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The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 855: Disappointment Is Not the End | Matt Smallbone, The Prayer Experiment
01:00:11
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- [00:00]
Announcer
And we're live from the living room as Doug eyes up the match. Say spread. He's reaching for the buffalo wing. Perfect. Hang on. What's this? Oh, he's gone for a can of Pepsi too. Incredible. What a finish. Sensational combination. Look at the delight on his face. There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match days deserve Pepsi. Food deserves Pepsi. Grab a pack of Pepsi. Zero sugar. For today's match. It's poetry in motion.
- [00:30]
Jeanne Urichin
Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jeanne Urchin and founder of 1000 Hours Outside, and I read a book. I loved. I loved it. I loved it. It's called the Prayer Experiment. How praying like Jesus realigns everything. Our thoughts, our hearts, and our posture toward God in the world. Author Matt Smallbone is here. Welcome, Matt.
- [00:48]
Matt Smallbone
How are you?
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Jeanne Urichin
I'm doing wonderful. I really like this book. Huge congrats to you.
- [00:52]
Matt Smallbone
Thank you very much. Yeah, it was always a bit of a goal to write one and it happened. So that's always, that's always good.
- [01:00]
Jeanne Urichin
Okay, let's talk about the premise of this book. It's about the Lord's Prayer, which is just a beautiful piece of writing, but I think it's just something you kind of memorize. Some people do, some people don't. You know, you memorize it and you don't think about it too much. So you go through. The book is about diving into the Lord's Prayer and the different components of it. And I loved it. So I would love to kick it off though, with something that I related to, which is that sometimes we feel like prayer, prayer is not working and so we don't really do it.
- [01:33]
Matt Smallbone
Yes. Yeah, I've, you know, I'm 48 years old, parent of four. I'm an immigrant to the United States, so spent the first 28 years of my life in Australia. Moved here with a six month old child who we later found out is on the autism spectrum, which is a big part of that man. Gosh. That became the meta narrative of the last 20 years of our life. And then we have three, three younger kids. So I got three boys and than a baby girl. We're now 20 through 14 and I'm a pastor and I've loved Jesus since I was 16. I used to be great at prayer. I felt that was all very easy for me early on. But over the years, as life has hit and disappointments stacked up, I've always loved Jesus and trusted God, but due to mostly to a lot of unanswered prayer and Some personality issue, personality barriers that I have. I felt like I was probably never going to be good at prayer. And so I've always, you know, I've. And so I was teacher, I'm a pastor. So last year we were teaching through prayer for seven weeks and I was feeling. It was New Year's Eve, I was feeling nervous about going back to work. And that's problematic when your job title is lead pastor, you know, because we're teaching through a seven week series on prayer. And the truth is I didn't feel very good at it. I was, I felt like I'd been disappointed quite a lot. Like anytime I open up my heart, you know, we had a miscarriage, I was like, God, if you're not going to lean in on this stuff, like, I do trust you ultimately, but what's the point of asking if things don't fundamentally change? So I kind of, you know, in my 30s, continued loving Jesus, but stopped praying very much is really what happened. So I find myself on New Year's Eve worried, you know, kind of going, what do I do? I've got to preach this sermon on prayer. This sermon series, two months worth on prayer. I'm not very good at it. You know, what are your options? One, fake it, Wordsmith the heck out of your stories or something and figure out the third person way to do this. Or you just kind of own it and you'll own beside the congregation. And what stood out to me was I've been trying to follow Jesus teachings in every aspect of my life for like the last 30 years. It's in this sermon called the Sermon on the Mount. Like, if you're wondering what that looks like, you can just read Matthew 5 through 7 and you kind of get a good, good picture of kind of what Jesus thinks is the best way for humans to live. I've done all of that except for there's this one bit where he says, this then is how you should pray. And I'm going, gosh, I'm not very good at prayer. And I've taken Jesus seriously at everything, giving, taking care of the poor, all that stuff, but never once actually tried praying the way he said to pray. I've just had a really haphazard approach to it. So I get pretty pragmatic and I went, you know what, I'm going to try this on for a year. So I had this little prayer experiment and I decided I was going to pray matching my personality. I was going to try and get up at 4am anymore. I wasn't going to do silent retreats or anything like that. I was just going to try and make it work with who I knew who I was, and I was going to figure out, like, what, in my mind was a bit of a boring prayer that I've been able to memorize and been able to recite since I was, like, three years old. Like, how on earth can this be it? But maybe the secret is in here because it has been in everything else of Jesus that I've taken seriously. So that's what I did. I prayed it exclusively several times a day for the year and figured out that it's actually a framework where you. Where you run your prayer request through it. It's just really good for the human. For the human heart. As if Jesus knows how we work on the inside, perhaps.
- [05:20]
Jeanne Urichin
Matt, I loved it. I loved it. I loved how you went piece by piece, and I also loved how you shared your story. I've actually never heard a pastor ever say, I'm going to learn this alongside of the congregation.
- [05:32]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah, I think that's a problem, because we're, you know, like, any. Any teacher, any high school teacher will tell you, especially when they're new to it, that they're usually one page ahead in the textbook from the class, you know. Yeah, I think it's important. I think if you fully understand God, you have not met God. I think God will always, always be a mystery. So I don't think it's super authentic or honest if anyone is claiming to have the wonders of the universe fully, fully understood with no doubt. I've always been comfortable with doubt and faith kind of just sort of being in a seesaw in my life. And I definitely don't want to be a hypocrite. If I've got one thing going for me. I'm not the smartest guy you'll ever meet, but I definitely don't want to be faking my way through the important existential things that I wanted to lead people through. So, yeah.
- [06:28]
Jeanne Urichin
Oh, that commitment is what led to this book then.
- [06:30]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Right?
- [06:30]
Jeanne Urichin
Because you could have gotten up and faked it for seven weeks and it would be done and over with. But instead you said, I'm going to walk alongside my congregation, and you come up with this incredible book, the prayer experiment. Can we talk about a couple of those pieces that you talked about earlier? Your personality. So prayer. There's a couple prayer barriers, and I think people are going to relate with these. The three that you bring up are being disillusioned by unanswered prayer. The why Even bother. This feels really haphazard. God doesn't seem to be answering. The second one you brought up was with your personality. Now I think in this day and age, whether it's your personality or it's your cell ph, there's a lot to get sidetracked by. You're like I, it could be Netflix, it could be a lot of different things. And then you also talk about with just being like practical. Some people have like a very logical science background and so they're like well this is really supernatural kind of odd. So can you talk about then this is. You had to deal with all three of these things and make the choice to go forward with this prayer experiment anyway. Can you talk about. Did you just kind of set those things aside and even though you knew like I kind of get distracted. I feel a little disillusioned. I'm pretty logical. I, you know, pretty science background. I'm just going to set those things aside and give this a go.
