WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:01:24.000 Politics, politics, politics. My politics is not separate from my religion. It is an expression of my religion, my faith in Jesus, my faith in God. Of course, that impacts the way I think about the common good, the benefit of my neighbors, the laws of the land, the values that I hold. And it's time for us all, uh, I think as Christians, to be more politically engaged, to mobilize, to get involved, to get involved with campaigns, to get involved with pushing legislation and all of that stuff. I think it's time. So, in that vein, this is going to be a panel discussion that I just did with the Family Research Council, the FRC Pray Vote Stand Summit. That was over at Calvary Chapel, Chino Hills, which you might recognize as Jack Hibbs Church. We just did this last night, and I got permission to go ahead and upload it to my YouTube channel today. So here it is. This is the panel I did with Natasha Crane and Katie Foust, where we talked about engaging with a hostile world. Now, it's not entirely about politics, but guess what? My Christian values, when they engage with the current world around me, you're going to think I'm talking political stuff because I'm simply talking about the Christian worldview. But as you'll see in this panel, I think this is something that we ought to do, if we can hopefully try to learn how to do it in a good way, in a right way, in a godly way. So without further ado, whatever that means, here's the panel. 2 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:59.000 So we're going to have a, uh, not a heated conversation, but an interesting conversation. So I want to start. Natasha, I want to start with you. There are certainly people we encounter who will, um, be so hostile to what we say that they won't be open to any communication at all. But for those who are at least open to a conversation, what can we do to break down the walls, these barriers to allow fruitful and truthful conversations? How do we do that? 3 00:01:59.000 --> 00:04:11.000 Well, one of the things that I think that we struggle with as a church is that a lot of times we are not trying to at least be able to understand the perspective of the other side. That's not to affirm the other side as actually true or good, but to be able to articulate their perspective in a way that they can recognize it themselves. So think about this from our perspective as Christians who care about the sanctity of life. If you have someone who is pro choice come up to you and say, you hate women, you're a controlling misogynist, all you want to do is Control women's bodies. Do you think that's going to be a fruitful conversation? Probably not, right? We hear that and we go, okay, there's a long way to go down this road in order to actually come to some kind of understanding. What. But what if that same person said to you, okay, so as a Christian, correct me if I'm wrong, but as a Christian, you believe that a baby, an unborn baby, is a human being, and you believe that the intentional killing of an innocent life is murder and that that is wrong. Wrong. Whether the human beings on the inside of the womb or the outside, what do you feel like now you feel understood right? Now you're hearing that and you're saying, yes, that is what I believe. That is exactly what I believe. Now you're more open to that. So I would just encourage all of us to really try to understand the other perspective and be able to articulate to them. Okay, if I'm understanding you correctly, here is your view when it comes to, uh, the topic of abortion, that would sound like, I understand that from your perspective, this is a question of harm to women. Am I hearing you correctly if that's the case for that particular person? Because most people who are pro choice aren't actually out there saying, I really love killing babies, I want to kill babies. Of course, that's the effect of what they're advocating for. But they're going to shut you off. They're going to shut you out if that's how you come into that conversation. Instead, be able to articulate the other person's perspective and then you can better address it. 4 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:50.000 Let me step back and throw a question out here for the whole panel. And we're going to. We've got a number of questions to get to, but I think it, uh, actually begins with each of us and how we view that person on the other side. As Paul talks about in Ephesians, that we're to speak the truth in love. And when we unpack that, you know, what does that really mean, speaking the truth in love? You know, I think oftentimes when we get into these discussions, we want to win a debate as opposed to winning a heart. And so how do we go about that when these are such, you know, as you said, there's such polarizing conversations at times. How do we do that? 5 00:04:50.000 --> 00:05:16.000 I think biblically speaking, you actually care about the other person. Like, if you're speaking the truth in love, I care about them. So we can be passionate about the topic, passionate about where the country is or where our Churches are at. But am I passionate about that individual and them changing their mind or getting at least a seed planted or maybe down the road they change their mind. Um, and just remembering that the agenda is transformation on the other side, not just a victory. 