Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Ep. 219 - How to Reach Gen Z With the Gospel

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Ep. 219 - How to Reach Gen Z With the Gospel · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:05
  Speaker 1: You know, Johnny, you used the term Seeker Sensitive here a moment ago.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: So many churches are caving into using entertainment focused and man-centered approaches to reaching Gen Z.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I'd love you to speak to the detrimental effects of that type of approach.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in regards to like entertainment, I think you know I watched an article, or I watched an article.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: I read an article the other day and it was like 10 reasons.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: You're losing your, the next generation of students, because the pizza party doesn't work anymore.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: It was like kind, of something like that, and you'll hear often people say things like the church needs to change their strategy or we're going to lose the next generation.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: The problem why we lose so many students today is because we've been trying to compete with the world with this which is impossible.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: The 30s, the 40s, the 50s, the 70s, all here on the Living Wanners podcast Boy.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: That sounded really nice.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: So we've got friends all ages.
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: We've got friends.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: It's a miracle we've got friends.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: We've got friends of all ages at this table Friends Oscar and his 30s, me and my humble 40s Mark and his 50s, ray Comfort in his 70s, just feels like he's 80.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was saying before, ray, we need to bring my dad on here, the 110s, I mean he's 112.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: It is relative.
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: I always thought Mark was younger than you.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I know you would think.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Thank you right, Ray's able to get there.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: Have you noticed?
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: Ray's able to get things accomplished More things by 9 am than most people do all day.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: Well, he wakes up at that hole at 3 o'clock in the morning.
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: Well, he used to be like a military slogan Take some all day to climb out.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Well, I've got to get my letter ready.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, ray's a professional climber out of the hole every morning.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, guys, it's crazy when you think of the spectrum seriously, at this table Speaking of that we've got a video on Just Witnessing on YouTube channel of a 105-year-old veteran of Pearl Harbor, a war hero, getting water baptized as son came hunting the beach about two or three weeks ago.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: Two or three weeks ago, grandson yes, grandson, sorry, two or three weeks ago and said I just baptized my granddad, 105.
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: That's amazing.
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: He says I learned the principles to witness to him from our teaching and that brought him to the Savior, the knowledge of sin, and he was genuinely repentant at 105.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: And it's great.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: You'll cry when you watch me get baptized, because it was so gently done by his grandson.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's something about seeing people come to Christ later in life and you'll hear these testimonies, you know.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I remember hearing a lady one time.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I think she had prayed for her husband, I don't know 60 plus years or something, and then finally he came to Christ.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: And I think with those older folks who get saved later on in life, you sense this urgency, like making up for lost time.
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: And regret.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Regret.
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: Wow, spend my whole life serving myself and achieve nothing, but also for people like Rachel.
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: It gives her hope for her husband.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Maybe one day I get saved, yeah, but it's just amazing when you think about age and how our perspective changes on it.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: When you're young, you want to get older.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, when you're a kid, someone's like I'm four, I'm five, you're excited and you say how old are you Six and a quarter?
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: All right, Adding every increment you can.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Then you get older, and now you're trying to be younger.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: You don't round up anymore.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: You don't say, oh, I'm 50.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: And until the last day I'm, you know, in your 49.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm getting a mullet.
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: You're getting a mullet right you should bring back the New Zealand mullet oh Ray.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: So stupid, Seriously, Ray what I would give to see you in a mullet.
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: No.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: No, it'll never happen.
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: Why not?
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: For the Lord.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: We all think so.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: We're supposed to be good witnesses.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: What are you hitting?
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Remark for Ray oh.
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: Mark's watching a video.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do a bum.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: Ross paint, it still jumps hair.
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: Is it real or not?
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: It's fake?
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: No, it can't Show me.
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: Show me, Turn around oh do you see painting?
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: Bob Ross is painting dottling trucks.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: That's pretty funny.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Seriously, I love humanity man.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: These are the moments when I just think this is when the internet shines.
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: by the way, these are moments where the internet shines.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: If ever I think there's a good in people, it's just like this and some of the memes we get.
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: they think cheer you up instantly.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: They're funny, yeah, but yeah, I was just thinking about that, the whole age pendulum.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: What are you guys doing?
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: I just asked for the link.
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: I didn't know how to do it.
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: Quietly, send me the link you can't do anything quietly, yeah.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: So when you're young, you want to be older.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: When you're older, you want to be younger.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: And then I think you hit a certain level where you get so old.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Now you love, thank you, you love to talk about how old you are.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Now it's a competition to see how far you can get.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I don't, do you not, ray?
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: No, come on, ray.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Once you hit your 90s you'll be.
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to tell anyone how old I am.
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: Don't be excited about that, yeah.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Ray, what are you going to do to?
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: preserve your life.
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: I'm growing old, disgracefully.
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: Disgraceful Fighting and screaming.
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: We should do an episode on getting older.
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: Really, that'd be a good episode Just on aging and how you get older.
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, like the idea your body breaking down but also growing in wisdom.
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: You know, Because there's a dichotomy there that ends up happening.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's stupid.
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: That'd be a good one.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I didn't like talking about getting older.
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: No, I was telling you talking about wisdom and I said it's stupid.
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that would be a good episode.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Ray, at what stage did you realize you were getting older?
