Transcript
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Pull up a chair across the counter.
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Your one-stop shop for a variety of perspectives around Jesus and Christianity.
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I'm Grant Lockridge and I'm here with Shane Pruitt.
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Shane is the National Next Gen Director for NAMM.
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And Shane, what you been learning recently, where you been, what you been up to.
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Yeah well, grant.
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First of all, man, it's a joy to be back on.
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Man, thanks for having me.
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You said, man, this is my second time back on, so I'm glad that, man, you enjoyed the conversation enough to invite me back or you felt sorry for me.
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You know you're like man, that first conversation bomb, so I'm gonna give you another shot.
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Gotta give him a second chance.
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Yeah, thanks for having me back on.
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And yeah, man, just some things.
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I've been excited about man Gosh a lot.
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I think God's up to some cool stuff.
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You know I wrote a Bible study with Lifeway called Revival Generation.
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Just been blown away by the response to that, how God used that, moved through that, through college ministries and student ministries across the nation.
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So man just been really intrigued by man just awakening just more than anything, chasing after the Lord, being serious about the calling on our life to know Him, to make Him known.
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And it's been a journey of learning man, what real spiritual warfare is.
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You know, I would say it's a journey, learning that of course warfare means war, so it's not always easy, but at least like learning, knowing God's with us, he's victorious, we're victorious in him.
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And then man just being honest and transparent, my wife and I we're still in our kiddos, are still in a journey of grieving.
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You know, last summer our son, our 10 year oldold son, titus, went to be with the Lord.
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It hasn't been a full year yet, so we're still in a season of firsts First Christmas without him, first Easter without him, first Mother's Day Father's Day is coming around the corner at the time of this recording so that first man still learning a lot of firsts of what our new normal looks like without our son Titus.
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Yeah, but that seems super hard, man.
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Glad that you know you're getting through that and actually processing it is super huge and not just being like, ah, you know, nothing happened, Everything's fine kind of thing.
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I love the honesty of you know, not painting on a smile and being like, yeah, everything's fine.
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So I appreciate you being vulnerable with us.
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For sure, man, for sure, and yeah, what have you?
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So you're a speaker, you speak all throughout, you know everything.
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What kind of the topics?
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You said obviously it's young adults, but what are some of the topics you've been hitting up recently?
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Yeah, man, you know, kind of the crowds I've been in so far this year is, you know, still a lot of young people, so teenagers.
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Obviously I'm kind of a foot in both worlds youth ministry and collegiate ministry, young adult ministry so I've been doing a lot with students and getting to preach God's word to them, but also college students and young adults.
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So that's kind of been this man, just awesome group of people and representation of the church I've gotten to spend time with.
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But also, man, been with a lot of leaders, whether that's lead pastors or ministry leaders or collegiate leaders or youth leaders.
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A lot of equipping of leaders and man.
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I know social media seems negative a lot of times but man, I think God's up to something good.
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I try not to throw around the words awakening or revival or movement of God too loosely.
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All I know is God's up to something.
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I don't know what to call it.
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Besides, god's moving and I just want to be a part of it and I definitely don't want to get in the way of it.
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I think, as culture continues to shift, I think young people are.
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It's actually making young people more intrigued of the church and definitely more intrigued of truth.
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I feel like young people are on a truth journey, because what I've seen in a lot of young people, especially teenagers and young adults, is they don't really trust cultural narratives Grant.
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So in a weird way, I feel like the more that culture says hey, stay away from Jesus Jesus bad, stay away from the church Church bad, stay away from the Bible Bible bad and you got a whole generation that doesn't trust cultural narratives.
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So the more that is the cultural narrative stay away from Jesus, the Bible and the church it's almost more intriguing to young people and makes them more curious going.
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Hmm, maybe I should check that out.
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You know what I mean.
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What are they trying to keep me from?
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So I feel like me personally, what I've seen, I know quote unquote the experts have statistics and data that says otherwise.
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So maybe you could just say it's your personal experience.
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But in my personal experience I'm seeing a lot of people that are very open to the gospel.
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They're very intrigued by spiritual things.
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They're definitely searching.
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They're searching for hope and answers and truth and I believe, as the church, we have the answer His name's Jesus.
