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I Don't Have Enough FAITH to Be an ATHEIST
How Can Biblical Leadership Save America? with Pastor Robert Furrow
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- [00:03]
A
Ladies and gentlemen, are we experiencing a revival here in the United States of America? Maybe around the world there seems to be a renewed interest in Christianity. We're seeing it on college campuses, we're seeing it in churches. And ever since Charlie Kirk's murder, people have been contacting me and contacting TP USA and even contacting churches in their area saying, hey, what can I do? What, what can I do? Now I feel led to be a little bit more bold in my Christian witness. So how can I do that? What should I do? Give me some advice. I want to get involved. I've had so many emails. People want to get involved with Cross exam and people want to get involved with tpusa. People just wanting to do something. So how can we guide people at this time? Well, Pastor Robert Furrow has been a pastor. This month. He hit 40 years at Calvary Chapel, Tucson. He's been a friend of mine for quite a long time and he's seeing this on the ground. He's going to share some of his wisdom on this. And so it's great having Robert with us. Pastor Robert, thanks for joining us here on I don't have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. How are things in Tucson?
- [01:20]
B
Very good. Yeah, it's really good to be on the show and good to be on with you. I watch videos all the time and we've been friends now for 15, 20 years. Yeah, it's been a while. You should have been involved in the church for that long. I think 20, 20 might have been when we met during COVID Yeah, I've.
- [01:40]
A
Known about you before then and I think you may have seen some of my stuff. But even before COVID I had come out there to Calvary Chapel, Tucson. There are two campuses. You might have had three at the time, I can't remember. But you guys, you have been there for 40 years and we were just talking offline. We're going to share what we were talking about offline here in just a minute. But you're seeing things that you haven't seen in 40 years in your church. But before we get there, I got to ask you this. Just this past Tuesday night, you were invited to not a Christian group, but it was a TPUSA action group. The TPUSA Action is the political arm of tpusa. Probably people are thinking, oh, isn't TPUSA all about politics? The regular TPUSA is not. But TPUSA Action is a political organization that's that actually endorses certain candidates and even puts money behind certain candidates. Robert, you were invited to go to this in Pima county, which is where Tucson is. And why were you invited as a pastor, what happened?
- [02:46]
B
Well, I mean, for the first time in 40 years, I was invited to an event that is not a Christian event. This was a political rally. And I was invited to go, as you said, Turning Point Action. And I asked if I could share Christ. I just said, am I doing restrictions? And they said no, and I'll go really anywhere I could go to share Christ and not have any restrictions put on it. And it was a full on rally. They had coalitions. The Latino Coalition was there for Turning Point Action. The Teachers coalition was there. The Mom's Coalition was there. They had Don Fry, who was an old UFC fighter who spoke as well. And I got to speak for about 15 minutes and share the gospel.
- [03:30]
A
And you asked people in the audience how many were Christians? I mean, you caveated that. Tell us what happened there.
- [03:37]
B
Yeah, so as I got to near the end of my, my, I guess it was a study, was a little study I did on the, the two trees and which one was the tree of good and evil, the knowledge of good and evil. The other one is the cross. And at the end of it I said, just listen, call to action. How many of you guys are Christians? How many of you guys are not nominal Christians, but you're really serious about following Christ? And it seemed to me like almost everyone raised their hands, maybe like 80% raise their hands. And then I, I said, listen, if you're not a Christian and you want to become one, the thief on the cross said, remember me when you enter into your kingdom. And Jesus said, today you'll be with me in paradise. So how many of you want Jesus to remember you? How many of you just raise your hand? And hands went up again throughout the whole crowd. And it wasn't an altar call. So we didn't have a follow up for those people, which I really wish we would have done. But it was exciting to see them at least respond. God's doing a work and we know that we plant and we water and God adds the increase. So God's doing something in their hearts and in their lives. And so many people I talked to said they're coming to the church, they're going to come by and see the church. So many people that don't go to church were talking to me about coming to church.
- [04:48]
A
Well, one thing that people, yeah, I think people misunderstood. Up until Charlie, a lot of people thought that politics would turn people off to the gospel. But what we're finding is that politics, for at least many, not all, is an on ramp to Christianity. That conservative people generally and even moderate people, if they're not involved in a church and they're not Christians. As Rob McCoy said at Charlie's memorial service, once you taste the waters of justice, you want to trace those waters back to its source. What is the source of justice? What is the source of rights? What is the source of the universe and life? People who are conservative and are not Christians often now are being led to Christianity because prominent Christians like Charlie Kirk and others are speaking out, and it's attractive to them. Have you found a resurgence? I think, in fact, Robert, you and I and Charlie were at your church in September of 2024. We did an event there. It was a fundraiser for a pro life organization in Tucson.
- [05:59]
B
Yep.
- [05:59]
A
But of course, we talked about the Election Center. Yeah. Which one is it again?
- [06:04]
B
Hands of Hope Crisis Pregnancy Center.
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A
Hands of Hope Crisis Pregnancy Center.
