So, You Want To Go Into Ministry?

I would say if the authorities didn't want us involved in the public square, they ought not to have crucified

Jesus in the public square. Use humanistic principles. It's the same idea. I would say that. Same answer.

I would say, what's the problem with stardust bumping into stardust? In the cosmic picture, none.

There's no problem. In the cosmic picture, it won't matter. No, Mr.

President. You are not protecting reproductive freedom. You are authorizing the destruction of freedom for one million little human beings every year.

I'm sorry, my friends, but I am tired of seeing Jesus presented as a weak beggar.

He is a powerful savior. And the gospel is not a suggestion.

It is a command. Reverend Mueller, don't you sympathize with that?

I sympathize with every single human heart wishing to know the one true and living God. But I believe there's only one way that that can happen through Jesus Christ, and the gospel is about repenting of sin, not celebrating it.

You're on the threshold of an amazing adventure. We will explore the spiritual abyss.

You have not experienced this before. You're gonna love it.

Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching.

2 Timothy 4 to y 'all. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio.

This is the gospel heard around the world. That's Luke the Bear. What up? I'm Jeff, the commenter ninja. That's Joy, the girl.

Hello. You can get more at ApologiaStudios .com, A -P -O -L -O -G -I -A, studios .com.

Go there, get all the past episodes, Apologia Radio, Provoked, Sheologians, Cultish, it's all there. And sign up for all access when you do.

You partner with us in all this ministry. So if you've seen our online content, the stuff on our platforms where we are out on the streets engaging, bringing the gospel to the streets in the public square, public debates, the online teaching ministry, it's all made possible because partners just like you do this ministry with us.

And so sign up for all access. You get all kinds of nifty -gifties too, all kinds of extra stuff, Apologia TV, Apologia Academy.

You get Ask Me Anything. It's a once a month live stream with all of our partners and friends, and that takes place once a month.

Ask Me Anything. You guys can log in, ask questions. We get to hang out with each other. It's a great time, and we have more coming over the next month or so.

We have the Academy. It's the Apologia Academy reboots, kind of like a masterclass situation.

Really excited about that. The Academy is coming. We also have Collision, a new series where we are teaching you to engage with the culture, using apologetics, engaging with popular cultural platform stuff, whether it is gay mirage stuff, whether it is the gender bending, whether it is anything.

It's on TikTok or wherever we're going to engage with it. It's called Collision, and we have more coming. Be looking forward to that.

Sign up for all access today. Also, don't forget to get your Bonson U free, free, free account at apologiastudios .com.

It is Dr. Greg Bonson, one of the greatest philosophers and Christian apologists in the history of the Christian church.

We have his entire library, all of his teaching from church and seminary that was recorded. We got it all, and it's all going up at apologiastudios .com.

Don't forget to do that. I am going to be we. We are going to be in Kentucky.

Kentucky. Kentucky at the Creation Museum in Kentucky next Wednesday.

That is January 25th at 11 a .m. So if you are a pastor, if you are a pastor in the state of Kentucky, we have a bill of equal protection and abolition going into the state of Kentucky.

It's going in. And so right now we have a meeting, a special meeting for pastors across the state of Kentucky. Come join us.

Thank you to Answers in Genesis, Ken Ham, the Creation Museum for opening up to us and to give us this spot to have this special meeting to get together, to pray together, to get you equipped as a pastor and your churches equipped for this bill that will equally protect all humans from fertilization in the state of Kentucky.

It's happening now. We're flying out. We're going to be there. It's free for pastors. The Creation Museum has graciously agreed to give your families, because if you're driving across the state of Kentucky, they have graciously agreed to give your families a half off the admission so they can hang out at the

Creation Museum all day. And that is what is up. We're also feeding you. So if you're a pastor, we're taking care of your food.

We're going to feed you lunch. We have Bradley Pierce, our constitutional attorney, Brian Gunter, our pastor from Louisiana that helped with the bill in Louisiana, myself,

Pastor Luke, Dennis Sarfate, Abolish Abortion Kentucky. We also have, depending on how things go, he's had some dental work and I also just did too.

My mouth's hurting. Ken Hamm is scheduled to squeak. He's scheduled to squeak, to speak, but if it doesn't go well because of his dental work, it may not work out.

But we're going to be there. So January 25th, 11 a .m., we have bills going across the country. Go to endabortionnow .com

to give there, to be a part of this amazing work. We have at least 10 states this year that we're working in for these bills.

That is unprecedented. That has not happened before. It is a huge gift from God. So pray for the work. Be a part of the work.

If you're in Kentucky, come and say hi. Come hang out with us. Come pray with us.

Be a part of this amazing, amazing thing that God is doing right now. So that's really it.

You wanted to mention... Yeah, I just wanted to quick mention our sponsors, Armored Republic and New St.

Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and also these headphones keep going in and out.

It's driving me crazy. There we go. So if you see me fiddling with the headphones, it's because they're going in and out. Right now,

I got one ear. So we love them. We're grateful for them. And we're thankful to be sponsoring or partnering with them in ministry.

NSA .edu. Go to school, y 'all. And Armored Republic is...

AR500Armor .com. There you go. There you go. Hey, if you guys are watching live right now, Super Chats. Super Chats.

Super Chats. If you do a Super Chat, we'll try to get to your... We'll try to prioritize Super Chats and answer questions.

So we have so many topics we want to do this year on Apologia Radio. But Joy was very passionate about doing an episode and she wanted to sort of run it.

And so we're going to... The title of the show today is, So You Want to Go into Ministry? So You Want to Go into Ministry?

It's broader than that. And I'm going to just say, it's just a title. We don't have a lot of space. You can't do like long, crazy extended titles on YouTube.

They don't even like that. So You Want to Go into Ministry? Everybody's in ministry. If you're a believer in Christ, you're in ministry.

You're ministering to your family, you're ministering to your neighbors, your friends, you're in ministry. Congratulations. You already did it.

Yeah. So You Want to Go into Ministry? Hey, you're welcome. You're there. No. This is much broader.

It's bigger. It's more specific. And so we're going to hand this over to Joy the Girl right now for her episode. Yeah. Well, we've been getting this...

It seems there's been a surge of this question being asked. How do I do what you guys do?

And obviously we have... There's a lot that goes on around here.

You could say that. So we're going to kind of... We're going to be focusing on Apologia Radio a little bit more.

So like a media ministry type thing. But obviously there's going to be crossover between Apologia Church and Abortion Now, I would assume.

Obviously planning a church is different than starting an evangelism ministry. But obviously sometimes they're also the same thing.

So... Or one leads to the other. Yeah. So we're just going to... I have a bunch of questions and we're just going to kind of see.

And we haven't really... I don't even know. I was trying to think of when the last time we really discussed on the show kind of the beginnings and how things started and what that looked like.

Yeah. You're one of the few people that know that. So... How have we ever actually... Yeah. And I don't... I would imagine if we have, it was probably like a laughably long time ago to the point where we have much revising to do.

Yes. But... So yeah, I just kind of came up with some questions. I'm going to try to just...

It's going to be relaxed, fun. But the hope is that it's encouraging and maybe a little bit of a kick in the pants if that's what you need, or encouraging if that's what you need, or both.

Okay. So, well, I was just going to say, just to kind of contrast maybe where we are now, what a lot of people might think of the ministry, we should probably kind of talk about what things were like in the beginning.

And so, I don't know. My question to both of you is just kind of where were you guys at before...

And again, this Apology of Church and Apology of Radio are a little interconnected, especially in the beginning days.

But what were you guys doing when this all kind of came about and happened?

So, I was pastoring at a church in...

It's like Abatuki. It's technically Phoenix, but Abatuki. And basically a

Reformed Baptist church serving there. And I met

Luke... I think we actually officially shook hands and met probably at youth group. You were in the youth group.

Yeah. Well, I was... I was 18 when I met Luke and his wife,

Cheryl. Serving in youth. Yeah. So, I was serving. But you were... At one point, you were like the college -age pastor, so I was going to your group too.

Yes. That's right. Yeah. And I always remember the time you were making fun of me and doing skits about me behind my back.

