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Goodness.
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From Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. This is behind the message. In this podcast. We take you behind what we teach here at Westside. I'm Ben Fleming, joined as always by Lindsay Parnell and Evan Earwicker.
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What's going on?
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Hey, guys.
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Hello.
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Has it been a while?
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I think so.
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It's been a little while.
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Yeah.
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Everyone's been traveling.
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I think you were gone. We've all been gone. Yeah.
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Since you've been gone.
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Yeah. Yeah. You were just holding down the fort, man. All by yourself.
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Yeah, yeah. You guys don't know, but I sat in here and recorded like a two hour solo podcast, castaway style.
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Yeah, but it was just. It was just soft cry. Yeah, yeah, Cry noises. Just some whimpers and.
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And then some real exclamations, you know.
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That's Justin. Amazing.
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He'd think about publishing it, you know, we'll see how it goes.
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Did you make Justin switch for you on the video? Yeah, for sure. Switch.
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Get all the angles, Ye white shot and then the me shot.
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That's it.
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Back and forth.
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Oh, my gosh, that's good.
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I could do that. Yeah. My best Tom Hanks impression. Just all by myself. You guys would love it. It'd be so great. Whimpering aside. So what'd you do? You were in Victoria?
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Yeah, we went to celebrate our 20th anniversary. We went up to Victoria, BC, flew into Seattle, did a night in Seattle and then took the ferry over. We were looking at all the.
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The.
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They have seaplanes that are just day and night landing and taking off from the harbor there in Victoria and. Yeah, I might do that sometime. Have you guys been in a seaplane? No, never. I haven't either.
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Okay.
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So we could guess what it's like.
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Never got there. Looked at him. We were looking at them.
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So did you guys know. Did you know this? The seaplane from Raiders, the Lost Ark. I mean, such an iconic scene, right. When Indy escapes from the opening scene of Raiders. That float plane was stored in Tumelo until recently. Like in the last couple years, they got sold off. But the original movie prop plane was in a. In a barn out in Tumelo.
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Why?
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Don't know. It's just some private owner just bought it at some point and stored it. And stored it. I'm telling you, if I owned the Raiders of the Lost Ark seaplane, I would be monetizing that all day long. Yeah, right.
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It seems like something reasonably.
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Yeah, you park it somewhere, you get some other, like, memorabilia, posters and stuff, and you make a little charge for a selfie kind of Thing. Yeah.
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I don't know.
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This is what I think about.
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What was the guy's name in that plane in the movie? What's the character's name?
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Jacques.
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That's it.
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Good call.
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Snake in the plane Jacques.
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Oh, my gosh, yes. What a great line. Delivery. It's so good.
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I'm gonna watch that tonight again. Were you looking at seaplanes, too, Lindsey, while you were out, or were you just.
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No. Did they do seaplanes in London?
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Land on the Thames, probably around there?
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I didn't see any seaplanes, no. Is that where I was? That's kind of far back.
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I did see. What did they do? Red Bull. They did. I think it was, you know, the squirrel suits, where people, you know, do daredevil tricks in just suits. And then they did that to Red Bull sponsored guys. And it was. They planned it so it was authorized. But they flew through the Tower Bridge, which is the Victorian faux, old, real famous. They flew between the top and the bottom of it, which is super sketchy. Right. But yeah, yeah, you should link it in the show notes.
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Will do.
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But, I mean, that's not much room for error if you're squirrel suiting your way under the Tower Bridge, is what I say every Monday morning.
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Also, that Google search is ridicul. Two squirrel suit guys, Red.
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I think I got the details right. I think it was this.
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They call them squirrel suits.
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Yeah, they do.
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All right. It's when the legs.
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It's legs and arms. It's like web fabric.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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That's what I think.
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And then they parachute at the end. But up until then, they can go, like, right along the ground and. Fascinating. Now you. You went the direction of, like, regular athletics. In a different life, would you go for extreme sports? Not. You don't have that.
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So here's where I felt with that. I think those guys are the coolest. Yeah. There's a skate park really close to my house. Sometimes I'll just walk by and watching. Especially skateboarders. Nobody is cooler. You guys like how they dress and the fact that they will go 50 times in a row and blow a trick and, like, fall down and then go again. Like, they still spend all day there. And they'll get it one time, right? And even then kind of on. Oh, my gosh, they're so cool. I cannot do that. And I remember jumping my bike when I was like, 9 or 10 off of, you know, a real quote unquote jump. And, like, I just landed wrong. And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm never jumping My bike again, like, why
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would I do that?
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I learned to bunny hop a little bit. Learned how to skid into a stop. That was as far as I got with any extreme sports. I've done skydiving, which was cool, but I was attached to the pro that was really making it happen. You know, I'm not, like, afraid of heights. I'm not, like, freaked out by all that. The idea of me learning how to do something where it's all on me to make sure that I don't die. I can't. My. My brain and my body don't do that sport thing.
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But those people are the coolest, man.
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They're so cool.
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Yeah. Jack had his bike. We were going to walk around the neighborhood the other night, and he's learned to skid and leave skid marks with his bike. Bike, you know, on the sidewalk. So he thinks that's pretty cool. And this shows you how extreme sports we are. He did it. And then Alyssa goes, this is a brand new sidewalk. Don't mark it up. We're concerned about the mark free nature of the sidewalk concrete. So that's how extreme we are.
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Brand new sidewalk.
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And she was right. It was brand new. It would have been the first mark on it. Oh, Jack, don't you dare. It's not even safety anymore. It's just, somebody put a lot of work into this sidewalk. Don't you mark it out. So funny.
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Oh, my goodness.
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But, yeah, you're in London.
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You came back since then, though, and we did podcast and stuff.
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Maybe you were. You were in Scotland, and then you left and I was gone before that. I think I've been here, too.
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All right.
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Yeah, there you go making that up.
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You've been gone for like a month, right? Just out of here. No, no, no.
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So since we've talked last on the podcast, we've been doing good questions with the church. I had a message on. Yeah, I had a message. And how do I know if I'm hearing from God before that? You open the series.
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Yes.
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With the question, does my faith need to be radical?
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And then you asked yesterday if. What to do with anger?
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What do I do with my anger?
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Yeah, yeah.
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Or what do we do with anger? I think that's the question. Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yours real tough. So there is a pattern. I think we talked about this a little bit. For me, and both of the ones that I've done, I go, ooh, that's interesting and provocative. And then I get partway into the research and the writing, like, this isn't great. I hate this, like, because of the temptation, I think, to continue to run around the fence and go on each side of it. The hearing from God thing, though, I feel like, is something that everybody really runs into a wall at that eventually. And I. I kind of believe it doesn't really matter what background or denomination or tradition you come from. That is such a human experience in faith kind of a thing. And so I was pleased that you were willing to try to wrap your arms around it and preach on it.
