Candid Conversations with Dr. Jonathan Youssef

The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction

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How Small Habits Shape Your Body and Soul: feat. Justin Whitmel Earley | Episode 309

web@ltw.org (Justin Whitmel Earley, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 9 Dec 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Do you ever feel like you’re doing all the right things, but you still feel tired, anxious, and spiritually stretched thin?

Jonathan sits down with Justin Whitmel Earley for part 2 of an insightful conversation on why your body's habits may be the missing piece in your walk with Christ. Justin shares how a season of panic attacks and sleepless nights exposed deeper spiritual needs and how rediscovering God’s design for rest transformed his life.

Together they take on our culture’s obsession with control, the illusion of self-sufficiency, and the freedom that comes when we finally admit, “I am not God and praise God for that.”

This episode invites you to slow down, breathe deeply, and allow the Gospel to shape how you live every single day.

About Justin Whitmel Earley

Justin Whitmel Earley is a lawyer, speaker, and author whose work focuses on how habits and disciplines shape our spiritual, emotional, and relational lives. He is the author of:

Habits of the Household: Practicing the Story of God in Everyday Family Rhythms

The Body Teaches the Soul: How Your Physical Life Shapes Your Spiritual Life

Justin lives in Richmond, Virginia with his wife and four sons.

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How Your Habits Shape Your Heart: feat. Justin Whitmel Earley | Episode 308

web@ltw.org (Justin Whitmel Earley, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 2 Dec 2025 05:00:00 +0000

What do your everyday habits—your screen time, your schedule, your workload—have to do with your spiritual life?

In this two-part conversation, Jonathan sits down with Justin Whitmel Earley author of The Common Rule, Habits of the Household, and his newest book, The Body Teaches the Soul. In Part 1, Justin shares how a season of crippling anxiety and mental collapse as a young lawyer forced him to reconsider everything he thought he knew about discipleship, the body, and the habits that quietly shape our lives.

Justin tells the story of moving from missionary work in China to corporate law in the United States and how, even with solid theology and a half-finished seminary degree, he found himself preaching a gospel of peace while his body was a wreck of anxiety. That crisis became the doorway into discovering how God uses ordinary, physical habits to form us spiritually.

Together, Jonathan and Justin explore why what you repeatedly do, often without thinking, matters more than you realize, and how the “liturgies” of our phones, work lives, and cultural moment either draw us toward Christ or away from Him.

About Justin Whitmel Earley

Justin Whitmel Earley is a lawyer, speaker, and author whose work focuses on how habits and disciplines shape our spiritual, emotional, and relational lives. He is the author of:

The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction

Habits of the Household: Practicing the Story of God in Everyday Family Rhythms

The Body Teaches the Soul: How Your Physical Life Shapes Your Spiritual Life

Justin lives in Richmond, Virginia with his wife and four sons.

Giving Tuesday with Leading The Way

If Candid Conversations has encouraged your faith or helped you think more deeply about following Jesus in today’s world, would you prayerfully consider supporting Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef this Giving Tuesday?

Candid is a ministry of Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef, a listener-supported ministry, and your generosity helps us bring Gospel-centered Bible teaching, discipleship resources, and outreach to people around the world.

This Giving Tuesday, your gift can make an even greater impact.
To partner with us, visit: ltw.org/donate

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Worship as a Discipleship Tool: feat. Apostles Worship | Episode 307

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Every Sunday, the preaching and singing of the Word work together as a powerful discipleship tool for the church.

In this special Thanksgiving week episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef sits down with four members of the Apostles Worship team—Jeremy Ezell, Sean Crawford, Amy Miller, and Seth Rice—to talk about the heart behind their ministry, the theology that shapes their songwriting, and the release of their new EP Psalms.

This is a rich, joyful, deeply encouraging conversation for worship leaders, pastors, musicians, and anyone who loves the ministry of music in the local church.

Learn More About Apostles Worship and Download the Songs

Sainte Jane (Lauren St. Jane and Jeremy Ezell):

Www.SainteJane.com

https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sainte-jane/1437044527

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6zfyuGXL52qotOmFEq9Nm8?si=r19ysfT1T1OflDJ1HBSJCw

Seth Rice:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2U33Z40JQLnyrS53JTOHQz?si=RRHN_hIKS4mVxj98AW775Q

Aimee Miller

https://open.spotify.com/artist/76XDxhCKHhDYfs95kovNd0?si=

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Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World: feat. Kristen Welch | Episode 306

web@ltw.org (Kristen Welch, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 11:00:00 +0000

What if the biggest obstacle to raising grateful kids… is our own entitlement?

In this episode, Jonathan sits down with author and Mercy House Global founder Kristen Welch, whose journey from “comfortable Christian mom” to global nonprofit leader started with a single, terrifying yes and a life-altering moment in the largest slum in Nairobi. What she discovered there forced her to confront a hard truth: gratitude isn’t something you can manufacture in your kids until it takes root in you first.

If you’ve ever felt crushed by comparison, overwhelmed by parenting pressures, or frustrated by the entitlement creeping into your home, Kristen’s story will remind you that the path back to gratitude begins with a changed heart, a slowed pace, and a renewed center on Christ.

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The Nicene Creed: How An Ancient Statement Still Shapes the Christian Faith: feat. Jonathan Youssef | Episode 305

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 11:00:00 +0000

In a world where spiritual claims come from every direction—podcasts, platforms, pulpits, and social feeds—it’s becoming harder to discern what’s truly biblical. Many ideas sound close to Christianity yet miss the mark in ways that quietly reshape what we believe about Jesus.

If you’ve ever heard something that didn’t sit right with you, you’re not alone—and your instincts matter. And believe it or not… Christians were fighting these same battles 1,700 years ago.

In this Candid reflection, Dr. Jonathan Youssef takes us back to one of the most defining moments in church history: the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325). As the Council marks its 1,700th anniversary, Jonathan invites you into the story behind the Nicene Creed —a confession that has anchored generations of believers in the truth as heresy spread like wildfire.

Learn how a single false idea about Jesus sparked a worldwide crisis, why the early Church gathered to defend the truth, and how the creed they forged continues to safeguard our faith today. This isn’t dusty theology or ancient trivia. It’s the foundation on which your understanding of Jesus' divinity, incarnation, resurrection, and His return still rests.

Jonathan also guides you through the creed itself, and together, you’ll rediscover why these ancient words still matter today.

Vital Questions Answered by this Reflection:

Why was the early Church gathered in Nicaea, and what was at stake?
What was the Arian controversy, and why did it threaten the heart of the Gospel?
How does the Nicene Creed boldly declare the eternal divinity of Jesus?
Why does the creed still matter in a world of spiritual influencers and modern heresies?
How does confessing ancient truth form a deeper, richer worship life today?

Why is grounding your faith in who Jesus truly is the most urgent task of every believer?

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Embracing Gratitude & Contentment in a Discontent World: feat. Jonathan Youssef | Episode 304

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 4 Nov 2025 11:00:00 +0000

We live in a world that tells us happiness is always just one more step away—one more raise, one more purchase, one more answered prayer. Yet even when we finally get what we thought we wanted, peace still feels out of reach.

In this powerful reflection, Jonathan Youssef invites you to pause and consider a radically different kind of joy, the kind that doesn’t depend on circumstances. He takes us to a Roman prison cell, where the apostle Paul, chained and hungry, wrote these astonishing words:

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” — Philippians 4:13

Paul wasn’t celebrating victory; he was declaring trust. From that dark cell came a light that still pierces our restless culture today: the secret of contentment found in Christ alone.

Jonathan explores what it means to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving even when life hurts, and how gratitude can become a spiritual weapon in seasons of loss, waiting, or disappointment.

If you’ve ever wondered how to hold onto peace when everything feels uncertain, this message is for you.

True gratitude isn’t about pretending life is perfect. It’s about believing God still is.

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Raising Gospel-Centered Kids in a Pressure-Filled World: feat. Cameron Cole | Episode 303

web@ltw.org (Cameron Cole, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000

What happens when faith becomes about performance rather than grace? In this heartfelt and eye-opening conversation, Jonathan Youssef sits down with Cameron Cole, President of Rooted Ministry and author of Heavenward: How Eternity Can Change Your Life on Earth, to talk about breaking the cycle of performance-based Christianity and rediscovering the freeing power of the Gospel for parents and kids alike.

Cameron shares his personal story of striving for perfection, hitting burnout, and finally finding rest in the truth that the Gospel means Jesus carries the burden of your life. Together, he and Jonathan explore how parents can nurture grace-filled, Gospel-saturated homes, guide their kids through questions of identity, and help them experience true security in who God says they are.

If you’ve ever felt exhausted by the pressure to “get it all right”—in parenting, ministry, or life—this conversation will remind you that freedom, peace, and joy are found not in performance, but in grace.

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CANDID LISTENER SURVEY

We love bringing you honest, hope-filled conversations about the Christian faith, and we’d love your feedback. We’ve compiled a short listener survey to help us plan future episodes you’ll love. Will you take a couple of minutes to complete it today? Your voice will help shape what’s next!

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From Feminism to Faith: Understanding the Gender Identity Crisis: feat. Dr. Katie McCoy | Episode 302

web@ltw.org (Dr. Katie McCoy, Dr. Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000

In a culture where identity has become fluid, how can Christians respond with Biblical Truth with both conviction and compassion?

In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef sits down with Dr. Katie McCoy, author of To Be a Woman: The Confusion Over Female Identity and How Christians Can Respond. Together they unpack one of the most pressing questions facing the next generation: Who decides who we are?

Dr. McCoy traces the rise of gender confusion from the roots of radical feminism and expressive individualism to the explosion of gender dysphoria among Gen Z. With clarity and grace, she explains why this moment is not just a social issue but a spiritual one, a battle over what it means to be human and made in the image of God.

In this conversation, you will also hear:

How culture’s “be whoever you want” message is leaving young people anxious and broken.
The connection between feminism, Marxist thought, and modern gender ideology.
What Scripture teaches about masculinity, femininity, and our created design.
Practical advice for parents and churches walking alongside teens facing gender confusion.
How believers can speak truth without hostility in an age of outrage.

Dr. McCoy also shares about The Identity Project, a free resource helping parents, pastors, and churches navigate questions of sexuality, gender, and biblical identity with wisdom and courage.

If you’ve ever wondered how to stand for truth while staying loving in conversations about gender and identity, this episode will equip you with biblical insight and hope.

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Listen to Part 1 of this Candid Conversation with Michael Keller.

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Spiritual Resilience: Leading Faithful Lives in a Changing World: feat. Michael Keller | Episode 301

web@ltw.org (Michael Keller, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000

What happens when faith collides with a world changing faster than ever? In this episode, Michael Keller and Jonathan Youssef wrestle honestly with AI, digital isolation, and the fractured search for meaning, offering real hope and practical wisdom for anyone longing for true connection and honest community with grace at the center.

Jonathan and Michael dig into the spiritual and cultural shifts created by technological disruption and social fragmentation. They share about the challenges facing the Church and practical ideas for building communities of grace where people can wrestle with big questions, doubts, and their own brokenness.

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Faith Under Fire: Biblical Truths and Modern Challenges: feat. Michael Keller | Episode 300

web@ltw.org (Michael Keller, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 7 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Can faith survive doubt, family legacy, and the rush of modern technology? In this compelling conversation, Dr. Michael Keller, pastor of Redeemer Lincoln Square, theologian, council member of the Gospel Coalition and a Fellow for the Keller Center for Apologetics. He is also the son of the late Tim Keller. In this conversation, Michael describes his journey from inherited belief to authentic, grace-filled faith. From questioning Christianity amid the pressures of being a pastor’s child, to encounters with Buddhism, to the powerful pull of the gospel, Michael’s story is honest and deeply relatable.

Host Jonathan Youssef joins Michael for a candid discussion on finding true freedom in faith, the humility of repentance, and how artificial intelligence is shaping the way we engage with theology today. Whether wrestling with doubt, digital disruption, or the challenge of living authentically, this conversation offers fresh encouragement for navigating faith in a rapidly changing world.

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Identity, Discipleship, and Costly Faith in Christ: feat. Sam Allberry | Episode 299

web@ltw.org (Sam Allberry, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Discover how union with Christ transforms our identity, reshapes our approach to discipleship, and calls every believer to costly faith. Pastor and author Sam Allberry joins Jonathan Youssef to share candid insights on navigating same-sex attraction, authentic holiness, and the challenges facing today's church. Whether wrestling with faith or longing for deeper purpose, this conversation offers practical encouragement for living faithfully in a shifting world.

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Learn more about Sam Allberry:

The Gospel Coalition

Immanuel Nashville

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How Do We Stop Scrolling Ourselves to Death? feat: Ivan Mesa and Brett McCracken, Episode 298

web@ltw.org (Ivan Mesa, Jonathan Youssef, Brett McCracken) — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000

What if the habits shaping your daily scroll are quietly shaping your soul, and your church, for the next generation? In Part 2 of our conversation with Brett McCracken and Ivan Mesa, editors of Scrolling Ourselves to Death: Reclaiming Life in a Digital Age, we take a deeper look into the ways digital technology forms our hearts, relationships, and communities. From "main character syndrome" to the epidemic of information overload, the conversation unpacks how every generation, Gen Z to Boomers, is being discipled by screens, and how the Church can resist digital shallowness by reclaiming real, embodied community.

Listen to practical encouragement for churches hungry to nurture countercultural connection and for individuals eager to recover timeless Christian practices in a sea of distraction. Discover why hopeful, Gospel-rooted engagement, not fear, must anchor our response to a rapidly shifting technological world. Whether leading, parenting, or just wondering how faith fits in a digital age, this episode delivers challenge and hope for the journey ahead.

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Why Are We Scrolling Ourselves to Death?: feat: Ivan Mesa and Brett McCracken, Episode 297

web@ltw.org (Brett McCracken, Ivan Mesa, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Are we scrolling ourselves numb while our souls quietly starve? On this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef talks with Brett McCracken and Ivan Mesa, editors of Scrolling Ourselves to Death: Reclaiming Life in a Digital Age, about how digital overload is quietly shaping who we are—often more deeply than we realize. Dive in as they reveal why technology’s grip is so persistent, how endless scrolling subtly reshapes our hearts and habits, and why reclaiming our attention is more than a productivity hack. It's a spiritual battle for deeper living and true community.

With candid insight and practical wisdom, Brett and Ivan explore the challenges of our dopamine-fueled media culture and the hope Christians can find in refocusing their lives on embodied relationships and intentional spiritual rhythms. If you feel the tug between digital distraction and life-giving presence, this conversation will equip and encourage you.

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A Tool of Faith Formation for Our Secular Age: feat. Trevin Wax | Episode 296

web@ltw.org (Trevin Wax, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 9 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Are you equipped to stand firm in the Christian faith in today’s ever-changing culture? Jonathan Youssef welcomes Trevin Wax, co-author of The Gospel Way Catechism, to discuss the importance of Christian catechism as a tool for spiritual formation in today’s world. Trevin is a vice president at the North American Mission Board (NAMB), a visiting professor at Cedarville University, and a regular columnist at The Gospel Coalition.

This conversation unpacks the meaning of catechism, its vital role in discipleship, and the inspiration behind this book, a resource designed to help Christians discern Biblical Truth amid cultural confusion.

Listen now to discover how classic elements of catechism can be adapted for modern challenges, including secularism, expressive individualism, and technological developments like artificial intelligence.This episode offers insights into making faith accessible to all ages, with news of an upcoming children’s catechism, and practical tips for applying catechetical truths to everyday life and outreach.

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A Legacy of Ministry and Global Training: feat. Jonathan Youssef on 2 Pastors Unplugged | Episode 295

web@ltw.org (Rick Probst, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 2 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000

This special episode re-airs Jonathan Youssef’s engaging visit with Rick Probst on 2 Pastors Unplugged. Jonathan—shaped by a legacy of ministry and global training—digs deep into what makes preaching truly life-changing, drawing from experiences that span Atlanta to Sydney. Hear how opening God’s Word becomes more than a message; it’s an invitation to personal transformation and lasting impact for every listener.

Explore more thought-provoking stories, honest faith journeys, and practical wisdom in every episode of Candid Conversations.

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How Do I Raise Children Who Will Follow Christ? feat. Jonathan Youssef | Episode 294

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the challenge of raising children to stand firm in their Christian faith because the culture pushes back at every turn? You’re not alone. Today, countless parents, teachers, and mentors are searching for hope-filled answers and practical, Biblical guidance for the next generation.

In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef offers practical insights for parents, grandparents, and anyone passionate about discipling kids in today’s challenging culture. Join him to discover three Biblical strategies for teaching, mentoring, and praying for the children in your life. Listen and learn how to boldly speak Truth, help your children build relationships grounded in Christ, and understand why inviting the Holy Spirit into their journey is vital. Tune in to empower the next generation with a foundation rooted in God’s Word.

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How Can I Be More Like Jesus? feat. Dave Hubbard | Episode 293

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Welcome back to Candid Conversations! After a refreshing sabbatical, Jonathan Youssef returns with a brand-new episode to kick off this new season of Candid, diving into one of the Bible's most powerful stories of transformation, Simon Peter. Jonathan is joined by author and Candid listener favorite, Dave Hubbard. His new book, “You Are, You Will Become: A Character Study of Simon Peter,” invites readers to discover how God changes hearts and lives from the inside out. This conversation is packed with relatable insights, personal stories, and practical questions for group or individual study.

Are you curious about what made Peter so unique among the disciples? Have you ever wondered why Jesus renamed Simon and what it means to go from "You are" to "You will become"? Jonathan and Dave unpack Peter’s bold faith, failures, and journey toward becoming a true “rock.” They draw on Dave’s compelling, often humorous experiences, illustrating how God uses everyday moments to shape our character just like He did with Peter.

Whether you’re looking for a Bible study resource, small group inspiration, or answers to common questions about Christian transformation, this episode and book will help you become who God created you to be while accepting that you are a work in progress, just like Peter.

Join the conversation as we explore the life lessons, questions, and hope in Simon Peter's story. This episode is for everyone seeking growth and transformation in faith.

Special Offer

You Are, You Will Become is available now for 20% off. Churches, small groups, and ministries purchasing more than 25 copies of the book can also receive a discount and free shipping directly from the publisher. Visit Dave Hubbard's website today to place your order!

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How to Prepare for the Harvest w/Pastor Joe Kerrigan | Episode 292

web@ltw.org (Joe Kerrigan, Dr. Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000

A man lands in Dublin for a job interview. That night, in a hotel room, Jesus appears to him in a vision. The next morning, he stands weeping at a church gate, waiting for someone to explain what just happened.

That’s not fiction. It's just one of the stories Pastor Joe Kerrigan shares in this unforgettable episode of Candid Conversations. From deliverance ministry to revival in the heart of Ireland, Joe’s journey will challenge your comfort, stir your spirit, and remind you what God can do with a willing “yes.”

Jonathan Youssef sits down with Pastor Joe Kerrigan, a former chef turned pastor, who leads Trinity Church in Dublin, Ireland. Joe shares how his dramatic encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus changed everything and how that “yes” to Christ began a lifelong journey of healing, deliverance, and Gospel proclamation.

Now, after decades of ministry, Joe is witnessing something extraordinary: a spiritual awakening in the heart of Dublin. Through testimonies of revival, supernatural encounters, and radical discipleship, Joe reveals what happens when a church says yes to the Lord’s call and opens wide its doors to the broken, the skeptical, and the seeking.

Joe’s words are urgent, heartfelt, and deeply challenging. If you’ve felt stuck, stale, or longing for more in your own walk or your church, this episode will ignite your faith.

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Sabbath as a Day of Delight w/Dr. Bill Davis | Episode 291

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Jonathan welcomes Dr. Bill Davis of Covenant College back to Candid Conversations to explore the rich Biblical basis, spiritual significance, and transformative power of Sabbath rest, both personally, as a family, and as a faith community.

Dr. Davis shares insightful, real‑world practices from raising children to enjoy delight-filled Sundays, to intentional worship rhythms, and honoring the Sabbath as a gift, not a burden. They also explore the balance between ritual and legalism, the role of Sabbath rest in guarding against burnout, and its deep roots in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy.

Whether you're parenting young ones, navigating work-life rhythms, or seeking spiritual renewal, this episode offers clarity, encouragement, and actionable guidance on embracing Sabbath rest as a foretaste of heavenly peace.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

A Biblical Look at Caregiving and Honoring Aging Loved Ones: Dr. Bill Davis

Check out these other Candid Conversations with Dr. Bill Davis:

How Should We Care for Our Aging Loved Ones (Part 1): Dr. Bill Davis

How Should We Care for Our Aging Loved Ones (Part 2): Dr. Bill Davis
Roe v. Wade Conversations with Dr. Bill Davis

Building Bridges in a Cancel Culture: Dr. Bill Davis

Let's Talk About Suicide: Dr. Bill Davis

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Reaching A Generation Hungry for Truth w/Dave Jensen | Episode 290

web@ltw.org (Dave Jensen, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000

“There has never been a better time to evangelize the next generation.”
That’s a bold statement, but one Dave Jensen stands behind with passion, clarity, and decades of ministry experience.

In this energizing episode, Australian evangelist Dave Jensen returns to Candid Conversations to share why now, yes, right now, might be the most wide-open moment in our lifetime to reach Gen Z and Gen Alpha with the Gospel. From pandemic disillusionment to a cultural craving for meaning, Dave and Jonathan explore the social and spiritual shifts that are sparking a hunger for Truth among young people worldwide.

They dive into:

Why Gen Z is surprisingly open to the Gospel
What not to do when evangelizing in a post-Christian culture
How to avoid replacing grace with moralism in your message
Why compromise kills Gospel witness and conviction ignites it
The real reason most non-Christians reject Christianity (it’s not what you think)
How YOU can be part of the revival starting with the people you already know

Whether you're a parent, pastor, youth leader, or just someone who longs to see more people know Jesus, this episode is a wake-up call and an encouragement: the harvest is ready, and we’re all called to go.

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From Fine to Free w/Joy Chapman | Episode 289

web@ltw.org (Joy Chapman, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 3 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000

What happens when we stop pretending we’re fine and start getting honest with God? Jonathan Youssef sits down with Joy Chapman, West Coast Development Director for Leading The Way, to hear her powerful story of transformation. From a childhood faith shaped by Scripture to life-altering experiences of loss, fear, and forgiveness, Joy shares how God met her in moments of deep pain to bring true healing and freedom.

Through disasters, both internal and external, Joy discovered that Jesus doesn’t just offer salvation, He offers healing for our memories, minds, and even our grief. Whether you’re wrestling with fear, shame, unforgiveness, or the weight of being “fine,” this candid conversation will remind you: Jesus is near, and it's for freedom Christ set us free.

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Why Vacation Bible School Might Be the Most Important Week of the Year: Zack Carden | Episode 288

web@ltw.org (Zack Carden, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 27 May 2025 10:00:00 +0000

What do Listerine strips, backyard barbecues, and cartoon characters have to do with kids meeting Jesus? More than you might think.

In this lively and insightful episode of Candid Conversations, host Jonathan Youssef welcomes back Zack Carden—pastor, storyteller, and creator of Grey Bobby Ministries—to explore the incredible opportunity churches have with Vacation Bible School (VBS).

Zack shares how his passion for the Gospel and kids collided unexpectedly, leading to years of creative VBS leadership that blends humor, theology, and deep discipleship. Together, they unpack why VBS still works, how it transforms both kids and teen volunteers, and what churches can do to make the most of this high-impact week.

In this episode, you will learn:

Why the 3–13 age window is spiritually critical
What unchurched families really think about sending kids to VBS
How to follow up meaningfully after the last water balloon pops
The simple tool Zack uses to draw kids (and their families) back to church
How parents can disciple kids without feeling overwhelmed
Learn how to use your church's VBS to reach your community and keep them coming back.

Whether planning this year’s VBS or wondering if it’s still worth doing, this episode will reignite your vision for reaching the next generation with the Gospel.

More from Zack Carden:

Find Zack Carden's Biblical storytelling content for kids: Visit Greybobby Ministries

Jonathan learns more about Greybobby from Zack: Listen here

Remember, it's not too late to register for VBS, invite a friend, or start planning for next year. Schedule it, defend it, and watch God move.

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Where is Your Security?: Jonathan Youssef | Episode 287

web@ltw.org (Dr. Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 20 May 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Are you searching for something solid to hold onto when life feels uncertain?

In a world where finances fluctuate, relationships disappoint, and the future seems unpredictable, we all crave a sense of security. But what if the things we cling to can’t truly keep us safe?

In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef explores the universal longing for security through the lens of one of Scripture’s most moving stories, the journey of Ruth. Drawing wisdom from Ruth chapter 2, Jonathan invites you to consider:

Where are you placing your trust?
What do you run to when life feels shaky?
Could there be a deeper, unshakeable refuge you’re missing?

You’ll hear how Ruth, a foreigner with nothing left to lose, risked everything to care for her mother-in-law, and how her faith led her straight into God’s providence. Discover how God’s invisible hand works even in your hardest seasons, providing protection, provision, and hope in unexpected ways.

Whether you feel bitter and empty like Naomi, vulnerable and courageous like Ruth, or in a position to bless like Boaz, this episode will encourage you to find your true security, not in what you can build or protect, but under the loving wing of the God who sees you.

Listen now and rediscover the only place of lasting security.

Resources & Links:
🔗 Learn more at LTW.org/Candid.
🎧 Subscribe & Share the show with someone who will be strengthened by the message.

Stay Connected with Candid:
Follow us on Instagram | Facebook | X/Twitter |

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Where is God in a World Filled with Evil?: Collin Hansen | Episode 286

web@ltw.org (Collin Hansen, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 13 May 2025 10:00:00 +0000

If God is good and all-powerful, why does evil persist? In this thought-provoking episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef sits down with Collin Hansen to tackle one of the most challenging questions people of faith will wrestle with.

Drawing from his new book Where Is God In a World with So Much Evil?, Collin explores the age-old struggle with suffering through the lens of Scripture, history, and personal reflection. From the cries of Job to the silence of Jesus at the cross, from the horrors of the Holocaust to the hidden pain many carry today, this conversation invites listeners to wrestle honestly with doubt while discovering the surprising hope God offers—not always through answers, but through His presence.

Whether you're walking through hardship or beside someone who is, this episode will equip you with Biblical wisdom, historical perspective, and deep compassion. Don’t miss this honest dialogue on justice, suffering, and the power of resilient faith in a broken world.

About This Week's Guest:

Dr. Collin Hansen is an author, editor-in-chief of The Gospel Coalition, and executive director of The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics,

Connect with Collin:

Facebook: @hansen.collin

X: @collinhansen

Follow Candid Conversations on social media:

Facebook: @candidpod

Instagram: @candidpod

Twitter: @thecandidpod

Subscribe & Share:
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Apologetics for a Changing Culture: Sean McDowell | Episode 285 - part 2

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Sean McDowell) — Tue, 6 May 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Are you tired of faith conversations that feel more like a battle than a dialogue? What if defending what you believe could open doors instead of building walls? In this episode of Candid Conversations, Dr. Sean McDowell, author, professor, and leading Christian apologist, joins Jonathan Youssef to tackle the most challenging questions facing believers today, from the mental health crisis and the deconstruction movement to the rise of AI and digital misinformation.

You’ll hear why the “us vs. them” mentality is holding us back, how to engage skeptics with curiosity instead of combativeness, and practical ways to help the next generation wrestle with doubt without losing faith. Discover why women are reshaping apologetics, how to avoid echo chambers online, and what timeless questions will always matter, no matter how the culture shifts.

This episode is for you if you want to move beyond talking points. Watch and learn how to have honest, winsome conversations about faith in a rapidly changing world. Subscribe now and join the dialogue that's equipping Christians to love well, think deeply, and stand out for all the right reasons.

About This Week's Guest:

Dr. Sean McDowell is a professor of apologetics at Biola University, the cohost of the Think Biblically podcast, and a best-selling author. His latest book, Apologetics for an Ever-Changing Culture, helps Christians address today’s toughest questions with clarity and compassion.

Connect with Sean:

Website: seanmcdowell.org

YouTube: Sean McDowell

Instagram: @sean_mcdowell

Follow Candid Conversations on social media:

Facebook: @candidpod

Instagram: @candidpod

Twitter: @thecandidpod

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Why Are Bible Sales Up?: Sean McDowell |Episode 285 - part 1

web@ltw.org (Sean McDowell, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Why are Bible sales experiencing a surprising 22% surge? Is Western culture becoming spiritually curious again? In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef welcomes Dr. Sean McDowell—author, speaker, and Biola University professor—to unpack this unexpected trend.

Sean shares insights from his years of engaging the next generation on matters of faith, culture, and apologetics. Together, they explore:

Why a sharp rise in Bible sales should give us pause—and cautious hope
How cultural voices like Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Rauch are contributing to renewed interest in Christianity
Why secularism may be losing momentum among young adults
How Christians can better engage a spiritually curious culture today—not with confrontation, but with conversation

Drawing on historical shifts, current research, and his experiences equipping students and churches, Sean encourages believers to rethink how we present the gospel in this pivotal moment. Instead of arguing like it's still the era of the "new atheists," it’s time to listen, ask better questions, and meet people in their spiritual hunger.

Guest Bio

Connect with Sean:

Website: seanmcdowell.org

YouTube: Sean McDowell

Instagram: @sean_mcdowell

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

What Happens After Easter: Jonathan Youssef | Episode 284

web@ltw.org (Dr. Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Easter Sunday may be over, but the Resurrection story is just beginning. In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef reflects on John 21 and what Jesus’ post-Resurrection moments reveal about how we are meant to live today. If you’ve ever felt spiritually stuck, disqualified from ministry, or unsure of what to do now that the Easter celebration has faded, this message is for you.

Jesus didn’t leave us without direction. He gave three clear calls that still shape every believer’s life today:

🔹 Listen to Me – Even in the waiting, Jesus speaks. Are you listening?
🔹 Follow Me – Failure doesn’t disqualify you. His call still stands.
🔹 Focus on Me – Don’t compare your journey to others. Keep your eyes on Christ.

This episode powerfully reminds us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus as we press forward in our calling and purpose daily.

Resources & Links:
🔗 Learn more at LTW.org/Candid.
🎧 Subscribe & Share the show with someone who needs post-Easter encouragement.
📖 Read John 21 this week and reflect on Jesus' personal call to you.

Stay Connected with Candid:
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Teaching Little Hearts Big Truths About Easter: John Greco | Episode 283

web@ltw.org (John Greco, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 8 Apr 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Do you struggle as a parent to help your children grasp the profound significance of Easter while swimming against a tide of pastel eggs and jelly bean overload? In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef talks with John Greco, whose new children's book, The Easter Lamb, was born from his parenting challenge to explain to his three young sons how God's rescue plan connects Passover to the Cross. Whether you have toddlers fascinated by colorful illustrations or older kids asking tough theological questions, this conversation offers practical wisdom for families seeking to plant Biblical Truth that will root deeply in children's hearts.

John Greco is a writer, editor, and self-described Bible geek with an impressive background in Biblical scholarship. He has served as the editor of the He Reads Truth Bible and as the New Testament theological editor for the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible.

Highlights:

The story of an aspiring pastor who became a writer and how he "stumbled into" writing
The inspiration behind creating a children's book that connects the Passover story to Jesus's sacrifice
How Biblical theology helps children (and adults) see the complete narrative of Scripture rather than disconnected moral stories
The importance of teaching children the profound connections between Old and New Testament stories
John's approach to handling difficult Biblical concepts like sacrifice and death in a child-appropriate way
The collaborative process with London-based illustrator Sian James to create engaging, accurate, and inviting visuals
Family traditions for making Easter meaningful beyond bunnies and chocolate eggs

About the Book: The Easter Lamb: Jesus, Passover, and God's Amazing Plan to Rescue Us weaves together the stories of Passover and Easter, helping young readers understand the connection between these significant biblical events and see how God's plan for salvation has been consistent throughout history.

Connect with John Greco: Find more information about John and his books on his website.

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Twitter: @thecandidpod

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How to Live Authentically for Christ with Jinger & Jeremy Vuolo | Episode 282 - part 2

web@ltw.org (Jeremy & Jinger Vuolo, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 1 Apr 2025 10:00:00 +0000

What happens when our desire to be liked becomes a barrier to real community? In part two, Jonathan Youssef continues his conversation with Jeremy and Jinger Vuolo, delving deeper into the profound struggles behind people-pleasing and how God’s Truth sets us free.

Jinger shares powerful stories of real-life moments that challenged her desire to appear “put together,” and how letting others into her mess brought healing, deeper friendships, and lasting joy. Jeremy offers honest reflections on walking with Jinger through this transformation, encouraging others to think critically about their motives and the long-term consequences of seeking approval.

Together, they explore the danger of trading meaningful relationships for short-term reputation and how choosing vulnerability can lead to the community we truly crave.

This conversation is honest, relatable, and freeing for anyone wrestling with fear, performance, or the pressure to please.

About the Guests

Jeremy Vuolo is a former professional goalkeeper for the New York Red Bulls who is now pursuing his doctorate at Master's Seminary.

Jinger Vuolo grew up on TLC's "19 Kids and Counting" and "Counting On" as part of the Duggar family. She is now an author of multiple books, including the New York Times bestseller "Becoming Free Indeed" and her newest release "People Pleaser: Breaking Free From the Bondage of Imaginary Expectations."

Together, Jeremy and Jinger are raising their two daughters and new son in the Los Angeles area while sharing their faith through various platforms, including their podcast and social media.

Resources Mentioned

"People Pleaser: Breaking Free From the Bondage of Imaginary Expectations" by Jinger Vuolo
"Becoming Free Indeed" by Jinger Vuolo (New York Times bestseller)

Follow the Vuolos on social media:

Instagram: @jingervuolo @jeremy_vuolo

Follow Candid Conversations on social media:

Facebook: @candidpod

Instagram: @candidpod

Twitter: @thecandidpod

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The Weight of People Pleasing with Jinger & Jeremy Vuolo | Episode 282 - part 1

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 10:00:00 +0000

What happens when you realize much of your life has been shaped by the need to meet others' expectations? In this enlightening episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef welcomes Jeremy and Jinger Vuolo back to the program as they dive into the suffocating world of people-pleasing.

Jinger, known from TLC's "Nineteen Kids and Counting," reveals how she discovered a prison of other's expectations beneath her desire to maintain peace. With remarkable vulnerability, she shares how the fear-based theology she was raised in magnified these tendencies and how her marriage to Jeremy was the catalyst for transformation.

This conversation isn't just for people-pleasers—it's for anyone who's ever wondered if their relationships, decisions, and actions are motivated by genuine love or a need for approval.

About the Guests

Jeremy Vuolo is a former professional goalkeeper for the New York Red Bulls who is now pursuing his doctorate at Master's Seminary.

Jinger Vuolo grew up on TLC's "Nineteen Kids and Counting" and "Counting On" as part of the Duggar family. She is now an author of multiple books including the New York Times bestseller "Becoming Free Indeed" and her newest release "People Pleaser: Breaking Free From the Bondage of Imaginary Expectations."

Together, Jeremy and Jinger are raising their two daughters and soon-to-be son in the Los Angeles area while sharing their faith through various platforms, including their podcast and social media.

Resources Mentioned

"People Pleaser: Breaking Free From the Bondage of Imaginary Expectations" by Jinger Vuolo
"Becoming Free Indeed" by Jinger Vuolo (New York Times bestseller)

Follow the Vuolos on social media:

Instagram: @jingervuolo @jeremy_vuolo

Follow Candid Conversations on social media:

Facebook: @candidpod

Instagram: @candidpod

Twitter: @thecandidpod

Subscribe & Share:
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Truth in a Post-Truth World: Why It Still Matters: Jonathan Youssef | Episode 281

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Dr. Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 10:00:00 +0000

In a culture that is increasingly more comfortable with phrases like "my truth" and "your truth," Jonathan Youssef explores the concept of objective truth and why it matters in our everyday lives. This episode examines the logical problems with a "post-truth" mentality and presents compelling evidence for why Christianity's truth claims deserve thoughtful consideration, even from skeptics.

Key Topics Discussed

The contradiction between subjective perspectives and objective reality
Why the "coexist" mentality creates logical problems in practice
The fear of discovering truth and how truth might lead to freedom
Evidence to support Christianity's Truth claims

Follow us on social media:

Facebook: @candidpod

Instagram: @candidpod

Twitter: @thecandidpod

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Waking the Sleeping Church: Dr. Michael Youssef on God's Final Call| Episode 280

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 4 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Is the church asleep while the world crumbles? What if Jesus' ancient warnings to the church are more relevant now than ever?

Jonathan Youssef sits down with his father, renowned Bible teacher Dr. Michael Youssef, for an unfiltered conversation about spiritual complacency in critical times. As they explore the insights from Dr. Youssef's new book, God's Final Call, they reveal how Christ's messages to the seven churches of Revelation contain the exact blueprint modern believers need to navigate our increasingly hostile cultural landscape. Drawing from over five decades of Biblical scholarship, Dr. Youssef decodes these prophetic warnings with an urgency that will challenge everything you thought you knew about faith in chaotic times.

Join father and son to explore how these ancient letters serve as spiritual road maps for navigating our increasingly challenging cultural landscape. Dr. Youssef shares compelling insights on recognizing modern church warnings, avoiding complacency, standing firm amid cultural chaos, and reclaiming the joy of anticipating Christ's return.

Whether struggling with doubt in a hostile culture or seeking to deepen your faith journey, this conversation offers comfort and conviction for believers committed to unwavering faith.

Learn more about Dr. Michael Youssef

Pre-order your copy of God's Final Call

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Instagram: @candidpod

Twitter: @thecandidpod

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Dru Hammer: Scandal, Forgiveness, and a Calling Greater Than Wealth - Episode 279 | Part 2

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000

In this powerful conclusion of our conversation with Dru Hammer, she openly shares about walking through public trials, finding healing after a public divorce, and how God turned her pain into purpose through the Hammered Heart Foundation.

Episode Highlights:

Dru's candid discussion about navigating the controversy surrounding her son, Armie Hammer
The journey through divorce and the power of true forgiveness
How journaling for ten years became the foundation for her book "Hammered"
A transformative moment in Israel that birthed the Hammered Heart Foundation
The importance of addressing childhood trauma and healing within marriages
How ministering to others at the L.A. Dream Center helped her own healing
The story behind the hammered heart symbol and its impact on hurting women

About the Guest:

Dru Hammer is the founder and CEO of Hammered Heart Foundation and the author of the book Hammered. Her story bridges the worlds of faith, business, and humanitarian work, demonstrating how God can use anyone, anywhere, to share His message.

Listen here if you missed part 1 of this compelling conversation.

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Ministering to the Famous and Forgotten: The Bold Faith of Dru Hammer - Episode 279 | PT 1

web@ltw.org (Dru Hammer, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000

In this powerful first installment, Jonathan Youssef sits down with Dru Hammer to discuss her remarkable faith journey, from her roots in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to becoming part of one of America's most prominent families.

Episode Highlights:

Dru shares the story of her parents' conversion to Christianity when she was five years old and how it transformed their family
Her father's unexpected call to healing ministry after witnessing a miraculous healing
A pivotal moment in Dru's senior year of high school when she witnessed her first supernatural healing
The story of meeting her future husband, Michael Hammer, on a flight and their whirlwind romance
Her transition into the world of the Hammer family dynasty and learning to navigate high society while maintaining her faith
Stories of ministry work ranging from Beverly Hills socialites to the L.A. Dream Center
The gradual process of sharing faith with her father-in-law, Dr. Armand Hammer, and his eventual acceptance of Christ

Key Quotes:

"God, I want to do what you want me to do. I want to be who you want me to be. And I want to go where you want me to go. Send me. I'm here. I'm ready." - Dru Hammer

About the Guest:

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this compelling conversation, where Dru discusses overcoming personal trials and founding the Hammered Heart Foundation.

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Twitter: @thecandidpod

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What the Western Church Can Learn from the Eastern Church: Tara Shinja (Episode 278)

web@ltw.org (Tara Shinja, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000

What happens when deep cultural roots meet the life-changing power of the Gospel? Tara Shinja knows firsthand. Raised between two distinct cultures, Tara’s journey is a powerful testimony of God’s transforming grace and the strength it takes to stand firm in the Christian faith.

In this episode, Tara shares her family’s story of radical transformation—from a mother raised in foster care yet captivated by Christ's love to her father’s unexpected journey from Hinduism to Christianity, as a child who grew up between two cultures, Tara shares unique insight into the Eastern and Western churches.

What You’ll Hear:

The challenge of living out your faith in a complex cultural landscape
How God’s truth brought clarity and freedom in the midst of confusion
The power of prayer and discipleship to impact lives and change hearts
Practical tips for sharing your faith with those who are searching, including the power of persistent prayer for the lost

If you’re navigating faith in a multicultural world or seeking encouragement to share the Gospel with boldness, this episode is for you. Listen now and be inspired by God’s unstoppable grace!

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Why the Next 25 years Will Change the Global Church Forever: Dr. Richard Pratt (Episode 277)

web@ltw.org (Dr. Richard Pratt, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 4 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Jonathan Youssef welcomes Dr. Richard L. Pratt Jr., president and co-founder of Third Millennium Ministries, to Candid Conversations. Dr. Pratt, an esteemed Old Testament scholar and global evangelist, shares his transformative journey from a dramatic conversion during the Jesus Movement to founding a ministry that provides seminary-level Biblical education to Christian leaders worldwide—for free.

Discover Dr. Pratt's powerful epiphany that "where the Church is growing the fastest, there is the least opportunity for Christian leaders to learn the Scriptures," and how this conviction became his life's mission. They discuss the global Church's challenges, including the scarcity of sound theological training in rapidly growing Christian regions like Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Dr. Pratt reveals Thirdmill's innovative strategies to reverse this trend, leveraging digital technology, multilingual resources, and strategic partnerships to equip millions of pastors worldwide. Learn about the staggering need for 12 million new church leaders by 2050 and how Thirdmill is meeting this need through accessible, high-quality Biblical education.

Key Topics Covered:

Dr. Pratt's journey to faith and ministry

The global Church's rapid growth and the corresponding leadership training gap

The genesis and mission of Third Millennium Ministries

The innovative, technology-driven approach to Biblical education

Stories of transformation from around the world

Links & Resources:

Third Millennium Ministries

Thirdmill Institute

Thirdmill Seminary

For questions or to connect with the Candid community, visit LTW.org/Candid.

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Three Truths to Help You Weather the Storms of Life: Jonathan Youssef Episode 276

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Life’s storms are inevitable—whether you’re in one now, just coming out, or about to face one. The real question is: how do you navigate them with unshakable faith?

In this episode, Jonathan Youssef shares three powerful biblical truths that will strengthen and encourage you when trials come. Drawing from the dramatic shipwreck of the Apostle Paul in Acts 27, Jonathan unpacks:

How to stand firm when the waves crash
Why storms don’t define you
How God’s purpose remains unshaken—no matter the chaos around you.

If you're feeling weary, discouraged, or need a reminder of God's sovereignty, this episode is for you. Listen now and be encouraged to know that you can anchor your faith in the only One who can calm the storm.

For questions or to connect with the Candid community, visit LTW.org/Candid.

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For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

A New Year to Know God and Grow Spiritually: Jonathan Youssef:Episode 275

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 05:00:00 +0000

As you move through this new year, are you merely setting Christian-sounding goals or truly seeking God daily with a heart of worship? In this special episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan reflects on the importance of pursuing godliness above all else. Drawing from 1 Timothy 4:8, listeners will be reminded that physical and worldly disciplines have some value, but true transformation comes only through knowing Christ.

Join Jonathan as he explores how cultural obsessions with self-improvement infiltrate the church, diluting the power of the Gospel. We’ll challenge the tendency to seek quick-fix sermons and practical tips over the deeper call to sit at Jesus' feet.

Be inspired to continue 2025 with a renewed focus on what matters most: knowing, loving, and glorifying God.

For questions or to connect with the Candid community, visit LTW.org/Candid.

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Leading a Christian Revival in Secular Boston with Pastor Jaime Owens: Episode 274

web@ltw.org (Jamie Owens, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000

In this compelling episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef sits down with Pastor Jaime Owens of Tremont Temple in Boston, a church rich in history yet facing the challenges of revitalizing faith in one of America’s most secular cities. Jaime shares his dramatic journey—from a hungover skeptic stepping into a church for the first time to a state trooper turned pastor on a mission to lead a spiritual revival.

Discover how God transformed Jamie’s life, calling him from law enforcement into full-time ministry. Learn about Tremont Temple’s fascinating legacy, where abolitionists once stood, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln spoke, and Charles Dickens famously read from A Christmas Carol. Hear how God works through Jaime to breathe new life into this historic church, drawing young professionals and students into a vibrant faith community amidst Boston’s intellectual and cultural hub.

Key topics include:

Jaime’s powerful conversion story: “I walked into church hungover and skeptical, but something changed forever.”
From chasing criminals to chasing souls: Jamie’s unexpected career shift from state trooper to pastor.
The untold history of Tremont Temple and its role in abolition and revival.
Reaching Boston’s diverse culture and engaging the next generation with the gospel.
The importance of sound theology and church governance in guarding the gospel.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone passionate about church revitalization, sharing the Gospel in challenging environments, and seeing God work unexpectedly.

Don’t miss the upcoming special event at Tremont Temple on October 24-25, 2025, featuring Dr. Michael Youssef and Mac Powell!

🎧 Listen now to hear this incredible story of redemption, revival, and hope in the heart of Boston.

Discover historic Tremont Temple: Tremont Temple

Learn more about Awake Boston: Awake Boston | Leading The Way Celebration

For questions or to connect with the Candid community, visit LTW.org/Candid.

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A New Christmas Reflection From Jonathan: 7 Extraordinary Prophecies Fulfilled on the First Christmas: (273)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 11:00:00 +0000

Have you ever stopped to think about how the first Christmas was meticulously planned centuries before it happened? In this week's episode, Dr. Jonathan Youssef shares the divine blueprint behind the birth of Jesus—one too precise to be left to chance.

In a world of uncertainty, discovering the fulfilled prophecies of the first Christmas can bring a sense of wonder and assurance. These ancient promises reveal a God who is faithful and precise, offering hope and a deeper understanding of His love and plan for us.

Listen now and share this reflection with a friend who could use reassurance of the certainty of God's plan this Christmas.

For questions or to connect with the Candid community, visit LTW.org/Candid.

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Where Hope Meets Fear: Finding Peace in Christ This Christmas: Jonathan Youssef (272)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 3 Dec 2024 11:00:00 +0000

What does it mean this Christmas season that "the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight"? Join Jonathan on Candid Conversations to reflect on this Christmas hymn and the birth of Jesus—the light of the world who fulfills our deepest hopes and fears.

In this reflection, Jonathan talks about:

The promise of peace and security in Jesus
The transformative power of His grace
Why our response to Christ makes all the difference

Don’t miss this heartwarming reflection on the true meaning of Christmas.

For questions or to connect with the Candid community, visit LTW.org/Candid.

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Becoming Free Indeed: Jeremy and Jinger Vuolo on Faith, Fear, and Freedom (271)

web@ltw.org (Jinger Vuolo, Jeremy Vuolo, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 15:43:48 +0000

Are you wrestling with beliefs that feel more like chains than freedom? Do you wonder what it means to experience a faith rooted in grace, not fear? In today’s episode of Candid Conversations, Jinger Duggar Vuolo joins us to share her powerful journey from a life of rigid rules and public expectations to one of true spiritual freedom.

Raised in the spotlight of TLC's most popular show, 19 Kids and Counting, and within the strict teachings of Bill Gothard’s IBLP, Jinger’s story is one of courage, transformation, and rediscovering a loving, grace-filled God.

In this powerful episode of Candid Conversations, the Vuolos share insights on distinguishing between faith and fear, disentangling from unhealthy beliefs, and the difference between “deconstructing” and “disentangling” faith.

Listeners will hear about Jinger’s experiences with the “Free Jinger” movement and how her journey led her not to abandon Christianity but to redefine her relationship with Christ. Jinger’s story is a testament to the courage it takes to question deeply ingrained beliefs and find freedom within faith.

This heartfelt conversation is a must-listen for anyone grappling with religious teachings, seeking a genuine relationship with God, or interested in how the Gospel differs from man-made rules. Join us for an honest look at faith, freedom, and finding grace in a world of fear.

Key Topics:

Jinger’s reflections on growing up in the public eye
The journey of disentangling faith from rigid teachings
Understanding “disentangling” vs. “deconstructing” faith
Insights into Bill Gothard’s teachings and their impact
Jeremy’s perspective as a supportive partner through Jinger’s journey
Advice for those raised in restrictive religious environments

Tune in to explore how Jinger’s faith journey can inspire us to seek truth, freedom, and a closer relationship with God. This episode is for anyone looking to break free from limiting beliefs and experience faith as it was meant to be.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

How Should We Care for Our Aging Loved Ones (Part 1): Dr. Bill Davis

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Caregiving and Honoring Aging Parents: A Biblical Look with Dr. Bill Davis (Episode 270)

web@ltw.org (Dr. Bill Davis, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 11:00:00 +0000

Are you facing the difficult journey of caring for an aging parent and wondering what it means to honor them in this season of life? As parents age and face cognitive or physical decline, families are often left with more questions than answers, including how to handle challenging emotions, manage difficult decisions, and stay true to their wishes and Christian faith.

In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef speaks with Dr. Bill Davis on the complexities of honoring aging parents through a biblical lens, especially as they face cognitive and physical decline. Dr. Davis shares insights from his research and ministry experience, exploring practical ways to navigate the emotional, financial, and spiritual challenges of caring for dependent parents. From understanding the fifth commandment to engaging in complex but vital conversations, this discussion provides guidance and encouragement for families walking this journey.

More Episodes featuring Dr. Bill Davis on Candid Conversations:

How Should We Care for Our Aging Loved Ones (Part 2): Dr. Bill Davis

Roe v. Wade Conversations with Dr. Bill Davis

Building Bridges in a Cancel Culture: Dr. Bill Davis

Let's Talk About Suicide: Dr. Bill Davis

For questions or to connect with the Candid community, visit LTW.org/Candid.

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Faith, Fear, and Hope on Election Day: Jonathan Youssef (Episode 269)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 5 Nov 2024 11:00:00 +0000

On this special election day episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan addresses the balance between political engagement and spiritual grounding. As the nation watches election results roll in, Jonathan reflects on the hope, fear, and faith that often accompany these moments.

He emphasizes that while participation is essential, our ultimate peace comes from trusting God’s sovereignty, not political leaders. Drawing from Philippians 4, we are reminded to shift our focus from fear to faith, remembering that our hopes are anchored in the eternal promises of Christ.

Join us as we navigate this election day with a reminder that our true hope lies in the Lord Jesus Christ.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 268: The Pursuit of Truth in Modern Media: Jane Robelot

web@ltw.org (Jane Robelot, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 04:00:00 +0000

In today’s fast-paced media landscape, truth and integrity remain essential, especially for journalists who are Christians. But with today’s divisive narratives, how can believers step into mainstream media with a commitment to honesty and faith?

Join Jonathan Youssef on Candid Conversations as he welcomes award-winning journalist and news anchor Jane Robelot. With a distinguished career that has included co-anchoring CBS’s morning show and hosting several of Leading The Way’s media programs, Jane offers a unique perspective on living out her Christian faith in a challenging industry.

In this timely conversation, Jane shares her powerful testimony, emphasizing the importance of unbiased journalism and encouraging young Christians to be salt and light—even within mainstream media.

For questions or to connect with the Candid community, visit LTW.org/Candid.

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Episode 267: The Message That Launched a Movement: Dr. Michael Youssef

web@ltw.org (Dr. Michael Youssef, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Do you feel intimidated by the idea of evangelism or wonder how to share your faith in today’s world?

In this remarkable new episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan sits down with his father, Dr. Michael Youssef, to discuss the misconceptions surrounding evangelism and share this simple truth—it’s just one beggar telling another where to find bread.

During the conversation, Dr. Youssef reflects on the sermon that led him to Christ 60 years ago, a message about God’s open door of mercy, and how that eternity-changing message now fuels his ministry at The Church of The Apostles in Atlanta, Georgia, and around the world through Leading The Way.

Listen in as one generation encourages the next to press ahead as long as the door remains open.

If you have questions or want to engage a community around this topic, connect with Jonathan and the Candid community:

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Episode 266: Shaman and Sage: Unveiling the Roots of "Spiritual But Not Religious": Dr. Michael Horton

web@ltw.org (Dr. Jonathan Youssef, Dr. Michael Horton) — Tue, 8 Oct 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Have you heard someone say, "I'm spiritual, but not religious"? It's a phrase everywhere, from casual conversations to celebrity interviews, and it might leave you wondering: What does that mean, and where does it come from? In this enlightening episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef welcomes back Dr. Michael Horton, a renowned theologian and founder of Sola Media, to answer these questions and more. Dr. Horton’s latest book, Shaman and Sage: The Roots of 'Spiritual But Not Religious' in Antiquity, uncovers the ancient origins of these modern beliefs and their profound influence on today's culture.

If you're curious about why so many people reject organized religion yet embrace spirituality or want to understand better the challenges this mindset poses to the Christian faith, this episode is for you. With insights from history, philosophy, and theology, discover how to navigate these conversations with clarity and compassion.

Listen in as Dr. Horton helps untangle the complex threads of modern spirituality and points us back to the enduring Truth of the Gospel.

If you have questions or want to engage a community around this topic, connect with Jonathan and the Candid community:

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For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 265: From Rebellion to Redemption, A Testimony of Christ’s Power in the Arab World: Maged Atalla

web@ltw.org (Maged Atalla, Dr. Michael Youssef, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 04:00:00 +0000

What does it take to bring the Gospel to some of the hardest-to-reach places in the world? In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef sits down with longtime friend Maged Atalla, the International Director of Leading The Way, to explore that question. Maged shares his incredible journey of faith, from growing up in Egypt to playing a pivotal role in global Christian media. He recalls how a small radio project with Dr. Michael Youssef in Monte Carlo blossomed into an international ministry that now reaches millions across the Middle East and North Africa.

Maged offers inspiring insights into how the Gospel has transformed lives in Muslim-majority regions and reflects on how God led Dr. Youssef to create THE KINGDOM SAT and how this moment of obedience has led to the saving of many lives.

Tune in for an inspiring conversation filled with faith, perseverance, and the power of God’s Word in the most unexpected places.

If you have questions or want to engage a community around this topic, connect with Jonathan and the Candid community:

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Episode 264: How to Identify Truth in Today's World: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Discerning the Truth can be challenging in a world where definitions are shifting and confusion is common. We're facing intense cultural shifts, from new pronouns to attempts to redefine Christianity. But as Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing new under the sun.” The enemy uses old tricks. Thankfully, we have eternal Truth to guide us.

In today’s episode of Candid, Jonathan Youssef shares four practical tips to help you navigate today’s cultural landscape with clarity and conviction:

Be in the world, not of it.
Look to the source of Truth.
Beware of false teachers.
Speak the Truth in love.

Join Jonathan as he breaks down each point, offering Biblical insight and practical ways to stand firm in your faith while lovingly engaging the world around you. From understanding false ideologies like Progressive Christianity, Pluralism, and the Prosperity Gospel to being equipped with the unchanging Truth of Scripture, this episode will help you discern and live out the Gospel in today’s culture.

If you have questions or want to engage a community around this topic, connect with Jonathan and the Candid community:

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Episode 263: The 8 Friends You Need: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Are you facing a mountain of challenges? Do you need help growing in the Christian faith? In this timely reflection, Jonathan reminds us of the power of community and the essential role of friendships in fulfilling God’s calling in life by exploring the significance of the eight friends mentioned by the Apostle Paul in Colossians 4. These friends, each with unique qualities and roles, supported Paul in his ministry while imprisoned in Rome, and the same mix of qualities is essential for the godly friends we surround ourselves with today.

Drawing from Scripture and personal experience, Jonathan emphasizes that we are not meant to walk alone in our spiritual journey. Instead, we need companions to encourage, support, and challenge us on our faith journey.

Join Jonathan to learn from Paul’s friends and reflect on the questions: What role do you play in the Body of Christ, and who are the friends you need on your journey?

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For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 262: Answering the Tough Questions: Navigating Sexuality & Faith with Becket Cook

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 04:00:00 +0000

In this special follow-up episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef welcomes Becket Cook, author of "A Change of Affection: A Gay Man’s Incredible Story of Redemption," back to the program for a compelling Q&A session. Becket returns to address listener questions and provide insight into his incredible transformation in Christ.

Listeners will hear Becket’s candid responses on topics such as navigating friendships and family dynamics after conversion, the church’s role in addressing issues of sexuality with grace and Truth, and the challenges Christians face in today’s culture. Becket also advises those struggling with identity and faith, offering guidance on supporting loved ones with compassion and unwavering Biblical conviction.

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Episode 261: A Gay Man's Incredible Story of Redemption: Becket Cook

web@ltw.org (Becket Cook, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 6 Aug 2024 04:00:00 +0000

In this profound episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef sits down with Becket Cook, author of "A Change of Affection: A Gay Man’s Incredible Story of Redemption" and host of The Becket Cook Show. Becket shares his powerful testimony of living a homosexual lifestyle until a radical encounter with Jesus transformed his life. Raised in a conservative Christian family in Dallas, Texas, Becket navigated the complexities of his identity and faith, eventually finding his true calling in Christ.

Join us as Becket recounts his journey from Hollywood's elite circles to a devoted follower of Jesus. He offers insight into how the church can compassionately and truthfully engage with issues of sexuality. Becket’s story is a testament to the redemptive power of God’s love and the importance of unwavering faith.

Don't miss this inspiring conversation, a story of transformation and a guide for churches and individuals to navigate conversations about sexuality with grace and truth.

Connect with Jonathan and the Candid community:

Transcript:

This transcript recounts Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef Episode 261: A Gay Man's Incredible Story of Redemption: Becket Cook

[00:02] JMY: Today’s guest is a very special guest. It is Becket Cook. Becket has written a book called A Change of Affection: A Gay Man’s Incredible Story of Redemption. He is the host of The Becket Cook Show, which can be found on YouTube. Raised in Dallas, Texas, Becket attended a Jesuit college preparatory school, lived the homosexual lifestyle until the Lord radically called him and drew him to Himself. And now Becket is out to help churches have the conversation about sexuality and help the church navigate. Becket, thank you so much for taking the time to be on Candid Conversations.

[01:13] Becket: Thank you, Jonathan. Good to be here.

[01:17] JMY: We’ve got to start with your story. It’s profound and amazing. All salvation stories are amazing; yours is unique. I’d love it if you’d just give us a few minutes and navigate us through your testimony.

[01:39] Becket: Yeah, I mean, I’m still in shock. I’m still in shock that this is my story after fifteen years. So, when I was very young I started to notice that I was attracted to the same sex, which was very a disorienting thing, especially at that time when it was very much taboo in Dallas and in my family. My family were Christians and of course, all of my peers and my schoolmates unanimously believed that, I mean, we didn’t even have to say it; it was known that homosexuality was just wrong or bad or weird or sinful. And so I had this kind of dark secret. But I was very social in school. I even went steady with girls in seventh and eighth grade, and in high school, I dated three girls, seriously dated them. But it was all the while I knew I wasn’t attracted to the girls. It was just like a social thing for me. And so in my junior year at Jesuit, I met a sophomore, and he was dealing with the same thing. He was dealing with the same-sex attraction. So when that happened, the floodgates opened because we became friends, and then like three months or six months, I can’t remember how long into our friendship, we basically came out to each other one night at this club.

And when that happened, we just started exploring gay life and gay culture in Dallas and going to gay bars. I was 15, he was 14. I don’t know where my parents were, but by the time I was in high school, my parents were so checked out that I could be gone for three days, and they didn’t even notice. God bless them, they’re in heaven now.

So we were going to gay bars in Dallas, not sure how we got into these bars, but we did, and then we were going to this one nightclub called the Stark Club. I mention this because it was such a seminal moment in my life. The Starck Club was very famous in Dallas, and it was designed by Philippe Starck, the French designer, and it was beautiful. It was just so, for lack of a better word, it was very chic. And so we started going to the Starck Club, and the first time I walked in, it was just very grand. There was this grand staircase with a red carpet that went up to these giant doors, and you walked into this beautiful space. And I walked in, and there were gay people, straight people, artists, trans people, drag queens—it’s a whole mix of kind of the subculture, and the whole mix of artists.

And so I walked in and it was like, ah, these are my people!

[05:28] JMY: You felt like you belonged.

[05:29] Becket: Yeah, I belong here. And I started going. And we would go to Starck Club—it was open Thursday through Sunday, and we would go every night, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night we would go. And sometimes I wouldn’t get home until 5:00 in the morning. And one time my dad was up. My dad was a lawyer. He was up at 5:00 in the morning (he would always get up at 5:00), and I walked in the front door, and he walked past me and kind of looked at me, and I was like, “Hi, Dad.” He didn’t even say anything like “Where have you been?” My childhood was very permissive, for better or worse.

So then, when I went away to college, the same thing happened. I met someone at college who was same sex attracted and then we eventually came out to each other and again I had a confidant, I had someone to talk to because I still wasn’t out, but at this point in my life, I wouldn’t have described myself as “gay” because I just thought this was a phase. This was a phase that will probably go away and I’ll probably get married to a woman and have kids.

It wasn’t really my identity for this whole time in high school and college until after college I moved to Tokyo with my best friend from college. And we moved to Tokyo because we didn’t really know what we wanted to do with our lives. I was premed in college, and then I realized I didn’t want to be a doctor, which was bad after four years of studying.

[07:23] JMY: A lot of investment.

[07:25] Becket: You know it was really upsetting. And so I applied to law school, and actually, then, as kind of a backup, I applied to dental school. And so I got into law school and dental school. I was kind of like, “I don’t know if I want to do any of this.” So both of us moved to Tokyo to kind of have a gap year, basically, to figure out what we wanted to do. And it was when I was in Tokyo that his friend from Texas came to stay with us, we’ll call him “Adam.” Adam was part of the Christo exhibition in Japan. Christo was a very famous artist who recently died, a French artist, but he and his wife used to do these dramatic art projects like covering the Reichstadt in fabric. And they did this thing in Japan where they lined parts of Japan with umbrellas, like yellow and blue umbrellas. They did it in California and Japan.

And so anyway, this guy Adam was part of that exhibition. So he stayed with us for like a week in Tokyo. And it was weird, because when I first met Adam, I had no interest and didn’t think anything of it, but by the time he left, we had fallen in love, quote unquote. And so that was the first time I’d experienced that rush of emotion, that romantic feeling. And then we got into a relationship, and it was my first real relationship with a guy.

And so that was a game-changer, too, because that's when it became my identity, homosexuality became my identity. And I was happy to be gay. I was like, “This is who I am. This is immutable.” I was thrilled. And while I was in Japan, my sister wrote me a letter asking if I was gay because she had had her suspicions for a long time. And so I wrote her back and I said yes and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. By the way, p.s., don’t tell Mom and Dad. I’ll tell them when I get back home. And, of course, she told them immediately when she got my letter, which I was happy about because she did all the heavy lifting for me.

[10:03] JMY: Softened the blow.

[10:04] Becket: Yeah. So by the time I got home, my whole family knew. My family is very conservative, all believers, and so they, especially my siblings, were not happy about this. And my parents weren’t either, but my parents’ reaction was so loving and gracious. My mother, whom I was very close to, of course, was quite surprised, gay son, close mother, surprise, surprise. My mother cried. I walked into the kitchen that first night after I got back from Tokyo, and my mother just started crying, and I knew why she was crying.

And I said, “Mom, what's wrong?” And she said, “I heard you’re a homosexual.”

And that's when AIDS was still kind of a death sentence, and so she was terrified, I was terrified about it, and so I just tried to calm her down.

I said, “Mom, this is not a big deal. Don’t worry about me.”

The next day, my dad came up to me, and my dad is such a man’s man; it surprised him to respond. Because he came up to me and he said, “Hey Beck, I heard you’re a homosexual, and you know”—

[11:32] JMY: Like he read it in the newspaper or something.

[11:36] Becket: Yeah, and so he said, “Is there anything I did wrong as a father? Are you angry at me for this?” He listed three things, and it was basically—I can’t remember what they were—did I not spend enough time with you? Did your brother beat you up or whatever, and I didn’t intervene? Are you angry about that?

And I was like, “Dad, no. This is not your fault. This is just who I am. It’s not a big deal.”

And that was kind of the end of the conversation with my parents. They never brought it up again. And what they did was so genius. Because I moved to L.A. So, when I got back from Tokyo, I realized I was not going to grad school; I was moving to Los Angeles because a lot of my friends moved here, and I was like, “I’m going to pursue writing and acting. And so I moved to L.A. My dad was so confused when I told him. It was like a couple of weeks before law school. I was enrolled in law school, and I was like, “Dad, I’m moving to L.A. tomorrow.”

And he was like, “Huh?” He was so confused. And so I moved to L.A. and I had this group of friends that were brilliant in L.A. When I got here, I had this built-in group of friends because several of my friends from high school already lived here, and they all came from Brown and Princeton and moved with all their friends to the West Coast and to L.A. to work in Hollywood, in showbiz. My group of friends were so smart and funny and brilliant and ambitious. And they all were movers and shakers. All those people, guys, girls, straight, gay, the whole mix, the same people run this town now; they run Hollywood. So whatever you’re watching on Netflix or whatever–

[13:51] JMY: They’re behind it.

[13:52] Becket: And in fact, the Jeffrey Epstein whatever, Filthy Rich, was produced by one of my dear friends from back in that time. Anyway, so I had this great group of friends, I was out, and we all wanted to make it in Hollywood, which they were all—my friends were becoming huge stars or becoming huge directors or writers overnight. I mean, it was wild to see how quickly they became successful. Minnie Driver was a dear friend, and she did Good Will Hunting with Matt Damon. Suddenly, she was a movie star, and this was happening to all of my friends. Like Mariska Hargitay was Jayne Mansfield’s daughter, but nobody really knew her, but then she got—I drove her to her audition for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and she’s still on the show twenty-three years later. She’s made a fortune on that show. Well, I won’t tell that part about Mariska, but we’re still friends.

But this was happening to all of my friends. We all wanted to make it in Hollywood; we all wanted to find true love, and I cycled through five serious, serious boyfriends over the years in L.A., live-in boyfriends. And then we all wanted to have extraordinary experiences, which we were doing in spades because my friends were all in the business. And the guy I just talked about was Diane Keaton’s producing partner. So we were always invited to everything—the Grammys the Oscars, the Emmys, the Golden Globes, the afterparties, to movie premiers every week. I was kind of in the mix.

I met everyone in this town, literally everyone. I mean, name the person. I had dinner with Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep and many, many other people. Hung out at Drew Barrymore’s, went to Prince’s house where he performed a concert in his backyard for three hours, hung out with Paris Hilton at her house, and went to her wedding engagement. For years, this was my life.

And then I was successful a little bit, and I acted. I was successful at commercial acting, and I did a couple of indie films, one was at Sundance, and that wasn’t really taking off. The writing was difficult. I sold a couple of projects that didn’t make it to series, so then I ended up becoming a production designer in the fashion world. I just fell into it with The New York Times Magazine because my friend was the editor for it. And so that became my career, doing fashion shoots, these super-high-end fashion shoots. And I did that for a very long time, probably twenty years, seventeen years, I’m not sure.

And so after the years of all of this and years of going to all of these fun things and experiencing all these things, I just started to feel the law of diminishing returns and I just felt like, What is this all about? I can’t keep going to these dinner parties and going to these events. And it all came to a head at Paris Fashion Week in March of 2009. I used to go to Fashion Week in New York and Paris and that particular week I had gone to a bunch of the runway shows and a lot of them had afterparties, and I was at this one afterparty in this club called Regine, in the middle of Paris, a legendary place. The owner just died recently. But I was there, and everyone from the fashion world was there.

I was sitting with Rachel Zoe, who’s a fashion girl and has a TV show, and her husband, Roger, and I just remember drinking champagne and looking out over the crowd, and everyone was dancing and having the best time of their life, and I just felt such an overwhelming sense of emptiness. I was like, whoa, where did that come from? So, I ghosted the party and went back to the apartment I’d rented in [unintelligible] and I was up all night in a panic about my future. I was like, what am I going to do for the rest of my life? This isn’t satisfying me anymore. I can’t just keep going to parties and fabulous things and traveling the world. Yeah, it was fun for a long time, but it’s not doing it for me anymore. And I knew that Christianity was not an option because I was gay, so I can’t pursue that, so what am I going to do? So I was very, very troubled.

