A Deeper Dive into Cru's Decline

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris and an interesting week.

Have you ever had one of those weeks, I wanted to get to something I thought was important today and I have a stack of important things, but something more pressing, more urgent, bigger just popped up in front of me and I thought, well,

I better deal with that, you know, and we oftentimes have situations like that where you have a list of things, but you think, well, this is the thing

I'm going to be dealing with because this is the thing that popped up right in front of me and it seems like it needs to be dealt with and sometimes that's annoying.

Other times, though, the Lord is, I think, showing you or me in this situation. This is something that he wants us to work through and so this week's no exception.

Instead of going to talk about, I decided to take another week and talk about the crew situation because I've received a lot of feedback from those within crew, staff members, former staff members, and I want to point out something interesting about this.

Those within crew who agree with me, which is the majority of the comments I've received, have been overwhelming agreement.

They all contact me through private channels, on social media, email, and they say the same thing. Don't identify who

I am. Things like, John, check this out. You need to know about this. Don't tell anyone who

I am. I work for crew. John, I've tried to take my concerns to the highest staff members that I possibly can and I get nowhere.

What you said is getting the donor's attention. Keep it up. John, you know, we appreciate what you did.

I was at crew 19 and you're spot on. Don't say who I am. There's been a few former crew staff members who have said things publicly on social media but I can't think of an exception.

All the current crew staff members that I know of have contacted me privately, yet I've received a few comments publicly from those who disagree with me and I need to ask this question.

Why is it that those on the conservative side of the social justice debate and crew are so afraid that they're going to get in trouble if people know who they are?

I mean, if they are not contradicting the statement of faith and they believe it, then how come the call for unity that was given at crew 19 does not apply to them in their minds?

Why is ideological unity such a hard thing and is this a new orthodoxy?

I have to ask the question because they're not contradicting anything in the statement of faith, yet they feel like they're breaking a rule of some kind and if someone knows who they are, that they disagree with the social justice direction of crew, they feel like they're going to get in trouble.

I'm saying this for the benefit of any staff members who are higher up that might have some control over this situation who are hearing me.

I want you to consider this, please. This is the same situation I ran into in the Southern Baptist Convention when

I made a video about my experience at Southeastern. I had a lot of people within Southeastern and the

Southern Baptist Convention entities contacting me saying, keep going, spot on, you're on the right track.

I can't say anything and don't tell anyone who I am. It's concerning. It's really concerning because you have one side that is brazen and public and another side that is muzzled.

That's not unity. So all that to say, most of the messages

I received were very complimentary and I'm grateful for them and keep them coming. I appreciate it.

I did receive some negative feedback as well, which I appreciate that too. Challenge is good.

But I divided the negative feedback into three basic objections and I just want to talk about them for a moment.

The first one is that I should have talked to those I had a problem with. Now I would have had to contact like eight or nine people that are speakers, most of them repeat offenders and say,

I don't agree with the basis for your whole entire ministry essentially. And you know, it's like these are public things that were said and I'm supposed to go privately and it's kind of like the

SBC's 11th commandment, don't criticize, I'm supposed to go privately to them. And I just don't see that in scripture.

I'm not obligated to do that. Maybe there's situations where that is more wise to do that, but I'm not close to any of these people.

I'm exposing the deeds of darkness in my mind. I mean, they're embedded within these speeches that were given at Crew 19.

So someone had to go mining for them to find all of them. But exposing them shouldn't be wrong or sinful or anything of the kind.

I mean, we're told to do that in Ephesians five. And I have to wonder if some of the people that have a problem with this are just afraid of light.

Do they not like these things being exposed because they're getting calls from their donors, which is, I've heard this is happening and their donors are saying, what's going on at Crew?

And they don't have a good answer. Could be. I don't know. I'm just bringing that possibility up.

But there's multiple places in scripture where you see public sin being met publicly with a rebuke.

I mean, the prophets are full of this. I think even first Timothy five, 20, those who continue in sin rebuke in the presence of all.

