Black churches in America with Dawain Atkinson | Rapp Report Weekly 004 | Andrew Rappaport | SFE | Striving for Eternity

Welcome to the Wrap Report with Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity. For more content, or to request a speaker or seminar for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

All right, welcome to the Wrap Report, and we are going to be having an interview for you now with someone

I got to meet at G3, and those of you who know me know that if there's anyone that I'm going to enjoy my time with is going to be someone that, well, likes to joke around a little bit, likes to have some fun.

I'm going to invite for you guys to hear a fellow podcaster from The Bar Podcast.

If you haven't been listening to that, where have you been? What's wrong with you?

No, this is not a drinking podcast. And you're hearing

Brother Dwayne, Dwayne has a podcast, it's Black and Reformed, isn't that what it is?

No, sir. No, sir. It is Biblical and Reformed. Now, we're going to talk about that because he is b -b -b -b -black, and he's

Reformed. Does that surprise some of you? Well, the reality is it does.

It is, unfortunately, like an anomaly, and I want to talk to him about that because he's got a very interesting background, and you're going to hear some things.

If you have not been involved with many people in the African American churches, you're going to hear things they say, wait, what?

They're talking totally different. Even the language, look, Christians, hate to disappoint you, you guys all talk funny.

I know, being raised Jewish when I first became a Christian, you guys all had this language that didn't make sense to me.

I had to learn the lingo. Well, you know, the African churches, African American churches have lingo, too.

So I want to welcome on Dwayne. Dwayne, welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself, how you came to know

Christ, and about your podcast and what you're doing ministry -wise. All right. Appreciate it,

Andrew. Definitely a privilege and an honor to be on your podcast, super excited about that.

My name is Dwayne Atkinson, currently residing in Greenville, South Carolina, where everybody's already saved, so you don't have to bother coming down here and evangelize, but that's another conversation.

I've been down there. I've been down there. Oh, I know. That's not true. I know. I know. That was the point.

But I've been married to my lovely wife for, in July, it'll be 10 years. I have four children.

My children are what I call the picture of the gospel. I have one that's adopted, one by a previous relationship, and then two babies in the house.

And I love them all dearly. And I think my children, you know, it's just a picture of the gospel, God adopting us, you know,

God calling us from our sin, but loving us, and then the precious gift of marriage and birth with the children.

So definitely love them. I am a podcaster, the host of The Bar Podcast, which stands for Biblical Reformed.

A lot of people think it stands for Black and Reformed, but that is not the case. It is biblical. And my journey to faith is interesting.

I grew up in a Christian home. My parents were missionary Baptists. Well, now that I think about it, my mom was missionary

Baptist, and my dad was Disciples of Christ, which, you know, are two totally different, not totally different, but kind of different denominations.

And we went to the missionary Baptist on the first and second Sunday, and then the third and fourth

Sunday, we went to the Disciples of Christ. So that was my background. But I was, you know, the young drummer, athlete,

I like to say player, you know, womanizer early on. And my pride was built into how well

I played the game. So the way God captured my heart was the old three -way.

I don't know if you guys, I don't know how young your audience is, but, you know, phones used to have three -way where you call somebody and then call somebody else.

And I had two girls call me at the same time, and I got caught up in my game. And so out of, you know, out of despair, you know,

I pretty much that night rolled over and said, you know, I'm messing up my life, I need you, you know, and that was pretty much my conversion.

He used something that I held near and dear to break me down. And I wish

I could say, you know, from that day, I became Reformed Heavily of Ather, but that was not the case, that was not the case.

So I identified more with the Missionary Baptist at the time. And so I kind of went on, you know, in that realm, met my wife on MySpace and moved to Greenville, South Carolina.

Dude, you just dated yourself. I know I did. I know. MySpace? Yeah, yeah, MySpace, man.

So I moved to Greenville, South Carolina. Most people are saying, what's MySpace? Okay, that was like Facebook before Facebook, all right?

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Anyway, yeah, so I moved to Greenville, where I was at a very large, charismatic

Pentecostal church in Greenville, 15 ,000 members, was on staff, you know, really into the whole word of faith, name it, claim it, declare it, decree it.

And while there, got connected with, air quotes again, apostles, modern day apostles in Dallas, Texas.

And they pretty much kind of mentored me and my wife from afar. And during that mentoring, they decided to name us modern day apostles, said that we had the air quotes, gifts, and callings of apostles.

And so that's how I got that title for a moment.

And we should call you apostle. I said, I'm waiting for Andrew to butt in right here.

But no, I mean, and just being transparent, honestly, yes, people did call me that for a while, and people that don't know about the transition still refer to me that I had to correct them.

But so I was in the New Epistolic Reformation, you know, prophesying, modern day apostles, prophets, hardcore, like, really into it, real advocate, you know, our quote unquote apostles were connected with C.

Peter Wagner, which was pretty much the father of the movement. So we had, in their mind, direct lineage to the epistolic, modern epistolic movement.

The third wave, as Peter Wagner would call it. Yes, exactly, exactly. So we were direct descendants of that.

And so I just, I got to a point, man, where I started questioning, you know, what we were doing and, you know, questioning it by the

Bible, because they, you know, it's funny because people say, you know, scripture, you know, if you read scripture, but people read it out of context and cherry pick and implement and think, yeah, you know, so they do that in order to prove their point.