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: I hated being young.
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: I hated being like 19, 11, 12.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: I thought I want to be an adult when nobody tells me what to do.
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: Really, yeah, I always long for that day, and when I left high school, I threw my books up in the air and crashed on the ground.
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: I was so pleased to be free.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: I just wanted to go surfing.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was talking to a young pastor the other day.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: He was 12.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: And he's a pastor of a pretty significant church and he's not the senior pastor, but he was just basically telling me he can't wait to get into his 30s because in that realm he's like 28.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: He gets flack.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, you're just a young 20-something-year-old, and I was just thinking about Spurgeon, and you consider the fact that he was 19, preaching these sermons.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: That were just unbelievable, yeah.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: I wonder if you'd preach those in his later years.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: You grab hold of some of our early sermons and we're like whoa.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: Did I believe that?
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: Did I teach that?
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: I wonder if Spurgeon felt that same way.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: I'm sure he did.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, he used to sit.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: I remember eating.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: He'd sit by the fire at times and anguish over how bad he thought.
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: I can't read Spurgeon sometimes.
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: I'm never going to open my mouth again because he's so brilliant.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I know, I just can't even imagine that, but I wonder if he went through that his youth being looked down on or was he just so amazing that he couldn't?
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: do that.
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: I think he was just so amazing.
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: He would have stopped the mouths, I'm sure.
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: And no formal seminary training.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Love it?
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Spurgeon refused to be ordained, really, yeah, he wasn't even officially ordained.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: I think he called those that went through seminaries hot house tomatoes, did he really?
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, house tomatoes.
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like they weren't grown naturally, like if you grow up in a local church, you become a pastor through the interesting through the heat of a local church and the.
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: Desires sign it.
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: To go back to your friend who has hope that he won't get flack when he hits his 30s, I'm here to tell you, man, they still give you a hard time.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: He calls me 12 and I'm 39.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Are you 39 now?
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: Oscar boy changes every year.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Wow, 89.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember, because I became a pastor at 20 and it's crazy.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I got ordained at 19 or no.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Maybe I was 20.
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: Riveting story.
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: The car chase is when you said you turn 19.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: You know, what makes it so much better for the listener is when you have a point.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: But no, I mean 20.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: I was a husband and father and a pastor all by 21.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: But I remember being 20, being newly married and Counseling, doing marriage counseling with people.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: That was pretty crazy, hmm.
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: Can I mention yeah, I'll see more.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Is there.
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: Is there gonna be a sequel?
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: What will happen next?
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, anyway, franz, enough of the dumbness, you're gonna stop One day.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: This is from Jim, a thief CB best podcast out there.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: I'm a 12 year old boy named Jim.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I was saved one year ago after being raised in a Christian family.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: My dad first started listening to the podcast and me, my four siblings and my mom followed.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: I now listen to this podcast whenever I am mowing writing, the school bus and on Sunday morning before church.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: You've encouraged me and my family through your funny and godly podcasts.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: We've already bought the mug and a lot of the tracks.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I look forward to listening to more podcasts from you guys.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you for doing what.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: You have no idea what you're doing.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Goodbye, franz.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you, jim.
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: Talking about.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: You know age and you have 12 years old and got saved at 11.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Well, jim, we just want to encourage you go hard after God.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Make use of these young, youthful years.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: They go quickly, as Ray will tell you, that's true, very quickly.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: All right, franz, this podcast is brought to you by how to be free from the fear of death.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Devotional no, that's not a devotional.
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: Looks like one, hmm and it's forwarded by John MacArthur, by John MacArthur.
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: Johnny Mac for those close to yeah that's right for those really close, jay.
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: Missle for those who no cap play.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, ray, this, this as a good book and it's it's a good gift book because it has that, that real perceived value.
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah and scratches where everybody itches.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: That's a scratch and sniff.
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: I've been waiting for this.
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we used to have a scratch and sniff from skunk tracks.
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: Our printer hated us.
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: No, no, no, that was the rose one.
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: Do you remember the scratch and sniff it has skunk on?
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: It said scratch and sniff.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean, did you do that in the book too, the nose book?
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: I can't remember, but it was probably before you guys got involved, it was.
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: And on the other side it says you know, we stink in the nostrils of God when it comes to our righteousness or something.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: We're gonna bring that back.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: We need some throwback tracks.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I know we do.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: All right, friends, don't forget to get that.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: How to be free from the fear of death Living Waters, mug and the evidence study Bible living waterscom.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: All right, friends, we were at G3, as you know by now.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: You've heard, I think, a couple at least of the interviews from there.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: We had a very delightful and refreshing one with our friend, johnny Art of Venice.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Talk about young and impactful.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Mark held is Johnny 30.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, I, I'm not sure 31, 32, something like that.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: I'm very impressed with him because he really connects well.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: You know, undoubtedly if I lived in that Nashville Tennessee area I would attend his church.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, without a doubt.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, he'll tell us about the church at the end of the podcast, but here he is, friends, to talk to us about how to reach Gen Z with the gospel, our friend Johnny Art of Venice.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: So, friends, we're continuing our journey here at G3.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Boy, it's been a blast.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Oh guys, just reconnecting.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: It's all right, people.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we shouldn't have brought you Oscar.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: That's my thought, and we're excited to have yet another guest with us.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Johnny, I first met you at the Masters University Chapel when, unfortunately, mark Spence was speaking.
