CNLP 780 | Are You Clear Enough to Reach The Next Generation? The New Rules of Cultural Influence with YouTuber Ruslan KD

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast – Episode 780

"Are You Clear Enough to Reach The Next Generation? The New Rules of Cultural Influence with YouTuber Ruslan KD"
Release Date: January 20, 2026
Host: Carey Nieuwhof (CN)
Guest: Ruslan KD (RK), YouTuber, music artist, Christian influencer

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deeply into the changing landscape of influence for the next generation, particularly how Christian voices can connect in a digital world rife with polarization, rapid technological change, and shifting church attendance trends. Carey Nieuwhof sits down with Ruslan KD, a prominent YouTuber and digital thought leader, to explore how churches and church leaders can learn from online creators, address controversial issues, adapt to audience needs, and responsibly disciple in the age of algorithms and media saturation.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. Ruslan’s Story: From Refugee to Digital Influencer

(Start: 03:37)

• Background: Ruslan shares his early life as an Armenian refugee, escaping violence in Azerbaijan and immigrating to the U.S. (03:37–06:46).
• Adversity and Faith: He explains how trauma, gangs, and family hardship shaped his youth, but the local church—via personal relationships and practical discipleship—changed his life trajectory (06:00).

“I am the byproduct of the local church...the gospel transforming the trajectory of my life.” (06:00, RK)

• Career Path: From music and media at a community college to church staff, to full-time creator/entrepreneur, Ruslan leveraged local church “boot camp” experience to build his digital platform (07:40–13:16).

2. Church Tech as Training Ground

(09:04–11:29)

• Both Carey and Ruslan discuss how the church equipped them with hands-on experience in media, tech, and production before it was common—even compared to many businesses.

3. The Direct-to-Consumer Ministry Model

(19:11–22:00)

• Ruslan explains how ministries can adapt by going “direct to camera,” using podcasts or video to supplement (not replace) Sunday services.

“One of the things I tell a lot of pastors… you have other stuff. And there are felt needs in the church. People do care about what’s happening. If you can connect the dots…there’s a huge opportunity for pastors to have their own podcasts…” (19:54, RK)

• Key Example: Weekly “If I Had More Time” podcast with Ruslan’s pastor, covering sermon overflow and current events for the congregation.

4. Pastors, Controversy, and Narrative Control

(22:45–24:43, 30:36–31:49)

• It’s crucial for pastors to “own” their story, not outsource it, especially in polarized times.

“If you’re a high-profile pastor and there’s shots being thrown at you—man, speak into it. Don’t be afraid… usually when pastors contextualize themselves, it humanizes them.” (22:38, RK)

• Pastors’ reluctance to address hot topics leads to confusion or alienation among young people, who want issues contextualized from leaders they trust.

5. The Challenges of Online Discipleship

(28:08–29:35)

• Ruslan is hesitant to call what he does “digital discipleship”:

“I don’t know if I buy into the notion that you can digitally disciple someone. I think you can help people think…teach, equip, encourage, but I don’t know if I can disciple someone over YouTube.” (28:08, RK)

• Life-on-life discipleship remains essential, but digital platforms can resource and inspire next steps.

6. Audience Engagement: Trolling, Community, and Debate

(24:48–26:39)

• Spectrum of feedback: from dangerous trolls to genuine seekers—Ruslan mostly replies to good-faith questions, particularly in more invested communities like Patreon.
• Online anonymity fuels radicalism; genuine engagement tends to happen in more accountable, “opt-in” spaces.

7. Media Saturation, Algorithms, and Radicalization

(40:53–47:44)

• A “media fast” challenge: 30 days off figures like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes—replacing with Scripture, wisdom, and sermons to see its effect on mental and spiritual health.

“Don’t listen to anything that’s not going to build you up in Scripture...just see how you feel.” (41:26, RK)

• Personalized testimony: Listeners have written to say Ruslan’s counterpointing of conspiracies and victim mentalities drew them away from radicalization (47:15–47:43).

8. Young Men’s Return to Church, Women’s Exit, and Ministry Response

(51:07–54:48, 61:09–65:44)

• Recent data and experience show young men returning to church while many young women are leaving—a trend both fascinating and concerning.

“Men need to be called to a standard…delay gratification…your future self depends on your current self making better decisions.” (59:52, RK)

• Factors drawing young men: Clarity, leadership, purpose, challenge, and practical teaching on vocation, money, and sexuality (54:48, 59:52).
• Bro culture risk: “When men start acting like victims because of modern women...now you’re just complaining, that’s when it easily turns into bro culture.” (61:58, RK)

9. Tackling Contemporary Issues and Preaching with Clarity

(54:48–58:11, 88:03–93:23)

• Ruslan outlines core sermon/discipleship series needs for young adults: apologetics, worldview, sexuality, vocation, finances, and Christian virtue.
• Critique of past attractional models: Both hosts agree that while the “bells and whistles” of attractional church had a place, today’s audience wants clarity and truth over performance (77:59–94:27).

“The next generation is desperate, and they’re looking for hope and truth. If they show up at church, hopefully they find God, not just a really nice, polished version [of church].” (94:27, CN)

10. Balancing Influence, Integrity, and Content Strategy

(72:04–77:26)

• Ruslan describes his “net positive” approach—starting with a negative headline but offering spiritual truth and upbuilding alternatives.
• Both leaders discuss the fine line between drawing an audience and falling into click-driven or hyperbolic content: Integrity and relationship come first.

11. Unlocking Influencer Potential in the Local Church

(102:52–109:14)

• Many churches underutilize high-capacity people in their congregations—Ruslan urges pastors to collaborate, invite, and not feel threatened by influence.

“You should want a guy like me in your church, considering that I’m stable and healthy—and that you’re helping me get stable and healthy if I’m not.” (107:53, RK)

• Most high-influence Christians are happy to serve, consult, teach, and give—they just rarely get asked.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Pastors and Criticism:

  “To be a leader is to be misunderstood.” (30:42, CN)

• On the Danger of Silence:

  “If this is your first time, if you speaking out on the unborn or Charlie Kirk or whatever…is the first time this has caused backlash, I would go, why? Why have you not spent more time talking about the issues that are actually polarizing our society?” (38:24, RK)

• On Discipling the Digital Generation:

  “I don’t know if I fully agree [with digital discipleship], but I do think it’s a great way to teach, help people think, help people process…” (28:33, RK)

• On Agency:

  “At the end of the day, the more agency people can take over their actions, the better.” (61:09, RK)

• On Women, Work, and Family:

  "Anytime I’ve looked at the data...the vast majority, I’m talking 70 to 80% of working women say they aspire to stay home for a season when they have little kids.” (63:02, RK)

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Key Timestamps

• Ruslan’s testimony: 03:37–07:28
• Local church influence and digital transition: 09:04–13:16
• Church response to “direct to camera” trend: 19:11–22:00
• Handling controversy, narrative control: 22:45–24:43, 30:36–31:49, 38:24
• Discipleship in a digital age: 28:08–29:35
• Media, radicalization, and detox challenge: 40:53–47:44
• Young men in the church, bro culture: 51:07–65:44
• Pornography, modern challenges: 66:43–70:56
• Attractional church, lessons learned: 77:59–94:27
• “Net positive” content: 72:04–74:18
• Leveraging lay leaders and influencers: 102:52–109:14

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Conclusion & Takeaways

• The church is at a crossroads, facing both remarkable opportunities and daunting challenges in discipling the next generation amidst technological and cultural upheaval.
• Clarity, honesty, and biblical depth are more desired than ever, especially among young men who are returning to church for substance, not spectacle.
• Digital creators and influencers like Ruslan offer both a challenge and a model for future ministry: direct engagement, transparency, humility, and a willingness to address the issues that matter most.
• Practical invitation for church leaders: Seek out the “influencers” in your pews—not just for their skills, but to partner, consult, and build ministries together in innovative ways.

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Further Resources

• Ruslan’s book: Godly Ambition (mentioned throughout)
• Bless God Summit & Tour Dates: Details at end of episode (110:42)
• Carey’s Church Trends Report: Brief mention; see 2026ChurchTrends.com for more.

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This summary prioritizes the heart, voice, and tone of the dialogue—blending practical leadership insight with a sense of urgency for mission, clarity, and courage for the next generation of church leaders.

Transcript

[A]

The Art of Leadership Network. And this might be an uncomfortable question. And pastors may not, like, this is like, if this is your first time, if you speaking out on the unborn or Charlie Kirk or whatever, and I'm not trying to make all those moral equivalencies is the first time this has caused backlash. I would go, why, like, why have you not spent more time talking about the issues that are actually polarizing our society?

[B]

Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast. I'm here today in studio with Ruslan. A lot of you probably follow him on YouTube, Spotify. He has, well, we're going to get into his story, but he has done hip hop, he's done music. He's an artist, he's a pastor. He, well, is an influencer. And we are going to talk church trends today. So, Ruslan, thanks so much. And we're at your house, we're at your studio.

[A]

We are. We are.

[B]

Bless God. What? Katy headquarters.

[A]

World headquarters. Yeah. Bless God World headquarters. I am not a pastor. For the record, I thought you were never been ordained. But I do aspire to someday be a lay elder at my church. So we might be working on that behind this.

[B]

But this is what we're going to talk about. And I totally respect that. And depending on the denomination and some, you know, my background pastoring was really controlled, but in many ways, you pastor a lot of people through your YouTube channel.

[A]

I think people will say it that way or they'll call me pastor at church. But I don't want to, you know.

[B]

No, I appreciate that.

[A]

And this is why I think as having a lot of pastor friends.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I would say. And I don't. And I would say this is a parallel where I think there's, there's levels to what we do here. And I, for example, went I'm trying to get my conceal and carry. And a while ago, I had the opportunity to go shooting with some Navy SEALs. And I quickly discovered there's levels to this. Okay, there's levels. And so what I would say to me, pastors on the front lines are the Navy SEALs of ministry.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

What they're doing is way harder, way more strenuous. They deal with way more criticism in real life, I get hate comments.

[B]

You get comments. Yeah.

[A]

But it does not compare. Like, I get to speak and then I get to pop into churches, speak on a Sunday and leave occasionally. When you have to put together a talk, when you have to lead a staff, when you have to counsel people, marry and bury people, that to me is The Navy seal. So I want to give honor. What honors do is like you guys doing it on the front lines. That's a different level than what I get to do. I get to have some of those benefits without much of the weight that pastors carry.

[B]

You know, you raise a really good point. We were talking about my audience before, and it's everyone from people who lead megachurches to people who lead churches of a church plant with 14 people this Sunday. And it's hard work, man. It is so much easier to do what I do now than it was to lead a church for two decades and to be a local church pastor. So we'll start there with a shout out because we wanna get into some church trends and we wanna talk about going direct. Like, how do you go directly to YouTube? What does that mean when your audience is out there, not in the room? Because that's a trend that I've spotted. But before we get there, I want to just get a background on your story. I know a number of our listeners will be familiar with you, but, Ruslan, you're probably going to be brand new to a bunch of them who are listening. So, yeah, tell us how it got started. It didn't start in America for you. It started out very differently.

[A]

Yeah, I guess I'll start at the very beginning, if you will. I'm ethnically Armenian. My mother, I married my father. My father's Armenian. My mother's adopted by an Armenian family. But we were living in the Azerbaijan, which is just east of Armenia.

[B]

Now I know how to pronounce that. Yes.

[A]

And long story short, bad management by the former Soviet Union. Ethnic tensions between the Arzies. There's this region in the middle of Azerbaijan that's Armenian called the Naboro Karabakh region. So all kinds of just geopolitical issues. And so there happened a pogroms of Baku in the late 80s, and eventually over a million Armenians were displaced from the capital of Baku by the Arzies. About 500 people were killed. And so we fled to America as refugees. We. We landed in America in 91, a couple months before the fall of communism. And then subsequently, my mother and my father split up. And that was really hard for me. I was. I was pretty close to my dad. They split up. Now I'm growing up in a single parent household. My mom doesn't do well with adjusting to life, you know, in America, So alcoholism, the whole bit. And. Yeah, long story short, I just have like a very tumultuous childhood. I experienced sexual assault. I got into gangs, got into drugs, got arrested at the age of 11. And I had, I all along the Lord kept sending people and planting seeds and over time those seeds were, you know, they took root. And the end of my freshman year of high school, met a girl, it's always a girl with, with, with our type. Yeah. And she ended up getting me just to go to church with her. It's kind of like a seeker friendly attractional model church here in Vista Oceanside area. I started going there, gave my life to the Lord. Subsequently, like still wrestled and kind of worked through all the apologetic stuff. And then, yeah, the end of my junior year, like fully surrendered, got into a small group, got plugged in, started serving right after that, went and joined a small church plant and stayed at a church for 20 years. And really am the byproduct of like the gospel transforming like the trajectory of my life, had it not been for Jesus would have been really dark.

[B]

You could predict it.

[A]

Yeah. And I got, and I got a lot of friends that, you know, spent their 20s in prison or still in prison, you know, and yeah, the gospel message and then the local church and specifically like life on life in the local church, like coming from poverty, coming from trauma and then having access to men who could pour into me, who could be father figures to me, who could disciple me, who could mentor me, was, was really huge in my development. And then, yeah, I got married 2008. We've been married be 17 years, got three kids. We just had a baby four weeks ago.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. I think we were texting when you're like, I'm going to be a dad.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So Luke is our newest addition to the family. Awesome. Yeah. A surprise baby. We weren't planning on it. Yeah. And then, Yeah, I got 11 year old named Levi and a 4 year old named Zoe. Yep.

