0:00
(upbeat music)
0:02
- This is "Undaunted Life" a man's podcast.
0:21
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:23
Let's get into it.
0:24
Our guys today, we have a special guest on the podcast.
0:26
His name is Brad Hapes.
0:27
He is a pastor, speaker, and mental health advocate.
0:30
He's also the founder and executive director
0:32
of Fresh Hope for Mental Health.
0:33
And that is an international network
0:34
of peer-to-peer Christian mental health support groups
0:37
and resources.
0:38
And he's also the author of "Holding to Hope, Staying,
0:40
Saying While Loving Someone with a Mental Illness."
0:43
And so in this particular podcast,
0:44
this is one that we had to delay a couple of different times,
0:46
but I wanted to make sure I talked to him
0:47
because there was a lot of misconceptions
0:50
about mental health
0:50
and there are a lot of misconceptions
0:52
about mental health specifically
0:53
in kind of the whole pastorate
0:56
and inside of all these people that work at churches
0:58
and things like that.
0:59
And you hear about burnout
1:00
and you hear about these people
1:00
and just kind of get mentally put out there
1:02
over their skis.
1:03
And we talk a lot about that
1:04
on this particular podcast about why exactly that is,
1:07
but then we get into how people of faith
1:09
can talk about mental health
1:11
because there's a lot of misinformation.
1:12
There's a lot of disinformation inside of this.
1:14
There's a lot of people that think that,
1:15
"Hey, if you're a Christian,
1:16
"that you're not supposed to have any ailments," right?
1:18
Especially not mental ailments
1:20
because you should just be able to pray and read the Bible
1:22
and then everything be good to go.
1:24
And it's not exactly that way.
1:25
But it took us maybe about a half hour
1:26
of this podcast before we got into that.
1:28
And I was just kind of jotting down a bunch of different notes
1:30
'cause you never really know where
1:31
a conversation is gonna go.
1:32
But we talked about studying the Bible in general,
1:35
but also studying the Bible in Hebrew and Greek.
1:38
I wanted to talk to him a little bit about church here,
1:39
but I forgot to get into that.
1:41
Pastors that don't go to seminary versus pastors
1:43
that do go to seminary.
1:44
How can one know that they are saved?
1:45
I always kind of like to talk to pastors about that
1:47
because some people's answers are fairly convoluted
1:49
and others are not.
1:50
How do we think about belief?
1:52
We talked about children and the salvation of children.
1:54
But then we really got into the mental health side.
1:56
But I asked him about how in our culture,
1:58
we kind of default to medicine,
1:59
which I've talked about here recently on the podcast,
2:01
how we just default after a few minutes of conversation
2:03
with somebody like, here's some SSRIs
2:04
and let's just see if they work.
2:06
And we talked about how that doesn't always help people.
2:08
But then we talked about what they do
2:09
and kind of how they keep that going for people.
2:11
And what pre-decision can do for you?
2:15
That if you're having a mental health struggle
2:17
or some other struggle in your life,
2:18
when you pre-decide what you're going to do,
2:20
how that can be beneficial for you.
2:21
And again, we get into his story and his personal story.
2:23
Kind of crazy, some of the stuff that he was going through
2:25
with some of the things he was doing that he was acting out
2:27
'cause this was a guy that his life was perfectly in shape
2:30
and aligned and going in a particular direction.
2:32
And then he just went off the deep end at one point.
2:34
He gets into a lot of detail there,
2:35
but I really, really appreciate how candid he was.
2:37
He was a little bit more candid on this show
2:39
than he has been on other shows and he told me off air.
2:40
It's like, yeah, you know,
2:41
it seemed like your audience would be able to accept
2:43
most of the stuff that we talked about
2:44
and how we talked about it.
2:45
So I really enjoyed my time with him.
2:46
So without further ado, let's get into it.
2:49
Brad Haves, welcome to Daunton Life and Man's podcast.
2:53
- Hi, thanks for having me, Kyle.
2:55
- Now I asked you off air how to pronounce your last name
2:57
and I think I got it right.
2:59
But has there ever been somebody that just like accidentally
3:02
got it right?
3:02
Like here you are at a coffee shop and you give 'em your name
3:04
and they spell it right and say it right?
3:06
Has that ever happened?
3:07
- Yes, but extremely rarely.
3:11
And one time I preached at a church down in Florida
3:14
and the guy who signed the check for me,
3:17
I was the guest preacher and he gave me the check
3:19
and his last name was Haves.
3:22
- Okay, well they--
3:22
- Yeah, I got it wrong.
3:23
That would have been a problem.
3:24
- We weren't related.
3:26
- Okay, yeah, for another gentleman last name,
3:28
that's pretty interesting.
3:29
But you know, so you already kind of teed it up there
3:31
a little bit, Brad, but you're a professional Christian.
3:33
You're a pastor, this is what you do for a living.
3:35
You've been doing this for a very, very long time.
3:37
But I'm assuming when you were growing up as a little kid,
3:40
maybe you wanted to be a baseball player or a Marine
3:43
or something like that, who the heck knows what you wanted to do?
3:44
I guess when did you kind of turn the corner and say,
3:46
okay, this is not only the biggest part of my life,
3:49
but this is what I want to do professionally.
3:51
- Well, I have to be honest, all my life.
3:54
Even as a little kid, I just knew I was called.
3:58
And there were times that I didn't want to do it
4:01
because I was going to have to take Greek and Hebrew
4:03
and go to school eight years after high school, you know?
4:07
I'm Lutheran and there's quite an extensive education process.
4:12
But I did it.
4:14
I learned Hebrew and Greek and I cried like a baby sometimes
4:18
because it was so hard.
4:20
But yeah, no, I'm not one of those guys that I just kind of knew.
4:25
And I was on the course.
4:29
But my life fell apart then after being a pastor.
4:34
So some things that happened to guys that maybe go
4:39
through difficulties long before coming to the Lord,
4:44
mine fell apart while I was a pastor.
4:48
- Well, we'll get more into that certainly here in a second
4:50
because it's a large part of your story.
4:51
But to go back to the Greek and Hebrew thing,
4:54
I know to people that are outside of the pastor
4:56
or people that are outside of church leadership
4:58
or something like that, they see that as like kind
5:00
of an interesting thing.
5:01
But pastors aren't walking around speaking in ancient Greek
5:05
or Hebrew or Aramaic or any of these types of things.
5:08
It's just something for their own personal study.
5:11
Now, so go ahead and I guess explain from your perspective
5:14
having done it and having, assuming that you would cosign
5:17
that if you're going to be a pastor,
5:18
you need to have done this and you need to have gone
5:20
through seminary and all those things.
5:22
But why go back to that text?
5:23
Why is not just studying the translation of English?
5:26
Good enough.
5:27
- Right, because everything in English is just that.
5:31
It's in English.
5:31
There are things that can be said in both Greek and Hebrew
5:35
that cannot be said in English.
5:37
For instance, I'll give you two examples.
5:40
One is in the first sentence of the Old Testament
5:43
where it says Elohim Barah and Barah is the word to create
5:48
and it means to create from nothing.
5:51
But it's a singular verb, but Elohim is a plural noun.
5:56
Elohim is the word for God.
5:59
And you see that you can't do that in English.
6:03
And so you're picking up theology.
6:05
You're picking up what was written.
6:09
Another one would be in the New Testament
6:12
where it says to tell us die.
6:15
That's a punctilliar verb.
6:17
And to tell us die is the word that Jesus spoke.
6:21
It is finished on the cross.
6:23
Well, what's interesting about a punctilliar verb
6:28
is a punctilliar verb means it happened once
6:33
and it can never, ever happen again, never.
6:38
And so there's just a depth in there.
6:40
I don't study it for my own personal thing,
6:43
but I study it so that when I'm preaching,
6:46
I have depth to what I'm doing and saying.
6:50
- So with that in mind as well,
6:52
I'm thinking about one particular example.
6:53
So there's a pastor that I've talked about
6:55
on my podcast recently,
6:56
or I guess he used to be a pastor Carl Lynch with Hillsong.
6:59
He had a spate of interviews in a row
7:01
where he was basically asked his homosexuality a sin,
7:04
his abortion a sin.
7:05
And one of the times he was asked
7:06
about homosexuality being a sin.
7:07
He goes, and again, he's like cool guy, do bro, pastor.
7:10
And he's like, you know, when I read the New Testament,
7:11
I read the red letters of Jesus.
7:13
He never mentions homosexuality one time.
7:16
So I'm not gonna mention it from the pulpit.
7:18
Now, a few things are wrong with that.
7:19
Number one, there aren't red letters and black letters.
7:22
They're technically all red letters
7:23
'cause if you believe in the Trinitarian view
7:26
of the Godhead, Jesus is part of the Godhead.
7:28
So all of the words are his word.
7:30
So I guess that's part of it.
7:31
But then the other thing he certainly did,
7:34
he has recorded that he talked about
7:37
what would be called sexual immorality
7:38
or poor nia in the original Greek as far as I understand it.
