The Biggest Challenges Facing the Church in 2026, Pt. 1

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. To the Think Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. I'm your co host, Joe Wilkie, joined as always by Jack Wilkie and Will Harab. And we did this episode a couple years back, actually one of the first episodes we did back in 2022. And we thought this might be really good to revamp it. It has now been four years, which is mind boggling. It's been four years. Things have absolutely changed in the culture. We now have a. We got a lot of different things going on. New president. We have, you know, we are post Covid way more in 2022. I went back and listened to the episode. We were talking about COVID a lot. [00:00:44] Speaker B: Wasn't even a thing. [00:00:45] Speaker A: AI wasn't a thing. It's. It's very interesting how much culture has shifted in the last four years. And so we thought, hey, let's come back. Let's. Let's discuss it again. We have absolutely changed style since. Since we recorded four years ago, y. One of our first episodes. And so, yeah, fellas, I'm excited for this. I think it's gonna be really fun. We have the three threats, three biggest threats facing the church, but we each have three. So we're gonna have nine total. We're just gonna talk about what we perceive to be the biggest threats, and not necessarily just this year, but going forward as an ongoing threat with the change in technology, the change in presidency, the change in culture, the change in everything else. So, yeah, fellas, any introductory thoughts? [00:01:27] Speaker C: My only thought would be like, as you listen to this, you might be tempted to say, man, this is sure gonna be a negative episode. It's like, okay, if I'm a dad and a husband and I'm trying to, you know, diagnose where the biggest threats facing my family, like, that's not negative. That's just responsible. Right? That's something that should be done. And so I would, you know, I think there's gonna be some actually very interesting discussion. It's not gonna be doom and gloom or anything like that. It's just, hey, we're trying to look down the road next 5, 10, however many years and say, hey, what's gonna be facing the church? What are some threats that they're going to. That we're gonna have to deal with as followers of Christ and as the church, kind of collectively. And so, yeah, I mean, don't view it as negative. View it as something that needs to be done and something that hopefully, to be honest, elders all across the United States are doing. So, yeah, I'm looking Forward to this one should be a good discussion. [00:02:11] Speaker B: That's a great point. The other side of that coin is with these threats, there's opportunities that if we are the ones who can solve these problems, that if we take these seriously and we step up to them, the world might be looking for these things. We might be able to solve the problems and bring them to Christ in that. And that's the ultimate goal in all this. So that's a great framing. Well, like, it's not a pessimistic, oh, sky is falling. It's. We got work to do. But there's an opportunity in that work. So I'm very interested to see what you guys came up with. [00:02:39] Speaker C: We did not reveal that ahead of time. [00:02:41] Speaker A: We do not know. [00:02:41] Speaker B: We kept the cards close to the vest. [00:02:43] Speaker A: So at that point, there may be some overlap, you know, with. With ours. So just stay tuned. [00:02:48] Speaker B: You might not get a full nine. We'll see. [00:02:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. We don't really know. [00:02:51] Speaker B: But number one. [00:02:52] Speaker A: Okay. Number one that I have on my list is a lack of expectations, seriousness. This sounds generic, but let me. Let me explain myself. We are seeing a resurgence of Gen Z coming back to church, getting interested in the Bible. Bible sales are up across the board. Religiosity is up across the board. Spirituality over in England and places where you'd think it was dead is up across the board. Among younger generations. I worry about what they find when they come into our churches. Rarely do. Do I feel like we are the ones capturing that massive movement back into church. We're not the ones that are getting them. We've talked to Nauseum about this. I know it probably is, you know, sounds like we're beating a dead horse when we talk about Orthodoxy and high church. You know, Catholicism, Anglicanism, there's a reason people are flocking to it and a big reason why, in my opinion, is our lack of seriousness and our lack of expectation. So when you look at Anglicanism with their common book of prayer, when you look at Orthodoxy in the way that they set you up with a mentor and they expect things of you and you're doing in Catholicism, those who are really into it with Lent and things like that, where they are expecting something more than just, hey, show up on Sunday and be a good person during the week, try to show up on Wednesdays if you can, there is an expectation. There is a requirement, really, if you want to be part of this, this is what we do here. And so the culture is one of seriousness. Even when you walk in the church building, there's a seriousness to it. There's a religious feel to it. And we talk about this in church. Christ, like, can't go off of feelings, you know, that's not biblical. Like, there's absolutely an element of feeling. You're telling me back in Israel, and when they're walking into the tabernacle and the smells and the incense and everything that's taking place and the gold surrounding them and the purple and everything else, the visuals, you're telling me, the sounds and the sights, the smells, all of those things didn't create a certain feel for those people. Of course it did. Of course it did. So I feel like the seriousness, I'm not saying we need to have stained glass everything and huge cathedrals, but the idea is the seriousness with which they take it, the religious feel and the expectation on a day by day level that those places are offering. They're capturing a lot of young people for that. And so I think one of the biggest threats is when we do try to go our mega church route. I think that's a problem. I saw a comment, Jack, when you posted this and somebody made the comment, like, well, I just think it's going to be, you know, the young people flocking to the mega churches. That's absolutely not what's happening. They're reversing it. They're coming from the mega churches toward more structure, more support, more mentorship, more help, more expectation of them. Where every day you're doing this, you're showing up to mass, you're, you're doing the common Book of Prayer. Like we need more expectation of our younger people. [00:05:31] Speaker B: Book of Common Prayer, you all. Sorry, you all. There's gonna be some Anglican person, like every time you say that, they're throwing a thing, their book at the screen. [00:05:41] Speaker A: But sorry about that. [00:05:41] Speaker B: Yes, yes, things were structured of Common Prayer, right? Yes. Because it's a book that carries the common Prayer. [00:05:49] Speaker C: It's not a common book. Right, right, right, yes, sorry, got it. [00:05:53] Speaker A: Book of Common Prayer. Mixing them up. [00:05:55] Speaker B: Anyway, I was listening to one of ours back the other day and you said that. And I was like, that's the third time he said that. I've got it correct. [00:06:00] Speaker A: Okay, thank you, thank you. I honestly thought I was saying the Book of Common Prayer, so that's just in my mind, just messing up. But I was telling you this recently, Jack. I think the, one of the best things we could do is create a catechism of sorts for the Church of Christ and create a, you know, we have our, like, what we believe pages no, we need, like, a book that we hand new members and go, this is what's expected here. This is what the average Christian day looks like. Family worship's involved, prayer on the knees. Very, very practical. Lots of expectation. Here's what you teach your kids. Here's the catechism. No, it's not Calvinist. It's. It's, you know, this is how we catechize the children and keep them in the church. That's what we need. There's a seriousness involved. There is an expectation involved, and we're sorely missing that. [00:06:45] Speaker C: I love this one, Joe. I mean, this is. I think all of us three would. Or Jack and I both would echo this one in the sense of there have to be expectations. And you think about the way that it's typically communicated within the Church of Christ. It's all theoretical. It's all kind of like, well, here's our again step. Salvation acts of worship. Here's. Here's what we believe. And it's like, great. How do I apply that on Tuesday afternoon? How do I apply that on Friday night with what movie I'm gonna watch or whether or not I send my kids to college or these things. We don't really give people that necessarily. And so the expectations are pretty shallow. The expectations are just kind of not there. And so I don't have a