- [06:08]
B
Jody goes to our church. She does a great job in running it. And they. They save babies. They. They minister to women who are. That are in crisis. Pregnancies, families, young, young families, single women. They. They give them diapers and anything that they need, they help them financially. And the ultrasound is what saves babies. Getting those women in to see the ultrasound is what causes them. Because when they go, they're 50ft from a place that has abortions. And so sometimes women come in by accident or they'll come over afterwards. And when they do and they show them their ultrasound, they say, the ultrasound I got over there was like a blob compared to the baby that they see in their. In their womb when they. When they're there. And once they see that, I forget what the number is. 60%, something like that. We'll have the baby after that. So getting them the ultrasound is key.
- [07:04]
A
Well, we did this meeting together back in September of 2024, and I remember you saying something to Charlie at that point that you're seeing. This was over just over a year ago that you were seeing a lot of young men coming back to church.
- [07:19]
B
Yeah.
- [07:19]
A
And do you remember we had one lady there that got in the Q A line and she was very liberal early on, and she went to a TP USA event and she became a Christian. And she said, I found my husband at America Fest. Do you remember that? Yeah, that lady.
- [07:37]
B
Do you remember that?
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A
Charlie. I was like, charlie, the Max. The matchmaker here.
- [07:41]
B
Yeah, the matchmaker.
- [07:42]
A
That's right. It was an on ramp to Christianity. But you were saying at that event. You've seen an influx of young men. What has happened since Charlie was. Was murdered? Has there been any change in. In what's been going on at your church?
- [07:56]
B
Yeah, I'm. So it happened on a Wednesday, so we have church on Wednesday night. So I was watching, you know, after Charlie got shot and just watched the whole thing unfold and decided then to do a tribute that night to Charlie Kirk. So I did a tribute where I kind of researched his main topics that he talked about, and I did something up front just for him. And then I talked about the five areas that he talks about, like marriage and family and abortion in these different areas that he talked about regularly. And then I had Charlie Kirk quotes at the end of each one of them. And our church has. We have about 1800 seats in it. We can hold 2400, but we only have about 1800 in. Generally, if we have a special event, we can. That night when you were There, we had 2400 seats in, and it was full that night. Wednesday night, I mean, people were just looking for something. They were struck, they were grieving, and they were just looking for something. And it was a powerful night. Then the weekend after that, I spent 20 minutes before the service. I had become. I'd become angry like a lot of other people, seeing people celebrate Charlie's death. And I literally went from the pulpit for the first time, said, stop watching msnbc, stop watching cnn. They're lying to you. A bunch of liars. And got an applause. Not because I was looking for it, but just because people were feeling the same thing. They were feeling the same way. Just absolutely disgusted that that would happen and that anyone would do that. And we've seen an uptick in attendance, We've seen an uptick in baptisms. We generally do about. We've been doing this for a long time. So we generally do about 30 baptisms a month. And this month so far, we've done 160. Now, we had a men's conference and 100 men got baptized after the men's conference, but we had 60 others. We got another baptism coming up at the end of this month.
- [09:51]
A
Much more with Pastor Robert Furrow. What can you do now to get. Get involved and move the cause of Christ forward? Don't go anywhere. We're back right after the break. What can you do now to be more effective for Jesus? When hearts are tender, when people are open? In the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder, we're talking to my friend, Pastor Robert Furrow, the leader, the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel, Tucson. And he's been there this month is 40 years. You, you don't look 65, brother, but you look, you look like you're 64, like I am.
- [10:32]
B
Thank you. Appreciate that.
- [10:35]
A
No, but you've been, you've been ministering there for so long. And something did change on September 10th in terms of hearts being open and you getting invited to non Christian events and people generally being interested. You said you had how many baptisms in the last month? 160, which is up from how many we've had 160.
- [10:57]
B
So I believe we had 100 after our men's conference. So we had six or seven men at the men's conference, and then we had another 60 that got baptized the following week. The month before we baptized 53. That would have been September. And then before that we averaged about 30. We averaged about 30amonth. So we're seeing significant people being baptized, coming to Christ. We're seeing a good number of people receiving Christ. We give, you know, altar call after every service, an opportunity, you know, call to action, people you want to give your life to Christ and send them over to our new believers table. And we, you know, have seen that uptick on that. People coming and excited, ready to get involved and really looking for opportunities.
- [11:39]
A
Now, how do you direct them, Robert? How do you direct people who just kind of have this raw sense that they want to do something? Now, I know you've got probably programs to try and disciple people and that kind of thing, and you have a podcast and. But what do you do? How do you, how do you channel people into a, into a, a volunteer position somewhere? They, some way they can serve? Well, how do you do that in a, in a church?