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Yeah, I think anytime you talk about the will of God, hearing from God, direction, discernment, everybody's wanting to not make the wrong decisions. And if you're a person of faith that believes that God interacts with us, of course you want to know, like, how do I get input? You know, that's better than just my impulses or my ideas. So whenever we talk about this, I feel the weight of that. To not set people up for this expectation that if they're doing it right, there will never be any doubts in their decision making. And I think that's a trap that's easy to fall into, especially if you come from a tradition that is. Has a very personal view of our relationship with Christ. That it's not just, you know, that we participate in sacraments, but that we actually have an ongoing, interactive relationship with Christ. We can get set up for this feeling of like, I can't make a decision unless I am so certain of the outcome because I have this word from God that, you know, is confirmed in these specific ways. And so I felt like part of the job there was to help people understand, like, to be in relationship with Christ is to recognize him when he shows up. And I use John 10, where he says, you know, the sheep hear my voice, they recognize my voice. And using that as the framework, how do we hear from God? We belong to Him. And so when he shows up in a thousand different ways, we recognize him because we know Him. And maybe taking that approach, rather than how can we get this crystal ball of the word of God that will tell us what to do next.
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What clarified that for me the most, and what you talked about is you spoke on sometimes we learn something from God, and then that's the lesson. And then it's a bit on us to continue to remember the lesson as we go. And so sometimes it's like, well, God's not talking to me anymore. It's like, well, you learned the thing, and you got to continue to do that. You get to work out the salvation. I think you might have Even said in that that's part of that job that we have in discipleship. And I think that's really powerful to get off of this idea of I want the. The safety blanket or the covering of constantly hearing this voice in my head all the time. And really, it's just a. Remembering the lesson, holding onto that well and then continuing to move forward.
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Yeah, yeah. And I didn't quote this, but there's a. I think a famous quote from Mother Teresa. Someone came to her and what was it, asked her to pray for them to know the voice of God. And she's like, I'm not going to do that, but you can pray for me, you know, and it's like, oh, I think there is a moment where we become the kind of people that have been developed and formed in the image of Christ to where we're not at a loss for what to do next. We're not at a loss for what decision to make. Not because we're so certain, just because we're so immersed in the water of our following after Jesus. The next move that we make, we might not always get it right, but in general, our trajectory is towards Christ. And there's a safety in that that allows us to maybe have less direction now than when we first came to Christ and didn't know anything. And we're like, I don't know what to. Someone tell me what to do. Yeah, hopefully something's been imparted into us as we spent time in Scripture and spent time with Jesus to where we maybe don't need that concept. And I remember when I was real little, trying to go to sleep, and right outside my bedroom, the neighbor's house was just, like, you know, eight feet away, wall to wall. And there was right outside my window was this bright porch light that had been on for weeks.
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And.
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And I was so frustrated because I couldn't sleep. Couldn't sleep. And so I was like, dear Jesus, please shut off that light. And as soon as I said that, it just exploded with this, like, you know, old incandescent light. So it exploded with a flash. It just. Just popped. And I remember just being like, oh. Oh, my goodness. Prayer is real. You know, look at your fingers. I mean, it was that moment. Yeah. And it's so funny, but I think, like, all the things I've prayed for after that one, I was like, oh, yeah, this is how it works. You just say the prayer and formula and things explode. And the reality is maybe sometimes that is God, and he shows up in ways that feel formulaic. But it's because we're not. We just haven't been developed yet into the kind of people that can trust him without seeing. And so I think that following Jesus, it looks different in year 20 than it does in it year one. You know, that's part of being the sheep of his pasture. Right.
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Do these things feel like, I mean, even just. I'm curious about your guys's method or how you think through the practicality of it. You talked on this subject. You're going to talk about uncertainty. What if I'm wrong? Is the question that we had initially talked about might be a different question. You're talking about the Holy Spirit here in a couple weeks. And I looked at the two things I took like, does my faith have to be radical? And then what do I do with my anger? And I was like, oh, I think I intentionally or maybe subconsciously pick something that felt a little narrow. You guys, these are huge things, and we're giving you guys 25 minutes, so good luck. Does it ever feel like these are too big in the practice of, yeah, I'm gonna teach people about this. Then what do you do with that feeling, if it's true or maybe it doesn't feel too big for you?
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I don't. I always feel like we hit these big topics and you could spend a year talking about discerning the voice of God. But then sometimes we make a single topic into a series, and after week two, I'm like, we should have only done one week, you know, So I do think there's a sweet spot where either you're going to go all the way into a topic or you kind of need to preach it in a way that sparks, maybe a lean in to that. Not because you're going to answer every question, not because you're going to exegete every scripture that has to do with that, but because we're going to spend 25 minutes and invite people in to a new way of thinking around these things. And hopefully, you know, year after year as we do this, maybe something sticks to where someone goes really deep and does their own deep dive on what is the Holy Spirit's work in my life. And I think that does happen. So do we have to cover everything there is to know about the Holy Spirit?
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No.
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Nor could we, even if we spent a year on it. But in 25 minutes, maybe we can spark someone to have their eyes opened to, wow, what if the Holy Spirit is real? And what if that changes everything? You know, those kind of things? That's how I look at it.
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Yeah, I agree. I think it's a little. You have to do some pastoral work there. Because we started talking about the Holy Spirit topic, which I'm preaching in a couple weeks, and I immediately was like, well, doctrine of the Trinity, like, we gotta talk about that and blah, blah, blah. Well, you know, we gotta start here and build from there, and then you have to take a step back. And as I've been digging in a little bit, I'm like, that's the wrong move, Pastor. Like, yeah, sure, maybe there are some people that would really love that and benefit from that. But overall, I think I agree with you, Evan. The pastoral move in that. In that message specifically is like, man, if we could open people's eyes, like, see or be aware of the Holy Spirit's presence in their every day, and they're playing with their kids and they're cooking dinner, you know, things like that, then that is a win. Just, you know, to. To open ourselves up to a different aspect of God or a way that God works and moves in a different. Like, yeah, it's so tempting to Start teaching Theology 101, but. But, yeah, I just think you gotta. You gotta approach it pastorally and think, like, now, what would I want to hear if I was sitting in church and what's the felt need from the people who are. Who are coming week after week?
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Well, I think that's where we get in trouble sometimes. Go. What would I want to hear?
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Well, doctrine of the Trinity, it's like, maybe not everybody would like to hear
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some of the conversations that we can. And that really is a good. A good worthy wrestle that I hope we allow ourselves to be engaged in all the time, this interest and expertise and education and reading and all these things that are. That we like to do that are also part of our job. And what is the pastoral kind of handhold that goes along with that? Yeah, both things have to be true. We can't. We can't just be all fluff, and we can't just refuse to meet people where they're at because we want to be somewhere else. That's not pastoring at all. And it's. It. I don't know that I've ever gotten used to that feeling of wanting to run all the way over into this niche and being like, the people in the room, though. There's a little bit of a Peter being like, maybe we should build houses up here on this mountain for this incredible experience that we're having. Jesus. And meanwhile, the. The people are waiting at the bottom, you know, and to live up here is not the reason Jesus exists. Sometimes it's down, though. That metaphor makes it sound like it's to be looking over. Sometimes I'm way too far into the earth.
