Father, we honor you today. What a privilege
it is. We thank you that we get to walk by faith
and not by sight on everything we do and we engage
even what we're doing here today by faith. Faith
that someone will hear this and be encouraged.
Faith that someone will be lifted up. Faith that
someone will find hope in what sometimes feels
like a hopeless world. So Lord, it is our privilege
and it is our our motto and our saying and our
mantra, we get to do this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Better late than never. Hey, TGIF. Hey, brother.
It's Friday. TGIFWGTDT. I never can say that.
The initials have to think about it. It doesn't
roll off the tongue. I know. It doesn't roll
off the tongue. But I do not say it quick. WGTDT.
Yes. That's not exactly the best acronym in the
world. Hey, brother. How you doing? Man, I'm
doing great. Just, man, living the dream, getting
to be on vacation. Yes. Sorry, I got my morning
voice happening. A little drainage. Yeah. It's
like we haven't seen each other this week. It's
been a long time. How many hours? The foursome,
Pastor Jimmy Damonette, myself, Tina the Keeper
went to Nashville to the K -Love Fan Awards weekend,
our third annual trip. Yeah. It's like, what
is it? It's like a pilgrimage in a way. It's
become that, right? It is kind of a pilgrimage.
And it's fun. For those who don't know, K -Love
is a ministry that bought up pretty much every
single Christian contemporary music radio station
in the country. And so they have a massive audience.
And they are pretty much the outlet for any Christian
music today. And they do this weekend. where,
and it's in Nashville where a lot of these songwriters
and performers live, and they have, it's really,
it's non -stop worship, music, culminating Sunday
night with the awards, which I believe airs tonight
on TBN. Oh, that's right. It's usually Friday
night after the awards. Yes. Cool. So if anybody
wants to place a Kelsey bet, we can tell you
exactly who won the Artist of the Year, but we
won't. I wonder how many people are betting on
that. That'd be solid. That'd be awful. It's
not cool. But it was just like the last year
and the year before. Our cups got filled to the
brim. See, we got in. Well, actually, we left
Thursday night, stayed in Austin. in the wonderful
courtyard by Marriott with a very small kind
of uncomfortable pillows and mattress. Yeah,
I don't want to complain. I just don't want to
be like that. You know what I mean? It wasn't
super great. It was not. And so we had an early
flight and we got in. First thing we did is we
went straight past. We didn't go to the hotel.
We went downtown Nashville. What's it called
the the gulch the gutter the the gulch the gulch
cool place the gutter It's the happening place
though. It's pretty cool. Yeah, we met up with
sir Patrick Cobol who was longtime Well, he's
the Duke of the South for the no agenda show
and he's been a huge supporter of we get to do
this and he took us out to lunch at Arnold's
That was awesome, which is a barbecue joint,
which is just so I mean you live for food. It's
old -school in the south you call that meat and
three. Oh, meat and three. That's it. Oh, OK.
So meat and three means you get one meat, you
get three veggies, or dessert. And it's old school,
man. Total comfort food, total south, total indulgence.
And hopefully, I mean, he says, this may be the
last time you ever eat here because of the property
taxes. I mean, literally, it's almost like. That
movie where the old lady doesn't want to sell
her house and all these high rises around her.
Yeah, there's construction all over the gulch.
And there has been for a long time, many years.
They just keep building and building, but they're
like some of these smaller, you know, home owned
businesses and local owned businesses that have
been there at restaurants. For decades, probably.
Are just getting swallowed up by the big stuff.
Yeah. Yeah, that's the sad part. I get it though.
It's progress. Give and take, right? Yeah, take
the good with the bad. Patrick also gave us our
first merch. Yes, which I left sitting on the
table at home. Made cool coasters. I was running
late, so I was like, oh man, I got to go. Yeah,
no, they're really good. I dressed up for you,
obviously. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it.
Yeah, it looked like I'm on vacation. I'm actually
wearing the same thing I wore all weekend at
Caleb. There we go, man. It's my three nails
hoodie. That's the way it works. The way we boys
roll, that's for sure. But it was so, so nice
just to catch up with him. He's such a beautiful
man. He really is. And he's on fire for Jesus.
And he's doing a lot with veterans. He's a veteran
himself. Man, I love what he's doing. doing and
he's really trying to help. I mean, so many veterans
have just so many. Mental issues, PTSD is real.
I've seen it, you've seen it. And Patrick, too,
I think was, of course, how could he not be affected?
He's told us some stories. But really, through
the love of Jesus Christ, he's really blossomed
into just a guy doing so much for his community.
He runs Boy Scout Troops. He's just doing so
much. And he's doing a podcast, which you can
find on... Listen to a little bit. I caught some
of that. It's a lot of local, very local issues,
which is great. I love what he's doing. Now remind
me of the name. Now I feel dumb. Hold on a second.
It's the name of his town. Yeah, you sent me
a link. It's the name of his town. Hold on. I
feel... Oh, he lives in Fairview. Fairview, yes.
Something Fairview. You think it's Hello Fairview?
I think you're right. Let me just check. I can
find this. Sorry, Sir Patrick, bro, who totally
bombing on you. We love this show, man. Yeah.
