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Do you ever feel broken? Unable to “do” anything you’re made for? Full of uncertainty around identity? Join us for our first Off the Cuff episode where we discuss our thoughts and what we have learned along the way.
In this episode we explore:
• Our journeys from traditional church backgrounds to exploring different denominations and ultimately launching this podcast.
• The challenges of re-engaging lost community spaces in modern society.
• Raw and vulnerable stories toward redemption, and how one person's honest testimony led Grant to fully embrace the gospel.
• Plus, we'll introduce a new segment called Monday Q&A where we'll answer listener questions and continue to explore the theme of unity throughout our faith journeys!
Connect with Across the Counter Podcast:
Instagram: @encounteracross
Website: www.atcpodcast.com
So a lot of people have been asking who this Jared man is and what my qualifications are for running a podcast, and the answer is we don't really have many qualifications. Yeah, but we are having fun with it and that's going to be that for now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. What is that old Christian thing? God doesn't call He qualified. He qualifies the called. So we're just going to take that cliche and run with it as far as possible. And yeah, asking who I am and what my qualifications are is a open ended question, because I don't know. I was asked to help co-hosts podcast and I hear that means that you need to like to talk, so that's probably a good.
Speaker 1:Your wife went and told me that when she picked up the mic from me, she went and told me and she was like Jared has the gift of gab. And immediately I was like that's a jab, Yeah, That'll do. We're going to try to use his gift of gab, as his wife says. Yeah, Yeah. That made me laugh pretty hard when she walked in immediately and she was just like so where are the mics? I had to go find the mics and then I heard her just say Jared's got the gift of gab.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And that just.
Speaker 2:So my, maybe that's a qualification. I've dreamt of being on a podcast, but I don't have enough of the to make it happen. So when Grant said he was already starting one, i was happy to jump on, and if you hear the fire trucks in the background, sorry about that. So I guess, if there's any qualification I don't know to interview people, it's just a longing to learn more about God and about people that worship what we believe is a living God. So I'll stick with Paul and say if anybody knows, if anybody thinks they know, then they probably don't know as they ought to. So I love God's word submitted to one Lord, jesus Christ, and I'm interested in hearing the stories of men and women who are made in the image of God and believe people are worthy of being listened to. So all of those things are God's qualifications in relation to love, not really ours, and I think those are valid.
Speaker 1:Another thing that I don't want to lose, too, is we will be interviewing a lot of people that we disagree with. That was one of the goals, and the vision of this podcast is to be able to create a space to where we can have people with different points of view that we don't agree with or that we're hardcore against, and be able to listen to them and be able to give them the time of day so that they feel heard, so that we can more or less bridge the gap between and between us as believers, and sometimes non believers, sometimes deconstructionists, which is just getting down to the root of different ideas and stuff like that. So that's kind of one of the goals of the podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i think a big part of that too is just because people say Jesus is Lord doesn't mean all their lives look the same. So there's a lot of perspectives out there that are not ours, and that's okay. It's truth isn't going to fall apart just because we ask questions. I think God is a big, strong, capable God of handling our questions, handling our pain, handling our doubts, and Grant and I are trusting that the Lord is going to uphold what is true, even if we are trying to learn from those that maybe we don't agree with. Yeah, just on an aside, with the introduction side, i mean my, i guess, a little bit of history maybe for you and I both, like why we actually care about this subject to some degree, would be a valuable piece of detail. I don't know what led you from a basic church background to all the different. I mean this podcast kind of began with questions about the dominations, questions about lack of unity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, what brought you to that place to begin with, i guess Well, it was this one thing that actually a Freemason told me in Greece. It's just a wild place to start. But this Freemason came up to me and I told him I was a Christian and stuff, and he was actually renting us the Airbnb in Greece. And I told him that I was a Christian and he was like my biggest complaint about Christianity is you all believe different things, there's no unity and that basically you can't agree, and when you don't agree, you attack one another rather than coming together. And I was like dang gum it if that's not a good point. So, first things. you know one I just have went to coffee with like probably hundreds of people just to have good conversation with them, have fun with them and just to talk about Jesus or talk about life or really anything, and the kind of idea behind this was I was going to go to multiple denominations, i was going to start with Catholicism and work my way up to who knows what you know maybe the craziest non-denominational church you can think of And I was going to go in order through church history. So I started interviewing Catholics and Greek Orthodox and Methodists and all sorts of different denominations, and then I just got board. We were talking, you know, theology and talking about doctrine and what they believe on You know this or that, and I just got bored and I started thinking to myself. I was like man, i just want to hear their story, i want to hear, like, where they're coming from and I don't want to just hear You know what the Catholic Church believes about the you know whatever the communion of the saints or whatever. So, which is valuable info, but it's all stuff that I could Google.