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I believe we have hope.
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His name's Jesus.
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I believe we have truth.
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His name's Jesus.
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And so I think if the church would just stay, you know, focused on the gospel and Jesus, and we keep the main thing, the main thing, not get distracted by all the things around us, and we get to slide in those conversations and say, hey, the hope, you're looking for the truth, you're looking for the answers you're looking for, you're actually looking for someone.
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Let me tell you about who that someone is, and I found, if we stick to that man, I feel young people are responding in a major way, and I think leaders are very intrigued about reaching the next generation.
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I think they look at college campuses and maybe you know schools and they're very concerned about the next generation.
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And so I've been really encouraging adults to go hey, instead of complaining about a generation, start praying for a generation.
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Instead of criticizing a generation, share the gospel with the generation.
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Instead of belittling a generation, build a relationship with the generation, and I feel like there's a lot of adults that are very interested in that.
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So I think it's exciting man, I'm pumped, I'm excited, I'm an optimist, I believe God's up to something good and I know for sure God's on his throne.
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So we just ton of high schoolers or whatever, but I do know that a lot of them actively like leave the church, but they're still craving that truth of the gospel, absolutely.
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You know they're trying to find it and that's part of the reason why I feel like social media is absolutely blown up with like gospel messages.
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Whether or not you know they're completely you know good or not is a different question, but at least the gospel is kind of getting out there and stuff and they're all just like hungry for that, I think, and that's really, really cool, that's a cool place to be.
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So I definitely agree with you on that one.
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Yeah, that's really really cool, that's a cool place to be.
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So I definitely agree on that one?
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Yeah, no doubt, grant.
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You know what's interesting you bring up.
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Social media is like man, I get a lot of comments from teenagers and young adults.
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They go hey, I follow you on social media and they'll say things like this like you expect adults to say this and you really expect older adults, but it's more young people going hey, thank you for your boldness, thank you for standing on truth, thank you for not wavering to cultural pressures.
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And this is coming from young people that almost there.
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I think there's a group of young people that are looking for, like, even Christian leaders, to take a bold stand.
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Now, I don't mean be overbearing even Christian leaders to take a bold stand.
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Now, I don't mean be overbearing, I don't mean be a jerk, but to actually take a bold stand.
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Because I think young people are watching and I think they're even weary of some of our quote-unquote Christian leaders who have begun to waffle on some things.
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They've become to get squishy on some certain things or they're so vague you don't really know what they believe on certain things.
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So I think when there's men and women who love Jesus and they're taking a bold stand in a kind way but still very direct and a confident way.
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I think that's also very intriguing to people, and so, man, I probably get that comment more than anything where people will go.
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Hey, shane, I appreciate your boldness on social media, I appreciate your conviction and that's coming from young people.
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But what's interesting, grant, is like I've been doing ministry for 20 years.
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I don't feel like I'm saying anything different than I've said the last 20 years.
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So I feel like culture has definitely shifted, but I haven't.
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So it seems more bold.
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It seems more radical, but I haven't.
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So it seems more bold.
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It seems more radical, but I haven't been saying anything different recently than I've said the last 20 years.
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I think there's just a group of young people that are searching for that, and they're not finding a lot of Christian leaders that are doing that.
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So you hold that.
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You would be like, hey, this is you know.
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Somebody would comment on and be like, hey, this is being bold in today's day and age.
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Yeah, I think, being very clear that the Bible is authoritative.
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I think there has been a shift.
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In fact, man, I'm really excited about a project that will come out next year in partnership with my good friends at Lifeway another Bible study, and really the Bible study is just on who Jesus of the Bible is versus who culture says that Jesus is.
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Because here is the shift I think that's taken place with Young People, grant, is that there was a day, say 15 years ago, where in culture people would say this hey, you can talk about God, because most people believe in God, just don't talk about Jesus, because that's what weirds everybody out, because then people are going to go oh, they're a Jesus freak.
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You know, they're odd for God, they're all in, they're really taking it too seriously.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, so you can do.
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You can talk about God, just don't talk about Jesus.
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But what's interesting, grant, is I feel like culture has actually shifted in the recent years to really you can talk about Jesus, you just can't talk about the Bible, because most people don't have a problem with Jesus.
