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Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that

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Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become

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Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.

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Speaker 2: I'm Dr. James Spencer.

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Speaker 1: Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways

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Speaker 1: God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural,

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Speaker 1: and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ.

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Speaker 2: Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm your host, Dr.

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Speaker 1: James Spencer, and I'm happy to welcome Ryan Skoog. He's

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Speaker 1: the author of Lead with Prayer and also the president

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Speaker 1: of an organization called Venture. And so we're going to

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Speaker 1: have kind of a wide-ranging discussion today about his business,

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Speaker 1: his ministry work, about prayer, and about the global church. So, Ryan,

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Speaker 1: welcome to the program, man. It's great to have you here.

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Speaker 3: Hey, I'm so excited to be here. This is awesome. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So tell us a little bit about yourself.

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Speaker 1: We talked a little bit in the pre-interview just about

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Speaker 1: the different ways that your businesses are kind of structured

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Speaker 1: and how you do what you do. So maybe talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about what Venture is and then how

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Speaker 1: all of it sort of supported, funded, how it all

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Speaker 1: works together.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So when I was 18, I got started into mission

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Speaker 4: work by smuggling Bibles into China. Like that's what you

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Speaker 4: had to do early before smartphones. And Got apprehended by

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Speaker 4: the police and had these miraculous rescues and eventually met

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Speaker 4: a guy named Brother Moses. And he had been beaten

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Speaker 4: 100 days straight in front of the prisoners of his

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Speaker 4: prison for his faith. And they literally bring him up

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Speaker 4: in front of them and they say, deny your faith

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Speaker 4: in Christ. And he would just with tears in his

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Speaker 4: eyes say, I can't. He's done too much for me.

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Speaker 4: And I met Brother Moses as an 18-year-old. And this guy...

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Speaker 4: had more joy in his eyes than anyone I'd ever met.

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Speaker 4: And I thought, this is a saint. This guy had

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Speaker 4: been beaten and down more than anyone I've ever met

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Speaker 4: and had more joy than anyone I've ever met.

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Speaker 3: I'm hooked.

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Speaker 4: I want to serve the global church. And I grew

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Speaker 4: up in a family, kind of a travel family. My

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Speaker 4: dad started a travel company, and then my brother started

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Speaker 4: a travel tech company, and I started one. You kind

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Speaker 4: of had to start a company to show up at

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Speaker 4: the dinner table is the culture of our And my

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Speaker 4: dad never took us to Disney World, even though we

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Speaker 4: had passes all around the world. We went to refugee camps,

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Speaker 4: and we went to places in gnarly, gnarly areas. So

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Speaker 4: out of that, I just was hooked on wanting to

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Speaker 4: see God's kingdom break out in the really difficult, crazy places.

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Speaker 4: And the word venture, it means to go to a

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Speaker 4: difficult or dangerous place. And for us, we define that

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Speaker 4: by the three uns. So we go to places that

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Speaker 4: are unsafe. unreached and unresourced. And unsafe, when I say unsafe,

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Speaker 4: we're talking war zones, persecuted areas. We've had seven of

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Speaker 4: our partners killed for their faith. Even just one several

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Speaker 4: months ago, Brother Thunkham. Another one was tortured and put

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Speaker 4: in stocks, like a 16th century torture device. I mean, real,

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Speaker 4: real stuff. Another 51 have been arrested in the past

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Speaker 4: two years. So really unsafe areas. And then we go

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Speaker 4: to areas where 80% of a village would be trafficked and,

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Speaker 4: and we'll see God's kingdom break out. And now it

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Speaker 4: was 0%, you know, that kind of thing. And then

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Speaker 4: we go to unreached. And when I say unreached, like

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Speaker 4: hinterland places where up in the Himalayas and, and, uh,

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Speaker 4: places where if a woman is having her period, they

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Speaker 4: think that she's cursed by the gods and they kick

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Speaker 4: her out of the village. And, uh, they're sacrificing animals

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Speaker 4: to rocks and trees while the kids are still starving.

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Speaker 3: I mean, just crazy, crazy out there places.

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Speaker 4: And then when I say unresourced, unfortunately, only 1% of

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Speaker 4: Christian giving goes to the unreached. So if it's super

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Speaker 4: bad and they've never heard Jesus and virtually no one's

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Speaker 4: giving there, that's where we want to be. And we're

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Speaker 4: seeing the kingdom of God break out. We've seen over

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Speaker 4: 15,000 house churches planted and those house churches have risen

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Speaker 4: up and stopped trafficking and rescued thousands of girls out

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Speaker 4: of trafficking and gotten meals like 85 million meals to

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Speaker 4: people through farming and feeding and you know training in

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Speaker 4: feminine hygiene like we're talking about where women are not

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Speaker 4: being kicked out so just transforming villages some villages where

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Speaker 4: so many people became christian the brothel in the town

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Speaker 4: shut down because of lack of demand because the reformation

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Speaker 4: that happened in the village so just beautiful things the

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Speaker 4: kingdom of god in these tough places is breaking out

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Speaker 4: and even uh Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, they have a

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Speaker 4: center for global Christianity and they've been tracking people, how,

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Speaker 4: how the movement of Christianity around the world and missiologists

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Speaker 4: are saying, we're not seeing numerically, we're not seeing the

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Speaker 4: largest movement, movement towards Christianity in our lifetime. We're seeing

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Speaker 4: the largest movement towards Christianity in the history of the church.

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Speaker 4: Like this is, we're living through the largest and most

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Speaker 4: explosive growth the church has ever seen in the history

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Speaker 4: of the church. And it, It doesn't feel like that

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Speaker 4: all the time in the West. You feel a little

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Speaker 4: bit of a dimming light or something. But as one

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Speaker 4: of my academic missiologist people crassly said, just remember we're

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Speaker 4: crushing it around the world, man. We're crushing it. And

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Speaker 4: so that's, I love being able to be a part

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Speaker 4: of this because I see firsthand, I've been collecting stories

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Speaker 4: from our partners and matching them up with the chapters

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Speaker 4: of the book of Acts. And I've got a story

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Speaker 4: for almost every single a chapter in the book of Acts,

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Speaker 4: a story from one of our partners that matches similarly.

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Speaker 4: And so it's like, it is happening all around us.

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Speaker 4: And so that's the venture side. And then I'm also

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Speaker 4: a business owner. So I kind of split my time,

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Speaker 4: own several travel technology companies and some other, like in

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Speaker 4: the food service and things like that. A little bit

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Speaker 4: of venture capital, if you will, like a mini, very,

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Speaker 4: very small, but our businesses cover all the admin of venture.

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Speaker 4: so that when people give, 100% of it goes straight

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Speaker 4: to the programs and projects and partners that I was

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Speaker 4: telling you about. And so I kind of split my

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Speaker 4: time back and forth between both of those and just

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Speaker 4: seeing God do unbelievable things. And Venture, it.

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Speaker 3: Actually started as a, like, early days, it started as

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Speaker 3: a bike ride.

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Speaker 4: A friend of mine in college, he was in college,

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Speaker 4: I'm just out of college, and he goes, dude, because

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Speaker 4: everybody said dude back then.

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Speaker 3: He was like, dude, you know, right?

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Speaker 4: He said, let's, Let's, uh, let's bike across the country

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Speaker 4: and raise money for hurting kids and missionaries. And I

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Speaker 4: was like, oh man, I had no idea you're a cyclist.

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Speaker 3: He goes, oh, I'm not. And I was like, do you,

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Speaker 3: do you even have a bike? He's like, nah. And

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Speaker 3: I was like, do you, do you know how to

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Speaker 3: raise money? Do you have any money? He's like, no, no, no.

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Speaker 3: I was like, when do you want to go? And

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Speaker 3: he's like two months. And, you know, I helped organize it.

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Speaker 4: He went on it with some friends and it raised

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Speaker 4: like $ 16, 000, which to us, I mean, that could have been.

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Speaker 3: A million bucks, you know?

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Speaker 2: It was huge back then.

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Speaker 3: She's like, wow, this is epic.

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Speaker 4: And by God's grace, I was starting a company right

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Speaker 4: around that time, my first company. And so as the

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Speaker 4: company would grow, adventure would grow. And a guy named

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Speaker 4: Don Miller, who wrote this book, Blue Like Jazz, he

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Speaker 4: went on one of our tours and wrote about it

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Speaker 4: in his next book, and that took off. And so

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Speaker 4: it just started these tough things for tough places. And

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Speaker 4: so it's just on an adventure that never ever planned

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Speaker 4: that God had. And it's just been wild. So that 16,000,

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Speaker 4: I think it's raised over 65 million now. So it

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Speaker 4: was something that God's just really taken off. I never

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Speaker 4: would have thought it would kind of become what it is,

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Speaker 4: but it, it's, uh, it's been a really, really wild

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Speaker 4: ride to see that happen.

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Speaker 2: How do you identify the places you end up going?

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Speaker 3: Um, yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Super, super good question.

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Speaker 4: Um, So we have what's called an unscore for different

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Speaker 4: regions around the world. And, and we, we give an unscore.

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Speaker 4: So how unsafe is it? How unreached is it? And

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Speaker 4: we partner with, you know, whether it's, we look at

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Speaker 4: state department databases, Joshua product project databases. We'll look at, um,

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Speaker 4: it's a pretty academic. We have a PhD from Princeton.

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Speaker 4: It was our director of international programs. She taught at Columbia. Um,

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Speaker 4: Ben Bernanke was one of her colleagues, just an absolute global,

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Speaker 4: global genius kind of person. you know, white, white papers

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Speaker 4: on international tax law and all these things. And so

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Speaker 4: she academically helped us create, um, this is, she's almost

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Speaker 4: done with her second doctorate, uh, this unscore and, and it's,

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Speaker 4: it's way more detailed and economic and everything like that,

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Speaker 4: but it comes down to here's the, the most unsafe,

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Speaker 4: unreached and unresourced places on the world. And they get

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Speaker 4: you to, you know, we, we have partners in, uh,

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Speaker 4: Somalia and, and Sudan and Myanmar and, uh, Bhutan and,

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Speaker 4: allows and, and a lot of these really, really hotspot

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Speaker 4: play Pakistan, you know, like really hotspot places. And, uh,

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Speaker 4: that's if, if I told you like the percentage wise

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Speaker 4: fastest growing church in the world is actually in Iran.

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Speaker 3: Like you, you.

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Speaker 4: You never even believe that, but that's what's happening. The

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Speaker 4: kingdom of God is breaking these places like, like nothing else.

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Speaker 4: And it's miraculous and dreams. And like, it just, all

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Speaker 4: these crazy things are happening.

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Speaker 1: One of my buddies runs a nonprofit, it's called Grain

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Speaker 1: for Pain, and he takes sacks of grain over to

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Speaker 1: South Sudan. He was actually trying to do his dissertation

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Speaker 1: on education in South Sudan and do some stuff there.