Hello, Fairview. I was right. There it is. You
find that on the Godcast. Hello, Fairview. Oh,
that's right. Yeah, it is. That's where I listen
to it. Yes. And then the weekend. I mean, your
impression? Our buckets are running over. I mean,
literally, our buckets are filled. Our buckets
are running over. I'm still buzzing from it and
just thinking about. There was one moment in
particular that, you know, the whole thing is
good. You can't just say, this is the best, you
know, because it's all good and all the artists
have something unique to bring. But I have to
say, if I was just looking for a moment, it was
when Ben Fuller came out with just his guitar
in the middle of all this. Oh, at the award show.
At the award show. Stood up on a table in the
middle of the audience. With one spotlight on
him and sang this song with his guitar. Black
Sheep. one of my favorites. That's such a throwback
to another day. That sound, that western, it's
kind of a western vibe. I mean, it felt like
you're watching, you know, Gunsmoke or something,
you know, some of the old westerns, but it's
also a storytelling. It's a story. Anyway, check
out that song, Ben Fuller, Black Sheep, just
acoustic guitar and just... pure heart and soul.
I mean, his story by itself, I think he was saved
seven or eight years ago, I want to say. Well,
he's been sober seven years, I think is what
he said. I think it's been a culmination of things.
But yeah, I mean, he's got tats head to toe,
man. He's had a long road, but my gosh, he's
such a picture of redemption of somebody who
went and he said he was on cocaine for 15 years.
just nearly died. I mean, literally crashed himself,
crashed his plane into the ground. But to see
somebody like Kim, kind of reminds me of Mel
at our church who had a hard go of it and then
got radically converted, saved, born again, and
is totally grateful. He makes some of the same
moves. He does that. He gets so excited. That's
great. And he does a lot of prison ministry too.
He does concerts in prisons all across America.
sharing his story because he's been there. He
knows these guys and he walks in and they're
like, you're one of us, man. He just has the
look. But man, what a heart of gold. But that
moment, I think just the juxtaposition of all
the glamour and glitz of an award show, massive
sets and lights and video and bejeweled dresses
and the whole thing. And then you got him out
there, just an old... But even Friday night,
the thing was Friday night, they do kind of like
an opening concert. And there's a lot of production
stuff that takes place. I remember the first
year, the bass was like burning down the walls
and stuff is happening. First night's rough.
Of course, lyrics aren't on the screen. This
is tough for me because that's one of my main
features, I feel. That's your pet peeve. I love
the lyrics on the screen, man. It's like the
the soundboard rebooted the minute he was supposed
to come up and you know fashion burn They all
have in ears. They're standing there. You know,
they're playing they're like, how come people
are acting so weird? Everybody's looking at us
weird and then yeah, but he he just said okay,
hold on and I just reset he came out and boom
He just killed him. I mean so many in I've seen
artists walk away. Yeah and say, I'm not coming
back. I'm not, I'm not doing this. Get it together.
I don't want to be a part of this. That's not
this. Yeah. And the only thing that, and we talked
about this. So we had the writers round table,
which is really nice because the writers talk
about the story behind the song. And so it's
understandable that many all a lot of great art
comes out of pain and heartbreak and But throughout
the entire weekend with the exception of Brandon
Lake during the award show everything was The
Lord is here for you when you're going through
that season when when times are tough you got
a bad I mean I it's now cliche almost you got
a bad diagnosis, I mean These are things that
I hear Christians in performance places say over
and over again, which of course is true. But
for me, and I came to Christ in a very happy
way. Now, of course, I was broken, I'm still
broken, and there's all kinds of things that
the Lord helps me with and helps me understand
and takes me through. But I really didn't get
anyone ever saying, with the exception of Brandon
Lake, I have joy right now just because I have
joy, the Lord is here, I'm happy, things are
going well. It's almost like he couldn't say,
hey man, I'm rejoicing, thank you God for everything
in my life is great right now. And it won't be
that way, I know, but right now it's great, thank
you, thank you, thank you, thank you, which is,
I feel blessed because early on I'm like, hey,
things are great. Thank you, Lord. This is fantastic.
And then when it's not, so I think we are so
quick to forget. And this kind of took me down
a path of comparing this to the general world
that we live in right now. Can I comment on that
before you hit that road? Go for it. It's going
to be a good road to follow. So I'm the same.
When I came to faith in Christ, I wasn't at the
bottom. You know, I just, man, Somebody presented
the gospel to me. I was leaning over the hood
of my truck. I prayed, boom, God's there. And
I never had that gutter to glory thing. I mean,
I was an idiot. I was an idiot in high school.
I mean, I was that kid, right? Just partying,
girls, all that, you know, drugs, sex and rock
and roll. I mean, I can't see that on you at
all. I know you can't, but I did like to have
some fun. I was, boys just want to have fun.
That was me. And a lot of it was, you know, I
was kind of mad at my dad and stuff because my
parents got divorced and said, you know, there's
that just kind of just a way to plug the pain.
But when I got saved, it was so good because
it's called the gospel, which the word gospel
means good news, not OK news or so. So, yeah,
you know, maybe you'll make it. No, it's good
news. It's the greatest news. So when I got born
again at 18. blending over into 19 right about
that time. It was all up from there, man. I was
just like, yes. And I would sit in churches and
I'm not going to name the denomination I was
part of, but they were just like somber and sad
and mad. I was like, Has anyone heard that this
is a good thing? And I really struggled as a
young Christian. And you know my spirit, man.
I'm excited on Sundays. You and I are very much
the same. I'm happy to be here. We're happy we
woke up. We get to do this. It's not just some
cute cliche. It is my life mantra. It's my slogan.
