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1:00
This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
1:21
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:22
Let's get into it.
1:24
Our guys today, we got a special guest on the podcast.
1:25
His name is Dean and Sarah.
1:27
So he is the founding and lead pastor of City Church in Tallahassee, Florida.
1:31
Dean graduated from Liberty University and intended Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
1:35
in Louisville, Kentucky.
1:36
He also holds an MA in theological studies from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
1:40
and is pursuing a demon from Southern Seminary.
1:43
So he's also an advisor member of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission's
1:47
Leadership Council with the Southern Baptist Convention.
1:50
So the reason why he's on the podcast today is because he wrote a book that came out earlier
1:53
this year called Pure and the subtitle of the book is why the Bible's plan for sexuality
1:57
isn't outdated, irrelevant or oppressive.
2:00
So just right there from the title is like, okay, I got to make sure I talk to this guy.
2:04
It's a short book.
2:05
It's a short read, but we really dig into a lot of topics here.
2:07
So we dig into the purity culture because you've heard a lot of people talk about rejecting
2:11
the purity culture and actually push back on them because that's the whole point of
2:14
the book is really rejection of what purity culture has done.
2:17
That's where he starts the book, but I didn't really get his point of view.
2:20
And so I asked him about that, so we got to go back and forth a little bit on that.
2:23
But then we talked about how the pendulum has kind of swung from, okay, purity culture
2:27
to the church is saying, yeah, do whatever you want sexually.
2:29
It doesn't matter.
2:30
God doesn't care certainly that kind of thing and kind of what all that looks like.
2:33
But then we dig into a bunch of lies that we've learned from culture, like marriage is a capstone,
2:38
not a cornerstone.
2:39
Being gay is okay.
2:41
It's just another thing, right?
2:43
That your bedroom is your business that no one else should be able to tell you what to do in your
2:46
bedroom.
2:46
You know, cohabitation, it just makes sense. And even a lot of Christians have bought into
2:50
these lies, hook line and sinker. And then we ended by talking about man-friendly churches.
2:54
So I got to ask him a bunch of questions about how he operates and how he makes sure that his
2:59
church down there in Florida is man-friendly. I really enjoyed my time with him. So without
3:02
further ado, let's get into it.
3:04
Dean and Sarah, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
3:08
Hey, it's good to see with you. Thanks for having me on.
3:10
Yeah, I'm glad to have you on. We had a nice little chat afterwards.
3:12
I was like, okay, we need to go ahead and hit the record button so that we can get a lot of this
3:15
stuff down on the record. But we do need to start as generically as possible just to give
3:19
guys a little bit of an extra dose of who you are because I said who you were in the intro,
3:23
but just from your own words, I guess the easiest way is give us the spark notes version
3:27
of when you became a Christian. And then I guess, why did you decide to become a professional
3:31
Christian, you know, going into a full-time ministry?
3:34
Well, when I was 13 years old, I went to a fellowship of Christian athletes, FCA camp.
3:38
And I heard the good news about Jesus, the gospel for the first time. I was raised in church,
3:42
went to church every Sunday, unless we were sick or out of town. I said a prayer before dinner
3:47
every night with my family, but I never had anyone actually tell me that I was a sinner and needed
3:51
to be saved. I was raised very kind of mainline, kind of non-gospel preaching church, told to be
3:56
a good person, obey your parents, be loving those type of things. And everyone's actually told my
4:03
need for Christ outside of presenting Him as a buddy or a good luck charm, a kind of idea. They
4:08
didn't use that language. That's kind of what was applied. So at that retreat, I had a preacher
4:12
who was actually the chaplain for University of Florida football team. And he just straight up,
4:17
just gave it out and said, "Here it is. You need Jesus." And here's why. And here's who he is.
4:22
Here's what he's done for you. And I truly sit there 13 years old. I'm going, "That's me."
4:27
Like, I need that. Like, I'm a sinner. I've never actually been forgiven of my sins.
4:30
Never been saved before. And it was like an old-fashioned altar call. I never seen one of
4:34
those before. Didn't know what was going on. Thought it was kind of weird. But I went forward.
4:37
And one of the coaches was up there. And he saw me and said, "Hey, man, what's up?" And I said,
4:41
"What he was just talking about, that's me." So it sat against the wall of this old gym. And
4:46
it's like an old high school basketball gym where the retreat was. And he explained that he wouldn't
4:50
meant to trust in Christ and to be a Christian. And it was thought by a 20-minute conversation.
4:54
Answer my questions. And I gave my life to Christ that day. And I joked that I'm the only person
4:59
to ever become a Christian and get mad about it. And they don't get me wrong. I had joy.
5:04
But I'm seriously thinking in my head, haven't been in church my entire life. And no one's ever
5:08
told me this before. So I was a little fired up about that. But then from there, how the ministry,
5:13
a whole factor of going to full-time ministry was I realized from a very young age, by a year or
5:17
later, that what happened to me, that's the story of my friends where I lived. Where a lot of those
5:22
claim they're Christians. And by that, they mean that it's not atheists. And they're not Jewish,
5:26
Muslim, or Buddhist, or Hindu. So therefore, they're Christians. It's more based on what they're not
5:31
than what they are. It's almost like another label on the labels of life. And kind of like,
5:36
I'm a guy, I'm a dad, I'm an American, I'm a firefighter, a Christian. Rather than, no, this is like,
5:43
this is the identity of going in as a Christian. It's first and fourth. I had no concept in that.
5:47
So I wanted to start a church in my home town to reach my friends. And we started, we started
5:52
church 15 years ago and have seen incredible things happen since I'm in the capital city of Florida,
5:56
where I live. Well, that's amazing. I do want to get into this and I do want to definitely get
6:02
into the book today. But you obviously brought something up there right from the beginning that
6:05
I think is very, very important. It is astonishing because I grew up in Oklahoma. So that's the
6:08
buckle of the Bible belt. So it's kind of the same thing. If you believe in God, you are a Christian,
6:12
like, you know, you're a lot of people talk about God, but they don't really talk about Jesus
6:15
very much. They don't really talk about the gospel. So this is too big of a question to ask, to just
6:20
get a small kind of short answer so that we can keep the momentum going. But why does that happen
6:25
so much? Culturally, why does cultural Christianity spend so much time, you know, focusing on the
6:30
do's and don't of what a moral life is as opposed to, you know, understanding how depraved they are
6:37
and understanding how sinful they are and how they are literally irredeemable without the blood of Christ.