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They have a problem with the Bible, with Jesus.
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They have a problem with the Bible.
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But here's the reason why is that often in culture, when people are talking about Jesus, they're talking about a Jesus often shaped by their own opinions or their own preferences or their own tolerances, and they're not talking about the Jesus of the word of God.
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So here is the shift is often when you're talking to people and you go, hey, are you a follower of Jesus?
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And they go, yeah, I think used to.
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You could just go oh sweet, we're brothers and sisters in Christ.
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And you leave it at that.
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But really I found you got to dig a little deeper, because often the more people talk about their Jesus, the less and less that Jesus sounds like the Jesus of the Bible.
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Because what we've done in culture is whatever your thing is or whatever you're passionate about or whatever your agenda is, Jesus has almost become the hero of that movement.
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But the problem is, is it's a Jesus shaped by preferences, opinions and tolerances?
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Now here's what's interesting I don't mean this for shock value, but I see it is that if the Jesus whom you follow, the Jesus whom you worship, the Jesus whom you raise your hands to, the Jesus whom you give to, the Jesus whom you serve, or even the Jesus whom you tell others about, if that Jesus is a Jesus that's shaped by your preferences and opinions and it's not the Jesus of the Bible, then all you've done is create an idol named Jesus, and there's no power in idols.
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See, we don't shape Jesus, jesus shapes us.
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Jesus doesn't need to change.
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We need to change Our opinions about.
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Jesus does not change who he is.
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He's the same yesterday, today and forever.
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However, our faith in the real Jesus will absolutely change who we are, and so I think that's where there's got to be a shift to where people go.
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I'm a follower of Jesus.
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Well, is it a Jesus that you've created by your own opinions, or is it the Jesus of the Word of God?
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Because that's two different people.
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And the Jesus of the Word of God, that's the one who saves, that's the one who gives eternal life, that's the one who transforms life, that's the one who gives hope and joy and peace and love.
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Let's meet the real Jesus of the Bible.
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So I feel like, if there's got to be a focus on us in the church is really reintroducing the real Jesus of the scriptures, because I think a lot of people have been clouded in their judgment or clouded in who Jesus is, because they've allowed culture to shape who Jesus is, instead of diving into the scriptures and letting the scriptures tell us who Jesus is.
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So that's one of the big things let's meet the Jesus of the Bible.
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I think an other area where we can be really bold and really be countercultural is still in the areas of sexuality and gender, because I think there's still a generation extremely confused about that, because we also got to remember culture disciples, culture preaches, sermons, culture also has evangelists.
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They just have a bad message.
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So when culture is screaming about these things but the church largely remains silent, then a whole generation only hears one worldview and they start believing things.
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And then us adults, we get really mad and we get really bent out of shape going.
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Well, how did teenagers believe that?
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Or why did college students believe that?
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Well, we get really mad and we get really bent out of shape going.
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Well, how do teenagers believe that?
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Or why do college students believe that?
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Well, we haven't been a part of the conversation as adults, and so what we need to do is we need to speak where the Bible speaks and we need to reenter those conversations, but not reenter with our opinions or reenter with our politics.
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Let's reenter with the scriptures and speak where the Bible speaks and the Bible speaks on this.
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In fact, there's a young lady that serves on our team and she's in her mid-twenties and somebody asked her recently hey, in a young person's view, when should the church stop talking about biblical sexuality?
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She goes when the world stops talking about the false biblical sexuality and the world's never going to stop talking about it.
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Therefore, we can't stop talking about it.
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So I feel like when young people see, okay, hey, this person's not a jerk, they're not overbearing, but they are boldly and convictionally sharing the truth of God's word and what the word says about holy sexuality and biblical sexuality, I think that's real attractive to young people because we got to remember, if they're in the schools or if they're on university campuses, they're on the front lines of this and so they're looking for some handles to be able to carry their beliefs, their worldview, their doctrine, their theology into the front lines with.
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And when we've largely remained silent or we haven't equipped them or we haven't discipled them, then we're just kind of leaving them to fend for themselves, and that's not fair.