7:42
And what that one word in Greek encompasses
7:45
is all these other things we need to describe
7:47
using the English language, which is homosexuality,
7:50
sex outside of marriage, bestiality,
7:53
multiple sexual partner, like all these different things.
7:55
And so is that another good thing for Christians
7:57
to kind of understand which is like,
7:59
hey, there's a lot of value in going back
8:00
to the original language because the Greek language
8:03
in a lot of ways is more descriptive with less words.
8:06
Yes, absolutely, and like I said,
8:09
there's things that the Greek can say
8:11
that we don't say in English in a word.
8:14
We have to describe it or whatever.
8:18
But here's the deal with what that pastor was really
8:23
basically telling you is he believes
8:26
that the word of God is in the Bible,
8:30
but not the whole Bible is the word of God.
8:33
And you find two different kinds of Christians.
8:35
Those who want to justify certain ways of life
8:40
in today's world, we'll talk about the red letters.
8:45
Well, when there used to be Bibles printed,
8:48
I'm sure there still are,
8:50
where only the words of Jesus were in red letters.
8:53
Well, that then says to that somebody does not believe
8:58
the rest of the Bible to be accurate.
9:05
And so, I find it fruitless to ever debate
9:10
or argue with folks.
9:12
I always ask, do you believe all of the Bible is God's word
9:16
from Genesis to Revelation?
9:19
Absolutely inherent, you know, flawless blah blah blah.
9:24
Or do you believe that God's word is in the Bible?
9:29
And there's a big difference.
9:32
- There certainly is a big difference.
9:33
And that's one thing that I remember thinking through
9:35
in that particular scenario is it's like,
9:37
it's a pithy statement because, to be honest,
9:39
I love the red letters in the Bible,
9:41
just because it's a cheat code for me
9:43
as I'm reading through a passage,
9:44
if I don't, if I'm turning directly to a passage
9:47
and maybe it's in the middle of a long soliloquy
9:49
that Jesus is speaking, it's just like,
9:51
it just helps me get there faster.
9:53
But it doesn't bother me to not see it either.
9:55
And I think it was Pastor Vody Bockham
9:57
who was the first person that kind of said,
9:59
who kind of said, yeah, hey, if he's part of the Godhead,
10:01
like this is all his words.
10:03
But that kind of leads me to talk a little bit
10:05
about how people study the Bible.
10:08
Because I know a lot of people hesitate,
10:10
and I'll speak to about me personally,
10:11
I've had an entire swass of my Christian walk, right?
10:14
I haven't read the Bible at all.
10:16
And part of it is because I can't read the Bible, Brad.
10:19
I have to study it, right?
10:22
And there's a major difference
10:23
if you're going to read a text of any kind
10:25
versus study a text.
10:27
Because you can't just read through it
10:28
like you're reading through a novel
10:30
trying to get to the best part of the story
10:31
or the climax or something like that.
10:33
You have to read a sentence or two,
10:35
and then stop and maybe think about it
10:36
or maybe read this commentary
10:38
because you have no idea what you just read.
10:39
And so I think that stops a lot of Christians
10:42
from actually digging into the scripture
10:44
because they feel like, well, I can't just listen to the Bible.
10:46
Well, I can't just read it like I'm reading a book.
10:48
I have to study it.
10:49
And my God, I have kids and I have a business
10:52
and I have all these other different things.
10:53
And I gotta walk the dog, who has time to study the Bible?
10:56
Do you feel like you get a lot of angst for people?
10:58
Because if you're a professional, yeah,
10:59
you can spend all the time in the world
11:00
'cause this is what you do.
11:01
And sure, go back to the Greek and figure that out,
11:04
but a lot of people just get stuck in the mud.
11:06
- Well, I think that's why it's important
11:08
to be part of a community of believers
11:11
where the pastor and others are helping you understand
11:16
and be able to read it and study it
11:20
and knowing what's there.
11:23
For instance, there's the phrases, "Son of God"
11:29
and "Son of Man" in the Old Testament and New Testament
11:32
are used in different ways.
11:34
And there's some people who believe
11:36
that angels had sex with human beings in the Old Testament.
11:40
And then we got these superhuman beings, et cetera.
11:44
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, that is the problem
11:49
with having, for instance, preachers,
11:52
I'm gonna say it, that have not gone and learned history
11:58
and learned theology and learned the languages
12:01
because just because it's a son of God,
12:05
I have a person that's no longer in my life
12:09
that kept saying to me, well, I just believe the word of God.
12:12
I just believe the word of God.
12:13
And I'm like, what word of God do you believe?
12:17
The English or do you believe in the original languages
12:22
and wanna understand what those things are saying?
12:27
So scripture, interpret scripture,
12:31
that's one of the hermeneutical principles.
12:34
And in other words, it's not us who interpret it.
12:38
It should be to find where this is used otherwise
12:43
or other places in scripture
12:45
and then come to a consensus that is used this way,
12:49
it's used that way, it most likely means this.
12:52
And yeah, I think,
12:56
but there are some fantastic study Bibles out there.
13:01
And I think men,
13:02
I've got some men in my fellowship
13:07
that really are hungry for the word.
13:10
They wanna know what it says.
13:12
And for instance, people always talk about adult baptism.
13:17
And I'm like, well, that's fine.
13:23
I mean, I'll baptize an adult
13:26
in total immersion, that's fine.
13:28
But their babies and families were baptized
13:33
on the very first day.
13:34
And until the time of the Reformation infants
13:39
were always baptized.
13:41
So it's like, sometimes people don't know the history.
13:46
They have a thought through it.
13:47
Like the sinner's prayer is not in the Bible.
13:51
- Yeah, the Bible talks about just believing.
13:55
And I believe, I go to our county jail every week
14:00
and I've been developing a curriculum for them to use.
14:04
And I always tell the guys,
14:06
there's some faulty thinking out there about salvation.
14:10
And what they think is that once you're saved,
14:13
people kind of talk like, oh, I don't sin anymore.
14:18
Or sin is hardly part of my life.
14:20
That's bogus bull.
14:22
I mean, that, you know, and you said I could say anything,
14:26
but I'll just say bull, but it's bull dung is what it is.
14:31
Because Paul, as he goes to his life,
14:36
gets more and more descriptive about how great of sinner he is.
14:41
Now, that doesn't mean he got more sinful.
14:44
It means that he realized he was still sinning.
14:48
- Right, that's part of the process of sanctification.
14:50
- Absolutely, and you're gonna sin until you die.
14:53
- So, right, this brings up a couple of things.
14:56
And like we're talking about so many things
14:57
that I didn't plan on, but I think this is good.
14:59
And we'll get to all the other stuff
15:01
that we wanted to have you on here for.
15:02
But I'm gonna go back and quickly talk about this
15:05
before we talk about salvation.
15:07
Pastors and seminary.
15:08
You basically talked about there,
15:09
you didn't make a declarative statement,
15:11
but it seems like you would agree with the statement
15:12
that you can't really be a pastor
15:15
if you've not gone to seminary.
15:18
I know that there are a lot of people
15:19
that have enormous churches, enormous platforms.
15:23
And they've never went to seminary,
15:25
they've never been taught these other different things.
15:27
And I'm somewhat sensitive to the argument
15:30
that some seminaries have fallen completely off the deep end.
15:33
- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
15:34
- They're in their interpretation of the text.
15:37
- Just because they went to a seminary
15:38
doesn't even mean it was a Bible believing.
15:41
- Right, exactly, like is this like an activist seminary?
15:44
Is this like cranking out activists?
15:46
Or is it cranking out people that are willing
15:48
to equip the saints, I guess it should be?
15:50
So I guess you tell me, what do you think about pastors
15:53
in terms of the ones that don't go to seminary?
15:55
Are there things of value that we can glean from them?
15:57
Because to be honest, a lot of people have gained
16:00
quite a bit from how I've studied the Bible
16:02
and how I've presented the Bible.
16:03
And I haven't gone to seminary, but I'm also not a pastor
16:06
and I'm not gonna have to give an account to God one day
16:08
for how I've shepherded a flock, you know what I mean?
16:10
- Yeah, well, in a sense, you probably have a flock
16:13
here on the podcast.
16:15
It may be a flippy flop, but you have a flock, you know?
16:20
But here's the deal from my perspective.
16:24
There are pastors who never went to the seminary
16:27
who are academically, they pursued the word of God.
16:31
You know, you don't have to know Greek and Hebrew,
16:34
but you certainly have to know how to study it.
16:37
They have inner linear Bibles that give you translation
16:41
and tell you things.
16:43
And if a pastor hasn't gone to the seminary,
16:45
as long as he's a student of the word, that's what matters.
16:50
You know, I wouldn't go to a church where the pastor
16:53
was not committed to the whole Bible
16:56
and was a good student of the word of God.
17:00
Now, seminary helps that if they went to a Bible
17:04
believing good seminary, it helps it a lot,
17:09
but I would go to a church where a pastor had not gone
17:13
to the seminary as long as I knew that he was hungry
17:18
for studying, that he wanted to get to the richness
17:23
of what's there, you know?
