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Transcript for Why NFL means “not for long” with pastor and former pro Dr. Derwin Gray

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We didn't have a church background, and whenever you don't have a church background or any religious background, you're going to worship something.

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And so my object of worship was football.

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The money didn't heal my insecurities, it actually made them worse.

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The money didn't fix my family, it actually made it worse.

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The more I tried to be better, the more I realized I wasn't.

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I felt the divine love of God pour over me, and I was just blown away that there was somebody who knew everything about me, and they wanted me anyway.

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There was someone who loved me, not because I could run fast, not because I was big and strong, but there was somebody who looked at me and said,

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I don't love you for what you can do for me.

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I love you, and my love is going to do for you.

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This is the Made to Advance podcast. I'm your host, Brian Oleg. We're here to inspire and equip you for your best future.

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Well, hey everyone, welcome to Made to Advance. I am so glad to have you with us today.

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And hey, before we get started with our conversation, I want to ask you a favor. If you can rate and review our show, that would be such a great help.

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It helps us get the word out to more and more people, and it also helps us bring on incredible guests like the one we have today.

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Today, I've got with me pastor and Dr. Derwin Gray.

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After a successful career in the NFL,

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Derwin and his wife, Vicki,

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founded Transformation Church

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just outside Charlotte, North Carolina.

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Derwin currently serves as the lead pastor

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of Transformation,

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and has also written a number of incredible books

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like God Do Hear Me,

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How to Heal Our Racial Divide,

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and then his most recent book,

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Lit Up With Love,

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Becoming Good News People to a Gospel-Starved World.

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Derwin, welcome to the show.

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Thanks,

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Pastor Brian.

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I appreciate it.

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Glad to be with you.

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Yeah, glad to be with you too.

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I know we were just talking about this,

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but I woke up on Monday morning,

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I looked at my schedule and I was like,

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wow, I'm doing a podcast in three days after Easter.

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We're recording this three days after Easter.

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So you look good for being three days.

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How many service do you guys do at Transformation?

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Between our two campuses,

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I think we did seven or eight.

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I'm not sure.

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I preached five or six of them live.

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I can't remember at this point,

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but my voice has come back.

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So I'm feeling pretty good about that.

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Well,

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the voice thing is interesting. So I've wondered if I need to learn how to kind of talk differently so I don't stress my voice so much. But you're doing that many, and it's just part of doing business is you're coming off a little hoarse after you're done with all those services?

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Yeah, particularly when I've done that many.

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And here in the Carolinas, springtime is pollen time.

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I mean, the allergy is rough.

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But yeah, you know, communicating is an art and it's learning how to, you know, supposedly there's a way to do it.

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I don't know what it is.

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I just try to do my best and don't sweat the

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rest.

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Is your second campus, is that like they stream the message or is it you go live or how does that work?

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Yeah.

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So what I like to say is like the message that streamed, I preach live, you know?

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Yeah.

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So we certainly want to utilize the streaming technology. And at our broadcast location,

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when you're a young preacher, you're taught to make eye contact with the audience. Whenever I

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try to do that, they're all looking at the screen. And so the way I make eye contact

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with over a thousand people at once at our broadcast campuses, I look right into the

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main camera with the red eye.

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Yeah.

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Wow.

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You looked me straight in the eyes.

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And so technology is a wonderful thing.

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God has blessed it.

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We want to leverage who God has called us to be.

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And we've helped plant churches all over the world.

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We've trained over 700 pastors in multi-ethnic gospel centered local church ministry.

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And so we're just trying to do whatever we can to further the great commandment and the

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great commission.

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So we're going to, by God's grace, launch more locations and plant more churches as well.

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I love that.

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Yeah, that's really our heart as well.

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We want to keep growing through campusing when we can, especially in our locale here.

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But every year we try to get behind at least one to three church plants where we direct

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some pretty considerable resources.

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Actually, the church planner that we're helping get behind this year, you may have met, I don't know, he was just out of your church for you guys' conference, Jared Cole, Ambassador Church in Milwaukee.

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You know that name?

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I know Jared well.

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Jared is bigger than the predator.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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Jared is a large, large human being.

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Yeah, we have served and equipped Jared for multiple years now, and so it's exciting to

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see him get ready to plant Ambassador Church, and I'm glad that there is a connection.

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So he's one of the

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leaders we've trained and people we've poured resources into, so we're

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planting a church together, and we didn't even know it.

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I love that.

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It's a small world, isn't it?

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In the kingdom.

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It's a small world, after all.

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We got on a call with Jared for the first time we were meeting him initially, because

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we'll start out with talking to prospective church planners and just hear their story. And just right

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from the jump, I'm like, man, I love his heart. I love his story. He's been through some things.

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He knows what it means to walk with Jesus, and I was like, this is gonna be fun. So we had him

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out here for, in January, we do a big kind of a launch for what we call Kingdom Builders. That's

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a big push for all of the church planning, global missions, local outreach we'll do for the next

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year. And we had Jared and Tricia and their kids here, and it was great. His wife's a little bit

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more of an introvert. And at the end of our service, because it's a big party, we throw this

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thing as a big party for the kingdom. And at the end, we've got this big song we're ending on,

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and it's kind of like the band is dancing. It's got some gospel in it. And I'm like,

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you guys got to come up here and just have a good time with us. And it's not like you got to be a

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good dancer. It's just a little movement. But I think I stretched her way beyond her comfort zone

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for that day. Well, thanks for making this conversation happen. I'd love to hear, just

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kind of warm up. I love having opportunities for folks I talk with to share a little bit of the

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background for our listeners, just hear where you came from. So tell me a little bit about just kind

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of where you grew up, how you grew up. Yeah, so I

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grew up in San Antonio, Texas.

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My grandparents primarily raised me after, say, seventh grade. Both my mom and dad had various

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substance abuse issues and definitely mental health issues. But back in the 70s, 80s, you didn't talk

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about those things. And so we didn't have a church background. And whenever you don't have a church

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background or any religious background, you're going to worship something. And so my object of

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worship was football. And I learned that football not only was fun, but it could also get me an

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education. And so once I caught the vision that, man, football is something that I love, but it

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also can get me to college, which can get me out of where I'm at. And so I went to a high school

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called Converse Judson, worked really hard, had great coaches, became a really good player. And

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I got a football scholarship to Brigham Young University, which as you know, is the AKA Mormon

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Church or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And so how does a black kid end up at a

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white Mormon school and you're not Mormon. It was the best school to offer me a scholarship.

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knew I'd get a great education. I knew I'd play on ESPN a lot. I knew I'd play for a great coach

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and maybe I have a shot at the NFL. But what I didn't know is in my freshman year, I would meet

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this girl that's on the track team that threw the javelin and we'll be celebrating 33 years of

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marriage on May 23rd. Let's go. Yeah, man. And so ended up having a legendary career, literally,

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at BYU, end up getting drafted to the NFL. And I think, okay, this is it. I've made it.

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You know, all my dreams are going to come true. All the stuff that needs to get fixed in my life

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will be fixed. My family will be fixed. And none of that was true. First year was miserable. It

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wasn't fun playing. It was never enough money to help my family. It just made things worse.

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Second year was a little bit better. Third year, I'm a team captain. I'm playing really good.

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But it was at the end of that third year where it was like, I didn't know it at this time, but the spirit of God was opening my eyes.

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Right. And so it's like there's got to I distinctly remember looking in the mirror saying there's got to be more to life than this.

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Wow. Because the money didn't heal my insecurities actually made them worse.

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The money didn't fix my family actually made it worse.

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I knew that one day I couldn't play in the NFL anymore, and the NFL stands for not for long.

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So who would I be when I couldn't play in the NFL anymore?

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Couldn't love my wife the way she deserved to be loved.

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And I knew there were things I needed forgiveness for, but I wouldn't have said forgiveness.

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I didn't know the word sin and what it meant.

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I just knew the more good things I tried to do, the more it revealed that I wasn't good.

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But then...

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How so?

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Can I interrupt you there?

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How

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did you feel like the more you tried to do good things, it was revealing what wasn't good?

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Guilt.

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Romans 2.12 says the law is written on our consciousness.

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It was like I had to scale in my mind.

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If I did more good things, it would outweigh my bad things.

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But that didn't work.

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It was actually the more I tried to be better, the more I realized I wasn't.

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Right?

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And so I now know that that's the convicting work of the Holy Spirit.

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But what God did was I had a teammate in 1993 with the Colts.

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His name was Steve Grant.

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His nickname was the naked preacher, because every day after practice, he would take a shower, dry off, wrap a towel around his waist.

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And then he'd ask my teammates, do you know Jesus?

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And in my mind, I'm like, bro, do you know you're half naked?

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And so hence the naked preacher.

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So I really tried to avoid him, didn't really want nothing to do with him.

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And one day he asked me, he said, Rookie D. Gray, do you know Jesus?

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And I explained to him I was a good person.

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He said, well, good compared to who?

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Because our standard is not with other people.

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Our standard is with God.