- [12:07]
B
Yeah, I mean, there's a few ways that we, that we do that. We really believe, like I said earlier, that we know one plants, another waters, and God adds the increase. So just encouraging people to go out and speak for Christ and plant seeds. I think Greg Koukl says put a rock in their shoe. So just go out and do, you know, do what you can do as our, as our church goes, people getting involved there. We have servant teams and we have servant team classes that people can go to. So we send them to our servant team classes. There's two of them a month. And they learn about our ministries, where they can get involved, what their gifting is. We talk about the gifts that they have, where they want to be involved at what we have available at the church. And so, you know, we've got like 50 different servant teams for the, you know, 50 different ministries that we have around the church. And those classes that we have, which are after our last service at whatever campus we're at, is. Are there's more people going to them. More people are just interested in. In what the church is doing and where they can be, what servant team they can join and be a part of. And it's exciting. And I wanted to tell you, too, that one of the things that I saw is I go. We have a high school. We have a school all the way from, you know, elementary to high school. And I go in every twice a year to talk to the. To the high schoolers. And I went in on this last week. I went in to talk to them. And. And usually, you know, with high schoolers, you got to go in and you got to do a little bit of an icebreaker. You got to get their attention. You got to get them laughing. You got to get them doing something. Otherwise, they are just going to stare at you the whole time. So this time, I just went in and just started talking about living right, doing the right thing, being bold for Jesus, kind of taking a little bit of Charlie's message to these young men that were there and calling them men and women and about doing the right thing and living the right way. And, you know, kind of like Charlie's message to young men was to be a man, provide for your family, protect your family, and that's what young men want to hear, right? And so as I started sharing that, the interest that I got from both the guys and the gals who were there was incredible and being able to share with them. And then the Q and A was much more substantive. They asked questions that were strong and powerful questions. I was asked the question whether or not you should use pronouns right off the bat. That's the first one that I got, because these kids are dealing with it. They have transgender people that they're, you know, their friends and that know them. And so I asked the question, what's going to help your friend? A truth or a lie? And they all said, truth. And I said, well, then you got to tell the truth. And, you know, if you. If you get canceled by them, then at least you got canceled because you were sticking up for the truth. And I think that's where we need to be. And they were excited about it. So just seeing that among the high schoolers was exciting, too. And I talked to them a little bit about Charlie and what had happened to him and the effect that's happening after him Being a martyr.
- [15:09]
A
You know, I remember this is years ago, probably 30 years ago, I was at this Rotary Club meeting, and this inner city pastor came in and he said, a lot of you think that kids don't want a track to run on, that they want all the rules thrown off them. He said, that's not the case. I have kids that I try and minister to who don't have a father at home. And he said, what they wind up doing is they wind up joining a gang, and the gang tells them what they're going to wear, what they're going to do, what their objectives are. In other words, the gang gives them rules to live by, gives them a track to run on. And one of the reasons Charlie was so effective in doing what he did, and still is effective, because he lives on through all these videos, is that he was giving young people a track to run on. He was saying, here's the right way to live. And he would demonstrate the beauty of the family, the beauty of marriage, the beauty of being a follower of Jesus and how your life made sense and had a purpose to it. Kids want that. They don't want fog machines and skinny jeans. You'd think they want that, but they don't. They want direction. They. They will follow a leader who actually demonstrates and lives what he says, or what she says is the right thing to do. So that's one of the appeals of Charlie. He was a leader that was pulling people in the right direction or pushing people in the right direction. And I know you've just written a book, and I was privileged to be a part of it. It's on leadership that I wanted to let people know about. It's called the Making of a Biblical Leader, A Practical Guide to Leading Others. Well, and Robert, my guest today is the general editor. This just came out, I think, last month. I have a chapter in it. You're in it. Skip Heitzik is in it. There are several. You have Irwin Lutzer. Yeah, and. And so is Lenya Heitzik. You've got Sean McDowell, David Guzik. You've got Ed Taylor. You've got Gary Hamrick. I love Gary Hamrick, another great Calvary Chapel pastor. Let's talk about leadership, because a lot of people right now, Robert, are wanting leadership, and they want to lead others to Jesus. So let's. Let's just start from, you know, 10,000ft. What is biblical leadership? What should. What should we be doing as. As Bible believers in leading other people?
- [17:43]
B
Well, I think the best way to explain that is that it is different than the world. So biblical leadership. And we want to see everything through the lens of scripture. We don't want to go to the scripture to find out, to back up what we already believe. We want to go to the scriptures to find out what we're supposed to believe. And biblical leadership. Jesus said to James and John that the world rules over people and that. That you're not going to do this. That we are the opposite of what the world does, which ultimately ends up being a servant. We're ultimately a servant in our leadership. Servant leadership, of course, is the style that Jesus gave us and that we want to lead in that way. But there were so many different things that Jesus talked about and looked at with leadership. And in this book, there's leading in difficulties, which is probably for any pastor out there. Difficulties are what you deal with. You deal with difficulties constantly. I like to say the pastor is like a fireman. He's got to put fires out constantly. And you always think, if I can get past these fires, then I can have some time. But you never get past the fires. There's always fires. There's always something to do. There's always something around the corner. So difficulties. There's a chapter on suffering which is really good by Ed. Taylor lost his. Lost his son and talks about leading in the suffering. And so there's just a lot of really good things in. In the book about the different aspects of how we. Of how we lead.
- [19:16]
A
Yeah, I. I was struck by what you write about. And you wrote a couple chapters in this book, something called the inversion principle that Jesus taught. Can you unpack that for us?
