Dealing with the realities of 2021

Okay, I'm going to hit the go live button, and then Mark, it'll be your time to share a joke.

Okay. Now. Okay, so a joke.

And it's painful I've been thinking but I did Google it okay. So, what happens to a frog's car when it breaks down.

I don't know. Good. It gets towed away. That's cute.

What can I say you know that's the first one that came up under clean jokes on Google so I'll take it.

Okay, I thought you're gonna say the car croaked. That would have been funny also.

Yeah, that works to know I got two jokes. Okay, well

I'm Terry cameras out here with creation fellowship Santy. We are a group of friends bound by our common agreement that the creation account as told in Genesis is a true depiction of how

God created the universe and all life from nothing and just six days a few thousand years ago, we've been meeting most

Thursday nights here on zoom since June of 2020. We've been blessed with presentations by pastors teachers doctors cartoonists scientists apologists and all around smarty pants people who love the

Lord and have a message to share. You can find most of our past videos by searching creation fellowship

Santy. That's s a n t e on YouTube. Follow us on our creation fellowship

Santy Facebook page and sign up for our email list by emailing creation fellowship

Santy at gmail .com so you don't miss any of our upcoming speakers. Most of our topics are creation themed naturally, but from time to time we're blessed with some off topics such as what we have tonight.

Tonight I am happy to introduce to you mark kids co mark is a Navy chaplain working with warriors and civilians who are struggling from PTSD domestic violence depression relational struggles and suicidal ideation.

Mark is also known for his work with refugees, where he created a school that has taught

English and cultural assimilation to over 2000 people as a public speaker and teacher mark has written curriculum and has spoken to thousands of people, inspiring them to dream big and move their lives toward their full potential.

Tonight he's here to share a special message to encourage us all in coping with and adjusting to the big changes we've seen in the world in this past year.

And if you have any questions during his presentation, whether you're here in zoom for the fellowship or whether you're watching along on Facebook, please be sure to put them into the comments and after his presentation, we'll have a q amp a and I'll ask those questions.

So with that, turning it over to you, Mark. Okay, great. Thank you for that introduction and thank you

Terry for inviting me to be a part of your, your fellowship group here and I saw

Cheryl who I've known for many years on here so it's always cool to run into people that I haven't seen in a while and to see their face so hi

Cheryl to you as well and, and everybody else out there. Good to meet, meet you all. So I met

Terry, Terry was a part of a zoom call that I did for Shadow Mountain Church in their leadership.

Small group leadership program that right. So, she invited me to join you guys and to share some of the, the stuff that I had shared with that group but it's also things that are being talked about in our military and with leaders all around that I meet with that we share this trying to up I lost myself there.

Just jump there we go. Sorry about that. So, with military leaders and churches on principles in leadership, but it's really not when

I use the term leadership, I'm not necessarily talking about those who are in these, these high positions of authority, you know,

I'm talking about every person that is leading their life, leading a life according to God's Word, leading a family, whomever that you that's in your sphere of influence right.

So, Terry gave you some of my background, I worked at Shadow Mountain Church for about 17 years, and about four years ago, we, my wife and I, we were just talking and I had this just this inner struggle going on that I wanted to do something different something new.

So we branched out we started our own little coaching consulting business and it's, it's been one of these ebbs and flows type things of trying something new out, but in the midst of all that.

Something unique happened. And that was COVID -19. So, back in, you know,

March 2020, all of us experienced this, this craziness of COVID.

And if you jump back to that, that point in time I remember that day where I was at my office, and my wife.

She calls me up and she says, Hey, on your way home can you swing by Trader Joe's and pick up some peanut butter for the kids.

Now, we have three kids, Chad, Jennifer and Ashley they're eight, seven, and three years old, and Chad our oldest, he just he picky eater won't eat anything without peanut butter.

So, got to get the peanut butter and it's got to be a certain brand from Trader Joe's that he, he eats.

So, on that day I swing into Trader Joe's. And it was just chaotic, like it was people, they were pushing their carts through and they were just scooping stuff into their grocery carts and filling it up and I'm stepping in there going, what just happened here.

Everything's in chaos a couple people had these radical like painters masks on or something, and they're walking through, and I'm starting to go,

I have no idea what's going on I try not to watch the news. I can always rely on my friends to tell me what's going on.

So, it was just chaos so I caught myself in that moment going,

I don't know what's going on, but I guess I need, you know, I need more beef

I need some chicken I need some milk. I need some, why is there no toilet paper here what what's going on here.

And, you know, I got the necessities the peanut butter the coffee and the chocolate and the ice cream, those were all there so I was able to get those, and then

I checked out, got home. And our three kids are home from preschool and in their regular schools

I'm like, what is going on. And you guys remember those days it was just kind of weird it seems like it was ages ago, and yet it's only been just over a year that this, this happened.

So, all of a sudden, the world enters this moment of chaos and disorder.

And it's just a lot of fear and anxiety came in, both for the

Christian and the non Christian, it, people had this fear and anxiety so for us it was one of these, these things where it was like well.

You know what I can run my business from my house and this will be kind of fun or be kind of interesting so sure enough,

I locked down in my house, set up an office. The kids are home my wife's home,

I'm home working, and it wasn't going well so I ended up starting to go back to my office, where I could actually get work done.