So, you know, I was already reading my Bible, but what started, I guess, challenging me was not seeing results from things that I decreed and declared or named and claimed, not seeing things happen that I spoke and supposedly

I could speak it because God could speak it. So I was wondering, OK, what's wrong with me? Why is that the case?

And during that time, I met a, ironically, Andrew, we talked about this on my show, a

Hebrew -Israelite that challenged me on my faith and he had questions that at the time

I couldn't answer. And so I went into this whole, like, hardcore research era where I was just like, you know, trying to find out, you know,

OK, is Christianity, is this real? Is this the right way to go? Is the Bible, the scripture, the word, you know, is this guy right?

Am I wrong? And so during that whole time, I stumbled on some guys like James White and some other guys that they're really good in apologetics.

And, you know, that was kind of my intro in the sound teaching. I was like, oh, I like what they're saying. I like what he's saying.

I like what that one is saying. I like what Vody's saying, you know, just different guys. And then I started, you know, they started referring to, you know, sound doctrine and theology.

And I mentioned it to a co -worker in Greenville. I was working for the transit system in Greenville and he was actually a

Presbyterian pastor. And so he was like, hey, you know, let's come to my office every day on lunch break and we'll go through the

Westminster Confession. And we did that for months. I went to his office. We walked through the Westminster Confession.

And at the end, I was like, oh, man, you know, I agree to all of that. I don't agree with your own baptism, but everything else.

Because you're biblical. So. So that was, you know, that was the start, man.

And he actually introduced me to podcasts, to, you know, Grace to You app, which was very influential in my life.

You look into your app and then podcasts and then all of those things kind of inspired the

Bar podcast because those resources and helped me in my theology, helped me in my walk and helped me grow closer to Christ.

Let me ask you, did Justin Peters play any role in coming out of being, you know,

I mean, because you were deep in that, you know, and you've interviewed Justin and folks haven't heard that.

You can go to the the bar podcast dot com. That's where you can get all the information about Duane's podcast.

But you had interviewed him. Yes. Did he play a role in this, in getting you out of the

NAR? And NAR stands for New Apostolic Reformation for people not familiar with it.

And it's this movement where they're as you hear Duane say, they're training people to be prophets and apostles today.

And they train people how to do that and how to do healings and things like that, which is very different from the

Bible, where it was a gift given to people. God would call them. They didn't go to training classes.

Right, right. But Justin, yeah, Justin was very influential. It's funny. I can honestly say maybe

Justin, through the Holy Spirit, planted the seed. I remember the first time

I heard him and I was like, man, I still don't know what he talked about. You know, I shunned him like right away.

Like, man, you know, OK, I agree. Yeah, I agree. TD Jakes and all of them, they're phonies and fakes.

But there are apostles, you know, I was I was trying to cherry pick his sermon. And so that's not going to go well for you when it comes to Justin.

I'm just saying you could try to cherry pick or pick apart his sermon. But when you're done, you're going to agree he's right.

Yeah, yeah. And that's and that's what happened, you know, full circle right back around, listening to it, sharing it with my wife, pretty much like,

OK, all right. Yeah, we this this is wrong. This this is not, you know, what the

Bible teaches. Definitely very, very influential in me coming out.

And I think I was I was grateful for the opportunity to meet him at G3, thank him personally. And then also on my podcast.

Now, let me ask you, when you were coming out of the word of faith into a biblical and reformed that's what bar stands for, biblical and reformed position.

So how this was you going meet with with this pastor. Tell me what was going on with your wife.

I mean, was she did she like always think this was wrong or was it that she was really into this and you had to you know, she came out kicking and screaming?

What was that like? Because you both have come out of of that haven't been involved. Right. So there was no meeting with the pastor.

Like I said, this is a 15000 member. No, no. I said I was talking about when you met with this this

Presbyterian pastor. Oh, oh, oh, got you. Westminster Confession. Oh, what was she doing?

That you bring this back to her. I got you. I got you. You got to hear your side of the story. What's hers? Like how how'd she come out?

How well. Well, see, you know, by nature and you know this because you met me. I'm very laid back.

I'm not very forceful. So I would I would drop breadcrumbs. You know,

I would take opportunities because it wasn't soon as I said, you know. Well, first of all,

I didn't bring it to her until I got a really good understanding. That was number one, because my wife is very sharp.

And you're not going to tell her anything and just think it's going to fly. That is not going to happen. So I got a very good understanding of it first.

And then I presented it and then started dropping breadcrumbs here and there.

Like I would take situations and say, OK, this is where, you know, God is sovereign in this situation or this is where, you know, we see the atonement or the election.

Or, you know, I would take that. And it was it was a slow grind process. I didn't rush her. I didn't pressure her.

I didn't beat her with it. You know, I would I would turn to you because we got

YouTube on our on our TV in our bedroom. I would turn YouTube to Steve Lawson preaching and then

I'd go to work. You know, just keep different sermons would come on.

And and it's funny because it was like one of his sermons that just kind of like, you know, light bulb moment.

But yeah, I would just I would I would gradually get her there. And and and and, you know, she's she's there today.

You know, there's still some things that we're we're working through because she is a very passionate and, you know, definitely comes to worship.

