The Powerhouse of Youth Ministry: TC Cook's Mission to Transform Lives

All right. So here I am at Fight, Laugh, Feast with a new friend.

Well, okay. We'll get into that. A new friend that I met in person. There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How's that? How's that? That work? All right. Yeah. So T .C., let folks know a little bit about yourself.

Yeah. You know, briefly, because we're going to get into the ministry you do, but just briefly how you came to Christ.

Sure. Sure. So T .C. Cooke, I am from Southwest Indiana, was born in Kentucky, only lived there like six months or whatever.

And dad followed the coal mine into Indiana. So that's how we got there. And I'm from Kentucky. He was born and raised in Kentucky.

So still a coal miner to this day. And so he's still, it's above ground stuff, at least now, so for him.

So yeah, does that. but both my dad's dad was a

Southern Baptist preacher. He passed away, though, when my dad was seven. So he didn't really, and I obviously didn't know him, and he didn't grow up with a father.

And then my mom's dad was a Southern Baptist pastor, and he passed away when I was like 15. So I got to know him a whole bunch.

He lived in Mississippi. They met because he was a church planter, and so he was planting a church in Kentucky.

So that's how my mom and dad met. So grew up going to church, but yet mom and dad, they really didn't live it out, right?

But they wanted to make sure their children went to church, and my mom especially, right? And so always took us always there.

There was moments in our history growing up where dad was following the

Lord, so the whole family was, right? We were all going that direction. And I can remember at six years old coming downstairs and saying to both my mom and dad, like, hey,

I believe God just asked me to follow him.

I want to follow him. What do I do? And so they told me, went through Roman's Road. They went through that, right?

And then I was baptized the next day at the church that I'm actually an elder for now, and so interesting enough.

So I kind of had that, but I went away from that in high school, junior high. Didn't really care that much about the

Lord. Went to Bible studies, different things like that, but only did that because there were girls there. And I say to people, and this is not good, but I say,

I tell them, hey, I went to this particular Bible study because there was like 250 kids that would show up every single

Wednesday night, and it was a legitimate Bible study. It wasn't just a youth group, let's have pizza, slime that they're doing now, you know, all that stuff, right?

All the crazy, ridiculous stuff. Now, it was a legitimate study, but there were tons of girls there, and so I went, and it worked, because I married one of them.

But I could care less about the Lord at that time. But it was by going through there that when

I was about 17 years old, I got asked to go on a retreat. I didn't even know what that meant.

Like, what are you talking about? But it was a retreat, and we were going to go and hang out, and we'd spend quiet time with the

Lord. You know, that was when that was really big buzzword, right? It was quiet time, right? And spend with the

Lord, and then we would discuss it. Well, I went because, what's YMO? There were girls there, right?

And so I did, I went, and my wife actually now was on that trip too, so it really did work.

But I was sitting by like a river one morning, or a little creek that I went through.

It was in Virginia. And I was sitting there, never knew anything about quiet time, never heard any of this stuff, and I have a

Bible, and literally just thoughts, felt, whatever, that the

Lord was speaking to me something, right? And I can't explain it. It hasn't happened. I'm not saying the Lord speaks to you audibly.

It wasn't audibly. It was that I needed to change my life, and what was I doing with my life? And at that moment,

I said, I'm going to follow the Lord. And so the Lord just saved me right there. And I just, so I'm 17 years old.

I was partying. I was doing stuff behind the scenes that nobody really knew about. My parents didn't know all that stuff.

And I just, I committed everything. So I went home, all my secular CDs, I had tons of those, and I burned them in a trash barrel.

I had Rolling Stone t -shirts and all this stuff, and I burned all those in a trash barrel, right? I did, that's all

I knew was I just, I wanted anything that had to do with the Lord, right? So there was a lady that was kind of a helper at that youth group, and she took me, her husband was a doctor, a surgeon.

She took me to the closest Bible bookstore, and she said, hey, buy 10

CDs. Well, that's when we had CDs. Some people don't know about those anymore, right? But we had CDs, buy 10 of them.

You're talking CDs, and I'm thinking A -tracks, right? My brother had an A -track. That's right, that's right.

Yeah, but we already established, you know, that you call yourself old, and I've got kids that are 10 years older than you've been married, so yeah.

Yeah, so I know, everybody has a limit on what age consists of old, right?

So you talk to the teenagers at the youth facility that I'm at, and I'm old. I am old to them, right?

You're old -looking, there's a difference. Right, oh, that's harsh, yeah. You wanna be old but young -looking, that's the key, right?

And I messed up both of them, so I flipped them, but so she did that, and then she was like, hey, do you want to buy some

Christian T -shirts? And I was like, well, absolutely, because I just burnt all the ones that I had, right? So she got me 10

CDs or something like that, and then I got some T -shirts, right? So I go to school, public school, and we were kind of known, our public school was kind of known for some

Mennonites, which are not Amish, obviously, and some people that would go away during summer to camp for a week, and then they would come back, and they would just be on fire for the

Lord, right? And then a week later, they're back partying, drinking, doing everything they were, right? So it was kind of just a normal thing.

So when I show up after the summer of this, of the Lord saving me, transforming me,

I'm just a different person, right? I have new clothes, different style of clothes.

I'm wearing Jesus clothes, right? That's what they're saying, like, you know, I have scriptures and all this stuff. Carrying my Bible around.

They kind of just thought, well, this is normal, and in about a week, it's gonna go away, right?

And so it didn't, and I just kept doing, and I was quiet, and I kept quiet, but I would read my

Bible. They would invite me to the parties again, and I'd be like, no, I'm not doing that anymore. I don't do that. And they were like, oh, yeah, right, yeah, right.

You know what I mean? I got nicknamed, it was my junior year, he got nicknamed Preacher Boy, yet I never said a word.

I never said a word, but just carried my Bible, right? And I actually loved it. I was like, yeah, sure, call me that. That's great, and I'm a horrible speller, and I can specifically remember we were in an ag class, because we're rural

America, right? So we're in an ag class, and the teacher says, Jerusalem ragweed, does anybody know how to spell it?

And one kid says, well, ask the Preacher Boy back there, because it says Jerusalem, right? And he's like, well, can you spell it?

I was like, no, I have no idea, I can't spell. This is why I go by TC. We've established this, right?

