Little Gardens of Eden | John Mark Dyer

Transcript

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Hi, this is Grant Lockridge.

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I'm here with John Mark Dyer.

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He is a YWAMer.

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He has been a YWAMer for 12 years and his main thing is he helps Gen Z get on the mission field.

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So, John Mark, just how did you get into YWAM?

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Yeah, this is a fun story.

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So both of my sisters did YWAM yeah, this is a fun story.

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So both of my sisters did YWAM before me.

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In YWAM they run this six-month school called the Discipleship Training School and you spend three months on a YWAM campus and then you do a missions trip for three months.

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So it's a cool experience and both of my sisters did it and they started to get after me and they're like John Mark, this is everything you want.

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Come and join us in Kona.

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And, honestly, I was probably intimidated because I was 25 and I thought I was too old and didn't fit in and all my sister's friends had tattoos and I was just like I don't know if I'm going to be cool enough.

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But I have three dreams and I had some idea that God could speak to you in dreams.

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And so I have this dream where I'm looking at the office building that I live in or work at and I see myself walking out of it.

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And I wake up from that and I think, oh man, okay, my time to leave this organization and maybe do something new.

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Maybe it's coming, you know.

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And then I have a dream that a guy is going to get fired and then that we're going to get sued, and you know kind of negative but don't know what to do with him.

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And I just I kind of wait and my sisters are telling me, hey, come do YWAM.

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And a month goes by, and then in real life this guy that was in my dream actually got fired.

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And so then all of a sudden I'm like really paying attention, I'm like man, maybe God really is speaking to me through these dreams, and so I start kind of considering all my options and honestly, like at that point in my life I really I wanted to move to New York, start my own company, make a lot of money, you know, feel good about myself, give, give a ton of money to charity, yeah.

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And and then my sisters kind of one day they really laid it on thick and they said, no, john Mark, I'm telling you, ywam is the thing.

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And finally, like I had a ton of peace in my heart and so I went home, filled out the application and decided, okay, I'm going to do this, this YWAM school.

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And then Monday went to go in to quit and, you know, was kind of scared to tell my boss about it.

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And he comes in the afternoon and I'm gearing up to go talk to him and he's going through the mail and he opens this letter and I can hear him across the office and he goes oh my gosh guys, look at this, we're getting sued.

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And I'm in my cubicle, I throw up both of my hands and I'm like this is crazy, like these are all of my dreams come true.

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Ywam must be like what God wants me to do, and so I came in 2012 to our campuses on the big Island of Hawaii and I did the school.

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I mean, my sisters were totally right, it was everything that I wanted.

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It changed my life and then I never left.

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I loved it, so I started staffing the schools and I've been with them ever since.

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So that was how I got in.

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That's wild.

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It's not like.

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Where in the Bible does it say that you can be talked to in dreams by God?

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No, I'm just kidding Daniel, everywhere.

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That's just such a weird thing, because like people hear that I'm sure, and they everywhere.

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That's just such a weird thing Cause like people hear that I'm sure and they're just like yo, god's not talking to me in a dream.

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So that's not.

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That's not the case, bro.

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Maybe that's just, maybe you're just hanging out.

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Have you had a lot of people like discount that?

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I definitely wrote down my all my dreams after that for a long time, um, but then I went back after a number of years.

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I'm like I don't know if any of these had any messages for me.

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Uh, well, I don't know.

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I think it was because god knew he was bringing a big change to my life so we needed to speak kind of dramatically, um, but now I definitely it's that still small voice.

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You know, that is the most common way that God speaks to me.

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So describe what YWAM actually does.

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We've interviewed another guy from YWAM, but just give me like the whole YWAM, like what is YWAM?

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I've never been involved in it.

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Well, it started back in 1960.

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And at that point anybody that wanted to be a missionary, you had to jump through a bunch of hoops.

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You kind of had to get approval by a church denomination, you had to have a seminary degree, you had to get the missions board approval.

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Uh, it was this couple.

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Well, I guess he was single at the time.

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Lauren Cunningham just kind of felt like God said I want young people to go.

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Like if I tell them to go, I want them to be able to to kind of run after what I'm speaking to them without any anything in the way.

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And so he was like, okay, let's, let's do short-term missions trip, give young people permission to go to the nations and we will just hear God and obey.

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And it's interesting because YWAM wasn't the only organization that started with that vision in that time.

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There was actually several of them, and so I think it was God just trying to like shake up the missions movement because he knew how big the need was.

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But anyways, ywam kind of grew to be this movement where if you were a young person that was passionate about God and were willing to hear his voice and obey, ywam was going to give you kind of the green light and the training and the community to do it.

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And so eventually, you know, we've now have YWAMers in every nation around the world and you know some of our schools, you know, happen on big campuses, like in Waimakona, and some of them are, you know, in little huts in different places in the world and some people pay for their schools with money and some people pay for their schools literally with chickens and pigs.

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But it's a movement that's saying we want to know God and we want to make God known.

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And so we have these schools that train you how to study the Bible, how to pray, how to share the gospel, how do you figure out what God's will for your life is, and then how do you go and share that with people?

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And so we just put young people on planes and send them out all over the world and they go and spend three months, you know, in these nations, and it's remarkable what God can do with a bunch of young people that just hear and obey.

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That's crazy.

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So I'm the kid you're about to send me.

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What are you teaching me?

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Okay, great question.

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You know school is, you know probably years, but what are you teaching me?

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Give me the two minute blip, yeah absolutely so.

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I mean, the first thing that is usually pretty life-changing is we just hit so hard how much God loves you?

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Because this is a big paradigm.

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I think a lot of the people that come to our schools they've grown up in some sort of church paradigm where they're like I have to follow the rules, I have to do these things to be approved by God, and it kind of flips that on the head and say the reason you worship, the reason why we extravagantly love and go to the ends of the earth for God, is because we've experienced his love so much.