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: Unfortunately, you remember that way, the biggest regret of your life, also the last time he spoke there.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: That is true, but, man, it was so refreshing to hear about what the Lord was doing in a three-year life, how he was using you.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: That's your former role.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: You were the Dean of campus life at the Masters University and you did some Hume Lake Camp stuff as well in the past, but now you're the teaching pastor at Stonebridge Bible Church in Tennessee yes, near near Franklin in Franklin Franklin proper.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: So, man, tell us a bit about your time in ministry, first at the Masters University, and the new season of life here and now as a pastor.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I kind of my background.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: When I was in college I wanted to go into business and started getting involved in prison ministry and kind of the Lord opened the door for me to Go be a part of camp ministry and really enjoyed that, because it's kind of like prison yeah.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: I enjoyed just the evangelistic element of being with students that need the Lord, and I think the longer I was there, the more I craved a discipleship context as well, because that was highly evangelistic.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: And then when the more I was in a discipleship kind of Culture, like Masters, the more I missed evangelism.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: And I'm kind of the long way around as I went.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Man, the local church is the only opportunity for me to disciple and to be evangelistic in that regard, and so thankful for the ways that the Lord clarifies and moves.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, now I'm the teaching pastor of Stonebridge Bible Church in Franklin, tennessee.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: We just moved.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: My wife and I have two little girls we moved to three months ago so it's been great.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: We've enjoyed the area and, yeah, I really thankful to be just teaching weekend week out now and still love camp ministry and and loved my time at Masters and you still head over to humelink.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I do so do you from time to time.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'll probably go over a few times each year to do different camps.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: I think for me it's a good calibrator, because I don't want to.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: I don't want to be unable to engage a 13 year old God-hater and so for me.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: It's good, you know, like I think if anything it's an opportunity to serve.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: But it's really a benefit for me because I I want to know also what other churches are dealing with, and so each week of camp there's 30, some churches that bring up a thousand high school students, and just getting to navigate that with the pastors and seeing what they're dealing with in their own churches, the questions students are bringing up, it helps me just even as I preach in my own context.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: Are the questions changing.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of the questions come back to the same route.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: They just have different manifestations of the way that they're actually being, like you know, formulated.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: A lot of the questions for last Ten years are regarding you know, sexuality truth?
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Can you trust the Bible?
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Is it authoritative or is it a malleable document that's subject to our change and innovation?
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: So yeah sometimes they change in regards to, like you know, obviously, transgenderism wasn't as big of a thing even five years ago as it is in the last three yeah.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, they change and to a certain extent, but much of them come back to the same root problems.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know what's?
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Encouraging the me's to see how the Lord is using your ministry to go beyond the bounds of Just a local church, beyond what you were just doing at Masters.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah you have a podcast that is reaching people and we have close friends that have been really encouraged by it.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: Absolutely Love your podcast.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, you're kind.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: Oh, love it.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: It's my family's number one podcast.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, you're so kind, I paid, I paid Mark to say that no, thank you.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we'll ask you a little more about that later and let you give it a plug so people can listen.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, great.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: But, we want to talk to you about Gen Z.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously you have a heart for evangelism.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: You have a heart for this generation, so we want our listeners to get a little bit of a glimpse of what it's about.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: What does generation's about?
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: How to, how to reach it with the gospel.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah and so what would you say are some of the things that make Gen Z distinct from other previous generations?
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: I would say for sure with a from a Gen Z perspective.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: They're the first generation growing up with a smartphone their entire life and so with that.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: There's just a an inundation of Kind of what the culture is preaching to them.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: You know, in 2007 is when the iPhone came out, and so now anybody under 16 kind of since they were three is in the back seat Looking at shows.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Watching shows.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Crazy right now if you're 11 years old.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: 94 percent of 11 year olds have looked at pornography.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: 88 percent of high school students view it consistently, and so a lot of that has to do with the world where we're at just Technologically.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: So that's a distinction, because most of what we're gonna look at today has come through really the gateway drug, I would say, of really what might be harmless in regards to social media.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: But their whole identity is being Encapsulated by what they present in posture of themselves, and so I think they're also being bombarded.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: I think, obviously, satan has always worked in a way to try to distort the truth, but now it's more aggressive than it's been, and so, as in regards to the distinctiveness of the generation that they're growing up in, I think that they're facing more Intentionality from the enemy and from the world.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Then, I think, what was obvious in previous generations- what would you say, from a cultural and societal perspective, are some of the foremost negative influences that Gen Z has going against it?
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Because obviously we know that we're extremely Impressionable as people.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: We live in a very influential age.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: What are the elements you think are the biggest ones that are Against them?
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think probably, if you go back to like when my dad was growing up, there was a foregone conclusion, and even in the school system, that there was a God, who was a creator, that there was a level of morality that governed life.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: But now you're growing up in a world where there is no God, no creator, and if there's no God and no creator, then there's no standard for morality, then there's no really grounds for truth, and if there's no truth, then morality and sexuality is up for grabs, and so that's kind of one of the tragedies of the environment that we're growing up in is because you have no identity If you're just a cosmic accident and a grown-up germ and so I think like they're, they're struggling to find that identity.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: So, instead of finding that in God, they find that in their sexuality or their social media kind of personification, and they're starving, probably, you know, like actually more than the generations that preceded them, because you've stripped them of all sort of Substance.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: In regards to their amago day, yeah, the intentionality in which God made them.
