1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000 Celebrating the power of possibility. 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:34,000 I'm Dr. John Avant and I believe anything is possible. 3 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:38,000 Welcome to Anything Is Possible. I'm Hallerin Hilton Hill. 4 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:41,000 This is part two of my interview with Dr. John Avant. 5 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:44,000 Thank you for being with us. I'm honored to have you here. 6 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:46,000 What is life action? 7 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:52,000 Yeah, the name of our ministry really kind of describes who we are. 8 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:55,000 We draw our life vertically from the Lord, 9 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:57,000 but it's supposed to spread out into action 10 00:00:57,000 --> 00:00:59,000 and make a difference in the way we live. 11 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:02,000 So, ministry has been around for half a century. 12 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:04,000 It's based in Michigan. 13 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:06,000 We've got our offices. 14 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:09,000 We have a family camp, which is incredible, 15 00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:11,000 and a leadership lodge to care for leaders. 16 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:15,000 But really, most of our ministry is spread out all over the world. 17 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:21,000 And so, I'm the president, but we have a CEO who runs the office. 18 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:23,000 So, I'm only there about four days a month. 19 00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:28,000 I'm usually somewhere else, and a few days in the month actually in Knoxville. 20 00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:30,000 How'd you come to this work? 21 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:33,000 Well, when I was past our first Baptist Concord, 22 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:41,000 I got a call out of the blue from the ministry that I'd loved for about three decades, really. 23 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:48,000 And I didn't know that my predecessor was in the process of retiring, 24 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:52,000 and he said, would you be interested in taking the role? 25 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:54,000 And he was CEO and president. 26 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:58,000 I'm not a great administrator. I didn't want to do that. 27 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:03,000 So, we split the role, and so I'm president now. 28 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:09,000 We've changed a lot of the structure now, but it was a huge life change for us. 29 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:12,000 Most people know us as a revival ministry, 30 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:20,000 but we say we help churches, families, and leaders pursue revival of vitality 31 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:22,000 and their mission with Jesus. 32 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:28,000 And we have young adults, young college age, gap year missionaries that travel with us, 33 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:34,000 so we get to mentor the next generation, do a lot of multi-day events in churches and universities. 34 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:42,000 I just got back yesterday from speaking at university, and we care for leaders, pastors, missionaries overseas. 35 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:49,000 It's a very diverse and widespread ministry, and I love it. I'm very thankful for it. 36 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:56,000 I know a lot of people that have taken trips with you to the Holy Land, 37 00:02:56,000 --> 00:03:01,000 and they just rave about that experience. Say something about that. 38 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:06,000 Well, most of our trips are service and mission and ministry trips, 39 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:14,000 and are life-changing, but not quite as fun as what we do every year, pretty much in May. 40 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:20,000 So my wife and I take a group, either to Israel, can't do that right now. 41 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:26,000 We were there right before war broke out, but we'll also go to places like, 42 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:32,000 next month we'll be on a trip called The Journeys of Paul, so we go to Greece and Italy and Turkey 43 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:40,000 and land and sea, the journeys that change the course of history, and we experience it together. 44 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:47,000 It's really a revival journey. We live together like family and experience the places that change the world. 45 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:53,000 So people that follow Jesus, they see the places in the Bible where they've studied all their life. 46 00:03:53,000 --> 00:04:00,000 Now they're there, and it's a stop. You go into the prison where Jesus spent his last hours, 47 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:09,000 where Paul spent his last hours. Those are some of the kind of places that we go to, and it really is life-changing. 48 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:14,000 One of the things you said in our last episode, and I would encourage anybody watching to go back, 49 00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:23,000 if you haven't seen it, to see the last episode, you mentioned that you developed a heart for racial reconciliation. 50 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:30,000 Words like diversity, racial reconciliation, right now, are triggering. 51 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:35,000 They're toxic. They're over politicized. 52 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:39,000 Why did you decide to embrace that? 53 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:47,000 I mentioned in the last episode I was mentored by an African man, a Nigerian man, but it goes really back to my father. 54 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:52,000 My father was raised in rural Alabama. Everything around him was racism. 55 00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:59,000 But he watched a young African-American teenager who he was working with putting up a circus tent in the summer, 56 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:05,000 and it was hot, and he watched this young man desperately needing a drink of water. 57 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:11,000 And when nobody was looking, he went to a hose where the water was just running and drank from it. 58 00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:18,000 But some people saw it and came and beat him almost to death because he drank from the same hose as white people. 