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And I said, well, what can I do then?

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He goes, you can't do anything.

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But Jesus has done everything.

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Did he live the sinless life you couldn't live?

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He died your death on the cross because you broke all of God's commandments.

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But then he rose again on the third day.

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So not only does he forgive you, but he comes to live in you because he loves you.

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And I was like, wait, what?

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So that began a five-year process of conversations with him.

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Also, the life of sand, the life that I'd built on sand began to wash away.

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And on August 2nd, 1997, fifth year in the NFL, at Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana, training camp with the Colts, after lunchtime, I go to my dorm room, call my wife on the phone.

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and I said, sweetheart, I want to be more committed to you and I want to be committed to Jesus.

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And that's when I was born again. Like I literally had a physical bodily react. Like I felt the divine

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love of God pour over me. And I was just blown away that there was somebody who knew everything

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about me and they wanted me anyway. There was someone who loved me, not because I could run fast,

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not because I was big and strong, but there was somebody who looked at me and said,

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I don't love you for what you can do for me.

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I love you and my love is going to do for you.

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And grace has overwhelmed me ever since.

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The love of God has overwhelmed me ever since.

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And so I came to Christ.

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That was my fifth year in the NFL.

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My sixth year in the NFL came to the Carolina Panthers, got injured.

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And for the whole year, I had to rehab my knee and read the Bible.

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And as I was rehabbing my knee and reading the Bible, it was like God was tethering me away from football and really changing the way I saw life.

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And everything I would learn, I would just communicate.

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And people would say, wow, you really take theological concepts and you make them easy to understand.

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I was like, well, I don't know about that.

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This is what I do know.

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If Jesus can love and transform me, he can love and transform

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you.

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There it is.

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How did Vicki react to when you said you wanted to follow Jesus?

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Was she already a believer or was she not yet?

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Yeah, so Vicki came to faith about six months before I did.

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And a woman at her job basically led her to Christ over coffee.

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Vicki would come home and say, this woman named Karen was a really nice Christian.

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We didn't know what a Christian was, but the woman was nice.

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And one day, Vicki over coffee says, Karen, do you believe demons are real?

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And Karen said, well, yeah, demons are real.

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Let me ask you a question.

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Are you a Christian?

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And my wife said, well, I believe in God.

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And Karen said, well, being a Christian is more than believing in God.

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It's actually believing and trusting that Jesus on the cross took your place out of love and died for your sins to forgive you.

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But he rose again to live in you and make you a part of God's family.

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It's a free gift.

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And so that really sat in Vicki's soul, and eventually she came to faith in Christ.

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But she came to faith about six or so months before I did.

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Okay.

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And yeah, so we made this journey together.

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That's amazing.

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And how did then giving your life to Christ affect your experience in the NFL?

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How much time did you have left after the point of giving your life to Jesus?

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Yeah.

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So I had, so during the 97 season, I came to Christ.

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And you know, that first year, right, you just, man, I was so just overwhelmed by God's love.

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But also, it was like wearing new clothes I had to get used to.

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So the process, 2 Corinthians 3, 17, going from glory to glory, what theologians call

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sanctification, the holiness God is making us whole. It's a process and you're learning

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new ways of fun, new ways to see the world. But the biggest thing for me, man, is I developed such

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an appetite for the word of God and for prayer that the Holy Spirit was just using that. So

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the more you read the word of God, the greater the language the Holy Spirit is in your life.

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And so God was teaching me.

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God was reframing things for me.

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He's transforming me by the renewing of my mind.

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And so things I once thought was fun was not fun anymore.

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Things that, like, for example, I used to listen to music with cuss words in it.

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And when I got born again, no one had to tell me, stop listening to it.

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The words that were being said was not congruent what was in my heart anymore.

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So I stopped.

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And so the grace of God began to transform me into the image of the son of God.

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And once again, it's like you're wearing new clothes.

00:15:33,570 → 00:15:37,580

And so that year I had a newfound faith.

00:15:37,900 → 00:15:41,440

My next year with the Panthers is when I got injured.

00:15:41,960 → 00:15:46,620

And so one of the primary ways that it changed was everything I was learning, I was sharing

00:15:46,820 → 00:15:51,060

with guys in the locker room and then guys were coming to me to pray for them.

00:15:51,540 → 00:15:52,880

They were coming for me for wisdom.

00:15:53,080 → 00:15:57,260

I'm like, man, I don't even know what's going on, but okay, I'll tell you about Jesus.

00:16:00,120 → 00:16:01,640

You and the naked preacher apparently.

00:16:01,950 → 00:16:03,580

Oh no, he was back in Indianapolis.

00:16:04,280 → 00:16:06,060

Yeah, he was still being naked in Indianapolis.

00:16:06,060 → 00:16:06,720

So you're the new naked

00:16:06,720 → 00:16:07,940

preacher, but you got clothes on.

00:16:08,020 → 00:16:08,280

00:16:08,280 → 00:16:09,260

had clothes on

00:16:09,260 → 00:16:09,360

though.

00:16:09,520 → 00:16:09,600

Yeah,

00:16:09,960 → 00:16:12,100

I wasn't going to that level.

00:16:12,560 → 00:16:19,139

Hey, there's a scripture in Jeremiah that actually says the prophet Jeremiah shared naked.

00:16:20,020 → 00:16:20,200

00:16:20,200 → 00:16:22,280

maybe that's where the naked preacher got

00:16:22,280 → 00:16:22,480

it from.

00:16:22,840 → 00:16:26,280

I do not advise it in this damn age, man.

00:16:26,460 → 00:16:30,740

But there is something about the Word of God.

00:16:33,920 → 00:16:38,040

And it is important for us to immerse ourselves in Scripture.

00:16:38,620 → 00:16:38,720

Yeah.

00:16:40,100 → 00:16:47,480

And I would say that was the biggest change, is when God grabbed my head, He grabbed my heart, and then He had control of my hands.

00:16:48,000 → 00:16:48,720

Head, heart, hands.

00:16:50,000 → 00:16:55,020

Would you say, Derwin, like when it comes to somebody makes it, we both just got done

00:16:55,820 → 00:17:00,140

celebrating Easter with our church families and Good Friday, and I'm guessing that you had some

00:17:00,260 → 00:17:05,160

folks make decisions for Jesus at your church, and I know we did, and we're gonna baptize a bunch of

00:17:05,260 → 00:17:09,880

folks this weekend, which I'm super excited about. I'd be curious, when you have somebody that says

00:17:10,240 → 00:17:15,019

they just make that decision to give their life to Jesus, what do you say to them as their very

00:17:15,260 → 00:17:15,780

next steps?

00:17:16,680 → 00:17:22,360

Yeah, so I think the first thing is, number one, the Lord knows whose are His. Number

00:17:22,520 → 00:17:28,920

two, if a person is reborn, if they're born again, their spirit now is going to bear witness with the

00:17:29,050 → 00:17:34,600

Holy Spirit that they are children of God. So I can't control that. You can't control that. Only

00:17:34,900 → 00:17:42,179

God controls that. What we do control is when a person makes a profession of faith, immediately

00:17:42,200 → 00:17:49,780

they get a packet from me explaining their new life in Christ, explaining what is the Bible?

00:17:49,980 → 00:17:55,200

Why do we read the Bible? What is prayer? And then the next steps are we want to get you into

00:17:55,440 → 00:18:03,040

a new members class. And in that class, we go through basic beliefs. We go through why small

00:18:03,380 → 00:18:10,419

groups. We go through serving, giving and all those things. But it has to start with

00:18:11,540 → 00:18:16,460

you have a new identity in Christ. And so we have a pathway and a process to get

00:18:16,960 → 00:18:20,540

people involved with. But this is one thing that I know that's really helped me so much.

00:18:22,380 → 00:18:28,340

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make the horse drink. God just calls me to fill the

00:18:28,620 → 00:18:35,020

water up and invite people to come drink it. I can't force them to. And so, but yeah.

00:18:35,760 → 00:18:40,440

That's good. That's it. I'm going into what we're doing this year, because typically,

00:18:40,980 → 00:18:44,180

Easter is a big time of just new life, and we see people coming to Christ all year long,

00:18:44,400 → 00:18:47,660

but there is something special about Easter. So we're going to jump right into a series

00:18:48,280 → 00:18:54,880

out of 1 Timothy, and 1 Timothy 1 and 6 both use that kind of fight the battle metaphor,

00:18:55,200 → 00:19:01,519

and then so much of the broader context of 1 Timothy is Paul talking to Timothy about

00:19:02,840 → 00:19:04,520

battling lies, myths, and

00:19:04,520 → 00:19:05,300

other kind of things,

00:19:05,490 → 00:19:07,700

because so much comes to renewing the mind. So

00:19:08,160 → 00:19:12,180

I'm with you. I mean, hearing your story is such a testimony to me, exactly what we're going into

00:19:12,280 → 00:19:16,580

tomorrow, and a big part of what I'm gonna begin to build out tomorrow is, once you have that new

00:19:16,780 → 00:19:20,540

identity in Christ, you've got to start reading the Word. And I love that

00:19:20,540 → 00:19:21,280

example that

00:19:21,280 → 00:19:21,500

you're

00:19:21,680 → 00:19:26,280

saying is right off the bat, you're just soaking in the Word, because that helps us reprogram our

00:19:26,420 → 00:19:27,860

thoughts. And it's the Spirit of God

00:19:27,860 → 00:19:28,580

that gives us the

00:19:28,580 → 00:19:30,220

desire, it's the Spirit of God that helps

00:19:30,240 → 00:19:34,840

give you revelation on the application, but at the end of the day, it's a choice to say,

00:19:34,920 → 00:19:38,580

I'm going to get in the Word of God. I'm going to keep renewing my mind. Now, you guys,

00:19:39,430 → 00:19:45,620

when you... So you end up retiring from the NFL. How soon after that did you guys plant transformation?