[B]

That's great. So was, were your parents religious at all?

[A]

No.

[B]

No.

[A]

Well, you know, under communism, you.

[B]

It was illegal.

[A]

It was, it was, it was more or less illegal. And so it's sad when you think about it because you have Armenians who have this deep ethnic connection to Christianity. You know, if you're Armenian, you're Christian. If you're Christian, you can't not be, you know, representing your faith. Now it's different, right. With the Armenian Orthodox Church, but we didn't go to church for the first time until, or at least my recollection until we came to America and became a part of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Yeah.

[B]

And so then pick up the journey to what you're doing. Today, full time. You and I were saying, yeah, how did this become our lives? Right.

[A]

Like, this is.

[B]

This is a really interesting job description. I'm sure, you know, when you gave your life to Christ, it's like, what are you going to be doing? You know, a few years down the road, you never thought, oh, I'm going to be doing this. So you got into the arts, right?

[A]

Yeah, I ended up going to Miracosta College. Community college. Great college out here, learning recording, engineering and music. That was primarily what I was aspiring to do. Transferred to Cal State San Marcos, got kind of connected to media, and I basically learned video because I wanted to edit my own music videos. This is very early. It's like 2009, 2010. Okay. Yeah. So I knew as a. As an artist, I could have an edge by having music videos on YouTube and I could make music and mix music. And then I discovered that it's not that different to edit. So I started editing video first, like, 2010, 2011. And then my buddy was, who was our youth pastor at the time, was like, hey, man, talk about church trends. Yeah, video announcements.

[B]

Oh, cool. Yeah, that was new Shout out Brady Shear. Brady Shear, back in the day.

[A]

He's like, dude, video announcements. And I'm like, what are those? And he, like, explained them to me, and he's like, this is what we're going to do. We're going to take your. Your. Your Canon T2I, we're going to shoot some mock video announcements, and we're going to. We're going to get you a job at the church. And at the time, I was working with adults with developmental disabilities, just kind of trying to scrape by, getting the music off the ground. And I ended up getting a job at my church as the media director. I was on a preaching team. So this is 2013 to 2015. And, boy, was that a great boot camp for what I'm doing now.

[B]

Meaning how so?

[A]

Well, I was on a preaching team, so I had to put together talks. I was also overseeing the young adults. I was overseeing cameras. I was learning about video switchers. I was learning about lighting. I was learning about microphones. I was learning all of it. And I was producing the Sunday morning event, basically. Right. And getting Everything uploaded to YouTube and getting uploaded to the Subsplash app. I think that's what it was called.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

So I was. I was over all of that. It was a lot, but, man, it was a great bootcamp for. For that sort of stuff. And so, like, I'm. I'm like, I'M literally a byproduct of the local church.

[B]

It's so funny just to interject for a quick second, that's exactly. We launched in 07 and I hired a 21 year old really good personal friend, had just graduated with a degree in audio mixing. Like he went to a school, learned how to mix records, that kind of stuff, audio. And he was the most tech guy I knew and we were building like a video church and I'm like, I just need you to lead this. And he built our whole video campus and everything. And interestingly enough, he left a couple years ago. He's now a full time coffee influencer, online guy. But you're right, that was the training ground for him. I mean it was a mission and a calling for him for many, many years. But it's funny how church is more techy than a lot of businesses are.

[A]

Yeah, well you think about it like kid from poverty, not a lot of.

[B]

Access to technology, can't afford this stuff.

[A]

Yeah, can't afford this stuff. And then when even after I transitioned off, they let me borrow a $5,000 video switcher, plug it in and like start cutting live in my little studio and just were like, yeah, sure, you can borrow this thing. You know, they had gotten a different one and so I had this video switcher and that's kind of how I started cutting different cameras, which eliminated the need to edit, which eliminated the friction of getting videos out and all of that helped with getting the YouTube off the ground initially. And yeah, it was, it was, it was really interesting to be in ministry. And so long story short, after two years the music started taking off and I was like, hey, I can't keep, I can't keep being gone, you know, one or two weekends a month while I have all these responsibilities. And so I ended up putting in a two week notice transitioning. And June 1, 2015 was my first day as a full time entrepreneur, rapper, whatever you want to call it. And I started leaning into YouTube. I did a vlog series. This is when Casey Neistat was super popular.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

So it was my day's a full time rapper. Those are still up. I re uploaded them on my channel and so it's like I had all this extra time when I'm not touring, started documenting, went from that to talking head videos. Initially it was more like advice to other Christian rappers. It was like, hey, I made it, quote unquote, to sustain myself off of my artistry. Let me give marketing advice, let me give life advice to other Aspiring artists and rappers, very small niche. Didn't want to be a Christian YouTuber per se. I was like, hey, I'm just want to do my music thing and, you know, I'll just share what I'm learning with other people and hopefully that helps people. And then slowly what started happening is I started doing live streams of music reviews. So we had a small community of a couple hundred people that, like, wanted to know what I thought about their music. This is 2018, 2019. Started doing live streams. And then people just started asking me other questions about theology, about this current event, about this thing, and what do you think about this? And I just started answering the questions and I thought, well, let me. Let me try clipping one of these up. Let me try taking something that people are asking me, clip it up and throw it on YouTube and see what happens. And then surely enough, the. The thing I had done the longest, which is lead Bible studies, communicate scripture, theology, ideas like that within tech, like that is the thing that kind of exploded the most. And so I went from trying to do marketing videos to like, the Christian version of Gary V. To like, okay, I guess I'm going to talk about my faith, because that's what people are asking for.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

So you.

[B]

You kept pivoting your business model as you went along?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. I mean, at the time, I. I honestly thought, like, being a Christian influencer was cringy. Like, I was like, I don't want to be like this weird, like, you're not a pastor, but you're not just an influence. I'd rather just be a guy that's on YouTube and do my artist thing.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, the thing about that is, you know, both of us are doing jobs that didn't exist ten years ago. Right. Which is really interesting. If somebody. If you're literally the 32nd elevator riding up, riding down with somebody and they're like, what do you do? What do you tell them?

[A]

I said, I do YouTube. Yeah, YouTube and podcasting. And then they usually say, well, what do you. What do you talk about? And I go, faith in God and current events and stuff like that. And they go, oh, interesting. Cool, cool.

[B]

So the music part, it's kind of faded away for the most part.

[A]

Yeah. You know, it's really. It's really hard because I love music.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I enjoy making music. The carving out time to consistently not just make music, but market the music is difficult. So what I'm actually going to be doing, I'm going on tour in the spring which is this is kind of new. And I'm putting together. I'm not putting together. I got an agency that's working with me where we're doing like House of blues in Houston, March 21st.

[B]

I saw that.

[A]

Dallas, great venues. Yeah. Sony Music Hall. These are iconic venues. And so what I'm attempt is the big dream is if I can go in and I could put together my godly ambition talk, take that, sprinkle in some of my old music and new music. And then I'm also working on like creating my origin story in a very tight, almost comedy format. So it would be almost like a performance, little bit of comedy with a talk. Trying to drive people to the, to the ethos of godly ambition. That's the dream. So I have somebody actually coming in tomorrow that's helping me write on some of this stuff and trying to really flesh it out.

[B]

So it's kind of like a night with an evening with.

[A]

Yeah, Bruce. Yeah. And then after I do that, then we'll sit down and I might have a guest and I'll sit down and I'll have a conversation sitting down with the audience, take their questions, hang out with them. Just like that. Yeah.

[B]

This episode is brought to you by Igniter Media. So let's be honest. Keeping your church's visuals and communications fresh week after week, that's tough work, right? And that's where Igniter Media comes in. Igniter has a robust library of ready made church media from sermon videos to to beautifully designed backgrounds that work seamlessly in all church presentation software applications. So whether you're a big church with a design staff or a small church with not a lot of budget, Igniter's got you covered. And for my listeners, Igniter is offering an exclusive discount on any of their memberships. Plus, they're giving you a free exclusive sermon series package valued at $330, which includes a complimentary sermon bumper, two title graphics, worship backgrounds, social graphics, canva templates, and a propresenter theme. Check it [e-mail] Carrie that's ignitermedia.com Carrie this episode is brought to you by my annual Church Trends Report. If you're enjoying this episode, I think you're gonna love my latest Church Trends report for 2026. I've identified seven disruptive trends plus a megatrend that are shaping the future of the church. We're seeing Generation Z's surprising surge in chur attendance, something almost nobody expected a couple years ago. There's a new boldness in evangelism that's really starting to emerge. Algorithms are quietly taking control of discipleship and pastors. Actually, you're paying a price for that. And maybe most concerning of all, most churches still aren't ready for the AI revolution that's already reshaping leadership and soon the world and ministry. So those are just a few of the trends that we'll be unpacking this year. These trends are backed by data. I've done a lot of research into this report, much of which is collected by Barna, and I share my thoughts on why the data matters, what you can do about it, and how it should shape your ministry. So if you want to access the report, head on over to 2026ChurchTrends.com for free access, or simply click the link in the description of this episode. I'll send you a copy right away and you'll be in the loop for everything 2026 church trends related. Again, it's all free. Just click the link in the description of this episode or visit 2026 Church. So here's what's fun. I'm so glad you told us that story. You're inventing categories as they go, and that's one of the trends I identified. Like, if you think about the way a lot of churches use social media, right, they've got gear just like this. Like, even smaller churches now have a lot of great gear and, you know, they know how to use it. But it's all programmed around Sunday morning, right? The message, the music, and then most churches, social media is a repeat of what happened on Sunday back in Covid. We were direct to camera, have a direct conversation, look directly in the lens. As soon as the doors are open again, that was over. And I kind of flagged this as a trend because I noticed with, like, you with Bryce Crawford, Wes Huff, who I think you know well, and you're doing some collabs with. They're going straight to the camera and they're not bypassing the church because they're involved in the church. It's not like, yeah, we're done with church. You're not done with church at all. You got a local church, Wes has a local church, et cetera, et cetera. But here's the thing. Your ministry is direct to camera. Sadie Robertson Huff. And I mean, that started with Beth Moore did that. She had to go direct to books and everything. And Lisa Terkerist has done that, Ann Vos camp. But now we have this new generation that's going directly onto video. And I'm just really curious what do we do with that? Because I think in a lot of churches, what happens is a pastor comes up and says, ruslan, so glad you're here. You got this big YouTube channel. Can you run the soundboard on Sunday morning, which you might be willing to do, or could you park cars? I'd love you to think about when you see what's really gaining momentum online. Let's start with this. What does the church have to learn from people like you who are going direct to YouTube?

[A]

Well, yeah. Again, let me just say that I love the local church. I'm very active in my local church, Rhythm Church in Oceanside. People know that I attend there, which was planted by your friend Larry Osborne. Chris Brown, North Coast Church, planted us in 2020. So all props to north coast, who really supported us early on. Yeah. So, man, what can. Okay, so one of the things I tell a lot of pastors and my. My pastor, by the grace of God, Jeff Moores, is amazing. We do a podcast every week. He calls it, if I Had More Time. This is everything that didn't make it into the Sunday Morning talk because most pastors are what they're over preparing. They have a lot of content that they wish they could have gotten.

[B]

Hopefully there's stuff on the cutting room floor.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And so there was for me, hey, you have other stuff. And there are felt needs in the church. Like, people do care about what's happening. If you can connect the dots between what is the conversation on the ground and what is the stuff you're speaking into. I think there's a huge opportunity for pastors to have their own podcasts and go directly to consumer. But it start as a supplement to Sunday Morning. So we're not trying to go and be influencers. We're just saying, hey, guys, because we wanna serve our local church. We have these other resources for you. Sunday morning extension of Sunday Morning, Monday morning podcast to follow up. And so that's what we're doing. It's been successful. I wanna say this is similar to like Josh Howerton and what he's doing is you have these podcasts and you're really just starting and saying, hey, I just wanna serve our body. And then if God breathes on it and expands beyond that, praise God. Right. Pastor Ed Newton is doing this as well.

[B]

Josh and Ed are great examples.

[A]

Great examples. And so I, I think, one, just doing that. Two, I think this generation needs current events, what's happening contextualized. Right. There's a lot of pastors that caught a lot of. A lot I would say a lot of strays, pastors who didn't say enough about Charlie Kirk on Sunday morning or didn't say anything and pastors who maybe said too much and then he scared away people from there. And what, what are we, this white Christian nationalist church now? And what does that. And so, but I think young people like they, they want to know and connect the dots. Right. And so I think speaking into these things on a Sunday morning or in a midweek podcast, I think is great. You know, I remember being in church the Sunday after 9 11. This is as I was coming to faith and I remember how big it was and I remember the pastor leaning into it and having a conversation about what happened. And, and I mean it was a, one of the first times I saw so many people show up to church. And then, and we just had a similar moment with Charlie Kirk right now again, if people disagree with some of the things he said or whatever, like that's neither here nor there. People are flooding, young men are flooding the church. Yep. So I would say that being aware of the current news cycle, what's happening, don't, don't be afraid to speak into these things. And then I'll say lastly, and I said this to Carl Lentz and I've said this to quite a few pastors. I think pastors stand to benefit, to have control of their own narrative. So if you're a high profile pastor and there's shots being thrown at you, man, speak into it. Don't be afraid to talk into whatever the conversation is. Like whoever you are, be willing to sit down and explain yourself. Right. And usually when pastors contextualize themselves, it humanizes them. And so if you're catching arrows and you're saying, yeah, I'm not afraid to talk about whatever thing the mob online is talking about or afraid about, they can get ahead of their own narrative and then not be smeared and misrepresented and decontextualized.