59 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:24,000 And my dad was changed from that. He knew in his heart something was desperately wrong with that. 60 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:31,000 And so he raised us. There was no such word then, but he raised us really to be anti-racist, 61 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:35,000 to say, how can we make a difference in this area? 62 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:42,000 And for me, it's pretty simple. There is no Bible without the shattering of racism. 63 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:52,000 There is no New Testament because Jew and Gentile, there's never been a more profound racial hatred than what's there. 64 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:56,000 We see it lived out before us right now in what's happening in Israel. 65 00:05:56,000 --> 00:06:04,000 And yet the gospel tore that down. So for me, it transcended politics and everything else. 66 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:12,000 But did you run into resistance with that? Because within the constructs of American evangelical Christianity, 67 00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:20,000 and especially with how things are politically, that's a third rail. That thing's hot. 68 00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:27,000 You'll get accused of being woke. You'll get accused of being, I'm sure this is not new to you. 69 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:29,000 Yeah, I've been through all that. 70 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:31,000 You just don't care? 71 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:36,000 Well, I care, but I can't ignore that and follow Jesus. 72 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:43,000 I mean, again, I am saved and transformed because he broke those barriers. 73 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:50,000 And a couple of things that I've seen, when I was new to this as a young pastor, I was very naive about it. 74 00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:58,000 And I just assumed, man, yeah, I'm pastoring this as an Atlanta, an all-white church in an almost all African-American neighborhood. 75 00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:00,000 I thought, well, we'll change this. 76 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:08,000 And very naive, encountered terrible racism, lost a ton of people, and then God began to change it. 77 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:18,000 And we began to see African-Americans come. And to this day, that church is very racially diverse and supports our ministry. 78 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:21,000 We love them. But I started learning something. 79 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:27,000 I started learning that we should not take all of our cues from what we see on television, what we hear. 80 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:32,000 A lot of that is a very slender part of what's actually happening. 81 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:40,000 And I've got thousands of friends and partners around this country who believe there is a third way. 82 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:51,000 There's a third way that's not either Christian nationalism or a far, far left approach that also often leans toward hatred. 83 00:07:51,000 --> 00:07:56,000 There's a third way, and it's a gospel way, and we can find it together. 84 00:07:56,000 --> 00:08:02,000 And I'm going to pursue that. For me, people, how do you do this in a political world? 85 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:04,000 Kind of a political cynic. 86 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:12,000 Like, as a follower of Jesus, I believe I have a kingdom calling, which is far bigger than a national calling. 87 00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:17,000 And I love my country. I'm a patriot. I'm not apolitical. 88 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:19,000 But I've got something far bigger than that. 89 00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:25,000 And really, the history of cultural change has not primarily come through politics. 90 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:29,000 It's primarily come through the movements of the Spirit of God. 91 00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:55,000 And I still believe that, and I believe it can, and in many ways is beginning to happen in this country. 92 00:08:55,000 --> 00:09:00,000 Do you think politics is going to break the American church? 93 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:07,000 No. Jesus said that the gates of hell won't prevail against the American, against the church, any church. 94 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:13,000 But if the church decides not to be the church, then politics or anything else will break it. 95 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:17,000 And I think there's an important question in the American church. 96 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:21,000 How little can you actually follow Jesus and still be a church? 97 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:27,000 I mean, we are, I don't like the word Christian. Nobody knows what it means anymore. 98 00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:31,000 If I use the word I pronounce it Christian. I follow one named Christ. 99 00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:40,000 And to follow him together with others must be different than what the culture looks like. 100 00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:47,000 So I'm a part of a church that's multiracial, multiethnic, multi-economic status. 101 00:09:47,000 --> 00:09:53,000 And I believe we should be pursuing that. Not every church can or will. 102 00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:57,000 But why not? This is what the gospel does if we'll pursue it. 103 00:09:57,000 --> 00:09:59,000 What does it mean to follow Christ? 104 00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:01,000 It means to be as a apprentice. 105 00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:06,000 Often in the American church we think it means to learn more knowledge. 106 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:10,000 So I'm going to study the Bible more. I believe every word of the Bible is true. 107 00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:12,000 So did the Pharisees, and they killed Jesus. 108 00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:17,000 So I want to learn it. I want to teach others the scripture. 109 00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:22,000 But Jesus taught by taking people with him on a life journey. 110 00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:24,000 And it was still hard for them to get it. 111 00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:27,000 Until the Spirit of God filled them they still didn't get it. 112 00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:34,000 And so in life action in our ministry we believe that following Jesus being a Christian is being his apprentice. 113 00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:40,000 It means we want to know him, know his word, but then we become more like him and we bring others with us. 114 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:43,000 That's the movement we're a part of. 115 00:10:43,000 --> 00:10:52,000 For much of the American church being a Christian means if it's convenient we show up at church and sit and listen to a monologue. 