1: But I think it's pretty obvious. North America, 2026, most people are going
12:35
Speaker1: to recognize that in a yellow card. They're going to understand that's FIFA, that's World Cup.
12:39
Speaker1: And so we tried to make it thematic. We made it vinyl.
12:44
Speaker1: We made it very official. And we gave it a minimalistic design.
12:48
Speaker1: So it's not being intrusive.
12:50
Speaker1: Like somebody can actually use this as a prop in the game and it will look like a prop in the game.
12:55
Speaker1: So our hope in making those changes is that we'll widen the funnel, right?
12:59
Speaker1: So instead of it being 10% of the people who watched it, because it's something
13:03
Speaker1: they're gonna keep and hopefully keep as a souvenir, you know,
13:06
Speaker1: we can hopefully widen that 10% to be 100%.
13:09
Speaker1: And then if the statistic holds that 10% of the people who watched the video
13:12
Speaker1: become Christians, I mean, you can just do the math, right?
13:15
Speaker1: I mean, and of course, God's not mechanical. God's not a genie.
13:19
Speaker1: This isn't magic. It's not mathematics. This is relational.
13:23
Speaker1: People are going to be different, and God can do whatever he wants.
13:26
Speaker1: But I think we reflected on those statistics, and that's why we developed the card that we have now.
13:32
Speaker1: So also, we also thought about, well, where else can we share the gospel besides a venue site?
13:37
Speaker1: A venue site's important, but
13:39
Speaker1: what about Uber and Lyft drop-off stations where people are hanging out?
13:42
Speaker1: What about tourist hotspots? What about places where people are still kind of on their phone, right?
13:47
Speaker1: When you're tailgating, people aren't on their phone, and that's probably a good thing.
13:51
Speaker1: But how do we infiltrate areas around venues or into our community where people
13:56
Speaker1: are still going to watch their phone?
13:58
Speaker1: So I think it kind of expanded our thoughts about where we should distribute the card.
14:02
Speaker1: Those were some of our reflection. I think maybe another reflection is that people want the card.
14:07
Speaker1: What I love about this strategy is it's like a value add. You know,
14:11
Speaker1: I used to be a waiter at Cheesecake Factory for a long time,
14:13
Speaker1: and sometimes people would get like the million-dollar bills, right?
14:16
Speaker1: And, you know, maybe people love getting the million-dollar gospel track videos. That's possible.
14:21
Speaker1: I mean, God can work in a million ways, but the waiters who got that were non-Christians
14:26
Speaker1: typically didn't like that.
14:27
Speaker1: So what I love about this is it's a value add. So in soccer culture,
14:32
Speaker1: people like going to the stadium and holding up a yellow card.
14:35
Speaker1: And they like it as a prop. Because when the referee makes a bad call,
14:38
Speaker1: they want to hold up their yellow card and say, hey, referee, give me a yellow card.
14:41
Speaker1: Or if they want to be really funny, they give him the red card.
14:44
Speaker1: So when we went and beta tested this, we didn't have the red card.
14:48
Speaker1: Multiple people asked for the red card. People wanted the red card.
14:51
Speaker1: That's why we did yellow on one side, red on the other. Because when somebody
14:54
Speaker1: delays the game, somebody kicks the ball, talks back to the referee,
14:58
Speaker1: they want to hold up the red card and say, get him out of the game,
15:00
Speaker1: referee. Come on, come on, get him out of there.
15:02
Speaker1: So people already do this in soccer culture. And so it's a prop, it's a value add.
15:08
Speaker1: Like when you go up to somebody, some people are like, well, how much does it cost?
15:12
Speaker1: Like they're genuinely thinking like there's a cost. And we're like,
15:15
Speaker1: no, this is free today in the game.
15:17
Speaker1: When the referee makes a call, like, let's hold this up and tell him what he thinks.
15:20
Speaker1: And then honestly, even with the cardstock and the paper cards that we hand
15:24
Speaker1: down in San Diego, 80 to 90% of the people wanted the card.
15:28
Speaker1: And I think the statistic will go up even more once they see it's plastic,
15:31
Speaker1: it's vinyl, it's a souvenir.