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: Wow, I probably, like you, I find myself surrounded by Gen Z.
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: We've got a very young church.
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: I've played basketball with a lot of guys that are in that generation and often times when we talk about Gen Z, it's it's easy because there's so much to talk about in regards to negative, but I also think it's fair to talk about the positive to you.
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: Well, how do you see God equipping this next generation?
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: Where do you see him using them where they're at right now?
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's interesting, even as you talk, through technology, you know, the hammer that drives the nail is also used as a weapon, but the, the tool of social media and the tool even to your guys's own ministry of the internet today, is that there are resources Before, like like never, you know, never before.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: So I think they're in general is a hunger for truth because you've stripped the world of it.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: So Oprah says speak your truth.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: And the more you begin to just rationalize with students, they realize the insanity of the world in which they live and therefore they are hungering for some sort of ground to stand on in a World that is constantly shaking.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: So I think there is a legitimate hunger, even amongst young people today, which is why I love them.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: You know, I think it's I don't know some four fifths of people that give their life to the Lord do so before their 18th birthday.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it is an impressionable time period, and I think, even the more you talk with them and a college setting, they're gonna go to their freshman and college philosophy class and hear that they're an idiot if they believe in the God of the Bible, and so I think that they're looking, even once they arrive there for answers because even if they've grown up in the church they're, everything that they've grown up in is being discredited and shamed, and so they're kind of trying to figure it out.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: And I think once they begin to search out those answers from themselves, they realize there is a level of truth here, and I think they're.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: I'm excited about the next generation people.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Always you know, I was talking to a guy, an older pastor, and people always will say like oh man, I feel so bad for students and young people that are growing up in this generation.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: And he just said man, this is the best time ever to be a young person that has the Word of God, that has the truth in a world that hates it because we were created for such a time as this.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: So I'm excited and invigorated.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: If I'm eighteen years old, I'm fired up about what I get to be not all man, what a bomber.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: I wish I grew up fifty years ago uh, by.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: That is such the antithesis of what we are actually seen, what we're actually hearing.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: But my daughter in law was taken a mathematics class in college and the professor said if you're a christian, you will not do well inside of this class mathematics right when you say that you're excited for this younger generation.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: Obviously there's none who seek after god that everybody's kind of on a truth quest with with the body back on your just moments ago we're talking about how stronger than I am.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: You don't want to wrestle that guy.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: People are saying that the the hunger and their thirst for truth, but they don't like the taste of it when it's served up.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: How are these younger generation people that are not seeking after god, that are not christians, are you excited for them?
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: because I mean, obviously for my child, who's a christian, has the ability to seek after god and desire the things of god the other things are going great with them I mean persecution is always been a great thing for the church, but when we talk about for the non-christian, the eighteen-year-old who is going inside of the college campuses, are you excited for that person?
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: If so, why?
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: How do we reach them?
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: yeah, I think you know I, even though no man seeks after god it's a reality from roman's three does say in ecclesiasties three, that god is put eternity into the heart of man, so that they know the end from the beginning.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: So even though there's no person seeking god, in one sense you know, people say that evangelistically they're seeking god and we would say no, no one seeking god.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: There is a real element, regardless, hardwired an eternal deposit into our good mental dna that longs for god.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: And that's even where paul is going to preach in act seventeen, that you may feel your way towards god and find him, because people are searching to fill their life with everything but god, not knowing that that what they really need in crave is the creator.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: So I think there is a longing for truth and that's where even csl's always just talk about that element of morality and destiny and origin as the three main things that everyone's coming back to.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Where did I come from?
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: What's my purpose in life and where am I going?
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: And that's really the preachers cry in ecclesiasties everything seems vain, this world is going fast, I'm dying.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Is there any hope?
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Is there any truth?
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: And even the way jesus preaches is evangelistically I am the water of life, you know, cuz he said I'm the only thing that's gonna fill your soul.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: He tells the woman at the well, you keep on going back to the same dirty well, but come to me.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: And so I think there is a real element where you can look at a person filling their life with sex and popularity and future wealth and go, hey, these things will never satisfy.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: And uh, even you know I was thinking about that that tom brady interview that's very famous.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: On sixty minutes, every one is third super bowl egos.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, one, three super bowls.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: What?
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: What else is there right?
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: And so I think you can understand that if you're tom brady or a nineteen-year-old at aster, you know your physics test.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: You're just trying to figure out why am I here?
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: And so I'm excited because it's also an opportunity for those who do know christ that the harvest is plentiful.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: And it's right, because right now there's a real searching going on in the minds of students, and you don't have to be a christian to look at the world and go man, I live as a fallen creature in a fallen world that reminds me of uh, charles taylor when he talks about, like, understanding the existential question that each generation is asking, which is kind of weird, is like what is a canadian philosopher?
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: how does a ninety-year-old canadian philosopher help me reach gen z?
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: Here's how.