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Actually.
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Everyone's waiting for me to come out of the hole.
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Six more weeks of winter. We just stopped in to see his shadow. Ben came out. Yeah. And I think that we have to know there are different settings for different ways that people hear. And so there are settings for teaching and study and reading, and there's moments for exhortation and true preaching. And preaching. I think we cover. Make that a big umbrella. It could be teaching, it could be exhortation, it could be encouragement, it could be pastoral, it could be devotional. But like homiletics, like preaching, at its core is an announcement, you know, of. Of some news that brings, I don't know, good news. Right. It's gospel. Right. We're announcing the gospel. And that really is the job on Sundays. And some churches would say, no, we teach, you know, theology on Sunday. Okay, well, that's. That's that. But I. I do feel like we have a job to preach the gospel in those 25 minutes. And so whatever the topic is. And I think we see this actually in our worship songs. And a good theologically written worship song does this brilliantly where in the course of a verse or a chorus, it can express something theological without groundhogging it to where I think of, like, spirit of the living God, fall fresh on me, blow through the caverns of my soul. That speaks a lot of theology about the Holy Spirit and the wind of the presence of God without ever, you know, getting into trinitarian doctrine. But it does something, and it causes. It causes something in your spirit to lean in without having to check out your theological brain. And I think that's. That's true about good preaching, too.
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So what do we say to the people that would look for that? Right, that. That 2%, that if you started off with saying, we're going to jump into trinitarian theology, they're going to go, oh, thank God, finally someone did this.
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2% or 2. Yeah, the two people.
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What do we encourage them to do? You know, because I. You could take this as like, oh, okay, I guess you don't want to keep up with us, and that's fine. What do we do with them? What do we encourage them to do?
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I view that small percentage as the same way I view people who are like, we just want to go deeper. We just want to go deeper. Like the Sunday service serves a very specific purpose in the life of faith in Christianity. And it is one small part of our lives of faith. And I think there needs to be some ownership of every Christian to dig deep into the things that make you light up. And if that's trinitarian theology or if that's going deep with the Holy Spirit, you know, whatever it might be, like, go there, do it. You read the book, you know, and of course, like, we'll resource as best we can and all that. We've got branches, Sunday school classes that we offer and things where we do touch on a lot of these different things. But. But I just think Sunday services are, are unique and I don't think they're ever designed to hit the entire scope of all that is our faith. And we all have to be okay with that. It's a very specific, unique thing that we come together to do that's really beautiful. And it serves a one purpose, I would say. Yeah.
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And I've. I've noticed more recently a number of people that will come up to us after a Sunday service, whether you're preaching or any of us are preaching, but they'll come to me and they'll say, you know, and I'm sure you've heard this, but I feel like that was just towards spoken to me or even I was meeting with a guy today and he was just saying, like, I'm just in this place where everything feels fresh. And so every message that I hear you guys preach, it just feels so rich. And I told him, I said, it's amazing because we know sometimes we can preach a very subpar message, but you receive something not because of what we said, because you have ears to hear. And that's kind of the phrase I've been responding with when I hear those statements is Jesus said, if you have ears to hear it, and not everybody does, but when you do, you're going to actually hear God speak through this in a way that is not just because Ben was clever with how he pulled that passage apart, because God's speaking through that sometimes because of us, sometimes in spite of us, but it's the hearer actually receiving it that causes that. Aha. And I think when people are like, I just want more depth, they don't have ears to hear. And so it doesn't matter how good our preaching would be if you've turned that off and decided, I'm not here to receive anymore. I just don't know if you. You're gonna get it.
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No, it's True. And I've been in spots where I think I have better ears to hear than other times, and I'm getting it everywhere. Like, I'm reading children's books. I'm like, wow, that's profound. Like, to hear it so simply. And, you know, whatever. I can hear it. I can hear it just about everywhere. All kinds of art and film and teaching and things like that. So I think that's a really good point. And I do sense that. And I've wondered sometimes if it's because I'm defensive in those settings. And some I think I am. But that's almost always what I'm hearing from people, is that it's the, like, I just want to be fed crowd, or I'd like to go deeper crowd. And sometimes it's almost like this Christian treasure hunting. I think they're looking for. I think they're looking for this very special thing that not many people have discovered. This cave that I've walked into of this faith where I know something that other people. People don't.
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Yeah.
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And sometimes I think it's just you don't actually want to hear. You don't really want to be challenged, because it doesn't take a whole lot if you have ears to hear to really be challenged. Yeah.
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Or if you just don't like my preaching or our preaching, that's fine, too. Just. Just say that. Just say that, you know, usually what they're saying. Because if that's the case. Yeah. Go find somebody you like to listen to. Of course, you're giving a lot of time to sitting in rooms and listening to people preach. Find preachers you like. So if that's the reason that you don't want to be here, that's totally fine. I'm not being fed here. Maybe it's because the preaching is so bad that there's just no room for that, but typically it's something else. And so call it what it is. I don't like Evan, that is wonderful honesty. Go find a church. You like the pastor. But yeah, it is funny.
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You're giving Justin permission to really speak his mind after this podcast.
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Yeah. Why did Justin just leave the room? I've been hanging on long enough. Antioch or bust. He's leaving for. Oh, so funny. But you talked about anger this past week and. Yeah, it was good. I don't believe you. No, it was good. I don't consider myself typically an angry person, and so I probably skew more into other cousins of anger, whether it be anxiety or control or whatever, but I was Standing next to you. And I heard a lot of comments from people were like, oh, my goodness. That just. That really hit me hard kind of thing. Did you hear that a lot?
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So much, you guys. Like, I was shocked because I was feeling like. I actually felt like I was making a little bit of a sacrifice and being like, I think I'm going to talk to a lot of people, but a smaller percentage of the room than I usually do, and that'll be okay. Like, we'll just do that for this Sunday. And maybe that was true. The amount. The amount of people talking to me about this, that message yesterday is absurd. The text messages and the emails and the people afterward and all that kind of stuff. A lot of people identified with anger, and specifically people that felt like they connected with me where it was relatable. The idea of how quickly it could just. It just shows up. Anger is this wild animal that just happens to appear. And I use the reference of. I just am really triggered by loud vehicles right now in my life. I don't know why I feel like it's a certain way, certain age you get to, and that just makes you instantly rage. And we have thoughts that do the same thing that are like, the big vehicle that goes by you at a loud volume. We think about people. There's different little triggers that we have that kind of engage us into that. And so for me, as a kid especially, I remember this feeling of, like, all right, being angry. And sometimes I would think of it as, like, being competitive. This is bad, and I need to get this out of my. I need to stop and be more stoic or something. And that led to a lot of, like, real dissatisfaction in my. Like, I think when I felt like I was doing things right, I was just really bland and. And almost trying to, like, distance myself from things. That was the best version of Ben doesn't get mad and Ben doesn't get competitive, and this doesn't feel quite right either. And so the. The solution couldn't be, all right, we're just going to not be angry, and if we are angry, we're going to pretend that we're not. But of course, it's not to just fly off the handle every single time. I feel like I have an excuse either. And so that was what that message was from. How do we present and give our whole selves to God? And so not. How do we just shove down every emotion that we think is negative? And anger is a big one, I think, for people that left the service yesterday feeling like, okay, I can have this. It can be a tool for me. And here's a few pathways to not allow it to become the beast that can ruin my life.