15:33
Speaker0: So, and it's, it's, it's incredibly high quality what you've been able to produce
15:39
Speaker0: here and soccer fans, everybody has just been amazed at the quality of it.
15:46
Speaker0: That's been able to be engaged with it. So thank you for doing that reflection,
15:50
Speaker0: Anthony, and, and doing those beta tests and doing the, the practice runs.
15:55
Speaker0: And, and again, I just want to commend you brother. I know that you didn't come
15:58
Speaker0: on the show to in any way be puffed up, but hopefully we want to build you up.
16:04
Speaker0: And I just want to commend you again for having the humility to go out and practice.
16:09
Speaker0: Because I think so often in my experience as a pastor, as a church leader,
16:14
Speaker0: one of the reasons believers don't go out and share the gospel is because they're
16:20
Speaker0: very averse to the idea of being humbled,
16:24
Speaker0: that they might try something and it may not work very well the first few times.
16:30
Speaker0: And so as a pastor, you know, when I'm trying to train or coach people on sharing
16:35
Speaker0: the gospel, I'm like, listen, you know, look at babies, look at toddlers when they're trying to walk.
16:40
Speaker0: Do you get mad when someone doesn't do a great job walking as a toddler? And the answer is no. No.
16:48
Speaker0: God's not going to be mad at you when you're out there trying to share your
16:52
Speaker0: faith for the first few times, and you're likely to stumble around.
16:57
Speaker0: You can't assume that you're going to be really, really great at it the first
17:03
Speaker0: few times. That's not the way most of us learn.
17:06
Speaker0: Very few of us are going to be intuitively very good at sharing the gospel personally
17:11
Speaker0: one-on-one or to a group the first few times that we do it, but we want to grow.
17:16
Speaker0: And you've modeled that and demonstrated that, even in how you talked about
17:21
Speaker0: reflecting on how we could improve this.
17:23
Speaker0: And so when we get that spirit of humility and we're willing to be humbled and
17:28
Speaker0: we're willing to try things and maybe not be so perfect, but do critical self-evaluation.
17:35
Speaker0: This is time for me to chase a rabbit trail and just say, if you don't know
17:39
Speaker0: how you can share your faith and you want to practice some of this,
17:44
Speaker0: the North American Mission board, believe it or not,
17:46
Speaker0: has an AI that you can practice sharing your faith with.
17:51
Speaker0: And you could tell it, hey, I want to share my faith with an atheist.
17:56
Speaker0: And you could set it literally to levels, really easy to medium to hard,
18:02
Speaker0: or I want to share my faith with a Muslim or a Confucius Buddhist or whatever.
18:07
Speaker0: And the AI will practice having that gospel conversation with you.
18:12
Speaker0: And I'm sure Pastor Chase can put that link in our show notes and in the link to this.
18:19
Speaker0: But that sort of leads me into that next question that I have for you,
18:23
Speaker0: Pastor Anthony, and that is this.
18:25
Speaker0: What do you say you say to people who are evangelism shy?
18:30
Speaker0: How can they become a person that moves from just sort of like,
18:34
Speaker0: I'm not really good at this. I'm not going to share my faith.
18:37
Speaker0: How can they take that next step into actually not just thinking of evangelism
18:43
Speaker0: as a good idea for other people, but
18:45
Speaker0: but something they can do themselves?
18:49
Speaker1: I think first they need to be motivated because it is scary, right?
18:53
Speaker1: I mean, and if we really believe that somebody's eternal destiny can be altered
18:58
Speaker1: by somebody speaking words and then simply believing them, turning,
19:03
Speaker1: repenting from sin and trusting those words, trusting in Christ,
19:07
Speaker1: then I think Satan is going to make that the hardest thing to do in the world.
19:11
Speaker1: So I think how do you stay motivated to do a really difficult thing?
19:15
Speaker1: I think you need to remember why you're doing it.
19:19
Speaker1: So I would say the first thing, if I were trying to motivate a member of 11th
19:22
Speaker1: Street is like, yeah, like I'm not excited about sharing the gospel.
19:25
Speaker1: Like how do I move from like, I know I should do it and I don't want to do it
19:28
Speaker1: to I know I should do it and I want to do it.
