Image vs. Reality: The Challenge of Being Authentic

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome into the Think Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. Joe Wilke here, joined as always by Jack Wilkie and Will Harrop. Will, great to have you back on the podcast. We definitely thank you. Yeah, make sure to go check out that episode with me and Jack. But Will's going to be on part two. We do have a part two coming. It is not this week, probably next week. [00:00:27] Speaker B: We got a lot of great feedback on that. People want, like, people want that to be a series. I've had people say, so maybe it will be. [00:00:33] Speaker C: I enjoyed it. I shared this on the deep end, but I got through most of that episode and really enjoyed the back and forth. Those are just. I'm very glad that y' all talked about the value in those discussions, even though it's not obviously life or death, certainly not salvation, but, like, man, they're just interesting. There's just so much fascination around that. And so, yeah, I'm glad to hear that the. The reaction to it was. Was good. But we also would be remiss if we did not welcome Jack back as well. I was going to say welcoming child number five and child number six, so. [00:01:04] Speaker B: That's right. [00:01:04] Speaker C: Congrats to him once again. The dedication that Jack is showing, not only is he recording on his actual birthday, which he had a, you know, birthday bonanza planned. Right, Jack for birthday number 37. Right, of course, yeah. But the. [00:01:19] Speaker A: Cancel the trip to Italy. [00:01:21] Speaker C: That's right here. But yeah, obviously the birth of his second set of twins happened just a couple days ago, and yet he is here. So, Jack, we are excited to have you as well. How's your sleep? How's. How's everything going with that? [00:01:34] Speaker B: You know, it's like I was telling you guys, I. I wanted to do this just because I felt useless all week, so, you know, like, okay, I'll go actually do some work for once. [00:01:43] Speaker C: So. [00:01:43] Speaker B: But it's been a lot of fun and I'm very tired, so I will try and be coherent on this episode, but it might be a bit of a challenge, but I appreciate it. And this is like 240 episodes plus the think deeper 1.0, which was a series of terrible interviews I did before you guys got revived the podcast. So we're 250 plus episodes and I've never missed one Eli Manning of podcasting could have missed. And I thought about how I should just let him do it. But nah, I enjoy it and it's nice to step away for a minute and get to chat Bible. So. [00:02:17] Speaker A: Well, we enjoy having you here. And we are excited about this episode. Will and I, we were not sure Jack was going to make it. So we put together this outline and we all kind of added some thoughts after we. We realized Jackson making it. And so we're excited for the episode. And Will, actually this was your project, something that you came to me about and was very interested in that. So get us into what we're talking about today. [00:02:37] Speaker C: Yeah. So I'm curious to see what Jack is going to title it because the title might not be the most scintillating thing. But I'm really excited for this discussion. We've got a pretty long outline. Essentially what we want to talk about is how do Christians, specifically within, you know, our church, family, among each other, how do we show authenticity? How do we show genuineness? There is a pretty astounding lack of genuineness. Pretty well astounding lack of authenticity in today's world from people. And I think it is pretty obvious that that has leaked into the church. We'll get to some of that of kind of where this church can struggle with it. We're going to talk about evangel. We're going to talk about, you know, when we cross paths with each other at worship. How do we be authentic without just saying the same stuff over and over again? What about actual worship? Got a lot of stuff to cover, but kind of what spurred this on for me was a kind of an X debate, an X topic that is X timeline. They're on social media, specifically on X. There's been a recent kind of back and forth, I suppose, about how much food costs. The price of a burrito has kind of been the main point of contention. People saying basically that burritos cost $20 now. And that's insane. I was watching a video of somebody. So there's a guy named Dan Crenshaw, who is a representative, he's a House of Representatives from the state of Texas. And an old tweet of his was resurfacing from back in 2021. Obviously Joe Biden was president at the time and he was basically bemoaning the affordability of groceries and basically saying how Democrats and liberals just tell you to not worry about it and how, you know, you guys basically need to get over it. And his point was, no, we shouldn't get over it. Like it's a big deal. Well, here we are, you know, five years later, and he put out a tweet that was basically the exact opposite. It was basically the inverse of his tweet from five years ago. And he Was the one now saying, you know what, guys, we just all need to calm down. It's not that big a deal. That's a very small. I didn't. Had never heard of Dan Crenshaw's name before that most of you listening probably have never heard of Dan Crenshaw. But what that demonstrated to me and demonstrated to a lot of people, because they were the ones calling it out, is like, where's the genuineness here? Where's the authenticity? If it was an issue for you five years ago when Joe Biden was president, why is it not an issue for you now, now that there's a different regime? And obviously, you know, he's a Republican. Democrats do it all the time. You know, there's a million examples. Jack probably could name several that come to mind as he's very involved in the kind of the political realm. Both sides do it, a lot of people do it. But like, it was just kind of the perfect picture of like, man, where is the authenticity? Where is the genuineness? And so we don't see it a lot, obviously from politicians, we don't see it. But I think man, day to day life, I think about the church. And so that's just kind of what spurred on this whole question, as Joe and I were kind of talking about what we want to cover about how do you be authentic and how do you avoid this plague or I guess this problem of being inauthentic? Because I think all of us. Last thing I'll say, and then Jack will go to you. I think all of us can spot an inauthentic person when we see one. I think everybody can spot someone who is kind of disingenuous and like performative, whatever word you want to use. So how do we avoid that? But Jack, any kind of introductory thoughts into kind of that example or this topic? [00:05:53] Speaker B: That example is very interesting in that it's very frustrating to me when I see that. And I'm right there with you on that, just to think how can you live with yourself that way? How that you're not who you're claiming. Because that is one of the nice things about social media is it's all on the record. I mean, it's all out there. And if you're allowed to change your mind, and that's part of the process of authenticity is when you change your mind, saying you changed your mind, showing the math of, okay, I used to think this, here's why. Because we've all changed our minds on things. You say, you explain why. Well, I used to be wrong. And the often wrong, never in doubt is a thing you see a lot. And people who confidently go from one take to the next. And I mean, there's just so many things like that. [00:06:42] Speaker C: There's no reckoning, there's no accounting. [00:06:44] Speaker B: Right. Well, I remember the. At the end of where the COVID stuff was finally just petering out everywhere. And I think it was early 2022, there was an op ed in our favorite Church of Christ newspaper where the guy said something about like, because they had been championing love your neighbor, mask up, don't go to the church building, all this stuff. And then he just came out and his thing was, we can no longer afford to not do the work of the church, like in 2022. Yeah. So you get to decide now that it's not not loving your neighbor now. It's we can no longer afford. Well, we could no longer afford to quit two years ago. Like, and so again, it's another example of this. I'm still the authority, even though I changed what I said and all that. Like, no, no, you don't. You lose authority, you lose credibility. And as a church as a whole, as whether it's podcasters, writers, preachers or whatever, politicians, you're counting on people to have a short term memory. Like they just kind of forgot about where you used to stand on those. Not everybody forgets. And the people who remember, you lose them, you lose credibility. They're not going to listen to you the next time. And that's costly. [00:07:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. I think those are great intro thoughts. You know, the thoughts that came to my mind, we put such a premium on authenticity in today's culture because of all the fake news, because we recognize this, because you get on Instagram and everybody is just posting their fake lives. And so you see a lot of churches that, you know, they post about authenticity. And actually, Jack, you pointed us to a great post by Jacob Rutledge and you know, he was talking about church advertising. They offer authentic relationships, quote, unquote. It's like a kid telling his classmates, hey, I'm really cool. Or Uncle Rico telling me, you can throw the football over that mountain. Most of the times just talk eventually get hit in the face with reality. Relationships can't be commodified and sold. If so they aren't authentic, quote unquote. Great post on his part to point to the problem. Like, everybody wants authenticity. Churches are going to push authenticity. But it's the things like what we see from. We get mad at politicians. There's a Lot of inauthenticity in a church. So how do we actually cultivate legitimate authenticity, like authentic authenticity? If we can say that, where it's not cheap, it's not commoditized, it's not. It is