00:19:46,460 → 00:19:48,380

That was 11 years later.

00:19:48,770 → 00:19:50,760

Okay, wow. So a good bit of time elapsed.

00:19:50,900 → 00:19:51,940

You were doing ministry

00:19:51,940 → 00:19:52,480

during that

00:19:52,480 → 00:19:52,700

time.

00:19:52,930 → 00:19:58,399

Yeah, but we didn't know we were doing ministry. So I got invited to speak at a youth event

00:19:59,120 → 00:20:06,640

in the fall of 1999, right when I decided to retire from NFL. And I really argued with God

00:20:06,940 → 00:20:11,920

and prayed like, God, why would you send me to go speak? Because I was a compulsive stutterer.

00:20:12,920 → 00:20:20,080

And I was like, can't you send somebody else? I'll send money. Why me? And I just sensed God

00:20:20,380 → 00:20:27,000

saying, if I can raise my son from the dead, I can raise your tongue to talk. But you have to go

00:20:27,020 → 00:20:27,820

to see the miracle.

00:20:28,780 → 00:20:28,900

And

00:20:28,900 → 00:20:32,440

so my wife and I and our little girl at the time went down to Columbia,

00:20:32,680 → 00:20:39,340

South Carolina, and I read off of note cards and passionately shared the gospel. And eventually a

00:20:39,340 → 00:20:44,260

bunch of kids came to faith. And the next day, people start calling me to go places and speak.

00:20:45,640 → 00:20:49,980

And that continued for about a year. And then people said, you guys need to start a ministry.

00:20:50,180 → 00:20:54,360

We're like, what is a ministry? They're like, okay, this is what a ministry is. This is what

00:20:54,340 → 00:20:59,080

a nonprofit. And so my wife has the gift of administration and leadership. So she would

00:20:59,280 → 00:21:06,080

organize everything, build a structure. I would go and travel and speak, started seminary, got my

00:21:06,800 → 00:21:13,900

Masters of Divinity with a concentration in apologetics. And then around in 2005 is when

00:21:13,900 → 00:21:22,600

the church planning bug began to really hit us. The primary reason was everywhere I would go and

00:21:22,480 → 00:21:27,280

speak, it was either all black or all white. And I couldn't understand that. It just, as a person

00:21:27,290 → 00:21:34,340

who didn't grow up in church where that's normal, I'm like, why is the nightclub diverse, but the

00:21:34,520 → 00:21:40,740

church segregated? And then when I read the Bible, I'm like, the early church was Jews and Gentiles.

00:21:40,960 → 00:21:47,120

Gentiles was everybody else. It was multi-ethnic. Then God made a covenant with Abraham to give him

00:21:47,480 → 00:21:53,400

a family made up of every nation, tribe, and tongue. In the book of Revelation, you see every

00:21:53,560 → 00:21:59,560

nation, tribe, and tongue. Why don't we see that in church? And so I got a lot of terrible, unbiblical,

00:21:59,880 → 00:22:04,700

racist, cowardice answers, and God says, well, you can complain or you can create.

00:22:05,590 → 00:22:10,620

So that's what began to percolate in our hearts to eventually plant Transformation Church, and we

00:22:10,780 → 00:22:15,980

are a multi-ethnic, multi-generational, mission-shaped community that loves God completely,

00:22:16,480 → 00:22:21,360

ourselves correctly, our neighbors compassionately. That's rooted in the great commandment and the

00:22:21,500 → 00:22:26,680

great commission through the great grace of God. And today we've got multiple, multiple thousands

00:22:26,730 → 00:22:33,860

of people that look like Revelation 5-9 because of the gospel. We believe that Jesus not only

00:22:34,140 → 00:22:39,860

forgives sins, he creates a family with different colored skins because God has kept his word to

00:22:40,080 → 00:22:40,200

Abraham.

00:22:40,780 → 00:22:45,579

There it is. Well, I love that witness, and that's a big part of our own church's journey

00:22:45,580 → 00:22:47,700

and commitment to preaching the gospel.

00:22:47,880 → 00:22:49,500

And now I look out and it's interesting

00:22:49,640 → 00:22:50,880

because we were launched out of a church

00:22:50,970 → 00:22:51,960

that was an all white church.

00:22:52,110 → 00:22:55,500

And so I didn't realize how starting out that way

00:22:55,640 → 00:22:59,120

with our core team made, I would say,

00:22:59,190 → 00:23:01,680

a better reflection of the gospel's work in our community,

00:23:02,540 → 00:23:04,140

more of a process down the road.

00:23:04,820 → 00:23:08,400

But today, man, our church is so very diverse

00:23:08,840 → 00:23:11,480

and we do a survey every year and it's so cool

00:23:11,620 → 00:23:15,560

just to like look at, we'll sort it by the people

00:23:15,580 → 00:23:16,340

jumped in in the last

00:23:16,340 → 00:23:17,000

year, and

00:23:17,000 → 00:23:20,600

man, it's amazing to see how many are coming from church backgrounds,

00:23:20,920 → 00:23:21,860

all different cultural

00:23:21,860 → 00:23:23,440

backgrounds. That's awesome. And

00:23:23,440 → 00:23:27,020

we feel like it's such a gift of God. It's

00:23:27,340 → 00:23:31,180

easily one of the greatest joys and privileges I've ever

00:23:31,180 → 00:23:31,600

been part

00:23:31,600 → 00:23:32,740

of in my life to be part of

00:23:32,990 → 00:23:37,160

a multi-ethnic church. I'm curious, and I know you've written a couple of incredible books on

00:23:37,240 → 00:23:41,880

this subject, so for anybody who wants to dive deeper, I'm gonna say, read the book,

00:23:41,940 → 00:23:42,460

00:23:42,460 → 00:23:42,900

books,

00:23:43,480 → 00:23:47,200

But if, so I'm going to ask you an unfair question, considering you've written two books

00:23:47,250 → 00:23:47,760

on the subject.

00:23:48,780 → 00:23:56,180

If you had to, if you had to, you know, in a nutshell, if it's even possible, describe

00:23:56,600 → 00:24:02,620

how you got intentional about leading a church that would break that, it's either a black

00:24:02,810 → 00:24:06,080

church or a white church divide.

00:24:06,400 → 00:24:08,120

How did you get about that?

00:24:08,260 → 00:24:09,200

How did you think about it?

00:24:09,280 → 00:24:10,000

What'd you do?

00:24:10,860 → 00:24:17,920

Well, first of all, I think we have to, number one, whatever you believe is going to be fleshed out in how you live.

00:24:18,800 → 00:24:30,640

So, number one, we had to believe that, as Galatians 3.8 says, the gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham, and this, all the nations would be blessed.

00:24:31,100 → 00:24:40,440

So we had to believe that God told Abraham, the good news is I'm going to give you a family made

00:24:40,520 → 00:24:48,500

up of all the earth. Now, Jesus, Galatians 3.16, is the seed of Abraham. So through his atoning

00:24:49,399 → 00:24:54,380

work, this new family comes into being, this blood-bought people. So number one,

00:24:54,760 → 00:24:58,400

you have to believe that. If you don't believe that, if that's not in your DNA,

00:24:58,660 → 00:25:00,460

None of the practices you use are going to work.

00:25:00,940 → 00:25:01,240

Number two,

00:25:01,520 → 00:25:04,140

it has to be reflected in your leadership.

00:25:04,620 → 00:25:12,720

So we see in Acts chapter 6 that Hebraic Jewish women are getting taken care of better than the Hellenistic Jewish women.

00:25:13,320 → 00:25:22,320

And the apostles say, hey, what I want you guys to do is decide to have basically deacons who are going to lead this food distribution movement.

00:25:22,780 → 00:25:26,360

And all seven of the deacons have Hellenistic Greek names.

00:25:26,940 → 00:25:28,920

So representation matters in leadership.

00:25:29,090 → 00:25:33,080

So your leadership has to reflect the ethnic diversity you want to have.

00:25:33,220 → 00:25:36,840

Number three, you have to understand cross-cultural competency.

