When the world attempts to answer the deepest questions of the human experience, what kind of answers does it produce? Are they sufficient? Do they come close to providing solutions?
Now more than ever, the world is searching for answers. Actor and musician Nick Cave proves this through his online blog called "The Red Hand Files," where he attempts to answer questions sent by people from all over the world.
Ben, Luke, Chad, and David are together again in this special in-person edition of the podcast recorded live in Minneapolis, MN.
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Questions, comments, or feedback? We'd love to hear what you think! Send them to provokeandinspire@steiger.org, or send us a message on Instagram.
Join the Provoke & Inspire Community!
Click below to follow the regulars on Instagram!
When the world attempts to answer the deepest questions of the human experience, what kind of answers does it produce? Are they sufficient? Do they come close to providing solutions?
Now more than ever, the world is searching for answers. Actor and musician Nick Cave proves this through his online blog called "The Red Hand Files," where he attempts to answer questions sent by people from all over the world.
Ben, Luke, Chad, and David are together again in this special in-person edition of the podcast recorded live in Minneapolis, MN.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions, comments, or feedback? We'd love to hear what you think! Send them to provokeandinspire@steiger.org, or send us a message on Instagram.
Join the Provoke & Inspire Community!
Click below to follow the regulars on Instagram!
I'm often meditating on the idea of the impact the cross should have on my life and beyond, of course, saving me. It should profoundly impact where I view everybody else. How could I not view everyone else with profound grace and patience and mercy, in light of what God daily does for me? You're listening to the provoke and inspire podcast. Walk into the provoke and inspire podcast, learning how to follow Jesus in a post Christian culture. This is episode two, together in person, after many years. We had a lot of infighting, you know.
Speaker 3:There were egos, there was drama that was when Chad still had the unibrow.
Speaker 4:I also think of them. Well, anytime we hear the word infighting, it reminds me of the word inbreeding, which is awkward.
Speaker 5:It is awkward. We, like a band, have had many breakups and get back together. We've had many tours that are the final tour.
Speaker 1:Yes, just keep doing a final tour. I would say the breakthrough was when David got his own stylist.
Speaker 5:I'm sick of sharing his brow guy, but that's when people kept thinking he was a woman after that moment.
Speaker 1:Let's just make that the poll question. Yeah, david, still look like a woman. Yeah, you've got what is a woman.
Speaker 5:You got to compromise somewhere in between like looking good and being confused with a woman right somewhere in between.
Speaker 1:There's a fine balance and many of us fail to find it All right. Set list for today. We just had David's random story, thankfully and it. Yes, it was. That was it. Next, what we have is Punching through the awkward with Chad ocho Cinco Johnson. I would say you're the most popular Chad Johnson. Now you know.
Speaker 4:I'm the most popular Chad Johnson in my own head.
Speaker 3:That is said that kind of pensively.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's nothing pensive about it. And then for the main topic, we're gonna be talking about the red hand files actor and musician Nick Cave.
Speaker 5:Yes, the Nick Cave who has a great song with a similar title to that right of bad seeds fame and movies and Other such things.
Speaker 1:He started a online blog, as opposed to all those non online blogs that are circulating amongst the youths.
Speaker 3:As we speak, you mean the ones that are handwritten.
Speaker 4:Before there were blogs, there were zines. You remember these? I used to have a zine.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I see I used to put them out on that was what you did. I would go into school before. Everybody arrived early and I put my zine on everybody's what was your zine about?
Speaker 4:what was it called it?
Speaker 5:was like against capitalism.
Speaker 4:Perfect zine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a political thing. But then I put the gospel into it. Um, all right, let's go to punching through the awkward with Chad Johnson. Oh.
Speaker 4:Wow, I Get the alien vibes, which is great. I was just reminiscing, right in between these two episodes, that the last time I was a part of anything Steiger related would have been the spring of 2019 and it was Richmond Virginia. So late at night, richmond Virginia, I have this conversation with Tommy Green and I just said, hey, I remember part of your story is that you had an affair and the husband of the lady that you had the fair with Killed himself. And I said, dude, I'm, I just want to, like I know I can trust you. I I've been a friend with you for a long time. I Just feel like I need to relay this to someone, but I think my heart is turning towards another woman and I've never been here before in this way and I don't know what to do with it. So that was. That literally marked the last time I was at a Steiger event, and four and a half years ago, and most of what I had found up until that point was my.
Speaker 4:What I love most about praying was God's rapid-fire Responses like you're in pain. In Jesus name, pain be gone. How do you feel? I don't have any pain anymore? Come on, that's amazing, or like you know whatever the thing is like, like quick answers.