not glamorized either, as we're authentic here, we offer an authentic experience. And so I think that's where this hit me. [00:09:04] Speaker C: And basically, basically what they mean by that is you. You can come dressed in your shorts and you can bring your latte worship. Like that's basically what they mean. [00:09:12] Speaker A: Exactly. No judgment. You know, those type of things come as you are. And so that's the authenticity. Well, we want to talk about, is that actually authentic or is that partly being put on for some reason? So one of the first things we have to kind of determine is like, what is authenticity? What does it look like to be real in a digital age and in an age where everybody's putting on, trying to show you their very best, trying to, you know, hospitality is having a five course meal and your house is spotless. And is that authentic? Is that not authentic? So these are some of the questions we kind of want to dig into [00:09:43] Speaker C: before we get to that question. Exactly. Joe. I put a question at the start of the outline that I'm very interested in Yalls thoughts on. And that is, think back 10, 15 years ago. Would you guys say that the world that we're living in now is more or less authentic than it was? And the reason I ask it is because I do think there is an interesting argument that can be made for both sides. Mainly it's a question of trajectory. Like, are we heading into a more authentic direction or a less authentic. Obviously, the argument for, hey, it's a lot less authentic every day is just the prominence of social media. Like, that's not going away. That's not something that's getting smaller. There's more and more people on social media. There's more influencers. I could be wrong. Don't remember them really being a thing 15 years ago. It's about the most inauthentic thing in the world for the most part. Right. And so you could argue, certainly it is far less authentic now than it was 15 years ago. the same time, I could also make the argument that people crave and want real more now more than ever. And so more than 15 years ago. I bring this up a lot, but I think that's a pretty big reason why Kamala Harris lost as badly as she did in the election is because people can tell. Even the people that were not fans of Trump. Man, this woman is fake as all get out. Like just performative. It was not authentic. And that's what people crave. You see it in food. People crave real food. You see it in music. People don't want the kind of, you know, auto tune pop stuff. No, they like real authentic music. Noah Khan is huge right now as just an example. And so that's the argument for the other side, is that people want authentic and crave authenticity more than ever before. So we're heading in a better direction. But. But again, you can make the argument for both sides. So I'm curious which side you guys fall on that. Just briefly. Jack. [00:11:20] Speaker B: There was a really great viral video a few months ago. I sent it to my siblings because it was talking about millennial marketing. And when millennials came of age, when advertisement changed and it used to be buy our new product, get it today. You know, the advertiser voice. And they said the change was Esurance, an online insurance, car insurance company. They got John Krasinski, Jim from the office, to talk to the listener, like, Jim from the office. And so it's like a friend talking to you, like, hey, I want to tell you about esurance. You know, I've got this insurance that I want to tell you about rather than buy, you know, go check out esurance.com. no, it was they. They specifically picked him because he had that nonchalant character laid back. I know you're tired of people trying to sell you stuff, but I've got this thing I want to tell you about. And so advertising shifted to start talking to you that way. And they said that with Gen Z, they're getting away from that now because that's viewed as they view very cynically. Like, this person's still trying to sell something to me. [00:12:23] Speaker C: Yes. [00:12:23] Speaker B: And that's the same way with churches. In that same timeframe, with the millennials coming of age, started doing the hey, we're authentic, we're about authentic relationships here kind of thing. And now we get it. [00:12:34] Speaker A: You hate church, right? [00:12:35] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. You know, it's. We're the church for people who don't like going to church. You know, things like that. And the cynicism is. Well, I've said this so many times. Like, how many preachers get up on a stage and say, jesus doesn't like religion? Like, shut up. Like, nobody's buying that. And so again, the cynicism sets in. And so now a lot of it is just kind of like, yeah, we know. Let's just get this over with. We're going to tell you about this. We're just, we're not going to offer. Yeah, we've stripped everything out because, you know, the millennial thing was layering things in irony and all that. Now it's just straight cynicism. Everybody's cynical about everything. Nobody trusts anything. And it's a bummer. Like, I look back kind of fondly and it's a nostalgia thing. It's what you grew up with on those. A little bit over the top and you know, they're trying to. Billy Mays. Billy Mays here for the shamwow or whatever. Like, okay, it's ridiculous. [00:13:23] Speaker A: He wasn't shamwow, he was Flex Seal. [00:13:25] Speaker B: But it's like, you know what? This is where they're not like trying to deceive you with the other stuff. And so again, that John Krasinski era of advertising carried over to the church, carried over to a lot of things, and now that's burnt out. And so where does authenticity stand? Well, one other thing you mentioned music 21 pilots singing about his mental struggles and NF and man, there's a bunch of them, Jelly Roll talking about his struggles and all that. And after a while it's one of these, like, do any of you get better or did we just commodify authenticity? Did we make the struggle marketable? Like, that's. And so what does authentic look like when everything's layered in all of this cynicism from all the ways that this has all been marketed, like, how do you, how do you be real without it looking like you're marketing it well? [00:14:12] Speaker A: And I feel really bad for Gen Z because they are having to ask these questions. You know, we've kind of figured out reality to some degree. Millennials, specifically Gen X. Well, it's a bummer though, because you [00:14:21] Speaker B: can't care about stuff. [00:14:23] Speaker A: Right. And I think that's where they are to your point is just that as they talk about the cringe or the. Just the laid back, like the, the. What do they call the Gen Z, like dead stare where you just don't care. And it's kind of the way of pulling. Yeah, the nonchalant. Like you're pulling away from everything. Because these are really difficult questions. What should I care about? What is authentic? How much am I allowed to care about one thing or another? And so you end up pulling away from everything. What is good here? And this kind of moves us, I suppose, into the biblical discussion surrounding this. I really do feel like a lot of people are Going more local. They're trying to maybe get off social media. I think they are actually eschewing. They're kind of getting away from AI. A lot of the Gen Z and the younger generation are not quite as hip to those things. And I think they want to go ultra local. And I think they want something that seems legitimate. We've talked about orthodoxy, the appeal of orthodoxy, the appeal of Catholicism and Anglicanism for a lot of young people, because it has the appearance like, this is real. This. There's something here. Now, obviously we don't subscribe to those things. Obviously we don't believe that. On the other hand, you can see how they are looking for something real on a local level. This is where, Jack, you've made this point before. I think this is where the Church of Christ has an opportunity to really thrive in the future because we do offer very authentic, straight line down to earth. Hey, brass tacks. This is what the Bible says. We're gonna do it on a local level. We're not having to go to the bigger, like, oh, they got so and so to speak at the Baptist Convention this year, Southern Baptist, like, nobody cares. We're on the local level. We offer, you know, just a family, [00:15:55] Speaker C: I would say, but we got a [00:15:57] Speaker A: little bit of that. But by and large, because we have this autonomy, we on the local level are able to provide something that a lot of other churches may not, even the big box churches, as they're trying to just appeal to everybody, at some point, they're gonna appeal to nobody. And so to me, this is where we as the church have to get this right on authenticity and making sure we have something for these people to run to because it is so difficult, it is so commercialized at this point. And I don't think we have to be. [00:16:24] Speaker C: Well, just to speak real fast about the Gen Z thing, then I'm gonna get into the church section here. We've got several different kind of areas of the church where we can struggle with this. If we're going to be effective at evangelism, we got to figure this out. Because Gen Z is so inherently skeptical. And it's not. I don't. I mean, I could be wrong. I don't think Gen Alpha is exactly going to be, you know, different than that based on, you know, the world we grow up in. I mean, I grew up basically growing up not trusting what I hear on the news. Like, we just don't trust. We're cynical, as Jack brought up. We're skeptics of everything. And so that's where we're really going to have to figure that out as a church of how we're going to evangelize to young people and things like that. And so. But before we get to evangelism, that's when we get farther down on our list. We want to get into kind of where the church can struggle with us. Hopefully we've laid the groundwork well enough for as far as society politically, you know, music, musically, advertising, all those things to establish this. Where can the