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What would you do if you found faith in the most unlikely of places? Join us as we sit down with Derek Mack, who found his calling to serve in long-term ministry from the backseat of a police car. In an enlightening conversation, Mack shares his extraordinary journey that began with a life-changing encounter with Christianity and led to his involvement with YWAM, the world's largest missions organization, and the Circuit Riders, a collective dedicated to spreading the gospel in academic environments.
In this episode we explore:
• How Derek’s experiences with YWAM and Circuit Riders shape his unique perspective on faith, truth, and personal transformation.
• What Derek learned from a transformative two-year journey in New Zealand
• How to better understand the impact of radical love in the Western world.
• Insights on the influential works of Francis Chan and Amy Carmichael and the importance of knowing and preaching the word of God, even in public spaces.
Finally, we tackle the bigger picture - how do societal influences, like social media, impact our worldviews and faith? We delve into the complex territory of cultural engagement and faith deconstruction and the challenges of preaching truth in a postmodern world.
Connect with Derek:
Instagram: @derekmack
Website: www.mackmissions.com
Hi, this is Grant Lockridge and Jared Taftin. On the Across the Counter podcast, where we create space for real people to have honest conversations. Today we have on the podcast Derek Mack. Derek, just tell me a little bit about your personal journey and kind of how you got started. Great.
Speaker 3:I'm excited to be with you guys. I, at 18 years old, found myself in the back of a cop car. I was not a Christian in any way, shape or form. Three weeks later, I found myself a believer. I went from police car to believer and then immediately thrust into ministry Now, I don't say that, I don't say ministry, like someone just decided to put me in ministry and there was no stipulations. I joined Y-Web. I joined a youth program where I got some sort of training as a leader, missionary, and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life in any way, shape or form, which is why I essentially was doing missions, because I didn't know what I wanted to do. That led me into the path of long-term ministry. I ended up in New Zealand for about two years and I met some people. A part of the ministry that I'm now a part of called Circuit Riders. Circuit Riders is pretty cool. It started in 2011 and essentially Circuit Riders seeks to reach universities in high schools, mostly universities we do now. We do about 500 university events every year in America and around Europe. I joined Circuit Riders in 2014. I've been with Circuit Riders since then. I've been in ministry. I've been in missions for about nearly 11 years now, since 2012. It's been an unbelievably wild journey from going from the back of that cop car until now I have been able been blessed to. I kind of tell people like this as far as my giftings, I don't have a ton of giftings. I can speak and I can lift weights, and that's not it. I'm blessed to have been able to have different opportunities to speak around the world and to be one of the main communicators now with Circuit Riders. That's a little bit about my story, where I come from, but yeah.
Speaker 1:I got to know what got you in the back of the cop car. I got to know.
Speaker 3:I was doing delinquent activities on July 4th night. My friends and I like I said, wasn't a believer in any way, shape or form Did a lot of drugs growing up. When I was that late my friends wouldn't have any substances to abuse. We said why don't we just go and break into people's garages and see what we can find? It ended up being like five hours of breaking into cars and just doing the stupidest stuff. Eventually there's a ticking clock as far as how long you can do that without getting caught. We got caught. My parents basically told me after that hey, you can leave our house or you can go do this Christian youth program in New Zealand. I was like, well, I guess I'll go do that, because I think I'll end up homeless if I leave your house.
Speaker 2:What kind of Christian youth program takes a dude out of the back of a cop car? I've heard of YWAM before, but yeah.
Speaker 3:I lied on my application. What I was looking for? I totally lied. Ywam is actually the world's largest missions organization. They focus mostly on short, midterm missions. There are, I would say, probably one to five percent of staff are long-term missionaries. Essentially, their intro program, six months long, is three months of lecture phase and then three months of outreach somewhere around the globe. What could be in the nation that you go to, or it could be Philippines. Ywam is the only missions organization to conduct operations in every nation on the planet. Yes, north Korea, yes, iran Nations. You would never expect. You get a wide variety of people, from people who are very serious about missions and then other people who are just trying to figure out their left hand from their right hand, which I was in that category. I lied on my application and they thankfully accepted me. Funny story I show up at this missions base for this school and everybody was playing Katan. Now, I didn't play board games. I was like, oh my gosh, where am I right now? I'm thoroughly against Katan for Christians, because when the non-Christians come, they're like huh.
Speaker 1:A lot of arguing going on with Katan. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3:If you guys play Katan, I'm totally fine with it.
Speaker 1:That's my favorite board game actually. Let's go.
Speaker 2:It is one of those, it really does make people argue, though. It is one of those. What is it where Paul says don't be confusing and speaking in tongues whenever you come into a church, don't be playing a weird board game.
Speaker 3:Well, actually I have a story about that too. I didn't know anything about the Bible, except I grew up going to church every so often and they'd have the NIV hardback Bible in the pew or the chairs in front of you underneath the seat. Whenever I was in church I would just open the Bible to the book of Revelation because there was a dragon in it. That was about all I knew really about the scripture in any way, shape or form. First night of this school we go to this church that was vaguely connected with the YWAM base that I was a part of. Of course someone decides to start praying in tongues or speaking in tongues in front of everybody. I leaned over to the guy next to me and I go. Why is this guy speaking in baby language to the guy Legitimately? I had no clue anything about the gifts or how they were supposed to function in any way, shape or form. So, yes, that is also first day. First day was catan and tongues and never had experience either.