6 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:18.000 So, Katie, how do we prepare for that? 7 00:05:18.000 --> 00:06:04.000 Well, it's interesting because I think that if you, if we were to do a survey, let's do it right now. Um, we would see that you guys probably fall on one of either side of this spot spectrum among Christians. You're probably either naturally more dispositionally geared towards grace giving where you're just like, I just want to welcome them in and I want to take care of them and I want to keep the peace and I want to reach out and I want to nurture. Or you fall onto the truth telling side and you're like, I will post this on Facebook no matter who it offends. Okay, so raise your hand. I mean, are you a grace giver? Raise your hand. If you're a grace giver where you're like, you don't like conflict, you don't want there to be tension around the Thanksgiving dinner. Right. And how many of you guys like, Nope, this is just how it is. I don't care how it. Events. All right, so I think that speaking. 8 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:09.000 Truth in love, we're going to be very careful this weekend, aren't we? Okay. 9 00:06:09.000 --> 00:07:10.000 I think that we need to recognize our inherent weakness and watch out for it. Because honestly, I am a grace giver. It is very hard for me, especially to have a personal conversation with somebody in my life that disagrees, knowing that the relationship could be at stake sake. And so I have to be very wary not to pull back when I need to speak up. Because my natural inclination is give grace. Give grace, empathy, compassion. And so that's where I realized that I need to be aware of my weaknesses. Somebody who falls on the truth teller side might need to be aware of. There's times where you need to not say it, don't say it. Right. Sometimes you need to say, lord, what do you want me to do right now? Be quiet. Pray for them, reach out, uh, bring them soup because they're sick. Right. And so I think that's the thing is like, we all need to be filled with the Holy Spirit if we're really going to show grace with love. Because I don't think any of us on our own can hit that balance. Exactly. Right. 10 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:28.000 Well, let me press in a little deeper on that, Katie. So let's say, what do you do with a friend who identifies as. Fill in the blank, um, believes, who knows what. And they would cancel you if they knew that you believed in traditional marriage. How do you deal with that? 11 00:07:28.000 --> 00:09:00.000 Yeah. Um, I would say that you need to develop a theology of losing friends and really figure out what is it. So I do think that you should prioritize relationships, uh, build unity, reach out, not just reciprocate, but initiate relationships with people that you disagree with. But you need to think ahead of time, and you need to think biblically. There are some people up here that can help you figure that out. In terms of what will you not do to keep this friendship? What is it that. Where is it, uh, that you will not go? And that should probably be lying. You will not lie to keep the friendship. Okay? That's the one big, clear line that we have in our house. Even when you don't know what to do, shut up and do not lie. But, uh, you might need to develop some other ideas about. Okay, if it gets to this point, I'm okay with losing the friendship. But I will tell you that what you need to think through is we've lost the relationship. Not because I was a jerk, or I was unprepared, or I was uninformed, or I was doing too much truth telling and not enough grace giving. We lost the relationship because the only way for me to keep it was to compromise on what I believe. M. And that's an acceptable reason to lose a friend, in my opinion. Um, it's painful. You know, you'll still wring your hands around it. You'll still be sad when you are not invited to family Christmas. But to me, that is what honoring your Lord looks like in the midst of a hostile culture. 12 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:32.000 That's good. Thank you, Katie. Mike, I want to probe on that a little bit, because as Katie said, we've got, uh, kind of some people that will avoid conflict, um, some that dive right into the conflict. There are issues today that are popping up in churches. They're biblical issues, but they're secondary issues. People say, let's not get to those issues because we want to be able to present the gospel. Those issues are still important, are they not? 13 00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:53.000 Yeah. I've been thinking about this a lot recently, and I'm just sort of developing and changing and shifting in my own opinions on some of these things. Um, not what is the biblical truth about them, but what is the priority to discuss them and push forward into all spheres talking about them. And I can give you a couple examples. Okay. Paying taxes. That's got to be A secondary issue. You know, it's not the gospel unless. 14 00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:54.000 You work for the irs, Right? 