So why is that though? Why is that? So that the rest also will be fearful of sinning. And if this creates a situation where people in Crew are fearful of going down that social justice path because the donors are going to call them, then praise

God, right? We want that. So I have to say at this point, my motive in making the video

I did last week was not to take anyone to task personally because I have a personal beef.

Not even part of it. Don't know these people. There wasn't anything within me that thought, oh, goody.

Crew is going down the local and they're going to be destroyed and I'm going to help. No, no.

It's like Southeastern. When I made the video about Southeastern, it's a funeral for a friend. Look, you can't go much further down this hole, um, without starting to get into a territory that's not even recognizably

Christian. I mean, Matt, uh, Michelotis, the guy who invited Caitlin, probably a pagan, it's her

Twitter name, Curtis to come, who's a Native American mystic. Uh, does he realize that that's, that's, you've gone past the line at that point?

That's not Christianity. You can't go much further. And this guy has been working there for a while. You can go to my, the video

I put out last week and I talk about it. Um, but, but I have a legitimate concern and I want to assist these brothers and sisters in Crew who have the same concerns, but are muzzled.

They can't say anything. So, um, is it okay if I give a voice to the voiceless right now?

Um, so this is my intention. My intention is to get the attention of the staff, uh, the donors if possible.

And I'd love to see, um, a wake up call go forward that actually makes a difference.

I don't want to see them destroyed unless they're going to keep going this direction. And then, yeah, if they're going to be a detriment to the gospel, then yeah, but I hope that's not the case.

And there's many good Crew staff members, which is why I said in the last video, if you know them, I know some of them donate to them.

Don't donate to Crew. Don't donate to the actual organization. And just know that I've been told at least 10 % of your donation to an individual also will end up going to Crew.

So you may want to even consider just trying to get around that and give, just send a check or something.

And I realize a lot of you, you know, you're writing this off. And so, so I don't know, I don't know what the answer to all of this is. I mean, I would encourage

Crew staff members who disagree, find another organization if you can, or go out on your own, you know, if possible.

It's not possible for everyone. So I'm not making a one size fits all solution to this. I'm just saying that you need to explore alternatives here,

I think. So the second category of objections is that I cherry picked.

And look, I watched most of the videos for Crew 19, just about all of them. And I can tell you with assurance,

I didn't cherry pick anything here. I didn't show a video that was edited deceitfully, or something.

I mean, every video is going to be edited in some way. And the goal in an article, where you pull out a quote is to give your viewers an idea who don't have time to watch the whole thing of what happened.

And I do think the montage did that. This was the overarching theme of Crew 19, and I didn't even show everyone, everything that I saw in some of these other videos.

I didn't show that. But the montage itself, I think, is representative.

And I'll stand by that. I don't have a problem standing by that. I think some of the people have reached out to me. I wonder, wait, what conference were you at?

The third category of objections is you're wrong. And it's just kind of prejudicial conjecture. I don't really have a response to that.

It's like, well, you're wrong. I don't know. There's just no reason, discussion in that.

And you're a meanie. That's the other thing. You're mean. Okay. I mean, so were the prophets, I guess.

So I mean, godly examples in the both Old and New Testaments were called mean on some level of some kind.

So I don't have a problem with that. All right. So that being said, I do want to show you some other things, because I did not really talk about the

LGBTQ issue with Crew. There were some things that went beyond even the video

I put out last week that I'm like, man, I need to raise these issues, because they are a problem.

So I made a slideshow that captures some of that. And if you are a

Patreon supporter of mine, which by the way, thank you to my supporters so much. You've helped me in this video.

There was a book I needed to download, and your support helped me download it. So thank you for that. But you get a raw file.

You get the PowerPoint for this video. If you are a Patreon supporter of mine.

So one of the perks. But here's the PowerPoint. So if it'll load, technology, there we go.

Matt Mikulatis, who I talked about in my last video, I'm not going to go into detail about who he was or who he is.

But he put out an article, and this was brought to my attention, that I guess this has been happening for a while. There's no date on it.

I'm not sure when he put this out. But the title is, How Do I Talk to LGBTQ Friends About the Gospel? Now I'm going to read for you a few things from this, because he says, you got to start practicing this.

You can be gay and follow Jesus. You can be gay and follow Jesus. We're already having a problem, already, and I'm going to show you why.

