WEBVTT
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So they say something is stirring in Gen Z.
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We hear a lot about this generation, their anxiety, their skepticism, their distrust of institutions, and even their growing distance from the church.
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And if we're not careful, we could begin to see Gen Z as a problem to solve rather than a people to love.
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But what if there is a genuine spiritual hunger, a generation that's searching for something that's authentic, something meaningful, something that's real?
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What if it begins with something really simple?
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Like just being more like Jesus.
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Thanks so much for being with us today on Venture Northeast Current, a podcast designed to encourage, equip pastors, and ministry leaders across the Northeast.
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I'm your host, Doug Geese.
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Today our topic is hungry for something real, loving genes toward Jesus.
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Joining me today is, I'm really excited about this, Reverend Dr.
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Mark Fee, founder, director of First Love Ministries.
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Mark spent 17 years as the lead pastor of Vineyard Metro North Church before God called him into a broader ministry of helping people experience the transforming love of God.
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And, you know, that's just what we're praying for as the days go forward here.
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So Mark, thanks so much for being on our podcast today.
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Oh, my pleasure.
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Thank you.
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You know, Mark, I want to start with this topic of Gen Z.
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And I think both of us, you know, we're several generations removed from Gen Z.
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So we don't know too much.
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And I just plead ignorance here on Gen Z and what they're truly like.
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But according to what you know, some polls say, like Barna, um, that there is a genuine spiritual interest.
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Um and and uh and it and I liken it much to the days back in the 60s, early 70s.
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Uh it was an era of anxiety, confusion.
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I mean, you name it.
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There was uh, you know, I mean, Vietnam and assassinations, JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Bobby Kennedy, and um, there was just a lot to a lot of unrest, social unrest.
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And there's kind of that same similar thing going on today.
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So I don't know, have you thought about how uh you know these kind of two very distant generations are kind of similar here, perhaps?
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Yeah.
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Um well I guess it's not surprising at all insofar as some of the concerns, some of the struggles that they are having are just universally human.
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Right.
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I mean, I don't know of any generation that didn't wrestle with anxiety, depression, and fear, and trauma, um etc.
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Right.
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I mean, it's the whole boom in even counseling, which a lot of counseling, as even in the last 20, 30 years, they've discovered that just listening is not enough, right, to make a difference.
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Um but the issue's been there for a very, very long time.
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And so even though the kind of the focus group is Gen Z today, um, as I was looking through some of the questions you prepared for me, I just recognize that it's just so normal human.
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And and I think we're where is in light of what you kind of said about what I do is that we in the church, one of the things so when I got my doctorate um around um the new command and etc.
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about being loved in order to love as and because loved.
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Um I think um one of the things that really came across as I also then looked at a lot of neuroscience was the fact that I think a big miss in the church has been the fact that overall none of us really knew that there was a generally agreed upon now um high-level differentiation with the brain, that there's the left brain and the right brain, and that the left brain is your logic center, um, and it's where we get language and executive functioning, but the right brain is where we store all of our relational memory, and the interesting thing too about that memory is that the configuration of those neurons when you have an experience, another one and a way of saying that was epic episodic memory, right?
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You've had an episode, and depending on the intensity of the emotion, either positive or negative, is the crazy glue that secures it, unlike your left brain, where you have to go through all the steps of repetition and intervals and in certain amount of time between those intervals.
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And for you and I both as pastors, you consider all the work, and maybe some of those who are listening, right?
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But you put all the work into that message, and then you see somebody that afternoon and go, So, what'd you think about today?
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And go, wait, what was it about again?
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Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Well, I kind of liked, and then they say some point that you probably didn't even make because their brain went off somewhere, right?
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And uh and the Holy Spirit worked something else in their heart.
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But again, I think overall, that one of the things that was so intriguing to me about what God was doing in my own life and in the church was recognizing that these words that you listed of again anxiety and um fear and trauma and whatever else, is that probably for most of us when we went to seminary, we were given the idea that all we had to do was teach the truth.
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Yeah.
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And there was a wonderful book called Escaping the Matrix that um written by a theologian and by a Christian neuroscience counselor.
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And they had a quote, they said it twice, that just totally fixed my attention, and that was as they were trying to describe the difference between the two sides of the brain, and they said, You cannot fight experiential cancer with the band-aid of conceptual information, and in our case, would be conceptual truth, right?
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Experiential cancer, and I just laughed one day, imagining you know, somebody going and like in the summertime taking their shirt off, and there's about two inches thick of band-aids all over their torso, you know, almost like a vest.
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Somebody'd go, What is that?
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And they'd go, Oh, I'm healing cancer, and you'd get laughed.
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Silly, yeah, right.
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But I think what's difficult is the fact that we're as a church, we have really not understood as well as the biggest insight along with that is not only can you not fight that kind of cancer that way, experiential cancer, but it's the fact that the left brain, truth, has a place, but the toughest thing is that it doesn't go to the right brain, it cannot touch those kinds of memories because those memories are encoded with emotion and with experience, and it's the thoughts that have come as a result of those traumatic experiences that just informing it is not enough.
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It has to actually be firing in such a way that you have a positive, greater or equal to experience that can actually counter that.
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Yeah.
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Well, most of our life in church, whether it's Bible study, Sunday morning, or whatever, our focus is primarily bent on truthful information and recognizing that for the longest time of any generation, those issues of feeling stuck and trapped and not changing, you know, when I first started my degree, um it was the very first weekend of our two-week cohort that we went over to the spiritual formation place, and the guy gave a lecture that day.
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And one of the things he said that the most important um what group of people in the church that are gonna make and break it is actually those have been Christians between 10 to 15 years and beyond, now everything they've heard is wah wah wah wah wah.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And it's like, well, I know that, I've heard that any number of times, but I'm not different.
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And I think even when 18 years a Christian, 30 years old, when I started pastoring the church, I was aware of how much I knew.
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But how much I was aware of how much I was still so broken and immature, and issues that no one had ever helped me and didn't even know how to talk about them.
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So, anyway, as it pertains to this Gen Z thing, I just think the hungry for something real, which is the title, is that I just don't know that there isn't a human being, ultimately, yeah, who doesn't want something like that.
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Yeah.
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Um, that our faith, and particularly we've, you know, you would have heard it too.
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We grew up hearing, well, Christianity's relationship, not religion.
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Right.
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Well, not so much, right?
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That's a nice, that's a nice pithy statement, but but yeah, right, and again, so he was just saying that the most neglected group in the church and most important group that if if you don't get them out of that disillusionment, which is ultimately what it becomes, right?
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You just start going, how could I been a Christian for 18 years at this point?
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And oh my gosh, I'm just so aware of of my own struggles, right?
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Anyway, so let's let's dive into that because your ministry emphasizes you know being first loved, experiencing the love of God in a in a real way.
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Um, and and so how do you how do you practically bring that into a a group of people who maybe are a little bit skeptical?
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You know, this generation probably didn't grow up in church because their parents didn't go to church, so they didn't grow up in church.
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But but we know that they need to have a moment when the love of God becomes real to them.
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Yeah, yeah, for sure.
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How do you how do you bring them?
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How do you bring them to that throne of grace where they can just soak in the love of God?
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Yeah.
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But you you sat with me enough times, you know I can want to talk all day about this, uh, the brief amount of time.
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But I I think I'll venture out first to simply say that I think at the at the heart of it it's it's our message.
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And a message that doesn't have behavior that goes with it.
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Right?
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I mean the most number one is the protege, three years of survey, you know, especially those all kinds of ages, but especially back then in 2013, 2014, they had done the 18 to 30-ish, you know, and how many of them just hated Christian faith?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Primarily because of their experience with Christians.
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Yeah.
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Why they thought it, you know, it's judgmental, hypocritical, homophobic, blah blah blah, blah, blah, all their things.
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And that out of out of that, one of the most devastating moments was when the question was asked, this statement Christians are primarily known by loving.
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And only 16% of them said they could see that as maybe being true.
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Wow.
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16%, you know.
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So I mean, there's a if the number one thing that's supposed to identify us is by this, this is what's gonna identify you, is the way that you love one another, right?
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Yeah, and so, but it I think even at the outset, um, is that you know, especially in the last hundred years or so, is that our message, i.e., the gospel, has primarily tended to be a destination message.
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Yeah, you know, don't you want to go here and not go there, and here's how you can ensure that that's you'll arrive where you want to arrive.
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And I think for me, is that that's not how I heard the gospel, and nor did I experience quote unquote conversion, it was real conversion to me.
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And 13, right, at a youth conference.
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At the and and the amazing thing was at the end of the session, the guy actually presented the gospel as um um Peter did in Acts chapter 2, when they go, What do we do?
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And he says, Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
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It wasn't about you won't go to hell, you'll go to heaven.
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It was a reconciliation message, what God had done to help reconcile us to him, you know, in that sense, right?
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Relationship religion.
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But the point is, is that most of my adult Christian life, since 13 is I have hardly ever heard anybody present the invitation that way, where he invited us to stand, first of all.
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That were you aware that you needed to be forgiven and then what the Lord had done for you, and it's like everything, crying and yes, and and he just says, So now receive the forgiveness of the Lord.
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And I was just 13, but I felt this peace come over me.
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Yeah, it was palpable, and then when the whole room kind of died down, he says, and now receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and in that moment, I I mean, the first time I read Romans 5:5, that hope doesn't disappoint us because he's poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
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I felt like I could have written that sentence.
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Wow, it was that real to me, such that you know, the rest of seventh grade and then all of eighth grade.