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Speaker 1: But the school he was with said it was too dangerous,

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Speaker 1: like he couldn't get in to do the field work.

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Speaker 1: And so I'm familiar with that sort of part of

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Speaker 1: the world just through his work. It's sort of a

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Speaker 1: fascinating ministry that he's running as well. But it's really interesting,

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Speaker 1: like how you, the unscore, I love that.

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Speaker 2: It's, that's impressive.

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Speaker 4: Oh, we're so excited to be able to like bring

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Speaker 4: this out to the forefront. and, and share with people like, Hey,

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Speaker 4: the worst places are getting the least amount of money.

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Speaker 4: Like we should really change that. And so, and, and

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Speaker 4: for us, it's not just about venture, our organization, like

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Speaker 4: if we can get the word out for all the

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Speaker 4: other ones. And, you know, when you, when you work

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Speaker 4: in the tough places, uh, everyone's just like, how can

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Speaker 4: we work together? Like it's not competition. There's not any

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Speaker 4: of that kind of stuff that you could see in

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Speaker 4: other ministries or nonprofits.

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Speaker 3: It's just like, you're here. You care about these people too.

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Speaker 3: Let's go. You know?

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Speaker 4: And so I tell people where we work, they don't

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Speaker 4: even know what a denomination is. Um, you know, and

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Speaker 4: so like, you'll see Catholic bishops working with, you know,

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Speaker 4: just village pastors and, and it's just beautiful. Uh, persecution

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Speaker 4: in some ways helps, helps mitigate a lot of the other,

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Speaker 4: challenges that you would see in the Western church?

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Speaker 2: You know, it's fascinating you talk about that. I've been

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Speaker 2: teaching through Revelation.

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Speaker 1: And so you kind of hit these different points in the,

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Speaker 1: you know, you're going through the seven letters. And one

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Speaker 1: of the things I've kind of realized this time teaching

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Speaker 1: through it is that, you know, the Jews and the

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Speaker 1: Christians were often viewed as the same during that period

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Speaker 1: of time.

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Speaker 2: The Christians were viewed as a Jewish sect.

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Speaker 1: But as we go through the book of Revelation, you

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Speaker 1: start to see these different hints that the background is

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Speaker 1: shifting and the Jews are really distancing themselves further and.

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Speaker 2: Further from Christians.

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Speaker 1: Because they had dispensation from Rome not to participate in

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Speaker 1: all these different pagan worship ceremonies, and they could avoid

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Speaker 1: persecution in that way and kind of throw it all

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Speaker 1: on the Christians. And so that just comes to mind

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Speaker 1: as you talk about that persecution does forge a community.

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Speaker 1: Because it really demonstrates, hey, we're all in this together.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely. The differences stop mattering. They really do.

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Speaker 4: You've got two factors. One, most of where we work,

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Speaker 4: they're illiterate and won't be literate in our lifetime.

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Speaker 3: That's just the reality.

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Speaker 4: And so we practice disciple-making movement model where it's house

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Speaker 4: churches that plant house churches. And people have audio Bibles

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Speaker 4: and they memorize 60 stories of the Bible and And

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Speaker 4: they say it's better to memorize 60 stories and obey

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Speaker 4: them than to know the whole thing and not obey it.

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Speaker 3: And so it's a real obedience focused.

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Speaker 4: And people like Esther, she's 26, hiking through tiger infested jungles,

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Speaker 4: goes to a village, starts training in feminine hygiene, and

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Speaker 4: then starts sharing the gospel. And she prayed for a

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Speaker 4: five-year-old and an eight-year-old boy who were both crippled. And

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Speaker 4: they both get up and start walking. And the whole

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Speaker 4: village gets baptized. And I mean, that's the kind of

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Speaker 4: stuff that's just crazy that's happening.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: And you're right, the persecution, we recently had, you know,

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Speaker 4: you talk about Revelation and the martyrs, and there was

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Speaker 4: a Tertullian who said the blood of the martyrs is

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Speaker 4: the seed of the church. Well, their brother Thunkham was

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Speaker 4: killed in November in the northwest region of a, I'm

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Speaker 4: not supposed to say which country, but in the northwest

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Speaker 4: region of one of these countries, and Normally, like, in

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Speaker 4: that region, our team would see, like, 20 people come

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Speaker 4: to Jesus a month, and we're really excited about that,

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Speaker 4: those 20. And he died, he was killed for his faith,

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Speaker 4: and they even declared it was for his faith, for

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Speaker 4: inciting people to believe in God was the actual, you know,

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Speaker 4: claim against him. And they just, they shot him six times,

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Speaker 4: and I thought, man, the church is going to retreat.

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Speaker 4: And one of my old crusty missionary mentors had said,

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Speaker 4: You're going to see one of two things happen.

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Speaker 3: Either the church will retreat or you're actually going to

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Speaker 3: see a revival.

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Speaker 4: And in the past six months, we've seen over a

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Speaker 4: thousand people come to faith in Christ and hundreds of

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Speaker 4: house churches started in that area, that very region where

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Speaker 4: he was killed. And so it's like the church just

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Speaker 4: rallied around his death and went forward instead of backwards.

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Speaker 3: So it's just so inspiring. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: That's pretty unbelievable.

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Speaker 1: I mean, when I think about, you know, we're trying

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Speaker 1: to do a lot with discipleship, even in the West,

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Speaker 1: and we work a good bit with Eastern European churches

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Speaker 1: that are in relatively dangerous areas, but nothing like what

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Speaker 1: you're talking about.

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Speaker 2: You know, this is where being a Christian isn't.

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Speaker 1: Exactly at the social capital is a lot different than

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Speaker 1: places where Christians are.

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Speaker 2: Just being killed for being Christian.

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Speaker 1: But when you think about discipleship in a non-literate space,

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Speaker 1: the only experience I have with it is when I

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Speaker 1: was with Moody Bible Institute, we used to send these

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Speaker 1: small solar-powered, almost indestructible audio players out to bush.

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Speaker 2: Pastors in Africa.

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Speaker 1: And so is that sort of what your system kind

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Speaker 1: of looks like?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so we'll do the audio Bibles.

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Speaker 4: We have oral cultures are very, very focused on memorization.

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Speaker 4: It's in a way we don't understand. Kind of, the

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Speaker 4: only explanation I have is pre-your-cellphone use to memorize phone

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Speaker 4: numbers of all the people you knew.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 4: And your mind could hold a ton of phone numbers.

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Speaker 4: And now, like, I can barely remember my own sometimes,

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Speaker 4: you know, like that kind of a thing. And so

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Speaker 4: oral cultures are bent towards memorization. So they memorize and

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Speaker 4: probably have memorized more scripture than most Christians in America

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Speaker 4: or in the West.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: And so that focus on memorization and the audio Bibles

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Speaker 4: are just phenomenal. And there's audio Bibles, but there's also

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Speaker 4: discipleship material you can put on smartphones. And, you know,

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Speaker 4: you can go to a village in the middle of

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Speaker 4: nowhere and they don't have running.

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Speaker 3: Water, but they have smartphones. Like, it's just weird, this

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Speaker 3: world that we live in.

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Speaker 4: And I think it's by God's grace we're able to

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Speaker 4: get the gospel and get discipleship material and things. But

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Speaker 4: we're We're really focused on this. It's called DMM, Disciple

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Speaker 4: Making Movements, or CPM, Church Planning Movements. And movement training

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Speaker 4: is instead of trying to figure out all the parts

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Speaker 4: of the Bible you don't understand, work on obeying the

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Speaker 4: parts you do. And C.S. Lewis even said that. He said,

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Speaker 4: it's not the parts I don't understand in the Bible

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Speaker 4: I have a problem with. It's the parts I do

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Speaker 4: understand I have a problem with because they're really hard.

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Speaker 3: They're really difficult to do. And that's C.S. Lewis.

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Speaker 4: So I'm like, okay, that's really important to keep that

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Speaker 4: obedience-based discipleship. So they want, in the places we serve,

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Speaker 4: they want every believer to do five things. They want

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Speaker 4: every believer to be praying and in Scripture one to

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Speaker 4: two hours a day. They want every believer spending time

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Speaker 4: with the lost weekly. Every believer is serving the poor

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Speaker 4: and the needy. And the reason you say needy is

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Speaker 4: sometimes people, you know, you could be a millionaire, but

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Speaker 4: you lost your son. Like, you're needy.

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Speaker 3: You might not be poor, but boy, you're needy. So

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Speaker 3: it's poor and needy.

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Speaker 4: And then every believer is weekly getting together, doing something

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Speaker 4: called the Discovery Bible Study, where you walk through, the

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Speaker 4: Word is in the center, and you have a facilitator,

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Speaker 4: and that can rotate. And then you ask simple questions about,

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Speaker 4: what does this say about God? What does this say

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Speaker 4: about people? How can I obey this? And you hold

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Speaker 4: each other accountable to that. And next week, like, how

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Speaker 4: did you obey what you said you're going to obey?

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Speaker 4: And it's a real high accountability on that. And then,

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Speaker 4: and then every believer is training someone else to do these. And,

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Speaker 4: and those five things, you know, our, our joke is

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Speaker 4: whether or not you're at a mega church or mass,

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Speaker 4: are you doing those five things of disciple making and, and,

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Speaker 4: and how you worship is much less important and how

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Speaker 4: you practice the, the, the elements of disciple making. And most,

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Speaker 4: most American or Western disciple making or discipleship is how

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Speaker 4: you can be a disciple, but very little of it

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Speaker 4: is training you how you can make disciples.

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Speaker 3: And it's like missing half of it.

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Speaker 4: And actually, I would say some of the greatest growth

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Speaker 4: in my life is when I'm helping disciple someone else,

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Speaker 4: not just trying to be a disciple myself.

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Speaker 3: And the woman at the well said, give me this water.

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Speaker 4: And Jesus says, no, I want to make you a well.

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Speaker 3: I don't want you just to have the water.

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Speaker 4: And it And I think maybe like 90% of our

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Speaker 4: discipleship can be like having the water, not being the well,

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Speaker 4: if that makes sense.

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Speaker 2: It does.

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Speaker 1: And I would say even when I do a lot

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Speaker 1: of work in the AI space, you know, thinking about

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Speaker 1: technology and those.

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Speaker 2: Kind of aspects.

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Speaker 1: And so some of the questions that have been raised about, hey,

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Speaker 1: what about AI sermons or what about AI generated content?

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Speaker 2: You know, if they're writing articles and those kind of things.

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Speaker 3: Uh-huh.