[B]

You know, I think that's a really big point. I'm so glad we're having this conversation because, you know, there was a time and I pastored for 20 years, but I tapped out 10 years ago. Right. As the lead pastor. And I remember 911 and I remember how full the room was and I remember throwing my sermon out and starting over again and talking about it. And it's funny, I remember conspiracy theories at the time, even pre Internet. Really, we're still on dial up. But I'll tell you what really happened. That was an inside job. That was this that was that. And I was able to kind of ignore that around 9 11. Right. Like, I didn't go there, I didn't engage. Now you've got a congregation that's bathing in conspiracy theories all week long, or progressive politics or alt right politics, or they have a point of view on everything. And I think what you're saying is really interesting because I think a lot of us, and I think, I still think like a pastor who started in the 90s would think I can bypass that and say something that's gonna make everybody happy. And Charlie Kirk was a lightning rod moment in a number of different ways. First, the tragedy of it, but second, the polarization around it. And I think a lot of pastors were like, I need to find consensus. And they discovered that there was no consensus. But what I think you're saying is you don't have a church per se. You do have a church, but that's not where you're doing this stuff. You have the comments and you know this about the algorithm. When the piece goes viral, your audience might say, oh, I've watched like 75 of his videos. I know what he means. I know his point of view. As soon as it goes viral, you get all these new eyeballs on you and people don't know you, they don't know who you are and they only judge you based on what they saw in the eight seconds they watched of your 40 minute video and you said something that triggered them. So when you read the comments and they're really angry, how do you respond? What do you do with that?

[A]

There's a spectrum of comments. There's the all the way on, I'm gonna come and bring harm to you.

[B]

I know where you live.

[A]

There's no reasoning with that person all the way down to the hey, man, like, I'm not really understanding this part, or like, why are you talking about this? And those are more, I would say, genuinely good faith questions that are inquisitive. And so those. I think the comments, the comment I've been getting recently is, hey, it's so cool that you're actually engaging with me in the comments section.

[B]

Like, so you're jumping in the comments.

[A]

Yeah, probably more than I should.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say I experiment with that. I can't say it goes well.

[A]

Yeah. Especially on YouTube. I would say on Patreon, definitely, like.

[B]

Oh, it would be a different audience. Patreon, yeah.

[A]

Because those are people that are kind of within the core.

[B]

For those who have heard about Patreon, but don't understand it. What, what is Patreon?

[A]

It's just a membership. So. Yeah, so there's a.

[B]

So they're paying to watch you?

[A]

Well, not quite. There's a free tier that like, people can follow and then there's a paid tier that they can get certain perks like, like podcasts go early on Patreon, before they go public. They get stuff like discount codes to our shop. They'll get access to tours, stuff, stuff like that a little, a little earlier. And those are the people that like. When I'm seeing comments left, I'll engage with those. Because I'm going back and forth right now with a guy that's like, he has some of that Israel derangement syndrome and he's like, you know, Israel's bad, and this and this and this and this. And I'm just kind of, I'm making content around it. But I'm also trying to understand his paradigm because you can go very quickly from like, hey, there's a fair critique about some of the actions that Israel can have to like, full on, drink the koolaid, antisemitism, Jews run the world. Right. And I'm trying to divert people from going down that rabbit hole. So I got to engage in some of the rhetoric around it.

[B]

So on Patreon, you know, it's kind of like if you run a Porsche dealership, for argument's sake, you got a 22 year old who makes, you know, minimum wage coming in, can I test drive a Porsche? They're going to have a very different opinion than a qualified buyer. So to some extent, inside Patreon, we have the same thing in the Art of Leadership academy. We've got 15,000 church leaders now there's a free tier and then a paid tier. Totally different dialogue inside with the free and the paid members because they, even the free ones, had to create an account and they're like, I'm opting in. So you find a more like normal.

[A]

Debate because they can't be anonymous. You can't hide behind an egg face, you know, egg for your. For your profile. Exactly. I see your name. I actually have your address because we ask everybody to opt in with their address. Like, I know you're a real person. I guess they can lie about their name or whatever, but I know they're a real person. So those people I'm willing to engage.

[B]

And the trolls, the trolls don't show up as much.

[A]

Not really. And if they do, they get blocked.

[B]

Exactly. That's what we do. We really haven't had maybe one or two out of 15,000. Okay, so this is interesting. I think a lot of pastors are trying to make that shift and understand. So what is the benefit if I subscribe to your YouTube channel and you start talking to me? You're working on a daily show and you're sort of my point of view on the news. You're my point of view on what's happening. What happens to the person. Are you discipling them? Like, what are you doing, man?

[A]

That is such a great question. I don't know if I. I don't know if I buy into the notion that you can digitally disciple someone. I think you could help people think. I think you can give people an insight into how you think and come to conclusions and process information. I think you can teach people. I think you can equip people, encourage people, empower people, inspire people. I don't know if I can disciple someone over YouTube.

[B]

I think especially on Mass. Right. Tens of thousands of people watching.

[A]

Yeah. And discipleship for me has always happened life on life. It's always happened with the older men in my life or maybe men that are maybe a season ahead or men that I'm spending time with. And it happens like that. And so I don't know, it's a hot button issue right now for sure, like digital discipleship. And I'm like, I don't know if I fully agree, but I do think it's a great way to teach. Help people think, help people process. A lot of people just want to process. Like, they want to think, hey, man, like, this thing happened and I don't know how to think about it. And I feel like you're generally reasonable. Let me see what you think about it. Oh, and you brought me back to scripture, like, yeah, how cool is that? You actually connected this to scripture. And, man, I'm haven't had the chance to get in my Bible today. And like, you, you gave me some word, you know, that sort of stuff. Yeah.

[B]

So one of the things that pastors have, and we primarily church leaders or like board members, key volunteers who listen to this podcast, plus a sampling of other people. But one of the challenges I think pastors have is not only trying to please people, but they're trying to, like, I'm preaching on Romans this week, and all of a sudden, you know, this happened in the news or that happened in the news. If you were. Because you are very involved in the church, if you are advising pastors. Like, Charlie Kirk is a great example. Right. And we talked about it. A few times on this podcast, no matter what a pastor did over Charlie Kirk and I heard from dozens, if not hundreds of pastors directly on that they didn't do it right. They were too vocal, too quiet. They prayed, but they prayed wrong. Or there should have been more than a prayer, or they did more than a prayer, but then they should have only prayed, or they were too left, or they were too right, or they were too this or too that. And they feel like they can't win when they step into that. So some of them are just, like, stepping back and going, ah, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that.

[A]

What?

[B]

Based. You know, because you're getting reactions every day. What's your take on that?

[A]

Well, I mean. I mean, I think we all, those of us that are public people, all signed up for some degree of misunderstanding.

[B]

To be a leader is to be misunderstood.

[A]

Yeah. And so it's like, man, you got to grin and bear it. You know, you do your best, you pray about it. You know, I think there's a variety of ways that you can address it. Like, my pastor addressed it at the beginning. He also addressed political violence as a whole. So it wasn't just, oh, my gosh. So, no, he mentioned the senators in Missouri that got attacked, and he went over all the things that had happened, and yeah, it's tragic. So I think he acknowledged it at the beginning, and then just so happened. We've been in the Book of Acts for the entire year, and somehow the chapter kind of connected to persecution and getting killed for your faith. And it was wild the way it over. Like, we just happened to be.

[B]

I don't.

[A]

We weren't on Stephen. I don't think we were on Stephen, but there was some degree of persecution when we were in Acts, and it just kind of connected to the. To the. To the chapter, you know, and so whether or not Charlie was a martyr or not, I don't think it's either here nor there. He took a clear biblical stance on the trans issue, and I would argue that's what cost him his life, you know, and he was unapologetic about that. And so I think we could speak to that without being afraid.

[B]

And.

[A]

And if someone says you're a bigot, you're wrong. It's like we have to be okay with people misunderstanding us, and we have to be okay with people being wrong about us. So you have people in your life that are new believers. You have people in your church. I mean, new believers, non believers. Believers with a non biblical worldview. Like, they. They are progressive, Marxist, and somehow they're going to church every Sunday, and then they're not just some parts that they can't really reconcile, but they're there. And it's okay for them to be wrong. It's okay for us to say, hey, no, this was wrong. Political violence is wrong. It doesn't matter if he said everything perfect, but this was wrong, period. We don't need to add a. And, you know, and if you're afraid to say that, I would say, why? Like, would we be afraid to talk about the unborn? Would we be afraid to talk about marriage? Would we be afraid to tell the dude that's sleeping with a girlfriend in church while he's serving in the worship team? You can't do that. You need to sit down. No, we wouldn't. Hopefully, God willing, the pastors that are.

[B]

Listening, we would say that.

[A]

Yeah, we would say, no, sit down. No, you can. No, you cannot be in leadership and serve and sleep with your girlfriend. Sit down. And so if we were to say that to that dude, why are we afraid to say the obvious, which is like, political violence is bad. And even if Charlie Kirk says some things, I may not agree with that what happened to him is wrong, period. Right. I think we have to be able to say that.

[B]

This episode is brought to you by GLU Pastors. I want to ask you something. Do you ever feel like Sunday is the part that you're called to, but Monday is the part that breaks you? You preach one message and then you're supposed to stretch it into a whole week of ministry, content, emails, social, small group questions, next steps. And it can feel like the content hamster wheel never stops. Well, if you felt that way, I've got Brad Hill here from glu. So, Brad, what is GLU Content Studio and why should a pastor care?

[A]

Thanks, Carrie. You know, Glue Content Studio is built around the same simple idea. One message can power a whole week of ministry. So you drop in your sermon and outline notes OR TRANSCRIPT and ContentStudio helps you multiply it into what your church actually needs during the week. We're talking about clear sermon summaries, social posts that actually sound like you, small group discussion prompts, practical next steps for your people, and more that you can imagine. So instead of staring at a blank screen on Monday, you're building from what God already gave you for Sunday. And it kind of helps Carrie stop this Monday burnout and lets your message go farther than a single weekend.

[B]

Well, that's huge. And it's all with the click of a button. So if you want to reclaim your Mondays and extend the impact of your preaching, check out Glue Content Studio. All you have to do is go to glue.com, that's G L O o.com C-A-R-E-Y and you can try it today. So let's discuss this, and I'm honestly interested in your perspective. You know, you or I say something and we got a lot of nasty comments or people who unsubscribe or they're not gonna buy your book or whatever, you know, happens.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

When a pastor gets up there. You know, I talked to one pastor, two, more than one pastor, actually. Numerous pastors who say on the handling of that they lost hundreds, in some case thousands of people. A measurable chunk of their donor base just walked out the door. Now that I get. First of all, if you lose it all for the sake of the gospel, did you really lose anything? On the other hand, I would think some of these things aren't core. It's not like you're denying the resurrection. It's not like you're going, jesus didn't rise from the dead, or he wasn't actually God or the scripture is. Yeah, yeah, it's a good guide, but it's not actually the word of God. So they're not really arguing over the core issues of faith, but they said something wrong. And so I can see pastors pulling their punches a little bit on those issues because there's so much at stake. Any thoughts or advice on that? Because you are somebody who has a heart in the local church, but you're also used to this online every day and getting beat up in the comments.

[A]

Yeah, I guess I've just developed a numbness to some of it. I couldn't imagine when it's affecting that big of a financial chunk like, that has to be scary. But again, we've taken stances that have costed us financially. Yeah, we've taken all sorts of stances that cost us financially all the time. And I'm okay with that because at the end of the day, I rather risk and help pull people out of brain rot than to say nothing. And then people go deeper and deeper into some of these unhelpful false conspiracies.

[B]

Where is the line for you? And I think you're right, because brain rot is a big issue. I've been doing some research into it for a project on AI that I'm working on. But brain rot is a bigger issue than that. What is the difference between in Your mind, teaching people how to think versus telling them what to think. Teaching them how to think versus telling them what to think. Because I could start a YouTube show and say, this is what you should think about, blah, blah, blah, whatever the issue of the day is. Right. But how do you. What's the difference between the two? How to think, what to think?

[A]

Well, you know, the interesting thing about education in general was education existed to teach people how to think, ideally, initially. Right. And then they became these, like, indoctrination camps where now we're just brainwashing this, the next generation of kids, into what to think. So I think getting people back to the basics of reason and logic, philosophy, how do you come to conclusions of. Of truth, what is our basis for knowing anything and helping people process, that I think is valuable. But then there are times where you just need to rebuke people and just say, no, no, you cannot do this. You cannot weasel your way out of this. This is the standard. And I think that's good, too. And I. Especially young men, I think we keep thinking like, young people are afraid to be led or to be told. And I don't get that at all. I think men need to be told sometimes, like, stop.

[B]

They seem to like it.