6:42
I know that's not a message that gets a lot of people super fired up because it's like it seems
6:47
really judgmental and really scary and really all those things. But gosh, if that's the real
6:52
message, why would Christians try to soften it? Yeah, especially when without that message,
6:57
we miss entirely who Jesus is. I think a Galatians chapter two that if righteousness comes by keeping
7:03
the law, 221, then Jesus died for nothing. He's actually saying that if we can get to God on our
7:10
own, if it's all about just our effort and our achievements and our drive, then Jesus, the cross,
7:15
was pointless. We can go in more than that. But Christmas Day is pointless. Like, it means that
7:20
nothing. There's nothing to celebrate if we can do all this on our own. So I think where we get
7:24
trapped in that is we have just created this sort of gospel message that really doesn't depend on
7:30
the work of Christ very much. So I had a seminary professor, he used to tell us, never preach a
7:36
sermon that would still be true if Jesus hadn't died and risen again. Because then it's not a
7:43
distinctly Christian sermon. So we've kind of traded it for TED Talks on inspirational living
7:50
end. And on just kind of five tips to be a better this, a better that, rather than actually holding
7:55
up Jesus who the entire Bible covered a cover is about. Ultimately, the Old Testament points us
8:01
to our need for him and do his coming. The New Testament's realization of that. We got people
8:05
who actually define our faith by Jesus. So it's easy to that being a Christian is more important
8:13
oftentimes in our society than actually believing Christian. And we have to have belief before we
8:19
can have any kind of being. And we have to be unashamed to talk about that. Yeah, I think there's a whole
8:24
lot more there towards the end. I want to kind of get into a little bit more of how the church is
8:28
the seeker sensitive style that brings a lot of people in and definitely entertains them and helps
8:32
them be better at life, but doesn't necessarily lead them to eternal life, I guess would be the
8:38
way to say it. But one of the main reasons why I wanted to have you on today is because of a book
8:41
that you wrote that was released actually in May of this year. And it's this book here,
8:44
pure why the Bible's plan for sexuality isn't outdated irrelevant or oppressive. And I didn't put
8:50
enough emphasis on that. It's why the Bible's plan for sexuality isn't as and is not outdated
8:55
irrelevant or oppressive. So just by the subtitle of the book, I was like, okay, got to talk to this
8:59
guy, because obviously we're taking a lot of our cues from culture now. But we're going to dig into
9:04
a lot of this book. But just go ahead. I love to hear it from the author's mouth. 30,000 foot view.
9:10
What is this book about? And what do you want readers to get out of it after they're done with it?
9:14
Yeah, well, there was something back in the 90s. And I was growing up, I was at high school in the 90s.
9:18
It was kind of my early forming years as a Christian that people now call purity culture. We didn't
9:23
call it that then, but now it's called that in retrospect. And it was really tied to what was
9:27
called the true love weights movement, which made this big huge effort among youth and college
9:32
students specifically, though this is their wording to save yourself was what they would call it,
9:37
for your future mates. Now, that was their language, save yourself for your future mates.
9:42
And again, I don't want to hate on anybody that's pushing people towards abstinence and sexual
9:46
purity in a Christian context. I think that's a great thing. But it was the approach and the focus
9:53
that was the issue. Looking back on it now, and I know hindsight is 20, 20, but we look back on it
9:58
now, what they really were pushing was just plain and simple. You don't want to be the one who messes
10:04
things up for the future. Like, you don't want to be the guy who won your honeymoon is doing with
10:08
all these girls and your wife and their bit with anybody before, so it's going to wreck her or vice
10:14
versa. And again, all that is worth a conversation about the effect that says can have on someone,
10:19
a month and any of those kind of things. But that's not the focus of the scriptures when it comes
10:24
to a sexual ethic. It's not, oh no, you might be the guy who messes up. Rather, the focus is God's
10:29
design. Like what God has given us and given his people to enjoy the gift of sex. So what happened
10:36
was sex kind of got painted as this bad thing. It was almost like the boogeyman. This thing
10:41
could be completely avoided because it's going to lead you to bad things. And then on the other
10:45
side of it was it created a lot of guilt and shame in people. Because all of a sudden, like,
10:51
I've already done all this. You know, I've already, you know, I've already slept with this girl at
10:54
spring break and this girlfriend and, you know, these type of things. So now I guess it doesn't
10:58
matter anymore. I can just go sort of do whatever because I've already sort of disqualified myself
11:02
or messed up or disappointed God. Well, that's not the gospel of Jesus Christ either. That's not
11:08
the focus of the Christian faith is that I already screwed up and it doesn't matter anymore. And
11:12
then it also created some sort of Pharisee culture where on the other side of the coin folks would
11:18
be like, well, you know, I've waited all this time and I've held out and I've saved myself.
11:23
So therefore I'm not going to marry some girl who hasn't. Again, where is that in the Christian
11:29
faith? So it created either a shame culture or a Pharisee kind of culture rather than just people
11:34
who believed in God's design. And we've got God's design of sex between a man and a woman who
11:39
her husband and wife is one for his glory, most importantly, but second for our good.
11:44
So that was not the equation of the conversation. It wasn't about God. It wasn't about Christ. It
11:49
wasn't about new life in the gospel. It was about don't be the one who screws up. And I just don't
11:54
see that as how God describes sexualized to us in the Bible. So I'm trying to do in the book is say,
11:58
okay, so what's happened now is people are bemoaning this whole idea of what's called purity culture.
12:03
And they're to use an over to give an overused cliche are throwing the baby out of the bathwater
12:08
and just totally filming their nose that and saying that was all bad. So let's just not talk
12:13
about sexuality. Let's not talk about ethics. That's for like the old school ultra fundamentalist
12:18
person. You just kind of do you. We're just going to mind your own business. Just don't hurt anybody.
12:22
Like, no, no, God has a clear design for sexuality. And it's because Christians in the past have
12:28
taken the wrong approach. Doesn't change the reality that God has a design for us.
12:32
So listening to that a little bit further, because right from the jump of the book,
12:36
you really start to get after the purity culture. And again, you describe it as true love weights or,
12:40
you know, at my church, it was worth the weight, all pretty much the same type of thing. And that
12:44
was, you know, 90s and early 2000s inside the church. And as I as I finished the book, Dean,
12:49
I agreed with so much stuff from this book. But but I got to be honest, right from the beginning,
12:55
I just didn't get what the big deal was with purity culture, because it seems like much of
13:00
the disdain of that movement is coming from the ex-vangelical crowd. You know, the church hurt
13:06
me crowd, which by the way, a lot of people in the church hurt me crowd. They're full of people
13:09
that are mad that their churches didn't let them sin and tell them that it was okay. You know,
13:13
I mean, you would obviously agree with that and go. Well, that's kind of where I was coming
13:18
from, where it's like, it's seeming like there's so few people that were actually damaged by the
13:22
church and those that were damaged, there needs to be some sort of retribution for them. But to be
13:26
honest, the church didn't really care what people outside the church think about what's going inside
13:31
the church. But but here's the thing, like on this on this show and in this interview, again,
13:35
we're going to get into all the stuff I agree with you on, but I'm going to start with the sticking
13:37
point, which is the overall thesis of the book. I'm open to be swayed on this, but
13:41
convince me that purity culture was a big bad mistake. Because for me, when I wore that ring,
13:46
I took it seriously. And I and I was thinking about my futurist spouse. And it was, it was at
13:51
a time when no one was really showing me or discipling me. And so the best I could do as a Christian was
13:56
to read the Bible and try my best to do things that were godly and not sinful. And that ring
14:01
was a reminder. So for me, maybe I was the exception. I don't know, but but go for it.
14:06
Yeah, no. And I so I actually agree with you on this. I would say pretty accurately. And what I'm
14:11
doing in the book is I'm saying, okay, let's say everything they say negatively about purity
14:17
culture is accurate. Just the sake of argument. That doesn't for a moment change the fact that
14:23
God has a clear design. So I was so I was willing to even like yield on some of the problems of
14:29
pretty culture. And I do believe it did create some shame culture that shouldn't have been there.