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Speaker 1: And the way I usually talk about it, I'm like,

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Speaker 1: I would hate for AI to rob me of the

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Speaker 1: ability to write something because the process of writing is

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Speaker 1: so formative just in and of itself. The process of

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Speaker 1: teaching someone else is often, you know, like that idea

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Speaker 1: of when you're making a disciple, you're actually getting more

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Speaker 1: growth than if you're just trying to grow yourself. Like,

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Speaker 1: I think that those opportunities, if we're not careful, we

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Speaker 1: lose them. And it's a really crucial point I think

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Speaker 1: you're making is that we tend to, learn an awful

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Speaker 1: lot when we're interacting with people, we're trying to help

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Speaker 1: them grow.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah.

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Speaker 1: It just naturally comes up.

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Speaker 2: Oh man, I need to grow too.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: And I mean, if you don't mind me geeking out

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Speaker 4: for a second on this, um, Jim Wild, Jim Wilder, uh,

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Speaker 4: he's a neuro theologian and, and so he, he, he

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Speaker 4: maps how theology affects your brain. And, and so we

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Speaker 4: have these neural networks that are like our center for.

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Speaker 3: What I'll call the fruit of the spirit.

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Speaker 4: Character, And love and awe and worship and kindness and

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Speaker 4: joy and all these things. And that area of the brain,

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Speaker 4: you cannot see growth in that area without tapping into

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Speaker 4: the relational part of your brain. Meaning that character growth

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Speaker 4: is basically contingent on relationship. So, for example, you can't

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Speaker 4: just tell someone a precept of courage. They have to

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Speaker 4: see courage embodied. and modeled in a person and have

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Speaker 4: relationship with that person to truly see growth. And that's

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Speaker 4: why fatherlessness is a huge issue. And that's why literally

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Speaker 4: Jesus came as a person, had relationship, and modeled. And

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Speaker 4: it's as if our brains were wired for the Incarnation.

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Speaker 3: That's cool. And that's where.

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Speaker 4: Like ascetic Buddhism and all those other things, they fail

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Speaker 4: because they don't have a relational aspect to them. Like

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Speaker 4: our brains were wired that we had to have story

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Speaker 4: embodied relationship. And so we had to, for us to

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Speaker 4: know God's love, we had to see a cross. That's

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Speaker 4: the way our brains are wired. And so we had

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Speaker 4: to see the incarnation. And so Jim Wilder's stuff is

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Speaker 4: just fantastic on this. It plays into prayer as well.

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Speaker 4: Bowling Green did a study on meditation versus prayer.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And they had one group doing like, have you heard

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Speaker 3: about this?

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Speaker 2: I've heard about this study, yeah, but go ahead. Oh, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 4: So Bowling Green, they had one group doing like sand

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Speaker 4: is soft and water is wet, all this mindfulness and meditation.

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Speaker 3: And then they had the other group doing.

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Speaker 4: Like God is love and God is with me right

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Speaker 4: now and Jesus is real and like all these other things. And,

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Speaker 4: you know, there's benefits to meditation, there's benefits to prayer

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Speaker 4: that are really clear. Those benefits were 10x for the

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Speaker 4: group that was praying to a relational God, because those

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Speaker 4: benefits can't really fully be ignited in their neural networks

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Speaker 4: without the relational part. And so when it comes to prayer,

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Speaker 4: it comes to discipleship, it's all of that. And I

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Speaker 4: think to your point with AI, AI can give us

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Speaker 4: all the principles, but it can't embody... That's right. That

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Speaker 4: courage in a person. And so, you know, God, He

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Speaker 4: didn't tell us, be courageous. He gave us David and Goliath,

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Speaker 4: the story. And then we can go, oh, okay. And

434
00:21:48,520 --> 00:21:50,760
Speaker 4: then we can see someone in us, you know, I

435
00:21:50,800 --> 00:21:52,919
Speaker 4: can see my brother Thuncam give his life for Christ.

436
00:21:53,460 --> 00:21:53,600
Speaker 2: Yeah.

437
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:56,199
Speaker 4: And I see courage. You know, like, have relationship and

438
00:21:56,240 --> 00:22:00,600
Speaker 4: have a story. And then all of a sudden those

439
00:22:00,619 --> 00:22:02,510
Speaker 4: beautiful things happen. Sorry, that's like a tangent.

440
00:22:02,790 --> 00:22:03,370
Speaker 3: No, not at all.

441
00:22:04,030 --> 00:22:04,490
Speaker 2: It's great.

442
00:22:04,570 --> 00:22:08,090
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I haven't read through the neuroscience stuff,

443
00:22:08,109 --> 00:22:11,270
Speaker 1: so I'll have to check out Jim Wilder. I'm interested

444
00:22:11,310 --> 00:22:13,470
Speaker 1: to read some of that stuff. I've stayed more in

445
00:22:13,490 --> 00:22:17,090
Speaker 1: the cognitive psych space with the embodied cognition and those.

446
00:22:16,950 --> 00:22:17,620
Speaker 2: Kind of ideas.

447
00:22:17,690 --> 00:22:18,260
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

448
00:22:18,690 --> 00:22:21,240
Speaker 1: And it's just so, it's such a crucial point because

449
00:22:21,800 --> 00:22:25,420
Speaker 1: I can remember, you know, I went to seminary and

450
00:22:25,600 --> 00:22:28,659
Speaker 1: it's a pretty sanitized environment. right? You're sitting in a

451
00:22:28,740 --> 00:22:30,680
Speaker 1: really nice classroom. It's usually air conditioned.

452
00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:33,260
Speaker 3: If it's not, people are complaining, right?

453
00:22:33,740 --> 00:22:36,139
Speaker 1: You know, and so you're listening to a professor talk

454
00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:39,370
Speaker 1: and the professors are great, but they're always on campus.

455
00:22:39,869 --> 00:22:42,190
Speaker 1: Like you don't really interact with them much anywhere else.

456
00:22:42,430 --> 00:22:44,970
Speaker 1: And so you have sort of this artificial space that's

457
00:22:45,030 --> 00:22:47,990
Speaker 1: created where there isn't a lot of time for you

458
00:22:48,010 --> 00:22:50,169
Speaker 1: to look out and see courage for you, you know,

459
00:22:50,210 --> 00:22:52,850
Speaker 1: to use your example, right? Where is a college professor

460
00:22:52,890 --> 00:22:54,650
Speaker 1: really demonstrating courage?

461
00:22:54,750 --> 00:22:56,230
Speaker 2: Well, they're not often.

462
00:22:56,950 --> 00:22:59,889
Speaker 1: But this I remember in my systematic theology class, the

463
00:22:59,910 --> 00:23:02,710
Speaker 1: first one I'd ever taken, we were talking about the

464
00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:07,000
Speaker 1: sovereignty of God. And this gentleman from Africa kept saying

465
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:08,070
Speaker 1: that he didn't understand it.

466
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:09,200
Speaker 2: He didn't understand it.

467
00:23:09,300 --> 00:23:11,660
Speaker 1: So the professor was finally like, well, why don't you understand?

468
00:23:11,700 --> 00:23:15,020
Speaker 1: And he tells this story about African soldiers who came

469
00:23:15,140 --> 00:23:18,460
Speaker 1: in and, you know, abused his wife and his kids,

470
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:21,760
Speaker 1: left him for dead. And he's like, I don't understand

471
00:23:21,800 --> 00:23:25,160
Speaker 1: the sovereignty of God. I'll never erase that from my brain.

472
00:23:26,359 --> 00:23:29,850
Speaker 1: I mean, it sort of encapsulates and framed everything I

473
00:23:29,890 --> 00:23:31,090
Speaker 1: did from theology that.

474
00:23:30,990 --> 00:23:31,810
Speaker 2: Point on forward.

475
00:23:32,330 --> 00:23:35,050
Speaker 1: It was such a powerful relational story where you're seeing

476
00:23:35,090 --> 00:23:37,030
Speaker 1: this guy and he was an older gentleman. I mean,

477
00:23:37,050 --> 00:23:40,850
Speaker 1: he was in tears telling the story. And you're just like,

478
00:23:41,250 --> 00:23:45,300
Speaker 1: that is what we're dealing with. That's how this stuff

479
00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:46,220
Speaker 1: fits into life.

480
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:47,840
Speaker 2: And so I think.

481
00:23:47,700 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 1: There's something really crucial to what you all are doing

482
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:58,840
Speaker 1: because doing discipleship in context... in hard context in difficult

483
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:02,200
Speaker 1: space is very different than the way we usually deal

484
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:06,489
Speaker 1: with it in the West where we're doing it. It's

485
00:24:06,510 --> 00:24:08,410
Speaker 1: not that hard things don't happen to people in the West.

486
00:24:08,430 --> 00:24:09,950
Speaker 1: I don't want to, I don't want to portray that.

487
00:24:09,970 --> 00:24:10,850
Speaker 3: No, no, no. Yeah.

488
00:24:11,250 --> 00:24:15,230
Speaker 1: But oftentimes we have luxury that, that other folks just don't.

489
00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:18,540
Speaker 4: Yeah. I, I, the one thing that's really hits me,

490
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:20,560
Speaker 4: you know, cause I've been in, I've been in places

491
00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:24,190
Speaker 4: where they're, they're, A couple hours from mortar rounds going off,

492
00:24:24,230 --> 00:24:29,310
Speaker 4: we got evacuated with the army showing up. They're lighting

493
00:24:29,630 --> 00:24:33,430
Speaker 4: the policemen on fire with gasoline and things like that.

494
00:24:33,490 --> 00:24:34,900
Speaker 3: So I've been there.

495
00:24:34,980 --> 00:24:39,660
Speaker 4: And what I do daily is I remind myself that

496
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:43,000
Speaker 4: as I go to bed, our partners overseas are waking

497
00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:46,580
Speaker 4: up and they're not safe. And when I wake up,

498
00:24:46,820 --> 00:24:48,880
Speaker 4: I don't even think about whether I'm safe or not.

499
00:24:49,670 --> 00:24:53,330
Speaker 4: You know, one of our partners, I won't even say

500
00:24:53,350 --> 00:24:55,550
Speaker 4: her name. I'll just call her, I don't know, Sandy.

501
00:24:56,730 --> 00:25:01,659
Speaker 4: But she's in a really difficult war zone. And many times,

502
00:25:01,660 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 4: 1130 at night, they bust into her house and they

503
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:06,159
Speaker 4: grab her cell phone and see what's on there. So

504
00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:08,880
Speaker 4: we have to delete every communication we have with her

505
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 4: and she has to delete it on her side. And

506
00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:14,979
Speaker 4: we work with her to move millions of meals and

507
00:25:15,300 --> 00:25:17,460
Speaker 4: plant churches in this really difficult area.

508
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:18,200
Speaker 3: Yeah.

509
00:25:18,890 --> 00:25:22,030
Speaker 4: Like the idea that we don't even think about the

510
00:25:22,070 --> 00:25:24,770
Speaker 4: fact that we wake up and we're safe and we,

511
00:25:24,990 --> 00:25:27,230
Speaker 4: you know, like how often do you think about danger?