- [07:45]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah, no, I, I named them out loud because one thing I have tried to do is in my line of work you meet a bunch of people who at least claim to be getting up at 4am and praying for an hour and, and floating into work and having had a, a beautiful experience connecting with the God of the universe. And I would find myself falling to sleep. I've fallen, I fall asleep, you know, have fallen asleep a lot during prayer. I felt a lot of shame about that honestly, like that I'm not really the profile for this, you know, regarding personality. I did realize that I am not going to get up at 4am so let's not make that part of the experiment. Let's, let's figure out what it looks like for me to make this work in what I know my life is. I wasn't super idealistic. I know I have four teenage children. One of them has special needs. I have a wife who has a, she's a marriage and family therapist. She's got a very complicated life as well. I'm the lead pastor of this church is now has over a thousand people in it. There's a, you know, there's a few, there's a few things going on around the place. And so I wanted to just kind of be aware of my rhythms and so. And you've always got to do that with things like prayer or any spiritual discipline. Any discipline at all actually. Like anyone who has a three year old or younger in your house, like you've just got to have it. You've got to bring a different approach to this kind of stuff. I love John Charles Wesley's mother. Apparently she had so many children, when she was praying she would, she would put her apron over her head and she would say, when my, you can have me anytime. But when the apron's on my head, leave me alone because I'm praying. And that's, that's how, that's how she would do it. And man, as someone with a, you know, a lot of children, we understand that. So you gotta, you know, so I was like, you know, personality wise too. Like I'm not really, I, I think I will get there. I'm not a silent retreat guy. Like that sounds like an absolute misery for me, going away and not talking. And I say in the book, you know, the choice between a silent retreat and a day at Dollywood is a pretty easy one for me, for me to solve. You know, I've often, so I just often wondered whether, you know, I love Jesus and I was confident of getting to heaven and all that stuff. I just, just wasn't really sure I had the right personality to really be the person to be able to lean in and do all of this. So there was that, There was also just very practically, I've got a science degree and so a lot of answered prayer that I receive I can kind of write off as like, you know, you know, this, this happened for scientific reasons, like, you know, praying for rain, for example, like, well, I guess, you know, that, that may not have had anything to do with my prayer or something or something like that. And then just also some theological ideas like the thought that God is all powerful and all loving and all knowing. And there' this theological concept called sovereignty, like the kingness of God, like this king, like he's the king who gets to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. And so I kind of very practically trust the king. And so why would I bother bringing a bunch of ideas when he's probably going to know better than me anyway? So all of that kind of combined to just like being barriers to taking prayers very seriously. But what I missed out on was an intimate relationship with God. Bible talks a lot about this really ancient idea, but, you know, love the Lord, you go with all your heart, your soul, your mind and your strength. And I was pretty good with strength. Like I go to work and help people and serve the poor and you know, jump in on messed up marriages and all that. I've always loved theology and I read the Bible a lot and teach it. I love. My mind was fine, but I was missing this Kind of connection with the Heavenly Father, which has just been a beautiful addition to my life, which, which is sort of what, what I'd been missing prior to that. But yeah, those, those are some of my barriers. But the biggest one was we, we had a miscarriage in a former life. I was a bass player and we're doing a tour. That's why we moved to the States, actually. So I was playing for this Christian artist called Michael W. Smith on the West Coast. Do you know, do you know Michael?
- [11:38]
Jeanne Urichin
And friends are friends forever.
- [11:43]
Matt Smallbone
So I flew with him for three years.
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Jeanne Urichin
I grew up in that era, that's for sure. Yeah, I mean he's playing, he's unreal out. But like, I mean, I grew up in the era where it was like you went with your youth group and it was like Michael, Debbie Smith and DC Talk and it was like these huge stadiums. You're crying with your friends. I mean, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. In fact, I was like thinking, I'm like, I wonder if I would have gone to a show and you might
- [12:07]
Matt Smallbone
have been there maybe. Yeah, maybe around the 2010s. Yeah, it was.
- [12:11]
Jeanne Urichin
Oh, no, no, I'm too old, I'm too old. Never mind.
- [12:15]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah, wonderful years. But we're on the west coast, so we live in Nashville. And the way it works is most of the time you just go away on a bus for the week. You meet at some Kroger parking lot and a grocery store parking lot and you disappear for the weekend and hope your car doesn't get towed while you're away. And you come back early Monday morning and rejoin family life. But when you go to the west coast, it's expensive to get over there from Nashville. You end up being there for a couple of weeks. And anyone who tours knows that that's the time where usually a bunch of stuff goes wrong at home because you don't. You're not just on this four day stretch. And I remember waking up one morning to a series of text messages from Mary. We just found. We were, we were pregnant with our fourth and that and our. And Jack, our third born, was only six months old. Like this happened, this happened quick. And from. As I understood how everything worked was impossible. That we were pregnant again. And we were. And we just kind of found out I was still in this spot where I was trying to solve issues like, man, we were definitely going to need to get a bigger car than what we had. We're gonna have way too many children still in diapers. By the time this baby came, hadn't even Celebrated, sadly, hadn't celebrated this kid yet. And found out via, while I'm sleeping in on the west coast with my phone on silent like a fool, that Mary had texted me that she was bleeding. And then she ends up at the hot. And by the time I caught up with the situation, we'd lost the baby. And it was just. I was like, God, you gotta be kidding me. Like, I'm here playing move countries. We have no support. Yeah, yeah. And we're doing. We're doing this for you, you know, and, you know, what's the deal? And so it just sort of, at that point, I didn't lose my. I deconstructed a little bit. But, you know, I still love Jesus. Had my faith in it, but in him. But I was just like, you know, what if ultimately these kind of things don't seem to be on your radar, then I think just whatever's became a bit fatalist. Whatever's going to happen is going to happen. And, you know, ultimately I'm going to trust you with that, but I'm probably not going to. And I just stopped putting in the effort to actually engage with God and ask. And the problem with that is, of course, is asking for things is only one sixth of what Jesus actually said. That's what the genius of the Lord's Prayer. There's six parts to it. And I was doing my whole time as a, you know, Western Christian with a highly individual lens, basically saying some version of God, I'm going to need a cupcake before lunch today. And then being disappointed sometimes when. When we didn't get the metaphorical cupcake, that kind of thing. So, yeah, so that was those. Those were some of my barriers. And everyone, Everyone has their own unanswered prayer. Is. Is it for almost everybody once you cross into your 30s and 40s?
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Sponsor/Ad Voice
Yeah.