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Yeah, I thought that was a really strong point of what do we do with anger? Well, the question then becomes, how do we bring our whole selves to God? And that idea of, I don't have to, you know, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this to where when I become angry, oh, my faith is out the window and I just gotta kind of, you know, hulk that out. And then when I'm back to. I'm mixing metaphors and stories here, but when I'm back to Dr. Dr. Banner, which was the doctor as well. See, it all comes together. It was probably. Hulk was probably inspired by Dr. Jekyll, wasn't he?
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Was.
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Yeah.
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I think that's legit. Yeah.
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Anyway, but the idea that, like, we just have to, I guess, wait until we calm down and then we can get back on track with Jesus. This idea that we can bring our whole selves to God and surrender all of that, and that maybe there is some utility in anger without letting anger run the show. That was pretty profound.
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Yeah. If it's a. If it's an alarm bell, hey, something is wrong. Or maybe it's even something is wrong in me, you know, and this. This can be an alarm bell for me to look inward. I think that's the place where angry people don't get readily. It's. It's always, no, I see that something is wrong and everyone needs to know, and I'll let you know. Sometimes it's. I see that something is wrong, but it actually might be an indicator that something inside of me needs to change. That's where a lot of the maturity comes in. And that was kind of where I found a lot of good progress for myself. Of, okay, I feel angry, and actually, I don't think it's anyone else in this thing. And also, I'm not going to shame myself for it either. Like, I'm going to take this for what it is. It's going to be that light on the dash, and then I'm going to begin to do the work to change it. And that actually has allowed my competitive nature to come back, because I'm not afraid of it turning into the Hulk as much as I used to. You know, it's allowed me to stand up for things that I want to stand up for because I feel like that's my responsibility without understanding that I don't need to, because it really was in my mind For a while, it was like, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna lose my friends, I'm gonna lose my job, and I'm gonna leave. And that's gonna be okay because that's
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the price you pay when you're mad, you know, Like.
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And I learned that I.
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You.
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That doesn't have to be that way, you know? And I have a lot of gracious people in my life that have helped me through those things, too. You guys have helped me stay employed through some of my episodes here. We don't have to go through all those right at this moment.
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Well, the people love you, Ben, So we have to put up with your anger just because we know there would be mass revolt if we kicked you out.
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Yeah. I leverage a lot of my really poor behavior around here with, yeah, but
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the people love me. It's a good week. When you hear that yelled from Ben's office. Yeah. You can't get me out of here.
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I think I did have one moment several years ago when this was my office, and I. I threw something across the room.
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And having flashbacks to that right now.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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I think marks on the wall.
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Yeah, there might be. Yeah, something like that. There was a moment partway through, like, the second time where I was like. Like, I. I better tell everyone that I've. I'm doing a decent job with this now because I. I'm making myself out to be real scary. Like, people are gonna ask my wife if she's okay.
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Yeah. You know what I mean? That is. There's a line in trying to be relatable to where you exaggerate your own faults.
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Yeah.
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People are like, oh, no, who is this terrible person?
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He's leading the church.
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Yikes. No, it's just rhetorical. It's for.
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A few people walked out in the middle of the service, which happens. But when you're wondering about that already, and then they walk out and they go, oh, no, I scared them. Probably not.
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They're going to Antioch.
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Maybe.
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Yeah, that's right. Immediately, the next service time starting up,
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we.
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I wanted to mention this, too. We're sending missionaries to Spain tomorrow. We're getting on a plane. We just. Just before this recording, we prayed with Gans and Ashlyn as they're heading to Spain. And this is a kind of a big deal for us as Westside because we haven't had missionaries that have been fully covered. And by covered, I mean their financial structure, their pastoral licensing. All of that is staying with Westside as they go to Spain. So this is A big deal, like
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still a staff member is a simple way to put it. Right?
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A simple way, yes.
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It's more complicated.
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There's some nuance to that, but yeah. And we have lots of missionary partners that we love and support and visit, but often they're independent of us. And this is different because Gaunt and Ash are an extension of us. So it's very exciting to be sending them to Spain. El Campeo Alicante is the area that they're going to be in southern Spain on the coast. But you're going to be there next week to kind of visit them right as they land on the ground.
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Week from Monday.
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Yeah.
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Yeah. It's wild.
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Yeah.
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So I didn't give him too big a hug or anything.
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I want to do that view. Yeah.
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You know, that whole, like, saying bye to someone, seen him in the next grocery aisle. I hate that. So, you know, gave him a quick fist bump and said, they'll be fine.
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And then I kissed both of his cheeks. So it was a whole different. It was just funny because he'd always talked about, you know, culturally. He's from Argentina. I spent a lot of time in Spain, and. And so there's certain cultural things that you just don't get here. And so the. The cheek kissing when you greet someone is just not normal around here. And I did it one time to him when I saw him. We were traveling somewhere. And he has brought that moment up more than any other thing I've ever heard him talk about to me. And so I know how deeply meaningful it was to, like, I heard it happen. Were you close enough to hear the.
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Heard the kissing.
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Kissing. And the beard. The beard movement.
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Don't take that out of context.
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That sounded weird, but
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that's what it was.
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That's what I heard.
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These things matter. I mean, cultural man. It matters. So get your kissing cheeks ready, Ben, because you're heading to Spain.
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I'm over here, just in anger. And then there's Evan, the kissing pastor.
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I've only kissed Gantz.
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Sure. Agreed.
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Those are my two. Those are my two staff members I've given kisses to.
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I mean, it's good. We shouldn't have. Too many angry passers. Know.
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I prefer.
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Prefer the other stuff. I almost said that, but then I get weird.
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Yeah, well, you guys are. Justin's giving us the wrap up. Move on. Keep going anyway.
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Fine.
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All right, well, we'll. I think we're going to be back for one more before you leave. Ben.
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No, I'm going Thursday.
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You're. You're leaving out Thursday. Well, this is. Yeah, this is all the people are going to get when it comes to behind the message this, this month then. So I was about. It was good.
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We'll wrap up good questions. Without another behind the message.
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No, but Ben's gone. We could talk.
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Well, I'm going to Turkey and then I'm off. Oh, for a while. Yeah.
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That was it.
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Yeah.
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No more good questions.
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I like how we're just working on the schedule now on the air. The people love it. Yeah. Only one time to talk about good questions. That's a bummer.
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We should probably do a big round wrap of it.
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Yeah. Yeah. When everyone's back. Well, good question.
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Made for podcast.
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Yeah, not for us. Too busy. All right, we'll see you when we see you.
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Goodness.
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From Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. This is behind the message. In this podcast. We take you behind what we teach here at Westside. I'm Ben Fleming, joined as always by Lindsay Parnell and Evan Earwicker.
