This is Jimmy Nanette and of course Chevy is with us.
I mean he's holding it down over there.
You're putting your arm on your hip.
It's because I've got my big man voice on.
Wow.
So I've got to posture myself.
I'm like what?
It's because you have the cool chair with the armrest.
Oh so you're just like whoa.
There's no armrest here.
What am I supposed to do?
Okay.
So I'm.
Do we need to buy another chair?
Superman pose.
We need two of these chairs.
Yeah we do.
We need to just take that one to the church.
I feel like I'm in a child's chair.
Yeah.
It doesn't really fit me.
You know I never sit at my desk anymore.
I have a tiny booty and yet it's still almost bleeding over the sides.
And it's mine but I never sit there anymore because I sit on the couch because Chevy wants
to be beside me and he can't be beside me in that chair.
Chevy's got to be on the couch so you've got to be on the couch.
So a new chair is in our horizon.
Yeah this one's going to go bye bye.
Yeah because I don't have a place to put my arms so I have to do like a pose.
That's funny because nobody is seeing you.
What do I do with my arms?
Nobody is watching you but me.
It's posturing for my voice.
It's kind of how you smile on the telephone with your eyes.
You're hilarious.
Okay.
So I'm posturing myself for a big voice for the intro.
Wow.
Hey everybody.
Welcome to our weird life.
I know we do have a weird life.
Our weird dialogue.
This is Jimmy and Annette.
This is us.
And this is called living up in a down world and that's what we're doing.
I mean we look around the world today and it looks nuts out there.
It seems like it's getting crazier and crazier.
It is.
And yet because of Jesus Christ we can live up in a down world.
That's what's beautiful about it.
Although I had a talk with Tina.
No, no, no, no, no.
Last week was a little rough for me.
You got a letter that was very hard to read.
I don't know.
Fan mail.
It was not fan.
No it wasn't.
It was not.
It didn't have anything to do with this podcast but it did have to do with your leadership
in church.
It was difficult.
Ministry 101.
Yes, it was very difficult to read and I had lunch with Tina.
I said I just need to vent.
I just need.
There are things that come our way that can bring us down and she said you know we're
allowed to be down.
You just can't stay down.
And I said you're right.
You're real.
I felt bad because here we are trying to live up in a down world and I'm down because I
felt just I don't know violated just reading that.
Yeah and it was obviously directed towards me.
So for those of you who don't know this, Annette and I we pastor.
I'm a senior pastor.
She's my executive pastor.
A great church, Bridge Church in Fredericksburg, Texas.
And we've been here for seven and a half years.
And on occasion I get stink mail.
I mean hate mail.
It's just it just comes with the territory.
I don't know a pastor who doesn't get these every once in a while.
And you know I learned a long time ago that you're and I'm going to be nice.
You're darned if you do darned if you don't.
I mean somebody's not going to like what you're doing.
They don't like the way you do it.
They don't like the way you preach the way you lead.
I mean it seems like church folk always not all of church folk but there are some out
there that that are just they're mean mean spirited and they complain and they whine and
they send hate mail.
And sometimes you just probably received maybe five in the 30 years I've known you.
I mean literally.
Right.
Yeah.
But those just talk behind your back.
Literally it's just it's still it never gets rough.
Yeah it's hard.
It's just you can have all these people just say you're amazing.
I'm learning so much.
And then one letter that just stinking thinking.
Yeah.
And it can just take painful take you out.
Yeah.
But to me it's always it's a test from my own heart of how I'm going to respond.
You handled it better than I did.
And it was directed towards you.
And you I'm really proud of you.
Thank you.
You're really growing up honey.
Well you have to get thick skin if you're going to be in the people world.
Right.
And so why is it hitting me so hard.
I guess because I have that justice bone in me.
You do.
So I'm like no.
And even a lot of the things that were said were not.
They were lies.
They weren't accurate.
They it wasn't.
They weren't lying but they just don't know the truth.
Right.
And so it just it hurts.
I don't.
It's this is never going to get easy.
No it's not.
And it's part of being in ministry.
And when you love with your heart big and we both have big loving hearts then and we're
not talking criticism we're talking about downright judgment mean spirited stuff.
It's just going to hit you hard.
And here's the deal.
We've made a choice.
And for those of you listening today I mean it's easy when you take hits to just say you
know what I'm going in my shell.
I'm just going to I'm going to detach myself from people.
I'm not going to get close to people in the church.
And I actually had no pastors who have said that it's an unrighteous vow.
Right.
They'll say things like you know it just hurts too much or it hurts my family too much.
So we're going to take a step back and we're going to lead the church but we're not going
to be buddies with anybody in the church.
And and that and our heart leaders we've always been that way.
It's painful sometimes when you lead from the heart.
I just can't do it any other way.
I don't want to do it any other way.
I told Annette the day we can't lead from the heart or we don't the day we're not finding
joy in the journey.
And if we ever grow jaded we need to quit.
We need to go do something else.
And so I've been in this 38 years.
You've been in it 28 years.
And yeah I mean you take hits.
But you know there's another side to this.
Any leader in any profession is going to take hits.
Yes.
I've been outside the church before for different organizations some nonprofits and some for
profits.
You were in the business world.
I've never been anywhere where there's people gathered where someone's not complaining about
leadership ever.
That's true.
And so so I sort of take it with a grain of salt.
I do this actually though when I when something comes along I say I actually put it before
the Lord and I say is there any kernel of truth in this?
Do I have blind spots?
Is there something?
Exactly.