I mean, it's my declaration, declaration of faith.
And that doesn't mean crap doesn't happen, and
bad things happen, and people get hurt, and people
die, and people betray. I mean, all this stuff,
wars happen, you know? The world loses its mind
here and there. However, on the flip side of
that coin is it's a win -win for a Christian.
No matter what happens on this earth, this isn't
the end game. Amen. And so we know, the scripture
says, where Jesus says, who for the joy set before
him endured the shame and he despised it, the
scripture says. It means he stepped over, he
literally like walked over the shame because
he knew what was coming for the joy set before
him. He knew what was coming after the crucifixion.
He knew there was going to be a resurrection.
And when you have that mentality of going, man,
no matter how bad it gets, there's a resurrection
coming after this trial. There's good coming.
That's how God is. So I agree with you. The whole
theme was beauty to ashes or ashes to beauty,
which kind of sets up a, here's my, here's how
bad I was depressed last year. Oh, but God's
good. I mean, every one of them had a depression.
I know I was kind of like, I felt like you, man.
At first I was kind of, oh man, this is really
good. They're really ministering to people. But
then after a day of it, I was like, okay, can
you turn the corner now? This is good news. Remind
people this is good. And I just, I feel your
pain. And so what this, it made me reflect. I
mean, all the way home, I'm thinking about this.
And in particular, I see this pretty much everywhere
around me. People are stuck. They're angry. They're
sad. Christians. They don't see the joy or the
good works God is doing for them. And social
media. I mean, we talk about this a lot. I mean,
we cannot ignore that this has really captured
the... I mean, fear is just such a perfect emotion,
and the enemy loves to capitulate on that, and
so do algorithms, and so does advertising. The
world has always, you know, I've said it before,
you want these girls, you better be driving this
car. If you don't drink this beer, then you're
going to be a loser. So that's fear, FOMO, it's
all different versions of fear, but you're going
to die if you don't, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Your kids will have no future, et cetera, et
cetera. And what has happened in our culture
today is First of all, I want everything right
away, right now. I want the world to be great.
I want everything to be fixed. I want it all
done. I want everything now, now, now. But also,
we want to prosecute the responsible. We need
prosecution. We need justice. End this war. Kill
the rich. The boomers failed us. Israel controls
us. Hard seasons, as K -love people would say.
It's so easy then to identify with people who
may have it worse than us and then to go after
the people. This is literally what the hard left
liberal mantra has been. It's like this is why
you get gays for Gaza, which by itself is just
an insane thought. That's an oxymoron. Completely.
But now you see People on all sides of the political
spectrum going to this this we got to blame someone
and you know, and it's Trump the oppressor exactly
the victim that and and people don't even see
that they are Doing exactly what they've probably
even railed against maybe two or three or four
years ago so I have such a benefit of being a
new Christian like I can still think hey We say
so easily, we view the world through a biblical
worldview. Well, I actually wanted to do that
in this case. Joe Rogan said once, if only there
was like a manual or something. I remember that,
yes. There's some kind of book that could help
me get through life. And so I did some research,
completely admit I use some AI for this, which
is great for research. And it came up with a
couple, because I'm just saying, show me the
scripture that talks about internal conflict
being projected outward. James 4, 1, 2. What
causes quarrels and what causes fights among
you? Is it not this that your passions are at
war within you? You desire and do not have, so
you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you
fight and wage war. This struck me so hard. I'm
like, yeah, when people feel like they don't
have control over their lives, finances or future,
which guess what? You don't. I realized this
in 1990, like you don't control it. You can only
control what you can do at the moment. Then we're
always looking to hammer something. This is a
simple one, Luke 11, 34. your eye is the lamp
of your body when your eye is healthy your whole
body is full of light but when it's bad your
body is full of darkness therefore be careful
lest the light in you be darkness it's like look
at your own eye people just and it's it's easy
to say but when you read it in scripture i mean
i'm doing it myself i am not immune to any of
this obviously And then this kind of fits perfectly.
Again, I love James. For whatever reason, James
just always hits me so well. Let every person
be, of course, quick to hear, slow to speak,
slow to get angry for the anger of man does not
produce the righteousness of God. Galatians 5,
but if you bite and devour one another, hello
social media, watch out that you are not consumed
by one another. I mean, come on, this is so good.
So how do we get out of it? this is, I also went
searching for this. And I'm just trying to say,
you know, it's like, I got a new car. I didn't
know how something worked. I went to look at
the manual. The manual actually wasn't in the
car. They forgot to give it to me. And I called
the guy, I said, hey man, I don't have my manual.
And I really felt lost even though I went online
and you go online. Oh, well, this is manuals
.com and there's 8 million different versions.
It's not the right one. It's a different variation.
So I was so happy. It was just this one light
that was coming on. What does this mean? And
it's to me, it's exactly the same thing. Galatians
6, 4, let each one test his own work. We've talked
about this. For each will have to bear his own
load. Focus on what's right in front of you,
what's happening in your community. It's so limited
to go straight to Washington DC. Tend your own
garden. Yeah, oh, there's a good one. Thessalonians
4, aspire to live quietly and to mind your own
affairs and to work with your hands, I want you
to explain that in a second, as we instructed
you so that you may walk properly before outsiders
and be dependent on no one. Could you? Give me
some enlightenment on this one. The work with
your own hands. It's mind your own business,
literally. There you go. That's what he's saying.