Speaker 4:But here I am four and a half years later, having found myself, from that event to now, in a season where the prayers being answered have felt like they've just slowed down to a near turtles pace, you know, along the way, and yet it's this whole time has been a reminder of God's Promises that he doesn't he there's that verse I'm not thinking of right now that he doesn't revoke the gifts that he gives To his kids. It's something like that, and and just being here is like, is like God's sweetness of like hey, I, I know you love quick answers, but there was a whole lot of stuff we had to get through. And so I am here Now, having watched God restore my marriage of now 27 years, how my daughter went from hating me for the the broke, the way that I broke her heart as her dad, her father, though, her protector, her guide, her best friends, all that stuff to the dad, who was a complete you know what and did things that he shouldn't have done. And so now I watch God restore our relationship to best friends again to my son. Like they're just like God has restored.
Speaker 4:And so it's funny that like, even though I Am not the same passionate Spiritual leader Chad that I was five years ago, I come to something like this, and I wake up this morning in my dreams are like, of, of, like prophesying over people and praying over people and preaching the gospel. And so I guess I just want to encourage you guys that that's the power of stiger planting seeds in the lives of people all over the world, including those of us inside that you know, the those of us seated here that Sometimes need that seed, that don't even know it. And then, four and a half years later, you wake up one morning and Steve's blow up mattress. You know, not in On Steve's blow up mattress.
Speaker 1:Inside of the mattress. That would have been terrible.
Speaker 4:That's like when Luke was on a plane. Yeah, yeah, exactly, it's weird, it doesn't work out very well, but I just, I don't know. I guess, as it relates to my kind of punching through the awkward, the story I had in mind was my root beer chugging straight edge atheist friend, alex, that I have known for 23 years, who has been to every single furnace fest, and this year we just started talking and he said you know, man, it's interesting, are you still a born again Christian?
Speaker 5:And I was like yeah, man I am.
Speaker 4:I said are you still a straight edge root beer chugging atheist? And he said yeah, man, I am. And I said wow, isn't that crazy that you and I for 23 years have somehow maintained friendship and respect and value, even though we're kind of on opposite ends? He said you know, it's really interesting, my sister is a born again Christian. And I said wow, really I didn't know that, and so I have you told her that you come to this thing every year? That was founded by a born again Christian. And he said no, I haven't.
Speaker 4:I said man, you should tell her that we actually pray for you and like this is not an accident and that God's doing something here. And he's like man, I don't know what it is, but it's like this whole thing is so weird and so crazy. And so I just you know once again, it's kind of like we love the short answers, we love the quick answers, we love the rapid fire answers and we see those throughout scripture repeatedly and we should expect those. But I think I've also come to appreciate and value and respect and acknowledge that there is sometimes a slower pace to the work God wants to do in our hearts that whether it's the 23 year friendship that still hasn't materialized into faith, or you know, four and a half years of God working in my life, that he's still here, he's still present and still working.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so cool. That's a podcast right there. That is right there.
Speaker 1:That is. But you know, we talked in the previous episode about one of our values being family, and that's family Right.
Speaker 4:Like that, that's 100%.
Speaker 1:I'm often meditating on the idea of the impact the cross should have on my life and beyond, of course, saving me, it should profoundly impact the way I view everybody else Right, like how could I not view everyone else with profound grace and patience and mercy, in light of what God daily does for me? Again, you could know more be out of this family that my own kids could be out of mind. That's how I feel about you, chad.
Speaker 4:So Well, yeah thanks.
Speaker 5:For us it's super exciting to hear that, cause, of course, you know we've walked with you over these years and and you know, continued having. You know you took some time out and then he came back and we've been having these conversations and you know we've all been praying for you as well, chad, and to he be able to be here in person and to say that and to tell us how God has led you is so cool. Yeah, thanks.
Speaker 4:I mean it's wild, because there was a time where the the Latins, especially the Colombians, but the Latins were like part, you know, part of my kind of extended family and there's only two languages that I learned how to curse very well in, which is Spanish and Dutch, and now all the Dutch kids are showing up.
Speaker 1:So it's like what in the world the mission is getting filled. I love the Dutch kids showing up. We need more of that, no, but that's.
Speaker 4:but but to your point, ben, the family thing is like where else would God place me? Where, where there's a Dutch connection, a Latin connection, a like artistic connection, a heart for God, evangelism, you know like, oh it's, it's super rad, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's going to be my new thing now you swirl those numb chucks and you keep on living your best life.
Speaker 3:Chad, you rock.
Speaker 1:Love you, chad, love you, and the next five years are going to be even better. So we're. We're excited for, for the full emerging Chad. Like we want, we want to see it all back, but we want to see it more than ever Because you've had an impact on my life.
Speaker 5:Hold on the level. Yeah Cause, it's like when you get a deeper understanding like that you know, I mean, I believe God's going to use you powerfully, chad, so it's awesome and there's.