So it's like, I can't spell, but that was the thing. But interestingly enough, it stuck that whole year, and I kept with it, and I didn't go to the parties anymore.

I didn't do that stuff, and I would read, and then some people would ask me questions about the Bible, and we'd look through it together, and all these different things.

Then I did start a Bible study at my school, right? During lunch, people would come. I broke out in hives the very first time, and all these things, right?

But they started to respect the fact that I stuck with it, and so then my senior year,

I got voted prom king. There was only 30 some, I only graduated like 40 some people so it wasn't, that's not like that big of a deal, and they didn't have very much to choose from, right?

But the reason why I think that's significant is not because it's like prom, but it was because I was getting made fun of my junior year, right?

But because I stuck it out, and because the Lord had transformed me, and they could see a difference, actually, and they realized it wasn't just a flash in the pan type stuff, that I think the respect level started to come, and the favor started to come that the

Lord gave me. So that's kind of my journey in salvation, and then what

I do now, even, so yeah. Yeah, and I mean, I think you're pretty humble, because for folks to realize,

TC stands for terrific Christian, and so we recognize you don't want, you're a humble guy.

Right, yeah, just a humble guy. I'm Moses, right? I'm the most humble man that there is. So let's talk a little bit about your ministry you do.

Yeah, yeah. You have a ministry, you also do a podcast. Let's start with the ministry, and then get into the podcast a bit.

Sure, sure, so interestingly enough, my high school life, and when

God just saved me when I was 17, it's connected to exactly what

I do now. So the guy who had the youth group was the director of the organization that I lead now, right, called

The Powerhouse. Southwest Indiana Powerhouse is the full name, but we go by The Powerhouse, WashingtonPowerhouse .org

if you wanna check it out, but I was a product of The Powerhouse. So I went broken home, mom and dad got divorced when

I was 13, all these things, right, and I was searching for a group, for somebody to hang out.

When I became a Christian, I didn't know where to go, because the parties I weren't going to, so I started hanging out there.

And The Powerhouse is the group of guys that do the weightlifting and the muscle building and the, isn't it, oh, no.

That's the power team, and yeah, yeah, and I think that. I thought maybe something happened with your physique, you know, you just.

Yeah, I just let it go, I just let it go, right, yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, not to be confused with the power team, and it does it, right, it sounds like a weight room or a

Gold's Gym type thing, right, it sounds like that. You know, if you're gonna run a ministry called, you know, Powerhouse, maybe.

Maybe I should get in shape. Yeah, maybe you should get in a little better shape. I mean, round is a shape, but you know, a different, maybe a different.

Maybe at least a more powerful shape, right, yeah, yeah. I could be powerful rolling down a steep hill, maybe, but that's about it, and so we do have a gym there.

I just don't use it, but no, it's, so I got involved there, and then

I started working there my senior year at The Powerhouse, at this organization I do, and what The Powerhouse is, is it, and it has been, it's been there since 1999, so 25 years now.

That's a good amount, huh? It is, it is a very, they started it in 98 as far as the planning, and then it opened the doors in 99, and the biggest program that we've had since the beginning, and we still have, is our after -school program, and we find that because parents, both parents are working, or you have a lot of single parents now, right, and so, and they have to work, and so there's nobody at home, and the most, they say the most at -risk time for young people is three to six, and so our hours are three to 5 .30

because parents get off work or whatever, and they come pick up their kids and all that, so about that time, and so we're blocking a half from our local public junior high, high school, and so they come down, and our mission is to build relationships with junior high and senior high youth to share the gospel.

That's what we do, and so for 25 years, the wording of the mission has changed over the years back and forth, but that's literally, it was just how someone wanted to say it.

That's just what we've done for 25 years is that, and that's what that guy who, Dean Loninger's his name,

I don't mind saying it, who was the mentor for me, that's what he did, and he saw something in me.

I don't know what it was, but he saw something in me, and he said, hey, I wanna nurture this in him, and he taught me leadership, and I credit him.

I wouldn't have known how to be a father. I wouldn't have known how to be a husband if it wasn't for that man, and that he took time to actually instill and pour into me and disciple me in the word and through prayer, and then even just through how to evangelize, how to actually get engaged with young people, and so I started working there my senior year.

I worked there for about seven years. Like I said, I met my wife there. We got engaged on the dining room floor of the powerhouse, and we got married on the grounds of the powerhouse 18 years ago, right?

Hottest day of the year, by the way. It was miserable. I was sweating like crazy. I sweat like nuts, but you don't even think about that because you're excited, right?

I was excited. I've got a new bride, and it was fun, but we met there.

We did all that, so the powerhouse has just been ingrained in us. We worked there, and she worked there also, and then

I went off and did some odd jobs and different things, and then got a phone call about five years ago, and now

I'm back, and so I've been back there for five years. Same mission. Our plan, though, is to grow the powerhouse, right?

We're donor -funded, so we don't get federal grants or anything like that, but it's strictly through local donations and now that has expanded into some other places, but yeah, that's what we do, and it's been incredible just to grow the organization, to be there, and to actually give back to something that gave me so much, right?

One of the things you and I talked about that I think would be helpful for folks, yeah, there's a lot of people.

They get in ministry. They want to be in a ministry where they could do ministry but live comfortably and not have, let's talk about the security you had when you took this job.

I mean, you did a brilliant move. You decided to accept a job without talking to your wife first. Brilliant, brilliant move.

We can talk about her reaction, whether, you know, and then, you know, the idea of maybe some of the questions you should have asked before you came in and took a job.

Yeah, no, no, no, it's real, and in fact, if I would have probably asked those questions, it might have scared me away, and so looking back,

I'm glad I didn't, right, ask those questions, but it would have scared me away, and so because the finances weren't there, and in fact, even during the negotiation talks of, hey, how much am

I going to get paid, they were 5 ,000 short to cover my bills, like what

I have to pay, not extra, just my bills, and so I said, hey, could

I go out and raise $5 ,000 from people to actually work here, and they said, yeah, absolutely, and so I had to go out and do that.