19:31
Speaker1: I would say the first thing is they probably need to know the biblical foundation
19:34
Speaker1: and the theological foundations of why we do what we do.
19:38
Speaker1: So I think I would quickly give them a biblical theology of God's desire to
19:42
Speaker1: spread his glory to all people.
19:43
Speaker1: I'd start in Genesis and I'd end right where you did with Revelation 7 and Revelation,
19:48
Speaker1: you know, this idea of a new earth, Revelation 22, 20 through 22,
19:50
Speaker1: and I would just walk it through.
19:52
Speaker1: I would probably also talk about some theological things like God's glory, God's majesty,
19:59
Speaker1: the concept of being made in God's image and the dignity of that,
20:02
Speaker1: the fact that God doesn't entrust the proclamation of his glory for salvific reasons to the clouds.
20:09
Speaker1: The clouds proclaim the glory of God according to Romans 2 and 3,
20:12
Speaker1: but they can't save people.
20:14
Speaker1: And yet when we proclaim the glory of God, it could save people.
20:18
Speaker1: And so I think I would want to really hone in on the dignity of what it means to be human.
20:21
Speaker1: And I would go as far as to say like, you've been saved, you've been created,
20:26
Speaker1: and you've been saved to proclaim the excellencies.
20:29
Speaker1: And that's obviously 1 Peter 2 verse 9, where you are a chosen race,
20:32
Speaker1: a royal priesthood, a holy nation of people for his own possession.
20:35
Speaker1: That you may proclaim. And of course, Peter's picking up on Exodus 19 there.
20:39
Speaker1: So I think I'd really, I would spend time educating the person.
20:42
Speaker1: I think next I would do exactly what you did, Chris. I would talk about,
20:46
Speaker1: I honestly say the exact same thing you just said, I say, listen,
20:50
Speaker1: it's okay not to be good at evangelism.
20:51
Speaker1: I mean, honestly, that's like a strategy I have in all of my discipleship.
20:54
Speaker1: I'm talking to a guy who is getting, he's a drunkard. He's addicted, he's smoking weed.
20:59
Speaker1: You pick the sin and starting to disciple him. He's like, Pastor Anthony,
21:02
Speaker1: I fell again last night. I'm this, I'm that. I'm like, hey, bro, you're a baby.
21:07
Speaker1: Yeah, you got it. You're getting an F right now, but you're a baby.
21:11
Speaker1: So let's try to get a D next time. And then let's try to get a C.
21:14
Speaker1: And in one sense, it's not okay, but in another sense, it really is okay.
21:18
Speaker1: Because let's remember that God could perfect us in a moment if he wanted to.
21:21
Speaker1: 1 John 3, verse 2 tells us he will perfect us one day. When we see him in glory,
21:25
Speaker1: we will be made like him because we will see him.
21:27
Speaker1: So God has the power to perfect us. He's chosen not to do it right now for a purpose.
21:32
Speaker1: Namely, as we wrestle with sin, as we seek to overcome sin, as we do this wrestling
21:37
Speaker1: match of sometimes doing well and failing other times, our dependency on him is growing, right?
21:42
Speaker1: So God is at work to do something in our toddlerness, in our babiness,
21:47
Speaker1: in our trying to learn to walk.
21:49
Speaker1: So I would want that person to understand that in a sense, it is okay, just like you said.
21:55
Speaker1: And as you cling to Christ amid the struggle, that is doing something in you
21:59
Speaker1: that's more beautiful than if God would have just perfected you from the beginning.
22:03
Speaker1: So I think I try to create this spirit of, you know, you're safe to be a baby.
22:09
Speaker1: Now, third, from the pulpit, I try to create a culture where we celebrate our
22:13
Speaker1: successes and we also are honest about our failures.
22:16
Speaker1: I will be super honest from the pulpit and I'll say something like,
22:20
Speaker1: hey, this week I had an opportunity to share the gospel and I did not take it.
22:24
Speaker1: And I'll tell people that from the pulpit.