Speaker 1:That's great what have they got going on in New Zealand over there, I know.
Speaker 3:Essentially, I was in New Zealand for two years. I completed that school. I was a little bit rebellious in the sense that everybody wanted to come back and staff and get more experience. I was like, if everybody wants to do it, then I'm not doing it. I had no life plan. Maybe I was going to go be a Marine or something like that. This guy came up to me and said, hey, I think you're supposed to come back. So I said okay, and that was like a week after the school had ended, I had stayed over, I went back home. I didn't ask my parents and didn't tell my parents. So I went back, raised some money and then went back for about a year and a half, Staffed a couple schools, led outreaches to the Philippines, led outreaches to Fiji. I had met some people in circuit riders and they invited me out to Southern California. I was only going to be here for a few months, but then I met my wife and I stayed. So yeah, that's kind of the journey of getting to where I'm at now.
Speaker 1:What is circuit riders?
Speaker 3:Like I said, circuit riders, we're an offshoot of YWAM, but our focus is quite different in the sense that we're focused on training, we're focused on sending people out, but more than that I think we're focused on directly. How would you say? You're going to think this is a certain. When I say this, you're going to probably have something pop into your mind, but we really wanted to confront culture on universities and not from the perspective of like, let's go and have debates about if Karl Marx is living in the basement of most universities. It was more. We really felt the culture shift would come if we could see salvation and, even more than that, if we could see young people start to adopt a lifestyle that was exceedingly biblical. I had this experience in New Zealand and I still feel like I had this experience quite often. Where I read the Bible, I scratch my head and I go man, this seems so different than my life and I think a lot of people, if they were honest, would say, huh, what I experienced on Sundays or Wednesday nights would be similar to that is man, what I read in the Bible is quite different, and so we really focus on one communicating the gospel clearly to university students. And then number two is train university students on how to disciple their friends, inspire people to disciple their friends, to communicate the gospel themselves and to make it a lifestyle of being an active believer. We thoroughly believe that to be Christian is to act, that to be Christian is to speak, that silence is not a modality that Christianity adopts, at least in the public culture. Obviously we're four people. You kind of fall in one of two camps now. It seems like in society you either say everything or you say nothing. One of the two. So it's hard to find the middle, where someone knows when to shut up but at the same time is unafraid to speak about cultural issues and unafraid to communicate the gospel. And so, yeah, essentially Serga writers, we host and conduct university events and trainings around, right now, america and Europe. We do have some relationship where we do communicate and host events in Egypt, in Kenya and some other places around the world, but mostly Europe and America. Right now mostly the Western world.
Speaker 1:So I'm a young life leader, so I deal with high schoolers instead of college kids. So what's kind of the main thing that you would teach them? As far as just the content that you have on university students? It?
Speaker 3:totally depends on the type of event and obviously you don't understand this from being in young life. It totally depends on the audience. If you know you're going to be in front, if you know the event you're conducting, it's going to be mostly people who don't know the gospel, then we're communicating the gospel. If we're in front of people who are believers or call themselves believers, we might have a what would you say? Some sort of a holistic deny yourself. Pick up your cross gospel message that both calls people out of dead religion into true Christianity as well as inspiration for believers to live this in such a way that comes through your mouth, comes through your hands, comes through your feet, that takes action. We're kind of in the camp, that would say. Without getting into too much about church structure, church leadership, we do thoroughly believe that every believer in some way, shape or form, is called to live and communicate the gospel. That's what we see in the book of Acts, that's what we see throughout scripture. Generally speaking, God uses a bunch of nameless and faceless people to do it. We do feel that there would be a culture shift. I think statistics show that if you can get 10% of people and get it in demographic to start to do something, then that can turn into a movement quite easily. It takes other things as well, but you, generally speaking, mean 10% of people to join in and buy into preaching the gospel, to discipling other people, to being disciple themselves. If you can get people to buy into that, then you can, generally speaking, see a wave take place. After that we are very flexible in what we're communicating. It just depends on the audience.
Speaker 2:Usually speaking, there's a piece missing for me in the three week period from Derek being in the back of a cop car to being on mission, and that was becoming a follower of Christ. What did that look like? Why?