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I think if the church doesn't start speaking up in a bold, convictional but kind way, then we're going to owe a whole generation an apology, because we're just leaving them to fend for themselves, because there is a movement and culture that is trying to be imposed and forced on a generation, so we need to give them some truth to counteract that with you know.
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Yeah.
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So how do you?
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How do you distinguish?
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Because I mean, yes, a lot of people are very much like, yes, we should do what the Bible says, but many different people interpret it different ways.
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And there are people on the other side of sexuality and they're like, hey, this is what the Bible says, mm, hmm, you kind of reconcile that situation.
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Yeah, yeah, no, I love it.
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I think one thing we do is, when we're talking about, especially in the areas of sexuality, sex and gender, we should bathe that conversation with Scripture, because we have to realize, as adults, when we're talking to young people, we do have a barrier to cross, because there's been a group of young people who were intentionally discipled by culture to say to believe this that the moment a Christian starts talking about life when does life begin?
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When does life begin?
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Marriage, what is sex, gender?
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There's been a whole generation that's been intentionally discipled by culture to believe those are political issues, those are political statements.
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So the moment a Christian starts talking about that, then you can easily go oh, that Christian's political or that Christian's being too political, and what we need to do is to go, hey, we got to bathe these conversations with scripture, because if we're just sharing our thoughts and not sharing scripture, then it's easy for young people to go well, that's just your opinion or that's just your truth.
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And then we go, no, no, no, no.
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There is an authoritative truth, which is the word of God.
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Here's what the word of God says.
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It's not my opinion, because, at the end of the day, my opinion doesn't matter.
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Here's what the eternal living word of God says.
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All right, so this is where we go.
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We base everything on scripture.
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I still believe everything we know about God comes from the word of God.
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So people go no, no, no, we can learn about God through nature.
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Well, the only way we know that is because Romans tells us that God has chosen to primarily reveal himself through his word, through the scriptures.
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So when people go well, I mean, I worship God, and me and God have an understanding, and this is what me and God believe.
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It doesn't matter what the Bible says.
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Again, you're making that up.
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That's your opinion.
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You're forming God in your image instead of being formed in his image.
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So we go back to the authority, which is scripture.
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Here's what scripture says.
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When people go well, hey, you know.
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Well, this is, you know.
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Oh, this is for this time, or this is what was said.
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But Jesus never said that.
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Here's what I just say lovingly.
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Give me one verse, Give me just one.
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All I need is one verse that affirms or celebrates homosexuality.
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Give me one verse that affirms or celebrates transgender.
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Just give me one verse.
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I mean there's 66,000, and, depending on what translation, you have more than that thousands of verses.
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Just give me one that affirms and celebrates bisexuality or pansexuality, and there's not.
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You can't come up with any.
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But I can give a lot of verses that talk about what biblical marriage is.
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So, at the end of the day, when we talk about life, when we talk about marriage, when we talk about sexuality, those were biblical truths before they were ever political statements.
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So actually right to life.
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When does life begin?
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That's a biblical truth.
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What is marriage?
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That's a biblical truth.
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Gender and sexuality that's a biblical truth.
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So, really, the world is infringing on the Word's territory and not vice versa.
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So speak where the Bible speaks and the Bible speaks.
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Now, here's the deal.
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Nowhere in the Bible does it give us a right to be a jerk for Jesus either.
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So you can't be a jerk for Jesus.
00:20:05.786 --> 00:20:11.327
Be kind, be loving, but also be truthful and bold and convictional.
00:20:12.757 --> 00:20:16.246
Yeah, that's definitely a good way to put it.
00:20:16.246 --> 00:20:22.627
So I don't disagree, but I'm kind of on team.
00:20:22.627 --> 00:20:24.320
You know, there is the Bible.
00:20:24.320 --> 00:20:27.174
I believe the bible is authoritative.
00:20:27.174 --> 00:20:30.721
Um, all that jazz, it's just the I.
00:20:30.721 --> 00:20:36.160
I definitely think that there is some spirit in there which I know you would agree with.
00:20:36.160 --> 00:20:48.729
I didn't want to, I didn't want to leave that out because it sounded like you were like scriptures, you know it isitative, but I wanted to hear you say you know the spirit aspect as well, so maybe yeah, grant.
00:20:50.236 --> 00:20:51.521
And absolutely, man.