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Everybody signed my yearbook to Mark the Jesus freak because I couldn't keep my mouth shut, but I was the woman at the well, right?
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Yeah, come meet the guy, yeah.
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And and so the whole destination thing, I was like, it was foreign to me.
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It was like, no, come and meet Jesus, come experience the Holy Spirit, come experience and forgiveness, and you'll experience this joy and this peace.
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And I remember even walking out and asking the youth leader, like, does this go away or does this stay?
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You know, this is so wildly cool.
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Um, and so I think from the outset the gospel is supposed to be experiential.
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I I don't know any other way around that, right?
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It's not a mental ascent, right?
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And especially when the fact that Paul refers to that, the Spirit of God is a deposit guaranteeing what is to come, right?
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That you get to experience in part now what we will experience forever, yeah, of joy and peace and all of that stuff.
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And so I was fortunate, right, to start off that way, and that my longing was for people to have that, you know, what Jesus did for forgiveness, and then what he and the father do to give us the empowerment to be different, you know, to be transformed.
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And so go ahead.
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Yeah, you know, and and I don't care what tradition you're from, you hear you hear the same thing across so many different denominations and traditions.
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I think of people like Henry Blackaby, who talks about experiencing God means genuinely understanding the love relationship that God wants to have with you.
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Um you talk to you, you know, you read A.
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W.
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Tozer, it's the same thing.
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You're you read C.S.
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Lewis, it's the same, the same themes are running through all of these different writers.
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Um, and and it is about this experiential love that correct that well, and of course the mystics as well.
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It's so many, right?
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I mean, it's you know, Brother Lawrence, you know, I mean living in that awareness of that love and that presence, right?
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And so I think I think when it comes to hungry for something real, is that it is again is that you know, I remember one day just saying to our own church, and sometimes when I'm out and about, I'll say to a church, I said, I just want to say this kindly, but I want you to genuinely think about where are you in your years of being a Christian and how much are you inviting people to come and know your experience?
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Yeah, right?
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I think evangelism like again, our church went from 70 to 400 in five years because of what we were doing in the corporate setting in our alone times, so that we were experiencing God's love, and people kept inviting people to come to church because God is there and you'll get loved, right?
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It was it was this amazing thing that was taking place, and but recognizing is that every now and then I just asked somebody, why did you come?
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Why did you come?
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Well, it was a family member, it was a friend, or somebody, and they they just went, we just saw such a change in them, and we're going, How did that happen?
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Who are you?
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I mean, it used to haunt me in the first 18 years of when you know Paul says it in one place, Peter in the other.
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Be ready to give an answer to the host.
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That you have, and I kept going, God, nobody's ever asking me a question.
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I'm like, what's going on?
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You know, but then we were being loved well and then intentionally loving as we had been loved.
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Let me let me let me drill down on that one just a bit minute because I think I think this generation, I think that they can smell a fake a mile away, and authenticity is absolutely what they're looking for, needing, they need to see it.
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Um and we've got a lot of pastors, ministry leaders that are probably watching this.
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And and again, some of us, self-included here, I I spend too much time in my head.
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You know, it's it's the cognitive, it's uh, you know, let me prove to you uh informationally, theologically, why Jesus uh is the Christ.
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And you know, and and and and again they need to see the love of God first.
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So so how do I how do these pastors how how do we start to genuinely care about um young people um so they don't feel like a project, right?
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Oh yeah, I saw that question.
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And I thought, oh God, do I remember those days when and the bottom line is first of all, the question just the question is just wrong insofar as the command is not to evangelize ultimately, it was to bear witness, yeah, bear witness acts, right?
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Bear witness to what you've experienced and what you've seen.
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And uh, and of course, that was all experiential for them, yeah, right?
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So bearing witness, so in that sense, that anyone would ever be a problem, they're just telling their stories, right?
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I mean, that's what it is, it's just what it is, you know, and and of course, yet at the same time, remember I I did a stint in YWAM, and then I'll I'll get to the how part, but I I was at YWAM in Amsterdam, and um I remember one day we'd all been out doing evangelism, you know, and I had my Bible and I went into the Christian coffee bar and I put it down on the on the bar, and the guy sitting there, he looks over at it and he goes, Bible?
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And I went, Yeah, and he goes, Christian?
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I go, Yeah, he goes, Well, um, Islam, and he pulls out his Quran, and so we start to go at it a little bit, and then at some point though, he says, Well, Mark, he says, You have Jesus and Bible, you're happy.
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I have Quran and Muhammad, I'm happy, you're happy, I'm happy, we're both happy.
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Is that not good?
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And I remember going back to the only private place in all of Ywan Base, the bathroom, and locking the door, and just going, God, what on earth just happened there that we stake and walk away.
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Well, we're both happy.
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Is that not good?
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Right?
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Um again, just the the way that things are shared.
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Yeah, where a different story would be for years when when I was pastoring there in Melrose Mass, the Y was just down the street in on Main Street, and they would play volleyball three days a week at lunchtime.
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And so I, me and a bunch of people, we were faithful down there all the time.
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And there was one other guy who's about my same height, same size, and we were always against each other, right?
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And and it was awesome volleyball, right?
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And uh, but I'd get to sit, you know, you get a shower, whatever, you get to sit and have a conversation.
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And one day, this guy just casually says, you know, Fee, he says, I really enjoy you.
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And I went, Oh, well, thanks.
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I like you too.
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And then though, just prompted by the spirit, I just went, you know what I love about that comment though?
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It means you really like God.
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And he goes, Oh, God, you pastors, you can't help yourself, right?
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Bring God in.
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I didn't say anything about God, and I said, But you did.
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He says, No, I didn't.
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I said, You said you really like me, and I'm telling you that what you like about me, and I just lifted up some of the character things, right?
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The behavior things, the character things, yeah, whatever.
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And I said, It's him living in me, revealing himself to you, even as he did through Jesus to the disciples.
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I said, I would probably hate your idea of God too.
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Yeah, but I'm telling you, you need you just discovered, I'm telling you, this is who God is.
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Yeah, right here, me.
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And you like me, which means you would really like him.
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No, I wouldn't.
00:27:50.160 --> 00:27:58.240
I said, no, you you've got your mind fixed on an idea of God that I would, I'm sure I would hate, right?
00:27:58.880 --> 00:28:01.759
All right, so anyway, I don't know why I went off on that.
00:28:02.079 --> 00:28:03.039
Hey, that's okay.
00:28:03.279 --> 00:28:05.200
I bring those all over the place.
00:28:05.440 --> 00:28:12.720
Uh here's a question for you because I think this is part of that genuine love that needs to be seen.
00:28:12.960 --> 00:28:16.720
Um and and and I wrote this question for you.
00:28:16.880 --> 00:28:26.079
I was thinking of my wife, uh, because sometimes she said, Um, yes, you're hearing me, but you're not listening.
00:28:27.680 --> 00:28:42.160
Um so how important is listening, not just hearing, uh before we give Gen Z the answers they need, um what what do we need to hear?
00:28:42.319 --> 00:28:45.920
I mean, how do we how do we start hearing really attentively?
00:28:46.079 --> 00:28:47.200
Because that is a skill.
00:28:47.359 --> 00:28:54.240
Boy, that is a skill in and of itself, and I'm not sure many of us are very good at it.
00:28:54.480 --> 00:29:00.799
And how do we how do we develop that skill of attentive listening?
00:29:02.799 --> 00:29:07.279
Well, that's in getting along, and there's a whole training about how to listen.
00:29:07.359 --> 00:29:08.720
Well, because it matters.
00:29:09.279 --> 00:29:14.079
But the but the easiest thing, it's like real estate, location, location, location.
00:29:14.880 --> 00:29:22.079
It's learning how to listen, to understand, understand, understand before being understood.
00:29:23.680 --> 00:29:30.480
Yeah, and again, it's not so much about what they think as it is about what they've experienced.
00:29:30.640 --> 00:29:31.279
Yeah.
00:29:31.839 --> 00:29:44.240
Um, we we finally one day my my co-um director, Rachel, who's 35 or six now, 36, I think.
00:29:44.480 --> 00:30:00.559
Um, but it was Rachel um talking to my youngest son at the time, he had was just turning 30, and his best friend since high school, you know, was there.
00:30:00.880 --> 00:30:06.720
And and he asked me, he says, Mark, he says, I'm I'm religious.
00:30:06.880 --> 00:30:10.079
I have an uncle who's a Catholic something or right.
00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:12.000
And he goes, I'm religious.
00:30:12.160 --> 00:30:15.359
And Ben says, You you're religious, so what do you do?
00:30:15.519 --> 00:30:24.880
You know, and I got about five minutes into it and realized his eyes had glazed over, and I still haven't figured out how to give that answer simply.
00:30:25.200 --> 00:30:38.079
And then everybody laughed, and there was we were back on a deck, and we had we were living right on Anasquam uh lobster cove, and a lot of people were down on that dock and swimming, and Rachel's down there.
00:30:38.640 --> 00:30:48.559
And I look down and I see him talking, he had jumped in the water, he he had swum up to the edge and was talking to Rachel, and I went, ah sheet, I missed my chance, you know.
00:30:48.720 --> 00:30:55.359
And well, a few of the times I look out, and at least an hour had gone by, and the two of them are still down there chatting.
00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:57.759
And I'm like, What the heck?
00:30:59.359 --> 00:31:11.440
Well, I start helping clean up a little bit, and all of a sudden he just flings open the doors to the deck, you know, and he comes in just ecstatic and excited.
00:31:11.680 --> 00:31:12.640
And he goes, Mr.