That should have been my first flag, right? You know, maybe you should have asked them, hey, can you afford to hire me first, and that may have been some, if you're going to go and tell your wife, hey,

I just accepted a job without talking to you, she might have wanted to know. She might have wanted to know, right, and it's not as bad as what

Andrew's making it sound, but it was scary for me because I did that, and it's never worked for me before when

I've done this, but this time, you know, I did tell her. I called her and said, hey, I think I just accepted a job from the powerhouse, and I thought she was going to just be so upset with me, but she wasn't.

She actually said, you know, you've been out building businesses up, but I've actually wanted to be back there this whole time, and I just didn't say anything because I was just letting you go, right, and do your thing, and so.

She still thought that they could pay your salary. Yeah, well, I actually told her.

I said, I told her what the negotiation went down and what it was, and she's like, do you think you can actually raise it?

I said, I don't know, and so I just made, I literally made five phone calls and got the extra $5 ,000 right then.

It was done, and so believe it or not, my dad was actually one of them, and he actually did that, so.

Do you want to do some fundraising for Striving Fraternity? Well, hey, I'm going to tell you right now. I'm going to tell you right now.

There needs to be people who are giving to your ministry and what you do, for sure, but yeah, it was just, there was,

I think the 25 years now, and it was 20 years whenever I came on, but the 20, 25 years of being in the community, people know what we do.

They see the impact that we have. I mean, like 75 % of our kids go home without food, and yet we feed them a full meal every day, right, and so people, most people are, there's something inside of them at least that says we don't want our kids to be starving, right?

Like we don't want that, and so they're willing to give and support, even nonbelievers willing to give and support for that because they don't want to see that, and so I think that helped.

That made it easier of just the time being spent doing the same stuff for 20 years, and people just knew, hey, this is who we are, but the sad part is is there's still people in our own county that have no idea who we are, and that's on me, that's my fault, and I've got to get out there and talk to them, so yeah, it's exciting.

We're getting ready to break ground on a brand new facility, 15 ,000 square foot facility, $1 .5

million, and that was all through local people. I mean, just incredible.

I live in a town of 36 ,000 in our county. Not our city, our county. 36 ,000 people, yet that's what's been going on, and that's what's happening.

Now, not to get people. 36 ,000, how many of them has Harris brought in illegally? Oh, sorry.

Yeah, well, actually, yeah, that's actually, there's a lot, and believe it or not, our town is one of those towns, and so there's a lot to do, and then through that, speaking about politics, through that,

I decided that I should run for county commissioner. Thank to our good friend Greg Moore over there that pushed me for that, but I should run for local office, and did, and won, and so January 2nd,

I'll be starting as our Davis County commissioner also, so with that, and honestly, legitimately, in all fact, the powerhouse helped with that because people just know the powerhouse.

They know it and the integrity of it. Yeah, I was gonna say, maybe if you wanna get to know the community, maybe you should run for public office.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shake a lot of hands. I knocked on a lot of doors, and there's a lot of phone calls being made, and they're like, wait, are you raising funds for the powerhouse, or for, no, no, no, to run for local office, yeah.

Yeah, it was good, it was good. Yeah, so yeah, it's been awesome, but I'm excited to see what the

Lord has for us. We're dreaming big, and I think that every town, not every town, but at least every county deserves to have a powerhouse in their community or something like that, right?

If they don't have something like it already, then I think us coming in there and doing what we do would directly affect their community and build stronger families, stronger communities through the youth.

Yeah, well, I'm excited because when you branch out after you get this building done into northern Philly, I got just the guy,

I just got just the couple to help out. I love it, I love it. I'm excited about it, yeah, bring it on, bring it on.

It'll be awesome. So let me, before we get in talking about your podcast real quick,

I mean, how can people support the work that you're doing there at the powerhouse? Yeah, washingtonpowerhouse .org

is a good way, and it has a donate page on there, right? And it goes right through there.

So you can do monthly, a one -time gift. Quarterly, I believe it even sets up quarterly for you even.

But listen, this is the thing I want people to know is just because we raised that 1 .5 million doesn't mean we have 1 .5

million in the bank. That is all going towards building this building. And that is, so that's not running the lights, that's not the

AC, that's not any of that stuff. And so sometimes people see a big campaign fund like that and they think, oh, well, they're good.

No, no, no, no, we still have to operate. We still have to do that. And plus, the more that we have, then the more we can start looking into other towns and places to put another powerhouse, so yeah.

Yeah, good. So let's talk about your podcast. Yes, yeah, so I've had that for a little while.

Seriously, we've been going serious about it for probably about a year or so. What's the name of the podcast?

I mean, I heard it's a very original name. I heard that you're one of these more creative guys. Like, you know,

I'm friends with a guy named Justin Peters and his ministry is Justin Peters Ministries. Me and him are very creative.

He's a very creative guy. So what's the name of your podcast? Yeah, so the TC Cook Show, because we are creative.

Hey, I just want people to, I'm direct. I'm just a direct guy and here's what it is. It's a show where I talk to other people, right?

So, but it's on the Clearly Speaking Network. So it is different, right? Yeah, if it was me, I'd be like, you know, cooking with TC or something, or, you know, what's cooking podcast, cooking with theology.

So, you know, something, but no, it's just TC Cook. Just the TC Cook Show, plain and simple. I mean, this is

Andrew Rapport's rap report. Play off the name. You get a last name like cook and you don't play off it at all. You're just like TC Cook.

Come on, the rap report sounds a lot better than cooking with or something like that. I think that just sounds cheesy to me, but hey, actually, that was one of Greg Moore's campaign things that he wanted me to do was like to have a barbecue or a chili or something and he said to call it, you know, cooking with TC, you know, and all that stuff.

Yeah, yeah, so yeah, I get it. I get it, but no, no, no, no, we won't. Maybe Greg and I are gonna go around and we're gonna interview people and see whether you should change names to cooking with TC.

You should, you should ask that. We'll have a vote here to see what's happening. That's how I got stuck with the rap report.

I thought it was corny and I went to a conference with the guy, you know, one of the guys that worked for us at the time and he came up with a name and we're at this conference.

I'm like, hey, explain to me, he wants me to name the podcast The Rap Report and everyone's like, that's awesome, oh, that's great.