- [19:28]
B
Yeah. And I think, you know, it's like this is throughout all Christianity. So the first is last and the last is first you want to be great in the kingdom of God, then you want to be a servant. And that's the one that ties in right away to leadership. So Jesus never. The disciples. Right. Were they argued about who's going to be the greatest? Several times in the Gospels and in the Last Supper, they're arguing over it when Jesus gets up and washes their feet. And I don't know whether that was at that exact time. You can't tell. I like to think it was. They're arguing about who's going to be the greatest, and Jesus starts washing their feet. That's what I like to think happen. But it is that inversion principle that if you want to be great in the world, then you learn how to be a good leader and you rule over people. You tell people what to do, and, you know, you lead the way. If you want to be a great leader in the kingdom of God, then you've got to learn to be a servant. And I love that Jesus didn't, he didn't, he didn't chide them from wanting to be great. He simply said, if you want to be great, then you've got to be a servant to everyone. So he encouraged them on how you could find greatness. We want our lives to matter. We want our lives to mean something. We want to, we want to stand for him. We want to make friends for the kingdom of heaven. We want to do things for God, and that's not a bad thing to do. The way we do it, though, is so different than the world. By becoming a servant and, and learning to serve the people that, that we're leading.
- [20:48]
A
And you say, you say that you can even do this in an organization that's not a Christian organization?
- [20:54]
B
Yes.
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A
What do you mean by that? How can we apply biblical principles if we're not working in a church or a parachurch ministry? You know, we're out there in corporate America. How do we do this?
- [21:04]
B
Robert yeah. First of all, the first definition of a leader is one who goes first. If you were walking down the hallway and only one person could go, and you take the lead, you took the lead, and so you're leading. And so if you are hired in a corporation so you have no seniority, you're just hired, and you're hired as the lowest person in the corporation, you can still have leadership because you can live your life in such a way that people will see what you're doing. You can lead in integrity, you can lead in, in different ways in which people will see the positive aspect of your stewardship. And as a Christian, those are things that you want to do. And it's going to reflect on how you're able to share the gospel later on. So not only are you, will you become a good leader in an organization like, just take the principle of serving. If you learn to serve the people, what you're doing is. John Maxwell talks about this a lot in leadership, what you're doing is adding value. So what you want to ask when you're a leader is how can I add value? When you're, when you're getting up and sharing a teaching, the desire that you have when you start giving teaching is just knock it out of the park to get up and have everybody say, man, that was great. That was so good. But after a while, you realize what it really need to do is equip and give them value so that the time that they spent there. I was sent out by Skip Heitzik, which you know from Calvary, Albuquerque.
- [22:32]
A
Yeah.
- [22:33]
B
Grew up in Albuquerque. And Skip said to me when I was 25 years old and, and just starting out, hold the thought, hold the thought.
- [22:40]
A
We're gonna come back. We're coming up to the break. Skip, Skip told you something. The great Skip Heitzik of Calvary Chapel, Albuquerque really commissioned Robert Farrow of Calvary Chapel, Tucson. And what did he say when he sent him off to Tucson? We're going to talk about it right after the break. And what can you do? How can you lead people to Jesus? We'll talk more about it. Don't go anywhere. Back soon. Students across America are more open to the truth of Christianity than ever before. And Dr. Frank Turek is taking the powerful evidence for God to campuses like UC Berkeley, the University of Georgia, Ohio State and Alabama, reaching thousands in person and millions more online. But every event now requires costly security to keep students safe. And Cross Examine never charges students to attend. That's why we urgently need your support. The culture is dark, but hearts are open. Help keep the light of truth shining by donating today@crossexamine.org that's cross examine with a D on the end.org welcome back to I Don't have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. With me, Frank Turek on the American Family Radio Network and several other stations around the country. Today we're talking about leadership and what can you do now that hearts are tender following Charlie's murder? What can you do to lead people to Jesus? We're talking to Pastor Robert Farrow who's been been the pastor at Calvary chapel Tucson for 40 years even though he looks like a kid. I'm going to go back to Robert in just a second. I got to tell you that the the college tour rolls on. We were just at University of Georgia this week. We're also this Saturday going to be at Unshaken in San Clemente. Unshaken, the conference Me, Elisa Childers, Natasha Crane. That's October 25th. Then the Bible you never knew will be live streamed. That's the the new series we're running. It'll be live streamed. It'll be at a church just north of Charlotte, North Carolina this Monday, October 27th. You can join us live at Freedom House Church in Cornelius or you can watch it live streamed at 7:30 Eastern Time. It won't be on YouTube very long. So if you want to see It. Check it out live. Then Ohio State, November 3rd. We're going to be talking about if God, why evil? We're going to do mostly Q and A. We're going to be talking about why did God allow Charlie to be killed? And other questions you might have about if God, why evil? Then we have unshaken Frisco, Texas. That's November 8th at Stonebriar Community Church. And I'll be speaking at the morning services at Stonebriar on November 9th. Then, Lord willing, UC Berkeley, November 10th. I was going to be there with Charlie, but he's going to remain in glory. I'll be there with Rob Schneider, the comedian and actor and author, UC Berkeley, November 10th. Details on the website University of Alabama, November 13th for if God, why Evil? And then we just added Boise State happens to be my birthday, November 20th. And I'll be speaking at Restored Community church in Boise, November 21. This is all Lord willing, by the way, James says, don't say you're going to go do something you don't know. Your, your life may be demanded of you tomorrow. Okay. But this is what's on the calendar. Thank you for your prayers. We're going to need your help. Every time we go to a college campus now, our costs have tripled due to the violence on campus. And so now we need to have private security. We've gone from about a $5,000 cost to go to these places with airfare and hotels and pay the videographer and all that, to now about $15,000 per campus. This is completely funded by you, the donor. So if you want to help us out, go to cross examine.org click on donate. 100% of your donations go to ministry. 0% to buildings were completely virtual. So we really appreciate now that our costs have tripled. We really need your help and we need your help now because hearts are tender, hearts are open. So we're not pulling back on these college camp events. We're adding college campus events. So check all that out. We do have a new donor video that you can see on our website that explains what we're doing. If you go there to our website, the donate page, or you go to the YouTube channel, you'll see it there. Let me go back to my guest, Robert Furrow, pastor of Calvary Chapel in Tucson for 40 years. And it was, it was Skip Heitzik who had started, had he started at Calvary Chapel, Albuquerque. And you were his youth guy. Is that how it started?