15 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:55.000 Unless you work for the irs, then. 16 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:56.000 It'S priority for them. 17 00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:28.000 But Jesus talked about paying taxes, did he not? He was confronted with what was a hot button secondary issue, and he went ahead and brought true clarity. Perfect answer to the topic right there. Give to Caesar. What does Caesar's give to God? What is Gods and divorce hot button issue? When he was asked about divorce, there were people listening to him who were going to, like, stop following him because he answered the way that they didn't like. And he went ahead and said like, if you, if you do this, other than this reason, nah. And so that would have been us. He did exactly the thing we're not doing. He did exactly the thing we're not doing. 18 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:29.000 And why are we not doing it? 19 00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:36.000 I think we're not doing it because we're afraid that we'll lose them for the gospel because we targeted this issue that wasn't the gospel. 20 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:38.000 But is that a narrow view of the gospel? 21 00:10:38.000 --> 00:11:45.000 Well, it is a narrow view of the gospel because the image of God has a lot to do with the gospel as well, things like that. But I also think this, um, we've underestimated how much these secondary issues are actually our neighbor's primary issues. That's the center of their worldview is this identity issue, this homosexuality issue, this fill in the blanket. And when you would leave that alone, you're leaving the stronghold center of their worldview alone. And that's the thing that's making them resistant to the gospel of Christ. So that if you do win them to the gospel, but you avoid this issue, you may not have won them at all because you bring them to church and you're like, maybe eventually it will trickle out, you know, and they'll deal with their homosexuality or they will deal with their trans identity issues. But then you find they don't. And when it finally gets confronted, they just bail. So when you then take this one on one approach of avoid these secondary issues and you export it to churches widely across the country, we abandon central issues our people are dealing with, and we leave them alone without any guidance from the light of the world on these issues that are destroying their souls. So I'm kind of wanting to focus on those things a lot more. 22 00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:47.000 Uh, can I piggyback on that real quick? 23 00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:48.000 You certainly can. Go right ahead. 24 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:50.000 So there is something that you. 25 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:52.000 I'm filled with grace. So go right ahead. 26 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:55.000 No, um, I won't test it too much. 27 00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:56.000 Okay. 28 00:11:55.000 --> 00:13:41.000 All Right. Um, we've actually seen a phenomenon across this country, and that is political conservatism has led to a spiritual revival because Christians have spoken into the culture with sanity and evidence. And the source people go, okay, this makes a whole lot more sense. And you're a Christian. Interesting. I'm getting good information from you. And we actually saw this in a really beautiful way. There was a woman named Louise Perry. She wrote a book called the Case against the Sexual Revolution. She was a secular feminist. Her book came out in 2023. She said, I am not a Christian, but I've spent a lot of time studying the historical, um, evidence of what sexuality was like before Christianity entered the scene in the first and second centuries of Rome. And then I saw the ethics built up around those Christian ideas. And then I saw the well being of women and children specifically plummet in the wake of the sexual revolution. So she critiqued the sexual revolution not because she found it in the word of God, but she studied it in the world of God. And about three weeks ago, she said, I'm now a Christian. And I'll tell you why. She said, because I, uh, saw that if something was sociologically true, then it must be spiritually true as well. The thing that she could test, the veracity of scripture's claims about male and female, about the guidelines around sex and fidelity within marriage and heterosexuality within marriage, led her to the place where she goes, if this is trustworthy. And Christians got this right, I wonder if they're right about the other things too. 29 00:13:41.000 --> 00:14:06.000 So let me. Can I piggyback on that? Okay, let me ask a question and, uh, throw this out here because Mike was talking about identity and you're talking about the kind of the conservative identity. Do we need to be careful, though, as we engage politically that our identity is not in a political movement, but our identity is in Christ? 