With your own hands. You're not pulling everybody
else to your stuff. You do what you do. Stay
focused. It's very simple. It's so simple, we
miss it. There's a lot of things in Scripture
that are right there. but we're always looking
for a complex answer. If it's not complex, then
it must not be truth. Truthfully, I think it's
the transverse. If it's simple, it probably is
true. These simple truisms, we want things complicated.
We're so used to we complicate everything, right?
Yes. Anything left to itself moves that way.
I mean, just think about an extra room somebody
has in their house. It just starts to collect
things. You know what I mean? It becomes that
room, the one that you keep the door closed and
you warn people not to go in that door. That's
called my studio. And my office at home. So yeah.
And it comes in here and she always has that
look and says, are you going? I said, don't even
finish the sentence. I know exactly. I'm not
going to clean it up. It's perfect. Unless Adam
comes over and then I might clean it up. Wow,
thanks. Well, you don't have to do that for me,
which I appreciate. I moved it from the studio
into the closet. Oh, I get it. The closet that
has a warning label. You haven't seen my closet.
First of all, it has about eight guitar cases,
all stacked in a row. And then, oh, it's unbelievable.
Anyway, we... Digress, yeah, digress a little
bit. So it literally means focus on your own
stuff and quit worrying. Run your own race. Stay
in your lane. There it is. We're always worried
about somebody else. And the only thing I learned
in track in high school, because I hated it,
because I had to do it to run to play football.
So it was stay in your own lane. You run out
of your own lane, you're disqualified. You're
out of the race. Not only that, when you look
at what other runners are doing, you lose your
pace. You lose your pace, your rhythm. I love
that as believers, we have these words because
it's just a reminder. I think we forget. I forget
all the time, but I'm so new in my faith. Let
me stop for a second here. What happened three
years ago? What was it three years ago? Not 35
years ago. Right. Oh, yeah. I remember it was
James. A lot of it was James. I can't forget
last what week. I mean, yeah. Which brings me
right back to A Great Awakening, where not even
a decade after the Civil War, they had all forgotten
what really got them to that great victory. Oh,
man, we've been praying for our daughters because
they all go through different things at certain
points. And it's two things. It's fear. And we
just we live in this fear based culture and blame
the guy at the top. You know, and we just we've
forgotten to. It's because fear sells. Well,
yes, it does. It seems very well. I don't think
people even want to get clicks. You want to get
comments. You want to get followers and just
Crank out the fear. I don't even think that people
are doing it for the clicks and for the followers
They're doing it because that is the loop the
whole world the whole culture focuses you on
that and agree and I Sometimes don't even see
it I I got into a couple of comments on X this
morning And I'm like and I had to stop myself
even as I was preparing for this very show. I'm
like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? Yeah,
no fish on a hood and people weren't even Yeah,
there's some trolls in there, but people, I love
this, it's like, you're not as critical as you
used to be because you're now a Christian boomer.
I'm not sure. By the way, I was the face of Generation
X. Give me those three months. outrage culture.
It basically is saying, what's wrong out there
that I can't fix, that I'm going to yell about.
Remember that band Rage Against the Machine?
I have to say, I love that. We were all yelling
with them. Even now, I'll pull up on YouTube
and watch one of their videos live at one of
the festivals. I'm like, wow, that rage was real,
man. Those guys, they were mad. But it created
amazing art. When you rage against the machine,
what do you really get? A hit record? Tired?
Or a hit record. There you go. A hit record.
That's it. You become a three -hit wonder, you
know. That's it. Yeah. So, do you have more Scripture?
Are you going back to... Well, I was just going
to say that... So, what I realized is... So,
the outrage culture is saying, you know, what
is wrong in the world that I can't fix? I'm going
to get, you know, rage against the machine. And
everything I see in Scripture is... And this
is what is good right here, right now that I
can praise. This is what I missed a little bit
at the weekend. What can I praise right now?
And what is broken here that I'm responsible
for mending, which can even be just a word with
your spouse in the morning where you just kind
of got shifted in a weird way. And man, the more
I think about this, the more I am stopping in
the middle of my day all the time praying. You
know how sometimes your spouse can have a bad
day and that affects you. And I catch myself
like, well, I'm having a bad day now because
my spouse is having a bad day. I'm like, no,
stop. pray for your spouse. And that lifts your
spirits too. And this is a free gift that I got
from our Lord Jesus, and I love exercising it
every single day. Man, that's all win and no
loss, you know what I mean? I got a scripture
I want to share. You started in James, so I want
to loop back to James to the first chapter. Consider
it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials
of many kinds, because you know. pure joy, and
you know that the testing of your faith develops
perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work
so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking
anything." I mean, that is just so down to earth.
Mature and complete. Mature and complete. That
means finished, man. In perseverance, I mean,
we've talked about just how we've cultivated
a culture through decades of having no resilience,
no endurance, no perseverance. And we talk about
being forged by hard things, but our parents,
I just remember my dad teaching me what it meant
to persevere when things got hard. It wasn't
easy. There were things that were hard in our
family and hard in our life. And man, I remember
when he was a firefighter and four firemen got
killed in a fire, in one fire. Cause their Scott
air packs failed. It was devastating to that
community. And I was part of that community growing
up. And I just remember watching my dad persevere.
You know, they didn't quit. They didn't run away.
You know, when I was in high school playing our
coaches, man, you talk about getting your grill,
man, they would like today would be considered
abuse. Then it was, then it was called coaching.