14:32
And when we're talking in the gospel context, or and I do think it did create some Pharisees
14:36
that I encountered along the way. But a purity culture meant that people like you and people
14:41
like me were saying, you know what, I really don't want to be someone who engaged in sexual
14:45
morality. And I do want to make sure the first person that I ever have a sexual issue is my spouse.
14:51
Praise God. I mean, praise God for that. I never met anyone before that's like, you know what,
14:55
I wish I would have had more sex before I got married. I never met that person before.
15:00
So I'm with you on those things. I just see there's so much pushback right now. I was just
15:06
seeing an online crowd. I don't see the average person in a church pew pushing back.
15:10
But in the online crowd, there's so much outrage. New York Times, we're in op-eds. I quote them in
15:14
the book and interact with those op-eds, bemoaning purity culture. But the context goes back to the
15:20
fact that because this was so bad in my eyes, therefore, God's sexual design is just irrelevant.
15:27
It's oppressive. It's that, and I'm going, whoa, where are you getting that from? Because some
15:31
Christians did some things you disagreed with. It means that God's design changes. That's more
15:36
the focus of the book. I just come out of the gate going, okay, let's talk about purity culture
15:41
in general. I personally am not one of those people that was scarred by it. I wasn't negatively
15:46
affected by what I'm thankful for. It actually helped me understand some of these things.
15:49
But to that point, would you say that your book or your philosophy here is almost a scaffolding
15:55
to understand how the pendulum has swung so far over to the other side?
16:00
Yes. That's what I'm trying to do. Yeah. I tried to accomplish the book as go time out.
16:04
Wait a second here. Now, look where we are. So, what's the alternative, the sexual revolution
16:09
that we've experienced over the past decade, leaving less than that? That's the alternative.
16:15
And I'm going, let's just call a huge time out here for a second and realize that Christian
16:21
culture changes all the time. God's work doesn't. And we need to talk about why it matters again
16:25
for his good and for our glory, excuse me, his glory for our good. Right, which sounds so big
16:30
it to point to this ancient book with all these fables and that's exactly how The New York Times
16:34
would couch it. But so, I appreciate you letting us dig into kind of the overall premise of the book.
16:38
But we can kind of get into some other areas because again, if you're going to talk about a book that
16:42
concerns sexual purity, you have to spend a lot of time talking about sex. And you talk about this
16:47
tremendous societal push to look at sex as it's just sex and having that mindset. And you cover
16:53
that. So I'm going to read this quote from the book here. Paul does not seem to subscribe to the
16:57
claim that all sins are equal in the eyes of God. All sin is an offense against God and requires
17:02
full atonement made possible only through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
17:05
The sexual sin seems to be differentiated here as having a unique kind of consequence.
17:11
So let's talk about that unique kind of consequence because I have been in discussions
17:15
with guys that are very, very close to me that go to the same church as me might even be in my
17:18
same Sunday school and they don't look as sexual sin as if it's any different than telling a lie.
17:24
So when they, they look at, you know, one of their friends might have a gay friend and how they're,
17:29
how they would talk to that person and basically say kind of like the Lady Gaga thing like, hey,
17:33
this is how you were made. This is how you are. This is your cross to bear or whatever. But they
17:37
don't treat it any differently. But I'm with you in terms of that quote. We don't seem to have that
17:42
out. It's the one sin that is described as being against our own bodies. It seems wholly different.
17:48
W-H-O-L-L-Y. It seems wholly different than any other of the sins that we see, right?
17:55
Yeah, and it is. And I mean, there's reason, I don't know where we got the whole idea that all
17:58
sins are equal. Like who came up with that? Let like back in Christian jargon, lingo kind of history.
18:04
We see that's totally, in the book of James, it says that controlling your tongue is like
18:09
more difficult than anything else. Like what you say, how hard that, it's different than other
18:14
things. And in sexuality, we see, like you mentioned, that it's actually sitting against our bodies.
18:20
So all sins are equal in the fact that they all require the death of Jesus, right? For us to be
18:25
forgiven. Like every single sin we commit would separate us from God, right? So they're all equal
18:30
in that sense. But where it's not the same is here is we're talking about sexuality. We see
18:35
the storyline of sex in the Bible referred to from Genesis towards till we see it in Ephesians
18:42
chapter five, Jesus and Matthew 19, Paul and 1 Corinthians 6, all talking about this thing called
18:48
one flesh, a one flesh union. That's really important to understand. Now one flesh is more
18:55
than sex, but it's definitely not less. So in Adam and Eve came together, it was sexually,
19:00
they became one flesh. They were united together. That actually points us ultimately as a visible
19:06
portrait of the invisible reality of our oneness with Christ. Like our union with Christ, a really
19:12
important Christian doctrine, for our listeners who are here in theology, that union with Christ
19:16
is a really important doctrine of the Christian faith. We're one with the Lord of those who've been
19:20
saved and forgiven of their sins and made new in Christ. So when in 1 Corinthians 6, when there's
19:25
the Corinthian believers are engaging in temple prostitution. So actual believers who were sinning
19:31
and got caught up in the culture around them and in their culture, one of the things to do was to
19:35
get on the temple and engage in prostitution. Paul does not give him this lecture on why they
19:41
shouldn't do prostitution. He doesn't say things like it's demeaning to women. It's a pagan ritual
19:46
in that context that maybe it's unhealthy. Instead, he says, don't you know that when you lie with
19:54
her, you become one flesh with her. As in you are engaged in this permanent thing with a temporary
20:02
person, you're taking something that was designed to create oneness, not just a feeling or a sexual
20:08
desire satisfaction, but to create, you know, that's part of it, but a oneness with that person.
20:14
So you're taking this out of the design. So when we sin sexually, what we're doing in the Bible's
20:19
eyes is we're taking this one flesh union that God has created for male and female
20:25
to be husband and wife and placing it in a context that is temporary. And that's a whole lot different
20:32
deal when it comes to our sin. Yeah. And I think that that again for me is kind of with the whole
20:37
purity culture thing, it was a great thing to know because I don't know that I would have known
20:42
otherwise, Dean, without the teachings of the worth the weight thing and, you know, kind of learning
20:47
the do's and don'ts. And like, I had a reverence that you could maybe even call it a fear of the
20:52
sex act because, you know, growing up as a knucklehead non-Christian, you're just like,
20:55
well, I wonder if that's a girl I'm going to first have sex with. And I wonder, do I need to have
20:58
sex now and all my my friends are having it? Or do I wait? Does it does it come later? Do I have to
21:03
get a job first? Like, you ask yourself all these dumb questions because you just don't have the
21:07
scaffolding with which to, you know, differentiate what's a good way of looking at things and what's
21:10
a bad way to looking at things. And a lot of it, Dean comes from the father of lies, like he's,
21:14
you know, prowling around like a lion looking for someone to devour. And so you spend a huge chunk
21:19
of the book going over lies. And you specifically have seven lies that you take us through. And we're
21:24
not going to go through all these, we're going to go through some of them. But the lies are number
21:27
one, sex is expected. Number two, marriage is a capstone, not a cornerstone. Number three,
21:32
porn is the norm. Number four, gay is okay. Number five, my bedroom is my business. Number six,
21:38
nobody has to know. And number seven, cohabitation just makes sense. So let's go back to line number
21:43
two. And that's marriage is a capstone, not a cornerstone. So I'll read this quote here. The
21:48
secular view of marriage in our day is the exact opposite to the world marriage is a capstone,
21:53
not a cornerstone. Once you finish your master's degree, travel, save money, and maybe even buy
21:58
a house or spend living in your or spend time living in your dream city, then sure, if you really
22:03
want to get married, we are seeing a generation of well-meaning Christians buy into this life plan.