Speaker 3:Yeah, my parents came to me and said you can leave our house or you can go to this program. They knew about YLAM because a lot of our extended family had done YLAM. My assumption was I could just go and fake it and come back. She probably could. But even before the program took place I went to New Zealand and I was there for a few days. I met with this guy because I had to meet with some of the leaders that would be overseeing my life. Essentially, there was this one guy. His name is Jordan. He is a missionary in Cyprus. Now he works with a Turkish people, muslim demographic there. He came to me and he just knew I wasn't a Christian. Anyway, shape or form, you can just tell. He came to me and laid out the gospel. He led all outreaches that we would do in the city that we were in. Every Friday night we'd have this prayer meeting and then we'd go out and communicate the gospel to people on the streets. He was the type of guy that would stand up on benches and these outdoor pubs and he would preach to everybody in the pub. He was a very bold individual. He sat me down and he said this one line that struck me so to my core. It's actually a Charles Spurgeon line. He said Jesus is either everything to you or he's nothing to you. There's no in between. I had some religious background with Christianity vaguely when I was a young kid. I remember being terrified of hell. You pray the sinner's prayer 1900 times so that you feel like you're not going to hell. He deconstructed that a little bit and talked about the essence of the gospel as not just so you get to heaven. That it's essentially about God and God himself Becoming into right, understanding and repenting and turning to him. I know it's a cliche, but leaving that religion and going into a real relationship with Jesus. That happened in that three-week span. I didn't turn into like superhero Christian after that, for sure, but I did experience instant freedom in many different ways, stuff that I didn't even know I was supposed to be free from. I stopped cussing right away. No one told me to, I just did. I called my girlfriend that I had at the time and I said hey, I can't date you anymore. No one told me to do this, but I just did. It Called my girlfriend, said hey, I can't date you anymore. She goes. Oh, I knew this would happen. In my mind I was like that's cool. I don't know why I thought that was cool. I was just like there was something kind of divine about the whole situation. I deleted all my music and all these different things. So there was an instant conviction from the spirit in my life. That was that three-week span. I was still just trying to figure out John 3.16. It was the first time I was really essentially coming to grips in terms with reality of the gospel. I had tons of questions and all that different stuff. It wasn't until about a year later where I was kind of fed up with just kind of going through the motions of this. I'd started to listen to people like Francis Chan and others and I was like there's something so different about that guy. Why is he so different? I essentially started to get up at five in the morning and read my Bible and pray my one prayer. For about two weeks. When I started to do this is about a year after I became a Christian. I would get up and read and I'd literally point my finger at the Bible when I'd go my life isn't this book, make my life this book. I was so, so, utterly different after about two weeks and that's really kind of what catapulted me into a passion for preaching. Yeah, so that's kind of like the first three weeks into a year span.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I have this impression that the rest of your life has been impacted by. You're speaking to youth, you're speaking to representations of yourself in many ways. So I have that impression, and even you said, like, from religion to relationships, that feels like a piece of your own story. But then there's this impression of immediate active discipling and discipleship. So like I know that's close to the heart of a lot of, whether it's YWAM or those that talk about like, engaging immediately. So how is that? Now? You know, oftentimes the story changes, but then it doesn't change, right, like how is your story now become what you preach.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll say a few things. One is I was deeply impacted by my father-in-law. My father-in-law passed away about a year and a half, almost two years ago now November it'll be two years. He's an unbelievable guy and I'll just give a little bit of backstory, because he led circuit riders. He started circuit riders and so I joined the ministry and for anybody watching, be very careful if you try to date the pastor's daughter, it's a dangerous sport for him.
Speaker 2:Dangerous sport.
Speaker 3:He will get after you and that's definitely what happened to me. I'm super grateful for it. But essentially he came from Tacoma, washington. He started a church there out of a university. It was thriving. In some ways you could say it was kind of like a mini revival that was happening. He eventually felt called to leave that church and to join YOM, on a request from the leader of YOM, whose name is Lauren Cunningham. He's in his late 80s. He has cancer now. He's literally asked people not to pray for him because he would like to die. But he's just Lauren Cunningham, if you don't know. He's as the leader of YOM. He's been to every nation on earth, he's sat in the council of presidents and world leaders and he's an amazing man. But on request, brian, my father-in-law moved from Tacoma, washington, to Kona, hawaii, where the main YOM the mothership YOM basis, and he was there. That's where Surgariter starts Is in Kona, hawaii, then Plants and Huntington Beach, california. So when I came here, obviously developed a relationship with him, started dating his daughter and there were a few things that really catalyzed me into not just having a message but seeking to live a message, and I think I don't mean to harp on Francis Chan, but he's just a good example of, I think, what is needed more of in the Western world right now when it comes to preaching and communication so many I find, with so many of the big churches or pastors that have either fallen in the past, you know, two, three, four years. I think it's shedding light so much on this dichotomy between having a message and living that message. And so I think one of the things that my father-in-law harped on so intensely with me was you don't want to wake up at 45 or 50 and realize you faked it. You know. Other people might not know, but you'll know, and that's a really, really dangerous place to be in. If it doesn't manifest itself through you know adultery, or you know abusive leadership, or you know abusing finances in some way, shape or form it will manifest in you losing. You know authority, you know which I know, is a very subjective thing to say, but I remember I think I was maybe four months or five months into dating. He sat me down and he goes Derek, you're not a very loving person, oh, like straight up. He didn't hold punches with me. He said you know how to read your Bible, you know how to pray, you know how to do all this stuff. You don't have to love people, and I know that can sound very mushy and kind of cliche. But he handed me a book by a woman named Amy Carmichael and I don't know if you've never ever heard of Amy Carmichael. A lot of people