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So we really try to develop a deep, like intimate, connection with the Lord.

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And so you know that's in a paradigm shift of just how you see God, and then that's also in daily disciplines like Bible study.

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The power of prayer.

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That you know your prayers are heard by God and really shape history and intercession is very important.

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I learned a lot about different cultures and their values and their worldviews and how they can experience Jesus and the Bible and the gospel and maybe some of the barriers that would be between their culture and a different culture and how to bridge that different culture and how to bridge that.

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I mean there's a lot of.

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It is just stories of faith and miracles and God breaking through.

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That inspires this faith in them where they're like whoa, I didn't know it was possible.

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You know one of the early like pioneers in YWAM in West Africa.

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Like pioneers in YWAM in West Africa.

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He took a group of you know, 20 year olds.

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They got in vans and they drove from Switzerland, uh, through the Sahara desert down to Sierra Leone and you know, just like their, their stories about how, uh, these two girls got stung by killer bees and they were basically driving in the desert.

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They were totally lost.

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This girl was dying and then God miraculously sent them these you know people that lived out in the desert to show them the way to the hospital and you know she lived.

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And there's stories about you know people having a specific financial or need for food and God providing.

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You know multiplying potatoes in the ground and fruit trees and you know just crazy stories where you, just, like I, had no paradigm.

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You know my whole experience of church was you show up on Sunday, you're a good Christian if you put money in the offering and you read your Bible every day, but all of a sudden it's like, oh, there's this whole world of risk taking and stories where God breaks in and does miraculous things, and I think a lot of people they see that and they just think, whoa, I want that adventure, I want that, that God story in my life.

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Yeah, man, that's, that's really cool.

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Um, so if you send somebody with with a minimal amount of training, I'm immediately my mind goes to like okay, what's keeping them from?

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You know, just spreading ridiculous amounts of heresy all over the planet?

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And I'm sure you got the guardrails on that.

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But I'm just curious.

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Yeah, I mean, you know, in reality, these young people, they do end up making a lot of mistakes and at the end of the day, anybody that tries something the first time is not going to be that great at it.

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But you're never going to get good at it unless you have permission to kind of to give it a shot and to go for it and then learn from your mistakes and um and keep trying.

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And you know, one of our ideas is you're never going to get long-term missionaries unless you send some short-term missionaries and they they're in the nation, they're seeing the need and they're with the people and they're like, oh, my gosh, like my heart all of a sudden is burning for these, these people up in these villages of the Himalayas or, you know, in North Africa or something like that.

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And you know, yeah, so there are some guardrails.

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The training that we do in the three months, we, you know, break it down, teach them.

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You know what are the fundamentals of the simple gospel.

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We have a training manual with.

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You know the cultures of Jesus different ways, you can share your personal testimony, some teachings on, you know, prayer and things like that, and so you're giving them some sort of framework and almost like the bumper rails if they're bowling, you know.

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So it kind of protects them.

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You know nobody's standing up in front of the church and kind of giving you know a deep message on.

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You know the book of Isaiah.

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It's kind of like if a YWAMer, young YWAMer, shows up, they're going to talk about the gospel, how Jesus set them free, you know things that are they're set up for success.

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So, yeah, that's that's one of the ways.

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And then we've got staff members with them, that kind of uh, if they do end up saying or or making some mistakes, they can kind of uh cover their tracks.

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Yeah, I just wanted to hear you explain that because I'm sure that's another thing.

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You get a lot of like what, what I do, but, um, so how I found you is through your Instagram page.

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You've posted a lot of like, you know, short little clips about to me I thought was pretty like deep theological issues and like really interesting clips.

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So what got you to start doing those clips?

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Yeah, well, Reels, if you will Not, clips, reels.

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Let's get trendy with it.

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Well, a couple of things.

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One of the things that I do here in YWAM is I run a media track in our training schools, so we have one for media, for music, for fitness, and basically we're just trying to say God gave you unique skills for a purpose, because building God's kingdom isn't just about planting churches and doing evangelism, it's about how do you apply the Bible to your finances and government, and you know every sphere of society.

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So we're trying to give a more holistic picture.

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Is God gave you gifts and media and social media, that's one.

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There's people that are really gifted and anointed to be God's messengers on those platforms, and so I was telling everybody that and I was like, okay, if I'm preaching it, I better do it myself, you know.

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And then I think I've all you know.

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But probably because I'm in YWAM, I'm naturally bent towards loving coaching and teaching and you know I'm pretty creative and so All these ideas and teachings that we have, I mean they've totally transformed my life and I thought how do I?

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I should begin to share these basically with my platform, and I think for a long time I was trying to engage on social media, but then I wasn't.

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I didn't keep up with this trend that if you wanted to blow up you got to make reels Because I was doing some stuff on social media.

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But I was like I'm not playing the game.

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You know, there's there's certain rules to the game and I, I, if I, if I'm serious about this, I need to, I need to just jump in play by the rules.

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And I had a couple of friends that were were doing it as well and they, um, they kind of gave me courage.

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We sat down for dinner and they're like you could totally do this.

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And so they, they were the ones that kind of pushed me over the edge to kind of say, okay, let's, let's start doing it.

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And so I started and if you scroll back further you'll see.

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You know, I was experimenting and trying different things at first and yeah, I mean it just it wasn't, it wasn't having the impact, and I, I, I, I wasn't as happy with it.

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And then, all of a sudden, I did one.

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I thought of my favorite, tiktoker and his videos, and I was like I wonder if I could do something like that, that back and forth conversational style, and it just actually fit so well and it was able to.