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What's going on?
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Hey, guys.
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Hello.
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Has it been a while?
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I think so.
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It's been a little while.
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Yeah.
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Everyone's been traveling.
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I think you were gone. We've all been gone. Yeah.
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Since you've been gone.
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Yeah. Yeah. You were just holding down the fort, man. All by yourself.
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Yeah, yeah. You guys don't know, but I sat in here and recorded like a two hour solo podcast, castaway style.
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Yeah, but it was just. It was just soft cry. Yeah, yeah, Cry noises. Just some whimpers and.
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And then some real exclamations, you know.
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That's Justin. Amazing.
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He'd think about publishing it, you know, we'll see how it goes.
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Did you make Justin switch for you on the video? Yeah, for sure. Switch.
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Get all the angles, Ye white shot and then the me shot.
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That's it.
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Back and forth.
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Oh, my gosh, that's good.
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I could do that. Yeah. My best Tom Hanks impression. Just all by myself. You guys would love it. It'd be so great. Whimpering aside. So what'd you do? You were in Victoria?
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Yeah, we went to celebrate our 20th anniversary. We went up to Victoria, BC, flew into Seattle, did a night in Seattle and then took the ferry over. We were looking at all the.
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The.
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They have seaplanes that are just day and night landing and taking off from the harbor there in Victoria and. Yeah, I might do that sometime. Have you guys been in a seaplane? No, never. I haven't either.
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Okay.
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So we could guess what it's like.
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Never got there. Looked at him. We were looking at them.
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So did you guys know. Did you know this? The seaplane from Raiders, the Lost Ark. I mean, such an iconic scene, right. When Indy escapes from the opening scene of Raiders. That float plane was stored in Tumelo until recently. Like in the last couple years, they got sold off. But the original movie prop plane was in a. In a barn out in Tumelo.
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Why?
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Don't know. It's just some private owner just bought it at some point and stored it. And stored it. I'm telling you, if I owned the Raiders of the Lost Ark seaplane, I would be monetizing that all day long. Yeah, right.
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It seems like something reasonably.
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Yeah, you park it somewhere, you get some other, like, memorabilia, posters and stuff, and you make a little charge for a selfie kind of Thing. Yeah.
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I don't know.
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This is what I think about.
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What was the guy's name in that plane in the movie? What's the character's name?
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Jacques.
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That's it.
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Good call.
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Snake in the plane Jacques.
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Oh, my gosh, yes. What a great line. Delivery. It's so good.
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I'm gonna watch that tonight again. Were you looking at seaplanes, too, Lindsey, while you were out, or were you just.
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No. Did they do seaplanes in London?
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Land on the Thames, probably around there?
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I didn't see any seaplanes, no. Is that where I was? That's kind of far back.
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I did see. What did they do? Red Bull. They did. I think it was, you know, the squirrel suits, where people, you know, do daredevil tricks in just suits. And then they did that to Red Bull sponsored guys. And it was. They planned it so it was authorized. But they flew through the Tower Bridge, which is the Victorian faux, old, real famous. They flew between the top and the bottom of it, which is super sketchy. Right. But yeah, yeah, you should link it in the show notes.
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Will do.
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But, I mean, that's not much room for error if you're squirrel suiting your way under the Tower Bridge, is what I say every Monday morning.
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Also, that Google search is ridicul. Two squirrel suit guys, Red.
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I think I got the details right. I think it was this.
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They call them squirrel suits.
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Yeah, they do.
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All right. It's when the legs.
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It's legs and arms. It's like web fabric.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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That's what I think.
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And then they parachute at the end. But up until then, they can go, like, right along the ground and. Fascinating. Now you. You went the direction of, like, regular athletics. In a different life, would you go for extreme sports? Not. You don't have that.
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So here's where I felt with that. I think those guys are the coolest. Yeah. There's a skate park really close to my house. Sometimes I'll just walk by and watching. Especially skateboarders. Nobody is cooler. You guys like how they dress and the fact that they will go 50 times in a row and blow a trick and, like, fall down and then go again. Like, they still spend all day there. And they'll get it one time, right? And even then kind of on. Oh, my gosh, they're so cool. I cannot do that. And I remember jumping my bike when I was like, 9 or 10 off of, you know, a real quote unquote jump. And, like, I just landed wrong. And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm never jumping My bike again, like, why
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would I do that?
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I learned to bunny hop a little bit. Learned how to skid into a stop. That was as far as I got with any extreme sports. I've done skydiving, which was cool, but I was attached to the pro that was really making it happen. You know, I'm not, like, afraid of heights. I'm not, like, freaked out by all that. The idea of me learning how to do something where it's all on me to make sure that I don't die. I can't. My. My brain and my body don't do that sport thing.
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But those people are the coolest, man.
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They're so cool.
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Yeah. Jack had his bike. We were going to walk around the neighborhood the other night, and he's learned to skid and leave skid marks with his bike. Bike, you know, on the sidewalk. So he thinks that's pretty cool. And this shows you how extreme sports we are. He did it. And then Alyssa goes, this is a brand new sidewalk. Don't mark it up. We're concerned about the mark free nature of the sidewalk concrete. So that's how extreme we are.
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Brand new sidewalk.
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And she was right. It was brand new. It would have been the first mark on it. Oh, Jack, don't you dare. It's not even safety anymore. It's just, somebody put a lot of work into this sidewalk. Don't you mark it out. So funny.
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Oh, my goodness.
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But, yeah, you're in London.
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You came back since then, though, and we did podcast and stuff.
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Maybe you were. You were in Scotland, and then you left and I was gone before that. I think I've been here, too.
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All right.
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Yeah, there you go making that up.
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You've been gone for like a month, right? Just out of here. No, no, no.
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So since we've talked last on the podcast, we've been doing good questions with the church. I had a message on. Yeah, I had a message. And how do I know if I'm hearing from God before that? You open the series.
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Yes.
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With the question, does my faith need to be radical?
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And then you asked yesterday if. What to do with anger?
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What do I do with my anger?
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Yeah, yeah.
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Or what do we do with anger? I think that's the question. Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yours real tough. So there is a pattern. I think we talked about this a little bit. For me, and both of the ones that I've done, I go, ooh, that's interesting and provocative. And then I get partway into the research and the writing, like, this isn't great. I hate this, like, because of the temptation, I think, to continue to run around the fence and go on each side of it. The hearing from God thing, though, I feel like, is something that everybody really runs into a wall at that eventually. And I. I kind of believe it doesn't really matter what background or denomination or tradition you come from. That is such a human experience in faith kind of a thing. And so I was pleased that you were willing to try to wrap your arms around it and preach on it.