[20:07] JMY: Can I ask, did that thought enter your mind, the pursuit of faith? Was that a cognizant thought or was that just sort of part of the narrative? Did you sit there and take an account and think perhaps ...?

[20:26] Becket: Well, no. I knew that from my entire life.

[20:31] JMY: It was always there as a separation.

[20:33] Becket: God’s not an option for me. And by that time in my life I was a practical atheist. All of my friends were atheists (they still are, most of them, my old friends). And I just, by that time in my life, I really just believed or felt like the Bible was an ancient myth, like any other ancient myth. God was not real. It was weird. It was a weird kind of disconnect because I believed my family’s faith was real, which was interesting. So when I would go home to Dallas, it was weird. They would talk about their faith, they would pray, and I could sense that it was real, but I just felt like it could never be something for me because—

[21:21 JMY: It’s like a compartmentalization, right? This works for you; that won’t work for me. Interesting.

[21:28] Becket: And so six months later in L.A. I was at a coffee shop with my best friend, who still is gay, although we’re not nearly as close, in fact, we barely see each other, if ever, because of this. But I was with my best friend, and we were chatting, hanging out at our favorite coffee shop in Silverlake, and we looked over, and there was a group of young people with Bibles on the table. There were five physical Bibles on the table, which is a shocking sight to see in L.A. But not only L.A. but Silverlake, which is a super progressive part of L.A.

We were stunned because my friend was an atheist as well. He was culturally Jewish, a secular Jew from New York, and it was just like we were shocked. But I was intrigued because of that night in Paris six months before. I was kind of intrigued about what this Christian thing was, and I wanted to explore it.

So my friend said, “Talk to them. See what they’re doing.”

And I was like, “No, I don’t want to talk to them!”

And anyway, I ended up turning to them, and I always say this, it’s like a Christian’s fantasy come true when a gay atheist turns to you and says, “Tell me all about Christianity.” And so we got into this conversation for like an hour or two. It was a long conversation. And I said, “What is your faith? Like what do you believe? I don’t remember. Just tell me what you believe.”

And they were very competent with the Scriptures, and they knew what the Gospel was and were very knowledgeable. And they said they went to a church in Hollywood called Reality L.A., an evangelical church. And with my friends back in the day, evangelicals were the enemy. They were somewhere to the right of Atilla the Hun. But it didn’t bother me. So I, of course, get to the question and I ask them, “What does your church believe about homosexuality?”

And I kind of expected this answer, so it wasn’t shocking. They said, “Well, we believe it’s a sin.” Of course, that was 2009. Now, who knows what people will say.

[24:27] JMY: It’s a grab bag now.

[24:29] Becket: I wasn’t surprised by their response, but I was surprised by mine because I just kind of accepted that, and I didn’t protest. And it’s because of that night in Paris. I was open to hearing something different. I was just open at that point. God, obviously, was working with me.

So they invited me to their church the following Sunday and I said, “I don’t know. Just give me the address and I’ll think about it.”

So I had a whole week to think about it. And it was kind of a big deal because if any of my other friends, all my other atheist, Hollywood friends, found out that I’d gone to an evangelical church, it would have been super embarrassing, and they would have thought I was crazy. So I was debating all week: Should I do this? What if nothing happens? What if it’s just fake and what if it’s not real?

But that following Sunday I woke up and I just was like, I’m going to do this. And I got in my car, drove to this high school auditorium where it meets on Sunset Boulevard, and I walked in. Before I walked in, I put the idea of homosexuality as my identity in this imaginary white box and put it on an imaginary shelf before I walked in. It was kind of weird. I don’t know how that happened.

And then I heard the worship music, which kind of freaked me out a little bit a first because I was like, Oh my gosh, Christian music, because I just saw this True Blood episode where (it was an HBO show that was disgusting, but anyway they satirized evangelical Christian worship music. And so I was like, Oh, this is weird.

[26:38] JMY: That's not hard to do.

[26:39] Becket: Yeah, exactly. But then it was actually nice, the music’s nice. And I sat down by myself, I found a seat by myself, and the pastor came out and started preaching on Romans chapter 7 for an hour, and that's when everything started happening. Everything he was saying, every word he was saying, every sentence he was saying was resonating as truth in my mind and my heart and I didn’t know why. I was literally on the edge of my seat, totally riveted to the sermon and to him, his speaking. And I was just like, What? This is true. What is he saying? I remember thinking, “This is the Gospel? This is good news!”

And then after the sermon there were people on the sides of the auditorium on the prayer ministry that you could go get prayed with, and after his sermon there’s another thirty minutes of worship time. So I walked over to this guy, which I reluctantly walked over to this guy on the side because, again, I was embarrassed to do this because I knew the people who had invited me there were probably watching me. And so I walked over to this guy and I said, “Hey, I don’t know what I believe, but I’m here.” And he said, “Okay, let me pray for you.”

And he prayed for me, and it was so loving and caring, and I was like, How does this random straight dude care about me so much?

[28:14] JMY: Right.

[28:16] Becket: Anyway, I went back to my seat and everyone else in the auditorium (there were a thousand people in the auditorium) everyone else was standing and singing and worshiping. And I sat down because I was just so overwhelmed by the sermon, by the music, by the prayer, and as soon as I sat down, the Holy Spirit just flooded me. I mean, it was like a Road to Damascus moment. God revealed Himself to me in the most powerful way. It was like God said, in my mind, God said, “I’m God. Jesus is my Son. Heaven is real, hell is real, the Bible is true. Welcome to my kingdom.”

And I just burst into tears. I was doubled over, heaving and crying and crying for twenty-five minutes. And it was the most cathartic cry I’ve ever had. Everything came out. I was crying over the conviction of sin, but also the joy of meeting the king of the universe, Jesus Christ. And then I got home after the service. I don’t really know how I made it home because I was such a wreck, and I got into bed to take a nap. And again, God did it again. God was like, “Here, here’s some more Bible.”

And I just, again, I just immediately, it was so real. It was like God’s presence was right—it was there. And I burst into tears again and I was bawling in my bedroom, jumped out of my bed and was like, “God, you have my whole life, I’m yours. I’m done.”

In that moment I knew that homosexual behavior was a sin. I knew that it was wrong. I knew that dating guys was not my identity anymore and I knew that dating guys was not a part of my future. But I didn’t care at all, because I had just met Jesus. And I’m like, I’m going with that guy, forget those guys.

And that was September 20, 2009, and I’ve never looked back. And I’ve never felt like life is unfair. Because I’m single and chaste, and I’ve never felt like life is unfair for me or like I’m being cheated out of something. I just feel like I can’t believe that God had mercy on me and I’m in the Kingdom of God. And I have, by the way, eternal life, which is cool to have. So yeah, that's the story.

[31:09] JMY: Oh, it’s such a wonderful story, just even the way you give us the snapshots of those moments of what you thought you knew what you wanted and you know now the Spirit was preparing you and doing the work of tilling the soil of your heart to culminate in that moment. But as we know, that's not the end of the story. Your story continues on. And so I wonder if we could just talk a little bit about your family, how your family interacted with you. So a number of our listeners will be people who have family members, friends who are near to them who are living this lifestyle and they don’t know what to do, they don’t know what to say. Do I say a lot? Do I say a little? Do I say nothing? Where do I go?

And I know some of that will be kind of case by case, but I think it will be helpful to hear what was it that the interactions of your friends and family who were believers? How did they sort of walk this out with you?

[32:35] Becket: Yeah. My family ... Well, first of all, you know, because I moved to L.A. I was very disconnected from my family. But my parents, I was very close with my mother. We talked on the phone all the time. She came out and visited many times. My family was just kind of very hands-off because there was really nothing they could do. I was an adult, I lived in L.A. What would they do, come hunt me down and drive me to church?

My parents were just brilliant. I just loved how they responded to and dealt with it. Because I did this episode on my show where I recently discovered a typed prayer that my mother did. My sister-in-law sent me a text, saying, “Hey, I just found this prayer that your mother typed to God basically, and I found it in an old box from some of your mother’s things.” And she sent me this prayer. And that's what my parents did. They just loved me and prayed for me.

My mother and this prayer are amazing; it’s like twenty-four points. And the first point, because my mother knew, I guess, which was shocking to me, she just knew instinctively that she wasn’t going to convince me not to be gay. So, she went straight to the throne room of the grace of God. She knew it was a spiritual battle. I wish I had the prayer with me right now. She said, “In the all-powerful name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we come against the enemy with the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.”

And when I read this prayer recently when I got it, I was stunned because my mother was praying for me all this time, but she never told me. Because if she had told me, “Hey Becket, I’m praying for you,” it would have been a disaster because I would have been like, “Why are you praying for me? I don’t need prayer. This is who I am. Stop praying.” It would have upset me, so she never said that. My dad never said that.

My sister-in-law, who is in my book, Kim, the way she dealt with it was brilliant, too, because whenever I would go to Dallas for the holidays, she would call me. She’s an evangelical Christian, and I knew where she stood on this issue, too, but she would call me all the time, which I was kind of like, Why is Kim calling me? Why does she want to hang out with me? She knows I’m gay and she’s a super-conservative Christian. She would call me and invite me to coffee, and we would hang out. And I would talk about my boyfriends, she would talk about God and what was going on in her life, and she never once pulled out the Bible and said, “Hey Becket, you know in Leviticus 18 …” She never, ever once did that. She just loved me.

And then she prayed, unbeknownst to me, she was praying this verse over me for twenty years. In Acts 26:18, when Paul is in front of King Agrippa, and he’s talking about how God sent him to preach to the Gentiles, he says, “to open their eyes so that they may be turned from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. That they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those sanctified by faith in Me.”

So she was praying for me, my family members were praying for me, I get the impulse for parents, family members, friends, the immediate impulse is “I want to fix this. I want to fix the problem.” That rarely, if ever, works. However, there is an exception, a caveat I’ll get to. But the best thing you can do is just be diligent in prayer and go straight to God. Because it has to be a supernatural thing. The Holy Spirit has to convict a person. There’s no other way. Otherwise, it’s just behavior modification.

[37:31] JMY: Praise the Lord. Praise God that it’s His work and not ours because we’d screw it all up.

[37:37] Becket: Yeah, exactly. However, because of this new sort of generation of social contagion of LGBTQ+, you know, Brown University 40 percent of the student body—this just makes me laugh—40 percent of the student body identifies as LGBTQ. I mean, that is laughable. When I was in college, it was about 1 percent.

[38:05] JMY: Now everyone is.

[38:06] Becket: Yeah, now it’s super popular. So I came out as gay at the wrong time, and now I came out as Christian at the wrong time. [unintelligible]. But anyway, so with that aspect of it, when you’re a teenager just suddenly claims, “I’m LGBTQ,” or “I’m pansexual,” or “I’m nonbinary,” “I’m queer,” I think in those cases there should be, there could be some pushback from the parents in terms of saying, “Look …” Because this happened with me with a young woman, a teenage girl who came up to me at a conference and said, “I’m pansexual and nonbinary.”

And I said, “Why? Why are you?” She didn’t have an answer for me, and I said, “Are you that way because you want attention, popularity, street cred? Why do you think you’re... because when I was your age, there was no such thing, so why do you think you’re this way?”

And she just started welling up with tears, and she needed, I just sensed in that moment she needed to be pushed back on. And later that day she ended up breaking down, getting prayed for my somebody, and she came to Christ.

[39:39] JMY: It was a crisis moment for her, not a … it had not become a true identity where she had been encapsulated in something. She seemed confused more than anything. I mean, obviously, you could make that argument for anyone.

[39:55] Becket: Yeah, this young teenage boy was like, “Oh, and I’m asexual.” And I was like, “You haven’t even gone through puberty yet.”

So yeah, I do think that when it is this kind of contagion aspect, I’ve done episodes on this, and I talk about this. You can trace exactly how we got to where we are in the culture from obviously from if you’ve read Carl Truman, you can go back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but even going back to the sexual revolution in the Sixties or the gay movement that started in 1969 at the Stonewall Inn, you can trace so clearly how we’ve become indoctrinated into believing the lies of the world. And it’s just so obvious to me, and it’s like, just the TV shows, Will & Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Brokeback Mountain and all these gay-themed shows and movies were so powerful in the culture, and it changed so many people’s minds on this issue.

Of course, I was thrilled at the time. When I was living that life, I was thrilled. I was friends with Sean Hayes on Will & Grace, and I was friends with many of the people who created these shows.

[41:33] JMY: They were changing the narrative.

[41:34] Becket: Yeah. And it was like Madsen and Kirk, the book After the Ball, they published. These two Harvard guys, graduates, published a book called After the Ball, and I wish I had it right here. Where’s my copy? Anyway, the book was published in 1989, and basically, it was about how to normalize homosexuality in America. It was the subtitle of the book. And everything in that book has come true. Everything they said in that book has come true. Basically, it was like talking about homosexuality until it was thoroughly tiresome. That was one of their points. Another one of their points was to make heterosexuals feel like you are a victim, and they’ll come to your side and to your aid.

And so all these things have come to pass, and that's why, even in the church, people are falling for this and caving to it, caving to the culture and buying this lie. And again, I challenge people to, okay, would you be … would you be thinking this way fifty years ago? Would you be thinking this way a hundred years ago? So obviously, the culture—

[43:16] JMY: Not critically thinking.

[43:117] Becket: Obviously, like the culture has influenced you. Because some of my friends, some of my high school—I say this all the time—in my high school, everyone believed it was a sin, it was wrong, in the girls’ school, in the boys’ school. Now some of those same people are like allies, LGBTQ allies, and it’s like, gee, I wonder what's happened over the last thirty years? Maybe it’s the power of persuasion from movies and TV, which I get. It is very powerful.

And so yeah, that's why I think with some cases, in some cases it is good to say, “Hey, why don’t we walk through the last fifty years and see how it has shaped what we believe?” And so that can be helpful, too.

[44:17] JMY: You’re uniquely gifted, coming out of that world and into the Christian world, to have a voice to the church. We even laughed about the fact that some churches wouldn’t even have you to come and speak because you’re kind of against them.

What are the things that you’re putting in front of churches and trying to coach them through or equip them with? How do we deal with the culture? How do we deal with our young people who are falling into it or our children who maybe are saying and asking these questions? It sounds like there’s a level of asking good questions and pushing back, as you’ve just given us examples. But what are some ways you’re helping the church navigate all this?

[45:27] Becket: There are so many different ways. But like Jesus was the master at balancing grace and truth publicly. I read through all four Gospels, not often, in one sitting, and I just watch what Jesus does and how He interacts with tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners. And at the woman at the well, first of all, He’s talking to a Samaritan woman, which is crazy for a Jewish man to do, and He’s so loving and kind to her. And she, you know, He’s like, “Oh, go get your husband.” And she’s like, “Oh, I don’t have a husband.” And He’s like, “Yeah, you were married five times.”

[46:17] JMY: “The one you’re with now isn’t your husband.”

[46:19] Becket: “And the one you’re with now isn’t your husband.” So Jesus doesn’t compromise the truth, but He also is super gracious and grace-full. That's what I see in the church is I see this happen all the time where parents when their kids come out, they love their kids—and I get it—like they love their kids so much that they suddenly change their theology and become [Overlapping voices] in their theology. And it’s like, no, that's not the answer, because if my parents had affirmed and said, “Oh, Becket, you’re fine,” I would not have respected them, number one.

And my family when I got saved, the first people I contacted were my family because they never lied to me. I talk about this in my book, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; they refused to compromise God’s Word by one iota. And they knew that they were going to go into a fiery furnace. They were not willing to compromise God’s Word. And so that's my main thrust to the church is don’t ever give up your convictions on this issue, but love your neighbor, your child as generously as you can, love them, love them. And the real key is to pray for them.

The worst thing you can do is affirm them and say, “Oh, I don’t think it’s a sin anymore,” because that is leading them down a path of eternal destruction. That is the meanest, cruelest thing you can ever do to a child or anyone is say that to them. And so that's partly what I try to convey to churches. Also, I try to, sometimes, talk about what I go through; I spend a very long time going through every turning point in the history of the gay movement and how it has affected the culture and affected us.

[48:48] JMY: I mean, just quickly if you’ve given that talk enough times, what kind of the high points of that? If you had to kind of—maybe you haven’t prepped for that, but if you could just hit a couple of those high points for us.

[49:02] Becket: The first high point was the Stonewall Inn in 1969, when police raided it. Because it was illegal to be gay in 1969 in the country. And so police raided the Stonewall Inn, which was a gay bar in the West Village in New York, and then there were riots, like three nights after that there were three nights of riots. That was June 28th. That's why Pride Month is in June. It used to be just one day, but now it’s a whole month. Pretty soon it’ll be all year, but that's a whole thing.

[49:39] JMY: Perpetuity.

[49:40] Becket: Yeah. And so that was a huge turning point because the year following, San Francisco, L.A., New York, I think Chicago had gay pride marches. That's when the pride marches started. They used to be called marches and now they’re parades.

[49:59] JMY: Like a protest.

[50:00] Becket: Exactly, and that was a huge turning point of the gay movement. Then the AIDS crisis was a huge turning point because that's when the culture, right or wrong, the culture started to see gay men as victims, and so that was a huge, huge turning point. And there were so many movies, like Philadelphia, with Tom Hanks in that, and there were so many movies about that issue. And, interestingly, AIDS was something that propelled the gay movement forward. You would think it would do the reverse, but it propelled it forward. And so that was a big deal.

And then in the Nineties—I mean, I’m skipping ahead of a bunch of stuff—but the Nineties, Will & Grace, Ellen, the sitcom with Ellen DeGeneres, she came out as a lesbian on the show, her character came out as a lesbian. And Will & Grace, it’s like these guys are hilarious. I mean, what could be wrong with this? So—

[51:22] JMY: Yeah, they’re approachable,

[51:23] Becket: They’re cool. What could be wrong with this? And then a significant turning point was—oh, and then Sex and the City was a big deal in the Nineties. There was a gay character on that show. And Sex and the City was created by Darren Starr. I know Darren. And a lot of the writers on the show, the showrunner, is gay. Anyway, so what was interesting about Sex and the City is there were a lot of gay male writers on that show, and they were turning these women into gay men. The way these women had one-night stands and all this stuff. My friends and I would joke about it, like these are gay guys but in women’s bodies. This is crazy. It’s hilarious. So that show was a big game-changer.

And then Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, that was major because that was the first time—I remember when that came out in 2003, I think, and it was five gay guys giving clueless straight guys makeovers. And that's when not only women and gay guys were watching, but that's when straight guys started watching because their girlfriends were like, “Oh my gosh, honey, you’ve got to watch this show; it’s brilliant!”

I remember telling a good friend of mine at the time, “This is going to change everything. This show is going to change everything.” And it did.

And then you can skip to the, I mean, there were a lot of things, but you can skip to the legalization of gay marriage in 2015.

[53:18] JMY: Yeah, Obergfell, sure.

[53:19] Becket: That, of course, that's where we are now. And then now, of course, every city—

So I lived right next to Beverly Hills, and Beverly Hills is very conservative because it’s mostly Persian Jews who live in Beverly Hills. They’re a very conservative group of people. They are very family oriented. And I was riding my bike the other day, and there was a pride flag painted on the sidewalk, in the middle of the street, an intersection, a pride, yeah, just like a pride thing. And I was shocked because I was like, wow, that's interesting that Beverly Hills would do this, because I know the mayor is conservative.

But what I subsequently found out is that just like corporations have these rating systems where you have to be [Overlapping voices] you support—

[54:24] JMY: Cities have them as well. Wow.

[54:25] Becket: They get rated by I think it’s the Human Rights Campaign, HRC. They get rated, so Beverly Hills doesn’t want to lose tourism, so they will go along with it and put a pride flag on the street. And so now it’s so ubiquitous, and I don’t even know it at this point. I don’t even know at this point how an unbeliever, or even some believers, can even believe that homosexual behavior is still a sin after all that's going on in the culture now. It’s a rare thing, even for Christians now, to believe that it’s still a sin.

[55:15] JMY: it’s almost like going back to first-century Christianity, where we’re just so countercultural and so bizarre. How could you think there’s only one God in Rome? And it’s like we have all this plethora of gods? It is a sense of returning to thinking you’re so backward and all this sort of thing.

But the Lord’s in control, and He knows what He’s doing, and He’s raised individuals such as yourself, and as we mentioned before, Rosaria and others, who are helping the church think critically and think helpfully and equipping and we’re so grateful for the work that the Lord’s doing in you. And so I want to say, Becket Cook, I’m so grateful for our time together and pray the Lord would bless your ministry.

[56:24] Becket: Thank you, Jonathan. I appreciate it. And I’m really looking forward to coming to Atlanta and meeting you guys in person.

[56:33] JMY: Absolutely.

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 260: The Battle for Truth: How Do You Stand Firm in a Culture of Feelings?: Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 04:00:00 +0000

In this thought-provoking episode of Candid Conversations, Dr. Jonathan Youssef explores the pervasive cultural narrative that prioritizes feelings, personal pleasure, and subjective truths above all else. Our malls display it, our shows advise it, our commercials glorify it, and our universities disseminate it. Every aspect of our culture proclaims that our feelings matter most in life. But how should Christians respond to this secular storm that seeks to silence the message of the Gospel?

Join Jonathan as he explores the growing pressures on Christianity in the Western world and reminds listeners of the global spread of the Christian faith that defies cultural trends.

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We would love to hear from you! How do you navigate living out your faith in today's culture? Please share your thoughts and stories with us at LTW.org/Candid.

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Episode 259: What is Biblical Theology and Why Is It Important?: Nancy Guthrie (Reprise)

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Jonathan sits down with renowned author and teacher Nancy Guthrie. Together, they explore the transformative benefits of studying Scripture through holistic Biblical theology, emphasizing the importance of focusing on God rather than ourselves to gain a deeper and more accurate understanding of the Bible.

Drawing from her rich personal experiences, including her publishing career and the heart-wrenching loss of two children, Nancy shares how these events deepened her love for God's Word. As a respected author, host of the Help Me Teach the Bible podcast at the Gospel Coalition, and a dedicated Bible teacher in her local Nashville church, Nancy leads her widely acclaimed Biblical Theology Workshop for Women at various conferences worldwide. Together with her husband, she founded Respite Retreats, providing solace and support to grieving couples.

In this compelling episode, we explore the diverse aspects of God's character and His steadfast love. Be inspired to shift your perspective from personal application of Scripture to discovering the profound Truth about who God is and what His attributes reveal about His essence.

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Episode 258: Five Ways to Follow Christ as a Family:Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Raising children to know, love, and follow Christ in today's challenging culture is a daily endeavor. How can families stay committed to Christ and guide their children to become godly adults?

Join Jonathan in this episode of Candid Conversations, where he shares valuable insights into biblical parenting and discusses five essential Biblical principles for following Christ as a family.

Don't miss out on this meaningful episode. Listen, share, and help families deepen their relationship with our Lord and Savior.

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Episode 257: Father, Forgive Them: One Woman's Journey to Freedom (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 9 Jul 2024 04:00:00 +0000

She faced false accusations, family betrayal, and deep loss, forcing her to abandon her entire life. Despite all this, she chose forgiveness and, through God's grace, experienced profound redemption in her darkest moments.

Jonathan's guest today had countless reasons to withhold forgiveness and remain bound by the trauma of severe abuse. Yet, she found that true freedom and forgiveness are inseparable.

In this episode, Jonathan Youssef interviews a remarkable woman who will remain anonymous to protect her identity. She bravely recounts her escape from a life of abuse and oppression in a third-world country to finding freedom in America. Through Christ, she discovered forgiveness for herself and others and God's plan for her future.

Don't miss this powerful testimony of God's relentless pursuit and redemptive power available to all believers in Christ!

If you have a question for Jonathan or are looking for more Candid episodes, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 256: Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom: Os Guinness (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Os Guinness, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 2 Jul 2024 04:00:00 +0000

This week's engaging episode features a conversation with Os Guinness, a profound advocate for faith, freedom, truth, reason, and civility. Os is an esteemed author and social critic and the great-great-great-grandson of Arthur Guinness, the famous Dublin brewer. With a bibliography exceeding 30 books, he provides insightful perspectives on our cultural, political, and social environments.

Born in China during World War II to medical missionary parents, Os experienced the height of the Chinese revolution in 1949 and was expelled along with many foreigners in 1951. He later earned his undergraduate degree at the University of London and completed his D.Phil in the social sciences from Oriel College, Oxford. He currently resides in the United States.

In this episode, Jonathan and Os delve into Scripture and discuss Os' latest book, The Magna Carta of Humanity. They explore global perspectives, including Os' views on America's polarization crisis, the recent changes in the UK with the new King, and the evolving role of the “Defender of the Faith” in the monarchy. Os also shares fascinating stories about his remarkable family history, from Christian brewers to pastors to his journey as a Christian author.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

TRANSCRIPT:

The following is a transcript of Episode 256: Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom: Os Guinness (Reprise) for Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef.

[00:01] JONATHAN: Today it is my special privilege to have Os Guinness on the program with us. Os is an author and social critic. He’s written untold amounts of books. He’s just like Dad, and it seems you have a new book out every six months or so, Os. Is that sort of the pattern, you get two out a year?

[00:24] Os Guinness: Well, usually one a year, but COVID gave me the chance to write a lot more.

[00:28] JONATHAN: Oh, well, I love it. Many of our listeners will, of course, be familiar with you, but there may be a few out there who don’t. We have somewhat of an international audience, and I know that you have a very international background, having been born in China and raised in China and educated in England. There’s a couple of things. I’m sure people are seeing the name Guinness and wondering is there a connection with the brewery? And of course, there is. But I wonder if you’d tell us a little bit of your family history and then we’ll get to your own personal story.

[01:00] Os Guinness: Well, you’re right. I’m descended from Arthur Guinness, the brewer. My ancestor was his youngest son. He was an evangelical. He came to Christ, to faith, under the preaching of John Wesley in the revival that took place in the late 1730s, early 1740s. So he called himself born again back in those days and founded Ireland’s first Sunday school, which of course, in this days was a rather radical proposition, teaching people who couldn’t go to ordinary schools. And from the very beginning, care for the poor, for the workers and things like that were built into the brewery and the whole family status in Dublin. So that was the ancestor, and I’m descended from a branch of the family that’s kept the faith ever since. My great-grandfather, Arthur’s grandson, at the age of 23, was the leading preacher in the Irish revival of 1859. And we have newspaper accounts of crowds of 25,000, 30,000, and of course no microphone. He’d climb onto the back of a carriage and preach and the Spirit would fall. Ireland was not divided in those days, but in that part of the country, in the year after the revival, there was literally only one recorded crime.

[02:33] JONATHAN: Unbelievable.

[02:34] Os Guinness: This shows you how profound revival can be.

[02:37] JONATHAN: Isn’t it?

[02:39] Os Guinness: His son, my grandfather, was one of the first Western doctors to go to China. He treated the Empress Dowager, the last Emperor, and my parents were born in China so I was born in China. So I’m part of the family that’s kept faith ever since the first Arthur.

[03:00] JONATHAN: You had mention that this is a branch of the family. Is there a branch of the family that’s gone a different trajectory?

[03:08] Os Guinness: Well, for a long time the brewing family was strongly Christian, but then eventually, sadly, wealth probably undermined part of the faith. But as I said, my family has kept it. They often say there are brewing Guinnesses, banking Guinnesses, and then they call them the Guinnesses for God or the poor Guinnesses.

[03:36] JONATHAN: An amazing family lineage, and you’re thinking of just the covenantal family through that line. And so you’ve got a book that came out this year, The Great Quest: Invitation to the Examined Life and a Sure Path to Meaning. And I know in the book you share a little bit of your own search for meaning and finding, because we all know that Christianity is really the only faith you cannot be born into in terms of you can be born into a covenant home and be taught the lessons of Christ and the church, but it’s really a faith that has to become your own. It’s not the faith that is transferred to the child. So tell us a little bit about your own story and your own coming to faith in Christ.

[04:31] Os Guinness: Well, I was born in China, as I said, and my first 10 years were pretty rough with war, famine, revolution, all sorts of things. And I was there for two years under Mao’s reign of terror, and in ’51, two years after the revolution, my parents were allowed to send me home to England and they were under house arrest for another two years. So I had most of my teenage years apart from my parents, and my own coming to faith was really a kind of partly the witness of a friend at school but partly an intellectual search. I was reading on the one hand atheists like Nietzsche and Sartre, and my own hero, Albert Camus. And on the other hand, Christians like Blaise Pascal and G. K. Chesterton, and of course, C. S. Lewis.

And at the end of that time, I was thoroughly convinced the Christian faith was true. And so I became a Christian before I went to university in London, and I’m glad I did because the 60s was a crazy decade—drugs, sex, rock and roll, the counterculture. Everything had to be thought back to square one. You really needed to believe what you believed and why you believed what you believed, or the whole onslaught was against, which is a bracing decade to come to faith.

[05:57] JONATHAN: It really is. I wonder if you could walk me through that a little bit. I’ve read some of Camus and Sartre, and I mean, they’re just such polar opposites about humanity and God. What were some of the things that helped you navigate through that terrain?

[06:17] Os Guinness: Well, I personally never liked Sartre. He was a dull fish. And even later, when I went to L’Abri with Francis Schaeffer, we met people who studied under Sartre and people who had known Camus. Camus was warm, passionate. There are stories, we don’t know whether they’re true or not or just a rumor, that he was actually baptized just before he died in a car crash in January 1960. I don’t know if that’s true or not, or if that’s a kind of death-bed conversion, but certainly his philosophy is profoundly human, and that’s what I loved about so much of it. But at the end of the day, not adequate.

You know his famous Myth of Sisyphus. He rolls the stone up the hill and it rolls down again. Rolls up, it rolls down again, and so on. A gigantic defiance against the absurdity of the universe, but with no real answers. And of course, that’s what we have in the gospel.

[07:19] JONATHAN: That’s right, and it’s sort of the meaninglessness of life, and I know a lot of high school, college students even seminary students have been deeply affected by some of his writing and have certainly felt, I think, what you’re touching into there, which is that deeply personal—there’s a lot of reflection in there that I think resounds with people. But as you said, it leaves you with nothing at the end of the day.

So you’ve written quite a number of books across quite a range of topics. What is it that sort of stokes your fire, that kind of drives you? I know the Bible uses passion in a very negative, sinful sense, but it’s a word we use a lot today. What is the passion that’s driving you in your writings and your speaking?

[08:12] Os Guinness: Well, you can never reduce it easily, but two things above all. One, making sense of the gospel for our crazy modern world. On the other hand, trying to understand the world so that responsible people can live in the world knowing where we are. Because in terms of the second, I think one of the things in the Scriptures as a whole which is much missing in the American church today is the biblical view of time. You take the idea of the signs of the times, David’s men or our Lord’s rebuked His generation. they could read the weather but they missed the signs of the times. So you get that incredible notion of Saint Paul talking about King David. He served God’s purpose in his generation. That’s an incredible idea that you so understand your generation that in some small, inadequate way we’re each serving God’s purpose of salt and light and so on in our generation.

But many Americans, and many people around the whole world, they don’t have that sense of time that you see in Scripture. I’m not quite sure why; maybe growing up in revolutionary China I’ve always had an incredible sense of time.

[09:36] JONATHAN: You know, I think that’s encouraging to hear. In our society, we get so fixated and caught up on the issues but there’s almost this moment of needing to pull back and observe things from a higher perspective. And I think you do such a fantastic job of that.

Let’s walk through some of your more recent books, and then maybe get a peek under the curtain of what’s coming, because I think you’ve got a couple of books that are on their way out. The Magna Carta of Humanity. This idea of Sinai and French Revolution as it sort of relates to the American Revolution. Tell us a little bit about the impetus for this and the thought process towards that.

[10:25] Os Guinness: Well, the American crisis at its deepest is the great polarization today. But many people, I think, don’t go down to the why. They blame it on the social media, or our former president and his tweets, or the coastals against the heartlanders and so on. But I think the deepest things are those who understand America and freedom from the perspective of the American Revolution, which was largely, sadly not completely, Christian, because it went back to the Jewish Torah, and those who understand America from the perspective of ideas coming down from the French Revolution—postmodernism, radical multiculturalism, the cancel culture, critical theory, all these things, the sexual revolution. They come from the ideas descended from Paris, not from anything to do with the Bible, and we’ve got to understand this.

Now, the more positive way of looking at that, many Americans have no idea how the American Revolution came from the Scriptures, how notions like covenant became consitution; the consent of the governed or the separation of powers, going down the line, you have a rich, deep understanding in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. and we’ve got to understand if we know how to champion these things today.

But it’s not just a matter of nostalgia or defending the past. I personally am passionately convinced this is the secret to the human future. What are the deepest views of human dignity, or of words, or of truth, or of freedom, or of justice, peace and so on? They are in the Bible. And we’ve got to explore them. So the idea from a gentleman not too far from you, Jonathan, who said we’ve got to unhitch our faith from the Old Testament, that’s absolute disaster. A dear guy, but dead wrong. You’ve got to explore the Old Testament as never before, and then, of course, we can understand why the new is so wonderful.

[12:46] JONATHAN: You know, Os, just going down that track a little bit, that’s right; you can’t have the New Testament without the Old Testament. The prophecies of Christ, the fulfillment, it all falls apart, the whole argumentation, everything almost becomes meaningless at that point. And I know the argument is that it’s about the event of the crucifixion and the resurrection, but you don’t have those apart from Genesis 3, of course, Genesis 1, all the way through till the end of Malachi. You can’t separate these two testamental periods. It’s ludicrous, and it creates so much damage, as you’ve said.

[13:36] Os Guinness: Well you know, take some of the myths that are around today. They’re very common even in evangelical circles. The Old Testament is about law; the New Testament is about love.

[13:48] JONATHAN: Right.

[13:49] Os Guinness: That’s not right. That’s a slander on the Jews. Read the beginning of Deuteronomy. The Jews, the nation, they are called to love the Lord with all their heart, soul and so on. Why did the Lord choose them? Because He loved them and set His affection on them. And you can see in Deuteronomy there’s a link between liberty and loyalty and love. So right through the Scriptures, those who abandon the truth, apostasy, that’s equivalent to adultery. Why? To love the Lord is to be loyal to the Lord and faithful to the Lord and so on. And we’ve got to see there’s a tremendous amount about love, loyalty connected with liberty.

I mean, a couple of weeks ago, a couple of professors writing in the New York Times said the Constitution is broken and it shouldn’t be reclaimed. We need to move on, scrap it and rebuild our democracy. Now the trouble is constitutions became a matter of lawyers and law courts, the rule of law only in the Supreme Court. No, it comes from covenant. Covenant is all about freely chosen consent, a morally binding pledge. So the heart of freedom is the freedom of the heart, and we’ve got to get back—this is all there in the Old Testament.

Did the Jews fail? Of course. That’s why our Lord. but equally the church is failing today. So we’ve got so much to learn from the best and the worst of the experience of the Jews in the Old Testament. But to ignore the Old is absolute folly.

[15:35] JONATHAN: Well, and thinking about the American Revolution and the impact of men, as you’ve already cited with your own family history, of Wesley and the preaching of George Whitefield in the Americas, which would have had a profound effect on the American psyche, and I think would have contributed a great deal to a lot of the writing of law and constitutional ideology.

[16:02] Os Guinness: Well, the revival had a huge impact on all who created the Revolution. But some of the ideas go back, I think, to the Reformation. Not so much to Luther at this point, but to Calvin and Swingly. In Scotland, John Knox and in England Oliver Cromwell. You know, that whole notion of covenant. I mean, Cromwell said ... A lot of weird ideas came up in the 17th Century, but the 17th Century is called the Biblical Century. Why? Because through the Reformation they discovered, rediscovered, what was called the Hebrew republic—in other words, the constitution the Lord gave to the founding of His own people.

So even someone like Thomas Hobbes, who was an atheist, they are discussing the Hebrew republic—in other words, Exodus and Deuteronomy. It had a tremendous impact on the rise of modern notions of freedom, and we’ve got to understand that.

So the Mayflower Compact is a covenant. John Winthrop on the Arbella is talking about covenant. When John Adams writes the first constitution, written one, in this country, which is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, he calls it a covenant. And the American Constitution is essentially a national somewhat secularized form of covenant. And we who are heirs of that as followers of Jesus, we’ve got to re-explore it and realize its richness today.

[17:44] JONATHAN: Turn on the news today and it feels like we’re quite a distance from that. Even thinking about using a word like justice, you know, all this now it seems, to your point, this ideology from the French Revolution has really come to the forefront, certainly in the 60s, but there seems to be a new revival of this. What’s contributing to that today in America?

[18:17] Os Guinness: Well, James Billington, the former librarian of Congress, and others, have looked at the French Revolution, and remember only lasted 10 years in France, then came dictator Napoleon. But it was like a gigantic volcanic explosion, and out of it came their main lava flows. The first one we often ignore, which is called revolutionary nationalism, in 19th-century France and so on. You can ignore that mostly except it’s very important behind the Chinese today.

But the second one is the one people are aware of. Revolutionary socialism, or in one word, communism. The Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution. We’re actually experiencing the impact of the third lava flow, revolutionary liberationism, which is not classical Marxism, communism, but cultural Marxism or neo Marxism. And that goes back to a gentleman called Antonio Gramsci in the 1920s. Now you mentioned the 60s. it became very important in the 60s because Gramsci’s ideas were picked up by the Frankfurt School in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and the leading thinker in America in the 60s was Herbert Marcuso, who in many ways is the godfather of the new left in the 60s. I first came here in ’68 as a tourist, six weeks. One hundred cities were burning, far worse than 1920, because of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Kennedy.

But here’s the point: The radicals knew that for all the radicalism in the streets, anti-Vietnam protests and so on, they wouldn’t win in the streets, so they had to do what they called, copying Mao Zedong, a long march through the institutions—in other words, not the streets. Go slowly, gradually, win the colleges and universities. Win the press and media. Win what they call the culture industry—Hollywood, entertainment. And then sweep around and win the whole culture.

Now here we are, more than 50 years later, they have done it. Now, in the early days, I’m a European still, I’m not American, people would never have believed that the radical left would influence what were called the fortresses of American conservatism—business, finance, the military—but all of those in the form of woke-ism have been profoundly affected. So America’s at an extraordinary point in terms of the radical left being more power even than the French Revolution.

[21:16] JONATHAN: Okay, so in thinking through that lines of reasoning, the people who are caught up in that today, the radicalism, is this just indoctrination? I guess what my point is, is it all intentional? Is it like Marcuso’s intentionality of going through the halls of academia? Or rather is it that they’ve just been raised to think that this is just the way ... that it’s the most opportune way to get your ideology out there?

[21:56] Os Guinness: No, it’s thoroughly intention. But of course, always there’s a creative minority who eventually win over the majority who are hardly aware of it. You mentioned justice. I was on calls for a California pastor last year and I said to them, “You brothers have drunk the Kool-Aid.” They didn't realize how much of their understanding of justice owed everything to the radical left and nothing to the Hebrew prophets.

So you know how the left operate. It analyzes discourage. How do ordinary people speak? And so you look for the majority/minority, the oppressors/the victims. When you’ve found the victim, which is a group, not an individual, you weaponize them and set up a constant conflict of powers in order to subvert the status quo.

But as the Romans point out, if you only have power, no truth—and remember in the postmodern world God is dead for them, truth is completely dead following Nietzsche, so all that’s left is power. And the only possible outcome, if you think it through logically (which they don’t) is what the Romans call the peace of despotism—in other words, you have a power so unrivaled since you’ve put down every other power, you have peace. But it’s authoritarian. That’s where we’re going increasingly today. You take the high-tech media and so on, a very dangerous moment for freedom of conscience, for freedom of speech, and for freedom of assembly. America is really fighting for its life. But sadly it’s not. Most people are asleep.

[23:43] JONATHAN: Well, and that’s right. That’s sort of the hinge point, isn’t it? So let’s talk just briefly about the education system. We’re thinking sort of elementary, middle school, high school education system. So here in Atlanta there are sort of options that are presented to parents, right? There’s the public school system; there’s the private, often Christian, private school system; and then there’s a home school option. And parents are all trying to navigate this. Now I’m sure you’ve heard arguments that you can send your kids to the public school because if Christians abandon the public school, then where is the witness, where es the influence with the greater population who are just asleep or whatever it is? If you send them out to the private school, your children will be protected, but how much exposure are they getting to thoughts and philosophies that if you sort of rein them in—

And I guess this is really more to the home school spectrum, which is almost like an over-protection. These kids go to university and it’s the first exposure they’ve had to some of these thoughts, and professors are going out of their way to convince these students that the way that they were raised was very fallen, broken; their parents were brainwashing them, etc. Just thinking about some of those differing options and thought process, how do you think through that as a thinker, as a social critic, as a Christian? How do you weigh into that?

[25:17] Os Guinness: Well, you try and sort of isolate some of the different factors. So you’ve been talking rightly about the personal and the family concerns, which are fundamental absolutely. And I think that very much varies with the child. But with all of the words, home schooling, whatever, you want to keep them ahead of the game so they know what’s coming. Francis Schaeffer often used to stress that. So people go to the secular university. Keep them ahead of the game so that they know what’s coming and they know some preliminary apologetics so they know how to make a good stand and be faithful without being washed away.

You’ve also—in other words, what you said is fundamental, I agree with that, but there’s also a national dimension. So the public schools, and I’m not arguing that everyone has to go to them, but they were very, very important because they were the center of passing on the unum of the e pluribus unum, out of man, one. Put it this way. As the Jews put it, if any project lasts longer than a single generation, you need families, you need schools, you need history. It doesn’t get passed on.

So when Moses talked about the night before Passover, he never mentioned freedom, he never mentioned the Promised Land of milk and honey. He told them how to tell their story to children so that freedom could last. Now, the public schools used to do that, so you have people from Ireland or Italy or China or Mexico, it didn't matter because the public schools gave them civic education, the unum. That was thrown out at the end of the 60s. In came Howard Zinn and his alternative views, and more recently the 1619 project. So the public school, as a way of americanizing and integrating, collapsed. And that’s a disaster for the republic.

Now, take the added one that President Biden has added, immigration. As scholars put it, it’s still relatively easy to become an American: get your papers, your ID and so on. It’s almost impossible now to know what it is to be American, and particularly you say the 4 million who have come in in the Biden years, they’re not going to be inducted into American citizenship, so the notion of citizenship collapses through the public schools and through an open border. It’s just a folly beyond any words. It is historic, unprecedented folly, an absolute disaster.

Of course, we’ve got to say, back to your original question, the same is true not only of freedom but of faith. So parents handing on, transmitting to their kids, very, very important.

I would add one more thing, Jonathan. It’s very much different children. My own son, whom I adore, is a little bit of a contrarian. If he’d gone to a Christian college, he might have become a rebel in some of the poorer things of some of them. He went to a big, public university, University of Virginia, and it cemented and deepened his faith because he stood against the tide and he came out with a much stronger faith than when he went in.

[28:59] JONATHAN: I love that. I think you’re right on with that. And I think it’s good for people to hear and know the history and have awareness of this. Now I want to make a very subtle and gentle shift, and if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. But you are a British citizen. Am I correct on that?

[29:18] Os Guinness: I am.

[29:21] JONATHAN: Queen Elizabeth has passed and now it’s King Charles III and there’s much talk about comments he’s made in the past in terms of the Defender of the Faith. I read a quote from Ian Bradley, who is a professor at the University of Saint Andrews, he says, “Charles’s faith is more spiritual and intellectual. He’s more of a spiritual seeker.”

Is this sort of a microcosm of what’s happening in the UK, this sort of shift from the queen, who very much had a very Christo-centric faith, to Charles and sort of emphasis on global warming and different issues of the day? Is this sort of a microcosm of what we’re seeing?

[30:22] Os Guinness: Well, the queen had a faith that was very real and very deep, and she was enormously helped by people like Billy Graham…

[30:29] JONATHAN: John Stott.

[30:30] Os Guinness: --John Stott and so on. So her faith was very, very genuine. His? He’s probably got more of an appreciation for the Christian faith than many European leaders today. So the Christian faith made Western civilization, and yet most of the intelligentsia in Europe have abandoned the faith that made it. So Prince Charles, as you say, a rather New Age spirituality, and he’s extraordinarily open to Islam through money from Saudi Arabia. I don’t have the highest hopes for him, although I must say the challenge of being king will remind him of the best of his mother. Even when the archbishop said in the sermon that he wanted people to know that Prince Charles had a Christian faith, I felt it was a glimmer of the fact he realizes, you know, his mother’s position was wonderful, so it’s very much open.

Now I am an Anglican, as you are. Back in 1937, the greatest of all the Catholic historians on Western civilization predicted—this is 1937, almost a century ago—that the day would come in some future coronation when people would raise the questions, “Was it all a gigantic bluff? Because the power of the monarchy, and more importantly, the credibility of the faith, had both undermined themselves to such an extent it didn't mean anything.”

I think we’re incredibly close to that with King Charles. I also think, sadly, that the Archbishop of Canterbury, who preached wonderfully well yesterday, has done a good job in the celebrations and so on, the pageantry, but does a rotten job in leading the church as the church. And so the Church of England is in deep trouble in terms of its abandoning orthodoxy. It’s a very critical moment. Will Charles go deeper or revert to the way he’s been for the last few decades? I don’t know. I’m watching.

[33:02] JONATHAN: And then sort of just transitioning from there to what you see as faith in the United States. I think you have a new book coming out, Zero Hour America: History’s Ultimatum Over Freedom and the Answer We Must Give. Let’s bridge that gap between trajectory in the UK and now in the United States. What similarities and differences are you seeing?

[33:26] Os Guinness: Well, in Europe the great rival to the Christian faith was in the 18th century, the Enlightenment. And it’s almost completely swept the intelligentsia of Europe. Until recently, America was not fully going that way, and in the last decade or so it has. The rise of the religious nones, etc. etc. So in most areas that are intellectual, America too has abandoned the faith that made it. Of course, part of the American tragedy is the intelligentsia have not only abandoned the faith that made America; they’ve abandoned the Revolution that made America. So you have a double crisis here.

Now, I am, like you, a follower of Jesus. I’m absolutely undaunted. The Christian faith, if it’s true, would be true if no one believed it. So the lies of the nones or whatever just means a lot of people didn't realize in one sense that they’re just spineless. If it’s true, it’s not a matter of popularity or polls. I like the old saying, “Damn the polls and think for yourself.” And Americans are far too other-directed. The polls are often badly formulated in terms of their questions. The question is, is the faith true and what are the answers it gives us to lead our lives well? And I have no question it’s not only good news, it is the best news ever in terms of where humanity is today. So this is an extraordinary moment to be a follower of Jesus. We have the guardianship and the championship of the greatest news ever.

[35:14] JONATHAN: Amen. Well, and let’s make one final link there, which is we talked a lot about Western countries, the UK, the US, but you were born and spent quite a lot of time in China. Let’s think about not necessarily specifically China, but non-Western countries. You travel quite frequently. What are you seeing in those non-Western countries that perhaps is giving you hope or positivity?

[35:47] Os Guinness: God promised to Abraham in him all the families of the Earth will be blessed. DNA is in the heart of the Scriptures, and of course our Lord’s Great Commission. But as we look around the world today, thank God Christian faith is the most populace faith on the Earth. So the one place it’s not doing well is the highly modernized West. It is flourishing in sub-Sahara Africa. Or in Asia, where I happen to be born, in China—nothing to do with me—was the most rapid growth, exponential growth, of the church in 2,000 years. So I have no fear for the faith at all. And of course we believe it’s true.

But the question, Will the West return to the faith that made it? I hope that our sisters and brothers in the global south will help us come back just as we took the faith to them. And I know many African brothers and sisters and many Korean brothers and sisters, Chinese too, that’s their passion. And we must welcome it. I know so many Koreans, what incredible people of prayer. Up at 5:00, thousands of them praying together. When I was a boy in England, prayer meetings were strong in churches. They’re not strong in most American churches today. We’ve become highly secularized, so we’ve got a huge amount to learn from the Scriptures, of course, above all, but from our brothers and sisters in the rest of the world reminding us of what we used to believe and we’ve lost.

[37:33] JONATHAN: What a great reminder. Well, Os Guinness, I know you’ve got a busy schedule and we’re so grateful that you’ve taken the time to be on Candid Conversations. We’ve talked about quite a lot. We’re going to put a link to your website in our show notes, and all fantastic books that you’ve put out and new ones coming out, and we look forward to hopefully having you on again in the future.

[38:00] Os Guinness: Well, thank you. Real privilege to be on with you.

[38:02] JONATHAN: God bless you. Thank you.

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 255: Are You Wrestling with God?: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan youssef) — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Are you committed to Christ but searching for guidance? In this new reflection, Jonathan Youssef explores the gripping Biblical story of Jacob—a tale of struggle, transformation, and divine engagement. Jonathan connects his own experiences with Jacob’s journey, offering insights into the challenges of perseverance, the power of repentance, and the profound ways God works in our lives.

Listen and deepen your understanding of spiritual growth and how our trials can lead to profound blessings. This is a must-listen for anyone seeking inspiration and guidance from God.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

TRANSCRIPT:

This transcript recounts Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef Episode 255: Wrestling with God: Jonathan Youssef

In seventh grade, I joined my middle school wrestling program. For two weeks, we ran and did all kinds of exercises, and then we would wrestle each other for the rest of the time we were there. And I did not like it. I lost to a guy who was younger than me. I lost every day. I was terrible. And I was tired of losing, and I lacked perseverance. There is little more humiliating than being wedged under the fat arm of a sweaty teenage boy, and I thought, This is as low as it gets.

Well, our reflection today is about wrestling and persevering. I’ve always been intrigued by the biblical story because it has so many layers. It’s multifaceted and multidimensional. And it’s a little bit dangerous, meaning that there is potential to miss the main point of what the text is saying and to misunderstand or misrepresent it.

Over the years, I’ve reread it, read commentaries, listened to talks, and consumed all I can to try to understand it better. I want to know what is taking place at this really important moment in salvific history.

We have this man, Jacob. He has been at odds with his brother since birth. Even in the womb, he and Esau are wrestling with each other. He is at odds with his father over who is the favored son. He is at odds with who should be blessed. He’s at odds over who had the birthright in the family. He’s used trickery and deception to achieve his purposes. He’s at odds with his Uncle Laban, a master trickster himself.

But in Genesis, we begin to see the undoing of this character, Jacob. He’s being undone, and he’s being changed and transformed through these middle chapters of this book. He’s served his crooked uncle/father-in-law for twenty-some-odd years, and in many ways, he’s echoing the prodigal son here. Having come to himself, he’s leaving Laban here, and he’s coming home, you might say, to the homeland of his father, to his older brother, and although God has begun to work in him, although he is a new man, as it were, spiritually, it becomes clear that God is not finished with Jacob yet.

And so this chapter unfolds with three dramatic pictures. First, in verses 1 through 21, we have the picture of Jacob returning. God has been working in his life, as we just noted. God has also been working in the lives of Jacob’s two wives, Leah and Rachel, and now Jacob has sent word to his brother, Esau, the brother who swore that he would one day kill his little brother in a very Cain and Abel-type fashion.

So Jacob sends the word, “Hey! I’m coming home.” He’s really only able to do this because the Lord has told him, “The day will come that I’m going to bring you back to this land. And I am promising that I will do you good, that I will prosper you, and that I will be with you.”

If you remember the account of Jacob’s ladder, where Jacob falls asleep, and he envisions this ladder coming down from heaven, and the angels ascend and descend upon the ladder, the Lord tells him, “I will be with you. I will bring you back to this land. I will give it to you and your offspring. And the whole earth will be blessed through you and your seed.” And, of course, it reminds us of the very same promise given to Abraham.

He promises to keep and return him to that land, and now that day has come. In verses 1 and 2, we read that the angels come and meet Jacob. It’s confirmation that the Lord is with him. He names the area Mahanaim, meaning “two camps.”

Now, perhaps he’s referring to the fact that it’s his camp and the Lord’s camp; the Lord’s camp will be his shield and protection. Because he’s going to need it. And the report comes back, “Hey, Esau’s coming to see you. He’s got four hundred guys with him. It’s going to be great, right?”

Okay, either Esau is rolling out the red carpet for his little brother, or Esau has come for his vengeance, and he has not forgotten 20 years of anger and hostility. Verse 7 says, “Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.”

Now, when it comes to our fears and the Lord, do we find that the way that the Lord enables us through our fears is by removing the fear, removing the obstacles? Or do we find that He gives us greater reasons not to fear than to fear? Here is Jacob, and he’s stuck in a difficult situation. He cannot return to his Uncle Laban; he’s terrified to go forward to his brother, Esau, and the unknown. What's he going to do?

Well, he’s a different man now. He probably would have used skill and trickery to weasel out of this in his past life. He would have found a crafty way to save himself, even at the cost of his own family.

But he’s a different man now, and Jacob perseveres despite his hesitancy, fear, and distress—unlike my illustrious wrestling career.

And then we see Jacob do something we’ve never seen him do in Scripture. He gets on his knees, and he pleads with God. He’s praying for God’s help in his dreadfully fearful situation. And Jacob prays the longest prayer in the book of Genesis. And the prayer shows us that he now belongs to the Lord. It’s evidence that the Lord is working in your heart, is it not, when you begin to call on His name, and it’s not just, “Lord, I’m in a mess. Help me out of this,” but rather, it’s “God, you promised to be with me. You promised to protect me. And so I’m coming to you, claiming on those promises.”

And that's what Jacob does, “Lord, you said that you would do good to me. Fulfill your promise to me.” You notice it’s not a panicked prayer, “God, get me out of this bind, and I’ll build a hundred churches for you.”

No. Instead, you have a man at the end of his resources, holding onto God's promises to bless him, and then he patiently sits, trusting that the Lord will act.

Then, we see another change in Jacob: a repentant heart. It’s an attitude of repentance. That's what’s happening with this whole procession going out to Esau. He sends the people and the animals and tells them to give a message to Esau: These gifts are from your servant, Jacob. Now, he’s scared, yes, but he’s coming behind us. He’s indebted himself to you. Do you want a sign of a changed life? Do you want a sign of a repentant heart? You are prepared to go to the person you have offended, and you say to them, “Because of what the Lord has done in me through the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, I can come before you and serve you.”

Think of Zaccheus, “A wee little man was he. He climbed up in the sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see. In the British version, it says, “And Jesus said, ‘I’m coming to your house for tea,’” because they all drank tea back then. But what does Zaccheus do? Does he just say, “Lord, I’m sorry. I was bad. I did wrong. Forgive me, Lord,” and then just move on?

No! He gives four times back. He repays his debts. It’s evidence of a changed man. And that's the other thing that Jacob is doing, right? He’s gifting these 550 animals. He’s saying, “Brother, I stole your blessing. I used deception and trickery for my own advantage, and now I’m giving it back to you” because I understand I need to be made right with you.”

It’s more than just feeling sorry in a moment. In Scripture, repentance is God's work of grace in my heart. I am sorry for my sin and find His forgiveness, but I’m also working towards restoration, repairing whatever damage I have caused.

The story is told of a machinist or factory worker in the Ford Motor Company in Detroit who had, over several years, borrowed tools and equipment, but never returned them. The machinist was thoroughly converted and was baptized. He wanted to put his faith into practice, so he came back to work to his boss, to the foreman, and he brought all the tools he had stolen and all the equipment he had taken, and the foreman didn’t know what to do. And he’s repenting, and he’s confessing what he’s done, and so the foreman, impressed by this, cables Henry Ford and says, “You’re not going to believe this. This guy’s come back, and he’s brought everything with him,” to which Ford cabled back, “Dam up the Detroit River and baptize the whole city.” That's what's happening here with Jacob. He’s bringing the blessing back. The blessing that the Lord has poured out on him, he’s giving it back.

Jacob returning. Then we have a second scene, which I’m sure we’re all a little more familiar with, and this is the scene of Jacob wrestling. He’s not only sent his possessions on, he’s sent his whole family ahead. Verse 22 states, “He took his wives and servants and his eleven children, and they crossed over the Jabbok at night.”

And then, in verse 24, he’s all alone, and a man grabs him in the darkness and begins to wrestle with him. My seventh-grade self’s nightmare because I didn’t like wrestling. That was the allusion to that if you’re following along.

Who do you think Jacob thinks he’s wrestling? It’s most likely that he thinks he’s wrestling with the man who swore to kill him, the man that all of this procession and all this fuss is about. At this moment, Esau is who Jacob thinks his most significant conflict is with. The one I have to wrestle with is my brother, it’s Esau.

But that is not who he wrestles with in the night, as we find out later in this passage and as we read in Hosea chapter 12, which is a little brief commentary. We find out that Jacob is, in fact, wrestling with some manifestation of God in the flesh, a pre-incarnate Christ. And so then we’re left to ask the question, What will God gain from this, from wrestling with Jacob? He’s already sent all his possessions on ahead. Surely, God is finished with Jacob. He’s repentant, he’s confessed, he’s done it all. There is no box left to check.

But you see, Jacob has given all he has back, but the most important thing is that he has yet to give back. Do you know what it is? It’s Jacob. It’s Jacob himself. And Jacob may think that Esau is trying to get what is his, which is to take Jacob’s life, but the reality is that God is wrestling with Jacob to take what is His—which is Jacob! And this wrestling, it’s like a father with a child. You know there’s a way I’m not a good wrestler, as we’ve illustrated, and you’re trying to catch up with me on this. But there’s a way for me to wrestle with my children while they’re young, though my son is getting to the age where I can’t keep up with him. But there’s a way for me to wrestle with them, which keeps them engaged for a long time in which I never lose, and they never lose. That's sort of what God is doing with Jacob here.

But then He does this thing where He touches Jacob’s hip, and now Jacob has this dislocated hip, and you need your hip as a pivot to wrestle, so now he’s got nothing, he’s zero. And he’s clinging to God, and God is saying to him, “Let me go. Let me go,” and Jacob says, “I’m not going to let you go unless you bless me.”

Here’s the context of these situations: The lesser is always blessed by the greater, so Jacob acknowledges that he is holding onto the greater being. I imagine he’s still not sure who he’s wrestling with, but he’s holding on, and he sees by the power that's rendered his hip inoperable that he’s holding on to a greater being. And he’s saying, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

If you go back and look at Jacob's life, you know what you’ll see? Jacob is immensely blessed. Everything he does is blessed, right? That's what God promised to do, and that's what he’s receiving. Everywhere he went, every person he interacted with was blessed, just as God has blessed us immensely. If only we had eyes to see, we could have blessing upon blessing in our lives and still miss the main point.

The main point is not the blessings, plural, but God’s blessing. And what is God’s blessing? It is that He has every part of us. And how Jacob enters into this blessing is obvious: God says to him, “What is your name?”

And the response is one word: Jacob. Jakob. What's in the name? Twister is the etymology of the name Jacob. Twister, deceiver, heel-clutcher. And now God has gotten to the bottom of the issue: it’s a confession. I am unrighteous, I am a sinner. My identity was in who and how I could trick them.

God is going right for his heart, saying, “Give me your heart, Jacob. That's what I want.” You see that God is prepared to dislocate Jacob’s hip to have Jacob's heart. That may be what God is saying to you, that the way to your heart is by the divine dislocation of something you take pride in, which is a source of great strength for you. Maybe you notice He’s touched the very thing in which you have depended on for your life, and He’s taken it away from you. That's what's happening to Jacob. The Lord draws him in to say, “Jacob, it’s not all the things in your life that I want you to give me; it’s yourself that I want.”

But you see, there’s a third scene, a beautiful scene. Jacob returned, Jacob wrestled, and now Jacob was limping. In the next chapter, chapter 33 of Genesis, we see Jacob return to his brother Esau, but he’s not at the back of the caravan as he was before with his plan. He’s at the front now and prepared to take it all. But we’re told that he’s doing two things. One, he’s bowing down seven times, and the other is using the language of “I am the servant, and you, Esau, are the lord.”

But I think if you were there that day to watch this encounter, those would not be the two things you would have paid attention to. I think the thing that would have captured your attention would have been this: his limp. Why is this significant? Because, beloved, this is a picture of the Christian life. Men and women who have been dislocated to different degrees because of the work of God in their lives and caused to limp, humbled under His sovereign, mighty hand; caused to limp, caused to be conscious of this for the rest of their lives of their weakness and their dependence on the Lord. Dependent on His forgiveness, dependent on His power—moment by moment, day by day. But the sun has risen upon them.

I wonder if you’ve come across one of these people. And it doesn’t always have to be a physical variation of this; sometimes it’s unseen, the wound, the dislocation. But when we were in Australia, there was a young man. He was in our Bible study, and he looked like he had been in a fire. He had an autoimmune disorder, and he received a bone marrow transplant from his sister, but the transplant caused his body to fight against itself. And so his body was covered in sores and blisters everywhere, and ulcers filled his mouth. Walking was difficult; eating was difficult.

As I said, he was in our Bible study, and so when I asked him his story, he said to me that he was a great swimmer. When he was in high school, he was actually training for the Olympics for the Australian national team. Then he started feeling strange, and his swim time started getting slower and slower, and that's when all the medical issues began in his life.

And he told me, he said, “You know, before, I was a good kid, but I was very full of myself. I was arrogant. But God reached in and dislocated a part of me, taking away things I loved doing.”

And even through his anger, frustration, agony, and pain, he never left the Lord, and the Lord certainly never left him. He would testify to the goodness of God, despite what everybody saw physically with their eyes when they encountered them. His faith and his dependence on the Lord remained until the Lord called him home a few years ago.

This is how the Lord said to him, “I want every part of you. I want your heart.” You see, this is not just a principle of spiritual usefulness for Jacob and for us; this takes us to the heart of the gospel. For you see, there would be another night, centuries later, where two wrestlers were engaged, but this time a Son with His Heavenly Father, as He said, “Let this cup pass from me.” And there is an equality in the wrestling. “Let this cup pass from me, and yet, I will not let you go despite what is coming, the agony and the shame that will be borne on the cross. I will not let you go, Father, until you bless them,” which is why He says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And so He, as Paul says, upon that cross became a curse so that the blessing may come to us.

Where are you today? Perhaps you’re on your way, like Jacob, and you’re walking through repentance and forgiveness. Are you willing to give up a little but not the whole? Perhaps you’re wrestling with God over these things at this moment, and you give a little, but then you fight for others, and it’s a give-and-take relationship, and it’s very back and forth. Perhaps you want to let go, or perhaps you have let go in the past, and the Lord keeps re-engaging with you in this wrestling match, and He’s waiting for you to say, “Don’t let me go. I will not let you go, even if it means me having a limp for the rest of my life.”

Do you have a limp? Do you have a dislocation? May the Lord be gracious to us as He pursues our hearts.

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 254: What is Emotional Intelligence and Why Does it Matter?: Clay Kirkland

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 04:00:00 +0000

In this fast-paced world, managing our emotions and understanding those of others is more crucial than ever. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is about recognizing and managing your emotions effectively to reduce stress, communicate, empathize, overcome challenges, and defuse conflict. With high EQ, you can improve relationships, excel at work, and achieve your career and personal goals.

Today, Jonathan Youssef is joined by Clay Kirkland, a returning guest with over two decades of coaching experience and a rich background in staff development at the University of Georgia Wesley Foundation. Clay is certified in emotional intelligence and includes EQ as a vital coaching component.

Clay breaks down the concept of EQ into four crucial quadrants: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. This episode isn't just theoretical; it is filled with practical advice, from managing personal emotions to enhancing interpersonal relations in various spheres of life, such as parenting, the workplace, and within the church community.

Listeners will gain insights into how emotional intelligence intersects with spiritual maturity, the practical applications of EQ in everyday scenarios, and strategies for developing emotional resilience. Clay’s explanations bridge scientific understanding with theological perspectives, making this a must-listen for anyone seeking to enhance their emotional skills and lead a more fulfilling, empathetic life. Join us as we explore how mastering emotional intelligence can lead to profound personal growth and significantly better interactions in all areas of life.

This episode is for you, whether you're a leader, a parent, or simply someone looking to understand the emotional dynamics of the human mind.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Little Pilgrim's Big Journey Volume 1

TRANSCRIPT:

This transcript recounts Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef Episode 254: What is Emotional Intelligence and Why Does it Matter?: Clay Kirkland

[00:01] JONATHAN: Well, today we have a repeat guest. We like having repeat guests. We like to build up some relational collateral with our audience and so we’ve brought back Clay Kirkland. Clay has spoken on a number of topics, including calling, with us on Candid Conversations, and today we are talking about emotional intelligence. Clay is a life coach with twenty-plus years of experience. He served for eighteen years as the director of staff development at the Wesley Foundation at the University of Georgia in Athens. He has a Master of Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary and he is a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach. And so I will say, “Welcome back, Clay.”

[00:51] CLAY: Thank you. I appreciate it. Glad to be here.

[00:55] JONATHAN: Well, this is a topic that has always been of great interest to me, and obviously to my team as we were having this conversation and your name came up pretty much immediately, and it’s this issue of emotional intelligence, EQ, right? That's our abbreviation. So this is not IQ, a measure of general intelligence. This is EQ, emotional intelligence, and so maybe help us define emotional intelligence. Why is it important? What is it? Kind of step us through a little bit of that process.

[01:37] CLAY: Sure. Yeah. So it’s a great topic. I’m very excited to be here to talk about it. And it’s gone through a lot of iterations in terms of its understanding. Probably in the last forty years, really, it’s been around and I’d say probably the last fifteen or twenty it’s become a major player in conversations both in the business sector and also just in general. If we wanted to really boil it down to probably its simplest form, you would want to think about emotional intelligence in four different parts. Do you know yourself? Can you manage or read yourself? Do you know others? Can you manage and influence others? And that's about as easy as we can get it. We’re leaving some things out, but across the bow, that's what we’re looking for those four quadrants. There’s a self-understanding, there’s a social understanding, then there’s a self-leadership or management, and there’s a social leadership management and understanding.

[02:55] JONATHAN: Even in just giving the categories I feel like I’m picking up on the necessity of being able to understand yourself and know yourself, being able to manage yourself, right, self-control—it’s a fruit of the Spirit. And then on the relational spectrum, being able to relate to others, are … How do you lead? How do you interpret people’s body language and cues and things that are being given off? So let’s talk about the importance of just those four categories that you’ve given us.

[03:45] CLAY: Sure. Well, you can, if we start with knowing yourself, right, and then think about that, as it relates to knowing others, we say things in life to our family or things are said about us that lead us back to what we’re really talking about when it comes to emotions. So you’ll hear people say things like, “He doesn’t have a clue what's going on.” Or “Do you realize how angry you sounded when you said that?” And that immediate defensive posture. So in interpersonal relationships, it’s pretty much there on a consistent basis, that idea of do you know what's on the other side of you? And that's the self-awareness, right? And then do you know what’s happening with the people that are around you?

So that's the first part, right; it’s just this knowledge. And the great thing—I didn’t mention this earlier, but the great thing of this kind of understanding emotional intelligence that plays into a lot of the definitions that people are putting out these days are that these are a set of skills that can be learned. This is not a—

[05:09] JONATHAN: You’re not born with it.

[05:10] CLAY: —personality trait that, you’ve gotten and you’re just stuck there. This is dynamic in a good way, but also in a sobering way in the sense that you can be really good at these and then stop being good at these, or you can be not good at these and then

[05:31] CLAY: —they slide. But then outside of that awareness and knowledge, it’s what do you do with it? Do you know how to manage yourself? And again, it’s an interplay. It’s always going to blend with the knowledge. Do you know what’s appropriate for the moment either for yourself, coming out of you, with others, and then, can you apply this? So when we think about the brain, we’re thinking about this process of your limbic system where the seat of your emotions are, and your prefrontal cortex, where you’re making your rational decisions. So do you have understanding of both of those? Do you have control over both of those? And can you manage that—when you’re alone—or can you do that also when you’re with other people?

[06:34] JONATHAN: This is very scientific but also very practical. Let’s bring in the world of theology. How do you differentiate between spiritual maturity—or do you differentiate between spiritual maturity and emotional intelligence? Are they one in the same?

[06:56] CLAY: I think you have to differentiate between the two, simply because someone who has no spiritual/religious anything—

[07:09] JONATHAN: They’re capable of growing.

[07:13] CLAY: And being very emotionally intelligent. So you’re not automatically emotionally intelligent because you have some type of spiritual maturity in the sense of you have a relationship with God or you do certain religious disciplines that make you, in the eyes of other people, highly religious or devout.