00:25:37,660 → 00:25:42,540

Do I understand the people that I'm trying to reach who are my brothers and sisters in

00:25:42,720 → 00:25:48,800

Christ, which requires a humility to listen and to learn?

00:25:49,010 → 00:25:54,200

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9, 19 through 23, I become all things all men, and one may know

00:25:54,420 → 00:25:54,600

Christ.

00:25:55,100 → 00:25:57,260

So in other words, he understood his Jewish context.

00:25:57,360 → 00:25:58,740

He understood his Gentile context.

00:25:58,960 → 00:25:59,100

Why?

00:26:00,360 → 00:26:04,660

So that people can come to know Christ and be the community of Christ on earth.

00:26:04,800 → 00:26:07,780

And then, you know, I think there's other things you can do.

00:26:08,660 → 00:26:13,000

Musically, there's things you can do, but also in your small groups, you need to start

00:26:13,220 → 00:26:14,420

out ethnically diverse.

00:26:15,320 → 00:26:21,780

Also, you have to be willing to topple political idols on the left and on the right.

00:26:22,560 → 00:26:29,420

And one of the saddest things I've seen is how people have bowed down to political idolatry to grow their churches with bitter people.

00:26:30,120 → 00:26:36,660

And so the answer to secular progressivism on the left is not far right fascism.

00:26:38,300 → 00:26:40,060

You know, we are gospel people.

00:26:40,180 → 00:26:40,360

We're

00:26:40,360 → 00:26:40,720

not

00:26:40,720 → 00:26:43,980

people of the elephant or the donkey.

00:26:44,080 → 00:26:45,760

We're the people of the lamb.

00:26:46,060 → 00:26:49,580

And so you got to be willing to tackle some of those issues.

00:26:49,860 → 00:26:52,660

But the Bible provides so much of this.

00:26:52,710 → 00:26:57,680

Like, if you want to teach how to break down racism, just read the story of the Good Samaritan

00:26:58,240 → 00:26:59,340

and the woman at the well.

00:27:00,300 → 00:27:03,140

If we followed that, we'd have this solved.

00:27:04,300 → 00:27:07,640

Well, what I appreciate about your approach in general, and this will actually lead to

00:27:07,640 → 00:27:14,340

my next question, but I just think when it comes to leadership and church life, you take

00:27:14,520 → 00:27:17,540

such a great gospel-centered, scripture-driven approach.

00:27:18,140 → 00:27:23,240

And I think particularly in the last year, sometimes what happens is when the culture

00:27:23,580 → 00:27:30,320

is talking about a subject a lot, let's say racial acrimony, there can be a very kind of

00:27:30,700 → 00:27:34,540

secularized view on both the nature of the problem and the nature of the

00:27:34,540 → 00:27:34,900

solution.

00:27:35,920 → 00:27:41,600

The church can, or people within the church, can basically adopt that whole hog, throw a

00:27:41,710 → 00:27:45,780

label on it like justice or whatever, and say, that's what it means.

00:27:46,740 → 00:27:50,520

That's what it means to be a follower of Jesus or to be a Christian church.

00:27:50,730 → 00:27:58,360

And I think your writing and your example is part of its great strength is you're drawing

00:27:58,620 → 00:28:02,380

directly from the gospel and scripture, not just saying, what's the latest voice who wrote

00:28:02,500 → 00:28:07,700

the recent whatever book, and baptizing it and saying, well, that's the way forward.

00:28:08,820 → 00:28:13,340

One of the things, you and I had a quick, spontaneous call while you were driving,

00:28:13,620 → 00:28:16,360

Like probably, I don't know, man, it was been a while back now.

00:28:16,930 → 00:28:22,740

But I would be curious to hear from you, you know, from 2020 on, it's been a, you know,

00:28:22,880 → 00:28:25,900

I think things are now in some ways you could argue settle down a little bit.

00:28:26,290 → 00:28:33,000

But we all as leaders have been through an interesting journey with both all the things

00:28:33,190 → 00:28:35,060

COVID and racial tensions and whatnot.

00:28:35,320 → 00:28:40,040

You'd already been reading and thinking about these subjects a lot before any of that.

00:28:40,540 → 00:28:40,620

And

00:28:40,620 → 00:28:40,900

I'd

00:28:40,900 → 00:28:45,880

just be curious to hear if, I know when we talked on the phone, you, like we did,

00:28:46,040 → 00:28:49,960

you went through some tensions in your church context processing through that whole season.

00:28:51,780 → 00:28:54,520

What did you learn about leadership?

00:28:54,780 → 00:28:55,720

How were you stretched?

00:28:55,900 → 00:28:58,820

How were you grown through those very unique times?

00:28:58,980 → 00:29:00,940

And do you see those learnings playing out today?

00:29:00,980 → 00:29:02,240

Or was it just you go, ah, was it

00:29:02,240 → 00:29:03,700

weird one-off season

00:29:03,700 → 00:29:04,240

and it's done?

00:29:04,720 → 00:29:07,500

No, you know what's interesting?

00:29:08,020 → 00:29:19,240

So like for our church, for Transformation Church, you know, George Floyd and those issues didn't really change our messaging

00:29:19,240 → 00:29:20,600

because

00:29:20,600 → 00:29:26,360

gospel centered ethnic reconciliation and justice has always been a part of who we are.

00:29:28,740 → 00:29:41,540

So what I realized was the political idolatry has infiltrated very deeply into the evangelical church.

00:29:41,590 → 00:29:48,500

The people are more discipled by news media than actually the church.

00:29:49,290 → 00:29:56,560

And also the political idolatry on the left and the political idolatry on the right.

00:29:56,720 → 00:30:06,160

And so, you know, I'm not trying to I'm not trying to reach people who want to have idolatry.

00:30:08,160 → 00:30:10,340

We're we're just sticking with the gospel.

00:30:10,450 → 00:30:12,620

We're sticking with the course.

00:30:14,200 → 00:30:21,240

But I'm not surprised by people who choose to be manipulated by politicians on the left or the right.

00:30:21,880 → 00:30:24,720

And my job is I have to disciple our people through that.

00:30:24,800 → 00:30:31,940

Some people get mad. Some people be appreciative. But I have to stand before the Lord one day and to give an account.

00:30:33,190 → 00:30:44,880

But I think that for the most part, our people, your people, my people spend way too much time allowing the algorithm to shape how they see the world.

00:30:45,310 → 00:30:49,920

Social media algorithms will just show you what you like and you'll end up in a bubble.

00:30:50,180 → 00:30:54,320

You end up dumb. You end up in a conspiracy theory.

00:30:54,540 → 00:30:57,160

And there will also be things happening you won't even know that's happening.

00:30:58,260 → 00:31:03,760

So our thing is more Jesus, more gospel, more kingdom of God, more grace,

00:31:04,280 → 00:31:13,700

but also recognizing trying to fight a battle of convincing people who don't want to be convinced is a waste of time.

00:31:14,520 → 00:31:16,080

Gen Z is wide open.

00:31:17,340 → 00:31:22,600

Our church has grown tremendously through all this chaos, and it's been people saying,

00:31:23,200 → 00:31:24,620

this is what I've been looking for.

00:31:27,100 → 00:31:32,840

Did you feel like that you needed to approach or think about discipleship any differently?

00:31:33,720 → 00:31:39,180

Having seen, I would have entirely agree with you, the amount of discipleship from news,

00:31:39,600 → 00:31:43,760

basically, is it was profound, and I didn't realize it fully until that experience.

00:31:44,160 → 00:31:48,480

But did you find that you had to rethink at all how you were discipling people?

00:31:48,570 → 00:31:54,080

Or did you say, hey, you know, steady as we go and we just keep doing what we've been doing and that kind of thing?

00:31:54,140 → 00:31:54,320

Yeah.

00:31:54,650 → 00:32:01,580

I mean, basically just do what we're doing, but also really challenging the idols more.

00:32:03,140 → 00:32:13,560

You know, like, for example, the state of Mississippi, the governor has declared it April Confederate History Month.

00:32:14,100 → 00:32:16,900

But yet he cancels Black History Month.

00:32:17,980 → 00:32:21,100

So if that's not racist, I'm not quite sure what is.

00:32:21,780 → 00:32:24,800

And the most dangerous racist are those who don't think they are.

00:32:25,660 → 00:32:30,900

The Confederacy was a four-year movement that wanted to dehumanize people, rape people,

00:32:31,420 → 00:32:35,360

main the image of God, and enslave them, and who didn't want to be a part of America.

00:32:35,960 → 00:32:37,320

Why would you want to celebrate that?

00:32:38,220 → 00:32:39,440

What heritage is that?

00:32:39,600 → 00:32:44,000

Like, I don't see Germany going, hey, we're going to have Nazi History Month.

00:32:44,500 → 00:32:47,400

It's actually something to be deeply, deeply ashamed of.

00:32:48,100 → 00:32:50,380

And those remnants are still running through.

00:32:50,560 → 00:32:53,980

Those currents are still running through a lot of people

00:32:53,980 → 00:32:55,040

that sit in our pews.