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Yeah, I think anytime you talk about the will of God, hearing from God, direction, discernment, everybody's wanting to not make the wrong decisions. And if you're a person of faith that believes that God interacts with us, of course you want to know, like, how do I get input? You know, that's better than just my impulses or my ideas. So whenever we talk about this, I feel the weight of that. To not set people up for this expectation that if they're doing it right, there will never be any doubts in their decision making. And I think that's a trap that's easy to fall into, especially if you come from a tradition that is. Has a very personal view of our relationship with Christ. That it's not just, you know, that we participate in sacraments, but that we actually have an ongoing, interactive relationship with Christ. We can get set up for this feeling of like, I can't make a decision unless I am so certain of the outcome because I have this word from God that, you know, is confirmed in these specific ways. And so I felt like part of the job there was to help people understand, like, to be in relationship with Christ is to recognize him when he shows up. And I use John 10, where he says, you know, the sheep hear my voice, they recognize my voice. And using that as the framework, how do we hear from God? We belong to Him. And so when he shows up in a thousand different ways, we recognize him because we know Him. And maybe taking that approach, rather than how can we get this crystal ball of the word of God that will tell us what to do next.
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What clarified that for me the most, and what you talked about is you spoke on sometimes we learn something from God, and then that's the lesson. And then it's a bit on us to continue to remember the lesson as we go. And so sometimes it's like, well, God's not talking to me anymore. It's like, well, you learned the thing, and you got to continue to do that. You get to work out the salvation. I think you might have Even said in that that's part of that job that we have in discipleship. And I think that's really powerful to get off of this idea of I want the. The safety blanket or the covering of constantly hearing this voice in my head all the time. And really, it's just a. Remembering the lesson, holding onto that well and then continuing to move forward.
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Yeah, yeah. And I didn't quote this, but there's a. I think a famous quote from Mother Teresa. Someone came to her and what was it, asked her to pray for them to know the voice of God. And she's like, I'm not going to do that, but you can pray for me, you know, and it's like, oh, I think there is a moment where we become the kind of people that have been developed and formed in the image of Christ to where we're not at a loss for what to do next. We're not at a loss for what decision to make. Not because we're so certain, just because we're so immersed in the water of our following after Jesus. The next move that we make, we might not always get it right, but in general, our trajectory is towards Christ. And there's a safety in that that allows us to maybe have less direction now than when we first came to Christ and didn't know anything. And we're like, I don't know what to. Someone tell me what to do. Yeah, hopefully something's been imparted into us as we spent time in Scripture and spent time with Jesus to where we maybe don't need that concept. And I remember when I was real little, trying to go to sleep, and right outside my bedroom, the neighbor's house was just, like, you know, eight feet away, wall to wall. And there was right outside my window was this bright porch light that had been on for weeks.
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And.
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And I was so frustrated because I couldn't sleep. Couldn't sleep. And so I was like, dear Jesus, please shut off that light. And as soon as I said that, it just exploded with this, like, you know, old incandescent light. So it exploded with a flash. It just. Just popped. And I remember just being like, oh. Oh, my goodness. Prayer is real. You know, look at your fingers. I mean, it was that moment. Yeah. And it's so funny, but I think, like, all the things I've prayed for after that one, I was like, oh, yeah, this is how it works. You just say the prayer and formula and things explode. And the reality is maybe sometimes that is God, and he shows up in ways that feel formulaic. But it's because we're not. We just haven't been developed yet into the kind of people that can trust him without seeing. And so I think that following Jesus, it looks different in year 20 than it does in it year one. You know, that's part of being the sheep of his pasture. Right.
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Do these things feel like, I mean, even just. I'm curious about your guys's method or how you think through the practicality of it. You talked on this subject. You're going to talk about uncertainty. What if I'm wrong? Is the question that we had initially talked about might be a different question. You're talking about the Holy Spirit here in a couple weeks. And I looked at the two things I took like, does my faith have to be radical? And then what do I do with my anger? And I was like, oh, I think I intentionally or maybe subconsciously pick something that felt a little narrow. You guys, these are huge things, and we're giving you guys 25 minutes, so good luck. Does it ever feel like these are too big in the practice of, yeah, I'm gonna teach people about this. Then what do you do with that feeling, if it's true or maybe it doesn't feel too big for you?
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I don't. I always feel like we hit these big topics and you could spend a year talking about discerning the voice of God. But then sometimes we make a single topic into a series, and after week two, I'm like, we should have only done one week, you know, So I do think there's a sweet spot where either you're going to go all the way into a topic or you kind of need to preach it in a way that sparks, maybe a lean in to that. Not because you're going to answer every question, not because you're going to exegete every scripture that has to do with that, but because we're going to spend 25 minutes and invite people in to a new way of thinking around these things. And hopefully, you know, year after year as we do this, maybe something sticks to where someone goes really deep and does their own deep dive on what is the Holy Spirit's work in my life. And I think that does happen. So do we have to cover everything there is to know about the Holy Spirit?
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No.
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Nor could we, even if we spent a year on it. But in 25 minutes, maybe we can spark someone to have their eyes opened to, wow, what if the Holy Spirit is real? And what if that changes everything? You know, those kind of things? That's how I look at it.
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Yeah, I agree. I think it's a little. You have to do some pastoral work there. Because we started talking about the Holy Spirit topic, which I'm preaching in a couple weeks, and I immediately was like, well, doctrine of the Trinity, like, we gotta talk about that and blah, blah, blah. Well, you know, we gotta start here and build from there, and then you have to take a step back. And as I've been digging in a little bit, I'm like, that's the wrong move, Pastor. Like, yeah, sure, maybe there are some people that would really love that and benefit from that. But overall, I think I agree with you, Evan. The pastoral move in that. In that message specifically is like, man, if we could open people's eyes, like, see or be aware of the Holy Spirit's presence in their every day, and they're playing with their kids and they're cooking dinner, you know, things like that, then that is a win. Just, you know, to. To open ourselves up to a different aspect of God or a way that God works and moves in a different. Like, yeah, it's so tempting to Start teaching Theology 101, but. But, yeah, I just think you gotta. You gotta approach it pastorally and think, like, now, what would I want to hear if I was sitting in church and what's the felt need from the people who are. Who are coming week after week?
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Well, I think that's where we get in trouble sometimes. Go. What would I want to hear?
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Well, doctrine of the Trinity, it's like, maybe not everybody would like to hear
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some of the conversations that we can. And that really is a good. A good worthy wrestle that I hope we allow ourselves to be engaged in all the time, this interest and expertise and education and reading and all these things that are. That we like to do that are also part of our job. And what is the pastoral kind of handhold that goes along with that? Yeah, both things have to be true. We can't. We can't just be all fluff, and we can't just refuse to meet people where they're at because we want to be somewhere else. That's not pastoring at all. And it's. It. I don't know that I've ever gotten used to that feeling of wanting to run all the way over into this niche and being like, the people in the room, though. There's a little bit of a Peter being like, maybe we should build houses up here on this mountain for this incredible experience that we're having. Jesus. And meanwhile, the. The people are waiting at the bottom, you know, and to live up here is not the reason Jesus exists. Sometimes it's down, though. That metaphor makes it sound like it's to be looking over. Sometimes I'm way too far into the earth.
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Actually.
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Everyone's waiting for me to come out of the hole.
