Kirby Myers Interview (Part 2)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.�

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the

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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. We have a little format here on the show,

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Mondays, it�s a sermon from Bethlehem Bible Church. By the way, if you want any of those sermons, there�s lots of video sermons as well, bbcchurch .org.

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bbc, Bethlehem Bible Church, church .org, two b�s, two c�s. Tuesdays, I talk to Pastor Steve Cooley, we discuss ecclesiastical, ecclesiology, ecclesial things, ecclesia, sola, ecclesia, oh no, that would be

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Roman Catholic. Wednesdays, we have guests, pastors, teachers, preachers, authors, friends of mine.

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And then Thursdays, I don�t know, I talk about some kind of encouraging, positive,

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K -love kind of doctrine, and then Fridays, we whack people. Guess which one�s the most popular.

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But today, and my favorite ones are Wednesdays, because I get to talk to friends in ministry. And so we have for the second week in a row on Wednesday, Kirby Myers.

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Welcome back to No Compromise Radio. This is show three for you. Yes. Are you getting less nervous or more nervous?

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You know. I love this. This is great fun. Just hanging out with you is a lot of fun. So, you should try to have a show set up and you can do a little podcast.

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You know, it�s interesting, though, doing a podcast, like, my church back home where I was pastor for 12 years, they�re a supporter, a supporting ministry of ours, and so I wanted to do a video, like, kind of an update, a ministry update for our church, but because they wear the uniform, there are so many restrictions.

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I have to be very careful about interviewing anything that might look like, hey, you�re using midshipmen to raise money.

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So I have to be very vague sometimes and, you know, talking about people or interviewing people that are part of the

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FCA ministry. Well, what you could do is instead of interviewing the midshipmen, you could just, you know, updates, you know, if you do once a month, here�s an update for gospel ministry, and then you could, instead of, you know, like a prayer letter, a support letter, you could also include like a little link for the update.

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I like it. See? Let�s talk more about that. I could be kind of an agent for you. Yes, you could. So, Kirby, you were a pastor in Indianapolis at the church of, is it

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Brownsburg? Brownsburg, yeah, on the west side, which you visited. I know! You came and did a men�s retreat for us, which was great, and we had

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Pat first. Pat was our inaugural man camp speaker. Yes, man camp.

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That was fun. You did a great job of playing some games that were not really dopey, but were fun.

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They were man games. Seriously. They were a lot of fun. So, true story, Kirby, we had a men�s retreat here at Bethlehem Bible Church, just about an hour north up in New Hampshire or something.

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It was pretty good grounds. The food was excellent at this particular camp, and there�s a lot of Bible preaching and stuff and good fellowship around coffee, but I said, �Are we going to play any games ?�

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And they all thought I was kind of crazy because, you know, this is for like, you know, seeker -sensitive churches or something like that.

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But I was thinking man camp, and I emailed you, and you told me you were too busy with that. Yeah, it was a bad time.

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I remember you said, �What are some great games for man camp ?� And I was like, �I just,

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I can�t do this right now. I�m really sorry So, how does that work when you say to the elders there that probably, of course, the elders, he gifted them,

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I know that, but you are the instrument. You raise up elders, the church is going on for 12 years that you planted, and now you tell them, you know what, love the

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FCA, love the Naval Academy, love young men, love leaders that will impact people.

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I'm going to step down from being the pastor and go to Annapolis. What did they say?

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How did that all work out? Well, it was really difficult to leave, and I think it should be that way.

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You know, I don't think every pastor is called to stay at one church for 40 years.

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I mean, there are examples of that. John MacArthur is a great one. We love him, and it's been a great run for him at Grace Community Church.

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I loved the Bible Church, and when I would teach the newcomers class, the membership class, you know,

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I would say to them, you know, I wanted them to know I was committed there, and I would say, hey, if the

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Lord were to ever say to me, Kirby, how long would you like to be here? I would have said, I want to be here the rest of my ministry.