Is there something I'm missing or is there something I did to create this?
And I'm very open to the Lord and I try to be very vulnerable to that.
And then and I did that with this and the Lord whispered to me what he's been saying
to me now for nearly two years straight up.
Stay the course.
Don't change anything.
I also learned this and we've talked about this many many times but the more you step
out and we heard Bill Johnson say this on a sermon we were listening to today.
The more you step out into faith endeavors the more hits you're going to take.
The more resistance.
Because there's a real enemy out there that wants to take you down.
Real deal demonic dark malevolent world.
Satan and his cohorts that he we all of us have a top a target on our back and the more
we try to do for God and with God in cooperation with him the more hits when it puts a bigger
target on our back.
Right.
And that comes with the territory.
I've always believed this that the enemy likes to create these Pavlov responses.
You remember the Pavlov's dogs experiment where you get locked into your thinking of
every time I try to do something for God I take a hit.
Every time I try to get going for God I get going on my walk with Christ.
Something sets me back and it's it's it can become a trained response where you start
to reason sometimes subconsciously not even consciously but under your your subconscious
you're thinking well if that if every time I try to do something for God I'm going to
get hurt then I'm going to quit trying to do it for God and you settle into this complacency
and lethargy spiritually where you're no longer growing and you become stagnant and that and
he's got you right where he wants you.
Exactly vulnerable marginalized and you're marginalized.
In effect.
Yes exactly.
So Annette and I we have had these conversations through the years of yes it hurts and on this
particular day it sucks to be me.
You know when you get that and yet my in fact my response usually is pedal to the metal.
It's like when I take a hit like that I'm stubborn in this sense and only because I've
been doing this for 38 years nearly four decades.
That sounds like a long time doesn't it.
And I've learned that you don't stop what you're doing because somebody doesn't like
what you're doing because in this world there will always be somebody who doesn't like what
you're doing and they need to move on.
And I hate.
I think what I found interesting about it is you know we've been in churches in the
past especially before you were pastoring.
I'm sure you've experienced this as well where you know maybe we attended a church and maybe
they changed pastors and we just we didn't click with them.
Right.
So I don't send a letter and leave or leave and send a letter two months later.
Cut the guy's heart out.
We just move on or if someone asks instead of throwing the pastor under the bus we say
you know it just God was just leading us somewhere else.
There's just you know he has another plan but people don't necessarily do that.
Your daggers in your belt.
Yeah.
Don't draw your sword.
So that I think that was what was what was tough is.
It was hard.
It was a hard one.
Yeah.
And those are they're going to happen and it won't be the last one.
The more we move the ball down the field our church is really growing right now.
There's a lot of movement a lot of action.
And I were talking about all the older people that are getting baptized.
I know.
Think about all the adults you know older adults.
It's one thing having a bunch of children but there is just an excitement when you see
older adults that are making a new decision rededicating their life or just they've decided
they want to to put and make Jesus their Lord of their life and not just someone they know
but actually you know become so much a part of their life that they're ready to get baptized
or baptized again.
It's really powerful.
It's a new commitment.
And her and I were talking about that the other day and I was just like it's so powerful.
No wonder the enemy hates it.
Yes he hates it.
We're making a difference.
People are getting disciple.
People are getting born again and saved and turn their lives over to Jesus.
We've got a big footprint in our community.
I'm the president of the Misericles Alliance.
So there's a lot of movement happening around us.
We're seeing some favor on things we're doing and sure enough that garners the enemy's attention.
It sure does.
But here's the deal.
I'm not backing off.
I mean I'm just I'm not downshifting.
I'm upshifting.
I mean it's like that's just the way it is.
The scripture is very clear.
We put on the whole armor of God.
You know helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteous, belt of belt of right.
Breastplate of righteous, belt of truth, feet shod with preparation the gospel of peace.
Pick up the sword of the spirit which is the word of God and the shield of faith.
I mean this is what we do.
The scripture is clear.
We are in a battle not with other people but with entities that are not level and dark.
And I think that's the key is to say that it's not the person.
This person is a lovely wonderful person and that's why it hurts so much because you you
think a lot about that person about how wonderful they are and how much potential there is for
God to use them.
And so you know you have to look past and like you said see the person in 3D and know
that it's not that person that's coming against you.
The enemy is just using that person.
Tragedy is when someone gives into that spirit of criticism or spirit of anger, spirit of
you know I don't like the way you do it so I'm going to come after you instead of saying
you know what we're going to move on and maybe this isn't where we're supposed to be.
I mean there are so many different flavors of church so to speak.
And so not everybody I mean some people want a liturgical type church.
Some people want traditional.
Some people don't want instruments.
They want just hymns without the instruments.
Some people want full on contemporary music.
You can't please everybody.
All of those forms of worship and forms of methodology are valid in the kingdom of God.
We need everybody.
And it's beautiful.
It's absolutely beautiful.
It's like a tapestry.
You look at a tapestry from the front.
It's beautiful.
You flip it over and see the back and it's all mangled tangled mess.
But that's what produces the beauty.
And so the beauty of the body of Christ is that there are different functions.
And so when someone needs to leave they just need to go and go with blessing instead of
cursing.
You know go with a good spirit of saying you know what the reason we're not finding a home
here is because this isn't our home.
Let's go find our home but let's not take our swords out on the way out and do as much
damage as possible instead because it's a small town.
And in fact when we were in Nashville we're in a town of over a million people and yet
you still frequent all the same places.
So even though it's a big city you still end up at the same places.