have. You've definitely heard quotes from her and people have she's. She's quite famous and she was a missionary from Northern Ireland to India and she, she was wild. She's unbelievable. She would take baths and coffee grounds and water to dye her skin brown, literally until she looked like she was from India in some way shape or form. And she would go into Hindu temples and she would steal child slaves and prostitutes out of them and bring them to her orphanage. She was just an unbelievably radical woman and later in her life she got sick and so she could really only write and and she wrote this book if and it's a bunch of if, then statements, which is quite funny because it's not like uh, uh, it's not a very hard read, it's not a very long read in any way shape or form, but um, but so he said, he said you're not a very loving person. I want you to read this book and I want you to highlight, um, uh, I want you to highlight every area that you think you're not. You know living, or, or you know that you're, that, you're not this. And so I read the book, you know. Let me just read you a couple of statements Um, if there's, if this one that I highlighted, if there's any reserve in my game, if there's any reserve in my giving to him who has so loved me and gave his dearest son for me, if there's any secret but B? U T in my prayer, anything but that Lord, then I know nothing of Calvary love. And so it was just statements, boom like that, one after the other, right. And so, since, since you know, three years into really following Jesus, my father-in-law so harped on me that you have to live it, you have to live it, you have to live it, um, and so a good example of this is I was, I oversee all that we do in Europe for our university events, and so last year I was in Greece and obviously, um, I was in Athens and and Mars Hills in Athens, obviously, where Paul preached after 17, and I'm just a Bible junkie, so, like, I'm definitely a nerd when it comes to the Bible, and so I love this study of the scripture. I think it's so crucial, especially if you're a preacher. You have to know the word, you have to study it. Um, I'm not, uh, I'm getting my masters right now. I think there's definitely room for people to, you know, get seminary degrees and all that different stuff, but you want a personal level, have to have to have to know the word if you're going to communicate, especially, I think everybody should, but definitely if you're going to communicate. And so, anyways, I woke up that morning, um, we've had a free day, we're going to go see all these cool sites, you know, um, and I specifically set that Mars Hill would be at sunset. And I woke up and I go, um, I can't tell all of our circuit rider staff we have about 200 staff, we, I can't tell all our staff that they need to be communicating the gospel. They need to be, you know, forthright in their communication on universities. I can't tell them that unless I'm doing it myself. So I had set, you know, mars Hill sightseeing moment to be around sunset. And so we get there and I knew like heart was beating. I knew I had to open air, preach. I just had to get up, I, and so I stood up, took the Bible, opened Acts, chapter 17. I actually had a viral video on TikTok from this. I stood up and I started to preach and I started to read from Acts, chapter 17, and this lady yelled at me and goes no one cares and no one asked. And so I had a dialogue with this lady, right, and that dialogue went viral not semi-viral, not super viral, maybe a few hundred thousand views or something like that. Anyways, so yeah, long story short on to answering your question. I hope this answers it, but I think I don't wanna talk myself up. I just think it's so essential for preachers, leaders, to truly live it out. I had this friend, and this is the last thing I'll say on this. I have a friend. He's a minister in Europe and he's an amazing guy. He's one of those. He's just so out there. He's always preaching the gospel to everybody, and one time I was with him, he rolled down his window. He stopped in the middle of the road in a car rolled down his window, rolled down my window yelled at someone on the sidewalk, not like yelling an angry way, but just loudly got their attention. He goes hey, my friend Derek in the back seat has something he wants to tell you, and he does this every time I'm with him. He'll force people to preach the gospel. I remember he did this. There's this famous clock in Prague, in the Czech Republic, and we have some musicians in our ministry, obviously, for some of our bands that we have, and these guys don't they're not the best communicators or whatever, and they were there hosting at one of his events. They were invited out and so they were out on the streets with this guy and 150, 200, 300 people in front of this huge clock, pulled up one of these musicians and goes hey, this is my friend Kenny, and my friend Kenny, the Kenny's never done this in his entire life. My friend Kenny's gonna share with you now about something, and so I just I think if we can have more of that in the Western world right now. I know it seems so simple because there's such big cultural issues that need to be answered right now, but I think it's more simple than we make it in the Western world when it comes to the church.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's crazy that. So you're more like street preaching kind of thing.
Speaker 3:Not always, but I do it to test myself. Number one, and then number two. I do it because we're advocating for young people in universities to start to communicate the gospel on their, on Greek Rose, on, you know, to their friends. And so if we're gonna tell people that they've gotta communicate the gospel on the streets and in parties and you know wherever they are, then we gotta do it.
Speaker 1:And so yeah, but we don't have a, we're not like a street preaching ministry in like a technical sense of what that is how did that conversation go between you and that lady that told you what was that line that she said at Mars Hill?
Speaker 3:She said no one cares and no one asked. And so I said, well, I initially responded to her by saying I said, okay, you know, you don't have to listen, you can leave or whatever, but I'm gonna continue. And so she came back at I thought, you know, she would leave at a certain point and there were probably a hundred people scattered around here on Mars Hill, right, and it was funny, there were probably, you know, three or four people that came and sat right next to us right away and I still. There's a girl there who came up to me afterwards and asked me a bunch of questions and you know, I started getting her to read the scripture. And so she reached out to me a number of months ago on Instagram saying, hey, I read all that you told me to read. What am I supposed to read next? And so but side note, so that lady right, I started reading Acts, chapter 17. And I, paul says, or the Stoics and the Epicureans say to Paul, what does this babbler have to say to us? And so when I got to that point, part in Acts, chapter 17, I looked at the lady and I said that's what I'm doing right now. You think I'm a babbler, I'm just babbling to you, and if you'd entertain me, I'll babble some more. And so that lady ended up staying the whole time, too, with her friends, and they were zoned in listening to me, and so it was just. It was a funny interaction. There was more to it than that, but yeah.