Speaker 2:So I want to, like you were interviewing Wikipedia pages.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was so lame and that's not dogging any of them, it was probably my interview skills as well. I'm just like asking them the wrong questions or something. But every time I tried to get to like their heart and get to their story. I just got kind of into that church talk and I wanted to get more into like the heart of the person. So I took a hard, probably a 180 of just okay, what's the biggest thing I enjoy, which is just having conversations with people over coffee. That's basically Not plan conversation. We just get into the roots of the problems in their lives and What the kind of the wisdom that they can share with me, and then you know we go from there. So that's kind of what I pivoted to, of just trying to figure out Who I can talk to, because you can't just take a prominent Christian or someone You know that has a dog in the fight and then you know for the philosophy of this country or something like that, and you can't just reach out to him and be like, hey, i want to go to coffee with you because the look at you like you're crazy, why? so I was like so I bought a couple mics and I was like alright, i'm gonna create a podcast in air quotes of just trying to talk to these people and Really get to what they believe and what the wisdom they have and what they could share with me.
Speaker 2:And you know, yeah, yeah yeah, for me, like You, your original idea I loved and you shared some of it with me, and then we kind of watched that play out a little bit And you, you shared with me. I'm bored to tears In some degree of like they're all saying the same thing from their different Perspectives and I think part of that has to do just with like. When we talk about unity, that means like, okay, get back into your corner and tell me why you know what you believe is most true Versus, like I just want to, i just want to hear your story and Your story is not my story and I feel like you said out to do that. But then the premise kind of of how you were Engaging the interviews became different, like it's. It's kind of like a sub Subterfuge in some way, like, yeah, i'm moving toward unity, but I'm actually doing that by just listening to people's story. And then there's underlying Unity already because there's value and love and the character and nature of consistency. And so my background is, you know, seeing a lot of hurt and pain in the church and You know, leading, leading Discipleship groups and hosting church gatherings in our home and participating like I almost call myself a theological mutt, because like I love the Calvinist background and the payment costal and the Puritans, and like there's so many different fathers of the faith that have impacted me and none of them a hundred percent agree with each other, and so that's kind of left me in that middle ground a lot of times. Just trying to hear what God is saying, like hearing the voice of the father, which means a lot of my preconceived notions of who God is and what he's like and church tradition have been shattered over and over and over. So the idea of sitting with you and just listening, trying to hear the voice of truth, that is just such a valuable Component of what even my life has become, whether it's been traveling to different countries You know, i lived in Sri Lanka for a little while I've been on different missions trips but always felt called to the states and one of the hardest things about that is we're just in the country of abundance and There's not a lot of need to get near each other in community because we can all just Find our own way without each other. So I just love the idea of kind of opening that, opening that conversation by listening. And you're right, we are vain creatures. So Somebody says, hey, can I get coffee, you ask why and you're very skeptical. But if somebody says, will you let me interview you for a podcast, it feels special.
Speaker 1:I Put a mic and you ask somebody to coffee. It's special.
Speaker 2:I don't even have to like, i don't even have to know what the podcast is about.