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It was just like the perfect format for the kind of discussions that I wanted to have on social media and the type of content that I wanted to create, and I think it was like it wasn't long after I started that one that my first one kind of blew up and I was like, okay, I, I figured it out for me, like this is, this is my vein, this is my niche, uh, and then that's what I've been doing ever since.

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You cracked the algorithm, bro, good job.

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It was so surprising.

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When I did, I was like whoa, you know, all of a sudden, If you look at our Instagram page.

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It is just absolute garbage and we rely on people like you doing cool stuff so that we can talk to y'all.

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And they're like, oh, they have John Mark on.

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These guys are legit.

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And it's like, maybe you know, if you look at our Instagram, it's literally just like pictures of the people we've had on it and people are just like yeah, I'll follow that.

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It's like really Okay, great.

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We're both just trying to figure it out, you know.

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Yeah, I don't care about Instagram.

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I just did it because it's like you have to have one apparently.

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So I was just like, okay, we'll make one and we'll just literally I will screenshot people's like faces and put it on instagram.

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I am not naturally gifted at the uh social media platforms because I just do not care, but I'm very um glad for people like you that are actually like making like good content on social media, because you know you'll scroll and you'll see like a dog, and then you'll see like nonsense and you'll see like kill tony or something stupid, and then you'll keep on going and then it's like, oh, this guy's explaining the bible in a cool way rock and roll.

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So anytime I see that I'll reach out and I'm like your.

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Your stuff literally was, I'm trying to think the Tim Keller one was really cool that was super interesting.

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Um, his evangelistic tactics, um, I've watched, like most of them, that you have a ton of them, but I just like scrolled through a bunch of them just because they are pretty entertaining, just to watch, and, um, you know, just think about what you're actually saying, because some stuff it's like, honestly, I don't think I've had one that you've said that I disagreed with.

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So I was like really, that's good, so right, yeah, you know, I mean a lot of what I'm trying to do is just take these really smart guys that your average 20 year old might not be listening to yet and try to expose them to the, to their ideas, um, and and make it bite size enough where they're like okay, I understand this concept, you know they won't.

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You know there's a lot of people that won't sit through the you know hour long Tim Keller podcast or two hour Jordan Peterson podcast, things like that.

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But if I can go through and take essentially what they're saying and simplify it into something that's a little bit more bite size, you know that that's my goal is to kind of create some hunger and put some questions and ideas before young people so that you know the idea.

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You don't know what you don't know.

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Yeah, it's like, okay, if I can just open their eyes, be like, oh, I've never thought about why the gospel needs to be contextualized or how Gen Z is becoming more spiritual but not as connected with Bible stories.

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So is that going to change how we present the gospel to them?

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And you know a lot of people.

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They've just never had those thoughts before and so just trying to provoke them to think a little bit deeper and, um, cause I, I think it's it was a lot of YWAM it was being exposed to those kinds of ideas that really challenged me and pushed me to go forward in my, my faith and, uh, really understand the why behind everything.

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And so, uh, yeah, that that I think that's my goal, that's what I'm trying to do on Instagram the why behind YWAM.

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I like it.

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The why behind YWAM?

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There you go.

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No, so did you like come to Christ at like an early age or what's kind of the old testimony?

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Yes, old testimony, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, my family, my grandpa, actually started a missions organization right about the same time that YWAM started with honestly the same sort of vision.

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You know, that was one of the organizations that I think about when I was saying that God was talking to multiple people about young people getting involved in missions, and so we had a strong faith.

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I grew up at a big church in Chicago called Willow Creek.

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It was one of those mega churches and Bill Hybels was an incredible teaching pastor and always tried to take my faith really seriously, would read books and as I got older I was like, do I believe this myself or just because my parents told me?

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And you know, I went through those moments of, okay, I prayed the prayer when I was five or six, but I'm 13 now.

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Do I really believe that?

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Is this my faith?

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Do I really believe that?

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Is this my faith?

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And then you know in high school, all the hidden sin and compromise in my life and just trying to be like you know, wait, if the Bible is saying this, but my life is so separated.

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What do I do with that gap?

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And you know, so much of my life in being a firstborn was about trying to live the perfect Christian life but inside had so much insecurity and shame and brokenness.

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And so the big shift in my life happened, kind of at the beginning of university.

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My mom started to go to some more charismatic churches and she would come home with stories like, hey, you can hear God's voice, miracles still happen, you can pray for healing.

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And I think in my heart I heard those stories and really wanted them to be true.

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But I was so skeptical and I just thought she was crazy and these churches were crazy.

00:23:13.373 --> 00:23:23.746
But I would listen to the music coming out of these churches and movements and I would be weeping in the car and so that kind of convinced me.

00:23:23.746 --> 00:23:46.651
I was like, whoa, ok, maybe there's, there is something to these movements, and so started listening to like people like Bill Johnson at Bethel Church in California and, uh, mike Bickle with the International House of Prayer, and it was kind of like this whole new world of Christianity opened up to me.

00:23:48.212 --> 00:24:17.263
And uh, and so through university I just it was like this fuel entered my Christianity and like my heart was opening and breaking and I was, you know, more convicted for my sin and having desires to like get total freedom and uh, and then realizing, whoa like, I have a, there's a call from God to share my faith.

00:24:17.263 --> 00:24:21.272
And you know, I everything that I'm encountering about God's love.

00:24:21.272 --> 00:24:26.662
I'm like I want my friends to experience this, because this is totally flipping my world upside down.

00:24:26.662 --> 00:24:38.007
I want them to have that that same encounter with God's love, to have that that same encounter with God's love and uh, and so that's where my sisters found me and they're like, john Mark, come to YWAM.

00:24:38.007 --> 00:24:39.290
This is a whole community.

00:24:39.290 --> 00:24:43.487
That's everything that you have on your list of what you want.