Speaker 2:What do you, especially in Western culture, like whenever you're sharing that idea of if more, I actually wrote down this maybe stupid, but like if more preaching happened in the streets there would be more impact in the sheets, which is like what happened in my head. But like, what do you think about the fact that so many voices are constantly hitting Western ears that we frequently like turned off this public address system, if that makes sense, and to some degree sometimes, like the public address invalidates worth because it's not based on relationship? Like I don't think there's an against, but there's like the competition effect. Like how do you feel about that?
Speaker 3:I think this is one of the most important things in society right now is because of this thing. It's funny Gen Z is the most depressed and anxious generation. I don't know if you've ever read Jonathan Haidt's work on the coddling of the American mind Fascinating book. I highly recommend it. He's a psychologist who's done a lot of studies on Gen Z and he says 2012 is when the shift happened in Gen Z and 2012 is when social media took off. He thoroughly believes it's when this became accessible to pretty much everybody and when social media started taking off. That Gen Z's, the strangeness that we see in society right now could only have happened in light of the phone, so to speak, or at least the smartphone. And so a lot of people will say like, oh, the reason that there's more depression and anxieties because Gen Z's more willing to talk about it. The reason that statisticians know that's not true is because it's not just the rates of anxiety, depression being diagnosed. It's also people showing up at hospitals with self-harm, physically hurting themselves or committing suicide. All those rates have gone up at the same time. So if it was just people willing to talk about it, then it wouldn't correlate with the physical side of things that are also going up. Another interesting thing is schizophrenia bipolar, all those other mental disorders. They are not going up, so it's really only anxiety and depression. And I think, as Jonathan Haidt said, that there's kind of three reasons for this. One is Gen Z has lots of FOMO, so fear of missing out, and so you see your friend on this, they're at something and so, oh my gosh, I missed out. So you're always connected to this right, so there's kind of an addiction to it, because I always gotta see what people are doing and what I need to partake in and then to answer your question. Coming back to your question, is so many people are willing to say things online that they would never say in person. The keyboard warrior, they're just like always on YouTube comment section or Instagram saying commenting, or and this is the danger of me posting 30 second reels is because I can be taken out of constant context. A couple of my videos or my reels that have done better gone viral. One was on the love of God and what do I get called A prosperity preacher. The other one was on or I get called a prosperity preacher and soft or whatever it is, and then another one's on sin and people get angry about that. So it's like the idea that we've lost discourse face to face is probably one of the biggest issues in society. I'd say Now once again, I'm not a statistician, I'm not studying all the research on these things, but people, generally speaking, have never been confronted like in a one-on-one or a one-on-two conversation about their beliefs number one and then number two. They've never had to actually describe out loud why they believe what they believe, and I've found people always say that there's so many people on college campus that are atheists, agnostic. It's kind of true, but at the same time I just think most people don't care and they've never been confronted with a need or reason for why they should care. They've never had their worldview tested. They've never had. Only in the Western world, where we have so much safety, comfort, money, I think if you've, I've been blessed to travel around the world a lot and the poor people in America would be kings in most places around the world, and I don't think people really understand how our safety and our comfort provide something where we don't really have to think deeply about our lives, we don't really have to be confronted with hard questions, and so I do think that, in a practical sense, obviously people just need to hear the gospel because of the message itself and the implications on people's lives, but at the same time I know this is so funny but even social skills like talking to people and people not looking other people in the eyes or smiling. Or I had a friend and he was leading one of our teams in Europe while they were conducting and we have a two month span where each of our teams we have about 20 teams that will host and conduct 10 to 15, 20 different events and he was. We have students on our teams that are getting trained by us and are part of the teams and he had one student say to him hey, please don't send that schedule, it gives me anxiety. Could you think we could talk about it in person instead of over text? And I was just laughing, I was just like man, so weird the day and age we live in, where we can't even be confronted by the most simple things like a schedule, without feeling anxiety and feeling the right in and of ourselves to be able to say something like that. I mean, can you imagine in 2010 if you told your teacher or whatever hey, the schedule of the school day gives me anxiety, and so I think I'll just take this next class out. It's ridiculous, you know. So, yeah, I think you're 100% right in asking that question. In regards to the assumption is we need to have more face-to-face conversations about things 100% true.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:I don't wanna keep going too far, but even when you mentioned social breakdown like in a lot of ways the way we look at the autism spectrum or the Asperger's are different, ways that we've seen that we've labeled aspects of those disorders or whatever I don't know the best language, but a lot of times it begins on a social spectrum of not being able to relate to cues or things like that If you've related to someone in your family or others in that way. But I think about the scripture where God says they will become like the stones they worship, like this idea of how you even begin to not have the ability to relate in communal spaces. We watched one of your clips that talked about the devil isn't trying to get you to do witchcraft in the woods like he's trying to get you to worship yourself. And you're just making me think of that. I'm gonna stop talking because I've asked a lot of questions recently. But just that idea, yeah, that like you don't even know how to have a face-to-face conversation.