church struggle with this? The first section that we have is just kind of the general crossing paths with each other at worship. The classic, you know, get there 15 minutes early, go to your pew. You know, you talk to people maybe in the hall. And there's just kind of like standard. I would, I would call them default, you know, conversations. And I'm generalizing. There's a lot of congregations where I'm, you know, praying this is not the case where there's actual, you know, deep conversation. There's. There's great things that are being talked about. But overall, I would say a large portion of conversations on a Sunday morning, both before and after worship are pretty, you know, how you doing? I'm doing fine. You know, the pretty shallow base level conversations. And so what thoughts. I'll kind of turn that over to you guys. I don't know who wants to go next about kind of how do we, first of all, I guess, what have you seen with that? Jack, you have been in ministry. You were in ministry quite a while as leading a congregation. Joe, not as much, but obviously you've been around several congregations. How real is this? And how do we kind of get out of that kind of concept of like, yeah, we're crossing paths at worship. You sure? We're shaking hands. We're giving kind of a casual, I'm doing good, how's the family? Yada yada. But nothing really deeper than that because [00:18:35] Speaker A: let me say this, I'm curious to get your ex thoughts on this. But as a qualifier, I think people are really afraid to be in the moocher too. Going to the other side where you're always the problem. And so we have this always sharing your struggles of it. You're the guy that's like, man, I do not have 30 minutes to talk to so and so about their problems versus the hey, I'm perfectly fine. You know, things are great when your life is on fire. You know, it's going down. I think we're kind of stuck on those ruts and people are really afraid specifically of this ditch of being the needy one, is that authentic? You know, is that an attempt to be authentic? How do we navigate that? And yeah, Jack, I think you're a good man to end, you know, to talk about this as somebody who's been in that. But yeah, where does authenticity fall? How do we find that? [00:19:19] Speaker B: The being the taker? I've always found that the people who are worried about that are the ones who are not going to do it. So in that moment, that person has to work on accepting help and like being able to say, yeah, I could use some prayers. Like, you know, and you'll know if you're being the person who's always doing that and never doing it in return. Because the other thing is when you come to that, with the right perspective, you're also going to be looking, going, man, that person helped me out. They said a prayer for me. I'm looking for the chance to help them out, you know, not being the person who just is always putting their burden on somebody else and never taking one back. And so that's on that side of it. As far as what Will's talking about, I've met so many people, especially after writing Church Reset, gotten so many messages, emails, talked to people in person who love the idea of being a closer church. The problem is in so many cases, these are people from all over the country, even outside of the country, going, yeah, I want that. Nobody at my church does. And so you meet people like that, you meet a lot of people. We've met church people where it's like Sunday and Wednesday is all, I want to see you. [00:20:20] Speaker A: That's it. [00:20:21] Speaker B: That we're going to keep arm's length. You've got your family outside of church, I've got mine, you've got your. I don't want anything else. Yeah, that's it. Like, this is. This is enough for me. And it's like, how are those one another commandments coming along in the hour? We're together on Sunday morning. You're not really living out the Christian life. This is one of those culture things, a culture of authenticity. And there's. We're going to talk about the different angles of authenticity, about, you know, everyone being perfect, wearing their mask and things like that. But I'm not mask, like Covid mask, but like coming to church, hey, I'm great, everything's fine, you know, and not being able to share burdens. But a culture of the leadership saying, hey, we're going to know each other, we're going to spend time together and not Just, you know, the monthly potluck. But who are doing the visitation? Who? I mean, there's a reason hospitality is an elder qualification. If you're going to create a culture where people get to know each other. I found churches take on the personality of their leadership and if they only see their leaders once a week, that's what you're going to get. And so not that you have to be in somebody's house or have everybody of the church over every week, but get in that habit kind of establishing, hey, we are going to know each other here. When a young bee starts to learn her role in the beehive, she's not sure what to think. But her older siblings are there to help her understand how she fits in and how it is all part of God's wonderful design. In each Ruby's Happy Hive book, Ruby learns important values and is encouraged to always do what is right. 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It's the specific questions, I think, that are really kind of speak to this genuineness and authenticity. And this is where you kind of have to know who you're talking to, know what they're going with. How is your, you know, son dealing with this? Your son started football, how's that going? Hey, home school season started back. How's that going for you guys? Like specific questions or she got back from a vacation, how did that go? Or, you know, things like that. And that can still, I guess, still be kind of shallow sometimes. My point is the more specific those questions are and the less kind of, again, cliche Generic. Oh, how are things going? Like, man, I've had that question asked me a thousand times, and my answer, probably 990 of them have been, ah, things are great. How are things with you guys? You know what I mean? So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, Joe, but that's kind of just something that I would recommend to kind of combat that is, man, make those questions specific. When you're walking down your aisle, finding your pew, and you shake hands with somebody and you're, you know, about to start a conversation up, really process through. What has this person been going through? Have they had a sick loved one? Did they just get back from a trip? What are their kids going through right now? What do we talk about last time we were together, whatever it is. And this is really difficult to do from scratch, from ground zero, if you have not done this before. It is difficult, but the more you build on that, the easier it becomes. [00:23:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the key to me is having a relationship to kind of build into. I'm not going to share something my struggles with people I don't know. And so to me, what you guys are hitting on is important. Like, before we look to share one another's burdens, do you know anything else about their life? I mean, do you know their best friends? Do you know where they came from, where they went to school? Do you know their kids? You know, like, it's really difficult to think that, hey, I'm going to be there for. If you need anything, how can I pray for you? And it's like, I'm not going to tell you nothing. You don't know me. Whereas if you are planning on. Just part of the authenticity is just being a friend. And that's what we struggle with so much, I think, is how do we be friends in today's age? We have so much online that man from 5,000 miles away, I'll be your best friend. I could comment on everything and give you all sorts of advice and be there and prayers and things like that. Can I be a friend in person and show up and just get to know you and your life? And so we make such a big deal out of the hospitality. Okay, you don't have people over, take them to lunch, have a couple questions planned about their favorite sports team and about, you know, yes, it may start shallow, but I'm way more likely to share authentic struggles with somebody when I know you. That's why you guys are going to hear about things from me more than anybody else in my life, because you know me and I know you and I trust that. So if we can build that out from an authenticity perspective, to me, I think we start on the bearing one another's burdens and sharing sins. I'm just not going to with people I don't know. And so we have to get used to knowing each other and being better friends in that. But fellas, I'm curious about the worship element of this because, you know, you're there for worship. We're talking about how, you know, you shake hands with somebody in the pew behind you or as you're walking on the aisle, whatever it may be. What about the worship itself though, while we're there? This is an intriguing one for me when we think about authenticity because so often, especially in the big box churches, it's not a problem, the churches of Christ as much. But in the big box churches, kind of the forest franks of the world come up right, the sway in the hands. And you know, a lot of people now are looking at authentic worship as almost production esque. If I'm not feeling an emotional response, a deep emotional response, it wasn't authentic. So curious to pick your guys brain on. How do we define we're there, we're working on authentic friendships with the people around us. We want authentic worship spirit and in truth we'll always use that. I don't think we have any idea what that fully looks like. We just kind of throw it out there as a platitude. What does that look like? What does true spirit look like? What does authenticity within our worship to God look like? [00:26:11] Speaker B: This one kind of annoys me because I've had members in the past where it was like, oh, you know, I've just got to go, you know, somewhere else where I just, you know, feel it more. And there are churches that say, they say come