30 00:14:06.000 --> 00:15:35.000 Well, I think there's always the risk that we can conflate our identity. Right. And there are a lot of people, I think of it almost as a cottage industry of warnings about this, that a lot of Christians aren't willing to actually talk about how we should engage politically because they're so afraid of the risks. We need to identify the risks. We need to say, yes, we should not be conflating our Christian identity with any kind of political identity. But these are also two different conversations that can be had. And so my concern is sometimes when we're talking about those risks, we never get past the risk. So it's sort of like, I can use an analogy of A kid who is constantly trying to ride a bike. And when they're on that bike, they kind of put their foot into the pedal, and their mom says, oh, be careful. You could fall off this way. And the kid goes, okay. And so they try to get on again, oh, be careful, because of this. And they just keep going and going, but mom never shows them how to ride the bike in the right way. And so, in the same way, I think we do have to be vigilant and make sure that we're not conflating our identities, putting country above our relationship with Jesus, and getting those priorities wrong. But most of the time, in my experience, when people are talking about this, they're not actually going on to saying, but this is how it should look. And so I do have those concerns that sometimes we see these conflations happening. But I also have the concern that too often we're afraid to say, but this is how it should look biblically, but. And not be afraid if we happen to be associated more with one side or another. 31 00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:55.000 So let me ask you a little bit more about that, because you've written about this recently where, because we would advocate for biblical values in this increasingly hostile culture, we kind of shrink back and we hide that fact. We kind of put our light under a bushel. We can't do that and have the influence that Katie was talking about. 32 00:15:55.000 --> 00:16:56.000 Right. And unfortunately, I feel like a lot of that pressure to hide because of that hostility comes from within the church. We've seen a lot of leaders within the church, a lot of pastors who are doing so much of the warning, the cottage industry of warnings that I was talking about, that it makes us shrink back and go, oh, I guess I shouldn't want to impose my values on others, or I guess I shouldn't be seeking the power to do things right. We hear all of these kind of mantras in the church, but when you pull them back, you realize that they're really not logically consistent. They're not biblically consistent. We are called to be salt and light. We are called to follow Jesus commands. He says, if you love me, you will follow my commands. What are his commands? Number one, to love God, and number two, to love others. Love your neighbor. Right? So if we're loving others, part of loving others, part of that job, not all of it, but part of it is caring about their lives in the context of the societies in which they live. That's what we're doing. It's about loving people. 33 00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:57.000 Right. 34 00:16:57.000 --> 00:18:00.000 Can I add just one more thing on this, um. If you're feeling the same way I am, and you're just really tired of people cautionary, muzzling you on every issue that you know is clearly true biblically, then just ignore them and keep moving forward. I'm so not interested. I would rather stumble forward and kind of mess up a little along the way and try to change the world than to just sit back and be like, I hope someone asks me a good question eventually. So on this, um, my encouragement would be, let's go for it. The one test to see, um, I'm not worried about my identity. My identity's in Christ. It's not gonna be caught up in some movement. I know that's not gonna happen. But I'm only worried about one thing. When the people that I would partner with or normally run with or normally be like, hey, we have an overlapping worldview, when they go against my Christian worldview, do I have the guts and the courage, the fortitude to stand up and continue to defend the truth against even this in crowd that we're talking about? That's the test. 35 00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:27.000 As we engage with a increasingly hostile culture, do we have to be careful about taking certain things for granted? That maybe, I mean, uh, we've gotten to a point where we can't even decide what bathroom to use or what gender we are? I mean, there's certain things that there's just. There's not a common element anymore that's. That's bringing people together. I mean, we've got to. It's almost like we got to go back to the basics. 36 00:18:27.000 --> 00:20:39.000 Well, I'm, uh, not the theologian up here, but let me tell you the way that I kind of think about it. You know, in the first couple centuries, the church really had to wrestle through the nature of God. Like, who is God? Is Jesus? Did he come from the Father? Is he part of the Father? Uh, is it. Is it. Is it three gods separately? Or is it one God and three persons? And it took a couple hundred years to get to a consensus on the nature of God. And then we agreed and we moved forward. And then thousand plus years later, there was a big question that arose within the culture and within the church of what is the nature of salvation? How do you get saved? And what is the role of the church in that? And that was a long dog fight, bloody and brutal for a couple hundred years. And then we kind of found our respective camps and moved forward. But today, the question that the culture is asking is not what is the nature of God? Or what is the nature of Salvation. When my kids are in public school in Seattle, no one's saying, tell me about transubstantiation. You know, they are saying, do you go to a church that hates