512
00:25:27,850 --> 00:25:30,620
Speaker 4: And so that's something that I just live with because

513
00:25:30,650 --> 00:25:33,480
Speaker 4: that's in my inbox and that's, you know, in our

514
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:37,419
Speaker 4: connections and when we go overseas. And so, yeah, I

515
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 4: guess maybe what you're saying, and this is just thinking

516
00:25:40,060 --> 00:25:43,560
Speaker 4: out loud, but maybe our theology would have a different.

517
00:25:43,300 --> 00:25:44,879
Speaker 3: Bent to it if there is danger.

518
00:25:44,900 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 4: You know, like if there's... You know, like there's just stuff.

519
00:25:48,619 --> 00:25:49,700
Speaker 3: Like that that hits.

520
00:25:49,780 --> 00:25:53,060
Speaker 4: And so that's really what's been one of the great

521
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:56,560
Speaker 4: journeys in my life is this one question. And that's

522
00:25:56,740 --> 00:25:59,220
Speaker 4: what if the church in the West were to sit

523
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:01,830
Speaker 4: at the feet of the exploding global church and say,

524
00:26:01,869 --> 00:26:03,590
Speaker 4: can you teach us to follow Jesus?

525
00:26:04,050 --> 00:26:05,409
Speaker 3: Yeah. Not the other way around.

526
00:26:05,430 --> 00:26:06,370
Speaker 1: Yeah.

527
00:26:06,670 --> 00:26:08,710
Speaker 4: Because we might have a lot of information in the West,

528
00:26:08,750 --> 00:26:12,750
Speaker 4: but like they embody these things of the scripture in

529
00:26:12,810 --> 00:26:15,490
Speaker 4: ways that I need to learn. And that's what, that's

530
00:26:15,550 --> 00:26:17,620
Speaker 4: actually what led to, writing a book lead with prayer

531
00:26:18,619 --> 00:26:21,280
Speaker 4: was because I, you know, the church is exploding.

532
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:25,300
Speaker 3: And I thought, man, like what is the leadership principle?

533
00:26:25,340 --> 00:26:26,870
Speaker 3: What's driving this? Like what?

534
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:29,609
Speaker 4: And there are some things about the disciple making model

535
00:26:29,650 --> 00:26:32,570
Speaker 4: where they're all disciples who make disciples, but the real

536
00:26:32,609 --> 00:26:35,409
Speaker 4: driver wasn't the leadership principle.

537
00:26:35,450 --> 00:26:36,170
Speaker 3: It was a prayer life.

538
00:26:36,930 --> 00:26:37,150
Speaker 2: Yeah.

539
00:26:37,750 --> 00:26:40,230
Speaker 4: And I was, you know, like, and when I say

540
00:26:40,270 --> 00:26:43,210
Speaker 4: prayer life, like Roosevelt, our partner who's serving in a

541
00:26:43,210 --> 00:26:46,660
Speaker 4: war zone for three decades, um, Um, I asked her

542
00:26:46,820 --> 00:26:49,659
Speaker 4: about her prayer life and she goes, Oh, I, when

543
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:52,879
Speaker 4: I was 18, I wanted to tithe my time and I,

544
00:26:53,250 --> 00:26:54,090
Speaker 4: I'm sorry.

545
00:26:54,109 --> 00:26:54,510
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.

546
00:26:54,550 --> 00:26:56,090
Speaker 4: I wanted to tithe, but I had no money. So

547
00:26:56,109 --> 00:26:57,609
Speaker 4: I figured the only currency I had was my time

548
00:26:57,750 --> 00:27:00,109
Speaker 4: is what she said. So I started praying for two

549
00:27:00,130 --> 00:27:01,290
Speaker 4: and a half hours a day. And that's what I've

550
00:27:01,310 --> 00:27:04,570
Speaker 4: been doing the past 30 years. I was like, Oh,

551
00:27:04,970 --> 00:27:07,500
Speaker 4: so when you say prayer, And I say prayer.

552
00:27:08,140 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 3: We're talking about different things.

553
00:27:09,619 --> 00:27:10,179
Speaker 2: It's different.

554
00:27:10,220 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 3: Yeah.

555
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 2: And you're on a different level there.

556
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:14,159
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.

557
00:27:14,290 --> 00:27:16,050
Speaker 4: And I, and so I came back and I realized

558
00:27:16,210 --> 00:27:18,050
Speaker 4: I got a shelf full of leadership books on how

559
00:27:18,090 --> 00:27:18,970
Speaker 4: leaders lead.

560
00:27:20,430 --> 00:27:21,490
Speaker 3: Deep into their lives.

561
00:27:22,109 --> 00:27:22,310
Speaker 2: Yeah.

562
00:27:22,510 --> 00:27:24,990
Speaker 4: And, and really targeted. I don't have a single book

563
00:27:25,050 --> 00:27:25,830
Speaker 4: on how leaders pray.

564
00:27:26,550 --> 00:27:26,830
Speaker 2: Yeah.

565
00:27:27,190 --> 00:27:31,340
Speaker 4: And, and so we, my buddy Cameron Doolittle and Peter Greer,

566
00:27:31,670 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 4: who runs hope and cam runs John Mark Comer's ministry.

567
00:27:35,390 --> 00:27:38,260
Speaker 4: we went on a journey and interviewed over a hundred

568
00:27:38,300 --> 00:27:40,700
Speaker 4: leaders around six different continents.

569
00:27:41,220 --> 00:27:42,860
Speaker 3: And we, we did the whole gambit.

570
00:27:42,940 --> 00:27:45,140
Speaker 4: So we did, you know, Francis Chan and John Mark

571
00:27:45,180 --> 00:27:48,820
Speaker 4: Homer and Tim Mackey and Johnny Erickson Tata and John

572
00:27:48,859 --> 00:27:52,859
Speaker 4: Ortberg and Mark Patterson, all these folks. We interviewed Christian billionaires.

573
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 4: We interviewed mega church pastors, and then we interviewed people

574
00:27:56,790 --> 00:27:59,250
Speaker 4: in the war zones. And we interviewed people planning churches

575
00:27:59,270 --> 00:28:01,490
Speaker 4: in the Himalayas and people running banks in the middle

576
00:28:01,510 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 4: of Africa. And we like interviewed, We hit the whole bit,

577
00:28:04,780 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 4: you know, from business to leadership to, you know, ministry

578
00:28:09,980 --> 00:28:13,460
Speaker 4: and pastors and everything in between. I didn't want anyone

579
00:28:13,500 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 4: to say, oh, that's for them. And so, you know,

580
00:28:16,460 --> 00:28:19,720
Speaker 4: I mean, two different billionaires we interviewed, and they pray

581
00:28:19,790 --> 00:28:22,790
Speaker 4: more than most pastors I've ever met. You know, like really,

582
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:27,590
Speaker 4: really powerful things. And we stumbled upon an incredible discovery,

583
00:28:28,609 --> 00:28:31,929
Speaker 4: and that's that I thought their prayer lives would be

584
00:28:32,130 --> 00:28:34,220
Speaker 4: all over the map. You know, I mean, we're all

585
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:36,370
Speaker 4: these desperate, you know, like some guy in the mountains

586
00:28:36,380 --> 00:28:39,150
Speaker 4: in the Himalayas, Francis Chan and a New York financier.

587
00:28:39,410 --> 00:28:41,870
Speaker 3: You know, like they're going to be so different.

588
00:28:42,290 --> 00:28:44,990
Speaker 4: And the, and the exact opposite was true. Their prayer

589
00:28:45,030 --> 00:28:48,970
Speaker 4: lives were so similar and I couldn't believe it. And

590
00:28:49,010 --> 00:28:50,970
Speaker 4: we were like, so every chapter in the book of

591
00:28:50,990 --> 00:28:53,470
Speaker 4: lead with prayer is this, there's the commonalities that we

592
00:28:53,540 --> 00:28:57,900
Speaker 4: saw amongst all the leaders, these similarities. And, uh, and

593
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:00,360
Speaker 4: it just was so life-changing for me. It's changed, completely

594
00:29:00,380 --> 00:29:03,820
Speaker 4: changed my life. Learning to pray at the feet of

595
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:04,300
Speaker 4: these leaders.

596
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:07,340
Speaker 1: What are some of the commonalities?

597
00:29:08,460 --> 00:29:11,530
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll give you like two or three real quick ones.

598
00:29:12,630 --> 00:29:16,570
Speaker 4: The first one was friendship first.

599
00:29:17,510 --> 00:29:20,150
Speaker 3: And what I mean by that is I thought they

600
00:29:20,210 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 3: would be so good at just praying heaven down on earth.

601
00:29:23,420 --> 00:29:24,780
Speaker 3: And they were.

602
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:28,960
Speaker 4: I mean, they all did that. But the core of

603
00:29:29,020 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 4: their prayer lives was friendship. And so, for example, Rosabelle,

604
00:29:34,700 --> 00:29:38,250
Speaker 4: who I told you about, she took in her first

605
00:29:38,470 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 4: war orphan. when she was 16, and now we partner

606
00:29:41,820 --> 00:29:45,020
Speaker 4: with her to care for about 5,000 war orphans. And

607
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 4: she's in a war zone, but she starts her day,

608
00:29:48,800 --> 00:29:52,080
Speaker 4: she goes, I just love Jesus. I just take a

609
00:29:52,140 --> 00:29:55,870
Speaker 4: walk in the woods, in the jungle, and I'll look

610
00:29:55,890 --> 00:29:59,330
Speaker 4: at a spider web and go, oh God, it's so intricate.

611
00:29:59,370 --> 00:30:02,330
Speaker 4: Can you weave my heart that way? And she said,

612
00:30:02,350 --> 00:30:04,350
Speaker 4: I just spend time with my friend Jesus. And then

613
00:30:04,710 --> 00:30:06,450
Speaker 4: you go over and talk to Francis Chan and he's like,

614
00:30:06,550 --> 00:30:08,550
Speaker 4: oh man, I've got all these pressures on my ministry

615
00:30:08,590 --> 00:30:10,990
Speaker 4: and international. I just have to go take a walk

616
00:30:11,530 --> 00:30:14,710
Speaker 4: with my friend Jesus and just be with him. And

617
00:30:14,930 --> 00:30:17,950
Speaker 4: then I talked to a New York financier who's downtown

618
00:30:17,970 --> 00:30:20,969
Speaker 4: Manhattan over hundreds of millions of dollars. At one point

619
00:30:20,990 --> 00:30:23,480
Speaker 4: he was over billions of dollars of capital and he

620
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:26,320
Speaker 4: puts these big blocks of time in his calendar that

621
00:30:26,340 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 4: say waste time with God. And I was like, what?