- [15:05]
Jeanne Urichin
I loved the premise of you sharing your own disillusionments. And also the. It was like a. A simple invitation, Matt. Like, hey, the Lord's Prayer is short. It's beautiful. It's short. Can you start there? I just. I loved it. I felt like it was so doable, like the way that you approach it, because to your point, there's going to be a lot of people who have disillusionment, who have questions, and it's like, okay, well, what if you start here? You start at this Lord's Prayer, the Bible, like, he literally said, this is how you should pray. Do you, you know, you do this experiment and then you go through the book. The book is going through the different Sentences and talking about some of the key points. I would love to get to that. We'll talk about a little bit of it and people can pick up the book to read the rest of it. But there was a sentence, it was a quote in here. So you kick off the book with how not to pray. And Jesus did this. He said instead, before I tell you how to pray, I'm going to tell you how not to pray. And you write, this is a bold move. But there was a quote that said, when I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized the Lord doesn't work that way. So I stole one and asked him to forgive me.
- [16:16]
Matt Smallbone
Yes, good.
- [16:17]
Jeanne Urichin
I never heard that. I was like, that's a great quote. Can you talk about Jesus getting up in front of all these people and saying, hey, you're doing this wrong?
- [16:25]
Matt Smallbone
Right. Right.
- [16:26]
Jeanne Urichin
And then he gives this pretty simple, short. You know, to your point about having teenagers, they're up late, so no one's getting up at 4:00am you know, or if you have a bunch of little kids, all the under three, they're up super early. You're overwhelmed. So love that he gives this prayer that's fairly short.
- [16:44]
Matt Smallbone
Yes. Yeah, yeah. And. And it's actually very thorough as well. So a lot of our disappointment is based on we asking God for stuff. And it's this God who lives distantly on the other side of the moon, who's not. Who's fairly disconnected from us and not that close. We're asked for stuff, and then we get disappointed when we don't get it exactly the way we want. Like we're.
- [17:05]
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- [20:46]
Matt Smallbone
Dealing with someone of equal intelligence as us. So God reframes all of that. Our two ways not to pray. Back then, the language Jesus used was don't pray like a hypocrite, which was the Pharisees at the time, and don't pray like a pagan. And so when you do kind of the Bible work of bringing that into 2026, it's some version of the hypocrites. He was really talking about the Pharisees who are these kind of super Christians who would pray basically spiritual TED talks in front of people and everyone would be like, wow, you're so smart. And as a pastor, I have to pray into a microphone all the time and I definitely don't hate it when people leave going, gosh, how smart is that guy, you know, in his prayers? So I realized I was doing a bit of that. And then praying like a pagan was. When you, as I understand it, there's a lot of babbling of words and trying to come up with the magic phrase so that you can kind of technique God into getting, getting your wish granted, basically. And there'd been a little bit of that as well along the way. So I determined to stop doing that and then just kind of commit to the, to the six movements of the Lord's Prayer.
- [21:52]
Jeanne Urichin
Okay, let me, let me read it. You wrote, pagans thought the more words you use, the more you can manipulate the gods to act. Prayer became performance art designed to coerce. Prayer isn't a hostage negotiation. It's not spiritual arm twisting. So then you go through the parts of this Lord, the Lord's Prayer. Also you have so many quotes and different people that you reference. So I got a lot out of that as well. I, so I, I Loved it. I love the way that it was set up. There's six movements. The first three are God focused. The last three are human focus. You say the order matters, but you talk about. Okay, so you kick it off with. Literally, the first phrase is Our Father. And you say, this can stir up some heavy feelings. But this is one of the things that you brought up that I never considered. You always think, okay, well, some. Some people have no father. There's actually a large percentage of kids that grow up, their dad's not in
- [22:48]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
the picture at all.
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Jeanne Urichin
Or you have a crappy father. But then you also brought up like,
- [22:53]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
what if you are the crappy father?
- [22:55]
Matt Smallbone
Yes.
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Announcer
Yeah.
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Jeanne Urichin
So can you talk about that piece of. You know, it kicks off with this Our Father. And they're like that. That can bring up a lot of different feelings to a lot of people.
- [23:06]
Matt Smallbone
So that. So our Catholic brothers and sisters actually call this prayer the Our Father. And I think they're actually onto something there because I think these are the two words that reshape everything about humans. So what is prayer? At its most basic, it's us communicating with God. It's how humans communicate to God and then Jesus. As far as I could tell, I got some pretty good Bible research there in the book, but no one had ever addressed God as Father. There's words like Lord and things like that. In fact, many people in the Old Testament wouldn't even use a name at all. You know, Yahweh is kind of was. It was the. You know, the name that could not be added and all of that. And then Jesus uses this interesting Hebrew word abba, which is really what a little kid would call their dad. So it's like my kid calling me Daddy. And so I don't know if you've ever been weird out when people at church pray saying Daddy, God or something. Their theology is actually pretty good. And so that was a relearning for me as well. I still can't say it myself, but that's the idea. So that you're approaching and there's so much to this. It's Our Father. The pronoun matters. It's not my Father. You don't kind of only child your way to God. You remember that there's 8. 8 billion others, you know, praying at the same time. There's. There's a lot of our in that, but you're. You're basically saying our, you know, papa maybe is. Is. Is. Is pretty good as well. Like, you're basically adopting the posture of a little child. And you're going, daddy who is close in the heavens. There's, it really kind of translates us in the air. So it's this sense of this dad who is close. It's not this distant, disconnected being far away in outer space. And then you say holy, you know, holy is your name. But starting with Our Father is really, really the thing. And this, this actually covers a lot of our disappointment with unanswered prayer because you think of the things a three year old asks for. Like it would not be out of the realms of possibility that my third born would have asked for a Red Bull before bed as a three year old and just been like, why not you guys drink it, you know, or give me, you know, give me a latte before bed. Now that is a younger, less mature being than me with less critical thought, not really understanding all the consequences of a Red Bull in a three year old's body before bedtime. But I do think a lot of the prayers that go unanswered are some version of a three year old asking for a Red Bull before bedtime. And we're saying our Father, you're acknowledging that there's this higher order being who actually you're trusting, knows what is best for you like a good father does. And so, and then Jesus spends a lot of time in the New Testament just kind of defining what God the Father is like. In the prodigal son, for example, this is, this is the guy who runs towards his son who basically had ruined his life, ruined the father's reputation in the village and then when he comes home, doesn't make him work as a, as a servant, but just runs, runs towards him and throws the biggest party of his life for this kid. And so Jesus says, when you're praying to our Father, like that's the kind of father we're talking about here. But it's really almost the most work that most of us need to do. Even me, who I had a great dad. But God is not just a, you know, 20 times better version of my dad. We're talking, it's metaphorical language. And it's just this perf loving, kind, more advanced, older, more mature person who loves us that we're praying to. And then that kind of changes and then so that sets the vibe of this thing. So when I'm, you know, the first time I'll pray, this would be when I first wake up in the morning. Quite often it's when I'm, you know, driving to work, but I'll just be like, you're my dad. And you're close. Thank you for that. Thank you. That I'm never alone, you know, and I, I respect you. And it kind of starts with that. And that is different than I'm going to need a parking space as close to the front of the grocery store as you need. And if you don't do it for me, I'm going to. I'm going to be in an existential crisis over here about whether you exist or not.