Speaker 1:There are people who listen to this and have listened to this for years. Who that's them? Right? You know they've gone through similar peaks and valleys as we all do, so thanks for being vulnerable. That that just such a powerful element of the show that we would be sorely missing in your absence.
Speaker 5:And and refreshing to hear a story where you see God's healing. And refreshing because too often we're hearing stories of, oh, that didn't go well and we didn't hear about that person again. You know and like to see you like persisting seeking God and pursuing the healing that he can do in our lives is a witness.
Speaker 1:We need to have. Yeah, and speaking of a broken world, so, as I teased at the beginning, here we're going to be talking about a blog, an online blog. The red hand files Nick Cave, who, I'll be honest, I don't really know or I'm very familiar with always very famous from what I understand. I try to listen to a few of his songs. I was like it's very unique.
Speaker 5:It's very unique not for me it's. It is a unique sound, it's in a quiet taste.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but whatever, nor here nor there, I don't think it's his music.
Speaker 3:It's more his philosophy than his white people. Yeah.
Speaker 1:He's clearly a very deep, interesting, unique.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and he's very.
Speaker 1:He starts he starts this, this blog, and let me just read it to be clear here. The red hand files began in September 2018 as a simple idea. This is from his own bio, a place where I would answer questions from my fans. Over the years, the red hand files has burst the boundaries of its original concept to become a strange exercise in communal vulnerability and transparency. Okay, so this is really cool. And he he says in other places he doesn't monetize it, he doesn't want it, he's nobody else, he's not hired a staff to answer these questions. He's maintained his commitment to read and personally respond to all of these people, and young people especially, have flooded to this blog, even though he's not like a young influencer, and they ask him all these questions.
Speaker 3:He's got to be in his seventies, isn't he? He?
Speaker 1:was born in 57.
Speaker 3:So whatever that is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to focus on one letter. Well, I would like to eventually comment on the general concept and why that's interesting. So let's start there. Luke, why is this interesting? Talk just about how you react to this idea of him starting this and why it's so popular.
Speaker 5:Well, for me it reminded me of some of the stuff we do in the mission and that we pursue in the mission around with spiritual conversations, bible studies for the non-religious, because what we found is that people might not be ready to kind of come into a church or come to a program, but people are willing to and actually wanting just an open conversation. They want a space where they can say what they think, ask questions I mean, that's how social media works, right, everybody's sharing their own opinions but to create a space where we can talk about stuff we don't usually talk about spiritual things, existential questions, deeper things and so we found that in the mission that that's an effective way to engage people. And here's an example of somebody from like that secular I don't know if he's an atheist, but atheistic perspective saying finding the same thing. Okay, I'm opening a space here where we can just ask questions and talk about deeper things that are not usually talked about and there's a spiritual hunger for it. That's what I see in that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was reminded of the song that we talked about as a mission a while back. From her name I can't remember, but we all have a hunger.
Speaker 5:Florence and the Machine, yeah.
Speaker 4:Florence and the Machine. I mean, it's like we watch that music video and listen to the words of that song, and that's exactly what I thought when I started reading this blog is like we all have a hunger and Nick is attempting to put himself out there, which is incredibly noble, different, not normal, and so that was, yeah, first thing that came to mind.
Speaker 1:In light of that, I just want to focus on one short letter, because these are not always long letters, they're often just questions and the gender of this person is not revealed L I guess in theory it's probably a girl, but who knows? L. She writes this to him and then he responds. She writes I'm going to go with she, I'm going to be bold. Is that a problem? Is that a risk? It's probably a risk. L wrote I am 20, a high school graduate in my gap year, and I find it pointless to pursue anything in this bizarre and temporary world that is so much against my values in every possible way.
Speaker 1:I believe I'm speaking for a generation here. I'm asking with the biggest admiration what would you do in my, our situation and this person from Germany, which I think is kind of cool for some reason? So, david, how would? Well? First of all, let me I mean, let me actually frame it like this, because I think, of course, we have a response to that question that will be very different than Nick's, without giving it all away. Essentially, Nick really gives this person to quite a short probably I don't know two, three hundred words response and really there's two things that he says. He says that we need to be humble and we need to be curious. Humble in the sense that you know you're going to encounter people who think differently than you, and so you should not automatically dismiss them, but embrace the conversation because you'll learn from them. In curious in the sense that you should always want to continue to learn and grow and be open minded. And you know, in a rather poetic way he says if you're humble and you're curious, this world will seem a lot less strange.
Speaker 1:And I'm like okay so, david, in light of that response, first of all, what do you think a Nick's response to to L and? Of course we can talk about how we might actually respond to that.