622
00:30:29,820 --> 00:30:33,180
Speaker 4: And he said, it's a double entendre. In his world,

623
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:36,550
Speaker 4: if you're not trading, you're losing money. Time is money, man.

624
00:30:36,570 --> 00:30:41,150
Speaker 4: You're wasting time. He said, but I put it there

625
00:30:41,190 --> 00:30:44,870
Speaker 4: because that's what friends do. Friends spend time without agenda.

626
00:30:45,190 --> 00:30:48,100
Speaker 4: They waste time with each other. And that was the

627
00:30:48,170 --> 00:30:52,220
Speaker 4: foundation of the prayer. Several other pastors and folks were

628
00:30:52,260 --> 00:30:54,620
Speaker 4: just like, oh, I just stop and talk to them

629
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 4: throughout the day. Each day, I just talk with my friends.

630
00:30:57,100 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 4: I just have to be with God with no agenda.

631
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:02,440
Speaker 4: And so I just started, I started practicing that, like

632
00:31:02,460 --> 00:31:06,080
Speaker 4: just taking a walk and being with Jesus and just

633
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 4: letting him talk and asking questions like, how can I

634
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:12,700
Speaker 4: please you today? And, and who should I pray for today? And, and,

635
00:31:12,860 --> 00:31:14,959
Speaker 4: and what, you know, all of those things, it was,

636
00:31:15,260 --> 00:31:18,280
Speaker 4: it was like the disciples, man, they, every night they.

637
00:31:18,180 --> 00:31:21,200
Speaker 3: Had these, what, a campfire with Jesus. Yeah.

638
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:23,570
Speaker 4: And they would be like, it said later that night

639
00:31:23,620 --> 00:31:25,530
Speaker 4: that the disciples would ask him, Hey, you know, like,

640
00:31:25,850 --> 00:31:26,570
Speaker 4: where do we miss you?

641
00:31:26,690 --> 00:31:30,110
Speaker 3: And, How did we do today? And what was that?

642
00:31:30,350 --> 00:31:33,910
Speaker 4: And it was just this beautiful relationship and friendship.

643
00:31:33,970 --> 00:31:35,930
Speaker 3: And Jesus said, I don't call you servants anymore. I

644
00:31:35,930 --> 00:31:36,450
Speaker 3: call you friends.

645
00:31:37,130 --> 00:31:38,900
Speaker 4: And he said, if you abide, then you're going to

646
00:31:38,910 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 4: have fruit that remains. And so it's utterly abiding. So

647
00:31:42,140 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 4: that was the first one, was the friendship first. That

648
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:50,720
Speaker 4: radically changed my whole framework of prayer and my relationship

649
00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:54,340
Speaker 4: with Jesus. Even Mother Teresa talked about when she, four

650
00:31:54,380 --> 00:31:56,260
Speaker 4: times a day, for very long periods of time, she'd

651
00:31:56,300 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 4: go pray.

652
00:31:57,380 --> 00:32:00,430
Speaker 3: Remember that? Yeah. Do you remember that interview they had

653
00:32:00,470 --> 00:32:01,270
Speaker 3: with her on that?

654
00:32:01,450 --> 00:32:02,270
Speaker 2: It was unbelievable.

655
00:32:02,930 --> 00:32:05,050
Speaker 3: Yeah. And she goes, they're like, he's like, what do

656
00:32:05,070 --> 00:32:07,310
Speaker 3: you do when you pray? And she's like, not much.

657
00:32:07,830 --> 00:32:10,950
Speaker 3: I just sit with my friend Jesus. And I listen.

658
00:32:11,370 --> 00:32:13,590
Speaker 3: And the reporter was like, oh, you listen. What does

659
00:32:13,630 --> 00:32:14,070
Speaker 3: he say?

660
00:32:14,450 --> 00:32:17,469
Speaker 4: She goes, oh, not much. He just sits there with

661
00:32:17,510 --> 00:32:20,340
Speaker 4: me too. And, you know, it's just so cool. So

662
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 4: that idea has been, like on Sundays, I don't ask

663
00:32:24,610 --> 00:32:26,790
Speaker 4: God for anything. I spend a whole prayer time just

664
00:32:26,830 --> 00:32:29,270
Speaker 4: thanking Him, being with Him. I pretend that all my

665
00:32:29,310 --> 00:32:32,010
Speaker 4: prayer requests have already been answered. What would you say

666
00:32:32,050 --> 00:32:35,469
Speaker 4: to God if all my prayers have been answered? And

667
00:32:35,730 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 4: so then on Wednesdays, I always do, it's always, God,

668
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:42,140
Speaker 4: what's your prayer list today? You know mine, what's yours?

669
00:32:42,620 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 4: And I just try and listen, and I'll text people

670
00:32:45,220 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 4: that come to mind, and things like that.

671
00:32:46,940 --> 00:32:50,380
Speaker 3: Just listening. It's just beautiful. So that's the first one.

672
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 4: The second one was, I thought they would have just

673
00:32:54,140 --> 00:32:58,190
Speaker 4: the I just realized that they didn't have a prayer time.

674
00:32:58,470 --> 00:33:02,430
Speaker 4: All these leaders we interviewed, they crafted a day with God.

675
00:33:03,070 --> 00:33:05,390
Speaker 4: So there were morning habits and there are evening habits

676
00:33:05,430 --> 00:33:07,630
Speaker 4: and there are midday habits and there are, you know,

677
00:33:07,690 --> 00:33:10,380
Speaker 4: certain triggers and there were, you know, once a week

678
00:33:10,430 --> 00:33:14,340
Speaker 4: habits and like they really crafted a day with God.

679
00:33:14,940 --> 00:33:17,660
Speaker 4: And that, you know, so like John Marcoma, Dallas Wheeler,

680
00:33:17,900 --> 00:33:20,420
Speaker 4: John Ortberg, these guys were, what is your morning psalm?

681
00:33:20,460 --> 00:33:22,100
Speaker 4: You wake up and the first thing out of your

682
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:22,860
Speaker 4: mouth is a psalm.

683
00:33:23,930 --> 00:33:25,890
Speaker 3: And, and, you know, just the word of God and

684
00:33:25,950 --> 00:33:27,170
Speaker 3: prayer on your lips.

685
00:33:27,760 --> 00:33:29,980
Speaker 4: And, um, and I started rolling out of my bed

686
00:33:30,020 --> 00:33:33,180
Speaker 4: under my knees every day and, and just having that

687
00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:35,660
Speaker 4: posture of surrender and saying, okay, Lord, I need you.

688
00:33:35,780 --> 00:33:38,000
Speaker 3: I'm, you know, I can't do this without you.

689
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:41,540
Speaker 4: And, um, it was just beautiful, uh, to have that

690
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:44,420
Speaker 4: type of posture and add those morning habits and I'll

691
00:33:44,460 --> 00:33:48,010
Speaker 4: take a walk and, and then, um, and then like

692
00:33:48,050 --> 00:33:50,980
Speaker 4: throughout the day, Um, they would have, you know, the,

693
00:33:51,070 --> 00:33:53,130
Speaker 4: the Pope who created the, the idea of having a

694
00:33:53,170 --> 00:33:55,970
Speaker 4: church and a bell tower, Pope Savinius, like in 605, he,

695
00:33:55,990 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 4: he came up with this idea of like, yeah, I'm

696
00:33:58,540 --> 00:34:00,120
Speaker 4: going to have a tower and a bell in the

697
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:02,200
Speaker 4: center of every town. It's going to ring every hour

698
00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 4: and remind people that God's with them, remind people to

699
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:09,020
Speaker 4: stop and praise God, remind people. So like, like metaphorically,

700
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 4: all these leaders we talked to had these bell towers.

701
00:34:11,870 --> 00:34:14,330
Speaker 3: In their day. Um, and some of them were crazy.

702
00:34:14,390 --> 00:34:17,630
Speaker 4: Like Mark Batterson was like, when people annoy me, I

703
00:34:17,650 --> 00:34:19,610
Speaker 4: take it as a bell reminder to pray.

704
00:34:20,430 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 3: Yeah.

705
00:34:20,739 --> 00:34:22,540
Speaker 4: And he says, he's just like, I pray all the

706
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:26,180
Speaker 4: time because people really annoy me. So like, it's just fun,

707
00:34:26,300 --> 00:34:28,540
Speaker 4: you know, but like, like what is, what is your

708
00:34:28,719 --> 00:34:30,859
Speaker 4: practicing the presence of God look like?

709
00:34:30,940 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 3: How do you practice for the day? I have these

710
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:34,200
Speaker 3: prayer cards on my desk.

711
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:37,089
Speaker 4: We took the habits of all the different leaders that

712
00:34:37,110 --> 00:34:40,489
Speaker 4: we interviewed and created a deck of prayer cards. And,

713
00:34:40,870 --> 00:34:43,610
Speaker 4: and they're just like little simple things like, God, remind

714
00:34:43,630 --> 00:34:45,509
Speaker 4: me of your love in this moment. Make me a

715
00:34:45,550 --> 00:34:49,260
Speaker 4: blessing to people here. Just little sentence prayers and breathing

716
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:53,660
Speaker 4: prayers just throughout the day. And then what are evening habits?

717
00:34:53,940 --> 00:34:57,060
Speaker 4: Our family, we take communion every night now and remember

718
00:34:57,080 --> 00:34:58,340
Speaker 4: the body and the blood of Christ.

719
00:34:58,540 --> 00:35:01,460
Speaker 3: It's been so transformative. It came out of a really.

720
00:35:01,219 --> 00:35:04,819
Speaker 4: Dark time in our family and having to do with

721
00:35:04,860 --> 00:35:08,700
Speaker 4: my daughter having these demonic nightmares. And we took communion

722
00:35:08,940 --> 00:35:10,719
Speaker 4: and she didn't have them. And we took communion the

723
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:12,630
Speaker 4: next night and I was like, Kids, we're Catholic. We're

724
00:35:12,650 --> 00:35:15,350
Speaker 4: going to take communion every night.

725
00:35:16,070 --> 00:35:17,799
Speaker 3: And we've been doing that for years.

726
00:35:18,100 --> 00:35:20,919
Speaker 4: And I can't tell you how transformative remembering the body

727
00:35:20,940 --> 00:35:21,839
Speaker 4: and blood of Christ is.

728
00:35:21,860 --> 00:35:23,859
Speaker 3: That's cool.

729
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:26,500
Speaker 4: Or what's your campfire with Jesus at night, where you

730
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:30,230
Speaker 4: just kind of review the day with the Lord? And

731
00:35:30,590 --> 00:35:32,770
Speaker 4: how can I please you, Jesus? Where did I miss it?

732
00:35:33,390 --> 00:35:35,009
Speaker 4: What do you mean by this happening? You know, like

733
00:35:35,130 --> 00:35:38,360
Speaker 4: all those disciple questions and And so crafting a.