Now, in this moment, we still didn't know what was really happening.

But if you recall back in 2020 the Theodore Roosevelt the big aircraft carrier that was in Guam had about 600 positive coven cases.

So they pulled that ship into Guam, they unloaded all the sailors. Most of them were asymptomatic but there was a few that were pretty severe one passed away in the skipper of that ship kind of put out some may days for help, but it went nowhere so he went public with it which is, which is a no no, because it lets your enemies know what they're going to do.

So, who knew China knew so when China knew our ships pulled into port and couldn't do anything.

China started to press out into the Pacific, and be a little more aggressive with their behavior.

So in that moment, I get a phone call that says, your orders are waiting for you to sign them.

And I go, my orders, what are you, what are you talking about. And I go, there is no, you can't,

I'm a reservist you can't activate me that quick, you know, and they go, it's interesting times national emergency there's a crisis.

So I got activated in out of the reserves into active duty, and this is how it worked.

I was told I would be able to quarantine in my house with my family.

So, for 14 days, just stay in your house with your family and order a bunch of food to be provided to last year so you're not getting out there and getting exposed.

So, great, we'll do that. So, 14 days, when my order started to come up.

It came up to the day that my orders were to start. And I kid you not, in less than 12 hours

I get a call, and a person of much higher rank than me says, you need to report to North Island for duty, you're going to quarantine in a room that we have for you on North, North Island air station.

I'm like, wait, you can't do this to me and my, my family like we don't know what's going on nobody does, and if anyone's going to go out and get food it's going to be me so.

So this happened so my wife takes me down to North Island.

She drops me off, and one of the sailors picks me up. And shows me to my room, and he says, you cannot leave this, this hotel room for the next 14 days.

So once the door drops just know you're in quarantine and isolation, and we'll let you know when you can come out, but we'll deliver food to your door.

Every few days. So, sure enough. Now I'm in my hotel door shuts and I'm going, this is weird.

And I got to tell you, I was angry. I was ticked off because not knowing truly what's going on with, with the whole virus the

COVID thing, all the restrictions and yet I felt like my family was put out there in a weird time, and I was taken out of my home and isolated from them so I'm safe but I don't know about them.

Okay, so this happens. And in the first couple of days,

I was just getting, I was just getting angry. And I was angry at my command

I was angry at how, you know, why would the military do this and most people who've been in the military know that's just kind of what the military does.

So, on the second day, I was talking to my wife, and she goes you know what

Mark. You might as well make the best of it 14 days isolated in quarantine in a room, and in Coronado, not that I had a view or anything

I was right under the flight path on North Island so she goes make the best of it.

And she goes, what, what's the anger going to do for you. So I was like you know what she's right, and I read this story.

And I've, I've known I've known it for years, but I reread it and I want to share it with you so let me share my screen with you.

There is this story.

Let me see right here. On Admiral Stockdale. Now, let me tell you just a little bit about this, and this will set the tone for where I'm going with this so Admiral Stockdale back during the

Vietnam War was a lieutenant, he was a pilot and he was shot down in northern

Vietnam, and he was in prison. In the Hanoi Hilton that if some of you may remember the

Hanoi Hilton or you maybe you read the history books but that was like the extreme prison, where they put prisoners of war and they just tortured them heavily there so to give you some perspective he was isolated in the

Hanoi Hilton for eight years. And during that eight years he was beat up several times he was tortured over 20 times he had no rights his rights were taken away from him, even prisoners are supposed to have rights according to the

Geneva Convention but there's only countries like us and maybe one or two other countries that actually honor those things.

So, his prisoner of rights were taken away from him in life was full of uncertainty.

So he had zero idea if he would ever get out of prison, or if he would ever see his family again.

And Jim Collins who wrote the book. Good to great did an interview with Admiral Stockdale before he passed away.

And he asked him and this is written in good to great the book good to great.

He says, How did you deal with this, not knowing what's going to happen not knowing what's what's next, and Admiral Stockdale said to him,

I never lost faith in the end of the story. I, I never doubted not only that I would get out of this situation but that in the end

I would prevail and turn this experience into my defining moment.

And in retrospect, he said he wouldn't have traded the experience for anything.

And Jim Collins asks him well, you made it out but who were the guys that didn't make it out in Stockdale said it was the optimists.

The optimists didn't make it out of the prison camp.

And all of us probably go well aren't the optimists the ones that are to keep society going aren't they the ones that keep us our attitudes and our perspective and check and Admiral Stockdale says this he goes, the optimist optimists were the ones that said,

Hey, you know what, we will be out of here by Christmas, and Christmas came and went, oh we'll be out of here by by Easter and Easter came and went, okay, we'll be out of here by the fourth of July that came and went okay

Thanksgiving came and went, and then Christmas again, and he said, they died of a broken heart.

He paused for a moment. And he says to them. Don't miss the lesson in this.

You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end with the hard reality and the discipline to confront the most brutal reality and facts are the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they, they may be.

So, here it is. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be.

Now, in this Admiral Stockdale is giving us some great teaching lessons on keeping the end in mind, without losing the reality of the present.

Now if you back up to when this whole pandemic started, it was, we're going to flatten the curve.