So it's big towns or small towns too because you still shop where you shop and you do what
you do and you don't change all that because you've got a conflict with somebody.
So you're eventually going to see somebody again and I've learned the hard way the hard
way and I really mean that of not burning bridges in my life.
Just not it's not worth it.
God is a he's given us the ministry of reconciliation.
He wants us to as much as possible live at peace with others.
It's not always possible but as much as you know from your side whatever you can do.
So I'm all about that up for that.
So anyway so that that created for you even more so than me a lot of turmoil.
It did.
It really did.
I think the reason it didn't impact me as much is because I kind of knew that family
wasn't really ever into what we were doing.
I really sense they weren't right along all.
So it didn't surprise me.
Well meanness did but hard for me because I think didn't I so appreciate your leadership.
Thank you.
And I trust your leadership.
That means so much to me.
Well and I love how vulnerable you are with people and sometimes that vulnerability can
be your biggest enemy with people.
And so it just it was hard and I'm vulnerable.
I'm coming out of it but I can't say that I've just handled it.
I mean I think I handled it well.
I didn't get into a cave or put walls up.
I told I told Tina I'm tempted to put walls up that that's that's that's going back to
who I used to be.
And I didn't I just allowed myself to just work through it.
And God always proves himself so faithful.
He does.
He always does.
Always.
And he did.
Yeah.
And so the week ended better than it started.
I'll just put it that way.
But does it put you in a funk sometimes when you get crossed up with somebody.
And so yeah God bless them.
You know Tuesday talk about we brought in.
Oh this is super cool.
Layden and she is a life coach basically.
I know you're going to listen to us.
I love you and so appreciate what you did for our staff.
She brought in the strength finders.
Oh my goodness.
We were able to to affirm each other and what I was huge.
Our giftings our strengths are and even our weaknesses it was just so amazing to hear
people say that's not your weakness.
Yeah.
That's just I see that as a strength.
I saw all of us just walk out of this three and a half four hour meeting just bigger and
better than when we came in bigger.
We were bigger.
We were.
Our hearts were enlarged.
Our view of ourselves was enlarged.
We are bigger in a sense because we learn things about ourselves hearing feedback from
others and so Peggy did a masterful job.
I highly recommend her for any church or business.
She needs to be doing this in churches.
I know she's a great tool and she's been in the business world for a long time in the
corporate world doing this with high level executives and teams.
I could see massive value in churches for this.
I know there are people who do that but Peggy just has a great spirit about her and she's
a ball of energy.
If I could only cap that and take some for myself.
She just has a calling.
That's the difference.
She does.
She's in her lane.
They have jobs or careers because they went to school for that or it was once a calling
and then later maybe not so much for her.
Oh my goodness, you could see she was totally in her element and she was just dynamic and
charismatic and just a really amazing person.
I was so glad we got to know her that week.
Me too.
I would say this is a great example, even a great life lesson for all of us is if you
can find your lane, if you find what brings you joy, sometimes a lot of people work jobs
that they hate or they dislike or it doesn't bring them life, it doesn't bring them joy.
Working for a paycheck is hard.
It is.
It's just hard.
I like working for a purpose, not a paycheck.
Purpose is what gets me up in the morning every morning early, early because I'm already
excited about the day.
Is Tina texting you?
No.
I'm just looking at my phone.
I'm playing.
I'm playing with you.
But a lot of people work for a paycheck because we do.
It's pay bills.
This is the reality of the world we live in.
You've got to pay bills.
You've got to manage your life.
But ultimately, you can only do that for so long before that adrenaline wears off and
the joy wears off.
Then you really have to find your calling and find your lane.
I think that's one of the most important things that people need to understand is that God
puts callings on people's lives.
Calling is one of those nebulous terms that's hard to define.
How do you know you're called to something?
Well, it's because you can't think about anything else.
You so love what you do.
That's where I'm at with being a pastor is I get to do this even when I get hate mail
or even when I get the nasty stuff because we're dealing with people.
Hurt people hurt people.
Broken people break people.
Damaged people damage other people.
When you're in the church world, you're working with a lot of broken and damaged people.
That's going to happen.
It's going to be directed at you.
Nine times out of 10, it's not really coming at you.
It was on your watch, but it usually goes back to trauma that people have had.
Anyway, back to finding our calling.
That's the thing is even if you're not in the ministry, you're still in the ministry.
You're called.
You have a call in your life to be a great mechanic or to be a great housewife or to
be a great teacher, great attorney, great business leader, manager.
Whatever you do, you drive a dump truck.
Man, do it with excellence.
Stay in your lane.
I think for me, the reason why I just find so much joy in what we do is because I know
I'm called to it.
I think as you get older, you settle into your skin and you begin to realize this really
is who I am.
Every Sunday, so I preach twice a week on Sunday mornings.
I preach two times back to back because we have two services.
We always have a bumper video right before the sermon.
It's just a way to get everybody back because we do a meet and greet and get everybody back
to their chairs.
It settles them in.
It always has a message to it.
It's usually about two minutes long.
That gives me about two minutes.
I sit on a stool off to the side of the platform while the video is going.
That gives me a couple minutes to just take a breath and to say, Lord, I was born to do
this.
I'm doing what you created me to do.
I always give thanks for that.
Then I say, Lord, empower me.
Just speak through me.
By the time the end of that video is and I'm stepping up to the pulpit or walking out onto
the platform, I'm already in the zone.
It's because I know I'm doing what I'm called to do.
I do it with a lot of passion and a lot of excitement.