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Announcer
Yeah.
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Matt Smallbone
Because of unanswered prayer.
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Sponsor/Ad Voice
Right.
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Jeanne Urichin
Our Father. You had a quote in here by Tim Keller. The only person who dares wake up a king at 3am for a glass of water is a child. We have that kind of access. So this who art in heaven. I did not know about this word
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Matt Smallbone
Uranus. Yeah. Uranus is Greek spoken who are in heaven.
- [27:37]
Jeanne Urichin
You're like, oh, that is really far. Yeah, you are in heaven. But you're like, actually, it's translated funny.
- [27:42]
Matt Smallbone
Yep. Yeah, there's a fair bit of that in the Bible. Actually. It turns out English is about the worst language to understand any of this stuff in. There's. There's not many ones where there's more barriers to one word for love rather than like four. In the Greek, for example, is a classic example. English is not. Doesn't do us many favors in, in understanding a lot of, a lot of this stuff. But in the heavens, so that, that word Uranus, in other places, it's like when Jesus talks about the birds in the air, it's the birds in the Uranus, you know, that is so the birds of the sky, Matt.
- [28:17]
Jeanne Urichin
Because it's like everywhere, the birds of the air, they're everywhere. And so when it says our Father who art in heaven, you're like, oh, that, that's as far away as could possibly be. But it's just a poor translation.
- [28:28]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah. Yeah, well, it's. Yeah, that's, that's where I think I've landed with it for sure. And so there's a. Again, English is tricky to understand. But I, I, for what I have, what I have dug into over the last year or so is that this, the idea of this, this, this is Papa who was close and with me, and I just take a, take a beat when I'm praying. So I'll be praying through something in particular, like, you know, even if it's like, you know, praying for one of my kids or praying for someone, you know, a family member who has cancer, I've found it's important to pray through it in order. And you begin with that it's a kind of a moment of adoration. But just this, like, trust in this good, good Father who's. Who's close.
- [29:08]
Jeanne Urichin
Yes.
- [29:08]
Matt Smallbone
And that will change your prayers right there.
- [29:11]
Jeanne Urichin
Yes. You wrote, this isn't pointing to a distant galaxy. It's pointing to a God who has as close as the air on your skin. Air is everywhere. So when we pray, Jesus is asking us to let go of the distance we sometimes imagine between us and God. A God who surrounds us, who dwells in us, who is right here. So we're not going to go through every part because people can pick up the book and read some. Some of the other phrases. But I do want to say that you originally thought it was Harold is your name.
- [29:38]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah, I went to a lot of church when I was very little. There's a lot I misunderstood.
- [29:45]
Jeanne Urichin
Our Father who art in heaven, Harold is your name.
- [29:48]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah. I did think we cared a lot about this Harold character. Us Methodists, for sure.
- [29:54]
Jeanne Urichin
All right, let's. We'll pop down to the petitionary prayer. We're popping down to give us this day our daily bread.
- [29:59]
Matt Smallbone
Y. Yeah.
- [30:00]
Jeanne Urichin
This is about teaching us how to live one day at a time, which I think helps to alleviate anxiety and worry. That's a, like, that is a really big phrase to say and to trust. It's not like, give us this day our retirement package. Oh, our 401k, our child college diploma. Can you talk about in a day and age when we try and control a lot, there's a lot of technology. Why this phrase is really important.
- [30:31]
Matt Smallbone
So for Jesus, you know, so worry and anxiety is at pandemic levels. That's right around us for the first time in history. And TED Talk for another day. But there was a hockey stick pie spike at the day that middle schoolers were given iPhones when we could upgrade ours. So it's tied very closely to that. Worry is when you spend too much time, you know, living. Living in the past. And anxiety is when you spend too much time kind of worried about the future. When Jesus talks about all of this, he talks about kind of that, you know, don't worry about tomorrow. There'll be enough concerns just then. So if there's something that Jesus and gosh, what a. What a great thing for parents to hear because this, the stage you're in will be over before you know it. We are walking through that ourselves right now. But the real living is done right now in today. And that's really all we have capacity for. Otherwise, we will. We have no choice but to be anxious or worried. Now, I'm not saying it's easy, but Jesus says that's really the solution. It's living. Now you've got a plan for the future. Of course you should be putting money away for retirement and all of that, you know, so your kids don't have to look after you or whatever. But living in the moment seems to be very important, which is why God asked for, give us today our daily bread. I do want to note before you get there in the prayer though, you're praying to this father who loves you, and then you're doing the hard work of surrendering to his will. So you're saying your kingdom come.
- [31:53]
Jeanne Urichin
I did skip. I skipped over.
- [31:55]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah. And it's like, I know, and it's hard to do these things because there's six movements. But is your kingdom come, which is basically saying the way. It's interesting with the kingdom of God on earth, like, not everything goes God's way, which is why there's wars and death and all of that stuff. And so what you're praying for is that the way that God designed the world to be the perfect way would be more true in our life. And then you pray, would your will be done? And this is where you're basically saying, I acknowledge I'm a 3 year old asking for a Red Bull before dinner, which. Or before bedtime. I'm going to ask for something here, very specific in a second, which we should do. Jesus says, ask very specifically for stuff. But before I get there, I just want to say, I trust you with the outcome here and what this is meant to be look like. That being said, I'm going to pray for this, what I need for the next, you know, for the next 24 hours.
- [32:43]
Announcer
So.
- [32:43]
Matt Smallbone
And that's, that's a real game changer there.
- [32:45]
Jeanne Urichin
Yes. And you focus on the word us. Give us this day our daily bread. And you said at the beginning, like our father, you have this really cool story in here from Mother Teresa's letters about someone who needed a bag of rice. Can you tell that story?
- [33:01]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah. So it was just someone who was observing. No, Mother Teresa was telling the story, but she, you know, went to visit a poor family and gave them the rice they needed for the night and then she split it in half. And the lady who was needing to feed her own children, I think she used this beautiful language. Their faces were shining with hunger, she said. And then she disappears and comes, comes back and there's half the rice left. And they ask Mother Teresa, what did you Just do. She goes, well, it's not. It's not just for us. They're hungry as well. And so. So there was this real, like, acknowledgement that even in the provision that this was to be shared among the community. But I think it's a pretty beautiful vision of. Of the types of prayers that God is way into when we're praying for other people along the way as well.
- [33:46]
Jeanne Urichin
Okay, so can you explain the question that pretty much most people have, which is like, why do I even have
- [33:51]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
to ask in the first place?
- [33:52]
Jeanne Urichin
So if we're talking about this, our Father and he's as close as the air we breathe. And fathers, you know, if you're a parent or if you're an aunt or an uncle, like, you got a niece or nephew that spends the night, like, you know that they need daily bread. You know that they're going to need their sustenance for the day. So the whole question of, like, well, God already knows I need my daily bread. Why do I have to ask for it?