So people go, okay, we can do this we can flatten the curve will give it two weeks, and people really,

I think did an excellent job with hunkering down. But after that two weeks, it was okay, we will.

It's not just flatten the curve, other things started to play into it, and life became unpredictable.

So, I would hear people say, Oh, you know what, we'll be back to church by Mother's Day.

Oh, we'll be back to church by Father's Day. Oh, we'll get back to church by definitely by, you know,

July, July 4. And what was happening in this moment is every time we set a timeline and expectation of when this will be over the situation will be over.

And we passed that timeline, you could see people getting deflated and anxiety and just not doing really well.

So, I read this story. And on day three of my quarantine and isolation.

I called my wife. And I said you know what Kelly. I was told 14 days.

And she was thinking the kids would go back to school and that we would get back to church and back to small group again.

And I said, let me share this Stockdale paradox with you and I said, I want us for this season of our life.

Not to lock ourself into man made timelines of when things will happen.

But let's just enter into this weirdness of life, going, what is the best we can do with it

Lord, what is it that you want us to do to learn about our family about ourselves about our business about our own spiritual life, but let's not get caught up on government timelines state timelines state official timelines, you know, let's, let's just not get caught up on it because we don't know.

So, she goes, you know what you're right let's let's do that. Now, 14 days turned to 15, 16, 17, 18.

I was locked in a quarantined room for 29 days. And I never really lost it, because I went, you know what, in the end, this is going to be over.

God knows what's going on, God has a God has a plan. And I think somewhere in his plan he's kind of shaking things up for the church a little bit.

And yet, 29 days happened and I was set free only to go on a mission, and within a few days get exposed to 40 positive

COVID cases. So the command calls me up and says, Mark.

You've been exposed to 40 positive COVID cases, you need to go into 14 days of quarantine.

That's like, you got to be kidding and they said but the good news is you can do it at home with your family was like great so now

I can get my family sick. Okay, so what we ended up doing is we got a place in the mountains from friends on a place and we said hey, if we're going to go through this together, let's at least go somewhere where we can enjoy life.

You know, the brutal reality is, will I get sick from it. I don't know will we get sick from it.

I don't know but in the meantime, let's go enjoy the 14 days up in the mountains at a place with a pool all this stuff.

And we had a great time of connecting as a family which we haven't done in a while.

So, COVID for us was actually something that brought us closer together as a family, where many of our families have really struggled and were pulled apart, and many people in our church small groups were pulled apart.

So, I share that story with you. Because we live in weird times.

Like, COVID is one thing, and it looks like, it looks like some of the restrictions are coming down as kids are going back to school, but anxiety and stress is going up because now it's another shift.

And we still don't know what the outcome of the long term outcome of closing down business is going to be.

I don't know if you like on the border restaurant on the border Mexican food if you do give a thumbs up on your, your screen but on the border

Mexican food. It's closed down that's my favorite restaurant, because of COVID. Okay, that means people are out of jobs.

We've driven around and we look at some of the small mom and pop shops that are now boarded up, they're closed because of COVID.

So even though it, in a sense, didn't affect our family too much.

We're starting now to see the aftermath of it. Many of our churches, and if we were sharing and maybe later in the q amp a we can talk about this but many of our churches.

I work with a lot of pastors whose churches still are not open, and they're doing it on zoom or, you know,

Facebook Live, but they haven't opened in over a year, while others are still somewhat playing it safe, and then others.

Like, like my church, for example, is acting like nothing's ever changed so it's just going on normal.

So, there is this brutal reality that people are faced with.

And that is, people are experiencing grief.

Now let me explain this grief.

There was, there was, when I first did this presentation was maybe four months ago for Shadow Mountain Church, and it was just after, just after the election

I believe it was right after the inauguration. And it was interesting because not only did we go through a year of uncertainty with, with COVID.

But then there's this wrestling of the political climate in our country.

The country that was a year ago is a different country today.

The country that was before January 19 is different than it was come

January 20 of this year. And it's bizarre because we are, and give me your feedback on this in the

Q &A time, because what I'm seeing is just an incredible amount of grieving, and let me talk about the grieving process because it's not just, whoa

I'm sad. Grieving is also anger. We sometimes grieve in our anger so let me go over this with you.

As you are leading your families, your friendships, your, yourself, is your reality is not the same as their reality.

And yet we tend to fortunately in the church, we have a tendency to huddle towards people who are very similar to us in our, our beliefs, and in our practices and that's that's the wonderful beauty of God's community in the church is we come together.

But I started noticing in our small groups and some of our social settings is, even though we have a common belief in our

Savior, you start to know that through this pandemic. And through the election that not everybody in our group actually believes the same or acts the same.

Okay, so. And we all deal with grief differently.

So, so first step of grief is when you're dealing with people, there's this denial.

This isn't happening this isn't reality, this isn't anything. And I remember back when

COVID happened I kind of went, what, this is kind of weird, you know, I don't know anybody who's at the time

I didn't know anybody who was sick so I'm not sure. Then, then there was this mask mandate and stay in your home mandate that kind of got me a little bit frustrated.

Especially, especially when we take the kids out for a hike and, and people are looking at you a mile away and we weren't wearing a mask but people get angry what's wrong with you and then

I'd get angry back and then we go through the phase of bargaining. You know, well, I'll wear my mask because this is going to be over soon and, and I need to go through a grocery store without someone hitting me or yelling at me so okay

I'll wear my mask to make you feel good, then depression happens. I'm kind of in a funk.