There's a section here where he says, in the article, there are a good number of LGBTQ people who are already followers of Jesus.

They may even be a gay person in your church who is following Jesus, just like you are. Don't assume that because someone is queer that they're already, not already spiritually, connected spiritually.

Maybe deeply connected. Also, they've experienced trauma in religious circles, and he goes on about how they've gotten the short end of the stick.

He says, Pew Research says that more than half of the LGBTQ community are religious and most are Protestant or Catholic.

Now, here's the thing I want to say about this, without even opening my Bible yet. Why don't we take another sin?

Why don't we put racism in there, since that's the hot button sin, right? I mean, you can't find a

Bible verse that says racism is wrong, right? Right? Not those exact words. No, you can't, right?

Just like they say, you can't find a Bible verse that says homosexuality is a sin. And actually,

I can, but they're looking sometimes for exact phrases and words. Well, the same thing with racism.

But I would obviously contend that racism, at the bottom level, is a pride about who you are because of your ethnicity.

And pride does send people to hell. So racism, at least the way it used to be defined, not benefiting from structures the way

Cruz defining it, but, you know, good old fashioned bigotry. Yeah, that'll send you to hell. That's wrong.

That's hating someone who's made in the image of God. Now, let's take that sin and let's put it, let's swap it.

Let's put it in there. There are a good number of racist people who are already following Jesus. There are many, they may even be a racist person in your church who is following Jesus, just like you are.

They could be deeply connected spiritually. They've been given the short end of the stick because the church is persecuting them.

But you know what? Most racists identify as religious. They're Protestant or Catholic. What if we said this about racists?

I mean, most racists probably do identify with some religion, right? Not all. I mean, a lot of atheists, racists out there too.

But, I mean, why is this, why couldn't we write an article and talk about those victims of oppression because they hold unpopular views and racism is a very unpopular view in the current society we live in, all right?

Well, that would be ridiculous, John, because that's a sin, right? Right. Keep thinking that.

That's why this is ridiculous. And such were some of you, right? Now I'm opening the Bible, right? Going to 1

Corinthians. Such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were cleansed. You don't identify with your past immoral lifestyles if you're a

Christian. Why would you do this? Matt Mikulatis thinks you should, thinks you can.

I'm not going to read this whole quote, but suffice it to say, he believes that LGBTQ people have experienced harm, spiritual, emotional, mental, physical, at the hands of Christianity.

And he paints this narrative. The church has persecuted LGBTQ people. They are experiencing trauma and look, that's connected to they're having disproportionately high suicide rates.

Now, I have to throw this out there. What if, I mean, white men, middle class, middle -aged white men are one of the biggest demographics in our country per capita for committing suicide, if not the biggest.

They're one of the biggest. I know that. What if we were to say all this villainization going on about white men at Crewe and other places in evangelical

Christianity, you know what? That's just the church causing middle -aged white men to commit suicide because they're shaming them.

You would probably say that's ridiculous. They choose to do that themselves. When they make a choice to end their lives, that is their sin and you'd be right about that.

You'd be right about that. We wouldn't blame the church for their sin, right? Why do we do it though with this?

Why does Matt Michelotta say it's the church's fault somehow if homosexuals are killing themselves?

We're contributing to that because the guilt that they feel, no, they already feel guilt, guys. They already feel guilt.

That's one of the difference between these two examples I brought up. Being white is not a sin. Homosexuality is.

They have a guilt within them. We know why this is. They suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Romans 1 talks about it.

That's why the church should be involved because there's already a guilt there and we have the answer to that guilt.

You're going to see some things in a few moments and it's in this article too that the church should be very careful. Don't bring up homosexuality with homosexuals.

Be very careful how you do that. Look guys, look. If someone has cancer and you have chemo and you're not going to give it to them because you don't want to offend them, what are you doing?

That's not love. I plead with you. I plead with you.

This is a man who is high up in the organization responsible for inviting people to staff conferences?

It's basic Christianity guys. So let's keep going because there's plenty more to get to here.

Rachel Gilson is someone I didn't talk about but she actually spoke at Crew 19 and I don't have her video from Crew 19 here.