[A]

Yeah, they seem to like it. So this idea that, like, oh, well, we don't want to lecture them or whatever. I mean, listen, you know, when Jesus told them to eat his flesh and drink his blood, there's a lot of people that fell away. You know, there's a lot of people that left. Now, my question, and this might be an uncomfortable question, and pastors may not, like, this is, like, if this is your first time, if you speaking out on the unborn or Charlie Kirk or whatever, and I'm not trying to make all those moral equivalencies, is the first time this has caused backlash. I would. I would go, why? Like, why have you not spent more time talking about the issues that are actually polarizing our society? Right? Is. Is it because you don't want to ever step on toes? Is it because. Because I think Jesus did. And both, like, I think there were times where Jesus flat out rebuked people, and then there were times where Jesus led with love and grace and mercy and compassion. So I think we have to be full of grace and truth. And if this is causing such a backlash, where a big chunk of your donor base is left, I would go, what? What's been going on? What have you been doing?

[B]

Well, and at the end of the day, I'm not justifying that like, you know, the donor base is the donor base and if it goes to zero tomorrow, when you were faithful.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You get points in heaven. Right? That's okay. That's okay. Yeah, I. But I think it's a tension that they wrestle with and when somebody leaves, it's deeply painful. One of the challenges. And you would see this every day in your platform. And JD Greer really helped me think about this on a recent episode of our podcast. And I can't get the thought out of my head, but the average American spends seven hours a day online. And that means they're on not just your YouTube channel or social, they're everywhere. That means when they spend an hour with a pastor on Sunday morning, they've already been discipled. Not real discipleship, but discipled for 49 hours by whatever the algorithm served them up. And you know how the algorithm works. How do you keep someone engaged? More and more extreme. Right. So they're down the anti Israel rabbit hole or they're on some crazy theory or whatever. And you've got a whole mix. Now you have a church of 100, you've got people who are into wellness and life extension, and you've got people who are maga, and you've got people who are progressive and you got all of these different people. So whatever you say is being watched or listened to or processed through all of these lenses over which you have no control. And where the financial incentive is, just keep them hooked eight hours a day, nine hours a day, because the longer we're all hooked up, the more company or the more money the Mag 7 make and other companies as well. So I'm curious, you know, this is just the world we're in. None of us signed up for this. What are your thoughts on that? How do you. Have you ever changed someone's mind on the Internet? Sharon McMahon, who's been on the show a few times, is like, don't argue with strangers on the Internet. What are you learning about that?

[A]

Yeah, well, so right now, something we're doing in real time is I'm doing a Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes challenge. And the challenge is this. Cut that out for 30 days. Don't listen to anything that's not going to build you up in scripture, build you up in wisdom, build you up in preaching, build you up in Bible for 30 days. So no victim mentality, no woe is me. The system is rigged. It's a big conspiracy maritime, like none of that cut out Nick Fontes, Tucker Carlson and the like. I call them the woke. Right.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And cut them out for 30 days and just see how you feel.

[B]

So this is interesting. Okay. Because the algorithm is different and I know of those names, but I don't know what the debate is. So if you could fill me in, and maybe that's because I'm Canadian. I always play the Canadian card.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But I think it's probably the algorithm. I could be totally dialed in. So can you explain what's at stake and why you're calling for a 30 day media fast on that?

[A]

Yeah. So. And I'll give you a comment of breakthrough in this area. Like a real scenario. Yeah. So there's a spectrum there, but more or less, I mean, Candace has completely gone off the rails post Charlie Kirk where she has alleged that every quote, everyone has betrayed Charlie. So from the President to the FBI to Turning Point usa, everyone has betrayed him.

[B]

So she is the rightful heir or.

[A]

She is the only one that quote, really cares to get to the truth. Okay. So now you add that to deputizing her entire audience to be her sources. And she's getting all sorts of crazy sources, from Egyptian planes to, you name it, the exploded mic theory to there was a trapdoor underneath Charlie and the bullet really came from above, like just all kinds of stuff. And because anybody can send her anything. And so she's now every. There's new evidence with a new theory and her new sources. And at the end of the day, the quiet part, she's finally starting to say out loud, which she said, lol. To the idea that you can get ahead. LOL to the idea that meritocracy exists. LOL to the idea, so on and so forth like that. If you go down, the truth, it will, it will take you out and you can no longer work hard and invest in yourself and develop yourself, which.

[B]

Is awful for the whole system is.

[A]

It'S all, it's all over, all rigged.

[B]

It's all a conspiracy because look at.

[A]

What they're doing to her.

[B]

This is new to me. She's the truth.

[A]

She's the truth seeker.

[B]

Look at what. Yeah, yeah, right.

[A]

And so that is absolute poison for the, for the 18 to 25 year old young person, let's just say predominantly male, to tell them that, hey, you're never gonna get ahead, you're never gonna buy a home, you're never gonna make it. It's over. So guess what? Just watch me every day. Right? So. So that's how to build a platform. Yeah. That's Candace, by the way, number one podcast. I don't know if she still does, but one of the number one podcasts in the world, in the country at least. So that's Candace. Tucker kind of plays this like dumb thing where he'll be like, I don't know, I don't know what's going on. And all along he knows what's going on.

[B]

Guess I'm dumb.

[A]

Yeah. And he's completely flip flopped on every position he held 10 years ago.

[B]

This is a Tucker Carlson.

[A]

Tucker Carlson. And not just, not just flip flop, but like has snuggled up to everyone from Putin to Qatar to Prince, you know, princes in the Middle east, to accepting Qurans to having Nick Fontes on and, and, and giving him a very softball interview. And then Nick. It's Fuentes. I was calling Fuentes. It's Fuentes. Nick Fuentes is like the bottom of the barrel of the far right rabbit trail. Like actual the Jews run society. The blacks need to be incarcerated for the most part. This is a direct quote. And women just need to shut the F up. And if that were to happen, we would all live in paradise. And so this is like really the bottom of the barrel. And the tricky part with him is he's very charismatic, he's funny. And so people don't know if he's trolling. People don't know if this is a shtick. So he just sat down with Piers Morgan. That's what our video is about today. Where he was like, yeah, like I'm racist. Like through and through, I'm racist. Like, yeah, black people for the most part need to be locked up, you know, and then you go, well, based on what? Based on what? Crime statistics. And his statistics is wrong. The data is wrong. You got a 27 year old dude who lives in his mother's basement, never been married, never had a girlfriend, no kids, no family, no nothing. And he is. He got canceled unrightfully. So I would say they completely canceled. Canceled. I'm talking bank accounts canceled. I'm talking no flight zone and the Streisand effect. And so now he's exploded into popularity.

[B]

Oh, this is who Nick is.

[A]

That was.

[B]

He got canceled.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And so he is now scorching hot. And a lot of people, he has, they call him the gropers. I call them the gropers, but they're called the groipers. And his online audience is absolutely important. And here's the sad part. I was talking to a friend of his, actually a mutual friend of ours, and he said, had Nick not been canceled, he probably would have already fizzled out by now, because we've seen this. We've seen this with the Andrew Tate's, we've seen this with the really hyperbolic stuff. And so this is what's consuming. And the message at the end of the day is you're a victim. You can never get ahead. The system is rigged and the powers that be are keeping you from succeeding in making anything of your life. That's ultimately what it is. And Nick adds white identity politics to it. So you're talking the immigrants, the blacks, the Jews, they've taken our way of life and, you know, whatever. And so. And so, hey, forget the fact that the average American is consuming seven hours of media a day, almost 50 hours a week. Forget the fact that you're chronically online, you're chronically distracted, you're not developing yourself, you're not building any useful skills, you're not dating, you're not going to church. No, it's the Jews and the blacks and the immigrants that are ruining America. It's like, no, no, no. Or, or you can take some agency, you can take some responsibility. And so the big challenge is cut that out. And I only want you to listen to wholesome, uplifting, either preaching, Bible teaching, Christian stuff, Christian music, if you're struggling financially. Dave Ramsey, Daniel Priestley. That's the challenge for people and the people that are going into it. I'll read you an example of this.

[B]

Yeah, please do.

[A]

So. This just came in 15 hours ago. He says, Ruslan, it's important you know that I was on the Candace bandwagon and almost into the Fuentes stuff as well. Because of your content, I've been able to take a step back, focus on reality, and get my life in check. You've helped nuance my thoughts on Israel conspiracies and how I should be consuming media as a whole. Your content is a blessing, and I pray for your ability to continue showing people the truth and helping them focus on our Savior above all else. God Bless brother recently got Godly Ambition audiobook. Looking forward to listening to it.

[B]

Man.

[A]

So these are the types of comments I'm getting of people that were like, hey, I was almost radicalized by this stuff.

[B]

Well, that's how radicalization happens, right? Like, we've seen that. And we also know, again, what do we know? I know a few things about the death and resurrection of Jesus, but, you know, a lot of the social media chatter is being funded by foreign governments or foreign agents too. Someone pretending to be. I'm not saying that's Nick Fuentes. I'm not saying that's Candace Owens, but a lot of the stuff on your feed, if you're in that radicalization on the left or the right, that is pretty verifiably being fueled by foreign agents.

[A]

Who Elon exposed it when he allowed to see where the X accounts are and how many people were overseas. But not even that. I mean, you got people are always talking about the Israel lobby. The Israel Lobby. The Israel Lobby. Israel lobby in comparison to Qatar is abysmal in terms of what APEC actually contributes versus Qatar and what they've poured into, not just the 2024 election in politics, what they've poured into our universities, what they've poured into our education system. Like there's a lot of money that is being funneled. And to your point, how much of this is just curation and foreign interference with regards to radicalizing people?

[B]

Right. In other words, you know, we're going to invade you, but we're going to invade you by dividing you. And a house divided doesn't stand. That's right. You know, we're in a very different place than we were 20 years ago. And this is such a helpful conversation because I do think that so many local church leaders, I mean, maybe they're aware of this and maybe I'm out in the dark, but I think a big chunk of pastors would not be nearly as aware of what people are consuming online as you are. And so I think I'm going to be fascinated to see what happens after 30 days.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're already starting to hear amazing feedback from, from folks who are engaging with this stuff. And so I'm hoping that we don't just tell people, don't listen to stuff. Right. Just remove this stuff. Trying to point people to something better. And I'm trying to point people to something wholesome. And whether that's my book or whether that's just good Bible preaching, that's going to remind you, yes, you are a sinner, but Jesus rose and conquered death and demons and destruction and you get to get in on that. And it's not just hell insurance. It's not just, hey, man, I got my health insurance in case the rapture happens next Thursday because A guy on TikTok told me it's going to happen. Right? No, no, no. I'm actually here to help usher in a piece of heaven on earth. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Right. And empowering people and saying, hey, regardless of our theological differences as Christians or regardless, like we're here to usher in goodness and beauty and transcendence and be the hands and feet of Jesus. That requires agency and responsibility. That requires you cutting back on that seven hours of media consumption day. And let's just. Let's just cut that in half. I'm not even saying stop all of it, because that wouldn't serve me well as a YouTuber.

[B]

Let's just cut out the other podcast, not mine.

[A]

Let's just cut it in half and let's just say, hey, I'm going to cut this in half. And Now I got 25 hours a week back. What could we do with that? 25 hours a week? I bet you could learn that skill you've been meaning to learn. I bet you can learn that instrument you want to learn. I bet you can learn how to track your calories and macros and train better and take care of your body and go outside and touch grass. You do that for 30 days, 60 days, my gosh. You're a different person.

[B]

And so that's kind of your message. You have a pretty young audience. Another one of the trends is young men are returning to church. Women are leaving. Not all, but a lot. Like, statistically significant, but young men are rushing back to church. We touched on that a little bit. What do you think is behind that?

[A]

I think young men have tried everything the world's offered them. I think they've tried the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, pride of life. I think they've tried that. I think they understand that much of what's being fed to them is false. And I think they're looking for something deeper. And they're ready to grow up. They're looking for guidance. They're looking for someone to tell them the truth. And I. Not to oversimplify, but I think there's that. I think they're disillusioned with the status quo, and they're saying, I need something more.

[B]

How is that showing up on your channel? How are you hearing that? What are you hearing from them?

[A]

Well, I mean, outside of the channel, when I do my live events, we did four Godly ambition book launches. So I did one. I did one in Dallas, did one in Nashville. I did one here in Oceanside at my church, and I did one in San Antonio with Pastor Ed at cbc and the lines of people that want to sit and talk and tell me their story and get prayed for and like that, like that, like what I'm hearing. There is a lot of men and women, but men primarily are sharing these things with me of like, hey, like, yeah, like, I'm in this tension of, like, I want to be faithful with my time, my talent, my treasure. But I. But I don't want to just chase success for the sake of chasing success and vanity for the sake of vanity. And how do I discover my calling and how do I discover my purpose? And is it really over? Like, am I really not? My parents got a better life than me, and this is it. I'm never going to be able to buy a home, and I'm never going to be able to retire with dignity, and I'm never going to be able to go on vacation. Like, these are the real questions they have. And I'm not saying that that is. That should be the North Star for a young man. But these are things that they're thinking about, hey, I want to have a family and afford my wife the opportunity to stay home when the kids are little. You know, can I even do that in this economy? Those are the questions they're asking. And I think they're understanding that regardless on how you pan out on those things, right? Regardless on if you're figured out financially, if you don't figure out, at the end of the day, Jesus is what gives us the peace. Right? Jesus is what gives us the steadfastness of regardless on how things work out, I know that I have something I can trust that's outside of myself.