00:20:51.521 --> 00:21:04.174
I'm glad you said that and we can nuance that even a little more, because I'll even say this, right, you know, because we always hear people go hey, well, they, you know, they read the Bible or they memorize the Bible, or they believe the Bible.
00:21:04.174 --> 00:21:06.103
I don't know why they live this certain way.
00:21:06.103 --> 00:21:24.624
Well, listen, here's what I always tell people you can read the Bible, you can memorize the Bible, you can quote the Bible, but unless you have the author of the Bible living inside of you, you'll never truly fully understand the word of God, you'll never truly live out the word of God the way that God's called.
00:21:24.624 --> 00:21:29.434
So it's spirit and in truth, even Jesus talked about that in John 4, right, spirit and truth.
00:21:29.434 --> 00:21:31.140
So I would say this who is the?
00:21:31.339 --> 00:21:36.398
According to the scriptures itself, the ultimate author of the Bible is God himself.
00:21:36.398 --> 00:21:46.261
But even nuance that some, the ultimate author of the Bible in the triune of God, god, the father, god, the son, god, the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit of God.
00:21:46.261 --> 00:22:07.807
And so I believe, to truly understand the word of God for what it was meant to be, you have to have the author of the word of God, the Holy Spirit of the word of God inside of you, growing you, illuminating those scriptures, giving you the power to understand, giving you the power to live it out, to truly be able to understand the word of God the way it's meant to be word of God.
00:22:07.807 --> 00:22:15.239
So I truly believe that you have to have the Holy Spirit to truly understand the scriptures and truly live them out.
00:22:16.262 --> 00:22:18.440
Yeah, which I knew.
00:22:18.440 --> 00:22:21.542
You thought that I just wanted to kind of put that out there.
00:22:21.542 --> 00:22:35.308
Yeah, definitely to kind of put that out there, because there's a such thing as, obviously, like biblical scholars, that don't give a rip about living it out, they're just actually studying the text.
00:22:38.881 --> 00:22:41.286
Yeah, that reminds me of an old Leonard Ravenhill quote.
00:22:41.286 --> 00:22:50.625
He says if we're not careful and we only err on truth without love and the spirit, then we become those with swollen heads and shrunken hearts.
00:22:50.625 --> 00:22:53.938
Oh man, yeah, so I love that, yep.
00:22:53.958 --> 00:22:55.480
Oh yeah, that's very solid.
00:22:55.480 --> 00:23:09.563
But there's also the other way, too, of being like I'm going to live out the gospel and then being like you know, not read a lick of scripture and then just hanging out and being like this is what Jesus would do, I could feel in my spirit, whatever.
00:23:10.265 --> 00:23:18.135
And then, you know, I think I think my favorite one in that when I say favorite I really mean this favorite is when people go.
00:23:18.135 --> 00:23:22.065
Well, me and God have an understanding like the scriptures.
00:23:22.065 --> 00:23:27.136
That's the understanding living out, you know immediate through the power of the Holy Spirit.
00:23:27.136 --> 00:23:28.017
That's the understanding.
00:23:28.017 --> 00:23:37.702
And I would say this the Holy Spirit is not going to lead you to do something that is contrary to the Holy Bible.
00:23:37.702 --> 00:23:42.807
So the Holy Spirit is never going to lead you to do something that contradicts the Holy Bible.
00:23:42.826 --> 00:23:45.008
You to do something that contradicts the Holy Bible.
00:23:45.008 --> 00:23:47.190
Yeah, facts, that is 100% true.
00:23:47.190 --> 00:23:52.232
And I love the idea of, like you know, the Holy Spirit illuminating the scriptures.
00:23:52.232 --> 00:24:01.778
To you it's super big because if you just kind of read the Bible there's a lot of weird paradoxical stuff, at least to me.
00:24:01.778 --> 00:24:11.526
When you know, on my read through last year it was just like, okay, this is completely contradictory to this other thing, right.
00:24:11.526 --> 00:24:19.486
But you know, you hit that right and I get why people say you know the Bible contradicts itself.
00:24:20.056 --> 00:24:21.402
The Bible isn't inerrant.
00:24:21.402 --> 00:24:23.321
I get why you would get that.