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: Because he he suggested that, like the generation before, we're always asking the question like where do I go when I die?
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: But gen z is not asking that question.
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: But they are asking an existential, existential question and he just tapped on it, which is who am I?
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah, what is my worth in value in this life?
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: And if you think about, like the, the suggestion culture has for them to answer that question, expressive individualism, they look with inside themselves and they determine their own value and worth.
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: But what happens when these gen zers look inside the selves and say I am worthless, I am nobody?
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: And suicide rates are increased.
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: So how do we apply the gospel in the midst of the gen z question of who am I?
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: yeah, I think, first of all, I I wouldn't just for students right now, and I think for many people, even a millennial context they look to their bodies, in their sexuality, to find who they are.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: So the expressive individualism that's made popular in carl truman's recent book is true, like he just saying you used to, when you start someone, who are you?
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: They would say one, the son of a farmer.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: And now when you say someone, you ask someone, hey, who are you?
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: They say, well, I'm gay by and or a sexual right.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: And so I think they're.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: You know, it's obvious, because god created us with an understanding, in a desire to know who we are at our, you know, innate level.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: And so I think we just point to the truth.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: You know, we're not responsible for people's response, we are responsible for proclaiming the truth.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: We get to tell me.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Here's what the bible says you're not what you think you are.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: You are who god made you to be, and god made you as an image bear.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: He loves you, he made you and he wants a relationship with you, and that's not even a secret, sensitive element.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: He desires, as all men, to come to repentance.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: You're under the wrath of god, you have sinned and you can just walk him through that reality and say but god is an eager savior, he's not an apathetic savior, he's not an indifferent savior, he's not up in heaven with his arms full the same balls in your court.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: He pleads on with people and implores them, through his disciples, to be reconciled to god.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: And so I think the spirit of god uses just the faithful testimony of imperfect people to reconcile people to himself.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: And so I just kind of think, like even the strategy of how you do it, there's a number of different things you could say.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: I just think god is gonna work.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: God sovereign in salvation.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: So if you're a random guy, I can have a conversation with you and go, hey, here's what I know.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Ask you some questions and then, once you kinda feel the right catalyst to jump in with the truth, I just do, and then I'm thankful to keep on navigating.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: I don't try to hammer smash them with the truth, but just try to apply it to the need that they've exposed, just like jesus did with the, with the woman at the well, or the woman got an adultery yeah, I love that.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: You know, johnnie you, you use that the term seeker sensitive here a moment ago.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: So many churches are caving into using entertainment focused and man centered approaches to reaching jen z.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: I'd love you to speak to the detrimental effects of that type of approach.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in regards to like entertainment, I think you know I watched an article.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: The errors watch an article.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: I read an article the other day and it was like ten reasons.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: You're losing your, the next generation of students, because the pizza party doesn't work anymore I was like, I have something like that you'll hear often people say things like the church needs to change their strategy or we're gonna lose the next generation.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: The problem why we lose so many students today is because we've been trying to compete with the world right now which is impossible yeah I'm not gonna ever compete with the world one cool.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Would they need to know that there is truth in a truthless world?
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: I think, and in some ways I I'm not against youth groups.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: I love youth ministry, yeah.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: But students grow up and they've never been in church till their nineteenth birthday.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: And then they go to college ministry on their local campus and then so they've been in children's church, youth group, college ministries only with their peers in an environment that caters to them.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: They turn twenty three, they're out in the real world, like why isn't anybody serving me?
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: And then at that point they become disinterested and you know they're, they just kind of fumble and they go hey, I'm not churches at my thing, I'm gonna do church at home.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: And so, in regards to the secret, sensitive element, I think there is a real element where you uh want to draw people.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: There should be a kindness and a winsomeness.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: In regards to the tone, hey, we would love to have you now but the churches for believers, to equip them biblically, not to like cater to their desires materially or entertainment.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Why so?
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: I think that's probably where we're at today all the way you started it, because it's it's so true band like we create church to become another place of a culture, worship that's consumeristic in nature and like, to your point, we will never compete with the malls when we create churches that are like malls, where it's like here you can come get your coffee here and then you can come to this here you can get that there, and then you can go into the service and in worship jesus if you want, but if not, you can also stay outside.
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: Now, like here's, the thing that we've discovered is that traditional liturgy.
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: You know, jen z loves it it's almost like their, their like desiring for transcendence, and when we move further away from transcendence in our liturgical worship, they, they're like I can get this better somewhere else, so I think it's super important, man, like I know, you know exegetical study and what's what I just went for?
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: Uh, yeah, liturgical worship is a super huge, uh value add for them I was in the flip side.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: The other thing that I'm conscientious of is that sometimes, because the church has gone so far to like try to entertain people, church's identity sent can sometimes become like well, I'm not going to become the the legit music church, we're gonna be a stripped down as possible right now really, it's just the heart of worship that matters.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think what I I I would be trying to do is threading the needle going.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Hey, I want awesome, legit, christ honoring, doctrinally rich music, and so I think sometimes everybody's philosophy of ministry is a reaction against the culture, and that's also wrong.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like in regards to like secret sensitive people like the church should feel, you know, strange.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: You know, to some that's not a believer, but I mean, when I see an unbeliever come into the church, or just a visitor, I go, hey, I don't know why you're here, but I'm so pumped you're here, tell me who you are.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Because I just feel like at times, even when you go, like, hey, we don't want to be secret sensitive, it's that we're not friendly, right?