lot to add. I really like. I know we gotta probably keep things moving pretty quickly, but I really like this one. I would echo that. Not just the expectations, but also the seriousness. Like, this can't be casual. This can't be like, man, what are we doing here? Like, there needs to be a seriousness to it. So I like. I like this one a lot. [00:07:41] Speaker B: My first one is actually the other side of this coin. And so I'll kind of introduce it here in. At the end of this. But to your point about seriousness, the preacher's got to stop being the butt of jokes. Dads have got to stop being the butt of jokes. Elders, like, their authority has to mean something. It's not just majority vote. And, well, we do what we want. I mean, there's so many ways in which we could be more serious. And that doesn't mean that every worship service is a funeral. It just means, I mean, go back and listen to our episode on feminized Christianity. It is. We're not serious because we can't. We're uncomfortable with actual seriousness, with hard conversations, with, like, getting, hey, we're entering the presence of the Holy God. That's an issue. And so I Say mine is the other side of that coin, because that's internal. Like, what we do in our churches of, like, taking it seriously. Because I was going to bring up what the young people are flocking to. Mine is a lack of cultural impact. Everything we do is, like, in a bubble. Like, any noise we make is. And it's individual conversions are wonderful, but that's literally all we have to show there's no fruit. And as young people are looking for a Christianity, they see somebody like Charlie Kirk get shot, they see bad things happen, they see evil, they see genuine wickedness out there in the world. And abortion and the transgender thing, I mean, like, awful things. And they're looking for a Christianity that can stand up to that. And if I'm just being fully transparent, I believe in our doctrines, I believe I'm in there. There's a reason I'm still member of the church and don't intend to change. If I were on the outside looking, wouldn't even cross my radar to go to the churches of Christ. You mentioned Catholicism, orthodoxy. I think there's a bit of fool's gold to that, because what impact are they having, other than the Catholics on abortion, which. I'll give them credit for that. I would look at the crec, which is. There's Baptists and Presbyterians, but they're looking at, hey, how can we impact the world? [00:09:26] Speaker A: Lead the charge. [00:09:27] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And go all the way to Washington, D.C. and influence what's happening there and in our towns and be involved and businesses and local governance and involvement and activism and things like that to help bring things about, help make things happen, to bless the people around us and to stop evil from happening. Not only do we not have a lot of that in the church, we have a lot of people telling us not to do that. We're not even supposed to. [00:09:54] Speaker C: Right. That's what I was going to say is it's not like we're trying. We're just not very good at it. We're not even trying. [00:09:59] Speaker B: In many instances, we view it as an evil thing to be involved in that a lot of people do. [00:10:04] Speaker A: Well, that's the David Lipschum, David Lichtenstein special. Right. You know, we're. We're not to be involved in politics, kind of be away from the world. And we've taken the idea of being in the world, not of the world. We've taken that to the extreme of this world's not my home, just passing through, basically. I don't have to make an impact. I don't have to worry about culture. I don't have to like, kid, but your kids are gonna be passing through, and your grandkids and your great grandkids, like, all of them are gonna be passing through as well. And what world are they going to have to pass through? It's gonna be significantly harder than the world you pass through based off of the decisions you make now. So, yes, we're passing through. We're not saying that this world is all we have. Of course, we're hoping for the hope of heaven. You know, we have that. But, man, let's get serious about the impact we can possibly have. And that's why the Marco episode of saying, how do we get on social media? How do we impact. Yeah, the public square, I think, is really important for that purpose. Will. [00:10:53] Speaker C: Yeah, Jack, you've talked before, and we've talked on this podcast before, and this very much relates to this topic is culture sets the stage and the tone for evangelism. So everybody that tries to argue, like, quit worrying about the cultural impact, just go out and evangelize. It's like those things are inherently related. The culture that we live in, the standards that are set through entertainment or just everything you can imagine sets the stage for evangelism. Evangelism can be made harder or it can be made easier based on the culture. And so, you know, I also, again, similar to Hugh, Jack, have very little patience for the people that just try to discount the cultural impact that Christians should have and. And make it all about the door knocking and all about, like, obviously those things are important. Those things are made a lot easier in a culture that's open to it. In a culture, it's like, yeah, okay, I already have maybe some basic moral principles that we're a lot that we are aligned on. So, yeah, I would love to study the Bible or so. Yeah, sure, you know, let's, you know, whatever the. Whatever the method is, if you have a shared common ground of either moral behavior or at least a belief in a God or Christian nation. Again, as far as the principles and we can agree on certain things versus a nation that just doesn't agree on anything. A nation that thinks, you know, the Minnesota stuff happened has been happening. Basically everything has been happening in Minnesota over the last six months. But, you know, storming into churches and, you know, with their protests, interrupting service, and it's like, okay, we need a culture that collectively looks at that and says, no, that's not going to fly. We're not doing that. As opposed to a bunch of people, they're Like, I mean, whatever you want to do, you know, we don't really agree on this. Sets the stage a whole lot more for evangelism. And so. Go ahead, Joe. [00:12:32] Speaker A: Yeah, this is going to be maybe a controversial point. But when it comes to our evangelism and it comes to the Church of Christ growth, one of the reasons when we don't impact the culture, the Church of Christ was great for a churched generation. Converting people, getting them away, getting them away from. Okay, we already know about Christ, but let me tell you about instruments. Let me tell you about women. Let me tell you about some of the nuances that separate us from Christendom at large. That was great for us, you know, because we could convince our Baptist buddy maybe that instruments are not correct and that baptism really is essential and it's not just an outward sign inward grace. And so we're all kind of, we're talking the same language. And so we can use these things to separate ourselves, but also to convert the already churched generation. I don't think we're great at converting the staunch atheist, the blue haired freak who is, you know, marching downtown Minnesota against ice. We're not great at engaging the culture in those areas because we want to stick to. Can I tell you about instruments? They don't care. They don't even know who God is and they don't really care who God is. And so how can we, when we're trying to get them into Christian Christendom? This is the purpose of us having more of an impact in the culture, is that we might be the biggest net that they fall into. It's like, now let me tell you why instruments matter. Now let me tell you why. After we get the basic like, yes, Christ is king. Once we get that, we can distill it into some of the finer points of the doctrine. When we make the finer points of the doctrine our calling card, it's really difficult to start with the bigger issues and try basically start with a funnel that's too small. We want the bigger funnel of Christ is King, not the. Hey, we actually, we don't use instruments with women. Like they don't care about that. They don't even care about God. [00:14:13] Speaker C: So that's a great point. [00:14:15] Speaker A: I think that's one of the reasons we struggle with. [00:14:17] Speaker B: That's fascinating. That's the Church of Christ view our teachings. It doesn't need to be this boutique niche corner of Christianity of like these, this hyper specific thing. But we've, we've. Exactly to your point, we've cornered ourselves into that. Yeah. And, and then we've patted ourselves on the back for that's what we were supposed to do. Like. No, we really weren't. And, and that just goes to, and to Will's point about culture and all that. It's the, the two ways you can view this is Christ is lord of my individual spiritual life or Christ is lord of everything and we've opted for the individual spiritual