- [27:12]
B
Youth pastor? I was, in fact, I just, I just spoke there a month ago. And Skip did a video introduction. And Skip said that I was his first hire. And then he said, except he worked for free. So I didn't really hire him. Had I known I could have gotten paid, maybe I would have, would have gotten paid for doing it. But no, I was there for a few pastors, the first one that ever went on staff in Calvary of Albuquerque. And they do such a great work. Skip, such a great guy. And he is, to me, my pastor because I, I grew up in Albuquerque and I went to the church before I was a youth pastor there and then became the youth pastor there at the church. And Skip was so encouraging. He saw in me a gift of teaching and encouraged me to go out, which is something we need to do to young people, is to see what's going on in their lives and to encourage them and have somebody that encouraged me to go out and start something. And Tucson didn't have a Calvary chapel. And Calvary's are distinct. If you guys aren't familiar with them, we teach through the Bible. We teach line by line, verse by verse through books of the Bible. There was nothing like that here. And on the radio. Raul Reese was on the radio, Skip was on the radio, Chuck Smith was on the radio. So people were familiar with garbage apples. So when we came at our first service, we had like six people show up at our first service. And then it just slowly grew from there. But one of the things that Skip said to me, going back to our deal of leadership and adding value to people, Skip said, if you have a hundred people and you're teaching them and you just tell jokes or, you know, kind of wander around, you don't put content in that's good and helpful, then you're wasting a hundred hours of time. In your one hour that you wasted that you had them before you, you've wasted a hundred hours of time. And so that was just a really good way for me to look at it and to know the responsibility that you have when you speak to hundreds of people, that there's a lot of time that is, is, is happening there. Another thing that Skip said was never go into the pulpit unless you're right with God. Always make sure that if you, if you've blown it, if you've sinned, that you stop, you make things right with him and you go into the pulpit with things right. And that's good advice. Both of those are great advice and, and I think it's been helpful over time. But that's in leadership. We want to add value we want to add value, to help people to do their job, to do the work that they're doing. And that's what real leadership is about. Yeah, this is what's adding value.
- [29:36]
A
Well, I think many Christians don't get. And it might just be the error we're in. According to Paul In Ephesians 4, the purpose of the church, in addition to obviously worshiping God, worshiping Jesus, is to equip the saints to do ministry. It's not. The primary purpose of the church is not evangelism. Right. I mean, we love it when people come to faith, but it's really to make disciples of the people in the pews so they can go out and do the evangelism and do the ministry. So, yeah, we'll have altar calls, but if we're orienting everything to just getting people fire insurance, it doesn't make disciples, as even Bill Hybel said, who was the, you know, kind of the founder of the seeker service movement. And I, I, I, I think that's missed so much in today's society. And, and what I love about Calvary chapels is Calvary chapels are equipping people to be disciples because you're going through the Scriptures line by line. You're not skipping anything.
- [30:36]
B
That's right.
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A
You're dealing with the hardest issue. What are you preaching on right now, Robert?
- [30:40]
B
So I'm doing, I'm doing. It's great. Romans 14 tonight, so I'll cover all of Romans 14. So it's going to be doubtful things. How we, how we don't let doubtful things get in the way, huh?
- [30:51]
A
And don't major in the minors. As Paul said, there are things they can agree to disagree over.
- [30:55]
B
So in the book, how Many Christians disagree? That's the name of the study.
- [30:58]
A
That's right. The Making of a Biblical Leader. Robert Farrow, My guest today is the, is the editor of this. There are several authors in here. I'm one of them. I have one of the chapters. Robert has a couple skip heights on.