I ran in... I happened to pass by a doorway when her and her friend were making videos in the conference room, and they were being me.

And I saw the crack in the door. I see them in there. I've never heard this story. And they were like... They pulled their shirt open.

They had hair drawn on their chest. Oh, that was a... Yeah. They were like... Is that Jessica? Yeah. What are you doing? What are you doing?

I was like, are they trying to be me? I've never heard this story. I feel like I'd maybe do you a little more justice now.

Yeah. Yeah. I hadn't known you for all that long. Yeah. Yeah. Your perception of me was the guy with the shirt.

I don't know if I'd instantly go with chest hair now. No. I don't even know how that happened. So I was pastoring there, serving in ministry there.

And the first time I saw Luke was I was in worship, Sunday worship.

And they had the worship band up. I think it was from the youth group. It was the youth group worship band was up on the stage running worship, the singing for that day.

And this ginormous man is up there wearing shorts, no shoes. So he's barefoot on the stage.

No pun intended. Yeah. And he had this ginormous beard, gauges tatted up.

And I was just like, he's got this big old bass guitar. And I remember I was sitting next to Candy. I was like, what is this craziness?

And I was like, it's clearly the youth group ministry, right? Like this big dude, barefoot on the stage.

And I remember I said to her, I said, that dude looks like a bear playing a guitar. And that's where the nickname bear came from.

That came from me. From that very first moment. Came from me seeing him. He literally looks like a bear. Like a bear playing a bass guitar.

It was like something like in the Disney Resort. A bunch of puppets and a big bear. Like a

Chuck E. Cheese animatronic. Like in Splash Mountain. I don't know.

Is all that stuff there? It wasn't that deemed racist or something? It's still there. If they tear down Splash Mountain, I'm going to hurt somebody.

Oh, I hate Splash Mountain. I hate getting wet and walking around all day at Disney wet. My family's always like, you need to get on this ride with us.

I'm like, I'm not. It's nine o 'clock in the morning. I'm not going to walk around soaked until tonight. They were like, you're not going to be soaked all day.

Yes, you will. But it's not just any water, Jeff. Do you sit in the front? Yeah, Disney water. Do you sit in the front?

Everyone said, if you sit here, you won't get wet. I did it one time. I sat where they told me to sit and I got soaked.

It ruined the whole experience. I was grouchy all day. It's just no good. Anyway, that's where I met

Luke. We connected really closely in the youth ministry. Pastor Scott at the time started asking me to do more work in the youth ministry.

We got very close. Our wives got very close. We spent many, many an hour at my house watching.

The blossoming of our friendship was when we discovered we laughed about the same things. We were interested in the same things.

It was like watching Flight of the Conchords. Hours of Flight of the Conchords as these young couples.

They didn't have a child yet. It was just Candy and I that had small kids. We were just up until the late hours of the night watching

Flight of the Conchords. We started to get more involved in the youth ministry. Then some tough times hit that church.

They lost their founding pastor. Two of the other elders and pastors went off to take positions in other churches on the other side of the country.

The church came to me and said, You've got to help and rescue this hurting church. You're it.

Then I was sort of the catch -all. I was the teaching pastor for Sunday. I was the youth pastor. I was a family pastor, counseling.

I was taking on everything. Somewhere in there, and I'll just try to skip over a lot of stuff.

Somewhere in there, I'll skip over a lot of stuff. Basically, someone there told me, Hey, there's this hospital downtown.

It's a drug rehab. We lost our chaplain. Can you take over chapel for tonight?

I was like, wait, what? It's a hospital. It's like a 24 -hour hospital detox, and we don't have a chaplain for tonight.

They have a Christian program. I was like, you mean I can preach the gospel to a room of people that can't leave? Yeah, I'll do it.

I went that night and preached the gospel. A bunch of people came to Christ that night. I was like, man, what is this?

I was like, is this happening all the time? He's like, yeah, it's constant. They come in every day.

I was like, wow. Basically, they asked me to take over the role as the head chaplain, the full -time chaplain there, while I was pastoring at this church in Ahwatukee.

What it really ended up being was we were kind of nursing this hurting church back to health again.

Pastor Luke and I were kind of doing everything in terms of youth ministry.

You also had, at that time, you had Apology of Christian Ministries, which was your Mormon and cults evangelism ministry.

I'm kind of skipping over a lot of stuff. It's a lot to condense. That's a good point. That probably needs to be brought in.

Luke and I were both very passionate about apologetics and reaching the cults. That was also something we had strongly in common.

He was invested in that back home. He saw that I was heavily invested in that. We put it before the Lord. The Lord pulled some things off in our lives to make it clear that the

Lord was calling us to do this. We started Apology of Christian Ministries as an outreach and apologetics

Christian organization. All the while, we're juggling church, youth ministry, the hospital, and all that stuff.

We were juggling a lot of things. I almost said a lot of plates, but you don't juggle plates. If I go to YouTube, I'll find someone juggling plates.

Spin plates. Again, I'm skipping over a lot of stuff here. Basically, it became very clear in a number of ways that the

Lord was calling us to plant Apology of Church. I want to say I had zero. This is probably going to come into play a lot with what you asked today.

I had zero. I mean this. Zero plans never crossed my mind.

It was never a part of my thinking. I was like, maybe this will happen one day. I had zero intention of ever planting a church.

None. I just wanted to serve with other pastors and serve God's people and teach and preach and all that. I had no intention of planting a church.

When the suggestion was first made, my response was absolutely never, no way, no how.

Luke was the same. It was like, no. That's not what we're doing. We're going to shepherd these people, love these people, do the hospital.

We're going to do Apology of Christian Ministries. That's it. After a period of time, the Lord started making it more and more clear, you're doing this.

It was through the circumstances, through God's people speaking to me and to us about it. Then we started to take it seriously when

I had pastors and seminary professors telling me you're supposed to plant this church. One day, he called me up while I was praying,

Lord, what do you want me to do? He told me, Jeff, if you don't plant this church, you're sinning against God. I respect him and trust him.

He knew me and knew the ministry, knew my gifts and my capabilities. I took it seriously and started praying,

Lord, we'll open our hearts to this now. Luke and I, for a period of, I don't even know, Luke, what was it, like six months or a year?

I have no concept of the time. Lord, if you want this, you have to do it because we are not doing it.

This is not going to be of us, built by us. If you want this, you've got to build this house.

He started making it more and more clear in a number of ways. I'm going to skip a lot of stuff. There was a lot of miraculous answers to prayers and some stuff that was very difficult to deal with where the

Lord was shoving us out. We started putting things before the Lord. Okay, Lord, we're there.

If you want us to do it, you have to do this. We would get the answer. Then we'd ask again for something else.

It got to the point where it was like, okay, we might be offending God here. We keep asking. He keeps answering. We finally got to a last one.

It was, Lord, you want us to do this? We need a place to care for these people who are coming out of the hospital. We can't pay anything.

He can't feed his family. I can't feed my family. How are we going to plan a church when we literally have no financial...

You guys both had full -time jobs that were not... I mean, you were a chaplain.

The hospital was... You were pastoring, but you had full -time jobs where you were not the pastors of churches.

No, and we're making peanuts. I'm making peanuts at the hospital. Really, it's offensive what they paid me.

It's offensive. Considering how much it cost to send someone to a rehab. It's offensive what they paid me because it was hurtful and hard to survive.

Luke, same thing. He's serving full -time ministry with the church and everything we were doing.

I had been laid off twice. I was in the construction industry between 2008 and 2010.

It was awful here. Remember when you traveled? Yeah, that was before I got laid off the first time.

I was just literally doing nothing. I know that Luke will want to talk about this too.

Something to be said to men who desire vocational ministry. You have to sort of...

The position of vocational ministry, it's faithfulness that should land you there, not you vying for the position.

Those are men that always terrify us. Men who want the position or trying to get the position, you know what

I mean? Those guys scare us because if you are truly called to ministry, and he's doing it in you, it should be obvious to everybody because, oh, it is the case that he's all these things.

You're doing the work of ministry. You're caring for people. You're sacrificing all those things.