There has to be a difference there. But when we look at the practical applications of emotional intelligence and you look at them and the practical applications of spiritual maturity—so probably the easiest one to go to is in the New Testament, to look at the fruits of the Spirit. You start talking about love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness. You get all the way down to self-control. And then you pull those back into the outcomes that emotional intelligence is supposed to create, there’s a lot of similarities, right? Obviously, self-control is one. Optimism is a massive one, which we can really link to joy and hope. The kindness piece would clearly cover those kind of interpersonal relationships. So it’s not a perfect overlay, but that's where you see it.

[08:32] JONATHAN: Yeah, lots of connectivity there for sure.

[08:34] CLAY: Yes, a lot.

[08:38] JONATHAN:You mentioned the limbic system, the prefrontal cortex. Talk me through a little bit of that to give some clarity here.

[08:52] CLAY: Sure. And again, let’s make it real simple.

[08:56] JONATHAN: Thanks.

[08:58] CLAY: Yeah, for all of us. You’re going to have your reptilian part of your brain. That's your fight, your flight when you’re in danger. That's just kind of that aspect. If we get past that, we’re typically going to put our neural functions into two other categories. That's going to be your limbic system, and that's the “I feel” place. And then your neocortex, that prefrontal cortex, where you’re going to think rationally and you’re going to make decisions, you’re going to process them.

So what we’re trying to say is, because you get this a lot when I go around and talk to people about emotional intelligence, you’ll typically hear someone or a group of people identify and say, “I don’t have a lot of feelings. I’m not very emotional, so I don’t know if this is going to help.”

[09:59] JONATHAN: “I’m a thinker, not a feeler,” right?

[10:01] CLAY: That's correct, which just means that they’re leaning much more heavily into one area of their brain than the others. That doesn’t mean that they don’t feel. It doesn’t mean that that limbic system is depressed or deformed or anything else; it just means that they are not as aware that that part of their brain is functioning and can function for them in positive, neutral or negative ways.

Again, if you were to describe me and say, “Hey Clay, on a scale of 1 to 10, how emotional are you,” most people then link that to when’s the last time you cried? Do you get chill bumps when you watch a video, or a commercial at Christmas, or whatever? And I would say, no, that's not the type of person I am. But that still doesn’t mean that that limbic system within my brain isn’t an active part of the brain. Because it is. For all of us it is, we’re just not leaning into it.

[11:14] JONATHAN: So is there a way—I'm sure we’re all thinking of a person that perhaps is not leaning into their limbic system, and we’re thinking, How do you exercise that? And I’m assuming that your goal with clients and that sort of things is to try and help find balance. I assume you want a balance between being in touch with emotions, right, because emotions can be good indicators. They can also mislead, but they can be good indicators. And then you need a rational side to help navigate that. So how do you sort of exercise—and we can do both sides of that—how do you, for those who are very much a feelings-generated person, how do they exercise their thinking and vice-versa?

[12:10] CLAY: All right. So let’s start with the person who typically is not necessarily a feeling-type person. I’ll give you an example. I had a client several years ago, and he was a CEO of a company and I got brought in to work with him. We were meeting in the lobby of the hotel, like in the restaurant, and I asked him, I said, “Tell me a recent story about something that went wrong at work.”

So he tells me the story. And after he finishes, I said, “How do you feel about that?”

And he said, “Bad.”

I said, “Try something a little bit more deep, descriptive.” And he just stared at me and said, “I don’t know, it just made me feel bad.”

So I said, “Have you ever heard of the ‘emotions wheel’? It’s a very common graphic, you can google it.”

So he pulled out his phone and said, “Siri, Google,” and here comes the emotions wheel. It pops up on it and he stares at it. He stares at it for probably seven minutes. I was like, “Wow, I don’t know if he’s going to be able to do it.”

And he finally said, “Angry.”

And I said, “All right! Great! This is good. This is good.” So we spent several months with that wheel, using exercises that would help him start to recognize that he has feelings that are coursing in and out of his brain that he just wasn’t giving airtime to. So again, people who aren’t touchy-feely or aren’t kind of the emotional types, they typically won’t feel anger. They’re aware of that frustration, but what they typically do, they’re guarding themselves. And this is where we’re going to get off on a rabbit trail, so I’m going to pause myself, but they are typically guarding themselves from certain emotions they don’t like or they don’t believe are good or not the type of person they would be. Or pain, or whatever, again, can’t go there. But that's typically what you see.

So we just started to do exercises that caused him to become very aware of the emotions that were coursing through his brain and body and it became helpful. Again, it’s not necessarily the end product, but we just needed to at least give some recognition.

On the flip side, someone who’s highly emotional, again, the way they would describe themselves, and they would say, “Well, I don’t really think that much,” they do think a lot; they are just thinking primarily through their emotions. And you said it earlier: they can be great indicators, but they can also be misleading. So that’s where we kind of do some exercises for people in that kind of space to really pause and start to learn where they’re making their decisions from.

Why are you doing this? “Because I feel like it.” What do you feel? “Well, I feel …” and they can just tell you.

And so that's when you have to do some exercises where you pause and put them in situations where you say something like, “If your friend was about to do this, how would you tell him or her what to do? What kind of advice would you give them?” That gives them a pause to consider. Or it’s a common kind of way that we would do it, but we would debate our emotions.

So your classic, classic example for this is—and this just happened recently, so this is a true story, here in this office—I got here early because the fire company told me they needed to come and do a test on the fire system. So 6:30 in the morning I walk through here, only saw one other person in the office and said, “Hey, there’s a fire alarm test.” He said, “Okay, great.”

So what I didn’t notice was that someone was parking and then they were coming into the front doors about ninety seconds after I warned the one person that the fire alarm would go off. And this woman came running down the hallway in panic and scared, because she and I both heard the same fire alarm, but because I had certain knowledge, I had zero panic and fear, and had no emotion towards the fire alarm whatsoever. And she had incredible emotions towards it, and therefore, she was running, she was trying to save people. She was looking for people to save because she thought that we were going up in flames, and she just couldn’t believe it.

So the point of that is to say when you have something that triggers emotion, you can debate it. If you know that you need to learn something about your emotions, you can debate it, again, to say, “Is there a reason for me to feel any other way? Is there a trigger or consequence that I’m concerned about? Is there any context that I could give myself that could perhaps change the way that I feel currently?”

And again, they are all methods. Those are all different ways—and we can get into those exercises if you want to—but the point of those exercises is to pause yourself before you push whenever that limbic system is pushing into your vision, near the forefront of your mind, to make that the only way that you can make a decision. We’re just trying to pause you enough to give you an option to have your other parts of your brain work.

[18:31] JONATHAN: This sort of happened recently—I should be careful; I should use third-party examples. But my wife and I were at the beach, and our son was playing near and we were talking with friends. And we were keeping an eye on him, and then all of a sudden he was gone. And so we went into full panic mode. And we’re looking in the water and it’s just like it was emotion-driven. There’s very little rational thought process and the panic mode strikes. He’s not where he was; something terrible must have happened.

And I remember after panicking for a while I finally just stopped. I did the pause, kind of what you’re talking about, and I thought, “Okay, we’ve been here before. He knows this place.” So I told my wife, I said, “Go back up to where we’re staying and check for him there.” And then I thought, “There’s a little statue that I know he likes. Let me go see maybe if he’s gone over there.” Because we hadn’t thought, “Well, he ran past us,” because we would have seen him. But I thought, “Well, we might have been engaged in conversation and missed him.”

And sure enough, as I’m running to the statue, there he is, playing in the sand. And he had run past us, chasing a seagull or something. And it was like, okay, if I just took a minute to think, all right, what are the logical things that could have happened here? But at the same time, God has given us those panic senses to where if something terrible had happened, your body is in that sort of fight, hopefully not flight, but fight mode of I need to do … I need to, as the example of the lady in the office, she’s trying to save people. That's a good thing if the fire alarm is going off.

But I see what you’re saying in terms of just taking a minute to think, “What information do I have? What am I …?”

Because I think your mind probably shuts down, you get into tunnel vision and that sort of thing.

Let’s talk a little bit about IQ versus EQ. And in terms of the way that we look at people, the way we consider talent, children, workplace environment, hiring, all that sort of thing. How do you see the consequences of prioritizing one over the other kind of play out?

[21:04] CLAY: I’d say in the last twenty years or so there’s been a push to raise the importance of EQ. Not to diminish IQ, because it’s important to learn, become smart, develop that part of your brain. But this isn’t a choose one over the other. Now, right, is to say we probably missed it when we were only pushing get smarter, get this score on a test, get this acceptance, then you’ll be successful.

Harvard Business Review came out and said that there is … the differences between good leaders and great leaders, that gap. If you were to look in that gap and see what's in there, they would say 80 percent of the contents in that gap are in the emotional intelligence sector. So that's what they would say. Daniel Goleman, who’s one of the most popular voices on emotional intelligence, wrote Primal Leadership and several other books about it over the course of the past thirty years, he would say that if you’re looking to define success and what's going to make you successful in this day and age, he would say 80 percent of the contents of that recipe would also be in emotional intelligence.

And I think what they’re saying—this is me trying to interpret a little bit—again, it’s not to say, “Well, that means only 20 percent is IQ.” That's not what it’s saying. It’s saying we pushed, “Be smart, be smart, be smart, be smart” so hard, that's almost like a get it. Like when you look at people who work hard in high school, go to college, get really good grades, get a competitive job, I’ll bring Google up in a second, but that's that pattern. We said, “IQ, IQ, IQ, IQ.” And here’s how you’re going to be measured on that, you’re going to get rewarded. You’re going to get awards, you’re going to get plaques, you’re going to get acceptance letters, you’re going to get scholarships, and you’re going to get a job.” That’s the way we measure IQ. We pushed that so much, it’s almost like you have to do this. But if you also add extra, what is that extra? Well, 80 percent of that extra, I would say, would be emotional intelligence. So that's where I think that those figures are coming from.

You can google these things if you want to, but they did two what they would call projects where they studied their employees, one almost around 2000, and then twelve to thirteen years later. And they were very surprised, as was everyone else, because they had kind of the best of the best, the brightest people, the Ivy League schools and so on and so forth. And they were trying to differentiate why some teams were doing better than others and why some individuals were doing better than others.

And that's when they started to find out that their term was “soft skills” were trumping hard skills. And they were trumping them in the sense that everyone came almost with the same hard skills—the STEM degrees that they all came with—but then why were some doing really well and why were some not? And that's when they started to see qualities like coachability, curiosity, emotional intelligence, empathy, listening. Those things were what they saw in both individuals and teams to see where people really are being successful.

So as a parent and vocationally and all those kind of things, it’s not that we should depress one in order to elevate the other as much as you’re both working on our ability to become smarter but also your ability to be more emotional.

[25:18] JONATHAN: We see this in Scripture, apart from just fruit of the spirit. What are some of the areas? Certainly there’s a high level of EQ that we would see, for instance, in the Psalms, which maybe explains why David was a good king and others probably were maybe lacking in those areas. I’m trying to think it as it relates to us in the Christian life specifically and it’s interesting that you bring up Google. I would think coding or something in the technology field, I wouldn’t think there’s as much relationality in business versus like sales or pastoral ministry or something where you really need those muscles exercised.

But at the same time, it’s interesting that what they’re finding is that even in the technology field, your success has a balanced element to those who have the soft skills, who have elements of emotional intelligence and empathy and all those sorts of things are actually helping in that plus area, as you described it. Help us detangle some of that and just thinking like from a scriptural perspective. How does something like emotional intelligence equip you for being better in all those different areas?

[27:21] CLAY: Sure. Let me stab that one real quick and then come back to some of those biblical things. You know it’s interesting. If you look at statistics back when Millennials were in the limelight, I’d say about ten years ago, they would say at that point that 80 percent of them wanted to work in a place of collaboration; that is what they were desiring in a workplace. Those statistics have only gotten higher as Gen Z’s are infiltrating now the workplace.

So you see that push for now over half of the workforce, so regardless of what industry you’re going to find, you’re seeing that desire for camaraderie, teamwork, connections. So even post-COVID where a lot of things have gone hybrid, work models, it’s still you’re on a Teams meeting, you’re on a Zoom meeting, you’re still interacting.

And so I have several clients, current and former, in that tech space, really smart people, and they do have to code a lot by themselves, but it’s when they have to talk to the customer, when they have to talk to the teammate, when they have to interact with the boss that that's where the skills either put them into a place of advantage or [unintelligible]. So it’s going to be very difficult for almost any job to be a job where you’re not going to need some type of emotional intelligence skills in order to make yourself successful. Can you find it out there? Sure, there’s just not that many. So most of us are going to find ourselves in positions where if we have emotional intelligence, we will succeed, stand out, excel.

[29:18] JONATHAN: And we’re relational beings. I mean, even by our very creation.

[29:23] CLAY: Yes, absolutely. So that's that little vignette there. So I would say—you mentioned the Psalms. I mean, the Psalms are great. I love the rhythm of Psalms. I had to take a class in the Psalms when I was in seminary, I chose to, and it was fantastic. But there’s almost like this general rhythm of David in the Psalms because most of them from what we understand, or at least at the onset, privately written. And obviously, some of them were more for the tribe, the songs, but typically they were private.

So there’s this process of raw, honest emotion about the good, the bad, and the ugly of life (I mean, not all of them are sad) and then some possible outcomes that either were happening or could happen. And then there’s typically, almost in every psalm, this point to which David or the other psalmists get to where they then recognize who they are and who God is, what God might do compared to what they might do, and then there’s a surrender of those things that they’ve felt and seen and wanted and they let go. And so that in and of itself, you could study that for a long time.

Psalm 139, right, it’s almost like a classic for emotional intelligence, especially the end, “Search me and know me,” right? So there’s self-awareness, I want to be known. “See if there is any hurtful way in me.” That's I want to get better. But this is my favorite part is that at the very end he says, “And then lead me in the way everlasting.” The reason that's my favorite part is because of how it’s saying the self-help movement gets it wrong when it puts navel-gazing and self-awareness as the end. Just become aware and the longer you can stay aware and the more that you can stay aware, you’re good. It doesn’t mean you’re good.

[31:47] JONATHAN: There’s no way forward.

[31:50] CLAY: That's correct. Right. So David there it’s like, “Hey, I want to be aware of myself. I need to be aware of myself.” The whole psalm is basically saying, “You’re absolutely aware of me. I’m pretty much under the spotlight.” I want that awareness and I want you to continue to have that awareness, not so that I can be aware; so that I can then go the ways you want me to go.

When I was at Wesley, we had this phrase we would do first-year time, second-year time, third-year time [unintelligible] our second-year term. And this was the phrase that I took there. It said, “We’re going to focus on you so that then we can get you out of the way.” So we wanted to have some quote/unquote navel-gazing time. We did strengths finder for them, we had emotional intelligence for them. Again, where there’s a lot of awareness. But it’s not just so that they can know themselves; it’s so that they can know where they need help, where they need to get better, where they are doing well so that we can get all that out of the way so that we don’t have to be in the limelight. We can actually then serve others [overlapping voices] and give ourselves over to the things that God wants us to do.

And that's why I [unintelligible]

[33:21] JONATHAN: That's right. No, you’re right on, and that's a helpful sort of thought process through that. I mean, even through that lens of emotional intelligence. We live in a day and age where everything is volatile, people are triggered by anything and everything. And then you add in a layer of social media or anonymity through the computer, which sort of exacerbates our problem. How do we develop greater emotional resilience and self-control? How do we as believers navigate that terrain.

[34:11] CLAY: Huge thought there for sure. I’ll just take one swing at it, because that's—

[34:20] JONATHAN: We’ll do a five-part episode.

[34:23] CLAY: Yeah, that's a big one. I’ll go real technical in terms of emotional intelligence [unintelligible]. In the assessment that I’m trained in and I like to administer to people, it’s got subsets. So it’s got fifteen of them. Two of them, I think, speak to some of this. One of them is flexibility. And flexibility and that subset is when things change, like you’ve decided something is going one way but now something out of your control has changed it, how do you respond?

On the other side of that coin, the next thing we administer is stress tolerance. Stress tolerance is you want things to change desperately and they’re not. They’re stuck. [unintelligible] And so in those two, when I look at volatility of our current culture and social media, it’s you see a plan so easily in those two regards. Someone has an opinion, someone has the other one, you can’t change their opinion, so what are you going to do about it? Nowadays, we just trash the other person.

[35:52] JONATHAN: Ad hominem, yeah.

[35:54] CLAY: That's our response. On the other side, when we had a plan and now everything has changed and we didn’t get to choose that, how do we respond? We blame everybody. We have to find someone to blame because we think that that's going to make it better. Right now we look for someone to blame instead of moving into that place of resilience and grit and realizing that not everything is going to go our way. So part of that emotional intelligence, when you look at how you become flexible, become better at stress tolerance.

A huge part of it is just accepting the fact that things are not always going to be good; things are not always going to go your way; and that is everybody’s life. You want to take it to a biblical place, then you go back to the words of Jesus where He said, “In this world you’ll have trouble.” He’s already told you. And everybody’s response to it. He gives you the clue, if you’re doing it from a Christian perspective, He says, “But I have overcome the world,” meaning that your perspective is going to change how you respond to those situations. If the weight of the world is on that moment, you know, it’ll crush you. But if you realize that that's not the weight of the world, regardless of the situation, even if it’s going to hurt, those kind of things are going to take a bite out of you, it gives you the ability to realize that you can recover, you can make it through it.

And that's a key part, I think, in all of that. I’ll give you an example, a real practical example. I use this with my kids, but I also use this with adults for sure. I use it with myself. Ask myself this all the time. I can’t remember where I came up with this, but so this is the question when you’re faced with a situation that's hard, heavy, frustrating, whatever it is, and you have the option of choosing an emotional, unintelligent response, is this. This is the question I ask. Is this going to be in your book?

I can say that to my kids, and they know exactly what I’m talking about. If they don’t know what I’m talking about, then I give them this context. At the end of your life, you get two hundred pages to write your autobiography. This situation right now, is this a chapter? Is this a page? Is this a paragraph? Is this a sentence? Or is it on the editing floor? And almost always this will be on the editing floor. And so if it’s on the editing floor, then why are we treating it like it’s a chapter? And that's the context. So that's the question I ask myself, and I give it to my kids as well and that's what I tell my people at my office.

Again, it gives you pause. That's the whole point of this is to pause. But the whole idea of emotional intelligence is this, and how they came up with this, I don’t know. People smarter than me. I would say this: that you have six seconds to choose your emotional intelligence response, meaning that your brain likes to default to habits, and so you’ll habitually just respond. You think about traffic. Any time I see traffic, I get angry, so shoulders go up, eyebrows go down, my tone changes, whatever, it’s just your habit. You’re choosing it, you just didn’t realize that your brain is in default into the choice. You’re really not giving yourself that option.

But the six seconds comes into play in the sense of you can actually choose to go a different path. We’re talking about neural paths. You can choose a different neural pathway. Your brain would prefer to go the habitual route because then it doesn’t have to work that hard. So in all of these things, what we’re trying to do is to give ourselves pause enough to alert ourselves that we’re probably about to choose a default that is not the best choice, and can we train ourselves to a point where we say, ah, not to do this, probably should do this.

It's the train tracks, shifting from one track to another. That's really what we’re trying to do in any exercise that we do in emotional intelligence is to pause and then give that new skill an opportunity to get some [unintelligible] and get some legs [unintelligible]

[41:18] JONATHAN: And it’s funny, because in order to get to that position, you have to have self-awareness. You have to be aware that what's going on is—and I’m just even putting myself in situations where I’m like, oh, that is absolutely my mental state goes to a default position. Oh, this happened and I know that this is my reaction. And you’re right; sometimes it’s like I don’t even think about it. It’s just this is just what I do.

It makes me think of sort of the enneagram thing, well, that's just who I am. I’m a fill-in-the-number, but there’s no, okay, so is that your paradigm? Is that who you are and that defines you? Or are you at a position to where you can challenge yourself, and to your point, take a pause and consider, okay, do I have other options here? I absolutely do. Which is really, if you think about it from a gospel perspective, it’s like do I have to keep choosing law over injustice for people over whatever situation? Or at what point do I choose to show grace and mercy, which by definition are undeserved for those people?

And that's really where the gospel message comes in, because if God operated under our own default paradigm, if He was created in our image, then it would be law-justice, law-justice all day every day. But grace and mercy are so alien to us, and that's the beauty of Christ’s work and what He has done.

You’ve shared a lot of really great and helpful stories, but could you give us some examples of applied EQ principles in—and I’m going to give you three different things, and then I’ll remind you of them if you can’t remember. So one for parenting, two, the workplace, and three, the church. So we’ll start with parenting.

[43:32] CLAY: I’ll be as practical and as vulnerable as I can. What we’re trying to teach—we’ve got six kids, a major focus for us right now is just empathy, how to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. A funny but revealing story is several years ago my wife was crying about a certain matter. One of my sons—

[44:02] JONATHAN: Name redacted.

[44:05] CLAY: We’ll keep it redacted. One of my sons came in and saw her and immediately started crying. And then another one of my sons came in and looked at his brother and said, “Why are you crying?” And he said, “I’m crying because she’s crying.” And then that brother who was not crying was like, “That's the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.”

[44:28] JONATHAN: That doesn’t make sense to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

CLAY: In general, we all have starting points, and those starting points have been formed and fashioned by our personality, our family systems, I mean all of these things. So that's why I love taking these type of assessments, because they show you where you’re starting from. Then you get to know where you need to go. So again, take Son A in that story. Empathy is already off the charts. I mean, just his starting point is he’s probably at an A-. There’s one little uptick and he’s perfect.

The other son probably at a D or F in that area. He really needs to work on it. And that was me when I took my first assessment of emotional intelligence ten years ago, very low empathy. I’ve spent several months, almost half a year, keeping an empathy log so I can start to train my brain to think about someone else’s emotions. And it got much better, but it’s something I really had to learn.

In parenting, we’re saying regardless of your starting point, this is something that matters. It matters biblical standpoint, it’s truly what Jesus did and still does. It, from an interpersonal standpoint, if you can’t put yourself in someone else’s shoes, that's going to be very difficult for you to have compassion on someone and serve someone to even care when they’re not in alignment of what you want.

So we have just said this matters. So we are consistently asking our kids when they say something about one of their siblings, “How do you think so-and-so feels about this? Where are they in this story?” So that's our skill right now, so it’s above any other skills that we’re trying to get. One, as a family of eight, we’re hoping to do that well. If we can, have empathy, so we’re working on that. When I think about our kids being released into the wild, and if they carry that skill with them, it will carry them a long way, regardless of what they do. And I don’t need them to get recognized for it in the long way in the sense that they will do well if they do right by people.

[47:29] JONATHAN: They’ll be a good friend.

[47:31] CLAY: Absolutely. So huge piece in that one, and that's what we’ve worked with there. In terms of business, I would say the really big piece of business is if you can listen, understand, and then reinterpret what you’ve heard to other people, you can’t help but be successful, because people will flock to you because of your ability to do that. I call it the meeting after the meeting in business. And that's someone, we have a meeting and then something is lost in translation and something’s then misinterpreted and then that person is, “That's not what is said. That's not what I meant at all.” And then now they have to go have a meeting about that meeting.

[48:29] JONATHAN: I’ve been in those.

[48:30] CLAY: You’ve been in those. We’ve all been in those. So now you’re having a meeting about a meeting and then you’re going to have to leave that meeting and have another meeting in order to let everybody else know what happened in that meeting after the meeting that should have happened in the meeting. And so that differentiator of active listening, being able to communicate empathetically, being able to communicate clearly. You know in emotional intelligence we would talk about emotional self-expression, to be able to clearly say what you’re feeling, right? You can see that every day almost in practical experiences in yourself where you’ve got your typical passive-aggressive, bless you heart type who’s lying through their teeth. They don’t have any blessings for you, but that's what they say. So that type of differentiator in the business sector is massive, it’s just huge, huge.

Tell me the third category.

[49:40] JONATHAN: The church.

[49:42] CLAY: The church, yes. The church, the church, the church. Oh man, this one and a lot of different other places for this one. I’ll pick one, and maybe it’s probably not the most popular one, I was in ministry for, well, ran it for eighteen years and was in almost twenty years, for nineteen years. Had a lot of friends in ministry. And to see where they are now, I would say that ability to handle emotions, not just their own but other people’s, burden-bearing perhaps the more specific term, and then to be able to handle the stress of that, to have mechanisms to keep that at bay. The primary term you’re hearing these days is burnout.

Burnout to me is when someone and they have had a moral failure, they’ve stolen money from the church, they’ve ripped their kids’ lives apart, that's not good. But typically what you see before burnout—when we say burnout, like “Hey, I just can’t do this anymore,” now they’re completely unhealthy and that's going into sexual improprieties, that's going into financial improprieties, that's going into the idea of power and where you're getting your validity and things from. So that's what you typically see before the engine hits failure and we get to see it.

And so from that emotional intelligence standpoint, you’re thinking about really self-control. In emotional intelligence it’s called “impulse control.” Can you have a desire, and understand it, and then make the right decision? That's one of the fifteen subsets that we look at. And if you look at people in ministry, it’s so easy to get away with so many things for too long of a time, and it really comes back to [unintelligible] Scripture because [unintelligible] until it’s too late. So I think impulse control is real big, again in EQ, for the church to say, “Hey, you can spend time alone with this person, you could charge this to the credit card, you could do a lot of things [unintelligible] and they’re going to believe what you say.” [Overlapping voices]

[52:43] JONATHAN: So even in thinking about each of those ones you’ve just given us for children (or parenting, rather), workplace, church, it’s interesting because all of those, I’m just thinking on the side of this in terms of protecting yourself—not protecting yourself in terms of I want to get away with this, but I want to prevent not having empathy. I want to be able to listen to someone and interpret and relay it back correctly to them. I want to be able to have impulse control. Those all involve, I mean, they are skills of the individual, but at the same time, it requires the assistance of others, I think. It’s a very communal—which, of course, emotional intelligence is about relating with others and self. And so it’s interesting in thinking about the way you’ve described or given those examples how much, if you’re setting up safeguards or even beyond safeguards you’re actually wanting to grow and develop in those skills, it requires community, it requires other around you who are committed to the same goals, so to speak. So in your work, do you—sorry, this is like bucketing rain our here. A hurricane is coming to Athens. Are you—do you encourage people to work these things out, to develop these skills, within a communal setting, accountability levels? And my power’s just gone off. We’re still connected, so we’ll just keep going.

[54:42] CLAY: Absolutely. I think the—I would encourage every person to have a communal component to every phase of emotional intelligence [unintelligible]. The assessment piece, you can take one by yourself on your computer and get a score and never share it with anyone what you scored and it would never be as effective as if you shared it.

[55:05] JONATHAN: It’s the navel-gazing example you gave earlier, self-help.

[55:09] CLAY: We’re trying to gauge our self-awareness and we’re our only judges, and what have we done? So that's why when I do these assessments, my favorite one to do is the 360, because then you’ve got different people from all different parts of your life that are assessing you. So the assessment piece has to be in community, right? The understanding the good and the bad has to be verified in community.

One of the things that we do when I take people through this coaching, especially when they come in for the 360, is to look at what we call the gap analysis. And the cool thing about the gap analysis is you’ll see it on both sides of the coin. So when people say they have blind spots, what they typically means is let’s say I’m a person with a blind spot. I almost always say that person thinks that they’re here and they’re actually here. They think they’re better—which could be a blind spot.

On the slip side, a blind spot is that this person thinks that he or she is here and actually they’re much higher, they’re here. So they have a lower self-awareness or self-image of themselves in this area than actually what's coming out of them. So you get to see both sides of the gaps. Where are you doing better than you’re actually aware of and where you actually do worse? So that has to be in community.

And then as you work them out and work on the skills, you’re going to have to have people to work them out with and then people to let you know how you’re doing. Every phase has to be in community.

[56:56] JONATHAN: I’m sure people are listening to this and thinking, “I know someone who needs help with this.” Is it a subject where it’s like, “Hey, I sent you a little questionnaire you can fill out to see all your blind spots”? How do you broach the subject with—is it like, “Hey, I’m working on some self-improvement stuff. Would you want to do this with me?” How do you find that others engage their colleagues, friends, family members, whatever, to see this, to have some self-awareness and bring it to the forefront without crushing them or coming across judgmental, etc.?

[57:42] CLAY: Yeah, it’s if you’re trying to inspire—I’ll use that term—someone else to do it, yeah, that's … There’s not just one way, because you can have a relationship where you can say—

[57:56] JONATHAN: And it depends on the person.

[57:58] CLAY: Depends on the person. I will get called in to work with people who their bosses are saying, “You have to do this.” They have no choice. And then there’s other people who would say, “Hey, I want to bring this up to my husband. How should I do that?” And they have to do it in a much more nuanced way. So I would definitely encourage people to get to that point where they can be honest. If you can be honest with that person, and this isn’t to say, You’re wrong, you’re broken, you’re damaged,” as much as to say, “These are skills that both of us or all of us should learn, can we do this together?” Because it’s not, again, I’m certified in emotional intelligence and I teach it and coach it, but I still have to live it or I won’t be emotionally intelligent. So no one arrives. You learn it, but you still have to do it. So everyone can join in. And that's what I would say the best approach to other people is to say, “Hey, let’s do this together.” Because no one can say, “Hey, I hope you get to this point.”

[59:13] JONATHAN: When you're like me, then you’ve arrived. Well, Clay, this has been such a big help for me just even in understanding the neurological things, the neurological pathways and thinking about my own mental habits that have come in play, thinking about self-awareness, other awareness. I think these are just such important factors. We see them through Scripture. We know the heart of God. We see the sovereignty of God over all things. We can have hope in Him. And just having an awareness of this, I think, helps us to serve the body, to serve the lost in such helpful ways. And so I’m grateful for your training and your expertise in this area, and I’m just grateful that you were able to take the time to join us on Candid Conversations.

[01:00:13] CLAY: Glad to have done it. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

[01:00:15] JONATHAN: Of course. God bless.

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 253: LGBTQ Conversations: Transgender from Biblical Times to Now, Claire and Rob Smith (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Rob Smith, Claire Smith, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 04:00:00 +0000

In this thought-provoking episode, the public discourse on gender and transgender issues takes center stage. What defines masculinity and femininity? Is this a contemporary debate or one that has historical roots?

Jonathan Youssef sits down with Claire and Rob Smith from Sydney, Australia, for an insightful conversation on these topics. Rob Smith, a theology, ethics, and music ministry lecturer at Sydney Missionary & Bible College, is also the Assistant Director of Ministry Training and Development for the Anglican Diocese of Sydney. He is pursuing doctoral studies focusing on the theology of sex and gender.

Claire Smith, a writer and women’s Bible teacher with a nursing background holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Moore Theological College. She is the author of God's Good Design: What the Bible Really Says About Men and Women.

Claire and Rob are active members of St. Andrew's Anglican Cathedral in Sydney and have contributed to platforms like Desiring God and The Gospel Coalition.

To engage with Jonathan or join the Candid community, visit LTW.org/Candid

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Twitter: @thecandidpod

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 252: How 20 Minutes Can Impact Your Child's Spirituality: Tyler Van Halteren (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Tyler VanHalteren, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 4 Jun 2024 04:00:00 +0000

In this inspiring episode of Candid, Jonathan Youssef hosts Tyler Van Halteren, a devoted advocate for enhancing the lives of children and youth through Christian faith and storytelling. Tyler, who holds a Master’s in Divinity from the Master's Seminary, has passionately shared Christ’s teachings and the Bible’s wisdom throughout his life.

Tyler’s journey spans from his role as an Associate Pastor at Gorrie Bible Fellowship in Canada to teaching at Phnom Penh Bible School in Cambodia. A pivotal moment came when he realized the profound impact of 20-minute bedtime stories on his son, inspiring him to merge the charm of storytelling with Biblical teachings.

In 2020, Tyler founded Lithos Kids, embarking on a mission to create biblically faithful and beautifully illustrated children’s books. His first book, "Little Pilgrim's Big Journey," launched on Kickstarter, surpassed its funding goal by 500% and quickly became a beloved children's book. Following this success, "Little Pilgrim's Big Journey, Volume 2" and "Volume 3" were also released.

Now residing in southern Ontario, Canada, Tyler continues his mission as both a father and an author, dedicating his efforts to fostering Christian values in young minds.

Tune in to explore Tyler’s journey, the significance of spiritual mentorship, the creative process behind his books, and his vision for faith-based education. This episode is a must-listen for parents, educators, and anyone interested in spiritual growth and innovative approaches to Christian education.

Books by Tyler Van Halteren:

Little Pilgrim's Big Journey, Volume 2

Little Pilgrim's Big Journey, Volume 3

Kingdom of God Storybook Bible

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

TRANSCRIPT:

This transcript recounts Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef Episode 252: How 20 Minutes Can Impact Your Child's Spirituality: Tyler Van Halteren (Reprise)

JONATHAN: Tyler, thank you so much for taking the time to be on Candid Conversations.

[02:28] TYLER: Yeah, thanks, Jonathan. It’s a joy to be here.

[02:31] JONATHAN: Well, tell us a little bit about your background, upbringing, and then we’ll transition into how you got into writing and producing kids’ literature.

[02:43] TYLER: By God’s grace, I came from a Christian home. But one of the most significant moments, and I guess most relevant moments to this interview, was when I was beginning to explore the faith more seriously, not just walking in my parents’ shoes but actually considering the weight of eternity, heaven, hell, my own faith, my own walk with God, and in that time I found an old 1975 version of Pilgrim’s Progress, paperback, 95 cents, that was given to my dad when he was about that age, about 15, and it just sat on the shelf. So I picked it up, read it, and that’s the first memory that I have of understanding the Christian life and wanting to follow Christ. That’s the first book I remember reading in that season.

So that led, by God’s grace, to a hunger for His Word, for sharing His Word, and then through various camps I had a great experience in high school. Our Christian high school was connected to a children’s camp. And so I was able to teach there and saw a measure of gifting, a desire to teach, and then went on to Master’s Seminary and then to youth pastor Cambodia. In the midst of all that, had some kids along the way and then started brewing some of these book ideas.

[04:07] JONATHAN: Tell me ... You just sort of lobbed Cambodia into that history. Tell us a little bit about that.

[04:18] TYLER: Yeah, for about 10 years before that, my goal and desire and prayer was to go into missions. And so we set the course for that through seminary, and then even as I joined my church there was a sense of telling them we’re going to be here five years and then we want to be sent out to the mission field. So we went. The goal was to teach the Bible at a Bible school there to college students. Had some other cool opportunities, like with some friends had started children’s programs, so I’d go to villages and there would be 30 kids that would just show up, 30 or 40 Buddhist kids would just come. And they listened to some English teaching, some Bible teaching, and just really neat.

But in the midst of all that, COVID happened and that shut a lot of missions down. But thankfully I was able to finish the Little Pilgrims book during that time. And then also during that time, I started having some significant health issues and that sort of ended up—a variety of numbness and extreme fatigue that kind of landed us back in Canada, but trusting God’s providence in all that and encouraged now to see there are some of our books being translated into already in Spanish, but some being considered for the Cambodian language, Khmer language. So there is French, Vietnamese, so encouraged to see how God’s continuing that missionary desire through these books.

[05:44] JONATHAN: Unbelievable. Okay, so you’ve shared with us that it was Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress that set you on a particular path. I’m assuming that’s the connection to wanting to retell it through a child’s perspective. Tell us a little bit about how those pieces came together.

[06:08] TYLER: Yeah, it was a neat few things that came together. So I’ve always had an entrepreneurial bent, always a desire for that. Buying and selling, doing different things. Little businesses on the side. And that gave a skill set that when my son was about three or four I started looking for, oh, is there a good children’s version of Pilgrim’s Progress? And at the time when I looked around, the only version was a 1985 one, Dangerous Journey. I bought that, opened it, and it was the first time I’ve opened a book and my son has sort of screamed and cried in terror at the illustrations. The illustrations were so—

[06:53] JONATHAN: I have been there. Especially for a three- and four-year-old.

[07:00] TYLER: Yes, absolutely terrifying.

[07:01] JONATHAN: Here’s the Christian faith, my child.

[07:05] TYLER: Yeah, I saw that, and I thought, Okay, there’s got to be a way to do a better version, especially for younger kids.

[07:13] JONATHAN: I will say, I have seen one of the—I think it’s more for teenage readers, maybe, and it is very graphic. Apollyon the dragon is very scary and menacing. And you’re right, there’s a lot—I mean, that’s the way Bunyan wrote it, right? I mean, it is dramatic, very. But when you’re thinking about little ones, you’ve got to tone some of that down so they’re not actually terrified but wrestling with the core issues. And I feel like your book does that so well.

[07:46] TYLER: Yeah, that was a real delight and surprise. I was writing with my son, three or four years old, in mind. And we read it 20, 30 times together in the process of writing it, and that was all super fun as we got new illustrations and as we pieced things together to see his excitement and to see things, Gospel truths click for him in that journey.

But I’m coming into this somewhat naïve in a sense. I had no real understanding of the publishing industry and just had this goal. Write this as well as I can, with really great illustrations, for my four-year-old son. And then for whatever reason, the Lord’s taken that, and it seems to have hit that target with a lot of families who say similar things, that these truths are connecting in a special way.

[08:40] JONATHAN: Well, and let’s talk about that. So as a parent, it is hard to find really good—and I know it’s out there and I’ve got a lot of them. But there’s not a lot of really great Christian children’s books. It’s either for an age up, as we just talked about, or it’s kind of delves into more of a moralistic, you know, do this, behave this way, obedience—which are true things, but there are so many better, deeper truths that we need to expose our kids to. I think there’s a longing of parents—

I mean, I hear it from moms all the time, “Hey, if you can think of a kids’ book and write it, like go for it.” Because there’s a real need for that, especially at those young, really vulnerable ages, age category.

[09:44] TYLER: Yeah, and we’ve seen a growing hunger in people, and through our social media and connecting with different people that there is this real longing for those kind of resources, and that’s been an exciting part, too, seeing how much this has resonated with parents, this kind of idea. And there’s other publishers that are doing some really great, like probably in the last five years really there’s been almost a resurgence of good, solid books, Gospel-centered books. But before that it was pretty dismal, and that was about the time I started writing was when I was looking around and saying, “Okay, how do we get really good Gospel-centered books that hit the core of these issues for kids?”

And the fun part of that has been the allegory idea of Bunyan’s allegory and seeing how much that’s resonated with people.

[10:30] JONATHAN: So let’s talk about just the impact I mean, it’s obviously a tradition within ... it’s been around forever, right? Either storytelling with your children before bed, or at a particular time, and just the impact that that has of, one, reading, just reading comprehension, storytelling, kids’ abilities to have an imagination and picture things. Have you done any kind of research into that I mean, even in your own life and seeing the way that it relates with your own children?

[11:09] TYLER: Yeah, that’s one of the cool things, I think, for a lot of families, the question of family discipleship, family devotions, those kind of things come up, and it’s challenging in our day and age. Generally, we’re pretty busy people and probably more busy than we need to be, so it’s hard to set aside a time. And sometimes it’s hard to get kids that aren’t wiggling during that time, or moving around, or asking, “Okay, when is it over? When is it over?”

[11:36] JONATHAN: You need to draw them in, right?

[11:38] TYLER: Yeah. So for my personal life it was bedtime. They kids knew, okay, we can read. It became part of the routine. And they are also glad because that time they’re winding down and they know they’re not going to bed yet, so they’re getting a little extension. And so that just became a very simple, practical tool for me. Hey, maybe I can’t do X, Y and Z with my kids, but 15 minutes before bed, that’s a pretty easy thing to do. And I’m seeing how that impacted my son was a real treat and a joy.

I’m thinking of our book, seeing Christian by the cross, his burden falling off, and him saying to me, “Yeah, God ...” Or “Dad, that’s what God does. He removes our burden of sin.” I remember reading David Helms’ Big Picture Bible, and him seeing Jesus on the cross and saying, “I want to follow Jesus. I want to be saved from my sin. I want to know Jesus.”

[12:42] JONATHAN: That’s an iconic scene, isn’t it? Bunyan’s ... I mean, even people who haven’t read the book are at least somewhat familiar with the scene of his burden falling off his back as he stands at the cross. It’s such a picturesque scene. You have talked about how he’s recognizing some of these things. What are the other things that are coming through the eye of the child as parents and grandparents are probably listening to this and thinking about we’re trying to help formulate in our children and what they’re getting from those 15 minutes before bed.

[13:23] TYLER: Yeah, I think a big one I’ve seen, and I’ve heard from a lot of families, is the reality of death and eternity. And I can’t think of many kids’ books that hit that on the nose.

[13:38] JONATHAN: Yeah, it’s not coming up with regularity, that’s for sure.

[13:40] TYLER: Yeah, yeah. So that’s not been dodged or snuck in. But reality is ... Yeah, people die. Kids are wrestling with some of these hard truths. They have some of these hard questions and they want answers to them. And so having this, again, the beauty of allegory are these spiritual truths told through images. The River of Death, the idea of someone crossing the River of Death, the sorrow of that and yet the joy of that for believers who enter the king’s city, the celestial city.

I’ve heard some very, very sweet stories from people and gotten emails that have brought me to tears where someone’s reading this with their child. Their child is going through cancer and facing death, and that River of Death bringing such a comfort both to the child, the parents, siblings. And for us, when we were in Cambodia, my son would bring that up often. Because we’d left family behind and now we’re going on this journey, in a sense, and that’s all done in light of eternity. So these metaphors of the celestial city and living for the king’s kingdom and things like that were all very helpful.

And then one other story from Cambodia, which was seeing the surprise in Cambodian parents, and especially dads, that I would read to my kids for 15 minutes before bed. To me, it seemed like an obvious things. To them, it was very foreign, in literally true sense. But they were surprised. “You do that with your kids?”

And I said, “Oh, you don’t?”

[15:20] JONATHAN: Culture shock there.

[15:21] TYLER: Yeah, and they said, “No, no. They go to bed when they go to bed, and we’re not too involved with that.”

I said, “Oh, you should try it.” And some of them... one of the pastors could speak English, and I gave him some copies of the book. And he read it and I remember since we’ve left he messaged me saying, “We still do that every night. We still read to our daughter before bed. And we’ve gone through these books these many times and thank you for this.”

I just thought that was a neat way the Lord used that.

[15:53] JONATHAN: So you started with a Kickstarter fundraiser and you blew through your numbers on that. Tell us a little bit about that.

[16:02] TYLER: Yeah, so again this was all kind of a leap of faith and partly the way God’s wired me, willing to take a risk in that sense. So let people know this book was coming out and just kind of asked friends and family to share as widely as they could on social media and kind of leading towards this Kickstarter. So we launched, and then I was just absolutely shocked as it was within the first hour we far surpassed our initial goal. And just watching the numbers just sort of fly in was a shock and delight.

[16:43] JONATHAN: It looks like you got about 500 percent of your funding. So if you were wondering if that was a need for people, that certainly made its case.

[16:56] TYLER: Yes, it was awesome to see. Okay, we put all this work in and got it ready, and then, oh yes, this does resonate with other people. Other people are hungry for this kind of thing. And we’ve seen that tenfold since then.

[17:08] JONATHAN: You’ve talked about how Bunyan’s use of allegory helps bring forth great truths through imagery and picture. Parents are always trying to communicate the Gospel in a way for children at different ages and stages to understand. But sometimes we parents can sometimes if they don’t have theological degrees like you and I, they can be overwhelmed—though having a theological degree doesn’t necessarily help you in this category. It's not like how to teach children is one of the classes we get.

But how do you take complex truths and break them down for children? This is one of the primary ways of doing that. But just for you as a dad of young ones, what are some of the other methodologies that you use for breaking that down for kids, big concepts that come, whether it’s through Scripture or spiritual conversation or whatever it is. What other methodology do you use in an effective way?

[18:21] TYLER: Yeah, yeah. A lot of at least homeschoolers talk about living books, like this idea of living books being an engaging way to teach ideas. And that’s for anything—science, et cetera—to children. And allegories present this idea of a living book, which means truth is coming through in a very natural sort of conversational way. And again, I feel like Bunyan is just the master of that. So what a privilege to follow in his footsteps and to—

[18:50] JONATHAN: And a good thing he was in prison, right?

[18:53] TYLER: He had a very vivid imagination, and the results of just certain scenes ... And he had such a deep theology and understanding of God’s Word. So I love in Part 2, which is less known (his original Part 2) there’s a scene where they’re walking by the cross with Great-heart, and it just goes into four or five pages on pretty technical like substitutionary atonement. But he does it in a way that’s so helpful and clear, and so I loved when I was going through Part 2 to take a piece of that and just simplify it. They just go at the cross and it’s a very clear explanation of what it means that the King’s Son died in our place. He took our sin. He gave us his righteousness.

And then that, combined with different images of Christian’s filthy clothes are removed, his burden is removed. So things like that I found super helpful. And then another big piece is that kids, especially in this generation, are visual, becoming increasingly more visual learners, so that’s our big slogan, Biblically Faithful, Beautifully Crafted. And the idea is to have these really vivid, beautiful illustrations that draw kids in.

[20:19] JONATHAN: But they aren’t too graphic.

[20:20] TYLER: Yes, yes. That are age appropriate. And then also to have text that’s sort of clear, deep but simple and not overwhelming, and to pair that up well. We visited a friend’s house, and they had their range of kids from two to seven, and they had all the books out. They said, “We swear we’re not just...”

[20:44] JONATHAN: Not for you.

[20:45] TYLER: “... because you’re here.”

[20:48] JONATHAN: It’s normally like this. Well, you’d find that at our house, too. We’ve got both book 1 and 2 wide open on some page.

[20:55] TYLER: That’s awesome. And I will see them, just the kids were flipping through the pictures. Like they couldn’t read yet, but—

[21:03] JONATHAN: But they can remember the story associated with the picture, yeah.

[21:08] TYLER: And they just loved flipping through it and looking. And they stare at all the details. And so I think that’s another aspect that I found very helpful is just these vivid images in books.

[21:18] JONATHAN: Apart from story time with your kids, are there rhythms or patterns or activities that you try and work in to family time that you’ve found successful at your home?

[21:34] TYLER: Yeah, I wish I could have more to say. The story book has sort of been my big main one. The other was—

[21:42] JONATHAN: And your big emphasis for sure.

[21:44] TYLER: But the other has been sort of the Deuteronomy type of while you are going, while you are walking by the way to instruct your kids in these things. So where he’s just saying, “Write it on your doorstops. Write it on ...” Like everywhere you’re going, just have these moments. So where kids are inquisitive, kids ask. It’s a crazy amount of questions per day, I think when you actually ... when you’ve done studies of that, I’m sure.

But if you’re feeding them these biblical things, then they’re going to have questions about biblical things that come up naturally. Which was another little piece. I mean, like maybe my dad [unintelligible] or something. We’d always have at nighttime, it would be like, “Oh, you can watch a show, but it’s going to be a Bible show.”

I know different families have different rhythms and some don’t like shows and some like shows. But first it was an easy switch to just say, “You want to watch Paw Patrol. Instead, let’s watch something else.” And a lot of those ended up being moralistic, as we kind of said. But at least it’s touching on biblical things.

[22:51] JONATHAN: Well, and you're able to elaborate from that and helpfully redirect them towards a cross-centric faith instead of a duty sort of centrism.

[23:07] TYLER: Yeah, definitely. And so those have led to a neat where they’re just thinking about things and things are resonating. And so my grandma had died last year, and my son said, “Can we call her?” Like after she died. “Can we video call her because I want to see God? Because she’s with God.” And so I was like, oh, that’s such an interesting ...

[23:33] JONATHAN: He’s got a deep truth with some confusion.

[23:38] TYLER: “She’s in the presence of God, why wouldn’t she have her cell phone? We used to call her. Now can’t we call her now?” So then you just have these neat opportunities when you’re just there. There’s the input, intentional biblical input, and then they’re going to be inquisitive, asking questions through the day as we experience ... “Why does this family do that? Why does my friend have a mom but no dad around?” Or “Why does this cousin not believe in Jesus?” and things like that.

[24:12] JONATHAN: Yeah. Having kids keeps you on your toes. And if you’re a believing family, then there’s a lot of questions that I think even the greatest of us could stumble over and so you really need to be filling your own mind with helpful resources. You need to be in the Word and seeking to grow in understanding and knowledge and faith and bearing that fruit of the Spirit. There’s, you know, as we kind of laughed about, I mean, kids ask a ridiculous amount of questions. And there’s times where I think sometimes I’m like, “I’m done. Done answering your questions. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

And that’s typical selfish mentality of this is about me and not you. But you know, you kind of flip the script a little bit and start thinking, Okay, this could be a really great opportunity for them. And in all their questions there’s usually something underlying all of that. Fear, doubt, whatever it is. Or sometimes it is just curiosity. So it’s important, I think, for parents to be as available as humanly possible, and really thinking through those things.

And I think sometimes people are afraid. What if I don’t know the answer? Then I’m going to fail my child, or whatever it is. And it’s like, you know, kids don’t think in that category necessarily. I think it’s actually quite biblical to say, “You know what? You’re asking really good questions. Why don’t we look at this together? Why don’t we kind of use this as an opportunity to show that mom and dad don’t know everything, and they’re seeking to grow just like you are?”

So tell us a little bit about the Kingdom of God story books. This is another project that you’ve done. I don’t know if it was before or after Little Pilgrim, Big Journey, but tell us a little bit about that.

[26:12] TYLER: That was after the Pilgrim book, so that was six or seven months ago those landed. And that was a big project, and an exciting—

[26:22] JONATHAN: Yeah, taking Old and New Testament, that’s a big undertaking.

[26:28] TYLER: That was the most challenging book I’ve written, obviously, because you want to do honor to God’s Word and to be faithful. And initially it was going to be bird’s eye overview. So I thought 70 pages and we’ll touch on seven different kind of key moments that highlight the kingdom through the Bible. And then as I got into it, I said, Oh, it’s still missing ... like there’s something ...

[26:53] JONATHAN: It’s always something.

[26:54] TYLER: ... in between these. And so that grew to 140, and then 280, and then all of a sudden it’s—

[27:01] JONATHAN: It’s summer reading.

[27:03] TYLER: Yeah, suddenly it’s a 600-page fully illustrated 45-chapter thing. And the two big goals were one was to incorporate biblical theology, which was to have these themes that are tied through, woven through from Genesis to Revelation, and so the kingdom is one of those big themes. And there’s many others. So that was an exciting challenge. And then seeing prophecies of the King to come in the Old Testament. There’s so many of those. So to highlight those in a very vivid and helpful way was an exciting piece of that. And then just to give a clear understanding of God’s kingdom.

As Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is now in your midst.” He said, “I have come for this purpose: to proclaim the Kingdom of God.” So if that’s His understanding, He’s saying, “For me to come and fulfill what God has promised is to display myself as the King of God’s kingdom,” which He saw as clearly foreshadowed and set up in the Old Testament. So doing that in a kind of full way that knits. The goal was to sort of be seamless between each chapter and between each kind of scene or book.

And the summary of it was God’s presence, God’s people, in God’s place, through God’s promise. And each chapter kind of has a summary in that way to connect those things.

[28:28] JONATHAN: Ah, that’s great. Books on the horizon. I think you have a third Pilgrim’s Progress book coming out. Little Pilgrim, Big Journey, I should call it. I keep calling it Pilgrim’s Progress.

[28:38] TYLER: That’s okay. Yeah, Part 3, which I’m excited about, it’s about the two brothers, Christian’s brothers. They saw their sister cross the River of Death and the king said it was not time for them to come yet. And I thought that was kind of a neat way to extend the allegory. Because some kids have viewed it, okay, we’re going across this journey and then we get to death and then it’s done. And there’s this bigger picture of mission and evangelism and service. So kind of a follow-up to that. This idea is the king, instead of calling them to cross the River of Death, calls them to go back to their hometown, back to the cities, to proclaim the Gospel and to proclaim that the kingdom is coming. And so these brothers go and they experience the ideas of the Great Commission, missions, evangelism.

[29:29] JONATHAN: Yeah, they’ve taken the mantle from Evangelist.

[29:34] TYLER: Yeah. Yeah, so it’s kind of an exciting. As even Evangelist and Great-heart pass, they say, over the River of Death, they say, “You take my sword. You go on.” And so I think that’s a neat challenge and call for kids that have professed faith in Christ now to go back to serve, to spread the Gospel to their friends. And so I’m excited about that book.

And then there’s also. Our tribute to Bunyan was a legacy edition of the Pilgrim’s Progress, so just a full, unabridged version more geared towards adults or older kids, teens. And has kind of 150 of the vintage illustrations and it’s just a real treat to read.

[30:17] JONATHAN: Well, my son will be excited for the third. Because he did ask why are Christiana’s brothers stuck on the other side of the river. And so I can give him good news that the third one is coming. This is great. What a helpful conversation. We’re going to put links for your website and all your books in our show notes. So those of you who are listening, I do recommend these. These are just fantastic. The illustrations are beautiful, they are age appropriate. The story brings through great truths and you’ll have great questions.

You do have questions that you ask. My son loves asking questions, and he loves answering questions as well. And so the fact that each chapter has questions that are asked—and they’re not just recalling information, but there is some application in there as well, which really kind of speaks ... You know, because kids want to have understanding and then kind of relay that back to you. So I think that’s been a great tool that you guys have put together on that.

[31:24] TYLER: Yeah, that’s been exciting. Initially, again, God has been gracious in this whole process. Because the first book, I was getting ready to print it, and then I just kind of asked on social media, “Would anyone find questions helpful?” And there was just a ton of response, “Yes, yes, please, please.” So I put them in.

[31:40] JONATHAN: 500 percent again.

[31:41] TYLER: Yeah, yeah. And a lot of parents have told us, yeah, these questions at the end of every chapter is such a help in our discipleship.

[31:48] JONATHAN: It’s so good. So helpful. Tyler Van Halteren, I am so grateful to have met you now that I’ve read through your books. And I hope that they continue to be a blessing for generations, just as John Bunyan has been for many centuries. And again, thank you so much for taking the time to come and chat with us on Candid Conversations.

[32:09] TYLER: Yeah, thank you.

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 251: Broadcasting Hope: Farid Garas

web@ltw.org (Farid Garas, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 28 May 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Have you ever considered the miraculous power of the Gospel message as it transcends borders, languages, and opposition? In this episode, we talk about the profound influence of Christian media in the Arab-speaking world through the compelling experiences of Farid Garas, the Senior Director of THE KINGDOM SAT satellite television and internet channel – a media outreach of Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef.

Farid's narrative is not just about spreading the Gospel; it's a journey of overcoming adversity, embracing his identity in Christ, and changing lives in a region where broadcasting Christian content can defy expectations and alter eternity.

Embark on a captivating journey with Farid, a man who once questioned Christianity but now plays a pivotal role in shaping Christian media in a region where such content has often faced significant obstacles. His encounters with authorities, far from deterring him, only reinforced his commitment to his faith and mission, making his story a testament to the power of unwavering faith in Christ.

Through this conversation, Farid highlights the strategic use of drama, film, and satellite television to spread the Christian message, reaching out to believers and those searching for Truth in tumultuous times. He discusses the growth of THE KINGDOM SAT, its impact, and the continuous efforts to foster a connection with the audience through live broadcasts and digital platforms.

This episode not only delves into Farid's personal and professional life but also provides a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities in media and ministry. Through their resilience and dedication, Farid and THE KINGDOM SAT team offer hope to millions in the Middle East, demonstrating the transformative potential of faith-based media in the face of adversity.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

TRANSCRIPT:

This transcript recounts Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef Episode 251: Broadcasting Hope: Farid Garas.

[01:28] JONATHAN: Today we have a special guest, an in-house guest here at Leading The Way. Farid Garas is the senior director of the Kingdom Sat. The Kingdom Sat is our 24/7 satellite channel for the Arab-speaking world, taking biblical teaching and different types of programming through satellite television and internet to the Arab-speaking population. He has become a good friend and I am so honored to have him joining us on Candid Conversations. Farid, thank you for joining us.

[02:06] Farid: Thank you, Jonathan, and I would say congratulations. This is the first podcast after being Dr. Jonathan Youssef. So congratulations. It’s an honor to be with you.

[02:16] JONATHAN: Well, it’s an honor to be with you. And you are doing some doctoral work yourself. And we can get into that a little bit later for those who are listening, you’re from Egypt. Tell us a little bit about growing up and your life story and then we can transition into how you got into broadcast ministry.

[02:39] Farid: Yeah. I feel I am a minority of the minority, an evangelical Christian in Egypt. And that was a great blessing. I didn’t like it in the beginning, feeling that minority I’m not like everyone else, but it was great. My father was a scientist. He studied science, and he didn’t like all the Christian religious ideas at that time, talking mainly about the traditional Coptic traditions or Christian traditions. And he always thought that those Christians are cheesy and he didn’t like that.

So his two sisters invited him to a Christian conference, and he said, “Okay, I’ll go. But after the first day I will not like it and I will go back home.” So he tried to flee from the conference three times, and those good Christians would go after him and bring him back.

[03:42] JONATHAN: Kicking and screaming.

[03:44] Farid: Yeah. So God grabbed his attention through Bible study, and also because of the witness of those Christians that went after him. He discovered that those Christians are really good people. They are professionals. They are not cheesy. They are very intellectual, they are funny, they are successful. So he was attracted to God by the witness and the Bible study. The following year, after studying the Bible for one year, he became very excited about this paradigm shift that God allowed him to go through just by knowing the Lord, and he led the conference the following year. He invited eighteen people from his family, young people, and long story short, they all became Christians. They confessed … they gave their lives to the Lord.

[04:36] JONATHAN: Were they from a Coptic background?

[04:41] Farid: Yeah, they are nominal Christians, mainly. And many of them are leaders in the Christian ministry now. And he played a great role in my life, not just by the Christian teaching, but by his example to me. And he showed me it was a balance between unconditional love and discipline. And it’s like your father played a great role in your life, and that prepared me to know the Lord more and to be ready for ministry.

[05:14] JONATHAN: Yeah, yeah. So tell us a little bit about your upbringing. Your father’s obviously grown into leadership roles within the Christian community, the evangelical community. You’re grown up in a covenant home, where you’ve heard the Word taught. Tell us a little bit about your faith journey.

[05:37] Farid: Yeah. So my father and mother brought us in a church setting and in a covenant environment, and they prepared us to hear the word of the Lord in house and also in church. But as a teenager, even a kid in an evangelical church, you get to hear the salvation message more than one time. But one time I remember, and the teacher has related with me, it was a play about the end of days. And the last line in the play, the main character talks to the audience and says, “What if Jesus came today? Are you going to be here or there?”

And of course, it was so dramatic. And so I went home and couldn’t sleep. I was thinking of all the events of that day. Is my life really Christian? Am I up to the standard that God accepts? And do I enjoy His redemption just because I want to get released of the … get out of … get out of hell?

[06:50] JONATHAN: Yeah, sure. Get out of hell.

[06:53] Farid: If only that reason, not relationship. So I couldn’t sleep, thinking about all these things, and I had to go to the school the following day. I was so tired. So I came back after the school, had a nap, woke up, found I’m home alone; nobody’s home. So I thought, “Uh, oh.”

[07:14] JONATHAN: It’s happened.

[07:16] Farid: Yeah. So this was one of the times that God not only grabbed my attention I think He was preparing me for how media ministry could be a tool in evangelism and in Christian life.

[07:34] JONATHAN: So the impact of that performance left a mark on you that you wanted to continue to build upon that.

[07:44] Farid: Yes. After that, I was becoming like a dedicated Christian. Okay, I need to study the word. I need to practice all these things. And as a result for that, I was invited by the Christian religion teacher, in the middle school, to talk. We have those Christian classes. They separate Muslims and Christians, each group in one class, and there is a curriculum, but he would finish the curriculum and then ask me, “Okay, Farid, tell us what you think about this.”

Mainly, I’m the only evangelical. He wanted to know what those evangelicals say, so I would share. And then mostly it went all right, apart from one of my colleagues who was very rigid, very extreme, and he would say all those things, “Oh, you evangelicals say this.” “Oh, you say that.” And long story, but it ended up that we became best friends and he gave his life to the Lord. We used to study every night together and so on. And after he became Christian, he has these leadership qualities and he became also excited. And together we started this evangelistic drama team. This drama team grew very fast because it was very effective. We wrote our own plays, we performed in churches, in youth meetings. Even we started our like independent Christian theater festivals. Like we would do three plays in three nights, and it was very well received. Like most of the nights we find that we have double the number of audience, so we need to perform twice and so on. And we even came here to Atlanta in 1996, during the Olympics, to help in evangelistic campaigns for the Arabic speakers.

[09:59] JONATHAN: Wow. I don’t know what to call it. The drama bug had been captured and you’re seeing this as a tool for evangelism, for outreach even internationally., I think you start to recognize that this is only a small stage. Explain to us how the doors opened up to having a bigger reach and a bigger audience.

[10:30] Farid: Yeah, the drama bug is only like a tool in evangelism. And in the Christian media I’ve been for many years, you would find like two extremes. One extreme you would find some very interesting, exciting but shallow content. On the other side you can find very good, deep teaching, very sophisticated, spiritual, biblical but sometimes boring.

[10:57] JONATHAN: This is through television medium.

[10:59] Farid: Yeah. And the theater and radio. So, I mean what was special about this team that God showed us how He could use the good content, because the gospel is the core. And when we started presenting the gospel in the drama tool that would communicate to people in our age, we found that it needs to be like this formula. We cannot let one play to be just popular because it’s funny. And we found that God is growing the work.

So it started with theater, then we started to do some radio with TransWorld Radio, like doing drama on radio and so on. And we went to television. You know in Egypt in those years, early, until early 90s, there’s no Christian content available for public audience, even Christians. We are 10 to 15 percent. But the national television would allow a Christian Mass only on Christmas, so it’s like one hour per year.

So we said, okay, how can we break into television? And it was hard. There was no way. So we tried to read books, practice, and we started like drama schools. We don’t know anything, but we start inviting people to teach us. And I wanted to study more about media like in a professional way, so I saved money, worked for eight years, then came here to the States, studied digital filmmaking school, did some internship. Then went back to Egypt, completed more studies, did the diploma in film production and directing in the American university.

[13:00] JONATHAN: So your heart was always to go back to Egypt. Yeah.

[13:03] Farid: Yes. I mean, it was very good over here. I studied in Hawaii, then internship in San Diego. The goal is to do ministry, so I went back to Egypt and completed this study, which allowed me to be part of the cinema syndicate and also to have my own production house. So it all started from just the first play that introduced me to the Lord, and then it continued to do more. Now I have to do more work for the mainstream media and the Christian.

And this production house was very successful. God gave me favor in my vendors and producers and it went fast because mainly I learned here in America a different style than the Egyptian national television. Minimum crew doing quality work in a different way. Of course, technology and so on. And I got the hands-on experience. So I had still the main goal was to do ministry using media, but I was able to fund the Christian work from the secular work I used to do—mainly corporate videos, advertisements and documentaries and so on. So they complemented each other. And it grew like for 2003 to 2009 like for six years.

[14:44] JONATHAN: Wow. Wow. Sort of paint a picture for us. What does it look like, up to that point, before there’s television broadcasts, evangelistic broadcasts being allowed in the country? What did sort of radio and drama team, what does that kind of penetration into the population look like?

[15:07] Farid: I mean, you could easily say there is none official media for Christians. They would allow some official magazine or newspaper from the Coptic Church and some from the evangelical, but mainly they would be accepted only in a church setting. So there is no mass media, no radio. So we had Christian radio, TransWorld Radio, that was being broadcast from—

[15:40] JONATHAN: South of France, yeah. Monaco.

[15:41] Farid: So you could only receive it at like 10:30 PM to 11:30 PM, and you have to be in an area where there’s not a lot of buildings and so on. It was a great blessing. Many people knew the Lord from it. But it didn’t serve the mass, those true seekers—Muslims, Christians, nominal Christians. So that was the case until ’96 when Christian satellite was there as a technology. The government didn’t allow it, but it was there.

[16:16] JONATHAN: So that's kind of your introduction into the television world in terms of Christianity.

[16:24] Farid: Yes. I mean, it’s now available. Can we break into that? After the study and this production house, I was able to share in lots of production. And before that, God had prepared me with working in dubbing Christian media, like Jesus Film, VeggieTales, Super Book, as an actor. And it was a great experience.

[16:55] JONATHAN: And where were those being broadcast?

[16:58] Farid: In one of the production houses that actually it’s like a Christian place but also recognized as a production house. So I got some training in that, and when the satellite started, I was one of the first ones that were ready to do a part.

[17:19] JONATHAN: So let’s kind of move the timeline forward as Christian media is now being produced. And at what point does the government allow satellite broadcasting?

[17:35] Farid: You know they didn’t allow it because satellite is broadcasted from abroad. So in order to stop it, they had to stop all the bouquet of channels, so they couldn’t do that. So it first started on one of the satellites that was Europe-based, but if you have a big satellite dish and receiver, you could receive it at home.

And it’s different than here in America. I mean, satellite in the Middle East is free to own. So you just spend maybe $15 or so to have a device recorder and you receive about two thousand channels. So among them are one Christian channel, so if the government wants to stop, they have to stop everything, so they couldn’t.

[18:31] JONATHAN: Right. There’d be too much backlash. [18:48] So let’s fast-forward. It’s 2009. You’re very busy. Tell us a little bit about what's going on in that year.

[18:57] Farid: Yeah. It was a very important year. At that time, I was busy doing production with different now-Christian satellites. They are more than one now and I already started as a part time in one of the satellite ministries out there and at the same time I was having my production house. And I read a book in one of my visits to Europe and America about Muslim testimonies. You never read those in Egypt, so I thought maybe I should film some. I was naïve. I didn’t know everything is like under surveillance. So I had this studio in my production house. I was doing lots of projects, but this one I said, okay, I need to be careful just in case, so I’ll do it in a secret environment.

But it wasn’t. So I filmed those testimonies and the following day I started to get visits from the national security. And the way it was done, it wasn’t like—they didn’t come and say, “We are the national security. WE want to investigate those Christian projects.” No. First they would send like one department of some kind of police, checking the social security or checking the telephone or electricity.

[20:40] JONATHAN: They were spying on you.

[20:42] Farid: They were—I mean, in Egypt, I mean, not all the businesses would have all the papers right. So the plan was to find something wrong to make a case against this office without saying it’s religious, just to keep the face for the media in the West. So they didn’t find anything wrong. It took like five weeks, several visits. So the last one they said, “Okay, there is a censorship case against you.” Usually, those are copyrights or not using original software, which is very common in Egypt. But my software was original. I had no violations. But the case was still there.

And then the national security officer called me in his office. I mean, before all that happened, God prepared me. I had this shooting day with kids at 9:00 AM.

[21:45] JONATHAN: Filming, yeah.

[21:46] Farid: Yeah, it was prepared and everything is in place and I had a dream or vision that I woke up early, like 5:00 AM, very alert with this impression that an officer or someone from the security will come and ask about me. And I knew this was from the Lord because it came with a sense of peace. It should be scary because I know what could happen.

[22:17] JONATHAN: Yeah, right. And you’ve got a wife and kids and—

[22:20] Farid: Yeah. It’s … So I started praying, like reading the Bible and committing the day to the Lord, and I met my friend and production manager at 7:00 AM. I said I had this dream, so I smiled and he said, “What do you want to do? Do you want to cancel shooting today?” I said, “No, no. But if the officer came, please call me outside not to scare the kids.”

And we started at 9:00 AM filming. Everything went all right until 3:00 PM I got the visit. They mainly told me “There is a warrant against you. Come to the national security office at 11:00 PM” at night. That's like usual part of the environment you’re put in. And at that meeting, the officer confronted me. “Why are you filming those infidels?” according to the apostate law, they were Muslims, now they are Christians, they are supposed to be under this apostasy law. Apostasy law in Islam if someone left Islam he’s supposed to be executed. It’s not applied in Egypt, but the concept is there, so it’s not allowed by the families or by the regime or—

[23:45] JONATHAN: Right. It’s an intimidation factor, yeah.

[23:47] Farid: Yeah, for the what they call the public peace and so on. And he said, “Why did you do that?”

I said, “I'm a professional director and filming what they have to say.”

And he said, “Yeah, but tell me how much would you take, I see you produce a lot of Christian content.”

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “Okay, this Christian music video,” it’s all like a lot of content from my production house. “How much do you take like to produce one?”

I said, “Yeah, like one thousand pounds.”

“Okay, what if you do like a music video, secular, mainstream one?” He said, “How much would you take?”

I said, “I will be like about fifteen.”

“Fifteen thousand to one thousand. So why would you choose to do the Christian work?”

I said, “I’d like you to watch one of those music videos, secular ones. Would you be happy to show them to your family, to your kids? I want my family to be proud about what I present.”

And he said, “Okay, why did you film those testimonies or stories. For them it’s like disaster.”