life. And that's just not good enough. That's not what we're called to do. And that's not Christ is lord of all things. And yet we're on this constant retreat, just constantly running away and you got to run toward it at some point. [00:15:01] Speaker C: Well, here's the thing, and to be honest, we're, I would love to explore these and not just rush through them. So if we, I mean we're, you know, 15 minutes in or so, so we'll see. But if we have to split this into two episodes, we will. But I want to explore this one a little bit deeper because here's my question. So if we argue that, you know, we shouldn't have cultural impact, you shouldn't have culture impact. It is inevitable that the culture is going to impact the Christian sitting in the pew. It's just inevitable. We all have iPhones, we all have television screens, we all read the news, most people have social media. And so to me it's, it goes from being a two way street to a one way street. Okay, we're not going to try to have any kind of cultural impact collectively, but we sure are going to allow culture to impact us and to influence our families and to influence our young people. And so like again, you can say, well we don't, we maybe culture shouldn't impact our young people or well, it just does. Like again, just, it's inevitable that it will. Unless again, you have a flip phone, you don't have any social media, you barely go out. And that's just not the way people live. I don't think that's the way we're expected to live. And so I'm curious, Jack, maybe especially your thoughts on that, since this is your point, but also you've done the most kind of mental, I guess, work in this area. How do they answer that of like, okay, don't we should try to not have much cultural. And again, they typically mean political impact. And yet it is obviously going to impact us and does impact us, young people, old people alike, every single day, non stop. What's the retort to that? Like, I guess how do people who I guess you've maybe discourse, had discourse with, get through that? Does that question make sense? [00:16:39] Speaker B: It does. It's very hard to characterize their belief essentially because the problem is they don't ever see any level of success. They don't ever think about. All right, if we do the. [00:16:48] Speaker A: It's. [00:16:48] Speaker B: It's the, to quote Batman movie, you know, they're, they're the dog chasing the car, but they wouldn't know what to do with it if they got one. Like, if we actually converted enough people to have an impact on a city. [00:16:57] Speaker C: Put a weird quote on the thing. [00:16:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:01] Speaker B: We were talking before, but we used to be listening back to that old episode. We used to be a little more open, a little more free flowing. And I thought, you know, why so serious? So. [00:17:11] Speaker C: Anyway, let's put a smile on their faces. That's exactly it. [00:17:17] Speaker B: Anyway, that's great. I gotta try and get this point back now. It was not the point we. It was the point we needed, but not the one we want or something like that. But it's. Of course we would have cultural impact. Of course we would make this change if we did enough. But like, well, we're just always gonna be this tiny minute loser. I'm doing this course on revelation on the FocusPress YouTube channel. That's one of my biggest issues with our reading of Revelation is like, yep, we're always going to be the underdog losers. Like, no, we're not. And even this idea of man, if we converted 90% of a town, we would all stop engaging. We would all stop. We would just all go about our business quietly and meekly. And the 10% could make our lives terrible because we're not even going to try. Like, you have no concept of what success would look like. And it is engaged. I mean, you look at the Book of Acts, they're going into the public square, like, all right, bring it on. And not just converting individuals, but like talking to kings, talking to governors, talking to, you know, the heads of cities and stuff like that. And they were noticeable. Right. And we're just not. And that's a real big concern to me, how this all works out. [00:18:26] Speaker C: Yeah. Any other thoughts, Joe, or you want me. [00:18:29] Speaker A: Go ahead and get. [00:18:29] Speaker B: I guess I didn't really answer. You didn't answer? I didn't answer your question. Like how it is that kind of meek and lowly thing like, this is good for us to stay out of this because, well, it's the gospel first thing. Right. Well, we're going to distract people from the gospel, if we talk about political things, if we get into the issues or whatever else, we're hiding Jesus. And I would look at it like, no, you're hiding Jesus because you're not telling him what he thinks about this. [00:18:51] Speaker C: Sure. Well, and maybe I'm thinking of it too much in the terms. It's crazy how when you're. You go from not being a parent to being a parent, everything you see tends to be through the lens of your kids and having kids. And I guess I see it as like, I know the culture is going to impact my kids. Like, again, I can try to shelter them and basically not. But that's just, that's a fool's errand. The culture is going to impact my kids at some point. And you know, to what extent maybe is on me, but that's where it's like, I would rather have a Christian friendly culture. And the more Christian friendly the better, as opposed to a culture that is consistently going further and further away. So, yeah, let's do everything we can to impact it. But, Joe, any thoughts before I get to my first. [00:19:33] Speaker B: Hey, folks, we've told you before about the A Closer Walk with the devotional series that Joe and I have been putting together. Each volume contains 90 devotionals, and now we're excited to announce the fourth volume has been released. And so this will get you through essentially a year's worth of devotionals, 360 devotionals. If you buy the four pack available at Focus Press, they just start in Genesis 1 with volume 1 and keep working through the text. Volume 4 goes all the way up to David's sin with Bathsheba. And so, well, we're just going to keep those coming, keep working through the Bible's text. And if you're looking for a devotional for your new year, be sure to check out A Closer Walk With Thee, volumes one through four. [00:20:10] Speaker A: Yeah, just going to ask a quick question on that. To that end, you got the average listener. We got a lot of great listeners, a lot of great families. What is something tangible you think they could do to impact the cultures we talk about? The church at large? Yes, obviously, if elders of churches took it seriously to what you see with Moscow, Idaho or whatever, where they're taking over church or they're taking over the town and attempting to just convert the entire town, which I think is great. But what does the average listener do about this as they attempt to make more of a cultural impact? [00:20:43] Speaker B: Put your flag out there, like, let the people in your town know, hey, we've got sane People here, people who are standing up to stuff and, and so whether that's, you know, joint. This is a ridiculous thing to say, but I think there's actually some to it. Being active in the local Facebook groups, you know, you just see one person going against the mob, kind of taking a stand of like, yeah, no, we don't want Pride parade in our town and 50 people commenting at him. But it's like, I'm glad that guy put that out there. And that's. That's somebody you can ally with or, you know, the average person, not sure. Like, hey, you can get out there and get your name associated with. Hey, the church here is right on this. And it's not just Facebook groups, but just ways that you can do that. Things that you can be involved in, whether it's. It doesn't even have to be local politics, although that's not a bad one. But, you know, just finding people and that's something. That's one of my big goals this year. I've been doing some of that in the last couple years of just getting out, shaking hands, associating, you know, or being around people, but doing more of that and not being afraid to have those conversations. You know, somebody who is going to write you off and really thinks you're terrible. Okay, that's probably going to happen. And people, when you talk about politics, people think you're just out there, you know, like posting, you know, pushing Trump all the time or whatever. Like, no, the issues. Talk about the issues and say, hey, here's right and here's wrong, and listen to their side and explain, you know, the Christian view on these things. Find ways, like I said, to put your flag out and the right people or, oh, the seekers, they know what to look for. [00:22:10] Speaker C: I like that answer a lot. I would agree. Similarly, I mean, I would agree. I would say, man, this is where like, Christian business owners can do. It can do a lot, you know, as far as. Even if it's something that doesn't really have anything to do with the