00:32:55,980 → 00:33:00,960

So would you say that in an example even like that headline from Mississippi, is that the

00:33:01,010 → 00:33:05,020

kind of thing you're going to be more prone to speak on or address maybe now than you would

00:33:05,020 → 00:33:05,520

have in the past?

00:33:06,120 → 00:33:06,780

00:33:06,780 → 00:33:11,180

mean, whatever the moment requires is what we would do.

00:33:11,190 → 00:33:15,720

But because we don't live in Mississippi, I probably won't bring that up.

00:33:16,040 → 00:33:16,220

Yeah.

00:33:17,480 → 00:33:26,700

But I think it's important that we challenge how people view immigration.

00:33:27,240 → 00:33:31,300

Like we shouldn't have borders that are open, right?

00:33:31,600 → 00:33:34,480

But we also shouldn't dehumanize image bearers.

00:33:34,880 → 00:33:42,100

And so there has to be a better way forward, but we have to think more Christianly about it and less politically about it.

00:33:42,900 → 00:33:56,520

Did you find that when you would continue to advance the gospel as the primary, both kind of the motivation and means by which racial healing is accomplished,

00:33:56,910 → 00:33:59,700

did you find anybody would push back and kind of have a

00:33:59,700 → 00:34:00,840

feeling that the gospel

00:34:00,840 → 00:34:02,300

isn't enough and we should be doing

00:34:02,300 → 00:34:03,120

this and that instead

00:34:03,120 → 00:34:03,920

or in addition to it?

00:34:03,940 → 00:34:04,880

Yeah. Always.

00:34:05,110 → 00:34:05,900

Yeah. What might

00:34:05,900 → 00:34:07,920

you, any examples come to mind or, or, uh,

00:34:08,480 → 00:34:14,480

Oh yeah. Tons. Yeah. So, uh, let me see. We've had, we've had people say,

00:34:14,669 → 00:34:19,659

just preach the gospel. I'm like, you've been here this long and you think the gospel is just

00:34:20,040 → 00:34:25,399

believe in Jesus. You go to heaven when you die. That's, that's not the fullness of the gospel.

00:34:25,620 → 00:34:30,879

We've had other people say, you know, don't talk about race as much as you do. And I said, well,

00:34:31,139 → 00:34:37,480

I am a New Testament scholar. My job is to exegete the text. It's impossible for me to

00:34:37,740 → 00:34:44,360

exegete the text without bringing up the ethnic, historical, social context in which the Bible was

00:34:44,419 → 00:34:50,820

written. Then sometimes I'll play along and say, okay, you got it. I won't talk about it anymore.

00:34:51,540 → 00:34:58,000

So the Israelites were not Israelites and slaves in Egypt because Egypt doesn't exist. There's no

00:34:57,960 → 00:35:03,420

Canaanites, Hittites, Desjubites, Preservites, Babylonians, Romans, Assyrians. There's no

00:35:03,940 → 00:35:10,220

woman at the well. There's no good Samaritan. Jesus is not Jewish. And there's no every nation,

00:35:10,340 → 00:35:16,700

tribe, and tongue at the end of the Bible. Do you see how ridiculous that is? We have no Bible.

00:35:17,280 → 00:35:18,180

But Pastor

00:35:18,180 → 00:35:22,640

Brian, what they're really saying is, and it's usually from people that are white,

00:35:22,880 → 00:35:29,020

is what they're really saying is, I am ashamed of what my ancestors did in the past.

00:35:30,800 → 00:35:37,540

And my job as a pastor is to say, your identity is not in what your ancestors did in the past.

00:35:37,640 → 00:35:45,060

Your identity is in Christ. Now, it is prudent of you to acknowledge the benefits of taking

00:35:45,540 → 00:35:52,580

Native American land, the benefits of enslaving people, acknowledge the benefits, but then say,

00:35:53,100 → 00:36:00,000

this injustice will never again happen on my watch. But then again, there are some people who

00:36:00,340 → 00:36:06,080

inherently think their ethnic group is better than other ethnic groups. And so you just have to learn

00:36:06,120 → 00:36:12,260

how to decipher that. I've had black people say things like, now that we have a black lead pastor,

00:36:12,760 → 00:36:19,320

man, we're going to do this. And I'm like, wait a second. I'm a pastor who's a child of God who

00:36:19,280 → 00:36:26,320

happens to be black, and justice says that I love all of God's sheep equally. And, you know, we've

00:36:26,420 → 00:36:31,120

had folks leave because they said I wasn't Democratic enough. We've had people leave who

00:36:31,240 → 00:36:36,620

said I wasn't Republican or MAGA enough, but for everyone that leaves, five more comes,

00:36:37,140 → 00:36:37,500

and that's

00:36:37,500 → 00:36:38,640

a blessed subtraction.

00:36:38,860 → 00:36:43,460

Yeah, amen. Do you feel like, Pastor Darwin, do you feel like that

00:36:43,840 → 00:36:48,220

in your church, I know it sounds like you guys are just experiencing some great favor, God's

00:36:48,240 → 00:36:54,220

working in some really, really cool ways. And I feel like I hear stories of that just all over

00:36:54,220 → 00:37:01,800

the country right now. Is your perception that God is doing something unusual in a good way

00:37:02,160 → 00:37:06,060

right now across the country? Do you have any view on that?

00:37:07,000 → 00:37:16,580

No, I think that the same Holy Spirit who's eternal hasn't gone anywhere. I think it's people

00:37:17,660 → 00:37:24,480

responding to the Spirit and obeying the Spirit. I do see an uptick with Gen Z. I do see some

00:37:25,330 → 00:37:32,900

young pastors who are doing some really incredible and beautiful things, but I also see churches who

00:37:32,900 → 00:37:40,540

are bowing down to political idolatry and growing churches on people's fear and anger. I see people

00:37:40,560 → 00:37:53,480

So, I want to see more Christ-centeredness in the challenging of idols and discipling people

00:37:53,920 → 00:37:57,960

to be emissaries of the kingdom of God on earth.

00:37:59,380 → 00:38:00,040

That's good.

00:38:00,920 → 00:38:01,000

Well,

00:38:01,000 → 00:38:04,620

it feels like to me, I mean, I think that the Spirit of God, I think to your point,

00:38:04,940 → 00:38:09,520

the Spirit of God is always at work seeking to renew and bring new life.

00:38:09,780 → 00:38:13,780

And I think that, but that Acts chapter three, where it says, you know, there'll be repentance

00:38:13,980 → 00:38:15,320

and the times of refreshing will come.

00:38:15,620 → 00:38:21,140

Just, man, it seems like there's some kind of refreshing thing happening when I talk to

00:38:21,400 → 00:38:24,540

some of my pastor friends and just hear levels and experiences

00:38:24,540 → 00:38:25,220

of fruit that,

00:38:25,600 → 00:38:26,480

you know, it

00:38:26,600 → 00:38:29,100

just seems like things are standing out.

00:38:29,120 → 00:38:30,380

I want to shift gears a little bit and talk

00:38:30,380 → 00:38:30,840

about...

00:38:31,100 → 00:38:38,840

Well, Pastor, let me, if I can jump in is I'm hearing, you know, hey, there's revival,

00:38:39,160 → 00:38:43,580

There's revival. There's revival, particularly on college campuses.

00:38:44,100 → 00:38:49,260

The one thing that I will say is revival simply means the normal way of being a Christian.

00:38:51,440 → 00:38:59,400

In the United States of America, the institution, the demonic institution of slavery outlasted, quote unquote, two revivals.

00:39:01,220 → 00:39:06,400

So my question is that the spirit of God just say, hey, enslaving people was OK.

00:39:07,780 → 00:39:11,520

So I think we need to expand what revival means.

00:39:12,510 → 00:39:19,700

And I think Jesus's words in Luke 4, 16 through 18 describes what authentic revival looks like.

00:39:20,220 → 00:39:25,740

It's not just vertical reconciliation with God, but it's horizontal reconciliation.

00:39:26,380 → 00:39:28,300

Justice is what love looks like in public.

00:39:28,860 → 00:39:32,260

So it's evangelism, it's justice, it's discipleship, acts of mercy.

00:39:33,500 → 00:39:35,160

It's a normal way of being a Christian.

00:39:35,440 → 00:39:43,040

So there are some things I'm super excited about, but I hope it just doesn't stay in vertical connection only.

00:39:43,500 → 00:39:44,100

I think

00:39:44,100 → 00:39:46,960

we would be wise to read John Wesley.

00:39:48,260 → 00:39:57,240

Now, here's Wesley, a contemporary of so many other white pastors who endorsed slavery, who actually owned slaves, but he was an abolitionist.

00:39:58,520 → 00:40:02,460

So not only did he reach lost people, not only did he disciple them with Methodists,

00:40:03,060 → 00:40:07,600

not only did he plant churches, but he was an abolitionist. We can do all those things.

00:40:08,040 → 00:40:09,860

It doesn't have to be truncated.