22:09
I think you're absolutely right, Dean. Like we're looking at this as like, okay, this is what comes
22:13
after I get myself established and established is always this moving target. And then that, you
22:19
know, has downstream consequences. Okay, now you're trying to start your marriage in your early 30s.
22:23
You're trying to start expanding that family in your mid to late 30s. Then you're having issues
22:28
getting pregnant. You're having to go through all these other different issues. That's because you
22:32
needed to establish yourself. And then you kind of miss some biological windows. So talk to us a
22:36
little bit about that cultural lie of marriage is a capstone, not a cornerstone. Yeah, and I'm not
22:41
shaming anybody who's single because simply haven't met someone yet or based on their face of life.
22:46
What I'm saying is marriage was never designed by God to be something we built our lives towards.
22:53
It was something we were to build our lives from. So that's the cornerstone versus capstone
22:58
kind of example there and usage of the words that I put together. So what's happening now is we're
23:03
being told, yeah, get married once you save up enough money, do everything you've wanted to do,
23:09
live together for a while to see if you're compatible physically and socially, right? And then and only
23:15
then if all those things work out, then sure, yeah, they should probably eventually get married
23:18
once you're ready to settle down, whatever settle down even means, where what we're saying is all
23:23
those things are more important than God's design. We're also saying that things like, you know,
23:29
financial stability, you know, our degrees, education, bucket list, check off, career establishment,
23:38
that all those things are more important than sexual immorality because we're told in the
23:44
scriptures that because of sexual morality, first Corinthians seven, that we should get married.
23:48
But that's not the reason you get married, but it's the reason why you don't delay marriage. So we
23:52
have this thing we've created called dating. Dating's not a bad thing. I don't know everybody knows
23:57
what dating is. Dating's not a bad thing. It's just not in the Bible. It doesn't make it bad. It just
24:02
makes it neutral. So when we don't have the scriptures to describe for us what dating is,
24:07
then we have to make up the rules. And we let the world influence us more on dating than the Bible
24:13
actually has. I wasn't talking about it. But in our culture, dating's how you meet someone. So I'm not,
24:17
I think, yes, date, yes, going dates and have a girlfriend and boyfriend, those kind of things,
24:21
just know that God's design for us was never dating. It was for that dating to move somewhere
24:28
and not towards sleeping together towards marriage. Right? I'm not saying on the third day you got to
24:33
have some like intense conversation and you're going to freak somebody out. What I'm saying instead
24:38
is dating just to date was never really the design. If we're going to pursue the opposite sex,
24:42
we should pursuing them for this capstone institution, or this cornerstone that's
24:46
institution God's given us called marriage. Well, what's funny about the example you just
24:50
used Dean is I had a guy DM me like a week or two ago. Early twenties, he has this gal that he's
24:56
going to have to travel. It's going to be kind of a long distance relationship thing, but he really
24:59
is connecting with her and all those things. And the very first piece of advice I gave him was like,
25:04
bro, you need to have some serious conversations right from the jump, right? Because they're like,
25:08
that's a lot of gas money. And that's a lot of time and effort. And what you don't want to do
25:12
is kind of tip toe past the graveyard for six months to a year fall deeply in love or lust with
25:17
this person and then start having those adult conversations and realize y'all are completely
25:22
different. Like she's very, very conservative. You're very, very liberal. Like she wants to have
25:26
a whole bunch of kids. You've never even thought about having kids. She wants to have a career.
25:30
You want her to stay home. I was like, bro, those are great conversations that you can tactfully
25:34
and tastefully have early on a relationship. But you're so right, Dean. And I never even really
25:38
thought about it. And so I read your book. Yeah, there really is no historical, like, you know,
25:43
time period of dating. That's why I thought, you know, the book that you talked about from the
25:47
beginning where it's like, I kissed dating to buy and we did courtship. It's like, well, that seems
25:51
to make sense. But that that had its own issues whenever you kind of bring that into the conversation.
25:55
So that is an interesting thing, especially for parents. If you're trying to model something
25:59
for your children or kind of give them something that you should push themselves to,
26:02
there's not a whole lot of help in the scriptures about the specifics of dating. But there are a lot
26:06
of things. And you make this point a lot about what overall sexual morality and godly sex
26:12
is, which is a good way to, you know, deal with porn, which is the line number three. But I do
26:16
want to go and get into line number four or go ahead, Dean. Yeah, I want to add to that that.
26:19
It's also important for Christian parents to not be the ones who are keeping their adult kids
26:27
from moving towards godliness would do without even meaning to their short memories sometimes.
26:34
They forget that they got married when they were 23, right? And then their thought was, oh, it was
26:39
so hard. And by that it usually means we didn't have very much money. Right. That's not a requirement
26:44
to get married. Can you pay your next month's rent? Okay. Like it's okay to work from that,
26:50
build your life from that. No one at age 23, I shouldn't say no one. Very few people at age 23
26:56
have what they had, have what they now have at 53. And that's okay. Like we build towards those
27:03
things and marriage is a great way to build that. So the parents are unknowingly actually pointing
27:09
their kids towards cohabitation by refusing to bless and encourage marriage. Now I agree. And
27:15
we're going to get into cohabitation because you're one of the few people I've heard kind of talk
27:18
about this and certainly elucidated out in the text. But the conversation legitimately starts
27:23
before that, Dean, like the conversation of like what you should do if you're early in your 20s
27:27
and you want to get married. A lot of kids are not doing that because they've ran up six figures of
27:31
student loan debt. Well, there should have been some adult conversations well before that time
27:35
period where it's like, Hey, maybe don't just go to the most expensive university in the state.
27:40
And I have any idea what you're going to study. And then you're a junior and you've changed your
27:44
major three times. Like maybe this isn't a good idea. A lot of adult conversations were missed
27:48
on the way to that one where you're like, yeah, I guess y'all should go ahead and cohabitate.
27:52
But we'll get there here in the discussion because I do want to talk about line number four.
27:55
And that's gay is okay. So I want to read a quote here from the book. I believe there are two primary
27:59
types of churches that have departed from traditional biblical teaching on the matter.
28:03
Those who explicitly support it and those who implicitly support it by refusing to address it.
28:09
And a little bit later in that chapter, you actually give that latter group a name. So back to the
28:13
book here, the second category of church, which I've dubbed the MC Hammer church is growing innovative,
28:19
young trendy has an amazing band and an A list communicator and stays upbeat by following the
28:25
unspoken rule. Can't touch this. What do they believe about homosexuality? They won't say you
28:31
can't touch that. And so the thing about this Dean is I'm very critical of a lot of these big
28:36
churches that are exactly as you describe that beautiful buildings, the communicators are amazing.
28:40
The music is incredible, but they never tackle tough issues. Specifically, there's a church here
28:46
in my community. When I was talking with with some of those people, I was like, Hey, why doesn't the
28:49
pastor ever touch? And I was specifically talking about gay marriage and homosexuality.