church, like, be a place of employment that, you know, has integrity and that, you know, people can. Can trust in the community because people are looking for, you know, where can they trust? I mean, I just, from personal experience, like, if I'm looking for some, you know, a place to get some work done on my car, it's like, I know a lot of car, you know, repair places are notorious for, like, oh, you have this issue that needs to be fixed. And it's like, I don't really have the Issue. You want to make a little more money, like, man, if we can have businesses that the community can rest assured. No, this is a solid, you know, God fearing individual who owns the business. They do good work. Doors open, right? People might say, well, that's not very much. Doors might open through that. And obviously, you know, I think the church collectively, from a community perspective can do a lot. And so being a part of that as an individual, you know, not being the person who's like, I'm just going to show up to worship y', all, have your community events, go for it. I'm going to, you know, I got other stuff to do. Not being that person, I think would also contribute to that. But that's. That's a great question. Joe, any thoughts that you had? [00:23:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I was just going to say if there's anything that your town is doing, you know, going against, as Jack talked about the LGBTQ movement or anything like that, you know, the Baptists may run that. That may be a Baptist run thing. The Methodist, probably not Methodist. [00:23:31] Speaker B: You know, they run the opposition, right? [00:23:34] Speaker A: They may run the opposition, correct. Not the Gay Straight alliance, but, you know, they may run the opposition against the LGBTQ movement. And you're looking at it going, man, can't fellowship. I'm like, it's another thing in the church. If we're gonna have cultural impact, we're gonna have to learn to shake hands across the aisle. That doesn't mean we fellowship them in saying, well, they're all, you know, we're brothers in Christ. It means they're doing really good work. The same way that if I go to an abortion clinic with a, with a Catholic, hey, we're on the same page when it comes to this issue. We want to save every life, right? As much as we possibly can. We're going to be praying over the abortion clinic, things like that. So getting out into the culture, there may be people already doing it that aren't church Christ, we're going to have to be able to say, okay, maybe I'm not going to church with them on Sunday. Maybe I'm not saying that they're a fellow brother in Christ, but in this particular area, they're moving the needle in a positive way and I want to be a part of that. And then we can use that as a possible evangelism tool. [00:24:23] Speaker C: You can be the hero your city deserves. Maybe doesn't think they need right now. [00:24:27] Speaker B: That's exactly it. [00:24:29] Speaker C: All right, moving on. My first one. So there's a lot of. So Joe had, I guess we'll recap every three or so. The biggest challenge facing the church in 2026 and moving forward, I just put the generational chasm. The generational chasm. So we've talked a lot about this. I want to kind of flesh it out a little bit more on here. So obviously, there's the physical generations. Boomers is kind of a pejorative. The older generation, Gen Z, the new, younger generation. I see a massive chasm between those two. And not just in terms of, again, years. And, you know, boomers don't know how to use iPhones. And Gen Z does like. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a fundamental difference in the way that we view the world. Fundamental difference in the way that we view life. And so the church is really going to have to figure out how to navigate that, because just quite frankly, boomers have a lot of stuff wrong with the way that they view the church and the world. We've talked about the happy wife, happy life thing. I would kind of sum it up again. Different focuses, different ways to be the world. One side, their focus is keeping the peace, the other side making a difference. You've got boomers where their focus. And I tell a story here in a minute to kind of give an example. How can we keep the peace? How can we keep the status quo in many instances? And what is Gen Z all about, man? Let's make a difference. Let's do something. Let's say something like, forget the status quo. You know, let's. And obviously, as I'll get to later, there's, you know, maybe potential damage from that. But those are two very fundamental different ways of being the world I was working at. Obviously, I work every day at Chick fil A, but the other day I was at Chick fil A and I was delivering food to this older couple who actually had just finished ordering. We're just that fast at our local Chick fil A. So they were walking to their table, and the husband and these. This couple was clearly in their late 60s, maybe early 70s. Leads his wife to a. It's one of those where one side is a booth and one side is a chair. And he said, well, let's just sit over here. And the wife says, you know, well, I would. I would really prefer a booth. You know, I like to sit on something soft. Now, keep in mind, one half of that was a booth. Whatever. I really. Let's. Let's go over here and find a booth. She walks over to another table that is exactly the same booth on one side, chair on the other. And the guy looks at me, this older guy just says, well, you just got to keep peace in the family sometimes, don't you? Might be a very silly example, but I could not help but like, if. [00:26:53] Speaker B: That'S a perfect example, if that was. [00:26:55] Speaker C: Me, obviously, you know, I'm not going to pitch a fit about where we're sitting, but I would tell my wife, you know, that's exactly the same as the seat that I was just recommending. Right. Like, it's just a fundamental different view of the world. Keeping the p. You know, he literally looked at me, says, you got to keep peace in the family sometimes. And that's the happy wife, happy life, Mommy and happy nobody happy. The stuff that we've talked a great deal about, Gen Z's sick of that. Gen C is done with that. Gen Z is very ready to say what needs to be said. They are very ready to kind of uproot a lot of that mindset. And the boomers just are not. I mean, Joe and I just had an episode on the Golly Young Men podcast about passing the test, which again, very small example that I just gave that happens a lot of where it's just the little things that the husband just keeps the peace and doesn't really push back on. And I don't want to make it just about the husband and wife concept because I think this applies in a lot of different areas. But I'm curious Yalls thoughts because, I mean, I see this generational chasm as a big. Because as a big challenge because most elderships are made up of boomers and older people who are not, not typically going to be willing to see the Gen Z perspective and point of view. So curious Yalls thoughts on this. I mean, to me this is a, this is a pretty big one. [00:28:09] Speaker B: I don't want to be getting trouble with the movies we're quoting, but another movie quote came to mind and it's if the rule that you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule that I think is a huge factor in this generational divide as we're looking like, you guys don't seem happy. It didn't form long term, healthy, spiritual families. You know, people don't even want to have kids anymore. The generation before didn't want to get married anymore. All of this. And so the fruits are not good. The fruits are not good. And so if the rule you follow brought you to this, no, no, thanks. And doing something different is viewed as a judgment, is viewed as a criticism. Or whatever the case may be. It's like, well, I'm just going a different direction. And so you've got these issues and I don't know, it's very easy to criticize one side and not the other. And you know, but it's also very easy to do that. Well, there's 50. 