00:40:10,260 → 00:40:14,420

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a great word. And that's where I'm, to me, I'm hesitant to even

00:40:14,640 → 00:40:19,940

start using the term revival necessarily. I mean, we've used it in the past and all that, but

00:40:20,760 → 00:40:26,640

to me, so much of an authentic gospel movement is, you see it in the fruits.

00:40:27,280 → 00:40:30,780

And so there seems like some renewed interest.

00:40:30,910 → 00:40:34,960

It feels like people are coming to know Christ, but it really, in some ways, the test of what's

00:40:35,180 → 00:40:38,700

happening right now is going to be borne out five years and ten years from now.

00:40:38,990 → 00:40:43,400

And I even think when it comes to global missions, I mean, one of the things, our church wants

00:40:43,400 → 00:40:52,400

to live God's love out well for our city, but when we see that 97% of missionaries globally

00:40:52,420 → 00:40:57,400

from the U.S., go to reached contexts, 99% of missions dollars, go to reached contexts.

00:40:58,100 → 00:41:02,020

I'm like, we know a revival's coming when people start leaving everything behind and

00:41:02,790 → 00:41:06,080

going to places where Jesus' name is not known at all to

00:41:06,080 → 00:41:06,660

make them famous.

00:41:06,790 → 00:41:08,160

And that will be an

00:41:08,200 → 00:41:11,680

encouragement to me that something deeper is afoot. You know what I'm saying? Amen.

00:41:12,860 → 00:41:16,440

Let's talk about your book, Lit Up With Love, Becoming Good News People to a Gospel-Starved

00:41:16,660 → 00:41:20,819

World. I just downloaded it. I have to confess, I didn't even know you had written that new book

00:41:20,840 → 00:41:23,140

until I knew our conversation was coming up.

00:41:23,150 → 00:41:24,580

And I was like, oh my gosh, he's got a new one.

00:41:24,740 → 00:41:27,140

So I've downloaded it and I love the premise.

00:41:27,340 → 00:41:29,180

I've got the big idea in my head,

00:41:29,210 → 00:41:31,800

but talk to me about, from your perspective,

00:41:32,000 → 00:41:33,420

what gave you a passion to write this book?

00:41:34,260 → 00:41:37,960

Yeah, you know, so I'm a very reluctant author.

00:41:38,400 → 00:41:40,280

Like I don't think about, oh, I'm gonna write a book.

00:41:42,040 → 00:41:43,700

It's like God impregnates me.

00:41:44,400 → 00:41:47,660

I get morning sickness, I cultivate the book,

00:41:47,820 → 00:41:48,580

then I gotta give birth.

00:41:49,780 → 00:41:56,060

the impregnation moment of this book was several years ago. I found out in 2019,

00:41:56,640 → 00:42:02,480

3,500 churches closed in one year. So that was before COVID. So it's probably higher now.

00:42:03,500 → 00:42:08,260

And I thought that's 3,500 churches where the gospel isn't proclaimed, where people don't have

00:42:08,260 → 00:42:15,280

a place to meet, a loss of gospel influence. Well, the way churches close is they're not evangelistic.

00:42:15,880 → 00:42:18,320

Well, why aren't churches evangelistic?

00:42:19,060 → 00:42:23,460

Well, oftentimes Jesus is not even the star of his own movement.

00:42:24,340 → 00:42:28,640

We do a lot of behavioral management, a lot of external things.

00:42:30,280 → 00:42:35,000

And I said, OK, Lord, what can I do to be a part of renewal?

00:42:36,140 → 00:42:41,940

And I just sensed the Lord say, not in here voice, but I just sensed the Lord say people need to be lit up with love,

00:42:42,220 → 00:42:52,000

Not focus on what you do or don't do, but focus on being ravaged by the infinite, inexhaustible, life-giving love of God.

00:42:52,660 → 00:42:57,540

Like to really not make Jesus like the salt and pepper, but he's the whole meal.

00:42:58,180 → 00:43:06,040

And so what I do in Lit Up With Love is before I ever get to you sharing your faith, I talk about God reaching you.

00:43:07,180 → 00:43:09,140

Talk about the grace of God healing you.

00:43:09,800 → 00:43:15,280

Then you go on mission with the one who gave you grace, the one who gave you love to heal you.

00:43:15,440 → 00:43:18,680

So lit up with love, becoming good news people to a gospel star world.

00:43:19,200 → 00:43:28,260

I don't know how to write where worship, discipleship and evangelism and justice don't happen simultaneously.

00:43:29,020 → 00:43:37,600

And so this was my heart cry to wake the church up to the goodness of God's love, that evangelism is something we have to do.

00:43:37,700 → 00:43:39,300

It's not a pre-praying program.

00:43:39,580 → 00:43:40,240

It's not a formula.

00:43:40,680 → 00:43:42,200

It's simply prayer, care, share.

00:43:43,160 → 00:43:45,500

And so I take people through the Bible.

00:43:46,010 → 00:43:51,880

I take my profession as a New Testament scholar, my heart as a pastor, and I try to package

00:43:52,080 → 00:43:54,620

it in a way that people can grab a hold to it.

00:43:54,880 → 00:43:59,360

What's exciting is within two weeks, it was in its third printing.

00:43:59,780 → 00:44:00,240

And so it was

00:44:00,240 → 00:44:01,660

a national

00:44:01,660 → 00:44:03,160

bestseller.

00:44:03,940 → 00:44:05,440

God has used it immensely.

00:44:05,600 → 00:44:06,660

He's continuing to do so.

00:44:06,820 → 00:44:07,360

And it's short.

00:44:07,640 → 00:44:09,000

It's only 30,000 words.

00:44:09,640 → 00:44:11,880

I'll never write a 45,000 word book again.

00:44:13,460 → 00:44:16,440

If I can't say it in 30, then I don't need to say it.

00:44:16,620 → 00:44:16,760

00:44:16,760 → 00:44:18,000

I'm writing 30,000

00:44:18,000 → 00:44:20,280

words and people have enjoyed it.

00:44:20,300 → 00:44:22,000

Like they're like, oh, I can finish this.

00:44:22,160 → 00:44:22,960

I can share this.

00:44:23,360 → 00:44:29,080

And there's lots of people around the country who are actually doing the book within small groups.

00:44:29,280 → 00:44:35,540

I literally, about two hours ago, met with two ladies who are going on an international mission trip to Thailand.

00:44:35,960 → 00:44:42,280

They're taking four copies to international missionaries they're in relationship with to do a study there.

00:44:42,850 → 00:44:49,380

And so that's my hope and my prayer is there will be these little pockets of people reading Little With Love.

00:44:49,960 → 00:44:56,460

And that at the end of every chapter, there's a prayer, there's sticky statements and inner questions.

00:44:57,580 → 00:45:04,580

And my hope that when they finish every chapter, they go, my goodness, I had no idea Jesus loved me to this degree.

00:45:05,180 → 00:45:09,520

Yeah. I love that. You know what it says? It says something about the book. Well, one,

00:45:09,520 → 00:45:14,200

I think it's brilliant to the shorter length. It's funny because, of course, you know all the stats

00:45:14,340 → 00:45:18,120

on the number of people who actually finish books. It's very discouraging. I'm in the middle of

00:45:18,240 → 00:45:21,680

writing a book right now, and I keep thinking, Lord, I'm doing this in faith for people,

00:45:21,910 → 00:45:22,880

because when you look at the stats,

00:45:22,980 → 00:45:26,280

it's like, oh, man. But what I love about it selling so well,

00:45:26,320 → 00:45:34,080

I remember I got my MDiv from Trinity Divinity School in Chicagoland, which now is merging.

00:45:34,240 → 00:45:34,800

You may have heard that.

00:45:35,320 → 00:45:36,040

I've heard about that.

00:45:36,170 → 00:45:36,440

Yeah, so

00:45:36,440 → 00:45:37,720

we're tough times for Trinity.

00:45:37,870 → 00:45:38,320

But needless

00:45:38,320 → 00:45:39,460

to say, I

00:45:39,460 → 00:45:43,820

remember one of my professors, great, well-known evangelism professor,

00:45:43,830 → 00:45:48,880

and I remember him saying something to the effect of the problem about writing books on

00:45:49,240 → 00:45:51,480

evangelism is that people don't buy them.

00:45:51,810 → 00:45:51,920

They

00:45:51,920 → 00:45:53,500

don't sell

00:45:53,500 → 00:45:54,440

as a category.

00:45:54,530 → 00:45:55,760

They want to know the self-help.

00:45:56,720 → 00:46:01,600

And there's some good books out there that deal with practical issues in a gospel-informed

00:46:02,130 → 00:46:03,040

and shape kind of way.

00:46:03,300 → 00:46:07,380

But his point was it's hard to write books on evangelism because a lot of times publishers

00:46:07,640 → 00:46:08,600

don't even want to pick them up

00:46:08,600 → 00:46:09,580

because of

00:46:09,580 → 00:46:10,120

sales issues.