on Sunday. Not to our worship service, to our worship experience like so who are we worshiping here? If it's an experience that's about me and my experience, it's very self centered and that's the problem. Yes, it's better when the singing is lively, when we're engaged and things like that. But it's also part of the, what you put in is your experience. Like that's if you come and you're singing out and you're listening to the words and all that, that is the experience. Because so much of the other stuff is the manipulation, the emotional stuff, the just slowly strumming or just the well placed, you know, kind of thing. And again, some of the instrumental Ones go farther than what you'll see in the churches of Christ. But it is meant to pull at your heartstrings and all that. Well, it's like, yeah, good worship should, but not in a manipulative way. In a natural way, in a. We're praising God and we love God and all that. Not, oh, wow, oh, man. The moment that this was, I just. I don't know. I feel like you bring the moment, not you wait for it to come to you, is the difference there? And that's where authenticity comes, is the more people you have like that. And that's where you have that saying that the health of a church can be seen in how the men sing. And obviously you want the women singing out, but if the men are singing, then you really know everybody's plugged into bringing something to church and not just sitting there going, how great, Right? [00:27:56] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, this one is a challenge because, man, the issues can just vary from congregation to congregation. You can have a congregation full of people like Jack just described, who literally, you. You could just. You look at them, you're like, do you want to be here? Because I can't. I can't really tell based on how you're singing. You look distracted during the sermon. You know, you're. The Lord's supper is rushed, like, whatever it is. And we can nitpick different worship practices and things like that. But then you do have, you know, specifically, I guess, in the bear congregations, the more performative I would be. I don't know, Joe, I'm curious. I mean, you're the one that brought this up, so I'm really. I'm really curious your thoughts. I would be hesitant to. As far from, like, an individual perspective, I would be hesitant to criticize somebody too much for being inauthentic during worship unless it's, you know, like, man, there are some people that sing incredibly loudly. They get really passionate to some degree. I feel like, man, who am I to say you shouldn't sing? You know, quiet down, like, that's too loud. You're being performative. I know that's not what you're talking about, but, you know, I don't. I've never really been to a congregation. People that, like, sway their hands or obviously the Church of Christ, we don't really do stuff like that. So that one's hard for me to say. But I know a lot of people within the denominations, you know, would say that that's not at all performative, that that's something they'd feel the spirit Moving or whatever. And so, I don't know, I'm curious your thoughts on this. I would. I'm with Jack 100% on kind of the, the dangers of it, the emotional heartstrings getting pulled and all that. But I tend to see, and we've discussed this before within the churches of Christ, a need for more, I guess, more emotion within worship, but in an authentic way. Because, I mean, there's little emotion in a lot of different worship services. But that's just. Again, so that's kind of a non answer. But that's kind of the way I lean. What thoughts do you have? [00:29:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. I think the whole discussion surrounding authenticity, it goes back to my favorite question of why, you know, do you understand your why? Why are you here? Why are the guys there? Well, you know, so many people, to your point, Jack, when they're kind of mumbling their way through the song, so many people are there because they're not ever going to admit this, but basically like, well, my wife and kids are here, you know, well, I need to be here. Well, my parents used to go here. Well, whatever it is. And it's like, I think it creates an inauthenticity. Same thing with any question you have about authenticity. Why do you do what you do? Is it to impress other people? Is it to get other people to like you? Is it to. If you're there to worship God, that doesn't mean you're going to be the loudest opera singer out there, you know, it means you have a true passion and heart to accomplish the job at hand, which is to worship our Lord and Savior together. Right. Like we're worshiping God. So if that's again, the goal, I think the authenticity may show up in different ways. As far as it goes with the hand, the hand movement and things like that. I'm not, I don't condemn people for that. I don't think that's like the, you know, a sinful thing. On the other hand, it's always convenient at how that goes. You know what I mean? I think it's people attempting to try to feel something because we don't know what it feels like to worship in spirit. But I think we've all been in a congregation where just from the singing itself and from really feeling it and engaging in the words and being deep in the prayer when our mind is focused, you do feel a buoyancy. [00:31:03] Speaker C: You do feel goosebumps type thing. Yeah. [00:31:06] Speaker A: Yes. I mean, we've. I think we've all experienced that despite some Degree I hope our listeners have as well. And that, to me is it's not the mountaintop of, like, man, we just got to live there. No, but we are seeking something along those lines. And that comes when we are actively engaged in what we're singing in the prayers that are being led. We're actively engaged in the, you know, just the entire worship process, the sermon and everything else. We're opening the Bible reading along. And so the engagement is there because we're trying to accomplish the very reason we came there, rather than, well, I'm here because I'm supposed to be here. I'm here because I have to be here. That's not a good why. And so I think the authenticity really lacks in those moments. Does that make sense? [00:31:44] Speaker B: Well, that's funny, because I don't think anybody would say those things or even in their own head be like, well, yeah, I just have to be here, whatever. So the authenticity would be saying, okay, why am I here? And really thinking through, like, do I want to do this? And if I do, how do I do it better? And I think that leads to better worship is when you think through what you want. All right, so we've got a few more on here. You had being authentic and care for the brethren. That kind of was covered a little bit in the crossing paths, talking about how each other are doing. Do you want to go with that or authentic and genuine evangelism? [00:32:14] Speaker C: Well, I was just going to bring up the hospitality challenges, like, we talked about hospitality a lot. Jack, I'm sure you devoted. It's been a while since I've read Church Reset, but I'm sure you devoted a good portion of that to talking about being in each other's homes. And we've got some stuff later on in the outline about taking stuff from the first century church. Are we maybe a little bit, I don't know, unrealistic about that. But as far as the hospitality challenges go, you know, this is one where I do feel like if we were better about this, this would come easier. This authenticity would come easier. Joe, I know you mentioned, you know, taking people out to eat, and I think that certainly plays into it, but, man, there is power in a kitchen table. There is power in. I'm going to take a night of my week. I'm going to go to at least some effort. And I know we've discussed before that you don't have to have the most immaculate house. I would agree with that. But most people, when they invite somebody over, are going to clean their house. A little bit. And so I'm taking it, I'm making an effort to, you know, tidy up my house, going to cook you dinner, going to invite you into my home. That by itself, before you've even sat down and started a conversation, a connection has been established. And so, and then again the conversation on top of that, the questions, the getting to know people and things like that. If we had more of that, I do think this authenticity thing would be a whole lot easier. The next thing I had on here is like, are we able to disagree with each other, man? If there's some, if there's people with, you know, in pews that I, you know, sit in the same room with every Sunday at a distance, never talk to them, never have them in my home. Yeah, we're probably going to get irritated each like the distance. When disagreements come up, those aren't going to go super well. As opposed to, I know our friendship has gone back 20 years but like, if we disagree about something, you know, we've sat down, we've talked to, you know, we've been in each other's homes, all those things. So it's like, alright, cool, see you, see you tomorrow, see you next week type of thing that doesn't happen without the hospitality, you know, and without the connection. And so I'm not saying anything that listeners don't know already. I guess I'm just. What I really wanted to get to is like, how do we overcome this hospitality challenge? The busyness of people's schedules, the, you know, it's overwhelming having people in my home. I don't cook well, you know, whatever it is, there's a million reasons, like for me and my family, it is pure busyness of schedule. It is pure man, we got to put it out for, you know, three, four weeks ahead of time on the calendar. I haven't, you know, we haven't had either one of you guys over in a month or in like months or so. So like that's where the challenges come in. And so I'm very curious how you guys just quickly. We don't spend a ton of time would, you know, maybe talk somebody through how to overcome those challenges. [00:34:43] Speaker B: I mean the cost is another one cost of food. That's what we started off talking about. [00:34:46] Speaker C: $20 