I almost feel like it should be so organic you fall into it where everyone around you goes, right? Go. You're supposed to stand there, sir.

It's so obvious that the Lord is using you in that way. With guys that want to go into vocational ministry, they want to be a pastor, they want to lead others,

I'm terrified of the guys that want that position. I want to lead others. It's like, no, you should be a leader and God's using you and everybody around you just goes, yeah, that's obvious.

Please stand there, sir. Men who are just like, I want to just go right into ministry and start getting paid and just only do this.

It's like, yeah, that scares me and you kind of need to hurt a little bit and show that you're doing this with the right motivations.

With Luke, I'm busy around the clock.

What I have in front of me are the hospital, the people we need to care for, and then the church. All I'm seeing, Luke is sort of managing all of that and what's coming from that and he is busting his butt finding jobs to feed his family.

You're talking from sunrise to sunset. It's total investment in the lives of other people and caring for your family.

It's like, where can I get a job? How can I make this work? It hurt. It wasn't comfortable. It was not comfortable.

I'll let you speak to that. Yeah, I appreciate that. What was the original question?

It was just kind of like a recap of where you guys were before. Yeah, because there's so many things

I want to say but I don't want to get us off track from the direction you want to go. First thing

I want to say is just like we always say this all the time but you should have an internal and external call.

A lot of times we'll get people that are like, I want to start this ministry or I want to do full -time ministry and it's like, okay, cool.

That's the inward call. Do you have an external call? Do you have someone that's an authority over you that you're accountable to saying, yeah, like you were saying.

You should have pastors that say, yeah, you're fit for this. This is a good spot for you.

Because too many guys just want to like, they just want to do their own thing and they have no accountability. There's no one in authority over them and then you become lone wolves and wolves, wolves, wolves.

So that was the first thing I want to say. But yeah, there's so many things here.

I mean, even starting Apology of Christian Ministries, it was like, that was a year and a half, right?

A year and a half before we started the church. We were literally going door to door to churches with brochures that I think you paid for out of your own money.

It was like a thousand bucks back then. I remember it was like nine hundred some dollars and that was a big deal then.

We were literally going church to church like, hey, so, you like, you love the

Mormons? Hey, you like their apologetics? You like their apologetics? Because we do this. We're like trying to go to churches around the country and no one seemed to care.

So it was a while. But that's also when we started the YouTube channel.

And so that's been a huge thing for us. Obviously, is those videos that you're putting out.

Sometimes with the little Radio Shack recorder we didn't even have video and it was like these awful cheesy graphics.

you know, like, what kind of equipment did we, did this all start with? Radio Shack, $23 .95

little recorder and you could hear the airplanes flying over while we're at a picnic table with Jehovah's Witnesses.

And not a video, audio recorder. No. Audio recorder, a voice recorder.

If you go back into the very first videos of Apologia Studios on this channel, you'll see my editing skills.

It's a black screen with just the audio in there. And like, the original Apologia logo with, it looks like wings and it had like this water thing going.

So it looked like the wings were flapping and I was like, hey, check this out. I got the wings to flap. That was cool back then.

I was like, yeah. Like an old, like, high movie, raindrop effect.

Exactly. The wings were flapping. Yeah. So I mean, that's, you know, we just, we just busted our tails.

Like, we're just trying to, you know, do whatever we could and we're literally like driving around looking for missionaries to talk to.

Hey, get over here! Missionary hunting. We literally spent all day driving around looking for missionaries and we'd pop out and try to talk to them.

Well, yeah, I think so. When I was kind of thinking about like this episode, now as, now as established pastors,

I feel like a lot of your ministry is seeing things and responding to them, like responding to issues in the culture, obviously, in the church or online or whatever.

But, you know, like, so it's, it's sort of a, but your response is not just like,

I feel this general calling to, like, be on YouTube or talk to people about God's word.

You guys started with a very specific vision and you were responding to a specific group.

You were responding to the cults and then, and then at some point too, this response to what do we do with people who are coming to Christ inside of this rehab facility?

Yeah. What, and where do I send them and what do I, and so it was, it's, but it's almost, it's, it's like the, the problem's happening first.

It's not you like looking for it. Right. You're just seeing the, the problem that requires that responding to, and it's a more, it's just a more like organic thing.

It's not, you know. Well, and that's exactly right. I think even with like Apologia Studios with, with our, with our

YouTube channel as putting out videos, I always try to stress to people like, look, the, the, the genesis of this platform and like you being able to like view an evangelism encounter, like that was only like way down the road.

We were already doing the work and so like there are countless hours of ministry outside of the

Mormon temple and on the streets that I put in, we put in countless hours for, you know, over a decade before we ever got a, before the channel was started and there was a recording, it was like the only people that were there were like me, the person

I was talking to and then the Holy Spirit. Like, you know, it's kind of like that. It's like there were, those are the only witnesses.

Now you get to witness it because we have the technology, we put it up, but the work was being done anyways, right?

And so like, I think that's a healthy way to look at it as like with ministry, the calling of the ministry is you're just doing the work anyways.

It's, it's organic. You're not doing it for fame. You're not doing it, you're doing it because you love the Lord, you love this person and so I'll just,

I'll just, just jump ahead. So basically, the Lord made it very clear externally, men saying into my life, hey, we know you, we know your life, this is what you're supposed to be doing and the

Lord answered some big prayers for us we put before him and so I had one last ask of the

Lord um, and that was like, well, I'm not doing this unless the elders of the church that I'm at will bless it and agree and, and lay hands on me and send me.

I won't do it and of course that all happened. It was unanimous and they said, yes, they brought me before the church, laid hands on me, prayed for the work and we were off and the challenging thing was is this is still a smaller church at the time and, uh, we didn't have any support and so like Luke and I jumped off the cliff with our families.

Um, he was making whatever little money he could to feed his family. I was making the, the peanuts

I was making at the hospital uh, to, to provide for my, it wasn't enough to care for our families so we were jumping off like into, off a cliff to say

Lord, we're just gonna trust you. You're clearly behind this but Lord, you're gonna make it happen. So we planned an apology at church, um, and we were at the family building of the hospital and that first night of service,

Lord's Day, uh, I think we had maybe at the most 10 people were present, you were present for that, um, and, um, and everybody in there was like in halfway houses, families destroyed, you know, lives destroyed, had come off a drug and alcohol addiction to Christ and the

Lord took care of us the very first night, uh, in a miraculous way took care of us the very first night, didn't make any sense but it happened and God's been taking care of us ever since so that was sort of like how this came about was we waited, um, on the

Lord to make it clear through the circumstances of course, through the passion he had put in our hearts but also through men with authority in the church who said we agree, absolutely good to go.

Right, and then you guys were together. Yeah. So, you guys had a buddy to be with.

Yeah, and I laid hands, I laid hands, I laid hands on Pastor Luke, was it the, it was the first Sunday, it was the first Sunday, that's where I laid hands, on the first Sunday of our church plan

I laid hands on him. In a gracious way. Yeah, yeah, it wasn't, I didn't throw hands, I didn't throw hands.

He had laid hands on him before at that point. It was a lot of this but it was unofficial, that was more of an official, um, and, yeah.

And that was rough, I mean the beginning of our ministry was very, very rough. I, you know, we can go on for hours, we can do episodes on how difficult the first few years were.

Oh yeah, just time, I mean even stress on the families and. Yeah, as pastors of a church that's coming to life out of a drug rehab, that is a very unique situation, it's not like planting a church in a suburban area, you know, in a strip mall.

Not to say that it doesn't come with challenges, of course it do. But this was unique. Yeah. I mean it was unique because everybody there was like very new to Christ.

Oh yeah. Very fresh. And so it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It was beautiful, some of the best memories

I have in my life are the beginning of this church plant but they're all, they're all like, uh, attached to some of the most painful moments of my life.