00:46:10,740 → 00:46:15,140

So when you tell me about those, you know, multiple

00:46:15,140 → 00:46:18,220

printings

00:46:18,220 → 00:46:19,060

already going out,

00:46:19,200 → 00:46:19,600

it tells

00:46:19,660 → 00:46:20,620

me God

00:46:20,620 → 00:46:22,120

has got his hand on this thing.

00:46:22,360 → 00:46:22,460

And

00:46:22,460 → 00:46:24,660

one of the things you do in the book...

00:46:24,660 → 00:46:25,880

My publishers are shocked.

00:46:26,260 → 00:46:26,320

Yeah.

00:46:27,060 → 00:46:33,000

They're like, so it went through the first printing before it got published.

00:46:33,060 → 00:46:40,080

because of pre-orders. And so I think that by God's grace, the genius of the book is

00:46:40,680 → 00:46:46,800

you don't even know you're reading a book on evangelism. You feel like you're reading a book

00:46:47,020 → 00:46:51,840

about the love of God, and the next thing you know is like, man, I'm being trained to go share this

00:46:52,000 → 00:46:52,760

love. And then it's like,

00:46:52,800 → 00:46:57,600

why wouldn't I want to share this love? Yeah, it's so good. Well,

00:46:57,760 → 00:47:00,320

that's, you know, it's interesting because when you read Paul's letters, and I'm thinking

00:47:00,340 → 00:47:05,600

particularly right now of Colossians, although you could argue with all the pastoral epistles,

00:47:06,260 → 00:47:12,100

it's interesting how often he's starting with just this robust Christology. I mean,

00:47:12,260 → 00:47:14,840

Jesus this, in Jesus that, look at Jesus, Jesus...

00:47:14,840 → 00:47:15,660

And then

00:47:15,660 → 00:47:17,740

the so what is like the back half of the

00:47:17,860 → 00:47:19,660

letter after he has, you know, you are

00:47:19,660 → 00:47:20,540

bound up in

00:47:20,540 → 00:47:22,600

Christ, and then you've got something that comes

00:47:22,740 → 00:47:26,740

out of that. One of the things you do in the book, after kind of the first section moving to the

00:47:26,720 → 00:47:30,800

second, is you talk about ways that the world's hunger for God

00:47:30,800 → 00:47:32,640

is made

00:47:32,640 → 00:47:33,620

evident. And I wondered

00:47:33,640 → 00:47:39,900

if you could just... Sometimes I think we underestimate just how hungry the culture is

00:47:40,100 → 00:47:41,360

for God. And we

00:47:41,360 → 00:47:42,180

think, you

00:47:42,180 → 00:47:45,000

know, Jesus has been around for a while, churches are around in the U.S.,

00:47:45,120 → 00:47:50,200

et cetera, et cetera. And you really make a compelling push for, no, this is how the culture

00:47:50,520 → 00:47:53,360

has a very evident hunger for God. Talk about that a little bit.

00:47:53,620 → 00:47:59,040

Absolutely. Yeah. So one of the ways that our culture is evident for God is when to say,

00:47:59,240 → 00:48:07,180

let's just say with addiction and drinking, a person wants to numb the pain. They want to

00:48:07,640 → 00:48:12,460

forget the pain. They want their consciousness cleared. And so they think at the bottom of a

00:48:12,680 → 00:48:17,540

bottle, they're going to find that what they're longing for is comfort. What they're longing for

00:48:17,540 → 00:48:26,200

is, and he makes me lay down in green pastures. He leads me to quiet waters. He renews my soul.

00:48:26,660 → 00:48:38,780

Like the created order is how people try to meet the need of the uncreated creator. And so people

00:48:38,780 → 00:48:45,980

are hungry for unconditional love. Like people sleeping around, a lot of times it's not that

00:48:45,800 → 00:48:51,500

just said libido's high. It's, I want somebody to love. I want to belong. I feel terrible about

00:48:51,740 → 00:48:56,980

myself. People like I got to acquire more money. Well, what they want is eternal security,

00:48:57,600 → 00:49:04,080

you know? And so there are multiple ways in which we make idols and eventually all those idols will

00:49:04,180 → 00:49:11,120

fall down. If I could, in chapter four, it's called Star for Rest. And what I talk about is

00:49:11,140 → 00:49:19,560

everybody in our culture is so tired. Kids are tired. Old people are tired. Everybody's tired

00:49:20,380 → 00:49:27,220

because we are like sheep in the desert being chased by wolves. The wolves are, you're not good

00:49:27,360 → 00:49:33,340

enough. You'll never have enough. No one will love you. Behaviors you can't stop. We're looking for

00:49:33,420 → 00:49:40,560

the good shepherd who makes us lie down in green pastures, who chases us with goodness and mercy,

00:49:40,640 → 00:49:47,320

who makes a table in the midst of our enemies and anoints our head with oil that our cup overflows.

00:49:47,760 → 00:49:55,820

By the way, in Psalm 23, 4, when God says, I make a table in the midst of your enemies,

00:49:55,990 → 00:49:58,040

you know why I think God says that?

00:49:58,290 → 00:49:58,420

Why

00:49:58,420 → 00:49:58,620

is that?

00:49:58,640 → 00:49:58,760

00:49:58,760 → 00:50:00,520

we can learn to love our enemies.

00:50:01,240 → 00:50:01,880

That's good.

00:50:02,840 → 00:50:08,820

Because Jesus did say in Matthew 5, 44, but I tell you, bless those who persecute you and love your enemies.

00:50:09,320 → 00:50:34,860

So what I've tried to do is take the beauty of the gospel, the incredible wealth of God's riches in love, and apply it in everyday circumstances so that people at the end of the day can go, now I see why Paul said, I pray that you would know together with all of God's holy people how wide, how long, how high is the deep love of Christ.

00:50:35,520 → 00:50:51,780

And then that's what moves you on mission. And once again, throughout the book, I give people what I call gospel fluency. So you can apply the gospel in a process over time in various ways, relationally.

00:50:52,120 → 00:50:58,480

Sometimes it feels like you're a used car salesman, which isn't a bad career, but it's like, buy this, buy this.

00:50:58,920 → 00:51:08,620

And it's like, it's not a dialectical dialogue of people who are going, man, I just want to tell you about the person who loved me to wholeness.

00:51:10,040 → 00:51:12,720

Yeah, and I think that you kind of referenced a little bit ago.

00:51:12,740 → 00:51:13,880

I don't know if you said share, care,

00:51:13,980 → 00:51:15,460

and prayer.

00:51:16,120 → 00:51:19,780

But no doubt it's going to be helpful for people to just get the book and read it.

00:51:19,900 → 00:51:21,020

I can't wait.

00:51:21,240 → 00:51:26,380

literally downloaded it at the moment I saw it was out. If you were just to expand a little bit

00:51:26,540 → 00:51:32,140

practically, I do think it's interesting, because sometimes people get so intimidated to share their

00:51:32,320 → 00:51:32,500

faith,

00:51:32,670 → 00:51:36,080

because they do think it's gotta be a process, it's gotta be a

00:51:36,080 → 00:51:36,480

program,

00:51:36,680 → 00:51:37,180

it's gotta be

00:51:37,300 → 00:51:42,940

this, I gotta have... If you were to just give some of your best wisdom on the person who's

00:51:43,090 → 00:51:44,100

listening right now that says,

00:51:44,240 → 00:51:44,400

man,

00:51:44,760 → 00:51:49,520

Jesus has changed my life, I am so grateful for His love,

00:51:50,020 → 00:51:50,360

and I'm

00:51:50,360 → 00:51:51,000

sitting next

00:51:51,000 → 00:51:55,380

to this person at work, and I do have a deep desire and hunger for them

00:51:55,380 → 00:51:55,620

00:51:55,650 → 00:51:55,980

know the

00:51:55,980 → 00:51:59,860

same love that's changed my life. What would you say to that person by just a point of

00:52:00,020 → 00:52:01,540

encouragement when it comes to sharing their faith?

00:52:01,820 → 00:52:03,580

The first thing I would say is this,

00:52:03,860 → 00:52:09,280

before you talk to people about Jesus, talk to Jesus about that person. So begin with prayer.

00:52:10,060 → 00:52:16,559

Secondly, pray for opportunities. Thirdly, care for that person. And then as it pertains to

00:52:16,580 → 00:52:23,900

sharing with that person. Be a good listener. Learn to listen. Ask people questions. And as you

00:52:24,100 → 00:52:31,280

listen to them by asking questions, it will begin to emerge of how you can share your faith. So for

00:52:31,520 → 00:52:38,720

example, there's a coffee shop that I go to, which I've been going to for years, and I pray for gospel

00:52:38,880 → 00:52:43,640

conversations to take place. I've had hundreds of them over the years. Multiple, multiple people have

00:52:43,580 → 00:52:50,460

come to faith. One time I'm sitting down to a young man and he's Indian and I recognizing that

00:52:50,540 → 00:52:54,860

he's reading a medical book. And so I said, Hey, do you want to be a doctor? He said, yeah, I want

00:52:54,860 → 00:53:01,520

to be a, a, a psychiatrist. I said, man, that's great. I said, you know, the organization that I

00:53:01,740 → 00:53:07,680

work for brain health, mental health is so important. We've seen so many families and lives

00:53:08,020 → 00:53:12,699

changed. And he goes, well, where do you work? I said, well, I'm the co-founder and lead pastor

00:53:13,440 → 00:53:17,440

of Transformation Church. He goes, wow, it's a church. You guys are interested in mental health.