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I love the people there, giving birth to a church and just seeing

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God work and, you know, just meeting great friends and just loving shepherding there and preaching to those folks.

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But God was calling me out of there. And so, it was difficult because I love the church, and so it was difficult to leave, and I think that's the way it should be.

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And I don't know that there's ever a perfect time to leave a church, but it was great to leave and have people disappointed that you were leaving instead of, you know, wanting to kick you out the door.

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I mean, you and I have friends that we went to school with that, you know, guys who stayed too long or guys who disqualified themselves or guys that, you know, their elders asked them to leave.

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And so, to be able to leave when things were good, when the church was in a good place, when there was unity in the church, when the church was financially secure, all those things, and be able to leave and have people excited about what you're about to do.

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Sad that you're leaving, but affirming you that yes, we see that this is

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God's calling on your life. Pete I would assume the church has a new pastor now? Jared They do. They do. And I think he began in July of this last year,

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July 2015. So, it took about a year, you know, but very grateful. He graduated from the

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Expositors Seminary in, help me out here, Florida. Pete Florida. Jared Jupiter, Florida.

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Pete Jupiter, I know. Jared Yeah. Pete Okay. I think of Temple Jupiter too, but that used to be in Rome, and that's where they sacrificed the conqueror.

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Jared Yeah, not that one. Pete You know, I was thinking about that the other day. I was in Rome, Kirby, in Rome, Italy.

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That's not Rome, like, you know, Florida or anything. Jared Right. Pete I think there's a Rome, Florida, isn't there? Jared Maybe so.

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Pete Rome, Georgia, maybe. Jared Rome, Georgia. There you go. Pete Maybe the B -52s are from Rome, Georgia. That's Athens, Georgia, I think, maybe.

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I don't know. And there's, have you been to Rome? Jared No. Pete Italy. Okay. So, they have

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Titus' Arch there. Of course, Titus was the general who sacked Jerusalem in 70

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AD and came back, and I think it was like 75 AD, they erect this arch and the candelabra is there from the temple.

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Anyway, there was a huge thing called a triumph, and you'd have the general and all the different things.

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Maybe they'd bring back elephants from the conquered country, and they'd bring back some slaves as well.

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Some they might release to show hospitality and graciousness, and others they mainly killed, and I think they killed them at the temple

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Jupiter. Now, I might be wrong about the temple's name, but they'd kill them at a temple. And then to think that the language in 2

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Corinthians 2 and Ephesians 4 and Revelation 19 is triumph language, triumphant language.

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And instead of killing us, we were the enemies,

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God has conquered us, General Jesus has conquered us, and he brings us back and instead of killing us at the temple, he regenerates us, he gives us spiritual gifts and said, now go serve my people in these churches.

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I thought, you know what? Praise the Lord for General Jesus. Jared Yeah, amen. Didn't you write a book about King Jesus?

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Pete You know what? I always thought somebody should probably write one, so I ended up doing that. Jared Yeah, yeah. Pete Kirby, you at the yard there in Annapolis, what would your daily duties be?

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I know Tuesday nights you have a Bible study there and I'm going to be excited or I am excited to go there in one month to teach.

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What do you do throughout the day? So, if somebody says, well, we'd like to support Kirby, we want to give money to him through the

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FCA, we can find that out online if we Google it. What do you do all day?

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How does that work? Discipleship, teaching, study? Jared Yeah, I would say there's three main aspects of my ministry.

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Number one would be our Tuesday night gathering. That's when a lot of the religious, the

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Protestant ECAs, as they call them on the yard, extracurricular activities meet. And so, that's our worship service for the week, you know, in a sense.

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And so, preparing for that, I've been teaching through the Book of Ephesians this fall and in the spring.

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And so, preparing for that, that's a big meeting night. That's open for all athletes, and you'll see that when you come.

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There'll be men and women there, black and white. It's just a great mix, great diversity. The second part of my job aspect would be discipleship.