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: Inhospitality.
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you need to be hospitable, that's a distinctive mark of being an elder.
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: That's funny.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Above reproach.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Husband of one wife must be hospitable a lover of strangers and we can forget that.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: on the other side.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, man.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you mentioned that, johnny.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: You said reaction and really what it ends up being is an overreaction to things that we recognize are not right and we go in the other direction.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, like excellence, obviously, in many sectors we see the world pursuing things with excellence and it seems like sometimes within the church it's like, oh, we got to get away from that.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: That's worldly, what are you talking?
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: about.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: We should excel the world in excellence and everything that we do.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: We just need to infuse biblical principles into that, and you mentioned that some of them are there and also, too.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I just want to say, and maybe you could speak to this when I encounter some of these Gen Z young folks, those that end up coming to Christ, can look back and see the difference between the churches that we're trying to cater to them and dumb down the message versus those that spoke truth, and they recognize that there is that recognition like no, this is authentic versus man.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: You're just trying to play a game to reach me versus reaching you with truth and love.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think in general too, like students, gen Z is, they're unattracted to a dumbing down of the message, because, I mean, that's why even unbelievers love Jordan Peterson, or whatever because, they like being drawn to a guy that elevates their thinking.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: So, from a scriptural perspective, part of the reason I think so many people leave the church at 18, I was actually talking to Alistair Big about this on my podcast recently and he said well, they're not leaving the church, they're leaving their youth group or their college group.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: So I think it's worth distinction.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: But so many people leave the church because it's been well, hey, they can't really handle the truth, let's just continue to give them milk.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: But over time, if you keep on hearing the same stories, and hey, let me give you a 15-minute lesson, let me take a Miley Cyrus song life's a climb and apply that to our spiritual life.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: If I'm 18, I'm going to.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: You heard my last sermon, yeah, yeah, it was wonderful.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: It was wonderful, the closing analogy.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: But if they keep on hearing that stuff, they're going to be like hey, this is for dumb people.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: You know, like I think people are attracted to a level of yeah, god made us in his image.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: God doesn't have a body.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: So what does it mean to be made in the image of God?
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: It means to have a mind, and you want to exercise your mind, and so, in that regard, I think we need to elevate even young people's thinking so that they there's substance, because substance is contagious.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: You want more, but right now, we just give them the same thing every day.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: So how do we do that, right?
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, ken Ham wrote a book called Already Gone.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: He talks about how kids, when they enter into college and they lose their faith.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: No, they already didn't have a faith.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but their professor didn't change their mind they were already gone.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: So how do we prepare them and prep them for that college classroom?
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: I think in one regard I think parents and pastors need to do a better job that when you disobey God it's not a rejection of a policy, it's a grieving of a person.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: And so I think from a scriptural perspective we want to elevate kind of a high standard of morality and obedience to God's word, but often that's divorced from tasting and seeing that the Lord is good.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of students grow up in a context where they hear this is wrong stay away from sex don't cross the line, but because it's what the Bible says.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: but it's not just what the Bible says.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: It's what God, who made you in his image, who loves you and has.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Even we look at it from a seeker's sense if God has a wonderful plan for your life, we go no, he doesn't.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Well, yes, he does, because obedience to God is always the path of fulfillment.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Then Christ holds the keys to a life of fulfillment.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: So I don't want to react against that and say no, he doesn't.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: We need to tell students hey, listen, if you walk with Christ, your life will be full of joy, it'll be full of meaning and full of purpose, and you need to know God.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: On a personal level, we have six year olds that give their baptismal testimonies and say I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: And sometimes I just want to ask people in the church, as I do regularly in my own church is it actually personal?
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: Because you can never draw your students to something that you don't exhibit before them.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: You know, like I don't know, when the last time a father grabs their son and goes, oh son, let me tell you the rich relationship that I have with Jesus Christ.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: And because students don't feel that they get to college and they go oh, basically, this is just a violation of a principle, not an offense to a holy God that I know personally.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so what does the balance come in our evangelistic endeavors when we're trying to convey a message that is eternal and we're saying, hey, you'll never find fulfillment until you find that fulfillment in Christ.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: You were created for God in first glory.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: And then they do experiment with Christ.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: They do come to Christ or they do say a prayer, Then they experience trials and tribulation, persecution, temptation and sufferings, and then there's like a disjointment from the message that was received.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: How do we balance that with the message of taking up your cross and following?
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Him.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, I think even that.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Well, that's part of the parable of the sower.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: You know like it's the experience, the trials of the world, and they left you know.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: So I think you want to communicate both, and I think there's.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: This is why even this coming back to this word our evangelistic approach, is often a reaction against the world.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: So, in contrast to easy believism, we went hey, being a Christian is a grind, you know, and there's a truth to that.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Like Jesus promises persecution, famine and the sword, he doesn't promise your best life now, but materially, but he does promise your best life in regards to knowing Him richly.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: So I don't want to say no, it's not your best life now.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: I want to say, well, explain what you mean to that, because I think that's heretical in one sense.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: But you also need to say, hey, the call to be a Christian is a call to die.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: It's a call to pick up your cross and follow Him.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: And if you pick up your cross and follow Him, jesus says he comes to give life, and life abundantly.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: This is life with a capital L.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Taste and see that the Lord is good.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: So it's a both and and not an either, or, and I feel like at times it's either or.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's to your point, mark.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: It's striking that balance of giving them the whole picture, you know, yeah, of course this is.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: This is what Christianity entails in terms of the fruit that results from knowing the Lord, but there's also challenges, and this is what the Christian life is, and then, obviously, if the Lord has truly transformed them, they're going to get that.