gay people or a church that loves gay people? They're saying, why didn't you post the black square? They're saying, how could you think that women don't have a right to autonomy over their own bodies? Today, the questions that are facing the church have to do with what is the nature of man? What does it mean to be human? Every question that we're facing from the beginning of life, the taking of life in abortion, the making of life in ivf, the taking of life in euthanasia, to the nature of male and female, and therefore what marriage is and how long marriages should stay together and how many people should be in it, and whether or not a man can become a woman. Right. Those are actually all theological questions that the church needs to be answering. So right now, the primary battleground, the question of what is the nature of God? Still matters. The question of what is the nature of salvation? Still matters. But if you want to reach the culture, you got to get very serious about what does it mean to be human, understand what Scripture says about that, and then go forth and take that truth into the culture. So that's why I feel like we need to really sharpen our teeth on those kinds of topics. Um, because that's what's tearing the culture apart and we have the answer to it. 37 00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:41.000 Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Thank you, Katie. 38 00:20:41.000 --> 00:22:16.000 Natasha, I was just going to say I think that that's so, so true. I love everything that you just said. And I think we have to remember going back to what I said earlier and remembering other people's perspectives when we talk about the so called culture war. All the culture war is don't let that language scare you out of standing up for what is right in society. Because all that language means is that there are passionate, disagree the common good. Um, that's what that means. So when we realize this and we start to think about it, we know that we have one side who's saying, I want what's good for society, and we have another side saying, I want what's good for society. Virtually no one is saying, oh, I just want to tear everything down. I mean, when you've got those people. But for the most part, this is a battle in the public square over what is actually good. Everyone thinks they're advocating for what is good. The question is, what is actually good? And as Christians, we have to have clarity about that. We cannot be convinced by the culture that when somebody says something is harmful, that it's actually harmful according to an objective standard, according to God's objective standard. So we have to get really clear on this and understand that they're going to use language. By they, uh, I just mean anyone who has a different worldview, that they're going to use language that's going to make it seem like we are very wrong. But in most of those cases, it's actually that we're advocating for, for God's good and against what is evil according to God's standards, even when people don't agree about that for themselves. And I think that's one of the hardest things that we have to do in the public square. Sometimes we're advocating against what people want for themselves because we know that it's best for them according to God's standards. Right. 39 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:43.000 Uh, individual rights conflicting with the common good defined by God. And that's. Michael, I want to bring you in on this because as Christians, if we're going to have the confidence and the courage to engage, we have to understand who defines what is good. And that means we've got to be in the word of God. And we need to be in churches that are preaching the word of God if we're going to have the confidence to stand in this increasingly hostile culture. 40 00:22:43.000 --> 00:23:08.000 Yes. Amen. You need scripture. You need to be reading the word, studying the word. When there's a topic like gender issues, you need to know what Jesus said about that specifically. Like, you need to know where the verses are. You need to know in Genesis what it specifically says about male, female, um, when it comes to homosexuality, you're going to need to understand why Leviticus actually is still relevant today and how it wasn't about priests and little boys. 41 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:14.000 It's not just doing a word search. No, I mean, you've got to know these passages in the context of the scripture. 42 00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:27.000 Right. Amen. I mean, this is what I've been doing for years, and all my content's free. You guys are welcome to check it out. Just Google my name and whatever horrible issue you're looking into. And I've probably made a video about that and go through all the scriptures. But we need. We need the word of God. 43 00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:31.000 Google my name and somebody's made a video about me. So don't Google me. Google him. 44 00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:58.000 Yeah. So what we need, we need scripture because it grounds us and it gives us our answers so that we're then prepared. And I think as we're moving Forward and with this stuff. And many people are getting more excited, interested in stepping out. Many of you been doing it for years. But as people are doing it, remember that it's okay to step out as a Christian, defending your Christian worldview. Not. I have to provide a sort of non Christian, uh, unoffensive reason for this thing that I hold to as a believer, um, have your grounding there in the word of God. 45 00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:18.000 Yeah. I don't remember if Katie, you or Natasha brought this up. That, you know, somehow we feel like because we hold a biblical worldview, we're advocating for biblical truth, that somehow that's invalidated in the public square. We have to have the confidence to take that worldview into the public square and argue from that perspective. 