And and she actually has a dance studio and believe in, you know, praising God through, you know, dance.

And so there are some things that we still kind of working through. But as far as just understanding of the sound doctrine and reform theology, she definitely has a better grasp on it.

And then also, you know, of course, getting books and things like that for her to check out. But yeah, it was a gradual process.

And I definitely advise anybody that your spouse is not necessarily where you are or you're looking into it.

Be patient because, you know, somebody was patient with you for you to get to that point. So show your spouse the same grace and graciousness.

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Striving to make today an eternal day for the glory of God. So we mentioned this earlier, and I think that this would be some for a lot of people who don't know the

African -American church. You know, I was joking that you're

African -American and yet you were formed. I grew up in a fundamentalist

Baptist circles and you grew up, meaning my seminary days, not growing up.

That was that was in Hebrew school. But, you know, in my early years of Christianity and there really weren't, you did not see black guys, girls in the churches, the fundamentalist

Baptist churches. And, you know, I remember at my seminary, we had a conference to deal with some of these cultural issues and they had a brother come up and it was interesting because he said, you know, you don't find, you know, he was black and he's saying you don't find black brothers in the fundamentalist

Baptist circles. There's probably reasons for that, but you don't see him in much of the reformed circles either. It's almost like there's been this segregation within the church that still kind of is still today.

Right, right. You know, talk about, I want to talk about that because there is something for a lot of folks.

I mean, I've been involved in a lot of different churches. I don't know if you've been in a traditional

African -American church service. I was candidating for a black church and it was,

I mean, it was a black church. I mean, I was the only white person. My wife was the only

Asian person, you know, it wasn't going to work. They wanted me to come in because they realized that they needed to make changes for this church to keep going.

They wanted me to come in as a white guy and make the changes like, oh, no, no, no, no. That's like saying, hey, please come in and be fired because everyone's going to blame you for the changes.

Of course. Right. But, but it's a very different service. Yes. And, and it's,

I mean, I know that some of the Asian churches are going to have a very different type of service. I preach in Brazilian churches, very different.

And, you know, we have cultural differences in our churches, which I would argue we probably shouldn't so much.

We should have a better mix, but we shouldn't try to force that either. But can you describe it?

Describe for folks who aren't familiar what it, what that's like. And I know you and I were talking about even two different lingo that is used that people may not pick up on.

Right. Well, you know, what I've experienced, you know, the church

I grew up in, you know, it was missionary Baptist, all black. I think, you know, like you say, you make it one or two white visitors here and there, but all black.

But it's, it's, it's really a, I guess, a cultural thing because I visited several churches in different areas, different states during those days because our choir was really good.

We traveled. And so you're talking about a, you know, what they call a foot stomping, you know, very vibrant, you know, loud music, shouting, not shouting with your voice, but actual what we call shout dancing or pray, you know, giving

God praise by those means where you running around the church or you're shouting. All of that was kind of cultural in the

African -American church. And also the pastor, you know, what they call hooping and hollering, where he would, you know, he'll take a text, he might read a couple of verses and then he'll get into what he called his, the

Holy Spirit, get a hold of him and he start, you know, changing his voice and the organ start playing and, and he's, you know, sing, sing, talking at the same time when he think of the goodness of Jesus and, and all of that.

I mean, and, and growing up, I thought that was church. Like I said, oh, this is, this is church.

I thought everybody was doing that, you know, excuse me. And so that is something, and I honestly think it goes back to, to culture, to, to just tradition being passed down.

But there are some really good pastors that use that same method, but also preach the gospel.

I mean, H .B. Charles is definitely one of them that has that same method. But I just think that during, definitely during segregation and, you know, after slavery, the divide was created there first and then it just stayed after those things were lifted because of the past.

And they kind of developed their own style because at the end of the day, you know, each pastor, whoever was successful, that's who you mimic.

And then you would do what they're doing if they're successful and then it just keep going on and on.

And then another thing, we didn't mention this, but I do want to bring it up. The prosperity gospel in the

African -American community is running rampant right now. And that's because and, you know,

I told this to somebody else on a different podcast was what makes the prosperity gospel so attracting to a lot of African -American community, especially when it comes to people that are struggling financially and even,

I guess you could say culturally. It gives them false hope and false promise that, you know, the pastor is driving a

Bentley and, you know, if I give him money, then God's going to bless me with a Bentley or you bless this, you give this amount of money and then

God's going to do this. So all of those things are playing a part in the black church.

And but I will say there are a lot of blacks leaving that culture and going to sound theology.

I'm meeting so, so many that are in that transition out of into biblical theology just because they're tired of the nonsense.

So it's a good transition. And like we see in the rest of our culture. Oh, yeah. But, you know, look, you brought some things up.

I want to I want to talk about because you mentioned H .B. Charles and I was at CHEPCON and it was amazing how there was a couple of brothers that just started, you know, the

Amen Choir. You know, they were out there just aloud. I mean, they were they were shouting Amen.

And it was amazing how he even identified that sound about, hey, well, you know, from where I'm from, that's that's a good thing to have.

Like he realized that for some people, they're not used to the talk back during a sermon.

He was used to it. And he actually fell right into that cadence. And this is the thing I noticed. I mean, you talked about the music and that plays a huge part in the

African -American church and the church that I went to that I said I was there as candidating at me. It was three hours of music before I got up and preached.