17:25
- Yeah, absolutely.
17:26
And I think, again, we like our cheat codes.
17:28
I just talked about red letter Bibles and all that,
17:29
how it's kind of like a cheat code, you get there quicker,
17:31
but a lot of people turn their brains off
17:34
and they say, I go to this church, my pastor went
17:36
to these seminaries, they are Bible believing,
17:38
conservative seminaries, and then they just take everything
17:41
the pastor says at face value, even when they go outside
17:44
of the dictate to scripture.
17:46
And so to anybody, regardless of the background
17:50
or the vida or resume of your pastor,
17:52
that doesn't mean you turn your brain off
17:54
and that doesn't mean that they are above reproach either,
17:56
that they don't make mistakes in how they exegete something
17:59
or isegete something or anything like that.
18:01
I did want to go back to this thing about salvation.
18:04
So one thing that I've done, I've got a lot of friends
18:06
that are in kind of the reformed Calvinist side of things.
18:10
I would say that I kind of tend to more
18:11
and lean more to some of those things
18:13
and those understandings.
18:15
There are some massive things inside of that ideology
18:18
that really bother me.
18:19
Like I can't get a Calvinist to answer two questions.
18:21
Number one, what did Christians do for the first 1500 years
18:24
before John Calvin was born?
18:25
How in the world did they get by?
18:27
And the second thing is in like a sentence or less,
18:30
can you tell me how someone can be saved?
18:32
And I've listened, Brad, I've listened to John MacArthur,
18:34
who is a lion, who is a giant.
18:36
I listened to him speak for hours at this point
18:39
about assurance of salvation
18:40
and how one can know that they are saved and all that.
18:42
And I still don't know.
18:44
I still don't know what he would even say
18:46
how somebody can know that they have salvation in Christ.
18:50
And again, you can get into election,
18:52
you can get into all these other different things.
18:53
It's like, well, you don't need to know,
18:54
you're either selected or you're not
18:55
or you're either elected or you're not.
18:57
But I guess from your perspective,
18:58
in your read of the Bible and in doing this
19:01
for as long as you've done it,
19:02
if someone were to come up and ask you,
19:04
hey, I want to become a Christian, how do I do that?
19:07
Again, you've already taken a shot at the center's prayer,
19:09
which a lot of people, again, yeah, that's not in there.
19:12
But what would you say to that person?
19:14
- Well, I would say that first of all,
19:17
if somebody wants to be a Christian, they're already there.
19:21
It's a gradual thing.
19:25
What you see in scripture is they believed on the Lord Jesus.
19:29
They believed.
19:31
And so it's not like flicking a light switch
19:34
it's more like a dimmer switch, you know?
19:36
And the other thing is, is that nowhere in scripture
19:40
does it say, once saved, always saved.
19:43
It, it, and I realize that could throw a lot of people.
19:47
- Sure.
19:48
- But in second, I believe it's second Peter,
19:51
I wasn't prepared to talk about all this.
19:53
But it's either in first or second Peter
19:56
where it talks about those who have lost their faith
20:00
that the punishment is worse.
20:03
And I'd have to go back and double check what I'm saying.
20:08
But my point is, I always tell the guys in jail,
20:13
don't worry about whether you're saved or not, just believe.
20:16
When you believe on the Lord Jesus and you believe,
20:21
even if you're struggling in your life,
20:23
there's forgiveness and that forgiveness is it,
20:26
as long as you're living in faith, you're gonna be saved.
20:30
It's, so it's not a, but it's an everyday thing.
20:35
And so I think biblically, it's better to understand
20:42
that once I start believing and I continue to believe,
20:45
I'm saved and there's assurance in that.
20:48
I'm absolutely certain of it.
20:50
But if I'm questioning my faith and I'm falling away
20:54
and I'm walking away from the Lord, that's problematic.
20:59
Because see, I always said, if I got to choose what faith
21:03
I want it to be, I always want it to be a Presbyterian.
21:06
'Cause if there's an election and you're either going
21:09
to heaven or hell and it's a set deal,
21:12
well, you can be a Presbyterian and live like hell
21:14
and still get to heaven.
21:16
- LinkedIn is pretty amazing at helping you grow
21:18
your small business.
21:20
We cannot make your email response time faster.
21:23
We can help you sell market and hire in one place.
21:27
We cannot help you find space for your three desk drinks.
21:30
Why do you have three?
21:31
And while we can't help you find the perfect volume
21:34
for your presentation video,
21:36
LinkedIn can help you find the perfect audience
21:39
for your business.
21:40
Grow your small business on LinkedIn.
21:42
Learn more at linkedin.com/smallbusiness.
21:46
- So with that in mind, that brings us so many other things
21:49
which we certainly do not have time to get into today,
21:52
is the word belief.
21:53
Like, 'cause people believe things in different ways.
21:57
So people believe that Metallica is the greatest rock band
22:01
of all time and they also believe in gravity.
22:04
Like one thing is an opinion, they just believe it.
22:07
The other thing is something that is tangible,
22:10
that is based on a scaffolding of actual facts and truth.
22:13
Right?
22:14
And so when I know people really,
22:16
really get into that word belief
22:18
because it's like, I believe that Jesus,
22:20
a Middle Eastern Jew, was killed by the Romans
22:23
at the behest of the Jewish anhedrin was put into a tomb
22:26
and three days later he walked out of that tomb without help.
22:29
Right?
22:30
And that he's also the son of God
22:31
and that the only way that we can have propitiation
22:33
for our sins is because of that.
22:35
That's what I believe.
22:37
But some people would say,
22:38
well, Kyle, you just believe that intellectually
22:40
because you've studied a lot of apologetics,
22:42
you've studied the first century church
22:44
and how could it possibly make sense
22:46
that this would survive in Rome
22:48
if Rome was trying to squelch it
22:50
unless it actually happened?
22:51
How can all of these apostles and disciples
22:54
just march happily to their desk
22:56
never once in recorded history saying,
22:58
actually, I didn't see Jesus raised from the dead.
23:00
It was all a joke.
23:01
We just thought we could make some money
23:02
and get some girls.
23:03
Like, I believe it intellectually,
23:05
but some people would say,
23:06
well, you don't believe it emotionally.
23:07
You don't like believe it in your heart.
23:09
Like you're not as emotive about it
23:11
or something like that.
23:12
And like, there's a lot there, you know?
23:13
Yeah, I don't think you can separate all of that.
23:16
I think you can overthink it.
23:19
If you believe that Jesus died for your sins
23:24
and that is the only way to get to heaven
23:27
and that you believe in him,
23:29
you don't even have to believe all of the Bible to be saved.
23:33
There's no passage about that,
23:35
but it's believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.
23:39
And, you know, I think it's very important for Christians
23:43
and especially men to say, all right,
23:47
somebody's telling me to believe this.
23:49
Show me the Bible passage.
23:51
Show me where in the Bible it says this.
23:54
Show me where this is, you know,
23:57
the age of accountability, hogwash.
23:59
There's no talk of it in the New Testament,
24:03
nothing like that.
24:04
In fact, the Bible tells us we're conceived in sin, you know?
24:10
We've got a disease, you know?
24:12
And so for me,
24:17
but here's the deal,
24:19
I am really good friends with a lot of people
24:21
who don't believe what I believe, theologically.
24:25
And I, you know, they love Jesus, they love his word,
24:30
but they come out at a different place in what the word says.
24:35
And I don't debate that.
24:37
I respect it and that's the way it is.
24:41
And if they ask me, I'll talk about it,
24:44
but otherwise I think that a lot of denominations
24:49
and a lot of people want to get into that,
24:52
we're saved and no one else is saved, you know?
24:55
- Yeah.
24:55
- There's a joke that we used to tell as Lutherans
24:59
that I died and I went to heaven.
25:02
And when I got up there, St. Peter was giving me a tour.
25:06
And when we walked past one room, he said, shh, don't talk.
25:09
And I said, why?
25:12
And he said, because that's a Lutherans,
25:14
they think they're the only ones here.
25:16
- Hey, that's not just indicative of Lutherans,
25:19
you're exactly right.
25:21
There are many sects like my wife grew up
25:22
small town Church of Christ.
25:24
And they believe, I mean, to a T,
25:27
that only people that basically go to small town,
25:29
conservative Church of Christ and do worship their way
25:31
and everything, like that's it.
25:33
When they talk about the narrow road,
25:34
they think the road is Church of Christ Avenue.
25:36
And so it's like, I know that everyone's kind of has
25:38
their own thing.
25:39
And I know I keep going off and we're gonna make this
25:40
my last tangent before we get back to the main reason.
25:43
This is the last promise.
25:44
These tangents are good.
25:46
But I just, I'm thinking about my audience
25:48
and the things that you're saying
25:49
and the things that they'll get mad at me
25:51
for not asking you later.
25:52
So we're gonna talk about a small subject
25:54
about children and salvation, okay?