- [34:19]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah, I think most of the time we get the daily bread anyway, whether we ask for it or not. I think there's a. It's. Because this is, you know, this whole thing is. Is about relationship. That's why it begins with our Father. And so there's something about, like, I know, you know, even. Even with my kids, as they get older, I kind of know what they want every day. I know what they need to get by. Like, I need. They. They need some vegetables and, you know, hopefully some protein at dinner. And because I'm a good father, I'm gonna get that for them if. If at all possible, I will do that.
- [34:48]
Jeanne Urichin
And, you know, even way more than that.
- [34:50]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Right?
- [34:50]
Jeanne Urichin
Like, you know, this one needs hockey skates. That one needs a dress for the promise. This one needs help with homework. This, you know, like, they, like, yeah,
- [34:57]
Matt Smallbone
this one's navigating difficult. This one's a middle school girl. So at some point this week, the whole table groups are going to change around and, yeah, we're going to be in chaos here. As the friendship group changes one more
- [35:09]
Jeanne Urichin
time, a depth of knowing what they need, right? Like, beyond their food. We know that they need this, that, and the other thing. And often we provide things without them asking. So I do think, you know, and you talked about this in the book, like, the theological part, but then you brought up the one where there was a guy that was blind and Jesus is like, well, what do you want me to do for you?
- [35:32]
Matt Smallbone
What do you want me to do for you.
- [35:33]
Jeanne Urichin
Why does Jesus do that? Why does he ask a question when the answer seems so painfully obvious? And you give the answer, but I would like you to tell the answer
- [35:40]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
so that everyone who's listening can know it.
- [35:42]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah, because Jesus. Jesus cares about being in, in dialogue with us. God cares about that. So it's, it's a, it's a legitimate relationship. I mean, I think about my own children. Like I ask some version of what do you want me to do for you? Like, all the time, even. Even though I kind of probably know where it's gonna head. So there's just, there's just something very relationally building in this kind of interchange between someone who's a bit more vulnerable, asking for help from someone who's in a, in a position of strength. I don't go into those details in the book, but there is just. God wants to partner with humans since the very beginning. It's not how I would have set things up, you know, if I was that much brighter than everybody else, I'd be like, you know, I'm gonna be kind of steering the ship mostly on this stuff. I'll leave you some, some pretty ordinary things that, that I'll let you. I'll let you name the animals. You know, I might have, I might have kept it to that, that, you know, so I, I just think it's God. God cares. It's. I think it was why we were created. We cared about what we care about. He cares about any good father, any good mother understands that. Like, we care deeply about the things that our care, that our kids care about. And we'd much rather than talk to us about it and name it. Sometimes the other thing is too, like, one way we can really help our kids is by just saying, hey, what do you need? Like, let's just say this out loud for a second. As you get older, that becomes harder, you know, I think I understood that better as a 14 year old than I do as a 48 year old. Like, sometimes the answer, the answer the question of what do you need right now? I'm like going, I don't know, I might need a few more friends or something. I feel pretty lonely right now. But you won't. You don't get there unless there's some kind of question being asked of you. So.
- [37:34]
Announcer
Mm.
- [37:36]
Jeanne Urichin
So there's all the information in there. Like you go through each little phrase. We're not going to, like I said, go through every phrase on this podcast just due to time, but I definitely, I thought it was interesting about the forgive us this day or forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. And I think because I've never done the Lord's Prayer on a daily basis like this, what this prayer experiment is about.
- [37:57]
Matt Smallbone
And the disciples would have prayed at several times a day, probably at least three times.
- [38:01]
Jeanne Urichin
Yeah. So it is really intriguing that that part is there. It gives you the impression, look, there's going to be a lot of stuff going on. And so you want to have this regular prayer rhythm of forgiveness. So can you talk about, I guess that kind of informs you on life like, that there's going to probably be a lot of rubbing up of hard edges and like hiccups in relationships.
- [38:27]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah, yeah, totally. And so what's interesting now, praying several times a day. I've forgiven people and asked God for forgiveness hundreds of times in the last year. And the surprising twist is it actually becomes something really quite addictive and lovely and addictive in all the right ways because you end up living really free because you're releasing people from the debt that they owe you. Now, I think actually when you look at Jesus teachings on forgiveness, there's this story about how many times should I forgive people? Seven times? He's like, no, 77 times. And then Jesus tells some parables about it. I think Jesus argues for unlimited and regular forgiveness, which is not good. A like, nothing I'd really been able to. I understood that theoretically it's nothing I'd actually had a discipline around doing. And so it matters so much that Jesus said, when you're praying, every time you pray, you should ask for forgiveness. So you search your heart and then you also forgive somebody else. And it's just a really. It's the best way to live. Honestly, it's really light. I used to carry around a massive bucket of unforgiveness. And when it got too heavy to carry, I'd forgive the easiest one just so I could manage the load okay and I could just get another 30 minutes of sleep at night or something. But it's Jesus. Jesus cares deeply about forgiveness. Now there's people listening in, obviously going, listen, you don't even know what my mum did to me when I was growing up. And if you're asking me if Jesus asked me to forgive my mum for that horrible thing that she did, and then us just act like that never happened, then I'm out, because that's cruel and that's not safe. A loving father would never ask me to do any of that.
- [39:59]
Announcer
That.
- [40:00]
Matt Smallbone
And to that I would say, there's you just gotta. There's a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. Reconciliation is the end goal most of the time. But there are, there are things that happen in life where I think Jesus says you've got it. The only way to make it as you age. Unforgiveness is the thing that, that just destroys lives that the, you know, 80 year olds, I don't know many 80 year olds, they're either the absolute best or the absolute worst people that you've ever met. And I think. And yeah, there's no like mid. You know, as the kids say, there's no mid 80 year old. They're either have like life has crushed them and they don't trust anyone and their world is small and it's get off the grass is. Is the major.
- [40:39]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Yeah.
- [40:39]
Matt Smallbone
Thing that the problem they're solving or they've learned this art of forgiveness and they're the most joyful people you've ever met. And that, that is, that is the choice we get to make. And I think forgiveness is key to it in the second half of life actually. And so yeah, I would just. That was honestly probably the biggest learning of the year is what unlimited and regular forgiveness, just what good it does to the human soul because we'll all have as we age, we're going to have some horrible things happen to us and we either can choose to set ourselves free from it, which is ultimately what forgiveness does, or we can just carry it around and it will crush us eventually. And Jesus says don't live like that.
- [41:21]
Jeanne Urichin
Do you think that part of it is like we look at forgiveness like it's supposed to be a one and done. So let's say you someone hurts you or, or you have a series of hurts from a childhood, you forgive. But like this is supposed to be regular. Like you might even be coming back to the same thing.