50 blank. Well, I don't think that's how that works. Especially generationally the way God judges generations in the Bible and starting in Deuteronomy 6 and going through the Book of Judges and the Kings and all of that. The older generation do bear a bigger burden and the younger, yeah. Honor and respect and not. Not be flippant and things like that. But the problem is like, it's almost like the conversation isn't allowed and the disagreement isn't allowed and there's a shutdown that happens. It's like, well, I don't know if this is gonna be healthy. We're gonna need to have the discussions here about why we're seeing things differently. [00:29:31] Speaker C: I'm glad you brought that up. Sorry, Joe. Then you go for it. That's a whole other angle of this, is a lot of the older generation doesn't want to have the conversations. Either that's the way we've always done it or it's the validation thing that we got at in a previous episode of like, the way that I did it has to be the right way to do it because that's the way that I did it versus if you try to do something differently, we see it with public school and homeschool. We see it with women staying at home versus going out to work. Like the older generation looks at a younger generation who does something differently and takes it as an insult and takes it. [00:30:00] Speaker B: Disagreement is viewed as disrespect. [00:30:02] Speaker A: Right. [00:30:02] Speaker C: It takes it as a personal offense and kind of belittles them for it, makes derogatory comments. And as long as that takes place and is allowed to take place again, this will be a huge challenge to overcome because what we need is from on both sides, self reflective generations. And I do think the onus is a bit more on the older generation since they are older, have the more experience and the younger needs to do this as well, to reflect and say, was this the right thing to do? Just because my wife worked for 40 years and was a superintendent and whatnot, does that mean that's the way that I should have run my family? Just because my kids went to public school and I put all my kids through a university and one or two were Faithful, sort of. But the other, like, we gotta be able to reflect. We gotta be able to self examine and say, was this the correct way to do it? A lot of that older generation is just not willing to do so. And that rubs people like me the complete wrong way. You should be able to look at your metrics, so to speak, and say, was this the right way to go about it or not? It should be very black and white. And we just skip over that so often. [00:31:03] Speaker A: I think the older generation got so used to dunking on the millennials. You know, looking at the millennials, they're just a selfish generation. I think they got so used to that that they have no idea what to do with Gen Z. [00:31:16] Speaker C: They weren't ready for Gen Z. Yeah. [00:31:18] Speaker A: Gen Z is religious. Gen Z is based. Gen Z is concerned. Gen Z is, is all of these things, these young men. [00:31:24] Speaker B: And I'm not saying that like majority. They're not, but you don't need a majority. There's enough there that if we encourage it, you know, there's a spark there that could turn into a flame. If it's turning around direction. [00:31:33] Speaker A: It's. It's turning around quite. [00:31:35] Speaker B: It's still. It. I mean, it's still. We're talking like under 20% on some of these things, but it's. It's better than the 3% that we had on other. [00:31:41] Speaker C: I think the best common sense is way higher than. [00:31:43] Speaker A: I was going to say nothing. The. Not the statistics I'm seeing of all of these uncertain matters. For sure, they haven't come around fully, but the point is they're more. They're reversing trends. [00:31:54] Speaker B: But it's not like 80% of Gen Z is in church or, you know, anti lg. [00:31:58] Speaker A: No, but I think they're making the. The culture is shifting. [00:32:02] Speaker B: Yes. [00:32:02] Speaker A: Where 80% can eventually, maybe Gen Alpha, the next generations can go there because they're starting to move the needle back toward the other way. I don't think the boomers have any idea what to do with that. I don't think they know how to harness it. I don't think they know how to appreciate it. I don't think they know how to do any of that because they've gotten used to hating on the younger generations for a very long time. And so it's just, you know, those selfish millennials kind of blame it on them. Like, what do you do when you have a generation that's trying to come back? No, they're not all the way back, but they're trying to Come back. That is a huge positive shift from the generation that goes further and further and further that majorly started with them going away from God. So I know I'm not trying to just dunk on them. And I'm not saying Gen Z are, you know, going to be the saviors or anything like that, or that they're perfect. I'm saying we've gotten used to hating one another, and now that we have one that genuinely is trying to come back, like, accept them, take them in, get people excited. That's why things like the godly Unmanned podcast is something that we're excited about, is young men are looking for, what do I do? That is a perfect opportunity for the older folks to step in and go, let me show you. This is what happened. Here's where I went wrong. Here's what I think you, you could do that would really help. This is what's gotten me closer to Christ. Like, what an opportunity that they have been gifted on a silver platter for younger kids that do want to know more about it, that are rejecting critical race theory, blm, all of those things in school, lgbtq, like, that's huge. [00:33:20] Speaker C: This very much ties into Jack's cultural impact. Thing is, I would say is that a lot of young people very much want to have cultural impact. They want to see things again. They don't want to keep the status quo. And so, I mean, they aren't directly correlated. But I do think these, these things are related in the sense of if we want to have a cultural impact, older, you know, older generations have to look and say, okay, what's going to have the cultural impact? Even. Even. Because again, how is it impacting the church teaching methods? How do we reach the lost? How do we. How do we converse about biblical things? As far as. Do we keep it generic or do we get specific? All the things that we talk about. Often at some point, you do have to be able to examine what has been done for the last 40, 50 years. Has it been effective? If not, okay, what do we move to? And so, yeah, that's where I see it impacting the church again, as far as teaching methods, applying it to real life, real practical examples and stuff like that. Any other thoughts? Just to round out the three. Joe's first one was already. I'm already blanking on it. Oh, my goodness. The. Go ahead, Joe, what was your first one? [00:34:26] Speaker A: No, you're good. Lack of expectation slash seriousness. [00:34:29] Speaker C: Thank you. And then Jack's was the lack of cultural impact and mine was the generational chasm. A lot related there, I would say. That's kind of interesting that those were all of our first ones, because the lack of expectations and seriousness that Joe brought to the table very much relates to the generational chasm, I think, as well. But any other thoughts on those three guys before we kick off round two? [00:34:48] Speaker B: I was looking at the generation. One is always difficult. We don't hate older people, but there is a. Like, can we. As I've always said, I am right here for the discussions of all the things millennials have done wrong. Amen, brother. I'll have that discussion with you. You need to be able to do the same for your generation. That's all I'm asking. [00:35:07] Speaker A: Yeah. The only other point is going to make on that. I know we need to move on reading through Job, you know, for. For our Bible reading for the year, daily Bible reading. And Elihu comes in as this young whippersnapper, and, man, he's spitting straight. [00:35:19] Speaker C: I literally read this this morning. [00:35:21] Speaker A: Straight fire. And it's like, holy smokes, man. I mean, he's just coming right at the older generation. And notice who God doesn't punish, who God's not mad at at the end. There's something to say there when he comes in. It's like, who do you think you are? How do you think you stand before God, Job as some righteous guy? It's not even about whether you did or did not do anything. The fact that you think you can be righteous at all in the eyes of the Almighty. Like, the older folks needed a check because they're standing on their laurels. Like, it didn't happen to me because I'm righteous. And Job's like, I don't know why it's happened to me because I'm righteous. And he's coming in going, we're not, you know, nobody's righteous type of thing. [00:35:54] Speaker C: The text even says like, he. He waited because he realized he was younger. [00:35:59] Speaker A: Correct. And so from a younger perspective, he comes in spit and fire. There's a time and place for that, and God seems to recognize it because he's not punished for what he did. So this idea of we need to protect. I'm not saying we don't honor him. I'm not saying we don't respect the older generation and some of the things that they did. I'm saying there is a time and a place where the generations, yes, the younger generation rises up. I was looking up statistics, and Jack is right in the fact that they're not the most overly, but they are this is a BARNA study just from last year. Young adults, Gen Z lead a resurgence. Church tenants. They are the most active church members that they are. How does it say it? Gen Z now leads in church attendance. They're the ones going to church more than any of the other, you know, Gen X boomers or. Or millennials. So I don't know. That's a BARNA study that dropped last year, it seems that is moving on up. It's. It found that 45% of adults under 30 attend religious services. So, yeah, I mean, stuff. I don't know. It's