Anyway, that's it.
She is in her lane.
She is.
Great example of somebody running in their lane.
What she was saying, we do these, what do you call them?
Tests or how do you?
Personality assessments and these things.
Yeah, the assessments.
As she put them all together, our whole team, the thread that was evident, sorry about that,
the thread that was evident in all of our team was relationship.
That was telling.
She plotted those out on a graph, all of our strengths, and the majority of those fell
in that quadrilateral or quadrant of relationship.
How wonderful is that?
It wasn't that relationship was the worst or the lowest thing on the quadrilateral.
It was number one.
For a church, that's really important because we're dealing with people.
Yes, there's business to be had, but we're dealing with people more than we're doing
any of the other business.
We need to have compassion and empathy for people.
We need to love ministering to people and hearing their prayers, their problems, and
being able to point them to the Word to give them resolve.
Man, that was telling to me.
It was very important.
We've done this before in another church.
I don't remember relationship being such a…
We didn't have anybody help us unpack it like this.
Peggy's very skilled at this.
This is what she's called to do.
I will say this is that one of the challenges we face as a church body as we grow because
we're now over 500 pretty consistently right now.
We're continuing to grow and see new people coming, which is wonderful.
It's a lot of energy.
It's exciting to see new faces and see people getting connected.
However, the tricky part or the challenge for us, the tension is how do we still keep
that friendly, warm, welcoming, relational atmosphere when the church now, I mean on
any given Sundays over 500 or right at 500.
That's a lot of people to keep.
I can't remember his name.
I'm meeting new people every week.
That's just part of the cost of growing, but I still think you can have both.
You can have a relational, warm, loving environment and still have larger numbers and whatnot.
That's something that we're committed to is staying relational, being relational.
Very important.
That's more important than what I would say getting it done, getting things done or production
and all those things.
Production is not the right word, but performance.
So yeah, it's keeping love the first thing.
Have a God, love people.
It's not that complicated, is it?
So that was great.
That was a great, great part of our week, really high value there.
And then I just had some great meetings last week with individuals who were just wonderful
people.
I got to meet with a man in our church who initially he had some concerns.
He comes from a traditional church background and his name is George, wonderful guy, wonderful
guy in our church.
And we had some concerns just because I had mentioned in a sermon that I had been through
a divorce and I've told our story before, but they're a little bit newer to the church.
And so he wrote me and it wasn't even, I mean, it was a nice email just saying, I just wanted
to meet with you, just to talk about it.
He wanted to meet with me to say, Hey, I just, you know, I come from a traditional background
and you know, so love to talk to you.
And so I was a little concerned about it only because, you know, it's just, you've never
had anybody question.
No, no, I haven't.
So I was, I mean, I was looking forward to the meeting actually sitting down, but some
things came up where we couldn't meet.
So we had to put them off.
I mean, we, we, we, I think you put them off for like three weeks, three weeks.
And then we finally got together and it was so, so wonderful.
Oh, you came back with just, oh my goodness.
Well, it was, it was neat.
Well, first of all, I wanted to hear his story too.
And he has a wonderful, compelling testimony and story.
But by the time I started talking about, you know, my background and what I went through
as far as a divorce and how the church we were at handled it and they were wonderful.
We had a great experience through that.
He was like, I'm good.
I, in fact, I wanted to tell you, I, I don't even, you know, when you map out, really talk
about it because I've been listening to your podcast and I've been hearing you tell your
stories, especially Annette's story.
And he said, he quoted you, he said, Annette said this, God is a God of second chances.
And he said that really stuck out to him.
And he realized, and so it was, it was just one of those meetings that we just had the
best time and we're going to schedule another meeting just to go get lunch together and
hang out and get to know each other and walk together.
And that's, that's what I loved about that meeting versus the person who left the church
and scalded us.
And left a letter, but didn't want to meet with you in person.
And you actually asked to meet in person.
I had requested, I sent him a very, very nice note, just saying, Hey, we love you guys.
I hear you're leaving.
We want to bless you as you go.
And I mean, I was trying to be super positive and life had no idea they were angry and hateful.
So I just caught us off guard a little bit.
Doesn't over surprise us these days though.
I mean, we sing a lot in 38 years of doing this, but I was so appreciative of him and
how man just, we talked about grace, about having grace awakenings in our lives and,
and how God is indeed a God of second, third and fourth and fifth chances.
Right?
So anyway, it turned out that that was a kind of redemptive piece, almost counteracted.
Maybe that's why I didn't take it so hard with that letter because it was like a counter
to that.
So anyway, we have so many wonderful people that speak life into us, but our hearts to
speak life into everybody and help everybody live up and down the world.
By the way, this is episode number 20.
Shouldn't that be important?
I mean, you're no longer a teenager.
We're now, let's toast to 20.
Let's do it.
I need a refill though.
Cheers to 20.
And it's not aloe vera juice.
It is not aloe vera juice today.
It is actually little bubbly because we're celebrating.
We're celebrating.
And, but I need a refill.
I'm down to the last one.
I'm sorry.
You're doing a podcast.
You cannot walk away.
I'm going to leave you talking.
I'm going to get the bottle.
No, you're not.
It's in the other room.
You're fine.
You go get it.
You can wait.
You're funny.
So I'm excited though.
20, that's a big deal.
You know, Adam Curry's the pod father in podcasting.
He says things like, and I was reminded because somebody wrote me this today, actually on
Twitter of all things, congratulating us for 20 episodes and said, as the pod father, Adam
Curry says, if you make 20 episodes, you're light years ahead of everybody else.