25:56
So I know for me, having not grown up in church,
25:59
having accepted Christ, as far as I know, sorry Calvinist,
26:02
as a 10th grader, you know, I'm already a teenager
26:05
at that point, I'd seen a little bit of the world.
26:06
I kind of knew about my own level of depravity and all that.
26:09
But ever since that time of really starting in church
26:13
as a teenager, every time a child, like a three, four,
26:16
five, six-year-old expresses faith in Christ
26:19
or gets baptized as a professional faith in all that,
26:22
if I'm being honest, I'm fairly skeptical of that.
26:25
And for me, it's because it's like, that kid doesn't even know
26:30
like how to make it through the entire day
26:31
without crapping their pants yet.
26:33
And yet they've made this entire declaration
26:37
about how they're putting their faith
26:39
in a Middle Eastern Jew,
26:40
because it's something I heard at a wannas
26:42
or a vacation bible school or something like that.
26:44
And I kind of hate myself for that
26:46
because it's like, who am I to say?
26:48
Like I'm nobody in this entire situation.
26:51
But I guess the age of accountability is worrisome to me
26:54
because I do have a two-year-old and a baby
26:56
that's below one year old.
26:57
And if we all get in a car accident,
26:59
what happens to James and Eli?
27:02
Like what happens to my boys?
27:03
Because it's like, we haven't had that gospel discussion yet.
27:06
Like I can barely get them to remember the names
27:08
of their favorite cartoon characters
27:10
so that they can tell me more easily
27:12
what they want to watch or something like that.
27:14
So let's talk a little bit about children and salvation.
27:16
And let's get into that age accountability.
27:18
Like what happens to babies that die in the womb?
27:21
What happens to newborns that pass away?
27:22
That kind of thing.
27:23
- Well, first of all, I believe that God is grace.
27:26
He is grace.
27:28
He is love, he is forgiveness.
27:30
There are those who would say if a baby's not baptized,
27:35
the baby doesn't go to heaven, blah, blah, blah.
27:38
I don't believe that.
27:41
Okay, when children don't make those decisions by themselves
27:45
and I think the Lord in his mercy,
27:48
we know the thief on the cross was not baptized
27:53
and got into heaven.
27:54
So now for me, how I see it, is this.
27:59
As a Lutheran pastor, I believe in infant baptism.
28:05
I could give you all kinds of arguments, why?
28:08
But I will reaffirm somebody's baptism
28:11
that maybe they were baptized as an infant
28:14
and really lived it up when they were a teen
28:17
and they want a fresh start.
28:20
Okay, let's do it.
28:21
Let's go to a pool or a river.
28:23
I've done it in a river.
28:25
One of the old ladies tried to pull me down in the river
28:27
when I did it.
28:28
It was hilarious.
28:30
But so I don't get bent out of shape about that,
28:35
but how I see it from an infant perspective
28:43
is the baptism is not our work.
28:46
It is God's work.
28:48
It is a sacrament in which he bestows grace and forgiveness
28:52
and we're born into his family.
28:55
And I didn't have anything to do with being born
28:58
and I don't think you probably did either.
29:01
You go through your mother's womb and today you're here.
29:05
And now when you have a baby,
29:09
you gotta feed the baby, right?
29:11
So I think you just feed the baby.
29:13
You read the Bible with the children.
29:15
You tell them about Jesus.
29:17
You tell them and what you're doing is nurturing
29:20
that faith in them.
29:22
And as many people know, confirmation comes along
29:25
somewhere along the line.
29:27
And that became a farce for many
29:31
because it really wasn't kids taking and owning that.
29:35
But that's where they're supposed to take and say,
29:38
"I do believe and I'll follow the Lord even unto death."
29:43
But I think it's a matter of just feeding your kids,
29:46
spiritual food.
29:48
And will God be merciful?
29:52
Of course.
29:55
I think Christians get a little too uptight
29:58
about a lot of stuff, you know?
30:01
And I understand that and an apologist,
30:05
if you like, you know, that kind of study,
30:07
it's very important to know the answers
30:11
to some of these things and to understand.
30:15
But the one thing, like I said before,
30:18
I believe certain things, I believe them strongly,
30:21
but I don't condemn anybody that doesn't agree with me
30:24
in them, you know what I'm saying?
30:26
And they're my buddy, I love them.
30:30
Now, I have problems, you know, I can meet somebody
30:36
that's, there's different kinds of Lutherans, okay?
30:40
And there's very liberal Lutherans.
30:42
Some people call them loosely Lutheran,
30:45
but they don't, they see the word of God is in the Bible.
30:50
They believe homosexuality is fine.
30:52
They have homosexual pastors and their pro-choice
30:57
and all these kinds of things, okay?
31:01
And they're extremely liberal.
31:05
Well, I have a problem with that,
31:08
even though they say they believe the same thing
31:10
about baptism that I do, you know what I'm saying?
31:14
So I'd rather give me the guy who does a sinner prayer
31:19
and you know, it's more like you're a fruit inspector
31:23
than you are a theological inspector sometimes.
31:27
- Struggling with weight loss?
31:29
Prolon's five-day fasting mimicking diet
31:31
is a clinically developed nutrition program
31:33
designed to promote fat loss
31:34
while protecting lean body mass.
31:36
Developed at USC's Longevity Institute,
31:38
it assists the body in entering a fasting like state
31:41
that helps reset metabolism and target visceral fat.
31:44
In just five days, Prolon offers a science-backed approach
31:47
to weight loss without extreme restriction or guesswork.
31:50
Get 15% off plus a $40 bonus gift
31:52
when you subscribe at prolonlife.com/now.
31:56
- Well, and Brad, that gets into a lot of other areas.
31:59
And like I said, I promise that was gonna be the last one.
32:00
We'll get into some of the meat.
32:01
But I do think we're in this era
32:03
where if you're a pastor or if you're an influencer,
32:06
or if you're a podcast host or something like that,
32:08
you're not allowed to not know stuff.
32:09
And I always tell guys, be very open
32:12
about the stuff that you don't know,
32:13
that you don't have a fully formed opinion on
32:15
because what you do is you signal to other people
32:17
that do know or that do have a fully formed opinion
32:21
to give you that data, to say, here's how you fix that.
32:24
Here's how you should think about that.
32:25
Here's how I think about that.
32:27
And so having a little bit of humility and being like,
32:28
yeah, I just had a guy ask me off air about something
32:31
that's very, very theological in nature.
32:33
And I told him, I'm like, my first word out of my mouth was,
32:36
bro, I gotta be honest with you.
32:38
I don't have a fully fledged opinion on that.
32:40
I don't find it to be that important.
32:41
Like, feel free to make a compelling argument to me
32:45
as to why I should spend hours of my life studying
32:48
whether or not I believe this or that
32:49
about that one particular thing.
32:50
But again, it's just kind of being humble
32:52
and point yourself back a little bit.
32:53
But about 25, 30 minutes ago, Brad, you teed this up,
32:56
but you talked about how your life at one point
32:59
kind of fell apart and it wasn't before you became a pastor.
33:03
It was after you became a pastor,
33:04
which I don't know if you know this.
33:05
Here's some breaking news.
33:06
Pastors lives are supposed to be perfect.
33:08
Their marriages are supposed to be perfect.
33:10
Their kids are supposed to be awesome, smart,
33:12
always making good decisions.
33:13
Because again, y'all are the professional Christians.
33:15
You've professionally studied the book
33:17
that is supposed to be the real roadmap
33:19
for how we're supposed to live a good godly and moral life.
33:21
So what the heck happened, Brad?
33:23
What'd you mess up?
33:25
- Well, first of all, there are no professional Christians.
33:27
I refuse that title.
33:30
- I'm gonna keep saying it just to make it you uncomfortable.
33:32
- Oh yeah, I'm just as broken as everybody else
33:36
and sometimes even more so.
33:38
- Well, I graduated from the seminary.
33:41
I had always been a very upbeat,
33:45
very positive person.
33:50
My father, when I, in 1976,
33:54
he had like what we called a nervous breakdown
33:58
and he suffered a lot of depression.
34:00
I'd never seen, my dad was kind of a man's man,
34:03
ornery, not feely touchy at all.
34:08
And he was depressed and crying every day.
34:13
I'd never seen my father cry
34:16
and I never saw him cry again after that.
34:19
But lo and behold, he was diagnosed
34:23
with manic depression back then.
34:26
Now, I knew what that was.
34:28
I knew about him taking the medicines he took
34:36
and what it took.
34:38
So I never, ever, ever thought of myself
34:41
as potentially having manic depression
34:43
or bipolar disorder because after all,
34:46
I was never down, okay?
34:51
So I was always kind of ready to go.
34:55
Made a lot of things happen.
34:57
Could do more work than my staff did.
35:00
You know, I could do that in three days
35:02
and they could in six weeks sometimes.
35:06
And anyway, I was, so I came as the Associate Pastor
35:11
within three years.
35:12
I became the Senior Pastor of this church
35:15
and we went from 800 to 3000 in worship in about five years
35:20
and we started preparing to move into a manufacturing plant.