I'm disconnected from my church I'm disconnected from my social life, the people that I meet with pray with everything.

It's just kind of depressing when's this going to end and then there's acceptance of the new reality.

And then the sixth stage of grief is giving it a new meaning.

So for me, I can say COVID was just an interesting, interesting time for us but it also brought our family closer together.

And we were able to create a new meaning. That was us. But a lot of people were not able to create a new meaning from it.

So, this young 18 year old boy. He was in my class.

And he said something that I thought was profound. We were talking, so San Diego Christian College out there in Santee.

I teach a finance class there. And we were talking about what people are experiencing in COVID.

And he said to me, he goes, I wish my pastor. I wish my pastor was more like the

Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul went to prison.

He got beaten. His rights were taken away from him and then they found out he was a

Roman citizen and then they gave him back his rights. But in the same time, he was being abused, spat upon, all of these things.

And he says, I wish my pastor during this season was more like the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul, while he was in prison, wrote many of the epistles that are blessing us today.

And he said, I wish my pastor would quit complaining and get busy and do some writing and some good preaching.

And I thought, oh, my word. I just got smacked with wisdom from an 18 -year -old who just said, you know what?

Give it new meaning. Give it new meaning. You know, and make the most out of a bad situation.

You know, God's allowing a bad situation to happen, but we can create a new meaning out of it if we allow the

Lord to lead us and to guide us, right? So, here's the stages of grief.

Many people that you're with, maybe you as well, some of you moved. Now, that may be a thing of celebration, but it can also be a sign, not a sign, but also a time of grieving because what you knew is now gone, but your new reality is something different, right?

Or here in the

U .S., we have now, for many people, a new president, new political atmosphere.

There's a lot of, and I'm a patriot, so sometimes when I hear things on the news about where our country is heading,

I get nervous. I get fearful. I get angry.

And yet, at the same time, people will be sharing, hey, did you hear about this? Did you hear about this?

And yet, in my grief, I'm still in phase one of denial.

I'm denying that we're going downhill quickly. I'm in denial of it.

And then when I think of it, I get angry. And then when I get angry, I start to bargain back and forth with,

I need to do this, I need to do this. And I'm sure many of you experiencing the same thing, like this grieving process of the political climate in our church.

And here's another one, grieving some of the church's response.

And I would be curious as to your thoughts on this, because I've seen a group of people who are feeling like their church should have done more or could have done more during the time of COVID, and yet they felt isolated from their church.

And yet, the issues that are going on in the world, many churches are not addressing them as though they're in denial of that reality as well.

So there is this grieving process of, what's the church going to look like after all this?

What's the church going to look like if certain political things get through Congress, get voted on in the

House and go to the Senate and get approval? What's the church going to look like three years from now, five years from now, and it creates this anxiety.

So we'll come back to that in our discussion time. So, here is one of the acronyms that we use in the military.

And I'm going to share this with you, because I think as you lead your families, your life in your place of work, your personal life, there is this acronym called

VUCA. And it's a military acronym, but it really has to do with the ability to assess acceptable risks, levels of risk and management decision based on incomplete or conflicting information.

Leaders also need the ability to learn from mistakes and to allow others to do the same.

So, this first sentence here, VUCA is this principle that helps you as a person living your life, not to get so caught up in the time frame of things.

The levels of risks of what's going on politically or with a pandemic or economically is not to get caught up in the, this will end, but to get caught up in the,

I will prevail in the end, but I need to face the hard realities of what exists right now.

Okay, so VUCA is this concept of being adaptable and flexible and very fluid in your decision making process.

So, as you're making decisions, financial decisions, decisions for your family, friends, small group, church, that you're not so locked up in a time frame, but you're in a realm of being fluid and flexible.

So, remember this guy, Mike Tyson, heavyweight champion, right?

So, Mike Tyson says, everybody has a strategy until they get punched in the face.

I love it. So, get in the ring with Mike Tyson, he's either going to bite your ear or he's going to punch you in the face.

Everybody has a strategy until they get punched in the face. Now, in the military, we say, we have a strategy to fulfill the mission, but after the first bullet is fired, the strategy changes.

So, everybody has a strategy until the first bullet is fired, and then you need to adapt your strategy and be fluid with it in order to get the outcome you want or to achieve the mission.

So, VUCA, once again, the ability to assess acceptable levels of risk in management decisions based on incomplete or even conflicting information.

During this season of COVID and politics and churches being all online, many of them online, is to look and go, we don't have all the facts, we don't have all the information.

And there's a lot of conflicting information coming our way that makes it difficult to predict what the outcome will be or the result will be, and yet we still have to make decisions that move us forward.

Okay, so, VUCA, and just heard my son a moment ago.

So, this is like bedtime hours where the kids just kind of start rating me.

So, if you hear them or I have to remove them, you'll know why. So, I'll just prepare you for that. But here is the acronym, what

VUCA stands for. Volatility. Volatile times.

Changes occur much more frequently than they did before, and they require continuous analysis.

Things are just rapidly changing. The political climate's changing. One day, I don't know what's going on.