[B]

So if I'm writing sermon series for a year and I want to address some of the core issues, obviously I'm taking this from Scripture, but I really believe Scripture speaks to all the core issues you're going to run into life. I have not run into one that Scripture doesn't address directly or indirectly. But if you're looking at. Because a lot of us. I'm doing an episode with a couple that specializes in dating. Cause I did the math last year. It's been 37 years since I dated. Most of a lot has changed a little bit. Little bit's changed.

[A]

It's been 21 years since I've dated.

[B]

21 years since you've dated. A little bit's changed, right? But you get up there and it's like, I'm a relationship expert. I'm not an expert. Right. It's been a long time since I was a young man. So if you were crafting a series for young adults and we can include women, we can just talk about men for a minute. It's up to you. Frame the question as you want. What issues are you focused on? What do you think are the things they're looking for clarity and hope around.

[A]

Well, I think we have to start with foundationally who is God? So I think there needs to be some apologetics. From there, we're going to jump into worldview. What is the lens that you see everything through? We're probably gonna have to do some detangling of some of the Marxism that they've been indoctrinated in, of some of the oppressed, oppressor. Patriarchy bad. Like, we're gonna have to detangle some of that on a macro scale.

[B]

So we're saying patriarchy's good.

[A]

I think biblical patriarchy is amazing. Yeah.

[B]

What do you mean by that?

[A]

Biblical complementarianism. So, so, so men and women complement each other. We're different, but we're both created in the image of God. But we have distinct roles and we're wired different. Generally speaking, I understand there's. There's women that are amazing entrepreneurs, and I understand there are men that, you know, maybe stay at home dads for a season. But generally speaking, men and women are different. And a lot of what these kids are indoctrinated in is, is like a soft neo Marxism, and they don't even know it. They don't even know that you're. You're seeing the entire world through an oppressor, oppressed paradigm, right? So we got to detangle some of that. So, like, what is the worldview that we see everything through? Right? And that starts with God. He's on the throne. Psalm 24:1. The earth is the Lord's everything in it, the whole world and all the people in it. So God's ultimately on the throne. He's sovereign over all things, and we exist. So I would say the basics of the worldview, the story, like the gospel story, I think, is so intrinsic, right? Because the gospel story, it doesn't start with us. Like, we're not the main character of the story. Jesus is the main character. The Creator is the main character of the story. And then even in the way Jesus engages with humanity is like, man, I created you in with dignity and worth and value. But by the way, in Matthew 7, he says, you who are evil. So this is dichotomy of humanity that, like, is uncomfortable. Like, no, no, no. People are evil. We can say that at the same time, we have immense value and immense potential and could do amazingly good stuff. You who are evil know how to give good gifts, right? So I think a world, a worldview description of what is the Christian world view. You've seen the Studies. What is it like? Less than, you know, 30% of people in church actually have a biblical worldview. Yeah. Yeah. So I think we have to get.

[B]

We were pretty closely with Barna, and that's sadly true. 24% of Christians. I just got this data in. Only 24% of Christians practice their faith.

[A]

Oh, that's brutal.

[B]

76% are kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

So I think when we're talking worldview, then we got to get into, man, what is life? And what makes life sacred. Yeah. And when does life begin? That's a. That's a worldview issue. Right. What about other religions and other faiths? You know, what about. And then. And that now we're getting into sexuality. Right. And. And no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can't sleep with your girlfriend. I don't care if you think God told you in your heart that you're married. No, you cannot. You cannot do that. You're not married. Cut it out. Right? So now we're talking sexuality. Why is marriage between one man and one woman? Right? So we're gonna have to go through that. And then I think, like, okay, so now that we have our hair, we gotta go into now. What are the virtues of the Christian life? How does this practically look? So, yeah, I would. Pastors, sometimes we are talking about finances because they're like, man, if I preach about money, and then people are just gonna think we want money. I would preach about finances from the perspective of stewardship, what you can do.

[B]

For people, not just what I want from you.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Like, dude, you need to not have a car payment. Drive. Yes. Not a car payment.

[A]

Yes, yes. And we've benefited greatly. I mean, me and my wife, I mean, we, like I said, we come from poverty. We spent 18 months. We technically six figures in debt. Spent 18 months working the Dave Ramsey baby steps, and we're debt free. Right.

[B]

Congrats.

[A]

Yeah. Thank you. This is back 2011, 2012, before YouTube, before music took off.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

We shoot. My wife worked two jobs and, you know, then that allowed us to rice and beans. Rice and beans. No eating out nothing for 18 months. It was hard. And then we were able to have a kid. She could stay at home, I could transition to do music full time. We sequentially built these things out.

[B]

It's one of my favorite things we did as lead pastor. Around 2010, we started a Ramsey, like, program. Changed people's lives. And those people who were 21 when they did it 15 years ago are now in their late 30s and they're, they have freedom, they have options, they, they have money in the bank, not, you know, credit card. It's amazing. So real life, tangible issues. And again, the Bible talks about money.

[A]

Yeah, a lot. A lot. A lot, a lot. So my philosophy is like, man, equip your people to handle finances. Well, yeah, don't be afraid to talk about money. And they will generally be more generous. Yes, generally they will.

[B]

Not always, but. And you teach that as part of it.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But when you're drowning in debt and you've got overdue bills and everything's, you know, buy now, pay later, it's really hard.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Which, which again comes back to the idea of worldview. Like, if you do what is easy, your life will be hard. If you do it as hard, your life will be easy.

[B]

It's true.

[A]

Deny yourself now and down the road things will get easier, generally speaking.

[B]

I understand that message really resonates, right. It really does with young men because.

[A]

Because you're telling them to delay gratification. You're telling them to say, hey, your frontal lobe isn't developed, you just want dopamine. Slow down and make better decisions because there's a future version of you that's depending on the current version of you to make better decisions. So character, integrity. Yes. Let your. Yes. BS that, you know, you know, stop being so flaky.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You say you're going to be somewhere, be. Be there. Stop being so flaky. You can't weasel your way out of every commitment. That's why it's good to join a Bible study. Join a Bible study and be there every week. We used to kick guys out. We date at 16 week windows and if a guy missed a Bible study without giving us a heads up, we'd be like, nah, you're not coming back, dude. Wow. Yeah. So. So we were pretty intense and people were like, oh, that's legalism. No, no, it's a standard. Men need to be called to a standard. So, yes, I mean, we talked about sex, finances. I would get into marriage and like really explaining not just like why gay marriage isn't like really what is a marriage and the beautiful connection it has to Christ and the church. And then what is the church? Like, why are we called to be a part of the church? So this is just like, as I'm spitballing, I think those are some of the essential things that I think you help people understand those topics and then the rest should fall into play. Because at the end of the day, I believe the more agency People can take over their actions, the better. The more responsibility they can take, the better.

[B]

So this isn't a criticism of what you just shared. I'm just saying there's a bunch of us, and there's going to be a lot more research, probably a full survey done on this in 2026, so we can understand. Young men are coming to church, and I can totally see that message resonating with them. But young women are leaving, and they're not just leaving church attendance. They're not reading their Bibles as frequently. Now, there are exceptions to the rule. There's still women in church. There's still Gen Z women and younger millennial women who are part of the church. But people are trying to figure out why. And anecdotally, it's things like, yeah, man, it's bro culture. It's like toxic male culture, where in your mind is a line between, you know, where you've got a brotherhood of men attending church and we end up with a bro culture that. That hinges on. On. On toxic.

[A]

I think when men start acting like victims because of modern women, and then now you're just complaining about the system and the women, I think that's when it easily turns into bro culture. So when some of that red pill, Andrew Tate mentality slips in and now we're just talking about how bad women are, I think that's instantly, like, I'm checked out versus saying, let's develop ourselves to be the priest, provider and protectors and honor women. Honor women. And big shocker, when women are around competent men who love Jesus and have proven themselves to be competent, they tend to not have as many reservations about sliding into a feminine frame. That's been my experience across the board. So it's like, women who are like, boss, babe, I'm gonna go be educated and have a job my entire life. And then it's like, well, when they get around a man that goes, no, no, no, I got this. I can figure out the finances. When we have kids, you can stay home.

[B]

So is that your view? You think, like, ultimately, every man should provide at a level that women don't work in the marketplace or.

[A]

Yeah, now, now this is gonna get dicey. It's not that. That's my opinion. It's that anytime I've looked at the data and Forbes women did a study on this, there's been quite a few studies done on this. Whenever you look at the data, the vast majority, I'm talking 70 to 80% of working women say that they. Forbes women said they aspire to stay home for a season when they have little kids. Forbes working women. Right. I can see that they did a study, I want to say, during COVID I have to track this one down. And they surveyed working women with kids 18 and under and they found out that in the 56% range of working women with kids 18 and said they would have preferred to stay home had they been given the opportunity to. So I think that generally speaking, women who have kids are generally speaking, going to say, do you want me to rush back to work in 12 weeks after this maternity leave is gone?

[B]

Or six.

[A]

Yeah, or six.

[B]

As is often like, for what?

[A]

To get back on the. And I think we don't. You don't. Most folks don't know this because I like, we just had a baby and I think people see our kid and they go, oh, I forgot how little babies are because you see them in the movies and they're like, right. And you. But you see a real newborn and then you go, you see a six week old. Yeah, you see a six week old, eight week old. And you mean to tell me that what's best for women and men and the family is to go take that baby and give it to a stranger to raise it at 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 12 weeks, whatever the number is. I just don't buy that. I don't think that's how generally, again, I'm speaking generalities, generally, how women are wired. After they carry this thing for nine months, they push it out and then they're like, you want me to go back to work? I just don't see. I think they go out of work out of necessity, not because they want to. Now, there are again, exceptions to the rules. There are women that are entrepreneurs, there are women that work from home. There are women that do all sorts of stuff. And I think another thing is assuming that staying home is not work. Let me tell you, my wife works substantially harder than I do. Substantially harder. She right now is in the other room with our four week old. She's making sure my son is getting his homeschool done and she helps out with making sure the orders are printed and going out when someone comes in and fulfills all of our orders and she's doing the kids choir and she's making meals. She works way harder. So this idea like women don't work. No, no, no. It's like, what kind of life do you want to have? You know?

[B]

Yeah. And just a note for regular listeners, viewers, hey, we're talking about this with women on the podcast not just two guys imagining why women are leaving the church. So that's coming up to an episode near you. Anything else on young men embracing the church and why we see a surge in young men attending?

[A]

I think what we're going to see as the world gets more polarized is that men are going to ultimately become less and less apologetic about being men. So this idea that, like, toxic masculinity, all that sort of, like, I think they're done with that. I think. I think that. I think that that's over. Like, don't. Don't tell me I'm toxic because, like, I want to be strong and competent and provide. Like, that's gross. Now, are there aspects of some men that can be toxic? For sure. Just like there are aspects of some women that can be toxic?

[B]

Well, there's toxic people, there's toxic people.

[A]

And there is toxic behavior amongst genders that is different. Right. I think with men, it tends to be really connected to porn and really connected to just. Just the. The. The. The object. Objectification of women as just objects. Right. Like, that would be how I would say this toxic form of masculinity. But I think with women can be toxic in different ways. Right. And I think people are afraid to talk about that. And it's like, I think it's okay to talk about it.

[B]

Yeah. What's your message to young men around porn?

[A]

Cut it out. Wage war. Yeah, wage war. As someone that's.

[B]

And is there any success? I was talking about this recently. Like, I think. I'm not saying it's not ever an issue or has been in my life, but it was so hard in my formative years to get pornography. There was no Internet. You had to go buy it. I didn't have the guts, so I never got hooked. It's not like I've never seen it, but it's like, I got a list of issues. Porn isn't on my list of issues that I struggle with on a regular basis. But that is not the case of young adult males. So if, you know, pastors are like, cut it out. What's resonating with them and what's helping them?

[A]

What's resonating is twofold. I'll give you some tactical stuff of what I do, and I have struggled.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

One is, I think primarily what it has to go back to is the law of replacement. You can't just remove. You got to replace with something better. And if you're young, if you're 18, 25, your testosterone is just pumping through your veins, surging you have to replace it with something better. This is why it's great to build yourself up. Whether that's physically start training or learning new skills, working hard with your hands, like do something.

[B]

Sitting around on your phone all day is not gonna help.

[A]

Yeah, so, so I think the law of replacement find something better. For me it was a holistic approach of therapy and strength training and waking up earlier and going to bed earlier and going to like, like a holistic approach to life.

[B]

A life reboot.

[A]

Yeah, a life reboot. Like completely rebooting in every regard. And so, but it was really what the breakthrough came when I had something better to do, when I had something more fulfilling to do. Because I think sometimes these things are, these self destructive things are really. Because the root of it is because we feel inadequate, we feel like we have no value, we feel like we have no purpose. Once you start working through and feeling competent and feeling confident, oftentimes these peripheral things should fall away. They don't always. If you have trauma, like I was sexually assaulted as a kid, you might got to go to therapy, you might really need some help and it might be something that you just are always being attentive to. Now practically we talked about taking, you know, cutting down device time. I'd say for me, I don't have any social media on my phone, so. So no TikTok, no Instagram, no X, especially no X. Take X off your phone, Take it all off your phone. I have the ability to get access to it on a browser if I need to or on a, like a business iPad like where I have Instagram installed. So I'll say you don't need social media. Take it all off your phone.