- [41:35]
Matt Smallbone
Oh yeah. Yeah. You probably need to Forgive your mother 85 times, you know, before it really. You know. And part of legitimate forgiveness is stuff like it's. You're forgiving them, releasing them from the moral debt that they owe you. And it's also choosing not to bring it up at every Thanksgiving with your sister. You know, like that's kind of the real thorough part of it. It's really setting them free and that's when it becomes free because then you don't find yourself talking about it. Thanksgiving every year. Like it. This is a thing that happened. Mom wasn't at her best for sure and we don't need to keep talking about it because you know, she's just a person as well.
- [42:12]
Jeanne Urichin
So anyway, if you've forgiven 50 times, you know, over the past several months, as opposed to one time a year or something like that, you could see how that would really begin to change your life. You'd say, it's a life, it's a lifestyle, it's a muscle you can build.
- [42:27]
Matt Smallbone
No, it becomes surprisingly easy at the end of it, which is like, I didn't expect that. And I almost feel insane saying it out loud. And I think this is the point where people press stop on the podcast and go, well, this guy's insane, because that's not possible. Turns out anything you do regularly, you grow muscle for it. And. And once you see the benefits, it actually fills you with joy. So. Yeah, so. And now I'm forgiving people for stuff that happened three hours ago rather than that thing that happened when I was 17.
- [42:57]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Yeah.
- [42:58]
Matt Smallbone
Because I dealt with. I dealt with that a while back. Now. So.
- [43:00]
Jeanne Urichin
Yeah, it gives you a lot of opportunities.
- [43:03]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah. And. And, you know, should also probably see a therapist, too. You know, it's not all just this, you know, talk. You got to talk it out with someone.
- [43:10]
Jeanne Urichin
Yeah. And you talk about too there. You know, then you might have boundaries in your relationship, that type of thing. So it's all explained in there. And then us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. So you go through each of these sections, but I have the question that I'm sure everyone has asked you if they've read the book. What about the end? For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
- [43:31]
Matt Smallbone
It's not there in all the translations, and people think it was added in later. Okay, yeah, that's something. That's something. Churches say it's. It's not in the Bible, and sometimes it's there as a footnote. Yeah. The whole how did the Bible come to be? Is another whole rabbit trail. But there's different versions. The Matthew and the Luke version of these are slightly different as well, but that it's really called the doxology. Most study Bibles. There'll be a note at the bottom. Some earlier translations include. I'm not sure if this is the Dead Sea Scrolls thing, but that was a big deal when that was discovered. Because this is a really nerdy Bible insight. Feel free to go forward 30 seconds. If this is not. If it's not your particular thing. But the older the idea is when you're translating scripture, the older the scrap of leather that you found that had this stuff written on it, the more reliable it is because people used to have to hand write these things out without making mistakes. So that's part of it. But yes, there's been some things added
- [44:35]
Jeanne Urichin
along the way, so, so it's easy.
- [44:36]
Matt Smallbone
Which you'll learn on first week of which and this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone because this is what you get taught in the first week of Bible college, by the way, when you're learning about what is the Bible. So I, I do hate it that this is, this is news to most, most people.
- [44:53]
Jeanne Urichin
So the end of it is. But deliver us from the evil one.
- [44:56]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah, yeah, that's it.
- [44:57]
Jeanne Urichin
That's the end.
- [44:57]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah, most of the, most of the translations, yeah. And so I, you know, I had a ton of words written for this book originally and then I went, you know what Jesus taught this in about, why don't I dial it back a bit. So this book, I read it for the Kindle, I read it for the Audible and it's four hours long. So this is, this is a real quick read. I wanted to make sure it was at least accessible and easy to digest with people.
- [45:23]
Jeanne Urichin
Yeah. So the book ends with practical prayer
- [45:26]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
tips in each chapter.
- [45:27]
Jeanne Urichin
Each chapter ends with practical prayer tips. And then there's a 30 day guide at the back to praying like Jesus. It's fantastic. I, I thought, but you know, for people who struggle with it, which I, it's probably many, many people, it was just a beautiful invitation into like make it more simple. Like it's simple, it can be simple. And what if you try this, what if you try doing this for a period of time praying the Lord's Prayer. So I had a couple last questions I wanted to ask that you talked about at the beginning of the book. One of them was you said if you had told my 25 year old self that one day I'd be leading a church, I would have laughed right in your smug Christian face face. And I want to know why?
- [46:06]
Matt Smallbone
Because this, this felt like by far the most complicated way to be middle class. I, I wanted to, I wanted to avoid any kind of real responsibility. My plan was to be a rock star or a, or a professional sports person.
- [46:19]
Jeanne Urichin
Yeah, I'm sure it is one of
- [46:21]
Matt Smallbone
the, I think high school principal. Yeah, middle school principal might be about the same level. You know, so there's a, there's a fair bit of disappointing people in your day in this line of work at times.
- [46:31]
Jeanne Urichin
So, so, okay, so you're expecting to do other things and you did do other things for a Long time. But can you talk about the sort of serendipity of, like, when the pieces did finally fall into place, they were so random.
- [46:45]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah. So I, you know, I was a bass player and I thought I'd do that the rest of my life. But as I got into my 30s and as, you know, eldest was starting to get a sense that there may be some, you know, neurodiversity or something going on. We didn't have a name for it yet, but it was looking less and less appetizing being on the road. And I can remember playing a show in South Africa where there's this massive. It's like a cycling call, There's a velodrome, you know, like tens of thousands of people at this thing. And just having this moment going. I don't know if this is really what I meant to do for the rest of my life. And it was such a strange juxtaposition of, like, this is literally the dream. This was what I wanted to do to avoid, you know, just being paid to see the world just really suited me. And so you start having these strange thoughts of maybe I'm here for something else. We won a green card in the green card lottery. And my wife Mary was always kind of convinced that it wasn't for the music thing. There was something else to it. And so just bit by bit,
- [47:46]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
I
- [47:46]
Matt Smallbone
got offered a job working at a church, organizing the small groups at the church in Florida. And that was my first job in a church. And never wanted to be the lead pastor, but I thought I could support someone who was doing that. And then I kind of fell in love with preaching while I was. I was doing that and actually got very good at leading weddings because our church had a Saturday night service. So we did. Part of being on staff was you went to church four times on a weekend. And I realized if I said yes to doing weddings on a Saturday, I only had to go three times that weekend at the same time. And the guy that really wanted doing the weddings was the senior pastor there. And he was never available because you get married on a Saturday back in the day, you get marri on Saturday night. And he was never available. So I got really good at doing weddings, and I officiated one for my cousin up here in Nashville. So we live in near Daytona Beach, Florida, at the time. So I was down there at this beautiful surfer church. Learned to preach, wearing flip flops, stuff like that. Unbelievable. But I was down there for about three years, officiated my cousin's wedding, and then my now, boss, who's the senior pastor of Church of the City, which is, you know, we've got a couple of churches here in middle Tennessee.