Speaker 1:I'm like, yeah, sure, yeah, they almost don't even care. Yeah, hilarious. But Something. To go back to that community aspect, that's something I've been super passionate about too and it genuinely like hurt me of. We had, me and my wife had some people in our church community that just came back from Serbia and You know, in Serbia they have pretty hardcore community with the market And you know they can all just go to the market at the same time And they're having plenty of people at their house and it's a super community-based, you know culture, at least from my understanding of it. And They came back and they were like, hey, you know where's the community here, where? and they were part of a church, you know They did the whole church thing and they were missionaries sent out of a church and they've been over there for You know 10, 20 years or something. So they came back and they were just dumbfounded at how many people are just sitting in their house and Not doing life with one another. And they asked me you know where can I find, you know, people doing life together? and I was like dad gum it Like there's all sorts of places that'll tell you that, but it's Basically what I had to do is build it on the streets. Yeah so that's how I got involved with Jared and you know his whole discipleship thing is just. You know my, my wife had to wake up super early for a job and I had to figure out what to do at 6 am In the morning. One of my best friends invited me to this thing and That's where I met Jared and I just had to. You know me and Jared, both have been building community off of the streets, so just like finding people at you know random places and putting them all together at a table and Which has been awesome and been a lot of the inspiration of this just being able to talk to people. Yeah all sorts of different people.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of what it's looked like and, however cheesy it may sound, a lot of what I feel the Lord has taught us in years is This is gonna sound so stupid, but be the community that you want to see. So, like some of that is Bro, like you know, longing for all of these things that you don't see in community and Kind of complaining a lot like a whining child, until you accept that you have the freedom to post up at a coffee shop Yeah, 6 am And make space available for men to come together and pray together and be together. As long as you do it like you build, quote, build it you, you hold it down and they will come and And that's even what this podcast is just holding down a space and Anybody that's interested in what happens in that space is gonna return. So Yeah, let's, let's roll the intro.
Speaker 1:Let's roll the intro. why not in the middle of everything?
Speaker 2:Here on the Across the Counter podcast, we create space for real people to have honest conversations. The fourth week of every month, we're going to bring listeners and across the counter OTC otherwise known as Off the Cuff which will be an honest, unplanned conversation between Grant and I, unpacking where we are in the moment and what we're learning. Our hope is that we can all grow together as we listen to one another.
Speaker 1:And without further ado, let's jump in to the OTC on the ATC.
Speaker 2:So you shared a little bit about what the vision was and it bore you to death. And I didn't bore you to death, but it just didn't feel like it was fulfilling what was actually in your heart. So, grant, what do you view as the vision? now for the podcast.
Speaker 1:Well, the small vision for me is just being able to talk to the people I want to talk to and have a good time with it. That's the micro vision for me of just being able to have a good time and being able to talk to the people that you couldn't talk to unless you had a podcast. And part of that small vision is making interesting content for other people to be able to listen to that that may not want to or can't have the conversations with the people that we interview. And the larger vision is really just the unity of people that are part of Christianity and non-Christians just getting to where. Because in our culture it's become incredibly hard to just be in unity with one another without getting political or without getting your feelings hurt or stepping on other people's toes. And my goal, one of the visions of this podcast, is to be able to create a space to just listen to people and to create a safe space of hearing people's point of view and not judging, not arguing with them, and just listening to them and then responding out of love and out of respect for them, because they are people made in the image of God, and just having that respect for God's creatures and not having just that quick argument or that quick debate to get clicks on whatever and just going, hey, i want to listen to that person and I want to give them the time of day so that we can create unity. So that's the big goal of just making a culture to where we can listen to people with different points of view and not be upset by that and be able to respond in love instead of hate.
Speaker 2:Do you think that communities like a lot of the types of community spaces that we used to have and know when the world wasn't so global, when there was a lot smaller relational spaces, like do you think that we have lost those because those were spaces where everybody agreed with one another originally? Like do you feel like those community spaces were made up of a bunch of people that held the same beliefs Absolutely?
Speaker 1:Well, the worst thing that ever happened to Christianity in my mind is the invention of the car. So if there was a Baptist church that was less than a mile away from your house, you had to go walk to that church. So you're not going to walk to the Presbyterian church that's three miles down the road. You're probably going to walk to the Baptist one. Everybody's going to be quote unquote Baptist at that church. But they might not have the same views, but at Dad Gummett it's in their neighborhood and they're going to walk. So that was a big thing of just like where people were and where the church is and they basically had to make community out of the people around them. And now you can at least in the South. There's hundreds of churches and you get to pick which one you want and if something offends you you go to another one and you can drive anywhere and you can go to whatever church you want to go to and it's kind of watered down. It's become more about getting more people in to your congregation than it has been to build a really strong, small or large, but a really strong community of people. So that's been huge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it feels like I mean the car was a beginning, but also I mean, man, we can order groceries to be delivered to our door.
Speaker 1:Don't even get me started about that.