burritos, right? [00:34:47] Speaker B: That's it. Yeah. And so the, what you said, you know, like, oh man, it takes, plan it three, four weeks and it does. So you just do like that. And that's easier said than done. But it is something that, and you know, you Find some people at church are a little more amenable. It'll open more open in their schedule. So okay, make that happen. And other ones, you really got to work it out and say, okay, how are we going to do this? When's it going to be? And then what's our schedule? What's their schedule? But when the desire is there from both sides now the other person just might not care. Like we've run into that before and what are you going to do? I mean, like so you move on to the next person. But yeah, I mean you just, you keep making the effort and it because of the busyness, because the difficulty, because of the cost. It might not be a weekly thing. And it's probably not going to be a weekly thing. It might not be in every other weekly thing. If you can get somebody in your house once a month, that is better than not doing it because it's also anything beyond that it gets very hard to do it regularly. Like if you're doing it once a quarter or whatever, that's once every three months. You're not gonna be in the habit, you know. And so like if you can try to get it to once a month, I think that helps at least make it go. Okay, who are we having over this month? What is our time frame for doing that? Like what is that and what does the schedule look like? And that way you can look at me like, alright, September we, we had somebody over, we spent some time with church family. October, how are we gonna make it happen? And you know, that way which feels, it feels checklisty. [00:36:10] Speaker C: But it's better than nothing. I mean it's better than not doing it at all. [00:36:13] Speaker B: Especially if you're not in the habit. You do have to start with the training wheels sometimes. [00:36:17] Speaker A: And I would start with maybe having your best friends over. People that get used to make it easy, low threshold. [00:36:24] Speaker B: We have a plan to get out of that. [00:36:26] Speaker A: Correct. Because it's easy to just go back to the same people over and over and over. But okay, we're gonna start there. What went well and we ran out of food or we need to get some more seats or this was kind of an issue, whatever it is. And with that in mind of I'm going to do this again, I want to make sure we get this right the next time. What, you know, was this a family favorite? Maybe we make the same meal once a month for every new family that we bring in because it just seems to be a crowd pleaser. I mean, think logistically through this with the Concept. Yes. I would have it on the calendar. We try to do that. You know, we're definitely looking at being a little more hospitable. We've had some people over recently, and it's a blast. You know, Will, you said that earlier, like, sitting across from the table, you just get a different side of people then you're going to get at any other time in your life. You're never going to connect to church the way you do across the family dinner table, asking about their lives, sharing some. Some, you know, cherry pie or whatever it may be, and just having a really good time with that. Yeah, well, whatever. I'll eat it all. Decaf coffee. [00:37:23] Speaker C: You know, Joe's not picky about his pies. [00:37:26] Speaker A: You know, pies. I don't know why I went with pie because it's not actually my favorite. But I'll eat everything, honestly. Any dessert, if it's sweet. [00:37:32] Speaker B: But I was gonna throw something else in there that we've had people say, man, I live in an apartment. Having people over is really hard use. Good weather, picnic at the park, you know, and that's another way maybe of a food cost, like, all right, we're not doing anything fancy. We'd like to hang out with you, you know, especially if it's, like, families and it's too many kids to get together. Just say, hey, let's go, you know, pack sandwiches. You practice. Well, let's. Let's just hang out, you know? And, yeah, again, you've got to find people who are willing to do that. But you will, you know, you'll find some people, and it's fun. [00:38:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. [00:38:04] Speaker C: I would agree. I mean, yeah, I think we covered that well. We got evangelism next. Joe, I don't know if you want to kind of get us into that discussion. I feel like there's always going to be authenticity challenges with evangelism because we feel like we're marketing something. We feel like the ad read that we were talking about earlier, we feel like we're selling something. And so anytime that comes into play, there is a feeling that we don't want to be the salesperson. We don't want to be the obnoxious person. But then what that can lead to is people who never start a conversation, people who never. I don't want to force the issue. And then they just never talk about their faith or they never reach out to their neighbor that they see multiple times a week or never talk to their co worker. And so, yeah, what thoughts do you have on how we can be authentic and genuine within evangelism and reaching out to people. [00:38:52] Speaker B: Hey guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars and want to support the work that we do, the best way to do so is to go to focuspress.org donate that's focuspress.org donate thanks again for listening. [00:39:14] Speaker A: Well, you always got to be careful. The bait and switch, right? The trying to get them in the door. It's one of the big reasons I'm not the biggest fan. How long do you have things like that. [00:39:22] Speaker C: Yeah, there you go. [00:39:23] Speaker A: Exactly. You know, a little bit of the bait and switch. But I think we can do this just in general of, I don't know, we promise, we kind of oversell. I think about that concept of let's say you got like your favorite band and you're really passionate about your favorite band and you just can't wait to tell other people, like, man, I went to their concerts, it's incredible. And you got to listen to this. And then they listen to it and they go, you know, I'm not as into this. [00:39:44] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:39:45] Speaker A: And you almost feel like this, I gotta defend it, you know what I mean? Or what did you not like about it? Rather than being okay with, hey, come and see. You know, we see that with Jesus. Like, hey, just come and see. I got somebody here. This is incredible. And you know what? If Peter and Andrew or whatever, like if he didn't come and see, it's okay. He's still going to follow him. He's still going to do his own thing. And so it's just the passion and the excitement for what you are going through as a Christian. And sometimes that's that we don't want to over manufacture. That's where the inauthenticity comes in, is we're trying to manufacture this excitement. It's not always exciting being a Christian. I'm just going to call it out. It's not always exciting. And people go, well, it should be exciting. You've been saved, like, absolutely. But some days are really tough, you know what I mean? We are people too. And that's why we go through these valleys and God is with us. Psalm 22 is not a psalm of excitement. Let's be honest, you know, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Like, we have those moments in life, but it's this relationship with God that I think people see through. When you don't have the relationship you're running off of the emotion goes back to the hand swaying and such. When it's like, oh, this is just such a bet, you know, the. Such a great church and everything else. That's great. But do we have the relationship with God? Like, man, you got to come see. Come check this out. To me, people going off. It sounds weird to go off of vibes. People really get vibes. I understand vibes from other. You know what I mean? Like, I can tell this is a little cheesy, you know, this church or whatever. I've had those experiences. I don't want to give off that vibe of cheesiness or inauthenticity or whatever else. And so for the evangelism, and this is just inviting people to church, but it's the concept of, you know, even with the Bible study, I have something great in my life. I would love for you to be able to have this, too. And if you don't want this, that's okay, too. You know, it's not okay, but, like, it's. It's. At some point, you shake the dust off your feet and you realize it doesn't diminish in my mind, the excitement that I'm feeling. It's like, man, it's. It's just a relationship that I think you could have, too, if you want it. [00:41:34] Speaker C: Here's the struggle before Jack goes. It's real, I guess. I think I agree with you. It's really hard to balance that perspective with the. You never mentioned him to me. Him, kind of. Some of the. I'm not gonna call them scare tactics. We should be scared of hell. Yeah, the guilt trip thing, like, I think that's where, you know, as somebody who has never really been a part of, like, an evangelistic program, you know, that which those, you know, get all the social media love or whatever it is, a lot of those are built on, hey, it's. It's urgent. Time is now. Like, you're gonna, you know, use using the threat of hell. And again, that hymn of, like, man, can you imagine getting to judgment day and seeing your co worker go to the other side? And, like, I think there's some legitimacy to that. Like, we should absolutely be concerned for the. For the eternal. Their eternal salvation. It's not something to be trivial with. It's not something to just kind of say, well, you know, if you want to, great. If you don't know. No, like, no, it's not that. But also, that does make it really hard to do the. You know, just come and see. And we'd Love to have you. This is a great part of my. So I'm just kind of muddying the waters there. But that's kind of as I was listening to you, Joe. Like, that presents a challenge to that perspective, if that makes sense. [00:42:46] Speaker A: And Sorry, Jack. Well, actually let you get in at