- [48:52]
Jeanne Urichin
Darren has.
- [48:53]
Matt Smallbone
Darren Whitehead. Oh great.
- [48:56]
Jeanne Urichin
The. The social media fast. The phone.
- [48:58]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah, the digital media fast.
- [49:00]
Jeanne Urichin
Digital fast.
- [49:01]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah. That's my boss. And so he, he heard me give a message and he, he said, man, we're going to be spinning out some churches probably Lord willing and maybe you'll come and join us one day. And I confessed to him I wasn't very. I hadn't preached much. So I said, I know I'm good at weddings because I've done a million of these, but I. I don't really know how to preach yet. And he said, I think we can help you with that. And, and anyway, I was up here three or four months later, moved to East Nashville and I've been working closely with him for the last, the last 12 years and really just, you know, I've a series of circumstances. I would not have done this had it. You know, I never had someone not invited me into it. There's no way.
- [49:38]
Jeanne Urichin
Yeah, there's no way. He saw you at the wedding?
- [49:42]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah.
- [49:42]
Jeanne Urichin
Was it Courtney's wedding?
- [49:44]
Matt Smallbone
No, it was my cousin Josh.
- [49:46]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Okay.
- [49:47]
Matt Smallbone
Josh. My. He's the. My. Do you know Courtney?
- [49:49]
Jeanne Urichin
Courtney? I don't quite.
- [49:50]
Matt Smallbone
Has she been on this as well?
- [49:51]
Jeanne Urichin
Yeah.
- [49:52]
Matt Smallbone
Oh, she's the. She's the best. Small bone. Yeah, that's. That's a. Yeah, it's a shame. So she's in Ireland right now. They're making a movie over there. Haven't seen him in a couple of months. So. Looking forward to getting them back. Yeah. So no, Courtney was probably there, I think. I can't, I can't remember which order everyone got married in, but there's seven of them. So.
- [50:12]
Jeanne Urichin
Yeah. So you do the wedding and then your approach to do the church. So you're in the Nashville like the one we've been. But only to the Franklin one.
- [50:21]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah. So we're up in the city in a building called Rocket Town. So we rent. We rent the space on a Sunday. Our kids. Yeah, it's a long story. It's. Yeah. So it was like. It was a non profit. He started to give kids a. It's an after school thing and there's a skate park here and everything. Like our kids church is in a skate park.
- [50:38]
Jeanne Urichin
Actually his thing Racket down.
- [50:41]
Matt Smallbone
It is. Yeah, yeah. It's nuts. But we. We rented on a Sunday morning and Wednesday night for youth group and so we. It's. He's got like a thousand seat auditorium in there and so that's where we do church on Sunday mornings. And there's a skate park at the other end of the building where we try and safely corral children to learn about Jesus. That's a big organized around the half pipe.
- [51:03]
Jeanne Urichin
Really cool wild twist.
- [51:06]
Matt Smallbone
Oh yeah. Now I'm on the board at Rocket Town, so I kind of work with Michael in an entirely different way. So it's. Yeah, it's, it's, it's cool.
- [51:13]
Announcer
Sure.
- [51:14]
Matt Smallbone
It's. Yeah, all of those things. Right. So it's like this. But I think anytime you look at, when you find your thing, like, you're really good at this. By the way. I was going to tell you that once we got off, but you're well researched, you're very likable, super lovely and all of that. And I don't know how you got here, but it was a conflation of things somehow that you found your sweet spot. And this stuff doesn't, doesn't tend once you find your thing. It's, it's because of a number of things that were kind of orchestrated behind the scenes a little bit to, to get you there.
- [51:50]
Jeanne Urichin
It's a lifetime of. Give us this day our daily bread.
- [51:52]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is.
- [51:54]
Jeanne Urichin
Wow. Okay. So we've got some kids that do music and I always think, you know, one plays guitar, they. A bunch of them play piano, one sings pretty well. But I have always thought the best instrument to play is the bass because not that many people play it.
- [52:07]
Matt Smallbone
Right. Yeah, especially. And if you're a girl, it's a massive head start as well because this massive instrument on this, you know, little, little person, you know, it looks amazing. It's the fastest way to the top, I think. I think it's probably the easiest instrument to, to pick up and get proficient at and, and it looks way cool.
- [52:24]
Jeanne Urichin
I tried to learn it one time. My husband, my husband is a drummer and he was like, yeah, your timing stinks.
- [52:30]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah, yeah.
- [52:30]
Jeanne Urichin
I was like, come on. I actually got a really cool looking bitch.
- [52:33]
Matt Smallbone
Are you right handed?
- [52:34]
Jeanne Urichin
I am right handed, yeah.
- [52:36]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah. So your right hand just needs to match what his right foot is doing and if. Just practice that and you'll be fine. That's, that's the whole thing.
- [52:43]
Jeanne Urichin
Do you still play much?
- [52:45]
Matt Smallbone
Not too much. Like, I don't play at church or anything.
- [52:47]
Jeanne Urichin
Do you miss it?
- [52:48]
Matt Smallbone
I don't really. I, I got, I'm. Some people in our family get the music gene, so my, my cousins are in this band Called for King Country. And my older cousin. I was the first. My cousin, Rebecca St. James. If you're of. If you're of my vintage. I was her first. I was her first bass player. Player when I was 19. That's why I fell in love with America, you know, So I. I got the gene. I can listen to music and play it without needing to think too much about it. And so I just.
- [53:17]
Announcer
Some.
- [53:18]
Matt Smallbone
That. I think that's. That's the line with music, really. You can be professional if you can just kind of hear it and play it. And some of. Some people can do it and some people can't. I can't draw a picture of myself that looks like me, but some people can, and they can't explain it. They can't explain it to you how they do it either. So.
- [53:33]
Jeanne Urichin
Yeah.
- [53:33]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah. So I. I do like it. I have fun. Like, we've got a piano in the living room, and I'll play that a bit. But, you know, my. I live in Nashville.
- [53:42]
Jeanne Urichin
We.
- [53:43]
Matt Smallbone
We jam every now and then. Like, one of my best mates was in the band Smash Mouth. He lives around the corner. And so we just kind of jam to U2 sometimes.
- [53:51]
Jeanne Urichin
Yeah.
- [53:51]
Matt Smallbone
You know, just. Just like what people do.
- [53:53]
Jeanne Urichin
What people do in Nashville, it's like, exactly what you would think.
- [53:56]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty awesome. So.
- [53:58]
Jeanne Urichin
But being a bass player, Fastest way to the top, especially if you're a guy.
- [54:01]
Matt Smallbone
Fastest way to the top, fast way to the top.
- [54:03]
Jeanne Urichin
Did you learn guitar first?
- [54:06]
Matt Smallbone
I. My mother made me learn the piano.
- [54:08]
Jeanne Urichin
Oh. And then. That's such a transit. That transition's not that bad then.