I was not used to that. And for visitors, I mean, they don't look like you said some white people come, but they don't really stick around.

You know, my church, when I was pastoring a Chinese church, Americans showed up, but they didn't stick around.

I mean, we preached in English, but the real thing I think is there is the underlying thing that you're really talking about without saying it is that there's an emotionalism.

Yes. It's brought out through the music. Justin Peter says that they wouldn't be able to do

Benny Hinn and all these faith healers. They couldn't do what they do without the music. The music creates the emotion.

But it's also the cadence in preaching. And I want to talk about, you know, like, you know, I saw

H .P. Charles fall right into that and start as soon as he heard the amens, he started right into a cadence.

And the thing with this is the cadence creates an emotionalism. I was talking with a fellow brother of mine who he's

African -American. We're sitting in a basically a lobby of a missionary housing.

And so there's hundreds of people that come in and out of this place in New York. And we're talking about this issue of the emotionalism in the black church and the cadence.

He was explaining this to me. He said there is a cadence. He says it is purely for emotion. He said you could preach about anything and people will amen it.

And even if it makes no sense, he says, I could I could do a nursery rhyme and people will amen.

I'm like, there is no way you could do. And he's like, so he literally gets in to the preaching cadence with Little Miss Muffet.

And no joke, a woman is walking in the lobby, just walking past, goes, amen, brother. I just I shut my mouth.

I was I couldn't believe it. You know, he he's sitting there, says it's all about the emotion that's generated by this preaching cadence that is done.

And you can be preaching complete nonsense and people will give in to it.

And you were saying it's like a half preaching, half singing. Yes, it is. It is.

Yeah. And it's called called in response. And, you know, people, some people say it originated during slave time.

And what it was, was the the preacher would would say something and the people respond like a call and response.

He'll say something. They'll say amen. He'll say, say this kind of, you know, you also hear it in like big band jazz music, you know, you know, the howdy, howdy, howdy, howdy, you know, back and forth.

So it's kind of like that whole idea or mantra. And like you said, that's that's the bad part is the people that aren't seeing anything worthwhile doing it, you know, and they're getting by by saying they're preaching and they're getting by by saying they're passing.

I know a guy that literally no matter what text he take, when he get to that part is when

I think of the goodness of Jesus, all he done for me, how he picked me up, how he set me free, how he put my feet on solid ground.

And it's the same ending every week. I wish I was lying, but it is the truth.

And they stand up every time the band queues up, every time I know I was on the drums and every time it's the same way.

And the people love it every time. I wish I was lying. Do you see that has been around on YouTube, this video of the little girl that she's like six, seven, eight years old and she's preaching.

And she she's right in that kid and it's talking about rain. I listen to that. And if you take the you ignore the emotion of it and it's like, what is she even saying?

Exactly. Nonsense. But everyone was whipped up into this. Yeah, they're jumping all around.

And it's like it's really emotionalism over thinking.

Yes, yes, it is. It is. Thinking is not encouraged in especially in word of faith.

Charismatic. Well, that's because they realize it's wrong. Yeah, it's the same reason we don't teach critical thinking in school, because you can't teach that in evolution.

Right, right. Exactly. Perfect example. Yeah. No, it's not encouraged. Like I said, it's emotionalism and it's learned behavior.

You know, that's something I was able to witness growing up. You know how, you know, you just you pretty much do it because everybody else is doing.

So, yeah, for sure. And, you know, when I listen to a lot of African -American preachers that get into that cadence, you actually can fall into that very easy.

You pick it up. It's something you mimic very easily. Yeah. And see, again,

I'm not saying that that's what I'm saying. Yeah, I'm not saying the style is wrong.

I'm just saying if you're going to do that, at least preach the gospel, at least preach truth within that.

And like I said, H .P. Charles does that very well. But there are so many that don't. There's so many that are saying nonsense.

And that's what kind of brings our attention to it. Well, you know, you interviewed me for the

Bar podcast and we talked about music. Right. And I said on your show, I'm not a big

I'm not big into any music, but I tend to my I have a paper on our website about music.

And I think music can be a real danger. And the reason I think is because we think we focus on the lyrics to define whether something is biblical or not,

Christian or not, whether it's good to listen to. But being a counselor, I know that there's a progression.

I mean, your mind is your first defense against sin. And then it goes to your emotion and then it goes to your will.

And so if something can bypass the thinking and get to the emotion, it has a bigger role to play in whether you're going to do things sinfully or not.

It's going to it's bypassing that thinking. And music does that. Music bypass the thinking and gets right to the emotion where the lyrics get to the thinking.

And so I think we have to focus more on the music. So I get to be I'm like because of that and I'm not a musician.

I don't do music well. I don't know how to say it. So I don't listen to music just to be safe.

But I mean, I used to listen to more classical stuff. I'd listen to hymns. If I listen to music that has lyrics,

I want them to be theologically sound and deep. So at least

I'm thinking and meditating on God and who he is, things of him, not myself or what

God did for me. And we talked about this on your show. I'm not personally a big fan of the hip hop rap music, not for any other reason.

Maybe it's a cultural thing. I didn't grow up with it. I don't have any nostalgia with it, but and I don't listen much music.