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Six more weeks of winter. We just stopped in to see his shadow. Ben came out. Yeah. And I think that we have to know there are different settings for different ways that people hear. And so there are settings for teaching and study and reading, and there's moments for exhortation and true preaching. And preaching. I think we cover. Make that a big umbrella. It could be teaching, it could be exhortation, it could be encouragement, it could be pastoral, it could be devotional. But like homiletics, like preaching, at its core is an announcement, you know, of. Of some news that brings, I don't know, good news. Right. It's gospel. Right. We're announcing the gospel. And that really is the job on Sundays. And some churches would say, no, we teach, you know, theology on Sunday. Okay, well, that's. That's that. But I. I do feel like we have a job to preach the gospel in those 25 minutes. And so whatever the topic is. And I think we see this actually in our worship songs. And a good theologically written worship song does this brilliantly where in the course of a verse or a chorus, it can express something theological without groundhogging it to where I think of, like, spirit of the living God, fall fresh on me, blow through the caverns of my soul. That speaks a lot of theology about the Holy Spirit and the wind of the presence of God without ever, you know, getting into trinitarian doctrine. But it does something, and it causes. It causes something in your spirit to lean in without having to check out your theological brain. And I think that's. That's true about good preaching, too.
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So what do we say to the people that would look for that? Right, that. That 2%, that if you started off with saying, we're going to jump into trinitarian theology, they're going to go, oh, thank God, finally someone did this.
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2% or 2. Yeah, the two people.
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What do we encourage them to do? You know, because I. You could take this as like, oh, okay, I guess you don't want to keep up with us, and that's fine. What do we do with them? What do we encourage them to do?
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I view that small percentage as the same way I view people who are like, we just want to go deeper. We just want to go deeper. Like the Sunday service serves a very specific purpose in the life of faith in Christianity. And it is one small part of our lives of faith. And I think there needs to be some ownership of every Christian to dig deep into the things that make you light up. And if that's trinitarian theology or if that's going deep with the Holy Spirit, you know, whatever it might be, like, go there, do it. You read the book, you know, and of course, like, we'll resource as best we can and all that. We've got branches, Sunday school classes that we offer and things where we do touch on a lot of these different things. But. But I just think Sunday services are, are unique and I don't think they're ever designed to hit the entire scope of all that is our faith. And we all have to be okay with that. It's a very specific, unique thing that we come together to do that's really beautiful. And it serves a one purpose, I would say. Yeah.
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And I've. I've noticed more recently a number of people that will come up to us after a Sunday service, whether you're preaching or any of us are preaching, but they'll come to me and they'll say, you know, and I'm sure you've heard this, but I feel like that was just towards spoken to me or even I was meeting with a guy today and he was just saying, like, I'm just in this place where everything feels fresh. And so every message that I hear you guys preach, it just feels so rich. And I told him, I said, it's amazing because we know sometimes we can preach a very subpar message, but you receive something not because of what we said, because you have ears to hear. And that's kind of the phrase I've been responding with when I hear those statements is Jesus said, if you have ears to hear it, and not everybody does, but when you do, you're going to actually hear God speak through this in a way that is not just because Ben was clever with how he pulled that passage apart, because God's speaking through that sometimes because of us, sometimes in spite of us, but it's the hearer actually receiving it that causes that. Aha. And I think when people are like, I just want more depth, they don't have ears to hear. And so it doesn't matter how good our preaching would be if you've turned that off and decided, I'm not here to receive anymore. I just don't know if you. You're gonna get it.
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No, it's True. And I've been in spots where I think I have better ears to hear than other times, and I'm getting it everywhere. Like, I'm reading children's books. I'm like, wow, that's profound. Like, to hear it so simply. And, you know, whatever. I can hear it. I can hear it just about everywhere. All kinds of art and film and teaching and things like that. So I think that's a really good point. And I do sense that. And I've wondered sometimes if it's because I'm defensive in those settings. And some I think I am. But that's almost always what I'm hearing from people, is that it's the, like, I just want to be fed crowd, or I'd like to go deeper crowd. And sometimes it's almost like this Christian treasure hunting. I think they're looking for. I think they're looking for this very special thing that not many people have discovered. This cave that I've walked into of this faith where I know something that other people. People don't.
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Yeah.
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And sometimes I think it's just you don't actually want to hear. You don't really want to be challenged, because it doesn't take a whole lot if you have ears to hear to really be challenged. Yeah.
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Or if you just don't like my preaching or our preaching, that's fine, too. Just. Just say that. Just say that, you know, usually what they're saying. Because if that's the case. Yeah. Go find somebody you like to listen to. Of course, you're giving a lot of time to sitting in rooms and listening to people preach. Find preachers you like. So if that's the reason that you don't want to be here, that's totally fine. I'm not being fed here. Maybe it's because the preaching is so bad that there's just no room for that, but typically it's something else. And so call it what it is. I don't like Evan, that is wonderful honesty. Go find a church. You like the pastor. But yeah, it is funny.
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You're giving Justin permission to really speak his mind after this podcast.
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Yeah. Why did Justin just leave the room? I've been hanging on long enough. Antioch or bust. He's leaving for. Oh, so funny. But you talked about anger this past week and. Yeah, it was good. I don't believe you. No, it was good. I don't consider myself typically an angry person, and so I probably skew more into other cousins of anger, whether it be anxiety or control or whatever, but I was Standing next to you. And I heard a lot of comments from people were like, oh, my goodness. That just. That really hit me hard kind of thing. Did you hear that a lot?
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So much, you guys. Like, I was shocked because I was feeling like. I actually felt like I was making a little bit of a sacrifice and being like, I think I'm going to talk to a lot of people, but a smaller percentage of the room than I usually do, and that'll be okay. Like, we'll just do that for this Sunday. And maybe that was true. The amount. The amount of people talking to me about this, that message yesterday is absurd. The text messages and the emails and the people afterward and all that kind of stuff. A lot of people identified with anger, and specifically people that felt like they connected with me where it was relatable. The idea of how quickly it could just. It just shows up. Anger is this wild animal that just happens to appear. And I use the reference of. I just am really triggered by loud vehicles right now in my life. I don't know why I feel like it's a certain way, certain age you get to, and that just makes you instantly rage. And we have thoughts that do the same thing that are like, the big vehicle that goes by you at a loud volume. We think about people. There's different little triggers that we have that kind of engage us into that. And so for me, as a kid especially, I remember this feeling of, like, all right, being angry. And sometimes I would think of it as, like, being competitive. This is bad, and I need to get this out of my. I need to stop and be more stoic or something. And that led to a lot of, like, real dissatisfaction in my. Like, I think when I felt like I was doing things right, I was just really bland and. And almost trying to, like, distance myself from things. That was the best version of Ben doesn't get mad and Ben doesn't get competitive, and this doesn't feel quite right either. And so the. The solution couldn't be, all right, we're just going to not be angry, and if we are angry, we're going to pretend that we're not. But of course, it's not to just fly off the handle every single time. I feel like I have an excuse either. And so that was what that message was from. How do we present and give our whole selves to God? And so not. How do we just shove down every emotion that we think is negative? And anger is a big one, I think, for people that left the service yesterday feeling like, okay, I can have this. It can be a tool for me. And here's a few pathways to not allow it to become the beast that can ruin my life.