28:54
And the person from the staff was just like, yeah, they don't want to be needlessly offensive. And
28:57
I was like, needlessly offensive. You mean like saying things that would make a mob want to come
29:02
after them and kill them, which is what Jesus did seemingly on a regular basis, which is what the
29:06
apostles seemingly did on a regular basis. So talk to me a little bit more about these MC Hammer
29:11
churches that are literally raising up a flock of people that think homosexuality is okay. And
29:17
yeah, all those scriptures that say it's not, well, that's just outdated. That was a couple of thousand
29:21
years ago. Yeah, well, our churches that just deny it all together, that just deny that that
29:27
homosexuality is sinful. My response is kind of like, okay, thank you. You showed your cards. We
29:31
know who you are. You know, and that's not it. And that's not even a homosexuality issue. It's a
29:35
Bible issue. There's a whole other thing. There's all kinds of stuff they don't believe, right? So
29:40
that's like, okay, thank you. You're willing to need to like, you're not even in the conversation,
29:43
like you're on it. You're, you might be a different religion than us, right? Because there's so many
29:47
things you don't believe. The MC Hammer can't touch this church's. What's troubling there is
29:52
that they oftentimes would affirm what the Bible says about marriage and sexuality.
29:58
They're just allowing the idol of people's opinions, of approval, of church numbers,
30:03
of voting conflict. They're letting that win out of what the Bible actually says. And what I have
30:10
learned from conversations with people who would identify as homosexual, gay, lesbian,
30:16
et cetera, is they have less respect for those kind of churches. They do a church like I pastor,
30:24
a large church, but we're very clear on homosexuality. Because they say, hey, at least we know what
30:29
you believe so we can choose that to be a part of your church. I'm like, well, I wish you would
30:33
visit our church, but I get it. Okay, I understand. So where I really went, where I really shook my
30:37
head and went, man, this is a problem, was we had someone leave our church. I hadn't seen her in a
30:42
while. And I ran to her at a coffee shop and it had been, you know, several months, and I reached
30:46
out to her, tried to, never could connect. And I started a coffee shop and I was like, hey,
30:49
I haven't seen you in a long time. What happened? And she said, well, you know, I came out. And I
30:55
she said, you know, I'm saying such a track did and I have a partner now. And I was just like, okay,
31:00
I said, so are you just like not in church anywhere? And she's like, no, no, I'm still going to church.
31:04
And she mentioned the church she went to. They're new church. And I looked there and I said,
31:08
and I didn't mean to, but I laughed a little bit. And she kind of gave me a what's so funny look.
31:12
And I said, I'm sorry. I said, it's just such, you know, that that church, I'm friends with the
31:15
pastor, like I know him pretty well. Don't you know, they believe the exact same things about that,
31:20
that they like our church and their church believe the exact same things about homosexuality.
31:27
And she was like shocked by that, like, trying to argue. I'm like, go ask him. Like, he will tell you.
31:32
And she wound up leaving there and going to this very liberal historian church as a result of that.
31:35
But she was more upset about them than she was about us, because she at least knew what we believed.
31:41
And here's the thing that we need to make sure we're clear on. And that's that God's design for
31:46
sexuality is the exact same for a married heterosexual man like myself, for a single heterosexual man,
31:55
as it is for a same-sex attracted man. And that is that sex is not for ready people or in love
32:01
people or attracted people or mature people. It's for married people. And that God has defined
32:07
marriage clearly as being a man and a woman and a lifelong covenant as husband and wife.
32:12
And where I tell our church regularly when we talk about this is I'll say, guys, if we can believe
32:17
the Bible when it tells us that Jesus rose from the grave, like what we celebrate, not just on
32:24
Easter Sunday, but year round, like, and we actually can believe the Bible for this, we can believe the
32:29
Bible when it tells us God's design for marriage. And we're letting the emotion and relationships
32:35
out of me sensitive to that. I mean, who wants to be able to beg it? Who wants to be, you know,
32:40
disliked by their siblings? I mean, or are you, I get all that. But we're, but we're, I think,
32:45
kind of starting to find out what it looks like for the first time in America to live out when Jesus
32:51
said, if you love your own family more than me, you cannot be my disciple. So we affirm what God
32:58
is clearly forbidden. That's what we're doing. And we've got to be really careful about that.
33:02
Well, and Dean, here's the other thing is if someone's calling you a bigot and the thing you're not
33:06
thing you're doing is not bigoted, tell them to go pound sand, ignore them. Like, so many Christians
33:11
just melt and wilt between, you know, the pressure from people, they're getting it worked. I want
33:16
them to put their pronouns and their email signature and the people online that don't spend, you know,
33:21
a whole paragraph telling them how great they are because they posted a scripture online. It's like,
33:25
guys, the world is going to hate you. Don't you know that? Like, but one of the things that I like in
33:30
this is just a quick quote from that chapter before we move on to the next lie, which is,
33:34
we are all loved by God and we are all called to repent of our sin, not label ourselves by it.
33:40
And now, Dean, we live in a culture where we love labeling ourselves and shouting our sin. It's
33:46
shout your abortion. And it's no longer, Hey, let me and my friend do what we want in our bedroom
33:51
and whatever and you stay out of that. Now it's you need to watch us make out in public and cheer us
33:55
on or you're a bigot. If you don't post a black square during George Floyd summer, you're a racist,
34:00
like that that's a culture that we currently live in. But that gets into lie number five,
34:04
which is my bedroom is my business. Okay. Now, in this chapter, you discuss Mark Driscoll.
34:08
Now, here's the funny thing about Mark Driscoll. Just about every time now that I'm invited to
34:13
come speak on someone else's show, they apparently see a lot of my Mark Driscoll-ish stuff in my
34:19
personality and in my presentation. And so they like to ask me questions about that. They kind of
34:23
combine us and look at us at the same and all those things. And here's the thing. Obviously,
34:27
there have been entire podcasts done. There are 20 hours worth of stuff. So if you hate
34:31
Mark Driscoll or people that are like Mark Driscoll, there's a ton of stuff out there. A bunch of
34:36
blogs have been written that hate that guy and will give you a hundred reasons to continue hating
34:40
that guy. But I know that he made some comments publicly when he was writing about sexual relations
34:46
with one spouse. Some people thought they were vulgar. They were distasteful. Some loved them.
34:51
It is what it is. But in your book, you get into a specific there. So I want to touch on that here.
34:55
So here's a quote. In 2006, after evangelical Ted Haggard had caught or was caught with male
35:01
prostitutes, Driscoll took to the internet to comment that quote, it is not uncommon to meet
35:06
pastor's wives who really let themselves go. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually
35:10
available to her husband is not responsible for her husband's sin. But but she may not be helping
35:16
him either. Unquote. So here's the thing with this team. I super duper agree with that sentiment.
35:24
And that may get me in trouble. And people may not like that. They may turn off the show. That's
35:27
fine. But I agree with that sentiment because I've seen a lot of guys that obviously will remain
35:33
nameless where they did all they needed to do during the dating period or the courting period
35:37
to get this woman, you know, proving to them, look, I can protect you. I can provide for you all of
35:42
that. And the girl did all the things she could to make sure that he was attracted to her and wanted
35:47
to do those things for her. And then as soon as she got the bag, right, as soon as you know,
35:52
she got the ring or whatever, all of a sudden she's gaining weight, like clockwork, she's not
35:57
presenting herself well in public, became kind of slovenly or sloppy in her interpersonal life.