But we talked about this, that there's I think some of this preaching cadence, the call and response is something that works into that style of music.

And I said to you, I am thoroughly impressed even if it's on the street when these guys are freestyling and they don't have anything planned.

They just throw something out and then someone's going to just start rapping on whatever is given. It is an art form to be able to do that.

And I can enjoy the art form of it. But when I see these Christians who are doing this and I mean, sound, sound theology,

I don't know many of the artists. I know there's a bunch of guys over with Wrath and Grace.

I've heard some of their stuff. You know, Johan has given me some stuff to listen to and I've heard stuff from guys,

Shailen. There's some others. I don't know all the names. But I'm amazed.

I mean, truthfully, I think some of this hip hop rap music that these guys are doing, they're doing the solid theology.

It's as good or better than most sermons. Oh, yeah, definitely.

I mean, you're getting in like six minutes what most preachers can give you in about 25 or 30.

I mean, they just hammer such theology and bring it all together. And I think that the music style helps in the memory of it, which shouldn't shock folks.

I mean, maybe this might surprise people. Do you know where most of our theology, where we, when you study theology, what book do you think you're going to hit more than any other?

When you start looking at all of theology, attributes of God, things like that. You know which book we hit most often?

What's that? The Psalms. Why is that? Very simple. This was theology put to music.

Wow. Never thought about that. And that's really when I see these hip hop guys that are doing that well,

I go, yeah, they're taking deep theology, deep, rich thinking about God, putting it in a art form that helps with the memorization.

And now what do you have? You have people dwelling and reciting things that draw them closer and closer to God who he is about his word.

And so I look, I'm not a big fan of the rap music, but I am.

I mean, I really, I don't know that the style of music is something that's for me, but I think that the style of music, it can be used to help people to memorize, whether it be scripture or good, rich theology.

And I'm impressed with the guys that do that. Yes, sir. Definitely. Me too.

I mean, I come from the hip hop generation is part of my culture and upbringing.

So to find guys like Shaolin and now thinking back,

I heard Shaolin before I, I guess, became reformed.

And I was like, this guy's good. You know, he got some of that Calvinism stuff in there.

But other than that, you know. The dreaded

Calvinism word. Yeah, yeah. Got some of that C word stuff in there. But, you know, it was influential as well, you know, because, you know, culture and music was a part of my life.

And then, like you said, to hear, like,

I think, I can't remember if it's him or somebody else that has a song that's talking about, you know, the night before Christ was crucified or the night when he was captured.

And they paint a picture with the words to make you feel like you're in the garden with them. Like, I mean, it's just, it's beautiful, man.

So I definitely, the Christian hip hop has definitely been influential and impactful in my life for sure.

Yeah. Johan from Wrath and Grace had given me a video that one of the guys, I don't know if it's one of the guys that works with him or who, but I just remember it was this hip hop song that went going through like the gospel.

And it's explaining through and you see like this flower and it's dying and it's falling apart.

You know, it basically starts off beautiful. And the picture is this flower fading and it's talking about death and destruction and all this.

And then literally gets to a point where he reads the words. They're the same words, reads them backwards.

And it's now all of a sudden reading it backwards. It's the flowers is blooming and it's talking about new life in Christ.

And it was amazing. And just to be able to take the words and reverse the order.

And, you know, it was neat. Christian, are you ready to defend the faith when false religions ring your doorbell?

Do you know what your Muslim and Jewish friends believe? You will if you get Andrew Rappaport's book,

What Do They Believe? When we witness to people, we need to present the truth. But it is very wise to know what they believe.

And you will get Andrew Rappaport's book at WhatDoTheyBelieve .com. Let me ask you, we brought up Shylynn.

I don't even know your position on this. So this will be fun. I don't know a lot about Shylynn, but I know that there was, came under discussion, people were asking and talking about the fact,

I guess he has moved to doing not just Christian rap, but he's doing songs, music that is not just Christian in nature.

And I know that there was a lot of people, oh, well, he's kind of gone to the dark side.

As if the only music a Christian artist should do is all the lyrics must be

Christian. Are you familiar with that? What are your thoughts on that? Well, I haven't heard that with Shylynn.

That's interesting. I think probably a real example is

Lecrae. Oh, maybe it was Lecrae. Maybe it was Lecrae, not Shylynn. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get these guys wrong.

Yeah, no, that sounds way more like Lecrae.

So here's my thing, man. When it comes to a

Christian and your witness, I think you have to be mindful who you partner with. You can have a song that not necessarily every word be

Christian. I think what the issue is with Lecrae is some of the people that he's either featured on their songs or have on his songs that aren't living a life or not profess

Christians at all. I think that's where people have issue with him collaborating with guys in the world.

There's two ways to look at it. I mean, on a personal side, I wouldn't necessarily have somebody,

I guess, quote unquote, secular on my podcast unless it was to talk to them about certain issues or maybe confront them or something about the gospel or opportunity to hear their side.

But also, you have to understand when it comes to recording artists and the culture, it's mostly secular.

It's almost like saying, as American citizens, we don't want to deal with anything that's not ungodly.

Then you got to turn your money in, your house, somebody, an unsaved person sold you your house.

It's almost like if you want to be an artist and that's what you want and you want to be successful, you're going to have to work your job.