I said, “They … I mean, according to the constitution, we have freedom of speech, right?”

“Oh yeah, okay.” And he said, “Okay, do you have license for the production?”

I said, “Yes.”

And he started asking questions, and we ended up having a case of censorship. And I asked the lawyer at that time, “Okay, why is it censorship. I had nothing wrong.”

He said, “Yeah, because it’s national security, it’s classified. They cannot declare it.” And this lawyer was a Muslim. He said, “We’re going to win this.”

So God placed that lawyer after like four different lawyers, and that lawyer took maybe five months to one year, I think, until the case was resolved. And it was what was so-called Arab Spring, the revolution.

[26:00] JONATHAN: Yeah, the people will remember watching that footage back at 2011 and the revolution in the streets and the overthrow of Mubarak and then somewhat of an election that took place afterwards, yeah.

[26:18] Farid: Yes. And during that time, the case was released. And actually they had confiscated two of my editing machines. One of them had my first Christian evangelistic feature film footage and the other one had the backup, so it was unfortunate. I have many other agents witness, but then God really gave us favor in getting those back after all the police stations were burned and somehow God kept those editing suites and the footage, and this film was released and it was even screened here in America.

It’s an evangelistic movie about an immigrant who thinks that he’s persecuted because he’s Christian. He doesn’t know that his problem is he doesn’t have this relationship with God. So he comes here to America and finds that there is another set of challenges, and then he gets to know the Lord and then his life starts to take a positive turn and that film was here in cinemas in I think 2012 and it was shown in five states who have heavy Arabic-speakers population.

[27:46] JONATHAN: Well, this wasn’t your only run-in with the Egyptian authorities. You continue to produce content and then you find yourself in a similar situation—a worse situation.

[28:02] Farid: Yes. Now I have a file.

[28:06] JONATHAN: That's right.

[28:22] Farid: Yeah, during those years, God made a great awakening in Egypt after the revolution. It was both religious, ritual, biblical and also political for young people especially. And there was not a lot of control at that time, so a lot of ministries were able to go out and do more. One of them was this Christian satellite that I was part of, and God gave us a chance to do things we never were able to do before, like this prayer night, twelve-hours prayer gathering, around 35 thousand. That's like first time in Egypt. And they were gathered at the Cave Church, praying from night to morning, because police were not there. Usually, police does not allow this in the name of security and also—

[29:25] JONATHAN: I mean, just for context, this is after the election of—remind me his name.

[29:34] Farid: Sisi?

[29:35] JONATHAN: No. Before Sisi. Morsi. So this is after the election of Mohammed Morsi.

[29:41] Farid: No, this was in 2011.

[29:42] JONATHAN: In between. Okay, so this is after Mubarak has been sort of deposed.

[29:52] Farid: Yeah. I mean, the army was in control at that time, but there was no president, so there was some more freedom.

[29:59] JONATHAN: So there’s these all-night prayer meetings taking place in this Cave Church.

[30:04] Farid: Yeah. This was 11/11/2011, and it was a great night because it was from all non-official Christian leaders gathering together. And a lot of people, a lot Christians—and Muslims—gathered. Because of all what was happening, people were praying, “God, we need you in this country.”

And the satellite ministry I was in broadcasted that live. We experienced a lot of trials for interruption, but God miraculously allowed us to be alive. And a lot of the mainstream media were shocked to see what was happening with the number of people, the prayers for peace, including Al-Jazeera channel. So they called me and said, “Can we have your feed?” And I said, “Sure, of course.”

[31:01] JONATHAN: You said 35 thousand people gathered.

[31:03] Farid: Yes.

[31:04] JONATHAN: I mean, that's just hard to imagine.

[31:07] Farid: So a lot of these events took place, a lot of production, a lot of live programs on satellite, and people were all the time looking at news and they really were looking for hope. They lost trust in the government, they lose trust sometimes in their religious leaders, and they were looking for Jesus. And we presented the hope of Jesus Christ through satellite ministry.

So the regime came back in 2014 and another case was—I mean, the same scenario happened again. They came to the satellite ministry office, confiscated the machines, like a lot of people, I think there were eleven, twelve people, and they were looking for me. It was the weekend and I wasn’t there, so they called me. I went there and then direct to jail, to a case of five charges, very serious charges.

[32:12] JONATHAN: Each of them carried the penalty of fifteen to twenty-five years.

[32:15] Farid: The minimum. The minimum one of them. And of course, they were false accusations, but in those cases, it doesn’t matter.

[32:29] JONATHAN: Justice may not prevail.

[32:30] Farid: Yeah, it was serious, but the team members started praying, and actually many prayers around the world started because this time it was this Christian ministry, so it was well known. When this happened in 2009 in my office, nobody knew because it’s like my private thing. But now many people started to pray. But it wasn’t the only case at that time. I mean, the regime started to be back and there was a message through different things. Okay, the regime is back, everything needs to be back now in law and order according to our system. So those who took more freedom politically, they need to go back to their borders, to their limit. Christians who have been talking and doing a lot of ministry, no, they need to stop.

[33:25] JONATHAN: Restricted freedoms, yeah.

[33:28] Farid: Islamists need to do the same. So they closed a lot of Muslim channels and they had many cases against activists and the revolutionists. And this was the biggest satellite ministry, so this was like a statement that no one needs … everyone needs to go back to the original setup. You should know your limits. Don’t evangelize Muslims, don’t get too involved in politics and so on.

So this case was very serious, and I got very scared. Just I remember in jail that night just thinking. I read the law, and it seemed like I’ll not go out. And just thinking of my three kids and my wife and said, “Lord, what is going to happen?” I got really … it’s like a panic attack what would happen.

And the other prisoner that was in the same cell had smuggled a cell phone, so he said, “Yeah, do you want to talk to your family?” I said, “Yes.” “Okay, I’ll give you a call. Let them transfer $15 for each minute.”

So I called my wife, and she said, “We’re praying for you.” And my eleven-years daughter said, “We’re praying for you and I want to share with you the verse from Joshua, ‘Be courageous and be strong.’” And it communicated to my spirit.

In the first case, my wife was afraid. She used to walk in the streets with the kids, holding her passports in her case because it was so scary with all those visits. But this time, I was scared, she was confident, and she encouraged me. And my daughter, my kids, at that time they were very young, but somehow God gave them peace, although I was in jail.

And miraculously, God resolved this case. And you won’t believe this, Jonathan, but all the cases that were initiated at that time are not resolved till today.

[36:02] JONATHAN: Except for yours.

[36:03] Farid: Yeah. It was a miracle. I can tell you details, but it was a miracle by the hand of God. And yeah, so I—

Actually, it was a very special testimony for me during those times. I was released from jail, but the case was still there, so I had a conversation with God. And I said, “God, I am scared. I think it’s time to flee the country.”

And I felt in my spirit God is saying no. I said, “Why, God? There are biblical escapes. Joseph and Mary and the baby. Could this be one?”

[36:46] JONATHAN: Peter, Paul.

[36:47] Farid: Yeah. Can you let me go? How do I face those charges? There was no way this case is going to be resolved. And God asked me one question. He said, “Do you believe what you present on screen, or this is separate from you actually?”

[37:08] JONATHAN: Is your faith in the thing that you stand behind as a broadcast, yeah, yeah.

[37:13] Farid: “Is it only for commercial or is it real? Do you believe I can resolve this no matter what laws are there, no matter what situation?”

And I met with my mentors, I prayed with my wife, and I spent time with the Lord the same night, and I ended up saying, “God, I’m yours and I have peace to stay and I am not afraid but I trust you will take care of this, whatever happens.”

And I returned the flight ticket I had booked. Actually, my wife said, when I said that, she felt like I’m under a lot of pressure. She said, “Yeah, you can buy a ticket and we have twenty-four hours to return it for free.” And I returned the ticket and it took those five months of investigations, visiting court and all that, but it was resolved. And I spent a few more months in the same ministry and I felt it’s time to move on and I felt, okay, I need now some time to pray and see what is next. I had confidence through prayer and through checking with my leaders that it is time for me to move on. But I stayed until God said yes and got the blessing of the leaders and family and all that. And I became independent now, not knowing what to do, and spent some time to pray and ask God what's next.

[39:02] JONATHAN: And what was next? You had a special introduction, you read a book, you read another book.

[39:12] Farid: Yeah! You know I was in a trip in 2014 while being very busy with my production house and our satellite ministry, so in that trip to Lebanon, I had some free time at night. I finished meetings and I selected a book from the library, and it was Dr. Youssef’s book, Trust and Obey. And I couldn’t stop reading it until I finished it, because I could resonate with him. And now I know Dr. Youssef from satellite, I know his faithfulness to the Word of God, but I don’t know him as a person. I mean, I know him as a minister, as a speaker.

So his testimony in Trust and Obey was very fascinating for me. I could visualize what he was telling in his book about his upbringing and all his stages he went through, because of course, my journey was much shorter, different, but I could understand a lot of what he was saying from being there in this culture that he was brought in.

And I said this book should be filmed sometime, I mean this testimony. But I have no way of doing that. And so it took two years, and now I am free after 2016. I now have no job. I went to Germany, where my wife’s family are having ministry there, and we stayed there a few months to pray and seek God, and then I got an invitation from Joshua Youssef. “Why don’t you come to help us at the Kingdom Sat?”

I said, “I just moved from Egypt to Germany. I’m not sure what's coming.”

He said, “Yeah, pray about it and maybe you can start on a contractor basis, as a consultant.”

So I said, yes, that seems good. I prayed about it, of course, and I started coming here to the Kingdom Sat, Leading The Way, and started coming every month for one week or so. And after six months, I had total peace about it and I said, “Yes, Joshua, if you still feel there is a place for me.”

He said yes. I met with Dr. Youssef, of course, and they took around one more year to do the visa work and so on, and then I came and joined Kingdom Sat. That was in 2017.

[41:46] JONATHAN: Tell us about Kingdom Sat. For our listeners who maybe aren’t familiar, broadcasting started in 2009, you joined the team in 2017. Who does it reach? Where does it go? What's the fruit that’s being borne from it?

[42:07] Farid: Yeah, the Kingdom Sat is a vision of Dr. Youssef. God gave him the vision in 2004, and it took five years in the making because he wanted to have a solid, biblical channel that broadcast the best of the east and the best of the west in terms of Bible teaching. And God used Maged Atalla, my colleague, to start this. He’s an engineer. He made a great foundation following the vision of Dr. Youssef and a lot of partners who came together with Dr. Youssef to present their content on the Kingdom Sat that's being translated into Arabic. So this was a big part of what's being broadcasted on the Kingdom Sat, along with selected Bible teachers from the Middle East as well.

So it was a great foundation. So I came on a great foundation on a time where social media was coming, live broadcast was being introduced more and more, and when I joined, Joshua asked me, “What proposal do you have for the Kingdom Sat? What do you think?”

And I presented a proposal and mainline I met with him and Dr. Youssef and said, “This is what I think. I think Kingdom Sat is a great channel, but it’s more like radio. If you turn the screen off and only listen, you don’t lose anything. We have a great tool. We can present visuals. We can do more. So I think it’s great, but one of the things that we need to do is doing more formats, more genres. We need to reach more people—especially those who are underprivileged like women, kids, young people in the Middle East. And we need to reach out to the non-Christians.

He said, “Yeah, this is our vision.” And actually Dr. Youssef said, “Yeah, actually we made a survey and this is what we reached.” And he quoted one of the friends in Egypt. He told them “the Kingdom Sat is like a big, huge, elegant department store, but you enter and you found only navy blue suits, size 42.”

And he laughed at that and they said, “Yes, we want to do more.”

And I started working on that, like different lines like having broadcasting live, like have live broadcasts, especially from Church of the Apostles. And this was a continuation for the people in the Middle East to know what's this vision. Who is Dr. Youssef? Who is Jonathan? Who are those singers in the Church of the Apostles? And I think that made a great connection, especially with those who don’t have churches, like in Nigeria or those places—

[45:25] JONATHAN: Where you're isolated and—

[45:27] Farid: And they write on Facebook when we broadcast live. For example, when you’re preaching they would say, “Oh Jonathan, God bless you and God bless your father. God bless the church,” as if they are there in the church. And in the communion time, they will talk “We don’t have a church, so we’re taking communion with you now. We’re praying.”

And the first time in Easter 2018 it was the first time to do live, God encouraged us by two Arabic speakers in the Middle East giving their lives to the Lord. So it was encouragement so we started that once a month, then during the COVID time, we started to do it on a regular basis. So it’s a great blessing to have these live broadcasts. And we started to introduce a lot of digital platforms, like Apple TV, Roku, Smartphone application. We updated the website and streaming. So we started to add more genres, add more partners from the west and east, so a lot of things happened.

And today the Kingdom Sat reaches 260 million households in the Middle East, and they receive this ministry for free. And anyone with an internet connection can receive the content of the Kingdom Sat.

[46:47] JONATHAN: And let’s talk a little bit about the follow-up process, because you have people that are standing by phones to answer calls. What are some of the questions and feedback that you get from the broadcast?

[47:03] Farid: A lot of viewers are very true seekers, even those from Muslim background, and they are faithful. They really seek God. So they send questions, sometimes in a provoking way, sometimes attacking, but they keep watching. They will attack one time, and then the field team would respond to them in a graceful way and helping them, so they would come back, watch again, and raise another question. And we have great testimonies of those viewers that only watched by chance the Kingdom Sat, they watch some program, and they would keep interacting with us until they become Christians, they commit their lives to the Lord, and they get baptized. Then they join an online study group for discipleship or we would connect them with a local church. So this is one type of persons, those true seekers. And as I said, it changes from very extreme attackers to true seekers that are ready to accept Christ.

And the second persona we serve is the new believers. Some people knew the Lord through the Kingdom Sat or online or somewhere else but they don’t have a place to grow.

[48:37] JONATHAN: They need discipleship, yeah.

[48:39] Farid: Yeah, and not to compare, but the Kingdom Sat is very distinct about presenting biblical teaching, solid. Other ministries would present this shallow content that we spoke about. So that's the second persona, like new believers. Third persona is mature believers who are in ministry, for example, and they want to grow, they want to learn. And some of those viewers would write, for example, in YouTube, “I am watching the series so-and-so for Dr. Youssef. Where is episode number 15? I want to finish it tonight!”

[49:19] JONATHAN: We’re on top of you. That's right.

[49:21] Farid: So they are the three main personas. There are subcategories, but we have a great field team that is dealing 24/7 with any viewer who has a question or he wants a prayer request or they ask even other, general questions.

[49:39] JONATHAN: And what's the risk for those people that are on the ground, field team workers? I mean, you’re working in a hostile environment. It’s not like you’re in Oklahoma fielding calls. You’re in the thick of it.

[49:54] Farid: That have the same risk I faced. And yeah, I mean, but again what I experienced. They are also in the protection of God. But they could be charged, they could be persecuted, detained, or all this could happen in an indirect way by the community, by their families. But this doesn’t stop them. Most of those in the field team are coming from a Muslim background, have theology degree, so that's their life goal, their vision.

[50:39] JONATHAN: Well Farid, your story is just … it’s fascinating to me the beginning with the drama, you coming to the West, coming to America, then going back, facing the adversities, then coming back here and now you're presenting on a global stage the very thing that led you to the Lord. And we’re just so thankful for the work that you do and the work of the Kingdom Sat. And we’re so grateful that you took the time to sit with us and share your story here on Candid Conversations. Thank you for being with us.

[51:13] Farid: Thank you, Jonathan. It’s an honor to be here, and it’s great to be in the kitchen how things are done here. And I see the hand of the Lord every day in this, in your family, in the ministry of the Church of the Apostles, Leading The Way, and it’s God work and I’m very grateful to be here.

[51:35] JONATHAN: Well, we’re grateful for you. Thank you, Farid.

[51:36] Farid: Thank you.

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 250: Understanding the Future Promise of Heaven: Dr. Michael Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 21 May 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Is there something more than this life? This world is full of crises, conflicts, difficulties, and troubles, but this world will not last. No matter your age, your earthly life is slowly slipping away. This is why Jesus encourages us not to store up treasures on this earth but to invest in heaven.

In this 250th episode of Candid Conversations, Dr. Michael Youssef joins Jonathan for a father-son conversation about his new book, Heaven Awaits. This book is written to help you understand the future promise of heaven in Christ Jesus. Explore what the Bible says about heaven and envision the wonders and glories awaiting those who believe in Christ.

Heaven is real, far more real than your earthly experience right now.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

TRANSCRIPT:

This transcript recounts Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef Episode 250: Understanding the Future Promise of Heaven: Dr. Michael Youssef

[00:01] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Today, we have a very special guest in Dr. Michael Youssef. And he comes on our program because he’s written another book. And we have you on quite often because you write a lot of books.

[00:17] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Thank you. And I’m glad to be in your Dr. Youssef show now, Dr. Jonathan Youssef.

[00:23] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: And we have to change the title.

[00:24] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Congratulations.

[0:25] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Thank you very much. You have written a book on heaven. This is your first book on heaven as far as I’m aware. Tell us about why.

[00:39] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF I’ve thought of heaven since I was a young man. I’ve never really been away from that thought. But also I am seeing so much confusion, so much confusion—not just in the world at large, which you can understand the devil sold us a lie in order to deceive people, but the churches are now confused, pastors are confused about heaven. And the world basically entered into their hearts, into their thinking, and everything is about this life, this life, this life, which is a very tragic situation that we find ourselves in as a Church of Jesus Christ. And my biggest concern is to alert and wake up the bride of Christ as to their greatest day, and it’s yet to come.

Where you’re going to spend eternity is so important. In fact, the very first story I open up the book with was back in 1977. In February of ’77, my wife and I and two little ones came here from Australia. But we’ve done a lot of research finding out where we’re going to live, what the country is about, what the culture is about, and so on, and this is just for a place we’re going to live for two years, which we did, in Pasadena.

And how much more should we be doing those same preparations and research for where we’re going to be forever? I mean, just think. People can’t fathom that. Because they can’t fathom it, they take it out of their mind forever and ever and ever.

[02:34] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: —Gives you a little bit of a buzz, doesn’t it, just the thought of it. Yeah, because everything we know comes to an end. This is the only thing I think we can consider has no end.

[02:44] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Exactly. And the point I make even in the early part of the book is that there is only one ticket that takes you to heaven, and that is the ticket that's stamped with the blood of Jesus. I say there are a lot of fake tickets out there. that have been handed by Satan through Hollywood, through false churches, through false teachers and false preachers.

[03:12] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Or your own mind.

[03:13] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Or your own mind. But those are the tickets that are not going to get you to heaven. Only the one that's stamped with the blood of Jesus Christ. On what basis do I have the confidence that I’m going to heaven? The blood of Jesus Christ, period. My ticket’s stamped with that blood.

[03:26] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: That leads us to the next topic, which is let’s talk a little bit about the misconceptions out there, and you can blend the two—but coming from the Hollywood mentality. Are those the same as what you see in churches that have lost their way? Are they different?

[03:53] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Slightly different, but they lead to the same hell.

[03:57] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Right. They go to the same place.

[03:58] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Because Hollywood and the New Age movement, even with this lady who supposedly died and went to heaven and came back and she was interviewed by Oprah, and she said to her, she said, “Jesus told me He’s not going to judge anybody. Live any which way you want.”

And then Oprah said, “Well, if I think Jesus is as cool as I think He is, He would have said that to you.”

[04:21] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Contradicting Himself? [overlapping voices]

[04:26] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Yeah. And so the fact that everybody is going to go to heaven is absolute lie from the pit of hell. But then you go into the other side of things in some traditional churches and some mainline churches who said if you’re good you go to heaven. Well, I’m good. Sure, I’m not perfect, but I’m good, so everybody sees themselves as good.

[04:50] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: According to whose standard, right?

[04:51] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF And they are contradicting the Bible, because the Bible said no one is good. I had an email came third-hand to me. A guy said, “I love that statement on page 47,” and I still remember it because he said, “You said only bad people in heaven. The only good person in heaven is Jesus.”

And those are the redeemed people who recognize they’re sinners and they cannot make it to heaven without Jesus. And that's what really I meant by it. But he said, “That just gave me such confidence and comfort to know that I’m redeemed by the blood of Christ and that's the only way I’m going to heaven.”

And so I’m so glad so many people are now sending me comments and saying how much this book has encouraged them in their walk with Christ. And the whole reason—not only to refute all these falsehoods—but another reason for writing the book is I want to put people on the right track to realize that heaven is not, well, in the by and by when I die, but heaven is now. Heaven influences my thoughts, decisions, investments, and money—where I put my money. Is it in heaven or is the inflation going to eat it up? And so all these are very important decisions.

C. S. Lewis made a statement years ago that impacted me, has been for nearly fifty years since I read it. He said, you know, they talk about “Oh, he’s so heavenly minded, he’s of no earthly good.” I’ve heard that so many times, even back in the sixties, seventies, and he said if you examine history, you find that only those who were heavenly minded were of any earthly good and he goes on to give examples.

I mean, I think Lord Shaftesbury, who impacted the culture in England probably like very few people said, “There was not a day went by without me thinking of heaven.” And that's what caused him to be a reformist. Wilberforce fought for forty years to outlaw slavery. That's because of the thought of heaven.

And so anybody who says, “Well, heaven is just going to be distracting from what you’re doing now,” absolutely lies.

[07:15] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: No, it’s a driving force.

[07:16] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Exactly. And I tell people all the time, unashamedly, I work, and I work harder at seventy-five than I did when I was forty-five or twenty-five, and simply because I live for one thing: hearing those words from Jesus’s lips, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

[07:36] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: There’s also the misconception that it can be earned, you can do enough good works. Not necessarily about being a good person, but that the works are sort of counterbalancing you in this either sort of a karma sense or a works righteousness from a theological mindset.

[07:56] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF This is as old as my ancestors, the ancient Egyptians.

[08:00] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: It might be as old as the Garden.

[08:03] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Probably. But I remember even growing up in Egypt and studying Egyptian pharaonic history and seeing some of the pictures that go back five thousand years, and the scale. And the scale was held by one of the gods.

[08:20] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Like a weight scale.

[08:21] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF A weight scale, yeah. And you see here’s your good deeds versus your bad deeds and you’ve got to make the good deeds outweigh the bad deeds. But again, another lie from the pit of Satan’s hell. And we need to be absolutely certain that people understand that you’re not going to heaven based on anything you’ve done, but it’s based on the grace of God that He has given you through Jesus Christ. Period.

Then the rewards in heaven are a whole different story. And that requires faithfulness if you want to be rewarded. There are five crowns in the Bible it talks about. Faithfulness, there’s a crown for those who love His appearing. There’s all kinds of crowns. And those are not crowns we will just kind of put on our heads, but the crowns that we will take and lay at the feet of Jesus in our gratitude and thanksgiving for saving us.

[09:23] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: I think a lot of people like to imagine and picture what heaven looks like. Fill in some of the gaps for people who have maybe an incomplete view. There’s the picture of the sitting on a cloud playing a harp, wearing a robe, singing nonstop, just being bored.

[09:47] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Right. It’s medieval art.

[09:49] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Exactly.

[09:51] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF The cherubic, fat kids—

[09:53] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Yeah, we’ll all be fat babies.

[09:54] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF And absolutely it is absolute falsehood. And I’m not even big on these so-called heavenly tourism. Why do I listen to somebody who says they died and came back when I—Paul himself, when he was taken into heaven, he said, “I’m not allowed to even talk about it.” And when I have the real deal, I have Jesus, who tells me exactly what heaven is like.

[10:23] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: That’s all you need.

[10:24] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF And that's what I do in the book, Heaven Awaits. I stick with the Word of God. I see people go off the rails when they deviate, and so my focus is the Word of God. I’m always having people on social media ask me, am I a Calvinist, and I Arminian, am I a dispensationalist, a postmillennialist, a premillennialist. I’m none of these. I’m a Bible-believing Christian—that is, if it’s in the book of God I’m going to believe it and preach it, but not try to be a follower of a man theory. I follow Jesus and I try to focus on that until the Lord takes me home. I will not deviate from it, no matter how much the pressure is put on me.

[11:14] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: All right, so let’s fill in some of the pictures for people. Let’s talk about our bodies. There’s a lot of concepts. We can even take a step future back, the idea of soul sleep or … Fill in a little bit of those gaps for us.

[11:35] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Sure. Well, this is again following some man’s theory, theological theory.

[11:43] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Or misinterpretation of texts.

[11:46] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF But you know when you think about this, so much thing about the end times eschatology now is driven by a theory that was devised by a man in Plymouth, England, in 1825 by the name of John Nelson Darby. Most of them would not know this, but that's what they are. They are doing only following somebody, you know, chart. I follow the Bible. I stick with the Word of God. And there is no soul sleep in the Bible. The Bible talks about sleep of the believer. This is to indicate that it’s temporary. Jesus died, but we sleep. He took our death so that when we die, we only sleep—it’s a temporary thing because immediately our soul goes into heaven, according to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and Paul says it’s not going to be floating souls in heaven. When the disciples of Jesus were in the Mount of Transfiguration, they didn’t see the soul of Elijah and the soul of Moses; they saw them in a glorified body. In fact, Peter was so ecstatic, he wanted to hang in there for a long time.

[13:02] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Let’s camp here for a bit.

[13:03] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Yeah. And so these are glorified bodies in heaven. When we die, there is a body that's prepared for us in heaven. It’s a body like Jesus’s body after the resurrection. And those are bodies that are totally righteous and holy, and therefore, we would be able to see the face of God when Moses couldn’t see the face of God, but we will. Because we can never see the face of God in this body.

[13:34] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Those bodies are indestructible and not ravaged by the effects of the Fall and sin.

[13:42] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF In fact, I think it’s the mercy of God that Moses did not see the face of God. He would be incinerated because in this sinful body we can’t do it. But in the glorified body that is immediately prepared for us as soon as we enter heaven in a glorified body, we will be able to see and do and have no physical limitation, no pain, no suffering. And all of those promises in the Scripture are very clear.

[14:12] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: I don’t remember reading it in the book, but I mean there’s a sense that there will be gardening and working and building and we’ll be active. We’re not just sitting around.

[14:25] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF No. In fact, John said in Revelation “and the servants to serve Him.” And the Bible says that we’re going to reign and rule with Christ. Think of the universe, and our God is sitting on the rim of the universe right now, ruling and reigning, and we’re going to be participating in that. It’s mindboggling. Sometimes I let my mind soar, but then I bring myself back to reality.

[14:48] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Levitate for a moment.

[14:49] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF But yeah, it’s incredible when you think about it. We will be working. We will be serving, and we’ll be doing great things for God. We’re praising Him, of course, thanking Him. I just try to imagine that moment and I get so overwhelmed I want to go.

[15:05] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Let’s talk a little bit about fears and perspectives, the things that can kind of creep in and the enemy can try and steal—

[15:14] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF One of the things that also is prevalent, particularly among those so-called “progressive” churches or liberal churches, I’ll never forget thirty-five years ago I was having a discussion with one of those so-called “liberal”—ministers in one of those churches and we were talking about heaven. And he said, “How arrogant of you to think that you’re good enough to go to heaven.”

I said, “That's exactly the falsehood that you believe, and that's you think a person is going to heaven based on his good, how good he is or she is.” But I only have the confidence because Jesus promised it. And that is really the most important thing that we need to emphasis. People don’t think that we are just full of ourselves. We think we’re better than everybody else. We’re going to heaven and you’re not. No, no, no, no, no. I’m only assured of heaven because Jesus said so. He promised it. And God keeps His promises.

[16:16] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Despite my sinful nature, despite—

[16:20] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Yeah. In fact, it’s because of my acknowledging of my sinful nature and my need for salvation.

[16:25] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Yeah. To your point, it’s not good people in heaven; it’s bad people in heaven who had the goodness of Christ because He covers us.

[16:31] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF We’re born again.

[16:32] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Yeah. And let’s move to that because you have a chapter on what does it mean to be born again and looking at Nicodemus. Talk to us a little bit about—Because the question does remain, well then, who is in heaven? And I know we talked a little bit about that earlier, but let’s fill that picture out.

[16:49] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Those who are born again. What does it mean to be born again? That's very important. That's the message I take to evangelistic events and when I preach. It’s a very important message. Because to be born physically means you’re alive physically. And so to be born spiritually, it means you are spiritually alive. How come? Because every one of us, every human being who is ever born of a woman was born spiritually dead. I mean, physically alive, running around, but spiritually dead. Not comatose, dead, dead, dead. And so when the Holy Spirit opens our eyes and then we spiritually become awake and alive, that's born again. That's when you become born of the Spirit. Jesus said you’re going to be born of the Spirit of God because God has to do something on the inside of us to change us.

And I remember that day like yesterday when my whole life changed. My views of everything just changed overnight. Of course, it’s taken me sixty years of walking with Christ to grow in the knowledge and so forth, but that day was the beginning when I knew that it was totally transformed by the power of God and I became conscious of sin and confession of my sin and the closeness with God and the thirsting for righteousness and all of that.

[18:19] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: I remember as a boy when you would preach on heaven you would always talk about that this life was like a dress rehearsal. And it’s interesting because you were talking about you remember the moment when you became spiritually awake, but in the sixty-odd years, you’ve grown in your sanctification, you’ve grown in your knowledge and love for the Lord.

They talk about the theological concept of the already and the not yet. Like you said, there’s a concept now in my mind and an understanding of the reality of heaven, and I’m now living in preparation for that, and that's what the Christian life is preparing you for.

[19:00] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Well, just as, you know, I sought to set an example for you and your siblings, I had others who set that example for me. My grandfather and my mother, they set the example of their being motivated by heaven, and therefore, they have done so much on the Earth because of their motivation of heaven. And so I am so grateful for their example, and I sought to also set an example, not just for you as my family and children, but also to congregations and people that I minister to. I told one of our pastoral care ministers one time, I said, you know, I have been privileged to teach for now fifty-two years since I was ordained to show people how to live for Christ. I don’t know how the Lord is going to take me home, whether it’s going to be sudden or not, that's in His sovereign will. Either way He does it is fine by me. But if He privileged me to have a slow death that I pray that I will be able to teach people how to die in Christ. I taught them how to live in Christ, now how to die in Christ is very important.

[20:21] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: We can’t have a conversation about heaven without having a conversation about hell. And thankfully, you do have a chapter in your book that delves into that. Let’s go there.

[20:40] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Okay, well, as you know, I have never preached on hell without tears. Sometimes I mean broken down completely, not just shedding a tear or two. And the reason I do that and the reason—actually it’s out of my control; if it was in my control, I wouldn’t cry—but the reason I do is because I know hell is real. Just as heaven is real, hell is real. It’s a place, and there is going to be suffering, the Bible called that the lake of fire. The Bible talks about the worms that do not die, and the fire that would not die, and the gnashing of teeth. And the descriptions, a dark place where you feel falling all the time but there is no bottom. And it goes on and on and on.

I try to put those descriptions that Jesus gave us, not—

[21:27] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Not your own mind or some philosopher.

[21:28] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF —or fantasies of other people. It’s what Jesus said. And the Bible makes it clear: hell was prepared for Satan and his angels. That is for whom hell was prepared. Unfortunately and sadly, there are so many who follow Satan who will end up with him in that lake of fire. And I have dedicated my life and whatever years I’ve got left, or days, it doesn’t matter, I am dedicating them to warn people why should you perish? Why should you follow Satan, who takes you straight into that eternal life of torment?

You say, “How do you know that?” Well, Jesus, again. He talked about Lazarus and the rich man. This is before His own resurrection, before His own opening paradise for the believers, where they were still in a waiting, holding pattern, as it were. But even then, before Christ’s resurrection, they were in two different places: one is a torment and pain and suffering and burning of the tongue, and the other one is a joy in what they used to call the bosom of Abraham.

And so the conversation goes on, the man cries out from Hades to Abraham and he said, “Please send Lazarus,” the guy whom he didn’t even pay a minute’s notice, he said, “Send him with a drop of water in his finger to just cool my tongue and give me relief.”

Had he said, “We have a huge gap between us. We cannot cross to you and you cannot cross to us.” And that is what really makes me cry and weep, because once you cross over to the other side, there is no return. No matter how much you try and say, “I repent, I change now.” No, no, it’s too late. It’s like the days of Noah—and Jesus said that—it’s like the days of Noah. And he kept warning, 120 years he’s been preaching—it’s so difficult for me even to comprehend. And there’s, “No, no,” and made fun of him. And then in the end, of course, when the flood came, “Okay, we’ll get in.” No, no, no. God shut the door.

God will shut the door one day, and so my longing, the longing of … the longing of my heart (and I do this in the book, especially that last chapter) is I’m pleading with people, come to Christ now. The opportunity is now. The moment is now. The hour is now. Don’t put it off. And in the end, it’s like Ezekiel says. If you warn people and they get into trouble, you’re innocent. And that's what I want to be, a watchman who’s innocent. But if I didn’t warn them and I know danger was coming, then I have their blood on my hand, and I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want blood on my hand.

[24:29] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Let’s just sort of, as we conclude, who’s the book for and why should they buy it?

[24:37] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Actually, this book is for everyone. Seldom do I say that because there are some books specifically. But this is for the believer, to encourage them and uplift them; for the non-believer to be forewarned and give them a chance to turn to Christ. So really, a believer will read it and be encouraged, but then give it to somebody who needs to know about the plan of salvation and hopefully then you—

[25:00] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Someone who has a false view of heaven.

[25:01] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Exactly. And then you, who will give that book to somebody else, will be receiving the reward, even more than me who has written, because you have been an instrument of God of handing this warning to people and telling them to wake up while it’s time.

[25:21] JONATHAN YOUSSEF: Yeah, yeah. Well, the book is Heaven Awaits: Anticipate Your Future Hope, Your Eternal Home, Your Daily Reality by Dr. Michael Youssef. Dad, thank you so much for returning and gracing us once again with your presence on Candid Conversations.

[25:38] DR. MICHAEL YOUSSEF Thank you Dr. Jonathan Youssef. Thank you for your ministry. I appreciate it.

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 249: Recovering Our Sanity: How the Fear of God Conquers the Fears That Divide Us: Dr. Michael Horton

web@ltw.org (Michael Horton, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 14 May 2024 04:00:00 +0000

In this profound episode, Jonathan is joined by esteemed theologian and author Michael Horton to discuss his latest book, "Recovering Our Sanity: How the Fear of God Conquers the Fears that Divide Us." In a world teetering on the brink of chaos—from unsettling politics to the lingering effects of the global pandemic—Horton's book offers not a typical self-help guide but a deep theological exploration of how a proper fear of God can liberate us from our myriad earthly fears.

Dr. Horton, Professor of Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary, explains what it truly means to fear God—both biblically and theologically—and how this reverential fear can effectively drive out fears of the future, others, and even death itself.

Throughout the episode, Dr. Horton discusses the different types of fears that plague our society—from cultural anxieties to personal struggles—and how these stem from a lack of genuine fear of God. He emphasizes confronting our earthly fears with the hope found in Christ, rooted in the Gospel, and the shift from self-preservation to a Christ-focused life.

This episode is a humbling, thought-provoking, and hope-igniting journey that challenges listeners to replace false securities with the profound joy of knowing Christ, who commands us, "Do not be afraid." Join us as we explore how cultivating a healthy fear of God can recover our sanity in these turbulent times.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

TRANSCRIPT:

This transcript recounts Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef Episode 249: Recovering Our Sanity: How the Fear of God Conquers the Fears That Divide Us: Michael Horton.

[00:01] Jonathan: My very special guest is Mike Horton. He is a professor of systematic theology and apologetics at Westminster Seminary in California, and he is the author of many books, including The Christian Faith Ordinary and Core Christianity. He also hosts the White Horse Inn radio program. He lives with his wife, Lisa, and their four children in Escondido, California, and it looks like he’s on his back patio, having a conversation with me and being very gracious with his time. Mike Horton, thank you so much for taking the time to be on Candid Conversations.

[00:45] Michael: Thank you, Jonathan.

[00:50] Jonathan: I do thank you for your time. Now Mike, I’ve read your books, I have subscribed and I do recommend all of our listeners subscribe to the White Horse Inn. If you could just give us a quick, whirlwind tour of your story, we can talk a little bit about the podcast and some of your books as we progress through the interview.

[01:19] Michael: Well, thank you, Jonathan. Yeah, I was raised in a Christian home and came to understand the doctrines of grace partly through my older brother. Kind of had my own little, not little, my own Romans revolution and then started digging deeper into Church history and theology and biblical studies, and eventually went to Biola University, Westminster California, then to Oxford for doctoral studies and then post-doc at Yale and came back to teach at my alma mater and have been here for 25 years. Blessed to be able to have a hand, with my colleagues, in training pastors; pastors training pastors.

[02:17] Jonathan: I’ve been a recipient of many of the students of Westminster Seminary who taught me at Reformed Theological Seminary in Atlanta, and I’ve been really blessed by your work. You’ve got a very jovial, friendly, California vibe to you, but when you speak, you’re like a double-edged sword. It’s so penetrating. And I think there could be a theological issue that I’ve been struggling with for months and you’ll say it so concisely in a few sentences, and I’ll think, Where was that when I needed that?

[03:09] Michael: You’re too kind. Thank you.

[03:11] Jonathan: Tell us a little bit about the White Horse Inn. It has been on for something like thirty years.

[03:17] Michael: Yeah, thirty-plus, almost thirty-five years now. It has been such a fun thing. I’ve learned so much from my colleagues on the program. I still learn from the new team. We produce a magazine, too, Modern Reformation Magazine, which is really—I encourage people to subscribe to that. It’s a good digest of topical theology related to culture. The umbrella organization is called Sola Media, and one of the things that we do that I’m so excited about being a part of is called Theo Global, where we host theological conversations (like we do on the White Horse Inn) between Baptist, Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican traditions and bring people together from a particular region. So we’ve been doing it for eleven years in India and also almost that long in Nigeria or in Kenya, in Nairobi. And then also Cairo for the Middle East. We just did one in Thailand that Pakistanis and Indians were able to come to, because they’re not able usually to see each other. And then we are, Lord willing, starting another one in Southeast Asia, probably Singapore.

So these have been so rich. Out of them are coming, a series of theology books from the global church to the global church. And so instead of having just regional theologies or theologies that pretend that they’re not culturally contextual, we want to hear the voices of people from different locations testifying to the same Gospel, and that's just really been lots of fun.

[05:42] Jonathan: Well, having ministered near that area of the world in Australia, you’re right, there can be a disconnect between the cultures. We read each other’s books and that sort of thing, and those are Western cultures, but I think we miss out on hearing about what is happening in Southeast Asia, Because they do face similar obstacles but also some quite different. As one of the points of your book is, there is still the one true God and the one Gospel that reaches across those cultures and reaches across so many of those things that we would consider barriers. And I think that's wonderful. I pray the Lord would bless that.

[06:30] Michael: Thank you. One of the things I find, Jonathan, is there is a sweet unity around the Gospel that binds us when I go to these other places. Wherever I am in the world, I don’t feel like I’m a stranger because I’m with my brothers and sisters. I wish I felt the same way in America. It’s very different here.

[06:51] Jonathan: Yeah, I was going to say it’s interesting that what you’re doing is you’re unifying and uniting across denominations, across cultural things, and yet that's working almost in the opposite direction of where we see things here, which is there’s division within denominations; there’s division within small regions. You’re undoing what is happening on a bigger scale in some of the Western parts. It’s exciting to hear that's not happening everywhere, that there’s actually some unification taking place and that's encouraging. And I know that’s going to be an aspect of what we talk about in our conversation about one of your new books.

Now, I know that you had some health issues with your heart a couple of years ago. Maybe for some of our audience who didn’t know or having heard any updates, are you healthy?

[07:54] Michael: Thanks for asking. Yes, what it was was a valve that just exploded in my heart, so it was an emergency open-heart surgery. But they said—they know my arteries and my heart better than anybody, they said, you’ll die of something, but it won’t be of heart disease. You have a good heart; you have good arteries; this was just a fluke.

[08:24] Jonathan: Unbelievable.

[08:25] Michael: So—yeah. I’m fully recovered. They said I could go bungee jumping again if I want to.

[08:32] Jonathan: Again. I’m glad that you were already doing that—I picked up your book a while ago and I’ve been wanting to have you on the podcast ever since reading it. And the book is called Recovering Our Sanity: How the Fear of God Conquers the Fears that Divide Us. And my goodness, what a perfect title for everything we see. Give us a little bit of the reason for writing and the timing of the book.

[09:18] Michael: Well, it had been percolating for years now, actually. I wrote a book many years ago called Beyond Culture Wars: Is America a Mission Field or a Battlefield? And this is in a similar vein, but really in light of the fears that really divide us today. And the center used to be the Bible, the Gospel, getting the Gospel right and getting the Gospel out. We have our doctrinal differences across the evangelical mainstream, but basically we had different political views and those political views didn’t divide between brothers and sisters and churches.

And what I’ve seen lately has just been like a food fight in a cafeteria, and political issues and social issues raised to the level of the Trinity. And it’s like, okay, well, we can argue about that over coffee, but we don’t bring it into the church. That used to be kind of how people thought about things. These things are important, but they’re not as important as our unity in Christ. But I hear people attacking pastors, pastors attacking their flock, back and forth over these issues. And I think people don’t get this heated over the doctrine of election or justification or the Trinity. Does it suggest that these issues are deeper in our hearts than the truth of Christianity, so what really binds us?

And I looked at it and I said what really binds us is salvation, what we think we’re saved from. If we think we’re saved from the people over there who are threatening our values, or the people over there who are different from us ethnically, or the people over there who have a different view of economics and social justice? What are we really afraid of? What are our ultimate fears? And I argue that we have all these secondary fears. The real fear deep down, the mother of all fears, is the fear of death. And none of the solutions that can be offered by FOX or CNN, there is no solution to that. But we have it. Why isn’t that on our dashboard as central, getting it right and getting it out?

[13:01] Jonathan: In the book you cast a broad net in kind of what you’ve just said up here, picking out a few of the issues that you’re seeing so much division over. But then you lay out some of the theological framework to reorientate your reader to where fear should rightly be placed. And it’s away from the fear of one another and having a right fear of God.

And you use the word sublime in the book, which I found really helpful as an aspect of God. I wonder if you could give us a little bit of explanation and walk that out for us.

[13:52] Michael: Sure. I love that word. Sublime is really, I think, what we’re talking about when we talk about the fear of God. Some people will say, “Well, it’s not really fear. It’s reverence, awe.” Fear is a big part of it, but it’s a kind of fear that attracts. Think of what happens if you’ve ever stood at the mouth of a volcano, looking over it, watching the lava flow. Or I live in Southern California, so we have fires, and there’s a kind of weird attraction to going to the fire and seeing it. Or you’re out on the ocean and you’re terrified. A squall comes up you’re afraid, but you’re also kind of your heart is racing not just because you’re afraid, but also because you’re kind of in awe of what's happening. In awe of the waves.

God, you know whenever an angel shows up in the Bible, an emissary of God, what's the first thing? You know the number-one commandment throughout Scripture? The number-one command is “Be not afraid.” Because when even the mailman of God shows up, people are terrified.

[15:31] Jonathan: Yeah, or Moses’s face is a little too bright.

[15:36] Michael: Yeah. Hey, put a napkin over that or something… That's what, really, is the basis for all sublime events, encounters that we have is really the fear of God. And so it’s … A Jewish writer, John Levinson, puts it well. He says, “In the Hebrew Scriptures God beckons with one hand and repels with the other.”

So there’s a kind of don’t get too close. Even Jesus in His Resurrection, “Don’t touch me. I’m different.” God is different from us. And that sense of awe, of majesty, of even terror. Think of the disciples in the boat with Jesus. They were afraid of the storm, and then Jesus calmed the storm and they were afraid of Jesus. Who is this who has control over the winds and the waves? They were terrified. And that's the kind of Who is this? What am I dealing with here? The kind of shock and awe, the surprise is something that is missing, I think, from a lot of our experience as Christians today.

[17:11] Jonathan: Well, and I know in the book we’ve seen a lot of the statistical evidence that comes in support of what you’ve just said, which shows that evangelical Christians really don’t know what they believe. They have a complete misunderstanding of God, of the nature of Christ, of their roles.

[17:51] Michael: If the fear of God is not the beginning of our wisdom, then something else will be. We’ll fear something else. We will fear other people who are different from us and we’ll fear cancer, we’ll fear losing our job, we’ll fear environmental collapse and catastrophe, we’ll fear these other people taking over. It’s not that those … that there aren’t legitimate concerns of a political and social and cultural nature. But we have a disordered fear. And if we have disordered fears, we have disordered loves.

God is not only the source of our greatest fear, legitimate fear; He’s also the only one who conquers our fears and says, “Welcome home, prodigal. Welcome home, here’s the feast.”

[19:22] Jonathan: And deals with our, as you refer to it, the mother of all fears.

[19:27] Michael: Death. We’re dying. In California, people aren’t allowed to die; they pass away; and we put these cemeteries out, far away from view, or we turn them into parks and things. And it used to be every time you walked into a church there would be headstones, and it reminded you as you walked in why you’re going in there. The Gospel is for dying people, and we’re all on that road. And so the question is, How do we face death? … How is that ultimate anxiety relieved? We mourn, but not as those who have no hope. So what does that mean for my daily life now? I could be twelve years old and I’m dying. I could be eighty and I’m dying. So what … Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about the dying and the resurrection of the dead and being attached to Jesus so that what He is in His humanity right now, glorified, we will be. Let’s talk about that. That's a lot better than anything on CNN or FOX.

[21:00] Jonathan: I love it. I think in the book you tell the story of when you went to a debate with, I might be messing this up, but I think it was with an atheist and you sort of said, “Yep. Great. Can I talk about Jesus now” and kind of put him off, and he sort of like, “I wasn’t prepared to debate that.”

[21:22] Michael: Yeah. This was years ago. Bill Nye the Science Nye.

[21:24] Jonathan: Bill Nigh, that's right.

[21:25] Michael: He was talking about how religion is based on false fears and so they develop myths and so forth.

[21:37] Jonathan: And you were like, “Well, that's true.”

[21:39] Michael: Yeah. I don’t disagree; that's a pretty fair analysis of religions. I guess you’d have to take one by one and analyze it, but as a generalization, now can I talk about Jesus and His Resurrection? Let’s keep getting back to the main business here.

[21:59] Jonathan: The main issue. Yeah. In the book you draw this distinction between naturalistic and hyper supernatural, but then you sort of carve out this third option of ordinary. Can we talk a little bit about that and how we see that playing out in our world today, particularly in the Church?

[22:23] Michael: Sure. Often what you see today is a naturalism underwriting the progressive agenda and John Lennon’s “Imagine.” On the right, you tend to have a hyper supernaturalism wedded to a conservative agenda. And so what do I mean by that? Well, a naturalistic worldview says, of course, God isn’t involved. If God exists, then He’s not involved in this world. He didn’t create it, it’s self-evolving and so forth.

A hyper-supernatural worldview says that God works miraculous. You know, to say that God did it means it’s a miracle.

[23:34] Jonathan: Yeah.

[23:35] Michael: Whereas in the Bible God does all sorts of things. Mostly, He doesn’t perform miracles. What about all the times when we cut our finger and it heals after a week? What about that? What about a child [who] has a brain bleed in NICU and it resolves in 24 hours. How about those? Those aren’t miracles. People say, “the miracle of childbirth.” There’s no miracle of childbirth; it’s just a spectacular example of God’s providence. That’s part of our problem is we’re looking for God only in the spectacular, only in the extraordinary, only in places where we can point to and say, “Oh, God did that.”

So we can’t explain how somebody recovered from cancer; we say, “Well, God did it, not the doctors.”

[24:46] Jonathan: Right.

[24:47] Michael: Well, how about God did it and the doctors did it. God did it through the doctors.

[24:52] Jonathan: How much control does God have here?

[24:55] Michael: Right. He has control of everything. It’s not just supernatural events; it’s not just miracles. God’s in control of every second, every breath. Every breath that you and I take is under His dominion.

[25:11] Jonathan: That's right. He holds all things together. You know, I hear that phrase a lot, “That was a God thing. That was a God thing,” and I always have to stop and say to them, “Everything is a God thing.” I mean, conversations. The fact that your brain works. The ability to read. The ability to understand and reason. It’s like I hate when you get that narrow scope, as you’re saying. We’ve lost the sublime. We’ve lost an understanding of how much—you know, it's almost a deistic view that, you know, God sort of—

[25:42] Michael: Yes!

[25:43] Jonathan: He’s put some things in place and then He occasionally steps in and—

[25:47] Michael: That's why I argue that actually naturalism and hyper supernaturalism unintentionally conspire with each other against Christianity—

[25:57] Jonathan: Right.

[25:58] Michael: —you know because, you know, we get to the place where we don’t see God in our ordinary, everyday existence, but only in these punctuated events, and we’ve got to raise things. I think we do a lot of pretending. We pretend that things that have an ordinary explanation are miracles because we have to have God in our life. These large swaths of our lives where there are no miracles are upheld by God’s marvelous providence.

[26:40] Jonathan: Right. Amen to that. In the book, one of the fears you mentioned is fear of losing your job. And I think in the book you helpfully distinguish between calling and vocation or job and helping us understand and distinguish the two things. I wonder if we can talk a little bit of bringing clarity to that, because we’re longing for something to put our identity in. Is it a football club? Is it a university? We’re currently, I don’t know when this will air, but we’re in the middle of March Madness. Who did you pick? What's your university? What's your background?

And vocation is very much one of those things we can put our identity in, and yet I think you talk about the ultimate and the penultimate between calling and vocation. I wonder if you could bring some clarity to that, and then we’ll turn to some of the practical outworkings of the division we see after that.

[27:53] Michael: Yeah. Well, one of the things I try to maintain throughout the book is, look, the things I’m talking about are not unimportant. They are legitimate fears. There is a legitimate anxiety. The question is, where do we go with that? But yes, let’s affirm it. It’s real, it’s a deal, but penultimate not ultimate.

For example, if I am in a circle of people I’ve never met before, we’re having breakfast, and I ask them, “Tell me about yourself,” very ordinarily they’ll say, “Well, I’m a dentist. I’m a …”

Now okay, there’s an example. That is part of our identity. Vocation is a gift of God; it’s a calling. So to say, you know, we shouldn’t place our identity in our vocations, well, not ultimately. That's the problem. It’s a part of our identity, just like being a father is part of my identity. That's a calling. And we have to realize, as Luther said, we have many callings, many vocations during our life. We’re parents, we’re spouses, we’re children, we are extended family members, we’re dentists, and cleaning movie theaters. We have all kinds of callings/vocations. Sometimes we have a vocation to suffer, to carry a cross. Sometimes we have a vocation to be a friend. We have lots of vocations, and keeping them in balance is very important.

Keeping them penultimate, not ultimate, is my point. My ultimate identity is chosen, redeemed, justified, being sanctified, will be glorified, in union with Christ. That's my identity and that's really who I am. Paul talks about himself as if he’s almost collapsed into Jesus. His identity is so bound up with Christ that he can even say his suffering is something he glories in because it shares in Christ’s suffering. That's my identity; that's where I really find who I am. The other stuff is not just stuff I do, that turns it back into a job. It is part of my identity, but it’s penultimate, not ultimate.

[30:57] Jonathan: Well, as we said at the beginning, we see division in so many different places. We’re, of course, as you know, we’re in another election year, and that—fear is going to be used as a … it’s going to be weaponized this year, particularly this year, in America. And we have an international audience, so I want to be sensitive, but I know that internationally also they see a lot of American news as well. I think you talk about how, in the book, two sides to the fear coin. You mention both in the book. One side, fear is easily exploited as a motivator. On the other, fear is a weak motivator in the long term. Why is that? Let’s kind of unpack that a little bit.

[32:07] Michael: Yeah. I use the analogy of deer who are … there is this fight or flight that God gave us and the animals as well. It’s purely instinctual, instinctive. You don’t … Whether you’re a deer or a human being, you don’t really think about, you don’t contemplate, you don’t calculate, you don’t explore what … You have a car coming towards you, you flee. You get out of its way if you can. But what happens is—

That's adrenaline. That adrenaline rush is just a marvelous gift of God’s providence. The problem is what would happen is deer had this disease of constantly being afraid, every crack of brush of another deer drove them wild running in fear? That's what I see us doing now, and what happens is it works in the short term. If you’re going to cynically use fear to get a herd of people to do what you want them to do, that might work in the short term, but long term, people can’t live like that. Long term, people actually become cynical. They won’t participate at all. They’ll just turn it off because “I’ve had this scare a thousand times and I’m not going to have it anymore. I’m tired of it.” It just runs out.

And that's what I think a lot of people are feeling right now with American politics. So I’m not an analyst of American politics by any stretch of the imagination; I’m simply looking at it on the pastoral side. What is driving us to be like the deer in the headlights every five minutes? And it’s exhausting us.

[34:33] Jonathan: Yeah.

[34:34] Michael: Each side whipping up the other side against each other. If I don’t win this election, dot, dot, dot. If the other person wins the election, dot, dot, dot. It’s apocalypse not. I especially find offensive any use of God or the Bible or Christ for that fear. Anyone who does that, particularly cynical leaders who don’t even go to church, aren’t professing Christians really, but they use the lingo to gain the nomination of particular groups. When Christians participate in that, they carry crosses to the U.S. Capitol to storm it and talk about hanging the vice president, and they’re carrying crosses with Bible verses, this is the sort of thing that must just aggravate our Lord and Savior whose name is taken in vain.

And yeah, is that a critique especially of evangelical political conservatives? Yes, it is. Because they are my brothers and sisters closest to me. The secularists aren’t really invoking the name of Jesus and Bible verses and carrying crosses. I’m more worried about evangelicals distorting the gospel than I am about who wins this next election.

[36:54] Jonathan: What is that doing to your testimony to those people who don’t know the Lord? What message is it giving them?

[37:10] Michael: That Christianity is about power.

[37:11] Jonathan: Right, exactly.

[37:12] Michael: It’s not about a cross with God who has all power becoming flesh being spat upon and then being crucified upon a cross, bleeding for our sins. It’s about basically choosing Caesar over Jesus, making Pilate our hero rather than Jesus.

[37:45] Jonathan: I found that chapter, I can’t remember if it’s the Christian nationalism chapter or the one before, but it was really helpful the way that you walked out American history in a way that probably a lot of the readers might say, “I don’t know if I understood that.” Or “I don’t know if I fully understood Thomas Jefferson and his letter to the Danbury Baptist Church in Connecticut.” Understanding separation of church and state, understanding like how we got to where we are and the creating of even thinking between the British … French revolution and those different paths that were laid out before us. And even just understanding our own history and how we got to where we are, I think a lot of it is just cast as Christian nation. And I found it helpful the way you distinguish that.

Because I hear this a lot in the church in terms of America being the new Israel, are there blessings that have come with certain things? Sure, fine. Our Constitution is well put together. I love the history of Witherspoon, the Scottish Presbyterian, and you can see some of that in the language that comes out through the Constitution. Again, I think it’s helpful to have your historical understanding rather than this reinterpretation that we have now that it’s, as you said, it’s this feeling like someone’s come in and taken this from us. And now, to use the title of your other book, now we’re at war, right? It’s not a mission field, it’s a battlefield. We’re fighting for the honor of our country. And all that's done is create us and them division and a lack of clarity and a lack of what we’re called to in a mission sense as Christians. Where was I going with that? Who knows? Anyway, I found it helpful.

[40:10] Michael: You said it better. Preach it, brother.

[40:16] Jonathan: Just random thoughts. Just reading your books and regurgitating it to the people. So later on in the book you sort of walk us through the areas where division has come in. So we have Christian nationalism has certainly seeped into churches. Then you have some really helpful, short chapters with issues with LGBTQ+ community, cancel culture, racism. Let’s just kind of walk through some of these and help Christians who are listening to this who are saying, I thought this was the right way to handle that situation but you’re saying something else. Let’s kind of walk through maybe even just one or two of those. Again, you had a really great illustration under your LGBTQ+ chapter of the young man whose family had sent him to you and you were pastoring him and what happened with all that. If you could tell us a little bit about that, just to help kind of encapsulate what we’re talking about here.

[41:35] Michael: Sure, this brother struggling with homosexuality, his dad was on the board of a prominent evangelical organization, and his pastor had told him that we basically don’t want your influence in the church, so he was considering leaving the faith. But then he read Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, a book I wrote a long time ago, and came out to work at our organization as just a pretext for just hanging out and shepherding this guy. He became a part of our church and a lot of people looked after him and we got a lot back from him.

He went back home, and his pastor said that all this reformed teaching he was getting was heresy and so forth, and no, you’ve lost your salvation. Romans says that He gave them over to a depraved mind. So he committed suicide and …

So what is it? Why do you do stuff like that? Well, you do it out of bad theology, to be sure, but also out of fear. There are a lot of churches that just don’t want to deal with it. They don’t want to have this problem. They don’t want to say that they have people in their congregation who are really, really suffering. If you’re a secularist, you don’t suffer from homosexuality. You don’t suffer with gender dysphoria. Only Christians do. And only Christians suffer with greed and envy and malice and other sins that are listed in these same sin lists in the New Testament. You don’t lose your salvation over those.

The key is repentance, right? We’re called to a life of repentance. Whatever our tendencies are towards particular sins, we’re all corrupt in heart. We’re sinners and we’re sinned against and we are in a sin-cursed world. And so where do we go with that fear? And then once that fear is solved objectively in Christ, having been justified through faith, we have peace with God. That's an objective fact. With that now as an objective fact, how do I respond to this brother or sister who’s justified just as I am, and who is being sanctified just as I am, but has propensity toward a particular sin that I think is particularly serious, particularly great? How do I love this person? How do I respond to this person?

John Calvin said a pastor needs to learn how to have two voices: one for the sheep and one for the wolves. And what I’ve seen in some very close cases to my own experience, what I’ve seen sometimes is pastors confusing the sheep for wolves and treating them as apostates or as people who, you know, if you really were a Christian, you wouldn’t be suffering with that. Well, they’re not saying, “I have a right to this sin.” They’re not saying that it’s okay. That's why they’re struggling with it—and they’re struggling with it in your church.

So one of the surveys, actually a couple of the surveys concluded that about 80 percent of people in the LGBTQ+ community were raised in conservative Roman Catholic or Protestant churches.

[46:39] Jonathan: Give that statistic again because I think we need to hear it again.

[46:42] Michael: I don’t know exact, it’s in the 80s, 80 percent.

[46:46] Jonathan: Over 80 percent.

[46:49] Michael: Right. And what's even more striking is the same percentage said that they would come back to church, even if they didn’t change their rules, but listened to them and cared for them. That's what I found amazing. I was glad that they asked … they added in that survey even if they didn’t change their beliefs but they were kind and they listened and they cared for me.

So if I’m fearful, here again the adrenaline, the deer in the headlights, that's a gift God gave us for fleeing something that is imminently threatening. This is not imminently threatening. If I come to understand that, then I’m not a deer in the headlights; instead, my brother or sister, my friend, parent, I’m someone who is looking out for the best of this person and now I can actually get ahold of myself and think and make judgments and articulate things. And ask questions and get information. That's a big part of it. It’s not all spiritual. People are suffering from mental health disorders, and that's physical, that's brain chemistry. All kinds of things.

People are suffering from sins that have been committed against them in the past. A lot of this is very complicated, and it’s not all that person’s direct fault. Again, we’re all sinners, sinned against, and live in a sin-cursed world. And all those factors play into what we have to consider when we’re not the deer in the headlights but can sit down with people over a long time, be willing to walk with them over a long time, be willing to read up on things, ask them questions, we’re that interested in them and understanding what they’re going through, understanding their pain. It’s like if they have cancer we’d be at their house with casseroles, but if they have these things, you know … So let’s … fear of the Lord drives out the fears of everyone and everything else. This is the beginning of wisdom.

[48:52] Jonathan: Exactly. Well, I think we could probably have this conversation for probably another four more hours, which we might do just because we’re having so many technical difficulties. You know, I can’t recommend this book enough. Mike Horton, Recovering Our Sanity: How the Fear of God Conquers the Fears that Divide Us. I told my team I want to re-air this as we get closer to November so that we can all be reminded once again of what we’re called to. Mike, what are you working on at the moment?

[50:35] Michael: I’ve been kind of obsessive compulsive about a project, three volumes with Eerdmans. First volume is coming out in May, titled Shaman and Sage. This is a very different project. It’s the history of spiritual not religious. Where does this come from? You have this divine self within trying to break out of all constraints. And so I trace it all the way back to ancient Greece and to the Renaissance. And then the second volume, Renaissance to the scientific revolution. And then the third volume is covering Romanticism to the present.

[51:31] Jonathan: Oprah.

[51:32] Michael: Exactly.

[51:35] Jonathan: That’s going to be a massive help for believers, because that's the one we see a lot in those statistics. Yeah, I hear that from quite a few people, spiritual but not religious, or whatever the phrase is. But well, Mike Horton, it’s been such a privilege. I’m so grateful for your time and coming on to Candid Conversations and sharing with us.

[52:10] Michael: Jonathan, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure.

[52:14] Jonathan: Thank you, brother.

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 248: Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in the Secular Age: Melissa Kruger

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Melissa Kruger) — Tue, 7 May 2024 04:00:00 +0000

You’re sitting across from your teenager at the kitchen table. Now that you finally have their undivided attention, you want to talk about an important issue they are facing. Unfortunately, things get tense quickly. Their eyes roll, you get frustrated, and soon they are looking for an escape from this conversation. You sit dumbfounded thinking, "How do I raise my teen to love Christ in a world that is doing everything possible to pull them away?"

In this episode of Candid Conversations, host Jonathan welcomes back Melissa Kruger, Vice President of Discipleship Programming at the Gospel Coalition. Melissa is also an accomplished author, having written multiple books, including “Growing Together,” “Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood,” and the popular children’s book “Wherever You Go, I Want You to Know.”

During this conversation, Jonathan and Melissa discuss her latest book, “Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in the Secular Age.” The book provides practical guidance and biblical insights for parents navigating the challenges of raising teenagers in today’s culture. Melissa shares her personal journey and the inspiration behind writing this important resource.

Listen to this Candid Conversation as Melissa Kruger sheds light on parenting teens with hope, faith, and wisdom. Whether you’re a parent, grandparent, or youth leader, this episode offers valuable insights for nurturing the next generation.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

TRANSCRIPT:

This transcript recounts Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef Episode 248: Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in the Secular Age: Melissa Kruger.

[00:06] Jonathan: Well, today I have a repeat guest. It is Melissa Kruger. She is the vice president of discipleship programming at the Gospel Coalition. She is the author of multiple books, including Growing Together; Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood; and the popular children’s book, Wherever You Go, I Want You to Know, which we have gotten for our son, and then we’ve had his teachers write inscriptions each year, whoever his teacher is. And I think you have a special book that allows for that.

Her husband Mike, who has also been on the podcast, is the president of Reformed Theological Seminary. And they and their three children are in Charlotte, North Carolina. Melissa, thank you so much for coming back onto Candid Conversations.

[00:52] Melissa: Great! Thanks for having me back.

[00:54] Jonathan: Okay, you’ve got a new book out called Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in the Secular Age. Now, I imagine this book is flying off the shelves, and you’ve probably shattered sales records.

[01:12] Melissa: I don’t think so, right?

[01:14] Jonathan: It should. I think this is something the church hears a lot about and it’s always so helpful to have books that are written from a helpful, biblical perspective and giving people the foundations and the equipping and the reminders that we can often forget.

So tell us a little bit about the journey on Parenting With Hope. What got the start of the book?

[01:48] Melissa: I was approached by a publisher who had read my book, Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood, and they said, “We’d really like you to take some of these principles and apply it to parenting teens. And we want it trade book form, Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood, is a Bible study for women, I wrote that one for a friend, for her baby shower. It wasn’t intended for publishing; I was writing it for her.

So this one really they came with the question and I was very unsure of myself. I’ve raised three teenagers, and so it was kind of that, ooh, and I was just out of the season. But what I realized when I did Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood, I couldn’t write that book now, I think, because I’m not in that moment. The teen years are very fresh to me. I saw tons. I still have one teenager, she’s 17. I have a 17-year-old, a 20-year-old, and a 23-year-old and so still it’s fresh to me.

But I also realized no one’s sixty who can write about what they did about cell phones because they didn’t exist. They can’t talk about what did they do with social media. They can’t talk about some of these sports and activities because it was totally different twenty years ago. And so I realized, okay, it’s probably a good thing to have someone fresh on the season.

And I also realized, the second thing, I was a high school math teacher in I always say my other life, and so I had taken a lot of teen development classes. And I realized this really did help me in the parenting of teens, like there’s a lot of common grace insights by people who have studied just what works and what doesn’t, and I’ve realized I had those things in my back pocket. And we do that a lot with young children, we read all the developmental milestones, we know what your 2-year-old should be doing, what your 3-year-old should be doing. When’s the last time you read a developmental milestone about your 9-year-old or your 10-year-old? And we stop being learners of what kids are able to do and what they should be doing and so I wanted to put some of that in the book as well.

[04:15] Jonathan: Okay, so I love how you break down the book. So it’s broken down into three parts. You give the basics, which you call “The Foundations of a Christian Home”; The Battle: Fighting for the Better Portion”; which we’ll get into that. And then “The Blessing: Cultivating a Home Where Teens Thrive.” Talks us through a little bit of the Part 1.

[04:44] Melissa: I might come off as, well, we all know this, right?

[04:48] Jonathan: Right. If you’re in the church, you should know and understand that. But—

[04:51] Melissa: Exactly. Exactly. And in a lot of ways this is being a Christian 101. But I remind parents of it because I think sometimes we get so bogged down with all the things we’re not doing as parents that I want to remind them the most important thing you do as a human is be in God’s Word, be in prayer, and be in the church. Doing that is going to already set you ahead of parents all around the world. I mean, that is such a gift to your child to be a parent who is regularly in-taking from the Bible.

Why? Because the Bible is not just another book on the shelf; it’s actually divine wisdom. We have the ability to tap into divine wisdom. And then secondly we have not just divine wisdom, we have divine help because we can call on God to do what we cannot do, we cannot save our child, we cannot change our child. We cannot make them do really much of anything, but God can work in ways that we can’t understand.

And then the community of the church is just something that, I mean, I think we’re seeing with the epidemic of teen loneliness and anxiety and isolation, all these things. The church is this institution that, guess what, it answers that. It’s this welcoming place where you have 80-year-olds and you have 8-year-olds. And so I don’t think we can talk about parenting without talking about what's the foundation of our hope. It’s actually that God’s Word is true, and living in light of God’s Word is hopeful, and we’re not left alone on the journey. So that's the Battle. The battle really talks about our battles. And again, this is a book about being the parent of a teen. It’s not a book about how to make your teen perfect. If that book exists, that's the—

[06:54] Jonathan: If it does, you should burn it.

[06:56] Melissa: Yeah, that's the Holy Spirit’s job is to change us and make us different. And so the second part is the battle, I think we often think is sex, drugs, rock and roll or some other things we’re trying to prevent our teen from. I would say it’s actually good things robbing us of the best things. The battle is with our own idolatry. As parents, we are all coming into this game with hopes and dreams for our kids, and sometimes those dreams turn idolatrous. I focus on scholarship and achievement, on sports and activities, and then on social acceptance. I think those are the cultural idols we have in the West that are pressing upon us as parents, and we have to battle about all of those.

[07:38] Jonathan: And that's what I love about the book is that it’s not prescriptions, right? When people are struggling with their kids, what do they want? Just tell me what to do so that this will stop or so I can take this away, right? And I think the way that your book is written is that it’s not about if you do A, B will happen. Now, there’s a little bit of element of that because you just mentioned the foundations earlier, which is, well, you really need to be doing these practices, but you don’t necessarily think, oh, being in church and being in the Word and being in prayer, you don’t necessarily feel the direct correlation to your parenting, but it is there.

I have friends who have raised their kids the exact same way and one rebels and the other one is a blessing to their family. And then it’s like, what did we do wrong? Your husband was speaking yesterday about the paradox of God is sovereign over all things, and yet we’re still called to be good parents. And so there’s that. We don’t fully understand the mystery of that, but we know what we’re called to, and so we have to walk it out.

[09:14] Melissa: That's right. As a parent, I am called to fight my idolatry. I’m actually not called to control my child. And so often what you see if we go into control mode when we’re fearful, and the Bible says trust and obey. And I would say obey and trust. And so you follow God’s call and then you trust. You trust that you’re doing everything you can to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel in front of the Lord and in front of your kids, and then you have to trust.