- [31:09]
B
Bringing people to Christ. By the way, leading people to Christ is the chapter.
- [31:12]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mine is really about how to, how to lead people to Christ through apologetics. That's what, that's what my passage is or my chapter is. Robert, in the book, you talk about, and other authors talk about the difference between good and bad leaders. Can you give us some examples of what a good and a bad leader are? Just to help us visualize when we talk about leadership, let's put some real characteristics on it.
- [31:38]
B
Yeah. And I think I Mean, we can have bad leaders. We could be bad leaders and not really know what's making you a bad leader or the bad leaders that you've had. And I'm sure I'm not unique in that. I worked for two or three guys that were just really bad leaders in one. One particular, I had. I started a business when I was 17 years old, and I had. Did upholstery businesses. I'm actually. I went to a technical school, TVI in Albuquerque, for auto mechanics. I'm actually a certified auto mechanic. I like to tell people you're learning the bible from a certified auto mechanic. That was my. That was my schooling. And I was starting an upholstery department for a company. I won't give the name of the company, but for a company that put in cruise controls and radios and side molding, if you remember what those things were.
- [32:26]
A
Sure.
- [32:26]
B
We drilled into the side of cars with side molding on pinstriping, and I was doing that part but department for him. And he was worried that I was going to start the upholstery department and leave. So I committed to a year and a half. I said, I'll be here for a year and a half for you. Worst decision I ever made. Because he was. He was insecure. He was a screamer. He was. I remember I was putting pinstriping on a car before I started the upholstery department, where we're building it out. I'm learning how to put in cruise controls and radios and all those things. I'm putting pinstriping on a car. And he comes over and looks over my shoulder. Well, now, getting it straight is difficult because you got a guy who, you know can go off behind you, so you're trying to put it on straight, and I don't. He rips it off. And it's just pennies, right? I mean, it's, you know, 23 cents for the. It's vinyl pinstriping you put on the car. And so I'm doing that, and he rips it off and he starts screaming. Everybody starts looking down throughout the shop because they know they don't want to become part of this guy's wrath. And, you know, we've all worked for someone like that. And a lot of times it is. It is insecurity that makes that happen. They don't feel confident what they're doing. So that insecurity just causes you to be a bad leader. And it's good to know that, hey, look, we're following Jesus as he leads us. A lot of times we don't know where we're going, which is one of the chapters in the book how to lead when you don't know where you're going. And we're all insufficient for the call of Christ. We all need to be empowered by him and the work of his spirit in our lives. And so we just need to be confident in what God's given us to do and not try to be other people and be ourselves and in. In our leadership.
- [34:03]
A
Yeah, we need everybody. As Paul talks about that, the hand can't say to the foot, I have no need of you. There are different gifts. Not everyone's going to be great at everything. People are going to have to contribute what God has gifted them toward the overall cause of Christ. So just because you look at somebody, whether it's your pastor or somebody else in church, well, I couldn't do that. Okay, maybe you can't, but somebody else can't do what you do. So what gift do you have to bring people to faith? So you've seen these insecure leaders. They're screamers. I was always told, you know, I went, I came up through the navy. So you always disciplined in private and you. You praised in public. There may be some exceptions to that. On occasion, sometimes someone needs to be made an example of because they've done it so many times. But generally that's what you do to advance people. What are some of the characteristics then of a good leader that would contrast with somebody who, like, you ran into, was a screamer and somebody who was insecure and somebody who demonstrated that they did not serve you, they. They wanted you to serve them.
- [35:01]
B
Well, in the first chapter of the book, I cover Asa, so you remember that Asa was one of the kings not far from David and Solomon, and he was a good king. Out of the shoots he came out and he got rid of the idols. Israel had returned to idol worship, so he got rid of the idols. He tore down the high places. And people get confused about high places. In Israel, high places is where everybody worshiped. Like the temple is built on a high place. And Samuel went to Saul and took him to a high place to anoint him as king. And the pagans had high places. So everybody worshiped on hills. And so he tore it down. And God said, because you've done these things, I'm going to give you peace. And for 10 years, ASA had peace. And then an Ethiopian army came against Israel, and it was much larger than Asa's. And so Asa didn't know what to do. He was a young leader and he said he prayed a prayer. Lord, you can do anything with fewer, many. And so I pray you deliver us for your sake and for we rely on you. And God delivered him from that larger army because he called on him. Now you fast forward through several chapters of Asa's life and he's in his 50s or 60s and he's learned how to be a king. And he has another crisis that arises. He's in Judah. Israel is building. When we come back.