Speaker 3:I'm very sympathetic to L Because I think if you're any kind of thinker you're going to come to that conclusion right. So my mother is is 90 years old and she's, you know, probably going to go to be with Jesus very soon. That's why I came back early to the States to spend time with her and she's ready to go and she's had an amazing life and she's got a family that loves her and so, even though she's kind of living in denial that she was really dying and she kind of faced that just yesterday, but she says okay, I know this is what's happening and it's, I'm ready. And I guess my point is what kind of hope is there if you're someone who really thinks about life? I think of these friends I have in Amsterdam who they were talking about how beautiful it was when their friend was dying because she was sitting in her living room with her cat changing the stations on her television and then she died.
Speaker 3:And I think, of course L is going to come to this conclusion and I think it's really great that Nick Cave wants to have a conversation with about that. I just find that his answers obviously are not really going to bring much comfort. And how could he give any comfort with that kind of worldview, and so I don't know. I mean, I think it's really great that he's willing to talk about something deep and he's that kind of guy. That's what he's known for and a lot of his songs are that way. But I don't know how you face the world actually if you're a thinker today without God, I really don't.
Speaker 1:Well, there's so much packed into this very short little message that L writes. The two things that really stood out to me is he says that or she says that the world is bizarre and temporary.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:And to me bizarre is interesting. Again, english is not the person's first language. Who knows exactly what they meant by that? But I think bizarre makes sense, right, because we're told kind of in pop culture, like life is beautiful, life is great. You know, everything's wonderful, everything's going to be good, and yet you look at the world and it's rough, it's hard, it's war, it's suffering, it's anxiety, it's depression. And what are you supposed to make of that dichotomy? What are you supposed to make of this sort of everything's fine glossy veneer and then the true reality that's right there beneath the surface.
Speaker 1:So I think bizarre is a perfect word. It's like what am I? What is it with this bizarre world? Right, and then, of course, temporary, because you know even the fact that that El would say it's temporary kind of, and say that in a negative way kind of reveals an idea that that's somehow wrong. Right, like what's the point of all this If it's just it doesn't live up to its promises and it doesn't even last, why am I even doing anything here? And to me there's just so much honesty and such great insight into the consequences of secular humanism, right, isn't? Wouldn't you feel that this is a perfect description, in a lot of ways, of the consequences of what happens when you believe that the world is what secular humanism says it is.
Speaker 5:Yeah it is. It's realizing that that's how most people are thinking and feeling today. It shows us how much we're missing opportunities that Nick Cave is proving exist here right, which is to have these conversations. People want to talk about it, they want to ask these questions and hear and listen to answers, and we have an answer so different to Nick's and yet we're not having, we're not putting ourselves enough in that space where we can offer those answers, because we're coming at it from a different angle. We're not creating a space hey, come and share and talk, let's hang out, let's.
Speaker 5:I want to hear your story, I want to hear how you're feeling, and so we're, we're, we're coming at it in first of all. We're often coming at it inside our own bubble and, and so there's no space People can't get in, and when we go out, we're just telling people what, what they need to, what we think they need to hear. And so that that just proves the point, we need so much to create these opportunities so that we can have the chance to give answers that are so much more going to really there's the truth, it's really going to answer the question, right.
Speaker 3:One of the problems I have is that I feel like many people in the church don't give answers anymore. I was talking to someone and they were talking about a subject they had discussed in their Sunday school class about fear and so they had this conversation about it and I said so what's the application? The Bible talks about fear, so how do you apply it to your own life? And they said we were told that that's a personal thing. We don't give an application.
Speaker 5:That's secular humanism getting into the church.
Speaker 3:But that's not. That's more common than you think.
Speaker 1:You know, and I I don't mean again, this is just my own speculation here, but my feeling is that it's more that we have a faith in the West, that you, you, you make the decision and then you do the program and you do the thing. You go to the church, you do the thing. So what I don't think we've really done a good job of is is knowing how to wrestle with the deep questions that we even maybe have. We don't even really go there and we certainly don't know how to answer the deep questions that are out there, and so, when faced with someone outside of the church, we have our verses. I guess that we can apply, or we know literally how salvation works, but we haven't become students of culture. We don't know how to talk about how time?
Speaker 1:feels like an alien presence or how you know. He says L says you know, this world is so much against my values, right To me. What does that communicate? When I, if I would, if I was on the streets talking to L and he or she said that to me, the thing that my mind would go to is values.
Speaker 5:That would be the first thing I would ask in response to if somebody would say that. The first in that conversation. The first thing I'd be wanting to know is, like, I'd love to know what your values are Like. Please, you know, tell me what, what you believe in, what's important for you, Like that's a. That's how we need to start, Right, why?