00:24:43.487 --> 00:24:51.788
It's young people, uh, that want to run after God, people taking risks, going to the nations, uh, to share the gospel.

00:24:51.788 --> 00:24:55.575
And so, yeah, it was kind of a progressive.

00:24:55.660 --> 00:25:01.933
I always really wanted to follow the Lord, but I got hung up in sin and performance and religion.

00:25:01.933 --> 00:25:10.588
But it was kind of like, you know, if you knock on the door, it will be open.

00:25:10.588 --> 00:25:11.771
If you seek, you will find.

00:25:11.771 --> 00:25:42.213
And I think God kept pursuing me through through all my years of compromise, where I had a foot in the world and but I was still, like, wanted to follow him and he was really faithful and he, he um led me into a community that helped me walk through all those issues and really kind of ground my life in the Bible and and actually embody the beliefs in Christianity that I professed to hold.

00:25:43.099 --> 00:25:43.740
That's awesome, man.

00:25:43.740 --> 00:25:49.509
Yeah, that's very the one foot in the world.

00:25:49.509 --> 00:25:55.175
One foot out just seems like a common thing for most believers.

00:25:55.175 --> 00:26:01.664
Would you say now you're like two feet in, ready to go, or are you constantly?

00:26:01.664 --> 00:26:03.410
Would you describe yourself?

00:26:04.019 --> 00:26:21.926
Fully jumped in the water, yeah, drank the Kool-Aid, not to say I don't have my shortcomings and you know there's plenty of sin left in my life, but you know it's no longer hidden sin, it's no longer habits of sin.

00:26:21.926 --> 00:26:45.702
You know I have a community around me that when I do see you know the ugliness of my selfishness and things like that, of my selfishness and things like that they're quick to hear my confession and hold me to the standard of hey, jesus has the power and an example for you to follow.

00:26:45.702 --> 00:26:46.463
And so it's.

00:26:46.463 --> 00:26:49.769
Yeah, it's been very healthy to be in a community like this.

00:26:50.130 --> 00:27:02.291
For me, that's awesome, yeah, so what I like asking people this question, just because I change my mind on things a lot.

00:27:02.291 --> 00:27:15.211
What's the most recent thing like theology or belief, or really anything that you've changed, that you've believed for a long time, that you've changed your, that you've believed for a long?

00:27:15.231 --> 00:27:17.278
time that you've changed your mind about Interesting.

00:27:17.278 --> 00:27:20.288
Well, ok, I think.

00:27:20.288 --> 00:27:40.627
For for a long time I was really caught up in this idea that I had to find God's, had to find God's perfect plan and I shouldn't move forward until I was confident that I knew what God was saying for me to do.

00:27:40.627 --> 00:27:46.182
And it ended up being quite paralyzing, and so there would just be a lot of doubt, like did I hear God?

00:27:46.182 --> 00:27:47.163
Is this the right move?

00:27:47.163 --> 00:27:57.496
And it was actually one of the big moments was the house that I remodeled that I was telling you about.

00:27:59.461 --> 00:28:07.150
I was thinking about how God sent Joshua into the promised land, and it was like God said go take the land.

00:28:07.150 --> 00:28:10.269
And then he kind of just had to walk into it.

00:28:10.269 --> 00:28:13.801
And once he entered the land, it was like he could go straight left, right.

00:28:13.801 --> 00:28:17.691
You know it didn't really matter and he had to.

00:28:17.691 --> 00:28:23.713
You know, it wasn't like when he ran into a people group that he had to check.

00:28:23.713 --> 00:28:24.536
Like God, did you?

00:28:24.536 --> 00:28:26.741
Did you really say that this land is mine?

00:28:26.741 --> 00:28:27.944
Like, should I move forward?

00:28:27.944 --> 00:28:28.727
I don't know.

00:28:28.727 --> 00:28:33.580
It was like God had already spoken go take the land.

00:28:33.580 --> 00:28:35.644
And he just had to like hear that and then just keep moving forward.

00:28:35.644 --> 00:28:47.134
And so there was a big paradigm shift in me of just kind of saying it God has an easier time guiding me when I'm moving forward.

00:28:47.134 --> 00:28:49.381
You know, think of a sailboat.

00:28:49.381 --> 00:28:55.044
You can steer a sailboat when it's moving in the water, but if it's standing still you can't really.

00:28:55.044 --> 00:28:58.566
You know it, just it kind of drifts around.

00:28:58.566 --> 00:29:01.867
You need to be moving for God to direct you.

00:29:01.867 --> 00:29:11.252
Like self-conscious, like wow, have I found, did I hear God?

00:29:11.252 --> 00:29:15.596
Right, I just decided, you know what I'm going to move forward.

00:29:15.596 --> 00:29:24.762
I'm going to kind of take risks because God has already said, you know, go into all the world and share the gospel.

00:29:24.762 --> 00:29:33.780
Like he's laid out some things and I just need to assume that I did hear him and he, you know, and so I should move forward with confidence, and then if I'm on the wrong path, he's going to help and direct me and send me correction.

00:29:33.780 --> 00:29:41.932
So you know, that's that is a really practical example for you.

00:29:42.994 --> 00:29:56.096
And then I think, maybe a new idea that you know I explored this in some of my reels about how different cultures experience the gospel.

00:29:56.096 --> 00:29:58.782
That was a pretty new concept for me.

00:29:58.782 --> 00:30:12.086
That kind of changed how I thought about presenting the gospel and so, oh man, okay, even more ideas are coming to mind, so let me unpack a few of them.

00:30:12.086 --> 00:30:14.008
Oh man, okay, even more ideas are coming to mind, so let me let me unpack a few of them.