- [36:25]
A
Hold the thought. Yeah, yeah. Keep us, keep us right there and we'll find out what happened to Aza and what the leadership lesson is. There's also leadership lessons throughout the Bible. Nehemiah, Jesus, many others we'll get into right after the break. We're talking to Robert Farrow. He is the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel, Tucson. Does a great job out there. Much more after the break. Don't go anywhere foreign. What are some good and bad leadership lessons you can learn from the Bible? That's one of the things we're talking about with my friend Pastor Robert Furrow, the brand new book, the Making of a Biblical Leader, A practical guide to leading others. Well, Robert has a couple chapters in it. He's the general editor. I have a chapter in it. So does, so does folks like Gary Hamrick and Skip Heitzik and Lenya Heitzik and Sean McDowell and several others. So check it out. It is a brand new book that will help you lead. And we need leaders right now. We need leaders right now because many people, we always need leaders, but many people right now have their hearts tender given what has happened to Charlie Kirk and what's going on in our nation right now and in the church. And you can lead, ladies and gentlemen, you can start in your own house with yourself and your family. You don't need to have a goal of change changing the world, but if you can change your own world or the world of the people closest to you, that will be successful in the eyes of God. You don't need to change the world, just change the world of your own, your own world. Change the world of people in your family. Start there. You don't have to become some famous leader out there Christian leader. You need to lead your own home. First of all, you need to lead yourself, then lead your own home. And Pastor Robert's given us some great insights on how to do that. Before we get back to aa, King, AA and the lesson there. I want to ask before I forget, Robert, because I'll forget at the end of the show, what's your, your YouTube channel? What is your podcast? How can people learn more?
- [38:26]
B
Yeah, our podcast is Truth Quest podcast and that does takes all of our content. We do shorter videos and, and, and long and longer long form videos, longer teachings. And it's Calvary Tucson with Robert furrow is the YouTube channel. And then we have calverthusan.com, which has all of our stuff on it. You can go on there and just look at all of our different things and the different things that are involved in our church that our church is doing.
- [38:51]
A
And so your sermons are online. People can watch them, listen to them. They're live streamed. And also folks, if you're in Tucson, there are two campuses or two campi just there's one east and one west. You can go to their website and see where that is and that service times. Now, Robert is also a race car driver because he's got to go from one campus to the other on Sunday morning. And I've been with him doing that. And it is fun because you like walk in just when you're about to preach because you're between. They're about 25, 30 minutes apart. But let's go back to Asa here. King Asa, what was the lesson you wanted to bring forth there?
- [39:29]
B
Go ahead. Yeah, so I mean he makes a really good decision when he's young and he doesn't know what he's doing and he calls out to God and he relies on God. Then when he gets older, he knows how to handle things. And the king of Israel wants to block the people from going to Judah. This is the land is divided by this time. There's Israel and Judah. And Judah is where Jerusalem is. And people want to go up to worship. They've been called to in the law to go up and worship. So Basha, the king of Israel wants to stop him. So he starts to build a city. And so Asa goes out and hires a mercenary army to come and fight for him. And up to this point you're reading in second Chronicles 16 and Asa is the hero. Everything he's doing is heroic and he is successful. The mercenary army comes in, puts down the the battle. They go and take the things from, from the city that they're building and, and Basha is defeated. And you go, good job, Asa. Except the prophet, I think it's Hananiah, comes to Asa and says, when you were young, you relied on me. God says, but when you're old, you've relied on yourself. And the eyes of the Lord go to and fro on the face of the whole earth, to show himself strong to those whose hearts are loyal to him. When I was younger, I was taught that that verse meant that those who don't sin. But that's not the issue. That's not the context. The context is that when he was young, he called out to God, and he relied on him. When he was old, he relied on the way the world does things. The world hires mercenary armies. His father had done that, and now he knew how the world did things. So it's good for us, throughout our entire life, especially as we're getting older, to remember we might know how to do things now. We may know how the world works. We may be able to be successful. But success isn't always doing what God wants to do. Asa was successful, but God rebuked him because he didn't rely upon him. And God's searching. He's searching now through the whole world to show himself strong. I want God to show himself strong to me. And what I'm doing, finishing the race well. And I want God to show himself strong to you. And it's having that loyal heart when you're facing things, calling out to God and letting God direct you, doing the things that God calls you to do. And that's what we learned from Asa. He's both a good and a bad leader in the same guy.
- [41:46]
A
You know, it's interesting that there's been surveys done, and they found out that the. The most impactful time of a man's life, I guess this is in America, is when they're in their 60s.
- [41:58]
B
Yeah.
- [41:59]
A
And the second most productive decade is when they're in their 70s, if they stay in the game. You know, a lot of people say, oh, it probably be 40s or 50s. No. Because when you're in your 60s, hopefully you've got some good direction. Hopefully your finances are in order and you have contacts that you didn't have when you were 30. Right. Like, right now, you could pick up the phone and get something done where you couldn't do that when you were 25, when you first started the church, or 30. Here's the danger, though, and it seems like the danger of Asa and CS Lewis pointed this out, that the more successful we get from an earthly perspective here on Earth, we are tempted to think it's all about us. And we are tempted to think, oh, I know how the world works, so I can get done what I want to get done. But it's not the fact that we are so successful in the world. It's that the world is getting successful in us and turning us toward the world rather than toward Jesus. Sounds like the same thing that happened to Asa. We've got to be careful, you know, when we get successful in life that we are, we're forgetting about God and thinking it's all about us. And Charlie at 31, was way ahead of his time and way ahead in terms of achievement, but he never forgot. In fact, when the election came through, he worked so hard on that election, the 24 election. You remember, he was crying when the race was called for Trump, and he immediately said, we didn't do this. God did this. This was grace. I mean, obviously his work contributed to it, but he. He put the. He put the. The credit where credit was due.