And you will only have the ability to trust if you’re building on the foundation. So this is where it always goes back to that foundation. And I'm talking about how to be a human, honestly. I mean, if you want to know how to succeed in your place of work, oh, you need the Word, you need prayer, you need the church. If you want to know how to be single in the life of the church, you need the Word, you need prayer, you need the church. But I think I say it again and again because it’s Psalm 1. Yeah, I mean, “Blessed is the man who doesn’t like in … who doesn’t sit …” all that stuff. Oh, what does he do? “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on it he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by a stream. Whatever he does prospers.” This is wisdom for life. And so I definitely think we have to start there, and then we have to be battling our own idols.

And then the last section on the blessing is how do we create homes of acceptance, availability, and affection? Those words have to be in our world today. Acceptance does not mean an acceptance of sin, but it means an acceptance of who they are. And what I mean by that is we see a lot of curated children. And what I mean by that is parents trying to make the perfect child who plays the sport, who plays the instrument, who has an amazing GPA, who gets into the Ivy Leagues and all this stuff because that's a representation of me is what we’re really trying to do.

[11:12] Jonathan: Right. It’s a reflection, yeah.

[11:13] Melissa: So rather than saying, you know, my kid’s not that great at school, but I can teach hard work. Even if they’re not going to be a lawyer or a doctor, that's okay. And so that's what I mean by acceptance, accepting who the Lord is creating them to be and letting that glorify Him, whatever it might be.

[11:33] Jonathan: Yeah, there’s a lot of this element of caught versus taught, right? So especially as you think about the idolatry and what you prioritize in your life, your kids are by default looking at you, watching you. You’re one of the greatest sources of influence on them, and so they are going to model themselves after what mom and dad prioritize. And the funny thing is that when parents look down the track they say, “Why are they like this?” And it’s like, sometimes it’s a little bit of look in the mirror. You know, what were they catching, even if you were teaching in a different trajectory and direction.

Okay, so acceptance. What about availability?

[12:17] Melissa: Yeah. I talk about this. I say you want to be available but you want to understand your limitations. Look, I mean, parents cannot be at everything. And I actually believe it’s helpful for our kids to know that they are not the center of our universe. They do not have the gravitational weight to bear us, I like to say. Like the Earth cannot support the Sun revolving around it, it was never intended to, we are not created to revolve around our children. We are created to revolve around God, and we are helping them do the same.

And kids who grow up in a home where the parent is rooted and grounded in the Lord, that takes an amazing burden off of them. You’ve heard the phrase “You’re only as happy as your least happy child.” I think that is like poor least-happy child. No. My contentment and joy, where are they supposed to come from? They’re supposed to be rooted in the Lord. Why are we supposed to be content with what we have? Because He has said, “Never will I leave or forsake you.” That's where our contentment rests. And we have to be people fighting for that as parents, to free our kids up from our own maybe tendency to put our hopes and dreams in them.

[13:36] Jonathan: And then affection. A home of warmth.

[13:39] Melissa: I read an article somewhere recently. I can’t remember where it was; it was in the secular paper, and they said, really what you do as a parent doesn’t matter, but if you love them, that makes a difference. And I was kind of like, huh. That's really interesting because I do think there’s a lot to that. I think, you know, it’s a little bit empty because I think love—

[14:03] Jonathan: Well, one’s usually reflected in the other, right?

[14:05] Melissa: Yeah. Exactly. And you need truth to guide what love is, so there’s that. But I did once hear—this was on the Oprah Winfrey Show a million years ago when that show was still on—she was interviewing I believe it was Toni Morrisson. And Toni Morrisson said one thing she had learned when a child walks into the room, she said, light up when that child walks in the room. And she said what kids tend to get when you walk into the room is your critical gaze. They tend to get, huh, your shirt’s not tucked in. Hey, make sure you’re getting ready for this.

And this gets even worse in the teen years, because look, they’re cute when they’re walking in at two, so you might light up just because they’re so cute.

[14:50] Jonathan: It’s worn off, yeah.

[14:52] Melissa: Yeah, when they’re walking in pimply and smelly and dirty, and they haven’t showered in a week, you still need to light up when they walk. And I think there’s something about that that will translate for the rest of their lives. That they know “I am deeply loved.” Light up even when they’ve done something wrong. Our correction should not be coldness. Our correction can still be full of warmth.

And so we want to light up when these people walk in the room because they’re made in the image of God. They have been given to us for this time to raise, and so we want to shower them with affection. And there can be wrong views of affection like trying to buy them. There are wrong ways. But I’m just talking about genuine love and interest in a person; that's always going to be a great basis for a child to go into the world with.

[15:42] Jonathan: Okay, let’s talk a little bit about how the gospel shapes our approach in parenting. What are the biblical principles that should guide us as we’re raising children?

[15:58] Melissa: The first is that I’m the oldest sinner in the room usually, so I’m expecting my 12-year-old to have their whole act together at twelve. Wow, that's pretty ungracious of me, right, because here I am at fifty and I don’t have my act together. And so I think that one of the ways that parents can lead is to be the first to apologize. I always say my response is my responsibility. And so if I—let’s say a kid’s done something wrong, but I manage their wrongness by yelling and losing my temper and being impatient and unkind, I’ve got to own that. That's on me. I can still hold them to a standard while holding myself to a standard, and so we have to do that.

And so I say one way grace-based homes begin is by being the chief apologizer in your home. Own it. And you know what? The kids will learn. They will learn from that and they will be able to give good apologies in their life. And you will benefit from it. I’ve had all of my kids come to me and be like, “Hey, I’m sorry I acted that way about that.” They did it on their own accord. I think it just became the conversation of the household that was safe to do. It was going to be met with love; it wasn’t going to be met with the silent treatment, all of those things.

And so I think a home with grace is going to be a home with apologies. It’s going to be a home that accepts that failure is going to happen. I mean, the Lord’s Prayer presupposes, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” so there’s going to be sin. We’re living flesh on flesh in these homes. And so it presupposes that we’re going to need grace, but it also presupposes that there is a standard. So we do not lower standards. We keep the standards, but we offer correction when the standards has not been kept, and we offer love and grace in those moments as well.

[17:57] Jonathan: Well, and it’s a requirement of being a disciple of Jesus is being a forgiver. And yeah, why not start at home—not just forgiving, but asking for forgiveness. And I think you’re right, it sets the tone for the family. But I think we can get caught up in, well, I’m the parent and I’ve got to be the one in control and in charge and I’m just giving directives to the little ones. It’s hard, right? I mean, it’s hard to admit to a little child that you’ve wronged them. Because you just want to say, who are you? Who are you to hold me accountable? But it’s the Lord’s holding us accountable.

Let’s elaborate a little bit on principles of prescriptions. We’ve talked a little bit about that, but as that relates to parenting.

[18:52] Melissa: Yeah. I definitely think your principles in parenting can stay very much the same as kids go from two to twenty, meaning certain principles like, oh, my child is a sinner in need of grace. That's a principle. My child’s a sinner and needs correction. That's a principle. Now, how I go about the practice of that correction is going to change greatly when they’re two from when they’re twelve, and if we don’t make those changes, we’re going to find ourselves with very frustrated teenagers.

And so one example I like to say is when your 2-year-old makes a mistake, normally you need to offer correction right away, so if they do something wrong, they need it immediately because they’re not going to remember tomorrow what you’re talking about.

[19:36] Jonathan: That's right exactly.

[19:37] Melissa: They’re in a different little universe where every moment is a new moment. Whereas with your 12-year-old, when they come in hot, and you know we all see 12-year-olds come in hot, they’re slamming doors, they’re in a mood, their hormones are going whatever. Right then is probably actually not the best time to offer correction or even confront them with, hey, you were really rude to me.

I like to say if my friend came in and slammed the door my first question would not be like, “Hey, that's disrespectful to me.” My first question would be, “Hey, how are you doing? Is everything okay?” Or if my husband came in. Like I’d ask a question. And I think our teens need that from us. They need us to live with them in an understanding way, and often we’re real caught up in our pride and how we deserve to be talked to. And that's just very us-centered versus, “Hey, is everything okay?”

And maybe even to just say, later in the day, like 6:00 PM, 7:00 PM, when they’ve had some time to cool off, to go in and say, ‘Hey, you came in, you seemed upset today. Do you want to talk about it?” They may say yes, they may say no. And then later on, things will soften. They will soften to be able to say, “What would have been a good way to come in today?” That's a better time to have that conversation. And it may even be the next week. That's a better way to have that conversation than right away.

So I think we had immediate kind of discipline when they were young, and it’s really about applying wisdom to how and what we’re going to correct. Thankfully, we do not have someone following us around all day correcting every little thing we do. I think sometimes parents of teens think, I’ve got four years left. I’ve got to get this kid all sorted.

[21:20] Jonathan: To be ready for the world.

[21:21] Melissa: You don’t. If you saw my teen’s bedroom, you’d be like, “Wow, she’s a terrible parent. They are a complete and utter wreck.” And I just chose that was a battle I wasn’t going to fight. But certain things, I wanted them to be truthful with me, I wanted them to have character, I wanted us to be able to have conversations. And if that meant I had to deal with messy floors, I was going to deal with messy floors on there. And they are. They lived up to that low expectation.

[21:48] Jonathan: I’m sure they love hearing that. So you’ve introduced a topic that I wanted us to discuss, which is those stages of development and how do we parent differently when they’re children versus teens. At what age is there a transformation? So when your child is little, you’re really in kind of a protection mode in terms of what they consume media-wise or literature, whatever it is, right? We have a responsibility for protecting them and not just exposing them to all the horrible things out there.

But as they get older, you and I talked about this in the beginning, but parents can tend to lean into one or the other camp, which is keeping the hyper bubble wrap around their child and never letting them be exposed to anything, or essentially letting them go out to the wolves at twelve, thirteen, whatever, and they are kind of almost drowning in “I need help. I wish someone would have kind of held my hand a little bit here.” That's a nuanced question, I know, but if we could talk about it in some generalities—and you can even use your own children as an example. Help parents who are at the tween period in their kids’ lives. How do they navigate that helpfully?

[23:21] Melissa: Yeah, I think that transition is tough and it’s full of bumps and bruises. I called it in the book, I likened it to driving a stick-shift car. You have to be letting off the clutch the same time you're pressing the gas, but as you’re learning, we’re all going to stall and that's pretty normal. But I would just say as they’re heading into these years, teens still need our involvement, but they do not need our over-involvement. And so as a parent, I think we really have to step back and say, “Okay, I’m going to be involved. I’m going to make sure they’re not out drinking; they’re not out doing illegal activities that could actually harm them. But I am not going to check their homework online.”

Okay, see this was not even an option when I was a teacher—I don’t know why parents are doing this. So I always think back to when I was teaching the parents never saw the grades until the grades came out. We had a midterm grade thing. I have people in my life who are checking their kids’ grades constantly, and I’m like—

[24:36] Jonathan: I didn’t even know you could do that, actually. I’ve got little kids, so I’m, yeah, we’re not in that camp yet.

[24:41] Melissa: Well, come the teen years, they’re finding out their kid missed one homework assignment and then they’re all over them about it. I’m like, just let them bear that consequence. Let them bear the consequence of a zero.

[24:52] Jonathan: That's a little bit of the helicopter/lawnmower parent mentality, right?

[24:57] Melissa: That's right. And what happens is then that child never knows what it’s like to deal with failure, and they actually need what I call safe failure. Because guess what? We all fail at things. Like we all make mistakes, we all do dumb things along the way. You want to protect them from huge failure, like you’re going to go to jail for this. But even things that we know are particularly damaging for their souls. So we want to protect them as best we can and have good rules in our home; we don’t want rule-less homes; but the over-correction of being so over-involved.

If you have teenagers, they should be packing their own lunch. They should be getting themselves—I don’t wake any of my teens up, never have. They get themselves up, they knew to be at the family table for devotions at the time we always met. They could be responsible for them. And I never regret letting them be responsible for them. And so some of that is letting go of control and letting them, like again, like their room. Their rooms. Sometimes they did have to clean them.

[26:09] Jonathan: You’ve got to live in it. They’re the ones who have to live in it, right?

[26:11] Melissa: And they have to … And they really will own it if we let them. Another big thing was we started early with our kids having them do chores and clean up the kitchen every night. But what Mike and I had to do, we had to leave the room, because yes, they would argue. Yes, they would get mad at one another. Yes, they would say, “I don’t want to do it this way. Yes, it was excruciatingly slow and not well done. And I’d come in and I’d look at the counter and I thought, yeah, you’d feel the grit still on the counter, kids, and then do it again. Y’all get it right.

And then we’d walk out because I couldn’t handle the slowness at which they did it, but if I had not given them the space to do it and fail and not do it perfectly, they’d never learn. Where now they come home and they all know how to clean the kitchen. They know how to—and that's a gift when they go to college because they [overlapping voices] because my kids are like, “My roommates”—

[27:04] Jonathan: And their future spouses.

[27:06] Melissa: Yeah. “My roommates don’t know how to clean the kitchen.”

[27:09] Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, let’s steer into some of the battle things that are taking place. We, without having to explain, we live in a secular culture. How can parents maintain hope and raise their teens to follow Christ in just the age and day in which we live where there’s the social pressures on sexuality and defining truth and those sorts of things. How do you kind of help navigate that water?

[27:53] Melissa: Yeah, I think the earlier you can begin, the better. And some of this starts by having conversations about faith with your kids as young as you can. Mike and I were big believers in the catechism. There are different versions. We use the children’s catechism. And every night at the family table we did it. What I love about a catechism is the kids talk; it’s not just the parents talking. So it’s about who made you? God. What else did God make? All things. Why did God make you and all things? For His glory.

Okay, you’ve already set their framework in such a better place than most kids walking into elementary school just because they know they’re made in the image of God and that they’re made to glorify Him. So these things can start early. I think having those conversations along the way, and just, again, this is what we valued in our homes. We have to start valuing them young because if you start coming to your kid with, “Hey, God’s Word is important” at age fifteen by you haven’t modeled that by the way you live your life or by how you’ve been in it yourself, it’s going to be hard to convince them that they should follow this ancient book.

So I would say the best way to combat culture is to have the culture that Scripture encourages us to in the home. And to really know that what's happening in your home is actually what has the greatest impact on your kids, not the world, not their teachers, not their friends. Actually the studies show over and over again parental—what we do, which is kind of terrifying, we all should own it—what we do in the home is the biggest impact on how they are going to view certain things. It does not mean they will all come to faith. You can do everything right. We know it’s the Spirit only that awakens people’s hearts. But that—

[29:48] Jonathan: Which takes a little bit of the pressure off in that category.

[29:52] Melissa: Yes, exactly. But there are things we’re teaching them like hard work and doing a job, knowing how to do a chore. Those are things that even non-Christians know how to work hard, and even non-Christians can live in certain outwardly moral ways that we can be trying to shape and mold our kids into, in prayer that the Spirit would make their hearts alive in a lot of ways.

So I think we can be really fearful of culture. I think there’s a lot to be concerned about. But what I will say is that when the Spirit opens our eyes, they can see, wow, culture is really empty. So my kids, I think they grew up in Christian school, but they’ve both been at large secular colleges and they just haven’t been attracted to some of the worldly things because I think they know that, hey, the fellowship, the friendship of true believers is way better than this false, oh, I have to be drunk and do all these things for you to be my friend. Yeah, I don’t think it’s been as enticing because they’ve actually experienced good fellowship with believers throughout their lives and they’ve seen the benefit of that. So I always try to say fight the bad by giving them the better.

[31:09] Jonathan: Yeah, I love that. Okay, two more areas I want us to just quickly dive into. One is navigating technology and social media, which again is one of the battles. And the other one is dealing with doubts. And so let’s talk about, I mean, technology is everywhere. Social media abounds. How do we navigate this? Maybe some practical tips, setting boundaries, that sort of thing. How did you and Mike do it?

[31:41] Melissa: Yeah. I mean, the first boundary is yourself. If you’re glued to your phone, okay, your kid’s going to be glued to their phone. So that's the first one. Let’s just go ahead and say it. And I will say this: I think it’s a lot harder for you raising kids now. When I had young kids, I didn’t have a smartphone. I mean, can you imagine the difference? I could not, at a restaurant, just take my little cell phone and say, “Here, watch whatever show’s popular.”

[32:07] Jonathan: Yeah, keep ‘em busy.

[32:08] Melissa: Yeah. And so I’m so thankful. We had to deal with those awful restaurant moments when they’re losing their minds and having a fit.

[32:20] Jonathan: That's why we don’t go to restaurants.

[32:22] Melissa: Or just not go. Sometimes it’s like fast food because that's where you can easily…

[32:28] Jonathan: In and out.

[32:29] Melissa: And so I think to be aware that what you’re doing with your phone and devices in the young years is greatly going to impact the older years. And then the other thing I would just say, as the statistics have come in—And the hopeful thing I have for your age, I think by the time your age, those kids get to high school, I think there will be new rules in high schools. It’s hard right now. I view the cell phone and social media like smoking. The high school that I went to had inner courtyards, and you were allowed to go out and smoke during the middle of the day. Not when I was there. By the time I was there, inner courtyard, there as no smoking. I mean, think about it you know, airplanes, you used to be able to smoke on them, right?

[33:11] Jonathan: I’ve been on one of those planes, actually, when I was a kid.

[33:13] Melissa: Exactly. And now they’ve realized, oh, these aren’t innocent—

[33:19] Jonathan: It affects everyone in the plane, whether you want it or not, and the curtain’s not going to keep it back.

[33:24] Melissa: Exactly. And they would no more let a bunch of kids be sitting in the inner courtyard of a high school smoking now. Well, I believe, I really do believe what the studies are showing us, how bad it is for kids and their mental health. I believe one day cell phones are not going to be allowed in school—hopefully by the time your kids get there. I think they will not be allowed in middle and high school, so it might help parents.

But today, parents have to navigate those waters without help from culture, and it’s really hard. And so what I would say for every hour your kids spend on their cell phone or device, they will be less happy, and you have to reckon with that. The studies are in. Every further hour they spend on a device, they will be that much less happy. They will be more lonely, they will be more depressed, they will be more anxious. And so we’ve got to deal with that reality as we parent, and the most loving thing we can do is to help our kids not be glued to their phones all the time.

[34:21] Jonathan: Yeah, I would imagine it fosters more of that comparative, yeah, right. My friend’s picture’s on whatever social media platform and I’m comparing myself at a constant rate, versus when I was a kid or teenager, it was like just what you could see in front of you.

[34:40] Melissa: Right. You didn’t know that you were actually left out of the party until a week or two later. Now instantly you’re sitting home on a Friday night and you see the party that you weren’t invited to.

[34:54] Jonathan: I can only imagine navigating that. Okay, doubt. That's … This is a period in kids’ life where doubt is more prevalent, more frequent. How should parents be dealing with questions—and I heard Mike give a great answer to some of this yesterday. But how do we address the question without dismission it, but also not wanting to just give the answer straightaway is kind of what Mike was saying yesterday.

[35:37] Melissa: That's right. I think so often we hear a question and we jump to fear. Fear leads to control. So rather, the kid says something like, “Yeah, I’m not sure I believe that.” And then we hyper jump on that and give them a three-point outline of why they should believe what we believe. That is not a conversation and that is not what your teen needs. What I would say when they say, “Yeah, I’m not sure. It’s seems really … That view of whatever seems really mean,” “Okay, tell me why you think that. Tell me where you hear that. What do your friends think about it?”

Be curious about them. You already know actually what you think about whatever the thing is, but what they need to hear from you is that you actually are willing to listen as they’re trying to sort it out. And it’s going to make sense. Kids have really small perspectives on things. I did. When I was that age, I had all sorts of bad ideas about things. They’re working through it, so work through it with them but don’t … I just don’t think it’s very helpful to lecture them at that point. I think it’s good … We want to have a conversation is what I keep saying.

A conversation will allow more availability to give your opinion when you are curious about what they are thinking rather than just jumping in. And the reality is, again, me lecturing them is probably not going to prove my point. But as we have conversations, I’m going to start to understand where they’re struggling, what they’re struggling with, and we can keep having that conversation and it makes them a lot more receptive.

[37:26] Jonathan: Yeah. I found that helpful. Mike was saying yesterday his tendency was to just give the answer straightaway. He’s got the PhD and all of the qualifications and credentials, but kids don’t really care. It’s like, “All right, Dad, just chill.” And I get your point. And I think he said this yesterday, which is about let them kind of sit in the doubt for a little bit. Rather than just giving the quick, immediate response, let them wrestle with it, because this is probably the early formations of them moving out of the family faith and into a personal faith. And I think you’ve hit it on the head there with opening the dialog so it can be an ongoing conversation so that when they do go off to university or whatever it is and they are presented with ideas and philosophies, they can say, “I’ve already talked about that.” And I realize here all the fallacies or issues that come up with that, I think that's really helpful. But you’re right, I think we do, we tend to go to fear and we start thinking down the track what could happen if I don’t resolve this immediately.

[38:43] Melissa: And to realize that conversation continues. It doesn’t—

[38:45] Jonathan: Yeah, right.

[38:46] Melissa: All of our kids have called us. They normally call Mike, and they’ll Facetime. I mean, Emma has been on the Facetime with like ten of her friends, and they’re like, “We have a Bible question for you, Dad.” And I think because it felt like a conversation they actually continued the conversation.

And I’ll also say this. It’s okay to not know. Because I get it. Like, look, it’s really convenient when you have a husband who is a New Testament scholar and can answer some of these questions.

[39:14] Jonathan: We all just need Mike’s phone number.

[39:15] Melissa: Exactly. But I will say this. There are plenty of times he’s like, “Yeah, that's a really confusing passage. I’m not sure what that means.” I mean, they are wildly unimpressed with his knowledge base sometimes, and so it’s always nicely humbling.

But he’s very comfortable saying, “I don’t know.” And I think we all should be comfortable saying, “I don’t know,” and saying, “Hey, let’s find out together.” Look, there are pastors out there who are waiting for calls like this. They have to deal with really hard issues sometimes, but they went to school to answer your biblical questions, and so a lot of times pastors are really eager to say, “Oh, I can help you with that.”

[39:52] Jonathan: I get those from time to time, and sometimes there are the ones where, especially from little ones, and I think, how do I take what I know and put it in a way that you’ll understand it. That takes some work.

[40:07] Melissa: That's the best theological classroom you can ever be in right there.

[40:10] Jonathan: Exactly. So we’ve asked some parents of teens to submit some questions that they’re wrestling with, so we’ll do a little lightning round of questions here.

[41:06] Jonathan: This ties us back to what we mentioned earlier. This is kind of a newer thing. I mean, it’s always been around, but it’s more prevalent probably post-COVID, post-invention of the iPhone where kids are isolated. They are less relational than you and I would have been because that was all we had was relational collateral, personal interaction. Now kids can interact digitally and immediately and so there’s probably a heightened level of self-consciousness, and that includes just appearance through social media and that sort of thing.

So now going into a new setting with real people and real interactions must be a challenge. So what is some advice for the parent who’s struggling with a teenager who’s going through that?

[42:08] Melissa: The first thing I always say is it’s good to offer sympathy to them, “Hey, this is hard. I can remember what it was like to go into the lunch room and it be super awkward. Like who am I going to sit with?” We all have that. I still have that feeling sometimes. I’m in situations many times where I’m the only woman in a scenario, and I’m like, hmm, which table of all men … am I going to sit at? And it feels awkward.

And so sometimes just them knowing that you feel it too is helpful. But I think it’s also helpful to equip them and to say, hey, when you’re in a situation like that, other people are probably feeling nervous too, and so it’s good to go in with three questions so that you have them on your mind when you’re walking into an awkward situation. It can be a question like, hey—let’s picture the school lunchtime—what's your next class after this? That anybody can answer. It’s pretty easily, yeah, whatever.

Second one, you know, hey, where do you live? Or something like that, maybe something I’m thinking as I’m thinking in a business context, where are you from? But just some easily accessible questions that kids can answer. It could be, Are you going to the game this weekend? Whatever it might be so they feel equipped to actually reach out to someone else with a question and that can help conversation start.

[43:27] Jonathan: This one’s sort of on a similar vein but on a different level. “How do our teens manage the social rejection when you are following Christ?”

[43:44] Melissa: Yeah. I think it is really helpful to put before our kids that we are stranger and aliens in this world. And you know my kids go to a … they were blessed to go to a Christian school, so they did not have to feel it at the level certain kids are going to have. But they did still get teased. All, especially, for being, oh, you’re the professor’s daughter. When she’s in Bible class, even the teacher looks to her. “Well, would your dad agree with this?”

[44:14] Jonathan: Oh dear. I had a little bit of that, too, with my father being a pastor. What would your dad say?

[44:18] Melissa: It’s the awkward … you have to be the super-spiritual one in every instance. And we just talk some about feeling a little bit like you don’t belong is actually a good sign. And that means we’re not home yet.

[44:36] Jonathan: Great reminder.

[44:37] Melissa: Yeah. When we talk about home is heaven, it makes sense.

[44:43] Jonathan: Oof. “How do you parent a child that doesn’t realize their friends are unhealthy for them?” These might all have a little bit of a sigh.

[44:54] Melissa: It’s tough. I’m a big believer in question-asking rather than telling. So hey, it seems like John did this and this and this. Do you think a good friend would be like in this scenario? What would you want him to do in that scenario? And then sometimes they can start to uncover, hey, this isn’t the best type of person. But it always good to maybe pause and ask why are they turning to this kind of friendship? And I mean, yeah, again, praying that the Spirit would waken their hearts to see the destructiveness. Always be praying. In every one of these scenarios, let me just say—

[45:37] Jonathan: It starts with prayer.

[45:38] Melissa: It starts with prayer.

[45:39] Jonathan: I’m with you. This is good, and this question actually comes into one of your chapters in your book. “How do you prevent sports from becoming an idol, especially in regards to travel?”

[45:58] MELISSA: Yeah, it’s tough. I would manage it very carefully and just remember as good as your kid is, they probably will not play in college, and even more likely are they to create a career out of this. But you do want them to create a career and a life out of being a church member. So guard your church time. It doesn’t mean you never miss. We’ve all missed church for various reasons, whether it’s travel or just vacation. You couldn’t get to church for some reason.

You could say if you’re traveling it’s a great opportunity to take your kid to other churches. My kids really benefited from seeing other church traditions when we traveled. So it was great for them. One Sunday we went to a Baptist church, and they had grown up Presbyterian, so they only saw babies get baptized. It was Easter. It was spring break, so we were traveling, and they had this full-immersion baptism. Well, my kids were on the edge of their seats, and they were like, “what is happening here?” So for them it was great. It was a great conversation to say, “Oh, this is how they do it.” Those are great conversations to have.

[47:05] Jonathan: “Courtship dance. How to handle it now.” There’s not a lot of Scripture on dating. How do you all navigate that with your kids?

[47:59] Melissa: We have had very little experience in this, not because we have had rules, not because of any other reason than our kids have just not dated. I think the benefit of maybe going to a small school is they’re like, we’ve known these people since we were five. I’m not going to date them. My daughter is getting ready to get married, and she is marrying a guy she knew all through college. They met at Chapel Hill and were friends for three years and their senior year starting dating. I will fully admit, it was as easy as it could have been, and he is delightful and we’re so glad they’re getting married.

So what I would say with my lack of experience is I do believe that rather than have rules it’s better to have conversations in this area. And so when your kid comes home to you at fifteen and says, “I really like this kid,” one, be glad they’re willing to talk to you about it. Secondly, say, “What do you like about them? Tell me what’s great about them.” Be curious rather than controlling. If I could impress anything, be curious about your kid rather than control them.

And so I would just say it’s good to have standards. When you’re talking about sexuality standards, you need to have those conversations whether they’re dating or not. So that should be happening well before they’re dating. way before the teen years. So I’m just assuming that in these conversations those have happened beforehand.

But then I think modeling good friendships. If your kids are developing good friendships, it’s a big precursor to developing a good and strong marriage and good and strong dating. But I think the main thing you want to do is keep the conversation open. Hold your tongue and listen.

[49:45] Jonathan: Keeping a distraction-free family. Sort of like no cell phones at the table kind of thing?

[49:57] Melissa: Yeah. You know it’s just funny. We didn’t have some of those rules, I guess. It was just understood that that's what we were doing. And I would say a big thing I would probably highlight is if you’re going to watch a movie, all watch the same movie. And so, yeah, that means you’re going to watch a lot of movies you don’t really want to watch as a parent, but I’d rather have all five of us in the den together watching a movie that maybe everyone had to compromise on, than all of us in separate rooms, watching what we want to watch.

[50:32] Jonathan: And I know Mike’s favorite movies are horror films, right?

[50:35] Melissa: No, he has to watch those alone. He’s not allowed to watch those with us.

[50:39] Jonathan: I was going to say. Here’s a good one. “How do you balance contentment and complacency and still encourage hard work?”

[50:50] Melissa: I think contentment goes right alongside with hard work. But complacency is a little different. So I think you know your child. Some children are going to need to be told, hey, you need to slow down. Some kids are going to need to be told, you need to speed up. And that's okay. But you’re going to have to know your individual child to know if they’re not living up to who God has made them to be or if they’re trying to prove something to the world. You’re going to have to know that better as a parent, so it’s probably going to be different for every kid.

[51:27] Jonathan: This is similar to different types of child, but “How do you parent the high-achieving, focused child, how to best support their talents?” And then we’ll do the other side of that.

[51:37] MELISSA: Yeah. I think with the high-achieving, focused child, it’s really good to make sure they’re not putting their worth and value in their performance. And so you’re going to have to just work with them on that and walk through that with them and encourage them that they are beloved not because of what they do but because of who they are in that. Because they’re going to fail one day, and then how you deal with their failure and mistakes is really important because those kids aren’t going to be used to it, and they really need it. They need to feel what it feels like to fail sometimes. And they’re going to be really uncomfortable in that moment. And so walking through that with them graciously is really important.

[52:20] Jonathan: Flip side, I suppose, is “How do you parent the low-achieving, unfocused child?”

[52:27] Melissa: Yeah, I mean, that's a really hard one, I have to admit.

[52:30] Jonathan: Yeah, because it’s different.

[52:31] Melissa: It’s totally different, especially if it’s a child like “I know this child can do things.” One, if it is a boy, let me just say they really will get it together eventually. A lot of boys, their frontal lobe—great book called The Teenage Brain. You should read it. It’s written by a neuroscientist who had two boys. It’s great. I mean, their brains really are taking long to develop. I taught high school, and let me tell you, the boys were not winning in high school. They forgot their stuff, the reason they had B’s rather than A’s was not because they were not smart enough, it’s because they did not turn in their homework.

They really will, by their junior and senior year, developmentally get it together. It’s the girls are just developing earlier. Some of the front-lobe stuff is connecting earlier. It’s biological. So yes, have expectations, but just know that with your son you might have to remind him five times, “Hey, did you pack your lunch today? Did you pack your lunch?” Don’t pack it for him, but you might have to remind him more on those things.

[53:35] Jonathan: “When they experience rejection or seek acceptance from the wrong sources, how do we navigate that?” And I think that’s one of your … that's one of your chapters.

[53:47] Melissa: Yeah, I think that different again this one is just going to have to be prayer. Because it shares a little bit about where their heart is leaning. I mean, you can see this in some kids. Some kids just always want to be on the edge, and you can see it. I think this is where you pray and you do trust that the Lord will somehow use this season in their life.

But also I think to ask questions like, “Hey, why do you want to do that? What's going on? Why is that attractive?” And it’s difficult if you’re not that type of personality to even understand. Like I don’t want to get burned, so I stay way, far away from a fire, right? But some people are just drawn to the fire and they want to get close up to it. So sometimes it’s good to just ask, “Hey, why do you want this? What's going on?” Again, I think with each kid it’s going to be a little bit different, so it’s important to ask what's going on with their hearts and to keep probing and keep praying.

[54:50] Jonathan: Yeah. All right, I’ll make this the last one. “What is the Kruger’s’ take on how much we are requiring church attendance, devotions, spiritual practices versus giving teens the freedom of choice?”

[55:03] Melissa: That's interesting. So you’re saying how much we require it versus how much we just let them make that choice.

[55:12] Jonathan: In terms of family devotion. Churchgoing I guess is part of the question.

[55:22] Melissa: That's a good question. That makes sense. So I’m totally fine with “you’re going to go to church on Sunday” just because I don’t make school a choice. If you can go to school all day, you can go to church, so that's just fine with me. If they don’t believe, I’m like, “That's fine, you don’t have to believe, but you’re going to go to church because we go to church, just like you’re going to go to school,” and I’m okay with that.

When I comes to family devotions, that was again just something we had always done, so it was never a new thing. It would be like my kids saying, “Oh, all of a sudden I don’t want to brush my teeth.” “Huh, really? You’ve brushed your teeth since you were two. You want to stop now.”

Some of these habits, when you can start them young, they just don’t know any different. My big hint to young parents is they only know the home you make normal for them. And so they don’t know that no other family’s having family devotions. When it comes to personal Bible reading, that was something I did not force at all. We gave our kids Bibles, they saw our habits and our practice, and I watched as each of my kids became interested in the Bible on their own.

We did not say, “Hey, you need to read it every day.” When you’re putting them in church and you’re having devotions, you’re showing them what you value and at some value they’ve got to start picking up on those personal habits. That felt much more like the very relational, intimate walking with the Lord, and I wasn’t going to try and force that on them. So there are spaces, I think, where you say, “Hey, this is what we do as a family,” like go to church or have prayer time before breakfast. That's just our family rhythm, and yes, you need to participate. But when it came to their own faith and their own growth, by the teen years I think that's starting to be put in their hands.

[57:04] Jonathan: All right, before we go, encouragement for parents who are feeling overwhelmed, discouraged—which is probably every parent.

[57:13] Melissa: Yeah. Exactly. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, this is where I’m always like go back to the basics. Read the Bible. Be encouraged. God is with you and He is parenting you while you’re parenting your teen. Be in prayer, ask for His help, and be around the people in the church. And so again, that makes life a lot more simple, right? Read your Bible, it will change you, it will change how you parent. Prayer will give you hope that God can change your child. And the church will give you the community you need. And then say no to a lot of other things, but simplify your life so that those things can be a priority.

[57:56] Jonathan: Well, the book is Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in the Secular Age. Melissa Kruger, it’s always so fun, and you’ve knocked out the lightning-round questions and I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time to be on Candid Conversations.

[58:14] Melissa: Thanks for having me. It was fun.

[58:16] Jonathan: Absolutely. Pleasure.

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode: 247: Can God Really Change Me?: Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Struggling with change? Are daily temptations and ingrained habits leaving you feeling powerless?

What does true sanctification look like? Can people change? In this thoughtful reflection, Jonathan Youssef explores the transformative power of sanctification and celebrates the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as a cornerstone of hope and change.

To connect with Jonathan or join the Candid community, visit LTW.org/Candid.

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 246: The Deconstruction of Christianity: Alisa Childers & Tim Barnett

web@ltw.org (Tim Barnett, Jonathan youssef, Alisa Childers) — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Sit down with Jonathan Youssef for a compelling conversation with Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett, authors of The Deconstruction of Christianity: What It Is. Why It's Destructive. How to Respond. This discussion examines the pervasive and unsettling movement of faith deconstruction sweeping churches today. Whether it's affecting your loved ones, straining relationships, or stirring doubts within you, this episode provides crucial understanding and guidance.

Together, we will try to understand the core aspects of the Christian deconstruction movement, its origins, the meaning of deconstruction hashtags like #exvangelical, and why it attracts so many people, particularly those disenchanted with traditional church teachings.

Alisa and Tim offer strategies for thoughtfully and empathetically engaging with those questioning or abandoning their faith in Christ, emphasizing responses grounded in a biblical worldview.

Whether you are seeking to support a loved one in turmoil, understand the dramatic spiritual changes around you, or find answers to your spiritual doubts, Alisa and Tim provide valuable insights and answers that promise to enlighten, challenge, and encourage.

Listen and gain tools and confidence to address deconstruction with clarity and love, ensuring your faith and relationships can withstand the challenges of these transformative times.

ALISA CHILDERS is a popular speaker and the author of Another Gospel? and Live Your Truth and Other Lies. She has been published at the Gospel Coalition, Crosswalk, the Stream, For Every Mom, Decision magazine, and the Christian Post.

TIM BARNETT is a speaker and apologist for Stand to Reason (STR). His online presence on Red Pen Logic with Mr. B helps people assess flawed thinking using good thinking, reaching millions monthly through multiple social media platforms.

After you listen to this episode, you may have questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

TRANSCRIPT:

This transcript recounts Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef Episode 246: The Deconstruction of Christianity with Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett.

Jonathan: Today, we have quite a special situation. We have two of my favorite guests that we’ve had in the past, Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett. And they have teamed up and have written a book together, The Deconstruction of Christianity: What It Is, Why It’s Destructive and How To Respond. Thank you guys so much for taking the time. We’re all across the nation and different nations here. Thank y’all for taking the time to be on Candid Conversations.

Alisa: It’s great to be back with you.

Tim: Yeah, it’s good to see you.

Jonathan: Well, I think before we jump in we’ve Alisa and I and Tim and I, we’ve separately had conversations around this area, but I love the way you break down your book into these three parts: Exvangelical, Deconstruction, and Hope. But just again for those who are new to the terminology, let’s define deconstruction and separate it and define exvangelical, and then we’ll talk about the reasons for the writing of the book.

Alisa: Which one you want to take, Tim, exvangelical or deconstruction?

Jonathan: You each get one.

Tim: All right. I’ll start with deconstruction. You know this is a tough definition to nail down. In fact, this took quite some research and quite some time. In fact, I actually changed my mind on how I was using the term. At least initially when I started teaching in deconstruction a few years ago, I thought there was a way that we could use the word deconstruction in a healthy way and there was a way we could use it in an unhealthy way. And we were seeing this kind of thing happening, especially on social media. You’d have people like Lecrae or John Mark Holmer or other notable evangelicals using deconstruction as a healthy way, here’s a good way to do deconstruction.

Tim: That’s right. And on the other hand, there’s a whole lot of this other stuff that's very unhealthy. That's how we originally thought until we did serious research into what's going on in this deconstruction space, especially on social media where we’re seeing a movement or an explosion. And what we saw there was that there isn’t anything healthy. In fact, there are defining characteristics of the deconstruction explosion that are unbiblical and just completely wrongheaded.

So at the end of the day, where we landed on this—and again, we say this is the hardest sentence we wrote in the book, but here’s where we landed on our definition of deconstruction: It’s a postmodern process of rethinking your faith without requiring Scripture as a standard. And all those words are important in that sentence. So it’s a process, but it’s a very specific kind of process. It’s a postmodern process. Whereas where you would think (this is what many claim) is that they are on a search for truth, what we’re finding is that it’s not really about truth—in fact, by postmodern we mean that there isn’t a goal of truth; there’s actually a denial of objective truth, that objective truth cannot be known.

And so there’s that on the one hand. On the other hand, you have this rejection of Scripture as an authority. And so when we put those things together, we think these are the defining characteristics of what deconstruction is all about. And we can kind of go into more detail and give some examples of where we’ve seen that, but that's a starting point.

Alisa: Right and then the exvangelical hashtag is often used synonymously with and at least in conjunction with that deconstruction hashtag. And it’s a little bit of a tricky hashtag because it doesn’t simply mean, at face value, no longer evangelical. But it’s not like you have people who were raised Presbyterian and they become some kind of more liturgical Anglican or something and they use the ex. They are not using the exvangelical hashtag for that. What we’re seeing with the exvangelical hashtag is that, first of all, it’s very difficult to define what evangelical is. And that's kind of a word like deconstruction that's defined in a hundred different ways.

So there’s the Bevington’s Quadrilateral that characterizes the evangelical movement under four pillars of personal conversion, emphasis on the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, biblical authority, and evangelism. And yet, if you ask people in the deconstruction hashtag what is evangelical, those beliefs are in the background for sure, but what they primarily see is God, guns and Trump. It’s what is perceived in their minds to be this unholy alliance between evangelicals and the political right. And so it’s all kind of mashed together, along with things like spiritual abuse and purity culture and conservative politics. It’s all kind of this ball that all gets kind of mixed together and then it all gets thrown out as exvangelical.

And so in some cases they’re conflating evangelical with the historic Christian gospel, and in other cases, they might actually be throwing out some cultural things that are Americanized that aren’t necessarily a part of the gospel. And it can be kind of like a mix of both. But it’s important like when Tim talked about the shift of authority, its’ like the only thing that matters for the exvangelical and deconstruction is that they are leaving behind what they perceive to be toxic beliefs. And so as best as I can analyze are it’s any belief outside of yourself that you would be asked to submit to, surrender to, kneel to that is not necessarily something that resonates with you inside.

Jonathan: Interesting. So you’re the ultimate authority, which goes to the deconstruction definition of Scripture being the authority.

Alisa: I do think it boils down to that, yes.

Jonathan: Do you find this is a uniquely American phenomenon? I don’t even know if phenomenon is the right word to use there.

Tim: That's a really good question. I think that there’s a few reasons why we’re seeing this in particular in North America. It’s happening in Canada, too, not just the U.S. I think that we’re seeing a culture that's dominated by a philosophy of relativism on the one hand and then on the other you have this kind of explosion of social media within the last decade or so. And I think bringing those two things together in particular—

And then maybe a third thing, and that is the American church and how we have, I think, neglected the life of the Christian mind. We used to say the church teaches what we believe really well but not why we believe it. So us apologists, we’re trying to train up the church in why we believe these things. But to be honest, when you look at the research now that's coming out in the last couple of years, people who identify as evangelical, I think it was in our book we say 42 or 43 percent of U.S., so Americans, who identify as evangelical do not believe that Jesus is god. They think He’s just a good moral teacher. Hold on a second! So these people identify as evangelical but they’re not Christian. I mean, this is crazy!

So you have, on the one hand, Christians, people who are professing to be Christians because, hey, I was born in America or I was born in Canada. That's the default, right. It’s like in your genetics or something. Yeah, so you have that on the one hand, so there’s no real understanding or foundation for what real, orthodox Christianity is. Then you have this dominant culture, I mean, it’s coming from every direction, this idea of relativism. It’s literally the water that many of your young people especially are swimming in, and they don’t even know they’re wet.

And then of course you have social media, this platform now, where I have access to, I mean, the world. I have access to memes and TikToks and these, for many, they think these are compelling arguments. I can’t tell you how many times I’m sitting here at my desk and I get a message coming in. It’s a meme or a TikTok video that someone sends me and says, “Hey, can you respond to this? I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to respond.”

And I watch the video or I read the meme and I think, Really? This is not a good argument. It’s not even close. Usually, it’s not even an argument. And so when you bring all those things together, I think that makes America susceptible to the deconstruction movement for sure.

Alisa: there’s also the Trump element in the American version of deconstruction. It’s just such a huge part of that that is so uniquely American. But as Tim said, I think deconstruction is happening everywhere. I know progressive Christianity is happening. Even in the Middle East I’ve gotten emails of people wanting my book to be translated into Farsi because it’s even coming into the Middle East. So where there is progressive Christianity, there is dn. But I suppose it’s just taking on maybe a different type of flavor here in America.

Jonathan: Well, and even the Trump effect has ripple effects around the world to where people in foreign nations see Trump and think, Oh, well, he’s their definition of Christian.

Let’s talk about the prevalence. Because I think there are some who think this is just happening out in large cities or this is not affecting everyday people. There can be a disconnect to just how much influence this is having. And it can be people who are watching and consuming these things that aren’t even talking about it with their family because they know how the family will react when there’s genuine questions and doubt. So tell us a little bit about what you’re seeing with the prevalence of both of these concepts entering into homes.

Alisa: Well, I think we’re in a different world now, so this is an interesting anecdotal piece to this. When I go out and speak I’ll often ask an audience, “How many of you have heard the word deconstruction in the context of faith?” And the older the audience, the fewer the people have even heard of it. And yet, when I go speak to students it’s 90 percent. But it blows my mind. Even at women’s conferences where women … the ages are 20 to maybe 60, 70, you might have 20 percent raise their hand that they’ve even heard of the concept.

And so what I mean by we’re in a different world is decades ago you had to get a book deal. There was major exposure with ideas. And so I think that there are some of us who are still living in that world and don’t realize the prevalence of some of these ideas on social media. For example, we have many posts documented in our book where it’s somebody that nobody’s ever heard of an probably never will know their name, but their video has millions of views, hundreds of thousands of likes, and if you think about the reach of that versus somebody that you might have seen on TV decades ago or maybe in a Christian bookstore even or in the catalog that they would send out, that's a lot of people. But social media can reach so many people with a message where it’s not even necessarily surrounding a particular personality.

And so I think the prevalence of it is on social media, so someone’s exposure to it is probably going to be directly related to what types of social media they have and how often they engaging with it.

Tim: And the other element to this, the older folks who have exposure to it, is because they have a loved one, usually a younger loved one, who is going through it and now we’re just, as we label it, this is what it is, deconstruction, they say—it clicks. Oh, that's what my nephew is going through, or my grandchild or my son or my daughter or whatever. So it does kind of filter up to that older generation. They’re seeing the aftermath usually. It’s like why is my grandson no longer following the Lord? Well, it turns out they went through a process called deconstruction.

Jonathan: Well, and I imagine some of the reactions can be unhelpful, and that's why, again, I think it’s important that books like yours are out there and podcasts and stuff that you guys are producing is out there, so that there’s a heightened awareness but also a helpful response. Because we do have a response and a calling, but we need to make sure we’re doing it in a right and biblical way.

I wonder if we could come to the origins of this. I know Carl Lawson writes in the foreword in your book about technically the beginning is, when Demas, who fell in love with the world, abandoned Paul and the ministry and the faith. But I mean in this particular area, is it with social media? Was there a particular person or is it just postmodernism in general? Where do you find your origins to these movements?

Tim: Well, it’s true that we could trace this thing past Demas. We can go all the way back to the Garden of Eden, always. But just more recently in the 1960s we see postmodern philosophers like Derrida in particular, who is the father of deconstruction. Now of course, his application of deconstruction was to textbook religion. He argued that objective meaning, objective truth, could not be known, and that there was no actual truth, so the reader could import just as much meaning as an author of a text. And what we traced in our research is we saw there is a connection here.

In fact, we discovered a book by John Caputo, who is a scholar and actually follows Derrida and applies Derrida’s philosophy not just to textbook religion in general, but in fact, to Christianity. And he wants to do this postmodern move even on the words of Jesus. And so he gives application in his book. What would Jesus think about, say, homosexuality today? Well, He would look around the world and see loving, monogamous relationships and He would be affirming. Even though Derrida says, yet, in the first century, no, Paul and Jesus, they had a certain view on this, but we’re going to bring new meaning to the text. In fact, the way Derrida describes this is Derrida says the text actually never arrives at a meaning. In fact, he has this analogy of a postman delivering a letter, and it’s like the letter never arrives at its destination, and in that sense, Christianity has not arrived. There is no set fundamental beliefs that you need to hold to—in fact, they are always changing, never arriving.

So this is kind of the history, and of course there’s lots of people who don’t know who Derrida is, they don’t know who John Caputo is, and yet, they are taking a page out of his playbook. They are thinking in terms of that kind of postmodern philosophy as they look out at religion. It’s not what is actually true corresponds to reality; instead, it’s there is something else going on. Oftentimes, it’s personal preferences are the authority, or maybe they’re looking at the culture and saying, “Yeah, look, the culture is more accepting of sexuality and so we ought to be too.”

Jonathan: Yeah, just like in the days of Noah. Help us understand who are some of the primary voices behind this today? I know we talked about how when you’re on social media it can be a lot of nameless, faceless people who just have an opinion and they want to create an argument or a non-argument that has an effect on people with their emotions. Are there any that are writing or have some influence as, you know, even by way of warning people, hey, be careful of so-and-so because it tends towards this trajectory?

[24:42] Alisa: Well, I would say there’s, in my mind, and Tim might have some others, but in my mind there’s one figure in particular that is, in my view, the most influential, although he’s not primarily promoting quote/unquote “deconstruction,” is Richard Rohr. Richard Rohr, his ideas, his universal Christ worldview, is—Interestingly, when I was researching the coaching and therapy sites, I found all the ones I could find online of people offering services to coach you through deconstruction or even offer you therapy through your deconstruction—and by the way, these therapy and coaching sites are not helping you to remain a Christian; they are not interested in where you land, they just want to help you along your subjective journey.

But even the ones that aren’t claiming to be Christians, there’s always this recommendation—I looked at all the book recommendations, and there is a Richard Rohr book there every single time, even among those that don’t claim to be Christians. And so what Rohr has done, I think, is, especially among people who want to retain the title Christian but might be more spiritual but not religious, or some sort of a New Age-y kind of Jesus is more of a mascot kind of thing, Rohr has really given them a worldview to put in place of what they’ve turned down. And he does talk about deconstruction in his book, Universal Christ, and he says it’s like the process of order, disorder, and then reorder.

Well, that sounds good at face value. You’re taught a certain thing, and then something messes it up and as an adult you have to do some digging and some work and then you reorder. But that's not exactly what he’s talking about. His order stage is what he calls “private salvation,” your private salvation project. In other words, Rohr doesn’t believe in personal salvation, he believes in universal salvation, he’s a universalist. So he’s saying that's like the kindergarten version of faith, this kind of Christianity where you have personal faith and you have this God of wrath and judgment. All of that just needs to be disordered so that ultimately you can reorder according to his worldview.

Now I bring up Rohr because he’s so influential. I mean, he makes his way into so many of the deconstruction conversations. But beyond Rohr, it’s tough because there can be platforms that swell up and get really big, and then I've seen them shut down after they have maybe 20,000, 30,000 followers, even up to hundreds of thousands of followers. I’ve seen several of these platforms just kind of get burned out and they shut down. So it’s hard to say, but I would say Derek Webb, Caedmon’s Call, is an important voice in there. You’ve got—Well, Jon Steingard was for a while when he ended up shutting down his YouTube, but he was the lead singer of Hawk Nelson. He was commenting for quite a while. Jo Luehmann is pretty influential. Who else, Tim?

Tim: Well, there’s—I put them in different categories.

Alisa: The NakedPastor.

Tim: The NakedPastor for sure. So there’s guys who, and gals who have deconstructed and posted that they’ve deconstructed online. So that would be someone like a Rhett McLaughlin, who 3 million people watched his video four years ago. He’s been keeping people updated every year; they do kind of an anniversary thing. That sparked so many people on their own deconstruction. Now what's interesting about Rhett is he didn’t necessarily tell you how to

Tim: Yeah. And that was enough for some people to say, “Maybe I should do this too.” Now there’s other platforms out there, and all they do is criticize Christianity, or they mock Christianity. Those are big on TikTok. I mean, there are massive platforms that have half a million followers and millions of views, okay, and I could go down and list some of those for you. But the point is they’re not necessarily talking about deconstruction and the process, but they’re just saying, “Hey, here’s what you guys believe, but here’s my mocking, here’s my criticism.”

Then there’s this other stream, and this is the NakedPastor or Jo Luehmann and others who aren’t just mocking Christianity or criticizing Christianity but they’re trying to advocate for a certain kind of process, okay, and that's where you’re going to get a little more detail on how this deconstruction thing works out. And so they’ve been, in fact, Jo Luehmann and the NakedPastor, David Hayward, and—

Jonathan: Joshua Harris. Didn’t he do a course through that?

Tim: That's right. Joshua Harris, when he—again, on Instagram. That blew up. There were like 7,000 comments in response to him just posting, “I’m no longer a Christian.” And you could see the responses, and I’m telling you, there were many who said, “This post is what set me on my deconstruction journey.” So there’s at least three different categories of influencers out there, and they’re all playing into the same thing, deconstruction, but they all are coming at it from a different angle.

Jonathan: Alisa, for those who are familiar with your story, how is this movement different from the path that you were on?

Alisa: This is a great question because I’ve actually changed my mind on how I talk about this. So over ten years ago I had a faith crisis that was really agonizing. It was years long. I landed fairly quickly in going through some apologetics arguments, knowing that God existed, but just the doubts that would nag at me were just years of this agonizing research, reading thousands of pages of scholarship, just trying to figure out if what I believed was actually true. And it was propelled by a progressive pastor. I didn’t know he was progressive at the time, but I was in a church where there was this class going on and it set my friends, a bunch of my friends, into deconstruction.

And so when I wrote my first book about my journey, I actually called the process that I went through deconstruction because it was horrible, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. It was agonizing and I had to kind of de-con-struct. If you just take the word at face value, and then build back from the beginning.

But interestingly, when I would go online and I would talk about my deconstruction, deconstructionists would come on and say, “No, you didn’t deconstruct.” At first, that was so confusing to me. I was like, “Well, were you there?” I mean, it was like this horrible, agonizing process.

Jonathan: I’m the ultimate authority here.

Alisa: Yeah, right, I know. And they said, “Well, you didn’t deconstruct because you still hold to toxic theology. You still have toxic theological beliefs.” And that's when I realized, oh, okay, so this isn’t just—even though I knew it wasn’t a good thing, I knew it was a horrible thing because, again, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, but it wasn’t about truth. It’s actually about leaving behind these beliefs that they think are toxic. And let’s say you completely do hard work of years of studying and you decide that you are a sinner and that Jesus did die on the cross for your sins, that the Bible is God’s Word and that what Jesus claimed about Himself is true and that He proved it by resurrecting from the dead, if you hold to those beliefs, along with the biblical sexual ethic, you have toxic theology and you’ve got to go back to the drawing board and start over.

So that's when I realized, okay, there’s more to this. And so I actually correct myself—

Jonathan: There’s a goal.

Alisa: Yeah. I correct myself in the new book and say I don’t actually use the language of deconstruction to describe what I went through because I was on a truth quest. I wanted to know what was true, whether I liked it or not, whether it resonated with me or not. In fact, what was interesting in the class I was in where all my friends ended up deconstructing, and I mean all that I know of, there might be two that I lost touch with that maybe didn’t, but most of the people that I know of did. And everything in that class was all about what resonates with me. I mean, we would … they would talk about Bible verses and say, “Well, that just doesn’t resonate with me,” and they would toss it aside. And I was like, “You can’t just do that.”

And so I didn’t deconstruct, and so I corrected my language on that and really changed my mind about what I think it is. And I think what I’m hoping to set the example for others is people who are wanting to use the word because it was trendy—because I really had a thing about that. Why am I using the word? Why am I hanging onto the word? And I had to realize there’s no reason for me to use that word. Because what I did was search for truth. I tested all things, held fast to what is good—that's biblical. I don’t need a postmodern word to describe that. And so that would be my journey with this word and kind of my relationship with it is that I’ve changed my mind; I didn’t deconstruct. It was—

Jonathan: You re-entrenched.

Alisa: Yeah, they just think I circled some wagons and found some people to agree with me. Which is so interesting to me, because they weren’t there. And that's the thing. Pete Ens, I’ve seen the comment from him, “Oh, Alisa doesn’t know … she doesn’t understand deconstruction, she doesn’t get it.”

And I’m just like, “Were you there? You weren’t there. You have no idea what I went through.” But it’s like they’re so quick to say, “You have to respect my lived experience,” but they are the first ones that will not respect your lived experience if you land at historic Christianity for sure.

Jonathan: That makes sense. You guys have spent hours on places like TikTok researching what leads people to deconstruct and what they all have in common. What are the common threads that you’ve noticed through that?

Tim: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, some of the factors that we’ve noticed that kind of launch people into a deconstruction are things like doubts, unanswered questions. Virtually all these stories have some instance of suffering or pain, and we’ve all been through that. There’s church hurt, there’s spiritual abuse. Now we’ve got to be careful about that a little bit, because sometimes it’s a real abuse that happens, of course, we would all want to say that is horrible and we stand against that. That is not of God. And so when a pastor engaged in that kind of thing, he needs to be held accountable for it.

But then on the other hand there is what we might call perceived abuse or perceived harm. And this is where things like teaching the doctrine of hell. In our research, we found that that's called, you know, teaching your kids, it’s child abuse. If you say that Jesus died for your sins, that's considered toxic and abusive to tell someone that, yet that's the gospel message. So we want to make sure that we distinguish between those things.

Of course, we just mentioned earlier about politics and Trump and all that stuff. So there’s these different elements that you’ll see peppered within these stories. Now we want to be quick to say that not all deconstruction stories are alike. In fact, they are often very unique, and that's because every single person is unique. So if you’ve heard one deconstruction story, then you’ve only heard one, you haven’t heard them all. But there are these common threads.

One question that we asked when we were doing our research is why is it that two people can grow up in the same house, they can go to the same church, the same youth group, they have the same parents, they experience some of the same trauma, suffering, whatever, and yet one will deconstruct and the other maybe becomes an even more faithful believer. What's going on there?

And what we found is it comes down to—at least one element—a faith foundation. What is it, what is your faith foundation? And of course, this is going to be different for different people, and what we need to be asking, we’re challenging the church to ask, is what does it mean to be a Christian? Oftentimes, you know—and this is a question I was asked when I was in university by my friends who were not believers, “Tim, why are you a Christian?” And I honestly shot back, “Because my parents are Christians.” That was my first response. I knew that ain’t right. That was embarrassing.

I’d grown up in the church. I’d done all the church stuff, and yet I did not have a strong Christian foundation and a strong Christian faith. And so I, at that point, was very susceptible to this kind of deconstruction, right, because I could—if TikTok was big at that time, I could have watched a video and, “Okay, I’m outta here. This has been refuted.”

So I think that all those things that I mentioned earlier can make you a good candidate for deconstruction, but they don’t have to lead you down the path of deconstruction. This is why it’s really, really important that the church needs to be helping to develop and disciple Christians so they have a strong foundation so when that crisis hits, they are able to stand firm in their faith.

So let me ask this question. There may be a simple answer. Is the faulty foundations that people are building on essentially, I mean, is the answer anything but Christ? Is it in the institution of the church or in the leadership in the church or your favorite Christian singer? Is it … do you find those the main threads that came back?

Alisa: That's an interesting question. I think, you know, when I think about foundation … Because I was trying to think through this question even within my own context. So one of my sisters was not a Christian until she was an adult, and she would say that openly; that's part of her testimony. She grew up in church. We grew up in the same home, we had the same discipleship, the same youth pastors, pretty much the same experiences growing up, same environment, and yet our foundation was different because I was a devoted Christian as far back as I can remember. I mean, I don’t even remember a time where I didn’t absolutely know that the Bible was God’s Word and Jesus was who He said He was. And yet, for my sister, she grew up in the same environment but had a totally different foundation. she did all the things, she cooperated with it, but She never personally trusted in Christ.

Jonathan: Going through the motions, yeah, okay.

Alisa: Yeah. And she may not have even realized that. You might have asked her at 12 years old, “Are you a Christian,” she might have said, “Well, yeah,” but she didn’t know that she wasn’t until she actually got saved as an adult. And so I think the foundation is more of a personal thing. The way I see it is the level of understanding you might have had. We have a lot of this sort of seeker-sensitive model that's over the past few decades has gotten really big. I’m not saying it’s wrong to have a large church or try to be sensitive to people who are seeking, of course. But some of those seeker-sensitive and megachurch models really watered-down the gospel, really sacrificed discipleship for numbers. And I think that that has resulted in a lot of people growing up in churches that maybe—

And I’m not … We don’t speculate on this question in the book, were they really saved, were they not because we don’t know the end of their story either, but I do think even right now we have a lot of people in our churches who maybe may not be Christians because they may not be getting the gospel, they’re not getting Bible teaching. And they might like the community and even like and believe certain things about it, but everybody’s foundation is maybe going to be a little bit different. That's kind of how I see it.

Jonathan: Well, I mean, not to steer us theologically, but I mean it has to be the work of the Spirit in the life of a person, and that's all in the sovereign timing of the Lord. I wonder if sometimes in this American evangelical mindset from an older-generation perspective we have this understanding that my children should be Christians and they should be following the ways that I direct. And then I should start seeing spiritual fruit in their life. Like, well, I don’t know. I mean, is there something wrong with that happening at a later point? Just thinking from a parental, a parent’s perspective. Maybe I’ve gone into the weeds there a little bit.

Alisa: Like Tim said, each deconstruction story is unique. I would say it like this. Every deconstruction story is unique and yet they’re kind of all the same, too, in certain points. I know we’re getting in the weeds a little bit, but as a parent, I wouldn’t want to push my kid to say they believe something they don’t really believe. I’d want them to come to that on their own. And that might come later, certainly, yeah.

Jonathan: And there’s a level of you want your child to be honest with you, and I think sometimes we can put a false expectation on your child to be going to be at a certain place when they’re just not ready for that yet. And so what they’re actually deconstructing is deconstructing whatever that false view—again, as you said, there’s different stories of deconstruction. But ultimately, if you deconstruct and never return back, to your point, there was never faith to begin with. You experienced the benefits of a covenant community or whatever it is. As Hebrews says, you were tasting but you weren’t of that, you know … not all Israel is Israel.

Do you think it’s potentially because parents are unwilling to engage in the hard questions of the faith? Or do you think perhaps there is always just people who are going to rebel against Christ? Is it all of the above? In your research, I don’t know if you’re working with people who have gone through it and then interviewing them. Are you tracing things back to a particular point? I think we all want to say, “Where does the blame lie?” Are you finding that?

Tim: I think it’s all of the above. A lot of these stories have unanswered questions. In fact, Alisa did a debate on Unbelievable with Lisa Gunger, and she makes this really tragic statement where she said, “Questioning was equivalent to sinning in our church. If you questioned the pastor, you questioned his teaching, whatever, you were in essence sinning.”

So confessing to your questions is confessing your sins. And that mentality, I mean, we wrote a whole chapter called “Questions,” In that chapter, what we’re trying to do is a little bit of a wake-up call. We’re trying to rattle the church a little bit and say, “Hey, we can do better. We ought to be the place where people feel safe to ask their questions and express their doubts.” And I hope that everyone listening to this hears that. Tim and Alisa are not against questions—in fact, we’re apologists. We travel around and we’re doing our best to answer questions, so we’re not against that, and we want the church to be a safe place.

And I mean we give an example of Tim Keller. At the end of his sermons, his services, he would do like a 40-, 45-minute Q&A time where he would just stick around and, okay, come on up. And in New York City, where you have like diversity of people, diversity of views coming in, you’re going to have skeptics, you’re going to have atheists, you’re going to have whatever coming in, asking their hard questions. And when you think about it, the way we have our churches structured, at least most of them, there isn’t really a Q&A time. That would be like a very special thing. Maybe every few months the pastor will take questions or something.

Jonathan: A special treat. Yeah, yeah.

Tim: That's right. But for the most part, that's not there, and that can give a lot of people the impression that questions aren’t allowed here. You just listen to what's spoken, do what you’re told, and that's the end of it. So I think that's part of it. But you also mentioned, yeah, maybe there’s a rebellious heart, too. You can’t read the Bible very far without seeing someone who has a rebellious heart. So we—

Tim: That's right. Just a couple of pages in. And so you end up seeing that this is a realistic element that we need to be talking about, too, and that's why we devoted an entire chapter to the deconstructor, because there are things about the deconstructor that are important to be aware of from a biblical anthropology perspective. And so there certainly are people who are seeking answers, and we want to be there to provide answers. But then there’s also these questions out there that are seeking exits. And you see lots of those. You see them in Scripture and we see—

When you’ve got Richard Dawkins saying, “Well, who made God?” Richard Dawkins should know better, you know. When my four-year-old asks that question, okay, fair enough. But when you have an academic from Oxford asking that question as if it’s legitimate of the Christian God, something else is going on.

Jonathan: I remember Keller teaching on Job, and he says Job is filled with questions, right, but the issue was that he never left God. He didn’t say, “I have questions and now I’m going to go over here and ask them.: But he kept asking the questions of the Lord in his particular situation. And he was saying that questioning can be a good thing because it’s, as we talked earlier, all truth is Christ’s truth, so there’s nothing to be afraid of. You’re not going to get an answer where it should cause difficulty. But rather, you’re sticking close to the source and you’re going to get your answers within reason. But rather than going—

And it’s interesting, because that's what these TikToks and all these things are creating is new avenues for you to go and ask questions and find a story that resonates with you, right, that’s the big terminology that we were using earlier. So that resonates with your story and how you feel, and then where did they land?

How do we invite this sort of cultivating an openness for asking of questions? Is it let’s have a Q&A session at the end of church? Is it, you know, we need to start training our parents to have them understand that your kids asking questions is a good thing because they’re coming to you versus no, everything is fine and I’m going to go to YouTube and find the answer because I think you’re going to be mad at me or whatever it is. Help us think through that from a church perspective.

Alisa: Well, I think starting with the parents is a great place to start because if we can train parents to be the first person to introduce some of these difficult topics to their kids, we know statistically the first person to introduce the topic will be viewed as an expert in the eyes of the child. So when we as parents are the first people to talk to our kids about gender and sexuality and all of these different things—and promoting an environment where we’re not weird about it, we’re not acting awkward about it, then we want to be the Google. I want to be Google for my kids. And that means I’m going to be really honest when they ask their questions and sometimes give more information than they wanted.

My daughter, she jokes with me like “I know I’ll get a straight answer from you with whatever I ask.” And so maybe even training parents to ask your kids questions like “Hey, what's your biggest question about God?”

And parents don’t need to be afraid of what their kids say, because it’s perfectly fine to say, “Wow, I’ve never really thought about that. Let’s think that through together,” and then go do some research and continue to engage with your kid about it. But I think in the home, if we can start there, that's a great place. And then the church can help come around parents with even youth groups doing Q&As and pastors doing Q&As. I think that's a huge way to promote that environment from the home, all the way through the church culture.

Jonathan: Okay, let’s do a little sort of engaging with others segment here. What would you say to those who are seeing their loved ones go through deconstruction or exvangelical. What would you say to them? Buy our book.

Tim: Yeah, that. And I mean the first thing that I would say is stay calm. It can be not just earthshattering for the person going through deconstruction, but the loved ones of those deconstructors it’s often earthshattering. We talk about this in the book, actually. To find out that my kids who I’ve raised in the church come to me and say, “Dad, I don’t believe any of this stuff anymore, I’m out,” that would be crushing.

And I would want to remind myself: stay calm. I’ve heard so many stories, and they’re actually horror stories, where a child comes to a parent and says, “I’m deconstructing” and the parent just loses it. “How could you do that?” And they overreact, and of course that's not going to help. That's the first thing.

I would want my kids right away to know that they are loved, period. That this doesn’t change my love for them. It’s not “I love you, but let me fix your theology.” It’s “I love you, period. You’re still my daughter. I’m still your dad. That's not going to change.”

And then another thing just to add is say thank you. It must have taken a lot for that individual, if they come to you and share that they’ve deconstructed, it must have been a big deal to do that. So I would say, “Thanks for sharing that with me and me being the person that can be there for you.”

So those are introductory things. Obviously, relationship is going to be so important. It’s not necessarily that you’re going to be able to maintain the relationship. We’ve heard stories of people getting no-contact letters from their loved one saying, “Your theology is toxic. I don’t want anything to do with you and so we’re done. Here’s my no-contact letter.”

But if they’re willing to stay in your life, then we want to do whatever is possible to maintain that relationship without compromising truth. Truth is absolutely necessary. But you want to be in that relationship as long as possible, because that's where you’re going to be able to have probably the best impact.

Its’ interesting you brought up Job earlier. And Job’s comforters started on the right track. They were there and they sat with Job—

Jonathan: Silent.

Tim: Silently for seven days. And then it was when they started to open their mouths they got themselves into trouble, and I think we can learn something from that. So we want to hear, “Hey, tell me your story.”

One of the first questions I would want to know is, “What do you mean by deconstruction?” If they’re using that word, I want to know if they just mean, “Hey, I’m asking some questions. Hey, I don’t know if I believe in this view of creation, baptism, and maybe I’m changing.”

Okay, that's different than what we’re seeing online, okay, this idea of a postmodern process. So I want to nail down, okay, what are you going through and what kind of process or methodology are you using to go through it? I want to be able to identify those things.

And of course, in the book we talk about this idea of triage. If you have a gunshot wound to the head but a broken finger, they’re treating the gunshot wound to the head, right, the thing that's more serious. And in a similar way, once you understand where this person’s coming from, you’ve heard their story, you’re going to be able to do some triage. Okay, what's the most important thing in this moment? Is it that I answer all these questions that I’m having? Is it that they just need me to be with them because they are going through something?

And I think that's important because sometimes we miss the mark. Especially as apologists, oh, let me answer that question. Let’s go for coffee. I’m going to fix your theology and then we’ll be back on track.

Jonathan: We’re going to fix the problem, yeah.

Tim: That's likely not going to happen. And then finally, I would just say continue to pray. We cannot underestimate the power of prayer. If someone is going through deconstruction, what they need is God. They need the Holy Spirit. And so let’s petition God on their behalf. Let’s pray that God does whatever is necessary to draw that person back to Himself.