00:53:17,620 → 00:53:23,260

I said, yeah, because we believe that God not just creates our soul, but he creates our whole.

00:53:23,860 → 00:53:29,380

And the guy goes, well, you know, I'm not religious. I'm an atheist, but I do think

00:53:29,620 → 00:53:34,160

more people are having mental health problems because they've lost their belief in God.

00:53:35,280 → 00:53:41,660

I said, okay, open door. And I said, you know, there's a lot of wisdom in what you said. And I

00:53:41,600 → 00:53:49,640

said, you know, isn't it amazing that the Bible actually says that God came to earth

00:53:50,600 → 00:53:57,100

and he lived a beautiful, perfect life because we couldn't. And on the cross, he took our place

00:53:57,780 → 00:54:04,540

because we deserve to be on that cross to pay for our sins. But Jesus pays for them to restore us

00:54:04,600 → 00:54:10,920

to God, to forgive us, to give us a new identity, to cleanse us. And then I said, he rose again to

00:54:10,900 → 00:54:16,300

actually live inside of us to give us power to be people we never thought we could be for time

00:54:16,730 → 00:54:23,720

in all eternity. And he goes, that's very interesting. And so I got a chance to cast

00:54:23,960 → 00:54:28,600

seeds, right? Our job is to cast seeds. It's God's job to grow the seeds.

00:54:29,900 → 00:54:35,660

I think that's so good. And again, back to that point of just, I love the idea of you're praying

00:54:35,820 → 00:54:38,820

ahead of time, and then you're listening to the doors the Holy Spirit might open.

00:54:39,220 → 00:54:43,980

If I might indulge before we close here, I'll just indulge a little bit here with, I was

00:54:44,280 → 00:54:49,940

doing a recent interview conversation for the podcast, and we had had a news anchor come

00:54:50,080 → 00:54:54,940

in and do a special on our band got signed by Capital Music, our worship team did, and

00:54:54,940 → 00:54:58,540

we had the song releasing and all this, and she came to the interview.

00:54:59,360 → 00:55:04,780

And I just thought, she did it, told our story in a great way, and I didn't quite know where

00:55:04,800 → 00:55:10,600

she was at spiritually. But I thought, you know what, let's have her on. I love hearing people's

00:55:10,720 → 00:55:14,140

journeys. I love listening just to kind of where they came from, how they got to where they are.

00:55:14,740 → 00:55:19,120

So I said, hey, you want to come in to be on Made to Advance with me? She said, sure. So before we

00:55:19,260 → 00:55:25,120

start, I asked her, is it okay for me to ask you about your spiritual life as part of the

00:55:25,400 → 00:55:30,180

conversation proper? She said, yeah, it's fine. So we get into it, and I shared when I got into

00:55:30,260 → 00:55:34,700

this part, I shared on the podcast, hey, everybody, just so you know, she said it was fine.

00:55:34,780 → 00:55:41,000

for me to have this conversation. And I would say it was kind of clear that she had some church

00:55:41,280 → 00:55:48,220

background, but just trying to be a good person was her background. But it was really cool because

00:55:48,460 → 00:55:57,400

she basically described her passion to tell great stories that are able to affect change.

00:55:57,940 → 00:55:58,280

And

00:55:58,280 → 00:56:02,240

I'm like, come on, I know a great story that affects change.

00:56:04,480 → 00:56:10,620

So right there on the podcast, I basically, I was able to say to her, and this was such

00:56:10,620 → 00:56:17,720

a cool moment to say, I believe that the reason why you have such a joy and passion and fulfillment

00:56:18,380 → 00:56:23,060

in telling a great story that changes things is because you were made in the image of one

00:56:23,500 → 00:56:24,600

who was told a great story.

00:56:24,900 → 00:56:30,280

and then kind of summarized the gospel story, and it was a good conversation, and you could tell she

00:56:30,280 → 00:56:34,860

was thinking and all that, and it just, it was an awesome time, you know, of just, again, planting

00:56:35,020 → 00:56:40,880

seeds. We'll see what God does with that, so anyway, but again, just the point is prayer, listening, and

00:56:40,880 → 00:56:44,700

then just being able to share out of a natural place. We don't need to make it, we don't need to

00:56:44,820 → 00:56:49,819

make a rocket science here. We just got to be us authentically with Jesus. Hey, Derwin, before we

00:56:49,840 → 00:56:56,000

close today. I wonder just if there's anything else that you'd like to share, Pastor, before we

00:56:56,020 → 00:56:56,480

wrap it up.

00:56:56,900 → 00:57:00,800

Yeah, yeah, yeah. First of all, congratulations on being signed to Capitol,

00:57:01,340 → 00:57:02,400

and I

00:57:02,400 → 00:57:09,760

love the name of your church in Getty. If people don't know, in Getty in Israel is this

00:57:09,960 → 00:57:16,400

oasis of water and green grass and a desert, and I think that's a picture of what God's people are

00:57:16,420 → 00:57:17,100

supposed to be

00:57:17,100 → 00:57:17,900

00:57:17,900 → 00:57:24,940

Christ. So the last thing that I would say is that Jesus loves you far more than

00:57:25,020 → 00:57:32,440

you know. His grace is far greater than we know. The new identity that he gives us is more beautiful

00:57:32,620 → 00:57:38,320

than we know. And the Spirit of God is more powerful than we know. So get to know Jesus and

00:57:38,420 → 00:57:39,320

get to know those things.

00:57:40,460 → 00:57:45,180

Amen. That's a great word to end on. And if we want to follow you,

00:57:45,240 → 00:57:48,080

I know you can go to, what's your exact website address?

00:57:48,290 → 00:57:49,580

You got your initial in there, I think.

00:57:49,800 → 00:57:50,380

Yeah, yeah.

00:57:50,800 → 00:57:57,840

So, you know, people can go to derwin, D-E-R-W-I-N-L-Gray.com, derwinlgray.com.

00:57:58,340 → 00:58:01,560

You can find me at transformationchurch.tc.

00:58:02,400 → 00:58:07,040

And my social media handle is at derwinlgray.

00:58:07,920 → 00:58:09,580

Derwinlgray.com is where to go.

00:58:09,680 → 00:58:11,420

I'd love to connect with you guys.

00:58:11,510 → 00:58:13,000

And thank you for having me on, Pastor.

00:58:13,030 → 00:58:14,460

I really appreciate it.

00:58:14,580 → 00:58:17,920

Yeah, it's been great to have you on. And by the way, you got to get that new book on your website.

00:58:18,100 → 00:58:22,240

I realized searching through there today that I don't know if the new one's up yet. Maybe it is.

00:58:22,300 → 00:58:24,020

I missed it, but I don't know if it is. So

00:58:24,020 → 00:58:25,960

I appreciate it. I will

00:58:25,960 → 00:58:27,180

work

00:58:27,180 → 00:58:27,580

on that.

00:58:28,020 → 00:58:31,240

Yeah, it sounds like maybe it doesn't need to be on your website. God's just breathing on this

00:58:31,380 → 00:58:35,600

thing. He just let it take care of himself. So, hey, Pastor Derwin, thanks for being on. I hope

00:58:35,600 → 00:58:40,280

you have a great afternoon and hopefully our paths cross sometime in the future. Okay.

00:58:40,980 → 00:58:42,360

That was good, brother. Thank you.

00:58:43,800 → 00:58:47,340

Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Pastor Derwin.

00:58:47,680 → 00:58:52,540

And one of the things I most appreciated about what Derwin shared is just that idea we have

00:58:52,820 → 00:58:58,020

to stay rooted in the love of God as is expressed to us through Christ Jesus.

00:58:58,270 → 00:59:00,100

That is really where it all starts.

00:59:00,720 → 00:59:06,420

And so much of the fruit of Christ and even things like evangelism really are a non-starter

00:59:06,750 → 00:59:09,980

until we're dwelling and abiding in his love.

00:59:10,160 → 00:59:14,960

And so I would just encourage you, no matter what, first priority is always just walking

00:59:15,280 → 00:59:17,240

with Jesus and in his grace.

00:59:17,900 → 00:59:20,980

That conversation was helpful to you, encouraging to you.

00:59:21,020 → 00:59:21,960

Please do rate and review us.

00:59:22,100 → 00:59:24,480

That's a massive encouragement to our team.

00:59:25,100 → 00:59:29,200

This has been a production of Engedi Church, and we have more incredible conversations coming

00:59:29,260 → 00:59:29,900

your way soon.

00:59:30,380 → 00:59:33,980

So until next time, just know you were made to advance.

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