[B]

Even though you're a social media influencer, you don't have social media on your phone.

[A]

I don't have any social media on my phone.

[B]

Why not?

[A]

Because. Because I have an addictive personality and I can easily be on Instagram and I could see something and it could trigger a thought and then that thought can trigger another and before I know it I'm looking at stuff I shouldn't be looking at and that could be the precursor to full on porn. And so I'm just like, hey, I'm just going to cut this completely out and I don't even have access to it on my phone at any given time. So yeah, I would say take it off your phone. Within the Apple device, some people like Covenant Eyes within the Apple ecosystem, you can create a block lists of websites, you can create screen time limits for apps and you can give someone else the passcode. So I have Instagram off my phone, but even the web browser version, because I had the screen time limitations, I get 30 minutes on the web browser, so I only get a little bit of time to check my DMs, and then I'm done. Right, and then you can give someone else that password. So you can lock down your phone. No privacy. What is it, the incognito window? No, Incognito window. And really lock it down hardcore. And so that's what I've done with my phone. And I'm just trying to eliminate the opportunity for temptation, you know, And I think that's those are some practical things. And then, yeah, get in the gym. Like, get in the gym, start strength training, start taking care of your body, go outside, touch grass, talk to friends, build community. Like those things I think are huge for. For conquering that.

[B]

And I think for those of us who have pre digital memory, like I do, we don't realize what a digital world does to you. Right. Because you're not touching grass, you're not in the gym, you're not connecting with real people. What are you learning about young adults and relationships in real life versus online?

[A]

I see a lot of people that want to date, that want to say they want to get married, say they want to meet people. And what I'm seeing, what I've seen, I say for the last decade, the people that I'm seeing that are actually getting married and getting married. Well, are, believe it or not, folks that are attending young adults ministries, they're meeting people outside. In person? Yeah, in person, in church, with other people around. Hopefully with trust of those other people. So that if you have other friends around, they can sniff out the toxic person. Right. They can sneak out. We call them chameleons, people that pretend to be Christian, but they're not fully living it out. Right. They'll just kind of adapt to their environment. You need a church around you to sniff those people out. And so I've seen that be the most successful of people in local churches. And we're fortunate here. We're in Oceanside Vista area. There's a lot of great young adults ministries like you have the Jordan, which is here at North Coast Church down the street. Rhythm has a great young adults ministry. Chris Hilkin has a great young adults ministry over there in San Diego. So there's a lot of really good young adults ministry where people are meeting people.

[B]

Back to the algorithm for a moment. As we think about where we started Today, I think everybody I know wants to get more traction online. And as much as you got your phone in lockdown, you probably want your YouTube channel to grow, you probably want your podcast to grow. You probably, you know, we're all that way, and on a good day, it's because we want to reach more people. On a bad day, all of our motives are mixed. I get it. How do you know? Because there are things you can do to get more clicks. I know what buttons to push to spike a video, to spike a podcast. I actually try to avoid it. I really do, because, you know, be careful what you get known for. But how do you draw the line between, hey, I am doing this because I think it's the right thing to do, or I'm just pressing this button so I can get more clicks, more likes, more follow throughs, ultimately more money.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, that's an issue of the heart. You know, that's an issue of the heart is like, how do you know? I think only you and God knows sometimes. Right. And I think I would argue that sometimes our own motives can be conflicted on.

[B]

Mine are every day.

[A]

So I think we could be like, oh, man, like, I'm doing this for the Lord. It's like, are you really, you know.

[B]

What'S that test for you? Because obviously you're somebody who's smart, you have a great studio, you study strategy. Where is that line for you?

[A]

I think for me, the line would be, I. I genuinely am trying to do what we call net positive content. So even if I'm starting with a.

[B]

Negative story, like the whole Candace Owen Fuentes.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Thing, this is rotting your brain.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Don't do it.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. And then we're introducing scripture, and then we're introducing. Later on, we're introducing something more wholesome, something more uplifting, something beautiful in. In the video. So that's kind of like a. Like, I try not to make videos where I'm just railing against someone and I'm just attacking someone. I don't think that's healthy to make. I don't think that's good. I'm trying to be open to, like, if a title or a thumbnail is too sensational and my own community will tell me, like, ah, you know, I'll change it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, I'll change it.

[B]

Because you get all those reaction. I don't know what, you know, the thumbnail. And I'm like. And you're like, right? You got all these expressions.

[A]

And I did a video recently responding to a creator named Jonathan Allen, who's awesome, by the way. I've gotten to know him and he did this really well executed expose on Forest Frank, who's a friend of mine. And in the video, he approached the conversation of like, hey, these are the questions people are asking. And then. But most, in my opinion, most of the questions are bad faith questions. And so Jonathan didn't really infuse enough of his opinion in it. So he just kind of asked all the gripes that people have of Forest Frank. And so the. When I responded to it and I corrected a couple minor things and he shout out to Jonathan, he said he's a super dope creator. He's since updated and added more corrections to the video. Just stuff he gotten wrong that he didn't know. When I had initially titled the video, I said, we titled it something like, is this Forest Frank hit piece fair? Right? And then I listened to my audience and they were like, hey, man, it wasn't really his intent. And Jonathan was like, man, it wasn't really my intent, you know, and so it's like, you know what? Yeah, that wasn't his intent. Let me change the title. And so I just titled it Responding to the Most Controversial Christian Hip Hop Artist ever, because I wanted to honor Jonathan, even though I was disagreeing with him. And I said, hey, man, you got this wrong. You got this wrong. You got this wrong. This. And we changed the title because I listened to the audience and I said, hey, I'm not. I don't want it to be attacking someone because I think they're attacking my friend. Let's just engage with the substance of it. So that's a nuts. That's one. Like, is the video just attacking someone or is it trying to correct someone's behavior, not. Not them as a person? I'm not making fun of anybody, but I'm correcting their behavior and then redirecting people to something better.

[B]

I think you raised a really important concept, like when we title things and I choose. I don't know about every platform, but, like, you know, I'll create a title for the podcast. I think we generally stick to them. But you want to hook. It's not like, you know, my 90 minute conversation with Ruslan. It's like everyone's asleep. They want to know what the hook is. What's the promise? On the other hand, I'll ask you this question when we're done. This interview. Is there anything you want deleted? Anything that didn't come out right in your view? Because I want you to be happy that this is on the Internet. Second thing is, I want there to be a second show. If I hit you up in six months or a year or we keep texting or whatever, I don't want you to be like, oh, Newhof, like, Mike, I'm so sorry. I went on his show, you know, and that's why, like, yesterday I was at John Mark Comer's house. This is like round five or six with John Mark. I want there to be around seven.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And that I assume everybody talked about in a video. Everybody talked about in anything me and my team do is reading it.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And that I have a relationship with that person. Does that make sense as a filter?

[A]

Yeah. No, I love that. I love that. I think.

[B]

Or am I too soft?

[A]

No, I don't think you're too soft. I think if you're primarily engaging with other guests, I think it is absolutely important to want.

[B]

And I have some solo episodes too, but try to figure out, is it helpful?

[A]

Yeah, I think so. I think it's helpful to want people to come back and keep having conversations with you and making sure they're comfortable with what's coming out.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Absolutely. I think that's a great way to go about it.

[B]

I can see that. And even your friend. There have been a few times I titled something and I got text messages or phone calls from the guest who's like, I hate that title. I'm, like, taking it down. I did exactly what you did, and I don't want to get them in trouble. So let's think about the church as a kind of wind down. Any other trend you're noticing that needs attention. Before I get into something really practical.

[A]

I do want to talk to you about the attractional model of your video. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

You watched that video? Yeah. Let's talk about it.

[A]

Yeah. So I. Okay, so here's my thought, and I want to.

[B]

The podcast episode was, is attractional church dead?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And I led an attractional church. So hands up.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'm just thinking.

[A]

I love that episode.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

And I thought it was good because I came to faith at an attractional church. Right. And it was a moment. I think that oftentimes those churches can get more people in the door, and then as they mature, they might end up at a different type of church. Right. And I think that's fine. I think God uses that. My macro question to you, and I guess pastors in general is like, haven't we had enough examples of folks that aren't being attractional? But it's still working. And isn't there something to that? And I'll give you two, two examples. One a little older, that will, that will trigger a lot of the listeners of this. And then one a bit more modern. Yeah, we loved Mark Driscoll when he was at Mars Hill. Yeah, loved Mark. He was unapologetic on all the stuff we talked about, like, what do men need to hear? He was doing this 15 years ago. He was talking about sex, he was talking about worldview, he was talking about politics. He was unapologetic about this stuff 15 years ago, and he was scorching hot. And men loved him. And he caught a lot of backlash. And I don't want to get into how he left Marcel and all that sort of stuff or what he's doing now. But didn't we have that model of, I mean, the dude is up there for an hour and ten minutes sometimes just preaching hard, preaching challenging people. So that's an older example. Here's a modern example. Philip Anthony Mitchell.

[B]

I don't know, Philip. Yeah.

[A]

2819 Church.

[B]

Oh, a little bit. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you, thank you. On my radar. Should be more on my radar.

[A]

He's intense black guy in Atlanta, mixed church, but a big African American population at his church. Man. He did not hold back on Charlie Kirk at the expense of some of his black audience feeling like, oh, man, he said too much. He didn't say it, you know, he didn't say it nice enough and wasn't Charlie racist? And da, da, da, da. And he unloaded about political violence and Charlie Kirk and how evil this generation is and all these things. And so he preaches hard. Preaches hard repentance, preaches hard on hell, on sin, on all the things. It's gospel centered a lot in the scripture, a lot in the text. Right. And so my question to folks in like the quote unquote attractional model, which I don't even know what that's evolved into. Right? Yeah, but like, haven't we had enough examples of people who are at scale impacting and with massive churches that we don't necessarily need to walk on eggshells on some of the more controversial things? That's topic content wise, but then also the, the bells and whistles and the having the dag on roller coaster on stage and we have a whole series, by the way. Yeah, we've seen that. Right? We have a whole series. And some of you guys may appreciate this now. So we have a challenge to ourselves. This is total side note. It's called megachurch shenanigans. But we can only say nice things. So we'll find like funny things that a megachurch does and then we can only compliment them. And so it's kind of tongue in cheek, but we genuinely are trying to compliment just that. And so, like, haven't there been enough examples of, hey, you don't have to omit certain aspects. I was talking to a very influential pastor who was trying to get another very influential pastor on my show and said he would not talk to me about abortion or homosexuality. I'll tell you who it is. Offline.

[B]

Sure, sure.

[A]

And I said, no, we're not, no, we're not going to sit down and not talk about those things. I have questions for you. Why have you, why have you not.

[B]

Why haven't you, why have you been.

[A]

Unclear about these things? Why has this happened? Why does that happen? And he refused to sit down with me on some of these things. Right. And this is a very influential pastor. And so that would be my question is like to the pastors listening to this and to you specifically, like, haven't we had enough examples of like, you don't have to water down or omit aspects. I think people want hard teaching and two, with the bells and whistles and all that sort of stuff. I'm not saying don't tell stories or don't use illustrations, but is it as necessary to do some of these things?

[B]