Jonathan: All right, now thinking for the person who is considering deconstructing their faith. And again, that could be a myriad of different positions along that path, but what are the things you would want them to know?

Alisa: Well, so here’s what I would say. If someone is considering deconstruction as if it’s like an option, “Oh, maybe I’ll deconstruct my faith,” and there’s no crisis that's actually throwing you in deconstruction, I would say you don’t need to do that. There’s no biblical command to get saved, get baptized, and then deconstruct your faith. You don’t need to do that. If there are some incorrect theological views that you—maybe you grew up in a very legalistic stream of Christianity. Maybe you grew up in the Mormon church. Maybe you grew up as Jehovah’s Witness and you need to go to Scripture, make Scripture your authority, and then get rid of beliefs that were taught to you that are not biblical. I want you to know that that is a biblical process and that is what you should do.

Jonathan: This is what we call disentangling, right, that we were talking about.

Alisa: Yes. In our book, we would call it reformation. But yeah, Jinger Duggar calls it disentangling. I don’t care what you call it. I would just really encourage you to not use the word deconstruction, because deconstruction is a very specific thing that isn’t about getting your theological beliefs corrected according to the Bible, and so we want to be reforming our faith according to Scripture. And so if you need to disentangle, as Jinger would say, or reform beliefs that were unbiblical, please do that. And that can be a very long process. It can be a difficult process.

But if someone is listening who’s maybe propelled into deconstruction through some church abuse or whatever it might be, my encouragement would sort of be the same. It’s actually good for you to get rid of beliefs that led to abuse, that Jesus stands against abuse as well. But I would just encourage you not to get sucked into this sort of deconstruction movement, because it’s not based on absolute truth. It’s not based on Scripture. And it’s not going to lead you to any sort of healing and wholeness spiritually. And so whether you’re just considering it intellectually or you’re just interested, I would resist it. And that's … There’s going to be well-meaning evangelical leaders that will tell you you can deconstruct according to the bible, but I don’t think you can. And so let’s keep our language and the way we think about this biblical rather than bringing in a postmodern concept that just clouds the … muddies the water and causes confusion.

Jonathan: All right, this is good because this goes to the next level. What do you say to those who believe that Christianity is toxic or patriarchal? What's your word to them? And then the follow-up to that would be for believers. When do we engage and when do we not engage with people who are kind of promoting that sort of ideology?

Tim: I would want to ask some questions, like what do they mean by toxic, what do they do they mean by patriarchal, to nail down those definitions. Are they appealing to something objective or are they appealing to something subjective based on their own personal preferences? I think it’s really important that we start with what's true before we can look at whether or not something is toxic, or harmful, or whatever.

In the book, we give the example of you stumble upon someone who’s kind of beating on someone’s chest, and in that moment it may look like they’re being abused, but you come to find out that actually they’ve had a heart attack, and that person is not beating on their chest, they’re doing chest compressions, doing CPR. That totally changes how you see that action, right? It goes from being, hey, that's harmful and toxic to, wait, this is lifesaving, this is lifegiving.

So I think that's really important, when I see a deconstructionist talk about how hell is causing child abuse, I want to know, first of all, if there is such a place as hell. For them, it’s not even on the table; it’s not even the question, right, because it’s a totally different philosophy, a totally different worldview. I want to look at is this true?

I give the example of I told my kids not to jam a knife into the wall socket. Well, why not? Because there’s electricity in there and it could electrocute you and kill you. So any good parent warns their kids about that. Or touching the hot stove, these kinds of things. Is it harmful for me to tell them not to do that? Everyone agrees, no, that's not harmful; it’s not toxic. Now, it would be toxic if there was no such thing as electricity. If I’m just playing these games where I’m trying to torment my kids so they’re scared to do whatever, to actually make them terrified of the stove or something. No.

Okay, the reason that they need to be careful around this hot stove or not stuck, stick stuff in the wall outlet is because there are dangers. And if hell really is this kind of danger, then we ought to appropriately talk about this issue. Look, I’m not talking to my three-year-old about eternal conscious torment. You know what I’m saying? Obviously, there is some appropriate when the time is right. Sexuality, we appropriately talk with those … about those issues with our kids. But we do talk about those things, and that's because they’re true, and that's were we start.

Jonathan: That sort of answers a little bit of the next question, which is that you both dedicated the book to your children. And we’re, I think, we’ve kind of addressed it in terms of being available. But in light of everything that you know and all that is going on with deconstruction and the questions and the struggles of the next generation, how are you taking this and applying this as you raise your children?

Alisa: Well, I know that this research has definitely affected how I parent. In fact, I went through a phase in the early stages of the research where I would hear myself saying things, and I was like, “That's going to end up in their deconstruction struggle.” And I found myself almost becoming way too passive for it was probably just a couple of months when the research was so intense, and it was new. And it was like, oh my gosh, all these things i’m saying to my children is what people say they think is toxic and that's what they’re deconstructing from.

And then I swung back around and I’m like, no, it’s my job as a parent to teach my kids what's true about reality. Just because maybe culture things that 2 + 2 = 5 now doesn’t mean that I need to cower and say, “Well, you know, I’m not going to be too legalistic about 2 + 2 + 4.” No. 2 + 2 = 4. You can believe what you want, but this is what's true. And so I actually, you know, what I’ve started to do is tell my kids “Look, it’s my job as your mom to teach you what's true about reality. And what you believe about God and what you believe about morality is in the same category of science, math, logic. These are facts about reality. It’s my job to teach you. Now, you are the person who chooses to believe it or not.”

And so what I’ve tried to do is really engage my kids in conversations, but knowing also that statistically they might deconstruct one day. I have to leave a lot of that to the Holy Spirit, and also to try to model to my children what a real believer looks like. I think that's a huge, a huge element in parenting is letting our kids see us repent to them if we sin against them, in front of them. Reading our Bibles on a regular basis together, praying together as a family. Not just being Sunday Christians. Here in the South it’s real easy to just be that Sunday Christian and then—

Jonathan: Haunted by the ghost of Christ.

Alisa: That's right. And then you just live like He doesn’t exist the rest of the week. And that's the thing about the Bible Belt. Certainly, people aren’t acting … like doing pagan sacrifices during the week. They are pretty much good people. But it’s just not relevant to their lives until Sunday comes around. And just being different from that in front of our kids is something I’ve really tried to engage.

And just engaging their questions without pushing them, I think, is a huge thing. Like you mentioned earlier, is letting them have their own story and their own journey. And even as my sons wrestled with the problem of evil for about two years really intensely, I really didn’t want to push him. And I just validated that that's a good question, that's an honest question to ask, and let’s talk to the Lord about it, let’s think through some things. But trying not to push him to just settle really quickly so that he can work this out for himself, with discipleship and the guidance of parents. But that's one of the ways it’s really affected my parenting.

Tim: That's so good. Yes and amen to all of that.

Jonathan: Okay, I second that. All right, give us some hope. This is your part three. Part three. This can all sound pretty scary and off-putting and you need to block it out.

Tim: It really really does seem hopeless, especially if you spend any time kind of typing in hashtag deconstruction or hashtag exvangelical. I mean, I would go into my office here and start working and writing and I’d come out and I’d just be like … my mood has changed.

Jonathan: Spiritual warfare, for sure.

Tim: My wife knew it, oh yeah, my wife saw it and my kids could see it. It was really discouraging. And so I feel for those parents who have that loved one who’s going through this, and many do, so we wanted to make sure we end the book on a hopeful note. And one of the things that we were thinking about—in fact, I think it started with a phone call. I called Alisa, and I remember I was sitting at my dining-room table and I had a sermon that I was going to give on deconstruction. And I’m like, Alisa, I need to end this thing with something hopeful because it is so … And I had, actually, a parent reach out to me before I gave the sermon, saying, “I really hope that you’re going to give us some hope.” Because they have a child themselves, a young adult, who’s deconstructing. I’m thinking, okay, what is it Alisa? Help me out here.

And we just started talking back and forth and so I don’t know how this came up, but eventually we started thinking about Easter weekend, right, we’re coming up to it. Of course, you think about what was going on Friday night. It’s like Peter’s there; he’s seen his Savior, his Messiah being crucified, and his world is turned upside down. We could just imagine what that was like to go through this traumatic experience.

And then, of course, it jumps to Sunday and Sunday brings with it resurrected hope, right? And you have the angel shows up, tells the women, you know, go and tell His disciples AND Peter. Like Peter really needs to hear this. Friday night, he denied the Lord three times. It was a bad night for Peter. But he’s going to receive this resurrection hope on Sunday.

Well, we actually titled the last chapter “Saturday” because we think that a lot of people are living in what could be described as a Saturday. Now again, we’re not told much about that particular Easter Saturday, so we can only speculate, but really, I mean, what kind of questions were the disciples, in particular, Peter, asking? Were they starting to doubt some of the things that they had been taught, maybe like trying to explain away some of the miracles they had seen? It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, was it? And so there’s self-doubt, there’s all this trauma that they’ve experienced.

Now of course, Sunday was just around the corner. We think that, look, if that hope can come for Peter, then it can come for you and your loved one, too, right? We don’t know what that Saturday looks like. It may not be tomorrow. It may not be just one 24-hour day. It could be months down the road; it could be years down the road; but we think this is a message. Because if it can happen for Peter, it can happen for your loved one. And I think that can move us from a state of “This is completely hopeless, what good can come from this? How can this be undone,” to a state where, no, we can be hopeful. Jesus rose from the grave after being dead. And when that happened, Peter’s faith is restored.

“Do you love me?” He says, “Yeah, I love you.” Three times, kind of like paralleling the three denials.

Jonathan: Exactly.

Tim: And then the Church is built on this confession. So I mean that brings me hope, and hopefully it brings hope to others who are going through this.

Jonathan: Just one final question. Have you seen anyone who’s been restored out of this?

Alisa: You know what? I have heard a few stories, but these are people that have platforms. So I have several people that are part of my Facebook community who have said they deconstructed into progressive Christianity but have been brought back. I have had a couple of people on my personal podcast who had deconstructed. One is a guy name Dave Stovall. We actually tell his story in the book. He was in the band Audio Adrenaline, and he deconstructed into progressive Christianity and then a local pastor here in town discipled him back to the historic Christian faith and had all these difficult conversations with him and engaged him in conversation. So I think we are seeing some. We’re not seeing a lot yet, but I think a lot of the stories maybe are just more private, where people aren’t necessarily shouting it on social media. But yeah, the Lord’s at work, absolutely.

Jonathan: That's good.

Tim: Yeah, I can echo that, too. We’ve been … A I travel around teaching and speaking, I’ll have people come up to me and usually you get a lot of people saying, “Thanks for hits information. I had no idea this was going on.” But this one guy, he said, “I went through deconstruction.” And he said, “It was when you put up your definition of deconstruction that you had me because that”—

Alisa: Wow!

Tim: I thought he was going to push back and be like, “But that's not how you define it. Instead, he said, “You had me as soon as you put up your definition.” Why? “Because,” he said, “that exactly described the process that I was going through.” And yet, here he was on that Sunday morning at church kind of completely kind of turning a corner and willing to say, “No, I’m willing to follow the truth wherever it leads.”

And that led him to affirming that the Bible is God’s Word, and now he’s trying to align his beliefs. And of course, that's a journey we’re all on. I have false beliefs right now; I just don’t know which ones are false, right? I’m always trying to correct my mistaken beliefs and make them align with Scripture. And praise the Lord, that was the journey he was on.

Jonathan: Oh, amen. Well, the book is The Deconstruction of Christianity: What It Is, Why It’s Destructive and How To Respond. Alisa Childers, Tim Barnett, thank you, guys, so much for being on Candid Conversations. I’ve really enjoyed our talk today.

Alisa: Me, too. Thanks so much.

Tim: Yeah, this was a lot of fun. Thanks for having us.

Jonathan: God bless.

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 245: Are You a Godly Team Member?: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 04:00:00 +0000

In this new reflection, Jonathan shares the Biblical principles of teamwork and selflessness that should be found within the church community.

Continuing from last week's reflection, "Are you walking in truth?", Jonathan recounts the story of Bill Romanowski, an incredibly talented former NFL player known for his less-than-ideal teamwork. His story is a modern parallel to the Biblical account of Diotrephes, who prioritized self-interest over communal harmony.

Join us as we uncover what the Bible says about true servanthood and how we can walk as godly team members daily.

After you listen to this episode, you may have questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 244: Are You Walking in Truth?: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 9 Apr 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Join Jonathan Youssef to navigate the complexities of truth and love. In this episode of Candid, Jonathan will examine the challenges of understanding these concepts, including whether absolute truth exists and the multifaceted nature of love.

The conversation touches on the Christian perspective of being salt and light to a dying world that lacks an understanding of truth and love. It highlights the importance of living out the truth of our faith with love and patience in the community.

Further, we explore the apostle John's transformation from a zealous youth to a wise elder who embodies truth and love. Through his letter to Gaius, we uncover the joys of faithfulness to the Gospel, the significance of hospitality, and how to discern true from false teachings.

This episode aims to inspire a deeper understanding and practice of truth and love in listeners' lives. It encourages reflection on personal beliefs and actions in light of these foundational principles. Join us to explore how these ancient virtues remain relevant and transformative today.

After you listen to this episode, you may have questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

This transcript recounts Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef Episode 244, Are You Walking in Truth?:

Today I want to talk to you about Truth and love. These are two words with many different definitions. When I say truth and love, you don’t even know what I could say next. I could say anything. Is it my truth? Is it your truth? Is it his truth, her truth, their truth? It’s almost as if it’s just a subjective topic, a subjective term. Is there anything like absolute truth?

And love, my goodness, are we talking about romantic love, brotherly love, or agape love? Are we talking about love that is just tolerance and acceptance? Do we love each other only as long as we agree with each other? Or is it just a feeling or an emotion? Is love self-defined? Love is love.

The world today is tied up into knots over these two terms. Can a person have truth and not love? Can a person have love but not truth? Here’s the reality: I don’t expect the world to get this right. I don’t have a great hope that things will get a lot better at any point in time because this is not our home. But at the same time, I have not been called to run out into the hills and build a bunker and stock up on ammunition. We have been called to look at a dying world that does not know the truth and does not understand love, and we are called to be salt, and we are called to be light to them.

We are called to encourage one another, to gather and praise God's name together, and to go out and witness to the world together because our message is far greater than any message they will ever hear. No matter your age or stage of life, if you put your saving trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, then your calling is to be obedient to the truth and to walk the truth out in love.

A. W. Pink was a reformed theologian who wrote several great books and many fantastic sermons. His writing is so helpful; I’ve used several of his writings in research that I’ve done for other sermons. Martin Lloyd-Jones, who was succeeded by our dear friend R. T. Kendall at Westminster Chapel said, “Don’t waste your time reading these other theologians,” like Karl Barth and Bruner. He said, “Go and read Arthur Pink. Read Pink.”

Pink would tour around America and Australia preaching and teaching, but he was never well-known until after he died. Pink finished out his days living in isolation in Scotland with his wife. They never really became part of a church body. They never got situated with a good church community.

Lloyd-Jones also said of Pink, “As it related to his inability to be patient with people and remain in a particular church, if I had behaved as Pink did, I would have achieved nothing. I could see that the only hope was to let the weight of truth convince people, so I had to be very patient and take a long-term look at things; otherwise, I would have been dismissed, and the whole thing would have been finished.”

Pink was a man who was grounded in the truth and yet, for whatever reason, was not walking it out. And his own friends testified against him. That’s why Scripture is very careful to teach us that we walk these two things out together—truth and love. We should be people who are marked by truth, strong in our convictions, and hold fast to the Word of God, by the Spirit of God, for the glory of God. But we should also be marked by love and generosity, grace and humility, hospitality, and care because all of these are the markings of Jesus’s life and ministry on Earth.

So, we read about these two things, truth and love, in the shortest letter in the Bible, John’s third epistle. Before we go any further, let’s take a minute and read from Third John:

The elder, To my dear friend Gaius, whom I love in the truth. Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. It gave me great joy when some believers came and testified about your faithfulness to the truth, telling how you continue to walk in it. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. Dear friend, you are a faithful ... you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers and sisters, even though they are strangers to you. They have told the church about your love. You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. It was for the sake of the Name that they went out, receiving no help from the pagans. We ought therefore to show hospitality to such men so that we may work together for the truth.

John wrote the Gospel of John and First, Second, and Third John. He would also later write the book of Revelation. First John was written to a very general audience. Second John was written to a specific church. And this letter, Third John, was written to a very personal and specific person.

Let’s take a minute to get to know John. He was a disciple, and he was nicknamed by Jesus, with his brother James, the “sons of thunder”. When Jesus and the disciples were turned away from hospitality from a Samaritan village, it was James and John who went to Jesus and said, “Can we call for fire to come down to judge these people,” - a la Elijah and the prophets of Baal.

Jesus rebukes them because his first coming was not one of judgment but to preach the good news, to bring healing, and to bring life. But compare John in his youth to this John here in writing his third letter, and he is referred to simply as “the elder.” John grew from a brash, arrogant young man filled with fire, to this wise, gentle, loving older man who is full of love and truth.

What happened to John? How did he move from a son of thunder to the loving elder? What had he experienced? He had witnessed a lot. He had witnessed Jesus’s teachings, Jesus’ miracles, Jesus’ preaching. He witnessed Jesus’ patience with the disciples. He witnessed the transfiguration and saw Christ with Moses and Elijah, a depiction of the Law and the prophets. He also witnessed His Lord and Savior crucified on the cross. It was then he was given the position of caring for Jesus’s mother, Mary. This is John, who would also see His Resurrected Lord and Savior. John is a man who has been used mightily by the Lord.

And John is writing this letter to a man called Gaius. Now, we don’t know anything about Gaius. He doesn’t appear to be in any sort of leadership in the church that we can tell. All we see is Gaius’s character, and that character is being reported back to John. We see that there was some conflict in the church over who was trustworthy. They wanted to know who they could believe.

There are so many mixed messages. A preacher would travel from house church to house church and depend on other believers to show them hospitality. In John’s second epistle he warns the believers not to welcome in or even greet the false preachers and teachers because that would only help them spread a false gospel. He’s saying, “Do not endorse these people, but take the faithful in and welcome them.”

So, what are the distinguishing marks between a false teacher and a faithful teacher? Now, these weren’t denominational issues. They weren’t in disagreement over infant baptism and believer’s baptism. They disagreed over whether Christ had physically come in the flesh. John says, “Leave these people alone. Let them go on their way. The truth itself will testify to the faithful teachers.”

In essence, he is saying, “If you are a believer who has heard and received the Gospel and your spiritual eyes have been opened, your spirit inside you will resonate with what is being taught and you will know a true teacher of the Gospel.”

Teachers were dependent on hospitality. They didn't have Holiday Inn or Motel 6. This is why hospitality was such a major issue in the early church. When Jesus sends out the 12 and the 72, He tells them they will be provided for by people of peace. When Paul writes to the Romans, he fully expects that they will financially support his mission journey to Spain. And the book of Hebrews urges the hearers not to neglect hospitality to strangers. Two great needs, truth and love, together.

So John writes to Gaius, verse 1, “The elder to the,” in the ESV, beloved, I’m going to use that term, “the beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth.”

What does it mean to love in the truth? John says that Gaius continues to be faithful to the truth concerning Jesus Christ. And it is the truth that binds us together. We know love because we know the truth.

John writes in his first epistle, 1 John chapter 3 verse 16, “By this, we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers because of the truth of the gospel.” Because of the gospel's truth, we are called to love one another. Strangers? Never heard of it, not in the church. I may not know your name, but we are brothers and sisters in Christ. We have more commonality than flesh and blood oftentimes do.

Listen to what John writes in verse 2, “Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health as it goes well with your soul.”

How does he know it’s going well with Gaius’s soul? We read it in the next verse: "For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth.”

John knows it is going well with Gaius’s soul because he is living out the gospel's truth. They testified about his faithfulness to the gospel. Gaius is living out the truth of the gospel in love. He’s walking in the truth.

John emphasizes that Gaius’s faithfulness involves his holding to true doctrine and his persistence and actions, which are consistent with what is in the doctrine. In verse 4, John says that his greatest joy is not that his 401(k) is strong, not that his children’s academic and athletic successes are great, not that the design of his home is beautiful, nor that his favorite sports team won a big game. His greatest joy is that his children fellowship with him and actively walk in the truth.

In each of his three letters—to the general church, to the specific church, and to the individual—he goes out of his way to say, “This is important to me. I’m conveying what brings me joy: that you are walking in the truth.”

Gaius has remained faithful to the gospel. He has not fallen to the false teachings that were swirling around. And he is a source of the elder’s greatest joy. Moms and dads, what is your greatest joy regarding your children? Is it that they are academically successful and get into a fantastic college? Is it that they are athletically successful and get scholarships? Is it in your position and the status of your vocation? Is it in the appearance of your home?

And this goes beyond families because Gaius is not John’s physical son; he’s his spiritual son. And so when we are here together as a body, we are, again, brothers and sisters in Christ, and we’re constantly putting forth and putting on display what we prize. I wonder if we went around and asked all the children, “What is it that your mom and dad prize, or your grandma and your grandfather?” What are we displaying as the greatest value to the next generation?

But I also understand that this can be a source of great pain for many people. Your children may not be walking with the Lord, so instead of being a source of great joy, it is a source of great struggle and pain. I think John would give the word to those in that situation to remain in the truth and love. Don’t take truth as a 2 x 4 to your children and try to beat them up with it, insisting that this is right. Your children will despise you for that, and they will despise the truth. But you walk this out in love, with compassion. Don’t forget the truth. Instead, hold it together with love. That is the gospel's message as it was put on perfect display by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Then John praises Gaius for his hospitality to traveling preachers. “Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, who testify to your love before the church.”

His efforts for the faithful brothers is what John commends as faithful. It isn’t just what Gaius believes is faithful, but also his actions. And it is because of what Gaius believes, what he has planted his faith in, that he can be faithful with his actions. Because if you’re not planted in something faithful, your actions won’t reflect faithfulness. But Gaius is planted in a living hope. He is planted in a resurrected hope. He is planted in an unconquerable hope.

These believers go back to Ephesus, where John was, and they say, “We had an amazing time preaching in this little town. You wouldn’t believe it. In this little town, there was a brother in Christ called Gaius, and he was a brother who was strong in the truth. And he was a brother who loved well. He took us in, cared for us, and introduced us to people in the church. He is a dear brother.”

How good is it when people speak well of us? Have you ever been conversing with someone you didn't know very well, and you mention a friend, and that person immediately starts to gush over that person?

“Oh, I love that person. They are so fantastic! Let me tell you. We were moving, and they came and helped us move.” And then you’re sharing stories about how fantastic this person is, how much you love this person, how helpful and insightful they are, and what a blessing they are to know them.

I remember in Australia, there was a well-known evangelist and preacher who was contemporaries with John Stott and Dick Lucas, and just like those two men, this man never married. And the Lord used their singleness to serve the global church so well. This man’s name was John Chapman, and in typical Australian lingo, they shortened it incredibly and just called him Chapo. He was funny, he was kind, he was generous, he was hospitable. He was a mentor to my pastor in Sydney. He had done some work with Dad in the past as it related to evangelism.

And I remember after Chapo died watching his funeral online. The Archbishop of Sydney got up and shared, and he mentioned how deep of an impact Chapo had on so many people. And then he said, “Why don’t we all take a minute right now and have everyone just share your Chapo story with your neighbor?” I mean, I almost burst into tears because it was immediate. Not a second had passed, and the room was filled with smiles, laughter, love, and storytelling. And the problem was that they finally had to get up and say, “Stop. Be quiet. Stop. We have to keep going with the service.” Because they could have gone on like that for hours.

I have a feeling that would have been Gaius. Maybe on a smaller scale, but that would have been Gaius. People would have gone on and on about how dearly he was loved and his impact on them.

I wonder what people would say at a celebration of your life? Would people easily share what an encourager you have been and what a great help you were? Or would they talk about how you may have had your doctrine perfect, dotted every I, and crossed every T, but had no love, like Arthur Pink?

There weren’t universities, trade schools, or tertiary education in the first century. There were these philosophers who would gather in the town square and philosophize. They would just drone on and on about how their philosophy was right. Nothing has changed.

They would try to attract hearers, and then they would start these schools with the hopes that some of these families would say, “We want to send our son to your school,” and then they would train them in that philosophy. Some thought that just as there were stoics, cynics, and epicureans, Christians would have a school like this, and then they would just train up their people like this, that they were just another philosophy of life.

But Christians refused to take this money because Christians were not saying they were just another philosophy amongst the rest. They were announcing the Kingdom of God. They were telling people the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is not just a philosophy; that is a total worldview perspective that affects everything and everyone.

So John says, “These men come in the name of Christ, preaching the word of Christ, and they refuse help from the pagans; therefore, we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.”

Now listen, I understand we may not be in the same position as Gaius or this church, but think about your missionary care and support. Think about your care and your support for ministries that strive to take the gospel to the lost and those on the outside. Think about how you care for and support the pastoral team in your church. Think about how you care for and support your small group leader; how you care for and support your Bible study leader. Think about what it means to support people in ministry. We are all fellow workers for the truth. Your support carries on our work as preachers.

It allows for ministries like Leading The Way to exist, and that work leads to ultimate destinies being changed in people's lives. I read a letter from a young Muslim convert a while back. He was watching the Genesis series we did a while back and talked about how it served, blessed, encouraged, and equipped him. So, your support of the truth motivated by love is serving and blessing this community here and to the rest of the world. What a privilege it is to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, to be supportive of something outside ourselves. When we see that people are blessed and are walking in the truth, that can serve as our greatest joy.

I want to leave you with three questions. It would be good to write them down and to think about them this week.

First, where does your great joy come from?

Second, do people speak well of you regarding truth and love?

And finally, are you a fellow worker for the truth?

I hope these will serve you well today, tomorrow, the week ahead, and the rest of your life. I hope that they will serve as great motivation.

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 243: The Reason for Forgiveness: Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 2 Apr 2024 04:00:00 +0000

How can we truly forgive when we are deeply hurt? And is seeking forgiveness from those we've wronged just as crucial?

In this Candid reflection, Jonathan Youssef delves into the parable of the unmerciful servant from Matthew 18, exploring the profound connection between giving and receiving forgiveness.

Tune in to gain insights and reflections on forgiveness. We'd love to hear from you if this episode sparks any questions! Reach out to Jonathan or connect with the Candid community at https://LTW.org/Candid.

Join the conversation on social media:

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Episode 242: Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Good Friday invites us to witness Christ's profound love and sacrifice, urging us to ponder our role in this redemptive narrative. It calls us to seize the hope and transformation found only in Jesus’s death and Resurrection, motivating us to live lives that reflect Christ's calling.

Join Jonathan Youssef for a thoughtful reflection on the events of Good Friday. We'll explore the depth of Jesus's suffering and its crucial role in delivering salvation and hope to the world. We’ll also explore the critical moments at Golgotha, including Jesus’s crucifixion, the division of his garments, and the powerful expressions of love and sacrifice from that day.

By the end of this episode, you’ll gain insights into the significance of Good Friday in the foundation of Christianity, emphasizing the salvation plan and the transformative impact of Jesus’s ultimate sacrifice.

Stand alongside Jonathan at the base of the cross where Christ was crucified and contemplate the magnitude of God’s love for humanity during this Holy Week.

After you listen to this episode, you may have questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 241: Prayer that Moves Mountains: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Is your prayer life effective? Like many, you may ask, "What is an effective prayer life?"

Join Jonathan Youssef to explore the question of what makes prayer effective. With insights from James 5:16 and the prophet Daniel's prayer life, listeners are guided through the foundational aspects of a prayer that resonates with God, including righteousness, praise, confession, mercy, and bold petitions.

Jonathan emphasizes the importance of aligning our prayers with God's will, as revealed through Scripture. He demonstrates how a righteous life and heartfelt prayer can lead to significant spiritual growth and transformation. This episode encourages listeners to re-evaluate their approach to prayer, ensuring it's rooted in a deep relationship with Christ and a sincere desire to see God's will done on earth.

Whether seeking to invigorate your prayer life or deepen your spiritual walk, this episode offers valuable insights into connecting more meaningfully with God through prayer. Tune in for a journey that promises to uplift and inspire your faith.

After you listen to this episode, you may have questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 240: Stop Calling Me Beautiful: Phylicia Masonheimer

web@ltw.org (Phylicia Masonheimer, Jonathan youssef) — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 04:00:00 +0000

In this enlightening episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef welcomes Phylicia Masonheimer, an influential writer, speaker, and the founder of Every Woman a Theologian. With a Bachelor of Science in Religion and author of pivotal books such as Every Woman a Theologian: Know What You Believe, Live It Confidently, Communicate It Graciously, and Stop Calling Me Beautiful: Finding Soul-Deep Strength in a Skin-Deep World, Phylicia shares her compelling journey from growing up in a culture adjacent to legalism to empowering women in their faith and understanding of the Bible.

Phylicia delves into the critical issues surrounding purity culture, the importance of theological education for women, and the nuanced challenges of navigating legalism and fluffy, feel-good teachings within the Christian community.

Further exploring the balance of family life, ministry, and personal growth, Phylicia and Jonathan discuss practical strategies for managing time, the value of intentional living, and the profound impact of home discipleship on children's spiritual development. Phylicia's insightful perspectives on critical thinking, engaging with Scripture, and the transformative power of the Gospel offers you a refreshing approach to your faith journey.

This episode is not just a conversation but a heartfelt invitation to embrace theology with open arms and discover the strength and grace that come from a deeper understanding of God's Word.

After you listen to this episode, you may have questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 239: Uncovering the Poverty in the Prosperity Gospel: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 5 Mar 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Join Jonathan to discover the roots and the dangers of the prosperity gospel. In this insightful reflection, Jonathan highlights the danger of the prosperity gospel and its power to distort faith into a tool for material gain, urging listeners to prioritize their devotion to Jesus Christ over wealth. He emphasizes the importance of choosing eternal treasures over worldly ones, using Moses and Jesus Christ as models for forsaking earthly riches for God's glory.

The episode of Candid challenges listeners to reflect on their values and the true meaning of living a life of Biblical prosperity, encouraging a life aligned with God's purposes rather than pursuing material wealth.

After you listen to this episode, you may have questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 238: New Age to New Life: Jordan Taylor

web@ltw.org (Jordan Taylor, Jonathan youssef) — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Jordan Taylor was entrenched in the New Age for more than ten years. She practiced witchcraft, performed spells, was a tarot card reader, and enrolled in classes to sharpen her psychic abilities. She was a certified Reiki master and yoga teacher. She used crystals as a means of healing, protecting, and manifesting. She worshiped nature and worked with goddesses. She found her spirit guides and let them lead the course of her life. She believed she created her reality and was her god, controlling her life.

But she grappled with darkness, deception, and a yearning for more…until she had an encounter with God.

Jordan Taylor first shared her testimony of giving her life to Christ on Facebook, which went viral. She then turned that post into an article for the Gospel Coalition. We wanted to know more, so Jordan joins Jonathan for a Candid Conversation to discuss what led her into the New Age, what prompted her to consider a relationship with Christ, and how that relationship has transformed her life from anxiety and darkness to peace, love, and light in Christ.

After you listen to this episode, you may have questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

TRANSCRIPT

This transcript recounts Candid Conversations Episode 238: New Age to New Life with Jordan Taylor.

Jonathan Youssef: Today, my guest is Jordan Taylor. She wrote an article on the Gospel Coalition website, and Jordan, you mentioned that your testimony went viral. Was it that article on Gospel Coalition, or was there another platform on which your testimony went viral?

Jordan Taylor: Yes, my testimony on Facebook went viral.

Jonathan: Facebook. Okay. Jordan Taylor comes out of New Age, so don’t worry if you’re a Christian. If you’ve heard that term a thousand times and still have no idea what it is, Jordan Taylor will define it for us. And it’s a wonderful testimony of how the Lord has drawn you to Himself. It sounds like He’s using you to help others who are caught up in this worldview, particularly young people who are getting caught up in this—I know I’ve seen it quite prevalently, even in the most recent years, so thank you so much, Jordan Taylor, for joining us on Candid Conversations.

Jordan: Thank you so much for having me.

Jonathan: Let’s start with a definition of “New Age.” You could use that term, and maybe 10 percent of the people in the room would have an accurate definition; the rest just nod along and assume they know what you’re talking about.

Jordan: True. So, it is very difficult to define because there is no systematic doctrine for the New Age, and it borrows from many different religions, belief systems, and esoteric traditions. So you might find it’s sort of an umbrella term for a mixture of these concepts drawn from things like Hinduism, Buddhism, metaphysics, astrology, occultism, and mysticism. So it pulls from all different places, and you can say one thing, and another person in the New Age may not be doing that same thing.

Jonathan: Right. Is it sort of the view of they’re at the top of the mountain, and they’re saying, “Hey, all the paths lead to the top, don’t worry” sort of thing?

Jordan: Yeah. You will find that. You will find that all roads lead to heaven sort of mentality.

Jonathan: Interesting. Will you tell us your story? Let’s start with origins and how you got into this, and then we’ll get to the rest of your testimony and how the Lord saved you from it.

Jordan: I was in the New Age for about 13 years. I started by getting involved with yoga, and eventually, that led into meditation, so it was sort of a snowball effect. I started going to therapy—and you’ll see in any modern therapy as well as if you google stress management or how to deal with anger or how to deal with anything, you’ll see that the results are yoga, breathing, meditation. You’ll find a lot of that. So, I started seeing a therapist who recommended taking yoga, and I was not really into that. I wasn’t sold on it. But eventually, after enough encouragement, I decided to try it. I was already into psychic mediums, and I had an obsession with crystals, so I was already there. I had moved to Salem, Massachusetts, at the time, so I was engrained in—

Jonathan: Witchcraft.

Jordan: Yeah. Witchcraft—

Jonathan: Right at the heart of it, Salem.

Jordan: Yeah, my interests were piqued in that matter, so being in Salem definitely overwhelmed me with more of that. Then, being encouraged to try yoga just kind of fits. So I did. I tried yoga and thought I could see how people would like this and how people would feel better after a class like this. I still wasn’t 100 percent sold, but eventually, I liked it so much that I got certified as a yoga teacher. So, I was a yoga teacher. I also became a reiki master- an energy healer. I did hands-on energy healing. I was doing crystal healing. I was an oracle card reader. I was doing intuitive readings with people. And I built a whole business around this, so—

Jonathan: Is this about finding peace, connection with the universe, and alignment? I’m assuming astrology probably comes into this. Yeah, so it’s a seeking of oneness and purpose. These are kind of the main thrusts behind this mindset.

Jordan: Yeah, I was certainly seeking my purpose. I came from a childhood of trauma. I had a pretty rough childhood growing up, and so I had a lot of unhealed trauma that I hadn’t processed.

Jonathan: And that's why you were seeing a therapist to begin with?

Jordan: Yes.

Jonathan: Okay. All right.

Jordan: Yes. I was really searching for ways to heal, for peace, and for my purpose on this earth, and the New Age really played into all of that.

Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah, and it gives you a lot of answers, too; I know the term they like to use a lot is holistic, right? It’s mind/body/spirit, things that are not uncommon to the Christian faith in terms of thinking through those things. Our body is a temple, etc., the renewing of your mind. But the connection to the Earth and the universe, from our perspective now, now that the Lord has saved us, and given us a mind to think, and given us His Word, right, there’s some truth in the elements of creation and the display of the wonder of God, but it’s been warped, it’s been twisted. I remember reading in your article about this is sort of buying into the original lie of Adam and Eve in the Garden.

Jordan: Yes.

Jonathan: That's sort of a helpful thought. I mean, I think everything originates there, right? It’s, in a sense, even in the seeking of oneness, there’s this element of divinity within ourselves and not outside of us so much. Yeah.

Jordan: Totally. I would say that witchcraft started in the Garden of Eden. I mean, Adam and Eve believed the greatest lie ever told, that you would be as gods, and so when you think about it, a lot of times you’re thinking, okay … Well, in the New Age you believe that you can create your reality. You believe that you can manifest what you want. And so essentially, you are thinking that you are your god.

Jonathan: Speaking things into existence and power over all sorts of things. Okay, so you’re headlong into it. You’re teaching yoga, you’re a reiki master, you’re reading cards. Where does the metaphorical stop sign come, or what does it look like, a yield sign or …?

Jordan: I was just so deep into this stuff and at the darkest time in my life. I can remember struggling with depression. I was putting on this façade like I had all the wisdom of the universe and all the secrets and the keys to life and abundance, manifesting joy and peace. And really, behind the scenes, I was struggling deeply with anxiety and depression. And I was at such a low point and such a dark point that I remember saying I preferred not to live anymore. And I was also experiencing things. Because my intentions were good, I thought that I was helping myself; I thought that I was helping other people, and my intentions were good. But what I didn’t know was that I was playing in the spiritual realm, and I was opening doors to places that I didn’t realize I shouldn’t be going. And so I was welcoming in darkness, and I was welcoming in the enemy. In my article, I said that I was laying down a welcome mat for deception and darkness.

And so it got so bad, I was experiencing sleep paralysis, just so many things were happening, and I reached such a low. And at that time, I was dating someone, and the guy that I was dating had just lost his brother. He was an atheist, and he told me one morning that he had a dream, and in the dream, he had met Jesus. And so he told me about this dream, and I didn’t know what to do with it because I had all of these opinions about Christianity, I had all these opinions about Jesus. I believed that Jesus was just a prophet, a historical figure, a teacher. I had even subscribed to the fact that maybe Jesus was some ascended master—you’ll hear that in the New Age. And I also had so many opinions about the bible, and I had never read it.

So hearing him say, “I had this dream about Jesus,” I didn’t know what to do with it, but I thought, you know, he’s going through a lot, and I’m going to support him, no matter what that looks like. So I just kind of listened. And then he started—next thing I know, like every time I see him, he’s got his nose in the Bible. And then he’s like, “I want to go to church. I want to find a church.” And I’m just like, “What is happening?”

Jonathan: Where’s my atheist boyfriend?

Jordan: Yeah! It served me when I was in the New Age because I could kind of pull from any sort of belief and make it true, or true in my mind, I should say. And so being with an atheist matched that for me.

Jonathan: He wasn’t giving you any insight.

Jordan: No, and he wasn’t challenging me in any sort of way, either, to think otherwise. Because I could think whatever came my way, I could think that it was true. And so I’m seeing him checking out churches and reading the Bible, and I remember one time, it was on a Saturday, and I was working, and I text-messaged him and said, “What are you up to?” And he said, “Oh, I’m just watching Passion of the Christ.” And I was like, “For fun? Like this is what you do for fun now?”

Jonathan: Just another Saturday afternoon.

Jordan: I was really confused. But I did become curious. So, since I’d seen him reading the Bible so much, I wondered, “What is in there that has gotten your attention? What are you reading?” And he started to tell me some things he was reading, and I was like, “Really? That's in the Bible?” I didn’t know what was in the Bible; I’d never read it, but I thought I knew what it was all about. I feel silly thinking back on it. And so I remember him asking me to watch a movie called Son of God. And I just really was like, I don’t think that I want to watch a movie about Jesus in my spare time. I don’t want to watch a movie about Jesus for fun. And I was just so averse to that—even though a part of me was curious about what was happening in him, curious about what he was learning, that I eventually did say, “Okay, I’ll watch this movie.”

And so I sat down to watch the movie. I remember very distinctly that I don’t remember what part of the movie, and I can’t even tell you how the movie was, whether it was good or not, but all I can remember was there was a moment where I just started weeping. And it was a cry that I’d never cried before. And I was weeping, and at the same time that I was weeping, I felt this overwhelming feeling of love. I was just enveloped in this overwhelming feeling of love.

And I was just crying and crying, and I remember looking over at my boyfriend and him looking at me, and I was just like, “What? What? Don’t look at me! I’m having this experience. I don’t know what's going on.”

But I realized at that moment that it was God. And I knew that God was after my heart. Ever since that moment, I have thought, I want to feel that again and know what this is all about. I want to know what God is all about. I thought I knew best because I’d had so many different experiences throughout my life, especially in the New Age. And after that moment, I felt compelled to read the Bible. I ended up going and buying a Bible. Once I started reading the Bible, I realized that so many things were taken from the Bible and repackaged in the New Age so that people could either digest it better or make it more appealing to people. And ultimately, I guess, make it less offensive.

So I was reading these things, and I’m like, Oh my goodness. I remember learning about this in the New Age, but under such different circumstances, under deception. And so as I was reading, I felt this sorrow that I knew what I had been doing was wrong, and I knew that I had been sinning against God, and I felt really bad, but in a way that it was a godly sorrow. But I’m realizing, Oh my goodness, I see the truth. I see the truth now. And as I’m reading God’s Word, I’m like, Oh my gosh, I was doing all of these things unknowingly against the God who created me. And so I thought that I knew who “God,” I say in quotation marks, who God was. I always called God “the universe” and thought that this universe was handing me my cards in life, not knowing that God is a person who is alive and—

Jonathan: Revealed Himself and—

Jordan: He has revealed Himself to me, and I’m learning the truth.

Jonathan: You mentioned that you thought you knew what the Bible was about. So, in that lifestyle, what did you think the Bible was about?

Jordan: I thought the Bible was just this tool to oppress people. I thought that it was so outdated and that it was just a tool for the patriarchy. I thought that it was anti-women. You know, I was really big into feminism, so I thought it was anti-women. I thought it was just anti-people, really, and that it was trying to create systems of oppression. And yeah, I just thought that people who read the Bible and Christians were stuck in an old paradigm and not realizing that it was me who was deceived.

Jonathan: You mentioned that as you began to read Scripture, you found some of the things taught in the New Age were disambiguation or twisting of scriptural text. What were some examples of things you read and found the original purpose versus the twisted interpretation you were given?

Jordan: Yeah, I remember one thing when I read about God’s loving-kindness. That word stuck out to me because, in the New Age, there was something called meta meditation, a loving-kindness meditation that focuses first on the self. So, you’re meditating, focusing on yourself, and giving love to yourself. And then it goes out to other people and returns to yourself. You always start and end with yourself and other people in between, and so you’re giving loving kindness to yourself and others. But when I read about God’s loving-kindness, and I saw that word, I was like, Oh my gosh, here I am just really glorifying myself in this and thinking that, Oh, because I’m thinking of others, my intentions are good and pure, not realizing—

Jonathan: Ultimately, you’re thinking about yourself.

Jordan: Yes. A big part of the New Age is the huge emphasis on self and the glorification of self. So yeah, that was a big one for me, the meta meditation that I learned in the New Age and then seeing that it’s God’s loving-kindness that all this stems from.

And then the biggest one was I remember doing a meditation, I think it was with Eckhardt Tolle, that one, and he, in this meditation, he said when you meditate, and you ask yourself who you are, you’re probably going to come up with all the wrong answers. And I’m paraphrasing here, but he said that the real, the correct answer to “Who are you?” when you’re meditating is “I am.”

Jonathan: Whoa!

Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know now as a Christian that is so blasphemous.

Jonathan: Old and New Testament, right?

Jordan: Yes. Yes. So you know you think about this. You’re sitting there in meditation saying, “I am,” and yeah, now thinking back on it, I’m just…

Jonathan: Fascinating.

Jordan: Yeah. So blasphemous. And believing, again, that's just like emphasis on the self.

Jonathan: Yeah, and again, back to the garden. I am a god.

Jordan: I am a god, yes. Yeah.

Jonathan: I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on this. I feel like we are seeing some believers being tempted; it’s very much in the Hollywood culture to combine some New Age with Christianity as a form of getting closer to Christ. I know you talk about the Christ consciousness in your article, which I think is Friedrich Schleiermacher, but because you’re so aware of the New Age practices, you lived it out; maybe you’d give us some examples of where you’re seeing that in churches or individuals and maybe kind of throw out some of the warning signs of where people could be leaning into that, and the red flags are going up for you.

Jordan: Yes. Another phrase for that would be “religious syncretism.” This means fusing more than one religion or belief to create a new religion. And that's exactly what the New Age is—borrowing from different religions. I would say there’s so much that can be said about this, where you’re seeing the New Age pervade the church today.

One of those things that I’ve run across a lot lately is yoga in the church, and Christians are turning it into holy yoga and and so taking a practice that comes from Hinduism and Christianizing it. But you can’t Christianize a practice that comes from another religion and think that you’re glorifying the God of the Bible. So I see a lot of that happening. I also see even churches not preaching from the Bible, not preaching the gospel, or using the Bible. I had a friend tell me before that he was attending church, and he loved it because they didn’t use the bible at all.

Jonathan: It’s the best church ever.

Jordan: I was thinking, Wow! That's not church.

Jonathan: Yeah, yeah. What's the authority they’re teaching on?

Jordan: Yeah, yeah. So even that, I would say, is New Age in and of itself. I would also say the law of attraction. You see a lot of that in churches—name it, and claim it.

Jonathan: Right. Sort of a prosperity gospel kind of, yeah.

Jordan: Yeah, that. So you’re seeing a lot of that come into the churches. Even crystals themselves come into the churches or meditate. But Scripture tells us to meditate on the Word of God, not to empty our thoughts, not to empty our minds of thoughts, but our thoughts are supposed to be focused on what is good and holy.

Jonathan: Yeah, right.

Jordan: So, there’s that. Along with the law of attraction, there’s that word of faith. I would also say the whole follow your heart, believe in yourself—

Jonathan: Be true to yourself.

Jordan: Yeah, be true to yourself. There is so much emphasis on self, which will also lead you down a road of chasing after what feels good. If you’re following your heart, you’re chasing after what feels good, but that's not what we’re supposed to do as Christians. We’re supposed to follow Jesus.

Jonathan: Well, and to see that our hearts are deceived … deceitful, wicked, they’re bent in on themselves, as Calvin says. They’re inwardly bent on worshiping themselves. Yeah, that's true, and that's part of pop culture, right? That seems like the motif of almost every child’s movie through Disney. It’s the belief in yourself, trust in yourself, and you just want to say that won't end well.

Jordan: It’s not going to end well. No, it’s not. Yeah, I think Jeremiah says that the heart is deceitful.

Jonathan: That’s right. There will be people listening to this who have a friend or a relative who may be dabbling in this or caught up in it. What's your suggestion for the best way to start a conversation? Is it just to order many copies of the Son of God or Passion of the Christ and then start showing movies? Obviously, that's how the Lord worked for you. But what are your recommendations for beginning those conversations?

Jordan: When I told my testimony, many people said, “Well, what movie is it?”

Jonathan: We need to go buy it!

Jordan: Yeah. And I want to say even if you watch that movie, it doesn’t mean you’ll have the same experience that I had. And if you have people who are in the New Age, there’s a disconnect here that I think Christians are missing. Part of that is understanding the root cause of why people went to the New Age in the first place. So, understanding what it is drew them there first and validating their experience. So if it’s childhood trauma, if you’ve had experiences and people are telling you you’re crazy, it’s listening to understand someone to start, instead of jumping down someone’s throat and saying, “Well, you’re wrong, and this is the truth, and this is what's right,” it’s understanding what brought them there in the first place and validating their experience that got them there.

But then let them know that there is a better way and that the truth is that there is hope in Jesus Christ, a peace that surpasses all understanding in Him, and give your testimony of how Jesus has worked in your life. And so I think if people have loved ones that are stuck in New Age that it’s more of being a good example of Jesus, being the hands and the feet of Jesus, and like I said, listening to understand; knowing there’s a root cause for why they got there. And I do get pushback from Christians who will say, “Well, you don’t want to enable the sin.” But you can’t have someone conclude that they are a sinner until they’ve first heard about where they’re at and why they’ve come to this place. And if they don’t understand what that is, then, of course, they’re not going to want to listen.

I have a friend with whom I’ve been friends for 30 years, and she has been praying for me for just as long. There were times that she would want to speak to me about Jesus and want to talk about the Gospel and would send me books and movies and things like that, and my first reaction was to throw it out. And it wasn’t because she was doing anything wrong; it was where I was. And I think people have to understand that it’s not personal. So if you are talking to someone in the New Age and they are not taking what you’re saying and just suddenly becoming a believer, it’s not personal, and that this really is a spiritual battle and you’re told to plant the seed.

Jonathan: One of the fruit of the Spirit is patience.

Jordan: Absolutely. A lifetime of 40 years is a long time to be patient, but if there’s any encouragement in that, it’s that I’ve spent 13 years in the New Age, my friend has been praying for me for 30 years, and ultimately, I came to Christ. And so for people who are stuck in this, watch them suffer and watch them go down these paths to just stay steadfast in your faith and stay steadfast in prayer. And know that this is a spiritual battle and it’s not personal. It’s not about you.

Jonathan: And it’s not over.

Jordan: It’s not over, that's for sure.

Jonathan: In your Gospel Coalition article, you mentioned that you’re working on resources to help guide people in the New Age to freedom in Christ. What are some of those resources? Are they available at the moment? Are we still working on them?

[31:25] Jordan Taylor: Yeah. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything available yet. I wish I did. I’m pausing social media at this point. Since my testimony went viral on Facebook, my platform has become kind of crazy, and I always get DMs. I have a lot of similar or common questions that come up or topics that come up, so I’d like to—right now, while I’m off of social media, I’m kind of working on some content and information to put out there so that people can find something to either find encouragement for the Christians that have people that are in the New Age.

Or encourage people who are in the New Age and want out. Believe it or not, some people are in the New Age and are being called by Jesus, and they know it and are struggling to—

Jonathan: They feel imprisoned.

Jordan: Yes. So, I’m working on some resources. I don’t know when they will all be available, but for right now, I will probably be off social media through Easter, and I’m hoping that come springtime, I’ll have some stuff to put out there for people.

Jonathan: Wow, that's wonderful. I think it’s an absolutely needed resource, again, as we’ve said, in this day and age where young people are looking for answers, they’re dealing with hurts, and they’re turning to all sorts of things—different religions, different … and New Age is definitely one of those near the forefront of those options. As you said, that tends to come up for Google searches, yoga, meditation, and everything else. And so, Jordan Taylor, we’re just so grateful for how the Lord is using you, and we pray that He will equip you with what you need as you put those resources together. We’ll keep our listeners up to speed as those become available. Your article on the Gospel Coalition, for those who are interested, is called “I Left New Age for Jesus.” And that's thegospelcoalition.org.

Jordan, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us on Candid Conversations.

Jordan: Thank you so much for having me.

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Episode 237: Breaking the Idol of Entertainment: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 05:00:00 +0000

With the average day filled with endless smartphone scrolling and binge-watching, how often do we pause to reflect on the deeper longing behind our screen time? Join Jonathan to explore the complex relationship between modern entertainment and our spiritual well-being.

Jonathan shares the balance between enjoying life's pleasures and not letting them overshadow our primary purpose: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Inspired by insights from the digital age and the wisdom of scripture, this reflection confronts the challenges of navigating a world designed to capture our attention, discussing the impact of entertainment on our spiritual journey.

Listen now to receive Biblical insight on how to live intentionally in a distraction-filled world, finding joy and purpose in God's presence above all else.

After you listen to this episode, you may have questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

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Episode 236: The Importance of Using Your Spiritual Gifts: Dave Hubbard

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Dave Hubbard) — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 05:00:00 +0000

In this NEW episode of Candid Conversations, host Jonathan Youssef welcomes Dave Hubbard back to the program. Dave is a former NFL football player and pastor at The Church of The Apostles. In this encouraging episode, he shares his rich experiences and insights on serving both within the church and in the broader community. With a background that spans professional sports to full-time ministry, Dave offers a unique perspective on the importance of active service and its challenges and rewards.

After you listen to this episode, you may have questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

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Episode 235: Is God Real? Exploring the Ultimate Question of Life: Lee Strobel

web@ltw.org (Lee Strobel, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 6 Feb 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Jonathan sits with internationally renowned author, apologist, evangelist, and former investigative journalist Lee Strobel. Known for his bestselling book, The Case for Christ, Strobel shares insights from his remarkable journey from skepticism to faith. The discussion then turns to his latest book, Is God Real? Exploring the Ultimate Question of Life, where he blends his investigative skills with theological inquiry.

The episode offers an enlightening perspective on the recurring question of God's existence, backed by logical arguments, scientific evidence, and profound personal experiences. Listen and then share it with a friend who may benefit from this conversation.

After you listen to this episode, you may have questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

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Episode 234: Praying for Your Unsaved Loved Ones:Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Many of us grapple with the question, "How can I effectively pray for and reach my loved ones who do not know Christ?"

In this reflection, Jonathan Youssef delves into this profound topic, offering Biblical insights on the purpose of prayer, the balance between God's sovereignty and our responsibility, and the privilege of interceding for our unsaved loved ones.

Tune in for a thoughtful exploration of these important themes. If you have any questions after listening, we’d love to hear from you! Connect with Jonathan and the Candid community at https://LTW.org/Candid.

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Episode 233: When the Word of God Dwells Richly in Your Heart: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Explore the transformative power of God’s Word in this new Candid Conversations episode. Learn how it acts as a guardian, strengthens character, sustains through life's pressures, and heals the spirit. Join Jonathan as he reflects on the cleansing, covering, and correction offered through God's Word as outlined in Psalm 119.

Listen now, discover practical ways to integrate God’s Word into your daily life, and experience the enrichment available only in the Truth of Christ.

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

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Episode 232: Choosing Calling Over Career: Rocky Seto (Reprise)

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 05:00:00 +0000

As we deepen our walk with Christ, there are moments when we must choose between God's calling and other aspects of life, such as relationships, family, or career.

Imagine reaching the pinnacle of a prestigious career, only to feel God's call to leave it for ministry. While many would stay to achieve their dream position, today's Candid Conversations guest followed God's call to pastoral ministry.

Rocky Seto, former assistant head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, joins Jonathan to share his football journey, salvation experience, and rise in the coaching ranks from college to the NFL. Rocky opens up about his challenges and the profound calling to serve Christ and His church.

This episode powerfully reminds us of God's goodness and the joy that comes from faithfully following His call.

If you have questions after listening, we’d love to hear from you! Connect with Jonathan and the Candid community at https://LTW.org/Candid.

Join the conversation on social media:

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Episode 231: Discover Your Calling: Clay Kirkland (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Clay Kirkland) — Tue, 9 Jan 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Have you ever wondered what God's purpose is for your life? Do you question if you're fulfilling His divine plan for you? These are common reflections we all face. If you're seeking clarity or know someone who is, this episode is for you.

Jonathan is once again joined on Candid Conversations by Clay Kirkland. Clay is a seasoned life coach and former Director of Staff Development at The Wesley Foundation at the University of Georgia. He has mentored thousands of young adults and is also a certified Strengths coach, helping individuals uncover and utilize their God-given talents.

In this episode, Jonathan and Clay explore profound questions about purpose through the lens of Scripture. Don't miss their insightful discussion.

If you have questions after listening, we’d love to hear from you! Connect with Jonathan and the Candid community at https://LTW.org/Candid.

Engage with us on social media:

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/candidpod
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thecandidpod

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Episode 230: Allow God's Presence to Renew You: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 2 Jan 2024 05:00:00 +0000

In this new reflection on renewal, Jonathan Youssef delves into the power of the new year as a time to reflect on our faith with a powerful message from Hebrews 13:5-6. First, he reminds us of God's unchanging promise never to leave us and explains how understanding this truth will allow us to live without fear, embracing contentment and courage in Christ.

Join Jonathan and be encouraged to reflect on how God is shaping you to be more like Christ and to serve others in the coming year. He will guide you in writing prayers to seek a renewed mind and spirit and to commit to ministering love and hope. As we review these prayers, we're urged to thank God for His faithfulness and step into the new year with joy and anticipation for His continued work.

After you listen to this episode, you may have questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 229: Candid Christmas Caroling with Mac Powell (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Mac Powell, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 26 Dec 2023 05:00:00 +0000

As the Christmas season draws to a close, we have a special treat for you: a delightful session of Christmas caroling with Mac Powell and Jonathan Youssef.

Mac Powell, the worship leader at The Church of The Apostles and a Grammy award-winning artist, joins Jonathan in this festive episode. They share their favorite Christmas traditions and songs while reflecting on the profound love of God revealed through Jesus. And yes, Mac treats us to a few of his beloved carols, making this a must-listen episode!

If you have questions after listening, we'd love to hear from you! Connect with Jonathan and the Candid community at https://LTW.org/Candid.

Join the conversation on social media:

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Episode 228: 3 Ways to Reclaim the Wonder of Christmas: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 05:00:00 +0000

The Christmas season often captivates us with its superficial wonders—exchanging presents, festive gatherings, and decorating our spaces. In this new Christmas reflection, Jonathan warns that these things can sometimes overshadow the reason for the Advent season, preventing us from focusing on the profound meaning of Christmas—Emmanuel, God with us.

After you listen to this episode, you may have questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

To give to Leading The Way's Triple Matching Challenge, please visit us at https://ltw.org

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Episode 227: Do You Make Room for Christ?: Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Could you be missing a miracle of God? Are you too busy for God's intrusion into your life?

God took on flesh in Bethlehem on a night when the streets were bustling with congestion created by a mandatory census. People were busy, but the Messiah quietly came into the world. Some stopped what they were doing and followed God's prompting, but so many missed it.

How will you spend Christmas? Will you join the hustle and bustle and miss the true gift of the season? Or, will you slow down, seek the heart of the Father, and prepare to encounter the living Christ?

Join us as Jonathan shares a special Christmas reflection and reminds us that the true beauty of the Christmas story is this- God's power makes regular intrusions even when we make no room. No room in the Inn? God still took on flesh. No room in your holiday traditions? God still calls to your heart. No room in your isolation? The Savior still invites you to intimacy with Him. We pray this episode will encourage you to make room for Christ this Christmas and each day that follows.

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

To give to Leading The Way's Triple Matching Challenge, please visit us at https://ltw.org

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 226: A Fun Way to Cultivate Love for Christ with Your Children: Zack Carden

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Zack Carden) — Tue, 5 Dec 2023 05:00:00 +0000

As a Christian parent, you undoubtedly yearn to guide your children in nurturing their love for Christ. But the question remains: How can you enjoyably accomplish this meaningful task? If you want to connect your children with the love of Christ, you won't want to miss this episode.

Today, Jonathan is delighted to welcome back Zack Carden to Candid Conversations. Jonathan and Zack share a deep bond, with both serving for many years on staff at The Church of The Apostles. Zack now holds the role of senior pastor at Marietta Community Church.

In this enlightening Candid Conversation, Zack introduces us to The Adventures of Greybobby, a lovable cartoon character who doubles as a podcast host on a mission to equip parents with rich yet accessible and entertaining Biblical resources for the spiritual development of their children.

Join Jonathan in unraveling the backstory of Greybobby and discover more about this captivating character who plays a pivotal role in devotional content and engaging videos, all designed to effectively convey the message of Christ's love to the little ones in your life.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Watch The Adventures of Greybobby

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Episode 225: How to Consider Conflicting Opinions in the Church: Dr. Bruce Lowe

web@ltw.org (Bruce Lowe, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Should Christians allow their children to trick-or-treat? Is Santa Claus ok? Are we free to send our children to public school? The list of debatable issues is endless - places where Biblical principles should be applied, but will every Christian apply them the same way?

Join Jonathan Youssef and Dr. Bruce Lowe to explore the delicate balance between conviction and grace, navigate the complexities of disagreements within the Christian faith, and understand when to hold Christian beliefs with a closed hand and embrace Christian liberty.

Bruce Lowe is a scholar, author, and a favorite professor at Reformed Theological Seminary.

Please take a few minutes to settle in and listen to a thoughtful and inspiring Candid Conversation.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Get Your Copy of Growing in Gratitude: Rediscovering the Joy of a Thankful Heart

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Episode 224: Cultivate a Heart of Biblical Gratitude: Mary Mohler (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Mary Mohler) — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 05:00:00 +0000

November rolls around and we all think about giving thanks. Jonathan welcomes Mary Mohler to Candid Conversations to discuss what Biblical gratitude really is – a gratitude that is more than thanking God for all the good things in our lives.

Mary Mohler serves in ministry alongside her husband, Dr. Al Mohler, at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. She is also the founder and director of Seminary Wives Institute, an academic program for students' wives that she started over 20 years ago at Southern Seminary.

A native of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Mary is a summa cum laude graduate of Samford University where she earned a BS in Biology. She is a proud mother of two children and several grandchildren. She is also the author of the book, Growing in Gratitude, Rediscovering the Joy of a Thankful Heart - a book you won't want to miss on Biblical gratitude.

Join the conversation now and be encouraged to cultivate a heart of gratitude that goes far beyond our usual gratitude checklists.

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 223: The Loneliness Crisis: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 05:00:00 +0000

In Genesis 2:18, God made a profound statement: “It is not good for man to be alone.” God did not design us to navigate the waters of life in isolation. Today, Jonathan explores the depths of a modern epidemic, loneliness, and provides a biblical framework for understanding and responding to this crisis.

Today's episode is a call to action. Whether you're basking in the warmth of Christian fellowship or you're in a season of profound solitude, there is a step you can take. For some, it might be extending an invitation into your community; for others, it may be reaching out for the fellowship you crave.

Join Jonathan now to dive into The Loneliness Crisis and discover how, through Christ, we can reclaim the connection we were created for.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 222: Mama Bear Apologetics: Hillary Morgan Ferrer (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Hillary Morgan Ferrer) — Tue, 7 Nov 2023 05:00:00 +0000

When it comes to ensuring the spiritual well-being of our children, how do we go beyond just “raising them in church”? As the next generation navigates unprecedented issues surrounding gender identity, doubt, and resistance to the Christian faith—it won’t be enough for them to have “the faith of their parents.” How do we equip them to become disciples of Jesus Christ in a hostile world?

According to Barna and USA Today, nearly 59% of youth leave the church after graduation, and only 17% maintain a Biblical worldview. According to a Lifeway survey, youth are moving to college, witnessing hypocrisy within the church, and no longer feeling connected to the body of Christ.

This week, Jonathan welcomes Hillary Morgan Ferrer to Candid Conversations. Her passion is to help equip parents to answer the questions that our children will inevitably ask and teach them how to “demolish arguments raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor 10:5). She is the founder and Mama-Bear-in-Chief of Mama Bear Apologetics and she has a burden to help provide accessible apologetics resources for busy parents.

Together, Jonathan and Hillary discuss how we can better equip children and parents with resources and critical thinking skills, including her own methodology called “ROAR,” to help families recognize unbiblical ideas and develop discernment.

Hillary is the chief author and editor of the bestselling book Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies and Mama Bear Apologetics Guide to Sexuality: Empowering Your Kids to Understand and Live Out God’s Design. Hillary has her master’s degree in biology from Clemson University and is working on her master’s in apologetics from Biola University. She loves helping moms to discern both truths and lies in science and culture, and she specializes in understanding the root causes of doubt.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 221: A New Reformation: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Imagine waking up to a message that challenges the core of your beliefs, putting your faith and freedom on the line. Would you surrender, or would you stand firm? In today's reflection, Jonathan shares how some youth today would respond to a threat to limit their freedoms in exchange for their lives.

In response, Jonathan will trace the threads of history and explore the essence of the Christian faith and why we desperately need a new reformation.

Today, on the day we celebrate the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, Jonathan will dive deep into the roots of Christian beliefs, the transformations of key figures like Martin Luther, and the crucial moments that have shaped our world and faith. So, grab your headphones, settle in, and join Jonathan for this thought provoking new reflection

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 220: Where is God in Seasons of Sorrow: Tim Challies (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Tim Challies, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 04:00:00 +0000

The holiday season is approaching – a time of year filled with joy, tradition, faith, and nostalgia–but also a season of sorrow for so many. Where is God in seasons of sorrow?

Whether you are grieving the death of a loved one, a lost relationship, an unsaved family member, or an unfulfilled dream, today’s Candid Conversation guest will minister powerfully to you.

Author, blogger, pastor, and theologian, Tim Challies recently released a new book, Seasons of Sorrow, a real-time, first-person, present-tense series of reflections on the pain that comes with loss and the comfort that God alone can provide.

Join Tim and Jonathan as they discuss what Godly grief looks like and how we can keep moving forward through deep seasons of sorrow through faith in Christ.

Visit Tim Challies' blog: https://www.challies.com/

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Instagram: https://www.inst

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Episode 219: Defending Your Faith When You Don't Have All The Answers: Tim Barnett (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Tim Barnett, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 04:00:00 +0000

As you scroll through social media, it's no longer uncommon to come across a video shared or created by a friend that challenges elements of the Christian faith. You don't agree with their logic, but you aren't quite sure how to highlight the error you see. You honestly want to offer insight, but you don't want to come across angry or defensive. How can we lovingly help someone who is experiencing doubt or who has drawn a wrong conclusion based on faulty logic?

Today's guest, Tim Barnett, author of TikTok profile Red Pen Logic, has gained millions of online followers by helping Christians defend their faith in gracious and understandable terms. Tim began Red Pen Logic with Mr. B on YouTube in the wake of the pandemic to defend Christianity in an ever increasing world of false and misleading social media content.

Together, Jonathan and Tim discuss the importance of Christian apologetics, the need to give an informed defense of the faith, and how we can respond clearly and graciously in a social media world rampant with bad theology and deconstruction videos.

Our hope is that this episode will empower you to confidently share your faith both on and offline.

Check out Red Pen Logic with Mr. B. on:

YouTube

TikTok

Facebook

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 218: How to Read the Bible (As if Your Life Depends On It): Dr. Michael Youssef

web@ltw.org (Dr. Michael Youssef, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Dive into a groundbreaking exploration of the Bible with Dr. Michael Youssef’s new guide, How to Read the Bible (As If Your Life Depends on It).

With five decades of experience in preaching and studying God's Word, Dr. Youssef calls this book, “the culmination of a lifetime of proclaiming the uncompromised Truth of God's Word” and “the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.”

Imagine a guide where you can rediscover the awe-inspiring narrative of the Bible, learn its reliability, uncover its consistent Gospel message, avoid common pitfalls of Bible study, and experience an intimate connection with its divine Author.

This isn't just another book on your shelf. This will be your Bible study companion, your guide that will deepen your love and understanding of God's enduring Word.

So, whether you’re a seasoned theologian or someone just beginning your spiritual journey, How to Read the Bible promises insights that will stay with you forever. Stay with us as we delve deeper into what makes this book unique and hear from Dr. Youssef himself about the passion and dedication behind every page.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

If you want o learn more about the ministry of Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef, please visit our website.

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 217: Gen Z's Real Faith Questions: David Robertson

web@ltw.org (Jonathan youssef, David Robertson) — Tue, 3 Oct 2023 04:00:00 +0000

What are the questions you wrestle with in life? We all have that innate desire to ask questions, seek answers, and engage in conversations that challenge our thinking.

In today’s Candid Conversation, Jonathan gets helpful answers to some hard questions as David Robertson answers tough questions, and makes theology accessible to everyone.

David is not just an apologist, minister, author, and blogger, he is a bridge between questions and answers, doubt, and belief. With books like The Dawkins Letters and A.S.K: Real World Questions/Real Word Answers, and his recent release, SEEK: More Real World Questions, More Real World Answers,, David is a beacon for those seeking answers – especially those in Gen Z.

So, whether you're here searching for the answer to a nagging question or are seeking a deeper connection with God, listen to this conversation for a candid exploration of life's intriguing questions.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 216: Should Christians Be Concerned About Artificial Intelligence?: Dr. Kristen Davis

web@ltw.org (Kristen Davis, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 04:00:00 +0000

As artificial intelligence (AI) grows exponentially in its capabilities, we find ourselves grappling with profound questions about consciousness, morality, and the very nature of existence.

Dr. Kristen Davis joins Jonathan to discuss AI and how it should be viewed from a Christian perspective. Dr. Davis is a powerhouse in both apologetics and advanced technology. She completed her doctorate dissertation on Christianity and Artificial Intelligence – dispelling the myth that AI would one day disprove the existence of God.

She is the founder of Doubtless Faith Ministries and speaks internationally. She is also the Senior Manager of Systems Integration for a financial tech company, where she leads an international team of software developers.

Join Jonathan and Dr. Davis for an enlightening conversation to explore the intriguing intersection of AI and Christianity, delving into the challenges and opportunities with AI for Christianity.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 215: Will Christianity Survive?: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Our malls display it. Our shows advise it. Our commercials glorify it. Our news justifies it. Our universities disseminate it. Have you guessed it? Every aspect of our culture proclaims that what matters in life is our feelings—our guide in this world is our pleasure—and anything that would deny us our freedom to "follow our truth" should be dismantled.