22:26
Speaker1: And so I think if we create an environment where we're only talking about our
22:29
Speaker1: successes, well then that's not a place for people to grow right if you haven't
22:34
Speaker1: arrived then this you're not in the club and it's not for you
22:38
Speaker1: So, we at 11th Street, we talk about it.
22:41
Speaker1: You know, there are Christians who know what they should do,
22:44
Speaker1: and they don't do it. So, what is their strategy?
22:47
Speaker1: They just don't talk about it. And at 11th Street, we talk about it.
22:50
Speaker1: Hey, we know what we should do. We're not doing it. Well, let's just talk about
22:53
Speaker1: it. Let's just bring it out. And I think that's a big blessing to the church, right?
22:58
Speaker1: People are safe. So, I have a dear, beloved brother at the church.
23:01
Speaker1: You know, I talk about evangelism a lot at 11th Street and the mission.
23:05
Speaker1: And the brother, a recently retired guy, and he said, like, I am never around any non-Christians.
23:09
Speaker1: So what the brother did, decided he was going to go in his front yard and water
23:14
Speaker1: his grass with a hose and hope that a non-Christian would walk by. And I'm like, high five.
23:19
Speaker1: That is amazing. I'm so proud of you. Like a father with their son who would
23:24
Speaker1: speak his first words. I was so proud of him.
23:27
Speaker1: And then he signed up to do the Good News Club at the local public school across
23:30
Speaker1: the street, which is the Varsity Christians.
23:33
Speaker1: Like I did that for one year and man, I can't do the Good News Club.
23:37
Speaker1: Oh, it is, I get in a school cafeteria after school and the kids are rowdy and
23:43
Speaker1: it just brings out the kindergarten Anthony.
23:46
Speaker1: But this brother, he joined that and he's been faithfully going there,
23:51
Speaker1: sharing the gospel every week during the school year.
23:54
Speaker1: So, you know, you create an environment where it's okay to be a learner. We're all learners.
23:59
Speaker1: It's okay to be a grower. But I think you don't move like the goal.
24:03
Speaker1: Like the goal is for us in the capacity that God entrusts to us evangelism is to be faithful.
24:08
Speaker1: We don't move the goalpost. It's not like it's okay to move the goalpost,
24:12
Speaker1: but there's grace. There's lots of grace. We're going to be gracious to each other.
24:16
Speaker1: And I think those are some things that I have done and would do as somebody
24:19
Speaker1: who's evangelism shy to,
24:21
Speaker1: to help move them from, hey, I know I should do it, but I'm not to. I want to do it and I know
24:27
Speaker2: I need to. Yeah. Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, let's get practical.
24:32
Speaker2: Evangelistically speaking, millions of pastors and church leaders listen to this podcast.
24:39
Speaker2: Real numbers, it's much less than that. But if a pastor or church leader is
24:44
Speaker2: listening right now and you have with your compelling winsome speech have sparked
24:52
Speaker2: in them a great desire to participate in the Yellow Card Initiative.
24:57
Speaker2: And they want some of the cards and they want to train their people.
25:00
Speaker2: Can you briefly walk us through what that looks like and how that pastor gets
25:07
Speaker2: in touch with you and what would happen afterwards?
25:10
Speaker1: It's really simple. You would go to yellowcardinitiative.com and there is a
25:14
Speaker1: get involved form where you would explain it's multiple choice, right?
25:19
Speaker1: How you want to be involved and how you want me to contact you.
25:22
Speaker1: And I get notified of those forms. I check them every couple of days, maybe once a week.
25:26
Speaker1: And I'll then respond via text or email, whatever you request.
25:31
Speaker1: And I'll set up a phone call, a Zoom conversation. And so that would be the next steps.
25:37
Speaker1: And then if you wanted to purchase cards or receive cards, either of those options would be appropriate.
25:43
Speaker1: You would just connect with me through the text and phone and we'd either get
25:46
Speaker1: those snail mailed to you or we can have the printer send them to you.
25:50
Speaker1: Or if you're close to me in Southern California, close to Chris.
25:54
Speaker1: Close in Dallas to our person in Dallas, close to Kansas City,
25:58
Speaker1: to who we have in Kansas City, close to Vancouver, British Columbia,
26:01
Speaker1: or close to Seattle, and hopefully Virginia too.