00:31:12.799 --> 00:31:13.519
Fiend, Mr.
00:31:13.599 --> 00:31:14.079
Fiend.
00:31:15.519 --> 00:31:21.200
And pardon my French, but he just goes, you know, Rachel, that's an awesome.
00:31:22.799 --> 00:31:29.359
And he goes, Cody, you and Ben have been talking that way your whole lives.
00:31:29.599 --> 00:31:33.200
I'm sure I'm I'm sure Jesus spent a lot of time around the fisherman.
00:31:33.279 --> 00:31:35.200
I've probably heard you heard you heard that too.
00:31:35.759 --> 00:31:39.119
Carpenters and whatever, and I just just relax, you know.
00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:42.960
And I go, why is she effing awesome?
00:31:43.359 --> 00:31:47.119
And he said, she he says, well, he could answer.
00:31:48.240 --> 00:31:51.279
First of all, I just thought he was one of your kids' friends.
00:31:51.440 --> 00:31:55.119
She was, you know, and she didn't find out that he was she was working with you.
00:31:55.359 --> 00:31:55.920
Yeah.
00:31:57.039 --> 00:32:00.880
So the next day I asked Rich, I go, What the heck did you say?
00:32:02.079 --> 00:32:07.519
And she said, What do we do as a ministry?
00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:12.000
We help deepen your daily experience of being loved by God, yeah.
00:32:12.880 --> 00:32:22.319
So that you can be loved by one another, be loved by Him, and experience the joy and the peace of living in a in a loving relationship.
00:32:23.599 --> 00:32:25.519
She said, Well, hopefully you've experienced that.
00:32:25.759 --> 00:32:27.039
He went, Oh no.
00:32:28.400 --> 00:32:30.079
I mean, instantly.
00:32:30.799 --> 00:32:32.799
Oh no, no way.
00:32:33.039 --> 00:32:38.240
My family, friends, you know how broke and screwed up they are, and this, that, and the other thing.
00:32:38.319 --> 00:32:43.039
And so right, she goes, Well, I'm sad to hear that.
00:32:44.799 --> 00:32:53.359
Because that's what God wants for you, is for you to know full and complete joy and a peace that can't even understand, right?
00:32:53.599 --> 00:33:03.440
But then she says, But I'm sure you've experienced the pain and the anger of fear of not being loved and not being loving.
00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:05.680
And he goes, Yeah, that.
00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:19.920
He goes, Yeah, I'm not just months away from getting married, and and we fight all the time, and we're full of anger, and there's so much fear and stuff from this again, same things like from this world and this, that the other thing.
00:33:20.319 --> 00:33:36.640
You you can do something about that, and she goes, Oh, yeah, we the other half of our statement is not only to deepen your daily experience of being loved by God, but we know how to help remove the barriers to receiving and sharing that love.
00:33:36.799 --> 00:33:38.319
He says, Sign me up.
00:33:38.640 --> 00:33:40.000
Wow, yeah.
00:33:40.319 --> 00:33:59.039
It was in that moment we recognize that for the longest time, again, not only just destination gospel, but but we try to lead with, you know, Jesus loves you or God loves you for a lot of these kids, like you said, they're not growing up in church where they're like Jesus who, God who, and who cares?
00:33:59.279 --> 00:34:03.039
Yeah, I why would I care about what they think about me?
00:34:03.759 --> 00:34:12.800
Well, in that, we started recognizing that I think we were learning that we needed to start in the opposite direction.
00:34:13.679 --> 00:34:33.039
Because there's not a single human on the planet that does not know pain that results either in anger or fear, experience of retaliation, and hiding and avoiding, and all the mess that it creates.
00:34:33.199 --> 00:34:37.599
And you you try to talk, and it only makes that a thousand times worse, you know.
00:34:37.679 --> 00:34:41.599
And Rachel's going, uh-huh, we can help with that and help with that.
00:34:41.679 --> 00:34:51.199
And of course, listening became part of it, is that it's about listening to understand, to know, yeah, as to what to address, you know.
00:34:51.280 --> 00:34:53.119
Like you said, a number of things.
00:34:53.440 --> 00:34:59.039
Would you be interested in hearing any input on this which particular one?
00:34:59.199 --> 00:35:12.079
And but we recognize, Doug, I'm telling you, that that little phrase that we can say in 30 seconds to a minute has been mind-bending.
00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:14.480
How quickly people respond to that.
00:35:14.639 --> 00:35:18.239
Oh, yeah, joy and peace and being loved and loving.
00:35:18.320 --> 00:35:19.440
Are you kidding me?
00:35:19.599 --> 00:35:20.159
Yeah.
00:35:20.480 --> 00:35:24.400
No, that's just not real.
00:35:24.559 --> 00:35:26.719
That's not normal, that doesn't happen.
00:35:26.880 --> 00:35:27.519
Yeah.
00:35:27.920 --> 00:35:35.599
But you can do something about the pain and the resulting anger and fear and retaliation and blah blah blah, and unforgiveness.
00:35:36.559 --> 00:35:38.800
Yeah, we can do something about that.
00:35:38.960 --> 00:35:54.480
And so I I think at the heart of it, when we say like to listen well, I again I just think it's not just them, it's how many people.
00:35:54.639 --> 00:36:02.880
Yeah, people just don't stop long enough around other people, yeah.
00:36:03.039 --> 00:36:06.239
To just even know how to ask good open-ended questions.
00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:06.960
That's right.
00:36:07.119 --> 00:36:08.400
Yeah, it's true.
00:36:08.639 --> 00:36:09.039
Right?
00:36:09.199 --> 00:36:12.320
Just good open-ended questions, yeah.
00:36:12.480 --> 00:36:14.400
And those you can practice all the time.
00:36:14.480 --> 00:36:16.480
You don't even have to be in a difficult one.
00:36:16.639 --> 00:36:20.159
I mean, having five kids, oh my gosh.
00:36:20.719 --> 00:36:25.440
Besides picking them up, and I'd go, so what was your favorite part today at school?
00:36:25.679 --> 00:36:26.960
Oh, I don't know.
00:36:27.599 --> 00:36:30.480
Okay, you know, what did you learn and such?
00:36:30.639 --> 00:36:32.159
And I said, I don't remember.
00:36:32.559 --> 00:36:36.800
It was finally realizing that the biggest thing was finding an emotion.
00:36:38.639 --> 00:36:41.760
What made you feel the greatest joy today?
00:36:41.920 --> 00:36:42.639
Oh, there wasn't it.
00:36:43.039 --> 00:36:45.519
Well, then what caused pain today?
00:36:46.159 --> 00:36:47.679
Where did it come from?
00:36:48.239 --> 00:36:49.199
Oh my gosh.
00:36:49.360 --> 00:36:51.280
And they were off and running.
00:36:51.519 --> 00:36:54.639
Hey, that is just right there, Mark.
00:36:54.719 --> 00:37:05.360
That is just such a good one tidbit of that's that's a great opener for our kids, for our kids and as as pastors.
00:37:05.519 --> 00:37:10.480
Boy, kids, grandkids, that's such a great insight right there.
00:37:10.880 --> 00:37:14.719
What uh yeah, what what what made you feel joyful?
00:37:14.960 --> 00:37:17.039
What what didn't make you feel joyful today?
00:37:17.119 --> 00:37:18.639
What a great insight, huh?
00:37:18.960 --> 00:37:19.760
Oh, totally.
00:37:19.840 --> 00:37:39.199
And that, you know, when we're teaching about emotion and getting along, it's the fact that you have not everybody has the exact same headings, but most of them are you what made you mad, what made you sad, um, what made you anxious today, what thrilled you?
00:37:39.440 --> 00:37:52.000
Um I want to I want to draw this to a close and I want to I you know you've been you've been pretty much in the Northeast all your life, is that right?
00:37:52.320 --> 00:37:54.559
My whole adult life since I was 16.
00:37:54.960 --> 00:38:00.880
So you know the struggle that so many pastors are going through right now.
00:38:01.360 --> 00:38:05.840
Um a lot of them are experiencing discouragement.
00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:14.079
They're experiencing you know, it's the question, how do I get more young people into my church?
00:38:14.239 --> 00:38:42.559
You know, they're their churches are filled with a lot of older folks, and they're just looking at uh a a short a very short time frame of survival that they have, and they're realizing this church is gonna go quietly into the night if we don't do something.
00:38:42.800 --> 00:38:47.119
And so they're discouraged, they're they're depressed about what they're seeing.
00:38:47.360 --> 00:38:52.719
If you could give one encouragement to some of these pastors right now, um what would you say?
00:38:57.119 --> 00:39:00.639
Well, then let me finish with probably where you wanted me to start.
00:39:00.880 --> 00:39:06.480
Um and that was my own journey, right?
00:39:06.639 --> 00:39:10.000
As I said, it started off amazing.
00:39:11.840 --> 00:39:21.599
But eventually going to Wheaton College undergrad, Gordon Conwell, doctor of ministry degree at Talbot, etc.
00:39:22.320 --> 00:39:29.360
Um I became a lead pastor at 30 years old, 18 years old a Christian.
00:39:29.679 --> 00:39:37.280
And I thought, what better thing early on as a topic should be on love, since that's what we're supposed to be known by.
00:39:37.599 --> 00:39:51.440
Well, every passage that I chose all it did was make me feel more ashamed around how much I was not loving it that way.
00:39:52.719 --> 00:40:06.880
And I was it just really caused me to be crazy desperate where I'd been a carpenter from the time I was a freshman in high school, and I thought I was gonna be a carpenter.