Yeah. You know. Well I was going to say too, like, I mean I'm seeing some questions in the chat, um, but one thing

I think is important, you know, I probably had been doing, I don't know, like 10 years or so of some form of ministry, you know, just in my church, through my church, whether youth group or evangelism,

I know the same with you, probably longer than that, and um, you know, so there was a lot of time we had put in well before God called us to plant this church and I mean,

I haven't seen when I, when I felt called to do full time ministry, I was still working a construction job and I was having prayers like,

Lord, how is this going to work? I don't know how, you know, and then through some very, uh, sovereign, uh, uh, moments,

God ordained moments and, um, circumstances, um, you know, he thrust us into that and I mean, it was good, it was a good five years of us planting the church before we were paid full time.

Yeah. You know, five years, so that's working, you know, three jobs for Jeff, I was doing whatever

I could, you know, like, um, and doing the church. six jobs, I even worked some jobs with you. Yes.

Yeah. I tried, I always try to forget those and put those out of my memory, but you seem to always want to bring them up. We worked, we worked as bouncers.

We did. We worked. We had to break up a fight. We had to break up a fight in a club. That's right, I forgot about that. Bouncers, we, uh,

I forgot about that too. Yeah, we did drywall, uh, which you did all the time and then, we put up a fence and like a horse.

Oh, that was the worst. I remember that day was awful. It was very hot. That was awful. It was very hot and all this while doing full time.

Yeah. Nose to the grindstone around the clock ministry. Right. I was talking to Pastor Zach the other day because I was,

I asked him, I was like, how many times, because he did the same thing, like, I was like, how many times did you have to cancel, let me get this guy calm here, uh, how many times, uh, did, did you have to cancel, uh, appointments because you got stuck at a job?

Like, you know, you couldn't leave, you know, and he's like all the time, you know, so we had stuff like that happen, you know, so it was a good five years where we're like, you know, of hard ministry, but the, what the point

I'm trying to make is that our number one priority had to be providing for our families and it had to be taking care of families and then, and that was a challenge for sure, um, but we learned a lot, um, but it took a lot.

It wasn't just like, it wasn't like, oh, I'm going to do full time ministry. Okay. And then I'm being paid to do it.

Like, I had to put in the work. I had to literally bleed, literally, I have scars. We won't get into that.

you know, sweat and cry and like, you know, do all that, you know, before God was like, okay, you've earned, you've earned full time pay.

You know, it's like, and, and I think, you know, you don't want to necessarily think this way, but it kind of has to be embedded in you and it has,

I think it has to be a part of your thinking and heart is a truth be told. Um, and, and Luke and I worked for free for Christ, period.

And we were happy. Yeah. Yeah. We were happy. I was as happy about what God was doing with us and in us with zero pay as I am now.

Right. Uh, being, being vocational and like doing it full time and being able to like provide for my family so they don't starve, um, hasn't made me more spiritually happy.

Like I was happy and joyful in the Lord and what we were doing then as painful as it was with no money whatsoever as I am now being able to know that I, okay,

I can, I can keep the lights on. Right. You know what I'm saying? So, which is, I, that's an important thing to consider for anyone that's thinking about, um, doing vocational ministry.

Um, if you like, if you're, if your, uh, happiness or contentment is tied to relaxation or pay or, uh, you know, comfort in any way that might be an indicator that you're, you're not ready.

You're not, you know, or I don't know. And I, I do think that there's something about having the dynamic of having like a friend.

I know I called you buddies earlier, but like having someone that you're, that you're, no, it's fine.

You're strong with and that shares your, your vision and is responding with you.

yeah, you know, uh, well, so, uh, so, okay. So to move to kind of to the next, uh, well,

I'll move us forward a little bit, but it was the rehab facility. You were the chaplain there and then they were sponsoring radio time.

Yeah. They were marketing on the Red Crescent radio. So they had a radio show and you, you would split time.

It was you and then one other gentleman. Okay. Yeah. So that was redemption radio. Yeah. Well, so what happened was, is they came to me, they say,

Hey, we're paying for ad time on this Christian station locally. And they said, because we're paying for ad time, we can have a free hour of radio show a week.

We're like, do you want a radio show? And I was like, uh, sure, sure. They were like, they were like, what do

I, can I do what I want? They were like, yeah, just, I don't know. Let's just take it. It's a free hour. I was like, uh, sure, absolutely. And so at the time,

I think the other guy, the clinical guy was like, well, I guess maybe I'll take two of those and do clinical stuff. You can do the theological stuff.

And I was like, that's fine. And so redemption radio, they gave to me and we ran with that. God actually tremendously blessed redemption radio.

And I always said if that hospital had ever listened to even one of those episodes, they would have not like me being there.

I mean, yeah, even your, the, the amount of time you stayed there was sort of very miraculous in and of itself.

Yeah. Well, it's because they're making millions of dollars off this. It's a secular hospital at the time. They're making millions of millions of dollars because there's still a

Christian hospital on the internet. They're advertised, they advertised a traditional

AA track and then a Christian program. So people flew out their family members from across the country every single day to come to this

Christian rehab. Yeah. And I'm, I'm it right now. That's not boasting. I'm saying when it was called a

Christian rehab, it literally was, this is our pastor, Jeff. He runs the Christian program. Did I have assistance?

No. Did I have anybody that helped me with the program? No. Did I have anybody that oversaw the program? No. It was like literally they were making millions of dollars a year off their

Christian program and it really was just me. So when I would get in trouble for saying things like Jesus is the only way to God at this secular hospital, they'd bring me in the office and they were like, did we heard that you said that like Jesus is the only way to God?

I was like, yes. And they're like, can you, and I was like, guys, you hired, you hired a Christian pastor for a

Christian program. That's what I'm doing. And I would say things like, just fire me. and in a way, you had leverage because it was just you.

Right. Fire me. And they would always go, well, we're not going to fire you, Jeff. Like, you know, just try to work with the other programs that are going on here.

I was like, no. I was like, no, I can't. So I was like, this is the, I'm like, this is

Christian theology, guys. Like, you can't, I told him one time, you can't advertise a Christian rehab program and not accept

Christian theology. Right. And I was like, so that's what this is. People who are sending their families here from Chicago and all over the country, it's because they expect me to be saying this.

Right. That's what a Christian program is. And they were like, oh, no, no. Okay. So they gave me redemption radio. God really blessed that in a tremendous way.

And really what was happening was we were just taking the MP3 that was airing locally and we were just putting it online as redemption radio and people were being blessed by it.

So after a while, I think that was kind of going away or I had the idea we just need to do this on our own and we need to do it our way with no restrictions the way we really want to do it.

I think they were kind of starting to crack down on you a little bit more. Maybe that's what it was.

So I think maybe you were sensing your time even there kind of coming to an end. So I said, let's just do this on our own.

And so I asked you guys, like, what do you think? Let's do a show and we try to come up with names and it was like obvious,

I think it was Luke was like, well, I think Apology Radio is the best. That's who we are. And so we did

Apology Radio, launched it and God blew it up. I mean, it was going everywhere. It was blessing a lot of people.

We had great guests on. We're the OG podcasters. it was, it was. Well, in KPXQ for some reason, like we had a great tech who loved us and they just like, again, that was another thing where they probably would have cracked down on us a little bit.

But yeah, for some reason we just, they didn't, we just slipped through the cracks every time the

Lord allows us to slip through the cracks. And so what happened was after a long time doing

Apology Radio, KPXQ loved us. They wanted us to stay.

They said that we were one of the most popular local shows they had and they wanted us to like now, like renew a contract.

And so basically they gave us the contract and I'm kind of pouring over this contract and I'm thinking over it and I'm like, we're paying like, first of all, we don't have any money as a church and so like we're starving as it is.

And like trying to make this show work and it's blessing a lot of people and so we knew God was using it and it was having an impact on people's lives but I'm looking at the price tag of like $1 ,800 or $2 ,000 a month and I'm like, that's to sit down and have a tech like run a board for one hour a week.

Or we did two shows a week I think is what it was. I can't remember. Yeah, because we did, we recorded two at a time so two hours.

So I was like, but we could literally do that with our own equipment like we could do it as often as we want every single day because we're not, we don't care about the terrestrial thing like the local.

We're like, that doesn't matter to us. It's the international stuff and the online. And so I just, I had an idea.

I was like, why don't we just take that money and instead of paying it to this radio station, let's get a small studio space.