interesting. Like Jack said, It's not the 80% going, but on the other hand, 45% of them that are attending and that seems to be climbing and seems to be going. That's interesting. So let's get to round two. We'll. We'll keep moving here. Yes. I think we may be pushing this into a second episode. This next one goes along with a lot of things we've been talking about, but I have uninformed leadership. Uninformed leadership, slash no mentorship. But I think it's going to go hand in hand. I don't want to separate those. And what I mean by that is, Jack, you mentioned earlier at the beginning of the episode, AI AI was not a thing in 2022. I mean, it was, but, like, it was not that big of a deal in 2022. Look at the rise of AI. Leadership has to be informed with what people are struggling with, what's in their lives. How many times have you seen with the rise of Internet pornography? Well, those purge just need to stop. You know, I didn't struggle with that. It's like, yes, because there was a playboy in the back of the, you know, of the store that you. Okay. If you avoided it, you were good to go. And that's about your only access point now. Kids have access all the time. It's a bit of a different struggle. That's uninformed. And so when somebody comes and they have a struggle with pornography, they're coming to the eldership going, hey, what do I do with this? And the eldership, Half the elders are going, well, the purge just needs to stop. You're uninformed. When a kid or when a parent comes and says, my kids turning transgender, what do I do? You know, the schools have been teaching this. I don't know what to do. A lot of times they're uninformed. We don't know what to do or, well, just, you know, we'll pray for them, type Thing like, where's the tangibility when somebody comes, comes to the eldership and is, you know, talking about the dangers of AI. I've worked with clients that are really struggling with AI and the sexual temptations even of AI chatbots, back and forth. This is a very real thing. People that are cheating, kids that are cheating on tests, people that are using this for their job and like basically cheating their bosses. When that's presented, what does the leadership do? And I think right now there is, and I'm not looking to bash out, I think there are some that are very informed and there are some fantastic elders out there. I also think there's a lot of elders that are still kind of stuck in the 50s, 60s, 70s in terms of how they approach the world, not realizing the rapid changes that are taking place. You have to be willing and ready to talk about the at home, like the major issues right now. What do you do when they say my kids actually starting to go to the Orthodox church? What do you say to that? You know, well, we go back to church Christ doctrine, like, okay, maybe how do we handle these, these issues? And so to me, I think the uninformed leadership, not knowing the trends, not knowing that right now Judaism is not viewed super favorably. We had an entire episode on this. It is not viewed favorably among the younger generations. And so, you know, what do you do about potentially the alt right movement that is going to take place as we go forward from here? Those that are rejecting BLM and causing some, you know, swinging the pendulum maybe even too far to the other side. What do you do in those moments? Are you informed? Do you know what to do? I think if the leadership can get informed, this is one that's easily solvable. But it just means being plugged into current events, current culture, and what we're supposed to do about it. The leaders are going to be the ones leading the charge on all of these things. Right now, I think the people kind of lead the charge and the leadership is always in a reactive state. They're not proactively handling it. It's reactive of like, well, crud. Now this happened. What do we do? Be proactive. Hey, this might happen to your kid. We're going to have a parenting seminar and you may need to know these things. We may need to know that roadblocks for, for kids is a horrible thing. They need to know those things. A lot of trafficking, child trafficking is taking place on these apps. Do they know that? Are they informed about these issues or you know, is it just kind of spew the talking points of Fox News or whatever it may be like. We want to be informed and be able to proactively help our members so they don't have to fall into the trap and then have to try to dig their way out of pornography addiction or AI addiction or anything else that's coming down the pike. So that's my rant. But what are your guys thoughts? [00:40:52] Speaker B: Hey, folks, I want to tell you guys about this week's book from our sponsor, Cobb Publishing. Catholicism Against Itself. Catholicism Against Itself uses only books officially endorsed by the Catholic Church to show what Catholic historians admit about the history of their church, their hierarchy, their practices, and their claims. This isn't someone outside of the Catholic Church making arguments against the legitimacy of it. These are the Catholic experts and historians, all of them stamped with the official seal of approval and endorsement of the Catholic Church itself. They admit the Catholic Church forged documents in order to convince the laity to go along with whatever the hierarchy wanted to do, and that some of their practices to this very day are based on those forgeries. O.C. lambert once possessed the largest library of Catholic books and documents in the United States outside of a monastery. After producing two volumes of Catholicism Against Itself, he challenged any representative of the Catholic Church to a public debate. No one dared. Available at Cobb publishing.com Cobb publishing.com Amazon and many other online bookstores. [00:41:56] Speaker C: Go for it, Jack. [00:41:57] Speaker B: I mean, there's a lot there. I just. I. I'm so glad I grew up when I. It was. It was harder growing up when I did than there was more temptations there than maybe the generation before. But what kids have now, it's just like. It's unbelievable, you know, and the Internet and what AI can do and. And what people are doing with AI and there's been some controversy with that. I'm not even gonna throw it out there because, you know, I don't want to give anybody ideas. But like, if. If you're informed, you know, hey, there. There's bad things and. And I don't know, the. The uninformed thing. I guess the question that might come into this, like, how do you stay apprised of all this stuff? And it's easier for all. [00:42:35] Speaker A: Right. [00:42:35] Speaker B: You know, we're younger guys. We're plugged in on things like that. How somebody who's 65 and they're an elder, how are they gonna keep up with all that stuff? [00:42:44] Speaker A: Well, this is where. [00:42:45] Speaker B: I'm not saying they can't. That's a real question. [00:42:47] Speaker A: Yeah, right, right. This is where my mentorship Point on the back end kind of comes in. I think if elders are meeting with the younger members and mentoring the younger members, they will naturally know of these things. As the younger members start, you know, kind of spewing some of the very anti Jew things that are taking place, you go, okay, that's interesting. Tell me a little more about that. And you get to know instead of always being in the teaching position. I think that's fantastic. But sometimes there's a learning element to mentorship as well. Tell me a little more about this. Why does this matter? You know what's going on here and you can help steer those discussions through biblical means for a young man that's going alt, right, Going off the rails, whatever, like, hey, whoa, whoa, you know, let's come back around. I didn't know that. I'm going to do a little more research. Where did you find that? And so you can go do the research. You can piggyback off of the research that younger people are already doing on these things and say, tell me where that is. Go do some research for yourself. They probably do need to be on X. I'm not saying they need to be on TikTok and Reddit and everything else. They probably do need to be on X. They probably do need to know the cultural conversations taking place. But that's going to happen through the members they're talking to, in my opinion. [00:43:46] Speaker C: In my opinion, if they are. And man, I always really struggle with this because I don't want to come across as if I know every. I've never been an elder, for goodness sakes. Like obviously I don't know everything or most things and I don't. I, I hesitate always to put myself in the position of men who serve in that way because you know, they're, it's an honor that they do. I, I would hope that if they're in that position that there's almost an, an itching to know. Like a. I, I need to know, I want to know, not a close my ears, please don't tell me La La man, listen, if that's the Persona, I'll just, I do have full confidence in saying that person should not be an elder. To Jack's point though, of like how does by any means