26:05
Speaker1: Hopefully, we can pray about that. If you're close to one of those epicenters,
26:08
Speaker1: I guess, then you can just meet up with those leaders to get cards.
26:11
Speaker0: And here at Great Commission Association, we just want you to know,
26:15
Speaker0: if you are part of our church family and you haven't gotten the card yet,
26:20
Speaker0: or you need to get some more,
26:22
Speaker0: you can contact our team, and we're happy to get you those cards and make sure
26:27
Speaker0: that you've got all the resources that you need for that.
26:31
Speaker0: We're excited about this. I think we've already given out, Pastor Anthony,
26:35
Speaker0: I think at this moment we'd have to check, but I believe we've already given
26:38
Speaker0: out to our churches for distribution somewhere over, closing on 5,000 cards.
26:43
Speaker0: We've had to order more cards to be shipped to us from the printer.
26:48
Speaker0: So we're excited about it. We've got churches that are pretty much on board.
26:53
Speaker0: We don't have a ton of time left. So we do kind of want to talk to you about the...
27:00
Speaker0: Insight, unique gifts that you have.
27:03
Speaker0: And we know that recently, in your own pulpit, you've been preaching through the book of Amos.
27:10
Speaker0: So you're an Old Testament scholar, you're preaching through the book of Amos.
27:15
Speaker0: So what are some of the most powerful insights that maybe you've gained from
27:19
Speaker0: that book or that you would like to share?
27:22
Speaker0: And by the way, why should pastors also preach through Old Testament books?
27:27
Speaker1: That's a great question. So yes, we should preach through Old Testament books.
27:31
Speaker1: I guess in short, I would say God didn't accidentally preserve the Old Testament for us.
27:36
Speaker1: If God wanted there to be a fifth or a sixth gospel, he could have done that.
27:40
Speaker1: If he wanted a 14th and 15th and 16th epistle of Paul, he could have done that.
27:45
Speaker1: We know that there are other letters that Paul sent to Corinth and we don't have them.
27:49
Speaker1: If God in his sovereignty wanted us to have more New Testament,
27:52
Speaker1: he would have given it to us.
27:54
Speaker1: God has preserved in his sovereignty and providence of all things,
27:57
Speaker1: an Old Testament made up of prophets, wisdom literature, poetry,
28:03
Speaker1: writing, a variety of genres, including law or instruction.
28:06
Speaker1: And he's done this on purpose. And I think one of the biggest deficiencies in
28:10
Speaker1: the American church is that we don't focus on the Old Testament.
28:14
Speaker1: So if you want to know God's authoritative word on how to lament,
28:18
Speaker1: you can't go to the New Testament. You have to go to the Old Testament.
28:23
Speaker1: It's called the how to suffer when you don't deserve the suffering,
28:28
Speaker1: again, you have to turn to the Old Testament for the books of like Habakkuk and Obadiah and Job.
28:35
Speaker1: If you want to hear of the hymnbook of God's people and God's people singing
28:40
Speaker1: laments and praise mixed together and how God's people move from lament to praise,
28:44
Speaker1: again, you have to turn to the Old Testament.
28:47
Speaker1: So, I mean, I think the Old Testament is really, really helpful.
28:52
Speaker1: Maybe one of the reasons why the American church doesn't lament dwells because
28:55
Speaker1: we don't know Lamentations here.
28:56
Speaker1: I preached Lamentations a couple of years ago. So yes, I believe we should preach
29:01
Speaker1: the Old Testament because God has preserved it on purpose.
29:03
Speaker1: Also, that's what the apostles did. You can read 2 Peter, and Peter is already
29:08
Speaker1: recognizing Paul's writings as canonical scripture according to Peter in 2 Peter chapter three.
29:13
Speaker1: And yet what we see in the early churches, they're still preaching the Old Testament.
29:18
Speaker1: Biblically speaking, the biblical authors are preaching, teaching,
29:22
Speaker1: exegeting the Old Testament.
29:24
Speaker1: So yes, we should. Now, Amos, what are some of the insights that I've received from Amos?
29:28
Speaker1: I mean, probably the two biggest is that Amos is a New York Times bestseller.