You gotta do that. I was like, I am stuck with this name. It sounds so corny. Yeah, yeah, yeah, actually,

I really do like it and I think, you know, Greg Moore, his county thing, it was like vote for Moore, you know, and it's like, you want more out of life, you want more out of the vote for,

I thought that was clever, you know, but yeah, cookin', I don't know, I don't know. We'll see, we'll see, but yeah, so it's on the

Clearly Speaking Network and the reason why we started that at all is because we have two shows. We have the T .C. Cook Show, the

Zach Johnson Show, but the whole goal is just to speak clearly on cultural topics using a biblical worldview because that should shape everything that we see, everything that we do, our actions, how we speak, all of those things and I do think we should have clear speech.

We don't need to sugarcoat a lot of stuff. Just kinda tell it like it is and just be direct using scripture.

Don't try to beat around the bush about it. Just tell the truth and I'm telling you, when you do that, people want that.

People actually desire the truth, even though it might hurt at times, but people do actually want truth and I think we live in a time right now where that's more prevalent than ever before, in our lifetime at least, where people want truth.

They're looking, they're searching for that, so we just gotta speak clearly about it. Especially after 2020. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we realized real quick the truth isn't always what it seems to be, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what are your plans as far as Powerhouse, the podcast?

I mean, see, we just upset Keith Foskey. He's up and walking away from us now.

He didn't like the cooking with TC, I think. Yeah, yeah, that's it, that's it. Keith Foskey was just sitting and just enjoying the conversation we're having at the

Fight Laugh Feast. So yeah, we're right in the middle of the building, so that's actually starting this week, or it'll be starting next week,

I guess. So I get back home from the Fight Laugh Feast and we're digging, man, we're going.

But while we're doing that right now, we're building out some curriculum for families.

So we're breaking down every aspect of a family. So man, woman, husband, wife, and children, vocation, all these things that create a household, right?

All these things that create a family. And we're going to start writing articles and stuff. We've already started, we haven't released them yet, but we're going to be doing that for the

Powerhouse. And then we're actually trying to finish up our certification for biblical counseling.

And because we want to be able to counsel families, like what tends to happen is we get kids that come in and we get them for a couple hours, right?

And then they go back home to chaos. And really all they're trying to do is survive. And what we would love to do is have the families come in, and it's easier said than done, right?

But have the families come in and do counseling with them and walk them through scriptural things that can apply to the family.

And so that's one thing with the new building too, we want to make it kind of a counseling center where we might open up from like Tuesday, like six to nine o 'clock, free counseling, right?

You can come in and we can talk to you like that. And then we want to do even like, I don't know if it's going to be Thursday or whatever, but something like a theological

Thursday where we pick a cultural topic and we have a forum and the community is invited to come in and we'll have somebody talk on it for 15 to 30 minutes.

And then we'll have Q &A with the community, right? And about these topics and about that.

So trying to really introduce biblical worldview to Christians, right?

And non -believers also. That's neat, that's neat. Yeah, and as far as the podcast, we're just getting on guests and we're going that route at this point.

And really, it's kind of selfish on my side because I just love talking to people and I love getting to know them.

I love getting to know their story and knowing what they're doing. And then I just put it out there for the world to hear. So yeah.

I mean, I think the only problem with your podcast is you do guests, but you lack discernment in some of your guests.

I mean, as you've had me on, so the sermon level may be questionable here, brother.

Well, and there might just have Doug Wilson on too. So you never know what's gonna happen, right?

You put you two against each other here. We'll see, a Baptist and a Presbyterian, right? There were no fireworks at dinner tonight.

Right, that's right. So I guess we survived that. That's right, that's right. Yeah. He did throw a little pedo -baptism and stuff at us, yeah?

That was really funny, yeah. Yeah, we were - You notice I sat there quietly being a Baptist right next to you.

I sat there quietly. You sat quietly and let me take all the heat as he's throwing jabs at me, uh -huh, yeah,

I know. You felt it, yeah. I felt it, but it was funny. It was, yeah. It was a good line. Yeah, yeah, it was great.

It's great, man. Isn't this, I think this is your first time at a Pilate feast, but it's incredible just to see all, and then somebody said there's maybe like,

I don't, 27 different denominations. I didn't even know there was that many denominations. Somebody just threw that out there. Not just within Presbyterianism.

Yeah. Yeah. That was a good one. We're just talking.

Yeah, we're just talking about that one. But it is, it's, you got Baptist, Presbyterian, you got all kinds of different people coming here under one roof and just really worshiping the

Lord, glorifying the Lord together, enjoying the Lord together, right? And it's just fun to watch.

It really is fun. Yeah, yeah. So what do you enjoy most about Fight Left Feast, a conference like this?

Yeah, this is my first time being on like, kind of behind the scenes with the Media Rose stuff, right?

First time ever doing that. Last year, I was just there as an attendee, and I got a little bit of behind the scenes stuff, but I was mostly there as an attendee.

And so really, I'll be raw, and this is going to sound crazy and maybe a deep dive into really what

I think, but I love the fact that you can have a conference. And maybe your main goal was just having a conference, right?

Just getting people together, hearing speakers, sharing the word, but then you have all of these businesses and booths set up, right?

So they're getting business from people, and then you look outside, you got food trucks, you got four food trucks, whatever it is.

So now your local, this is in Texas, and even like Gabe's from Texas, but they're in Idaho, right?

Like all those groups are in Idaho. They're creating economic growth right here.

The hotel that we're staying at is sold out with Fight Left Feast people. So not only that, now they're getting that, and most people have a visitor's tax on all hotels.

And so the county actually gets money, right, from us staying here. You're saying that as a county commissioner.

You're just, I mean, let's be honest. We just need more taxes. That is not true, by the way.

I do not think that. I do like taxing other people, though. Not my own constituents, but other people. That's my favorite tax.

But just the economic impact that this has with a spiritual impact that this has, people hearing talks, getting amped up about standing for truth, right?

But in the relationships that get built. I literally heard a guy who,

I interviewed him, Ray Simmons, right? So he wrote Confessional Counting. And a great book, by the way,

I read it. But he told me that he decided to move to a town, small town, to try to start building up a

Christian community, right? And kind of having Christian laws and different things like that.

But he met two families two years ago at Fight Left Feast that moved to his town to join with him in helping create that community in that county.

They met right here. We've had proposals at Fight Left Feast, right? And people getting married here.

It's just incredible, incredible things. So that's the thing that I like the most, is just all the offshoots that can take place from just an idea of let's get people together and have speakers.