00:30:14.008 --> 00:30:16.308
One of them is you know, I always, I always felt this pressure.

00:30:16.308 --> 00:30:18.390
Hey, I need to.

00:30:19.089 --> 00:30:22.990
Every person I talk to, I bet they better walk away, having heard the whole gospel.

00:30:22.990 --> 00:30:29.653
I want to make sure they know, you know God, god created, you know Adam and Eve, he created the world.

00:30:29.653 --> 00:30:30.334
We sinned.

00:30:30.334 --> 00:30:31.654
He sent Jesus.

00:30:31.654 --> 00:30:37.676
You know the whole thing and I screwed up if they didn't know the whole gospel by the time they left me.

00:30:38.657 --> 00:30:46.250
But you know, if you look at how Jesus ministered, I don't, that's not really how he did it.

00:30:46.250 --> 00:30:55.542
He was kind of looking at where people are at and he would kind of test the water a little bit and said, hey, is there spiritual hunger?

00:30:55.542 --> 00:31:04.231
He'd throw him a parable and then if he saw that hunger in them and they asked questions, then he would give them more, and he would give them more.

00:31:04.231 --> 00:31:16.005
And so I kind of took that to heart in my evangelism and I said you know, I'm out talking to people and if I, if I hit somebody that you could just tell they're not interested.

00:31:16.005 --> 00:31:20.422
I don't, I don't have, I'm not, I'm not the solution here.

00:31:20.422 --> 00:31:38.603
You know Jesus is working in their life and I just need to, that I can move on from that person and God's going to set up circumstances in their life and be able to send them something, somebody else, when they're more open.

00:31:38.603 --> 00:31:42.838
But I can move on and so you know that kind of testing the waters with people to see if there's actual spiritual hunger and then not feeling so bad or so much pressure.

00:31:42.838 --> 00:31:47.961
If they didn't respond that I could just kind of say hey, that's totally fine, you're in a different spot right now.

00:31:47.961 --> 00:31:53.593
Um, when you are open to talking, you know I'd be more than happy to share more with you.

00:31:53.593 --> 00:31:59.432
But clearly you know all you want to do is argue, or you just hate my guts right now, or something.

00:31:59.432 --> 00:32:01.406
You know that's fine.

00:32:02.619 --> 00:32:18.336
And to go along with that, this whole idea of how you present the gospel and that in the West, at least in the past, in the West, at least in the past our whole paradigm of sharing the gospel is based on our guilt and becoming innocent through the blood of Jesus.

00:32:18.336 --> 00:32:29.185
But that's only a portion of the picture of what God accomplished when he overcame the power of sin.

00:32:29.185 --> 00:32:51.951
Worldviews like, if you go to different cultures, or even I think it's going to happen generationally with like Gen Alpha, gen Z, is that there are people respond not only to this like, oh man, I'm guilty before God and I there's the justice of God, but a lot of people now you know they're saying hey, I realized that we live in a spiritual world and there's dark power.

00:32:51.951 --> 00:32:53.363
Hey, I realize that we live in a spiritual world and there's dark power.

00:32:53.363 --> 00:32:57.992
And so they're looking to things like crystals or manifesting their own destiny.

00:32:57.992 --> 00:33:12.502
And if they hear a paradigm of the gospel that Jesus has power over darkness and that could be over anxiety, that could be over sickness and disease, that that's actually a quite compelling picture of Jesus.

00:33:12.522 --> 00:33:14.565
Disease, that that's actually a quite compelling picture of Jesus.

00:33:14.565 --> 00:33:24.476
And it's not so much about you know their sin and you know that they stand guilty before God.

00:33:24.476 --> 00:33:34.319
It's more of like whoa, this is a man, jesus, who has power over darkness and he can help me through my anxiety and through pain and loss and his power over death.

00:33:34.319 --> 00:33:41.305
And that is a you know, because basically what you're trying to do in evangelism is get people to enter a relationship with Jesus.

00:33:41.305 --> 00:33:50.247
And so if someone's really obsessed and they feel the weight of sin on their shoulders, then they want to hear that Jesus died and made them, you know, set them free from the weight of sin.

00:33:51.191 --> 00:33:58.090
But if they're not in that headspace and they're just like, oh man, my whole world right now is revolved around.

00:33:58.090 --> 00:34:00.061
I don't know what to do with this anxiety.

00:34:00.061 --> 00:34:01.705
I don't know what to do with this disease.

00:34:01.705 --> 00:34:07.183
I'm, you know, I just lived through an earthquake and I don't feel like I have any sense of safety.

00:34:07.183 --> 00:34:16.976
And then you talk to them about a God who has power over the earth, who calmed the seas, who casts out demons, who can heal their anxiety.

00:34:16.976 --> 00:34:24.480
Then that becomes Jesus, becomes so attractive to them and then, you know, you can invite them into that relationship.

00:34:24.480 --> 00:34:35.666
So, yeah, those are kind of some new ideas I think that I've been wrestling with and I've made reels about them, because they've been really interesting ideas to me.

00:34:36.789 --> 00:34:48.434
Yeah, that first thing you said was something that me and Jared co-hosted, that we talked about we're talking about the other day of.

00:34:48.434 --> 00:34:50.123
Just.

00:34:50.123 --> 00:34:58.007
He said and I love this phrase and I'm not going to coin it up, hats off to Jared Tafta but he said love God and take a left.

00:34:58.007 --> 00:34:59.672
And I thought that was pretty great.

00:34:59.672 --> 00:35:03.322
Like you know what I mean, like what do I do?

00:35:03.322 --> 00:35:04.867
You know right, left, straight.

00:35:04.867 --> 00:35:07.563
You know these all seem like reasonable options.

00:35:07.563 --> 00:35:11.260
God told me this, that and the other and he's like love God, take a left, you know.