necessary, Essentially, if that means you allot time out of your week to be on social media, great. If that means that to Joe's point, you're talking to the young men. Hey, what are you guys struggling with? Like, what are, what are some ways we can help you as a, as leaders of this congregation or talking to young people like I feel like that's one of those by any means necessary. I think most about this when you talk about uninformed leadership, Joe, and kind of the unplugged and just overall poor leadership, you see it in sports teams. The Tennessee Titans are in my opinion the worst sport. NFL franchise. Why? Because we have a terrible owner. And you see that across sports of like the teams that consistently are just bad and don't perform and might have a good year here and there. But just overall kind of the joke of the league. They have really bad owners, really bad leadership from the top. And obviously the church is not a sports team. But in the same way, if you have leaders who are either A uninformed or B uninformed and have the close your ears, don't tell me anything bad news related mentality that is going to trickle down into the members and just to. Into a kind of unpreparedness for meeting the world where it's at as far as again raising faithful kids and all these things. Uninformed leadership is very much again, especially if it's. I don't want to be informed. To Jack's point, maybe there are people who are like I'm uninformed. But hey, how can I get more informed? What can I do every day, every week, whatever it is? Jack, I'm curious your answer to that question, but I think that's a better case than again, those who I don't want to be informed. Let's just make sure you're here when the doors are open and then we'll talk to you in three days. That's not great. [00:46:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean curiosity is really important and now more than ever because things change so fast and I mean there's just stuff that I'm. I'm running behind on or things like that. But you're trying to keep up, trying know what the conversations are without just getting too sucked into being online all the time. But you know, it's. You guys did a godly young man on Jim Nick Fuentes. Some people don't know who that is. You kind of need to know who somebody like that is. And so or at least the ideas that are out there. Andrew Tate, you guys covered him as well. Like these. What young people are, I mean the, the influencers, the people they're following are people that most people like outside of that world are never going to hear. It's the weirdest thing in the world to me that I'll hear of somebody and every young person knows who it is, and I'll look them up. And They've got like 50 million social media followers. And I've never heard their name, like, because back in the day, like, okay, George Clooney, Mel Gibson, Denzel Washington, everybody knew who they were, Right. You know, like, they're okay. [00:47:03] Speaker A: Boomer. [00:47:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I know, but like, that's the difference. That's the incredible difference. And I remember I named, like a. [00:47:10] Speaker C: Really well known music artist, right? [00:47:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:12] Speaker C: Both y' all were like, who is that? [00:47:14] Speaker B: Yeah, not on my radar. And so that's a challenging thing to, to kind of know who people are talking about, what's. What's in their feeds and things like that. And you don't have to know everything, but you've got to be adjacent. [00:47:27] Speaker C: You need to know what's influencing your flock. [00:47:30] Speaker B: You can't just be totally knocked off course. And so I think all three of us might actually have something leadership related here in the middle one. So go ahead with yours, Will, and I'll see. Maybe I need to eat mine and try different ones. [00:47:43] Speaker C: Not leadership related. So if you want to go. [00:47:45] Speaker B: Okay, go right ahead. Yeah. Mine is indecisive leadership that the Democratic everybody gets a vote thing I hate so much. But I wrote an article a couple, two, three years ago this point on how do churches enforce their teachings? People went nuts. Like, you can't use the word enforce. [00:48:05] Speaker A: You can't. [00:48:06] Speaker B: I'm sorry. The Great Commission says, teaching them to observe or to obey all that I've commanded. Not teaching them all that I've commanded, teaching them to obey. You think about that with your children. I'm not teaching them my commandments. I'm teaching them to obey my commandments. And teaching them to obey means when they don't do it, saying, hey, you can't do that. You need to do this. That's exactly it. But just that word itself. And again, read Timothy and Titus and how authoritative he told those guys to be. I remember somebody once, and this was a kind of a foreshadowing kind of thing, saying, well, preachers have no authority. Read Timothy and Titus where he says, silence. You know, appoint the elders so they can silence certain men, but also teach these. Rebuke people. Like, if you're going to rebuke people, you got to have some authority. Right? And so the. We think that that's a very bad thing. We think that really just kind of suggesting things to people, nicely putting it out there and hoping they make the right choice. This gentle parenting generation. Right. Is the whole, well, People know what they need. People. No, they don't, actually. And I think of Jesus in. I think it's Mark. I had it pulled up here a minute ago. But feeding the 5,000 where he says they are like sheep without a shepherd. Right? Our people are like sheep without a shepherd. They need to be told what to think, what to do, how to live all of those things. And so Joe's side of it is the, the uninformed leadership. Mine is, even if they're informed, are they going to do something with it? And like I'm really. There's a lot of loving godly men in these roles. I think the biggest problem is they haven't been told not only what they are allowed to do, but what they are supposed to do. You know, shepherds had that, that crook staff to yank a sheep over sometimes not being like a dictator of the church because that's immediately what everyone goes to. Oh, they're going to crack down and they're going to. I'm not saying that. I'm saying do the job and that's what we don't have. [00:50:06] Speaker C: I think a lot about the Pete Hegseth quote from that one speech he gave that was like an hour long. Standards. He says standards must be high. And he used to other adjectives, I can't remember. I didn't want to look it up. But he said if they're not, then they're not standards, they're just suggestions. And I love that. So I mean, I've actually used that at Chick Fil A. [00:50:24] Speaker A: Perfect. [00:50:25] Speaker C: I use that at Chick Fil A in my leadership there. And I've used this as an example on this podcast before of like, you want to know why Chick Fil A is kind of at the top as far as, you know, just fast food and restaurants in general, is because we enforce standards. And yes, enforce. If you don't wear your name tag, we can send you home. If you don't wear the right color socks, we can send you home. If you don't say, my pleasure. Like all the things that Chick Fil a is known for, Right? But that goes the case for any business. The strongest businesses out there, the ones that have structure, standards and those standards are enforced. It's not loosey goosey. It's not a. Well, you know, if you want to or I mean, as much as often as you can. And man, is that not the spirit of churches. I mean, we can't even. We cannot even get congregations where if people are missing services that they are held accountable for that because that's too far, you know, like, oh, people got a lot of stuff going on. And so it, we very much treat it as just come as often as you can. We love having you here. It's like if you are a member and you are missing services for not sickness related type stuff, you need to be called out for that. You need to be held accountable for those things. And the church leadership. To your point, Jack needs to be comfortable enough to call. If Joe's missed two Sundays in a row, call him up and say, hey man, where you been? You know, and obviously you don't have to be a jerk about it, but like, you know, we expect you here, we need you here, you know, kind of what's your excuse type of thing. I'm totally fine with that. In fact, I think that's a very same thing with Sunday night worship. Same thing with Wednesday night class. Like, again, I know that's probably radical for some people. I think that's perfectly within bounds of leadership to say what you got going on Wednesday night that you can't. That you can't be here to assemble and study the Bible or what you got going on Sunday night that you can't come back for. Again, I know people listening to that going, man, that sure is invasive. That sure is radical. I think if the church had a lot more of that versus just, hey, man, great to see you. You've been gone