And then all these offshoots start up, right? Yeah. So what are your real thoughts about Greg Moore as he comes in here?

Greg Moore from - Gosh, is that all you guys do is talk? Yeah, so Greg Moore from the Dead Man Walking podcast.

I'm here with him. I'm at his booth recording. Right, right, yeah. I love it. You know,

I'm here because really you were like, hey, come on out. Because you know that - You fit right in. You know that I like fighting over theology and you were like, you'll fit in good here because...

So you've been here for a couple years, actually from the very first one.

Which one of your nine shows am I on? You're on a podcast.

I'm on a podcast? This is the Dead Man Walking podcast with Greg Moore. No, no.

He overtook it. So this is the wrap report. Pre -recorded, you should have known. It's the pre -recorded one, right? Okay. Yeah, there we go.

We're not doing live. Maybe. Are we teasing the new one that's coming back possibly? No, we're not talking about that one.

No? Which one? I don't know, I thought you were teasing maybe bringing something back out of the repertoire. So the daily one that I do, the wrap report daily, which is the

Monday through Friday, which is just, that's actually, so it's kind of interesting, the one I dropped was the daily because even though it's a minute and 47 seconds of content, and you go, well, okay, that's not much, so it should be easy to do, that's actually harder to do than a one hour because even though altogether it's 10 minutes for the week, but to get the script, to write a script so, to lock it down to a minute and 47 seconds is not easy.

No, the two minutes is hard. It's like in debate class where they said, man, 20 minutes is easy, a tight four or five is hard.

It really is. It has to be structured. But the thing is that the two minute podcast is now on the radio.

Oh, cool. And so, yeah, out in Utah, and so. So my local radio station puts me on every other week and I do one minute, it's called the message minute, and it's a secular radio station, right?

They do classic rock, right? So at drive time morning, so 7 .30ish

or something comes on and it's one minute for, and I do just an encouraging message minute.

So I usually pick a verse and then I try to explain that verse in a minute. And that's in Indiana?

Yeah. How did the three people that are listening like it? Hey! I'm on a roll, baby.

Says the Michigan guy, right? The liberal Michigan guy. Hey, no, wait a minute. Them fighting words.

Watch it there, Indiana. Wait, Indiana did just beat U of M, didn't they? That's right. All I know is that Michigan gave us, you know, five inches.

No, Indiana's still up. We're actually ranked this year, right, IU? Undefeated, undefeated.

Don't remind me. Undefeated. We went from national champs to - You got a new coach and you went down.

And we got a new coach and we went undefeated, right? We don't even have a coach. He's not even under contract.

That's right. It's pretty crazy. We just turned it into a sports podcast. I know. I have no idea what you're talking about. You bring me on and we're gonna be talking about nine subjects in two minutes.

Sorry. Yeah, so I do have to get that because they have about two, three years of content with what

I already have. But I gotta start producing more. Let's do it. I can hardly wait.

Yeah, so I gotta start doing that one again. You know, it's good. You know, I have, so what I was doing with that was

I had, I think Living Waters did a Living Waters -

I love how he says waters as a Philly guy. Living Waters. I say it right?

Yeah. Sure you do. Okay, tell me, that can that's in front of you, what's that called?

Soda. That's right. I call it pop. Why can't you pronounce other things properly?

Because I knew he was gonna pick on me. He was gonna pick on me if I said, pop, you wanna pop? I don't know, you go to UP though, there's a lot of, would you like a soda?

Soda? Soda? Minnesota. Oh, don't you, no. Yeah. If you're gonna say the state right, it's

Minnesota. Minnesota. Minnesota. Oh, good Lord. Dad jokes over here. No, actually that's -

No, actually that's how my pastor pronounces it. He looked it up on Wikipedia. Oh my

God. Yeah, Wikipedia says the proper pronounciation. You can't have inside jokes on a podcast, the listeners don't know what you're talking about, okay?

Well, I'll be happy to explain. You don't need to explain, we've only got so much time. You're just like,

I got all the time in the world. Greg's making fun of Greg. Well, I think, you know, you were making fun of me all night last night, so.

It was one o 'clock in the morning, we're at a Waffle House, it was the first link, okay? I just wanted a definition.

And you, and so you, you want to look at what dispensationalism is, so you go to Wikipedia. There we go.

There we go, a trusted source in information. The best was I read it to you and you were like, uh -huh, uh -huh, and then you went, is that Wikipedia?

The disdain that you said it with is what hurt, Andrew. Because I was caught red -handed, because I don't use

Wikipedia for anything, but it was late, I was tired, it was the first link, and you go, did you just use

Wikipedia to look up a theological term? Andrew's whipping out his, like, 600 ,000 books on Logos, and you're over here looking up Wikipedia.

He's got a backpack full of books and dictionaries. Okay, so the thing is, really, what it is, is

Greg is, like, exhausted. We're sitting there waiting to order. He's, like, falling asleep at the table.

So how do you wake Greg up and get him all animated? You just go, you just start talking about, like, dispensationalism versus Presbyterianism, and, you know, he's awake and he's fired up.

Let's fight, man, we're ready. You know exactly what to say when you go, well, actually, dispensationalists are more covenantal than covenant theologians.

I went, what? And he jumped up. You wait till I get on Wikipedia, Andrew.

I'll prove you wrong. He was all fired up, and then he's like, all right, let's go.

Then my eggs and bacon came, and then I was good. I was a little hangry. So you, Greg, you've been coming to these,

I think, from the beginning, right? Yes, it's 2020. Yeah, so what do you like most about this conference?

Honestly, it feels like you're at a family reunion when you come back every year. Everyone is, the camaraderie, everyone is very welcoming.

We're all pulling in the same direction on some major things so that kind of creates a brotherhood. It's become a lot more cross and non -denominational.

Used to be just a lot of Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists, now we're. And now we've got biblical people here. Okay. Actually, you should have been here when we were.

So TC is talking, and he's like, yeah, this is great. There's like 27 different denominations that are here.

And I said, yeah, and they're all Presbyterian. CREC, PCA, PCUSA, Independent Presbyterian.

Presbyterian. Yes, but we're all Presbyterian, not lesbiterian. There is a difference within the

Presbyterian Church. We need to make that clear. I stole that from Doug Wilson, that's not mine. He coined it.