And most never even get to 20.
And why do you think they don't?
Do they get discouraged?
I think they get discouraged.
They maybe don't get feedback, you know, and maybe they feel like they're not making a
difference or maybe they, maybe they get down the road and realize they don't have anything
to say.
Maybe there's, there's nothing left, but.
Well, you're a preacher.
You're always going to have something to say.
Oh my gosh.
That is so the truth.
It is.
And I'm the guy that would not even give a book report in high school.
It doesn't even make sense.
It took zero.
No, it does.
Now my teacher was nice, but I did.
I would not talk in front of my class.
I did.
The last thing I wanted was to get.
So this is totally a God thing that you're a totally a God thing.
It doesn't know you make sense.
So I'm just anyway, so I'm really happy about that.
20.
That's a big deal.
20 weeks.
Now we are going to take a break next week.
I think we can do it later in the week.
We just want to come back.
We'll have to do it.
When we get back, we're going to be going to Nashville.
So you want to tell them about what we're doing?
Yeah.
I'm excited about us going to the K-Love Awards fan awards event.
It's a big three day event.
Red carpet.
So you have to dress up.
I'm cool with that.
How can I spend my clothes?
I'm really excited because you actually agreed to let me buy you.
I bought you two suits, a pair of slacks, and then yesterday four jackets.
Well we're not going to keep four jackets.
No, we're keeping.
No, I got all different ones, all different kinds.
Wow, super cool.
You're going to start dressing up at church.
Just a little bit.
I am.
I'm taking it up a notch.
You're not 30 anymore.
What?
No, I know.
I'm 19 in my mind.
I know, and that's why it's time to put away the old clothes and put on some nice ones.
So let me be clear.
We're talking a nice jacket with sharp jeans and shoes.
Unless you want to wear slacks because you want to.
That would be rare.
I am a jeans guy.
Okay.
Jeans and slacks.
But I'm glad to wear a jacket because it hides my peace.
Yes.
I'm carrying my gun.
Oh my gosh.
Are you going to start carrying your gun?
I'm carrying.
You bet I'm carrying.
But you don't when you're up there preaching.
No, I don't.
You don't need to.
I do know of preachers that they'll keep a gun in their pulpit, like on the shelf.
Really?
Yes.
Wow.
We have enough people that are carrying this.
Oh my gosh.
We don't call 911 in Fredericksburg, Texas.
That's for sure.
Oh my gosh.
I'm more worried about the crossfire if something ever happens.
Friendly fire they call it.
We have more women that pack.
Yes we do.
Okay.
Let's go back to our stories.
We're going to the K Love Fan Awards.
We're leaving.
In Nashville.
This weekend.
We'll be gone for a few days.
We're going to see family while we're there.
We're extending our time.
I had my first facial today.
Haven't had a facial.
How's that going?
I don't even know if I've ever had a facial.
How does it feel?
Do you feel any different?
I don't know.
Just having someone... Let me feel your face.
It's soft.
Hold on.
It's soft.
It's like a baby's body.
Yes it is.
Just hydrated.
I really needed hydration.
Anyway, I went to Gilded Palm Spa in Fredericksburg.
Jennifer Marshall is phenomenal.
She gave me the best.
She doesn't just do the face.
She massages your shoulders and your neck.
She was wonderful.
She talked to me about the podcast and how now she feels like she can trust us because
she's gotten to know us through the podcast.
She asked me, who is the artist that you're going to fangirl over?
At the award show.
I don't know.
There's so many that are going to be there.
She said for her, Lauren Daigle.
Right.
I said, yeah.
That's amazing.
I think she is phenomenal.
A phenomenal artist.
I don't fangirl her.
Okay.
Who are you excited to see?
I'm obviously excited to see the Mercy Me Bros.
Well yes, because we're friends now.
Yeah.
Definitely glad to be excited.
Kane is hosting it.
Kane.
Yeah, they're good.
I'm excited to see how they are.
I'm more excited about the spectacle, the atmosphere of it than just seeing a specific band or
group or individual.
There's a lot of concerts that we're going to be attending that are just for the people
who signed up for the three day package.
We signed up for it a year ago.
I don't know.
I told her that was a hard one because there are so many amazing artists out there.
For me, it's just the celebration of worship and music and celebrating this genre of music
and with some of the top people in their field.
These are world class musicians, artists, and singers and they're followers of Jesus.
To be in an atmosphere like that, it's just exciting.
I just love music so much.
It's such a massive... Today, you went and got your facial.
I picked up my guitar and I put it down when I heard you walk in the door.
I played for two hours, two hours because I love music so much.
God has always spoken to me through music.
I never lack for anything to do because I just pick up guitar and play.
I love celebrating other artists so I'm really looking forward to this.
I keep saying, I'm using the word, I'm going to nerd out there, but I'm a music nerd.
I'm looking forward to... Is it David Nasser that is speaking?
Is that his name on Sunday morning?
I can't remember his name.
I know who you're talking about.
We watched... He's sharp.
We watched a head talk with him or something.
He is very sharp.
Very sharp.
He was a Muslim.
Refugee.
Yeah.
Man, radically saved.
I had to know the cross and it's changed his life and he went to work for Liberty University.
He was a campus pastor there.
This guy is sharp.
He's sharp.
I'm really looking forward to hearing more of his testimony.
Me too.
I think that's going to be good.
Hey, speaking of that, I want to transition here a little bit because Doyle Fivik wrote
us.