for three weeks. But hey, no worries, just come back whenever. I think the church would be a lot stronger if we did the former rather than the latter. So I love this point. I love this a lot. Again, standards. If they're not, I think what the quote was, they need to be high, strict and enforced. And if they're not, then they're just suggestions. I love that. [00:52:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it's good stuff. I was thinking, will chick play. You want to know how I got five stars? Sorry. Anyway. Sorry. Just had to. [00:52:39] Speaker B: Anyway, I had another movie, a reference come to mind. Like, you know, we've overdone it. [00:52:43] Speaker A: So yeah, yeah, here I am. No, I mean, I don't have much more to add. You guys said it very, very well. The. It's. Now that I'm placing membership in a congregation. It is a. It's scary, you know, it's scary to be on this end of it. We obviously were the leadership of the last one. It's scary to not be on the leadership end and for them to, hey, you know, we expect this, this, this. Not that I'm looking to push against it, but it's like, man, I now have this responsibility. So I get it. I understand why people might push back or why people may be like, hey, get up out of my grill type of thing. You know, don't tell me what to do. I can understand where that might come from. But you have to be able to give into the process. And we all will submit to somebody. Wives will submit to the husbands, children will submit to the parents. We submit to the elders, and we submit to obviously our governing authorities, the government. And so we have to become okay with submission as the leader or as the followers. As leaders, though, yeah, you have to be okay with submission. You have to be okay with those underneath you taking submission. Going back to the culture or going back to the generational point of it's really kind of uncommon for the older generation to do it, other than in lording over ways, other than in a very negative way, which is why we swung the pendulum back of, well, the guy beats his wife, therefore happy wife, happy life. Like, whoa, whoa, you know, let's. Let's come toward the center. Same thing in the church. We all know elders that have really taken it too far. On the other hand, I know a lot of elders that haven't. You know, a lot of elders that are very afraid of their flock, of their congregation stepping in. So it's really finding that balance, you know, being okay with that. So, fellas, we are coming close to time. Will, I want. I'm very curious. Yours. I'm very curious. [00:54:20] Speaker C: Well, I'm not going to get. I'm not going to give. I'll give my honorable mention right now. [00:54:24] Speaker A: Okay. [00:54:25] Speaker C: I'm not going to give my two because they're. [00:54:26] Speaker B: They're. [00:54:27] Speaker C: I'd love to get Yalls thoughts, and they're pretty heavy discussion, so I wrote one down. That's. It's kind of an interesting one. It's why I kind of left it off. So I'll go and give that now honorable mention. Biggest challenge facing the church. I put missed opportunity is what I put. And this relates so much to Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk, his murder, his assassination left people searching. And in my opinion, the Church of Christ did not answer that call. In my opinion, they were not prepared. They did not take advantage. Again, I use a lot of sports analogies, but I think about the, obviously playoffs. NFL is going on right now. I think about the team that turns the ball over in their own territory. So the other team has got a great opportunity to go ahead and, you know, at least get some points or whatever, and they miss a field Goal. And it's like you got nothing from that opportunity. Then maybe it happens again and they, and then they go for it on fourth down and don't get. It's like you got zero points and you were gift wrapped. This perfect opportunity in your opponent's territory to take advantage, to take, to go up, to take a lead and you didn't do it. And how deflating that is for the team. It's like, man, we could have had it. We could have been, we could have been in great position. And it just kills you. You get zero points. That's kind of analogous to what I meant when I put this one down. As far as missed opportunity is, we're going to have to make up some ground because there were people searching, not just young people. We talked a lot about that. There were older people searching, older people saying, man, you know, something's not right. I need to get back in church. I need to look into this a little bit more. They didn't really turn to the Church of Christ. And I'm not trying to be negative again. I'm not trying to over generalized. I'm sure some people did, but I just feel like overall, collectively as the Church of Christ, we kind of missed the boat. We kind of missed our opportunity. And so now we're going to have to make up some ground. Just like that football team. It's like we were gift wrapped this and didn't do anything with it. So now we got to go, you know, go back to square one again. Charlie Kirk just left people searching. And I just feel like we missed our opportunity. But we spent more time talking about why Charlie Kirk wasn't in heaven because he wasn't baptized then we actually did. Taking advantage of why everyone was searching because of Charlie Kirk's murder. Like that just perfectly sums it up. And so again, I didn't feel like that would make my top three, but that was my honorable mention. So any, any quick thoughts on that before I guess we get out of here and push the remaining four? Maybe we'll add a couple more, but at least four that we have to next week. Any thoughts on that, guys? [00:56:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it goes along with Joe's point, you know, the, the cultural impact that when something like that happens, those who already have a cultural impact. You know, we referenced Doug Wilson on here and Jax made the point before of like Doug had been writing since what, the 80s, you know, been writing and writing, writing consistently kind of in obscurity. People knew of his stuff, homeschool circles, things like that. Of course, in Reformed Presbyterian, but not a lot of people knew until Covid hit. And when Covid hit, the guy's popularity exploded. Well, how? Because he'd been doing it since the 80s, saying the same stuff. He was poised, he was in position. He had been really building himself up to get to the point that what he said mattered. And he was one of the only voices of reason in Christendom surrounding Covid. The right time, right place, right time. You know, for such a time as this Esther Mordecai type thing, we miss that because we weren't prepped, we weren't prepared. We weren't already ready to be like, hey, hey, that's us. We've been already talking about these things. Come check this out. Our podcast did, again, not to pump our own tires, pat ourselves on the back, but our podcast, we've been talking about these things. So we were one of the first to get it out of, like, hey, this is what we've been talking about. This is where we're going. And, you know, as a nation, and here's what we can do about it. A lot of the church, like, you can't go from 0 to 60 in zero time. When something like that happens, you're either cruising around already there. I'll use the illustration before of hockey. Like, if you're moving the feet, the puck will come to you. But if you're just standing still, the puck's never going to come to you. You have to be moving your feet, driving the net, going to the places where you think the puck might go. And when it comes does come to you, you're more poised and ready to take advantage of whatever's coming your way. And so, yeah, I just think that that is a great point, Will we got to be moving our feet, ready for whatever the next one is. There will be a next one. And what are we going to do when that happens, Jack? [00:58:27] Speaker B: Yeah, the part about they're going to be a next one there big things are happening. We're in a time of great shakeup. There's going to be things that we need to be in place for. And so whether that's locally, whether that's the public square, online, whatever, build the kind of things that are ready to strike when the iron's hot. So great, great point for an honorable mention we do have. So this is halfway through. We'll have a part two next week for the deep end. Don't hesitate to comment. You know, there'll be plenty more to comment on next week. Or if you're watching on YouTube or if you want to comment on Facebook, whatever it may be. We're gonna give you our first half here and then the second half next week. [00:59:02] Speaker C: So tune in with more movie quotes next week, too, right? [00:59:06] Speaker B: That's right. Sharpen that up. We know people love that so much. So. [00:59:11] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right. [00:59:12] Speaker B: Anyway. All right. Well, we'll talk to you guys on the next one. 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.