00:40:07.039 --> 00:40:12.480
Um but I just said, Lord, if you don't do something, I want out.
00:40:12.800 --> 00:40:15.280
I don't want out of the kingdom, but I definitely want out.
00:40:15.360 --> 00:40:17.760
What business do I have leading a church?
00:40:18.400 --> 00:40:22.559
And I don't think I'm doing a very good job of what matters most.
00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:30.960
So I kept crying out to them now because I came from a Pentecostal background, I'm praying the Ezekiel 36.
00:40:31.519 --> 00:40:41.519
Um, remove from me my heart of stone, give me a heart of flesh, give me your new spirit, you know, to cause me to obey.
00:40:42.639 --> 00:40:49.199
So I'm looking for this boom, instant zap, almost probably like what my conversion was like.
00:40:51.440 --> 00:40:53.360
And nothing was happening.
00:40:55.440 --> 00:40:59.840
And finally, uh, I reached a day when I'd written up my resignation.
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:07.199
I was getting ready, I said, if you don't do something, this is this is it, this is my ultimatum, maybe you do something today, or I'm done.
00:41:07.280 --> 00:41:09.840
I I'm I'm just gonna be done.
00:41:11.119 --> 00:41:24.000
And in his kindness, kind of in the midst of my little threat, um, I went one more time to first John 4.7 and following.
00:41:25.599 --> 00:41:31.199
And it was in that moment, you know, dear children let's love one another because love comes from God.
00:41:31.360 --> 00:41:34.800
Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love, right?
00:41:35.920 --> 00:41:37.840
And I keep on reading.
00:41:39.199 --> 00:41:45.760
But when I got to 4.19, which is where the title of the ministry comes from, we love because he first loved us.
00:41:45.920 --> 00:42:01.760
But Doug, I'm telling you, in that moment, it was it might as well have been audible, but he actually used the passage to talk to me about the problem.
00:42:01.840 --> 00:42:04.239
And he says, Mark, you've got it all wrong.
00:42:05.360 --> 00:42:10.400
You need to learn to come to me who is love, from whom love comes.
00:42:11.519 --> 00:42:14.639
There's never a moment that I am not loving you.
00:42:14.800 --> 00:42:17.760
All you ever do is pause to notice.
00:42:17.920 --> 00:42:23.679
Yeah, you need to come and let me love you first, and then you will love because.
00:42:24.880 --> 00:42:33.360
And of course, it was not until five years later when he showed me that Jesus' new command, love one another just as I have loved you.
00:42:33.519 --> 00:42:40.400
You can't obey that command unless you've actually been loved by Jesus first.
00:42:42.639 --> 00:42:48.800
So, but I just began with that verse, and I'm sitting there and I went, Well, Lord, how do we get loved?
00:42:49.039 --> 00:43:03.920
Well, in my Bible, 1 John 4 was on the right hand side, John 3 was on the left, and I still had highlighted from early discipleship time, 318, let us not love in word and tongue, but also in action and truth.
00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:13.679
And I just looked at that, and his that was his answer to me was the only way you as a human know what's in another's heart or mind is through words and actions.
00:43:13.840 --> 00:43:19.280
They we can't do the vulcan mind meld for those of us who are old enough to remember Star Trek, right?
00:43:19.519 --> 00:43:28.320
It's like he says it came through words and actions, which especially is the only way they experienced me through Jesus.
00:43:29.119 --> 00:43:32.480
He didn't do a vulcan mind meld either.
00:43:32.960 --> 00:43:38.239
The way they encountered him until finally in John 14, he's saying, Are you serious?
00:43:38.639 --> 00:43:42.000
Don't you realize if you've experienced me, you've experienced him.
00:43:42.480 --> 00:43:44.480
The words I say, the things I do.
00:43:44.559 --> 00:43:47.519
It's not me, but three times it's the Father living in me, Father.
00:43:48.800 --> 00:43:53.679
So, anyway, in that moment, I go, Okay, how do I get loved?
00:43:55.039 --> 00:43:58.159
And he's inviting me to come and be loved.
00:43:58.239 --> 00:43:59.760
And the first one was through work.
00:44:00.800 --> 00:44:11.119
And I just thought, okay, and I was learning Zephaniah 3:17 because it had become a worship song.
00:44:11.599 --> 00:44:17.519
And so um it was fresh on my mind, and it's third person future.
00:44:18.159 --> 00:44:18.480
Right.
00:44:18.639 --> 00:44:21.440
And so I said, Well, say that to me.
00:44:22.639 --> 00:44:29.199
The wild thing is, is I said it out loud because I wanted him to say it to me, like Jesus would have.
00:44:29.360 --> 00:44:30.559
And the prophets, right?
00:44:30.639 --> 00:44:34.719
The only way people experience God's word was through the human voice.
00:44:35.760 --> 00:44:38.480
And so in that moment, I said it loud, you know.
00:44:38.719 --> 00:44:42.559
Yeah, Mark, I am the Lord your God, and I am with you.
00:44:42.880 --> 00:44:45.039
Yeah, I am mighty to save you.
00:44:45.280 --> 00:44:47.440
And then he says, I take great delight in you.
00:44:47.599 --> 00:44:48.960
And I went, Why?
00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:53.599
I can think of so many reasons why that wouldn't be true.
00:44:53.840 --> 00:44:59.840
And Robin and I were memorizing Psalm 139, and so I said, Well, say that one to me.
00:45:00.639 --> 00:45:01.679
So I began.
00:45:01.920 --> 00:45:03.920
Mark, I've searched you and I know you.
00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:06.880
And I went, Uh-oh, that's not good.
00:45:07.360 --> 00:45:15.199
I know when you sit and when you rise, and oh, the whole thing was crushing me until finally he says, Such knowledge should be too wonderful.
00:45:15.280 --> 00:45:19.360
And I said, Truthfully, Lord, I feel a bit afraid at the moment.
00:45:20.960 --> 00:45:23.760
And Doug, that was when it all changed.
00:45:24.559 --> 00:45:39.199
Was when I sat there and it felt like a kind rebuke when he said, and there's the problem is that you don't know me at all experientially, yeah, right?
00:45:39.440 --> 00:45:42.239
Interacting with you, speaking to you, loving you.
00:45:42.400 --> 00:45:51.280
And I remember symbolically just pushing everything out of the way on my desk, and I was so desperate, I said, God, I don't even know if this is okay.
00:45:51.360 --> 00:46:03.440
Yeah, but I feel your invitation to come and be loved, and by doing so, it's gonna cause me to love because, yeah, and then later it was gonna cause me to love as.
00:46:04.239 --> 00:46:23.599
And so I just started doing it all by myself on my own, and then people started noticing the change in me first, and so again, in terms of discouragement or whatever, I would say to the pastors and leader, and especially the pastors, it needs to begin with you, right?
00:46:24.320 --> 00:46:42.320
You we one point we used to say first love ministries was changing the world one quiet time at a time, because most everybody's method of doing quiet time is only shame-producing, yeah, most of the time, right?
00:46:42.960 --> 00:46:51.760
And so now to come to be loved, and knowing that there's never a moment that he's not loving me, so all my issues, right?
00:46:51.840 --> 00:46:54.559
When he says he delights in me, and I go, Why?
00:46:55.519 --> 00:47:07.440
It just started bringing up all the barriers, all the unresolved issues, and just the transformative work that came just because he was talking to me through the passages, right?
00:47:07.840 --> 00:47:19.039
Anyway, so well, it began with me, and so I would say to them, I would challenge you, and all the material that's there, Doug can get it to you.
00:47:19.199 --> 00:47:27.679
But yeah, is learning how to begin by changing how you come and what you do.
00:47:27.840 --> 00:47:41.199
It's still time in the word, it's still time in prayer, and of course, and especially if you're in a small group where you get to speak this stuff to one another and address the broken areas, and right anyhow.
00:47:41.440 --> 00:47:44.480
Well, that's a good it is such a good reminder to us, Mark.
00:47:44.559 --> 00:47:54.960
I want I just want to thank you for joining us today because that is the heart of it, and I think it's what is so necessary today.
00:47:55.679 --> 00:48:06.400
So, brother, thanks for being with us, reminding us that uh yeah, Gen Z doesn't need to be a project, and we don't begin with having all the right answers.
00:48:07.039 --> 00:48:13.119
We begin with ourselves experiencing the love of God in order to share the love of God.
00:48:13.280 --> 00:48:16.639
And thanks for uh reminding right, yeah.
00:48:16.880 --> 00:48:35.199
That that that last thing is that if you do the one command, come and be loved, and then go out and love as and because loved, yeah, you will fulfill all 73 of Jesus' commands at one point or another because it's based on who's in front of you, their need or their behavior.
00:48:35.360 --> 00:48:45.280
And part of that is listening, noticing, discerning, and then loving as he's loved you when you are experiencing those things.
00:48:45.519 --> 00:48:46.239
That's good.
00:48:46.960 --> 00:48:48.079
Authentic.
00:48:48.559 --> 00:48:49.199
Thanks.
00:48:49.519 --> 00:48:57.760
Thanks for joining us today, Mark, and uh, thanks for all of you joining us today on this episode of uh Venture Northeast Currents.
00:48:58.159 --> 00:49:12.079
Until next time, keep loving people, letting God love you, keep investing in others, and keep advancing the mission of Jesus across the Northeast.
00:49:12.239 --> 00:49:13.599
Thanks so much for joining us.
00:49:13.679 --> 00:49:14.800
God bless everyone.