I reached out on Facebook platforms and said, hey, you have any questions or topics you'd
like for us to talk about?
We'd love to just field some stuff.
So Doyle wrote... Doyle is a precious friend, a lover of God and he's our propane guy.
He has a propane company here.
Great.
Quick.
Oh yeah, he's wonderful.
Yes, he's wonderful.
Highly recommend.
I mean, just awesome.
Propane, yeah, here in Central Texas.
He wrote, what couple Bible studies do you recommend and how do you two study together?
That's a great question.
It is.
So I'll say this.
We don't recommend a couple Bible study per se.
There were some books that we've done together that were really compelling for us.
One, I only recommend to married couples, not singles because I'm just saying it's definitely
for married folk only.
It's called Lovemaking.
That was really good.
Do you remember who the author was?
No, I don't.
You may look that up while we're chatting.
This is really good.
For married couples, this book, I mean, it gets it down in the details of the nitty gritty,
you know what I'm saying?
Intimacy.
Yeah, intimacy.
You can say that word, honey.
It's a better word than nitty gritty.
I'm going to look that up while you…
Well, for us, as far as what we do together, we listen to preachers.
We watch different preachers.
Typically, every time we go to work out, you listen to music most of the time.
Some of the time you listen to preaching.
I listen to preaching almost every single time.
And then I'll say, okay, we need to listen to this.
This is helpful for us.
And then we'll come home or we'll listen to it on the way home.
Which we did today.
We have a little drive, about 25 minutes from the gym to our house because we live outside
of town.
It was perfect timing.
And we listened to Bill Johnson today.
Bill is the pastor at Bethel Church in Redding, California.
And he just lost his wife this last year.
Man, just a hard, hard thing.
Lost her to a… lost her fight of cancer.
Or she battled to the end.
Let me put it that way.
She didn't lose anything.
She's now in the presence of Jesus.
But that book is called Love Making and it's by Dr. Dan and Linda Wilson.
Okay, yes.
Great.
So good.
Great book.
Really helped us on some things.
So, you're looking at your phone.
Well, I'm looking because I'm looking at the name of the sermon that we listened to.
It's called The Devil's Strategy.
It just caught my attention.
I was just going through YouTube.
Just looking at my favorite pastors.
Dr. Jen, Jim?
And I saw this, The Devil's Strategy.
I was like, oh, okay.
This is a good listen.
A good reminder.
And so, I told you about it and we listened to it all the way home.
I listened to it again as I was driving.
You can't listen.
I can't…
I'm sorry.
I can't hear something one time and take it in and be, okay, that's great.
I like to…
You get different nuggets every time you listen.
I hear something different or I hear something that will just speak to me at that moment.
So I like to listen to things over and over.
And so it was powerful.
I think you and I are going to listen to it again even.
It was that good.
I was like, well, Bill Johnson is so deep.
So what we're sharing with you all is how we do it.
So it's not a one size fits all.
You've got to find out what works for you.
And through the years we found we tried doing things together, like sitting at the table
in the morning and stuff.
And we're just not wired that way.
It doesn't work for us.
But we're more, you go spend time with God and reading, study, listening.
I'll go do that.
And then we come back together and it's on.
I mean, we're like...
Then we can talk about it.
Even if it's too separate.
It's always fascinating.
Because I do a devotion every morning.
Right now I'm doing the blessed life with Robert Morris.
And I write a devotion every morning.
And it's on you version.
And so we talk about if something really stuck out, then we'll talk about that.
But most of the time we turn on, we're either listening to it in our car or we come home
and turn on YouTube.
And we'll watch a sermon.
And then sometimes like the last few days we've been watching worship.
We love worship.
And so there's some great...
The production values are so high now.
And so you go to YouTube and you can just search for Gateway Worship.
Or you can watch the worship service before the message when Pastor Robert Morris preaches.
We love Pastor Robert Morris.
He's one of our favorite preachers, teachers.
And just love him dearly.
And we listen to him every week that he's teaching or preaching.
And sometimes we'll go back in archives and pull out stuff.
Because he really is a mentor from afar for me.
Has been for many years, decades actually.
And so we love him.
But we love the worship there at Gateway Church in South Lake up in the Dallas, Fort Worth
area.
And we've been there many, many times.
We spent time there during one of our transitions.
And then we're also a part of the Gateway Church's network.
So we're already a part of them in that sense and a partner sense.
So sometimes we'll just pull up and I'll just randomly...
They do nights of worship.
They call it a night of worship.
And we'll just pull that up, which we did the other night.
We watched a lot of worship.
Just to let it...
Just infiltrate our home.
And it's just beautiful.
And to just prepare our hearts for worship the next day.
I'm a firm, firm, hardcore believer in I don't want to wait till Sunday morning to get ready
to worship.
I want to be so rested.
I resist doing things on Saturdays with other people.
And it doesn't always work out that way.
We end up doing it and I always regret.
I always love people that we're with, but I'm always physically tired.
But Saturday night is tough because you want to be fully...
I want to be focused.
And so we're also...
Man, we're months now into our no TV purge.
We're not anti-TV.
So don't hear what we're not saying.
I mean, everybody... it's not one size fits all.
Exactly.
For us, we were like, this is just...
It was just taking over too much of our time.
And attention.
And so we're months into that now and we're just not going back.
I mean, our dish network is up.
It's going to go bye-bye.
It's leaving.
It's out of here.
I am, yes.
Because nowadays you can get so much on YouTube.
We like documentaries and stuff.
In fact, we watched a powerful documentary.