Next day, something else is going on. It's just, you know, one day there's these rules about the pandemic, one day there's these rules, one day some kids are going to school, one day they're not.

There's a lot of volatility out there. Uncertainty. Uncertainty having to do with, we're not able to unambiguously predict or prioritize factors that may influence a situation.

We just, we can't predict what's going to happen. We have, everything's uncertain.

We just don't know. Third, complexity. Complexity has to do with the number of factors that are determining or influencing the development processes or that they increase significantly.

All the factors are unknown to us. It's just, things are too complex. And the

A in VUCA is ambiguity. Data and events are difficult to interpret.

Past experiences are not applicable in the present moment, nor does it mean they'll be applicable in the future moment.

VUCA. Okay. So, in the military, when the first shot is fired, it becomes

VUCA. Volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguity. We don't know.

We have to change our strategy to adapt to what's going on. In our own life, we can't control the factors outside of ourselves.

We can't control what the California governor does or doesn't do.

We can't control it. We can sign a petition if you want, but you can't control it.

You can't control the guy who's in the White House. You can't control it. He is in the

White House. Stuff that's happening in Congress, you can't control it. So it creates a lot of uncertainty for everybody.

But let's bring this into our church now. Churches have been somewhat unpredictable.

I remember many of the churches saying, oh, I can't wait to get back to when we can all meet together, or I can't wait for us to get back to normal.

And I have one question for these pastors is, what is it you're excited to get back to when the church has been in constant decline for over 40 years?

What is it you're excited to get back to? And you want to get back to some normal, but is

God shaking you up as a Christian, shaking me up as a

Christian, to say, you better get ready for something? You as a church, you better pull yourselves together and come back to some of the basics of prayer, of personal serving and sacrifice, and less of the program.

I don't know. These are all things that I'm questioning, and as I'm with these groups of pastors,

I'm going, what is it you're so excited to get back to when everybody else, all the businesses that I work with, did this

VUCA principle. They adapted. They were like fluid, they adapted quickly.

And I think many of our churches adapted to the online thing pretty quickly. But what does that mean to adapt in the future?

What does that mean to adapt if churches lose their exemption, or if what a preacher preaches is going to be considered hate speech in the future?

So there's these issues in the house. I don't remember which law it is that they're looking at, but some of the things that we preach that are in God's word, wonderful things.

Once they're spoken from the pulpit, will they become or be considered hate speech on issues of marriage, abortion, one's sexuality or gender?

Where's that going to land? So, I was in Monterey, I just got back from a command up there and I leave again in two days to go back to a

Navy command in Monterey. So, you got to watch this now. We did, after June 6, when the people went into the house, and all of that stuff and it was called an insurrection and all of these things.

Now, got to tell you, if I'm going to cause an insurrection, I'm not going to send a guy in with horns and a painted chest.

I'm going to send in the best. So, in my mind, there's no insurrection there.

But after June 6, what happened was all this talk about extremism.

Who are the people that are extremist? Look around.

They're probably, okay, extremism was defined by a conservative group of anybody who voted for the former president, right?

So, it was really this weird thing. So, here's what happens. I'm up at this command in Monterey, and the extremism training comes out in the military.

The DOD, Department of Defense, puts out this extremism training. And what was interesting about it is it came out as a result of what happened on June 6, but in the training, they ask questions, and you can hear the question is leaning towards a certain philosophy, a certain value, and a certain ideal that does not match up or align with Christian values.

So, one of the questions asked was, if a young lady goes to a church, and her church has a

Facebook page, and they're having a chat about whether abortion is right or wrong, pro -life or pro -choice.

And the young woman says, children are created by God, and they deserve to have a right to live, abortion is wrong.

So, is that person allowed the freedom to do that?

If they're in the military, not civilians, this was geared towards us in the military.

Can a person wearing the uniform go into a religious Facebook group and share their religious views?

People thought about it, and it comes down to, we still have freedom of religion.

So, many students said, well, we still have freedom of religion, so yes, she can do that.

But I kid you not, 50 % of these young people, 18 to 25 -ish, said, no, she has no right to do that because that's considered hate speech.

Now catch that, even though the training basically says, yes, she can do that.

She can't do it on her personal Facebook page, not on her personal, but on a religious page she can.

But when you're in uniform, you got to be careful what you put out in the public sector on your account, but on a religious

Facebook page, she can do that. So, the answer is correct. Her religious freedoms allow her to express her views on a forum like Facebook.

What concerned me wasn't that she can do that. What concerned me is about 50 % of these young people considered her views to be conservative, outdated, and hate speech.

Fuca, what are we as a church going to do with the volatility, the uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity that exists?

There's only, there's really, it comes down to what are you and I going to do as we adapt to the new culture, the new world.

So, one of my friends runs the

San Diego Southern Baptist Association here in San Diego, and he gave me a book called

Old Paths, New Ways. Old Paths, New Ways, and it's talking about everything that's kind of going on in saying we as a church, as the body of Christ, no matter your denomination, we as a church need to get back to the old paths.

The old path was getting to the book of Acts. I want to say it was chapter six.

I don't remember off the top of my head, but where it's like, we need to be in prayer together, we need to be breaking bread and fellowship together.

We need to be sharing with one another, helping each other in our suffering and our pain.