I do have a quote from it and I'm going to talk about Grant Hartley in a minute but Grant Hartley who's also on staff with Crew, both

Rachel and Grant are both on staff. He quotes her and this is from her Crew 19 speech.

She says, there is no command in Scripture to be straight. I just addressed this. There's no Bible verse that says be straight.

There is a command to be faithfully single or faithfully married and you can do either of those without being straight.

Well, that is one of the most dangerous things I've ever seen but I'm going to respond to it real quick and then get into more of who Rachel is and what

Rachel's promoting. But just think about this for a minute. Michael Brown brings this idea up in one of his books.

I read years ago. I forget the name of it but it's about homosexuality but he talks about a cookbook.

He says, what if you had a gluten -free cookbook and someone said, well, there's not much in there about inserting gluten into food and you'd say, well, right because it's the gluten -free cookbook, right?

We wouldn't put recipes with gluten in there because the assumption from the beginning is it's gluten -free. And it's the same thing with the

Bible. The Bible is a heterosexual book. That is the creation model. From the beginning, man and women, two separate genders, leave father and mother, cleave to wife.

Yeah, there's exceptions. There's the gift of singleness. These are exceptions, right? Because the model for mankind is to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, create worshipers for God.

That's before the fall. That's what we're supposed to be doing. And you see throughout scripture, the commands for husbands and wives, for parents, for communities at large, they're all based on this fundamental building block, which is a man and a woman complementary coming together.

That is the only sexual union that is regulated, that is talked about in a positive light in scripture.

Okay? And I'm drawing this parallel. It's like the gluten -free cookbook.

You're not going to expect to see a whole lot about homosexuality because the assumption from the beginning is that's not legitimate. Now you do find things about homosexuality in scripture, right?

You hear about the six problem passages, right? And there's really more than that, but I think that the onus or the burden of proof needs to be on the guys who say that the

Bible does not give, they assume at the offset, that the Bible does not give a model for how men and women should interact, humans interact sexually.

They act like God has not spoken there. And the reality is God has spoken and he's spoken quite loud.

Now look, Jesus affirmed this in the New Testament as well. This isn't something that was just Old Testament, like God gave this instruction and then it was abrogated because Jesus says in Matthew 19, he repeats

Genesis. He says, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, be joined to his wife. The two shall become one flesh.

There's no longer two, but one flesh. What God has joined together, let not man separate, no man separate.

And so Jesus affirms the creation standard and you have verses like Colossians 3, 5, that we're not even supposed to have evil passions within us.

That means desires, guys, epithemia, that we're not supposed to have that. So this is getting into the same sex attraction stuff.

It says, consider your members of your earthly body is dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed, which amounts to idolatry.

What are we supposed to do with 1 Corinthians 6, 11? Such were some of you. After talking about homosexuality, such were some of you in the list, the vice list.

But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I haven't even gotten into Romans 1 yet, but look, scripture, this is not a faithful way to view scripture from Grant Hartley or from Rachel Gilson.

These both are staff members at CRU and Rachel Gilson is also, this is, I got this from the

Gospel Coalition, her bio here, it says she's the director of theological development at CRU. Look at that. So this is, this is concerning, guys.

You have the director of theological development saying something this anti -biblical. I'm going to play for you.

This is from last winter. Something that she said, this is at a CRU event from last winter,

Rachel Gilson. I met a woman recently in St. Louis who was actually in this, she was in a marriage to a woman and was processing what to do because she had come to the

Lord but her wife hadn't. I need to recognize in this situation, right, that these are some very tender things.

And if we just walk around being like, I've got some great ideas, like, you don't know anything. You don't know anything about what this relationship has been like, the joys that it's provided, the heaviness it's provided.

Like, we never approach these situations with swagger.

They might end up making a very big cost. I mean,

I've known some people who decide to stay in that relationship legally but to live celibately.

To break off having sex, that has happened with some, with some couples who both come to Christ. I've known some couples where one person came to Christ and decided that in order to honor the

Lord, he needed to be celibate and his partner decided, his husband decided to leave him.