29:32
Speaker1: Like if Amos was a modern author, he would be New York Times bestselling for sure.
29:38
Speaker1: Have you ever heard your wife say to you, it's not just what you say is important, but how you say it?
29:42
Speaker2: Yes.
29:43
Speaker1: So Amos is perfect at that. So Amos will say something.
29:47
Speaker1: And the way he says it matches exactly what he says.
29:50
Speaker1: So if I say to somebody, I love you so much, like my tone doesn't match my words, right?
29:56
Speaker1: Amos doesn't do that. When the content is fatherly and God is lamenting over
30:02
Speaker1: his people's idolatry, the cadence gets chaotic.
30:05
Speaker1: But when the context is set in a courtroom setting, it becomes very rhythmic.
30:12
Speaker1: And the idea is like, the idea in that section is that God is like giving the counts against Israel.
30:18
Speaker1: And it's not from a fatherly perspective, it's from an orderly.
30:21
Speaker1: God's judgment is orderly, right?
30:23
Speaker1: So the cadence and the way the accents in Hebrew are laid out,
30:26
Speaker1: it completely matches what he is saying.
30:29
Speaker1: Now that's kind of nerdy. The chiastic structures in Amos are marvelous.
30:34
Speaker1: So chiasm is this really sophisticated form of parallelism where to put it simply,
30:41
Speaker1: you might say a point, I love Lila, I love Asher.
30:45
Speaker1: I love my kids, I love Asher, I love Lila. So the whole thing parallels one
30:50
Speaker1: of each other. So A, B, C, and then you have B again, and then you have A again.
30:53
Speaker1: So Amos does this all the time. And he does it in creative ways where he'll
30:58
Speaker1: interrupt a point to get to the center. And it's just, it's so beautiful.
31:03
Speaker1: Now, from a theological standpoint, I would say the integration of covenant
31:09
Speaker1: loyalty to God and humane treatment of one another is tied together. and you can't untie it.
31:15
Speaker1: So you think about the Ten Commandments. The first four are about how we love God.
31:19
Speaker1: The next six are about how we love one another. And Peter Gentry says we can summarize
31:24
Speaker1: Our relationship to God is we're called to be loyal to God, faithfully loving
31:28
Speaker1: God and loyalty, and then we're called to treat other people in truly human ways.
31:32
Speaker1: So we see those two ideas wedded together in the Ten Commandments.
31:35
Speaker1: We also see them in 1 John, where John says, how can you say you love God and
31:39
Speaker1: hate man who's been made in his image, right?
31:41
Speaker1: It doesn't make sense. The book of Judges does the same thing.
31:45
Speaker1: Amos does this as well, so that in his chiastic structures, these things are bound together, right?
31:50
Speaker1: So I would emphasize just this idea of loving God and ethics are tied together.
31:56
Speaker1: You know, when I started the sermon series, I told the church,
31:59
Speaker1: hey, we're going to preach through it. I'm going to preach through Amos.
32:01
Speaker1: And I'm preaching through Amos because I want us to formulate a biblical view of justice.
32:07
Speaker1: So justice is a very hot button topic right now. And there's problems in the conversation.
32:12
Speaker1: And in my mind, some of the problems are if we approach it from a modern perspective,
32:17
Speaker1: we introduce modern vocabulary.
32:20
Speaker1: Ask modern questions, and then we use the Bible, and I'm saying that specifically,
32:24
Speaker1: we use the Bible, how does that feel, to come up with answers to our modern worldview.
32:31
Speaker1: And so I think that's a major problem. So what I told the church is,
32:34
Speaker1: hey, like, we need to understand justice because there's injustice everywhere,
32:37
Speaker1: but we're going to let the Bible answer the questions.
32:40
Speaker1: We're going to let the Bible give us the vocabulary, and we're going to let
32:44
Speaker1: the Bible unravel how we should think about this concept. We're going to do
32:49
Speaker1: it the Bible's way, not our way.
32:51
Speaker1: So as we've investigated justice according to God, not according to us,
32:56
Speaker1: like I think we have seen this full orbed idea of what it means to treat people
33:01
Speaker1: in truly human ways that has been extremely challenging and really beautiful for the church.