Yes, you're right. If one of my coaches piled
drive me into the ground to show me how to block
somebody I didn't get up and say I'm quitting
I saw you're abusing me if I can just energize
I saw we saw this happening in 2000 I want to
say it's around 2009 2010 where bullying bullying
in schools and then bullying became a hate offense
which later became a hate crime and And I remember
I was astounded by all these news reports about
bullying. I said, I grew up with sticks and stones
will break my bones, but names will never hurt
me. And then we saw words are violence. This
shift happened 15, 16 years ago, and it was real.
And I can only say it was the enemy, probably.
But it was virtue signaling of the highest order,
where it was like, oh, these poor people, they're
being abused. And there's a rightness to that
because bullying shouldn't happen. I mean, it
is a terrible thing. But what became a part of
culture and normalcy or normative for all of
us, I learned to navigate social issues by avoiding
bullies. You learn things. I was like, okay,
here's what not to do. Don't look weak. Don't
stick yourself out there. Don't go over in that
corner of the cafeteria or the playground. You
learn to navigate hardness and hard things. I'm
not pro -bullying. Don't hear what I'm not saying.
But I'm saying whatever trial you're going through
or test you're going through, how you respond
to that will dictate the outcomes of your life.
And I just learned to avoid, I learned to navigate,
I learned the politics of life. And it's not
a bad thing. I think I failed my daughter in
some ways and to some degree on that and made
it easy. I made a lot of things much easier for
her than I had. I mean, just the fact that we
all have a thousand dollar phone in our pocket
is by itself. I remember I had to beg my parents
because I saw the wild one with Marlon Brando.
I begged them for a year for a leather jacket.
And here's what they made me do. So it was, you
know, a leather jacket is expensive. They got
me a leather jacket for my birthday. It took
me a year of, I need a leather jacket. And they
forced me and I did it. When at school, there
was, I had a chain and a padlock and I had to
chain and padlock my leather jacket. to the coat
rack so it wouldn't get stolen. And I was simultaneously
cool because I had a leather jacket and the biggest
dork because he's locking up his jacket. And
maybe it was 300 bucks. But I mean, it's a question.
Did you appreciate that jacket? I did. Of more
than you can imagine. I think we all have stories.
For me, it was getting a set of Firestone white
letter tires for my 69 Chevelle. Bam. I had really
bad tires on that car because I pretty much burned
them up. So driving on bald tires, I was talking
to my dad, dad, I gotta have new tires. And here's
what I want. I have to have them and here's what
I want. And he was like, Hey, I can't afford
that right now. You're going to have to wait.
I don't want to wait. He said, yours are not
dangerously bald. You're still safe. And I'm
like, well, it depends on how fast I'm going.
At a 119, that may not be safe. But I was like,
same thing for a year. Not quite a year. But
I'll remember him. He said, hey, I'm going to
take your car to town. Today, I was like, why?
And he came up with some excuse. He lied. Dad
lie. Because he was going to do something nice
for me. I'll never forget hearing him come down
the road and I saw him turn the corner and those
white walls were glistening. I still have that
memory burned in my brain and I cherished and
valued that because I had delayed gratification.
Delay is not denial. No, but boy, it makes it
sweeter when it finally comes. So this kind of
fits into what happened on our way back from
Nashville. You guys stayed there, visited family.
So we're in the plane. It was one of those small
Embraer regional jets. So one seat on the left
side, two on the right side. A seat and a half
ahead of me because a family was sitting there
a husband wife two kids behind them and one to
the left Yeah, and it's okay. It was a relatively
short flight And so I'm listening to this is
the crazy thing. I'm listening to Another Glenn
Beck episode this now it was about George Washington,
you know, we talked about this and George Whitefield
and Benjamin Franklin. So he continues with the
series of, you know, early America. And I'm kind
of, you know, fading away. And, of course, you
can't tell that I'm listening because I'm a hearing
aid, and I'm doing on the Bluetooth thing to
the hearing aids. And the guy, he's on the one
row ahead of me on the right, turns around and
says, Adam. I'm like, huh, what? And I have to
turn off my player. He says, he starts talking
in Dutch to me. He said, you know, I'm Diederik
and I just want to say hi. I grew up watching
you in the Netherlands and listening to you on
the radio and I've been following your career
this whole time and I just wanted to say hi.
It's so cool to meet you. I said, oh, that's
really nice. He said, you know, what do you do?
I write screenplays, and he's wearing this hat
with Young Washington on it. And he said, I wrote
the screenplay for this new movie, Young Washington.
I'm like, I was just listening to a podcast about
George Washington. And you know me, I'm like,
no coincidences in the kingdom. And he says,
yeah, is this your family? He said, you got a
beautiful family, like 10, 12 year olds. And
he said, my wife, Kelly, she's the CEO of Wonder
Project. I'm like, what? Crazy. I send you $9
a month. That's awesome. And so we're chatting
and he says, well, you know, we're just talking
about, he's telling me about the movie and how,
what a struggle it's really been. Cause his wife
set up Wonder Project three years ago with John
Orman, the director who did High David and Jesus
Revolution. And, you know, how it's been a struggle
to get marketing going and stuff. I said, well,
I can, I can introduce you to Glenn Beck. I'm
sure you'd have a fun story to talk about on
his radio show. Yeah, it'd be awesome. And I
was really, it was really just one of those meetings.