Oh man.
Wow.
It's called Affirmation Generation.
It's on YouTube.
It's about an hour and a half.
I highly recommend it.
And it's dealing with the trans issue.
Which you talked about in church on Sunday.
I did talk about that on Sunday.
So yeah, we're skipping around a little bit, but that's good.
So on Sunday, I talked about Jonah.
I've never preached on Jonah before.
I don't think I've ever heard preaching on Jonah.
I mean, I remember as a child, everybody knows about Jonah and the fish.
We've all had Sunday school lessons.
But I honestly don't believe I've ever heard a preacher preach on the book of Jonah.
I don't think I have either.
Not that I can remember.
It doesn't mean it hasn't.
And the way you used it as relevance as to what's going on in our world right now, you
did an amazing, beautiful job.
Thank you.
I think Jonah, as I read through the narrative of the book, it's only four chapters.
It's a very small book.
And that's not one that we just go, oh, I want to read the book of Jonah.
It's not one you just turn to.
No, because you think, oh, I know this story.
But do we really know this story?
Great, great, compelling event that happened.
And we get all caught up in the belly of it.
You know, he's three days in the belly of a fish.
Was it literal or was it figurative?
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't change the story.
The issue was that God told him to go preach to a city called Nineveh and he refused.
Because he was having to let them know how...
He was angry.
Well, the whole point of it is God wanted him to preach to this evil city, to tell them
how evil they were and they needed to repent.
And so why is he angry about doing that?
Was he afraid of the backlash?
He did not want them to repent.
He wanted judgment.
Because he is a guy of justice and he's like, you know what, they just need to...
He's a prophet.
And a lot of times that prophetic edge can overtake love because he so wants the justice
of God.
See, I have that justice bone in me, but I don't necessarily want harm for people though.
But boy, he did.
I know a lot of people who do though.
I know a lot of Christians who are so angry at what's happening in the world that it overrides
their Christianity.
They forget who they are and they forget who God is, which is what happened to John.
It's so hard to understand that.
My mind can't...
I guess I have too much compassion and empathy for people.
So I want them to change.
I don't want them to burn.
We have got to be lovers.
We got to be radical lovers.
Francis Chan wrote a book a number of years ago called Crazy Love.
And it's a great book, but I just...
The title is compelling.
Crazy, I mean, we got to be crazy lovers of people and before them, not against them.
So on the trans issue, which is huge right now, it's just, man, I'm not even going to
commentate on that because comment on it because it's not even worth going into.
But we've got to look past the makeup and the gender pronouns and all the different
things to see there's a human being behind all of that that's broken.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
I think he had a great fall.
All the king's horses, all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again, but God
can.
And that's where we've got to say, you know what?
I'm going to look past your behavior.
People look past mine to lead me to Christ.
I wasn't doing that, but I was doing other things that I shouldn't have been.
They saw something in me that beyond my behavior, shared the gospel with me, the good news,
I became a Christian follower of Christ and God began to kill those things away.
We need to be okay about having a cause and coming to the table with.
Yeah, I want to be clear about that.
We need to speak up.
We do need to speak up, but we need to do everything in love, not this hatred that we're
seeing.
We need to speak the truth in love.
Christians can be the worst.
I can be mean.
And it bothers me so much that we can have this hatred because that totally goes against
what Jesus said.
He said, love your enemies.
It's an anti-Christ spirit in work.
In Christians, in people.
Because they're so offended by somebody's choices or by their behaviors that it overrides
their identity in Christ and they forget who God is, which is exactly what happened to
Jonah.
And that's why it's so relevant.
Because Jonah is just us and we're Jonah.
He was divinely human.
What I love about, he ended up after he was in the belly of the fish, he ended up back
in Nineveh and he did what God told him to do and they all repented.
The king repented.
Even the king turned and they said they're going to work.
The whole city is going to worship the one true God.
And on the heels of that, Jonah was still mad.
Still mad.
He was angry.
Because God didn't strike him down like he said he was going to.
They repented.
He relented.
He didn't want them to repent.
See, you can't say God hasn't relented.
That's why prayer is important, Jimmy.
It is.
So many people say, well, what does it matter?
God's going to do what he wants to do.
No, God relented.
They repented.
He relented.
Yes, that's huge.
That's huge because I look at our own country and I hear people say it all the time is,
man, this is too far gone.
It's just going to get worse.
I'm like, no, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Man, read the Bible.
Don't give up here.
Exactly.
You know, they thought that about Nineveh and look what happened.
And so, yeah, so it was an opportunity to talk about us becoming for real crazy lovers
where we love people beyond politics and beyond which side of the aisle you're on.
We can still speak out.
Absolutely.
About causes that go against what the Bible says.
Speak the truth.
There is a way to do it.
It's your tone.
It's motive.
It's the heart.
Yes.
Tone and motive, it's everything.
And I mean, people can tell me just about anything if they do it in love.
I can take it.
But if you've got a bad dude tone, I mean, I won't give you a...
You won't even listen to it.
No, I won't.
No one else will either.
Right.
And so, you know, we're not listening today.
We get behind a keyboard.
We suddenly become bold.
You know, we say stupid stuff.
And then we wonder why the world's not changing and we're mad.
And it's just tragic because that's not what we're called to.
We're called to love.
And so back to Doyle's question, I mean, this got us talking.
Reading the book of Jonah, talking about the message, that's how Annette and I...
The Bible says, as iron sharpens iron, so one friend sharpens the countenance of another.