some point. How much does that. How much is that relevant in a Christian culture? Well, in a Christian culture where you never mention it to me, it's like, guy, there's about, you know, thousand Bibles on your phone. If you ever want to look it up, like you heard that, don't tell [00:43:02] Speaker C: me you've never heard of it, right? [00:43:03] Speaker A: Yeah, correct. Like this. This concept that it falls on me. And if he doesn't make it to heaven, it's because I never said anything. I don't know that those tactics really work all that much. As much as what I'm getting out of, like, the relationship side of, like, man, I'm excited to tell you about this because I do have this relationship with God. And that sounds a little cheesy to say that too, but I don't know, Jack, where do you fall on that? And is there a legitimacy to. I don't want to say scare tactics, but it kind of is of like, you get to heaven and he looks at him and said, why didn't you mention my name? Like, I don't know, why didn't you pick up the Bible that you have, you know, the 30 copies of the Bible that are dusty. [00:43:36] Speaker C: Well, it's just real quick. In the parable of the rich man, Lazarus, that's basically what. Sorry, Jack, That's. That's basically what he tells them, is they've got Moses and the prophets. They can hear them. They don't need you to go back and tell them, sorry, Jack, go ahead. [00:43:48] Speaker B: There's a duty to seek, right? And so the lost. He's lost not because of the Christians around him. He's lost because of himself. And the other Christians around him should have taken the opportunity if it's there. But there's a lot more. If he was around Christians, he had opportunities to seek, and those who seek find. And so there is that reality of it. And so scaring people into it, man, anytime we're doing something out of fear versus out of joy, out of like, the real belief in the purpose, you're not going to be as good at it. The other thing is, as we're talking about authenticity with this, that is where we've gone to the other side of kind of the. Not begging, but, well, the thing we've had episodes about before of church is basically like, well, we're worse than you, actually. We're the brokenness culture thing and, like, dumbing down the church and all that. [00:44:39] Speaker C: Down to their level. [00:44:40] Speaker B: Yeah. And attacking Christians. We're not like, those Christians who won't sit next to the woman with tattoos. Like, man, shut up. There are not Christians who won't sit next to the woman with tattoos. Okay, but like. And so that was authenticity there for a while. Is telling everybody, as we talked about earlier, how authentic you are and how broken you are and how you welcome the broken and all that. And now that has been seen through the eyes of the cynicism of, like, you're still pitching something to me. You're still trying to get me to come over to your side. And so it's still looked at as marketing. And so now we're back to that question of, like, what is authenticity and evangelism? And I think it's just shooting straight with people. You're lost. As you said, I've got something here that will change your life and make it better, but also save you. But also, you have a duty to do this. I think that is one of the things that has been taken out of evangelism. This is one of those things that comes up a lot. But the Jesus as Savior is pushed all the time. Jesus as Lord is not authentic. Evangelism is telling people, yeah, you actually are gonna have to change. You were not hiding this from you, that, hey, you are wrong about this and you're gonna have to repent of that. But it's worth it. It's the right thing to do. It's a good thing to do. And, you know, I just. I saw something just this week where, you know, about, like, homosexuality and how the church handles it and all that. Listening to each other. We need to listen to each other. No, that conversations. I don't. I don't need to have a conversation about it. It's a sin that you need to repent of. And if not, your soul is in eternal peril. And you need to hear that. That's authenticity. And some people are going to hate you for it. Other people are going to see, okay, they believe what they say. Like, this is. This is real. This is not. They are shape shifting depending on who they're talking to. That's authenticity. Now, the church shapeshifted, and you can go down a long rabbit trail of this, but this is what Tim Keller taught people to do. Move to New York City. I'm Gonna speak to the New York City, you know, liberals about how to come to church. And his church boomed. It got huge. And you look and it's like, yeah. Because when pressed, is homosexuality a sin? He takes five minutes and never says yes. Like, that's not authentic. You're not. Because either they're gonna come into your church and hear at some point that you lied to them up front, or you're never gonna tell them one way or another, you're not being authentic in your evangelism. And so our duty as a church and being authentic is to say, I love you. That's why I tell you the truth, not I love you. So I'm not gonna tell you the truth. Which is what it's been for a long time. [00:47:09] Speaker A: That's a. That's such an interesting. That's a needed angle, the sin angle. Because that post was going through my mind as well. Something that we saw this week. You and I were talking about that. The ability to just call a spade a spade and say, hey, this is wrong. That is where authenticity shows up most. And that's why I think everybody is kind of. You see somebody like a Nick Fuentes, the guy's wrong and he's an idiot in so many ways, but he's willing to say things nobody else is willing to say. And there is an authenticity to that. You know, the Andrew Wilson's who's following us would. [00:47:40] Speaker C: Would be a testament to that. Yeah, correct. [00:47:43] Speaker A: Like they just want. Say it the way you want to say it. And there's no apologies, there's no backtracking. There's no let's have a conversation. There's no any of those things. It's like, this is the way that it is. And look, we've taken some heat on this podcast for that. We've taken some heat on Jim podcasts for that. Of, you know. Well, we just said some things like, could we have said a little bit better? Yeah, I mean, we're shooting off the cuff here, man. Not everything is absolutely scripted, but at the end of the day, we really want to appeal to authenticity. What you're seeing is what you get. And I will back this up a thousand percent to your face. And what we're saying, could we say some things a little differently? But I think we're so afraid of offending. And this kind of goes to that millennial side of things, of we're just a broken sinners coming to the church. We don't want to offend you. Yeah, we're terrible. We realize that, like Stop the self deprecation. Let's just say it the way that it needs to be said. If you need to be called out on a sin, be called out on a sin. If you need to be praised up one side, down the other and said, hey, man, you're doing fantastic, let's do that too. Let's speak to the needs of the moment and not backtrack, not or backpedal some things, or not. Give a bazillion one caveats that to me, when it comes to evangelism, when it comes to how we handle problems in the church, that is a true sign of whether we are being authentic or not. How many caveats do you have to give? I'm not saying this, and I want to avoid this. Just say it, man. Just say it. And I think that is going to really attract the right people going into the future for people that are looking to be told, what do I do? What must I do to be saved? I think that concept of what we see in Acts 2 is going to come back around where people are going, what is it going to take? And for us to just shoot straight with them. You are a sinner who needs Christ, and by the grace of God, we've been saved too, and we can be on this journey together. [00:49:16] Speaker B: I got a comment one time saying, what do you mean the right people? People who are seeking the truth? Those are the people who are going [00:49:21] Speaker A: to be attracted to the truth. [00:49:22] Speaker B: Okay? The people who come to you and you're not giving them the truth and they stay. Those are not people who are seeking the truth. [00:49:29] Speaker C: So one of the struggles with this is it's inevitable that whenever we're going to, in our efforts to be authentic and more authentic, we have to be willing to share what we're struggling with. We brought up time and time again galatians6 12 that talks about bearing each other's burdens. And the point has been made a thousand times, I can't bear your burden if I don't know what your burden is. The problem with that is all three of us have taken multiple shots at what we would call brokenness culture, which is the idea of kind of glorifying weakness and glorifying struggles and making that the ultimate achievement, essentially, and glorifying it to the point that you never really get out of it, that the person who struggled with mental health for the last five years is no closer to getting out of those struggles than they were five years ago type of thing. And Jack, you brought up a good point before about how that was kind of an overreaction to the brokenness culture, was an overreaction to people within congregations kind of exuding this perfect image. I don't have anything wrong at home. And that, that was a problem as well. So, Joe, I'll hand it to you next to kind of ask. And I've got my thoughts as well of like, how do we, how do you share struggles authentically, if that makes sense. Without it, without it, you know, seeming like you're trying to glorify the struggle that you're in. And I think to just to give my quick $0.02 on this, I think similar to an answer Jack gave earlier, if you're kind of processing through that, like, how do I do that without saying I think you're probably okay. Like, I don't think you're going to be the one that's going to revel in that. I think most people do tend to kind of bury their struggles and do tend to. I don't want to bother people with