00:35:12.364 --> 00:35:14.007
Yeah, I really like that.

00:35:14.007 --> 00:35:18.447
Actually it's pretty good, like just the idea of that.

00:35:18.447 --> 00:35:26.018
And one like there are obvious things that you should not do, so I'm not saying that, that's you know.

00:35:26.018 --> 00:35:26.400
Okay.

00:35:26.400 --> 00:35:42.469
Like, oh, yeah, you know I want to do this horrible thing, but if you know, like the general principles of wisdom in the Bible and you know what Jesus has called every believer to do, so, like you said, go and make disciples of all nations.

00:35:42.469 --> 00:35:45.956
You know there's multiple things like that, like tons of them.

00:35:45.956 --> 00:35:50.425
Of just like, hey, forgive your enemies, like love them, like that sort of stuff.

00:35:50.425 --> 00:35:52.938
Love God, love people all day long.

00:35:54.050 --> 00:36:04.202
And it's just to me was very interesting that a lot of Christians are just straight up, like stuck in that space that you were talking about.

00:36:04.202 --> 00:36:13.041
Of just like I have no clue what I should do, like should I go get a degree so I can share my faith?

00:36:13.041 --> 00:36:18.483
Should I go, you know, just give water bottles to homeless people?

00:36:18.483 --> 00:36:22.079
What you know what method should I use?

00:36:22.079 --> 00:36:25.981
And it's just like both of them sound pretty good.

00:36:25.981 --> 00:36:28.894
You know what I mean.

00:36:28.894 --> 00:36:45.911
Go give a water bottle to a homeless guy and you know, see what goes on there, if you feel like that's a good thing to do, because that is a good thing to do, and maybe God sprouted something out of that, or maybe he's so powerful that he could literally just be like nope, we're not doing that.

00:36:45.911 --> 00:36:48.436
Boom, okay, you know what I mean.

00:36:48.436 --> 00:36:51.623
Like you can't, can't, outwit god and you'll go.

00:36:51.623 --> 00:36:57.300
You know where he wants you to go, I think, and you can run away, but he'll.

00:36:57.300 --> 00:37:05.119
He'll bring you back, pretty sure yeah, yeah, it's very interesting.

00:37:05.199 --> 00:37:21.181
I've been wrestling with that idea because you know there's definitely a biblical lots of stories where god has a burning bush moment, or that call to nineveh, like with jonah, where god has like a real specific assignment that he calls people to.

00:37:21.181 --> 00:37:25.536
And I kind of think, you know, I look at my how god called me to YWAM with those dreams.

00:37:25.536 --> 00:37:33.639
That was pretty dramatic and you know, I don't know what would have happened if I didn't obey with that.

00:37:33.639 --> 00:37:47.148
But then there's also it's you know, god is trying to raise powerful people that know how to be agents of change in the world.

00:37:47.148 --> 00:37:51.137
And if he's just calling all the shots and telling you what to do all the time, you're not.

00:37:51.137 --> 00:37:53.793
You're more of a robot than you, are a powerful person.

00:37:53.793 --> 00:38:10.693
And I think the dignity that he gives us to say, hey, I gave you a Bible and it does have my wisdom in it and I can speak to you, I can give you direction in detail, like I do believe in seeking God in detail.

00:38:10.693 --> 00:38:31.791
But you know, sometimes you do just have to make a call and then it puts the weight of responsibility on your shoulders Like, well, I better know the Bible, I better know the culture of Jesus, because I'm going to make these choices and have to live with the consequences, and the people around me are going to have to live with the consequences.

00:38:31.791 --> 00:38:48.023
And there's a lot of dignity that God bestows upon us in that, because otherwise, if we're just like he's, like no, this is exactly what you want to do, then we're just kind of robots and he's in charge and we don't have any autonomy and there's no creativity.

00:38:48.023 --> 00:39:03.039
And but the fact that he kind of says, hey, I've empowered you, I've given you the tools, um, and then it's on us to kind of say, okay, I'm, I'm going to study this book so I really know how to live an abundant life and so that the people around me thrive.

00:39:06.204 --> 00:39:10.436
I read Josh I think his last name is Holly or something.

00:39:10.436 --> 00:39:19.902
He's a well, I don't even know if he's a senator or congressman, but he wrote this book on masculinity, which was the beginning of.

00:39:19.902 --> 00:39:32.894
It was really good, very interesting, and he had this paradigm where he was saying you know, god placed Adam and Eve in a garden and in that garden everything was kind of ordered according to God's will, perfectly.

00:39:32.894 --> 00:39:37.713
You know, it was like hey, I've set this up so that you guys can live an abundant life.

00:39:37.713 --> 00:39:51.405
And then outside of that garden everything was kind of disordered and chaotic and Adam and Eve's mandate was to go into the darkness and the chaos and order it according to God's ways.

00:39:51.405 --> 00:39:54.298
And I thought that was a really beautiful way.

00:39:56.112 --> 00:40:00.530
I guess I'd always thought, okay, adam and Eve, they're just going to stay in the garden, in their little place of safety.

00:40:00.530 --> 00:40:06.030
But God actually told them to go and subdue the earth and take dominion.

00:40:06.030 --> 00:40:21.998
And then all of a sudden I thought, man, there's so much purpose and meaning that you get in that, because now I have a call and a purpose to go into these places, show them the beauty of God's ways and to help them live a really abundant life.

00:40:21.998 --> 00:40:32.961
And I really it was kind of a box-breaking concept for me in saying that is still our call to expand the Garden of Eden.

00:40:32.961 --> 00:40:56.081
And wherever we go, wherever we see chaos and disorder, can we convince people the wisdom and the beauty of the Bible and of God's love so that they can kind of reorder their life according to God's ways and kind of create little gardens of Eden wherever, wherever Christians are, and I that you know there's so much dignity in that.