We need to go back to the old path and look at what we're doing and go, hey, this isn't going to work.

What we're doing today, and what we enjoyed perhaps in the last 30 -40 years, it's not working for the next generation.

If the church doesn't adapt, and I don't mean adapt the message, I mean adapt a new strategy, and perhaps the new strategy in his opinion is the old strategy, more time in prayer, more in -depth biblical study, less personality, less program, that's his take on things.

Unless we get back to the fundamental basics, we will lose the church, at least the church as we've known it in the

United States. So, he's kind of incorporating this idea of VUCA.

We need to adapt, not change the message. The message is the power of Jesus. The message is the healing power of Jesus' name, you know, of reconciling humankind, mankind, women, to himself.

We need to keep the message, but our strategy, we've got to adapt it and bring in the lost.

So, here are four secrets. I don't know why

I put secrets, they're not secrets, but four secrets to leading change in a chaotic world is simply, number one, lead by being consistent.

Let your life be a consistent fragrance of who

God is and his character in your life. Be consistent in your decision -making process.

Right now, with all the chaos and ambiguity and uncertainty, people are looking for people who are consistent, stable, like a rock.

Second, and this is going to be almost an oxymoron, is be fluid. You got to be consistent like a rock, consistent, but you also have to be fluid in strategy going, okay, this stuff's happening, pandemic, economics, political climate, church stuff.

I need to be fluid and not get so caught up, and this is hard for some people because they're more like oak trees and not like bamboo.

So, being fluid, I've got to adapt to my situation. I got to adapt to my kids.

I've got to adapt to my spouse being home. I got to adapt. So, be fluid, but be consistent in your character like a rock.

Number three, lead by being decisive and taking the initiative.

We just finished having dinner, and we just were talking about this is, you know, we, as a family, feel a certain emptiness of not connecting with other families.

There just seems to be this void and this gap of not, we're meeting with families, but we're not, it doesn't seem like we're breaking through to a deeper level in our relationships, and it's part of our, kind of our grieving process of going, what is going on here?

But in this, if you want to lead in crazy times, it means you have to be decisive and take the initiative.

So, we were talking about this just going, you know, we can be passive and hope things happen, or we, as a family, can take the initiative and go, we want to spend time with you.

And being honest, we're missing Christian fellowship. We go to church, but it's like, you go in, you sit, you sing songs, it's out, everybody bolts real quick, missing just the in -depth fellowship.

Number four is in chaotic times, you can lead yourself and lead others, but the best way to lead others is by following the lead of the

Holy Spirit and allowing Him to direct your steps, allowing Him to guide you with your jobs, your families, your relationships that you have, and just give that over to Him and allow the

Holy Spirit to lead you. So, with that, Terry, I'm going to pass it over to you and open it up for discussion, thoughts, comments, dialogue.

Terry, are you there? Okay. I'm not seeing her, but...

Yeah, I, hold on. Yeah, she's still muted. She's, her computer just died.

Yeah, her computer just died. Oh, okay. Perfect timing. Let me look over at the questions and see if what's there.

And let's open it up. Is that how you guys typically do it, is open it up for discussion? I don't want to,

I've already dominated enough of the time, but I would love to hear some of your thoughts, some of your, someone used, someone wrote the word frustration here.

Normal is gone forever. Yeah, no, we can open it up for, usually what we do is

Terry will read the questions, but I haven't been following the questions. I've been watching. So let me see what we have in the question.

Okay. Jeff, it looks like you have a comment on here, frustration with the church.

You want to say it out loud? Alpharet?

Alpharet is Jeff, but I don't see, oh here he is. You have to unmute, Jeff. He says frustration with the church doesn't make sense to me.

I'm invested in Christ, not the church. Christ is invested in the church and is well able to keep it so none is lost.

If your eyes are on him, who can be against us? That make sense? Yep. Okay. Okay, and then we have

Joyce. We are the church, and the frustration was that we were not allowed to meet together.

Of course, some of us met together and watched church online until they opened up, and we could fellowship again.

June says normal is gone forever. I don't believe that, but I'm in Florida and normal is really on the comeback.

California, living in California, I could see, you know, a lot of what you were saying, I can see that frustration because California is so communist that, you know, that they're definitely, you know, leading the people to believe that the whole world is living like they are.

Okay, Debbie, you were wondering what about...

When Mark said that he was wondering what the church was going to open back up to, what are these pastors excited about returning to,

I totally agree with that. Because if they go back to the same old thing,

I have been to so many different churches in San Diego, and then, you know, finally, you know, found

Shadow Mountain, but there are so many that the, you know, it's just declining fellowship, and I just wonder, what are they going back to?

So I just thought, boom, that was such a good observation. Totally agree. Excellent.

Yeah, thanks for your input. And that you agree, makes it easier. Totally agree.

And I do see the importance of the church. There are so many things. Thankfully, at Shadow Mountain, I've been able to do the food packing boxes

Thursday since last July. But that, I mean, what a blessing that we were able to still do that.

But everything else, the prison fellowship ministry, all of the Bible study classes had to be in Zoom, and it's just not the same.

Some women are way too shy to ask questions or even trust

Zoom. So there's been a huge loss. And what you said about grieving, I just so appreciate it because we all feel it, you know?