that or man, this is not a huge deal. And this is where the coffee table, the kitchen table, this is where this really comes into play. And so my answer of how you can do that is it's it. If, man, if you've got something in day to day life that you're struggling with, trouble at work, man, one of your kids as a teenager has been really giving you a hard time with X, Y or Z. One of your toddlers really giving you a hard time, man, we've talked about, you don't want to dog your spouse, but man, maybe you've got a marital struggle that you're just kind of dealing with. I think if you're somebody who's like consciously worried about, man, am I going to be glorifying my struggle? I think you're. I don't think that's a problem that you have to worry about. And I think that where the authenticity comes in is this is my struggle, this is what I'm going through. Any thoughts like, is there anything that, you know that you would say what thought? Joe, you're better at this than anybody with what you do for a living in therapy. So thoughts on that? And people sharing their struggles, especially within the confines of a church family. [00:52:03] Speaker A: To me, I think it's whether you define yourself by your struggle or not. And Jack, you were hitting on this earlier kind of the twenty one Pilots thing and you know, I like their music. But there's a point at which it very much felt like he was defining himself by his struggle. And if you follow the whole lore. He basically did. That's kind of what it came down to. And that, to me, is where you have people that they want to share their struggles, but they actually don't really have hope of getting better because it's how they've defined themselves. Whereas I know I can get better, I know I am getting better, but I do have some struggles that I would like to be able to process through and get to the other side. Therefore, I need your help. I need your prayers, I need your advice. I need whatever it is, because I know I can get from A to B or A to Z. I just maybe need some help getting there. Whereas the people that define themselves by the struggle, it's like I'm stuck at A, and I never plan to ever move past A. So I will tell you about my problems and I might get some really good information. At the end of the day, I'm just broken. I'm never going to get better. And so that, to me, is where I see. Even in therapy, I see people improve. I see people not improve. What's the difference? The inability. Those who can improve have an inability to see the positive, have an inability to get past their own struggles and to think that they can get better. And so they start defining themselves by their issues rather than by their ability to grow and change and get out of those issues. So it really is a. Once again, how do you define yourself going forward? And that's why in the therapy world, it's Rogerian, unconditional positive regard. Like, we have this positive regard that is not going away. It's gonna get better. It's okay. We can. We can do this. Some people get in the mire of it and they just don't think that. And so every week they show up talking about the same problems, and people get really burnt out. And that plays into the victim role of, like, see, I can't get better. Nobody else thinks I can get better either. It's like what we did for the first 50 weeks, but we don't know [00:53:49] Speaker C: because you're not getting out of it, right? [00:53:50] Speaker A: Yeah, right. But calling that out only furthers the victimization of, like, see, you know, now they're calling it out. Boy, either I really am bad or everybody does hate me, or, no, I can't trust anybody. And so it plays into that. It's really, really tough to get out of. So it takes you being willing to say, man, Christ has me at the very foundation. If everybody hated me, I've got Christ. And we just go up from there, [00:54:12] Speaker B: Rogerian, unconditional positive regard. Was that what that phrase was, Carl Rogers? [00:54:16] Speaker A: Yeah, Unconditional positive. [00:54:17] Speaker B: We all have something to go Google now. [00:54:19] Speaker A: Sorry. [00:54:20] Speaker B: Yeah, the phrase. No, I'm just giving you a hard time. The phrase that comes to mind is that the church is not a. [00:54:29] Speaker C: It's a hospital. [00:54:31] Speaker B: Hospital for saints, not a museum for saints. [00:54:33] Speaker C: Yeah, museum for saints. There you go. [00:54:34] Speaker B: So the phrase is, the church is not a museum for saints, it's a hospital for sinners. Right. And that is kind of a good phrase. And then it stops being a good phrase after a little while because you're. You get out of the hospital at some point. You're not supposed to stay in the hospital your entire life. And when you make this the point of the church, you end up with that broken culture when nobody ever gets better. And my mind goes to Paul saying, I am the chief of sinners in First Timothy 1:15, saying, he's the chief of sinners currently. But also in First Corinthians 15, I think, 9 and 10 in that range. He's saying that, man, I'm not worthy to be counted among the apostles, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. That's important. He graduates, he moves forward. Do you move forward in your Christian life? Are you stuck in the. I'm always the worst. And another one is the tax collector. In Luke 18, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. And he goes home to his house. Justified. He's justified. [00:55:29] Speaker C: He's a saint at that point, right? [00:55:31] Speaker B: You accept that you're justified. You don't keep beating yourself up. And so when we talk about, on a practical level, doing this as the church man saying, man, I've had my struggles. And even being open about them, this is something that, again, pornography addiction. Joe has talked about his struggles with that. I've talked about my struggles with that. How many people has Joe helped because he said, man, I'm not about. In fact, I remember Bible studying with an old hockey teammate, and Joe brought that up, and he's like, you struggled with that. This hockey teammate who sees Joe as the perfect Christian kid. Here's. Wow, you've got this problem, this sin problem that other people have, and you're supposed to be above that. That's authenticity. But Joe also saying, yeah, but we deal with it in Christ. You find answers to these things, and you can get better over it. How hopeless would it be if it's like, yep, I deal with that. And I'm always gonna. I'm just always gonna Be the worst. I'm still stuck there. I'm still. Why would you become a Christian if you're not gonna get better from these things? And so authenticity is acknowledging the reality of our shortcomings and finding that hope in them. As Joe's talking about whatever that fancy term was about, not getting stuck in the feedback loop of negativity. It just bothers me when Christians talk this way as though we'll never get out of it. I think some of that is stolen from like the Alcoholics Anonymous thing. Like, I'm still an alcoholic. Well, you're still somebody who would fall if you gave. Played around with that temptation. But if you haven't had a drink in 30 years, you're not an alcoholic. [00:56:57] Speaker A: That is my single biggest problem with 12 step. [00:57:00] Speaker C: Sorry, Joe, go ahead. [00:57:01] Speaker A: Sorry, go for it. [00:57:02] Speaker C: I was just saying that's the classic or should Christians refer to themselves as sinners? Question and argument. And I don't think they should. That's the, you know, the. That phrase, the church, man. I got a few bones that I would pick with that one. I suppose I get the point of, like, it's a place where sinners can come to be healed and get better. Like, obviously, sure. But that's where, like, no, you're not a sinner anymore. You are a saint. And so the only. I guess as we're kind of getting close to time here, where I would take kind of my closing thoughts here is that there are. We brought up the different scenarios. We brought up crossing paths and worship and your actual worship, the evangelism, hospitality, all these things. I think you have to identify, what if this is something you struggle with? What are the current barriers to me being authentic or to, you know, being amongst a group of believers who are authentic? What are those barriers? And it can be something different for a multi. It can be something different for everybody. I mean, there are some people that, as I brought up earlier, just as it relates to the hospitality thing, it's pure busyness. It's. I am just slammed. I don't have any nights free. That's going to be something you're going to have to navigate. Does it mean, you know, taking stuff off your plate? Does it mean, man, if you got every night booked up, do you try to do something over coffee in the morning, like, being creative with it? For some people, it's not busyness, it's. And this is maybe the cynical side, it's just a lack of interest. We spoke to this earlier of like, man, I'll worship with you. I Don't really care to get to know you that much, to be honest. You know, I'll. Like I said, I'll sit in the same church building with you, but I'm just not that interested in how you're doing. That's. Obviously, you got bigger fish to fry if that's your perspective. But that's where I would say really taking the time to connect with people outside of the church building is going to be something to focus on, but for other people, and then I'll wrap up. It is just a pride thing. It's an ego thing. It's. I don't want to appear weak. I don't want to share struggles. I don't want to, you know, come across vulnerable in any way. I want to uphold my perfect image or whatever it is. And for some people, you know, that's going to keep them from being authentic. But the problem with that is people can spot that pretty easily. And so I guess my. My closing thoughts would be figure out what your barriers are. If this is something you struggle with, if this is something you feel like you'd like to get better at, what is keeping you from being authentic? Is it a time thing, a character trait thing, whatever