I mean, Paul talks about this reality in 1 Corinthians 7, sometimes if a spouse comes to know the Lord, the other spouse can't abide it and they leave and then that person is, you know, that person is free.

Alright, this is quite concerning. Paul does not talk about homosexual relationships in 1

Corinthians 7. And what Rachel Gilson is saying here is essentially that if you're in a homosexual marriage, there's a certain amount of time after you're saved and it may be an indefinite period of time when you can live married.

You should just eventually come to the idea over time that celibacy is the way to go in this marriage but it's still a legitimate marriage.

That is frightening. That is frightening that someone like this has such a high position at Cru.

Now Rachel Gilson, you know, she's just one person, right? Well, you can see in the picture here,

Grant Hartley seemed to like it as well. Now Grant Hartley, this was interesting to me.

Grant Hartley, according to Cru, he works there and according to Twitter, he is an

LGBTQ in Christ, follower of Jesus, but he's a gay

Christian essentially. And you can see if you want, you can go watch the whole, I didn't watch this whole thing, I started to and it just made me sick, but it is an hour and 15 minutes almost, redeeming queer culture and adventure.

And this is for Revoice. He spoke at Revoice. Now I'm gonna play for you what he is doing on college campuses.

Remember, Cru is an organization that was started to reach students at college campuses.

How are they reaching students? Well, there's some that are doing very good legitimate admissions work, I'm sure. I've been told there are.

I've been told by people who are doing it that they are. How is Grant Hartley doing it? Let me show you this.

It has an unimaginative title, it's called Coming Out, so I hope you guys enjoy it.

We are all born gemstones, but fatally fractured.

Our skin, bleeding rubies, brokenness and beauty and tension.

And I have heard it said that it is our decision whether we see these cracks as channels for rivers of light to run through, or wounds to be bound and healed.

Will if I tear off these bandages and stretch these arms wide enough, will it prove to you that these gashes cut all the way through, and that I'm willing to bleed my life and all its secrets out for you.

Ever since I was 13, when that gold rush of blood chose my attractions for me,

I've been hiding because I've been afraid. I used to tell myself it was a phase and then it never ended, so I told myself to never tell and these days

I still can't shake the feeling that I'm walking on a tightrope, breathless over glittering hell.

I tried my best to keep a straight face, but I wanted nothing more than to kiss the lips that cursed me, have those strong hands around my waist, holding me close.

And I took upon myself the burden of convincing everybody else that there was nothing wrong.

The rest of the world was singing something, something bold, and I tried to sing along but I didn't know the words.

And every name I was called, every kick while I was down was another blooming stain on a white wedding gown.

I made a promise that I would be buried underneath the ground before anyone knew that this closet would become a mausoleum, but grace broke through.

While I was busy trying to find my own voice, God came close to me, singing the most beautiful melody, and I realized that my highest purpose was to harmonize, to run head first after truth, finally free from these chains, these lies.

He looked me in the eyes. He kissed my forehead, took my hand in his own and whispered, you are mine.

A fellow poet once told me, tell your own story or somebody else will tell it for you.

Well, I'm sick of having my story broken in two, broken in two, because half my audience thinks it's only half true.

It's been so long since I've been honest with you. And so now

I'm coming out with everything, my sexuality and the spirit that is my seal because both have inhabited this treasured chest of mine.

I have been washed and I am waiting hand in hand with the divine, and I believe that these wounds will be healed in time.

Thank you. Now look, there's a lot of good there. He said he's singing in harmony with the

Lord. The Lord's changed him. But what'd you notice? What'd you notice about it? At the end of the talk, he's still a homosexual.

He's coming out. That's the name of the poem. He's coming out with his sexuality and his Christianity. There's no sense of such were some of you of stamping out even the littlest flame of desire that would be evil before the

Lord, like Colossians three, five talks about there. It's, it's, this is who I am.

And look, there's a movement in evangelical Christianity spearheaded by the gospel coalition to say that reparative therapy is wrong.

Homosexuality is a fixed orientation. Don't expect Jesus to take it away from you. If you're homosexual, you just gotta, you gotta live the

Christian life being celibate and frustrated. I don't believe that's the message of the gospel and gospel is reparative therapy on a certain level, not a secular reparative therapy.