I'm like, there's too much going on here. That's
amazing. And he sends me a text as we're, you
know, we're deep playing and we're leaving and
he says, hey, we actually have a screening of
this movie coming up on Wednesday. We'd love
for you to come. Wow. And this movie is exactly
what we're talking about. It's almost like the
prequel to Star Wars. It is about George Washington
before. everything happens. I can't wait to see
that. And you want to talk about going through
some hard times and what shaped him and what
shaped the Virginia militiamen to becoming the
Blue Coats and becoming them who... Notwithstanding
that he chopped down the cherry tree. Yeah, you
know, there's none of that in the movie. I don't
want to give it away. That's the only thing I
remembered as a kid. There's definitely some...
I think that is probably the biggest lie about
George Washington, which is literally about not
telling a lie, which is kind of funny. And there's
Kelsey Grammer in it, Ben Kingsley, Mary Louise
Parker, very, very good cast. And it's a good
date movie because there's a little bit of romance
in there, a lot of stuff blowing up and guns
and stuff. But also history I really didn't realize
about the British and the French and the the
Indians I'm sorry Native Americans the Indians
they call themselves Indians in the movie Who
were here in the Ohio Valley so but the resilience
that built George Washington one of the founders
of our country is really phenomenal. And they
previewed it at the LBJ library. They're doing
it at the Bush library, the Reagan library. They're
doing it at all these different libraries. And
it'll be out July 3rd for July 4th weekend, which
is a great opportunity to go and see this. And
I realized, once again, I don't know hardly anything
about the true story of our Founding Fathers.
You just don't know much about it, which I think
Why this is so exciting. Well, we tend to romanticize
a lot of it to think, oh, man, these had this
charmed life and, oh, they had some hardships,
but we don't realize, you know, your feet falling
off because of frostbite, you know, no big deal,
right? I mean, we just don't, we can't put ourselves
into that situation. I'm talking about the death
march that they made, you know, during the war.
I don't know if that - No, this is even before
that. It's before all that. But what produced
and forged and formed them, to use Bret Hahn's
words, was hardness, hard things formed great
men, strong men, resilient men, not perfect men,
but strong men who were able to defeat the greatest
force on the planet at the time, which was the
British. They were just shining them, like, okay,
you stupid little boys. You can have a rank here.
You're Colonel. It means nothing because it's
not an appointment by the by the crown, et cetera,
et cetera. So it's just a great movie. I love
this young couple who have been building this
wonder project. And whereas I kind of felt a
little bit. hoodwinked when Amazon gave away
House of David for free the first season and
then it's like now you got to subscribe for a
wonder project. That was sneaky, wasn't it? No,
I felt good. I want to support these people.
Man, I'm glad you got to meet them. The distribution
is by Angel. They're distributing it in theaters.
It was funny because I said yesterday on Noah
Jenner, I said, hey, I saw this movie and Dvorak
goes, oh, is it one of those Christian movies?
He said, why do you say that? You only go to
the movie theater if it's a Christian movie.
I said, yeah, I guess. A lot of it was blowing
people and things up. Man, I'm glad that happened.
There's a reason for this. I'm going to see these
people more. I know there's something that's
going to come out of this. One of the things
Annette and I said as we got on the plane to
come back, there was so much favor on this trip.
I don't know that I've ever been on a trip where
more things happened in terms of just, oh, you
pray, you and I are in the parking lot. Last
year we had to park a mile away from the Grand
Ole Opry in the mall parking lot. We're out in
the boonies, right? And we were late. We had
dropped the girls off for the award show. We're
probably not going to get in, so we're hustling.
So we dropped the girls off. We turned into the
first row of the parking. and you prayed out
loud, Holy Spirit, something would you give us?
Yeah, I said, Holy Spirit, could you please give
us parking favor at this moment? And it wasn't
10 seconds later. I saw family walking to their
car. We rolled up beside them like criminals,
going, hey. You're getting out of there. Hey,
don't be afraid of us. We just want something
from you. You're a parking spot. You're right.
It was so cool. I mean, the rooms we had, which
are the most... Unbelievable. Unreal. These are,
that wasn't a junior suite, that was a senior
suite. There's only like five of these rooms.
I looked, you know, just, it happens to be this
one configuration. We have this huge living room,
with basically a regular room attached to it.
And that's the room. And we both got those rooms.
I know, right? And then it was right around the
corner from the venue. And if you've ever been
to the biodome, it's usually a mile to wherever
you're getting to, right? And it's a maze to
get through that place. But we were literally
right there. Everything was favor. From beginning
to end, even coming back, I got to meet this
amazing lady from Africa who was helping out
at the Delta Lounge. She was the sweetest person.
She came over to Annette. She started talking
to us with beautiful accent, beautiful older
lady. She talked to us like she knew us. Annette
was like, do we know her? She literally talked
to us. as though we know each other. And then
she said, maybe she saw Jesus in us. Because
you know how lounges are. Nobody looks up. It's
like, oh, don't be friendly. Headphones on. Don't
be friendly. I'm in a covey hole. I'm protected.
It's a weird dynamic in those lounges. I just
watch and I'm going, ooh. Just a lot of coldness,
you know? Yeah. Maybe they just feel like you're
supposed to do that. It's also built that way.
It is. With the streets that are kind of like
little cubicles. Please don't interact with your
neighbor. Put your earbuds in and don't interact.