00:49:15.039 --> 00:49:15.840
Take care.
00:00:07.519 --> 00:00:11.759
So they say something is stirring in Gen Z.
00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:22.640
We hear a lot about this generation, their anxiety, their skepticism, their distrust of institutions, and even their growing distance from the church.
00:00:23.039 --> 00:00:30.160
And if we're not careful, we could begin to see Gen Z as a problem to solve rather than a people to love.
00:00:30.320 --> 00:00:41.200
But what if there is a genuine spiritual hunger, a generation that's searching for something that's authentic, something meaningful, something that's real?
00:00:41.759 --> 00:00:45.280
What if it begins with something really simple?
00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:48.000
Like just being more like Jesus.
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Thanks so much for being with us today on Venture Northeast Current, a podcast designed to encourage, equip pastors, and ministry leaders across the Northeast.
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I'm your host, Doug Geese.
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Today our topic is hungry for something real, loving genes toward Jesus.
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Joining me today is, I'm really excited about this, Reverend Dr.
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Mark Fee, founder, director of First Love Ministries.
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Mark spent 17 years as the lead pastor of Vineyard Metro North Church before God called him into a broader ministry of helping people experience the transforming love of God.
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And, you know, that's just what we're praying for as the days go forward here.
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So Mark, thanks so much for being on our podcast today.
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Oh, my pleasure.
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Thank you.
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You know, Mark, I want to start with this topic of Gen Z.
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And I think both of us, you know, we're several generations removed from Gen Z.
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So we don't know too much.
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And I just plead ignorance here on Gen Z and what they're truly like.
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But according to what you know, some polls say, like Barna, um, that there is a genuine spiritual interest.
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Um and and uh and it and I liken it much to the days back in the 60s, early 70s.
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Uh it was an era of anxiety, confusion.
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I mean, you name it.
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There was uh, you know, I mean, Vietnam and assassinations, JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Bobby Kennedy, and um, there was just a lot to a lot of unrest, social unrest.
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And there's kind of that same similar thing going on today.
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So I don't know, have you thought about how uh you know these kind of two very distant generations are kind of similar here, perhaps?
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Yeah.
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Um well I guess it's not surprising at all insofar as some of the concerns, some of the struggles that they are having are just universally human.
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Right.
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I mean, I don't know of any generation that didn't wrestle with anxiety, depression, and fear, and trauma, um etc.
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Right.
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I mean, it's the whole boom in even counseling, which a lot of counseling, as even in the last 20, 30 years, they've discovered that just listening is not enough, right, to make a difference.
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Um but the issue's been there for a very, very long time.
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And so even though the kind of the focus group is Gen Z today, um, as I was looking through some of the questions you prepared for me, I just recognize that it's just so normal human.
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And and I think we're where is in light of what you kind of said about what I do is that we in the church, one of the things so when I got my doctorate um around um the new command and etc.
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about being loved in order to love as and because loved.
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Um I think um one of the things that really came across as I also then looked at a lot of neuroscience was the fact that I think a big miss in the church has been the fact that overall none of us really knew that there was a generally agreed upon now um high-level differentiation with the brain, that there's the left brain and the right brain, and that the left brain is your logic center, um, and it's where we get language and executive functioning, but the right brain is where we store all of our relational memory, and the interesting thing too about that memory is that the configuration of those neurons when you have an experience, another one and a way of saying that was epic episodic memory, right?
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You've had an episode, and depending on the intensity of the emotion, either positive or negative, is the crazy glue that secures it, unlike your left brain, where you have to go through all the steps of repetition and intervals and in certain amount of time between those intervals.
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And for you and I both as pastors, you consider all the work, and maybe some of those who are listening, right?
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But you put all the work into that message, and then you see somebody that afternoon and go, So, what'd you think about today?
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And go, wait, what was it about again?
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Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Well, I kind of liked, and then they say some point that you probably didn't even make because their brain went off somewhere, right?
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And uh and the Holy Spirit worked something else in their heart.
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But again, I think overall, that one of the things that was so intriguing to me about what God was doing in my own life and in the church was recognizing that these words that you listed of again anxiety and um fear and trauma and whatever else, is that probably for most of us when we went to seminary, we were given the idea that all we had to do was teach the truth.
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Yeah.
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And there was a wonderful book called Escaping the Matrix that um written by a theologian and by a Christian neuroscience counselor.
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And they had a quote, they said it twice, that just totally fixed my attention, and that was as they were trying to describe the difference between the two sides of the brain, and they said, You cannot fight experiential cancer with the band-aid of conceptual information, and in our case, would be conceptual truth, right?
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Experiential cancer, and I just laughed one day, imagining you know, somebody going and like in the summertime taking their shirt off, and there's about two inches thick of band-aids all over their torso, you know, almost like a vest.
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Somebody'd go, What is that?
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And they'd go, Oh, I'm healing cancer, and you'd get laughed.
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Silly, yeah, right.
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But I think what's difficult is the fact that we're as a church, we have really not understood as well as the biggest insight along with that is not only can you not fight that kind of cancer that way, experiential cancer, but it's the fact that the left brain, truth, has a place, but the toughest thing is that it doesn't go to the right brain, it cannot touch those kinds of memories because those memories are encoded with emotion and with experience, and it's the thoughts that have come as a result of those traumatic experiences that just informing it is not enough.
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It has to actually be firing in such a way that you have a positive, greater or equal to experience that can actually counter that.
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Yeah.
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Well, most of our life in church, whether it's Bible study, Sunday morning, or whatever, our focus is primarily bent on truthful information and recognizing that for the longest time of any generation, those issues of feeling stuck and trapped and not changing, you know, when I first started my degree, um it was the very first weekend of our two-week cohort that we went over to the spiritual formation place, and the guy gave a lecture that day.
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And one of the things he said that the most important um what group of people in the church that are gonna make and break it is actually those have been Christians between 10 to 15 years and beyond, now everything they've heard is wah wah wah wah wah.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And it's like, well, I know that, I've heard that any number of times, but I'm not different.
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And I think even when 18 years a Christian, 30 years old, when I started pastoring the church, I was aware of how much I knew.
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But how much I was aware of how much I was still so broken and immature, and issues that no one had ever helped me and didn't even know how to talk about them.
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So, anyway, as it pertains to this Gen Z thing, I just think the hungry for something real, which is the title, is that I just don't know that there isn't a human being, ultimately, yeah, who doesn't want something like that.
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Yeah.
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Um, that our faith, and particularly we've, you know, you would have heard it too.
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We grew up hearing, well, Christianity's relationship, not religion.
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Right.
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Well, not so much, right?
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That's a nice, that's a nice pithy statement, but but yeah, right, and again, so he was just saying that the most neglected group in the church and most important group that if if you don't get them out of that disillusionment, which is ultimately what it becomes, right?
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You just start going, how could I been a Christian for 18 years at this point?
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And oh my gosh, I'm just so aware of of my own struggles, right?
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Anyway, so let's let's dive into that because your ministry emphasizes you know being first loved, experiencing the love of God in a in a real way.
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Um, and and so how do you how do you practically bring that into a a group of people who maybe are a little bit skeptical?
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You know, this generation probably didn't grow up in church because their parents didn't go to church, so they didn't grow up in church.
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But but we know that they need to have a moment when the love of God becomes real to them.
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Yeah, yeah, for sure.
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How do you how do you bring them?
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How do you bring them to that throne of grace where they can just soak in the love of God?
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Yeah.
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But you you sat with me enough times, you know I can want to talk all day about this, uh, the brief amount of time.
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But I I think I'll venture out first to simply say that I think at the at the heart of it it's it's our message.
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And a message that doesn't have behavior that goes with it.
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Right?
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I mean the most number one is the protege, three years of survey, you know, especially those all kinds of ages, but especially back then in 2013, 2014, they had done the 18 to 30-ish, you know, and how many of them just hated Christian faith?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Primarily because of their experience with Christians.
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Yeah.
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Why they thought it, you know, it's judgmental, hypocritical, homophobic, blah blah blah, blah, blah, all their things.
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And that out of out of that, one of the most devastating moments was when the question was asked, this statement Christians are primarily known by loving.
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And only 16% of them said they could see that as maybe being true.
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Wow.
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16%, you know.
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So I mean, there's a if the number one thing that's supposed to identify us is by this, this is what's gonna identify you, is the way that you love one another, right?
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Yeah, and so, but it I think even at the outset, um, is that you know, especially in the last hundred years or so, is that our message, i.e., the gospel, has primarily tended to be a destination message.
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Yeah, you know, don't you want to go here and not go there, and here's how you can ensure that that's you'll arrive where you want to arrive.
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And I think for me, is that that's not how I heard the gospel, and nor did I experience quote unquote conversion, it was real conversion to me.
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And 13, right, at a youth conference.
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At the and and the amazing thing was at the end of the session, the guy actually presented the gospel as um um Peter did in Acts chapter 2, when they go, What do we do?
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And he says, Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
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It wasn't about you won't go to hell, you'll go to heaven.
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It was a reconciliation message, what God had done to help reconcile us to him, you know, in that sense, right?
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Relationship religion.
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But the point is, is that most of my adult Christian life, since 13 is I have hardly ever heard anybody present the invitation that way, where he invited us to stand, first of all.
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That were you aware that you needed to be forgiven and then what the Lord had done for you, and it's like everything, crying and yes, and and he just says, So now receive the forgiveness of the Lord.
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And I was just 13, but I felt this peace come over me.