33:06
Speaker1: I mean, there's so much more, but that's probably sufficient.
33:09
Speaker2: Yeah, that's awesome. I want to just echo what you said, especially in the beginning
33:13
Speaker2: about lamentation, the book of Psalms.
33:15
Speaker2: We recently had dear friends lose their daughter and just having the book of
33:22
Speaker2: Lamentations and the book of the Psalms to process through that and understand
33:28
Speaker2: that these emotions of anger, questions,
33:33
Speaker2: all of this is very biblical and not weird and not something that we should
33:39
Speaker2: bury, but even things we can express to God.
33:44
Speaker2: I think it's such an antidote for Stoicism or pretend Stoicism that we have
33:49
Speaker2: these Psalms that shows us, hey, these things that you want to express to God,
33:55
Speaker2: these lamentations that you have are not only completely legitimate and normal, they're biblical,
34:02
Speaker2: holy, and God-honoring.
34:05
Speaker2: Without the Old Testament, there would be a massive hole in the way New Testament
34:09
Speaker2: Christians process their emotions, cry out to God, and journey through the deepest bowels of grief.
34:17
Speaker2: This is a good place to cut away from the interview with Dr.
34:20
Speaker2: Ferguson today, but good news, we are nerding out next week, and Dr.
34:25
Speaker2: Ferguson will be back one more time for a great discussion on Bible manuscripts
34:29
Speaker2: and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and I think you will enjoy and learn a lot from it
34:35
Speaker2: no matter whether you are an academic or not.
34:39
Speaker2: Well, thinking about the desert Qumran community and all of those dusty caves
34:44
Speaker2: and blowing sands is making me thirsty.
34:47
Speaker2: Let me go wrangle up my son so that we can review today's soda,
34:51
Speaker2: which is Liquid Death's Dead Billionaire.
34:54
Speaker2: And I guess that is a weird name for a soda to be reviewed on a Christian podcast,
35:00
Speaker2: but I don't pick them. I just drink them.
35:03
Speaker2: Well, actually, I pick them too. My bad.
35:07
Speaker1: Hey, JC.
35:08
Speaker2: I've got my liquid death right here. I got mine too. Yeah. All right,
35:12
Speaker2: before we drink, three quick facts on liquid death.
35:15
Speaker2: Number one, the dead billionaire drink we're drinking today by liquid death
35:20
Speaker2: was originally called Armless Palmer because it is a blend of tea and lemonade.
35:28
Speaker2: And as most of you know, regular blends of tea and lemonade are named Arnold
35:33
Speaker2: Palmer after the famous golfer. but the estate of Arnold Palmer sued Liquid
35:39
Speaker2: Death and they had to cancel it.
35:42
Speaker2: Number two trivia fact, there are almost a thousand billionaires in the United States of America, 989.
35:49
Speaker2: 62% of those billionaires live in four states, New York, Texas,
35:54
Speaker2: Florida, and California.
35:56
Speaker2: JC, how many billionaires are from our hometown of Alabama?
36:01
Speaker2: I'm gonna have to say we've got at least 17 that would be awesome we have one billion
36:11
Speaker2: Are we talking about alabama or birmingham
36:15
Speaker2: i'm talking about the whole state of alabama
36:18
Speaker2: oh my one billionaire and he's an auburn
36:21
Speaker2: football supporter which is kind of sad that's pretty
36:24
Speaker2: rough and like we are finally speaking of billionaires liquid death itself is
36:30
Speaker2: now as of 2024 worth 1.4 billion dollars and we are going to taste it today
36:37
Speaker2: to see if it is a billion dollar drink are you ready jc let's crack it open
36:43
Speaker1: Here we go.
36:44
Speaker2: All right. Huh. I don't smell much. Well, you've already drank it, huh? I better catch up.
36:51
Speaker2: Man. Okay. Huh.
36:54
Speaker2: 20 calories, which is really good. No artificial sweeteners.
36:57
Speaker2: It's sweetened with agave.
36:59
Speaker2: It's not soda-y. It's much more tea and lemonade forward.
37:04
Speaker2: I'm kind of getting a little bit of mixed opinions on this one.