it is, and go from there. But I do think, man, that churches would get so much stronger, and I do think it would help with our youth retention rate if we improved in this. And we spoke to at the start of the episode is that Gen Z can, for the most part, and again, I'd say generations after that are going to be able. They're going to be on the lookout for fake, inauthentic, disingenuous people a whole lot more than previous generations where they were just kind of given the benefit of the doubt. The benefit of the doubt is gone now, I would say. And so that's going to be something that the church needs to navigate. [00:59:45] Speaker A: Improve local relationships as much as possible. Familial relationships. We talked about the importance of that. That, to me is what's going to fix the authenticity problems in our culture, is you got to keep it local people to share problems with, you know, struggles with, people to share successes with. Everybody's quick to go on Instagram or whatever and talk about their successes, and everybody goes, yeah, sure, you know, and you just get. So either that discourages everybody going, man, my life doesn't look like that, or they go, yeah, sure thing, buddy. I'm sure that's the way that it is. Rather than, man, it would matter so much more if I have a success. And once Again, I share with you guys or share with my family, and that matters so much more, that I have people to share in, and I can be my authentic self. And I have people that are going to call me out, and I have people that can, you know, that I can share with and that they share problems with me, and I can be there and be an integral part of their life. And so we want that in our church. I think if to fix your authenticity problem, start on the very smallest level, which is with yourself, maybe with your spouse and with your kids. Do I show up authentically for them? Do I? Am I real? A real person? Or. I'm sorry to say, but am I quoting Bible verses at them all the time and unable to actually hold any space for emotions or for questions or anything else? Because I just want to spout out a Bible verb. Be real, man. Be real. Be authentic. Let people see that. Yeah, I'm a person. I struggle. And that doesn't mean I'm always struggling. It means there's some good times and some bad times. And so I think there's a. When you start on the local, the very small level, and you build up things, to me, people see it, the vibe shifts. I can tell it in my addicts, the people that I work with, because that is an intimacy disorder. You know, sex addiction is vulnerability, plus authenticity is intimacy. I can tell the people that are vulnerable and authentic and the people that aren't. And so I can tell you, like, within 10 minutes who's going to be getting out of it and who won't based off of the vibe that I get. Okay, Correct. Like, this person is open. Well, the way you get to that openness is by truly looking at it, going, man, at the core, I know that I am saved by Christ. I know I got some problems, man. I'm working on it. I'm growing. I'm trying to get better. That's who we want to be. And to me, authenticity is going to be a huge piece moving forward. Not fake, but legitimate authenticity. Authentic authenticity, I think, is going to be a big thing. So, Jack, any other thoughts before we wrap? [01:02:01] Speaker B: Shout out to Authentic Christian podcast that they came to mind as we were talking about authentic Christianity. Like, no, we're not talking about them. There's a great show. Aaron Gallagher does a great job, but that is not a crossover episode here, so. All right, brief. Think fast. Joe wanted to talk about the wnba, and there they can't define what a woman is. And there are men who are challenging their definition of a woman. And it's all pretty funny, but I will let you guys fire off a few takes before. [01:02:28] Speaker A: I just wanted to laugh at it. [01:02:29] Speaker C: I was gonna say, Joe, what's your question here? [01:02:32] Speaker A: I, I haven't even gotten to talk with you guys about this. Jack, you've been too busy having kids and, and you know, Will, you were out and on vacation. Jack. [01:02:39] Speaker C: So tell me you haven't been dialed in on the latest WNBA drama. [01:02:42] Speaker A: Come on, man. [01:02:42] Speaker B: You know, Come on. Just been off my radar. [01:02:45] Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's one of those. And I think I saw you tweeted this. It was like, this is all just a ploy to get us to care about the wnba. And there is a level of that that's kind of true. Like, man, it's better when nobody's talking about it on, on the other. [01:02:57] Speaker C: I don't think it's a ploy. I think they're this pathetic. I'll be kind. [01:03:02] Speaker A: Like, they're toast. [01:03:03] Speaker C: Man, I, Man, I, I hope that league burns to the ground. And it's not because I dislike women. It's not because I don't think women should play sports. It's because the just the self destructive, like, behavior that they're engaging in is, is just insane. Like, I, you can't. I want them to reap the fruits of what they're sowing, which. What. The fruits of what they're sowing, which, to be fair, before obviously Caitlin Clark came to the league, like this league should have gone bankrupt every single year. Because if the NBA didn't subsidize, man, you just, you, you're clearly showing you don't know how to build a business. Your, your top leaders, your most vocal coaches and league executives don't know how to run a business. You don't know how to market your stars. And then to throw this transgenderism thing on top of that, like, I just, I, I hope that league just again burns to the ground. I think it's, it's crazy, it is hilarious. But unfortunately it's, it's showcasing the ridiculousness in all of this. [01:04:05] Speaker A: It's a sociology study. I'm not a big fan of women in sports, and I think this is the nth degree. This shows it. This is the, this kind of the final boss, you know, so to speak of, like, where does it ultimately end up when you are pushing women in sports, trying to pretend that they're men? You see the cattiness. They're pulling each other's hair. They're. They're, you know, flipping each other off on the court. I mean, it's awful. It is the cattiness. It's racism. It's wokeism, it's leftism, it is socialism. It's all of those things wrapped up in one. And I know that's not indicative of every woman. I get it. I get it. But it's that concept of women leading women in this, which the commissioner is a woman. And it's just some women empowerment thing. And look at the problems that they have because there's nobody there going, what in the world are you doing? You can't do these things. And now a man steps in and goes, hey, I'm going to pretend to be a woman. And their entire system is crumbling because they built it on a house of cards. And so you look at the infighting and whatnot. And I mean, I'm sure you guys saw that Sophie Cunningham getting absolutely clotheslined. [01:05:01] Speaker C: She got clothes awful. [01:05:02] Speaker A: And then the woman gets on and says it's white privilege. Like, they've been in the news way too much recently. I think it's a slow news cycle, partly because there's hardly any other sports and nobody cares about baseball these days, unfortunately. But, like, everything that comes out of it is just negative, negative, negative. And it's women fighting against women, and it's just so the beauty of a woman. [01:05:21] Speaker C: Well, that's what I was getting at quickly. Just to go back, like, when Caitlin Clark first came in the league, it was booming, popular, like, it was the brightest the future of the WNBA has ever looked. And how long did that last? Six months. Like, it didn't even last a full year before it started doing this. So sorry, Jack, go right ahead. [01:05:37] Speaker B: I do not care. I have a phrase that we use quite often with my kids. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. They're winning all kinds of stupid prizes in the NBA because they can't help themselves. And I will. It's, you know, just let them fight. I'll let them enjoy the consequences of their own stupidity. [01:05:57] Speaker C: And I think they are on the world stage right now and people are going, this is ridiculous. Like, I think a lot of people are observing it now that it's on, you know, the stupid games to prize. There are people watching them play their stupid games and win their stupid prizes. [01:06:12] Speaker B: As Joe said, it's proving the logical end of feminism. It's proving the logical end of woke anti racism. It's proving the logical end of transgenderism. It's. They're meeting, They're. They're winning all the stupid prizes. So hopefully people take the lessons yeah. [01:06:27] Speaker A: That's why it's so fascinating to me is it is the end result of everything that we kind of rail against on this podcast. It's the culmination of, like, this is where all of this ends up, and it's crashing and burning. And so from a. If everybody steps back and just looks at the lessons, they're not going to. But if we can learn lessons from this, you could see, man, this. This is a disaster. Feminism is an absolute disaster. So I think it's great for the world to kind of step back and see this whole thing implode and explode, kind of. But anyway, I figured I'd throw that out there and just see your guys take. [01:06:56] Speaker B: Very interesting. Kind of. Sort of. I gave my take. But you're right. I mean, it's funny. At the very least, I agree with that. So that's all we got for this week. I appreciate everyone tuning in. We will at some point. I don't know about next week, but we. Maybe we'll get back to the Bible debates, as again, we knew people had a lot of thoughts on that. So if you got some of those you want us to tackle, be sure to send them in. We'd love to hear your thoughts on authenticity and evangelism and relationships and all that. As always, you can join us for an extra episode every week on the deep [email protected] plus but that's all we got for this one, and we'll talk to you guys on the next one.