Speaker 1:do we equip people for that? Because I'm not trying to come off like the expert here, but I've had a lot of these conversations and because of my love of understanding culture and how to apply the gospel to it, I feel like my mind now jumps to those places and I go okay, cool values, morality, where does that come from? How does what does that point to inside of you that I can then point back to God? But I don't think it's as intuitive for everyone to do that. I think well, again, first we got to create those spaces and we can talk about how to do that. And then you know, even knowing what to do in those spaces, how to ask good questions, how to be good listeners, and then how to identify the things that we can use to point people back to Jesus, is a skill that I think maybe isn't as intuitive as as I can think it is, given how much I live and breathe this life. How do we, how do we help equip people?
Speaker 4:Luke gave it away and made it easy for us, which, in my mind, and that was the same thing too. It's funny that we all arrived at the same conclusion. I was hoping I would be the super inspired one that I only found the nugget.
Speaker 1:you know the values thing I was like Chad, you get inspired much like the Winter Olympics once every two years, and most people aren't paying attention.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's true. But the first thing I thought of was she compares her values as In opposition to the world around her. So what? Not only what are? I think it's asking the question of what are your values? But then what are the values that contradict yours and are? Is that the Christian church? Is that like something else? Like it just it made me wonder, like, are we Her anti values are would would that be true to her? Or is it something else? Or just it felt to me like it would be almost impossible for Nick cave or anyone to answer her question with any true depth until they understood what she meant by the Tension there with values. But I think the only way you get to that is questions.
Speaker 5:So yeah, you brought that up but I feel like often in the kind of realm we we function, people Don't Understand. You got to combine the listening with the then offering answers and and we tend to just do one thing or the other, and we often talk about this in the Mission. So it's like, if you feel that, you think like, okay, god has called us to be evangelists and to preach the truth to people, then we, we, we forget how to Listen and how to have a conversation. But then there's this other extreme as well, in often in the church, where we're like okay, you got to have a great conversation and then you never really get to answering the question. Now, you know, sharing the truth fact, last night, again with the event we had, of course, one of the big things were always emphasizing is how we're sharing the gospel. That's the point of what we're doing. We want people to know the truth about Jesus.
Speaker 5:But I had a conversation afterwards with one of the people in the audience and she had done a masters in Apologetics and she was like you guys use apologetics because I think that's really important, you know, for what you're doing, and and I think she kind of had the sense because of just what we portrayed more strongly that maybe we didn't. But I was then telling her after seeing, I know it's. That's a crucial part of what we do. It's like central because we we got to be Starting. We talk about Relational presence in the scene, we talk about spiritual conversations, we talk about listening to people so that we know how to answer you gotta go on values relevance, exactly exactly that, yeah.
Speaker 1:Apologetics, to me is just knowing the new care enough about culture to communicate Jesus to them in a way that they can understand their language yeah and asking good questions.
Speaker 5:That's apologetics and that's where to what you're saying, chad. Like, when somebody shares something like that, it's like I've got. There's so many questions I need to ask so understand that person.
Speaker 3:So am I the only one here that thinks that there's a lot of the Church today not speaking the truth but just asking questions? I mean, I see that too. I mean, I see that it's both sides, isn't that?
Speaker 5:it's like that you see both extremes, I mean.
Speaker 1:I don't again who amongst us could speak for the big C church. I don't know. But no, I don't. I don't know where you live in. Like, I think, most churches I encounter, they love Jesus, they're trying to study and understand the Bible. I think it's more that it's detached from Regular interaction with real culture that will inevitably shape the way you communicate. When it just becomes insular head knowledge that's detached from action, then then the need for application becomes diminished right.
Speaker 1:I don't think there's no application, I just think this stuff is not not exercised in theory, it's exercised in reality Of course it'd be like you just go.
Speaker 1:You know, my son never goes on the ice to skate. He just goes into a room where they talk about skating and how important it is. It's like it becomes real on the ice when you fall and fail and have to learn and put it into practice and you have contact and other people interfering with you. That's when you go Okay, now I get how this works, and so for me it's the biggest miss is is the, the detachment from action.
Speaker 1:But what you said that I think is so crucial is to not get into that imbalance either in either direction of either the listening or truth. Because even in Nick's response, if you read it and again go check out the red hand files it's one of the top ones here, but I don't know if you'll find it other than just typing L and I don't know bizarre and some of these Keywords you should be able to find it. But his response of curiosity and humility is perfect to me, because we live in a culture that praises, or increasingly is praising, community and openness, but it's not really into answers, exactly right, and so we have a culture that's like let's talk about mental health, but solutions exactly what counseling is now.
Speaker 3:It's not. This is what you need to do so you'll feel better. It's how do you feel, and so what do you want to do?