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: It reminds me of Augustine's quote yes, it's Augustine, augustine.
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, let's ask Johnny.
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: Johnny knows it's Augustine.
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: Man three wrong people yeah, I'm older.
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: Oscar the Barrier, johnny.
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: Yes, tell us about us.
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: Tell us about.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Emperor Constantine.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it's not Constantine.
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: Thank you, but you know Augustine's quote which is our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you and I think when we find that rest and all of the material things of the world, because the thing is the other.
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: Reality is that you're going to face suffering, whether you're a Christian or not.
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: You're going to face suffering and so do you have your heart set on an eternal joy that will push you through those seasons and suffering, or does everything cater and fall?
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: I think having a right view of, even in your evangelism, of God's will, for your life is to be sanctified, is important.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: You know, not only does God want to forgive you or send you, wants you to be, it says this is the will of God, your sanctification.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: And then it says and Peter, let those who suffer according to the will of God meaning it's the will of God for Christians to suffer.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: But I don't ever want to only preach one side of the coin and forget that God looks out as people saying you're drinking from dirty, rotten cisterns, when the fountain of life is available to you?
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: And in evangelism it's both.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: But even Jesus employs different evangelistic strategies with different people.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: To the Pharisees he says hey, you're a brood of vipers and whitewashed tombs.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: But to the woman at the well he says listen, yeah, you've got five husbands and the guy you're with now isn't even your husband.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: You're looking for satisfaction in all the wrong places.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: But, then she also alludes to the reality.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Hey, come listen to the man who told me everything I ever did.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: She had a real understanding of her sin and I think Jesus is a good physician and he applies different remedies to different diseases.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: It's good.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Johnny deconstruction's almost become a fad among Gen Z Young people who grew up in the church especially.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: What sorts of things would you encourage parents to do in order to head that off while their kids are still young?
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think deconstruction comes from the French philosopher Derrida, and he basically was saying that words change over time.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: So you can't have any sort of ground to stand on in regards to your convictions because there's a malleability to language.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: And so he says what we need to do is we need to take what we believe, deconstruct it into its simplest parts and then rebuild from there.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: And so a lot of people in the church today are saying, hey, there's different ways to look at us, I guess, first of all.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: First of all, deconstruction is used in a way to like Joshua Harris, who identifies as an ex-vangelical.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: He's saying I'm basically walking away from the Lord.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: So that's one way people look at it.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: Another way is I think there's another respected pastor who said, in a good way, we should potentially deconstruct our faith.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: And I have a hard time with people trying to redeem a word that has been used for apostasy, exactly.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: So I don't try to redeem the word deconstruct.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: I think doubt in the scriptures is wrong and we need to feed our doubt with the truth of God's word Amen.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: It's not a virtue to celebrate.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: So right now it's kind of like well, who are we to have any certainty on what we believe we should deconstruct it to its simplest parts.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of people like this term because they're trying to reconcile some of the truth that they grew up hearing with the world and where we're at today.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: But I would say deconstruction for the most part refers to apostasy, which is walking away from God.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: It means in 1 John they went out from us so that it would be known that they were never of us, for if they had been of us they would have remained with us.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: But they went out so that it would be known that they were not of us.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: And typically apostasy always comes through the gate of immorality.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Most of the people that are rejecting or walking away from the Lord, typically it's because of some sort of sin in their life or maybe they've been sinned against.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: You know, I think I'm careful to use the word trauma because it's very relative in the way that the world uses it.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: But sometimes people have been sinned against.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: They can't reconcile how a person that says they've been changed by God did certain things to them, but most of the time it's because of a biblical sexual ethic that they can't get a hold of.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: So, joshua Harris he wrote the book I Kissed Aiding Goodbye.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: He's come out in regards to transitioning even his sexuality.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: He doesn't believe in the biblical sexual principle, so that's the main reason he's walking away.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: He's not transitioning his gender.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: I don't believe in what the Bible says regarding sexual ethics, so because of that, I reject the God of the Bible, and most of the people that are deconstructing are subscribing to that level of thinking.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: So, in regards to your question, how do parents head that off?