36:03
And the guy is just supposed to, I guess, accept that. And the thing is, is that woman then turns
36:08
around and is shocked when her man that she is completely rejecting sexually, looks at pornography,
36:14
checks out women in public, goes and has an affair. And all those things are terrible. And none of
36:19
the guys listening to this should go out and do those sinful things. But to pretend that there
36:24
wasn't a bunch of pressure put on that guy from his wife and to completely absolve her of all that,
36:29
I find that to be a little bit ridiculous. So help me kind of understand your perspective there.
36:34
Yeah, I want to make sure first and foremost that I made it known that like the person when
36:38
there's an affair, it's always the person's fault who had the affair period. Sure, but we don't pass
36:44
our sin on someone else. We've that's just we should Christian should reject that whole harder
36:48
leader. Well, I just had an affair because she's gained 30 pounds or she never we never sleep
36:53
together. She's always tired. And I would go sign that as well. And I just want to say it is that
36:59
is always, and I think a lot of women need to hear that because they've been felt like they've
37:02
been shamed before for husbands affairs, things such as that. And we had to reject that whole
37:06
heartedly. I do believe the scriptures are clear though. In 1st Corinthians 7, we see that you should
37:12
actually like part of the marriage responsibility, you know, is to make sure because so you need to
37:17
want to be tempted that sexual intimacy is a part of the equation of your marriage.
37:22
So the person who refuses to have sex with their spouse, I don't mean, again, I just
37:28
still I do believe that there can be rape and marriage. I do believe that it can be assault
37:31
marriage. Always consent, always, always, always, always consent. But the fact but not even a but.
37:36
However, the person who refuses to ever like in any kind of regular practice of being sexually
37:44
intimate with their spouse, I think that person is actually neglecting their marital duties.
37:48
So I think that needs to be talked about more. That's sex in marriage. We talk about sex. We
37:53
we talk about premarital sex. We talk about extramarital sex. We don't talk enough about
37:58
actual marital sex, which is what God's great design is. Like part of marriage is that the
38:02
one flesh union I said earlier is more than sex, but it's not less. So I want to encourage people
38:07
out there to take that seriously in your marriage. If there's trauma or any kind of, you know,
38:11
whatever it could be that's keeping you from doing that, get the help you need for yourself.
38:15
They're also for your spouse because and also God has created men with strong sexual desires.
38:21
That does not mean that women are to be used because that they're to participate with their
38:24
husbands and the expression of that because where God has given us to carry that out is marriage.
38:30
So I do absolutely believe that no one should be shocked if they're having serious marriage
38:36
issues that causes someone else to be completely discontent and almost feel it to have one foot
38:41
out the door when there is no sexual intimacy in the marriage. I want to encourage people
38:46
that are living that right now refuse, however, to give it a sexual morality. You know, Paul said
38:51
flee from sexual morality. Make that real in your life, flee from it. But if you're feeling tempted,
38:56
you need to have some serious conversations with your spouse about what it looks like now to carry
39:00
that out in the context of your relationship. Like kind of like a what's missing, what do we need
39:04
to talk about? And then yeah, I appreciate that sentiment. And just to be clear as well,
39:09
I'm obviously not absolving any men that choose to do things. If you choose to look at porn and
39:13
masturbate, like that is not your wife's fault. I'm just merely pointing out that when the wife is
39:17
doing nothing to come towards you, I understand why guys do that. Like, you know, depending upon
39:22
your life experiences, you, you wouldn't cosign somebody doing something sinful, but you at least
39:27
understand it more. You're like, yeah, I get why that person did that thing considering their
39:31
circumstances. They shouldn't have it sinful and they need to repent of that. But I get it. And
39:35
overall, I think that this kind of leads to this, this last thing that you kind of teed up a little
39:39
bit earlier. And so last lie will go over, which is lie number seven, cohabitation just makes sense.
39:45
So we've heard this a lot. Okay. And you know, I've even talked to some of my friends that are a
39:48
little bit more secular and they were living with their girlfriends before they got married.
39:51
And I would throw things out there like, yeah, you know, that divorce rates are actually higher
39:55
for people that, you know, are living together before they get married. And you talk about that
39:59
a little bit in the chapter, but I want to read this quote and then let you talk about it a little
40:02
bit further. Where are you going on your honeymoon, your bedroom? That's what a friend of mine said
40:08
to his adult daughter when she got engaged after five years of cohabitating with her boyfriend.
40:12
Even once engaged, she had no wedding date in sight. When you already have many of the benefits
40:17
of marriage without the commitment, what's the rush? So from my perspective, Dean, obviously,
40:22
I think there are a lot of fully grown up boys. Some people would call them men that they love
40:27
cohabitation because they get to have the sex, they get to have someone, you know, clean up
40:30
their dirty laundry and do all those different things. They're in no rush to buy a ring.
40:34
And then when they get the ring, they're in no rush to set the date. They're in no rush.
40:38
Why would they? Why would they be? Yeah, like it doesn't make any sense.
40:41
You're getting all the benefits without the potential of having to give up half your crap.
40:45
You know, if things don't quite work out and then people are shocked whenever these people that,
40:49
you know, test drove the car for all these years, end up trading it in for a younger model down the
40:54
road. So go on and cohabitation a little bit further. Yeah, it's a fake commitment.
40:57
I think it if not for Christians, I mean, it's again, there's two different conversations here.
41:02
I don't expect an unbeliever to agree with me on cohabitation, right? The Christian life is
41:08
foolishness to them. Now, we do have data just for their own personal human flourishing. Like you
41:12
mentioned, that divorce is more likely statistically. That's a research fact of those who cohabitate
41:18
first. So just for their own sake, you know, we care about that for them as just people. But for
41:22
Christians, this is this should be unthinkable. Like it is having the benefits of marriage
41:27
without the commitment and covenant of marriage. And as Christians, just be living to stink lives
41:31
that point to our distinct God, just be not conformed to the patterns this world. And I can't
41:35
think of anything that's more the patterns this world right now than the idea of cohabitation.
41:40
It's almost like living together is the new engagement. And even friends will celebrate it,
41:45
like it's some kind of milestone in their life. You know, it's like, oh, I'm so happy for you.
41:48
You're living and moving in together. And it's really almost like a next step on the dating sphere.
41:52
And we just have to reject that holy as Christians. But also, I think the church needs to step up too.
41:58
And one, be afraid to be unafraid to have those conversations of friends that are doing that,
42:03
and to help them and offer them to get really to relieve the excuses they're making.
42:10
Because almost every single time they're going to point to finances.
42:13
Right. It just makes sense financially. But then why does it make sense to get married?
42:19
So if we're really serious about following Jesus, and we're actually going to pick up our cross
42:22
and follow Christ, and it's talking to the men here, especially the men that are claiming to be
42:27
following Jesus, we're actually going to be godly men. It's not about how much we flex. It's about
42:32
how much we also treat our sisters in Christ. So before that person you're living with in a
42:36
cohabitation relationship is your girlfriend or your fiance, they're first your sister in Christ.