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, totally, and I'll just make a comment about that, because I meet with so many young men especially and I'm really big on trying to develop something that I think about so often is true biblical masculinity, and so I meet with so many young men in the amount of young men that will tell me, oh, I've got ADHD, and they won't be able to have a conversation. I actually listened to Jordan Peterson on this, because his take on a lot of these things that you mentioned is that they're being socially programmed into people for a number of reasons, and he wouldn't even say a lot of people have what psychologists and psychiatrists are saying that people have nowadays. It's just simply, you are so used to 15 second videos and that's it, and so that's your day, and so how could you possibly, if you're being programmed to only be able to think for no more than 15 seconds, how could we have a deeper conversation? And so I mean think about TikTok, think about the name TikTok, tiktok, tiktok, tiktok it's in the name. The name is saying to you you're going to waste time, you're going to give time to this, and I meet with young people who will spend 10 hours on their phone a day, and I'm not talking about 10 hours like Google Maps and sending out text messages. I'm talking about 10 hours like scrolling through social media. And so I think about this all the time, like, am I serving people by doing reels? And if I am going to serve people, if I'm going to enter that game, so to speak, then I have to in some way, shape or form. It's got to be predicated trying to get people off of the device, not more watching me, which is what so much of social media is. Obviously is people doing click baity things so that you come and watch their stuff and follow and get sucked in, so, which we've all had happened to us in some way, shape or form. So all of this stuff is so correlated and it's super important. That's why I know this is going to sound arrogant I feel like what I get to do is the coolest thing on the planet, because I get to work with young people and you feel and see the effects of what you're doing, not instantly, but sooner than you would if you were going to be a missionary in somewhere in the Middle East or somewhere in North Africa or somewhere where it's much harder. In a sense, I'm not totally that person that says, oh, the Middle East is so hard and America is so easy. Because I think I live in Orange County, california. If there's the hardest place to get people to understand, to deny themselves pick up their cross, it would be Orange County, california, where everybody has everything at their fingertips and they can get whatever they want. Why would I need Jesus? And so? But you do, on universities, you get to see that kind of oh a young person, because young people are so malleable. I think they did a study or some psychologist did a study that post-university, within the year or two after university, most people are set in their worldviews. I think Barna Research Group did a study on people, the age demographics for people coming to Christ, and after university the graph drops tremendously based off age group and the likelihood that you would change your worldview or come into a Christian worldview. And so it's exceedingly fun to be a part of it. And it's just fun to be a part of the culture epicenter where everything seems to be on fire. You got gender issues, you got sexuality issues, you've got worldview issues, political issues, and it's just. You have to be smart in how you communicate things, for sure, but it's just. I just love it. I love being in that battlefield, so to speak.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's something that we've been trying to do a lot of is kind of figuring out how to be conversational and figuring out how to listen to not to listen to respond, but listen to understand your point of view and also keep cultivating openness, of making sure that I'm not so set in my ways of Christianity Christianity like I believe Jesus Christ is Lord but just the keeping an open mind on other people's points of view and not just I'm over here in this camp and you're over here in that camp and we can't get along because of our theological differences Just is something that makes me upset. So basically, we've just tried to create a space to where we can cultivate that openness and that understanding, instead of I'm gonna argue this point for clickbait and you argue that point and then we're gonna go our separate ways and neither one of us is gonna change.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll comment on that too, paul. Multiple times in the scripture you see Paul saying stuff like even, as your poets said, marcel's a perfect example where apparently he was walking around the Agora, which was the marketplace, and he was observing the art and he was observing the religious relics. And it's amazing to me how many Christians don't enter into culture because they're like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna get the devil's gonna jump at me or something, and I'm not. There's a flip side to this where people are like yeah, so I watched like 19 horror movies last night because I wanted to see what the culture is about right now, where I listened to this song or that song, and you know, you get my point. It can go overboard too, but if you don't know culture, you're gonna get the point. If you don't understand what's going on, which takes you listening and observing then how could you possibly address what needs to be addressed after you've sat and pondered and observed really what's going on? A lot of the big hot topic issues to me are not the things that necessarily need to be confronted. They do, but they're manifestations of something much, much deeper. If you don't get to that deeper you know category level in people's worldview and understanding, then talking about you know, all the hot topic issues will just be more noise and people arguing over each other until you can come to the foundation of why you've come to believe that and why you've come to think that. Yeah, so it's. I think you're spot on there too.
Speaker 1:That's what it's hard to talk with deconstructionists and stuff, because they're just so on the right path to me anyway, of like they want to get down to the root of you know, what they believe and they want to break down the barriers and get down to what matters and the roots of their faith or the roots of what the Bible says and stuff like that. But it was refreshing to interview a guy that deconstructed but he's still a Christian. And then it's hard to see people that just go all the way down to the roots and then, you know, throw the whole thing out of the window and it's just, it's one of those things that they're just such on. You know, the right path, at least to me, of like thinking was of being able to like okay, I'm going to get down to the root, like you said, but it's just, it's super hard to see them go so far down that there's they're not rebuilding anything.