Under such pressure and persecution, and with the siren song of our culture calling us to capitulate to the ways of the world, Jonathan addresses the question, "Will Christianity survive?" Join him to consider the future of Christianity.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 214: Debunking Misconceptions About the Holy Spirit: Costi Hinn

web@ltw.org (Costi Hinn, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Costi Hinn is a voice of clarity in a world filled with prosperity gospel confusion. Formerly surrounded by the opulence and excesses of the Word of Faith movement, he left it all for an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ based on the Truth of His Word.

Today, Costi serves as the Teaching Pastor at Shepherd’s House Bible Church in Chandler, Arizona. He is currently completing his doctorate work at The Master’s Seminary.

In today's conversation, Costi joins Jonathan to discuss his latest book, Knowing the Spirit: Who He Is, What He Does, and How He Can Transform Your Christian Life. Join them and then get a copy of Costi's book to take a deep dive into the true nature and work of the Holy Spirit.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 213: Heavenly Habits: 4 Tips for Forging a God-Centered Gospel: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 5 Sep 2023 04:00:00 +0000

As Christians, if we want to live transformed lives, we must first treasure our Redeemer. When we do, we'll have the wisdom to discern what to prioritize and understand the importance of letting go of our disappointments and failures so that we might gain something greater.

With this in mind, Jonathan shares some practical tips in this Biblical reflection to help you grow in your delight of the Lord and His plans for you.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 212: The Caller, The Called, and The Calling: Erin Johnson

web@ltw.org (Erin Forest Johnson, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 04:00:00 +0000

We all wrestle with questions of purpose, calling, and how to align with God’s will for our lives. The age-old adage says, 'A calling is given to the called by a Caller.' But what does that mean? How do we identify our purpose? And most importantly, how do we teach these values to young adults who are on the brink of life-defining decisions?

Jonathan's guest for today's candid conversation is Erin Forrest Johnson. Erin brings a unique blend of experience as a Founding Principle of the executive recruiting firm, Forest Johnson Consulting, her hands-on training as a mother of four, and her incredible zeal for discipleship. Erin has not only lived her calling but has also penned a comprehensive guide titled The Caller, The Called and The Calling: A 100-Day Guide to Understanding Your Purpose, which is an excellent resource for teenagers, college students, young adults, and even their mentors.

This inspiring and informative book, released today, is woven with scriptural insights over a span of 100 days. It seeks to provide a much-needed biblical perspective on career choices and the larger role we all play in the redemptive Gospel narrative.

Whether you are a young adult seeking direction, a mentor guiding someone, or simply curious about life's purpose and calling, today's episode is just for you.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 211: The Great Dechurching: Michael Graham

web@ltw.org (Michael Graham, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 04:00:00 +0000

We are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in U.S. History. It’s called dechurching and it impacts more people than the First and Second Great Awakening and every revival in our country combined...but in the opposite direction.

Very little study had been done on dechurching until Jim Davis and Michael Graham commissioned the largest and most comprehensive study of dechurching in America by renowned sociologists Dr. Ryan Burge and Dr. Paul Djupe. Together, they share their findings in their new book The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why They are Going, and What Will it Take to Bring Them Back? – released today!

This week, Jonathan welcomes Michael Graham to Candid Conversations to discuss the dechurching shift. What you will hear is shocking, but also encouraging – because there are tangible steps you can take to help stem the tide.

Michael Graham is Program Director at The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. He is also the executive producer and writer for the As In Heaven podcast. He received his MDiv at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. He is a member at Orlando Grace Church and he is married to Sara, and they have two kids.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 210: Discipleship: Reclaiming What’s Missing in the Western Church: Thomas Tarrants

web@ltw.org (Thomas Tarrants, Thomas A. Tarrants, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 04:00:00 +0000

A topic that comes up almost weekly in our Candid planning meetings is Biblical discipleship – the importance of being discipled in Christ by mature believers and the importance of discipling others as you mature in the faith.

Today’s conversation on growing in the Christian faith is with Thomas Tarrants – a guest we couldn’t wait to have back on the podcast. He is an author and the President Emeritus of the C.S. Lewis Institute. Tom holds a Masters of Divinity Degree and a Doctor of Ministry Degree in Christian Spirituality. He is also the author of Consumed by Hate, Redeemed by Love: How a Violent Klansman Became a Champion of Racial Reconciliation - the topic of our last Candid conversation with Thomas. Thomas has so much Biblically informed, life-tested wisdom to share.

Join Jonathan and Thomas to get back to some fundamental basics of the Christian faith. Together, we will be reminded of the importance of being part of the body of Christ who is prayerfully preparing to stand firm in Christ in the coming days.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 209: How Should We Care for Our Aging Loved Ones? (Part 2): Dr. Bill Davis

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Dr. Bill Davis) — Tue, 8 Aug 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Are you part of the sandwich generation - caring for your children and aging parents? If so, we hope you caught part 1 of this two-part conversation with Dr. Bill Davis on how to care for your aging loved ones. If you haven’t, take time to listen to both of these episodes.

In the first half of the conversation, we discussed honoring your parents in their older years. In this half of the conversation, we will get into more specific questions about how to care practically for your aging parents or loved ones.

Dr. Bill Davis is a professor of Philosophy at Covenant College, an adjunct professor at Reformed Theological Seminary, and an elder in the Presbyterian Church. He has spent over two decades on hospital ethics committees, confronting the profound challenges of end-of-life care decisions. He brings a wealth of knowledge, compassion, and Biblical insight to the topic, and he captured this wisdom in his book, "Departing in Peace."

So, whether you are currently caring for aging parents or preparing for the future, this insightful two-part episode promises to provide valuable insight into questions Christians commonly asked about elder care.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 208: How Should We Care for Our Aging Loved Ones? (Part 1): Dr. Bill Davis

web@ltw.org (Dr. Bill Davis, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 1 Aug 2023 04:00:00 +0000

How do you honor your aging loved ones' desires when they need care and still keep them safe? How do you balance caring for your aging parents, caring for your spouse and children, and holding down a full-time job? What does honoring your parents look like as you grow older?

Dr. Bill Davis joins Jonathan on Candid today to answer these pressing questions. Dr. Davis has been at the forefront of exploring the delicate balance between respecting an individual's autonomy and ensuring that the values and beliefs of our aging loved ones are cherished and God is honored in their most vulnerable moments.

Dr. Davis has spent over two decades on hospital ethics committees, confronting the profound challenges of end-of-life care decisions. He brings a wealth of knowledge, compassion, and Biblical insight to the topic, and he captured this wisdom in his book, "Departing in Peace: Biblical Decision Making at the End of Life."

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 207: Can a Christian Date a Non-Christian?: Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 04:00:00 +0000

As a young adult pastor, Jonathan Youssef often hears the question, "Can I, as a Christian, date a non-Christian?" In this episode of Candid, Jonathan shares Biblical wisdom and insight as he answers this heartfelt question.

Dating can be difficult and can lead to so many questions. One question Jonathan Youssef often receives from his young adult group is, "Can I, as a Christian, date a non-Christian?" Recognizing the struggle behind this question, Jonathan's answer provides Biblical wisdom and insight that will help believers understand what is most important in their dating relationships and, ultimately, their marriage.

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Episode 206: Uncover Your True Identity in Christ: Melissa Kruger

web@ltw.org (Melissa Kruger, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Jonathan welcomes a special guest to Candid Conversations this week – Melissa Kruger. She is an author, speaker, the Vice President of Discipleship Programming for The Gospel Coalition, and a woman with a heart to help others uncover their true identity in Christ. She has a knack for connecting with women right where they are, with wisdom deeply rooted in the truths of the Bible.

Melissa has dedicated her life to helping women understand their identity in Christ. She firmly believes that when we understand who we are in Him, we unlock a whole new level of purpose, grace, and strength. Through her teachings, her writings, and this candid conversation, she's here to guide us along that journey.

Grab a coffee, settle in, and get ready to delve deep into meaningful discussions and transformative truths. Take a few minutes to listen now to a conversation that might change your life.

Discover more about Melissa Kruger.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 205: Surviving Religion 101: Michael Kruger

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Michael Kruger) — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 04:00:00 +0000

As fall approaches and students return to school, many will embark on their college journey for the first time. College life presents more than just an academic transition. It introduces new relationships, social experiences, and newfound freedom that can pose challenges to one's spiritual life. Unfortunately, colleges are not typically known for fostering a strong relationship with Christ or providing guidance for standing firm in the Christian faith.

Join Jonathan in a conversation with Dr. Michael Kruger as they explore the difficulties of maintaining a Christian faith in college. Together, they delve into general apologetics questions such as the origins and authenticity of the Bible. They also discuss the significance of staying connected to the body of Christ during college and empowering parents to equip their children for the academic culture of doubt and disbelief.

Dr. Kruger is the President, and Samuel C. Patterson Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Reformed Theological Seminary. His latest book, Surviving Religion 101: Letters to a Christian Student on Keeping the Faith in College, offers valuable insights.

In this episode, we aim to encourage you to anticipate the challenges that may arise during your college journey or for parents to prepare their children. Discover how to approach these challenges with grace, respect, and a strong defense of our hope in Christ.

Read Surviving Religion 101: Letters to a Christian Student on Keeping the Faith in College when you purchase your copy now.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 204: Candid Favorites: Understanding Progressive Christianity: Alisa Childers

Tue, 4 Jul 2023 04:00:00 +0000

This month, as we celebrate reaching the milestone of 200 episodes of Candid, our podcast producers are taking a moment to reflect on their most beloved episodes. This week, the team shines a spotlight on Jonathan's captivating interview with Alisa Childers. Alisa, widely known as the author of the popular apologetics blog AlisaChilders.com and the host of The Alisa Childers Podcast, may also be familiar to you as a former member of the Christian band Zoe Girl.

In this thought-provoking episode, Alisa opens up about her faith journey, starting from her childhood faith in Christ, through a period of deconstruction where she questioned and examined her beliefs, and ultimately arriving at a reconstruction of a solid, Biblically grounded faith in Christ. This conversation is not only enlightening but also serves as a valuable resource for those seeking comprehensive answers about the Christian faith. To go deeper, Alisa's book, Another Gospel, provides a helpful guide for unpacking and understanding Progressive Christianity.

Join us now for an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at this Candid Conversation. Prepare to be enlightened, educated, and encouraged as Alisa shares her insights, offering a fresh perspective on faith.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Get Your Copy of Consumed by Hate, Redeemed by Love

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Episode 203: Candid Favorites: Consumed By Hate, Redeemed By Love: Thomas Tarrants

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 04:00:00 +0000

This month, in celebration of reaching 200 episodes of Candid, our podcast producers are discussing their most cherished episodes! This week, the team delves into Jonathan's remarkable interview with Thomas Tarrants.

Thomas, a former white supremacist and prominent member of the Ku Klux Klan, was once notoriously known as the "most dangerous man in Mississippi." However, in this captivating episode, he joins Jonathan to recount his extraordinary journey from a life defined by violence and hate to one characterized by radical love, all inspired by the transformative power of Jesus Christ's grace and mercy.

Listen now to gain an exclusive, behind-the-scenes perspective on this Candid Conversation that left a lasting impact.

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

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Episode 202: Candid Favorites: "God's Got This!" Worshiping God Through Difficult Times: Julie Chapman

Tue, 20 Jun 2023 04:00:00 +0000

As we continue to celebrate 200 episodes, our podcast producers are sharing their favorite episodes. This week you’ll hear the podcast team talk about Jonathan's interview with Julie Chapman, a three-time cancer and brain tumor survivor. Her optimism, determination to point others to the light and Truth of Jesus, and unwavering faith will inspire and encourage you to dive deeper into your relationship with Christ—especially in difficult times. Learn how to draw near to God in worship, even when the road ahead seems dark, uncertain, or impossible.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 201: Candid Favorites: Transgender to Transformed: Laura Perry

Tue, 13 Jun 2023 04:00:00 +0000

This month, in celebration of 200 episodes of Candid, our podcast producers are talking about their favorite episodes!

This week the team talks about Jonathan's interview with Laura Perry. From transgender to transformed, Laura's story is an inspiring and life-changing testimony of the power of Jesus Christ to heal and redeem. Listen now for a behind-the-scenes look at this Candid Conversation.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 200: Celebrating With Candid Favorites

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 6 Jun 2023 04:00:00 +0000

200 episodes! Candid Conversations just hit 200 episodes and we want to celebrate this milestone with you.

In this episode, Jonathan and our listeners share their encouraging words on how Candid Conversations has changed them and encouraged them in their spiritual walk with Christ. Over the next month, the Candid production team will share our favorite episodes and will provide insight into how Candid is produced. It's a fun glimpse into the back end of a podcast and how it impacts our team long before it reaches our listeners.

Thank you for listening to and sharing Candid Conversations! We have exciting new episodes airing in July with guests you won't want to miss!

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Little Pilgrim's Big Journey Volume 1

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Episode 199: How 20 Minutes Can Impact Your Child's Spirituality: Tyler Van Halteren

web@ltw.org (Tyler VanHalteren, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 30 May 2023 04:00:00 +0000

In this episode of Candid, Jonathan welcomes Tyler Van Halteren, a man with a deep-rooted commitment to enriching the lives of children and youth through the power of Christian faith and storytelling. Tyler, a Master's Divinity graduate from the Master's Seminary, has dedicated most of his life to sharing the teachings of Christ and the wisdom of the Bible through storytelling.

From serving as an Associate Pastor at Gorrie Bible Fellowship in his home country of Canada, to teaching at Phnom Penh Bible School in Cambodia, Tyler's journey has been one of service and exploration. But it was the profound impact of 20-minute bedtime stories on his own son that sparked an innovative idea in him - why not blend the charm of bedtime stories with enduring lessons from the Bible?

Taking up this challenge, Tyler founded Lithos Kids in 2020. His venture was no less than a mission to transform the world through biblically faithful and beautifully illustrated children's books. The launch of his first book, 'Little Pilgrim's Big Journey', on Kickstarter was a resounding success, exceeding its funding goal by 500%. It quickly became a treasured children's book and Little Pilgrim's Big Journey, Volume 2 was released shortly after and Little Pilgrims Big Journey, Volume 3 is releasing soon.

Now, as a father and an author, he continues his mission from southern Ontario, Canada, where he resides with his growing family.

Join us as we dive into this inspiring journey with Tyler, discussing the importance of spiritual mentorship, the creative process behind his illustrated books, and his vision for instilling Christian values in young minds.

This is an episode you don't want to miss, especially if you're a parent, an educator, or anyone interested in spiritual growth and innovative approaches to faith-based education. Be sure to tune in!

Books by Tyler Van Halteren:

Little Pilgrim's Big Journey, Volume 2

Little Pilgrim's Big Journey, Voume 3, Pre-Order

Kingdom of God Storybook Bible

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Praying for your Foster Children: A 30 Day Guide

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Episode 198: Caring for the Vulnerable: Jessica Mathisen

web@ltw.org (Jessica Mathison, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 23 May 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Hearing about the pressing need for compassionate arms and welcoming homes to accommodate vulnerable children in foster care is heart-wrenching. There are over 11,500 children in foster care in Georgia alone, with a staggering 391,000 nationwide. As believers, how do we help care for the vulnerable?

May marks National Foster Care Month, and to honor this, Jonathan is joined by author and Bible teacher Jessica Mathisen. Propelled by the desire to expand her own family, Jessica answered the call to become a foster mom. She and her husband have provided a loving home for six foster children and she has written two books, Praying for Your Foster Children and Fostering Prayer: A 40 Day Guide For Foster Parents, to help guide foster parents in prayer. In this meaningful discussion, Jonathan and Jessica delve into what it truly takes to foster children - and no, you don't have to be a "super" Christian to make a difference!

We invite you to tune into this enlightening episode. Jessica shares her journey and provides valuable advice for prospective foster parents. She encourages the church community to support foster families in their congregations. Finally, she explores the theme of trusting in the Lord with the unknown aspects of our future - yes, even when it comes to expanding our families.

To follow Jessica's journey:

Visit Jessica's Blog

To read Jessica's books:

Overwhelming Hope: How the Spirit Brings Peace to Our Storms

Already Chosen: Loving Your Life in the Midst of Longing

Proverbs 31: A Life of Truth and Grace

Choosing Contentment: A Four Week Guide to Dropping Comparison and Embracing Gratitude

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 197: Can God Really Change Me?: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 16 May 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Do you find it difficult to change? Do certain habits, behavioral patterns, and sins tempt you daily, leaving you longing to resist but feeling powerless?

What does it mean to truly be sanctified? Can people really change? In this new reflection, Jonathan Youssef reveals the hope that is found in sanctification and rejoices in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ - which was not only a historical event but also our hope that change is possible.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 196: The Blessing of Persevering Through Trials: Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 9 May 2023 04:00:00 +0000

We all face difficulties. Why? What is the purpose of trials? How should we view them as followers of Christ? How do we keep going when things seem unbearable? In this episode, Jonathan Youssef unpacks wisdom from James 1 about how we are to handle trials and the blessing we receive when we persevere.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 195: The Secret to Developing Spiritual Endurance: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 2 May 2023 04:00:00 +0000

As believers in Christ, we are called to run the race of faith with endurance, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus who is the author and finisher of our faith. But what does it mean to have spiritual endurance, and how can we cultivate this quality in our lives?

In this episode, Jonathan Youssef explores the biblical concept of endurance, drawing on examples from Scripture to demonstrate how endurance is an essential quality for a life of faith. Listen today to delve into this crucial aspect of the Christian life, and discover how we can run the race of faith with endurance, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 194: Where is Your Focus?: Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 04:00:00 +0000

It's easy to lose focus on what’s important when you are constantly surrounded by messages that distract you from the best God has for you. The lens you look through can shift your focus and, ultimately, lead to a distorted perspective in life.

In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef encourages you to reflect on what has captured your attention lately and shares how to refocus on the right things.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Episode 65: Cancer Saved My Life: Paul Reeves

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Episode 193: How Facing Death is Teaching Me to Live: Sarah Pattison

web@ltw.org (Sarah Pattison, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 04:00:00 +0000

What would you do if you were told you had two years to live?

Join Jonathan for this powerful episode as he welcomes guest Sarah Pattison, a current cancer survivor, a passionately inspiring blogger, and her husband, part owner and operator of the paper company "The Happy Envelope.”

Sarah shares with listeners her story of the challenge of starting her own company as a young mom, and she delves into the beginnings of her cancer diagnosis. She and Jonathan discuss the trials she and her husband endured while navigating the grim news of a terminal diagnosis.

To follow Sarah's journey, Sarah's Blog.

To follow Sarah's paper goods company, The Happy Envelope.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 192: Where Is God in Infertility?: Kara Duncan

web@ltw.org (Kara Duncan, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Are you struggling to understand God's plan in the midst of infertility and the pain of waiting? Join Jonathan for this insightful podcast episode as he talks with Kara Duncan, author of "Love Always Wins: One Couple's Story of Infertility, Adoption, and a Faithful God," about navigating the journey of infertility while keeping faith in God. Despite the challenges and pain of waiting, Kara shares how she and her husband found God's gracious plan for their family.

Delve into the tension of fulfilling God's command to be fruitful while experiencing physical limitations. You will learn how to access the comfort that comes from God's presence in times of suffering. Kara also offers valuable advice on supporting couples going through infertility, sharing what to say and what not to say.

Please listen and then share this episode with friends and family who may be struggling today.

Get your copy of Kara's book today. Love Always Wins: One Couple’s Story of Infertility, Adoption and a Faithful God.

To follow Kara's journey, Kara's Website.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 191: It's Not About You: The Importance of Biblical Theology with Nancy Guthrie

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Nancy Guthrie) — Tue, 4 Apr 2023 04:00:00 +0000

In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan welcomes author and teacher Nancy Guthrie who highlights the advantages of examining the Scriptures through the lens of holistic Biblical theology. By shifting our focus from ourselves to God when studying the Bible, we can experience the text in a more profound and accurate way.

Nancy draws from her personal experiences, including her work in publishing and the tragic loss of two children, to illustrate how God intensified her love for His Word.

As an esteemed author, host of the Help Me Teach the Bible podcast at the Gospel Coalition, and a Bible teacher at her local church in Nashville, Nancy frequently leads her popular Biblical Theology Workshop for Women at national and international conferences. She and her husband also established Respite Retreats, which offer support to grieving couples.

In this powerful episode, we delve into the multifaceted aspects of God's character and His unwavering love for us to gain a deeper understanding of His Word. Let us be inspired to move beyond seeking how the Word of God applies only to us and instead discover who God truly is and what we can learn about His attributes and essence.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 190: How Should Christians Respond to Tragedy?: Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Tragedy occurs, followed by sadness and despair. We seek to understand the reasons, assign blame, and uncover every detail of the incident. But is this the appropriate reaction? How did Jesus approach tragic events, and what lessons can we draw from Him?

Tune in with Jonathan Youssef as he offers insights from Luke 13 on the Christian response to tragedy. In this passage, Jesus guides His disciples towards a broader perspective when confronted with tragic events, and instructs them on how to react through the lens of the Gospel.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 189: The Prodigal Son, Part 3 (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Join Jonathan as he reflects on the parable of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15. In this third part of a three-part reflection, Jonathan looks at the older brother who remained in his Father's house.

Listen and reflect on the lavish grace and forgiveness of God the Father and the gentle reminder of God's continuing grace, forgiveness, and provision for those who remain in His care.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 188: The Prodigal Son, Part 2 (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Join Jonathan as he reflects on the parable of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15. In this second part of a three-part reflection, Jonathan looks at the prodigal son who left home.

Listen and learnhow this parable provides unique insight into our relationship with God and those around us. Don't miss this opportunity to understand our depravity and the incredible redemption offered by the loving heart of our heavenly Father.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 187: The Prodigal Son, Part 1 (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 04:00:00 +0000

In this episode of Candid, Jonathan reflects on the parable of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15. In this first part of a three -part reflection, he describes the father's joy when his son repents and turns back to him.

Join him as he unpacks God's heart towards His children and receive a reminder of God's unrelenting love for you.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 186: Ashley Poptodorova: He is a God of Restoration (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Ashley Poptodorova, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 7 Mar 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Restoration. Have you taken the time to meditate on how the Lord is restoring you? It's easy to focus on the negative around us. However, it's far more edifying to seek out the ways the Lord is working good out of even the worst circumstances.

Join Jonathan Youssef as he welcomes Ashley Poptodorova to Candid Conversations. Ashley has an incredible testimony of restoration from a childhood of abuse and its long-lasting consequences. Today, she is a passionate Christ follower who has been healed and restored by God and she enjoys a thriving marriage and effective ministry for Christ.

Ashley has a background in health and nutrition and is the founder of Ladies Who Love Christ, a women's ministry that has over 5,000 members in over 40 countries. She hosts a weekend radio show on Faith Talk Atlanta on 590 & 970 AM. It can be found on all major platforms including iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio and YouTube, too.

You won't want to miss this moving reminder of Christ's restorative work - available to every believer.

To learn more about Ladies Who Love Christ, visit https://ladieswholovechrist.com/

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 185: Radical Reliance on a Faithful God: Tammyma

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Tammyma) — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Imagine raising 46 children from traumatic circumstances in South Asia, relying fully on the Lord for every provision. It's a modern-day George Mueller story. For Tammyma, it’s an incredible undertaking that flowed out of an unwavering trust in the faithfulness of God.

Today, Jonathan welcomes Tammyma to Candid Conversations. Tammyma was born and raised mostly in Georgia in her own traumatic circumstances. She was an avowed atheist until she placed her faith in Jesus Christ at the University of Georgia. Raised without a father and with no understanding of the Christian faith, Tammyma began reading the Bible and took God at His Word—trusting Him to provide and lead her daily. He led her to South Asia where she established K-Homes and several other ministries to serve women and children in profound need.

We cover a lot of ground in this conversation: trusting God, missions, parenting, the revival at Asbury, persecution, and what happens when life suddenly changes directions.

Tammyma now lives in the United States and leads Mom of Many, a ministry designed to help Christian parents intentionally connect with and guide their children into a vibrant relationship with the Lord. She is also starting a new podcast of the same name to coach parents facing common parenting challenges.

Our hope is that this episode encourages you in your walk with Christ, invigorates your prayer life, and reminds you that nothing is impossible with Christ!

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 184: Does Worship Music Need to be Biblically Accurate?: Shane and Shane

web@ltw.org (Shane Barnard, Shane Everett, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 05:00:00 +0000

You may be familiar with the acoustic duo Shane & Shane and their songs I Will Wait for You: Psalm 130, or worship renditions of Hymns, Come Thou Fount, Holy Holy Holy, or How Great Thou Art. Their prolific work has been a staple in the musical worship of many churches.

Today, Jonathan welcomes Shane & Shane. They met in college and twenty years later are still praising the Lord through music, touring, writing, and equipping the next generation of worship leaders through their project,The Worship Initiative.

We invite you to tune in to this week’s episode of Candid for an in-depth, fun, and entertaining conversation with Shane Barnard and Shane Everett as we discuss their beginnings, how the Lord has changed them over the last ten years of touring, the conviction in their hearts to write Biblically accurate worship songs for the church, and their desire to encourage other worship leaders to do the same.

This episode is one you don’t want to miss. It was a great encouragement to hear how these brothers in Christ yearn to be good stewards of God’s Word through music.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 183: Becoming Free Indeed: Jeremy and Jinger Vuolo

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Jinger Vuolo, Jeremy Vuolo) — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 05:00:00 +0000

You might remember TLC’s most popular hit TV show, ‘19 Kids and Counting’. Averaging 2.3 million viewers each week, the show highlights the Duggars, a family of devout Christians. Each episode shows the daily routine of raising 19 children and the joy and challenges they face as their family continues to grow up— featuring everything from toddlers to teens and courting to marriage.

Today we have two special guests returning, Jeremy and Jinger Vuolo. Jinger is the 6th child in the Duggar family, and Jeremy is her husband.

Jinger recently released her new book, Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Fear from Faith. In just one week it hit the New York Times Best Sellers list Together Jinger, Jeremy, and Jonathan unpack some of the unhealthy ideology of her childhood, the damage done by the Basic Life Principles from Bill Gothard, and some of the lies she believed that many Christians have also fallen prey to—including prominent Christian pastors who sent their staff members to learn Gothard’s principles.

In this Candid Conversation, Jinger isn’t deconstructing her faith but disentangling false beliefs from Biblical Truth. With a renewed faith founded on Biblical Truth, Jinger has found freedom in Christ.

Join Jonathan for this eye-opening conversation, which will challenge you to look deeper into your own heart to determine your motives for following Christ—and encourage you to pursue the path to true freedom in Christ.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 182: Does Science Support Faith in God?: Dr. Michael Guillen

web@ltw.org (Dr. Michael Guillen, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 7 Feb 2023 05:00:00 +0000

God is in the details. Discoveries in neuroscience, physics, astronomy, and mathematics point to one Creator. Still, most modern scientists would disagree. Why? Is it possible for our worldview to be consistent with both God AND modern science?

Today’s guest is Dr. Michael Guillen. He is an esteemed teacher, best-selling author, Emmy award-winning journalist, public speaker, scientist, former ABC News Science Editor, and a former physics instructor at Harvard University.

Michael had no concern for God until he began to look at all religions. Eventually, he was challenged to read the Bible. What he found in the New Testament was different from every other philosophy he'd encountered. Digging deeper, he also found no conflict between science and the Christian faith; in fact, he found science to be on the side of the Christian faith.

Pulling back the curtain of science and faith, Dr. Michael Guillen shares his journey of Christ with us.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 181: Four Signs You've Found a Bible Believing Church: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 05:00:00 +0000

We cannot have a healthy, vibrant relationship with the Lord if we are neglecting the church. It is through the local church that we experience Christ, meet with our heavenly family, and grow in love and faith as we are stretched by one another. That is why, throughout the New Testament, early Christians were exhorted to gather together and that exhortation remains true for today.

In this episode of Candid, Jonathan shares four things to look for when you are finding a church home. If you know someone who is having a hard time knowing if they've found the right church, share this episode with them!

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 180: A Dramatic Journey from Islam to Christianity, Part 2 (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Ash grew up in a loving Islamic family. He was chosen to be the future leader of his tribe of over 800 family members. He was mentored by his grandfather for years. But everything changed when Ash began to question his faith and his future.

Join Jonathan Youssef on a dramatic journey from Islam to Christianity as he welcomes Ash, a former Muslim and one of Leading The Way's follow up coordinators, to the Candid podcast.

In Part 1 of this two-part interview, you will learn why Ash began questioning his faith and how he came to faith in Christ. In Part 2, Ash will recount the danger he faced as he shared his new faith with his family and you will discover how God uses our most difficult circumstances to answer our most fervent prayers.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 179: A Dramatic Journey from Islam to Christianity, Part 1 (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Join Jonathan Youssef on a dramatic journey from Islam to Christianity as he welcomes Ash, a former Muslim and one of Leading The Way's follow up coordinators, to the Candid podcast.

In Part 1 of this two part interview, you will learn why Ash began questioning his faith and how he came to faith in Christ. In Part 2, Ash will recount the danger he faced as he shared his new faith with his family and you will discover how God uses our most difficult circumstances to answer our most fervent prayers.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 178: Do You Know God's Vision for Your Life: feat. Dr. Michael Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Are you struggling to find direction? Do you have a vision for your life? Do you know how to align your vision with God's plan?

Join Jonathan Youssef and his father, Dr. Michael Youssef, as they discuss the importance of having a God-focused vision for life and provide insight to help you align your vision with God's plan.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 177: Listen to This Before You Pick a Bible Reading Plan: Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 3 Jan 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Are you looking for a way to study God’s Word consistently? Do you need a new Bible reading plan? Join Jonathan as he shares his favorite plan, as well as the potential pitfalls and rewards of a Bible reading plan by Robert Murray M'Cheyne: Daily Bread.

We pray that this episode encourages you in the general reading of God's Word and that choosing a reading plan will help you grow in your relationship with Christ.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 176: Do I Really Need to Go to Church? Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 05:00:00 +0000

What comes to mind when someone mentions church? For some, it's a positive thought full of love, warmth, and community. For others, it immediately sparks feelings of judgment and rejection. Through the local church, we should experience Christ, meet our heavenly family, and grow in faith and love as we are stretched by one another, but is this happening?

In this episode, Jonathan Youssef unpacks God's purpose and design for the church. He shares why going to a Biblical church can help you build a healthy and vibrant relationship with the Lord. He also provides valuable insight into finding a body of believers rooted in the Word of God.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 175: Incredible Testimonies to Encourage You This Christmas: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 05:00:00 +0000

Let's celebrate the real reason for Christmas and hear how Christ's saving work continues around the world today. Join Jonathan for this episode of Candid Conversations as he shares incredible testimonies of lives that have been transformed by the Gospel. A great episode to lift your spirits and remind you of the real joy of the season. Listen and then share it with a friend!

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Advent Resources from Leading the Way

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Episode 174: Seven Ways to Savor Christ at Christmas: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 05:00:00 +0000

Christ's birth is worthy of our time and attention, but it can be difficult to stay centered on Christ with all of the activities designed to celebrate the season.

Join Jonathan this week as he shares seven simple ways to center our hearts and minds on Jesus this season. Choose one or a few that resonate with you and focus on Christ in this season of celebration of the incarnation of Christ.

We also want to share the following helpful seasonal resources with you. We hope they are a blessing to you.

Enjoy Christmas Worship on Candid with Jonathan Youssef

Download Your FREE Verse Memorization Guide

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 173: Julie Chapman - “God’s Got Me”: Worshiping God in Difficult Times (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Julie Chapman, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 6 Dec 2022 05:00:00 +0000

How do we truly count our suffering as joy and draw near to God in our trials? Today's guest, Julie Chapman offers insight into the incredible power of worshiping God in the midst of difficult times.

Julie is a three-time cancer and brain tumor survivor. She's also the friend you would call if you got bad news or needed your spirits lifted. Her optimism, determination to point others to the light and Truth of Jesus, and unwavering faith will inspire you to dive deeper into your relationship with Christ—especially in difficult times.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 172: Mama Bear Apologetics: Hillary Morgan Ferrer

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Hillary Morgan Ferrer) — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 05:00:00 +0000

When it comes to ensuring the spiritual well-being of our children, how do we go beyond just “raising them in church”? As the next generation navigates unprecedented issues surrounding gender identity, doubt, and resistance to the Christian faith—it won’t be enough for them to simply have the faith of their parents. How do we equip them to become disciples of Jesus Christ in a hostile world?

According to Barna and USA today, nearly 59% of youth leave the church after they graduate, and only17% maintain a Biblical worldview. According to a Lifeway survey, the most common catalysts for leaving the church are moving to college, witnessing hypocrisy within the church, and no longer feeling connected to the body of Christ.

This week, Jonathan welcomes Hillary Morgan Ferrer to Candid Conversations. Her passion is to help equip parents to answer the questions their children will inevitably ask and teach them how to “demolish arguments raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5). She is the founder and Mama-Bear-in-Chief of Mama Bear Apologetics, and she has a burden to help provide accessible apologetics resources for busy parents.

Together, Jonathan and Hillary discuss how we can better equip families with resources and critical thinking skills, including her own methodology called “ROAR,” to help recognize unbiblical ideas and develop discernment.

Hillary is the chief author and editor of the bestselling book, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies and Mama Bear Apologetics Guide to Sexuality: Empowering Your Kids to Understand and Live Out God’s Design. Hillary has her master’s degree in biology from Clemson University and is working on her master’s in apologetics from Biola University. She loves helping parents discern both truths and lies, understand science and culture, and understand the root causes of doubt.

Visit the Mama Bear Apologetics' blog: https://mamabearapologetics.com

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Get Your Copy of Growing in Gratitude: Rediscovering the Joy of a Thankful Heart

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Episode 171: Cultivate a Heart of Biblical Gratitude: Mary Mohler (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Mary Mohler) — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 05:00:00 +0000

Join the conversation now and be encouraged to cultivate a heart of gratitude that goes far beyond our usual gratitude checklists.

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 170: Where is God in Seasons of Sorrow?: Tim Challies

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Tim Challies) — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 05:00:00 +0000

The holiday season is here – a time of year filled with joy, tradition, faith, and nostalgia–but also a season of sorrow for so many. Where is God in seasons of sorrow?

Whether you are grieving the death of a loved one, a lost relationship, an unsaved family member, or an unfulfilled dream, today’s Candid Conversation guest will minister powerfully to you.

Join Tim and Jonathan as they discuss what Godly grief looks like and how we can keep moving forward through deep seasons of sorrow through faith in Christ.

Visit Tim Challies' blog: https://www.challies.com/

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 169: You've Voted. Now What? Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 8 Nov 2022 01:39:00 +0000

You cast your vote. Your civic duty is done. Now what do you do?

Join Jonathan as he discusses the role of fear and faith in our lives post-election. In this episode of Candid Conversations, he reflects on the reminder we have in Scripture to cast off anxiety while prayerfully trusting in the Lord for our future.

Take a few minutes to listen and then share this episode with a friend who is struggling with fear over the outcome of this election.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 168: Defending Your Faith When You Don’t Have All the Answers: Tim Barnett

web@ltw.org (Tim Barnett, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 1 Nov 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Our hope is that this episode will empower you to confidently share your faith both on and offline.

Check out Red Pen Logic with Mr. B. on:

YouTube

TikTok

Facebook

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 167: What is Progressive Christianity? Alisa Childers (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Alisa Childers) — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Progressive Christianity. Deconstruction. We are hearing these terms more regularly as some Christian leaders walk away from Biblical orthodoxy. What is the impact of redefining the Christian faith?

In today’s episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef welcomes Alisa Childers whose book, Another Gospel, is a helpful guide to unpacking and understanding Progressive Christianity.

Alisa is the author of her widely read apologetics blog, AlisaChilders.com. She is also the host of The Alisa Childers Podcast. You may also remember her as part of the Christian band, Zoe Girl.

Join Jonathan on a journey with Alisa from a childhood faith in Christ to a deconstruction of that faith and finally a re-construction of a solid Biblical faith in Christ. This conversation is eye-opening, educational, and encouraging to those searching for solid answers about the Christian faith.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 166: Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom: Os Guinness

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 04:00:00 +0000

This week's Candid Conversation is with a man who is known as a quiet voice on behalf of faith, freedom, truth, reason, and civility. Jonathan welcomes Os Guinness to the program. Os is an author, social critic, and great-great-great grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer. He has written or edited more than 30 books that offer valuable insight into the cultural, political, and social contexts in which we all live.

Os Guinness was born in China in World War II where his parents were medical missionaries. He witnessed the climax of the Chinese revolution in 1949 and was expelled with many other foreigners in 1951. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of London and his D.Phil in the social sciences from Oriel College, Oxford. He now resides in the United States.

Together, Jonathan and Os discuss Scripture and Os' most recent book The Magna Carta of Humanity. Join them as they go around the globe and talk about what Os sees as an American crisis of polarization. Then, dive into the most recent change overseas, a new King in England and what “defender of the Faith” now means to the monarchy. Os also tells us a bit about his incredible family lineage from Christian brewers to pastors to a Christian author.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 165: Different Covenant, Same God: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Should Christians throw out the Old Testament, claiming its teaching is no longer relevant because of Christ's finished work on the cross? What exactly changed after the Crucifixion and Resurrection? Did God change? Is He a God of wrath or mercy?

Join Jonathan as he shares the importance of the Bible as a whole and the cohesive, overarching narrative that spans both the Old and New Testaments. He also shines light on how the Old and New Testaments complement rather than contradict each other. The entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is God's Word to us, communicating His character and revealing His Son. Every portion of Scripture points to Christ as our Redeemer.

We hope this episode encourages you to embrace the totality of Scripture so you do not miss out on the beauty and fullness of God revealed in His Word.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 164: Is The End Near?: Dr. Michael Youssef

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 4 Oct 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Are the end times upon us? That's the question pastor and author Dr. Michael Youssef is asking in his latest book, "Is The End Near?: What Jesus Told Us About the Last Days."

With the ever-streaming flow of chaotic events, it can feel like the end is upon us. However, we don’t have to rely on speculation, we can look to Jesus’ own words. Join Jonathan and Dr. Youssef as they dive into the Word of God to discover the Truth on this hot topic.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 163: Confronting Cultural Lies: Alisa Childers (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Alisa Childers) — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 04:00:00 +0000

"You are enough!" "God wants you to be happy." "Be the boss of you!" These popular quotes sound encouraging and empowering, but are they really Biblical? Jonathan welcomes Alisa Childers back to Candid Conversations to discuss the infiltration of cultural lies into Christian circles. Together, they unpack the importance of holding every thought captive to the knowledge of God where true life and empowerment are found.

Alisa is the author of her widely read apologetics blog, AlisaChilders.com and host of The Alisa Childers Podcast. You may also remember her as part of the Christian band, Zoe Girl. Her book, Another Gospel?, is a helpful guide to unpacking and understanding Progressive Christianity.

This is an encouraging episode that will equip you to counter cultural lies with Biblical Truth, so take a few minutes and listen now.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 162: Counting On Christ: Jeremy & Jinger Vuolo

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Jeremy Vuolo, Jinger Vuolo) — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 04:00:00 +0000

You might remember TLC’s popular hit TV show 19 Kids and Counting. The show followed the Duggar family, devout Christians who offered 2.3 million viewers a glimpse into life with 19 children. Each episode chronicled the joys and challenges of raising children—from toddlers to teens and from courting to marriage.

On this episode of Candid, Jonathan welcomes Jeremy and Jinger Vuolo. They share about their upbringing. Jeremy talks about life as a pastor's kid with a passion for soccer that led to him becoming a professional soccer player and Jinger offers insight into her upbringing in the Duggar family in the public eye on a reality show. They both share how they came to know Christ, how they met, the theological differences they had to work through with their families, and how they graciously navigated those waters. Now married with two girls, Jeremy and Jinger have a new book out for children, You Can Shine So Bright.

We hope this episode encourages you in your walk, in your dating life if you are single, and even as a parent as you strive to shepherd your children’s hearts toward Christ.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 161: Trusting Truth: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 04:00:00 +0000

When the surrounding culture or our feelings contradict the Truth of God, what should we believe is true?

In today’s Candid episode, Jonathan Youssef reflects on why it is vitally important to consider life's most difficult questions through the lens of Scripture - even when the answers aren't always what we want to hear.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 160: Is Mormonism Just Another Branch of Christianity?: Dave Hubbard

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Dave Hubbard) — Tue, 6 Sep 2022 04:00:00 +0000

The Mormon faith seems shrouded in mystery. Is it another branch of Christianity? Do we believe the same things about Jesus? If not, where do we differ?

Join Jonathan as he sits down with Dave Hubbard for a deeper dive into the theological differences of Christianity and Mormonism. Dave grew up as a Christian in California but was an All-American collegiate athlete at Brigham Young University. He went on to play in the NFL for the New Orleans Saints. After the NFL, Dave went into full-time Christian ministry in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Dave has served as an associate pastor in California, Oregon, Colorado, and Georgia. He currently serves as Small Group Ministry Assistant and Local Ministry Connections Pastor at The Church of The Apostles in Atlanta.

In this episode, Dave shares what it was like to be a devout Christian attending and playing football for a Mormon institution like Brigham Young University. During his time there, he did a deep dive into the Mormon faith and he shares his unique insight with us today.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 159: Making the Right Call: Mark Richt (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Mark Richt, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Fall is just around the corner. Leaves are changing. Grills are being fired up. That can only mean one thing. It’s time for football and we can't wait! In July of 2021, Jonathan sat down with Coach Mark Richt for a candid conversation about faith and football. With football season kicking off, we thought it was the perfect time to re-air this fan favorite episode.

Coach Richt played football at Miami and coached at some of the top football schools in the Southeast, including Florida State, the University of Georgia, and the University of Miami. He was a three-time Coach of the Year and led his teams to two SEC Championships, five SEC division titles, and one ACC division title. Most importantly, he has impacted countless young men for Christ by coaching and mentoring his players not only in how to play great football, but also how to be better leaders in their homes, careers, and as Christ followers.

Join us today as we talk football, his journey to faith, his passion for the younger generation, the setbacks he’s endured, and his empowering book, Make the Call: Game Day Wisdom for Life’s Defining Moments.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 158: Choosing Calling Over Career: Rocky Seto

web@ltw.org (Rocky Seto, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 23 Aug 2022 04:00:00 +0000

As we walk closely with Christ, there will be times when we have to choose between the calling God has put on our lives and something else like a relationship, a friendship, family, or our career choices.

Can you imagine being at the top of an illustrious career when God asks you to leave it for vocational ministry? When most people would revel in the success and stay to move up to their dream position, today's Candid Conversations guest chose to follow the call of God on his life to serve Christ and His church in pastoral ministry.

Rocky Seto, former Seattle Seahawks assistant head coach, talks with Jonathan about his journey to football, his salvation, and his rise in coaching from college to the NFL. Rocky gets candid about his struggles and the deep calling to serve Christ and His church in pastoral ministry.

You don't want to miss this episode. It is a beautiful reminder of God's goodness when we delight in Him and are faithful to live out the calling He places on our lives.

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 157: The Reason for Forgiveness: Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 04:00:00 +0000

What does it take to forgive someone who has caused us deep pain? And how essential is it to seek forgiveness when we've wronged others?

In this special reairing of Candid, Jonathan Youssef examines the parable of the unmerciful servant from Matthew 18, shedding light on the interconnectedness of granting and seeking forgiveness.

Listen in for valuable insight. We'd love to hear from you if you have any questions after the episode! Connect with Jonathan and the Candid community at https://LTW.org/Candid.

You can also continue the discussion on our social media platforms:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/candidpod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/candidpod
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thecandidpod

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 156: Surviving College: Michael Kruger (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Michael Kruger) — Tue, 9 Aug 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Fall is right around the corner and students are back in school. Many are heading to College for the first time. These students will be faced with so much more than the next step in their education. They will navigate new relationships, new social experiences, and a new found freedom that can be a challenge to the spiritual lives of many students. College is not known for encouraging students to grow their relationship with Christ or teaching them how to stand firm in the faith.

Join Jonathan as he welcomes Dr. Michael Kruger to discuss the challenges of holding firm to the Christian faith in college. Together they unpack some general apologetics questions like, “How was the Bible written?” and “Why do we need the Bible? What makes it authentic?” They also talk about why it’s important to stay connected to the body of Christ in college, as well as how we can empower parents to prepare students to stand firm in an academic culture of doubt and disbelief.

Dr. Kruger serves as President and Samuel C. Patterson Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the Charlotte campus of Reformed Theological Seminary.

In addition to his duties as president, he is one of today’s leading scholars in the study of the origins of the New Testament, particularly the development of the New Testament canon. He is the author of eleven books, most recently Surviving Religion 101: Letters to a Christian Student on Keeping the Faith in College.

In this episode, we hope to encourage you to consider the challenges that may await you as a college student (or your child if you are the parent of a college student) and how you can be prepared with a gentle and respectful defense of the hope we have in Christ.

Read Surviving Religion 101: Letters to a Christian Student on Keeping the Faith in College when you purchase your copy now.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 155: Five Ways to Follow Christ as a Family: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Mon, 1 Aug 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Raising children to know, love, and follow Christ in a culture hostile to the Gospel is a daily challenge. How do we follow Christ as a family and help lead our children grow into godly men and women?

Join Jonathan as he offers insight into Biblical parenthood. In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan offers five Biblical keys to following Christ as a family.

Please listen to and then share this timely episode. We hope it will help you and many others follow Christ as a family, leading many families into a vibrant relationship with our Lord and Savior.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 154: Father, Forgive Them: One Woman's Journey to Freedom

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 04:00:00 +0000

She was wrongly accused, betrayed by her family, wounded by deep loss, and left with no choice but to leave her entire life behind. Still, she forgave... and the Lord brought incredible redemption out of the most painful season of her life.

Today's guest had every reason in the world not to forgive or forget the profound abuse she endured. However, she has learned the important truth that forgiveness and freedom are deeply intertwined.

Join Jonathan Youssef as he welcomes a special guest who, in order to protect her identity, will remain anonymous. She shares her incredible testimony of freedom from a life of abuse and oppression in a third world country to freedom in America. Through Christ, she found forgiveness for herself and others and discovered God’s path forward for her life.

You don't want to miss this incredible story of the Lord's pursuit of and saving power for His beloved children—available to every believer in Christ!

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 153: A Challenge to Embrace the Blessing of Special Needs Ministry: Bruce and Rachel Lowe

web@ltw.org (Bruce Lowe, Rachel Lowe, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 04:00:00 +0000

The population of students with special needs is growing and accounts for close to 15 percent of the total student population. Special needs are medical, mental, or psychological disabilities that require special care. Unfortunately, people with special needs can be overlooked in the church because we don't know how to serve them well.

In today's Candid Conversation, Bruce and Rachel Lowe join Jonathan for a frank discussion on how to serve special needs families in the local church. The Lowes share their own personal story of the joys and struggles of raising their children with Fragile X syndrome and how they express the loving character of God in unique and challenging ways. Together, they discuss how we can be more intentional about including special needs children and adults in the church by recognizing their God-given spiritual gifts.

In addition to being a fantastic scholar and published author, Bruce Lowe is a beloved seminary professor, friend, and mentor of Jonathan’s.

You don't want to miss this sweet episode as Jonathan and the Lowes peel back layers of the challenging yet rewarding work of engaging with our brothers and sisters with special needs.eeds.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 152: Roe v. Wade Conversations: What I Wish I Had Known Before My Abortion with Bree Tuttle

web@ltw.org (Bree Tuttle, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Is abortion a stepping stone to a better life for women? How does an abortion impact the daily life of a woman? Today's Candid Conversations guest, Bree Tuttle, shares an intimate look at life in the aftermath of her abortion and the healing she has received through a vibrant relationship with Christ. Bree joins Jonathan Youssef to share the truth she wishes she'd known before her abortion.

Bree is a trained crisis pregnancy counselor and an outspoken and passionate advocate for women facing unplanned pregnancies.

If you or someone you know is facing an unplanned pregnancy, help is available. Please call the National Crisis Pregnancy Helpline at 800-712-HELP to talk to someone today.

Are you looking for help moving past the pain of a past abortion? The following post-abortion Bible studies and recovery resources may be helpful to you.

Surrendering the Secret

Abortion Changes You

Save One

Hope After Abortion

Healing After Abortion

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 151: Free to Live for Something Greater: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Mon, 4 Jul 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Red, white, and blue. The American Dream. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, coming from nothing, working hard, and making something of yourself.

The American Dream is beautiful. However, is there an even greater gift than American freedom?

Today, Jonathan shares a reflection on the greater gift for believers and what it means for Christians to be "doubly free." We are free by nature of our political system, but we are also free because of the redeeming work of Christ in our lives.

In this special July 4th reflection, Jonathan looks at Galatians 5:1, which says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free." More than political freedom, we are free from the penalty of sin and the weight of death in our lives. Join Jonathan as he explores this passage in Scripture and provides helpful background for Paul's warning to the Galatians—a warning that we can apply to our own lives today.

We hope wherever you are on July 4th, that the greatest freedom ever offered would be yours in Christ Jesus.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 150: Roe v. Wade Conversations: What Happens Next? with Carrie Murray Nellis

web@ltw.org (Carrie Murray Nellis, Jonathan Youssef) — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 15:42:23 +0000

You’re hearing about it on the news and in your social media feeds: Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey have officially been overruled through the Supreme Court decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. It seems like half the nation is rejoicing… and half the nation is shocked and outraged. But what really happens next? What are the legal implications of this decision?

There is a lot of misinformation going around about the outworking of this decision from a legal perspective. So, we invited Carrie Murray Nellis to Candid Conversations. Carrie is an attorney at the Murray Nellis Law Group, and she specializes in adoption and child advocacy. She’s also the executive director of the Abiding Love Adoption Agency and Abiding Love Charities. She has been following this case closely.

Together, we discuss what the decision means and how it will impact abortion on a national and state level. We also cover how we, as believers, can be ready to come alongside expectant mothers who will need support as they navigate a difficult and life changing situation.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 149: LGBTQ Conversations: Transgender from Biblical Times to Now, Claire and Rob Smith

web@ltw.org (Claire Smith, Rob Smith, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 04:00:00 +0000

In the past few years, we have seen the rise of the public debate around gender and transgender. What makes a man a man and a woman a woman? Is this a new debate or an ancient one?

Jonathan Youssef welcomes Claire and Rob Smith from Sydney, Australia to Candid Conversations. Rob Smith lectures in theology, ethics, and music ministry at Sydney Missionary & Bible College. He also serves as the Assistant Director of Ministry Training and Development for the Anglican Diocese of Sydney. He is currently undertaking doctoral studies in the theology of sex and gender.

Claire Smith is a writer and women's bible teacher. She is a nurse by background. She has a Ph.D. in New Testament from Moore Theological College and is the author of God's Good Design: What the Bible Really Says About Men and Women.

Claire and Rob are members of St. Andrew's Anglican Cathedral in Sydney and have been contributors to Desiring God and The Gospel Coalition (Claire Smith and Rob Smith).

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 148: Roe v. Wade Conversations: When Does Life Begin? with Dr. Bill Davis

web@ltw.org (Bill Davis, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 04:00:00 +0000

In the past few weeks, we’ve heard news of a possible overturn of Roe v. Wade as the abortion debate continues. How should we think about abortion biblically, philosophically, and ethically? How does the Biblical perspective of family contrast the Western perspective and how does this impact our thoughts on this issue?

Join Jonathan as he welcomes Dr. Bill Davis back to Candid Conversations to discuss the value of life and the impact of church and government involvement in abortion.

Dr. Bill Davis is a professor of Philosophy at Covenant College and an adjunct professor of Systematic Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary and an elder in the Presbyterian Church.

Our hope is this episode will bring clarity of conviction to this much debated topic, while at the same time stirring mercy, patience, and understanding for our friends and neighbors struggling with this issue.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 147: LGBTQ Conversations: Transgender to Transformed with Laura Perry (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Laura Perry, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 7 Jun 2022 04:00:00 +0000

This month throughout the U.S. many will celebrate Pride month. In today's episode we look at God's perspective on human sexuality.

You may have heard of the term gender dysphoria. If you haven’t, it is the psychological distress endured by a person because of a perceived mismatch between a person’s biological sex and their gender identity.

What causes gender dysphoria and what lies behind the desire to be a different gender? How should Christians view gender and how can we share the Truth in love with those struggling with gender dysphoria?

Today’s Candid Conversations guest, Laura Perry, shares her struggle with gender dysphoria. She opens up with Jonathan in this conversation about her path from being a transgender male to a transformed woman of God. Don't miss a minute of this awe inspiring and transformational testimony of the power of Jesus Christ to heal and redeem.

Get a Copy of Laura Perry's book, Transgender to Transformed

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 146: How Should Christians Respond to Tragedy: Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 31 May 2022 04:00:00 +0000

In light of all of the tragic events over the past weeks and months, Jonathan shares with us a heartfelt and Scripture-led response to tragedy.

Tragedy strikes. Grief and sorrow follow. We want to know why it happened, who is to blame, and all the details of what happened. Is that the right way to respond? How did Jesus respond to tragedy? What can we learn from Him?

Join Jonathan Youssef as he shares insight from Luke 13 about how Christians should respond to tragedy. In this chapter, Jesus reminds His disciples of the bigger picture when facing tragedy and teaches them how to respond with the Gospel.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 145: Christ and Culture: Jonathan Youssef, Zack Carden, and Jeff Falkowski

web@ltw.org (Jeff Falkowski, Zack Carden, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 24 May 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Modern culture rarely agrees with the Biblical Christian worldview. As Christians, how do we engage with the culture around us? Jobs, politics, raising children, the entertainment industry, and the news challenge us daily. Should we ignore and isolate away from the culture or do we engage with it? To what degree should we engage? And, if necessary, how do we confront the culture?

Join Jonathan as he welcomes Zack Carden and Jeff Falkowski to Candid Conversations for an in-depth discussion of these hard questions that Christians must wrestle with. Together, they discuss "Christ and Culture" by Richard Niebuhr.

Richard Niebuhr, an ethics professor from Yale Divinity School wrote a book in 1951 entitled “Christ and Culture." He describes five models of how Christians engage with culture. The book has been massively successful for over 70 years and has helped countless Christians understand how the Christian life has been lived out in culture over many years.

Jeff Falkowski and Zack Carden are both pastors who work alongside Jonathan at The Church of The Apostles in Atlanta, GA. Jeff is a graduate of the University of Georgia and Bethel Seminary. He is the director of Young Families and Discipleship at The Church of The Apostles. He and his wife Gwen have three grown children.

Zack is a graduate of University of Tennessee Chattanooga and Covenant Seminary. He and his wife Tennyson have four children.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 144: Fighting Financial Fear in the Face of Inflation : David Nicholas

web@ltw.org (David Nicholas, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 17 May 2022 04:00:00 +0000

It feels like we are on a financial roller coaster. Inflation is impacting much of the world. When the prices on daily necessities shoot up, fear is often our natural response. Today's episode of Candid Conversations will help you fight against the fear that an uncertain economic future can trigger.

Jonathan welcomes financial advisor, David Nicholas, back to the podcast to help us navigate tumultuous financial waters by providing Biblical Truth and insight into wise financial principles no matter your age or stage of life. They also talk about an issue many of our listeners are wrestling with: whether or not our faith should impact the companies we invest in, like Disney or other businesses whose values may not align with our own.

David Nicholas is president and founder of Nicholas Wealth Management, a financial planning and investment advisory company. He is a weekly market commentator on major media networks including Fox Business, CNBC, CNN, and CBS. He was previously named one of Atlanta's most powerful leaders by Atlanta Magazine. David has served on the vestry at his church and in his free time enjoys traveling and spending time with his wife Kristin and their three children.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

GET YOUR FREE DOWNLOAD: FOUR REASONS YOU CAN TRUST THE BIBLE

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Episode 143: Why You Can Trust the Bible: Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 10 May 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Can you trust the Bible? It is an important question to answer when considering the Christian faith. Is there evidence to support the validity of Scripture or does it need to be accepted on blind faith?

In this episode of Candid, Jonathan Youssef shares practical evidence for the validity of Scripture and he also unpacks the reason why so many choose to deny its Truth.

Listen and learn why you can trust that the Bible is indeed God’s Word—and find renewed confidence and excitement to seek God in the Scriptures.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 142: Let's Talk About Addiction: Rand and Randy Eberhard

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Randy Eberhard, Rand Eberhard) — Tue, 3 May 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Addiction. It's far more common than you think and the statistics are staggering. In fact, 45 million people in America are directly impacted by addiction. 1 in 3 households is exposed to, suffering from, or otherwise impacted by addiction.

Are you struggling with being addicted to something, but you aren't sure how to get help? Maybe you have a loved one who is suffering from addiction and you want to help them get the help they need. Perhaps you have a legacy of addiction and you don't know if true freedom is possible. If these questions resonate with you, don't miss this candid conversation.

Join Jonathan as he welcomes Rand and Randy Eberhard, a father and a son who personally know the pain and consequences of addiction. God has brought them through the dark valley of addiction that cost their family dearly and has called them to a life of counseling those who struggle with addiction and the families who love and suffer with them.

In this episode, they share the raw truth about their path to healing. We invite you to listen to Randy and Rand’s personal struggle of addiction and how the Lord has saved and restored them both. Today, they provide comfort and care to countless others journeying on the road to recovery.

Randy Eberhard and Rand Eberhard both work on The Church of the Apostles' pastoral care team. Randy is a Pastoral counselor and certified drug and alcohol counselor. He has worked with countless adults, adolescents, and their families with an emphasis on career coaching, addiction, and recovery. He also serves as the Senior Area Director for Young Life – an international Christian youth organization.

Rand is the Director of Congregational Care at The Church of The Apostles, a ministry designed to help those dealing with difficult situations like grief, divorce, life transitions, or relational brokenness.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 141: What Does it Mean to Be a Disciple?: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 26 Apr 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Would you consider yourself a disciple of Christ? What is discipleship and how do we pursue it?

Join Jonathan for this episode of Candid as he examines these questions and reveals the elements necessary to pursue a life of Christian discipleship.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 140: Do You Know God's Vision for Your Life: Dr. Michael Youssef and Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Dr. Michael Youssef, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Are you struggling to find direction? Do you have a vision for your life? Do you know how to align that vision with God's plan?

Join Jonathan Youssef and his father, Dr. Michael Youssef, as they discuss the importance of having a God-focused vision for life and provide insight to help you uncover your vision.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 139: Faith Like a Child: Easter with the Candid Kids

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 04:00:00 +0000

It's Easter week and Jonathan, along with the Candid team, have put together a very special Easter episode that you don't want to miss.

Join Jonathan and his son Isaac as they welcome the Candid team's kids to help retell the Easter story. This is an episode so sweet that we are sure you will smile at the beautiful faith of a child. We also hope it helps you to remember the beautiful promise of the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 138: Three Reasons for Suffering: Jonathan Youssef (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 5 Apr 2022 04:00:00 +0000

What is suffering? Why is there suffering in this world? Why aren't we immune to it as Christians? Why would a loving God allow suffering?

One of the most asked questions by young people in the Western world is, "Why is there suffering?" Pain and hardship are part of the human experience but why?

The Bible is clear that we will all face suffering to some degree and that it will ultimately be used for good in the life of a believer.

In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef explores three main reasons for suffering and gives Biblical encouragement to persevere in the face of suffering. If you have wondered why there is suffering, you won't want to miss this episode.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 137: How Should Christians Respond to Tragedy: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan youssef) — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 04:00:00 +0000

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 136: Building Bridges in a Cancel Culture: Bill Davis

web@ltw.org (Bill Davis, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Should believers be on the frontlines of culture wars? Is cancel culture impacting how younger Christians engage with the church and with secular culture? How can different Christian generations with diverse opinions come together in unity to overcome cancel culture?

On today’s episode, Jonathan welcomes Dr. Bill Davis as they discuss culture wars in and outside of the Church along with what the Bible has to say about honoring Christ in our response to culture.

We hope this episode will help you build a bridge between generations - helping difficult conversations to be filled with love and understanding.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 135: Discover Your Calling: Clay Kirkland (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Clay Kirkland, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Have you ever wondered what God's call is for your life? Do you think about what He created you to do? Do you wrestle and ask if you are in the center of His will? These are questions we all wrestle with periodically. If you are in that place now or know someone who is, today's podcast is for you.

Jonathan welcomes Clay Kirkland back to Candid Conversations. Clay is a life coach who served for 18 years as the Director of Staff Development at The Wesley Foundation at The University of Georgia where he mentored and coached thousands of young adults. He is also a certified Strengths coach and consultant who helps people discover and operate in their God-given strengths.

Together, Jonathan and Clay will navigate deep questions of purpose using Scripture as their guide. Join them now.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 134: Confronting Cultural Lies: Alisa Childers

web@ltw.org (Alisa Childers, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 8 Mar 2022 05:00:00 +0000

This is an encouraging episode that will equip you to counter cultural lies with Biblical Truth--so take a few minutes and listen now.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 133: Never Give Up: Michael Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Michael Youssef) — Tue, 1 Mar 2022 05:00:00 +0000

As false teachers tear down Biblical morals and many deconstruct their faith, how are believers to respond?

Jonathan Youssef welcomes his father, Dr. Michael Youssef, to Candid to discuss his new book, Never Give Up: Holding Fast to Biblical Truth in Times of Danger and Despair. Together, they discuss Paul's writings to Timothy and the Church in 2 Timothy, an incredible encouragement for us to hold fast to Biblical Truth in the face of opposition and during difficult times.

Listen today to be built up in your faith in God and His Word so that you can take a stand for Truth in the midst of opposition and personal trials. The victory is yours in Christ!

If you would like to order Never Give Up, it is available now at LTW.org for your gift of any amount to the ministry of Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Understanding Suffering in Light of the Gospel

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Episode 132: Jonathan Youssef Answers Your Questions (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 05:00:00 +0000

We love receiving your questions at Candid Conversations. We want to help you navigate the hard questions of the Christian faith. We all have questions about Christianity, so let’s dive in and answer them together.

On today's episode of Candid, Jonathan takes a few minutes to unpack answers to your recent questions, including:

Why would God create us knowing we would fall and suffer?
How could a loving God send anyone to hell?
What should I do to encourage someone who had a bad experience in church?
Do I need to keep asking God to forgive my sins?
How much theological training do I need for ministry?

We also want to offer the following resources for additional insight. Take a few minutes to review these links after you listen to this episode.

Why Did God Allow the Fall?

Heaven Is for Real—and Hell Is, Too

Four Things to Look for in a Church

Forgiveness & Confession

Is Seminary Really Necessary?

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 131: Can Critical Race Theory Offer Racial Healing?: Monique Duson

web@ltw.org (Monique Duson, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 05:00:00 +0000

Critical Race Theory is being offered as a framework that will help with the work of racial healing. Is this true? Can Critical Race Theory bring racial healing? Can it bring Biblical unity?

Join Jonathan and his guest, Monique Duson of the Center for Biblical Unity, to peel back the layers of Critical Race Theory. Monique is a racial unity advocate and co-founder with Krista Bontrager of the Center for Biblical Unity.

Monique spent two decades advocating for Critical Race Theory (CRT), but through a series of events, began to clearly see the contradictions of CRT with the historic Christian worldview. In this conversation, she helps shed light on the philosophies behind CRT, the role the Christian church should take in fighting racism and seeking racial healing, and the importance of Biblical discipleship in the journey toward Biblical unity.

Monique Duson has a BA in Sociology from Biola University. She is working on a MA in Theology. She has a background in social service and children’s ministry—working with a diverse array of under-served communities. Monique served as a Missionary to South Africa for over four years, serving children and teachers impacted by drugs, violence, and trauma.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 130: The Life of a Legend: Darryl Strawberry

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Darryl Strawberry) — Tue, 8 Feb 2022 05:00:00 +0000

Join Jonathan as he sits down with famed baseball player and sports legend, Darryl Strawberry.

Darryl Strawberry is a former professional baseball player, who rose to fame in 1980 and became the number one draft pick at the age of 18. Three years later he became Rookie of The Year, and went on to play 17 seasons in Major League Baseball. He was one of the most feared sluggers in the sport, known for his home runs. During his baseball career he helped lead the New York Mets to a World Series Championship and the New York Yankees to three World Series Championships.

In this special episode, Darryl shares with us his incredible story from a childhood of abuse, to a fast rise to fame. His struggles of drug abuse, and chasing a life with no meaning left him empty. Through trials and pain he realized there was so much more in life by finding Christ and walking in true discipleship with the Lord.

We hope this episode encourages you in you walk with Christ and the importance of discipleship in your own life.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 129: Listen to This Before You Pick a Bible Reading Plan: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 1 Feb 2022 05:00:00 +0000

We pray that this episode encourages you in the general reading of God's Word and that choosing a reading plan will help you grow in your relationship with Christ.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 128: So Long Normal: Laura Story

web@ltw.org (Laura story, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 25 Jan 2022 05:00:00 +0000

As frustrating as it may seem, life never goes according to plan. Almost nothing is normal.

Today, Laura Story joins Jonathan on Candid to discuss her new book, So Long, Normal: Living and Loving the Free Fall of Faith.

Laura is a wife, mother, songwriter, worship leader, author, artist, and Bible teacher. Her songs—which have won Grammys, Billboard Music Awards, and Dove Awards—include “Blessings” and Chris Tomlin’s “Indescribable.” She is the bestselling author of two books and Bible studies, When God Doesn’t Fix It and I Give Up. She has a Master of Theological Studies and a Doctorate in Worship Studies, and has served as a worship leader at Perimeter Church in Atlanta since 2005.

In this encouraging episode, Laura shares personal stories of struggling to fit into a "normal mold" only to realize that God is writing a greater story for her.

Join Jonathan and Laura as they peel back the layers of normal to reveal the beauty of a Creator who is writing a greater story for each of us - one that far surpasses normal.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 127: Persistent Prayer: Dr. Guy Richard

web@ltw.org (Dr. Guy Richard, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 18 Jan 2022 05:00:00 +0000

Why do we pray? What is prayer?

In this episode Jonathan welcomes Dr. Guy Richard to discuss your most common questions about prayer. He is the author of Persistent Prayer and Executive Director and Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Atlanta.

Together, Jonathan and Dr. Richard unpack the misunderstandings of prayer, explain how prayer can be misused, and offer clarity on how a vibrant prayer life is vital to a healthy relationship with the Lord.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 126: The Blessing of Persevering Through Trials (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 11 Jan 2022 05:00:00 +0000

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 125: Spiritual Growth in 2022: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 4 Jan 2022 05:00:00 +0000

Do you hope to grow spiritually in 2022?

Jonathan encourages you to take some time to reflect on and plan the ways you can grow spiritually this year--finding your hope, joy, peace, and contentment in Christ alone.

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 124: Courage to Answer the Call of God: Bruce Deel

web@ltw.org (Bruce Deel, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Would you follow God away from comfort and security into hard places? Would you welcome prostitutes and drug users into your home? Do you lead with trust in relationships or is trust earned? For believers, these are hard questions that can only be answered when someone is rooted in Biblical wisdom and is seeking answers from God.

Today's Candid Conversations guest has had to trust God for the answer to each of these questions and God has led him into hard places. In these places, he has seen miraculous life transformation. Bruce Deel joins Jonathan on the final episode of Candid for 2021.

Bruce is the CEO of City of Refuge in Atlanta, Georgia. Bruce is also the Senior Pastor of The Mission Church and a graduate of Lee University. Bruce spent 14 years as a pastor in the suburbs of Atlanta until God boldly moved his heart into the struggling inner city to join the fight against the darkness and hopelessness found there. He founded The City of Refuge in 1997 with a mission to bring light, hope, and transformation to individuals and families in Atlanta.

Join Jonathan as Bruce walks us through his powerful story of giving up everything to follow the call of Christ to serve God’s people. We pray this testimony will leave you inspired to follow the call of God on your life in this new year – trusting that with God, nothing is impossible.

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

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Episode 123: Do You Make Room for Christ?: Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Could you be missing a miracle of God? Are you too busy for God's intrusion into your life?

Join us as Jonathan shares a special Christmas reflection and reminds us that the true beauty of the Christmas story is this- Gods power makes regular intrusions even when we make no room. No room in the Inn? God still took on flesh. No room in your holiday traditions? God still calls to your heart. No room in your isolation? The Savior still invites you to intimacy with Him. We pray this episode will encourage you to make room for Christ this Christmas and each day that follows.

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 122: A Very Candid Christmas with Jeremy and Lauren Ezell

web@ltw.org (Sainte Jane, Jonathan Youssef, Lauren Ezell, Jeremy Ezell) — Tue, 14 Dec 2021 12:48:04 +0000

The closer we get to Christmas, the more preoccupied we can become with the trappings of the season - diverting our attention away from the true meaning of Christmas.