So yeah, let's talk about your podcast since we're using your equipment. We don't have to. Oh, actually, we should.

So what's your podcast about? Dead Man Walking Podcast, what do you do? So it's a Christian zombie podcast.

We talk about the apocalypse, cover a lot of zombie, zombie, no,

I haven't had that many times. I was a zombie, no. It's Dead Man Walking, it's based in Ephesians 2, once dead, now alive in Christ.

We're all dead men walking without Christ. And I've been doing that since April 2020. We talk about theology, doctrine, culture, politics from a

Reformed and Christian worldview. Both of these gentlemen, both TC Cook and Andrew Rappaport have been on before.

And we just hit the record button and I let them loose and listen to much smarter men than myself talk about interesting things.

Well, that's not a very high standard. That's true, that's true. Yeah, you're like, well, you do have an

IQ of 95. You're borderline retarded, Greg. I think that's the medical term. That's the medical term. That's medical, that's medical term, don't cancel me.

Retarded is still a medical term. In fact, when I took piano as a little kid, I hate it. My board just called me and said,

I can't be on this podcast anymore. Listen, it irritates me to no end because my piano teacher would be like, okay, and I'm playing classically trained pianist and now retard, you know, because I meant to slow down.

That's the actual use of the word. And then when we banned it, whatever, 10 years ago, it's back though, people are saying it, whatever.

Well, you can say it about Trump. You just can't say it about Joe Biden. It seems like the pendulum has swung and now you can say things as long as it's like in a stand -up comedy context.

Stand -up comics can say anything they want because they go, hey, free speech and it's funny and we're pushing back against the culture of wokeness and like, you know, censorship.

But then sometimes I think it's swung too far to where now, you know, people are saying it just to be able to say it.

Yeah. When in fact, like I said, the word originally wasn't offensive.

It meant someone who has slowed down mentally. Okay, you guys are looking at me like, why did we go here?

Well, no. You guys are doing so good. Before Greg got on, I started talking about retards. We were actually super serious.

Yeah, I usually have these nice serious conversations. It was so deep and good. It was high class ivory tower.

You know, on Greg's podcast or he's on mine or you know, it's usually pretty serious but at events like this,

Greg, this is where you and I, we've been coming to Jeffrey Rice's, you know, the Open Air Theology Conference.

We've been doing that together for two years now. Yeah, we're back in February, baby. So this is a little bit what it's like when we get together and hanging out.

We love one another. We disagree theologically. We like to give jabs. But we discuss theology.

You know, we're okay with fighting over our theology, getting heated about what we believe and then making jokes with one another and laughing about it.

And that's refreshing. It was even cool because even like Aaron Brewster who I had met once, I think you knew a couple times.

He came to a couple of your conferences that you hosted or something like that, right? And it was like, hey, I got hit by the hurricane and my house is underwater.

Andrew goes, yep, let's raise some money. Greg, you wanna jump on? Keith, you wanna jump on? You guys know him from the, you know, the

Jeffrey Rice Conference. And we were like, yeah, let's do it. It was like two years ago, I didn't know any of you. And now we're doing something that can help a brother.

And I'm not doing this to pat anyone on the back. I'm just saying that's what the bond of brotherhood in Christ can do when you're, you know, when you're covered in the blood of Christ and atoned for by Christ.

That is thicker than sometimes even family. Which is really weird to me, you know? Not weird, but it's not what the world says it should be.

You bring up Aaron. And so Aaron lost, you know, the car's got destroyed. His RV where his son lived, gone.

You know, their HVAC is history. You know, we did that thing, right?

Raised some money. And if folks wanna give, you can still give. It's givesendgo .com slash

SFE. SFE stands for Striving Fraternity. He's one of our speakers at Striving Fraternity. And, you know, we raised enough money that they were able, because they have no insurance.

We raised enough money that he was able to get a replacement

HVAC system. So it was dropping down in the 30s and they had no heat. Oh, wow. And so, and now we're trying to raise more money because what he's dealing with now.

Like, people don't think about this. You have all this, you have, you know, water coming from everywhere. Well, it's bringing everything with it.

When I say everything, like he was explaining, okay, well, now there's issues of, all the sewage was coming up.

Sure. And it's running through everybody's house and everything. So that you got sewage in your house when the water starts to drain out.

Now they're dealing with the fact they got mold issues and he's got family members that no longer can be in the house because the mold is causing health issues.

Water damage is crazy. It's really bad. So now he's having to go through, not just the water, you know, replacing things and the remediation for the water, but now he's dealing with mold issues.

Are you saying water extra just because I said, I like how you say water? I feel like you're saying water every five seconds.

Are you doing that just because I said, you say water funny? No, I wasn't. Oh, okay,

I don't know. You were looking at me, he's like, and the water, and the water, and the water damage. Hurricanes bring a lot of that stuff that you don't want.

H2O. H2O. It's not quality. I love you, Andrew. You're a good dude.

But it's neat how you're right. We're able to use the technology that we use to teach

God's word, to glorify God, and get people to understand his word better, and then use it for something like that to be able to help a brother in need where he's going like, he has no idea how he's gonna replace the

HVAC. He's got no idea how he's gonna replace vehicles and to get all this stuff. He doesn't have the money.

Yeah, my greater point too is kind of the network. I got TC in Indiana. He tells me what's going on down there.

Keeps you up to date on stuff. We're talking. You're in Philly and all over the globe, actually. Keeping contact with you.

We got Foskey down in Florida. It's just these conferences and then getting to know other brothers in the

Lord is just such a blessing because I'm big on networking anyway. It's just good to know a lot of people and find out what they do and have those connections.

Not just for, like it helps me, but I'm just saying in general. And then you also get a view of how the body of Christ is functioning in other parts of the country and the world too, which is, and you get that.

I mean, the Philippines and Bangladesh and every places you are to see how it truly is a body.

How you have feet and hands and knees and elbows and eyes and these conferences highlight that in a microcosm when we have 1 ,500 people here and they're from all different states and places and denominations, but yet we can come together united under Christ.

You know, I really feel like. Oh wait, you're still here? Yeah, yeah. Oh. By the way. What's T .C.

doing here? I thought this was medium here. This podcast was actually about me. And I'm so, so, so sorry, man.