Speaker 2:And even if you don't go internet route, like air condition, you used to need to sit on the front porch because if you sat inside you'd die because there wasn't a breeze. That was like somebody just like open the door and it's interesting. Yeah, like, even if we don't just look at like human hate or division, just the way that life has become so insulated. It has created this space where, like, we don't really need each other. But even when I was young, before the smartphone existed, like you remember that day, like I remember the smartphone came out in college and for me. And like the way that we've now moved to, like even just not knowing your neighbor well enough to go in this silly, but like ask for a cup of sugar or flour, or like in America I've said before that like the greatest offense you can give is to make someone else feel uncomfortable, and like we feel that way too. Like don't. Like my space is most peaceful when it's completely in my control and nobody else interrupts it, and like that's what it feels like now, where it used to be that there was a common understanding that we're always interrupting one another space because we're all trying to survive, which is not an easy thing to do, like survive with joy and kids and life, and like things break and things happen. But now it's like, yeah, just I don't know the vision that this started with, the vision of the podcast, but like part of that just looks like like re, re, engaging some of those spaces where we can hear one another. And it's weird too, like if you think of community as a root core of like needing one another back in the day, like it didn't matter if you didn't agree with your neighbor across the street, if he is, you know, trying to pull a donkey out of the ditch or if if, like, he's obviously struggling, then you had a choice, kind of like when Jesus said the Good Samaritan had a choice when he passed by. Like we've always had that choice. It just seems now there's so like we almost don't even cross paths anymore in a way. So that's just interesting to me, that like, yeah, part of this vision is like we're still the same people that are hurting when we're isolated, but now they're like with that family that came back from the mission field is like where, like where do you find community? It's like honey, i don't know.
Speaker 1:You can go to the church and some churches do it. Well, it's just been incredibly hard for me And that's just my own personal journey. Yeah, it's just it's been tough to. I mean, you have to and that's something I've been talking, been talking to my wife about is we have to be open to community too, because it does start within yourself to be able to be ready for community. Yeah, if somebody offends you, do you leave that community or do you just have community with them and you build that? Yeah, and that's something that you know, i've been talking about that. It's been hard for us, so we're trying to get through that. But, jared, who are you? These are the questions. These are the questions that the people want to know.
Speaker 2:Man, I thought I covered enough.
Speaker 1:You did.
Speaker 2:You're gonna make me share more. I'm gonna make you do it. I am a 35 year old, short, slightly chubby white male with. I've got three kids, one on the way. I'm a wife that I deeply outkicked my coverage on. She's way way more impressive of a human being than me. She's beautiful and it doesn't make sense that she would marry me. But I think the Lord for his temporary blindness and her belief that marriage is forever, because now she's bound, she's a covenant, she's a covenant. And I know your wife and I believe similar things about you and your wife. Sorry, Grant. So I live in, I've lived in South Carolina all my life. My family's from a really, really small town called 96, like the number spelled out.
Speaker 1:So that's a place right there. That is a place.
Speaker 2:It has two red lights. I think it might have three now. It has one Mexican restaurant called Las Cascadas, which means the waterfalls, And it's waterfalls of Diarrhea is probably what it's known for. That's not valid. They don't serve Mexican food. It's just weird American food that I ate my whole life.
Speaker 1:I like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, came out of, had to recover.
Speaker 1:If that's not expansion, I don't know what is.
Speaker 2:Two to three red lights. Yeah, yeah, that's huge.
Speaker 1:That's 33% growth right there. You better watch out.