Speaker 1:right. So so to your point. We need to become great listeners so that it shapes our ability to communicate, but that is not going to remove the confrontational element of the gospel.
Speaker 3:We need to intentionally want to give the truth at some point, because I know people they're asking questions for 20 years. You know with somebody at their neighbor, never just tell them the truth, and I can remember a festival that we were very involved in, beginning back in Europe and the whole yeah. Dear friends, and we were working for years and the whole point of the festival.
Speaker 3:What never mind, carry on the whole point of the festival was to bring people to Jesus. But then it turned from and I said, because it's got more and more farther away from that telling the truth, and it was very relevant the way we shared Jesus and, and, but it was it came to. I said isn't the point of this event To tell people who don't know Jesus who Jesus is? And he said, no, the point of this event is to have a conversation. And so maybe it's that I'm reacting to that and I kind of see that in a lot of churches that are wanting to be relevant today is that they go to that extreme, and I think, more than ever, people are wanting truth, you know, and yes, we need to listen, we need to be, we need to understand the questions they're asking.
Speaker 5:It's exactly right.
Speaker 1:People are like stop talking between the lines and tell me exactly what you think, Exactly the falsed economy in that is that there isn't a whole lot of broken heartedness and learning that goes into the direct way that you communicate the gospel. Because I again, I get it. The Holy Spirit can work through anything, but I don't want to have to get in the way either. Like you know what I mean, Like I can communicate the gospel in a way that sucks Of course, and so and yes can the Holy Spirit use that?
Speaker 1:Sure, but no, I'm not like yeah, but that's a no, no, no, no, I'm just. That's why I said false dichotomy, that you don't want to go in either direction. And I don't think for the majority of our listeners they're attending emerging liberal churches where it's more about conversation than the gospel. I think that for our listeners it's really more of a struggle of we got to create environments to get out there and do it, to actually experience what it's like to start presenting the gospel outside of the church with a friend. Have them confront you with all these questions. You don't know the answers to going back, learning, studying, praying, coming back to them. And, yeah, you can be honest. I mean, one thing I've been saying to people is you know, you find that sphere of influence that God has called you to. You ask great questions to identify spiritual curiosities in their heart and then you use your story to tell the cross. And who can't do that? It doesn't matter if you're, because I give this illustration when.
Speaker 1:I speak and then I kind of humorously say, all right, so I know what you're all thinking you're all going to have to go out and start a rock band. And they all laugh. And then I say, no, you probably won't start a rock band, but what you have is a story, and I share an illustration where I'm talking to this girl about art and I'm telling her how I think art points to the ultimate artist, and she's totally tracking with me and then she starts to get a little bit skeptical and then I say let me tell you about what God did in my life and I just share the story how God took me from dead to alive, how he's given me purpose, how he's inspired me as an artist, how he's forgiven me for the brokenness I can't seem to fix. And that didn't freak her out. It was my story, it was what God did in my life, and so I think that's a very powerful, disarming way to share the gospel.
Speaker 5:I also think that it's, once you've asked those questions, getting to know that person. It does two things it allows. It first makes a person feel welcomed into a conversation, so they're actually wanting to hear what you think. The second is, you've understood more where they're at. So you know, okay, this person is actually really open to God and they want to know more, or they're very against it and they've got various barriers that I need to address. It helps you understand where they're at.
Speaker 5:Well, the next step after that is getting to the truth, and it can be through sharing your story, like, hey, this is how it works for me. It can also be answering directly some of the points that El's making there. It's like hey, you feel like the world's bizarre. I feel exactly the same way, and I think it's bizarre because of this. I think it's a fallen, broken place. I think that there is a lot of pain in this world and it's all centered around this selfishness that we have. We're all just trying to strive for our own thing. You feel like this is an empty place. It is because we've forgotten where we come from, the most important thing about us that we were made by a loving God. That's how I see the world, and this is who God is. This is who Jesus is, and he came and he became one of us and he died for us and he loves you. He knows you before you were born. Just go straight into it. Clear, you know. This is who he is.
Speaker 1:But here's what you don't realize People will want a transcript of what you just said.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and that's what you don't realize.
Speaker 1:What you don't realize is that there is so much experience and anointing and gifting and practice and failure and success in how you are able to just instantly I mean right, so yeah.
Speaker 5:I've got a really cool story to release for that. So we were at the Serbia event I've mentioned a few times now and there was a group of people from North America there, and so it's mostly like Balkans. It doesn't matter where they were from, but they were not from the Balkan region. They were coming in and they were a ministry and it's not always great when that happens, but they're trying to take part in the event and they were trying. You know you'd want them to resist it, but they're coming up and trying to say how they would do things right. So we're Stygur there, trying to lead the group of young people from the Balkans into going out onto the streets and sharing Jesus. And at one point I'm sitting with Michael, who's one of our young leaders in the mission. He's from Norway.