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So, meeting with guys one -on -one, guys who are different walks in their life, in their

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Christian life, you know, new believers, seasoned believers. And so, meeting them one -on -one.

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One guy, you know, we've been studying the Gospel of John together for about a year and a half. Another guy, we've been working through the

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Book of James. And one guy, you know, was from California, from Long Beach, Calvinist.

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So, we've been studying Steve Lawson's book on the expository genius of John Calvin and just enjoying that together.

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And then the third part, you know, I'm there to really minister to coaches and athletes, but God has really opened the door to do ministry with the men's basketball team.

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For some reason, the coach likes me. He used to, his name's Ed DeCellis, he used to coach in the

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Big Ten at Penn State. And I'm an Indiana fan, and so I knew of him before I came to the

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Naval Academy. And we've just become friends and he's really given me access to his players. So, I will attend practices and like, the reason

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I'm here with you is because I traveled with them up here to Holy Cross for their game. And I do chapel services for them during the season, especially at home, travel when

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I can. We got to go to Hawaii this year with the team. I don't know if you knew that. Pete I did not know that.

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I only knew you got stuck in New York City for the 30 inches of snow. That's all I knew. Jared Yeah, last weekend we were in,

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Navy was supposed to play Army at Madison Square Garden and what a thrill that was. But right before we took the floor, there was a, you know, a snow emergency called by the governor.

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And so, we had to, the game was canceled. It's rescheduled for Monday night. Pete How many people showed up?

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Jared I don't know. The women played before. And so, Pete And then they canceled. Jared They did, yeah. So, the women got their game on.

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But this year, we traveled, my family and I traveled to Hawaii with the basketball team. They were there to commemorate the 74th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

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So, we actually played on Pearl Harbor Day in Block Arena. Navy played against Oregon, and then

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Oklahoma played Villanova. It was a great event. Right there on the base at Pearl Harbor, in an arena called

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Block Arena, which still has bullet holes in it from the attack in 1941.

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Just a fantastic opportunity to be with these, especially I think going with the

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Naval Academy guys, knowing that they are going to put their lives on the line very soon as officers.

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And a very humbling experience to go to the USS Arizona with them and experience that and thinking about what they were contemplating as they're about to graduate and become officers.

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And so, those are the three aspects of the minute. The Tuesday night, our meeting night, discipleship of young men.

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My wife has come on part time with me, and so she's doing some discipleship of young women. No matter what your view is of women in the military, we have women at the

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Naval Academy, and so they need Jesus, too. And so, she's spending some time with two or three girls, just pouring into them, and then just my time with the basketball team.

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We've done a coach's Bible study, we'll be doing that again soon. Just trying to pour into coaches there, too, who are coaching our kids.

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Kirby, when I look at the landscape of evangelicalism, we have all been in churches where there's a really wonderful family, a neat single man or woman, a wonderful set of grandparents, and then they move on, right?

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They move maybe to a warmer climate, their job calls them someplace else. Maybe they're in the military and they have to go to their next assignment.

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And it's hard because we lose this good family. You know, Lord, why don't you take the bad families, but they're the good families.

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Speak to our listeners in light of that because it's built into the system where you are.

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You're going to have rotation of these men and women every single year, and at most, you're going to have them for four years and they're going to be gone.

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So, what's the philosophy that you have that our listeners should have when it comes to people who are there with you for a few years, a short season, and then they move on?

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Because there's probably a bitter way, a lack of content way to think about it, and then there's a biblical way.

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What's the biblical way? Jared I think the biblical way is, okay, you're here and whether you're, you know, not yet a believer, and so we want to do evangelism with all athletes on campus and trying to do that, just preach the gospel.

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I preach the gospel almost weekly because I want our young people to really know

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Christ, not just know about Him, not have a religious experience or a church upbringing. I want them to know

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Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. And so, for that athlete that does know the

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Lord, they've got four years, I've got four years with them. I want to pour into them. I want to disciple them and prepare them for what they have next in their life.