116 00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:56,000 That's nothing like what we see in the scripture. 117 00:10:56,000 --> 00:11:02,000 So we're a little radical in what we teach at life action, but in some ways we're just old fashioned. 118 00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:06,000 We want to return to the New Testament church and help others do that. 119 00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:16,000 When you were finding your faith, when you're stomping out doobies and going in new direction, right? 120 00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:19,000 No longer truly a doobie brother, right? 121 00:11:19,000 --> 00:11:24,000 I love that. Because I was a walker-over too. We did some doobie brothers. 122 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:25,000 Great group. 123 00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:28,000 Jesus is just all I have in me. 124 00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:33,000 Did you imagine you being this you? 125 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:37,000 No. For instance, we're so involved overseas. 126 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:44,000 We have one of the primary ministries in the country now ministering to missionaries on the field. 127 00:11:44,000 --> 00:11:49,000 One of our leaders developed something as a missionary himself called 5D Thrive. 128 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:52,000 How to thrive in the five dimensions of your soul. 129 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:57,000 It's particularly for missionaries, but pastors or anybody. 130 00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:07,000 I didn't even go overseas until I was in my 30s. To have a global ministry, it's something I never would have dreamed. 131 00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:12,000 As a young Christian, I just loved Jesus. I wanted to tell people about him. 132 00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:18,000 I can't really believe the life that God has given me. I'm very grateful. 133 00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:20,000 What's been your greatest struggle? 134 00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:29,000 The ministry is hard. I tell young pastors today, prepare for a two-pronged ministry. 135 00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:34,000 Pastors are quitting at a record pace. Missionaries are as well. 136 00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:35,000 Why? 137 00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:41,000 Well, the leading reason that pastors and missionaries are quitting is conflict. 138 00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:46,000 Often among Christians, which that's pretty sad. 139 00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:56,000 Anxiety, depression. When you take on other people's pain for years and years and years, if you don't process that well yourself, 140 00:12:56,000 --> 00:13:03,000 you end up making mistakes yourself. Also, you're a part of often unhealthy systems. 141 00:13:03,000 --> 00:13:08,000 Most churches are not healthy today. 142 00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:17,000 For me, it's been saying, Lord, I'm not you. I'm not the Holy Spirit. I don't have to fix everything, change everybody. 143 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:25,000 I'm just one person. But I do want to be one person who is completely given to the Lord. 144 00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:31,000 One of the great evangelists in history, D.O. Moody, said something like this, 145 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:41,000 the world has yet to see what God could do with just one person fully devoted to Him and by God's grace, I'll be that person. 146 00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:49,000 And in this season, I mean, I get to preach thousands of people, but it doesn't matter as much to me anymore. 147 00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:56,000 I want to love Jesus and the person in front of me. And if I'll do that, I find the Lord opens doors I could never open. 148 00:13:56,000 --> 00:14:00,000 Larger doors than I would kick open on my own efforts. 149 00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:05,000 I'm a preacher's kid. I've lived a fairly public life. 150 00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:12,000 What I have discovered is that anything that's always on burns out. 151 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:20,000 It doesn't matter what it is. Anything that's always on burns out. Anything that's always on breaks. 152 00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:30,000 And I remember my brother recorded a video of my father giving final thoughts to each of his children. 153 00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:34,000 It was about 57 seconds long. One sentence each. 154 00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:40,000 And when he got to me, he looks in the camera and he says, balance, Haloran. 155 00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:43,000 Balance is the secret to success. 156 00:14:43,000 --> 00:14:51,000 And I know that he saw in me a fear driven ambition. 157 00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:58,000 I was afraid of poverty. I was afraid of trauma and abuse that I had experienced. 158 00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:04,000 And I was running from something, not running to something. 159 00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:17,000 And in that running, that continual running, feeling the hounds of depression and anxiety and fear always gaining ground on me. 160 00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:22,000 I never stopped to rest. I just was running and running and running. 161 00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:26,000 And you break. You burn out. 162 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:39,000 I don't know if you've experienced that at all, where you're doing so much for the world and doing so little for yourself that it finally all... 163 00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:44,000 Yeah, I think I'm kind of workaholic. And I think eight years ago I kind of hit a wall. 164 00:15:44,000 --> 00:15:50,000 That's why I tell young pastors, look, we may not be designed to be a pastor for 30 years. 165 00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:58,000 If you called to ministry, you called for life. But I'm neck deep in ministry now, but I'm not a pastor anymore. 166 00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:04,000 And I think for some people that may be the way to go if you're going to be in ministry. 167 00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:11,000 But for all of us, if our soul's going to thrive, we have to stay balanced. 168 00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:18,000 And we teach how to thrive in the five dimensions of your soul, spiritual, physical. 169 00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:20,000 What are they? 170 00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:25,000 Spiritual, physical, emotional, cognitive, how we think, and relational. 171 00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:30,000 And we have a way of teaching people how to do a, we call it a vector check every month. 