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Yeah, it was palpable, and then when the whole room kind of died down, he says, and now receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and in that moment, I I mean, the first time I read Romans 5:5, that hope doesn't disappoint us because he's poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
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I felt like I could have written that sentence.
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Wow, it was that real to me, such that you know, the rest of seventh grade and then all of eighth grade.
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Everybody signed my yearbook to Mark the Jesus freak because I couldn't keep my mouth shut, but I was the woman at the well, right?
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Yeah, come meet the guy, yeah.
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And and so the whole destination thing, I was like, it was foreign to me.
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It was like, no, come and meet Jesus, come experience the Holy Spirit, come experience and forgiveness, and you'll experience this joy and this peace.
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And I remember even walking out and asking the youth leader, like, does this go away or does this stay?
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You know, this is so wildly cool.
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Um, and so I think from the outset the gospel is supposed to be experiential.
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I I don't know any other way around that, right?
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It's not a mental ascent, right?
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And especially when the fact that Paul refers to that, the Spirit of God is a deposit guaranteeing what is to come, right?
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That you get to experience in part now what we will experience forever, yeah, of joy and peace and all of that stuff.
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And so I was fortunate, right, to start off that way, and that my longing was for people to have that, you know, what Jesus did for forgiveness, and then what he and the father do to give us the empowerment to be different, you know, to be transformed.
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And so go ahead.
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Yeah, you know, and and I don't care what tradition you're from, you hear you hear the same thing across so many different denominations and traditions.
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I think of people like Henry Blackaby, who talks about experiencing God means genuinely understanding the love relationship that God wants to have with you.
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Um you talk to you, you know, you read A.
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W.
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Tozer, it's the same thing.
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You're you read C.S.
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Lewis, it's the same, the same themes are running through all of these different writers.
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Um, and and it is about this experiential love that correct that well, and of course the mystics as well.
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It's so many, right?
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I mean, it's you know, Brother Lawrence, you know, I mean living in that awareness of that love and that presence, right?
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And so I think I think when it comes to hungry for something real, is that it is again is that you know, I remember one day just saying to our own church, and sometimes when I'm out and about, I'll say to a church, I said, I just want to say this kindly, but I want you to genuinely think about where are you in your years of being a Christian and how much are you inviting people to come and know your experience?
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Yeah, right?
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I think evangelism like again, our church went from 70 to 400 in five years because of what we were doing in the corporate setting in our alone times, so that we were experiencing God's love, and people kept inviting people to come to church because God is there and you'll get loved, right?
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It was it was this amazing thing that was taking place, and but recognizing is that every now and then I just asked somebody, why did you come?
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Why did you come?
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Well, it was a family member, it was a friend, or somebody, and they they just went, we just saw such a change in them, and we're going, How did that happen?
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Who are you?
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I mean, it used to haunt me in the first 18 years of when you know Paul says it in one place, Peter in the other.
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Be ready to give an answer to the host.
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That you have, and I kept going, God, nobody's ever asking me a question.
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I'm like, what's going on?
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You know, but then we were being loved well and then intentionally loving as we had been loved.
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Let me let me let me drill down on that one just a bit minute because I think I think this generation, I think that they can smell a fake a mile away, and authenticity is absolutely what they're looking for, needing, they need to see it.
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Um and we've got a lot of pastors, ministry leaders that are probably watching this.
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And and again, some of us, self-included here, I I spend too much time in my head.
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You know, it's it's the cognitive, it's uh, you know, let me prove to you uh informationally, theologically, why Jesus uh is the Christ.
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And you know, and and and and again they need to see the love of God first.
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So so how do I how do these pastors how how do we start to genuinely care about um young people um so they don't feel like a project, right?
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Oh yeah, I saw that question.
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And I thought, oh God, do I remember those days when and the bottom line is first of all, the question just the question is just wrong insofar as the command is not to evangelize ultimately, it was to bear witness, yeah, bear witness acts, right?
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Bear witness to what you've experienced and what you've seen.
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And uh, and of course, that was all experiential for them, yeah, right?
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So bearing witness, so in that sense, that anyone would ever be a problem, they're just telling their stories, right?
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I mean, that's what it is, it's just what it is, you know, and and of course, yet at the same time, remember I I did a stint in YWAM, and then I'll I'll get to the how part, but I I was at YWAM in Amsterdam, and um I remember one day we'd all been out doing evangelism, you know, and I had my Bible and I went into the Christian coffee bar and I put it down on the on the bar, and the guy sitting there, he looks over at it and he goes, Bible?
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And I went, Yeah, and he goes, Christian?
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I go, Yeah, he goes, Well, um, Islam, and he pulls out his Quran, and so we start to go at it a little bit, and then at some point though, he says, Well, Mark, he says, You have Jesus and Bible, you're happy.
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I have Quran and Muhammad, I'm happy, you're happy, I'm happy, we're both happy.
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Is that not good?
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And I remember going back to the only private place in all of Ywan Base, the bathroom, and locking the door, and just going, God, what on earth just happened there that we stake and walk away.
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Well, we're both happy.
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Is that not good?
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Right?
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Um again, just the the way that things are shared.
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Yeah, where a different story would be for years when when I was pastoring there in Melrose Mass, the Y was just down the street in on Main Street, and they would play volleyball three days a week at lunchtime.
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And so I, me and a bunch of people, we were faithful down there all the time.
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And there was one other guy who's about my same height, same size, and we were always against each other, right?
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And and it was awesome volleyball, right?
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And uh, but I'd get to sit, you know, you get a shower, whatever, you get to sit and have a conversation.
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And one day, this guy just casually says, you know, Fee, he says, I really enjoy you.
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And I went, Oh, well, thanks.
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I like you too.
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And then though, just prompted by the spirit, I just went, you know what I love about that comment though?
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It means you really like God.
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And he goes, Oh, God, you pastors, you can't help yourself, right?
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Bring God in.
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I didn't say anything about God, and I said, But you did.
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He says, No, I didn't.
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I said, You said you really like me, and I'm telling you that what you like about me, and I just lifted up some of the character things, right?
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The behavior things, the character things, yeah, whatever.
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And I said, It's him living in me, revealing himself to you, even as he did through Jesus to the disciples.
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I said, I would probably hate your idea of God too.
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Yeah, but I'm telling you, you need you just discovered, I'm telling you, this is who God is.
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Yeah, right here, me.
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And you like me, which means you would really like him.
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No, I wouldn't.
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I said, no, you you've got your mind fixed on an idea of God that I would, I'm sure I would hate, right?
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All right, so anyway, I don't know why I went off on that.
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Hey, that's okay.
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I bring those all over the place.
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Uh here's a question for you because I think this is part of that genuine love that needs to be seen.
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Um and and and I wrote this question for you.
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I was thinking of my wife, uh, because sometimes she said, Um, yes, you're hearing me, but you're not listening.
00:28:27.680 --> 00:28:42.160
Um so how important is listening, not just hearing, uh before we give Gen Z the answers they need, um what what do we need to hear?
00:28:42.319 --> 00:28:45.920
I mean, how do we how do we start hearing really attentively?
00:28:46.079 --> 00:28:47.200
Because that is a skill.
00:28:47.359 --> 00:28:54.240
Boy, that is a skill in and of itself, and I'm not sure many of us are very good at it.
00:28:54.480 --> 00:29:00.799
And how do we how do we develop that skill of attentive listening?
00:29:02.799 --> 00:29:07.279
Well, that's in getting along, and there's a whole training about how to listen.
00:29:07.359 --> 00:29:08.720
Well, because it matters.
00:29:09.279 --> 00:29:14.079
But the but the easiest thing, it's like real estate, location, location, location.
00:29:14.880 --> 00:29:22.079
It's learning how to listen, to understand, understand, understand before being understood.
00:29:23.680 --> 00:29:30.480
Yeah, and again, it's not so much about what they think as it is about what they've experienced.
00:29:30.640 --> 00:29:31.279
Yeah.
00:29:31.839 --> 00:29:44.240
Um, we we finally one day my my co-um director, Rachel, who's 35 or six now, 36, I think.
00:29:44.480 --> 00:30:00.559
Um, but it was Rachel um talking to my youngest son at the time, he had was just turning 30, and his best friend since high school, you know, was there.
00:30:00.880 --> 00:30:06.720
And and he asked me, he says, Mark, he says, I'm I'm religious.
00:30:06.880 --> 00:30:10.079
I have an uncle who's a Catholic something or right.
00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:12.000
And he goes, I'm religious.
00:30:12.160 --> 00:30:15.359
And Ben says, You you're religious, so what do you do?
00:30:15.519 --> 00:30:24.880
You know, and I got about five minutes into it and realized his eyes had glazed over, and I still haven't figured out how to give that answer simply.
00:30:25.200 --> 00:30:38.079
And then everybody laughed, and there was we were back on a deck, and we had we were living right on Anasquam uh lobster cove, and a lot of people were down on that dock and swimming, and Rachel's down there.
00:30:38.640 --> 00:30:48.559
And I look down and I see him talking, he had jumped in the water, he he had swum up to the edge and was talking to Rachel, and I went, ah sheet, I missed my chance, you know.
00:30:48.720 --> 00:30:55.359
And well, a few of the times I look out, and at least an hour had gone by, and the two of them are still down there chatting.
00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:57.759
And I'm like, What the heck?
00:30:59.359 --> 00:31:11.440
Well, I start helping clean up a little bit, and all of a sudden he just flings open the doors to the deck, you know, and he comes in just ecstatic and excited.
00:31:11.680 --> 00:31:12.640
And he goes, Mr.