The gospel transforms anyone no matter what sin they have. And it may take time, but that's what sanctification is about.

This man's message should be, I am a young man and I am in process.

I'm heterosexual because that's who God made me to be. I'm not homosexual. Such were some of you. I'm not that I'm looking forward to when my desires will be more aligned with God's desires for me.

And I'm a young man. I'm hoping to fulfill the creation mandate one day. I'm looking forward to it. There's no sense of that though.

There's no hope here. It's not the message of Christianity, guys. That's concerning that you have a man on a college campus being paid by crew to trumpet supposedly the gospel and you have this contradictory message going out there.

Sad guys. It's sad. It should break your hearts. I want to talk about something else here as well. I want to talk about this individual,

Michael Sylvester, founder and executive director of the Lenz's Leadership Group and also the

Urban Project International. And you can see on the side here, all the different sponsors. You got

Thabiti and Ouillet's group, the Front Porch. You have DA Horton. You have someone right here,

Neubel, I think that's affiliated with the ERLC. Just a who's who of evangelicalism right over here.

And what are they partnering with or associating themselves with the Urban Project for? Well, the

Urban Project is dedicated to providing a global and domestic engagement regarding matters of race, power, culture, and ethnicity.

Now when you hear that word power coupled with race, your critical race theory antenna should go up. Now what's their curriculum?

What do they use? Well, I went to their website and they are following a pattern. The pattern is laid down in a strategy for community development by John Perkins.

And I, with the help of my Patreon supporters, I purchased this and I appreciate that and I was able to examine it and here's what's going on in a strategy for community development by John Perkins.

Communism then, these are direct quotes, communism then came along as an attempt to distribute the earth's resources more equitably.

Communism sprang into being because apostate religion could not challenge man's greed. But atheistic communism has not brought justice either.

Neither capitalism or communism can bring justice to the poor. Get ready for it, the pivot. This is the third way, guys.

Notice what he said, atheistic communism, because what he's about to show you is a socialism. It is a certain level of communism and he's going to put a

Christian twist on it. It's the same engine in a different car. We as Christians must champion an alternative.

Alternative to what? Alternative to capitalism and communism. Here's the alternative. Ready? We must create a system that is based not on greed.

Okay, so capitalism is based on greed, supposedly, which it's not, by the way, it's based on private property.

But anyway, not even on greed tempered by honesty, the ideal of the free enterprise. So free enterprise is bad, but on justice and love.

This is exactly what communists say. We're just trying to do something loving and just. This is communist talk.

We must create a system that distributes wealth more equitably in response to human needs. Now compare that sentence to the first sentence.

Communism then came along as an attempt to distribute the earth's resources more equitably. Then he says, we must create a system that distributes wealth more equitably in response to human needs.

That sounds like to each according to his, from each according, from his ability to each according to their need.

This is communism. I don't know how else to say it. This Christian economic system will by its very existence be a prophetic voice to the world system.

And what does he say? We have charted a strategy for achieving that vision, a strategy of relocation, reconciliation, and wait for it, redistribution.

A depressed community striving to become self -sufficient needs outside technology and funds to get started. Government, government and other outside groups can provide these.

So, so listen to what's being said here, guys. We need redistribution. The government can do that.

And it needs to be equitable. And this is a Christian twist. Yes, atheistic communism is a problem, but Christianity, we can do it right.

This is the Urban Project. This is what they're using to train people. Guys, it's communism. And you saw the list of sponsors there.

It is shameful that you have these organizations partnering with the

Urban Project. You think communism's coming into Christianity? I think it is.

I think it is. If you can't see this connection, I don't, it breaks my heart. I'm not doing this to bash anyone.

I'm doing this to sound the alarm bell and say, guys, what are we doing? This is crew that is putting this out.

And other organizations are partnering with them. It's anti -biblical. Communism is not biblical, guys.

Neither is socialism. Now, let's keep going here. Lenz's wants to, they have these institutes, and what they want to do is enable participants to do the following.