- [43:46]
B
And I. I see Charlie's life as being. Is like God put a full life into 31 years.
- [43:52]
A
Oh, totally.
- [43:53]
B
Because look at his influence. His influence is just so incredibly powerful. More than, you know, 10 people combined and.
- [43:59]
A
Right.
- [43:59]
B
And it's all just packed in there. I remember when Keith Green died at, like, 28, and the impact that Keith Green had at 28 years old, and when he died, the impact that happened from his life. And the same kind of thing is true with Charlie. Charlie died just a few years older than that, but the impact has just been incredible. I call it the. The martyr effect.
- [44:21]
A
Yeah.
- [44:22]
B
So when Stephen was martyred in the church, you go and look in Acts, and that's when the church exploded under the persecution of Saul. After Stephen was martyred, it's like courage got infused into the church, and the church went to Samaria, the church went to the. The Gentiles in Joppa and just went to the cities of Judah and even beyond, out into Antioch, into gentile territories. And it's like God's doing that with. With what happened to Charlie. There's like a martyr effect here. There's a boldness. I've heard people say. I think Elisa Childers was saying this, that you can feel it. There's something you can feel like there's a desire to be used by God. It's like. It's like God encouraged infused courage into the church when Charlie was able to stand up and. And go out and speak for God. And he spoke for God so much in what he did, and it helps us to have that kind of courage. I'm seeing that courage. That's what I'm seeing. I'm seeing people who want to stand up for Christ and who want to be courageous and. And it's an amazing thing to see.
- [45:25]
A
Yeah. And that's why people have been contacting us and contacting you and contacting tpusa. What can I do? What can I do? Courage begets courage. And it may have been Churchill, he may have been echoing Aristotle who said, courage is the first of all virtues because without it you won't do anything else. And Charlie would always say, the thing I love about courage, it doesn't take any skill. It just takes a decision. That's all you need to do is make a decision that I'm going to do this. As afraid as I am, I'm going to do this. And when one person does that and sets the example, other people will stand up. So if you're listening to this right now and you want to make a difference, stand up, start making a difference. If you need guidance, go to your church, get discipled, take a course. We have courses, the courses that are done there at Calvary Chapel, Tucson. Get the new book, the Making of a Biblical Leader, by my guest today, Robert Furrow. I mean, do something. Start with your, with your own life. Get your own life directed, then go to your family, then go to your church and volunteer. Make a difference and contribute. Contribute financially if you can, prayerfully if you can. That's what you're called to do. Jesus said in Luke 16:9, Use money to win people to the heaven. So when you get there, they're going to welcome you to everlasting habitations. So, Robert, the book here is very well done. I know it took a couple years to pull together to, to hurt all the cats who were, who were contributing. What, what was your overall mission in doing this book? What did you want people to, to walk away with?
- [47:05]
B
Well, I just think that leadership is so important. It's like you said that you are, you're equipping the saints and you're leading. Even we were talking about altar calls. Even in giving people a chance to make a commitment to Christ, we're giving an example to people on how to do it. So we lead people in prayer to give their lives to Christ. And people come to me and they tell me I just led my cousin to Christ. And I said, bow your head. And I prayed a prayer. Like what you pray almost the same thing you pray. So it's like we're equipping them and showing them how to do it. It's like I always tell people it's not you that is, is supporting me as a minister. The minister is a servant. That's what the word minister means, is a servant who supports you so that I can equip you to do the work of the ministry. Think about it. The people who are getting saved every weekend at churches, it's not because of the pastor. It's because those people have gone out and lived for Christ and invited people to church and people have seen their lives and they show up and then the pastor says, you want to give your life to Jesus and they do and you haven't done anything except give them an opportunity to do. And the people have done the work. So if you're equipping your saints to do the work they're supposed to do, then the work of the church is going to be incredibly powerful. It's going to be incredibly fruitful because they're going out and doing what they're called to do and they're wanting to. They're just looking for those opportunities and helping to be equipped and friends.
- [48:24]
A
If your church isn't interested in using the opportunity that we have before us now for good, find another church or try and change it and then find another church. Get involved somewhere. Pastor Robert, thank you so much for all your.
- [48:39]
B
Thank you. Appreciate it.
- [48:40]
A
That's Pastor Robert Furrow. Check out his podcast Truth Quest and the brand new book, the Making of a Biblical Leader. And Lord willing, I'm going to see you out on the road. All of the college events are on our website, crossexamine.org, click on Events. We'll see you out there. Thanks for all your support. See you next time. God bless. Dr. Frank Turek is bringing powerful evidence for God to campuses like UC Berkeley, the University of Georgia and Ohio State, reaching thousands in person and millions online. But each event now requires costly security. Your gift helps the light of truth pierce the darkness. Give today@crossexamined.org.