00:31:12.799 --> 00:31:13.519
Fiend, Mr.
00:31:13.599 --> 00:31:14.079
Fiend.
00:31:15.519 --> 00:31:21.200
And pardon my French, but he just goes, you know, Rachel, that's an awesome.
00:31:22.799 --> 00:31:29.359
And he goes, Cody, you and Ben have been talking that way your whole lives.
00:31:29.599 --> 00:31:33.200
I'm sure I'm I'm sure Jesus spent a lot of time around the fisherman.
00:31:33.279 --> 00:31:35.200
I've probably heard you heard you heard that too.
00:31:35.759 --> 00:31:39.119
Carpenters and whatever, and I just just relax, you know.
00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:42.960
And I go, why is she effing awesome?
00:31:43.359 --> 00:31:47.119
And he said, she he says, well, he could answer.
00:31:48.240 --> 00:31:51.279
First of all, I just thought he was one of your kids' friends.
00:31:51.440 --> 00:31:55.119
She was, you know, and she didn't find out that he was she was working with you.
00:31:55.359 --> 00:31:55.920
Yeah.
00:31:57.039 --> 00:32:00.880
So the next day I asked Rich, I go, What the heck did you say?
00:32:02.079 --> 00:32:07.519
And she said, What do we do as a ministry?
00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:12.000
We help deepen your daily experience of being loved by God, yeah.
00:32:12.880 --> 00:32:22.319
So that you can be loved by one another, be loved by Him, and experience the joy and the peace of living in a in a loving relationship.
00:32:23.599 --> 00:32:25.519
She said, Well, hopefully you've experienced that.
00:32:25.759 --> 00:32:27.039
He went, Oh no.
00:32:28.400 --> 00:32:30.079
I mean, instantly.
00:32:30.799 --> 00:32:32.799
Oh no, no way.
00:32:33.039 --> 00:32:38.240
My family, friends, you know how broke and screwed up they are, and this, that, and the other thing.
00:32:38.319 --> 00:32:43.039
And so right, she goes, Well, I'm sad to hear that.
00:32:44.799 --> 00:32:53.359
Because that's what God wants for you, is for you to know full and complete joy and a peace that can't even understand, right?
00:32:53.599 --> 00:33:03.440
But then she says, But I'm sure you've experienced the pain and the anger of fear of not being loved and not being loving.
00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:05.680
And he goes, Yeah, that.
00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:19.920
He goes, Yeah, I'm not just months away from getting married, and and we fight all the time, and we're full of anger, and there's so much fear and stuff from this again, same things like from this world and this, that the other thing.
00:33:20.319 --> 00:33:36.640
You you can do something about that, and she goes, Oh, yeah, we the other half of our statement is not only to deepen your daily experience of being loved by God, but we know how to help remove the barriers to receiving and sharing that love.
00:33:36.799 --> 00:33:38.319
He says, Sign me up.
00:33:38.640 --> 00:33:40.000
Wow, yeah.
00:33:40.319 --> 00:33:59.039
It was in that moment we recognize that for the longest time, again, not only just destination gospel, but but we try to lead with, you know, Jesus loves you or God loves you for a lot of these kids, like you said, they're not growing up in church where they're like Jesus who, God who, and who cares?
00:33:59.279 --> 00:34:03.039
Yeah, I why would I care about what they think about me?
00:34:03.759 --> 00:34:12.800
Well, in that, we started recognizing that I think we were learning that we needed to start in the opposite direction.
00:34:13.679 --> 00:34:33.039
Because there's not a single human on the planet that does not know pain that results either in anger or fear, experience of retaliation, and hiding and avoiding, and all the mess that it creates.
00:34:33.199 --> 00:34:37.599
And you you try to talk, and it only makes that a thousand times worse, you know.
00:34:37.679 --> 00:34:41.599
And Rachel's going, uh-huh, we can help with that and help with that.
00:34:41.679 --> 00:34:51.199
And of course, listening became part of it, is that it's about listening to understand, to know, yeah, as to what to address, you know.
00:34:51.280 --> 00:34:53.119
Like you said, a number of things.
00:34:53.440 --> 00:34:59.039
Would you be interested in hearing any input on this which particular one?
00:34:59.199 --> 00:35:12.079
And but we recognize, Doug, I'm telling you, that that little phrase that we can say in 30 seconds to a minute has been mind-bending.
00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:14.480
How quickly people respond to that.
00:35:14.639 --> 00:35:18.239
Oh, yeah, joy and peace and being loved and loving.
00:35:18.320 --> 00:35:19.440
Are you kidding me?
00:35:19.599 --> 00:35:20.159
Yeah.
00:35:20.480 --> 00:35:24.400
No, that's just not real.
00:35:24.559 --> 00:35:26.719
That's not normal, that doesn't happen.
00:35:26.880 --> 00:35:27.519
Yeah.
00:35:27.920 --> 00:35:35.599
But you can do something about the pain and the resulting anger and fear and retaliation and blah blah blah, and unforgiveness.
00:35:36.559 --> 00:35:38.800
Yeah, we can do something about that.
00:35:38.960 --> 00:35:54.480
And so I I think at the heart of it, when we say like to listen well, I again I just think it's not just them, it's how many people.
00:35:54.639 --> 00:36:02.880
Yeah, people just don't stop long enough around other people, yeah.
00:36:03.039 --> 00:36:06.239
To just even know how to ask good open-ended questions.
00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:06.960
That's right.
00:36:07.119 --> 00:36:08.400
Yeah, it's true.
00:36:08.639 --> 00:36:09.039
Right?
00:36:09.199 --> 00:36:12.320
Just good open-ended questions, yeah.
00:36:12.480 --> 00:36:14.400
And those you can practice all the time.
00:36:14.480 --> 00:36:16.480
You don't even have to be in a difficult one.
00:36:16.639 --> 00:36:20.159
I mean, having five kids, oh my gosh.
00:36:20.719 --> 00:36:25.440
Besides picking them up, and I'd go, so what was your favorite part today at school?
00:36:25.679 --> 00:36:26.960
Oh, I don't know.
00:36:27.599 --> 00:36:30.480
Okay, you know, what did you learn and such?
00:36:30.639 --> 00:36:32.159
And I said, I don't remember.
00:36:32.559 --> 00:36:36.800
It was finally realizing that the biggest thing was finding an emotion.
00:36:38.639 --> 00:36:41.760
What made you feel the greatest joy today?
00:36:41.920 --> 00:36:42.639
Oh, there wasn't it.
00:36:43.039 --> 00:36:45.519
Well, then what caused pain today?
00:36:46.159 --> 00:36:47.679
Where did it come from?
00:36:48.239 --> 00:36:49.199
Oh my gosh.
00:36:49.360 --> 00:36:51.280
And they were off and running.
00:36:51.519 --> 00:36:54.639
Hey, that is just right there, Mark.
00:36:54.719 --> 00:37:05.360
That is just such a good one tidbit of that's that's a great opener for our kids, for our kids and as as pastors.
00:37:05.519 --> 00:37:10.480
Boy, kids, grandkids, that's such a great insight right there.
00:37:10.880 --> 00:37:14.719
What uh yeah, what what what made you feel joyful?
00:37:14.960 --> 00:37:17.039
What what didn't make you feel joyful today?
00:37:17.119 --> 00:37:18.639
What a great insight, huh?
00:37:18.960 --> 00:37:19.760
Oh, totally.
00:37:19.840 --> 00:37:39.199
And that, you know, when we're teaching about emotion and getting along, it's the fact that you have not everybody has the exact same headings, but most of them are you what made you mad, what made you sad, um, what made you anxious today, what thrilled you?
00:37:39.440 --> 00:37:52.000
Um I want to I want to draw this to a close and I want to I you know you've been you've been pretty much in the Northeast all your life, is that right?
00:37:52.320 --> 00:37:54.559
My whole adult life since I was 16.
00:37:54.960 --> 00:38:00.880
So you know the struggle that so many pastors are going through right now.
00:38:01.360 --> 00:38:05.840
Um a lot of them are experiencing discouragement.
00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:14.079
They're experiencing you know, it's the question, how do I get more young people into my church?
00:38:14.239 --> 00:38:42.559
You know, they're their churches are filled with a lot of older folks, and they're just looking at uh a a short a very short time frame of survival that they have, and they're realizing this church is gonna go quietly into the night if we don't do something.
00:38:42.800 --> 00:38:47.119
And so they're discouraged, they're they're depressed about what they're seeing.
00:38:47.360 --> 00:38:52.719
If you could give one encouragement to some of these pastors right now, um what would you say?
00:38:57.119 --> 00:39:00.639
Well, then let me finish with probably where you wanted me to start.
00:39:00.880 --> 00:39:06.480
Um and that was my own journey, right?
00:39:06.639 --> 00:39:10.000
As I said, it started off amazing.
00:39:11.840 --> 00:39:21.599
But eventually going to Wheaton College undergrad, Gordon Conwell, doctor of ministry degree at Talbot, etc.
00:39:22.320 --> 00:39:29.360
Um I became a lead pastor at 30 years old, 18 years old a Christian.
00:39:29.679 --> 00:39:37.280
And I thought, what better thing early on as a topic should be on love, since that's what we're supposed to be known by.
00:39:37.599 --> 00:39:51.440
Well, every passage that I chose all it did was make me feel more ashamed around how much I was not loving it that way.
00:39:52.719 --> 00:40:06.880
And I was it just really caused me to be crazy desperate where I'd been a carpenter from the time I was a freshman in high school, and I thought I was gonna be a carpenter.