All of us don't work for a ministry like you. Some of us have to work for pagans.

So I think you just have to be, you can't be too critical on a person's decision to make music that's not 100 %

Christian and then also when they have to work with certain artists. Like I said, on the flip side,

I think you do also have to be mindful of your witness. Do you want your feature to cause you to look up, your people to look up that person and then he has songs about sex and drugs and whatever and now you're leading people to that instead of to Christ.

On the work side, I get it. But on a personal spiritual side,

I think you should be mindful of who you collaborate with and who you allow to be on the track with you and stuff like that.

It's not just the music industry. I mean, the book publishing industry, most of these quote unquote

Christian publishing houses are owned by secular companies. It's just they see a niche market and they're willing to kind of let them go on their own as long as they're producing money.

But I really, where I became aware of that and how that ends up affecting Christianity is

I remember years ago, John MacArthur came out with a book called The Gospel According to Jesus and the publishers were publishing both

John MacArthur's book and books by Charles Ryrie and Zane Hodge, So Great is

Salvation, I think was the title of one of those. But basically, they're publishing both of them and promoting them alongside each other and it was causing divisions.

I see it throughout when they'll publish books on Calvinism and Arminianism and they promote both.

And the result within the Christian circles is it causes division. Publishing house is just like, oh, you need to buy both.

And they're doing it because it's good marketing. But the reality is it's causing division within the body of Christ.

That's where I have issue with it. And you don't find too many of the bigger publishing houses that aren't owned by some other secular company.

So you have it there too. But I'm of the opinion that we don't have to do everything.

Like if we do a movie, it doesn't have to always be about the gospel.

Especially when we're doing movies for Christians. Some people have this view, like if we do a movie, it has to be overtly

Christian. The gospel has to be there. And yet many Christians go to watch

Star Wars or whatever, they'll go see films that they want to enjoy the plot that have nothing to do with Christ.

But if it's a Christian movie, it's got to be all about the gospel. It's like, why don't we produce good quality Christian films that may not have to do with the gospel?

It should be a good Christian film that you can bring your family to and enjoy watching. And the same thing

I would think with Lecrae, with the music, and you bring up an interesting point, we do have to be careful with the associations.

I wouldn't have a problem with him just doing songs about a godly marriage without mentioning

God. I mean, that could be something good to sing about and meditate on. But yeah, when you bring the associations in, it does change things.

That's right. So true. Would you consider donating to Striving for Eternity? This ministry is one that tries to reach out to some of those smaller churches that most people, most speakers want to avoid.

But by our monthly donors, it allows us to get into smaller churches and provide for them the seminars and conferences that usually only larger churches can do.

We can do that because we have monthly supporters who on a regular basis support us so we could support others.

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slash donate and set up for a monthly donation today. Your donation helps us to be able to spread the gospel around the world, to be able to disciple others, and to provide resources for churches and people who are struggling to grow deeper in God's Word.

Consider donating today at strivingforeternity .org slash donate and we thank you very much for your consideration.

Yeah, so let's see if you're going to be up for a game. Of course.

But it'll be easy on you. So here, let's play a game. It's time now to start the spiritual transition game.

So this game for you, now I don't know if you,

Duane, have watched enough of our rap reports or seen some of the classes that we would do when we did the

Striving Fraternity Academy live. But on YouTube, on the Striving Fraternity YouTube channel, we actually have,

I don't know how many videos are out there, but there's a bunch of videos of me playing this game. So I'm going to explain this game to you so you can put me on the hot spot.

All right, so here's the game. And why do we play this game? We play this game because many people that want to share the gospel feel that once we get to a spiritual conversation, they feel comfortable.

But it's getting there. How do we get that conversation there? I'd say practice.

We need to practice that change from the natural to the spiritual. And that's what this game is about.

The more often you play this, well, the better you get at being able to turn any conversation to a gospel conversation.

In fact, I don't pray, Lord, please lead someone to me to share the gospel with.

I don't pray, Lord, help this conversation to turn to a spiritual conversation.

Why don't I pray that? Because I don't need to. I can make that happen in any conversation.

And this game is to show you that it can be done. Maybe not well. Sometimes I don't do as good as others.

But I can take any conversation and try to find a way to turn it into a spiritual conversation and hopefully get to the gospel.

And so what Dwayne is going to give me is some topic.

I have no idea. And by the way, for folks, this is not edited. This section, the only thing we may edit is silence.

And hopefully there won't be a long period of me going on for five minutes. But no, it may just be little short pieces of silence just for better communication.

But this is not edited. And so Dwayne's going to give me something and we're going to see live how well

I do at transitioning whatever he gives me to the gospel. So all right, let's talk about the.

Hey, have you heard about the final four? The last four guys in the NCAA tournament?

Well, see, you have to go with a topic that I don't. OK, so here's the thing about sports.

You find some people that love sports, some that don't. I it took me a while to figure out. I have two sports that I enjoy.

Mixed martial arts and tennis. They seem odd, don't they? Right. One, you go to a tennis match and you'll still see people in jacket and tie.

You will not see that often at a mixed martial arts event. But I enjoy the the individual sports.

And there's a difference that you see between that and team sports. Basketball, football. Basketball is the one where they hit a little ball with a club, right?