Engage race, power, culture, ethnicity from diverse and unique perspectives. Develop greater appreciation for the role and power of personal context.

There's that word power again. Combine principle and theory with life experience to facilitate meaningful action.

I'm going to play this video for you. What are some of the forces that really help shape our perspectives?

Dinner table conversation. Things that we witness on TV.

Experiences, relationships, all those things help shape the lenses through which we look at those elements of race, of ethnicity, of power, of culture.

The Lenz's Institute is a cultural development platform designed to help Christian leaders see, understand, and act in this racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse world.

Over the course of five days, we enjoy a mixed media of education and communication styles that go everything from thought leaders, to film, to group exercises, to reflection pieces, to really move us in a meaningful way to move to action.

Hearing personal stories has been a significant thing for me. I've read books. I've watched sermons.

I've listened to podcasts. But when you sit face to face with someone and hear their experience, you just, you can't deny that things are not the way they should be.

People want to embrace ethnic diversity. We all do, but we're all at different points in the journey. And I think we need to move deeper.

I think we need to go farther. And I think as we do that, the Lord is going to show us what specific steps that we need to take.

I went with people that I work with. I went with my team. And it was just great to, after a long day of sessions, like having dinner together and processing what it is that we learned and thinking through, how does this change the way that we think, the way that we approach ministry?

Not because we think that race, see, and all, be all, but because it affects people's hearts and it affects the way people view the world.

And if we don't understand that, and if we don't understand people, then how are we going to reach them? What could it look like?

What could it look like if we really do see, understand, and then act in a gospel way, in a

Jesus way, for every person? Now there was a lot good in that clip.

I don't want to discount everything, right? But here's the thing. It used to be when you were a missionary, you'd learn the culture, learn the language, you'd go communicate the gospel, right?

That's the formula. This is different. For those who are listening, you didn't see the Black Lives Matter sign or the guy in the museum, he's looking at the human rights panel and where do we get human rights, which by the way, that's a secular concept.

You didn't see that. And those watching did. You did hear though, you heard the word power come up and the interchange of those things, power, race, culture.

Here's what's going on. If you live in the United States of America and you can communicate and you know the culture well enough to communicate the gospel, but you aren't sensitive to someone's, let's say, political convictions, they're a

Black Lives Matter supporter or whatever, you need to go to lenses. You need to hear some stories. And if you read Rachel Delgado's book, he talks about critical race theory being very much forwarded by the narrative.

It's very postmodern. It's not about learning these propositional truths, it's about learning from individual stories and then changing the way that you view the entire world because you're going to have a lens.

It's called lenses, for goodness sake. Looking through this lens, it's standpoint epistemology.

It's like we got to change the way we look at the world because we have a lens and we're going to get that lens at these trainings.

So we're going to stop offending people. Now look, I'm against Black Lives Matter because it's a communist organization, it's pro -LGBTQ and well, it goes against my

Christian convictions, but I think I would probably be told if I was in Crude, like you should go to lenses, you should hear some stories of oppression and so forth.

And it's like, well, that's not the reason I have a problem with it. I'm not afraid to say it's a bad organization. So I would be an outcast.

Now here's the thing. This came up at Crude19. I'm going to show you in what context it came up.

Not too long ago, I experienced a very significant disconnect in a message that I shared with some people.

I was being quite insensitive, actually, to culture. I was just blind to so many things and as they very graciously unpacked for me what it is that I had done wrong,

I thought, I am so sorry. Pray for me.

Thank you for being willing to share with me. And I will tell you this,

I am enrolling in the lenses course in November in Orlando. Emma?

Emma? That was Steve Douglas. He's the president of Crude and he apparently said some insensitive things.

So he's going for his sensitivity training at the Lenses Institute, which one of the staff members from Crude reached out to me about and said, well,

Steve Douglas is our only hope as far as turning Crude around because once he gets there, hopefully he'll see how crazy it is.

I guess they know more about lenses than I do. And he will wake up and he'll turn this thing around and just realize that it's been going haywire.