And so when you get iron back and forth, iron sharpening iron, and that's how our relationship
is.
So, yeah, I did...
I preached the message, but we've unpacked it since, just like we just did, where we're
talking back and forth, stepping on each other's sentences and finishing each other's sentences
because we get excited about what God is speaking through the word.
And so we have favorite preachers that we love.
For one, Pastor Robert Morris, Gateway Church, Pastor Bill Johnson, really highly recommend
you dive into Bill Johnson.
Boy, he is deep.
He is not flashy.
He is not flashy, but my goodness, he has got revelation.
He is so good.
And those are our two favorite.
I mean, we'll spot listen to others.
We love Joyce Meyer.
Joyce is...
We love Joyce.
She just tells it like it is.
She's just...
That's why you love her so much, because you like that.
So that's what we do.
We love to listen to messages and we love to watch worship, particularly Gateway Worship's
our favorite per se.
But I like it all.
I mean, I really get a lot out of a lot of different ones.
And so how do we two study together?
We don't.
We talk.
We study and we get in the word apart from one another.
We come back and what's God saying?
What's God saying?
And we do what we just did for 10 minutes.
We go back and forth and we get excited and we talk over one another because we're so
excited about what God's up to.
So I hope that helps.
We got to find what works for you.
We do some things together.
We read through the Bible, do that two years.
Two years through the Bible.
Every night.
And we read through the Bible together in two years.
And that was a great experience.
That's the first time we've ever done anything like that together.
Yeah, like that.
We've done things separately, but not together.
It was really good.
And we talked about it.
Do you want to do it again?
Nah, nah, me either.
It was great.
And we'll probably revisit it another time.
I mean, maybe next year, but we'll see.
So that was a good one.
Another what?
I think it's, how long have we been going now?
Okay.
Yeah.
I think you should wait on that one till next week.
Okay.
Yeah, we can pick these up.
We got a lot, a lot of people.
Yeah.
We appreciate it.
And I would invite you, if you're listening to the show, feel free to reach out to us.
You can go to our website.
It's super simple to find, livingupandadownworld.com.
And you can give us feedback.
You can do a review.
That's beautiful.
If you leave a review for us, that's helpful.
But we want to hear from you.
You can write us.
You can even do a voicemail.
We had a friend of mine, Tommy, Tommy Hayes left a voicemail on our website.
Oh, he did.
You can do that?
It's actually very cool.
Wow.
Yeah.
It said you have a voicemail.
I didn't even realize it and I picked it up.
It was Tommy.
And if you give us your email address, we'll send you a newsletter.
We're going to start putting together a newsletter.
Yeah.
I've already did one preliminary newsletter just to get the, set up a template and get
the ball rolling.
And then we're going to, we've got some things we're going to add to it.
So we're just waiting for those elements and we'll start doing that on an ongoing basis.
We'll keep you up to speed with what's happening and also how you can support the show.
I mean, really it's, I mean, value to you.
There's value to value.
That's right.
Yeah.
Value for value.
I want to recommend a great podcast site for you to, if you don't have it, it's called
fountain and it's an app.
So you can go to either iOS or you can go to your Android setup and go to your app store,
download fountain.
You can actually earn Bitcoin while you're listening.
It'll actually add in and start loading your wallet and you can, you can bless that forward.
If you like the podcast and just, you can just send it.
It's really phenomenal.
They're doing a great job.
It's just two guys doing this whole website and they continue to improve it.
And some of your, the best podcasts in the world, like living up in a down world, no
agenda, curry and the keeper, which congratulations to Adam and Tina Curry.
They are now doing that on a weekly basis.
That's a big deal.
It is.
Every other week.
I don't know how he does it.
He does like four other podcasts.
Now she's having to work and she complained.
He pulled her out of retirement.
Like, okay.
That's so fun.
So funny.
Um, so those are two, there's some great podcasts.
We're on there obviously.
And, uh, so yeah, we're going to do it.
A live podcast together.
This is going to be crazy.
We have curry and the keeper.
We're doing a, we're calling it a crossover crossover crossover event, you know?
So that is, we're all chatty and you get us all together.
It's over.
I'm just, it's going to be, I'm telling you all of us sitting in a room.
It's no telling, no telling where that's going to go.
I mean, that could end up being a four hour show, but kidding, but it will be, it will
be alive.
I'm just, so we're going to do it live.
So we're waiting there.
They're doing their weekly.
Now they're going to get in the groove of that.
Then they're going to go live weekly, which I would like to do.
I know you would.
It's not over the excited about that.
She still likes the idea that we can edit.
I can say, Hey, stop that.
I don't like that.
Let's just start all over.
Don't use that guy's name.
So, um, so yeah, yeah, we'll see.
I'm getting closer.
Yeah.
You're leaning into it, but we want to tell you how much we love and value you and appreciate
you again.
It's so good to hear from y'all and just keep it coming.
We want to meet you want to hear from you.
If you have questions, please feel free.
And, uh, and man, we would love to hear, hear what you're up to.
So anyway, so this is Jimmy and Annette and we are living up in a down world.
Mr. Chevy has been with us the whole time, by the way.
Oh, he has been chilled out.
He had his chin up on the sound asleep.
I wish people could see him.
I know.
I love you.
We could go video for this.
We could go live video, do a video.
No, stop.
Just kidding.
I love you more.
So much more.
I love you.
You're awesome.
See y'all next week.
Next week on living up in a down world.
Remember, we're going to be a little bit late next week, so don't, don't panic.
We'll be with you.
Bye.