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.

And so my object of worship was football.

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

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

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

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.

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,

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

After a successful career in the NFL,

Derwin and his wife, Vicki,

founded Transformation Church

just outside Charlotte, North Carolina.

Derwin currently serves as the lead pastor

of Transformation,

and has also written a number of incredible books

like God Do Hear Me,

How to Heal Our Racial Divide,

and then his most recent book,

Lit Up With Love,

Becoming Good News People to a Gospel-Starved World.

Derwin, welcome to the show.

Thanks,

Pastor Brian.

I appreciate it.

Glad to be with you.

Yeah, glad to be with you too.

I know we were just talking about this,

but I woke up on Monday morning,

I looked at my schedule and I was like,

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

We're recording this three days after Easter.

So you look good for being three days.

How many service do you guys do at Transformation?

Between our two campuses,

I think we did seven or eight.

I'm not sure.

I preached five or six of them live.

I can't remember at this point,

but my voice has come back.

So I'm feeling pretty good about that.

Well,

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?

Yeah, particularly when I've done that many.

And here in the Carolinas, springtime is pollen time.

I mean, the allergy is rough.

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

I don't know what it is.

So

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

rest.

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

Yeah.

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

Yeah.

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

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

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

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

main camera with the red eye.

Yeah.

Wow.

You looked me straight in the eyes.

And so technology is a wonderful thing.

God has blessed it.

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

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

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

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

great commission.

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

I love that.

Yeah, that's really our heart as well.

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

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

some pretty considerable resources.

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.

You know that name?

I know Jared well.

Jared is bigger than the predator.

Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Jared is a large, large human being.

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

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

So he's one of the

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

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

I love that.

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

In the kingdom.

It's a small world, after all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

grew up in San Antonio, Texas.

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

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

about those things. And so 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. And so my object of

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But then...

How so?

Can I interrupt you there?

How

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

Guilt.

Romans 2.12 says the law is written on our consciousness.

It was like I had to scale in my mind.

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

But that didn't work.

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

Right?

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

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

His name was Steve Grant.

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

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

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

And so hence the naked preacher.

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

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

And I explained to him I was a good person.

He said, well, good compared to who?

Because our standard is not with other people.

Our standard is with God.

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

He goes, you can't do anything.

But Jesus has done everything.

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

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

But then he rose again on the third day.

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

And I was like, wait, what?

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

And grace has overwhelmed me ever since.

The love of God has overwhelmed me ever since.

And so I came to Christ.

That was my fifth year in the NFL.

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

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

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.

And everything I would learn, I would just communicate.

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

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

This is what I do know.

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

you.

There it is.

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

Was she already a believer or was she not yet?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let me ask you a question.

Are you a Christian?

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

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

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.

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

It's a free gift.

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

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

Okay.

And yeah, so we made this journey together.

That's amazing.

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

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

Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so God was teaching me.

God was reframing things for me.

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

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

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

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

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

So I stopped.

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

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

And so that year I had a newfound faith.

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

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

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

They were coming for me for wisdom.

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

You and the naked preacher apparently.

Oh no, he was back in Indianapolis.

Yeah, he was still being naked in Indianapolis.

So you're the new naked

preacher, but you got clothes on.

I

had clothes on

though.

Yeah,

I wasn't going to that level.

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

So

maybe that's where the naked preacher got

it from.

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

But there is something about the Word of God.

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

Yeah.

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.

Head, heart, hands.

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

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

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

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

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

next steps?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

battling lies, myths, and

other kind of things,

because so much comes to renewing the mind. So

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

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

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

example that

you're

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

thoughts. And it's the Spirit of God

that gives us the

desire, it's the Spirit of God that helps

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

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

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

That was 11 years later.

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

You were doing ministry

during that

time.

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

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

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

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

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

to see the miracle.

And

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Abraham.

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

and commitment to preaching the gospel.

And now I look out and it's interesting

because we were launched out of a church

that was an all white church.

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

with our core team made, I would say,

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

more of a process down the road.

But today, man, our church is so very diverse

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

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

jumped in in the last

year, and

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

all different cultural

backgrounds. That's awesome. And

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

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

been part

of in my life to be part of

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

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

or

books,

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

on the subject.

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

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

church or a white church divide.

How did you get about that?

How did you think about it?

What'd you do?

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

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.

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

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

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

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

None of the practices you use are going to work.

Number two,

it has to be reflected in your leadership.

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

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.

And all seven of the deacons have Hellenistic Greek names.

So representation matters in leadership.