Now, I haven't done a deep dive on lenses, but I do see on their website right now,

I'm looking at it, if you go to lensesinstitute .com slash public dash square dash two, they have a number of resources and they're almost all, if not all, there's one called reading the

Bible with the damned and that I'm assuming, I'll just say it's Christian and most of the other ones look like they're secular, but their resource list is, is secular stuff divided by faith is of course on there working towards whiteness, how

America's immigrants became white. That looks interesting. The minority experience. I mean, there's a lot of books here and even an article by the, from the

Huffington post about how people of color need to have band -aids that match their skin and how it's good that they do now.

A Slumdog Millionaire. Actually, that's a good movie. But you know, what is it, Memoirs of a

Geisha, there's a bunch of movies from Hollywood, but the point that I'm bringing up here is if you look at their resource list, the resources that they're recommending, you're not seeing like, you know,

Warren Weersbee's a Bible study on Peter. You know, it's not that, not that you have to have that, but there's no like exegeting the text type of materials there.

It's culture stuff. It's, it's Hollywood, it's liberal media, it's sociology.

That's what they're teaching. Cruza ministry, Christian ministry. Is this a good use of their resources?

Or is this a version of like secular sensitivity training that you have to take at most of your jobs? Seems like the latter.

So that's Lenz's Institute and I'm sure after I've done this now, there's going to be others who watch this will probably start doing some deep dives, but I didn't have time for that nor did

I want to get too far into it. This is the last thing I wanted to leave you guys with. This is a

Twitter account called Comrade Jesus. Now I was told about this from a crew staff member, it apparently was first called

Margins Crew 19, Margins Crew 19. Now it's called Comrade J Christ.

That is the, these are the Twitter handles. And Comrade Jesus, you can see here, it's communitarian, socialist, activist, resisting white evangelicalism, capitalism, racism, gender discrimination since 3

AD. And you see these Catholic conquistadors that are running the natives, the natives are running away from them in horror.

And Comrade Jesus, this is one of many, they basically live tweeted Crew 19, whoever's behind this account, but here's one,

Sandra Van Opstel understands we cannot dismantle injustice until we dismantle capitalism and insidious system that evangelicalism is colluding with to further its empire.

This is a communist Twitter account associated with Crew, someone in Crew.

And apparently this caused a stir at Crew and afterward because this, whoever's behind this account or the individuals behind this account are, they're communists and they're in agreement with what's going on at Crew 19.

And they're live tweeting it. This should tell you something, when you have communists who are agreeing with what your ministry is saying, you might want to check out what your ministry is saying.

And so I plead with you, if you're in Crew, look at just those two examples, look at this guy, the missionary who's on the college campus talking about his homosexual, he's coming out as a homosexual.

Is this the ministry that you want where communists approve of it and where someone who is still identifying as a homosexual is using this as part of their evangelism on campus?

This doesn't sound like the Crew that I used to know, which was Campus Crusade. This is something different.

And so, yeah, I'm concerned about it. But there is hope as always, because Christ's kingdom is bigger than any parachurch group or ministry.

Any ministry out there can die a thousand deaths and Christ's kingdom is not affected by it because Christ's kingdom moves on and he builds his church the way he wants to build it.

And so my hope is that Crew will not go down this road any farther, and this will be a wake up call.

But if not, then I hate to say it, but Crew needs to wither on the vine and there needs to be another that comes and takes its place.

And I hope there are organizations already doing that. I've been told about some other campus organizations that I have not had time to look into, so I can't endorse anything at this point.

But if you're in Crew, I would say do your homework. Look at what else is out there, and there may be a better option for you if you really are devoted to proclaiming the true gospel of Jesus Christ, repentance and faith for real sins that the

Bible calls sin. No one goes to hell for benefiting from systemic oppression, allegedly, right?

Real sins. There's forgiveness from those things that come with real guilt because we've offended a real holy

God. Jesus Christ came to take that punishment on himself.

He's given us the righteousness that we do not deserve and taken the sin and the punishment that we do deserve to make us right with the

Father so we can be with him in heaven and receive the Holy Spirit. This is the message that I'm used to.

This is the message that I'd like to see on college campuses once again, and I'm sure there's

Crew missionaries doing that, but the organization seems like they're taking a different turn right now. I hope that stops.