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They're going to leave, they're going to graduate, they're going to go all over the world, either with the

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United States Marines or the Navy as an officer, and they could be shipped really to the ends of the earth.

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And so, preparing them for that, for what's next in their life, trying to help mature them as a

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Christian, so then wherever the Lord takes them, that they would then continue what they've learned, that they would preach the gospel, that they would be making disciples wherever the

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Lord would have them go. Peter DeYoung Kirby, when I listened to Jim George years ago back at seminary,

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I think he was at a church, maybe pastor, helping the pastor there or an elder or some kind of leadership capacity, and it was near a base, a military base.

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And so, these great people would come in. He would train them, disciple them, get up and have breakfast in the morning with them type of thing, and then they would leave.

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And he said initially, he was heartbroken and sad and maybe even bitter because you spent all this time, and then they leave.

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But then he got over it and repented and thought, I'm going to train these people up for God's kingdom, and then the next church where these people go to, they will be better off to serve and minister to the

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Lord's people there. Wow, that's tremendous. And I would love to be a part of that where I'm at, to say, hey, we've got four years with you.

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So, what are the things you need to know? What are the things you need to learn? And how can we equip you for where you go next?

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And it'd be great that as these kids go to Spain or Japan or Bahrain or Virginia or Florida or San Diego, that they could go somewhere, go to a church and begin to really serve those people there as mature believers in Christ.

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Pete Kerby, when I consider the Naval Academy and what's required to get in and letters of commendation and senators and congresspeople,

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I don't even know anymore what it is. I've read it before, but I've forgotten. These are the best of the best, smartest, highest

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IQ, uh, those that are most involved in community service.

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What's your take on their understanding of the Bible? In other words, it seems like we're in a post -Christian society.

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It seems like people are biblically illiterate. You mentioned the Calvinist friend there that wants to study loss and I'm sure there are exceptions.

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But do you think in general, even though they're the best of the best, do they know less about the

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Bible these days or more? How do you, how do you think through that so then you can minister them better?

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Dr. Jordan Mance Yeah, I think you get people at all different levels. But I would say one of the battles we're facing with today with our young people would be in the area of science.

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And when we do something, they have six -week exams, you know, three times in a semester, and they call that week academic reserve week.

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And so things are, you know, very light on the schedule because they have exams. And we still meet and we have, we call it

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Chick -fil -A and Q &A. You know, they're locked in at the academy from really

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Sunday night until Friday evening. They can't leave the yard like a normal college. And so if they can get

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Chick -fil -A, you know, on a Tuesday night, they're pretty excited about that. We have great crowds, even though it's exam week.

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And I asked them, you know, ahead of time, hey, email me questions, text me questions, and we will answer those tonight at FCA.

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And they usually don't do it during the day, but then once they're at the meeting, my phone just starts blowing up.

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People are texting me. And every time we do Chick -fil -A and Q &A, there are questions about science, about creation, and how can we as Christians, you know, how do we correlate evolution and what we learn in the

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Bible? And so, I think that probably shows up too at a school where there's such a focus on mathematics and on the sciences.

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And so, that is a challenge. And so, again, I'm preaching the gospel and I am fighting weekly that this is the

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Word of God. This is the Bible. This is not just a storybook. This is the inspired

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Word of God. I want them to know that and to take God for His Word, that they would understand that God is a

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God who cannot lie. His Word is true. He can be trusted. And so, maybe they know their

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Bible, I would say not so much the New Testament, but trying to get them to understand that we can trust

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God's Word, we can trust the creation account. Kirby, when you teach folks, do you sometimes do, what's the, maybe

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New Tribes mission approach where you start in the Old Testament and you begin to talk about Adam needed a substitute,

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God killed the animal and clothed him, same with Eve. You've got Passover, substitute,

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Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement, substitute, Isaiah 53, substitute, Jesus shows up, here's the

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Lamb of God, kind of large swaths of redemptive preaching? Or do you pick a book to preach through?