I was thinking even like a room that's 10 by 10. I didn't care. Yeah. And so I told Luke, I was like, what do you think about this idea?

Let's start an actual studio. We can do whatever we want. And I, and so I just started, we, we, we, we thought we're both with exactly the same vision.

Yeah. That money could be used. We could spend that much money in one month to buy the equipment and then just sit in a room somewhere.

We can cut an episode every day if we wanted to. And it was like literally as small as you could possibly think.

And so we were like, yeah, we're in agreement. And so we started, um, I can't remember that.

Okay. I'll try to put this together. I might be getting some of this stuff wrong here, but no, no, no, I got it right. I got it right actually.

No. So Luke and I finally decided, yeah, that's the move. That's the move.

We start a studio and we do it ourselves. And so we told KPXQ that we were going to probably not renew.

But Luke and I know we've got this massive dream and we don't have the money to pull it off.

Yeah. Like, wouldn't that be great? Ha ha. Like it wouldn't be awesome if we could do this, but we don't have any money to do it.

Um, and we legitimately didn't, um, because at the time we still also were barely surviving and it was like,

Hey, you want to invest in this now? And I was like, but that's the way we have to go. And so, um, so what happened was

Luke and I didn't tell anybody. You guys were also running around all night scooping people off the streets.

Yes. And so Luke and I didn't tell anybody. I didn't tell my wife. I don't think he told Cheryl. We didn't tell anybody and we just put it before the

Lord. We were like, Lord, if this is what you want, we're all in, but you do it. You build the house, you do it.

And so show it, but drop the money on us. That's what we asked. Drop the money on us if you need us to do it. Drop it like it's hot.

Exactly. And he did. It was the next day. Like literally, Luke and I are outside of the studio,

KPXQ. We prayed that prayer and the very next day I get a phone call from someone I actually didn't know really very well at all.

He calls me up and Hey, what are you praying about right now? And I just said, Oh, well actually,

Pastor Luke and I are praying about this and starting Apologia Studios and it'd be like this.

We could do this. We could reach these people. And he was like, Oh, that's great. I was actually going to call you to let you know I have $35 ,000 to give to you.

And I was like, well, looks like we're off. And so I called Luke.

I told him I was like, That happened. Stuff like that happened a sort of odd amount of times.

It happens all the time. That's kind of why the way we behave in the way that we do is that when the

Lord puts a passion in our heart for something. yeah, when we behave in the way that we do with prayer to God, we're like,

Hey, this is necessary. It needs to be done. Our prayers are really like that. We're like,

Lord, we trust you. Of course, yes, but you dropped the money on us. And then it's like, he just shows up in amazing.

We have so many stories like that. So he did. And so Luke and I, basically, we started looking around for a space.

And when we first looked, we were like, literally finding like small office spaces that, just give me one room.

I just, we just need a desk and some microphones and a computer system kind of a thing. And that's all we were looking for.

And then I'll skip ahead of a million things that a miraculous that happened to get us in this space. But God had us run into some

Christians who are in charge of this space, own this space. And from our perspective by accident, and they gave this space away to us, it should have been like $4 ,500 a month, which we didn't have.

They told us, pay a thousand or if you can't pay, don't pay. And that's how we got it. And so we started

Apologia Studios with a very small donation. And now $35 ,000, I know, doesn't seem like it's a small donation, but in terms of starting a studio, that's small.

And so we just literally, Marcus was on board with us. And we said, dude, make this stretch.

And so Marcus had like one or two cameras of his own that he brought with him when he moved out here. I think we moved and we maybe bought one more small camera.

We had nothing to speak of except like the most rudimentary stuff.

And our equipment never worked appropriately. that enormous table was donated that the top wasn't screwed on and it could fall and kill you.

Everything. I was terrified of children coming in the office because that table could kill a child. That table was like 500 pounds.

Yeah. And so that's true. Like the furniture we had in here for the first five years.

Yeah. Like I just upgraded the space. What, last year? It was like last year.

Okay, it's time to stop letting this place look like a dorm room. Yeah. We got all because the Marcus slept here.

Yeah. Marcus did sleep here. And like when we had people in to help, they had to sleep here too.

They'd come in. Marcus come crawling out with like his blankie like Linus. Yeah, I'd walk in in the morning and I'd be like, there's like three grown men sleeping here right now.

Remember that one day like we like, I think we had a guest on or something and he was still in the room sleeping. Yeah.

And we're like pounding on the door. He had locked it, I think maybe. And he like was not waking up and we're like, is this dude even alive?

Yeah, we thought he died. And he's like, oh, sorry, I put it on my Bose noise canceling headphones. I didn't hear it in my alarm and I'm like, you goofball.

But he would stay up till like all hours of the night editing stuff and then just sleep on the couch. Right, because we would just, it was always this like responding like something would happen and we'd be like, we need like, you guys would be like, we need content for this, we need content for this.

We need to engage with this. And Marcus was camera, lighting, editing, post -production, audio, everything.

It was all Marcus. We didn't have anybody here that was trained except for, Marcus was the guy and so like, it was like literally,

Apologia Studios was popping out stuff, responding to stuff, engaging with stuff and Marcus, God bless him, was like in front of a computer all day long.

All day long. and always working into the night hours, getting barely any sleep. He worked his tail off and it was with like nothing.

And so yeah, everything that was in here was all donated for the first five years at least. I might be totally wrong on that.

What is that? Six years? Seven years? Maybe it's six and a half, seven years. We've had the studio going on eight years.

There was, yeah, there was not, for a very long time, there was not anything extra. The chairs all broke?

The chairs broke? Oh my gosh. How many chairs did Luke break? A lot. Luke would sit down and I'll give you the media and it would fall. I'd be like afraid to sit in them.

Yeah, everything was donated here. The carpet looked like someone had thrown up all over it. 20 years ago, it was like, we didn't even have like a good looking, you walked in and it just was raggedy in here.

But we fought and we fought to be faithful and to do what we could as faithfully as we could to make it look beautiful, to glorify

God with it. And then we started getting people like Carmen. Carmen was like 15. He started out just cleaning up because he didn't know anything.

He never even held a camera before. This was Carmen's job. He started the camera. And follow

Marcus around. Yeah, exactly. And now he makes amazing stuff. And so yeah, and for us,

Pastor Luke and I were so invested in this ministry of Apologia Studios that, look, let me just sort of try to scare the pants off of anybody who's like,

I feel like I'm called a vocational ministry. Everything you saw from Apologia Studios, all the time that took, it's a full -time job.

Like our ministry as pastors, full -time job. Apologia Studios, full -time job. End abortion now, full -time job.

And you gotta spend all that. And I'm gonna just say like, we worked for nothing for Apologia Studios.

For nothing. Yeah. It was about the ministry. So like this ministry starts and we were like, we gotta pay our staff before we ever touch anything.

Like they gotta get taken care of. We need equipment before we ever get anything. And so years and years and years go by and you're doing it because you wanna serve the

Lord. You wanna glorify God. You wanna preach the gospel. And how'd you like to work a full -time job for many years and never get a dime?

Would you like that? Because that is what vocational ministry can look like. Well, I also,

I think even just like in a practical sense, if we could talk about for a second, just the trial and error that went on even just with getting equipment and using that equipment and then being like, hmm, that's not really the equipment we need and then having to get other stuff.

And I think that sometimes we get this email that's like, just tell me like how to start.

And if I just do exactly what you say, it'll all fall together. But does it really work like that?

And do you? No. Like, do you get to post? Do you get to post? So Jeff, I know like even like creatively, visually, you've always had this vision for what you want all our stuff to look like.

And that wasn't always possible. Nope. And you still pressed go. You still pressed upload.

So you have to be willing to do what you can and strive for something.

The first, the first, well, look at the, you can find the progression. Look at the first videos we uploaded. They are hilarious.

Okay, hold on. With those little camcorders. I'm going to try to find one because, okay. Oh yeah, see if you can. Because you talk. Okay. Well, so real quick, because I'm getting a lot of questions about my shirt in the chat.