46 00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:44.000 Yeah. We need to relearn how to be utterly unashamed, utterly unashamed of our Christian grounding and worldview and purposes and reasons, and then explore the border. Some stuff we're not sure about maybe, or we disagree on some areas, but so much of it is very clear. But you have to have that skill. So someone looks at you and like, you're saying that because you're. You're trying to force your values on people. And you could be like, yes, I am. 47 00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:47.000 No, I am. And some of those values is gonna be imposed. 48 00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:56.000 Everyone's trying to force values. I'm trying to force good values that are grounded in truth and God. And you're trying to force values that you see as valuable, you see as good, but they're not grounded in truth and God. 49 00:24:56.000 --> 00:25:03.000 It goes, Natasha, exactly back to what you just said a moment ago. The common good versus individual rights or desires. 50 00:25:03.000 --> 00:26:11.000 Right. And I think we also, uh, in addition to scripture, we need to understand history and government. I mean, these should be basic things, but they've been taken out of schools in a lot of cases. And so a lot of Christians just don't understand. And so when we hear people say, oh, but separation of church and state, we think that that means, oh, well, we shouldn't bring our values to bear in the public square because we're somehow doing something that's unconstitutional. Just to make sure we're all clear, we live in a constitutional republic where everyone has the right to bring their views into the public square and advocate according to those views. This is just the form of government that we live in. This isn't even up for debate. When people talk about separation of the church and state and they think that that means that we shouldn't. They don't understand the nature of our government. Every Single policy in some way is an imposing one view on another view. Every single one is doing that. It doesn't matter how it's motivated. I mean, just imagine if we were trying to figure out what motivates every person's view before they vote. We'd be psychologically profiling people all day. Right? So it's ridiculous to think, oh, you shouldn't have voted that way, because that came from a religious perspective. 51 00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:12.000 Right? 52 00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:15.000 We don't do that. Every single person has the right to advocate. 53 00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:50.000 Explain for just a moment, define, I should say the common good. Because when we are advocating for the common m. Good, it may be against some individual's holdings, their ability to, you know, define themselves, you know, however they want. But we are advocating for a position that benefits all of society. And Scripture makes very clear, and history makes very clear that a Christian worldview has done more for society and the freedom and the prosperity of people around the globe, where it has been, uh, uh, adopted and welcomed. 54 00:26:50.000 --> 00:27:04.000 Right? So anyone has the right to advocate for their view of the common good. So like you're saying, people are going to advocate for something that's not actually good according to God's standards, but that comes back to our responsibility to advocate for what is truly good in society. 55 00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:06.000 And having the confidence to do that. 56 00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:45.000 And having the confidence to do that because we know Scripture. Right. And being able to say, it's okay that I'm advocating according to what is actually good and true. If we look at Romans 13, we learn the purpose for government pretty clearly there, that the government is put in place by God to promote the good and restrain the evil. Well, ask yourself, how are we going to do that? Are we going to just step out of the public square so that we can let everyone else determine what's good and evil? That's not going to be God's definition of good and evil. Right. Christians are the one who should understand the actual definitions of good and evil. So how can we have a government functioning according to what God wants unless we're actually actively working toward that? 57 00:27:45.000 --> 00:28:33.000 All right, I want to throw a final question up here to get everybody's kind of input on this. We've seen this over the last couple of years where there's been a stirring among younger people. Uh, we've seen actually a, uh, couple years ago, even over in England, young men going back to church. And then, of course, with the assassination of Charlie Kirk, we've seen a strong move of people looking for answers going back to church. But what are they going back to in Some of these churches. And what do we need to be, number one, praying for? This is pray, vote, stand. What do we need to pray for? And how do we need to be directing these young people? And how do we. How do we fan the flames of what I think may be occurring? I throw it out there. 