Oh, no, no, that's that's baseball. Oh, no, golf. Teasing. No, the reality is you end up seeing that there are sports where an individual can excel.

And the reason I think I like those sports I like the underdog coming on top, you know, coming from behind and winning.

But in an individual sport, if you have a guy who's dominant, he can show his own ability, his own, you know, just what he could do, his own skill and talent.

We're on a team sport. It's very different. In team sports, you can have a Michael Jordan, your

Magic Johnson, guys that are just phenomenal. And they're above the rest, but they can't do it alone.

They require the rest of the team. And, you know, when we think about that, there's a lot, you know, the teams that get to the final four and ultimately win that championship, there's no player on the team that can say,

I did it alone. I did it all by myself. You know, and as we think about that, this plays into a lot of things in our society.

We have people that want to do it alone. They think they're going to do it their own way. And then we have people that say, no, no, we work together.

And there's an interesting thing that we can see with this though, because we see the way we live our life, whether it's our career, our marriage better be a team effort.

Just saying, if you want to have one of those, team effort works really well.

You're both on the same team. But because when not, well, that marriage, we know what happens sometimes, right?

So the reality is when you have something that's supposed to be a team effort, where people work together, that only works when everyone's working together.

There's other sports where you work alone, but here's the thing. What we learn from that is there are things that you must kind of follow the plan of that sport.

If you're in a team sport trying to do it alone, you may be better than the other guys, but your team is going to lose overall typically because you can't make up for the whole team.

If you have a team of guys that aren't that good, and only one player that's good, then it's not going to count.

But here's the thing. You know, as we look at this, let me take this to other areas of our life because we see this idea of teamwork and individualism that play off each other.

And there are times when it must be one way and only one way. The fact that we as a team, as a society, we can see that society doesn't go so well.

Why? Because the individuals that make up that society break God's law and do things that cause things to turn bad.

That's why you see in big cities where there's more individual people or more individual centers, things get worse quicker.

Well, the reality is that's kind of a teamwork in play of individualism, but the individuals that make up those teams are all sinners.

That's the reason. But this is the one difference that you end up seeing with all the religions of the world.

You end up seeing that most of them are this kind of an opposite of that team effort type of thinking in saying that we have to do works.

And it's, well, the individual, the person has to work his way to heaven.

And so he earns it by what he does alone. The reality is you and I can't do this one alone because we were already the criminal.

It's like going before the judge and saying, you know, I broke the law, but I want to act as judge now in my own sentencing.

You can't do that. The reality is we needed a team, but there's a difference with this team because the team is that God himself came to earth, died on a cross, and he as an individual did it all.

But we can't do it all. We need his effort. In that sense, it's a team effort.

But the reality is he did all the work. We can't take any credit for it. And if we don't recognize that when we stand before a holy and infinitely holy, infinite, just God, we're going to stand before him.

If we're going to stand on our own merits, our own effort, our own works, and not his, then we're going to lose the game of eternity.

My challenge would be don't lose that game. Repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ today.

That's how I would do it. Nice. Now, you might have thought of a different way to do it.

And that's the thing. Nice. When you play this game with people, you're all going to come up with a different way of doing a transition.

And I want to encourage folks to play that game. Why? Because we need to share the gospel with people.

Let's make it easier for ourselves by learning how to transition from the natural to the spiritual.

Get your copy at whatdowebelievebook .com or at the strivingforeternity .org store.

All right. So, Dwayne, before we wrap up and stuff, anything you want to share, any podcasts coming up, any interviews you got, maybe, or ones that were memorable to you, anything you want to send people to.

I know I'll put it in the links, but www .thebarpodcast .com.

It is not a drinking podcast. I've been listening for a long time. I haven't heard any discussion of alcohol and you should drink this beer or that.

There's other podcasts that do that. But this isn't it. BAR stands for Biblical and Reformed.

And so, share with us what's going on, anything that you want to share. Got you. Yeah, man.

So, yeah, we're excited at the bar, man. God has been very gracious to bless us with some really, really good guests.

Probably the best guest so far has to be Andrew. And I'm just saying it because I'm on your show, just putting it out there for you.

You are such a liar. You've had Justin Peters, Steve Austin.

Yeah. Sorry, no one's believing you right now, especially my audience. No, man.

But we did record a really good show right before we got together on this one. But probably my most memorable show, and I would say probably you might want to start there, is the show

I did with Mark Depper. Mark literally challenged me about the gospel and sharing it with a co -worker.

Then I asked him a question. I said, you know, Mark was not an atheist, agnostic.

He was agnostic before God saved him. And I would tell him about a co -worker that was also agnostic.

And, you know, how should I approach him? And the first thing he did was pray that I spoke to this guy.

And then he said, I want you to follow up with me. And he really emailed me and asked me if I was talking to the guy.

So I ended up talking to the guy, just for the record. Everybody keep asking me about it. But I did end up talking to him.

We've had some really good conversations. I was able to share the gospel with him. But I actually changed departments.

So I just see him every now and again. So hopefully, prayerfully, that seed will stay there and God will save him.

But yeah, that - Well, you know what you could always do? Just not putting any pressure on you, but I'll email you afterwards, see if you know.

You could always invite him out to dinner on you. No one wants to - Nobody turns that down.