00:40:57.610 --> 00:41:01.653
Yeah, definitely the go and make disciples bit.

00:41:01.653 --> 00:41:26.693
That that just makes me think about how much bigger that becomes, because we were going through a story, the Bible thing, and that came up of like you know, go and subdue the earth and have dominion over it kind of language, which feels very weird to say as far as, like you know, hey, I'm going to have dominion over, you know, my little house, so I'm going to go pull some weeds.

00:41:26.693 --> 00:41:40.503
Not really, that's a very small, you know garbage example, but just the idea of just that is, to me, a lot of what Jesus calls us to do when we make disciples.

00:41:40.503 --> 00:41:44.101
Because, like, who are we making disciples for?

00:41:44.101 --> 00:41:45.588
Is jesus?

00:41:45.588 --> 00:41:48.014
We're teaching them the teachings of jesus.

00:41:48.014 --> 00:42:01.043
So it's just to me the natural conclusion of those like findings, if you will, of like actually following him creates little gardens of eden everywhere.

00:42:01.043 --> 00:42:05.679
Like people are like forgiving each other for no reason other than that they just love Jesus.

00:42:06.041 --> 00:42:08.074
It's crazy what's going on over there.

00:42:08.074 --> 00:42:10.858
This guy, I'll get off of that, but it's.

00:42:10.858 --> 00:42:17.240
It really is wild to see, and I've seen little pockets of that all over the place.

00:42:17.240 --> 00:42:21.750
And then there's this huge American Christianity nonsense.

00:42:21.750 --> 00:42:26.257
But then you see like little, little pockets of garden, of Eden places too.

00:42:26.257 --> 00:42:32.467
So, yeah, I love it, not the crap on all of American Christianity, but there's a lot of.

00:42:32.467 --> 00:42:34.938
There's a lot of craziness everywhere out there.

00:42:35.851 --> 00:42:36.956
And it's true.

00:42:36.956 --> 00:42:40.938
Hopefully we don't fuel that fire somewhere, so that that would be good.

00:42:41.920 --> 00:42:43.590
Hopefully, unfortunately, probably.

00:42:43.590 --> 00:42:45.137
We do a little bit, we all.

00:42:45.137 --> 00:42:47.255
Oh, I'm certainly not perfect Same.

00:42:48.931 --> 00:42:50.137
That's why I said hopefully.

00:42:50.630 --> 00:42:52.936
I do make a mess of things here and there.

00:42:52.978 --> 00:42:53.920
Well, it's hard not to.

00:42:53.920 --> 00:43:05.851
I mean genuinely, like if we sit here and we talk for 45 minutes or whatever, like one of us is going to say something that's wrong, like I don't care what anybody says.

00:43:05.851 --> 00:43:24.442
Like there's no way that we can create perfect sentences the whole time and not one of us says something that's not completely aligned with perfection, like yeah, 100 yeah so, yeah, we're gonna make some mistakes along the way, but god's big enough and he'll correct them.

00:43:24.842 --> 00:43:35.557
I truly believe that but yeah, yeah, or you just gracefully accept the consequences of your mistake and ask for well not to say that actions don't have consequences.

00:43:35.739 --> 00:43:38.226
He forgives, but stupid stuff.

00:43:38.226 --> 00:43:41.032
If you do something stupid, it'll get you.

00:43:41.032 --> 00:43:41.994
Yeah.

00:43:42.054 --> 00:43:43.599
Yeah, it's true.

00:43:43.599 --> 00:44:16.554
Yeah, I mean I was making a reel about that because of the so well, two of the pastors that I mentioned, bill Hybels and then Mike Bickle, both people that really their teachings impacted me, had, I mean, I don't know all the details, but had inappropriate relationships with women that were, you know, abusive and things like that, and neither of them kind of owned up to it and they kind of both just disappeared.

00:44:16.554 --> 00:44:30.844
And you know, carl Lentz just released his I don't know podcast series about the process he's been in three years the last three years, I think, of healing from his affair that he had.

00:44:30.844 --> 00:44:52.661
And you know, I mean there's so many questions I don't know the answer to in that, but I was just thankful that he kind of was saying, hey, I really did make huge mistakes, I am responsible for it, and he, he, I don't know, I just had none of the those other two guys.

00:44:54.143 --> 00:44:59.286
They never owned up to it, they never apologized, they never, you know, and it was.

00:44:59.286 --> 00:45:23.275
It was pretty devastating because I was like how, like, like I just think about all the years and their messages and how they impacted me and I just wanted them to say like, yeah, I, you know, I was human, I made terrible mistakes, um, and so it was so refreshing for carl to say like, yeah, I totally made mistakes and I'm trying to own them and I'm trying to heal.

00:45:23.275 --> 00:45:26.842
So I really appreciated that.

00:45:28.123 --> 00:45:34.893
Yeah, I interviewed twice now, if you know, tullian Chavijan.

00:45:34.893 --> 00:45:35.938
He's like the.

00:45:35.938 --> 00:45:46.518
He's like a big mega pastor guy that had like a similar fall situation and lost everything and did the whole, the whole bit.

00:45:46.518 --> 00:45:52.599
And his, his book, carnage and grace, is pretty incredible.

00:45:52.599 --> 00:46:38.793
If you want to give that a read because it really I I thought it was huge and I don't normally like plug books on this thing, but I was just like that's, that's a great book because genuinely like he'll, just it's his raw story and through it he just like highlights the grace of god like the whole time and it's it's him owning up to everything and that he's, you know, like he's not saying he's a good guy, he is a pastor now, which kind of is crazy to me of like you know, like he's not saying he's a good guy, he is a pastor now, which kind of is crazy to me of like you know, he lost everything and now he's a pastor and obviously people are going to have some things to say about that of like you know you shouldn't be leading a church because you did X, y and Z and whatever.