Speaker 2:So I grew up with a military dad, mom that was able to be at home, and my dad was and is an incredible man, servant Hardin. mom was an angel, just always caring for everybody. Like I said, i graduated high school and I actually went straight to Sri Lanka for like seven months because my dad said I needed to go get a job or go to college And I didn't want to go into debt. So I had a pastor that had baptized me, that was in Sri Lanka with his family And he said I could come over and participate in their mission there with the program they had kind of launched after the tsunami in 2004,. I think it was His whole family and five kids had moved over there. So that was a pretty life-changing event. I saw kind of a grassroots community begin to be developed and I wasn't really close to the Lord in that time. but I got to see a lot That was in the midst of about 20 years of addiction to pornography and just brokenness and really just not being able to clean myself up Even though I claimed faith in Christ. I always felt like I was on the outside of those stained glass windows. So, long story short, that was only about seven months, came back have always longed for intimacy with God's people And it's just. it's kind of like this dream I've chased for my whole life that I still don't know, that I've touched, but the beginning of God breaking down a lot of those barriers and bondages was in December 2017. I believe it was just came to the end of myself. I felt like I'd come to the end of myself before, but I'd gotten married, and to my beautiful wife, i'd not graduated from college at North Greenville, which is a Christian university, and I started working in the restaurant industry and sales for a few years and had a good job. We had gotten debt free, except for the mortgage that we purchased and man, to be honest, things just weren't good. Like my wife and I, we believed in the Lord, but I just wasn't leading well. I wasn't helping my family participate in the fullness and fruitfulness of life, and a lot of that was because of that addiction to pornography, as well as like just inconsistency and joy, and it was just due to bondage of sin. And so the end of myself December 2017, left me on the floor in tears again, but it was the first time I ever just I think I'd said things like this before, but it was the first time I ever humbly broke before the Lord and said if you don't do something, nothing's ever gonna be different. And that was when those chains. I wouldn't recommend coming to a place where you say I'd rather die than keep going this way. There's a lot of other steps God gave me beforehand that could have been more fruitful, but he changed my life. just felt the presence of the Lord, didn't hear anything audibly, just felt like God was going to. I felt like the Lord was saying it's gonna be okay. And since then haven't watched porn or had any type of bondage in that same way, still deal with sin, still deal with the process of sanctification. but from that place just longed to see God transform my life further, transform Christian community. And that's been a journey of church in our home, basically following my own kind of learning through. I went through a few years of just reading my Bible for the first time in 18 months, front to back and just doing that over and over and just falling deeper in love with a God who has saved and transformed. So there's a lot more, but that's kind of led up into a bit of where I'm at now. I don't know how much. I don't wanna spend a bunch of time talking about me, but We'll edit it out. Yeah, that's fine, yeah.
Speaker 1:Just we'll edit out the last 10 minutes of your story, that's fantastic, that's fantastic.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that's you know. Now there's all kind of life in between but three kids, one on the way, wonderful wife struggling to see what it looks like to be faithful as a family, pursuing the Lord and everything that comes with that. A lot of cost, but also a lot of joy.
Speaker 1:Let me know once you figure it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the only thing I've figured out in the past you know, five to seven years is Oswald Chambers said. There's a quote of his I'm gonna probably mess up. He said the greatest competitor for intimacy with Jesus is work for the Lord, and I've known that. I read that really early on in the book that his wife wrote post his death. A lot of you know it. I can't remember the title right now, but everybody knows the Oswald Chambers book And even though I've said that out loud for years, it hasn't changed the way that my immaturity has tried to go out and build the kingdom or build my own life or build my family, and the thing that launched us into even having kids or building a family to begin with after that December 2017 transition was Psalm 127. Psalm 127 says unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor labor in vain, and unless the Lord watches over the city, those who watch watch in vain. It just talks about how all of our anxious toil is worthless unless God is the one that builds it. So the difference in knowing something is true and then actually walking out what it means that every breath is by his grace and every moment is by his prevailing goodness. I think I've spent a few years getting up off my knees and going and trying to do the right things, and I don't know that I've spent enough time, like Jesus did, just going to the desolate places and staying on his face before the Lord saying so that I could say I only do what I see my Father in heaven doing and I only say what I hear my Father in heaven saying. I think I've probably had a lot more pride and arrogance that I'll just go out and make this happen or make that happen. So what I've learned is keep your face on the ground and move when God tells you to and speak when he tells you to, and that means you gotta learn how to hear, and that's probably the hardest thing in the world.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of voices. That's what we're both learning together is how to listen. It's a great exercise to learn how to listen to people, and that's another goal of this podcast is we're trying to learn how to listen and not listen to respond.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll give it back to you a little bit. I mean, some people know you, but tell the people about yourself.
Speaker 1:Tell the people how vulnerable do I wanna get?
Speaker 2:As previously mentioned, we can delete anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the question. How vulnerable do you wanna get with strangers? That's the question.