Today, we offer another gift to help you center your heart on Christ - A Very Candid Christmas with special guests Lauren and Jeremy Ezell. They are accomplished musicians, song writers, and worship leaders. Jeremy leads worship with Mac Powell and the team at The Church of The Apostles and Lauren occasionally accompanies. Lauren is also the Candid Podcast producer and the coordinator for several ministries at The Church of The Apostles.

Join Jonathan as he invites Lauren and Jeremy to lead us into a place of worship this Christmas season. We hope you enjoy this place of rest, as well as hearing some of the stories behind some classic Christmas hymns.

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 121: Candid Christmas Caroling with Mac Powell

web@ltw.org (Mac Powell, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 7 Dec 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Christmas time is here and we are excited to share a couple of fun, festive, and encouraging Christmas episodes recorded with some of our favorite worship leaders. We hope these episodes will offer a relaxing break in what can be a chaotic time of year.

This week, we welcome Mac Powell back to Candid to kick off some Candid Christmas Caroling.

Mac Powell is the worship leader at The Church of The Apostles. He is also a Grammy award-winning recording artist. He recently released a new Christmas single, Jesus Christ is Born and his first solo album entitled, New Creation. He is currently on a K-Love Christmas tour, but took time out of his busy schedule to sit down with Jonathan for a few minutes.

In this episode, Mac and Jonathan have a lot of fun talking about their favorite Christmas traditions, songs and the incredible reality of God’s saving love through His son Jesus. Oh, and yes… Mac will be serenading us with a few of his favorite tunes! It's a special episode you definitely don’t want to miss!

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 120: Preparing for the King: An Advent Reflection with Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 05:00:00 +0000

It is the first week of Advent in the liturgical Christian Church. It is a season of celebration of the first coming of Christ but also a time of expectant waiting in preparation for the second coming of Christ.

Excerpted from the new Advent devotional by Dr. Michael Youssef, Preparing for the King, this reflection offers four things to reflect on during this Advent Season.

We pray that you'll take time in this busy season to ponder both the wonder and humility of the Christ child and the glory of Christ in his second coming.

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 119: Following God into the Hard Places: Hammond McEver, Part 2

web@ltw.org (Hammond McEver, Jonathan youssef) — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Last week Jonathan began a conversation with a longtime friend, Hammond McEver. Together, they discussed the call God put on Hammond's life to minister to children in the inner city of Atlanta. The Lord planted a dream in his heart to start a school to help the children thrive in the Lord and then in their education.

Today, Jonathan and Hammond finish their conversation as Hammond unpacks more of the incredible story of what God has been doing through Thrive Academy. Together, they discuss the importance of community, the difference one person can make, and how to keep moving ahead in the face of opposition.

Join Jonathan as he and Hammond jump back into this powerful conversation about how his heart of gratitude to the Lord moves him to serve his local community. We hope this episode encourages you in your calling!

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 118: Following God Into Hard Places: Hammond McEver

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Hammond McEver) — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 05:00:00 +0000

How do you know your calling? Do you have the right calling if you hit roadblocks and opposition?

Today, Jonathan welcomes a longtime friend, Hammond McEver, who shares his story of prayerfully considering and answering God's call to disciple and help educate inner-city children.

Hammond shares how the Lord led him to break idols of personal achievement and comfort in favor of God’s call to disciple children in desperate need of care and direction. If you are struggling to hear God’s voice or accept His call, this is a conversation you don’t want to miss.

Hammond McEver has a Master of Arts in Religion from Reformed Theological Seminary and is the founder of Thrive Academy in Atlanta, GA.

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 117: Cultivate a Heart of Biblical Gratitude: Mary Mohler

web@ltw.org (Mary Mohler, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 9 Nov 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Join the conversation now and be encouraged to cultivate a heart of gratitude that goes far beyond our usual gratitude checklists.

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 116: How a Violent Klansman Came to Christ: Thomas A. Tarrants, Part 2

web@ltw.org (Thomas A. Tarrants, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 2 Nov 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Join Jonathan for part two of a real life story that has kept us on the edge of our seats. Today Jonathan finishes his two-part conversation with Thomas Tarrants, a former white-supremacist and Klansman, once infamously called the "most dangerous man in Mississippi".

If you missed last week's conversation, we encourage you to go back and listen to the first part of this conversation with Thomas. Then, join us to uncover the power of prayer in Thomas' conversion, his path to racial reconciliation, and his heart for discipleship.

Thomas A. Tarrants is President Emeritus of the C.S. Lewis Institute. After serving twelve years as president and nine years as vice President, he retired from his position as Vice President for Ministry and Director, Washington Area Fellows Program, with CSLI in June 2019. Tom holds a Master of Divinity Degree, as well as a Doctor of Ministry Degree in Christian Spirituality. He is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Church Alliance and a member of the Evangelical Theological Society.

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 115: How a Violent Klansman Came to Christ: Thomas A. Tarrants

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Thomas A. Tarrants) — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 04:00:00 +0000

A former white-supremacist and Klansman, once infamously called the "most dangerous man in Mississippi," sits with Jonathan and retells his incredible journey from a life of violence and hate to a life of radical love fueled by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.

In high-school, Thomas was enticed by extremist ideology and became involved in the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He was shot and wounded several times and arrested by police after an attempted bombing of the home of a Jewish leader. Thomas was sentenced to thirty years in the Mississippi State Penitentiary. He then escaped prison but was captured by the F.B.I. He was returned to prison where he would spend the next three years in a small, solitary cell.

During this time, Thomas began to search for truth. He started with the great philosophers and was then led to the Bible where he truly encountered Jesus Christ for the very first time.

This dramatic interview will have you in awe and on the edge of your seat as Thomas tells of his radical transformation that smacks of a live action movie. His complete change is evidence that the Gospel of Christ can transform even the hardest heart and mind.

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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ASK: Real World Questions/Real World Answers

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Episode 114: The #1 Question Young People Are Asking: David Robertson (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (David Robertson, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Do you know the #1 question young people worldwide are asking about the Christian faith? Why are only youth in the West asking about suffering? Do you feel equipped to answer questions about Christianity?

Join Jonathan Youssef as he welcomes David Robertson to Candid Conversations. David is an experienced minister and gifted apologist who can explain complex theological Truth in a simple and engaging way.

He has written several books including The Dawkins Letters, he has The Wea Flea blog, and he has recently released ASK: Real World Questions/ Real World Answers. In it, he takes questions from young people around the world about Christianity and provides simple but profound answers. As he shares, you will learn how to answer popular questions about the faith using Biblical Truth and insight.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 113: The Reason for Forgiveness, Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 04:00:00 +0000

How do you forgive when you feel deeply wronged and wounded? Is it important to ask for forgiveness when we have wronged someone else?

On today's episode of Candid, Jonathan Youssef unpacks the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18 and reveals how giving and receiving forgiveness are intertwined.

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 112: How to Minister to Others During a Difficult Time: Stan Carder, Reprise

web@ltw.org (Stan Carter, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 5 Oct 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Your best friend just lost their job. Your co-worker is sick in the ICU. Your neighbor just lost their spouse. You want to help, but you don't want to say or do the wrong thing. Today's Candid Conversations guest, Stan Carder, is here to help.

For over 40 years, Stan has walked through fierce personal trials and has, in turn, walked countless others through difficult times. From a small rural church in the Midwest to a megachurch in California, Stan has faithfully ministered God's love and Truth to those who are suffering.

Stan joined the pastoral care staff at The Church of The Apostles in 2003 and became the Director of Congregational Care in 2006. He recently retired from this role, but he continues to serve on the Leading The Way pastoral care team—ministering to each person in a caring and compassionate way.

Allow Stan to guide and encourage you to minister to those in your life today!

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 111: Who Are Our Real Enemies? Jonathan Youssef, Reprise

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Jonathan shares a Biblical reflection from the book of James on who our real enemies are and how we can understand them in light of the Gospel. Take a deeper look at how the world, our flesh, and the devil work against us and how we can claim the promises of God and have daily victory over these enemies of our soul.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 110: Praying for Your Unsaved Loved Ones : Jonathan Youssef

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 04:00:00 +0000

The question that weighs heavily on so many hearts and minds is, "How do I pray for and reach my unsaved loved ones for Christ?"

On today's episode of Candid, Jonathan Youssef unpacks this question and provides Biblical insight into why we pray, the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility, as well as the blessing we have in bearing witness to and praying for our unsaved loved ones.

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 109: Persecuted Christians Flee Their Homeland: Rami and Zaina Rizk

web@ltw.org (Rami Khouzam, Zaina Khouzam, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 04:00:00 +0000

We’ve heard and seen a lot about the hardship and devastation people are facing who are desperate to flee Taliban in Afghanistan. It is utterly heartbreaking. Among those in danger are Christians who will face persecution and possibly death for their faith.

It is hard to comprehend what they are facing. Today, you will hear a powerful testimony of a Christian couple caught in similar circumstances when Isis took over portions of Syria. They endured death threats, attempted kidnappings, the loss of personal freedom, and lived under a constant threat of imprisonment or death.

Rami and Zaina Rizk are from Syria. They lived in Syria when ISIS took control of certain regions in 2011 and they endured death threats, attempted kidnappings, the loss of personal freedom, and a lack of basic necessities. They fled Syria in 2013 with their young daughters – escaping ISIS rule. They first went to Lebanon and then the United States. This was not only a scary time for them and their family, but also a time when our Lord provided for them. In the face of their greatest trial, the Lord strengthened their faith and led them to safety and freedom.

Join us as we discover how to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are enduring great persecution today--and be reminded that our greatest gift, our faith in Christ, is refined by fire.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 108: Michael Kruger, Surviving College

web@ltw.org (D. Michale Kruger, Jonathan Youssef, Michael Kruger) — Tue, 7 Sep 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Dr. Kruger serves as President and Samuel C. Patterson Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the Charlotte campus of Reformed Theological Seminary.

Read Surviving Religion 101: Letters to a Christian Student on Keeping the Faith in College when you purchase your copy now.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 107: Coach Mark Richt: Make The Call

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Mark Richt) — Tue, 31 Aug 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Fall is just around the corner. Leaves are changing. Grills are being fired up. That can only mean one thing. It’s time for football! This week's Candid Conversations guest is a fan favorite around here—Coach Mark Richt.

Join us today as we talk football, his journey to faith, his passion for the younger generation, the setbacks he’s endured, and his new book, Make the Call: Game Day Wisdom for Life’s Defining Moments.

Make the Call releases today. Get your copy now.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 106: Laura Perry: Transgender to Transformed, Part 2

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Laura Perry) — Tue, 24 Aug 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Last week we started an in-depth conversation with Laura Perry about her path from transgender to transformed. If you missed it, I encourage you to go back and listen to the first part of this conversation when Laura and I discussed the wounds of her past and her gradual physical transformation from female to male. Though all her outward physical dreams were coming true, she was spiritually empty and aching on the inside.

Today, we will finish this conversation. Join us to hear how the Lord drew Laura back to Himself and how His love radically transformed every area of her life.

Get a Copy of Laura Perry's book, Transgender to Transformed

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 105: Laura Perry: Transgender to Transformed, Part 1

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Laura Perry) — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Today’s Candid Conversations guest, Laura Perry, shares her struggle with gender dysphoria. She opens up with Jonathan in the first of a two part conversation about her path from being a transgender male to a transformed woman of God. Don't miss a minute of this awe inspiring and transformational testimony of the power of Jesus Christ to heal and redeem.

Get a Copy of Laura Perry's book, Transgender to Transformed

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Episode 104: Baby Youssef has Arrived

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 10 Aug 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Celebrate with Jonathan and Lindsey Youssef as Jonathan shares the good news of the arrival of their daughter, Eva Adair Youssef. Please join us in prayer for Jonathan, Lindsey, Isaac (Eva’s older brother!), and Eva as they adjust to life as a family of four. Welcome to the Candid Conversations family, Eva!

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 103: Anne Graham Lotz (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Anne Graham Lotz, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 3 Aug 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Called the best preacher in the family by her father, the late Billy Graham, Anne speaks with wisdom and authority from years spent studying God’s Word. Her aim is clear and evident in both her life and this conversation: to call people into a personal relationship with God through His word.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 102: Rosaria Butterfield: The Gospel Comes with a Housekey (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Rosaria Butterfield) — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Jonathan welcomes Rosaria Butterfield to Candid Conversations to discuss building up the church to live like the family of God to provide a powerful Christian witness to your neighbors.

Rosaria is a former tenured professor of English and women’s studies at Syracuse University. She was converted to Christ in 1999 in what she describes as a train wreck.

In her late twenties, allured by feminist philosophy and LGBT advocacy, she adopted a lesbian identity. Rosaria earned her PhD from Ohio State University, then served in the English department and women's studies program at Syracuse University from 1992 to 2002. Her primary academic field was critical theory, specializing in queer theory. Her historical focus was 19th-century literature, informed by Freud, Marx, and Darwin. She advised the LGBT student group, wrote Syracuse University’s policy for same-sex couples, and actively lobbied for LGBT aims alongside her lesbian partner.

In 1997, while Rosaria was researching the Religious Right “and their politics of hatred against people like me,” she wrote an article against the Promise Keepers. A response to that article triggered a meeting with Ken Smith, who became a resource on the Religious Right, their Bible, a confidant, and a friend. In 1999, after repeatedly reading the Bible in large chunks for her research, Rosaria converted to Christianity. Her first book, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, details her conversion and the cataclysmic fallout—in which she lost “everything but the dog,” yet gained eternal life in Christ.

Rosaria’s second book, Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert on Sexual Identity and Union with Christ, addresses questions of sin, identity, and repentance that she often encounters during speaking engagements.

In her third book, The Gospel Comes with a House Key: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World, Rosaria explores how God used a humble couple’s simple invitation to dinner to draw her—a radical, committed unbeliever—to himself. With this story of her conversion as a backdrop, she invites us into her home to show us how God can use this same “radical, ordinary hospitality” to bring the Gospel to our lost friends and neighbors.

Rosaria is married to Kent, a Reformed Presbyterian pastor in North Carolina, and is a home school mother, author, and speaker.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 101: Jonathan Gets Candid on Crosswalk with Gino Geraci

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Gino Geraci) — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 04:00:00 +0000

On this week's episode the tables are turned! Jonathan Youssef is a guest on Crosswalk with Gino Geraci on KRKS-FM in Denver.

In this interview, Jonathan gives insight into his unique family history, his ministry time in Australia , and his passion to intentionally pursue the next generation for Christ through Candid Conversations.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 100: It's Time to Celebrate

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 04:00:00 +0000

It's time to celebrate! Candid Conversations just hit 100 episodes and we want to celebrate this milestone with you.

In this episode, Jonathan, listeners, and previous guests share their encouraging words on how Candid Conversations has changed them and encouraged them in their spiritual walk with Christ.

Thank you for listening to and sharing Candid Conversations - here's to 100 more episodes! We can't wait for you to hear what's next.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 99: The Prodigal Son (Part 3)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan youssef) — Tue, 6 Jul 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Listen and reflect on the lavish grace and forgiveness of God the Father and the gentle reminder of God's continuing grace, forgiveness, and provision for those who remain in His care.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 98: The Prodigal Son (Part 2)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Join Jonathan as he reflects on the parable of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15. In this second part of a three-part reflection, Jonathan looks at the prodigal son who left home.

Listen and receive insight into how this parable provides unique insight into our relationship with God and those around us. Don't miss this opportunity to understand our depravity and the incredible redemption offered by the loving heart of our heavenly Father.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 97: The Prodigal Son (Part 1)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Join Jonathan as he reflects on the parable of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15. In this first part of a three -part reflection, he describes the father's joy when his son repents and turns back to him.

Jonathan then shares how the father in this story is a beautiful mirror image of God, the Father. Join him as he unpacks God's heart towards His children and receive a reminder of God's unrelenting love for you.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 96: Fatherhood

Tue, 15 Jun 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Father’s Day is a great time to reflect on the incredible blessing a loving and godly father is to his children. However, not everyone has had a great or godly father. No matter your relationship with your earthly father, your Heavenly Father can use this episode of Candid to reframe fatherhood for you.

Join Jonathan as he welcomes a couple of members of the pastoral staff of The Church of the Apostles to discuss fatherhood. Zack Carden is the Director of Family Ministries and Mark Johnston is the Pastor to High School and College Students. Along with Zack and Mark, are their sons, Seth Carden and Elijah Johnston.

Together, they explore the father/son relationship and how we are to train up children under Christ’s headship. This conversation covers the struggles and joys of instructing, guiding, and modeling Christ in the home. Seth and Elijah also join in this fun conversation and help us to see the challenges of seeking Christ in a social media age and the importance of finding biblical community while in college.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 95: Dee Barnes: Redeemed Sexuality (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Dee Barnes, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 8 Jun 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Jonathan has a heartfelt conversation with Dee Barnes about how God saved her and redeemed her sexuality as she pursued a relationship with Christ. Her transparent testimony of transformation through the power of God's Word has compelled her to lead others struggling with sexual and relational issues to the freedom only possible in Christ.

Dee Barnes is the founder of His Wonderful Works, a ministry dedicated to bringing hope, healing, and freedom to the Body of Christ in the areas of family relationships and sexuality.

His Wonderful Works comes alongside individuals, ministries, and churches to provide insightful Biblical teaching, testimonies, lay counseling, healing prayer, and trusted resources.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 94: Part 2, Matthew Lucas: Beauty From Ashes

web@ltw.org (Matt Lucas, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 1 Jun 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Last week, Jonathan introduced Matt Lucas. If you haven’t listened to part 1 of his testimony, we would suggest you listen to it first and then come join us for this part of the conversation – look for episode 93 of Candid Conversations.

In today’s conversation, Matt is candid about losing his son, Caleb, five years ago. Caleb was in college when he tragically passed away from a fatal drug interaction.

Matt shares how the Lord has met him in grieving the loss of his son and has used it so powerfully to reach others for Christ.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 93: Matthew Lucas: Where Does Your Strength Come From?

web@ltw.org (Matt Lucas, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 25 May 2021 04:00:00 +0000

His father is a Gold medal Olympian and NBA All-Star. He is married to the woman of his dreams, has three beautiful children, and enjoys a successful career in film. He has worked with some of the greatest media innovators of our time and he has seven Emmy awards under his belt.

Matthew Lucas has lived an incredible life filled with awe inspiring highs, but he has also endured heart-breaking lows. Through it all, his faith in Christ remains the focus of his life and his testimony overflows with love, faith, gratitude, and passion.

In this conversation Matt walks us through the beginnings of his life from adoption to college basketball to a career in film with a growing family. This episode will leave you encouraged to live for Christ no matter where you are in life.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 92: Gino Geraci: Let God Lead You

web@ltw.org (Gino Geraci, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 18 May 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Gino Geraci lives a radically transformed life in Christ and you don’t want to miss a minute of his testimony.

Gino Geraci is a senior pastor emeritus, seasoned police chaplain, and former FBI chaplain. He has ministered to first responders, victims, and families facing tragedy at Ground Zero on 911 and after the shootings at Columbine High School and the Aurora Theatre in Colorado. He is also the host of the popular radio talk show, Crosswalk, on KRKS radio out of Denver, CO.

In this conversation, Gino reveals how one invitation changed his life and how God continues to lead him to each unique assignment. This episode will leave you in awe of the Lord and how He guides and directs our paths uniquely.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Understanding Suffering in Light of the Gospel

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Episode 91: Jonathan Youssef Answers Your Questions

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 11 May 2021 04:00:00 +0000

On today's episode of Candid, Jonathan takes a few minutes to unpack answers to your recent questions, including:

Why would God create us knowing we would fall and suffer?
How could a loving God send anyone to hell?
What should I do to encourage someone who had a bad experience in church?
Do I need to keep asking God to forgive my sins?
How much theological training do I need for ministry?

We also want to offer the following resources for additional insight. Take a few minutes to review these links after you listen to this episode.

Why Did God Allow the Fall?

Heaven Is for Real—and Hell Is, Too

Four Things to Look for in a Church

Forgiveness & Confession

Is Seminary Really Necessary?

After you listen to this episode, you may have your own questions. We would love to hear from you! To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Also, join the conversation on our social media pages:

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 90: Paul David Tripp: Uncover the Marriage of Your Dreams (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, David Trip, Dr. Paul David Trip) — Tue, 4 May 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Marriage. It is a blessing from God but it can also be difficult and complicated. We get married because we believe marriage is a good thing that will bless our lives. But much of the time, marriage morphs into something we didn’t intend it to be. When it does, we need something sturdier than romance and deeper than shared interest and mutual attraction.

Jonathan welcomes Dr. Paul David Trip to Candid Conversations. Dr. Tripp believes marriage requires changed expectations, radical commitments, and most importantly, grace.

In this engaging podcast interview you will uncover the right expectations for marriage, what it means to reflect the Gospel in marriage, and why being disappointed in your marriage can be a good thing.

Get Paul’s marriage book: https://www.paultripp.com/products/wdye-bk

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 89: Can a Christian Date a Non-Christian? (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 04:00:00 +0000

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 88: Deepak Reju: Have Relationships, Dating, and Pornography Changed in the Pandemic?

web@ltw.org (Deepak Reju, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 04:00:00 +0000

How does one search and find the "right one"? Relationships and online dating have changed in the pandemic, so how should a believer approach dating and address the longing for a Christian marriage? What role does the church play in helping believers build godly relationships?

Join Jonathan Youssef as he sits down with Deepak Reju. Deepak is the Associate Pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C. and also serves on the board of directors of the Biblical Counseling Coalition. He is not only a counselor, he is an author of several books including “She’s Got the Wrong Guy: Why Smart Girls Settle."

In today’s Candid Conversation, Deepak and Jonathan peel back relationship layers and discuss what Christian singles should look for in a marriage partner. They also discuss red flags in dating and the challenges of building godly relationships in a global pandemic.

Please listen and share with someone who would benefit from the Biblical wisdom offered in this episode of Candid Conversations.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Join and share the conversation on:

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Episode 87: John Stonestreet: How Equal Is The Equality Act?

web@ltw.org (John Stonestreet, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 04:00:00 +0000

The Equality Act is on the political horizon, already passed in the House and on its way to the Senate. What is it, and why should we care? As Christians, what does this mean for religious liberty? Can LGBTQ protections and religious liberties coexist?

In today’s episode, Jonathan welcomes John Stonestreet, President of The Colson Center for Christian Worldview, an organization committed to equipping Christians with a solid Biblical worldview so they can navigate today’s culture.

Together, Jonathan and John discuss The Equality Act and the troubling implications this bill could have not only for Christians, but for an even broader spectrum of people.

This episode is informative, tremendously eye-opening, and educational. This is also a sensitive topic, and some of this conversation may not be suitable for young ears.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 86: David Nicholas: Financial Wisdom in the Face of Crisis (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 6 Apr 2021 04:00:00 +0000

There are many unknowns right now. Among them is the long term effect of the COVID crisis on both the economy and our personal finances. Jonathan Youssef welcomes David Nicholas to Candid to help explain what we are facing financially, as well as how we should frame it in light of Scripture. David also offers some practical counsel like the best way to prepare for the months ahead and how to use your stimulus check.

David Nicholas is President and Founder of Nicholas Wealth Management, a financial planning and investment advisory company. He is a weekly market commentator on major media networks including Fox Business, CNBC, CNN and CBS. He was recently named as one of Atlanta's most powerful leaders by Atlanta Magazine. David serves on the vestry at his church and in his free time enjoys traveling and spending time with his wife Kristin and their two daughters.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 85: Resurrection is the New Normal

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 04:00:00 +0000

We all hoped the pandemic would be over by last Easter. Instead, it has continued for a year with devastating effects. Today, things are slowly opening up and people are wondering what the new normal will look like.

Join Jonathan as he reflects on the last year and gives insight into a new normal ushered in by Christ and His Resurrection.

Take a few minutes to listen to this short reflection and then send it to others to share the hope and freedom offered through Jesus Christ and the power of His Resurrection!

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 84: Alisa Childers: What is Progressive Christianity?

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Alisa Childers) — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Progressive Christianity. Deconstruction. We are hearing these terms more regularly as some Christian leaders walk away from Biblical orthodoxy. What is the impact of redefining the Christian faith?

In today’s episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef welcomes Alisa Childers whose book, Another Gospel, is a helpful guide to unpacking and understanding Progressive Christianity.

Alisa is the author of her widely read apologetics blog, AlisaChilders.com. She is also the host of The Alisa Childers Podcast. You may also remember her as part of the Christian band, Zoe Girl.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 83: Sir Brian Souter: Christ Above All Things

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Sir Brian Souter) — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Jonathan welcomes Sir Brian Souter to Candid Conversations. Sir Brian is one of the UK’s most successful businessmen and generous philanthropists. He is the founder of the Stagecoach Group of bus and rail operators, his investments company Souter Holdings Ltd, and the Souter Charitable Trust. In 2011, he was knighted by the Queen of England for his efforts in the transport and voluntary sector.

In this episode of Candid Conversations, Sir Brian illustrates the difference Christ has made in his life as he shares about his upbringing, his challenges, and the victories he has experienced throughout the years.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 82: Matt Merker: How Should the Church Gather as God's People?

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Matt Merker) — Tue, 9 Mar 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Worship. Thousands of songs, playlists on Spotify, and countless books have been written on the subject. It’s a topic churches wrestle with, but what is true worship? Are there different types of worship? Would it surprise you to know it’s more than music and a "me-and-Jesus" moment?

Jonathan welcomes Matt Merker, a leader in corporate worship. You may know him from songs like, “He Will Hold Me Fast,” “I Will Wait for You (Psalm 130),” and “Christ Our Hope in Life and Death”. Matt's hymns have been recorded by artists including Keith and Kristyn Getty, Shane & Shane, Sandra McCracken, Sovereign Grace, and more.

Matt serves as the Director of Creative Resources and Training for Getty Music. He served on the pastoral staff and as an elder of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. He also has recently released a new book, "Corporate Worship: How the Church Gathers as God's People".

In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan and Matt take a deeper look into worship as the gathered body of Christ.

As you listen today, may you be encouraged to gather in Biblical community to worship!

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 81: Mark Allaby: The Cost of Faith in the Workplace

web@ltw.org (Mark Allaby, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 2 Mar 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Do people in your workplace know that you are a Christian? Are you concerned about the backlash you might face for your faith in Christ?

In today’s episode, Jonathan welcomes Mark Allaby, a corporate leader living in Australia. Mark shares how, while serving on the board for a secular business, his involvement with a Christian organization turned into a scandal that landed him on front page news. It's a candid, concerning, and confirming conversation about the cost of faith in Christ in our modern culture and how God works through our trials for a greater good.

Mark Allaby has a background in the consulting and financial services with IBM in Australia and New Zealand. Mark has held executive roles in both the Banking Sector and with global Consultancies in the financial sector. He and his family now reside in Australia.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 80: David Robertson: The Tragedy of Ravi Zacharias

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, David Robertson) — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 05:00:00 +0000

It's difficult and heart breaking to process the news of confirmed allegations of personal impropriety by Ravi Zacharias. Apologist David Robertson joins Jonathan Youssef for a respectful conversation on the importance of grieving this report, what it means for Christian leaders to be held accountable, whether or not scandal discredits previous teachings, and what we can learn, if anything, from this revelation.

David Robertson is from Scotland where he was a minister and apologist for 33 years before moving to Australia to lead Third Space, an evangelistic initiative of City Bible Forum in Sydney. He has written several books including The Dawkins Letters and A.S.K: Real World Questions/Real World Answers. He is an award-winning blogger with The Wee Flea blog and is a contributor to premierchristianity.com.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 79: Michael Youssef, Hope for this Present Crisis

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Jonathan welcomes his dad, Dr. Michael Youssef, back to Candid Conversations for a special episode discussing his newest book, Hope for this Present Crisis.

Historic times, a global pandemic, economic crisis, political and social unrest, and cultural deviation from Biblical principles; all of these can lead us to disillusion and despair.

During this candid conversation, Dr. Youssef encourages us to open our spiritual eyes and walk the narrow path in these challenging days to empower and give us hope!

If you would like to pre-order Hope for this Present Crisis, it is available now at LTW.org for your gift of any amount to the ministry of Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 78: Bruce Lowe: Why Are We So Angry?

web@ltw.org (Dr. Bruce Lowe, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 9 Feb 2021 05:00:00 +0000

So many difficult things have happened in the last year and the challenges keep coming. It’s not surprising that the stress of a worldwide pandemic, economic lockdown, and national unrest have stirred up negative emotions, including anger.

Join Jonathan Youssef and Bruce Lowe as they discuss anger in the lockdown. What is root of this anger our hearts? Where does it sprout from? And how should we respond?

Bruce Lowe is a scholar, author and professor at Reformed Theological Seminary. He recently wrote an article for the Gospel Coalition on this very topic, "Why Has Quarantine Made Me So Angry?"

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 77: Ashley Poptodorova - Restoration

web@ltw.org (Ashley Poptodorova, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 2 Feb 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Ashley has a background in health and nutrition and is the founder of Ladies Who Love Christ, a women's ministry that has over 5,000 members in over 40 countries. She hosts a weekend radio show on Faith Talk Atlanta on 590 & 970 AM. It can be found on all major platforms like iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio and YouTube, too.

You won't want to miss this moving reminder of Christ's restorative work - available to every believer.

To learn more about Ladies Who Love Christ, visit https://ladieswholovechrist.com/

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 76: Monica Cline: The Secret to Parenting in a Sexual Age (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Monica Cline, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Join Jonathan for part two of an eye-opening two-part conversation with Monica Cline. For over a decade, Monica worked in HIV prevention education, comprehensive sex education as a Title X family planning Training Manager, and as a volunteer educator for Planned Parenthood.

In part one of this conversation (Episode 75), Monica shares the truth behind comprehensive sex education and the disturbing approach she learned during training with Planned Parenthood.

In this episode, Monica explains the key role parents play in sexual education and how we can become our children's greatest advocates and educators in this area. She also shares how God has taken what the enemy meant for evil in her life and is using it for good and for the saving of many lives.

If you are a parent or a grandparent, please take some time to listen to and share both episodes.

To learn more about Monica Cline, visit her website: https://www.monicacline.com

To learn more about It Takes a Family, visit https://ittakesafamily.org/

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Listen to part 2 of this Candid Conversation.

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Episode 75: Monica Cline: What Planned Parenthood Taught Me (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Monica Kline, Jonathan Youssef) — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Join Jonathan for an eye-opening two-part conversation with Monica Cline. For over a decade, Monica worked in HIV prevention education, comprehensive sex education as a Title X family planning Training Manager, and as a volunteer educator for Planned Parenthood.

During this time, she came to learn that serving the marginalized meant meeting them where they are and then leaving them there. A combination of that philosophy, her experience in the community, and her own personal testimony prompted her to question comprehensive sex education and Planned Parenthood crisis pregnancy counseling. Her questions and concerns were not welcomed by her superiors and she was told she was not welcome if she was not in agreement with their approach.

In part 1, Monica boldly exposes what she learned in her training at Planned Parenthood. She also shares the truth behind comprehensive sex education and the harm it causes our children, families, and communities. Her goal is to encourage parents to “reclaim Parenthood” and become their children’s greatest advocates and educators.

To learn more about Monica Cline, visit her website: https://www.monicacline.com

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 74: Erick Erickson: Save the Country, Save the Gospel?

web@ltw.org (Erick Erickson, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 05:00:00 +0000

A new wave of political unrest has left Christians wondering, "How should we engage in politics?" Erick Erickson joins Jonathan Youssef to discuss politics and faith and reveals where Christians should place their focus during this tumultuous time for our nation.

Erick Erickson is a conservative, evangelical, author and runs a political blog The Resurgent as well a weekly radio host on Atlanta’s WSB, 750AM. ‘Evening News with Erick Erickson’.

He has previously served as the editor-in-chief and the CEO of the conservative political blog RedState, while working at RedState, Erickson developed a reputation ‘as one of the most influential American conservatives’ and he has previously served as a political contributor for CNN and Fox News. He practiced law for six years, oversaw a number of political campaigns at the federal, state and local levels. He was also an elected city councilman in Macon, GA.

Join Jonathan and Erick for a candid conversation that will challenge and encourage you.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 73: Clay Kirkland - Discover Your Calling

web@ltw.org (Clay Kirkland, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Together, Jonathan and Clay will navigate deep questions of purpose using Scripture as their guide. Join them now.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

GET YOUR FREE DOWNLOAD: BUILD YOUR BOLDNESS

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Episode 72: David Jensen - Keys to Sharing Christ in Any Culture (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, David Jensen) — Tue, 5 Jan 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Dave Jensen grew up in a Christian home but he didn't follow Christ. As a young man, he went down every dead end road available in an attempt to find meaning and satisfaction in life. By 28 years old, he had pursued every road and found the end of all of them to be horrific.

He was in great despair until someone explained who Jesus was and what Jesus did. Although he had heard it many times before, Dave says, "In that moment, God revealed to me that Jesus Christ died for sinners, of which I was the worst. And so I became a Christian. I repented and put my faith in Jesus."

Unable to contain his new faith, he began telling everyone he knew about Jesus. Over the past ten years, he has shared Christ and ministered to young people in both Sydney, Australia and Belfast, Ireland--contextualizing but never compromising the Truth of God. In this episode of Candid, Dave shares how you can be an effective witness for Christ no matter where the Lord places you.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 71: Moving Forward into 2021

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 29 Dec 2020 05:00:00 +0000

2021 is here and we have no idea what it holds. Regardless of what is to come, we can trust the One who holds our future in His hands. In this personal reflection, Jonathan reminds us of the importance of focusing on Christ and why sharing His comfort can be life-changing for both us and those God places in our lives.

The entire Candid Conversations' team wishes you a Happy New Year filled with the love and hope of Christ.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 70: It's a Very Youssef Christmas (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Lindsey Youssef, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 05:00:00 +0000

Relax and have a little fun by joining Jonathan Youssef as he welcomes his wife, Lindsey, to Candid Conversations. In this special Christmas episode, they share a little bit about how Christmas was for each of them growing up and how they plan to celebrate it as a family in the future. To wrap things up, they play a short round of This or That: Christmas edition.

From the entire team at Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef, we want to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas.

Join us for worship on Leading The Way LIVE at Apostles on Christmas Eve at 2:00 PM

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 69: Aimee Miller: God Be Praised

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 05:00:00 +0000

Can we say that God is good all the time regardless our circumstances? Is God still good and worthy of praise when we are in the valley?

This week, we wrap up our conversations with the Apostles' worship team. Today, Aimee Miller joins Jonathan Youssef for a Candid Conversation to introduce her song, "God Be Praised," the final song in the Apostles Worship series.

Aimee is a singer-songwriter hailing from worship roots in Athens, GA before joining the Apostles' team where she shares her heart of praise and musical talent weekly. "God Be Praised" is the the perfect bookend in this Apostles Worship series, music written for the church.

Be encouraged to worship our Lord in this Christmas season regardless of your circumstances because He is worthy of our praise.

Take a few minutes to listen and then share this episode with a friend.

God Be Praised

Join us for worship on Leading The Way LIVE at Apostles Sunday at 10:30 AM.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Come and Lift Your Head Up

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Episode 68: Seth Rice: Come and Lift Your Head

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Seth Rice) — Tue, 8 Dec 2020 05:00:00 +0000

David in Psalm 24 asks the question "Who is the King of Glory?" The response is, “The Lord strong and mighty...lift up your heads.” Our Lord is strong and powerful.

Today, Seth Rice joins Jonathan Youssef for a Candid Conversation that takes a deep look into Psalm 24. It is the inspiration behind the new Apostles' worship song "Come and Lift Your Head Up" - included on the newest Apostles Worship, music written for the church.

Seth Rice is a singer/song-writer, producer, live studio guitarist and session player. He's spent 10 years leading worship for various churches in the Atlanta area before joining the Apostles' Worship team this year.

Come and be encouraged to lift your head in worship to our strong and mighty Lord--no matter where you may be today.

Take a few minutes to listen and then share this episode with a friend.

Join us for worship on Leading The Way LIVE at Apostles Sunday at 10:30 AM.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Facebook: https://www.faceboowww.LTW.org/livek.com/candidpod

Listen to Renew Our Song Here

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Episode 67: Jeremy & Lauren Ezell - The Joy of the Lord is Our Strength

web@ltw.org (Lauren Ezell, Jonathan Youssef, Jeremy Ezell) — Tue, 1 Dec 2020 05:00:00 +0000

We don’t often think of suffering as a path that leads to praise. However, the Psalmist writes in Psalm 126 that “those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy.” In Nehemiah 8:10, Ezra writes: “the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Jonathan Youssef welcomes Jeremy and Lauren Ezell to Candid Conversations. Both are accomplished musicians, song writers, and worship leaders. They sit down with Jonathan to discuss their battle with infertility, the songwriting process for their most recent release, and how they find strength in God as they praise Him in the midst of their trials.

Their recent trials are the inspiration behind their latest song release, "Renew Our Song"; one of a four-part series on the newest Apostles Worship, music written for the church.

Take a few minutes to listen and then share this episode with a friend.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 66: Gratitude in the Hard Places

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 05:00:00 +0000

Join Jonathan this Thanksgiving week as he reflects on how to embrace gratitude during a difficult season. In this episode, Jonathan will share insight from Philippians 4, an anecdote to anxiety and worry. This year has forced us to live in the hard places. Take a few minutes to exchange your anxiety for the peace of God as, together, we give Him thanks for His spiritual and physical provision this year - even when it's been difficult.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Listen to The Shepherd's Song

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Episode 65: Paul Reeves: "Cancer Saved My Life."

web@ltw.org (Paul Reeves, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 05:00:00 +0000

At 34 years old, Paul Reeves was diagnosed with Stage III colon cancer. He was a healthy and active husband, father, and worship leader who never expected to have a life-threatening illness.

What happened after Paul's diagnosis will remind you that some of our greatest blessings come through our fiercest trials.

In this episode of Candid Conversations, Paul sits down with Jonathan to discuss an incredible story of God's unrelenting love and faithfulness through his two battles with cancer. This season is the inspiration behind his latest song release, "The Shepherd's Song"; one of a four-part series on the newest Apostles Worship music written for the body of Christ.

Take a few minutes to listen and then share this episode with a friend.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 64: R.T. Kendall: We've Never Been This Way Before

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, R.T. Kendall) — Tue, 10 Nov 2020 05:00:00 +0000

A Global Pandemic. Racial violence. Protesting. Upheaval. Where is God in the midst of this? What does it look like as a Christian to live in these unprecedented times in America? Are these trying times a sign of God's judgment?

Join Jonathan as he welcomes R.T. Kendall back to Candid Conversations. Dr. Kendall is a Christian writer, speaker, and teacher who pastored Westminster Chapel in London for 25 years.

In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan and Dr. Kendall discuss his latest book, We've Never Been This Way Before, with a focus on how to view recent trials by reflecting on Joshua's words to the children of Israel before they entered the land of Canaan.

Take a few minutes to listen and then share this episode with a friend.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 63: You Voted. Now What?

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 3 Nov 2020 05:00:00 +0000

You cast your vote. Your civic duty is done. Now what do you do?

Take a few minutes to listen and then share this episode with a friend who is struggling with fear over the outcome of this election.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

GET YOUR FREE DOWNLOAD:A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW OF GOVERNMENT

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Episode 62: Jane Robelot: Truth vs. Fake News (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Jane Robelot) — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 04:00:00 +0000

The pursuit of Truth and uncompromising integrity are the foundation of good journalism. Why, then, are Christians hesitant to pursue a career in mainstream media?

Join Jonathan Youssef as he welcomes Jane Robelot to Candid to discuss how her Christian faith intersects with her successful career in broadcast journalism. Jane is an award-winning journalist and local news anchor, former CBS morning show co-anchor, and cohost of Leading The Way’s daily radio program and television specials.

In this inspiring interview, Jane shares her personal testimony and details the importance of checking bias at the door of the newsroom as journalists seek the Truth. She also encourages young Christians to be salt and light in the workplace—including mainstream media.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 61: Connie Musselman and Jeannie Brostrand: Your Parenting Questions Answered

web@ltw.org (Connie Musselman, Jonathan Youssef, Jeannie Brostrand) — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Jonathan welcomes Connie Musselman and Jeannie Brostrand to Candid Conversations to answer your parenting questions. Together, they give invaluable insight into raising children who love God and follow Christ.

Together, they have more than 50 years of experience nurturing the hearts of children at home, in the church, and in our schools.

Connie currently serves as the Director of Children’s ministry at The Church of The Apostles in Atlanta, GA. She has a B.A in Bible and Christian Education. She is also a wife, mother of four, and a grandmother.

Jeannie currently serves as the Director of Parent Mentoring at Redeemer Day School and has previously served as the Lower School Principal at Whitfield Academy in Atlanta, Georgia. She is also a wife, mother of two, and a grandmother.

Together, they will tackle the tough questions that many parents are asking like:

What does it look like to raise children in a technologically savvy world?
How can we help guide our child's heart towards Christ without being overbearing?
Which resources do you recommend on parenting?

Parents, we hope you will listen to this encouraging and challenging conversation.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 60: Claire and Rob Smith: Transgender From Biblical Times to Now

web@ltw.org (Rob Smith, Jonathan Youssef, Claire Smith) — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 04:00:00 +0000

In the past few years, we have seen the rise of the public debate around gender and transgender. What makes a man a man and a woman a woman? Is this a new debate or an ancient one?

Claire and Rob are members of St. Andrew's Anglican Cathedral in Sydney and have been contributors to Desiring God and The Gospel Coalition (Claire Smith and Rob Smith).

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 59: Monica Cline: The Secret to Parenting in a Sexual Age

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Monica Cline) — Tue, 6 Oct 2020 04:00:00 +0000

In part one of this conversation (Episode 58), Monica shares the truth behind comprehensive sex education and the disturbing approach she learned during training with Planned Parenthood.

If you are a parent or a grandparent, please take some time to listen to and share both episodes.

To learn more about Monica Cline, visit her website: https://www.monicacline.com

To learn more about It Takes a Family, visit https://ittakesafamily.org/

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Listen to part 2 of this Candid Conversation.

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 58: Monica Cline: What Planned Parenthood Taught Me

web@ltw.org (Monica Cline, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 04:00:09 +0000

To learn more about Monica Cline, visit her website: https://www.monicacline.com

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 57: Dr. Michael Youssef: Living for Treasure That Lasts

web@ltw.org (Dr. Michael Youssef, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 04:00:25 +0000

Jonathan welcomes his father, Dr. Michael Youssef, back to Candid Conversations to discuss his new book, Treasure that Lasts: Trading Privilege, Pleasure, and Power for What Really Matters.

Daily, we are surrounded by the temptation to glorify ourselves. We post carefully curated selfies on Instagram, chase money and pleasure, and live the "image is everything" lifestyle. We've created a culture of envy, emptiness, and depression. Even the church has bought into worldly values of wealth and status. God put us on this earth not to seek our own glory but to shine the light of his glory on a dying world.

During today's candid conversation, Dr. Youssef shares from the life of Moses the importance of living for God's glory instead of the world's gold. Listen today and discover the best place to invest your time, talent, and treasure.

If you would like to receive a copy of Treasure That Lasts, it is available now for your gift of any amount to the ministry of Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 56: Dearly Beloved

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 15 Sep 2020 04:00:06 +0000

It's all too common to forget God's design for marriage and instead focus on daily challenges. In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef reminds listeners that through marriage, we reflect the beautiful union Christ has with His church.

Take a moment to be reminded that you are are wholly and dearly loved by God and remember the incredible and eternal purpose He has for your marriage.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 55: Mac Powell: Trusting Jesus with the Unexpected

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Mac Powell) — Tue, 8 Sep 2020 14:30:38 +0000

Join Jonathan for part two of a “candid conversation” with Mac Powell. In this part of the conversation, Mac opens up about trials he and his family have faced over the past year – and how they have found strength in their faith in God and encouragement from their church family.

If you are struggling with issues you never thought you would face and aren’t sure why, you will definitely want to listen to today’s conversation.

Mac Powell is an award-winning singer, songwriter, producer, and musician who formed the Christian rock band Third Day with guitarist Mark Lee. Mac has written and produced some of the most prolific modern worship songs of our time.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 54: Mac Powell: A Soul on Fire

web@ltw.org (Mac Powell, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 1 Sep 2020 04:00:05 +0000

Join Jonathan for the first of a two-part “candid conversation” with Mac Powell. Mac is an award-winning singer, songwriter, producer, and musician who formed the Christian rock band Third Day with guitarist Mark Lee. Mac has written and produced some of the most prolific modern worship songs of our time.

In this first part of the conversation, Mac shares his background, offers insight into contemporary Christian music, and reveals three things that inspire him daily in his relationship with Christ. This conversation will encourage and uplift you in Christ.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 53: Eric Metaxas - The Gospel and Politics

web@ltw.org (Eric Metaxas, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 04:00:06 +0000

Jonathan welcomes Eric Metaxas to Candid Conversations to discuss the importance of bringing the Gospel into politics without politics becoming an idol.

Eric Metaxas is a popular author, speaker, and conservative radio host. He has also written humor, children's books, and scripts for VeggieTales. He is the founder and host of the NYC-based event series, "Socrates in the City: Conversations on the Examined Life" and the host of the nationally syndicated radio program, The Eric Metaxas Show.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 52: Jonathan Youssef: Who Are Our Real Enemies?

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 18 Aug 2020 04:00:12 +0000

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 51: Rosaria Butterfield: The Gospel Comes with a Housekey

web@ltw.org (Rosaria Butterfield, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 04:00:22 +0000

Jonathan welcomes Rosaria Butterfield to Candid Conversations to discuss building up the church to live like the family of God to provide a powerful Christian witness to your neighbors.

Rosaria is a former tenured professor of English and women’s studies at Syracuse University. She was converted to Christ in 1999 in what she describes as a train wreck.

Rosaria is married to Kent, a Reformed Presbyterian pastor in North Carolina, and is a home school mother, author, and speaker.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

Download A Kingdom Strategy for Community Transformation

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 50: Dr. Tony Evans: The Church's Role in Fighting Racism

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Dr. Tony Evans) — Tue, 4 Aug 2020 04:00:10 +0000

Jonathan welcomes Dr. Tony Evans to Candid Conversations to discuss the Church's role in fighting racism, the importance of living out our identity in Christ, and his plan to unite churches to overcome racial barriers in our communities.

Tony Evans is the senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas. He is also a renowned speaker, author, and has a widely syndicated radio and television program, The Urban Alternative.

Resources for Racial Unity from Tony Evans

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 49: Bree Tuttle: What I Wish I Had Known Before My Abortion (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Bree Tuttle) — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 04:00:12 +0000

Some celebrities are celebrating abortion as a stepping stone to a better life for women. Today's Candid Conversations guest has a very different perspective to share.

At just 20 years old, Bree Tuttle had an abortion and suffered through physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional scarring. Bree joins Jonathan Youssef today to share the truth she wishes she'd known before her abortion.

Bree is a trained crisis pregnancy counselor and an outspoken and passionate advocate for women facing unplanned pregnancies.

Facing an Unplanned Pregnancy? Call the National Crisis Pregnancy Helpline at 800-712-HELP to talk to someone today.

Are you looking for help moving past the pain of a past abortion? The following post-abortion Bible studies and recovery resources may be helpful to you.

Surrendering the Secret

Abortion Changes You

Save One

Hope After Abortion

Healing After Abortion

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 48: Dr. Bruce A. Lowe: Why Do We Need to Talk About Sin? (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Dr. Bruce A. Lowe) — Tue, 21 Jul 2020 04:00:08 +0000

Dr. Bruce A. Lowe from Reformed Theological Seminary joins Jonathan to take a deep dive into the topic of sin. Together, they discuss several aspects of sin, including:

• What is sin and who defines it?

• Why is the topic of sin taboo in the church of all places?

• How do I address the problem of sin in my life?

• Why is isolation dangerous?

• What role does community play in breaking habitual sin?

• What is the danger in not talking about sin?

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 47: Clay Kirkland: How Do You Combat Rising Anxiety? (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 14 Jul 2020 04:00:07 +0000

As stress and isolation grow, how can we combat rising anxiety without normalizing it? Clay Kirkland offers unique insight and help from his personal struggle with anxiety and years of providing spiritual direction for thousands of young adults while leading one of the largest campus ministries in the United States.

In this episode of Candid, Clay unpacks his own personal struggle with anxiety and shares how the Lord met him during it. He also takes you into the Word of God to help you understand the spiritual root of anxiety and unpacks the steps to walking in peace—even when your circumstances haven’t changed.

Connect with Clay Kirkland who helps individuals, couples, and businesses overcome obstacles to thrive in what God has called them to do.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 46: R.T. Kendall: Forgiving the Unforgivable (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (R.T. Kendall, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 7 Jul 2020 04:00:12 +0000

Forgiveness is at the heart of the Gospel. Not just forgiveness but total forgiveness. A forgiveness that completely sets us free from the wages of sin and death. Not only are we totally forgiven but the Lord asks us to totally forgive others, too. Without giving and receiving forgiveness, we live a life of bondage.

Join Jonathan and Dr. R.T. Kendall as they discuss the importance of forgiveness and his hope for younger generations. Dr. Kendall is a respected Christian writer, speaker, and teacher who was the pastor of Westminster Chapel in London for 25 years. He is author of more than 50 books, including Total Forgiveness.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 45: A Special Message from Jonathan

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 04:00:03 +0000

Join Jonathan as he reflects on the past year with Candid and shares a special Summer announcement.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 44: Horst Schulze: Creating Excellence in a World of Compromise

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Horst Schulze) — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 04:00:04 +0000

Jonathan welcomes Horst Schulze to Candid Conversations - the man who defined the luxury hotel experience through his long tenure as President of The Ritz Carlton Hotels. He then went on to define what ultraluxury meant as the Founder of the Capella Hotel Group.

His worldly success is remarkable, but what is most notable about Horst Schulze is his love for our Lord and how that overflows into his love for people and service to them.

Horst is an exemplary leader and he is the expert on building an organization focused on excellence. In fact, he wrote a book entitled, Excellence Wins, A No-Nonsense Guide to Becoming the Best in a World of Compromise.

This episode is filled with wisdom that will challenge you to rise above management to true leadership.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 43: Dr. Chase Kuhn: Is Online Church Here to Stay?

web@ltw.org (Dr. Chase Kuhn, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 16 Jun 2020 04:00:09 +0000

Technology has helped believers stay connected during quarantine, with local churches streaming Sunday services and small groups connecting online. But once churches are fully re-opened and believers can meet in person, what is the role of online church services?

In this episode of Candid, Dr. Chase Kuhn joins Jonathan Youssef to discuss the role of the digital church, as well as the Biblical model for local church bodies.

Dr. Kuhn is the Director of the Centre for Christian Living and is a lecturer in Theology and Ethics at Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia. He is also a contributor to the Gospel Coalition and recently wrote an article on why church structures may be undermining the Gospel.

If you have been struggling to understand the role of the local church and your place in it, you will not want to miss this episode.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 42: The Blessing of Persevering Through Trials

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 9 Jun 2020 04:00:43 +0000

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 41: Mo Isom Aiken: Sex, Jesus, and the Conversations the Church Forgot, Part 2

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Mo Isom Aiken) — Tue, 2 Jun 2020 04:00:15 +0000

No matter who you are, Mo Isom Aiken is going to challenge and encourage you in your relationship with Christ. She is a powerful witness to the sufficiency of Jesus' sacrifice to cover and deliver us from all sin. In part 2 of this candid two-part conversation, Mo shares the practical steps she took to walk free of sexual impurity and pornography--and she offers wisdom and free resources to help guide you on your journey to freedom.

Mo is the New York Times Bestselling author of Wreck My Life: Journeying from Broken to Bold and the author of Sex, Jesus, and the Conversations the Church Forgot. She is a nationally sought after speaker and a popular faith-based blogger. She was also an All-American goalkeeper for the LSU Women’s Soccer team.

Mo has been featured at Liberty University, The Gospel Coalition, The 700 Club, The Ellen Degeneres Show, ESPN, CBS, CBN and many other television, radio and digital platforms.

To learn more about Mo Isom Aiken, visit her website: https://www.moisom.com

Learn More About Sex and Jesus, The Conversation Continued - a free 8-part video series you can do individually or with a group. This series will guide you in hard but holy conversations about sexuality in a sin-saturated world. There is also a FREE 37-page group study guide.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 40: Mo Isom Aiken: Sex, Jesus, and the Conversations the Church Forgot, Part 1

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 26 May 2020 04:00:08 +0000

No matter who you are, Mo Isom Aiken is going to challenge and encourage you in your relationship with Christ. She is a powerful witness to the sufficiency of Jesus' sacrifice to cover and deliver us from all sin. In part 1 of this candid two-part conversation, Mo shares her compelling personal testimony.

While her young life was riddled with great personal tragedy – things she will share in this episode—Mo was miraculously saved and transformed by the grace of God. She now speaks bold and courageous Truth to a generation being crushed under the weight of their sin, their circumstances, and the lies of the enemy.

Mo has been featured at Liberty University, The Gospel Coalition, The 700 Club, The Ellen Degeneres Show, ESPN, CBS, CBN and many other television, radio and digital platforms.

To learn more about Mo Isom Aiken, visit her website: https://www.moisom.com

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 39 - Stan Carder: How to Minister to Others During a Difficult Time

web@ltw.org (Stan Carder, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 19 May 2020 04:00:07 +0000

Allow Stan to guide and encourage you to minister to those in your life today!

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 38: Julie Chapman - “God’s Got Me”: Worshiping God in Difficult Times

web@ltw.org (Julie Chapman, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 12 May 2020 04:00:16 +0000

How do we truly count our suffering as joy and draw near to God in our trials? Today's guest, Julie Chapman offers insight into the incredible power of worshiping God in the midst of difficult times.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 37: What God is Teaching Me (and You!) in Quarantine

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 5 May 2020 04:00:06 +0000

We are all facing challenges in quarantine and we can easily become focused on our suffering and miss what God is doing. In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef takes a few minutes to share what God has been teaching him in quarantine.

We asked you to share what God has been teaching you during quarantine and Jonathan also offers your insight during this episode.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 36: David Nicholas: Financial Wisdom in the Face of Crisis

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, David Nicholas) — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 04:00:12 +0000

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 35: A Personal Look at Suicide (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Rand Eberhard, Laura) — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 04:00:05 +0000

Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death for 10 to 34-year-olds and the rate of suicide in the United States has increased 33% from 2000 to 2017. As the current global pandemic of COVID-19 continues, there has been an exponential increase in calls to suicide hotlines. This is the time to talk about suicide.

Jonathan Youssef welcomes friend and former colleague, Laura, to Candid to share her personal experience of losing her mother to suicide. She tells her story to help people understand the reality of suicide, the impact of suicide on those left behind, and to provide words of love and hope to those who are struggling with suicidal thoughts.

Jonathan also talks with seasoned counselor, Rand Eberhard, who has walked with countless people through their struggles with addiction and suicidal thoughts. Rand offers wisdom on how to respond if we are struggling ourselves with suicide or if we are walking alongside someone considering death by suicide.

If you are personally struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to someone. If you are involved in a church, please contact your pastor. If you are not connected with a church, please call the national suicide prevention hotline – 1-800-273-8255. That’s 1-800-273-TALK– https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 34: Dr. Bill Davis: Let's Talk About Suicide (Reprise)

web@ltw.org (Dr. Bill Davis, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 14 Apr 2020 04:00:07 +0000

Join Jonathan Youssef and Dr. Bill Davis for a candid conversation about the root of suicide, the church's historical and modern response to suicide, as well as the impact of the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why on young people considering suicide.

Dr. Bill Davis is a professor of philosophy at Covenant College and an adjunct professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary and an elder in the Presbyterian Church. He has spent a good deal of time discussing suicide with his students and he has developed a training for pastors who are dealing with the issue in their churches. He is a deep and compassionate minister of the Gospel.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 33: The Hope of Waiting

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 7 Apr 2020 04:00:07 +0000

Jonathan Youssef reflects on the blessings to be found in seasons of waiting and the hope we have in Christ as we celebrate Easter.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 32: Clay Kirkland: How Do You Combat Rising Anxiety?

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 04:00:29 +0000

In this episode of Candid, Clay unpacks his own personal struggle with anxiety and shares how the Lord met him in the midst of it. He also takes you into the Word of God to help you understand the spiritual root of anxiety and unpacks the steps to walking in peace—even when your circumstances haven’t changed.

Connect with Clay Kirkland who helps individuals, couples, and businesses overcome obstacles to thrive in what God has called them to do.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 31: A Candid Take on COVID-19

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 04:00:07 +0000

Jonathan Youssef offers timely Biblical encouragement for believers during the COVID-19 crisis. He also shares the importance of welcoming and addressing difficult questions from your children in trying times.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 30: Al Mohler: Netflix and the Coronavirus

web@ltw.org (Al Mohler, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 04:00:14 +0000

There are 169 million Netflix users, 28 million Hulu users and 74 percent of Americans have subscriptions to online streaming services. In just three short months, Disney+ had 28.6 million subscribers. With so much content readily available, how should we, as believers, decide what and how much to consume?

Dr. Al Mohler joins Jonathan Youssef for a conversation about media and our consumption of it. Dr. Mohler also takes a moment to address the fear surrounding the Coronavirus crisis.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 29: Mike Galanos: From Fame to Faith

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 04:00:06 +0000

Jonathan Youssef welcomes Mike Galanos to Candid Conversations for an inspirational conversation on how God shifted his focus from pursuing fame to pursuing a thriving relationship with Jesus Christ. Mike is a longtime anchor for CNN Headline News who offers encouraging insight for people working in secular environments who want to be a witness for Christ but don't know how.

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 28: Do I Really Need to Go to Church?

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 3 Mar 2020 05:00:04 +0000

To ask Jonathan a question or to connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 27: Roe v. Wade Conversations: What I Wish I Had Known Before My Abortion with Bree Tuttle

web@ltw.org (Bree Tuttle, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 05:00:01 +0000

Some celebrities are celebrating abortion as a stepping stone to a better life for women. Today's Candid Conversations guest has a very different perspective to share.

Bree is a trained crisis pregnancy counselor and an outspoken and passionate advocate for women facing unplanned pregnancies.

Facing an Unplanned Pregnancy? Call the National Crisis Pregnancy Helpline at 800-712-HELP to talk to someone today.

Are you looking for help moving past the pain of a past abortion? The following post-abortion Bible studies and recovery resources may be helpful to you.

Surrendering the Secret

Abortion Changes You

Save One

Hope After Abortion

Healing After Abortion

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 26: Dr. Bruce A. Lowe: Why We Need to Talk About Sin

web@ltw.org (Dr. Bruce Lowe, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 18 Feb 2020 05:00:10 +0000

Dr. Bruce A. Lowe from Reformed Theological Seminary joins Jonathan to take a deep dive into the topic of sin. Together, they discuss several aspects of sin, including:

• What is sin and who defines it?

• Why is the topic of sin taboo in the church of all places?

• How do I address the problem of sin in my life?

• Why is isolation dangerous?

• What role does community play in breaking habitual sin?

• What is the danger in not talking about sin?

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 25: Dr. Michael Youssef: Does Christianity Need Saving?

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 11 Feb 2020 05:00:08 +0000

So many teachers and theologians are teaching falsehood under the guise of Truth. What causes them to give in to this false teaching? Some think they are "saving" Christianity but does Christianity need to be saved?

Jonathan Youssef welcomes Dr. Michael Youssef back to Candid Conversations to answer these questions and to share about his newest book, Saving Christianity?.

Dr. Youssef has written over 40 books but says Saving Christianity? is his most important work to date. In it, he confronts the dangerous ideas that are destroying the church from within. This book is written to equip believers to identify and stand strong against the growing tide of false teaching in the church.

Pre-Order Your Copy of Saving Christianity?

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 24: Paul David Tripp: Uncover the Marriage of Your Dreams

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, Paul David Tripp) — Tue, 4 Feb 2020 05:00:02 +0000

Jonathan welcomes Dr. Paul David Trip to Candid Conversations. Dr. Tripp believes marriage requires changed expectations, radical commitments, and most importantly, grace.

Tickets for The Marriage of Your Dreams Conference in Atlanta: http://themarriageofyourdreams.org/

Can’t attend Atlanta? Stream instead: http://stream.themarriageofyourdreams.org/

Get Paul’s marriage book: https://www.paultripp.com/products/wdye-bk

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 23: Three Reasons for Suffering

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 28 Jan 2020 05:00:09 +0000

What is suffering? Why is there suffering in this world? Why aren't we immune to it as Christians? Why would a loving God allow suffering?

One of the most asked questions by young people in the Western world is, "Why is there suffering?" Pain and hardship are part of the human experience but why?

The Bible is clear that we will all face suffering to some degree and that it will ultimately be used for good in the life of a believer.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 22: R.T. Kendall: Forgiving the Unforgivable

web@ltw.org (R.T. Kendall, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 05:00:18 +0000

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

ASK: Real World Questions/Real World Answers

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Episode 21: David Robertson: The #1 Question Young People Are Asking

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef, David Robertson) — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 05:00:14 +0000

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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Episode 20: Dave Hubbard: The 3-Word Prayer That Saved My Life

web@ltw.org (Dave Hubbard, Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 7 Jan 2020 05:00:07 +0000

Do you want spiritual and physical help making progress on your health and fitness goals this year? Join Jonathan as he talks to Dave Hubbard, a former NFL player who is now America's Fitness Coach.

Dave grew up on a farm in California. He played college football and then was drafted by the New Orleans Saints to play in the NFL. After leaving the NFL to become a pastor, he was almost killed when his parachute did not open on his first skydiving adventure. During his recovery, Dave was overweight and out of shape for the first time in his life. This led to what Dave describes as his "fitness crisis" and his search for a fitness formula that would help him get and stay fit.

In this episode of Candid Conversations, Dave shares the captivating story of his fitness journey. As he does, you will receive Biblical encouragement to pursue physical fitness and practical tools to improve your strength and stamina in just 10 minutes a day so you can live a healthier and more productive life in Christ.

You can learn more about Dave's 10 minute fitness program at https://GetFit10.com.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 19: Looking Forward to 2020

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 05:00:13 +0000

Thank you for joining us for Candid Conversations in 2019. In this New Year's Eve episode, Jonathan offers his appreciation for you and your engagement with the podcast this year. He also reveals little known facts about resolutions including which states are the best and worst at keeping resolutions. Sorry, Texas.

Jonathan also reads some of your encouraging notes to our team and shares how you can help direct content on future episodes of Candid Conversations. We want to hear from you.

From the entire Candid Conversations team, we wish you a happy and healthy New Year!

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 18: It's a Very Youssef Christmas

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 05:00:10 +0000

Relax and have a little fun by joining Jonathan Youssef as he welcomes his wife, Lindsey, to Candid Conversations for the first time. In this special Christmas Eve episode, they share a little bit about how Christmas was for each of them growing up and how they plan to celebrate it as a family in the future. To wrap things up, they play a short round of This or That: Christmas edition.

From the entire team at Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef, we want to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas.

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Episode 17: Zack Carden: Why Should I Care About the Old Testament?

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 17 Dec 2019 05:00:13 +0000

One of the issues in the church is the move by some to disconnect the Old Testament from the New Testament. Does the Old Testament really matter? What value does it have for the church today?

Jonathan Youssef welcomes Zack Carden to Candid Conversations to help us understand the importance of both the Old and New Testaments and the purpose of the Biblical covenants.

Zack has a Masters in Divinity from Covenant Theological Seminary and has been a pastor for 18 years. He also has a teacher’s heart and a gift for simplifying and sharing complex Biblical Truth. If you want to enjoy your Christmas in Biblical technicolor, listen to this episode!

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 16: A Personal Look at Suicide

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 05:00:12 +0000

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 15: Dr. Bill Davis: Let's Talk About Suicide

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 3 Dec 2019 05:00:12 +0000

Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death for 10 to 34-year-olds and the rate of suicide in the United States has increased 33% from 2000 to 2017. It's time for Christians to talk about suicide. Join Jonathan Youssef and Dr. Bill Davis for a candid conversation about the root of suicide, the church's historical and modern response to suicide, as well as the impact of the Netflix Series 13 Reasons Why on young people considering suicide.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 14: John Dickson: Always Be Prepared to Give an Answer

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 26 Nov 2019 05:00:05 +0000

Dr. John Dickson thinks, writes, and speaks. Starting out as a singer-songwriter, he now works as an author, academic, and media presenter. In 2007 he co-founded (with Dr Greg Clarke) the Centre for Public Christianity, and has published 18 books and three TV documentaries. He teaches ‘Historical Jesus’ at the University of Sydney, and is a Visiting Academic (2017-2020) in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Oxford.

In 2019 he was appointed Distinguished Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Public Christianity at Ridley College, Melbourne. In all that he does, whether in the media or the church, creative or academic, he strives to be a public advocate for the Christian faith. His podcast Undeceptions seeks to promote clarity about Christianity in doubting times. Having lost his father in a plane crash at 9, John is sympathetic to the sorrows and questions of our world, and values his wife and three children above all other gifts of this life.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 13: Dee Barnes: Redeemed Sexuality

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 19 Nov 2019 05:00:04 +0000

Dee Barnes is the founder of His Wonderful Works, a ministry dedicated to bringing hope, healing, and freedom to the Body of Christ in the areas of family relationships and sexuality.

His Wonderful Works comes alongside individuals, ministries, and churches to provide insightful Biblical teaching, testimonies, lay counseling, healing prayer, and trusted resources.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 12: Can a Christian Date a Non-Christian?

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 05:00:06 +0000

As a young adult pastor, Jonathan Youssef often hears the question, "Can I, as a Christian, date a non-Christian?" In this episode of Candid, Jonathan shares Biblical wisdom and insight as he answers this heartfelt question.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

GET YOUR FREE DOWNLOAD: FOUR REASONS YOU CAN TRUST THE BIBLE

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Episode 11: Anne Graham Lotz

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 5 Nov 2019 05:00:06 +0000

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Episode 10: Why You Can Trust the Bible

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 04:00:21 +0000

In this episode of Candid, Jonathan Youssef shares practical evidence for the validity of Scripture and he also unpacks the reason why so many choose to deny its Truth.

Listen and learn why you can trust that the Bible is indeed God’s Word—and find renewed confidence and excitement to seek God in the Scriptures.

Connect with us at https://LTW.org/Candid!

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 9: David Jensen - Keys to Sharing Christ in Any Culture

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 22 Oct 2019 04:00:33 +0000

GET YOUR FREE DOWNLOAD: BUILD YOUR BOLDNESS

Connect with us at https://LTW.org/Candid!

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Episode 8: A Dramatic Journey from Islam to Christianity, Part 2

web@ltw.org (Jonathan Youssef) — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 04:00:07 +0000

Join Jonathan Youssef on a dramatic journey from Islam to Christianity as he welcomes Ash, a former Muslim and one of Leading The Way's follow up coordinators, to the Candid podcast.

In Part 1 of this two-part interview, you learned why Ash began questioning his faith and how he came to faith in Christ. In Part 2, Ash will recount the danger he faced as he shared his new faith with his family and you will discover how God uses our most difficult circumstances to answer our most fervent prayers.

GET YOUR FREE DOWNLOAD: INSIGHTS INTO ISLAM

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Episode 7: A Dramatic Journey from Islam to Christianity, Part 1

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 8 Oct 2019 04:00:01 +0000

Join Jonathan Youssef on a dramatic journey from Islam to Christianity as he welcomes Ash, a former Muslim and one of Leading The Way's follow up coordinators, to the Candid podcast.

GET YOUR FREE DOWNLOAD: INSIGHTS INTO ISLAM

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 6: Jane Robelot: Truth vs. Fake News

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 1 Oct 2019 04:00:12 +0000

The pursuit of Truth and uncompromising integrity are the foundation of good journalism. Why, then, are Christians hesitant to pursue a career in mainstream media?

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Episode 5: Where is Your Focus?

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 04:00:19 +0000

In this episode of Candid Conversations, Jonathan Youssef encourages you to reflect on what has captured your attention lately and shares how to refocus on the right things.

For more original podcasts from Leading The Way, please visit ltw.org/subscriptions

Episode 4: Doubt is a Useful Tool

web@ltw.org (Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef) — Tue, 17 Sep 2019 04:00:09 +0000

Can a Christian walk away from the faith? What about a Christian leader? Two influential Christian leaders have recently considered leaving the faith. How do we remain steadfast in the face of doubt?