But we're just always nice to people. So I'm
always talking, hey, thank you so much. Oh, and
here's how I hit it off with her. She said something.
I said, you have a beautiful accent. Yeah. Where
are you from? Which in some... in some cases
is a microaggression. Really? Oh, you have no
idea. To say you have a beautiful... Or even
worse, where are you from? Oh, wow. Oh, you didn't
know this? No. I ignore it too, brother. So far
it's been good. I've never had anybody get weird
with me. The thing is, when you do it, people
are always happy to tell you. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Every Uber. Hey, man, where are you from originally?
Yeah, that's what I say. How long have you been
in America since you were a kid? Most people
love to talk about themselves. That became a
microaggression. I'm sorry, that didn't mean
anything. Interesting. Anyway, she was so sweet,
and she took care of us after that. She was coming
over, picking our stuff up. That's a simple thing,
but when I see the favor of God on things, I
don't see it as simple or less than, because
anything in the kingdom is good. Yeah. Even if
it's little things. Yeah. And really, if you
think about it, it's the little things that make
up your day. It's not the big epic moments that
happen every once in a while. It's the dailies.
And as those things happen and you get a whole
string of good things, boom, boom, boom, boom,
boom, and you go, that's the favor of God. That's
not normal. And to bring it all the way around.
These are the moments that I keep trying to remind
myself. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, God. Thank
you, Holy Spirit. Thank you, thank you. This
was amazing. This moment, let me rejoice in this
moment and not just when I'm feeling down or
feeling bad or going through a season. I've talked
about this before, but I think it bears repeating.
Some things you just need to say over and over,
right? I need to be reminded and re -reminded.
Most of my prayers, you know, I've been a Christian
now a long time, you know, 40, nearly 50 years,
and I'm still as excited as I was when I was
a kid. I mean, I'm just like, boom, you know,
get to do this. And living up in a down world,
right? I mean, all of my little phrases have…
Pjisms, yeah. Most of my prayers, I'd say 90
% of what I pray is pure gratitude. I am a broken
record. I'm sure God's like, I get it. I get
it. Move on to another topic, but I can't help
it. Partly because I've had hard things happen
in my life at different seasons. Had my wife
leave me for another man, not Annette, obviously.
And that was devastating and just crushing, soul
crushing. But yet God brought Annette into my
life 34 years ago. We have such a great marriage.
It's crazy. We're best friends. We love to do
things together and be together and we work together.
It's insane. I have so much to be grateful for.
This life I have, friendships. Man, you and Tina,
we travel so well together. It's almost insane.
Very few people can do what we do. That's actually
kind of cool. We came back from the concert or
dinner or whatever. We get into the elevator.
You're on four. We're on five. And we don't even
have to make a plan. It's like, hey, we'll see
you tomorrow morning, right? Yeah, OK, call in
the morning. Boom, done. We're gone. We're going
to bed. And there's no stress. There's no weirdness,
no awkwardness. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for whatever
that is that makes that so easy. It's called
good friendship. I mean, it's real. Yeah, we're
so blessed. We're so blessed Thank you. I'm so
blessed. Hey, by the way, on the Godcaster, let's
give a plug for the Godcaster. You've dumped
some new music in there. Oh, you like it? I've
been hearing the new tunes. Okay. Thank you.
Loving it. Thank you for doing that. I was listening
on my Godcaster coming in. Not like I didn't
get some inspiration from the weekend. I know,
right? I'm like, worshiping hands up, phone.
Okay, let me just put that in there. Let me just
add this. A lot of new songs. Yeah, thank you.
Thank you. Also, some of that comes from Ben
Hillegos. He's managing Providence Voice, which
is their version of Hello Fred. He is so all
into this. I gave him the new interface. He's
actually my guinea pig for the AI console that
helps you manage the station. It says, I'm just
keeping a spreadsheet here. So, you know, here's
another 15 songs. And so I listened to them all,
like, yeah, and they're pretty much all spot
on. I found some shorter versions for some of
this stuff, which he appreciates because he just
finds the songs that this is it. I'm like, man,
let's get the studio version of that and not
the eight minute worship version. Yeah, yeah.
So, but it's really, it's a collection I get.
texts from many of the women in our church who
text me, like, how about this? Do you have this?
Is this on there? It's 11 minutes long. I mean,
I can't do that, Karen. No, but most of them
are just like hit stuff, you know? They're like,
this has really been helping me this morning.
I want other people to hear this song. So it's
a community effort. It really is. I'm noticing
something too. You're getting a lot more community
stuff in it. I've noticed you've been adding
layers. Yeah. you know, city council stuff, also
other podcasts, beginning to boost other podcasts
that are out in our community. I love what you're
doing there, brother. I'm noticing those nuances.
Someone who doesn't listen all the time might
not notice, but I do. I'm listening. And so I
know you do. You're doing great. I love it. We
need to let people know how to get the Godcaster
so they can start listening. Well, you can just
go to your app store and type in Godcaster and
get it that way. That's really the best way.
And of course, we also have web versions, so
if you just want to give it a shot, you can go
to the Bridge Church website, and there's a tab
right there, Godcast, you can listen to it that
way. But that's really the ease. And we're building
this. And what you're also hearing, brother,
is over time things, you know, I'm like the carpenter,
you know, like I'm... putting stuff together.