Speaker 2:Hey man, it's gonna come out anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it might. There is a sheet of paper that says it, So I'll tell you, nah, before the throne. My Christian journey has been something well, not even Christian. My life has been crazy. You know I went to pretty much every day of elementary school. I went to the principal's office for a day or something. I locked a teacher out of the classroom.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:You know, got basically expelled from my Christian school for that and for multiple other things. So I was getting red cards which is their little discipline system Almost every day I was falling out of my chair to make people laugh. It's just just because I just didn't understand the point of school and I just did not want to be there whatsoever. And that was kind of my, that kind of marked my childhood, a lot of just goofing off and trying to get whatever, so that we didn't have to sit through class. So, that was a lot of it, you know, and that kind of marked me through elementary school, also middle school. You know that was crazy. I did all sorts of stuff. You know we clapped for a teacher, like I basically wrangled the whole class and got them to and I said, hey, none of us will get in trouble unless if we all do it. So it'll be the teacher's fault and it won't be our fault if we just clap until, you know, he gets out of the room. We just literally would clap for like 20 minutes And that was it, and he was trying to teach us science and cool stuff and we just clapped him out of the room. Hey, that's some psychological warfare, Like the rallying Somebody somebody ratted me out Not gonna give any names but some goody two shoes got me pretty good. So that was kind of that. High school was a little bit chiller. I kind of chilled out but you know did a lot of stuff in private and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Did you make any teachers?
Speaker 1:cry. I made probably the most Christian teacher that I've ever had cuss me out. She was. She was a real gym She was a gym, wow. And she cussed me out of the room pretty hard.
Speaker 2:Just a loving mother of many, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:She was my parents friend. Oh yeah, her daughter was one of my sister's best friends, you know that sort of thing, and I was shooting paper wass at her.
Speaker 2:Solid, good work, good work.
Speaker 1:So that was that. So just goofed off most elementary school and then went to college, got involved in all sorts of crap, you know, did the drinking, did the drugs, did all that sort of stuff, and that was kind of a nightmare. And there was a point where I had a girlfriend who you know a lot of people thought was awesome And I had. You know, i flip houses, that's what I do for a living, and so I invest in real estate and all that stuff Had had a pretty good amount of money because my grandma left me a bunch of money And so I had the money, i had the girlfriend, i had the friends, i had pretty much everything. But I was more miserable than I had ever been in my entire existence. So I was like, okay, i don't like that. So that was throughout my college. It just kept going down and down and down. And then, you know, got out of college, then some girl I had broken up with my girlfriend And then some girl invited me to go to this small group And I was slightly interested in her. So I decided to go to this small group And through there was like three or four guys that had a little group And through that. That's kind of really, where I heard a guy just be so vulnerable that it and he wasn't be asking me because I could tell And he was just like talked about his own life and talked about his sin And it wasn't like it wasn't cookie cutter, it was just honest gospel, which.
Speaker 2:I loved.
Speaker 1:So that kind of is what got me, you know, to really receive Christ, because I would not say I was a Christian until about three or four years ago. That's when I really, you know, admitted Jesus as Lord. And then, you know, pretty much right after that, you know, i was involved in this huge, you know, young adult group that had maybe 60 to 100 people, which was pretty legit, and we had a bunch of leadership issues And there was a time where, you know, i was thinking about leading it and doing all that sort of stuff And that was right. When you know, right before COVID hit, and basically, through that and through not sleeping and through, you know, all the stress involved with that, it led me to go to the mental hospital for two weeks, which is that's where I learned I was bipolar. So that was fun Learn that had all sorts of crazy, and so I may or may not go into that later, but had, you know, saw vision, saw craziness, you know, absolutely like full bipolar manic episode dealio. So that was, that was crazy And I don't know that I like these off the cuff episodes because I didn't plan to open this book And you didn't plan to open it. Yeah, this is off the cuff.
Speaker 2:And now these people have the freedom to ask.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is, this is not. This is probably not the way to go. It is what led me to Christ, so that's a win of just vulnerability and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Keep going. And just one note that's fascinating You said it wasn't cookie cutter, And something that hit me as you said that is it's crazy how much we long for order but then are inspired by people that display the chaos like the disorder, and them still saying but I, but God, Yeah it's like we're longing for order, but then the representation of the shattered person that then points and says but God, like that's the thing that you're like, yeah, i can get down with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what made it so clear that God did it. It's like because this guy I grew up with this guy he's not the guy. Yeah, he, you know he had all sorts of issues and God radically changed his life And I was fortunate enough to be able to see it And I was like that's God exists, like I don't care Whatever, whatever he's got, i'd like some of that, whatever that is. So that's what led me to Jesus Christ and, you know, surrendering my life to him. And there's been ups and downs. It's not. It's certainly a work in progress, And I get that, everybody says that.