Amen, amen. You know, sometimes it's just like, you just start crying because it's like, wow, 2019, that was like the last big hurrah ever going to be fair again or whatever.

So yeah, I just really appreciate your presentation. Oh, thank you.

It was good. Oh, was that you, Rob? Go ahead. Yeah, one question I have is, when you look at different churches that are open and others that aren't, are the ones that are open ones that are open to the idea of creation really having taken place about 6 ,000 years ago?

And therefore we have a basis in believing in God as a creator rather than, oh, isn't it nice to be in this building and say kumbaya?

Yeah, so give me what the question is there. My son's making some noise.

Okay, the question was, do you see a difference between churches where people believe that God created things about 6 ,000 years ago versus people who are willing to go along with the world and say, oh, he might have done it by evolution?

Yeah, you know, good question. So a lot of the churches that I work with are predominantly creationist, although I do know a lot of the more liberal leaning churches, and I'm just going to call them liberal social entities, not churches, because I don't believe they are true churches.

Some of these liberal leaning social institutions, they go along with what the government says, and you see that played out in many of their political views as well, if you will.

I mean, they're more open to cultural relevance than they are to biblical truth.

So I would say that's true. So the group of pastors that I was working with, I had eight very conservative churches that were all, they believe in creation, literal six day creation, early earth type thing.

They were split. They were split. So one of the things that pastors were faced with is if they opened, 50 % of their congregation would yell at them and tell them that they were wrong, insensitive, and a bad representation of Christ to the world.

And if they didn't open, the other 50 % were like, this is the church, keep it open,

God's people are supposed to meet together. And what I found with a lot of pastors is they were going back and forth, like they were put in a situation where they truly didn't, they didn't want to make the tough decision.

And several of you go to Shadow Mountain and Pastor Jeremiah, I thought was incredibly brilliant.

Here you have a guy who would be the oldest, 80 years old, and yet he,

I remember him saying something where he said, you know, it's, we're not going to look at what we can't do, but we're going to ask ourselves what can we do.

And I remember him saying that and I went, that's brilliant. He said, if we're not going to be civil disobedient, we're going to just be outside and they created this beautiful outdoor seating type thing and it was wonderful.

And it wasn't until later where it was like, you know, as it was getting colder, well, you know what, we're never going to open up, so we're going to just meet together because that's truly what

God wants us to do. And I thought, I thought he was one who was really good at adapting.

So, adapting to what was and creating something that actually thrived during it.

Now he's not one of the eight pastors that I met with, I just attend there. But the pastors

I met with, the ones that weren't opening were paralyzed by fear.

And many of their, I would say, congregants ended up going to churches that were open, and I think they're going to feel that pain as they're starting to open their doors again.

Yeah, I'm listening along with you and sorry that I had to leave. It wasn't even a battery issue.

My tablet just stopped functioning. There is a blue screen and it said, your computer has stopped working.

Blue screen of death. Okay, I read battery in the text message. Yeah, it wasn't like the blue screen where like nothing happens.

I'm still on my tablet. It was this beautiful light blue screen that said, your computer has malfunctioned and needs to restart itself.

And I'm like, oh, that's a great time to do that. So I adapted.

Good job. And got back in as quickly as I could. So yeah, Mark, I think your message tonight and and this is my second time hearing it, although I think

I heard some new things there and and we know that you're a leadership trainer and so that message was meant for leaders, but all of us, like you said, are leaders in some way, even if we're just leading our own lives.

I mean, I thought that you did a good job of tying in like there's a lot of applications that even people who aren't in a leadership titled position can still apply this and and use the information to be able to adjust to what's going on.

So I know there's some conversation going on in the chat here on zoom about normal and what what is normal and people say oh well when we get back to normal or or we're never going to have normal again but but in reality,

I'm thinking and I'm not sure if somebody said this already normal is is is fluid.

I mean, what we thought of normal what we were accustomed to as being normal. No, there's still going to be some kind of normalcy it's just going to be new it's going to be different.

I refuse to say new normal. That is, that is, if it's if it's normal it's not new and if it's not normal it's not new or whatever.

Anyways, June was asking. I agree with you 100 % Robin if it's new, it's not normal.

Yep. muted so I can say that too. I can't get one to the chat for some reason the last several weeks my computer will not let me into chat or into participants.

Interesting. We'll have to take a look at that. Diane when I create a zoom meeting for us to meet on there there are like five or six of us that are all that always attended in person, and Diane sometimes has technical issues.

Now, I'm Cheryl has her hand up so Cheryl Do you want to unmute yourself and ask your question.

And just to remind you guys we are still live streaming on Facebook and and recording to put on YouTube so feel free to ask questions, but if you have some you'd like to be safe for after we turn things off that's okay too.

Cheryl Did you want to unmute and ask a question of Mark. I'm Mark.

I wanted to ask you in your new position in leadership within the military.

Do you foresee the military being in a place where your religious freedom might be curtailed in some way, or has it already begun to be that way.

Yeah, that's a good question. And I hesitate to answer that, but I'm going to answer it.

I hesitate to answer because I know this is live stream or you don't have to if you don't want to I understand.

I'll just put this in this realm, conservative evangelical Christianity is in my estimation, going to face some very challenging times in the days ahead.