35:25
And, you know, I wasn't a very good Lutheran
35:29
in the sense of traditional worship
35:31
because we had contemporary worship.
35:34
Manheim steamroller did our sound system and our lights
35:38
and all this kind of stuff.
35:39
All right, well, we had to fight the city
35:43
to get that property and I started getting really sick.
35:48
And I was acting out and doing crazy crap.
35:54
I mean, some of the things I did was like,
35:58
I would just have to drive in order to manage.
36:01
I felt like I had a monster inside of me
36:04
and the monster was pushing and won it out.
36:08
And so I would manage that monster
36:12
and then I would shame myself for the things
36:15
that I was doing.
36:15
Like I would end up in a different city
36:18
and not even remember driving there.
36:20
I spent money like it was going out of style.
36:25
I just didn't think anything could touch me or hurt me.
36:31
There were times where I drove on country roads,
36:34
gravel roads that were very hilly at night
36:38
and I would turn out my car lights.
36:40
I would turn off, you know, it was dark
36:44
and I would go as fast as I could,
36:46
open my car door, stick my foot up the door, you name it.
36:49
If there was a murder somewhere,
36:51
I went to where the murder was if I heard it on the radio.
36:54
So, you know, my wife knew something was wrong.
36:58
I knew something was wrong and we asked people
37:01
for help, they didn't know what to do.
37:04
And the church was the 13th fastest growing Protestant church
37:08
in North America at the time.
37:10
So nobody wanted to stop that growth
37:13
and they were concerned for me, but they didn't know what to do.
37:17
And then one night I was going out,
37:19
heading out to drive on those roads.
37:22
I stopped at a lake where there was an outhouse to take a pee
37:27
and what I recall still to this day was that,
37:32
first of all, it was a dangerous area.
37:34
I knew that, you know, that was not an area to be in,
37:38
but the thrill of being in an area shouldn't be in
37:41
was right in line with having bipolar disorder.
37:44
And so you take risk that you shouldn't take.
37:48
And what I did was I saw somebody was in the doorway
37:53
and it was 9/20 at night, so it was dark.
37:57
And I peed up against the wall of the bathroom
38:02
and I turned and left and this undercover cop grabbed me
38:07
and told me I was under arrest for masturbating
38:11
in front of him for 20 seconds.
38:13
Well, still to this day, I can tell you,
38:18
I don't think that was true.
38:20
I was sick and I was definitely manic.
38:25
That's not totally out of the norm for manic people
38:29
who are not treated with their bipolar,
38:32
but that's not something I've ever struggled with.
38:36
I mean, you know, in my right mind at least,
38:39
I've never struggled with that.
38:41
But and for 20 seconds, my doctor told me,
38:45
Brad, if you could do that in 20 seconds,
38:48
I need to see you.
38:50
There's an issue, you know?
38:52
And so what happened then was it made the news
38:57
and my life absolutely was torn apart and judged
39:02
and actually won a, you know, what is that called?
39:09
And this was in 1995, so this was many years ago.
39:13
I won a, you know, a retrial or whatever.
39:17
It was like traffic court.
39:19
There was no jury or anything like that.
39:24
And, but I won because the two cops that were there, I guess,
39:29
they contradicted each other.
39:33
So sometimes I feel like if you've ever seen
39:38
Les Misérables, you know, 20 seconds of my life, 20 seconds.
39:46
And I paid a price that, you know, was like
39:49
I had murdered somebody.
39:51
In fact, I could have been drunk and killed somebody
39:55
with my car and it probably wouldn't have been judged
39:59
as harshly.
40:01
And so anyway, I had to go through many months of pain
40:06
and nearly bleeding to death and then lo and behold,
40:11
I went to the hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
40:15
And I spent about three and a half weeks
40:17
in their outpatient treatment
40:19
and I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
40:22
And suddenly the monster had a name.
40:27
I, I, the monster had a name
40:31
and there was a way to manage the monster.
40:34
And so I've lived for the most part.
40:36
I did have a relapse seven years later
40:39
where I got some medicine goofed up
40:41
and ended up in the hospital again.
40:43
That time it was disturbing the peace.
40:46
But, you know, the shaming and all that.
40:50
So I always tell the guys in the jail,
40:54
yeah, I've seen you on the news,
40:55
but I've been in the news more, you know,
40:58
back in the day that was very, you know,
41:01
it was just very painful.
41:05
But here's what I want your listeners to know.
41:09
God of that pain, God has redeemed the pain.
41:13
He has absolutely done something that only He could do.
41:18
And I had a lot of people speak to me
41:22
after this all happened and said,
41:24
someday you will reach more people
41:26
than you ever would have passed during that church, you know.
41:30
And lo and behold, today, 15 years ago,
41:34
I started a support group that I really wanted to go to.
41:38
And because I couldn't find anything that was hope filled
41:42
and helpful, I just found people complaining
41:45
and it got, it made me worse.
41:47
So what happened was then I started that group,
41:52
other churches were looking for groups like that.
41:55
So we have groups all over the United States now
41:59
and in 17 different countries.
42:01
And we're in two languages and a third language is French.
42:08
And the books are being translated
42:12
into Japanese and Chinese and then three Indian languages.
42:17
And so it's just, you know,
42:19
out of a pile of dung that we create,
42:26
God can take it and find a diamond in that.
42:30
And no matter what you're going through,
42:33
there's always hope, there is always hope.
42:37
And, you know, my message to men is really, look, guys,
42:42
we may think we're tough.
42:44
We may think, you know, that'll never happen to me.
42:46
I wouldn't let my, you know, I'd never act like that.
42:49
I'd never listen, when your brain isn't working properly,
42:54
you're not going to act proper, you know.
42:58
And I always say, it's important to understand
43:01
that your mind is what your brain does.
43:05
But your brain's just like every other part of your body.
43:08
It's just like your large intestine.
43:10
And it's going to go to the grave with you.
43:13
When you die, your brain's going to die.
43:14
It's not spiritual.
43:16
And the mind connects with the spirit.
43:20
And so you want your brain to be healthy.
43:24
- This episode is brought to you by Redfin.
43:26
You're listening to a podcast,
43:28
which means you're probably multitasking.
43:31
Maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin,
43:33
saving homes without expecting to get them.
43:36
But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing.
43:39
It's built to help you find and own a home
43:42
with agents who close twice as many deals.
43:44
When you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it.
43:48
Get started at redfin.com, own the dream.
43:51
- I think absolutely there's a lot that we talk about
43:54
in terms of brain health and all that.
43:55
But this whole area of mental health, Brad,
43:58
it is very, very confusing to a lot of people.
44:01
And then there are things that basically blow up
44:03
people's preconceived notions.
44:04
I mean, this summer, we had that enormous news out of the UK
44:07
that basically the serotonin levels being mixed up
44:11
in your brain and how we can fix those with SSRIs,
44:14
that that's been bogus for decades.
44:15
There's no data to really show
44:17
that these things really help in any way, shape or form.
44:19
And it's showing that it actually does quite a bit more harm.
44:21
But I do want to talk a little bit about that,
44:22
'cause I do want to talk about, you know, fresh hope
44:24
and some of the things that you do
44:25
and why that's the best way for your,
44:27
that you've seen to kind of help people deal with this
44:29
and manage it and recover from it.
44:31
But we live in an era right now,
44:33
I know this is going to be shocked to know one in the audience.
44:35
We want the easy button for everything,
44:37
especially our physical ailments.
44:39
Because we want to go to the doctor,
44:40
we want the doctor to know exactly what's wrong,
44:42
we want them to give us, you know,
44:43
in an orange bottle with a white cap on top.
44:46
And I just take one of these a day for two weeks
44:48
and then my problem goes away.
44:49
But then we've extrapolated that out
44:51
to all these other different things like,
44:53
"Oh, I'm sad, I'm melancholy, I'm blue, I'm depressed."
44:56
Whatever these things are, you go and talk to a doctor
44:59
for a few minutes and they give you this incredibly powerful SSRI
45:02
and then they say, "All right, let's take this
45:04
for six months and then just see where we're at."
45:05
It's like, "See where we're at."
45:07
You're claiming that my chemical,
45:08
I have a chemical imbalance in my brain,
45:10
but you didn't even scan my brain.
45:11
Like, well, what, and you're just saying this
45:13
because of whatever reason.
45:15
So I guess talk about the therapeutic approach
45:17
in terms of medicine that most people default to
45:20
as opposed to anything else.
45:22
- Yeah, you know, it's very interesting
45:26
that people get hung up on the medicine part of it.
45:31
The reality is we're kind of in the dark ages
45:34
and coming out of the dark ages with mental illness.
45:38
- Right, yeah.
45:39
- We're going to know a lot more in 20 years.
45:42
There's a lot more we know now.
45:44
The SSRI's and the other medicines, you know,
45:48
I take some of those, but I don't take tons of them
45:53
and I'm not a walking zombie on medicine
45:55
because my doctor works with me on that, et cetera, et cetera.