It's only because T .C. thinks everything is about him. That's true. That's right. I don't know how to break this to you, but I'm a pretty big dealer out here.

Yeah, I don't know if you got that or not. You do know what T .C. stands for. What's that? Terrific Christian. Yeah, that's right. Terrific Christian. There you go.

So that was actually the plan the whole time. I thought it was totally crazy. Well, that's what his mother called him, but.

But we can identify as anything these days. Yeah, but he figured once he got born again, he just renamed himself.

Thought it was TikTok Christian. Ooh, I'm not on TikTok. But the thing that I like about this,

I've been to many conferences throughout the year with youth and when I was, you know, all this stuff like where you go and it's, you get on this like high almost, right?

And you go back to your hometown and you're on this high and then that fades out, right? Like it just does.

But this one, it's not like you get on a high. It's like more of a family reunion, like you said, right?

It's just something different. And it's not that the teachings, the teaching's actually better here than at those conferences, right?

Yeah. And the worship is actually better here because I like acapella and I like group singing and all that stuff, so I feel like it's better here.

But it's the fact of, it's not built on trying to manipulate you emotionally to get you somewhere, right?

It's trying to just give you, I guess, encouragement and even strengthen numbers, right?

To go out and to accomplish building the kingdom. And so that's what I think a difference of this than most other conferences like that the

Christian world is trying to put out there. Yeah, I mean, look, okay, so the Christian world, what you see is you have all these conferences that everyone wants.

No, everyone has to come to my conference. Right, right, right. The reality is, look, there's a lot of guys here I wouldn't be in agreement with, right?

There's a lot of people here I'd disagree with and we'd discuss it and argue.

Now, is that because you just converted to Mormonism? That what's why you're not in agreement? No, no, it's probably. No, that's not the reason.

Yeah, that's not the reason. It's a different reason. Gotcha. I only did that for the multiple wives, you know?

The Bible is clear against having more than one wife. You know what that Bible verse is?

No man can serve two masters. Hey, hey! He's here all night.

He's here all night. So I had a guy I went to college with. He ended up becoming

Mormon and we started talking because he reached back out to me years later after he became a Mormon and he's like, hey, you know, because I would evangelize him all the time with him and he, so it was really funny because he was trying to give me arguments for multiple wives.

Yeah. And he's like, oh, but it's so good because you could go out with one wife on a date and you have another wife that could act as a babysitter and you know, like,

I mean, he literally, he had like 25 different reasons of benefits and I just go,

I go, okay, I get all this. I just got one question for you. You're gonna tell me you can handle and understand one wife so you can go for another?

Yeah. And she's not gonna, there's not gonna be any jealousy between them, right? Yeah. And he's like, well,

I mean, I don't think it would have to be. I'm like, yeah, do you see, we read the Bible when someone marries two sisters?

How'd that work for him? You know why Andrew and I get along is he allows me to have my

ADD and just interrupt him with a whole new subject and then he always has a story about it. Yeah, that's true. Go back and listen to the 20 minutes

I've been on here. I've said 15 different things and every time he just picks right up and he's like, oh yeah, Mormons, which is great.

But I always get back to our topic. You always get back to it. I mean, you're a professional. I'm not saying you're not a professional.

Well, I mean, all I gotta do is pay a penny and then I'm a professional. I was giving you a compliment.

Somehow even my compliments come off as being mean to Andrew. He's like, hey, wait a minute. I was saying it's really good how you can do that.

I mean, it's a gift. And it's a gift how you make a compliment. Like an insult.

Like an insult. All right, I gotta go walk around. No, but seriously. I'm outta here. I think the thing that's good about a conference like this is even though we disagree.

Secondary issues. We're all Christians here. We're Christians. And so the reality is the people here, even though I would disagree with a lot of them on a lot of different topics, we're gonna be an eternity together.

And that's the issue. That's where what we have to do is put some of these tribalisms and things we all divide over aside and just say, all right, we disagree.

We could discuss that. We don't have to like start calling people names, saying you're not saved because we disagree on secondary issues.

We're all believe in the same gospel. Right. And that is what should unify us together.

We're gonna have differences. Recognize it. Acknowledge it. Discuss it. Debate it.

Argue over it. But then come together as one in Christ. And love each other, right? Because they're gonna know us by our love for each other.

But even Greg. Even Greg. Even Greg. Swallow it. I need to repent.

Swallow the pride. Even Greg. You guys are like the two old guys in the balcony on the Muppets.

Here we go. I swear. Look at you. Just making fun of me in the middle. Roar, roar, roar, roar, roar. Wait, I think that was

Charlie's Brown Teachers what you just did. No, the two old guys. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.

You know, they'd make fun of everyone. They'd make fun of Fozzie. Fozzie all the time, yeah. He said that he's been making fun of me for 20 minutes.

Yeah, right, right, yeah. I'm like Andrew with that beard. You're fuzzy. You're not Fozzie. So this has been the fun thing that I did not expect.

I figured, all right, I let the beard grow in. Yeah. Right? The funny thing is people who know who

I am are like looking right past me. Yeah. They watch the show or something like that.

But once I give the name, it's like, oh, wait, wait, what? Because they're just totally not recognizing me with the beard.

I mean, it's stunning. You look totally, you look like Santa Claus with AIDS. Chimichristmas.

You look. Well, that's. You know what I think it is, though? You're doing the Christmas thing. He's talking Santa Claus. That works, yeah.

I think it hides the largeness of the schnoz, I think is what happens. That's what happens. You look like a geriatric

Jeff Foxworthy. Oh, jeez. He brought up, he said, you're making Jewish jokes.

I talked about his nose. You made it racist. Yes. He didn't say anything about Jews.

Let's be really clear here. You're talking about. Talking to elected officials. We have nothing to do with this conversation.

You do know why Jewish people have large noses, right? What's that? To smell something. I don't know what. Air is free.

He's Jewish. He can make that joke, ladies and gentlemen. I have no part of this. I am not anti -Semitic.

I'm dealing with two politicians here. I'm not part of the white boy summer. Not part of the white boy summer.

I disavow all racism and anti -Semitism. You guys don't know this, but this is how it has been since we've got together.

It's nonstop. This is what it's like when Greg and I get together and we have some of the other brothers and it's just like, it's a lot of fun.