No, I don't think it's as necessary. And attractional church meant different things to different people. It's not like everybody just got the instruction sheet and here's how you do attractional church, right? Step one, step two, step three. It was an interesting moment. I started leading full time in ministry in 1995, when you were still a kid. It was the dark ages. Like we did not have connectivity. I didn't know what other churches were doing. You heard rumors, you subscribed to a cassette ministry or CD ministry or you listened to somebody who was preaching on the radio and you got their four minute segment or whatever that was and that's how we got information or by books or conferences. So we didn't see much. Then the Internet comes along. It's only 20 years ago, 2005, that broadband eclipsed dial up. On dial up, like video's hard. You don't really know. 2007, social media really comes into its own. Facebook goes public. Twitter's a year down the road. Instagram comes in 2012. So the heyday of Attractional Church was probably 2005 to I'm gonna date around 2017, 2018. Think a couple of things happened. Number one, we realized that Christianity was on the decline in America and in the whole Western world. That a lot of people had church hurt. That a lot of people, it was grandma or their parents who went to church, but they were deconverting. And then we realized, oh, these other churches are doing this thing. Wait, I've got musicians who could do this. Oh, that's what a screen looks like. We can use technology. Like, I still remember the first time we went from an overhead projector to a. Like, I think it was a PowerPoint or something like that back in maybe 2002. And I had church leaders come in and visit us. We were worshiping it at elementary school. They're like, where did you get this projector? It's, like, at the office store down the road. It's not that hard. It's the one you would buy for your company, right? So it was a. It's easy to look back on the past and go, like, what were you guys thinking? I look back on some. Like, we drove a motorcycle in one day and all that stuff. What was I thinking? I don't know what I was thinking, Ruslan. It was like, would I do that over again? I would not do that over again. Right? But then you could do Coldplay or U2 or something like that. I think it had a moment. And, you know, some of the people who were converted in that era are genuine, authentic followers of Jesus. For me, and, you know, I stand to be corrected. Somebody who followed my teaching for years, I don't believe that that resulted in a diluted or hedged gospel. I think it's like, okay, we're gonna make church more accessible to people who aren't into church. That was my heartbeat. And over half of our church people who walked in the door and still to this day say, yeah, I don't have a church background. Or, I left years ago. So they didn't just come in from next door. And you're the cool one, and they're all following you now. You know, transfer growth is inevitable. But, like, 90% of transfer growth, 90% of church growth in America is transfer growth, growth, which is really interesting. And what's happening is market consolidation, right? The smaller churches aren't viable anymore. They close. They can't find a pastor. So the smaller church is getting smaller, the bigger churches are getting bigger. So when you actually have conversion growth, it's rare and for a season. I think attractional church fueled that. And now what you've got, because I think it's a super fair question, is we're in a different moment. The other thing that really changed is the foyer. The foyer moved. So 15 years ago, if you were coming to your church this weekend for the first time, it was new. A friend brought you. You didn't know what to expect. Now, because we've been talking about the Internet, everybody has sourced your church online. They've checked out your Instagram, they've been to your web page, they've been to your homepage. They've listened to 10 messages or at least sermon clips on Instagram or YouTube. They've followed you, they've investigated and they up and they're, I'm ready to go. So when they walk in, like, when I walked into your studio today, I wasn't like, so, Ruslan, what is podcasting? What is the Internet? What is YouTube? I knew what you, you know, obviously I asked you to be a guest on my show. So I knew all that stuff. And I was like, we sat down within a few minutes and we started recording. We got to know you, met the crew, you know, and we started. I think that's what's happening in church today is because people have watched your videos, they've done apologetics online, they've chatgpt'd it. When they show up on a Sunday morning, they're not at. If one is, I know nothing about Christianity. And 10 is, I'm a deep follower of Jesus, ready to. I'm discipled. They used to show up at a 2 or 3. Now everybody jumps up 3 or 4, and they're much more familiar. So I still don't want to lose people and assume that they have a degree in Old Testament. I may have to do a little on ramp for them to understand the story. They're like, no, I'm serious about my faith. And for those who didn't check it out online, they came with a friend like, if you're bringing me on Sunday, you're like, I'll catch you up at lunch or whatever. So I just think that that is what has changed and that's why I'm not leading a church day to day. But if I was, yeah, I wouldn't be doing the COVID songs the way we used to do the COVID songs. I wouldn't be jumping off buildings or whatever we were doing back in the day. And some of that was definitely a. It was like, you know, you have this shiny new toy. You don't know what it is. It's the Internet. Oh, that was cool. Could we pull that off? Yeah, we could pull that off. And some of that's like, ah, that was a moment. Yeah, we can let that go.

[A]

Okay, I got, I got one more question.

[B]

Does that make sense?

[A]

No. That's actually a really good answer. You contextualize it with the Internet, which actually really helps.

[B]

Yeah. Because that, I just think when they show up now they've done their homework and like when you show up at the resort, you know it's got a hot tub or it doesn't.

[A]

Yeah, that's so good. Okay. So one of the things that's interesting to me is the. So one of the things I've loved and also appreciated, but also in hindsight I'm like, oof. Is the three point fill in the blank type of messages, which I like three point preaching. Right. I think it's good. But like I remember some of the seeker friendly extractional would. They would be, they would do these, like they have this idea and then they're trying to find a verse to make the idea fit. And it would be like the nlt, but it'd be the B version of the verse that like that's the first. That verse isn't even saying that. Right. Like you're trying to fit this idea and the idea is not bad. Like.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

But you could just say the idea without needing to reel in a verse to that. Right. So I've always found that, that hilarious. Like, like that, that type of preaching versus just like, hey, we're just going to take a chunk of text and then we'll see if we can extract three points and then we'll kind of go from there and see where it goes. Not that I'm like an exclusive, you have to go verse by verse hardcore in that sense. But I do find that interesting. There was another question I had for you. Oh gosh.

[B]

The three point sermon, like the fill in the blank.

[A]

The fill in the blank. Man, I'm drawing a blank. Goodness gracious. There's another question I had about attractional church.

[B]

I'm an open book.

[A]

I can't believe I lost my train of thought.

[B]

No, you know, on the sermon outline. I mean, I get it.

[A]

Oh, oh, oh.

[B]

Go.

[A]

Buying sermons or copying sermons?

[B]

Plagiarism is one of the oldest crimes in the book. It's awful, awful, awful, awful, awful.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I mean it's been around for a long, long time. I have preached sermons heavily influenced by Tim Keller or others. If I do that, I will stand up and go, hey, I'm preaching the Sermon heavily influenced by. I am reteaching a sermon by. I don't want to claim credit where credit isn't due. If I do it, hopefully it's unintentional, not intentional. AI is going to make that worse, dude. Like, you know, if ChatGPT writes draft one for me, how does that even live in me? I think the joy. The joy of preaching is the burden of preaching. Wrestling with the text, staring at a blinking cursor going, I don't even understand this passage. Like, I gotta go deep on this one. Or like, I can't get anything from this text. That's your job. Yeah. Yeah, that's your job. So, you know, Sermon Central has been around for a long time. There have been other ways to steal messages, and plagiarism is a big problem. I love the comparison. I don't love it because I wish it didn't happen, but the comparison videos between the original message and the person who ripped it off and passed it off as their own huge issue.

[A]

I don't understand why someone would just not acknowledge it. Yeah, like, hey, I got like. Because I've used my pastor's illustration before for an opening. He's taken little stuff here and there for me for my book or whatever. But we just acknowledge it.

[B]

You know, as Ruslan says, da, da.

[A]

Da, da, da, da, da, da, da. So we just acknowledge it.

[B]

Just acknowledge it. That's what I do. And actually, the wisest people you read, you listen to Tim Keller. His joke was, you know, gosh, I miss him. But his joke was, on a good day, I write my own sermons. On a bad day, I quote C.S. lewis, but he would quote C.S. lewis extensively and so on. My buddy Mark Clark, you know, has in. At Bayside in Sacramento. He reads so widely and his sermons are, you know, quoting philosophers you never heard. John Mark Comer, who I was just with yesterday, I was reading an early manuscript for his next book, and I said to him, dude, every other paragraph is some patrician father or mother of the church. And it's just because he's read so wisely that doesn't make you stupid. That makes you smart. If you know all of these sources, and you're like, well, as Ruslan said, and as so and so says, and Spurgeon said, and this, you know, you're then in a point where I think people say, oh, you're well studied. And I really believe it goes to authority, too. Like, at the end of the day, I want my messages to come from a struggle within me. I want my episodes These interviews to be authentic expressions of what I'm interested in, what people are interested in, and real conversations, not scripted. So I think that should be the sermon. And if you're gonna use it, we all borrow it. Nothing's new under the sun. You quote the scripture, quote your sources, and if you're heavily borrowing or rewriting a message, just acknowledge it. You're not gonna get fired. You get fired. Hopefully. If you get caught plagiarizing and you lie about it.

[A]

Yeah. I think if you're doing it and it's like your buddy and you guys are close, it's a little different. Oh.

[B]

If you're on a teaching team and that's like, he's teaching a version at his church and you're teaching it. Oh, that's different.

[A]

That's different. Yeah. So anyway, I was just curious because I remember hearing, like, folks buying sermons, and I was like, wow.

[B]

Oh, it's still out there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I shared that with John. Christie asked me about that, and he's like, wait, you mean you can buy a sermon? Isn't that called YouTube? Don't you just turn it off? I'm like, yeah, you could do it for free. Right? So I think those are real issues. But with the attractional church, what did we learn? I think there are lessons that move into the future. Number one, we don't want repulsive church. Right. Bad music, bad sound, bad video, bad preaching, bad. Like, there's a lot that it taught us that we kind of take for granted. Now, you want your most emotionally intelligent people to be on your greeting team. You actually want the band to be in tune. Yes. You can play to a click. And if you don't play to a click, the drummer still has to keep time. Like, that's really important. Those things, we didn't lose. We don't need the gimmicks anymore. We're in a different age. And now. I think you're right. You said it. Other guests have said it. The next generation is desperate, and they're looking for hope and they're looking for truth. And if they show up at church, hopefully they find God. They don't just find us doing a really nice, polished version of whatever.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. No, I love that.

[B]

That's.

[A]

Well said. Well said.

[B]

Yeah. Anything else? We haven't touched on that.

[A]

Go get my new book.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Godly ambition.

[A]

Godly ambition.

[B]

Give us the. Give us the like. Why'd you write it?

[A]

Oh, man. Why did I write it? I wrote it for a lot of reasons. I think the Conversation around, purpose, calling, identity.

[B]

Kind of what we talked about.

[A]

Right. A little bit ambition. Like all of those conversations are, I think so timely. The macro, the macro trend. And this might be, I'm not trying to sound alarmist, but like the macro trend is twofold for me. One, if you were average in the 90s, you could have a pretty decent life. You could work a job, probably survive off of one income, buy a home, retire. Right. 90s, 80s.

[B]

I bought my first home in the 90s. That resonates.

[A]

Yeah. But now if you're average, like you're cooked, like you're cooked, like it's not, it's not gonna happen. So it's like I opened the book with the tale of two Cities, like the best of times and the worst of times and that, and that's, that's where we are today. It's like, it's one of the most amazing times to be alive. I wouldn't want to be alive at any other time. But at the same time it's also very hard. And it's this duality that people are dealing with. And then you take the reality of the macroeconomic trends and AI is coming and automation and all the self driving cars and what's going to happen to the guy that's driving a Lyft and Uber right now? What's going to happen?

[B]

Because I saw the Waymos working in Santa Monica yesterday.

[A]

Yeah, it's a trip. Those things are kind of scary looking when you see them up close in person. Yeah. So all these things are coming. And we also have a weird relationship with purpose calling, career money and ambition in church. Those are, those can be very bad words for some Christians. Even the talk of like, hey man, like are you, do you have any sort of plan for your finances? Do you have any sort of plan and budget or anything? People are like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You can't serve two gods, can't serve both God and money. And it's like, wait a minute. No, no, no, no. You're really deconsexualizing Jesus.

[B]

Hard to be generous when you have no money.

[A]

Hello. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you know the people love.

[B]

To.

[A]

Quote the least of these. And you know what you've done to the least of these you've done unto me. And I love that. What they miss is, that's right after the parable of the talents. So you're talking. The context is Matthew 25, the imminency of the return of Jesus the wise and the foolish virgins into the parable of the talents, making the most of your time, talent and treasure into caring for the least of these. And I think that's intentional. Like we live as if Jesus is going to return by making the most of our time, talent and treasure so that we can care for the least of these and caring for the least of these. By the way, there's a hierarchy to that. So that means that I first have to care for my own household and I got to make sure my household is in order. Then my extended family, then my local church community, and then the nations and the world and all these sorts of things. Right. And I think so much of what's happening is that people are perverting that and taking it backwards. Be care about what's happening over there while neglecting your day to day life. And I think that's dangerous. And so anyway, I tried to put something in people's hands that was rich in scripture and theology, but also just very, very practical. And that's been the biggest feedback. It's like, man, I didn't realize how much scripture would be in this book. Like there's a lot of scripture. Yes, that's been like a very, very cool, a cool response. I also think, and this is going to be controversial, going to be very controversial. I think there's people that are misappropriating John Mark Comer's content in seasons of life where it doesn't apply as much. Let me explain.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If you're in your early 20s, I don't want to hear anything from you about Sabbath. I don't want to hear anything from you about turning off your phone for three days so you can go earth and get in your Bible. I want you to work and put your face down and live out Proverbs 6 that there's a time where you build yourself for the next season. And so I think John Mark Cormor does a great job of talking to guys like me and you that are like, yeah, we probably need to get a better rhythm on rest and a better rhythm on Sabbath. But if you're in your early 20s, I don't want to hear jack squat from you about Sabbath. I don't want you to, oh, I'm going to join a startup and turn my phone off over the weekend. I'm going to go join a church plan and have boundaries with when I'm accessible because I'm blocking my phone away. Like, no, no, you're in a different season of life and you need to put your head down and grind.

[B]

So having spent yesterday afternoon with John Mark at his house Two hours up the road. I don't like to speak for other people, but I think I can say honestly and John Mark can correct me if I'm wrong. Ruthless elimination of Hurry. And he's talked about this publicly so it's not secret. And even his current work is a reaction to the driven. I don't have a stop, I don't have breaks. I just have a gas pedal. 19, 20, 20 year old, 24 year old version of him that got him kind of burned out and into a place where he wasn't healthy. So I think all of that comes out. Would you advise a Sabbath though for a 21 year old who's just starting something?

[A]

Yeah, I think you should take a day off. Okay. For sure. Yeah. I would agree. I would advise a Sabbath as a principle in the same way I would advise people to tithe. So I don't think it's a law and I don't think like your, your crops are going to get overran by, you know, like. Yeah, but I think it's a great discipline and a principle to have. I don't think it's a law to have.

[B]

I have violated Sabbath so many times in my life. Right. I'm surprised I haven't been smitten, you know.

[A]

So I think, I think like Sabbath is a great principle. And yes, I think people should take at least a day off and just chill and relax.

[B]

But you're, you're, you're saying. And I see what you mean, there's sort of the hustle culture. Yes. Or the I'm. And I'm scrolling for 12 hours a day in my parents basement. And you're trying to get at the second. Yes. You're trying to say actually you need some hustle. And that's interesting because I've heard like everyone from Dave Ramsey who you've referenced to others say the thing about Gen Z is they're all entrepreneurial and all in. They're all gas or they're all brakes and you see the same thing.

[A]

Yes, yes. With the caveat that the gas is often misdirected. Like they're, they're picking up.