Yeah, I mean, this is what I do. You know, whenever I've worked secular jobs, I would go into places. I'd always say, hey,

I would like to buy you lunch just to get to know you. And when you're buying lunch and they know that up front, you could basically talk about anything and they're willing to listen.

Good stuff. You're buying. So you could always say, hey, you know, contact, say, hey, when we get together for lunch, let's get together for dinner,

I'm buying. Sounds like a good idea. Okay, I'll give you an update on that.

But no, that was a real big one for me just personally. But God has definitely been gracious.

At The Bar, we also, we started what we call The Bar Network, where we have other podcasts connected with The Bar.

We have what we call Biblical and Reform Spitters. And it's the hip hop show.

You know, we was talking a lot about Christian hip hop with this show, interviews Christians that, you know, or hip hop artists and talk about their story and their projects.

And that's hosted by my good friend, Terrence Barlow, who's also an artist. So that's connected with The Bar Network.

We also have Just Thinking, which is a podcast with Daryl Harrison and Virgil Walker.

And they talk about current events, new, you know, different articles about the racial reconciliation issues and bringing it from a biblical point of view.

Really good show. That's every Friday. And then the last show that's connected with The Bar Network is

Kaleo Scope, which is two ladies, Ariel Bovat and Lisa Robinson have a podcast, and it's all connected to The Bar.

And you can find all of these podcasts at thebarpodcast .com. And man,

I'm just so grateful to be here and be able to speak to your audience and hang out with my main man,

Mr. Andrew. Well, you know, one of the things I, if anyone has been to G3, they know

The Bar Podcast because it is like the shirt that is of The Bar Podcast t -shirts, you know?

Is there a way people can support your podcast and the network and all that you guys are doing? The best way is to email us at thebarpodcast, the number 21 at gmail .com.

That's the best way to support. We'll hook you up with the different things that we have going on.

Also with the gear that Andrew was talking about, that was just genius marketing. There's this guy on our team named

Dwayne that said it'd be a good idea to ask everybody to wear their shirts all on the same day.

So yeah, we have shirts, hats, socks, phone, cases, all of that, man.

We're still working on, my wife is my web designer, so we're still working on our store.

Until then, if you just email us at thebarpodcast, the number 21 at gmail .com, and that's where you can get your gear and support the podcast.

And you guys are on Facebook. You're on Twitter. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. We're everywhere. I'll put those links in the show notes.

So look in the description so you can get all of that. Get all his numbers, right? Right, right.

I think the way they say it now is get your digits, or I think it's get your tens.

I heard someone say. Oh, never heard that one. Yeah, so when you ask for someone's phone number now, instead of asking for a phone number, give me your tens.

I heard that one, your pens. First, I thought they said your pens, and I'm like, I can't keep up with the, just the way the next generation, their language is just changing so quick.

You know, I had enough trouble trying to understand. So, okay, let me understand this.

So bad is now good. Man, that's 80s, man. Cool is hot, you know?

It's like I had enough trouble with that. You know, people, you know, people are going, man, this guy's a dog.

Well, what? I just can't keep up with it, you know? Well, here's the thing.

It cycles, man. It cycles because now fresh is back in and dope is back in.

So it just, you know. Well, yeah, dope is in because it's legal in. They made that legal.

I like what a friend of mine said. He's like, you know why they call it dope? Wow, that's funny.

All right. Well, hey, folks, I hope that you enjoy this. I do want to encourage you guys to go out to the bar podcast.

Check it out. Check out what Dwayne and the others are doing over there. Some good stuff. And, you know, you will get some really good interviews.

Not the one with me, but the others. But, you know, I learned a lot from it.

And I'm not going to encourage you to do anything I don't do. I do listen to this, to the bar podcast weekly.

So go out there, subscribe to them and follow them. Share their podcasts.

You know, this may shock people. But here's some things you could do for them and for us too, if you want to.

But go to the bar podcast. Subscribe. That helps them because then you download. Listen. That's a really good thing.

Share it on social media. Go into iTunes and write a review for them. Rate them high.

I mean, give them like the five stars. Okay. If you're going to give them one star, then don't rate them. Okay. Just saying.

But, you know, if you do those things, it helps. I mean, you're listening to good content. If you're enjoying it, there may be others.

Who might enjoy it. Try to share with people. If you hear something that, hey, you know, I know someone that could value from this.

Share it directly with that person. Hey, listen to this. It is helpful for those who are doing podcasting.

Dwayne can attest this. It takes work. It's not just you get on the phone. Hey, let's hang out and talk.

There's editing. There's a bunch of stuff that ends up going on. So it would be a help that you can help the bar.

You can help the rap report. Go out and rate and review, share and subscribe.

So if you could do that, it is a help to the many that podcast. So, Dwayne man, thanks for coming on.

It was great to hang out with you at G3. I'm looking forward to actually going next year so we can hang out some more.

Maybe, well, we got to maybe do. If you're down in Greenville, maybe we still have some folks down in Greenville that are trying to organize another

Fall for Greenville event outreach. And so maybe you and I can try to work together with some other folks down there and organize something and I can get down there and we can hit the streets together.

Nice. I would like that. Okay. That doesn't mean I literally hit the street for those literalists out there.

All right. Well, thanks. And remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.

That's part of the striving for eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org