42:41
So how are you leading as a man in that example, claiming to be a Christian of modeling this for
42:47
them as the norm? And then when you're own kids, I guess you're going to be fine with that. If you're
42:52
raising your kids in a Christian home, what are you going to say when they make that decision?
42:56
If you as a believer, you as a redeem believer in Jesus Christ are saying, God, no thanks,
43:01
I don't want you when it comes to someone what I want. I think there's going to be gained by
43:05
disobeying you, there's been gained by obeying you. That lie goes back to the Garden of Eden.
43:09
I just think we have to say I'm going to do whatever it takes to make sure that we're living a holy
43:14
life and not at a legalism, but out of gratitude to God and believing in his design and also out of
43:19
love and respect and care for your girlfriend or fiance. I'm not going to be someone who uses them
43:24
for the benefits of marriage. We're not giving them the covenant and the commitment of marriage.
43:28
Those two things have to go together in God's kingdom.
43:31
Yeah, guys, again, the name of the book is pure. It'll be in the show notes so you guys can go
43:35
and check that out. But before we let you go, I do want to kind of get into some other things.
43:38
And we talked about this a little bit off air, but just the overall idea of a man-friendly church
43:43
so I've spent a lot of time talking about this, thinking about this, telling other people about it
43:48
because the modern church loves to lament the fact that men don't show up. That women show up
43:54
without their husbands and the kids are there, but the dads don't volunteer and all these different
43:58
things. But gosh, we did that once a year, men's chili cook off. And I thought that that would be
44:04
good enough. And I keep talking to people and I'm trying to spread the message of it. It's not
44:08
about men's programming. It's about making your church man friendly. It's about making
44:12
the music appealing to the man, possibly saying where you put it in a key that they can actually
44:18
sing, talking about Jesus, not just as the Lamb of God, but also the Lion of Judah,
44:23
understanding that there are two parts to his personality, but he is wholly both of those things.
44:28
And also appealing to the righteousness and justice, which are typically things that would
44:32
appeal to a masculine heart and spirit as opposed to the feminine heart and spirit.
44:36
And also, when you see a very, very man-friendly church, Dean, one of the things that you don't
44:40
seize, you don't see just a bunch of oppressed women, right, that are walking around with bonnets
44:44
on, right? You know, it's not one of those situations. The kids aren't walking around terrified of
44:49
their overzealous totalitarian father, you know, raining down judgment on them and, you know,
44:53
taking scripture out of context in order to do so. You see the right ordering of things. You see
44:59
godly men that are catacizing their children that are leading their wives and it is a healthy,
45:05
godly situation. But most churches are not focused on that. They're focused on getting as many people
45:10
into the door as possible, make sure that they're giving so that they continue to continue to keep
45:14
the lights on and potentially launch another campus. So talk to me a little bit about man-friendly
45:19
churches. What have you thought about that? What have you even done at your own church to ensure
45:22
that that's something that's a reality? Yeah, I think it starts in the pulpit. You know, we need
45:26
a pastor that goes up there and actually does real talk. You know, it just kind of spares the
45:31
bullcrap. And I may, I might get mad at you for a second because you called them out. You know,
45:35
you're not directly calling them out, but they feel called out because something you talked about,
45:39
but they're going to respect that down the road. And sometimes it takes a dude talking to a dude,
45:44
right, to actually get through to a guy. I know I'm like, I need a guy to get my face sometimes.
45:47
I'm not going to yell and scream at you, but I'm going to speak straight. I'm going to speak
45:50
direct. I'm not going to sugarcoat things. I'm not going to paint God as a magic fairy in the sky.
45:55
You know, so, but I do think it's important also for men that we realize that our affections,
46:00
that's actually a good word, are supposed to grow, you know, are supposed to grow for God.
46:04
I don't think that comes from a key change or, you know, a nice little poem. I think that comes
46:08
from more of the scriptures. The more we know who God is, the more we're going to grow in our love
46:13
for God, right? We love because he first loved us. So I think we just got to point men over and
46:17
over again to the good news of the gospel. And when it comes to church, actually had them in mind.
46:22
When I write a sermon, I'm usually thinking about men who were there that day. And so,
46:26
and then I also want our lyrics to be about Christ, like to actually lift up the name of Jesus about
46:32
who he is, about what he's done and to sing songs that actually grow our affections for Jesus,
46:38
not because he got presented as our boyfriend, but because he got presented as our Messiah,
46:43
right? As the crucified King who's risen and is coming again, you know, I can't think anything
46:48
more exciting than that. So let's let the gospel drive that and let's not take our cue from Christian
46:55
radio. Because Christian radio, you know who Christian radio is marketed to? You're basic,
47:00
like kind of middle-aged mom. And praise God from middle-aged moms, right? I want to be a church for
47:04
them too. But they're coming anyways, right? Women are going to church anyways. So I don't want to
47:11
take my cues from like top 40 poppy Christian radio on what we should do in our worship services.
47:16
Instead, I'd rather sing from the Bible. I'd rather sing great truth to the scriptures than
47:20
do some kind of poppy jazzy, you know, Jesus is my buddy, you know, kind of song that makes the guy
47:24
go, "Oh my gosh, what are we singing right now?" It's basically Christian radio right now, right?
47:28
So I do think it primarily comes from the pulpit. Real talk, straight talk, talking to dudes,
47:34
thinking about God. I mean, I'm a football coach. I mean, I'm this guy, like, I don't identify with
47:40
all the kind of feminine ideas of Christianity and God. I just can't really relate to those kind of
47:44
things. I can relate though to the the one who died for my sins and rose again. So let's make him
47:50
the deal and point men and confront them with the reality of who Jesus is and what that means for
47:55
all of our lives. So that's kind of how I think about men in church. Well, Dean, one thing that I
48:00
see and you talked about kind of the Ted Talkie church and the, you know, the life skills church
48:04
and all that, the seeker sensitive model is it seems like people are, these churches are setting
48:09
the bar so incredibly low, right? So, you know, we're going to sing four songs, but one of them is
48:14
going to be a secular song that we're going to sing from this Christian stage because we want you
48:18
to feel comfortable. We're not really going to challenge you in the sermon, right? We're not really
48:22
going to push back on your own personal decisions because we want to make sure that you come back.
48:25
Like we want to make sure that you bring other friends that are just like you. And then if you,
48:29
even if you were to get saved in a church like that, which is somewhat dubious depending on the
48:32
church, but even if you, you get saved in a situation like that, you're going to spend so much time
48:37
just every week coming back to get your fix because it's spiritual Skittles, right? You're not getting
48:42
any meat. You're not getting any of that sustenance that you need. I guess the question I would have
48:46
is why do you see so many churches setting the bar so low? Because they bought into this idea that
48:51
if we make the barrier or entry so low, a ton of people will come in. They're right in that a ton
48:56
of people will come through the door of your facility, but they're wrong in terms of people
49:01
coming through the door and being one with Christ, like kind of being saved by the blood of Christ
49:06
rather is a better way of saying it. And so like if you're actually teaching and preaching the gospel,
49:11
you're demanding that people change everything and irrevocably change their entire lives.
49:17
But talk to me a little bit about that low bar approach.
49:20
Yeah. Well, here's what I've seen in the whole secret sensitive idea. There's a dirty little
49:24
secret here and this might sound a little harsh or controversial, but I really believe this.