58 00:28:33.000 --> 00:30:38.000 Well, I will say that if you're looking at the trends, what you have among Gen Z is a huge swing towards traditionalism among the boys. Right? They are absolutely flocking to churches. I think for the first time ever since we started measuring this, more young boys want to get married and have children than young girls do, which is crazy, and it's awesome. Except part of the problem is that young girls don't want to get married and they don't want to have children because they are much more susceptible to the social contagion of progressivism that they're finding online and in schools. So there's really some hopeful things going on. But I'll tell you why we have seen this shift in young men, and it's not because the pastors were vocal in discipling their people on cultural issues. It's because YouTube was. And there happens to be some pretty fantastic influencers like Jordan Peterson and Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro and Michael Knowles. Um, there's so many good men that are speaking truth in a way that young men receive it, and it has shaped them and it has changed them. So that's good. But they should be hearing that from their fathers and their pastors. That's better, right? Because Charlie Kirk didn't know their name and Ben Shapiro doesn't know what's going on at their school. They need somebody to process with them in real life. And their pastor is supposed to be that guy. And if they have a father in the home, he is really supposed to be that guy. They should be the source of truth. They should be the ones that are watching their life and their doctrine so closely so that it's shaping not just their boys, but their girls as well. So I think that we can look at this stark, shocking, wonderful shift among Gen Z men and say it's time for the church and the home to retake that mantle of raising up the next generation. So we're not outsourcing it to YouTube influencers. 59 00:30:38.000 --> 00:32:20.000 I think that, uh, even back in my generation, there's a whole generation of guys and still the case, who don't know how to answer the question, forget, what is a woman? What is a man? Don't, um, know. They don't know what that means. They don't know what it means to lead their families. They don't understand what their goal is. They have been taught and trained in their culture that their role, their biblical role of headship is offensive. Um, and those guys are hungry. They're hungry. They want to be motivated. They want to be encouraged. They want to be strengthened. And I think in the churches, what we have, uh, you know, we were looking for a new church a few years ago, me and my wife, and we went to churches all over Southern California, where we live. And it was kind of sad. I had more optimism than what I actually saw when it comes from the teaching in the pulpit. And I think a lot of pastors, as many as there's, I love churches. I'm for churches, I'm for pastors. Even if this describes you, pastor, don't be discouraged. Just get up and do something about it. But what I want to say is I was discouraged because the level of actual teaching was low. Um, the experience they were trying to create on Sunday, I would say that was primarily a Sunday experience, but not necessarily to teach, educate, motivate, equip, and then disciple their people from what they were doing from the pulpit. Um, and also in churches, we have a pew mentality. With churches. There's very. A lot of. There's very few people serving and doing things, and then there's a lot of people looking at them going, why aren't you doing more? So normal people in the pews. You need to start discipling the young men and the young women, and you need to start ministries in your own fellowship and do the stuff that you wish your pastor would do. And then, uh, over the next 10 years, you'll show him how great it is and how important it is, and then he'll start doing it from the pulpit, too. 60 00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:57.000 Yeah. We just conducted a, uh, survey at the Family Research Council, uh, on churches and. And, uh, kind of the disconnect between what some evangelicals believe and what the Bible actually teaches. But probably the most encouraging thing in that survey was that people do want to know. They want to be taught, they want to be led. And, uh, Natasha, Katie mentioned a father in the home. You've written a number of books on parents, how to teach your children. I mean, we got to start somewhere. If you've got children at home, you've got grandchildren, you can start right there. 