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You pick topics? What's your strategy for Tuesday night? Yeah. Yeah, this year,

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I've just been studying through Ephesians, teaching through Ephesians. Last year was new. I felt like as, you know,

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I'm the first campus director there for FCA. And so, I really needed to lay a foundation.

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You know, what is it that we believe? And so, just talking about these things, you know, that Jesus is the only way and the

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Bible is the Word of God. We are saved by faith and faith alone. It is by God's grace and grace alone.

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And so, again, you get someone as a freshman, and you want to just keep bringing them along to maturity.

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So, they know, I mean, they see the signs or they hear about Fellowship of Christian Athletes, so they know that they're coming to a

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Christian group. And I would say a majority of our kids have some type of a church background.

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And so, yeah, I don't know that I love New Tribes and what they've done there, but we're just trying to give the gospel.

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And for those that want to go further, they have come to me and said, hey, can I meet with you one -on -one?

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Can we study Romans together? Or can we study James together? One young man on the tennis team, can we study

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Daniel together? It's challenging, but so that often happens outside of our

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Tuesday night meeting. Pete I think we mentioned it last week, tell our listeners how they could get a hold of you.

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I find it fascinating that we have an FCA director, campus ministry director, who's trained at the

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Master's Seminary and equipped for Bible teaching and evangelism and verse -by -verse exposition, understands exegesis and authorial intent.

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And so, if you're looking to support missionaries, I know I want you to support your local church first, and then thirdly, maybe a radio show.

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But secondly, missionaries, how would people go about supporting you if they wanted to financially?

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Mike Yeah, well, I appreciate that, Mike. They could simply just go to Google and Google my name,

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Kirby Myers, M -Y -E -R -S, and then the word MyFCA, and there's a page there that they'd be able to see and get a little caption of what we're trying to do at the

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Naval Academy and how they could support us financially. Pete Kirby, I stayed at your home in Indiana, and at the time, there was a kind of a new addition to your family, and he seemed like he was made out of pewter.

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I picked up your son, Andre, is that his name, right? And it seemed like he was just, you know, if I pick up little girls, they just seem kind of soft and fluffy.

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And I pick up little boys, and they just seem like compact and firmer. And then I picked up your son.

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And I just thought, no wonder you're an FCA campus director, because this kid's going to be, you know, the new fullback from Nebraska, Andra Franklin or something.

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Tell us about your son and how you got your son. Mike Yes, I have three boys, our first two biological,

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Jonathan is 12, Matthew is 10. And then we adopted a little boy.

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His name is Andre, Andre MacArthur Myers. Pete Seriously. Mike MacArthur meaning general, and that is a great name for him.

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He wants to be in charge. But we adopted him through foster care.

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We, my wife really wanted to adopt before we even got married. She was asking me, what do you think of adoption? And I was like, honey,

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I just want to get married, you know, and, but the Lord finally brought me to where she was just having a heart for adoption.

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And so, we, you know, we took classes through the state of Indiana. We called it poor man's adoption, because there were 700 kids in the system in Indiana waiting to be adopted, the parental rights had been terminated.

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And so, you have all these children just waiting. And so, God led us to this little boy, he's

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African American, and he's been a great addition to our home. So, a lot of wrestling, a lot of football at our house, and we're grateful to have

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Andre. Pete Well, I am pleased that you're here, glad to minister alongside of you.

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If you want to get to know more about Kirby, you can also email me, I will forward that email to him, info at nocompromisedradio .com.

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Kirby, I look forward to teaching sexual fidelity to those midshipmen, and we're going to give them a copy of the free, a copy of the book for free.

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And I'll make sure I teach the gospel while I'm there too. Kirby Amen, amen. Pete You're going to notice that. Kirby Thanks for coming, Mike. Pete I'm glad.

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Mike Avendroth with Kirby Myers on No Compromised Radio, www .nocompromisedradio .com,

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or we've got the YouTube channel as well. Thanks again, Kirby. No Compromised Radio with Pastor Mike Avendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 10 .15 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromised Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.