It really is. It's fun that we can. The other night, you remember the young kids that came up. It looks like someone super glued Brillo pads to your face. Oh, jeez.

Sorry. Is that because he's Jewish? It looks good, though. No, I'm just saying. Oh, Brillo pads. No! TC!

For shame. No, it looks good. No, the beard does look good. I actually think, I really do. I think you should keep it. I do. If your wife's good with it.

It hides the chin you don't have. Right. And I keep mine because it hides all the chins

I do have. Mine hides three chins. What are you talking about? I call it my chin curtain. That sounds kind of weird, dude.

Don't you? Oh, man, I was shaving and I nicked my chin curtain. My face hurts from laughing so much.

It's crazy. That's why we're fighting, we're laughing. That's right. We're doing the laughing part now.

We're about to feast later. There we go. We'll go for 12 o 'clock dinner. Yeah, we can each eat a medium pizza.

Who was telling me? Justin from Dominion said, Chase has got a bunch of people going up to a cigar bar somewhere around here,

I guess. Oh, really? Interesting. If we want to do that, we can do that. We can crash at the hotel. I don't know.

Go out to eat. We'll figure out something. Yeah, we'll do something. All right. I'm going to hang it up and go gather up some people, see what we can do tonight.

Thank you for coming on. Thank you. This is what it's been, folks. I mean, it's a lot of fun. You know, you can hear when

I was on Greg's program for Dead Man Walking. Yeah, that'll be coming out first week of November, so send him over there.

Yeah. Why are you laughing at that? What's funny about first week of November? Well, that's literally, I guess, right now.

No, I mean. No, it's tomorrow. Three, four days after today, I meant. Yeah.

So, but then the first seven days of November. Gosh, TC. I know. Let's shift our anger towards TC. Yeah.

Let's team up and start making fun of him. I've been just trying to hang out in the shadows. You look like you lost your blue ox.

Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. He's hanging out in the shadows. He is the shadow. He just stands up.

He's like Satchwatch's brother over here. I mean, I feel like I saw a picture of you on my green beans when

I was a kid. It was that Jolly Creep show. Yeah. He's a big man, dude.

My favorite one, and I actually do, I like this, right, was when I was climbing out of the Tesla that sits on the ground.

Watching you get out of this Tesla. Greg looks at me and says, dude, it looks like the

Tesla gives birth every time you get out of the car. It's like watching my wife give birth. I'm like, push, push, breathe.

He's trying to get out. I do this thing, sit so deck him low. What was it, a model? And my knees are like in the air.

What model was it? Because you're 6 '5". It's a model 3. You're a tall guy. Yeah, 6 '5". 6 '5", and it was a model what, 3?

Model 3. Yeah, they're just compact. By the way, by the way, so we go to dinner tonight, right? Yeah. What do you think, so, this is no joke, you can verify, so the guy offers to give us a ride home, you know, or back over here, right?

And he goes, so we start walking over, and as he's walking in the car, he goes, okay, guys, before we get to the car, don't judge me.

Don't judge me. And I go, wait, let me guess. You got a Tesla. And he's like, yeah.

You're like, I own one and rented one. Seriously, though, pre -six months ago, people still made fun of you.

Now they're like, dude, Elon owns a Tesla. Yeah, they make fun of you. It's funny, because all the liberals are like, hey, heat him up.

Yeah, they're like, we're selling our stock in Tesla. It's like, dude, the dude didn't change what he's doing.

Right, that's true. It's just that he stopped, he didn't be as liberal or as Marxist, I mean.

As they want him to be. I'll tell you something, he was on, I think it was Joe Rogan, I forget which podcast he was on, and I always wondered, like, what was it that kind of woke him up or made him awake, you know?

And he ended up sharing on that podcast that it was his child. Yeah. His child got bought into the whole thing of transgenderism.

And he said he lost his kid. And he lost his kid because they said, hey, would you rather have a dead child or a, you know?

Yeah, transition one, he said, I'd rather, yeah, dead. Yeah. Oh my. No, he didn't. I don't know.

I was just going with the, I've seen how far I can take the story. Yo, I almost got him,

I almost got him. You might crack under pressure, Henry, under questioning, you might fall. I feel like it's a good fellow scene.

What's that? Have you ever seen that scene? So I. How funny am I? Okay. So like a clown funny? So I know a guy.

Watch, that's where he's going, that's where he's going. No, I didn't, I didn't, no. But I did see that movie. I know a guy that was a clown.

Yeah. I did see that movie. Speaking of. And I'll tell you why I saw that movie. Why? Because I was in California doing open air.

Okay. And a lady came up, she wanted to encourage me. And she said that she was in a restaurant three blocks away.

They heard me in the restaurant. Okay. And the main actor from that, I forget his name, Robert De Niro?

No, no, no. Al Pacino? Al Pacino? No. No, Joe Pesci? Joe Pesci, that's what

I was thinking. The guy who played Henry Hill. Yeah. Joaquin Phoenix? Yeah, who played. He wasn't, what? Are you just saying names?

I'm just naming names. Christopher Reeves? Who played Henry? Who played Henry? Oh, gosh. Tony Liotta, something

Liotta. Yeah, Ray Liotta. Ray Liotta. So Ray Liotta was in the restaurant and he actually walked right up.

I had no idea because I'm clueless. He stood right in front of me as I preached the gospel to him. And so she was telling me this.

I'm like, who's Ray Liotta? She's like, from Goodfellas? I'm like, I never heard of it. So I actually, I did watch that movie. I had to go watch it, yeah. Yeah, I went and watched it.

Big Phil's a good movie. So you watched it after you preached to Ray Liotta? Yeah. That's crazy. How long ago was that?

I mean, I thought it was a movie. That was a long time ago because I was working with Living Waters back then.

So that's gotta be like 2000, maybe 10, 11, 12. My whole point was there's a scene in that where he's talking about, you're a funny guy.

How funny are ya? And then he's like messing with him. And Joe Pesci's character says, I almost had ya.

You might crack on, you know, you might fold under questioning. That's, I was like, yeah. He said, you almost killed a guy.

Didn't he kill a guy right after that? I mean, really. Yeah, I don't know how we got on now. Good thing you don't have a gun on you. Oh my gosh, we've been running an hour.

Well, we were about to end and then you came in. All right, I'm out of here. I gotta go walk around.