Speaker 3:And yeah, and I think you're right in the sense that, like, like Francis once again, I brought him up like three times now.
Speaker 1:Hey, he's a good dude, he crushes it.
Speaker 3:I've been able to interact with him on a personal level a few times and he's legit, he's super legit and he's like the perfect example. And, of course, this might sound controversial because he didn't like deconstruct in the sense of what we, we know deconstruction, as in, you know, 2023, but you know, he went away from his church, which was a mega church in Simi Valley, which is about an hour from me, and he went away and said is this biblical? Is is what I've done here, like, is this right? You know, and I think, um, soren Kierkegaard, famous philosopher, who was a Christian, he was an existentialist in the 1800s, wrote I feel as though I'm a missionary to the Christian world, which sounds so, you know, kind of, you know, risque, because what does that even mean? But he, he said, he said people, people will essentially go. How could you say something like that? He said the Western world doesn't know the gospel anymore. And he, he's a philosopher, so he's, you know, he's a little bit more nuanced in how he's saying things, but I think that's true, I think, I think that we, um, I think deconstruction can be very dangerous if your motive for deconstructing is out of a desire that you want to fulfill, which I do see a lot of people doing. Well, I, you know, I don't, um, you know I. Really, just what does the Bible really say about sexuality? Really, what does the Bible really say about this issue? And it's not coming from a genuine place of like man. I I think I was off here about how I planted my church and what my motivation was, and and just trying to become big and have big numbers, and I think everybody would go, yeah, like we should look and observe at at what the church is in the Western world right now and the messages that we communicate and I. This might sound controversial too, but I think one of the biggest detriments to the gospel in America and the Western world is the overpolite politicization of, you know, being able to correlate the Republican party with Christianity and you know I, I would. I, when I was growing up like Republican and Christian was synonymous and I think that's super dangerous. Not that this is not about how you should vote or that type of thing. I just think there are. There are confrontations right that the gospel has with everybody, both from a Republican to a Democrat, no matter where you are on the political spectrum. There's a confrontation that's coming for you and you're going to have to surrender some sort of ideal that you have, no matter where you, and I think it's so. I think it's so detrimental sometimes. So I'm not, you know, against deconstruction. I just think your motive has to be, has to be right, or you're going to get wonky at some point and you're going to end up with your feet firmly planted and thin air, as Francis Schaeffer said. Yeah, I like that you said.
Speaker 2:I like that. You said it's dangerous, if you're a metavist, to fulfill a desire, because then what came to me is versus to know what is true regardless of what it cost. You Like those feel like the, the two ways that you can seek to quote deconstruct, like it would almost be like doing a scientific study to determine a pre pre planned outcome. So you're only going to look for, you know, the sources that prove you right versus the honesty of actually I was. I was wrong in how I thought you know molecular molecules worked in relation to one another. I like that you said that, yeah, no 100%.
Speaker 3:And we we work with you know university students, and so this, this subject of deconstruction, is a hot topic and I think people need to be really careful because even the idea and people don't understand this. Okay, I know this is going to get technical, but bear with me here for a second. One of the things that people don't understand about the Western world right now. You'll hear this term postmodern. You guys have obviously heard that term. Oh, the world's so postmodern now, and yes, it is. But to technically be postmodern, like the philosophy of it, is essentially this there are no meta narratives, so there is no great grand truth, which all of us, you know we'd understand that that's what postmodernism is, but how it plays out is deconstruction. You have to deconstruct the Western world, everything, everything I'm talking from family structure to politics, to religion, to, obviously, the scripture, and so I think people don't understand that deconstruction is a very postmodern thing. Deconstruction I don't even like that term so much, but you see it in the scripture all the time where, where Moses is a perfect example is he thought that he was the deliverer of Israel, so he murdered someone, goes out into the desert for 40 years and then he encounters God and then his life has flipped upside down and the reality of of what he thought was totally reconstructed in a in a God like way, being deconstructed and reconstructed is the gospel essentially right? And so we have to be very careful that we're not deconstructing from some postmodern idea of what deconstruction and which is literally just to tear down the structure of society and to rebuild it into who knows what. Because postmodernism would not provide any sort of reconstruction, because there is no grand truth, so you can't really come to it. It's self defeating philosophy, obviously, but I think people don't understand how you know where those roots really can be if you don't, if you don't come at like deconstruction from from a pointing over here, because I got my Bible right here but if you don't come at it from a perspective of like Isaiah. Right, isaiah is sitting there, he's this prophet, he's railing against Israel, he sees God, and then all of a sudden he goes oh, it's not Israel anymore, it's me. I'm the one, I'm the man of unclean lips, I'm among some people of unclean lips and God had to insta facto touch him and encounter him so that he understood fully. And so Job's another perfect example. I mean we all are a perfect example in some way, shape or form, if you come to Jesus truly.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so this is I want to take the will it like nail down this, because we'll come close to the end here, because usually our podcasts are about an hour. But this is what I want to ask you in relation to that and the setup is there's a reason. Deconstruction sounds so much like the word destruction in my opinion, but it feels like that motive, and it feels like that motive because of pain, because of anger, manipulation, like that. That's like justice is a lot of the motive behind destruction often times. But the question would be to what end like? So my question to you is like, in the era of Information and now even like artificial intelligence, like there's so much Content being pushed where, if you're just trying to read or determine what's true, it becomes difficult to even know. Like, where does it stop? And you mentioned an encounter with God, you mentioned men that it but in some way now where, like, the postmodern era is back now to like well, feeling, but what you feel is true. So my question is like now we're holding two things in tension, like the rational enlightenment, and then Feeling in an age that, like, if I asked you to verify something online, that's absolutely ultimately true, like we're getting to a point where that almost can't work. If that makes sense, like deep fakes and it. So what would you like? We're now full circle back to. Okay, derek, like what, where does it stop? Where do you stop fighting the counterfeits, it? Or or just saying, okay, this is true or not? Does that make sense? What I'm asking? 100%, okay, okay, so to me, me and the biblical narrative.