49:28
And that is that they bill it as all these unbelievers are coming because of X because we're doing this.
49:36
When really it's mostly just D church people who didn't like you didn't like church before
49:42
and now they're older and they want church to feel cool to feel lighter to feel more casual as so
49:50
they're really drawing in people that just want an easier church experience for themselves.
49:54
They can hear their TED talk, have their coffee and we serve coffee, my anti-coffee,
49:57
but that's how about the experience. Hear their TED talk, listen to a couple songs,
50:01
notice I didn't say sing, listen to a couple songs, take their coffee and go home.
50:05
So what I've noticed is the unbelievers though, they think all the things that the
50:09
seeker sensitive churches try to do, they actually think it's cheesy.
50:12
Like they think it's weird that we've made mistakes before trying in our early days of the church,
50:17
just trying to be all that and trying to do too much things. We just said that's
50:20
almost like kind of repented of honestly as we grew up and matured was we would think oh if we do
50:25
this then the unbelievers that came is going to think it's great. When we realized the unbeliever
50:30
thinks it's weird it didn't expect to come in and sing a secular song at a church service.
50:34
Right. Now the D church person's like oh our church is so cool we sing this and we do that
50:38
the unbeliever hadn't cared about that kind of stuff and they're an unbeliever in my life who's
50:42
like man I heard they have a great band let's go to church tomorrow. They're lost they don't care
50:46
about that. They can go see a great band at any concert hall and these are professional musicians
50:53
you know what I mean? Oh better yeah so yeah so so I just think it's kind of an urban legend
50:57
that these things work to attract unbelievers. I don't know an unbeliever who would go to church
51:02
for any reason outside of being invited by a friend invited by a trusted friend so I think
51:07
that we need to just kind of reevaluate when they come to actually expect when I go to a taco
51:11
restaurant I expect to eat tacos. Right. You know so when you even remember I know very much about
51:17
church they maybe they're even been before maybe when they're a little kid they went and got their
51:21
Catholic christening or something like that but they actually expect to hear about God and to
51:26
have an actual what they thought church was like so let's actually give that to them.
51:30
Well and it's like Dean it's like they're trying so hard to be just like the culture
51:36
that hates and rejects them. Right it's because they've kind of placed themselves downstream of the
51:41
culture so that's why they dress like the culture they talk like the culture they play like the
51:45
culture they preach like the culture they do all those different things but then they've forgotten
51:50
the entire point which is that they are supposed to be the salt right and if salt loses its saltiness
51:57
then it's not a preservative anymore. So it's different. Yeah it's supposed to be different.
52:01
Now Dean we've talked about a lot of things in this conversation we'll make this the last
52:04
question of the day because I'm going to go back to something that you said in terms of your sermon
52:08
content. You said that you have your men in mind the men of your congregation in mind when you're
52:13
preparing your sermon. Now we're going to leave the TED Talk churches aside because what they do
52:18
is they decide which life skill they want to focus on that month they build out a four-part
52:22
series and then they sprinkle Bible verses over the top of it so that they can still get the taxes
52:26
and status. That's all it is. Right right and so um which I you know I'm okay with life lessons but
52:32
we should be we should be dealing with the Scripture that's what your flock needs but most
52:36
preachers and teachers seemingly are just like okay we're going to go through this book of the
52:41
Bible and then I'm just going to walk right through it and I'm just going to do a sermon that I think
52:45
is good and we'll just kind of go with it but they're not necessarily thinking about the men
52:49
inside the congregation and some of the best men that I know of that do preach from the pulpit
52:54
they are constantly thinking about the men as they're kind of deciding what the future or the
52:59
direction that they're going to be blazing as a church as they as they go to to God through prayer
53:04
for supplication and direction and all those different things they're thinking about the men
53:08
in their church that are going to be the ones that are digging the trenches for battle or the ones
53:13
storming the gates of hell like those are the types of men in the pastors that I can really really
53:17
get behind so for you specifically why do you focus so much on the men and then what would be
53:22
your message to other pastors listening to this to encourage them to do the same. You know I'm
53:25
trying to reach my friends so I'm thinking about not just men but these specific guys you know that
53:31
they're finally coming to church so I'm going to invite it just bothers me how many women I see
53:36
who are married show up without their husbands and I praise God they're coming I think I actually
53:40
take some courage walking church by yourself when everyone knows you're married you're there by
53:43
yourself I mean one week because somebody's out of town but like consistent every single week so
53:47
what I've learned is that oftentimes the women want you to speak to the men because they want their
53:53
husbands to lead they want their husbands to be godly right they want their husbands to model
53:58
Christ in the home so they're going yes please like talk about these things so I'm also talking to
54:02
myself too because I'm a guy right obviously but but also I understand that I'm prone to certain
54:07
things as a guy and I have certain temptations and I you know believe lies in my head about what
54:11
it means to be a man and not be a man I let the world influence me so I'm speaking to myself too
54:15
so I'm thinking okay what what is my what do I need to hear as well as my friends and I think
54:20
part of the pastors out there I think being a part of the regular rhythms and life of your city
54:26
being rooted in your town where you actually have friends that you if you're a sports guy go watch
54:31
football with and go to games with or have guys that you go you know I'll do your crossfit with
54:35
whatever it could be that you're actually connected to men so you know what's going on in the lives
54:40
of men you're just as hard to preach to a target audience so not by audience I don't mean that we
54:45
as consumers I mean like just like heroes you know it's hard it's hard to speak to that if you don't
54:48
know them if you don't know what's going on the life of men so I would say try to find ways to
54:53
immerse yourself and what's going on with other men in your community that's coaching link baseball
54:57
you know but whatever it could be like just be engaged and see what's going on and that will
55:01
allow you to think about this so I rise to that right of sermon I'm actually thinking about them
55:04
my friends in my mind as I'm ready my sermon I'd encourage anyone to do that I certainly appreciate
55:10
that Dean you've allowed us to go into a lot of different areas you even you know took my push back
55:14
on the book well I really appreciate you elucidating your point of view a little bit further but that's
55:18
all for me is there anything else you want to get off your chest yeah I love what you're doing I
55:21
love this podcast thanks for having me as a guest and guys that are listening I was honestly
55:24
men but men out there like following jesus is worth it it is worth it so let's go all in together
55:29
that's a great place to leave it Dean and Sarah thank you for coming on on dawn to life a man's
55:33
podcast there you go guys hope you enjoyed my time with Dean and Sarah but before we let you go we
55:38
are going to do a quick resilience boost add on dawn to life our mission is equipping men to push
55:42
back darkness with content that for just spiritual mental and physical resilience so here are the
55:46
links I've got for you today I've got a link to city churches website and then I've got a link to
55:49
three of his books so pure the one that we talked about today but also books called the unsaved
55:53
Christian and getting over yourself all right guys thanks so much for listening to the podcast we
55:56
do appreciate it wherever you're listening to this please subscribe rate and leave us a positive five
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your way just go to www.undaunted.life and as always we want to thank the band August Burns Red for
56:19
allowing us to use their music for our content the music on this podcast is our song cutting the
56:23
tides which is off their tenth anniversary re-recording of their album leveler the links are in the
56:27
description I'm your host Kyle Thompson remember keep pushing back darkness keep forging spiritual
56:35
mental and physical resilience keep seeking the lion of Judah
57:05
you