[B]

How's it misdirected?

[A]

They have a rap career going. This is a real person. I'm thinking about my rap career going. They're, they're part of an MLM and they have a videography business and it's like dog, pick one. Yeah. Like pick one. Put your head down and do the.

[B]

Thing that is true.

[A]

You know. And so I think it's misdirected. And so it's like if you. If you try to catch two rabbits, you'll catch neither. You know, just pick a thing, put your head down, do it. Go do it. Yeah. So. So. Yes. So, yes. I do think that. I think the. The burnout happens when you're all over the place. I don't think the burnout happens when you actually are locked in on what you're supposed to do for the season that you're in. I think the burnout happens when you're chasing too many things and you're chasing the wrong things. I think. I think that's. That. That's the issue. And so I think that we should rest. For sure. I mean, and I rest. I sleep eight, nine hours a day. I sleep very well. I'm up very early. And I don't. I don't. I don't, you know, take care of my body. All those sorts of things. I think. I think you need all that. And. And the interesting part is there are. There are hustle, bro. Folks that are cooked from hustling, and godly ambition ends up being a anchor for them. Of, like, you're right.

[B]

We're gonna dial back.

[A]

I actually got it.

[B]

It's got to be godly ambition.

[A]

It got to be godly ambition.

[B]

Some of you need ambition. Some of you need godly. Yes, Got it.

[A]

Yes. So. So that's the. The. The anchor beyond it. So those are the three things of why I wrote the book, and it's been good. There's a chapter in there on church that I think a lot of your. Your audience will love. My chapter on church and community and the local church. There's a lot of just very practical stuff in terms of how to anchor. Men who want to be in church, want to lead, but need to sit, and they need to. They need to get poured into before they have authority. So I talk about that a lot. And so there's a.

[B]

There's a student before you can be a teacher.

[A]

Absolutely. Absolutely.

[B]

Or a student while you're a teacher.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Last question.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

There are thousands of churches, probably tens of thousands of churches that have someone like you sitting maybe in the back row. I sense you're not in the back row at your local church. But imagine, you know, you move cities, you do it, you're kind of anonymous. You're just sitting in the back row. I am convinced a lot of us, and this is a critique of my leadership in the church over two decades as well, kind of miss the potential that was in the congregation because we end up saying, oh, you have a YouTube channel pushing a million followers. Can you run the soundboard? And you would run the soundboard because you do an excellent job, I'm sure. But you can bring more to us. What is our best leverage of the skill set we have that we might be missing? What do you wish pastors would ask people like you to do more often?

[A]

One, you could ask the version of me, hey, can you do a podcast with me? I want to get a podcast, and I just want to serve our church by doing a. If I had more time type of podcast and if there's a version of me without wife and kids, I would jump all over that.

[B]

Yeah, Yeah.

[A]

I would be all over that.

[B]

Like, yeah, if you were in the early startup season, you'd be like 100.

[A]

And that serves that person well. If you got a guy like, like, like, say you got like a Bryce Crawford or something like that. Right. That's a younger guy, no kids, not married. He would benefit greatly from having a consistent rhythm with a. With an actual pastor that he can see serve that pastor, but also have the proximity effect of just being around a God, like, godly man.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I think it's. It's. It's a win, win in that sense. So one, I think there's that. I think the ability to equip, empower, and release a leader without feeling threatened by their influence, I think is a delicate balance. And here's why, like, I don't want any more power or influence than I already have. Like, I have plenty. I have too much.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, like, I'm not. Not clobbering for power influence at my church. Right, Right. My pastor does an amazing job of letting me teach on Sundays when he needs me to teach, having me teach at the young adults pretty regularly. And in that we've had a lot of people at the leveraging of my public platform come and join our church because I'm a person in this.

[B]

So it's kind of a win. Win then.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That. It's like a cooperative.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Because I'm, I'm here to serve. And. And I've. I, like, like, I, you know, three years ago, four years ago, I served with the babies. You know, I had no problem people walking, like, aren't you Ruslan's like. And I'm just, like, just rocking someone's baby. Yeah. And so I have no problem with service. You also got to know where that person is and what season and their maturity. Sometimes they actually do might need to just go serve. And put their head down. They need to do the remedial.

[B]

They might be exhausted. They've got the ambition, not the godly right now.

[A]

They may need to slow down and just serve in the most remedial way. Or they might be in a position of like, hey, I could pour into this dude and potentially have them teach in the young adults or have them teach on a Sunday morning and release them in their gifting. And that builds a lot of unity in that sense. Because if you have a competent, solid leader, you shouldn't be threatened by someone else's influence.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The pastor shouldn't be threatened by you, and you shouldn't be threatened or insecure around the pastor.

[A]

Not at all.

[B]

You do.

[A]

Yeah. And then. And then when you have a guy like me in your church, then the. The dream goes like, my. And this is. I'm not saying this as, like, a flex, but, like, my dream is actually like, lord, I want to be the biggest single donor at my church. Yeah. Because you're blessing what I'm doing with YouTube, I get. And, like, what would it take for me to be the biggest single donor? And again, I don't need power. I don't need access. I don't need a plaque on the wall. I don't need a plaque on the wall.

[B]

Ruslan. Katie.

[A]

But that's the game that I'm starting to play. And so you would be shocked at, like, you pouring into that person and then. And then the potential for that person to pour back into the church. Whether I'm directly promoting Rhythm Church and Oceanside come hang out, and people, you know, I mean, I. This Sunday is like, I'm leaving. And it's like three or four people that I'm like, hey, man, like, said, I. I heard about the church because you. And then I walk out, the other person, hey, I heard about the church because you. And I'm Drove down for a minute. Hey, like. And it's like, yeah, there's a. There's a. There's a positive. There's a synergy to it. And then there's accessibility. Like, every Monday, my wife is doing the kids choir. My pastor's in there. He's wrapping up his study. And so I'm usually there for an hour or two, just kind of hanging in his office. I got my newborn with me, and we're just catching up and hanging out. And it's. It's. It's informal. Like, it's not like, he. I don't need, like, counseling. Like, I'm fairly confident. I Have a real therapist. Right. That guides that. And so I think, yeah, there's a beautiful synergy. So I would say you want. You should want a guy like me in your church, considering that I'm stable and I'm healthy and that you're helping me get stable and healthy if I'm not.

[B]

I think that's a really good point. Assuming you're stable and healthy and otherwise, it could be like a time in rehab or. We've had different influential people through our church, and there have been seasons where it's like, no, you shouldn't be on stage. And times where they should be on stage. But if I was a pastor and there's someone, let's say you come to, I'm leading a church, you show up because you moved or whatever, and now you're at my church. If I ask you, hey, I want to rethink our social media strategy, our YouTube strategy. Would you spend some time with me and the team to help us figure that out? How does that sit with you?

[A]

Yeah, absolutely.

[B]

Oh, I am waiting to be asked. You know what I mean? I get the chance to give at some level, but, like, I would be like, oh, thank goodness somebody asked. And I've talked to other business leaders who don't have a church staff position, who are like, you know, I get paid thousands or in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars to advise CEOs. Nobody at my church ever asks me what. What I, you know, what I think about an issue. They just tell me to, you know, park cars, which I'm happy to do.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I'll take one. I'll take it there. I'll take it further. If you have a fitness influencer, your church, maybe they're not a Christian talking head online, but they're. They. They have a fitness business. Like, you should ask that person, hey, what do I. How can I get my own fitness buttoned up and what do I need?

[B]

Or tell me what you've learned about leading a business. Yeah, absolutely, etc. So that kind of thing is fair game.

[A]

Absolutely. All the. I mean, all the time. I mean, I'm working. We're working on. We have some amazing musicians at our church, and I'm working on just using my own connections to say, hey, we. I know this guy. They do a worship collective. We're all gonna get the team together. We're gonna go to lunch, and we're just gonna talk strategy and execution and output so the church can release more music. And what does that look like? And how do you record It. How do you mix it? How do you get it out there? Yeah, all the time. I'm always trying to figure out ways to connect. When someone's in town to do my podcast, they're usually. I'm usually like, hey, I'm gonna pick you up from the airport. We're gonna go hang out with my pastor. You know, so by proxy, whether it's Carl lynch, whether it's Ed Newton, whether, like, these folks all come and I'm showing off my church, that's the first place I want to take people. It's like. Like, you got to meet my pastor. You got to meet my church. And then now my pastor is, like, really close to Pastor Ed Newton.

[B]

They're like, they're. They're tighter buddies.

[A]

Yeah, they're tighter than me and Pastor Ed are, you know, and so it's like, I love connecting those sorts of things. And, like, my pastor's not like an influencer, but, like, those are really valuable relationships for all of us to have.

[B]

So, yeah, this is what I. I want you guys to know who are watching this is in your church. Maybe not every church, but a lot of your churches have the equivalent of a Ruslan there, whether it's in the Christian space or not. But this is the power. So this has helped so much Ruslan.

[A]

I hope so. I hope I don't get you too much flak or controversy with this episode.

[B]

Well, you can jump in the comments. Okay. You said you enjoy that, so you can jump in the comments. Tell us about your tour. If people want to see you, you're going to be in a number of different cities with some awesome people.

[A]

Tell us about that. Yeah, we got the Bless God summit coming up. I got to show you guys that that's going to be awesome. We have Wes huff. This is March 5th, 6th, and 7th. And this. This would be a great thing that, like, send your leaders to send your young adults to the lineup on. This is phenomenal. We're dealing with worldview from. I mean, a guy like Wes Huff. We'll have Michael Knowles there from the Daily Wire. Then we're talking about. Gavin Ortland's going to be there, talking about why Protestantism that's really scorching hot right now. The conversation of Eastern Orthodoxy and high church versus low church. So Gavin Ortland's going to be doing a talk. We have KB, we got Dr. Sean McDowell. God logic is going to be debating Jacob Hansen on the Trinity. Jacob Hansen's a Mormon, so he's. We got a debate. Mike Winger is Going to be there. Trizzle Fitness. Talking about virtues of fitness and health. Josh Nadeau. What do you mean? This is Brooke. This is actually John Mark Comer's brother in law. He has a podcast and is a successful, amazing author in his own right. Justin early, who wrote a bunch of best selling books. Habits of the Household is probably the most popular. So he's gonna be there. So Anyway, that's happening March 5th, 6th and 7th. Dustin Tavella, he won America's Got Talent. Yeah. And so, yeah, come, come to that. Send your groups to that. And then I have my own tour. I'm gonna be in Houston March 21 at the House of Blues, Dallas, Texas Echo Lounge, Chicago Park West. I'll be in the Pittsburgh area, Arlington, Virginia, New York, at Sony Music Hall, Los Angeles, Clearwater, Florida, Atlanta. So tell you what, if you guys reach out, let me know you heard about the tour or the summit from this conversation. Let me know. I'll carve out some time to personally hang with you. Because a lot of these, a lot of you guys are pastors and leaders and I'd love to get to know some of you guys and just, just connect Instagram or reach out to you. And I'd love to get some of these folks connected and meet them.

[B]

You know what I love about this? Even as we close, you're breaking categories. And I think that's what needs to happen in the church, is we need to bust some categories.

[A]

What do you mean by that with that last part?

[B]

Every other guest, like, we're sitting in your studio, which is awesome. Would be, yeah, check out my book. You know, go to godlyambitionbook.com or whatever the website is, and that's kind of it. Or follow me on Instagram. And you're like, no, I got that queued up right now. Here we go. And you're doing a really fascinating mashup of guests and this tour that you're doing. So I think we need more creative thinking. And I think the more of us who go direct online, the better we're going to be.

[A]

Amen. And you're leading the way. You come from the pastoral office and now you're creating amazing resources for pastors.

[B]

Well, and it's one of those things where this job didn't exist 10 years ago. And I can't believe I get to do this every day. And this has been a thrill to be with you, Ruslan.

[A]

Thank you so much.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Alrighty, guys. Peace.

[B]

Well, that was a great podcast. Couple hours with Ruslan. Thank you. To him and his team for hosting us and setting that up. Next episode we actually have John Mark Comer and I inverted the interview order so we're not going to be able to talk about what we talked about on the show. But I think I can tell you, John Marc Comer, I know did write the ruthless elimination of Hurry and a lot of his current works to sort of correct those early driven years. And I can totally relate to that as a leader in my 20s and 30s, I only had one petal. I hope you're enjoying this Church Trends series. John Mark and I talk a little bit about it. So I don't know if we're going to put that under the Church Trends banner or not. But yeah, he's got a really interesting trend that he focuses on as well about Protestantism versus Catholicism, which we're going to dive into. Hope you've enjoyed this. You can get the show notes for this and everything we talked about inside the Art of Leadership Academy. Like I talked about with Ruslan, it is kind of a troll free environment. We have a really good time there. We got 15, 17, 18,000 leaders probably by the time this airs inside the academy. And if you want just quality conversation and you want to find other like minded leaders, that's a place to go. Go to theartofleadershipacademy.com you'll find the show notes, you'll find this video, you know, a great discussion around it. And in the meantime, John Mark Comer, that's pretty much good incentive to subscribe or to follow wherever you're watching, wherever you're listening. In the meantime, I hope our conversation today helped you identify and break a growth barrier you're facing. Hopefully it did. Like maybe how you do your social media, what to do with next gen influencers, all that and a whole lot more. So we'll catch you on the next episode.