- [54:12]
Matt Smallbone
Well, I was not good at it. I did the Suzuki Method and didn't get past book two, the Happy Farmer Song, too. And my dad still calls it Aussies Care A Lot about money. The 240 song that I never quite learned. So I quit because I wanted to play cricket. I said, you're gonna force me to do something. Make me play cricket, you know? And then. Anyway, When I was 13, I realized that probably the easiest way for me to get a girlfriend was to learn bass because there was an opening at the church. And so I was. We lived in this little town, and I played bass for all the wrong reasons, but got quite good at it. And then one day when I was 15, it just all snapped into place, and I actually just understood how music worked somehow. And so, I don't know, it's just sort of. It was a beautiful gift God's given me, and I think I probably maximized my Talent like I probably didn't quite deserve to be on stage beside Michael W. Smith, but I was, I was, I was thrilled that it kind of ended there. It was a great way to. We did a tour with Amy Grant and I looked across the stage and I knew it was coming to an end. I'm like, this is the right, this is the right time to bow out of contemporary Christian music with, with these two. So.
- [55:15]
Jeanne Urichin
What a run. What a run. Some of the most famous that have ever existed. Okay, I have two last questions. Here's my first one. Because a lot of times kids listen in with their parents. So my first question is, you fell in love with your work wife six years before she fell in love with you?
- [55:29]
Matt Smallbone
Yes.
- [55:30]
Jeanne Urichin
So you talk about it in the book. So can you talk to the young men who are listening and tell them they, you know, they can stick with it around?
- [55:40]
Matt Smallbone
There, there is something, there's something super important. I mean delaying gratification. Like I think about all the time, like if Mary's frustrating me a little bit, I'm going, are you kidding me? Like when 7. If 16 year old me could have known that I just get to hang out with Mary Henderson all the time, like I would you, you'd be getting over this a little bit quicker. I don't think it hurts to fight for it. I think, you know, one interesting thing is we have an autistic son and he would love to get married one day. And one of the things with the way his brain works once upon a time you want to call that Asperger, like that's kind of a definite. It's not really a word that's used anymore, but that kind of describes his version of autism. And so he would love to find a woman one day. And so. But we have to spend a lot of time. Anyone who's got a kid with kind of developmental delays, you have to kind of just explain everything. You've got to put words to stuff you've never thought about to. And so my. What we've landed with him is, you know, the most important thing. I think the most important thing in getting a girlfriend is getting good at asking questions. I tell him, like, listen, like you're going to think they're really pretty, but you've got to stop thinking about that for a bit because that's not. Just because you think they're pretty doesn't get this thing started. The best thing you can do is learn to ask. We're teaching him going three levels deep in asking a question so you don't talk about your special interests, but you ask a question after their response. You don't talk about yourself as much as you want to, then you talk about the next thing and you put it back on them. And then if you can get to a third question, they're going to think you're the most interesting boy that they've met all week because you're thinking about their stuff. So that's kind of how we're coaching him through it. One of the strange gifts of, of parenting through autism is you just, you do have to break stuff down to its component parts. So we've really tried that on and we've chatting with him about how it's important you can't just go and be married one day. You've got to work on being friends with girls first and all that stuff. So we're leading him through that. But the three question thing, I think was why things ended up working out for me. You've got to talk about yourself, lads, a lot less than you think you do. And then you have to do it for the rest of your life.
- [57:53]
Jeanne Urichin
Oh, incredible advice. And then six years after you fall in love with a girl, she might feel the same way.
- [57:58]
Matt Smallbone
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.
- [58:00]
Jeanne Urichin
You talked about your son. He went off to college. And you, you exited, which I know it can be such an emotional time, right when they're playing Shut up and Dance. I love that song.
- [58:11]
Matt Smallbone
He loves three. He loves three bands. You two for king and country, way below. And then, yeah, Shut up and Dance. Which is a banger for sure.
- [58:19]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
It is.
- [58:20]
Jeanne Urichin
It is. Matt, this has been such an honor. I. The book, it just gave me hope. And I think we need, in a day and age of a lot of distractions, we need reminders, like, to keep it simple. Go back to what, what Jesus said. This, then, is how you should pray. And you wrote this. I thought it was so beautiful. You wrote this. You never outgrow the Lord's Prayer. There is no secret upgrade, no graduate level version. These words are always enough. They are simple enough for a child. They are deep enough for a theologian. They are strong enough to hold you for a lifetime. We always end our show with the same question. What's a favorite memory from your childhood?
- [58:57]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
That was outside Ginny.
- [58:59]
Matt Smallbone
You're the best, by the way, in case they cut us off at the end. You deserve all the success that you're having. I was thinking about this in the 10th grade. In Australia, we used to do this thing. We're at this Lutheran private school. Mary was a boarder I was a day student, but they would send us out to the bush for four weeks and we had to learn. We'd live in these barracks and so there was four cabins. There was. So there must have been like 28 in the class. The girls were about three acres away on the other side. And then we were together and we had to. Had to cook our own food. We had to learn how to navigate the Australian bush using a compass. This before Survival was a TV show. But the final test was you could either choose to do survival, which was you had to spend the night on your own in the bush. You had to navigate to a campsite and stay. No, it was three days. You had to stay there for three. Three days. But I opted to do the group thing together where we would basically do Survivor and we would get points. Like if we could get this many liters of water, then you could. They would give you bread at dinner that night when they came and checked in on you, it was like. So we did this as 15 year olds. We kind of grew up overnight because we were left alone. We didn't have radios, there was no phones, obviously. And it was probably the most one of the more transformative journey to manhood experiences I've ever had. It's called Outdoor Education.
- [60:15]
Jeanne Urichin
This man I just interviewed earlier this morning, his name is Luke Burgess and he wrote a book called the one in the 99. It's about to come out. And he was saying, like, we have no rites of passage anymore and it matters so much. That's what I was thinking when you were saying that. What a rite of passage. And from what I hear in Australia, there's a lot of like scary outdoor creatures there.
- [60:36]
Matt Smallbone
There is. We almost burnt down half of Australia because we knew if we could catch bit a little live rabbit, that that would be big points and we'd probably have steak for dinner that night. But we made everything so dry over there and we burnt a rabbit out of a. We. We found it hiding in a hollow tree stump and then didn't quite put it out properly. And we, we saved Australia that day. Is. Is how it all ended. But it was. It was touch and go there for a little bit.
- [61:02]
Jeanne Urichin
What an experience.
- [61:03]
Announcer
Wow.
- [61:03]
Jeanne Urichin
Yeah. If kids did that, that would change them. Matt, what an honor. I love the book. It's called the Good Pretty Prayer Experiment. How praying like Jesus realigns everything. Our thoughts, our hearts, and our posture toward God and the world. People can find more@Matt Smallbone.com where you can get a signed copy. Thanks for being here.