61 00:32:57.000 --> 00:35:04.000 Absolutely. If every Christian family would take that seriously, the discipleship of their kids, and believe that we are the primary disciples of our kids as, uh, the parents, imagine how different the church would look. Imagine how different our society would look. It has to start there. And I would say it goes beyond just taking your kids to church every week, because I think sometimes parents have that idea that, well, I'm discipling my kids because I'm taking the church every week. Church is incredibly important, don't get me wrong. But there's so much more than that that we need to be raising kids with an understanding of. And I do whole talks on this. I go through these four points. I'm going to breeze past them. But basically, they need to understand four things to have a confident faith today. Number one, what the Bible teaches deeply. Not just stories 101, but the accounts in the Bible and how they all fit together. The big picture of Scripture. They need to understand that out at a much deeper level than what most kids. Kids are understanding today. Number two, why believe it? So it's not just, here's what the Bible teaches, but why should you actually believe this? So this is the part of apologetics, making a case for something. Number three, what others believe. So important. So important. I hear too many parents who will say, well, I don't want to spend any time teaching my kids about things that aren't true. I'm going to just stick with the truth. It's too confusing today out there, people, including adults, are getting confused. You don't think kids are going to get confused? When adults are saying, follow your heart is a good message, do you think kids are going to understand the difference? Of course not. And so they have to understand this worldview of this culture that surrounds us. And then finally, how to answer challenges. They have to be prepared to actually hear the kinds of challenges that they're going to encounter today and know how to respond. So those four things, what the Bible teaches, why believe it, what others believe, and answering challenges, those are the kinds of things that we really need to be working on with kids today and help them understand not when they're like 17. Like, sometimes I think parents have this idea that it's like, okay, when my kids are 17, we're gonna sit down at the dinner table, we're gonna have a very important conversation about why you should be a Christian, right? All these things can start when kids are very little. I mean, just as soon as they can learn about Jesus, they can start learning about all of these different topics. 62 00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:36.000 And relieve parents and grandparents of the fear that they have to be perfect when they do this. It's okay to get it wrong, but just go on. We're on a journey and Just start where you are with what you have. All right, we just have, uh, a little bit over a minute left. We're going to do a lightning round here as a final question. 30 seconds. We're in a moment, and I believe it's a moment of opportunity. Mike, how do we make the most of this? 63 00:35:36.000 --> 00:36:06.000 Mobilize? We need to get more active. We need to understand where our grounding is and exactly what our values are. And I think we need to do more mobilizing as far as amongst churches. And I mean, this is why I'm here today. You know, I've never deal with stuff like this, but I'm going to in the future. I think we need to mobilize, um, the more that we can. What Charlie Kirk did was he caused everyone to go. That actually brought people to Jesus and that got everyone's attention, and I think we can see a lot more of that. So we just need a lot more of that. 64 00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:48.000 Natasha, read the Bible. Um, the statistics show that 65% of Americans say that they're Christians, but 4% have a biblical worldview. According to Arizona Christian University's Cultural Research Center. There's a huge gap if the church doesn't have a biblical worldview. If we have this giant gap between people who identify as Christians and those who actually believe the things that will be consistent with that label that we give ourselves, this would be a completely different situation that we're in. So I think if everyone read the Bible, understood the Bible, and then applied what the Bible teaches, we would go a long way with that. We need to get back to reading Scripture. And all the research shows that we're not consistently and deeply reading Scripture. 65 00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:50.000 I would say amen to that, Katie. 66 00:36:50.000 --> 00:37:43.000 Um, I would say that we need to understand that justice is a mandate for believers, that we have a mandate especially to protect the weak. And the weakest are always children. It is your job. It is my job to protect the children. And, uh, every issue that you're going to hear about today and tonight and tomorrow at this conference ultimately comes down to are we going to protect children or are we going to victimize them? Every issue comes down to that. And we, as Christians, we have a. We need to step into the great cloud of witnesses of Christians that have gone before us in every country that they've gone in, every century that they have existed, they have done two things. They have pissed off adults and protected kids. That is, uh, one manifestation of our pure and undefiled religion before God. And we need to take it back and stop letting people tell us that that's politics. That's not politics. That's Christianity as it was meant to be. 67 00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:51.000 Yes. Can we thank our panel? Excellent panel.