734
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:39,900
Speaker 3: Day with God is so different.

735
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:41,879
Speaker 4: You just walk in with your friend throughout the day,

736
00:35:42,180 --> 00:35:44,549
Speaker 4: not having your prayer time be done on your workout,

737
00:35:44,700 --> 00:35:47,130
Speaker 4: on your, you know, it's not a box you check.

738
00:35:47,510 --> 00:35:50,210
Speaker 4: It's leave the phone off the hook and be with

739
00:35:50,230 --> 00:35:54,450
Speaker 4: them all day. And that's way different, you know, than

740
00:35:54,489 --> 00:35:56,969
Speaker 4: what I was doing personally. So those two are transformative.

741
00:35:57,050 --> 00:36:01,049
Speaker 4: And then the last one was investing in prayer. One

742
00:36:01,070 --> 00:36:04,530
Speaker 4: of the guys in Australia, he's like, he says, mate,

743
00:36:05,170 --> 00:36:06,450
Speaker 4: where's prayer line items?

744
00:36:07,140 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 3: In your budget. I was like, what?

745
00:36:10,180 --> 00:36:13,320
Speaker 4: He says, Hey, if you value something, it makes it

746
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:16,720
Speaker 4: to the budget. And, and so in venture, we started

747
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 4: doing 24, uh, seven, seven round the clock prayer centers

748
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:24,029
Speaker 4: in the different countries that we serve. And since doing those,

749
00:36:24,090 --> 00:36:29,230
Speaker 4: we've seen unbelievable things like a thousand person mass baptism

750
00:36:29,290 --> 00:36:32,450
Speaker 4: in a country where it was completely unreached. Uh, 26

751
00:36:32,450 --> 00:36:35,690
Speaker 4: unreached people groups are all present and the government tried

752
00:36:35,730 --> 00:36:39,540
Speaker 4: to shut it down. And the leaders got together and said,

753
00:36:39,580 --> 00:36:41,319
Speaker 4: if you shut this down, we'll all vote against you.

754
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:43,080
Speaker 4: And the leaders were like, you can have your baptism.

755
00:36:43,100 --> 00:36:46,359
Speaker 4: It was like this critical mass moment where the church

756
00:36:46,380 --> 00:36:50,529
Speaker 4: was able to have enough voice to rise up. And

757
00:36:50,870 --> 00:36:55,010
Speaker 4: things like that started happening since we started really investing

758
00:36:55,510 --> 00:36:58,590
Speaker 4: time and energy in prayer. So like in Venture and

759
00:36:58,630 --> 00:37:01,140
Speaker 4: our team here, you can pray on the clock. And

760
00:37:01,530 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 4: we learned that from Gary Haugen. And he has half

761
00:37:04,080 --> 00:37:06,080
Speaker 4: an hour a day on the clock that people can pray.

762
00:37:06,890 --> 00:37:11,290
Speaker 4: And he said, I did the math, and it's almost

763
00:37:11,350 --> 00:37:14,730
Speaker 4: like $ 4 million a year that we invest into prayer

764
00:37:15,770 --> 00:37:16,750
Speaker 4: as an organization.

765
00:37:16,969 --> 00:37:18,730
Speaker 3: And that's so vital.

766
00:37:18,750 --> 00:37:20,560
Speaker 4: So what does it look like to invest in prayer

767
00:37:20,580 --> 00:37:23,820
Speaker 4: in your own personal life, invest in prayer as a culture,

768
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:27,399
Speaker 4: as an organization? And so the leaders we interviewed, they

769
00:37:27,460 --> 00:37:28,620
Speaker 4: invested in prayer.

770
00:37:29,660 --> 00:37:34,350
Speaker 3: They made it. And for some leaders, kind of going back.

771
00:37:34,230 --> 00:37:35,069
Speaker 2: To what we talked about.

772
00:37:35,469 --> 00:37:35,689
Speaker 3: Yeah.

773
00:37:37,730 --> 00:37:39,770
Speaker 4: They'll put their life at risk to have a prayer meeting.

774
00:37:41,390 --> 00:37:43,670
Speaker 4: They're not going to stop having a prayer meeting.

775
00:37:44,210 --> 00:37:44,649
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.

776
00:37:44,930 --> 00:37:49,540
Speaker 4: And, and, and, and, and, uh, I've, I've got pictures, man, of,

777
00:37:49,820 --> 00:37:52,660
Speaker 4: of these things being interrupted by communist soldiers. And like

778
00:37:53,219 --> 00:37:56,779
Speaker 4: Laos is actually a 1970s communist country, like the old

779
00:37:56,820 --> 00:38:00,550
Speaker 4: school Russian communism. People don't realize that there's still relics

780
00:38:00,610 --> 00:38:02,630
Speaker 4: of that existing still around.

781
00:38:02,690 --> 00:38:02,950
Speaker 2: Yeah.

782
00:38:03,390 --> 00:38:03,830
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.

783
00:38:03,950 --> 00:38:06,270
Speaker 4: No, no right to assembly. No more than nine people.

784
00:38:06,989 --> 00:38:10,330
Speaker 4: you know, all these things. And, um, yeah, it's crazy.

785
00:38:10,410 --> 00:38:12,370
Speaker 4: So they'll put their lives at risk to have a

786
00:38:12,390 --> 00:38:15,830
Speaker 4: prayer meeting. And I was like, wow, that's so inspiring.

787
00:38:16,730 --> 00:38:19,009
Speaker 2: I will say, I got a taste of this, what

788
00:38:19,030 --> 00:38:20,550
Speaker 2: you're talking about. Yeah.

789
00:38:20,570 --> 00:38:22,779
Speaker 1: Number one, I think that the comments on prayer are

790
00:38:22,820 --> 00:38:27,239
Speaker 1: really great. I'm interested to get the book and read it. So, um,

791
00:38:27,420 --> 00:38:30,100
Speaker 1: lead with prayer is where I can find all that.

792
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:30,359
Speaker 2: Right.

793
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:30,959
Speaker 3: Yeah.

794
00:38:31,580 --> 00:38:33,819
Speaker 4: And, um, we actually have a lot of the, the

795
00:38:33,900 --> 00:38:36,029
Speaker 4: habits that we learned from the leaders that, You can

796
00:38:36,050 --> 00:38:41,830
Speaker 4: download for free. Leadwithprayer.com is the website. And you can

797
00:38:41,850 --> 00:38:44,430
Speaker 4: get these prayer cards, the deck of cards, and you

798
00:38:44,450 --> 00:38:47,469
Speaker 4: can get a whole schedule to map out a personal

799
00:38:47,489 --> 00:38:49,009
Speaker 4: liturgy and craft a day with God.

800
00:38:49,550 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 3: Nice. And all those things.

801
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:54,380
Speaker 4: And stuff like how to do a prayer retreat and

802
00:38:54,460 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 4: all these other different things that we learn from these leaders.

803
00:38:57,420 --> 00:39:00,479
Speaker 2: Cool. Okay, so we'll put that link in the show notes.

804
00:39:01,100 --> 00:39:01,400
Speaker 1: Sure.

805
00:39:01,980 --> 00:39:02,620
Speaker 2: That's awesome.

806
00:39:02,700 --> 00:39:06,050
Speaker 1: Because I think people really ought to... we wrote a

807
00:39:06,070 --> 00:39:08,410
Speaker 1: book on prayer. Me and a buddy had a book

808
00:39:08,450 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 1: that we wrote on prayer and we had edited chapters.

809
00:39:10,739 --> 00:39:11,500
Speaker 2: And different things like that.

810
00:39:11,540 --> 00:39:15,460
Speaker 1: But we're such academic geeks that, you know, I said

811
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:17,080
Speaker 1: the challenge for me in writing a book on prayer

812
00:39:17,100 --> 00:39:19,819
Speaker 1: is that I'm so much more prone to study than

813
00:39:19,860 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 1: I am to prayer.

814
00:39:20,500 --> 00:39:21,540
Speaker 3: Yeah.

815
00:39:21,610 --> 00:39:24,489
Speaker 1: That, you know, it takes me time to get into

816
00:39:24,550 --> 00:39:25,990
Speaker 1: prayer where it doesn't take me any.

817
00:39:25,890 --> 00:39:26,850
Speaker 2: Time to get into study.

818
00:39:26,910 --> 00:39:29,489
Speaker 1: If you, you know, set a, you know, a book

819
00:39:29,730 --> 00:39:34,100
Speaker 1: thick with footnotes in front of me, I'm like excited.

820
00:39:34,460 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 1: It's just so much harder for me to get into.

821
00:39:36,260 --> 00:39:38,580
Speaker 1: So that's taken me some time to sort of grow

822
00:39:38,660 --> 00:39:43,339
Speaker 1: into a prayer life. And, um, it's, it's kind of, um,

823
00:39:43,700 --> 00:39:46,359
Speaker 1: it's been fantastic, but it's also been one of those

824
00:39:46,420 --> 00:39:49,489
Speaker 1: challenges where it kind of is like, yeah, this isn't

825
00:39:49,550 --> 00:39:52,529
Speaker 1: natural for me yet. You know, I'm still sort of

826
00:39:52,570 --> 00:39:53,850
Speaker 1: disciplining myself toward it.

827
00:39:54,570 --> 00:39:58,290
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what's helped me is these prayer cards because

828
00:39:58,330 --> 00:40:01,470
Speaker 4: it has all these different prayers. The early church fathers,

829
00:40:01,489 --> 00:40:04,350
Speaker 4: they called liturgy, they called it a lattice to help

830
00:40:04,370 --> 00:40:07,799
Speaker 4: the vine grow. And the idea was like these steps

831
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:10,440
Speaker 4: to help you grow to heaven kind of thing. And

832
00:40:10,500 --> 00:40:13,299
Speaker 4: so these, I just have a couple of scriptures to

833
00:40:13,340 --> 00:40:16,439
Speaker 4: read slowly, like Lectio Divina style, where you just read

834
00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:20,880
Speaker 4: slowly five times And the global church always says, by

835
00:40:20,900 --> 00:40:22,860
Speaker 4: the fifth time, it just starts getting interesting.

836
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:24,880
Speaker 3: And we're the ones that like, by the fifth time,

837
00:40:24,940 --> 00:40:26,700
Speaker 3: it gets boring. I know it now. It's like, well,

838
00:40:26,719 --> 00:40:28,410
Speaker 3: you don't know it. You don't know it.