So this is our Moses, not Mark's shirt, which you can find at shop .apologystudios

.com. But yeah, this is leftover from ReformCon. We still have a bunch. It's actually probably my favorite shirt we've done.

And it was Jeff's idea on the fly. It happened organically. Very nice. On Apology Radio.

I like the baseball. Yeah, I love it. It's super soft too. And it doesn't say

Moses, not Mary, as someone thought in the chat, which would also be appropriate. I mean, yeah, we could maybe get behind that as well.

But yeah, there was, I think that that, I don't know that. I think for even.

Sorry, just thought of something. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Well, I'll just say this video, I think he's looking for. For years, for years,

I would get like random phone calls or text some people and be like, hey, like, you know, and they like knew who

I was like from like other state. Like, I'm like, how the heck did you get my phone number? You know, scary.

And it's because this original video, like we were so dumb and like nobody cared who we were.

We're like, here's my phone. Here's my cell phone number. Call me. Address. And so like, we didn't even realize it for years.

I kept getting calls and I'm like, why are people finding my number? And then what are you looking at? Is that the one you're looking for?

In front of the temple? Yeah. And so we fixed it. But yeah, that's how you took all your personal information down.

we were so yeah. Yeah, we were so desperate to like get support and, you know, have opportunities and like, hey, here's my number.

I saw desperate. We're like, please call. Yeah, like in there was like pictures. It was like our kids living in like homeless shelter.

No, I'm just kidding. You had them out there wrapped in a blanket. Yeah. So, yeah, but there was a big deal when we upgraded to that camcorder.

I mean, it wasn't even, this was before there was like 4K HD, you know, like 720 was like, whoa, you know what

I mean? Right. And so this is back in the day. Like this, that's how long we've been doing this. Like, it's not like we just, because anymore you can like literally just set up a podcast at home.

Like it's nothing. Use your iPhone. And I was talking to somebody the other day about this. It's like, there's so many,

I mean, in this, in, especially within like Christianity, like the, like the pool of Christian podcasts has almost become watered down because it's so easy to do it.

Like, you know, when we were first going, like we were like way at the top of the charts all the time because there wasn't a lot.

Right. You know, now it's like there's so many and it's so easy to do and it's so easy to have good quality that you really got to be good at it or no one cares.

You have to compete. Yeah. No one cares if it stinks. Did you find what you're another minute?

I'm going to get to it, but you can go on and I'll actually, there's that bloopers one in there too. Remember the bloopers?

Well, so there's a, this is kind of a basic, a basic question and I'm just going to read it right off of my, my pad.

But it's a neat, it's a little bit of a softball, but I hope it, it gets the point across that I'm trying to make.

Should someone who is not able to, or who is unwilling to do quote unquote regular ministry, meaning not filmed or put on YouTube or in a podcast start a ministry?

Should they? Is that the question? Yes. Well, again, it goes back to what I was saying earlier. Do you have the support of your pastors saying, do this?

You know what I mean? I, and some, I saw, after I said that, I saw someone said, is that a requirement?

And I would say absolutely. There's too many because the pattern is laying on of hands. Yeah. There's too many people.

And then, and, and, and we should specify like starting a ministry doesn't mean you're a pastor.

Right. Right. Like there's all kinds of ministry opportunities. We know all kinds of people that do ministry that aren't pastors.

Right. Or even just people who do it full time and are paid or. Yeah. Versus, you know, someone who's doing it when they can.

Right. Exactly. So like, there's all kinds of different things you can do, but you should always be under someone's accountability that's supporting you and under, even on their umbrella of protection.

This is even like for our abortion mill ministry, like we have people that come out. I mean, it's mostly our church members, but we have people that come out that go to other churches and we get questions all the time.

Like, Hey, you know, this guy, I want to come join you guys. We're like, great. Make sure that your, uh, your pastors know, and then you're under their authority and protection.

I mean, it's, and when I say protection, like, you know, if something happens to you, like the abortion mill, for example, it can be a dangerous ministry.

If something happens to you out there and you don't have anybody to protect you, like you're on your own, you know?

So it's, it serves, it's a dual purpose. It's for accountability and protection. Um, and yeah, I mean, we've just seen so many guys over the years who like, just aren't under anybody's accountability.

And they kind of flare up and then cause issues because they're just lone wolves.

Like, you know, I was saying earlier and, and then they eventually just disappear because they make people mad or whatever.

So like, I don't know. I'm rambling now, but I don't know if that answers your question. No, no, no. I think that's, I, I think that's good.

And I, yeah, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, They don't have anybody overseeing them, and that's my point, is not necessarily that they become a heretic.

It goes bad. It goes real bad. It goes real bad, real fast. No accountability. There's a lot of quote -unquote discernment ministries out there that have really no connection to the local church, no authority over them from the local church, and so if they go off the rails and start doing things that they ought not to do, there's no one really to put them into check.

We've seen that a number of times over the years with discernment ministries and everything else, guys that are very passionate about truth, and so they set themselves up as leaders and they try to speak to these things.

Obviously, you know, I want to believe the best about them, that their motives are good and strong and healthy, but because you're alone and divorced from the local church with no authority over you,

I'm going to say it goes bad. It just goes bad. You need the church, and God puts the authority in the church in the way that he does for a reason, and you know, the pattern in ministry is like you're within a church body, and you're qualified, and there's people there who see that you're qualified, and there's accountability, and there's laying on of hands.

There's the ministry. That's the pattern for ministry in our New Testament, and that's why, even with the circumstances being what they were, and the passion that we had to care for the souls of these people at the hospital, and even with people speaking into my life who were solid men,

I wasn't going to make the move to plant Apology of Church on my lonesome.

I wasn't going to declare myself to be a church planter and pastor. I said,

I'm not doing it unless these men in my life agree unanimously and lay hands on me.

I won't go, and I wouldn't have. I promise you, I would not have planted

Apology of Church without that behind me, and so yeah, so I think that for us, we're very passionate about that.

Here is one of the first videos of Apologia Studios. I'm Jeff Durbin, president of Apologia Christian Ministries, and this is

Luke Pearson, our vice president. We want to thank you so much for watching. You sound like a munchkin, by the way. I know, seriously. You sound like I'm sucking helium.

We give you constant updates and blogs on what we're doing up here at the temple in Mesa, Arizona, and I want you to stay tuned to see how you can use the tools that we're giving you out here to reach out to those that with love of Christ.

I think your phone number is still in this video. Is it really? I'm not going to play it, so I'm going to skip ahead.

Actually, hold on. I want you guys to see. We need to fix that. Yeah, nope, I haven't. Don't find this video, guys.

Don't be calling Luke. He ain't going to like that. Tech team, fix that, please. So, look,

Joy was saying, like, what you want versus what you can do. I mean, what is happening right now?

What is going on? Dude, that's my work, man. I was putting in work. That's my work right there.

So, okay, this is, uh... Those Christmas lights look like something's exploding. Check it out. Check it out.

I mean, this is a big deal for us. Yeah.

Oh, snap. Oh, Luke's stepping out. Luke's stepping out. Look at us. Yeah, look at that.

That's our youth group. Is that Joy right there? Yeah, well, yeah, Jessica's in the white, but I'm right next to her.

Look at us walking up. Look at that lighting, too.

Look at that. Can't even see the faces. I'm using straight shadows.

And we're evangelizing some young Mormons there. So, so, yeah, that's, that's where we came from, and that was the step up from just the black screen with just the audio, and then, yeah, and so, like, we, we just were more, like, plod.

Be faithful, plod, and we know what we're aiming at, what we want to get, but you, you don't have that right now.

God didn't give it to you, so be faithful and plod, and that was sort of how our mindset was, like, faithfulness first, faithfulness first, and then you'll get charged over the bigger things, and so it was, like, here's,

God's, like, here, here's this audio recorder. See what you do with that. Okay. Right. All right. Then it was, like, hey, we got a camcorder, and then it was, like, hey, we actually have a digital camera and a guy that can run it, and then it was, like, next step, next step, next step, and it was always about investing, and so it was, like, let's hold as much as we can in reserve so that we can invest in the next step, and it was, it's always been like that.