And I'm not a prophet so don't take me out and stone me if I get it wrong, but from the stuff that I'm hearing the, the, the gospel of Christ and his truth will be.

And you're seeing it, I think, in some of the political stuff we're seeing these days. But, yes, because of where I stand in my faith doesn't fit with some of the, the norms that are being established in the military in the military is not supposed to be a social justice organization, but things are things are kind of changing in there so I would say

I'm a little concerned. And that's not I mean that's something that, whether it's the military or or civilians

I mean Jesus Robbins, reminding us that that Jesus promised that we would, we should expect persecution

I think in some ways our country because of the way that it was founded on Christian principles.

We've enjoyed a lot of luxury of the freedom of religion but around the world there's people who aren't enjoying that and, and we know that that's something that people have fought and died for for us.

Yeah. In the sixth grade, I attended. We Wednesday Bible school

I attended for six or seven years. And I remember the one teacher saying, she said right now, we, we have the freedom to worship as we want, but it's coming when we are going to be persecuted, and I have never forgotten that, and she was dead on.

Sorry Mark, go ahead. No, I'm just watching some of the people over here in the comments talking about how

Nero, Nero use Christians as candles to light up his yard or something. And, you know, there's,

I think as Christians it's funny because in our history, history of Christianity.

It started with the death of Christ like that was the beginning in his resurrection, you know, and it started with him being crucified on to and somebody wrote here,

Stephen, and then later you know the persecution that breaks out and stuff under Nero and stuff so persecution and stuff isn't.

It's not abnormal for Christians, it's, it's a part of our 2000 years, and even the prophets prior to them were killed for for standing up for God but Christianity in our

Christian DNA, there is this history of persecution, and we live in in the

United States we have been so fortunate and blessed to have this little parentheses of time to really have these freedoms to get the gospel out through our missions and organizations and hospitals and schools and churches all over the world, but it is interesting, because the, the normal.

I think the normal of what we've had will be what's changing, and that's not, it's not normal to us but it's probably normal to the

Christians in China and other places so just kind of interesting reading some of these things

Romans fed Christians to the lions. I don't want any of that stuff I don't want to be a candle or, or food so, or, or a stone.

But the thing is, none of this is outside the realm of possibility. Just two years ago we never thought that the

US would change overnight. You know, at now I'm just going with the expectation that anything could happen.

My eyes are on Jesus and his return, but living life in you know in moment occupying until he returns so you know the, the food and the candles is not outside the realm of possibility.

Yeah. The, the word entropy just came to mind to me because, you know, because we do study creation science in this group and we we've talked about the second law through my dynamics entropy there and Dr Sanford has a book of genetic entropy but I was just thinking about how in America, it's almost like we're seeing the entropy of freedom, like freedoms entropy, but that is becoming more and more chaotic and and disorderly and our rights are disappearing.

It's almost like an entropy of freedom. Yeah. So really scary thing is there are people that cannot see that they are blind they're blind to truth.

It's terrible. I was going to end recording so we could. Before we do that, let's, let's let

Mark. Mark if you want to tell everybody again how they can find you I'm not sure if we've done that yet but make sure everybody knows how they can find you.

Yeah. So, my website is mark kids go .com so ma

RC not ma RK my parents got creative there. So, Mark kids go .com

is my website and feel free to reach out phone numbers 619 -322 -1937.

And you know what, I'll even. I'm punching in my email. And, and while you're doing that you can think about an answer here.

We did get one more question here, do you have any suggestions for how to conduct ourselves on social media in light of the current climate.

That's a great question. Okay, so social media is an interesting thing so my, my account,

I got caught up in the, the whole debate on.

Same sex marriage on my social media. And I don't know when that was eight years ago or something.

And I wasn't looking at who's on my social media and it's since I was going. All my

Christian friends are going to agree with me on this. But what I, what I didn't do right was probably in my expert, all the people in the

Navy that know me. It put a huge wedge between me and ever sharing the gospel with them.

So it was interesting because on social media. It's an easy and it's a safe place to vent our opinions.

And it feels good like we're doing something. But I come back to the verse that says that we're to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.

And I go, well, Lord wasn't I acting in a manner worthy of just saying, hey, this is wrong this is against your will.

But looking back at it, what I did was with the family that my wife and I pray for to be saved, put a wedge between us.

In a sense, my religious views became the pork for the

Jews. Does that make sense? If you, a Gentile wouldn't, or a

Jew wouldn't hang out with a Gentile because of pork. Well, my religious views on that forum became a stench to them for allowing me to ever share the gospel with them.

Now I got to break down that wall. So in social media, I would just, I'd really be careful because you do have non -believers there who are absolutely going to disagree with you.

So I would, my suggestion is keep it on the beautiful side of who

Christ is, not the more aggressive fighting type, if that makes sense.

Yeah, that makes sense. And I think know your audience too. Like if you are, if you know how to use

Facebook settings appropriately, like know when you're public and know when you're private. And that's another aspect to it, but it does make sense what you said.

That was a good parting word. And just to say, as we sign off, we're glad to have Mark Kitzko here with us tonight.

And we're Creation Fellowship Santee. You can find us on YouTube. You can find us on Facebook, and you can email creationfellowshipsantee at gmail .com

to get notifications about our upcoming speakers. So we're going to go ahead and sign off for our recording tonight.