839
00:40:28,420 --> 00:40:31,629
Speaker 4: It has to get in you. And so these prayer cards,

840
00:40:31,650 --> 00:40:33,230
Speaker 4: I'll just grab seven or eight of them. And it

841
00:40:33,250 --> 00:40:34,989
Speaker 4: helps you go from five minutes to half an hour

842
00:40:35,010 --> 00:40:39,509
Speaker 4: as you start walking through praying scripture and some written

843
00:40:39,550 --> 00:40:43,569
Speaker 4: prayers and guided prayers and simple things like holding your

844
00:40:43,590 --> 00:40:47,430
Speaker 4: hands down for 60 seconds and just letting go of

845
00:40:47,469 --> 00:40:48,250
Speaker 4: the pieces of your.

846
00:40:48,170 --> 00:40:52,450
Speaker 3: Life concerning you. And then flipping your hands up and

847
00:40:52,469 --> 00:40:54,870
Speaker 3: just walking through the fruit of the Spirit. Oh, Jesus,

848
00:40:54,890 --> 00:40:56,410
Speaker 3: help me to grow in your love. Help me to

849
00:40:56,489 --> 00:40:58,620
Speaker 3: grow in your joy. Help me to grow in your peace.

850
00:40:59,060 --> 00:41:01,940
Speaker 4: These beautiful things like that, just interactive prayers like that

851
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:07,000
Speaker 4: have really, really helped me. And praying through the Psalms,

852
00:41:07,140 --> 00:41:10,219
Speaker 4: not reading through the Psalms, but praying through them, it

853
00:41:10,300 --> 00:41:13,350
Speaker 4: gives you the language of prayer. It gives you the

854
00:41:13,410 --> 00:41:15,850
Speaker 4: language of calling out to God or rejoicing with God.

855
00:41:15,969 --> 00:41:19,170
Speaker 4: I have my top 10 psalms that is actually like

856
00:41:19,210 --> 00:41:21,710
Speaker 4: top 30 because it keeps growing you know like oh

857
00:41:21,730 --> 00:41:23,140
Speaker 4: yeah this is my favorite psalm and this is my

858
00:41:23,180 --> 00:41:26,259
Speaker 4: favorite psalm you know but yeah it's it's beautiful i.

859
00:41:26,260 --> 00:41:28,100
Speaker 1: Will say that's definitely been one of those things that

860
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:31,100
Speaker 1: i've used because what i found was that i had

861
00:41:31,180 --> 00:41:34,469
Speaker 1: to for one reading through the psalms gave me that

862
00:41:34,670 --> 00:41:37,430
Speaker 1: structure and like you're saying the words to say but

863
00:41:37,469 --> 00:41:40,410
Speaker 1: then i started sort of transitioning from that to writing

864
00:41:40,450 --> 00:41:43,200
Speaker 1: some of my own prayers out because I'm so much

865
00:41:43,219 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 1: more prone to writing than I am to just thinking

866
00:41:46,180 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: in my own head. And so I'd write some of

867
00:41:49,219 --> 00:41:52,360
Speaker 1: those out and I still have that sort of practice

868
00:41:52,380 --> 00:41:54,819
Speaker 1: that I'm doing and trying to continue to grow in that.

869
00:41:55,800 --> 00:41:58,859
Speaker 1: But it's, I've sort of, like I usually tell people,

870
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:02,600
Speaker 1: I'm adapting to my strengths, right? I'm just going to

871
00:42:02,620 --> 00:42:05,359
Speaker 1: lean into the geek and that's going to, you know,

872
00:42:05,380 --> 00:42:07,100
Speaker 1: that's going to kick off the prayer life and then

873
00:42:07,140 --> 00:42:09,220
Speaker 1: it'll take on a life of its own later, but

874
00:42:09,489 --> 00:42:10,200
Speaker 1: for the moment.

875
00:42:11,090 --> 00:42:13,170
Speaker 2: I got to kind of lean in here. Cause I

876
00:42:13,190 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 2: don't know how else to do it.

877
00:42:14,770 --> 00:42:16,310
Speaker 3: No, those are, those are runways, man.

878
00:42:16,330 --> 00:42:18,350
Speaker 4: They're like runways to, for the plane to take off

879
00:42:18,510 --> 00:42:20,950
Speaker 4: as far as like, I start liturgically and I end

880
00:42:21,010 --> 00:42:24,730
Speaker 4: up extra extemporaneously, you know? And so I start reading

881
00:42:24,790 --> 00:42:26,430
Speaker 4: a Psalm and then I'll hit some line of it

882
00:42:26,450 --> 00:42:30,529
Speaker 4: and I'll go, Oh God, right now, this is what

883
00:42:30,550 --> 00:42:31,069
Speaker 4: I feel like.

884
00:42:31,530 --> 00:42:33,549
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. You know, can you meet me in this moment?

885
00:42:33,570 --> 00:42:34,570
Speaker 3: You know, it's just beautiful.

886
00:42:34,610 --> 00:42:36,670
Speaker 4: So yeah, it was like runways to get the help,

887
00:42:36,690 --> 00:42:38,530
Speaker 4: the plane take off to connect with God.

888
00:42:38,590 --> 00:42:40,910
Speaker 3: And, I love that. I write prayers all the time.

889
00:42:40,950 --> 00:42:44,290
Speaker 4: In fact, one of the– so Terry Looper, he's this

890
00:42:44,870 --> 00:42:48,250
Speaker 4: Christian billionaire guy that his company that he started, that

891
00:42:48,270 --> 00:42:51,240
Speaker 4: he owns– I think he just sold it, but he owns.

892
00:42:51,700 --> 00:42:54,920
Speaker 3: It's the size of the GDP of Belize. Like that's

893
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:56,000
Speaker 3: how big his company is.

894
00:42:56,680 --> 00:42:57,279
Speaker 2: Wow.

895
00:42:57,640 --> 00:43:00,040
Speaker 4: And so like if someone's like, oh, I'm really busy,

896
00:43:00,060 --> 00:43:03,920
Speaker 4: I'm like– this guy really finds a way to pray.

897
00:43:04,420 --> 00:43:05,009
Speaker 3: You can do it.

898
00:43:05,090 --> 00:43:07,169
Speaker 2: You know, he's probably busier than you are. Yeah.

899
00:43:07,190 --> 00:43:07,430
Speaker 3: Yeah.

900
00:43:07,750 --> 00:43:10,430
Speaker 4: I'm guessing he kind of, you know, and then, or

901
00:43:10,630 --> 00:43:13,290
Speaker 4: as Peter Greer would say, so we're busier than Jesus.

902
00:43:13,810 --> 00:43:16,390
Speaker 3: That's why we can't pray. You know, like Jesus found time,

903
00:43:16,410 --> 00:43:19,100
Speaker 3: you know, it's just so good. But he, he has

904
00:43:19,140 --> 00:43:19,540
Speaker 3: this thing.

905
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:21,919
Speaker 4: He said, write out a prayer that you can pray

906
00:43:21,980 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 4: every day until it goes from your head to your heart.

907
00:43:25,380 --> 00:43:25,580
Speaker 2: Yeah.

908
00:43:26,380 --> 00:43:28,779
Speaker 4: And, and he said, it's like, like water dripping on

909
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:32,270
Speaker 4: a rock, eventually burrowing a hole, from your head down

910
00:43:32,290 --> 00:43:34,410
Speaker 4: to your heart. And he said, there's a prayer that

911
00:43:34,450 --> 00:43:37,299
Speaker 4: I prayed for 10 years. And I feel like it's

912
00:43:37,420 --> 00:43:41,259
Speaker 4: just now starting to be true in my life. And,

913
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:46,839
Speaker 4: and it's just beautiful. There's something about that repetition. Um, yeah,

914
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:49,450
Speaker 4: I know people say the definition of insanity is like

915
00:43:49,489 --> 00:43:51,530
Speaker 4: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

916
00:43:52,030 --> 00:43:55,149
Speaker 4: And I always counter that like mostly, but if you're

917
00:43:55,170 --> 00:43:57,660
Speaker 4: chopping down a tree, You do the same thing, and

918
00:43:57,700 --> 00:43:58,900
Speaker 4: then something happens.

919
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:00,060
Speaker 2: Then something happens, right.

920
00:44:00,100 --> 00:44:03,379
Speaker 4: Yeah, or as you study Revelations, it said that there's

921
00:44:03,420 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 4: a bowl in heaven filled with the prayers, and when

922
00:44:06,739 --> 00:44:09,310
Speaker 4: it gets full, it tips out on the earth. Well,

923
00:44:09,330 --> 00:44:12,210
Speaker 4: that's praying something over and over and over and over, persistent,

924
00:44:12,290 --> 00:44:13,890
Speaker 4: and then something different happens.

925
00:44:13,910 --> 00:44:15,610
Speaker 2: Yeah, something different happens. Yeah.

926
00:44:15,630 --> 00:44:19,410
Speaker 1: That's very good, man. Hey, we're coming up on the

927
00:44:19,450 --> 00:44:22,370
Speaker 1: end of our time together. And I usually ask guests

928
00:44:22,730 --> 00:44:24,570
Speaker 1: kind of a closing question. So I'm going to modify

929
00:44:24,590 --> 00:44:25,969
Speaker 1: it a little bit for you because I'm kind of

930
00:44:26,010 --> 00:44:29,090
Speaker 1: interested in what you think. So usually the question I

931
00:44:29,190 --> 00:44:31,510
Speaker 1: ask is, what do you think that the church could

932
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:34,960
Speaker 1: do to be more faithful in being and making disciples?

933
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:36,780
Speaker 2: That's the normal question.

934
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:39,860
Speaker 1: So what I'm wondering is if we can kind of

935
00:44:39,900 --> 00:44:43,400
Speaker 1: tailor that to your global experience and say, what do

936
00:44:43,420 --> 00:44:47,090
Speaker 1: you think the Western church really needs to do, start

937
00:44:47,110 --> 00:44:51,440
Speaker 1: to think about, attend to, that would help them help

938
00:44:51,460 --> 00:44:55,020
Speaker 1: the Western church be more faithful at being and making disciples,

939
00:44:55,780 --> 00:44:59,040
Speaker 1: maybe even in relation to the global church. Like, how

940
00:44:59,080 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 1: do you, how do you see the Western churches strengths,

941
00:45:03,060 --> 00:45:07,379
Speaker 1: maybe hindering us from moving ahead as disciple makers and

942
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:11,359
Speaker 1: becoming disciples in ways that we could really learn from

943
00:45:11,380 --> 00:45:12,720
Speaker 1: that global church?

944
00:45:15,340 --> 00:45:19,660
Speaker 4: Um, there is a, uh, six-figure study that was done

945
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 4: on the prayer lives of leaders in America. It was

946
00:45:22,660 --> 00:45:24,440
Speaker 4: paid for by one of the biggest foundations in the

947
00:45:24,480 --> 00:45:28,200
Speaker 4: country and one of the most reputable polling firms. And

948
00:45:28,590 --> 00:45:31,589
Speaker 4: the data came back and it was so bad that

949
00:45:31,830 --> 00:45:32,970
Speaker 4: they never published the study.