I'm testing it. You're a big help, you know,
like pushing back. You should nuke that. Nuke
that. Sometimes if it's real direct, that's from
a net. I just say, hey, I'm driving, go, hey,
would you tell, you know, so if it's real short
to the point, that's a net. I'm a little more
diplomatic. We were in the car on the way back
from the movie Wednesday night and I'm like...
Do you like this song? It was a worship. It was
an elevation worship, but it was long and it
was a little screechy. Where's you at? I don't
know what you're talking about. This is not good.
And so I go, you know, hey Google, sorry if anyone's
phone just triggered, remind me. And it went
into this whole thing. It went, well, instead
of just saying, okay, I set the reminder, it
went into this. Well, Adam doesn't like this
and it's probably because of Hello Fred that
he had. And it's like, and I said, stop, stop.
What are you doing? I had a whole bunch of AI
stuff. We're going to save that for next week.
Because there's actually good and fun stuff to
report. We had the Pope weigh in with his encyclical.
In the fountain in DC that Trump finished. Oh,
you mean... He's making Washington beautiful.
He went on for 10 minutes. I watched the entire
cabinet meeting. Someone actually made a song
about it for no agenda. He was like, if you put
this thing like a skyscraper, it'd be the tallest
building in the world, and it's like an Olympic
pool, and we took 11 containers of crap out of
it. He's hilarious, man. It was a builder's conversation.
And, you know, I'm like, okay, we have some other
stuff. But, you know, we have this rubberize
it. We rubberize it. First we sandblast it. Then
we pebble blast it. And the color is going to
reflect much better. Everybody enjoy this moment.
You will not see another president like this
in your lifetime. Enjoy him while he's still
with us. You know, one in maybe a billion. So
we'll do that on Wednesday. Couple of things.
I just want to give Brett Hahn another shout
out. I've been reading, he is like taking me
on this journey. You and your Substack crew,
man. I know, I'm all of a sudden into, I love
Substack, man. It's not typical social media.
That's what I like about it. I mean, long and
short form articles, people writing, it's a supportive
community. There's junk on here. Yeah, those
people don't last on this one. He just wrote
one called Whitfield in the open field. I haven't
read it. I just came up. Five hours ago. I'm
like all, I'm going to read that today. I'm super
excited about that. But Brett, and he listens
to the podcast. So Brett, man, thank you so much,
bro. Keep writing. Keep bringing us our original
history, our actual history. And one of his things
that I like he's doing, he wrote a book called
Forged. And I love that because he's talking
about what forged and formed the men that did
these amazing, we see them as heroes now, right?
Yeah. Well, I guess if you're on the right, you
do on the left. They're terrible. They're just
bad guys. Old white men. Oh, sitting in a room
making decisions for us. But yeah, so we see
them as heroes and rock stars, but there was
something that formed and forged that. So Brett
does a great job of that. Just want to give him
a shout out. Beau Lacoste. I need more pickles.
I'm just straight up. I will pay you, Bo. Man,
send us another batch. I know you're going to
hit him up. I'll hit him up. We need more pickles.
I've got five left. What is Brett's Substack?
What is his? Am Rev Resurrected. Am Rev, like
American Revolution Resurrected. Am Rev Resurrected.
So good. So yesterday, I'm not quite sure how
it came up in the donation segment. And I said
to John, because I I didn't know if he listens
to no agenda or just we get to do this. I didn't
really know. And so I said, well, you know, I
got the Louisiana Pickles and Dvorak's like,
what Pickles? I didn't get any Pickles. Who sent
you Pickles? I'm like, well, it's the Louisiana
Pickles guy. I got an email right after the show.
He says, I always listen to every show, even
the donation segments all the way through. I'm
sending John Pickles. Oh my gosh. Make sure you
ask him what he thought about the labels. Because
he always writes on top of them. Well, not just
that, but all the script and description of the
label itself. So this will be another ministering
moment to Dvorak. Well, I'm giving Bo a shout
out because I need more pickles. My dad and I
are going to fight over the last five in the
jar. I've already eaten all the peppers and onions.
And I've done everything but drink the juice.
LouisianaPickles at Gmail. Man, the best pickles
you will ever eat, I promise. And if you don't
lock them, just send them to me and Adam will
eat them. And we'll bless him. with anything
you need to make that happen. Any other shout
outs you want to give? I mean, we're just so
thankful. Hey, real quick, because we're good
on time. Yeah, we're good. A little vision airing
into where we're going with this podcast. Just
a little. You don't have to get deep in the weeds.
Well, merch. I know, right? Already. I think
we're both listening to the Holy Spirit in this
regard. We feel like there's something here.
There's something we want to grow. Maybe not
beyond the time limit per episode, but maybe
more. In the week, I mean, I'm also, you know,
just looking at my life and sure where I want
everything to go I love doing this. This is You
know, there's a big crossover of people In my
life who listen to this and and other things
that I do I brought two or three More than two
or three. I love how our church is listening
and involved. We always kind of said, this is
for our people here, our church, and like you
pray in the beginning, if anyone else out there
is hearing it. I just feel like there's something
here that we need to continue moving forward
and building and growing. And like everything
else, you know, are we really in control? Probably
not. We just got to have ears to hear. That's
it. And listen to our steps are ordered. Yes.
And he delights in the details of our life. There
it is. Brother, thank you for coming in on your
vacation day for this. Hey, I want to do this.
Not only do I get to, I want to. And we will
be back on Wednesday, just a few days until the
next one. We get to do this. Have a great weekend,
everybody. Get to do this