Speaker 3:Job is the quintessential man on this and I know that he is Is. It's a hard book to understand in in its core I mean not in its core, in its how it extrapolates out, but job obviously is it's. It's. It's a Really funny book to me because it starts off with this being Satan pairing before God and and God saying to Joe, or God saying to Satan have you considered my servant, job, which would kind of be like a thief going into a jewelry store and seeing in the in the owner of the jewelry store being there and and the owner of the jewelry store saying to the thief hey, why are you here in? The thief going Well, I'm here to steal stuff in the in the owner goes Well, have you seen my nicest diamond? It's like it's. So it's so weird how it starts. And then God allows Satan to test Job in the most intense and obviously horrific ways and then Job says at the end of that, he doesn't even think about Satan. He goes, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, which again is crazy because I thought it was Satan doing it. But Job checks it. Now it doesn't even matter to him. And then it goes through, all these chapters of of the middle chapters of Job sound like the Psalms, so. So one would be tempted to say, wow, that's good theology, which it is. But good theology wrongly applies, wrongly applied really hurts people and can really destroy people. And what Joe's friends were saying Essentially right is Job the reason this happened to you because you did something bad. And Job's defending himself the whole time. And so Both Job defending himself and both friends are in this tension where God is going to come and cut through the noise. So God shows up and he speaks to Job through the whirlwind, which is fascinating in it of itself, because because Job was in a life circumstance that was a whirlwind. And then God comes from the whirlwind. It's fascinating to me at the individual. Or God says Job, where were you? And he says this a bunch of times when were you? Who are you? Answer me, stand up like a man, you tell me what's up, because that's what Job wanted to do essentially. At the end of it, job says Maybe the most profound line in the entire Bible I've heard about you with the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you. Therefore, I repent in dust and ashes and shut my mouth. Now, in the age of information you can have, you can convince yourself that the earth is flat. You can convince yourself that there are lizard people running the government. You can convince yourself almost about anything and you can be fully assured of that. For me, I think the most important thing for people to do before they ever start to, before they ever start to answer the questions, is to learn how to think for yourself. I know that sounds a little bit contradictory to probably what most Christians would say, but I think if truth is truth, it will always win out for the person that is seeking the truth, and so I am fully willing for someone to to go after the truth, because I I know when that ends up. That ends up with the man who is the way, the truth and the life, jesus. And so I think I think the first thing people have to do and People are now taught what to think, not how to think you come to school, you learn what to think, you don't learn how, and so I think, to cut through the noise, most people could cut through 99% of what's out there if they just knew how to think, if they knew, like, for example, the most famous statement, and I hear everybody say it all the time, and it is literally a self-refuting statement. There is no such thing as ultimate truth. That is a self. That's a true statement. It can't work. Yet people say it all the time. People say it all the time and so if they knew how to think, they would never say that statement, because they would know that that that's a truth claim. Another one you hear people say all the time is you know, your truth is my your truth and my truth is my truth. Well, what happens if those two truths contradict each other? We can't possibly both be right, and so one of us is wrong, one of us is right, but people, it's only in the Western world, by the way, that you see people saying this stuff. People won't say this stuff in the Middle East. You won't say this stuff in Africa and South America Because they don't have that. They don't, they're not, they're not, they don't have the luxury to live in La La Land, because comfort and safety produces, you know, the ability to basically say whatever you want. It doesn't really matter ultimately, because I like Tesla's, I like iPhones and I get those things right, and so your comfort needs are met anyways, yes, people need to be taught how to think and and I think that will cut through 99% of of what's out there usually usually it does. Anyways, I hope that answers you. You will, and I think I mentioned Job, simply because at the end of the day, you will have to bow your knee to something. Yeah, you will have to bow your knee to something, and I think People. Ultimately, it's because there's so much information, it's made it easier for people to kind of sit in the the gray area. It's made them easy to not make a decision about ultimate reality. But I know this sounds morbid, but death is a pretty good. If people start to think about it as they get older, death is a pretty good motivator to try to figure out what is ultimately real and what is ultimately true. Anyways, I mean that that's what it's been traditionally around the world For most of human history.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Across the Camera podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate us five stars, wherever you got this podcast. Thanks, y'all.