46:01
We can change our brain's chemistry by how we think
46:06
and how we look at things and we can detox our brains
46:11
and there are some who believe in the mental health field
46:16
and I would lean this way that what causes depression
46:19
in most people is stinking, thinking and ruminating
46:24
where they just think the same negative things over
46:28
and over and over.
46:30
So for instance, we teach people,
46:34
the Bible says, take captive, you're thinking.
46:36
How do you take captive, you're thinking?
46:38
Well, here's three ways to take captive, you're thinking
46:42
and you have to do it.
46:44
That's part of sanctification, you know,
46:47
and it's going to help your brain.
46:49
It's going to help your emotions.
46:51
It's going to help, you know, a lot of things.
46:54
Now, we don't say to people, don't take your medicine.
46:57
You know, we are, take your medicine,
47:03
listen to your doctor, do it with a doctor's care,
47:08
don't stop taking or whatever, but on the other hand,
47:12
if you feel like you're over medicated
47:14
or you don't want to be on certain things,
47:17
your doctor should be working with you
47:19
and get a second opinion, you know.
47:21
Dr. Caroline Leif, I don't know if you've ever heard of her,
47:25
she wrote a book called, "Who Switched Off My Brain?"
47:28
And I've been around her, I like her a lot,
47:31
I like what she says, and she talks about detoxing your brain
47:36
and really helping your brain chemistry.
47:39
She also talks about, it's not homeopathic science,
47:43
it's where they do deep research on what chemicals
47:48
you might be missing that need to be there
47:51
to have, you know, a balanced working brain.
47:55
And compounds and, you know.
47:59
Well, that, like my doctor has said, that would be ideal,
48:03
except for, I checked on that 'cause I thought,
48:07
oh, I'm going to go in and see.
48:10
Well, it was $6,000 just to see the doctor
48:15
and it was going to be like another $8,000
48:17
for all the tests that they would do and all that.
48:20
Well, your insurance doesn't pay for that.
48:23
So the system's very broken in the United States
48:26
as it is in all the places.
48:29
So we really come alongside people
48:32
and we're not really about the medical part of it.
48:36
That's left up to doctors and therapists.
48:38
And what we're there for is to help people
48:42
and bridge that gap and give them hope
48:46
that you can live well in spite of having
48:48
a mental health diagnosis and we're doing it, you know?
48:53
And that the research shows that when faith is involved
48:59
in mental health recovery, people get better faster
49:02
and they stay better longer.
49:03
So I'm like almost 97% of the people
49:09
who attend fresh hope, who were suicidal prior
49:15
to attending have not been suicidal sets.
49:18
And 80% of them that were hospitalized
49:22
haven't been hospitalized since.
49:25
You know, AA has understood this for years
49:28
that an alcoholic can help an alcoholic.
49:31
One with learned experience can help somebody
49:33
who is living the experience.
49:36
So that's what we do.
49:38
We're in all kinds of churches,
49:40
but we also have groups for teenagers.
49:43
We have all kinds of free resources online.
49:47
And we also have a ministry for pastors
49:51
in their spouses called Healing the Heart wounds of ministry.
49:55
We kind of alluded to that before
49:57
that there's a lot of pain and hurt in ministry.
50:00
And pastors, many types don't process it.
50:04
And it comes out with them acting out
50:06
or not really dealing with what they need to deal with.
50:09
- Well, let's talk about that a little bit
50:11
because you hear about pastors
50:12
and you hear about burnout.
50:14
And I just got to be honest,
50:15
when I hear about these people
50:16
that have kind of completely burned out,
50:18
I think to myself, man, every job is hard,
50:21
like almost in like in modernity.
50:23
And it's like you hear about these burnouts
50:25
and it's just like, did you burnout or did you really,
50:28
were you really burning the candle of both ends
50:30
or are you just kind of maybe being a little bit weak
50:32
right now?
50:33
Like there's a whole lot of things again,
50:34
I'm fairly cynical of,
50:35
but you do hear about pastors in burnout.
50:38
You hear about these pastors that are just saddled
50:40
with this tremendous amount of responsibility.
50:43
They're dealing with all this anguish
50:45
from their people to where it's like,
50:47
hey, if something's bad that's happening to you
50:49
and your life and your marriage,
50:50
well, you're going and taking that to the pastor
50:52
and you're dumping it on them,
50:53
but you're one of like a hundred couples
50:55
that are doing that to them
50:57
in addition to all the other responsibilities,
50:58
in addition to all the other things.
50:59
So there is a uniqueness, I guess, to the strain.
51:02
But I guess I'm just confused.
51:04
Like I have quite a bit of energy as a guy,
51:06
like burnout's not really a thing
51:07
that may even make sense to my brain.
51:09
And I know I'm a little bit different in that way,
51:11
but to see these pastors burning out
51:13
and leaving the faith and not just leaving the church,
51:16
but leaving the faith entirely,
51:18
I wonder if these are all kind of wrapped in?
51:19
Like, I guess, is there a one-size-fits-all solution?
51:22
Like, hey, once a year, take a two-month sabbatical.
51:25
Or, you know, every sixth sermon at your church
51:28
needs to be preached by somebody else.
51:30
Like what could kind of help these men
51:32
from being, you know, from actually burning out?
51:35
I'm talking about the people that are really burning out,
51:37
not just the people that got tired and frustrated,
51:39
all of a sudden.
51:40
- Yeah, are there snowflakes in the ministry?
51:42
Yes, there are.
51:43
And, but I can tell you that there's research
51:48
that says that being a pastor
51:53
is right beneath being the president of the United States
51:57
and the second one, I think, is first responders.
52:02
You know, what you don't know
52:06
and what you don't understand
52:08
is what a pastor goes through during the week.
52:11
It's the untold stories that he can't tell
52:14
or she can't tell, in my case, it's he.
52:17
And so, for instance, the night that I had to go
52:22
and be at the hospital with a baby who was dying
52:26
and the parents weren't there and the baby died,
52:30
I'm dealing with that.
52:32
When there's a suicide and I had to go in with the family
52:37
and the person shot themselves in their house, I'm there.
52:42
And, you know, I have to tell people
52:45
when somebody's died in a car accident
52:47
or the trauma that they feel.
52:51
So pastors have a tremendous amount of secondhand trauma.
52:55
And then we've got families just like everybody else, you know,
53:00
we've got all the stuff, but I'll tell you what,
53:02
in today's world, people are not as kind to pastors
53:06
as they were 38 years ago when I started being a pastor.
53:10
The demands are unreal sometimes.
53:14
And there are sheep that bite.
53:16
There are people that are just downright nasty
53:20
and they don't understand.
53:22
And then if you have a staff, you have, you know,
53:25
you're expected to be the CEO type of person.
53:28
Well, you weren't trained for that, you know.
53:31
So I would say to you, be kind, my friend, to pastors
53:36
because you don't know what you don't know.
53:40
And it is different in that sense.
53:43
And everything's negative.
53:47
Very little of it is ever positive.
53:50
So just think what that kind of drain takes.
53:52
I mean, that's a drain in and of itself.
53:56
But I don't think there's one size that fits all in solving it.
54:01
I think there's a lot of different things
54:03
that can be done, sabbaticals, whatever.
54:06
Right now, the research is showing
54:08
that 48% of all pastors want to quit.
54:12
And if they had a way to quit, they would.
54:14
Isn't that horrible?
54:17
I mean, that really, and see the pandemic caused,
54:20
it was already stressful.
54:22
- Sure, yeah. - The pandemic, as for all of us,
54:27
you know, how do you do it?
54:28
What do you do?
54:29
And the expectations and all of that.
54:32
Well, what we do with healing the heart wounds
54:36
is we take five biblical principles
54:38
and we don't teach them how to do it.
54:41
We take them through doing it like lamenting.
54:45
So you've had hurt and pain in your ministry.
54:48
We want you to write a lament
54:51
and we're gonna process it with you.
54:53
'Cause here's the bottom line.
54:54
I'm all about if you don't deal with your stuff,
54:57
your stuff deals with you.
54:58
That's it.
55:00
It's all of life.
55:01
I don't care.
55:02
And everybody's got emotional stuff.
55:05
And if you think you don't,
55:07
let me come and live with you for 36 hours.
55:10
I have the spiritual gift of triggering people
55:13
and I'll trigger you.
55:14
And we'll talk about, oh, Kyle, here's an area
55:18
that I can see you're just a little, you know what I'm saying.
55:21
Now, let me ask you a question.
55:23
How old are you?
55:24
36.
55:25
Yeah.
55:27
All this happened to me when I was 37.
55:29
And if you had heard me talk long before it happened,
55:36
I would have said that ain't gonna ever happen to me
55:40
because I've got lots of energy.
55:42
I'm a pull up my boot kind of guy, you know?
55:46
But we never know what life is gonna hand to us.
55:49
We never know where we are gonna have to find out
55:55
what we're really made of.
55:56
You know what I'm just saying?
55:59
So age, you know, says a lot.
56:04
We find out, you know, I had to find out what I was made of
56:07
when I went through all of that.