37:08
Speaker2: It partially, this might just be me, but it kind of is tasting like a blueberry
37:14
Speaker2: medicine, but at the same time, it's really refreshing.
37:18
Speaker2: And so it's good, but it's just unlocking like an interesting memory for me.
37:24
Speaker2: Okay. Blueberry medicine. I'm not getting that. I'm getting a slightly watered down Arnold Palmer.
37:32
Speaker2: Yeah. Here's the thing. It's only got 20 calories and it doesn't have artificial
37:37
Speaker2: sweeteners. So liquid death is a substitute for sparkling water, essentially.
37:42
Speaker2: It's not zero calorie, but it's low calorie. And a lot of people are avoiding
37:48
Speaker2: artificial sweeteners.
37:49
Speaker2: So in terms of what it is, it's really tasty.
37:53
Speaker2: I would rather have a full calorie Arnold Palmer with tea and lemonade.
37:58
Speaker2: It's one of my favorite drinks. But this has got a good mouthfeel.
38:02
Speaker2: As you say, it's refreshing. It's just a watered down version.
38:07
Speaker2: For what it is, I'm going to give it four Spurgeons out of five. What do you think, JC?
38:13
Speaker2: You know, my takes might be a little bit off, but I really like the slogan, murder your thirst.
38:20
Speaker2: And so I'm going to have to say it gets a 3.6.
38:25
Speaker2: You know, it's not bad. It's really good. I just, just reminding of that blueberry
38:31
Speaker2: medicine is just rough for me, but it's great. It's refreshing.
38:35
Speaker2: 3.6 out of JC, 4.0 out of me. It does have a good looking can.
38:40
Speaker2: So if you're watching on the video, make it a nice can. Okay,
38:43
Speaker2: thanks for joining us. More reviews next week.
38:46
Speaker2: Now that I'm refreshed with that agave, natural tea, and B vitamins,
38:52
Speaker2: I think it's time to go for a run.
38:54
Speaker2: Or maybe a walk. Or a hike.
38:57
Speaker2: Or a bowl of Cocoa Krispies. But before we head out,
39:00
Speaker2: let me share a couple of tidbits of news from the Great Commission Association
39:05
Speaker2: and remind you how to get some yellow cards of your own to equip your church for evangelism.
39:12
Speaker2: There's a couple of ways. Number one, you can go visit the Yellow Card Initiative
39:16
Speaker2: website, which is yellowcardinitiative.com.
39:21
Speaker2: I know initiative is kind of a tricky word, I-N-I-T-I-A-T-I-V-E,
39:27
Speaker2: yellowcardinitiative.com.
39:30
Speaker2: Or you can email our association, the Great Commission Association of Southern
39:35
Speaker2: Baptist Churches in California,
39:37
Speaker2: At missionadvance, all word, missionadvance at gcasbc.org.
39:47
Speaker2: And then you're going to want to head over to YouTube to get trained in how
39:51
Speaker2: to use those cards at Yellow Card Initiative. Again, all one word,
39:57
Speaker2: at Yellow Card Initiative on YouTube.
39:59
Speaker2: One other thing I need to tell you about our current executive director of missions, Dr.
40:05
Speaker2: Mike Stewart is the second longest Executive Director of Missions in the entire United States.
40:12
Speaker2: He has faithfully led our association for nearly three decades,
40:16
Speaker2: and he is preparing to step into retirement in the coming year.
40:22
Speaker2: And our association is prayerfully seeking the next Executive Director of Missions
40:26
Speaker2: to build on his legacy and help lead the GCA family of churches into a fruitful future of ministry.
40:35
Speaker2: You can find out more about that role by either visiting gcasbc.org,
40:43
Speaker2: or you can come to our webpage,
40:46
Speaker2: everychurchflourishing.com, and the show notes for this episode, episode 19,
40:51
Speaker2: And in those show notes, you will find a link to the vanderbloemann.com website
40:57
Speaker2: and a link to our description that tells you all about what we're looking for.
41:03
Speaker2: Please check that out. And that's all for now.
41:07
Speaker2: Good day to you. Thanks for listening and Godspeed.