172 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:35,000 And to say, where are you struggling and where are you going in the wrong directions? 173 00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:38,000 And how do you focus on those things? 174 00:16:38,000 --> 00:16:44,000 And from my wife and I, we're probably healthier in our soul than we've been most of our life. 175 00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:49,000 We're older, we're learning, and we're learning that balance. 176 00:16:49,000 --> 00:16:55,000 We can't be on all the time. Every quarter, every single quarter, I go off. 177 00:16:55,000 --> 00:17:00,000 It's either a vacation or a writing retreat, a writer, get away. 178 00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:15,000 Something that takes me away from the stress, and that's helped my soul stay healthy. 179 00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:21,000 Talk to me as we wrap about possibility. The possibility of life change. 180 00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:25,000 New beginnings. What have you learned? 181 00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:30,000 Well, my whole ministry, I've seen that. My life is that. I've watched, I don't know, 182 00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:36,000 thousands, maybe an underestimate of the impossible lives I've seen change. 183 00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:43,000 Last two years ago in our family camp, the chief of the vice-lords gang in Chicago came to faith. 184 00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:49,000 Now he's helping change the city of Chicago. 185 00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:55,000 We have an adopted adult Iranian daughter who are baptized in a hotel bathtub. 186 00:17:55,000 --> 00:18:02,000 Anybody's life can change. But I think the only real agent of change is Jesus. 187 00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:09,000 And I don't know how to help anybody change apart from him, but he changes everything he touches. 188 00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:15,000 And so whoever you are, whatever you're dealing with, there's incredible possibility for life change. 189 00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:22,000 And then, if what we believe is true, our life changes forever, and we get eternity with him, and that's good life. 190 00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:25,000 Books you've written and resources that you have? 191 00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:30,000 Yeah. My wife and I wrote a book called Yes, Changes Everything a few years back. 192 00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:36,000 All of our books are available on Amazon. My first book was called The Passion Promise 193 00:18:36,000 --> 00:18:41,000 about a life with passion. How do we live with passion? 194 00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:45,000 We have a book called Revival, The History of the Revival Movement in Texas. 195 00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:52,000 A book called Authentic Power about the power of God that we see, particularly in the persecuted church, 196 00:18:52,000 --> 00:18:58,000 and a book called If God Were Real. How would we actually live if we really believed God were real? 197 00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:08,000 And then LifeAction.org is our website. All kinds of resources from our ministry that can help people thrive in their soul. 198 00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:16,000 You are in your personal prayer and study time. What are your habits and rituals there? What do you read? What do you study? 199 00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:23,000 Yeah. I try to stay very diverse. So I usually am reading three books at once. 200 00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:31,000 So I'll read a book that is something out of my field, something historical, or something, I like to read crazy things, 201 00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:37,000 like quantum physics, or something that is completely out of my field, just to continue to be a learner. 202 00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:41,000 And then I'm always reading some worthless novel just to clear my head. 203 00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:47,000 And then I'm always reading something to edify me. So my wife and I are trading books right now. 204 00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:51,000 I've been reading a book called Practicing the Way by John Mark Comer. 205 00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:55,000 And he's reading a book called Lead Through Prayer, and we'll trade that off. 206 00:19:55,000 --> 00:20:00,000 And then my wife and I'll talk about it. Every morning and every night, my wife and I pray together. 207 00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:09,000 It saved our marriage. It's kind of odd that we say we believe in prayer, and as husbands and wives, we don't pray over each other. 208 00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:15,000 So we go to war. Ministry is war. And so we go to war for each other. 209 00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:18,000 I've already done that this morning, even though she's in Michigan. 210 00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:25,000 And then I love just quiet time with the Lord when nobody's bothering me. 211 00:20:25,000 --> 00:20:32,000 But I also want to maintain the Bible says to pray without ceasing. And so I believe I'm praying right now. 212 00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:40,000 I'm hearing from the Lord. I'm hearing from you. And you belong to Him. So I can hear from Him through you. 213 00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:44,000 So for me, prayer also is a deeply tied to relationship. 214 00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:46,000 Are you still doing any singing? 215 00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:59,000 Well, sometimes I funny story, I entered a contest on a cruise ship on vacation and won it called The Voice of the Ocean. 216 00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:04,000 And it was associated with the show The Voice. And this was right before COVID. 217 00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:10,000 And they were supposed to take the winners of that. And one of them would go on the show The Voice and then COVID killed it. 218 00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:19,000 So I lost my chance for fame. I'll sing it on karaoke night or just occasionally here and there, but not much. 219 00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:21,000 Have you thought of doing an album? 220 00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:30,000 Oh, no. That would be no. I did one as a part of a Jesus movement band when I was a teenager. 221 00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:35,000 But I think that's another life. 222 00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:42,000 Well, I just think I heard something over the loudspeaker and you're being called to the office this time for music. 223 00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:51,000 Dr. John Avant, thank you for being a representative of possibility, not only just possibility, but the greatest possibility. 224 00:21:51,000 --> 00:22:06,000 Thank you for joining us.