56:09
I wanted to die by suicide.
56:13
I wanted out, the emotional pain was so horrible.
56:18
You know, just what I was doing to myself,
56:22
it wasn't what anybody else does.
56:25
But I'm with you, nobody needs to burn out.
56:29
Nobody needs to die of suicide.
56:31
Nobody needs to have all these problems.
56:34
What we need to do is learn how to process our pain.
56:37
So our pain gets processed and we learn from it then.
56:41
And I think as well, Brad, something that's helpful
56:44
is making sure that you have a bank account
56:49
and I don't mean a literal bank account
56:50
and you know, follow me for a second,
56:51
that you have a bank account that you can make withdrawals
56:53
from when you need to.
56:54
And I talk to people all the time about making deposits
56:57
in the right bank account, making resilience deposits.
56:59
'Cause everybody likes to talk about strength,
57:00
but no matter what strength's gonna wane over time,
57:02
if you're the world's strongest man today
57:04
and the competition just ended,
57:06
well, tomorrow your body's all beat up,
57:07
someone else in the world is stronger than you that day.
57:09
So right, strength is gonna wane, you know, gravity's undefeated,
57:12
father time is undefeated, it will always wane,
57:14
but resilience is something different.
57:16
And so I talk about it, it's usually easier to talk about
57:18
in the sports term or something like that.
57:20
But if you talk to anybody that has to do with, you know,
57:22
sports surgery or recovery or any of those types of things,
57:25
if you started out with a strong base of strength,
57:28
for instance, and then you get knee surgery,
57:30
well, your knee surgery recovery is gonna be a lot quicker
57:34
than somebody who led a sedentary life
57:36
and the majority of their diet is Cheetos, right?
57:38
So that's just something, they're making deposits,
57:41
they made deposits in some cases for decades
57:43
in the resilience of their body category or, you know,
57:47
you know, account.
57:48
And then when they need it, it's there.
57:51
The same thing for mental resilience,
57:53
the same thing for spiritual resilience,
57:54
'cause guys, if something negative hasn't befallen you
57:57
at this point, you are not good, you are lucky, sir.
58:00
And so like, it's gonna come for you.
58:02
- Well, it will happen, it will happen.
58:05
- Trashy's gonna come for you, deaths are gonna come for you.
58:08
Some sort of a physical ailment,
58:10
like the number of guys who have spent all this time
58:12
on their body and I would be one of those, you know,
58:14
to be in great shape.
58:15
Well, if I suffer a terrible life altering injury,
58:18
well, there's gonna be some other things
58:19
I'm gonna have to deal with.
58:20
So it's all coming for us.
58:22
And have you made deposits in the right bank account
58:25
to where you can pull them out when you need them?
58:27
- And that is what I would call a very proactive stance.
58:31
- Sure. - That's a good stance to have.
58:33
That's a good way to look at it before.
58:35
- It's not foolproof, but it's, you know, it helps.
58:38
- Right, to say, I know I have weak areas emotionally
58:43
or whatever, but I'm going to deposit
58:46
into my emotional account.
58:48
I'm gonna learn more and more about myself
58:51
and how to be the healthiest I can be,
58:53
both spiritually, emotionally and physically.
58:56
And that way, when trouble hits, it's, you know,
59:01
what I'm saying, like you said, with the knee surgery,
59:03
it's funny you said that 'cause my knees
59:05
are killing me these days, then every now and then,
59:08
I get up and I walk like Frankenstein for about 20 seconds,
59:12
just 'cause my knees hurt, you know.
59:15
But the bottom line is, is that life is difficult.
59:20
Life is not easy.
59:24
And you have to have resiliency.
59:28
And what better kind of resiliency than to say,
59:32
the Lord God is almighty and in control.
59:36
So this may be a horrible thing I'm going through,
59:41
but I know God can take it and make it work for my good,
59:44
Romans 8, 28.
59:47
But we have a lot of doomsday thinking that goes on
59:51
in even Christian churches where, you know,
59:55
it's like, boo hoo, this is, I could tell you,
59:59
if you have, for instance, and there's all kinds of books
1:00:04
I could make reference to when science,
1:00:06
research and all of that.
1:00:08
But if you already have a preset mind
1:00:13
that if something happens,
1:00:14
that would be the worst thing in the world to ever happen.
1:00:17
You know, like a parent could say,
1:00:19
oh, if I ever lost one of my children,
1:00:21
I don't think I could live with that.
1:00:24
What are you doing?
1:00:25
You're already telling Satan,
1:00:28
you're already announcing to yourself
1:00:31
that if that were to happen, I can't do it.
1:00:36
Well, you know, I can do all things through Christ
1:00:40
who strengthens me, including difficult things.
1:00:44
And so to me, emotional health is connecting the scriptures
1:00:49
and putting them in a practical application
1:00:52
and I always tell the guys in the jail,
1:00:54
okay, what does it mean to take care of your thinking?
1:00:57
Because if you think that your brain
1:00:59
can be on automatic pilot,
1:01:00
I can't let my brain be on automatic pilot
1:01:03
'cause I'll always go to places I shouldn't go.
1:01:05
And when you're older, it's not sex that you go to.
1:01:10
It's, I like white wedding cake.
1:01:13
I always tell my wife she doesn't have to worry
1:01:15
about me being in bed with the bride.
1:01:17
She has to worry about me being in bed
1:01:19
with the wedding cake because, you know.
1:01:24
And so, but we can't let our brains be on automatic pilot.
1:01:29
And I think in a lot of ways, Brad, it's about pre-deciding.
1:01:32
I talk about pre-deciding all the time.
1:01:34
So whenever I've helped people with, you know,
1:01:36
pornography addiction or something like that,
1:01:37
well, it's like, well, pre-decide that you're not a guy
1:01:39
that that mass rates.
1:01:40
So just pre-decide that, that tonight,
1:01:42
whenever your kids are off at practice
1:01:44
and your wife's gone out town or something like that,
1:01:46
that you're not gonna do that.
1:01:47
And again, there's accountability
1:01:48
and there's filters and all these other different things.
1:01:50
Same thing, I talked to guys that can seal Carrie.
1:01:53
They carry a weapon that, but they haven't pre-decided
1:01:55
whether or not they're gonna pull that out
1:01:56
and potentially use that on somebody
1:01:58
to save the life of somebody else or themselves.
1:02:00
Pre-decision makes a lot of difference
1:02:03
because you brought up something
1:02:03
that's kind of near and dear to my heart
1:02:05
because I'm a little bit fatalist
1:02:06
in my thinking and my imagination.
1:02:08
I've thought about, you know,
1:02:09
what if my wife and my sons get taken out in a car accident
1:02:12
or some sort or other accident or something like that?
1:02:14
Well, what does that mean for me?
1:02:15
Like that probably, you know,
1:02:17
and I've thought about it intellectually.
1:02:18
I'm like, well, that's probably it for me.
1:02:20
Like, you know, I've given enough to society
1:02:22
and I've given it enough to go through the podcast
1:02:23
or whatever else that, you know what?
1:02:25
My family's gone, so I'm gone too.
1:02:27
And I'm not the only guy that thinks that way.
1:02:28
You wanna hop back in here, go ahead.
1:02:30
Yeah, well, of course we all think that way.
1:02:33
It isn't, what real quick Brad, real quick,
1:02:35
it's interesting to when guys think about that
1:02:38
and I've talked about this on the show before that,
1:02:39
whenever I've thought about suicide,
1:02:40
before I was thinking about it intellectually,
1:02:42
not emotionally, not like my life's so bad,
1:02:45
it's so terrible, I just can't hang on
1:02:46
and then I think about grabbing the pistol.
1:02:48
It's always like, man, I'm worth this amount of money dead.
1:02:51
You know, I don't know if I'm gonna be able
1:02:53
to make that amount of money while I'm alive.
1:02:54
Like, things seem pretty terrible right now.
1:02:56
Like it's always been the inner.
1:02:57
Men are very much that way when they think about suicide.
1:03:00
That is the way, and men are more likely,
1:03:04
if they're suicidal, if they're honestly suicidal,
1:03:07
they are more likely to die by suicide
1:03:12
because they don't talk about it.
1:03:14
They figure it out, they analyze it,
1:03:16
it becomes very analytical to them
1:03:20
and it's a logical decision many times,
1:03:23
it's not an emotional decision.
1:03:26
But here's the deal with we are all broken in our thinking
1:03:31
and when you think about where does sin reside?
1:03:38
When sin came into this world,
1:03:41
where is the battleground for it?
1:03:43
It's all in the mind, it's all here
1:03:48
because what our body does, we choose to do from here
1:03:54
and I always tell pastors that wanna take mental health
1:03:59
or emotional health issues and say it's all demonic,
1:04:03
everything is demonic that's broken.
1:04:07
I mean, any illness is demonic.
1:04:11
So at least be consistent,
1:04:13
if you're not gonna go to the doctor for mental health,
1:04:16
don't go to the doctor for your broken leg,
1:04:18
don't go to the doctor for your cancer.