Speaker 4:Love.
Speaker 5:Michael. He's a 22, 23 year old passionate for Jesus and sharing the gospel in an amazing way, and he's just learning a lot of this now, like he's been involved with us for not even a year Well, yeah, just about a year. So he's in that process of learning this right now. But it was so cool because this guy came over who's like in his 40s and was like hey, I know you guys are trying to help people share the gospel and stuff, but I really think you need to tell them how to do it. Okay, because they're done how to do it. People in the church, you know, we tell them to go out and share the gospel. We don't tell them how to do it. And I was like okay, what do you mean by that? And he's like well, let me show you this method that we use. And he starts describing one of these methods. Right, oh, it's the three, this or the four, that or whatever it was.
Speaker 1:Yes, you spend it like this it's the gospel trumpet. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and I'm, and I'm like the horns in the level.
Speaker 5:I was like really struggling. I was like, how do I answer this guy? And Michael was just like Well, you know what this is. What we do is we teach people that you just got to go out and listen to people and then you've got to Learn how to respond to what they're saying and share your faith, and that will look different in each conversation. We want it to be very relational. We don't want to give people a ready-made answer that is going to go out like robots and repeat everywhere. We're trying to help people really go out and engage with people, really go out and listen and then be bold and share the truth. Then we're learning, of course, as we go along, but it's beautiful because it's like works different in every place and we have these values. It's relevance. We want to preach the truth.
Speaker 5:I was just listening to it. I was like, wow, that's so cool. This guy's been with us like for a year and he already knows it, he's totally got it and he's the one who's got to be out there doing that and sharing the faith with young people. So when he finished I was like, hey, that's exactly what Michael just said. So sorry, this is how we're doing it and you know we gotta. So it's it. I agree with you.
Speaker 5:People want that and I guess the encouragement need to give is like don't just go for the easy, ready-made answer that you're gonna try to give to everybody. I'll learn to just go and have a conversation, be unafraid to talk to people and to learn how to answer, how to share yeah, from your story, or just. I mean and here's something I did say to the guy I was like I believe everybody who is a follower of Jesus knows the gospel. They don't need a ready-made explanation like, if you, if you've got a relationship with Jesus, you know how you got there right, so go and talk about it and learn Gradually how to explain that in a way that people can understand today.
Speaker 1:And then, michael, you know he's a fairly new believer in a sense, and you can feel that because it's so authentic and his story is so relevant. It's not, you know, from yester far, and I think that's a little bit of the problem with some people. You grew up your whole life in the church and you know.
Speaker 3:I, I don't. I think a lot of people who are in the church Don't know how to explain anything about how they became a Christian.
Speaker 1:But why? Why would again? I mean we could go on so many tangents and Chad literally has to leave to get on a plane fairly soon. But why? I don't understand why we think anything's intuitive, like to communicate anything, especially something of that significance, of that spiritual importance. You know, every other natural area of life, we recognize the need to try fail, try fail. You know it's like like the old what's the old? Surgeon model see one, what is that? See one, do one.
Speaker 5:It's a valid point. So then then? Then what? How would you guys deal? With you're wrong, then it's a valid point, I get it. So it's not intuitive. But we also don't want to give people ready-made no, but that's so what's the answer?
Speaker 3:It's not a formula, but I think people need to be taught what the gospel is in the church.
Speaker 1:Okay, I could. What Michael said to the guy is exactly what we're talking about now. Go do it.
Speaker 3:But he also has been taught about what the gospel is, about the cross and what the cross is. And yeah, otherwise, because I, I think I'm with Luke on this.
Speaker 1:I don't think people don't? They conceptually understand the gospel. They just communicated either using words that make no sense to anyone or they've never done it, so why would they have any ability to communicate it?
Speaker 5:Well, okay, I agree with you that people need to have a much. We got to talk a lot more about the essence of what is?
Speaker 3:what is?
Speaker 5:Jesus is more in the church. I mean what do you think?
Speaker 3:settle this debate among I mean, I could give a practical example of someone in our own mission who they were not seeing people come to Jesus after their shows and they were frustrated by it and I said okay, this is gonna seem really weird to you, but just say this and then it'll. You'll be your own vote from your own experience. But just start saying this word for word Okay, it is weird. And he started doing it.
Speaker 3:All these people started coming to Jesus in his yeah, events yes and then he started to to to learn how to Articulate that from his own personal experience. But he needed someone to give him kind of an outline. Not like a yeah but also but to get him started in that I do see happening in the mission a lot.