00:40:07.039 --> 00:40:12.480
Um but I just said, Lord, if you don't do something, I want out.
00:40:12.800 --> 00:40:15.280
I don't want out of the kingdom, but I definitely want out.
00:40:15.360 --> 00:40:17.760
What business do I have leading a church?
00:40:18.400 --> 00:40:22.559
And I don't think I'm doing a very good job of what matters most.
00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:30.960
So I kept crying out to them now because I came from a Pentecostal background, I'm praying the Ezekiel 36.
00:40:31.519 --> 00:40:41.519
Um, remove from me my heart of stone, give me a heart of flesh, give me your new spirit, you know, to cause me to obey.
00:40:42.639 --> 00:40:49.199
So I'm looking for this boom, instant zap, almost probably like what my conversion was like.
00:40:51.440 --> 00:40:53.360
And nothing was happening.
00:40:55.440 --> 00:40:59.840
And finally, uh, I reached a day when I'd written up my resignation.
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:07.199
I was getting ready, I said, if you don't do something, this is this is it, this is my ultimatum, maybe you do something today, or I'm done.
00:41:07.280 --> 00:41:09.840
I I'm I'm just gonna be done.
00:41:11.119 --> 00:41:24.000
And in his kindness, kind of in the midst of my little threat, um, I went one more time to first John 4.7 and following.
00:41:25.599 --> 00:41:31.199
And it was in that moment, you know, dear children let's love one another because love comes from God.
00:41:31.360 --> 00:41:34.800
Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love, right?
00:41:35.920 --> 00:41:37.840
And I keep on reading.
00:41:39.199 --> 00:41:45.760
But when I got to 4.19, which is where the title of the ministry comes from, we love because he first loved us.
00:41:45.920 --> 00:42:01.760
But Doug, I'm telling you, in that moment, it was it might as well have been audible, but he actually used the passage to talk to me about the problem.
00:42:01.840 --> 00:42:04.239
And he says, Mark, you've got it all wrong.
00:42:05.360 --> 00:42:10.400
You need to learn to come to me who is love, from whom love comes.
00:42:11.519 --> 00:42:14.639
There's never a moment that I am not loving you.
00:42:14.800 --> 00:42:17.760
All you ever do is pause to notice.
00:42:17.920 --> 00:42:23.679
Yeah, you need to come and let me love you first, and then you will love because.
00:42:24.880 --> 00:42:33.360
And of course, it was not until five years later when he showed me that Jesus' new command, love one another just as I have loved you.
00:42:33.519 --> 00:42:40.400
You can't obey that command unless you've actually been loved by Jesus first.
00:42:42.639 --> 00:42:48.800
So, but I just began with that verse, and I'm sitting there and I went, Well, Lord, how do we get loved?
00:42:49.039 --> 00:43:03.920
Well, in my Bible, 1 John 4 was on the right hand side, John 3 was on the left, and I still had highlighted from early discipleship time, 318, let us not love in word and tongue, but also in action and truth.
00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:13.679
And I just looked at that, and his that was his answer to me was the only way you as a human know what's in another's heart or mind is through words and actions.
00:43:13.840 --> 00:43:19.280
They we can't do the vulcan mind meld for those of us who are old enough to remember Star Trek, right?
00:43:19.519 --> 00:43:28.320
It's like he says it came through words and actions, which especially is the only way they experienced me through Jesus.
00:43:29.119 --> 00:43:32.480
He didn't do a vulcan mind meld either.
00:43:32.960 --> 00:43:38.239
The way they encountered him until finally in John 14, he's saying, Are you serious?
00:43:38.639 --> 00:43:42.000
Don't you realize if you've experienced me, you've experienced him.
00:43:42.480 --> 00:43:44.480
The words I say, the things I do.
00:43:44.559 --> 00:43:47.519
It's not me, but three times it's the Father living in me, Father.
00:43:48.800 --> 00:43:53.679
So, anyway, in that moment, I go, Okay, how do I get loved?
00:43:55.039 --> 00:43:58.159
And he's inviting me to come and be loved.
00:43:58.239 --> 00:43:59.760
And the first one was through work.
00:44:00.800 --> 00:44:11.119
And I just thought, okay, and I was learning Zephaniah 3:17 because it had become a worship song.
00:44:11.599 --> 00:44:17.519
And so um it was fresh on my mind, and it's third person future.
00:44:18.159 --> 00:44:18.480
Right.
00:44:18.639 --> 00:44:21.440
And so I said, Well, say that to me.
00:44:22.639 --> 00:44:29.199
The wild thing is, is I said it out loud because I wanted him to say it to me, like Jesus would have.
00:44:29.360 --> 00:44:30.559
And the prophets, right?
00:44:30.639 --> 00:44:34.719
The only way people experience God's word was through the human voice.
00:44:35.760 --> 00:44:38.480
And so in that moment, I said it loud, you know.
00:44:38.719 --> 00:44:42.559
Yeah, Mark, I am the Lord your God, and I am with you.
00:44:42.880 --> 00:44:45.039
Yeah, I am mighty to save you.
00:44:45.280 --> 00:44:47.440
And then he says, I take great delight in you.
00:44:47.599 --> 00:44:48.960
And I went, Why?
00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:53.599
I can think of so many reasons why that wouldn't be true.
00:44:53.840 --> 00:44:59.840
And Robin and I were memorizing Psalm 139, and so I said, Well, say that one to me.
00:45:00.639 --> 00:45:01.679
So I began.
00:45:01.920 --> 00:45:03.920
Mark, I've searched you and I know you.
00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:06.880
And I went, Uh-oh, that's not good.
00:45:07.360 --> 00:45:15.199
I know when you sit and when you rise, and oh, the whole thing was crushing me until finally he says, Such knowledge should be too wonderful.
00:45:15.280 --> 00:45:19.360
And I said, Truthfully, Lord, I feel a bit afraid at the moment.
00:45:20.960 --> 00:45:23.760
And Doug, that was when it all changed.
00:45:24.559 --> 00:45:39.199
Was when I sat there and it felt like a kind rebuke when he said, and there's the problem is that you don't know me at all experientially, yeah, right?
00:45:39.440 --> 00:45:42.239
Interacting with you, speaking to you, loving you.
00:45:42.400 --> 00:45:51.280
And I remember symbolically just pushing everything out of the way on my desk, and I was so desperate, I said, God, I don't even know if this is okay.
00:45:51.360 --> 00:46:03.440
Yeah, but I feel your invitation to come and be loved, and by doing so, it's gonna cause me to love because, yeah, and then later it was gonna cause me to love as.
00:46:04.239 --> 00:46:23.599
And so I just started doing it all by myself on my own, and then people started noticing the change in me first, and so again, in terms of discouragement or whatever, I would say to the pastors and leader, and especially the pastors, it needs to begin with you, right?
00:46:24.320 --> 00:46:42.320
You we one point we used to say first love ministries was changing the world one quiet time at a time, because most everybody's method of doing quiet time is only shame-producing, yeah, most of the time, right?
00:46:42.960 --> 00:46:51.760
And so now to come to be loved, and knowing that there's never a moment that he's not loving me, so all my issues, right?
00:46:51.840 --> 00:46:54.559
When he says he delights in me, and I go, Why?
00:46:55.519 --> 00:47:07.440
It just started bringing up all the barriers, all the unresolved issues, and just the transformative work that came just because he was talking to me through the passages, right?
00:47:07.840 --> 00:47:19.039
Anyway, so well, it began with me, and so I would say to them, I would challenge you, and all the material that's there, Doug can get it to you.
00:47:19.199 --> 00:47:27.679
But yeah, is learning how to begin by changing how you come and what you do.
00:47:27.840 --> 00:47:41.199
It's still time in the word, it's still time in prayer, and of course, and especially if you're in a small group where you get to speak this stuff to one another and address the broken areas, and right anyhow.
00:47:41.440 --> 00:47:44.480
Well, that's a good it is such a good reminder to us, Mark.
00:47:44.559 --> 00:47:54.960
I want I just want to thank you for joining us today because that is the heart of it, and I think it's what is so necessary today.
00:47:55.679 --> 00:48:06.400
So, brother, thanks for being with us, reminding us that uh yeah, Gen Z doesn't need to be a project, and we don't begin with having all the right answers.
00:48:07.039 --> 00:48:13.119
We begin with ourselves experiencing the love of God in order to share the love of God.
00:48:13.280 --> 00:48:16.639
And thanks for uh reminding right, yeah.
00:48:16.880 --> 00:48:35.199
That that that last thing is that if you do the one command, come and be loved, and then go out and love as and because loved, yeah, you will fulfill all 73 of Jesus' commands at one point or another because it's based on who's in front of you, their need or their behavior.
00:48:35.360 --> 00:48:45.280
And part of that is listening, noticing, discerning, and then loving as he's loved you when you are experiencing those things.
00:48:45.519 --> 00:48:46.239
That's good.
00:48:46.960 --> 00:48:48.079
Authentic.
00:48:48.559 --> 00:48:49.199
Thanks.
00:48:49.519 --> 00:48:57.760
Thanks for joining us today, Mark, and uh, thanks for all of you joining us today on this episode of uh Venture Northeast Currents.
00:48:58.159 --> 00:49:12.079
Until next time, keep loving people, letting God love you, keep investing in others, and keep advancing the mission of Jesus across the Northeast.
00:49:12.239 --> 00:49:13.599
Thanks so much for joining us.
00:49:13.679 --> 00:49:14.800
God bless everyone.
00:49:15.039 --> 00:49:15.840
Take care.