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

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

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

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

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

Christ.

So in other words, he understood his Jewish context.

He understood his Gentile context.

Why?

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

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

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

out ethnically diverse.

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

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.

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

You know, we are gospel people.

We're

not

people of the elephant or the donkey.

We're the people of the lamb.

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

But the Bible provides so much of this.

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

and the woman at the well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

solution.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

COVID and racial tensions and whatnot.

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

And

I'd

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

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

What did you learn about leadership?

How were you stretched?

How were you grown through those very unique times?

And do you see those learnings playing out today?

Or was it just you go, ah, was it

weird one-off season

and it's done?

No, you know what's interesting?

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

because

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

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

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

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

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

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

We're sticking with the course.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Gen Z is wide open.

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

this is what I've been looking for.

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

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

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

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

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?

Yeah.

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

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

But yet he cancels Black History Month.

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

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

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

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

Why would you want to celebrate that?

What heritage is that?

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

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

And those remnants are still running through.

Those currents are still running through a lot of people

that sit in our pews.

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

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

have in the past?

I

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

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

Yeah.

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

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

But we also shouldn't dehumanize image bearers.

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

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,

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

feeling that the gospel

isn't enough and we should be doing

this and that instead

or in addition to it?

Yeah. Always.

Yeah. What might

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But Pastor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and that's

a blessed subtraction.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

to be emissaries of the kingdom of God on earth.

That's good.

Well,

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

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

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

and the times of refreshing will come.

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

some of my pastor friends and just hear levels and experiences

of fruit that,

you know, it

just seems like things are standing out.

I want to shift gears a little bit and talk

about...

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

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

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

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

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

So I think we need to expand what revival means.

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

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

Justice is what love looks like in public.

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

It's a normal way of being a Christian.

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

I think

we would be wise to read John Wesley.

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

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

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

It doesn't have to be truncated.

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

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

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

And so there seems like some renewed interest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

make them famous.

And that will be an

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

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

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

until I knew our conversation was coming up.

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

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

I've got the big idea in my head,

but talk to me about, from your perspective,

what gave you a passion to write this book?

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

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

It's like God impregnates me.

I get morning sickness, I cultivate the book,

then I gotta give birth.

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

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

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

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

Well, why aren't churches evangelistic?

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

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

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

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,

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

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

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.

Talk about the grace of God healing you.

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

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

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

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.

It's not a pre-praying program.

It's not a formula.

It's simply prayer, care, share.

And so I take people through the Bible.

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

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

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

And so it was

a national

bestseller.

God has used it immensely.

He's continuing to do so.

And it's short.

It's only 30,000 words.

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

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

So

I'm writing 30,000

words and people have enjoyed it.

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

I can share this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

because when you look at the stats,

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

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

You may have heard that.

I've heard about that.

Yeah, so

we're tough times for Trinity.

But needless

to say, I

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

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

evangelism is that people don't buy them.

They

don't sell

as a category.

They want to know the self-help.

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

and shape kind of way.

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

don't even want to pick them up

because of

sales issues.

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

printings

already going out,

it tells

me God

has got his hand on this thing.

And

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

My publishers are shocked.

Yeah.

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

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

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

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

love. And then it's like,

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

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

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

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

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

And then

the so what is like the back half of the

letter after he has, you know, you are

bound up in

Christ, and then you've got something that comes

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

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

is made

evident. And I wondered

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

for God. And we

think, you

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

you know why I think God says that?

Why

is that?

So

we can learn to love our enemies.

That's good.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

and prayer.

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

I can't wait.

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

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

faith,

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

program,

it's gotta be

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

listening right now that says,

man,

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

and I'm

sitting next

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

to

know the

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

encouragement when it comes to sharing their faith?

The first thing I would say is this,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And

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

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

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

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

who was told a great story.

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

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

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

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

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

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

wrap it up.

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

and I

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

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

supposed to be

in

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

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

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

get to know those things.

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

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

You got your initial in there, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

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

You can find me at transformationchurch.tc.

And my social media handle is at derwinlgray.

Derwinlgray.com is where to go.

I'd love to connect with you guys.

And thank you for having me on, Pastor.

I really appreciate it.

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

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

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

I appreciate it. I will

work

on that.

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

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

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

That was good, brother. Thank you.

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

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

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

That is really where it all starts.

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

until we're dwelling and abiding in his love.

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

with Jesus and in his grace.

That conversation was helpful to you, encouraging to you.

Please do rate and review us.

That's a massive encouragement to our team.

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

your way soon.

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