Speaker 5:There's. So what? What I've seen work is we're filling people with examples and stories and and this happened, and this is what I said and so people are in the mission, they're going to the Stuyger mission school and they're coming to all these events. They're hearing repeated examples of Different ways of doing that, and then they find their own voice so that I agree with. That's different to given a method that's like, yeah, you just read circles and no, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean just to get real practical and then to give Chad a few minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why doesn't Chad ever get to say it's a little a qui a montage, if you will, I. What's interesting is that we've all influenced each other right, and you know a lot of how I communicate the Gospels for years, growing up, hearing you communicate the gospel and same with you. We've influenced each other, but that hasn't been in a boardroom. That's been Outdoing it and so, yeah, I think some, true, some teaching can be helpful, something. But what I mean? Is it not just as simple as we need to be active evangelist in the church and then I just attach myself to someone. It's like, hey, I'm gonna talk to these next three people and then you're gonna do it and it's gonna probably be awkward and you're probably gonna fumble around.
Speaker 1:The story you mentioned about the guy who started with the script and eventually got better. What's the key ingredient? He kept doing it and eventually got better. The problem is that this is a. I go on a mission trip once every six years and I do this one Evangelism thing and then I don't do it again, of course. Why would we expect to be good at something we never do? It's true, chad, it's your moment, chad.
Speaker 4:Practice makes perfect, and I think that the church at large is desperate for a guide, oftentimes forgetting that the best, most personal Guide is already inside of them and capable and willing to help them through whatever the situation is. But if you're right, you're all right if we stop, and I so. I had gone from a Season of incredible practice to the point where I wrote the book on how to step out, and then I in experience a season of Mostly not stepping out, and so I know exactly what it feels like to go from practice makes perfect to I haven't done this, or I don't do this very often anymore, and I feel really rusty, if that's the way to put it. I would guess that most of the church can relate heavily with where I've been more recently and can relate much less with where I was prior to the affair, and so that maybe that's part of why God's allowed me this period in time.
Speaker 4:But there's something that comes to mind that I heard from a guide that served me really well, and it was whenever you see somebody, look them in the eyes and just say I see you as the kind of person who and then fall back, let yourself fall back into the arms of the Holy Spirit and speak whatever comes out of your mouth to them, and that's like it sounds so difficult because it's like, oh, but it's incredible how often it'd be like. I see you as a kind of person who and then what comes next is like has an incredible gift of hospice and all of a sudden, crazy stuff starts coming and it's like I had no knowledge of any of that. And Luke's seen this, we've all seen this kind of stuff. So, whether it's that specific kind of tool, it's all practicing ways of listening, ways of communicating, but I think at the core it starts with having a heart and a desire to see God touch someone's life.
Speaker 4:And until you have that, it's all just like three one four do this, do that sentence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like you just said, at the end of the day, if God is good and he's just and he wants to use your life, then from my reading of scripture it doesn't say I'm the vine, you're the branch. As long as you listen to Chad, you will be fruitful, it says. Remain in me. So my heart is broken for the loss and I'm filled with the Holy Spirit and I respond to that by stepping out to try to share my faith. God's gonna use it when it's great, god's gonna use it when it's terrible, and I'm gonna grow like crazy in that process.
Speaker 3:And your faith is gonna be real in your life and alive.
Speaker 5:Ben, did you just refer to us all as YOOTS?
Speaker 1:YOOTS, guys wanna go to KFC.
Speaker 5:I think that came out. A little bit of his New Zealand background came out there.
Speaker 1:Hashtag Nard Just like YOOTS just said Shut it, Nard Munch.
Speaker 3:We're gonna have to edit all that out.
Speaker 1:No, we're not All right. Love you guys Half as much as I will and twice as much as I should.
Speaker 5:Bilbo, no, that was positive. Actually, that wasn't real. See, here's the thing. You don't probably know Such a nerd, Ben is such a nerd, yeah, and he was in charge of this little shindig.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like my dad said don't make fun of the nerds, you'll work for him one day.
Speaker 4:Nice.
Speaker 1:See what you just said about the whole start of sentence and not know where you're going. That's been my life. I never know where this is going, but boom, the words come out of the hopper and brilliant submerges.
Speaker 5:That's it. I love you guys. I wanna encourage you that you have got better, ben, at kind of guiding your words.
Speaker 1:I reject that. I like who I am, where I've been and where I'm going. I love you. Leave us a rating and review, because this is getting sad.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is weird, it is. Come on what is show us.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you guys so much. This has been just wonderful. We gotta get Chad to the airport and to therapy, and when that's all done, we'll come back in five years and we'll do this again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:All right, love y'all. Thanks for listening, share it.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to the Provoke and Inspire podcast. If you enjoy this content, consider leaving us a rating and a review on iTunes. Got questions for the guys? Send them to provokeandinspireatsteigerorg. Thanks for listening.