Okay, we can buy this equipment now. Like, we've been saving this money for three years. We can buy this equipment now to do more beautiful things for the

Lord, and, and I would just say, like, there's been big improvements over the last year and a half here at Apologeo Studios, but we're not even where we want to be yet.

Right. There's still more we actually have a goal for, and we're getting there, but it's just been, like, plod, be faithful.

The whole way through is faithfulness first, and then God will give you charge over the bigger things. Yeah. So, that's just our mindset.

It's, like, well, this is what's in front of you. Be faithful. Don't compromise. Do the work to the glory of God, and then you'll get the other stuff.

Right. So, I'm gonna use the bathroom. Okay. Okay. Talk amongst yourselves. Yeah, I was gonna say that, and maybe

Jeff can, we'll ask him again when he gets back, but I was just gonna ask about what, so,

I guess now and back when you guys were, I mean, just, like, kind of unending levels of work, and unending ministry, and everything just kind of blurred together, and getting money where you could, and all that stuff.

What, I'm trying to think of the best way to, okay, so, maybe it's not what you did personally, but what, if someone who is in the thick of it, in that situation, what is your recommendation for, like, what were you guys doing in your own lives in terms of discipleship, and, like, reading the word, and would you caution someone who's unable to be, and obviously, we already, you already cautioned someone who's unable to be in accountability to be in ministry, but, like, what kinds of things would you recommend someone be doing first before they tried to jump off the cliff, like you guys did, or what were you guys doing, or, yeah, were there failures, or, so,

I mean, as far as, like, study, because that was one of the questions you had, right, like, yeah, I mean, that's a big part of it, too, is you have to, especially if you're doing, like, an evangelism ministry,

I think someone even, yeah, right there, someone, yeah, I was, I think

Jeff would respond to that, but, yeah, so, I mean, a lot of it, again, is just, because we were already doing the work, you know what

I mean, so, a lot of it is just practice, you know, learning how to shepherd people, and learning how to evangelize, and learning how to teach, it's just practice, you hone those skills that God's given you, and so a lot of it was just, we were already doing the work, and we just happened to start recording stuff, which is kind of what launched a lot of it, but, so, just being faithful in it already, doing those things, and then, you know, like, find a time to study when you can,

I mean, that is a bonus of having everything on audio now, like, yes, my wife and my kids, like,

I'm constantly listening to some podcasts or a podcast, and, you know, I'm always listening to them, and, like, no matter what

I'm doing, making breakfast, I'm doing dishes, I'm cleaning, I'm getting ready, I'm working out,

I'm whatever, I'm listening to something, so I'm constantly, you know, filling my brain with stuff, and trying to learn, and grow, and, because it can be hard, especially, like, early on, when you're working 15 jobs, like, it's hard to find time to sit down, and, you know, get into the

Word sometimes, and, you know, preparing to teach, you force yourself to, and that's one reason why we have the guys that we're raising up here, like, we have them in rotation to teach on Thursdays, so we're forcing them to sit down, and hone those skills, and get into the

Word, or a book we're doing, or whatever, like, so, even just trying to find that time sometimes is difficult, and especially in our culture, and so,

I don't know if I answered your question, I don't feel like I'm rambling again, but there's, there's so many things, I mean, there's so many thoughts I could respond to, but, yeah, so,

I mean, basically, just, it's another, I guess, what

I'm hearing is it's another application of just extreme discipline when it comes to, yes, actually, that's what, yes, thank you, that reminded me what

I was going to say is, I've been having this conversation quite often recently, actually, but I feel like people our age -ish are, like, the, have, like, the last positive effects of, like, the greatest generation, you know, like, and, and what

I mean is, like, just something needs to get done, you just do it, you don't whine and complain about it, something needs to get done, you just get it done, you know what

I mean, and there's, like, so many, I feel like there's so many people, you know, in younger generations that just, they just want everything given to them, they don't want to work for stuff.

Like, some of, what I hoped that this would help maybe some people that are listening is the,

I've heard it called, like, paralysis of the analysis, like, trying to figure out how to start and then just never starting because you don't know how to make it all perfect the first time you do it, right.

It's just like getting married, like, you're not, you're not, you don't go into marriage, like, having marriage perfected, it's, you learn on the go, on the fly.

Well, people sure are trying. They're sure spending a lot of time cohabitating before they get married. That's true, and that doesn't work either.

Right, it's not working. I could prove what I'm going to say with biblical principle in the book of Proverbs, I could, in terms of working for things, not being a sluggard, in terms of the teaching of Jesus, like, don't bury your gold sort of a thing, what you're aiming at in terms of, like, the paralysis of the analysis is, like, never really working, never really getting the job done because you're just thinking constantly.

You're planning to do something. Or, and let's be honest, I think a lot of times people don't actually do what they ought to do or what they're gifted to do because they're scared.

There's fear of what's going to happen when I take that step. So one of the things I constantly say to the team here is we come up with ideas to serve the

Lord. This needs to be done. We could bless the church with this. We can do this, this thing, these things to really help to change the world with the gospel.

And we throw all those things out as a team. And what I always say is, I say, stop dreaming, do it.

And so I always say to the team, I don't want to hear the dreams, what we could do. I want to, if that's what we need to do for the

Lord, then let's have it by next Friday. And that's what I always say, like, don't dream about it for six months.

Let's put it into place and let's start to work towards it and actually make it happen. And so, can

I say one more thing? Yeah. Okay. This will bless you guys. This is the

New Year's Eve lock -in. I'll say this, Pastor Luke and I ran the best youth group in the history of youth groups.

Is that me? I'm confident. This is where I got the scars this night, isn't it?

Oh yeah. It is. When you hit your head. It is. This is our youth group.

We ran it. This is before Apologia. Yeah. This is before Apologia. We fed these kids.

So this video was created while Luke and I were running the youth ministry and everything else before we actually planted

Apologia Church. This is what we were up to. One of the things we were up to was our youth group.

We fed these kids. We taught these kids. We brought these kids out to do evangelism. There's Cheryl.

Look at Cheryl. Aw. That was Luke's wife. There's the bear. Look at that baby beard.

I know. You had recently shaved the beard. I don't want to talk about that. Yeah. You hadn't grown one yet.

No. I know. You're ready to talk. No. It couldn't come yet. It was like - It couldn't come yet. Yeah.

Getting to know Luke is... I actually started growing a beard when I got around Luke. His testosterone - Wore off on you. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh yeah. That little - I got a contact beard. That's hilarious.

I'm playing this through because there's a part coming up soon. It was one of the most treacherous things that Luke has ever done to me.

Ever. There's two of my karate students. Oh yeah. Doing backflips. It was one of the most evil things

Luke has ever done to me in the history of our relationship. It took me weeks to recover emotionally from it.

Well, this is long buildup. You should have never given me that. That's all I got to say.

Oh, there's Josh. Look at that. Okay. So let's see here. Let me get ahead to... Oh, look at that.

Oh dang. Oh dang. Luke on that bass. Slapping the bass. And Cheryl singing. I bet you got no shoes on.

I bet you're barefoot. Slapping that bass with them stinker toes.

I did not play the bass with my toes. Look at him. Like my music selection. You know that I picked it.

Yep. 100%. Cheryl's singing away. Like the color choice

I made for this? I was with a little sepia tone. Sepia, yeah. All right. Good shot of my neck.

Neck shot. Probably like... Perfect. He was trying to go through the beard. Yeah. Okay. Let's see.

There. Teaching the youth. Okay.

Hold on. Let's get ahead here to... Here we go. Here we go. Oh dang.

This is fantastic. Now listen to what I said here. Listen to what I said here. Listen one more time what I said here. I forgot about this. Look. Look what

I said. I want you to hear it. Look. Look what I said. I knew something was going to happen. So this is us doing a test run. We're going to do a test run real fast.

And hopefully Luke doesn't take advantage. Hopefully Luke doesn't take advantage. That was your first mistake.

Don't shoot my neck. Don't shoot my neck. All right. Okay. I will go ahead and announce.