Speaker 2:But for me it is absolutely 100% true.
Speaker 1:There are days that I don't even think about God. There are days that that's all I think about. It's, it's up and down sideways. You know all sorts of stuff, so I'm just kind of trying to learn through you know other people's experiences, through my experience of how to live the Christian life and how to how to follow Jesus with everything you got. But also, living in America, living in our culture of abundance, like Jared said, and it's just I've heard so many things about you know this culture and you listen to too much stuff and you'll get immediately depressed and you'll get immediately just overwhelmed by all the things happening. Because we're in an information age, so there's so much content out there, like we're releasing content, like everybody with a mic can release content, everybody has a podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's like you know that's, that's crazy. But also there is so much disinformation and stuff that can just just eat you up if you look at it for too long.
Speaker 2:It's also like so much hopelessness because the way or the easiest ways to maintain attention is a train wreck Like so negative ones that get the most clicks Yeah dude. Like it's just the like that's part of the problem, right. Like there's some sadistic motivation in human kind. It's like, yeah, i want to see things break and I want to see it because I'm broken. And like even it's the reason that, like the drug hit or the next thing, like we're all addicts of brokenness in some way, which is hard because there are many stories of goodness, like redemption in brokenness but they don't get the light Like they don't. the overwhelming abundance of what gets attention is definitely the negative.
Speaker 1:Yeah, remember when we were looking at the top news article.
Speaker 2:We were trying to look at a title for our article.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was like the top news articles and they were yeah, and they were all negative, yeah, like, except for maybe one, like there was like 20 of them and it was like this guy got shot. Yeah, every single one, like this country's goofed and like it was like dad gum it.
Speaker 2:The one positive one was Nelson Mandela released, but it's like because he was imprisoned wrongly for many, many years.
Speaker 1:It's just so people like negative content. So we're going to we're going to try to release some positive content.
Speaker 2:I think a miracle will be like if this season a success, what maybe? what the Lord's let us to touch on, even I mean, if we're saying he's active and breathing and guiding our step and we're saying we trust in him is that openness, like our open representation of brokenness, means that this shouldn't work Like we're not the ones making anything successful or beneficial? I think, personally, that's my, it's the reason that I would sit and do a podcast with you, because at this point in our lives there's not really any reason to not be vulnerable. Like every day we're trying to point to the one that we're dependent on. Like that idea of Lord It doesn't. Like, it's not just a oh, we raised our hand and walked on an aisle. Like something changed when we took every shattered piece and said, okay, i need you, jesus, to own it all. Like, not just manage the property, but like I'm going to sign the deed over And I don't know that. That for me, like, even though we're joking, like, i think for listeners we are open books. Like anything that they want to ask, anything you want to know. We're going to talk about that a little later, about what Q&A idea will look like, but I mean just on that note. Whatever we hope for this podcast to accomplish is not going to be because we make it happen.
Speaker 1:So that's a fact. Because we can't make it happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, like if this impacts anybody positively, then the Lord has done something, because we are some busted.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, we've had some good feedback.
Speaker 2:We've had some heresy comments, oh yeah, yeah, definitely First comment on anything ever posted Heretic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, worst thing you could say Right Good, like I personally enjoyed it. We're going in the right direction Is that the immediate first comment. Yeah, that's the first thing we had, So you know we're going in a good direction.
Speaker 2:It's only down from here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can feel it's going in a good direction on this thing. So what do you hope this podcast does accomplish with that being said, I just I really hope that people listen to it and they walk away with a deeper understanding of Jesus. I hope that it might answer some questions and, honestly, through our vulnerability and through our, you know, trying to listen to people, and through other people's points of view and their stories, then it just puts Jesus on display and it doesn't really. You know who cares about Grand Jared?
Speaker 2:Nobody but who?