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: First of all, I think parents need to know that they need to prepare and equip students to be absolutely bombarded with things that contradict the scriptures from the time you give them a cell phone.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: So, if you give them a cell phone, I mean I was watching some girl on Instagram the other day and she's like, hey, maybe you've grown up hearing that homosexuality is a contradicting the scripture.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: Actually, in Leviticus it says this.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: So it'd be like saying you're not allowed to eat meat.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: And she deconstructs the modern view of that.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: Sounds legit, yeah no, it's legit.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: But she uses scripture and she's using the Hebrew language.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: I've been to Christian universities where I'm debating previously, I think respected institutions on what the Bible says about transgenderism, and so you know, even they try to send students away and think that that's going to be the answer.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: But I think they need to prepare them and there needs to be a level of meat in which they're actually equipping students to respond not just to what they see, but that people who claim the name of Jesus Christ are going to use scripture in Hebrew and Greek language to say, actually in Romans 1, I mean this is recently in Romans 1, the homosexuality that's condemned is the pedophilic raping of a young slave boy by a Roman centurion.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: It doesn't refer to a monogamous committed relationship and so but you're like oh no, actually, son, here's what it means.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: That same word for love in Romans 1 is the word for love between an intimate romantic couple.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: It's not pedophilic raping, it's love and it refers to that of a husband and wife.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: It's not pedophilic raping by a centurion.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: But, that's the stuff they're going to get met with.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: So I think that's the truth we need to equip them with.
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: So I know we're running short of time, but I just want to touch on that real quick, because I also think there's another element to that as well, and I love the way something that's kind of become thematic here in our conversation that you keep pointing out is the way we balance things, and I think there's an importance as preachers and teachers and in disciples, that we give space for uncertainty, for unbelief, for questions, for the men.
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: Totally Right, you've got Psalm 73 where.
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: Asif is lamenting political and religious hypocrisy.
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: You've got the father who says help me in my unbelief, and Jesus' blessings, and so I also think it's an important to create space in our discipleship to let people come with questions and not make them feel like man.
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: If I have questions, then I'm no longer one of them.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: I think that's so important.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: I think loving people is a mark of a believer.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: So that's just 101.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: And I think what Carl Truman?
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: I was talking to Carl Truman once and he was just saying, hey, it's so important that even when we look at these things in regards to sexuality, that we see people not as a statistic but as an image bearer of God.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: So, even when we talk about, oh man, the homosexual agenda, the LGBTQ plus agenda, it's like, well, each of those people God loves, it's good.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: And even like I'm preaching through Jonah right now at our church and just regarding Nineveh Right, and you're like man, these people are the worst of the worst.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: And Jonah, who knows the truth, is so disconnected from the heart of God.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: And when we think about you know, if I asked the church on Sunday, I said I want you to think of someone that's right for the gospel, and it's not someone that looks like you, dresses like you but doesn't have Christ.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: It's someone with lip piercings, with pronouns in their bio.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: That is that God has a heart to save, and I think we can get, we can get disconnected from that, and that's, that's the truth.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow, good stuff, man.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and, and there's just that element of compassion Mark six that we need to remember, that Christ had on the multitudes.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: This is this is after that long missionary journey.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: This is after exhaustion.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: This is after John the Baptist was beheaded.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: They went away to rest awhile, and here shows up the multitude again.
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Christ looks at them as moved with compassion.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: That really needs to drive us so and then.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: Well, johnny man, we could go on for hours and hours with you.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Friends.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: You heard him here.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: You need to hear more.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Tell the people how they can connect with you.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Your podcast the church all that good info.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: Yes, I have a podcast called dial in.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: I walk through just mainly different questions that a lot of people have about the scripture, god and the gospel, and then I also do different teaching series through different books.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: On the podcast it's called dial in ministries, with my name, johnny Artavanas.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: You can find us online on social media and then, once again, our church is called Stonebridge Bible Church.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: That's in Franklin, tennessee.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: A lot of people that love the Lord there.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: But it's a growing church in a growing area and so we're just thankful to be there and, yeah, we love it and are thankful.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great brother.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Well, what a joy to have you on here and we're looking forward to connecting with you some more.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Thank you guys so much, I love your ministry.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: Thanks for tolerating these two.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Well, I always love hanging with Oscar because he's a stylish guy.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: He knows how to pronounce the eight names we always wonder where the lower half of his pants went.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no well, he's always ready to wade through water.
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: Thank you, sir.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: Appreciate that.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: God bless you, brother.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: Thanks you guys too.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: Johnny brought it.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: Wow, I don't think we talked about it in the interview, but Johnny's dad is a pastor.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: In fact, mark, you spoke at his church, I did.
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, scott Heart of Annus Up in Kingsburg, california.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: Wonderful church, wonderful group of people.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: It's not one of those churches where you kind of jump in and jump out.
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: We hung out for, I think, for almost three, four hours after service.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: It's just hanging out and fellowshiping with people.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: Wow, so beautiful.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: And you see the influence of a godly father on Johnny.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: You know I love seeing young men like that going hard after the Lord.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: And it's fitting he's a pastor.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, he was at the master's university for a while there working with the chapels and stuff.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: But what a gifted young man.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: I think we're going to see a lot more of him so excited.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah for sure, ray, say something.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Thank you, that's all I wanted.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: All right, friends.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: Well, there you have it.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: We're sure that, blessed and encouraged you, remember to check out how to Be Free from the Fear of Death.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Living Waters Mug and the study of the Bible.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Livingwaterscom.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us, friends.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: We'll see you here next time on the Living Waters Podcast.
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: Wait, who did that?
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: I did, wow, I had to confess.
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: I had to confess it.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the ultimate cure for insomnia Snore Ray.
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: That's all you're getting.
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: That was good.