1:04:20
And guys, you gotta get over it.
1:04:22
Your brain is a muscle or an organ,
1:04:25
just like everything else and care for it.
1:04:29
And I think what you're saying, I really like Kyle,
1:04:34
the idea that you're saying predetermined,
1:04:37
if this happens, I will do this or whatever.
1:04:42
And you're building up resiliency then.
1:04:45
I was part of the Dark Horse Project from Harvard.
1:04:50
They studied people that normally don't come back
1:04:53
from things that other people go through.
1:04:56
So most people would not be like myself.
1:05:01
And they wanted to know why or how that happened,
1:05:05
how could I be that resilient?
1:05:07
And for me, and I think it's the reason I'm on the website,
1:05:11
but I'm not in the book.
1:05:12
And I think because it was all faith for me,
1:05:16
it was just knowing, it doesn't mean
1:05:20
that I didn't think negatively.
1:05:22
But I just knew deep in my most inner core
1:05:27
that God will get me through it.
1:05:30
I will get through it.
1:05:32
- I think that's a great thing.
1:05:33
And on the pre-decision side,
1:05:34
on the spiritual side is like, pre-decide,
1:05:37
I know it sounds weird,
1:05:38
pre-decide that God's gonna have something for you
1:05:41
on the other end, whatever this thing is,
1:05:43
because isn't it amazing when you pre-decide something
1:05:46
that your brain kind of shifts to that?
1:05:47
So let's talk about what you brought up.
1:05:49
So let's say you pre-decide
1:05:50
that you're not going to eat sweets for 90 days
1:05:54
or just say something like that.
1:05:55
Well, guess what?
1:05:56
When you go to the wedding
1:05:57
and you see the white wedding cake
1:05:59
and you see everything else, all the other kutramas,
1:06:01
you've pre-decided.
1:06:02
Like I'm a person for the next 90 days
1:06:04
that doesn't eat that,
1:06:05
but that does bleed over into every area of life.
1:06:08
Like, hey, I'm gonna pre-decide the next time
1:06:10
I'm really, really angry about something
1:06:12
that the first thing I'm going to do
1:06:14
is to not yell and scream and cuss,
1:06:15
but it's gonna be to pull out the Bible.
1:06:17
You've got five different Bible apps on your phone.
1:06:19
You've probably got a stack of them in your office
1:06:21
that you would need to blow the dust off
1:06:22
and check out a little bit.
1:06:23
But again, pre-decision really helps out
1:06:25
with a lot of things.
1:06:27
Because that is taking captive your thinking.
1:06:31
That's taking captive your behavior.
1:06:34
And that's what the Bible teaches us to do.
1:06:37
You know, and Caroline Leif says,
1:06:39
the interesting thing is now that
1:06:42
with all this brain neuroscience research on the brain,
1:06:47
we know that it changes the brain chemistry.
1:06:50
When you think negative things,
1:06:52
they connect with every single negative thing in your brain.
1:06:56
And when you think something over and over,
1:06:59
it's like an LP record that gets stuck,
1:07:02
the needle gets stuck,
1:07:04
and the brain has a hard time getting out of that.
1:07:06
There's practical ways to do that.
1:07:08
And that is taking captive your thinking.
1:07:10
And here's the really cool thing.
1:07:12
When you do that, and when you do it long enough,
1:07:16
your brain chemistry changes, and on the brain scans,
1:07:21
you can see the green, it moves from being thorny bushes
1:07:26
to being, it looks more like something that's flourishing.
1:07:31
And so, you know, and by the way,
1:07:34
talking about research and all that kind of thing,
1:07:36
Dr. Ayman out in Southern California is doing brain scans
1:07:41
on people with mental health issues.
1:07:43
And I think he's pushing the boundary for us to get it
1:07:48
so it's more scientifically, so they're able to,
1:07:52
'cause it is hit and miss.
1:07:55
- Yeah, it's hit and miss,
1:07:56
and there will certainly be more that we'll learn.
1:07:58
And guys, you keep bringing it up,
1:07:59
but it's second Corinthians 10-5,
1:08:01
and that's something that I memorized a while ago,
1:08:03
but we demolish arguments in every pretension
1:08:05
that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,
1:08:07
take captive every thought and make it accountable to Christ.
1:08:10
Like, and I know we're getting very practical here,
1:08:12
but when I used to struggle with pornography
1:08:14
and masturbation back in my 20s,
1:08:15
like those types of things,
1:08:16
it's amazing what happens to your erection
1:08:19
when you start quoting scripture.
1:08:21
It's amazing, like it's an amazing thing.
1:08:22
You know, whenever you're thinking about doing this thing
1:08:25
that you know is not honoring the God
1:08:27
that is sinful and all these different things,
1:08:28
but then you just say a scripture that you've memorized.
1:08:31
And so like second Corinthians 10-5,
1:08:32
like that's a big one, like,
1:08:34
is this thought that I'm having?
1:08:36
Could I put it through the filter of Christ
1:08:38
and come out on the other end
1:08:39
and still have the same thought?
1:08:40
I've heard other people talk about whispers before.
1:08:43
Like we all hear these whispers
1:08:44
and it's like, where's this whisper coming from?
1:08:46
Is it a, you know, a light whisper that comes from God
1:08:48
or is it a dark whisper that comes from Satan?
1:08:51
Well, it's like we'll put it through a rubric of the Bible,
1:08:53
of the gospel, of God's word, of prayer time
1:08:56
or anything like that.
1:08:57
When you come out on the other end,
1:08:58
like are you still supposed to think that?
1:08:59
'Cause if the thought is, man,
1:09:01
I really, really hate my wife
1:09:01
and can't believe I ever got married.
1:09:03
Kids were the worst decision ever
1:09:04
and everything's bad and blah, blah, blah, blah.
1:09:06
Well, you put that through the filter of the knowledge
1:09:08
of God, like that, you're not gonna be anywhere close
1:09:11
to the same thing on the back end.
1:09:12
But I know that we could go all day
1:09:14
and we both got things to do.
1:09:15
I really appreciate you letting us go down
1:09:17
all these different rabbit trails.
1:09:18
Obviously we're gonna have, you know,
1:09:20
the Fresh Hope website and your books there in our show notes
1:09:22
but that's all for me.
1:09:23
Is there anything else you wanna get off your chest?
1:09:26
- Well, just know this, guys.
1:09:29
There's never a situation that is without hope.
1:09:32
That hope is when you can't see a way forward
1:09:35
and our God is God who makes ways through the desert
1:09:40
and there's always hope.
1:09:42
And it's sure and certain and you can trust him for it.
1:09:46
I'm living proof.
1:09:48
My whole life is living proof of that.
1:09:52
Not that I chose to be that proof.
1:09:55
It's just what God can do.
1:09:57
'Cause I never thought that my worst part of my life
1:10:00
was gonna become a survival manual for other people
1:10:05
and liquid gold for the kingdom of God.
1:10:08
- Absolutely.
1:10:09
That's a great word to end on.
1:10:09
Brad Haves, thank you for coming on
1:10:11
Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
1:10:13
- Thank you.
1:10:14
- There you go, guys.
1:10:15
I hope you enjoyed my time with Brad Haves
1:10:16
but before we let you go,
1:10:17
we are gonna do a quick resilience boost at Undaunted Life.
1:10:20
Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness
1:10:22
with content that for just spiritual,
1:10:23
mental and physical resilience.
1:10:25
So if you wanna learn more about what he's doing
1:10:26
with the organization Fresh Hope,
1:10:27
we've got that website there
1:10:29
and then we've also got two links to his Amazon books
1:10:32
so you can check those out.
1:10:33
That's Holding to Hope and the other book Fresh Hope.
1:10:35
All right guys, thanks so much for listening to the show.
1:10:36
We do appreciate it.
1:10:37
Wherever you're listening to this,
1:10:38
please subscribe, or leave us a positive five star review.
1:10:41
If you wanna come speak live at your event
1:10:42
or on your podcast,
1:10:43
just shoot me an email to info@undaunted.life.
1:10:45
That's i-n-f-o@undaunted.life.
1:10:48
Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook
1:10:50
and check out our website for everything else
1:10:51
including how to donate to keep more content
1:10:52
like this coming your way.
1:10:53
Just go to www.undaunted.life.
1:10:56
And as always, we wanna thank the band,
1:10:57
August Burns Red, for allowing us to use their music
1:11:00
for our content.
1:11:01
The music on this podcast is our song Cutting the Tides,
1:11:03
which is off their 10th anniversary re-recording
1:11:05
of their album Leveler.
1:11:06
The links are in the description.
1:11:07
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
1:11:09
Remember, keep pushing back darkness,
1:11:12
keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.
1:11:16
Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
1:11:18
♪ I know I'm dying ♪
1:11:22
♪ There's a heart in life ♪
1:11:25
♪ I know you want ♪
1:11:27
♪ There's a sign ♪
1:11:28
♪ You may stand ♪
1:11:30
♪ And the fight's down ♪
1:11:33
♪ You'll be revived ♪