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Yeah, I thought that was a really strong point of what do we do with anger? Well, the question then becomes, how do we bring our whole selves to God? And that idea of, I don't have to, you know, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this to where when I become angry, oh, my faith is out the window and I just gotta kind of, you know, hulk that out. And then when I'm back to. I'm mixing metaphors and stories here, but when I'm back to Dr. Dr. Banner, which was the doctor as well. See, it all comes together. It was probably. Hulk was probably inspired by Dr. Jekyll, wasn't he?
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Was.
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Yeah.
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I think that's legit. Yeah.
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Anyway, but the idea that, like, we just have to, I guess, wait until we calm down and then we can get back on track with Jesus. This idea that we can bring our whole selves to God and surrender all of that, and that maybe there is some utility in anger without letting anger run the show. That was pretty profound.
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Yeah. If it's a. If it's an alarm bell, hey, something is wrong. Or maybe it's even something is wrong in me, you know, and this. This can be an alarm bell for me to look inward. I think that's the place where angry people don't get readily. It's. It's always, no, I see that something is wrong and everyone needs to know, and I'll let you know. Sometimes it's. I see that something is wrong, but it actually might be an indicator that something inside of me needs to change. That's where a lot of the maturity comes in. And that was kind of where I found a lot of good progress for myself. Of, okay, I feel angry, and actually, I don't think it's anyone else in this thing. And also, I'm not going to shame myself for it either. Like, I'm going to take this for what it is. It's going to be that light on the dash, and then I'm going to begin to do the work to change it. And that actually has allowed my competitive nature to come back, because I'm not afraid of it turning into the Hulk as much as I used to. You know, it's allowed me to stand up for things that I want to stand up for because I feel like that's my responsibility without understanding that I don't need to, because it really was in my mind For a while, it was like, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna lose my friends, I'm gonna lose my job, and I'm gonna leave. And that's gonna be okay because that's
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the price you pay when you're mad, you know, Like.
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And I learned that I.
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You.
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That doesn't have to be that way, you know? And I have a lot of gracious people in my life that have helped me through those things, too. You guys have helped me stay employed through some of my episodes here. We don't have to go through all those right at this moment.
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Well, the people love you, Ben, So we have to put up with your anger just because we know there would be mass revolt if we kicked you out.
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Yeah. I leverage a lot of my really poor behavior around here with, yeah, but
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the people love me. It's a good week. When you hear that yelled from Ben's office. Yeah. You can't get me out of here.
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I think I did have one moment several years ago when this was my office, and I. I threw something across the room.
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And having flashbacks to that right now.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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I think marks on the wall.
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Yeah, there might be. Yeah, something like that. There was a moment partway through, like, the second time where I was like. Like, I. I better tell everyone that I've. I'm doing a decent job with this now because I. I'm making myself out to be real scary. Like, people are gonna ask my wife if she's okay.
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Yeah. You know what I mean? That is. There's a line in trying to be relatable to where you exaggerate your own faults.
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Yeah.
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People are like, oh, no, who is this terrible person?
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He's leading the church.
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Yikes. No, it's just rhetorical. It's for.
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A few people walked out in the middle of the service, which happens. But when you're wondering about that already, and then they walk out and they go, oh, no, I scared them. Probably not.
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They're going to Antioch.
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Maybe.
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Yeah, that's right. Immediately, the next service time starting up,
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we.
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I wanted to mention this, too. We're sending missionaries to Spain tomorrow. We're getting on a plane. We just. Just before this recording, we prayed with Gans and Ashlyn as they're heading to Spain. And this is a kind of a big deal for us as Westside because we haven't had missionaries that have been fully covered. And by covered, I mean their financial structure, their pastoral licensing. All of that is staying with Westside as they go to Spain. So this is A big deal, like
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still a staff member is a simple way to put it. Right?
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A simple way, yes.
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It's more complicated.
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There's some nuance to that, but yeah. And we have lots of missionary partners that we love and support and visit, but often they're independent of us. And this is different because Gaunt and Ash are an extension of us. So it's very exciting to be sending them to Spain. El Campeo Alicante is the area that they're going to be in southern Spain on the coast. But you're going to be there next week to kind of visit them right as they land on the ground.
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Week from Monday.
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Yeah.
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Yeah. It's wild.
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Yeah.
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So I didn't give him too big a hug or anything.
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I want to do that view. Yeah.
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You know, that whole, like, saying bye to someone, seen him in the next grocery aisle. I hate that. So, you know, gave him a quick fist bump and said, they'll be fine.
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And then I kissed both of his cheeks. So it was a whole different. It was just funny because he'd always talked about, you know, culturally. He's from Argentina. I spent a lot of time in Spain, and. And so there's certain cultural things that you just don't get here. And so the. The cheek kissing when you greet someone is just not normal around here. And I did it one time to him when I saw him. We were traveling somewhere. And he has brought that moment up more than any other thing I've ever heard him talk about to me. And so I know how deeply meaningful it was to, like, I heard it happen. Were you close enough to hear the.
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Heard the kissing.
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Kissing. And the beard. The beard movement.
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Don't take that out of context.
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That sounded weird, but
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that's what it was.
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That's what I heard.
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These things matter. I mean, cultural man. It matters. So get your kissing cheeks ready, Ben, because you're heading to Spain.
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I'm over here, just in anger. And then there's Evan, the kissing pastor.
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I've only kissed Gantz.
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Sure. Agreed.
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Those are my two. Those are my two staff members I've given kisses to.
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I mean, it's good. We shouldn't have. Too many angry passers. Know.
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I prefer.
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Prefer the other stuff. I almost said that, but then I get weird.
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Yeah, well, you guys are. Justin's giving us the wrap up. Move on. Keep going anyway.
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Fine.
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All right, well, we'll. I think we're going to be back for one more before you leave. Ben.
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No, I'm going Thursday.
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You're. You're leaving out Thursday. Well, this is. Yeah, this is all the people are going to get when it comes to behind the message this, this month then. So I was about. It was good.
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We'll wrap up good questions. Without another behind the message.
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No, but Ben's gone. We could talk.
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Well, I'm going to Turkey and then I'm off. Oh, for a while. Yeah.
175
00:33:58.000 --> 00:33:59.000
That was it.
176
00:33:58.000 --> 00:33:59.000
Yeah.
177
00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:00.000
No more good questions.
178
00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:09.000
I like how we're just working on the schedule now on the air. The people love it. Yeah. Only one time to talk about good questions. That's a bummer.
179
00:34:09.000 --> 00:34:12.000
We should probably do a big round wrap of it.
180
00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:14.000
Yeah. Yeah. When everyone's back. Well, good question.
181
00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:16.000
Made for podcast.
182
00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:27.000
Yeah, not for us. Too busy. All right, we'll see you when we see you.