Speaker 1:cares about our Lord Jesus Christ. I think, you know, that's one of the big debates and one of the big things of our time. So, and throughout history I mean, come on, so that's kind of like that's the main goal of our lives. So you know, there's always that underlying thing, but we also wanna build bridges to people that don't think like us and we just we wanna create what is it? the John 17? Unity yeah. That's huge. When I read that, that blew my mind. Yeah, yeah, cause what's cool about John 17 to me was, you know, you can take things out of context. You can say, oh, this was talking to Paul, you know. or oh, this was talking about, you know, this person in history and it doesn't apply to me, and stuff like that. but this is for real, jesus's prayer, you know, perfect Son of God's prayer, about us, not about you know. he says the one about the disciples first, and then it says for all you know who come to believe in me, that sort of thing, and then it says that. So if you wanna do some reading something I've said it multiple times on this podcast that I only have like four tools in my tool belt, but that is one of them is that John 17, jesus prayer? I think it's called the high priestly prayer that he prayed for us, cause we are, you know, people that came to know him throughout time. So just if you need some light reading, go, go read.
Speaker 2:Some light reading.
Speaker 1:Go read John 17,. it'll blow your mind So.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's. I was thinking about John 17 the other day when I read through Ephesians and one section of Ephesians, like the whole book, is about growing up to be knitted together the idea of unity. And we've talked a lot about unity but unity like it looks like something like just to say the word unity, like be unified, what? what does that mean? And for the first time I ever really thought about it. in the Ephesians perspective in 314, paul starts and says in his letter to the Ephesians for this reason, i know before the Father in heaven, or I know before the father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit and your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know that that love surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. And then it goes into that verse that a lot of us know, which is now to him, who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power, that, as it work within us. to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout generations, forever and ever, amen. So as you keep reading Ephesians, it seems like what Paul is pointing to is that unity means that we are unified in the knowledge of who Jesus is. It's the singular anchoring point of agreement that who Jesus is is then directly related to what unity looks like, and so a lot of like. my hope is also just yes, we're going to interview people we don't agree with, and we're gonna interview some people that may not say Jesus is Lord, or Lord may mean something different than what you or I mean when we say Jesus is Lord. Some people may say Jesus is Lord and they mean he was a good man. And then some may say you know that they believe that he was a prophet or a priest or a thing separate. But, like for me, i guess my hope is that as we learn together, we're first and foremost learning about what is true, and Jesus said that he was the word, he was the life, he was truth. So I don't know what that's gonna look like. As we go through interviews, i don't know what other than we're going to learn Like we're going to learn more about what is true, and there's infinitely more that I am wrong, that we are wrong about than we are right about. So, if God exists and if truth is completely, completely, continually being unveiled, i just think reality holds more to learn than to argue about Like.
Speaker 1:And golly am I excited. Yeah, just learning from other people, that's how I've learned. Almost everything is like Socratic Method.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Which is a lame term. Explain what that is to the people.
Speaker 1:Ask a ton of questions and learn from that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you have to listen when you ask a question?
Speaker 1:You do You do? So? you know I didn't expect the off the cuff to be so heavy, but I did enjoy it. Yeah, me too. So that's a jam. But on another topic that we want to discuss, we want to do a thing that's called a Monday Q&A, and we want to hear our listeners out. We want to hear their questions and we want to respond to those, and we just want to have another touch point throughout the week with our listeners. So we're going to start, you know, maybe this week, maybe in a couple of weeks, a Monday Q&A. That's going to be just a short segment of Jared and I just answering some of your guys' questions. So we're going to put that up on Instagram, we're going to put that in our Spotify bio and stuff like that, and we just want to hear from you guys.
Speaker 2:So, looking forward to that, Can those questions be about anything Like what the name of your little Bichon Fries is?
Speaker 1:Okay, they give me anything, don't tell them.
Speaker 2:They'll have to ask if they want to know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i have a little dog. She has a very interesting name. Yeah, yeah, okay, we'll go for multiple hours about what her name is.
Speaker 2:It can also be about anything in relation to the podcast. We won't know. You know, if you ask about an opinion of someone that we've interviewed, we probably can't speak on things that we haven't talked to them about. We can absolutely discuss anything Theologically. Opinion Yeah, that'll be exciting, just to relate.
Speaker 1:Cool. Well, that'll be that And we are super excited. We're in this in the studio and air quotes, which is just Jared's office, And we're super excited We've got two more interviews today. Those are the most interviews we've done. We've done two interviews and this today, So we're excited about those And thanks for listening And we look forward to releasing more episodes. Thanks for listening to the Across the Counter podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate us five stars wherever you got this podcast. Thanks y'all.