950
00:45:33,510 --> 00:45:34,370
Speaker 3: And I got to see it.

951
00:45:35,510 --> 00:45:37,170
Speaker 4: And the guy who paid for it said, this is

952
00:45:37,210 --> 00:45:41,330
Speaker 4: one of the most depressing studies I've ever seen. And

953
00:45:41,670 --> 00:45:45,550
Speaker 4: the deal is, is that we're not praying in the West.

954
00:45:46,730 --> 00:45:48,890
Speaker 4: We're just not. And the Christian leaders are not building

955
00:45:48,930 --> 00:45:51,790
Speaker 4: cultures of prayer or talking about prayer. And yet in

956
00:45:52,469 --> 00:45:57,460
Speaker 4: Timothy 2.1, Paul said, I write this letter to you,

957
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:01,799
Speaker 4: first of all, to urge you to pray. And so here,

958
00:46:02,180 --> 00:46:07,580
Speaker 4: Paul discipling Timothy, and the first thing he says, here's

959
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:10,560
Speaker 4: why I'm writing this letter to you, is I'm urging you,

960
00:46:10,580 --> 00:46:11,680
Speaker 4: the number one thing as.

961
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:12,879
Speaker 3: A disciple is you gotta pray.

962
00:46:12,900 --> 00:46:14,490
Speaker 2: Yeah.

963
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:15,089
Speaker 3: And so.

964
00:46:15,820 --> 00:46:17,600
Speaker 4: The one thing that came out of the study was

965
00:46:17,660 --> 00:46:21,580
Speaker 4: the more education, the more leadership, and the more experience

966
00:46:21,620 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 4: that someone had, the less they prayed, not the more.

967
00:46:26,620 --> 00:46:30,290
Speaker 4: And I genuinely think the scripture that says, my people,

968
00:46:30,850 --> 00:46:35,989
Speaker 4: humble themselves and pray. And humble yourself is before the

969
00:46:36,030 --> 00:46:36,529
Speaker 4: prayer part.

970
00:46:37,030 --> 00:46:37,250
Speaker 2: Yeah.

971
00:46:37,850 --> 00:46:40,250
Speaker 3: Because if you think you got it, you don't need

972
00:46:40,270 --> 00:46:45,069
Speaker 3: to pray. Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah. And so you've got

973
00:46:45,090 --> 00:46:46,750
Speaker 3: to humble yourself and go, I don't have this.

974
00:46:47,730 --> 00:46:50,850
Speaker 4: God, without you. Like Moses, I can't go one step

975
00:46:50,870 --> 00:46:55,799
Speaker 4: without you. And then seek my face. And it says

976
00:46:55,840 --> 00:46:59,680
Speaker 4: prayer twice, really. Prayer and seeking. Go for it. Then

977
00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:02,080
Speaker 4: I'm going to heal your land. And I think the

978
00:47:02,120 --> 00:47:05,380
Speaker 4: global church has a lot to teach us about suffering

979
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:11,239
Speaker 4: and sacrifice and how obedience-based discipleship versus knowledge-based. But I

980
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:13,180
Speaker 4: think the thing that they can teach us the most,

981
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:17,460
Speaker 4: is instead of, you know, if you have a two

982
00:47:17,500 --> 00:47:19,760
Speaker 4: by two, people would think prayer is on one side

983
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:22,830
Speaker 4: and productivity is on the other. And I would say,

984
00:47:22,850 --> 00:47:25,250
Speaker 4: I wouldn't, we don't agree with that. We think prayer

985
00:47:25,290 --> 00:47:29,190
Speaker 4: is on one and activity is on this, but productivity

986
00:47:29,870 --> 00:47:30,750
Speaker 4: is a prayerful leader.

987
00:47:31,450 --> 00:47:32,710
Speaker 2: Gotcha.

988
00:47:32,830 --> 00:47:37,759
Speaker 4: And I think, you know, the myth of activity being

989
00:47:37,900 --> 00:47:43,360
Speaker 4: productivity is is a prayerless activity actually being productivity is

990
00:47:43,380 --> 00:47:47,980
Speaker 4: what's keeping us. And so I think if we learn

991
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:51,030
Speaker 4: to pray as leaders and we teach others to pray

992
00:47:51,140 --> 00:47:53,549
Speaker 4: the way Paul said, the first thing I'm writing you

993
00:47:53,690 --> 00:47:55,430
Speaker 4: is I want to teach you how to pray. And

994
00:47:55,450 --> 00:47:57,890
Speaker 4: we talk about it more and we start building cultures

995
00:47:57,930 --> 00:48:01,529
Speaker 4: of prayer and we start leaning in. Jesus promised if

996
00:48:01,570 --> 00:48:05,350
Speaker 4: we abide, we're going to see fruit. And the global

997
00:48:05,370 --> 00:48:10,490
Speaker 4: church abides. Cause they have nowhere else to go and

998
00:48:10,530 --> 00:48:13,330
Speaker 4: they see, and they see fruit. So that's, that's something

999
00:48:13,430 --> 00:48:17,589
Speaker 4: I would probably, it's probably one of the big dreams

1000
00:48:17,630 --> 00:48:20,390
Speaker 4: of my life is I could be helpful in the

1001
00:48:20,450 --> 00:48:24,890
Speaker 4: spark of seeing prayerful leaders form cultures of prayer.

1002
00:48:25,140 --> 00:48:26,260
Speaker 3: And I think that would change everything.

1003
00:48:27,460 --> 00:48:32,160
Speaker 2: Fantastic answer, Ryan. Really? That's amazing. Thanks so much for

1004
00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:33,120
Speaker 2: being on the show, man.

1005
00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:35,240
Speaker 3: Oh, like I said, an honor.

1006
00:48:35,780 --> 00:48:38,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really has been a great conversation. I'm glad

1007
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:42,969
Speaker 1: Billy Halliwell connected us. It's just for the listener's viewpoint.

1008
00:48:43,010 --> 00:48:46,469
Speaker 1: Billy Halliwell, he's a journalist. He does a lot of

1009
00:48:46,550 --> 00:48:49,569
Speaker 1: work with CBN and various other Christian stations, but he

1010
00:48:49,590 --> 00:48:52,210
Speaker 1: connected Ryan and I. And so it's just been a

1011
00:48:52,230 --> 00:48:53,710
Speaker 1: real pleasure to meet you. This is the first time

1012
00:48:53,730 --> 00:48:56,270
Speaker 1: we're talking, but this has been a fantastic conversation.

1013
00:48:56,330 --> 00:48:58,690
Speaker 3: I really appreciate it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I love it.

1014
00:48:58,750 --> 00:49:00,910
Speaker 4: And any other time, I'd love to be back. I

1015
00:49:00,969 --> 00:49:04,049
Speaker 4: love these conversations and so much fun to talk about.

1016
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:05,799
Speaker 4: We didn't, we didn't get to dive into it, but

1017
00:49:05,820 --> 00:49:07,779
Speaker 4: there's a whole neuroscience of prayer. That'd be really fun

1018
00:49:07,800 --> 00:49:09,500
Speaker 4: to dive into.

1019
00:49:09,660 --> 00:49:11,339
Speaker 2: I'd actually love to have you back to talk about that.

1020
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:12,219
Speaker 2: That'd be fantastic.

1021
00:49:12,530 --> 00:49:13,810
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Love to.

1022
00:49:13,890 --> 00:49:15,029
Speaker 2: So we'll, we'll get.

1023
00:49:14,969 --> 00:49:17,770
Speaker 1: It scheduled because, uh, yeah, those are things that I

1024
00:49:17,810 --> 00:49:20,700
Speaker 1: think are really crucial and, um, it's an area that,

1025
00:49:21,420 --> 00:49:23,359
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, prayer is one of those

1026
00:49:23,420 --> 00:49:26,259
Speaker 1: areas that I've always struggled with. Um, I came to

1027
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:29,320
Speaker 1: Christianity late, didn't really understand a lot of those disciplines.

1028
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:32,149
Speaker 1: Studying came easy to me, reading the Bible came easy

1029
00:49:32,170 --> 00:49:35,569
Speaker 1: to me, you know, but, um, even obedience to some

1030
00:49:35,610 --> 00:49:36,549
Speaker 1: degree came easy to me.

1031
00:49:37,540 --> 00:49:38,940
Speaker 2: But prayer never really has.

1032
00:49:39,140 --> 00:49:41,279
Speaker 1: It's, it's an interesting sort of one of those where

1033
00:49:41,300 --> 00:49:44,220
Speaker 1: I'm just like, yeah, you know, I'm, it's a, it's

1034
00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:47,870
Speaker 1: an ongoing process for me. So, um, talking about prayer

1035
00:49:47,910 --> 00:49:50,330
Speaker 1: is one of those things I really love to do. And, uh,

1036
00:49:51,370 --> 00:49:56,489
Speaker 1: so anyway, um, give the website one more time. We'll

1037
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:58,300
Speaker 1: include it in the show notes, but yeah.

1038
00:49:58,380 --> 00:50:01,600
Speaker 3: So the, the organization to that serves the global church

1039
00:50:01,640 --> 00:50:03,259
Speaker 3: is venture.org. Okay.

1040
00:50:03,340 --> 00:50:06,520
Speaker 4: And then, uh, leadwithprayer.com is where you can get the

1041
00:50:06,540 --> 00:50:09,469
Speaker 4: free resources. And, uh, yeah, and the book you can

1042
00:50:09,489 --> 00:50:11,890
Speaker 4: get anywhere. It's, I think it's in seven or eight

1043
00:50:11,910 --> 00:50:15,600
Speaker 4: different countries, um, around the world now. It's, it's, we're

1044
00:50:15,620 --> 00:50:17,150
Speaker 4: just blown away by the reception of it.

1045
00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:18,899
Speaker 2: So, yeah. Very cool.

1046
00:50:19,540 --> 00:50:20,860
Speaker 1: All right, everybody, we're going to put those in the

1047
00:50:20,900 --> 00:50:23,140
Speaker 1: show notes. I'd recommend you go check them out. Um,

1048
00:50:23,160 --> 00:50:26,380
Speaker 1: check out Ryan's organization and check out the book, lead

1049
00:50:26,420 --> 00:50:30,000
Speaker 1: with prayer, check out the website, lead with prayer, and, uh,

1050
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:32,470
Speaker 1: we'll catch on the next episode of thinking Christian. Just

1051
00:50:32,489 --> 00:50:33,989
Speaker 1: want to take a second to thank the team at

1052
00:50:34,070 --> 00:50:36,630
Speaker 1: life audio for their partnership with us on the thinking

1053
00:50:36,670 --> 00:50:40,310
Speaker 1: Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens

1054
00:50:40,350 --> 00:50:43,600
Speaker 1: of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows

1055
00:50:43,640 --> 00:50:46,210
Speaker 1: about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.