Yes, that is me wearing an Elvis costume. With paint trays underneath. Yes, a fat

Elvis costume with paint trays to block the unbelievably high powered paint gun.

It was like at the highest setting. It was cold too, which shouldn't help.

Hold on. Hold on. Don't shoot my neck. He just kept saying, don't shoot my neck. Let's do a practice shot real fast.

Get in there. You got to go farther back. That's too close. Okay. We'll make this blind. I know this is before the paint trays,

I think. Like midway. I think you added the paint trays after. Don't shoot me yet. Okay. We'll pull those cement things out for the marker.

I'm not ready yet. Okay. Don't you dare shoot me yet. Luke, don't shoot me.

Okay, don't shoot my legs. Dude, you look so funny. Ready? Don't shoot my neck either. Shoot my belly. It really hurt bad.

Every one of those felt like a real bullet. Every single one of them. I got you on top of the head, didn't

I? Yeah.

Moral of the story is never trust me with a paintball gun. There you go.

Okay. I just wanted to show that because it came up. Yeah. Yep.

I did it. Why did you do that again? That was like one of those classic youth pastor moments.

Yeah. I don't know why you did that. If you guys can wash 25 cars at the car wash.

I'll just shoot me with a paintball gun. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. We got in so much trouble, too. We did.

We got in so much trouble. We really did. We had this massive space, and we would turn all the lights out at night.

I remember the elders were like, do you need anything for youth group? Do you need anything? And I was like, uh, smoke machines?

And they were like, smoke machines? I was like, strobe lights? Not like in a glory cloud kind of way.

It was for the games. They were like, for worship? I was like, no, not for worship. And they were like, for what?

I was like, some stuff we're doing. And so we had the whole church to ourselves, and it was massive.

It had two whole sides to it. Warehouses kind of things. And we put the smoke machines, fog machines in the hallways.

We turned the strobe lights on behind them, and we turned all the lights out. So it's pitch black with smoke everywhere.

And we would capture the flag in this whole place. It was massive.

We got injured so many times. Fire department came once because we set the smoke detectors off in the church.

I got in a lot of trouble. I got in a lot of trouble for the games we played because people were getting injured.

Yeah, but it was good for them. I did.

I was cheating. Yeah, you kind of walked right into it. You walked right into the cross.

I did. The very thing our Lord died on for sin. And it was a reminder. We were playing capture the flag, pitch black, strobe lights, smoke machines.

And the center line was like the back of the stage. And I started on the other side of the line in the dark.

And within two minutes of you yelling go, I walked right into the butt end of the cross and busted my eye open.

And then I was like, wait, time out, time out. I'm bleeding and blah, blah, blah. And then people were like, wait, how did you run into the cross?

How were you already on that side? And I was like, shoot. Yes, I was cheating and the cross got me.

Yep, yep. Now I have a scar. I'm scarred for life. Yeah. Moral of the story is don't cheat or make sure the cross is laying down first.

Hey, look what I found. Or go to a church that observes the 2CV violation and doesn't have any crosses.

I found October 12th. This was very shortly after we started. There's not many videos in the channel.

October the 12th. Where did I just had it? Where'd it go? October the 12th, 2012.

Sean McCraney, guest speaker at Apologia Church. Oh, dang. Yeah, the proof that he was.

Wait, what year was that? That was 2012, October 12th, 2012. Sean McCraney. That's when he was a professing believer doing ministry to Mormons.

And now the man is a cult leader. Apostate denies all the essentials of the Christian faith. And yeah, there he is right there.

There's that video. Well, it's we already turned it off. So yeah, yeah, it's already off.

Oh, OK. So they can't you just yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess I don't really I don't know what what where are we at on time?

We're way over. But there's a super chat. So if you want to respond to super chat, super chat, super chats.

Thank you, everybody, for doing the super chat. I hope the show is a blessing to you guys today. It's good to do shows like this from now, now and then.

Well, and I like I and I understand. I think maybe even there's some people that still will like see the title and they'll still be like, oh, but I have so many specific questions.

And yeah, this is kind of one of those like let the listener understand that while it might seem like we're like rehashing old times or something, there is really some good applicable things.

Work to be learned. Do the work. Work, work, work, work, work. Do the work for the Lord. Plod.

Be faithful. Faithfulness is faithfulness is the key. Don't compromise.

Be faithful in the small things. God gives you charge over the big things and work, work, work, labor for the

Lord and do it unto the Lord. Don't do it on demand. Don't do it for don't do it for the stuff on the other end.

Do it for the glory of God. Do it for him. Enzo. First of all, Sean Paradise, thank you for that blessing, brother. Yes, we appreciate you very much.

Enzo. I'm a student at GCU, Grand Canyon University. Come on over. We got all kinds of GCU students.

We do. We have a lot of people from GCU. An apology. Just across the street from me is a JW Church, Jehovah's Witnesses.

I want to have a better conversations with them, but don't know a lick of Greek. Where should I start in addressing them?

I would say you do not need to have a full understanding of the Greek language to do evangelism to Jehovah's Witnesses.

You need to focus in upon the key issues of the faith related to our conflict with the

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. Who is Jesus and what is the gospel? Those are the questions to ask when you're dealing with any cultist is who is

Jesus? What is the gospel? And so in terms of solid resources,

I really think getting the Kingdom of the Cults by Dr. Walter Martin would be very beneficial for you to understand a quick snapshot of the history of the

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. It's a fantastic resource you should have in your libraries. Dr.

Walter Martin was a gift to the Christian Church. Kingdom of the Cults, get that. The section in there on the Jehovah's Witnesses I think is the longest, if I'm remembering correctly.

And so I'd also go to check out some stuff online from Dr. James White, one of our pastors in his evangelism and outreach to the

Jehovah's Witnesses. He actually just did an episode of The Dividing Line on the Jehovah's Witnesses, I think about two weeks ago.

So go to Alpha Omega Ministries on YouTube. Also go to aomin .org for just a host of those resources with Jehovah's Witnesses.

And you can also watch debates with Dr. White and Jehovah's Witnesses. We have some as well. If you look up Jeff Durbin, Jehovah's Witnesses, there's a few videos we have up as well dealing with the

Jehovah's Witnesses. If you wanted to start studying New Testament Greek, you are living in the greatest time ever to do so.

There are online programs for Koine Greek, New Testament Greek online. You can do them from the comfort of your own home.

You can do them at your leisure. Mounts has some great resources, M -O -U -N -S or C -E,

Mounts, Basics to Biblical Greek. You can get the flashcards, you can get the whole set, flashcards,

DVD, probably download now, probably just download the video now. I'm thinking back in the day, you got

DVDs, you got book, workbook, you got the flashcards, you got the video training you can do as well.

It's all there. Mounts. And again, some of these seminaries today,

Christian seminaries have their Greek courses online for you to take online. It would help, it would help, but it's not necessary for you to have a full understanding of the

Greek language to be able to evangelize Jehovah's Witnesses, not at all. And I think that Dr.

White may have written something on the Jehovah's Witnesses and engaging with Jehovah's Witnesses. If he has,

I'd encourage you to get that, but yeah, that's a good starting point and focus on Christ and the gospel, and that's where you should aim with Jehovah's Witnesses.

So AR500 and NSA, thank you guys to our sponsors, AR500 and NSA.

Actually, we don't call it AR500 anymore. The Armored Republic. Armored Republic, NSA .edu. Thank you guys so much for watching.

We're going to be back next week with some... Actually, we won't be. I was going to say. We won't be.

We're going to be in Kentucky. Well, you'll be on your way to Mississippi, the old Mississippi. The old

Miss. And I'll be on my way back from Kenham, Tucky.

That's right. That's right. Hey, everybody, thank you guys for your support. I'm going to be in Kentucky. We hope to see you there.

January 25th, 11 a .m. Creation Museum. Pastors all across Kentucky, come join us. If you have a pastor in Kentucky, tell your pastor to come join us.

Send them. Send them. Or Ohio or Indiana. It's very close to both of those. And we also have working with believers who have a bill going into Indiana as well.

So lots happening this year, guys. Join us in this fight. Endabortionnow .com is where you guys go.