00:46:38.793 --> 00:46:46.865
But it really is just an incredibly cool look to like I don't know, I called it.

00:46:46.865 --> 00:46:51.815
I literally like talked to him and I was like that book was awesome, it was a banger, that sort of thing.

00:46:51.815 --> 00:46:55.920
And he was like, no, that was raw and it absolutely killed me to write.

00:46:55.920 --> 00:47:04.713
But thank you, sir, and it's a banger man, it's good, it's really good.

00:47:05.335 --> 00:47:11.411
If you need a book rec, I'm sure you've got thousands of book recommendations through everything that you're involved in.

00:47:11.411 --> 00:47:18.291
But I read this book in two days and I'm pretty slow reader and I I read it real quick because it's just like.

00:47:18.291 --> 00:47:25.288
It's a memoir of just like exactly what you're talking about, of just like and he was found out.

00:47:25.288 --> 00:47:35.311
So it's not like he like was able to gracefully do it, like he, he was found out and then just absolutely lost his whole life.

00:47:35.311 --> 00:47:42.112
But I, I will quit plugging that book for now, but if you'd like to, I'll delete this whole thing.

00:47:42.112 --> 00:47:47.007
But if you'd like to do carnage and grace though, like, if you'd like to, I'll delete this whole thing but if you'd like to do, carnage and grace.

00:47:47.530 --> 00:47:52.449
like if you'd like to read it's true, you don't, you, you really don't get away with anything.

00:47:52.449 --> 00:47:59.061
You have to, you have to face it all and, um, I think I've been, I've been grateful.

00:47:59.061 --> 00:48:07.563
I think it uh how God has led me through the areas where I needed healing and counseling.

00:48:07.563 --> 00:48:12.818
But yeah, I mean it's just.

00:48:12.838 --> 00:48:17.639
There's the old wife, by the way, she popped in that that's Reagan right there.

00:48:17.639 --> 00:48:20.576
Hey, Reagan, I didn't tell her about this.

00:48:20.576 --> 00:48:23.278
Dealing with the consequences of those actions right now.

00:48:28.610 --> 00:48:33.277
But I didn't tell her about this dealing with the consequences of those actions right now but yeah, I was.

00:48:33.277 --> 00:48:46.331
I've been so grateful, or maybe I've just I've been grateful for the role that vulnerability and community has had because, you know, I've definitely had to walk through healing and brokenness and addiction in my life.

00:48:46.331 --> 00:48:59.090
But I, and I think you know there I look back on those, the things that happened in my childhood and things like that, and it you really, it's true, you don't get away with anything.

00:48:59.090 --> 00:49:00.331
Your sin finds you out.

00:49:00.652 --> 00:49:12.905
It comes out in different ways and I think you know, probably 20 years ago, all these pastors, there wasn't that culture of vulnerability and counseling and dealing with your junk.

00:49:12.905 --> 00:49:32.474
And that's probably why a lot of these stories are coming out is because people, you know the Christian culture was be perfect, don't have any junk, you know, and that culture was be perfect, don't have any junk, you know, and that obviously we all have junk, and so you know it came out.

00:49:32.474 --> 00:49:42.597
And so I think the big move that's happening in Christianity it seems like counseling and realizing that we have to deal with those painful or traumatic events that happened in our childhood and things like that.

00:49:42.597 --> 00:49:56.702
That's going to be really good for leaders and Christians to have healthier families and churches where that kind of stuff can be found out and dealt with sooner rather than later.

00:49:56.702 --> 00:50:02.592
I mean hopefully, who knows, maybe it won't, maybe that's just always going to be the story, but I'm not sure.

00:50:04.496 --> 00:50:06.137
I hope not, but I'm not sure.

00:50:06.137 --> 00:50:06.398
I hope not.

00:50:06.398 --> 00:50:14.193
But we keep on going and it's easy to point fingers at that sort of thing and be like, oh, that guy did that.

00:50:14.193 --> 00:50:20.438
And then you realize that I lied today and did this and that and my sin sucks.

00:50:20.438 --> 00:50:24.737
It's like I can't and I know about my sin.

00:50:24.737 --> 00:50:32.664
So, even if it never comes out ever and I've just got like some secret little hideaway like you know, like you know about it, god knows about it.

00:50:32.664 --> 00:50:35.389
So it's like the same same situation.

00:50:35.389 --> 00:50:53.672
But, yeah, ended on a ended on a very, very, very high note over here about sin, a very, uh, very, very high note over here about sin.

00:50:53.672 --> 00:51:07.833
So that now at um, at like 50 ish minutes or so um, I I usually like to call it, but also like if you have anything that you want to share with our audience, like something you got that's going on or anything like that, I like give guests a space to just plug whatever they want.

00:51:08.155 --> 00:51:12.443
Hopefully it's good yeah, yeah, yeah, um.

00:51:12.443 --> 00:51:40.623
Well, I think I I'll just give a plug for for community, because I think anything or everything that was pretty powerful and transformative in my life in the last 12 years has come from being around a community that really provoked and challenged me and I could be open and vulnerable with and that had a need for my gifts.

00:51:40.623 --> 00:51:54.144
And so a lot of people today are looking for purpose, they're looking for meaning, and you find purpose and meaning by being of service to a community.

00:51:54.144 --> 00:52:08.072
So you've got to find that group of people that you feel like man, these are my ride or die crew, um, and then you've got to find what, what, the what the need is in their community and how you can contribute to that and how you can.

00:52:08.072 --> 00:52:09.836

Little Gardens of Eden | John Mark Dyer | Episode 58